When it was completely dark he made a decision not to use the navigation lights; they might hamper the scanners. He looked out and saw that Corbin had them on. He was about to order them off when he changed his mind — it occurred to him that the people on the ice cap might be able to see a light when they couldn’t hear the engines. They would be frozen, probably hungry, and completely miserable. He had no idea of the condition of the Otter, but any hope that it might have come in under its own power had long ago been abandoned. The B-17 reached the end of the search leg; Corbin let it go on for another five minutes on the odd chance that there might be something out there; then he turned. “Did you get that leg extension?” he asked Jenkins over the intercom.
“Yes, I did.”
As he established the new heading, Ferguson called Thule once more. “Any news?” he asked.
“Negative, except for a call from the Pentagon.”
“Have we a problem?”
“I don’t think so. One of the Det. 4 birds is in for gas and a relief crew; it’s going right out again.”
“How about the C-130?”
“Still flying higher altitude patterns, west of you.”
“Anything from the hospital?”
“No, but they keep calling, asking for news from us. I gather it’s not good.”
“Thank you.”
The Passionate Penguin flew on. The night folded in around her, shrouding the ice cap and leaving her isolated in a black void. At hardly more than 160 miles per hour she absorbed the endless small bumps and continued on her heading. Ferguson wondered how Jenkins was possibly able to plot her position; they were well out of the effective range of the DME and he had not done any celestial work; apparently he wasn’t equipped for it. He pressed a button for the intercom. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.
“Yes.” Then the navigator added a little heavily: “Over the ice cap.”
The colonel reappeared on the flight deck. “How about a relief?” he asked.
Corbin answered him. “Take it easy, sir, for a while. We’re all right.”
Ferguson looked down and tried to see if he could distinguish anything. There were some slightly colored shadows, but he knew that if there was an aircraft sitting on the ice directly in his range of vision, he would not be able to see it. Number four engine fell slightly out of step and he made a minute throttle adjustment.
The intercom came on; Bill Stovers’s voice was abruptly tense. “I have a flare, or what looked like one. Four o’clock, range two to three miles.”
The ennui that had permeated the cold, narrow aircraft burst apart and surging excitement began to replace it. Ferguson repeated, “Flare at four o’clock, range two to three miles.” He looked at Corbin, who lifted his hands off the yoke. Ferguson seized hold, banked into a precision turn, and counted off the seconds until he had completed 115 degrees; then he rolled her out almost exactly on the heading he wanted. He bent forward over the yoke, straining his eyes, and silently praying that it hadn’t been a meteor. “We can signal with the landing light,” he told Corbin. His copilot hit the switch; the powerful beam split the night sky, off and on several times.
In answer an unmistakable flare came up off the ice cap and hung in the air a little to the port side. Forcing himself to keep calm, and aware that the colonel was positioned directly behind him, he hit the transmit button. “Thule radio, this is Air Force three-six-zero.”
“Three-six-zero.”
“We have a flare off the ice cap, positive ID. Our position follows.”
“Penguin ’six-zero, please confirm you have a find.”
“That is affirmative, Penguin ’six-zero.” He stopped and let Jenkins relay their position. Then he checked his altimeter, banked, and began a spiral descent as close as he could to the spot where the flare had appeared. The landing light cut a narrow cone as he reset the transceiver to 121.5 and called: “Otter on the ice cap, do you read? Otter, do you read?”
There was no reply. Holcomb came on the intercom. “He’s probably got complete electrical failure, sir, and that would put him down at night — no instruments. And he wouldn’t be able to start up again.”
It all made sense then. Every man on board the Penguin was looking out, trying to see the unseeable. Ferguson leveled off as close to the invisible top of the ice cap as he dared; as he did so, Sergeant Stovers released a parachute flare. The brilliant light rebounded from the snow-covered ice mass, and Atwater, at the port-side scanning window, let out a yell, “There she is!”
Ferguson racked the Penguin around until he had the Otter in front of the nose, where he could see it clearly. One person was standing beside it; he presumed that would be the pilot who had fired the Very pistol. The aircraft, he noted, had a damaged wingtip.
He had no idea how that had happened, and he didn’t care. As he flew directly over, he rocked his wings as an added reassurance. It never occurred to him to wonder what the pilot on the ground would think when he saw a B-17 overhead; far more pressing matters were on his mind.
Sergeant Holcomb’s voice came into his headset. “On the next pass, we’ll drop some supplies, through the bomb-bay door.”
“Don’t fall out.”
“We won’t.”
He used the radio once more. “Thule, this is Penguin three-six-zero. The Otter has been sighted on the ice cap; there is at least one survivor.”
He got a direct answer to that. “Penguin ’six-zero, this is Jolly Two. We are en route to your position. ETA thirty-six minutes.”
Ferguson acknowledged. “Jolly Two, we will orbit this location at eleven thousand feet true altitude; please advise your altitude.”
“Jolly Two to Penguin, we will approach at twelve thousand with landing light on. Advise when visual contact made. Over.”
Another voice cut in and Ferguson recognized Boyd’s crisp tone. “Penguin, this is C-130. How can we assist? Over.”
Colonel Kleckner tapped Ferguson on the shoulder and took over the right-hand seat. As soon as the colonel was fastened in, Corbin yielded his place so that the aircraft commander could return to where he belonged. As Scott was getting his own harness on, the colonel answered the radio call. “Here niner-four, if your fuel allows, you might come over at thirteen thousand and stand by in case we need you.”
“Here to Penguin, wilco. ETA twenty-eight minutes. Out.”
Thule came in again. “Air Force ’six-zero, Godthaab asks if you have any indication that their medical people aboard the Otter are all right. Over.”
Ferguson responded. “ ’Six-zero to Thule, no data either way as yet, but Otter appears to have only slight damage. More later. Out.”
With both the gear and the flaps down, he slowed the Penguin to what he considered a minimum safe flying speed in the very gusty air. By the last light from the flare he positioned her so that she would pass the Otter seventy or eighty feet off its wingtip. “Ready for drop?” he asked.
“Ready.”
“Stand by.” He let the Penguin descend with her landing lights on until she was barely skimming the ice cap. “Three, two, one — go,” he directed.
Five seconds later Holcomb reported. “Bombs away. It looked good from here.”