He prayed that the direction would not change. He would feel far safer with his feet on dry land, for though the hull appeared sound enough, only a careful examination could make certain. For all he could now tell there might be a gush of water from a weakened spot at any moment.
By leaning cautiously over the side he was able to see through the window that the girl had not moved. His hesitation whether he should go down and attempt to revive her was settled by a sudden freshening of the breeze. It was not impossible that they might pass right by the island while he was busy, and though sandy hummocks broke the surface in plenty, no other islet in sight was of such reassuring size and height. To add to his uncertainty the wind veered a few points west and it became a nice point whether they would not miss the island by a good margin. He watched the narrowing space anxiously.
At a quarter of a mile it became certain that they would clear the most easterly spit by at least fifty yards. Mark decided to take a chance. It should be possible if he swam strongly to tow the wreck sufficiently to one side. He dropped overboard to find that the water came no higher than his armpits, for the islands were the remnants not of sudden hills, but of gradual undulations.
Towing the Sun Bird ashore proved a longer business than he had anticipated; a man three-quarters submerged has but little weight to give him purchase, and the task was made the harder by the fact that the Mediterranean water is Salter and therefore more buoyant than that of the oceans. But the work grew progressively easier as the ground shelved until at last there came the welcome sound of the metal bottom grating on the sand. A few minutes later he had carried Margaret ashore and laid her in the shade of a tree.
A damp rag cooled her face and wiped away the trickle of blood. Her eyelids opened at last unsteadily, as though unwillingly, and the hazel eyes looked up into his. The arched brows straightened into hard lines and came together with deep creases between. Mark, with a sympathetic memory of his own blinding headache, offered a flask of brandy.
'Take some of this; it'll do you good.'
She drank without protest and closed her eyes once more. After a few minutes she looked at him again.
'I feel a bit better now. Let me sit up.' 'Certainly not. You lie here a bit longer. You've had a nasty bump.'
'What happened?' she asked.
Mark explained as far as he was able.
'If I hadn't been such a fool as to forget about the safety belts we should have been all right,' he added. 'As it is, I don't see why we haven't bust our skulls—I deserve to have done.'
'What are we going to do?'
'I don't know yet. We shall have to stay here for the night, anyhow. It'll be dark in half an hour. Tomorrow we'll see what can be managed. It depends mostly on the condition of the Sun Bird—poor old bus, that's a bit of a misnomer now: she'll certainly never fly again.' He looked regretfully at the silver hull gleaming in the last rays of the sun. 'There's a little tinned food and a small tank of water inside, so we needn't starve.' He looked back at her face a little anxiously. 'How are you feeling now?'
'Heaps better. Let me sit up.'
He was still uncertain how his news of the situation was being received.
'I'm damned sorry about all this-' he began.
She stopped him. 'My dear, you couldn't help it—and even if you could, I'm scarcely in a position to walk home.'
She was silent for some moments and he saw with surprise the beginning of a smile. He had been prepared for blame, reproaches, irritation, even calm acceptance of the situation—for anything, in fact, except a smile.
'Do you know,' she said, 'we've made a record?'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, nobody else has ever before achieved a shipwreck in the middle of the Sahara desert.'
Mark smiled too, and his spirits rose astonishingly.
'Come to that,' he said, 'I shouldn't think any girl was ever before kissed on a Saharan island.'
Mark suffered an uncomfortable dream. He had become, it appeared, a recumbent statue of himself, and was being dusted. A giant maidservant had removed her huge wig of red hair and was using it to whisk his face. She put one hand upon his stone chest for support, and leaned forward to reach the better. The hair irritated his nostrils abominably...
He woke suddenly. There was still a weight upon his chest, and something was still whisking back and forth across his nose. He sneezed abruptly and sat up, sending a dark form tumbling to the sand. There was a slight scutter before it collected its dignity and became a motionless black shadow in the moonlight. It gave a forth a faintly protesting mew. Mark looked at it unkindly.
'Blast you, cat,' he said, severely.
To a cat more used to kicks than words, this appeared a term of endearment. It approached and rubbed its head in a friendly way against his hand.
The New Sea was glittering with a hard beauty under the moon. A steely path of light stretched before him to the horizon over water which was scarcely rippled. A breeze, so light as hardly to be felt, caused the palm fronds above him to move with a papery rustling. He turned his head and saw with relief that the hulk of the Sun Bird still remained where he had left it.
A careful examination had proved it in better condition than he had hoped. The explosion had spent itself backward, ripping off the tail so smartly as to leave the main part of the fuselage intact. A few plates aft had been twisted open, revealing the sound-proofing material beneath, but in no part was there any sign of leakage. Reassured, he had insisted that Margaret should sleep on board. He contrived as comfortable a bed as possible for her, and, with the aid of severed control wires, he had improvised what he hoped were safe moorings. They seemed still to be holding.
He shivered slightly. The fire had dwindled to a few embers, and he leaned forward to build it up. Saharan nights can be chilly, and the fire served the double purpose of giving warmth and providing a signal.
There was no great likelihood of it being observed, but there remained always the possibility of a French observation plane cruising in this direction. They were used, he knew, to report progress and to effect salvage work upon occasion. The Government had frequently found it necessary to rescue diehards whom not even the threat of inundation had been able to persuade from their ancestral villages until the last moment. Among many of the Arabs understanding continued to fight with conviction. The French proposals were intelligible enough, but not a reality. Most of them felt that the desert always had been, and always would be; it was eternal. Not until the water crept to their very doors were they convinced. Only then did a howl go up demanding rescue either by Allah or the French Government. There had been a time when all the flying boats of both France and Italy had been pressed into refugee work, but, by now, the evacuation of most of the affected parts was complete.
With his head tilted back, Mark listened for the drone of an engine, but nothing broke the silence save the quiet stir of the sea and a faint swishing of the palm leaves. He wriggled nearer to the fire and pulled the coats which were doing rug duty more closely about him. Gazing at the revived flames he fell to considering the general cussedness of things. That the first time the Sun Bird had let him down, it should have chosen to do it in this no-man's-land. ...
Still, they had been lucky. If that explosion had occurred over dry land—or even at a good height above the water—it would have meant flowers for two. He thought of a number of well-pointed, nicely tempered phrases which he would joyfully plunge into the makers of 'Strato-planes' when he got home—not that it would do much good, but he would like them to hear just what he thought of them.