Bradley beckoned Sarah Benson and showed her the loop in the line where it was made fast to the float-strut. “When I lift my hand you pull that loop, the line comes free and she goes. Right?”
She nodded, eyes watching his face and worried now.
He turned away from that look and waded out to climb on to a float. Smith waded out after him. Bradley felt the wind thrusting at the seaplane and thrumming through the fabric. Little waves chased across the inlet. Beyond its mouth he could see the bay and the ships anchored there, a tramp and a liner and far out the ugly shape of a warship. The cloud ceiling was low and dark and clouds ran in on the wind. There was rain in the wind that touched cold on his face. He wondered if Smith really had any idea —?
Smith asked, “I have to swing the propeller?”
“That’s right.”
“I can do that.”
“Yeah?” Bradley reached up and clamped his hands on the side of the cockpit, staring at the fuselage inches before his face. Smith saw sweat standing on his face but Smith himself was sweating in the leather coat. Bradley said thickly, “I think in fairness I should tell you I flew one of these things into the sea a while back and I couldn’t face flying after that. So they sent me down on this job, where all I had to do was talk about it and know about it.” He licked his lips and went on: “I got as far as this because I thought I should fight it, give it another try; and because you’re in one hell of a mess. And because Sarah asked me.” He paused, then said, “I can’t do it.”
Smith could barely hear the words. He hesitated, weighing this new factor against his instinctive judgment of the man, weighing the possible gains against the possible loss if they went on, and in that mental exercise not overlooking the fact that loss might be his life. Then he decided that basically the situation was unchanged. He said, “I told you I have to know where that collier is. I think you can fly it.”
Bradley sighed. “Look. Have you ever flown in one of these things?”
“Once. A chap in the Naval Air Service took me up for a spin. Strictly against the rules, of course, but Tubby didn’t worry much about that sort of thing.”
Bradley said, “Uh-uh. So you had a joy-ride with friend Tubby. Great. He sounds like a great guy. But the way the weather is today —”
Smith said, “He was. I saw him killed a couple of days later, trying to take off in bad weather. Total loss.”
Bradley turned his head slowly to look at Smith. “Weather like this?”
“Yes.”
“You’re hell-bent on this.” Bradley whispered it. “But you know the odds and you think it’s worth the gamble?”
Smith nodded. “You’re a gambler.”
Bradley said bitterly, “It takes one to know one, Admiral.” And: “‘Can’t do any harm.’ Ha!” He splashed back to the shore where Sarah Benson waited, lifting the long tail of his coat as he went and digging into a trousers pocket. He brought out a wash-leather bag and dropped it, chinking heavily, into her hand. She held it, feeling the weight of the silver inside. He said, “The Bradley fortune. Hold on to it for me. And get the hell out of here as soon as we’ve gone.”
He stared at her seriously a moment then turned and splashed back to the seaplane and climbed into the cockpit, kicking his waders off into the water. He pulled on his boots and took the paper Smith handed him and looked at the course Smith had pencilled on it. He heard a voice outside himself calling instructions to Smith on the swinging of the propeller and was aware that his hands and feet and eyes were going through the cockpit check, the old routine, the movements of a puppet that he watched perk to the strings. He noted that the wind would be right on the nose so he could take off straight over the breakers and into the wind and the breakers looked huge out there away from the shore. This would be bad enough but coming back would be a bloody sight worse. If they came back.
The cloud ceiling was a thousand feet at most and there would be better than two hours of daylight left, maybe three. The rain was flighting heavier on the wind and looking out across the bay he could see the squalls running in, the rain painted dirty grey. He could see the ships and the squat, old, gun-bristling bulk of Thunder and the smoke that wisped from her funnels confirmed the direction of the wind for him.
He closed his eyes and saw the sea blurring below then rushing up at him and felt the shock and then the agony as the flames burst around him and the sea took fire — and he opened his eyes as the engine fired, caught and raced. Smith scrambled around and up into the observer’s cockpit forward and Bradley hated him. If Smith had not come this would not have happened. He could have been telling himself still that sure, he could do it if he wanted to and if the chance was there.
He could have been alive.
Smith was mad.
Oh. Sarah!
He ran the engine up for several minutes, sitting there, staring out to sea across five thousand miles. The snarl of the engine drowned the sound of the wind and the surf. It would be clearly heard, unmistakable, in Malaguay and Richter would already be running. The seaplane tugged on the anchoring line, fretting to be away.
Smith dragged on his boots and turned to stare at Bradley. The pilot had pulled his goggles down over his eyes and the light reflected from them so Smith could see no expression in the eyes nor was there any on the face below the goggles. Smith turned away.
Bradley knew he could wait no longer. He lifted his hand and felt the jerk of release as Sarah Benson set the seaplane free. They raced out across the breakers and he held the stick back so the floats would not dig into the breakers and cartwheel them, and with these big waves that would be easy. It was a question of getting the speed and judging it right and if you were wrong it was — bang! But the speed built up, he eased forward and the tail lifted and now the floats were smacking across the tops of the breakers with great thuds and the spray was bursting, tossed on the slipstream. He pulled back and they lifted off. The ships fell away beneath the lifting nose that pointed at the sky and all the sky was his.
Something burst inside him and the seaplane rocked and yawed under his hands until he brought it under control, the master once more. He reached forward and nudged Smith who had been peering over the side, seeing Ariadne slip beneath them, a pale speckle of white faces against the yellow timber of her decks. Then he caught the movement at the corner of his eye and turned to see Bradley laughing like a maniac. Smith laughed with him.
Bradley wheeled the seaplane in a gently-climbing, banking turn then levelled off and straightened out on course just below the cloud base, at a height of a little under one thousand feet. The course was west.
It was cold. Smith was glad of the leather coat and wished fervently that he had worn sea-boots with thick stockings. He moved his feet continually to try to keep them warm. These were sensations forced upon his attention by his protesting body. He acknowledged the protest but then ignored it, had no time for it. He had flown once before and so knew what to expect but was still fascinated by the panorama opening swiftly below him like the unrolling of a huge chart. The sea was a white cross-hatching on green, the coast-line ragged brown and a deeper green and fading behind them as their course took them out to sea. The cloud base kept them comparatively low but still visibility was a good fifteen to twenty miles in any direction. At sea level in this weather he would be lucky to have half of that visibility. And they were making four or five times Thunder’s best speed.