Latest / The Non-Stop Stowaway / Ready to Hop

Transcript

Ready to Hop · The Non-Stop Stowaway

• 0:00
  Chapter five of The Non Stop Stowaway. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 0:06
  LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 0:12
  please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by voiceover Leon The Non Stop Stowaway by
• 0:18
  Clayton Knight. Ready to hop the christening was over and the publicity that it
• 0:25
  brought had added interest to their flight. In the days before the christening,
• 0:30
  they had scarcely ever been bothered by crowds around the hangar. Now things were
• 0:35
  changed. Whenever the plane was inside the hangar, the doors had to be
• 0:40
  kept closed or ropes stretched to keep the idle curious from interfering with the work
• 0:47
  in hand. Rumors were continually being broadcast that a surprise takeoff was imminent,
• 0:54
  which brought throngs to the field at all hours of the day and night.
• 0:59
  Reporters on s special assignments were always bothering the skipper and Jack with questions about
• 1:03
  the performance of the plane, how long they expected it would take them to
• 1:08
  get to India, and about incidents in their lives that the reporters thought would
• 1:14
  be of interest to the public. From one sorce or another, they found
• 1:18
  out about the Skipper's war record. How he had gone to a ground school
• 1:23
  in this country, had been sent to England to finish his flying training,
• 1:29
  and this completed, had waited in England for weeks for an assignment to an
• 1:34
  American squadron. How the shortage of planes on the American front had prevented this.
• 1:41
  How the British, who had spent time and money in training American pilots,
• 1:46
  found themselves with plenty of planes and a scant supply of their own men
• 1:51
  to fly them. How the British government had finally asked and received permission from
• 1:57
  the American authorities to send them some of these American pilots to France to work
• 2:02
  with the British flying corps. How the Skipper had gone out under this arrangement
• 2:08
  and fought with great distinction with his British comrades. The newspaperman had also looked
• 2:15
  up stories about the Skipper that had been printed in his home papers during the
• 2:21
  war. These they reprinted stories of the miraculous way in which he had come
• 2:27
  through months of hard flying, was scarcely a scratch of his spending a couple
• 2:31
  of weeks at one of the base hospitals in France, recovering from a slight
• 2:37
  wound made by a machine gun bullet as he was diving on a balloon near
• 2:42
  Armentaries, and then, without waiting for the usual sick leave of his hurrying
• 2:49
  back to his squadron and plunging once more into the daily round of patrols,
• 2:54
  shooting down two enemy planes the very day of his return. During one flight,
• 3:00
  when he was within a hair's breadth of adding one more enemy machine to
• 3:06
  his score, his engine had stopped in the midst of a zoom, and
• 3:10
  the enemy, realizing he was getting the worst of it, had streaked for
• 3:15
  home, leaving the skipper several miles behind the enemy lines with just enough altitude
• 3:22
  to glide down to no man's land, where he had scrambled from his machine
• 3:25
  into his shell hole. There he crouched while the enemy artillery battered his plane
• 3:30
  to pieces with shell fire. Getting his direction in the failing light from the
• 3:36
  line of enemy balloons, he had made his way as soon as darkness came
• 3:42
  to his own lines. Stumbling across the torn and broken country. He had
• 3:46
  come across a British tommy badly wounded, and had dragged him to safety.
• 3:53
  For this and other of his exploits, he had been awarded the Distinguished Flying
• 3:59
  Cross, one of the highest British decorations given to airman. Then, when
• 4:04
  the skippers leave to England had come around after six months at the front,
• 4:11
  he with several others had been summoned to Buckingham Palace to be decorated by the
• 4:16
  King. He had nervously awaited his turn at the end of a long red
• 4:20
  carpet which led to the platform where the King stood. He had walked forward
• 4:27
  and saluted, more frightened than he had ever been in the midst of a
• 4:30
  scrap in the air. The King had pinned on the cross, had asked
• 4:36
  him one or two questions about his flying, had thanked him for his splendid
• 4:43
  services as an American with the British Army, and before he knew it,
• 4:46
  the interview was over and he was on his way out. The newspapers printed
• 4:51
  all this and drew on their imagination for a great deal more. They gave
• 4:57
  a full description of Jack's training and war work with the Navy, and his
• 5:00
  flying ability. But most of all they devoted many paragraphs to his development of
• 5:06
  a device which was a really practical drift indicator. This ingenious instrument upon which
• 5:14
  they were going to rely during their long hop, seemed to solve the problem
• 5:19
  of correcting their drift even in clouds and fog. Heretofore, pilots attempting to
• 5:26
  navigate over long distances of fog obscured areas had found themselves unable to tell whether
• 5:32
  or not the wind was carrying them sideways off their course. The story of
• 5:39
  Kiwi's life and his adventures also became public property. Billings was not much helped
• 5:45
  to reporters. Naturally taciturn, he became even more so with newspaper men,
• 5:50
  and was almost surly in his refusal to help them out with their stories.
• 5:56
  Cosgrave, however, liked the chance to talk and did so on every occasion.
• 6:01
  The skipper finally warned him he had better say little or nothing at all,
• 6:06
  and that if there were any information the papers should have, he the
• 6:12
  skipper would give it. One evening, the skipper had taken Billings back to
• 6:16
  the houseboat with him, and during supper he tried to draw him out about
• 6:20
  Cosgrave and what he Billings thought of him. During the conversation, Kiwi suddenly
• 6:29
  remembered the things he had overheard on the morning that Dad and Jack were at
• 6:32
  Trenton. In the back room of the hangar, he told Dad about it.
• 6:38
  Dad frowned and for several minutes seemed deep in thought. Then he said,
• 6:44
  Billings, I don't want to be unfair to Cosgrave. He may be
• 6:48
  all right. We have very little proof that he isn't, but I am
• 6:53
  going to ask you to keep an eye on him, watch his work on
• 6:57
  the plane, and if you see the slightest thing that looked suspicious, I
• 7:00
  want you to come and tell me. Billings had promised to do this,
• 7:05
  and the Skipper tried to dismiss from his mind the thought that there might be
• 7:10
  forces working against them other than the natural ones which they expected to have to
• 7:15
  contend with. The Skipper and Jack pushed ahead with their preparations. Their collapsible
• 7:21
  boat was delivered and they tested it. When folded, it took up very
• 7:26
  little room. Attached to it was a metal cylinder containing compressed air, and
• 7:30
  it was the work of a moment to open the valve in this cylinder and
• 7:34
  inflate the boat. With it were two tiny oars and a water tight pocket
• 7:41
  in which could be packed medical supplies and condensed food. They inflated the boat,
• 7:46
  and Dad and Jack and Kiwi navigated their strange craft about the harbor,
• 7:51
  returning to the house boat, all too soon to please the boy who enjoyed
• 7:57
  this novel way of traveling. The time before the hop off was getting short,
• 8:01
  and there was still one detail that gave them considerable concern. They could
• 8:05
  not seem to prevent the vibration of the engine from interfering with the proper functioning
• 8:11
  of their instruments. It was annoying to have one or the other of their
• 8:16
  dials go wrong. Jack finally decided to remove the whole thing and regroup the
• 8:22
  instruments so that all those which had to do with navigation would be in one
• 8:28
  part of the board and the engine instruments in another. The compass, the
• 8:33
  drift indicator, the dial which registered their turn and climb were placed on one
• 8:39
  side and in front of the skipper, where the oil pressure, engine temperature
• 8:45
  techometer or engine revolution counter, the fuel gages, and the dial which showed
• 8:50
  their altitude. The entire instrument board had to be protected in some way from
• 8:58
  the vibration, and it was built Willings's scheme to set it on four rubber
• 9:03
  blocks which he cut from ordinary rubber bath sponges. All this took hours of
• 9:11
  billings time for each instrument had to be disconnected and replaced. However, late
• 9:18
  one night it was finished, and the skipper decided that, inasmuch as the
• 9:24
  time was getting very short, they would test it at once. As the
• 9:30
  plane was rolled out of the hangar, the news spread that they were about
• 9:33
  to go, and the crowds gathered. Their announcement that it was only a
• 9:39
  test flight was not believed. When they were ready to leave the ground,
• 9:45
  they found the field covered with people, and try as they would, they
• 9:50
  could find no open space long enough to make the takeoff safe. It was
• 9:54
  a warm summer night, and apparently everyone for miles around had driven to the
• 10:00
  field. The skipper and Jack eventually had to abandon the night test and wait
• 10:05
  until morning. A plan had been forming for some time in Kiwi's mind.
• 10:11
  He had a queer sinking sensation every time he thought of Dad and Jack going
• 10:18
  off without him. He saw no reason why he too could not go when
• 10:24
  the plane left. These stories he had heard of India made him want to
• 10:28
  land there too. He liked to think of the warm, tropical days and
• 10:33
  nights in that strange country, Bert had brought him a book of stories about
• 10:39
  India, which had thrilled him. These stories told of hunting wild animals from
• 10:45
  the backs of enormous elephants. He liked to imagine himself seated in one of
• 10:50
  the howdahs, the canopied chair like saddle strapped to the back of a richly
• 10:58
  decorated elephant. He remembered one story of a playful elephant, said to be
• 11:03
  over one hundred years old, who pretended to be thoroughly frightened every time he
• 11:09
  crossed a stream of water, for fear quick sands would suck him down.
• 11:13
  He would picture himself wandering through the narrow streets of the cities, with vistas
• 11:20
  of temples ahead, their domes shining in the sunlight, covered with layers of
• 11:26
  pure gold that had been added to them through the centuries, until on some
• 11:31
  of the oldest temples the gold leaf was a quarter of an inch that kei
• 11:37
  We had asked Dad a number of times to take him along, but Dad
• 11:43
  had always dismissed his request as being out of the question. However, in
• 11:48
  the darkness and confusion of that night attempt, kei We thought he saw how
• 11:54
  it could be accomplished. He was sure that if there were as much confusion
• 12:00
  at the actual take off, it would be a simple matter for him,
• 12:05
  in the darkness to crawl under the plane, open the trap door in the
• 12:09
  rear compartment, and slip in unobserved. Kiwi realized that Dad would be upset
• 12:16
  about his disobedience, but he felt sure that he could make himself useful on
• 12:20
  the trip, and that both Dad and Jack would be glad that he had
• 12:24
  come. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he couldn't
• 12:30
  bear to be left behind, and the more determined he was to go with
• 12:33
  them. During the next two or three days, as Dad and Jack were
• 12:39
  making the final test flights, he worked out in his mind all the necessary
• 12:43
  details. Weather reports were taking up more and more of Jack's time, but
• 12:50
  Kiwi kept up with his wireless practice. He could now send twelve words a
• 12:54
  minute and receive almost ten. About eleven o'clock one night, as Jack got
• 13:01
  his weather reports and checked them up from his chart, he called the skipper
• 13:07
  over and said, things look as favorable now as they have for some time.
• 13:13
  There is a storm near Chicago moving this way, but I don't think
• 13:18
  it can possibly arrive until about eight in the morning. There is another one
• 13:22
  directly in our path in about the middle of the Atlantic, but from the
• 13:28
  reports I have it is moving northward and should be well out of our way
• 13:31
  by the time we get there. If you say the word, I'm for
• 13:35
  starting in the morning, The skipper replied, the plane is ready. The
• 13:41
  weather is up to you. Jack, let's go. Telephone calls were put
• 13:46
  through to the field and to the official who was to seal the borrowgraph Before
• 13:52
  they started. They sent word to Old Bill at the lunch wagon to pack
• 13:56
  the food and to get the thermost bottles. F about twelve thirty, when
• 14:03
  everything was packed and ready and they were about to start for the field,
• 14:07
  they got another report from the weather man. In the two hours that had
• 14:11
  elapsed since the previous report, conditions had changed for the worse. The mid
• 14:18
  ocean storm, which they had known about, had altered its course and was
• 14:22
  heading in toward Newfoundland. Jack and the skipper talked it over and decided they
• 14:28
  had better put off the attempt until there was a better chance of having favorable
• 14:33
  conditions. This meant more telephone calls to tell of their change in plans.
• 14:39
  When they talked to Billings on the phone. He said that the field was
• 14:43
  already covered with people and cars, and that it was more than likely the
• 14:48
  crowd would refuse to believe the takeoff had been postponed. He said the plane
• 14:54
  was in perfect condition and that he believed he would stay at the hangar the
• 14:58
  rest of the night. It was a great disappointment to Kiwi, for his
• 15:03
  excitement had risen to fever pitch. However, he was packed off to bed
• 15:09
  and for the next few days all their plans waited on favorable news from the
• 15:13
  weather man. Conditions over Long Island seemed perfect for the takeoff. The moon
• 15:20
  was just approaching the full. Kiwi, for the first time realized how many
• 15:24
  others were helping in this tremendous undertaking. Wireless operators on many ships plunging across
• 15:31
  the ocean were flashing their news of conditions as they found them at sea.
• 15:37
  Other wireless operators in lonely places were sending their data of wind, velocities,
• 15:43
  rain, and sleep. All the information was being gathered and carefully analyzed for
• 15:50
  these two men, who would soon come to know the vagaries of nature at
• 15:54
  first hand. Kiwi was already in bed and asleep one night, when an
• 15:58
  union usual bustle about the houseboat awoke him, and he sensed that something was
• 16:04
  up. Word had come through that the path was open for the Great Dash
• 16:08
  across the Atlantic. Preparations to start were again made, with innumerable last things
• 16:15
  to be thought of. Kiwi was able to pack a tiny lunch and stuff
• 16:19
  it into his pocket unobserved. They were rowing ashore to pick up Bert when
• 16:26
  Dad said to Kiwi, now, boy, after we leave, you will
• 16:30
  be taking your orders from Burt. Everything is taken care of and he will
• 16:36
  look after you until we come back. See that you always do what you
• 16:41
  know I would want you to do. Kiwi smiled sheepishly, but could think
• 16:45
  of nothing to say. The ride over to the field seemed to take hours.
• 16:52
  Neither Dad nor Jack talked much, but Bert managed to say to Kiwi,
• 16:57
  well, they will soon be off and then you and I will sit
• 17:02
  and wait for news of their arrival. As they drove onto the field,
• 17:07
  they saw cars parked everywhere and crowds thick about the entrance to the building.
• 17:12
  They pushed through them, and there in the lighted hangar stood the Great Bird,
• 17:18
  ready for its flight. Itemen planned to start from the long runway on
• 17:22
  the adjoining field, and the greater part of their load of fuel had been
• 17:26
  stored there in readiness. Before the hanger doors were opened, all their kit
• 17:33
  had been stowed in the plane, even Kiwi finding an opportunity to hide away
• 17:37
  his little package of lunch in the rear compartment. At last, the hangar
• 17:42
  doors were opened, and ropes having been stretched to keep the crowd back,
• 17:48
  the plane was rolled out, its tail lashed to the rear of a truck,
• 17:53
  and followed by the crowd, it began its mile and a half journey
• 17:57
  to the other field. Across the road ground, its mighty wing bobbed and
• 18:02
  rocked about as if anxious to be off and away. The moon was partly
• 18:07
  hidden by a thin layer of clouds, so that the night seemed unusually dark.
• 18:11
  There was practically no wind. Arriving at the far end of the runway
• 18:17
  on the other field, the tail of the plane was set on the ground
• 18:22
  and floodlights were temporarily placed, which threw a ghostly glow over the dauntless Cosgraven
• 18:29
  billings started at once to pump in the precious supply of fuel. Jack went
• 18:34
  back to the hangar to get the last minute weather reports, while the skipper,
• 18:41
  easily the coolest person in the crowd, chatted with the backers of his
• 18:45
  flight. As the hours passed, the crowd grew, but this time they
• 18:52
  were being held back behind lines by the police. Old bill from the restaurant
• 18:56
  came puffing up with the thermost bottles and sandwiches, and with a sly wink
• 19:02
  to Kiwi, handed him a couple of oranges, saying you may need these,
• 19:07
  Kiwi. Kiwi became more and more confused. He began to wonder if
• 19:12
  we were going to be as easy as he had thought to stow away when
• 19:17
  the plane left. He had not counted on those blinding lights, but he
• 19:22
  stuck close to Dad and hoped for the best. About four o'clock the tanks
• 19:26
  were filled. Fifteen spare cans holding four gallons each had been stowed in the
• 19:33
  rear compartment and lashed tight. The borrowgraph was put aboard and sealed by the
• 19:40
  official from Washington. Billings, in a fever of excitement, decided they'd better
• 19:47
  give the engine one more try. So the canvas tarpaulin over the engine and
• 19:52
  propeller was removed, and the engine roared into life. Billings ran it long
• 19:57
  enough to satisfy him self that it was working perfectly, then turned it off.
• 20:03
  The heavy silence that fell was almost oppressive. A metawlark sprang into the
• 20:08
  air with the exultant little song they sing. At dawn, everyone was tense
• 20:15
  with the thought of the great test that was soon to come. Jack came
• 20:18
  back from the hangar with the report that conditions were as favorable as they had
• 20:23
  been at any time. They waited for the daylight. There was the sound
• 20:30
  of a motor overhead, and a plane with a news photographer aboard swept over
• 20:34
  them. Still, the darkness lingered. The sun by now should have been
• 20:41
  lighting up the eastern horizon. Instead came a patter of raindrops and Billings.
• 20:48
  Rushed to cover up his precious engine and propeller to protect them from the dampness.
• 20:53
  It rained harder. Many of the crowd, seeing the engine covered up,
• 20:59
  decide that the flight was off for that day. A little group stood
• 21:03
  under the protecting wing of the plane and waited to see how bad the storm
• 21:10
  would be. Dad turned to Kiwi, Kiwi, you had better look up
• 21:15
  Bert and go back to the hangar with him. Kiwi's face fell plainly disappointed.
• 21:21
  He nodded his head and disappeared into the darkness toward the place where Bert's
• 21:26
  car had been parked. The crowd thinned with the usual remark that this was
• 21:32
  another false alarm. As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped.
• 21:37
  Jack, who had expected these local showers, said he thought it would clear
• 21:41
  up soon. Not long after, a faint gray light appeared in the east,
• 21:48
  telling of the approach of a new day. The skipper was impatient to
• 21:52
  get away. He told Billings to take the cover off the engine, and
• 21:56
  he and Jack made a last ex examination of the whole plane. They looked
• 22:02
  at the shock absorbers, noting that with the heavy load, there was very
• 22:07
  little play left in them. The skipper said, however, that there was
• 22:11
  enough. By this time, Billings was ready to start the motor before the
• 22:17
  eyes of the small group who had waded through the rain. Jack and the
• 22:22
  skipper got into their flying suits. The big moment had come. In the
• 22:26
  excitement of the last minute preparations, Kiwi had been missed, and although Dad
• 22:33
  asked several of the men about the plane if he had been seen, there
• 22:37
  were conflicting rumors. Some thought he had gone back to the hangars, others
• 22:41
  were not sure, but that he had found shelter in one of the cars.
• 22:47
  Precious minutes were passing. The skipper felt that the time had come to
• 22:52
  go, and that saying goodbye to Kiwi would be too much of an ordeal
• 22:56
  for him, So he turned to Bert and said, huskily, say goodbye
• 23:00
  to Kiwi for me. I am trusting you to take good care of him.
• 23:06
  As far as I can see, everything has been provided for, and
• 23:11
  I know he will be safe in your hands. Fearing to trust himself to
• 23:15
  say more, he hurriedly shook hands with his close friends, gripped Billing's hand
• 23:22
  hard and slapped him on the back. Then he climbed up into the cockpit
• 23:27
  where Jack was already waiting, and the motor was started. As the engine
• 23:33
  was warming up, the crowd could see through the glass window the skipper laughing
• 23:37
  nervously at some remark of Jack's. Then he opened the throttle and the huge
• 23:44
  engine made a tremendous uproar. As he gave it a final try. Billings
• 23:48
  stood at one side, his practiced ear, listening for the slightest skip in
• 23:53
  its measured beat. The skipper throttled back, the engine leaned out of the
• 23:59
  window and motioned for Billings. As he came up, the skipper said,
• 24:03
  how does it sound all right? Billings, who had listened to many engines
• 24:10
  in his day, who had seen many men trusting their lives to them,
• 24:15
  and who had heard that same question asked many times before, felt a lump
• 24:21
  rise in his throat as he realized the tremendous responsibility that rested upon him,
• 24:27
  And upon his answer, he gulped hard and then choked out, All right,
• 24:33
  captain, and the best of luck to you, waved to Jack,
• 24:37
  and motioned to Cosgrave to pull out the chalk from under the wheel on his
• 24:42
  side. Billings and Cosgrave stepped back, and for a few moments that were
• 24:48
  awful in their suspense, they waited for the flight to begin. The engine
• 24:53
  opened up, gradually took hold, and the plane slowly started to roll along
• 25:00
  the slow roll which was to start the skipper and Jack off on an epoch
• 25:06
  making flight that would carry them across the wide Atlantic, over the Mediterranean,
• 25:11
  and on to India. The engine had started, and for seventy hours it
• 25:18
  would have to keep up an uninterrupted flow of power. The plane gathered speed,
• 25:22
  rocking gently as the tail left the ground. Billings and Cosgrave had leaped
• 25:29
  onto the running board of a fast car and were speeding after it, watching
• 25:33
  it gather momentum for the takeoff. Cameraman took hurried pictures and scampered out of
• 25:41
  the path of the approaching plane. The end of the runway was getting perilously
• 25:45
  near when the first sign of lift came. The skipper was evidently coaxing her
• 25:52
  into the air, and the first lift was a bit too soon for she
• 25:56
  settled back to the ground for a moment, seemed to gather new energy,
• 26:00
  and then rose surely from the field. Just as they reached the brink of
• 26:04
  a little ravine. They were off. In the early morning light, the
• 26:10
  plane was hard to follow, it could faintly be seen lifting its way upward.
• 26:15
  Other planes, now that the Dauntless was up, soared alongside the big
• 26:21
  ship as it carefully made a turn and headed for the east and the rising
• 26:26
  sun. The entire group came back over the field at an altitude of about
• 26:30
  one thousand feet. The crowd hoped that there would be a last fluttering goodbye
• 26:36
  from the cockpit, but both men were too busy to do more than glance
• 26:41
  out. The flight was on. Billings and Cosgrave returned to the old hangar.
• 26:48
  Its vast emptiness oppressed them so that they could hardly speak. They would
• 26:53
  have to wait hours and hours to know what all their work would accomplish.
• 26:59
  They looked forward to the long wait with dread. Bert came up in a
• 27:03
  car and asked if they had seen Kiwi. Surely by now he would have
• 27:08
  returned to the hangar, but no one had seen him since the rainstorm that
• 27:14
  had seemed for a time to blot out the skipper's chances for a takeoff.
• 27:18
  Bert hurried back to the other field with the hope that he might still be
• 27:22
  there. In the small room at the back of the hangar, Connors was
• 27:27
  busy with his wireless set with the earphones on. He bent over his instruments
• 27:33
  at the table and tried to pick up the first message to come back from
• 27:38
  the plane. From time to time the click of his sending key could be
• 27:44
  heard through the partition. Both Billings and Cosgrave were absent mindedly picking up the
• 27:49
  scattered evidence of the hurried departure from the hangar. They had closed the big
• 27:55
  doors when Billings, very tense, suddenly swung around and confronted Cosgrave. Cosgrave,
• 28:03
  you and me have been working hard on this job for a long time,
• 28:07
  and there have been times when I thought you were up to some crooked
• 28:10
  business. The plane is off and away. If anything happens to those boys
• 28:15
  that I can trace to you, I'm going to make you the sorriest man
• 28:21
  that ever walked onto this field. Cosgrave turned a bright red at all this,
• 28:26
  but said nothing for a few minutes while Billings glowered at him. Then,
• 28:33
  seeming to come to a decision, he said, well, LAIMI,
• 28:37
  I think I can trust you. I don't want you to mention this to
• 28:41
  no one, but when I have told you, I think you will understand.
• 28:45
  At the beginning, I was offered money, and a lot of it,
• 28:49
  to try and stop or postpone this flight. I was in a jam
• 28:56
  and needed money, and I thought I could do something nothing serious, you
• 29:00
  understand, that would look accidental. But the longer I worked for those two
• 29:06
  men, the more I realized that I couldn't go through with it. Then,
• 29:11
  when the Kiwi started flying with them and came so close to getting cracked
• 29:18
  up the time they lost the wheel, I phoned the people who were trying
• 29:22
  to buy me and said nothing doing, and Billings, you can believe me
• 29:27
  or not, but since that time I have worked even harder than you to
• 29:33
  make this flight a success. There is nothing about that plane now, as
• 29:37
  far as I know, that isn't in perfect condition. Billings felt his anger
• 29:42
  rise during Cosgrave's confession, and for a little time he could think of nothing
• 29:48
  but punishing the man. With his jaws set hard, he looked straight into
• 29:52
  Cosgrave's eyes, trying to see through to his very soul, to discover if
• 30:00
  all he had confessed was the truth. Cosgrave's gaze never wavered, and Billings
• 30:06
  at last decided that Cosgreve had done no harm and all was right with the
• 30:11
  plane. End of Chapter five