CHAPTER XV Fuel from a Tanker

"Fred," said Jack, several hours later, when the afternoon was waning, "I think you'll have to get busy."

"Meaning what?" asked Fred. Apparently they were going along at top speed and without cause for further concern. Nevertheless there was a worried look on Jack's face, and this was something unusual.

"Busy with your own suggestion of some time back," Jack responded.

Andy, who had been listening to this conversation, let his eye wander to the instrument board, and he gave vent to a low whistle. "Right!" he said.

"Don't get you yet," Fred repeated, bewildered.

"We're going to run out of fuel before we reach the other side," Jack announced. "You'd better open up with the radio and see if we can reach a vessel that will replenish our supply."

"How do we stand?" asked Don anxiously.

"Oh, we've got enough for the immediate present, but not sufficient to carry us all the way," Jack answered, and Andy nodded his head in affirmation of the statement.

Fred, who had not put on the headpiece of the wireless since the battle with the other plane, now adjusted the earpieces, pushed forward the switch, and opened up with that call which almost unfailingly will bring a response from any other radio within receiving distance of the message—S O S.

Time and again he repeated it, but without getting an indication of a response.

"Don," said Jack at last, "you've got the charts there. How do we stand with regard to the regular steamer route?"

"We're miles off it just now," the navigator responded. "Too far to the north."

"Suppose we changed our course?"

"Well, if you'd point her west by south for half an hour or so I think we'd at least come within radio distance of something," Don said, after a moment of thought.

"That's what we'll do then," the chief pilot announced, and immediately fitted the action to the word.

In this altered course they continued for more than a quarter of an hour, with Fred still sounding out the distress call of the International code.

"Hear anything?" Jack finally queried, eyeing the petrol indicator.

"Nary a sound."

Don consulted his charts and reckonings again and advised two points further south. Jack immediately brought the plane around to that suggested course, and in ten more minutes the mathematics and judgment of Don Harlan were vindicated.

Fred's face suddenly beamed, and unconsciously he slapped his knee.

"Got anybody?" Andy asked.

"Yep, getting a reply."

For a few moments all remained silent, unable to do more than watch Fred as he alternately listened and then tapped off mysterious dots and dashes on the radio. Finally he relieved the tension. He removed the earpieces for a moment to address himself to Don.

"What's T-K-R?" he asked.

"Why, tanker," Don answered immediately.

Fred cast his eye at the chart, stepped over to regard it more carefully, then turned his gaze to a penciled memorandum he had made. Without another word he again adjusted the earpieces, took hold of the sending key and began a veritable chatter with the mysterious and unseen tanker which he had picked up somewhere on the wide expanse of the Atlantic.

"Righto!" he ejaculated finally, aloud, again removing the apparatus. "Jack," he said, addressing himself to that rather worried individual, "I wasn't such a bad guesser this morning, after all, was I? Well, I've landed the tanker, all right, and according to Don's reckonings and her information our paths cross."

"Great!"

"But she can't spare much petrol."

"Well, you—" Andy got no further.

"Probably fifty gallons," Fred finished.

Jack did some quick mental calculating. "Fifty's better than none, and probably will carry us through," he finally announced. "At any rate, we'll be thankful for whatever she can spare us. Did you tell her we're in an aeroplane?"

"Yes," Fred answered, chuckling. "That's what all the conversation was about. The operator evidently had the captain alongside of him, and he must be a good sportsman himself. Thought it was the real Transatlantic contest, and of course I didn't disillusion them. But I had a hard time at first making them believe that we were in a plane. The operator bluntly told me to quit my kidding. Wanted to know what I meant by making a josh out of the S O S."

"When ought we to come across them?" was Jack's next inquiry.

For a moment Fred and Don figured together, then examined the compass and drew several lines upon the chart.

"Keep your present course," Don finally said, "and at our speed, with the tanker fifty miles away when Fred first got her, and she headed this way, we ought to sight each other in the next twenty minutes."

Again he was right. Hardly that time had elapsed when Fred, with the powerful marine glasses as an aid, shouted out that he could discern a streak of smoke.

Don took the glasses, and before he brought them down from his eyes the two-miles-a-minute speed of the plane had brought the vessel into sight.

"Gosh!" Jack breathed, with a long-drawn sigh. "She's the most welcome thing I've seen in a month of Sundays."

From an altitude of six thousand feet they began a slow descent, but without a decrease of speed. With the aid of the glasses Don could now discern some one, doubtless the captain of the tanker, on the bridge, gazing toward them intently.

The distance between them had now been reduced to not more than three miles, and the throttles were closed and all power shut off for the long downward glide which would bring them close to the vessel.

So straight was their course that as they neared they caused a small panic on the tanker. Captain and crew suddenly came to the disconcerting conviction that the plane had gotten beyond control and was going to crash upon them. There was a great scurrying about, and, unexpected by Jack and Andy, the ship suddenly veered in her course, almost bringing about that which her captain was trying to avoid.

As a result, Jack had to put the rudder down hard, throw on the power, and take an upward course which would clear them of the zigzagging steamer. In a wide circle the plane then was brought to the surface, so close to the ship that the respective officers and crews could converse without the use of megaphones.

In a Wide Circle the Plane was Brought to the Surface.

"Who are you?" the captain of the tanker demanded, when he had recovered from mixed feelings of fear and admiration, brought on first by the narrow escape from a collision, and then by the expert surface landing which the hydro-aeroplane made.

"Americans entrants in the Transatlantic," Jack responded instantly. "Guess we're in the lead. Haven't sighted any of the others, have you?"

"I should say not," the captain replied, "and I wouldn't have believed my eyes if I had seen one headed this way, if it hadn't been we got your wireless first. Say! You fellows have got some nerve, all right. Any accidents?"

"Oh, had to stop a couple of times for minor repairs," Jack answered modestly. "And we got into the teeth of a hurricane that drove us back two or three hundred miles. That's the reason we're short of fuel. Can you spare any?"

"What are you using?"

"Petrol."

"H'm! Well, we've got some pretty good class gas aboard, but we'll need most of it ourselves. Your trip is most over, and you might say ours has hardly begun."

"Pay you well for it," Jack suggested.

"Say," the captain came back at him instantly. "You can't pay me a cent. I can spare you about fifty gallons, as I said in the wireless, and that's all I can cut out of my own supply. If that will help, you're welcome to it."

"It certainly will help, but it won't get us to Ireland," Jack responded evenly.

"Well, what in the deuce are you going to do?"

"That's just the problem," Big Jack answered, "and it's a tough one, too."

"Oh, dam it all, I'll give you a hundred and depend on making port on what I've got left," the captain of the tanker finally announced. "How are you going to load it?"

"Got a pump and hose?"

"Sure."

"Then we'll pull up right alongside and take it into the tank that way."

Jack started the propellers whirling slowly, just enough to carry the plane around and toward the side of the tanker. The captain watched this work with open-mouthed admiration.

"Say!" he ejaculated, at the same time squirting forth a great stream of tobacco juice. "Ever been a sailor?"

"No, never have," Jack had to admit.

"Well, you handle that job as if you had," the captain informed him. "First rate job, that."

"Thanks," Jack returned, at the same time grabbing at the end of hose that was tossed over to him. "And let me say this, sir," he added, as he fitted the rubber pipe line into the petrol tank, "if there's ever any way any of us can serve you, just you call on us, and don't be modest about it."

He took a note book from his pocket, wrote down their four names and the general address at which they could be reached, and, rolling it into a ball, tossed it aboard the vessel. "There's our visiting card," he said.

In the ten minutes it required to take aboard the hundred gallons of sorely needed additional fuel, the captain of the tanker proved himself all that Fred had predicted of him. And as they waved their final farewells and the plane took to the air, all felt a pang of genuine regret that the circumstances made it necessary for them to withhold the essential facts as to their actual mission.