“And our cargo is priceless. That’s what the Major said.”

“Priceless,” he agreed. “It’s quite as important that it should arrive safely as, well perhaps, as it is for all those big bombers ahead of us to go through.

“But, Mary,” his voice changed, “don’t think of it that way. You’ll tighten up if you do. That might prove fatal. You have to be relaxed, flexible, ready for anything. That’s how you have to be.”

“I—I’ll try to forget that cargo,” she agreed.

“Well,” he breathed, “here’s our ship all primed up and rarin’ to go. Come on. Let’s climb up.”

Once again he handed her the “Form One” card. This time she studied it with supreme care. It told her that the engines were in perfect order, that the tubes of carbon dioxide snow for fire prevention were full as were their oxygen tubes, and that fuel and oil supply were at their maximum.

When she had studied the card, she nodded to Sparky, and at once, he began thumbing the oil gage.

“Do you always check your oil supply?” she asked.

“Always,” was the emphatic reply, “regardless of the report on the card, test your fuel. If you want to keep on living, you’ll always do that. Men are human. An attendant may read your report, note that your No. 1 tank is short a hundred gallons, record that he is putting that amount in, then discover that he has but fifty gallons to spare. He forgets to record the change and—”

“Right out over an endless forest your engine coughs and dies. No gas—I see,” she replied soberly.

“Gas and oil okay,” Sparky murmured. Then in silence he flipped on the ignition and gas, set the electric primer going, counted five, allowed it to snap off, then nodded to his mechanic. The mechanic grinned as he held up a carbon-dioxide fire extinguisher.

“That’s one more thing,” Sparky warned. “Don’t ever start twin motors unless someone is near with the fire bottle. And don’t you let me do it!”

“Is that so bad?” Mary asked.

“Worst in the world,” Sparky exploded. “If one motor fails to start popping, you’ll have a fire in your exhaust pipe.... A fire bottle will put it out in a hurry. But if there’s no fire bottle your ship will go up in smoke. A fire of high octane gas is something to think about!”

He started the energizing wheel going, waited a space of seconds, then threw on the fuel-booster switch. First the right engine began coughing. Mary worked her two levers that enriched the fuel mixture. Sparky eased his throttle back to one thousand, then nodded to the mechanic. The mechanic removed the chocks from before the wheels, and the big ship started to move.

“We’re off!” Mary thought with a little choking sensation at her throat.

Sparky cursed some small, foreign plane that, taxiing across the field, caused him to swing sharply to the right.

“Looks like he did that on purpose,” said Mary.

“May have, at that,” was the reply. “There are some Hitler sympathizers down this way.

“Well,” he sighed ten seconds later. “I fooled him. Now the runway’s clear, so here we go.” The powerful motors roared in unison. They rose sharply toward the stars. Ten minutes later they were out over the blue-black sea and still slowly climbing.

“The sea is so black,” Mary thought. “The sky is all filled with night. Hours of this! How can I bear it?”

Then, as a sense of real joy, the feeling that must come to a night-flying bird, passed over her, she whispered, “But we’re rushing east to meet the dawn.”

“Get on your oxygen mask,” Sparky commanded, crashing into her dream. “We’re going up where there isn’t any weather and mighty little air.”

Their masks were attached by rubber tubes to pipes running from the oxygen storage tanks. When Mary had pulled on her mask she sighed, “Ah! That’s great! Isn’t it wonderful that they should mould our masks to fit our faces!”

“It’s a grand idea,” Sparky agreed, “but you’ll get tired enough of it before we greet that dawn of yours. We’re going up to twenty thousand feet and stay there for hours. We’ll make better time that way and there’ll be no bumps. You can even sleep if you want to.”

“Sleep!” Mary’s voice rose. “I’d never do that. Suppose you fell asleep, or—or something happened to you!”

“I never get sleepy and nothing ever happens.” Sparky settled back in his place. “Talk when you feel like it,” he drawled. “I like the sound of your voice.”

“Oh, you do,” Mary laughed.

They climbed to twenty thousand feet. It seemed to Mary that she could feel the intense cold creeping through their cabin’s walls and her four-inch-thick suit of wool, leather and fur. But this, she knew, was pure imagination.

As they zoomed along through the blue with the black ocean far below and the stars apparently scattered all about them, she felt very little desire to talk. She just wanted to think.

Her mind went back to childhood days. Happy days they had been, those days with her father. School shut out much of this. And then had come college. College vacations found her flying, first with her father, then alone. She had learned about airplane engines from the ground up and had even become an expert with a machine gun.

“That,” she told herself, “was Providence, a dress rehearsal for war.”

As if he had been reading her thoughts, Sparky said, “Mary, there were a dozen or more who volunteered for this job you’re doing now. I wouldn’t want you to think I don’t like your work. I do. You’re swell, but how come they picked on you? You’re about the youngest of the lot.”

“That’s right,” Mary agreed, “but I’ve had more hours of solo flight than any of them. Fifteen hundred, to be exact.”

“Fifteen hundred?” Sparky whistled. “Practically flew from your cradle!”

“Nope—started when I was sixteen. You see, Dad is as much at home in the air as on the ground.”

“And you take after him?”

“Sure. Why not? What’s more, I know a lot about airplane engines and machine guns.”

“Handy man with tools, eh?” Sparky drawled.

“Try me.” Mary did not laugh. “Who knows? This job of ours may call for all the tricks we know before it’s done.”

“Guess that’s right,” Sparky agreed. “And I sure am glad you’re on the job.”

After that they once more lapsed into silence. The miles and the stars flew by. There were times when Mary was plagued by the illusion that somehow their ship had stopped traveling, that they were there, suspended in space, their motors roaring, but taking them nowhere. At such times she felt an all but over-powering desire to scream, for her overwrought imagination was telling her that the motors would roar on until the fuel was gone, then they would crash into the sea.

At times she felt drowsy, at others she was so wide awake that she wanted to leave her seat for a walk. This she knew was not entirely impossible since a bottle of oxygen attached to her tube and slung over her shoulder would give her freedom of movement. But this would call for more exertion than she felt like, and she lapsed back into sleepiness.

Then, little by little, she found herself drifting into a light and hilarious mood. She wanted to sing. She did hum little snatches of funny songs she knew. “The Bear Went Over The Mountain,” “The Old Gray Mare, She Ain’t What She Used To Be,” and “Clementine.”

From time to time Sparky looked at her and growled into his mask.

“Oh, Sparky,” she cried at last, “I’m tired of this mask. Can’t I take it off?”

She meant this only as a joke but Sparky roared, “For heaven’s sake! No! You wouldn’t last half a moment.”

Nothing daunted, she told him a rather long, funny story.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” he growled. “If so, where’s the point?”

She began to realize that something was wrong.

“Either Sparky has turned into a terrible crab or I’m plain crazy,” she told herself half in despair.

From hilarity she went into gloomy foreboding. Then, of a sudden, she sprang out of both. She knew what had happened. Both she and Sparky were drunk on oxygen. They had been up high too long. They should drop to lower levels at once. But how was she ever to make Sparky see this? In the morose mood of a partially intoxicated man, he would perhaps resist all her suggestions.

After a moment’s thought she believed she had the very idea. “Sparky,” she said, “I’m hungry.”

“Suck your thumb, like a bear,” he growled.

“The coffee’s hot, a whole gallon of it.”

“It’s frozen solid. I told you it would be. Know what the temperature outside is? Thirty-five below.”

“Yes, I know, but that coffee’s still hot.”

“How come?”

“That’s my secret.”

“Then keep it.”

“I’ll bet you five dollars it’s hot, yes, and the bottle of soup, too.”

“You got five dollars?”

“Sure I have.”

“All—all right, it’s a bet.”

“Sure it is. Do come on down to five thousand feet and I’ll show you.”

“Okay, here we go. But I get the five.”

They started down. Anxiously Mary watched the recording gage. Twenty thousand, fifteen thousand, ten, eight—she opened a ventilator, then another. At five thousand they leveled off. When at last the air was changed, they dragged off their masks.

“Whew!” Sparky breathed deeply. “That’s great!”

“You don’t know half of it,” said Mary.

“Where’s your hot coffee?”

“I’ll get it.” She did. When the cork was removed steam rose from the bottle.

“Well, I’ll be!” Sparky exclaimed. “You win! How do you do it?”

“Little electric heat, that’s all.” She pointed at the connections at the base of the thermos bottle.

“Say!” Sparky beamed. “From now on, you and I travel together.”

“At least for some little time,” she agreed with a wise smile.

It was a grand little lunch they enjoyed there above the black waters of the Atlantic. Mary flew the ship while Sparky drank hot coffee and soup, and munched hot cheese sandwiches. Then he took the controls while she carried on with the lunch box.

But when it was all over and they began once more to climb, weighty problems once more bore down upon Mary’s tired brain. Would they again climb high and fly too far, then become oxygen-drunk again? She hated to ask Sparky and yet—

Thousands of weary miles lay ahead, miles where danger lurked all the way. Then, too, there was their precious cargo. Would it reach its destination safely?

“It must,” she whispered. She reached for her mask and then Sparky spoke.