Part 17 (1/2)

It was only vaguely like the other two. They had been flying parallel to the coast; the first from the south, the second from the north. This machine came out from the direction of the coast, flying mostly 'West, although it zigzagged.

It pa.s.sed north of us, then turned back and circled around us. It came low enough that I could see that it did indeed have men in it, two I thought.

Its shape is hard to explain. Imagine first a giant box kite, about forty feet long, four feet wide, and about three feet between two kite surfaces.

Imagine this box kite placed at right angles to a boat shape, somewhat, like an Esquimau's kayak but larger, much larger - about as large as the box kite.

Underneath all this are two more kayak shapes, smaller, parallel to the main shape.

At one end of this shape is an engine (as I saw later) and at the front end of that is an air propeller, like a s.h.i.+p's water propeller -and this I saw later, also. When I first saw this unbelievable structure, the air screw was turning so extremely fast that one simply could not see it. But one could hear it! The noise made by this contraption was deafening and never stopped.

The machine turned toward us and tilted down so that it headed straight toward us - like nothing so much as a pelican gliding down to scoop up fish.

With us the fish. It was frightening. To me, at least; Margrethe never let out a peep. But she did squeeze my fingers very hard. The mere fact that we were not fish and that a machine could not eat us and would not want to did not make this dive at us less terrifying.

Despite my fright (or because of it) I now saw that this construction was at least twice as big as I had estimated when I saw it high in the sky. It had two teamsters operating it, seated side by side behind a window in the front end. The driving engine turned out to be two, mounted between the box-kite wings, one on the right of the teamsters' position, one on the left.

At the very last instant the machine lifted like a horse taking a hurdle, and barely missed us. The blast of win ' d it created almost knocked us off our raft and the blast of sound caused my ears to ring.

It went a little higher, curved back toward us, glided again but not quite toward us. The lower twin kayak shapes touched the water, creating a brave comet's tail of spume - and the thing slowed and stopped and stayed there, on the water, and did not sink!

Now the air screws moved very slowly and I saw them for the first time ... and admired the engineering ingenuity that had gone into them. Not as efficient, I suspected, as the ducted air screws used in our dirigible airs.h.i.+ps, but an elegant solution to a problem in a place where ducting would be difficult or perhaps impossible.

But those infernally noisy driving engines! How any engineer could accept that, I could not see. As one of my professors said (back before thermodynamics convinced me that I had a call for the ministry), noise is always a byproduct of inefficiency. A correctly designed engine is as silent as the grave.

The machine turned and came at us again, moving very slowly. Its teamsters handled it so that it missed us by a few feet and almost stopped. One of the two, inside it crawled out of the carriage s.p.a.ce behind the window and was clinging by his left hand to one of the stanchions that held the two box-kite wings apart. His other hand held a coiled line.

As the flying machine pa.s.sed us, he cast the line toward us. I s.n.a.t.c.hed at it, got a hand on it, and did not myself go into the water because Margrethe s.n.a.t.c.hed at me.

I handed the line to Margrethe. 'Let him pull you in. I'll slide into the water and be right behind you.'

'No!'

'What do you mean, ”No”? This is no time to argue. Do it!'

'Alec, be quiet! He's trying to tell us something.'

I shut up, more than a little offended. Margrethe listened. (No point in my listening; my Spanish is limited to 'Gracias' and 'Por favor'. Instead I read the lettering on the side of the machine: EL GUARDA COSTAS REAL DEMEXICO.)

'Alec, he is warning us to be very careful. Sharks.'

'Ouch.'

'Yes. We are to stay where we are. He will pull gently on this rope. I think he means to get us into his machine without us going into the water.'

'A man after my own heart!'

We tried it; it did not work. A breeze had sprung up; it had much more effect on the flying machine than it had on us - that water-soaked sunbathing pad was practically nailed down, no sail area at all. Instead of being able to ,pull us to the flying machine, the man on the other end of the line was forced to let out more line to keep from pulling us off into the water.

He called out something; Margrethe answered. They shouted back and forth. She turned to me. 'He says to let loose the rope. They will go out and come back, this time directly at us, but slowly. As they come closest, we are to try to scramble up into the aeroplano. The machine.'