us be the one to accompany him. But he would take no one.
That was Billings; if there was any especially difficult or
dangerous work to be done, that one man could do, Billings
always did it himself. If he needed assistance, he never
called for volunteers--just selected the man or men he
considered best qualified for the duty. He said that he
considered the principles underlying all volunteer service
fundamentally wrong, and that it seemed to him that calling
for volunteers reflected upon the courage and loyalty of the
entire command.
We rolled the plane down to the water's edge, and Billings
mounted the pilot's seat. There was a moment's delay as he
assured himself that he had everything necessary. Jimmy Hollis
went over his armament and ammunition to see that nothing had
been omitted. Besides pistol and rifle, there was the
machine-gun mounted in front of him on the plane, and
ammunition for all three. Bowen's account of the terrors of
Caspak had impressed us all with the necessity for proper means
of defense.
At last all was ready. The motor was started, and we pushed
the plane out into the surf. A moment later, and she was
skimming seaward. Gently she rose from the surface of the
water, executed a wide spiral as she mounted rapidly,
circled once far above us and then disappeared over the crest
of the cliffs. We all stood silent and expectant, our eyes
glued upon the towering summit above us. Hollis, who was now
in command, consulted his wrist-watch at frequent intervals.
"Gad," exclaimed Short, "we ought to be hearing from him pretty soon!"
Hollis laughed nervously. "He's been gone only ten minutes,"
he announced.
"Seems like an hour," snapped Short. "What's that? Did you
hear that? He's firing! It's the machine-gun! Oh, Lord; and
here we are as helpless as a lot of old ladies ten thousand
miles away! We can't do a thing. We don't know what's happening.
Why didn't he let one of us go with him?"
Yes, it was the machine-gun. We would hear it distinctly for
at least a minute. Then came silence. That was two weeks ago.
We have had no sign nor signal from Tom Billings since.
Chapter 2
I'll never forget my first impressions of Caspak as I circled
