Chapter SIX: Through a Hole in the Sky

During the week-days that followed, there were no more long night trysts over the secret radio. Sally had a record to maintain. She had resolved at the very beginning to be one of the best WAVES ever entrusted with a job in Communications. She had decided, too, to move heaven and earth to get a spot on some ship sailing the seven seas. She knew quite well that the best way to get what you want is to earn it. Classes must always come first.

For all that, she and Danny did each day spend one glorious twilight hour working away at the secret radio. When Saturday night came, the WAVES one free night, Nancy joined them, and working both radios at once, they really went places and did things. Using both radios, they spotted as many as eight broadcasters of the mysterious pack on a single night.

“Are they really enemy subs?” Nancy asked.

“Who knows?” was all Danny would say. “If they are we’ve really got something.”

“But they may be cargo ships in a convoy or airplanes going to Europe,” said Nancy. “Then why don’t we ask our Communications people in Washington whether they are using that wave-length.”

“Two good reasons,” Danny grinned. “We don’t know the wave-length we’re using and if we did the folks in Washington wouldn’t tell us.”

“Probably send an F. B. I. agent to look us up,” Sally said. “No, dearie! We’ve got to work it out all by ourselves.”

“Just give us time and we’ll make it,” Danny declared. Ah, yes, there was the rub. All too soon the bugle would blow and they would be scattered far and wide to new fields of endeavor.

They made some progress. One evening Danny exclaimed: “See here! The numbers they are sending—if they are numbers—are all odd. Seven, seventeen, thirty-one, forty-three. There’s not an even number in the lot.”

“That narrows it down,” said Sally.

“It sure does.”

Two evenings later Sally made a more important discovery.

“Look!” She jumped to her feet in her excitement, to point at a row of numbers. “Not one of them is evenly divisible. Seven, seventeen, thirty-seven, fifty-three, every last one of them. Does that mean anything?”

“It may mean a lot,” was Danny’s excited comment.

“Oh, there’s the bell!” she exclaimed. “Time for class. Think of dropping this discovery just like that.”

“It’s not dropped.”

Danny dragged out a tall stack of papers. “I’ll still be working on that when you’re fast asleep.”

“Danny, you’re a treasure!” she exclaimed, giving his hand a quick squeeze.

“It’s all part of the game,” he grinned. “We’ll be famous, both of us, and your old friend C. K., as well.”

The hour was striking midnight when at last Danny stacked the papers in a neat pile.

“Got it!” he breathed. “It’s the berries. Can’t be any mistake about that. We’re really making progress. But we’ve still got a long way to go.”

That very night one more major problem brought Sally’s radio experimentation to an abrupt halt.

She returned to her room, after her late hour of study, to find Barbara sitting in her bed staring gloomily at the floor.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Been caught out of bounds, or something?”

“I haven’t done a thing,” Barbara replied gloomily. “Perhaps it would be better if I did. When you never step off the beaten path, just plug along day by day, people ask you to do such terrible things.”

“Why? What have they asked you to do now?”

“It’s that parachute drop.” Barbara stared gloomily at her feet. “They say it’s not really required that a parachute rigger should take parachute training, but that if they do take it, and if they do take just one drop, they make better riggers.”

“Of course they do,” Sally agreed. “They know what it’s all about.”

“That sounds all right. But would you want to go to an airfield where only men are training, and go through all the practice and finally take the drop, all by yourself?”

“No, of course not. Are they asking you to do that?”

“Not asking, just suggesting.”

“Which in this war is the same thing. Tell you what—” Sally came to a sudden decision. “If Lieutenant Mayfare will let me, I’ll go through the training with you.”

“You wouldn’t!” Barbara stared.

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to.”

“No, of course not, but I want to. If I’m to go in for Radio and Communications I want to be prepared to serve anywhere, on land, on the sea, or in the air.”

“You’re the daffiest person I ever knew—and the dandiest!” At that big Barbara hugged Sally until she thought her ribs would crack.

“But, Sally, you don’t have to go in for parachute jumping if you’re going in for Radio,” Lieutenant Mayfare protested when Sally made her unusual request next day.

“But I want to,” Sally insisted.

“You’re doing it to help Barbara. Is that fair to yourself?”

“Who knows what is fair?” Sally asked quietly. “It’s not fair to ask a boy to give up his college work right in the middle of his first year to go to war. Or is it? It’s not fair to ask a father to leave two small children for the same reason. Or is it? Who knows—

“Anyway I’d like the experience,” she added after a brief silence. “There are several things we are not being asked to do now. Perhaps tomorrow or next month we will be asked. I want to be prepared. And after all, I think it’s a small matter.”

“Not so small.” The officer spoke slowly. “You’ll have to spend the last half of every afternoon for a week preparing for it.

“Of course,” she added, “your work here has been excellent. The time lost will not matter so much. So—”

“Then I may do it?” Sally exclaimed eagerly.

“Yes, you may!”

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you a lot!”

“It is Barbara who should be thankful. I doubt if she could take the test alone.”

“She couldn’t,” Sally agreed. “Barbara is a fine girl. She’s true blue. There are not many things she could do in our organization. For parachute rigging she’s perfect.”

“That’s right.”

“And I want her to be a great success.”

“With your help I’m sure she will be. You and she may start your training this afternoon. The sooner the better. There’s not much time left—”

And that is why Danny Duke had to wait so long to tell Sally of his grand discoveries.

That afternoon Sally and Barbara rode five miles to the training field with six boys who were to take the same training.

“Pipe the girls,” one fellow called when they were first sighted.

“Shut up!” another boy exclaimed low. “If they are going to take to the chutes, it’s not just for fun. It really takes guts. If they’ve got what it takes you have to hand it to them.”

“Ever run a children’s playground?” the director asked Sally.

“Yes, once, quite a while ago—”

“Well, this is just another one of them. Only difference is you swing on your chute straps just to get used to them instead of from the old apple tree. And if you don’t fasten your straps just right you get a good bump.”

“And you learn by bumps,” Sally laughed.

“Yes, and that way you don’t get killed later.”

“It’s the same way with the slide,” the instructor added. “It’s just a kid’s slide, only longer, and you fall harder—that is, if you don’t relax properly.”

After that, for a full week-the two girls practiced swinging, sliding, tumbling, whirling round and round.

“I feel as if I’d been put in a cement mixer and whirled round and round a thousand times,” Sally confided to Danny on Saturday afternoon. “But I do believe that Barbara will go through with it. Monday is our zero hour. We drop at dusk. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

“I’ll say a prayer for you,” Danny grinned. “And now about this secret code of the gremlins, the enemy subs, or what have you.”

“Yes—yes!” Sally exclaimed eagerly. “What did you find out?”

“A whole lot and yet, not half enough. Come over just after chow, if you can. Bring the radios and I’ll tell you all.”

“Oh, no! Surely not that much!” Sally held up her hands in mock horror. “All the same, I’ll be there!”

“It’s like this,” Danny said, as they sat before the radio that night listening to the “put-put-put-a-put.” “They’ve made their code from numbers that can be divided evenly. I’m sure of that. But does one stand for the letter A, or have they arranged it all backwards?”

“They may have started in the middle and gone both ways.”

“Yes, but I don’t think they did. Why should they? They had the wave-length all to themselves. Why not have a simple code? I even think they let one stand for A, three for B, five for C, and so on.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because eleven, which should stand for E, is used more times than any other number and E is the most-used letter in the alphabet. Other vowels stand out in the same proportion. So I think we’ve got that far. But now,” he sighed, “we’ve got to find out whether they’re sending in German or English. That is going to be hard.”

“And must be continued in our next.” There was a suggestion of gloom in Sally’s voice. She was tired and sore. Much lay ahead.

“Monday we drop from that hole in the sky. Tuesday we take our finals,” she sighed.

“And Wednesday you scatter,” he supplied. “I got that on good authority. Some of you go to other schools and some to work, depending on what you’re taking up.”

“That’s about it. We’ll just have to work and hope we meet again over this blessed, tantalizing, mesmerizing radio,” she laughed. “And now, what do you say we take the radio over to my house and then make a night of it?”

And that was just what they did.

Monday afternoon came, and with it, many a long-drawn breath.

“Sally, I’m scared,” Barbara whispered, as they piled into the car that was to take them on their last trip to the field.

“You wouldn’t be natural if you weren’t,” was the cheering response. “All the same, try to forget it.”

In the week that had passed, the eight of them, two girls and six boys, had formed the habit of singing on the way out. Now, when at last they rolled away, a youthful voice struck up:

He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
A daring young man on the flying trapeze.

“Where have I heard that before?” another boy groaned. For all that, they sang it with gusto.

“‘Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main,’” came next.

Then the boy from Kentucky started:

“‘The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home—’”

His voice broke on the second line. Sally swallowed hard, but they sang it through to the end.

“Ioway! Ioway!” shouted the boy from the midwest. “That’s where the tall corn grows.”

They all laughed, but when the strains of “Swanee River” came rolling out, they were in a mellow mood once more.

When they arrived at the field they found a captive balloon straining at its ropes. Beneath it hung a platform and at the very center of the platform was a round hole.

“That,” said Sally, “is the famous hole in the sky.”

“On fields where paratroops are trained we have towers to jump from, but they cost a pile of money. A balloon works just as well,” a friendly lieutenant explained.

“Sure, even better,” wisecracked the boy from Kentucky. “Then if you don’t feel like dropping off, you can just cut the rope and go for a balloon ride.”

“I’m in favor of a balloon ride right now,” said his pal.

A latticework of ropes formed a wall about the platform. Over this they climbed. Then, slowly, majestically the balloon rose skyward.

Once more—“‘Sailing, sailing,’” rang out on the air.

“Old Kentucky Home” was a little too much this time. It expired in the middle of the second verse.

“Pack Up Your Troubles” went very well and the “Man on the Flying Trapeze” was as popular as ever.

One big fellow they called Samson sat hunched up in a corner, not singing and saying nothing.

“What’s the matter? Scared?” Sally asked.

“Thunder, no!” he exploded. “Sleepy, that’s all. What’s a little parachute jump? If you’d grown up on a cattle ranch with the big bulls chasin’ you and the lonesome coyotes callin’, you wouldn’t mind. I fell off a mountain once and no parachute stopped me, just a pine tree.”

“I’m scared,” Barbara whispered. Sally made no reply. Truth was, her stomach was pumping in a strange way. She saw the boy from Kentucky gulp twice. That didn’t help any.

“We’re about there,” the instructor announced. “If your stomachs don’t feel good, forget it. That’s the way mine feels right now, and I’ve jumped three hundred times.

“Now remember,” he added, “when you slide off, keep looking up. That way your chin doesn’t hook on the parachute straps.

“Now,” he said in a strong, clear voice, “we’re here. See that green light? That’s the signal. Don’t be nervous. Your parachutes have been properly rigged. I watched it done. Don’t forget, I’ll be right behind you.”

Before they went up, they had been given numbers. Barbara’s number was seven, Sally’s eight. That meant that, except for the instructor, they would be last. Sally did not know whether this was good or bad. For Barbara to go first would be terrible. But would watching the others disappear wear away her slender thread of courage? She could only hope that it would not.

“Action stations,” the instructor snapped. Number one, the big fellow raised on a cattle ranch, took his place, dangling his feet over the hole. With his arms hanging straight down, he looked up.

“Number one!” The big fellow vanished into the thin air below. “Number two!” One more vanished. Sally’s throat went dry. “Number three!” There they went. “Number four!” Oppressive silence followed. Sally gasped. Had something gone wrong? Then she remembered they were to go down by fours, with a space between each group. “Two fast sticks,” they called it. She felt quite like a stick just then.

Unconsciously, she began to count—one, two, three, four. She mopped her brow. She dared not look at Barbara. “Five, six, seven.” She had reached fifteen when the instructor took up the counting once more. “Number five.” One more man vanished.

“Get ready,” Sally whispered. On Barbara’s face was a look of do-or-die.

“Number six.” The last boy vanished.

“Now.” Barbara slid into her place. Her hands were at her sides, her chin high. When she heard “Number seven” she slid from sight.

In her eagerness to follow, Sally nearly went down without an order. As it was, she sank breathlessly down until, with startling suddenness, she felt a pull at her straps and knew her parachute had opened.

“Good old chute!” she murmured as she glanced up to catch its white gleam against the sky.

She looked for Barbara. Yes, there she was off to the left, floating down with the greatest of ease. This was Barbara’s big moment, perhaps the biggest moment of all her life.

But here was a voice coming up from below: “You’re coming down nicely, number seven,” it said. That would be Barbara.

“Number four, bend those knees. Don’t be trying to land stiff legged.” It was the voice again. An instructor was talking through a loudspeaker. His voice carried up to them perfectly.

“Number eight,” he called.

“Oh! He’s calling me!” Sally thought in sudden panic. “Number eight, you must turn round. Reach up, grab the strap.” Sally obeyed. She swung half about. “That’s it. Always land with the wind, not against it.

“Now, all of you, knees bent, feet together, relax, relax for a fall.”

One by one they tumbled on the ground, then jumped up laughing.

Sally made a quick count. Yes, all eight were up and moving. Then, having unfastened her parachute, she rushed over to Barbara to exclaim:

“Barbara! You were wonderful!”

Throwing her arms about her, Barbara burst into tears of joy.

When the shower had passed, she exclaimed, “Now I am going to be a parachute rigger always, for I know just how much it means!”

“Boy, oh, boy!” Sally exclaimed when at last she was alone with her instructor. “I hope I get a chance to make use of that experience. That certainly was something!”

“It’s been my experience,” he replied soberly, “that in this war, sooner or later, we find a place for every bit of practice we’ve ever had. Your time will come.”

Would it? Sally wondered a long, long wonder. She was still wondering when she got back to school. Secret radios, ships, airplanes, parachutes, all went round and round in her head. What was in store for her? In a day or two she would be whirled away to another school for further training.

“And after that, what?” she asked the elm that had once saved her from disaster. The elm whispered to the breeze, but she could not understand what the tree and the breezes were saying.