'Yes or no, blast it!'
'Yes.' Cromwell said immediately.
'Then get us ready for takeoff as soon as we can.'
'Just one thing, Indy,' Rene Foulois said quickly. Indy waited. 'I recommend strongly we plan all our landings in daylight. We may have some weather and—'
'Just set it up and tell me when you'll be ready to go,' Indy said brusquely.
'Night takeoff,' Cromwell said calmly. 'Get us to Iceland with plenty of reserve. Check the weather and timing, and go for Greenland. Like you said, just reverse our course.' Cromwell turned to Foulois. 'I make that just about seven hours from now.'
Foulois nodded. 'I agree.'
'Then that's it. Harry,' Indy said to the colonel, 'you've got the contacts.
Will you attend to provisions and anything else we may need.'
'Yes, just so long as you know that I think you're all crazy,' Henshaw said with resignation.
'You still going with us?' Indy pressed.
'Of course,' Henshaw answered. 'I never made any special claims to be sane.'
The flight westward, into the prevailing winds, was every bit as troublesome, even dangerous at times, as Henshaw had warned—and quite often worse. Weather in a variety of forms, all of it bad save for favorable tailwinds most of the time, swept down from the arctic regions. Cold air mixed with moist warm air along their route gave the Ford a hammering, noisy, jolting ride through skyhigh potholes, bumps, and violent turbulence.
The weather proved so rotten the first leg of the trip that Cromwell and Foulois chose to land along the northwest coast of Scotland to sit out a period of horrendous rain and darkness. The field where they'd landed was deserted.
Cromwell and Henshaw went about the buildings trying to find anyone on duty. 'Not a living soul,' Henshaw mumbled through chattering teeth.
'Bloody mausoleum,' Cromwell confirmed. 'No lights, no people, no nothing.'
'Let's tie the Ford down, and we'll break in to get out of this weather,' Indy said immediately.
They dragged thick ropes from their equipment containers, lashing the airplane to the ground, throwing a thick canvas tarp over the cockpit. Gathering sleeping bags, they pushed through the stormlashed night to an operations shack. A heavy padlock secured the door. Indy removed his Webley, firing a single round into the lock.
'Look,' he said sourly. 'Magic. Make a lot of noise and the door's opened.'
'That's quite a key you have there,' Henshaw told him. 'I didn't know you were the criminal type, but I like your style.'
'So do I,' shivered Gale, pushing past Indy into the protection of the office.
'I'll even buy them a new lock.'
Thirty minutes later they had a fire blazing in a large potbellied stove, and soon afterward they were gratefully asleep.
Rain was still falling at the first sign of dawn. No one from the field had appeared. Henshaw returned to the Ford and switched on the batteries for radio power. In moments he was talking with a weather reporting center nearby. He hung up, switched off the batteries, and went to the door to call the others.
'It's still pretty cruddy where we are,' he explained, 'but I talked to Scottsmoor. They have spoken this morning with the islands along our path, and it's much improved the closer to get to Iceland. I suggest we move on out as fast as we can.'
Indy looked at Cromwell, who nodded. Gale spoke up. 'Rene, give me a hand with our gear in the office. Indy, I'll leave a note and some money to pay for the lock.' She looked at the sky. 'I know this weather. It's like two fronts converging.
Harry, whoever you spoke to just left out one thing. Either we take off within the hour or we'll be on the ground for a couple of days.'
'What makes you so sure?' Henshaw asked, just a touch too tolerant in his attitude toward a woman talking pilot language.
'Because I learned to fly in this country,' Gale snapped. 'Day and night for five months. I know it, you don't, so I suggest you get cracking, Colonel.'
Indy laughed. 'Sounds good to me.'
Twenty minutes later they thundered along the grass strip into the air, climbing in a steady turn to take them northwest. At a thousand feet Foulois called Indy on the intercom. 'Take a look out the right side,' he told Indy.
'Looks like our little lady knows the weather here better than anyone else.'
In the distance, no more than a few miles distant, a huge wall of fog and rain advanced against the field they'd just left. 'We'll be above this in several minutes,'
Foulois added, 'and we ought to stay on top all the way to Iceland.'
'Good show,' Indy replied.
They flew at eight thousand feet in brilliant sunshine. Gale opened sandwiches, and brought them along with a thermos of hot tea to the cockpit. Like Indy and Henshaw, she preferred coffee while flying. They gathered near the rear of the cabin; away from the propellers, the noise level was almost comfortable and permitted easy speech.
'Harry,' Indy said between huge bites of his sandwich, 'let me bounce some ideas off of you.'
