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The Earth was dark below us as we were halfway the coast. Clouds covered the sea. A high overcast at 40,000 feet shielded the stars and the mushroom clouds were still far from our sight.
In order to hold back more of those gloomy dreams, I resorted to singing. A most unprofessional Hallelujah, Hallelujah, according to Handel's famous chorus, filled the flight deck. But this didn't do much good either. Consequently I went downstairs and brewed myself a pot of coffee and drank it black, then went for a walk through the dark aircraft, my cup in my hand, and brought the rest of the coffee back to the 'bridge.' Here I invented a game of checking and re-checked the navigation systems.
I went downstairs twice more, once more for a walk, and once for something to eat. The main cabins were in a terrible state, as filthy as a cattle car, but, surprisingly, they didn't stink. There had been no time anywhere, for a cleanup.
The long flight ended with an automatic descent initiated by the flight control system. The engines were throttled back. The nose dipped ever so slightly. Giant glowing pillars of fire marked the horizon. I quickly woke everyone up.
Harry said that I shouldn't have waited so long. Jennie was surprised that the night was already over. There was a faint sign of dawn on the northern horizon. I went and prepared breakfast with more coffee and a lot of re-heated buns and an assortment of jam, but no butter and no fried eggs. In fact we were still having breakfast, such as it was, when I landed the plane.
We were a part of a military style formation of ten aircraft, landing at thirty seconds intervals. On this run our assignment was to service Vancouver. The chaos didn't seem to bother me anymore; shots, outcries, confusion, and haste by the control tower, had become normal business. I no longer expected it any other way. Oh how fast one can get used to this! The desperation was no less and no more than what we had seen in Victoria. In some ways the atmosphere was less tense in Vancouver while many more gunshots could be heard. I even invented a new measurement for chaos, expressed in gunshots per minute.
We took on eight hundred people from Frank's hometown, were refueled in record time, and sped down the runway in exactly twelve minutes from touching down. On takeoff, the tower repeated a routine warning to all flight crews not to mix with the 'passengers.' The fallout had become heavier. "You can't see it, feel it, and smell it," the tower said, "but it settles on people's clothing and may be deadly. Don't take any unnecessary chances."
The return trip was my time to sleep. Sleep wasn't easily accomplished, in spite of being dead-tired. Although this flight was becoming the best organized yet, there was too little room left in the aircraft for anyone to sleep comfortably. And it was noisy! The First Class cabin below us had been designated as a nursery. The bar became used as a changing table, and the upstairs lounge, where I hoped to sleep, served as an emergency hospital. We appeared to have picked up a section of a hospital ward. I fell asleep, though, crouched on a seat by a window. A man in great pain needed my camp-cot much more urgently.
When I woke, the noise had abated. Sunshine filled the cabin. Jennie sat next to me with a bag of sandwiches and a styrofoam cup of tea. I gazed down onto the sea below us while eating breakfast once more.
"Guess where we're heading," said Jennie with a twinkle in her eye.
"Honolulu?" I replied mechanically.
"Guess again!"
"Ah, then it must be Maui," I replied.
"Right on!" she said, "but how did you guess it so quickly!"
"Because that's where Papakeea is," I said with a grin.
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