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I leaned back after this, wiped off my sweat. My hands were shaking. Jack switched the engines off. I sat in my seat motionless and listened to the great turbines winding down and coming to a stop.
"The goose has gone to sleep!" said Jack when the indicators read zero on all four. Then, likewise, he stretched himself.
It became very quiet after that. For nine hours we had listened to the whine of the engines, the airflow over the hull. Now we could hear the wind, the surf, and the voices of sea birds. The plane stood motionless in the wind, as if it were rooted to the ground and had stood at this place for a thousand years.
"Congratulations, that was a first class landing!" Jennie interrupted the quiet. I turned around. Igor was standing behind her. Jack was getting out of his seat. He wiped the sweat off his brow. "I must admit," he said, "this beach is a better airfield than I'd dared to hope. Thank God we had somebody on board who is familiar with the area!"
I looked at him and grinned. His words sounded familiar. I nodded to him, then looked back at our tracks in the sand. The wheels had made five even furrows that led to a small mound in the distance where we had touched down.
Eventually, I left my seat, also. It was good to stand up. I embraced Jennie and kissed her, then left the flight deck and went downstairs for something to eat. We had boxes full of German buns and all kinds of sausages. I opened the passenger doors to let some fresh air in. The air was cold, but welcome. I went to the rear with Jennie to look for some coffee. We opened the rear cabin door too, where we talked for a while, about what to do next.
"This is the end of the line," I said. "This plane will not fly again for a long time to come."
"Well, so be it. I'm not sorry that I came along," said Jennie.
After a while we went back to the others. At the curved stairway I overheard Jack and Orlando debating the same issue upstairs. We went up to join them. Orlando was at his console trying to contact Fairbanks, but couldn't reach them. The others made themselves luxuriously comfortable in the first class lounge. "Alaska responded to other calls, but not to us." Orlando said he would try again later.
"What if we can't reach them?" Jack asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. "We might find a car and drive south to Port Alberni. Maybe the Navy is still there."
Orlando shook his head; "The Navy wouldn't have waited this long."
"I think we should look for a boat," Jennie suggested.
"A boat?" Jack repeated. "You mean a sailboat?"
She nodded, and smiled.
"Hey, let's do that!" Igor agreed.
I suggested that one of us could go to Tofino to see if there was anything left in the harbor. "We may be able to catch up with the Navy."
"You'll have to move quickly, though, before the fallout gets here," Orlando suggested. "It really doesn't sound practical."
"If we find a good enough 'ship'," Igor suggested, "we might sail right back to Hawaii. I would feel safer, if we sailed away from this coast as fast and as far as possible."
"Safer!" exclaimed Jack. "You call that safe, floating on the big ocean in one of those apple crates? You'll never get me in one of them."
"What happened to the hero who hates giving his soul to organization?" I replied joking.
"He is too deeply committed," Orlando replied quietly, "he lacks the skills to feel safe on the ocean."
"I don't think there is any need to take a boat," commented Jack. "I'm certain Alaska will be looking for us. They wouldn't just let a fifty million dollar airplane sit idle on a beach, not at a time like this!"
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