Commodoro Rivadavia could hear nothing now, but twenty seconds later, six hundred miles away, Bahia Blanca picked up a second message.
“Coming down. Entering the clouds....”
Then two words of a blurred message were caught at Trelew.
“... see nothing...”
Short waves are like that; here they can be caught, elsewhere is silence. Then, for no reason, all is changed. This crew, whose position was unknown, made itself heard by living ears, from somewhere out of space and out of time, and at the radio station phantom hands were tracing a word or two on this white paper.
Had the fuel run out already or was the pilot, before catastrophe, playing his last card: to reach the earth again without a crash?
Buenos Aires transmitted an order to Trelew.
“Ask him.”
The radio station looked like a laboratory with its nickel and its copper, manometers and sheaves of wires. The operators on duty in their white overalls seemed to be bending silently above some simple experiment. Delicately they touched their instruments, exploring the magnetic sky, dowsers in quest of hidden gold.
“No answer?”
“No answer.”
Perhaps they yet might seize upon its way a sound that told of life. If the plane and its lights were soaring up to join the stars, it might be they would hear a sound—a singing star!
The seconds flowed away, like ebbing blood. Were they still in flight? Each second killed a hope. The stream of time was wearing life away. As for twenty centuries it beats against a temple, seeping through the granite, and spreads the fane in ruin, so centuries of wear and tear were thronging in each second, menacing the airmen.
Every second swept something away; Fabien’s voice, his laugh, his smile. Silence was gaining ground. Heavier and heavier silence drowned their voices, like a heavy sea.
“One forty,” some one murmured. “They’re out of fuel. They can’t be flying any more.”
Then silence.
A dry and bitter taste rose on their lips, like the dry savor of a journey’s end. Something mysterious, a sickening thing, had come to pass. And all the shining nickel and trellised copper seemed tarnished with the gloom that broods on ruined factories. All this apparatus had grown clumsy, futile, out of use; a tangle of dead twigs.
One thing remained; to wait for daybreak. In a few hours all Argentina would swing toward the sun, and here these men were standing, as on a beach, facing the net that was being slowly, slowly drawn in toward them, none knowing what its take would be.
To Rivière in his office came that quiet aftermath which follows only on great disasters, when destiny has spent its force. He had set the police of the entire country on the alert. He could do no more; only wait.
But even in the house of death order must have its due. Rivière signed to Robineau.
“Circular telegram to the northern airports. Considerable delay anticipated Patagonia mail. To avoid undue delay Europe mail, will ship Patagonia traffic on following Europe mail.“
He stooped a little forward. Then, with an effort, he called something to mind, something important. Yes, that was it. Better make sure.
“Robineau!”
“Sir.”
“Issue an order, please. Pilots forbidden to exceed 1900 revs. They’re ruining my engines.”
“Very good, sir.”
Rivière bowed his head a little more. To be alone—that was his supreme desire.
“That’s all, Robineau. Trot off, old chap!”
And this, their strange equality before the shades, filled Robineau with awe.