PN-9

PN9

Despite the fact that everyone except the wives and mothers of the men on board the PN9 No. 1--giant plane which vanished a fortnight ago, somewhere in the neighborhood of Hawaii--had come to the conclusion that the airship had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific or been crushed in its waves, rumors persisted that it had been found with all its crew alive. Such a message was picked up by an amateur radio operator:

"Request tug be sent to Nawiliwili for Rodgers and Crew who are in good health."

Many similar messages had come in--or been falsely reported; it was impossible; nobody believed it. Then, suddenly, bells rocked the steeples of Honolulu; bonfires were lighted; crowds capered in the streets and jostled for the extras which told them that the news was true -- the PN9 was safe. Submarine U-4 had found Rodgers and his men 15 miles east of Kaui, an island 64 miles west by north-west of the island of Oahu. From the men, gaunt, unshaven, fever-eyed, particulars of their 9 day dereliction were culled by reporters.

The plane, undamaged by landing, had floated buoyantly. On the first morning the men exchanged Navy ribaldries while they waited for a rescue which was sure to take place within a few hours. After four days their emergency rations of beans, hardtack, dried bread, chocolate, were exhausted. A merchant steamer hove into sight, insubstantial as a silhouette cut out of blue paper. The PN9 sent up furious signals. The ship dwindled to a smoke, vanished. The airplane's radio operator picked up a message which stated that at a conference of pilots on the U. S. S. Langley it was unanimously agreed that the PN9 No. 1 and its crew were lost. "That made me angry," said he. Commander Rodgers fashioned a sail out of a piece of wing-fabric. "He kidded us that he'd sail right up to the dock."

"It was Naw, Willy, Willy, all right." Gulls clanged overhead. Sharks gloated in the water about the plane, flashing their bellies and clamping their cruel, effeminate jaws in a manner that has been described in thousands of sea stories. Water gave out. Commander Rodgers produced a tiny still which he carried along, absurd machine though it was, because his mother asked him to. With it he made the sea water drinkable, and kept himself and his crew alive until the submarine grooved a way to them.

In Lihue, on the island of Kauai, the men were given injections of morphine and put to bed in the dim alcoves of an ancient hotel to sleep the clock around. The Navy Department appointed Commander Rodgers Assistant Chief of the Aeronautics Bureau. In the U. S. thousands of mothers, reading of Mrs. Rodger's still, remarked: "Now will you wear your rubbers?"