Getting out’s the worst.”

“How much time do we have before the cabin floods?” Alec asked.

“Depends on the sea and how we hit. Ditched land planes have been known to float hours, sometimes days.”

“But they’ve been known to go down fast, too?”

The navigator nodded, his eyes studying the boy. He had to know whether to depend upon him or not. “As fast as three minutes,” he said finally.

“How much time does the manual say it should take us to get out?” Alec persisted.

“About a minute and a half … ninety-six seconds, to be exact. But I think it’ll take us at least two minutes. I don’t know.” The navigator grinned sheepishly. “I’ve only done this once before and that was in a swimming pool during flight training.”

“I’ve got to get the horses free,” Alec said.

“We hope to, but we might not have the time.”

“I’ll have to take the time,” Alec said.

The navigator wiped his hands on his pants, then he pushed Alec forward in his seat. “Put your head between your legs and clasp your hands under them like this. That’s it. Now tense all your muscles. There, that’s the way you should be when I yell, ‘Brace for ditching!’ You all got it?”

Alec straightened in his seat. “We’ve got it,” he said.

“There’s a packet of green dye in your life jackets just in case we get separated. It’ll stain the water, making it easier to spot you from the air.”

“We won’t need it. We’ll be in the raft with you,” Henry reminded him.

“I know, but just in case—”

“Just in case nothing,” Henry interrupted, trying to grin. “It’s no night to be paddling around alone in the Atlantic.”

The navigator moved over to the life raft and Alec looked out the window again, watching their navigation lights blink alternately like a parade of fireflies. Above them black clouds rose high and billowing but here it was quiet and safe with the plane flying smoothly through the night. Alec didn’t look below at the sea’s angry turmoil. It was enough to know that for a few moments they’d be given peace. The plane flew without a tremor, graceful in flight. There was no rain, no wind to impede her speed, only silence and …

He’d have time, according to the navigator, plenty of time … three whole minutes before being submerged in the sea.

Alec turned to his horse but the Black’s eyes were closed in sleep. The boy kept looking at him for a long, long time while the last of the fuel flowed from the tanks to the engines.

Was this so different from their first trip together? he asked himself. If it hadn’t been for a storm, the Black would never have been his. It was their ship that had gone down instead of a plane, but it was the same raging sea, the same kind of night. Was that experience to be repeated? Was he to grab hold of the Black again and be pulled to safety? Was this the beginning all over again?

Alec took his eyes off his horse, never asking himself if, instead, his life with the Black was to end where it had begun—at night, in a storm-tossed sea.

The navigator unfastened the life raft from the heavy straps which held it just aft of the main door. They’d throw it out, inflating it with CO2 gas to make it seaworthy … that would take about forty-four seconds of their precious time, he figured. A launching line would hold the raft to the aircraft while they dropped into it from the escape rope … depending, of course, upon how low the ship lay in the water at the time and whether there was any need for the rope.

Alec watched the navigator, knowing that whatever happened luck would play an important part in the outcome. Air science and emergency procedures could accomplish only so much. The rest depended wholly upon circumstances. He had raced horses too long not to be well acquainted with the chances of survival in a tight situation.

He didn’t think it was possible for the pilot to set the plane down under control in such a raging sea. There’d be no coming down smoothly and without a jar.