"Yes, I understand."
"Tie them tight. Do my right arm first, but close up the wound. Do you understand? Is it clear…"
Ben did not hear the answer because he felt himself losing consciousness again, and this time it was longer, and he came to himself and saw the boy working on his left arm with his serious pale face expressing fear and terror and desperation.
“Is that you, Davy?” Ben said and heard his own indistinct speech, and went on. "Listen, boy," he said with dif ficulty. "I'm going to tell it all to you, in case I lose consciousness again. Bandage my arms, so that I don't lose more blood. Fix my legs, and then get me out of this aqualung. It's killing me."
"I've tried to get you out of it," Davy said in his hopeless voice. "But I can't. I don't know how to get you out."
"You'll have to get me out!" Ben said sharply in his old way, but he knew then that the only hope he had for the boy, as well as for himself, was to make Davy think for himself, make him believe that he could do what he had to do.
"I'm going to tell it to you, Davy, so that you understand. Do you hear me?" Ben could hardly hear himself and he didn't' feel the pain for a moment. "You will have to do all this, I'm sorry but you'll have to do it. Don't be upset if I shout at you. That's not important. That's never important. Do you understand me?"
"Yes." He was lying up the left arm and he wasn't listening.
"Good boy!" Ben tried to get a little encouragement into his words, but he couldn't do it. He did not know yet how to get to the boy," but he would find the way somehow.This ten-year-old boy had a super-human job before him if he was to remain alive.
"Get my knife out of my belt," Ben said, "and cut off all the straps of the aqualung." That was the knife he had had no time to use. "Don't cut yourself."
"I'll be all right," Davy said, standing up and looking sick at the sight of his own bloody hands. "If you could lif t your head a little I could pull one of the straps off, theone I undid."
"All right. I'll lift my head!"
Ben lifted his head and wondered why he felt so paralysed. With t hism ovement h ep assedo ut a gain, and this time into the terrible black pain that seemed to last too long, although he only half-felt it. He came to slowly and felt a little rested and not so paralysed.
"Hello, Davy," he said from his far distance.
"I got you off the aqualung," he heard the boy's frightened voice say. "You're still bleeding down the legs…"
"Never mind my legs," he said and opened his eyes and tried to rise up a little to see what shape he was in, but he was afraid of passing out, and he knew he could not sit up or stand up; and now when the boy had tied his arms back he was helpless from the waist up.'4 The worst had yet to come, and he had to think about it for a moment.
The only chance for the boy now was the plane, and Davy would have to fly it. There was no other chance, no other way. But now he had to think. He must not frighten the boy off. If he told Davy he would have to fly the plane, it would frighten him. He had to think carefully about how to do this; about how to think this into the boy" and persuade him to do it without knowing it. He had to feel his way into his son's frightened, childish mind. He looked closely at Davy then and he realised that it was a long time since he had really seen the boy.
He looks educated, Ben thought, and knew it was a strange idea. But his serious-faced boy was like him himself: a stern surface over something harder and wilder within. But the pale, rather square face did not look like a happy face, not now or ever, and when Davy saw his father look so closely at him he turned away and began to cry.
"Never mind, kid," Ben said slowly.
"Are you going to die?" Davy asked him.
"Do I look that bad?" Ben said without thinking about it.
"Yes," Davy said into his tears.
Ben knew that he had made a mistake, and he must never speak to the boy again without thinking carefully of what he was saying.
"Don't let all this blood and mess fool you. I have been smashed up like this before, two or three times. I don't think you remember when I was in hospital up in Saskatoon…"
Davy nodded. "I remember, but you were in hospital."
"Sure! Sure! That's right," he was trying to overcome his wish to faint of f again. "I'll tell you what we'll do. You get that big towel and put it near me and I'll roll on it somehow, and I'll get up to the plane. How about that, eh?"
"I won't be able to pull you up," the boy said, in defeat. "Ahhh," Ben said with a special gentleness. "You don't know what you can do until you try, kid. I suppose you're thirsty. There's no water, is there?"
"No, I'm not thirsty..." Davy had gone off to get the towel, and Ben said into the air with especial care:
"Next time we'll bring a dozen Coca-Cola. Ice too."
Davy brought the towel and lay it down near him, and by a sideways movement that seemed to tear his arm and chest and legs apart he got his back on to the towel and felt his heels dig into the sand, but he did not pass out.
"Now get me up to the plane," Ben said faintly.
"You pull, and I'll push with my heels. Never mind the bumps, just get me there!"
"How can you fly the plane?" Davy asked from in front of him.
Ben closed his eyes to think of how this boy felt. Ben was thinking, He must not know he has to fly it, the thought will frighten him terribly.
"These little Austers fly themselves," he said. "You just have to set the course, that's easy…"
"But you can't use your arms and hands. And you don't open your eyes."
"Don't give it a thought, Davy. I can fly blindfold with my knees. Start pulling!"
"How are you?" he said to the boy who was breathing heavily, all tired out. "You look all in."
"No, I'm not," Davy said angrily. "I'm all right."
That surprised Ben because he had never heard the tone of revolt or anger in his son's voice before; but still it must be there with a face like that. He wondered how a man could have lived with a son so long and never seenhis face clearly. The shock was wearing off. But he was physically too weak, and he could feel the blood gently flowing out of his left arm, and he couldn't raise a limb, even a finger (if he had one) to help himself. Davy would have to get the plane off and fly it, and land it.
It would be enough if he could survive long enough to talk this boy down with the plane" at Cairo. That would be absolutely enough. That was the only chance.
That thought was what helped him get into the plane. Then he was trying to tell the boy what to do, but he could not get it out. The boy was going to panic, Ben turned his head and felt it, and he said, "Did I bring up the camera, Davy? Or did I leave it on the bottom?"
"It's down near the water."
"Go and get it."
"It's going to be you, Davy. You will have to do it. So listen. Are the wheels clear?"
"Yes, I pulled all the stones away." Davy was sitting there with his teeth clenched.
"What's that shaking us?"
"The wind."
He had forgotten that. "Now this is what you do, Davy," he said, and thought it out slowly. "Give the throttle an inch, not too much. Do it now. Put your whole foot on the brakes, Davy. Good! You've done that! Now switch her on; the black switch on my side. That's fine, Davy. Now you have to push the button; and when the plane starts you open up the throttle a little."
"I can do it," the boy said, and Ben thought he heard the sharp note of his own voice in it, but not quite. "There's so much wind now," the boy said. "It's too strong and I don't like it."
"Are we facing into wind, Davy? Did you get us down wind? Don't be afraid of the wind."
He'll do it, though, Ben decided wearily and happily. Then he passed out into the depths he had tried to keep out of for the boy's sake. And even as he went out, deep, he thought he would be lucky this time if he came out of it at all. He was going too far. And the boy would be lucky if he came out of it. That was all he could think of before he lost contact with himself.