Chapter Thirteen 

 DZAOUDZI DRAMA 



IT was an impressive dawn whose breathtaking beauty only 

 served to emphasise the threat that lay behind its tumbled 

 masses of red-tinted clouds. This was the cyclone season in one 

 of the worst zones in the world, and if one caught us out over that 

 sea, Coelacanths or anything else would not matter any more. As 

 we took off we plunged straight at tier upon tier of gigantic columns 

 that reached up into misty heights, giving the impression that we 

 were approaching an enormous and fantastic tinted marble temple 

 of ever-changing aspect and form. The clouds looked so solid I 

 found myself tensing up each time we plunged into a whirling 

 face, half expecting the plane to be crushed flat. We climbed 

 steadily and I had repeatedly to clear my ears, but could not take 

 my eyes from the wonderful scene that lay before and about us. 

 Never before had I seen such spectacular cloud effects, their size 

 and grandeur were almost beyond description. A tap on my 

 shoulder made me jump, and there was Ralston holding a type of 

 bulging greyish overall. Tt's going to be very cold up here, sir; 

 you'd better get into this Mae West' ; which was something new 

 to me, a thick padded overall suit, at which I looked dubiously. 

 *You float in this,' he added with a grin. That made me think at 

 once of Tiger Sharks; floating in that sea wasn't much use, it just 

 prolonged the end. Twenty minutes on the average was all you 

 had with those brutes about, but Ralston knew nothing about 

 that; yes, and I hoped he would not need to learn, certainly not 

 in my company. He helped me get it on, and it certainly was com- 

 fortable, for we had gone up fairly high and it was bitterly cold, 

 the occasional brilliant sunshine deceptive. 



I came back to the present and went forward to Blaauw and 

 Letley. Our course was straight for Mayotte. It had been agreed 

 that we should keep on trying to get Dzaoudzi by radio to know 

 if we could land, but so far there had been no response, though 



