Astonishing Rescue off Coast of Maui; Story of Survival Against Odds on Wing of Airplane in Open Ocean

Copilot Perished; Pilot Starving, Sunburnt, and Dehydrated but Otherwise in Good Health

(When Irene read that last part, she had to wonder whether the copy editor at the Los Angeles Times was a man of irony or had simply lost his head.) Anyway, you heard about nothing else for weeks afterward, the interviews and the celebratory dinners; the Sunday prayers of thanksgiving in churches around the country; President Coolidge’s radio address hailing the whole affair as an inspiring example of the very best of American manhood; Mr. Mallory’s arrival back in San Francisco by commercial steamer, aboard which the occupant of the best first-class suite had gallantly insisted on switching accommodation with the hero of the day; the parades in San Francisco and then in Los Angeles.

Then August died into September, and the ballyhoo faded into nothing as it always did, and the American man went back to his work and his home and waited for the next thrill to smack him upside the head, from the ball field or the mountaintop or the clear blue sky.

Now Irene wound around the curves of Laurel Canyon in Sam Mallory’s speedy yellow Nash, approaching the crest of the ridge where the horizon was nothing but sky. She traced the arms and the delicate paws of Mr. Mallory’s newfound kitten with her finger and fastened on two details about the 1927 Dole Derby that she hadn’t troubled to notice much before.

The first was the Miss Doran, and how nobody seemed to have found any trace of her or her pilots, at least that Irene could remember. They were just forgotten in the ballyhoo.

The second was Mrs. Sam Mallory, who had made such brave, beautiful speeches during the whole ordeal about her love for her husband and her faith that he would return home safely to his wife and little daughter.

On Irene’s lap, the kitten stirred, raised its head, stretched its paw, went back to sleep. Irene realized she was holding her breath. They turned the last corner and the valley tumbled into view, Burbank and the hills behind it, and the ocean to the left, all of it bathed in the clear, pale, fragile light of early morning. Irene exhaled at last. They cruised down the hill through the draft, and Irene thought she would always remember this moment, this sensation of speed and freedom.

“It’s like flying,” she shouted.

Mr. Mallory laughed and changed gears. “Not even close.”

The airfield sat on the corner of Lankershim Boulevard and Vanowen, and stretched into a grassy infinity. Mr. Mallory turned the Nash down a gravel driveway toward a cluster of large white sheds. The one at the end of the drive bore the name rofrano in black letters.

“What’s Rofrano?” asked Irene.