DOUBLE BEAT

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13240, 16 January 1941, Page 3

DOUBLE BEAT

THE EVENING STORY

BY GLENN REILLY , “I don’t have to tell you what I want, Ken,” tlie boss of the Telegraph city room declared with confidence. “This flood down in the Ohio Valley was just made to order for you. Go to it, lad, and don’t spare the horses!” “Meaning just what —providing you don’t mind going on record,” McNally parried while his mind raced ahead impatieptly to the possibilities of the job. “Y T ou said much the same thing when I covered the Hindenburg disaster, and what did I do, poor trusting fool that I am? I got stuck for a hotel bill when I stopped over in New York on the way back in line of business, and several unauthorized dinners. . .”

“The sky’s the limit this time, Ken, old boy,” the editor inter, posed affably. “You write your own ticket, and send us in the stuff as fast as we can take it. Murgatroyd is arranging for an open line from the flood scene already. The rest is up to you!”

The fair-haired boy of the Telegraph staff smiled unctuously at his boss. “It looks an act of God, but I get rid of this little pest cousin of yours who wants to break into the business,” he said with some malice, jerking his thumb over into the corner occupied by a remarkably attractive young girl. “Me —nursemaid to an embryo sob sister!” “I must have neglected to mention, Ken,” the Editor resumed with a smile meant to be engaging. “We want a slick story on the woman’s angle of this disaster, too. Kitty’s still home having a baby. . . .so the understudy goes with you. Good luck, old boy, and don’t forget to take good care of your protege!” Ken’s face froze.

“Listen, honey child, haven’t you ever been in a boat before?” Ken demanded sarcastically, pulling his life belt into a more snug position. “Sit down or Lucius here will spend all day getting us down valley. This isn’t going to be any picnic. If you’d rather stay here in the relief station —!” Letitia’s small, dimpled chin quivered slightly but she looked her harsh mentor squarely in the eye. “I’m not asking any favours, Mr McNally,'” she half defended. “You can’t seem to realize that I really want to learn something about the newspaper business.” She strove obviously for a mature outward appearance, although the heavy oilskins and the life belt weighting down her small frame made her seem more of a child than ever. “I’m ready, Lucius.”

A Tough Assignment Turns Out to Be Something More Romantic tha n a Battle of Wits

“I was thinking, kid, that maybe I was wrong about you the other day when we came down here,” he apologised. “I didn’t think that ck to e to

give the refugees room in the boat. It was your idea to unload some provisions here just in case!”

Letitia turned as far as she could on the table which was her platform and smiled brightly. “I didn’t dream at the time that you were the Robinson Crusoe type, Mr McNally, or I wouldn’t have bothered. You seem to be perfectly content!” Ken flushed slightly and turned back to his meter to hide his face. “This water has passed flood limit now, Letitia,” he turned the subject into safer channels. “In the last hour it’s dropped four inches. You don’t have to worry any more. We’ll be out of this by to-morrow at this rate soon as we can get ouf to high ground.”

“It’s only 15 miles to high ground, you know! Or maybe newspaper people have some mysterious powers.”

“Newspaper people are resourceful, young fry,” he squelched. “if we have two more hours of daylight I can get that amateux i radio set working on the storage batteries I found up in the attic. We’ll get help then. Any comment?”

“Just throw some of your resourcefulness into getting a story out to uncle instead of wasting juice on a boat request that isn’t necessary. We still have half a case of canned soup! Or is that merely old fashioned newspaper heroics?” The rebuke reddened Ken’s ears and he stomped silently through the water to the attic to try completing his repairs on the radio.

“This flood has created a lot of odd situations,” the Salvation Army captain was saying to old Lucius. “It takes something like this to bring out the real unselfishness of men. I That McNally man over there, for instance, checking supplies with us. He and his girl partner allowed themselves to be stranded in the path of the flood, just so a family could be removed from danger in their boat. They got a license at city hall first thing when we brought them in this morning. Called by radio, they did!” “A license for what —prize fighting? They was arguing like cats and dogs when a brung ’em down valley,” Lucius commented dryly, looking over to w’here Ken was tabulating the relief supplies. Letitia, a borrowed pair of dungarees pinned up to her slim waist, counted them off to him. “I’d a bet they’d drown each other before a rescue boat picked ’em up, but that’s their business.” The army man looked suspicious. “You say you brought them down valley? Why didn’t you bring them back after you’d brought the marooned people in?”

Old Lucius shrugged eloquently and grinned wisely. “I had enough of their arguin’ on the way down,” he confessed, “an’ besides, they each slipped me 10 bucks on the sly ’fore we started. . . . not to bring ’em back!”

j “Them folks downriver in the valley are hungry and cold. Mr Me- | Nally, seein’s they been stuck up in the second floor of their house for three days. Reckon we better start!” The native boatman wound the starting rope around the flywheel of the outboard motor of their rescue boat. “Let ’er rip, Lucius,” Ken ordered looking at the brown surges which sucked at the sides of the craft. Letitia disdained to look at him. Letitia was cooking a meal, composed largely of the contents of several cans, over the primus stove set on the mantel of the fireplace in the second-floor bedroom. Ken had two chairs weighted down with the andirons by the window and he was checking the improvised flood meter hanging from the sill. Two feet of water gurgled around their legs every time they walked.