snow outside, the pilots' cockpit was snug and quiet. One of the communications radios was tuned to soft music of a commercial station. As Patroni entered, the Aereo-Mexican first officer, in shirt-sleeves, snapped a switch and the music stopped.
"Don't worry about doing that." The chunky maintenance chief shook himself like a bull terrier while snow cascaded from his clothing. "Nothing wrong with taking things easy. After all, we didn't expect you to come down and shovel."
Only the first officer and captain were in the cockpit. Patroni remembered hearing that the flight engineer had gone with the stewardesses and passengers to the terminal.
The captain, a heavy-set, swarthy man who resembled Anthony Quinn, swiveled around in his port-side seat. He said stiffly, "We have our job to do. You have yours." His English was precise.
"That's right," Patroni acknowledged. "Only trouble is, our job gets fouled up and added to. By other people."
"If you are speaking of what has happened here," the captain said, "Madre de Dios!---you do not suppose that I placed this airplane in the mud on purpose."
"No, I don't." Patroni discarded his cigar, which was maimed from chewing, put a new one in his mouth, and lit it. "But now it's there, I want to make sure we get it out---this next time we try. If we don't, the airplane'll be in a whole lot deeper; so will all of us, including you." He nodded toward the captain's seat. "How'd you like me to sit there and drive it out?"
The captain flushed. Few people in any airline talked as casually to four-stripers as Joe Patroni.
"No, thank you," the captain said coldly. He might have replied even more unpleasantly, except that at the moment he was suffering acute embarrassment for having got into his present predicament at all. Tomorrow in Mexico City, he suspected, he would face an unhappy, searing session with his airline's chief pilot. He raged inwardly: Jesucristo y por la amor de Dios!
"There's a lotta half-frozen guys outside who've been busting their guts," Patroni insisted. "Getting out now's tricky. I've done it before. Maybe you should let me again."
The Aereo-Mexican captain bridled. "I know who you are, Mr. Patroni, and I am told that you are likely to help us move from this bad ground, where others have failed. So I have no doubt that you are licensed to taxi airplanes. But let me remind you there are two of us here who are licensed to fly them. It is what we are paid for. Therefore we shall remain at the controls."
"Suit yourself." Joe Patroni shrugged, then waved his cigar at the control pedestal. "Only thing is, when I give the word, open those throttles all the way. And I mean all the way, and don't chicken out."
As he left the cockpit, he ignored angry glares from both pilots.
Outside, digging had stopped; some of the men who had been working were warming themselves again in the crew buses. The buses and other vehicles---with the exception of the power cart, which was needed for starting engines---were being removed some distance from the airplane.
Joe Patroni closed the forward cabin door behind him and descended the ramp. The foreman, huddled deeper than ever into his parka, reported, "Everything's set."
Remembering his cigar was still lighted, Patroni puffed at it several times, then dropped it into the snow where it went out. He motioned to the silent jet engines. "Okay, let's light up all four."
Several men were returning from the crew bus. A quartet put their shoulders to the ramp beside the aircraft and shoved it clear. Two others responded to the foreman's shout against the wind, "Ready to start engines!"
One of the second pair stationed himself at the front of the aircraft, near the power cart. He wore a telephone headset plugged into the fuselage. The second man, with flashlight signal wands, walked forward to where he could be seen by the pilots above.
Joe Patroni, with borrowed protective head pads, joined the crewman with the telephone headset. The remainder of the men were now scrambling from the sheltering buses, intent on watching what came next.
In the cockpit, the pilots completed their checklist.
On the ground below, the crewman with the telephone set began the jet starting ritual. "Clear to start engines."
A pause. The captain's voice. "Ready to start, and pressurize the manifold."
From the power cart blower, a stream of forced air hit the air turbine starter of number three engine. Compressor vanes turned, spun faster, whined. At fifteen percent speed, the first officer