Richard Howells Watkins

“ He promises nothing—the Tennant Flying Circus promises nothing—but watch him fly! He’s wild—wild—wild! Watch him fly! He’s as crazy as our passenger-carrying pilots are sane; he’s reckless as they are careful! He’s a cuckoo among eagles! Horn will now take the air and show you how not to fly a ship. No other Tennant plane will leave the ground while Horn is in the air. ”

“ What fog can do to a ship is nothing compared to what fog can do to a plane. There is no stopping for a plane. It must keep on—on—on or fall.
Jerry looked down, behind the lower wing and then, as if following backward with his eyes some feature of the ground, turned farther and contrived to get a glimpse at his choleric partner without looking at him directly. He became aware, with a sudden jolt in his chest, that one of Beak’s hands trailed over the side of the ship and that the hand clutched a flat, pint-size flask. ”

“ The day arrived when an offer came from the Baychester Fair for a stunt-flying, wing-walking, parachute-dropping exhibition. The three partners grasped it eagerly. Stunting a ship, walking around on wings and fuselage with a desert of space under you and dropping overboard with only thin silk between you and the next world are all hazardous propositions, but not nearly so hazardous as consistently going without food. ”

“ Snarling like an unwilling beast, the ship surged ahead and, at the pressure of King’s hand on the control stick, leaped into the air. The motor was hot and the field—part of the broad Hempstead plain that makes Long Island popular among airmen—was flat and free from obstacles. King did not bother to go after altitude; with thirty-six inches of air between his landing wheels and the ground, he started work. He had a reputation to sustain and a pay check to earn.
Giving her all the gas she would take, he set her on end. One wing cut toward earth. ”

“ He kept his head well up above the windshield, alert for any vagrant breeze on either cheek that would tell him the ship was not flying straight ahead. By the feel of the wind and the sound of the wires he kept the ship in a glide —as slow a glide as he dared. He checked every impulse to move the stick. When he did move it, he did so very slightly, much less than he felt was necessary. He kept one hand near the jackknife.
Through the dark whiteness the murmuring ship glided on. There was nothing to see, but Jerry’s vigilance grew more and more painfully intense. His eyes ached. ”

“ She had said that she could stand fools better than she could stand men who played the fool. Played the fool! Well, in a way that was just. He hadn’t thought of it in that way, but certainly a man who could fly a ship with the best of them was a fool when he flew like a crazy kid or a drunken sot. And yet, he had been the exhibition pilot for this circus not for the applause or the notoriety or the money in it, but simply because none of the other pilots were so adept at the stick or in the least eager for the job. ”

“ Walt Tennant demanded. “How many customers would come near this circus if they thought they might draw you to take ’em for a ride? You—a man that’s crashed or cracked thirteen ships! How long would I have a circus, do you suppose?”
King Horn was stunned by this volley of questions. He had never doubted his own ability as a pilot and none of the other airmen, he knew, had ever denied his skill at the stick. He had proved that often enough and in ways that no other pilot would follow. But the public—he saw Tennant’s point. ”

“ Jim Tyler opened the throttle full, and thrust the stick forward for a steep glide. The elevators responded. They had been unhurt by the lashing parachute. The nose of the plane turned earthward; its speed increased.
The sudden catastrophe had come before Burt Minster had gone over the side. He drew back in the cockpit and stared over at the figure of Del O’Connell, dragging behind the plane by the precarious strength of a few unsevered shroud lines. ”

“ Jerry stirred, as if under the lash of a whip. Nevertheless, he showed a placating grin. It was always possible that Beak had run into some particularly bad liquor and that he could be kidded out of his fit of temper.
“What’s the matter, Beak?” Jerry inquired. “Did another race horse sit down on you? You ought to stick to flying. Betting on races is risky.” ”

“ It was how Winship, the great financier and keen judge of men had entrusted his life and his associates’ lives to an unknown pilot merely on his looks.
It told of a mechanic’s blunder and the pilot’s desperate and successful fight to save his passengers in the closed cabin from death by a crash landing or by drowning in the bay.
And it concluded:
The man who stood upright upon the wing of a pilotless plane and snatched fuel from the sky, saving lives with a mixture of courage and skill that would be hard to find even among transport pilots, was King Horn. ”

“ Meeting Jerry’s inquiring eye, Beak gripped the stick angrily and shook it about. The plane reeled in the air and Jerry was rattled about among the baggage. He snapped on his safety belt and ignored the man behind.
“He’ll be making me shine those puttees and slapping my hand with a ruler,” he mumbled in deep discomfiture. “But he can’t shake me loose from this ship.”
Jerry sank back into the cockpit again and stared at the sky. Cross-country flying has its thrills, but it also has its monotony when indulged in too frequently. ”

“ LIVES was what the morning paper shouted to the city at large, and the growing clientele shriveled like a violet on a griddle, and the bank account was not slow in following it. Of course Del O’Connell hadn’t fallen an inch; he had merely glided down without motor ”

“ The truth does not belong in an argument. This theory of their conduct was drowned in a combined shout of protest, but Del O’Connell was a bit faster on the tongue than Burt.
“I’ll make that first jump; I’ve got to!” he cried, springing to his feet and thumping a quick fist on the parachute packs. “You can’t trust this fellow, and if he bungles it, we’re gone!”
“I’ll not bungle it,” retorted Burt Minster stubbornly. “And as for nerve, I’ve more nerve than he has language, which is some.”
Jim Tyler slumped wearily against the side wall of the shack and waited for the argument to subside. ”

“ And now he was in love—had realized he was in love—with Lyle. That made him Frank Cross’ rival.
“Lyle did,” he said frankly. “She called me worse than a fool. And—well, I found out somehow that I cared about what she thought of me.”
Cross nodded. “All right,” he said emotionlessly. “I understand. I can’t suppress your crash. Thousands of people saw it. You’re noted for that sort of thing. It’s news. Can’t suppress it. But I’ll say you’ve quit.”
Syd Scoggins, second in command of the circus, and a flying man himself, came up to them.
“King’s quit, Scoggins,” Franklin Cross told him. ”

“ Beak shouted, passing Jerry a dirty map of the southern New England states.
Jerry nodded and as they taxied out on the field he took a squint at the amount of country between them and Pittsfield. It was a long way to go with the sun beginning to incline toward the horizon. He glanced up at the sky. A few stray cumulus clouds were heading westward at a perceptible rate. That meant they would have a brisk easterly cross wind most of the way northward. Winds mean something in an old and underpowered ship. ”

“ Del O’Connell, with a quick spring, brought his other foot up out of the cockpit and, clinging with his hands, crouched on the edge of the fuselage. His legs bent more sharply for the leap that would carry him far out into space.
But just then the eyes of Jim Tyler caught a sudden flash of white from the pack on Del’s back. The next instant the great silken parachute whipped out of its confining envelop. Del’s rip-cord had fouled on something inside the cockpit, and his eager jump to the rim had jerked it. ”

“ He caught a taxi and drove to the field which the Grand Trunk Airway had leased. There was nobody around the hangars but three disgruntled mechs.
“The big boss will be down for a hop tomorrow,” one grease monkey told him. “Nothin’ doing around here today. No orders or nothin’. We only got one ship anyhow—a three-motor job—an’ no organization. This here airway is hind end to.”
That afternoon King tried another barnstorming circus, two air schools, a plane-building company and an outfit that did a growing aerial-taxi business. Everybody was glad to see King Horn. ”

“ He dragged himself toward the nose of the ship. The prop was a splintered stump. But the motor looked good—pretty good. It takes more than a nose-over to ruin a chunk of metal.
He felt his ribs gingerly.
“I've got something gone in there,” he reckoned. “But I guess I’m a pilot now—and in about a month I’ll have a ship—my own ship. That hunch worked fine. I'm a pilot now.”
He looked at the plane and his mind was busy with the thought of a box splice for a broken spar of the lower right wing.
“Poor Beak!” he muttered. “He should ha’ stuck.” ”

“ Del O’Connell’s eyes glinted.
“’Tis not a bad idea at all,” he admitted, and looked upon Burt Minster with less rancor. “I like it fine.”
“Wait a minute,” interposed Jim Tyler. “You mean you’ll both jump, and let yourselves fall a quarter of a mile or more? Why, that’s the craziest—”
“And the man who pulls his rip-cord last wins, for he’ll land first,” Del O’Connell explained. “As good a test of nerve as ever I heard of.”
“Well, you can fly yourselves, then, for I’ll not have a hand in it,” Jim Tyler announced firmly. “It isn’t necessary for you two to kill yourselves to prove you’re fools. ”

“ Beak growled.
Jerry did not answer him. It was up to the pilot now.
“Crazy! Dumb! Gi’ me the ’chute! Get set to take control! Crazy! Hurry up!”
Hastily Jerry worked at the buckles. He felt only like a man easing himself of a burden. Finally he wormed out of the harness. He passed it and the ’chute pack carefully back to Beak. Then, steadying the ship with his own stick, he waited silently, sensing every move of the struggle Beak made in getting into the straps.
“Here’s the money, too, Beak,” he called, leaning down the fuselage and groping for the other man’s hand. ”

“ Tennant,” said Franklin Cross sharply. He seemed thinner, more insignificant than ever as he turned his white, wrathful face on the tall boss of the circus.
“Losing a pilot is all in the game, Frank,” King Horn interposed, flashing his quick smile upon his ruffled friend. “Nobody’d kick about one less—the sky is crawling with ’em.”
King handed over the fire extinguisher to a mechanic.
“She isn’t apt to flame up now,” he told the man. Nodding to the others, he added: “I’ll be moving up to the shack to get Miss Lyle to put some soothing sirup on this scratch.” ”

“ Tyler broke in hastily. “And when I nod, jump! One from each side. And jump hard, so you’ll clear the tail.”
“Right,” assented Del O’Connell eagerly, and Burt Minster nodded agreement.
The infield was clear at last. With a final glance at the fastenings of their harness and the rip-cords that would release the parachutes, the two men silently climbed into the rear cockpit. They wedged themselves into the narrow seat. Then both turned automatically and studied the direction and force of the wind, as revealed by the whipping flags on the grandstand.
Jim Tyler gave the ship the throttle. ”

“ Training the extinguisher, he sent spurt after spurt of fire-killing liquid on the hot exhaust pipe. He was still at this when Franklin Cross, pale of face, big Walt Tennant, the boss of the circus, and a wave of pilots and mechanics reached him.
“That was a quick one,” Walt Tennant commented. The circus boss inspected his pilot and his plane with the same equanimity. The wreckage did not distress him, for he knew that the story which Franklin Cross and other newspaper men would write would bring greater crowds to his field in the days to come. ”