Hugh McAlister

“ Down on the Rand-Elwin field a host of students and visitors watched that ship of the air. Its pilot was Hal Dane. For a space he cradled along, a mere speck gently floating up there in the immensity of the ether. Then like a mad thing his ship began to fall, rolling and twisting and turning. At impossible angles it came to life, righted itself to spring upward—only to fall into worse dilemmas. Now he was diving, only two hundred feet above earth, and flying upside down. On the verge of crash, and in an agonizing slow roll, the ship slid back into normal flying position. ”

“ I’ve been seeing a dream picture in the sky; it’s the dream city all our artists have been painting ever since the Wrights flew their first plane off Kill Devil Hill. In this pictured city-to-be, airplane terminals are built right upon the roofs of high down-town buildings; every little home has its private landing field upon its own rooftop; big planes, little planes swoop straight up without ever a wasted acre of runway. Until this minute, we have never been an inch nearer that marvelous goal than we were twenty-seven years ago. Suddenly you open up a new world in aviation. ”

“ Wedged between some spruce sticks under a stretch of cloth, Hal was off on his motorless flight.
When on the ground this contraption of wood and wires had seemed an ungainly, waddling freak. But now as it soared upward on air currents in its sky-element, it swooped with a marvel of grace.
Instead of a short flight and a mere slide down a wind hill, the boy began to twist and turn to take advantage of every rising current of air so as to ascend to a greater height than that from which he had started. ”

“ Then towards morning nature seemed to soften and grow milder. The wind sank to a breeze. Stars came out just before the darkness lifted for the first pale pearl-gray of dawn. A rose glow spread till the whole horizon seemed aflame.
It was glorious here, high above the earth, but as Hal turned his eyes downward a dreadful view met his eyes. Dismay shot through him.
Had his famous compass failed him? Had winds driven him far off his track? Had he crossed the whole length of Alabama and the top of Florida to go drifting like a derelict above the Gulf of Mexico? ”

“ As Hal pushed farther in this direction than he had been before, he constantly came upon sights that taxed his every sympathy. Many times he saw the bodies of men, women and children floating with the current. With a sinking heart, he swept low over those sightless faces turned toward the sky—searching, searching, but he had not found them yet. Numberless dead animals drifted down with the flood. Shattered homes rocked to and fro on the pull of currents, followed often by a welter of broken furniture,—chairs, a baby carriage, a cupboard that had once held dear family possessions. ”

“ Not to rise straight up would mean death—a crashing, roaring piece of machinery battering against walls.
If only there had been a chance to try this tower out! But there had been no chance for anything, no chance to think, even.
With doom upon him, the young flyer slid into the cockpit of the squat, heavy plane.
Whir of motor, crazy tipping and swaying of the machine—then the thrill of power rushing into Hal Dane’s veins. She was rising. She was answering his prayer. She was superbird, four walls could not prison her. ”

“ As spring came on, Hal went from ground work back again into air flight. He found the routine of flying tests easy, because the inner workings of engine mechanics seemed etched on his very brain. The feel of wings stirred him, roused all the old wild exhilaration of flight. And yet he was more critical of air machinery than in the past. Where before he had been vastly satisfied with the mechanisms of man-flight, he now caught himself wondering continually why man had not made his machines the better to withstand certain shocks that were bound to come in any flying routine. ”

“ A few moments later, Hal had become one of the many aviators whose planes circled over the heaving waste of flood waters. At low altitude roared these scout planes. Keen-eyed as hawks, the flying men sought continually for groups marooned on ridges or housetops. In answer to their radio messages flung into the ether, the rescue steamers churned far and wide across the yellow tide, hauling bargeloads of silent, stupefied people snatched from their perilous retreats. ”

“ It was a desperate chance. Wiljohn might be going to any of a hundred places. Even if they sighted a ship and tailed it into Clanton, it might prove to be any of the thousands of sky craft that filled the air these days.
Still it was the only clew they had. They could follow it blindly—that was all.
Twenty-three miles from the Rand-Elwin Field to Clanton! With its newer speed and power, the big ship could make it in say nine-tenths of their own flying time. A mere fraction of time, a few moments out of all eternity! Yet those few moments could spell death to three unwarned passengers. ”

“ He would force dark thoughts out of his mind. There must only be room in his plans for hope.
He sent the throttle up a notch. More speed! His heart caught the lift of power from the throbbing motor. Exultation, and the wild spirit of the Vikings surged through his veins. His Norse ancestors had crossed an ocean in a frail sea skiff. And now he, like some atom adrift in the immense wastes of the sky, was daring the air currents on man-made wings. Hal Dane felt a thrill of power and glory shoot through him. It was speed on to whatever the end was, to death, or to victory! ”

“ Hal came to the bed.
“Did you ever fly a sky bus before?” questioned Raynor.
“Not—not a real plane,” answered Hal. “I’ve got books and—”
“Boy,” said Raynor, reaching out his good hand and pulling him close, “boy, you’re a wonder. You brought us down alive—in the night. More’n some trained pilots can do. Wing sense must have been born in you. And say,” Raynor’s brows drew up fiercely again, “get that pay idea off your chest. I owe you more than you owe me. If you hadn’t been a plucky youngster to go up with me and bring down my wind bus by book learning, I’d—I’d have crashed to a dead one. ”

“ A thrill shot through Hal Dane, lifting the great weariness of the forty hours’ continuous flying. Aches and chill and battering of storms were forgotten now that the fight was ending. He had done what he had set out to do—crossed the greatest of the oceans in a single non-stop flight.
His fingers began to tap an incessant query on his sending-radio outfit, “Landing field? Landing field? Landing field?”
And suddenly he was in touch with answers winging their way up to him from the ground below—“Tokio Asahi! Tokio Asahi!” Over and over he got those two words—“Tokio Asahi!” ”

“ No time for any rest for himself, no time for any preliminary testing of the splendid new gyroscope plane fresh from the skids of the Wiljohn factory. All he could do was give a thorough ground inspection of every part of this strange mechanism of flight that he had conceived, and that the Wiljohn factories had developed with the utmost care. There it stood—short, fixed wings, sturdy, black-enameled body, a silvered whirl of gyroscope wings above the fuselage. The strangest looking creation for flight man had ever invented! ”

“ Wind bird, indeed! To the uninitiated, this cloth contraption stretched on hay-bale wire and sprucewood sticks, hauled out of its lair on its screakily protesting keel skid, looked more like some waddling antediluvian from the prehistoric past.
But Rex Raynor seemed to find nothing comical in the wind bird. Her slow progress while being dragged to the brow of Hogback Hill gave him a chance to study her every line. To an aviator used to the exquisite finish and polish of a modern factory-built sky boat, Hal’s contraption offered a contrast of a rather sketchy aircraft fuselage. ”

“ But a flying-man’s instinct, not conscious thought, set his hands to fumbling the safety belt, to feeling for the ring of his parachute cord. Instinct freed him, sent him climbing to the edge to step off into space.
Things happen swiftly in the air. The ship had already fallen a thousand feet while her pilot rode her down in his dazed condition. But even now it was still some three thousand feet up—more than half a mile above earth. As Hal leaped out, he looked back over his shoulder to see in what direction the stripped fuselage was heading. ”

“ High, and higher, till the air pressure sang heavily against his brain. Here in the heights the lure of still another adventure was calling him—the adventure of invention. The world was waiting for that—waiting for man to pit his brain against the dangers of the great ethereal upper strata. Man must conquer air heights as he had conquered earth heights.
It was a new Hal Dane that came down from this sky flight. He was no longer a boy, satisfied with clowning above a carnival in an air machine. ”

“ And his the Viking sky boat that first dared the fierce gale of the wind path!
The gale he was riding gathered power. His speedometer mounted erratically, jerking up records of additional fives and tens of miles. Ten—twenty, thirty—four hundred and forty miles per hour.
A curious vibration of his engine startled him. But he drove away all thoughts of danger. The mileage was a magnet that held his eyes. Speed, speed! Riding high and fast! The sky was his height limit. He was reeling off a record. He must hold to it, must speed on.
Riding higher and faster than any human since creation! ”

“ Even as his ancestors in frail boats rode the currents of the sea to seek a far continent, so was the Norse blood in his veins urging him on to ride the rivers of the wind on some far exploration.
In the end, Colonel Wiljohn gave down before Hal Dane’s adamant decision.
“Boy,” he said, “you win! Fly the safety model for me at the Onheim Contest, and I’ll build you the finest plane ever sent out on an ocean flight—but I fear that ocean flight like death.” ”

“ A dreadful restlessness urged Hal Dane back into his scout plane. A new savage energy drove him with the feeling that he must work till he dropped. He must be too tired to think. Thoughts were dangerous. The news that already at Oakland airport, across the bay from San Francisco, planes were lining up to compete in the Pacific race, stirred him terribly, shook the iron control that he had fought to preserve.
As soon as weather conditions permitted, a dozen planes would be off on the great flight—and his plane would not be among them! ”

“ That jagged pine, that spur of the hill—it was somewhere between these that the plane had crashed.
Next moment the boy was on the ground and cranking up his old truck like one possessed. As it roared into life, he swung aboard and let her out for all she was worth. In the case of a human pinned under wreckage in horrible certainty of fire or suffocation, speed of rescue must mean the saving of life. So down the woods road shot Hal, his ancient truck gallantly riding roots and ruts and snorting to the charge with a backfire like gattling guns. ”

“ As soon as he landed at the far-stretching, smooth acres of the Rand-Elwin Field, bounded by hangars, barracks, instruction halls, he had passed the inspection of Mr. Rand at the office, inspection of short, dark, imperturbable Major Weston, primary instructor, passed test-inspection for every ailment in the world—or so it had seemed.
Hal had to undergo examination for heart action, and short-sightedness, and color blindness, and sense of balance and equilibrium. He was thumped and spun and eye-tested till he began to imagine that he really must have some outlandish physical defects. ”

“ For the second flight, loaded with all the weight that an ocean flyer needs must bear, the Wind Bird labored somewhat in the rise, found her speed more slowly. That initial slowness was a thing that had to be borne with. Compensation would come in the continuous quickening of speed as each hour of flight burned up its quota of fuel, and, degree by degree, lifted the weight.
For two days of rain, Hal continued his tests. In between periods of work he flung himself down to sleep like a log, letting nature repair the nerve strain of that long nightmare of flood rescue work. ”

“ Hal Dane would fly a real plane—make real money. His vision traveled fast. Mother should have everything. No more bending over “taken-in” sewing with weariness pains lacing her bent back and lines deepening in her face. Uncle Tel should have all the pipes, all the books he wanted. They’d do over the old house, renovate it back to its former two-storied elegance, paint, flowers—he’d—the dream circled back on itself and began all over again at airships, Hal Dane aviator!
Hal slid down off the saw bench. He’d write the letter to Rand-Elwin—now. ”

“ With an effort, Hal forced his mind away from morbid thoughts. He concentrated on his maps and instruments. Already, he had come over two thousand miles. With every whir of his motor he was ticking off more miles. A great longing rose in him to ride the high air currents once again, that would mean real speed. But he dared not risk his plane another time in the icy grip of the stratosphere. He had wracked the engine enough already. Another such battle with the ice sheath and with over-speed might tear the motor bodily from the machine. ”