Thomson Burtis

“ Marston was still standing as if concrete had set in his backbone.
“Sit down, Major,” I told him, and I’ll swear the “Major” just slipped out naturally.
He relaxed, but did not subside on the tool chest next to him. His eyes, which popped out so far they could have been knocked off with a stick, met mine steadily. We had instinctively hated each other, I think, from the first time we met.
“Well, this is a rather peculiar situation, Marston,” I told him as I ignited a cheroot. “The man that tried to break me is now under me.”
“And about to be broken himself,” Marston interrupted me. ”

“ Around and around that little slab of green we circled, getting altitude while Fernald, down below, alternately waved and then shook his head. Funny how the Air Service likes to kid by pretending to be sure a man’s going to be killed every time he goes up.
Cleveland is a funny town from the air. It’s very long, along the lakefront, and very thin the other way. It sprawls like a fat worm on the ground. A veritable network of railroads run out of it toward the south, so I set a compass course, synchronized my two motors, read the dizzying array of instruments, and settled back to watch Marston. ”

“ A Martin Bomber is quite a sight in the air, trundling along like an aerial lumber wagon. It’s so heavy that it’s fairly stable, and after one gets off the ground the wheel handles so easily a baby could work it, so I watched the other ship and flew my huge craft automatically. ”

“ Any man who became a flying cadet had his mind set on flying, and George William Marston was the nastiest, meanest obstacle in the way I had ever come across. He gave an order in a way that made it sound like an insult. And he seemed to take delight in rubbing our noses, particularly mine, in the dirt and then trying to discharge us if we objected to the smell. Of course, my nose was unduly prominent. Gents, he sure rode me into the ground.
“I’ll be your flight commander all summer,” I told the congregation. “You can go now—you two. I want to converse in private with Sergeant Marston.” ”

“ We wanted to cross the towering Cumberlands of West Virginia early, before it got hot and the cañons and rivers and woods and rocks made the air too bumpy.
Early as we were, however, a parade of cars followed us out. The residents of Boundville considered eleven A. M. the middle of the night, and four was the fashionable breakfast hour. As our Ford bumped into the field, leading a miscellaneous collection of vehicles, I spotted Marston reclining in his blankets under a wing. ”

“ The wrinkles between his black, bushy brows were deeper than ever, and his face was so sullen it was black.
“One thing more I desire to converse with you about, Marston,” I went on after my temper was in control. “Captain Lawton implied to me that you were a good mechanic.”
“You’re —— right, I’m a good mechanic.”
“My job is to ferry Martin Bombers from Cleveland to Langham for the next month. Want to be my mechanic? I’m not asking you for the pleasure of your company, you may be sure, but you’re supposed to be the best motor man in the squadron.” ”

“ Finally he’d concentrated on the Air Service, and had been submitting to McCook Field all sorts of things from a motor run by gun powder to an automobile that turned into a ship, wings sprung out, a propeller attached to the front of the motor, and all that. Naturally, all his stuff was infinitely ridiculous. If you don’t believe how many crack-brained inventors there are who submit perpetual motion machines and all that, ask an official of any big company, or the patent office. ”

“ A queer look leaped into his eyes, a sort of calculating gleam, as it were.
“Don’t get excited, Marston,” Fernald advised him in his equable way. “You weren’t supposed to stay up all night, anyway, with the ship after the usual sightseers had left. Nobody’s hurt much. Don’t lose your shirt or go wild.”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled the sergeant, and relapsed into his brooding.
When we reached shore I gave the orders.
“Go to town with Bailey, Marston, and get a doctor for him. Both of you go to bed at the hotel. You’re still feeling bad. My orders are that you spend the day in bed.” ”

“ He knows that these bombing tests are going to make or break not only the American Air Service, but every other Air Service as well, doesn’t he? If we sink battleships, we’re pretty near the first line of defense, aren’t we, and even Congress can see that we’ve got to grow into a big boy, can’t they? And in order to carry bombs big enough to even have a chance to sink ships we’ve got to have plenty of Martin Bombers, haven’t we? And if the Martin factory put out four bombers a week, which is all they can do, right up to the time of the tests we won’t have more than enough, will we? ”

“ Les and I, like fleas on elephants’ backs, set our course from Dayton to a bit south of the airline to make sure. When we sighted the wide, sluggish-looking Ohio we simply flew up the stream until the field at Boundville came in sight.
It’s somewhat of a trick to land a Martin, because you’ve got two motors to handle, the ship is so heavy that it settles rapidly, and the pilot’s cockpit is about ten feet above the ground. That makes leveling off a foot above the ground a bit difficult, at first. ”

“ In many cases it isn’t even guarded at all over night. Who’d want to tamper with an airplane? In moonshine country, or among people who have any possible reason for wanting to harm a ship or a flyer, careful guard is kept, of course. But ordinarily not any more than enough to guard a car.
Well, while the Secret Service men were snooping around Boundville and Cleveland, Marston, Fernald, a new mechanic named Gray, shipped on from Langham, and went back to Cleveland to bring the next shipment through. ”

“ The Martin factory was heavily guarded, of course. The newspaper stories had been carefully taken care of; just a small item explaining my wreck as due to motor failure, and Fernald’s as the result of a sharp downward current of air over the cool water, which is scientifically possible. No word of the filed wires had got about, nor any connection between the fires and the wrecks. Every laborer under suspicion, by the way, had proved an alibi; which, in a manner of speaking, strengthened the case against Marston. ”

“ You’ve pulled off a few good flying stunts, but you’re not a soldier and never will be. And by —— if you think I’m going to lick your boots because you, a young squirt who never had any responsibility about him, is an officer and I’m only a sergeant——”
“Pull in your neck, Marston; you’re stretching it,” I advised him. “You’d better thank your lucky stars that I’m not going to try to get even with you for what you put me through. I’m a flyer now, but I can still look back at the months when I was bound up in the effort to get to be a flyer, and the stuff you put me through. ”

“ It meant plenty for the Air Service if they could prove that they could fly a hundred miles or so out to sea and bother a navy. And when one gets down to hardpan, every flyer I ever knew has a certain pride in his corps which is seldom equaled and never surpassed in any organization I know, from the Independent Order of Odd Fellows to the Queen’s Own Royal Mounted Sussex Fusileers, which organization acts as bodyguard to the Prince of Wales, I understand, and have heavy casulaties daily as men die of heart failure, trying to follow him around. ”

“ The pilot’s cockpit, with two seats side by side in it, is set a bit forward of the wings, about on a line with the two propellers in front of the motors. Ahead of the pilot’s cockpit, in the very nose of the ship, is an observer’s cockpit, equipped with bomb-sights, glass in the flooring to look down through, bomb releases, and about a thousand other things with technical names as long as your arm, or even as long as mine, which is considerably lengthy. ”

“ After fanning a while I found out that my teammate in trips from Cleveland to Langham would be Les Fernald. We’d ferry two ships at a time.
“You’ll be in command of Flight Three of the squadron, Slim, after the ships get here and the boys come in. At present that flight’s got one sergeant first class in charge, and two mechanics. Later it’ll have four sergeants, meaning one crew chief apiece for the ships, and eight mechanics. Your flight sergeant is Marston, a good man, although peculiar. Better stroll down and get acquainted with him, eh? ”

“ One ship was ready to ramble when we got there, and it had machine-guns installed in the front observer’s cockpit and also in the radio compartment in the rear of the bomb space. They had been shipped from Dayton, at my suggestion, to help guard the ships if necessary. I wired Washington, and was ordered to proceed with one ship and let Les follow when the second one was completed. Time was getting very precious, there were only two Martins at Langham, and practise must start very soon. Already the brigade would be four ships short—four fewer two-thousand pounders to help sink our battleship. ”

“ Any farmers around would have known nothing whatever about such technical matters, and guns can not be heard above the roar of motors.
On my way back to Langham, and for several hours before I started, I had a good chance to think over all that Marston had done. Desperately wounded as he was, he had had to climb from his cockpit over into mine, get the ship under control from the seat alongside me, leaning over to grasp the wheel, and then unbuckle my belt and heave me out of my seat. ”

“ And if we don’t get Martins the tests will be off, won’t they. And before the world we’ll be labeled an unreliable branch of the Service, ships uncertain, can’t even get them a few hundred miles to Langham, to say nothing of being sure they’d ever get a hundred miles out to sea to drop bombs.
“Suppose Marston has become so bitter that he’s off his nut a little, and wants to crab the Air Service every way. If he could burn down the Martin factory the tests would be off, wouldn’t they? ”

“ Between measuring, getting my arm back and smacking him he had time enough to light a cigaret and smoke it, but he was too weak and blind and dazed and whatever else a man is when he’s out on his feet, even to block it. Maybe he didn’t see it. Anyway, he saw stars a minute later.
He lay on the floor, unable to move but not mentally out. I parked myself on a tool chest, and devoted my exclusive attention to inhaling large gobs of air into my laboring lungs. ”

“ II All of which more or less accounts for the fact that I, Slim Evans in person, was ensconced on the edge of Chesapeake Bay three days later. Langham Field is in the commonwealth of Virginia with the bay bounding one edge of it. All around it on the other sides there are marshes and estuaries and swamps and puddles and so forth.
The mosquitoes have a formal review each night, and march and countermarch up and down any face within reach. Every once in a while there comes an order for them to take careful aim and fire. ”

“ He knew the hour we were to start, and we had sent a man out to him with a vacuum bottle full of coffee and half a dozen buttered rolls for his breakfast. The messenger was standing alongside his car, smoking a cigaret.
I galloped over to George William, followed in order by Les and Bailey. Marston should have had the canvas covers off motors and cockpits, and everything ready for the warmup.
“Sorry to disturb your rest, Marston,” I told him as we came within a few feet of him. “It’s a shame to get you up before noon, but you can get your beauty sleep back at Langham.” ”

“ I told Lawton I’d take Marston for mechanic, and next day travel orders for Lieutenants Evans and Fernald, and Sergeants Marston and Bailey arrived in our respective boxes. The evening of the second day following Fernald and I met our non-coms at the Martin factory in Cleveland for a look-see at the ships.
III You’ve probably heard heard of Les Fernald. He was on the round-the-world flight. He was a powerful, well-built chap of medium height with a pair of steady eyes, a nice smile, and the ability to fly a big ship about as well as it is given to man or beast to do anything. ”

“ You are here a month and a half before the hundred-odd picked veterans of the service arrive to commence practising for the bombing tests. The reason for your orders is that we want you as a ferry pilot. Your job will be to commute between here and Cleveland, Ohio, where the Martin factory is located, flying a new twin-motored Martin bomber to Langham each trip. ”

“ As I was turning for the take-off Les, with Bailey beside him, gave his ship the guns. It roared away across the field, and in a moment his steady pressure on the wheel had the tail up. I waited, in order to give the air, which would be badly scrambled by the wash of two propellers, a chance to clear a bit. I set my goggles, jazzed each motor a bit, and shoved the two throttles all the way on just as Les left the ground.
In a Martin there is no obstruction to your view, the motors being to each side of you. It took all my strength, pushing against the wheel, to get the tail up. ”

“ The fact of the matter was that a wealthy, gentle, gray-haired old nut inventor—a man who’d evidently gone crazy trying to get a perpetual motion machine or something like that—was really responsible for the whole thing. ”

“ I agreed to this without reservation.
“The big ship squadron will be the 114th to which you’ll be assigned immediately. Captain Lawton in command. It’s just a skeleton squadron until the other flyers arrive, of course. Report to him immediately. Just one thing more, Evans.”
I knew something was coming. Major Lamb was always full of good advice and uplifting thoughts.
“I have never served in the same outfit with you. However, your reputation is that of a flyer who gets where he’s going by hook or crook, but that as an officer you are somewhat lax and careless. ”