Thomson Burtis

“ Kennedy’s eyes were flat and green and cold, his lips drawn back in the suspicion of a smile, and he looked as close to cruelty incarnate as I care to gaze upon. And hard—gosh!
“I’ll do no such thing. And you get just exactly three days to wind up your little affair with Shirley, or I start talking. You can start at the same time, and be damned to you! But we’ll both go down together, big boy. You’ll go down farthest. My resignation’ll be in before I start shooting off my mouth; I figure on that.”
For a long ten seconds Kennedy’s unwinking eyes bored into blazing Penoch’s. ”

“ Kennedy threw his cap on the table. His voice softened, and in a wheedling tone he said:
“What’s all this about, Penoch? Good lord, boy, don’t go off half-cocked. I ain’t done nothin’ to Shirley or her old man.”
“Not yet, maybe! Why she ever fell for you, I don’t know; but she has. And if you’ve got any intentions at all, they’re rotten, and I know it. You couldn’t marry her if you wanted to, and if you could and did, she’d break her heart in six months. You’re a natural born crook and you know it. You’re a great guy in some ways; but there isn’t one gram of honesty in your whole body. ”

“ He was six feet two, with a shock of iron-gray hair, a great mustache, and a genial old face tanned to mahogany. He and Mr. Curran had been friends for years and, as we came up on the porch, Mr. Curran yelled in stentorian tones—
“Three new customers, sugar!”
He was tall and thin and bald, with piercing eyes and an aquiline nose, all of which gave him the appearance of a soft-hearted old eagle.
In a moment Shirley came out, bearing three long, cold drinks. Her eyes were on Kennedy. When I saw the smile on her lips and the look in those eyes, I sort of caught my breath. ”

“ Penoch’s hand stabbed out at me.
“I know it. And yet the man is likable in a lot of ways, as you’ll see. Maybe he thinks I owe him plenty. In a lot of ways he defers to me, admires me and likes me. But, as I say, when he gets in any kind of trouble, or wants anything for himself, there isn’t a thing in the world as important as himself. He’d loan me money, if he had it, and he’d sell me into jail for five thousand dollars, if he was broke. The only reason in this world that he’s coming here is to live off of me. ”

“ A force of hundreds of men was just finishing the job of clearing a hundred-foot runway down the hard-packed beach on the outskirts of the town; and it was there, one by one, that we landed, to face haggard, hollow-eyed men, steeped in tragedy.
Much happened during our days at Laguna; but that has nothing to do with Penoch O’Reilly and Ralph Kennedy. Anyway, twenty minutes later we were all back in the air, carrying packages of food and water, put up to float. Each of us had a sector assigned. ”

“ Ten-story buildings had toppled and fallen in ruins, and for a space of at least a square mile, it seemed, there was not even a lane through the wreckage. Try to picture a heap of rubbish, so gigantic that a hundred automobiles, or more, flung upon it looked like so many flies. Dozens of boats, ranging from oil-tankers to canoes, had been flung hundreds of feet inland, like so many children’s toys flung on a dump. ”

“ He must be broke, or a fugitive, or something. He’ll draw his pay, borrow mine, if he needs it, and never pay it back. He’ll take it for granted that I’ll do everything in the world for him. If I refuse, he’ll use the club he has over me without mercy.”
“And he’s a reserve officer,” I ruminated aloud. “Listen, Penoch. You’ve got the goods on him. You can plaster him behind the bars. Why not call his hand and take your chances? You were young, innocent—”
“It would kill the folks,” O’Reilly said steadily, “and the Army and flying right now means a hell of a lot to me. It’s not so easy, Slim.” ”

“ Three airplanes cruised round and round over the ugly water, and not a shark got within our lines. Every second was a strain, for the sharks could come up from below and get Penoch, but they did not. With so much dead meat in the sea, I guess our outfit was entirely too suspicious for them to bother with.
It was ten minutes after dark when Penoch and Kennedy staggered up on the beach. Kennedy collapsed. When I got out of my plane, I was swaying like a rubber lamp-post, and before Penoch had been taken care of and got back, I had eaten and fallen on a cot, fully dressed, but dead to the world. ”

“ My own life hasn’t been so easy. And when a man hits the open road, to lick the world from a standing start, and is thrown with the scum of that same world through necessity, often with starvation stalking at his side, there are bound to be episodes which the smug people of this world, who’ve never missed a meal or had a fight, think damn one to eternity. There are ghosts in the closet of every wanderer that ever lived.
“You think he’s out to do you dirt,” I said finally.
“Not exactly. As a matter of fact, Slim, I think he likes me a lot. But he’s for Number One all the time. ”

“ Curran. I sure hope Shirley won’t take it too hard.”
“She will, for awhile. But when I think o’ what might ’a’ happened if he hadn’t give himself away—say, I ought to be thankful for this night!”
We had no sooner got out the door and into the car than I said:
“Don’t start her for a minute. Penoch, my boy, just how good it was, or ought to be Kennedy with his fingers and a deck of cards?”
“Used to be a wonder!”
“And he deliberately, before five people, does the clumsiest piece of cheating a man ever did in the world! If he’d wanted to be caught, he couldn’t have done it more openly.” ”

“ He played quietly, as did everybody. Every man around that table was a lover of poker and a hater of conversation when the pasteboards were being wooed. Even Shirley had had it bred in the bone, I guess, and never said a word. She tended to the ash receivers, brought us drinks, and finally went out on the porch to throw a ten-minute sop to a boy friend who had called on her.
The game was twenty-dollar take out, table stakes, and either draw or stud, to be played at the option of the dealers. Penoch watched Kennedy like a hawk, and so did I, on general principles. ”

“ I’d pick a hang-over in preference to Penoch any time.”
I guess nobody outside of the men who fly understand what air kidding is. Probably I don’t myself. But in my dumb way I think that it’s like a kid’s whistling when he passes a graveyard, or, perhaps, laughing at the worst that could happen, so that, when it does happen, it won’t mean anything.
When lunch was over, and we were all drifting out of the mess-hall, I suddenly realized that I would like to share, a little bit, those last hours. I’d been so close to the thing that I wanted to hang around the outskirts of it, until Kennedy left. ”

“ He stared straight at Kennedy, and the implication in his statement was plain for me to see. That poker game that night was to include some unscheduled fireworks. Shirley and her father were to hear some hitherto unknown episodes in the lives of Ralph Kennedy and Percival Enoch O’Reilly.
“Fine! A good time’ll be had by all,” Kennedy came back. “You act as though you’d been invited to risk your life, or attend your own funeral. Heh-heh-heh! Didja hear him say that, boys? Peewee don’t think any more of a nickel lost at cards than he does his left eye.” ”

“ McMullen is one of those new, shiny, progressive little Texas cities, where transportation includes cow-ponies and Rolls Royces. It is a mixture of the old and the new. A completely equipped, honest-to-God old cowboy will tie up his horse in front of a store that sells Parisian gowns.
The depot, as always, held a considerable crowd to greet the one daily train from San Antone. No sooner had Penoch guided his panting monster into parking space, and its wheezes and moans died, than a shiny eight-cylinder speedster appeared in the next stall. A feminine voice was yelling:
“Hello, flyers! ”

“ Shows what he is. Hell, I’ve been doing things for him all my life, and he’s willing to blackmail me. Guess I was a damn’ fool back over the Gulf, eh? Well, there’ll be excitement about in a few days, I guess. Better get some sleep tonight. Ho-ho-ho!”
I knew then that he had fully made up his mind, that he’d considered everything, and was ready to go. And when that crisis was passed with Penoch O’Reilly, he feared not man, devil or circumstances. Right at that moment he figured that the Army was a thing of the past and that the world was waiting to be bucked by a man in disgrace. ”

“ The rest of the gang, knowing the entire situation, chimed in with a lot of Air Service kidding, about that last ride, as for instance, Sleepy Spears’ remark:
“Any hop is foolish, and a last one is suicide. You’ve made it sure death by letting Penoch fly you.” ”

“ I was diving my ship, motor full on. There was nothing I could do—Penoch and Kennedy burned to death before my eyes—I was just getting nearer for no reason.
I suppose that it registered on me at the time, because I remember it so vividly now. Penoch told me what was said. Anyway, I saw Kennedy, bearing the brunt of the fire in the front cockpit, turn and gesture. He was talking. I could see through the smoke and fire his lips moving. Penoch told me that what he said was:
“Get out on the wing! I’m not leaving the ship— Let me jump! If Slim sees you, he’ll get close. God! I can’t last long! ”

“ Hardly speaks to anybody. I think he’s afraid some of the rest are wise to him.”
Just then I saw Shirley lean forward, as if to kiss him good-by. He looked around almost furtively and held her off. Mr. Ralph Kennedy, for the moment, was very unsure of his ground. As Penoch and I passed him on our way to our ships, his eyes rested on us for just a moment. They were passionless, but when his face was serious the meanness in it seemed to be intensified. Funny what an effect eyes too close together can give. ”

“ Indomitable, hard-boiled, soft-hearted, he flung his loud, raucous laughter in Kennedy’s face, so to speak, challenging him and the universe in general to get him down.
“Why couldn’t you have talked quietly to Shirley,” I asked him.
“Tried to,” he boomed absently. “She wouldn’t even listen. She’s nuts, I tell you, and the old man likes him. He’s given them a long song and dance about his automobile business in Los Angeles, and all that stuff. If I went to the old man and told him, there’d be hell to pay ”

“ Was a sergeant in the Air Service—in my outfit a lot of the time during the war—and learned to fly then. Got a commission in the reserve when the war was over. He’s a wonderful mechanic, and he can tell interesting yarns.”
“How well can he fly?” demanded Pop truculently. “With these bandits raising hell, and with scarcely enough crates to get flying time in on, we can’t afford to let amateurs spread D.H.’s all over the landscape!”
“Pretty good,” Penoch admitted grudgingly. “He was an automobile race driver at one time, a trick motorcycle artist at another, and all that.” ”

“ On the credit side of nigh on to ten years as a flyer, I can put the fact that I’ve done practically no work, made much more money than I’m worth, have avoided monotony and lived through moments of great excitement, not to say thrills. ”

“ Formation is tricky stuff. You hold your position by throttle-handling alone. There are no brakes on airplanes, as you may have heard. It’s no time to commence mooning upon the whichness of the what, nor the why of the how. You ’tend to your knitting, if you don’t want a collision, and I ’tended to mine plenty. Subsconsciously I noted that Kennedy, at the rear of the left side, was holding his position well. Pretty fair flyer, he was. Penoch was behind me.
In an hour we were on the outskirts of the flood district. ”

“ People who’ve lived long enough and seen enough to comprehend a little bit of the complexity of human beings and the motives which spur them to their daily performances, will never be too hasty in damning a man to his eternal roast. ”

“ The Gulf itself held a scum of débris of all kinds, and its shore, as far as we could see, was a rim of ruins.
I had not seen a single spot where a landing was possible. Kennard had wigwagged his ship, and one by one we fell into single file. Down below, thousands of people—the survivors—had their heads turned upward. Down in the ruins I could see bodies, now, and out in the bay unnumbered corpses were floating.
Suddenly Kennard started down, and then I saw what had been done. There had been other disasters and floods in Texas, when the airplanes had saved lives. Laguna had prepared. ”

“ I know what you think—that because of what I did for him at Laguna he decided to give up Shirley and took that way. But all he had to do was walk out on her, without putting himself in disgrace.”
“Let’s talk to him,” I suggested, and we started immediately to make a new speed record between McMullen and the flying field.
It did seem ridiculous. For what possible reason, short of sheer insanity, would a man brand himself a card-cheat? A man who’d do that would cut off his head to cure an earache. ”

“ My observation of the episode started one steaming July morning in McMullen, Texas. Mr. P. Enoch O’Reilly and myself were members, in good standing, of the McMullen flight of the Air Service Border patrol. There were a dozen flights, consisting of ten or twelve flyers and observers, scattered along the Border from Brownsville to San Diego.
The duty of the blithe young men was to pilot DeHaviland airplanes up and down that squirming trouble area, taking peeks at any little matters such as smuggling, rustling, or a little plain and fancy banditing. ”

“ Down below, flashing along between carcasses of human beings and animals, were what seemed like untold hundreds of fins, cutting the water and feeding on their prey. Six times we swooped low to drop food and water to those poor wretches down below us. ”