Chapter 2

There was something
ruthlessly direct about him--an air of resistless efficiency that was
queerly at variance with his appearance, which inclined rather more
toward being that of a student than a man of physical achievement.

Mutual respect grew in the minds of the flyers and of Graves. He was no
amateur at reading character and estimating men, and he found the airmen
to his liking.

The engineer officer, ordered to use every facility at his command to
expedite the changing of the Martin, said that on the morning of the
second day the ship would be ready for test. At noon it should be ready
to go.

“Good,” said Graves. “I guess we’ve covered everything, gentlemen.
Hinkley and Broughton will attend to gathering the equipment, general,
providing you furnish them proper authority. I will be back about
nine a.m., day after tomorrow. I guess there is no need for me to
emphasize the need for absolute secrecy--you all realize that. If any of
you want to reach me, you can call the Monticello Hotel in Norfolk and
ask for Room 220. Don’t ask for Graves.

“Thank you for your help--I’ll see you day after tomorrow. Good-by until
then.”

With a smile and slight bow, he left.

* * * * *

“Now I wonder just who in ---- he is?” inquired Hinkley as the two
flyers started to walk toward the bachelor quarters.

“Search me, but he’s turning up two thousand a minute, looks like. I
figure I might not mind having him behind me in a scrap of any nature
whatsoever.”

“He’s probably some big agent of the secret service. There’s a lot of
those eggs that pull off big stuff and nobody ever knows it. Take that
Zimmerman note, for instance, during the war. At least, that’s what my
ex-pilot Dumpy Scarth says.”

“Dumpy ought to know,” grinned Broughton. “What do you think of our
coming _soirée_?”

“If I thought, I’d probably never go!”

III.

“I wish I was back in Texas. This muggy heat makes me sweat like ----.”

“Any amount of heat that can wring moisture out of your skin and bones
deserves respect, Larry,” returned Broughton, shifting his body a trifle
so that he could lie more comfortably.

The two men were lying in the shade of an S. E. 5 wing on the line in
front of the Engineering Department hangars.

“Where’s Covington now? By the time he gets through testing that Martin
it’ll have flown twice as far as we’re going to fly it and be all ready
to get out of whack again,” remarked Hinkley, rolling a stem of grass
around in between his lips.

“It’ll be right when we get it though. Did he say it was fully
equipped?”

Hinkley nodded.

“Even our suitcases are in, and artillery enough to equip all the armies
of the allies. That’s the ship now, isn’t it?”

Both men watched the Martin which was gliding majestically over the
hangars on the Western edge of the field. It was wide and squat-looking,
the one motor on each wing with the nose of the observers cockpit
between giving it the impression of a monster with a face. Over seventy
feet of wing-spread, two Liberty motors, weighing nearly five tons with
a full load--it seemed so massive that the idea of flying it would have
been ridiculous to a landsman who had never seen one in the air. There
was none of the lightness and trimness usually associated with
airplanes.

It squatted easily on the ground, the high landing gear thrusting the
nose ten feet in the air as it landed. It came taxying slowly toward the
waiting pilots.

“Ready to go, I see.”

Broughton sat up and Hinkley turned at the sound of Graves’ voice. He
was already in coveralls. The open neck showed the stiff-standing collar
of an army uniform with officers’ insignia on it.

“Yes, sir. And you?”

“Right now. Is there anything more to be done to the ship?”

“Not unless Covington has discovered something in this flight,” replied
Broughton. “A little more gas and oil to make up for what Covey has just
used and we’ll be set.”

Conversation became impossible as the ship rumbled up to the line. Using
first one motor and then the other, depending on which way he wanted to
turn, Covington brought the bomber squarely up to the waiting-blocks.
The attentive ears of the flyers listened closely to the sweet idling of
both motors while Covington waited in the cockpit for the gas in the
carburetors to be used up before cutting his switches.

“Listens well,” stated Hinkley.

Broughton nodded.

“While they’re filling it with gas let’s make sure we understand
everything,” said Graves. “This will probably be our last opportunity to
talk.”

“Let’s see what Covey says first,” suggested Broughton.

The test pilot, a chunky young man with nearly three thousand hours in
the air on over sixty types of ships, assured them briefly that
everything was in apple-pie condition. And when Covington said a ship
was right, few men in the Air Service made even a casual inspection to
verify it.

“We’ll have her filled in five minutes or so. Where in ---- are you
bound, anyway?” he inquired curiously. “You’ve had us flying around here
as busy as “Lamb” Jackson getting ready for a flight.”

This irreverent reference to an officer who flew semi-occasionally to
the accompaniment of enough rushing around on the part of mechanics to
get the whole brigade in the air caused Broughton to grin widely.

“We’re carrying Colonel Graves here to Dayton, and want to be prepared
for a forced landing. There’s a little unrest among the miners, over in
West Virginia, you know.”

“There’ll be more if all that artillery gets into action,” returned
Covington. “Well, good luck. I’ve got to take up this ---- Caproni and
find out----”

* * * * *

A sickening crash made the heads of all four men jerk around it as
though pulled by one string. On the extreme western edge of the field a
mass of smoke with licking flames showing through hid a De Haviland,
upside down.

“Hit those trees with a wing and came down upside down,” came the quiet
voice of Graves. His face was white to the lips.

Covington rushed into the hangar, bound for a telephone. Before he
reached it there came two explosions in rapid succession. Then a
blackened figure, crawling over the ground away from the burning ship.

Neither flyer had spoken. They watched fire engines and ambulances rush
across the field, and saw that horrible figure disappear behind a wall
of men. Came a third explosion.

“Bombs,” said Hinkley.

“Two cadets from the 18th Squadron,” yelled Covington from the hangar
door.

“Tough luck,” said Broughton, his tanned face somber.

Graves, still white, looked at the flyers curiously. In his eyes there
was suddenly sympathy, and understanding, but no trace of fear.

“I suppose there is no chance for either of them?” he asked.

“Not a bit.”

“Words are rather futile, aren’t they? But if you don’t mind, let’s make
sure we understand each other now so that there will be no question of
our procedure, insofar as we can lay it out ahead of time.”

Mechanics had resumed their work after the brief flurry caused by the
accident, and several of them swarmed over the Martin, supplying it with
gas and oil in each motor. There was very little to be said by Graves,
except to emphasize previous instructions.

“I am banking on their respect for the United States Army--something
which no class of people ever loses. I hope it will be fear and respect
mingled, and that not even Hayden, suspicious as he will be, will dare
fool with army officers. You both have shoulder holsters as well as your
belts?”

Both men nodded.

“That’s all then, I guess.”

“And the ship is ready,” said Hinkley.

“I left my helmet over in the hangar. I’ll be right out,” said Graves.

He started for the hangar with long, unhurried strides.

“Larry, I’m growing to believe that this man Graves has got something on
the ball,” Broughton remarked slowly as they walked toward the ship. “In
addition, he’s got nerve.”

That was a lot for Broughton to say on short acquaintance, and Hinkley
knew it.

“I wouldn’t trust any man in the world in a knockdown fight as far as I
could throw this Martin, Jim, without seeing him there first,” the tail
pilot said. “But I feel a lot easier in my mind!”

IV.

Graves climbed in the observer’s cockpit, which is the extreme nose of
the ship. Directly behind him, seated side by side and separated from
him only by the instrument board, were Broughton and Hinkley. Broughton
was behind the wheel. On the scarf-mount around the observer’s cockpit a
double Lewis machine-gun was mounted. Several feet back of the front
cockpits, where a mechanic ordinarily rode, another twin Lewis was
mounted on a similar scarf-mount.

Broughton turned on the gas levers, retarded the two spark throttles,
and with his hand on the switches of the right-hand motor waited for the
mechanics to finish swinging the propeller.

“Clear!” shouted one of them.

Jim clicked on the switches and pressed the starter. The propeller
turned lazily, the motor droning slightly as an automobile motor does
when the starter is working. In a few seconds she caught. Similar
procedure with the left-hand motor, and shortly both Libertys were
idling gently.

Broughton’s eyes roved over the complicated instrument board before him.
Two tachometers, two air-pressure gages, two for temperature, air-speed
meter, two sets of switches, starting buttons, double spark, double
throttle, and on the sides of the cockpit shutter levers, gas levers,
landing lights and parachute flare releases--it was a staggering maze to
the uninitiated, but the two airmen read them automatically. From time
to time they turned to watch more instruments set on the sides of the
motors; oil-pressure gages, and additional air-pressure and temperature
instruments, to say nothing of gages to tell how much gas and oil they
had.

Finally the pilot’s hand dropped to the two throttles set side by side
on his right hand. Little by little he inched them ahead until both
motors were turning nine hundred. He left them there a moment, watching
the temperatures until one read sixty and the other sixty-five. He cut
the throttle of the left-hand motor back to idling speed, and then
slowly opened the right one until the tachometer showed twelve hundred
and fifty. He let it run briefly on each switch alone, listening to the
unbroken drum of the cylinders. He went through the same routine with
the left motor before he allowed both motors to idle while mechanics
pulled the heavy blocks.

The ship was headed toward the hangars. When the block was pulled the
right-hand motor roared wide open. Without moving forward three feet the
great ship turned in its tracks, to the left. After it was turned it
bumped slowly out for the take-off.

You can almost tell a Martin pilot by his taxying. The least discrepancy
in the speed of either motor will make the ship veer. There is a
constant and delicate use of the throttles to hold it to a straight
course, without getting excessive speed. The two big rudders, both
attached to one rudder bar, have little effect on the ground.

With a tremendous roar the Martin sprang into life. Jim set himself
against the wheel with all his strength to get the tail up. As soon as
that effort was over the Martin became suddenly easy to handle. It took
the air in but a trifle longer run than a De Haviland. Neither flyer had
his goggles over his eyes. Being seated ahead of the propellers, that
terrific airblast which swirls back from an airplane stick was not in
evidence. The propellers whirred around with their tips less than a foot
from the heads of the airmen.

As soon as he had cleared the last obstacle and had started to circle
the field Jim synchronized the motors until both were turning exactly
fourteen-fifty. He studied gages and adjusted shutters to hold the
temperature steady.

One circle of the field proved that the Martin was all that Covington
said it was. It handled with paradoxical ease--a baby could have spun
the wheel or worked the rudders. Only a slight logginess when compared
with smaller ships would make a pilot notice what a big ship he was
flying.

Jim was still new enough on Martins to get a kick out of seeing what he
was tooling through the air. The wings stretched solidly to either side,
totalling over seventy feet. Struts, upright and cross, were like the
limbs of some great tree. Four feet to either side of the cockpit,
resting on the lower wing amid a maze of struts and braces, the Libertys
sang their drumming tune.

Broughton swung up the James River and passed between Petersburg and
Richmond. The smiling Virginia country was level and cleared, and there
was nothing to weigh on the flyers’ minds except what might happen at
the end of the flight. Both of them let their thoughts dwell on what lay
ahead. Perhaps Graves’ mind was running in the same channel, but he was
apparently devoting all his faculties to enjoying the flight. In a
Martin the country is spread out before you--you can watch it as
comfortably as from some mountain peak.

* * * * *

They were flying slightly north-west, and passed Richmond a few miles to
the south. The terrain commenced to become rough and patchy. Fields were
small and clumps of trees studded the ground thickly. Miles ahead the
Appalachian Range loomed majestically. The altimeter showed six thousand
feet, but the Martin would not miss some of those peaks by a very large
margin.

Both Hinkley and Broughton paid increasing attention to the instruments
as the foothills slipped behind, their low green tops rolling away to
the foot of the range. Finally Hinkley held up his wrist-watch and
pointed. It was time for his trick at the wheel. Both men loosened their
belts. Hinkley stood up, took the wheel, and waited for Broughton to
slip into the left-hand seat.

It was not a performance to be essayed by a nervous person. The ship
skidded perilously during the moment when neither man had his feet on
the rudder bar.

Hinkley took up the duty of flying while Broughton began studying his
map. Their course would take them past Lexington, which would be an easy
landmark because of the fact that the campus of the Virginia Military
Institute could be easily picked up. From that time on careful
observation would be necessary, for few landmarks are available at all,
and these few unreliable, when one is well over the Appalachians.

Lexington slipped by, and the Martin thundered along above a smiling
valley. Hinkley watched the compass like a hawk, striving to hold
exactly to the course they had calculated. Soon they were over the main
range of mountains--for the next hour their only hope lay in those two
mighty Libertys.

It was a scene of breath-taking majesty to look down on the far-rolling
range, the mountain tops of which were less than a thousand feet below.
The bottoms of the ravines, however, were far down, the infrequent
houses as tiny as doll dwellings. The altimeter showed six thousand
feet.

Broughton’s map showed that a small river, winding its way north and
south, should come in sight very soon. By following that river northward
until a railroad that twisted and turned on itself, crossed it, they
would be twenty miles due east of Farran County. When they reached
Farran County they would have to depend on observation to pick the right
place, for only an approximate location was indicated on the map as
Hayden’s headquarters.

As they reached the crossing of the river and the railroad Broughton
leaned over and tapped the motionless Graves on the shoulder. Graves
turned, and Broughton pointed to the map and then below, indicating the
crossing. Graves nodded.

As Hinkley turned due west and they roared toward their goal Graves
studied the faces of his assistants once more. Hinkley’s thin face was
more hawklike than ever below the tight-fitting helmet and the goggles.
The aerial headgear gave him a Mephistophelian appearance. There was a
sort of perverse recklessness graven there, and not a trace of weakness.
Broughton, clear-eyed and untroubled, seemed to typify quiet capability.
Graves turned again to the primeval grandeur below with a contented
smile.

In a moment Broughton and Hinkley changed seats again. It was more
difficult this time, for the scrambled currents of the mountains were
beginning to toss the great bomber around as if it were the lightest and
least stable of scout planes. Masses of cloud above them made the air
more bumpy, as always. The transfer was accomplished quickly, however,
and then all three men began their difficult search for Hayden’s cabin.

It was almost impossible that they should not be on the course--at least
near enough to be able to see the cabin. Graves took out a pair of field
glasses, and ceaselessly searched the ground below. One factor made the
quest a trifle easier. Not a single mountain did they see which showed
any sign of either clearing or habitation, so that there was no
question, as yet, of making a choice.

It was a strip of country now where five-hundred feet cliffs and sheer
ravines rivaled the majesty of the mountains. Save for the tremendous
trees, in place of the scrubby mesquite, it reminded Broughton of the
mountains around El Paso. To the border flyers country like that was no
novelty. They checked up the maze of instruments frequently, but aside
from that showed no signs of undue excitement.

Hinkley peered steadily northward for a moment, and then shook Graves by
the shoulder. He pointed to a towering peak, on which a cleared spot
stood out sharply. Before Graves could train his glasses on it a fleecy
cloud blocked his vision. Broughton banked sharply and skirted the
cloud.

Once again the view was clear, and for fully thirty seconds Graves
scrutinized the clearing. Then he motioned Broughton to fly that way.

It was five or six miles away. Four minutes was sufficient to bring them
almost over it. Once again the field-glasses came into play. Both flyers
could see a large timber cabin built a little below the crest of the
clearing, close to the trees. The clearing was on the eastern slope,
including the top and perhaps twenty yards of the western slope. There
did not appear to be ten yards of level earth--the mountain literally
came to a blunt point.

Graves slowly inserted his glasses in his case, and then turned to the
flyers. He nodded briefly, and pointed down.

Jim retarded the spark on the left hand motor, and motioned Hinkley to
turn off the gas line. To do more good, he changed the altitude
adjustment completely. The object of all this was to lean down the gas
mixture in the carburetor.

Shortly, as the gas had practically run out the motor began to pop back
with loud reports. Hinkley turned the gas on again, and then Broughton
began to click the switches on and off rapidly. It sounded as though
there was a badly missing motor out there on the left wing.

He motioned Hinkley to follow his lead, in order to give himself a good
opportunity to size up the landing situation. He was spiraling down
slowly, with Hinkley seeing to it that the left motor was cutting out
almost completely.

* * * * *

The long way of the clearing was uphill. The lower Broughton came, the
steeper it looked. It appeared to be perhaps two hundred yards long,
narrowing to nearly a point at the peak. The best way to crack up would
undoubtedly be to run up the hill, over the top, and ram the trees with
what little speed was left. There would undoubtedly be stumps or ditches
which would crack them up before that, but the trees made it a sure
thing.

A few men could be seen now, standing around the cabin. Graves studied
them carefully, his glasses out once more. Broughton and Hinkley were
inspecting that clearing, with no time for humans. Jim handled his great
ship in that slow spiral automatically, jockeying the wheel incessantly
as the air currents became worse.

Six hundred feet above the mountain top, he came to a decision. He could
land without cracking up.

Hinkley worked the switches more rapidly, and Jim helped out by rapid
thrusts forward and back with both throttle and spark levers. Popping,
spitting, missing--no one who had ever heard a motor could believe that
the ungodly racket meant anything but a badly disabled engine.

Broughton spun the wheel rapidly, and turned westward, curving around
until he was headed for the lower corner of the clearing. His line of
flight would carry him diagonally from this corner to a point a few feet
below the peak.

He stalled the Martin as completely as possible. The air-speed meter
showed sixty-five miles an hour. The great weight of the ship caused it
to drop almost as fast as it glided forward.

The rim of trees formed a barrier nearly sixty feet high. The tail-skid
ripped through them. Jim fought the ship with one hand while he turned
both throttles full on for a moment to stop that mush downward which was
the result of lack of speed.

As he pulled them back Hinkley cut all four switches. Then Jim banked to
the right, so that his wheels would hit the ground together. He judged
it rightly. For a second he thought the ship was going to turn over on
the right, or downhill wing. It seemed to hover on the verge of it. The
pilot snapped on the right-motor switches and the propeller, turning
from the force of the air-stream, caught. The motor sprang into life as
Jim thrust the throttle full on. It swung the right wing in time, and he
cut it as the ship’s nose was turned up hill, both wheels on the same
level. His observation as to the smoothness of the clearing had been
correct. The slightest depression--even a rut--would have overturned the
ship.

Before any one could say anything Jim felt the ship settle backward. It
took a thousand revolutions on the right hand motor to stop it, but the
propeller bit the air in time to prevent the tail-skid breaking.

“Work the left-hand switches while I taxi up!” yelled Jim into the
pleased Hinkley’s ear.

Graves, his face white but his smile firm, settled back in his seat as
Jim pressed the starter on the left hand motor. It caught.

Several men came running over the brow of the hill as Jim turned up the
left hand motor to equal the right. The thousand revolutions on the
right hand motor had not been sufficient to move and thus swing the
ship, but just enough to hold it steady. It started slowly. As soon as
it had a little momentum Hinkley cut the switches, and at the same time
Jim jerked the throttle back. A loud report, and a brief miss was the
reward of their efforts. Graves looked back approvingly, and then turned
to watch the group of men nearing the plane.

The ship almost stopped, and had started to swing, before the grinning
flyers caught the left hand motor again. Its progress up the slope was
spasmodic, and it would not have been a surety to the most expert of
observers that the left hand motor was not suffering from a plugged gas
line or an intermittent short circuit in the ignition. With the walking
men close alongside, Jim brought the Martin to the top of the hill.
There was just barely clearance enough for the wings.

As soon as the wheels were slightly over the top, enough so that the
Bomber could not roll backwards, he turned off the gas. Soon the motors
began to spit and miss, and then the propellers stopped. Broughton
snapped off the switches.

“Now for the fun,” remarked Larry Hinkley.

V.

It was a miscellaneous collection of men who stood around the ship.
Three of them were very well dressed and looked like business men.
Others, mostly in flannel shirts, were slim, hard-faced, youngish
fellows. Several were foreigners. The rougher-looking element paid most
attention to the great ship, but it was a noticeable fact that all of
them spent more time appraising the flyers than they did in satisfying
their curiosity regarding the bomber.

“How do you do, gentlemen, and just where are we?” inquired Graves
calmly as he removed his coveralls.

There was a few seconds pause as everybody took in his uniform. It was
garnished with several rows of ribbons across the front of the blouse,
the flyers noticed.

“This is in Farran County--nearest town Elm Hill,” returned a burly,
hard-faced man who was wearing a coat over his flannel shirt, and
loosely tied necktie. He was somewhat older than any one else there
except the three men who were dressed so meticulously.

“How far is Elm Hill from here?”

It was Broughton who asked that question.

“Twenty miles. What’s the matter--have trouble?”

It was the hard-faced man again, and he glanced from face to face
quickly as he asked the question. Two of the other men had walked to the
end of a wing, inspecting the ship. The eyes of the others were
constantly flitting from the ship to its passengers, and they listened
closely.

“Yes. This ---- engine here went flooey on us. We’re lucky to get down
alive,” replied Hinkley.

Both flyers were trying to pick Hayden out of the dozen men who
surrounded them, but somehow none of them seemed exactly to fit their
mental pictures of the noted criminal. Several of the crowd were
conversing in low voices.

“Where were you going?” inquired one of the well-dressed men on the edge
of the circle. He was small, wore glasses, and his thin face had a
fox-like look about it that gave him a subtly untrustworthy appearance.

“Inasmuch as it seems necessary to throw ourselves on your hospitality
for a while, it may be well to introduce ourselves,” Graves said
quietly. In some uncanny way his dignity and competence seemed to
radiate from him, increased by the prestige of his uniform. Both the
airmen felt its influence.

“I am Colonel Graves, of the United States Army Air Service. These are
Lieutenants Broughton and Hinkley. We are flying from Langham Field,
Virginia, to Dayton, Ohio, on important army business. I trust that we
will not trespass on your hospitality too long, but I fear we will have
to dismantle the ship and send it home by rail. We can’t take off out of
this field. We are lucky to have had such an experienced pilot as
Lieutenant Broughton to land us. We did not expect to find so many
people in this deserted place.”

A portly, fleshy-faced man with small eyes set in rolls of fat shoved
his way forward. He had been talking to the fox-faced little man.

“Just a little fishing party up here,” he said with an attempt of
heartiness. He was dressed in a rich-looking brown suit, and a huge
sparkler gleamed from his elaborate silk cravat. He was smoking a big
cigar.

He darted a warning look from his small eyes as two younger, roughly
dressed men in the background allowed their heretofore guarded voices to
become a bit too loud. One man caught the look, and ceased abruptly.

“It certainly is a good country for it,” replied Graves pleasantly. “I
trust we will not impose on you too much----”

“Not at all, not at all,” the stout man assured him, but the looks of
the others belied his words.

Groups had drawn off a little way and were conversing in undertones. All
the men seemed to have poker faces--there was no hint of expression in
them, although both flyers, as they removed their coveralls, caught
disquieting as well as disquieted looks thrown their way. Graves
continued to converse with the fat man. The tough-looking customer who
had originally joined the conversation stood by himself, meditatively
chewing a blade of grass. His huge right hand, which had been in his
coat pocket at the start, was lifted to his jutting, prize-fighter’s
chin, while his expressionless gray eyes dwelt steadily on the airmen.

“Quite some ship, eh? It’s a big reskel!” The dialect of a New York
east-side Jew came familiarly to the flyers’ ears. It was a small,
hook-nosed, black-haired man, whose shirt, tie and putteed legs all gave
an impression of personal nicety even here in the wilderness. His face
was somewhat pasty, and his lips very thin. He did not look over
twenty-five.

“It sure is,” Hinkley assured him, throwing both pairs of coveralls into
the cockpit of the ship.

Neither of the flyers wore a blouse, but were arrayed in O. D. shirts,
breeches and boots. Both wore a sagging belt and holster, with the butt
of a Colt .45 protruding from each container. Their garb and general
appearance fitted the wildness of their surroundings perfectly. Graves
had his automatic out of sight, in his pocket. The sight of the guns the
flyers wore caused additional low-voiced conversation on the part of the
onlookers.

The hard-faced American turned and started for the cabin without a word.
Hinkley and Broughton walked over toward Graves.

Every one but the fat man started to walk around the ship, examining it
with interest.