CHAPTER SEVEN

_Missing Wings_

IT WAS EARLY the next morning and the first flaming rays of the new day’s sun were just shooting up over the peaks of the mountains to the east. The last of the thin night fog was drifting out across San Francisco Bay, leaving the air washed and crisp and tangy. Though it was still early, activity at the Frisco Air Corps Base was in full swing. Swarms of wings flashed back and forth across the robin’s-egg blue sky, and the air was filled with the thunder and power whines of many engines.

Down on the field, Dave and Freddy stood beside the Vultee they had flown up in from Los Angeles. Colonel Welsh was with them, and although the pilots’ faces were bright with eager expectation of new adventures before them, there was no eagerness in the Colonel’s face. There wasn’t even so much as the ghost of a smile. His eyes were somber and brooding, and there was a tightness about the corners of his mouth. Dave glanced at him, and grinned.

“Chin up, white tie, and all that sort of thing, as Freddy would say, sir,” he said. “This will probably turn out to be nothing more than a swell joy ride. Who knows? Maybe my ideas on the wire tapping were as wet as the Bay over there. Please don’t feel so tough about it, Colonel.”

The senior officer forced a smile to his lips, made a little gesture with his hands, and sighed.

“I know, I know,” he said. “I always act like an undertaker whenever I see any of my agents off on a mission. Can’t seem to change, or get used to it. I guess it’s because it gets me inside that I’m not going along, that I’ve got to stick here and take care of all the confounded paper work. Makes me feel useless, like a doddering old man too old to take part in the tough jobs.”

“Oh, I say, hardly, sir!” Freddy Farmer said with a laugh. “If there weren’t the brains for the paper work, as you call it, there wouldn’t be any jobs for the agents to tackle. And I fancy, sir, there was a time not so long ago when you were the one who was being seen off by some other senior officer.”

“Yes, you’re right, Farmer,” Colonel Welsh nodded sadly. “There was a day like that. But it seems centuries ago. I swear, if I had it all to live over again I’d never let them push me up to a post of important command. When you’re on the way up you never stop to think how lucky you are you haven’t reached the top yet. But I suppose that comes under the heading of ambition, or something.”

“That makes two,” Dave chuckled. “Only yesterday the Base Commandant at L.A. was telling Freddy and me the same thing. And by the way, sir, is that why you made us a couple of captains in the Air Corps, instead of colonels or generals?”

Colonel Welsh laughed out loud and shook his head.

“No, not for that reason,” he said. “True, despite your youthful looks, you might get by as colonels. But not generals. We don’t make them that young, yet. No. As captains you can mingle with the higher ranks if you have to, and not appear as though you were reaching for the moon. And as captains you can mingle with the lower ranks, and enlisted men, and not appear as though you were out sticking your noses into things. Matter of fact, I’ve always regarded a captaincy as the halfway mark in a man’s military career. As a captain he still has close contact with those on the bottom of the ladder, and new contacts with those on the top. But--here I stand gabbing, and you two are just busting to get away. Right?”

“Well, it has to happen sometime, sir,” Dave said kindly. “And--well, count on us to stay in there pitching to the very end, regardless of what the end may be.”

“Here, drop that sort of talk!” Freddy Farmer cried scornfully. “You’ll have me flooding that rear cockpit with tears. One thing, sir. You’ll be sure to make it all right with the Base Commandant at Los Angeles? I mean, about our taking his plane? After that bit of luck yesterday--well, the ship is sort of a good fortune charm, if you understand what I mean.”

“Perfectly,” Colonel Welsh said gravely. “And don’t worry about the L.A. Base Commandant. He happens to be one of the whitest men in the Air Corps. Besides, when he loaned you his ship in the first place, that meant it was yours as long as you wanted it. He’s that way. Now--well, get out of here before I change my mind! I feel like the executioner at Sing Sing waiting to throw the switch. Get off with you. Good luck.... And may He watch over you as He has in the past.”

“Thanks, sir,” Dave said with an effort. “And--so long.”

“Quite, sir,” Freddy Farmer murmured. “Happy landings until we meet again--which of course will be very soon.”

The two flying aces clicked their heels, saluted smartly, then turned abruptly away and climbed into the Vultee’s pits. Dave ran his eye over the instruments in an automatic check, opened his throttle a bit to “blow” his engine and clear the cylinders of dead gas fumes. Then he opened it all the way and sent the Vultee streaking straight out along the cross-field runway. He had it off and in the air in no time, climbing smoothly up toward the dawn sun-flooded heavens.

At five thousand he leveled off, circled the field a couple of times in an air salute to Colonel Welsh down on the ground, then dipped his wings and cut around to a crow flight course across the mountains and southeastward to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not until San Francisco was out of sight behind the tail did he turn around and grin at Freddy.

“Gee, I’m sorry, Freddy,” he said above the roar of the engine in the nose. “I didn’t even give it a thought. But it’s not too late yet. If you want to, it’ll be perfectly okay by me pal.”

The English born youth looked surprised, and then slowly suspicion crawled into his eyes.

“What would be perfectly okay by you?” he demanded. “What didn’t you think of this time?”

“Why, you, of course!” Dave replied as though Freddy should know it. “I didn’t once ask if you’d rather not come along with me. I--I guess I just sort of took it for granted. But I can still skip back, and land, and dump you off, you know.”

No anger showed in Freddy Farmer’s face. He just looked at Dawson in sad sympathy, and sighed heavily.

“Listen to the bloke, will you?” he groaned. “Of all the cheeky ideas he gets. Didn’t ask _me_ if _I’d_ rather not come! Well, I like that. When the truth is that Colonel Welsh said to me, out of your hearing, he said--'I say, Farmer, if you don’t think Dawson would be of any value to you this time--!’”

The English youth cut off the rest and made a little significant gesture. Dave glared daggers at him, and then chuckled.

“Chalk one up for you, pal!” he cried. “I walked into that one with my eyes wide open, and got clipped. Okay. Kidding is off the books from here on in. Have you seen any sign of that agent who is supposed to tag along after us--just in case? He’s flying a Navy Grumman job with Air Corps markings. I saw his ship over on the other side of the field.”

“So did I,” Freddy replied. “But I haven’t seen him since. And I’ve been looking. Perhaps he decided not to get close enough for us to see him. Then the other bloke wouldn’t see him either. I say, Dave, do you really think that baited trap idea will work?”

“I don’t know,” Dawson replied with a scowl. “Right now the hunch department isn’t working. But I hope he does show up. When I think of poor Tracey--”

Dave lifted a hand and slowly closed it into a rock hard fist to indicate the rest of his sentence.

“Quite!” Freddy Farmer echoed, and patted the butts of his rear cockpit guns. “And right now I’m not sure I’d hold my fire if the blighter jumped out with his parachute. But it’s the dirty rotter at the Albuquerque end I’d rather meet. He’s the beggar who really did in poor Tracey.”

“Well, let’s hope this is our lucky day,” Dave said. “Let’s hope we get a good fair crack at both of them, or the six, or the dozen of them, if there are that many!”

With a nod for emphasis, Dave turned front and stared flint-eyed at the banks of clouds that were beginning to pile up above the eastern slopes of the mountain range. After a while the flinty look died out of his eyes, and was replaced by a look of thoughtful speculation. Then suddenly he grinned to himself.

“Guess this is the way with war,” he murmured softly, “at least with Intelligence work. You get faced with a mystery that hasn’t any strings hanging out of it at all. So you grab at what you _hope_ is a string, and follow it through. If you’re lucky, one thing leads to another, and you begin to get results. If you’re not lucky, you get kicked in the face, and most times end up in a hole six feet deep. So here’s hoping Lady Luck is still smiling on Freddy and me!”

“What’s that you said, Dave?” came Freddy Farmer’s voice. “Or is it just this morning sun that makes you mumble in your beard?”

“I haven’t a beard,” Dave slapped back at him. “And besides, I don’t mumble. I was just telling myself that Intelligence work is all pretty much alike. I mean, you start with nothing, and hope you’ll end up with all the correct answers.”

“Absolutely right,” the English youth agreed readily. “And I fancy the insane asylums are full of chaps who took up Intelligence work. I say! Aren’t those mountains beautiful? You certainly do have wonderful scenery over here in America. No wonder you fought so hard in the Revolutionary War.”

It was too perfect an opening for Dave to pass up. He twisted around in the seat and grinned broadly at his closest pal.

“Fought hard?” he echoed scornfully. “Nuts. It was a cinch. Why, I’ve read in history books where the American soldiers only used their right hands. Kept the left ones tied behind their backs.”

Freddy Farmer made a face and stuck his nose in the air in a sniffing gesture. But as soon as he did that he stiffened slightly, narrowed his eyes and peered hard off to the right.

“Look at that plane over there, Dave!” he cried, and pointed. “It’s one of your light plane affairs, one of your two-cylinder Grasshopper ships, as you call them. The chap’s crazy to fly that thing around these mountains. Wind currents can bash him against a slope in no time. However, you Yanks!”

Dave didn’t comment on the last. He had picked out the small plane silhouetted against the towering banks of clouds. It was one of those puddle-jumping Taylor Cubs, and it was dangerously close to the wind and squall-swept mountain sides. He could see it hit air current after air current and bounce about in the rough air like a cork in a heavy sea. The plane reminded him of a swimmer going against the tide. The plane was staggering forward, staggering toward a point that would take it across the Vultee’s path of flight.

“Maybe he’s some guy who got disappointed in love,” Dave ventured the guess aloud. “Or maybe he just doesn’t give a darn. But he seems to be getting clear of the mountains okay. So we should worry. I guess he must have slipped through from the other side. What was that crack about us Yanks?”

“I don’t remember,” Freddy grunted absently. “I wonder about that chap over there, though. What do you suppose he could be doing in among those jagged sloped mountains?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Dave replied with a chuckle. “But being as how you’re such a curious cuss, I’ll ask him when he comes in.”

“Eh?” Freddy echoed.

“Skip it, pal!” Dave laughed. “I was only--Hey! The guy’s in clear air, now, and he’s making a beeline for us. And from here it looks like he’s half standing up and waving at us out the side window.”

“That’s right!” Freddy cried, squinting across the mile or so of air space that separated the two planes. “The blighter is waving his arm off for fair. Now what, I wonder?”

“Search me,” Dave said. “But keep your eyes skinned, Freddy. This may be the beginning of some funny business. It’s up to us to be cagey of even a guy on a bicycle.”

“Have no fear of that!” the English youth said grimly. “But I imagine he’s pretty harmless. Can’t say that I see his dinky little air kite bristling with machine guns.”

“But you can’t see into the cabin!” Dave barked. “So don’t go taking things on face value. Be ready to grab hold of your hat in case he starts pulling something out of the air.”

Dave wasn’t sure whether Freddy snorted or not. Besides, he was too busy watching the small light plane draw closer and closer. A very familiar tingling sensation had come to the back of his neck. It made him a little annoyed to experience the sensation, because it undoubtedly was crazy to think that that little winged sky kite could give the well gunned Vultee any trouble. Still, the feeling was there at the back of the neck, and too many times in the past had it served as the advance warning of trouble for him completely to ignore it. And so he watched the small plane wing in close, but he sat stiff and taut in the seat, and every nerve and muscle was tensed for instantaneous, lightning fast action.

When it got in real close he could see that only the pilot was in the small cabin. There was no passenger in the other seat. For a second his heart looped over, and he got set to bank the Vultee off, when the smaller plane continued to head dead for him. However, in the last moment allowed the light plane swung around until it was flying wing tip to wing tip with the Air Corps ship. Dave automatically eased back the throttle to let the other keep pace, and stared across the air space at the light-complexioned, flaxen-haired man in the Cub’s cabin.

At that moment the Cub’s pilot put his hand out the cabin window, made frantic motions with it and pointed eastward and down.

“He seems to want us to go down, Dave!” Freddy said.

“He’s got another think coming!” Dawson grunted back, and shook his head.

Then on sudden thought he motioned to the Cub pilot to cut his throttle completely, and at the same time eased the Vultee’s Cyclone down to a murmur. Then he shoved back his glass hatch and cupped a hand to his lips.

“What’s the matter?” he roared at the top of his voice.

Both planes were nosing down into a flat glide, but the Vultee was slowly drawing ahead of the butterfly type of plane. The pilot’s voice came to Dawson’s ears as a distant echo.

“Trouble--other side of mountains. Need--help--bad! A crack-up! Need help--bad! My--plane--too--small!”

Dave thought the other pilot shouted something more, but he couldn’t tell for sure because the Vultee had pulled down way ahead of the smaller craft. Still keeping the engine idling, Dave pulled up the nose and hovered close to the stalling point while the Cub pilot used his engine and came up alongside again.

This time the light plane’s pilot almost fell through the cabin window, so wild and frantic were his signals to Dave. And his voice rose as high as the scream of a woman.

“Crash! Crash! People hurt! Need help! Need help! Other side of range! Follow me down. Need help bad!”

“What shall we do, Dave?” came Freddy Farmer’s voice close behind Dawson. “Think the chap really means it? Or is this some kind of a funny game? He certainly looks excited enough. What do you think?”

Dave just shrugged and didn’t answer for a moment. He stared hard across the mountain peaks as though that would permit him to see what was on the other side. He saw nothing but tree-covered slopes, and jagged rocks, and deep ravines, of course. On impulse he twisted around in the seat and looked back in the general direction of San Francisco. There was nothing there but blue sky and blooming patches of pure white clouds.

“Wonder how far back Colonel Welsh’s agent is?” he spoke the question aloud, “By rights he should be near enough to see this light plane lad, and get curious and close in for a better look.”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering, too!” Freddy called out. “Strikes me as a bit strange we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since we left. Maybe he didn’t get off.”

Freddy Farmer’s last words caused Dave to stiffen slightly, and a tingling ripple passed through his body. He looked at the English youth and half closed one eye.

“Maybe you’ve got something there, pal,” he muttered. “Maybe our escort _didn’t_ get off Frisco Air Base. But if this lad’s not kidding, and there is a crash with injured people over there beyond the mountains--”

Dave let the rest trail off and scowled at the banks of clouds. If there was a crash and injured people in need of help, he wanted to lend that help even though he and Freddy were on an important military mission. After all, injured people--Yet, confound it, there seemed to be something inside of him that wouldn’t agree. A tiny voice kept yelling for him to ignore this pleading pilot and fly on to Albuquerque.

“Perhaps a look wouldn’t hurt any, Dave,” Freddy spoke up. “We could take a look, and if there is a crash send a radio to the nearest air field. What do you say to that?”

Dave didn’t say anything to that. In fact, he hardly heard what Freddy Farmer was saying. At that moment he had suddenly spotted two dots high up in the banked clouds to the east, two moving dots that were hugging the shadows cast by the lumpy clouds. And he didn’t need anyone to tell him that they _weren’t_ just a couple of soaring eagles!