Part 2

“My scheme is this,” said Graves, leaning back once more and setting the cigar in one corner of his mouth. “That’s wild country--no place to land. The only cleared spot for twenty miles--or in other words near enough to Hayden to suit my needs--is right around his cabin. It is small and rough and on a grade so steep that according to my information it would make a man puff to climb it. I want you gentlemen to fly me over there in a Martin bomber, which I understand is about the safest of ships in a crackup. This ship will be equipped with extra gas and oil tanks to insure large cruising radius. No ship with ordinary gas capacity could safely make the hop, I understand; in any event would not have fuel enough for any reconnaisance.

“In the ship there will also be provisions, machine guns, Colts and plenty of ammunition. I want you gentlemen to fool around with the motor when we are over Hayden’s headquarters, make a supposed forced landing, and endeavor to crack up the ship without hurting any of us. I will be in the uniform of a colonel. You will also be in full uniform.

“Naturally we will crack up in Hayden’s front yard. It is the only cleared spot, as I said. He will not like our presence, nor will any of his henchman be very enthusiastic. But we’ll be ‘in,’ and it’s a ---- sight easier to get out than it would be to get in.

“What we do from then on is on the knees of the gods, so to speak. Some way or other we must invent a way to get Hayden and get him out of there. It’s a man’s-size job, all right, but we’ve got to figure on a little luck and then taking advantage of it.

“You men are recommended as flyers, and also as men who’ve had some diversified experience. This is not flattery, it is a statement of facts. I expect that you can handle yourselves in any company, and that you’ll be able to come to bat in a pinch when we get up there.

“It’s a hard contract, and you will get nothing out of it except a document in the secret archives of the War Department which may sometimes help you. Now first, what do you think of the plan insofar as it concerns the flying end of things, and secondly, do you want to declare yourselves in on it?”

Graves had been talking as clearly and without excitement as always, and now he waited with equal calmness for a reply. General O’Malley was sunk deep in his swivel-chair, watching the younger men with a half-smile on his face. In his heart was a growing respect for the equable Mr. Graves.

“How much flying have you done, Graves?” he inquired impulsively.

“I made my second flight today, coming down from Washington. What do you say, gentlemen?”

“Can’t get you off the track a minute,” said O’Malley genially. “I’ll subside.”

There was silence for a moment. Hinkley smoked a cigaret, blowing rings at the ceiling with an air of complete indifference. Broughton was gazing steadily at Graves, his scrutiny untroubled by the fact that Graves noticed it. The stocky, slightly stolid-looking pilot was the first to speak.

“A deal of that kind is ticklish business without those in it knowing their helpers a ---- sight better than we know each other, sir, but one thing and another about it sort of sells the proposition to me. Count me in, I guess.”

“Suits me,” declared Hinkley. “When do we go?”

“The first minute that the ship is ready. From Washington I got this dope--tell me if I’m wrong. A Martin lasts around five hours in the air if you take a chance and win on the oil staying with you. Fifty extra gallons of gas in each motor, and approximately fifty per cent. more oil than usual, will assure us of seven hours in the air if we need it. It may take time to find our man.”

Broughton nodded.

“When can the extra tanks be installed, general? Major Jenks of the Engineering Division said that it was a comparatively simple job. As I understand it there is plenty of room in a Martin, and of course to any ship that can lift your two thousand pounders the extra weight will be a bagatelle.”

“For a landsman you’re pretty wise,” the general complimented him. “I’ll have the exact estimate in about ten minutes.”

He pressed the bell and instructed Evans to have the engineer officer of the field report at his office immediately. Then the four men plunged into a discussion of guns, food, and other details. Graves had exact figures at his finger tips. Not a detail was brought up which he did not settle as smoothly and quickly as he talked. 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.