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Munsey's Magazine, October 1918, with "Sanford Hale — Aviator"
SANFORD HALE and his friend Sam Howard were examples of the best type of American. Tall and well-knit and athletic, they carried themselves with an air of alert self-confidence which indicated a robust readiness to meet the world on its own terms. Either of them might, easily have passed for the young gentleman of the car advertisements who wears a new kind, of collar every month.
But with that the resemblance ceased. Hale was a rich man's son; Howard was one of those less fortunate ones who had to earn his increment. The difference of their environments had built up a difference in their natures, which came out in vivid contrast in their present crisis.
Hale had just received his draft orders—jumped on, as he expressed it, in a minute, because of his experience as an amateur aviator. The prospect filled him with gloomy irritation; for he had known too much of the playtime of life, and the idea of rigorous discipline was gall to his uncurbed soul. He hated the thought of doing things to the instant call of a bugle, and of enduring countless petty restrictions on his personal liberty. The greater cause behind that unpleasant necessity had not as yet been borne in on his youthful egotism.
Howard, on the other hand, was eager to go. For him an outdoor military life would have been a holiday; but he mourned the fact that a defect in his auricular canals, those all-important spirit-levels of the body, rendered him unfit for aviation service. His insistent envy jarred on Hale's overwrought nerves.
Hale had been sitting gloomily silent for a long time. Suddenly he turned on his friend with a wild proposal which stunned him.
"Want to break in on aviation badly enough to take a chance on it?" he flashed at him. " Well, I'll give you a chance. Take my orders and go up to training-school in my place!"
Howard gasped. Hale swept right on in a flood of convincing argument.
"Don't gape like a fish, Sam! Listen to me. I have orders to report myself at the navy training-school at Boston Tech—young man, age twenty-two, name Sanford Hale—that's all. Maybe they send a description; but you know how descriptions go—height, weight, general coloring, and all that; 'features regular, eyes gray,' and so on. It all fits you to a dot. You take my papers and walk right in!"
Howard was staggered. The thing was stupendous; but Hale had a force of character which had always dominated his friend. The swift enthusiasm of his attack carried the other off his feet.
"And I'll tell you what I'll do, Sam," Hale clinched his argument. "Helen is already expecting letters-from-the-front stuff, hero soldier boy, and all that. I hate to fool her, but I'll just have to for a time, till I can make her understand; so you'll have to give me the inside dope to write about. Now I'll come up to Boston with you and see the thing through. There's a chance which won't come to you again in a million years. Sam, old scout, the thing's as good as done!" And Sam stood silent
THE thing was as good as done. In the absorbing excitement of working out the details of the great scheme, it never occurred to either of them that there was any inherent wrong in the thing; the issue was too indefinite. Hale especially took a splendid delight in pitting his wits against that vague, obscure thing, the bugbear of military regulations.
In Boston an inscrutable fate played smoothly into his hands from the very start. Howard's acceptance by the authorities, which had kept both of them on tenterhooks, though they would neither of them have admitted it for a moment, went through without question; the very novelty and daring of the scheme seemed to have assured its success. Hale took up his quarters in the town, and thither his friend came to visit him from time to time, bringing budgets of news sufficient to fill many absorbing letters.
"This is just the ground school," he told Hale. "We're rated as petty officers—or cadets, I believe they call us—with commissions as our ultimate aim. We go through shop and ground work here with lectures, and after a while we're taken up on instruction flights; but there are no single hops. Then, when the instructors think we're ready for it, we get sent to the big navy school at Pensacola to take our tests. If we make good we get commissions. Think of that, Sanf, old boy! Gee, I'm tickled stiff! You can't imagine how thankful I am I got in. Old man, you're a philanthropist!"
Hale accepted his friend's gratitude with the complacence of genius to which such things are due; and all this intimate information he reported in serial instalments to the girl back home in New York.
But there was an inevitable mental reaction. He felt the need of justification, and his mind dwelt much upon his reasons for doing as he did. Discipline! Regulations! Repression! These things became a mountain of aversion to him. So loathsome were they in prospect that he found it necessary to explain to people what a nightmare they were to that "free, untrammeled soul of his." He made a catchword of the phrase.
All of which, of course, was very unwise; but then Sanford Hale was twenty-two, and no more discreet than many another young man of his age. Impelled always by that subconscious instinct of self-justification, he aired his views openly; and presently there gathered round him certain affable and pleasant gentlemen who agreed with him amazingly, cleverly drew him out, and found him altogether an astonishingly good fellow, a young man to be cultivated.
They appeared to be men of education and intelligence, with plenty of money to spend; and they spent it royally. They bought drinks and insisted on paying bills to an extent that was embarrassing. Good fellows all! Hale was having an unusually pleasant time. Their intelligent sympathy uplifted him with a comforting sense of righteousness and worldly wisdom.
But, somehow, these new friends seemed to find it impossible to pull with his old friend. Whenever Howard was present there was a constrained atmosphere of formality, almost of distrust. Stanoff, a tall, dark Russian, whose quick and forceful personality made him a leader in their little circle, discussed the matter with cynical inquiry as they sat one evening in his luxurious rooms.
"Your friend there, this Mr. Cadet, how comes it that you promenade yourself with him so much?"
"Him? Oh, he's one of the very best. He's a white man from away back," said Hale warmly.
"But yes, without doubt the young man is of excellent qualities; yet I do not understand how you—er—how you mix yourselves. He is not like you; his ideas are very different."
"How d'you mean different?"
Stanoff leaned back in his chair, crossed one long knee over the other, and lit a cigarette before answering.
"Well, you see, he is not progressive, like us; he believes in war; he has enthusiasms for the drills, for—the uniforms!"
He was watching Hale through narrowed eyes from behind his screen of smoke.
"Oh, that way!" exclaimed Hale. "Yes, he's different; he just eats up this discipline stuff. Oh, yes; that's not me at all. Now the way I look at the beastly thing—"
Hale was launched on another of his diatribes; but he was interrupted by the noisily boisterous entry of a plump young man who had evidently been looking upon the wine when it was red. This gay young blade burst into a voluminous flow of greeting and eager question, when he saw Hale and stopped abruptly.
He was interrupted by the noisily boisterous entry of a plump young
man who had evidently been looking upon the wine when it was red.
Smitty, another member of the company, laughed. Smitty, incidentally, was very much after the pattern of the bibulous young man—round-faced and fair and stockily built. He was much amused at the other's confusion.
"Oh, go right ahead, Hale's all right," he cried. "He's a good radical and a friend of peace; he's one of us. Let me introduce Fournier, Hale. Hale's a good flier, Henri—useful man."
Fournier stiffened himself with an effort, clicked his heels together, and bowed toward Hale.
"Vairy pleassed," he said.
Hale's outstretched hand dropped to his side in confusion. This; sudden and incisive tabulation of himself came as an unpleasant shock to his self-respect. It had never occurred to him that he could be classed with a set of visionaries whom he had always regarded as long-haired alien cattle. He relapsed into uncomfortable silence, and the only part he took in the subsequent conversation was an endeavor to state his views with greater clearness.
But the more desperately he tried to establish his position without actually stultifying himself, the more did his ideas seem to fit in with the most reactionary of opinions. Finally he fled in despair, before he should commit himself any further. For the first time in his life he began to see a vague glimmering of himself from the viewpoint of others; for the first time his assurance was shaken. He was almost frightened at himself. He wanted to talk to his friend about this thing which had come upon him so unpleasantly.
"SAM," he burst out, without even waiting to say hello, as soon as he saw Howard, a few days later—"Sam, did I ever strike you as a blasted nihilist?"
Sam smiled slowly through the worried expression he had brought with him, and shook his head in wonderment.
"Well, listen to this, then." Hale exploded into an indignant tale of the rude jolt he had received. Sam was very serious as he listened.
"Seems to me, Sanford, old scout, that you've been a bit unwise in your expressions of opinion."
"Unwise? Sam, I've been a plain darn fool, let me tell you. I've had a heap of time to think it out, and I've figured that I'll just cut that bunch altogether. I don't want to be mixed up with a gang of Bolsheviks!"
Hale's indignation was all the greater because he recognized that there had been a certain amount of justice in their judgment. He turned quickly from the subject.
"Now tell me what's worrying you, Sam. You're looking like a whole post-office full of bad news. Hand over the letters."
Sam smiled weakly.
"No letters this time, Sanf."
"Well, what's the trouble, then?"
"Balance!" said Sam darkly. "I've been up a couple more times on instruction flights, and it's no use your telling me that I'm just a little bit nervous at the beginning. I know better. Sanf, my lymph-canals are hopelessly defective, and I just haven't any sense of balance at all! I can never fly a yard! D'you get it?
It was like a smash in the face. The thoughtless trick which these two friends had entered into so lightly had developed appalling consequences. Sam spoke pluckily enough, but even his husky confidence was on the point of breaking down before this grim specter of apprehension. It was a fearsome prospect to consider, this taking of one's life into the dizzy heights with the certain knowledge of a fatal disability hanging over one's head.
For the first time Hale's quick cleverness failed to find an easy way out of the difficulty. What possible escape could there be? His mind remained a blank. He would have to go home and think. Time to sit and think over his thoughtlessness would be ample now that he had finally decided to renounce those revolutionary friends who had been taking up so much of his attention.
But those revolutionary friends were not so easy to shake off. Since he left them strictly alone, they came to call on him. They came with an air of businesslike seriousness.
Stanoff, the quiet leader with the cynically observant eyes, made himself comfortable and came to the point without any unnecessary beating about the bush. He crossed his lank legs, lit his inevitable cigarette, and held up a thin hand to demand attention.
"My good young friend, we have made observation of you since a long time. You express the sentiments very noble. You are with us all in favor of an honorable peace, is it not so?"
"Ye-es," said Hale doubtfully, feeling intuitively that something unpleasant was coming.
"Good! Attend, then. We have a plan which shall assist toward this so desirable object. Without doubt you are aware that a league of patriots is formed itself in this country for the dissemination by airplane of information of truth to the people of Germany so deluded by their militarist government. Eh bien — of similarity is the condition here. There is much news of import most vital to the people which the censor permits not to pass. The veritable state of affairs which will turn the sentiment public in favor of peace is conceal. Alors? we propose, then, similarly to deliver by aero packages of—er—literature over the city. Tout est pręt. We have a machine of power conceal in one of the boat-house of the bay. Our good friend Smitty here shall fly her; and you, my very good friend, to you shall fall the honor of assisting him in this operation so noble for the great cause of peace. Voila!"
Stanoff folded his arms and leaned back in triumph. The red gleam of the fanatic shone from his eyes. Suddenly he leaped to his feet and stalked up and down the room with long strides. His face glowed with enthusiasm, and he declaimed, waving his arms with dramatic gestures,
Enfin, par ce moyen it shall be accomplish!" he spouted. "By the bringing about of this catastrophe we shall acquire the attention of the publics. Those timid ones who hesitate to express themselves shall know that we are a power in the land; and I—I shall be the leader of this so noble brotherhood for the peace! Men shall understand that I, Dmitri Stanoff —that I am—"
He choked over the passion of his utterance and stood gaunt by the window, staring moodily out into the darkness. At that moment the man was undeniably mad.
Hale recoiled from him. How the dropping of pacifist literature could be a catastrophe he did not understand; but the indignation which he had felt before now came surging over him in a wave. He jumped to his feet and pushed his chair back. He was measuring in his mind's eye how far he could throw this leering anarchist out of his door, and the cold hostility in his face was unmistakable.
Stanoff turned on him in a flash.
"Aha! You, too! You are one of those timid ones who prate only of peace! My friend, I tell you—it has been demonstrate by Germany—that only by frightfulness can a people be forced to recognize the necessity of peace. But you, lache, you are afraid!"
Once again Hale measured the distance to the door; but the only sign of his feelings was the sudden whitening of the knuckles that gripped his chair-back. He spoke slowly with a nasal vibration in his voice.
"N-no-o, Stanoff, I don't think I'm afraid; but this matter of peace or war is a matter for the government to decide. In this country, you know, I've had a chance to help elect that government, and I stand back of whatever it does."
Stanoff's sneer became an animal snarl.
"A sentiment sufficiently strange for a young man who has declaimed so loud against the disciplines, is it not?"
Hale was suddenly silent. He had no word to retort to this truth. The one impulse of his outraged ego was violence, sudden and swift. But just then the man Smitty, who had had no share in the interview hitherto, sprang to his feet, growled something guttural to his chief, and made precipitately for the door. He plucked at Stanoff's sleeve; the expression on his face was almost of fear.
"We've made a mistake, Stanoff," he muttered. "Let us go from here—the sooner the better!"
At the warning, Stanoff's attitude of malicious, derision left him. He looked at Hale almost furtively as he edged to the door; with his hand on the knob he turned and showed his teeth.
"Poltroon!" he snarled, and was gone.
FOR a full minute Hale stood looking at the open door with utter vacancy in his face. His feelings were in too great a chaos to permit of any definite emotion. Then he straightened up, drew a long breath, and reached for his hat. This was a matter which the Secret Service people should know about without delay.
He had reached the door when he suddenly staggered as if he had been hit and slipped limply down into a chair with wide horror staring from his eyes.
It had come over him with paralyzing force. He dared not go to the authorities with his tale. If he did, there would be an investigation—and his affairs could stand no sort of an investigation just then. The clever little trick which he had started out so blithely to play on the bugbear of military regulations had turned into a trap, a malignant mechanism with teeth of steel.
He sat there far into the night, staring motionless into the darkness before him with eyes which had the pleading expression of a hunted rabbit. At tortured intervals he tried to think, but his mind remained vacant. There simply was no solution to the thing. A dozen times he was impelled to make a clean breast of the whole affair to the authorities and take his medicine as it came; but since that would of necessity implicate Sam, he put the thought from him, and groaned and cursed himself for the mess into which he had dragged his friend. That night was a very fair sample of the hell which some men can make for themselves on earth.
With the morning Hale wandered out, harboring a half-formed resolve that he would look up the gang of conspirators. By pretending to have changed his mind he might be able to regain their confidence, and perhaps to get hold of something definite—some information which might be so damnatory as to render an investigation unnecessary.
Without consciously aiming for it, he found himself in front of Stanoff's house. He woke out of his abstraction with a start, and hesitated. Then his lips set tight, his eyes hardened, and he strode in.
That was where he received the first shock which re-awoke all his vague fears that there might be something more in the plot than was apparent on the surface. They had gone!
The rooms were empty, and littered with the disorder of hurried packing. The landlady knew nothing. They had just gone! Hale was sure now that there was something more deadly in view than the mere dropping of printed pamphlets. If only he could find the ruffians, he would surely be able to get something which would be incriminating, even if he had to beat it out of them.
At that thought his eyes glowed with grim satisfaction. He strode with nervous eagerness through the streets. He knew most of their haunts, and he had heard them speak of friends who lived in various parts of the city. If only he could remember some of the addresses! He concentrated his mind upon the quest so intensely that he rudely jostled pedestrians who came in his path.
FATE must have relented a little just hen, for suddenly he came upon the florid youth who had been introduced to him as Henri Fournier. That convivial roisterer was again under the influence of his usual stimulant—very much under the influence. He fell upon Hale's neck with drunken enthusiasm.
"Aha, what a goot luck!" he babbled. "How that pleasses me! My goot friend, you will drink one with me, yes? Joost one! You have a gr-r-reat work for this evening with our dear Simitoff, I know, and you must keep clear your head; but joost one will not hurt—come!"
Hale was no linguist; but this guttural speech, thick as it was, did not sound to him like a normal utterance for a man bearing such a name as Henri Fournier. The fellow was dragging him by the sleeve.
"Come on, my friend! Already since yesterday I celebrate, so soon as he has told me that all arrangement is made for to-night around nine o'clock, when the moon shall be up. Come—to the success!"
Hale suffered himself to be led. He was trembling with excitement on the thin edge of discovery. He scarcely dared to speak, fearful lest a false word should ring some dull note of warning in the fuddled mind.
Fortunately, the young fool was already too maudlin to understand. After another drink at the bar he lurched confidentially close, and, thrusting his face within an inch of Hale's, tapped him on the chest with bleary importance.
"And look you," he muttered, "the glory iss not all yours. I, too, have my part! See, I am fugitive from my country for the evasion of the military. I do not love the serving, joost like you, but with the methods of peace I also do my bits. Listen—these packages of—ha, ha, these literatures! Myself I have made him.
When he drops from Simitoff's machine and hits that verdammte munitions ship—ha, ha, it will be no mistake! Wait a minute —listen yet—the other ship also, she iss so close—she, too! My friend, I tell you, Halifax will have been a joke!"
IT was then that Hale left him and ran. He scarcely knew what thoughts raced through his brain; his one impulse was speed, the frantic need of immediate action. Exactly what action, he did not know, and he dared not stop to think; he knew only that something had to be done; that everything possible had to be done, and done instantly.
Where the disciplined mind would have turned instinctively to his superiors for orders, Hale's natural impulse was one of self-reliance. His first action was to rush into a telegraph-office and send a furious wire to the keeper of a certain boat-house at Lake Sebago—a young mechanic who had the key of the shed in which Hale's speedy flying-boat nestled on its truck. His next was to race to the railroad-station and inquire frantically about trains.
As a sudden illuminating afterthought, he dashed into a telephone-booth and almost dragged the receiver from its socket, to call up police headquarters. He shouted a wild, incoherent message which left a galvanized sergeant clamoring excitedly for details that Hale could not give, and with the receiver still dangling he rushed out again and leaped for his train.
For three awful hours after that Hale sat and sweated. He thought of all the things that he might have done, and of all the things that he had done but ought not to have done; and he groaned and cursed himself for an impetuous, overconfident fool. Half-formed plans shot through his brain and shot out again with futile ineffectuality.
Anarchists! What a prince among fools he had been to take those fanatics for simple and comparatively harmless anarchists! It was a much newer word which described them, a word with an infinitely more deadly meaning. Propagandists—that's what they were; unbalanced visionaries who could be worked up by the cunning rhetoric of misplaced altruism into a state of madness in which they would attempt any wild scheme that might appear to promote their theories.
Idiot that he was! He might have guessed from the beginning that all that talk of literature was just clever camouflage. He knew that the country was full of such distorted minds, ready and malleable material for clever agents to work upon. Cunning, secret, and well supplied with money, they constituted a menace which every American had been warned to watch for more than a thousand times. Idiot again! If only he had thought to find out from the drunken chemist where Smitty, or Simitoff, kept his machine!
At agonized intervals he jumped to his feet and strode up and down the car, not noticing the grumbling discomfort of the other passengers. At other lesser intervals, at the stations, he rushed out and sent frantic supplementary telegrams to the chief of police.
"Bombs!" he wired, and " Munitions ships!" and a confused tangle of such meager information as he could think of from time to time.
He knew that there were two ships loading up with explosives at the T wharf, for he had followed an agitation in the papers about the danger they constituted to the city. It was these, no doubt, that the conspirators intended to bomb. The thought left him paralyzed with cold horror.
At last his station! His long train-ride having exhausted the limits of ineffectual confusion, he was beginning to think more coherently now. He leaped from his car and looked wildly about for some swift means of conveyance. Of course, nothing was in sight. Then his eyes fell on a motor-cycle which some leisurely citizen had left leaning against a wall. Some of his quick decisiveness was back with him now; he ran for it, crouching for a spring.
"I'm swiping this!" he shouted at nobody in particular. "Anderson's boat-house!"
He hurled a card with his own address over his shoulder as the starter caught up the ignition with a roar. The sleepy station gaped behind the madman's dust.
Anderson must have heard the frenzied tooting of the horn for the last mile at least, for he stood at the open door of the wide, low shed when Hale arrived like a humming bullet.
"How's she shape up, Andy?" Hale shouted even before he threw himself from the machine.
"Fine°" said Andy, with comfortable assurance. "Turned the engine over, as you said, and ran her wide open for about fifteen minutes; sang like a bird. What's the excitement?"
"Excitement enough—but I can't stand and talk. If I don't make the best time ever, you'll see it in front-page headlines to-morrow. Did you fill up the tanks?"
"To the last drop—squeezed it in; drained the sump, gave her full capacity clean oil; filled the radiator, too. She's good for six hours anywhere!"
Hale blessed him and ran eagerly round the beautiful machine, twanging at the brace-wires as if at a banjo.
"Been over every inch of her," drawled Andy; "every nut an' cotter-pin an' safety-wire."
"I'll believe you, Andy," panted Hale, "though I never passed up an inspection in my life before. Help me run her down! Hump to it!"
It was a cruel strain for two men to get something more than two tons of airplane moving, but Hale heaved with the frenzied strength of three, and Andy was no weakling. With a slow creaking of floor-boards the truck overcame its inertia. Hale thanked his stars that he had acquired ball-bearing wheels; and he blessed Andy again for having thought to pump the tires tight. Outside the door the runway sloped gently to the water, and the machine took the incline with increasing momentum.
"Let her go!" shouted Hale. "We can't hold her. She'll float clear!"
It was like launching a ship. The rumble of the truck over the boards became a roar; the machine rocked as the wind got under the planes. In another second the V-bottomed prow of the boat body hit the water with a loud slap, and the graceful thing floated lightly from the truck, a clean-cut silhouette of speed and endurance and power against the sinking sun. Andy waded out after it, while Hale rushed to his locker, in which hung leather jackets and helmets and goggles and all the expensive paraphernalia of the amateur flier.
When he came out, that highly efficient young man, Andy, had already brought the plane to the shore and held it steady by the tail-rudder, its nose pointed out, ready for immediate flight. Hale could have embraced him.
"Andy, I'll make an aviator out of you for this!" he promised gratefully. "I'll train you for a pilot's license myself. I swear it!"
Andy was not given to wild outbursts of enthusiasm, though he would have sold his soul for just such a chance as this.
"Fine!" he said with his slow drawl. "Tickled to death! But right now I'd rather you let me in on all this hurry. You got me all het up. What's doin'? Some one tell you there's been a couple o' eagles flyin' round, an' you goin' to shoot them, like some o' them Alpine sports out to the front?"
Hale stopped short with his foot on the step, and stood a moment, irresolute.
"N-n-no-o; but—the Lord knows, Andy —maybe I'd better—Say, hang on for another minute, will you?"
He raced back to his locker and returned with a compact-looking rifle. He was cramming thirty-thirty cartridges into his pockets. Without another word he climbed into the well, where he instinctively spun the control-wheel and looked back over his shoulder to watch the effect on the ailerons.
"Push her off now, Andy!" he called through set teeth) and pressed the self-starter button.
With a staccato burst of blue smoke the engine responded, and the beautiful machine surged forward. Andy snatched at his cap and turned his face away from the stinging spray. Within twenty feet Hale lifted her to the planing angle and "porpoised" tentatively. So sweetly was the engine delivering the last ounce of its rated hundred and thirty horse-power that almost immediately he got the feel of the air under the planes. He drew back on the elevating-control and lifted clear without a bump. He drew back further, and set a steep angle of climb as he banked over to the left. He was heading toward the southeast, for he wanted to strike the coastline before darkness should catch him.
A stiff head wind fought viciously against him, and made him tremble with anxiety, for it cut his speed down frightfully. Better that, however, than to take it on the side, heading across country, and to lose his way later flying in the dark over a maze of confusing glow-worm spots which marked a thousand scattered townships.
IT was close to the hour when Hale made out far below him the curving streak of phosphorescent silver that showed Portland Inlet. He breathed resonantly through the nose and banked steeply over to the right; he could save something by cutting across the cape. The effect on his speed was immediate. Fifteen minutes of flying gave him another winding line of broken silver and the lights of Old Orchard, and then he was out over the ocean again, He lifted the machine to the seven-thousand-foot level and headed out a point or two. There was a long curve of coast which he could avoid by cutting straight across.
For an hour he hurtled on through space, alone, with starry blackness above him and a vast, faint-gray reflection below. Beyond watching his altimeter, it was mechanical flying; his balance against the fierce gusts which buffeted his left side was automatic and barely conscious. Here was a case in which Sam Howard, with nothing to fix his eyes on, would have found himself upside down, as likely as not, and whirling into a fatal side-spin.
The thought came like a specter out of the night to haunt Hale. What was going to happen to Sam, he wondered dully? And then with an effort he drove the thought from his mind and forced himself to consider more immediate eventualities. He tried to figure out every possibility, and how he might meet it; but the combinations were endless. He made a hundred swift plans and rejected them for a hundred others.
Then a pale glow from below signified land again.
"Good!" he muttered. "Must be Rockport, or perhaps Gloucester." He looked at the clock on his dashboard, noted the oil pressure, and examined the gas-gage. Everything was running beautifully and he had made good time. A faint gleam of satisfaction came to relieve the dark monotony of perplexity. He dropped to four thousand feet and drove on, keeping the coastline in view.
And now he began to cast anxious looks toward the east, fearful of a rising radiance that would betoken the coming of the moon. He strained his eyes along the coastwise lights, and fell to toying with the throttle-lever and watching his tachometer dial, coaxing every last revolution out of the propeller. At one time it climbed to nearly thirteen hundred, and his heart leaped.
Then at last, far ahead, and a little to the right, the horizon began to lighten with a wide yellow glow—the lights of Boston! His pulse began to beat with the excitement of approaching action; and at the same time, away to his left, a great silver ball heaved itself up out of the sea with appalling swiftness!
He gripped his wheel hard and strained his body forward, as if to add speed by sheer muscular effort. The tachometer indicator crept slowly past the thirteen hundred and stayed there.
There followed fifteen interminable minutes, during every single one of which Hale's skin contracted in cold prickliness as he looked to see the whole earth in front of him hurl itself into the air in a frightful, blinding flash. It did not happen, however, and at last the noble machine was sailing high over the bay.
As far as Brookline Hale flew, and then circled slowly round and over the city. For the past hour he had been hoping, praying with fierce anxiety, that he might be in time; yet he found himself surprised to see the blur of myriad lights twinkling below in serene security.
He edged away over the scattered sparks of the islands, and circled again. He was like some great night-hawk watching with unblinking eyes for its prey.
He dropped lower. All his plans of the last two hours rushed into his head at once. What was he to do now? If only he knew from which direction Simitoff's machine would come! Should he drop to the surface, he wondered, and watch for a dark spot rising against the sky? That would be easy spotting; but in that case, perhaps, before he could rise again the bomb droppers would have gained a fatal start.
And when he spotted them, what was he to do? What could he do—a lone man in an airplane up in the sky. Perhaps it would be better to drop down, arouse Fort Winthrop, and get the patrol-boats out. No, foolish—that would take at least an hour. Perhaps he ought to—
Then suddenly Hale's straining eyes caught a swift-flung trail of sparks which moved rapidly ahead. Immediately his experience told him that that must be the starting of a not overclean exhaust. His imagination almost convinced him that he could hear the roar of an engine above the noise of his own.
He banked sharply over in its direction and dipped. He was trembling with eager excitement. And then—
"Hooray!" he yelled hoarsely, and his heart came surging up into his temples, where it throbbed wildly for a minute and ebbed away again, leaving him cold and tense and hard, the quick-thinking, quick-acting young schemer, with mind and muscle poised in perfect coordination.
Against the gray water below him a long, dark parallelogram moved swiftly over the surface. It swung in a wide circle and made directly for the docks, flying at a low altitude.
Immediately Hale saw his advantage; with the added momentum of a steep dive he could easily overtake it. Throwing his control forward, he came down like a bullet alongside of the skimming gray shape, and between it and the city. He hoped that the mere presence of another machine would apprize the conspirators that their plot had somehow been discovered, and would scare them off.
But apparently there was nothing timorous about those wild fanatics. Grimly the machine held its course, only rising a little higher. Immediately Hale followed, cold to think that they might get away from him. Even a few minutes of start would be ample for them to accomplish their deadly purpose.
Slowly he found his machine creeping level again, and he could have shouted aloud as he realized that he had the speed of them. If he could not frighten these desperate fellows away, perhaps he could head them off by flying just in front of them and working steadily away from the fatal docks.
The risk of collision, of course, was frightful. Just a touch in mid air, and both machines would go crashing helplessly together into the clammy blackness below; but Hale steadied his nerves with the reflection that the rabid plotters were too deadly efficient to sacrifice themselves without having first accomplished what they had set out to do. It was a poor consolation, at best, for a man hurtling through the empty darkness two thousand feet above certain death; but it was a reasonable hope, none the less, and Hale needed all the nerve he could get.
There is something more than ordinarily terrifying about the thought of being outside of the world, utterly removed from all human assistance, alone in the dark with a desperate and determined enemy. To an airman, an additional cause of nerve-strain is the fact that no single thing can be heard above the roar of the propellers, which gives an impression of deadly silence to every maneuver of the enemy. Hale set his teeth and veered another point across the gray machine's path.
The dim shape dipped a little, evidently to pass under him and shoot away to the desired goal. Immediately Hale dived after it; he could easily prevent that, he muttered. But as he drew level he saw it slowly begin to turn over. Over it rolled, till, with a rush, it went off on the wing and disappeared below him!
"They're gone!" he thought. "Something went wrong!"
The thought of their swift and sudden destruction chilled him, enemies though they were; and then, the next second, he heard the roar of their engine above him.
"Great Heavens!" he groaned again. "They didn't fall—they've got a war machine!"
His heart almost stopped beating, A war machine meant that a daring and skilful pilot could execute maneuvers which he, with his low center of balance, owing to the weight of his boat body, could not attempt. They could outfly him when and how they chose. They could dodge all round him as a swift and agile runner, in football, dodges the defending three-quarter-back and leaves him laboring foolishly in the rear. The dock was open to their attack at any time they chose.
While Hale was still thinking wildly what he should do, a round, dark object hissed down from above, only inches in front of his right wing. For an instant his heart stopped beating altogether. Frantically he tore his rudder over to the left and set his steepest climbing-angle. It seemed an eon before his machine responded, and he felt the chill horror of suspense crawling up his spine; but no second annihilating missile whizzed down; only, an eon later again, a shivering red blast lit the water far below.
Then once again he found himself climbing alongside of his enemy. They were headed direct for the docks now, and hideously close.
Hale could see the grim machine in clean silhouette directly between himself and the moon. He could also see that a figure in the forward seat, clear-cut against the silvery light, was busying itself with some dark object. There could be no manner of doubt about the desperate determination of these madmen. Nothing was going to stop them from reaching the munitions ships!
Hale's fear of imminent catastrophe nerved him to a corresponding degree of desperation.
"There's nothing for it!" he muttered to himself. "Thank Pete, I can fly!"
With only one hand on the control-wheel, he was groping behind him for his rifle. Again it seemed an age before his fingers closed on the stock. With frantic haste he swung the weapon over and rested the barrel on the padded edge of the well in which he sat.
"Thank Pete for the moon!" he muttered again, and fired once—twice, as quickly as he could.
In the forward seat he could see the dark outline of the bomb-thrower make some frantic signal, and immediately the machine began to dip as before; but this time he was ready for the maneuver. As he saw his antagonist begin to roll over, he banked and climbed to the left. When the other plane had completed its side loop; it found itself on an even level and once more against the moon.
Hale actually grinned with delight. He could almost imagine that he heard the snarl of the tall figure in the forward seat. It stretched an arm out toward him, and two little stabs of light spat at him in quick succession.
"Ah!" muttered Hale, and edged away to a longer range.
Then, as the other machine followed vengefully, he fired again, and, as his chance came, again, rapidly. He was wondering if the duel would never end, and how many more shots there might be in his magazine.
Relentlessly his enemy came after him, and the change of position left the moon behind. Hale again discharged his rifle into the uncertain dimness, and groaned with each shot.
Suddenly the pursuing shape seemed to jump in the air, like a stricken partridge; the roar of the propeller sputtered and stopped abruptly, and Hale found himself shooting far ahead. He banked hard over on a steep turn, and by the time he had come round his ghostly antagonist was already fading away on a long slant to the open bay.
Hale's only impression was one of vague surprise at the miracle that had suddenly happened. He looked at the empty darkness where the grim menace had been.
"Must have hit the engine," he murmured with slow wonder. "Must have smashed a cylinder, by the sound. What luck!"
Then, in the reaction which surged over him with the relief from his fearful tension of the last few hours, he felt himself go limp and trembling. He forgot the first rule of the victorious air-fighter—to follow the enemy to the crash. All he wanted to do was to come down and rest. Mechanically he dipped forward in a steep dive and shut off the engine.
FOR whole minutes afterward, on the quiet stillness of the bay, he found himself wondering whether any part of that nightmare adventure had been true. A ghastly life-and-death fight high above a peaceful American city seemed too unreal to be true. And yet, if this grim thing that was going on across the water were not fought out over there, it might very well come over here to—
Suddenly a search-light blazed into his eyes and a swift motor-boat tore up out of the darkness. A burly, hard-jawed man stood up in the prow and saluted.
"Which way did they fall, sir?" he shouted.
Hale motioned confusedly out to his right. Immediately a man swung the search-light and began flashing cryptic signals into the night.
The burly man spoke again, deferentially.
"Splendid work, sir — splendid work! We'd been watching that gang for weeks, but we couldn't get anything on 'em. We never knew the navy was on to 'em, too. How did your men get wise to it, sir, if I may ask?"
Hale did not know what to say.
Another motor-boat fussed up, this time with men in uniform. An important-looking personage hailed the group with enthusiasm. He made exactly the same mistake as the Secret Service man had made.
That a private machine could be flying about the bay never entered his mind; and since it was a hydro, obviously it must have something to do with the Navy Department. He almost repeated the other man's words.
"Splendid work, sir—splendid work! Must congratulate you. An officer from the naval school, I suppose?"
"No, sir," said Hale dazedly. He could think of nothing else.
"What? A cadet, then? Ve-ery fine work, my boy; you'll make a cracker-jack flier. What's your name?"
Hale told him.
"Very fine work indeed! I must congratulate you again. And I'll tell you what I'll do. Your commanding officer, Captain Davis, is a very good friend of mine. I'm going to telephone him first thing to-morrow morning and recommend him to slate you for Pensacola right away, to take your tests for your commission. You deserve it, and you'll make it easily, of course. Now tell me the whole story. I'm as eager as one of those confounded newspaper reporters!"
Hale was speechless. Events had followed one another so swiftly, the wildest improbabilities had been forced upon him so unexpectedly, that he was hopelessly unable to follow out any plausible line of explanation.
A brilliant flash of inspiration furnished him with an excuse.
"It's a long story, sir," he said. "I suppose I shall have to turn in a written report; and if you don't mind, I'll ask you to excuse me. I'm all tired out, and I need to get some rest."
"Oh, ah — certainly, certainly!" The important officer almost apologized to him. "I might have thought of that. Certainly! I'll wish you a very good night, then. The S.S. boat will tow you in wherever you want to go."
Hale escaped all further question, for the present, by wrapping himself in his mantle of weariness.
And he really was weary—dog-tired, in fact. The whole of that day had been the most strenuous of his life.
He slept far into the next morning. It was nearly noon when he was awakened by a wild-eyed young man whom he hardly recognized as his friend Sam Howard. Sam burst into the room and plunged into incoherent speech.
"What in Heaven's name have you been doing, Sanf? What's happened?"
Hale rolled over with lazy satisfaction, in startling contrast to the other's frenzied agitation. His was the contentment of a mind that had been made up.
"Well, it's a long story, Sam," he replied, smiling.
"But, good gosh, man, what is it? I get notified this morning that I—that Sanford Hale is down on the list to go to Pensacola right away to take flying-tests for a commission. Everybody's wondering why, and they're all as jealous as the devil, and —Sanf, I can't do it, I tell you! I can't fly alone for two minutes! I'll just go up and crash!"
Hale stood up and put both his hands on his friend's shoulders.
"Good old Sam!" he said fondly. "Never thought of quitting, did you? Well, I'll tell you the yarn in a minute; and don't worry, Sam. I've done a heap of thinking in the last few days, and—well, I guess it's up to me same as it is to all the rest of the fellows. As soon as you get your orders for Pensacola, hand 'em over to me. We'll just change back to ourselves again, and nobody any the worse. You see, I didn't really need this couple of months' ground work, while you've learned something. I know some of the right people, Sam, and we'll see if we can't get you in line for service as a ground officer, where your balance won't matter. I'm going back to New York to-night, and I'm going to tell Helen the whole rotten story from the beginning. It'll be up to her whether I make a confession of the whole thing or no."
Slowly, as he listened, the expression of anxiety faded from Sam Howard's face. His mouth began to spread into a grin—the old grin that used to be there before he and his friend entered, in the recklessness of their youth, into the dangerous game of trying to put one over on their old Uncle Samuel. He held out his hand to Hale.
"I hated to say what you looked like, Sanf, old man," he said with genuine gladness; "but I knew you'd come out all right in the end!"
Hale gripped his hand hard.
"You don't have to say it," Sam. I know all about it myself."
And then the old grin came to Sanford Hale, too.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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