THE KINK

Finley strode to the desk of the operations clerk in the flying office and inquired with a sunny Irish smile—

“Well, what old hulk do I haul around the field for flying time today?”

The grizzled old sergeant’s eyes dropped, and he seemed to mumble his words in embarrassment as he pawed for a slip.

“The Larkin, sir!”

“What?” exploded Finley. “That superannuated old wreck? What the ——, sergeant, what the ——? For the last month I’ve been trying to get my paws on a good ship and all I get are crates that should be in a museum! ——, I’m sick of—”

“Oh, well, it isn’t your fault.”

A loud laugh resounded from the ceiling as young “Kink” Forell came out of the locker-room, helmet and coveralls on, goggles swinging in his hand, his parachute under his arm.

“Lieutenant James Finley, official scavenger of ships for McCook Field!” he gibed, his boldly handsome face twisted into a mirthless grin. “Gosh, you’ll save the survey officer more trouble before this year is out, Finley, than any flyer in the army.”

He stopped at the door to get in the last words. Radiant vitality oozed from every pore of the tall young flyer, and his greenish-gray eyes were sparkling.

Hot words rose to Finley’s lips, which was unusual. If they did come there was an undercurrent of humor in them, as there had been when he had raved querulously at the sergeant. But Kink Forell could rub him the wrong way every time.

However, his habitual repression saved him, and he said mildly—

“Beat it, King, and do your stuff instead of talking it.”

He went into the locker-room and got his flying clothes, coming out on the outside platform with a determined grin on his square, snub-nosed face. The freckles stood out prominently, as if he were slightly pale.

The foremost airplane laboratory in the world was spread before him as he descended the stairs as if walking in his sleep. Drawn up in front of the row of hangars was a collection of ships, some of which might have been the fruit of a designer’s nightmare. Motors upside down, monoplanes, triplanes, ships with both pontoons and wheels on them; single seaters, two seaters, ships that could carry eight men; the little Sperry, a gnat of the air with a tiny three cylinder motor, was ranged alongside the mighty Barling bomber.

For once Finley’s mind did not indulge itself in a comparison of some of those shining ships with the craft of his own early days in the air. King Forell was taking off, he noticed, in one of the new pursuit jobs.

As the stalwart flyer walked up the line, seat-pack parachute under his arm, he was searching for the ship he was to fly. There it was, its dope cracked and discolored with age, looking the veteran it was. In fact, a fit ship for a has-been to fly.

He forced his mind away from that subject. His eyes rested on the Barling triplane. There was a ship! Weighing fourteen tons and capable of carrying six tons more; six Liberty motors to fly it and a crew of six men necessary to handle it properly, it was truly the leviathan of the air. What it portended for the future of aviation was something which the mind of a Finley could speculate upon forever.

“Jim! Jim Finley!”

It was the C.O.’s voice, and it cut through the drone of King Forell’s twelve cylinder motor, now three thousand feet overhead. Finley turned and saw the major standing with a group of men alongside some expensive motor cars.

“Those Congressmen from Washington,” he remembered, and walked toward them.

“This is Jim Finley, gentlemen,” the major said jovially, and went on to introduce him.

“These gentlemen were discussing the first test flight of the Barling, Jim,” he went on, “and I was telling them that you were the man who hopped it off, just as you came along.

“At that time,” he pursued, turning to the interested Congressmen, “Finley was chief test pilot of the Air Service. He flew the Barling when it had never been off the ground before, and did a great job.”

One stout, jovial legislator shook his head smilingly.

“That must take a unique and extraordinary brand of nerve,” he stated. “In fact, having your job must mean a continuous succession of—”

“We took him off a few months ago,” the major interrupted with a quick look at Finley, “to give him a rest.”

“And a —— of a rest, too,” Finley said with his slow grin. “Hauling the oldest hulks on the field around.”

“A contrast to flying the newest, eh?” laughed one of the Washington men. “Well, I congratulate you on being the first man to fly that—that monster there. And doing it successfully.”

“No credit to me,” Finley explained. “I flew a lot before the war, was an instructor a week after it broke out and shortly after that was sent to the Caproni school in Italy. They’re three-motored babies, you know, so big ships have been my dish.”

“Well, I guess Forell is about ready,” the major said, somewhat awkwardly.

He seemed ill at ease, Finley noticed, when the past was mentioned.

“Glad to have met you all.”

Finley smiled, and started for his ship. Forell was evidently going to give the visitors an exhibition. Well, no one could do a better job.

Despite himself, his mind roved back to that day when he had tested the Barling, and particularly to the banquet which the manufacturers had given that night in a Dayton hotel. The chief himself had been there, and as toastmaster he had introduced—

“Undoubtedly the best big-ship pilot in America—Jim Finley!”

All in all, that had been the high point of his flying career, Finley admitted, as his eyes caressed the great ship which lorded it over the line.

Suddenly the roar above grew louder, and he stopped to watch. Three lounging pilots looked upward, and the swarm of mechanics on the line quit work entirely. When King Forell was flying there wasn’t a great deal accomplished on McCook Field.

The little scout shot downward, motor wide open, in a terrific dive. Two, three, four thousand feet it dropped like a bullet. As it swooped out, barely five hundred feet above the ground, Forell fairly stood it on its tail. It bored its way upward a full half mile in a few seconds. At the very top of the climb it arched over, as if to loop, but as it got upside down it turned slowly on its horizontal axis. It ended up on an even keel, without jerkiness or hesitation, and instantly went into another one of those breath-taking dives.

“Boy, what ships!” Finley was thinking, as he saw the single-seater flashing earthward at a speed of more than three hundred miles an hour.

Duralumin construction, even to the aileron controls, all-metal prop, capable of a hundred and seventy-five miles an hour on the level. What King was doing would not have been possible two short years before.

For this time King scraped the ground as he came out of that bullet-like dive, and again the ship was darting almost straight upward. But this time it was turning in a two-turn-upward tailspin.

“There,” reflected Finley, “is the best acrobatic pilot I ever looked at. By the same token, he’s a bird that’s so far from being wise to himself that he’ll ruin his chances if he don’t look out. He could be a great guy in the service, if he doesn’t spoil his own chances!”

He moved slowly toward his ship as the “Kink” went into a continuous series of stunts. Barrel-rolls, half-rolls, loops, spins, falling leaves, upside down spirals—the whole gamut of aerial maneuvers was accomplished without loss of altitude or a second of rest between stunts.

And young Forell, less than two years out of West Point, was more of a flyer than showed up there right then, Finley admitted to himself. There wasn’t a test pilot on the field who could come down after flying a new job and analyze its performance as well as the Kink. Finley’s own ability to recommend changes in big ships’ construction which would improve them, was Forell’s on the scouts, and there was no reason why, with further experience, he shouldn’t be a whiz on any old plane at all. Every wire and strut and spar, every eighth of an inch of span or chord, every degree of incidence or dihedral—all had their message for the brilliant youngster, and his recommendations on new jobs had been uniformly accurate. They were thinking, Finley had heard, of sending him to Tech for a four year course in aero-dynamics and design. Well, they couldn’t pick a better man.

“If only he wasn’t such a pup. Shame, too,” Finley thought to himself.

Forell’s exhibition was done as Finley reached his ship and started strapping his parachute around the back of his thighs. As he snapped the shoulder and crotch straps together at his waist, his placid blue eyes swept the mechanic.

“If anybody’s got any insurance they want to collect, come on and take a ride,” he said with a grin. “Draw a chute, and hop in.”

The men glanced at each other beneath bent heads.

“I got to fix up Sixty-nine right away, sir,” the chief said awkwardly, and the crew men had excuses.

Finley nodded. He was not surprized. Nevertheless, the lines were a bit deeper, from nostrils to mouth, and his mouth a little thinner, as he climbed up on the trailing edge of the left wing, and worked himself ahead to the pilot’s cockpit.

The Larkin was a two-motored bomber, one motor set on each lower wing, just far enough from the pilot’s cockpit to allow the propellers to rotate. As it was, the tips of the big six-foot sticks almost grazed the cowling of the compartment, which jutted forth in front of the wings. It was a four-ton ship, with a wingspread of more than eighty feet. Two years before it had been king of its kind; now it was obsolete.

Finley’s hand dropped to the two throttles alongside his seat, and in a second the left-hand Liberty was turning up fifteen hundred as his eyes swept the instruments. Then the-right hand motor went into full cry, and his eyes read the tale of the needles before him.

He nodded to the crew men, and after they had pulled the wheelblocks he turned the ship on a dime by giving the right motor full gun. The aged Larkin swept around to the left and, as it faced the field, Finley cut the throttle.

Kink Forell was about to land, but he was coming down toward the northern edge of the field in a nose dive. Fifty feet above the trees the scout swept upward, and on its back. As it came swooping out of the loop its under-carriage seemed to graze the trees. It zoomed upward, banking as it rose, until it hung in the sky with idling motor, left wing pointed at the ground. It dropped almost straight downward in a vertical side-slip, straightening just above the ground.

It skidded wildly from side to side as Forell fishtailed it, and landed lightly on three points.

“Landing out of a loop,” thought Finley. “He’ll get bawled out for that, but he won’t mind.”

He could see the Kink now as he came up to the group of distinguished guests to receive congratulations. Tall and slim and smiling, the sun glinting from his red hair, he’d laughingly deprecate the compliments which he loved so well.

Finley taxied out, turned his ship and shoved both throttles ahead. He leaned against the wheel, and got the nose down as the Larkin bumped massively along the ground. As he eased it off the ground, however, it suddenly became easy to fly— the controls answered the mere hint of pressure on the wheel.

Finley’s square face was set and his eyes abstracted, as he circled the field for altitude. There was no doubt that most of the men on the field suddenly lost their wild desire to take a flight when it was Finley who invited them. Perhaps it was accidental, but—

Of course, he had had a streak of bad luck lately. Four wrecks, as a matter of fact, in a little more than a month. It was just a run of accidents, of course. On that forced landing the wheels had hit a log and the ship turned over. Another time, one of those —— reversible pitch propellers had suddenly gone into its negative position ten feet above the ground and snapped the nose down. The other crashes had been right on the field—bad air currents. When a man got into a run of luck of that kind he’d crash into an oasis with the whole Sahara desert to land on.

Perhaps that was the reason for his flying assignments, too. Like this Larkin, for instance. When the Larkin was a brand-new wonder he had been chief test pilot. In fact, he had been responsible for setting those motors on the wings themselves. They had been trussed up between upper and lower wings then. Five miles an hour more speed and greater ease of handling had been the results of that suggestion. That was the sort of stuff Kink Forell could do. He’d be even better with more experience.

Suddenly Finley’s mouth widened in a wintry grin. When he and this Larkin had taken their first flight they had been kings, with a thousand people watching admiringly. Now they were limping through the sky—a couple of has-beens.

It was starting to darken a little. The sun was down, and it was time to land. He eased the great ship down over the trees and leveled off with both motors cut to idling. It was slowing, now. Time to pull back on the wheel.

As he pulled the wheel back the ship settled. But, as it dropped, there was no contact with the earth. Finley, suddenly tense, felt the sickening rush downward. It was a full ten feet before the wheels found the earth, and there was a crash as the huge plane staggered back into the air. His hand found the throttles in a split second, and the Libertys were roaring. The ship settled again, and he fought it off the ground for a taut ten seconds. Gradually it picked up flying speed, and then he dared to look back.

A crumpled wheel marked the spot where he had hit. Doubtlessly the rest of the under-carriage was an ugly mess of splintered struts and a crushed wheel.

There was wild excitement on the line as the Larkin thundered low across the field. They were pointing, jumping up and down, pointing to the under-carriages of other ships. The Larkin was vibrating so that Finley himself was bounced from his seat, at times, against his loose belt. The wreck of the under-carriage had weakened the basic spar-structure of the entire ship.

“Do they think I’m a —— fool?” Finley raged suddenly, and the fingernails of his free hand dug into the flesh.

“Steady, now,” he advised himself, and throttled the wild uprising within him.

There was but one thing to do. He couldn’t land four tons at fifty miles an hour, without wheels. And the Larkin wasn’t worth saving, anyhow.

It was so left-wing heavy now that it took all the strength in Finley’s powerful shoulders to keep it on an level keel, and the vibration was so terrific that he could see the wing tips oscillate. The thousand-pound motors seemed to be striving to tear themselves loose, and each landing and flying wire gave an illusion of being a dozen.

If only the old hulk would hang together for five minutes! That would get him over the vast expanse of Wilbur Wright Field, seven miles north. He circled houses and avoided traveled roads as he fought desperately to keep his stricken ship in the air. It was weakening fast. At any moment it was liable to tear itself apart. He must not let it fall in a thickly settled section.

As he reached the edge of the vast airdrome, seven miles outside of Dayton, it was impossible to keep the left wing up at all. The Larkin was like a bird with a broken wing, falling sidewise.

He unstrapped his belt, holding to the wheel as he tried to keep the nose up. Facing the rear of the ship, one hand on the wheel behind him, he gathered himself.

To slip would be fatal now. Those two propellers were like buzz-saws and should he be thrown into either of them he would be carved up as butter by a knife.

One foot was on the seat. Directly ahead of him was the bomb compartment, its top three feet below the upper wing, even with the back of his seat. Eight long feet away was the observer’s cockpit, a round hole in the wide fuselage.

Using one leg as propelling force, he loosed his grasp on the wheel and hurled himself forward, sliding on his stomach across the bomb compartment. Instantly the great bomber fell into a whirling spin. He was being hurled off his perch as his hands found the cowling around the cockpit, and he hung there desperately, dragging himself forward.

The spin was terrific now, due to the wingheaviness, and four tons were screwing earthward in a hell of shrieking wires. He fought to one knee, then got one foot on the fuselage.

Just as one hand found the ripcord ring he was hurled from his ship like a drop of water flung from a speeding wheel. An uncontrollable, strangled cry of fear escaped him as he found himself in space with a pack which was supposed to open on his back.

He fell end over end as he forced himself to count a full, slow five. His brain was numb, but the one idea which gripped him was that he must avoid that ship.

He jerked the ripcord, and with a sob of relief felt the little pilot chute snap out. The next second it had pulled the folds of glistening silk from the bag, and his body was jerked double as the shoulder springs rose.

His waist was sore as a boil as he swung in sickening arcs below the chute. Sometimes he was even with it. As the pendulum-like rushes through the air slackened, a great ball of fire burst from the ground.

The Larkin had made its last flight.

He was nearing the ground now, and it seemed to be coming up to meet him with ever-increasing speed. Fifteen feet a second, that was the speed of the drop, but now, less than a hundred feet high, it seemed terrific. He was close to the hangars, too, but he’d hit the ground before he was blown against them.

His hands grasped the shroudlines which ran from the harness to the edges of the big silk umbrella, and he loosened his muscles. As he hit the ground he pulled his body upward, and bent his knees like a man who lands from a jump.

He snapped off his harness before the breeze could drag him, and had the billowing silk in hand as Captain Adams puffed up to him.

“What happened?” gurgled the captain. “Or do you always come down that way?”

Finley wet his lips with his tongue. Seemed as if he did always come down that way, at that.

“Wiped the under-carriage off at McCook,” he drawled equably. “There’s a ship landing to bring me home right now, I guess. Will you have the boys clean up the fire?”

“Sure. Want a drink?”

He did, but he shook his head. Somehow he wanted to escape before the other officers at Wilbur Wright gathered around to ask questions.

“That’s Dick Redding, I think, after me.”

He walked out to meet the McCook ship, and Redding, who had succeeded Finley as chief test pilot, motioned to the rear cockpit. As Finley got in, Redding threw a “Glad you got out all right!” over his shoulder, and took off without delay.

As they walked side by side, back at McCook, from the line to the flying office Finley could barely restrain himself from bursting into wild self-condemnation. Why was wiry, weatherbeaten little Redding so quiet? Finley wondered as he threw cheerful answers to the questions which bombarded him from mechanics.

“Well,” Redding said finally, “The Larkin’s not much loss, at that. She was due.”

“Uh-huh. But I ought to be given twenty kicks in the pants and the booby prize! Thinking about everything else but flying! When that pocket hit me I was in dreamland.”

They were going up the steps, and as they approached the door of the office some one was talking as if he were laying down the law.

“—kill himself, I tell you! There’s something the matter with him! Why, how in —— could—”

Redding fairly threw himself in front of Finley, and pushed the door open. Sudden silence fell over the four flyers who were lounging around on the desks.

“Got out without a scratch, eh?” queried fat, blond “Brad” Sparks. “Well, you can’t kick!”

Kink Forell’s loud laugh rang out.

“Let’s see, Finley, this makes you a German ace, doesn’t it? You’ve brought down five American ships within a month.”

“That’s nothing,” Redding slid in. “I once—”

“—— if you haven’t got the world’s record for short landings!” The vibrant youngster went on loudly. “When you land a ship, it doesn’t roll a foot!”

Finley despised himself for the inclination he had to answer the cocky Forell in blazing words. It was hard to control himself.

“Sort of hard on wheels, though, my method is,” he said slowly, a set smile on his face.

“Prettiest landing I ever saw!” gibed Forell, hard mockery in his eyes. “Perfect dive, great leveling off, tail skid down just as she was losing speed—ten feet in the air! Boy! What a darb that one was! I never—”

“Shut up, Kink!” snapped Redding. “Come on Jim, let’s get the report out of the way and shoot it over!”

“Why don’t you issue muzzles along with helmets around here?” snapped Forell, his eyes flashing his resentment at the curt command. “I suppose I hurt the poor old boy’s feelings, eh? I’m sorry, papa, if I caused any tears.”

“Are you going to talk all day, for ——’s sake?” exploded Redding. “For the love of Mike get out of here until this report’s fixed up, will you?”

“No. I’m not ready yet. Listen, Finley, though, on the level. You ought to get out of this flying game. You get old young in this racket, and you’ll kill yourself before you know it. I’ll bet the flight surgeon’d find more things wrong with your eyes than—”

“Oh, ——,” breathed big Franklin wearily. He darted a look at Finley, who was seated at the desk. “Say, Kink, I need a little advice, too. Have you any suggestions to make as to how I can improve my cross-country?”

“—— if you don’t need some, at that!” the youngster shot back nastily. “You get lost enough. Well, so long. I’m going to town. Better take my tip, papa, on the doc.”

He slammed the door after him. Brad Sparks’ round, good-natured face wore a frown as he remarked—

“In just about six months the Kink’s going to know so much that he won’t be worth a single, solitary ——!”

As Finley took up the pen, the labored conversation of the others reached his brain without making sense, as the knowledge smote him that they were trying to avoid hurting his feelings, and were sore at Kink for that reason. He, Jim Finley, who’d been flying bamboo kites-before they’d ever seen a plane, and was leading flights of bomb-laden Capronis across the mountains when they thought a ninety horsepower Jenny was the only airplane in the world! They didn’t kid him— didn’t kid him when the favorite trophy of McCook Field was an elaborate bronze shield whereon were engraved, with great pomp and ceremony, the names of the men who pulled really classic bones!

——, they were sorry for him!

He got very drunk that night with Frankie DeShields, a jovial airman whose firm belief it was that any landing from which one emerged alive was a good landing, and that there were no good flyers dead nor poor ones alive.

Finley’s head was throbbing dully next morning as he went through reports listlessly. It was ten o’clock when the telephone rang. He stiffened as he recognized the voice which reached his ears.

“Jim? Major Carrol, Jim. How about dropping over right away for your six hundred and nine?”

“Why, doc, I just had my semi-annual three months ago. It’s not due until—”

“I know it, but we’re getting at ’em early this time to ease the rush. Come right over, eh? Good.”

There was a curious constriction around his heart as he walked to the hospital. He wondered whether the doctor thought he’d fallen for that stuff about starting the regular physical examinations earlier? Why in —— couldn’t anybody around the field come out in the open, and say what they had to say, with no bones about it?

The spry, scrawny little medico kept up the bluff, though, and filled out long questionnaires and put the big flyer through the revolving chair and went over his scarred body from feet to ears. Finley, outwardly placid, felt the growing tautness of every nerve within him. Why bother with all this junk? Why not get to the most important item at once, instead of stalking around?

“All O.K.!” the chipper little doctor said cheerily. His eyes were glinting behind his sparkling glasses. “Now we’ll take a peek at the eyes, and we’ll be through.”

In a moment Finley had the end of two twenty-foot strings in his hands, attached to two small, movable uprights which ran on runners in a lighted box on the wall. Straining his eyes to the utmost, he strove to adjust those small sticks until they were side by side. The major, silent and intent, made him do it three times, and then set him to peering through special lenses and trying to adjust them until a line of light cut the center of an electric bulb squarely. He peered through a stereoscope, and picked out different shades of pink and red from a collection of colored yarns. Finally, he was in front of the vision chart.

His eyes watered with the effort he made to read the twenty-twenty line, and there was perspiration on his forehead as he tried to pick out letter after letter from that blurred mass. He was weak as a kitten when he followed the major into the office.

The kindly medical man settled himself behind his desk.

“Jim, I’ve got to take you off flying.”

Finley’s tongue licked his parched lips as he stared at the major, like a man paralyzed.

“Your vision is way below normal—possibly due to overstrain—and more important still, your muscle balance is out of plumb. Your stereoscopic vision is imperfect. It may be curable with rest, or it may be simply the natural result of growing a little older. Anyhow, I must take you off.”

“But, doc, can’t you get a waiver from Washington? Once before—”

“In that case, Jim, I couldn’t recommend it. You can fly as an observer, of course.” Finley took the blow standing up.

“Sure. I won’t lose—any pay.”

He could scarcely comprehend the full meaning of what had happened as he walked slowly to the mess-hall. He was numb, somehow, mind and body. As the babble of voices from within reached him he gathered himself, and forced himself to lounge in and nod smilingly to a couple of visiting flyers. When he settled himself at the long table which the test pilots gathered around, he saw the unspoken question in the eyes of Redding, Sparks and the others.

“Well,” he drawled. “You boys seem to be eating with a corpse.”

“Huh?” barked Redding.

“Just saw the doc,” Finley went on, his eyes busy with his plate as he shook three times as much salt on it as he wanted. “It seems that my dandruff is gradually making me just a shell of my former self, and the left tonsil, I believe, is about to explode. And my halitosis—why, it’s a wonder I’m alive!”

“What happened?” demanded Brad Sparks, looking squarely into Finley’s eyes.

“I’m taken off flying,” Finley said calmly.

“I told you so!”

It was Kink Forell, just taking his seat.

“So you took my tip, eh? I knew it was the thing to do. You’d of killed yourself in another week. You get old young in this game!”

Finley’s brows knit. —— the weakness which made him bridle at every cocky word of Forell’s. The red-head had his goat. Just then his words had been a crow of triumph, Finley thought, because he, Forell, had called the turn.

“I wish to —— you’d get old enough soon to keep your mouth shut once in a while,” Fairbanks told him levelly, but the Kink did not resent it. He was in high good humor.

“Conversation,” he said airily, “is the spice of a meal.”

Finley went through his office work mechanically that afternoon, and at four o’clock he was through. He got up from his desk wearily, lighted a cigaret and stared out of the window at the flying field. The Kink was testing a new monoplane pursuit job. The trim, shining little plane was cavorting madly through the sky, like a dragon-fly at play. It frolicked among the silvery, cumulous clouds, and as it darted in and out, hung on its back and dived furiously in joyous exuberance, Finley suddenly sat down at his desk again. His eyes were still staring unseeingly out of the window.

For a moment his mouth worked, then was still. He leaned on the desk. At thirty-five he was a discard in the flying deck—an outcast from the kingdom he had helped to build, part of which he had ruled.

“And now, gentlemen, I want to introduce undoubtedly the greatest big-ship pilot in America.”

His head dropped to his folded arms. That afternoon was his Gethsemane, and he got very drunk again that night.

As the weeks passed his tranquil exterior was not entirely assumed. It wasn’t as bad as he had thought, and the ache within him became only a dull one. Dick Redding took over the big-ship work after Brad Sparks was killed, and Finley was always a passenger on test flights. His judgment of performance, and analysis of it, was as accurate as ever, which helped his self-esteem. It warded off the time when the ground would be his exclusive habitat, and the work of the air would go completely past him.

Nevertheless, the pride of the pilot, which passeth all understanding, was strong within him, and there was no earthly eminence which could replace what he had lost.

And Kink Forell never missed an opportunity to remind him of what he had lost. The Kink was going wild. His callous kidding of Finley, unrelieved by any undercurrent of humorous raillery, had crystallized the growing weariness of the little group of flyers with Forell and all his works. The brilliant youngster sensed the change in feeling toward him, and something indomitable in him made him deliberately pursue the course which had caused it.

He received no more casual compliments about a particularly skillful bit of work, so he went wild trying to force them from the taciturn airmen. His flying brought frequent gasps from even the old-timers, and scarcely a day passed, toward the end of the month, when Forell’s matchless airmanship was not a topic of conversation—when he was not around.

Finley’s animosity toward him grew in strength. That the Kink was like an annoying hornet, buzzing around him constantly in an endeavor to sting him, was not important. Forell grew to blame Finley for his ostracism, and never missed an opportunity to get in a dig. That didn’t matter. A fat-headed young fool like Forell couldn’t affect Finley’s peace of mind for a moment.

Rather, the older man’s dislike was the result of his utter contempt for Forell’s blind insanity. There was a bird with a brilliant future, he reflected a thousand times, who was throwing away his chances for an ideal life, through sheer egotism. A born aerial engineer, a flying genius, young, handsome, loving his work—why, the Kink could be one of the biggest men in the service, and an asset to it.

But because he was a stubborn, unbearably conceited brat, a year or so would see him dead, or an outcast, unless he mended his ways. Never had he been so cocky and domineering, nor his tongue so nasty, as now, when the dislike of his fellow-pilots was something tangible in the very atmosphere.

But he was showing the strain, Finley observed when he met him one Saturday morning in the adjutant’s office. The Kink’s lean face was thinner, he was somewhat pale, and there was an unhealthy glitter in his eyes as he said—

“What are you doing here?”

“Got to see the major at ten.”

“That’s funny as ——! So’ve I! What does he want with the two of us?”

“You go in together,” the adjutant informed them. “Shoot!”

The C.O. was standing behind his desk, a paper in his hands.

“Morning, gentlemen. Get ready to take off in a Briston as soon as you can pack a bag,” he said crisply. “The reserve squadron down at Nashville are dedicating a hangar they’ve built on some lot they’ve leased for a flying field. They’re getting a couple of Jennies to get in flying practise on. There’s a banquet tonight. Forell, you give ’em a flying exhibition this afternoon. Finley, they want you for a speech at the banquet tonight. Don’t go crazy, Forell—just give ’em a little show.

“Better start right away. It’s a two hour and a half trip. You’ll be put up down there. If you’re having a good time, you needn’t come back until Monday morning.

“Good luck. That’s all.”

“Boy, this’ll be fun!” Forell chuckled jubilantly as they went out. “Ever been in Nashville? They sure have good-looking Janes there, and we’ll be cocks of the walk. You’re not too old to like the women, are you?”

“How soon can you be ready?” demanded Finley. “I’ll be set in half an hour.”

“Me too. Let’s hope you don’t crash as a speechmaker, anyhow! I do the flying and you tell ’em how, eh?”

“See you in half an hour.”

They took off promptly in the trim observation plane. It was of duralumin construction, and capable of any kind of acrobatic work. It could do a hundred and fifty miles an hour on the level, and represented the last word in a two-seated fighting plane.

Finley, like all pilots, was uncomfortable without his own hand at the stick, but Forell was not called on to meet any emergencies as they roared down the Big Miami to its junction with the Ohio, thence down that majestically muddy stream to a point above Louisville where they cut southwest across the Kentucky mountains until they hit the Louisville-Nashville railroad. From there it was but a half-hour run across the brooding, wooded hills to their destination.

There were fully five thousand people at the field, and shortly after they had landed Forell went up for his exhibition.

With that swarm of spectators intent on his every move, the Kink was inspired. Finley watched him send the Briston hurtling across the sky in a breath-taking dive, upside down, and then bring the ship out of it through a straight nose dive that drew shrieks from the women and awed comments from the men. It darted upward on its tail, spinning a full turn, and there was speed enough left under Forell’s handling to allow him to arch it over on its back once more. For a moment it gathered speed, upside down, and then did a complete roll which left it upside down again. Another instant to gather speed, and he had flopped it over on an even keel once more.

Finley, his eyes shining with admiration, told the reserve officers—

“There, boys, is about the best stunt pilot you’ll ever look at!”

Shortly afterward the two McCook men left the field in the cars of their hosts. Finley was to stay with a young lawyer who was plainly honored to have him as a guest, and by the time several fingers of mountain dew, collected in the shine of the moon, had done its work, he was having an excellent time.

The banquet, it appeared, was not restricted to the reserve squadron, for there were fully five hundred people around the tables when Finley got up to speak.

He was surprized at their absorbed attention. He did not realize that the passion for the air which had absorbed him for eighteen years shone through his slow, almost halting words, and made them live. He was stunned at the solid applause when he sat down.

The toastmaster was on his feet.

“You know who you’ve been listening to,” he told the enthusiastic crowd. “One of America’s greatest pilots. Here’s where the program is supposed to end, and it’s getting late, but I think we all feel like just a word or two from Lieutenant Forell.”

Kink leaped to his feet, his face flushed and his words tumbling over themselves as the applause smote him.

“All I can say is that you’ve been listening to a man who can’t fly any more, so what he says means something. He knows, and he—can’t do any more to develop the game. That’s what lays ahead of all flyers—either have to quit, worn out and through, or get killed. But who cares? It’s the greatest game in the world!”

Finley’s face did not change. Forell had to dramatize himself, of course.

They took off Monday morning at eight o’clock, but there were fully five hundred people at the field to bid them good-by. Finley, his hand itching for the stick, sat tensely while the Kink took off. Forell held the ship close to the ground, and then zoomed it over the hangar. He followed the curve of the roof around, the wheels almost touching it, and dived briefly down the other side.

Finley relaxed. The grandstanding was over now, he hoped.

As the Briston droned swiftly across the rugged mountains Finley’s flyer’s instinct literally forced him to sweep the ground ceaselessly with his eyes. Most of the time he had a tiny clearing or a possible field always in mind in case the motor started missing. That was tough country down there.

He stiffened as there came a break in the even rhythm of the Liberty. For a moment the motor spat and missed. Then, for a moment, it fired steadily.

Finley was ready to sink back thankfully in the rear seat when the four hundred and fifty horsepower engine coughed again. His eyes leaped to the tachometer. Only nine hundred revolutions.

Forell did all he could. He jazzed the throttle, dived steeply, and tried the spark at all positions. The motor was stumbling along, its r.p.m. only seven hundred now.

Finley’s hand gripped Forell’s shoulder. He pointed down at the one possible field, three thousand feet below. Forell nodded impatiently, and turned to his work.

The field was an oblong, and very short on its longest side. Squarely in the middle of it stood a single tree, which turned the possible landing space into two strips, scarcely twenty-five yards wide. It was on a steep slope, and at its lower edge another hill, heavily wooded, started rising from the very rim of the field. As they spiraled down over it, Finley saw that in order to land uphill, the ship would be forced, willy-nilly, into a fairly steep glide down that other slope.

Forell was a master-flyer, but never-the-less it was agony for even the self-controlled Finley to sit idly by and watch Forell fly. Perfection in judgment and airmanship was necessary if they were to make that field in safety. There was not so much as a cabin within five miles, should they be hurt.

Kink started banking for the field halfway up the slope which faced it. As the nose swung toward the clearing the pilot stopped the spiral when the radiator was pointed toward the field at an angle.

While the tense Finley wondered, momentarily, what he was going to do, Forell sent the Briston into a gradual side-slip. It dropped down the mountainside with scarcely thirty miles an hour of forward speed, and he did not swing the nose for the right hand strip until the ship was at the very end of the towering trees which formed the barrier.

He dropped it over them, fishtailed it with the rudder, and set it down squarely in the middle of the landing lane. It trundled past the tree with scarcely ten feet of clearance on each wing, and came to rest twenty yards from the woods at the upper end.

The landing had been perfection itself.

“Sounded like water in the jets!” yelled Kink as he snapped off the switches.

Finley nodded as he hit the ground. That had been his diagnosis of the trouble, exactly.

He measured the field briefly with his eyes, and got the tool-kit out as Forell climbed out.

“We’ll take a look,” Finley drawled. “Let’s hope it’s just a jet.”

“——, there’s no hurry,” announced Forell, lighting a cigaret. “We’ll either have to get those trees—some of ’em—cut down, or else tear the ship down and send it home. We can’t get out.”

“Can’t get out?” repeated the bewildered Finley, jet wrench in hand. “Why—”

“Of course not!” snapped Forell, his eyes blazing suddenly. “There isn’t a chance—”

“Well, let’s look at the jets, anyway,” Finley cut in calmly, and went to work on the carbureter.

Forell paced up and down nervously as Finley worked without saying a word. Occasionally the big red-head darted a puzzled look at his stalwart, silent companion. Neither had anything to say until Finley had the jets out and was peering through the tiny openings.

“There she is!” he said triumphantly. “Look!”

The water bubble in the high speed jet was plain to be seen. Forell took a quick look through it. As Finley blew it out the Kink said jerkily:

“As soon as we get her back we’ll make for that town over north and see about getting some men to cut down some trees. We might be able to leave by tomorrow.”

His eyes blazed a challenge to Finley, but the older man said placidly—

“Let’s see whether she works first, anyhow.”

His mind was busy, however, with the implications in the Kink’s words. With eighteen years of experience behind him, he came close to knowing what could and what could not be done on a take-off. This one would have to be perfectly flown, but it could be done.

“Get in, and I’ll swing the prop,” he directed.

“Oh, what the ——’s the use?” Kink started, and then stopped.

He climbed in the front cockpit, his face sullen and his blue eyes glinting. Finley picked up two sizable rocks for wheelblocks, and then swung the propeller as Forell handled switches and throttle. The Liberty, still warm, caught at once, and idled along sweetly.

Forell turned it up a little, and tried it on either switch. He put it through its paces, with the spark in all positions, and it seemed to Finley that he was disappointed because it fired without a miss.

Suddenly the motor died, and Forell was on the ground.

“Well, let’s get started for help!” he barked. “I’ll go and you guard the ship.”

“Go for help, nothing,” Finley told him, putting the tool-kit away. “We’re going to take off!”

“Are you crazy!” yelled Forell, his face pale and drawn. “Why, ——, there isn’t a Chinaman’s chance of getting out of here!”

“The —— there isn’t,” Finley said levelly, his eyes not two feet from Forell’s. “Listen. We get the ship up in the upper right hand corner here, swing her around, and block the wheels. Give her the gun, and right after she’s hopped the blocks she’ll be under full steam. Go diagonally for the left hand side of the tree, and right there swing her with right rudder to the lower right hand corner. That’ll give us several extra yards.”

“——! You must be going blind! Why listen, you superannuated old fool, we’d crash into those trees just as sure as we’re standing here!”

“We would not,” Finley said slowly.

“I say we would. And I’m the pilot of this ship; I’ve got the say, and I won’t take her off!”

He seemed to be half-crouched, as if prepared to fight for his very life.

“Oh, you won’t!” Finley said with deadly calmness. His eyes flickered over the youngster before him with cold contempt.

“No, I won’t, and by —— I think you’re going totally crazy! Want to add another wreck to your—”

“Listen, you puling brat!” blazed Finley, and now all the repression of months seemed to have been released, and with blazing eyes and a torrent of speech he fairly threw his words into the younger man’s face.

“You won’t take off, eh? A —— of a flyer you are! Got all the nerve in the world when the motor’s going good and you’ve got a crowd watching you, haven’t you? But when it comes to getting in there, out here in the wilderness, and giving her the gun when you’ve only got an even chance, you haven’t got the guts!”

“Shut up, or I’ll—”

“You’ll do what?”

Finley spat his words at him. His powerful body seemed to grow and expand until it overshadowed the slim youngster. There was contempt and hate in his eyes as his tongue played around the alternately shrinking and then wildly furious Forell, like a whip. He flayed the man he despised, mercilessly, laying bare the diseased spots within the outward semblance of the red-headed flyer.

Forell’s fists were clenched, and his eyes had the light of madness in them as Finley welded iron into his soul by the heat of his wrath. Time after time, during that stream of deadly insults which poured from the transfigured Finley’s mouth, it seemed that Forell was going to leap on him. Finley, giving not a step nor shifting his eyes by so much as an inch, dared him to come on.

“And as true as ——!” he finished, “if you funk this take-off I’ll climb in there myself and take her off, and I’ll bring her back to McCook, and I’ll label you in front of the whole cock-eyed world for the yellow-bellied, chicken-hearted, gutless —— that you are!”

For a moment he played with the idea. He pictured himself coming in, having made the take-off that Kink Forell couldn’t make. That would show them whether he was through or not.

He put temptation from him. He was dimly aware that he had played his trump card, as far as Forell was concerned. He hammered on along the same line—insulting, threatening, daring the snarling, hot-eyed pilot before him with a tongue tipped in vitriol and eyes that glowed their hate.

Suddenly Forell drew himself up tensely, and there were tears in his eyes as he shouted hysterically—

“All right, —— you, we’ll go to —— together just to prove that you can’t bluff me!”

He was trembling as he got into the front cockpit, and started the motor. Finley walked at the left wingtip as the ship taxied to the upper right-hand corner of the field, and there he helped swing it around. The rocks under the wheels, he got in. He was tight-lipped and grim-faced as he settled himself for his worst ordeal in eighteen years of flying.

What kind of a pilot would that quivering, hysterical youngster in the front seat be when he was flying for his life? The Kink was sure he was going to his death.

The Liberty roared into life, the throttle all the way ahead. The taut Finley felt the stick jam forward. An instant before the tires jumped the rocks the tail was in the air. Nose low to the ground, the Briston sped for the left hand opening between tree and forest.

Finley’s hand was on the stick, his feet on the rudder, lightly. The right wingtip scraped past the tree with scarcely two feet to spare. At that instant the right rudder went on, and the ship angled for the corner of the field. It was headed for the lower right-hand angle of the field, now, where towering trees were like sentinels, alert to repel it.

The time had long passed when there was any chance of turning back. It was all or nothing, now. The ship was off the ground, rushing for those trees, barely five feet above the ground. It was nosed down slightly, gathering speed. Now the trees were dancing right in front of his eyes.

There Forell pulled back. The Briston shot upward, losing speed rapidly. It barely cleared the topmost branches as he leveled it off. It mushed downward, and there came a drag on the under-carriage.

Suddenly Forell was leaning forward as if to help his ship onward. With all his natural genius for estimating flying speed and the capabilities of a plane he fought it—fought to keep it in the air. In his desperation it seemed to the older man, straining forward against his belt, that the Kink worked up speed and tore the ship from those clinging branches by his own strength.

It was free. For a moment, banking ever so slightly, Forell held it level to gather speed. Then, the Liberty roaring triumphantly, the Briston winged its way upward like some suddenly liberated bird.

Finley relaxed limply. Somehow he was very weary. He was glad everything was all right, and that one of the most brilliant young pilots in the service had got over the hump.

As they spiraled down above McCook he noticed that just about everybody on the line was looking at them. Forell, who hadn’t turned his head once, did not seem to notice the attention they were attracting. As the ship taxied to the line a considerable group of mechanics and flyers gathered to meet it, which was unusual, to say the least.

Forell did not run out his motor, but snapped the switches off without delay. He was on the ground almost as quickly as Finley himself.

“Where did you pick the shrubbery?” demanded Dick Redding, pointing at the wheels.

Finley’s eyes took in the sight. The wire wheels were stuffed with foliage from the branches that had escaped.

“Where did we get it?” repeated Forell loudly. “On a forced landing, that’s where!

“We came down in a little tiny field no bigger than a hangar, in Kentucky. When we fixed her up I took a look. Didn’t seem a chance to get out—not a chance. But I figured that we might do it by blocking the wheels and some other stuff, so I said, ‘What the ——? Either we do or we don’t!’ So I give her the gun, get the tail up, do a snake-dance down this little pasture lot with trees all around it.”

His flashing eyes met Finley’s tranquil gaze, and he stopped talking as if a hand had been clapped over his mouth. There was fear in his eyes as Finley’s held them.

“Yeah,” Finley drawled placidly. “It was a tough spot, but the Kink made it. Who’s got a cigaret?”