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

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

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

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

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

Hinkley nodded.

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

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

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

“Ready to go, I see.”

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

“Yes, sir. And you?”

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

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

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

“Listens well,” stated Hinkley.

Broughton nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

“Bombs,” said Hinkley.

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

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

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

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

“Not a bit.”

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

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

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

Both men nodded.

“That’s all then, I guess.”

“And the ship is ready,” said Hinkley.

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

He started for the hangar with long, unhurried strides.

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

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

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