Chapter IV

Graves climbed in the observer’s cockpit, which is the extreme nose of the ship. Directly behind him, seated side by side and separated from him only by the instrument board, were Broughton and Hinkley. Broughton was behind the wheel. On the scarf-mount around the observer’s cockpit a double Lewis machine-gun was mounted. Several feet back of the front cockpits, where a mechanic ordinarily rode, another twin Lewis was mounted on a similar scarf-mount.

Broughton turned on the gas levers, retarded the two spark throttles, and with his hand on the switches of the right-hand motor waited for the mechanics to finish swinging the propeller.

“Clear!” shouted one of them.

Jim clicked on the switches and pressed the starter. The propeller turned lazily, the motor droning slightly as an automobile motor does when the starter is working. In a few seconds she caught. Similar procedure with the left-hand motor, and shortly both Libertys were idling gently.

Broughton’s eyes roved over the complicated instrument board before him. Two tachometers, two air-pressure gages, two for temperature, air-speed meter, two sets of switches, starting buttons, double spark, double throttle, and on the sides of the cockpit shutter levers, gas levers, landing lights and parachute flare releases--it was a staggering maze to the uninitiated, but the two airmen read them automatically. From time to time they turned to watch more instruments set on the sides of the motors; oil-pressure gages, and additional air-pressure and temperature instruments, to say nothing of gages to tell how much gas and oil they had.

Finally the pilot’s hand dropped to the two throttles set side by side on his right hand. Little by little he inched them ahead until both motors were turning nine hundred. He left them there a moment, watching the temperatures until one read sixty and the other sixty-five. He cut the throttle of the left-hand motor back to idling speed, and then slowly opened the right one until the tachometer showed twelve hundred and fifty. He let it run briefly on each switch alone, listening to the unbroken drum of the cylinders. He went through the same routine with the left motor before he allowed both motors to idle while mechanics pulled the heavy blocks.

The ship was headed toward the hangars. When the block was pulled the right-hand motor roared wide open. Without moving forward three feet the great ship turned in its tracks, to the left. After it was turned it bumped slowly out for the take-off.

You can almost tell a Martin pilot by his taxying. The least discrepancy in the speed of either motor will make the ship veer. There is a constant and delicate use of the throttles to hold it to a straight course, without getting excessive speed. The two big rudders, both attached to one rudder bar, have little effect on the ground.

With a tremendous roar the Martin sprang into life. Jim set himself against the wheel with all his strength to get the tail up. As soon as that effort was over the Martin became suddenly easy to handle. It took the air in but a trifle longer run than a De Haviland. Neither flyer had his goggles over his eyes. Being seated ahead of the propellers, that terrific airblast which swirls back from an airplane stick was not in evidence. The propellers whirred around with their tips less than a foot from the heads of the airmen.

As soon as he had cleared the last obstacle and had started to circle the field Jim synchronized the motors until both were turning exactly fourteen-fifty. He studied gages and adjusted shutters to hold the temperature steady.

One circle of the field proved that the Martin was all that Covington said it was. It handled with paradoxical ease--a baby could have spun the wheel or worked the rudders. Only a slight logginess when compared with smaller ships would make a pilot notice what a big ship he was flying.

Jim was still new enough on Martins to get a kick out of seeing what he was tooling through the air. The wings stretched solidly to either side, totalling over seventy feet. Struts, upright and cross, were like the limbs of some great tree. Four feet to either side of the cockpit, resting on the lower wing amid a maze of struts and braces, the Libertys sang their drumming tune.

Broughton swung up the James River and passed between Petersburg and Richmond. The smiling Virginia country was level and cleared, and there was nothing to weigh on the flyers’ minds except what might happen at the end of the flight. Both of them let their thoughts dwell on what lay ahead. Perhaps Graves’ mind was running in the same channel, but he was apparently devoting all his faculties to enjoying the flight. In a Martin the country is spread out before you--you can watch it as comfortably as from some mountain peak.

* * * * *

They were flying slightly north-west, and passed Richmond a few miles to the south. The terrain commenced to become rough and patchy. Fields were small and clumps of trees studded the ground thickly. Miles ahead the Appalachian Range loomed majestically. The altimeter showed six thousand feet, but the Martin would not miss some of those peaks by a very large margin.

Both Hinkley and Broughton paid increasing attention to the instruments as the foothills slipped behind, their low green tops rolling away to the foot of the range. Finally Hinkley held up his wrist-watch and pointed. It was time for his trick at the wheel. Both men loosened their belts. Hinkley stood up, took the wheel, and waited for Broughton to slip into the left-hand seat.

It was not a performance to be essayed by a nervous person. The ship skidded perilously during the moment when neither man had his feet on the rudder bar.

Hinkley took up the duty of flying while Broughton began studying his map. Their course would take them past Lexington, which would be an easy landmark because of the fact that the campus of the Virginia Military Institute could be easily picked up. From that time on careful observation would be necessary, for few landmarks are available at all, and these few unreliable, when one is well over the Appalachians.

Lexington slipped by, and the Martin thundered along above a smiling valley. Hinkley watched the compass like a hawk, striving to hold exactly to the course they had calculated. Soon they were over the main range of mountains--for the next hour their only hope lay in those two mighty Libertys.

It was a scene of breath-taking majesty to look down on the far-rolling range, the mountain tops of which were less than a thousand feet below. The bottoms of the ravines, however, were far down, the infrequent houses as tiny as doll dwellings. The altimeter showed six thousand feet.

Broughton’s map showed that a small river, winding its way north and south, should come in sight very soon. By following that river northward until a railroad that twisted and turned on itself, crossed it, they would be twenty miles due east of Farran County. When they reached Farran County they would have to depend on observation to pick the right place, for only an approximate location was indicated on the map as Hayden’s headquarters.

As they reached the crossing of the river and the railroad Broughton leaned over and tapped the motionless Graves on the shoulder. Graves turned, and Broughton pointed to the map and then below, indicating the crossing. Graves nodded.

As Hinkley turned due west and they roared toward their goal Graves studied the faces of his assistants once more. Hinkley’s thin face was more hawklike than ever below the tight-fitting helmet and the goggles. The aerial headgear gave him a Mephistophelian appearance. There was a sort of perverse recklessness graven there, and not a trace of weakness. Broughton, clear-eyed and untroubled, seemed to typify quiet capability. Graves turned again to the primeval grandeur below with a contented smile.

In a moment Broughton and Hinkley changed seats again. It was more difficult this time, for the scrambled currents of the mountains were beginning to toss the great bomber around as if it were the lightest and least stable of scout planes. Masses of cloud above them made the air more bumpy, as always. The transfer was accomplished quickly, however, and then all three men began their difficult search for Hayden’s cabin.

It was almost impossible that they should not be on the course--at least near enough to be able to see the cabin. Graves took out a pair of field glasses, and ceaselessly searched the ground below. One factor made the quest a trifle easier. Not a single mountain did they see which showed any sign of either clearing or habitation, so that there was no question, as yet, of making a choice.

It was a strip of country now where five-hundred feet cliffs and sheer ravines rivaled the majesty of the mountains. Save for the tremendous trees, in place of the scrubby mesquite, it reminded Broughton of the mountains around El Paso. To the border flyers country like that was no novelty. They checked up the maze of instruments frequently, but aside from that showed no signs of undue excitement.

Hinkley peered steadily northward for a moment, and then shook Graves by the shoulder. He pointed to a towering peak, on which a cleared spot stood out sharply. Before Graves could train his glasses on it a fleecy cloud blocked his vision. Broughton banked sharply and skirted the cloud.

Once again the view was clear, and for fully thirty seconds Graves scrutinized the clearing. Then he motioned Broughton to fly that way.

It was five or six miles away. Four minutes was sufficient to bring them almost over it. Once again the field-glasses came into play. Both flyers could see a large timber cabin built a little below the crest of the clearing, close to the trees. The clearing was on the eastern slope, including the top and perhaps twenty yards of the western slope. There did not appear to be ten yards of level earth--the mountain literally came to a blunt point.

Graves slowly inserted his glasses in his case, and then turned to the flyers. He nodded briefly, and pointed down.

Jim retarded the spark on the left hand motor, and motioned Hinkley to turn off the gas line. To do more good, he changed the altitude adjustment completely. The object of all this was to lean down the gas mixture in the carburetor.

Shortly, as the gas had practically run out the motor began to pop back with loud reports. Hinkley turned the gas on again, and then Broughton began to click the switches on and off rapidly. It sounded as though there was a badly missing motor out there on the left wing.

He motioned Hinkley to follow his lead, in order to give himself a good opportunity to size up the landing situation. He was spiraling down slowly, with Hinkley seeing to it that the left motor was cutting out almost completely.

* * * * *

The long way of the clearing was uphill. The lower Broughton came, the steeper it looked. It appeared to be perhaps two hundred yards long, narrowing to nearly a point at the peak. The best way to crack up would undoubtedly be to run up the hill, over the top, and ram the trees with what little speed was left. There would undoubtedly be stumps or ditches which would crack them up before that, but the trees made it a sure thing.

A few men could be seen now, standing around the cabin. Graves studied them carefully, his glasses out once more. Broughton and Hinkley were inspecting that clearing, with no time for humans. Jim handled his great ship in that slow spiral automatically, jockeying the wheel incessantly as the air currents became worse.

Six hundred feet above the mountain top, he came to a decision. He could land without cracking up.

Hinkley worked the switches more rapidly, and Jim helped out by rapid thrusts forward and back with both throttle and spark levers. Popping, spitting, missing--no one who had ever heard a motor could believe that the ungodly racket meant anything but a badly disabled engine.

Broughton spun the wheel rapidly, and turned westward, curving around until he was headed for the lower corner of the clearing. His line of flight would carry him diagonally from this corner to a point a few feet below the peak.

He stalled the Martin as completely as possible. The air-speed meter showed sixty-five miles an hour. The great weight of the ship caused it to drop almost as fast as it glided forward.

The rim of trees formed a barrier nearly sixty feet high. The tail-skid ripped through them. Jim fought the ship with one hand while he turned both throttles full on for a moment to stop that mush downward which was the result of lack of speed.

As he pulled them back Hinkley cut all four switches. Then Jim banked to the right, so that his wheels would hit the ground together. He judged it rightly. For a second he thought the ship was going to turn over on the right, or downhill wing. It seemed to hover on the verge of it. The pilot snapped on the right-motor switches and the propeller, turning from the force of the air-stream, caught. The motor sprang into life as Jim thrust the throttle full on. It swung the right wing in time, and he cut it as the ship’s nose was turned up hill, both wheels on the same level. His observation as to the smoothness of the clearing had been correct. The slightest depression--even a rut--would have overturned the ship.

Before any one could say anything Jim felt the ship settle backward. It took a thousand revolutions on the right hand motor to stop it, but the propeller bit the air in time to prevent the tail-skid breaking.

“Work the left-hand switches while I taxi up!” yelled Jim into the pleased Hinkley’s ear.

Graves, his face white but his smile firm, settled back in his seat as Jim pressed the starter on the left hand motor. It caught.

Several men came running over the brow of the hill as Jim turned up the left hand motor to equal the right. The thousand revolutions on the right hand motor had not been sufficient to move and thus swing the ship, but just enough to hold it steady. It started slowly. As soon as it had a little momentum Hinkley cut the switches, and at the same time Jim jerked the throttle back. A loud report, and a brief miss was the reward of their efforts. Graves looked back approvingly, and then turned to watch the group of men nearing the plane.

The ship almost stopped, and had started to swing, before the grinning flyers caught the left hand motor again. Its progress up the slope was spasmodic, and it would not have been a surety to the most expert of observers that the left hand motor was not suffering from a plugged gas line or an intermittent short circuit in the ignition. With the walking men close alongside, Jim brought the Martin to the top of the hill. There was just barely clearance enough for the wings.

As soon as the wheels were slightly over the top, enough so that the Bomber could not roll backwards, he turned off the gas. Soon the motors began to spit and miss, and then the propellers stopped. Broughton snapped off the switches.

“Now for the fun,” remarked Larry Hinkley.