Chapter VI

The peak they had left was a trifle higher than any of the others, so it was unnecessary for Broughton to waste time getting altitude. The Martin drove steadily eastward over the murky world below.

Probably no ship is ever so helpless as when flying over country like that at night, but the successful culmination of their adventure was such a tonic to the airmen that the chance of a forced landing seemed only a minor thing, scarcely to be considered.

In a few minutes Graves turned and passed a note back to Hinkley. The tall flyer read it with difficulty in the darkness, and then passed it to Broughton, steadying the wheel to give the pilot an opportunity to read it:

Although the ammunition and guns in the back are packed
where I do not believe Hayden can get at them, I believe it
would be wise for me to climb back there in order to take no
chances with him. He is desperate, and might try to take us
all to ---- with him.

It would be an easy matter for Graves to get from his cockpit into the flyer’s compartment, and from there back to the rear cockpit. The roof of the bomb compartment provided a four-foot runway which is not a difficult matter for an experienced airman to negotiate. Nevertheless, climbing around a ship under the best of conditions is no parlor sport.

It was a tribute to Graves’ nerve that Broughton looked at Hinkley and then nodded at Graves. The secret agent promptly unbuckled his belt and crawled beneath the instrument board into their cockpit.

With the aid of wire and struts he inched himself over the flyers’ heads, and started crawling along the runway. Broughton throttled as low as he dared to kill speed. The air was smooth as glass, as it always is at night, which made Graves’ attempt easier.

Finally Hinkley turned to Broughton and nodded with a wide grin. Broughton relaxed from the strain of keeping the ship absolutely level, and looked around. No one could be seen in the rear cockpit. Then Graves’ head appeared, and the firm mouth was smiling beneath the big goggles. He nodded cheerfully. Apparently everything was all right. Hayden’s head had come into contact with something when they had heaved him in, Broughton surmised, and he was probably as unconscious as a sack of meal.

They were now a speck in the starry sky above the mountains. In every direction nothing but the black voids of the valleys and the shadowed sides of towering mountains met the eye. Both flyers had seen awe-inspiring sights in the air, but there were few which could compare with the panorama spread out below them now. There was mystery and greatness there--widely scattered pin points of light from the wilderness, with an occasional far-off cluster that represented a town--all contributing to a grandeur and beauty which was more impressive because less seen than suggested.

* * * * *

Suddenly Hinkley’s long fingers gripped Broughton’s arm. He pointed to the right hand motor. For a moment Broughton could not fathom his meaning. Then his heart sunk as he realized what had happened.

A tiny spray of water was spurting from the radiator. Perhaps one of the bullets had hit it and weakened it, or more likely it was only a failure in the material. In any event, it meant that within a few minutes all the water would be gone, and even before that happened the motor would be useless.

The pilot strove to pierce the gloom below to discover any sign of a landing place. There was none. Parachute flares would do no good down there--one can land in the trees blindly with as much chance for life as in the daytime.

While Broughton was still trying to pick up some clearing, which would show lighter than the woods, Hinkley loosened his belt. He leaned over to yell into Broughton’s ear:

“I think I can hold it for a while!”

He threw his leg over the side of the cockpit, leaning far backward to avoid the propeller which was whirling within inches of him. Finally he decided not to risk it, and climbed back. He went back on the bomb compartment and crawled down on the wing from there. Little by little he made his way forward to the leading edge of the wing. Once again even the throwing of an arm for a few inches would mean being mangled by the propeller.

He held to the struts and made his way to the motor. The design of the radiator helped his scheme. On a Martin it is a square contrivance set up above the motor, and well toward the rear of it. On most planes the radiator is in front of the motor, with the propeller turning two inches in front of it.

Hinkley fought the wind viciously while he extracted a half dollar from his pocket and wrapped it in his handkerchief. It took precious time to accomplish it on his perilous perch, and all the while the water was getting lower. Already Broughton had opened the motor shutters wide to hold the temperature down.

Finally Hinkley placed the wrapped coin against the leak. He pressed hard against it with his hand. He could feel the handkerchief soaking, but he knew that the motor would last many precious minutes more because he had reduced the leak by over half. He set himself as comfortably as he could. One foot was less than an inch from the edge of the wing. His right arm was crooked around a strut. His left held the temporary barrier against the radiator. In this position he fought the propeller blast.

The heat of the water made him change hands frequently. Once he nearly fell into the propeller doing it, for both hands had to be free for a second at one time in order that the coin be always pressed against the leak.

Then he had to change fingers, for his thumbs were both scalded. One by one he used the tip of each finger, and one by one they scalded. His thin lips were set into a line that was like a livid cut in his face, but the makeshift plug was always there. He did not even glance at the ground six thousand feet below. He wondered whether Broughton knew what he was suffering, and would land at the first opportunity.

Broughton did, but for a half hour he could find no place. Then the great ship cleared the last peak. Over beyond the foothills plowed fields gleamed dully in contrast to the black spots of trees.

The left hand motor was eighty-five Centigrade, flying throttled to a thousand revolutions and with the shutters wide open. It was difficult to handle the ship with the right motor turning up so much more. Broughton came to a decision. To take a chance was the only way.

He cut the right hand motor until it “revved” up a thousand, and started a shallow dive. In a moment the Martin was diving through the gloom at a hundred miles an hour. It was only three thousand when they cleared the foothills. The country was still ragged, but it was level.

Broughton pulled his left parachute flare. A sense of ineffable relief filled him as he saw a fiery ball drop earthward. Those flares didn’t work as invariably as they might.

The eyes of the three airmen, stranded there in the darkness, followed that ball of fire with unwinking eyes. Suddenly it burst, and a brilliant flare swung downward on a small parachute. The earth was lighted up fairly well in a circle of at least a mile’s radius.

Broughton cut his motors still further. He beckoned to Hinkley. Hinkley knew the desperate need for haste--that flare would not last long and the other one, hung to the right hand wing-tip, might not work. He worked his way rapidly back to the cockpit, careless of his raw fingertips as he grasped wires and struts to help him along. The flare was within three hundred feet of the ground, and the Martin a thousand, when he reached the seat and strapped his belt.

There was just one possible field. It was a cornfield, apparently, about seventy-five yards long. There was a fence at both ends. Next to one fence was a road. On the far side of the other was a very small clump of woods.

The flare was growing dim and perilously near the ground as the Martin, with all switches cut, skimmed the fence and settled. The corn was nearly as high as the bottom wing. The bomber no more than hit the ground before darkness came as suddenly as though a light had been turned off in a room.

The ship wavered, and there was a rending crunch from the landing gear. Then a crash as the ship nosed up slowly and the front shell of the observers cockpit folded back until it loosened the instrument board.

“Hooray!”

It was Hinkley shouting.

“Jim, I _never_ was so glad to get on the ground in my life!”

Broughton made a wry face. He was suddenly weak from the strain.

For a moment the two sat there motionless, not even bothering to unloosen their belts. Then Hinkley turned to look at Graves. That gentleman was unloosening his belt.

“We thought you might want to smoke a cigaret, so we landed,” said Hinkley.

Graves held up the frazzled butt of a cigar.

“I chewed it up from the time you got out there on the wing,” he replied. “We came pretty near trading a Martin for a pair of honest-to ---- wings, didn’t we?”

“Or coal-shovels,” grinned Hinkley.

“How’s Hayden?”

“Came to once and I put him out again and tied him up,” replied Graves calmly. “Let’s flag this car coming down the road and see where we are. I’d like to get the first train I can get to.”

“We’re not far from either Lexington or Richmond. I saw the lights of a big town a few miles north,” said Broughton as all three men climbed out.

They lifted Hayden out of the back seat. His head was bandaged, and he was still unconscious.

“I bandaged him up--he was bleeding pretty badly,” remarked Graves, lighting a new cigar with a steady hand. “Let’s get over to the road--there’s a regular parade of autos coming.”

A string of headlights extending so far that some were mere points of light were coming down the road. The noise of a Martin, plus the parachute flare, had aroused the whole country.

Broughton lingered behind to use an electric-flashlight on the ship. The ground was soft, and there was a ditch they had hit, besides. That was the reason for the nose-over. It was better so, he reflected. They would have run into the fence and then the trees at the further end of the field, and some one would probably have been hurt.

Within fifteen minutes there were a hundred marveling people around. The flyers hired a guard for the ship, and then accepted the invitation of a man who drove a luxurious touring car to spend the night at his home. Hayden, whose identity was not revealed, spent the night in the town jail of Ellis, Virginia, guarded by the tireless Graves in addition to the regular warden, and accompanied that gentleman to Washington by train early the next moving. He was handcuffed, and rode in a baggage car to avoid publicity.

As he was leaving Graves shook hands with the flyers in a matter-of-fact way.

“You’ll hear from me,” he stated. “Perhaps I may see you again before long. Good-by.”

* * * * *

Hinkley and Broughton had to wait for a crew to come from Langham Field to dismantle the Martin and ship it home. The day after their return to the field the newspapers blossomed forth with across-the-page headlines telling of the round-up of a stupendous conspiracy which had been responsible for the series of great robberies that had been astounding the country.

The story of Hayden’s capture was not a part of the press reports, and Hayden himself was not too prominent in them. They saw Graves’ fine hand in that. They could readily realize that any revelation of their identity would be more dangerous than the glory involved would warrant, even were they desirous of nibbling at the fruits of fame.

A few days thereafter there came a letter to each of them. The contents were alike. There were two copies of a letter signed by that same great government official whose name had appeared on Graves’ letter of authority. The letter was addressed to the Secretary of War. As they read those letters Hinkley’s smile was as mocking as ever and Broughton’s face as stoical, but each of them still has his copy, carefully locked up and preserved as though the most precious of possessions. As Hinkley once confided to Broughton while slightly under the influence of the demon rum--

“I don’t think a bit more of that letter than I do my right eye!”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 7, 1923 issue of The Popular Magazine.]