SKY HIGH
When the two reached Cuzco, after the long, difficult climb up the
mountain-sides, they found news of a startling character awaiting them.
Their own country had become involved in the World War. And with this
intelligence came to them the realization of their duty.
The two lost no time in returning to the coast, and took the next
steamer bound northward. Arrived in their homes, Ted applied for and
was accepted in one of the officers’ training-camps, while Stanley
enlisted in the aviation branch of the service.
Before long Ted began to regret his decision to join the infantry. It
happened late one October afternoon when the company was returning,
under full packs, from a lengthy hike into the country. The dust rose
in clouds that threatened to suffocate the men and the sun still blazed
unrelentingly on the weary, tramping forms. But even as they marched
along the men sang with a good deal of spirit, although any one who
had heard them outward bound that morning could have easily recognized
the difference in the vigor of their song.
From afar came a droning, buzzing sound, hard to locate but drawing
rapidly nearer. A moment later some one shouted “airplane,” and a
hundred and fifty pairs of eyes were eagerly scanning the sky; soon
they succeeded in making out a small, dark speck high in the heavens,
and as they gazed it grew larger and larger, until finally the trim
outlines of the graceful craft could be distinguished clearly.
Something seemed to go wrong with the machine when it was directly
overhead. The steady purr of the motor stopped and the great speed
at which the ship had been travelling began to slacken. Every one
held his breath in anticipation of the tragedy that was about to take
place. After a second’s pause, during which the airplane seemed to
stand still, it plunged toward the earth in a bewildering succession
of turns, nose down, tail pointed into the sky. Its antics gave one
the impression that it might be sliding down some gigantic aerial
corkscrew, and how long the craft continued in its spinning fall to
destruction no one knew, but to the spectators below it seemed like
minutes. Just as it appeared as if the next few turns must bring the
fatal crash the machine stopped spinning, started into a graceful,
straight dive, and then with a startled roar of the exhausts swooped
upward and away.
“I’d give anything in the world to be able to fly like that,” Ted
confided to the cadet by his side.
“You are covering a lot of territory,” he replied. “The ground is good
enough for me.”
“It will have to be for me, too, I guess, but think of those fellows
playing among the clouds while we swallow dust on the road or wallow
in knee-deep mud in the trenches. Think of the glory of fighting miles
above the earth!”
“What’s the matter? Not feeling sorry for yourself, are you?”
Ted ignored this remark. His thoughts were high above in the ethereal
blue, where the airplane had been manœuvring with such graceful ease
but a few minutes before.
“I want to fly and do my fighting up there,” he said to himself more
than to any one else in particular.
“And be shot down and hit the ground so hard it would take the whole
police squad a week to dig you out,” Ted’s neighbor, whose name was
Carter, interrupted. “Not for me! I’ll take mine down here, where I
know there is something safe and solid under my two feet.”
The company reached the barracks with just fifteen minutes in which to
brush up for retreat. There was no time for discussion or conversation,
but that night, just before taps, it was reported that a commission
had arrived whose object it was to select men for the air service;
several would be accepted from each company. That accounted for the
sudden appearance of the air-ship that afternoon; it was part of the
advertising plan to secure the necessary number of men.
Ted called on his captain immediately, and was told to report to the
major in charge of the commission on the following morning.
There was no sleep for him that night. The hours dragged as he tossed
restlessly on his hard bunk and listened to the heavy breathing of
the other men, and when morning came he was so excited he was sure he
should be rejected on that very account. But the major was inclined
to make allowances, and informed Ted that he might expect to be
transferred at no far-distant date.
The order releasing him from duty with the company and sending him
southward to the ground school in Texas came two weeks later. And two
days after that Ted was speeding toward his new station.
Then followed three months of the hardest kind of work; there were long
lectures and hours of study upon the organization of foreign armies,
interspersed with periods of calisthenics and infantry drill; also
instructions on topics connected with flying, such as motors, rigging,
gunnery, and wireless. Every one worked at top speed to assimilate as
much as possible of the knowledge with which he was being crammed; that
occupied all the hours of daylight and part of the night, too, so there
was little time to form close and lasting friendships. Everybody was so
busy with his own problems that it was impossible to pay much attention
to the other fellow.
But the three months were up at last, and Ted, standing near the head
of his section, was promptly sent to flying school. Those who were not
so fortunate in their marks were sent to concentration camps to wait
weeks, even months, for their turn.
“Attention to orders,” called the section leader the morning after Ted
and a number of others had reported for their new class of instruction.
“Boyle, Currier, Davis, and Edwards report to Lieutenant Livingston,
Ship Number 188. Green, Hammond, Jones, and Murphy report to Lieutenant
Talbot, Ship Number 210,” and so on down the line, ending with a final
“Fall out.”
Ted could not believe his ears. Was it possible that the Lieutenant
Livingston who was to be his instructor was Stanley? They had not
communicated with one another since entering the service.
Ted hurried to Ship Number 188, which had been pointed out to him by
one of the mechanics.
“Lieutenant Livingston, sir?” he inquired of the officer evidently in
charge of the ship.
“Yes, what can I do for you? Why--if it isn’t Ted. What are you doing
here? I am certainly glad to see you.”
Ted explained how he had been transferred from the infantry and had
just completed his course at ground school; also that he had been
assigned to Stanley for flying instruction.
“This is luck. Let’s get at it right away; we can talk more to-night.
Hop into the rear seat and we’ll start right off.”
“What do I have to do?” Ted asked excitedly.
“This is just going to be a joy ride around the field. Don’t do or
touch anything; sit as comfortably as you can and look around; watch
the ground and the air and the other ships.”
So saying he helped Ted into his place and showed him how to adjust the
buckle of his safety-belt across his lap. “You will hardly ever need
the belt,” he said, “but it is just as well to get into the habit of
fastening it.”
Then he climbed into the forward cockpit and opened and closed the
throttle a number of times, while the motor roared and slowed down
alternately. At a signal to the crew chief, the men removed the blocks
from under the wheels, and taking hold of the lower wings swung the
ship around until it faced the flying-field, which was into the wind.
An instant later, with an increasing roar, the machine was tearing
across the ground at a terrific speed. Ted looked down over the edges
of the cockpit, and saw the grass rushing backward in a blurred, green
streak. A frightful wind struck his face, cutting off his breath and
making his eyes water. He ducked his head behind the little celluloid
wind-shield to adjust his goggles more snugly, and when he looked again
they had left the ground. He closed his eyes for a moment; there was no
sensation of motion whatever; they seemed to be standing stock-still,
like a kite at the end of a string, facing a cyclone of wind, but the
thunder of the engine was deafening.
After climbing a thousand feet, they made a number of circuits of the
field. Then Stanley throttled the motor and dipping the ship down at a
steep angle, began the glide back to the landing-place. The propeller
moved so slowly that the blades could easily be distinguished, and the
wind shrieked through the wires with a shrill wail. They levelled
off at a few feet above the ground, and after skimming along a short
distance, touched so gently that there was scarcely any shock; after
that they slowed down and rolled up to the dead-line from which they
had started.
The course of instruction continued daily, and under Stanley’s capable
guidance Ted learned rapidly. When he had had six hours in the air
he could fly the ship in a manner satisfactory to his teacher; so
Stanley took it upon himself to include a few of the more commonly used
stunts in the course. For this purpose, however, they always went some
distance from the field, where they were safe from the observation from
below of the officers in charge.
“I am going to show you a new one to-day,” Stanley said one afternoon,
as they were taking their places for the flight. “Be doubly sure the
belt is fastened; you will need it for once.”
“I can stand anything you can,” Ted replied. “Go as far as you like.”
Soon they were leaving the field behind, mounting as they soared into
the distance. The aneroid needle pointed to two thousand, then three,
four, five, and finally six thousand feet. Ted had never been so high
before in the plane, and the earth below seemed new and strange. The
patches of woods looked like clusters of dark, green dots, and the
fields reminded him of the squares of a checker-board. Banks of white,
fluffy clouds rolled past, their upper edges tinted with glowing silver
by the brilliant sunlight.
Stanley shut down the engine. “Is everything all right?” he called back.
“Yes!”
“I am going into a whip-stall. Be sure your belt is tight.”
He opened wide the throttle and nosed the plane down so that they
attained a terrific speed; then he suddenly pulled it almost straight
upward and shut off the engine. For a moment the ship seemed to stand
still in the air in an upright position; then it whipped downward with
tremendous force, sliding on the tail. Ted felt himself raised off his
seat, but, thank heaven, the belt held, or he would have remained in
mid-air while the plane hurtled away from beneath him. After falling
some little distance Stanley again turned on the power and they swung
out of the dive and levelled off gracefully.
But at that instant a burst of smoke was swept back by the blast of
the propeller. The engine slackened its speed and a series of sharp,
pistol-like reports came from the exhausts.
Ted was seized with consternation, for a thin streamer of flame shot
back from under the hood; the plane was afire.
Stanley saw the danger at the same moment and dove in an attempt to
put out the fire, but this manœuvre, frequently successful in such an
emergency, proved to be the worst possible thing in this case. With a
roar the flame struck him full in the face; he tried to pull the ship
out of the dive, but the fiery blast stifled him; the ground below, the
sky above, and even the wings on either side of him seemed wrapped in a
haze, and in an instant he was enveloped in complete darkness.
Ted saw the wilting figure in front of him droop out of sight; at
the same time the plane began to quiver and lurch from side to side.
Without a guiding hand to direct it the heretofore graceful craft
became converted into a mass of steel and wood and cloth hurtling
through space to certain destruction. He realized the frightfulness of
the situation in a flash; Stanley had either fainted or was dead.
“I must get him down; I must save him,” he gasped, frantically grasping
the controls in his own cockpit. He thought little of his own danger;
it was his companion who filled his mind. He must get him to the ground
and save him if it was not already too late.
The blaze was sweeping back directly over the top of the twenty-gallon
container resting between the engine and the front cockpit. “I must fan
the flames to one side,” Ted thought. “If the gas catches, it will be
the end.”
Responding to a savage turn of the wheel, the ship turned on edge and
the streamer of fire darted out to one side. If only he could keep it
there! Perhaps the rudder would help; he gave it a sharp kick, then
felt that he had made a mistake, for he had pushed it in the direction
opposite to the wheel. But the ship, tilted at a steep angle, started
into a side-slip toward the ground, and that was exactly what he
wanted. He must keep on slipping from side to side, like a falling leaf.
The wind shrieked through the rigging with a terrifying scream and
threatened to tear away the side of Ted’s face. He straightened out the
plane, reversed his controls, and then began falling in the opposite
direction. Back and forth they darted; the ground was rushing up to
meet them at a furious speed. It was fascinating, this sight of the
ground rushing upward, and as he looked at it he suddenly realized
that they were almost directly above an open field--the landing-field,
it must have been, for there were the white hangars in which the
ships were kept; and the machines that had been out in the open were
scurrying in all directions. Vaguely he wondered how long it would be
before they should crash in their midst.
After what seemed like ages, but which was in reality a matter of
seconds, the ground loomed up close to them. The moment for the supreme
test had come. Throwing the controls into neutral he brought the ship
into an even glide. The hot blast struck his face and the fumes of
burning oil made him cough and choke. But not for an instant did he
relax to lower his head for a breath of air; he must see the thing
through if it was the last thing he ever did.
Her speed gone, the ship settled rapidly; it was but ten feet from the
ground. Ted pulled back the wheel cautiously to keep her nose up, as
he had been told so often by Stanley, and the plane responded ever so
feebly. The ship struck with a jolt, bounded, settled again, rolled
forward a short distance, and came to a stop.
Ted snatched at the buckle of his belt, tore off his goggles, and
jumped to the ground. His head was reeling and his throat was parched.
The flames now extended in back of the hood and were reaching for the
fuel-tank. It was only a question of seconds before the explosion that
would deluge them with a shower of burning gasolene.
There was not time to try to rescue Stanley by pulling him over the
rim of the cockpit, and, besides, Ted had not the strength left for
such an undertaking. So he clambered up on one wing and kicked in the
linen side of the fuselage, after which he dragged the unconscious form
of his companion through the hole. Then he tottered away with the limp
body in his arms, how far he never knew.
A chorus of excited voices reached his ears in a confused murmur
and helping hands relieved him of his burden. His head burned and a
thousand needles seemed to stab through his chest. He clutched the air
wildly and, gasping for breath, plunged headlong into darkness.