ASSISTANT PILOT
A small and well-worn automobile was parked near the great hangar on the
Goodlow lot. On the bent and sagging running board sat its owners, David
Ellison and Red Ryan. Over three years had passed since the day David
had been enrolled as a student in the Goodlow school for apprentices;
three years of hard and often discouraging work, but the work had
developed him. He was no longer a diffident boy. Manhood sat easily on
his broad shoulders. Looking at him, Red Ryan’s honest and loyal heart
swelled with pride. He wondered if David had the least idea of his own
success. Ryan knew—knew what the other fellows were saying, knew how
the officers and pilots talked sometimes, while they stood watching his
trained fingers making magical repairs on some weak or broken part. It
never occurred to Red that his own uncanny cleverness had set him apart
as the best mechanic on the lot. His thought was all for David—David,
only twenty-two, and gosh-a-mighty, what he didn’t know about
dirigibles! What he hadn’t already done with ’em!
Right now David was gazing lovingly through the open doors of the hangar
at the vast silver shape rapidly approaching perfection and completion
under the hands of its pygmy workmen. The vastness of the place, and the
ship’s tremendous bulk seemed to deaden the noise of hammers and bolts.
She seemed to float there in the hangar. To David she seemed already
restless to be away. He imagined a ripple of light down her silver side;
a stir, as though she could no longer wait, but would break away and
slip through the great door to be off alone into the infinite troubled
tides of the sky.
Red followed David’s entranced look.
“Ain’t she the cat’s whiskers, just?” he enquired lovingly. “Say, if she
makes good on her trial flight, I’m just goin’ to lay right down there,
front of everybody, and cry, or pray, or swear, I dunno which.”
“A little of each, perhaps,” said David, snapping out of his dream.
“I’ll be right with you, bully boy.”
“You know, David, they have told you off to do a lot of important work
on that ship. I don’t believe you appreciate the fact. All the fellows
are talking about it.”
“Applesauce!” David retorted, laughing. “Everyone in the senior class
has had his share.”
Red hitched closer to David’s side.
“The other day,” he half whispered, “I was flat on me back under a
tarpaulin in the far corner of the baggage room up in the hull,
installing some wiring that’s to lead down from the observer’s seat on
the top of the ship. The other fella had to go clear over to the
storehouse for some wire. So I laid there tryin’ to think out a simpler
and safer installation. I don’t like it the way it is, Dave. Too much
danger during storms. Well, whilst I’m there, along comes Colonel Porter
and himself.”
“Who is himself?” asked David.
“That big bug; the papa of us all.”
“You don’t mean Mr. Hammond?” said David.
“You got it. That’s the bird!”
“But what the devil is he doing here now? I thought he was in New York.”
“I’m the boy to tell you,” said Red, joyfully. “My brother, the
chaplain, used to tell me, ‘Red, never eavesdrop; ’tis a mean and
unmanly trick, unworthy of a good Christian b’y; but so be you do chance
to hear anything, give it strict attention, and be sure to get the
straight of it.’ So I did. They come teeterin’ along the catwalk, and
stop opposite me. You know the Big Fella’s quick and light steppin’ as a
cat, for all his size. Ladders and catwalks are pie for him.
“‘What’s bein’ done here?’ says the Big Fella.
“‘Some wirin’,’ I heard Colonel Porter answer. Then there was some
little talk or other that I don’t just remember.”
Red wouldn’t tell what they had said at that point, but it glowed warmly
in his honest heart; payment in full for many hours of grilling toil.
Colonel Porter had explained the wiring, and had added,—
“We have the cleverest young mechanic in the school that I have ever
come across. I believe he could make every part and assemble any known
engine, after an hour’s study. Name’s Ryan.”
Mr. Hammond had grunted.
“Hang on to him. He may be useful a little later on.”
“Well, then what?” asked David, impatiently.
“Oh!” said Red. “Well then, ‘What sorta mechanics you got?’ asks the Big
Fella.
“‘So-so,’ says the Colonel.
“‘Only so-so?’ growls Big Stuff. ‘Better bounce ’em; the quicker the
better.’
“‘Well, I dunno,’ says the Colonel, lookin’ wise the way he does. ‘I
dunno. There’s one lad, now; our efficiency expert spent three days
checkin’ up on that b’y, and he figured it out that the fella had saved
the company one and seven-eighths cents in a week, on insulated wire! In
wan week, mind you; Ryan’s the name.’”
“You big liar!” exploded David, grinning.
“Me?” Red’s sea blue eyes were wide and innocent.
“Yes, you! When you lie, you always lie in a brogue. I can always tell.”
“I wonder, now, if that’s a slam on my ancestry,” said Red slowly. “If
it is, I got to fight the upstart who says it. Only, can a mechanic,
first-class, stoop to the killin’ of a mere apprentice? If you’d only
shut up, David; if you could only learn to be still, I’d tell you what I
been strugglin’ to tell this hour back.”
“Oh, go on; go on, for heaven’s sake! Spill it if you know anything. I
need something to pep me up. I’m going stale.” David sighed.
Red laid a hand on David’s arm and grew grave.
“It’s about your baby up there, the ship. The Big Fella is plannin’ no
less than a round-the-world trip, for her maiden stunt.”
“Round the world!” breathed David.
“That, and nothin’ less!” affirmed Red. “Yep, by diligent listening I
got it all. I’m afraid they thought they were alone. So they talked
free. It seems that Mr. Hammond wants an American ship that will beat
the Graf Zeppelin’s time. And he thinks here’s the ship. So do I. Well,
Mr. Hammond is financing the trip, with a couple of others who will go
along as passengers, just for the glory.”
“Oh, Lord! Red, I wish I could go with her!”
“Don’t you, just? But there’s not a chance. You couldn’t get in on that
trip if you was disguised as a tin of biscuit. There will be
millionaires that would get into overalls and carry oil cans to get to
go.”
“Of course,” said David. “But I can’t help wishing. Wouldn’t you like
it?”
“Me? Boy, I’d hang on to a rudder blade with me right hand from here to
Japan, and then merely shift to the left. Like to go? Lord love me,
David, wouldn’t I just!”
David sat staring at the silver ship. Men scrambled about her, popping
in and out of the openings.
“Listen, Davie,” said Red. “Don’t let your right ear know what I’ve
poured into your left. My brother used to tell me, ‘Whatever you hear,
me young buckaroo, keep it under your hat.’ But he wouldn’t have counted
you, David. ‘Keep it to yourself,’ says he. ‘If it is trash, don’t
clutter the highways wid it. If it is something worth while, lock it up,
Red; lock it up, like you would a dimant, till the fella that owns it
wants to use it.’”
“I won’t say anything,” promised David. “You certainly like that Padre
of yours, don’t you?”
“So-so,” said Red, chuckling. “He’s grand if you’re dyin’ I’ve been
told, but he’s sure a murderin’ cuss, so be you don’t walk straight
whilst you’re enjoyin’ your usual health. Come on, let’s go down town
and have a sody.”
David was not listening. He pulled a worn notebook from his pocket and
commenced to study its grimy pages.
“Come on, fella!” repeated Red. “Leap into the Rolls-Worse. I’m starvin’
for a sody.”
“I’m glad they used that new kind of covering, with those tricky
interwoven seams,” said David dreamily, ignoring the appeal of the
starving one. “They are going to save lots of worry, Red, and it’s
certain they won’t give. That old blimp we tried it on with rips here
and there to give the wind a chance, you remember? The seams never
budged. The new alloy duralumin I like too, and the longer, slimmer line
of the hull.”
Red sat down again.
“Those engines! Dave, they are as perfect—Lord, I love ’em! All the
time they have been in there on the blocks, stopping and starting,
stopping and starting; well, they have talked to me, David. One day a
girl came in, a sightseer; and she yelled, ‘My, what a horrid noise!
Isn’t it just awful?’ and I thought how nice it would be to tap her with
a wrench, but I didn’t. I let that engine answer. I tuned her up and you
couldn’t hear yourself think. Oh, but they are pretty, those engines! I
don’t know whether I love ’em most when they are quiet and dreamin’ of
what they can do, or when they are goin’ full speed with every part
doin’ its bit, so smooth and so true that there’s no words to describe
it.”
“You are a sentimental Irishman,” said David.
“I’m an Irishman that wants a sody,” said Red.
“They will be putting the last engine in place this afternoon, won’t
they?” asked David.
“Yes, and I’ve got to be here. Then she will be practically finished.
Just woodwork to wipe, and furniture to dust, and beds to make. Sounds
like a housewarming.”
“Did you know that they have named her?” asked David.
“No. I thought she was the Silver Ship.”
“Of course, but she has to have a sort of given name, like the
Shenandoah, poor girl, and the Dawn, and the Sun God, and the rest. I
heard Mr. Hammond’s daughter named her. She’s the Moonbeam.”
“That’s all right,” said Red approvingly. “I give the girl credit. The
Moonbeam! Faith, it grows on me, Davie. Moonbeam!”
“I like it,” said David. “Pretty, and easy to say, but not silly.”
“Well, here’s wishin’ her all the luck in the world,” said Red. “And the
same to us. They just got to let me go when she takes her first try-out.
I’d no sooner let those engines out of my sight first off than I’d use
an umbrella for a ’chute.”
“Better not let the engine crews hear you, you conceited devil! They
think they’re pretty kippy themselves.”
“Good lads, all,” admitted Red. “What they don’t know about engines
scarcely needs to be known, but it don’t matter what you do, David, you
have got to put something beside knowledge in your work. It’s like those
old fellas who used to put human blood in their cauldrons of metal when
they made their church bells. They thought it made the bells sound
sweeter. And so it did, so long as they thought so. You can’t say your
engine is a fine old piece of bits and parts. You’ve got to love it. You
remember last summer, when we flew east? I ran over to Providence to see
my brother. Well, one night I wandered into the engine room at Brown &
Sharpe’s, and the chief engineer showed me his engines. Gosh! there were
tunnels full of them. And he went along with an oil can and a bit of
waste, rubbin’ a bit here and a bit there, where God knows it didn’t
need it, pretending to oil; just loving them.” He jumped up. “Honest,
Dave, you’ve no heart! Come on! I’ve just got to have that sody—or
perhaps I didn’t mention it before?”
He took a step around the aged car, and stood staring.
“Come here!” he said. “See Mr. Hammond over there? Do you see who is
with him? Or is he, maybe, all alone?”
David looked.
“Don’t know the chap with him,” he decided.
“Look again,” begged Red. “Don’t you know that strut, and those skinny
legs, and that face? Think, man, think!”
“Never saw him,” declared David.
“Never? Well, listen here; may the Saints lead him off this lot,
immediate! If they don’t, there’s cloud banks and rain and hail ahead
for you and me. That’s Cram!”
“So it is!” said David. “Well, what of it? He has no grudge against us.”
“Hasn’t he, then? Didn’t you pass your exams, three years ago, and
didn’t he fail? Watch out, me lad! He hasn’t changed his spots in three
years. I know him, and all his breed.”
“Don’t be so suspicious,” said David, watching the trim, thin figure
slowly approaching. “Honestly, Red, why do you let that man get your
goat? You never act like that with anybody else, no matter what they
do.”
Red shrugged. “Dunno!” he said. “My brother holds that every man has his
own particular devil to torture and tantalize him. I feel shame, Davie,
but Walter Cram seems to be my own little devil. I have got to have two
sodies, now. I’m that upset.”
Cram, for it was he, glanced idly at the passing roadster but did not
recognize the occupants. The years had made little outward change in his
appearance. He was taller, still thin, and moved with nervous alertness.
He wore glasses, and they disguised the shadows under his eyes; violet
shadows, that hinted of escapades that he would not care to publish. For
Wally Cram, the man, was still as devious as Wally, the boy. Strangely
enough, the one fever that burned in his blood, his one dream, his sole
ambition, was based on an overwhelming vanity.
Without the ability to achieve the eminence he aspired to, he longed for
a foremost place in the public eye. In his thoughts all heroes wore his
own features. Lindbergh, winging his lonely way to France; Byrd,
exploring a frozen world; Andrews, forcing the Gobi desert to speak an
articulate language of past æons—Cram wanted what they had, but he had
grown into a lazy man, incapable of sustained effort.
Reading a newspaper in his New York hotel one day, Wally had seen an
article that had given him a grand idea—a magnificent idea. At once he
called his lawyers in Oklahoma City on long distance, and held a
conversation with them filled with so many millions that even the
telephone operator was impressed.
A week later he was in Ayre, and walking through the lobby of the hotel
he heard a familiar voice.
“Why, Mister Cram!” it said.
“Dulcie Hammond, by all that’s good!” ejaculated Cram. “What are you
doing here?”
“Looking after daddy, as usual,” Dulcie Hammond laughed. “He’s here in
pursuit of his hobby. Perhaps I should call it a life work. You know the
new dirigible starts on her maiden trip around the world in two weeks,
and naturally dad is going. He says I can’t go; isn’t that wet? In the
meantime I am seeing that he takes his bicarb after meals, and making
him lay off hot dogs, and pop corn and pie. Heavens, he’s an unruly
child! Between times I mostly hang around the plant and watch them put
the finishing touches to the ship. Did you know that I named her? She’s
the Moonbeam.”
“Fine! Why don’t you go along?”
“It’s to be a sort of stag party,” said Dulcie petulantly. “I can’t make
dad understand that I wouldn’t be a bother. I’ll bet Lady Drummond Hay
wasn’t a bother. I met her in New York, and she told me their trip was
just too galumptious. And I am just as good a sport as she is, and
probably tougher, because I’m younger.” She pondered. “Well, we’ll see!
But what are you doing here?”
“Just looking after some investments. I have stock in the Goodlow Plant,
and I have just invested a lot of money in the Moonbeam; enough, I hope,
to get me a berth on her round-the-world cruise. I am going out to the
drome now. Won’t you come?”
“Got to do some shopping,” said Dulcie. “Sorry. Oh, Wally, the ship is
too beautiful for words, even now, while she is still unfinished.”
Cram laughed. “Rot! The dirigible is nothing but a balloon.”
Dulcie gave him a scornful glance.
“You have a sordid soul,” she said, and walked away.
That night David and Red had orders to report at sunrise for a short
trip in the Dawn, a smaller dirigible which had been in commission for a
couple of months. They went up with the usual crew, and Mr. Hammond and
Captain Fraine and half a dozen others as passengers. David, to his
surprise, was put in full charge of the ship, Captain Fraine preferring
to wander around, inspecting. They were out for twenty-four hours,
without stops, and David returned the ship to Ayre, making a perfect
landing at the hangar.
Red took him aside.
“Something’s in the wind, fella. You didn’t get to handle that ship just
because they loved you. And there’s older chief mechanics than me who
might have gone. Watch out!”
Two days later the Moonbeam was completed. The last workmen crawled out
of the hull, while decorators reverently closed the door of the great
passenger gondola. Every bag, cord, wire, seam, every bolt and screw had
been tested and retested. She hung aloft in the vast hangar, a beautiful
and majestic thing, ready for the infinite. David gazed and gazed.
“Before I managed to ditch school,” said Red unexpectedly at his side,
“they read us about a place called Mount Olympus. Grand big women lived
there. Goddesses. Not real, you know, but I got an awful kick out of
’em. And the Moonbeam; ain’t she a goddess? Those old goddesses used to
pick up a mortal like they were nothin’ and carry them off. And here’s a
silver ship, just waiting to gather up a load of folks, like an armful
of babies, and go soarin’ out and up and away into—Oh, my gosh! the
thought makes me want to yell. I want to jump on my hat, or fight
somebody.”
David smiled. “I know. Pipe down, old son. Come on to quarters. I’m dog
tired, and the silver ship will wait.”
The following morning the ship took her maiden walk out of the hangar,
and was moored to the mast. Seeing her there, automobiles began to
gather, street-car lines disgorged curious sightseers, and for hours a
big crowd milled under the glistening shape. Toward evening the ship was
drawn down and returned to the hangar.
At supper an official-looking envelope was brought to David. He read its
contents unbelieving, then again perused the terse sentences.
Headquarters Aeronautical Board,
Goodlow-Zeppelin Company,
Ayre, Ohio.
Subject: Detail, Assistant Pilot, Moonbeam.
To: David Ellison, Pilots’ School,
Goodlow-Zeppelin Company.
You have been selected by the Aeronautical Board of the
Goodlow-Zeppelin Company to fill the position of assistant pilot
on the dirigible Moonbeam, on its first trip around the world,
leaving the hangar at Ayre, Ohio, at six A. M. on June 15th,
1930.
Your presence desired at headquarters, at nine o’clock tomorrow
morning.
George Paine Porter,
Director, Lighter-than-Air Craft,
Goodlow-Zeppelin Company.
David forgot his supper, forgot everything. It could scarcely be real!
While he struggled with his surprise and delight, hardly believing the
good fortune that he had not even dared to hope for, he heard Red’s
voice.
“Read it! Read it, fella!” he cried, and he pressed into David’s hand a
letter similar to his own, appointing Red as chief mechanic on the
round-the-world flight of the Moonbeam. For once Red had nothing to say.
The moment was too great, the news too stupendous.
David pushed back his chair; he could not eat. They went out and,
crossing the great landing field to the hangar, they sat down on a truck
and looked at the closed doors.
“She’s in there, Dave, safe and sound! And in two weeks she will carry
us away over land and sea, rough mountains and sweet valleys—round the
world, and home again. You and me, David; assistant pilot and mechanic!”
“Chief mechanic, as I read it,” said David, smiling. “Well, I must wire
my mother the good news.”
“That’s right, and I must telegraph my mother, too, and that blackguard
brother of mine, as well. I’ll just say to him, ‘Your Reverence, the
ugly duckling has become a swan. Am startin’ on a world cruise in the
Moonbeam on the fifteenth of June. What’s to be done about it?’ That
will stop him all right.”
“I can’t think of a greater thing to have happen to us,” mused David.
“Around the world, Red! Get it? Seeing all those countries, and meeting
so many people. The first American dirigible to fly around the world!”
“Yes,” said Red, “and having those blessed engines right where I can
keep an eye on them, day and night. Going full blast, and me with an ear
for every beat. I’m just crazy with joy, Dave. Let’s go and get a sody.”
They climbed into their jointly owned and jointly loved roadster, and
started it toward the nearest soda fountain, its fenders flapping, its
body squeaking and rattling as though in proud defiance of its softly
purring motor—Red’s “favorite child.”
“We have come a good way in the past four years, Red,” David bellowed
over the din. “Sometimes the work has seemed pretty stiff, but I’d work
twice as hard, if possible, for what I have gained.”
“Yeah!” said Red, nodding his bright head. “And sometimes I feel that it
just isn’t so. All this. I’ll wake up, and find myself a kid; in bed
listenin’ to a worn awning rope rattlin’, and a freight train grumblin’
on the sidin’ across the street. You know, Dave, even when I was a kid
there was something in me pushing up, and reaching out, for something I
couldn’t reach or see.” His voice grew bitter. “I knew a fella once who
smoked and caroused too much, and one day he went down and out. He’d
never taken anybody’s advice about taking care of himself. Well, after
his heart cracked on him, the poor devil just went around beggin’ the
rest of his gang to lay off, and go to bed once in a while. However, one
day his poor old engine stopped, and that was the end of him.
“I was like that about school. Everybody tellin’ me I ought to finish
high school, and me knowin’ better than the whole of ’em. I tell you,
Dave, I’d give anything for the chance, now. Now I see what I’ve thrown
away. And I need it; Lord, how I need it! It means that I’ve got to make
it up, sweating and groaning. Night schools, and correspondence schools,
and study. Because, so help me, Dave, I won’t disgrace my engines.
“And it’s a fact, Davie, I actually go around stoppin’ kids on the
street, and preachin’ school to ’em. I say, ‘Smoke if you like, and
drink if you want to be a fool; but lay off long enough to get yourself
through high school.’ And I’m like the poor fella in Lawton. I’ve a dark
suspicion that I’m wastin’ words.”