In the first place, there was hot blood in Marcosson’s veins. Second son
of a Franco-Italian union, he had been born in Morocco and brought up in
Africa. He remembered his mother as a lean, wiry creature who flared
into rages that were terrible to behold. His older brother quietly
slipped away to the diamond fields one night after Marcosson senior had
used rawhide fiercely. After that there was swift tragedy. He was young,
sensitive—this Dantone Marcosson. For years he remembered the red
against the white of his mother’s breast. For years his dark eyes
stared, in sleepless nights, at the green hilt of the knife.
Three hours after his father had brought swift tragedy into the house,
the native police had come. After that he had not seen Marcosson senior
again. He remembered him as a powerful, dark-eyed man who spoke
battering French when aroused to temper, precise English when calm. That
is, he came to remember his father in this manner, later, in America. A
vice-consul and an uncle had got him to America.
The uncle had raised him, and had kicked him out of the house at the age
of fifteen. John Marcosson had never understood his brother; it was not
to be expected that he could understand the son. Perhaps he was
justified. Rage is a terrible thing—the Marcosson rage was more
terrible, perhaps, than any the uncle had witnessed. Hot countries,
heritage. Suppression, bitterness.
At fifteen the boy became a wanderer. He got along. The Dantone became
Dan. He traveled over the United States. Somehow, he kept
straight—though he saw the inside of many jails. Lack of money got him
inside cells. Something kept him from getting that money in a dishonest
manner. Heritage, perhaps. His uncle had told him that his father’s
father had been a priest.
Anyway, Dan Marcosson grew—and toughened. He worked in the steel mills
of Pittsburgh, the ore mines up along Lake Michigan. He had a thirst for
knowledge, educated himself. He met a doctor in an ore town, told him of
his past. Perhaps the doctor was wise, perhaps he was a fool. Surely he
tried to be kind. He told the boy many things. He told him to keep away
from heat, from hot countries.
Dan Marcosson accepted some of his advice. He harvested wheat, rye—in
Canada. He saved some money, crossed the line again, visited Seattle. He
was sick of the cold, headed down the Pacific Coast for Mexico. In
Ensenada it was hot enough. There was a brawl with a drunken sailor. The
boy was strong, and he nearly killed the man with his bare fists. He got
out of town, walked all night through the heat, on the road to Tia
Juana.
He slept in the cool of a deserted adobe shack, the next morning,
resumed his walk during the afternoon and night. He reached Tia Juana
just before the second dawn; when the line opened he went across. His
papers were all right. And in San Diego, in a hot sky, he watched two
planes twist and circle.
That was the beginning of his desire for wings. He became a hanger-on at
Gus Dario’s joy hopping field. Later he flew. Gus liked him, taught him.
Cooler weather came. Shortly after Christmas he was flying alone. He had
nerve, fine eyes. He was almost twenty-one. And Gus admitted he could do
more things with the battered Jenny than any pilot he had trained. A
perfect feel of stick and rudder.
In April war was declared. When the Air Service came into being on a
large scale, applicants were supposed to have two years of college
education. Dan Marcosson credited himself with two years at an obscure
college in the Middle West, over which Gus had once performed stunts. He
passed the mental tests, the physical tests. Already he was a pilot.
Among the first half dozen commissioned pilots, he sailed for France. It
was a winter sailing, cold. France was cold. But Dantone Marcosson did
not mind that. He had come to hate heat, and to fear it. He believed
that the doctor he had met up in the ore country had told him the truth.
He had wings—and he was very happy.
* * * * *
These things I know, because Captain Marcosson told them to me as the
_Thomas_ slid through a blue-green sea of glass, between Guam and the
Islands. There were ribbons on the captain’s tunic; his lean face was
burned brown by sun and wind. There was a goggle scar over his left eye;
his nose was broken in two places. He had powerful shoulders and arms,
and dark, deep-set eyes.
I knew the captain’s war record. Few in the Air Service were not aware
of it. Brilliant? Not exactly that. It was too spotty. Seven enemy
planes, officially—perhaps a half dozen more unofficially. That part of
it was all right. It was the other thing that counted against him. Twice
he had faced court-martial boards. Once he had been sent back to Blois
and almost returned to the States. It wasn’t the discipline—there wasn’t
much of that in A. E. F. flying. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight. It
was his uncontrollable temper, his heritage of hot blood.
It was the strength of his arms, the battering power of his fists. Words
meant so much to him—the same words that meant so little to those who
uttered them. And he hadn’t changed, after the war. He had stayed in. He
had studied. He loved his wings, the swift flight of a plane through the
sky. Now, at thirty-three, ten years after, he was a captain. Twice
since the war he had lost numbers. Once twenty of them—the second time
ten. He didn’t tell me why, but I could guess. You could almost see it,
on the transport.
A constabulary officer and the captain were the only two officers on the
transport who were not West Point men. There is a difference. You wear
the ring—or you do not wear it. The ring is a symbol of the great gulf,
in peace times.
We were seated in the smoking room. We might almost have been on the
parade ground back at El Paso, or on the Presidio, or on Governors
Island. There was no ship motion other than the vibration of engines.
Two electric fans droned and swiveled. It was hot—terribly hot.
Marcosson had been very quiet after his talk. I had been thinking.
Suddenly he leaned forward, toward me. His eyes were narrowed. There was
a huskiness in his voice.
“Lieutenant,” he asked, “have you ever been afraid?”
I didn’t answer. It was a confession. I thought of how I’d asked Sock
Casey, the first day out, who the man who sat before me was. And Sock
had replied a bit grimly.
“That’s Hell’s Angel Marcosson. He’s not a West Point man.”
That was all—and that was enough. Enough—and yet, not enough. God knows
there had been time enough for association, on that trip down.
Twenty-seven days we had been out of the Golden Gate. A bit hotter each
day. Monotony of sea and sky. Flying fish. Midway Islands, Guam. Cliffs
and color stuck out in the middle of a lot of water. And then the
vibration of engines again. Hotter. Three days out of Manila—and
Marcosson was telling me that he was afraid, by asking me if I’d ever
been afraid.
“It isn’t so bad, Captain,” I replied, after a little silence. “Of
course, some spots are worse than others.”
Marcosson relaxed again. His face twisted suddenly; the scar over his
left eye stood out. The fans droned on. He smiled. He knew I understood.
“I’ve been in the cold spots for five years,” he stated tonelessly. “You
say some places down here are worse than others. I’ll get the worst.”
There was no answer for that statement. I tried to cheer him up.
“They plan to establish fields in the provinces. You might pull Baguio,
Captain.”
He laughed. Of course he’d heard of that resort. Snow in the
mountains—the only cool spot in the hot season.
“She’s for generals and colonels, Lieutenant,” he returned. “How far are
we from—India? Or Africa?”
His voice was low, strange, as he asked the question. I stared at him. I
didn’t know, anyway. But I could see what he was thinking about. I could
follow him back through the years. Thirty-three, he was. He looked
forty, older. He looked like a man who was burned out, inside.
I got out a handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from my face and
neck. The two fans kicked around an awfully hot air. The deck outside
sweltered in the heat. The captain spoke again.
“Ever hear Indian drums, Lieutenant? Native drums?”
I shook my head. Marcosson’s eyes were closed; his body slanted in the
swivel chair, but it was rigid. His voice held no shade of tone. It was
as monotonous as the sea and sky.
“I heard ’em last night,” he stated. “First time in fifteen years.”