TRICKED INTO A CRASH.
The answer came when I got up to four thousand feet, and it came so
suddenly that I almost let the D.H. slip into a tail-spin. We’d been
climbing in a wide circle--the five ships--following the Old Lady.
And I guess we’d all been getting a kick out of those two dummy guns
and the slapped-on war paint.
All of a sudden the Old Lady stood right up on her tail in a sweet
zoom--and laid over on her back! Then she came down in a pretty fair
loop!
I had the D.H. out of her way, banking off vertically. As I came around,
in a position to get a good look at things, I saw plenty.
There were about a dozen ships in the air. At least four of them were
stunting--looping, doing wing-overs, Immelmanns, and spins! From two
of them came sulphurous trails of yellow, streaming off at an angle.
They had guns--and were shooting them!
The Old Lady was going down in a spin, and two planes were following her
down, both streaming out yellow trails from their exhausts and spitting
red from guns shooting between the synchronized propeller blades! Diving
near by was a fourth ship, with a bird standing in the rear cockpit--and
turning a crank in a boxlike affair!
Then I got it. Conant and Russ Healy had framed us! They were shooting
from the air and from the ground--shooting stuff for the picture! And
they were using our five ships!
A screaming, wire-whistling shape dove past the D.H. on the right, and
instinctively I banked away. But even as I did so, I got a glimpse of
a helmeted figure using a camera. He wasn’t cranking it--but I guessed
that he had one of the new, electrically driven ones that didn’t need
it.
I had the D.H. in a spin. Bob Brooks, riding with Russ, being let in
for all this frame-up! And the Old Lady doing all of her stuff! No
wonder Russ had exchanged glances with Conant!
At three thousand feet I got the D.H. out of the spin, leveled off, and
gave her the gun.
There were white bursts in the air, and on the ground below there were
more of them. I banked over, looking for the Old Lady. I saw one of the
circus ships going down in a steep glide, with a strange plane on her
tail. A ship was looping a few thousand feet above me, white bursts on
her right. Smoke was drifting all across the sky.
Then I spotted the Old Lady. She was going down toward the field, at the
shell-ripped end, with one of the Nieuports I’d seen right behind her. I
caught sight of two camera men, shooting up at her as she came down.
I dove the D.H. I was too surprised and too excited to get sore.
Anyway, it wouldn’t have done any good. The whole thing was plain now.
I’d always given Russ credit for having brains, but I’d never given him
credit for having this much.
They’d had ships waiting on some other field of course, and Russ had
guessed that we’d come after him. When Bob Brooks had said he’d fly
back with Russ he’d played right into that pilot’s hands. Two birds
with one stone! Not only would Brooks sit in on the sky shoot, but
he’d be right there for the crash--the big scene that Conant wanted!
I groaned. The D.H. was down pretty low now. I could see a ship diving
off to the side of the Old Lady, and in the center of the shell-holed
area were two more camera men, waiting to shoot the crash from the
ground.
The Old Lady was slipping off on a wing now, and I knew that Russ
was trying to hit the spot near the camera men. There was the fellow
grinding away from the plane at one side, too--still shooting the
fake battle.
I thought of Bob Brooks in the rear cockpit. He was helpless--it
wasn’t a dual-control ship. Russ had put the Old Lady through every
air stunt--and Bob had had to sit there and take it. Now he was in
for the crash!
It was a beauty! The Old Lady nosed right into what looked like a
fairly deep shell hole. Her propeller splintered, her tail came up. I
could hear her wings crackling, with the engine throttled down. Then
she tumbled over, upside down--and I groaned and dove the D.H. for a
landing.
“The old fool!” I said, and wasn’t at all sure that I really meant it.