by Thomson Burtis
Author of “There and Back,” “Feud’s End,” etc.
A De Haviland airplane was spiraling down over the level expanse of
Langham Field. As the slim young pilot in the front seat slowly
throttled the big Liberty motor which had carried the ship from
Washington, the passenger peered down interestedly. Twenty-two massive
twin-motored bombers were lined up on the Eastern edge of the field,
nose to nose in two lines. They looked like waiting monsters, slothful
but terrible in their suggestion of power. The sinking sun sent shafts
of light flashing from the metal, and as the dropping De Haviland gave
the two flyers constantly changing angles of vision it seemed as though
the ships were alive, so blinding was the play of light from glistening
turn-buckles and the glass covers of the instruments on each motor.
The D. H. landed lightly, the pilot taking unusual care to avoid running
into the lines of ships which cut off a quarter of the field. He taxied
to the line. Before he had finished running the gas out of his motor his
passenger was out of the back cockpit and had removed the flying
coveralls he wore. He was in civilian clothes. He took a soft hat from
the rear, put it on, lit a cigar and waited for the pilot.
When that gentleman had leaped out and lit a cigaret the civilian
stretched out his hand.
“Thank you, lieutenant, that was fine. I enjoyed it greatly. Would you
mind seeing to it that my suitcase is unstrapped and sent up to General
O’Malley’s office? Thank you. That is headquarters up there, is it not?”
“Yes, sir--General O’Malley’s headquarters.”
“See you later, I hope. Good-by.”
He walked briskly down the row of tremendous corrugated iron hangars. He
did not stop to inspect in detail the overgrown Handley Pages and
Capronis and Martin bombers, although his brilliant dark eyes rested
continuously on the line of ships. De Havilands and S. E. 5 scouts were
constantly landing and taking off. Once he did stop in his tracks to
watch five S. E’s. take off in a V formation, scoot a mile north of the
field, and then line up in single file. One by one they dived--dived
until the sing of the wires could be heard on the field. As they came
perilously near the ground they would suddenly straighten. At that
instant an egg-shaped projectile left the ship and hurtled groundward.
In a few seconds came the explosion.
“Small bombs,” the civilian told himself as he resumed his walk to
brigade headquarters. “I wonder whether some of them could be used----”
A seven-passenger army car stopped beside him. He looked up quickly into
the face of a portly man wearing the insignia of a lieutenant-colonel.
“Can I give you a ride, Mr. Graves?” inquired the colonel, getting out
of the car.
“Thank you, but I’m just going up to headquarters. But you have the
advantage of me sir.”
“I met you in Rome in 1918,” stated the colonel. “My name is Sax.”
“You have a better memory than I, colonel. But I was there. Glad to have
seen you again. Good-by.”
He walked on, leaving the colonel to climb back into the car.
“Now that’s funny. I’d give a little piece of change to find out just
what that fellow’s business is,” muttered the portly officer as he
settled himself in the car.
Graves walked into the small, one-story frame building which had been
dignified into Headquarters of the First Provisional Air Brigade, and
walked over to the sergeant-major’s desk. Evidently he knew something
about the army.
“Mr. Graves, to see the adjutant,” he stated.
He spoke with a certain preciseness in a modulated voice that
instinctively gave one an impression of culture and refinement.
“Yes, sir.”
The sergeant-major disappeared into the adjutant’s office with unusual
expedition, returning in a few seconds to say--
“All right, sir.”
The captain who arose as Mr. Graves walked into his office gave him a
quick survey in which interest and appraisal were equally mingled.
Graves had removed his hat, revealing thick, iron-gray hair which lent
distinction and force to his appearance. He was a little above medium
height, and the unobtrusive perfection of his clothing hid a pair of
stalwart shoulders which a wrestler would have had no reason to be
ashamed of.
“I have an appointment with General O’Malley, captain,” said Graves.
“Yes indeed. The general is ready to see you.”
The captain motioned toward the closed door which led from his office.
“Thank you.”
Graves walked over to the door, opened it, and closed it again behind
him after entering the inner office. In both speech and action he
appeared to be a very direct gentleman with a pronounced disinclination
to waste either time or words.
“General O’Malley?”
“Yes. I’m glad to know you, Mr. Graves.”
As the two men shook hands there was a pause lasting several seconds.
Eye to eye, they adjudged each other as strong men will when each knows
that the other is worthy of his steel.
Graves knew that before him was perhaps the most brilliant and audacious
of the younger officers of the army--the great chief of a hazardous
service which even then was preparing to prove that its fledgeling wings
would carry it far beyond where anyone save its officers believed it
could go. As for the general, he had in his desk a letter from the
Secretary of War--a brief note which stated succinctly that Mr. Graves
would be treated with the utmost consideration, be cooperated with to
the fullest extent, and that he carried with him authority the nature of
which he personally would divulge.
O’Malley watched his visitor closely as he turned to find a chair. There
was a change in his appearance when seen in profile which was almost
startling. Full-face, his countenance was broad and strong, with the
high forehead of a student and the slightly tightened lips of a firmly
molded character. In profile Graves looked like a hawk--one saw that his
nose jutted aggressively from his face, and that both forehead and chin
subtly strengthened the impression. Even his body seemed thinner and
taller.
* * * * *
Graves deliberately flipped the ash from his cigar and then reset the
weed in his wide, slightly drooping mouth. His brilliant eyes rested on
the general’s face.
“General, I have here some papers for your inspection, in order that you
may become somewhat acquainted with my mission. Needless to say, not a
soul aside from ourselves and persons whom I may find it necessary to
tell must know even a detail of the matter.”
Very few men would have spoken as tersely and directly to O’Malley. The
general, however, merely nodded.
“I surmised as much,” he said quietly.
Graves drew a thin, long envelope from his pocket and presented it to
O’Malley. It did not take the general long to read the enclosure. It was
signed by a very great and powerful government official, and left no
doubt as to Mr. Graves’ position.
The general reread the last sentence.
“--and is hereby empowered to use any methods he sees fit to accomplish
his mission, which is one of the gravest importance to the welfare of
the United States.”
“So-o-o,” said the general at length, laying down the document slowly.
“And what is it you wish, Mr. Graves?”
“First let me find out whether I am correct on all points or not. You
have gathered here, as I understand it, the veteran pilots of the Air
Service to take part in the coming bombing tests. You likewise have
concentrated here for the use of the Air Brigade the most up-to-date
material the Air Service has.”
“Correct. Right here, Mr. Graves, is probably the best organization of
its size the Air Service of any country has ever known. With those
Martin bombers out there, manned by the pilots of this brigade, we are
ready this minute to back up all our claims, and you know we made some!”
O’Malley joined in Graves’ spontaneous laugh over that last forceful
statement. The general’s adventures in trying to put across some of the
things he wished to do in the Air Service had been diversified, to say
the least. He was a firebrand whom every one simply had to like or
dislike--there was no middle ground.
The flyers of his service idolized him. Flyers, being on the whole of a
type a little different from the general run, it follows that many good
men would dislike and distrust O’Malley for the same things which his
young men loved.
“Well, general, here is my mission in a nutshell. You know by the
papers, if through no other means, of the series of tremendous mail
robberies, totaling millions, which culminated in the half-million
dollar haul near Cleveland two months ago.”
O’Malley nodded.
“Operatives of our service, after months of patient and very skilful
work, have run down what we believe to be the greatest criminal
organization of its kind the country ever saw. It is almost a certainty
that every mail robbery of any size since 1919 has been engineered and
carried to a successful completion by this organization.
“The group is so powerful and so wise that its ramifications are almost
unbelievable. We don’t know all about them yet, but we do know that its
organization includes agents all over the country for the safe disposal
of securities and other valuables; that it includes brokers, business
men, cracksmen, gunmen, government employees. The brains of the gang,
the man to whom all credit for the conception and execution of these
tremendous crimes and the organization of the whole thing goes is
Stanislaus Hayden.
“I won’t bore you with his history--suffice it to say that he is one of
the most remarkable combinations of brilliancy, far-sightedness, and
executive ability that I have ever known about. If he were anything but
a mentally and morally warped specimen, he might have been another
Morgan or Stinnes.
“Now here is the situation. Hayden is at present in West Virginia. He is
living on the top of a mountain in Farran County, miles from the nearest
town. With him are several underlings--I believe them to be some of the
men who actually pull the robberies themselves. Just why they are living
in seclusion up there I do not exactly know, but I presume that it is
first of all a good hiding place, and secondly that it keeps Hayden away
from the surveillance of the police. He has been mixed up in some
monumental deals--or at least suspected so strongly that he is
watched--but for two years he has fooled us completely on this new
organization of his. What makes him unusually dangerous aside from his
ability is the loyalty he inspires in those under him--rather a
combination of loyalty and fear, I should say. Anyway, a few small
potatoes whom we have nabbed quietly will tell nothing. Apparently they
realize that he is a really great commander-in-chief, and trust him to
help them.”
“But how did he----”
“How he got into West Virginia I do not know. A year ago he dropped from
sight, and the operative who finally traced him down has no idea when he
came into that part of the country. I believe that the gang planned to
quit operations before long, and that for months Hayden has been a
hermit simply making his pile with the idea of retiring on his money in
the near future. He would not be safe in any city in the country to
carry on his operations.”
Graves talked as precisely as ever. Every word was clear-cut and
incisive. His slim, long-fingered hands were motionless except as he
carried his cigar to his lips. He paused a moment to get up and drop the
stub into the ash receiver.
“As I said, Hayden is staying on the top of a mountain in Farran County
with some henchmen. There is no question that all of them would fight to
the death--you know what the Postmaster General announced recently about
mail-robbers, do you not?”
“It was plenty,” nodded O’Malley.
“There are several facets to the situation. In the first place, that
little nucleus of men is well supplied with artillery and ammunition
ranging from machine-guns down. In the second place, their dwelling
place is so strategically advantageous that it might take a hundred men
dead and wounded before they could be captured. The only road leading to
the hunting cabin where Hayden has his headquarters is narrow and
winding, like all those mountain roads, and by reason of a three or four
hundred foot precipice and some other details of the country a dozen men
could hold the place for a considerable time against ten times their
number.
“But most important, we want Hayden alive, and _the fact that we have
him must be unknown_. As I said, we know vaguely, without many details,
that he heads this vast organization. But we have come to a stone wall
in our efforts to find who the biggest culprits under him are, or all
the ramifications of the conspiracy. We believe that Hayden is the only
living man--at least the only one we can get our hands on--who can tell
all. And the moment he was killed or it was known that he was captured,
every criminal under him would be gone. The organization would probably
disappear in a night. My mission is to capture him, alive, and with
nobody but the men with him in that cabin knowing it. We will see to it
that they do not spread the news, because every escape they have will be
guarded, and they will be in a state of siege up there without any
method of sending news to the outside world. Their immediate capture is
unimportant, but we can take no chances of an attack for fear of killing
Hayden. If we get him, we can make him talk, I believe. We will use
almost any measures.”
“You have quite a contract, I should say,” remarked the general, tapping
on his desk with a penholder. “I thought I might have a glimmering of
what you wanted from us, but what you say about getting him alive
changes things.”
“No, I don’t want any bombs dropped on him,” returned Graves with a
smile. It was a singularly warm and winning smile, lightening the subtle
hardness of his face. The sardonic hint around his mouth disappeared,
and his eyes seemed to reflect the smile in their depths.
“Now as to what I do want,” he went on after a moment. He seemed to be
incapable of detouring for more than the smallest of intervals from the
business at hand. “It would be impossible for any of our operatives to
get close enough to the place to capture Hayden without publicity, or
without fighting for their lives, except in the manner I have in mind.
Before I describe to you my proposed method of getting Hayden, I want my
men. Then I need only discuss the matter once.”
“Just as you choose.”
“I want two pilots and a Martin bomber, equipped with extra gas and oil
and heavy machine-gun equipment--all she’ll handle, in case we need
them. These two pilots--the ideal ones for my purpose--would be A. 1.
flyers, first. That is probably the easiest of my requirements.”
“You can’t throw a stone out of this window without hitting a real
pilot,” stated the general. “We have the finest personnel in the world.”
“I am inclined to believe you are right, general. Now secondly, it would
be advisable that they be older men--none of your brilliant kids. Nobody
must know that Hayden is captured--before a breath of it gets out we
must make him talk, and then come down on his men all over the country
in one swoop that will be the biggest coup in the history of the
Department of Justice, so far as straight criminality goes. For this and
other reasons, these fellows must be men of the utmost discretion.”
“I can readily see your point,” agreed O’Malley, lighting a cigaret.
“Next, I want men who have knocked around quite a bit--resourceful, able
to handle themselves in any kind of a shindig whatsoever, and not afraid
of ---- or high water. Rather the soldier of fortune type, you know--I
think you get my idea. They will be asked to volunteer to do this thing
with me, as a sporting proposition and as a duty to the United States.
Although this method of capturing Hayden is rather forced on me by
circumstances, I believe that you can fix me up with men whom I can
depend on.”
The irrepressible O’Malley’s mouth widened into a grin as Graves
finished.
“You are paying the Air Service a great compliment, Graves,” he said.
Graves relaxed briefly.
“You’ve got an outfit, I know,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t trust the
accomplishing one of the biggest things I’ve ever worked on to strangers
if I didn’t believe it.”
Then he started hammering away again. The general got the impression of
resistless tenacity about him--the feeling that until his job was done
the aristocratic, meticulous Mr. Graves could never be swerved for an
instant from his progress toward the goal he was endeavoring to reach.
“Can you produce two such men--and if so, how quickly, general?”
* * * * *
O’Malley did not answer for fully two minutes. He placed two
immaculately booted and spurred feet on his desk, sunk into his chair,
and thoughtfully smoked. Then he reached for the bell on his desk.
The adjutant entered and saluted.
“Get me Lieutenants Broughton and Hinkley, Evans. Tell them to report to
me at once. Use every effort to get them, regardless of whether they are
on the post or not.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Evans saluted stiffly and went out.
“I think these two men fit your description best, Graves. I’ll admit I’m
curious to know just what you want with them. Broughton is an old
first-sergeant out of the artillery. Got his commission in the artillery
and transferred to the Air Service. A ---- good big-ship pilot, too.
Hinkley is a long, lean, sardonic bird who has the coldest nerve I ever
saw and gives not three hoots in hallelujah for anything or anybody.
Both of them flew on Border patrol for two years--Broughton out of
Nogales and Hinkley--an observer until recently--at Marfa. Broughton is
a nut about guns, and one of the best pistol shots I ever saw. Can draw
and throw a gun and fan it and all that. I’m a fair shot myself, but he
is wonderful. How good Hinkley is on that stuff I don’t know, but I do
know he’s been a captain in the army of Brazil, and a sailor from the
Horn to Bering Sea. Both of them around thirty, I think.”
“They sound available,” granted Graves.
He relapsed into silence. After a moment or two he took out another
cigar, offered it to the general, who refused, and finally lit it
himself. His gaze rested for a moment on the line of great bombers which
he could partially see through the open window.
“Bombing today?” he inquired.
“Just practise. Those ships out there are all loaded with
thousand-pounders--we practise tomorrow on the hulk of an old battleship
out in Chesapeake Bay. The first test is only two weeks away.”
“Going to make the grade?” inquired Graves easily.
He seemed to have suddenly shed his former terse directness. And that he
was talking to the famous General O’Malley, chief of Air Service, did
not seem to cut any figure with him at all.
“Are we going to make the grade?” repeated the general, his eyes
flashing. He hit the desk a resounding blow with his fist. “We’ll sink
anything they put up in ten minutes. Fellows like these two you’re going
to meet now and the rest of the men who fly those ships out there are
going up and show the world----”
A knock on the door interrupted him.
“Come in!” he shouted.
Captain Evans obeyed.
“Broughton and Hinkley are on their way, sir,” he reported.
“Good. Send ’em in as soon as they get here. Now, Graves, let me tell
you----” and the general was off on the passion of his life, which was
flying in general and his flyers in particular.
Graves deftly inserted the proper question at the proper time, and
before long the dynamic general had blueprints and specifications and
maps out to strengthen his arguments further.
He was in the midst of describing what a two-thousand-pound bomb would
do to a battleship, Times Square, a dock, or anything else it hit when
Captain Evans entered again.
“Evans, you bother me to death. What the----”
“Lieutenants Broughton and Hinkley are here, sir,” returned the
adjutant, standing at attention. Captain Evans was very correct.
“Oh yes. Send ’em in. From now on, Graves, it’s your funeral. Come in,
boys. Mr. Graves, may I present Mr. Broughton and Mr. Hinkley. Sit down.
All right, fire away, Graves.”