A MOMENTOUS DECISION
In choosing to land in the dark on an unknown field, Curlie Carson
realized that he was taking a terrible chance. Night landings are always
a problem. The appearance of the ground is deceiving. A narrow run, deep
and dangerous, may be hidden by its banks; a sudden swell may bring
disaster.
“It may be a life lost. But there are times when one must take chances,”
he told himself stoutly. He was thinking of the medicine in that sack
back there somewhere in the dark.
“Are those villains doing all this for gain, or what?” He thought now of
those mysterious ones who were hounding him. “They can’t know how
terrible it all is. I—”
There came a sudden bump; another; another; many bumps in quick
succession. He was landing. Setting his brakes hard, he unsnapped his
harness and prepared to leap.
With a suddenness that was startling, the plane came to a stop. It
appeared to strain forward; then it recoiled.
“Hit a fence,” he breathed. “Good thing it wasn’t sooner.”
He was over the side and away. Plunging forward, he paused to grope for
the fence. Having found it, he went skulking along it from post to post.
His reasons for this were two. If a light shot in his direction the
fence would offer some chance of concealment. He could become a stone in
the fence row. Then, too, the fence gave him direction. He had been
flying due west. This fence ran north and south. It would be crossed by
another. When he found this he would turn east. About a mile and a half
back was the precious mail sack.
“I’ll find it,” he assured himself. “It’s not too late yet. Only sixty
miles more to go. Some one will take me to a station or an airdrome.
Please God, the medicine will reach its destination.
“And the violin,” he added. “Fifteen hundred crippled children!”
He paused to listen. Some one was shouting. They had found his plane,
discovered that he was gone.
“What will they do now?” He raced on.
He was to know soon enough. From somewhere in that expanse of pasture a
pencil of light began circling.
“It’s a searchlight from their plane. I’m lost, perhaps.
“But no. Perhaps not.”
With one eye on the light, he moved slowly forward. When at last it
sought his fence row and followed it, there was nothing moving there.
The light did not pause as it passed across a log or a stone in the
fence row. It moved to its limit in that direction and then began
searching other corners.
“They won’t suspect that the bag is back yonder,” he told himself.
“Think I have it.”
For a time, ready at any moment to play ’possum, he crept forward.
Coming to an intersection of fences, he turned east.
At last he sprang to his feet and ran again.
Quite out of breath, and beyond the range of the light, he slowed down.
“A mile and a half,” he whispered. “Covered half of it already. Have to
use my flashlight to find the bag. More danger. They may see it. Oh,
well, my legs are as good as theirs. But guns!” He shuddered.
Fifteen minutes of brisk walking and he judged himself to be near the
place where the parachute had dropped.
Turning his back to the fence he prepared to walk straight forward for
some distance. He had not taken a dozen steps when his foot caught on
something and he barely escaped a fall.
Putting out a hand, he let forth an involuntary exclamation. He had
tripped on the red parachute.
“Great luck!” he exclaimed.
The next moment found the precious bag and the parachute (which he vowed
should still bring a doll to his little friend) tucked under his arm.
“Now,” he thought, “what next?”
He paused to reflect. This was a pasture. Every pasture, if it does not
touch the farm yard on one corner, has a lane leading to the farm
buildings. If he continued to follow the fence he might come to the
farmer’s house. So he reasoned.
And he was right. Fifteen minutes had not passed before the farmer,
aroused by the loud barking of his dog, was standing in his door,
demanding:
“Who’s there?”
“An Air Mail flyer,” Curlie replied, in as even a tone as he could
command. “Plane’s down in your pasture. I need your help. The mail must
go through.”
“Down, there!” the man growled at his dog. “What do you want,” he asked
Curlie.
“Have you a car?” Curlie asked, stepping to the door.
“Yes, a truck.”
“How far is it to town?”
“To Aurora, eight miles.”
“Aurora!” Curlie’s hopes rose. At Aurora there was an airport. If this
farmer but knew the way to the airport, the precious parcel of mail
would not be long delayed.
He felt for the sack. The three packages, undamaged by the fall, were
still there.
“Take me to Aurora at once,” he said in a tone that carried authority.
“You will be well paid. But besides this, it is your duty. Every man, in
time of emergency, is the servant of his country.”
“Yes, that is true,” the man agreed, as he drew on his coat. “We’ll get
the car; then we’ll go for the mail.”
“I have it here.”
“So little!” The man stared with unbelieving eyes.
“There is much more. This is all that matters now. This is urgent. It’s
a registered sack. Perhaps a matter of life and death.”
Even as Curlie spoke he caught the sound of voices. They came from the
direction of the plane. His pursuers were approaching the farmhouse,
having discovered that the registered mail was gone. Would he yet be
caught?
“Come!” he exclaimed. “We must go!”
The farmer, too, had heard the shouts. He appeared bewildered,
undecided.
Without wasting another word, the boy whipped out his flashlight, set it
circling the barnyard, then dashed to a shed where the truck was kept.
The next instant the motor was purring.
Before the farmer had collected his wits sufficiently to move, Curlie
had driven the truck into the center of the yard.
“Perhaps he thinks I am a mail robber, those others the pilots,” he told
himself. “What can a farmer know about such things? If worse comes to
worst, I’ll drive away alone and take the consequences.”
This proved unnecessary. Awakened from his sleep to find himself
confronted by an emergency, the slow-going, methodical farmer had found
his mind unequal to the situation. When his own truck came rumbling up
to his doorstep he climbed in; then, at the boy airman’s request, he
pointed the way to the small city nearest his home.
For a time at least after that, fortune favored Curlie. The road to
town, he found, led by the airport. Half an hour had not elapsed before
the shuddering farm truck drew up at the airport’s entrance.
Hastily handing the farmer a banknote, he began pounding at the door of
a room where a dim light shone.
“What you want?” grumbled a voice, as the door opened.
“A plane to Chicago. Special Air Mail. An emergency. Plane down in a
pasture five miles back.”
The man glanced at the mail sack, at Curlie’s uniform, then said
cheerily:
“Righto! Warm one up at once. Good bus. Want the stick?”
“You better come. Take her back. I can’t.”
“Right!”
A moment later a powerful motor began a low rumble. The rumble increased
to a roar, then died down again. Three times this was repeated. Then
Curlie climbed aboard a two-seater.
“Time for three winks,” he thought, as he strapped himself in.
Long hours had passed since he had left his last airport. Excitement and
mental struggle had tired him. Accustomed as he was to being aloft, he
fell asleep at once and remained so until the bump-bump of his plane,
landing on the city field, awoke him.
“We’re there!” he thought to himself. “The city at last!”
But his task was only begun. Ordinarily he would have delivered his mail
to a truck driver. The driver would carry it to the post office and his
responsibility would end. But to-night he was late. An emergency
existed. Knowing the great need, he was obliged to decide whether or not
to take matters in his own hands. Should he rip open the locked sack and
deliver the three parcels in person?
In such a course he realized there would be a grave element of risk.
Tampering with the mail is serious business. Should one package escape
from his hands before it was delivered, he would be held responsible.
The loss of one precious package would mean a loss to his company. The
company alone was responsible for the mail until it was received by the
postal authorities.
“A slip would mean loss of position—disgrace,” he told himself.
He looked at his watch. It was well past midnight. “The last post office
messenger boy leaves at 11 o’clock,” he told himself. “Had the emergency
existed in the beginning I might have phoned in and had a mail clerk
stay until I arrived. Now there is only one chance. I must take matters
in my own hands or wait for the office to open in the morning. And that
may be too late.” For a moment he hesitated.
He was tired. The way had been long. His comfortable bed awaited him. It
would be so easy to report the whole affair, send planes and pilots for
his abandoned mail plane, and then turn over the special sack to the
office and go home.
“A fellow isn’t responsible for that which he is not supposed to know,”
he told himself stoutly. “Mr. Wiseman had no real right to tell me about
those packages. I—”
But now rose the picture of a child tossing in pain, of a father pacing
the floor waiting for medicine that did not come. Then a second picture
came to haunt him: hundreds of eager-eyed crippled children waiting in
vain for the celestial notes of a marvelous violin played by a master’s
hands.
“The law of the need of those who suffer is higher than any other law,”
he told himself stoutly. “I will take the risk. I will deliver them in
person.”
Five minutes later, after having reported the astonishing affair to the
night director of the airport, he plunged into the darkness that is a
great city’s outer borders at night, with the precious sack still under
his arm. Written on the tablets of his mind was the address of the home
where the sick girl lay.
Boarding a street car, he rode eight blocks. Having overhauled a night
prowling taxi, he leaped into it from the car and went speeding away
into the night.
As he settled back for an eight mile ride, there crept into his mind
again grave misgivings. The sack at his side had been cut open by his
own hand, and this the most precious, the most carefully guarded of all
mail. Not one package might pass from one hand to another without an
official signature and a stamp.
“And I dared break all rules!” he told himself, as his heart stood
still. “One slip now, and I am done!”
“Done! Out of the mail service forever. Out!”
How he loved his work! Climbing into the clouds in the dewy morning;
racing the stars at night; the air; the sky; all the freedom of a bird.
How could he stand losing all this?
And yet, even from these he passed to more disturbing thoughts. Was that
gang still after him? Where were they now?
“They, too, may be in the city by now,” he told himself. “What if they
overhaul me before my task is done?” He shuddered.
“They must not!”
“Driver!” He leaned forward. “Driver, all the speed you dare. And an
extra fee for your trouble.”
With a fresh burst of power the taxi sped on through the night.