Читать книгу Clipped Wings - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 9

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“There is no knowing what tricks these Rioguayans will be up to,” observed Uncle Brian, as they gained the open expanse between the workshops and the house. “For instance, I should not be at all surprised if I knew there was a secret dictaphone concealed in each of my private rooms. They are undoubtedly bluffing me—or at least they think they are—and I’m bluffing them in return. So I just carry on, do the work I contracted to do in a thorough and conscientious manner. What I do beyond that is my affair.”

“I was thinking, Uncle——”

“Thinking what?”

“Can’t you send in a report about what is going on here to the British Government?”

“How?”

“By letter, or cablegram in code?”

“Not an atom of use, Peter. That letter I wrote asking you to join me here was opened by the Rioguayan Government officials. Every scrap of paper that leaves here through the post is carefully examined. They wouldn’t accept a code message. It would only serve to increase their suspicions, and that I want to avoid as much as possible. You and I, Peter, are marked men. If, for instance, you went into Tepecicoa, you’d be shadowed from the moment you left till the time you returned.”

“You said I was to take up flying,” persisted his nephew. “What’s to prevent me taking you up and making a dash for the West Indies or the Southern States?”

“In the first place,” objected Uncle Brian, “you won’t be allowed up alone. There will be always six or eight of the crew. They won’t prevent us from carrying out our proposed experiments, but they’d very soon stick a knife between your ribs if you attempted to fly across the frontier. In the second place, if you attempted to start at night without a crew there’s always a strong guard posted over the hangars. No doubt we’ll find a way out when the time comes, but until then keep your eyes open and don’t look too wise!”

“There’s another point, Uncle.”

“And that is——?”

“That greaser Ramon Diaz: what was his object in trying to prove that Jutland was a Hun victory?”

“I think simply because he wanted to see how you’d take it. Out here they think it is a great stunt to be able to rile an Englishman. According to their ideas Great Britain is fast crumbling. They’ll never make a bigger mistake. Perhaps some of the newspapers are responsible for that. The Rioguayans cannot understand our form of government. To them it is an absurdity to appoint a Prime Minister and then begin to howl him down. Out here there is no Opposition, or if there is, it does not advertise. People in Rioguay who ostentatiously differ from the President and the Senate are forcibly and finally removed.”

“Well, Uncle, I thought Diaz was a pal of yours, and naturally I didn’t want to start scrapping with him in your house, but I should have liked to give him a straight left.”

“It’s as well you didn’t,” remarked Brian Strong drily, “although I quite sympathize with you in your desire to alter the features of Ramon’s figurehead. Keeping your temper under control puzzles these Rioguayans far more than if you had hit out. You’ll have plenty of provocation, Peter, especially later on when they think I’ve guessed the secret of the flying-boat’s true colours. Our policy just at present is to carry on, eat humble-pie if needs be, and to prepare a line of retreat as soon as my anti-aircraft device is tested and perfected.”

Breakfast over, Brian suggested to his nephew that he should take a stroll round the flying ground until siesta.

“I’ll have to be fairly busy,” he added. “But this evening we’ll have a ‘private view’ of this little invention of mine.”

Accordingly, Peter made his way to the “taking-off ground”, which consisted of a sloping floor of wood, bordered on one side by a belt of sand and on the other by a track of earth covered with coarse grass—the three differently constructed in order to give the pilots experience in rising from various kinds of ground. At the end of the expansive slipway was a lake nearly a mile in length, artificially constructed in order to give the flying-boats practice in taking off from and alighting on water before being dispatched to their tidal river base at San Antonio.

There were at least half a dozen craft undergoing flying tests, or else being employed as instruction machines for budding aviators. The pilots were young men, alert and keen on their work. Peter had to admit that. There was little or nothing of the supposed South American languor about them.

Peter Corbold’s arrival on the flying ground had attracted a certain amount of attention, the airmen looking at him curiously and passing remarks that, owing to his ignorance of the language, left him quite “at sea”. Every Rioguayan on the works and on the estate of El Toro seemed to know who he was.

For some while he stood watching the huge amphibians “take off”. This they did after only a very short run down the inclined plane, rising steeply in the air with very little effort. The training at El Toro was confined to rising and alighting both on land and water, and being able to fly a straight course. Fancy flights and stunts were left severely alone until the flying-boats left for their war-base.

Presently, one of the pilots standing by came up and made signs to Peter that he might go as a passenger. Although he had come out without any intention of “going up”, Peter accepted the offer with alacrity.

“The blighter would think I had cold feet if I refused,” he soliloquized, as he followed the pilot into the interior of the flying-boat, where he found five other Rioguayans already there—lads undergoing instruction. The two mechanics—one for each pair of motors—were not visible, their “stations” being in the alley-way between the engines and below the space ostensibly to be used for the storage of merchandise.

It was Peter’s first time of “going up”, and he had to confess that he did not find the experience very exhilarating. The enclosed fuselage practically eliminated all sensation of speed, and once the initial movement was over—somewhat like the starting of a lift—there was little beyond the noise of the motors to convey the suggestion of speed.

Going to one of the side scuttles, Peter looked earthwards. By this time the flying-boat had attained an altitude of between 2500 and 3000 feet. At that height the land looked flat and uninteresting as it apparently moved slowly below the ninety miles an hour aircraft. It was only by observing the shadow of the flying-boat upon the sun-dried plain that Peter could realize that he was being carried through the air at a rate that he had never previously attained.

Looking through the glass door between the main saloon and the pilot’s office, Peter saw that the man had abandoned the joy-stick and was leaning back in his seat and rolling a cigarette.

“He’s bored stiff,” was the young Englishman’s unspoken remark.

The pilots under instruction had also lost interest, but owing to a very different reason. It was their first flight, and already every one of them was in the throes of air-sickness.

It was evidently the intention of their instructor to prolong their agony, for the flying-boat was still climbing steadily and heading for the Sierra Colima, a range of jagged mountains forming the north-eastern frontier of the republic.

Here, there is to be found a perpetual turmoil of air currents, the torrid atmosphere of the plains rising on either side of the mountains and engaging in conflict with the cold blasts of air in the higher regions. Not only were there fierce, eddying winds to be met with, but highly dangerous air-pockets—veritable pitfalls taxing to the uttermost the resources of the pilot.

For a good twenty minutes the flying-boat tore madly over the tops of the jagged peaks. Lurching, side-slipping, flung almost vertically through a distance of two hundred feet, twisted like a withered leaf in an autumn gale, the machine provided a series of thrills to the now far from bored Peter. Gripping a metal rod, he divided his attention between the view below, the cool daring of the pilot, and his own efforts to prevent himself being hurled violently against the sides of the fuselage.

“That chap is some airman, although he’s a Dago,” declared Peter. “Those other fellows look like having a very rough time of it.”

They were. The five were lying utterly helpless upon the floor, sliding in a confused mass every time the machine gave a violent lurch.

Greatly to his surprise, Peter felt no sign of air-sickness. Why he was immune he knew not. It was possibly owing to the fact that he was a sailor, but he remembered instances of his late brother officers going up for joy-rides and quickly falling victims to air-sickness.

“If I could manage this ’bus,” he soliloquized, “and I wanted to clear out of the country, who’s there to prevent me? Deal effectively with the pilot and the trick’s done. But there’s no hurry; there’ll be plenty of excitement down there before the time comes to do a bunk with Uncle Brian.”

Half an hour later, the flying-boat swooped down towards the landing ground. This was a far more exciting bit of work than the comparatively tame ascent.

The ground appeared to leap upwards to meet the descending machine. Peter held his breath, fully expecting a terrific bump. The thought flashed through his mind that perhaps the pilot had lost control.

Peter watched the custodian of his fate. The pilot was sitting well back in his seat, his right hand grasping the lever controlling the planes. With a slow deliberate movement, he pulled the lever towards him. The flying-boat’s speed was instantly checked. Her fore-and-aft axis came to a horizontal position. Then the bows appeared to rise ever so slightly, while at the same moment the four propellers ceased revolving.

There was a bump, but it was far less violent than Peter had expected. Another and yet another of less magnitude and the flying-boat was at rest once more on terra firma.

The pilot scrambled out, followed by the two mechanics. Peter dropped lightly to earth, with a sensation of elation at having successfully passed through the ordeal of his first flight.

He was half-way to the house when he glanced back to see the first of the five miserable looking “quirks” crawling painfully out of the fuselage.

“So you’ve been up,” observed Uncle Brian. “How did you like it?”

“Not so dusty,” replied Peter. “Those poor blighters under instruction didn’t seem to revel in it, though.”

“They wouldn’t,” rejoined Uncle Brian. “That flying-boat is of an old type, and is used only for instructional purposes. She’s known to the instructors here as El Boyeta—the Emetic. So you weren’t ill? Capital; you’ll make a good airman, I can see.”

“And the sooner the better,” added his nephew.