Читать книгу Mark Gilmore, Speed Flyer - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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A heavy, chill mist lay below and above a choppy wind held sway. Mark Gilmore was forced to ride the gale though it would take the Kent D-2 fifty miles off her course. He smiled slowly in answer to the questioning look on Arty Aylesworth’s bright face and pointed eloquently toward the fog-bound earth. A moment later the nose of the trim little plane climbed still higher into the roaring tempest.

Arty shook his dark head dubiously. “You do the darndest things, Red,” he shouted. “I’m sure that that crate we sighted a minute ago is on our course too, yet....”

“She’s dipped the fog just to keep straight on her course like all good pilots should do,” Mark interposed with a note of raillery. “Well, Art, I’m not such a good pilot if you measure me by those standards. I’m the kind of a pilot that will sacrifice time and speed for safety any time—see? Especially I’ll do it when I have cargo on board to account for.”

“Human or otherwise?” asked Arty grinning.

“Both.” Mark glanced quickly at his companion. “You’re thinking that such talk won’t help me measure up to the job your father’s offering, huh?”

“Dad will fall hook, line and sinker for that cargo talk, Red—don’t worry about that. What he won’t fall for, though, I warn you, is any mention of sacrificing time. He’s a demon for time and he won’t listen to any excuses.”

Mark nodded happily. “Ever since I was a kid fifteen years old, I’ve managed to make the goal on time. Nobody’s ever really had to wait for me so I guess your father won’t have to either. Air troubles—after all I beat them on the home stretch.”

“Attaboy! I bet that’s the truth too. Safety first and speed last. Well, maybe there’s a lot of chaps could learn something from that creed. Anyway I cracked you up to the skies to dad—you’re sure to get the job. I didn’t tell him how you lost your last one with the East Coast people either.”

“That,” said Mark with a decisive tug at his controls, “is something I’m not ashamed of. Did the East Coast people tell you why I was let out?”

Arty nodded. “The manager said there had been constant friction between you and Richie Benson. There was a slight accident to his plane when he was on an important flight and I understand the chap hinted that it must have been the result of some tampering with the crate by enemy hands.”

“Meaning me,” Mark grinned. “You see he and I were making a test flight for the High-Oil Company—New York to Washington record, see? Five thousand bonus to the winner. We had an even start but ran into some terrific weather in Jersey. Richie’s folks are poor so I let him overtake me and pass me. I guess he was so overjoyed that it went to his head because he began trying to cut time and the wind and before you knew it he was having trouble. All of a sudden I didn’t see him and I kind of figured that it was either one thing or the other—forced down or knocked down. Wild country, that part of Jersey. Not a house in sight and as hilly as can be. All of a sudden I saw some flames below.”

“His crate?” asked Arty, tense.

“I thought so at the time. Anyway, I made about the worst forced landing I’ll ever make, banged up my wing considerably and almost succeeded in finishing things up including myself. But I didn’t and instead I scrambled out fearing the worst for Richie as I ran toward the flames. Well, it proved to be no more than a brush fire and I found Benson the other side of the hill, quite well but his plane out of kilter. He had come down in a hurry with engine trouble.”

“And for your trouble he reported you to the East Coast big guns as having tampered with his engine so’s you could get that bonus yourself,” said Arty indignantly. “Oh, I know that story, Red—the manager told me that much. He said he hated to let you go but he had to because the incident cost them the entire business of the High-Oil people. Well, so it goes. Benson deserved to get the gate and I hope he realizes it by now.”

“I hope he’s as lucky as I am,” said Mark with a smile. “There I was walking out of the East Coast office kind of down and you came running after me.”

“Dad’s the lucky one that he sent me on to snoop around the East Coast office for a good pilot. The minute I mentioned my business, the manager buttonholed me and he said I could have one of their best chaps as soon as he fired you.”

They both laughed heartily at this and listened for a time to the gale whistling eerily as it beat against the cabin. Arty pressed his face against the cold pane and peered at a little glow of light that seemed to be bobbing along on the roof of the fog.

“Think I see our former friend down there,” he observed.

“Huh!” Mark asked, watching his gauges as he brought down the altitude. “That crate, you mean?”

“Mm. Suffering cats, but she’s low. I guess you know what you’re doing. Rather have wind any time than take chances on a rim like that.”

Mark shrugged his shoulders. “Let him go to it. He’ll take chances once too often. I’m going to put this ship straight south, I know that. Get out of this wind—Arkansas, Oklahoma, a bit of Texas and New Mexico, and then we’ll wind up in your Colorado at Dawson City, huh?”

Arty had not heard, that was obvious, for his face was pressed against the cold pane, anxiously. “Red,” he said at length, “that plane down there is in trouble. I’m certain she’s sending down flares.”

Mark leaned forward. “Too bad,” he said sympathetically, “but there’s nothing much we can do, Arty. He’ll have to bail out if things get bad enough, same’s we all do.”

“But we’re in a bad part of Missouri, Red,” the other protested. “Heaven knows where the poor egg would land if he did bail out. He’ll either land in the river or stick in the mud for that’s all this part of the country boasts of. A poor white’s shack here and there, but mostly there. Still, as you say, we can’t do anything about it—we can’t risk our own necks too.”

Mark said nothing for a while but leaned over and scrutinized his altimeter. The lights from his control board gleamed upon his thick blond hair bringing out that peculiar reddish cast that had earned for him the affectionate nickname of “Red.” His bushy eyebrows, too, as they squinted over the dash-board had this same glint, belying the dancing brown of his eyes. Mark was singularly handsome, Arty decided as he watched him.

“We’re only five thousand feet, would you believe that?” Mark asked simply.

“What about it, Red?” Arty returned.

“Just that our friend must be pretty low. How does he seem to be getting on?”

Arty looked. “Rotten,” he announced. “He just sent down another flare. Guess he can’t penetrate that fog with dynamite.”

Mark brought the plane into a nose dive. “We’ll cruise down around her and see what we can see.”

They dove down out of the wind and came out on an even keel just above the roof of the fog. The other plane was a little below and a trifle to the left. Manifestly, she was in distress and afraid to make a landing for her nose was wobbling about uncertainly one moment, then righting itself the next.

Arty kept his face close to the little cockpit window. “I got a glimpse of the poor egg’s face then,” he said excitedly. “Can you dip her a bit nearer, Red?”

“Guess so. I’ll take it easy and tell me when I’m getting warm.”

“Sure thing. Let ’er go!”

Mark throttled her down, and they came breathtakingly near the other plane, their wheels seeming almost to touch the gleaming wing. Arty raised a brown hand warningly. “Warm enough, Red. Now, I can see him ... he’s hanging his head out of the window ... wait ... shut ’er off a second, huh?”

Mark immediately did so and after a tense second received an assenting nod from Arty.

“All right,” said the other. “His motor’s dead as a door nail. Looks frantic—he sort of shook his head as if he hasn’t any chute.”

“Can you imagine that!” Mark bit his lip, perplexed. “My gosh, if he can’t bail out....”

Arty grasped his seat with both hands. “He’s ducked in, Red ... he’s gone!”

“Plane too!” Mark shouted.

“Sure. It nosed right over the minute he pulled his head back in. Suffering cats!”

“He’ll be caught in the mess sure as guns,” Mark cried sympathetically. Then: “Hey, Art!”

“Yeah!”

“Want to bail out?”

“What for, huh?”

“I’m going after that fool. If I don’t, my conscience will bother me the rest of my life. There’ll be a nice little fire as soon as his ship strikes terra firma, if it turned over here as you say it did. He’ll make part of the fuel too, because he’ll have one sweet job getting out. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s a hunch. Want to....”

“What do you think I am, Red? I’m stickin’ and that isn’t maybe! Go on—here’s to life, death or the pursuit of happiness, huh?” Mark sighed as he shut off his motor.

“Arty,” he said in all seriousness, “I can see that you’re just as great a fool as I am. And that’s no compliment to either of us, believe me.”

The Kent D-2 hovered an instant, then slid noiselessly into the black fog and down.