Читать книгу The Parachute Jumper - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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Tom Slade climbed down out of the biplane, took off his helmet and strolled about, somewhat to the amusement of the little group of people who had assembled to see him depart. He cast a rueful smile at a man who seemed to be in authority, then sauntered off and back again, with an air of good-humored impatience.

“Maybe he stubbed his toe and was killed,” observed a waggish bystander.

Everybody laughed, as if that would be a ridiculous calamity to befall the person in question.

“The kind of trips he makes, when he starts he usually keeps going,” said another bystander. At which Tom, pausing abruptly, laughed outright.

The group increased, and still Tom wandered about in a kind of ludicrous despair. One would have thought that he was accustomed to this sort of thing. There were some fifty or more people waiting.

Not that seeing an airplane take off was anything unusual at the Brentway Airport, for it was a very popular field and planes were going up and coming down every hour of the day. It almost rivaled a railroad terminal in arrivals and departures.

There were frequent tryouts; hurried, brief flights with preoccupied mechanics. An occasional awkward take-off or freakish landing bespoke the student at his lesson. These novices would climb down, their faces joyous with pride and exhilaration. Now and again one would be seen smiling sheepishly at his own bungling manoeuvre as he emerged, safe and sound, out of enveloping clouds of dust. Less often, attention would be attracted by an alighting airman from some distant point, and at these little centers of interest one might hear Chicago or St. Louis glibly mentioned as if they were neighboring towns but a few moments’ journey from this New Jersey airport.

At the edge of the vast field were the buildings of the Brentway enterprise, hangars, offices, and the large manufacturing plant about which disjointed and damaged fragments of aircraft lay—wings without planes, planes without wings, discarded engines, broken propellers, wheels and endless lengths of tangled wire. The wreck of an old biplane, which defied reconditioning, bore silent testimony of grim disaster.

Through the great open end of the largest hangar, the curious visitor (and these were numerous) might have seen a vast spread of brownish fabric caught up at its edges and sagging in the center, completely obscuring the rafters and girders above. A number of ropes fastened at definite intervals to its circumference, were gathered to the center below it.

This vast spread of light fabric was a parachute—it had probably been hung there, partly for ornament, and partly for exhibition. Perhaps it had been spread there to dry. Looking at it, no one would have supposed that it could be rolled up into a compact little bundle, as easy to carry as a small traveling bag. Nor would one have believed that such a little bundle could be depended on to unfurl itself gracefully in mid-air and interpose between its passenger and death.

Near this vast, half open structure, stood a picturesque little brick building in which the clicking of typewriter machines could be heard through the open windows, audibly proving that everything pertaining to aircraft has become a business. Here indeed were commerce and adventure working hand in hand. And this thought must have constantly recurred to visitors at this seething unit of a new and great industry. Everywhere was a strange blending of the humdrum and the spectacular.

Out of this office building hurried a young man in his shirt sleeves casting a perplexed glance over to the center of the great field, as he ran toward the big hanger. Here he paused just inside the entrance and called to a couple of mechanics who were varnishing the repaired wing of a large biplane.

“Didn’t that jumper get here yet—the guy for Slady?”

“Haven’t seen any,” one of the men answered. “Isn’t that Slady over there where the crowd is?”

“Who’d he get—Tony?” asked the other mechanic, half interested.

“Tony busted his leg,” volunteered his companion.

“He busted both his legs,” said the young man from the office. “This chap Slady got—he comes from somewhere in South Jersey. We just had a long distance call from Oakvale Fair Grounds in Connecticut. They wanted to know when the plane will get there. It should have been there at two o’clock and it’s half past two now.”

He did not pause for any more talk—he had only looked in at the hangar because it was at this spot that the parachute jumper would enter the airport. He hurried across the field, calling to the waiting airman whose patience lessened as the group increased.

“Hey, Slady, where’s your devil^[1]? We just got a ’phone call from Oakvale and they’re all fussed up. Can you start pretty quick?”

“Not till he gets here,” said Tom.

“Who is he, anyway? Why didn’t you get Mack?”

“His name is Billy Donovan,” said Tom, pausing to haul a letter out of his pocket. He gave it a cursory glance, then: “And he comes from—let’s see—South Jersey—Mayville. Do you know how far that is?”

“Well, what are you going to do?” the young man from the office asked anxiously. “The rubes at the fair grounds are having a fit. Can’t you get Mack?”

“He’s over at Curtiss Field,” said Tom, “and Tony has made his last jump, I heard. This bimbo was recommended to me by the Wright people. Is Oakvale waiting on the ’phone?”

“Sure, what’ll I tell ’em?”

“Tell ’em I’ll hop off in fifteen minutes and if the devil isn’t with me I’ll do some stunts for them. Tell ’em to get their fortunes told and eat peanuts and look at the five legged calf, and take chances on stale candy, and I’ll be along when I get there. Tell ’em to watch out and the first thing they know the jumper will land in the lemonade booth. What time is it now, Billy?”

Billy did not answer. Indeed he did not hear the question for he was running straight for the office.

[1] devil—short for daredevil, the airman’s familiar name for a parachute jumper.