The sergeant was a much abused man. Wartime flying had not used him any too well; nor had after the war aviation done any better. Now he was nearing the end of his Army career.
The sergeant had wanted to fly. He wanted to go solo and do his own birding. It had always been his one ambition. And it was through no fault of his own that the big desire had never been fully realized. Fact is, along those lines the much abused sergeant was without fault. He had always done his share.
The sergeant was too willing in 1917. Later—too late—he realized this. Had he held off, as the other millions did, and waited for the war to get at good speed, he would have made his way into a ground school and started right. But the sergeant did not know that there were to be such schools. None knew this. So the sergeant enlisted. Willingly the aviation branch of the Signal Corps took him. Oh, yes, of course, they said he would fly.
But the sergeant turned out to be a handy mechanic. Good mechanics were few—and are still—so the sergeant, though he didn’t guess it, was never going to get to fly.
On the other side of the pond his bad luck continued. That was when they made him a sergeant, made him a sergeant, chief airplane rigger, while they made flying cadets of the goldbricks in his squadron. That hurt—hurt like—well, it hurt.
“But look here, Sergeant,” his commanding officer said in rebuttal, “now let’s be reasonable; it takes years to make a good mechanic. And only hours to lache a full fledged pilot; and the stuff of which airmen are made need not know anything—or much. See the point? You’re important on this field; these other birds going out as cadets are, as a rule, culls we’re glad to be rid of. Now get back to your hangar and feel satisfied that you are doing your bit, and a hell of a big bit, Sergeant!”
That line of official chatter did not help the sergeant at all.
“I’ve heard it before,” he told his rigging crews. “Doing my bit! Bit be damned! The effect of my first patriotic drunk has worn off. What I want to do is fly and I’m going to!”
The sergeant did learn to fly; but he “stole” the flying time, begged all the dual control instruction he could mooch and waxed mighty handy on rudder bar and stick. And he learned quickly. You see, like many other mechanics, he really knew how to fly before he ever had a ship in his hands. Once in the air he merely had to gain the feel of the thing. And he got it too. He made a takeoff on the third hop, landed on his fifth.
His job was on a pursuit field—all single seater planes. The ship on which he had learned—a Nieuport 23—was a two place visitor. He was all set to fly alone. Then, that same day, they took the 23 away. The sergeant saw red, and spoke in the same color.
“Cheated again!” he said. “I’m going into town, get all drunked up and take an M.P. apart! Wait and see!”
You can not get the sergeant’s point of view unless you have loved air and wanted to fly. But if you had loved air and wanted to fly, you would have gone to town with him and helped take a flock of M.P’s apart.
Unofficially grabbing flying time wherever and whenever he could get any, the sergeant lived in hopeless hope, if such a thing exists. But our war lasted only a day; and once gone it was gone forever. The sergeant’s field did not go directly out of business, with the coming of the Armistice, but his interest in things did. For him it was the end of everything—and nothing.
Then, with the idea of training more pilots for future wars, headquarters sent the sergeant’s squadron on to an Avro, two place, training field. The sergeant’s interest came back. He stole lots of time, loved Avros and added acrobatics to his straight flying. The war after the war was treating him better.
New made flying cadets came to that field. Lord! Where did they get such dubs? The sergeant wondered. From every orderly room at the center was the answer. It was a dog robbers’ holiday.
“I’ll get the C.O.’s permission to turn you loose, Sergeant,” an instructor said. “You can fly rings round any bird in this group. I’ll get papers through for you too; no reason why you shouldn’t get a brevet. I understand that they’ve handed commissions to a few 31st men.”
The sergeant said that they had.
For a night, life couldn’t be improved upon.
Next morning, February 12, headquarters “washed out” all flying and called in the Avros. They say that the sergeant took a lieutenant of M.P’s apart at high noon of the same day in the public square at Issoudun. After that, for him, the world fused.
The sergeant’s outfit came back to the States. Air Service wanted to hold some of its best mechanics. At Mitchel Field they promised the sergeant and some of his gang that, were they to reenlist for another stretch, flying would be their dish for sure.
The sergeant took his discharge. Then he was tempted—and fell. He put up his hand for another hitch. And headquarters shipped him to Carlstrom Field, Florida.
New classes of cadets came to that field. Even one of the cooks from the sergeant’s overseas squadron was among them. They were the worst cadets the sergeant ever saw. But he worked planes for them; and in turn, headquarters never did put the sergeant on flying status. But the much abused one continued to mooch some unofficial airwork. So the months of his one year enlistment dragged by and he came toward the happy end, the end which was going to be so welcome because he did not give a good, bad or indifferent damn. And he told his C.O. as much when that worthy asked him whether he intended to sign up for a third cruise.
“You’re not talking to me, Lieutenant,” the sergeant said. “For three years I’ve lived on hope. When I took on this reenlistment, they promised me, on a stack of Bibles, that I’d fly. And have I?”
Any number of ex-overseas men could answer this.
“But this time you will,” the lieutenant said. “This school has the ships and men now, and I’ll promise you—”
“Tie that outside, Lieutenant,” the sergeant answered, “I’ve heard it all before.
“By this time next Monday afternoon, America will have one more civilian on her hands. And she’s going to collect a mean problem, too. I’m sore, Lieutenant. I’ve been cheated too often to smile and turn the other cheek. This deal I’ve had handed me by Air Service smells like a eucalyptus kitty— See that guy climbing into that rear cockpit—” the sergeant pointed to a plane at the deadline—“well, that same jaybird used to be a bum cook in my outfit overseas. Shane’s his name. All that feller ever did for American honor was lap up French booze and make trouble. He was our ace of aces at it, too. Shane and me, Lieutenant, have been two different kinds of soldiers, but today he’s getting in official flying time and I’m still begging rides like a raw John Recruit. Where’s your damn’ justice in that? I’ll answer—out for lunch with two rags around her eyes! Me, reenlist? In a pig’s eye! Wonder what’s wrong with that plane.”
The plane into which they had watched Cadet Shane climb had started for a takeoff, bounced into the air, fluttered a few rods and dropped again for a hasty landing. It taxied back to where they were standing. It was one of the sergeant’s ships. At the deadline the instructor, Lieutenant Black, swung from his front cockpit, removed his goggles and said:
“Wish you’d look this ship over, Sergeant. The controls jam in the air. Bob Watts was flying it this morning and he had the same trouble.”
“I’ll work her over,” the sergeant promised. He looked at his watch. “Four o’clock now,” he said. “You won’t want to fly any more today, Lieutenant. She’ll be jake in the morning.”
“That’s O.K. with me, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Black agreed, and walked away with the sergeant’s C.O.
Cadet Shane was sore. He had been robbed of his afternoon period and did not care who knew that he was burned up.
“Damn’ funny you guys can’t keep ships in condition,” he said. “I haven’t had two hours’ airwork outa this hangar in two weeks.”
“Too damn’ bad about you, Shane,” was all the sympathy the sergeant extended. “If you’re as rotten a flyer as you were a cook, the field will be the winner if you never fly.”
For the next hour the sergeant, with a helper, worked the ship that went wrong in the air. At the end of said time he had located nothing wrong with the controls. Bob Watts came along during operations and told his story. Then, just to be on the safe side, the sergeant sent for the field inspector, Blackie Milander. He came along and demanded—
“Wot’s eatin’ you, kid?”
“This crate, Blackie, was turned in because her controls froze in the air,” the sergeant said. “I’ve looked her over, and my fair haired helper here has looked her over, and Lieutenant Watts was on hand and had his say and look, and we find nothing wrong. The control cables, all of ’em, are O.K. Not a fray on any of them. The ball socket joint is jake; and the pulleys are free. Now, you give her the expert eye, Blackie, and say what’s to be done. Gladly we pass the buck to you and, if failing, you muff the torch thus thrown, well you’ll get burnt.”
Blackie, working till long after retreat, scratched his head finally and announced:
“Damned if she ain’t got me stopped! On the ground here, everything’s free. D’you know what I think, Sergeant?”
“If a thought there be, Blackie, shoot before it burns you out. What do you guess?”
“I think that Watts and Black are full of hop! There’s nothing wrong with this pile of wreckage, and I’ll give her a clear bill. Let me O.K. that flying sheet.”
When the hangars opened in the morning the sergeant’s C.O. was at hand.
“What did you learn about that plane of Black’s?” he wanted to know. “Anything haywire?”
“Not a thing, Lieutenant,” the sergeant admitted. “What say if you and I give it a hop right now? See if we can locate any ‘bugs’ in the air.”
“We’ll do that little thing,” the C.O. agreed. “Got a helmet and goggles I can use?”
While the C.O. waited, and the men started the plane’s motor, the squadron clerk came to the hangar for the C.O. They talked for a few minutes, then the C.O. told the sergeant:
“I’ll have to call this flight off for now. There’re some papers for me to sign. I’ll see you later.”
Fifteen minutes before the first cadet class reported for the nine o’clock period, Lieutenant Black came to the line. The sergeant told the lieutenant all that he had not learned.
“But I don’t want to pass the buck too crudely,” the sergeant concluded. “What’s the matter with us two going up in the thing and learning what’s to be learned?”
What the sergeant wanted was more airwork. He would have taken his flying on the tail end of a rocket were no other means offered. The fact that a ship’s action was in question meant nothing to him. More than likely the sergeant was glad that nobody had been able to locate the kink; test flying is always to the liking of a real lover of air. The betting’s even that the sergeant had planned this moment during the previous night. As he talked, he talked Black toward the waiting plane. The instructor was adjusting helmet and goggles, and his silence gave consent.
“It’s funny,” he finally said, as they waited for the motor man to warm the engine, “but those controls did jam. I don’t want any of my cadets to get in dutch through mechanical faults. They’re bad enough without that. The Lord only knows when I’ll be able to turn any of them loose. Such an iron fisted bunch of shovel apprentices I’ve never met. They wouldn’t’ve made good K.P’s. for the wartime kadets.
“And these damn’ Jennies have got to be right, Sergeant. As right as they can be, and if they were twice as right as that, they’d still be all wrong. Climb in and we’ll take a turn of the field.”
While they were adjusting the safety belts, Cadet Shane came running along the line of hangars. He scrambled aboard Black’s lower wing and talked into the instructor’s left ear. Black throttled his motor low, pushed back his goggles, thought for half a minute, studied his instrument board dials, shook and kicked his controls, then turned to the man in the rear seat and said:
“Sergeant, I’m going to give the cadet his hop. These controls seem to be O.K. Chances are, there was nothing wrong with them.
“Jump out, Sergeant, and I’ll let you know how they act. Watch my first turn of the field and see how I’m getting along. Climb in, Shane! Let’s get going!”
The sergeant went back to the hangar. He wasn’t talking to anybody, for the time being, but he hurled an open can of red paint the length of the big building and said to a few idle privates—
“Clean that up!”
Then, where a group of flying cadets were busily rolling two small cubes on a work bench, the sergeant came down in hot wrath, threw the harmless squares through the skylight and yelled—
“Get to hell out of this hangar and stay out!”
After that the sergeant went out, retrieved the dice and reestablished the game. He told the cadets that he was sore about something but could not recall just what. After sending the privates off to goldbrick in the post exchange, the sergeant mopped up the paint.
Master Sergeant Sciples, in charge of the hangar, came along to start the day. Sciples was spending this enlistment on the construction of certain souvenirs. And at no time did he allow hangar work to cut in on his program. He was an easy boss. Sciples looked at his sergeant rigger and came out in language that lay people erroneously suppose is solely characteristic of the Marine Corps. Here and there, without half trying, Master Sergeant Sciples could extemporize in a manner that would make the Marine Corps’ glossary look like a first reader for morons. Sciples’ language, to say the least, was able.
“Sergeant,” he said, “one look at you, you tells me that you haven’t had your morning flight. When will you forget this flying stuff and put your mind on next week’s debut into the outer world? Why, you— Snap into it and get wise!”
“But, Sciples,” the sergeant said. “It’s the same old story. The same thing that I’ve been up against for three years. And it makes me mad, Sciples. Hell, if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never lose this desire to fly. It’s different with you, you old decrepit”—the sergeant was never entirely tongue tied himself—“You don’t care about flying. The bug’s never grazed upon you. You don’t know the hell and pain and longing that an egg like me faces, Sciples. Why, Sciples, this thing of giving a right arm for something is nothing. I’d do another stretch in this damn’ Army if I really thought that I’d aviate. And that is what I call bravery.”
“Crazy as a loon!” Sciples exclaimed. “Why you—you don’t know enough to—”
“And this was the most cruel thrust of all, Sciples,” the sergeant went on, “this thing that came off half an hour ago, why—” The hangar’s telephone rang, and Sciples, with the sergeant still talking, strolled toward the instrument—“why, there I was all set to take off with Black. Had myself nicely planted in the rear seat, and who comes out and robs me but my ex-cook, that rotten cook, Shane, and—” There were tears in the thick voice.
For a minute Sciples talked over the line. In the end he said, “Well that’s hell,” and hung up.
“What’s hell?” the sergeant forgot his own troubles long enough to ask.
“Cadet Shane,” Master Sergeant Sciples said, “Shane, the man who unseated you, Shane and Black spun into the ground ten miles from here. They both burned to death.”