Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  Gold hurried away, scowling as he tried to pick a path through the mud. He’d dressed up to make a good impression on his prospective new employer, but it was just as well he hadn’t been able to afford new shoes, and so was forced to wear his high, lace-up work boots. Hillsboro Aviation Field was just a large expanse of mud and weeds, bordered with crude wooden buildings. The control tower was a rickety wooden scaffolding with two lamps on top. The white lamp stood for caution, Gold surmised; green for all clear to land. Hillsboro had been used by the Americans as a pilot training school during the war, but it was far more primitive than the training fields in Germany. In fact, Hillsboro reminded him of the temporary, wartime aerodromes he’d frequented in France.

  The feeling of being back in Europe with J.G. 1 was intensified as Gold approached hangar three. It was a large, barnlike structure, painted a blistered, peeling yellow, with CAPTAIN BOB’S AIR EXTRAVAGANZA in fading black script on the hangar’s side and above its door. Parked nearby were a number of motortrucks and trailers painted the same yellow with black lettering, and ten similarly painted biplanes, tethered down to keep them from being blown about by the wind. Gold recognized the large, ungainly, two-seater machines as Curtiss JN-4D war surplus military trainers, nicknamed “Jennys.”

  It had been a long time since Gold had been near a flying machine. He would have enjoyed poking around the Jennys, but he didn’t want to get grease on his new suit, nor waste any time. There were at least twenty men queued up at the door to the hangar, and when Gold looked over his shoulder he saw that more would-be barnstormers were coming through the gate.

  Gold quickly took his place in line, mentally rehearsing what he intended to say to Captain Bob in order to get the job. He was going to be sincere and honest; those qualities had so far served him well in America.

  He’d had good luck since his arrival seven months ago. He’d already gone looking for work at the many motor garages and trucking companies in New York City. On his second day of looking, he was hired as a mechanic at Red Apple Trucking, a firm on the lower west side of Manhattan. The Russian Jew who owned the company was impressed by Gold’s mastery of English and his mechanical skills, and for some reason the Russian thought it was humorously ironic that he was giving a newly arrived German Jew an opportunity to make a start in America.

  The job went well. After six months Gold’s boss had given him a raise and had promised to make him maintenance manager as soon as the position opened up.

  Gold should have been happy, but he wasn’t. Something was lacking in his life. In the beginning he thought it was just the inevitable disparity between his expectations and the reality of life in his new country.

  Gold had imagined taking his place in an adventurous, energetic American society, a confident nation ready to lead the world, but he’d actually arrived just in time to witness the president he’d worshipped from afar leave office a rejected, broken man. The new president, Warren Harding, inaugurated just ten days ago, had won office by promising Americans a return to the serenity and normalcy of the past.

  This new America being trumpeted about in the newspapers disturbed Gold. It was one thing for those already prosperous, who could sit fat and complacent, quite something else for those still anxious to raise their lot in life, and perhaps do some greater common good in the process.

  He’d been spending his evenings reading American history as well as current events, eager to understand everything about his new country. He’d come to the conclusion that America’s most successful pioneers had made their own opportunities. He’d decided that if America’s past was any indication of its future, he would not achieve success working for someone like his current, kindly, but unimaginative employer, who believed, like President Harding, that hard work should be its own reward and that dullness was a virtue.

  Somewhere in America there were still people who thought like Woodrow Wilson. Gold simply had to find them.

  The line into the hangar had plodded along, and now Gold was inside. It was one big, barnlike room with a sawdust floor. Open sliding doors on all sides of the hangar let in lots of daylight. Electric lights hanging down from the roof rafters offered more illumination. The hangar was divided into two sections by rope-strung, canvas curtains, at present tied back. The rear three-quarters of the hangar was equipped as an airplane repair shop. A half dozen mechanics were back there working on several biplanes in various stages of disassembly. The front quarter was an office area. There were several desks, worn-out armchairs, and a number of file cabinets. The walls were taken up with gaudy posters from the barnstorming troupe’s previous tours. Off to the side was a glass-partitioned office. Inside, a man seated behind an oak desk was dialing a candlestick telephone.

  That had to be Captain Bob Brook, the owner and promoter of the troupe, Gold figured.

  About a dozen young men in baggy trousers, sweaters, and brown leather flying jackets with “Captain Bob’s Circus” emblazoned on the back were lounging about the office area. They were smoking cigarettes and laughing among themselves as they watched the new applicants file in. Each applicant had to pause at a table where a young woman in a tan wool dress and a bulky, dark blue, cardigan sweater sat behind a typing machine. There were now just three men ahead of Gold.

  When Gold saw Captain Bob’s newspaper solicitation he’d realized that what was missing in his life was the excitement and exuberance he’d experienced when he was flying. He had to somehow recapture that joy; otherwise, no matter how prosperous he became, his life would be meaningless.

  The problem was that there were scarcely any civilian flying jobs to be had. Gold had confidence in aviation’s future, but most Americans shared the elderly watchman’s view that aviation had no practical applications in peacetime. Barnstorming was the only way for a pilot to get back into the air. Accordingly, Gold was not surprised to see so many applicants here at Hillsboro. There had to be thousands of eager young fliers in America, all of them grounded by peacetime and now trapped in mundane jobs.

  Barnstorming was dangerous work, and Gold prided himself on not being foolhardy, but his instincts told him that any job he could get that had to do with flying was a step in his own, personal, right direction. If that job was risky, so be it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  The woman seated at the table was asking the applicant ahead of Gold the man’s name and the particulars of his flight training. “Come back in an hour,” the woman told the applicant after she’d typed the answers to her questions onto an index card and added it to the pile next to her typing machine. “By then the Captain will have reviewed your card and decided if he wants you to wait around this afternoon for a personal interview.”

  The applicant moved on. Gold took his place before the young woman. Despite her youth, he thought she looked very businesslike with her brown hair twisted up into a tight bun. She had very nice breasts. Gold had been to a couple of bordellos in New York, but the whores in America had not shown near the caliber of professionalism of the prostitutes he had known in Germany. Accordingly, he’d gone without… for what, by now, had turned out to be a very long time.

  “Name?” the woman asked crisply, rolling a fresh card into her typewriter.

  “Herman Gold.”

  The woman hesitated, glancing up at him. “You’re a foreigner?”

  “Yes.” Gold nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Gold, but we’re looking for fliers.”

  “Yes, I understand—”

  “No, I guess you don’t,” the woman said lightly. She looked past Gold, scanning the number of applicants behind him on line. “We need people who already know how to fly an airplane—”

  “Excuse me,” Gold said. “But I flew in the war for the German Air Service—”

  “Oh,” the woman said, surprised. “I never thought of that. I’m sure you did.” She paused, distracted, as a couple of Captain Bob’s pilots approached. Both men had longish, blond hair slicked back from their foreheads, and brown eyes. One
had a thick moustache. The two were both in their early twenties, and of average height. They looked fit beneath their open leather jackets.

  “This Hun giving you trouble, Margie?” the pilot with the moustache asked the woman at the table.

  “It’s under control, Hull,” the woman said, and turned back to Gold. “I’m sorry, but the advertisment is for American military veterans.”

  Gold took his folded-up copy of the advertisment out of his pocket, smoothed it out, and placed it on the table in front of the woman. “Where exactly does it say that?” he asked softly, trying hard to show the woman that he wished to be courteous.

  “I’m saying it,” the one named Hull cut in. “Look, we kicked your ass over there, and we got no use for you Huns over here, got that straight, Fritz?”

  “Excuse me, but I’m having a conversation with the young woman,” Gold quietly replied.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Gold,” the woman said. “But you see all the applicants we already have. There are too many Americans who want flying jobs.”

  “But that’s not fair,” Gold protested. “At least allow your employer Captain Bob to make the decision.”

  “He wouid agree with me,” the woman said. “Now, if you don’t mind, i have lots of people left to screen.” She looked past Gold.

  “You heard her, Fritz,” Hull said. “You either walk out of here right now. or you’ll be giving my brother and me the excuse we need to kick your Hun ass right back to the Fatherland.”

  Gold was angry, but he struggled to control his temper. He wasn’t afraid. His legs were strong from all the exercise he’d done to build them up after his injuries, and he’d put on weight and upper-body strength from working in the trucking garage. He believed he could handle himself in a fight, but he’d come here for a job, not a brawl.

  “Thanks for your time,” he told the woman and left the hangar the way he’d come.

  Outside, Gold quickly circled around to the side of the hangar where Captain Bob’s glassed-in office was located. He intended to use one of the open sliding doors that led to the workshop area of the hangar to get inside and then plead his case directly to the captain. Gold hadn’t taken the day off from work to travel at the crack of dawn across the Hudson River on the Forty-second Street ferry, then beg rides west, and finally walk the last five miles to Hillsboro, just to be stopped at Captain Bob’s door by a couple of apes in leather jackets who thought the war was still on.

  He watched and waited just outside the sliding door until the mechanics’ backs were turned and then darted into the hangar, hugging the wall as he hurried directly to Captain Bob’s glass-partitioned office. He heard shouts. He ignored them as he stood transfixed, his face up against the glass like a hungry street urchin gazing through a bakery window, looking in at Captain Bob Brooke talking on the telephone.

  The Captain was in his fifties. He was bald on top, with a wreath of longish, honey-colored hair around his ears, and a goatee tufting his chin. He was dressed in a green tweed suit, and as he sprawled back in his swivel chair and swung his feet up onto his desk, Gold could see that the Captain wore his trousers tucked into the tops of his high, cordovan boots. A red satin waistcoat stretched across the Captain’s expansive belly. From the waistcoat’s fob pockets a glittering, golden watch chain curved, like Midas’s grin.

  Captain Bob had his candlestick telephone propped on his big paunch. He was murmuring at it like a papa crooning to an infant. Although Gold couldn’t really hear the Captain, he instinctively understood what the man was saying, as clearly as if he were watching a silent movie crafted by a brilliant director. The Captain was making deals; charting a course into the future; sounding an economic charge: just like Woodrow Wilson.

  The Captain, on his telephone, looked the way Gold felt when he was flying.

  Gold pounded on the glass. The Captain, startled, said something into the telephone and then hung up as he stared back at Gold.

  Angry hands were reaching toward Gold, but he twisted free, lunging for the office door. He found it unlocked, and he barged through.

  “Please, Captain, I must talk to you!” Gold yelled as Hull and his brother came in, grabbing his arms.

  “Sorry about this, Cap,” Hull muttered. “We’ll throw him out—”

  “Wait, let me talk a minute!” Gold pleaded.

  “Turn him loose, boys. He looks harmless enough,” the Captain drawled, reaching for a cigar smoldering in the ashtray on a corner of the desk. The pilots released Gold, but stayed close by. “Now then, son. What can I do for you?” the captain asked.

  Gold took a deep breath. He now realized that honesty and sincerity were going to get him nowhere. He was going to have to act American. “It is what I can do for you that is what the matter becomes that I’ve arrived to talk about—” He cursed himself for allowing his nervousness to affect his English. “What I mean is—”

  “I know what you mean, son.” The Captain chuckled. He swung his boots off his desk and stood up. Gold was startled by how small the man was, except for his belly. He’d looked positively huge talking on the telephone. “I guess you’re German, son?”

  “I’m German.”

  “How long you been here, son?”

  “Seven months.”

  “You got a job?”

  “Yes, Captain, I’m a mechanic—”

  “Son, we’re not looking for mechanics right now,” Captain Bob said, studying the end of his cigar. “We need fliers.”

  “I am a flier!”

  “Sure you are,” Captain Bob humored him. “Nice try, son. If I wasn’t so short of planes, I’d hire you, just on your gumption. But I can’t afford to let you wreck any of my birds teaching yourself the ropes.”

  “You must listen! I was in the Imperial Air Service.”

  The Captain laughed, and Gold heard chuckles coming from behind him.

  “Bet he was an ace, Cap,” Hull chuckled. “How about it, Fritz, were you an ace?” The man’s breath was hot on Gold’s neck. Gold kept reminding himself that he was looking for a job, not a fight.

  “My brother asked you a question, Fritz.” The other man was smiling. “In America, a Hun gets asked a question by an American, he’d best answer.”

  Gold turned slightly, to regard the two. “Very well, the answer to your question is yes, I was an ace. With twenty confirmed kills,” he added proudly, enjoying the look of astonishment in the men’s eyes.

  “I think you’re a liar. Fritz,” Hull accused.

  “I’m not concerned with what you think,” Gold said. “I wish only to complete my interview with the captain—”

  The smile vanished from Hull’s face. “You uppity Hun sonofabitch.”

  Gold, ignoring the insult, turned back to Captain Bob. “What’s important, Captain, is the fact that I flew with Richthofen.”

  The office abruptly went quiet. Captain Bob was staring at him.

  “He’s lying, Cap…” Hull declared.

  Captain Bob grinned apologetically. “You’ll have to excuse Hull Stiles, and his brother Lester. What’s your name, son?”

  “Gold, Herman Gold. And my rank was sergeant.”

  “Well, Mister Gold,” Captain Bob continued. “As I was saying, you’ll have to excuse the boys. They’re a little sensitive about you Germans, and particularly the Red Baron. You see, during the war they were both shot down on the same day by a member of Richthofen’s Circus. They spent the rest of the war in a German P.O.W. camp.”

  “I don’t find that hard to believe,” Gold couldn’t resist saying.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lester Stiles demanded, shoving him.

  “Keep your hands off me,” Gold warned. “It means that with equal airplanes, any German aviator could outfly any Yank. Plenty of Germans shot down two planes in one dogfight.” Gold remembered with great satisfaction that April day in 1918 when he’d dropped the British Bristol two-seater, and then the Sopwith Camel, to give him his fifteenth and sixteenth kills—Then again, th
at really wasn’t during one single dogfight…

  He smiled. There was that winter afternoon in 1917 when he’d bagged a pair of Frenchies one right after the other, during the same tussle. “I remember when I managed to shoot down two—”

  “Liar!” Hull shoved him. “Let’s hear you admit it—”

  The hell with it, Gold thought. I’m not going to be hired, anyway. He turned around to face Hull. “How’s this for an admission?” he asked pleasantly. He snapped out a right uppercut intended for Hull’s chin, but Hull saw it coming and moved away. Gold’s knuckles just grazed the tip of the man’s nose.

  Hull’s head rocked back, and blood began trickling out of his nose. His eyes turned murderous. “You-little-Hun-sonofa—”

  “Would you boys mind taking this fight out of my office?” the Captain suggested.

  Gold put his shoulder into a right aimed at Hull’s stomach. Hull sidestepped, grabbing Gold’s extended arm and shoving him hard in the small of his back. Gold heard his jacket rip at the armhole as he was propelled, off balance, through the office doorway. Hull tripped him, at the same time letting go of Gold’s arm. Gold belly-flopped in the middle of the hangar.

  “For this I had to wear a new suit,” Gold muttered into the sawdust. He pushed himself up to his knees, drew off the torn jacket sleeve, and stuffed it into his pocket. He noticed that all activity in the hangar had stopped, and that everybody was looking at him.

  Hull was standing in the doorway of the Captain’s office, wiping the blood from his moustache with the back of his hand. “I’m going to kick your ass, Fritz.” Everyone in the hangar began to close in to watch the action. “And I’m going to keep kicking it until you admit that you’re a liar.”

  Gold got to his feet. “I’m not a liar. I did so fly with Richthofen!”

  Hull lunged at him. Gold crouched low, and used his powerful leg muscles to drive forward, jamming his shoulder into Hull’s stomach. Hull grunted, doubling over. Gold tried to straighten his legs, intent upon throwing Hull up and over his shoulder, but Hull punched him in the ear, and the pain was blinding. As Gold’s legs sagged, he slid his hands down to the backs of Hull’s knees and pulled hard. Hull’s legs folded and he hit the sawdust on his back.