Bill Barnes' eyes sparkled as they ran over the instrument layout of the Silver Lancer. He felt a surge of pride as he told himself for the thousandth time that he was sitting in the greatest fighting ship in the world.
He touched the elevating and transversing screws of his telescopic machine gun and 37 mm. cannon sight, tested the radio control group and ran an eye over the Stark 1-2-3 flight instrument layout. He pivoted the infra-red-ray telescope which permitted him to sight along a beam of “black light” through fog clouds or darkness on its two-hinged supports, to test it.
His whole body was singing “as he stuck his booted feet into the rudder stirrups and opened the throttle. He cocked his head to one side as he released his brakes, and listened to the throb of his engines.
He was smiling to himself. He eased l the stick back and took the great ship into the air. The world he decided at that moment, was a pretty swell place to live in. His trip to China and his business with the Nanking government had been successful. Things were on the up and up. To-morrow they would pick up young Douglas at Ma'an and a few days later they would be back on Barnes Field on Long Island.
The yellow wheel-gear light and the green floating-gear light flashed as the amphibian gear folded completely into the fuselage and wings.
Bill threw his radio key and spoke to his men.
“Be sure your running lights are 0.K.,” he said. “Watch out for the air currents over the desert. They're tricky. We'll cruise at two hundred and fifty. Shorty, you take the point of a V with Red on the right and Sandy on the left. I'll be a couple of hundred feet above and behind you. Keep plenty of distance; you'll need it. Signing off.”
“Say, Bill!” young Sandy broke in, breathlessly. “Do you suppose I could pick up a good Arabian horse when we get to Ma'an?”
“How're you going to get him home, kid?” Bill asked, grinning.
“He's going to let Douglas take his ship and swim the horse across the Atlantic!' Shorty Hassfurther offered,
“Naw,” Red Gleason interrupted. “He's going to get a jumper and jump him across the Atlantic. Or, maybe, get that magic carpet some one used to fly around on.
“All right, smart guys,” Sandy said, heatedly. “No one asked you what you thought.”
“We just like to be helpful,” Shorty said. “You know, do our daily good deed. Why don't you buy a camel instead. It-”
“Nuts!” Sandy said and threw his radio key.
The air was causing their compass needles to jiggle in crazy fashion as they passed above that flat, arid stretch of northern Arabia. From each dial on their instrument panels came a pale, phosphorescent glow. Their gyro and earth-inductor compasses, and turn-and bank-indicators were going mad as the hot, upward drafts of air bounced them around.
As the fury of the wind increased they had to clench their teeth and use every bit of concentration at their command to keep on their course.
The sturdy ships dropped into pocket after pocket, slapping them against their safety straps. Every moment was a fight; every twist and lurch and drop had to be compensated for.
Their ships would nose upward, suddenly, like an ocean liner riding a heavy sea, only to slide down again on the other side.
Then a sand storm came roaring at them like a giant monster. Bill checked his bearings while he tried to keep control of the Lancer, threw his radio key and gave his position to his men. The world became a yellow-and-black hell, with sand seeping through the locked overhead hatches of the four planes.
“We'd better get some altitude,” Bill gasped into his microphone. “We may be able to get above this. Get up to fifteen thousand and hold the same course.”
“You ought to be down on the ground on your favorite Arab steed, kid,” Shorty panted into his microphone.
“Don't worry about me, you Pennsylvania kraut,” Sandy gasped. “We'll be lucky if you don't crack up your Snorter.” He flipped his radio key and began to feel his way even more cautiously. He was using every sense, relying more on his inherent touch and skill than on his instruments. He was crouching forward over the stick. His shoulders ached from being banged against the cowling and the rubber crash pad in front of him.
Suddenly, it seemed that a giant hand came out of the air from above to slap him toward the earth. He nursed the ship to an even keel, his eyes anxiously scanning his instrument board. He drew the stick back and talked to the Snorter. Terrific blasts of air and sand were beating against the windshield. His hands were clammy with perspiration. His whole body was wet. He threw his radio switch as a ruby light gleamed on his radio panel.
“Check in, all of you.” Bill's voice came over the air.
They gave Bill their positions and all said they could not see one another's navigation lights.
“Hold 'em as you are,” Bill said. “Try to keep on your course. We ought to be out of this soon. Signing off.”
He pulled the Lancer out of a flat spin and tried to peer earthward-abysmal darkness, the swirl of sand around his running lights on his wing tips. He pulled the parachute lever and watched the flare take a dizzy course earthward. The whole world was a thing of swirling sand.
Far out in front of Sandy and Red, Shorty Hassfurther jerked the stick of his Snorter back into his stomach to bring it out of a dive. It was being buffeted about like a leaf in a gale. His body ached from being thrown against the cowling. His stomach ached from being slapped against his safety strap. His heart was pounding from exertion. Sand had crept through his hatch to settle in his eyes, his mouth, even down his neck. He shook his fist at the weather and cursed it as only he could curse at such a time. He nursed the ship back into level flight, only to have it picked up and slammed down another four hundred feet. The storm raged and roared without a let-up. He wondered how long his Snorter could take such a buffeting. Then it occurred to him that he didn't care much. He was getting so tired that nothing mattered.
Off to the right, Red Gleason was fighting with a laughing tenacity that was characteristic of him. He whipped his ship out of pocket after pocket while he tried to accompany the scream of his motors with his own voice.
The motor, he told himself, was singing bass and the screaming wind that brought that high-pitched whine to his props was singing tenor. He was carrying the baritone, although he couldn't carry a tune. He gave an excellent imitation of two drunken men singing in a bathroom as he studied his compass and checked his course again. His head was ringing like a blacksmith's anvil from the beating he had been taking. He threw his radio key and a roar like the bellow of a bull greeted him.
“No radio, no peace, no ceiling, no nothin',” he said to himself, through clenched teeth, and settled back to the business of taking his Snorter through that storm.
Suddenly, the sand and wind no longer beat at the windowpanes of non-shatterable glass. Bill flipped his radio key and shouted, “Red, Shorty, Sandy!”
The three of them gave the all-clear signal. Bill's breath hissed between his teeth as he exhaled. His eyes swept, from his map and chart to the instrument board as he asked them for their positions. He checked them against his own and gave them their course. Ten minutes later they were back in their original positions.
“ All right,” Bill said to them. “Take it easy. Hold your course. I'm going to break out the infra-red-ray telescope to take us in the rest of the way.”
He brought the telescope out of its recess in the instrument panel and threw the switch. He looked into the eyepiece, which was not unlike the old-fashioned parlor stereoscope. Ahead the pitch-black night became as day as the beam of infra-red rays projected themselves artificially into the darkness and the electron telescope enabled him to pick them up.
As he started to adjust the lens, a sharp, staccato noise came, out of the night. It brought him straight up in his bucket seat, his eyes wide.
He had heard that noise too many times before not to know what it was. And he knew by the sound of that staccato chatter that the machine guns he heard were not the Brownings set
in the engine housing of his Snorters.
He could feel bullets drumming into the wing and tail surfaces of the Silver Lancer; he could feel the big ship tremble under the impact. He pulled the control column of the Lancer back into his stomach as he heard screaming props and thundering motors dive beneath him. As the nose of the Lancer streaked upward, he threw his radio switch arid began to chant the call letters of his men. Red Gleason's voice came back to him first. And he could feel the blood in his body turn to ice as he heard Red's voice.
.”Bill!” Red gasped. “Bill! They got me. I still have control, but they got me bad through the shoulder. I'm trying to climb.”
Bill's hand was a ball of muscle and steel around the control column of the Lancer as he tried to pick thoughts out of his whirling mind.
“Can you make it? You aren't going to faint?” he asked quickly.
“I'll be all right if I can get above 'em,” Red said, his voice steadier. “I'm getting hold of myself now. One bullet almost tore my shoulder off. The pain is easing now.”
“Turn on your oxygen tank and get up to twenty-five thousand,” Bill said. “They're coming back!”
“Bill!” Shorty's voice cut in. “They made a sieve of my Snorter. They are flying without lights. I thought I heard their engines, but I wasn't sure. I was sure when bullets began drumming into me.”
“Get up with Red!” Bill barked. “Stay beside him. Keep contact by radio. Leave your navigation lights on. Where's Sandy?”
“I'm riding all right, Bill,” Sandy broke in, his boyish voice high-pitched and strained. “They came out of nowhere; Bill. I think there are about six or eight of them. I can hear them climbing. They're trying to get above us.”
“You get up with Red, too,” Bill said. I'll try to find them with my telescope. 'Then I'll join you.”
“Look out for a crash, Bill,” Shorty said.
“I'll watch it,” Bin growled. His whole body was burning with anger now. It had been the most murderously unfair attack that had ever been made on him. His body and mind were seething with rage. He neutralized the controls of the Lancer and cut his engines. He could hear the drone of six or eight engines below him to the north. He kicked his rudder and stuck the nose of the Lancer down. He peered into the eyepiece of the infra-red telescope, as he thought he had the nose of the Lancer 'n the ships returning to their murderous attack.
As the telescope picked up the eight lanes racing upward, Bill gasped and continued to peer with unbelieving eyes. The ships were fast, rugged one-seaters with flat, short wings, lean fuselage, stripped down undercarriage and mighty power plants. But those things were not what made him gasp. He gasped because he could see the squadron insignia of the Royal Air Force painted on the sides of the fast little ships!
As fire and orange flame jetted from the machine-gun troughs along the engine housing of the eight ships, Bill jerked the control column of the Lancer back into his stomach and stuck the nose upward to escape that hail of lead. He could feel the Lancer tremble from em to stern as bullets drove into the tail assembly. Then he was away from them. He leveled the Lancer off and began to spiral upward.
His mind was a maelstrom of thought. Why had a portion of a squadron of British planes attacked him? He wasn't sure, but he believed that the insignia he had seen was the insignia of a squadron stationed at Ma'an.
Then all of that left his mind as he thought of Red Gleason. He flipped his switch and made contact with Red on the radio.
“How are you coming, fella?” he asked him anxiously.
“I'll do, Bill ” Red said weakly. “But I'm losing a lot of blood. I'll have to sit down soon.”
“Do you think you can make it to Ma'an?” Bill asked. “It's a half hour. It will be dawn by then, We'll stay at twenty-five thousand until just before we're ready to land. It will be safer than landing on the desert, with those ships over us. Do you think you can make it?”
“I'll make it all right,” Red said. “Three hundred miles an hour,” Bill ordered. “Keep your radio open and shout if you think you're going to be in trouble, Red.”
“0. K.,” Red said. “Bill!” Sandy said excitedly. “I can see those planes streaking off to the west with their running lights on. They tried to get up to us, but began to wallow at about twenty-two thousand feet. Who are they, Bill?”
“'They were British army planes,” Bill said grimly. “And the pilots wore British uniforms. I can't figure it out.”
“Shall I follow them, Bill?” Shorty asked quickly.
For a moment Bill hesitated. Then he spoke with his usual decisiveness. “No,” he said. “Let 'em go. They might gang you. And we've got to stay with Red in case he has to land.”
V—EXPLANATIONS
DAWN was creeping out of the east when the Silver Lancer and the three Snorters circled the field at Ma'an twice while they studied the wind sock and the layout of the field.
Five minutes later Bill led the way in. He had set his brakes, killed his engines, and was over the side before the man in the uniform of the Royal Air Force reached his side.
“Oh, Barnes! Mr. Barnes!” the man called as Bill ran toward Red Gleason's Snorter. Bill knew that Red must have fainted because his twin props were still whirling after he set his brakes and the ship came to a halt. He turned his head and waved a beckoning hand at the man in the light-blue uniform.
Bill's face was white, and the muscles in his cheeks stood out like whipcord as he dived into the front cockpit of Red's Snorter
Red was curled up over his stick, and his left shoulder was a sodden mass of red. Bill's breath whistled through his nostrils as he slipped the catch on Red's safety strap and lifted him bodily out of the cockpit and tenderly slipped his feet to Shorty Hassfurther.
The eyes of the man in the sky-blue uniform widened with horror as he saw the blood-saturated body of Red Gleason. But he didn't forget why he had been sent out to greet Bill Barnes.
He saluted and began, “Wing Commander Kestrel sends his compliments to Mr. Barnes and his men, and re—”
“Stow that!” Shorty Hassfurther snapped at him. “We need an ambulance. Hop!”
Kestrel's adjutant stared at Shorty for a fraction of a second. “Right!” he exploded as he swung on his heel and sprinted toward a group of buildings.
Bill Barnes had cut away Red's white overalls and was packing gauze against his horribly mutilated shoulder. Shorty was doing what he could to help, while Sandy looked on with that touch of sadness and horror in his eyes that bespoke his youth.
“Do you think it's very bad, Bill?” he asked.
“Plenty bad,” Bill growled. “The bird who did that is going to pay for it. Red's lost a lot of blood, and I don't see how the bone can avoid being shattered.”
He glanced up as an ambulance came clanging across the field with two or three men hanging on the back—then back at Red. His hard eyes became misty as he gazed at the calm stillness of Red's white face.
“Guts!” he said, half to himself. “He has what it takes.” He knew what pain that last forty-five minutes must have cost Red. He knew how he must have struggled to fight off unconsciousness until he had his ship down safely.
“That,” Shorty Hassfurther said, his voice husky, “is something he learned in France when they used to give us orders to bring our ships back. They didn't care if we got shot through the head. That was all right with them. But they needed the ships.”
Bill and Shorty lifted the inert form of Red into the ambulance, hung on the back step while it clanged its way across the field to the hospital.
Ten minutes later they saw Red wheeled into the operating room, his face as white as the sheet that covered him.
BILL BARNES' face was a thundercloud as he faced Wing Commander Kestrel across his desk. Both he and Shorty had shaken the commander's hand.
“How did this thing happen, Barnes?” Kestrel asked, “Is he badly hurt?”
“We left Sandy with him,” Bill Said. “He is still under the ether. We don't
know how bad it is. But some one is going to pay for it.”
“Could he have shot himself accidentally while he was in the air?” Kestrel asked. “They told me it was a bullet wound.”
“It is a bullet wound,” Bill said grimly. “It's a wound from a machine-gun bullet fired from a Royal Air Force plane by a man in British uniform!”
“I say!” Kestrel exclaimed. He started to rise from his chair, then sank back again while the color drained from his face.
“ A bullet fired from a British plane by a man in British uniform,” he said stupidly.
“What about it?” Bill barked. “We were about two hundred miles from Ma'an when eight one-seater biplanes dived on us with all their machine guns yammering. Luckily Gleason was the only one who was hit. The rest of us managed to get out of their line of fire. Hassfurther and Sandy joined Gleason at twenty-five thousand feet. I stayed down to learn who had attacked us.”
“Eight one-seater biplanes,” Kestrel repeated. He talked like a man under the influence of a strong drug. “How could you tell who they were at night?”
“My Lancer is equipped with an infrared-ray telescope,” Bill said. “I could see them as plainly as I could in the daytime. I saw their uniforms. They were not wearing overalls. And I saw the British cockade and the squadron insignia checked the insignia with a plane on the field a few minutes ago. They are the same.”
“Yes,” Kestrel said, like a man who is tired beyond endurance, “they are the same. About two hundred miles northwest of here?”
“That's right!” Shorty barked. Kestrel looked at him for a moment as though he didn't see him. Then a faint smile flickered on his twisted lips.
“I'm sorry this has happened, Barnes,” he said. “I am more sorry than I can say. Things are happening so fast I can't keep up with them mentally. I must explain to you, I'll try not to bore you. You must be patient. I hope this won't make a difference. I've been hoping since I learned you were coming you would help me, Barnes:”
The Blood-Red Road to Petra Page 3