Last Laugh, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  “I never said a ship was coming,” Bob Bolles told him.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Moto said. “Perhaps we may go now,” and they walked along beneath the tall trees—Bob Bolles first, then Oscar, then Mrs. Kingman, and Mr. Moto and Mr. Kingman brought up the rear of the party, walking side by side. There was a path down by the ruins of the sugar factory which Mr. Moto and Mr. Kingman had broken through the brush, and Bob took it, stumbling over logs and stones. Mr. Kingman was right—it was fearfully hot in there.

  The sugar factory had been built on the side of a hill and he could see the remains of its chimney through the brush. The floor of the factory had been supported by masonry arches and those arches were still intact, making shadowy caves. Before Bob Bolles saw the plane he saw a gap in the undergrowth toward the right which must have been certainly recently opened, but which now already was being choked with vines. The plane must have been wheeled up the avenue, and then through this opening to the sugar mill. A few steps farther on he saw its nose jutting out from beneath one of the arches, with a tarpaulin lashed tight over the engine. Although he had been prepared to see a plane there, it was startling to see it, with all its paint still almost new, with the transparent plastic of the hood still shining above the observer’s and the pilot’s seats—for all that new beautifully co-ordinated mechanism was so completely out of place beneath the stone ruin in the middle of the jungle. It stood there in the greenish shade as lonely and as fantastic as a surrealist picture. The ferns and vines, all the rank unconquerable vegetation of the tropics, were already creeping up to it and it was already stained by the weather.

  It had been flown once on some testing field. Once it had been put through every possible strain and maneuver, but it would never fly again. The motor would never roar. The needles on the intricacy of its instrument panel would never give their signals. There was a musty smell of bats and decayed vegetation about it. It was a symbol of wasted effort and wasted ingenuity. Even without its wings, the fuselage was beautiful. It made Bob Bolles think of all the machinery and of all the hands that had worked on it, all for nothing, and it made him think of himself. He could see himself in the pilot’s seat, warming up the motor; but like that plane, he would never fly again. The crashing of the undergrowth had died. As everyone stood around it in a half-circle, the only sound that Bob Bolles remembered afterwards was the rushing noise of water from a broken aqueduct above them which had once led to the mill. The water flowed in a little stream down by the old foundations and down the hill, half lost in a maze of undergrowth—a rotten place to leave a plane.

  Bob had always had a flair for design and an instinct for line and mass. There were two things made by the hand of man which had always seemed to him infinitely superior to any other human achievement—a sailing ship and a plane. They both had the same miraculous quality of deceiving the normal blind forces of nature. A sailing ship could move into the wind which was blowing against her. A plane, by some amazing sort of mechanical sophistry, could make use of the normal forces of gravity and ultimately defy them. Like most of his old friends who had been educated in flying and who had a deep technical interest in their profession, Bob Bolles felt a selfless sort of mental exhilaration whenever he saw a plane. He almost forgot why he was there for a full minute, for he was like a naturalist examining a new species. His eye took in the line and the details of the construction. He was fitting those details into classifications based on his own experience. In a combat plane, of course, the accent was always on speed—speed in flight and speed in climbing. Such a machine would live or die by its margin of speed and maneuverability over its opponent. The plane looked fast, very fast, and yet there seemed to be nothing revolutionary or radical about the general design and nothing which he could see that was unusual about its method of construction. In fact, now that he looked at it, he had a puzzled sense of disappointment, for he had seen other models which were as good or better. Very little of the stressed duralumin skin was flash-riveted, just the nose section and the entering edge of the wings, and the split trailing edge flaps were mounted in the old-style manner. There was nothing in the body design worth worrying about, but the motor hidden beneath the tarpaulin might tell a different story. The weight of the suitcase dragging on his arm reminded him that he was still holding it and he set it down. When he did so, he saw that Mr. Moto and Mr. Kingman were both watching him as though they hoped to read something revealing in his expression.

  “Well,” Mr. Kingman said, “what do you think of her, Bob?”

  “Just standing here,” Bob Bolles answered, “I don’t see anything new. She’s good, but not too good.”

  Mr. Kingman nodded and Mr. Moto bobbed his head.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Moto said. “It so confirms Mr. Kingman’s first impression. I think as we are as far as this we may as well consult Mrs. Kingman now, please.”

  Mr. Kingman nodded again and Mr. Moto bowed.

  “If I may ask Mrs. Kingman, please,” he said, “Mr. Kingman tells me that she has withheld her information up to this point which is very, very right, but I hope so very much you will feel free to tell us now, without our making trouble, Mrs. Kingman. We must know definitely now what new part it is, I think.”

  Mrs. Kingman sighed, as though she did not like the question.

  “Do you want me to tell now, Mac?” she asked. “It seems to me—” She stopped and looked at Mr. Moto.

  “My dear,” Mr. Kingman said, “I know Mr. Moto’s being here is embarrassing, but we have to get the—the thing, whatever it is. We shall manage the other details later.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Moto said, “later.”

  “You can’t keep it to yourself any longer, my dear,” Mr. Kingman said soothingly. “You understand that—don’t you? We must know—right now.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Kingman said, and then she laughed.

  “Please,” Mr. Moto asked her, “what is so amusing?”

  “It’s only amusing,” Mrs. Kingman answered, “because you none of you are fools. You must have had your own ideas all this time. It’s on the motor, of course, a type of turbo supercharger. Get it off, and you can leave the rest of it.”

  Mr. Moto and Mr. Kingman listened, their attention completely absorbed by what she said, and the pause which followed when she had finished showed that they both had learned what they wished to know. It made an end of all the mystery. It placed all the cards upon the table. Somehow out there by the ruined sugar mill that modern jargon sounded strangely out of place. The words somehow contained an element of anticlimax and it seemed to Bob that a little of the anticlimax was reflected in Mr. Kingman’s voice, although he could not be entirely sure.

  “So that’s it, is it?” Mr. Kingman said. “Something new in turbos?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Kingman answered, “a new design.”

  Mr. Moto said nothing, but his glance traveled back again to the plane, and Bob Bolles saw that he was looking at the pilot’s seat.

  “Low octane gas, I suppose,” Mr. Kingman said.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Kingman answered, “very low,” and Mr. Kingman nodded.

  “Pretty soon we’ll be burning kerosene. Well, that’s exactly what we need, what, Moto?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Moto answered carefully, “a variation of the Root invention, I suppose. Very, very interesting. The old superchargers are so difficult, I think.”

  Bob Bolles was thinking that the words were complicated, but not the principle behind the words, for all principles were simple. They were talking of a device for forcing a mixture of gasoline and air into the cylinders of an internal combustion engine, a device to increase the efficiency of the explosive mixture which made the engine go. Yet out of that simplicity came an enormous complication. It took you through a labyrinth of theories on which new engines were based. It meant the margin of speed, it meant the margin of climbing power, and the efficient use of low-grade fuel, for which the flying world was always struggling. Given a new design, it might mean almost anythi
ng. It was one of those secrets which, if known in time, might give a warring nation command of the air.

  “All right,” said Mr. Kingman, and he looked up at the sky through the trees. “Let’s get over with this—this jawing. We’ve got some work ahead of us and it’s getting late. Open up that suitcase, Bob. Here’s where you come in.” Bob Bolles turned his head from the plane.

  “Where do I come in?” he asked.

  “It’s an idea of ours,” Mr. Kingman said, “a—a cracking good idea.” Mr. Moto coughed behind his hand.

  “It is this way, please, Mr. Bolles,” he said. “Mr. Kingman and I are both so suspicious.” Mr. Moto paused to laugh politely. “I am so afraid Mr. Kingman would perhaps make some very serious mistake with the motor if he worked upon it and Mr. Kingman is so very much afraid that while he is working hard on the motor I might be tempted to—ah—liquidate the situation. Excuse me. It is so very funny.”

  “You said that before,” Mr. Kingman said, and Bob Bolles noticed that his voice was growing edgy.

  Mr. Moto placed his hand before his mouth and coughed again. “I have one little suggestion to make, please,” he said. “We are getting so very near the end of our, ah, association and I have been so very, very tempted, so sorry several times that I have made the agreement. I have counted at least four opportunities when I might have ended matters.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Mr. Kingman said. “Would you like to try it now?”

  Mr. Moto’s hand dropped carelessly into the right-hand pocket of his soiled white coat.

  “It would be so foolish, don’t you think,” he said, “until we have finished the business here? I only suggest we get what we are looking for and walk back to the house upon the hill. Now if we should see a vessel coming—it is a matter which still worries me, please, for I am still not sure about Mr. Bolles—we may have to co-operate further.”

  “Go ahead,” said Mr. Kingman. “Go ahead.”

  “But if everything is clear,” Mr. Moto went on, “as I hope so very much it will be—” He paused and nodded at Mr. Kingman.

  “Then the—the sky’s the limit. Is that what you mean?” Mr. Kingman asked. “That’s all right with me—when we get to the mainland.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Moto said. “I only wished that we understand everything so very clearly. Now, Mr. Bolles, you are to work on the plane. Take out the—ah—supercharger, please, and listen to me carefully. Mr. Kingman and I will watch everything you do. We will be so very interested. You must break nothing, make no mistake.”

  “He won’t,” Mr. Kingman said. “I know how to take a motor down. You understand, do you, Bob?”

  Bob Bolles squared his shoulders.

  “So sorry for you if you do not,” Mr. Moto said before Bob could speak.

  “I’ll get it off for you,” Bob Bolles said, “if you’ll get that trained seal of yours to put down his gun and help.”

  “Seal?” said Mr. Kingman. “What trained seal?”

  “Oscar,” Bob Bolles said. “He can do everything but balance a ball on his nose.”

  “You shut your damned mouth,” Oscar said and Mr. Kingman gave a shout of laughter.

  “You’re a—a good egg, Bob,” he said. “Oscar, get the cover off that engine and do everything that Mr. Bolles says. I’ll be watching. Get moving, Oscar.”

  “Trained seal,” Mr. Moto said half to himself. “Why is he like a seal? I do not understand.”

  “I’ll take Oscar’s rifle, Mac,” Mrs. Kingman said. It seemed to Bob Bolles that a shade of perplexity crossed Mr. Kingman’s face.

  “What?” he said. “What’s that, Helen?”

  “I just said I could hold Oscar’s rifle, Mac,” Mrs. Kingman said.

  “Why, of course, my dear,” Mr. Kingman answered. “Unload it, Oscar, and give it to Mrs. Kingman. I mean nothing personal, oh no, of course not. It’s just in case you might do something you’d be sorry for. Get the cover off, Oscar. Open up those tools, Bob.”

  Bob Bolles opened the case. It was beautifully fitted with a set of tools, socket wrenches of all sizes, a kit that any ground mechanic would have been proud of.

  “Hello,” Bob said. “It’s made in Germany!”

  “Don’t talk,” Mr. Kingman told him. “Get to work.”

  Oscar had ripped the tarpaulin off the engine and Bob picked up the tools. He was familiar enough with the business, for he had been through it often and he had seen it done by others many times. While he and Oscar dragged up some stones from which to make a platform on which to work and when he asked Oscar for a hammer and handed Oscar another screw or nut, most of his actions were mechanical. After he had unfastened the quick detachable latches and had opened the engine compartment cowling, the whole maze of mechanism was exposed behind the cylinders. The whole space up to the fire wall, protecting the pilot’s compartment, was criss-crossed with braces, wiring, piping, fuel pumps and generators. He began dismantling these obstructions, groping through the center of the mass for the turbo supercharger. It was not an easy job, for the tools in that German kit were in metric sizes, always a little too tight or too loose. He looked down once, from where he was standing, at Mr. Kingman.

  “Too bad you didn’t bring American tools,” he said.

  “There was every reason why this engine should be metric,” Mr. Kingman answered. “The plane was for the French. These confounded English inches—someday the whole world will be on the metric system.”

  “I suppose it will,” Bob said, “if boys like you run it,” and he searched among the tools for a ratchet-head, socket end-wrench.

  “Just get it out,” said Mr. Kingman. “Get it out.”

  Perspiration was streaming into Bob Bolles’s eyes and his face and shirt were smeared with grease.

  “He does well, I think,” he heard Mr. Moto say.

  “Yes,” Mr. Kingman said, “he knows his job. I do not like liquid cooling.”

  “Fetch that hammer, Oscar,” Bob Bolles called, and if they said anything further he did not hear it for a while. The pipes and the wires were cleared and the turbo supercharger was in front of him.

  He did not hear their voices, because he was too much concerned with a dull, bewildered surprise of his own. It was modern, but he had seen the whole thing before. It was all like a book or a picture he had known; that piece of mechanism which they wanted had already been shipped across the water in hundreds of other engines. There was something wrong somewhere. He knew it, because he had examined the very type before. There it was—heavy and bulky, about the size of a man’s hatbox. He could see the outlines of the twin housing and the intercooler. The finish was already scorched and chipped and scaling from the heat of the test runs. If they wanted that supercharger, they were mistaken. He knew they were mistaken. If they wanted it, he was face to face with a secret he must keep. There was something else in that plane—certainly something else. Still holding the wrench, Bob looked down at Mr. Kingman and rubbed the perspiration from his eyes.

  “Well, there it is,” he said. “Do you want to see it?”

  “We’ll see it when it’s off,” Mr. Kingman said.

  Bob looked down at the octagonal bolts which were holding it. There was certainly something else, and it was not there in the engine. There was something which they did not know about. He turned his head away from them, hoping they would not see any change in his expression.

  “This end-wrench keeps slipping,” he said. “Do you mind if I look in the cockpit for a minute?”

  “What for? What is it you want?” Mr. Kingman asked.

  “There ought to be some tools,” Bob Bolles said. “If I could get an end-wrench that fits—”

  “Very well,” Mr. Kingman said, “but hurry, you understand?”

  Bob Bolles climbed slowly into the cockpit. He knew that they were watching him and he could not stay there long. His legs felt weak and watery. Since it was not in the engine, it would be on the instrument board, as sure as fate. He would only have a minute
to look at the complexity of the dials, just a minute, as he peered down inside, but it did not take a minute to see it. His eye was trained so that he saw it almost instantly. He made an effort to keep his face immobile and not to stare too hard. Right there in the cockpit was the end of everything, a secret that was worth dying for, and they must not know it. It was there by the radio, something which he had heard talk of, but which he did not know existed. When he saw it, his mind was saying:—

  “That’s it. Don’t let them know.”

  If he had had a hammer, he could have smashed it, but he did not have a hammer. If he could get his hand on something—His mind was still speaking to him. The words were inside his head, just as though someone else were speaking:—

  “Night combat. Beam 21 A.”

  That plane could fight by night as well as it could by daylight. You did not need eyes to point its guns. Its eyes were in front of him, right there on the panel.

  “Never mind that wrench,” Mr. Kingman said. “Do what you can with the one you’ve got. It’s getting late.”

  “Just give me a minute, won’t you?” Bob Bolles asked. It was there—right in front of him. He could have smashed it, if he had only had a hammer.

  “No,” Mr. Kingman said, “get out of there. It’s getting late.”

  “Wait,” Mr. Moto said. “Perhaps Mr. Bolles has found something.”

  “Yes, I have,” Bob answered, and he picked up a piece of cotton waste and wiped his face with it. “This is something I’ve been wanting.”

  “Come on,” Mr. Kingman said. “Get out of there. We’re waiting.”

  Then he was back at the engine again, straining at the bolts, and he remembered that Mr. Kingman was telling him to hurry. He could understand their impatience, because the blue of the sky was growing deeper and the shadows were growing longer. They wanted to be finished before the quick black curtain of the tropical night came down on them. But nothing mattered, so long as no one understood the meaning of those dials in the cockpit. He was thinking of all the talk about a fighting plane which could follow every motion of the enemy in the dark. He had heard of it—and now he had seen it. It would make night bombing as dangerous as day bombing. He had heard of it, without believing it.