The sound of the rushing water grew louder, and was echoed back from the cliffs on the other side of the valley. The fireflies danced like fairy lights in the chasm, and all the creatures of the night winged their way aloft to join in the ecstasy of life and love.
And then, when darkness was complete, and only the fitful gleams of the huge fireflies were reflected from the still surface of the black pool beneath their feet, Burl reached out his hand to Saya, sitting beside him in the darkness. She yielded shyly, and her soft, warm hand found his in the obscurity. Then Burl bent over and kissed her on the lips.
1 The pirate is the philanthus Apivorus.
NERVE (1921)
Note: Not Science Fiction.
The fairgrounds receded swiftly, and then more slowly. The earth below flattened out abruptly, while the horizon seemed to rise until Berry Barnes was floating in the center of a vast bowl of verdant earth, with the blue sky arching above. He sat at ease on the slender bar of the trapeze and looked down, smiling.
He had a passion for the heights. To look down, down, down at the earth held a sort of fascination for him—a fascination that was wholly different from the suicidal vertigo so many people experience. Over his head a huge cotton bag billowed in ungainly bulk. It stank of the gasoline fumes of the fire that had inflated it. From where Berry sat he could look up through its narrow neck into a cavernous, smoky interior.
He loved the whole thing, the whole game of his daring ascents and parachute jumps, from the first laying out of the sooty bag on the green grass—with the center buoyed up between two poles at the sides—through every phase of the inflation and flight of the dirty-gray balloon. He loved the furnace that inflated his pet. He loved his last, always dramatic leap for the trapeze bar as the great bag was released and shot upward into the air. He loved the peace of the heights, the stillness broken only by the increasingly faint blaring of the band that always played Up in a Balloon, Boys, as he rose, dangling on that slender, ineffective looking trapeze bar.
But most of all, he loved to look down from the heights at the earth below, swinging back and forth as he watched for a favorable landing-place. When he had selected his spot, there was the slender rope, the knife-cord, by his side. A pull, the cord was cut, and then—a breathless rush downward, fifty, a hundred, sometimes two hundred feet, before the parachute opened and his fall was stayed with a slight jar. After that he floated down beneath the suddenly blossomed flower above him. It was life, the quintessence of life. The thrill of danger, the intoxication of the heights, and that rapturous dash earthward at the end—those were the most perfect moments of Berry’s life.
Only Anne knew how he loved it all, but only Anne knew how her heart constricted when he shot downward from the cooling balloon. Perhaps the parachute would not open. Perhaps some rope would give way. Perhaps—perhaps— She lived in an agony of fear for him.
He laughed at her. He had made two hundred ascents before she married him, and nearly as many since, but she never saw him rise into the air without a terrible fear taking possession of her. Her greatest dread was that the parachute would not open. Some day that quick downward rush would not be checked. The little black dot that meant her husband would fall with the trailing bud of canvas behind it, and the bud would not blossom out. Swiftly and more swiftly he would fall, and the parachute would not open. She awoke sometimes in the middle of the night, crying out in terror. Berry could hardly comfort her.
He never told her of his own chief anxiety. Down beside him there ran a slender rope, connecting above with a sharp knife. When he pulled the rope the knife severed the cord that held his parachute and himself to the smoking, stinking bag. If ever that knife failed him, and the parachute was not released—
It was the one appalling thought in his mind. The bag above him would slowly cool, then more quickly. It would shrivel a little, and begin to droop toward the earth. He would sink, at first slowly, then swiftly. The bag above him would cease to be a bulging, ungainly object. It would become a slim, writhing, snake-like thing. He would drop.
Once he had seen that happen to another balloonist. The man had jumped clear two hundred feet up. When they came to him he was not a pleasant sight to look upon. Berry resolutely thrust that thought from his mind, only examining the knife in person before each ascent.
The big tents of the fair had grown small and toy-like. The blaring of the band was indistinct. The only noises he could hear were faint cheerings and the more penetrating sound of auto horns. He estimated his height with a practiced eye. Twelve hundred feet; fifteen hundred feet; eighteen hundred feet. He began to look down for his landing-space.
A big, clear field caught his eye. In a moment or two he would be over it He waited, swinging back and forth on the trapeze bar and watching the earth flow slowly by beneath him. He smiled unconsciously. No one could tell what this meant to him. Even Anne only guessed. If she knew how he loved these moments up aloft she would never again beg Him to take up some less dangerous trade.
The field he had selected was below him. He watched a moment, allowing for his drift during the parachute drop. His hand was on the rope that would cut him free from the balloon. He looked to the left. The sand-bag that would overturn the bag when he had deserted it swung free. He glanced up. The parachute was in its proper position, not tangled, in every way as experience dictated. He pulled the knife-cord. Nothing happened.
He still swung below the bag. A quick cold sweat broke out on his face. He pulled again and again. The rope did not part. His heart seemed to stop beating. Eighteen hundred feet up, under a cooling balloon, and unable to free himself. He craned his neck upward, but could not see the knife that should have released him.
In a flash he visualized the bag shrinking, then finally collapsing, then the dash downward the parachute opening fitfully, only to be crushed and tangled in the flapping bag, and finally Anne being brought to where he would be lying crushed on the ground. The pictures snapped before his eyes like the scenes of a movie. He groaned and shut his eyes. Then, quite suddenly, a vision came before him.
* * * *
It was that morning. Anne and he were sitting at breakfast in the rather dingy hotel that was the best the county seat afforded. The waitress served them with a little awe in her manner. He was that reckless daredevil who made the parachute jumps at the fair, and she always felt that perhaps this would be the last meal he would eat on earth. The other people in the dining room looked at him curiously. They all knew who he was and wondered at his daring. They did not know how he loved every bit of the game. They wondered what queer trait made him so reckless.
Anne was pale. She had waked in the middle of the night, crying out in fear for him.
“What’s the matter, Anne?” Berry asked. “You look as if you didn’t feel well.”
“I don’t,” she said reluctantly. She looked at him, and her eyes filled with tears, though she tried to smile bravely.
“Frightened again?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I never stop being frightened,” she said in an oddly quiet voice.
“Oh, piffle, Anne!” he exclaimed. “There isn’t anything to be worried about. I’m careful. You know I’m careful.”
She shook her head wordlessly. She tried not to bother him about her fears, but she did wish she had not this constant prospect before her, of his horrible death at any time.
“Carefulness isn’t much of a comfort, Berry.”
“Now listen, dear,” he said coaxingly. “I’ve made nearly four hundred ascents without a serious accident. One time I sprained my ankle in landing. Once I went up when the wind was high and was dragged along the ground a bit by the parachute when I struck. A broken rib that time. Look at that record, Anne. Think of the people who are killed in every big city by automobiles and streetcars. I’m almost afraid to go into a big town!”
He stopped, hoping she would smile. Instead, she only looked at her plate and halfheart
edly tried to eat.
“Lord, Anne,” he went on cheerfully, “when I think of the perils to which people in cities are exposed—I’m positively a danger dodger! And anyway,” he added pleadingly, “you know how I dote on the game. You know how I love the whole business, from the stink of the furnace that inflates the old bag, to the last least littlest thrill of the jump. You wouldn’t have me lose that, would you?”
“You know how I love you,” said Anne softly. “Do you think I like to be afraid I’m going to lose you?”
“But you aren’t,” protested Berry with a laugh. “I’m safe as can be, Anne. I never take any unnecessary risks.”
“I know,” said Anne. “But, oh, Berry, if there weren’t any ‘necessary’ ones!”
* * * *
The vision vanished, and Berry was again sitting high in the air beneath his old gray balloon, that had carried him aloft so many times, and now seemed to be holding him up for a last few moments before dropping him to his death. The vision of himself and Anne at breakfast had been instantaneous, merely a flash of memory that carried him back to the talk at the table. He jerked agonizedly at the knife-cord. The rope that held him fast remained unparted. The balloon was rising sluggishly now. The air within was still hot enough to carry him a little higher, but was cooling steadily.
Berry ground his teeth together. He was not afraid. He had faced death too often to feel a touch of cowardice now that it had come so close. It was only that a glimpse of what his death would mean to Anne had suddenly swept over him. He had married her a year before.
She was clerking in a store in New York, one of the shops that show such startling values for their prices. It was known among thrifty shoppers as the cheapest store at which to buy. Anne knew why. The advertisements said it gave great values because of the reduction of overhead expenses and the consequent decrease in the cost of goods to the purchaser. Anne knew that “overhead expenses” included, among other things, the salaries it paid to its clerks.
They were young girls mostly, and they hated the store with a consuming hatred. To cut down the cost of operation it paid them salaries on which they could barely keep body and soul together—this was in the days before the war, remember—and sometimes it did become a question of keeping body or soul alive. Berry had married Anne from behind a counter.
Sensing the growing sluggishness of the balloon above him, Berry remembered with a groan the story she had told him after their marriage, of the terrible, monotonous struggle with poverty, with the ever-present problem of getting enough to eat and still maintaining the standard of neatness the store required. She had no relatives to help her out. She had to fend for herself. She could not be a stenographer or a typist—she had no training. And the store was a deadly grind, a monotonous torture.
With Berry dead, Anne would have no one to care for her. They had saved a little money, a very little. Berry earned it so easily it hardly seemed worthwhile to save. Anne might live on their savings for a year—perhaps. Then the store again, no friends, no family, and a grinding poverty, lasting until she gave up.
Berry seemed to see her coming out of some employees’ entrance, buffeted by the other clerks, tired out, her clothes shabby.
A great rage swept over him, rage at himself. He had been so absorbed in the joys of his work that he had neglected to provide for her. He had thought of the fun he was having, glorying in the thrill of his flight and the breathless dash downward in the parachute, thinking only of himself while she had been fearing for him constantly. Berry still was not afraid for himself. He was as good as dead, and he knew it. He ignored that, thinking only of Anne.
He glanced up at the balloon. It was cooling noticeably. Long wrinkles began to appear in the lower part of the bag. Berry jerked automatically at the knife-cord, his face deathly pale and his forehead beaded with sweat. Anne. Only Anne. His own death was nothing, but Anne would care. He remembered how she had looked when he was in the hospital with those broken ribs of his.
The utter pallor of her face while the doctor poked investigating fingers about his chest had distracted Berry’s attention even from his pain. The agony of apprehension that was reflected in her expression had fascinated him. Berry had felt a little awe when the doctor pronounced the triviality of his injuries. Her face had been radiant beyond any radiance he had seen before.
The balloon was cooling. Somehow, Berry sensed the loss of buoyancy even before it began to droop sluggishly toward the earth. It would not be more than a minute or so more now. The long wrinkles in the lower part were more prominent. Berry’s arm automatically jerked and jerked at the knife-cord. The balloon sank slowly, and then more quickly. Berry was not afraid for himself, but only for Anne; for what his death would mean to her. He had been selfish, utterly so. For his own part, the joy he had had in his ballooning was payment even for the death he was now to meet, but Anne—
The balloon had ceased to be globular and was sinking rapidly. Berry looked up for the last time. It was a wrinkled, emaciated object. It began to flap back and forth, heavily and awkwardly. Berry groaned and closed his eyes. One arm held fast to the side rope of the trapeze. The other jerked unconsciously at the knife-cord. Down, down, the bag flapping more loudly and violently. Suddenly he began to fall with a rush. This was the end. Anne—
He gasped. His drop had been checked with a soft jar. He looked up, unbelieving. The parachute was open, blossomed out above his head. He no longer saw the flapping balloon. Incredulously he saw that every bit of the open parachute was bathed in sunlight. He was free of the huge bag that had threatened him! The knife, failing to cut, had at last chafed its way through the holding-rope.
For an instant Berry was faint with the revulsion, then he recovered and looked down. An open field, small, but amply large for his needs, lay directly below him. He made his landing skillfully.
Forman, his helper who inflated the balloon, greeted him with a grin and an outstretched hand.
“Gee, boss,” he said thankfully, “I thought you was a goner then. When the old bag begun to flap I says to myself I’d seen you go up for the last time.”
“You have,” said Berry briefly.
“What’s that?” demanded Forman incredulously. “You ain’t goin’ up no more?”
“I’m cured,” said Berry with a smile. ‘”No more.”
A puzzled look came over Forman’s face.
“Lost your nerve?” he asked.
Berry shook his head. Forman could not be made to understand. He would never be able to grasp that Berry had already devised a new type of parachute-release that simply could not fail—and never intended to use it. He would never understand that Berry, in spite of his recent extraordinarily narrow escape, still felt that in giving up his ascents to make sure that Anne would always be cared for and happy he was giving up the thing he cared most for in all the world.
“No, I haven’t lost my nerve,” he said with a half smile at Forman. “I—” He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Where’s my wife?”
MORALE: A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1941-43 (1931)
PART I
“…The profound influence of civilian morale upon the course of modern war is nowhere more clearly shown than in the case of that monstrous war-engine popularly known as a ‘Wabbly.’ It landed in New Jersey Aug. 16, 1942, and threw the whole Eastern Coast into a frenzy. In six hours the population of three States was in a panic. Industry was paralyzed. The military effect was comparable only to a huge modern army landed in our rear.…” (Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43.—U. S. War College. Pp. 79-80.)
Sergeant Walpole made his daily report at 2:15. He used a dinky telephone that should have been in a museum, and a rural Central put him on the Area Officer’s tight beam. The Area Officer listened drearily as the Sergeant said in a military manner:
“Sergeant Walpole, sir, Post Fourteen, reports that he has nothing of importance to report.”
The Area Officer’s acknowledgment w
as curt; embittered. For he was an energetic young man, and he loathed his job. He wanted to be in the west, where fighting of a highly unconventional nature was taking place daily. He did not enjoy this business of watching an unthreatened coast-line simply for the maintenance of civilian confidence and morale. He preferred fighting.
Sergeant Walpole, though, exhaled a lungful of smoke at the telephone transmitter and waited. Presently the rural Central said:
“All through?”
“Sure, sweetie,” said Sergeant Walpole. “How about the talkies tonight?”
That was at 2:20 P. M. There was coy conversation, while the civilian telephone-service suffered. Then Sergeant Walpole went back to his post of duty with a date for the evening. He never kept that date, as it turned out. The rural Central was dead an hour after the first and only Wabbly landed, and as everybody knows, that happened at 2:45.
* * * *
But Sergeant Walpole had no premonitions as he went back to his hammock on the porch. This was Post Number Fourteen, Sixth Area, Eastern Coast Observation Force. There was a war on, to be sure. There had been a war on since the fall of 1941, but it was two thousand miles away. Even lone-wolf bombing planes, flying forty thousand feet up, never came this far to drop their eggs upon inviting targets or upon those utterly blank, innocent-seeming places where munitions of war were now manufactured underground.
Here was peace and quiet and good rations and a paradise for gold-brickers. Here was a summer bungalow taken over for military purposes, quartering six men who watched a certain section of coast-line for a quite impossible enemy. Three miles to the south there was another post. Three miles to the north another one still. They stretched all along the Atlantic Coast, those observation-posts, and the men in them watched the sea, languidly observed the television broadcasts, and slept in the sun. That was all they were supposed to do. In doing it they helped to maintain civilian morale. And therefore the Eastern Coast Observation Force was enviously said to be “just attached to the Army for rations,” by the other services, and its members rated with M. P.’s and other low forms of animal life.
The Murray Leinster Megapack Page 28