Adventure Magazine Cover — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

P 2 eS rttnanint and 7844 began to fall. No tail- slide, side-slip or any known feature dis- tinguished its descent. It just fell and fell until it was a screaming mass of tortured 2 2 2 _ material. Fell until pilots shouted out, in Be, spite of themselves: “She'll fold up! She'll fold up!” __ “Hi,” growled a sergeant. “Wot the _ —— is all this? Hi!” he bellowed aloud. - “She’ son fire!” . Be He pointed .to a thin ribbon of black ____-‘The elevators of 7844 were seen to cock ___ suddenly back at a sharp angle; the blunt __ nose whipped earthward; a loud bang told a gE the tale of a broken control. 7844 raised — her head—ever so little—and floated down to crash into. the roof of No. 3 hangar, 5 ‘ where its tail came to rest like the spire of an old Baptist church. “Holy sufferin’ cats!” It was Jacobs, trying to light a cigaret with hands. that shook like a semaphore. A bevy of pilots and mechanics at- - tempted to scale the girder supports of the igar; the doctor’s car arrived with a rush 3 and a cloud of brown dust; the major swore and shouted useless orders; and the solemn white face of Tunnard appeared over the 2 roof. He seized a girder support, slid to the _~ ground and stood there for a. moment—ap- _ parently collecting himself. Then he shak- aes made off toward his tent. “Oh, Tunnard!” called out several voices. 7 ‘Tunnard quickened his pace and contin- ee P edetoaint Gp also was silent; but that was - because he had fainted. The limp little body was lowered on to the sands as if it were so much dead meat. That he had been - frightfully sick was a fact made objection- ES ay plain by the state of his clothes. __ “Beastly mess,” shuddered the major, a but it was noticed that his was the tunic which was shoved under the little red head. _ “Hal” chirped Ashboldt, the adjutant. “Lookin’ after your entrant, I see.” Lhe C. O. glared up at him— “Yow ll get your pound—so shut up!” That night in the mess, after dinner, the C. O. called Tunnard aside. “No. more of this, y’ understand, Tun- nard? We know you can fly, an’ all that. But—after this performance today, you'll stick to straight business. Get me?” Tunnard nodded. _ “As a matter of fact,” the major laughed, Cokes 6a Yat) 4 . T Me ssida\), Raat eae a SY oo hate 4 dy i Bs i ¢ de Tuk, hoe Pe ihe rents Te re | in vy ele + - dete + spre a =e Ta Adventure se and spoke in a more friendly manner, “TI lost a quid on you to-day. Bet old Ash- boldt a pound you never could do it. But then, of course, I never expected anything like you gave us. Play bridge?” Tunnard said that he did, and he, the major, Ashboldt and an obese equipment officer sat down at the baize-covered table’ under the big swinging lamp. “But that what-you-may-call-it you did when you were ablaze was a new one to me. What- ever the deuce do you call it?” “Oh—nothing.” Tunnard began to shuf- fle the cards. “Well, anyway,” inti the major, “it’s a good thing that you did it. If you’d ever let her nose get down—flames come back into the fuselage—ugh! By jove, you were lucky!” | “Might have had you for dinner, mented the cold-blooded Ashboldt. bird, so to speak.” The equipment officer frowned and pursed his fat lips. , “T should say you were lucky. You not only put out that fire, but—do you know that you got down with a broken aileron king-post?”’ Tunnard said that he knew that some- thing had smashed; that was why he flew straight ahead without trying to turn out of the way from the hangar. “It’s the only thing to do, when some- thing busts, you know—fly straight ahead.”’ fine head work, old bean,” said the major admiringly; “only hope mine’s as good. when it’s needed.” Phe mess echoed this sentiment; and Tunnard smiled. The glumness which had pervaded him since the afternoon: slowly evaporated in this pleasant. atmosphere of good fellowship. His face lost its*look of tense puzzlement, and he became quite congenial. “Suffragiel . .. More’ whisky!” frequently from his end of the table. Somewhat humble—a natural result of a crash—he kept off the subject of flying, his exploits in particular, and actually encour- aged the others to talk. It was not until long after midnight.that this reticence left him; and then, abetted by the best part of a ” com- came "Roast . quart of Scotch whisky, he was telling his © befuddled audience how they did the real, pukka, Immelmann—back at Gosport. “Not this-half-roll stuff,” he was explain- ing, when the tent. flaps flew open, and GOomichboo a —e. = _— + za Or eo -_ 7 ~—