Air Stories — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

FLIGHT OF A PRESIDENT the securities in London and hand you over the cash. I’ll swear any oath you like that I’ll do it!” ‘“*T wouldn’t sell you your life now for the whole million,’? mocked Rodri- quez, and suddenly burst into a peal of ringing laughter. ‘< Say, Mr. President,’’ he volunteered at length, ‘‘I just can’t help laughing when I think that if you’d spent just a fraction of all that money you’re offering me in learning to fly yourself, you could just have carried on without me. But you didn’t; so now you’re for it. And don’t move from your seat till I’m off this ship, because I’ve got a gun, and it’s only my vow to make you know the agonies of fear my family suffered before they died that stops me from using it on you right now.’’ But the President was far too unnerved to contemplate an assault on his pilot which might send them both crashing to acommon doom. Without attempting to stop him, he watched Rodriquez leave his seat, wrench open the cabin door and clamber out on to the wing. ‘*So long, Mr. President,’’ came the pilot’s mocking farewell. ‘‘ Fly the old ship to British Guiana if you can— or to hell if you can’t.’’ And, hand on the release ring of his parachute, Rodriquez dived head fore- most into space. CHAPTER III _ Flight of a President ARALYSED with fear, the President stared out of the cabin window. The bright moonlight showed him the billowing white expanse of a parachute that had opened to carry the jumper safely down to earth. In a second it was lost to sight, and he braced himself for the swift descent and the fierce, smashing impact with the ground that must inevitably follow. It did not come. The Dragonfly con- tinued to cruise as smoothly as though Rodriquez was still at the controls, and gradually the first paralysing shock of the President’s terror began to wear off and the instinct of self-preservation 29 asserted itself. ‘‘T’ll fly the machine and beat you yet, Rodriquez !’’ the President mut- tered as, with fumbling hands, he un- buckled his useless parachute and threw it down. He stumbled forward towards the pilot’s seat, but before he had settled into it, the Dragonfly, its equilibrium disturbed by his movements, had dipped her right wing, and the bank was rapidly becoming more acute. Remembering scraps of information gleaned from Rodri- quez in various conversations, the Presi- dent jerked the stick across to the left. The right wing came up again, but the left one went down so swiftly that he was nearly flung out of his seat, and he made matters still worse by an uninten- tional kick on the rudder-bar. The next few minutes were a pilot’s nightmare. The Dragonfly plunged down on to her nose ; then she reared up and threatened to stall. She did a couple of flick rolls which would have delighted any professor -of aerobatics, but made the President’s stomach protest violently. She recovered at the last critical frac- tion of a second from a sideslip, and by all the laws of aviation ought to have gone into at least five spins. . But at last there came a moment when the Dragonfly was on an even keel again, and the President had just sufficient wits left to leave the controls alone and let her go on flying herself. 3 Perspiration drenched his body and blinded his eyes; his breath came in gasps and sobs. But the machine flew on steadily, and at last he ventured to look about him and take stock of the situation. At least he was still alive, and flying. But in what direction? He could not tell how many times the machine had changed course during those terrible minutes when he first tried to master the controls. He sought to pick up his bearings from landmarks below, but found none that he could recognise in the moonlight. Then he looked at the sky, and his heart leapt for joy. The moon was on his right-hand side. It had been on his right when Comiclbooks.com