Air Wonder Stories, December 1929 — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

AY aia) an) oon 'T was a bright day in early June of the year 1974. A young man was standing in the archway of the main passenger entrance Weal of the Grand Central Air Terminal in Los Miers Angeles, absently fingering a new pilot captain’s cap, which had been presented to him but ten minutes before. Yet, where the flush of success might have been expected in his looks, his face was pale and worn; and in his eyes there was the light of tragedy. He was suffering in agony, unknown to his fellow pilots; and when one of them came quickly out to grasp his hand in congratulation, tears flooded his eyes. He said hoarsely to his friend, only: “Please, Joe—I —I can’t stand it if you do! It doesn’t mean anything now but—but oblivion.” The captain for whom he had been pilot-mate for several months looked into those dimmed eyes, amazed: “For God’s sake, Fred, you can’t mean that—not with a new. commis- Sion as passenger-plane captain. Why, I dont understand. Won't you tell me we “Don’t make me talk, Joe, if you're my friend. Just go in there and tell the dispatcher that I’m ready to fly the cargo plane to Guayaquil. Don’t make any excuses for me—just tell him I said I wanted to make my first trip as pilot-captain alone.” “You're a queer bird, Brettner,” said Joe Blaine. “Why don’t you tell him yourself?” : Brettner was nervously impatient. “I can’t! If 1 did I’d jumble up the whole works. I can’t talk—but I’ve got to make the trip alone. If I took the passenger plane I’d go crazy.” Blaine made a mumbled remark about the freight plane being so much harder to handle; but he hurried back into the office, prepared to argue for half an hour in the cause of his friend. * * Ten minutes before this conversation began, Fred Brettner had stood before the inspectors of air-pilots and had taken from their hands the papers which authorized him to assume the responsibility for any ship on any line of the great Iriternational Air- ways. And, now that the great moment had come, it meant nothing’ more than an opportunity to get away from the scene of what was to him a tragedy. The latter had come about in a manner so common to airmen of his day. Up from Shang- hai, as pilot-mate on a fifty-place sesqui- amphibian, he had played the hero to a girl. Her name was Nadia Deneen, and she lived in the city where Fred had _ lived, and she loved the things he loved; and so, through those long months, she trolled aircraft, for concern. well be imagined. FREEDOM OF THE SKIES EDSEL NEWTON S time. goes on, aviation experts as well as statesmen ate coming slowly but surely to the realization that airccaft will some day change the face of this earth. With automatically con- explosives of strength that can be hurled from airplanes, and misguided ambitions of unscrupulous men— there is a picture that may well give us cause It has been demonstcated in the past that a few dozen airplanes can lay desolate the largest of our cities, and if ‘such airplanes are in the hands of unscrupulous persons, the havoc’ can It is to be hoped that, as in all evolution, effective counter measures will be found in due time that will checkmate the efforts of irre- sponsible or too ambitious persons, . That such a solution may be needed badly, the present highly exciting story clearly shows. 519 had made his between-cruise hours so infinitely worth while that he lived exultantly. A Sudden Departure HE was sweet and clean and clever, a brunette, with hazel eyes that smiled out to make his own world seem to smile back; life had then indeed been sweet. He had once rescued her from beneath the blown-down door of a: hurricane. hatch, while Joe Blaine was pilot- ing the big amphibian through a storm, and a hurrying steward had closed the door without ooking out on the promenade deck for passengers. The steward had not reckoned that there are yet in the world daring spirits who might stand dreaming in such a place, whether or not the ship: was making dizzy banks and turns through the terrible currents of air above the mid-Pacific. After the rescue Nadia had never forgotten, She had, apparently, taken the advice of a well-known writer and consented to let him marry her, in recompense for having saved her life. She.did succeed in making him the happiest man in the world, even to agreeing that he should continue with his career inthe air. They were to be married the day he should be- come a pilot-captain. And they had planned to live near the terminal, where she could meet him each time he put down after a long hop from the far places of the earth. One cannot describe love. When it has come into the heart of a sincere young man, its end is always a tragedy. That Fred Brettner, sensitive, as high-strung as.a fine racehorse, as imaginative as a poet, should have lost Nadia Deneen’s love after having known it was a pity. He had nothing else left. The turmoil in his soul was too poignant to: be suppressed. He had gone to her home that morning, the day of his triumph, which he was to share with -her—and he had found only the maid who gave him a short note, which he would ever recall as bearing the statement that she had gone, never to return. She had lived alone with her servant. There were no relatives to whom he could appeal for help in locat- ing her. It was a soul- stirring mystery that had’ struck a vigorous young man. of twenty- three, and in twenty-four hours his face had be- come seamed like that of a man of fifty. There was absolutely no reason why Nadia should: have ended their beautiful re- lationship so abruptly. It was not like her; and yet it had happened—it was real! He tried to shake off his mood, as Joe Blaine returned with the verdict from the dis- patcher, who had granted Brettner’s request to make the Guayaquil freight hop alone. tremendous " comicbooks.com