Darkness and Dawn (33 page)

"Good thing the framework is aluminum," said he, "or it wouldn't be
worth a tinker's dam after all this time. But as it is, it's taken no
harm that I can see. Wire braces all gone, rusted out and disappeared.
Have to be rewired throughout, if I can find steel wire; if not, I'll
use braided leather thongs. Petrol tank and feed pipe O. K. Girder
boom needs a little attention. Steering and control column
intact—they'll do!"

Part by part he handled the machine, his skilled eye leaping from
detail to detail.

"Canvas planes all gone, of course. Not a rag left; only the frame.
But, no matter, we can remedy that. Wooden levers, skids, and so on,
gone. Easily replaced. Main thing is the engine. Looks as though it
had been carefully covered, but, of course, the covering has rotted
away. No matter, we'll soon see. Now, this carbureter—"

His inspection lasted half an hour, while the girl, lost among so many
technicalities, sat down on the dusty concrete floor beside the
machine and listened in a kind of dazed admiration.

He gave her, finally, his opinion.

"This machine
will go
if properly handled," said he, rising
triumphantly and slapping the dust off his palms. "The chassis needs
truing up, the equilibrator has sagged out of plumb, and the ailerons
have got to be readjusted, but it's only a matter of a few days at the
outside before she'll be in shape.

"The main thing is the engine, and so far as I can judge, that's
pretty nearly O. K. The magneto may have to be gone over, but that's a
mere trifle. Odd, I never thought of either finding one of these
machines in New York, or building one! When I think of all the weary
miles we've tramped it makes me sick!"

"I know," she answered; "but how about fuel? And another thing—have
you ever operated one? Could you—"

"Run one?" He laughed aloud. "I'm the man who first taught Carlton
Holmes to fly—you know Holmes, who won the Gordon-Craig cup for
altitude record in 1916. I built the first—"

"I know, dear; but Holmes was killed at Schenectady, you remember, and
this machine is different from anything you're used to, isn't it?"
Beatrice asked.

"It won't be when I'm through with it! I tell you, Beatrice, we're
going to fly. No more hiking through the woods or along beaches for
us. From now on we travel in the air—and the world opens out to us as
though by magic.

"Distance ceases to mean anything. The whole continent is ours. If
there's another human creature on it we find him! And if there isn't
then, perhaps we may find some in Asia or in Europe, who knows?"

"You mean you'd dare to attack the Atlantic with a patched-up machine
more than a thousand years old?"

"I mean that eventually I can and will build one that'll take us to
Alaska, and so across the fifty-mile gap from Cape Prince of Wales to
East Cape. The whole world lies at our feet, girl, with this new idea,
this new possibility in mind!"

She smiled at his enthusiasm.

"But fuel?" asked she, practical even in her joy. "I don't imagine
there's any gasoline left now, do you? A stuff as volatile as that,
after all these centuries? What metal could contain it for a thousand
years?"

"There's alcohol," he answered. "A raid on the ruins of a few saloons
and drug-stores will give me all I need to carry me to Boston, where
there's plenty, never fear. A few slight adjustments of the engine
will fit it for burning alcohol. And as for the planes, good stout
buckskin, well sewn together and stretched on the frames, will do the
trick as well as canvas—better, maybe."

"But—"

"Oh, what a little pessimist it is to-day!" he interrupted. "Always
coming at me with objections, eh?" He took her in his arms and kissed
her. "I tell you Beta, this is no pipe-dream at all, or anything like
it; the thing's reality—we're going to fly! But it'll mean the most
tremendous lot of sewing and stitching for you!"

"You're a dear!" she answered inconsequentially. "I do believe if the
whole world fell apart you could put it together again."

"With your help, yes," said he. "What's more, I'm going to—and a
better world at that than ever yet was dreamed of. Wait and see!"

Laughing, he released her.

"Well, now, we'll go to work," he concluded. "Nothing's accomplished
by mere words. Just lay hold of that lateral there, will you? And
we'll haul this old machine out where we can have a real good look at
her, what do yore say? Now, then, one, two, three—"

Nineteen days from the discovery of the biplane, a singular
happening for a desolate world took place on the broad beach that now
edged the city where once the sluggish Providence River had flowed
seaward.

For here, clad in a double suit of leather that Beatrice had made for
him, Allan Stern was preparing to give the rehabilitated Pauillac a
try-out.

Day by day, working incessantly when not occupied in hunting or
fishing, the man had rebuilt and overhauled the entire mechanism.
Tools he had found a-plenty in the ruins, tools which he had ground
and readjusted with consummate care and skill. Alcohol he had gathered
together from a score of sources. All the wooden parts, such as skids
and levers and propellers, long since vanished and gone, he had
cleverly rebuilt.

And now the machine, its planes and rudders covered with strongly sewn
buckskin, stretched as tight as drum heads, its polished screw of the
Chauviere type gleaming in the morning sun, stood waiting on
the sands, while Stern gave it a painstaking inspection.

"I think," he judged, as he tested the last stay and gave the engine
its final adjustment. "I think, upon my word, this machine's better
to-day than when she was first built. If I'm not mistaken, buckskin's
a better material for planes than ever canvas was—it's far stronger
and less porous, for one thing—and as for the stays, I prefer the
braided hide. Wire's so liable to snap.

"This compass I've rigged on gimbals here, beats anything Pauillac
himself ever had. What's the matter with my home-made gyrostat and
anemometer? And hasn't this aneroid barometer got cards and spades
over the old-style models?"

Enthusiastic as a boy, Stern shook his head and smiled delightedly at
Beatrice as he expounded the merits of the biplane and its fittings.
She, half glad, half anxious at the possible outcome of the venture,
stood by and listened and nodded as though she understood all the
minutiae he explained.

"So then, you're ready to go up this morning?" she asked, with just a
quiver of nervousness in her voice. "You're quite certain everything's
all right—no chance of accident? For if anything happened—"

"There, there, nothing can happen, nothing will!" he reassured her.
"This motor's been run three hours in succession already without
skipping an explosion. Everything's in absolute order, I tell you. And
as for the human, personal equation, I can vouch for that myself!"

Stern walked around to the back of the machine, picked up a long,
stout stake he had prepared, took his ax, and at a distance of about
twelve feet behind the biplane drove the stake very deep into the hard
sand.

He knotted a strong leather cord to the stake, brought it forward and
secured it to the frame of the machine.

"Now, Beatrice," he directed, "when I'm ready you cut the cord. I
haven't any corps of assistants to hold me back till the right moment
and then give me a shove, so the best I can do is this. Give a quick
slash right here when I shout. And whatever happens don't be alarmed.
I'll come back to you safe and sound, never fear. And this afternoon
it's 'All Aboard for Boston!'"

Smiling and confident, he cranked the motor. It caught, and now a
chattering tumult filled the air, rising, falling, as Stern
manipulated throttle and spark to test them once again.

Into the driver's seat he climbed, strapped himself in and turned to
smile at Beatrice.

Then with a practiced hand he threw the lever operating the
friction-clutch on the propeller-shaft. And now the great blades began
to twirl, faster, faster, till they twinkled and buzzed in the
sunlight with a hum like that of a gigantic electric fan.

The machine, yielding to the urge, tugged forward, straining at its
bonds like a whippet eager for a race. Beatrice, her face flushed with
excitement, stood ready with the knife.

Louder, faster whirled the blades, making a shiny blur; a breeze
sprang out behind them; it became a wind, blowing the girl's hair back
from her beautiful face.

Stern settled himself more firmly into the seat and gripped the wheel.

The engine was roaring like a battery of Northrup looms. Stern felt
the pull, the power, the life of the machine. And his heart leaped
within him at his victory over the dead past, his triumph still to be!

"All right!" he cried. "Let go—
let go!
"

The knife fell. The parted rope jerked back, writhing, like a wounded
serpent.

Gently at first, then with greater and greater speed, shaking and
bouncing a little on the broad, flat wheels that Stern had fitted to
the alighting gear, the plane rolled off along the firm-beaten sands.

Stern advanced the spark and now the screw sang a louder, higher
threnody. With ever-accelerating velocity the machine tooled forward
down the long stretch, while Beatrice stood gazing after it in rapt
attention.

Then all at once, when it had sped some three hundred feet, Stern
rotated the rising plane; and suddenly the machine lifted. In a long
smooth curve, she slid away up the air as though it had been a solid
hill—up, up, up—swifter and swifter now, till a suddenly accelerated
rush cleared the altitude of the tallest pines in the forest edging
the beach, and Stern knew his dream was true!

With a great shout of joy, he leaped the plane aloft! Its rise had all
the exhilarating suddenness of a seagull flinging up from the
foam-streaked surface of the breakers. And in that moment Stern felt
the bliss of conquest.

Behind him, the spruce propellers were making a misty haze of humming
energy. In front, the engine spat and clattered. The vast spread of
the leather wings, sewn, stretched and tested, crackled and boomed as
the wind got under them and heaved them skyward.

Stern shouted again. The machine, he felt, was a thing of life,
friendly and true. Not since that time in the tower, months ago, when
he had repaired the big steamengine and actually made it run, had he
enjoyed so real a sense of mastery over the world as now; had he
sensed so definite a connection with the mechanical powers of the
world that was, the world that still should be.

No longer now was he fighting the forces of nature, all barehanded and
alone. Now back of him lay the energy of a machine, a metal heart,
throbbing and inexhaustible and full of life! Now he had tapped the
vein of Power! And in his ears the ripping volley of the exhaust
sounded as sweetly as might the voice of a long-absent and beloved
girl returning to her sweetheart.

For a moment he felt a choking in his throat, a mist before his eyes.
This triumph stirred him emotionally, practical and cool and keen
though he was. His hand trembled a second; his heart leaped, throbbing
like the motor itself.

But almost immediately he was himself once more. The weakness passed.
And with a sweep of his clear eyes, he saw the speeding landscape,
woods, hills, streams, that now were running there beneath him like a
fluid map.

"My God, it's grand, though!" he exclaimed, swerving the plane in a
long, ascending spiral. All the art, the knack of flight came back to
him, at the touch of the wheel, as readily as swimming to an expert in
the water. Fear? The thought no more occurred to him than to you,
reading these words.

Higher he mounted, higher still, his hair whipping out behind in the
wild wind, till he could see the sparkle of Narragansett Bay, there in
the distance where the river broadened into it. At him the wind tore,
louder even than the spitting crackle of the motor. He only laughed,
and soared again.

But now he thought of Beatrice; and, as he banked and came about, he
peered far down for sight of her.

Yes, there she stood, a tiny dot upon the distant sand. And though he
knew she could not hear, in sheer animal spirits and overwhelming joy
he shouted once again, a wild, mad triumphant hurrah that lost itself
in empty space.

The test he gave the Pauillac convinced him she would carry all the
load they would need put upon her, and more. He climbed, swooped,
spiraled, volplaned, and rose again, executing a series of evolutions
that would have won him fame at any aero meet. And when, after half an
hour's exhaustive trial, he swooped down toward the beach again, he
found the plane alighted as easily as she had risen.

Like a sea-bird sinking with flat, outstretched wings, coming to rest
with perfect ease and beauty on the surface of the deep, the Pauillac
slid down the long hill of air. Stern cut off power. The machine took
the sand with no more than vigorous bound, and, running forward
perhaps fifty yards, came to a stand.

Stern had no sooner leaped from the seat than Beatrice was with him.

"Oh, glorious!" she cried, her face alight with joy and fine
enthusiasm. All her spontaneity, her love and admiration were aroused.
And she kissed him with so frank and glad a love that Stern felt his
heart jump wildly. He thought she never yet had been so beautiful.

But all he said was:

"Couldn't run finer, little girl! Barring a little stiffness here and
there, she's perfect. So, then, when do we start, eh? To-morrow
morning, early?"

"Why not this afternoon? I'm sure we can get ready by then."

"Afternoon it is, if you say so! But we've got to work, to do it!"

By noon they had gathered together all the freight they meant to
carry, and—though the sun had dimmed behind dull clouds of a peculiar
slaty gray, that drifted in from eastward—had prepared for the flight
to Boston. After a plentiful dinner of venison, berries and
breadfruit, they loaded the machine.