Trophy for Eagles (44 page)

She poured another cup of coffee with a shrug, saying aloud, "That's nonsense, straight out of an Ouida novel." Sipping, she admitted again that the sadness of Stephan's death, tragic and
unnecessary as it had been, was accompanied by some measure of relief. He had become increasingly possessive, and his implacable
preoccupation with siring a son—he refused to consider the possibil
ity of a daughter as adamantly as he refused to acknowledge that he
might be the one who was sterile—had made him terribly defensive.
Their last two years together had been miserable. There was no other word for them.

Yet she missed the early days, when they were content with
themselves, and he was not yet distressed by a lack of children.
Their rollicking good times, wonderfully romantic and sexual, were
more than most people ever had in a lifetime. Stephan had been
marvelous to travel with, adaptable to the ordinary discomforts of
foreign lands, amiable with the natives. He had taken her on an eight-week aerial tour of French colonial Africa in their own Caudron cabin plane. It was an unforgettable time, hazarding the parched deserts watching the rich herds of game, enjoying the simple amiability of the natives that Stephan said concealed a
valiant warrior discipline, savoring the rough camp fare, impossibly
delicious. Then, always, there was the uninhibited loving under the canvas.

But it was over. Charlotte had been astute, giving her correct
care—comfort when it was wanted, solitude when it was needed—but even she was beginning to suggest that it was time to get busy. Bruno, direct as always, had told her one afternoon to "stop droop
ing around and go to work."

She had been to France twice since the crash. Once to bury him in the family plot, a request he had made before the races "in case anything happens." At the funeral, Pierre Dompnier had been a
broken man, totally destroyed by the death of the last of his sons.
Madame, quite unexpectedly, had been by far the stronger of the
two, buoyed by her strong religious beliefs and perhaps hardened by
their earlier losses. Monique had been stoic.

Then last month she had gone again, meeting Bruno and Charlotte in Orleans. It was a world turned upside down. The business had made the Dompniers prosperous, and Pierre was determinedly jovial. Monique had assumed the airs of a bank president, aloof,
crisply businesslike—except when she thought she was alone with
Bruno. Then she became Monique the coquette again. Something was probably going on.

In a dozen unconscious ways, never intended, the family some
how made it clear that they rejected and resented Patty, while they
accepted and even enjoyed Bruno. It made sense to her only when she separated events and looked at them dispassionately. She had interrupted their plans and taken Stephan away from them. Bruno had intervened with new plans that in some measure let the family
carry on despite the loss of their sons. She understood, objectively; subjectively, she felt a bitter resentment compounded by a sense of
personal failure.

A magpie, wings feather-edged in white, whirled in flight above
the lawn, then fluttered down to pick up some morsel. Its image
plucked a clear vision from the roiling mass of her confused emo
tions: she intended to go on flying. In part it was a fall-back
position—she really knew how to do nothing else. But in the main it was a visceral desire to experience again the joys of flight, the swift
transport from the complexities and frustrations of the ground to the
serene beauty of the sky.

She had genuinely mourned Stephan, but now it was time to get on with her life. He probably would not have wished her to fly,
knowing the danger as he did so intimately. But he would not have
forbidden it either.

The resolution stirred a sense of well-being in her, and she began
to plan her path of action. She would start over with some instruc
tion at the plant; then a few cross-countries, perhaps some aerobatic
work. Then she could see if she could do some racing, appear in some air shows. On the side, there would be flying to do at the factory.

In the long run, this wouldn't be enough. Flying, marvelous in itself, demanded recognition. She had a responsibility to other
women flyers to do well, to break down some of the barriers. A few
record flights, perhaps, and then a shot at the Bendix Trophy.

Not even realizing it, she had stood up and moved to the mirror, pushing her hair into place and checking her makeup. She could get someone to check her out in the company Waco this afternoon. No sense in wasting any more time.

She was changing into her flying clothes when she became aware
of the warmth of a deep sexual stirring. Except for some sad sweet
dreams of Stephan, it was the first since the accident, and it shocked
her. She sat on the edge of the bed, one leg in the jodhpur-like flying pants, and remembered one of Stephan's deep beliefs. The
joys of flying—dawn flights, the panoramic views of the countryside, the satisfaction of doing well—were heightened by a sweet,
biting sauce implicitly and irresistibly tinged with sex . . . and death.

*

Downey, California/May 16, 1933

The factory had thundered into life with a Stravinski-like overture of
clanging sounds. When the long-sealed hangar doors were popped open, the welcome breeze caused the silver-lettered red hanging
signs—"No Smoking," "Fire Extinguisher"—to jangle vigorously in
their chain traces, as if rolling up tin sleeves in anticipation of being
useful again. Bandfield and Roget exulted in the growing cacophony as the ordinary mechanics of starting up made the
building pulsate with life. From the crackling of the light switches
being snapped on to the rumbling tremors sent from the air com
pressor, the whole factory stretched and groaned back toward pro
ductivity.

The first real clamor came from the insistent cackle of riveting
machines as cut metal came together, small parts being assembled by men glad to have jobs. Downey's entire community benefited from the reopening, for almost as soon as the impressive "Roget
Aircraft Corporation" sign had gone up—Hadley had fabricated the
brass letters himself—two other businesses had moved in. One was a
hopeful flight instruction school, with an ancient Bird biplane as its
only trainer (Hadley offered them a deal on a Kitten right away) and
the other was an auto-body shop, and they gave the field a sense of
promise that had long been lacking. Bandfield had purchased a Kodak Brownie camera for $2.50 and was keeping a day-to-day record of the progress.

An argument had slowed them down temporarily. Hadley and Bandy were both working too hard, Roget driving the men on the
floor with an obsessive demand for quality while Bandfield bent over
the drafting board. Late at night, when everyone was gone, Band
field would sometimes slump over the table and feel twin red spots
drilling mercilessly through his closed eyes into his retinas, afterim
ages of the engineering room's bright incandescents. Between the
engineering and the financial worries, both men needed a vacation. They had survived Roosevelt's bank holiday only because the local
suppliers were totally dependent upon them and kept them afloat,
fulfilling orders far beyond the usual credit limits. There were damn
few dollars coming in and every day a new, surprise demand for dollars going out.

A major rupture almost occurred in mid-April. Bandfield had
forced his eyes open to stare at the two top drawings of the proposed
bomber in front of him, the one Hadley Roget preferred, and his own version.

"Look out the window there, Bandy. We can't screw around forever waiting for you to make a decision. You wanted to be president, and presidents make decisions."

Bandfield pushed his slide rule aside and glanced out the grimy
window to the assembly-bay floor. Work on the wing had stopped,
awaiting a decision. A swarm of men in gray coveralls were busy
fabricating the elevators and rudder, while others were finishing up
on the retractable landing gear installation.

Bandy's instincts told him they needed a super-lean aircraft, with
an oval fuselage that minimized drag, and the main bomb load carried externally. He figured that you had to have the extra drag only on the trip in; coming off the bomb run you'd be cleaner, and
faster. Hadley wanted a bigger fuselage, one that would hold more
fuel as well as bombs, accepting the cost of the extra drag.

He was certain Roget was wrong. They'd argued for days, and the
time had come to make a decision. The wing was almost complete, waiting for them to decide where the fuselage-attachment fittings would go.

All the calculations resolved down to a simple table. His airplane
could carry two thousand-pound bombs externally. It had a top speed of 190 mph, and could fly for about 600 miles. He insisted that the extra drag of the externally mounted bombs was more than
offset by the savings in weight and the reduction in frontal resistance
of the lean fuselage. Hadley's design offered the same bomb load,
carried internally with more room for fuel tanks. The top speed was
only 180 mph, but the range was 890 miles. Other than the size and shape of the fuselage, the two designs were identical, both using
630-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1860-11 engines.

"Okay, Hadley. Let's decide. But first let's talk about hiring someone to handle the production end. Do you think Howard can do it?"

Roget grunted. "Sure, easy, but I doubt if he's interested. He's learned about as much from us as he can." The older man flopped
down in a chair and propped his leg on the drafting table. "Besides, he's not reliable anymore. He's either off working some movie deal
or fiddle-fucking with that little Boeing biplane he bought. He's
talking about building a racer of his own. Anyway, I'm not sure he
can keep his mind on the job and his pecker in his pants. Even when he is here, he's gone half the day, either chasing that cupcake
down at the cafe or dragging his own beauties around. He must have
the name and address of every starlet in Hollywood!"

Bandfield avoided grinning. He sometimes went out with
Hughes's leftovers, some of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen,
and Roget knew it.

"But before we hire anybody, we've got to decide which airplane
to build. We've waited too long already."

Bandfield accepted the rebuke resignedly. Hadley was all get-up-and-go, never willing to stop and reflect. The delays in deciding had
bothered Bandy, but were killing Roget.

"No, we haven't lost too much time. A week maybe, no more. I think my design is right, even though you've been building airplanes a long time. The main thing is that I think I know how the
Army thinks. They're going to be impressed by top speed more than anything else. It's just like in Peru. Santos was only going to be
impressed by the dogfight, no matter what else happened."

When Roget disagreed, he had a way of snorting, tossing his head back, and rolling his eyes that infuriated Clarice; it was beginning to
get on Bandfield's nerves as well.

"Doesn't make sense, Bandy. They're not going to race the
airplanes. They'll probably never fly at top speed. They need range and bomb load. You forget I spent a little time at Wright Field. And
remember—I was responsible for most of the wing design, and I think I know what will work best with it."

Bandfield didn't say anything, and Roget continued, "Either one
is okay by me, but let me know what you want, now. It'll make a
difference in what we buy, and how we build."

The younger man motioned toward the window. "Look out
there, Hadley. We've brought part of this plant back to life. If we get
a contract, we'll have the whole place jumping. Forty people depend on us now for paychecks, but we'll employ ten times more if we make the right decision."

"I agreed that you'd be the boss, Bandy, so I'll do whatever you say. But let's decide."

Bandfield felt the familiar sense of compulsive Tightness descend
on him. He tried to shake it off, to be totally objective, but the
feeling came through. "I've got to do it my way. The competition is
in June. Can we make it?"

Hadley jumped up grinning, glad to have a decision even if he
didn't agree with it. "We'll make it. We'll roll it out the first of May, test it for three weeks, and fly it to Dayton at the end of the month."

The thought of actually having an airplane he could fly instead of
a mass of jumbled metal sustained Bandfield as he slogged through
the last of the engineering paper shuffle. Most of the remaining
design work was now in the small fittings whose needs were pre
viously unforeseen, and the two young engineers he'd hired were
doing well with these. Building airplanes was a funny game. After
what seemed like weeks without any progress, the skeleton was
stop-framing along like a hesitant animated cartoon, and the fuse
lage was now solid and even beginning to show a few wear marks
from the people climbing over it. The slender ovals of the formers had been linked together with aluminum stringers, and then, like
shingling a roof, were covered by the specially shaped sheets of thin
aluminum skin. The completed wing was on a parallel assembly
line, its anodized metal surfaces protected by a paper wrapping until
it was mated with the fuselage.