Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air (3 page)

He tipped the Dart into a shallow bank, west toward the mountains rather than toward the city and the harbor. The flying boats were making their pre-show runs in that direction, and he had no desire to get in anyone’s way. That was where he was supposed to be — Gilchrist Aviation had been hired to show off Floyd Odlum’s Catalina flying boat in its civilian configuration — but when Henry’s pilot had come down with a bad case of food poisoning, Henry had come asking for help, and Alma had figured the Cat outclassed everything else in its category by enough that they could afford to help Odlum’s sometime rival. Lewis still felt guiltily grateful: he’d be the first to admit that the Catalina was a clever piece of engineering, but it was big and slow and handled like a pig in mud. The Dart was fast and skittish and had a tendency to nose up if you weren’t paying attention, but once those wrinkles were ironed out, it was going to be one hell of a fighter.

“Tower, this is Dart,” he said again. He didn’t really have to let them know everything he was going to do, but he figured it was probably safer that way. “I’m coming around for a south-to-north pass along the main runway.”

“Roger, Dart. South-to-north along the main runway,” the tower repeated, and Lewis dipped the wings again, reversing onto the new course. He pushed the yoke forward as well, shedding altitude, the ground taking shape with gratifying speed beneath him.

He kept the angle steady at about twenty degrees, the controls flexing under his hands as he hit the disturbed air over the city. The airfield loomed ahead, the long main runway stretching straight and empty as he leveled out at five hundred feet. There were houses below him, white walls and red tile roofs and the rich greens of trees and grass, but for an instant his mind supplied the mud of the Western front, a few blasted stumps stretching shattered limbs to the sky while the barrels of the big guns thrust up out of their camouflage.  There were other planes on the taxiway, waiting their turn to practice or for maintenance; there was the tower itself, a few hundred feet to his left, rounded end jutting out like a lighthouse or the bow of a ship, and the hangers beyond.  His thumb moved on the yoke, pressing a firing button that wasn’t there, and in his mind’s eye he could see the tracers sleeting ahead of him down the field, destroying the planes and giving the tower something to think about… This was what Patton had been talking about in Hawaii, planes in the lead and the infantry following behind to mop up in the confusion.

He took a breath, deliberately putting that aside, and pulled the Dart up into a slightly steeper climb. That was not what he was here for, though he suspected at least half the other pilots saw exactly the same things. This was a civilian airshow sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Aviation, attended by representatives of countries who were solidly at peace if not actually allies, and he thumbed the radio button instead.

“Tower, this is Dart. Coming around for a north-south pass.”

“Dart, Tower. Roger that.”

Lewis checked his altitude and pulled the Dart up into a steep turn. Just short of the stall, he kicked the rudder bar and tugged the yoke over, tipping the Dart into an Immelmann turn. It was sloppier than he would have risked in combat, but from the feeling of the plane under him, he could do it properly next time. He leveled out at four hundred feet this time, and made another pass down the runway.

“Tower, this is Dart. Commencing acrobatics.”

The tower acknowledged, and he brought the Dart up and around in a split-S, lining up for a barrel-roll as he passed along the runway.  On the next pass, he tried a loop, scowling as he felt the Dart come a little too close to stalling.  The second pass corrected that, and then the Tower’s voice sounded in his earphones.

“Dart, this is Tower. Your practice time is over. You are cleared to land.”

I’m not finished. Lewis swallowed the words — it was what every pilot said or thought at this stage of a show — and instead tipped the Dart into a neat wingover.  “Tower, this is Dart. Roger, I am coming in to land.”

Henry and his lead mechanic were waiting as he taxied up to the hanger and killed the engine. One of the Italian mechanics set the chocks as Lewis hurried through the shut-down list, then slid back the canopy and levered himself out of the cockpit.

“Well?” That was Henry, hands on hips and his fedora pushed to the back of his head. He’d shaved his neat beard since the last time Lewis had seen him, revealing a surprisingly pugnacious chin.

“How did it look?” Lewis asked in turn.

“Good.”  Henry nodded.  “Very nice. You think you can fly Charlie’s performance, or do you want to do something else?”

Lewis released the chin strap of his helmet, rubbing the spot where the throat mike had pinched. “I’ll go with what he had, I think. She feels good, Henry.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Engines coughed to life outside the next hangar, and Lewis turned to see the flight of German light bombers lining up to taxi onto the runway.  They were biplanes, old-fashioned compared to the Dart and the two Italian fighters, but tough and sturdy-looking, and from the way they handled as they took off, they’d still put up a decent fight.  The Dart could take them, Lewis thought. Maybe not all of them at once, but one on one, or even two on one, he could take the Henschels.

“You ought to go back to the hotel,” Henry said. “Get a little extra sleep.”

Lewis swallowed his instinctive refusal — why would any pilot leave the field? — and offered an excuse instead.  “It’s too far.” The hotel where the airshow participants were staying was almost at the harbor. “I’d just get there and have to turn around. Besides, I’d like to get a look at the competition.”

“At least stretch out in the office,” Henry said.  “They’ve given us one, with a cot and everything — there’s even a girl to make coffee.”

“That I don’t need,” Lewis said. He didn’t much like the Italian coffee, strong and black and bitter as sin, had to cut it almost half and half with milk the way he’d learned to do in France. “I promise I’ll take it easy.”

“All right,” Henry said, still sounding doubtful.  “I’ll be back as soon as I know what your position is going to be.”

“Thanks.” Lewis watched him go, turned to see the mechanic boosting himself up into the cockpit. He knew the man well enough to trust him, and gave him a nod and a smile.

Carson nodded back, tugging his cap down further over his receding hairline. “Anything special I should know about, Mr. Segura?”

Lewis shook his head.  “She was running really nice. Don’t change anything that isn’t broken.”

Carson grinned at the familiar request. “Will do — or won’t, in this case. The office is right over there if you want it.”

Everyone seemed determined that he should take a nap. Lewis sighed but nodded, and made his way across the hangar to the office that had been set aside for them.  A carefully hand-lettered sign identified it as belonging at least temporarily to “Henry Kershaw, Republic Aviation (USA).” There were no lights on behind the pebbled glass, and when Lewis turned the knob, he found it unlocked.

There was no sign of the promised girl, but there was a cot set up behind a screen, and after a moment’s hesitation, he decided it was probably smart to take advantage of the opportunity. He stripped off his heavy jacket and the scarf and sweater he wore under it, then stretched out on the thin mattress, putting his arm over his eyes.

He felt a little guilty not being on the Catalina with his wife.  After all, Alma and the rest of Gilchrist Aviation had been hired to show the flying boat, and as Gilchrist’s third pilot, he was usually the flight engineer. It was a good job and a good plane — no one in their right mind would complain about a free trip to Italy, either, which was why Mitch and Stasi had brought the kids along — but it was vital that the plane show well, so that they could get more jobs like it —  He killed that thought. It had been obvious as soon as they got to Palermo that there wasn’t another plane in that class that could match the Catalina, especially with all the snazzy passenger hardware installed in the cabin. The only real competition was the Dornier Do 16, known as the Wal, and it didn’t really count.  Not that it was a bad plane, but it was more than ten years old, and from the look of it handled like the whale it was named for.  The Catalina was faster and bigger with more than three times the range.  No, Tiny Foster could take over as flight engineer. Lewis had been training him for that, and the kid was ready.  They didn’t need a radio operator for a show like this, could handle communications from the cockpit, though last night Mitch’s older son Jimmy had been angling for the job. He could probably do it, too, Lewis thought.  He had his own crystal set at home, and he understood about frequencies and tuning. The only question was whether it would look bad, or if it would point up what a good plane the Cat really was.

And that wasn’t his business right now.  His job was to show Henry’s Dart. He sat up and searched the pockets of his jacket until he came up with the flight plan Charlie Curry had laid out, unfolded it to study the neatly penciled lines. Two low, high-speed passes, the second with barrel rolls, Immelmanns into each: that was easy.  Loops, a split-s — yes, he’d tried pretty much everything on the list, was sure he and the Dart could handle it, and if he didn’t have the fluency Curry had, he was still the better pilot.  He let the list fall to his chest and closed his eyes.

The sound of a brass band woke him, loud even over the familiar rumble of engines. He sat up just as the door opened, and Carson gave him a quick smile.

“They’re starting the speeches. Doesn’t look like any of the flyers are bothering with them, though.”

“That’s a relief.” Lewis swung himself off the cot, and began reclaiming his flying clothes. “Do you know when I’m going?”

“Not for sure,” Carson answered.  “The flying boats and seaplanes are first, but after that — I haven’t heard.”

“Right.  How’s the Dart?”

“Topped up and ready to go. Everything looked good, I didn’t change a thing.”

“Thanks.”

It was warm enough that he didn’t need to fasten his flying jacket when he stepped out onto the tarmac: the Italian winter was just about as warm as California, and the Sicilian palm trees were enough like the ones in San Diego to make him wonder now and then just where he was.  Certainly the airfield was as good, and already as familiar, as many he’d used in the States. He squinted up at the thin clouds now drifting in.  The latest weather, chalked in English on the blackboard by the main office, put them at twelve thousand feet and likely to clear by evening, the tail end of a weak front moving off toward the Greek Isles.  Nice and clear tomorrow for the main show, and today there would still be plenty of room for everyone to maneuver, even those flashy new German fighter-bombers that the Versailles Treaty said they weren’t supposed to have…

He buried that thought as unsuitable for a polite American pilot at an international airshow, particularly when he wasn’t even representing his country. He was flying for private manufacturers who wanted to sell their planes to anyone who’d buy them, and it was his job to make the planes look good and not tick anybody off by mentioning politics.  At least most of the other pilots seemed to be in the same boat: he’d exchanged stilted greetings with some of them, fumbling for a common language, and he thought he’d seen the same concern in their eyes.

“Lewis!” Henry waved at him from the hangar door, then hurried across the parking area to join him.  “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

Lewis refrained from asking how he thought anyone could sleep through the noise of the oompah band by the grandstand. “I had a good nap. I’m fine, Henry.”

Henry took a breath, as though he was going to remind him exactly why it was important that he did a good job, but then stopped, shaking his head.  “I know. You know what you’re doing.” He held out a slip of paper. “You’re up next-to-last, after the Yak. It’s just the German monoplane after you.”

Lewis took the list, scanning the only slightly faded carbon. The German biplanes were first — gossip said the Henkel He-51 was good for its type, but the double-winged fighters were sadly outdated — and then two of the three Italian planes.  After them came the Curtiss prototype that was Henry’s real rival, then another Italian plane — the Ba.65, another prototype, then the Russian, and then the Dart. It was a good position, let him see what the other pilots were throwing and tailor his own presentation to match them. He didn’t know anything about the Bf 108 “sport plane” that was supposed to follow him.  Presumably it was another German attempt to get around the Versailles rules — it would be interesting to see what they’d managed to come up with.

“There’s a flyover by that German long-distance woman after your category,” Henry said. “What’s her name, Beinhorn? And then the fighter-bombers.”

“I’m very interested in them,” Lewis admitted.  There’d been rumors about the German entry there, too, a brand-new Junkers prototype barely off the factory floor.  It was to be flown by one of the surviving great aces, Ernst Udet, and that alone was going to be worth seeing.

“So am I.” Henry broke off, tilting his head to the side as a new engine noise cut through the crackle of speeches.

Lewis shaded his eyes to look, but there was no missing the cluster of shapes against the clouds.  A good dozen of them, flying in tight "V" formation — those must be the Italian flying boats, he thought, just as the loud speaker spoke again.  He recognized the title and name, Maresciallo dell’Aria Italo Balbo, and the roar of the crowd confirmed it.

“Balbo?” he said anyway, and Henry nodded.

“In a balbo.”  The big, tight formations and the control to fly them was largely Balbo’s invention, he deserved the credit. “They’ll do a flyover, then they’ll drive him back to the field for the rest of the ceremony.”

Lewis watched as the big planes dropped lower, still perfectly in formation, the ungainly double-hulled S 55s handled as neatly as though they were fighters.  They leveled off barely two hundred feet above the runway, roaring past still in their perfect "V.  The crowd was chanting “Balbo, Balbo,” the words becoming clear only as the planes pulled away again, and then the chant dissolved into cheers and clapping.