Rivals of the clouds

By Raoul Whitfield
Author of Cloud Raiders, Clipped Wings, etc.
Desperate, his plane afire, the German crashed into the rudder of Adams’ ship!
Zooming through a clinging, blinding fog, Lieutenant Adams flew straight into a death trap of flashing enemy planes and flaming, stuttering machine guns. This is an epic of the skies told by the ace of war writers.
There was plenty of it, this gray, clinging fog. Drifting slowly down the slope just west of the tiny pursuit squadron field, clinging to the branches of the gaunt trees, then sweeping out over the field itself, the fog moved. It hung within ten or fifteen feet of the soft earth, and it was thick. Thick and cold. Twenty minutes ago there hadn’t been any sign of it; now the barracks could not be seen from the nearest camouflaged hangar.
Lieutenant Ben Chapin came out of one end of the barracks and swore beneath his breath. It was almost eight o’clock and two ships were out on the dawn patrol. They had been out since a few minutes after six, and were due back any minute now.
A figure, short and chunky, emerged from the white screen of the fog, moving toward the barracks, a clap-board building considerably the worse for wear. Ben Chapin hailed the figure.
“Who’s flying the dawn patrol, Adjutant? Adams and Cole?”
The short officer shook his head, pausing beyond the reaching wisps of white stuff. He spoke in a grim voice.
“Adams and that new officer—Langdon,” he stated. “Looks tough, eh?”
Ben Chapin nodded. “Not so bad for Adams,” he said slowly. “He’ll have brains enough to fly back out of it, and land somewhere. But this Tex Langdon—the Lord knows what he’ll do!”
The adjutant swore. “Wild riding birdman!” he muttered. “But if he tries to come down in this stuff, he may finish up his career in a hurry.”