His to fly

by Richard Howells Watkins
One Parachute and Two Men—and the Ship Couldn’t Land. What Happened?
A biplane on the further side of five years, but spruce enough, considering her age, stood silent at the edge of a New Jersey meadow, while a thin, sandy-haired young man in dungarees ministered to her numerous wants with a pair of pliers.
He was busy on the interwing wires, methodically tightening or loosening turnbuckles according to his idea of rigging. From this work he looked up with a nod when a rickety flivver rolled up to the edge of the field and his partner, “Beak” Becket, got out.
Though Beak had been to town merely to get some cigarettes and to transact a small business matter, he wore the full regalia of a pilot—leather coat, whipcord knickers and glistening Cordovan puttees. On his head, accentuating the eagle-like curve of his brown nose, was a new leather helmet, with tabs unfastened. His eyes were habitually fierce, also like an eagle’s, and now they seemed fiercer than usual to Jerry Tabor.
When the flivver driver had been paid, Beak took off his fine jacket, lit a cigarette and strolled over to the plane. With the removal of his coat, Beak had also removed something else—something less tangible, perhaps, but none the less apparent. For the coat had concealed the fact that Beak’s whipcord knickers fitted him a bit too snugly and that his stomach ran his chest a close race in the matter of prominence.
Beak Becket glowered at his partner. He kicked a chock vigorously out of the way. Then he tested the tension of one of the wires with a grip of his hand and scowled at the young man in dungarees. Jerry looked up with a certain apprehension in his face.
“You get some of the strain off those lift wires, and do it in a hurry, too,” Beak said petulantly. “Don’t you know yet that lift wires should be slack when she rests on the ground?”
“That wire was so loose it vibrated like a harp cord when I test-hopped her,” Jerry Tabot explained mildly. “I’ll take some out, Beak, but—”