A new field service motor truck was moving past them, evidently bent on servicing some plane about to depart east, west, north or south; which Perk eyed with admiration; for he knew what a comfort it was to have one of these up-to-date contraptions swing alongside, and carry out all the necessary operations of fitting a ship out, which in the old days had to be done by hand, with the assistance of field hostlers.
“Anyhaow, we doant need a single thing to set us on aour way, which is some comfort,” he remarked to his mate as they arrived at their destination.
While Jack was making all arrangements for their big Fokker to be taken out of the hangar, and brought in position for taking off, Perk continued to look eagerly around him, as usual deeply interested in all that went on in connection with a popular and always growing airport, of which Candler Field was a shining example.
“By gum! if there aint one o’ them new-fangled air mail flags, painted on the fuselege o’ that Southern Air Fast Express ship gettin’ ready to pick off; an’ say, aint she a beaut though—regulation wings in yellow, with the words ‘U. S. Air Mail’, an’ the upper an’ lower borders marked with red an’ blue painted lines. Gosh! I’d be some proud naow to be handlin’ sech a nifty ship in the service I onct worked by; but no use kickin’, what I’m adoin’ these days is heaps more important fo’ Ole Uncle Sam than jest acarry’n’ his letter sacks. An’ mebbe that ship means to head back jest where we come from, Los Angeles, an’ San Diego, by way o’ Dallas, Texas. Haow they keep askippin’ all araoun’ this wide kentry, day an’ night, like grasshoppers on a sunny perairie—the times o’ magic have shore come to us folks in the year nineteen thirty-one.”
Other sights greeted his roving eyes as he held himself impatiently in check waiting for Jack to give him the word to start. Both of them had hurriedly changed their clothes, and were now garbed in their customary working dungarees, stained with innumerable marks of hard service, yet indispensable to those who followed their calling.
It certainly did not take long for their ship to be trundled out on to the level field, and brought into position for taking off. There was considerable of a gathering, considering that it was now so late in the night; and Perk, giving a stab at the fact, came to the conclusion there was something out of the common being, as he termed it, “pulled off”—possibly the presence of that beautiful emblem of the air mail service on the fuselage of the western bound mail and express matter carrier had to do with the occasion—a sort of honorary christening, so to speak—he was content to let it go at that.
Jack was still talking with some one he seemed to know, some one who must surely be a fellow pilot, for he was dressed in regulation dingy overalls, and kept hovering near that fine multi-motored Curtiss Kingbird plane that he, Perk, understood belonged to the new fleet of the line to be operated in a short time between Atlanta and Miami, Florida, carrying passengers, the mail, and express between the two airports.
Thus far there had been no sign of the ubiquitous newspaper man, and Perk continued to bolster up his hope this might continue to be the case to the very moment of their departure. It would be a bit exasperating should the fellow suddenly burst upon them, jumping out of a taxi, and tackling Jack with a beastly shower of questions that were suited to the ends he had in view of building up a fanciful story that must tickle the palates of the numerous readers of his department on aviation in the paper he served.
There, thank their lucky stars, was his companion giving the wished for call for him to stand by, as everything was fixed for immediate departure. In less than three minutes they would be taking the air, and leaving lighted Candler Field behind them—once that happy event had taken place and they could snap their fingers derisively at any attempt on the part of their determined annoyer to give them trouble.
“Huh! it’s to be hoped the pesky guy doant take a notion to hire a ship, an’ try to stick to aour tail, ashoutin’ aout his crazy questions like he spected us to done hole up, an’ hand him his story on a plate! Kinder gu—reckon as haow there aint much danger ’long them lines—it’d be a whole lot too hard fur him to manage. Okay, suh, right away!”