While they were adjusting the safety belts, Cadet Shane came running along the line of hangars. He scrambled aboard Black’s lower wing and talked into the instructor’s left ear. Black throttled his motor low, pushed back his goggles, thought for half a minute, studied his instrument board dials, shook and kicked his controls, then turned to the man in the rear seat and said:
“Sergeant, I’m going to give the cadet his hop. These controls seem to be O.K. Chances are, there was nothing wrong with them.
“Jump out, Sergeant, and I’ll let you know how they act. Watch my first turn of the field and see how I’m getting along. Climb in, Shane! Let’s get going!”
The sergeant went back to the hangar. He wasn’t talking to anybody, for the time being, but he hurled an open can of red paint the length of the big building and said to a few idle privates—
“Clean that up!”
Then, where a group of flying cadets were busily rolling two small cubes on a work bench, the sergeant came down in hot wrath, threw the harmless squares through the skylight and yelled—
“Get to hell out of this hangar and stay out!”
After that the sergeant went out, retrieved the dice and reestablished the game. He told the cadets that he was sore about something but could not recall just what. After sending the privates off to goldbrick in the post exchange, the sergeant mopped up the paint.
Master Sergeant Sciples, in charge of the hangar, came along to start the day. Sciples was spending this enlistment on the construction of certain souvenirs. And at no time did he allow hangar work to cut in on his program. He was an easy boss. Sciples looked at his sergeant rigger and came out in language that lay people erroneously suppose is solely characteristic of the Marine Corps. Here and there, without half trying, Master Sergeant Sciples could extemporize in a manner that would make the Marine Corps’ glossary look like a first reader for morons. Sciples’ language, to say the least, was able.
“Sergeant,” he said, “one look at you, you tells me that you haven’t had your morning flight. When will you forget this flying stuff and put your mind on next week’s debut into the outer world? Why, you— Snap into it and get wise!”