He glanced back. Sure enough, McGee was still on his tail. No hedge hopping, eh? Huh! Trust 52The Shrimp to keep young, he thought. Fat chance they had of getting old. Who ever heard of an old war pilot? Ha! That’s a good one! And here’s a double row of tall poplars fringing the road directly ahead. Hold her close to the ground and then zoom her at the last minute ... landing gears just clearing the topmost branches ... make it, and that’s hedge hopping. Fail to make it–and that’s bad news!
Larkin made it, a beautiful zoom that carried him over the trees by a skillful margin. Then he swooped down again, skimming along the level field on the other side of the road.
McGee’s zoom was just as spectacular and as nicely timed, but as his nose climbed above the first row of trees his motor died as suddenly as though throttled by the strangling hands of some unseen genii. Sudden though it was, McGee had sensed that he was crowding the motor too much and had tried to ease her off and still clear the trees. It was too late to relieve the choked motor but he did clear the first row of trees. He was about to close his eyes against the inevitable crash into the poplars on the other side of the road when he saw that two of the trees had been felled, and that so recently that the woodsmen had not yet worked them up. There was one clear chance left. If only he could slip her over just far enough to clear the outstretched limbs of the tree to the right.
At such a time seconds must be divided into hundredths, 53and action must be instantaneous, instinctive, and without flaw. McGee felt one of the spreading limbs brush against his right wing tip, felt the plane swerve for a moment, then respond to rudder and aileron. It was a case where one moment he was supremely thankful for flying speed, and the next, as the ground of the level field was flashing under the wheels, wishing that he had held to his resolution concerning hedge hopping.
The wheels struck hard. The plane bounded, high, and again the wheels touched. Again the plane bounded, and this time came down with a shock that left McGee amazed with the realization that the undercarriage was intact and that he still had a chance to keep her off her nose if only he could get the high-riding tail down.
Crash! Crack! The tail was down now ... and broken to splinters, like as not. Never mind.... By some great mercy he was at last on three points and rolling to a stop.
He suddenly felt very weak. A narrow squeeze, that! Stupid way for an ace–and an instructor–to get washed out. Like a Warrior falling off his horse while on the way home from a victorious field.
He saw Larkin bank his ship into a tight turn, set the plane down in a perfect landing and come careening down the open field to stop within a dozen paces of McGee’s plane.
54Larkin, white-faced, tight-lipped, crawled from his plane and came forward on the double-quick. Not a word did he speak until he stood by the side of Red’s plane, his hands gripping the leather piping at the edge of the cockpit until his knuckles were white.
“What happened, Red? Gee, you’re white! All the freckles gone.”