“If you did,” Barry Blake pointed out, “he’d still win, according to his twisted way of thinking. Crayle knows that open grudges are frowned on here at the Field. If you let yourself get mad enough to beat him up, your supervising officer will put that down to poor control, too, Chick. Another show of nerves might wash you out as a pilot—for good. Stick it out, man! The sixty-hour test is only a week away.”
The sixty-hour progress test is a landmark, warning the Randolph Field Cadet that his basic training is nearly over. Sixty hours of flight training have been accomplished. All fundamental flying movements have been mastered, of course, at primary flying school. At Randolph Field they have become still more familiar. Climbing turns, steep turns, “lazy eights,” and forced landings have been learned and practiced thoroughly. Now the pilot’s ability to fly by instruments alone is to be judged.
Both Barry and Chick Enders had worked hard to perfect themselves in flying “under the hood.” The test should have held no terrors for either of them. Yet, as the hour approached, Chick grew nervous. He knew that his instructors were watching him for signs of another explosion.
“I’ll have to be extra good today,” he told his roommates, as the three donned their coveralls that afternoon. “Captain Branch just had me in the office for a little talk. I’m worried, fellows.”
“I noticed that you were sort of ‘riding the beam’ when you came into the locker room,” Hap Newton said, picking up his parachute. “Eyes fixed on vacancy, expression of a calf in a butcher’s cart, and all that. ’Smatter, Chick—did he bawl you out?”
“No, Hap, he was kind—too kind entirely. Reminded me of a sympathetic executioner. He’s flying with me on this test—in his own washing machine. If he so much as coughs when we get ‘upstairs’ I’ll probably reef back the stick and go into a stall.... Well, wish me happy landings. I’m taking off.”
Barry Blake shook his head gloomily at Chick’s departing figure.
“The kid’s in a storm already,” he muttered to Hap. “If Chick were the best gadgeteer on the Field he’d never pass a test under the hood with that case of jitters.”
“Instrument flying will show jumpy nerves every time,” Hap agreed. “It’s tough, Barry. The whole thing started when Glenn Crayle doped the ‘Jeep’ stick with itching powder. Of all the lowdown, squirmy tricks, that was the worst! And he’ll be tickled half to death if Chick is washed out.”
Barry Blake was so upset about his friend that his own nerves were none too steady. When he stepped into the cockpit, however, he took a firm grip on himself. Glenn Crayle, he vowed, should not have the laugh on two of them.