Hal pulled the earpieces of the speaking tube from under his helmet and climbed out of the cockpit.
He stood on the lower wing surface, holding on by a strut, waiting. Over his left shoulder he had a glimpse of the pilot’s strained face.
Maben was circling the plane lower and lower, flying just above the trees and the grandstand to catch the eye of the crowd.
Ready, go! It was the time. Hal, clinging to the strut, poised to walk out on that wing piece of fragile wood strips and cloth, had the ghastly feeling that his heart had stopped beating. Then its pounding sent the blood roaring to his ears.
No treat, this wing walking business! Suppose the pilot shoved the stick or jazzed the engine!
But Max Maben held his speed to a level; no dropping, no high-riding. Nice work! The ship steady on all axes, calm as a rocking chair in a parlor!
Hal’s terror wave passed. He stood free of the strut, walked, bowed, cut a step or two. With a man like Maben at the stick to hold her steady, this was nothing. No more than walking the boards of some earth-bound floor. All you had to do was to keep your mind on your feet, and not look over the edge. Through Hal shot a sudden daring desire to climb a strut to the top wing of the biplane, to stand there erect, outlined against the sky. He gripped a support preparatory to a climb.
Maben’s signal stopped him. It came sharply, the signal they had arranged upon, two quick taps on the fuselage. Hal turned. The pilot was glaring at him from under fiercely drawn brows, and his mouth was in a set line. Swiftly Maben gave the next signal, three taps. That meant the ship was going to climb for altitude for the parachute jump.
The altimeter began to mark up—fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand. Maben made a level movement with one hand. That meant all was ready. In slow reversements, Maben held the ship over the center of the field below.
“Go!” tapped the four beats of the signal.