“Whew,” said Bob. “What did he do, turn around?”
“No, he couldn’t. And anyway, there was no other place to land. The field was surrounded by dense forests. He had to make it. He brought his plane down without hitting a stump, and then zig-zagged wildly from stump to stump like a croquet ball trying to miss wickets. And he missed them all, too, except one. The wheel hit it an awful smack, and collapsed. The plane tilted up on its nose, and came to rest with its propeller in the ground and its tail waving gayly in the air, not at all like a proper plane should.”
“And killed them all,” said Pat.
“Who, Hawks? Not on your life. He’s a lucky fellow. Not one of them was hurt. They climbed out of the plane, and were greeted by the natives, joyously and with acclaim. And not one of the natives seemed to suspect in the least that this wasn’t the way a plane should land. Or at least the way a crazy American would land a plane.” The Captain finished his story, and paused.
“Well,” said Bob grudgingly, “that was a good story, too. But, as I was saying, Lindy was a good stunter, and a good flyer. He decided that he wanted a plane of his own. He heard that there was going to be a sale of army planes down in Georgia, and he went down and bought a Curtiss Jenny with the money that he had saved from his stunting work. He fixed it up, and was soon off barnstorming again. But I guess the Jenny was too clumsy a boat for Lindy. He wanted to fly the newer, better planes that the army had. So he joined the army’s training school at Brook Field, San Antonio. This was when he was 22 years old.
“I guess he got along pretty fine at San Antonio, and he was sent down to the pursuit school at Kelly Field. He joined the Caterpillar Club there. It was the first time that he had to jump from a moving plane and get down with his parachute. I guess it was a pretty close shave.”
“Gee, how did it happen?” said Hal, his eyes wide.
“Wait a second, I’m coming to it,” said Bob. “He and another officer were to go up and attack another plane that they called the enemy. It was a sort of problem they had to work out. Well, Slim dove at the enemy from the left, and the other fellow from the right. The enemy plane pulled up, but Lindy and the other officer kept on going, dead toward each other. There was an awful crack, and their wings locked. The two planes began to spin around and drop through the air. Lindy did the only thing there was to do. He kept his head, stepped out on one of the damaged wings, and stepped off backwards. He didn’t pull the rip-cord until he had fallen quite a way, because he didn’t want the ships to fall on him. When he’d gone far enough, he pulled the cord, and floated gently down. That was the first.”
“And the second?” said Hal.
“The second,” went on Bob, “happened in 1927, just about a year before Lindy flew the Atlantic. He took a new type of plane up to test her. He put her through all the stunts that he could think of, and she stood them all right. It seemed as though she was going to come through the test O.K., when Lindy put her into a tail spin. They spiraled down for a while, and Lindy tried to pull her out of it. She wouldn’t respond and went completely out of control. Lindy tugged and yanked at the controls, but he couldn’t get that bus to go into a dive. He did his best to save the ship, but it was no use. He didn’t give up until they were about 300 feet from the ground, which is a mighty short distance to make a jump, if you ask me. But Lindy made it, and landed in somebody’s back yard, the wind knocked out of him, but otherwise all right. That was the second.”