It was a seat-pack type ’chute and as comfortable to sit on as the seat. Silently Jerry strapped on the heavy harness, put the chocks and a few other miscellaneous articles comprising their scanty equipment on board and clambered into the front cockpit. There wasn’t much room in there for him, for not only was the baggage bulky, but the ship still had the stick and rudder bar dual controls connected up. Beak’s last job at this field had been helping an old war pilot try to get back the feel of the air at thirty dollars an hour.
“Keep that duffel clear of the controls and check me on the chart,” Beak shouted, passing Jerry a dirty map of the southern New England states.
Jerry nodded and as they taxied out on the field he took a squint at the amount of country between them and Pittsfield. It was a long way to go with the sun beginning to incline toward the horizon. He glanced up at the sky. A few stray cumulus clouds were heading westward at a perceptible rate. That meant they would have a brisk easterly cross wind most of the way northward. Winds mean something in an old and underpowered ship.
“But he’ll get there,” Jerry muttered, with grudging admiration. “Blast the old crab, he’ll get there! He always does.”
Beak Becket swung his ship abruptly into the wind and gave her the gun. Perversely he kept her tail down and her wheels on the ground until it seemed certain that she would crash through the fence. Jerry gripped the sides of the cockpit. But Beak, at the last second, bounced her off. He headed her upward in a zoom that continued until Jerry reached again for something to hang onto in the coming crash.
As the ship reached the stalling point, wavering in the air, Beak jerked her over onto her nose and regained control in a dive that brought the landing wheels within touching distance of the road. After this display he headed her prosaically on her course. The ship gained altitude steadily, her old ninety-horse motor thundering at full throttle.
“The crazy old crab, he’s a better airman than I'll ever be,” Jerry muttered. He turned around and discovered Beak grinning maliciously at the back of his head. Beak cut the gun promptly.
“Worried about your investment?” he shouted, in the sudden cessation of uproar. “If you’d been at the stick, kid, you’d ha’ been a bankrupt in hell right now!”
Jerry didn’t answer. While Beak was in control of the ship he was in a position to win any argument. And Jerry was in the forward cockpit—the one that hits the ground fastest and hardest.
He wriggled around in the small compartment until he had made himself fairly comfortable in the midst of the duffel. Then he looked over the map.