His to fly

by Richard Howells Watkins

Jerry looked down, behind the lower wing and then, as if following backward with his eyes some feature of the ground, turned farther and contrived to get a glimpse at his choleric partner without looking at him directly. He became aware, with a sudden jolt in his chest, that one of Beak’s hands trailed over the side of the ship and that the hand clutched a flat, pint-size flask. Even as he saw it, Beak raised the bottle and flung it sidewise, out beyond the tail. It whipped astern; vanished as if dissolved in the dirty grayness.

“Huh!” Jerry muttered. “Hope that stuff hasn’t made him too optimistic.”

He looked around for the sun, but it had vanished, like the bottle. He glanced at the compass. The ship was no longer flying northeast; it was headed due east. Even as he stared at the instrument, the ship banked abruptly, swinging around until it was flying southwest. Beak was retracing his course; he didn’t like things now, either.

Jerry turned then and examined the pilot critically and without dissimulation. Beak’s eyes seemed brightly fierce even behind his concealing goggles. His mouth was grim and tight-set. His big, curved nose was as rigid and motionless as if it had been turned to stone. However much, Beak had indulged in earlier that day, he was cold-sober now.

The ship roared on, flying a straight, unvarying course. Abruptly, Beak jerked a finger toward the obscured ground beneath; then pointed southwestward, toward the clearer air from which they had come. But there was no visible earth in that direction, either. The sun had been vanquished completely; black night and filmy whiteness had allied and spread over the earth.

The fact that Beak had condescended to make this gesture of explanation filled Jerry with alarm.

“If he messes up this ship, landing—” Jerry mumbled angrily.

The motor spluttered, thundered on a few beats more, and spluttered into silence. Jerry’s heart jumped. He remembered then that it had been some time since he had looked at his watch. The big tank in the upper wing had been drained dry by the hungry motor.

In a sudden frenzy of activity he flung his body half over the side of the cockpit and with cold fingers tore at the lashings of the five-gallon can of gasoline that rode on the lower plane. His heavy harness hampered his movements; the ’chute pack got in his way.

Beak put the ship into an easy glide.