“That’s all then, I guess.”
“And the ship is ready,” said Hinkley.
“I left my helmet over in the hangar. I’ll be right out,” said Graves.
He started for the hangar with long, unhurried strides.
“Larry, I’m growing to believe that this man Graves has got something on the ball,” Broughton remarked slowly as they walked toward the ship. “In addition, he’s got nerve.”
That was a lot for Broughton to say on short acquaintance, and Hinkley knew it.
“I wouldn’t trust any man in the world in a knockdown fight as far as I could throw this Martin, Jim, without seeing him there first,” the tail pilot said. “But I feel a lot easier in my mind!”
IV.
Graves climbed in the observer’s cockpit, which is the extreme nose of the ship. Directly behind him, seated side by side and separated from him only by the instrument board, were Broughton and Hinkley. Broughton was behind the wheel. On the scarf-mount around the observer’s cockpit a double Lewis machine-gun was mounted. Several feet back of the front cockpits, where a mechanic ordinarily rode, another twin Lewis was mounted on a similar scarf-mount.
Broughton turned on the gas levers, retarded the two spark throttles, and with his hand on the switches of the right-hand motor waited for the mechanics to finish swinging the propeller.