Broughton swung up the James River and passed between Petersburg and Richmond. The smiling Virginia country was level and cleared, and there was nothing to weigh on the flyers’ minds except what might happen at the end of the flight. Both of them let their thoughts dwell on what lay ahead. Perhaps Graves’ mind was running in the same channel, but he was apparently devoting all his faculties to enjoying the flight. In a Martin the country is spread out before you—you can watch it as comfortably as from some mountain peak.
They were flying slightly north-west, and passed Richmond a few miles to the south. The terrain commenced to become rough and patchy. Fields were small and clumps of trees studded the ground thickly. Miles ahead the Appalachian Range loomed majestically. The altimeter showed six thousand feet, but the Martin would not miss some of those peaks by a very large margin.
Both Hinkley and Broughton paid increasing attention to the instruments as the foothills slipped behind, their low green tops rolling away to the foot of the range. Finally Hinkley held up his wrist-watch and pointed. It was time for his trick at the wheel. Both men loosened their belts. Hinkley stood up, took the wheel, and waited for Broughton to slip into the left-hand seat.
It was not a performance to be essayed by a nervous person. The ship skidded perilously during the moment when neither man had his feet on the rudder bar.
Hinkley took up the duty of flying while Broughton began studying his map. Their course would take them past Lexington, which would be an easy landmark because of the fact that the campus of the Virginia Military Institute could be easily picked up. From that time on careful observation would be necessary, for few landmarks are available at all, and these few unreliable, when one is well over the Appalachians.
Lexington slipped by, and the Martin thundered along above a smiling valley. Hinkley watched the compass like a hawk, striving to hold exactly to the course they had calculated. Soon they were over the main range of mountains—for the next hour their only hope lay in those two mighty Libertys.
It was a scene of breath-taking majesty to look down on the far-rolling range, the mountain tops of which were less than a thousand feet below. The bottoms of the ravines, however, were far down, the infrequent houses as tiny as doll dwellings. The altimeter showed six thousand feet.
Broughton’s map showed that a small river, winding its way north and south, should come in sight very soon. By following that river northward until a railroad that twisted and turned on itself, crossed it, they would be twenty miles due east of Farran County. When they reached Farran County they would have to depend on observation to pick the right place, for only an approximate location was indicated on the map as Hayden’s headquarters.
As they reached the crossing of the river and the railroad Broughton leaned over and tapped the motionless Graves on the shoulder. Graves turned, and Broughton pointed to the map and then below, indicating the crossing. Graves nodded.
As Hinkley turned due west and they roared toward their goal Graves studied the faces of his assistants once more. Hinkley’s thin face was more hawklike than ever below the tight-fitting helmet and the goggles. The aerial headgear gave him a Mephistophelian appearance. There was a sort of perverse recklessness graven there, and not a trace of weakness. Broughton, clear-eyed and untroubled, seemed to typify quiet capability. Graves turned again to the primeval grandeur below with a contented smile.