“Sure.”
“The —— he is,” stated Fernald. “He’d better find a doctor and lay up here a few days and meet us in Cleveland again for the next trip. He’s as green as a drafted mountaineer, and——”
He was interrupted by another paroxysm on the part of George William. It was horrible to see his body wracked and wrenched around, without relieving the terrible nausea.
“Climb in one of those cars and get to a doctor as soon as we leave,” I told him. “The next Martins’ll be ready in five days. Meet us in Cleveland then.”
He made no answer, but walked weakly over to the side of the field, and sat there numbly. Bailey primed both motors, and then Les in his ship and I in mine pressed the self-starter buttons, and soon the four great Libertys were roaring a diapason of power. I watched the maze of instruments—just double as many as in a single-motored ship, of course—and then idled my left motor while I gave the right one full gun, tried it on either switch of the double-ignition system, and listened carefully.
Everything was sweet as a nut, and the same procedure was gone through with the other motor. My ship was r’arin’ to go, and so was Fernald’s. The field guard pulled the blocks and tossed them into the rear cockpit, and I turned my ship on a dime by using only the left-hand motor, which pulled the ship around to the right. Then followed Fernald’s huge Martin, like a house on wheels, up the field for the take-off.
The field lay practically east and west, and the western edge went right to the edge of the river. The wind was from the west. There was a screen of trees and undergrowth between the edge and the Ohio, the tops of the trees some fifteen feet above the level of the field. The growth was on the banks of the river, which sloped down from the field to the water.
As I was turning for the take-off Les, with Bailey beside him, gave his ship the guns. It roared away across the field, and in a moment his steady pressure on the wheel had the tail up. I waited, in order to give the air, which would be badly scrambled by the wash of two propellers, a chance to clear a bit. I set my goggles, jazzed each motor a bit, and shoved the two throttles all the way on just as Les left the ground.
In a Martin there is no obstruction to your view, the motors being to each side of you. It took all my strength, pushing against the wheel, to get the tail up. As my big bomber picked up speed Les was circling over the river.