Famous Flyers

Bob Martin stood outside the large red brick house and whistled. He whistled three notes, a long and two short, which meant to Hal Gregg inside that Bob wanted to see him, and to see him quickly. Something was up. At least, that was what it should have meant to Hal, but evidently it didn't, because no answering whistle came out to Bob, and no head appeared in any of the windows.

Bob whistled again, this time a little more shrilly, and he kept on whistling until a pale, spectacled face appeared at an upstairs window. The window was thrown open, and Bob shouted up before Hal Gregg had a chance to speak.

"Hey, what's the idea of keeping me waiting? Hurry up, come on down, I've got something great to tell you."

"Hold your horses. I didn't hear you whistle at first. I was reading," called down Hal.

Bob snorted. "Put it away and hurry up down. Books can wait. You should hear the news I've got to tell you."

"The book's swell," said Hal. "It's that new book on aviation I got for my birthday. Is your news more important than that?"

"You bet it is," yelled Bob. "And if you aren't down here in two seconds, I'm going to keep it to myself. And won't you be sorry!"

Hal laughed. "I'll be down in one second. I'm not going to have you knowing anything I don't know. You're too smart now." The dark head disappeared from the window, reappeared atop the narrow shoulders of its owner at the front door within a few seconds, bobbing about as he leaped down the front steps two at a time. Hal Gregg joined his pal Bob under the maple tree on the Gregg front lawn.

The two boys made a strange contrast as they flung themselves down in the shade of the tree. They were the same age, sixteen, with Hal having a little edge on his friend. But Bob could have passed for the other boy's big brother. He was a full head taller, his shoulders were broader, his complexion ruddier. He was the typical outdoor boy, with tousled brown hair, a few unruly freckles, and a broad pleasant face. Hal Gregg was short and slight, with sloping narrow shoulders. His complexion was dark, and his large, serious eyes were hidden behind shell-rimmed eye-glasses. Yet though they were such a badly matched team, the two boys were fast friends.

Their friendship had begun strangely. In the first place, they lived next door to each other, on a quiet, shady side-street in the large city of Crowley. Bob had lived there first, while the red brick house next to his had been empty for a long time. Nobody Bob's age had ever lived in that house, and he had grown to look at it as an old fogey sort of a house, very dull, and fit only for grownups. It didn't seem as though young people could ever live in it. So he'd been pretty much excited when he found out that the house had been sold, and that a boy his own age was going to move in.

But his first glimpse of Hal was a disappointed one. "Oh, golly, just my luck," he said to his mother. "Somebody my own age moves in next door at last, and look what he turns out to be."

Mrs. Martin had also caught a glimpse of Hal as he had got out of the automobile with his mother, and entered the house. "He seems to me to be a very nice boy," she said quietly.

"Nice! That's just the point. He looks as though he's so nice he'll be as dull as ditchwater. I'll bet he's the kind that can't tell one airplane from another, and buys his radio sets all made up, with twenty tubes and all kinds of gadgets. Lot of fun I'll have with him!"

Mrs. Martin smiled and said nothing. She was a wise mother. She knew that if she praised Hal too much he would seem just so much worse in her son's eyes. So she resolved to let him decide for himself, just as she always let him decide, whether he wanted Hal for a friend or not.

For several days Bob saw nothing of Hal, but one day, as he rode his bicycle up the driveway that separated the two houses, he heard someone hail him. He looked over into the Gregg yard and saw Hal there, stretched out in a steamer chair, an open book in his lap. He looked very small and puny. Bob got down from his bike. He was embarrassed. Hal hailed him again. "Come on over," he called.

Bob got down and walked over to where the other boy was sitting. The meeting between two strange boys is usually a hard one, with suspicion on both sides. But Hal seemed surprisingly pleasant. "I've seen you riding around," he said, "but I haven't had a chance to call you before. I'm Hal Gregg. You're Bob, aren't you?"

"Sure," grinned Bob. He was beginning to think that this Hal might not be such a bad sort. "How did you know?"

"Oh, I'm a Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, I've heard your mother calling to you. And if she calls you 'Bob,' that must be your name."

Bob laughed, "You're right, she ought to know," he said. But he didn't know what to say next. Hal filled in the gap.

"You go swimming a lot, and bicycling, don't you?"

"Sure," Bob replied. "That's about all a fellow likes to do in summer. Don't you swim?"

Hal's forehead wrinkled. "My mother doesn't like me to go swimming," he said. "I've never had a bike, either. You see, my mother's always afraid that something'll happen to me. She hasn't got anybody but me, you know. I haven't got a father, or any other family. I guess that's what makes Mother so anxious about me."

"My mother never seems to worry very much about me," said Bob. "At least, she never shows it."

Hal looked at Bob enviously. "You don't have to be worried about," he said. "You're as husky as they come."

Bob felt himself getting warm. This wasn't the way for a fellow to talk. All of his friends called each other "shrimp" or "sawed-off," no matter how big and husky they might be. None of them ever showed such poor taste as to compliment a fellow. He guessed, and correctly, that Hal hadn't been with boys enough to learn the proper boy code of etiquette. But he just said, "Aw, I'm not so husky," which was the proper answer to a compliment, anyway.

"You sure are," said Hal. "You see, I was a sickly child, and had to be taken care of all the time. I'm all right now, but my mother doesn't seem to realize it. She still treats me as though I was about to break out with the measles any minute. I guess that's about all I used to do when I was a kid."

"With measles?" laughed Bob. "I thought that you could get those only once."

"Oh, if it wasn't measles, then something else. Anyway, here I am."

Bob's opinion of the boy had sunk lower and lower. He saw that they weren't going to get on at all. Why, the boy was nothing but a mollycoddle, and not much fun. "What do you do for fun?" he asked, curiously.

"Oh, I read a lot," said Hal, picking up the book in his lap.

Bob's mind was now more firmly made up. A fellow who spent all his time reading was no fun at all. And he needn't think that Bob was going to encourage any friendship, either. "What's the book?" he asked.

"A biography," said Hal.

"Biography!" thought Bob, but he looked at the title. It was a life of Admiral Byrd.

Bob's eyes lighted up. "Oh, say," he said, "is that good?"

"It's great," said Hal. "You know, I read every book on aviators that comes out. I've always wanted to be one-an aviator, you know."

Bob sat up and took notice. "Gee, you have? Why, so have I. My Uncle Bill's an aviator. You ought to know him. He was in the war. Joined when he was just eighteen. I'm going to be an aviator, too."

"You are? Have you ever been up?"

"No," said Bob, "but I'm going some day. Bill's going to teach me how to pilot a plane. He's promised. He's coming to visit us some time and bring his own plane. Dad takes me out to the airport whenever he can, and we watch the planes. I've never had a chance to go up, though."

Hal's eyes clouded. "I hope you get to be an aviator," he said, "I don't think that I ever shall. My mother'd never allow me to go up."

"Oh, sure, she would," consoled Bob, "if you wanted to badly enough. Have you ever built a plane? A model, I mean?"

"Have I? Dozens. One of them flew, too. You've got to come up to my workshop and see them," said Hal eagerly. "I read every new book that comes out. I think that airplanes are the greatest thing out."

"You've got to see my models, too. I made a Spirit of St. Louis the year that Lindy flew across the Atlantic. Of course it isn't as good as my later ones. Say, we're going to have a swell time, aren't we?" At that moment Bob knew that he and Hal were going to be good friends.

And good friends they were. There were a great many things about Hal that annoyed Bob no end at first. Hal was, without a doubt, his mother's boy. He was afraid of things-things that the fearless Bob took for granted. He was afraid of the dark-afraid of getting his feet wet-afraid of staying too late and worrying his mother. And then he was awkward. Bob tried gradually to initiate him into masculine sports-but it irked him to watch Hal throw a ball like a girl, or swim like a splashing porpoise. But he had to admit that Hal tried. And when he got better at things, it was fun teaching him. Bob felt years older than his pupil, and gradually came to take a protective attitude toward him that amused his mother.

Mrs. Martin smiled one day when Bob complained about Hal's awkwardness in catching a ball. "Well," she said, "you may be teaching Hal things, but he's teaching you, too, and you should be grateful to him."

"What's he teaching me?" asked Bob, surprised.

"I notice, Bob, that you're reading a great deal more than you ever have. I think that that's Hal's influence."

"Oh, that," said Bob, "why, we read the lives of the famous flyers, that's all. Why, that's fun. That's not reading."

Mrs. Martin smiled again, and kept her customary silence.

The strange friendship, founded on the love of airplanes, flourished. The boys were always together, and had invented an elaborate system of signals to communicate with each other at such times as they weren't with one another. Two crossed flags meant "Come over at once." One flag with a black ball on it meant "I can't come over." These flags, usually limp and bedraggled by the elements horrified the parents of both Bob and Hal when they saw them hanging in various intricate designs out of windows and on bushes and trees in the garden. But since they seemed necessary to the general scheme of things, they were allowed to go unmolested, even in the careful Gregg household.

The friendship had weathered a summer, a school year, and was now entering the boys' summer vacation again. It was at the beginning of this vacation that Bob whistled to Hal and called to him to come down to hear his wonderful news.

"Well," said Hal, "spill the news." It must be said of Hal that he tried even to master the language of the real boy in his education as a good sport.

"Bill's coming," said Bob, trying to hide his excitement, but not succeeding very well.

"What?" shouted Hal.

"Sure, Captain Bill's coming to spend the summer with us. He's flying here in his own plane."

"Oh, golly," said Hal, and could say no more.

Captain Bill was the boys' patron saint. It had been through his uncle Bill that Bob Martin had developed his mania for flying. Captain Bill Hale was Bob's mother's youngest brother, the adventurous member of the family, who had enlisted in the Canadian army when he was eighteen, at the outbreak of the war. When the United States joined the big battle, he had gone into her air corps to become one of the army's crack flyers, with plenty of enemy planes and blimps to his credit. A crash had put him out of commission at the end of the war, but had not dulled his ardor for flying. For years he had flown his own plane both for commercial and private reasons.

As Bob's hero, he had always written to the boy, telling him of his adventures, encouraging him in his desire to become an aviator. He had never found the time actually to visit for any length of time with his sister and her family, but had dropped down from the sky on them suddenly and unexpectedly every so often.

But now, as Bob explained carefully to Hal, he was coming for the whole summer, and was going to teach him, Bob, to fly.

"Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy," Bob chortled, "what a break! Captain Bill here for months, with nothing to do but fly us around."

Hal did not seem to share his friend's enthusiasm. "Fly us around? Not us, Bob, old boy-you. My mother will never let me go up." Hal's face clouded.

Bob slapped him on the back. "Oh, don't you worry. Your mother will let you fly. She's let you do a lot of things with me that she never let you do before. We'll get her to come around."

But Hal looked dubious. "Not that, I'm afraid. She's scared to death of planes, and gets pale if I even mention flying. But that's all right. I'll do my flying on the ground. You and Bill will have a great time."

"Buck up," said Bob. "Don't cross your bridges until you come to them. We'll work on your mother until she thinks that flying is the safest thing in the world. And it is, too. We'll let Captain Bill talk to her. He can make anybody believe anything. He'll have her so thoroughly convinced that she'll be begging him to take you up in the air to save your life. See if he doesn't! Bill is great!"

Hal was visibly improved in spirits. "When's Bill coming in?" he asked.

"Six tonight," said Bob. "Down at the airport. Dad says that he'll drive us both out there so that we can meet Captain Bill, and drive him back. Gee, wouldn't it be great if he had an autogyro and could land in our back yard?"

"Maybe he'll have one the next time he comes. What kind of plane is he flying?"

"His new Lockheed. It's a monoplane, he says, and painted green, with a reddish nose. It's green because his partner, Pat, wanted it green. Pat's been his buddy since they were over in France together, and anything that Pat says, goes. It's got two cockpits, and dual controls. It's just great for teaching beginners. That means us, Hal, old boy. Listen, you'd better get ready. Dad will be home soon, and will want to start down for the port. Say, does that sound like thunder?"

The boys listened. It did sound like thunder. In fact, it was thunder. "Golly, I hope it doesn't storm. Mother won't let me go if it rains."

Bob laughed. "I wouldn't worry about you getting wet if it stormed," he said. "What about Bill, right up in the clouds? Of course, he can climb over the storm if it's not too bad. But you hurry anyhow. We'll probably get started before it rains, anyway."

At ten minutes to six Hal, Bob and Bob's father were parked at the airport, their necks stretched skyward, watching the darkening, clouded skies for the first hint of a green monoplane. No green monoplane did they see. A few drops of rain splattered down, then a few more, and suddenly the outburst that had been promising for hours poured down. Bob's father, with the aid of the two boys, put up the windows of the car, and they sat fairly snug while the rain teemed down about them. The field was becoming sodden. Crashes of lightning and peals of thunder seemed to flash and roll all about them. All of the airplanes within easy distance of their home port had come winging home like birds to an enormous nest. The three watchers scanned each carefully, but none was the green Lockheed of Captain Bill.

The time passed slowly. Six-thirty; then seven. Finally Mr. Martin decided that they could wait no longer. "He's probably landed some place to wait for the storm to lift," he said. "He can take a taxi over to the house when he gets in."

Reluctant to leave, the boys nevertheless decided that they really couldn't wait all night in the storm for Captain Bill, and so they started for home.

Very wet, and bedraggled, and very, very, hungry, they arrived. Hal's mother was practically hysterical, met him at the door, and drew him hastily into the house.

Mr. Martin and his son ran swiftly from the garage to the back door of their house, but were soaked before they got in. Entering the darkened kitchen, they could hear voices inside.

"Doesn't that sound like-why, it is-that's Bill's voice," shouted Bob. The light switched on, and Bill and Mrs. Martin came into the kitchen to greet their prodigal relatives.

"Hello," said Bill, "where have you people been? You seem to be wet. Shake on it."

"Well, how in the-how did you get in?" shouted Mr. Martin, pumping Bill's hand. "We were waiting in the rain for you for hours."

"I know," said Bill, contritely, "we tried to get in touch with you, but we couldn't. You see, I came in by train."

"By train!" exclaimed Bob. "By train!"

"Why, sure," laughed the Captain, "Why, aren't you glad to see me without my plane? That's a fine nephewly greeting!"

"Oh, gee, Bill, of course I'm glad to see you, but-well, I've sort of been counting on your bringing your plane."

Bill laughed. "The plane's coming all right," he said. "We had a little accident the other day, and the wing needed repairing. I decided not to wait for it, but to come in on the train to be with you. So Pat McDermott is bringing the plane in in a few days. Is that all right? May I stay?"

"Yup, you can stay," said Bob. "But I want something to eat!"

"Everything's ready," said Mrs. Martin. "You change your clothes, and come right down to dinner."

"Sure thing," said Bob. But he did not change immediately. He stopped first to put two crossed flags in the window, which meant to Hal, "Come right over."

* * *