Trouble on His Wings (9 page)

Johnny relaxed as he
saw the Pacific reaching endlessly ahead. Yes, the pursuit planes were turning
back to Nagasaki.

What a shock the Army
boys would get up in Alaska when a Japanese bomber came roaring into their
choicest Aleutian harbor. What a shock!

And then Johnny's
smile sobered as he thought of what his own reception would be. There wouldn't
be anything for it this time—he was through.

Chapter
Eleven

T
HE
Army boys were embarrassed,
if privately amused, and were suspiciously eager to get Johnny Brice and party
out of the Aleutians as swiftly as possible, so that the bomber could be
quietly restored to Japan and no questions asked. Accordingly, an Army bomber
sped southeastward, via Anchorage, to Seattle where, at Boeing Field, a very
discouraged Johnny alighted, his face falling after he had thanked the officer
pilot and the need for forced spirits was done.

“Aw,” said Irish, as
they rode in a taxi into urban Seattle, “the worst he can do is fire us.”

“Yeah,” said Johnny.
“But news gets around. Three times is a charm, Irish, and just between you and
me, the movie industry, when it hears about it, won't be having much to do with
Brice and Company.”

They got out, from
force of habit, before the largest hostelry, the Olympic Hotel, and Johnny dug
up change for the cabbie. The Jinx began to be uneasy, scanning the crowds
restlessly, and very anxious to be out of public view. She had a premonition
that something was going to happen, and when they entered the lobby and a
bluff, derby-hatted individual stopped and gaped at her, she straightened up
like a soldier about to face the firing squad.

“Hey!” said the
thick-faced one. “Hey, you!” And he charged toward her.

Johnny was instantly
aware that nemesis had overtaken the Jinx and while he might take refuge in
superstition, there was something in him which sprang up now with a maul fist
and knocked the big guy kicking.

“Help!” bawled the
detective, struggling up. He surged in toward Johnny again and once more the
fist connected.
“POLICE!”
screamed the detective, once more bouncing to
his feet. Johnny set himself for a finishing blow and, suddenly, felt his arms
seized from the rear. A patrolman had him, the house detective had Irish and
the copper had the Jinx.

“Come on, you,” said
the copper, dragging the girl away.

“Jinx!” wailed Johnny.
“Wait a minute!”

“Goodbye, Johnny,” she
wept. “Goodbye, Irish.”

Johnny lowered his
head to struggle and then, finding the patrolman's grip too sure, looked up
again. But she was out of sight. Bleakly he stared at Irish and, feeling no
fight, the patrolman let him go.

“Y'gonna be good?”
said the patrolman, “or do I run you in? Grady gimme the sign to let you go,
but I ain't so sure.”

Johnny straightened up
his bedraggled coat and, with Irish, walked back to the street, escorted by the
house detective. The two stood there for a long time, and Johnny finally walked
to a drugstore and called the local precinct. Yes, Grady had reported in. No,
no information. No, the girl was leaving immediately for the East under escort.
Yes, no, couldn't give out any information. State Department business, maybe.

Johnny looked at
Irish. “Maybe she wasn't a jinx, Irish. Maybe I'm just a sorehead.”

“Whatcha gonna do?”
said Irish.

“We're
taking the next plane for New York. We got a scoop for the papers on that China
thing anyway. Maybe we can argue Felznick into taking us back. . . . Naw, no
chance. But let's go, anyhow. She'll need us.”

T
wo days later, Johnny and Irish,
still looking like something out of a grab bag, walked hopelessly into
Felznick's office. He wasn't at his desk and so they sat down, waiting, Johnny
so distrait he almost forgot himself far enough to start to light a smoke,
violating the one necessity of a newsreel office, where celluloid begs for a
spark. He recollected himself just as Felznick entered.

“Hello, boys,” said
Felznick.

“He don't know,”
thought Johnny. “Chief, we got into a little trouble. It wasn't exactly our
fault, but we couldn't fight the whole Japanese Navy—”

“With nothing to fight
with,” supplemented Irish.

“—and what's done is done.
We got a news scoop for the papers—” he cleared his throat nervously, “but the
film—”

“Oh, that!” said
Felznick, surprisingly. “Jack, come in here!”

Irish and Johnny,
wondering who Jack might be, looked at the doorway. A moment later there
appeared a person who scintillated, a person one hardly ever found off Park
Avenue, the finished product of all beauticians and the best dressmakers. In
silk and fur and lovely leather, smiling upon them, stood the Jinx.

Johnny gaped. He
leaped to his feet. “Hey! Am I crazy or—?”

Felznick looked
startled and then grinned. “Maybe you haven't been introduced properly. Brice,
this is Jacquelin Stuart, otherwise Jack, my much-abused stepdaughter. I admit
I have been wrong about her. She has always maintained that she could learn
this business if she had a chance and I've always said it was no place for a
girl. And when I told her last month that she was crazy, she took advantage of
those reserved cabins on the
Kalolo
to come back and protest by getting
a job with some other outfit. She wouldn't let me know. Now, is what she says
straight? Is she savvy enough to learn the business?”

“Good gosh,” gaped
Johnny. “But I thought the cops—”

“Since she ran away,”
said Felznick, “and especially during the past ten days, I've been bombarding
the country with her picture. Her mother was wild, thinking she was dead or
something. How about her ability?”

“Why . . . gosh . . .”

Jack's eyes pleaded
with him. Jack's eyes told him that she had braved the waves of the Atlantic,
fire, bullets and jail to see what it was all about.

“Sure,” said Johnny.

“Gosh, yes,” said
Irish, echoing Johnny's choice.

“Johnny,” whispered
the Jinx to herself, as though she had voiced a prayer of thankfulness.

“Now that's fine,”
said Felznick. “I never thought she had the guts. Maybe it's because I didn't
like her old man. But she'll get the outfit anyway, so I might as well act like
I feel—pretty happy that she proved her point. By the way, boys, do you want to
see your pictures? They're being fixed for today's release, rush stuff—special
billing and all that.”

“Pictures?” gaped
Johnny and Irish as one.

“Sure!” said the Jinx,
to cover up their surprise. “Sure they want to see their art. What a silly
question!”

Johnny dazedly
stumbled into the projection room and the Jinx almost had to hold him up. “How
in the name—?” said Johnny.

“I changed those
containers, dummy,” whispered JackJinx. “I slammed our reel in place of one of
theirs and theirs in place of ours, so the box he'd marked would be heavy. I
stuck it in my jacket front and later lashed it around my waist. Surprised?”

“You bet,” sighed
Johnny as he sank into a chair. “You saved my neck.”

“And you saved mine.”

“But those threatening
notes!” he whispered, puzzled.

The Jinx leaned very
close, her cheek against Johnny's.

“I wrote 'em,” she
whispered back. “To make you think—”

The lights went out
and the reel flickered to the screen. It ran through its entire length, and
then Felznick, forgetting Johnny had taken them, crowed, “How's that for a
scoop! There's drama, there, boy! Drama! That's news, the kind of service we
always deliver. World News is always first. We crash it before the papers. A
real scoop! It's got everything. . . .” By that time the lights popped on and
Johnny suddenly found his collar too tight.

“You weren't
listening!” said Felznick.

“Oh, yes, he was!”
grinned Irish. But he didn't add to what.

Story Preview

N
OW
that you've just ventured
through one of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age
collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of
The Battling
Pilot
. Join pilot Peter England, whose humdrum airplane routine is unexpectedly
disrupted when his company reassigns him to transport some special passengers.
But when his aircraft gets attacked by a mysterious fighter plane, Peter
realizes he's
transporting dangerous cargo—a
princess seeking to turn the tide of a war!

The Battling Pilot

P
ETER ENGLAND
sat brooding over four
throttles and a wheel. His eyes went restlessly from left to right and right to
left, taking in a couple square yards of meter-studded panel, watching oil
temperature on Engine Three, revs on Engine One.

A thin little fellow slid quietly
into the copilot seat beside him. England glanced in that direction with some
annoyance. “Huh. You're Tom Duffy. What—”

“On deck, Captain. I've been promoted
to Number Ten,” said Duffy, trying hard to hide his elation.

“Where's Nelson?”

“Sick list.”

“You ever fly a
kite
?”

Duffy blinked. “Why, I've been
copilot here for three years, Mister England.”

“No time to break in punks. I've been
on here for sixteen.”

Duffy looked sideways with some
misgiving. Pete England was top pilot on the line, a long, hard-jawed devil,
moody as Atlantic weather.

“You bet,” said Duffy. “Some day I
hope to be tops.”

“Don't,” said England bitterly. “Nothing
in it but grief.”

“Grief? Why . . . I thought it was
fun, scooting from New York—”

“New York to Washington,” said
England. “Washington to New York. New York to Washington. Washington to New
York. Lots of fun. You must be in a spin.”

“Oh, no,” said Duffy, his round face
glowing. “I think it's swell. Keeping up the tradition—”

“Tradition,” snorted England.

“Sure, tradition. You're the idol of—”

“Of what?” snapped England. “The
passengers? Hell, you'll be telling me this job is romantic in a minute.
La-de-da. You're a punk.”

Duffy blinked and squirmed in the
bucket seat.

“You're dumb,” added England, as an
afterthought. “A guy would have to be dumb to like this.”

“B-But you're tops!”

“You've got to get on top to look
back, don't you? Fun! What kind of fun is what I'd like to know. New York to
Washington. Washington to New York. Flying a kite. Lugging sixteen passengers
north for a lunch date, sixteen passengers south for a session with Congress.
What kind of fun is that? I know every silo from here to New York. I know every
spot on every cow. I can take a bearing on the number of milk cans sitting
outside a gate. What's the fun about that?”

“B-But gee!” said Duffy. “You don't
seem to realize what an honor it is—”

“To what? Cart sixteen passengers
around, and half of them airsick? ‘Mister Pilot, please don't hit the bumps so
hard.' Damn the passengers. Maybe ten years ago this was romantic. But that was
ten years ago. There was some element of danger then. Not now. This is as
common as pushing a locomotive from Podunk to Punkin Center. If it wasn't for
the pay, I'd have quit long ago. Say, what in hell is keeping those damned
passengers?”

Duffy looked down the tunnel made by
the awning and saw a group of people standing around the dispatcher. An
argument was evidently in progress.

“That fat dame,” said England, “is
Mrs. Blant. She's going to see her daughter's wedding. She better put a waddle
on or she'll miss the bells.”

“Gee, do you know all of them?”

“There's a
fellow there in brown I don't know,” said England. “But the rest of them . . . That guy in the blue overcoat is
sealing a construction job this afternoon and he's just about got time to make
it. That young gentleman is Secretary Lansing's boy, on his way back—”

“Here comes a girl and an old dame,”
said Duffy. “Know them?”

Pete England leaned forward and
looked across Duffy's uniformed chest. He scowled and shook his head.

“Nope,” said England, “and what's
more, we haven't got room for them. Boy, that old gal sure would break a
mirror.”

“The girl ain't so bad. Look there,
Mister England! If that isn't sable she's wearing, I'll eat it hair by hair.”

“Probably rabbit,” said Pete. “What
the hell is Dan up to?”

The dispatcher was following the pair
out to the ship. Above the mutter of the props, the pilots could hear the angry
protest of the regular passengers.

“Now what in the name of the devil is
this all about?” scowled England.

The dispatcher thrust his face
through the door and balanced upon a wheel. “All right, Pete. On your way.”

“All right hell,” said Pete. “You
sending me north empty?”

“You've got two,” said the
dispatcher.

“But what about Mrs. Blant?” said
Pete. “Her gal's getting married this—”

“Never mind,” said the dispatcher. “Number
Six will hit here in about thirty minutes. We'll send Johnson right back with
this bunch.”

“You mean,” said Pete, ominously, “that
you'll
gow up
the whole day's schedule and maybe leave me overnight in New York
just to send this dame and her grandma north? You're dizzy as a cuckoo clock,
Dan.”

“Never mind how dizzy I am. On your
horse, Pete.”

“She must be awful damned important,”
said Pete.

“She paid double for every seat in
the ship. She's plenty important. Take it easy, Pete.”

Savagely, England gunned the four
throttles. The big kite rushed away from the awning, braked in a half circle, charged
toward the end of the runway, whipped into the wind and stopped.

Out of habit, Pete swept his glance
over the panel.

“Wait a minute,” said Duffy.

“What the hell—”

A hand fell on Pete's shoulder. He
turned and looked back into the cabin. Right behind him and looming over him
stood the old lady. Her face was proud and haughty. She had the appearance of a
battle-scarred general commanding troops in a charge. Her beady eyes drilled
twin holes in England.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the
old lady, “but I must be quite certain that you are competent to fly this
machine.”

Pete gulped. He turned red. A blast
of hurricane intensity almost left his lips. He swallowed it, choked on it and
then managed, “Quite competent, I am sure, madam.”

“I must see your pilot's license,
sir.”

Pete swallowed again. He dug angrily
into his pocket and yanked out a compact folder stamped “Master Airline Pilot,
D of C.”

The old lady took it and carried it
back to the girl.

Pete's view of the young lady was
obscured by her companion's back, but he did see that the coat was really sable
even at that distance. She was, he grudgingly muttered, a looker, damn her.

The old lady came back and handed
Pete his license. “Her Highness is quite satisfied, sir. You may proceed.”

Pete blinked at the title, but for a
second only.

The old lady added in a wintery tone,
“You will, of course, fly low and slow, sir. And please avoid the bumps.”

“Yes, ma'am,” gritted Pete.

The four throttles leaped ahead under
his savage hand. The kite lashed down the runway, bit air, came off as lightly
as a puff of smoke, streaked around to the north, climbing, and leveled out for
New York.

“She said ‘Her Highness,'” said the
awed Duffy. “Gee, Mister England, you don't suppose she's royalty or something,
do you?”

“I'd like to crown her with a
crankshaft,” vowed Pete.

To find out more about
The Battling Pilot
and
how you can obtain your copy, go to
www.goldenagestories.com
.