Death of an Airman Read Free

rumbling at all costs when I come to fly.” The Bishop laughed. “Really, the word is quite apposite when one comes to think of it. What a lot I have to learn! You seem almost to speak a different language.”
    â€œTalking of language,” said his informant, “what in hell’s name is Furnace doing with that babe Vane?”
    Miss Sackbut was staring at the aeroplane which the Bishop had seen take off a little earlier. He followed her gaze.
    The gay red-and-silver aeroplane looked quite steady to the Bishop. It seemed to be climbing steeply and effortlessly, with the tail low down. But as he watched it, something terrible happened. It was all so quick that the Bishop found difficulty in grasping what really occurred. The aeroplane tilted sideways with a flick, the front dropped, and the contraption was whirling like a devilish top earthward, while the tail beat the air violently in a giddy spiral.
    Miss Sackbut’s voice rose in irritation. “Furnace is spinning. He oughtn’t to do that on the kid’s fourth lesson. Particularly with Vane, who’s qualifying as our worst pupil. It’ll scare the life out of him.”
    It was only now that the Bishop understood that this alarming manoeuvre was intentional. Rotating with the attractive precision of a top, the aeroplane still fell. Its wings flashed alternately silver and red as now the under and now the upper surface caught the sunlight. The Bishop could see in the cockpits two black heads, absurdly small, which appeared and disappeared as the aeroplane revolved.
    The spin ceased abruptly; the tail seemed to drop, and there was the machine flying again as before. He heard a rising drone, and the aeroplane climbed. Then the drone died down again, and the aircraft glided over the hangars, landing in front of them with a swinging swish of the tail.
    It stopped, turned rockingly and lolloped over the aerodrome back to the hangar. Sally walked up to it when it arrived and the Bishop followed her.
    Furnace jumped out of the front cockpit. He was flying without goggles or helmet, with a pair of ear-phones and speaking-tube mounted on a headpiece. The Bishop looked at the instructor with curiosity.
    Furnace seemed to be near the forties and might have been a handsome man had not a scar run diagonally across his face from one temple to the opposite jowl. Each feature was distorted where the scar traversed it and his mouth was twisted in a perpetual lop-sided grin, which made his real expression enigmatic.
    â€œAn aeroplane fire. He got chucked against a red-hot wire,” whispered Miss Sackbut, as she saw the Bishop’s eyes rest on the scar.
    The propeller stopped suddenly and a muffled object crawled clumsily out of the rear cockpit. This, the Bishop gathered, was the pupil. He was dressed in a bulky leather coat, enormous scarf, and large woolly gloves. He wore a flying mask, usually only adopted for high altitude or winter flying, which gave him a sinister appearance. The man looked portly, but when the coverings were peeled off he revealed himself as one of those lanky jockey-like youngsters, who might be any age between thirteen and thirty-five. At the moment there was rather a depressed expression on his peaky white face.
    â€œAll right, George,” said Miss Sackbut to Furnace, “XT can be put away. There’s no more instruction to-day.”
    â€œA good job too,” answered Furnace irritably. “In my young days we used to go solo in two hours. Now everyone seems to want about twelve hours. In another ten years they’ll take a fortnight. By that time I’ll be in a lunatic asylum.”
    He shouted to a thin red-headed man in dirty and tattered overalls: “Here, Andy, put XT away.” He muttered something to Miss Sackbut that the Bishop could not catch.
    â€œI want you to meet a new pupil,” said Miss Sackbut, introducing him to the Bishop.
    â€œI am afraid I shall fulfil your worst