Wings of War Read Free Page A

of the wings. But every moment has been worth it.
Bertha 7
is finished and she is beautiful.
    At shoulder height, a single wing stretches away on either side of me. A profusion of wires support the wings, splaying out like a parasol from the pole rising in front of me. The wings themselves and the fuselage I sit in are covered in doped fabric, but behind me, stretching away to the covered tail, is an open mesh of struts. Out of sight below me are more struts, to which are fixed four wheels from an old baby carriage. Wires run from these struts to help support the wings. In front of me, and blocking most of my view as Bertha sits on the ground, is the massive fifty-horsepower, six-cylinder engine that Horst acquired cheaply from his contact in Moose Jaw. In front of that stands my uncle, lecturing me and grasping one of the two vast propeller blades.
    “Check the controls.” Horst’s stern instructions interrupt my thoughts. “Yaw.”
    I look down to where my feet rest on a solid wooden bar. I push down my right foot and look over my shoulder to see the rudder on the vertical tailfin move to the right. In the air this will make me swing to the right, orrotate around the up-and-down axis. I repeat the process with my left foot and give Horst the thumbs-up.
    “Pitch,” he shouts.
    I grasp the control stick rising from the floor between my knees and pull it toward me. I look back and see the flaps on the horizontal tail surfaces rise. This will make me climb, or rotate around the side-to-side axis. I push the stick away and imagine myself diving. I give the thumbs-up.
    “Roll.”
    I move the control stick to the right and check that the flaps on the wings—Horst calls them ailerons—move up on the right side and down on the left. This will cause Bertha to roll to the right in flight, or rotate around the front-to-back axis. I repeat the movement to the left and wave a thumb forward.
    Apart from the engine throttle, which is screwed onto a wooden spar in front of me and controls the flow of fuel to the engine, these are the only controls. It’s simple, but it’s hard to remember everything in the air, and moving in three dimensions is much more difficult than directing Abby left, right, forward or back on solid ground.
    “Contact!” Horst yells.
    I pull the throttle out a little and give him the thumbs-up.
    My uncle hesitates and looks at me. “Be careful,” he says.
    I nod.
    Horst throws all his weight on the propeller blade and dives to one side. The engine coughs and a puff of dark smoke spits out of the exhaust. The propeller kicks round. I pull the throttle out a little more. The coughs come closer together and the propeller speeds up. More throttle. The coughs unite into a deep, shuddering roar and the propeller blurs. Bertha jerks forward, eager to be off. More throttle. The engine sound smooths and Bertha speeds up.
    I’m clenching the control stick so tightly that the knuckles on my left hand are white. I have to concentrate on not moving the stick left or right. If I do, Bertha will roll, the wing will catch the ground, she’ll be wrecked, and if I survive, I will never fly again.
    Faster and faster, Bertha and I bump and rattle forward over the stubble field. Is it fast enough? Gently, I pull back on the stick. Bertha’s nose rises. We hop about ten feet before Bertha comes back to earth with a shuddering thump. Not fast enough. I pull out the throttle. The engine note rises and Bertha surges forward, bumping wildly. I pull back on the stick again, praying that we are going fast enough this time. The fence at the end of the field is rushing toward us with terrifyingspeed. Then there are no more bumps. Bertha’s wheels clear the fence by a good two feet.
    “Woo-hooooooo!” I yell into the rushing wind. I’m flying!
    When I look over the side at a couple of startled cows twenty feet below me, my knee knocks the stick to the right and Bertha wobbles alarmingly. I forget the cows and concentrate on