Wings in the Spanish Legion by Lee Robinson Read online

  legionario? ” demanded

  trying to see how close he could skim the

  an artillery general, arriving with his glittering

  ground without touching it, he almost drove

  staff.

  his backbone through his skull at the smashing

  “Out of the way, up there!” shouted

  impact. Four times he bounced, and each time

  Aldridge, easing open the throttle in something seemed to break, each time he desperation lest he be ordered to dismount.

  landed nearer the ground. But the motor still

  “That Legion!” he heard an thrummed without a flicker. When he waddled exclamation, as the amphibian moved. A lopsidedly up to the hill, Sollano and Catozzi cheer was drowned in his ears as he shoved

  were running to meet him.

  the throttle open and careered wildly down the

  “That duck’s got a broken leg!”

  beach.

  shrieked the Italian excitedly.

  Far beyond the Spanish lines, with

  “To hell with the leg!” retorted

  tribesmen shooting at him and the gunboat’s

  Aldridge. “What we need is wings. Turn her

  shells geysering sand and smoke nearby, he

  around, and get aboard. Look what’s coming!”

  pulled resolutely on the stick. Over the desert

  With sidelong glances at the landing

  Frontier Stories

  10

  gear, they turned the machine and climbed

  their hands describing circles in the air.

  breathlessly in. A wave of yelling horsemen

  Another backward glance revealed his

  thundered toward them. Calmly Aldridge passengers doing the same thing.

  opened the throttle, pressed the machine-gun

  With the white-flecked waves dancing

  trigger and charged straight into their midst.

  under him, Aldridge cut his motor and nosed

  A wing tip fouled one of the horsemen,

  downward in a long glide.

  and the amphibian ground looped. Dizzily

  “Wheels!” he caught, in Sollano’s

  Aldridge jammed on the gas, lumbered off in

  frenzied accents.

  the new direction and shoved the stick

  Turning in his seat, Aldridge nodded

  forward. Ahead of him was another wave of

  with an assured grin toward the water. To the

  howling riders, and bullets were screaming off

  best of his understanding, the landing gear had

  the metal cowling over the motor.

  probably carried away at the impact with the

  The nearest horsemen were almost charging horsemen. He wondered why all under the roaring propeller when Aldridge airplanes were not amphibians; certainly, if he pulled the stick back and felt the wheels leave

  ever bought one, it would be nothing else. As

  the ground. The next instant there was a it was—well, he knew no special technique rattling jolt, a dragging sensation below, and

  about landing on water, but he could certainly

  as he leaned back on the tugging stick the

  never learn up there in the air!

  amphibian rocketed toward the white-hot sky

  Settling

  rapidly

  toward the sunlit bay,

  of Morocco like a thing frightened out of its

  he watched the unloading transport appear in

  wits.

  front of him, and lowered the tail of the

  Hot dog! This was living!

  amphibian with the intention of skimming into

  He caught himself wishing the cadets

  the trough of the shallow waves.

  and instructors at Brooks Field could see him

  Swiftly, while he unstrapped his safety

  now, muddling through an experience for belt and noted that his terrified passengers which any one of them would have given his

  were following his example, the transport and

  back teeth. More than all, as he straightened

  the crowded lighters whizzed nearer. Directly

  toward the dancing Mediterranean with between the transport and the cruiser he laid victory screaming from his wings, he wished

  his course, wondering vaguely why both ships

  his hardrock father might see him now, and be

  were hurriedly lowering lifeboats.

  present at his triumphant landing.

  Suddenly his head snapped backward,

  A quick glance he stole toward his

  almost breaking his craning neck, as the keel

  passengers, and grinned at the scared look on

  of the amphibian apparently snagged

  the faces of the two desert hellions who something. The next instant a raging torrent of gripped the sides of the cockpit as if they were

  heavy green water swirled over his head, a

  afraid of soaring up to heaven in heavy hundred giant hands tried to tear him limb marching order, hobnails and all.

  from limb, and something struck him a

  Again, while he wondered at the resounding whack on the head.

  strangely increased propeller torque, Sidi Dris

  The world went out——

  was streaming under him. Sollano and Catozzi

  were yelling fit to burst their throats, and

  FOR a long time he lay in a pleasant doze.

  Aldridge looked back to see them pointing

  Gradually came memory of the attack on

  excitedly toward the ground.

  Hassi Axdar, the forced march to Djebel

  Down there all was confusion. Messaua, the triumphant flight in the Everybody seemed to be running around with

  amphibian and the unexplained crash.

  Wings in the Spanish Legion

  11

  He stared at a strange world, a world

  out there, though, and entered a civilian flying

  of the dim past.

  school. But my father snapped the

  To begin with, he was covered with a

  pocketbook.”

  spotless sheet. Narrow white walls hemmed

  “And you snapped your fingers!”

  him in. To his ears came the throb of engines,

  “I did, sir.”

  the slap and swish of water. At sea!

  “Father know where you are?”

  Anxiously flexing his limbs, he was

  “No, sir. And he doesn’t care a hell of

  relieved to find that, barring a soreness in his

  a lot.”

  lungs and an aching head, he was apparently

  “Oh, yes, he does.” disagreed the

  intact. Weakly he climbed from the berth,

  general, as the gray-bearded war

  discovered that he was attired in pajamas, that

  correspondent squeezed the bulb of his

  his head was bandaged and that he was camera. “I’m a father, myself. I have a couple almightily hungry. On a determined hunt for

  of fire-crackery sons, and I know. How about

  breakfast and information, he opened the door

  it, Mr. Royos? You’re going to give the boy a

  and stepped out.

  good write-up, aren’t you?”

  Across the quarterdeck, off the

  “You know I am, mi general. I saw

  starboard beam, he stared at the familiar both his landings.”

  brown heights of the Cape of Three Forks.

  “Well,

  legionario, how would you like

  From the port beam slanted the pristine rays of

  for Mr. Royos to send a copy of his paper

  the morning sun.

  containing the story to your father?”

  Melilla

  bound!

  “All right, sir,” grinned
Aldridge.

  “Hey,

  legionario! ” called a voice, and

  “What’s the address?” asked Royos,

  Aldridge moved across the immaculate deck

  producing pencil and notebook.

  toward a group of beribboned officers and a

  “Aldridge Mining Company, Salt

  gray-bearded civilian seated on deck chairs. A

  Spring, Nevada, U. S. A. My sister can read it

  dapper young officer arose and shoved his

  to him, I guess. She knows school Spanish,

  chair behind Aldridge, who remained and he knows a little Mexican. What I can’t standing.

  understand, though, is how I happened to

  “Feel

  like

  taking

  another flight?” crash yesterday.”

  smiled the artillery general who had yelled at

  “Your landing gear was broken,”

  him on the beach at Sidi Dris.

  chuckled the general reminiscently. “There

  “Yes, sir,” grinned the American, was something tangled in it—a djellaba, if while a medical officer felt his pulse. “But I’d

  nothing else—and the whole thing hung pretty

  like to eat, first.”

  low and fouled a wave. The machine turned a

  “There goes your breakfast now,” twisting somersault. You were fished up rather pointed the general. “Take it into his unconscious, with possible internal injuries, so stateroom,, steward. Er—Mr. Royos, here, we brought you on to Melilla. Your wants to take your picture, legionario, for his passengers were unhurt, and rejoined their

  paper. He’s a war correspondent. Any company at Sidi Dris.”

  objections?”

  “That’s what I want to do,” wailed

  “No,

  sir.”

  Aldridge.

  “Good! And now tell us where on

  “He’ll be all right, sir,” said the

  earth you learned to fly.”

  medical officer, in answer to the general’s

  “I half-learned, sir, with the United

  questioning glance.

  States Army, at Brooks Field, Texas. I washed

  “All

  right,

  legianarlo, ” laughed the

  Frontier Stories

  12

  general. “This ship goes back to Sidi Dris to-

  paper: ‘Dear Dad: Does this sound like an

  night with more troops, and you can remain

  “adenoid aviator?” Jack.’ Be sure to put

  aboard and report to your company ‘adenoid aviator’ in quotation marks.”

  commander upon arrival. That satisfactory?”

  There was a roar of laughter from the

  “Thank you, sir,” said Aldridge, group of officers as Royos explained.

  inching toward his stateroom as a warm odor

  “Why the quotation marks,

  of coffee, rolls and beefsteak emerged with

  legionario? ” asked the general, his ample

  the steward.

  stomach shaking with mirth.

  “By the way,” called Royos, producing

  “They,” grinned the American, from

  his notebook again. “Any message to go with

  his stateroom door, “are to enclose the last two

  the paper to your father? I speak and write

  words the old boy spoke to me; his newest

  English, and I’ll fix up a good letter in your

  nickname for me, in fact. Say, Mr. Royos,

  own words, if you’ll give me a few pointers.”

  how’s to add a little postscript to that

  “Get a big red lumber pencil,” directed

  message? Something like—er—‘love to you

  Aldridge sardonically, in English, “and write

  and Sis!’”

  in boxcar letters, across the whole page of the