Bill Barnes Takes a Holiday
A Complete Air Novel By George L. Eaton
From the June 1938 Air Trails Magazine
From across the bleak reaches of the Atlantic came an S.O.S.—In a crisis demanding the most of man and machine. Bill frustrates a ruthless plot
BILL BARNES slowly pushed back the chair in which he was sitting in the living-room of his bungalow on Barnes Field, Long Island, got to his feet and moved over to a window overlooking the myriad concrete and tarvia runways that crisscrossed the field. The transverse bands of yellow-and-black pigment painted across the runways, to aid in night or fog landings, gleamed in the glare of the morning sun.
He gazed across the field with eyes that were red and swollen. He did not even see the electrified wire fence that contained burglar alarms in the strategically placed guard posts, or the armed guards patrolling their beats. He didn't see anything because he was close to complete exhaustion.
He stared, almost stupidly, as one of his yellow-and-black-and-scarlet Snorters came plummeting down out of nowhere to fishtail in for a landing. He saw I. Kinter Hassfurther, better known as Shorty, slide over the side of the forward cockpit to the concrete.
That is, he saw him, but it didn't register. He was too tired even to think. Wearily, he turned back to his desk and the pile of papers on it. He had been going at top speed for months past—now he was working on nervous energy alone. He was nearing the breaking point. He had sapped his reserve vitality and his nerves were beginning to scream.
He started violently as a knock sounded on his door and Shorty Hassfurther, his chief of staff, pushed it open. Bill turned half around, grunted and swung back to his desk.
Shorty's hard-bitten, blue eyes were narrowed as he dropped into a chair and studied Bill's haggard face. He shook his head slowly from side to side.
“Just plain dumb,” Shorty said quietly.
“Eh?” Bill snapped. “Who's dumb?”
“You are! I've always had the idea that you were a reasonably smart boy.
But I've changed my mind. No one but a half-wit beats his head against a stone wall because it feels so good when he stops.”
“Listen,” Bill said, “when I want your opinion and advice I'll ask for it. In the meantime, please get the hell out of here. I'm busy.”
“Yeah,” Shorty said. “And I'll be even busier when I'm not only doing that work you're doing, but spending half my time running out to some sanatorium to try and cheer you up.”
“Don't worry about me,” Bill growled. “I'll make out.”
“Somebody's got to worry about you,” Shorty said. “You don't seem to have enough sense to worry about yourself.” His voice suddenly grew sharper. “Listen, Bill, we're all worrying about you. You've got to lay off ; and get a rest or you're going to pieces. .
“This bird who calls himself the Saver of Souls ran you ragged for months— while your regular work piled up. You're human like all the rest of us. One of these days you'll begin to see little men in pink pants and yellow jackets running around the ceiling. Then it will take you months to get well instead of the two or three weeks' rest you need now.”
“I've got to get this stuff out of the way first,” Bill said. But his voice didn't carry conviction. It was the voice of a man who knows that he can no longer think straight.
“You aren't in any shape to get anything out of the way,” Shorty said, his tone soft and soothing now. “I got my lesson at that stuff during the War, Bill. I was only nineteen years old then find thought I was tireless—that nothing could break me. I was with the British and my C.O. tried to make me take a rest. But I was too smart. I wanted to keep on knocking down my German every day instead of taking time out to eat an apple. I finally went to pieces and a Heinie nearly shot my head off. He trimmed my buttons off properly, and I was in the hospital for three months. I didn't have enough sense to take a rest when I needed it most.
“The same thing will happen to you,” Shorty went on. “Something really important will come along and you won't be in any shape to handle it. You'll get your ears pinned back and spend a few months wondering how it happened.”
Bill threw a pencil down on his desk and looked at Shorty out of bloodshot eyes. For an instant he seemed to have more than a little trouble controlling himself. “I am tired,” he admitted. “I'm so tired I can't seem to make any decisions. But who is going to take care of this stuff if I don't?”
“Now you're talking like a sane man,” Shorty said. His round, Pennsylvania-Dutch face broke into an encouraging smile. “We can handle things while you take a holiday Bill. None of this stuff is half as important as it seems to you. You'd realize that if you weren't so tired. It's just run of the mill stuff. A couple of surveys, requisitions and orders. You've lost your perspective as to what is important and what isn't.”
“Perhaps you're right,” Bill said. “I'm in a daze. If I could only get some sleep. But I can't eat or sleep. I ——”
“Listen, fellah,” Shorty said. “You're going to get some sleep. Red Gleason and Sandy and I decided to take the matter into our own hands. Bev Bates and Scotty MacCloskey are in on it, too.
Scotty has a half dozen grease monkeys and technicians going over the Lancer right now. He's tuning her up for your trip. Sandy is going with you.”
“Trip?” Bill said.
“To England,” Shorty said as though he was speaking about a ride uptown in the subway. “We all know you've been wanting to get over there to check up on some of their new ships for months. Well, now you're going and Sandy will hold down the rear cockpit in case you fall asleep on the way over.”
“Ridiculous!” Bill exploded.
“No, it's very logical. And right now you're going to bed. Doc Humphries is coming over here in about ten minutes and give you something that will quiet you down and make you sleep. It the weather is right you and Sandy will hop anytime after sunup in the morning. You're going to have a holiday whether you like it or not. So you might as well get used to the idea. If we see you around here before three weeks are gone we'll throw you out on your nose.”
“Now listen. Shorty,” Bill began.
“Listen, hell! Get out of those clothes!”
The two triple-bladed, automatic-pitch props of the Lancer were ticking over slowly when Bill Barnes came out on the apron early the next morning. The rays of the rising sun played across the alloy steel and shining dural of the big ship and made it appear like a thing alive.
His bronzed face was lined and haggard, but his eyes lit up with pride as they flashed over the Lancer from the tip of her spinner to the trimming tabs on her rudder.
Gathered on the apron were the remaining members of his famous little squadron of flyers: Shorty Hassfurther, his chief of staff; the carrot-topped Eric (“The Red') Gleason; the brown-eyed Bostonian with the Harvard accent, Beverly Bates; and the last and youngest, the irrepressible Sandy Sanders, who drove them all halt mad with his thousand and one hobbies.
With them was that lugubrious old Scotsman, Scotty MacCloskey, who was Bill's head technician and had been a British ace before wounds and accidents-incapacitated him for flying. He was fluttering around the Lancer like a mother dressing her only child for its first party.
He inspected the 37mm. automatic engine cannon that was built integrally with the motor in the Vee of the cylinders and fired through the hollow prop shafts. It could pour explosive, incendiary or armor-piercing shells at the rate of three hundred shots a minute.
From troughs along each side of the engine peeped the noses of two .50-caliber guns. The guns were set on either side of the pilot's seat in the forward cockpit, within easy reach in case of jams. They were equipped with automatic ammunition counters and engine-driven synchronizing gear. A dull, burnished-metal, telescopic sight was directly before the pilot's eyes.
At the ends of the silver, all-metal cantilever wings gleamed navigation lights, and underneath the belly,
