A Viking of the Sky: A Story of a Boy Who Gained Success in Aeronautics

by Joan Clark

  CHAPTER XXV

  HIS NAME ACROSS THE SKY

  Deep in the night, and in a dense fog, Hal Dane hovered over a faintearthly glow that he felt must be Tokio, capital city of Japan. Hoursago he had straightened the wide deflection of his course that had takenhim astray over the edge of the long peninsula of Kamchatka.

  As he checked up again by chart and map, his wearying senses told himthis must be it--the Tokio that he had crossed thousands upon thousandsof miles of ocean to reach.

  He drifted down to four thousand feet altitude. From here flood lightsand beacons were dimly visible, more assurance that he must be over theimperial city of the Orient's most progressive civilization.

  A thrill shot through Hal Dane, lifting the great weariness of the fortyhours' continuous flying. Aches and chill and battering of storms wereforgotten now that the fight was ending. He had done what he had set outto do--crossed the greatest of the oceans in a single non-stop flight.

  His fingers began to tap an incessant query on his sending-radio outfit,"Landing field? Landing field? Landing field?"

  And suddenly he was in touch with answers winging their way up to himfrom the ground below--"Tokio Asahi! Tokio Asahi!" Over and over he gotthose two words--"Tokio Asahi!"

  He was in touch with humanity again! Men on this Japanese land knew hewas winging his way above them. Men were answering his call. "TokioAsahi"--there it came again. What did it mean?

  His radio was bringing him words, but they meant nothing to him. Hisonly comfort lay in the fact that men knew he was here in the air, andthat probably they were making some preparation for his landing.

  It seemed to him that now a glimmer of flares burned brighter in acertain spot. He hoped these marked a landing field, hoped also thatradio landing beacons would be here to respond to the visual radioreceiver on his instrument board.

  Down he came in long sweeping circles, seeking a place to land. A wronglanding could mean death, not only to him, but to hapless ones he mightcrash upon down there on the fog-blanketed earth. For dreadful sickeningseconds, apprehension rode him. His heart seemed clutched in ironfingers, his face was white under the strain as his eyes watched theinstrument board.

  Ah! they were quivering--those two strange little reeds that by theirvibration told the good news of radio beacons waiting down there to helphim make his landing. With a joyous surge of relief in his heart, HalDane began his long, slanting, final downward plunge. An over-quiveringof the left reed told him that he was diverging too much on that side.With a quick swerve of the airplane, he put both reeds back into abalancing quiver, and thus followed their direction straight down thepath of the beacon to a landing.

  He had landed! He was in Japan!

  The young flyer had been so engrossed in blind flying to a perfectlanding by instruments alone, that it came as a shock to him to look outof his machine's window and see the huge crowd that awaited him on thisOriental landing field. The throng had scattered somewhat to make roomfor the ship's downward plunge.

  Hal Dane thrust a blond head out of the window. "I'm Hal Dane," he saidsimply, "in the Wind Bird. We--we made it, I reckon."

  At that, the crowd swept in. They had no more idea of what he was sayingthan he had had of their "Tokio Asahi" that had been radioed up to him.But the boy's smile and his quietness of manner had won them.

  Radios had been busy for two days in Japan, as well as in other parts ofthe world. From the time Hal Dane had left America, radio had winged itsmessages back and forth to various parts of the civilized universe.

  The phenomenal courage of a boy alone flying the greatest ocean, hadstirred the heart of Japan. And now that Hal Dane, Viking of the Sky,had made his landing, Japan set him high on her throng's shoulders.

  It was a shouting, laughing, good-natured crowd, gay with the colors ofJapanese girls' sashed kimonos mingling with the black of more sedatenative costumes, and with the trim modern uniforms of Japan's host ofyoung army flyers.

  In the first wild rush, the plucky American aviator was fairly mobbed.The shouting, howling throng, wild with joy and excitement, hauled himclear of his plane. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, American fashion,or even just touch the garments of this one that had flown the skies.Trim, sturdy members of the imperial air force, got to him, lifted himupon their khaki shoulders. Thus he was borne through the streets ofold, old Tokio where the automobile and the jinrikisha mingled asunconcernedly as did the old-time temples and tea shops mingle witheight-story skyscrapers and picture theaters.

  Behind him, edging the landing field, rose a fine modern building. HalDane waved an inquiring hand at it.

  "Tokio Asahi!" came the surprising answer that was shouted from manythroats.

  Hal nodded his head as if he understood, but puzzlement seethed in hisbrain. What did this queer shout mean that greeted him everywhere, evenmet him in the air before landing?

  As the triumphal procession made its way down the street, newsboys,carrying bundles of papers, tore through the swarming crowds, ringingbells, flying small flags, and shouting loudly as they waved these"extras" just off the press.

  Their shout floated back to Hal with an irritatingly familiar refrain,"Tokio Asahi! Tokio Asahi!"

  And suddenly, from his perch on men's shoulders, that lifted himhero-wise above the crowd--Hal Dane burst into boyish laughter. He hadit, that "Tokio Asahi,"--it was the name of Japan's greatestnewspaper--the newspaper with over a million circulation, and with amost modern of modern air mail deliveries. That was evidently theAsahi's own great landing field he had arrived above, so naturally itwas the name Asahi that had been radioed up to him.

  Well, the Asahi was certainly an up and coming publication. As youngDane peered down from his place at the second army of newsboys speedingwith flag and bell advertisement through the mob, he saw withastonishment that his own picture already smudgily adorned these latestextras. And men and women, gone wild over this young conqueror of theskies, were scrambling for these pictures.

  At last the efficient Tokio police rescued Hal Dane from therough-and-tumble admiration of the street crowds. Somehow they got himfree and rushed him into a building. And here Hal found himself shakinghands with Charles MacVeagh, American Ambassador to Japan. Here he metBaron Giichi Tanaka, Premier of Japan; Suzuki, the Home Minister;Mitsuchi, head of Finance Department, and other notable figures of theJapanese capital,--statesmen whose names were known all over the world.

  Although he was now in a daze of weariness, young Dane forced himself toanswer quietly and simply their many questions. To hold the fascinatedinterest of such great men was an overwhelming honor. But somethingbesides honor was overwhelming the gallant aviator. Sleep, sleep--how heached for it!

  Then next thing, he was stretching out his weary bones in the deepcomfort of a bed and getting his first real rest in two days and thebetter part of two nights.

  When he at last awoke, he found that in all reality he had written hisname across the sky! Newspapers in all the cities of the world weregiving pages of space to his marvelous flight. Telegrams ofcongratulation swamped him in ten thousand yellow flutters of goodwishes. Crowds surrounded the walls of the American Embassy begging the"honorable one" but to show himself. Tokio outdid herself to pay himhonor.

  "All Japan breathes a welcome to the great flyer of the skies" were theheadlines of a newspaper. And all Japan extended him uncountedcourtesies. There was an endless round of processions and receptions inhis honor. He was introduced to the romance of the symbolic "No" dance,the dainty tea ceremony, the elaborate Kabuki Drama, fruit of thirtycenturies of culture and tradition. He must see the royal wrestlers, andthe strange sword-dance of old Japan.

  On a fete day, he had the tremendous honor of riding the streets ofTokio in a great, closed, red Rolls-Royce, seated beside His HighnessHirohito, Emperor of Japan. And seeing the rider of the skypath seatedwith their own beloved Son of the Sun, all that Japanese throng kneeled.Long after the crimson limousine ha
d passed, the crowd still held itsawed position.

  For a week, Hal Dane "saw" Japan from sacred Fuiji's mountain crest tothe beautiful, sinister hot lakes of Kannawa.

  Then America refused to wait longer for her idol to return. Again thehordes of telegrams began pouring in.

  There was one from Hal Dane's mother, that simply said, "We knew youcould do it--come back to us now."

  Vallant, the millionaire giver of aviation prizes, cabled, "You have wonit. Your thirty-five thousand is waiting for you."

  From the President of the United States came a radio message, "Yourvictory is all victory--a peaceful victory. You have bound nationstogether with a bond of friendship."

  And still they flooded in--telegrams, cablegrams, radiograms. From thefirst, America had gone wild with joy and pride over the matchlessflight. And now with the passing days, America grew frantic, would be nolonger denied. "Come back--You belong to us--America awaits you!" wasthe thousandfold message from his homeland.

  Under this urge, Hal Dane left sightseeing in Japan to be completed onsome other visit and saw to it that his beloved Wind Bird was carefullycrated for shipment. Then the young Viking of the Sky boarded a greatsteamer for another crossing of the Pacific--this time for a journeystraight into the hearts of his own people.