Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  Morton Brenner, the senior purchasing agent for the post office, was fanning himself with his hat, and frowning. “Mister Gold,” he began. “I don’t appreciate having all of these reporters and photographers around.”

  Brenner was in his sixties. He was medium height, and built portly. His thinning gray hair was cut short, waxed, brushed back, and somewhat parted on the side. He had a florid complexion, a neatly clipped white moustache, and hard, hazel eyes behind a gold-framed pince-nez. His jowls, spilling over his shirt collar, were shaved as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Gold couldn’t begin to imagine how a man could shave that closely—

  “I must confess, if I’d known these reporters were going to be here, I would have postponed today’s evaluation,” Brenner was saying.

  “Well, sir, I do apologize,” Gold replied mildly. “But it is a free country, sir. If the media wishes to witness the test flight, I don’t see how I could possibly forbid them…”

  “Yes, well—” Brenner noisily cleared his throat. He removed his pince-nez and massaged the two angry red spots it had left on the bridge of his nose. “Just so you’re aware that the reporters’ presence does not help your cause. As a matter of fact, on the contrary…”

  We’ll see about that, you old goat, Gold thought. Tim Campbell was standing just behind Brenner, and had been eavesdropping as the senior government man was sounding off. Gold saw Campbell wince and roll his eyes.

  “Mister Gold,” Brenner said. “Your airplane is a very unusual design.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We at the post office don’t like that,” Brenner flatly declared. “We appreciate that which has withstood the test of time.”

  “The most venerable of designs have had to start somewhere,” Gold replied. “All I ask is that you withhold judgment until after you see the G-1 fly.”

  “Well, let’s get on with it.” Brenner took a pocket watch from his waistcoat and studied it. “Our schedule is tight. We’re due at Turner Aircraft Works in precisely ninety minutes.” He smiled thinly at Gold. “Turner builds a fine airplane, don’t you think? And has been building them the same way, for years…”

  The sound of the G-1’s engine turning over saved Gold from having to think up a reply. Everyone turned toward the airplane as the Rogers and Simpson radial caught, then settled down into a fluid growl.

  The mechanic who’d started up the G-1 climbed down from the cockpit as the pilot, covered from head to toe in a leather helmet, goggles, white silk scarf, gloves, bulky shearling flight overalls and boots, appeared in the doorway of the hangar. The pilot waved toward the awning, but went directly to the airplane.

  “My God, it’s got to be close to eighty out here,” Brenner remarked, watching as the pilot climbed up into the cockpit. “How cold does it get, flying?”

  “You’d be amazed,” Gold replied cheerfully. He sensed Campbell coming up behind him. “I thought Hull was going to do the flying?” Campbell whispered. “Whoever that is looks kind of short to be Hull—”

  “Just keep your fingers crossed,” Gold murmured.

  “You don’t need to tell me that,” Campbell said. “Hey, where’s Erica? I can’t believe she’d miss this—”

  Gold sighed worriedly. “She’s around.”

  “Just remember, she’ll give you plenty of notice before she stalls—”

  Hull’s voice echoed in the empty hangar as he watched Erica step into the flight overalls. “And just remember, be ready on the rudder pedals when you use the C-Gull flaps—”

  “I’ll remember, I hope,” Erica muttered as she shrugged the supple, shearling suit up over her wool trousers and long-sleeved cotton blouse. “Help me zip this thing up.”

  “You know, it’s still not too late to back out,” Hull fretted.

  “I know.” Erica pulled on her boots and then tucked her hair into the close-fitting leather helmet, buckling it under her chin.

  “I could take over for you,” Hull said.

  “Uh-huh.” She adjusted her goggles and then wrapped a white silk scarf around her mouth and chin. “Well, how do I look?” she asked, her voice muffled.

  “Like a short pilot,” Hull said.

  “But not like a woman?” Erica persisted as she put on her gloves.

  “Nah.” Hull shook his head. “The suit hides you fine. I’m sure Herman will think you’re giving yourself away, because he knows it’s you, but the others have no reason to suspect anything, so they won’t. Just go right to the plane. At the distance the others are standing, they won’t notice a thing.”

  Erica nodded. Both she and Hull were quiet as they listened to the sound of the G-1’s engine starting up. “Well,” she laughed uneasily, “I guess it’s show-time.”

  “Erica—”

  “Hull, if you tell me one more time that I don’t have to go through with this, I’ll scream.”

  “It’s just that you’ve only had two chances to practice handling the G-1 since Herman came up with this harebrained scheme.”

  “She flies like a dream,” Erica said firmly. “The mechanics have checked her out, and today’s flying conditions are perfect. There’s no reason I can’t do this. And I want to do it. Not only for Herman, but also for myself, and all the other women pilots struggling to take their places in aviation. In just a few moments I’m going to make history as the world’s first woman test pilot.”

  Hull shrugged. “Just remember, watch your throttle when you—”

  “No,” Erica cut him off. “No more reminders. I know you mean well, Hull, but what you have to remember is that I’m a pilot, and the G-1’s an airplane. If we can’t fit together, then there’s something wrong with both of us.”

  Hull nodded, grinning. “Then get your tail out there and fly her.”

  Erica walked out of the hangar. As she crossed the thirty feet of tarmac to where the G-1 stood, its prop spinning, she glanced nervously at the huddle of spectators under the distant awning. She felt as if everybody in the world were watching her. She felt as if she were on her way to a firing squad. At any moment she was going to hear outraged shouts. The men from the government would pull strings to have her pilot’s license taken away. God only knew what they would do to poor Herman…

  Nothing happened. Nobody said a word. She guessed that it really was exactly as Hull had suggested: nobody suspected anything, so nobody was going to notice that he was a she. If they were going to look at anything, it was the airplane. Growing more cocky by the instant, she offered those beneath the awning a jaunty wave.

  The mechanics had been briefed about the “last minute” change in pilots and were ordered to show no surprise. They stood back, grinning, as she hoisted herself up into the cockpit and strapped herself down. She settled her toes on the brake pedals and her heels on the rudder pedals, just below the brakes. She took hold of the stick and opened up the throttle, heeling and toeing the double-tiered pedals to gracefully move the G-1 off the line. She felt as if she needed three hands and an extra brain to coordinate all the traditional controls, along with the brakes and the C-Gull flaps, but she managed it, showing off the G-1’s capabilities by smoothly becoming airborne after using up less than one hundred feet of airstrip. As soon as her wheels left the earth, Erica hauled up the G-1’s nose, climbing at the rate of three thousand feet per minute. She leveled off at seven thousand, then snap-rolled the G-1 to the right, going into a tumbling spin, just to get the old heart pumping. At two thousand feet she came out of it, in a wide, banking turn that took her over the awning. She waggled her wings in salute and then began climbing, feeling properly warmed up and ready to do some flying. At 5000 feet she began a series of darts and loops, transforming the G-1 Yellowjacket into a silver needle, laughing to herself, knowing that she was darning her presence in history as she darned the deep blue fabric of the sky.

  Gold watched excitedly as Erica put the G-1 through its paces. From the moment she’d gracefully recovered from that first spin he’d known that she was going to be all right. />
  He listened to the gasps and murmured exclamations from the reporters as the G-1 streaked through its ten-minute aerobatic display. He glanced at Brenner and his subordinates: the two junior men were smiling, but Brenner himself wore the sour expression of a man suffering from a bad case of indigestion.

  Gold heard Campbell murmur, “Whoever that pilot is, he sure as hell knows how to fly.”

  Gold chuckled. “Remember what you just said a few minutes from now.”

  Erica was bringing the G-1 around for a landing. The mechanics were planting two white flags into the grass bordering the airstrip. “The G-1 will touch down at the first flag, and come to a stop by the time she reaches the second,” Gold loudly announced. “Two technical innovations—her hydraulic wheel braking system and her exclusive C-Gull wing flaps—combine to make this short landing distance possible.”

  Gold overheard Brenner murmur to his associates, “I say it can’t be done—”

  Just watch, asshole, Gold thought. Nevertheless, he kept his fingers crossed as Erica came in for her final approach. Fully utilizing the G-1’s potential wasn’t difficult for an experienced pilot once he’d gotten the hang of it, but Erica had only a couple of chances to practice. He also hoped that Erica had remembered to cinch her safety harness tight. When the G-1 came in for a landing she dug in her claws, and could flip an unwary pilot out of the cockpit like a bucking bronco throwing a rider….

  Gold watched nervously as Erica stalled the airplane, flaps extended. The wheels touched down, tires squealing and smoking and leaving rubber patches on the tarmac as Erica stood on the brakes. The G-1 trembled and shuddered like a living creature as the airplane hugged the earth.

  “She did it!” Gold shouted as the G-1 jerked to a stop with her nose at least a half foot inside the second flag.

  The reporters—and Brenner’s two associates—burst into spontaneous applause as the G-1’s engine cut off, and her twirling prop slowly came to a halt. Teddy Quinn and Tim Campbell, arms linked, were dancing a jig, hooting and laughing.

  Gold slapped Brenner on the back. “What do you think of my airplane now?” he elatedly demanded.

  Brenner’s smooth jowls had turned bright red. His eyes were fiery. “Quite a remarkable demonstration, Mister Gold,” Brenner said, his voice shaking, “but one I must totally discount in my evaluation.”

  “What?” Gold angrily shouted. “What do you mean?”

  “Easy, Herman,” Campbell coaxed as he placed a restraining hand on Gold’s shoulder.

  “Easy, nothing!” Gold roared, aware that his emotional display had captured the attention of the reporters. “How dare you say you must discount this demonstration? What you really mean to say is that you just can’t take the fact that you’ve been shown up!” Gold glanced over his shoulder. Erica, still in her flying gear, had climbed out of the airplane and was now approaching.

  “It’s quite simple, Mister Gold.” Brenner smiled coldly. “I say that you’ve rigged this demonstration by placing a highly skilled stunt pilot in the cockpit! Answer me this: could the average postal service pilot get your newfangled G-1 to perform so well?”

  Erica was at Gold’s side. She shucked off her gloves. She was wearing bright red nail polish. A couple of reporters in the first row, noticing the polish, realized what was up and began to laugh. Erica unwound her scarf, removed her goggles and helmet, and shook out her bobbed curls. Grinning in triumph, she saluted the astounded reporters.

  “What do you say now, Brenner?” one of the reporters called out.

  “Are you claiming that the average postal service aviator can’t pilot an airplane as well as a woman?” another reporter challenged.

  Flashbulbs, rattling and flickering like a volley of small-arms fire, lit up the interior of the awning. Reporters’ voices clashed in an unintelligible roar of questions.

  Brenner had gone white. “I—I have no comment…” he sputtered weakly, hands flapping against the barrage of reporters’ queries. He stared at Erica, then at the G-1 murderously at Gold, then back at Erica again. “No comment at all.”

  Gold moved close to Brenner. “There’s only one way to get yourself out of this,” Gold murmured. “You can do it now, and be a hero, or do it later, under orders from your superiors, and be the laughingstock…”

  Gold stepped back as one of the junior purchasing agents nudged Brenner in the ribs, and whispered something in the senior buyer’s ear. Brenner looked glum. He reluctantly nodded and then turned to the reporters. “No comment,” he loudly began, “except to say that it seems the United States postal service has found its new airplane…”

  (Four)

  Gold Aviation

  Santa Monica

  22 May 1927

  Gold leaned over Campbell’s desk to study the cardboard pasteup of the full-page newspaper ad. Campbell sat quietly behind his desk as Gold read the copy.

  Campbell’s small office was down the corridor from Gold’s. Campbell had a mahogany desk with a leather-inlaid top and a large, royal blue and rose oriental carpet on the wooden floor. Otherwise his office was as unfinished as Gold’s was. Gold looked up, frowning slightly. Most of the ad was an intricate illustration of a busy airfield terminal scene. In the foreground was Erica, dressed in pilot’s gear. The ad’s headline was in the form of a banner held aloft in the sky by a pair of Gold’s trademark centaurs. The headline read:

  GOLD AVIATION, THE PROUD BUILDERS OF THE G-1

  YELLOWJACKET, CONGRATULATES CAPT.LINDBERGH

  ON HIS MOMENTOUS NEW YORK/PARIS SOLO

  TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT

  The copy beneath the drawing was laced with swooning prose concerning how GAT shared Lindbergh’s pioneering spirit, and how everybody could share in the excitement by using Gold Transport for their freight and travel needs.

  “Isn’t it a great drawing of Erica?” Campbell enthused.

  “She looks good, all right,” Gold admitted.

  Erica’s exploit as the first-ever woman test pilot had remained front-page news for weeks after the G-1’s successful flight demonstration back in November. In the months that followed she’d been the subject of a dozen magazine articles, had been on the cover of Ladies’ Home Companion, and had even been featured in a newsreel that showed her competing in a local air race (the Curtiss was gone, hastily replaced by a specially modified G-1 Yellowjacket).

  “Notice how the copy suggests, but doesn’t quite come out and claim, that Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in one of our airplanes,” Campbell enthused.

  “Sneaky.” Gold smiled.

  “I prefer to think of it as genius,” Campbell jauntily replied.

  “Sometimes you are a genius.” Gold nodded.

  It was after the newsreel that Campbell got the idea of making Erica the advertising spokeswoman for the company. Gold was undecided, and Erica was doubtful and almost refused to do it, but the newspaper advertisement that debuted “the GAT girl” increased Gold Transport’s business by twenty percent.

  “But today I think you’re just plain sneaky,” Gold continued. “I understand what you want to do, and I appreciate the effort, but I think it’s a mistake.”

  “How so?” Campbell demanded.

  Gold fought off his urge to smile. Campbell always got sensitive and touchy when he was criticized. “Sure, you can imply to the public that Lindbergh made his crossing in a Gold G-1,” Gold explained. “But the people in the air transport industry know full well that Lindy flew a modified Ryan mail plane. That airplane was a masterpiece of engineering. I wish we’d built it, but we didn’t. I think most folks will consider it a sign of our newfound strength for us to give credit where the credit is due.” Gold pointed to the headline. “Change that so it reads, ‘…Congratulates the Ryan Aircraft Company and Lindbergh…”

  “That’s going to make the headline awfully long,” Campbell moped.

  “Then reduce the type,” Gold said. “But do it, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Campbell looked up. “You’
ll be out for the rest of the day?”

  Gold nodded.

  “Herm, before you go, I do need an answer concerning the Mesa deal.”

  “Oh, yeah… The Mesa deal…” Gold thought about it. Mesa was a holding company for several small air express companies controlling CAM routes linking Albuquerque, Denver, and points in between. Mesa was interested in selling out, and Campbell had been pushing to buy, in order to establish Gold Transport east of the Rockies.

  “The idea of controlling that much territory is appealing…” Gold began.

  “That’s just the beginning,” Campbell declared. “Next stop, Kansas City. I’ve got Kurt Bradley, the president of K.C. Airways, running scared, and when a man is scared, he’s willing to sell, cheaply.”

  “It sounds good, Tim.” Gold smiled tenatively. “But I’m worried that you’re spreading us too thin.”

  Campbell laughed. “No offense, old buddy, but you really ought to let me worry about that sort of thing. I mean, that’s what you pay me for, right?”

  Gold nodded reluctantly.

  “Right,” Campbell firmly said. “Number one, the Feds have ordered one hundred G-1s, at twenty thousand each. Number two, we’ve got back orders from private concerns totaling another fifty airplanes, at prices ranging from twenty to twenty-five thousand each. We’ve got a two-year backlog on those deliveries.” Campbell spread his arms, shrugging. “The facts speak for themselves. Our cash flow to debt ratio is terrific. Believe me, Herman, we can afford to expand the transport side of the business. In fact, we can’t afford not to.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right,” Campbell insisted. “The problem here is that you’re so understandably eager to darken the skies with Gold airplanes that you’ve lost track of the big picture. You’ve forgotten that you made your start as an air express company. Maybe you’ve even forgotten how we fought tooth and nail for our CAM routes. You seemed to think that they were pretty important back then, important enough to cost a man’s life—”