Trophy for Eagles

by Boyne, Walter J.

  Roget and Bandfield had devised a lightweight steel-tube framework stiffened with corrugated aluminum skinning and streamlined with a smooth stressed-metal covering. It was lighter, stronger, and easier to fabricate than older designs, and while it would be especially good for larger aircraft, it could be adapted to fighters as well. Their problem, the same one facing almost every company in the industry, was a total lack of capital to build an airplane using the new method. Caldwell had agreed that it would revolutionize construction techniques, and he wanted the Air Corps to benefit. However, in its customary infinite wisdom, headquarters had turned it down a second time.

  "I don't know what to tell you, Hadley. I went to bat for you. They even told me I was out of line!" He paused to control himself, his anger evident. "I think the fuckers believe I have an interest in your company!"

  He let his fury simmer. "There must be political pressure to stay with conventional construction. Keystone has powerful Congressmen in their corner, and all they can build is fabric-covered biplanes. "

  Hadley knew the big lumbering Keystones well. They staggered along at eighty miles an hour with crew members sticking out in the wind as in a World War Gotha. When: they crashed—which was often, given that they couldn't fly on one engine—they turned from airplanes into grinding masses of splinters and wires that chopped their crews into hamburger.

  Roget's voice was raw. "Yeah, and with 1917 performance. Even the Hafner A-11 is sixty miles an hour faster than the Keystones, and carries almost as many bombs."

  The A-11 had been a bitter pill for him to swallow, for it had beaten the first Roget aircraft ever entered in a military competition. He and Bandy had put their heads together to build a militarized metal version of the Rocket they named the Rapier, and they thought they had a winner. Instead, for reasons he knew Caldwell would inevitably tell again, the A-11 won. It was a good-looking single-engine attack plane, with a ring cowling and huge spatted fairings over the landing gear, the first military product from Hafner's booming Long Island factory. Its performance was no better than the Rapier's, but its steak had more sizzle.

  Caldwell realized he'd stumbled onto treacherous ground. When the A-11 had beaten entries from Curtiss, Douglas, and Roget Aircraft, there had been hell to pay in all the aviation journals. He covered his dismay with a chortle that was half lust, half glee. "Just like Charlotte Hafner is sixty miles an hour faster than the competition. You should have been here the first time she showed up."

  Roget had heard the story three or four times, twice from Caldwell. He didn't interrupt, knowing that the major was trying desperately to steer the conversation to neutral territory. They both knew that what had to come later was going to be painful.

  "Hafner Aircraft had submitted an unsolicited bid for an attack bomber. We gave then the usual stiff arm—Christ, you know how we get crazy bids three or four times a week from oddball outfits."

  It was a second gaffe; Roget Aircraft had clearly been an oddball outfit in the eyes of Wright Field's brass before they got to know Hadley.

  "We knew who Hafner was, but the company had no military track record. Then one day we get a call that the Hafner airplane will be in at ten o'clock on June 1. Nobody thought anything about it."

  Caldwell loosened his tie. Roget liked him for many reasons, not least of which was that he wasn't spit-and-polish. A green patina shrouded the brass on his uniform, his shoes weren't shined, and he needed a shave. Usually he had his ancient terrier, Bosco, with him; the two looked remarkably alike, except that Bosco was rarely hungover and usually had a better haircut.

  "Exactly at ten o'clock, this black bullet roars across the field at nought feet, I mean nought feet. I was in operations, looking right out at the field, and there was no daylight between that ship and the ground."

  Caldwell's voice had gone higher still, and his arms and hands were cranked showing the maneuvers the A-11 had been going through.

  "For twenty minutes it plays a tune on the goddam tarmac. At the end, the airplane pulls straight up, the engine is shut off, and the pilot makes a dead-stick landing out of a half loop, rolling right up on the apron to stop."

  Roget could see the next scene.

  "We all run out there, ready to tear a strip off the pilot, and who pops out? Charlotte Hafner, hair streaming back, tits bulging out of a half-buttoned blouse, looking better than Jean Harlow. Christ, she had that airplane sold before we even knew the price. What a saleswoman, what a pilot."

  Roget articulated what everyone had been quick to suppose. "Did you sample that, Henry?"

  Caldwell's voice dropped an honest octave. "Me? Hell no! It was there, you know that, we all knew it, but I'm not so crazy as to screw somebody I'm buying from. If I ever have to pay for it, it will be straight over the counter. But I wouldn't have minded. She's a great-looking woman."

  Roget believed him; people like Caldwell were the real blood and guts of the Air Corps, working for peanuts, doing what they thought was right regardless of the effects on their careers. Charlotte could have taken her blouse completely off and it wouldn't have influenced Caldwell.

  "She's the brains of the outfit. Bruno Hafner is the muscle, but he spends his time running guns."

  Roget lapsed into silence. He'd gotten to know Charlotte pretty well over the last year, over Bandfield's violent objections. Bandy didn't want to have anything to do with Hafner Aircraft, never having gotten over the miserable chain of events of 1927. Hadley could never bring himself to believe that Hafner had started the fire that destroyed the original Roget Rocket. He felt that Bandy's unreasoning hatred stemmed from the fact that Bruno Hafner had been rescued while poor Millie Duncan had disappeared, drowned somewhere in the Pacific.

  Bandy was never the same after the search was finally called off, his depression finally generating an almost eccentric insistence on safety in airplanes. The obsession, if that was what it was, had good and bad effects; without it, they never would have come up with the new wing design.

  The bad side was that Bandy flatly refused to engage in any more races like the Pineapple Derby, nor would he permit aircraft to be sold for risky long-distance flights. Lockheed and Bellanca had no such compunctions, and as a result, they were sewing up the market. Wiley Post's backers had wanted to buy a Rocket, but they knew Bandy wouldn't sell it because he thought the round-the-world flight they proposed was too risky, so they had turned to Lockheed, and Post had made history with the Vega.

  And only in the last two years, when things had grown desperate at Roget Aircraft, with no orders, no money, and few prospects, had Bandy been willing to fly in military competitions. Even so, the only reason he'd made the last-ditch swing through South America was that it was Roget Aircraft's only chance to survive. Flying against competent pilots—many of them old friends—in well-engineered aircraft didn't bother him as much, because he felt the risks were known by the people involved.

  The rationale was inconsistent with his personal behavior. Bandfield was taking greater and greater risks, and doing it with increasing frequency. He wouldn't let anyone else do any of the dangerous tests, the nine-G dives, the spin tests, the things that test pilots like Bill McAvoy, Jimmy Collins, and others charged thousands of dollars to do. Sometimes, Hadley thought, Bandy wanted to die, to force an airplane beyond its limits and his, to be able to rejoin Millie, or to be beyond thinking about her.

  The South American trip hadn't helped business much. They'd lost to Curtiss in Chile and to Boeing in Bolivia, and were bucking Hafner in Peru. It was their last shot; if they didn't win there, Roget Aircraft would probably close its doors.

  Caldwell was looking at him, wondering where Roget's mind was. When Roget resumed he said, "Anyway, I got to know her in the last year. I think the only thing that keeps her and Bruno together is the way he lets her run the business and do the demonstration flying."

  Caldwell said, "Yeah, I hear that if you can get her into the club after a show and slip a few bourbons and branch waters into her, she l
ets her hair down about Hafner. He's a strange bird. Never stopped being a German ace, if you know what I mean."

  Hadley nodded. "The Hafners and Grover Loening are the only people I know who made money in the stock-market crash. They sold out in August 1929, then bought back gradually after the market had gone to pot."

  They were quiet, smiling comfortably at each other, knowing that at last it was time to get down to cases. Hadley spoke. "How many A-11s has the Air Corps bought now?"

  "Forty-six, and maybe we'll buy another twelve in the next year's appropriation, for attrition."

  Roget pursed his lips and whistled, thinking what even twelve, let alone fifty-eight, airplanes would have meant to Roget Aircraft. He thought about teaching Clarice to fly, had an image of her with an unbuttoned blouse, and laughed to himself. She'd scare more people off than she'd attract, God bless, her.

  "The A-11 was designed by Armand Bineau. The smartest thing Charlotte's done was to hire Bineau as chief engineer."

  "You know, I always thought he was a Frenchman! But he was one of the raft of Russkies that Sikorsky brought over after the revolution."

  Caldwell nodded. "French name, of course, but he's a Russian through and through, a courtly old bastard, always dressed up as if he were expecting the Czar to drop in for tea."

  "Yeah, I've heard Charlotte say that's one reason he gets along with Hafner, who's a bit of a snob. He got used to bumping around with royalty when he was an ace during the war."

  A demonic siren sounded outside, a rising oh-my-God shriek that made the end of the world seem an anticlimax. Both men ran to the window. They could see a fire truck and an ambulance racing toward a towering column of smoke from the fire area where old cars and airplanes were kept for the firemen to practice on.

  "I wish they wouldn't blow that goddam thing; it always makes me think somebody's gone in, even when I know it's just a drill," Caldwell said. "Anyway, Bineau could go anywhere in the industry, or he could set up his own factory, so Hafner treats him with kid gloves."

  They were avoiding the issue. With the wing rejected, there was no reason for Roget to stay at Wright Field. He could never stagnate in the bureaucracy, designing by committee. Caldwell knew he would leave, and decided to face the issue squarely.

  "What are you going to do, Hadley? You own the rights to the wing. The Army turned it down, so it's yours to use. That was the deal."

  "Charlotte Hafner made an offer for it when they rejected it last year. She'll give me fifty thousand dollars for the design rights, and six grand a year for my services. Not bad for a shade-tree mechanic."

  "Some mechanic. You going to take it?"

  "Not if Bandy sells a few airplanes. If he doesn't, then I'll have to. Simple as that."

  He and Bandy had only a handshake agreement, more than satisfactory to both men. Bandfield had taken over the factory—it wasn't much more than a converted garage—and Roget got full rights to the wing design. Now they would just mix everything back up again. Bandfield always knew Roget would be coming back—he had just never expected him to be bringing fifty grand with him.

  "What's he doing now?"

  "He's down in South America, trying to sell a few Rapiers."

  Roget knew what a bitter-thin hope this was, more of the self-delusion that had nursed an industry since the war. After the Armistice, everyone expected airplanes to flood the skies the way Ford had flooded the countryside with Model Ts. But the demand, civil or military, had never materialized. Lindbergh's flight had touched off an aberrational boom of optimism that had launched dozens of companies like Roget's. Most were already gone, victims of poor sales and undercapitalization, the promising prototypes crashed or scrapped. And even many of the well-financed, well-managed larger firms had gone under. Dayton-Wright, besides having the services of Orville Wright himself, had built four thousand airplanes during the war—and probably less than a hundred afterward before it folded.

  But a brave front was the industry keynote. "Everything's shut down while Bandy's in South America. We've got a racer about half finished, and a little trainer, just something to knock around in. We call it the Kitten."

  There was a wistful pause. "There might be some money in one or the other."

  Caldwell reflected on his own situation. An Army major's pay was not much compared to that of an engineer working for a prosperous aircraft company. With the budget cuts, the promotion picture had just about dried up—demotions were in fact more of a general promise, despite the fact that ranks had been stagnant for years. But at least in the Air Corps the work and the pay were a lot steadier, for few of the companies made money consistently.

  His real inducement was that he could be of genuine service at Wright Field, trying to make sure that the small amounts of money available went to the best companies for the best airplanes. It was nerve-racking, though; business was so bad that any company that lost a contract went right to its Congressman. Caldwell spent a good 20 percent of his time justifying his decisions on an engineering basis, when all any Congressman wanted to talk was home-district economics. In a way, the Depression made it easier—people were out of work everywhere, so they couldn't say he was discriminating against any one district.

  "Being here will help you, Hadley. There's a lot of precedent. Most of the big names in the industry got started here—Donald Douglas, Reuben Fleet, Virginius Clark; Don Berlin. Next time I see you, you'll be flying in something you want to sell me and I'll probably buy it."

  Roget's tone was rueful. "Sometimes I think that's the only way to do it—to get on the inside. Did I get on the inside?"

  Caldwell laughed. "Yeah, you're on the inside, Hadley, with your crummy jokes and your sour puss! Sometimes we get complaints about 'insiders,' but the fact is, unless you've spent some time here, it's hard to know what the Air Corps needs."

  He picked up a straightedge and balanced it on a fingertip, trying to frame the words so that they wouldn't be defensive. "I've never seen anybody take any kickbacks, or anything like that. The contracting system is pretty straight."

  "Well, I think we'll stick to the civilian market—what there is of it—for a while, anyway. We sure as hell haven't made any money with the military."

  "No money on the civil side, Hadley, you know that. How many companies have gone in and out of business in the last five years? A hundred? Two hundred? Some of them made some pretty good airplanes, too."

  He was echoing Hadley's own sentiments.

  Caldwell got excited, his arms swinging, words rushing. "Why not try a military trainer? You could come up with something modern, a low-wing monoplane maybe."

  Suddenly embarrassed, as if he'd said too much, the major straightened his tie, picking at the yellow sheen of egg yolk from yesterday's breakfast.

  "Maybe, but I want to talk to Bandy first."

  "Well, I feel I've failed you and the Army, Hadley. There should have been some way for me to sell your idea, and keep you working here." He hesitated and then said, "You aren't going to peddle it abroad, are you?"

  There was real concern in his voice. U.S. airpower was falling behind Europe's, particularly France's and Italy's. Even Germany was secretly rearming, building "civil" airplanes that could easily be converted to wartime use.

  "Nah, I couldn't do that. And it's not your fault, Henry. The Army's still spending more on fodder for cavalry horses than it is on airplanes. You are working wonders with the money you get, given the crazy procurement system. Someday it will be appreciated."

  They chatted for a while, and Caldwell left, now obviously depressed.

  Most of the other desks in the spartan bay of offices were new, their varnished oak finish gleaming bright yellow under the suspended incandescent lights. Always different, Hadley had scrounged a battered rolltop from the supply office. He rustled through the pigeonholes, looking for letters he had to answer before he went back to California. He didn't have much of a filing system, but he knew where everything was. At the bottom of the stack was the year-
old unanswered letter from Charlotte, God bless her. Next to it was one from Bandy telling about his troubles trying to sell the Rapier in South America. The damn airplane would hardly get off the ground at La Paz—too little wing area, too much weight. He'd write them both, to see if Charlotte was still interested, and to tell Bandy to come back and get started on a new project.

  *

  Ancon, Peru/March 14, 1932

  The dingy beige stucco walls swallowed the hundred-degree temperature in order to feed it back slowly later. There was no breeze from the beach, and the corrosive March heat ladled broad-brush strokes of sweat under the arms and down the backs of the brown Peruvian uniforms.

  "Don't drink that, Bandy—Hafner's pouring his drinks out the window, I saw him." The bad water, poor food, and endless wenching of the trip had thinned "Charles Howard's" lanky frame out even further. Bandfield had finally gained some understanding on this South American tour of Howard Hughes's insistence on going incognito. If he had gone under his own name, he would have been met by newspaper men and women trying to get into films at every stop. As Charles Howard, an unknown mechanic, Hughes got to pursue the local belles at every stop. With his dark good looks and the tremendous sense of humor his anonymity fostered, he cut a swath with everyone from serving girls to officers' wives, enjoying a freedom that was becoming increasingly impossible for him in the States.

  Bandfield was always pleased and surprised at the way Hughes threw himself into his role; he was Charles Howard, day and night, and no matter what had to be done, from carrying bags to repairing the airplane, he would do it. They had had a bit of trouble with the names on the way down; Hughes, preoccupied with the scenery and the women, wasn't responding when Bandfield called him Charles. They had arrived at a compromise on the name business—Bandfield would address him as Howard, as if he were using his last name only. The passport and the introductions were always in the name Charles Howard, but they both felt comfortable with the mild subterfuge.