Bandfield's airplane had pulled just to the side of the little Cessna when Dickens rocked his ailerons and flicked a skidding turn out in front of him.
Dompnier watched, clinically detached. "Merde, he's bluffing, just as Turner said he would."
Bandfield saw the Cessna's control movements, ignored them. It was win or die, a high school game of chicken such as he'd once played in Model Ts on the country roads around Salinas.
Dickens flicked his controls again, saw the Rascal relentlessly boring in, the shimmering circle of its propeller aimed directly at his cockpit. Dickens wrenched his red racer down and outside as Bandfield slammed his plane over the top of the Cessna's cockpit with inches to spare, then dropped down to take advantage of the clear air of the lead.
Dompnier growled with delight. "He made it." The old 1918 ace's killer instinct stirred within him. Dickens's faked maneuver had cost him time, and he'd fallen a length behind Bandfield, and now was only half a length ahead. First Dickens, then Bandfield, then the trophy.
Dickens swore to himself, bending the throttle forward. He knew he didn't have the speed to catch Bandfield. He had to hold the Caudron off somehow and take at least second place. He needed the money, to live, to eat, to fly.
Dickens looked in his mirror again, saw the Caudron's prop between his wing and elevator. Dompnier was gaining—his engine must have cleared up. Dickens forgot about Bandfield, forgot about anything but the blue Caudron moving in to steal second place, steal his livelihood from him. He moved stick and rudder in short abrupt slamming movements, glancing back at Dompnier, who was gaining inch by inch. He had no choice; he had to fake this Frog out even if he hadn't fooled that fucking Bandfield.
Dickens viciously flicked his ailerons, kicked the rudder, jigged the Cessna right, then left.
Dompnier's face compressed to a tight smile. "No, my friend, not this time. You didn't fool Bandfield, you won't fool me."
Desperate, Dickens flicked his controls again, harder, jolting unseen molecules of air, scraping loose their grip on his tapered wings. The little Cessna shuddered in a high-speed stall, snapping directly into Dompnier's path.
The Cessna blotted out the sky before Dompnier, a bright red wall centered with the terrified white smear of Dickens's face. In the split second before the collision his hands automatically moved to jettison the canopy and unbuckle the safety harness. The two airplanes merged, disappearing in a thudding explosion that rocked the field. The French racer bored through the Cessna, propeller chewing Dickens and cockpit before lofting the engine away in a high arc as the Caudron disintegrated around Dompnier.
Thrown brutally from his shattered cockpit, Stephan was pain-gouged to a clear untrammeled consciousness by the midair splintering of his shredded body. Turning flat, arms and legs outstretched into a cross, he saw the ground spin beneath him. He did not scream. His last thought was that Patty would not bear his son after all, before he dropped to bounce like a skipped rock on the grassy stubble.
It was a second before the stricken crowd could comprehend what had happened, before the low, dolorous moan concealing the shock of blood-bitten pleasure rolled out.
Coming around for the last lap, Bandy took the checkered flag wondering where Dompnier and Dickens had suddenly gone. He pulled up to five hundred feet and brought the power back, letting the Rascal coast down to 150 mph. His left hand was trembling from the grip he had on the throttle, his muscles sore from the strain and the G forces. But he had the $15,000. They had the factory.
The other racers were spreading out to forge a landing pattern, Dompnier and Dickens not among them. He dropped down to take a slow victory lap, fifty feet above the course. The flame and smoke puzzled him until he saw Patty running toward the wreckage.
***
Chapter 7
Sayville, Long Island/April 21, 1933
The sudden arrival of spring threw color everywhere like rice at a wedding, plucking blossoms from the sleeping branches and splashing reds and yellows in every patch of sunlight. Innocent flowering shrubs burst forth, unaware they were sacrificial victims to the frost that was sure to follow. It was wonderful to be alone—Charlotte was at the plant, Bruno off on another of his tours of Germany and France—and Patty sat on the chaise placed near the open French doors so she could drink in the broad, sweeping grounds. For a moment Patty indulged herself in a flight of sympathy for the new blooms, whose happiness was certain to be nipped off as early as her own had been.
She poured another cup of coffee with a shrug, saying aloud, "That's nonsense, straight out of an Ouida novel." Sipping, she admitted again that the sadness of Stephan's death, tragic and unnecessary as it had been, was accompanied by some measure of relief. He had become increasingly possessive, and his implacable preoccupation with siring a son—he refused to consider the possibility of a daughter as adamantly as he refused to acknowledge that he might be the one who was sterile—had made him terribly defensive. Their last two years together had been miserable. There was no other word for them.
Yet she missed the early days, when they were content with themselves, and he was not yet distressed by a lack of children. Their rollicking good times, wonderfully romantic and sexual, were more than most people ever had in a lifetime. Stephan had been marvelous to travel with, adaptable to the ordinary discomforts of foreign lands, amiable with the natives. He had taken her on an eight-week aerial tour of French colonial Africa in their own Caudron cabin plane. It was an unforgettable time, hazarding the parched deserts watching the rich herds of game, enjoying the simple amiability of the natives that Stephan said concealed a valiant warrior discipline, savoring the rough camp fare, impossibly delicious. Then, always, there was the uninhibited loving under the canvas.
But it was over. Charlotte had been astute, giving her correct care—comfort when it was wanted, solitude when it was needed—but even she was beginning to suggest that it was time to get busy. Bruno, direct as always, had told her one afternoon to "stop drooping around and go to work."
She had been to France twice since the crash. Once to bury him in the family plot, a request he had made before the races "in case anything happens." At the funeral, Pierre Dompnier had been a broken man, totally destroyed by the death of the last of his sons. Madame, quite unexpectedly, had been by far the stronger of the two, buoyed by her strong religious beliefs and perhaps hardened by their earlier losses. Monique had been stoic.
Then last month she had gone again, meeting Bruno and Charlotte in Orleans. It was a world turned upside down. The business had made the Dompniers prosperous, and Pierre was determinedly jovial. Monique had assumed the airs of a bank president, aloof, crisply businesslike—except when she thought she was alone with Bruno. Then she became Monique the coquette again. Something was probably going on.
In a dozen unconscious ways, never intended, the family somehow made it clear that they rejected and resented Patty, while they accepted and even enjoyed Bruno. It made sense to her only when she separated events and looked at them dispassionately. She had interrupted their plans and taken Stephan away from them. Bruno had intervened with new plans that in some measure let the family carry on despite the loss of their sons. She understood, objectively; subjectively, she felt a bitter resentment compounded by a sense of personal failure.
A magpie, wings feather-edged in white, whirled in flight above the lawn, then fluttered down to pick up some morsel. Its image plucked a clear vision from the roiling mass of her confused emotions: she intended to go on flying. In part it was a fall-back position—she really knew how to do nothing else. But in the main it was a visceral desire to experience again the joys of flight, the swift transport from the complexities and frustrations of the ground to the serene beauty of the sky.
She had genuinely mourned Stephan, but now it was time to get on with her life. He probably would not have wished her to fly, knowing the danger as he did so intimately. But he would not have forbidden it either.
The resolution stirred a sense
of well-being in her, and she began to plan her path of action. She would start over with some instruction at the plant; then a few cross-countries, perhaps some aerobatic work. Then she could see if she could do some racing, appear in some air shows. On the side, there would be flying to do at the factory.
In the long run, this wouldn't be enough. Flying, marvelous in itself, demanded recognition. She had a responsibility to other women flyers to do well, to break down some of the barriers. A few record flights, perhaps, and then a shot at the Bendix Trophy.
Not even realizing it, she had stood up and moved to the mirror, pushing her hair into place and checking her makeup. She could get someone to check her out in the company Waco this afternoon. No sense in wasting any more time.
She was changing into her flying clothes when she became aware of the warmth of a deep sexual stirring. Except for some sad sweet dreams of Stephan, it was the first since the accident, and it shocked her. She sat on the edge of the bed, one leg in the jodhpur-like flying pants, and remembered one of Stephan's deep beliefs. The joys of flying—dawn flights, the panoramic views of the countryside, the satisfaction of doing well—were heightened by a sweet, biting sauce implicitly and irresistibly tinged with sex . . . and death.
*
Downey, California/May 16, 1933
The factory had thundered into life with a Stravinski-like overture of clanging sounds. When the long-sealed hangar doors were popped open, the welcome breeze caused the silver-lettered red hanging signs—"No Smoking," "Fire Extinguisher"—to jangle vigorously in their chain traces, as if rolling up tin sleeves in anticipation of being useful again. Bandfield and Roget exulted in the growing cacophony as the ordinary mechanics of starting up made the building pulsate with life. From the crackling of the light switches being snapped on to the rumbling tremors sent from the air compressor, the whole factory stretched and groaned back toward productivity.
The first real clamor came from the insistent cackle of riveting machines as cut metal came together, small parts being assembled by men glad to have jobs. Downey's entire community benefited from the reopening, for almost as soon as the impressive "Roget Aircraft Corporation" sign had gone up—Hadley had fabricated the brass letters himself—two other businesses had moved in. One was a hopeful flight instruction school, with an ancient Bird biplane as its only trainer (Hadley offered them a deal on a Kitten right away) and the other was an auto-body shop, and they gave the field a sense of promise that had long been lacking. Bandfield had purchased a Kodak Brownie camera for $2.50 and was keeping a day-to-day record of the progress.
An argument had slowed them down temporarily. Hadley and Bandy were both working too hard, Roget driving the men on the floor with an obsessive demand for quality while Bandfield bent over the drafting board. Late at night, when everyone was gone, Bandfield would sometimes slump over the table and feel twin red spots drilling mercilessly through his closed eyes into his retinas, afterimages of the engineering room's bright incandescents. Between the engineering and the financial worries, both men needed a vacation. They had survived Roosevelt's bank holiday only because the local suppliers were totally dependent upon them and kept them afloat, fulfilling orders far beyond the usual credit limits. There were damn few dollars coming in and every day a new, surprise demand for dollars going out.
A major rupture almost occurred in mid-April. Bandfield had forced his eyes open to stare at the two top drawings of the proposed bomber in front of him, the one Hadley Roget preferred, and his own version.
"Look out the window there, Bandy. We can't screw around forever waiting for you to make a decision. You wanted to be president, and presidents make decisions."
Bandfield pushed his slide rule aside and glanced out the grimy window to the assembly-bay floor. Work on the wing had stopped, awaiting a decision. A swarm of men in gray coveralls were busy fabricating the elevators and rudder, while others were finishing up on the retractable landing gear installation.
Bandy's instincts told him they needed a super-lean aircraft, with an oval fuselage that minimized drag, and the main bomb load carried externally. He figured that you had to have the extra drag only on the trip in; coming off the bomb run you'd be cleaner, and faster. Hadley wanted a bigger fuselage, one that would hold more fuel as well as bombs, accepting the cost of the extra drag.
He was certain Roget was wrong. They'd argued for days, and the time had come to make a decision. The wing was almost complete, waiting for them to decide where the fuselage-attachment fittings would go.
All the calculations resolved down to a simple table. His airplane could carry two thousand-pound bombs externally. It had a top speed of 190 mph, and could fly for about 600 miles. He insisted that the extra drag of the externally mounted bombs was more than offset by the savings in weight and the reduction in frontal resistance of the lean fuselage. Hadley's design offered the same bomb load, carried internally with more room for fuel tanks. The top speed was only 180 mph, but the range was 890 miles. Other than the size and shape of the fuselage, the two designs were identical, both using 630-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1860-11 engines.
"Okay, Hadley. Let's decide. But first let's talk about hiring someone to handle the production end. Do you think Howard can do it?"
Roget grunted. "Sure, easy, but I doubt if he's interested. He's learned about as much from us as he can." The older man flopped down in a chair and propped his leg on the drafting table. "Besides, he's not reliable anymore. He's either off working some movie deal or fiddle-fucking with that little Boeing biplane he bought. He's talking about building a racer of his own. Anyway, I'm not sure he can keep his mind on the job and his pecker in his pants. Even when he is here, he's gone half the day, either chasing that cupcake down at the cafe or dragging his own beauties around. He must have the name and address of every starlet in Hollywood!"
Bandfield avoided grinning. He sometimes went out with Hughes's leftovers, some of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen, and Roget knew it.
"But before we hire anybody, we've got to decide which airplane to build. We've waited too long already."
Bandfield accepted the rebuke resignedly. Hadley was all get-up-and-go, never willing to stop and reflect. The delays in deciding had bothered Bandy, but were killing Roget.
"No, we haven't lost too much time. A week maybe, no more. I think my design is right, even though you've been building airplanes a long time. The main thing is that I think I know how the Army thinks. They're going to be impressed by top speed more than anything else. It's just like in Peru. Santos was only going to be impressed by the dogfight, no matter what else happened."
When Roget disagreed, he had a way of snorting, tossing his head back, and rolling his eyes that infuriated Clarice; it was beginning to get on Bandfield's nerves as well.
"Doesn't make sense, Bandy. They're not going to race the airplanes. They'll probably never fly at top speed. They need range and bomb load. You forget I spent a little time at Wright Field. And remember—I was responsible for most of the wing design, and I think I know what will work best with it."
Bandfield didn't say anything, and Roget continued, "Either one is okay by me, but let me know what you want, now. It'll make a difference in what we buy, and how we build."
The younger man motioned toward the window. "Look out there, Hadley. We've brought part of this plant back to life. If we get a contract, we'll have the whole place jumping. Forty people depend on us now for paychecks, but we'll employ ten times more if we make the right decision."
"I agreed that you'd be the boss, Bandy, so I'll do whatever you say. But let's decide."
Bandfield felt the familiar sense of compulsive Tightness descend on him. He tried to shake it off, to be totally objective, but the feeling came through. "I've got to do it my way. The competition is in June. Can we make it?"
Hadley jumped up grinning, glad to have a decision even if he didn't agree with it. "We'll make it. We'll roll it out the first of May, test it for three weeks,
and fly it to Dayton at the end of the month."
The thought of actually having an airplane he could fly instead of a mass of jumbled metal sustained Bandfield as he slogged through the last of the engineering paper shuffle. Most of the remaining design work was now in the small fittings whose needs were previously unforeseen, and the two young engineers he'd hired were doing well with these. Building airplanes was a funny game. After what seemed like weeks without any progress, the skeleton was stop-framing along like a hesitant animated cartoon, and the fuselage was now solid and even beginning to show a few wear marks from the people climbing over it. The slender ovals of the formers had been linked together with aluminum stringers, and then, like shingling a roof, were covered by the specially shaped sheets of thin aluminum skin. The completed wing was on a parallel assembly line, its anodized metal surfaces protected by a paper wrapping until it was mated with the fuselage.
Despite the usual strain of building a prototype—parts that don't come in on schedule, drawings that don't get changed so that other parts don't fit, totally unforeseen problems in routing of controls and cables, the whole complex of things that could go wrong going wrong—Bandfield drew strength from little niceties that counted. The windows in the old Smith plant were positioned exactly right for the natural illumination of his drafting table. There was a small but eager and efficient staff already on board, like Grace Davisson, who had moved from secretary to office manager three weeks after she was hired. She had taken an enormous load from his shoulders, running everything with a cheerful efficiency that automatically picked up his morale.
And there were big things as well, the most important being the bank's establishing a strong line of credit for them, based on the acceptance of their preliminary design by the Air Corps. Design acceptance was a long way from winning a competition and signing a contract, and Bandy suspected that Howard Hughes might have had a hand in influencing the bank to lend him the money.
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