Part 6 (1/2)

The enlisted pilot with him let him go as long as he thought he dared.

Then he nudged him in the ribs, pointed out that he was about to land a boat on land, and suggested that maybe it would be a better idea to go over and land in the river.

The pilot agreed that it certainly would. He gave it the gun and went around again and came in for a landing on the river. He made a good landing and let the s.h.i.+p slow down. When they were idling along he turned around to the enlisted pilot and started to apologize for almost landing him on land. He undid his belt as he talked.

”That was a dumb thing for me to do,” he said. ”I've been flying land planes for so long that I guess I just started coming in there from habit without thinking. It sure was dumb.” He was obviously humiliated and confused.

”Well,” he said finally, ”it sure was dumb,” and got up and climbed out of the c.o.c.kpit onto the wing.

”So long,” he said, and stepped down off the wing into the water.

FLYER ENJOYS WORRY

Gloomy Gus got his name at Brooks Field, the army primary flying school.

He was always going to get washed out of the school the next day. When he graduated from Brooks he wasn't going to last three weeks at Kelly, the advanced school, because he had got through Brooks by luck anyway.

When he graduated from Kelly, the hottest pilot in his cla.s.s, he would never get a job in commercial flying, so he might just as well have been washed out at Kelly.

I saw him several months later in Chicago. He was flying one of the best runs on the western division of the mail. He was sure it wouldn't be very long before he cracked up, night flying, and disabled himself for life, so what good was his mail job?

I saw him several years after he had been transferred to the eastern run over the Allegheny Mountains. He didn't know what good the additional money he was making was going to do him when he was dead. Didn't all the hot pilots get it in those mountains?

He took a vacation from the pa.s.senger lines and went on active duty with the army. I saw him at Mitch.e.l.l Field. He said he was taking his vacation flying because he wanted to fly some army s.h.i.+ps for a change and have some fun. ”But you know, I shouldn't have done it,” he said.

”I've been flying straight and level too long. I almost hit a guy in formation this morning. I probably won't live long enough to get back to the lines.”

I saw him a few days after he had gone back to the lines.

”How they going, Gloomy?” I greeted him.

”Oh,” he said, ”that bit of army flying made me careless. I almost hit a radio tower this morning. Carelessness is what kills all old-timers, you know.”

”Gus,” I said. ”You'd be miserable if you didn't have something to worry about. You will probably live to have a long white beard and worry yourself sick all day long that you are going to trip on it and break your neck.”

Only a faint flicker of humor lit up his gloomy eyes.

WEATHER AND WHITHER

Archer Winsten writes that ”different” column in the _Post_, In the Wake of the News. I met Archer for the first time in San Antonio in 1927. He was down there for his health, and I was instructing at Brooks Field for my living. We both had ideas of writing even at that time. We became fast friends before Archer went home to Connecticut and I went to March Field, Riverside, Cal.

I resigned from the army the next year and went with the Department of Commerce. I was a.s.signed to fly Bill McCracken, head of the department, on about a seven-thousand-mile tour of the country. I kept asking Bill if his itinerary was going to take us to Westport, Conn., or anywhere near it, because if it was I wanted to go see my friend Archer Winsten, who lived there. He said he didn't know where the place was, and I began looking for it on the map. I couldn't find it and told Bill that. I remarked how strange it was several times later that I couldn't find Westport on the map. A couple of times Bill asked me if I had found it yet, and I said no.

I was strange to the East at that time, and when we got to Hartford I was sure we were going to go right past Westport without my ever finding out where it was. I complained to Bill about it and we both looked over a map and couldn't find the place.