Chapter 1 Hemingwood
Lieutenant George Arlington Hemingwood, of the Hemingwoods of Boston, was wrestling with a problem. Having applied soothing lotions to his freshly shaved and smarting face, and put the last touches to the part in his black hair, he continued to stare into the small mirror and wonder whether he ought to do it or not.
He leaned over until his deeply tanned face was within an inch of the glass and inspected in detail the small, close-cropped black mustache which adorned his upper lip. It was a fairly luxuriant mustache, as those hirsute adornments go, but it did not quite satisfy his critical eye. Was it worthwhile to shave it off in the hope that two hairs would sprout where but one had grown before?
Let it go as it was, he decided.
Having decided this burning question, Hemingwood proceeded leisurely to don his tan serge shirt. He had no further interest in his face, although that, like its principal ornament, was a good enough specimen of its kind. A bit round, perhaps, and certainly very brown, but lighted amazingly by a pair of sparkling brown eyes and a wide, good-humored mouth which was usually curved in either a smile or a grin. If not, it conveyed the impression that it would stretch into one or the other at the slightest provocation.
It was the face of a contented and cheery person, both of which George Arlington Hemingwood was. Being a first lieutenant in the Air Service satisfied him completely and he had little more to ask from fate. The future was pleasant to his mind’s eye. He wasted no thought whatever on his prospects. He could not have told you where he stood on the promotion list, because he did not care particularly whether he ever became a captain or not.
Life, as it was and as he lived it, was a good invention of the Lord’s to his mind. The two rooms he occupied, with walls of beaverboard and a leak in the ceiling, were comfortable enough to live in and far more appealing than the shadowed confines of the Hemingwood residence on Beacon Hill, and, although his father’s bank was a fine big bank and his father’s son could lead an enviable commercial existence therein, the cockpit of a De Haviland airplane was infinitely more desirable.
his despite the fact that George Arlington Hemingwood had led a wild, not to say sensational existence during his five years of flying. From Long Island to the Philippines, and from Selfridge Field on the Canadian border to France Field in Panama he was known as the unluckiest flyer still above the ground instead of under it. He could handle a ship along with the best; that was conceded. However, there appeared to be a conspiracy of motors and the elements against him. He had had more forced landings by half than any other flyer on the list. And almost invariably they occurred over such choice bits of country as the Everglades, the wilder sections of the Mexican border, Chesapeake Bay, the Rockies, and similar traps for unwary airplanes.
He had been rescued thirty miles out at sea during the bombing maneuvers at Langham Field, Virginia; he had laid amid the wreckage of his ship in the Big Bend for two days, without food or water, and been found by a miracle; he had landed in a canyon in Arizona and wandered for a week in the mountains; he had been shot down three times in France, and a list of the injuries he had encountered would include mention of a considerable percentage of the bones of the human body. Always, however, George Arlington Hemingwood bobbed up serenely, cursing his luck with fluency and grinning.
His whole-souled enjoyment of life extended to flying, and was not dampened by the crack-ups thereof.
Having found his big Stetson, he adjusted it on his head at the precise angle which appealed to his liking in these matters. Even with the aid of that impressive twenty dollar chapeau he did not look like a man whose hand had frequently been outstretched to greet St. Peter; who was on speaking terms, as it were, with the life hereafter. He was slightly under medium height, and looked a bit shorter than his five feet seven and a half because of a pair of powerful shoulders. He was impeccably arrayed, as always; he was careful about those things. It was characteristic that the insignia of rank and branch of service on his collar were placed with exactitude.
He strolled out through his sitting room—the shabbily comfortable and muchly cluttered domicile of a carefree bachelor—and down the long hall, emerging into the warm sunlight of a spring afternoon in Kentucky. Springtime in Kentucky is a savory season, and four of the flyers of Goddard Field were taking advantage of it by laying at full length on the grass in front of the barracks.
Directly across the road four corrugated iron hangars squatted in a row, paralleling the line of buildings of which the officers’ quarters was one. On the other side of the hangars was Goddard Field, a small, rough airdrome which sloped down to the great artillery camp which spread out for two square miles at its foot. Like the buildings of the flying detachment, Camp Henry’s barracks and stables had never been painted, and the big cantonment looked aged and infirm, which it was.
“What is the subject of discussion?” enquired Hemingwood as he ignited a cheroot.
“Snapper is trying to justify the fact that he possesses a new fiancée by spacious arguments in favor of marriage,” returned big blonde Morrison.
“Of course, looking at it impartially and without prejudice, marriage is a sucker game from a man’s viewpoint,” stated Hemingwood weightily.
“What do you mean?” enquired Snapper MacNeil belligerently. The wiry, redheaded little flyer was a heaven-sent victim for serious persiflage, and was very much in love.
“Aside from the temporary state of insanity known as love, the state has no arguments in its favor from a man’s viewpoint,” pursued Hemingwood. “Look at the expense, for one thing. However, cheer up, Snapper, even marriage has its points. Don’t think I consider it an unmitigated evil. You can’t—”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said a voice at Hemingwood’s elbow. “Major Williamson’s compliments and will the lieutenant report to headquarters immediately?”
Tall, gaunt Private Rose, perpetual orderly of the officers’ barracks, stood at rigid attention and spewed these words forth as though in mortal fear of forgetting one if he stopped.
“Be right over, Rose,” nodded Hemingwood. So saying, he turned on his heel and left them spellbound.
He strolled toward headquarters, wondering what was up. Some new job, probably. As photographic officer his duties were by no means onerous, and consequently he had a great fear that lightning would strike, at any moment, in the form of an order assigning him to some prosaic task in addition to his other duties.
However, his fears were groundless. He found Major Williamson enthroned behind his desk, arguing acrimoniously with Gobel, the sandy-haired and excitable adjutant. The C. O. fought frequently with Gobel for the purpose of prodding the adjutant until he started pounding the desk, which he frequently did.
“Washington has at last discovered that there’s a photographic section hidden away here,” the major told him. “You’re due for a sojourn in the back hills of Kentucky, where moonshine grows on bushes and rifle bullets flow like water.”
The orders were brief and to the point. Hemingwood was to make a mosaic of the Salters River between the villages of Laport and Herkimer. That would be about thirty miles, Hemingwood reflected. The mosaic was to include all the territory for five miles on each side of the river. Three hundred square miles, which was several days’ work. It was for the use of the geological survey, according to the order, and was to be accomplished without delay.
Hemingwood was delighted. He was whistling cheerfully as he made off to interview Apperson and get things in readiness for a week’s stay in the wilderness.
He found Sergeant Apperson, his chief non-com, in the photo hut. Apperson was a gray-haired veteran who was as reliable as a tax collector and knew more about cameras than the inventors thereof. Anything from a pocket machine to a motion picture outfit was in his professional bailiwick. He was a wiry, weather-beaten little Scotchman who retained a trace of the brogue of his youth.
“We’ll have oor base oot yonder, no doot?” he queried. “We’ll be ready in the mornin’, sir-r-r!”
The invaluable Apperson was likewise an excellent mechanic in addition to his other praiseworthy talents, so Hemingwood told him to have the ship warmed and ready by six in the morning. Whereupon he dismissed everything from his mind. Apperson never failed.
