Kindle Edition
Category:
Historical Fiction
Publisher: First Edition Design Publishing
ISBN-10: 1506903665
Type: Fiction
Pages: 261
Copyright: Jan 1, 2017
ISBN-13: 9781506903668
Price: $5.99 (eBook)
Danny Parker, a pilot wounded in the Great War, returns home hoping to reconcile with his former girlfriend, a silent movie star, but she has disappeared.
Danny Parker, a pilot wounded in the Great War, returns home to Long Beach, California, hoping to reconcile with his former girlfriend, who is now a silent movie star. But Joyce has disappeared.
As Danny searches for Joyce, clues lead him to the stunt pilot who taught him to fly, an old priest scarred by the Indian Wars, a police chief who prefers justice to politics, a big tent evangelist who preaches women's rights, and a Barnum & Bailey showman who owns hundreds of Nickelodeon theaters and is running for mayor of Los Angeles.
In 1919 Southern California is booming with four new industries: aviation, automobiles, oil exploration, and entertainment. Beneath the shimmering exhilaration lies the dirt of human greed.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
The once lovely French wine country rolled slowly under the wings of the bi-plane. Danny had traveled on trains, trucks and tanks through other regions of France on his way to the Argonne Forest. A few fortunate areas were still untouched by the Great War. Verdant vineyards, pastures and forests covered rich dark soil, with a few horses, cattle, and chickens walking around rough stone farmhouses and weathered wooden fences. He imagined it had looked the same a thousand years earlier.
Not here in Argonne. This was devastation. Most of the soldiers and Marines would never see the battlegrounds from this vantage point. Ten thousand feet up, the sky was as clear as if God had just created it. But the land sliding below Danny? Mankind had ruined it. The crops were trampled, the forests were blackened by fire and crushed by artillery. Gray and green trucks and tanks and artillery wagons had replaced the farm animals. With his binoculars he spied uncountable dead bodies scattered across the ashen earth and shredded vegetation. He knew first hand that the smell was horrendous down there.
The De Havilland DH-4 Danny was piloting was noisy as hail stones on a tin roof, and the engine was practically in Danny’s lap. He felt a tap on his shoulder and twisted around to look at his observer, Joe Dawson. Joe sat behind Danny, but the plane’s fuel tank separated them. They were flying at 110 miles per hour so the wind noise added to the uproar in the open cockpit. Joe kept a wooden yardstick in his cockpit to poke Danny for attention.
Joe, also looking through binoculars, pointed down and left. Danny spotted the fresh-looking German fighting holes in the “no man’s land” between the friendly and enemy trench lines. Time for a bombing run. He pushed the rudder pedals with his feet, turning the plane away from the target so he could descend and come at the Huns from the west. The sun was low in the late afternoon sky and he hoped the glare would give them a bit of an advantage as their plane raced toward the enemy fighting holes.
Danny pushed the throttle all the way in and the gravity of the plane’s descent did the rest. They hit top speed of 125 miles an hour. Joe quickly released four of their 20-pound bombs and Danny pulled the DH-4 steeply up. He noticed four little holes had appeared in the varnish-coated cotton fabric wing over his head. That should be no problem; thankfully the Germans had missed the engine and gas tank. He looked back at the target. Judging from the smoke and flames, it appeared to be a successful run. He turned around to get Joe’s reaction. Joe was pointing at his watch. Danny nodded. They’d been aloft for two and a half hours and the fuel was three-quarters empty. They’d destroyed five targets, a good day’s work. He turned the plane back toward their airfield. Now the sun was directly in his face.
They made it back across the German trenches. Cotton-ball clouds dotted the blue sky. A red Fokker bi-plane roared out of one of the clouds, flying directly at them. Danny reached for one of his two Marlin 30 caliber machine guns. Joe also had a pair of 30 caliber guns, by Lewis. With the enemy plane directly in front of them, Joe would not be able to fire without hitting Danny, and Danny hesitated to fire through the DH-4’s massive propeller. He swerved the plane to the right, positioning the German on their left. Both men opened fire, pouring out bullets at blurring speed.
The two planes whizzed past each other. Like knights jousting on horseback, they turned around and came at each other again, shooting frantically. Planes made big targets and much of a plane’s structure was vital: propeller, engine, fuel tank, and pilots. The wings could sustain hits, but too many holes would shred the cloth wings. Modern automatic weapons like the Lewis gun made it possible to stitch a line of holes all across a wing or fuselage.
The German pilot had hit the DH-4’s little auxiliary fuel tank, which was right over Danny’s head, and he could feel the fuel spraying on him and probably also blowing back onto Joe. Not good! Could they make it back to the airbase, outrunning the German? Maybe. The Fokker bi-plane had a BMW engine with roughly the same top speed as their De Havilland.
The planes darted past each other again. Joe managed to rip the Fokker’s lower left wing badly enough that the wind blew a big chunk of it clean off. The Fokker began to turn slowly upside down, out of control. Danny raised an arm in triumph and shouted. Just then the dripping fuel landed on the engine in front of him and caught fire. Danny’s leather flying helmet was by now damp with fuel and now it caught fire as the flames blew past his face. His goggles prevented the flames from blinding him. He unsnapped the helmet and ripped it from his head. This was exactly why the DH-4 was nicknamed the Flaming Coffin! The flames had blown out, and it seemed like the auxiliary fuel tank over his head had stopped dripping, meaning it was empty. Good news and bad news. He checked the fuel gauge – the main tank was also near empty.
He cranked his head around again to check on Joe. His friend had also ripped off his helmet and gave Danny a big grin and a wave. Danny turned back and checked on the plane’s altitude, direction and air speed and wondered if they would make the airbase. It was a tossup. Among its other shortcomings the DH-4 had no radio, just a Morse Code wireless. Neither he nor Joe was skilled at dots and dashes. Of course they had no parachutes. Danny knew there were two good reasons for that. The top brass apparently considered the planes more important than the crew. Equipping a plane with parachutes might encourage a pilot to save himself rather than doing everything he could to land his plane safely. And anyway, fighter pilots were a manly bunch. Parachutes were for the guys who flew observation blimps!
Danny could maximize the plane’s distance by reducing speed. By now they were probably safe from German planes and ground troops. So there was no rush. Danny throttled back to 60 miles per hour and tried to relax.
He and Joe had been flying combat missions for only ten weeks. It had taken until August to supply the Marines with the De Havilland planes. Between April and August the two men had occasionally trained on civilian planes, but safely behind the lines. There were only a few Marine aviators in France, so they all knew each other. All had had some flying experience, either in the Corps or prior to enlisting. Danny had logged hundreds of hours in a Curtiss JN-4 bi-plane, affectionately called the Jenny, back in his home town, Long Beach, California. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Danny had enlisted in April 1917, within days of the United States joining the Great War. He’d been skimming through an issue of Scientific American, glancing at the pictures. One of the pages suddenly caught his eye.
It was a full-page advertisement, a recruiting poster for the Marines. A man with powerful shoulders was wearing a vested suit with white sleeves. He was sliding his suit coat off, as if preparing for a fight. He’d already discarded his hat, which lay at his feet. His strong jaw was set in a grim and determined line. Also at his feet was a newspaper, and on the front page was the bold headline: “Huns Killing Women and Children.” At the top of the advertisement was the sales message: “Tell That to the Marines.”
Danny had stared at the ad for a while without seeing it. The message was a bit ambiguous, perhaps assuming the reader had some familiarity with the Marine Corps. But the implication was clear to him. If there is a wrong to be avenged, tell the Marines, because they will surely do something about it.
The plane’s engine popped like popcorn in a sauce pan. Then it finally quit and all Danny heard was the air hissing through the wires and struts of the wings. The 400 horsepower V-12 Liberty engine was now a hunk of useless iron. The De Havilland drifted slower and lower. Danny played with the pedals and stick to maximize the distance, but it was clear they’d never reach the American airbase. There was nothing to do now but wait, so he took time to pray. They were 500 feet up, drifting lower with each minute. The sun had set, reducing the visibility. Ahead was a row of trees, which they’d be able to clear, but he could not yet see beyond them.
Sailing silently over the trees, he saw what looked like a dirt road lying at an angle from their direction of flight. This was where they’d have to land. He used the rudder to align the plane with the road and adjusted the elevator gently to descend.
They hit the road hard. It was not as smooth as he’d hoped. The plane bounced left and then right, slowing enough in the process that Danny whispered a quiet “thank you.” Then the road turned sharply left. The plane continued straight, and the plane’s wheels hit a rock the size of a cow. The heavy engine wanted to keep going and tipped the DH-4 onto its nose. Danny grabbed the edge of the stick to keep himself in the cockpit, but Joe flew out and over the top wing. Danny heard him smack the ground with a thump and lie still. Like a pine tree falling, the DH-4 tipped over onto its right side, with Danny bracing himself in the cockpit as the wings crumpled like an injured bird. Almost immediately he smelled the remains of the fuel spilling out of the gas tank. His heart jumped into his throat. There couldn’t be much fuel left – maybe just enough to burn him to death.
Danny jerked his canvas rucksack off the floorboard, wriggled out of the cockpit, and jumped to the ground. It was now so dark he did not see Joe at first. He fumbled his flashlight out of his pack and ran in the direction the plane had been going when it crashed. Twenty feet from the plane he found his friend inside a bush, his head lying at an unnatural angle. There was no pulse.
Danny turned off the flashlight and slumped to the ground next to Joe. It was dark and he was lost. The Germans may have seen the plane crash and could be heading toward him this very moment. He jumped to his feet and sprinted for the nearby tree line.
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