Hike and the aeroplane

Night on the desert. There seemed to be millions of new stars in the sky, as they whirred over the dead world of sand and cactus, in the Hustle. The Lieutenant was taking a nap, nestling in a long cloak, between the Benet-Mercier machine-gun and a pile of cartridge-boxes. Hike was driving the tetrahedral, glad to be facing the winds again, glad to be shooting ahead at nearly a hundred miles an hour, instead of dawdling across the Yard. But he was a little anxious, too, for he was afraid that he was lost.

He kept searching the roller-map, in front of him. There were so few landmarks. He had no towns, with brilliant arc lights, to go by. He wanted to ask the Lieutenant’s opinion of where they were, but also he didn’t want to wake the tired man. He took the chance that they were near the spot where the corners of Arizona and California nearly meet, on the border of Mexico, and turned southwestward.

Far off, there was a tiny, broad-spread glow on the clouds. Could that be a desert village? But why lights so late at night? In any case, he was going to find out.

There seemed to be nothing in the world, as he soared, except the stars, brilliant overhead, the rushing aeroplane, and that glow ahead. The glow departed, and he studied what looked like a big camp-fire. It was a camp-fire, he found out, a minute later. He circled it, quietly, with the motor and lights shut off, noting the men passing about it. One stood out clearly in the full red flare of the flames, looking into the fire, unconscious of the tetrahedral ’planing above him. Hike peered at the man carefully, for the sudden fear had come, “Suppose this should be a camp of revolutionists? Suppose we’re already in the region of the revolution?”

But the man was not in uniform. He seemed to be an American, a cowpuncher, in overalls, a sombrero, and a flannel shirt. Again, easily, softly, slowly—much more slowly than any aeroplane except the tetrahedral could have done—he circled the fire, trying to make out what sort of men were those sleeping about the fire. He could not tell. But he saw an open space, beyond the bunch of picketed horses, and dropped the Hustle safely in the space.

The horses set up a frightened neighing. Instantly, the man by the fire shouted something in Mexican, and two hundred men sprang out of their blankets and rushed toward Hike and the tetrahedral. In the dim light there, some distance from the fire, he saw that they all carried guns—carbines, shotguns, modern rifles—even some Krags and Parsley-Chardon repeaters; and about half of them were in some sort of uniforms; here an American army khaki shirt, here a French military cap, here a pair of shabby shoulder-straps.

So he had fallen among the revolutionists!

He started to snap on the motor, but an insurrecto sprang up beside him and caught his arm. Even then, Hike’s first thought was for the safety of Lieutenant Adeler and the machine-gun. With one quick twist of his head, he saw that the Lieutenant, though still wobbly after his quick awakening from sleep, had managed to throw a tarpaulin over the gun and cartridges, and that he was concealed from the revolutionists behind that black covering.

“Leggo my arm!” Hike snapped at the insurrecto.

From the midst of the group rushed the man who had been standing by the fire. Now that he was so close, Hike could see that he had, pinned on a shoulder, one shoulder-strap, with the insignium of a major. It was all there was of his uniform!

The man shouted something in Mexican again, and added in English, “Let him alone, you-all.” He talked like a Virginian, with a soft, mellow, sweet voice, that sounded as though it could get very angry. “We can use him and his flying machine, Ah reckon!”

Then Hike realized that many of these revolutionists were Americans. Some looked like tough horse-thieves, some like adventurous young chaps from ranches. And with that came the sharp thought, “What if Welch were in this bunch?” That suggested what he ought to do.

“Major,” he cried, “I’m under Colonel Welch’s orders, and I’m bringing him a—a—bringing his despatches. I want to get my directions, and what you know about his present location.”

The “Major” seemed startled. “Welch? You with him?”

“I sure am,” declared Hike, wishing that he soon might be “with” him, at least.

The ruse worked. But before the “Major” answered Hike, he spoke with a Mexican who had quantities of gold lace over a shabby weather-worn old uniform-coat.

Just then Jack Adeler’s head bobbed up from behind the tarpaulin-covered gun and cartridges at the back. Hike, looking back, felt very anxious. What had he been doing back there? Could it be that Jack Adeler—Jack Adeler!—was afraid of a bunch of plundering bush-fighters? If the machine-gun were only loaded—what they could do—!

He heard the Lieutenant whispering sharply, “Find out where we are.”

“Where are we?” he blurted out to the “Major.”

“Ten miles southeast of Calientado—seventeen miles from the border.... But say, Ah don’t think we’d better let you-all go yet. Ah’ll have to see your despatches, first, and then, if they’re all right, Ah’ll have Captain Grendez here go—”

Suddenly Jack Adeler’s voice bellowed from the freight-platform, “Stand aside, there, all of you, or we’ll shoot you.” He was waving a revolver with one hand and jerking at the tarpaulin cover with the other.

The “Major” seemed only quietly amused. “Ah thought what you said was only a ruse,” he laughed. “You, back there, you better put up that pop-gun or you might hurt yourself, ’cause when we—”

Just then the tarpaulin came off. Jack Adeler turned a handle, and the machine-gun went “trrrrrrr,” like an automobile racing without a muffler.

Ten men about the machine toppled over, and the rest fled terrified, throwing away their guns as they ran, scattering into the darkness, bellowing horrified fear.

Instantly, Hike switched on the contact. The Hustle bumped along the soft ground, stuck a moment in the sand, then went up at a long slant, dangerously close to the fire. In a second she was running smooth, as though on cushions of eiderdown. Jack Adeler, stopping only to cover the machine-gun, came down to the passenger seat beside Hike.

Hike’s nerves had been terrible shaken by the sight of men falling over, struck by the hurricane of shells from the machine-gun; and it was all he could do to keep his levers on the jiggle. His nerve was fairly gone, for once.

Through the crack of the motor, he shouted to the Lieutenant, “I hope they weren’t killed—wounded.”

“I shot low,” yelled back Jack. “(Steer a little more to the west, there.) I shot low, and I don’t think any got killed—though there’s a lot of men that won’t walk—and won’t go plundering innocent rancheros—for a while.... Well, I had a good nap, and our little party back there has waked me up nicely. Better let me drive. I know this country fairly well.”

Hike was glad to let him take the levers. Creeping back to the freight-platform, and covering himself with a fold of the tarpaulin against the piercing night-wind, he shivered off to sleep; worrying a little over the wounded men; hoping they were not killed; picturing the glorious excitement of a game on the athletic field at Santa Benicia, where they fought their best, but did not try to kill each other, to leave each other a mass of dead flesh on the field.

For the first time, Hike really understood that war is a horrible thing, to be prevented as far as possible. He remembered a friend of his father’s, a brave, high-ranking officer and a good commander, who had often said that war was a crime, which the Army ought to prevent, instead of trying to bring it on. He was glad, as he lay there thinking, that he was with a man like Lieutenant Adeler, who also hated war, and who was coming down here not to make war, but to prevent the treacherous fighting of Welch. Welch was the sort of man who liked to bring about war.

He hoped that the tetrahedral, as used by the Army, would be so terrible a thing that it would prevent other nations from making war.

With the picture of the poor greasers, and a couple of Americans, writhing on the ground, mowed down by the machine-gun, bloody and in agonized pain, Hike prayed, simply and sincerely, for the end of all war.

He was not afraid. He was ready for the struggle about the ranch at Aguas Grandes. But he hoped that that struggle would end the warring of Welch.

He understood now something that Jack Adeler had said: that some day, before long, he hoped that the whole Army would be busy with great engineering, with building Panama canals, and stringing wires, and setting up wireless-stations, and making great forests, instead of preparing for fighting.

That, too, was what Hike wanted to do. He hoped, some day before long, to be an engineer, in good, stout laced leather boots and a sombrero, building a fine big steel bridge across some dangerous pass in the High Sierras, with the good open air and the deep woods about him. He planned to know wireless and aeroplanes and steel—and he hoped that every new thing he did, every fine bridge or aeroplane that he built, would be one step toward making a more civilized world, which would not want war; which would prefer happiness and peace and the good brave mountain woods to fighting like clay-grimed savages.

It was the first time that Hike really knew how serious he could be. He didn’t feel much like a gay Santa Benicia boy, just then.

At last, exhausted, he fell asleep. He was awakened by the stopping of the motor, and, in the gray light of early dawn, saw that they were circling over a group of adobe buildings, with cattle corrals about, while a bunch of men were shouting, “He’s here! Adeler’s here!”

They were at Aguas Grandes.