Sunnyside by Gold Glen David

Author:Gold, Glen David [Gold, Glen David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-05-05T07:00:00+00:00

7

Lee Duncan’s job was to maintain the machine guns for a DH 4 airplane called Lenore. The observer seat had a pair of Lewises mounted on a Scarff ring that allowed them to swing up, down, and approximately 270 degrees. Unfortunately, their arc of fire included the empennage, the plane’s own tailpiece. DH 4s could shake off the enemy, only to shoot themselves down. For the pilot, there was a pair of Marlin.30-calibers, which fired through the arc of the propeller via the amazingly precise harmonics of Constantinesco synchronizing hydraulic gear. It was Lee’s duty to ensure, every morning, that the hydraulics were intact; otherwise, the pilot, Lieutenant Ripley, could turn his own propeller into splinters. On most rainy mornings, or even mornings with a spot of dew to them, the hydraulics were a wreck.

Lieutenant Ripley had shipped out illegally and underage to fly with the French Escadrille. He had once flown pursuit, and had shot down several Germans, though he never mentioned this. He had coarse black hair, and a mustache unique among officers in that it wasn’t cultivated in the British manner. Instead, he looked as if he had once been the marshal of a recently subdued mining town.

He had a sweetheart from the United States, whom he had convinced to come to France. She was impossible. On a particularly harsh leave during which he concluded he had nothing to live for, Ripley married her. This is why he had named his difficult and unreliable airplane, the DH 4 with machine guns tended to by Lee Duncan, Lenore.

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