Wingwalkers by Taylor Brown

Author:Taylor Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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They stopped one hundred yards short of the air station gate, parked in the darkness between streetlamps. It was nearing dawn. The cadets lay snoring in the rumble seat, one head propped on the other’s shoulder. The four of them had drunk until the cantina closed and then found their way to the speakeasies of Palafox Street and finally to the sailors’ taverns near the coaling docks, where tattooed stevedores and merchant seamen swam in flickering red light, their teeth flashing like knives.

The vast tarmac of the air station lay on the other side of the fence. Naval biplanes gleamed metallic under the moon. There were Curtiss Hawk fighters, sharp-beaked as raptors, built to fly from the flattop islands of aircraft carriers. There were Sparrowhawk pursuit craft, each designed to hang from the trapeze of a dirigible airship, and a squadron of brand-new Goshawk bomber-fighters. Their stainless steel propellers shone like giant scimitars, cocked before engines the size of wagon wheels, the cylinders arrayed like iron spokes.

“Wright radials,” said Zeno. He might have been looking at a painting in the Louvre. “Nine cylinders, seven hundred horsepower.”

The gleaming planes seemed to be taunting them almost, so close yet out of reach, protected by razor wire, barricades, and roaming patrols of military police armed with canines and submachine guns. An impossibility. The Jenny seemed so fragile in comparison to such machines, a plaything of balsawood and parchment and glue—a craft as delicate as their own dreams, held together with faith, chance, endless maintenance.

Still, staring at these warplanes, Della felt a tenderness for the Jenny, which had carried them so far already and kept rising, morning after morning, season after season, ready to start bounding westward again once the days warmed and they could earn their bread and fuel from the crowds. Despite the winter hiatus, Della had the feeling they were finally heading someplace instead of circling—that they were pulling out of the old spin.

She touched Zeno’s back. “We better see if we can wake them.”

He nodded.

Della shook the cadets gently, watching their eyes open slowly, hazed with dream, trying to discern their whereabouts. They fumbled and hiccupped, trying to extricate themselves from the vehicle. Zeno righted each man, gripping him by the shoulders, while Della fixed their hats and neckerchiefs.

One of the cadets held up his hand in salute. “Whisky-soda,” he slurred.

They stood behind the cadets, aiming them, then set them walking like windup toys. A wind had begun to blow in from the sea, shoving the aspirant fliers off course, but they succeeded in correcting themselves again and again, zigzagging toward the air station gate, tacking against the wind like sailing ships.

Della watched them closely, willing them along with her heart. She was only slightly older than they were, but they seemed so young to her. Still boys. Young men who’d yet to be truly afraid, to realize they could die. They were fearless, cocksure, their shoulders pinned high and tight. She hoped such reckless faith would keep them alive through the months to come.

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