Part 1

[Illustration: Conway paused. “A helluva lot you know about altitude records, fella! Want to fly this one, for a change?”]

ALTITUDE

By Leland S. Jamieson

Illustrated by William Molt

A free-balloon expert soars high indeed--a vivid and authentic story by an officer of the army air service.

The silver sphere that was the _Marie IV_, the balloon of all balloons to Captain Conway, tugged lightly at the sandbags that held her to the floor. A faint chill breeze whipped around the corner of the open hangar and swayed her gently; the grace of the oscillations suggested an eagerness to tear away from the moorings that lay in a neat square below her basket. Big beyond comparison with other free balloons, she was an object of affection from airmen. She was not just a free balloon, a fabrication of cloth and rope and wicker, filled with hydrogen; she was the _Marie IV_; her name was painted in tall blue letters on her side beneath the netting, and men spoke of her by name. To those familiar with her exploits she had a definite personality, as inanimate things may often have.

In the semi-gloom inside the hangar two men were working. Conway, the larger of these men, was standing in the wicker car of the balloon. Kisner, his aide on many past occasions, knelt upon the floor and sorted paraphernalia, pausing, now and then, to stand and pass some object up to Conway. It was cold; the mercury of the thermometer in the basket huddled in the tube at ten degrees above zero; both men wore heavy fur-lined flying clothes, though only Conway was going on the flight. Their hands were mittened and were huge, like paws; their feet were incased in awkward fleece-lined moccasins.

Kisner lifted a small steel cylinder, upon which was attached a parachute pack, and handed it to Conway; the larger man stepped to the opposite side of the wicker cage and tussled clumsily with the straps and lines that were meant to hold the cylinder in place against a framework on the outside of the car. His hands were all thumbs, and he had difficulty. Finally, in exasperation he turned to Kisner.

“Here, fella, give me a hand. I’ve got too many mittens.”

“Take ’em off,” Kisner suggested gravely, stepping around the basket. “You can’t tie knots in a piece of rope with two thumbs.”

Aiding one another, the two accomplished the task, and Kisner turned back to sorting the various lines and gear on the floor.

* * * * *

An automobile drew to a stop just within the doorway of the hangar, and another man, also dressed in flying clothes--the best protection from the cold--climbed out. Opening the rear door of the car he removed three small, black rectangular boxes. Handling them with infinite care, he walked toward the _Marie IV_. Conway saw him coming and turned to Kisner.

“Here comes Welkfurn with our instruments. We’re just about all set now.”

The man named Welkfurn called, as he approached the balloon: “You guys must ’a’ been working all night, to be out here this time of day. How you making out?”

“Fine,” Conway replied. “Set those barographs down and give us a hand here. What’d the jeweler say? I guess he got the oil off all right.”

“Should have,” said Welkfurn. “Told me he worked all night on ’em. Got a fine day for a trip like this, eh? Awful cold down here, though.... Say, Charley Redfern ran into a culvert with that big new car of his last night. Saw the wreck a while ago as I was going to town. Tore her up mighty bad; Charley didn’t have it paid for either. Don’t know what he’s--”

“Brought everything back from town, did you?” Conway interrupted.

“Yeah, everything you sent.... Hello, Kisner! Got you working! How come? Say, Con, what time are you going to take off? Morning papers carried a story on you and the _Marie_; there’s going to be a crowd out to see you shove off. I was talking to that skinny little reporter that covers the field on this kind of stuff: he was looking for you to get a write-up, and he wants to get a yarn and some pictures for a full page for Sunday. Told him you’re busy as hell and that he’d get run off the place if he showed up out here, but he said: ‘Got to do it, Lieutenant; guess I better get out there right after noon and see the Captain.’ I’m going to get me a club and wait for him. Say, Kis, how about a cigarette?”

“You through talking?” Conway grinned. “Kisner’s got a lot to do down there before I take off. How about doing a little work yourself?”

“Work?”--indignantly. “Say, who was it got up at seven o’clock this morning and drove thirty miles to get those barographs? Battery frozen, too; had to crank the bus by hand. Nearly froze to death! Just got the seat warmed up as I was driving up to the hangar--”

“Hand me those instruments,” Conway interrupted. “Be careful with ’em too!”

Welkfurn handed the black boxes up, one at a time. Then he turned and squatted beside Kisner, busied himself with the adjustment of a sand-release on an empty sandbag.

* * * * *

Occasionally Kisner or Welkfurn looked up and directed some question at Conway, queried this or that in connection with the preparation for the flight. Kisner was all engaged with the work he had to do; Welkfurn, on the other hand, kept up a running conversation. From time to time he made some friendly jest about Conway’s ability as a balloonist.

“Ought to get the record this time,” Welkfurn called. “Tried it three times now; had lots of practice trying to get it. Better make it on this trip; you’ll be running out of excuses pretty soon.”

Conway paused, stopped his work and stood with mittened hands upon his hips.

“A helluva lot you know about altitude records, fella! Want to fly this one, for a change? I’ll let you!”

“Guess not this time. _Marie_ and I don’t get along so well. I haven’t got the master’s touch.” And Welkfurn laughed.

“Say, Con, I’ll order flowers this afternoon. Got a friend in town who’s a florist. I can get ’em cheap,” he added.

“I’m supposed to laugh at that, I guess!” Conway said to Kisner. Then to Welkfurn: “Little stale this morning, son.”

Kisner seemed annoyed.

“You talk like a fool, Welk!” he said soberly. “You talk like that, and something might happen!”

“Don’t see any harm in it,” Welkfurn replied defensively. “No harm meant; you don’t need to get sore about it.” He slipped into a moody silence.

Kisner climbed into the basket to help Conway with the equipment there. For two hours the three men worked, saying little. The sun crawled up in the east and stood almost overhead, but it brought no warmth as it climbed.

When the preparations for the flight were almost completed, Conway sent Welkfurn down to headquarters on an errand. Welkfurn was gone almost an hour, and when he returned Conway yelled to him:

“Hey, fella, where’s my clock?”

“Clock?” Welkfurn asked blankly. “Search me; didn’t know you sent a clock.”

Conway paused. “Sure I sent one. Sent it with the barographs to have the oil cleaned out of it.”

“Use another one,” Welkfurn suggested. “I’ll get one out of another balloon.”

“Use another one?” Kisner asked sourly. “Gosh, I thought you knew more than that! Con’s got to have a clock that’s dry--no oil inside of it--or the oil’ll get stiff up high where it’s cold, and the clock’ll freeze! He’s got to have that clock running to tell him when it’s time to start back down. He’s got oxygen for an hour and a half; he’s got to save enough oxygen to get back down to fifteen thousand feet--where he can breathe air again. If the clock stops up there and he uses up all his oxygen--not knowing when the time’ll be up--he’ll suffocate before he gets back down!”

Conway laughed at Kisner’s agitation.

“You better go back to town and get it,” Kisner said. “Con’s got to have it. And don’t waste any time!”

“I don’t think he’s got time enough now,” Conway said dryly. “I’m going to take off right after lunch, and Welk might get to talking downtown and not get back in time. Eh, Welk?”

Welkfurn looked up at the two men in the basket a moment, then at the floor. He tried to grin.

“I’ll get your damn’ clock!” he said hastily. He ran to the automobile, climbed in. Gears clashed for a moment, and he was gone.

“Good scout, Welkfurn,” Conway said to Kisner. “Just young and inexperienced. Means everything fine. Just like a woman, though--always talking. Gets started to talking and forgets everything else. He doesn’t remember it, but I told him yesterday about that clock. Some day he’ll have to make a parachute jump from a balloon--if there’s anybody else in the basket, Welk’ll get started talking on the way down and forget to pull his rip-cord!”

* * * * *

Conway was scheduled to begin his flight at one o’clock that afternoon; he could not well delay it beyond two-thirty because, in doing so, he ran the risk of landing his balloon in strange country after night with the consequent hazard of being killed; or, if his parachute was resorted to, of losing the balloon.

The flight had been planned with infinite attention to detail in equipment and the weather. The equipment had been ready for a month, but the weather until now had made the flight impossible.

Captain Conway wanted to be the man who had gone to “the highest point up” ever attained by man, and he had made of that desire a lifelong ambition. For three years after entering the service he had studied and trained and worked unceasingly. At the end of that time he took a small balloon and flew it as high as he could go without oxygen--some twenty-six thousand feet. That was the beginning of a series of flights, each a little higher.

The result of this procedure was that after ten years in the service, Conway knew more about balloons and high-altitude balloon flying than any man had ever known before. But still, he didn’t hold the record: He had held it, to be sure; but each time he got it in his grasp some other man, in a balloon or airplane, went up a few feet higher.

Conway wanted to stop that. He wanted to go so high that his record would stand until some one built a bigger balloon than his and learned to fly it better than he could fly the _Marie_.

Conway and Kisner were through with the balloon by twelve o’clock, but now, to occupy their time, they made another inspection of the basket, checked every instrument carefully, examined the sand-releases, the barographs and radio. There was nothing more to do, and they drove back to the club and went to lunch, trying to calm their excitement in activity, as the time for the take-off drew nearer.

* * * * *

From the flying field to Greenburg was about fifteen miles; a car like Welkfurn’s should have been able to traverse the distance in twenty minutes, or thirty at the most. Conway expected Welkfurn back within an hour, and when he returned to the balloon hangar after lunch he looked around for Welkfurn’s car, but could not find it. The sergeant left with the balloon had seen nothing of Welkfurn.

“That little cuss!” said Kisner angrily.

“I wonder where he is?”

Conway did not reply. He was looking appraisingly at the sky, as if he saw it now for the first time that day. High clouds were pushing rapidly in from the southwest. There had been no sign of them that morning; now they had slid well overhead. The sun’s rays were dimming slowly, would be obscured soon. Already the shadow of the hangar was blurred.

“Snow tomorrow, Kis,” said Conway. “If it warms up, it’ll rain. We’re in for a bad stretch of weather; there are the signs!”--pointing.

“Something’s happened to Welkfurn!” Kisner declared. “It’s one-thirty. He’s had plenty of time--something’s happened to him.”

Conway stepped briskly out to where he could view the road that led to the balloon hangar, examined the road carefully, looking for Welkfurn’s car approaching. No car was in sight. He returned to the doorway of the hangar, waited briefly, then went out again. Still Welkfurn did not appear.

“If he doesn’t hurry up, you can’t go!” Kisner muttered angrily. “He knows better than to delay like this.”

Conway studied the sky in silence. He finally shook his head.

“Say, Kis, call the jeweler; find out if Welkfurn’s been there! Why didn’t we think of that before?”

Conway stood by and listened while Kisner called his number. He looked at his watch--one-thirty-seven.

“Hasn’t been there?” he heard Kisner question. “Haven’t seen him? What the hell! Well, when he comes in there, tell him we’re waiting for that clock!”

* * * * *

Welkfurn left Conway and Kisner in a mood of anger with himself. He realized that the clock was necessary for the flight. He hadn’t thought of it before--a clock freezing in the air; but he could readily see, now that Kisner had explained it, that Conway ran a risk of death if his timepiece failed him on the flight. And Welkfurn knew Conway well enough to know that the balloonist would take off without the clock rather than postpone the trip. Well, he’d get it there in time. Conway wanted to take off at one o’clock, which gave Welkfurn a few minutes more than an hour to make the trip.

He drove furiously toward Greenburg, holding the car at its greatest speed, slowing only slightly for the turns. He knew that he could make the trip, with luck, in fifty minutes--even less than that. He wanted a good margin of time on the return trip. Conway had always laughed at him for talking constantly and forgetting things; and he knew that the other man had been justified in doing so.

Welkfurn had come some three miles toward Greenburg when he was startled by a blatant siren just behind him. He pulled carefully to the side of the road, holding his speed, to let the other vehicle pass; but the sound persisted. Then he saw, through the window in the rear, a motorcycle policeman riding close behind and to the side.

He had a crazy impulse to cut suddenly across the road, to wreck the officer’s machine; but he realized the idiocy of that procedure and slowed angrily to a stop. The cop rode up alongside, rested his foot leisurely on the running-board of Welkfurn’s car.

“Nice speedway here, ain’t it?”--acidly.

“What’s the idea of stopping me?” Welkfurn barked in reply. “I’m going to town on official business; you can’t stop me like this! I’m in a hurry!”

“Can’t stop ya? That’s too bad! You ain’t on the reservation now, buddy. Yer on the State highway, and yer speedin’ somethin’ awful!”

“I’ll have your job!” Instantly he wished he had been silent. The policeman looked at him appraisingly, then smirked:

“You couldn’t hold it!”

“Listen, Mister,” Welkfurn said appeasingly, trying to hurry the matter, “a friend of mine’s liable to get killed if I don’t get back to the field in a hurry! Can’t I sign a bond and then go on?”

“That’s better. Yeah, you can sign a bond.” He produced it, filled it out, and Welkfurn signed it hurriedly. “I’m goin’ into town behind ya,” the cop continued. “Better not go no faster’n the law allows, or you can’t sign a bond next time!”

Welkfurn drove ahead at what seemed to him a snail’s pace, the cop following at a distance.

* * * * *

In town at last, and free of the policeman, Welkfurn opened up his car and tore through traffic toward the jeweler’s place. Twice he was whistled at by traffic-officers, but both times he got away. He thought, mirthlessly, “I’ll be afraid to come to town for a month after this ride!”

Ill luck pursued him, as it often does when haste is most essential. Rounding a corner at thirty miles an hour, he was suddenly confronted by a huge truck that almost blocked the street. He tried to dodge through--thought he had made it. There was a crash, his car careened drunkenly and skidded to a stop. A rear wheel lay splintered on the pavement; the axle of the car was resting on the curb.

[Illustration: He was suddenly confronted by a huge truck. He tried to dodge through. There was a crash, and his car careened drunkenly.]

It required ten precious minutes to pacify the truck-man. Welkfurn was made to fill out a card, giving his name and address and phone number. At last he was allowed to go, and he ran frantically to the store. He burst in and asked, breathlessly, for the clock.

“Somebody just called about you,” the jeweler told him. “Seemed like he was sore about something. I told him you hadn’t been here, and he said for you to hurry up, that they were waiting for you out there.”

“Good! If he’ll only wait, everything’ll be all right. If he takes off without this clock, there’ll be hell to pay!” He grabbed the instrument and hurried out. He found a cab and gave the driver directions, offering a double rate for speed. But on the highway the cab moved along at a speed within the limits of law. Looking back, Welkfurn saw the same motorcycle cop who had detained him earlier riding steadily along a hundred yards behind.

The cab left the highway and entered the reservation. The driver shoved the throttle down now, and in less than a minute more turned onto the road that led to the balloon hangar. And at that moment Welkfurn saw the _Marie_, gray and stately against the haze, rise slowly in the air.

* * * * *

With the weather all against him if his flight should be delayed, Conway decided, at two o’clock, to fly the _Marie IV_ into the subzero temperatures of the upper air with an ordinary clock. Kisner tried in every way to dissuade him, but without success. Kisner persisted, like a mother who argues with a wayward son, until the other man turned on him impatiently.

“I know what I’m about!” Conway snapped. “Get the crew and put the _Marie_ outside. If I don’t go today I’ll not have another chance before spring!”

“But see here, Con,” Kisner said desperately. “That clock’ll stop and you’ll run out of oxygen up there! You’ll die before you can get down! Dammit, you don’t have to kill yourself trying to get that record!”

But Kisner saw that Conway was in earnest and he reluctantly put the crew to work. They hauled the balloon outside the hangar, took the place of the sandbags that had held it to the ground.

Conway came presently and shoved through the crowd of curious people, climbed into the basket and put on his fur-lined helmet and his parachute. He made a last-minute inspection of the oxygen equipment and spoke quietly to Kisner, who stood close by. He was in a good humor now that the flight was definitely under way.

“Tell that little cuss I’m going to break his neck when I get down,” he said, referring to Welkfurn. “Going to get a dub and run him all over this flying field!”

Kisner nodded gravely. He was in no mood for joking. He was tempted to try again to persuade Conway to postpone the flight, but he knew that it was useless. He reached up and grasped the furry paw that was extended down to him.

“Good luck, old man,” he said, keeping his voice steady with difficulty. “Call me up as soon as you get down and I’ll come after you.”

But Conway didn’t notice his agitation.

“Thanks,” he replied absently.

The _Marie_ took off for altitude at two twenty-three that afternoon. The wind had died down during the day from a fitful, biting breeze to a dead calm; overhead the clouds had thickened perceptibly.

The weather was ideal. Cold air, dry and heavy; the balloon would go up into the higher reaches in a steady climb that would take it to forty thousand feet within an hour--or sooner, if Conway wanted it.

But Conway had no particular desire for speed. Rather, he wanted to go up slowly so that the effects of the change of atmospheric pressure on his body would not be acutely uncomfortable; he wanted to go up slowly, also, so that he might study the conditions of the air at varying elevations. When once at the top of his climb, with the record his, he wanted to remain there several minutes--as long as his oxygen supply would permit--to study the conditions there. For while he wanted the altitude record, he also wanted to make his flight of value to other flyers.

He had changed his clothes at noon, and now wore garments that were heated by electricity from the battery in the basket. His oxygen mask, which he would put on when rarefied air was reached, was heated also; and his goggles likewise. His helmet was equipped with earphones, and in the wicker cage a radio was rigged to bring in entertainment from the ground when he was flying high above the earth.

The _Marie_ drifted lazily into the air, looking, from the ground, like a huge gray soap-bubble on which a drop of water clung. Conway stood at the rim of his tiny car and watched the earth drop slowly away below. He was watching nothing in particular, seeing the crowd and the flying field and Greenburg through the haze abstractedly. He noticed an automobile, a cab whose vivid color was its trademark, race along the road toward the balloon hangar. It came at last to the crowd, broke through the cordon of soldiers that had surrounded the _Marie_ on the ground, raced to a spot directly underneath the balloon. A figure leaped out, waved frantically.

Conway did not recognize the car as Welkfurn’s. He had been glancing at the road occasionally, hoping that the other man would arrive at the field in time. He knew the dangers of going into the cold of high altitudes with an oily clock, and he planned, if Welkfurn came in time, to return to earth to get the other timepiece.

He watched the waving figure for a moment and thought: “Must be that fool reporter. Too late even for a picture!”

The mottled earth dimmed slowly through the haze as the _Marie_ went skyward.

Conway reached for his collar clumsily with his mittened fingers and adjusted the fur around his throat. Idly he watched a lone buzzard circle in the bleak and forlorn cold at two thousand feet. Slowly the balloon reached a level with the bird, went on up until Conway lost sight of the wheeling speck of black. The thermometer in the basket registered five degrees above zero; not cold, in comparison with the cold that would be encountered in the upper air, but cold enough that Conway’s face felt drawn and hard and bitten. In a few minutes he would put his face mask on.

At five thousand feet the haze was denser; he could still see the earth below, but faintly now. The flying field stood out dimly from the other land surrounding it, but the giant hangar in its center seemed to fade imperceptibly into the haze.