Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

38 BILL BARNES “T,” he said to himself, “will teach him the tricks the Red Knight over Germany taught me. Only Barnes will not live to profit by the privilege. And Hassfurther! Seventeen years I have waited to get another chance at him.” Heilner was thinking of the morning Shorty Hassfurther had nearly taken his head off getting off the bumpy ground behind the German lines. Heil- ner’s hideously scarred face attested to the fact that some one beside Shorty had tried to take his head off. The some one had been a French antiaircraft shell that exploded nearly in his face. One of his eyes was of glass. whole side of his face had been re- constructed but showed horrible scars. The flying helmet he perpetually wore hid the jagged tears where hair should have been. With a hump on his back he would have been the personification of the hunchback Victor Hugo so aptly described. Murder and violence and evil were written on his frightful face. He tore the cablegram into a hun- dred pieces and threw it to the winds. He turned and ran an expert eye over the ten gray biplanes lined up in the hangar. They were rugged little sin- gle-seaters with short, flat wings, lean fuselages, stripped-down — undercar- riages, and mighty power plants. Me- chanics and gunners were swarming over them adding the last touches to the installation of their twin machine guns. Heiner smiled to himself as he thought how he had hoodwinked the Ienglish manufacturer of the planes into building them ready for machine-gun installation and synchronization through the prop. -After the ships had been completed he and his men had flown them across the English Channel to a little country im northern Europe. There, under the strictest secrecy, the machine guns had been installed. They would be ready for tests before the day was over. With their breath-taking speed and ability to climb to twenty The » thousand feet in six minutes they would be the equal of any fighting plane in the world. Heilner had read of Bill Barnes’ Scarlet Stormer. But he did not be- lieve the things he had read and heard about it. To him the reports were like all the reports that came from America. All bluff and noise and braggadocio, with no performance. He shouted at the stocky German who was supervis- ing the work on the ten fighters. “Have all planes tested and refueled and ready to take off at dawn to-mor- row morning, Beck,’ he ordered. “Where ” Beck stopped. Heilner looked at him from his one good eye. “Never mind where,” he said. “Have them ready. No leave for any pilot to-night.” “Yes, sir!’ Beck answered, saluted smartly and turned away. VII—SEVEN TO ONE BILL BARNES gazed numbly at the light burning red on the radio panel before him. His eyes were red-rimmed and tired. He had stayed at the con- trols most of the time during the flight from Bermuda and he was weary. An unannounced storm had buffeted the big ship about like a feather. Shorty had brought the Scarlet Stormer through. Cy and Red had taken a terrific beating riding the storm in their sturdy amphibians. But they had won the fight. Now they were all anxiously scanning the horizon ahead for the first of the Canary Islands. Bill glanced at young Sandy, sleeping in the co-pilot’s seat, as he threw over the switch on the radiophone. Shorty’s voice sounded in his ears. It was high-pitched and excited. “Land, fella!” Shorty shouted. ‘Dead ahead. And I’m almost dead. I can sleep for a week. | didn’t know they oO CON) Ghook CO