Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

si beautiful temple of Jupiter and Minerva were now foul with the dirt of human Arabs and dogs. White Moorish villages flashed be- neath their wings, and here and there the low, black tents of the Bedouins dotted the green fields on their course to Tunis. : Over the Bay of Tunis, which gleamed pale-green and opaline against the dark mountains, below them, the Scarlet Stormer and two Snorters re- ported their motors running smoothly. As green meadows spotted with daisies and buttercups and the delicate pink- and-white of almond trees appeared be- neath the roaring planes again, the three fighters went into a series of acrobatics to prove that their motors were clicking and that life was worth the living. Stately camels and white-robed Moors stared into the sky at the whirling, flash- ing evolutions. A flock of brown-and- white sheep broke in a hundred different directions, frightened by the roar of their diving motors. Against the green meadow where the sheep grazed rose the blue hills of Tunisia to a_ bluer heaven, across which white clouds danced in the cool, morning air. Over the ancient, holy city of Kara- wan the four planes roared. Stately Moors wearing white robes and bur- nooses stalked the streets of the white city of the Orient. Prim camels and humble donkeys were silhouetted against the white walls. A snake charmer held aloft a cobra with distended hood. Ped- diers of carpets, of vegetables, of pot- tery from Naples; white-robed Arabs from the plains, city dandies in robes of purple or blue over white, paced mayjes- tically along the streets. White pigeons circled above the domed-tower gateways of the great mosque of snow-white. t ten o'clock the carrier-transport and three fighters roared above the Brit- ish island of Lampedusa, far out in the Mediterranean. At twelve they flashed across the northermost tip of Tripoli, BILL BARNES north of the city of Bengazi. At two they were over the Bomba Gulf on a true course for Alexandria in Egypt. Bill Barnes was sleeping in his bunk in his private cabin as the little squadron droned down the north coast of Africa. The mechanic-gunners of the monster transport were also asleep, except Char- lie. He was cleaning up after lunch in the dining saloon and galley. Young Sandy was half asleep at the controls. McCoy, gunner in the starboard wing was puttering about in his cockpit, checking his ammunition. The Scarlet Stormer was_ boring through the sun-kissed air above the transport. Shorty had just managed to get Sandy’s goat over the radiophone. That helped to break the monotony of the long hop, he told himself, grinning. Red Gleason was trying to keep awake by singing songs of his own composi- tion to the tune of the motor. The mo- tor, he pretended, sang bass, and he sang what he thought was a rich, clear tenor. Actually, he sounded like a goat that had lost its mother. But with the roar- ing motor it made no difference. He couldn’t even hear himself—which was just as well. : The words he sang made no sense, and the tunes were something a Chinese band would have sneered at. loudest and fastest when his guns were blazing in battle. Right now he was singing a song that he thought had to do with the cities they had just left be- hind them. He sang: “IT met that gal in Oran, I kissed her in Algiers, I threw her out at Tunis— And wasn’t she in tears! “Not so good, Mr. Gleason,” he said to himself, drew a deep breath and started over again: “She wrote to me at Cairo, Sent love to Zanzibar, But I know she’s only kidding, Na love will reach that far!” He sang. oO MICLO® (C© S CO