Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air (14 page)

“You’re right, of course,” Alma said. “We’ll see what we can do. We’re using the Navy take-off lane anyway, so maybe the tower will be willing to share.”

They pulled up beside Finch and Sons a little after nine, the watery sunlight warm on the back of Lewis’s neck. The water of the harbor looked calm enough for flying, but the first high clouds were starting to creep in. You didn’t need a weather report to guess that rain was coming.

Finch was waiting for them, and brought them directly to the larger of the two machine shops, where one of the Coronados stood ready on a stand. The other lay in pieces across a workbench, and Alma grimaced at the sight.

“What happened?”

“The chains slipped, apparently,” Finch answered. “Damned kanakas didn’t get the crates secure. Or maybe they just weren’t paying attention. Either way, it hit the dock hard and busted in a corner of the packing.”

“How bad is it?” Alma drifted toward the bench, frowning at the scattered parts. Lewis kept his distance. He recognized most of the pieces, or at least the main ones, but engines weren’t his specialty.

“Oh, I can fix it — fix all of it,” Finch said. “Republic sent a bunch of spare magnetos, and I can replace the cracked cylinder. You might want to cable Republic for more spares, though. I’ll only have a couple left once this is fixed.”

“I’ll do that,” Alma said. “How long is it going to take?”

Finch shrugged. “Couple of days to get the repair done and tested, another couple of days to get them mounted and run in.”

“Damn.” Alma shook her head. “Bad luck.”

“It’s not bad luck.” That was Lily Lauder, dressed for flying, her hair pulled back in a scarf and sunglasses dangling from her hand. “With the weather that’s coming, we’d lose those days anyway. So — it’s not actually bad luck.”

“I wouldn’t call it good luck,” Alma said, with a grin, “but I take your point.”

Lily looked abruptly embarrassed. “Sorry, Mrs. Segura. There was just a lot of loose talk last time.”

Which might explain why Finch’s men were giving her a wide berth, Lewis thought, but once again he felt the prickle of something larger.

“What exactly is the forecast?” Mitch asked, and Finch fumbled for a clipboard, handed it to him.

“Rain, a little wind. Nothing too bad, but not fun to fly in. Not something you’d want to do unless you had to.”

Mitch nodded and passed the clipboard to Alma, who flipped slowly through the stack of flimsies.

“Especially if you don’t know the plane,” Finch went on. Lily scowled at that, but said nothing.

“Which is why I want to take her up today,” Alma said briskly, and handed Lewis the clipboard. “The weather should be plenty good until tonight.”

Lewis paged through the thin sheets himself, grubby carbons marred with blotchy strikeovers where the typist had missed the right keys. A front coming through, bringing rain and wind for the next two days, then wind diminishing and back to Hawaii’s regular sunshine. Just in time for Dora’s birthday, too, he thought, but knew better than to say it. Alma wouldn’t thank him for reminding anyone that she was a mother.

“I figured you’d say that,” Finch said. “I’ll get Hickham Field on the phone and let them know you’re planning to go up. Billy, hook up the tractor, Mrs. Segura’s taking the Cat out.”

They climbed aboard, Lewis coming last to release the gangway from inside the hatch. One of the Hawaiians hauled it aside while another man started up a heavy tractor and another Hawaiian scrambled onto the narrow ledge that surrounded the Catalina’s nose and attached the pusher bar to the mooring post beside the empty nose turret. Lewis closed the hatch and dogged it shut, and Alma gave him a quick smile.

“Take the radio, will you? Mitch and I will fly. Miss Lauder, you’ll be engineer, of course.”

Something prickled at the nape of Lewis’s neck, and he met Alma’s eyes. “Actually — after I get the electrics up and running, I’d like to shadow Miss Lauder at the engines. If you don’t mind.”

That was the code they’d worked out, the phrase that meant it was important in ways that he couldn’t explain. Mitch’s head came up, and Alma’s expression sharpened, but she just nodded. “Go ahead, I’m sure Miss Lauder won’t mind.” She started forward without waiting for an answer, Mitch at her heels.

And that forced Lily’s hand very nicely, too. Lewis pasted on his most harmless smile and turned to stand by Lily’s beneath the engineer’s station. He was relieved to see that they had rigged a second seat inside the Cabane Strut that supported the wing, and she gave him a sour look.

“Yes, we’re set up for training. And before you ask, I’ve got over a hundred hours in this bird. Here and back in California.”

“I’ve got fifteen,” Lewis said. He couldn’t blame her for being prickly, he’d seen Alma having to deal with the same automatic assumptions and questions, but it would be a lot more pleasant if they could get onto a friendly footing. “I’m following your lead.”

She seemed to relax a little at that, but hauled herself up into the main seat. “Go ahead, then, start the auxiliary. I’ll talk you through it if you want.”

“Let me try it on my own first,” Lewis said. The generator was tucked into what would be the galley once the plane was in service, and he crouched to adjust the choke. “Fuel?”

“On,” Lily answered, and he jerked hard on the starter rope. There was no reaction, and he tried again. This time it caught and steadied, and he pushed the choke in as soon as he was sure it had caught. He checked to be sure the vents were open, and raised his voice to be heard over the noise of the generator.

“I’m going to switch on the electrics.”

“Ok.”

He ducked forward into the next compartment, where the radio and navigation equipment were wedged between the frames of the hull. He’d done this each time they’d taken a Catalina out, but he followed the checklist carefully, using the clipboard that was tied to the navigation table, connecting batteries and buses until all the systems were up and running. Mitch leaned out of the cockpit to give him a thumbs up. Lewis returned the gesture, and climbed back to the engineer’s compartment.

“Everything’s running,” he said, and Lily nodded.

“It’s not like we’ll need a radio operator on this flight. Come on up, why don’t you?”

He hauled himself up into the second seat, found the jack for the headphones that were hanging on his side of the instrument panel, and plugged in. He still felt tethered by the cord and heavy headset, though he knew perfectly well you couldn’t fly a plane this size without some way of communicating among the crew. And it certainly made things easier. He remembered shouting back and forth in the Terrier’s cockpit not three years ago; now even the Frontiersman had an intercom installed.

Alma and Lily worked their way down their own checklists, getting ready to start the engines, and Lewis cocked his head, listening to them work as Finch’s men got the Catalina backed out of the hangar and into the open basin. Lily worked the primer, then the pump to keep the pressure up as she switched the port engine to “start.” It coughed and caught, and she repeated the process with the starboard engine. Alma kept the revolutions low even after the oil pressure came up, and began the slow taxi toward the take-off lane. He wished he had a better view than the two small windows on either side of the Cabane Strut. If he ducked and twisted, he could see past the engines to the water, but not much beyond that.

Hickam Control spoke in his ears, giving them clearance to enter the lane, and he felt the big bird dip and sway as Alma made the turn. She was taking her time, patient on the controls as always, and Mitch took over the conversation with the tower, reporting them ready for take-off.

“Roger that, Gilchrist,” Hickam Control answered. “You’re cleared for take-off in the buoyed lane.”

“Thank you, Hickam,” Alma said. “We are cleared for takeoff.”

“Have a nice flight, Gilchrist,” Hickam answered, its voice young and cheerful, and the first of the indicator lights flashed on in the row above Lily’s control panel, requesting the fuel mix be set to Auto Rich. Lily adjusted the levers, her eyes darting across the controls as she opened the cowl flaps as well. Lewis glanced at the clipboard, refreshing his memory of the prescribed pressures and temperatures, and Lily flicked off the Auto Rich light, confirming her action.

“Ready for take-off,” Lily said, into the intercom, and Lewis felt the Catalina lurch forward even as Alma answered.

“Going now.”

The Catalina bumped over the harbor’s gentle chop, the hull hitting harder as their speed increased. It was a long run, and Lewis found himself watching the gauges, temperature and pressure creeping up just as they ought. And yet something didn’t feel right. The Cat felt heavy, as though the engines weren’t developing enough power, and his eyes went to the tachometers. The rpms were low, not impossible, but lower than they should be, and in the same moment Alma’s voice crackled on the intercom.

“I’m not getting enough power.”

Lily looked frantically from gauge to gauge. “I’m not seeing a problem —“

“I need more power, or we abort.”

“Go to Full Rich,” Lewis said. Lily gave him an uncertain look, and he reached past her, shoved the levers up into the new position. “We’re at Full Rich, Al. See if that helps —“

The tachometers were already climbed, and he felt the Cat’s balance change.

“That’s got it,” Alma answered, and the Catalina lifted, sluggish but willing. The sluggishness was just the size, Lewis thought, focused on the feeling of the air under them; whatever had gone wrong, the richer mixture had fixed it. The altimeter was moving smoothly, five hundred feet and climbing, and Lily swore under her breath as she adjusted the cowl flaps. Lewis said nothing, letting her make the first move, and after a moment some of the furious embarrassment faded from her face.

“We’ve had some problems with the fuel pump before, Mrs. Segura. You might want to ask Finch to check it out when we get back.”

“I’ll do that,” Alma answered calmly.

Lily glanced at Lewis, then covered her microphone. “I don’t — I’m not —“ She shook her head. “Nothing would have happened except we had to go around again.”

That was almost certainly true, but it wasn’t the answer you wanted from the flight engineer. He didn’t want to make things any more difficult, but she’d screwed up —

Lily shook her head again, an unhappy smile twisting her face. “And I messed up.” She uncovered the microphone. “Sorry about that, Mrs. Segura. Won’t happen again.”

“We’ll get used to each other,” Alma answered. “Can you dial the mix back now? I don’t want to waste fuel.”

“Dialing back,” Lily answered, adjusting the levers. Lewis frowned as the rpms dropped again, and Lily adjusted first the cowl flaps and then pressure. “I’m not liking this —“

“Put it back,” Alma said. “What was the problem with the fuel pump?”

“The mix valve was sticking,” Lily answered. “I’m afraid it might be doing it again.”

“Is that anything you can get at while we’re in the air?” Mitch asked, and Lily gave a harsh laugh.

“Sorry. No.”

“Right,” Alma said. There was a little silence, the static singing in the headphones, and then Lewis heard her sigh. “All right. We’ll make this a little shorter than I’d planned. No point in wasting fuel.”

“Not at these prices,” Mitch said.

Odlum was paying, of course, but even so, the prices on the islands had been enough higher than in California to make Lewis blink. It made sense when he thought about it, since everything had to be shipped in, but even so it was kind of painful to think about what the bills were going to be. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to feel if there was anything else he needed to worry about, but the prickly sense of wrongness had vanished, and he opened his eyes to see Lily looking curiously at him.

“You’re not airsick. It’s perfectly calm.”

“Just listening,” Lewis said, vaguely, and fixed his attention on the instruments.

They headed due south, out to sea, and then Alma turned south and east, following the islands that were now well off the port wing. When they made the turn off the Big Island, heading back toward Honolulu, Lewis climbed out of the engineer’s position and came forward to take his seat in the radio compartment. At least there were bigger windows there, and he bent to peer out, first to port where a thicker line of clouds rose from the horizon, and then to starboard where the islands rose impossibly green out of the sea. There were clouds on the tops of the highest mountains, and the ocean beneath their wings was brilliant blue.

He settled himself reluctantly at the radio station, plugging his headset in, and heard Alma’s voice almost fretful.

“— still burning fuel like nobody’s business.”

“We’ve got plenty,” Lily said.

“Yes, but it’s a waste,” Alma said. “I’ll have Finch go over the entire fuel system when he installs the engines.”

“That’s going to add extra time,” Mitch said.

“Maybe not too much,” Alma answered. “He’s going to have to look at most of it anyway.”

Lewis tuned them out, reaching for the radio operator’s manual to read through the checklists and the penciled notes the first team had left in the margins. The Catalina was a perfectly good plane, but slow and lumbering. What he wouldn’t give to be back in the Frontiersman, dodging thunderheads on the Albuquerque run… He killed that thought. This was where the job was, and this was the job at hand. He couldn’t complain just because it wasn’t his favorite kind of plane, or because he'd rather be in Colorado.

They landed at Honolulu without further incident, and Alma taxied the Cat back to the hangar through water that was already slightly choppier than it had been when they left. The sky overhead was white with high cloud, and as Lewis opened the hatch once they’d been drawn inside, he could feel the air had changed. One of the Hawaiians pushed out the gangplank, and he secured it, straightening as Lily climbed out of the engineer’s seat. Alma ducked through the hatch in the same moment, and Lily flushed.

“Mrs. Segura, I’m sorry about what happened —“

“No harm done,” Alma said briskly. “We’ll get Finch to pull the pump and see what’s going on.”