The Project Gutenberg eBook of Altitude
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Title: Altitude
Author: Leland Jamieson
Illustrator: William Molt
Release date: May 24, 2025 [eBook #76156]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago, IL: The Consolidated Magazines Corporation, 1929
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALTITUDE ***
[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.
The radio brought a rakish melody faintly to the earphones. The music
soothed Conway, though if he had listened to it on the ground he would
have turned to something else. It made him forget to some extent the
loneliness of the infinity that stretched away above him. The earth was
invisible now.
* * * * *
At fifteen thousand feet the temperature had dropped to five degrees
below. Conway put on his mask and adjusted it.
His goggles began to fog and, reaching down, he turned on his batteries;
then, picking up his log sheet, made an entry:
“4 volts; much colder.”
The air was becoming thinner, lighter. There was less oxygen to breathe,
and he found himself sucking in the icy air in greedy gasps. Stooping,
he twisted a valve that opened an oxygen tank. After that his breath
came normally.
An airman going rapidly aloft to great altitudes sometimes experiences
an acute discomfort called, in aviation parlance, “bends,” or sometimes
“rickets.” These “bends” may produce pains behind the flyer’s ears, like
mastoiditis, or an apparent buzzing in the ears and head. If prolonged
these pains become unbearable. Conway suffered from this trouble now,
and slowed the progress of the balloon until his body could become
accustomed to the change in pressure of the air.
At sixteen thousand feet the _Marie_ entered the first layer of clouds.
The mist hugged tight around the basket; whereas before--when in clear
air--Conway had been able to see a distance of fifty miles, he could
scarcely see ten feet now. The feeling of isolation and aloneness was
even more pronounced. The temperature was fifteen degrees below, yet
snow filtered down from the clouds above, passed Conway slowly,
Gradually the rounded top of the huge bag was covered with snow, a
perceptible weight to carry into the rarefied air as the flight
progressed. Conway spilled more sand from his ballast bags, a thin
yellow stream of grains that fell away like beads of amber glass.
At twenty thousand feet the _Marie_ lifted herself out of the clouds and
into clear sunshine. The sky here was a deep and lifeless blue. Clouds
stretched out in all directions--seemingly into infinity, low ridge
after low ridge, with valleys in between: a flat plain of brilliantly
white mist that was painful to the eye. Above these clouds there was no
haze; the sun was intense, yet cold, unfriendly.
It was ten minutes until three o’clock. The radio was still bringing in
music from an invisible, distant world. The bends grew less painful as
the minutes passed.
But Conway’s body was gradually growing numb from the lack of pressure
on it--a normal phenomenon at extremely high altitudes. Some men may go
to forty thousand feet before this sets in; others feel it coming on at
thirty thousand. Conway began to suffer from it at thirty-five. He felt
no cold, no pain; his body seemed to rest comfortably, with a kind of
sensuous inertia that lulled him toward a seductive semiconsciousness.
He tried to fight this feeling, tried to rouse himself. He knew its
symptoms and its dangers: in its final form a few minutes of complete
paralysis, then sleep. The oxygen would feed his lungs until it became
exhausted, then sleep would carry him to death in the thin, anaemic air
eight miles above the earth. He had felt that way on other flights,
although less so than now. And he still had nine thousand feet to go
before the record would be safely his.... The mercury in the thermometer
had tumbled down to twenty-nine below.
* * * * *
There was a sudden suffocating feeling in Conway’s lungs. Quickly he
changed from the first oxygen tank to the second; then, with a knife
that dangled on a string inside the basket he cut the rubber tubing of
the first tank and hacked at the lashings that protruded into the car.
The empty cylinder fell silently away; the balloon lunged upward gently,
hesitated with a slight jerk, then went up again.
Conway was dimly conscious that his radio was silent. He tuned it
carefully, examined it at length without success. Finally he leaned over
the side of the basket and looked down at the antenna--it was gone.
Slowly he scrawled on his log:
“Cyl. dropped. Broke antenna off; no more music.”
He busied himself for some minutes with entries in his log, writing now
in an unsteady hand, clumsily. He set down the time shown on the clock
and the voltage being drawn from his batteries--anything he saw or
anything he thought about recording to occupy his mind.
Insidiously the numbness grew upon his body. He seemed unable to see his
instruments clearly; he was like a drunken man, his vision blurred.
Doggedly he shook his head, trying thus to clear his sight. His senses
seemed all befuddled. Foolhardy though he knew the expenditure of energy
to be--for he was not cold--he took to waving his mittened hands,
clapping them together gently, as a freezing man might do when slipping
into a fatal stupor in the cold. But that did no good; and he took up
his pencil again and tried to make another entry in his log. His mind
seemed to work in vagrant opposition to his will, disobeying reason and
experience.
He read his altimeter and his clock and thermometer. These readings he
put down carefully, with painful labor. The altimeter registered
thirty-eight thousand feet; it was three-twenty by the clock; the
temperature was down to thirty-four below. He found the line on the log
below where his last entry had been made. There was something distantly
familiar about the figures already there and the ones he was trying to
write; he fumbled in his mind to recall the connection--failed.
Time passed now in endless throbs. His legs felt numb; his feet like
slugs of lead that hung inside his fur-lined moccasins in curious
detachment from his body. With difficulty now he made new figures on the
paper. Wearily he glanced at other entries and wondered where he had
seen them; he glanced at all his instruments and back to the log once
more. Slowly realization came to him.
There were three entries that gave the time of day as three-twenty! The
clock, also, said three-twenty! He puzzled that; finally, through a
blur, knew that the clock had stopped! He stared out into space, trying
to collect his wits, incredulous.
“The oil!” he thought. “How long ago?”
The altimeter registered forty-one thousand feet. He knew, dimly, that
he must hurry; but there was no conscious fear among his muddled
thoughts. Suddenly there was that suffocation in his lungs; he changed
to the third cylinder of oxygen, his movements heavy. It was later than
he had thought--the time was now almost too short!
Speed! Conway dropped the remainder of his sand, cut away the second
cylinder to lighten the balloon still further. His movements were
sluggish, and he fumbled stupidly. The paralysis was moving upward in
his body, was seeping into his arms already; would soon sweep up and
touch his sight and hearing and his brain.
His foggy mind worked incoherently. Up two thousand more.... Down twenty
thousand--the air was thick down there.... Thirty minutes on the last
tank.... Never make it! Go down now! But a dogged disregard for safety
made him go ahead.
* * * * *
Vaguely he remembered dropping his batteries to lighten the balloon
still more. Speed! If he got caught up there without oxygen, he’d be
dead before he could get down! The altimeter registered forty-two. He
reached for the valve-cord with clownish awkwardness, then released it:
he’d go on up. His mind worked things out in blurred succession as the
needle crept slowly around the dial.
A free balloon is equipped with a “rip panel” in its top, which, when
torn free, allows a complete deflation of the bag. The loss of gas
permits the cloth of the bottom portion of the balloon to fold back
within the upper portion, forming in that way an enormous cap,
umbrella-like, over which the netting hangs. The netting holds this cap
in place, and the balloon parachutes to earth. The descent is rapid.
The needle of the altimeter paused at forty-three thousand as the nerves
in Conway’s muscles died. He found himself unable to grasp the
valve-cord with his hands; his arms were like wooden stakes, detached
entirely from his shoulders. He could still hear and see, although there
was a roaring in his brain. The balloon had stopped its climb, had
reached its peak, would go no farther.
Conway realized that death was near. Unable to pull the cord that would
release the gas, helpless at an altitude where life would perish without
oxygen, he would be snuffed out in a few quick minutes when the last
cylinder was empty. The rip-cord and the valve-cord dangled temptingly
in the basket just in front of him; either would have served his
purpose, would have sent the balloon back to earth again. But he could
not control his muscles enough to pull either one of them. Every muscle
in his arms and legs was uncontrollable. Only his head and neck were
still unparalyzed.
There came that suffocating feeling now again. The tank was almost
empty, would be gone in one more breath! Desperately, with strength born
of panic, he sucked his lungs full. Then he bent his neck and raked his
face against a rope that extended upward from the corner of the basket.
His lungs seemed bursting; the mask still clung tenaciously on his face.
He raked again, a grotesque movement, and the mask came halfway off. His
head swam, reeled crazily; he wanted air--he had to breathe! He set his
teeth hard over the cord that extended to the rip panel, bit hard down
upon it, tried to jerk it with his head. He lost his balance, crumpled
forward and lay, unconscious, on the basket floor.
* * * * *
In the deathlike silence of the upper air the rasping sigh of escaping
hydrogen echoed hollowly. The huge bag of the _Marie IV_ crumpled
slowly, collapsed, the bottom portion folding upward in the netting. It
started down, gaining momentum rapidly. Air, passing through the ropes
and rigging of the balloon, turned to howling, shrieks as speed was
gathered.
The _Marie_ fell three thousand feet while the hydrogen was going out.
When the bag was empty it should have parachuted, but it did not. It
folded up into a knot in the apex of the netting, like a huge fist,
gnarled and bulging on one side. Helpless from the force of gravity, the
derelict was falling at a speed of two hundred miles an hour, the cloth
and netting whipping violently upward in a high-flung streamer. The
figure in the bottom of the basket lay as it had fallen, crumpled
grotesquely.
The balloon plunged earthward at a constant speed now--air resistance
was so great that it could gain no greater velocity. As it descended and
reached denser air it even slowed a trifle, but still fell like a rock
nearly three miles a minute. The flat plain of the clouds seemed to lift
steadily up toward the basket of the balloon; the balloon itself seemed
to drop but slowly. Then, at twenty thousand feet, the clouds enveloped
it and there was no trace left of where the falling derelict had gone.
* * * * *
Kisner and Welkfurn, waiting at the club for hours now, were silent as
the minutes passed and brought no word of Conway. At first there had
been tense moments of angry denunciation from Kisner, a hysterical
venting of his fears and feelings of impending evil. Welkfurn realized
fully now the gravity of his failure to return in time with the clock.
At first he made explanations hotly, told of his experiences in town,
tried to pacify and allay Kisner’s agitation; but the other man would
not listen.
They waited anxiously until the time when Conway should have returned
to earth again: they knew how much oxygen he carried, how long it would
supply him; and when the time was up, they drove silently from the club
to the balloon hangar and waited there, scanning the sky and hoping
desperately to see the balloon descending near at hand, yet knowing that
winds in the upper air were apt to drift the bag many miles Before it
returned to earth. Time passed, and no word came of it. They waited now
apathetically. They were sure that Conway was dead, and Kisner blamed
Welkfurn bitterly.
“Why are we waiting here?” Welkfurn asked woodenly. “The balloon won’t
come down around here--the wind will drift it.”
“All kinds of winds up there. Can’t tell where it went. One wind might
drift it one way, then up a little higher another wind might blow it
back. Anyhow--”
Suddenly Welkfurn cried eagerly:
“Kisner, _look_!” He pointed up as he spoke, and finally Kisner saw a
speck of gray above another speck of dark, three or four miles to the
east. These specks fell together, rapidly, in a straight line earthward.
Kisner, running to his car, obtained binoculars, focused them quickly.
* * * * *
The basket of the balloon stood out quite plainly through the glass, the
bag above it twisted hopelessly in the netting. There was no one in the
car, and for a moment Kisner hoped that Conway had left his craft when
higher up, was somewhere now coming down dangling on his parachute. The
wreck hurtled toward the earth. Kisner judged that it was at six
thousand feet when he first saw it. It reached four, then three; was
plainer to be seen as it descended.
[Illustration: The figure seemed to hang a moment on the rim, seemed to
try to struggle free, then toppled from the car.]
Then something lifted itself up inside the basket, seemed to hang a
moment on the rim. It moved! Kisner saw it clearly! Then it sank again.
The _Marie_ was almost to the ground--two thousand feet, dropping at one
hundred fifty miles an hour. The figure rose again, dully, lethargically.
Slowly it climbed up higher in the basket, seemed to try to struggle
free. It seemed to slump again, but rose a moment later, and toppled
from the car, falling for a time in line with the plunging wreckage.
Something white bubbled up above it, checked its fall. Lazily it drifted
down. The balloon struck the ground four hundred feet below. Before the
parachute had come to earth, Kisner and Welkfurn rode frantically along
a road toward where it would come down....
Six minutes later they were lifting Conway carefully into the car.
Nearer dead than alive, he fainted as they put him in.
* * * * *
Late that evening Conway--the altitude-record holder of the world--and
Kisner and Welkfurn sat before a roaring fire in the club. The
balloonist was slightly pale, and was weakened from exposure. He should
have been in bed recuperating, but his excitement had not waned, and he
was not sleepy. From time to time he sucked deep breaths of air
hungrily, held them in his lungs, and let them go.
“Can’t explain it all,” he said. “Can’t see how it happened.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Kisner asked.
“That clock! I saw three entries on my log, all the same! It woke me up
a little, scared me. After that I don’t recall what happened. Must have
been out on my feet; don’t recall a thing.
“How I pulled the rip-cord of the balloon I can’t see. When I came to,
we were coming down like a brick--she hadn’t parachuted normally at all.
I saw the cloth of the bag rolled up in a ball in the top of the
netting, just enough to slow us up a little. By the time I got my mind
working, we must have been down low--I didn’t see the altimeter. Just
remember thinking: ‘Big boy, you gotta jump!’ Had a hard time getting
out, too; just did make it. Kept thinking, ‘Must be awful near the
ground. Hurry! Hurry!’ Well, you saw me come over the side.”
“Good thing she _didn’t_ parachute just right up there,” Kisner pointed
out. “Your oxygen tanks were empty--if you hadn’t come down fast, you’d
have died before the balloon got down where the air was dense enough
that you could breathe!” He puzzled the matter a moment, shook his head.
“Don’t see how you did it, Con.”
“Well see what I put on the log when I was up there,” Conway said
tiredly. “Say, Welk, you run over and get it--get the log. We’ll have a
look at it.”
Welkfurn nodded and arose, pulled on his overcoat. He started toward the
door, and Conway called after him, grinning:
“Don’t be gone long, Welk; don’t get to talking on the way!”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the March, 1929 issue of
_Blue Book_ magazine.]
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