Conquerors of the Sky by Thomas Fleming

saddles. Craig came in even lower this time. “Get the machine gun,” he shouted, pointing below them.
    Frank shook his head. All he could hear was his mother hissing death machine. He clutched the bomb to his chest. “We’re killing them!” he screamed.
    â€œThat’s the idea!” Craig yelled. “They’re paying us a thousand bucks to do it.”
    â€œWhy are we killing them? What have they done to us?”
    â€œIt’s a goddamn war!” Craig bellowed.
    â€œI won’t do it. It’s wrong!” Frank cried.
    â€œJesus Christ, you’re still a momma’s boy!” Craig snarled.
    He grabbed the bomb out of Frank’s hands, banked and came in even lower, no more than fifty feet above the roofs. More enemy soldiers were shooting at them. But others were jumping off the roofs into the streets in panic. Craig planted the bomb about twenty feet from the machine gun. It blew the men firing the gun off the roof into the field in front of the town. The gun lay on its side like a dead insect.
    The charging horsemen hurtled into the town. Some of the defenders tried to make a stand in the streets but the horsemen rode into them, swinging sabers, firing pistols. Those who were still alive fled out the other end of the town. Craig followed them and demanded another bomb.
    â€œThey’re beaten! Let them go!” Frank said. He grabbed the last two bombs and threw them over the side. They blew big holes in the ground and probably made the fleeing defenders run a little faster. Craig banked back over the town. The victors were dragging people out of houses and shooting them in the streets.
    â€œJesus,” Craig said. “Let’s go home.”
    Back in California, Frank made Craig promise he would not fly Rag Time as a bomber again. Frank even wanted Craig to give up the bombing part of the act at air shows but Craig refused. “We’ve got to keep eating, kid,” he said.
    A month later, on August 23, 1912, Craig was flying low over the ocean before a huge crowd at Long Beach. The concessionaires along the Long Beach Pike, a big amusement park, had hired him to attract customers. On the beach
beside Frank, in a swimsuit that displayed a lot of her knockout figure, Muriel Halsey wiggled her bottom excitedly in the sand and said: “He promised to show me something special.”
    A moment later, Craig took his hands off the stick and spread his arms wide. “That’s how safe flying is, ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the Pike’s master of ceremonies through a big megaphone.
    â€œGosh, he’s got nerve,” cried Muriel. She had just finished a movie in Hollywood and was sure she could get Craig a part in one. They were shooting five and six pictures a week and were desperate for brawny leading men. She had already urged a director to write a script about a pilot who rescued a blond American girl from Mexican bandits.
    Suddenly Rag Time yawed to the right, her nose dipped and she dove straight down. A trick. He’ll pull it out, Frank thought. This was the stunt Craig was going to show Muriel. He must have learned it in secret so not even Frank knew about it.
    But Rag Time did not pull out. The plane plunged into a flock of gulls riding just beyond the surf. It happened so fast, no one in the crowd made a sound for a full minute. Then a kind of wail swept the beach. The fuselage and the right wing crumpled around Craig, trapping him in the wreckage.
    Frank rowed frantically out with some lifeguards to pull Craig from the hulk minutes before Rag Time sank. But there was nothing more they could for Craig. His neck was broken. He died in the hospital about an hour later, trying to say something to Frank.
    â€œCare—care—”
    Take care of Mother? Be careful? It did not matter. As he closed Craig’s eyes, Frank Buchanan vowed to build a better, safer plane, one that was not a death machine. He would learn the