First Knights

Nancy Berman and Noah Dudley

The quiet little harbor town of San Diego slumbered peacefully through the autumn night. Even in November most of the inhabitants could sleep with their windows open, so a lot of sleepy heads were raised when the first wing of fighters swept over the city, followed by the rumbling sound of two heavy zeppelins overhead.

In the cockpit of his fighter at the head of the first wing, Raphael Diaz, "El Lobo Blanco," shook his head in astonishment. What kind of fools left such a rich shipment of machine parts so poorly guarded? One had to make allowances, he supposed, for the confusion surrounding California's sudden change in status from state to independent country, but was that any excuse for such sloppy security arrangements? Under these circumstances, could anyone blame a man who took advantage of such good fortune to feed his family -- and the growing band of renegade pilots and soldiers-of-fortune who continued to flock to his cause? These parts would keep his planes in the air for a long time, and the extras could be sold for sorely-needed pesos.

Up ahead the aircraft plant lay spread out before him. As he had expected, many of the heavy trucks that had just arrived with the parts shipment still had their lights on and their engines running. He chuckled to himself, How thoughtful of them to leave such candles burning in the window, eh? The warehouse doors were open and tiny figures wheeled stacked boxes from the trucks into the building. Diaz also saw something he had not expected --at the front gate was a small turret from which poked two gun-barrels, pointing at the sky. Perhaps he had underestimated the gringos. Ah well, a man could only do what he could do.

He turned on his radio, clicked open his mike, and snapped, "Amigos! Sequiere me!" then rolled into a dive with the rest of the wing following in ragged formation. Down below, little men suddenly scurried like ants, a few running toward the anti-aircraft turret. Lining them up carefully in his sights, Raphael muttered, "Adios, muchachosÉ" and opened up with his twin Anderson 50-cal. cannons. Bodies flew through the air as the motion of the figures on the ground grew more frantic. Diaz grinned. Now this was living...

The pilots of El Lobo Blanco may not have been strict military formation flyers, but they knew what they were doing. Most of the guards on the ground were down before they could mount any significant resistance, and Raphael was very proud of the fact that the unmanned anti-aircraft gun had been destroyed by his wingman and eldest son Miguel, the one they called El Lobo Negro. On the other hand, he sighed, bombs so were expensive!

Seeing that the warehouse defenders were either dead or fled, Raphael signaled for the zeppelins to land, which they did, slowly settling their eerily graceful bulk inside the compound. Even before the airships had finished landing, a score of his men had jumped out of each and headed for the warehouse, while others grabbed landing lines and made ready to receive the welcomed cargo. Once again the yard was full of men carrying boxes, but this time the boxes were headed for the zeppelins.

Looking back towards San Diego, Raphael saw a line of moving lights far down the road. Merda! The militia, apparently now awakened, was heading towards them. Hurriedly he radioed down to the zeppelins, "Andale! Andale! Tenemos un problema!!" Then he swung his plane around and headed down towards the approaching lights, followed by the rest of his wing. On the ground, his men suddenly stepped up the pace, anxious to crowd the last of the boxes into the zeppelins and get out of there before the Federales showed up.

Raphael weighed his options carefully. Where there was one anti-aircraft gun, there could be others--others he could not see in the dark. Radioing his wing to stand off, he flew forward alone. Approaching the road at right angles, he reached down and picked up a very precious cargo. Targeting the first vehicle in line, he crossed himself and kissed his one remaining bomb. "Buena suerte, mi amigo," he whispered, and let it drop.

Raphael gave thanks to God as the lead car exploded in a fountain of fire, blocking the road and leaving a large crater in its wake. By the time the burning wreckage could be cleared from the road, El Lobo Blanco and his pirates were halfway back to Mexico with their precious contraband.

"Oh, Norm, I think I'm in love!!" Charlie dropped dramatically onto Norm Houston's greasy worn sofa, then jumped up with a shriek. Norm chuckled, wiping his weathered hands on a rag. His cluttered hangar office was a minefield for a girl like Charlie, whose most casual clothes cost three times as much as his best Sunday suit.

"There was a time when you didn't mind sleeping on that sofa, back when you were a little girl," he said. "Who's the lucky guy?"

Charlie stared speechless at him, then looked at the sofa with disgust. "I'll order you a new sofa tomorrow."

Norm chuckled. "Don't you dare. Your dad and I used to sit in here and talk for hours, back in the old days, and after a while you'd curl up right there on that sofa and take a nap. You used to love listening to us talk about flying, swapping the same old stories we'd been telling each other for years. I guess it was just an excuse to get together and relive our glory days." The old pilot paused and looked wistful. "Then everything changed, and Eddie didn't come down here after that."

Charlie looked quizzically at Norm. "Eddie?"
"I told you, honey, we go way back.

Charlie shook her head. "Well, I don't remember any of that. Norm, I'm not in love with a guy. I'm in love withÉ well, I've come down here to ask you a favor. I've always heard what a great pilot you wereÉ I mean are. So, would you teach me how to fly? I've gotta tell you, my father has absolutely forbidden me to ever get near an airplane again, but I just HAVE to fly. Will you? Please? "

The old stunt flyer laughed "Well, well, Miss Charlie. Finally got bit, eh? I know how you feel about flying. After all these years and everything that's happened, I've still got the bug. But I dunno Ð I'm not sure I wanna go up against the famous Edward Steele."

"Oh, Norm!" Charlie's tactics changed more quickly than the weather--and more dramatically. "You're just like everyone else! You're all afraid of my father! And you used to be my hero!"

Norm hid a wry smile behind a bout of throat-clearing. "Darlin', if I were goin' to be scared of something, I'd be a lot more scared of you than your dad. But there's more to flyin' than wearin' a fancy flyin' suit. It's not enough just to know how to handle a plane -- you gotta know why it does what it does and when to do it. Do you know how an airplane works?"

"Of course I do," Charlie replied derisively. "You put in the gasoline, put on your helmet, pull up the throttle thingy, and the plane goes up. I'm not sure how it gets down, at least not very well, but you could teach me."

"Charlie, there's a whole lot more to it that that! What's with this sudden interest in airplanes anyway? When did you decide to do your own chaufferin'?" Charlie had carefully not mentioned her outing with Reed Champion to anyone except her father. She'd heard of being dumped on a date, but to have your beau jump out of an airplane? She'd be a laughingstock. But if Norm was going to teach her, he had a right to know, so she took a deep breath and told him the whole story, starting with meeting Reed and ending with her feeling of exhilaration as she piloted the plane in for a landing.

Norm stared at her for a long time.

"I know you," he said at last. "if I say no, you'll go out and find some fly-boy somewhere else who doesn't know enough to stay away. Well. I'll see if I can find some overalls that will fit you." Charlie shrieked and threw her arms around the old man. "Thank you, Norm! Thank you SO much!"

Norm gently disengaged himself. "We'll see if you're still thanking me tomorrow. Be here tomorrow morning at seven. Sharp, mind you! And Charlie, it'll be a lot better for both of us if Eddie doesn't find out. Now skedaddle outta here! I got work to do." Charlie paused in the doorway and flashed him a big smile. "She's quite a looker," the old pilot thought. "Reminds me so much of her mother."

As Norm heard the car engine start up, he said softly. "Yep. Way back."

Over the next several weeks, Charlie found the triple task of getting up with the sun, hiding her new venture from her father, and dealing with Norm almost more than she could bear. For one thing, Norm was as stubborn as an old bear. On the first day he told her, "Your old man may not scare me, but I ain't fool enough to kill his only daughter -- at least, not right away." So before they ever left the ground, Norm had her check every part of his old Curtis-Jenny, pointing out each item in turn and drilling her endlessly. He made Charlie go over it again and again, in order, and every time she missed a point they went back to the beginning and started over. He explained patiently, but firmly, that when you're in a crunch, you had to be able to rely on yourself to do the important things automatically. After two weeks they still hadn't gotten off the ground, and each night Charlie would return home seething, swearing she had seen the last of airplanes, greasy sofas, overalls, and most especially, Norm Houston. But to her surprise, each morning she found herself heading back to her lessons.

One day, she finally couldn't stand it and shouted at him, "Are we EVER gonna fly one of these things!?"

Norm whirled around and fixed her with a stony glance. "Not today, not tomorrow, maybe never, until you and this plane are inseparable, and you change your attitude. This isn't a game, Charlie. This is serious business and the sooner you settle down and start acting like something besides a spoiled brat, the sooner we're gonna get off the ground."

They stared at each other for a moment, then something clicked inside Charlie and she realized that she had to make a decision. She remembered how she had felt up there and realized that it was worth anything she had to do to learn how to fly. Making a conscious effort to keep that in the front of her mind, she took a deep breath and nodded briefly to Norm.

From that moment, the training took off. Charlie learned the insides of the old plane better than she knew her own house, and soon she and Norm were flying across the Valley, with Norm always at the controls. Under Norm's instruction, Charlie learned that there was more to flying than strapping on goggles and pulling back the throttle thingy, and the more she knew, the more she realized that only a miracle had saved her that day with Reed Champion.. She learned about the responsibility that went with flying, the responsibility to yourself, your passengers, the people in the air with you and those on the ground. After a while, she came to suspect that Norm had an ulterior motive for his slow teaching methods: curbing her excitable nature. If she treated flying like she'd always treated everything else in her young life, she'd be dead before she was sorry.

Finally the day arrived when Norm gave her the controls of the trainer for the first time.

"It's all yours, darlin'," he shouted over the wind, but she couldn't move. Her last experience at the stick came rushing back, the fear and the certainty she was going to die. She was paralyzed. With no hand at the controls, the plane began to shake and shudder.

"C'mon, Charlie!" Norm's bellow went unheeded and the ground started to rise up as their nose dipped. The engine's growl rose to a whine as they gained speed. "Charlie!"

The girl grasped the stick, but her arms wouldn't obey her brain. Suddenly the throttle seemed to move back on its own, their path leveling off. Norm had taken back the controls, and in that moment Charlie knew that if she let him save her, she would never have another chance.

"I've got it!" she yelled back at him, and pulled the stick, feeling the plane climb again under her command. And that was it. The feeling of power and freedom that had been hers during that first, horrible, glorious flight came flooding back, and Charlie Steel was hooked for good. In her elation, she buzzed the orange grove where she had crashed such a short time ago, pulled up without crashing, and screamed her joyous defiance to the skies. She flew on to circle the Valley, before returning to her home hangar and a destiny she could never have known.