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Frigid Fracas

<h2>X</h2> The airport nearest to the Grant Memorial Military Reservation was some ten miles distance from the borders which, upon the scheduling of a fracas, were closed to all aircraft, and to all persons unconnected with the fracas, with the exception only of Telly crews and military observers from the Sov-world and the Neut-world, present to satisfy themselves that weapons of the post-1900 era were not being utilized. The distance, however, wasn't of particular importance. The powered aircraft which would tow Joe Mauser's glider to a suitable altitude preliminary to his riding the air currents, as a bird rides them, could also haul him to a point just short of the military reservation's border. Joe Mauser turned up on the opening day of the fracas, which was scheduled for a period of one week, or less, if one or the other of the combatants was able to achieve total victory in such short order. He was accompanied by Freddy Soligen, who, for once, was without a crew to help him with his cameras and equipment. Instead, he sweated it out alone, helped only by Max Mainz who was being somewhat huffy about this Telly reporter taking over his position as observer. They approached the sailplane, and while Joe Mauser checked it out, in careful detail, Freddy Soligen and Max began loading the equipment into the graceful craft's second seat, immediately behind the pilot. Max growled, "How in Zen you going to be able to lift all this weight, major, sir?" Joe said absently, testing the ailerons, "We'll make it. Freddy isn't any heavier than you are, Max. Besides, this sailplane is a workhorse. I sacrificed gliding angle for weight carrying potential." That meant absolutely nothing to Max Mainz, so he took it out by awarding the Telly reporter with a rare combination of glower and sneer. Freddy said, "Oh, oh, here they come, Joe." However, he kept his head low, storing away his equipment, and seemingly ignored the approach of the three distinctive uniformed officers. Joe said from the side of his mouth, "Get that you-know-what out of sight, soonest." He turned as the trio neared, came to attention and saluted. The foremost of the three, his tunic so small at the waist that he could only have been wearing a girdle, answered the salute by tapping his swagger stick against the visor of his cap. "Major Mauser," he said in acknowledgment. He made no effort to shake hands, turning instead to his two companions. He said, "Lieutenant Colonel Krishnalal Majumdur, of Bombay, Major Mohamed Kamil, of Alexandria, may I introduce the"—there was all but a giggle in his tone—"celebrated Major Joseph Mauser, who has possibly reintroduced aircraft to warfare." Joe saluted and bowed in proper protocol. "Gentlemen, a pleasure." The two neutrals responded correctly, then stepped forward to shake his hand. Colonel Lajos Arpid added, gently, "Or possibly he has not." Joe looked at him. The Hungarian seemed to make a practice of turning up every time Joe Mauser was about to take off. The Sov-world representative said airily, "It will be up to the International Disarmament Commission to decide upon that when it convenes shortly, will it not?" The Arab major was staring in fascination at the sailplane. He said to Joe, "Major Mauser, you are sure such craft were in existence before 1900? It would seem—" Joe said definitely, "Designed as far back as Leonardo and flown in various countries in the Eighteenth Century." He looked at the Hungarian. "Including, so I understand, what was then Czarist Russia." The Sov-world officer ignored the obvious needling, saying merely, "It is quite true that the glider was first flown by an obscure inventor in the Ukraine, however, that is not what particularly interests us today, major. Perhaps the commission will find that the use of the glider is permitted for observation, however, it is obvious that before the year 1900 by no stretch of the imagination could it be contended that they were, or could have been, used for, say, bombing." He turned quickly and pointed at Freddy Soligen, who, already seated in the sailplane, was watching them, his face not revealing his qualms. "What has that man been hiding within the craft?" Joe said formally, "Gentlemen, may I introduce Frederic Soligen, Category Communications, Sub-division Telly News, Rank Senior Reporter. Mr. Soligen has been assigned to cover the fracas from the air." Freddy looked at the Sov-world officer and said innocently, "Hiding? You mean my portable camera, and my power pack, and my auxiliary lenses, and my—" "All right, all right," Arpád snapped. The Hungarian was no fool and obviously smelled something wrong in this atmosphere. He turned to Joe. "I would remind you, major, that you as an individual are responsible for any deviations from the basic Universal Disarmament Pact. You, and any of your superiors who can be proven to have had knowledge of such deviation." "I am familiar with the articles of war, as detailed in the pact," Joe said dryly. "And now, gentlemen, I am afraid my duty calls me." He bowed stiffly, saluted correctly. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance Colonel Majumdur, Major Kamil. Colonel Arpád, a pleasure to renew acquaintance." They answered his salute and stared after him as he climbed into the sailplane and signaled to the pilot of the lightplane which was to tow him into the air. Max Mainz ran to the tip of one wing, lifting it from the ground and steadying the glider until forward motion gave direction and buoyancy. Freddy Soligen growled, "Zen! If they'd known I had a machine gun tucked away in this tripod case." Joe said unhappily, "The Sovs have obviously decided to put up a howl about the use of aircraft in the West-world." He shifted his hand on the stick, gently, and the glider which had been sliding along on its single wheel, lifted ever so gently into the air. Joe kept it at an altitude of about six feet until the lightplane was air-borne. Freddy growled, "How come the Hungarians have become so important in the Sov-world? I thought it was the Russians who started their whole shooting-match." Joe said wryly, "That's something some of the early timers like Stalin didn't figure out when they began moving in on their neighbors. They could have learned a lesson from Hollywood about the Hungarians. What was the old saying? If you've got a Hungarian for a friend, you don't need any enemies." Freddy laughed, even as he looked apprehensively over the sailplane's side. He said, "Yeah, or that other one. The Hungarians are the only people who can enter a revolving door behind you and come out in front." Joe said, "Well, that's what happened to the Russians." He pointed. "There's the reservation. We'll be cutting from the airplane in a moment now. Listen, were you able to find out who either of General McCord's glider pilots are?" <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image_005.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="433" alt="" /></div> "Yeah," Freddy told him. "Both are captains. One named Bob Flaubert and the other Jimmy Hideka." "Bob Flaubert?" Jeb growled. "He's an artilleryman. We've been in the dill together half a dozen times." Freddy was staring below, trying to understand the terrain from this perspective. While Joe was tripping the lever which let the tow rope drop away from the glider, the Telly reporter said, "Both of them used to fly lightplanes for sport. When you started this new glider angle, they must've seen the possibilities and took it up immediately. But you oughta be able to fly circles around them, they just haven't had the time for experience with planes without motors." "Bob, eh?" Joe said softly. "He saved my life once. Five minutes later, I saved his." Freddy looked at him quickly. "Zen!" he complained. "It's no time to be thinking of that. So now you're even with him. And you're both hired mercenaries in a fracas." "But I've got a gun and he hasn't," Joe growled. "Good!" Freddy snapped at him. They had cut away from the lightplane and Joe headed for the area which Cogswell had ordered him particularly to keep scanned. Jack Altshuler was a fox, in combat. His heavy cavalry had more than once swung a fracas. At the same time, he kept himself alert for the other gliders. It seemed probable, since the enemy forces had two, that they would use them in relays. Which meant, in turn, that it was unlikely Joe would find them both in the air at once. In other words, if he attacked the one, possibly shooting it down, then the other would be warned, would mount a gun of its own, and it would no longer be a matter of shooting a clay pigeon. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Joe turned to mention this over his shoulder to Freddy Soligen, just in time to catch the shadow above and behind him. "Holy Zen!" he snapped, kicking right rudder, thrusting his stick to the right and forward. "What the devil!" Freddy protested, looking up from adjusting a lens on his camera. Three or four thirty-caliber slugs tore holes in their left wing, the rest of the burst missing completely. Joe dove sharply, gained speed, winged over and reached desperately for altitude. The other—no, the others were above him. He yelled back at the cameraman, "Put that Chaut-Chaut gun together for me. Be ready to hand me pans of ammo. And if you want blood and gore on that Tellylens of yours, get going!" It still hadn't got through to the smaller man. "What in devil's going on?" Joe banked again, grabbing for a current rising along a hill slope, circled, circled, reaching for altitude before they could get over to him and make another pass. He snapped bitterly, "Did I say something about poor old Bob Flaubert not having a gun, while I did? Well, poor old Bob's obviously got at least as much fire power as we have. Freddy, I'm afraid matters have pickled." The other was startled. "Do I have to draw a picture?" Joe said. "Look." He pointed to where the other two crafts circled, possibly a hundred meters above and five hundred to the right of them. The other two gliders bore a single passenger apiece, and were seemingly moving as quietly as were Joe and Freddy, but gliders in motion are deceptive. Joe shot a glance at his rate of climb indicator. He was doing all right at six meters per second, a thousand feet a minute, considering his weight. Freddy had at last awakened to the fact that they were in combat and even that the enemy had drawn first blood. The wound taken in their wing was not serious, from Joe's viewpoint, but the torn holes in the fabric were obvious. But the little man had not gained his intrepid reputation as a Telly cameraman without cause. He moved fast, both to get the small French machine gun into Joe's hands and to get himself into action as a cameraman. He snapped, "What's the situation?" Joe, circling, circling, praying the updraft wouldn't give out on him before it did on the others, on their opposite hill, said, "We weigh too much. Altitude counts. What've you got back there that can be thrown out?" As he talked, he was shrugging himself out of his leather flying jacket. "Nothing," Freddy said in anguish. "I cut down my equipment to the barest, like you said." "You've got extra lenses and stuff, out with them." Joe tossed his coat over the glider's side, began unlacing his shoes. "And all your clothes. Clothes are heavy." "I need my equipment to get long-range shots, like when one of them crashes!" The little man was scanning the others through his view-finder, even as he argued, and shrugging out of his own jacket. The updraft gave out and the rate of climb meter began to register a drop. Joe swore and shot a glance at his opponents. Happily, they, too, had lost their currents, both were now heading for him. Joe clipped out to his companion. "We're not going to be getting shots of them crashing, unless we lose more weight. Overboard with everything you can possibly afford, Freddy. That's an order." There was one thing in his favor. He had a year's flying experience, more than six months of it in this very glider. The stick and rudderbar were as though appendages of his body. One flies by the seat of his pants, in a soaring glider, and Joe flew his as though born in it. The others, obviously, were as yet not thoroughly used to engineless craft. He banked away from them, flying as judiciously as possible, begrudging each foot dropped. He could feel the craft jump lightly each time the cursing Telly reporter jettisoned another article of equipment, his pants, or his shoes. The others evidently had their guns fix-mounted, to fire straight ahead. Joe wondered, even as he slid away from them, how they managed to escape detection from the Sov-world and Neut-world field observers. Well, that could be worried about later. One of them fired at him at too great a range, and then both, realizing that they were dropping altitude too quickly and that soon Joe would be on their level, turned away and sought a new updraft. As they banked, their faces were clearly discernible. One raised a hand in mocking salute. "Look at that curd-loving Bob," Joe laughed grudgingly. "Here, let me have that gun." He steadied the small mitrailleuse on the edge of the cockpit, holding the craft's stick between his knees, and squeezed off a burst which rattled through the other's fuselage without apparent damage. The foe glider slid away quickly, losing precious altitude in the maneuver. "Ah, ha," Joe said wolfishly. "So now they know we've got a stinger too." "I got that," Freddy crowed. "I got it perfectly. Listen, we're too high for the boys down below. Get lower so they can get you on lens, Joe. The other Telly teams. Every fracas buff in North America is watching this." Joe snorted his disgust. "I hope every fracas buff in North America chokes on his trank pills," he snarled. "We're in the dill, Freddy. Understand? We're too heavy, and there's two of them and one of us. On top of that, those are Maxim guns they've got mounted, not peashooters like this Chaut-Chaut." "That's your side of it," Freddy said, not unhappily. "I take care of the photography. Get closer, Joe. Get closer." Joe had found another light updraft and gained a few hundred feet, but so had the others. They circled, circled. His experience balanced their advantage of the lesser weight. Happily, their glide ratios didn't seem to be any better than his own. Had they high performance gliders of forty, or even thirty-five, gliding angle ratios, he would have been lost. "Nothing else you can toss out?" he growled at Freddy. "What the Zen!" Freddy muttered nastily. "You want me to jump?" "That's an idea," Joe growled wolfishly, even as he circled, circled. "I should have realized when you were giving me your fling about reintroducing aerial warfare, that it wasn't an idea that others couldn't have. It was just as easy for Bob to mount a gun as it was for us. Now we're both being kept from doing reconnaissance by the other and—" Joe Mauser broke it off in mid-sentence and his face blanched. He shot a quick look downward. All three gliders had climbed considerably, and the terrain below was indistinct. Joe snapped, "Hand me those glasses!" "What glasses? What's the matter?" Freddy complained. "Try to get closer to them and let me get a close-up of you giving them a burst." "My binoculars!" Joe snapped urgently. "I want to see what's going on below." "Oh," Freddy said. "I threw them out. Along with all the rest of the equipment. Glasses, semaphore flags, that sun blinker you had. All of it went overboard with my extra lenses." The craft was so banked as almost to have the wings perpendicular to earth. Joe shot an agonized look at the smaller man, then back again at the earth below, trying desperately to narrow his eyes for keener vision. Freddy said, "What in Zen's the matter with you? What difference does it make what they're doing down below? We're all occupied up here, thanks." "This is a frame-up," Joe growled. "Bob and that other pilot. They weren't out on reconnaissance, this morning. They were laying for me. They're out to keep me from seeing what's going on down there. And I know what's going on. Jack Altshuler's pulling a fast one. Here we go, Freddy, hang on!" He slapped his flap brake lever with his left hand, winged over and began dropping like a shot as his gliding angle fell off from twenty-five to one to ten to one. In seconds the other two gliders were after him, riding his tail. Freddy Soligen, his eyes bugging, shot a look of fear at the two trailing craft, both of which, periodically, showed brilliant cherries at their prows. Maxim guns, emitting their blessings. The Telly reporter turned desperately back to Joe Mauser, pounding him on the shoulder. His physical fear was secondary to another. "Joe! You're on lens with every Telly team down there, and you're running!" "Cut that out," Joe rapped. "Duck your head. Let me train this gun over you. I've got to keep those jokers from shooting off our tail before I can get to the marshal." "The marshal!" Freddy yelled. "You can't get to him anyway. I told you I threw away your semaphore flags, your blinker—everything. This country's hilly. You can't get your message to him anyway. Listen, Joe, you've still got time. You can stunt these things better than those two can." "Duck!" Joe snarled. He let loose a burst at the pursuing gliders over the smaller man's head, and just missing his own tail section. They sped down almost to tree level at fantastic speed for a glider. The two enemy craft were hot after them, their guns flac, flac, flacing in continuous excitement, trying to catch Joe in sights, as he kicked rudder, right, left, right, in evasive maneuver. He guess had been correct. The swashbuckling Jack Altshuler had know his many times commander even better than Cogswell had realized. Instead of three alternative maneuvers open to the wily cavalryman, he'd ferreted out a fourth and his full force, hauling mountain guns on mule back with them, were trailing over a supposedly impossible mountain path which originally could not have been more then a deer track. Freddy Soligen, in back, was holding his head in his hands in surrender. He could have focused on the troops below, but the desire wasn't in him. Not one fracas buff in a hundred could comprehend the complications of combat, the need for adequate reconnaissance—the need for Joe to get through. He made one last plea. "Joe, we've put everything into this. Every share of stock you've accumulated. All I have, too. Don't you realize what you're doing, so far as the buffs are concerned? Those two half-trained pilots behind have you on the run." Joe growled, "And twenty thousands lads down below are depending on me to report on Altshuler's horse." "But you can't win, anyway. You can't get your message to Cogswell!" Joe shot him a wolfish grin. "Wanta bet? Ever heard of a crash landing, Freddy? Hang on!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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