Free Thunder at Dawn by Alan Evans Page B

ago because a man called Medina, a Chilean, had applied for a licence to carry mails by air.”
    Smith stared. “What?”
    “Exactly. Everybody’s eyebrows went up and particularly because he didn’t have an aircraft. Besides, Cherry had him on the books as a German sympathiser. Soon after a new American arrived as an assistant to the local representative of a firm selling farm tools. In a couple of days everybody knew he had been a pilot with the United States Naval Air Service and handed in his commission because the money wasn’t good enough. He also hinted that his fondness for a gamble might have had something to do with it and he said he wasn’t pro-British nor pro-German just pro-Jim Bradley. Inside of a week he had a reputation as a gambler, winning and losing big sums but mostly winning, and everybody knew he could fly any God-damn aeroplane you cared to name, anytime, anywhere — if the money was right.
    ‘I’m certain he’s working for his government. I think he suspects I’m working for mine.” She stopped abruptly. “That’s all about him that matters.
    “Ten days ago Cherry ordered me north but the day before I left an aircraft arrived for Medina from the States and a pilot and two mechanics came with it, all of them ‘civilians’ invalided out of the German service with things like stomach trouble or rheumatism. They looked very fit to me.”
    Smith put in: “You didn’t mention this aircraft yesterday.”
    “Well, you can’t carry much coal in the thing!”
    Smith did not elaborate, but it was another factor added to the colliers. He thought about what she had told him and she watched him and thought that he was a solitary character and a million miles from her, remote. She wondered about those stories now and the letter from her sister. He was a lonely man …
    Smith asked, “This Jim Bradley — you’ve met him?”
    “I’ve met him in the way of business. That was part of my business, meeting people like him, strangers.”
    “What is he like?”
    Sarah shrugged again but this time when the robe slipped she was self-conscious in her quick adjustment of it. “Tall. Six feet two. Broad shoulders. Brown hair, brown eyes, small scar on right cheekbone, ‘go-to-hell-and-I’ll-come-with-you’ expression. He’s a good man.”
    She met his gaze straight-forwardly but he remembered that would be part of her stock-in-trade. He felt she was holding something back. “Anything else?” The girl’s cool look was stiff-faced now. “Anything else?”
    “He has several other scars on his upper body, the result of a flying accident, and one on his lower abdomen. He’s tried to get me to bed but I didn’t go. I learned this from somebody who did. Anything else ?”
    Smith was embarrassed. The girl had been holding back but only to save herself and him from embarrassment.
    She said, “Why, Commander, I think you’re blushing under all that dirt.”
    He felt a fool and knew that she knew it. He mumbled some apology. There would be a British ship at Malaguay and then he would be free of her. Soon. He held on to that thought as he stood up, rubbed at his face and smiled stiffly, blearily at her. “I’m grateful for your help.” And he was, his awkwardness could not hide that.
    “You’re welcome, Commander.” The door closed behind him and she stared at it, fingering the medallion that hung on her breast. She said softly, “You’ll need all the help you can get.”
    *
    Smith tried to put her out of his mind and concentrate on the information she had given him. Bradley — a good man. Then as he climbed to the upper deck he met Garrick, who said, “Young Wakely had a sack of stuff he brought aboard from the Gerda , sir. He’s in the Captain’s — your deck cabin with it, sir.”
    Smith ignored the slip but it was a sign of the newness of his command; he was a stranger here still. “Right. You’d better come along and give a hand with it.” And as they went: “I will mention them