Dutch Courage and Other Stories

  AN ADVENTURE IN THE UPPER SEA

  I am a retired captain of the upper sea. That is to say, when I was ayounger man (which is not so long ago) I was an aeronaut and navigatedthat aerial ocean which is all around about us and above us. Naturallyit is a hazardous profession, and naturally I have had many thrillingexperiences, the most thrilling, or at least the most nerve-racking,being the one I am about to relate.

  It happened before I went in for hydrogen gas balloons, all of varnishedsilk, doubled and lined, and all that, and fit for voyages of daysinstead of mere hours. The "Little Nassau" (named after the "GreatNassau" of many years back) was the balloon I was making ascents in atthe time. It was a fair-sized, hot-air affair, of single thickness, goodfor an hour's flight or so and capable of attaining an altitude of amile or more. It answered my purpose, for my act at the time was makinghalf-mile parachute jumps at recreation parks and country fairs. I wasin Oakland, a California town, filling a summer's engagement with astreet railway company. The company owned a large park outside the city,and of course it was to its interest to provide attractions which wouldsend the townspeople over its line when they went out to get a whiff ofcountry air. My contract called for two ascensions weekly, and my actwas an especially taking feature, for it was on my days that the largestcrowds were drawn.

  Before you can understand what happened, I must first explain a bitabout the nature of the hot air balloon which is used for parachutejumping. If you have ever witnessed such a jump, you will remember thatdirectly the parachute was cut loose the balloon turned upside down,emptied itself of its smoke and heated air, flattened out and fellstraight down, beating the parachute to the ground. Thus there is nochasing a big deserted bag for miles and miles across the country, andmuch time, as well as trouble, is thereby saved. This maneuver isaccomplished by attaching a weight, at the end of a long rope, to thetop of the balloon. The aeronaut, with his parachute and trapeze, hangsto the bottom of the balloon, and, weighing more, keeps it right sidedown. But when he lets go, the weight attached to the top immediatelydrags the top down, and the bottom, which is the open mouth, goes up,the heated air pouring out. The weight used for this purpose on the"Little Nassau" was a bag of sand.

  On the particular day I have in mind there was an unusually large crowdin attendance, and the police had their hands full keeping the peopleback. There was much pushing and shoving, and the ropes were bulgingwith the pressure of men, women and children. As I came down from thedressing room I noticed two girls outside the ropes, of about fourteenand sixteen, and inside the rope a youngster of eight or nine. Theywere holding him by the hands, and he was struggling, excitedly andhalf in laughter, to get away from them. I thought nothing of it atthe time--just a bit of childish play, no more; and it was only in thelight of after events that the scene was impressed vividly upon me.

  "Keep them cleared out, George!" I called to my assistant. "We don'twant any accidents."

  "Ay," he answered, "that I will, Charley."

  George Guppy had helped me in no end of ascents, and because of hiscoolness, judgment and absolute reliability I had come to trust my lifein his hands with the utmost confidence. His business it was to overlookthe inflating of the balloon, and to see that everything about theparachute was in perfect working order.

  The "Little Nassau" was already filled and straining at the guys. Theparachute lay flat along the ground and beyond it the trapeze. I tossedaside my overcoat, took my position, and gave the signal to let go. Asyou know, the first rush upward from the earth is very sudden, and thistime the balloon, when it first caught the wind, heeled violently overand was longer than usual in righting. I looked down at the old familiarsight of the world rushing away from me. And there were the thousands ofpeople, every face silently upturned. And the silence startled me, for,as crowds went, this was the time for them to catch their first breathand send up a roar of applause. But there was no hand-clapping,whistling, cheering--only silence. And instead, clear as a bell anddistinct, without the slightest shake or quaver, came George's voicethrough the megaphone:

  "Ride her down, Charley! Ride the balloon down!"

  What had happened? I waved my hand to show that I had heard, and beganto think. Had something gone wrong with the parachute? Why should I ridethe balloon down instead of making the jump which thousands were waitingto see? What was the matter? And as I puzzled, I received another start.The earth was a thousand feet beneath, and yet I heard a child cryingsoftly, and seemingly very close to hand. And though the "Little Nassau"was shooting skyward like a rocket, the crying did not grow fainter andfainter and die away. I confess I was almost on the edge of a funk,when, unconsciously following up the noise with my eyes, I looked aboveme and saw a boy astride the sandbag which was to bring the "LittleNassau" to earth. And it was the same little boy I had seen strugglingwith the two girls--his sisters, as I afterward learned.

  There he was, astride the sandbag and holding on to the rope fordear life. A puff of wind heeled the balloon slightly, and he swung outinto space for ten or a dozen feet, and back again, fetching up againstthe tight canvas with a thud which even shook me, thirty feet or morebeneath. I thought to see him dashed loose, but he clung on andwhimpered. They told me afterward, how, at the moment they were castingoff the balloon, the little fellow had torn away from his sisters,ducked under the rope, and deliberately jumped astride the sandbag. Ithas always been a wonder to me that he was not jerked off in the firstrush.

  Well, I felt sick all over as I looked at him there, and I understoodwhy the balloon had taken longer to right itself, and why George hadcalled after me to ride her down. Should I cut loose with the parachute,the bag would at once turn upside down, empty itself, and begin itsswift descent. The only hope lay in my riding her down and in the boyholding on. There was no possible way for me to reach him. No man couldclimb the slim, closed parachute; and even if a man could, and made themouth of the balloon, what could he do? Straight out, and fifteen feetaway, trailed the boy on his ticklish perch, and those fifteen feet wereempty space.

  I thought far more quickly than it takes to tell all this, and realizedon the instant that the boy's attention must be called away from histerrible danger. Exercising all the self-control I possessed, andstriving to make myself very calm, I said cheerily:

  "Hello, up there, who are you!"

  He looked down at me, choking back his tears and brightening up, butjust then the balloon ran into a cross-current, turned half around andlay over. This set him swinging back and forth, and he fetched thecanvas another bump. Then he began to cry again.

  "Isn't it great?" I asked heartily, as though it was the most enjoyablething in the world; and, without waiting for him to answer: "What's yourname?"

  "Tommy Dermott," he answered.

  "Glad to make your acquaintance, Tommy Dermott," I went on. "But I'dlike to know who said you could ride up with me?"

  He laughed and said he just thought he'd ride up for the fun of it. Andso we went on, I sick with fear for him, and cudgeling my brains to keepup the conversation. I knew that it was all I could do, and that hislife depended upon my ability to keep his mind off his danger. I pointedout to him the great panorama spreading away to the horizon and fourthousand feet beneath us. There lay San Francisco Bay like a greatplacid lake, the haze of smoke over the city, the Golden Gate, the oceanfog-rim beyond, and Mount Tamalpais over all, clear-cut and sharpagainst the sky. Directly below us I could see a buggy, apparentlycrawling, but I knew from experience that the men in it were lashing thehorses on our trail.

  But he grew tired of looking around, and I could see he was beginning toget frightened.

  "How would you like to go in for the business?" I asked.

  He cheered up at once and asked "Do you get good pay?"

  But the "Little Nassau," beginning to cool, had started on its longdescent, and ran into counter currents which bobbed it roughly about.This swung the boy around pretty lively, smashing him into the bag oncequite severely. His lip began to tremble at this, an
d he was cryingagain. I tried to joke and laugh, but it was no use. His pluck wasoozing out, and at any moment I was prepared to see him go shootingpast me.

  I was in despair. Then, suddenly, I remembered how one fright coulddestroy another fright, and I frowned up at him and shouted sternly:

  "You just hold on to that rope! If you don't I'll thrash you within aninch of your life when I get you down on the ground! Understand?"

  "Ye-ye-yes, sir," he whimpered, and I saw that the thing had worked. Iwas nearer to him than the earth, and he was more afraid of me than offalling.

  "'Why, you've got a snap up there on that soft bag," I rattled on.

  "Yes," I assured him, "this bar down here is hard and narrow, and ithurts to sit on it."

  Then a thought struck him, and he forgot all about his aching fingers.

  "When are you going to jump?" he asked. "That's what I came up to see."

  I was sorry to disappoint him, but I wasn't going to make any jump.

  But he objected to that. "It said so in the papers," he said.

  "I don't care," I answered. "I'm feeling sort of lazy today, and I'mjust going to ride down the balloon. It's my balloon and I guess I cando as I please about it. And, anyway, we're almost down now."

  And we were, too, and sinking fast. And right there and then thatyoungster began to argue with me as to whether it was right for me todisappoint the people, and to urge their claims upon me. And it waswith a happy heart that I held up my end of it, justifying myself in athousand different ways, till we shot over a grove of eucalyptus treesand dipped to meet the earth.

  "Hold on tight!" I shouted, swinging down from the trapeze by my handsin order to make a landing on my feet.

  We skimmed past a barn, missed a mesh of clothesline, frightenedthe barnyard chickens into a panic, and rose up again clear over ahaystack--all this almost quicker than it takes to tell. Then we camedown in an orchard, and when my feet had touched the ground I fetched upthe balloon by a couple of turns of the trapeze around an apple tree.

  I have had my balloon catch fire in mid air, I have hung on the corniceof a ten-story house, I have dropped like a bullet for six hundred feetwhen a parachute was slow in opening; but never have I felt so weak andfaint and sick as when I staggered toward the unscratched boy andgripped him by the arm.

  "Tommy Dermott," I said, when I had got my nerves back somewhat. "TommyDermott, I'm going to lay you across my knee and give you the greatestthrashing a boy ever got in the world's history."

  "No, you don't," he answered, squirming around. "You said you wouldn'tif I held on tight."

  "That's all right," I said, "but I'm going to, just the same. Thefellows who go up in balloons are bad, unprincipled men, and I'm goingto give you a lesson right now to make you stay away from them, and fromballoons, too."

  And then I gave it to him, and if it wasn't the greatest thrashing inthe world, it was the greatest he ever got.

  But it took all the grit out of me, left me nerve-broken, thatexperience. I canceled the engagement with the street railway company,and later on went in for gas. Gas is much the safer, anyway.