Dent Lester - Trouble On Parade

“I don't see why,” said the owner of the red whiskers.

“How do you expect to get on the plane then?” demanded the pilot, who seemed to be becoming exasperated.

“I don't,” said the swimmer.

The pilot scratched his head, thinking this over.

The fiery-whiskered swimmer grinned pleasantly and began quoting poetry. He said:

“Hope tells a flattering tale,

"Delusive, vain, and hollow.

“Ah! let not hope prevail,

"Lest disappointment follow.”

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

An astonished silence fell over the plane. It lasted some moments until the copilot broke it by saying softly, “Well, I'll be damned!”

The pilot said, “You mean you don't want to be rescued?”

“That's right.”

“Why not?”

“Don't need rescuing.”

“The nearest land,” said the pilot sharply, “is 20 miles away.”

“22 and 5/10 miles,” the swimmer corrected.

The pilot scratched his head some more … then said, “I don't get this.”

“How disappointment tracks the steps of hope,” the swimmer remarked.

This was obviously another quotation, and Doc Savage dug around in his memory until he recalled that it was a quote of L.E. Landon. The other one — the poetry — had been from The Universal Songster by a Miss Wrother indicating that red-whiskers was versed in lesser-known literary works. Doc frowned at the fellow, examining him for signs of insanity.

The pilot — trying a different method — made his tone conversational and asked, “Mind telling me your name?”

“Not at all,” said the swimmer. “I'm Disappointed Smith.”

“Where you headed for?”

The possessor of the crimsonchin foliage shook his head.

“That's my private business,” he said.

“You'd better come aboard,” the pilot urged.

“No thanks.”

“Are you afraid of airplanes?”

“Nope.”

“Mind waiting around a minute?” the pilot asked.

“I got plenty of time.”

The pilot re-entered the plane, came down the aisle, and stopped before Doc Savage.

“Mr. Savage, I just remembered that you're a doctor. And so you might be able to tell me whether-or-not that guy is nuts. Is he?”

Doc Savage looked at Disappointed Smith once more.

“He acts and sounds sane enough. But the catch is that what he is doing and saying doesn't fit in with our ideas of what a man found swimming 20 miles from land should do and say.”

This wasn't conclusive enough for the pilot.

“Is he batty?”

“It would depend on whether his reasons for being where he is are rational ones.”

“Can't you tell whether he's crazy?”

“By looking at him for 5 minutes from a distance of 30 feet? And looking at only his head at that? I'm not a magician.”

The pilot took another look through the window.

“My God!” he gasped.

The flame-bearded giant had calmly unfastened one of his waterproof pouches from his belt, opened it, and was consuming a sandwich which he had removed therefrom.

A silence fell, the pilot appearing to be baffled as to what measures to take next. No one else aboard having anything constructive to offer.

The pilot was in charge of the plane anyway. Therefore it was his headache.

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Suddenly the pilot growled, “I'm going to take that guy aboard whether he likes it or not!”

He scrambled outside.

He shouted, “Listen, you! Cut out that foolishness and come aboard.”

As though surprised at the violent tone, the swimmer hastily swallowed the portion of sandwich he was chewing and eyed the pilot. Presently he delivered another quotation.

“Mean spirits under disappointment like small beer in a thunderstorm always turn sour,” he quoted.

The pilot wheeled angrily to the stewardess and said, “Grace, hand me the line off that life preserver. I'll lasso the fool!”

The lassoing was unsuccessful although the red-beard seemed to enjoy it. He would sink each time the rope looped toward him … to bob up a few feet away uncaptured and grinning.

The pilot turned ugly. He was armed as are most pilots carrying the mails. He whipped out a revolver and leveled it.

“Now get aboard!” he ordered. “Or do you want to be shot?”

Doc Savage — to his disappointment — missed what immediately followed. The ugliness in the pilot's tone startled him. He thought the man sounded as if he actually might shoot the swimmer. Which would be uncalled for. And Doc was trying to get a look at the pilot to see whether the man was really going to commit a murder.

So he didn't see what the swimmer did. But he saw the results.

There was the sharp slam of a shot! The pilot dodged wildly and pitched inside the plane. But not before his natty uniform cap had sailed off his head.

Doc turned his gaze to the swimmer. The bearded young man (and he had to be young with that marvelously muscled body!) was calmly sacking the revolver which he had used to shoot the pilot's cap off his head. He drew the sack opening tight with a waterproof zipper arrangement, hung it at his belt, and calmly dived.

It was possible to follow his progress through the water. He swam to the plane and in a moment his fist pounded angrily on the hull. Then he was shouting:

“Get out of here and leave me alone! Or I'll start shooting holes through the bottom of this airplane.”

The pilot hurriedly picked himself off the cabin floor … scrambled forward into the control compartment … and in a few moments the plane took the air.

Once in the air, the plane made a climbing turn and passed back over the swimmer who lifted one arm and gaily waved them a farewell. He was holding some object in one hand. One of the other passengers gasped that this was the gun. But Doc Savage rather thought it was a small thermos bottle which might contain hot coffee.

The remainder of the flight as far as Yarmouth became a sociable junket, contrasting to the dignified earlier part of the trip from Boston when almost none of the passengers had spoken to each other. The ice was now broken. Everybody wanted to talk about the Herculean red-headed and red-bearded and short-tempered swimmer.

Doc Savage participated in the discussion. He couldn't very well avoid it because his opinion was frequently being asked. He discovered that everyone aboard knew his identity (the stewardess having broadcast the information!)

What did he think? Did he consider the swimmer demented? If sane, why was the flame-whiskered fellow paddling his way across the ocean? He couldn't be sane, could he?

A fat man in the fish-buying business said slyly, “This inexplicable incident couldn't be connected with your profession could it, Mr. Savage?”

Doc said he didn't suppose so … and suddenly he felt that several other passengers suspected the incident had happened because he was aboard the plane.

Discouraged, he took to his seat and avoided more talk. He no longer felt one of the crowd. He suspected the passengers regarded him as someone who went around dragging thunder and lightning like a dog with a can tied to its tail.

He thought about his reason for going to Nova Scotia and could see nothing about it that promised excitement.

It was quite simple. He was going to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to buy some boats and make a bit of change.

Boat-buying was not his business. But a man named Si Hedges had telephoned him that he Hedges had obtained a number of first-class, small, war surplus steamships. And that he would re-sell them to Doc at a figure which would make him some money. Doc Savage was not acquainted with Si Hedges. So the offer had puzzled him until Hedges explained that Doc had once done a considerable favor for Hedges' brother-in-law — Wilbur C. Tidings — and that Hedges would like to repay the debt. Hedges wasn't, he explained, giving away anything. He was merely giving Doc an opportunity to make some money. Doc remembered Wilbur C. Tidings — the brother-in-law — and recalled the favor he had done Tidings.