Dent Lester - Trouble On Parade

It seems to be a fact that one of the things people most enjoy doing is approving. "Pointing with pride” (is the phrase) the great accomplishments of the human race. The race which has discovered radio, vitamin pills, crooners, war, airplanes, 6-dollar theater seats, appendix operations, taxes etc. etc.

But once upon a time, a scholar (who was also a witty man) said: “Man is an emotional animal who sometimes stops to think.”

"Stopping to think" is the profession of scholars and scientists who get salaries for it. These gentlemen are (a surprising number of them) quite modest men since it is mysterious and awe-inspiring to realize — as they soon must — that it may take them and succeeding thinkers perhaps another 100,000 years to invent a mechanism as marvelous as, for example, a common cheese-eating variety of mouse.

To say nothing of an emotion. For an emotion is nebulous — being probably a sort of biochemical product. Even the garden variety of emotions such as fear, joy, grief, hate, love, and reverence.

Fearis a primary emotion. A baby — the scientists have proved — is born with only 2 primitive fears. The fear of loud noise. And the fear of falling. It has — at birth — no other instinctive fears. Taken from its crib, the baby will reach impartially for striped candy, cobra snakes, fire, Uncle Dan's shiny timepiece, dogs, canary birds, dynamite, and strangers.

Which proves that the baby is born with another emotion. Curiosity . Its curiosity stays with it and develops as do its other emotions. But unlike the others, its curiosity usually gets it into a lot of trouble!

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It was on a hot Wednesday afternoon in August that the pilot of a Boston, Mass.-to-Halifax, Nova Scotia passenger seaplane gave a display of what was almost phenomenal eyesight. Followed by normal curiosity.

Not all August afternoons in the Bay of Fundy are hot ones. But this one was particularly so. And it was an unnaturally still afternoon. The sea below the plane — absolutely calm — resembled a great expanse of shining glass. As blue as a policeman's uniform where the water was deep, shading to various other colors such as mink brown, and dying grass green where the sea bottom came up in reefs and shoals.

The plane was flying quite low — not much higher than 500 feet — because there was no headwind and the sea was calm enough to make a forced landing anywhere in case of mechanical failure.

Slim Stinson — the pilot of the plane — suddenly gouged his copilot in the ribs and pointed.

“Who-eeee!” he said.

“What was it?” the co-pilot asked.

The plane was making good about 160 miles-an-hour. So whatever the pilot had seen was now left behind.

The pilot did not answer the copilot's question. He was taking the radio microphone off its hook. Into it he said:

“Canada Union-American from Flight Seven. Have sighted man swimming in the sea. Nearest land 20 miles. Asking permission to land and rescue. Sea calm. Over.”

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Doc Savage— a passenger on the plane — had been endeavoring to put himself to sleep with self-hypnotism. He had heard that this could be done, but he had never been able to do it. And he wasn't having any success now.

He had both eyes closed tightly when the plane lifted one wing, beginning a banking turn. He stubbornly resisted opening his eyes although he could think of no good reason for the plane making a sharp turn at this time.

Presently he did open one eye. The stewardess was standing beside him. The sign that said FASTEN YOUR SAFETY BELTwas lighted.

“We are landing,” the stewardess said. “Keep your seat. Nothing is wrong.”

The stewardess passed on to reassure the other occupants. And by the time she returned, Doc had taken a look out of the window and had a question.

“If there's no trouble, why are we landing on the open sea?” he wished to know.

“The pilot has sighted a man swimming. And we are landing to rescue him.”

The stewardess lingered, willing to pass out more information. She was quite pretty. And she had been giving Doc Savage more than his share of service. Overdoing it enough to embarrass him. He felt he was being pursued … suspected the other passengers were grinning slyly about it … and couldn't think of anything he could very well do about it. He wished the stewardess hadn't been so damned pretty. Then he wouldn't have been as disturbed.

The stewardess gave him a smile which — although he was trying to be as "cold" as a fish — made his toes vibrate.

“The poor fellow must have been on a boat which sank,” she said. “The nearest land is about 20 miles away.”

“That would be a long swim.”

“Wouldn't it, though?”

She gave him another smile. One that was about as soothing as an application from a blowtorch.

“I understand you are a flier yourself,” she added.

“Not by profession,” he said, wondering if he was going to hold out.

“I know what your profession is.”

“You do?”

“I read about you in a magazine.”

He damned the magazine mentally! He resolved to look before he boarded the next plane to make sure it didn't have a man-eating stewardess.

At this point, the copilot saved his life by thrusting a head out of the control compartment and shouted for the stewardess to stand by with a life preserver.

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The pilot made only a fair landing — making the pilotage error known as “dropping her in”. Evidently he had been deceived by the glassy surface of the sea. And his error lay in not taking the accepted precaution of heaving overside some object such as a life preserver to use as a reference point.

But they got on the sea safely. The plane taxied toward the swimmer.

The swimmer ploughed through the cobalt- bluewater using an easy-looking overhand stroke and ignoring them. Doc Savage was able to watch him. And he wondered what the swimmer was doing with a red muffler tied under his throat. The fellow was paddling South. Which was the direction he had been heading all the time. But as the plane drifted close, he stopped and tread water.

The pilot opened a hatch and climbed out.

“Hello, there,” he said.

The swimmer lifted a hand in acknowledgement … but didn't say anything.

Everyone on the plane gaped in amazement. What they had mistaken for a red muffler tied over his head and knotted under his throat was a profuse and fiery red beard. The fellow was a sun-browned giant with an awe-inspiring amount of muscles. He seemed to be dressed for what he was doing — wearing nothing but swimming trunks and around his middle was a belt to which seemed to be attached a number of waterproof pouches.

“We'll throw you a line,” the pilot called.

The swimmer appeared surprised.

“Why?” he asked.

This stumped the pilot for a moment. But he recovered himself and explained: “To haul you aboard with.”

Doc Savage was looking with fascination at the amazing red whiskerswhich the swimmer possessed, reflecting that they must be at least 2 feet long!

The swimmer was contemplating the pilot thoughtfully.

“No thanks,” he said.

“We've got to have something to pull you aboard with,” the pilot said.