For straight across her middle, from wing-tip to wing-tip, still
blazoned THE THUNDER BIRD in letters as bold and black as Bland's brush
and a quart of carriage paint could make them.
She volplaned, flattened out a thousand feet or so above the island,
circled as the searchlight, losing her when she dipped, sought her
again with wide sweeping gestures of its accusing white finger.
Blinded by the glare, poor Johnny was banking to find a landing place
among that assemblage of tents, low-eaved barracks, hangars, shops--the
city built for the purpose of teaching men how to conquer the air.
Something spatted close beside him on the edge of the cockpit as he
wheeled and left a ragged hole in the leather. Johnny's brain
registered automatically the fact that he was being shot at. They
probably meant that as a hint that he was to clear out or come down,
one or the other. Well, if they'd take that darned searchlight out of
his eyes so he could see, he would come down fast enough.
In desperation he slanted down steeply toward an open space, and the
open space immediately showed a full border of lights, revealing itself
a landing field such as he had read of and dreamed of but had never
before seen.
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