Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Fire aboard an aircraft in flight was the worst-case scenario for any aviator.
This plane’s structure was entirely made of wood—more specifically, tinder-dry wood that was as light as possible. And the plane’s entire skin was made of fabric coated in nitrate glue, which was highly flammable. And then, of course, there was the gasoline filling the wing tanks.
With wind whipping past the plane, the fire had all the oxygen it needed to grow from a smolder to an inferno in less time than it would take Blanche to unlatch her seat belt.
It was a death sentence for both of them. A horribly painful one.
Pilots in the Great War had carried service pistols when they flew so they could shoot themselves to avoid burning to death.
Please, Lord. I’m wild and unashamed of it, but Blanche is a good person. For her sake, give us gals some help!
Blanche turned her head to see what had Pancho looking so alarmed. Her eyes went as wide as saucers. “Is that smoke?” she shouted.
“It ain’t cake flour,” Pancho shouted back. Damn this saboteur to hell’s outhouse!
The thin trail of smoke was turning black, announcing that the fire was growing.
Blanche’s eyes filled with tears as the two of them locked stares.
“Keep her straight and level!” Pancho yelled. Carefully, she slid from the leading edge of the wing beside the front seat to the rear edge of the wing beside Blanche, transferring her grip to the edge of the rear cockpit. She forced herself to move as quickly as she dared. Time was against them.
Reaching down into the cockpit behind the throttle on the left side, Pancho grabbed the fire extinguisher that was standard in all Travel Airs. She yanked it loose from its storage clips and set it in Blanche’s lap.
“Pancho, you aren’t wearing a parachute!”
“Wing walkers don’t wear ’em!” she yelled back.
“Wing walkers die!”
“I’m busy! No time to die right now!”
The cargo hatch was only a foot behind Blanche, but the latch was on the far side of the door, a good three feet away.
Getting a solid grip on the wing wire with her left hand, Pancho slid her feet all the way to the back edge of the wing.
The view to the ground was terrifying. She didn’t have time to be scared right now either, she told herself firmly.
She stretched out her right hand toward the cargo door latch.
The plane hit a thermal, bouncing hard, and she felt her feet lifting. She twisted and grabbed the wing wire with her right hand just before her feet slipped right off the wing. “Slow down, Blanche!” she grunted as loudly as she could.
“But I’ll stall the plane,” Blanche argued.
“You’ve got a parachute. Slow down!”
Her legs flew free like a bed sheet on a clothesline, and the wing wire cut into her fingers so hard it felt as if it were sawing off her fingertips.
Blanche throttled back a bit more, and the plane slowed dangerously close to stall speed.
Gritting her teeth, Pancho pulled her feet back to the wing and got them back under her, taking a lot of the pressure off her hands. Relief surged through her. But too soon. The trails of smoke were getting thicker and coming from all around the edges of the cargo door now.
She had to get that door open and put out the fire fast, or she and Blanche were going to burn up. Well, she would burn for sure, but she would make sure Blanche bailed out, even if she had to throw Blanche out of the plane herself.
Risking another glance down at the ground, Pancho guessed they were about five hundred feet above the ground. Never mind. They were too low to use a parachute. Their only hope was for her to extinguish the fire. She reached once more for the door latch, but it was stubborn and hard to move.
Come on, come on. open! The latch gave suddenly, and the door blew up, flapping in the wind on its hinges. Orange flames licked at the side of the plane. Even from this angle, she could see the source of the fire.
“Your suitcase is on fire!” Pancho yelled.
Flames trailed down the side of the plane, fed by the incredibly flammable, dope-covered fuselage.
To fly this slow and hold altitude, Blanche had to pull the plane’s nose up to a steep angle of attack, and as she did so, the valise slid farther back into the hollow tail section. Black smoke rose from it as it slid a few more inches back and out of her reach.
“Nose down!” Pancho hollered.
Blanche pushed the nose over, but the suitcase didn’t slide back into reach.
“Bounce! We’ve got to shake it loose and make it slide forward so I can grab it before the tail catches on fire!”
“Hold on. Here goes!” Blanche shouted.
The plane’s nose dipped sharply and then popped back up. Pancho’s fingers screamed in pain as she was jerked around on the wing. Pain meant nothing when the alternative was death, however, and she ignored her fingers, concentrating on the open cargo door.
The case came sliding back, sitting right in front of the opening.
“Level out!” Pancho yelled.
Blanche eased the plane into a stable position and held out the fire extinguisher. Pancho made a grab for it with her right hand, but Blanche let go of it an instant too soon, and it disappeared behind the plane.
Tears streamed down Blanche’s face as she cried out, “We’re going to die!”
“Not if I can help it!” Pancho shouted back.
The wind whipped into the cargo hold, fanning the flames until they touched the underside of the fuselage’s top. Pancho heard the distinct crackle of wood catching fire.
It’s now or never! her little voice screamed at her.
Pancho held the wire with her left hand and leaned out past the back of the wing to reach into the cargo hold.
She just managed to wrap her fingertip around the suitcase’s handle.
She gripped it tightly and felt it burning into the palm of her hand.
Ignoring the searing pain, she yanked on it as hard as she could.
The case went sailing out into the sky and fell away behind them. She pulled herself upright with her left hand, fiery daggers of agony shooting up her right arm from the burns on her palm.
“You did it!” Blanche yelled. “You saved us!”
Not quite. Pancho blinked as her vision went blurry and began to narrow into a tunnel.
You’ve got to get into that seat before you pass out.
“Yes, I know,” she mumbled to the voice, fighting to remain conscious.
Her hand was screaming in agony. Her belly heaved, threatening to send up her breakfast. Her left hand, the one gripping the wire, was going numb.
Marvel died fighting. Don’t you quit either, she told herself. She pulled herself forward and took two quick steps across the wing. She had to use her injured hand to grip the edge of the cockpit. She wasn’t sure it would hold, but it wasn’t as if she had any choice but to try.
“You can do it, Pancho!” Blanche called encouragingly.
But it was Marvel’s voice that Pancho heard out there on that wing, telling her she could do it, cheering her on.
Reaching out, she grabbed the edge of the front cockpit.
She cried out in agony when she pulled herself over to the side of the plane, but she kept moving, releasing the wing wire with her left hand, grabbing the edge of the plane with it, and flinging her right leg up and over the fuselage and onto the seat.
Shifting her grip to the windshield, she climbed the rest of the way into the cockpit and dropped into the front seat.
“Woo-hoo!” Blanche shouted in victory.
Pancho had just enough strength and consciousness to thrust her left fist into the air in response.
Pancho had the rest of the flight to Abilene to consider how truly foolish and suicidal this stunt had been and to vow never to take such a huge risk again. She also swore to give big cash tips to every wing walker she ever encountered from now on.
There was also plenty of time to think about how to deal with Rankin. As mad as she was that he’d gone to a judge and asked to have her committed, she was also sad that their marriage had come to this.
Theirs had been an arranged match, and she’d known twenty-four hours after their wedding that it was not a good fit for either of them.
But they shared a son, whom they both loved.
There had to be a way to make the best of this situation, to find a solution between them that didn’t include open warfare.
If Rankin insisted on pursuing this course of action, she would have no choice but to hire her own lawyers and enter into an ugly legal battle, with William caught in the middle.
Her palm was raw and red with charred spots from the hot suitcase handle. It felt as if she were still grasping that burning valise. But as unbearably painful as it was, this was still a whole lot better than the alternative.
Blanche skipped the timing station and lined her plane up to land gently, as if it were a newborn lamb. There was no telling how much damage the plane’s tail had sustained, and Pancho nodded in approval at how Blanche babied the plane down and landed, smooth as silk.
They taxied to the parking area, and Blanche shut the engine down. Pancho wasn’t sure whose sigh of relief was louder, hers or Blanche’s. But then Pancho tensed, standing on her seat to scan the crowd, carefully searching for a cluster of white-coated orderlies waiting to nab her.
A mechanic leaned a ladder against the cockpit, and Blanche climbed down while Pancho scanned the crowd a second time to be safe.
The startled mechanic moved the ladder to lean near where Pancho stood.
With no white coats in sight, she climbed down the ladder, intent on getting to a phone. But Blanche wrapped her up in a giant hug before she could take more than one step away from the plane.
“Thank you, Pancho,” Blanche whispered in her ear. “I’ll never forget what you did. You saved my life.”
“No, it’s the other way around. You saved mine,” she replied, hugging her friend with her left arm and carefully holding her injured hand out to the side.