Glory Boys by Harry Bingham

Powell grinned meaninglessly, letting his grin linger as his eyes patrolled. ‘Hughes, McVeigh, Claverty, Ronson.’ Powell named the four men in turn, jabbing at them with his finger as though they were bullocks at market. He didn’t look at the secretary, let alone give her a name. ‘You’ll get on with them all. They’ll tell you what to do. If you have any questions…’ Powell tailed off, as though already bored.
    ‘If I have any questions, I’ll come to you. Sure. Thanks for the introduction, Ted.’
    Powell’s gaze flicked sharply around to Willard.
    ‘If you have any questions, you will not so much as think of disturbing me with them. These men here will sort you out.’
    ‘Certainly. Sorry. Of course.’
    ‘And you will not call me Ted.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Powell, I thought you said I should call you…’
    ‘When I said that, Thornton, you were not my employee.’
    ‘Yes, Mr Powell.’
    The silence lasted a second or two longer than it should have done.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Nothing, sir. Thank you.’
    Willard went to the empty desk and sat down.

16
    Down in the swampy heat and dirt roads of southern Georgia, a little red-headed kid, aviation crazy as he was, got an envelope through the post. The letter contained a movie poster signed by Willard T. Thornton. It wasn’t Lundmark’s battered old poster, but a brand new one, large and glossy, with an extravagant signature in thick blue pencil that came pretty near to deleting the smaller figure of Willard’s leading lady and co-star. Along with the poster there was a short note in a separate envelope addressed to Captain Rockwell. Brad didn’t know where to find Abe, but he put the envelope aside in case.
    And the poster?
    There Brad had a problem. His main hero (by a long way) was Abe Rockwell. Next on the list was Ed Rickenbacker. A long, long way after that came some of the other names from the American war in the air and, definitely on the list but a fair way down it, came Willard Thornton. If Brad had just put his poster up, slap-bang on the wall of the sitting room, it would have looked as though he ranked Thornton right up with the best of them. The idea outraged Brad’s sense of decency. So in the end, he compromised. The poster was too good not to be displayed, but Thornton didn’t merit a place in either the sitting room or Brad’s attic bedroom. And so Thornton’s handsome face found itself in the lean-to. But the walls of the little room were covered with shelves, so Brad tacked it to the ceiling instead, where it hung upside down, looming down as though the movie star were about to come diving to earth. In the meantime, Brad had got out his father’s old carpentry tools and built a frame for the photo which Abe had signed minutes after his abrupt arrival in Independence. The photo of Abe went on the mantelpiece, only a few inches sideways from the photo of Brad’s father.
    Abe in the living room, Thornton in the lean-to. Brad figured he’d got it just about right.

17
    ‘Heck, Rockwell, nice to see you again. Darn nice. Very dang darn nice.’
    General Superintendent Carl Egge of the Air Mail Service of the United States Post Office puffed up and down, pumping Abe’s hand. The two men had known each other from two or three years before, when Egge had been in charge of the St Louis–Minneapolis sector of the transcontinental route and Abe had been his senior pilot.
    ‘Nice to see you too, Egge.’
    ‘Carl, please! Lord’s sakes! Can you think of anything sounds dumber than Egge? Lord! I once worked right alongside a fellow with quite a name too. Can you guess what he was called? Huh? Give you a hint there. We made quite a famous pair.’
    Abe knew perfectly well the name of Egge’s former coworker, because Egge had told him on a dozen occasions in the past.
    ‘No idea, Carl.’
    ‘Jimmy Bacon. Bacon. Egge and Bacon. How about that?’
    ‘Very good.’
    ‘I’ll say! Boy! Egge and Bacon! Quite a pair!’
    Egge puffed and