Trophy for Eagles by Walter J. Boyne Page B

as if he'd lost ground again. In many ways, it wasn't fair; she was far better read than he and interested in many more subjects. He realized how narrow his life had become, how totally involved in flying and engineering he was. He tried desperately to recover.
    "It was wonderful the other night at the Waldorf, wasn't it? I still feel a little bad about Slim and his mother—we managed to ignore them all night."
    "They understood. He and Uncle Jack were busy drawing air planes all over the napkins; I thought the waiter was going to make them pay extra."
    They were still for a moment, and then she leaned over him, took his face in her hands, and said, "Bandy, you are being a gentleman, but I can't stand that sad look any longer."
    Her lips were soft and full, and he pulled her over him so that she lay across his chest, her heavy breasts pressing into him. They kissed for long minutes, and he felt their passion growing when she rolled away.
    "Whew, hot stuff, eh? We'd better get started back."
    Flustered, he helped her fold the blanket. "I'm sorry if I was too forward, Millie."
    "You? It was me. I kissed you. But we've got to be careful. I think we like each other enough to get into trouble if we don't watch out. A little more of that and I'd have you out of Uncle Jack's knickers and into mine."
    He reached for her, and she laughed, pushing him away. "We've hardly met, and I've been brought up with some pretty conventional ideas about sex."
    He was content to have been so close so soon. Her exquisite naturalness pleased and excited him, making him feel that he was something special to her. On the way out, they had stopped at a two-pump Sinclair station to find a bathroom for her. Returning, there were no gas stations, no restaurants, and she made him stop the car and bounded into the shrubbery, yelling, "No peeking!" Later he slid his arm around her shoulders. She fed him the line "Don't you think you'd better use two hands?" and he responded, as they both knew he would, with "No, I've got to use one to drive."

They were entering the muddy back road to Roosevelt Field when she pointed up to the sky. The underbelly of the low-lying clouds was crimson. "Something is on fire."
    Bandfield floored the accelerator, and the Stutz leaped ahead. As they turned into the field, he yelled, "Jesus, that's my hangar!"
    He jumped from the car, the muddy ground sucking at his shoes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lindbergh racing toward him, trying to cut him off from the hangar. He slowed abruptly as fuel tanks of the Rocket exploded in an incandescent black mushroom that carried the roof with it, collapsing the four walls of the frame hangar outward. Bandy saw the shattered Rocket airborne for the last time, rising twenty feet straight up before flopping down, the wings bent in a ragged V. The flames blossomed again and then died. There wasn't much to burn besides the airplane. Bandy stood transfixed with fury and frustration as people materialized on all sides.
    The fire truck from Curtiss Field pulled up. The firemen unlimbered hoses, not to save anything, but to keep the flames from spreading to the next hangar.
    Lindbergh pulled him aside. "My God, Bandy, this is awful. We'll get you another airplane."
    Bandfield looked at him numbly, then stood raging by the embers for an hour, Millie brimming with silent sympathy. Finally, he asked Lindbergh to drive her home, determined to spend the night in the operations shack so he could go through the ashes in the morning. Something was wrong. He knew the hangar had not ignited spontaneously; he'd cleaned it up well.
    He was up at dawn to poke through the still-hot ruins to see if there was anything worth salvaging. There was nothing, only the scrap metal of the wonderful J5 engine he and Hadley had scraped and saved for. Cliff Langworthy, the volunteer fire captain from Curtiss Field, came over to see him as he poked through the ashes.
    "Sorry about this, Mr. Bandfield. We got here as soon