The Race

Bell breathed deeply of the air – an exhilarating mix of burnt oil, rubber, and gasoline – and felt instantly at home. It smelled like a race-car meet made all the richer by the scent of the fabric dope that the aviators varnished their machines with to seal the fabric covering the frames. The ground was alive with machines and men rushing about, like at an auto meet. But here at Belmont, all eyes were aimed at the sharp blue sky.

Machines swept into the air, swooped and darted about – boundless as birds but a hundred times bigger. A vast variety of shapes and sizes sailed through the sky. Bell saw airships triple the length of racing cars lumber overhead on wings that spread forty feet, and smaller ones flitted by, some flimsy, some supple as dragonflies.

The noise was as thrilling, each type of motor blasting its own unique sound: the Smack! Smack! of a radial three-cylinder Anzani, the harsh rumble of Curtiss and Wright four-cylinders, the smooth burble of the admirable Antoinette V-8s that Bell knew from speedboats, and the exuberant Blat! Blat! Blat! of the French-built rotary Gnome Omegas whose seven cylinders whirled improbably around a central crankshaft, spewing castor oil smoke that smelled like smoldering candle wax.

He located Archie by making a beeline for an enormous tent of the same bright yellow as the ba

Bell saw that Archie had used his time here well. He was friendly with all the participants and officials. His detectives- those disguised as mechanicians, newspaper reporters, hot dog salesmen, and Cracker Jack vendors, and those patrolling in sack suits and derbies – appeared familiar with their territory and alert. But Archie could not tell Bell any more than he already knew about Josephine’s relationship with Marco Celere, which was little more than speculation.

“Were they lovers?”

Archie shrugged. “I can’t answer that. She does get a little misty-eyed when his name comes up. But what she’s really nuts about is that flying machine.”

“Could it be that she’s misty-eyed for his mechanical expertise?”

“Except that Josephine is a whiz of a mechanician herself. She can take that machine apart and put it back together on her own, if she has to. She told me that the places she’ll be flying won’t have a mechanician.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting her. Where is she?”

Archie pointed at the sky. “Up there.”

The two friends sca

“He did. Yellow as this tent.”

“I don’t see her.”

“She doesn’t circle around with the others. She flies off by herself.”

“How long has she been gone?”

Archie pulled out his watch. “One hour and ten minutes, this time,” he reported, clearly not happy to admit that the young woman whose safety and very life were his responsibility was nowhere in sight.

Bell said, “How in heck can we watch over her if we can’t see her?”

“If I had my way,” said Archie, “I’d ride in the machine with her. But it’s against the rules. If they carry a passenger, they’re disqualified. They have to fly alone. That Weiner accounting fellow explained that it wouldn’t be fair to the others if the passenger helped drive.”

“We’ve got to find a better way to keep an eye on her,” said Bell. “Once the race starts, it will be a simple matter for Frost to lie in wait along the route.”

“I plan to post men on the roof of the support train with field glasses and rifles.”

Bell shook his head. “Have you seen all the support trains in the yard? You could get stuck behind a traffic jam of locomotives blocking the tracks.”

“I’ve been considering a team of autoists to run ahead.”

“That will help. Two autos, if I can find the men to drive them. Mr. Van Dorn’s already complaining that I’m gutting the agency. Who is on this machine approaching? The green pusher?”

“Billy Thomas, the auto racer. The Vanderbilt syndicate hired him.”

“That’s a Curtiss he’s driving.”

“The syndicate bought three of them, so he can choose the fastest. Six thousand apiece. They really want to win. Here comes a Frenchman. Renee Chevalier.”

“Chevalier navigated that machine across the English Cha

Bell’s eye had already been drawn to the graceful Blériot monoplane. The single-wing craft looked light as a dragonfly. An open girder of strut work co

“I’m buying one of those when this job is over.”

“I envy you,” said Archie. “I’d love to take a crack at flying.”

“Do it. We’ll learn together.”

“I can’t. It’s different when you’re married.”

“What are you talking about? Lillian wouldn’t mind. She drives race cars. In fact she’ll want one, too.”

“Things are changing,” Archie said gravely.

“What do you mean?”

Archie glanced around and lowered his voice. “We haven’t wanted to tell anyone until we’re sure everything’s O.K. But I’m not about to start a dangerous new hobby now that it looks like we’re going to have children.”

Isaac Bell grabbed Archie underneath the arms and lifted him joyfully off the ground. “Wonderful! Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” said Archie. “You can put me down now.” People were staring. It was not often they saw a tall man raise another high in the air and shake him like a terrier.

Isaac Bell was beside himself with happiness. “Wait ’til Marion hears! She’ll be so happy for you. What are you going to name it?”

“We’ll wait ’til we see what sort of ‘it’ it is.”

“You can get a flying machine soon as it’s in school. By then flying will be even less dangerous than it is now.”

Another machine was approaching the grass.

“Who’s driving that blue Farman?”

The Farman, another French-built airship, was a single-propeller pusher biplane. It looked extremely stable, descending as steadily as if it were gliding down a track.

“Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin.”

“He could be a wi

“Poor as a church mouse,” Archie noted, “but married well.”

The socially prominent Archibald Angel Abbott IV, whose ancestors included the earliest rulers of New Amsterdam, could gossip as knowledgeably about Germans, Frenchmen, and Britons as about New York blue bloods, thanks to a long honeymoon in Europe – sanctioned by Joe Van Dorn in exchange for scouting overseas branches for the agency.

“The baronet’s wife’s father is a wealthy Co

“That’s the Signal Corps Wright he’s driving.”

“I knew Chet at school. When he starts in on the future of aerial bombs and torpedoes, you’ll have to shoot him to shut him up. Though he has a point. With the constant war talk in Europe, Army officers haunt the aviation meets.”

“Is that red one another Wright?” Bell asked, puzzled by an odd mix of similarities and differences. “No, it can’t be,” he said as it drew nearer. “The propeller’s in front. It’s a tractor biplane.”

“That’s the ‘workingman’s’ entry, Joe Mudd driving. It started out as a Wright, ’til it collided with an oak tree. Some labor unionists trying to improve their reputation bought the wreck and cobbled it together out of spare parts. They call it the ‘American Liberator.’”