Job: A Comedy Page 9

  The eastern horizon now seemed to show a gray un-evenness that could be mountains—or so I kept telling myself, although there isn't much you can see when your viewpoint is about seven inches above water line. If those were indeed mountains or hills, then land was not many miles away. Boats from Mazatlán should be in sight any time now ... if Mazatlán was still there in this world. If—

  Then another flying machine showed up.

  It was only vaguely like the other two. They had been flying parallel to the coast, the first from the south, the second from the north. This machine came out from the direction of the coast, flying mostly west, although it zigzagged.

  It passed north of us, then turned back and circled around us. It came low enough that I could see that it did indeed have men in it, two I thought.

  Its shape is hard to explain. Imagine first a giant box kite, about forty feet long, four feet wide, and about three feet between two kite surfaces.

  Imagine this box kite placed at right angles to a boat shape, somewhat like an Esquimau's kayak but larger, much larger—about as large as the box kite.

  Underneath all this are two more kayak shapes, smaller, parallel to the main shape.

  At one end of this shape is an engine (as I saw later) and at the front end of that is an air propeller, like a ship's water propeller—and this I saw later, also. When I first saw this unbelievable structure, the air screw was turning so extremely fast that one simply could not see it. But one could hear it! The noise made by this contraption was deafening and never stopped. The machine turned toward us and tilted down so that it headed straight toward us—like nothing so much as a pelican gliding down to scoop up fish.

  With us the fish. It was frightening. To me, at least; Margrethe never let out a peep. But she did squeeze my fingers very hard. The mere fact that we were not fish and that a machine could not eat us and would not want to did not make this dive at us less terrifying.

  Despite my fright (or because of it) I now saw that this construction was at least twice as big as I had estimated when I saw it high in the sky. It had two teamsters operating it, seated side by side behind a window in the front end. The driving engine turned out to be two, mounted between the box-kite wings, one on the right of the teamsters' position, one on the left.

  At the very last instant the machine lifted like a horse taking a hurdle, and barely missed us. The blast of wind it created almost knocked us off our raft and the blast of sound caused my ears to ring.

  It went a little higher, curved back toward us, glided again but not quite toward us. The lower twin kayak shapes touched the water, creating a brave comet's tail of spume—and the thing slowed and stopped and stayed there, on the water, and did not sink!

  Now the air screws moved very slowly and I saw them for the first time . . . and admired the engineering ingenuity that had gone into them. Not as efficient, I suspected, as the ducted air screws used in our dirigible airships, but an elegant solution to a problem in a place where ducting would be difficult or perhaps impossible.

  But those infernally noisy driving engines! How any engineer could accept that, I could not see. As one of my professors said (back before thermodynamics convinced me that I had a call for the ministry), noise is always a byproduct of inefficiency. A correctly designed engine is as silent as the grave.

  The machine turned and came at us again, moving very slowly. Its teamsters handled it so that it missed us by a few feet and almost stopped. One of the two inside it crawled out of the carriage space behind the window and was clinging by his left hand to one of the stanchions that held the two box-kite wings apart. His other hand held a coiled line.

  As the flying machine passed us, he cast the line toward us. I snatched at it, got a hand on it, and did not myself go into the water because Margrethe snatched at me.

  I handed the line to Margrethe. "Let him pull you in. I'll slide into the water and be right behind you."

  "No!"

  "What do you mean, 'No'? This is no time to argue. Do it!"

  "Alec, be quiet! He's trying to tell us something."

  I shut up, more than a little offended. Margrethe listened. (No point in my listening; my Spanish is limited to "Gracias" and "Por favor." Instead I read the lettering on the side of the machine: EL GUARD-ACOSTAS REAL DE MÉXICO.

  "Alec, he is warning us to be very careful. Sharks."

  "Ouch."

  "Yes. We are to stay where we are. He will pull gently on this rope. I think he means to get us into his machine without us going into the water."

  "A man after my own heart!"

  We tried it; it did not work. A breeze had sprung up; it had much more effect on the flying machine than it had on us—that water-soaked sunbathing pad was practically nailed down, no sail area at all. Instead of being able to pull us to the flying machine, the man on the other end of the line was forced to let out more line to keep from pulling us off into the water.

  He called out something; Margrethe answered. They shouted back and forth. She turned to me. "He says to let loose the rope. They will go out and come back, this time directly at us, but slowly. As they come closest, we are to try to scramble up into the aeroplano. The machine."

  "All right."

  The machine left us, went out on the water and curved back. While waiting, we were not bored; we had the dorsal fin of a huge shark to entertain us. It did not attack; apparently it had not made up its mind (what mind?) that we were good to eat. I suppose it saw only the underside of the kapok pad.

  The flying machine headed directly toward us on the water, looking like some monstrous dragonfly skimming the surface. I said, "Darling, as it gets closest, you dive for the stanchion closest to you and I'll push you up. Then I'll come up behind you."

  "No, Alec."

  "What do you mean, 'No'?" I was vexed. Margrethe was such a good comrade—then suddenly so stubborn. At the wrong time.

  "You can't push me; you have no foundation to push from. And you can't stand up; you can't even sit up. Uh, you scramble to the right; I'll scramble to the left. If either of us misses, then back onto the pad—fast! The aeroplano will come around again."

  "But—"

  "That's how he said to do it."

  There was no time left; the machine was almost on top of us. The "legs" or stanchions joining the lower twin shapes to the body of the machine bridged the pad, one just missing me and the other just missing Margrethe. "Now!" she cried. I lunged toward my side, got a hand on a stanchion.

  And almost jerked my right arm out by the roots but I kept on moving, monkey fashion—got both hands on that undercarriage, got a foot up on a horizontal kayak shape, turned my head.

  Saw a hand reaching down to Margrethe—she climbed and was lifted onto the kite wing above, and disappeared. I turned to climb up my side—and suddenly levitated up and onto the wing. I do not ordinarily levitate but this time I had incentive: a dirty white fin too big for any decent fish, cutting the water right toward my foot.

  I found myself alongside the little carriage house from which the teamsters directed their strange craft.

  The second man (not the one who had climbed out to help) stuck his head out a window, grinned at me, reached back and opened a little door. I crawled inside, head first. Margrethe was already there.

  The space had four seats, two in front where the teamsters sat, and two behind where we were.

  The teamster on my side looked around and said something, and continued—I noticed!—to look at Margrethe. Certainly she was naked, but that was not her fault, and a gentleman would not stare.

  "He says," Margrethe explained, "that we must fasten our belts. I think he means this." She held up a buckle on the end of a belt, the other end being secured to the frame of the carriage.

  I discovered that I was sitting on a similar buckle, which was digging a hole into my sunburned backside. I hadn't noticed it up to then, too many other things demanding attention. (Why didn't he keep his eyes to himself! I felt myself ready to shou
t at him. That he had, at great peril to himself, just saved her life and mine did not that moment occur to me; I was simply growing furious that he would take such advantage of a helpless lady.)

  I turned my attention to that pesky belt and tried to ignore it. He spoke to the other man beside him, who responded enthusiastically. Margrethe interrupted the discussion, "What are they saying?" I demanded.

  "The poor man is about to give me the shirt off his back. I am protesting . . . but I'm not protesting so hard as to put a stop to it. It's very gallant of them, dear, and, while I'm not foolish about it, I do feel more at ease among strangers with some sort of clothing."

  She listened, and added, "They're arguing as to which one has the privilege."

  I shut up. In my mind I apologized to them. I'll bet even the Pope in Rome has sneaked a quick look a time or two in his life.

  The one on the right apparently won the argument. He squirmed around in his seat—he could not stand up—and got his shirt off, turned and passed it back to Margrethe. "Señorita. Por favor." He added other remarks but they were beyond my knowledge.

  Margrethe replied with dignity and grace, and chatted with them as she wiggled into his shirt. It covered her mostly. She turned to me. "Dear, the commander is Teniente Anibal Sanz Garcia and his assistant is Sargento Roberto Dominguez Jones, both of the Royal Mexican Coast Guard. Both the Lieutenant and the Sergeant wanted to give me a shirt, but the Sergeant won a finger-guessing game, so I have his shirt."

  "It's mighty generous of him. Ask them if there is anything at all in the machine that I can wear."

  "I'll try." She spoke several phrases; I heard my name. Then she shifted back to English. "Gentlemen, I have the honor to present my husband, Señor Alexandra Graham Hergensheimer." She shifted back to Spanish.

  Shortly she was answered. "The Lieutenant is devastated to admit that they have nothing to offer you. But he promises on his mother's honor that something will be found for you just as quickly as we reach Mazatlán and the Coast Guard headquarters there. Now he urges both of us to fasten our belts tightly as we are about to fly. Alec, I'm scared!"

  "Don't be. I'll hold your hand."

  Sergeant Dominguez turned around again, held up a canteen. "Agua?"

  "Goodness, yes!" agreed Margrethe. "Si si si!"

  Water has never tasted so good.

  The Lieutenant looked around when we returned the canteen, gave a big smile and a thumbs-up sign old as the Colosseum, and did something that speeded up his driving engines. They had been turning over very slowly; now they speeded up to a horrible racket. The machine turned as he headed it straight into the wind. The wind had been freshening all morning; now it showed little curls of white on the tops of the wavelets. He speeded his engines still more, to an unbelievable violence, and we went bouncing over the water, shaking everything.

  Then we started hitting about every tenth wave with incredible force. I don't know why we weren't wrecked.

  Suddenly we were twenty feet off the water; the bumping stopped. The vibration and the noise continued. We climbed at a sharp angle—and turned and started down again, and I almost-not-quite threw up that welcome drink of water.

  The ocean was right in front of us, a solid wall. The Lieutenant turned his head and shouted something.

  I wanted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road!— but I did not. "What does he say?"

  "He says to look where he points. He'll point us right at it. El tiburon bianco grande—the great white shark that almost got us."

  (I could have done without it.) Sure enough, right in the middle of this wall of water was a gray ghost with a fin cutting the water. Just when I knew that we were going to splash right down on top of it, the wall tilted away from us, my buttocks were forced down hard against the seat, my ears roared, and I again missed throwing up on our host only by iron will.

  The machine leveled off and suddenly the ride was almost comfortable, aside from the racket and the vibration.

  Airships are ever so much nicer.

  ****

  The rugged hills behind the shoreline, so hard to see from our raft, were clearly in sight once we were in the air, and so was the shore—a series of beautiful beaches and a town where we were headed. The Sergeant looked around, pointed down at the town, and spoke. "What did he say?"

  "Sergeant Roberto says that we are home just in time for lunch. Almuerzo, he said, but notes that it's breakfast—desayuno—for us."

  My stomach suddenly decided to stay awhile. "I don't care what he calls it. Tell him not to bother to cook the horse; I'll eat it raw."

  Margrethe translated; both our hosts laughed, then the Lieutenant proceeded to swoop down and place his machine on the water while looking back over his shoulder to talk to Margrethe—who continued to smile while she drove her nails through the palm of my right hand.

  We got down. No one was killed. But airships are much better.

  Lunch! Everything was coming up roses.

  X

  In the sweat of tby face shall thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground—

  Genesis 3:19

  ****

  A HALF HOUR after the flying machine splashed down in the harbor of Mazatlán Margrethe and I were seated with Sergeant Dominguez in the enlisted men's mess of the Coast Guard. We were late for the midday meal but we were served. And I was clothed. Some at least—a pair of dungaree trousers. But the difference between bare naked and a pair of pants is far greater than the difference between cheap work trousers and the finest ermine. Try it and you'll see.

  A small boat had come out to the flying machine's mooring; then I had to walk across the dock where we had landed and into the headquarters building, there to wait until these pants could be found for me—with strangers staring at me the whole time, some of them women. I know now how it feels to be exposed in stocks. Dreadful! I haven't been so embarrassed since an unfortunate accident in Sunday school when I was five.

  But now it was done with and there was food and drink in front of us and, for the time being, I was abundantly happy. The food was not what I was used to. Who said that hunger was. the best sauce? Whoever he was, he was right; our lunch was delicious. Thin cornmeal pancakes soaked with gravy, fried beans, a scorching hot stew, a bowl of little yellow tomatoes, and coffee strong, black, and bitter—what more could a man want? No gourmet ever savored a meal as much as I enjoyed that one.

  (At first I had been a bit miffed that we ate in the enlisted men's mess rather than going with Lieutenant Sanz to wherever the officers ate. Much later I had it pointed out to me that I suffered from a very common civilian syndrome, i.e., a civilian with no military experience unconsciously equates his social position to that of officers, never to that of enlisted men. On examination this notion is obviously ridiculous—but it is almost universal. Oh, perhaps not universal but it obtains throughout America . . . where every man is "as good as anyone else and better than most.")

  Sergeant Dominguez now had his shirt back. While pants were being found for me, a woman—a charwoman, I believe; the Mexican Coast Guard did not seem to have female ratings—a woman at headquarters had been sent to fetch something for Margrethe, and that something turned out to be a blouse and a full skirt, each of cotton and in bright colors. A simple and obviously cheap costume but Margrethe looked beautiful in it.

  As yet, neither of us had shoes. No matter—the weather was warm and dry; shoes could wait. We were fed, we were dressed, we were safe—and all with a warm hospitality that caused me to feel that Mexicans were the finest people on earth.

  After my second cup of coffee I said, "Sweetheart, how do we excuse ourselves and leave without being rude? I think we should find the American consul as early as possible."

  "We have to go back to the headquarters building."

  "More red tape?"

  "I suppose you could call it that. I think they want to question us in more detail as to how we came to be where we were found. One must admit that our story is odd."

>   "I suppose so." Our initial interview with the Commandant had been less than satisfactory. Had I been alone I think he simply would have called me a liar . . . but it is difficult for a male man bursting with masculine ego to talk that way to Margrethe.

  The trouble was the good ship Konge Knut.

  She had not sunk, she had not come into port—she had never existed.

  I was only moderately surprised. Had she turned into a full-rigged ship or a quinquereme, I would not have been surprised. But I had expected some sort of vessel of that same name—I thought the rules required it. But now it was becoming clear that I did not understand the rules. If there were any.

  Margrethe had pointed out to me a confirming factor: This Mazatlin was not the town she had visited before. This one was much smaller and was not a tourist town—indeed the long dock where the Konge Knut should have tied up did not exist in this world. I think that this convinced her quite as much as the flying machines in proving to her that my "paranoia" was in fact the least hypothesis. She had been here before; that dock was big and solid; it was gone. It shook her.

  The Commandant had not been impressed. He spent more time questioning Lieutenant Sanz than he spent questioning us. He did not seem pleased with Sanz.

  There was another factor that I did not understand at the time and have never fully understood. Sanz's boss was "Captain" (or "Capitán"); the Commandant also was "Captain." But they were not the same rank.

  The Coast Guard used navy ranks. However, that small part of it that operated flying machines used army ranks. I think this trivial difference had an historical origin. As may be, there was friction at the interface; the four-stripes or seagoing Captain was not disposed to accept as gospel anything reported by a flying-machine officer.