This time, he stood more carefully, to the front and outside of the blade’s sweep. Rain peppered down, making a grip hard to maintain. The temperature was dropping. Lee rocked on his heels, keeping the propeller in his hands, and he threw it down violently, to no effect. There wasn’t even a sputter. Another swing down, and another flutter to a standstill. He changed his posture, glaring at the plane and imagining the engine’s infernal workings as if they were children who needed to be disciplined. He knew how the plane worked.

Again, a broad sweep of his strong arms, and this time, a spark, catching, the brief plateau of an engine engaging, and Lee, carried off balance, slipped backward, tripped over a grapevine and smashing chin-first onto the ground.

The Liberty engine was making its ear-splitting roar as Ripley opened the throttle. Lee stood, and limped toward the plane. His ankle. He had sprained it. He gave Ripley a tentative wave as he lurched toward the tail of the plane. He shook his head. There was a ringing in his ears—because of the engine noise, or the blow to the back of his skull. When he was in position, hands gripping the plane’s tail section, he nodded at Ripley, who slowly opened the throttle.

The plane began to pull forward, so Lee dug in his heels. The idea was a simple one: forward momentum needed to build to a critical level so that they could lift into the air in twenty yards, not thirty. Thus Ripley would increase the power until it dragged Lee off his feet. The longer Lee could hold on, the more likely they would make it.

At first, it was like a gentle tug of war, an easy win, but in the course of a minute, Lee felt as if he were holding back an ox by its harness. There were twelve cylinders in a flying V shape to fight against, and he was going to lose. His only hope was holding out long enough that his fight had mattered.

Lee reset his feet in the soil, and pulled in his elbows until his forearms were going to explode. All those days he had rowed to exhaustion were just rehearsals for this moment. The engine’s roar took on new depth as Ripley upped the rpm, Lee shaking to remain still, Lenore’s wheels beginning to turn in place on the wet earth, kicking up a foam of mud.

He hadn’t considered this. If he held on too long, the plane would bury itself in mud, and be unable to release itself, the way gunning a truck engine only dug you deeper into a ditch. Still he held on. He felt that phantom pressure on his thigh, the ghost sensation of having rolled across a puppy. The plane slipped through his fingers.