Inherit the Skies

by Janet Tanner

  Sarah smiled wryly. It was true that aeroplanes dominated their lives but she did not mind that – in her own way she was as obsessed as the men were and as excited by the progress they had made. Sometimes when she cast her mind back it was hard to believe it was less than five short years ago that the first prototype had hopped and skimmed over the field at Chewton Leigh, for in that time the project which had once seemed little more than a wild dream had grown from its humble beginnings in a makeshift shed to a company of worldwide renown.

  Under Gilbert’s guidance and with his wealth to back it expansion had been breathtakingly rapid. He had acquired the land adjoining the motor works for an airfield along with an almost derelict mansion which he had renovated to provide central office accommodation for the new company. Skilled fitters and mechanics, draughtsmen and engineers had been brought in to work alongside the cream of the craftsmen from Morse Motors, producing the aeroplanes at the rate of two a week, and fliers who had learned their expertise on French Voisins and Farmans were persuaded into the fold for the purpose of demonstrating the prowess of Morse Bailey monoplanes and biplanes to potential customers all over the world.

  Orders had come flooding in and soon the name of Morse Bailey was ranking with the best – Shorts and Vickers, Avro and Sopwith and Morse Bailey’s closest rivals, Sir George White’s British and Colonial Company with their Bristol Boxkites.

  To Gilbert’s credit, however, he had ensured that the original team were not elbowed aside. Max had been appointed Chief Designer and his was the final word on any new innovation; Adam, now a highly skilled self-taught pilot, was regarded as the expert in the air. He still loved nothing better than to fly and when Gilbert set up the first of his flying schools on Salisbury Plain Adam became its chief instructor.

  There were three flying schools now where both civilians and army officers could learn the skills of piloting an aeroplane, though the army officers had to foot the bill from their own pockets and hope to be reimbursed afterwards – a scandal, Gilbert said, for he believed the military authorities were still failing to see the potential of air power – and with other countries ready to place orders for the Morse Bailey models a chain of schools had been set up across Europe too – in Spain, Italy and Germany.

  It was in this ever widening market place that Eric had found his niche. He had taken to flying an aeroplane as readily as he had to piloting a balloon and soon he was travelling the world with the team which staged demonstrations for potential customers. There was scarcely any part of the globe now which had not been visited – India, Australia, New Zealand and even Turkey, and when Eric travelled to Malaya and Singapore for demonstrations to the British garrisons there, Sarah had longed to go with him for the lure of foreign parts was very strong. But with Stephen so young she had known her duty lay at home for she remembered her own motherless years too well to leave him in the care of others while she was away on such a lengthy trip and she had to content herself with her new found role working on the design of the catalogues which extolled the virtues of the Morse Bailey machines.

  It was work she enjoyed for she had discovered an unexpected aptitude for words and she was able to write prose which managed to be both informative and lyrical, and, remembering something Adam had once said, she had devised an advertising slogan: ‘Inherit the skies with Morse Bailey – the aeroplanes of the future’. Gilbert had been delighted with her work and before long she had her own little office in the renovated mansion which had now become the hub of the empire. Details of every new innovation were deposited on her desk and she had the last word on the production of every catalogue and press release, much to the chagrin of Leo de Vere, who had joined the company on coming down from University and who had expressed an interest in taking overall control of marketing when he had sufficient experience of the business.

  Sarah’s involvement had not been limited to desk work, however. Once or twice she had flown as a passenger on demonstration flights – ‘ to add a touch of glamour and prove how much faith we have in the safety of our aeroplane’, Gilbert had said when he had suggested it. Sarah had enjoyed every moment of the experience and considered it every bit as exciting as ballooning, if not more so. It was not as peaceful, of course, but it had a thrill all its own and Sarah had climbed down from the rickety passenger seat on the framework of wooden struts and piano wire minus her hat, which had been blown away by the wind, but breathless with excitement.

  ‘Do you think I could learn to fly?’ she had asked Max when she rejoined him and Max, smiling at her enthusiasm, had replied that he saw no reason why not. Flying was not so much a matter of strength as skill, concentration and coordination – already a few daredevil women had gained their licences. But when she had pursued the idea she had come up against not one, but two, stumbling blocks.

  The first, surprisingly, was Eric. Though he had been quite prepared to allow her to risk life and limb as a parachutist when she was Sweetheart of the Skies he took quite a different view now that she was his wife and the mother of his child. Flying was still far too hazardous, he insisted – far too many things could go wrong, even for seasoned fliers. There had been thirty-three deaths during 1910, including the Honourable Charles Rolls, killed when he crashed in the sea at Bournemouth during the first aviation meeting there, and another sixty-five in 1911. Sarah was too precious for him to allow her to risk her life in this way. Sarah had argued and pleaded and because she was still capable of winding Eric around her little finger she might eventually have got her way had not another obstacle arisen, one which she was reluctant to face in spite of her eagerness to learn to fly, and she learned of it when, in defiance of Eric’s stubborn refusal, she raised the subject with Gilbert.

  There was only one person, he told her, with whom he would trust her as a pupil – and that person was Adam.

  Sarah had heard this pronouncement with dismay. Marriage to Eric had done nothing to change her feelings for Adam. When he came into a room she still felt a little as if she were standing too close to the edge of a very high cliff; there were still times when she dreamed of him and woke bathed in a rosy glow of happiness until she remembered the reality – that she had lost him forever. For the most part she believed that she concealed her feelings successfully. They met seldom for he was away from Chewton Leigh a good deal and on the occasions when they were unable to avoid one another they each maintained a chilly politeness. But how different it would be if he were to be detailed to teach her to fly! They would be alone then for long periods with no-one else to break the awkward silences, no barrier of habit or protocol for protection. The prospect was at once tempting and terrifying and Sarah knew it would be the turn of the screw which would be quite unbearable. She loved Adam still; she simply could not trust herself to be alone with him. Regretfully she had abandoned her dream.

  Now, sitting on the beach at Weston-super-Mare, Sarah remembered it briefly. But Annie was chattering on, oblivious as she always was these days to anything outside her world of domestic contentment.

  ‘It would have been so nice, wouldn’t it, if Max and Eric had come with us as planned. Max sees so little of John I sometimes think one of these days John is going to ask me who his father is and why he doesn’t come with us on holiday like other boys’ daddies. And what am I to tell him? I don’t understand myself what was so important just now that he and Eric had to cry off at such a late stage. It’s so disappointing. After all, you got away, didn’t you, Sarah? You didn’t say work was more important. So why did they?’

  Sarah refrained from answering. She did not wish to spoil her friend’s enjoyment of the longed-for holiday by telling her now of the rumblings of international crisis she had been privy to at Morse Bailey or mentioning her own unease at the developing situation. It was disappointing, of course, when well-laid plans had to be disrupted but there were worse things. And Sarah had the uncomfortable feeling that this time, at any rate, Max and Eric had been right to put work before pleasure.

  Sar
ah glanced along the beach at the thronging crowds. Everywhere, it seemed, people were making the most of the glorious weather. Family groups were gathered in deck-chairs and on rugs around laden picnic baskets, young people shrieked with laughter as they ran down the long expanse of muddy beach to splash and gambol in the fast retreating tide, older folk, with wide-brimmed hats or even knotted handkerchiefs to protect their heads turned their faces to the sun. A constant procession of girls emerged coyly from the ladies-only bathing machines in their gaily-coloured and voluminous costumes to the admiring glances of the young men. On the pier couples strolled arm in arm, some tucking into dishes of cockles and prawns which they had purchased from the sea food stalls, the men jaunty in their straw boaters, the girls keeping pace with them with some difficulty as they minced along in their up-to-the-minute ‘hobble skirts’. The entire scene was one of jollity and good carefree fun but somehow it did nothing to lighten Sarah’s mood. Instead it served only to increase her creeping sense of foreboding.

  ‘Ah well, even without the men it’s been a good holiday, hasn’t it, and I dare say we shouldn’t complain.’ Annie lifted a pork pie from the picnic hamper. The crust shone with glaze and it was decorated with small pastry flowers. ‘Goodness, this looks delicious! The cook at our hotel is a wonder. I shall be going home fat as a house if I’m not careful.’

  The sound of a newsboy’s cry was blown along the beach by the stiff breeze and Sarah looked past Annie to see him plodding along the sand. ‘Evening Post! All the latest! Evening Post!’

  ‘I’m going to buy a paper.’ Sarah reached for her bag but was arrested by Annie’s touch on her arm. She looked up, surprised, and as her eyes met those of her friend she saw her own anxiety mirrored there.

  ‘Don’t, Sarah. This is all so perfect. Don’t spoil it.’

  ‘But I want to find out …’

  ‘Whatever it is we’ll know soon enough. Oh, I expect you think I am just burying my head in the sand but we need good days, like this one, to make us strong for the bad ones. It’s a little like having a post office savings account, except that we are banking happiness instead of money.’ Annie’s voice was urgent and reluctantly Sarah gave in. How strange, she thought, that for all Annie’s apparent serenity the same dark fear was hovering around her heart.

  ‘All right, Annie,’ she said, ‘we’ll try to forget what’s going on in the big wide world and just enjoy today.’

  Annie nodded, relieved. The shadow left her eyes and as she called to the boys her tone was as carefree as it had been before.

  ‘John! Stephen! Lunch is ready now.’

  The newsboy was wending his way back along the beach, his cries almost lost now in the shrieks of laughter from the holidaymakers and the plaintive cries of the seagulls as they wheeled above the receding tide and swooped in for crumbs thrown by the picnickers. But Sarah was unable to shut out reality as Annie seemed capable of doing. Deep inside a small voice was whispering to her that today would be forever burned into her mind and not for the carefree pleasures of a Bank Holiday spent on a sandy beach beneath a clear blue sky.

  As usual Sarah’s instincts were correct.

  The day was 3rd August, the year was 1914. It was a date which would go down as one of the blackest ever in the annals of British history.

  In Gilbert Morse’s large and well-appointed office at the headquarters of Morse Bailey Aeroplane Company world events were also under discussion but here there was no drawing a veil over the harsh and threatening reality as Annie had done.

  ‘There is no doubt about it,’ Gilbert said, lighting a cigarette and crossing to the window that overlooked the expanse of flat open land where the aeroplanes were tested, ‘things are looking very black indeed. If Germany proceed with their plan to violate Belgian neutrality then there will be no alternative but to keep our promises to King Albert and go to his assistance. Our ultimatum to the Kaiser expires at midnight their time. If he fails to agree to withdraw by then there will be no options left. We shall have to declare war on Germany.’

  There was a moment’s silence in the room. The bald statement came as no shock to them for they had watched helplessly all summer as the situation in Europe had grown steadily worse but to hear their darkest fears put into words, and by Gilbert Morse, the most far sighted and least sensational of men, put flesh on the skeletons of their nightmares.

  After a moment Adam Bailey eased his long frame away from the table on which he had been perched.

  ‘I suppose it was inevitable it would come to this,’ he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. ‘The Germans have been getting too big for their boots for some time. After the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered I suppose the chance to show their might by backing Austria against Serbia was too great a temptation for them.’

  There was a murmur of agreement from the others assembled in the room but Leo de Vere thumped on the table petulantly.

  ‘That is all very well but I fail to see why the rest of Europe has to be drawn in. Let the Croats fight their own battles, I say.’

  Gilbert threw him a look of distaste. Try as he might to like his wife’s son he had no more patience with him now than he had when Leo had been a boy.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that, Leo. First we have Germany supporting Austria and Hungary, then Russia come in on the side of the Serbians, dragging France and England along with it. I have no doubt Sir Edward Grey has done his best to keep the peace but if you want my honest opinion I believe that there are those in Europe who are set on war and matters moved too far too fast. It’s a damnable business, of course, but we cannot desert our allies. If we do, God help us all, for the Kaiser is not so far from us either, just the other side of the North Sea – or the German Ocean as they insist on calling it – and if we fail to present a united front he will simply pick us off one by one.’

  ‘He’ll do that anyway,’ Leo argued. ‘The trouble is Germany is prepared for war and we are not.’

  ‘He’s right there,’ Max said. For once his mobile face wore an expression of extreme seriousness. ‘ The German army is a well-trained, well-equipped fighting force. Haldane has done his best to bring the Territorials up to strength and get the regular army up to scratch but the fact is we are heavily outnumbered. Thanks to Winston Churchill’s foresight the fleet is gathered in the North Sea, of course, and that is something of a comfort. But no-one knows better than we do how many aeroplanes and trained pilots the Germans have compared to us. Not to mention their Zeppelins.’

  Again there was a moment’s silence while they ruminated on the unpalatable truth of Max’s statement. Britain had lagged far behind the continent in the development of air services and although public opinion had forced some improvement the combined force of the Royal Flying Corps and the Naval Air Service could still muster less than 150 aircraft while the Germans were able to boast many times that number, in addition to the nine rigid airships Max had mentioned – the Zeppelins.

  ‘The trouble is I don’t believe anyone at the Ministry quite realises how important air power is going to be in a war,’ Gilbert said bluntly. ‘It seems to me they are all rooted in the past, each jealously guarding whichever wing of the fighting forces they happen to favour. Just look at the fuss and palaver last year when Seely took £86000 from Army funds to help build up the military wing of the RFC – ridiculous! Instead of working together and seeing the pattern as a whole they engage in their petty squabbles like dogs fighting over a bone. And none of them seem to realise it is air power which will be the deciding factor in any conflict now.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Leo sneered. He was still smarting from Gilbert’s dismissal of his views on British involvement. ‘They have been a little tardy I admit but things have changed lately. Haven’t we just been given a good contract to supply BE2c’s for the services?’

  ‘That is true,’ Gilbert admitted. ‘And though I would prefer to be building aeroplanes that we had designed ourselves rather than simply making up the brain child
ren of the boffins at the Government’s Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough I am very glad we were considered for the order. No, I’m not knocking the planes. I believe Geoffrey de Havilland was responsible for their design and he is a young man who should go far. I wish I could get him to join our company – he and Max would make an unbeatable team. But BE2c’s are reconnaissance aircraft. And reconnaissance aircraft alone will not be enough to win a war nowadays.’

  ‘But you have always been such a keen advocate of planes for reconnaissance purposes,’ Lawrence said, speaking for the first time.

  When the new company had been formed, Lawrence had remained with Morse Motors and the years of nominal authority had only served to make him more ponderous and pedantic. He disliked joint meetings with the board of the Aeroplane Company, considering them an uncomfortable mix of crackpots and hustlers and the smoke-filled atmosphere irritated the cough that had troubled him since the winter and which not even the hot summer weather seemed able to cure. He viewed the success of their enterprise with a certain amount of suspicion, but with world events taking such a serious turn Gilbert had insisted he should be present at this afternoon’s deliberations.

  ‘Of course aeroplanes will revolutionise reconnaissance,’ Gilbert said now, unconsciously adopting the patient tones he habitually used when addressing his eldest son. ‘But it won’t stop there. One only has to take the argument a stage further to see how things will develop. If both sides are using aeroplanes for reconnaissance there will be only one way to preserve the security of operations – other aeroplanes, equipped to fight off the scouts. There will be a fight for supremacy in the air. It is inevitable.’