Ghosts of Engines Past

by McMullen, Sean

  “I'm right with you,” said Giles, putting an arm around her shoulders and gesturing to the aircraft. “Leaving Stonehenge like it is just glorifies what some frigging vandal did in the past. I've worked on World War One fighters. Try to patch an original bullet hole and some tosser will scream that it's historically significant.”

  “So what are you suggesting to us?” asked James, hastily grasping Louise by the hand.

  “I'll call the workshop and get my staff to drop everything and drive down here with the truck and some equipment. While they're on the road, Leon and I will start marking the woodwork and wire that needs replacing.”

  A strange tug-of-war for Louise had developed between James and Giles. I picked up a roll of masking tape and deliberately tagged an undamaged spar.

  “No, no, steamgoth, only tag what I point to,” said Giles, releasing Louise and hurrying over.

  I had the engine into the back of the Ultralights Unlimited truck by mid-afternoon, and away to the London workshop that very night. The dozen restoration volunteers that I had phoned were already waiting outside. I did not have the heart to send them away until morning, so we carried the engine inside and spent the next two hours cleaning off the grubby coating of wax with a steam jet. My fingers tingled every time I touched the engine, so much so that I had to wear gloves to work on it. At midnight we were ready for the first test. Very gently, I grasped the crankshaft and applied pressure. It turned smoothly; it had not been damaged by the crash. The cheering went on for a very long time.

  In the days that followed we stripped the engine down to the very nuts and bolts, recording every detail with a video camera. We cleaned each part until it gleamed, then made laser scans for my components database. Only the leather seals and washers had perished, and my assistants made the replacements with more love and tenderness than when they had made their wedding vows.

  Louise was waiting outside my flat in a late model BMW when I got home one evening. This time she was dressed in black lace under a black leather coat, and wore high heel boots. She seemed angry yet vulnerable all at once, as she invited me to the café over the road. Here she explained that the BBC had contacted her about the Aeronaute. We never discovered the source of the leak, but someone probably spoke too loudly in some pub, and someone listening then pitched an idea to an executive at Channel 4.

  “They want to run it as a reality doco,” she concluded.

  “I've done work for television,” I said. “Camera crews mean light stands, reflectors, first and second cameras, multiple takes of spontaneous incidents, staged arguments to raise the dramatic tension, makeup artists and hair stylists. Allow that circus into our workshop and you can triple the restoration schedule.”

  “But Leon, we need them, they can keep the heritage people off our backs.”

  “So Heritage knows?”

  “Yes, but the BBC is on our side. You're a big deal for them.”

  “Me? A big deal?”

  “All of us. Instead of technerds in t-shirts and jeans, the producer has seriously cool people in great clothes doing a sensational restoration. You're the Goth engineer, Giles is the dashing steampunk pilot, I'm the glam girl patroness, and James is...“

  Her hesitation said more than words.

  “James is?” I asked innocently.

  “James has studied costume design and history, and he's a very well paid model. In steampunk costuming circles he's also a big name, but he can't help with the Aeronaute. It's causing him issues.”

  That all made sense. Louise was from a rich family with old money, and she liked to dress retro. She was a sensational catch for someone like James. Enter Giles, who not only dressed retro, but could restore the Aeronaute and probably fly a mockup. James was arm candy. Giles was genuinely heroic arm candy.

  “So what do we do about the BBC?” I asked.

  “The camera crew only needs to be there when you're doing something important. That way nobody has much time wasted.”

  “Who decides what's important?”

  “You do.”

  I agreed. The cat was out of the bag, so we had to be nice to the cat. There was one more question.

  “Do you feel a bit strange when you are near the Aeronaute?”

  Louise's head snapped around at once. “Why do you ask?”

  Why, not what, I thought. That's significant, she does feel something.

  “I've got to confess, I get an odd feeling from it, like it's haunted. I was wondering if Lucy Penderan got that feeling too, and that's why she went to so much trouble to preserve it.”

  “I don't believe in ghosts,” said Louise tersely, but her tone said otherwise.

  We had to dismantle the partly reassembled engine, then put it back together for the cameras while pretending to talk spontaneously. Louise played the role of an anxious client being briefed by myself, the suave engineer. She wore enough pewter cogwheels to build a dozen or so clocks, along with fishnet gloves, and a magnifier on a brass chain. However, her lipstick had morphed from wholesome steampunk scarlet to Goth black.

  “So no other quadricycle engine is known from the 1850s?” she asked on cue.

  “That's right,” I replied. “There was no demand for hyper-light engines back then.”

  “So whoever built this one was a genius, like Brunel?”

  “Not necessarily. It's not a revolutionary design, just very light. Any 1850s engineer could have built it as a one-off.”

  “Do you think the Aeronaute ever flew?”

  That question again.

  “We'll know that after we finish restoring the engine and run it to measure its horsepower. The Aeronaute is right on the border of being workable. Its wingspan is fifty feet and the takeoff weight is about seven hundred pounds. Two hundred and fifty pounds of that is this engine, which may deliver as little as twelve horsepower. The propeller is not very efficient either. The Aeronaute is an underpowered version of the Wright Brothers' Flyer.”

  “But isn't that good?” asked Louise, ignoring the next cue card. “The Wrights' plane flew.”

  “The Flyer did manage four flights, but it was not very stable. The Aeronaute will be even less stable. It will be harder to get into the air, difficult to control while it's up there, and a total nightmare to land.”

  A week later I got the engine working, powered by the workshop's steam cleaning unit. It functioned perfectly, but the verdict of the calibration instruments was not encouraging. It could deliver only nine horsepower.

  The furnace was next, and that was a definite challenge to modern health and safety regulations. Try putting some kerosene into a very flimsy tank, then light a fire under it to force the fuel out under pressure. It's a simple, efficient, lightweight and mind-numbingly dangerous source of inflammable vapour. I tested the tank and pipes with compressed air, then the BBC arranged for pressure tests with real fuel to be done at an army firing range.

  We produced some seriously impressive plumes of burning fuel for the cameras, but to everyone's surprise, the furnace did not explode. The final, crucial tests were also done at the firing range. With the engine attached to the furnace, we ran the system at full pressure from the safety of an observation bunker. Again the producer seemed disappointed by the lack of an explosion. I was also disappointed, because once again it only delivered a fraction more than nine horsepower. However, these disappointments were nothing compared to the findings of an air crash investigation team that the BBC had recruited.

  I watched the third episode of The Aeronauteers at home, alone. A computer graphic of the Aeronaute sat at the end of a computer generated runway, the propeller turning slowly. Numbers flashed onto the screen as a wireframe pilot lay out flat on the flight bench.

  “The problem appears to have been the weight of the pilot,” said a voiceover as the propeller spun up to full speed and the simulation Aeronaute began to roll forward. “If William Penderan was the pilot, he was just too heavy. Estimates made from a contemporary photograph put his height at si
x feet three inches, and his weight at two hundred pounds.”

  The graphic Aeronaute raced along its virtual runway. After a mile, its speed leveled off at twenty-three miles per hour.

  “Penderan may have just cleared the ground, because he did not throttle back as he reached the end of the private road that he probably used as a runway. The road ended at a ploughed field. Perhaps he thought he was a few feet off the ground, when in reality his altitude was only inches. Traces of grass stains and dirt found on the wreckage indicate that the front wheel tore through grass, then hit a ploughed furrow side-on.”

  The graphic of the aircraft was shown crashing in slow motion. The wireframe pilot was thrown clear.

  “Because of the risk of an explosion or fire, Penderan needed to get clear of the aircraft quickly in an emergency. For this reason he did not strap himself to the flight bench. He would have been thrown forward by the crash and struck one of the ploughed furrows. The death notice states that he died of a broken neck, sustained in a riding accident. This is also consistent with being thrown head first from the Aeronaute at about twenty-five miles per hour.”

  The virtual re-enactment now showed how the damage to the Aeronaute was consistent with rolling off the end of the road and into a ploughed field.

  “Several questions remain unanswered,” the investigator concluded. “Why was William Penderan's death disguised as a riding accident, why was the wreckage taken to a barn and hidden, and why did Penderan's daughter, Lucy, preserve the wreckage for so long?”

  The image switched to an interview with Giles and Louise, who were standing beside the partly rebuilt Aeronaute. Both of them looked gaunt and pale, but I put it down to their workload.

  “I think it came down to patent violations,” said Giles. “The propeller is identical to the one used on Stringfellow's model of 1848, and the main wing is a lightweight version of the one in the patent drawings for Henson's Aerial Steam Carriage of 1843.”

  “So Penderan was a great innovator, but he borrowed other people's ideas as well?” said the investigator.

  “That's only part of it. Put yourself in Lucy Penderan's position. Her father dies testing an aircraft that could have changed history if he had weighed fifty pounds less. If she had gone public, somebody else could use his design, recruit a lighter pilot, and get all the glory of the first flight.”

  “Maybe one of his rivals.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Then why did she go to so much trouble to preserve the wreckage?”

  “That I can't say.”

  Louise began to look like a defrocked Goth who was studying to be a steampunk engineer. Her cheeks were pale and sunken, her hands were scratched and stained with paint and oil, and she moved slowly and deliberately, as if almost drained of energy. Both Giles and James seemed to think she was looking Goth because she had something going with me. Because the engine needed little work, and most of that was in London, Giles made me the acting manager of Ultralights Unlimited. That kept me away from Kent, and thus Louise... except when she visited London.

  Goggles became a major issue as the Aeronaute's public debut approached, as did the entire subject of fashion. Steampunk costuming and Victorian fashion overlapped, but did not match. Louise wanted steampunk, James wanted Victoriana. The BBC sided with James.

  Louise and James were in the Ultralights Unlimited workshop, waiting for the camera crew to arrive for a shoot when one of their many arguments flared. Louise wanted goggles to be part of Giles's 1852 aviator's costume for testing the mockup Aeronaute. James insisted that goggles were not used until the early Twentieth Century.

  “Charles Manly wore them when he tried to fly an early aircraft in 1903,” James explained. “They were developed about then for early motoring. Swimming goggles came even later.”

  “But there are engravings of Venetian coral divers wearing goggles in the Sixteenth Century,” said Louise.

  “Okay, but people like coachmen or train drivers didn't use them back in 1852.”

  “We'll see what the web say about that.”

  Louise took out her iPhone. She wanted a steampunk look, and would not be deterred.

  “Goggles, the word is derived from the Middle English gogelen, to squint,” she said presently. “The word goggles came into use around 1710, to describe protective eye coverings that were short tubes with fine wire mesh over the ends. Masons used them as protection against flying stone chips.”

  “Well your goggles have glass in them,” said James.

  “Give me the goggles, I'll run up some wire mesh disks,” I called from my workbench. “Nothing simpler.”

  The warmth in Louise's smile could have ended an ice age, but I suspected that it was only to antagonize James. I wondered if his scowl was meant for her or me. Premarital divorce seemed to be looming like a summer thunderstorm. Meantime I had all the grief of being a romantic interloper with none of the benefits.

  Giles and his team of restoration volunteers took two months to strip the wax and old fabric from the Aeronaute, then replace the broken or rotten spars. All the piano wire bracings had to be replaced, then the wings were covered with new black silk. The engine had been restored long before that, but was kept in London so that the Aeronaute could be symbolically made complete in a single dramatic scene for the cameras.

  When I arrived in the company truck with the fully restored quadricycle engine, champagne and chicken had been laid out on trestles, and everyone was dressed in Victorian costumes, including the camera crew. This was definitely a 'significant event'. To dress Goth is to dress timeless, so I just borrowed a top hat from the BBC costume van and fitted right in.

  James was arguing with the producer about Victorian fashions, Giles was striking poses for the BBC cameras in front of the mockup Aeronaute, and Louise was posing for a photo before a period camera. She was wearing a voluminous period green and black brocatelle day dress over crinoline, and was looking very unhappy about it. Once the reality television opportunities had been exhausted, and people began making sure that the chickens had died for a good cause, Giles took me aside.

  “The mockup is ready to fly,” he said.

  “What?” I exclaimed. “Already?”

  “Jock, Janice and Otto ran it up in a week. It's basically just a modern ultralight with a strange design, and we installed a petrol engine with a variable governor. What's the best power you got from the 1852 engine?”

  “Nine and a quarter horsepower is all I could get with optimal tuning.”

  “Nine and a quarter!” he exclaimed, losing his smile for the first time. “That's still a bit marginal.”

  “Or just plain not enough.”

  He looked across to Louise, who was now posing in her wire mesh goggles.

  “It's probably enough to work with,” Giles decided.

  “In a bleeding computer!” I exclaimed. “The Aeronaute is on the very border of being flight-capable. It's seriously overweight and underpowered, but I can make a few improvements—”

  “No! It must fly with the exact 1852 config. My computer models confirm that it could get just above stall speed at nine horsepower, with enough fuel for ten minutes and a one-forty pound pilot.”

  “One-forty pounds!” I exclaimed. “Even a pigeon-chested tosser like me weighs more than that.”

  “I've been dieting.”

  “What? You're joking! What a great source of reality drama: will he die of anorexia or die in a crash?”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am being serious.”

  “Louise is dieting in sympathy with me.”

  “That explains why she looks as crap as you.”

  “And she's stopped sleeping with James.”

  “What the hell has that to do with...“

  My brain caught up with my tongue.

  “Yes, that has everything to do with me flying the Aeronaute mockup,” said Giles. “Sorry to be so suspicious of you, I've only just realized that she's actually dressing Goth to tick
off James. I'm her real hero.”

  In other words, Back off steamgoth, the rich girl is mine. At the time it seemed like the obvious conclusion, but we were both about as wrong as it is possible to be.

  The stretch of straight, level private road was three miles in length. A very thorough, three day investigation by Time Team confirmed that it had been built around 1850. It would have been ideal as a runway, providing a firm, smooth surface that would give the Aeronaute's wheels minimal friction when taking off. The local council had restored the surface to 1850s standard, and the mayor was rewarded by time in front of the television cameras.

  Giles had learned to fly the Aeronaute with a computer simulator. Getting off the ground was only part of the problem. The Aeronaute was a flying wing without a tail, so by definition it was quite a challenge to control. When flying, the simulation was balanced precariously above disaster.

  “Don't worry, I'm only going to take it up a couple of feet,” Giles said as I adjusted the governor to give another quarter horsepower to the mockup.

  “Good enough to kill William Penderan, good enough to kill you,” I replied.

  There was a great cheer as the mockup's engine was started. I was ready with my Vespa and followed the mockup as it rolled away along the road. At the suggestion of the camera crew, Louise was sitting sidesaddle behind me, her dress and crinoline billowing like failed parachute. It took nearly a mile, but at last the mockup wallowed into the air, lumbered along roughly five feet above the road for about a hundred yards, then descended.

  Unfortunately it had drifted just a little off centre while airborne. The rear left wheel caught the roadside grass and the mockup slewed around, ripped off its own undercarriage, and partially disintegrated.

  Giles was unhurt because he had strapped himself to the flying bench. For his trouble he got Louise's arms around his neck and a kiss full on the lips before the cameras of the BBC – several times, to get the lighting and background correct. The achievement of the mockup's flight, the drama of the crash, and a dash of romance sent ratings soaring for The Aeronauteers.