Love, Death, Chariot of Fire

by Winton Higgins

  In the pause Mitchell takes out his pipe, lights up and inhales deeply. He muses about what’s brought him here to Venice, to this juncture in his life. He’s the second child of a middle-class, middle-income family with five offspring from Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands. A Staffordshire lad from the Potteries. On his father’s suggestion he left school at sixteen to take up an apprenticeship in Kerr, Stuart & Co, a locomotive engineering firm. Because he was good with his hands and liked to make things. If his father had taken a closer look down in the old coach-house across the lawn behind the family home, he might have noticed that his son spent his time making model aeroplanes – not steam engines.

  Still, he learned a lot in the locomotive works. Essential manual skills on the shop floor, before they shifted him into the drawing office. Half an hour ago he was once more exercising those skills, wearing grease-smeared overalls over his suit as he helped fix a radiator leak, and checked and adjusted the planes’ controls one last time. But the move to the drawing office prompted him to go to night school and take courses in practical mechanics and practical mathematics. On the side he also took classes in drawing and painting.

  The unforeseen consequence of all that was disqualification from joining the army. Twice during the Great War he tried to join up, only to be flatly refused: ‘Your skills are needed on the home front, laddie,’ the recruiting officers said. So eleven years ago, during the scarcity of skilled labour on said front, he managed to land a job at Supermarine – in business for less than three years at the time – as the personal assistant to its then owner, Mr Hubert Scott-Pain. Who told him he showed a bit of promise as a designer, and inducted him into the cult of Speed.

  Mitchell looks south down the beach, his disgust rising at the fascist flags and the slogans on the scoreboards. Yesterday he and Flo took advantage of the postponement to wander around the streets of old Venice. They encountered a bunch of uniformed Blackshirts bawling some tuneless marching song – more like a war chant, really. The fascists made their way down a footpath, arms locked, pushing other pedestrians out of their way and into the gutter. Some older people were flung to the ground, but the uniformed lowlifes just laughed at them. All this right under the noses of the Carabinieri.

  These creatures are the regime’s foot soldiers, supposedly the heirs of the mighty Roman legionnaires of the classical world. In actual fact, Mitchell suspects, they’re no more than thugs who belong in jail. But they bask in the reflected glory of those pompous arses poncing around in their comic-opera get-ups who surround Mussolini in the newsreels he’s seen. When Mitchell reads The Southern Daily Echo back at home, there they are again, this fascist devil-spawn, vying for dictatorial power in Spain and Germany as well. He shudders at the thought of this contagion ever reaching England.

  The fascist regime is contributing to unwelcome changes in the Schneider contest itself. It started out as friendly international rivalry between sporting enthusiasts, much like the revived Olympic Games. It attracted rich men, imaginative designers and daring flyers, all united in their passion for exploring this new frontier – powered human flight. They met in a pure world. Of course that hasn’t ruled out commercial spin-offs from participation in the Schneider contest. At the moment Supermarine’s works are at full stretch filling orders from as far away as Argentina, Japan and Australia for its versatile long-range Southampton flying boat. Which also began life on Mitchell’s drawing board.

  But now the contest is becoming an arm wrestle between national governments interested only in their own vainglory. There’s even talk that Schneider-generated advances in aviation might have military applications. So some governments finance and try to manage their national Schneider teams. The Italian fascist regime is an extreme example of the trend.

  This year is the first time the British government has offered resources and administrative support to Schneider entrants, perhaps just to put the British team on something like an equal footing with the Italians. Mitchell appreciates its contribution while still feeling queasy about where it’s all heading.

  The bank of clouds to the north has advanced to mask the sun. He’s let his mind drift; he reins it in, returning his gaze to the scene in front of him. Order has been restored. The straws must have been drawn, because the seaplanes are being marshalled into the order in which they’re to be released: the Gloster, the first Macchi, Webster’s S.5, the second Macchi, Worsley’s machine, finally the last of the Macchis. They’ll follow each other into the air at fifteen-minute intervals. The international committee must have taken charge of the scoreboards: the fascist slogans have disappeared from them to make way for the lap speed scores.

  The Gloster biplane – what’s it actually doing here? In Schneider terms biplanes are a thing of the past now, along with the racing flying boats. He’s sure the Gloster people have squeezed every last advantage out of the biplane format, but it looks antiquated beside the other five entries.

  When the starting gun barks it jangles Mitchell’s nerves. The Gloster howls towards the starting line and climbs into the air. It chalks up a respectable 266.5 mph on its first lap. The first Macchi’s take-off upstages it, though. Its engine bellows and the plane throws up a huge plume of water as it surges forward. The Italians must have equipped them with bigger engines too. They’ve been so cagey about their preparations for this year’s contest, keeping their planes out of sight, leaving all but insiders to speculate about the unbeatable marvels they’ll reveal on the big day. This machine rises in eager pursuit of the Gloster and trumps it at 275 mph on its first lap.

  The S.5s are facing stiff competition! Each of them takes off smoothly, and rounds the brightly coloured, pylon-shaped markers tightly. Mitchell hates these moments in particular – this is where a powerful machine, flinging itself around sharp corners, can tear its own wings off. But the airframes hold. Through his binoculars he can detect no sign of flutter either.

  With all six machines in the air and the spectators yelling their lungs out, the noise drowns the commentary from the loudspeakers on the beach. Oblivious to the din, Mitchell follows the S.5s’ every move through his binoculars. Webster and Worsley are riding their mounts very hard. They’re highly skilled pilots, thank God, and intimate with their aircraft after the weeks of training at Calshot.

  He feels drops of rain on his hat and jacket. He recalls how snugly he has cowled the S.5s’ engines into their streamlined noses. But will that be enough to handle the rain? The noise from the crowd drops a notch as people reach for anything they can find to cover themselves. The liveried hotel attendants come out onto the roof garden with armfuls of umbrellas for the observers. One of them comes up to him, says ‘Signore? ’ and places an umbrella in his hand. He opens it with a distracted ‘Grazie’.

  One of the Macchis drops steeply towards the water. It makes a heavy landing a mile south of the Excelsior. Mitchell trains his binoculars on it. The impact must have fractured its starboard float, which starts to take water, causing the craft to list. A speedboat hurries out to pick up the pilot before the plane topples over and begins to sink.

  Not long after that the lead Macchi glides down parallel to the beach, its engine coughing, then silent. Its propeller turns slowly, like a windmill in a light breeze, as it touches down on the water. At least planes made back in England can handle a spot of rain!

  The three British planes are now duelling with the surviving Macchi. But on the Gloster’s fifth lap, Mitchell can hear and see that it’s in trouble, its engine running roughly, shaking the whole craft. A broken propeller, Mitchell suspects. The pilot brings it down close to the British hangar for a safe landing.

  Moments later the surviving Macchi, roaring towards the marker closest to the Excelsior, begins to backfire violently and descend. It has insufficient height to complete the tight turn needed for an emergency landing in front of the beach, so it seems to be making straight for the lagoon behind the Lido. It hurtles towards the Excelsior’s roof garden, a looming red meteorite. Instin
ctively Mitchell ducks down behind the balustrade. Screams and curses ring out around him as the plane clatters and barks over the observers’ heads with only a few feet to spare.

  ‘These confounded Italian machines!’ shouts a rattled voice. ‘All fur coat and no knickers!’

  ‘Steady on, sir – there are ladies present!’ admonishes another. The two S.5s keep pounding through the rain and around the markers at unrelenting speed. Why are they doing this, the bloody young hotheads? They’re risking metal fatigue and overheated engines that can seize up for starters! At full revs the engines have a total working life of only five hours at the best of times! But Mitchell knows his anger is unreasonable and just compounds his own turbulence.

  The S.5’s cockpit – set so far back from the nose, with its seat no more than a thick cushion on the floor, and its almost horizontal windscreen – cuts down the pilot’s field of vision. Webster and Worsley probably don’t realise they’re the only ones left in the race.

  The rain peters out. The crowd along the beach has fallen silent and begins to disperse in confusion. Some search the sky for a phantom Macchi sent by some patron saint or other; most seem to be struggling to accept the fact that the national team has not only lost the race, but even failed to stay the course.

  The people on the roof garden, on the other hand, are whooping and laughing in their anticipation of victory. The hotel staffers respond to the occasion by setting up a long trestle table under the awning covering the entrance. They throw a white cloth over it. Their English guests will no doubt be calling for refreshments soon enough.

  Having flown his seven laps, Webster throttles back and brings his machine down close to the hangar and the hotel. The euphoric group of Union Jack-waving supporters on the beach clusters round the hangar to greet him. But Mitchell doesn’t relax a single muscle as he watches the second S.5 finish its laps. That done, Worsley too touches down and taxis towards the hangar.

  Mitchell’s whole body unclenches. Shaking, he can barely stand. A deep, shuddering sigh escapes his lips. He senses the exultant gaze of his compatriots on him, yet he can’t respond to it.

  ‘A dozen bottles of Bollinger, barman!’ someone shouts across the roof garden. ‘On the double if you please!’ Someone else – presumably from the embassy – tries to render the order into polite Italian, ending with a ‘per favore, Signore ’.

  Yet another voice yells, ‘Three cheers for Mitch!’ The hurrahs break against his ear drums like wild waves against a cliff.

  Mitchell grins back in acknowledgement, then turns away to hide his involuntary sobbing. He hopes to God these people keep their distance until he can compose himself. They do just that. But he yearns for the comfort of Flo’s closeness.

  She sidles up to him and takes his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. ‘Take all the time you need, Reg darling,’ she whispers.

  She calms him. Together they look down at the beach where the scoreboard is being adjusted for the last time. It puts paid to any lingering doubts about the outcome of the 1927 Schneider Trophy contest. It declares it won for Great Britain by Flt Lt S.N. Webster in a Supermarine S.5 at an average speed of 453.29 kilometres per hour/281.66 mph – a new world record for both landplanes and seaplanes.

  So it’s official: the S.5 is the fastest aeroplane in the world. And the Flying Flirt is on her way back to England’s colder climes. Out of the fascists’ clutches.

  Mitchell finds himself smiling. His first smile of the day.

  Flo must have caught the moment. She turns back to him, squeezes his hand.

  ‘Might be time for a drink with the others now. What do you say, Reg?’

  Chapter 2

  A binge

  Russell Place, Southampton. Saturday 21 December 1929, 6 pm. Reginald Mitchell wanders out of the rear French window into the extensive garden of his and Flo’s new home, ‘Hazeldene’ in Portswood – a residential area northwest of the city. He’s wearing leather gloves, hat, scarf, and his gabardine overcoat over his suit. Night has fallen, but the overcast evening is remarkably mild for late December. He’s left their son Gordon sitting in front of the fire listening to the wireless and playing with Shep, the red setter. Upstairs Flo is getting ready, helped by their fifteen-year-old live-in maid, Eva. Mitchell is waiting for her. With his usual poor judgement of time and minimal concern for sartorial standards he’s miles early for their trip into the city, to Price’s Café, for the formally entitled Supermarine Technical Staff ’s Annual Binge. A less raffish firm – such as its new parent company, Vickers – might have called it a Christmas dinner-dance, but Supermarine has its own traditions to uphold.

  Though he hasn’t had time to lift a finger to help create it (Derek their part-time gardener does all that), Mitchell loves his garden. The family has moved from rented premises in Radstock Road, near industrial Woolston, to this serene oasis surrounded by oak, beech and ash trees. Into a four-bedroom home (plus maid’s quarters) built especially for them, to their own specifications. The garden seals the domestic peace he now enjoys. He can sit on the bench facing the pond midway down the lawn, smoke his pipe, and let his mind settle. Even on a winter’s night.

  Though he can see little detail of Derek’s work in the dark, he’s conscious of the spring and summer potential that’s hibernating around him. The juvenile trees include pear, horse chestnut, greengage plum and Cox’s Orange Pippin apple trees. The latter’s fruit might even be ripe in three months’ time. Then the roses, hydrangeas, and a large number of other flowering plants will maintain a running display of colour and fragrance, right up to the late autumn. Water irises in the pond will complement the flag iris in the garden beds.

  The gate at the bottom of the garden leads straight into a municipal recreation area that includes excellent lawn tennis courts. They’re well patronised by day, not least by his own family, their friends and neighbours. On a fine day the pock of balls against racquets and the throaty calls of the players fill the air. But at night the place reverts to deep silence.

  The new house assuages Mitchell’s sense of falling short as a husband. To some extent at least. They’ve moved from a cramped dwelling to a substantial family home that offers Flo an expansive domain. She, too, loves the garden, and engages with it and Derek its guardian much more closely than her husband can. She has made friends with neighbours who provide a social outlet for him too – one that isn’t simply an extension of his work life. She plays a good game of tennis, and willingly swings a golf club when she gets the chance.

  Before they married, Flo was headmistress of a small elementary school in Dresden, just south of Stoke-on-Trent. Old habits die hard: her relationship with Eva has its pedagogical and maternal sides. She never misses an opportunity to develop the girl’s cooking, housekeeping and bookkeeping skills, expand her vocabulary, correct her grammar, and teach her to play tennis and golf. Another woman comes in on weekdays to deal with the basic housework, so Flo and Eva have time to enjoy the less tedious aspects of domesticity, including shopping and entertaining guests. Eva and Gordon have established something of a big sister/little brother bond, warm and teasing. Mitchell wants the boy to grow up untouched by social arrogance, so there’s no upstairs-downstairs nonsense going on under his roof.

  He takes off his gloves to check for dew on the bench before sitting down. He fishes his pipe out of his jacket pocket and lights up, then replaces his gloves as he leans back to savour the cool evening air. God, how he needs this respite! It has been a helter-skelter year, the last of a tumultuous decade. And on Monday the family will drive up to Stoke for the traditional Christmas celebrations with his parents, his siblings and their families. They’ll stay over until after the New Year festivities that will usher in a new and somewhat ominous decade.

  The year began under the lingering pall of Flight Lieutenant Sam Kinkead’s horrifying death the year before, at the age of only 31 years. He’d been part of the British team in Venice in 1927, and commanded the newly re-established High Speed Fli
ght at RAF Calshot. On 12 March he took off in a tuned-up S.5 intent on establishing a new world speed record. Earlier bad weather had cleared but for some high cloud and low-lying fog. On his timed shallow dive starting over the Isle of Wight, he was flying at well over 300 mph and at a height of no more than 200 feet over the Solent, witnesses reported, when the aircraft’s nose inexplicably dipped further and it plunged into the water at full throttle. The plane and the body were recovered, and two inquiries followed. Neither found any technical fault in the plane beyond impact damage.

  The finding accorded Mitchell little relief. The fact remained that a man had died flying one of his planes. Not just any man either, but a friend; and a highly decorated fighter ace from the war with thirty-three victories to his credit.

  People tried to console him. Kink was still getting over a recurrence of his malaria, they said; the fog obscured the horizon and the water was as flat as glass under an overcast sky, so he would’ve had no sense of how close to its surface he was flying. And so on. Yes, Mitchell had learned a bitter lesson about the need to develop better instruments to avoid another accident like this. But this one was sickeningly irreversible.

  Along with the rest of Supermarine’s technical staff, he went to Kink’s burial with full military honours at All Saints’ Church in Fawley, a little way north of Calshot. Detachments from all three armed services attended. As a child he’d been dragged along to some family funerals, and he could remember a couple of distant relatives who’d fallen in the war and simply never come home. The Angel of Death had remained a distant figure: no one close to him had yet died. Now he could smell its very breath. A detachment of Royal Marines fired three ear-sundering volleys into the air from their rifles as a final salute. They tolled a terrible finality.