Love, Death, Chariot of Fire

by Winton Higgins

  ‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery,’ intoned the minister from his Book of Common Prayer, as members of the Calshot flight lowered the casket into the grave. ‘He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death.’

  Of course Mitchell had understood that death was inevitable, just as he’d understood that the square of a triangle’s hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Both truths had been equally marginal to his life experience. Until now. The visceral chill that seized him during Kink’s burial – the overwhelming presentiment of human life being so very tenuous and fragile – left him feeling quite unhinged for weeks. Even now it hasn’t relinquished its grip on him. He has to live and work with it. In the midst of life we are in death.

  He makes an effort to push that chill into the background for a while. He’s looking forward to the binge. To celebrate with his own people – his team, his immediate workmates. And with some of the RAF and Rolls-Royce men with whom he’s become almost as intimate. Not just to express his affection for them, but to mend some fences.

  Another man might have revelled in what he’s endured during the new Schneider contest on the Solent in September and its aftermath, but he’s not that other man. It’s been an endless round of tense occasions and mass events. One and a half million spectators watched the race, led by the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, perched on battleships and chartered ocean liners, as well as every conceivable vantage point along the coastlines of the Isle of Wight and the mainland. All four competing teams suffered mishaps and breakdowns during their preparations, including a fatal one in the Italian camp. At the last minute both the French and American teams were forced to withdraw once again, leaving the British and Italians to fight it out. Just as it had been in Venice.

  The exultation, pomp and circumstance that followed the new British victory and world record have been excruciating enough. All those mayors, local MPs and titled toffs lining up to pump his hand at civic receptions, after they’ve finished with the glamorously uniformed pilots, to the accompaniment of flashes from the camera bulbs. And all those silly speeches!

  But far worse has been the press coverage and seemingly endless, mindless commentary on his supposed role as the lone genius behind the new wonder-machine, the Supermarine S.6. Patiently he has tried to explain, time and time again, that not even the Archangel Gabriel could design one of today’s top aeroplanes on his own. For instance, the S.6 itself was even bigger, heavier, much more powerful, and thereby more complex than its S.5 predecessor. Only teams consisting of more and more experts and disciplines can design something like that.

  One such reporter kept nodding sagely when all this was explained to him, and the next day published a column hailing Mitchell as the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci! He who’d supposedly stepped outside, observed how birds flew, and on that basis gone back to his lonely study to design aeroplanes and all manner of other machines that would have had to wait four centuries to be built, if at all, because the requisite metals (to say nothing of combustion engines!) had yet to be developed. Mitchell had studied da Vinci’s sketches in drawing classes at night school. One of them featured a heavier-than-air machine that didn’t even have wings, just a sort of giant drill bit on top that would somehow screw itself vertically up into the air. Jesus wept!

  All this tommyrot about him in the press just spreads ignorance and superstition about an important modern industry of growing export and perhaps military significance. For Mitchell it also poisons his relationship with his intimates at work who know damned well that aeroplanes emerge from intricate teamwork, and who quite properly take pride in their own part in it. He wonders if they suspect him of feeding the hero-worshipping nonsense in the press, so belittling their own contributions, even though he disowns and apologises for it almost daily. His own most vital contribution consists in recruiting people with the right skills and keeping the creative human interactions on track. Including the interactions between technical staff, shopfloor trades and pilots.

  One good outcome of the new Schneider round has been the RAF’s renewal of its High Speed Flight at its nearby Calshot station. Kink would not have wanted him to gainsay that. Working with pilots is essential to Mitchell’s own work, and he enjoys their youthful enthusiasm and willingness to engage with him on performance and design issues. A plane designer is a fool if he doesn’t attend closely to the remarks, however casual, of a pilot who has just flown one of his creations.

  He and Flo keep an open house, and the RAF men know they’ll always receive a welcome and a home-cooked meal in their home. Flo is especially hospitable, and he suspects she also has a weakness for dashing young men in uniform. But once they brought an older comrade, Aircraftman Tom Shaw, secretary to the wing commander who was overseeing the running of the Schneider contest from Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Apparently this chap’s real name is Lawrence; he’d been an army officer in a previous career and won fame fighting the Turks in Arabia during the war. Flo made an extra fuss over him.

  The other wonderful connection that arose out of the new Schneider campaign was with the experimental department of Rolls-Royce’s works in Derby. The Napier engines Mitchell had been installing in his earlier racers had reached the end of their developmental potential and were too bulky for the lean fuselage form that he needed. As against that, the Rolls-Royce alternative – its new 37-litre, supercharged V-12 ‘R’ engine, with its exceptional power-to-weight ratio – was at the beginning of its developmental arc, but already markedly reliable and delivering 1,400 horsepower while promising yet more power from successive modifications in the future.

  Its developers have proved willing and imaginative in adapting it to the slimline form of the new S.6 racer. This has included finding a way to cool such a massive engine as it burns fuel at a prodigious rate when running at full bore. In the end practically every external surface of the S.6 – fuselage, wings, floats – had to function as water-bearing radiators dissipating heat into the airflow. Engine oil circulates through thin pipes around the tail plane for the same reason. At Supermarine the plane itself has earned the nickname The Flying Radiator.

  Racing engines need frequent adjustments and overhauls, and Rolls-Royce’s staff worked out how to quickly remove an engine from a plane, secure it in a cradle on a specially-built fast Rolls-Royce lorry, send it on an overnight journey to the works in Derby, and return it just thirty-six hours later. In short, the firm has signalled considerable commitment to Supermarine’s racers.

  Since the relationship was showing such promise, and conscious of his new status as a Supermarine director, Mitchell decided to strengthen it by paying a visit to the ailing 66-year-old Henry Royce at ‘Elmstead’, his West Wittering home east of Southampton, where he lives alone with a full-time nurse. Select members of his design team live close by in the village and maintain an office there. From what Mitchell has heard, Royce designed the ‘R’ engine on his drawing board at home.

  It was a pleasant spring day, and Mitchell enjoyed the forty-mile ride through the undulating Hampshire and West Sussex countryside on his powerful Royal Enfield motorcycle. As he drew closer to his destination, though, he began to wonder what might confront him there. What sort of affliction would keep such a creative and still-active engineer from his firm’s works in Derby, from which he’d remained absent since before the war? He’d asked Vera Cross, his secretary and one-woman intelligence service, if she could shed some light on the mystery.

  ‘Well, it’s only a rumour, RJ,’ she replied. ‘But I hear he had a colostomy before the war. As you know, that would’ve created all sorts of ghastly difficulties for him if he’d continued to work with a lot of people around him. His marriage broke up around then, too.’

  In fact Mitchell had no idea what ‘ghastly difficulties’ she was talking about. He knew in outline what a colostomy was, and that w
as enough to stop him wanting to know any more.

  He pulled up on the gravel in front of the large, two-storey cottage. His host’s nurse, Ethel Aubin, opened the door for him and ushered him into the parlour, where a vase of heavily scented lilies of the valley stood on a side table. A fire was burning in the grate. She opened the sash window a few inches as if the air in the room was too close.

  Henry Royce himself soon appeared – a slightly-built, grey-bearded man a shade taller than Mitchell himself, with a round bald head like a gnome’s. He looked frail, but by no means incapacitated, in his dark-blue velvet smoking jacket and felt slippers. Nonetheless he changed the atmosphere in the room. Incongruously, he smelled of cologne, but also of something less definable. It was a sour odour that reminded Mitchell of the one that drifted over to his and Flo’s former home in Radstock Road when plumbers came to unblock a neighbour’s sewer line two doors down.

  In spite of the age gap the two men got on well. They found common ground in their memories of their respective humble origins working in engineering workshops, and in their hunger for exploring the technical possibilities of ever faster flight. Wealth, age and infirmity hadn’t dulled Royce’s sense of calling as an innovative engineer, or his desire to contribute to technological breakthroughs.

  ‘Our co-operation isn’t just about advancing the commercial interests of our two firms, you know, Mitchell. What happened during the war was a tragedy and a disgrace. Our fighter aircraft in particular were unforgivably underpowered. Slow and inferior in every way.’

  ‘That’s my understanding too, sir.’

  ‘We must see to it that it never happens again! That’s a big reason why my firm wants to develop aero engines. Y’know, Mitchell, there are some dunderheads among the RAF brass in London who dismiss your Schneider racers as “freak machines” with no possible military relevance. Absolute balls! As any numbskull can understand, the faster a plane flies, the more effective it is as a weapon against a technically advanced enemy.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard rumours to that effect as well,’ Mitchell replied. ‘Fortunately wiser heads have prevailed to keep RAF Calshot operational in any event.’

  Miss Aubin served them a light lunch of corned-beef-and-pickles sandwiches with pale ale, after which Mitchell’s host accompanied him outside to see him off. But when he saw the motorcycle, he was aghast.

  ‘Do you ride around on that thing as some sort of hobby, Mitchell?’

  Mitchell was nonplussed. ‘No, sir. I ride it to work every day. When I want to take my wife and son somewhere, I bolt on the sidecar.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mitchell, you can’t be serious! A man of your age and station! You have responsibilities, man – to your family, to your firm – to my firm, for that matter. To the whole damned country. And those things are death traps. To say nothing of bad weather! What about your health?!’

  They parted warmly, as friends. But the consternation had not left the old man’s eyes.

  A week later Vera Cross came into his office. ‘There’s a young man from Rolls-Royce here to see you, RJ. He also wants to see the registration papers for your motorcycle.’

  ‘What? Why? Whatever for? Does he have an appointment?’

  ‘No. But he says Mr Royce has sent him.’

  He followed the taciturn young man out to the parking lot, where a black Rolls-Royce Phantom stood glistening in the sun beside the Royal Enfield, its engine slowly ticking as it cooled. Mitchell’s sense of reality abandoned him entirely. The young man seemed to assume that he was expecting this visit and the exchange about to take place. When asked, Mitchell dumbly handed over the ignition key to the motorcycle and the requisite papers, accepted those belonging to the Rolls, and shook his head to indicate he didn’t need its controls explained to him. The young man checked the motorcycle’s number plate against the papers he held in his hand.

  Mitchell only came to his senses as it exited the parking lot with a farewell roar, and disappeared forever around the corner into Hazel Road. Then he stared at the sleek car wide-eyed, before rushing back inside and dragging Vera out with him to share his first ride in it.

  Flo had never driven anything grander than an Austin Seven. But she soon mastered the Rolls. A couple of times a week, weather permitting, she and Eva drive him to work before heading off to Bramshaw Golf Club in the New Forest to enjoy a round together. He in turn enjoys the sight of them driving away, with Eva luxuriating in the front passenger seat of the Rolls in her smart cravat pullover. (He and Flo had given it to her on her recent birthday.) On Wednesday evenings Flo drives to choir practice at the local Highfield Church, filling the car with fellow choristers on the way.

  He hears the French window at the back of the house open and sees Flo standing back-lit in its frame.

  ‘Are you out there somewhere, darling? Can’t see, it’s so dark. Anyway, it’s time to leave.’

  The Mitchells join the stream of couples (the men in suits, the women in evening wear) filing into Price’s Café. Flo immediately hits her straps as a party girl, calling out greetings to individuals in front of them and behind them. She knows all the senior men in the drawing and technical offices and their wives, as well as Vera and some of the other women who work there too. She’s played hostess to the RAF men, and even to the two Rolls-Royce engineers who’ve been invited. She can usually remember their names, and enough personal details to clinch a connection with each of them. It’s just one more service she renders her socially less adroit husband.

  As the crowd of around sixty guests moves through the cloak room to shed outer garments and fans out in the cavernous space of the so-called café, drink waiters circulate through it. The Mitchells accept a brandy, lime and soda each. Flo drinks hers slowly as they work their way round the room, but Mitchell downs his precipitately before reaching for a second. It’s supposed to be a binge, damn it, and he needs to get into the swing of it!

  He imagines he’s not the only one of his staff to adopt the same tactic – the drink waiters are run off their feet. All around him he hears peals of laughter and snatches of triumphal conversation about the firm’s hour of shining glory three months ago over the Solent. The noise level rises, drowning out the dance quartet doing its best to provide a musical accompaniment in the corner. Well, at least this lot have every right to exult – they’re the ones who did the most to make it happen.

  He collars his closest colleague, Joe Smith, the tall swarthy chief draughtsman, a man just shy of his own age. ‘You haven’t forgotten your promise to MC this show, have you, Joe?’

  Smith throws back his head and chortles. ‘Be of good cheer, my liege! The rest of us are! Yes, I’ll do the honours as if to the manner born. You have absolutely nothing to worry about! But I can’t promise that you won’t be called upon by popular acclaim to make a speech.’

  Smith has been to university, and it sometimes shows.

  With two brandies under his belt, Mitchell thinks he’ll probably find something to say if and when the time comes. He won’t stutter when talking to his own people. He looks around the locale, noting the tinselly Christmas decorations and the small rectangular tables marshalled end-to-end into two parallel rows to form two long, festively laid tables that face each other. They occupy the half of the room that overlooks the water.

  Ten minutes later Smith goes over to the quartet to ask them to pause, then turns and claps his hands loudly to gain attention.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please take your places at table. As you know, the technical staff work with precision and leave nothing to chance. So we’ve provided place cards and menus for all of you.’

  Smith guides the Mitchells to their places. One card says ‘Mrs Florence Mitchell’; the one beside it just reads ‘R.J.’ Mitchell smiles; it’s a nice touch. Managers and directors aren’t invited to the annual binges. But he himself – albeit Supermarine’s Technical Director, and Chief Engineer and Designer – belongs here nonetheless, as long as he remains one of the chaps and everyone
can address him as RJ.

  The menu sports a holly and ivy border and simply announces three courses: Chowder Schneider; S.6 Saddle of Lamb with V-12 Vegetables, and Rolls-Royce Rhubarb Crumble with Cream. The tables are set with wine glasses, and bottles of French Beaujolais and German Riesling stand at intervals along their length.

  Fortified by two glasses of Riesling on top of the brandies, Mitchell holds his own as an animated table companion through the first two courses, but really needs a smoke after that. When everyone seems to have finished the main course, he takes out his pipe and waves it over his head to attract Smith’s attention diagonally across from him. Smith nods, smiles, and gets to his feet, banging his wine glass with his table knife. The noise in the room ratchets down.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and join me for the Loyal Toast,’ he says in a commanding voice. Everyone obeys. Smith stands stock still, his glass raised to eye level as protocol demands – waiting for his companions to stop shuffling and come to order, standing and silent. He does it so well.

  ‘To the King!’ he calls.

  ‘The King!’ comes the loud response, followed by sighs of pleasure as the contents of glasses slide down grateful throats. As the guests resume their seats, at least half of them reach for their cigarettes and pipes, while waiters swoop to collect the used plates and cutlery. Mitchell lights up with deep relief.

  Over dessert Smith proposes two more toasts, to the gallant pilots of RAF Calshot and the memory of Sam Kinkead; and to the wickedly clever engineers of Rolls-Royce’s experimental department. Once the dessert plates are cleared he rises once more, banging his glass.

  ‘Friends, it seems to have become a pattern that we foregather at every second annual binge to celebrate, among other things, a Schneider win.’ Enthusiastic whoops and whistles interrupt him, and he laughs. ‘Well, don’t get too used to it! If we win again next time, we’ll have killed the contest once and for all. Because then, under the Schneider rules, the Flying Flirt will make England her permanent home, and we’ll have become the victims of our own success. Then we might even have to resort to something quite disgraceful, such as building land planes.’