Love, Death, Chariot of Fire

by Winton Higgins

  Mitchell casts a glance across at Eric, who catches his eye and shakes his head almost imperceptibly. Eric still seems intent on closing the topic down. The family printing business, which he now heads, must have suffered in the long downturn; Elizabeth lives on her stake in that business and other securities that would also have gone backwards. Mitchell feels that seed of anxiety germinating once more.

  ‘Ma, I’ve promised to keep you up to date on my health difficulties. Now I want you to promise me you’ll let me know if you need anything, or if anything about your finances worries you. Will you promise me that?’

  ‘Of course, dear.’

  Like her stock reassurances stretching back into the past, this one lacks conviction. But he can’t help that. Now it’s time to engage with the rest of the table and make his own contribution to the merriment. The waiters clear away the plates and dishes from the dessert. One of them places a pile of smaller plates close to Mitchell; another quickly follows with a large chocolate cake that lands in front of him. It’s crowned with four lit candles around its circumference, and in the middle with an icing plaque with ‘Happy Birthday Reg!’ written in cursive script and chocolate lettering.

  The other guests stand up. With their eyes on him, Mitchell exaggerates a huge in-breath before blowing the candles out with a comically noisy out-breath. In the midst of the laughter around the table, Eric leads the singing of the birthday song. Still seated, Mitchell scans the flushed faces and twinkling eyes looking down at him during the singing. How ephemeral it all seems! He dismisses that errant thought, applies his broadest grin, and maintains it while his family toasts his good health and long life.

  When called upon, he gets to his feet as the others sit down. He composes himself to make a short speech of thanks.

  Chapter 13

  A prototype

  Dr Picken’s surgery, St Denys Road, Portswood. Monday 2 March 1936, 3 pm. Reginald Mitchell lies on the examination table, his singlet and shirt drawn up, his trousers drawn down around his hips.

  ‘Tell me if it hurts, Reg,’ the doctor says as his fingers gently probe his patient’s lower abdomen, skirting round the exposed stoma.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to hurt anywhere, Pick. That pain I feel from time to time, it must be coming from inside somewhere.’

  ‘Is it worse at particular times rather than others?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what you’ve eaten, or when?’

  ‘No, Pick.’

  Picken frowns. ‘All right. You can get dressed now, and we can have a chat about it.’

  Mitchell swings his legs over the side of the table, replaces his colostomy girdle, and adjusts his clothing. He sits down across the desk from Picken, who is flipping through the file in front of him.

  Mitchell breaks the silence. ‘I was hoping you’d diagnose something like appendicitis. Something easily fixed.’

  ‘If only I could, Reg. If only I could! But there’s no sign of that. Of course a colostomy can trigger all sorts of small but painful malfunctions in the bowel that can resolve themselves in time. Given your medical history, though, I’d like to send you back to Gabriel to get his opinion. He’s the one who should make a diagnosis.’

  ‘Struth, that sounds ominous!’

  ‘Yes, sorry about that. But whatever is going on, it’s deep inside you, as you say. He might want to put you back under one of those diagnostic machines at St Mark’s, the ones that use X-rays. Though there’s reason to doubt their usefulness. “Diagnosing shadows”, some of us call it. Do you want me to ring his rooms and find out when he can see you?’

  ‘Thanks, Pick.’

  An operator puts Picken through to Gabriel’s receptionist, but a problem arises when he tries to make an appointment. He says goodbye and hangs up.

  ‘Gabriel’s on a research trip to the big general hospital in Vienna. Won’t be back for three weeks. I could ring around to find some other specialist…’

  ‘No, don’t do that. While we’re waiting for Bill Gabriel we can see if the problem rights itself. I’ve got a big job ahead of me during these coming weeks, and wouldn’t want to traipse off to London in the middle of it anyway.’

  The delay is a godsend – an excuse to dismiss the dread from his mind pending Gabriel’s return.

  Picken looks up inquisitively, perhaps glad to change a difficult subject. ‘What’s the big job, if I might enquire, Reg?’

  ‘We’ll be test-flying and fine-tuning a prototype.’

  ‘Oh? I’ve heard a rumour about a radical new machine being built over at Supermarine. My informants just call it “Mitchell’s fighter”. That wouldn’t be the prototype in question, by any chance?’

  Mitchell is astonished, and disquieted.

  ‘Good God! Well, since you’ve already heard the rumour, Pick: yes, it is. But I’d very much appreciate your discretion. If it works, it’ll soon be cloaked in secrecy. If it doesn’t, it’s best not mentioned.’

  ‘Mr Mitchell, sir, it is my solemn duty as your doctor to keep all your secrets!’

  They both laugh. ‘And on the subject of secrets, I haven’t told Flo about this current issue. Please be discreet about that as well. I don’t want to worry her unduly. I give her enough to put up with as it is.’

  Whatever it is that’s clawing at his guts, it’s not just physical. It includes raw fear, which Picken has done nothing to relieve. It’s a contagion he won’t allow to spread to his household.

  Eastleigh aerodrome. Thursday 5 March 1936, 3 pm. A group of men stand chatting in the spring sunshine in front of the dark maw of the Supermarine hangar. The group mainly comprises Mitchell and the design team he’s built up around the Type 300 project – Bev Shenstone, Joe Smith, Alf Faddy, Agony Payn, Ernie Mansbridge and Ken Scales. Mansbridge has the job of liaising with the test pilots, directing their attention to performance issues that the design team needs to resolve. Scales has been appointed foreman of the Type 300 project, making him the prototype’s ‘nanny’ responsible for its safe handling at all times. He fusses over it as much as any other nanny over a newborn.

  The aerodrome is closed to unauthorised traffic this afternoon, but its fire trucks stand ready and manned. A leisurely south-westerly wind is blowing across the airfield. No outsiders have been invited to witness the event about to take place except the ministry’s resident technical officer, Stuart Scott-Hall – also part of the present group.

  Shouts from inside the hangar, followed by the sound of tyres rolling over a gritty concrete floor, prompt the men to turn around. The prototype is advancing on them, pushed by five workmen. Three of them have to hold the tail section aloft since it rests on a simple skid when the machine is stationary. So it’s bearing down on Mitchell’s group as if in flight, demonstrating its angle of attack. They hastily step aside to make way for it. It shivers as its tyres flop over the lip of the concrete slab and onto the turf on its way out into the sunlight.

  Mitchell didn’t want to tempt fate or waste time making it look pretty for its first tentative flight. So its long nose is still cowled in bare metal, and the rest of its skin consists of a patchwork of primer paint in varying dull colours, depending on the Duralumin sheets selected for the panels that make up its surface. RAF roundels and the registration number K5054 have been slapped on over the patchwork. But the grace of the form beneath the shabby veneer can’t escape an expert’s eye.

  As yet the prototype has no official name. The ministry refers to it by the modified specification it supposedly conforms to – F.37/34. Supermarine knows it as Type 300. And now, it seems, nosey outsiders are calling it Mitchell’s Fighter. Given its current appearance, perhaps it should be christened Cinderella, Mitchell muses. Better that than the name Bob McLean wants to give it: Spitfire, the nickname his peppery daughter Annie attracted as a child. Earlier he’d floated the idea of giving the ill-starred Type 224 that name – an association Mitchell recoils from.

  That name is only one bet
ter than the one Sidney Camm and Hawkers have given their prototype monoplane fighter, which took to the air four months ago: Hurricane. Just the sort of bluster one might expect from that quarter.

  A small boxy low-wing monoplane flies low over the aerodrome.

  ‘That’ll be Mutt coming in now,’ Mansbridge says.

  The plane flies the prescribed circuit around the airfield before descending. After landing it waddles over the turf towards the hangar, to pull up well clear of the prototype. Mitchell identifies it as the recently released Miles Falcon. He eyes the oddly jutting windscreen with disapproval, and averts his gaze from the trousers and spats that streamline its fixed undercarriage. Another reminder of that bloody 224!

  A slim young man, Jeffrey Quill, jumps down from the enclosed cockpit and helps his older and stockier colleague, Mutt Summers, out of the back seat. Summers introduced Quill to Mitchell two months ago back at Woolston, presenting him as his trophy recruit snatched from the air force to bolster the Vickers-Supermarine group’s flight-testing team. Summers wants Quill involved in the testing of the prototype. The veteran test pilot emerges in flying overalls and boots, his helmet and kneeboard in his hand.

  The newcomers are both company men who are greeted as familiars before they turn to contemplate the prototype. Summers hops up onto the port wing root and tosses his helmet and kneeboard into the cockpit. He opens the little access door and crouches down beside it to look inside, assessing the cockpit’s layout.

  ‘Looks good,’ he says as he climbs down again. ‘Very good.’

  During the conversation that follows, Mitchell draws Summers and Mansbridge to one side.

  ‘I know what you’re up to, RJ,’ Summers grins. ‘Spoiling my fun with this new thoroughbred of yours by telling me everything I can and can’t do.’

  ‘That’d be a long list, Mutt. So I’ll just give you one short list of what we’d like you to do today. And remind you that everything not compulsory is forbidden.’

  Summers maintains his grin. ‘All right, RJ, you’re the boss.’

  ‘As you can see, we’ve fitted a fine-pitch propeller to minimise the effect of torque skewing your first take-off run. So you won’t get quite as much speed out of the plane this time around. We’ll be replacing that prop with a coarse-pitch one for your test-flights next week. Today we just want to know about the basics: take-off, landing, responsiveness to rudder and stick controls, low-speed characteristics including behaviour close to the stalling point, and any obvious vices.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Good. Safe landing, Mutt!’

  Summers returns to the prototype, mounts the wing root again, and climbs into the cockpit. Scales scurries after him, helps him to secure his Sutton harness, and then retreats to the knot of onlookers. For some minutes Summers fiddles with the controls and checks the movement of the flaps, rudder and elevators. After slamming the hatch shut he slides the canopy forward, checks its locking mechanism on the top of the windscreen, and pushes it back again. Finally he dons his helmet and primes the engine.

  He glances around the craft as best he can and yells ‘Clear propeller!’

  The starter motor whines and the propeller swings round, but the engine doesn’t respond. The second attempt is no more successful. Mitchell inwardly curses. Rolls-Royce have to do better than this – the same thing happened when they carried out ground tests on the engine a few days ago. It won’t do when the machine undergoes its acceptance trials for the air force. The ministry specification says it has to be ready to take off within two and a half minutes of a cold start. It is, after all, an interceptor fighter; under operational conditions every second counts.

  On the third attempt the engine fires. For a moment the six exhaust stubs lining the nose emit writhing flames from unburnt fuel. The sight reminds Mitchell of biblical illustrations from his childhood – the flaring nostrils of the steeds bearing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse breathed fire just like this.

  When the engine finds its rhythm the flames vanish. The air fills with the smell of spent aviation fuel. Rolls-Royce have experimented with improved fuel mixtures for this engine, and its fumes have an exotic edge. The mellifluous sound of the PV 12 – the world’s most powerful aero engine – has Mitchell’s blood racing as it warms up at idling speed.

  Summers can be seen scrutinising his instruments. After a couple of minutes he waves to signal ‘Chocks away!’ Seconds later the prototype is in motion under its own steam.

  Mitchell mutters something about fetching his binoculars as he leaves the group and heads for his car. As always on these occasions, he needs to be alone. Pain is clutching at his abdomen as well. It makes him tetchy, and he doesn’t want to have to maintain a social façade at this critical moment. As he walks he watches Summers taxiing in a zig zag pattern to the far end of the airfield. The plane’s upward-sloping nose is broad and long – that mighty engine has to sit somewhere! – and the pilot wouldn’t be able to see a damned thing straight ahead until he’s airborne.

  With one foot on the ground and the other on the running board, Mitchell steadies himself against his car, relieving some of the abdominal pain and training his binoculars on the prototype. It turns into the wind, which means it’ll be using the shorter of the available sides of the field. Will that afford it a run long enough to lift off? His anxiety threatens to choke him.

  That particular worry doesn’t last long. With a plush bellow the machine surges forward. It hurtles across the turf for an astonishingly short distance before lifting off and climbing steeply away from the field. It seems to defy gravity, the laws of physics. How can two tons of metal fling itself into the air like that? Mitchell has done the maths himself. Over and over again. But seeing it happen before his very eyes is something else altogether.

  The plane climbs away in a southerly direction, probably to perform its first manoeuvres over the Solent, away from inquisitive eyes. The aerodrome slumps back into a bewildered silence. Mitchell smiles to himself as he imagines Summers battling to curb his animal spirits in accordance with instructions, while out of sight and in control of that intoxicating machine.

  After a quarter of an hour he hears the first whisper of the returning engine in the distance. It grows rapidly louder. The little plane makes a low pass over the aerodrome, flaunting its beautiful lines, slicing through the air at a remarkable speed though its engine sounds as if it’s running on half throttle only. It has a distinctive deep throaty growl with a strange whistling overtone. Mitchell formulates a second general law of aeronautics on the spot: a consummate aeroplane must not only look good – it must also sound good.

  The plane executes a wide circuit round the aerodrome before gliding down to an elegant three-point landing. Mitchell trembles as the tension in his body dissipates. He tosses his binoculars onto the passenger seat of the car and hastens back to the hangar to rejoin his colleagues. He hears the zig-zagging prototype coming up behind him.

  When Summers shuts down the engine the onlookers crowd in around the left side of the plane to hear what he has to say. At first he sits stock still in his seat. Is he collecting himself after a powerful experience? Or is he making his last dutiful jottings for his flight record?

  He releases his harness and emerges from the cockpit clasping his kneeboard. For a moment he just stands on the wing root, steadying himself with his left hand on the windscreen and flashing a broad smile down at his audience.

  ‘You’re to be congratulated, gentlemen! Please don’t change any of the control settings until I’ve flown her again tomorrow.’

  When he jumps down Mitchell and Mansbridge take him and Quill aside. ‘Care to say a bit more, Mutt?’ Mansbridge asks.

  Summers can’t stop grinning, but makes an effort to be businesslike. ‘I’ve pencilled the relevant facts and figures on my board here. I’ll get the test-flight record typed up and delivered to you tomorrow morning. But in essence, RJ, you’ve bred a real bolter here. I’ve never tested a prototype with so m
uch potential. No doubt I’ll be suggesting refinements in coming days after repeated flights. That’s inevitable. But I don’t think I’ll be asking for any major changes.’

  ‘And the controls?’ Mitchell asks.

  ‘Like I said earlier – she’s a thoroughbred. The controls are light and sharp. Highly responsive. I’ve never flown anything like this before. Didn’t even know it was possible. As you know, a pilot usually has to wrestle high-powered planes like this around in the air to get a response. Bracing his feet against the cockpit wall or anything he can find. Not with this one. Not by a long shot. You’ve obviously thought long and hard about how to balance a machine like this. She’s as nimble as a gazelle. And just as sensitive.’

  ‘What about the low-speed flying?’

  ‘She gives plenty of warning when entering the stall pattern. So no problem with landing speed, or losing control in tight manoeuvres.’

  ‘Engine overheating?’

  ‘Not a sign of it. The new cooling system works like a charm.’

  ‘Bob McLean has informally promised the ministry she’ll crack 350 miles an hour in level flight when we’ve made any necessary changes. Are we in the hunt to achieve that, Mutt?’

  ‘That’s a very tall order for a military aircraft. We’re not talking about Schneider racers here! But all right – with a normal, coarse-pitch prop and a few minor adjustments…yes, why not? By the feel of her in the air there’s so little drag that not much can slow her down.’

  Design office, Supermarine. Monday 9 March 1936, 10 am. The phone on Mitchell’s desk rings.

  ‘I have Sir Robert on the line, RJ. Will I switch him through?’

  ‘Thank you, Vera.’

  After a couple of clicks Mitchell says, ‘Good morning, Bob. How are you?’

  ‘About to explode! On Saturday Hitler sent troops in to reoccupy the Rhineland, as you know. A gross violation of the Versailles Treaty! And a flagrant provocation directed squarely at this country and France in particular! The two countries that could easily call his bluff, kick his few motley regiments out again, and probably spike his bully-boy guns for good! Could’ve nipped this whole Nazi devilment in the bud! But what do the governments of our two great nations do? Absolutely bloody nothing! “Welcome to the Rhineland, Herr Hitler. Walk all over us as much as you want, dear Adolf!” ’