by Max Hennessy
It was a long speech, quite unexpected after her earlier taut comments, and it was a shrewd enough summing up to show that she knew what she was talking about. Ira began to regard her with considerably more respect.
‘Growing pains,’ he said. ‘That’s what it is. Flying has growing pains like everything else. It’ll improve.’
She was watching him carefully now also, drawing thoughtfully at the fresh cigarette. ‘When you arrived, Captain Penaluna,’ she said slowly but without animosity, ‘I’d have been quite happy to see you cut into strips and fed to the hogs. I was in Charleston last night, dancing, and I got myself a little plastered on home-made gin. Everybody gets blotto on home-made gin these days. I still feel a little this-side-up-handle-with-care.’
Ira grinned and she looked at him again with sudden interest. ‘Doesn’t the thought of such hostility worry you?’ she asked.
‘I’ve made a few mortal enemies in my time,’ Ira said.
She paused, then went on earnestly in a way that made her seem very young again. ‘My mother died when I was a kid,’ she said. ‘I brought myself up. Did Hal Woolff tell you?’
‘Some of it.’
‘I’m a walking lunatic asylum,’ she continued in the same crisp breathless way, as though she were still trying to impress him but was uncertain winch line was likely to be most effective. ‘A nut. I’m a psychological fireworks display.’
Ira grinned. ‘I’m used to explosives.’
‘I’m a malcontent. Didn’t Hal warn you?’
‘He did. It doesn’t matter. We need a few more of those in this world.’
The engine of the huge Pierce Arrow roared as they rolled sedately after Woolff’s Sunbeam and she jigged up and down under the vibration in the corner of the seat, the ends of her mouth lifting in a small cold smile. ‘It worries most people I meet,’ she said. ‘What were you doing before my father got hold of you?’
‘I was trying to be a businessman, I suppose.’
‘And were you succeeding?’
‘I’d just gone bust.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Ira shrugged. ‘It wasn’t as painful as I expected.’
She stared at him, and as he glanced at her he saw now that her gaze was direct and fearless. ‘Better call me Alix,’ she suggested briskly. ‘Most people do. Where’d you get this name of yours?’
‘It’s Cornish functional. “By Pol, Tre and Pen, ye shall know the Cornishmen.’’’
‘You married?’
Ira hesitated. He almost had been once. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Neither am I. I’m a spinster again. I spin like hell.’
He glanced at her quickly and her expression as she returned his look was as wary as his own. For a while they each waited for the other to speak, two young people each aware of being in the presence of someone rewarding to look at and potentially exciting to meet, but under the circumstances that had thrown them together, both unwilling to commit themselves to any great show of interest.
‘I think,’ she said after a while, ‘that this time my father’s hired a good one. He’s bought enough stumble-bums in his time.’
She drew her feet up under her on the seat and looked up at him under a wing of dark hair.
‘Aren’t you scared?’ she asked. ‘By what’s ahead, I mean.’
‘Not so much by the flight so much as by what it involves.’
‘What does it involve?’
‘Dealing with your father. Dealing with you.’
‘You think I’ll be difficult.’
‘All women are difficult!’
The smile that was more like a grin twisted her face again. ‘I’ll do my best to oblige,’ she said.
She continued to stare at Ira as he drove, as though he puzzled her. Once or twice she seemed on the point of saying something, then, as though aware that he was watching her from the corner of his eye, she gestured abruptly at the Sunbeam bumping and rolling on its springs just ahead of them, with Hal Woolff bolt upright at the wheel, the big white cap over one ear, as though it were in danger of sliding off his head altogether, Sammy bouncing up and down alongside him.
‘That Woolff,’ she said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘He’s as bald as a coot. But you’d never know because he never takes his cap off. I think he’s got a dirty word tattooed on his skull. Step on it and pass him. He’ll chase you. He can never resist the chance to show how well he can drive.’
* * *
The Courtney hangar was plank-built with a flattened peak roof with the word ‘Medway’ painted across it, and as they roared up to it, lurching and rolling over the uneven ground and shouting across to the grinning Woolff and Sammy, Ira was surprised to realise it had obviously seen better days. Swinging round on two wheels, throwing up the dust, he noticed even that several planks were displaced, and that the hutments alongside were shabbier than he’d expected. He felt a curious sense of depression, as though the high hopes of the job he’d come to do might possibly have been misplaced.
Alix Courtney seemed to be aware of his thoughts. ‘Flying’s in a mess over here,’ she said as she climbed from the car. ‘I mean – look at this. The town airfield. Gosh, the size of this country could show the whole world just what flying could do, but I guess automobiles have kind of got in the way. When you can drive like a maniac on the ground at sixty miles an hour, nobody’s going to risk his neck in the air at not much more than the same speed.’
There was an elderly De Havilland Nine standing outside the hangar and, as he climbed out of the car alongside it, Ira ran his hand affectionately over the fuselage, catching the strong familiar smell of petrol and dope.
‘We use her to fly to New York,’ Alix said, appearing at his side. ‘You can use her if you like. You’ll maybe need to get your hand in. She has the best attention.’ She jerked her head to the hangar door where Hal Woolff was now drawing to a stop. ‘Come on. Let’s go see the plane.’
The fuselage of Courtney’s plane stood on horses at the back of the hangar, welded steel tubing partially covered with fabric. Already alongside it there was a mock-up of the undercarriage complete with wheels and mudguards waiting to be fitted. It was a solid-looking aircraft, thick-bodied and with the wing-frames of spruce spars already in place.
Woolff jerked his head so that his cap, which had slipped even further over his ear during the wild drive across the field, looked about to fly off into space. ‘That’s her,’ he said.
Ira said nothing and walked down the starboard side of the half-built fuselage. There was something in the way the frames for the two engines hung below the wings that was unattractive and made the fuselage look top-heavy, and the design seemed somehow to indicate the machine would be slow on the controls.
As he appeared under the port wing, he found himself face to face with Alix Courtney.
‘Well?’ she said. Her tone was almost aggressive.
He said nothing and she hurried on nervously, as though feeling he needed convincing.
‘Pa decided on a biplane,’ she said. ‘Because of the two engines.’
‘One’d be enough,’ Sammy observed quietly. ‘If it was big enough.’
She heard him and turned. ‘Byrd used three when he flew over the Pole,’ she said. ‘He’s using the same kind of plane for the Atlantic. Davis is using three. He’s being backed by the American Legion. They’ve got plenty of fliers in their outfit and they went into it carefully.’
Ira still didn’t speak. He was standing back now, studying the lines of the fuselage. Courtney’s dimensions were sound but he remained curiously unconvinced. There was a strange sluggish look about the half-built machine.
Alix Courtney was still eyeing him anxiously. Behind her Woolff stood, watching as Sammy stared with hostile eyes at the undercarriage.
‘She’ll have a radio,’ she went on. ‘And a crew of three.’
‘Why not a crew of just two?’ Ira said.
‘You need a radio-man. You’ll have to have a radio.’<
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Ira shrugged. ‘I’d rather have petrol than a radio,’ he observed. ‘And more petrol instead of the man who’s going to operate it.’
She gazed at him for a moment unblinkingly, as though he had made his point. ‘Makes sense,’ she agreed. ‘If your navigation’s OK.’
Sammy looked at her pityingly. ‘If Ira uses navigation,’ he said, ‘it’ll be OK.’ He jerked a hand at the heavy mudguards on the wheels of the undercarriage. ‘Those shields’ll knock ten miles an hour off the speed,’ he observed. ‘Quite apart from the weight. Can’t we do without ’em? They won’t stop her flying.’
She stared at him. ‘Pa wanted to streamline,’ she said.
Sammy didn’t reply and she went on in the same hostile tone, though there was something in her manner that indicated she was unsure of what she was saying and had to be all the more forceful because of it.
‘You don’t like his design, do you?’ she demanded.
‘Some of it,’ Ira said.
‘You think your ideas might be better than ours?’
Ira shrugged. ‘Doesn’t follow,’ he admitted. ‘But I’ve been flying a long time.’
‘Pa’s hoping to sell her to the mail-carrying companies.’ She was talking quickly again in a sharp uncertain way. ‘She could carry mail or two or three passengers in addition to the crew.’ She paused, still hostile. ‘What would you do?’
Ira smiled. ‘I’d design for getting across the Atlantic, and nothing else,’ he said. ‘If we made it, he’d sell her to the mail companies all right – even if she flew backwards. I’d think in terms of a crew of two, do away with the radio and use the space and the weight for petrol. And to make things even easier, I’d do away with two engines and make sure I had one good one.’
She glanced at Woolff again – almost as though they were conspirators – and when she spoke once more her aggressive-defensive manner was less pronounced.
‘Pa’s worked hours on this thing,’ she said unhappily.
Ira smiled. ‘Let’s hope it’s better than I think,’ he said, ‘and he hasn’t wasted his time.’
Her chin lifted and her eyes flickered. ‘You think he has, don’t you?’ she demanded.
Ira stared back at her, sizing her up, wondering if she had the character to accept disappointment. He decided she had. ‘Fonck had three motors,’ he said. ‘And he didn’t even get off the ground. I’d hoped it was a single-engined machine.’
Her eyes narrowed and he went on firmly. ‘What’s wrong with one engine?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t have to have half a dozen engines just because you’re flying a long way. There’ve been plenty of long-distance flights on one engine and until we know more about multi-engined flight it’s as safe – perhaps safer. As far as I can see, three engines only mean more petrol and giant aeroplanes to lift it. In the end you’re no better off. One engine’d be cheaper and less complicated. The weight ratio wouldn’t be much different and the cruising radius could be larger.’
She stared at him, and he knew all her friendliness had gone, all the laughter they’d had in the wild drive across the airfield obliterated. Yet at the same time he still couldn’t throw off the feeling that the disagreement sprang more from a loyalty she felt she had to show towards her father than from any real conviction about multi-engined biplanes.
‘I guess you wouldn’t understand what it means,’ she said. ‘But my father spent months working out figures. So did I. I helped him. He spent every minute he could from making autos on the idea. He’s got it half-built. It’s designed for two engines. It’s OK.’
Woolff moved restlessly and Ira got the impression that he didn’t agree with her, either.
Her eyes flashed as they moved from Ira’s face to Sammy’s and back again. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I guess the wing could be rebuilt and the fuselage could be adapted to take a motor in the nose.’ Her brows came down and her chin lifted angrily. ‘But my father hasn’t time to rebuild the goddam wing! Or to adapt the fuselage! He wants to fly the Atlantic, not change everything he’s done!’
Ira drew a deep breath, not enjoying himself very much. ‘It’s three thousand six hundred-odd miles to Paris,’ he pointed out quietly. ‘With nowhere to put down if something goes wrong. It might be worthwhile forgetting whose design it is and how long it took, and spending a bit more time to make sure we’ve got the best there is.’
Chapter 5
Courtney’s arrival later the same day was heralded by the ringing of the office telephone and the appearance of Hal Woolff with a long face.
‘The Boss,’ he said gloomily to Ira. ‘I’m fetching him from the station. You’d sure as hell better get something straightened out before he arrives because he’ll be as friendly as a timber wolf when he hears what you’ve been sayin’.’
He drove off in the old Sunbeam, swinging in a tight circle in front of the hangar to bump on to the road and disappear in a cloud of dust towards Charleston. Alix Courtney was watching from the office door as he vanished, and Ira and Sammy saw her glance at them, then quickly turn away.
The discussion over the plans she’d finally unrolled for them in Woolff’s office had ended in an acrimonious argument that left Ira still feeling she was defending something she didn’t entirely believe in. Her protests had been too firm and her objections too long, as though the doubts in her mind had increased as he talked.
Sammy saw him frowning towards the hangar, and there was a hint of compassion in his voice as he spoke. ‘I reckon we gave her a bit of a jolt,’ he said uneasily.
Ira nodded. ‘We weren’t very co-operative,’ he agreed. ‘But somewhere, somehow, someone’s got to make sure this thing gets pulled out of the sphere of Mom’s apple pie and shoved into the region of technology.’ He managed a faint smile. ‘She wasn’t exactly co-operative herself, was she?’ he ended.
Sammy glanced over his shoulder. ‘The way she looks,’ he said warmly, ‘I’d forgive her anything. What happens now?’
Ira shrugged. ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen the plans. Do you think it’s any good?’
Sammy pulled a face. ‘Tell you better if I saw it flying,’ he said. ‘But I reckon it’ll waddle up into the air like a hippopotamus and hang in a turn like a truck with wings. We might never get her up to five thousand feet and that’s the least we’d want for safety. As for climbing above a storm’ – he shrugged – ‘I thought this Courtney knew about aeroplanes.’
Ira grinned suddenly. ‘It seems he’s better on motor cars,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he hasn’t the small-plane mentality. He always favoured big planes. He used to talk of building machines to bomb Germany.’ He paused, staring at the hangar where they could see the fuselage of Courtney’s machine through the open doors. ‘To fly the Atlantic,’ he ended, ‘all you want is a good engine screwed to the biggest petrol tank it can lift, and fitted with wings. And that’s all.’
* * *
They heard Woolff’s Sunbeam minutes before it swung on to the apron in front of the hangar, the deep-throated throbbing note from the wide exhaust echoing off the sides of the hangar almost before it was in sight down the long straight road from Charleston.
As it stopped, Courtney leapt from it and covered the distance to Ira in three huge strides.
‘Ira Penaluna!’ he roared in a deep booming voice that came oddly from a slight frame. ‘My God, you old son of a bitch, you haven’t changed a goddam bit! Me, I’m an old man!’
He began to pound Ira’s shoulder, talking at the top of his voice all the time. ‘Pills with every meal,’ he said. ‘Medicine before I go to bed. And no more flying because the pill-roller says I’m not well enough. It gets to be a hell of a life.’
He was a lightweight like Alix, but bursting with the same nervous energy. He had a commanding nose and greying red hair stood up wildly round his head as if it had received an electric shock. The dark business suit he wore was rumpled with too many papers stuffed anyhow into the pockets so that the material was pulled out of shape against t
he buttons. He had snatched off his hat as he had leapt from the car and sent it skimming over Woolff’s head in a wild gesture of delight and he was now pumping Ira’s hand with a noisy enthusiasm.
‘My God, those were the days, weren’t they?’ he was saying. ‘Remember Bar-le-Duc? Remember the day Nungesser came? They’re printing pulp magazines over here about us these days, did you know? And did you hear Tony Fokker was in New York now?’ He paused to draw breath and swung round. ‘Where’s Sam Shapiro?’
Sammy was pushed forward, had his hand pumped, and retired hastily to the background flexing his fingers.
‘You’ve broken about forty fingers,’ he complained loudly.
Courtney hooted with laughter and indicated another man climbing out of the car behind him. ‘Meet Lavery Boyle,’ he said. ‘He calls himself a lawyer and out of sympathy I let him work for me.’
Boyle was a stumpy, elderly man with a sun-brittled face like a walnut. He wore a rumpled suit, boots with shiny lace-holes and a straw boater with a sweat-stained band. He looked like a cynical gnome.
‘Lay off, Felton,’ he growled, his face devoid of humour. ‘I’m as good a lawyer as you are a businessman. And if you were a good businessman you wouldn’t have me for a lawyer.’
Courtney roared with laughter and swung round again to Ira. ‘Nobody was more pleased than I was when I heard you were coming to the States,’ he said in that vast iron voice that came so strangely from his small figure. ‘I’m darn privileged to sign you on.’ He slapped Ira’s shoulder once more and looked at Boyle. ‘This guy’s one of the greatest fliers that ever sat in an aeroplane, Lave,’ he said earnestly.