by Max Hennessy
Chapter 9
The cloud, wind and rain that continued to blanket the western fringes of the Atlantic left the hangar damp with a dampness that seemed to get into the bones. The gales brought on by the low-pressure area had finally cleared the coastline but they had left behind a fitful sunshine and layers of heavy low stratus that sprinkled the city with rain and took the light out of the day. Once they had checked and re-checked every nut and bolt, every screw, every wire and locking washer, every grease point, every cylinder and rocker arm, every valve spring, every instrument, there was no more they could do but put on an appearance of working whenever the press appeared, and the waiting for the weather to improve became intolerable.
Courtney had still not been to the hangar and the publicity antics that Loerner expected of them became a tedious bore. They had already shaken hands for the cameras with all kinds of celebrities, from the designer of the engine they were to use, to Byrd and Chamberlin and Acosta, and the legendary Tony Fokker, a pink-faced smiling Dutchman like an overgrown schoolboy with his dimpled chin. René Fonck, back in America again for another try with the brand-new Sikorsky, appeared outside the hangar, small, dumpy, overcoated and spatted, a very different man from the slender young killer Ira had met nine years before during the war. He was older than Ira and now approaching the stage in life when a man ceased to have the lean and hungry look of youth, and he obviously didn’t enjoy the reputation that his crash the previous autumn had hung around his name.
‘This is more dangerous than war,’ he said, jerking his hand at the gaping sightseers who’d turned up to stare. ‘I think they come to see us die.’
He was probably not far wrong, because death wasn’t far from anybody’s mind since Davis’s crash, and the newspapers seemed to hang on every test take-off and landing as though it were to be the last. Even the unknown contender in faraway San Diego came in for his share of morbid expectancy.
Captain Charles A. Lindbergh, former airmail pilot, narrowly escaped disaster when the plane he is grooming for a transatlantic flight almost collided with a Curtiss Hawk fighter from North Island…
‘Any comments, Captain?’ A pressman pounced on them as soon as they put their noses out of the hangar.
‘Well, he certainly got off the ground with his periscope,’ Ira grinned.
They allowed a few of the more responsible newspapermen into the aeroplane, Sammy explaining the workings of the big Wright Whirlwind while Ira described the instruments they were proposing to use, their fuel consumption, their cruising speed, and the difficulties they’d had in overcoming the problem of lifting their vast load of petrol.
‘What about measuring drift, Captain?’
‘Smoke bombs,’ Ira explained. ‘They ignite on contact with water.’
‘How about navigation lights?’
‘I don’t think we’ll need them over the Atlantic. There won’t be much traffic.’
‘Any special visual aids?’
‘Only Mark I eyeballs.’
‘You’d better get going soon, Captain,’ one of the newsmen said, ‘or you’ll be too late. This guy in San Diego sounds pretty hot stuff and Nungesser’s repaired the damage he got from that hangar fire he had. There’s a story around that he’s on his way any hour.’
They were still clambering in and out of the machine when Courtney arrived at last with Boyle. He looked ten years older, and surprisingly grey-faced. He walked round the aeroplane and sat in the cockpit for the pressmen to take photographs, all the time with a forced smile on his lips and a cigar clamped between his teeth. When the pressmen had gone, he motioned with his head to the office and it was only then that Ira noticed that with him there was a stout middle-aged man in rimless pince-nez who clutched a briefcase to his chest.
Courtney pulled out a chair and sat down with a slow heavy movement, staring sombrely at Ira for a long moment.
‘This is Joe Hughesden, Ira,’ he said at last. ‘Hughesden Instruments. He wants to talk to you about that pump.’
Ira’s brows came down over his eyes. ‘Has the pump design been altered, Felton?’ he asked.
‘No need.’ The man with the pince-nez gestured. ‘Hughesden pumps are the finest in the world.’
‘My information’s different,’ Ira pointed out. ‘I think you can save your breath, Mr Hughesden.’
Hughesden held up one finger. ‘Listen to me, young man…’ he began in an arid professional voice.
Ira interrupted him sharply. ‘Mr Hughesden, can you fly an aeroplane?’
Hughesden looked startled. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Then I’m not interested.’
Hughesden frowned. ‘Young man, this is business, not flying. My lawyer will be coming to talk to you.’
‘He can save his breath, too, Mr Hughesden. I’m not in the habit of using an interpreter when I’m talking English.’
Hughesden turned to Courtney. ‘Felton, see here…’
Courtney made a weary gesture with his hand. ‘Hell, Joe, you can see what Ira thinks!’
‘He hasn’t even listened to me!’
‘Mr Hughesden,’ Ira said. ‘We had a Hughesden pump on the Dixie when we left Medway. By the grace of God, we got to San Antonio instead of coming down in the middle of the desert somewhere. I don’t take chances like that twice. The Wright engineers advise me to use a Viking. I’m using a Viking.’
Hughesden stared at him, scowling. ‘You may eat your words before long, young man,’ he said, then he turned, scowled at Courtney and vanished from the hangar.
Ira stared after him, aware of Courtney alongside him searching for words of explanation.
‘Ira…’ he managed, then he stopped, slammed on his hat and set off after Hughesden. He looked defeated. Boyle gave Ira a sharp questioning look then he, too, reached for his hat and followed.
Sammy grinned. ‘Well that sent him off with a fine old flea in his ear,’ he commented.
Ira shrugged. ‘I’m not so sure, Sammy,’ he said. ‘He didn’t strike me as the sort of man to have people talking to him like I did.’ He frowned. ‘What did he mean by that bit about my “eating my words”? And what the hell is Courtney up to?’
‘You think he is up to something?’
‘I’m damn sure he is! He wouldn’t have produced Hughesden otherwise. It might pay us to get Alix to make a few enquiries.’
As it happened, it proved unnecessary. The following morning, they were busy by the plane, checking their lists and going over their final arrangements for departure, when Alix Courtney’s hired car arrived, swinging round the hangar and coming to a stop with a screech of brakes and a scattering of gravel. Her brows were down and her mouth was tight. Woolff carefully put down the spanner he’d been using and turned to meet her as she climbed from the driving seat, but she ignored his greeting, slamming the car door behind her angrily and heading straight past him, as though he didn’t exist.
Stopping in front of Ira, she lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and jerked a hand at the Courtney. ‘Put that third seat back in her,’ she snapped. ‘I’m flying with you.’
* * *
For a long time, they stood staring at each other, then Hal Woolff came up behind her and touched her arm.
‘Alix, for God’s sake…!’
She wrenched her arm away from him, her face pale with fury, her eyes like a black explosion.
‘I said, put that third seat back, Hal,’ she insisted, her voice full of shrill metallic urgency. ‘I’m flying to Europe with her.’
For a moment, Ira studied her face without saying a word, then he jerked his head at Woolff. ‘Close the doors, Hal,’ he said quietly. ‘There’ll be no press visits today. We aren’t on view.’
Woolff stared at him for a second, then at Alix Courtney. Sammy touched his arm.
‘OK, Ira,’ he said as they turned away.
Without another word, Ira took hold of Alix’s arm and began to lead her towards the office, aware of the warmth of her flesh between his fingers,
and the surprising fragility of her. She glanced up at him, her black eyes raging, and tried to snatch her arm away, but he refused to release her and she found herself almost running alongside him.
‘Where’s your knout?’ she said, her words bitten off short by fury.
Ira ignored her, and pushing open the office door, almost threw her into the chair. Then, seeing the agony in her eyes, he relented enough to offer his cigarette packet and jerk his lighter out. Angry, she looked younger than ever and with an incandescent loveliness that made his heart thump suddenly in his chest. For a while, as she dragged at the smoke, furious and wretched, he said nothing, waiting until the hangar doors rumbled together.
‘Now,’ he said, turning to face her. ‘What the hell’s all this about?’
For a long time she didn’t answer, dragging at her cigarette as though her life depended on it, then the words tumbled out in an angry torrent. ‘I’m going with you,’ she said. ‘I’ve made up my mind and I’m going, and nobody, not even you, is going to stop me.’
Ira rounded on her, angrily. ‘I’ve already told you once why you can’t!’ he snapped.
Standing by the Courtney in the hangar, Sammy and Woolff watched the scene through the windows of the office, Sammy’s face blank and unemotional as he saw Alix screw her cigarette to fragments in the ashtray and stand up, her face close to Ira’s, her cheeks pale, her eyes blazing. Then, suddenly, she turned away and threw herself into the chair again, the fury fading from her face. He could see the glisten of tears on her eyelashes.
‘Ira,’ she was saying. ‘He’s sold out to Hughesdens!’
It was a moment or two before what she was trying to tell him penetrated Ira’s anger.
‘Sold out to Hughesdens?’ he said. ‘What the hell do you mean, sold out to Hughesdens?’
‘That’s what it was all about!’ She turned away to fish another cigarette from a packet in her pocket. ‘That’s what all the mystery was about over those instruments,’ she choked. ‘He’s sold out. I’m not staying here a day longer than I need. I’m coming as a passenger.’
Ira looked up. ‘Not if I say you’re not!’ he pointed out.
‘A lot of my dough’s in that plane’ – she sat up furiously, her anger returning – ‘and it tells me that you can’t say I can’t.’
Ira held on to his temper. ‘Alix, listen,’ he said. ‘We’ve spent two months working on that machine, working out load charts, testing every scrap of equipment so she’ll take off with a loaded weight of two and a half tons.’
‘I only weigh a hundred and twelve pounds. It won’t make any difference.’
‘It might make all the difference in the world!’
‘You’ve got a safety margin!’
Ira gestured, slicing the air with the flat of his hand. ‘I didn’t plan to take you with me,’ he said. ‘And I don’t intend to. And, for God’s sake, who’s is the bloody plane now? – ours or Hughesdens’?’
The question seemed to halt her fury. ‘It’s still ours,’ she said in a shaky voice.
Ira stared at her, puzzled. ‘Then what the hell difference does it make?’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t he sell out? Perhaps he wants to take it easy. You’re always telling him to.’
She spoke slowly and carefully, as though he were too stupid to catch the import of her remarks. ‘He’s sold out his auto business,’ she said. ‘Everything he possessed in Boston. Not because he wants to take it easy. Not to please me. Because the old fool got himself in a mess.’ She almost choked. ‘He sold my stock, too. I hadn’t much but it was enough. I hadn’t got it tied up tight enough, though, and Joe Hughesden grabbed that, too. Pa’s been overplaying his hand for years – ever since 1924. He brought out a new brake system and he thought he was going to make a killing. But the other companies said it was dangerous.’
‘Was it?’
‘No, it wasn’t. But what they said stopped him selling. He ought to have got out then. I asked him to. But, instead, he put up prices to meet costs until he was selling his sedans for nearly three thousand dollars. It was too much, Ira. Nobody wanted them and he must have started borrowing. I guess he went on borrowing until nobody would lend him any more. He even tried in Medway. Medway, for heaven’s sake! A piddling little place like that. And they turned him down, too!’
Ira had suddenly become cold and quiet. ‘When did you find this out?’ he said.
‘Lave Boyle just told me,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘He’s been trying to put it off ever since he found out last night.’
Ira frowned. ‘That’s what he must have meant when he said Hughesdens might insist. Alix, where’s your father now?’
‘He’s in Boston with Joe Hughesden. He’s trying to raise money to save the property in Medway. He ought never to have built the Dixie, Lave said.’
‘What about the aeroplane, Alix?’
She looked up at him and gulped back a sob. ‘He didn’t sell the aeroplane,’ she said. ‘I told you he didn’t.’
Ira gestured angrily. ‘I know that,’ he said, ‘but, for God’s sake, when a man goes down, all his creditors start chasing him. The bills all come in at once. I know about it. It happened to me. I didn’t have a thing left when they’d finished. If they don’t get paid they might try to grab the Dixie. How much of it’s still his?’
Her face had fallen and she had grown pale. ‘Not much, I guess, now.’
Ira leaned over the desk, resting his weight on his hands. ‘Alix,’ he said, ‘he’s got to turn it over to you. And Lave Boyle’s got to make sure any agreements you make are tied up so tight they can’t be undone. You’ve been financing this plane for a long time, haven’t you?’ She lifted her head, her eyes moist.
‘You raised that two and a half he first offered when we decided to rebuild. You sold the Pierce Arrow, didn’t you?’ She nodded miserably, all the fire gone from her.
‘When he offered you that bigger share, did you take him up?’
‘Yes. I sold the bungalow at Medway.’
‘Could you raise the rest of the money to buy him out?’
She looked desperate. ‘Ira, there’s nothing left. I even sold some jewellery. It came to more than I could raise in cash.’
‘What about his debts?’
She made a quick movement of her head. ‘He’s up to his ears. You’re right about the bills. If they come in too fast I might not be able to meet them. We’ve got all the expenses of this hangar and the mechanics’ wages.’
Ira straightened up. ‘I’ll help,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a little. So’s Sammy. So’s Hal. We can do without salaries. But, Alix, you’ve got to get hold of Boyle, and you’ve got to move fast. We’ve got to stop anyone else getting their hands on the Dixie.’
She looked at him with an agonised appeal in her eyes. ‘I’d rather go with you, Ira,’ she said. ‘I’m serious. I’ve never asked favours of anybody where flying’s concerned. I can do my share. I’m not afraid. I wasn’t just a fare-paying passenger on the trip to San Antonio and up here.’
He took both her hands in his. ‘No, Alix, you weren’t,’ he agreed earnestly. ‘But we weren’t fully loaded then either. When we take off from here it’ll be slopping out of the vents. And you’re going to have plenty to do in the next few days, anyway. You’ve got to find your father and Boyle and get them to turn the Dixie over to you completely because, by God, if he doesn’t and we make it across the Atlantic, it won’t be you who’ll get whatever comes of it, it’ll be Hughesdens or somebody else.’
She seemed to pull herself together with a jerk and managed a stiff smile. ‘OK, Ira,’ she said. ‘I’ll do that. Then I guess I’ll get a boat to Europe and meet you when you arrive.’ She had recovered her self-possession at last and as she wrenched open the door she jerked her head with a sharp familiar motion to remove a lock of black hair from her eyes. It was the same movement that a half-tamed cornered mare would give as it prepared to bolt.
‘Why in God’s name didn’t he tell us?’ she said bitterly
. ‘Why didn’t he give us a chance to organise something? As sure as God made little green apples with worms in them, I’ll never forgive him for the way he handled this.’
The door slammed so hard behind her one of the panes fell to the concrete hangar floor with a tinkle of glass.
As she passed the Courtney, she paused for a moment, staring up at it, then her shoulders squared and she vanished from sight. They heard the roar of the hired car’s engine starting up, then Ira jumped for the door and yelled across the hangar: ‘Sammy!’
Chapter 10
…Felton K. Courtney, owner and part-designer of Dixie, transatlantic mount of Captain Ira A. Penaluna, has announced that he has unloaded all his interest in the Courtney Automobile Works at Boston, Massachusetts. With them, it is expected that the Courtney Aeronautical factory at Medway, South Carolina, goes, too.
Mr Courtney’s daughter has stated that the Courtney transatlantic machine has been acquired by herself, Captain Penaluna, Harold Woolff, co-designer, and Sam Shapiro, co-pilot, but despite Miss Courtney’s statement it now seems inevitable that its chances are very slender and that a take-off is most unlikely. Miss Courtney’s name has recently been romantically linked to Captain Penaluna’s…
Sammy lay in bed, staring critically at the comment, then he threw the newspaper across to Ira. ‘How’s it feel to be in business again?’ he asked. ‘I’m looking forward to making my first million.’ He grinned. ‘Lave Boyle certainly got a move on.’
Ira was staring at the newspaper himself. His face gazed out at him with Courtney’s and Alix’s from among the glaring headlines on speakeasy raids, exposed love-nests and the doings of film stars, and as Sammy spoke he looked up. ‘They don’t give us much of a chance,’ he said. ‘They’ve written us off already.’ His eyes brooded on the newspaper for a while then he crushed it into a ball.
‘…romantically linked to Captain Penaluna’s,’ he snorted. ‘They don’t leave it alone, do they? I expect it was that creepy bastard Loerner.’