Harry Takes Off: Astounding Stories of Adventure (Iron Pegasus Book 1)

by Steve Turnbull

  Harry Takes Off

  (Iron Pegasus #1)

  Steve Turnbull

  Harry Takes Off

  By Steve Turnbull

  Copyright © 2015 Steve Turnbull. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-910342-18-3

  This novella is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without permission of the publisher.

  Published by Tau Press Ltd.

  Cover art by Steven Novak (novakillustration.com)

  Original "Harry & the Pegasus" art by Darrel Bevan.

  Edited by Karen Conlin (grammargeddon.com)

  Ebook Layout by Dave Higgins (Davetopia)

  To the late Capt W.E. Johns for creating the "Biggles" and "Worrals" characters.

  i

  Harriet and Khuwelsa had crossed the Usambara Mountains, heading south, only half an hour before. The massive bulk of Kilima-Njaro slowly dropped behind to the northeast, though in this part of Africa the Old Man was never out of sight. At night, with the moonlight shining on the snowy cap of the old volcano, one could believe spirits walked its slopes.

  The sun glared down as usual. It was coming on to midday, a couple of hours since the Pegasus had lifted from the private air-dock outside her father’s home. It was as hot as hell in the single cabin with the sun beating through the glass and the steam furnace going full blast. Harry reached up and unlatched the five catches holding the canopy closed, and the blast of air ripped it open. Squinting against the bright sunlight, she pulled her goggles down over her eyes to protect them from the wind.

  “If you keep doing that, one day it’ll rip right off.” A young woman’s voice carried from the rear over the noise of the thumping pistons, the roar of the furnace and the whistling of the air.

  Harry glanced back and grinned at her engineer. Khuwelsa was leaning on her shovel taking a rest, in her usual state of undress, and swaying in time to the regular beats of the Pegasus’s wings. Her heavy European dress and jacket had been stowed safely in the locker to keep them clean. She wore the minimum to maintain decency—loose cotton top and bloomers billowing in the wind—contrasted by her heavy boots, thick apron, gauntlets and goggles. Harry would have stripped down too, but she wouldn’t have time to dress when they landed and there’d be hell to pay if she was seen like that.

  They were the same age as far as they knew; Khuwelsa had been rescued from a slave caravan in Mombasa when Harry was six. Harry’s father had taken in the black girl as a companion for his otherwise friendless daughter. And later, when no one had come to claim her, he had taken the radical step of making her his daughter.

  “If you could come up with a ventilation system, I wouldn’t have to open it,” she called back.

  Harry felt the wind turning the plane eastward. She adjusted the attitude of the wings and opened the lift power valve for two wing strokes. The Pegasus surged twice and brought them back on course.

  Daddy had given in and bought her the Pegasus two years before. If he thought it was just a mere childish fancy—that it would be too difficult to fly and she’d lose interest before she got into the air—he was disappointed. In fact Harry supposed he’d chosen an ornithopter simply because they were notoriously hard to manage. But she’d confounded him; she loved to fly, and this mechanical bird was everything she’d dreamed of.

  Ahead, the bright strip of the river sliced its way through the landscape. At the end of its line to the west she saw the slightly darker patch of the town amid the greens and browns of the savannah. The ‘thopter was high enough that it didn’t disturb the great herds of wildebeest, gazelles, giraffes and elephants that wandered the plains.

  From up here she couldn’t see the predators, but she knew they were there. Mrs Hemingway was always warning them about the dangers of the big cats, the snakes and the scorpions. The tutor seemed unaware a bull elephant was far more dangerous than a lion or even a pack of hyenas. There was little that could stop a charging elephant.

  Harry peered forward and frowned. The air above the town looked curiously smoky.

  She turned back to the cabin, stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled three times sharply. There was so much noise that she and Khuwelsa had come up with a system of whistles and signs rather than shouting all the time.

  Three abrupt notes from Harry meant their destination was in sight and they were on their approach. To Khuwelsa it also meant she could stop stoking and see about getting her proper clothes back on. Of course, being a black girl she wouldn’t rate a second glance from most whites anyway.

  Harry took a hand from the helm wheel and tucked her hair back under her heavy cotton headscarf. It didn’t matter how tight she made it; strands of thick red hair would always escape and flick her in the eyes—or would have, if not for the goggles. She had considered cutting it off but Khuwelsa had made such a fuss, she dropped the idea.

  She stared down at the approaching town, frowning. There was a lot of dust getting kicked up along the main road and many columns of smoke from fires. Didn’t they know how dangerous that was? Then she thought better of it. The Germans were always properly organised; they didn’t want a fire raging across the savannah either.

  A shadow passed across the sun. Shielding her eyes, she looked up. A huge black form like a squat sausage hung there: a Zeppelin.

  German army must be on the move, she thought. I hope Johannes has got time to chat.

  A buzzing like a big and angry hornet, loud enough to be heard over the huffing and panting of the Pegasus, filled the air. An airplane shot across her bow from port to starboard at almost twice her speed and then swung round in a wide arc. The black design of the Iron Cross on its fuselage was plainly visible as it flew past in the other direction.

  ii

  The German airplane came alongside on the right and matched airspeed. Harry glanced across at the pilot. He pointed at the encampment and then down.

  She frowned in irritation. An unladylike word that challenged the pilot’s parentage fell from her lips. Then she smiled sweetly and gave him a thumbs-up to show she had understood.

  The German accelerated effortlessly ahead of her. His vessel had a pusher propeller like the Pegasus but it was a fixed-wing design, fast but not manoeuvrable. The wide body looked like it housed a big power plant. Smoke poured from its funnel. He probably had a crew of three or four. The starboard wing dipped and the plane banked towards one end of the temporary military camp, furthest from the town.

  Harry cursed again. There was no way she was going to land on some makeshift air-dock in the middle of the German army.

  He may have a powerful machine, but he didn’t have the Pegasus.

  She reached back, grabbed the top of the canopy and pulled it down. It latched into place. She gave five quick whistles—hang on tight—and opened the throttle, hoping they still had plenty of steam pressure. The Pegasus leapt ahead. She pushed the controls forward hard, and the articulated wings folded back to reduce wind resistance but remained open enough to maintain control. Pegasus went into a fast dive. They picked up speed and Harry banked smoothly, heading straight for the town.

  She was below the German and so, with a bit of luck, the pilot wouldn’t notice she was missing until it was too late to catch her. />
  “Can you see him?” shouted Harry, glancing back to where Khuwelsa was wriggling into her dress. Neither of them had a figure that needed a corset and wearing one in the middle of the day was something only a crazy woman would do.

  “I am tied up at the moment.”

  Harry took a moment to glance out the starboard side and up. The German airplane was nowhere in sight, which was not good news. She hoped he was not trigger-happy. Not only was the Pegasus unarmed, but her hull, wings and mechanics were as light as possible because a ’thopter could not afford any unnecessary weight.

  A white magnesium trail shot past the starboard wing. She’d never seen a tracer bullet before but she knew what one should look like. Damn and blast it. The town was still at least five minutes away. Plenty of time for the pilot to decide that her behaviour was contrary to the good of the German Empire and knock her out of the sky.

  Why not just accept the inevitable? It was not as if she was on some life or death mission. What difference would it make? The German dispute was with the local rebels, not the British, at least not yet. It really wasn’t important enough to get killed over.

  But somehow all the sane and sensible reasoning in the world was not enough to make her kow-tow to the arrogance of the Kaiser’s war machine.

  Five quick blasts. Again.

  “Harry!”

  Harry reached forward and for one fraction of a second her hand hesitated over the Faraday switch. That was the one thing never switched off when in flight, the one that prevented the gravity of the earth’s mass from exerting most of its influence. The Faraday device was the one and only thing that allowed the Pegasus to fly.

  She disengaged it.

  The Pegasus fell.

  Khuwelsa squealed.

  Harry wrestled with the controls, trying to keep her bird flying straight. The Pegasus accelerated towards the ground, her wings still pulled in tight. They began to roll and Harry adjusted the control flights, but the response was sluggish. She managed to stabilise them.

  “Are you crazy?” shouted Khuwelsa.

  Harry craned her neck and could make out the German airplane a long way up and behind them, though, as she watched, its nose dipped in a dive after her.

  “Harry! The ground!”

  She snapped her attention forwards. The savannah was uncomfortably close. A small herd of giraffes had taken fright at the roaring bird dropping out of the sky like some enormous avian predator. She slapped the Faraday switch; the power flowed through the grid and lightness returned. She threw open the wings and the air screamed between the vanes, threatening to tear them from their sockets.

  The Pegasus swooped low across the grassland. Animals froze in terror as the metal bird flashed over their heads.

  The town was coming up fast. Harry fought to bring the nose up and arch the wings to slow them down. She gave two strong down-strokes that lifted them over tall and wide storage buildings on the outskirts.

  “Steam’s out, Harry,” shouted Khuwelsa. They didn’t have a code for that. It wasn’t supposed to happen.

  She wouldn’t be able to make it to the military compound. The town square was the only space within dropping distance. The sound from the drive engine faded; Khuwelsa must have disengaged it. That would save what little steam remained for the wings. One quick beat had them hopping another building and careening over the square. The open space in the centre of the town should have been empty, but instead it was packed with German military vehicles, horse-drawn carriages and steam-trucks.

  She spotted a space which only contained a couple of market stalls near the statue of Bismarck.

  With the remaining steam she back-winged to kill their speed and prayed the stallholders would move. She tried for another back-wing but the steam reserves were all gone. The ship was little more than a lump of metal.

  The Pegasus slipped out of the sky and, with a thud, sat on her rear end. Then slowly the nose fell forward and crashed to the ground.

  “Undercarriage!” Harry shouted belatedly.

  “Done,” said Khuwelsa.

  Harry climbed out of her chair. Her hands were shaking. She reached back and killed the Faraday. No point draining the battery. The ship groaned and sagged. From outside there was a cracking and breaking sound followed by harsh words in Kiswahili.

  “What were you doing, Harry?”

  Harry took a deep breath. “Maintaining the dignity of Her Majesty’s Empire?”

  “I should give you a slap,” said Khuwelsa, and then she grinned.

  Harry laughed. “Remind me not to do that again.”

  There was a banging on the door and commanding German consonants.

  “Oh well, best go face the music.”

  iii

  A violent metallic knocking resonated through the cabin as someone banged on the hatch. Harry hastily tightened the drawstrings at the back of Khuwelsa’s dress and tied them off in an untidy bow. She brushed down the front of her skirts as Khuwelsa drew the bolts on the door and pulled it inwards.

  Harry kicked the steps so they unfolded and dropped to the ground. Bright sunshine flooded in illuminating Harry’s slim figure in her cream and red dress. The bobbing silhouettes of soldiers brandishing guns moved towards the entrance. One of them grabbed hold of the hatch to pull himself up and in.

  “Don’t you dare,” shouted Harry and she took a step forward to block the entrance, then realised she still had her goggles on. She pulled them up onto her headscarf and was temporarily dazzled by the reflections off vehicles and guns. “This is my ship, and you do not enter without my permission.”

  The fact she was female, and young, seemed to stall him. She knew her hair always made a good impression—especially when there was a light breeze to move it around, though that wasn’t the case here.

  She heard one of the soldiers make a comment in German, something about his little sister crashing a Zeppelin.

  “Your little sister would have better manners than a slug like you.” She spoke in passable German. It wasn’t a good comeback but it had the other soldiers laughing at him instead. “Now, if you don’t mind. I am visiting my friend, Feldwebel-Leutnant Johannes Schönfeldt.”

  She descended the steps purposefully and the soldiers at the front made space for her. A murmur went through the gathered group as Khuwelsa appeared. Harry didn’t pay a great deal of attention to politics, but the fact that the Germans had been in a state of war with the Wahehe tribes for years meant that many soldiers did not like the blacks.

  As far as they knew, Khuwelsa could be one of the Wahehe. But she was dressed in European clothes, which fitted perfectly since they were her own and not cast-offs. And she spoke German as well as Harry—she’d had exactly the same education—so she knew what they were saying. The only word that came across clearly was Schwarze.

  As Khuwelsa descended the steps behind Harry, there was a motion in the crowd as someone made their way through it. It was blond Johannes in full uniform. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him dressed up like this except at one of the dances. Whatever was going on had to be serious.

  “Miss Edgbaston.” He clicked his heels and saluted. She raised an eyebrow.

  She nodded her head in return. “Lieutenant Schönfeldt.” They were being so formal that the presence of her goggles on her head now felt awkward, but trying to remove them would probably dislodge her scarf.

  “Accompany me, please?”

  “I’m afraid I broke some things landing.”

  “We will deal with the damages. You could not to know the square would be occupied.” He gave a curt bow, and gestured in the direction of the permanent military buildings. A path opened for them through the troops and he led them away under the oppressive gaze of a hundred soldiers.

  They crossed the square between the massive Faraday-based mobile fortresses that the Germans favoured. They were huge machines on wide wheels, sporting half a dozen artillery turrets each. With just a few of these and a hundred infantry they could take ov
er an entire city in no time at all. Especially with support from their Zeppelins and attack aircraft.

  But there were no cities here, so what were the Germans doing? Their vehicles were of no value in their struggle with the natives who attacked by surprise and disappeared into the savannah when they were done.

  Johannes’s rank granted them passage through security gates and checks that had not existed on her last visit. The main building of the military outpost was modern and utilitarian. It had been constructed by the Germans to station their local military forces and did not feature the ornateness that typified British-built administration buildings.

  Harry had expected to be shown upstairs, but Johannes led them down into the cellars where she’d never been. They reached a small room with a small but clear sign giving Johannes’s name and rank.

  “What’s this?” She gestured round the small room. “What happened to your office, Johannes?”

  He crossed to the other side of the desk and stood behind it, facing them. His self-control seemed to break. “My God, Harriet, why are you here? Why now?”

  “What’s going on? What is all this?”

  “I can’t tell you that, but you have to leave as soon as you can get up steam, before my seniors know you are here.” He paused, then continued in a slightly uncertain tone. “It is good you did not try to land in the compound as usual; they would have shot the Pegasus out of the sky.”

  He paused. She could see the pieces clicking together in his head. She glanced at Khuwelsa, whose jaw was set and lips were firmly closed. . The look on his face as she returned her attention to him told her had completed the mental jigsaw as far as he could.

  “Harriet, why did you land in the square?”

  She looked at him, not sure how she should frame the answer for the best result.

  “What have you done, Harriet?”

  Khuwelsa piped up in the middle of Harry’s silence. “She got the better of one of your Todesflug.”