by Tom Miller
Murchison realized he was looking at the wrong one of us and switched his gaze to Dardanelles. He tried to contort his face into a sympathetic shape.
“Lucky,” Murchison agreed. “Or perhaps unlucky, given what lies ahead. The Great War will end, by one means or another. Then the real war will begin. That’s the struggle that you’re meant for.”
Murchison stood and reached across the desk to pat Danielle awkwardly on the shoulder. She shrank back at his touch. He didn’t seem to mind.
“Now,” he said. “Because you could not save your comrades last winter, you’ve come today to assist your classmates.”
Danielle opened her mouth to object, but the dean waved for silence. “Do you believe yourself qualified to judge Miss Rodgers’s expertise based on direct observation?”
“What?” said Dardanelles. “No, I’ve never met her.”
“Do you believe Mr. Weekes to be a qualified judge?”
She looked at me derisively. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Murchison began reassembling his fountain pen. “Mr. Weekes, your assessment of Miss Rodgers?”
“Rachael Rodgers is neither expert nor even proficient,” I said. “If she’s allowed to continue as an instructor, she will injure or kill herself or a student.”
“Thank you,” Murchison said. He screwed the nib of the pen back on. “You will not be permitted to take Introduction to Hovering. Please sign to withdraw.” He slid a form across his desk and passed me his pen.
I was stunned. He’d asked for an honest opinion. I’d given one. Now he was punishing me?
“Sir, I came here to fly,” I managed. “I’ve flown near every day for the last ten years.”
“Naturally,” he said. “The introductory course is insufficiently challenging. You will learn more by devoting that time to instructing. More relevant to Rescue and Evacuation as well. Please sign.”
It was too much to absorb. Why now? Why not on the first day when he was supposed to act as my advisor? But I signed all the same.
“A second matter,” he said, watching the drying ink with hungry eyes. “If the Cocks offer you membership, it would be prudent to decline.”
“If what happens?” I asked.
Murchison ignored me. “However, it would be educational to accept. Now for both of you: the situation regarding Miss Rodgers has been resolved. It would be most appreciated if you waited one full day before taking further action.”
“Okay,” said Danielle. I echoed my agreement.
We waited for an indication that our audience had come to an end, but instead Murchison began removing the screws from the drawer handles on his desk with his thumbnail. Dardanelles and I backed out of the room then left Addams’s office at as close to a run as we could decently manage.
“Jesus Christ!” Dardanelles burst out when we reached the hall.
“Not exactly Santa Claus, is he?” I said.
She shuddered. “Shut up. Just shut up!”
We walked down the stairs together and out into the bright September sunshine. The day was warm; the air smelled of cut grass. Across the quad groups of women called out to one another and laughed. In the distance a church bell pealed.
Dardanelles thrust her hands into the pockets of her cardigan and assumed the look of sour indifference she wore for public occasions. “He’s right about the Cocks, you know,” she said.
“He’s right about what?” I asked.
But she was already marching down the sidewalk away from me, the soles of her heavy shoes thudding on the pavement.
12
Take the student to altitude and make her turn somersaults. Stop her at intervals to ask which way is up. If she cannot point it out immediately and without fail, she is not yet ready for unsupervised flight.
Mary Grinning Fox, “Instructions for Instructors,” 1872
THE FOLLOWING WEEK I found a plain black postcard pinned to the door of my apartment. On the reverse was a stylized rooster, printed in red and yellow. In gilt lettering was written: THE COCK CAN FLY, BUT CAN HE FIGHT?
“That’s strange,” I muttered. I decided I’d have to ask Freddy about it when I got the chance.
The next day another card, same as the first: THE COCK PERSISTS, BUT WILL HE ENDURE? I stuck it in my pocket and went down to the dining hall for lunch.
On the day following, a third card: TONIGHT THE COCK MUST CROW AT MIDNIGHT OR GO SILENT FOR ALL TIME.
If I was less inquisitive about the cards than I should have been, then surely the lack of hours in the day was to blame. I was teaching more than full-time at the aerodrome, laboring with the other Threes to prevent our five hundred trainees from performing accidental face-first landings now that Rachael Rodgers had been grounded.
Not that Addams and Brock were calling it that. No, Rachael had been promoted to Senior Flight Instructor for Education, responsible for creating curriculums and doing ground instruction. Every day Rachael sat in the aerodrome’s classroom teaching sigil form and flight posture to groups of Zeds, theory of maneuver to the Ones, rigging strategies to the Twos, and advanced continuing education for the Threes (not that she ever deigned to put on a class for us—and not that any of us would have attended).
So, the Threes took up the slack teaching in the air, but Rachael seemed determined to make our lives as difficult as possible. Mine especially.
She’d assigned me two hundred Zeds—nearly twice as many as the rest of the instructors put together—and a good measure of the Ones besides. Not a single class of Twos. Always the classes at six in the morning and six in the evening, which required me to perform the opening and closing regulator inventories. No locker in the locker room (“Could you imagine the uproar?” Rachael had asked when I suggested it. “You wouldn’t want a man barging in on your sister in a state of undress, would you?”), which meant I had to carry my personal tackle to and fro every day.
The teaching, though, I didn’t mind. On a good day, I might coax two or three Zeds off the ground for their very first flights. By contrast, my classes with the Ones were wild mob scenes, with a dozen fliers cutting one another off, swooping and whooping, and learning how to bank and turn in the process.
On the same day that I received the third rooster card, however, a contingent of Twos asked me to lead an extra session in night landing, which really was excessive. It was also unwise: I didn’t know the girls asking, didn’t know their strong points of flying, or who was most likely to punch a hole in the ground. And of the Threes, I was the weakest night lander and the worst lander in general.
“Francine is too screamy, Jake is too sarcastic, and Essie is too nervous,” the girls complained.
“And Astrid? Tillie?” I suggested.
Astrid would have been a superb choice, but she was just as overworked as me and had had the good sense to say no. Her nights, especially, she held sacred. She and her beau, Liam, as good as lived together. And Tillie, well, she was in love, too, with Florence, a sophomore from Long Island. They were both lean, long-limbed, raven-haired raconteurs, perfectly suited for each other—the Indian and the Italian. It was the first time I’d ever seen two women kiss, though they made it look like the most ordinary thing in the world. But many of the girls felt uncomfortable around an outspoken Sapphist and Tillie did like to flirt.
In any event, I should have begged off leading the night-landing session, but the truth was I was flattered to be asked. Not infrequently the novices refused to fly with me. Wouldn’t it be possible to have a real hoverer, they would ask, a more expert sigilrist, someone a little more . . . female? Rachael took a perverse delight in obliging them.
So, at nine o’clock on the night in question, the Twos assembled on the field. I passed out chemical flares and reviewed low-velocity vectored landings, the old touch-and-crouch technique. Inelegant but safe. The Twos were a good group, loose and relaxed, though I knew nerves must be running high. I double-checked everyone’s rigging, which proved unnecessary and led to whispering about
Mr. Weekes wanting to cop a feel. I marked a landing zone with flares and made sure all my charges had theirs lit and attached at the ankle. Then my students climbed as a group to one thousand feet, while I took up station just above the ground to spot. One by one, the girls approached, low and slow, and set down. There were some tuck and rolls and a few muddy knees, but overall they acquitted themselves well.
With two left in the air, I saw the incoming flier’s blue light veer way off course. Maybe she was following the reflection of the moon off the river, maybe simple panic.
“Stop!” I shouted. She continued toward the water. I pulled out my red flare, yanked the tab, and waved energetically to signal “abort.”
She went straight in.
I opened my regulator wide and sped toward her, but not fast enough to see her go under. Safety flares were supposed to glow even underwater, but I couldn’t see hers. I homed in on the sound of her splashing and came to a dead stop inches above the water.
“Grab on!” I called.
She thrashed wildly.
“Grab my feet!”
I slid lower, so that my legs were actually in the water. My sigil sputtered and threatened to fail as I fought to hold position. Still the girl couldn’t catch hold. She was struggling with her bag, only a ten-pounder, but enough to pull her to the bottom now that it was soaked.
“Pull your bag release!” I shouted. She couldn’t. Exasperated, I pulled my own release cord and my bags fell away. I splashed down beside her. She grabbed me about the head and shoulders, forcing me under.
I was a good swimmer, but not a great one. I managed to twist free of her, but the weight of my skysuit and rigging dragged me down. My boots filled with water. I kicked for the surface, my lungs burning. At last I broke through.
I shouted for help. No one came. I tried to catch the girl around the waist, but she was thrashing madly.
“Help!” I screamed again.
Desperate, I pulled my belt knife, ducked under the water, and grabbed hold of the young woman’s powder bag. I stabbed it. Corn dust and sand swirled away in a dark cloud. She floated higher in the water and I got an arm around her.
One of the Twos had gotten herself launched and was in a slow turn twenty feet above us. It was Frieda, who’d rescued Rachael Rodgers only a few days before.
“Drop me a line!” I shouted.
“A what?” she yelled back.
“A line! A rope.”
“I haven’t got one!”
Which made sense, since I’d been carrying the rescue gear.
“Come down and give me a leg,” I called.
She lowered herself carefully, stopping four feet above the surface.
“Closer!”
I was nearly spent.
Frieda, who was smart enough to be terrified, slowly, excruciatingly, dipped in a straight hover until I could grab her foot.
“Now go!” I yelled.
She began to pull up using the same deliberate style.
“No!” I shouted. If Frieda pulled straight up, there was no way I could hang on to her with one arm and to the half-drowned girl with the other.
“Flat!” I bellowed. “Fly flat to the shore.”
She flew flat and level, towing us behind. A minute later, we were in shallow water and I let go. Frieda went shooting off with the sudden reduction in weight, nearly crashing, but recovering at the last moment. I got my feet under me.
“Stand up!” I said to the girl I’d rescued. She couldn’t and I had to drag her onto shore.
The rest of the Twos had come to investigate—on foot!—like the pack of mewling children they were. “She’s not breathing!” one of them wailed. Several of the girls were in hysterics, crying, screaming that she needed a doctor.
The girl I had pulled from the water was, in fact, loudly choking, so she was moving air. I sat her down, thumped her on the back, and, with the assistance of a bottle of smelling salts from the aerodrome’s first aid kit, had her back to herself in three minutes.
“Very serviceable landings all around,” I said, trying to keep things light, “but when you’re assisting at an emergency, fly, don’t walk. Check your harnesses in and sign the book. After that, you’re dismissed.”
All the girls except Frieda trouped dutifully back toward the aerodrome.
“Sir,” said Frieda. She pointed to the sky, where there was a light circling at one thousand feet. “Laura’s still up.”
“Shit!” I said. I’d forgotten about my last trainee. Frieda gave me her powder bag and I went up and landed the final girl without further disaster.
• • •
I held myself together until I got back to my apartment. Then I began shaking. A near miss—two near misses. Two girls had nearly died and it was my fault. I tried to imagine what I would say to Brock in the morning or to Jake. Or the lecture Rachael was certain to give me.
Though hadn’t I redeemed myself in some small measure? An hour before, I never would have believed I was capable of such a rescue, not until the moment I’d attempted it. My success was just as upsetting to me as my carelessness.
Any landng y can wlk away frm is a good one, Mother reassured me by message. If y nvr splashd a trainee, all it means is your still new.
I smiled at that. It would take another thirty years before Ma considered me experienced.
How are things? I asked.
Im fit. Busness brisk. Town quiet.
I could translate that easily enough: Nothing else has burned down, so stop worrying.
Grades good? she inquired.
Rather than answer that, I started work on an essay for Philosophical Theory that was due the next morning. I hated the class—it was a lot of vague notions and statistics, nothing practical. I concocted an ever more confused paper, crossing out one line after another. By midnight, I was on the verge of wadding it up and going to bed, when there was a knock at the door.
I opened it to find three young men in black sport coats, standing with arms crossed, their faces stony. I thought for a moment they were policemen come to arrest me, but they were wearing outrageous yellow ties and tall cylindrical caps that would have looked more at home on the trombone section of an eighth-rate marching band. They had red plumes stuck in their hatbands—two men wore a single feather and one wore three.
“May I help you?” I asked.
The three-feathered man bowed and intoned, “To you, oh unplucked one, we extend membership in the Most Ancient and Noble Order of the Chanticleer, the rooster who rules the roost, the cock of the walk, the bantam blooded in battle. Do you accept, with all the rights and perils thus pertaining?”
I looked at them dumbly. “Who are you looking for?”
“Do you accept?” the man repeated.
Well, this seemed to be what I got for not asking Unger about the rooster cards pinned to the door. I was exhausted, hopelessly behind on my essay, and my socks were still wet. I had no idea what this ludicrousness was about, but my night couldn’t possibly get any worse.
“Sure!” I said, throwing my hands up. “Why not?”
The men erupted in a cheer. They stepped forward to shake my hand.
“Splendid!”
“We knew you were the one!”
“Never doubted it!”
They had an extra black jacket, which they slipped on me. Too long in the sleeves and too narrow across the shoulders.
“No matter!” said one of the boys. “We’ll get you kitted out properly in no time.” They had a spare hat without a plume too, which they placed on my head.
“Well, we have our card set,” said their leader. “I say that calls for a drink. In fact, I say it calls for a bottle.”
“Do we dare?” asked the second.
“We must!” said the third. “And the thirsty future generations be damned. Besides, that 1908 is starting to turn.” They ushered me toward the door.
“Is this going to take long?” I asked. But they ignored my question, and by the time they had sp
irited me out of the building I was more than a little curious.
They led me several blocks to a tumbledown old clubhouse. A young lady was on the way out, locking the front door behind her. Each of the men dropped to one knee and pressed his knuckles to his forehead.
“Hail to the victor!” the first man said.
“Hail to the queen of the roost!” said the second.
“Hail to the scourge and terror!” said the third.
“Good evening,” I said.
The girl smiled at me toothily, like a wolf eyeing a lamb. Or, for that matter, a wolf eyeing a rooster. “You took a Radcliffer?” she asked. “That’s hilarious! It must be getting harder and harder to find a Harvard man willing to have his face smashed in. Well, cheerio until Saturday, boys!”
The men climbed to their feet. Instead of using the front door, as the woman had done, they led me around to a low side entrance that we had to duck to pass through. We descended to the basement. A wine cellar with a stripe painted down the center dominated the space. One side, marked HENS, was well stocked with many different types of bottles. On the other, marked COCKERELS, a single shelf held two dusty bottles of champagne.
We took a bottle upstairs to a kitchen that lacked any sort of cookware or eating utensils, but was equipped with glasses of every shape and size. The triple-feathered man opened the bottle and poured four generous coupes.
He raised his glass. “To victory!”
“To a better showing than last year!” said the second man.
“To keeping all our teeth!” said the third.
They looked to me. “Umm,” I said, spilling a little champagne on myself. The only toast I knew was the old Halloween invocation, but it seemed appropriate: “By the ashes of Cadwallader, may she obscure us by day and strike with us by night!”
“Hear, hear!” they called out. We drank. The warm sparkling wine tasted terrible.
Their leader pulled out a card on which there were four lines labeled
1. The Beak————
2. The Wing————
3. The Spur————