Airman

by Eoin Colfer

  Conor disentangled a ladder from the weeds at the base of the tower, propping it up against the tower wall, then, balancing the weight of the collapsed glider on his shoulder, he edged slowly up the rungs.

  A pity to survive night flights over Saint George’s Channel only to crack my skull falling from a ladder.

  The door seemed flimsy, of dry, crumbling wood held together by rivets and steel bands, but there were many deceptive things about this tower. Conor had spent many hours working on the structure, almost exclusively on the inside. No need to advertise the renovations. A steel door lay behind the wooden one, housed in a reinforced frame. Conor threaded a key though the lock, and let himself in.

  He sighed in almost unconscious relief as he locked the door behind him.

  Home. Alive.

  The inside was far more salubrious than the exterior suggested. On the first storey was a fully equipped laboratory for the study of aeronautics, with more advanced machinery than would be found in many a royal college. Charts were nailed to the walls. The theories and diagrams of da Vinci, Cayley, the Marquis de Bacqueville. Models of gliders to various scales hung from the ceiling beams. Tyres, tubes, wings, engines, oil drums, timber planks, frames and reams of fabric were stacked neatly around the walls. Baskets of reeds. Ball bearings, magnets, rivets and screws lay neatly in wooden bowls on the long bench. On a steam-winch platform to the roof sat rifles, revolvers, swords, two small-calibre cannon and a pyramid of cannonballs.

  Victor was preparing for a battle. He knew Bonvilain wanted him dead.

  A Corsican tower at Mortella Point had once withstood bombardment from two British warships for almost two days with the loss of only three men. The British had copied the design and misspelled the name, changing Mortella to Martello. If Bonvilain wished to gain entry to Victor’s laboratory, he would have to pay dearly for the privilege.

  It had not been difficult to locate the tower Victor had told him about on the last day of his life. There were two Martello towers in the vicinity of Kilmore and one had been occupied for the past fifty years. That left the gloomily named Forlorn Point. The tower had originally been called simply Saltee Watch, but the men of the garrison stationed there had soon taken to calling the tower after the headland it stood on. A name more in tune with the unrelenting winds and typical leaden weather of the region than the almost cheery-sounding Saltee Watch. So Forlorn Point it became, made somewhat notorious by the folk singer Tam Riordan in his ‘Lament of Forlorn Point’, which began: ‘’Tis off I am to Forlorn Point for my sins.’ The second line was no jollier. ‘And if there’s a tide, I aim to throw myself in…’

  It was said that the tower was haunted by the ghosts of thirty-seven men who were burned alive inside its walls when the armoury caught fire. No wonder it slid to dereliction.

  That is until Victor Vigny decided that it would make an ideal workshop and persuaded King Nicholas to fund the project. The Frenchman purchased the tower in his own name, to hide Nicholas’s involvement, then had a series of shipments sent there from London, New York and even China.

  The materials had been winched to the roof and then humped downstairs to the laboratory floor, and there they had lain for two years, undisturbed by the drunken local caretaker until Conor arrived to find a key waiting for him in the talons of the pillar’s stone eagle.

  Conor was not worried about the ghosts, indeed he was thankful for the legend as it kept the superstitious locals away. Once in a while a lad would bring his girl as far as the tower wall, so they could touch the clammy stones then run away squealing, but besides those minor intrusions he was left alone.

  He was civil in the village, but did not invite friendship. He bought his supplies, paid with coin and went on his way. The locals were not sure what to make of the pale, blond young man living at Forlorn Point.

  He walks like a fighter, some said. Always ready to draw that sabre of his.

  Handsome but fierce, concluded the women.

  One girl disagreed. Not fierce, she said. Haunted.

  The innkeeper had chuckled. Well, if it’s haunted Mister Handsome-But-Fierce wants, he’s in the right place.

  Conor’s living quarters were underneath the laboratory at ground level, but he did not spend much time down there, as the gloomy enclosure reminded him of his cell on Little Saltee. Victor had equipped it luxuriously with four-poster bed, bureau and chaise longue. There was even a toilet plumbed down to the ocean, but when the lights went out and the walls juddered with every wave crash, Conor was transported back to Little Saltee. Each morning he was woken by the booming cannon shot from the prison and one night he found himself almost unconsciously scratching some calculations into the wall with a sharp stone. It was difficult enough living in such proximity to home, he decided, without recreating his prison cell here on the mainland.

  And so he slept on the roof, or, rather, what had been the roof, but was now an extra level: Victor’s pièce de résistance. Martello towers were constructed with completely flat roofs that could bear the weight of two cannon and the men to operate them. Victor had used this strength and flatness as a base for a powerful wind tunnel, driven by four steam-powered fans. For years, they had been forced to study the effects of wind over wing surfaces using a whirling arm device, but now lift, drag and relative air velocity could be accurately measured using the most powerful wind tunnel in the world. The device was unsophisticated, but effective. Twenty feet long and twenty-five feet square powered by a steam injection system that was capable of producing a flow velocity of sixty miles per hour.

  With this tunnel, Conor had learned that many of his prison designs were flawed, and that many more showed promise. Four of his gliders made it past the model stage, and he was convinced that his engine-powered aeroplane would fly too, when he put it together.

  There was another use for the wind tunnel. Conor used it to augment his launch from the tower roof. He would hitch himself up, spread his wings then duck obliquely into the wind stream, to be propelled into the sky as though shot from a cannon.

  You are taking risks, Victor would have undoubtedly said. Leapfrogging over several steps in the scientific process. And your records are vague and often coded. What manner of scientist are you?

  I am no more a scientist, Conor would have replied. I am an airborne thief.

  That morning he sat on the roof, back resting against the wind tunnel’s planking, swaddled in a woollen blanket and eating from a can of beef. The rising sun cast a golden glow over the distant Saltee Islands, as though they were some kind of magical place. Mystical islands.

  He thought of his parents and of Isabella, then in a fit of irritation sent his fork sparking across the stone roof and tramped down the stairs to the lower level.

  I will sleep below and be reminded of my cell. I need strength of purpose.

  Two days later, Conor had finished repairing the wind-tunnel planks and made the trip to Kilmore. He fancied a cooked meal, and to hear the voices of others even if they were not addressing him. It had come as something of a shock to him when he realized that his loneliness had intensified since escaping from prison. It was necessary for him to seek out the company of men for the sake of his own sanity.

  It was market day in Kilmore and so the quay was lined with stalls, and for every stall a dozen beggars. There was great excitement over a humongous steam engine, painted green and red, which rumbled on metal wheels along the seafront, belching out great puffs of acrid smoke. A penny a ride.

  Conor had a quick look at the engine, but quickly saw that there was nothing for him to learn here. This engine was twenty years old, a fairground workhorse, not at all the scientific marvel its owner claimed it to be.

  He stepped inside the Wooden House, found himself a corner table and called for a bowl of stew.

  Life was being lived in front of his eyes. He could see it and hear it and smell it. The scratch of elbows on tables, the knocking of wonky chairs. Sunlight through the pipe smoke. Yet there was a distance
between him and the world. All he could feel was an intense irritation towards people in general. Everything upset him: the sound of chewing, the slurp of porter, the nasal whine of a drunkard’s breathing. He could make allowances for nothing.

  I have forgotten how to be human. I am a beast.

  Then Conor’s mood was lightened by music drifting through the tavern window, a gentle violin that rolled itself out like a fine carpet, playing overhead, riding the stale air and pipe smoke. It seemed to cut through the fog surrounding Conor’s heart, warming it with its melody.

  I know that music, thought Conor. I have heard it before somewhere. But where?

  The landlord arrived with his stew, a rich soup of beef and pork with vegetable chunks floating on the surface.

  ‘Generally I move the beggars on, young man,’ he remarked. ‘But this blind fella, the way he plays, reminds me of my childhood in the stables. Wonderful years.’ He wiped a tear away with a tattooed knuckle. ‘Onions in the stew,’ he blubbered, then moved on.

  Conor worked on the stew, savouring its flavours and textures, enjoying the strangely familiar music.

  I will throw a shilling to the musician as I leave, he decided. What is that tune?

  The more Conor listened, the more the puzzle vexed him, and then suddenly everything became clear.

  I have heard this music and I have read it. ‘This blind fella,’ the landlord said.

  Conor dropped a brimming spoon halfway to his open mouth, rose from his chair as though in a daze, and barged his way through the fair-day crowd. Outside the sudden sunlight blinded him after the tavern’s smoky gloom.

  Follow the music.

  He ran on like a rat in thrall to the piper of Hamelin. To the side of the Wooden House, a small throng had gathered, swaying as one to a gentle adagio. A tall black-garbed figure at the crowd’s centre led the sway with the tip of his violin bow, lulling the listeners.

  Conor stopped in his tracks, completely flabbergasted. He could not decide whether to laugh aloud or weep, eventually settling on a hybrid of the two.

  The musician was, of course, Linus Wynter.

  ‘So, Billtoe did not lie. You actually were released?’

  They sat at Conor’s table in the tavern, enjoying a glass of porter after their stew. Linus Wynter’s gangly limbs were too long for the furniture and he was forced to straighten his legs to fit them under the table. His crossed feet poked out the other end.

  ‘Released I was,’ he said, fiddling with pipe and tobacco pouch. ‘Though I fully expected to be released, if you see what I mean. Nicholas had signed the order before he died and it took a few days to reach the island. And as Marshall Bonvilain had not expressly forbidden it, out I slipped. Free as a bird.’ He rasped a match along the tabletop and played the flame over the pipe. ‘I doubt you slipped out so easily.’

  ‘Not quite,’ confirmed Conor.

  Wynter smiled, smoke leaking from between his teeth. ‘I was playing in Dublin in a nice alehouse. Then I began to hear rumours of a baker, flying up to the moon on a balloon.’

  ‘It was a butcher, and he never got anywhere near the moon, believe me.’

  ‘So I thought to myself, all Victor ever talked about was balloons, and young Conor was his student. Coincidence? I think not. So, I began taking the train from Westland Row to Wexford once a week or so, hoping you would show yourself. I was beginning to think you hadn’t survived.’

  ‘I almost did not. It is a miracle that I sit here today.’

  Linus patted his violin. ‘You remember The Soldier’s Return?’

  ‘How could I forget? I committed large sections to memory.’

  ‘Ah, you found my notes.’

  ‘I used the space for my own diagrams. Did you know that the coral was luminous?’

  Linus tapped his temple. ‘No. Blind, don’t you know. Dashed inconvenient in the area of luminous coral and such. It gave me comfort to trace the notes with my fingers, helped me to remember. There was also the danger that I would die in that place and my music would be lost forever.’

  ‘Well, Linus, your notes shone. It was something to see.’

  ‘My notes always shine, boy. A pity the rest of the world doesn’t see it.’ Wynter took a deep drag on his pipe. ‘Now to business – do you have a plan? Or would you like to hear mine?’

  ‘A plan to do what?’

  Wynter’s puzzlement showed in the lines between his ruined eyes. ‘Why to ruin Bonvilain, naturally. He has robbed us of everything, and continues to destroy lives. We have a responsibility.’

  ‘I have a responsibility to myself,’ said Conor harshly. ‘My plan is to collect all the diamonds buried on Little Saltee, then begin a new life in America.’

  Wynter straightened his back. ‘Hell’s bells, boy. Bonvilain killed your king. He killed our friend, the incomparable Victor Vigny. He has torn your family apart, taken your sweetheart from you. And your answer to this is to run away?’

  Conor’s face was stony. ‘I know what has happened, Mister Wynter. I know something of the real world now too. All I can hope for is to leave this continent alive, and even that is unlikely, but to attack a kingdom alone would be lunacy.’

  ‘But you are not alone.’

  ‘Of course, the boy and the blind man will attack Bonvilain together. This is not an operetta, Linus. Good people get shot and die. I have seen it happen.’

  Conor’s voice was loud, and attracting attention. Bonvilain was not a name to be bandied about even on the mainland. It was said that informers took the marshall’s coin in every country from Ireland to China.

  ‘I have seen it happen too,’ said Wynter in hushed tones. ‘But lately I have not seen it and have had to imagine it instead, which is far worse.’

  Conor had imagined death many times in prison, and not just his own. He had imagined what Bonvilain would do to his family if they ever found out the truth of Nicholas’s murder.

  ‘If I fight, he will kill my parents. He will do it in the blink of an eye, and it will cost him not a moment’s sleep.’

  ‘Do you believe that your father would thank you for making him the marshall’s puppet?’

  ‘My father thinks that I had a hand in the king’s murder. He denounced me for it.’

  ‘All the more reason to tell him the truth.’

  ‘No. I am done. I love my father and hate him too. All I can do is leave.’

  ‘And your mother,’ persisted Linus Wynter. ‘And the queen?’

  Conor felt his melancholia return. ‘Linus, please. Let us enjoy our reunion. I know that we were only cellmates for a few days, but I see you as my only friend in the world. It is nice to have a friend, so let us avoid this topic for the moment.’

  ‘Don’t you want to clear your name, Conor?’ persisted Linus. ‘How can you let your father live with the idea that you have murdered his king?’

  The idea would eat Declan Broekhart from the inside, Conor knew, but he couldn’t see a solution.

  ‘Of course I want to prove myself innocent. Of course I want to expose Bonvilain, but how can I do these things without endangering my family?’

  ‘We can find a way. Two brains together.’

  ‘I will think about it,’ said Conor. ‘That will have to be good enough for now.’

  Linus raised his palms in surrender. ‘Good enough.’

  Wynter turned his face towards the window, feeling the sun on his face. ‘Can you spy a clock, Conor? I can’t read the sun from in here. I need to return to Wexford for the train.’

  ‘Forget the train, Linus Wynter, you are coming home with me.’

  Wynter stood, his hat brushing the ceiling beam. ‘I was so hoping you would say that. I do hope the beds are comfortable. I stayed in the Savoy once, you know. Did I ever tell you?’

  Conor took his elbow, leading him towards the door. ‘Yes, you told me. Do you still dream of the water closets?’

  ‘I do,’ sighed Linus. ‘Will we have privacy in this house? We must have privacy if I am to hatc
h my schemes.’

  ‘All the privacy in the world. Just you and I, and a small company of soldiers.’

  ‘Soldiers?’

  ‘Well, their ghosts.’

  Linus plucked his violin strings in imitation of a music-hall suspense theme.

  ‘Ghosts, indeed,’ he drawled. ‘It seems, Mister Finn, that once again we are destined to share interesting accommodation.’

  CHAPTER 14: HEADS TOGETHER

  Linus quickly settled into his new digs, and Conor was happy to have him. Usually his thoughts stayed inside his head so it was a relief to let them out. They sat on the roof together, and while Conor tinkered with the skeleton of his latest flying machine Linus worked on his compositions.

  ‘A lute here, I think,’ Linus would say. ‘Do you think a lute too pastoral? Too vulgar?’

  And Conor would reply. ‘I have two main problems. Engine weight and propeller efficiency. Everything else works; I have proven that. I think, I really think that this new petrol engine I have built will do the trick.’

  So Linus would nod and say. ‘Yes, you are right. Too vulgar. A piccolo, I think, boy.’

  And Conor would continue. ‘My engine needs to supply me with ten horsepower at least, without shaking the aeroplane to pieces. I need to build a housing that will absorb the vibration. Perhaps a willow basket.’

  ‘So, you’re saying a lute? You’re right, the piccolo simply does not command the same respect.’

  ‘You see,’ Conor would say, chiselling his latest propeller, ‘there is no problem we cannot solve if we put our heads together. We need to bump skulls, as Victor used to say.’

  They were reasonably happy days. The spectre of Marshall Bonvilain watched over them from the islands, but both man and youth felt a sense of camaraderie that they had not known in years.

  Of course they argued, most notably when Conor set the steam fans whirling in preparation for his second flight. Linus Wynter climbed the ladder from his bedchamber, shouting over the steam engine’s noise.