Harry on the Run
Iron Pegasus
Steve Turnbull
Published by Steve Turnbull, 2017.
HARRY ON THE RUN
By Steve Turnbull
Copyright © 2017 Steve Turnbull. All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-910342-73-2
This 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: Jane Dixon-Smith (www.jdsmith-design.com)
Editor: Robert Scott-Norton
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
ix
x
Epilogue
i
“I can’t believe it,” said Harry as she headed across the lawn and down the slope towards the woods with her adopted sister Khuwelsa beside her.
“What can’t you believe?”
“It’s my birthday.”
“Our birthday.”
“Exactly.”
Khuwelsa sighed. “What? Exactly?”
They moved out of the sun and into the shade of the trees. This part of Africa had been British-owned for a long time and the baobabs were long gone, replaced by trees that made it look like England.
“It’s our birthday and we’re being sent into Mombasa to collect a parcel.”
The path led them into the shade. It wasn’t any cooler but being out of direct sunlight was a blessing.
“Dad’s away. Nobody’s going to celebrate our birthday except us.”
Harry screamed into the trees. “Nobody cares!”
The only responses were the warning cries of birds.
“Of course, they care,” said Khuwelsa.
“It’s like being an orphan,” said Harry. “Oh, sorry, Sellie.”
Her sister shrugged, quickened her pace and strode ahead, towards an old stone wall that cut through the trees. “Come on, I’ll race you!”
Khuwelsa grabbed her long skirts, raised the hem above her knees, and set off at a run.
“Not fair! You had a head start!”
But Sellie wasn’t listening, Harry pulled up her skirt and petticoats the same way and set off as fast as she could, not that she had any chance of catching her sister who, even in a fair race, was always faster. And cleverer in their lessons. But Harry didn’t mind; she had one love and it didn’t involve books or sports.
Harry rounded the corner of the wall and slowed to a stop as she stepped through the gate into the courtyard of the disused farm. And there was the Iron Ostrich. She hadn’t named it that out of any warmth because, despite all of Sellie’s efforts, the thing couldn’t fly.
Her sister was tying up the skirt lifters of her dress, much higher than would be considered decent, to keep it out of the way. They often complained to one another about how inconvenient the dresses were. Sellie could get away without the layers of petticoats because their tutor, Mrs Hemingway—who was also their guardian pro tem when their father was away—did not like Sellie, because she was a native, and did not enforce the same rules on her as were applied to Harry.
Harry, on the other hand, was forced to remove the majority of her voluminous petticoats before boarding the Ostrich. She was not ungrateful for the opportunity. Here in East Africa, it was hot most of the time and the British clothing styles were simply not appropriate. Unfortunately that was not a consideration.
While Harry divested herself of unnecessary clothing, Sellie climbed aboard and within moments wisps of smoke drifted from the smoke stack.
The Ostrich was a marvel really. Sellie had managed to piece it together from items scrounged from the estate and further afield. The main body was constructed from an old horse carriage while the furnace, boiler and control systems had been liberated from a boat that had run aground and then sunk in a nearby river.
Recovering it had been a bit of an adventure because of the crocodiles and snakes. Sellie had refused to go near the water after their run-in with a hippo a few years back. The fact there were no hippos in the vicinity did nothing to convince her. So Harry had climbed a tree that overhung the boat and dropped into it with a rope. Sellie had arranged a crank and pulley system so they could get the boat far enough from the river to salvage what they needed.
The owner had been quite put out, when arriving back a couple of weeks later, to find his boat stripped. Harry and Sellie kept quiet about it. As far as they were concerned the ship had been abandoned so it was just naval salvage. In the end the crime had been blamed on the Italians. While Britain owned almost everything from South Africa to Egypt, the Italians had somehow grabbed a strip of the coast from north of Mombasa all the way up to Abyssinia.
Everyone knew what a dodgy lot the Italians were and, besides, that was where Harry’s mother had run away to.
Harry and Sellie were not supposed to know but they listened when the adults talked. Their mother had left eight years ago when the girls were just nine, three years after Sellie had been rescued from a slave ship about to set sail to the East Indies. Their father had been away on a diplomatic mission, and they woke up one morning, in the normal way, to find their mother had simply vanished.
Sellie had been convinced for a long time that the bad men had got her. The nightmares had returned and she shared the bed with Harry for comfort. Turned out Mrs Jonathan Edgbaston had gone off to live in Italy in some sort of artists’ colony as a painter under her maiden name of Katherine Sudbury.
No one talked about it.
“Come on, Harry!” shouted Sellie from inside the machine. Smoke was now pouring from the stack and steam hissed in the pipes.
Roused from her thoughts, Harry looked at the silly machine, and then up at the sky. A few small clouds were floating there. That’s where Harry wanted to be, floating through the air with the birds and Zeppelins. But the one thing they hadn’t been able to get their hands on was a Faraday Device, and Sellie didn’t have the tools to make one with a fine enough grid to be useful.
So the Ostrich couldn’t fly. Sellie had added a pair of small wooden wings on each side that flapped as it moved. In the beginning Harry had thought it was funny, she had been so hopeful they could get what they needed to make it fly. She didn’t think it was funny any more.
Nobody threw away Faraday grids or, if they did, Harry and Sellie had never found one. With a sad sigh Harry climbed aboard.
It was even hotter inside than out, which was another reason to get rid of unnecessary clothing, and there wasn’t a lot of space. The coal bunker, furnace and boiler filled the back, along with the mechanisms and pistons that powered the wheels. The remaining front quarter of the space was Harry’s domain with its steering sticks, power regulator, and brake. Not that the brake did much if Sellie didn’t disengage the drive. Even at the lowest setting, the power regulator did not reduce to zero.
“Ready?” called Harry over the noise.
“Ready.”
Harry released the brake. “Engage.”
The Ostrich jerked, the pistons faltered then picked up their rhythm again as the machine rolled across the bumpy terrain. It picked up speed. They passed through the gate and on to the main track. Harry tried to avoid the many holes and roots. The Ostrich had suspension but
it wasn’t designed for this. It was an uncomfortable ride.
The track gave out on to the main road to Mombasa which was maintained by the government, but was still a treacherous collection of cavities and bumps. The journey to the outskirts of the city was about ten miles and the best time they had ever achieved was forty-five minutes. Harry glanced at the boat’s chronometer now mounted opposite the door. It was twenty-five past ten. If they made it by eleven o’clock that would beat the record.
She opened up the power regulator and felt the surge as the Ostrich leapt forward. It might not be able to fly, but the machine had good legs—as long as the axles held up, and the suspension didn’t collapse.
“Harry, what are you doing?” shouted Sellie above the repetitive thundering of the engine.
“I’m going for the record!”
“We’re doomed,” she shouted with a resigned air.
ii
They arrived at the outskirts of Mombasa and crossed the Makupa Causeway onto the island at a quarter past eleven. Harry was fuming.
A herd of elephants had been crossing the road about three miles out. Harry might be in a hurry but she wasn’t stupid. There were a lot of adolescents in the group, and getting too close would set off one of mothers. Trailing a short distance behind was a small group of young bulls and they liked nothing more than showing off to demonstrate their maleness.
The unhurried herd cost them a fifteen minute delay. Much to Sellie’s consternation Harry had really poured on the speed as they headed down towards Mombasa.
“The damn post office will be shut for lunch,” muttered Harry as they shot alongside the fence of the airfield. On another day, she would have stopped and watched, especially as a small cargo flyer—with four vertical rotors— was lifting off. The noise of the propellers, and pumping steam engine, was so loud it penetrated the noise of the Ostrich.
But she only noted it in passing.
An ox drawn cart appeared in the road ahead and Harry swerved round it. Barely thinking, she reached out and adjusted the power regulator. The Ostrich slowed. Harry felt Sellie come up beside her. The space was so small that Sellie was breathing in her ear and her hand rested on Harry’s shoulder.
“The post office will be closed for lunch, Harry.”
“I know.”
The roads became more crowded. Harry brought the speed right down and began to employ the steam klaxon—another gift from the salvaged boat.
Sellie tightened her grip.
“We can turn round if you want,” said Harry.
“I’m all right.”
“You didn’t have to come.” Harry said it and then realised it was a bit stupid because she couldn’t drive and stoke the furnace at the same time.
“I said I’m all right.”
They were coming into a square. The place thronged with people and stalls. It was like a wall ahead of them. “And it’s market day, of course.” Sellie’s grip was almost painful. She never liked coming to Mombasa. It was where she had been rescued from all those years ago.
“To hell with that,” said Harry. She yanked on the klaxon. Everyone within twenty feet jumped at the noise and scurried away in alarm. A large number of insults in a variety of languages were hurled in their direction. Harry pushed hard on the left steering lever and pulled back on the right. The Ostrich turned sharply. The wheels bounced on the cobbles and there was a slight slope angling away from them in the wrong direction.
The Ostrich tilted. Sellie threw herself at the right-hand wall as Harry reduced the angle of turn a touch.
There was a bump as the right-hand wheels touched down. Harry opened the regulator and made the klaxon squawk again. Somehow, driving the back wheels pushed them round the turn. Harry blinked as the corner of a building came at them: a yard, a foot, three inches. They smashed off a piece of the corner with the front wheel. For all its seemingly rickety construction Sellie was good at what she did: the Ostrich was tough. The lever jerked in Harry’s hand, but then they were past it and heading uphill back the way they had come from.
“Are you expecting me to thank you?” said Sellie.
“Might be nice.”
“Well, I’m not. You could have made things worse.”
Harry nudged the power regulator. The salvaged steam engine was overpowered for the Ostrich’s weight and made light work of the incline.
A shadow passed over them. Harry glanced up at the underside of a Zeppelin. She could see the rippled pattern of the sections of Faraday grid along it. The thing was so large that they could switch it on and off by section to adjust the level of buoyancy. It was clever, but she was jealous they had so many they could do that, when she couldn’t get one at all.
She looked back at the road just in time to avoid a goat that had inadvisably decided to cross. They crested the low hill at the heart of Mombasa island and descended the other side.
The Zeppelin was descending towards the landing field.
“I wonder what they want,” said Harry.
“It’s just passengers and cargo. Not military.”
“No guns, I noticed.”
Although Harry was not much interested in her father’s job—plus the fact young ladies were expected to look pretty and not think—the tension between Germany and Britain was impossible to ignore. Britain wanted the land from Cape Town in the south to Alexandria in the north. Germany wanted the strip across the middle from the Congo to Zanzibar.
It was here the two claims crossed. The German protectorate was south of the mountains, the British to the north. The island of Zanzibar was the key to the whole area.
They passed the last few houses along the main road out of the city. Harry took the turn that would lead them past the main entrance to the airfield, not that they would be allowed in there, it was always guarded.
Once past the main gate and all the customs and excise, and immigration buildings, the road became rougher as it followed the fence and approached Tudor Creek. The beach had only a few people wandering along it, shacks lined the road and people sat on steps mending nets or just watching the world. The fishing boats were on the creek with their nets and lines, while the bigger ones would be out in the Indian Ocean.
There was another gate here. Smaller and only used by workers. Harry slowed right down and approached the gate. Sellie disengaged the drive and Harry applied the brake. They came to a stop neatly by the guardhouse.
“Officer Madi,” said Harry. “You are looking well today.”
The gentleman in question was of generous proportions and sitting in a chair that looked as if it were about to collapse at any moment. The guardhouse door was open to allow air to circulate and an awning kept the sun off his bald head. His uniform was a modified version of the local police.
“Miss Edgbaston and Miss Edgbaston. It is good to see you and your machine.”
The roar from the diesel engines of the Zeppelin required them to talk at a volume above the conversational level.
“May we go in?”
“Are you planning to cause any trouble?”
Harry put on the most innocent face she could muster. “I’m sure we never cause trouble, Officer Madi. We were going to the post office.”
He glanced at the sky. “It is closed for lunch.”
“Sadly yes, so we must pass the time until it is open, and where better than here? Under the protection of Officer Madi of the Mombasa Constabulary?”
He smiled and waved his hand.
Harry pulled her head in. “Let’s go.”
Sellie engaged the drive and the vehicle jerked into motion.
Harry stared at the bulk of the Zeppelin as it descended. Instead of heading left and making for the scrapheap as they usually did, she aimed for the support vehicles stoking their furnaces.
“Harry?”
“What?”
“Why are we going this way?”
“Why not?”
The Zeppelin settled on to its belly as more of its Faraday grids were switche
d off and gravity took hold of its mass, dragging it to earth.
Sellie had been right—it definitely was a civilian vessel, though it still bore the iron cross on its side. The Germans had decided to adopt the diesel engine instead of staying with steam. It was lighter and easier to fuel, which made it ideal for the Zeppelins. But diesels lacked the raw power of steam. In England, steam power was allowing them to build much larger vessels like the cargo ship they’d seen leave earlier.
Harry liked to feel power under her fingertips.
Once the vessel was on the ground the steam trucks hauling tankers filled with diesel fuel set off towards it. Harry accelerated and fell in behind the last truck, hoping that Officer Madi wouldn’t notice.
“Harry, really, what are you doing?”
“I just want to take a closer look.”
“At a Zeppelin?”
“Their Faraday grids.”
They were approaching the massive bulk of the flyer, and were already in the shadow the balloon envelope.
“To what end?”
“Maybe you could work out how to make one,” said Harry. “You need to disengage, Sellie.”
Her sister yanked the lever to disconnect the drive cogwheel. Harry let the Ostrich roll to a halt, turning at the last moment to come alongside the white-painted metal bodywork.
They clambered out.
Harry looked around. “Where’s the crew?” she said to no one in particular.
Above them, one of the diesel engines spluttered to a halt and it got a lot quieter.
“So, what you’re really saying, is that you want me to look at their grids.”
“It is more your department, I’m just the driver.”
“And what about the ‘we never cause trouble, Officer Madi’?”
“We’re not causing trouble. We’re just looking.”
“But—”
“Don’t you want to fly?” snapped Harry.
iii
Johannes Schönfeldt of the German Imperial Army adjusted his uniform. It was service issue since he could not afford to have one made. He had been promoted to Feldwebel-Leutnant but this was probably as far as he would go in the army unless there was someone to sponsor him. Not likely.
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