A second, high-pitched whistle caught my ears. I looked at Cuthbert who shrugged in all innocence. It was not he who had whistled.
“Up here, you guys!”
A length of rope dangled overhead. Beyond it, the wicker basket of a hot air balloon. From the basket, a woman was waving. You have probably guessed her identity already.
That’s right: Belle Pepper!
Once again, she had come to our rescue.
“What are you waiting for, written invitations? Gee, you British are so damned formal!”
Cuthbert took the end of the rope and secured it around his arm. “Go on, sir. After you.” He nodded up at the balloon, a bright ball of red and orange above the grey and stinking suburb.
I could see we had no other option. “Very well,” I rolled up my sleeves. “But no looking up my skirt, if you please.”
* * *
We were away before the locals spilled out onto the roof. They tried to shoot us down with shotguns and even bows and arrows, but our altitude was too great and we were quickly out of range.
“Miss Pepper! What a fortuitous surprise!”
“He means ‘thank you’,” said Cuthbert. “We’re both grateful, Miss. How did you know where to find us?”
“Oh, please!” she gave a dismissive wave. “You guys stick out like sore thumbs, you know? Besides, I found a cab driver who told me where you were headed. Money don’t talk but it sure can loosen tongues.”
“Are you quite sure you can fly this thing?” I clung to the rim of the basket as though that would save me if we plummeted to our deaths.
“If you want to see my certificates, you’ll have to wait,” she shouted as she did something or other to adjust the roaring flame.
We floated over water, heading toward the mainland. It would have been quite the peaceful joyride, had the circumstances been different. Cuthbert, on the other hand, was more relaxed and was enjoying the view of Manhattan as it receded.
“Look, sir, look at what they’re building. There must be nine or ten floors in that building. Coo...”
I saw Miss Pepper shake her head in a patronising fashion.
“Mister, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” she laughed. If I had pushed her from the basket for crimes against the Queen’s English, no jury would have convicted me, I am certain. But we needed her to pilot the bally balloon, so her execution was commuted to disapproving looks and sneers.
Below us, like dolls’ houses belonging to impoverished children, townships gave way to farmland. Farmland gave way to woodland. The sun was setting and it was becoming rather cold up there.
“I say,” I said. “Where are we headed? Anywhere in particular or are we to continue to footle around in this manner?”
Miss Pepper and my valet exchanged a look I couldn’t quite decipher.
“You have an appointment in Boston, I believe,” she arched an eyebrow. I gaped at her and suspected Cuthbert of treachery. “Your itinerary was published in the newspaper,” she added, circumventing my ire.
Oh. So it was.
“But we ain’t got enough gas to get us all the way there.”
“Us?”
“I think, sir, the key words were ‘not enough gas’,” observed Cuthbert. “What will happen? Will we be stuck up here for good?”
Sweet boy.
“Relax,” laughed the red-head. “I’ll set us down in a field somewhere and we’ll wing it from there.”
“Wing it? You have an aeroplane?”
“I mean improvise. We’ll hitch a lift or something, I don’t know.”
Despite her laidback demeanour, I was unconvinced. The flame sputtered and the balloon dipped. It appeared our descent was to take place sooner than she had envisaged.
“It’s fine, really,” she gritted her teeth and took a wrench to something or other. We rose several feet, which was quite the opposite of what was desired, I should have thought.
“Need a hand, Miss?”
“It’s a little stiff,” she acknowledged.
“I’ll have it off in a jiffy, don’t you fret, Miss.”
Cuthbert took the wrench and I am certain their hands brushed in the exchange. I chose to look away. Who was this bloody woman anyway? I decided to have it out with her - as soon as we were back on solid ground, of course.
Do not think I was ungrateful. She had saved our necks on two occasions now - although I am sure Cuthbert and I would have muddled through somehow. Why was she doing this? Why was she putting herself at considerable risk in order to rescue two complete strangers?
It didn’t add up.
I had a feeling Miss Belle Pepper and I would be having quite an exhaustive interview before we travelled much further.
The balloon lurched up and down, more like a yoyo than a bag of hot air. The ground rushed towards us and then rushed away again like the ebb and flow of the tide. Finally, our fuel ran out and we began to plunge towards the sward below.
“Hang on!” Miss Pepper urged, as though the notion might never occur to us. We gripped the rim. Cuthbert looked at me and nodded, grimly. It was a look that said goodbye without giving voice to the word. I nodded back; we understood each other.
A gust of wind caught the deflating bag, dragging us along. The base of the basket clipped the roof of a barn as we sped overhead. A ploughed field filled our horizon. The wind pulled us, bumpety-bump, along the ridges of overturned earth, jarring our teeth and knocking the very breath from our lungs.
At last we came to a halt and were tossed from the basket - or what remained of it, for it had been practically shredded by the rough treatment. We bounced in the dirt, most inelegantly and then my world went black. My skirts had been thrown up over my head, cushioning the blow, admittedly, but bruising my dignity immeasurably.
I felt Cuthbert’s hands all over me, inspecting me for damage. He peeled the wayward garments from my face and gasped in relief to see that I was yet breathing and apparently intact - although Poppy’s prosthetics were hanging on by threads. Wincing, I peeled them off my nose and chin and discarded them.
“Oh, sir!” Cuthbert cried and threw his arms around me. He helped me to my feet - I had lost a boot somewhere along the line and my foot squelched unhappily into something I cared not to examine.
“Can’t a lady get a hand here?” came the brash voice of Miss Pepper from some distance. She was standing upright, with her hands on the hips of her jodhpurs. There didn’t seem to be a mark on her.
“If it’s applause you’re after, Madam, you are going to be sorely disappointed.”
She gave me a withering look and approached. “I know you Brits can be cold fish,” she said, “but I just saved your sorry asses. You guys owe me, big time.”
Ah. Now we’d hear it. She was about to name some exorbitant price for her unsolicited services. She must have heard I was in the money and had been stalking me as a mark. I prepared a counteroffer: a signed copy of Kiss of the Water Nymph and a hearty handshake, but to my surprise she made no mention of financial compensation.
“Mr Mortlake,” her eyes darted around. In the sunset, the green of her irises flashed quite prettily, it has to be said. “I need your help.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Cuthbert.
“Oh, yes?” I repeated. “My help with what?”
She looked at her hands, which were wringing as though she was strangling a small animal. “Mr Mortlake, I need you to help me clear my name.”
* * *
We left the balloon where it lay, like some kind of beached sea monster. The bally thing was hardly portable. Cuthbert expressed concern over what was indubitably an expensive item but Miss Pepper merely gave a shrug of her shoulders and confessed that she had purloined it. How one accomplishes such a feat is beyond me. It is not as though one may make a quick getaway.<
br />
It was dark by this time and had there been a hand in front of my face, I would have been unable to see it. We had come to a barn and Miss Pepper proposed we ought to spend the night therein. She was already levering off the hasp with a screwdriver while I was considering the merits of the idea. Miss Pepper, it appears, carries no end of implements about her person. Quite the resourceful young woman.
The air in the barn was close but warm, and heavy with dust and the scent of hay. I sneezed and reached for the handkerchief I did not possess in the pocket of a suit I was not wearing. I had left all my clothes and personal belongings at the Grand Central Hotel. Cuthbert proffered his shirt sleeve but I declined. We had neither food nor drink to sustain us through the night so Miss Pepper stated we ought to get to sleep right away in order to conserve energy for the day ahead.
“Not so fast!” I protested. “I am not sure I should like to bed down with a strange woman about whom I know very little.”
“Then you may keep watch,” she laughed. “For irate farmers. See if the cows come home.”
“What I meant is, how do I know you may be trusted? You might rob us in our sleep. Or worse.”
It was too dark to discern her facial expression but she was no longer laughing. “Listen here, you arrogant prig,” is a paraphrase of what she called me. American women can be far less decorous than your average English rose. “I saved your sorry life! Twice! And if you think I’ve lured you here so I can make off with your raggedy shawls, well...” Her vocabulary deteriorated into a string of invective and non-verbal sounds of frustration and outrage.
It was Cuthbert who spoke next. “Mr Mortlake is grateful, Miss. We both are. For saving our lives and that. But perhaps we can all have a bit of a chinwag before we cop for some shuteye. Just a nice friendly chat so’s we can get to know each other better, yeah?”
“All right!” Miss Pepper snapped. “You first, Mr Stiff Upper Lip.”
I floundered. While Cuthbert arranged hay bales into some kind of bedding area, I searched my mind for clues to my identity, for I was suddenly at a complete and utter loss. One hates to be put on the spot in such a manner.
“Well, uh...” I flustered. “You probably know it all already. It’s all in the papers. My life is an open book. Or open newspaper, if you prefer. I am quite well known, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s not all in the papers, is it?”
There was something about her emphasis that I did not care for. “Madam, I don’t know to what you are alluding.”
“Hey, Cuthbert! Your boss - does he treat you right?”
“Not bad at all, Miss,” Cuthbert grunted as he shifted another bale into position.
“So that’s what you have in mind, is it?” I hissed. “Blackmail!”
Miss Pepper laughed. “Now, I don’t know what you’re alluding to!” I didn’t believe a word of it.
“If you’re trying to coerce me...”
“I’m just asking for a favour. Gee whizz.”
“And that’s quite enough of that language!”
“Ready!” Cuthbert dusted off his hands. We felt our way around what he had built. He had pushed bales together to form a huge mattress divided into three sections by two additional rows of bales that would act as partitions for the sake of propriety.
“Good work!” I clapped him on the shoulder and then immediately whisked my hand behind my back lest the insufferable American read something into it.
We climbed onto the bed of hay and stretched out. I elected to occupy the central section, putting myself between Miss Pepper and my valet. I don’t know why exactly.
“Now, Miss Pepper, if you please,” I gazed at the darkness above us. There were gaps in the roof where the moonlight snuck through. “Tell us who you are and what it is you want.”
* * *
What Belle Pepper Revealed
I didn’t realise I was making a deal with the devil. If I had known beforehand, would I have done anything different? I can’t say for sure; I was so driven by ambition. I was in a race against time.
Men have been dreaming of flying ever since they could walk. Men! As a weak and feeble woman (hah!) I am excluded from their company and forced to work alone. It is possible: flight in a machine that is heavier than air. I’d been working on my calculations for years. I made models. And I was out on the bluff when one of my models landed at the toe of a very bad man indeed. At the time, he was sweetness and light personified. He listened to my ramblings and delighted in my enthusiasm. I guess it must have been infectious because afore long he was making all sorts of promises. He would fund my research and development. He would set up a workshop. His engineers would make my model full size. He would bankroll everything I needed to get my idea off the ground.
I had to ask what the catch was. He looked coy and smiled. He allayed my fears that he would want the patent. No, he said, the patent is yours to keep. You will be rich beyond your dreams and your name will never be forgotten.
What then?
He regarded me over the top of steepled fingers. “All I require is that you make a particular journey on my behalf. You will have passengers. I will provide you with the coordinates so you may chart your course. You will ask no questions. You will fly your machine and that is all I ask.”
I agreed. Sure, I agreed! I would have been crazy not to. In the months that followed, I oversaw the realisation of my ideas. Volunteers piloted the earliest prototypes. There were accidents and a couple of near-fatalities but my backer would not allow me to fly a machine myself until the safety was assured. Two years passed. My backer began to put pressure on me. Time was a luxury he could not buy me. Other inventors were making progress - and I wonder to how many others he had made a similar offer.
I was determined to be first. I had the team work around the clock. We were exhausted. The machines would leave the ground and stay off it for greater distances each time but they could gain no altitude at all.
And then a breakthrough!
A bee got into the workshop and annoyed everyone. One of the workers was about to flatten it with a wrench but I intervened. I trapped the insect in a jar and watched it hover. How did it do it? How did a body so ungainly keep itself aloft?
The bee, of course, did not divulge its secrets. Everything I knew about aerodynamics told me the creature should not be able to fly. But there it was: flying.
I studied that little creature for days. I tried to make a working model, a bee of metal and canvas, but I could not get it to fly.
My financer was about to pull the plug. He said he’d heard of a couple of brothers over in Dayton, Ohio who were making headway with their experiments. I couldn’t let all my efforts just come to a halt like that.
I tried one last thing. I installed miniature fans in my metal bee. The fans created circular disturbances in the air. The model rose from the bench and up to the ceiling. I laughed and clapped - even when it crashed to the floor and destroyed itself. I had solved the mystery of the flight of bees.
Within a week, I had a full-scale aeroplane ready to go, fitted with these fan-based engines. My backer stood at the end of the dirt-track runway. He would either be mown down - if the damned fool didn’t get out of the way - or I would sail clear over his head and up into the clouds.
The flight - certainly the first to be piloted by a woman - was a success. But my financer did not share my elation; he wanted more. The craft wasn’t big enough for the passengers, he complained. Make another! But make it bigger! Money was no obstacle.
The team worked without respite, scaling up my aircraft. As well as the pilot, there were seats to accommodate another five, with a minimum of luggage.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about luggage,” my backer seemed amused. “Where we’re going, we shall be furnished with everything we need.”
> It transpired that just a few trips above the surrounding farmland was not going to be enough. I was instructed to calculate how much fuel would be required for a longer trip and it was at that point that the destination was disclosed.
Mexico!
“There is an important archaeological site,” the backer confided, “the importance of which cannot be overestimated. But at this juncture, we are keeping everything on the hush-hush - I am sure you can appreciate the need for secrecy, Miss Pepper. And this is why I insist that you be our pilot. We anticipate regular trips; you will be richly rewarded for your discretion as much as your expertise.”
Alarm bells were ringing in my head but I ignored them. Oh, what a fool I was!
The first excursion turned out to be the last.
My beautiful machine, dubbed the Silver Moth, gleamed as I polished her. I wanted my employer - for that is what he was - to be as proud of her as I was. His eyebrows raised when he saw my attire: the jodhpurs you see me in now, the leather jacket... What does a woman wear? It was unprecedented, to have a woman pilot - to have a pilot of any kind, for I maintain that I am the first to fly a chartered craft, delivering passengers to their destination. Be that as it may, my employer seemed amused by my goggles.
The other passengers were kids - young men, I mean, not young goats, although their sheepish expressions might lead you to think they were poor dumb animals. They didn’t speak. “Nervous,” my employer explained, but to me it looked like they had been drugged. I would have expected boys to be excited by the prospect of flight, never mind visiting another country, but these four were silent and docile to the point of sleepwalking.
I ran through the final checks and started the engine. At my command, one of the team yanked the rope to pull the chocks away from the wheels. We began to trundle along the runway, quickly picking up speed. The wheels left the track. I pulled back on the driving-stick (the terminology is still to be ironed out) and the Moth’s silver nose lifted up toward the clouds.
At my side, my employer held onto his hat. He was breathless with exhilaration but behind us the quartet of youngsters could have been sitting in church, hearing some uninspiring preacher drone on about miracles rather than experiencing one for themselves.
Xolotl Strikes! Page 7