Flight From Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  “He knows you are here?”

  “He knows. He’ll just be scraping off the top layer of grease.” There was a firmness in her voice that suggested a past occasion when Andrew had turned up unfit for social consumption.

  Ranklin held up his pipe. “D’you mind if I . . .?” She smiled approval and he lit it. In truth, she didn’t approve of smoking at all, but would have choked to death rather than give men yet another excuse to get away by themselves. In the same spirit, she looked grimly at two little groups of wives and girlfriends making the best of each other’s company while the men got on with their latest craze. Without being a tomboy, Corinna would happily have ruined her long white gloves rather than be left to gossip on the sidelines.

  Coffee and Andrew Sherring arrived simultaneously. He was clearly his father’s son, towering over Ranklin and Falcone, but to anyone who had met Reynard this was a papier-mâché version of the granite original. He carried his height and broad shoulders in a self-conscious stoop.

  He shook hands, obviously having put on gloves for that purpose, since he was in shirt-sleeves and a half-buttoned waistcoat. Then he kissed Corinna. “Hi, little sister. I’m afraid we haven’t got much to show you today, most of the guys are—”

  “At Hendon, we know. But Senator Falcone prefers a quiet word with the back-room boys. And did you get my telegram yesterday?”

  “Oh sure. I got your pal O’Gilroy fixed up with the Bristol school here. He’ll probably be around at lunchtime.”

  “Thank you. Now—” clearly handing out a reward; “—Senator Falcone was telling me he was one of the guys behind the volunteer flotilla that went to Africa a couple of years back.”

  From that moment, she and Ranklin became part of the landscape. Andrew swung round on Falcone and his craggy-soft face cracked into a grin. “That’s really so, sir? Then you know Cagno and Manissero? And maybe Professor Panetti?”

  “But of course, they are my friends.” Falcone’s smile was just as delighted.

  Andrew gulped his coffee. “Let me introduce you to a couple of the boys before they get off for Hendon. Corrie, can you and . . . ?” He waved a hand at Ranklin, having forgotten his name already.

  Corinna smiled indulgently. “You go right ahead, we’ll trail along in your dust. But you’d better find the Senator some overalls if—”

  Falcone made a sweeping gesture across his jacket, which was pale enough to show a fly’s footprint, said: “Oh, poof,” and hurried to match Andrew’s lanky stride.

  “Greater love of machinery hath no man than he who won’t take off a twenty-dollar coat to get a closer look at it.” She sipped her coffee. “You, my poor darling, are obviously an anachronism. I’ve never known you get excited by so much as a pencil sharpener.”

  “I have a secret vice: leave me alone with an artillery piece and I can’t keep my hands to myself.”

  “Is that so? Remind me not to share a room with one: I might be offended if I forced you to choose. I suppose I shouldn’t ask just why you and Conall are interested in the Senator.”

  “O’Gilroy’s here quite genuinely—”

  “But not you.”

  Ranklin shrugged casually. “He’s interested in buying stuff for the Italian Army, like aeroplanes. We’re interested in his interest. By the way, d’you know anything about BSA? – Birmingham Small Arms?”

  “Never heard of it, but I’ll listen now.” What they both heard was a sudden clattering roar from across the tarmac. “Shall we join the grease monkeys?”

  * * *

  Like most people, Ranklin had spottted few differences between the various aeroplanes he had glimpsed in the recent skies. If pushed, he might have recalled that some appeared to be double-decked in the matter of wings whilst others were single-decked – but no more. Now, after half an hour wandering around in the wake of Andrew Sherring and Falcone, and overhearing their chatter, he was astonished by the variety which they saw in even the half-dozen aeroplanes on view.

  Clearly they varied in size: from just over twenty feet from wing-tip to wing-tip to twice that. And the chassis that held the ground wheels ranged from what looked like an upended iron bedstead bound with rubber bands to simple V-shapes clutching the axle. Some had the engine and propeller (he was impressed by the propellers, which were beautifully carved wooden sculptures) at the front, others at the back, which meant that the body of the aeroplane had to detour around them in a forest of struts and wires. Wires! – he had never been close enough to realise that every aeroplane was held together by what looked like the offspring of a birdcage and a harp.

  But there were as many common denominators as differences: the framework was always of carefully shaped wooden struts and spars (he wasn’t surprised to learn that there were many ex-boatbuilders among the workers) covered with tight-stretched fabric, often patched, and varnished against the weather. He flicked a finger surreptitiously against one machine and it was taut as a drum. And gradually he began to appreciate a mechanical logic in what he saw.

  In fact, Ranklin had a reasonably good grounding in simple science and engineering: the first of his two years at the Royal Military Academy had been shared with future Engineer officers. Now he tried to recall that teaching and see how machines which he could clearly put out of action with a penknife might charge through the air at speeds which, as wind, would uproot strong trees and flip roofs off houses.

  Abruptly he realised they were now standing outside a workshop and by a quite simple-looking machine, sparkling with fresh varnish, which Andrew had been explaining, and he had just said: “Do you think this could make Farnborough drop their stupid ban on monoplanes, Captain?”

  Oh God, Ranklin thought: this is Andrew’s aeroplane and I haven’t heard a word he’s said about it. And he thinks I’m something to do with the Flying Corps and the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough. Speaking very slowly in a self-deprecatory tone he said: “I’m brand new to flying, just getting my eye in,” while he stared desperately at the aeroplane’s lines and rummaged through his thoughts like a man searching his desk for a lost cheque.

  It had the engine at the front and a single wing supported above the ‘cockpit’ on a tripod of struts, while longer struts reached out from the base of the tapered square body. Dull metal (aluminium?) covered it from engine to cockpit, but the rest was the usual fabric on wood, still mostly unstained with oil and smoke.

  Straight lines was the only thought he had. At least mostly straight and right-angled compared with some of the curves on other machines they had seen. That was what gave this aeroplane its clean no-nonsense look.

  “I’d say,” he ventured, “that it should be relatively easy to manufacture.”

  And God had smiled on him. Andrew punched the air with a gloved fist. “Right – you got it in one, Captain. That’s what I was shooting for: don’t add curves and complications just because they look nice. If there’s a good reason, sure. But always think of the guys on the shop floor who’ve got to put the thing together. Right down to the sizes of bolts: we’ve got just six sizes of bolts in her. Some of your fellows are using twenty. ’Part from anything else, that’s twenty mistakes they can make. Isn’t that right, Alec?”

  Standing respectfully a step behind him was a squat man in a white craftsman’s apron with the age, moustache and bearing of a foreman. “We don’t make mistakes, Mr Sherring, sir. And my lads would have built her any shape you like and got it right.”

  “Sure you would, but what about when you’re turning out twenty airplanes a day and using boys just out of school? They won’t all be skilled craftsmen.” He took a short leather coat from the edge of the cockpit and began wriggling into it. “Get a couple of lads to hold the tail and I’ll take Mr . . . Senator Falcone up.”

  He ducked under the wing to fiddle at the engine and Corinna said: “Twenty a day? What’s the boy talking about?”

  “War,” said Falcone.

  Corinna’s eyes widened and she looked to Ranklin for an opinion. He
gave a small shrug, but Andrew had been right. If aeroplanes were any use in war, you would need them by the dozen, expendable as worker bees, not hoarded and protected like the queen. And there was something very American in Andrew’s thinking: this particular aeroplane might be a mere hobby, a waste of time and money, but he had instinctively designed it for factory production. Most Englishmen simply wouldn’t have thought of that.

  Andrew came back, pulling a cap from his hip pocket and putting it on backwards whilst Falcone, dark eyes shining, reversed his own cap. It was so much a ceremony that when Ranklin caught Corinna’s eye, they had to look away before they burst into undignified giggles.

  Andrew helped Falcone into the cockpit and climbed in after him. The seats were almost side by side, with the passenger’s set back about a foot so that Andrew’s shoulders overlapped Falcone’s. Foreman Alec had taken off his apron and appeared to be injecting petrol into each cylinder of the engine – the whole of which turned as another man moved the propeller around. This must be the peculiar ‘rotary’ engine O’Gilroy had talked about.

  Then Andrew, who had been peering into the cockpit, presumably checking his controls, looked out and said the terrible words: “Captain – I’ll take you up when I’ve given Senator Falcone a flip round the block. About twenty minutes, okay?”

  Ranklin didn’t hear the quick dialogue between Andrew and the foreman, was barely aware of the propeller being swung, the sudden metallic chatter of the engine and the thin blue-grey smoke whipping away in the propeller blast. He watched dazedly as the two men moved to steady a wing-tip each, helping steer the aeroplane as it trundled, rocking stiffly, across the rough grass.

  But when it jounced into the air it left all science and engineering behind and it was obvious that that thing was never meant to carry anything as sane and precious as Capt. M. Ranklin, RA.

  As it turned unsteadily over the concrete banking and the sound faded, Corinna asked gravely: “Have you ever been up before?”

  “No,” Ranklin croaked.

  “Hmm. This really wasn’t my doing. I suppose Andrew thinks you were looking for a ride, coming from the War Office and all that. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. And you don’t want Conall out-bragging you, do you?” She was being sympathetic and understanding and Ranklin could have killed her. A woman’s job was to assume men were fearless and leave them alone with their fear.

  “Have you ever flown?” he asked.

  “A couple of times. Not with Andrew, though. Somehow, when you’ve seen your kid brother trying to learn to ride a bicycle, you don’t . . . well, you can guess how it is. I loved it – after the first few minutes.”

  Was this supposed to make him feel better?

  For want of something to say, he commented: “Odd smell the engines have. I suppose it’s the oil burning off, and it seems familiar somehow, but—”

  “Castor oil. They use it in all aeroplane engines, Andrew says. Don’t know why. I believe it can have an effect, but only after a long flight.”

  I would’t bet on that, Ranklin thought grimly.

  * * *

  By the time the aeroplane came rocking and switchbacking down, propeller turning only in bursts, and bounced back on to the ground, Ranklin was as ready as he ever would be. He had convinced himself he was from the War Office, here to assess the machine for scouting purposes (he had borrowed a map from the car) and decide where a Lewis machine-gun might be mounted on it – if that really was what the future held. In short, something to concentrate on and a pretence to keep up.

  Unfortunately, of course, none of this could stop the flimsy contraption dissolving in mid-air and splattering him into utter non-Matthew-Ranklinness on the Surrey landscape.

  Foreman Alec escorted him around to the right-hand side where the propeller breeze whipped at his hair (not wearing his cap backwards seemed to be the last control over his life that he had left). Falcone climbed down, passed over a pair of oily goggles, slapped him on the shoulder – a jolt his stomach could have done without – then helped him up into the cockpit. Short as he was, Ranklin felt like an elephant tiptoeing along a shelf of china, and wasn’t reassured by the way the structure bent or bulged wherever he touched it. Then he was wedged in behind Andrew’s right shoulder on a thin basket seat, the wing above just clearing his head, and grinning falsely to show he was ready.

  “All snug?” Andrew bellowed above the engine noise, ignored Ranklin’s answer, and waved to the men back at the wing-tips. The aeroplane swayed around, the engine buzzed, wind swirled in Ranklin’s face and they moved. Jerk, bump, lurch as the tail rose, rock, skid, the thing was obviously quite out of control – then the ground sagged away, the movements stopped being abrupt and became dreadfully soggy and this was flying.

  Ranklin relaxed – slightly – his grip on either side of the seat and looked ahead, ready to be impressed. He could see clouds, and they looked like clouds; he looked at the distant horizon and it was a distant horizon. He looked at the ground below, and it was the mouth of Hell, bottomless and beckoning. He looked quickly at the dashboard.

  Noticing his stare, Andrew tapped a finger on one instrument – there were only three – that looked like a thermometer and Ranklin saw it registered 500. Miles an hour? He was almost willing to believe it, then realised it must be feet above the ground. They lurched again and he grabbed for his seat, terrified that touching anything else might rip the machine apart or hurl it out of control.

  “Few rocks in the air, with this sun,” Andrew yelled. “Get above it soon after a thousand.” That must mean something, but Ranklin didn’t feel like opening his mouth. The sun suddenly glared at him from above the wing and he realised they were turning, the horizon sliding across the nose.

  Quite abruptly, like a boat slipping into harbour, it was calm. Almost as if they had stopped. It was still noisy and windy, but a steady noise and wind. The lurching, the ‘rocks in the air’ (irregular air currents?) had gone, and when Andrew turned again it was a smooth inevitable movement as on the racetrack banking below.

  Ranklin risked a deep breath and began to take in impressions. The way the fabric on the wing above quivered continuously, and a dribble of oil, flattened by the wind, crawled back along the metal skin ahead. Then, daring to look further, the way the landscape towards the sun was a bright haze but seemed crystal clear in the opposite direction. The vivid smear of white steam or smoke that must be a train – he’d never thought it would show up like that – and the obvious curve of the railway, far more distinct than the tangled, linking roads.

  But all oddly blotched, as if someone had spilled huge oil-stains over the landscape . . . which he suddenly realised must be cloud shadows. He had never thought of clouds as having site before, and stared at the evidence until their turn brought the sun sparkling off a bright snake that must be a stretch of river.

  That reminded him of the map and he dragged it from a side pocket and cautiously unfolded it in the eddying wind around his lap. Andrew looked down, grinned and shouted: “We’re not lost yet!”

  Ranklin shook his head, grinned back and called: “Just experimenting.” He had folded the map to show the immediate area, and taking the sun to be roughly south, tried to pinpoint himself. Andrew tipped the aeroplane towards Ranklin’s side and pointed past him. “Byfleet.”

  Ranklin forced himself to look, but the bottomless pit had become toys: houses, trees, cars and carts. And dots with shadows that must be people except that none of them seemed to be moving. Then he realised they must have stopped to stare up at him, or at least the aeroplane wheeling and buzzing in the bright blue. He felt embarrassed, a poseur because he didn’t belong in this aeroplane any more than they did, then grinned at his absurdity.

  Andrew was pointing at his own mouth. “Lunch?” Ranklin nodded and swivelled the map to match their turn towards the obvious oval of Brooklands that suddenly appeared from under the nose. It was odd how things below did seem to appear and disappear, how much depended on the angle of the light
and one’s own angle, which ranged from the vertical to the horizontal. Map-reading from the air was obviously a new art.

  Then he remembered BSA and the lightweight machine-gun. Pointing it straight ahead was one obvious solution, then you could aim the whole aeroplane and – oh dear: he’d forgotten the propeller spinning in the line of fire. And pointing it elsewhere gave a very small arc of fire and obvious aiming-off problems. He was trying to count the variables involved when the rocks in the air, and his stomach, came back. But salvation was in sight and he felt better diving towards it, the engine burping irregularly (but, he hoped, intentionally) than climbing into the unknown.

  Then the ground was coming up faster and he was sure Andrew had misjudged it, or maybe was fainting, and braced himself just as the nose lifted and they were down with a thump and rattle which dwindled away to silence except for Andrew saying: “Damn, lost it,” and he realised the engine had stopped.

  They rumbled to a stop and Andrew began clambering out. “That’s the one trouble with these engines, they will cut out on landing. We’ll walk it from here.”

  He came around to guide Ranklin down, then went to the tail, lifted it to waist height and simply pushed. After an initial grunt, the machine rolled easily, helped by a couple of mechanics attaching themselves to the wing spars. Ranklin walked beside Andrew.

  “Tell me,” he asked, “how would you mount a machine-gun on an aeroplane like this?”

  “With a hell of a lot of difficulty,” Andrew said. “She’s got a good view downwards, you saw that—”

  Ranklin had. It had been quite good enough, thank you.

  “—but any other direction, you’d be shooting off struts and wires and probably the prop. Vickers is building one with a pusher prop specially for their machine-gun; your War Office must know about it.”

  Ranklin mumbled something about how departments never talked to each other.

  Corinna was waiting by the shed, head slightly on one side and wearing a very broad grin. Ranklin could feel himself grinning back like a schoolboy; it was lucky that everybody else was concentrating on the aeroplane.