Novel - Airman

by Eoin Colfer

  He picked up the dog and delivered the message he had been sent with. “Warden is looking for you,” he said, unable to meet Billtoe’s eyes. “He says he’s full fed up of you and your hidey-holes. And you can either fill ’em in yourself, or he’ll fill ’em in with you inside. And that’s what he said to me, word for word. I been repeating it to myself over and over.”

  Billtoe was still wide eyed, his gaze darting around the rocky area. A thin string of drool hung from his lips. “He found me. He found me. I was in the barrel with sixpence, and he found me.”

  Poole decided to misunderstand; it was easier. “Yes, sir. The warden finds everyone. He must have eyes in his backside.” Poole chanced a flash of wit as he trotted after Sir Percival back to the guards’ billets.

  “Or maybe he has a set of wings and he flies over the island at night, looking down on us.”

  Billtoe sat himself down on a rock, prodded the goose-egg bump on his forehead, and began to cry.

  The Sky

  Conor Finn was flying, but it was not the gentle experience he had hoped for. The glider was a beast, and to conquer it meant constantly wrestling with the contraption as he soared through the air. Truth be told, it did not feel like soaring, rather a buffeting battle with the elements. The wings banged, cracked, and jerked, threatening to snap their ribs with every gust of wind. The harness bit into his chest, restricting his breathing, and even a collision with a seabird would send him spiraling to the earth. Nevertheless, Conor would not have missed the experience.

  I am the moon, he thought. I am the stars.

  And then, Look out. A seagull.

  The glider was holding together as well as he could have hoped, though he would swear that the third rib to starboard was splintering. He would slip it from its sleeve later and replace it with a new rod. The steering bar, one of his own innovations, was working perfectly, allowing him to shift his weight and exert a certain control over his trajectory. But it was a tenuous control, and one that could be contemptuously overruled by the smallest updraft or current.

  The night sky was heavy with clouds, reflecting the lights of nearby Wexford and Kilmore on their underbellies. Every now and then, Conor passed below a hole in the clouds and the full moon would spotlight him with her silver rays. Conor hoped that from below, his silhouette would be that of a large bird, but nevertheless he was glad of his decision to use black fabric for the wings. Dyed black, not painted. Paint would be too weighty.

  Up close and in broad daylight, it would be obvious that the glider was little more than a cleverly designed kite. Two elongated eight-foot curved ovals for wings, linked by a central circular hole where the pilot hung suspended in his leather harness. A short-stemmed tail rudder with leg braces and a nudge pole, which could be tipped by the feet, and a trapezoidal steering bar, which was attached directly to the main wing strut. In theory, if one could successfully locate rising thermals, it was possible to fly forever suspended below a glider like this. Of course, this was a very optimistic theory, which did not allow for wear and tear, bad science, and the simple fact that thermals were only slightly less difficult to locate than unicorns.

  Conor himself was outfitted in the sturdiest ballooning gear, leather chin-strapped cap, goggles, and tight boots. His uniform was a convincing copy of that worn by the French army’s aeronauts, but all in black down to the trouser piping, and no insignias apart from a mysterious winged A, which could possibly stand for Aéronautique.

  If I do happen to crash on the Saltees, thought Conor, I will look for all the world like a French airman, who does not want to be identified as such. In other words, a flying spy. That should stoke Bonvilain’s mistrust of the French army.

  It was a small comfort, but twisting a thorn of disquiet into Bonvilain’s heart was better than dying and leaving nothing but a corpse.

  His luck had held tonight. A good launch from the tunnel, with everything performing as it should. The steam fan had popped a few of the tunnel planks out of their grooves, but that was easily repaired, and there hadn’t been any great loss of wind power. Tonight it had worked in the open air, and he had managed to lean forward in the body harness and ratchet his legs back into the stirrups. This was one of his major innovations, though there were a thousand small ones, from the steam shaping of the ribs to the tail rudder.

  The coastline approached, and the black sea, with the Saltee Islands glowing upon it like two nests of fireflies. The moment he cleared St. Patrick’s Bridge, the long bar of shingle that curved from the mainland pointing like an arthritic finger toward Little Saltee, the thermal he had been riding disappeared and his glider stalled, tilting forward at the nose.

  Conor was prepared for this, but not ready. If the stall lasted more than a few moments, he would plummet to earth to a certain death.

  In the event of a stall, hold the nose down and set loose the bands.

  There were three ropes tied off to the steering bar and all three were linked to Conor’s wrist. He released the bar, tugging sharply downward, untying the hitches on all three ropes.

  The central rope was connected to a hinged forward panel, the beak, which pulled the nose down; the other two slipped from the blades of two wooden propellers, which were immediately set whirring by the released energy of two stout rubber cords.

  The rubber band propellers would only work once per flight, and the amount of thrust they provided was minimal, but it might be enough to pull him out of a stall.

  It was. The glider jumped forward barely a yard, but it righted itself and caught the sea breeze. Conor felt it running along the length of his body, smelled the salt in each gust.

  Before him, the Wall lights of Little Saltee marked his target in the blackness.

  Heart-shaped, he thought. From up here the island looks like a heart. And then: I am returning to Little Saltee. God help me, I am going back. And he could not suppress a shudder that was more dread than cold.

  On the night of his daring escape, Conor had spiraled flaming from the sky like Icarus of legend, crashing into a lifeboat on Victoria’s royal yacht, which was a-bustle with preparations for departure.

  Conor Finn lay undiscovered below a scattered dozen of cork life preservers for the duration of the overnight voyage, unable to move even if the rough hand of discovery had landed on his shoulder. The hand never came, and Conor was able to sleep until the yacht blew its horn to alert a skiff in its path.

  Fortune had smiled on him once more in London, where he had been able to slip overboard a couple of leagues out of harbor and swim to a slipway on the Thames.

  Conor stole a jacket, which fortunately had some bread and cheese in the pocket, then spent the remainder of the day walking the docks, listening for an Irish accent. By dusk he had spotted a group of London Irish who had too few teeth and too many tattoos to be Customs spies.

  If you ever do make it out of this hellhole, Malarkey had often said, find my brother Zeb on the London docks. Show him the ink, and he will look after you.

  Conor rolled up his sleeve for the dock workers, revealing his Battering Ram tattoo, and spoke the magic word: Malarkey. Inside the hour, he was up to his neck in soapy water with a mug of coffee in one hand and a fine cigar in the other. Zeb Malarkey was a man of means, most of these means being fruits of his own personal import tax.

  Zeb himself had arrived at the inn a couple of hours later, and without a word of greeting, examined both Conor’s tattoo and the Little Saltee brand. How’s Otto? he wanted to know. How’s his hair?

  Conor supplied the crime boss with as much information as he could. Hair silky, health fine. Nice little line in rackets going.

  Zeb had already heard of Conor through a prison guard on Little Saltee who took bribes to pass on information.

  Conor Finn? The soldier boy. Otto speaks highly of you. Says you put order on the Rams what is locked up. Fancy doing the same here?

  It was tempting, simply to shed his old life completely, like a reptile shrugging off a brittle skin.
But Conor knew enough of his own heart to realize that being a waterfront enforcer was not for him. He may not be Conor Broekhart anymore, but he was not entirely divorced from his mother’s morals. He could hurt another person to survive, but not for payment.

  He was an airman. That was his destiny. He needed to stick to the plan. Go to Ireland, build the means to reclaim his diamonds, and then sail for America with the funds to equip his own laboratory.

  So he told Zeb Malarkey thank you, but no. He had business on Little Saltee. Business that could make the Rams a lot of money. Perhaps Zeb had a few men in Ireland or perhaps on the Saltees who could help?

  The Rams have men everywhere. What kind of business? Revenge?

  Not exactly. There are items on the prison grounds that belong to me and your brother. I gave Otto my word that I would see him free. My thanks for his friendship these past years.

  Zeb Malarkey had tossed him a purse of guineas. Go then, islander. Go and spread chaos.

  Which was exactly what had happened.

  Little Saltee was suddenly below him. In less than three minutes, he had crossed the two-and-a-half-mile-wide band of ocean between the prison island and the mainland. If he had been one of an army, the island would have been overrun before they could sound the warning cannon.

  Conor’s body ached from the constant stress on his joints, and he was relieved to pull back on the bar and swing his glider into a descending curve. In test flights, he had succeeded in landing the glider inside the fences of a field far smaller than this island. But that field had hedges instead of guards. And the hedges were populated by badgers and squirrels, none of whom were likely to aim a rifle at flying creatures.

  Even at night, a bird’s-eye view was very revealing. There were three guards on the Wall, all at the northern end in the shelter of a tower. Conor could see the glowing bowls of their pipes bobbing close together. They should be evenly spaced and on the move, but centuries of quiet had bred complacency in them.

  There were actually two walls on Little Saltee. The main outer ring, and an inner wall that circled the prison building. In between the two was the work area where inmates took exercise and toiled over their salsa gardens. This was where Conor wished to land. Where the diamonds were buried.

  A thermal suddenly took his craft, causing him to overshoot his preferred landing spot by a hundred yards. Conor kicked the nudge bar to extreme port, and pointed the nose down. This put him into a tail-spinning descent, but his alternative was to land in the ocean. It would be a pity to drown tonight, having flown farther in a glider than any man before him. Victor would be proud.

  The thought unsettled him. In prison he had tried not to think of the family and friends from his old life, but since his escape he could think of little else. I could simply go back. Explain. Father could challenge Bonvilain.

  Yes. And be murdered for his pains. Mother, too. Best to simply nail the door shut on the past and begin his new life.

  Conor dropped quickly. Rocks and hillocks grew from what had been syrupy black space. The glider fought him all the way down, and he fought back, cursing at his infernal craft, refusing to allow it its head.

  Once inside the wall’s shelter, the turbulence disappeared and the glider grew docile and sweet, lifting her neck graceful as a swan. Conor’s boot heels dug into soft earth, and he plowed twin furrows for ten feet before he cranked the wings up behind him with a winch on his belt, and came to a halt.

  There was no time to rejoice in his landing or congratulate himself on the effectiveness of his collapsible wings, though at the moment they were technically only hoisted. To be fully collapsed, two struts had to be removed.

  To work, to work. The diamonds were buried one foot beyond the northernmost corner of each salsa patch. Seven patches, seven bags of diamonds. The nearest prison garden was virtually at his feet. If he worked quickly and was not discovered, he could possibly retrieve three bags tonight.

  Conor drew a saber from his belt, using it to dig into the sod, searching for diamonds, but was distracted from his labor by the sight of a dark and distraught figure rising from the earth. A trap. I am trapped.

  But that was not the truth of it. The shivering figure spoke. “What are you? What do you want with Arthur Billtoe?”

  Conor felt an anger so intense that it was physical. His brow burned and the saber’s leather-bound pommel creaked in his fist. “Billtoe,” he growled, springing forward. “Arthur Billtoe!”

  The speed of his motion caught the air, and the wings jerked skyward. Conor was elevated briefly, but if Billtoe thought he could escape, he was wrong. Conor landed not two feet from the terrified guard, wrapping steel fingers around the man’s gullet.

  How the tables have turned. Who is the master now? Not twenty yards from where you bullied and humiliated me. “Billtoe,” he said again, laying his saber blade flat along Billtoe’s pale throat.

  “A-Are you angel or devil, sir?” stammered the guard. “I needs to know. Are you taking me up the ways, or down?”

  Conor considered killing him. The urge was strong. In all likelihood, this wretch had murdered Linus Wynter. He indulged this desire to the tune of a small cut on the guard’s neck. But he could not complete the motion.

  Still not a killer, Linus might have said.

  Stick to the plan. You are a French spy. “I can be angel or devil, monsieur,” said Conor. “But in your case, I will always be a devil.”

  “Will you kill me now?” cried Billtoe.

  “No, monsieur, not now,” said Conor with more than a touch of regret. “But you are making a lot of noise, so . . .”

  He struck Billtoe sharply on the temple with the saber’s guard, relishing the thump of contact. Funny, the guard did not seem so threatening now, stretched in the grass. A coward without his gun or the weight of authority behind him.

  Get the diamonds. One bag at least. Conor’s plan to unearth three bags was shot. Billtoe could wake at any moment, and tempting as the notion might be, he could not keep bashing Billtoe’s skull all night. Neither could he bind and gag the man, as he did not have a rope or cloth. Something to remember for his next visit, should he survive this outing.

  Conor returned to his digging, levering clods from the earth with the saber. It occurred to him then that Malarkey could have lied, and secreted their booty in another spot, but Conor thought it was unlikely. In spite of inauspicious beginnings, Otto Malarkey had become his friend, and the Battering Rams had a strong sense of loyalty. They would mount the gallows steps before betraying another man who bore the mark.

  Conor’s trust was warranted. His blade soon clinked against a clutch of diamonds. He put away the saber and scrabbled in the dirt with his gloved fingers, pulling the pouch of diamonds from the earth. One found. Six more to go.

  He was tempted to try for another. With a second bag on his belt, his future would be secure and he could leave for America tomorrow. Go now. Be prudent. Billtoe could wake at any second.

  One more. Just one. Conor ran to the second salsa bed, all the time imagining that Billtoe had regained his senses.

  Should I have killed him?

  No. A dead guard would raise suspicions. There would be an investigation. Billtoe having conversations with a flying Frenchman, on the other hand, would be viewed as the ramblings of a drunkard, unless Bonvilain got wind of them.

  Too late now. Fetch the second bag. The salsa bed was farther north along the Wall’s curve. Conor ran close to the plinth, avoiding the swirling currents that flowed over the island’s hillocks, and also the salty mist that would weigh down his wings. The glider needs to collapse further, he told himself. The wings catch every breath of air.

  The second pouch was as easy to find as the first had been. Otto Malarkey had followed his instructions well. The bag slid from the earth, trailing clods and pebbles. It was the size and weight of a small rabbit. Heavy enough. Two found.

  Now it was most certainly time to fly. To attempt one more search was to invite disaster
. Conor had a sudden image of passing the remainder of the night back in his old cell, and a shudder rippled along his spine. He must be away.

  The guards were doubtless huddled in the northern tower, filling their pipe bowls, so he would make his escape from the south. Conor returned to the base of the Wall and followed his nose until he found the garderobe, a privy hollowed into the base of the Wall with a drain running through into the ocean. Garderobes were normally near the stairwell, so the guard would need as little time away from his post as possible.

  And, just as he had hoped, the stairwell was a mere three paces past the garderobe, built as a stepped bulwark to the main wall. Conor crab-walked up, keeping his wings behind him, safe from damage but open to gusts of wind. More than once he was forced to brace his legs against the efforts of his hoisted wings to drag him from the steps. Not yet. Higher still.

  There was neither sight nor sound of a sentry on the Wall walk, though he himself would be visible plain enough as soon as he emerged from the stairwell. It was all exactly as he had planned, but for Billtoe. What in heaven’s name had the man been doing? Sleeping in the outdoors?

  Conor lay his body flat along the top steps, peering along the Wall’s curve at each side. The cobbles, worn smooth by centuries of patrol, shone orange in the electric light. The crenellated parapet was head high with rows of horizontal gun ports. The wind whistled through each one, sending up an eerie banshee howling.

  An offshore wind. Still strong.

  It would have been most fortuitous had the wind changed to a sea breeze, blowing back toward the mainland. But these were the kind of odds that could not be relied upon. Take advantage when lady luck smiles, but do not plan on it. And so Conor’s immediate destination was not Kilmore, but Great Saltee, for that was where the wind was going.

  Conor gathered his feet under him, pushing his harness lower. He gripped the wing hoist lever in one hand and the rudder bar in the other. Once more into the air.