Some years before, it is true, foreign naval engineers had resolved the principle of the steam-turbine. Now, ships whose engines turned by means of the new principle were not uncommon. Even in France, modern battleships had been equipped with them. But Rozal justly reproached aircraft engineers for having devoted their research to the most ancient and least practical motive force: steam. Why had they not developed an explosive engine, more powerful and smaller in volume?
As soon as he had carried out his first experiments Rozal understood the reason for that disdain. The gases providing the explosion lacked flexibility, were brutal, impossible to domesticate. To utilize them, they had to be mixed with air and compressed forcefully. Subsequently ignited by an electric spark, they exploded, producing a sudden expansive force, but they did not condense in the manner of water vapor. In those conditions, how was it possible to construct a turbine, the most elementary principle of which demanded continuity of the force produced and liberated?
He was not discouraged, however. He sensed that a solution existed—and searched for it passionately. While he had restricted himself, however, exclusively to the domain of mechanics, he had got nowhere. Then, suddenly, one day, with a flash of enlightenment in the darkness, he had realized that he had been caught up in an error. Instead of trying to construct an apparatus that would transform the brutal force of the explosion, and make it more flexible, why not get rid of the explosion itself and find a gaseous mixture that would not require compression, and that ignition or some other procedure would transform into an irresistible flood, which, escaping between the blades of a turbine, would produce a continuous, flexible and absolutely unprecedented rotary force? Then he had abandoned everything he had attempted and constructed previously and had started studying chemistry.
Thereafter, he had made more progress in six months than in six years. Experimenting, as he went along, with his mixtures, by means of machines constructed ad hoc, which he designed alongside his formulae and had his workers construct, he soon perceived that he was on the right track.
At the moment of his encounter with Nelly Mackay, he believed that he had discovered the gas whose association with another gas, heated in special and sudden conditions, would take on a formidable volume, giving birth to an expansive force that ought, theoretically, to activate a turbine of reduced dimensions, and thus realize the engine of the future. It only remained or him to construct the turbine when he had fallen madly in love, lost interest in his invention and lived for six months in a happiness that was to conclude in a conjugal catastrophe.
But since then—oh, sine then—he had caught up! The turbine, however, had caused him more trouble than he had anticipated. Although, the formula of his composite had seemed definitive, he had had to recommence the engine, which was difficult to adapt the qualities of a force whose characteristics entire escaped the engineer. Finally, though, he believed that he had completely realized his dream, this time; full of hope, he had put into the hands of his workers, the design for the components whose assembly would constitute his masterpiece.
When Turner was permitted to enter the secret workshop, the engine was in place on trestles; only a few details—albeit important ones—remained incomplete; the silhouette of the apparatus was almost definitive. It was a sort of square block in cast steel and bronze fitted with a cylinder, the visible interior of which was filled with a multitude of little shining winglets. A polished steel axle emerged therefrom. The whole, encased in a robust housing was no more voluminous than the engine of a small car.
Rozal enjoyed his friend’s amazement momentarily, then laughed. “And that toy, old chap, produces 2000 horse-power—or rather, it will, this evening.”
Turner contemplated Rozal then like a formidable phenomenon, and looked at him the admiring gaze of a small bot.
Not until nine o’clock in the evening were they ready for the trials. No one had given any thought to dinner; even the workers were gripped by the anguish of the mystery that might perhaps be revealed to them in a few minutes.
Outside, a moonless July night was beginning. Not far from the factory, in the near-darkness—for daylight in that season, taking a long time to depart, does not disappear completely, it is said, and still leaves a hint of brightness behind—the banks of the Seine retained their age-old appearance, but the building, with its large illuminated windows, resembled a church during the evening service. It really was a temple: an industrial temple in which, at that late hour, people were still praying—which is to say, working—for the accomplishment of a prodigy.
Finally, the last bolt fastened the engine to the test-bed. When the screws had been tightened, the foreman who had supervised the work turned to Rozal. “There it is, boss!”
“Well, Etienne, let’s go.”
A great hush ensured, palpable and almost dramatic. The hearts beat faster in the breasts of the witnesses, and all eyes were fixed on the mysterious device that rested, inertly, on its solid stand, and which, at any moment, might come to life or remain in its useless fixity.
Rozal walked around the apparatus, checking the components, personally topping up the oil in the delicate lubricators. He seemed very calm and self-possessed. After a final examination and a glance at the magneto, he pronounced in a firm voice: “Look out, lads!” And, abruptly, he turned a handle.
Immediately, a dull roar was heard in the workshop, a noise like a loud buzz—but on the stand to which the engine was bolted, it did not seemed that the object budged, and the anguished spectators thought that it had already broken down.
Rozal, however, was radiant, in spite of the calm he had manifested for so many days. No one moved, not understanding the excitement in his expression.
“Well,” he said, “it’s spinning. It’s spinning!”
Then Turner stepped forward anxiously, and Rozal grabbed his arm as he made as if to lean over the turbine. “Look out, idiot—you’ll hurt yourself!
Turner shivered, leaned over nevertheless—prudently—and straightened up rapidly. He threw his arms around Rozal’s neck, crying: “Oh! I must embrace you, old chap!”
The onlookers understood, too; the rotation imparted to the axle by the magic turbine was such that the axle did not appear to be spinning, but it was doing so with fantastic speed—and that prodigious force, that irresistible movement, was only betrayed by an insignificant noise: the hum produced by the expanded gases escaping from the rows of winglets in the steel cylinder.
Turner consulted the dynamometer. “Four hundred horsepower,” he said.
“Wait a minute!” Rozal replied.
He pushed a lever to its limit. Suddenly, the needle leapt to the figure 2100! And Turner, speechless with amazement, could not give voice to the surge of joy that he experienced.
The engineer stopped the engine then. He turned to his workers, who were looking at him like worshipers at a manifest God. “My friends, don’t forget that you have lent me your collaboration in order to attain this result. I thank you, and I swear to you that you will have your share of the triumph.”
All their hands, then, were extended toward the engineer, and all their mouths, in unison, uttered a loud and sincere cry of “Long live Rozal!” while Turner threw himself into his friend’s arms for a second accolade, and received, on his cheek, a warm and happy tear.
IV. The Iron Eagle in the Tempest
The following Wednesday, the day after the Fête Nationale,35 Henri Rozal and Turner tested the monoplane equipped with the brilliantly-realized turbine.
They had taken the apparatus, carefully shrouded, to the aerodrome at Villacoublay, in great mystery. Certainly, their arrival did not pass unperceived, but the two aviators were well-known, everyone there was familiar with the objective of Rozal’s research, and had often witnessed the previous trials they had made at the same aerodrome. Without being bothered by a curious crowd, the two friends were able to put the mechanical bird into a hangar in total tranquility.
That evening, at dusk, havin
g unpacked the beast, they brought it out on to the runway. Then the few spectators who were present—the pilots of the aviation school, a group of three Russian officers visiting France to buy aircraft, and a dainty woman in little white shoes, white stockings and a white dress, coiffed with a violet hat: an actress from the Variétés, Marcelle Fougerette, whose limousine was waiting on the road—were unable to hide the surprise that the appearance of the unexpected machine caused them. Immediately, they gathered together at a distance, asking one another, to begin with: “Do you know what that is?”
“Another machine designed by Rozal. He’ll break his back one day.”
“It might be this evening…if it’s possible that a fantastically heavy armored aircraft like that can get off the ground.”
“Is it a torpedo or a rhinoceros?”
“A fish or an eagle?” added another.
“Rozal’s installing himself at the controls. I’m curious to see whether it will fly.”
“Oh!” said the director of the pilot school. “Turner’s getting in with him.”
The intrigued spectators drew nearer. They surrounded the bizarre bird. A pupil asked Rozal: “Do you want any help?”
“Thanks—I can take off without any assistance.”
A smile of incredulity passed over their lips. They would soon see.
But what they see is, abruptly, a sort of phenomenal leap, like the departure of an arrow at the release of the distended cord—and before the audience has understood what is happening, the strange beast is rising up to assault the clouds.
“Oh! Wow!” That is all that the director of the piloting school can find to express his admiration. He is still bowled over, rooted to the spot, his eyes wide, his arms hanging loose, when the fantastic bird had passed high above the poplars and is no more, now, than a grey dot in the sky, where the last glimmers of daylight are fading away.
A Russian officer asks: “Do you know anything about that engine?”
“No. It took off, by itself, without making any noise, and the apparatus had only traveled three meters along the ground. To go up like that, it must have hundreds of horsepower! It’s a diabolical bird, and Rozal’s a sorcerer.”
“If I’d known,” the little actress put in, “I’d have asked him to take me on a trip. I’m strongly tempted to wait for him to come back.”
“If he comes back! Don’t count on it. Henri Rozal’s an eccentric. Apart from his friend Turner, he never takes anyone with him. Not to mention that, with his bewildering inventions, it’s not without danger. Look at the sky, too. If he stays in the air for another quarter of an hour, I’ll wager that he breaks the woodwork when he comes down.”
“The iron,” the officer corrected, “for I didn’t see much wood in his apparatus. But you’re right. There’s a fine storm brewing. It’s crazy to fly in weather as threatening.”
Night had fallen. Large dark clouds were rolling across the sky, driven by a terrible north-westerly wind that had suddenly got up. They were inky masses, densely packed together, sometimes fringed with violet-gray or yellow, for the moon occasionally showed its face—and those light blocks, borne by the tempest, seemed to be precipitating toward abysses on the far side of the horizon.
The few spectators—including the three Russian officers, the pretty woman in the white costume and mauve hat, and the director of the pilot school—had all taken shelter from the rain, which was falling in torrents, lashing the houses amid frightful gusts of wind. Lightning flashes illuminated the chaos.
Then, by courtesy of that exceedingly brief blaze, they perceived a kind of projectile cutting through the clouds. It was Rozal’s bird! It was traveling faster than the wind, faster than the cohorts of clouds. It was toying with the atmosphere! It went into the black masses and emerged from them with ease, while the thunder rumbled everywhere. Sometimes to the north, sometimes to the south, the eat or the west, it never ceased to plough through the tormented realm, as if, live the general of the army of the clouds, it was reviewing them, and presiding over that tragic battle of the unleashed elements. Like a giant petrel soaring over a sailing ship lost at sea in a typhoon, it played with the raging wind, the rain, the storm—and it kept on turning, continuously, within the frightful round-dance of the wretched vapors, which that irresistible iron eagle cut through like a meteor.
Soon, its progress became less hectic; even so, its speed remained impressive.
Rozal had decided to come down.
Prudently, because of the tempest, he had first reconnoitered the terrain of the aerodrome. He approached from the side opposite to the direction of the wind, in order to have considerable room ahead of him for a maneuver that, banal in other circumstances, involved real and serious risks that evening.
It was head on to the wind that he began his descent, slowing his speed—and, as the disposition of his aircraft permitted him to speak to Turner in spite of the frightful racket of the storm and the wind, he said to him: “That’s curious. How furious must the storm be? My speedometer indicates that we’re traveling at present at 130 kilometers an hour, but we’re scarcely making any headway. With an ordinary engine, we’d never withstand that terrible current!”
He accelerated slightly, drawing nearer to the ground. At three meters, he cut his sped, but a formidable blast of wind held him up for five seconds. Then, without his knowing exactly how it happened, he fell. The brutal shock nearly threw him to the ground, and he uttered a curse.
“Anything broken?” he asked Turner.
“No—what about the apparatus?”
“Oh, it’s solid. All the same, it’s no weather to be flying. Nevertheless, I’m happy with the experiment in such conditions; it proves to me that further trials would be superfluous, and that there’s no atmospheric upheaval capable of preventing me from crossing that Atlantic in total security.”
“You still want to risk that folly?”
“It’s no longer folly now!”
A gust of wind rocked the monoplane from which they had got down—which, along with the rain lashing them, reminded them of the necessities of the moment. Hastily, they dragged the airplane toward the hangar. As Rozal did not want to abandon his invention at any price, though, even for one night, they made up a bed next to the hull, with sacks, blankets and straw that they found in a corner of the hangar, and went to sleep fraternally under the wings of the great iron eagle.
V. Allons, enfants de la patrie!
The announcement of Rozal’s departure was a considerable event, not only in France but in the world. To dare to attempt such a feat—Paris to New York—would have been madness, without an instrument conceived by a man of genius.
Thus, on the morning of the day chosen by the aviator to launch forth of the conquest of transatlantic space, an innumerable crowd gathered around the drill-field of Issy-les-Moulineaux, chosen for the sensational departure. Rozal had declared, in interviews with specialist reporters from the major dailies, that he was virtually certain that he would succeed.
When consulted, well-known scientists admitted to see the turbine working, had no doubt of its success, but they maintained reservations with regard to the curious airplane, a winged hippopotamus or an armored eagle with excessively short lift-providing surfaces. They freely admitted that it would fly—they had to agree on that, since the experiment at Villacoublay proved as much—but they would have liked to see the apparatus glide, without the assistance of the engine, as ordinary airplanes with the most inexperienced pilots do every day. They feared a breakdown—and a breakdown in the middle of the ocean, with that mass of iron, would mean everything being swallowed up by the waves.
Turner had begged his friend to carry out further experiments, but Rozal had replied to him with a logic that was, in the final analysis, sustainable. “What’s the point? I don’t have any time to waste, and want to take advantage of the longest days of the year—they’re beginning to diminish already. The monoplane has proved itself in atmospheric conditions that probably wo
n’t recur. What, then? The engine? But the very principle of its construction prohibits breakdown! The rotary movement is uninterrupted as long as the mechanical parts hold, and I’ve demanded of the turbine, on the test-bed, six times as much force as it will furnish! I can make it spin for a week without interruption if I want. And remember that I won’t take more than fourteen hours, at 440 kilometers an hour, to travel the distance from Paris to New York.
All Turner’s observations had been impotent to distract Rozal from his obsession: to depart as soon as possible, in order not to delay the great result.
It was on July 28, 1914, when the first light had not yet been glimpsed, that he brought out his monoplane on to the airfield at Issy-les-Moulineaux. He had decided to leave Paris at dawn, in order to be in New York before nightfall. In spite of the external political anxieties, all the capital’s newspapers had devoted articles to the unprecedented attempt.
Meanwhile, Austria, accusing the Serbs of having assassinated the Archduke heir to the throne and his wife, were trying to impose the most humiliating ultimatum on the tiny and valiant nation, as a harsh punishment.36 Serbia had accepted it, under the sword of the stronger nation, but the old emperor, Franz-Joseph, senile and tragic to the extent of being sinister, with the directive complicity of Kaiser Wilhelm II, declared war anyway. Tsar Nicholas II was standing firm as the protector of Serbia, whose total suppression was threatened for the outrage for which some people, in their turn, were accusing Austria. France, by virtue of its treaties of alliance, had to take the side of Russia, a friend, against Germany, the preparer of the conflict and the initiator of the quarrel. These questions filled the newspapers and occupied all conversation, while the Chambers had been in recess since the fifteenth of July and the President of the Republic was visiting St. Petersburg.
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