Hydrofoil Mystery (12 page)

“The whole place could explode at any second! Take a deep breath and climb the ladder! There isn't time to waste!” he screamed into my ear.

Still I didn't move.

“I'll be right behind you!” He shoved me and I started up the ladder.

Just short of the veil of smoke I took a deep breath and hurried up the next step. The smoke was thick and filled my nostrils and stung my eyes. I scrambled over the edge of the boat and fell heavily into the cockpit, landing on my back. The smoke was far less thick and I took another breath. Looking up through the smoke I saw bright red fingers of flame flash across the ceiling.

“Ugghhh!” I screamed as Bell tumbled on top of me. Our arms and legs were intertwined and his knees and elbows dug into me painfully as he rolled over and took to his knees.

“The release—we have to push the release!”

He put both hands against a lever and I could see the strain in his face, illuminated more clearly by a sudden burst of flames that pressed me back against the floor of the hydrofoil.

“It's stuck! I can't move it. Help, William, put your weight into it!”

I rolled over and wormed my way forward on my belly. “The lever! The lever! Pull it!”

I rose to my knees and pulled the lever while Bell pushed against it from the opposite direction. It rocked slightly back and forth with our efforts but remained firmly locked in place.

There were two more explosions in rapid succession and I felt something splatter against my face. Almost instantly the ceiling burst into one patch of brilliant red and a surge of heat smashed me in the face. Suddenly the
lever cracked and Bell fell forward, while I tumbled backward. I put my hands over my face to shield my eyes from the blazing flames. The heat and smoke pressed down, and I knew I was helpless to escape. My head felt like it was spinning … and then … at first slowly, and then faster … we were moving. The smoke disappeared and the night sky appeared above my head. I just lay there on my back and watched as the roar of the fire faded, the cool night air surrounded me, and the stars twinkled brightly. We were rolling along the gentle incline toward the water, picking up speed. There was a bump and tremendous splash and a few drops of water hit my face.

I heard soft laughter, Bell's laughter, and pushed myself up. He was lying there, propped up on his elbow. He rose to a sitting position and I did likewise. Side by side we looked over the side of the hydrofoil at the boathouse. Smoke poured out of every window and door and flames shot through the roof and reached up into the sky, throwing sparks up to the heavens. Repeated explosions flashed out even brighter and the sound cannoned down the slope.

“What do you have all over you, William?”

“What?” I turned to Bell and saw blue and green streaks covering his face and beard and hair. I looked at my hands and realized they were covered too.

“Paint. It must be paint,” he said, answering his own question. “The explosions are cans of paint. We must have been splattered when one of them exploded.”

The hydrofoil rocked gently, and I could tell we were drifting slowly away from shore.

“Shouldn't we do something?” I asked

“There isn't much for us to do. Surely they'll now be able to notice the fire at the house and people will come to investigate. Somebody will tow us back to land.”

He started chuckling and chortling to himself, at first softly and then much louder.

“Are you all right, Mr. Bell?” I asked, wondering if the heat or fire had got to him, or maybe one of the exploding paint containers had hit him in the head.

“I'm fine, lad, just fine. It's just … lately I've been feeling old … but not tonight. Just think, in one night I almost got into a fight with three young hooligans, then ran into a burning building and saved the
HD
-4. This has been a most eventful and exciting evening. Most exciting. I feel younger tonight than I have in many a year!”

Chapter Ten

I
SAT BOLT UPRIGHT IN
bed and the previous night's events flashed through my mind. It couldn't have been real, it couldn't … I looked down at my legs. I'd gone to bed in my clothes, in spite of the dried paint, and my pants were still streaked with lines and blotches of bright red and green. I got to my feet and undid the buttons of my shirt, which was similarly stained. Pulling it off produced the strong scent of smoke. I removed my pants as well and replaced them with fresh clothing from my drawer. Then once I'd finished dressing, I quickly ran down the noisy steps and into the morning sunlight. I wasn't sure of the time, but judging from how low the sun was in the sky, it was still early morning.

I was racked by a coughing fit and stopped. Gagging, I spat up a large lump of black goop onto the grass. I knew this was some of the smoke and stuff I'd inhaled during the fire. Last night, well after we'd left the scene of the blaze, little puffs of smoke were still coming out of my mouth when I coughed. I took a deep breath and could almost feel my lungs expanding.

I hadn't been able to get to sleep for a long time after finally reaching my bed. The events of the night kept going around and around in my head, and I couldn't shut
my mind down. Mr. Bell had told me that some of the materials in the boathouse were so flammable they would have produced an incredibly hot fire; so hot that if we hadn't got out they never would have known for certain what had happened to us, because even our bones would have melted or burned to ash. I flexed the fingers on one hand and held them up. It was good to still have my bones where they belonged.

Within a few minutes of us hitting the water, the first people had noticed the fire and come running through the night. We'd heard their cries well before we could see them. At first they hadn't even noticed us floating in the darkness offshore in the hydrofoil. We screamed and yelled to get their attention. Mr. Bell's fear was that somebody was going to get hurt trying to put out what was a hopelessly out-of-control fire.

“Only a fool would run into a burning building,” he said to me, and began chuckling to himself.

When they noticed us, a rowboat was put out. A line was tied to the
HD
-4 and we were towed back to shore. Mr. Bell had everybody stand well back from the building, and in time it seemed like every single person on the estate, including Mrs. Bell herself, was gathered in a semicircle watching the inferno. And it was well worth watching.

Aside from the flames, there were regular explosions and towers of fire bursting up into the night sky. Sometimes the flames were tinted with different colours, as barrels or canisters or cans of paint and varnish were consumed. It was like the fireworks displays they had in Halifax harbour to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday, only better.

Most of the staff were still standing around watching when Mrs. Bell, having noticed the paint and soot covering Mr. Bell and me, insisted we come back to the house and get “looked at” and “cleaned up.” She was very kind to me, and she tried to be gentle with the varsol when she was rubbing the paint off my face, but she was less than kind with her husband. She called him an “old fool” for going into the building and asked him how he'd feel if some “idiot” had led one of his grandchildren into a burning building, and I could tell she was really scouring at his skin to remove the paint. Mr. Bell didn't argue with anything, he just kept saying “yes, dear” or “no, dear,” and he tried to look like he was sorry, but a couple of times when she wasn't looking he winked at me and I could swear I saw laughter in his eyes.

My stomach grumbled and I started thinking I should head for breakfast. But my curiosity was crying even louder than my hunger, so I went toward the remains of the boathouse rather than the kitchen.

Thin wisps of smoke rose up from behind the trees. I doubled my pace, and as I rounded the edge of the forest I could see the building, or I guess really the charred shell of it. There were three men standing off to the side; getting closer, I recognized Casey and the two Stewarts. They were huddled together, obviously deep in discussion. For the most part, the building had been reduced to a pile of smouldering white ashes. Pieces of charred metal, cans and barrels, beams and struts poked out at awkward angles. Some had taken strange new shapes, having been melted in the furnace of the fire and then cooled. Resting out in the lake, the
HD
-4 bobbed gently on
the waves. It was anchored to the tracks by two lines and looked as though it were peacefully sleeping after the difficult night.

“Billy, how are you feeling?” Casey asked.

I was startled. “Okay, I guess. I can still feel it a bit in my chest. How is Mr. Bell?”

“Oh, fine, I imagine. He seemed fine at bedtime. Of course, we won't get an update until he gets up,” Casey said. He looked at his watch. “And that won't be for another four or five hours at least. He never gets up early, and after a night like last night it'll be well past noon before they even attempt to pry his eyes open. By the way, I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“For saving the hydrofoil,” he answered, motioning to the craft.

“It was Mr. Bell who did everything.”

“That's not what I heard. Before Mrs. Bell hauled the two of you away last night, Alec told me if it hadn't been for you there wouldn't be an
HD
-4.”

“I just did what Mr. Bell ordered me to do.”

“Not likely. I can't see Alec ordering you or anybody else to risk his life. That was something you did on your own, and I'm grateful.”

“I just wish we could have put out the fire and saved the boathouse.”

“The boathouse isn't important. Everything of value is out there,” he said, gesturing toward the
HD
-4 gently rocking on the waves, “locked away here,” he continued, tapping his head, “or, most important, sound asleep with the blinds drawn at the main house. All we've lost in the
fire is some materials and parts. This will hardly set us back a hiccup.”

Casey's voice was cut off by the sound of an engine and grinding gears. A large truck appeared, rumbling along the path leading up to the boathouse.

“You still want to offer your help this morning?” Casey asked.

“Help with what?”

“The hydrofoil, of course.”

“But … but … how … ?”

“We need more help than ever,” old Mr. Stewart said, “if we hope to rebuild the boathouse before nightfall.”

The truck screeched to a stop and two men jumped out of the back.

“Everything we'll need is in the back of the truck. We're going to rebuild it a little better, a little bigger and a little bit closer to the water.”

“And perhaps most important, with a separate building off to the side to store the flammables. We won't be making the same mistake again.”

P
EOPLE TRICKLED IN
from the staff house and from town until there were more than three dozen of us working. I was really shaken when I saw Angus wielding a hammer and nails. He nodded at me but didn't say a thing about the previous night. Either he'd been too drunk to remember what had occurred, or he remembered but was too embarrassed to say anything. Everybody worked under the direction of old Mr. Stewart, and things went smoothly. While we worked, pots of coffee and freshly baked muffins and bread, slathered with fresh butter, were brought up to us
from the kitchen. By noon the skeleton of the building was in place. Lunch was also brought up to the site, and we shovelled down heaping bowls of stew between hammer blows and saw cuts. Mrs. McCauley-Brown supervised the distribution of the meal. She gave me a big hug and a kiss along with my stew and bread.

The ashes of the old building, which had had water poured on them and were no longer smoking, were visible through the framing of the back wall. My attention was caught by the sight of Mr. Bell, standing over the remains of the boathouse. He was poking at it with a broom handle. I tucked my hammer in my tool belt and went over to see what he was doing.

A pile of objects, mainly pieces of metal, lay at his feet. As I watched, he continued to fish more items out of the ashes. He was talking to himself quietly and I couldn't hear what he was saying. I cleared my throat loudly and he looked up at me.

“You came to work, did you?”

I nodded. “I've been here for a while. What are you looking for?”

“I have no idea. Most likely nothing, but possibly something. Many, many inventions and discoveries have been made by accident. I was wondering if this accident might reveal something wondrous and unique.”

I looked down at the objects he'd piled on the ground. He smiled. “And thus far this accident has produced nothing of value.”

“What do you think caused the fire?” I asked.

“I'm not sure. There could be a number of possible causes.”
It wasn't unusual to hear the horsedrawn fire wagons going by in Halifax. Houses and stores and warehouses often burned down. Usually it was caused by cooking, or somebody not being careful with their cigarettes or a buildup of gunk in the chimney that sparked a fire on the roof.

“I suspect it was probably spontaneous combustion.” “Spontaneous … ?”

“Combustion. The fumes from certain substances, like those used to seal the hull of the
HD
-4, can burst into flames all by themselves if they are improperly stored or cleaned. I can think of no other reason.”

I was happy to hear he had a reason. I'd been going over and over it in my mind and couldn't think of any way this fire could have happened except one: somebody had deliberately set it. Even stranger, and I had no reason to explain why I was even thinking it, I wondered if that meeting I'd witnessed in the arbour had something to do with it.

“I saw young Angus working. Did he ask you for his money back?”

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. I felt embarrassed talking about it. “He hasn't said a word to me.”