The Challenging Heights (23 page)

‘That machine of yours doesn’t look right. It’s out of date.’

‘You’re bloody sure, aren’t you?’ She was angry with him now.

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

She was silent for a moment and when she spoke again her voice was shaky. ‘We’ve
got
to go, Dicky Boy,’ she said.

‘Why, for God’s sake?’

‘Because we’ve said we’re going. Casey says there’ll be a reaction against ocean racing now and it’s our last chance.’

There was truth in what she said. The newspapers had once again performed a volte face.

‘Before this, half the cities in the US were wanting long-distance flights to end on their airfields,’ Zoë went on in a small voice. ‘Now they’re backing down. San Francisco, Boston. Philadelphia. Cleveland. Tokyo have agreed to hold on because we’ve announced we’re coming, but they’re not so keen as they were.’ She sighed. ‘It’s been a hell of a two years.’

‘People have been looking at flying with their emotions,’ Dicken agreed. ‘They’ve not been
thinking
about it.’

There was a long silence then Zoë’s voice came again. This time it seemed almost like an attempt to regain lost confidence.

‘Casey knows what he’s doing,’ she whispered. ‘He’s built other planes.’

‘As big as this one? Why not let him fly it up to Vancouver without you? If it behaves well, then that’s that. If it doesn’t he’ll soon find out.’

For a moment she stared at him. ‘What’s it to you, anyway?’ she asked miserably. ‘You’ve nothing to thank me for, the way I’ve behaved to you. Why are you trying so goddam hard to look after me now?’

Some time during the following day Dicken heard that, although the
Baltimore Bantam
had been placed in position ready for an early take-off the following morning, Zoë had said she wasn’t feeling well and that Harmer had signed on a co-pilot.

‘He’s a guy from across the field,’ she explained. ‘He’s got a good record.’

Dicken agreed to be present at the take-off to see how the great machine behaved.

‘And if the goddam thing flies to Vancouver without trouble, I don’t want to hear another goddam word,’ Zoë said.

When the taxi picked Dicken up it was raining, the water sliding through the beams of the headlights, straight and silvery and shining. Mist hung in the air and the hiss of the tyres was surprisingly loud.

As Zoë climbed in beside him she sat huddled in one corner of the seat, silent and pale, the collar of her coat turned up, her face turned away from Dicken. By the time they reached the airfield, the rain had stopped and Harmer was waiting by the empty hangar.

‘She’s out at the edge of the field,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided to dispense with the rear undercarriage.’

It was clear that Dicken’s doubts and the disasters of the Dufee Derby had worried him and he went on hurriedly, almost as if he hoped to prevent Dicken making any comment.

‘It’s clearing fast,’ he said. ‘There’s a good forecast and it hasn’t been raining long enough to make the ground heavy.’

Zoë was looking at him anxiously. ‘It’ll slow the take-off, Case,’ she said. ‘Getting rid of the rear undercarriage.’

Harmer gave an irritated gesture, as if he were nervous. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve decided to go for a ramp instead, like Byrd did. It’ll give her the same fast start as the rear undercart. None of that slow build-up of speed as she rolls and nothing to damage the tail like Fonck’s rear undercart did. Byrd used one when he flew the Atlantic. She’ll be tethered at the top with a rope.’

They climbed into the big roadster and Harmer drove them along the side of the field. The
Baltimore Bantam
had been pushed to the top of an inclined ramp which had been built of earth and sandbags and covered with planks to prevent the wheels sinking into it. A heavy double rope, knotted in several places, ran back from the undercarriage and the tail-skid and was secured to two or three iron girders which had been driven at an angle into the ground beyond the end of the ramp.

As she climbed from the car Zoë gave it a worried look.

‘It helped Byrd,’ Harmer insisted. ‘He used a ramp of snow for his take-off for the North Pole, too. One of the ground crew’ll cut the rope at a signal from me when the engines are warm and beginning to pull.’

‘Unless it breaks first under the strain,’ Zoë said in a tight voice. ‘Byrd’s did.’

‘It’s
all right
,’ Harmer said again, his voice urgent. ‘We’ve also had the runway smoothed and lengthened. We don’t want another disaster like Fonck’s.’

‘Is she fuelled up?’ Zoë asked.

‘Before she was brought out of the hangar. No chance of water in the gas.’ Harmer peered at Zoë. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘I’m okay. I’ll join you by train.’

He leaned closer and Dicken heard him whisper. ‘You’re sure it’s not that goddam husband of yours?’

The word that the
Bantam
was leaving had spread and there was a small crowd of spectators. The press moved forward as the preparations were completed and the flash guns popped and filled the air with smoke as Harmer stood alongside the machine with his new co-pilot, one arm round Zoë.

Surrounded by the mist, Dicken felt the ground with the toe of his shoe. It was soggier than Harmer seemed to think.

About him was the chatter of the spectators. They weren’t all aviation enthusiasts by any means and he guessed a lot of them were there in the hope of something more spectacular than a mere take-off.

Harmer was shrugging himself into a leather coat now and winding a red woollen scarf round his neck.

‘I gave him the scarf,’ Zoë said abruptly, almost defiantly, as though she were challenging Dicken to question her relationship with the Canadian.

Pulling on his helmet, Harmer turned towards the door of the machine. As he did so, Zoë slipped forward and kissed him full on the mouth. As he grabbed at her, the camera guns popped again.

‘For luck,’ Zoë said as she rejoined Dicken. ‘That’s all. For luck.’

He didn’t say anything and watched as Harmer moved through the cabin of the machine to reappear in the cockpit and begin to move the rudders and elevators.

‘She’ll do it easy,’ Zoë said.

As the propellers were swung the engines started with a crackling roar and a few scattered leaves, chaff and grass clippings whirled away. Moving to one side, Dicken noticed that Zoë was holding a clenched fist to her mouth and guessed that she was as well aware as he was of the doubts that hedged the big machine.

For a while, Harmer let the engines tick over and they could see his head and that of the co-pilot in the cockpit. Then, as the throttles were opened, the machine began to shake and quiver under the thrust of the powerful engines. The wing tips were trembling under the intense vibration as Harmer leaned out of the window to make sure the mechanic was standing by the rope with his axe. The mechanic waved back and lifted the axe above his head. But, as he did so, before he could use it, before Harmer could give him the signal, there was a gasp from the crowd. There was a twang as the rope snapped so that the big machine hurtled forward, lumbering noisily over the planks that floored the ramp, its speed building up at once.

Harmer had been looking backwards at the mechanic as the rope went and he was unprepared for the unexpected start. The rudder was not central so that the machine went down the ramp at an angle. As it reached the level ground at the bottom, it seemed to leap into the air and the knot on the trailing end of the broken rope caught against one of the planks that floored the ramp. Dicken saw the plank lift and bang against the tail of the machine. As it was wrenched out of position by the aeroplane’s forward movement, other planks leapt up, clattering against the elevators.

The crowd, which had become silent as the preparations for the start had begun, began to shout. The metallic howl of the engines was echoing from the airfield buildings as the machine gathered speed but the unexpected start had sent it off in the wrong direction and, as Harmer pulled it back on course, it began to swing. The rope with its heavy knots was still trailing behind, slapping up and down between the undersurfaces of the elevators and the soggy ground from which it was tossing up stones and clods of earth. As the machine rumbled over a shallow rise the wings swung again and Harmer tried to wrench the machine straight. As he did so, a small cry escaped Zoë and, glancing at her, Dicken saw she still had her fist against her mouth, her eyes wide and horrified.

As Harmer hauled the machine back on to course once more, it swung heavily the other way, then began to swerve even more wildly. The wheels left the grass and there was a gasp from the crowd – ‘He’s away!’ – but the wheels slammed down again with a spattering of muddy water. Then, quite clearly, where the knotted rope was hammering at the tail, Dicken saw something fall away and he realised the rudder wasn’t functioning but seemed to be jammed towards starboard.

The machine began to yaw, lurching awkwardly like some runaway juggernaut under the shifting weight of its huge cargo of fuel. The tail was still rumbling along the ground and it was possible now to see that the tail-skid had been damaged and that the rudder was hanging crookedly on its hinges.

‘For God’s sake,’ Zoë gasped. ‘Close the throttles! Close the goddam throttles!’

But the big machine was still careering across the field, its wheels still firmly on the earth, trailing a cloud of mist from the rain-wet grass. It was clear that Harmer would never get it off now and Dicken saw fragments fly into the air from the damaged elevators. Then the rudder, which Harmer was trying to use to correct the yaw, swung hard over as if he had been frantically kicking at it and it had suddenly come free. As it slammed over, the machine went into a tremendous turn, still moving at speed, until it was heading back almost on its tracks.

The crowd began to scatter in a panic, screaming and shouting and falling over the barriers that had surrounded the enclosure where they had been standing. Two cars started to move in a hurry, crashed and locked together, their radiators steaming. But the trailing rope, which until a moment before had been behind the machine, was now facing the wrong way and it jammed under one of the wheels so that it locked and the machine swung again until it was thundering in the direction of the old wooden hangar where it had been housed.

A choking sound escaped from Zoë’s throat that was just recognisable as another plea to Harmer to close the throttles, but as she covered her face, the sound changed to a thin wail, hoarse as a frightened animal’s cry. It was possible to see Harmer in the cockpit. He seemed to be fighting with the controls and Dicken could see his mouth open, yelling with fright and fury, but, because of panic or some mechanical fault, he still didn’t seem able to slam the throttles shut.

A shock absorber went, a wingtip touched and crumpled and the
Bantam
swerved again, a rattling, swaying monster heading straight for the wooden shed which had seen its birth. As a wire fence vanished under the wheels and stakes pierced the wings and fuselage, the whole machine began to disintegrate into flying fragments of wood, steel and fabric. A long yellow wing whipped into the air like the last agonised throes of a wounded bird, before the machine hit the side of the hangar with a crash that could be heard clear across the field.

They heard the thud as the huge petrol tank went up, and a vast mushroom of yellow flame, edged with black, billowed out, sprays of burning petrol leaping into the air like sparks from a roman candle. The ruined side of the hangar fell in, bringing down the roof, and slowly, as if in slow motion, the two ends followed in a shower of splintered planks, effectively covering the aeroplane. In seconds there was a furnace of burning wood and petrol, the roar of whose flames could be heard all the way across the field.

‘Casey!’ Zoë’s voice was broken and harsh with torment. ‘Casey!’

Then inexplicably she turned on Dicken, her eyes blazing, her face pink with rage and despair, her hands flying in desperate swings at his head.

‘You killed him!’ she screamed. ‘It was you who made him do it this way! You killed him! You killed him! Damn you, you killed him!’

There was a remarkable take-it-or-leave-it attitude in London. Jealousy and ambition were still paralysing promotion and Diplock, back in England, was very much in evidence.

Yet there was no doubt about it, after the hoopla in America, aviation had finally stepped from infancy to adulthood. Lindbergh had started the progress with his lonely flight across the Atlantic, a scientific project despite its amateur background, and despite the disasters that had followed, despite the rejection of aviation by nervous people who only the year before had been doing the cheering, the world had begun to think about aircraft. Up to 1927 two wings had seemed the safest thing to fly with but now everybody was thinking of monoplanes, and Fokker, Ford and Junkers were even building them of metal. In England civil flying had even overtaken military flying and the only view of the future seemed to be that of the Supermarine company and the Schneider Trophy machines, sleek-winged planes with which they had pushed up the air speed record to an incredible 300 miles an hour.

For Dicken it was a period of frustration and anger, and London was a dreary place that seemed to be full of unemployed demanding the right to work. The country’s share of world trade had fallen since the war, when those nations not involved in the struggle had snatched up what Britain had been obliged to let fall, but according to Foote, effusive at having rediscovered Dicken and Hatto after so long, even in the States the upswing was coming to an end.

The RAF had finally survived the attempts by the navy and the army to do away with it and, like flying itself, was beginning to flex its muscles. In Iraq it had shown it could control a country at half the cost the army demanded and there were now more dissenting voices, particularly in the States, claiming that aircraft had made battleships useless.