The Willows in Winter (9 page)

Here, in this shining and beautiful machine,
whose sophisticated subtlety and splendid majesty was in such perfect harmony
with the notion of
Lord
Toad of Toad Hall, Toad saw his future before him.

Not that he imagined for one moment that the
national fame that was surely his due would come as a result of an accident.
Rather, he said to himself, if such ordinary mortals as this — this young pilot
— to whom accidents no doubt did happen, could talk of fame arising in that
way, how much more lasting would fame be if it came about because he, Toad, had
achieved something purposeful in his flying machine, like — and in a moment
Toad had broken every flying record he could think of for height, speed, distance,
endurance, and— “— and therefore, sir, Mr Toad, Lordship, it would be better if
I showed you how to fly it properly before you attempt to do so yourself.”

“Tell me’ said Toad, in a quiet and
conciliatory way, “would anyone on the ground know it was
you
who were
flying the machine? Or might they possibly, seeing me in it, think it was
me?”

“They might very well think it was you,” said
the pilot judiciously, “especially if you were wearing the proper gear and
looked the part and were, so to speak, prominent.”

“Prominent’ repeated Toad, puffing himself up
once more and strutting alongside the machine.

“If you were to sit on a cushion or two,
perhaps,” said the pilot, “and raise yourself up a bit, and I was to keep my
head down as low as possible.”

“You low and me high,” said Toad eagerly “You
unnoticed and unseen, but I plainly visible, and wearing the correct apparel so
that I look the part?”

“Exactly, Your Lordship,” sighed the pilot.
“You would need headgear, and goggles, and a sheepskin jacket, and flying boots
and so on.”

“Would this take long to get?” asked Toad.

“Getting it is not the thing,” said the
pilot-mechanic, “but paying for it is. Such apparel is expensive, though if you
are to look the
part,
and a gentleman like you would
only want the best, then —”

“The expense is immaterial!” cried Toad
impulsively.

“I’ll have two of everything —”

“Well, it just so happens, Lord and Honour,
that I have some gear with me that might just be your size’ said the
pilot-mechanic, who had long since intended to sell Toad these expensive
extras. “And a parachute as well —” he added.

At this, some instinct for survival sent a
warning pulse through Toad’s heart and made him say, “But I won’t need a
parachute, will I? I mean,
ever?
I have told you before — they worry me.

“Of course you’ll never
need
one,” said
the pilot reassuringly, fearful that his patter had gone a little too far, “but
with a parachute on your front —”

“My front?” queried Toad, thinking of his
appearance.

“More effective when — or rather if it was ever
to be used, which it won’t be. The fact is, Honourable Lord, that if you wish
to look the part, and have people say, ‘Now there’s a pilot who really knows
what he’s doing!’ —”

“O I do wish, I do wish!”

“—
then
you would be
wise to wear one.

“You are a most sensible person,” said Toad,
“to see how things ought to be done. I will commend you when the time comes,
you may be sure of that, just so long as whilst I am still learning you keep
your head very low, and ensure that I am placed very high.”

Placated, persuaded and pleased, Toad was now
willing to be taken up as a pupil once more, but the pilot, having already
given him some stationary lessons on the ground, made sure that Toad was still
allowed nowhere near the real controls and was confined solely to those in the
passenger seat — the now greatly raised and be-cushioned passenger seat — which
did not function unless the pilot wished it.

The fact that taking off in snow might be a
problem had not worried Toad one bit. Winter, after all, had given him the
protection he needed from the prying eyes of those who might seek to spoil his
fun. So when the pilot finally conceded that Toad might be ready for his first
flight with the new machine and there was still snow on the ground, the
fledgling aeronaut cried out, “Clear it, whatever it costs!”

So they had, dozens of them, teams of them,
cleared the lawn right down to the river bank. This had proved no easy task,
but Toad was not daunted by such trifles. He had the money to order about who
he liked, and even if it took a whole day — it took three in the end —to get
the runway open and his bright red
Blériot
started,
he would see it was done.

The snow clearing proved an unnecessary
expense, though one typical of Toad, for the delay in starting coincided with
the thaw, and by the time the great day came, which all unknown to Toad was
that same sad day when the Badger and the others had begun their search for
poor Mole, much of the snow had gone.

Then, at last, he was off, and it was so
exciting that the past delays and difficulties receded behind Toad at the same
ever increasing speed with which the flying machine accelerated the length of
his lawn. Faster and faster, bumpier and bumpier, with Toad letting out little
whoops of delight which ended in one long blissful sigh as, with a final lurch
upwards, he was airborne in his own machine for the first time, and the ground
was falling away beneath him.

“Yes, I’ll go along the river!” he had cried as
they rose, as if he was in command and had a say in the matter, though in fact
the pilot had long since decided what route they would take.

They rose, they banked, they turned and then
they skimmed down-river just above the willows, with the swans and herons, the
moorhens, the mallards and the over-wintering geese fleeing in all directions.

Then suddenly, and so much the better for being
so unexpected, Toad had experienced the very special thrill of seeing beneath
him the Badger, the Water Rat and all the rest — all static as he moved, all
staring as he triumphed.

“Faster!” cried Toad.

“Higher!” commanded Toad.

“Steeper!” whooped Toad.

Now, his trials and tribulations seeming all
behind him, in a trice Toad brought himself back to the present and thought in
his conceited way, “There’s no doubt what they’re saying!
No
doubt at all!”

He laughed once more and watched the distant
horizon fall away as they rose ever higher into the sky.

“They are saying’ he told himself, “
‘There’s
Toad, the great Toad, the
real
Toad! The
Toad we are honoured and privileged to know. The Toad who has deigned to talk
to us in the past, deigned even to entertain us in his home, but who has
recently not been quite himself. Yet now it seems that Toad has found himself
once more! He has triumphed again and will bring honour to us all!”‘

With such vain thoughts as these, and further
thoughts to do with national interest, service to the nation, and some imminent
honour that would put all the shadows of the past to flight, Toad revelled in
the half-hour that followed. The speed was one thing, the noise another, the
power a third, and the aerobatics a fourth — all so much greater than he had
dared hope that he was left in a state of giddy, dizzy breathlessness as,
finally, the pilot turned the machine homewards and they retraced their route,
till they came to the weir and the river above it, with the Wild Wood now to
their left, and to the right, that sorry, scrubby patch of ground where the
Mole lived.

“How impressed
he
will be by my flight,”
chortled Toad to himself as the flying machine banked into a final turn and the
pilot lined it up ready to land triumphantly upon the lawn before Toad
Hall.

“The others — well, no doubt
they
will
scoff and sneer and seek to belittle this great achievement of mine,” Toad told
himself, for by now he had utterly convinced himself that it was he who had
flown the machine; and he who was landing it. Indeed, he held the useless passenger
joystick in front of him as if he was, and strained to reach the useless
pedals, which were in any case out of reach of his legs, since he was raised so
high on his velveteen cushions.

“But Mole is a good fellow and will share my
triumph! Yes he will! I shall offer to take him up myself, which will make the
others positively green with envy!” laughed Toad.

But as the flying machine came lower, and the
ground ever nearer, the smile fled from his face at what he saw waiting for him
at the far end of his lawn —waiting at the very place where the machine must
soon come to rest and where he had hoped to leap down triumphantly and open
some waiting champagne.

“No!” cried Toad with sudden desperation,
reaching forward over the fuselage to the pilot in front and digging his
fingers into his shoulders.
“Do not land!
Up we go once more!”

The pilot obeyed, suspecting some danger he had
not seen, no doubt all the more convinced that something was awry because all
the exultant triumph that had been in Toad’s voice earlier was now replaced by
trepidation and concern.

“What’s wrong?” shouted the pilot over his
shoulder.

“We cannot land! We must not land!” was all the
panicking Toad could say.

“Can’t stay up for more than a few minutes,”
cried the pilot, “for the fuel’s running out. What’s the problem?”

“Them!” responded Toad most dolefully, pointing
a wind-lashed finger towards two stolid and stern figures who stood waiting on
the ground below.

“It’s just a couple of fellows come to
—”They’re not ‘just’ anything,” said Toad, now rather wishing that he did not
have quite so many cushions beneath him so that he could make himself a little
less conspicuous: “They’re troublemakers, spoilers, and they will cause us
difficulties!”

“Well, we must go down all the same,” said the
pilot, who refused thereafter to listen to Toad’s wails and pleas and began the
landing once more.

Just as Toad had feared, they pulled up to a
standstill right where the Badger and the Water Rat waited so ominously, their
brows furrowed, their looks disappointed but determined. Toad’s heart sank and
he wondered how he might best effect an escape and hide till they, and the
unpleasantness they were so unnecessarily bringing with them, went away Out of
sight would be out of mind as far as he was concerned, and then his pleasures
and excitements in the contemplation of the solo flights yet to come might be
unalloyed by accusation and admonition.

But as he pulled the flying goggles from his
eyes, and looked about, he could see there was no easy way to leap clear of the
machine and make a dash for cover. There was nothing for it but to face them
out and send them packing if they tried to cause trouble.

“Well, well!” he cried, as he clambered in an
ungainly way to the ground. “Welcome to Toad Hall, my good friends!”

“Toad —” began the Badger in the severest of
voices.

“No, no’ continued Toad, “do not embarrass me
with praise concerning today’s extraordinary flight. Tomorrow’s will —”

“Toad!” essayed the Rat this time, his voice
dark in its warning tone, and his eyes narrowing.

“My dear fellow,” said Toad hastily, as a
clever ruse came to him, one that would surely make both of them forget
whatever it was they had come about and lose themselves in the excitement of
what he was offering them, “my dear friends — I am delighted that you are here,
and edified, and it saves me the trouble, though it would have been no trouble
at all, of sending you the invitation that I had intended to send this very
evening, an invitation to have a flight in my marvellous flying machine, with
myself as your pilot and guide!”