by Dick Francis
‘You must.’ He made a grab at her and held her wrist in a sinewy grip. It looked almost as if he were going to haul her wholesale into the basket, and she certainly believed it. She tugged and panted and screamed at him. ‘Let go, John. Let go. I’m not coming.’
‘Are you John Viking?’ I said loudly.
He swung his head and kept hold of the girl.
‘Yes, I am, what do you want? I’m starting this race as soon as my passenger gets in.’
‘I’m not going,’ she screamed.
I looked around. The other baskets were mostly airborne, sweeping gently across the area a foot or two above the surface, and rising in a smooth, glorious crowd. Every basket, I saw, carried two people.
‘If you want a passenger,’ I said. ‘I’ll come.’
He let go of the girl and looked me up and down.
‘How much do you weigh?’ And then, impatiently, as he saw the other balloons getting a head start, ‘Oh, all right, get in. Get in.’
I gripped hold of a stay, and jumped, and wriggled, and ended standing inside a rather small hamper under a very large cloud of balloon.
‘Leave go,’ commanded the captain of this ship, and the helpers somewhat helplessly obeyed.
The basket momentarily stayed exactly where it was. Then John Viking reached above his head and flipped a lever which operated the burners, and there at close quarters, right above our heads, was the flame and the ear-filling roar.
The girl’s face was still on a level with mine. ‘He’s mad,’ she yelled. ‘And you’re crazy.’
The basket moved away, bumped, and rose quite suddenly to a height of six feet. The girl ran after it and delivered a parting encouragement. ‘And you haven’t got a crash helmet.’
What I did have, though, was a marvellous escape route from two purposeful thugs, and a crash helmet at that moment seemed superfluous, particularly as my companion hadn’t one either.
John Viking was staring about him in the remnants of fury, muttering under his breath, and operating the burner almost non-stop. His was the last balloon away. I looked down to where the applauding holiday crowd were watching the mass departure and a small boy darted suddenly from under the restraining rope, and ran into the now empty starting area, shouting and pointing. Pointing at John Viking’s balloon, pointing excitedly at me.
My pal Mark, with his bright little eyes and his truthful tongue. My pal Mark, whom I’d like to have strangled.
John Viking started cursing. I switched my attention from ground to air and saw that the reason for the resounding and imaginative obscenities floating to heaven was a belt of trees lying ahead which might prevent us going in the same direction. One balloon already lay in a tangle on the take-off side, and another, scarlet and purple, seemed set on a collision course.
John Viking yelled at me over the continuing roar of the burner, ‘Hold on bloody tight with both hands. If the basket hits the tops of the trees we don’t want to be spilled right out.’
The trees looked sixty feet high and a formidable obstacle, but most of the balloons had cleared them easily and were drifting away skywards, great bright pear-shaped fantasies hanging on the wind.
John Viking’s basket closed with a rush towards the tree tops with the burner roaring over our heads like a demented dragon. The lift it should have provided seemed totally lacking.
‘Turbulence,’ John Viking shrieked. ‘Bloody wind turbulence. Hold on. It’s a long way down.’
Frightfully jolly, I thought, being tipped out of a hamper sixty feet from the ground without a crash helmet. I grinned at him, and he caught the expression and looked startled.
The basket hit the tree tops, and tipped on its side, tumbling me from the vertical to the horizontal with no trouble at all. I grabbed right-handed at whatever I could to stop myself falling right out, and I felt as much as saw that the majestically swelling envelope above us was carrying on with its journey regardless. It tugged the basket after it, crashing and bumping through the tops of the trees, flinging me about like a rag doll with at times most of my body hanging out in space. My host, made of sterner stuff, had one arm clamped like a vice round one of the metal struts which supported the burner, and the other twined into a black rubber strap. His legs were braced against the side of the basket, which was now the floor, and he changed his footholds as necessary, at one point planting one foot firmly on my stomach.
With a last sickening jolt and wrench the basket tore itself free, and we swung to and fro under the wobbling balloon like a pendulum. I was by this manoeuvre wedged into a disorganized heap in the bottom of the basket, but John Viking still stood rather splendidly on his feet.
There really wasn’t much room, I thought, disentangling myself and straightening upwards. The basket, still swaying and shaking, was only four feet square, and reached no higher than one’s waist. Along two opposite sides stood eight gas cylinders, four each side, fastened to the wickerwork with rubber straps. The oblong space left was big enough for two men to stand in, but not overgenerous even for that: about two feet by two feet per person.
John Viking gave the burner a rest at last, and into the sudden silence said forcefully, ‘Why the hell didn’t you hold on like I told you to? Don’t you know you damned nearly fell out, and got me into trouble?’
‘Sony,’ I said, amused. ‘Is it usual to go on burning, when you’re stuck on a tree?’
‘It got us clear, didn’t it?’ he demanded.
‘It sure did.’
‘Don’t complain, then. I didn’t ask you to come.’
He was of about my own age; perhaps a year or two younger. His face under his blue denim yachting cap was craggy with a bone structure that might one day give him distinction, and his blue eyes shone with the brilliance of the true fanatic. John Viking the madman, I thought, and warmed to him.
‘Check round the outsides, will you,’ he said. ‘See if anything’s come adrift.’
It seemed he meant the outside of the basket, as he was himself looking outwards, over the edge. I discovered that on my side, too, there were bundles on the outside of the basket, either strapped to it tight, or swinging on ropes.
One short rope, attached to the basket, had nothing on the end of it. I pulled it up and showed it to him.
‘Damnation,’ he said explosively. ‘Lost in the trees, I suppose. Plastic water container. Hope you’re not thirsty.’ He stretched up and gave the burner another long burst, and I listened in my mind to the echo of his Etonian drawl and totally understood why he was as he was.
‘Do you have to finish first, to win a balloon race?’ I said.
He looked surprised. ‘Not this one. This is a two and a half hour race. The one who gets furthest in that time is the winner.’ He frowned. ‘Haven’t you ever been in a balloon before?’
‘No.’
‘My God,’ he said. ‘What chance have I got?’
‘None at all, if I hadn’t come,’ I said mildly.
‘That’s true.’ He looked down from somewhere like six feet four. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sid,’ I said.
He looked as if Sid wasn’t exactly the sort of name his friends had, but faced the fact manfully.
‘Why wouldn’t your girl come with you?’ I said.
‘Who? Oh, you mean Popsy. She’s not my girl. I don’t really know her. She was going to come because my usual passenger broke his leg, silly bugger, when we made a bit of a rough landing last week. Popsy wanted to bring some ruddy big handbag. Wouldn’t come without it, wouldn’t be parted from it. I ask you! Where is the room for a handbag? And it was heavy, as well. Every pound counts. Carry a pound less, you can go a mile further.’
‘Where do you expect to come down?’ I said.
‘It depends on the wind.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘We’re going roughly north-east at the moment, but I’m going higher. There’s a front forecast from the west, and I guess there’ll be some pretty useful activity high up. We might make it to Brighton.’
‘Brighton.’ I had thought in terms of perhaps twenty miles, not a hundred. And he must be wrong, I thought: one couldn’t go a hundred miles in a balloon in two and a half hours.
‘If the wind’s more from the north-west we might reach the Isle of Wight. Or France. Depends how much gas is left. We don’t want to come down in the sea, not in this. Can you swim?’
I nodded. I supposed I still could: hadn’t tried it one-handed. ‘I’d rather not,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Don’t worry. The balloon’s too darned expensive for me to want to sink it.’
Once free of the trees we had risen very fast, and now floated across country at a height from which cars on the roads looked like toys, though still recognizable as to size and colour.
Noises came up clearly. One could hear the cars’ engines, and dogs barking, and an occasional human shout. People looked up and waved to us as we passed. A world removed, I thought I was in a child’s world, idyllically drifting with the wind, sloughing off the dreary earthbound millstones, free and rising and filled with intense delight.
John Viking flipped the lever and the flame roared, shooting up into the green-and-yellow cavern, a scarlet and gold tongue of dragon fire. The burn endured for twenty seconds and we rose perceptibly in the sudden ensuing silence.
‘What gas do you use?’ I said.
‘Propane.’
He was looking over the side of the basket and around at the countryside, as if judging his position. ‘Look, get the map out, will you. It’s in a pouch thing, on your side. And for God’s sake don’t let it blow away.’
I looked over the side, and found what he meant. A satchel-like object strapped on through the wickerwork, its outward-facing flap fastened shut with a buckle. I undid the buckle, looked inside, took a fair grip of the large folded map, and delivered it safely to the captain.
He was looking fixedly at my left hand, which I’d used as a sort of counterweight on the edge of the basket while I leaned over. I let it fall by my side, and his gaze swept upwards to my face.
‘You’re missing a hand,’ he said incredulously.
‘That’s right.’
He waved his own two arms in a fierce gesture of frustration. ‘How the hell am I going to win this race?’
I laughed.
He glanced at me. ‘It’s not damned funny.’
‘Oh yes it is. And I like winning races … you won’t lose it because of me.’
He frowned disgustedly. ‘I suppose you can’t be much more useless than Popsy,’ he said. ‘But at least they say she can read a map.’ He unfolded the sheet I’d given him, which proved to be a map designed for the navigation of aircraft, its surface covered with a plastic film, for writing on. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We started from here.’ He pointed. ‘We’re travelling roughly north-east. You take the map, and find out where we are.’ He paused. ‘Do you know the first bloody thing about using your watch as a compass, or about dead reckoning?’
I had a book about dead reckoning, which I hadn’t read, in a pocket of the light cotton anorak I was wearing; and also, I thanked God, in another zippered compartment, a spare fully charged battery. ‘Give me the map,’ I said. ‘And let’s see.’
He handed it over with no confidence and started another burn. I worked out roughly where we should be, and looked over the side, and discovered straight away that the ground didn’t look like the map. Where villages and roads were marked clearly on the map, they faded into the brown and green carpet of earth like patches of camouflage, the sunlight mottling them with shadows and dissolving them into ragged edges. The spread-out vistas all around looked all the same, defying me to recognize anything special, proving conclusively I was less use than Popsy.
Dammit, I thought. Start again.
We had set off at three o’clock, give a minute or two. We had been airborne for twelve minutes. On the ground the wind had been gentle and from the south, but we were now travelling slightly faster, and north-east. Say … fifteen knots. Twelve minutes at fifteen knots … about three nautical miles. I had been looking too far ahead. There should be, I thought, a river to cross; and in spite of gazing earnestly down I nearly missed it, because it was a firm blue line on the map and in reality a silvery reflecting thread that wound unobtrusively between a meadow and a wood. To the right of it, half hidden by a hill, lay a village, with beyond it, a railway line.
‘We’re there,’ I said, pointing to the map.
He squinted at the print and searched the ground beneath us.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘So we are. Right. You keep the map. We might as well know where we are, all the way.’
He flipped the lever and gave it a long burn. The balloons ahead of us were also lower. We were definitely looking down on their tops. During the next patch of silence he consulted two instruments which were strapped on to the outside of the basket at his end, and grunted.
‘What are those?’ I said, nodding at the dials.
‘Altimeter and rate-of-climb meter,’ he said. ‘We’re at five thousand feet now, and rising at eight hundred feet a minute.’
‘Rising?’
‘Yeah.’ He gave a sudden, wolfish grin in which I read unmistakably the fierce unholy glee of the mischievous child. ‘That’s why Popsy wouldn’t come. Someone told her I would go high. She didn’t want to.’
‘How high?’ I said.
‘I don’t mess about,’ he said. ‘When I race, I race to win. They all know I’ll win. They don’t like it. They think you should never take risks. They’re all safety conscious these days and getting softer. Hah!’ His scorn was absolute. ‘In the old days, at the beginning of the century, when they had the Gordon Bennet races, they would fly for two days and do a thousand miles or more. But nowadays … safety bloody first.’ He glared at me. ‘And if I didn’t have to have a passenger, I wouldn’t. Passengers always argue and complain.’
He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one with a flick of a lighter. We were surrounded by cylinders of liquid gas. I thought about all the embargoes against naked flames near any sort of stored fuel, and kept my mouth shut.
The flock of balloons below us seemed to be veering away to the left; but then I realized that it was we who were going to the right. John Viking watched the changing direction with great satisfaction and started another long burn. We rose perceptibly faster, and the sun, instead of shining full on our backs, appeared on our starboard side.
In spite of the sunshine it was getting pretty cold. A look over the side showed the earth very far beneath, and one could now see a very long way in all directions. I checked with the map, and kept an eye on where we were.
‘What are you wearing?’ he said.
‘What you see, more or less.’
‘Huh.’
During the burns, the flame over one’s head was almost too hot, and there was always a certain amount of hot air escaping from the bottom of the balloon. There was no wind factor, as of course the balloon was travelling with the wind, at the wind’s speed. It was sheer altitude that was making us cold.
‘How high are we now?’ I said.
He glanced at his instruments. ‘Eleven thousand feet.’
‘And still rising?’
He nodded. The other balloons, far below and to the left, were a cluster of distant bright blobs against the green earth.
‘All that lot,’ he said, ‘will stay down at five thousand feet, because of staying under the airways.’ He gave me a sideways look. ‘You’ll see on the map. The airways that the airlines use are marked, and so are the heights at which one is not allowed to fly through them.’
‘And one is not allowed to fly through an airway at eleven thousand feet in a balloon?’
‘Sid,’ he said, grinning. ‘You’re not bad.’
He flicked the lever, and the burner roared, cutting off chat. I checked the ground against the map and nearly lost our position entirely, because we seemed suddenly to have travelled much faster, and qu
ite definitely to the south-east. The other balloons, when I next looked, were out of sight.
In the next silence John Viking told me that the helpers of the other balloons would follow them on the ground, in cars, ready to retrieve them when they came down.
‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Do we have someone following?’
Did we indeed have Peter Rammileese following, complete with thugs, ready to pounce again at the further end? We were even, I thought fleetingly, doing him a favour with the general direction, taking him south-eastwards, home to Kent.
John Viking gave his wolfish smile, and said, ‘No car on earth could keep up with us today.’
‘Do you mean it?’ I exclaimed.
He looked at the altimeter. ‘Fifteen thousand feet,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay at that. I got a forecast from the air boys for this trip. Fifty knot wind from two nine zero at fifteen thousand feet, that’s what they said. You hang on, Sid, pal, and we’ll get to Brighton.’
I thought about the two of us standing in a waist-high four-foot-square wicker basket, supported by terylene and hot air, fifteen thousand feet above the solid ground, travelling without any feeling of speed at fifty-seven miles an hour. Quite mad, I thought.
From the ground, we would be a black speck. On the ground, no car could keep up. I grinned back at John Viking with a satisfaction as great as his own, and he laughed aloud.
‘Would you believe it?’ he said. ‘At last I’ve got someone up here who’s not puking with fright.’
He lit another cigarette, and then he changed the supply line to the burner from one cylinder to the next. This involved switching off the empty tank, unscrewing the connecting nut, screwing it into the next cylinder, and switching on the new supply. There were two lines to the double burner, one for each set of four cylinders. He held the cigarette in his mouth throughout, and squinted through the smoke.
I had seen from the map that we were flying straight towards the airway which led in and out of Gatwick, where large aeroplanes thundered up and down not expecting to meet squashy balloons illegally in their path.
His appetite for taking risks was way out of my class. He made sitting on a horse over fences on the ground seem rather tame. Except, I thought with a jerk, that I no longer did it, I fooled around instead with men who threatened to shoot hands off … and I was safer up here with John Viking the madman, propane and cigarettes, mid-air collisions and all.
