by Max Hennessy
‘So I guessed.’
‘He ought to be suppressed by the Vice Squad. What did he want?’
‘He wanted to know what’s going on out at the field.’
‘Tell him anything?’
‘Nothing that you wouldn’t have told him, too.’
Woolff seemed relieved. ‘He don’t like us,’ he said. ‘Because we come from up around New York. They don’t like foreigners down here. He’d like to see us in trouble.’
He paused, eyeing his drink suspiciously. There was a long silence. He had clearly not come for the drink, or even to talk about Nestor, but Ira didn’t hurry him. Woolff was a heavy-bodied, slow-moving, deep-thinking young man who didn’t like to be rushed, and he was handicapped always by his shyness.
‘Courtney’s gone back north,’ he said after a while. ‘Left last night.’
‘Did he decide anything?’
‘Not so I’ve heard.’ Woolff shook his head. ‘He won’t budge, I guess. That’s bad. You guys came over here to fly and I wouldn’t like to see you looking for a job.’
‘Nor me,’ Ira said gravely. ‘Twenty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money to let slip through your fingers.’
Woolff’s sad face twitched into what passed for a smile. ‘You’ve a long way to go before you get that far,’ he said.
‘Around four thousand miles to be exact. Without touching down.’
‘Sure.’
There was another long silence while Woolff weighed his words, then he looked up, his eyes full of honesty and innocence. ‘I been thinking,’ he said.
‘Go on, Hal,’ Ira encouraged.
‘All that stuff the Boss gave you – about how many planes we’ve built. We only built four, Ira.’
‘Four?’ Ira’s jaw dropped. ‘Is that all?’
‘Sure. We sold two to a mail-carrying company, and two privately. They’ve done nothing but bitch about ’em. I guess the design wasn’t so good.’
‘Who designed them?’
‘Courtney. Mulroy helped. Before I came.’ Woolff paused, staring into his glass, his brows troubled. ‘You were right, I guess. About that ship of his. She is a bastard. She’s neither one thing nor the other. I guess they neither of ’em really knew what they wanted. Maybe they both wanted different. They just drew a few lines on a drawing board. You don’t build aeroplanes like that these days. It was all right once upon a time but we know enough about aerodynamics now to work it all out beforehand.’
Ira studied him carefully.
‘How much do you know about it, Hal?’ he asked.
Woolff shrugged, as though he were vaguely ashamed of the admission. ‘Some, I guess,’ he said. ‘I’ve been to college and read it up.’
He looked so bashful at the confession, Ira smiled. ‘Hal,’ he said, ‘you could probably lead us all by the nose, I bet.’
Woolff made an awkward embarrassed gesture. ‘I guess I know about as much as the Boss,’ he said. ‘And Mulroy. Maybe more.’
Ira paused, remembering some of the things that had puzzled him. ‘Hal,’ he said slowly. ‘How big is Courtney’s organisation?’
Woolff smiled again. ‘I’ll level with you,’ he said. ‘It isn’t so big. If it was, I wouldn’t be chief mechanic, factory manager and spare designer all at the same time.’
‘I was thinking about his other business,’ Ira pointed out. ‘Making motor cars.’
Woolff shrugged. ‘He’s made a bit of money, I guess,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s making money these days. You’d have to have a wooden head not to make money – or be in farming, mining or cotton. That’s why he moved here, of course. Thought he might absorb a bit of the labour that’s lying around loose.’
‘How about capital?’
‘He’s got some.’ Woolff stared at him and scratched his nose thoughtfully. ‘Or maybe I’d better make that “He’s had some”. Maybe he’s still got it. I don’t know. He’s certainly made it in his time.’
‘Why is he after borrowing more, then?’
Woolff stared at his drink. ‘I’ve heard he wants to expand.’
‘Then why can’t he get the loan? A successful man oughtn’t to have difficulty. Not these days.’
Woolff seemed to feel he was being disloyal and wriggled in his seat. ‘Maybe the bank wants him to make up his mind,’ he said. ‘Whether he wants to build automobiles or aeroplanes. Maybe it’s something like that.’ He looked up sharply. His eyes were alarmed. ‘You reckon he’s not sound?’
Ira gestured. ‘I don’t know, Hal. I hope so.’
Woolff swallowed his drink, tossing it back with a nervous gesture.
‘He’s no millionaire outfit,’ he admitted. ‘He did well after the war. Those guys who flew with the Lafayette outfit all came back heroes. Rickenbacker went into automobiles, too.’ He paused, thinking. ‘Maybe that’s why he’s so goddam adamant,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe he thinks he’s sunk enough in it. Alix told me she’d tried to make him think again but he wouldn’t change his mind.’
‘She did?’ Ira looked thoughtful. The news was unexpected, to say the least. ‘Go on, Hal. You’re making sense. Why did you come here? Not just to tell me Courtney’s design was wrong.’
Woolff gave one of his slow shy grins. ‘Hell, I don’t mind one engine,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s what I’d have done if I’d been asked. Only – well, you know Courtney – he moves so goddam fast, he makes up his mind without thinking much. We could soon convert what we’ve got, if he’d let us.’
Ira was leaning forward now. ‘We could?’
‘Sure we could.’
‘Could you produce specifications?’
Woolff gave another shy awkward smile. ‘Sure could,’ he said. ‘I’ve got plenty ideas. I’ve even got some drawings.’
‘How about time?’
Woolff’s eyes brightened. ‘We’ve got the men and all the tools. We could hire more help and hurry it along if we had to.’
Ira rubbed his nose thoughtfully. ‘How about talking about it?’ he suggested.
Woolff gave him a grin. ‘We can do that for nothing,’ he said. ‘Come round to my place. Bring Sammy with you. I guess we’ve all got ideas and if we’re going to make changes it might be good sense to pool ’em.’
Chapter 7
When Sammy returned, starry-eyed, in the early hours of the morning, Ira was sitting at the table by the window of their room, a notebook in his hand.
He looked round as the door crashed open. Sammy stood in the entrance, his hat – a little misshapen as though it had been sat on – pulled down over his eyes, then he began to stumble round the room, groping in front of him as though he couldn’t see. ‘It’s all dark,’ he was saying in a doom-laden voice. ‘I’ve gone blind!’
As Ira laughed, he pulled off the hat and tossed it into a chair, grinning, then he turned and shut the door with a meticulous care which indicated that he wasn’t entirely sure of his actions, and it was only then that Ira noticed the baggy pantaloons that encased his thin legs. They were a mottled shade of pink and purple and he wore them over checkered stockings in green and white.
‘What in God’s name are you wearing?’ he demanded.
Sammy gazed down at himself. ‘Golfing pants,’ he said enthusiastically.
‘You don’t play golf.’
‘It doesn’t matter. They’re all the rage over here just now. Just the thing for flying, don’t you think?’
Ira stared in amazement. ‘Doped, you could cover a wing with what you’re wearing. Where did you get ’em?’
Sammy grinned. ‘The store found ’em for me,’ he said. ‘Natty, eh?’ He disappeared noisily into the corridor, leaving the door wide open and singing softly:
‘Chase me, Charlie, Chase me, Charlie, lost the leg of me drawers.
Chase me, Charlie, Chase me, Charlie, please will you lend me yours.’
There was a sound of running water, then he reappeared. ‘Lor’, Ira,’ he said in ecstatic tones. ‘These American girls! Do they move fa
st!’ There was lipstick on his cheek, Ira noticed, and a gleam in his eye. ‘We went to her home for supper. Behind the store. That’s where I acquired the pants. You should see the way they were making gin in the bathroom. It was enough to peel the enamel off your teeth. We had it in lime juice to kill the taste.’ He grinned again, his eyes a little uncertain of their direction, and made a movement with his hands to indicate a female shape. ‘If it wasn’t that I was well brought up…’
‘You aren’t well brought up.’
Sammy chuckled reflectively. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘So I found.’
He sat on the bed and began to take off his shoes with a secretive smile. ‘I’ll have to watch it a bit,’ he said with a slow grin. ‘I discovered her uncle’s sheriff of this place. Puts a crimp in your style.’
He became aware that Ira’s attention wasn’t entirely on what he was saying, and his smile died.
‘What’s up, Ira?’ he demanded.
Ira rose and lit a cigarette, then he grinned. ‘Nothing’s up,’ he said. ‘We might be in business again, that’s all. I had a call from Hal Woolff. It seems he agrees with a lot we said the other day. We’re going round to see him.’
‘When?’ Sammy looked alarmed. ‘Tonight?’
Ira laughed. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And – you’ll enjoy this – it seems he’s pretty hot on bathtub gin, too.’
* * *
The main street was empty as they went out to the old hired Ford the following evening but there was a large square of light in front of the store. The turret of the old jail stood out against the sky and the old men outside the harness shop were still sitting in the warm darkness, talking in low voices. The cinema down the street was advertising a film about ‘pleasure-mad daughters and sensation-seeking mothers’, its posters surrounded by winking bulbs that drew groups of youngsters like moths to the light.
They drove to the saloon that Sammy had found and entered it warily. It was full of the faded gilt of the 1900s, with a marble-topped counter and sawdust on the floor. It smelled of the dead decaying ash of 10,000 ancient cigars.
Sammy tossed down a coin. ‘Soda pop, bud,’ he said to the bartender, and as the two bottles and glasses were thumped to the counter in front of them he added quietly: ‘We’d like some gin. A friend of the Boss’s sent me.’
The bartender was new and looked at him, outraged. ‘You got the wrong place, bo’,’ he said. ‘Only soft drinks here.’
Sammy’s eyes flashed fiercely. ‘Then how the hell did I manage to pick up a bottle here a week ago?’ he demanded.
The bartender stared at him. ‘You did?’
‘Sure I did.’
The bartender’s face showed no expression. ‘I’ll go see,’ he announced.
Sammy grinned at Ira as a young man appeared from the back room, a young man with well-used eyes that seemed as though he’d got them second-hand somewhere. He took one look at Sammy then he jerked his head towards the back room and they followed him and sat down at one of the round tables there. A tired-looking girl making coffee nodded at them, then the young man with the old eyes reappeared with a brown paper bag containing something wrapped in newspaper.
‘Mouthwash,’ he said with a twisted expression that passed for a smile. ‘Cost you six bucks.’
* * *
Woolff lived alone down a dirt lane off the Charleston Road near the edge of Medway. It led to a small settlement some 500 yards further along, where the plank walls of the cabins were supplemented by sheets of corrugated iron and the roofs were shingled with flattened tins. The air was full of the smell of fried chicken and bacon and the coal oil from the lamps that yellowed the open windows, and there was the low sound of a man singing a song about Jesus among the trees.
Woolff’s house was only a shade less tumbledown than the shacks nearby. It looked like a large box among the pecan trees, its tin roof, as unpainted as the house itself, still shimmering from the heat of the day’s sun. There was a deep porch and shutters hanging askew with neglect, and the fence sagged and rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the verandah. Lopsided gates led to a back yard where grass and rabbit tobacco grew along the fringes, and the azaleas in the entrance had rusty-looking leaves and broken twigs, as though Woolff clipped them with the old Sunbeam every time he parked it. The bell didn’t work and to attract his attention they had to hammer at the door so that the coloured glass panels rattled in their lead sockets.
The living room was a shabby place, full of all the detritus of a bachelor life, and looked as though Woolff had never found time to decorate it. There were a few photographs of aeroplanes attached to the walls, but they were all out of date and more than one was crooked. The shades were pulled down against the night but they hung lopsided and dusty. Books lolled on the shelves and were stacked on every available surface, and rolled plans littered a table that also carried a dirty coffee cup, a steel alarm clock that ticked like a Ford engine, an empty bottle used as a paperweight, a cylinder, a spanner, and a group of valve springs.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ Woolff said apologetically, rubbing moist palms on the tight trousers that encased his thick legs. ‘I never seem to have time to clean up.’
He jerked a pile of books from an old armchair. ‘Try this one,’ he suggested. ‘It’s probably the best. How about a drink? I’ve made some fresh gin. It’s not too poisonous.’
When they were settled, he twisted his plump legs round the tall stool on which he worked at the high drawing board under the window and gestured at them. ‘I guess I’ll just put up ideas for you to knock down,’ he said.
Ira sipped at the gin he’d been given. It had a nightmarish flavour. ‘What are you aiming at?’ he asked.
Woolff jumped from the stool and dragged at a roll of paper which he spread out on the floor between them. ‘Take a look at this,’ he suggested. ‘This is my idea. I worked it out when Mulroy left. It’s for a monoplane. It’s got a tubular-steel airframe and it fits the one Courtney built. With a few modifications we could still use it.’
Ira looked up quickly. ‘For a monoplane?’
Woolff smiled. ‘Sure. I measured it up. He’s designed for an enclosed cockpit with the mainplane resting on top of the cabin. What’s wrong with doing away with the lower wing, strengthening it all up and making her into a monoplane?’
‘Could we?’
‘I guess so’ – Woolff looked up shyly. ‘Maybe it’d be better to build a new fuselage, but we can worry about that later.’
They all leaned over the drawings, holding down the corners of the paper and studying the specifications and the lists of figures.
‘We both planned for outsize fuel tanks,’ Woolff pointed out. ‘So she’s not as slim as she might be. But she could sure carry a lot of gas. There’d have to be a pump, of course, because I planned for a gravity feed from the centre section, and you’ve got to get the gas up there.’
‘We’d need a hand pump, too,’ Sammy suggested. ‘In case it stopped.’
Woolff nodded. ‘Courtney allowed for that. A wobble pump’d only weigh a couple of pounds.’
‘How about weight generally?’ Ira asked. ‘Would it be lighter than Courtney’s design?’
‘Sure would.’
‘Light enough overall for the amount of petrol we’d need to carry?’
‘Look’ – Woolff’s hand swept across the paper again – ‘I was thinking in terms of a long-distance aeroplane and nothing more.’ He smiled his friendly, gentle smile. ‘This business of getting across the Atlantic’s been obsessing a whole heap of people over here for a long time, including me. It could be sold to the passenger or mail-carrying companies later but that’s where Courtney’s plan’s wrong. His machine’d cost too much to operate. No company carrying mail in single-engined De Havillands would go over to a fleet of two-engined ships, because the gas consumption and maintenance would push passenger fares sky-high.’
Ira leaned forward. ‘What’s the wing area?’ he asked.
�
�I planned on two hundred and eighty square feet, but, like Alix said, we could work in another six feet of span to give us extra lift. After all, we’re going to have to get a ton and a half of gas off the ground.’
‘You’re talking sense, Hal!’
While Ira studied the drawings, working out calculations on the corner of the sheet with a pencil, Woolff went on with a curious sort of diffident eagerness.
‘It wouldn’t be difficult,’ he said. ‘We can use the same spars and ribs. I could work it out. We can arrange the wing-loading for take-off, which is most important, and we’ll put the oil tank behind the engine for a fire wall. I can reshape the fuselage some, so we could get extra lift from that – as if it were an extension of the wing area.’
‘What about instruments?’
Woolff gestured at a list written on a corner of the paper in pencil. ‘All the usual, plus maybe a drift sight, and a turn-and-bank indicator for bad weather. That’s necessary. There were times when Alcock and Brown didn’t know which side up they were. Two compasses and a fuel level. Courtney’s got some arrangement with the Hughesden Instrument Company in Boston.’ He gestured with his glass enthusiastically. ‘They supply him with ammeters, gas gauges and speedos. They make fuel pumps, too, so maybe they’d come up with one for us.’
For a long time they were all silent, staring excitedly at the sheet of curled paper between their feet.
Ira looked encouragingly at Woolff. ‘How much would it cost?’ he asked.
‘Around ten to fifteen thousand dollars start to finish. That’s single-engined, of course. I’ve not been ambitious. I was aimin’ at a flivver ship and no more. Something under a ton, even with the engine in. She’ll waltz some in a high wind when she’s on the ground but a full tank’ll cure that. The cost’s a lot less than Courtney was planning on and we won’t have wasted much. We’d need around five thousand more. That’s all.’
