by Max Hennessy
‘He didn’t even look at it,’ he said.
Alix was staring after her father, her eyes angry. ‘I’ve offered my two and a half,’ she said. ‘I’ll stand by it. Maybe we could raise the rest and build a new plane from the ground up.’
‘Twenty grand!’ Woolff gave way to an agony of apprehension. He thrust his hands in his pockets and stared through the window, a baffled defeated expression on his round face. Then he turned and looked at Alix, as near to being angry as they’d ever seen him.
‘There isn’t a bank in the state that’d give us that sort of money for an aeroplane,’ he snorted. ‘They’re still driving two-horse buggies round here.’
There was a depressed silence in the office for the rest of the morning and they ate a gloomy lunch in the diner outside the gates of the airfield. Woolff seemed to be trying to eat and chain-smoke at the same time. Occasionally, Ira caught Sammy’s eye, but Sammy showed no sign of what he was thinking and munched steadily, apparently unperturbed by the tensions below the surface.
Nobody seemed able to do much work when they returned to the hangar, and although they bent over Woolff’s plans, their minds were entirely on Courtney. During the afternoon, the telephone rang. Ira picked it up and handed it over to Woolff.
It was Boyle and his voice was quite distinct in the silent office.
‘Lave Boyle here,’ he said. ‘The Old Man’s on his way down to the works. He’ll be there in half an hour. Stay right where you are.’
Woolff’s eyes flew to Ira’s face and he clapped his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘He’s coming down again,’ he said. ‘Maybe he’s thought it over!’
Boyle’s voice came again, rasping and suspicious. ‘What have you lot been up to?’ he demanded. ‘That newspaper guy, Nestor, was on the telephone and Felton’s been prowling about here ever since, like he ate something didn’t agree with him. Nestor said you were building a new plane.’
Woolff’s eyes widened and he glanced at Alix.
‘That’s not so, Mr Boyle.’
Boyle’s voice came again, deep, harsh and vaguely threatening. ‘Because, get this straight, Hal, Felton’s not got any dough to throw around on new aeroplanes. He hadn’t when he started this damn project and he sure as hell hasn’t now.’
Woolff replaced the receiver slowly and put the instrument down. ‘He’s on his way,’ he said nervously. ‘Boyle said Nestor had been on the telephone. Maybe he’s said something to make your Pa change his mind, Alix. What do we do?’
Alix glanced at Ira and Sammy. ‘Take it as it comes, Alix,’ Ira advised. ‘Find out what it’s all about first.’
They went on checking Woolff’s figures while they waited, but Woolff was unable to sit still. He stared frustratedly at Ira and Sammy, then at Alix, but she sat silently in his chair, smoking, in a pool of isolation, offering no consolation or encouragement, her eyes occasionally flickering to Ira’s face.
Courtney was alone when he returned and he seemed strangely subdued, standing in the doorway, his short legs in tight, badly creased trousers, his hat over his eyes as though he’d tilted it there to keep the sun out of them while driving across the field.
‘That guy Nestor,’ he said immediately. ‘He was on the telephone.’ He tossed his hat on to the table. ‘He’s a punk. I don’t like him any more than he likes me.’
Woolff swallowed, his eyes flickering towards Ira, aware that as an opening gambit this could be encouraging. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘He’s poison, Mr Courtney.’
Courtney pulled a chair towards him with one foot and sat down, then very deliberately he lit a cigar and blew out a few puffs of blue smoke. There was a long silence in the office as they waited and Ira and Sammy quietly went on checking figures.
Courtney stared at them for a moment, then he sighed and drew a deep breath, his eyes on the glowing end of the cigar.
‘He told me he’d heard you’d already started work on that new plane,’ he said.
Woolff shook his head. ‘He’s got it wrong, Mr Courtney. Nobody’s started anything.’
‘He said there was the danger of a strike if I stopped you. Because it would be throwing Medway folk out of work.’ Courtney paused and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You think there’d be a strike, Hal?’
Woolff, who was watching him like a rabbit petrified by the presence of a snake, came to life with a jerk. ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘The boys are right behind us, Mr Courtney! Give ’em the work, they’ll not complain.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Courtney jabbed at the air with the cigar, his eyes roving over Alix and Ira and Sammy.
He was silent for a moment and they could see the effort he was making by the way his Adam’s apple worked in his throat.
‘He said you’d got something sensational,’ he went on in a low voice. ‘Has he got that wrong, too?’
Woolff coughed, looking uncomfortable. ‘We could have, Mr Courtney.’
‘Could have?’
‘I’m only thinkin’ about it up to now.’
Courtney stared at him coldly. ‘How the hell are we financing it?’ he demanded.
Woolff drew a deep breath. ‘We don’t need dough, Mr Courtney. ’Least, not much. We could use a lot of your own design.’
It was a stroke of genius and Courtney’s expression changed at once, as though, as Alix had suggested, he was badly wanting to change his stance but needed something to save his face. Nestor’s nose for the folksy chit-chat he liked to print in his drab little newspaper had given them the break they needed and Woolff’s ingenuous words seemed to have turned the trick completely in their favour. Courtney’s eyes were suddenly gleaming.
‘You can?’ he said, and as he spoke, Alix’s eyes flickered to Ira’s and he saw Sammy’s mouth twitch.
Now that he’d recovered from his surprise, Woolff was becoming confident and more enthusiastic. ‘Sure we can use your design, Mr Courtney,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’d only mean reshaping the nose and the leading edge. Maybe we’d need a little more wing area as well, of course…’
And maybe a new undercart, Ira thought grimly. And different tanks. And perhaps even a new fuselage in the end. You couldn’t change step as easily as all that.
‘She’s a committee-designed ship, Mr Courtney,’ Woolff went on and Courtney frowned.
‘Committee-designed? What the hell’s that?’
‘Pilot, navigator, designer, works staff, backer, all putting in their ten cents’ worth. All watching the details as they go along. She could be ready in a month.’
‘A month!’
They were all round the table now, and Courtney eyed them, unable to hold back his excitement any longer. Woolff went on eagerly.
‘It’ll take no longer than the other one and it’d work out around the same price, Mr Courtney,’ he said. ‘I’ve totalled up the cost. We ought to be able to do it easily for that.’
Courtney sucked at his cigar in silence, as though he felt somewhere he’d been cheated.
‘Carbon-steel tubes,’ Woolff went on quickly before he could argue. ‘Spruce spars and ribs for the wing. Wright engine. Around two thousand pounds unladen.’
‘Two thousand! That’s featherweight.’ Courtney took the cigar from his mouth, his eyes a little startled. ‘You got plans for me to see?’ he asked.
Before he’d finished speaking, Sammy was unrolling the sheets of stiff paper in front of him. Woolff bent across the table, his hand running over the lines he’d drawn.
‘Monoplane, Mr Courtney,’ he said. ‘We’ve got over the problems of making the wing strong enough these days.’
‘Two sets of wings look safer,’ Courtney said, frowning.
‘Birds manage with one,’ Sammy said laconically.
Courtney turned swiftly, his eyes flashing, but Sammy’s po face met him, expressionless and innocent, as though the words had been conjured out of the air.
‘I’d run struts from the base of the fuselage up to the wing.’ Woolff’s hand was ge
sturing at the plan again. ‘That’d help keep it stable. The fuselage’d have to be strong at that point, anyway, because we’d have to fit the undercarriage there, and it’d have to be able to carry the load. I’ve worked it out. She’d hold enough fuel for forty hours’ flying and she’d lift it off the ground, too!’ His enthusiasm burst out of him uncontrollably. ‘Hell, Mr Courtney, this is the plane of the future! If we could pull this thing off, you’d sell ’em like hot cakes in winter to the airline companies.’
‘You reckon so?’ Courtney sucked on his cigar for a moment longer, his eyes gleaming, then he nodded.
‘Maybe I was wrong. You think I was wrong, Hal?’
Woolff swallowed. ‘Yes, Mr Courtney. I reckon you were wrong.’
Courtney stared at him, startled by the firmness shown by the mild-mannered Woolff.
‘You do, eh?’ he said. ‘Hell, I must have been way out.’
He got to his feet stiffly and began to walk about the office with his hands in his pockets. Alix watched him silently. Ira glanced at Sammy and caught the hint of a wink, then Sammy’s face was frozen again. Woolff was fighting to get out the fact that they already had the new machine started, when Alix gestured and he became silent.
‘Money’s a problem,’ Courtney said hesitantly. ‘It isn’t that I’m broke, but my dough’s tied up.’
‘She’ll be worth anything we spend.’ Alix jerked the words out. ‘She’d be built specially for the job.’
Courtney was still frowning, clearly troubled. ‘How much would it cost?’
Woolff grinned impulsively. ‘Five grand,’ he said.
Courtney looked up, startled. ‘Five grand!’ he said. ‘That’s not much. I guess I could raise that.’
Alix shifted in her chair. ‘You’re too late, Pa,’ she pointed out, staring at her father with the confidence of a steady-eyed cat with a twitching tail. ‘I’m in it for two and a half already. If there are the sort of profits to be made that Hal says there are, I’m having some of ’em.’
Courtney stared at his daughter for a moment, then he nodded again. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll put up the rest.’
He looked round them, frowning, then his expression relaxed and he began to smile. Alix smiled back and Courtney’s smile became a grin. ‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘you’re a cheap chiseller. Where is this goddam plane?’
‘Right there, Mr Courtney,’ Woolff said, pointing. ‘Right there in the hangar.’
Courtney stared through the window in the direction of Woolff’s pointing finger. ‘You’re working on it,’ he accused. ‘You said you weren’t.’
‘Just a bit, Mr Courtney. Just experiments, that’s all.’
Courtney’s eyes were glowing. ‘I’ll be a son of a gun!’ he said. ‘It looks good, Hal. Hey, Ira, doesn’t it look good?’
Despite himself he was clearly impressed.
‘We’ll call her Dixie,’ he announced. ‘It’ll be built here in Dixie and it’ll be good business to let people know. The folk in Medway’ll like it and, if she’s as good as you say, we might be expanding any time and needing more labour. Sure,’ he ended. ‘Dixie. That’ll be a good name for her.’
Followed by Sammy, he vanished with Woolff into the hangar, leaving Alix and Ira alone in the office. She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned, then she whirled round and flung her arms round him and planted a spontaneous noisy kiss smack on his mouth.
‘We did it!’ she said.
Then she suddenly became aware that they were standing with their arms round each other, and she broke away abruptly, jerking awkwardly at the heavy green sweater and frowning suddenly.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘We’ve got things to do!’ And she whirled on her heel and vanished after her father into the hangar.
Part 2: Trial – and Error
Chapter 1
Within an hour, Courtney had assembled the workmen round the skeleton of the new machine and explained the need for urgency, and, without hesitation, they all agreed to throw everything they had into it. The idea of building a machine to be the first to fly non-stop to Paris appealed to them all and their interest was stirred.
With the project under way, Ira turned his attention at once to the problem of navigation. Beneath him he would have a brand-new aeroplane capable of flying 4,000 without refuelling, and a dozen new navigational aids that he’d never had a chance to use before, but neither the plane nor the navigational aids would be of any use if he couldn’t first plot a course and then fly accurately along it. The Atlantic was a stormy ocean, noted for its fogs and its contrary winds, and there were 2,000 miles of it in which he could be blown off course with nothing below him to fix his position. There’d be no beacons and the only lights would be the moving lights of ships, so that he’d have to make his changes by the angle of the minute and hour hands on a clock, working out his position by theory and time instead of by external visual aids.
He could shoot the sun from a sextant, but he suspected that, from a cramped and overloaded aeroplane, using a sextant wouldn’t be easy, and as the navigation that he’d picked up in the ten years of his flying experience filtered through his mind, he remembered that he’d never before flown for long distances over water and that all his navigation had been done with the help of landmarks with which he could check his route. Watching whether the junction of railway tracks faced north or south, how lakes fitted into the curves of the hills, how a river looped across a plain – these were the things that had always helped him fix his position on a map, but the sea was not only without landmarks but its surface was always shifting and would show only his own shadow.
‘You could fly by the Azores,’ Alix suggested. ‘And get a fix there.’
‘Too far off the route,’ Ira pointed out. ‘We’d be flying on our last drop of fuel before we picked up the coast of Europe.’
She seemed eager to press the point of safety. ‘Shipping could help you.’
‘If I carried a radio. I’d rather carry fuel. And if we fly the direct route via Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the shipping lanes’ll be too far south.’
Sammy’s face was sombre. ‘Newfoundland’s a long way north, Ira,’ he pointed out slowly. ‘Bad-weather country.’
Ira shook his head again stubbornly. ‘Alcock and Brown used it,’ he said. ‘Besides, we could get a fix at Halifax and again at St John’s. That would tell us how the compass was behaving. We could be over St John’s before dark, and that’d enable us to pick up Ireland in daylight the next day.’
‘How about going down to Charleston?’ Alix suggested. ‘I guess the shipping offices’ll find you a captain who’d help. I don’t suppose navigating by sea’s all that different from navigating over water by air.’
* * *
In a block of offices, in a flat-fronted yellow-washed building in East Bay Street, Ira found the name of a ship undergoing a major overhaul in one of the dry docks among the oil tanks and cranes, and the shipping manager sent a young man with him to indicate the way. Her captain, a young man by the name of Ziegler, wore a yellow shirt and looked more like a holiday-maker than a ship’s officer, but he caught on at once to what Ira wanted. ‘Great-circle navigation,’ he said. ‘The shortest distance between two points on a sphere.’
‘How much knowledge of mathematics does it need?’ Ira asked.
‘Not more than you’ve got, I guess. You can handle it if you work at it.’ Ziegler looked sideways at Ira. ‘Why don’t you cross in a ship?’ he grinned. ‘It’d be more comfortable and a hell of a lot more certain.’
He pulled out a flat drawer in the wheelhouse and extracted two wide sheets, almost entirely covered with pale blue. ‘These are what you’ll want.’ His hand gestured at a square of small print. ‘You’ll find instructions on ’em and you’ll also need a time-zone chart and a chart of magnetic variation, and I guess it would help to know the prevailing wind for the period when you aim to make the crossing.’
He looked up, then fished
a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it slowly.
‘How far will this aeroplane of yours fly?’ he asked.
‘Four thousand miles.’
Ziegler scratched a match and began to puff smoke. ‘Ought to be enough,’ he said, though he sounded doubtful. ‘Make sure you’ve got the wind behind you, though, when you start. If you run into a headwind, you’ll be in trouble.’
‘How about weather information?’ Ira asked. ‘Can your ship give warning of storms from mid-Atlantic?’
‘Sure, We all do. You can pick it up from the New York Weather Bureau. They’re hot stuff. They get it through the Radio Corporation of America. If you had the weather for the day you left, you could fly round any storms there were.’
They talked for a while and Ziegler gave advice on instruments, then Ira found a shop in Calhoun Street where he was able to buy a sextant and all that Ziegler had advised. A visit to the public library produced a list of books, then he drove back to the hotel in Medway.
It was dark by the time Sammy returned to the hotel, and when he arrived Ira had the charts spread across the floor of his room. The weather had suddenly changed and it was hot enough for him to have switched on the fan and the room was loud with the click-clicking as some faulty mechanism caught as it revolved.
Sammy had his arms full of plans and graphs and he stood staring down at the curved line Ira had drawn across the Atlantic, his eyes interested.
‘It’s a hell of a way, Ira,’ he said thoughtfully.
He watched for a while, then squatted on the floor alongside.
‘Ira,’ he said. ‘I just had an idea. I talked it over with Alix and we’ve been sitting in the office working it out. According to the papers, Nungesser and Coli are supposed to be busy with an idea for an undercarriage they can drop when they take off.’
Ira looked up, frowning, and Sammy went on eagerly. ‘Hawker and Mackenzie-Grieve had a detachable undercarriage,’ he pointed out. ‘As long ago as 1919. And they almost made it. That was a hell of a flight for those days.’
