by John Wilson
“Of course,” I say.
Amid more expressions of hope for better times, we say our goodbyes, and Horst and Martha disappear into the gathering dark.
Dad and I settle back on the porch as moths bang stupidly against the gas lantern and mosquitoes begin to discover us.
“Will all the young men really go off and fight in the war?” I ask.
“I’m afraid so,” Dad says. “They say there are lines at the recruiting offices in Toronto and Regina already.”
“But there won’t be time for them to get over to Europe before the war ends.”
Dad takes a sip of his brandy. “I’m not so sure. I suspect that this war’s not going to be like the ones you read about in books. It’s not going to be a thin line of British redcoats standing against a horde of poorly armed natives in some forgotten corner of the empire. It won’t even be the big battles that Napoleon or Wellington would recognize. The world has changed. France, Germany and Russia have millions of men on the march, and they have weapons that Napoleon could only dream of.”
“So the war will last into next year?”
“And then some. The war the Americans fought against themselves lasted four years, and this is a much bigger affair than that.” Dad tilts his head, furrows his brow and stares hard at me. “This war might even last long enough for you to be old enough to join up.”
I haven’t thought about this until now. I’ve been interested in what is happening in Europe—excited, even—but it is a distant place and doesn’t seem to have much to do with our little corner of the prairies. Will I join up when I’m old enough?
“Uncle Horst says that aeroplanes will be important in this war.”
“He may be right. New things are always tried out in wars.” Dad looks at me questioningly. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure. The war seems a long way off, but Canada’s in it now. If it goes on for a long time, I’ll have to do my part, but I don’t know if I want to be a soldier—at least not one in an army of millions. If Uncle Horst teaches me to fly, then I can be a pilot.” The instant I say it, I know it’s what I want to do. I’m thrilled by the idea of being far above the fighting, like an ancient Greek god staring down on mere mortals from Mount Olympus.
“That might be a good idea,” Dad says, nodding. “I don’t expect a soldier’s lot will be much fun in this war.” He stands up and stretches. “Meanwhile, let’s hope the papers are right and this madness is all over soon. I’m heading inside before the mosquitoes drain all the blood out of me. Goodnight, Edward.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
Despite the mosquitoes, I sit on the porch for a bit longer, staring into the darkness. The stars are out—the same stars that the millions of soldiers mobilizing all across Europe can see. I feel excited to be alive to see these momentous events unfold, but if I’m honest with myself, I feel scared as well. Will this war get so big that I’ll be sucked in to become just another soldier? Not if I can help it. I resolve that as soon as possible, I’ll ride over and persuade Uncle Horst to teach me to fly. In exchange, I’ll offer to help him build Bertha 7. Even if the war ends before I’m old enough to enlist, I’ll still have fulfilled my dream of rising in the air to soar with the birds.
CHAPTER 3
Escaping Gravity—June 1915
“You must concentrate,” Horst tells me. “If you break your neck, your father will be angered at me.” I am sitting in Bertha 7 at one end of Horst’s field. The building, the testing, the adjusting, the practicing—all these are over. I’m sixteen, and I’m about to fly an aeroplane on my own for the first time.
My heart is thumping like a steam hammer. I’m scared and excited at the same time. The multitude of wires holding Bertha together make me feel as if I’m in the center of a web, but am I the spider or the fly? Am I in control or am I trapped?
“Remember your axes, Edward,” Horst says seriously, forcing me to concentrate. “You have three of them going through you—one up and down, one side to side, and one forward and back. Forget left and right. You control only the spin of yourself and the plane around each of those three axes. You are not the pilot of the plane—you are part of the plane. I have told you this many times. Imagine the axes are running through your body, head to toe, elbow to elbow, spine to belly button. What is rotation around the head-to-toe axis called?”
“Yaw,” I reply.
“And the elbow-to-elbow axis?”
“Pitch.”
“And spine to belly button?”
“Roll. I know all this, Horst,” I say in exasperation.
“Ya, ya, you know. But you must remember.”
“I’ve been up a dozen times.”
“Only twelve, and I was with you to stop your mistakes. This time I will not be there to get you out of trouble. And Bertha, she will be different without me—lighter, faster.”
The past ten months have been hectic. Every moment that Dad has been able to spare me from the farm, I’ve been Horst’s dogsbody, holding, carving, gluing pieces of wood, stretching control wires and lifting heavy engines. I have countless scars and bruises, and an annoying cough from hours spent inhaling the foul fumes given off by the glue that holds Bertha together and the liquid—dope, Horst calls it—that is used to cure the fabric of the wings. But every moment has been worth it. Bertha 7 is finished and she is beautiful.
At shoulder height, a single wing stretches away on either side of me. A profusion of wires support the wings, splaying out like a parasol from the pole rising in front of me. The wings themselves and the fuselage I sit in are covered in doped fabric, but behind me, stretching away to the covered tail, is an open mesh of struts. Out of sight below me are more struts, to which are fixed four wheels from an old baby carriage. Wires run from these struts to help support the wings. In front of me, and blocking most of my view as Bertha sits on the ground, is the massive fifty-horsepower, six-cylinder engine that Horst acquired cheaply from his contact in Moose Jaw. In front of that stands my uncle, lecturing me and grasping one of the two vast propeller blades.
“Check the controls.” Horst’s stern instructions interrupt my thoughts. “Yaw.”
I look down to where my feet rest on a solid wooden bar. I push down my right foot and look over my shoulder to see the rudder on the vertical tailfin move to the right. In the air this will make me swing to the right, or rotate around the up-and-down axis. I repeat the process with my left foot and give Horst the thumbs-up.
“Pitch,” he shouts.
I grasp the control stick rising from the floor between my knees and pull it toward me. I look back and see the flaps on the horizontal tail surfaces rise. This will make me climb, or rotate around the side-to-side axis. I push the stick away and imagine myself diving. I give the thumbs-up.
“Roll.”
I move the control stick to the right and check that the flaps on the wings—Horst calls them ailerons—move up on the right side and down on the left. This will cause Bertha to roll to the right in flight, or rotate around the front-to-back axis. I repeat the movement to the left and wave a thumb forward.
Apart from the engine throttle, which is screwed onto a wooden spar in front of me and controls the flow of fuel to the engine, these are the only controls. It’s simple, but it’s hard to remember everything in the air, and moving in three dimensions is much more difficult than directing Abby left, right, forward or back on solid ground.
“Contact!” Horst yells.
I pull the throttle out a little and give him the thumbs-up.
My uncle hesitates and looks at me. “Be careful,” he says.
I nod.
Horst throws all his weight on the propeller blade and dives to one side. The engine coughs and a puff of dark smoke spits out of the exhaust. The propeller kicks round. I pull the throttle out a little more. The coughs come closer together and the propeller speeds up. More throttle. The coughs unite into a deep, shuddering roar and the propeller blurs. Bertha jerks forward, eager to be
off. More throttle. The engine sound smooths and Bertha speeds up.
I’m clenching the control stick so tightly that the knuckles on my left hand are white. I have to concentrate on not moving the stick left or right. If I do, Bertha will roll, the wing will catch the ground, she’ll be wrecked, and if I survive, I will never fly again.
Faster and faster, Bertha and I bump and rattle forward over the stubble field. Is it fast enough? Gently, I pull back on the stick. Bertha’s nose rises. We hop about ten feet before Bertha comes back to earth with a shuddering thump. Not fast enough. I pull out the throttle. The engine note rises and Bertha surges forward, bumping wildly. I pull back on the stick again, praying that we are going fast enough this time. The fence at the end of the field is rushing toward us with terrifying speed. Then there are no more bumps. Bertha’s wheels clear the fence by a good two feet.
“Woo-hooooooo!” I yell into the rushing wind. I’m flying!
When I look over the side at a couple of startled cows twenty feet below me, my knee knocks the stick to the right and Bertha wobbles alarmingly. I forget the cows and concentrate on keeping the machine stable and gently climbing—one hundred feet, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred. At about five hundred feet, I level off and risk a look around.
The world is spread out forever beneath a magical blue sky. The patchwork of fields, the grid of roads and tracks, the railroad with its scattered grain elevators disappearing toward the horizon, and the farmhouses nestled in their windbreaks of trees make me think of the imaginary landscape I used to create for my toy soldiers. But this is real. The roar of the engine, the whistling of the wind in the wire struts, the cold air tugging at my cheeks and making my eyes water—all are as real as the feel of Abby’s saddle under me as I ride around the farm. I’m flying.
I laugh out loud and begin to play. I speed up and slow down. I climb and dive, turn, slide left and right, tilt my wings to look down at the ground beneath me. At first I wobble all over the place and almost stall a couple of times—Bertha is very sensitive to any movement of the controls—but I force myself to remember Horst’s advice and picture the three axes running through me. I imagine my body rotating around those axes as I manipulate the controls—yaw, pitch and roll. It’s hard, but I gradually feel more comfortable. I do everything gently, moving the controls tiny fractions and correcting as soon as I feel apprehensive. Horst was right—without him in the cockpit, Bertha is much lighter, faster and more responsive. I resist the temptation to see how fast she can go or how high she can climb. The last thing I want is to rip one of her wings off or plummet to the ground in a stall.
I wonder if lads my age are flying like this over the battlefields in Europe. Dad was right when he said the fighting wouldn’t be over by Christmas, and aeroplanes have proved important—one spotted the German army’s swing away from Paris in September of last year, making the miraculous victory in the Battle of the Marne possible, and only yesterday the newspapers were full of Lieutenant Warneford’s magnificent achievement in bringing down a Zeppelin by dropping bombs on top of it. I pretend that I’m spotting the German army preparing for an attack, dropping bombs on grey-clad soldiers and shooting down an enemy plane. What I don’t do is remember one important thing—I’m actually travelling over the ground at forty miles an hour.
When I eventually settle into level flight and look down, I recognize nothing. I strain to look back over my shoulder, but there is no sign of Horst’s farm. I’ve no watch and have lost track of time. I could be many miles from home. I’m completely lost.
No need to panic, I think. All I have to do is turn around and head back the way I came. I took off to the north, so if I head south, I’ll be fine. Very carefully, I execute a wide turn and fly in what I am sure is the right direction, scanning the ground for a familiar landmark.
As time passes, I become more and more nervous. It seems as if I’ve been flying for hours. All around me are fields, tracks and farmhouses, but none of them is the one I’m looking for. What if my maneuvers have gotten me completely turned around? What if I’m flying east or west, or even north? How much fuel does Bertha carry? Not much. How long have I been flying? Too long.
“Don’t panic,” I say out loud. “You can work this out. This is Saskatchewan. The roads and tracks between the fields run either north to south or east to west. If I align myself with them, then at least I’ll be flying toward one of the cardinal points of the compass.”
I look down. I’m flying diagonally across the square fields. Slowly I turn until I’m flying along a road. Now where’s the sun? Above me and slightly ahead. That’s good. It’s early afternoon, so I’m heading south. But how far have I drifted? The breeze is pushing me from the west, and if I’m now flying south, that means I’ve been flying diagonally to the east. Horst’s farm and the field where he is waiting could be far off to the west. Should I head more in that direction? Have I missed the farm already? How much fuel do I have left?
Then I see the grain elevators—two of them, rising like medieval fortresses from the flat prairie. Where there are grain elevators, there is a railway line, and I know the railway line runs just south of Horst’s farm. As I approach, I recognize Mortlach, nestled as if for protection at the foot of the elevators. I give a cheer and turn Bertha along the main street. People look up, searching for the source of the noise. I wave, and some wave back. I head due west along the train tracks. Now I only have to worry about my fuel.
I see the red material flapping before I spot Horst’s farm. My uncle is standing in the middle of the field, waving a horse blanket wildly above his head. I line up my approach and begin my descent. The engine coughs and a puff of black, oily smoke sweeps past me. I’m running out of fuel, but I can’t worry about that. It takes all my concentration to slow my speed without stalling and keep Bertha level. I adjust the throttle and carefully wiggle the stick to keep the wings parallel to the ground.
The engine coughs again and I breathe in a lungful of foul smoke. There’s the fence! I clear it by inches as the engine dies. The wheels hit the ground with an almighty thump, and something underneath me cracks loudly. Bertha bounces back into the air and I wrestle with the stick to regain control. The second time we don’t bounce as high, and eventually, like a sick frog, we bump to a halt.
I sit for a moment, shaking and unable to force my hand off the control stick. Horst pounds across the field toward me. “What are you trying to do?” he asks breathlessly when he arrives. “Fly to Saskatoon?”
I look at him. It seems as if worry, anger and relief are fighting for control of his face.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t pay attention.”
“You must always pay attention,” he says. His facial muscles decide to settle on a smile. “It is good, though. Ya?”
“It’s breathtaking,” I say, beaming back at him. “The most incredible, astounding, magical thing I have ever done.”
“Ya, I know.” Horst’s smile is almost splitting his face. “It is all that and more. But come, we must put Bertha into the barn. There is a storm coming this evening. Then we will have some cold lemonade and sausage. And you can tell me of your adventure.”
Stiffly, I climb out of Bertha’s cockpit. I feel unsteady, as if out of my natural element. Gravity is pulling me down. The earth is holding me fast. My body feels like lead, trapped by its own weight. I feel bound to the ground below my feet. I stare at the blue sky, where dark thunderheads are already beginning to form on the western horizon. How will I manage until the next time I’m able to soar weightless with the birds? At that moment, I realize that I will never be truly content as long as my feet are anchored to the ground. True happiness can only be found in the air above my head.
CHAPTER 4
A Decision and a Gift—June 1915
“It was astonishing, thrilling, exquisite, enchanting!” I collapse into laughter, my supply of superlatives exhausted. “I felt like a god.” We’re sitting on Horst’s porch, sipping tall glasses o
f ice-cold lemonade. The air is heavy and humid, and dark clouds are rolling up from the western horizon.
Horst grins broadly. “Ya. I felt exactly the same, the first time I went up alone.”
We sip our drinks and watch the clouds grow.
“You are going to the war, now that you can fly?” Horst asks eventually.
“Yes,” I reply. “As soon as I’m old enough, I will be a pilot.”
“Canada does not have an air force,” Horst points out.
“I know. But I will go to Britain and join the Royal Flying Corps. Dad is English.”
“An expensive proposition.”
“I’ll manage,” I say defensively, although I have no idea how.
“Hmm.” Horst looks at me and strokes his chin. “Have you spoken with your father on this?”
“Not yet,” I admit, “but I will.”
“And do you know that the Royal Flying Corps will not accept anyone without a pilot’s license?”
“Then I’ll get one.”
“That too costs money.”
Suddenly angry, I slam my lemonade glass on the table between us and stand up. “If all you can do is point out the obstacles, then I’m going home.”
“Sit down,” Horst says gently before I’ve taken a step. His calm tone of voice and the half smile on his lips drain the anger from me as quickly as it appeared.
“I’m sorry,” I say, propping myself against the porch rail. “That flight today was the most incredible thing I have ever done. Joining the Royal Flying Corps will allow me to follow my dream and do something for my country in the war.”
Horst nods. “If I were your age, I would feel exactly the same. But it seems to me that you have four difficulties: a pilot’s license, the money to get that license and travel to England, your age, and persuading your father to let you go.”
