Novel - Airman

by Eoin Colfer

  But Declan was not listening; he was staring across the square, over the heads of the cheering mob. Catherine met his gaze across the distance. Her hands covered her nose and mouth. All he could see of that beautiful face were her dark eyes. In the orange glow of electric orbs, Declan could see that his wife was crying.

  Her husband had come home.

  The balloon exploded, flames igniting the fireworks pack before the fuse ever had the chance. The concussion perforated one of Conor’s eardrums, and a riot of sparks peppered his skin like a million bee stings. He was engulfed in a cocoon of raging flame, which ate his clothing and crisped the hairs on his arms and legs, singeing his beard back to the jawline.

  And as serious as these injuries were, Conor had expected much worse.

  Then gravity took hold, yanking him back to earth with invisible threads. Down he went, too shocked to cry out. This had never been the plan. There was supposed to be ten fathoms of rope between him and the balloon: dangerous, certainly, but a lot healthier than riding the balloon itself.

  There was something he was supposed to do. The plan had a next stage, surely. Of course! The device!

  Conor forced his good hand down against the airflow, pulling aside the smoldering remnants of his jacket. My God! There were sparks on the device.

  The device was, of course, a parachute. Aeronauts had been jumping out of balloons for almost a century with varying success. In America, dropping animals from balloons had become popular after the Civil War. But jumps had only been performed as entertainment, in perfect weather conditions. Rarely at night, hardly ever from an altitude under two thousand yards, and positively never with a flaming parachute.

  Conor located the release cord and pulled. He’d been forced to pack his chute carefully into a flour bag, then strap it across his chest. He could only pray that the lines would come out untangled, or else the parachute would not even open. At this low altitude, it was quite possible that the parachute would not have time to spread at all, and would merely provide him with a shroud for his watery grave.

  The release cord was sewn to the tip of a tiny parachute, much like the ones Victor and Conor had often used to sail wooden mannequins from the palace turrets. In theory, the drag on this parachute would be enough to pull out the larger one. This was one of the many new ideas Conor had scrawled in the mud at the back of his cell. He had hoped, at the time, that all of his inventions would not have to be tested in such outrageous circumstances.

  Though Conor did not see it happen, his small parachute performed perfectly, slipping from its niche like a baby marsupial from the pouch. It shivered in the wind for a moment, then popped its mouth open, catching the air. Its fall was instantly slowed, while Conor’s was not. The resulting tension dragged the larger parachute into the night air. The silk rustled past Conor’s face, bouncing the wind in its folds. No tangled lines. No snagged folds. Please, God.

  His prayers were answered, and the white silk of the parachute sprang open to its limits cleanly, with a noise like cannon shot. The severity of the deceleration caused the harness straps to snap hard against Conor’s back, leaving an X-shaped rope burn that he would carry for the rest of his life.

  Conor was largely beyond rational thought now and could only wonder why the moon seemed to be following him. Not only that but it appeared to be on fire. Angry orange sparks chewed away large sections, so that he could see the stars through the holes. Not the moon. My parachute.

  It seemed to Conor then that he was still in his cell, in the planning stages, and his imagination was throwing up possible problems. If sparks from the balloon catch on the parachute silk, that will indeed be a dire development, because it will mean that someone has shot the balloon, in spite of my having loosened it from the wall. If this happens, I can only hope that my velocity has decreased sufficiently to make a water landing survivable.

  Conor’s descent was steady enough now that he could distinguish sea from sky. Below him, the islands were rushing up fast. He could see Isabella’s palace and, of course, the Great Saltee Wall, with its rows of electric lamps, which had been described by The New York Times as the First Wonder of the Industrial World.

  If I could steer, Conor realized, the lights would guide me in.

  The boats spun below him in a maelstrom of light. Quickly the largest of the boats filled his vision, and he knew that he would land there. There was no avoiding the craft. It loomed from the black depths like one of Darwin’s bioelectric jellyfish.

  Conor felt no particular sadness, more the disappointment of a scientist whose experiment has failed. Ten feet left and I might have survived, he thought. Science is indeed a slave to nature.

  But chance had one more freakish card to play on this night of unlikely extremes. A heartbeat after his parachute dissolved into blackened embers, Conor crashed into the royal yacht Victoria and Albert II at a speed of forty some miles an hour. He hit the third starboard lifeboat, slicing a clean rent in the blue tarpaulin, which would not be noticed for two days. Below the tarpaulin, was a bed of cork life jackets, temporarily stored there until hooks could be hung to hold them.

  Two days earlier and the recently requisitioned jackets would not have been on board; three days later and they would have been distributed about the yacht.

  Despite the parachute and tarpaulin, Conor’s bulk and speed drove him through the cork to the deck. His dislocated shoulder punched through to the floorboards, where he bounced once, then came to rest. The bilges must be spotless, he thought dimly. Nothing to smell but wood and paint.

  And then, I do believe the impact righted my shoulder. What are the odds? Astronomical.

  This was his final thought before oblivion claimed him. Conor Broekhart did not move a muscle for the rest of the night. He dreamed vividly but in two colors only: crimson and gold.

  CHAPTER 12: ANGEL OR DEVIL?

  Little Saltee, 1894

  On the night Arthur Billtoe met the devil, he was indulging himself in one of his favorite pastimes. The prison guard was on the skive in a comfy spot near the cliffs on the island’s seaward side. Billtoe had half a dozen such spots all over the island, places he could set down his head when prison life did for his nerves.

  Dozing off for a snooze was not a simple thing on a walled island with a fort perched on the southeastern edge, and a dozen lookout towers along the Wall itself.

  Stupid electric lighting, Billtoe often thought. How’s a man supposed to grab a nap?

  This particular comfy spot was Billtoe’s favorite, a shallow little dugout near the salsa garden fifteen paces from the base of the wall. The floor was an ancient tarp the ferry boys were flinging, and the roof was one of the old doors from Wandering Heck’s days, frame and all, still on the hinges. The entire thing was near invisible from the outside, covered as it was with mud, grass, and scrub that had crept down over the door.

  Billtoe felt a swell of pride every time he sneaked himself into its pungent, welcoming darkness. Of all his doss spots, this was his favorite. Dry as a bone come hell or high water, and he could uncork the spy-hole and use it as a chimney, which saved him revealing his embers to the watch. One more smoke, thought Billtoe. One more, and then back on the job.

  Arthur Billtoe had been spending more and more time in his hidey-holes in the six months since Conor Finn had disappeared. He wasn’t nursing a tender spot for the soldier boy, but he was fearful that Marshall Bonvilain had had a plan for that young man, and him being dead was not part of that plan.

  On the night of Finn’s disappearance, Billtoe had stood in the chimney stack, roaring for hours. When that had proved fruitless, he had fetched a twelve-year-old Cockney boy who was doing a dozen or so years for robbing toffs, and sent him up the stacks with the promise of a few years off his sentence. The boy came down empty after half a day, and Billtoe sent him right back up again at gunpoint. Forty-eight more hours in the labyrinth, and the boy came back down with bloody knees and no news. It was no use. Conor Finn was not up there. Some
how, Arthur Billtoe had been duped.

  Then he began to wonder about the butcher who had become entangled in one of the coronation balloons. Could that have been Finn? Could soldier boy have gotten above-ground somehow?

  Billtoe could never know for certain, and this itched him like a beetle crawling under his skin. Maybe Finn had been desiccated in the chimneys, or perhaps he had a lungful of brine in St. George’s Channel. Dead was dead and bones was bones. But that wouldn’t be the end of it. Sooner or later Bonvilain would come looking for his special prisoner, and then all hell would be brought down on Arthur Billtoe’s head.

  Unless. Unless . . .

  Unless the marshall would be fooled by his deception. When Finn disappeared, Billtoe had considered pulling up roots and hopping a steamer to New York. One of his possible fathers was in New York, if he was still alive. Even if he wasn’t, then there could be some form of estate. But that was all eating rat and calling it turkey. He hadn’t the cash for crossing the Atlantic, nor would he have with a year of saving. It was frustrating to have a fortune in stolen diamonds that he could not convert into hard cash.

  Anyway, things was rosy on the island at the present moment. He was Bonvilain’s boy, what with his coronation balloons being such a success. Pretty soon, he might find himself at one end of a promotion handshake. Maybe then Arthur Billtoe might be in a position to smuggle some of his diamonds off the island, and then maybe he could travel first class on that steamer to New York.

  Until then, he would have to pray to whatever god would have him that Marshall Bonvilain did not look too close at the bearded youth Billtoe had slung into Conor Finn’s cell. The boy was roughly the same age, build, and coloring. After a few beatings, he had the same haunted eyes and lopsided looks. It could be the same boy, if you didn’t look too close. Billtoe hoped that Conor Finn had been a simple hostage job and not someone with facts in his skull, because if it was information that the marshall was after, then he’d best be looking up high and down low, because he wouldn’t be finding it in Conor Finn’s cell.

  Billtoe had a sudden idea. I should cut out the ringer’s tongue. Say it happened in a fight with Malarkey. The marshall couldn’t hold me responsible for that, as it was he who ordered me to set Malarkey on the boy.

  This, as far as Billtoe was concerned, was a capital idea, far better than salsa gardens or coronation balloons. Or twelve-shot revolvers, for that matter, which had turned out to be a pile of fool’s gold. A Kilmore gunsmith friend of Billtoe’s had nearly lost a finger trying to build that particular weapon.

  I will slice that boy’s tongue out as soon as I get back, thought Billtoe, tapping his boot to make sure his good knife was nestled there against his shin. Mightily pleased with this notion, Billtoe blew a final flute of smoke through the peephole, then stubbed out his cigarette on a clamshell he kept in the hidey-hole for that purpose. He toed the door open a crack to release any lingering smoke and smells, then clambered up into the darkness like a corpse rising from its grave. Not only will cutting that ringer’s tongue out serve a purpose, vis-à-vis my plan, but it will also improve my mood.

  Billtoe’s general routine was to hug the wall until he reached a stairwell, then trot up as if he was simply taking the air. No one would challenge him, especially since the coronation. He was a big shot now, was Arthur Billtoe. That’s Mister Billtoe, to you, Pike, as he had become fond of saying lately.

  The night was overcast, with barely a star winking through the clouds. The Wall crenellations had an orange haze drawn above their blocks by the electric lighting. Billtoe used the orange line as a marker, easy to navigate by. He nipped across the springy rock grass under cover of darkness, a little sharpish, as it turned out, because his boot heel slipped on a pat of moss, and he went down on his back. The wind went out of him like dust from a beaten rug.

  Billtoe lay there on his back, wheezing and gasping, when suddenly the clouds parted, letting a silver guinea moon shine through. When Billtoe recovered his wind, his lips spread in a plug-stained smile, because finally, after so many years, he could make out the Man in the Moon that everyone prattled on about. Must have been the angle, because before this moment, he had never seen anything but smudges.

  I can see the face now, for the first time. And I get to cut out a prisoner’s tongue. Happy day.

  Then, through the gap in the clouds, came some kind of figure. A man with wings. Flying.

  This kind of event was so strange, so impossible, that Billtoe was not even surprised initially. A man with the wings of a bird. An angel in black.

  The angel banked sharp starboard so as not to overshoot the island, then descended in a tight curl, spiraling down until Billtoe could hear the craft as well as see it. It creaked, flapped, and fluttered, and the human-looking creature fought it as though he were being borne away by a great eagle.

  I know what is happening here, Billtoe realized. Arthur Billtoe had in his life read two books: London’s Most Gruesome Murders by Sy Cocillée, which he found most educational; and The Noble Indian by Captain George Toolee, which he had hoped would concern itself with settler massacres and scalping, but which actually turned out to be an in-depth study of the Indians’ culture. Billtoe had almost tossed the book into the fire, but it had cost him a few shillings so he’d persevered. One chapter described a tent known as the sweat lodge, where the Indians got themselves good and smoked up until their spirit guide appeared. My hidey-hole is like a sweat lodge. Now my spirit guide has appeared, and it’s a swearing birdman.

  The birdman contraption came down fast, wings cracking as the air filled their sails. It seemed as though the creature would break itself against the rocks—like a sparrow against the window, which Billtoe always found amusing— when at the last possible second, the angel creature pulled up his nose, gliding in for a smooth landing. His speed took him running for a dozen steps until he managed to halt himself.

  Billtoe gazed up terrified at this otherworldly creature who loomed above him, the moon haloing his head. It was close enough to stab. But what would be the point? There was no killing a creature like this.

  The creature was dressed in black from the top of his leather cap to the tip of his knee-length riding boots. His face was concealed by a pair of glassed goggles and a scarf pulled tightly across the mouth. His breath was ragged through the scarf, and his chest heaved.

  Something twinkled on the angel’s chest. An insignia of some kind. Two golden wings springing from the letter A. Could it stand for Angel?

  Arthur Billtoe wished with all his heart to remain still and silent. He felt once more like the seven-year-old-boy he had been in a Dublin alley, hiding in a water barrel, being hunted by a drunken crone for the sixpence in his pocket. His life was worth no more now than it had been then. This creature would kill him with a glance. He longed to draw the grass and weeds around him like a blanket and sleep until this fearsome flying creature had departed.

  Do not whimper, he told himself. Whimpering at times of danger had always been a failing of his, and had earned him bruises more than once in the past. Hold it in, Arthur me boy. Suck it down to yer boots.

  He might have managed it, had the creature not pulled a saber from its scabbard at his belt and begun plunging it into the ground, as though seeking to wound Mother Earth. Each thrust brought him closer to where Billtoe lay shuddering.

  Finally he could absorb the fright no more. “What are you?” he hissed, the power of his emotions lifting him to his feet. “What do you want with Arthur Billtoe?”

  The creature reared back, then steadied himself. Its glass eyes flashed orange in the lamp glow, then blackened as they landed on the prison guard. “Billtoe,” it growled. “Arthur Billtoe!”

  If Billtoe could have, he would have changed his name on the spot, such was the hatred in the creature’s voice. These winged types must be hateful by nature.

  While Billtoe was contemplating this, the airman darted forward, his curved wings rearing upward from the sudden movement, l
ifting the black-clad stranger into the air. He dropped to earth like a giant snarling gargoyle within arm’s length of Billtoe, a fact he put to good use by clasping the guard’s windpipe in steel fingers.

  “Billtoe,” he said again, laying his saber blade flat along Billtoe’s pale throat.

  “A-Are you angel or devil, sir?” stammered the guard. “I needs to know. Are you taking me up the ways, or down?”

  The glass circles studied him for a long second. Billtoe felt the blade slide along his Adam’s apple; he felt the keen cut sting. Then the blade stopped its deadly arc, and the creature spoke.

  “I can be angel or devil, monsieur,” it said. “But in your case, I will always be a devil.”

  “Will you kill me now?” asked Billtoe, his voice almost a shriek.

  “No, monsieur, not now. But you are making a lot of noise, so . . .” The devil lifted his saber high and brought the pommel down on Billtoe’s brow. The guard collapsed like a dropped puppet. He was not quite unconscious, but Billtoe thought it would be better to seek out the darkness, rather than open his eyes and incur the wrath of the airman. He kept his eyes closed and soon drifted away.

  When Arthur Billtoe awoke, it was daybreak. His head felt like one giant wound, and the warden’s dog walker, Poole, was standing over him, encouraging the little terrier to use Billtoe’s boot as a piddling spot.

  “Geddoff!” snarled Billtoe, kicking at the dog; then remembered the French devil, who could still be in the area. He rolled himself from the marshy puddle in which he had lain and scrambled to all fours, unable to go any higher because of the pain hammering his skull. “Devil,” he panted. “French. Big ruddy wings. Flying about like a nighthawk. Did you see it?”

  Poole’s response to this lunacy was to pretend he hadn’t heard. He coughed furiously to cover Billtoe’s chatter, then chastised the terrier. “Bad, Sir Percival, bad, making to piddle on Mister Billtoe like that, and he coming out of a dream, the details of which I have no desire to hear. I would kick you, Percy, if you weren’t such a lovely lad.”