Novel - Airman

by Eoin Colfer

  I wish to be a scientist. Doing injury holds no pleasure for me.

  Not even Billtoe? Did you not enjoy that cut?

  Conor ignored the question. He would deal with the workings of his mind on another day.

  You will be a scientist again. In America. A new life, new inventions, home, friends, and perhaps another girl that does not remind you of Isabella.

  Conor turned his mind to rowing. He could not even contemplate girls without a vision of Isabella blooming in his mind.

  So, the ocean. Conor felt confident that he was safe now. The robust little craft bore him away on the current. The skiff had served him well. Already Great Saltee was little more than a dark, wedged hump, receding. Billtoe had called him Airman. That would be a short-lived title.

  The glider lay on the planks, its wings folded awkwardly like those of a broken bird. No matter. It is over now. The mysterious Airman will fly no more.

  The Martello tower was visible on the Irish coastline, a lantern burning in an upstairs window. A beacon to guide him home. Conor smiled. Linus has forgiven me, he thought.

  And then, I hope there is hot chocolate.

  CHAPTER 17: TANGLED WEB

  Two hours later, Arthur Billtoe sat on a fruit box in Marshall Bonvilain’s office, trying to hold the flaps of his wound together. His trousers were soaked and small gouts of blood pumped between his fingers in time with his heartbeat.

  Marshall Bonvilain entered the room, and the gouts pumped faster.

  “Sorry about the fruit box, Arthur,” said Hugo Bonvilain, sitting behind his desk. “But the brocade on my chairs is worth more to me than your life, you understand.”

  “O-of course, Marshall,” stammered Billtoe. “I am bleeding, sir. It is quite serious, I think.”

  Bonvilain waved this information away. “Yes, we will come to that later. For now, I wish to talk about this creature.” He took a notepad from his desk drawer and spun it across the desk toward Billtoe. It was Pike’s notebook, open to a dynamic sketch of the Airman. “They are calling him the Airman, and he can fly, apparently.”

  In cases like this, Billtoe had learned that it was always best to plead ignorance.

  “We was taking a walk, and he sprung himself on us. Amazed, I am.”

  “Hmm. So it was all a coincidence? You just happened to be at Sebber Bridge, making yourselves a target for the Wall Watch, when this Airman descended from the heavens?”

  Billtoe nodded eagerly. “That’s it exactly. You have gone straight to the nub of the matter, as usual.”

  “And did Mr. Pike do his sketching before or after he was shot? I don’t see how he could have done it at either time.” Bonvilain leaned forward, his bulk casting a shadow on Billtoe. “Could it be that you are lying to me, Arthur Billtoe?”

  Blood pulsed between the guard’s fingers. “No, sir, Marshall, never.”

  Bonvilain sighed, obviously enjoying his game of cat and mouse.

  “You are weaving yourself a tangled web. I think it’s best if I tell you what I think you’ve been up to, and then when I am finished speaking, you color in any details I might have missed. How about that, Arthur?”

  Billtoe nodded as if he really had a say in the proceedings.

  “So, firstly there’s you giving me ideas for flying and salsa beds. Then there are reports of a flying man digging up things in the salsa beds. Things which Pike tells me are diamonds.”

  “Pike is raving,” objected Billtoe. “Bullet fever.”

  Bonvilain raised a finger. “No time for lies, Arthur. You’re bleeding, remember? And I have not finished speaking.”

  “Sorry,” mumbled Billtoe.

  “Now, you are far too ignorant and shortsighted to have thought up this diamond scheme yourself . . .”

  “Exactly,” said Billtoe, relieved. “Ignorant and shortsighted, that’s me.”

  “So you must have been manipulated by whoever supplied these ideas. Now, I know of only one person on Little Saltee with a fascination for flying.” And here Bonvilain’s easy manner was replaced by cold, hard danger. “Be careful what you say here, Billtoe, because if your answer displeases me, you will not live long enough to die of that leg wound. . . . Were these ideas Conor Broekhart’s?”

  “Who?” asked Billtoe, genuine confusion writ large on his features.

  “Finn. Conor Finn.”

  Whatever blood was left in Billtoe’s face drained from it. He had always known this moment would come. Only one card left to play. “Yes, Marshall,” he said shamefacedly. “He sold his ideas for blankets and such. It seemed a harmless deception.”

  Bonvilain grunted. “Until he escaped on that coronation balloon. With your help, I’ll warrant.”

  “No, sir,” said Billtoe, squeezing the flaps of his wound together. “Finn is locked up in the mad wing, just as you ordered. No escaping for Conor Finn.” Billtoe paused guiltily. “Though he may look a tad different than he did last time you saw him. The years have been hard on the poor lad. What with the bell work and the beatings that you ordered. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t even recognize young Conor Finn.”

  Bonvilain laced his fingers, squeezing them until the tips were white, then rolling the knuckles along his forehead. He knew what had happened; of course he knew. It was his own fault. Conor Broekhart should have been tossed out the window years ago, not kept alive on the off chance he would be needed to control his father. What tangled webs we weave. . . .

  Bonvilain admitted to himself that he had liked the idea of having a witness to his genius. How much more agonizing must Conor Broekhart’s imprisonment have been, knowing his father believed him to be a murderer.

  The marshall smiled tightly. No, it had been a good plan. Incredible circumstances had scuppered it. An Airman, if you please. How could a man prepare for eventualities that had not yet been invented?

  Conor Broekhart might be a genius, but Hugo Bonvilain was ingenious. This situation was a test of his mettle. It would involve some quick thinking, but already the germ of a new plan was sprouting roots in the marshall’s mind. There would be murder involved, but that was not really an issue, except it could very well be murder at a high level; and when indulging in such murders, one must seem completely blameless. European royal families did not approve of commoners disposing of their monarchs. And royal disapproval generally took the form of approaching warships and annexation. Hugo Bonvilain did not intend to share his diamonds or his seat of power with anybody, especially not with Isabella’s close friend Queen Victoria of the British Empire. The Bonvilains had been striving for too many centuries to reach the very position that he was in now for him to pack his satchel at the first sign of worthy opposition.

  Bonvilain remembered the night his father died. He had been raving from the leprosy that he had picked up on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and much of what he had said was gibberish, but there were moments when his eyes were as clear as they had ever been.

  We have been pruning, he’d said to the young Bonvilain. Do you know what I’m saying to you, Hugo? For centuries we have been pruning the Trudeaus. They breed like rabbits, God blast them, but we have set the crown on the right head, keeping the Saltee Islands independent. You must finish the job. You are the last in the line of servants, and the first in a line of Bonvilain masters. Promise me, Hugo. Promise me.

  And the dying man had clutched at his son’s forearm with bandaged hands.

  I promise, Bonvilain had said, unable to look at the wasted remains of his father’s face.

  It occurred to Bonvilain now that he had been rocking in his seat, knuckles to forehead for several moments, which might appear strange. He leaned back, tugging straight the red-crossed, white Templar stole over his navy suit. “That’s my thinking position, Arthur. Any objections?”

  “No, Marshall. Not a one.”

  “Glad to hear it. Anything else you care to tell me about our Airman?”

  Billtoe fished inside his head for some pertinence that the marshall would apprec
iate. “Um . . . erm . . . Oh! He speaks French, calls a body mish-yoor.”

  Bonvilain slammed the desk with both fists, bouncing his writing set into the air.

  French. That clinched it. He had in a moment of miscalculation revealed his Francophobia to Conor Broekhart. It seemed as though the boy had a sense of humor. Best to dispose of him as soon as possible. The last thing he needed was a vindictive airman flying around stealing his diamonds and undermining his plans.

  “So, Arthur, you maintain that Conor Finn languishes in his cell?”

  Billtoe swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Apart from the languishing bit, which I am not certain on, yes. He is in his cell.”

  “Good. I would like to speak to him.”

  “What? Now?”

  “Yes, now. Does this pose a problem for you?”

  “No, there is no problem.” Billtoe’s features were drawn with pain and desperation. “Except that I’m bleeding, Marshall, quite badly. This wound needs closing, or I might not survive the ferry to the prison.”

  Bonvilain glanced at the fireplace. Flames crackled orange and blue in the hearth, and a model broadsword, used as a poker, hung from a hook by the coal scuttle.

  “You’re right, Arthur,” he said brightly. “It is time to seal that wound.”

  Bonvilain boarded the ferry with Captain Sultan Arif, his most trusted officer. Billtoe cowered in the stern, every now and then poking at the scar of fused flesh on his thigh, seeming surprised each time the contact caused him pain. He passed out during the short trip, and each time woke up blubbering like a babe and blurting the word barrel.

  Bonvilain found that he was not in the least anxious now that he had considered the night’s developments. In fact he felt invigorated by the challenge of maintaining his position, or even improving it. After all, Conor Broekhart was a youth with a kite. Hugo Bonvilain was a military strategist with an army behind him. Apparently, young Conor was reluctant to commit murder, whereas Bonvilain regarded murder as a time-honored and valid political tool.

  The marshall leaned close to Sultan Arif ’s ear. “There may be some poisoning later. Ready your potions.”

  Sultan nodded casually, toying with his splendid mustache. “Yes, Marshall. May I ask who we may be poisoning?”

  “Myself, I regret to say,” replied Sir Hugo.

  Sultan seemed unsurprised. “There will be others, I take it?”

  “Oh, yes,” Bonvilain confirmed, his gaze distant. “There will be others.”

  Little Saltee

  There was a prisoner in Conor Finn’s cell, but it was not Conor Finn.

  “And who, pray tell, is this?” asked Bonvilain, pointing to the terrified wretch huddled in the corner, away from the lamplight.

  Billtoe knew he was rumbled. “Don’t kill me, your worship,” he begged, dropping to his knees and grabbing the hem of Bonvilain’s Templar stole. “Please spare me. I don’t know how the blighter escaped. One minute he was there, the next gone. Some form of magic. Perhaps he ’ypnotized me.”

  Bonvilain did not kick him off immediately, enjoying the groveling. “What I don’t know yet, Arthur, is if you were actually Finn’s accomplice. You helped him escape, and you were his smuggling contact.”

  “Oh no, sir, Marshall,” gibbered Billtoe. “I never done no colluding. I don’t have the depth of thought for that.”

  “I’m not so sure. This substitute scheme of yours might have worked with any other prisoner. You were unfortunate to lose this particular one.”

  “That’s all it was, sir. Bad blasted luck, not an ounce of cooperation with the prisoner in it.”

  Bonvilain decided a display of anger was called for; after all, Sultan was watching. “You lied to me, Billtoe,” he shouted, his voice echoing in the tiny cell. “You stole my diamonds!”

  The marshall whipped his stole from Billtoe’s fingers, then delivered a mighty kick that sent the guard tumbling over the bed and into the wall behind. A muck plate cracked and fell. Billtoe lay in a heap like a spilled sack of laundry.

  “Well struck, Marshall,” said Sultan. “On the point of the chin. He rolled like a cartwheel. Should I finish him off ?”

  “No,” replied Bonvilain. “Something more poetic, I think. Perhaps our friend Arthur needs some time to reflect on his shortcomings.”

  He was distracted by a strange glow from the rear of the cell. Billtoe’s forehead had knocked some mud from the wall, and strange ghostly scribblings shone behind. Curious, Bonvilain stepped closer, bending to examine the markings.

  “Coral, I imagine,” he mused. “Old Wandering Heck would have loved this.”

  But the markings were man-made. Diagrams and equations. Someone had tried to cover up these markings with mud, but the mud had not bonded completely with the damp surface beneath. A glider was plainly visible on the wall. Bonvilain tapped it with a gloved finger. “Hello, Airman,” he whispered. “It seems I provided you with your laboratory.”

  He drew a pistol from his belt and rapped the wall with its grip. Another plate of mud cracked and fell, revealing that the glider had been launched from the roof of a tower.

  “And you have left me your location. And more valuable secrets, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  On the floor, Billtoe moaned. “Am I to be executed now, sir. Is that my fate?”

  “Not at the present time,” said Bonvilain, stretching. “I have use for you, Arthur Billtoe. Your immediate fate is to clean the dirt from these walls, then transcribe every mark you find underneath.”

  “Oh thank you, sir,” said Billtoe, tears of relief dripping from his nose. “I shall have one of the inmates get to it immediately. Top of my list.”

  “You misunderstand, Arthur,” said Bonvilain, catching the guard’s lapels in his fist, wrenching the very coat from his back, tumbling Billtoe farther to the back of the cell. “You will not be supervising this task as prison guard; you will be performing it as inmate.” Bonvilain turned to the young man who had occupied the cell for almost a year. “What is your name, boy?” “Claude deVille Montgomery, Yer Majesty,” answered the youth promptly. “Though me nears ’n’ dears call me Spog.”

  Bonvilain blinked: life never failed to surprise.

  “Old Billtoe there said to answer Conor Finn if anyone, specially yerself, ever got around to asking, but that was only if he didn’t get around to pulling me tongue out, and as you can see . . .” Spog opened his mouth wide to reveal two teeth and a gray tongue.

  “Thank you, eh, Spog. Tell me, has Mr. Billtoe been unkind to you?”

  Spog’s whole face frowned. “Blinkin’ nasty, the evil scut. With the hitting and spitting. Pulling hair, too, which is hardly gentlemanly, is it, now?”

  “Well then, now is your chance for revenge,” said Bonvilain, tossing him the guard’s jacket. “You are now the prison guard, and he is the prisoner. Do unto him and so forth. His life is yours, and yours his.”

  Spog greeted this announcement with complete calm, as though his fortunes were reversed every day. “I’m your man, Yer Highness,” he said, approximating a salute. “What’re your views on torturin’ them what used to be guards?”

  “I am all for it,” said Bonvilain. “It builds character.”

  Spog smiled, his teeth like gateposts in his mouth. “I’ll make you proud, Yer Worship.”

  The marshall winced. “Let’s stick with Marshall, shall we?”

  “Yessir, Yer Worship.”

  Billtoe’s senses were swirling around in his head like spirits in a witch’s cauldron, but still he managed to get the gist of what had transpired. “I’m . . . I’m an inmate now?” he gasped, hauling himself onto the bed.

  Bonvilain patted Spog’s shoulder. “Handle your prisoner, Mister Montgomery,” he said. “I don’t deal directly with criminals.”

  Spog’s eyes glowed with vengeful malice. “Yessir . . . Yer Worship. My pleasure. You might want to avert yer eyes.”

  Bonvilain folded his arms. “Perhaps. But not right away.”
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  Billtoe backed away from his new jailer, deeper and deeper into the cell till his elbows knocked mud from the walls, revealing blocks of diagrams and calculations. The coral’s green glow traced the dawning horror on Arthur Billtoe’s face. The misery he had visited on so many others was now to be his.

  Bonvilain winked at Sultan. “As I said. Poetic.”

  Forlorn Point

  Due to the night’s activity—not one fight but two—Conor got no more than an hour’s sleep. And that sleep was filled with dreams of prison guards with blades for hands and diamonds for eyes. There was something else, though, leaping up and down in the background, seeking attention. A small memory of Conor and his father rowing across Fulmar Bay when he was nine.

  Watch the oar’s blade, Declan Broekhart had said. See how it cuts the water. You want to scoop the water, not slide through it.

  Then in the dream Declan said something that he had never said in real life. The same theory applies to the blades of a propeller. That might get your aeroplane off the ground.

  Conor sat up in bed, instantly awake. What was it? What had he been thinking? Already the dream was fragmenting. The oar. Something about the oars. How could an oar help to fly an aeroplane?

  It was obvious, really. The oar had a blade, just like a propeller.

  See how it cuts the water. . . .

  Of course! The oar was not bashed flat into the water, it was presented at an angle to reduce drag and maximize thrust. The same ancient principle must be applied to the propeller. After all, the propeller was really a rotating wing. When the aeroplane eventually flew, the propeller would have to absorb the engine’s power and overcome the flying machine’s drag. It must be treated like a wing, and shaped accordingly.

  Flat propellers are of no use, thought Conor, hurriedly pulling on his clothes. They must be angled and the blades shaped to provide lift. By the time Linus negotiated the stairs with bacon, soda bread, and hot coffee, Conor was chiseling the second blade on his new propeller.