Stephen Morris (3 page)

He strolled along aimlessly and happily through the derelict air station, along the broad dark roads past towering deserted buildings. Presently he came out on the aerodrome by their own hangar. In there were the machines, his machine. He was back again, back in his own trade, the only thing he could do well.

He paced the roads, speculating, as he walked, upon the future. Aviation was going to be a big thing. It was in a bad way now, and might sink even lower. But one day aviation would be a big business again, a bigger affair than the sideshow at a local fair and horse show. Already the air lines were in being, already there were rumours of commercial aeroplanes in the true sense; machines properly designed for the business, with proper cabins and lavatories, just as in a train or any other transport concern. Surely this aviation would be a great thing, would take the place in the world to which it was entitled, and that before so very long.

And he was in it, back in it again, back in this business that he knew. Presently it would develop; he would be there to do his bit in the development of this new industry. More air lines would spring up, more manufacturing companies; he was in it now, in it at the start, when things were bad. There would be big fortunes to
be made by men who pinned their faith to it now; one day he might be a rich man. Money meant such a lot - one could do nothing without money. This work that he loved might bring him back in time to that other love that he had lost.

Morris was up early next morning; the sunlight, streaming in on to his bed, coupled with the novelty of his surroundings, made sleep difficult. He got up and went to the door of the hut and stood in the sun, looking out over the Solent towards the twin chequered forts of Spithead and the mist over Portsmouth. It was a brilliant summer morning, with a sort of crisp freshness in the air that was never felt at Oxford. He shivered a little, turned back into the hut, and set to work to start up the Primus to boil some water for a wash.

‘There’s a bath outside,’ said Riley sleepily from his bed, ‘a bath-house with a shower. Second building as you go along.’ He relapsed again into a comatose condition.

Morris went and looked at it, disliked it, braced himself, and returned with a glow of conscious pride. Breakfast appeared in due course, and the mechanic and two boy clerks arrived on bicycles. After the meal they walked down to the hangar and set about the business of the day.

There was little to be done. Riley and Stenning both seemed to accept entire responsibility for their own machines, and Morris found himself attending in a similar manner to his own. He fussed about it for a little, replaced the plugs in the bottom cylinders and filled the tanks. Then Stenning and Peters came to help him get the machine out into the open.

He ran a final eye over the machine, put on his helmet, and clambered into the pilot’s seat. He busied himself for a little, head down in the cockpit, getting
quite comfortable, feeling the run of the levers, adjusting them for starting the engine. He strapped the safety belt around him, and was struck by an old feeling, the feeling that the machine was a part of himself. It would be intensified when he got in the air. He only had it on relatively small machines - one never had that sympathy with a Handley Page.

Then he looked up. ‘Right,’ he said to the mechanic.

‘Switch off, sir.’

‘Switch is off.’

It was familiar, that formula. The mechanic stepped to the propeller and turned the engine by it over nine compressions. Then he looked at Morris.

‘Contact, sir.’

Morris moved his hand a little. ‘Contact.’

The mechanic threw his weight on to the propeller and swung clear. The engine gave a half-hearted spit and was silent.

‘Switch off, sir.’

‘Switch is off.’

The man pulled her over once or twice more. Then he swung her again; she fired with a spit and a rumble, sending a queer, familiar quiver through the structure. Morris let her run for a little, then signalled the man round to the tail. Riley joined him and they held the tail down in a gale of wind as Morris ran the engine up to its full speed.

Satisfied, he shut her down again, settled himself comfortably in his seat, wriggled his shoulders a little, and took the stick in one hand. He nodded to Riley and waved to the mechanic, who pulled the chocks from under the wheels and ran clear. Morris gave her a little burst of power and moved out on to the aerodrome.

As he taxied over to the far side, he was quite clear what he would do. He would take her off gently, let her fly herself off the ground, in fact, and take her up to
about fifteen hundred in a slow climb. Perhaps a little higher. He didn’t want to go stalling and spinning into Mother Earth just because he’d forgotten how to fly. No, he would take her up carefully to a safe height and then play about on her. When he felt comfortable, he would come in and land her at a safe speed. After that he would try one or two slow landings.

He reached the middle of the aerodrome, turned, and faced her up into the wind. He had a long, clear run for it.

Instinctively he gave a look round at the sky above, as though for other machines. Then he took a light hold on the stick and opened her out. The machine accelerated cleanly and went scudding over the aerodrome.

Almost immediately he pressed the stick forward, got her tail up, and held her balanced on the wheels in flying position as she gathered speed. He stole a quick glance at the air speed indicator - about forty-five. Well, she could have it any time now. Then he knew that if she was to stay on the ground any longer, he would have to hold her there; he eased the stick back a little, delicately, with the pressure of three fingers. The hard vibration of the earth had ceased, and now the grass dropped away beneath the planes. He was clear, and in a moment the hangars were at his side and below him.

The clean rush of air past him was intoxicating.

He let her run on her course, still climbing, till he was over the Solent at about five hundred feet. ‘Round we go,’ he said, turned her, and headed back to the aerodrome. It struck him, as he climbed higher still, that he had not thought about doing that turn; he had done it naturally, as instinctively as a turn upon a bicycle. He smiled a little.

He passed over the aerodrome at about a thousand feet. Peering forward round the windscreen along the curved nose of the machine he could see the Channel
before him on the far side of the Island, blue and corrugated with waves. Then he looked back along the fuselage to the tail and waggled his rudder a little to see it move. He was struck by an old feeling; that he was afloat in a solid medium; that if he were to contrive to fall out of the machine, he would float, like a bottle dropped from a fast motor-boat. It was inconceivable that one could fall.

Then he turned back over the aerodrome again, throttled his engine and put her on the glide, gently pulling her up to stalling point. He pulled her up until the warning came; the sloppiness in the lateral control that meant she was very near a stall. He held her in that critical position for a time, noting the air-speed reading, the feel of the controls, and the position in which he had to sit. Then he let her down into the normal cruising position, switched on his engine, and pulled her level. He would know that stalling feeling again when he met it.

He had thought when he went up that he would find himself out of practice, ‘ham-handed’. That was not so; he flew round for a little time essaying various tricks, vertical banks and Immelman turns; his hands seemed as light as ever they had been. Finally he was ready to land.

He brought her down in a wide spiral glide a mile from the aerodrome, faced into the wind at about three hundred feet, eked out the glide with a little engine, came in low over the hedge rather faster than he had meant to, and skimmed the grass. He was going too fast, but there was heaps of room. He held her off till the speed dropped, sailing along a foot above the grass.

Then he put her down, bounced once, and came to a standstill.

He took her off again from where he was and went up to about two hundred feet to try again. This time he
brought her in slowly, so slowly that Stenning bit his lip as he watched. But no disaster ensued; the machine dropped slowly over the hedge, touched ground in a very short distance, and pulled up quickly.

A third trial produced a well-judged sideslip landing in a corner of the field. Stenning turned to Riley.

‘He’s not bad, that fellow,’ he said. Riley smiled.

Morris flew over to the hangars a foot above the ground, and finished up close beside them. He faced her up into the light wind, stopped the engine and leaped to the ground.

‘Like her?’ asked Riley.

‘Very nice,’ said Morris. ‘The stick seems a bit short. I don’t know. The undercarriage doesn’t sound happy when you land. Thought it was coming off the first time.’

‘So did I,’ said Stenning dourly. Riley laughed.

They poked about the undercarriage for a little and cured the trouble with a dab of grease. Then they stood for a little time chatting in the sun.

‘Well,’ said Stenning, ‘this won’t buy baby a new frock.’ He called to Peters and the clerks, and they started hauling his machine from the hangar.

‘Better take her up as much as you like today,’ said Riley, ‘till you think you’re quite all right on her - landing in small fields particularly. Only remember she costs money, and it all comes out of our screw at the end of the week. I’m going to Portsmouth today and tomorrow, and Stenning to Newport again. After that, Stenning’ll have to lay up for a top overhaul, I think - though she isn’t running so badly considering. You’d better come over to Portsmouth some time today and have a look at the field we fly from, so as you can find it again. You can’t miss it - I shall be flying from there - it’s about half a mile north-east of two factory chimneys close together on the east of the town. And by the way, there are three of the placards for Lymington in the hut,
with the names of the Ryde hotels who’ll show them for us on the backs. You might take those along if you’ve got time. And tell the manager of the Esplanade - no, I’ll do that myself.’

‘Right you are,’ said Morris. ‘And if anyone comes along here I take them up?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Riley. ‘Wait a bit, I’ll give you one or two cards.’ He fumbled in a breast pocket and produced a couple of printed cards of charges. ‘There are more of these on the shelf where the typewriter is in the hut. Don’t let them beat you down - they sometimes try it on.’

Morris helped in getting his machine out of the hangar, and swung the propeller for Stenning. The clerks embarked and the two machines went off in quick succession, one to the north, the other to the west.

Peters went into the hangar to overhaul a couple of scrap planes that Riley had picked up off some rubbish heap or other. Morris walked along to the garage to have a look at the gear quadrant on the car, leaving his machine on the aerodrome in the hope that some passengers might turn up during the day. He found tools under the seat of the car, took off his coat, and set to work.

An hour later, the expected happened; he was touched upon the shoulder. He looked up; a man and a young woman stood beside him.

‘I say old chap,’ said the gentleman confidentially. ‘Can you tell us where the offices of the Isle of Wight Aviation Company are?’

Morris stood scraping a mass of black grease off one hand on to the other and thought of the hut. ‘I represent the Company,’ he said. ‘Would you like a flight?’

‘That’s what we came for,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How much is it?’

‘How long do you want to be up for?’

‘Oh, say half an hour - have a little run round.’

‘Half an hour - that would be two pounds ten.’

‘Oh, Alfred!’ said the girl.

Alfred looked shaken, but came up nobly. ‘I’ll take it,’ he said grandly. The girl sniggered and pinched his arm.

Morris wiped his hands on a bit of waste. ‘I expect you’d like to have a look at Portsmouth Harbour and the town, wouldn’t you?’ he inquired gravely. It was always as well to kill two birds with one stone. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘At Ryde,’ said the girl.

‘We can come back over Ryde and then, if we’ve got time, have a look at Cowes and Newport.’

‘Can you do all that in the time?’

‘I think so. The lady had better remove her hat, if you don’t mind; we can lend you both flying-helmets.’

Morris put on his coat, and they walked to the machine. He showed them the way of the helmets, and then went to call Peters while the toilet was effected. Then he helped them into the machine and got in himself.

‘Switch off, sir.’ - ‘Switch is off.’

‘Contact, sir.’ - ‘Contact.’

‘What are they saying that for?’ asked the girl. The engine fired and drowned the man’s reply. Morris taxied out on to the aerodrome; he must take her off carefully with this full load.

He gave her a long run and let her fly herself off the ground. Once in the air she climbed better than he thought she would; he made a couple of circuits of the aerodrome to gain height and then pushed off over the twin forts of Spithead to Portsmouth, still climbing steadily. He kept her at two thousand five hundred for the remainder of the crossing, then dropped a little over
Haslar to give his passengers every view of the unlovely country.