The engine stops abruptly when the vehicle reaches the Wright machine. A stout figure alights and is greeted by Banks. A vigorous handshake ensues, the two men conversing closely before walking around the aircraft, apparently making a final inspection.
‘Monsieur Headmaster,’ says Brassac.
Then they are all striding over the ground that is slightly damp from dew towards the pilot and his patron, Jordan following only after he has looped his braces over his shoulders and cleared his nostrils with a grotesque snort. Harry, stepping out, is the first to reach the Wright machine.
‘Good morning, Old Boy,’ says Banks, already buttoned into a leather flying-jacket. ‘Magnificent morning it is, too.’
Harry can feel the pale eyes of the visitor appraising him, scanning him as if he were a painting in an auction house. Because this man is so neatly turned out – despite the weather he wears a tweed suit with the lower parts of his trousers tucked into woollen socks, with a silver watch-chain stretched across the buttons of his cream-coloured shirt – Harry is acutely conscious of his own tousled hair and stubbly chin as Banks steps forward.
‘Mr Adamson, this is Mr Houdini. I’m sure you have heard much about him.’ Above his stiff collar and tie, Adamson has a military-neat moustache and oiled hair severely brushed back.
‘Indeed,’ he says, his accent as English as a lord. ‘The magician.’
‘I prefer to think of myself as an escape artist,’ Harry says, releasing his hand from the headmaster’s grasp. ‘Shake any tree in America and a dozen magicians will fall out.’ Adamson does not smile. His attitude is that of a teacher assessing a lad’s excuse for not producing his homework.
‘An escape artist? If you say so. An amateur aviator as well.’
Amateur stings like a slap but Harry lets it pass.
‘I have flown already. Near Hamburg, last year. I plan to fly here also.’
Adamson seems amused by this. ‘Do you indeed? Came down in Hamburg, I hear. Now I suspect you’re only after the record – one that Banks here is confident of claiming this very morning in my machine. Will you even persist if he succeeds? You Americans have never been much interested in finishing second.’
Harry feels powerless to counter the smug confidence of this headmaster and his pilot, who is whistling tunelessly while making some adjustments to the engine of his flying machine. Before Harry can even frame a response, Adamson’s attention turns elsewhere.
‘Ah, salut Monsieur Brassac,’ he says. ‘My man has told me about you.’
The mechanic, who has sidled up behind his employer, nods in response. Harry notes that Brassac is as calm as he is unsettled. And somehow it irks him further that the bumptious headmaster and Brassac share similarities. They have almost identical moustaches, though Adamson’s is flecked with grey, and both wear dark hats. This reminds Harry that his own head is bare. There will soon be some bite to the sun: he had best seek some shade, though it is hard to find.
After another brief exchange with Brassac, which to Harry seems designed only to demonstrate his command of French, Adamson confers further with Banks. He consults his handsome pocket-watch, then returns to his motor car to supervise Jordan. The driver is conducting an inspection of the headmaster’s gleaming Oldsmobile, which has temporarily upstaged the Wright flier. Harry turns to Brassac, who has his hands deep in his pockets.
‘I have an idea. Why can’t we get the Voisin out into the field quick as we can, fuel it up, and let it go? Jump in ahead of Banks!’
Brassac’s immediate response is to raise one dark eyebrow. Then, almost imperceptibly, he shakes his head. ‘Not ready. One mistake … finis.’
Harry’s impatience bubbles over. ‘It is always not ready. Something is always not right. And this is a perfect morning.’
Brassac shakes his head again. ‘Regard,’ he says, turning to face the clump of trees on the fringe of the paddock, some fifty yards distant.
At first Harry sees nothing other than the trees, their branches thin and skeletal, and the small dark shapes of some roosting birds. Then he sees leaves at the tips of the branches sway slightly as if tugged by the hands of an unseen puppeteer. And he feels a soft puff of breeze on his face. He turns to the mechanic.
‘You think it’s too windy?’
Brassac holds one hand out flat, then abruptly twists it over. Harry knows what he means: sudden, dangerous gusts.
‘You should tell them,’ he says. Then he reads the mechanic’s eloquent silence: ‘No, I see. I should tell them. Yes, it would be best that way.’
Harry approaches Banks, who has finished a final inspection of the Wright machine and is squeezing his hands into a pair of long leather gloves.
‘Planning to stick around, Old Boy, or might it be too painful?’
‘Oh, I’m staying,’ Harry replies. ‘But listen – my mechanic urges caution. He maintains it will be too windy to fly this morning.’
Banks does not try to hide his incredulity.
‘There’s barely any breeze,’ he says. ‘I’ve grown rather fond of Brassac, but he is strangely reluctant to let our flying machines use their wings. If we let him have his way, we’ll still be here at Christmas.’
He peers down at his goggles, adjusting a strap.
‘As you wish,’ Harry replies without rancour. ‘It’s your decision. But I feel duty bound to warn your patron also.’
‘Be my guest. Though I think you’ll find him even more anxious than I am to let this bird fly.’ He turns to finalise his preparations.
Harry strides quickly towards the headmaster. Brassac is where he’d left him, hat tilted up towards the sunrise. Harry reaches the Oldsmobile in time to hear Adamson spouting a lecture at a bemused Jordan.
‘I have two great passions in life: educating young men, and machines,’ he is saying. ‘And it is the ingenuity of men that has placed us on the brink of a revolution in transportation. Distance is being defeated, on land and in the air. Just as this splendid vehicle represents a leap ahead from the crude horseless carriages of a decade past, so too will this Wright apparatus soon be supplanted by even more sophisticated flying machines—’
Harry cuts in. ‘Could I have a quick word?’
Adamson exhales loudly, irked by the interruption.
‘Ah, our peripatetic magician. I saw you chatting. Is my pilot ready to go?’
‘See, that’s the thing,’ Harry says. ‘I have passed on to him a warning from Brassac, who maintains the conditions are unsuitable.’
‘Unsuitable?’
‘He says there is an unpredictable breeze.’
