‘There’ll be other men present with watches and the means to measure distance,’ Harry counters. ‘All you need do is sign your name on a paper.’
‘You know the kind of paper I like the most.’
‘Some things are more important than money, Jordan. I am reckoned to be the best at my stage work, but a performance is a transitory thing. To be able to prove you are the first at something ambitious, well, I reckon that secures you a kind of immortality. I could be in the record books by the weekend. You also, as an official witness.’
‘Rather be in my own bed,’ the driver mutters. ‘Besides, you could come down hard – as Banks did. He was pretty cocky before he went up, too.’
‘That’s the kind of negative talk I don’t want right now,’ Harry says. ‘I can already picture myself in the Voisin over the paddock, the stretched fabric straining, the engine running true. I’ll let you in on a professional secret. Most things I do look as easy as stepping off a log. But I must wait for the voice in my head every time. I stand there before a routine or a flight, swallowing the yellow stuff every man has in him. Then at last I hear the voice and get going, swift and sure as I can.’
Jordan sucks on a match. A voice? Irritated by his silence, Harry continues:
‘This voice now assures me all is in readiness. Even Brassac isn’t raising objections, as long as there’s no breeze. So I’m going to have a crack at it.’
Jordan curses as the Darracq’s steering-wheel twists in his hands. One of the wheels has struck something. Jordan listens for the thumping, flapping sound signalling a puncture. Only after a few minutes does he relax. The American appears to have sunk into an aggrieved sulk. Sod it, Jordan tells himself. He’s there to do a job, not to be part of a cheer-squad. Jordan changes gears and glances across as his car strains up a rise in the moonlight. Harry’s head is bobbing with every bump. He is dozing.
JORDAN wakes to feel sun on his face. His legs are numb and his tongue is as dry as the soles of his boots. It amazes him he can sleep at all in the cabin of the Darracq, wedged between the gear lever and steering-wheel. But after his first night out in the paddock, when he woke with spiders sharing his rough bedding, he has stayed in the vehicle. But still there’s no refuge from the droning biting things that leave his face and neck pin-pricked with itchy red sores. Jordan starts his day scratching, then reaches into a shirt pocket for his watch. It shows 7.13, later than usual. He eases himself out of the vehicle, shakes his numb right foot, then looks around at the expanse of flat, brown paddock on which the Darracq squats.
Jordan sees no signs of movement near Banks’s tent. If he were him, he would have gone long ago. Cannot imagine remaining an hour more than necessary in this paddock. But not only has Banks stayed, trying to rebuild the Wright machine with twisted parts, he has even assisted the American. Jordan guesses he is getting back at his patron, who has treated him like a leper since his crash. He suspects also that Banks admires the American for being game to have a go himself, unlike Adamson.
Jordan starts walking towards the larger of the two tents, using his cap to swish at insects. Brassac usually keeps some tea and damper for him when he knows he’s coming. Jordan can’t recall ever getting more than a sentence or two out of the mechanic, but senses a bond between them based on the demands of their mutual employer. Like himself, Brassac just wants this job to be done so he can get his pay and move on to whatever’s next. Still, damper is no substitute for money. Jordan has had to remind Brassac of the six pounds, two shillings still owed to him for the Champion phonograph that he clearly plans to keep. The Frenchman insists he must wait for a cash bonus promised for the flying record – another reason for them all to hope the American gets his machine up.
Jordan keeps his eyes down to avoid stumbling on rocks or roots or windblown branches. His fingernails draw blood tearing at a bite on his neck. Once the American has shot through he’ll stick to city driving. If he can make a go of it selling phonographs, all the better. The cockies can keep the flies and stingers and snakes. He is still a hundred yards from the bigger tent when the sound of a voice makes him look up.
‘Easy now,’ the American calls out. ‘We can’t afford to bend anything out of shape.’ The Voisin is being eased out of its shelter. ‘Careful – don’t put too much stress on that strut!’
Jordan can imagine Brassac rolling his eyes at these instructions. He has done this job on his own, or with help from Banks, countless times. He knows every wire and length of fuel line in the Voisin. He knows where each part belongs and how easily the whole apparatus can be broken. Yet still the American insists on supervising. The Voisin sways as its undercarriage, with wheels like those from a child’s perambulator – two under the wings, another at the front, and a fourth, much smaller one, under the tail – lurches forward. Jordan is reminded of a fractious colt being coaxed towards the starting stalls at a racetrack.
‘There – that’ll do it.’
The Voisin is in the clear now. The men let its nose rise as the tail section tips down. The front wheel turns slowly, unimpeded. Jordan sees Brassac wipe his hands on a cloth tucked into his belt before returning to the tent. The American stays where he is, hands on hips, admiring the rickety machine. Jordan can’t imagine risking his life in something that seems little more than a couple of box kites with an engine bolted between them. The American has balls, he’ll give him that. Or perhaps the lure of fame causes men to do stupid things.
He hasn’t been seen. Harry is fully absorbed in his inspection of the Voisin. He’s a master of illusion, but there can be no trickery here. No mirrors or secret panels. Either he gets the thing up or he doesn’t. Jordan can still recall the snapping grinding sound as Banks’s machine crashed, then the ghastly silence that followed. He wonders if that’s what the American is thinking about also, but his absorption causes Jordan to leave him alone. Besides, he’ll have to endure his company again later when they drive back for his show. Thank Christ he’ll be done with him in a week when he’s due in Sydney, record or no record.
A gurgle in his guts helps Jordan decide to hunt out some breakfast. He pushes on, skirting around the Voisin. When close to the main camp he smells eggs frying and silently blesses Brassac. Then he hears the Frenchman singing to himself. No, it’s not that. There’s a wheezy orchestra. Jordan grins. While the American has his head in the clouds the mechanic is taking a break, listening to ‘All the Girls on Earth’ on his phonograph. The one he hasn’t paid for yet.
40
Mardi 15 Mars 1910
Mr H. is like a boy in a patisserie with too many things to choose from.
Too many things in his mind. He thinks now the record is close and will invite a crowd of people to see the Voisin in movement over the paddock.
So it will be bonjour Monsieur Journaliste. Bonjour Monsieur Aviation League. Bonjour Monsieur Harry Rickards, who must turn this place into a party. Bonjour to people who have done nothing to prepare for this but will come to Plumpton Paddock to see Mr H. make the flying record.
M. Bleriot never had so many distractions.
Mr H. thinks he is ready.
To satisfy him I start the engine so he can see and hear and feel the Voisin is alive. It fires first time and there is no coughing. Mr H. is pleased.
Will he find success? Yes. So long as there is no wind. We can have all things ready – the Voisin, the aviator, the spectators – but if there is wind there is nothing to be done other than listen on the phonograph to Madame Melba, which I believe now is a finer thing than the flying.
Madame’s voice and some of her heart are captured in the Champion but flying is lost like falling leaves.
Mr H. says there will be a cameraman. So bonjour also M. Pathé. I find these moving pictures very peculiar, like watching through many blinks.
A record for Mr H. means I can depart this place. Also money so I can pay Jordan for the phonograph and return to the Boulevard Chantilly. A record means the Voisin is not wrecked like Ralfbanks. After all this waiting and work I do not wish to see the Voisin smashed. M. Bleriot called the Voisin a chicken coop. But a mother can love the most ugly of her children.
A record means much celebration for Mr H. Nobody will think on Brassac. Mr H. will have his photograph in newspapers, though the flying is not so difficult. One control like a wheel for the elevator at the front to make lift for the machine. The same control to move the rudder and make turns.
The rudder must hold for I never locate additional nuts.
Mr H. knows what he should do, though he has not flown since Hamburg four months past. Myself, I must always feel the ground.
I could never climb trees as a boy. Or the tower Eiffel.
The sea that makes Mr H. ill does not concern me. Yet to be in the air, to be strapped almost on the engine that drives the propeller and rise above the height of trees, is a thought to leave me shaking.
I know every piece in the Voisin. I know where each part belongs.
And I know how easy they are broken.
41
