Brassac steps back from the machine and acknowledges the new arrivals.
‘Bonjour, madam,’ he says, wiping his hands on his apron and then lifting his hat. Bess smiles. Nods.
‘Bonjour, Antoine.’
The mechanic raises his hat again, then turns to her husband.
‘Allez!’ he grunts.
‘He’s right,’ Banks tells Harry. ‘You should make haste while conditions are favourable.’ He looks him up and down; whistles softly. ‘You’re looking very smart, Old Boy. Almost too smart for these surrounds.’
Bess has been too tired to take much notice of her husband’s appearance. He is wearing a cream-coloured cotton suit over a stiff-collared white shirt and a striped neck-tie, more suited to a gentleman’s soiree in the tropics. He had the suit tailor-made in Port Said during the Malwa’s two-day stopover. Did he intend even then to wear it for this flight? Then she realises it is as she imagined it the previous morning: her husband in a stiff collar and tie. Again she feels a flicker of unease.
‘Houdini …’
‘What is it, my love?’ His eyes are bright. He is anxious to get on with it.
‘I wondered if your clothes are practical, that’s all. You will surely get grease on that suit.’ How silly she sounds.
‘This is a significant day,’ Harry replies, addressing Banks as well as Bess. ‘I must look my best. There will be a crowd, perhaps a photographer.’
He looks around, frowns.
‘There is nobody else here?’
Brassac shakes his head.
‘It’s barely past dawn,’ offers Banks.
‘Should I wait?’ Harry asks, his gaze flitting between the three of them.
‘Allez!’
‘Okay. A rolling trial first?’ The mechanic nods.
Harry jams his cap over his hair but leaves the sides hanging down. Then he straps on his goggles and pulls them up so they are resting just above the peak of his cap. Their dull reflection in the early-morning light gives him the appearance of an insect. He hesitates for a moment before clambering inside the machine, ducking beneath a pair of flaps at the front, which have been turned vertically to permit entrance. Banks assists by holding a wing-strut to steady the apparatus, which rocks with Harry’s weight as he wriggles himself into the cramped seat between the controls and the engine. Behind this is the propeller, made of metal and almost twice the height of Bess. He is alone now, at work, fiddling with levers, summoning the concentration he needs for any of his routines. With this intensity comes a kind of peace: while he is performing, almost everything else is forgotten.
Bess gets up from her stool, puzzled that her husband hasn’t made any farewells, let alone wait for a kiss. Should she say something reassuring now, before he goes? Then she feels Banks’ hand on her arm.
‘This will be a test run to warm the engine,’ he explains. ‘He won’t leave the ground just yet. But I’d secure your hat for when things start up.’
In her handbag she has a lightweight scarf of pale blue Chinese silk, which she tosses over her hat and ties with a bow under her chin. She is attending to the scarf when the Voisin’s engine ignites. She is expecting the noise, but its power and proximity still cause her to flinch. Smoke, thick and dark, streams upwards but does not drift towards Bess, who has Banks standing behind her. They are soon joined by Brassac, who has swung the propeller then moved aside, and also Jordan. The driver has feigned indifference, but curiosity wins out when he hears the engine’s clear-throated throb.
Harry works the controls and allows the shuddering Voisin to creep forward. Even with a pilot aboard, the weight is at the back: the front wheel dangles down, wobbling. Brassac holds his spanner like a musician with a tuning-fork. Bess senses from his posture that he is using his ears even more than his eyes.
Leaning forward, his lips close to her right ear so she can hear him, Banks begins a commentary.
‘He’ll check the throttle, to ensure fuel lines are clear. There – you hear the engine noise rise and fall? Now, watch those front panels. They control ascent. He’ll push the steering-wheel forward when he wants to take off.’
Banks accompanies his lesson with sweeping arm gestures, but the Voisin is bouncing as it rolls away from them and Bess finds it hard to detect the movement of individual parts. The whole thing is in wild motion.
Even the ‘HOUDINI’ signs, painted in large capital letters on the front and rear side panels, are blurred as if they were placards held by a leaping child in a crowd. It would not surprise her to see the whole thing shake itself apart, strewing pieces over the ground. Banks doesn’t share her concerns.
‘To steer, he’ll use the vertical rudder at the rear of the outriggers, controlled by cables from his wheel,’ he continues. ‘It doesn’t take much to turn. Easy does it or you can tip over. There, see him change direction? And again.’ Banks stands up.
‘What’s he doing now? Something’s amiss.’
Harry has swung the machine around in a long, slow arc. Bess hears Brassac muttering as the Voisin sways drunkenly from one side to another. The engine noise is a dull throb as it approaches, its propeller churning up a storm of twigs and leaves and dust and dry grass. When the machine is twenty yards away Harry cuts the engine. The sudden silence is interrupted by a mellifluous bird call. Harry leaps down. Even as he straightens up he is calling out to his mechanic.
‘There’s a problem at the rear, Brassac. I can feel it pulling to one side, as if the rudder is out of kilter.’
Harry is irritated. After all this waiting, another hold-up. Bess knows to stay back. But then they hear another engine, insignificant compared to the flying machine’s noise. A motor car is making its way into the paddock. Its driver changes direction, unsure which way to head, before spotting the Voisin and the small gathering around it.
‘A Ford,’ says Jordan, identifying the vehicle before they know who it is carrying. Its sides begrimed with dust, the Ford stops close by. Bess sees the driver slump back in his seat, evidently relieved to have arrived. Then two familiar figures emerge.
‘Franz!’ Harry exclaims, greatly pleased. ‘And James, too!’ Kukol and Vickery get out, consider their surrounds, and accept Harry’s handshakes.
‘We figured we should be here, boss,’ Kukol says.
‘Seeing as it could be historic and all,’ Vickery adds.
Someone else has extracted himself from the vehicle, a short, weedy man with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and a scuffed jacket. He stretches and looks around, like a punter evaluating horses at a racetrack.
‘McCracken,’ he says. ‘From The Argus.’
‘Swell!’ Harry replies. ‘Do you need to speak with me now?’
‘Later, perhaps,’ says the Argus man, without removing his cigarette.
