22

ON Sunday the sky is bleached blue and cloudless, although rain the previous night has left shallow pools in depressions on the track. Jordan can feel the wheels of his Darracq slipping on the damp surface as he nurses the car into Plumpton’s Paddock. He follows the faded strips in the tufty brown grass worn down by vehicles carrying crates of equipment and supplies. Harry appears invigorated by their arrival. He turns his face up to soak in the morning sunshine and thrusts his left hand high into the air. ‘Very little breeze,’ he declares. ‘Swell!’

They are well into the paddock when they see something travelling across their path up ahead – a very large motor car, or perhaps a lorry of some sort, apparently moving much faster than the Darracq.

‘What the …?’ murmurs Jordan, puzzled. Harry has risen slightly, hanging on to the low windshield for balance, also trying to identify this other vehicle. Then they hear it: a throbbing roar; angry and insistent. Closer now, they see that it is much bigger than they had imagined and a strange shape, broader than it is long.

‘Strike me, it’s a flying machine,’ says Jordan with a smirk. ‘Looks like that French grease-monkey is giving your crate a test run himself.’

But Harry is sinking back in his seat. His animation has vanished, replaced by abject despair. He seems to Jordan like a boy who has run to a store for sweets only to find the door bolted.

‘That’s not Brassac, or my Voisin,’ Harry says. ‘It’s the Wright machine. Banks plans to beat me to the record.’

Jordan stops the Darracq. They get out and watch the lumbering Wright machine continue its progress, its engine ever louder, reminding Jordan of an oversized toy, a rickety structure of boxes and struts and cables. It looks incomplete, as if the manufacturer ran out of parts to finish it. Broad horizontal sections are held together by flimsy poles. At its centre, like the body of a long-legged spider, is a dark shape – a seated man surrounded by equipment. He appears to be wearing gloves and goggles of some sort. The only part of him visible is the lower part of his face. No expression can be discerned because of his machine’s violent progress.

It is heading down a slight incline towards them, man and machine transformed into a blur as it lurches over the ground. Now they can also hear rattling: it sounds like every joint and screw and seam is about to come apart. The wheels – two near the centre, one at the front – look absurdly small and fragile. Acrid smoke hangs in the air behind it. The pace quickens, the engine noise increases. As they watch, flaps on the horizontal sections are twisted and the leading wheel skips once or twice, rises, and then is off the ground altogether.

‘He’s going to take it up!’ Jordan shouts.

Harry has taken several steps away and stands alone, hands on his head, powerless to do anything other than watch. Nobody can hear his anguished cry: ‘Beaten – I am beaten!’

And then, without warning, the engine noise decreases. The roar becomes a rumble and sputters out altogether after a final puff of dark smoke. The machine’s front wheel spins wildly on the rough grass and rolls to a halt a hundred yards or so away from where they are. There is an erratic shaking as the thing stops vibrating, then everything is still. Hot and still.

The man in the middle fiddles with some levers and clambers free, stepping over obstacles as if he were getting out of a cage. He jumps down, strips off his gloves, and nudges a pair of goggles up his forehead. Then he turns to watch Harry sprinting towards him.

As soon as the Wright machine slows down, Harry has set off. Running is awkward because of the wedges in his shoes, but he ignores the discomfort. He is focused entirely on the machine, its wooden propeller still spinning, and the man beside it; a large-framed man with broad shoulders, a leather jacket half-buttoned up, and a black streak across his sun-burned face. The tips of his gloves are also marked with grease: he is examining them when Harry hails him; even before he has quite stopped running.

‘Banks!’

‘Hello Old Boy,’ the pilot replies. ‘Magnificent morning, hmm?’

‘I thought … I thought you were going to take it up,’ says Harry, panting.

‘So did I. Conditions felt right – barely any breeze. But it was just a final test, assessing how the engine’s running under strain. Like a top, it seems. No, I will make my attempt at dawn tomorrow.’

‘So soon?’ Harry tries to sound casual. Sweat stings his eyes.

‘Why wait? Everything is in order.’

Banks takes a rag from his back pocket and uses it to wipe clumps of damp grass off his machine’s front wheel before returning his attention to Harry.

‘Will you be here? Should be something to see. You could be a witness to the flight. You and Adamson both.’

Harry is irked by his rival’s confidence.

‘Who’s Adamson?’

‘Headmaster of Wesley College. A man of many parts. This is his machine. He imported it last year and wants to be present when the record is set in his flier.’

‘If that’s what you manage,’ Harry responds. ‘I am also after that record.’

‘Don’t fancy your chances,’ says Banks, removing his goggles. ‘Your man is tugging his moustache out trying to fix your bird’s motor. Been sounding like a grandma with croup.’

‘Damn Brassac! He assured me he could fix it … Where is he, anyway?’

Banks gestures towards the far part of the paddock.

‘Still up there, I’ll wager, tinkering with something. He’s a cautious one, for sure. Warned me against trying a run at full throttle today.’

‘Nothing is achieved without risk,’ Harry replies. ‘And I’m going to tell him so myself.’ He starts walking back to the Darracq. Jordan is lounging against its side, enjoying the sunshine and a cigarette.

‘Was rather hoping you might give me a tow, Old Boy.’

The request comes from behind. Harry stops and turns around.

‘A tow?’

‘Get your driver to bring his vehicle alongside, fix a rope, and pull this thing back up. Bit of a chore, otherwise.’

Banks says this with the nonchalance of a man asking to borrow a match. Harry nods and continues towards the Darracq. Sensing his mood, the driver lets him speak first. Jordan drops a cigarette at his feet and grinds it into the ground with a boot before replying.

‘Haulage as well now, is it?’ he says. ‘Righto then, if that’s what you want. But if it strains the motor someone will have to pay for it.’

Harry raises both hands in frustration. On stage – submerged in a milk-can, nailed inside a cabinet, restrained by a straightjacket – he is able to calculate to the second when he should free himself. But in this scrubby field he can shape events no more than he can stifle a breeze. He has been shackled by an unfamiliar set of handcuffs for which he doesn’t have a key.

Jordan drives his automobile closer to the Wright machine.

‘Like a dog pulling a bloody cow,’ he grumbles, before retrieving a length of rope from his toolbox and bending down to attach it to a bracket behind the machine’s leading wheel. Banks stops him.

‘Best I do that,’ he says. ‘Further back, I think – closer to the vertical struts, more central. Stronger there, you know.’

Jordan lets the rope fall on the ground, then returns to his vehicle.

Banks secures the rope and lifts a hand. Jordan slowly lets out the clutch and the Darracq strains forward. The rope between the two machines rises. As soon as it is taut, Banks gives the Wright flier a push from behind. It shivers and moves ahead, squeaking and groaning. Jordan glances back over his shoulder, increases speed a little, and engages second gear. The Darracq blows smoke but doesn’t stall. Harry is sitting in front, looking straight ahead. They have travelled just a little way when there is a bump and the car dips on Harry’s side. Banks has jogged ahead and jumped up next to him on the car’s running-board.

‘All going swimmingly,’ he says. ‘So I’ll save my strength.’

Then he starts to sing. Badly. Out of tune and skipping words.

‘Take good care of mother, boys, when I’m dead and gone,

‘Try and keep her last days free from pain,

‘Respect her old grey head, remember when she’s dead,

‘You will never know a mother’s love again …’

Harry finds it intensely irritating. Also disturbing, because of the distance between himself and his own mother. Yet he won’t tell Banks to stop, for that would further reveal his discomfort.

Jordan also stays silent. Although unhappy about the way his vehicle has been used, he enjoys the way Banks has irritated his impatient employer.

Jordan is now familiar with the paddock’s topography. He knows the location of the dam, only half-filled with water the colour of milky tea. He is familiar with the stand of trees around it, and the pair of improvised canvas hangars – like things left behind by a travelling circus – that house the Wright machine, the Voisin, and their attendants. It seems to Jordan that the two camps reflect the differences between the competing enterprises. The first, for a transplanted Englishman using an American machine, is relatively anonymous. The other is promoted like one of Rickards’ shows. ‘HOUDINI’ signs have been propped up against tree stumps, although there have been few visitors to see them.

Jordan stops near Banks’ camp, leaving the car engine running. Banks leaps off to prevent the Wright machine lurching on ahead, and if he notices that neither Harry nor Jordan get out to help him untie the tow-rope he says nothing about it. His manner is still jovial when he tosses the rope, neatly coiled, into the back of the car.

‘Much obliged,’ he says to the driver. Then he addresses Harry.

‘Will I see you tomorrow morning?’

The reply is clipped and immediate. ‘Yes. You will.’

Banks nods, then looks around and says:

‘Your name is everywhere, Old Boy. On the crates. On the sides of your machine in giant capital letters. But, you know, after I am the first to fly, it is my name people will remember.’ He walks away whistling.

Harry still cannot see his mechanic. This irks him further, and his mood worsens when Jordan mutters: ‘So we’re staying, are we?’

‘I must be here if Banks makes his attempt. We can return well in time for the performance on Monday night. You have a problem with that?’

‘No problem, mate,’ Jordan replies, rotating a matchstick between his teeth. ‘As I’ve said – you’re the one paying. Though you’ll pay a bit more for this, of course. First haulage, now an overnighter.’

‘And I will need you to drive to the Diggers Rest township later to send a telegram to Mrs Houdini, advising her I won’t be returning today.’

‘Can’t be done. Post offices are shut on Sunday.’ Seeing Harry’s exasperated expression, he adds: ‘I might find someone with one of them telephones.’

Harry grunts an acknowledgement, then asks: ‘Where in hell is Brassac?’

Jordan has stopped his car outside the tent, from which the front portion of the Voisin protrudes, when the mechanic appears. He is wearing his bowler hat, as black as his neatly trimmed moustache, and his tie is knotted in the centre of his stiff collar. This is visible above his customary grey apron over a dark suit. He is holding some cogs from a gear assembly like a chef emerging from his kitchen with a joint for lunch. When Jordan kills the engine, he fancies he hears music within the tent. But Harry shows no sign of noticing this. Ignoring the mechanic’s polite greeting, he approaches his man with evident agitation.

‘Did you know Banks plans to make his attempt in the morning?’

Brassac nods.

‘And that he has made a practice run already today?’

Brassac lifts his shoulders and lets them fall.

Harry sighs and momentarily stops pacing.

‘My Voisin – is it ready?’

‘Near ready. But …’

‘But what?’

‘One crash means finis.’

Slowly, carefully, Brassac manipulates the cogs as if they were pieces of a puzzle. Harry is reminded of Kukol testing an apparatus before a show.

‘We’ll be staying tonight, Brassac,’ he says. ‘Myself, and Jordan here.’

Brassac leaves the cogs balanced on the Voisin and goes back inside the tent. Harry walks to the rear of his flying machine and stands still, hands on hips, like a man making a hospital visit for a bed-bound patient. He has moved away from the tent, which strikes Jordan as a good thing. For Brassac has re-started his phonograph. And the American would surely sense a conspiracy if he recognised the tune that Banks had been singing.