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.