The Blackpool Highflyer

Chapter Thirty-eight

I took the train with the wife to Hebden Bridge. From there we walked – not to the Crags this time but to a high pasture out towards Mytholmroyd, the route along the lanes being indicated by smaller copies of the Horton Street poster that had read 'a dirigible flight' and 'Balloon v. Motor Car'.

The hill tops and the parts of the fields that were for some mysterious reason colder than others were still covered in snow. In other spots, the ground was showing through again in unexpected shades. The sky was the colour of iron, and such daylight as there was seemed somehow begrudged. The trees were black and still.

As we followed the signs, the cold made steam engines of the wife and me. I liked to talk in this weather, just to see the clouds come rolling from my mouth.

'There's hardly a breath of breeze,' I said.

'That's good for the aeronauts,' said the wife. 'They don't sail in excessive wind.'

The jaunt was the wife's idea. She'd seen the poster in Horton Street and it had set her reading anything she could lay her hands on to do with aeronautics. It seemed to be one of the funny ways pregnancy had taken her.

'I can see that wind might cause trouble for the free balloons,' I said, 'but the dirigible pilots are able to steer, aren't they?'

'Somewhat,' said the wife.

She didn't want to talk; she wanted to reach the flying ground. In her hand were two Farthing Everlasting Strips.

We continued on. The wife wore her overcoat, but I'd made do with my work suit, which came into its own in freezing temperatures. It was the middle of October, and summer was already far beyond imagining.

'Just look at all that silk' said the wife, sounding rather jealous, as we walked through the gateway into the flying ground.

Two of the three so-named free balloons were already inflated and were being held down by teams of shouting men. They looked like upside-down onions, and were onion colour too: silvery brown. A third balloon was being inflated from tanks resting on a cart, and, as the gas went in, it was just like seeing a big-headed man slowly raising his head from his pillow.

The three motorcars that were to give chase waited in the corner of the field with their own shouting attendants, all heavily muffled up. A corps of cyclists would also be following along, and this lot were pedalling in circles in the field, trying to keep warm.

There were not as many spectators as I'd expected, so it was pretty easy to pick out old Reuben Booth. He wore an overcoat that seemed very black, like a night without stars, and then it came to me that this was his own overcoat and not the one he wore for work, so there was no gold on it. Next to him stood Arnold Dyson in his Crossley Porter cape, with the Irish terrier, Bob, alongside. All three stood close together but silent, looking on.

As I led the wife over towards the little group, I watched the dog. Every time a little more of the gas went into the balloon, Bob would inch forwards, eagerness increasing.

I nodded at Reuben. 'How do' I said.

'How do,' said Reuben.

The boy Dyson wore the same face as before: a sort of knot. Every so often, though, he would pat the dog, which he was holding by a string, and his features would relax for a moment as he did so. The lad was quite taken with the balloons, anyone could see that. Mr Ferry had written to us from the orphanage to say that the boy's interests lay in that direction.

A man in a long coat was in the centre of the field, shouting through a loud-hailer. He seemed to be pointing to one man in particular of all those holding on to the balloons, and this fellow, it was given out, was the Chief of Aeronautics.

I introduced the wife to the boy, and he just gave a grunt, as I'd warned her he would do. That was when the Farthing Everlasting Strips came out. When they were put into his hands, Dyson looked up at Reuben, who winked and said: 'Tha's a lucky beggar, en't tha?'

Then the first balloon went up.

In no time at all, the people riding in the basket were higher than the top of Blackpool Tower, and looking down on us and waving as best they could in their thick coats.

They're waving to show us they're not scared, I thought, even if they are. The next two went up in very short order, skimming over the fields in exactly the same direction, for of course it was the breeze – such as there was – that had taken charge. Their tailing ropes bashed the same hedge in the same place, sending up sprays of snow on both occasions.

There came another burst of shouting from the man with the loud-hailer, and the cars and bicycles went off, but how they hoped to give chase I could not say for, upon turning through the gate, they were immediately required to follow a lane that took them in the opposite direction to the balloons.

'I don't get it,' I said to Reuben.

'Rum,' said Reuben, looking after the motorcars.

'Now, where's the dirigible?' I asked, for that was the bill topper, the steerable balloon.

'Yonder,' said Reuben, tipping his head.

They were bringing it across the field towards us. It must have been in another field to start with, stowed away behind a hedge, out of sight.

'More silk,' I said to the wife, and I realised I'd interrupted a conversation of sorts between her and the boy.

The dirigible balloon, or airship, was half inflated, and so was half floating. There was a line of men underneath it, and I couldn't make out whether they were holding the thing up or holding it down. Directly beneath the balloon was a wooden frame, inside which sat the aeronaut, who looked like a hero already, the way he was being carried aloft. At one end of the frame was a propeller; at the other end was fixed a rudder (which was the important article). It was not a regular balloon shape. Instead, it was horizontal – a big cigar.

The loud-hailer man was now telling us all about the aeronaut, who by all accounts had been practically born in mid-air. Last winter, he had flown somewhere to somewhere in fog. His training, we were told, was a jolly good dinner; he smoked and drank in moderation, and the only thing he did to excess was fly. The engine in his craft, the loud-hailer man continued, was controlled by wires; this would be a short flight, but still the aeronaut would be quite lost to sight for most of it; he would be flying in a circle and returning within half an hour to this very field.

But I didn't want to know about the aeronaut. I wanted to know about my mate on what had become once more the relief link, Clive Carter.

'Reuben,' I said, 'you know those Scarborough runs we had this summer?'

'Aye,' he said.

'Clive disappeared both times with a bag.'

Reuben nodded.

'What was going off?'

As we looked on, the dirigible was placed on wooden supports while a team of men started pulling the gas cart nearer.

Reuben's mouth was opening behind that worn-out grey beard. He meant to speak, so I leant close, for the air was filled with the sound of the rushing gas and the shouting of the loud-hailer man.

Reuben's words came with shaky breaths and shaky clouds of steam. 'Eighteen seventy-five,' he said; 'that were when I had my start… Midland Railway.'

'As train guard?'

Reuben shook his head. 'Carpenter' he said; 'Settle to Carlisle stretch.'

'It's famous' I said. 'Gave the Midland its line to Glasgow. But they had hell-on building of it, by all accounts.'

'Ribblehead Viaduct…' said Reuben.

'That bugger was the highest of the lot' I said.

'That were me… day in, day out…' Reuben was shaking his head. 'Never was such a wild spot…'

'It was all navvies' I said. 'Very tough sorts.'

'Couldn't half sup, though' said Reuben, and he stood there in the freezing field smiling for a while.

'Would you take a drink back then, Reuben?' I said.

He shook his head. 'I were Chapel.' Then he smiled again. 'I were a great hand at… harmonium.'

I laughed at this, for I thought it might be the right thing to do.

As the attendants sent the gas from the tanks through long sleeves of silk into the dirigible, I watched as the craft changed by degrees from a 'B' cigar into an 'A'.

'The Ribblehead Viaduct,' I said; 'I've read a good deal about it. They built it up with wooden piers first of all.'

'That's it' said Reuben. 'Timber framing below, stone going in up top… Could never make out how it could stand without rocking.'

I nodded.

'March twenty-first, eighteen seventy-five…' Reuben was saying, as the attendants seemed to just lift the dirigible off its supports, and put it into the air.

'Crane they had up top' said Reuben as we both watched the dirigible, 'well, it suffered a mishap, like

The aeronaut, sitting in his frame under the big cigar, was yanking on a long wire.

'Sling chain broke' Reuben was saying; 'let go a block of stone, size of…'

The tiny engine of the dirigible was going at last.

'Size of what, Reuben?'

The dirigible was going up; circling and swooping but certainly going up all the same, and not in quite the same direction as the free balloons, which proved it was being directed by the aeronaut.

'Six and half ton,' Reuben said, nodding.

'And it crowned you?' I said. 'No, it can't have done, else you wouldn't be standing here talking.'

'I'll tell tha summat,' said Reuben. 'It had me cap clean off.'

We looked up at the sky where the dirigible was turning like a weathervane; then I remembered why our chat had begun in the first place.

'But where does Clive come into all this?' I asked. 'And all the Scarborough goings on?'

Reuben was nodding. 'Come March twenty-first any year,' Reuben said, 'I'll celebrate, like.'

'Understandable, that,' I said.

The dirigible was nearly gone from sight.

'March twenty-first, nineteen hundred,' said Reuben. 'Now that were twenty-five year after…'

'And you were in Scarborough with Clive?'

Reuben nodded.

'He said we were to take a drink… Grand Hotel, he said… Nowt else would do, on account of it being such a near thing, like…'

'Bloody hell,' I said.

'So we took oursens off up there' Reuben continued. 'Trouble is…' He turned to me, and he was smiling again. 'They're most particular as to costume.'

'They wouldn't let you in' I said.

'They would not.'

'It's a bloody disgrace' I said.

'Didn't bother me' said Reuben. 'Clive though… proper riled, he were.'

'I have it,' I said. 'Ever since then Clive's been going into the Grand whenever he has a run to Scarborough?'

Reuben nodded.

'So in that bag of his' I went on, 'he had all the proper togs?'

Reuben nodded again.

'Frock coat,' Reuben said, 'and all that carry on… Goes off beforehand to a little spot off the Valley Road… whatsname… Snowdrop… aye.'

'Snowdrop Laundry,' I said. 'I knew that much.'

'They've a steam press there,' said Reuben, 'but you've to pitch up at a certain time to be sure it'll be working, like.'

'That's where he was hurrying off to then,' I said. 'To the laundry, then to the Grand. I suppose he didn't want it known.'

Reuben nodded.

'I can just picture him,' I said, 'acting all la-di-da… Well, I'm sure he looked the part, any road… And here's me thinking he'd clicked with Emma Knowles.'

Reuben was still nodding.

The sky was changing and you could see the serious stuff coming: darkness and colder snow.

'Stationmaster's missus…' Reuben was saying.

'Crazy notion,' I said, looking up at the sky for any sign of the dirigible coming back. I noticed that Reuben was looking at me with a smile buried ever so deep.

'Hold on,' I said. 'He never is, is he?'

But Reuben was now gazing up at the sky, along with most of the spectators.

'He's late,' said some fellow standing close by.

The master of ceremonies was waiting, loud-hailer at his side. Arnold Dyson, the wife and the dog, Bob, were in a line looking up.

The Chief of Aeronautics was in the middle of the field, looking down. His arms were folded.

With all Reuben had said, more strangeness was put into the weird summer I'd had of it. I thought back to the lifting of the stone from the line and all the things that had come out from underneath, so to speak.

I fell to thinking of Monsieur Maurice. He'd been connected to the stone on the line only in my mind. The upshot was that he'd thought me a fan, and I was glad of that, at least.

Monsieur Maurice had topped the bill once more at the Palace, but for only one night – late September, it would have been – and the notable event had been written up in the Courier, under the heading: 'retirement of a famous ventriloquist'. Monsieur Maurice, I'd read, had resolved finally to take in hand his small garden in Sussex.

It would have been at about the same time that the order for great quantities of the light suiting had arrived from Italy. It had been the wife's notion to send out the particulars, and she had received thanks, of sorts, from the younger Hind. It was all too late for Peter Robinson, of course, and the wife had asked me: 'Why couldn't Hind Senior have died instead?', and that while stepping out of Halifax Parish Church.

Who'd murdered old Hind? Nobody. And the same went for Arthur Billington.

As far as I knew, the Halifax coppers were still looking out for the Socialist Mission.

The long-haired fellow, Paul, was now to me like something in a dream, and his governor, Alan Cowan, last heard of in Dunfermline, was like a dream dreamed inside a dream.

Well, I was Paul's one chance of having the Mission written up in the newspapers as something to be reckoned with. And as far as that went, I'd done all the work for him, apart from a bit of stone throwing. Paul had pitched the stone through the excursion-office window, I was sure of that, but whether he'd burst our bedroom window… I didn't really believe it. It might have been George trying to father the blame for the wrecking onto the socialists, but he would have had all-on to get back into his room and let me see him there a moment later. No, I believed it was Don and Max, who'd done it to warn George over the money owed. Although, of course, they'd got the wrong bedroom. I'd not seen either of them again, at Central or anywhere, and another ticket collector at that station had told me Don had been stood down long since, and taken himself off to London.

The light was quite gone now, and the blackness of the sky was coming down to meet the blackness of the trees. I was cold, and fancied that I could detect every one of the burn- holes in my work suit. But I was proud to have a suit full of burn-holes, and proud once again to be an engine man. The great thing was to make speed, and then to give it to others, for it gave folk time, and it gave them life.

Looking up once again, I still could not see the aeronaut. Nothing moved in the sky, but somehow the greyness was mixing with the blackness. It would certainly snow again, and the weather brought to mind an interesting article I'd read that very morning in the Raihvay Magazine, under the heading: 'Fighting the Snow on a Canadian Railway'. 'British railroadmen', I'd read, 'have a limited conception generally of what excessive snow can do…' Well, it could be that we were about to find out, for extremes of temperature seemed to be all the rage in 1905.

I was thinking back to the summer once more, and the strongest picture in my mind's eye, the one with the strongest, brightest after-storm colours, was that of the Lanky steamboat, Equity, rocking on the Humber, heading slowly out to Holland, and down by one passenger.

I'd not read the report of the inquest when it had appeared in the Courier a week later, but I'd had the notion of writing to Peter Robinson's solicitors telling the tale of the funny fellow, George Ogden, and mentioning that, since he'd put the stone on the line, their late client could have had nothing to do with the matter. That would have been a comfort to the boy, Lance. But, as the wife said, a letter of that kind would have made things hot for Cicely, who by rights ought to have spoken up earlier.

The Chief of Aeronautics had taken out his pocket watch.

A fellow I didn't know, who was standing nearby, turned to somebody in our little group of watchers, and said, 'I reckon he's been dashed to death.'

I watched the wife as she stared upwards. She was waiting for much more than the airship, of course.

A movement caught my eye – the loud-hailer going to the lips of the master of ceremonies; and there in the corner of the dark sky, tiny, but quite all right, was the dirigible.

I looked over to Arnold Dyson and saw that he was smiling.

The fellow with the loud-hailer was going forty to the dozen once again, giving us more credentials of the aeronaut. The fellow, it appeared, had three daughters; he was to be the principal attraction somewhere on Wednesday next. He valued his airship at no less than?3,000.

The attendants were all gathering to receive the airship.

The wife was next to me. 'Well, I hope they don't mean to catch it,' she said.

Arnold Dyson was alongside the wife and grinning up at me, just as though he'd been all smiles from the very start.

'She's all right, your missus,' he said.

'She is that,' I said.

'She can make her eyes go crossed, you know.'

I looked at the wife, but she was miles away, gazing up at the airship.

'Can she?' I said.