The Warlord of the Air (11 page)

It all began with a freakish change in the weather after we had left San Francisco, bound for British Ecuador, Tahiti, Tonga and points west. You could blame it on the elements, I suppose, or on me—but I’m rather inclined to blame an offensive little Californian ‘scout-leader’ called ‘Reagan’. Certainly, if Reagan had not come aboard the
Loch Etive
I should not have found myself at the centre of subsequent events—events which were to alter the destinies of a good many people and perhaps even the whole world.

W
e were moored at Berkeley Airpark, taking on cargo and passengers. Because of a delay in finding mast-space, we were a bit behind schedule and hurrying to make up the time as fast as we could. I was keeping an eye on both cargo and passengers, watching the great crates being winched into the bowels of the ship through her loading hatches underneath the lower deck. The liner was secured by about fifty thick steel cables, keeping her perfectly steady at her mast. In the bright sunlight, she cast a wide shadow across the field. I couldn’t help feeling proud of her as I looked up. Her hull was silver blue and the round Union Jack shields shone on her huge tailplanes. Her particulars were emblazoned on her main hull: RMA 801 (her registration number)
Loch Etive,
London. Macaphee Lines, Edinburgh.

All about me were moored ships of American Imperial Airways, the Versailles Line, Royal Austro-Prussian Aerial Navigation Company, Imperial Russian Airship Company, Air Japan, Royal Italian Air Lines and many smaller lines, but the
Loch Etive,
it seemed to me, was the finest. She was certainly one of the most famous aerial passenger liners.

Some distance away from the airpark buildings I made out a green electric omnibus, bouncing over the turf towards our mast. These would be the last of our passengers. Rather late, I thought. I had been warned that the
William Randolph Hearst,
of American Imperial, had developed engine trouble and that, since we flew basically the same route, some of her passengers were being transferred to our ship. Probably these were they. We were almost ready to go. I watched the last item of cargo being winched aboard, saw the loading doors shut in the ship’s belly, and with a sense of relief went back towards the mast.

Although there was a lift moving up and down in the central column of the mooring mast, this was for the use of passengers and officers. The ground crew were using the spiral staircase which wound round the lift shaft. I watched them hurrying up to take their positions. The fuel lighters had long since been towed away.

At the entrance to the lift-shaft I stood beside the embarkation officers who stood on both sides of the doors, checking boarding cards and tickets. There was nothing suspicious about the well-to-do Americans who were coming aboard, though they seemed a trifle annoyed at discovering they were to fly on a different ship.

I smiled a little as I saw the man at the end of the queue. He was about fifty and dressed rather ridiculously in khaki shorts, knee stockings and green badge-festooned shirt. He carried a polished pole with a little flag on it and on his head was a wide-brimmed brown hat. His comical appearance was heightened by the look of stern self-importance on his red, lumpy face. His knees shone as redly as his nose and I wondered if he were, perhaps, a kinematograph or music-hall comedian who had not had time to change. Behind him were a score of similarly clad boys of about twelve years old, with knapsacks on their backs and poles in their hands, all looking as deadly serious as the man.

“Why on earth is he dressed like that?” I asked the nearest officer.

“It’s the American version of the Baden-Powell Youth Brigade,” said the man. “Weren’t you ever in the Brigade?”

I shook my head. “And what are these?”

“The Roosevelt Scouts,” my informant told me. “The Young Roughriders, I believe they’re called.”

“Their leader doesn’t look too young.” The man had now turned his back on me, presenting a bulging posterior on which the khaki cloth threatened to burst.

“A lot of these people stay in the scouts,” said the officer. “They never grow up. You know the type. Enjoy ordering the kids around.”

“I’m glad I’m not in charge of that gang,” I said feelingly, casting my eye over the pimply faces which glowered nervously now from beneath the brims of their hats. They had plainly not been on an airship before.

Then I noticed something which made me realize I was forgetting my duties. Around the scout-leader’s rather portly middle was strapped a leather belt and on the belt was attached a large pistol holster. When he came up to the officer inspecting tickets I waited until he was finished and then saluted politely.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid all weapons must be given into the care of the purser until you disembark. If you wouldn’t mind handing me your revolver...”

The man gestured angrily with his pole and tried to push past me.

“Come on, boys!”

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t allow you to go aboard until—”

“It is my right to wear a gun if I choose. What sort of tomfool...?”

“International airshipping regulations, sir. If you’ll allow me to take the gun I’ll get a receipt for it and you can claim it—” I glanced at his tickets—“when you reach Sydney, Mr. Reagan.”

“Captain Reagan,” he snapped. “Roughriders.”

“Captain Reagan. Unless you give me your pistol, we can’t allow you to join the flight.”

“I wouldn’t have this trouble on an American ship. Wait until—”

“International regulations apply to American ships as well as British, sir. We shall have to leave without you.” I glanced significantly at my watch.

“Snotty-nosed upstart!” Purple with rage he snarled something else under his breath, then fumbled with his buckle and slid the holster off his belt. He hesitated, then handed it to me. I snapped it open and looked at the gun.

“I know,” he said. “It’s an air pistol. But it’s very powerful.”

“The regulations still apply, sir. Are—um—any more of your chaps armed in this way?”

“Of course not. I was in the Roughriders. The real Roughriders. One of the last to be disbanded. Come on, men.” He pointed forward with his pole and marched into the lift, the earnest troop behind him all glaring at me in outrage at my having caused their leader to lose dignity. There was room in the lift for me, but I decided to use the stairs. I wasn’t sure I could keep a straight face for very much longer.

O
nce aboard I gave the gun to the purser and received a receipt in exchange. I gave the receipt to the first steward I encountered and told him to take it to Captain Reagan’s cabin. Then I went up to the bridge. We were about to let go. This was when it was worth being on the bridge and I never tired of the experience. One by one the anchor cables were released and I felt the ship surge a little as if impatient to be freed completely and get back aloft. The motors began to murmur and in the side-mirrors I could see the propellers slowly turning. The captain looked forward and then below and checked his periscopes to make sure our stern was clear. He gave the instructions and the catwalk was drawn away from the mast, back into the hull. Now all that held the ship were the couplings attaching her to the mast.

Captain Quelch spoke into the telephone. “Stand by to slip.”

“Ready to slip, sir,” replied the Mast Controller’s voice from the receiver.

“Slip.”

There was a slight jerk as the couplings fell free. The
Loch Etive
began to turn, her nose still nestling in the cone.

“All engines half-speed astern.” By his tone, Captain Quelch was relieved to be on his way. He stroked his white walrus moustache rather as a satisfied cat might stroke its whiskers. The diesels began to roar as we pulled out of the cone. Our bow rose.

“Half-speed ahead,” said the captain. “Two degrees to port, steering coxswain.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Two degrees to port.”

“Take us up to five hundred feet, height coxswain, and hold steady.”

“Five hundred feet, sir.” The height cox turned the large wheel at which he was positioned. All around us on the spacious bridge instruments were whirring and clicking and we were presented with a display of readings which would have thoroughly confused an old-time ship’s captain.

The vast airpark fell away below us and we turned towards the sparkling ocean of San Francisco Bay. We saw the hulls of the land-bound ships dwindling in size. The
Loch Etive
was behaving as beautifully as usual, almost flying herself.

Now we were over the ocean.

“Five degrees to port, steering coxswain,” said Captain Quelch, leaning over the computer console.

“Five degrees to port, sir.”

We began to turn so that from our starboard portholes we could see the skyscrapers of San Francisco—painted in a thousand dazzling colours.

“Take her up to two thousand feet, height coxswain.”

“Two thousand feet, sir.”

Up we went, passing through a few wisps of cloud, into the vast sea of blue which was the sky.

“All engines full ahead.”

With a great roar of power, the mighty engines pushed the ship forward. She surged on at a steady hundred and twenty miles an hour, heading for South America, carrying three hundred and eighty-five human souls and forty-eight tons of cargo as effortlessly as an eagle might carry a mouse.

B
y that evening, the story of my encounter with the scout-leader had spread throughout the crew. Fellow officers stopped me and asked how I was getting on with “Roughrider Ronnie” as someone had nicknamed him, but I assured them that, unless he proved to be a dangerous saboteur, I was going to avoid him punctiliously for the rest of the voyage. However, it was to emerge that he did not share my wish.

My second encounter came that night when I was making my tour of duty through the ship, normally a long and rather boring business.

The fittings of the
Loch Etive
were described in the company’s brochures as “opulent” and, particularly in the first-class quarters, they were certainly lavish. Everywhere the “plastic” was made to look exactly like marble, like oak, mahogany and teak, like steel or brass or gold. There were curtains of plush and silk drawn back from the wide observation ports running the length of the ship, there were deep carpets in blue and red and yellow, comfortable armchairs in the lounges or on the decks. The recreation decks, restaurants, smoking rooms, bars and bathrooms were all equipped with the latest elegant gadgets and blazed with electric lighting. It was this luxury which made the
Loch Etive
one of the most expensive aerial liners in the skies, but most passengers thought it worth paying for.

By the time I had reached the third-class section I was looking forward to turning in. Then, suddenly, from out of a subsidiary passage leading to the dining rooms, stormed the Captain of Roughriders himself. His face was scarlet. He was spluttering with rage and he grabbed me by the arm.

“I’ve a complaint!” he shouted.

I hadn’t expected a compliment. I raised my eyebrows.

“About the restaurant,” he continued.

“That’s something to take up with the stewards, sir,” I said in relief.

“I’ve already complained to the chief steward and he refused to do anything about it.” He eyed me narrowly. “You are an officer, aren’t you?”

I admitted it. “However, my job is to look after the security of the ship.”

“What about the morals?”

I was frankly astonished. “Morals, sir?” I stuttered.

“That’s what I said, young man. I have a duty to my scouts. I hardly expected them to be subjected to the indignities, the display of loose behaviour... Come with me.”

Out of curiosity more than anything else, I allowed him to lead me into the dining room. Here a rather insipid jazz band was playing and a few couples were dancing. At the tables people were eating or talking and not a few were staring at the table where all twenty boy Roughriders were seated.

“There!” hissed Reagan. “There! What do you say now?”

“I can’t see anything, sir.”

“Nobody told me that I was coming aboard a flying Temple of Jezebel! Immoral women displaying themselves—look! Look!” I was bound to say that the girls were wearing rather scanty evening frocks, but nothing one would not see every night in London. “And disgusting music—jungle music!” He pointed at the bored-looking band on the rostrum. “And, worse than that.” He drew closer and hissed in my ear, “There are, young man,
niggers
eating right next to us. What kind of a decent ship do you call this?”

At the nearest table to the scouts sat a party of Indian civil servants who had recently finished their exams in London and were on their way to Hong Kong. They were well-dressed and sat quietly talking among themselves.

“White boys being forced to eat elbow to elbow with niggers,” Reagan continued. “We were transferred without our agreement to this ship, you know. On a decent American ship...”

The chief steward came up. He gave me a weary, apologetic look. I thought of a solution.

“Perhaps this passenger and his boys could eat in their cabins,” I suggested to the steward.