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Episode 15: His Majesty’s Airship, The Flying Cloud
"We still need five more airmen to make a crew of seventeen," said Everett that evening. The eight survivors of the Flying Lady had gathered in an outdoor café under a tin roof at one end of the Cairns Royal Air Station along with the two companions, Pierre and Sarah, they’d rescued from a French penal colony in New Caledonia. Pierre was examining his dinner as if uncertain of its species. Sarah, of sterner stuff, was consuming hers calmly, slicing the thin steaks of some nameless animal with a drawing room delicacy in keeping with her refined features and dress, but entirely at odds with her complexion and background. A pair of delicate bone earrings, carved in the shape of fish, hung from her ears. Everett frowned when he remembered their origin. "Where are we going to find them, sir?" asked Davies. "We’ve already advertised for civilian volunteers, and gone through the list of malingerers Michelson offered us, and I’ve asked around the marine barracks with no luck." "Fleming, were any of your friends in the soaring community?" "I spoke with the president of the Cape York Lilienthal Association, and it appears the only man who might have been interested was taken by a croc during a visit to Cookstown." "Pity, that," said Everett. "Wallace?" "I’ve been to the bars, Captain. Nothin’ there." One by one the others shook their heads. "This is not looking very promising, sir," observed Jenkins, the ship’s signalman. "And if we can’t find a crew, I imagine Captain Michelson will use this as a pretext to take the command away from us, and assign it to one of his cronies. "Don’t worry, Jenkins," said Everett. "Matters are not as bad as they appear." Indeed, they were worse. Knowing Michelson, he imagined the man would try to cashier them out of the Service for incompetence and unspecified moral failings. "I would be happy to serve aboard your vessel as a rigger," said Pierre. Heads turned toward the Frenchman. "Whatever for?" asked Iverson. "I thought you’d be in a hurry to get back to France." "I can wait until the vessel gets rotated back to Europe," said Pierre. "In the meantime this would allow me to drop out of sight, to avoid causing unnecessary excitement to certain authorities." "I’d like to join too!" said Sarah. "A woman, serving aboard one of His Majesty’s airships?" asked MacKiernan, scandalized. "Perhaps she could be a cook," suggested Jenkins. "That might not be such a good idea," said Davies. "That’s hardly relevant," said Iverson, leaping to the girl’s defense. "Her tribe may have been cannibals in the distant past, but they have reformed their habits, and her father is a vegetarian." "That’s just my point!" said Davies. "I don’t want any bleedin’ vegetarian food at the end of my watch!" "I don’t believe vegetarian food bleeds," said Jenkins. "I could be a rigger," suggested the girl. "I can climb just as well as Pierre!" "This may be true," said Everett, recalling how she’d scrambled up the mooring mast, dressed in tights like a circus acrobat, the night they took the ship, and cringing at the thought of trying to maintain discipline aboard a vessel where such behavior was regular practice, "but since you were taught mathematics, I believe it might be better if you continued to serve as ballast officer and quartermaster. There is a long tradition of women auxiliaries serving in this capacity aboard His Majesty’s vessels that dates back to the reign of George V." "But, isn’t he king right now?" whispered Fleming to Jenkins. "I imagine this tradition began at least five minutes ago," the signalman whispered back. "That still leaves us three under the minimum number we need to be certified as flight-worthy," said Iverson. "What will we do, sir?" "We’ll put some fake names on the books, pocket their pay, and use it to bribe inspectors to ignore the infraction until we can find the additional men. It’s standard practice in situations like these." "They never mentioned this at the Academy, sir." "I don’t imagine they would." Everett spent the rest of the evening filling out paperwork -- some real and some of it forgeries -- to get the vessel ready for commissioning. This was a tedious process; another one of the prerogatives of command that had never been mentioned at the Academy. By time the job was finished, in the wee hours of the morning, his eyes were swimming, and he fell asleep dreaming of government forms. But when Jenkins awoke him the next morning, these dreams were a thing of the passed, and he hurried through breakfast, anxious to get out to the field. They arrived at the ship to see that someone had painted the name Flying Cloud above the control car next to an elegant portrait of a clipper ship. "It was Abercrombie’s idea," said MacKiernan. "The daft Scottsman does get a good one every now and then. None of us could bear the thought o’ serving ‘board a vessel called the Cloud Flier, and it’s bad luck to change a ship’s name, but our old craft was named the Flying Lady, and if ye combine the two, ye could come up with Flying Cloud, so he decided that’s what the Germans meant to call her all along." "I assume some money changed hands in the administration building when the paperwork was filled?" "Captain! I’d never admit to such a thing... no matter how guilty I was..." "Who painted the name? It can’t have been Abercrombie; the man can hardly sign his own." "That was Miss Sarah’s work. The young lady has a rare talent for calligraphy. She did the sailing ship too." "That is superb artistry," Iverson told Sarah when they reached the control car, where the girl was reviewing bills of lading. "Where did you learn to paint so well?" Sarah looked up at him and beamed, with a smile that brightened the entire bridge. "There was an old artist in our village -- one of the French immigrants. He taught me everything. He used to paint the most wonderful portraits and designs." Everett paused on his way to the intercom and glanced over his shoulder at the girl. "What kind of designs?" he asked suspiciously. "Here, I’ll show you." The girl reached for a pad of paper, and with a few deft strokes, rendered a perfect replica of a French banknote, complete with a portrait of the goddess Minerva next to a neatly numbered ‘10’ and the words ‘Dix Francs’ "Interesting," said the navigation officer. "Can you do King George?" "MacKiernan!" snapped Everett. "But how about the Kaiser?" To be continued... |
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