Читать книгу Seize the Reckless Wind - John Davis Gordon - Страница 21

By law he was only allowed to work ninety hours a month, to be in good condition to fly aeroplanes; but he could not stay in the empty cottage, so usually he went to Redcoat House and did his paperwork, then worked on drafting the new Civil Aviation Authority’s Airship Regulations. The best place for that was the Todds’ cottage, so that Malcolm could explain everything, the technicalities, the importance of each part, and Mahoney tried to put it into the legal language that civil servants like to hear.

‘Those heaters won’t go wrong,’ Malcolm said.

‘What minimum dimensions must they be to heat all that helium? And snow and ice?’

‘Snow and ice will not collect during flight,’ Malcolm said, ‘because of the slipstream of air around the hull. Snow collects while the ship is stationary, but the heating system will warm the hull and melt it.’

‘But if the heater broke down, how do we get rid of the ice?’

‘It won’t break down. It is simply the heat from the exhaust, piped through the hull and out the other side. That hot pipe is surrounded by a jacket with a built-in fan. The fan sucks cold helium in one end of the jacket, it is heated by the pipe, and blows warm helium out the end of the jacket. Can’t fail.’

‘But if that fan breaks down?’

‘You’d have to send a man inside to fix the damn thing, that’s all. With a breathing apparatus because helium contains no oxygen. What scuba-divers use.’ He added: ‘Helium’s not poisonous.’

‘Let’s make a note … And if he couldn’t fix the fan? He’d have to go out on top to shovel the snow off? Maybe during flight. What kind of life-lines must we have?’

Malcolm sighed irritably. ‘Any fool can fix that fan! And those German boys on the Zeppelins never wore life-lines when they went topside to stitch up canvas. But what you must impress on the C.A. A. is we can send a man up there to shovel snow off. But if the heating fails on the leading edge of a jetliner’s wings you can’t send a man out – you get iced-up and crash! … Bloody cats!’ he shouted. ‘Get out!’

A cat fled.

‘I heard you shouting at Napoleon,’ Anne shouted from the kitchen. ‘Poor Napoleon, was the general being nasty?’ Malcolm snorted wearily to himself.

‘I heard you snorting wearily to yourself in there, Field Marshal. Isn’t it time you boys knocked off, your dinner’s getting cold.’

‘It’s only eleven! We’re making history in here, woman!’

Anne recited in the kitchen:

‘I always thought it rather odd

That there should be two Ds in “Todd”

When after all there’s only one in “God”.’

She came into the room. She was a good-looking, weary woman. She slipped her arm around Malcolm’s shoulder. ‘Come on, old gas-bag, reveille, this man’s got to fly aeroplanes tomorrow.’

‘Less of the old,’ Malcolm muttered. ‘He’s got to bang the C.A.A.’s head together next month.’

‘Our attitude’, the very precise, hard-to-charm civil servant said, ‘is that we’ll believe it when we see it. Until then …’ Mahoney waited. ‘Until then, I’m afraid you can’t expect us to do any work on this. People have been talking about bringing back the airship for fifty years – ever since the Hindenburg. Nothing has ever come of it. Because the airship proved itself a thoroughly unreliable, dangerous machine. Oh, I’m aware that hydrogen caused those disasters and you want to use helium.’

‘The Graf Zeppelin’, Mahoney said, ‘flew between Germany, South America and New York for years without a single accident – even though she was filled with hydrogen.’

The neat man nodded. ‘Mr Mahoney, the C.A.A. is a very busy government body which acts as watchdog on aircraft safety, and we’re very expensive. If you design a new aeroplane, our experts would check minutely whether it conformed to these safety regulations.’ He tapped a thick book. ‘Now, we’ve got no regulations on airships. And we’ve got no aeronautical experts on airships, because airships simply don’t exist. And I don’t know where such people are to be found.’

‘I do.’

‘I mean expert by our standards. And we’d have to put a lawyer exclusively on to drafting the legislation – and you’d have to pay for all this. We don’t give free legal advice, you know.’

‘I know,’ Mahoney said, ‘I’m a lawyer.’

The man was surprised. ‘I thought you were a commercial pilot?’

‘I’m both. I went to Aviation flying school a few years ago.’

‘I see. How very odd. Then how is it you’re a captain already?’

‘I own the airline. The major partner. In fact, I only fly as co-pilot, not as captain.’ The civil servant looked at Redcoat with new suspicion. ‘But, as a lawyer, I’ve started drafting the legislation to shortcut …’

‘I need a proper lawyer, Mr Mahoney – the C.A.A. doesn’t take shortcuts.’

‘I am a proper lawyer, Mr White. And I do understand airships, which your lawyer won’t. All I’m asking for is cooperation, so we know what you’re worried about.’

‘We’ll be worried stiff about everything! Good Lord, a monster twice as long as a football field, flying over London in a gale … Mr Mahoney, before you ask us for guidance, you’ll have to convince us our effort is not going to be wasted.’

Mahoney smacked the pile of files. ‘There are the plans, prepared by an expert. And there’s my effort so far at drafting the legislation. Now, are you going to read them or not, Mr White?’

Mr White sat back and looked at the ceiling. ‘Mr Mahoney, how much is one airship going to cost?’

‘Between ten and fifteen million pounds, once we’ve got a production line.’

‘And’, Mr White said politely, ‘has Redcoat got that kind of money?’

‘Not yet.’

‘No,’ Mr White said, lowering his eyes. ‘And the banks won’t lend it to you. And where do you propose building such a huge thing? No building I know of is big enough.’

‘At Cardington,’ Mahoney said grimly. ‘There are two old airship hangars.’

‘Cardington?’ Mr White mused. ‘Where the ill-fated R 101 was built? Charming connotations. And will the government lease them to you, do you think?’

‘They’re a white elephant, and government will be delighted that we’re providing employment.’

‘If the Civil Aviation Authority endorses your plans. And what about airports, Mr Mahoney? You can’t land these things at Heathrow. You’ll want government to build airports? Where? At what tremendous cost? That’s the sort of thing—’

‘That’, Mahoney said, ‘is exactly the sort of thing I want to talk about. I have here provisional plans for airports, plus full-scale ones for the future, all diligently prepared by Major—’

‘Indeed? And who’s going to pilot these things? You have been awfully busy, Mr Mahoney, but who is going to instruct the instructors who’re going to instruct the trainee pilots? It’s a whole new ball-game.’

Mahoney took a breath. ‘We are, Mr White,’ he said. ‘Redcoat.’

Mr White stared. ‘But what’, he said, ‘are your qualifications?’

Mahoney leant forward. ‘Mr White, I’ll soon know more about airships than almost any man alive. Now, the C.A.A. is going to have to allow somebody to test-fly the first airships. And you’ll have to grant concessionary licences to those test-pilots for that purpose.’

Mr White looked at him. ‘I see …’ Then he scratched his cheek. ‘What about the banks? What do they say?’

‘We haven’t been to the banks yet. They’ll want to see that the C.A.A. are taking it seriously.’

Mr White glared at the formidable pile of files. ‘The chicken or the egg?’

‘Yes,’ Mahoney smiled.

Mr White suddenly shook his head wearily, like an ordinary human being. ‘You know damn well I’m required to look into this bumf.’

Mahoney put on his most charming smile. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

Cash flow. That’s what airlines desperately need, to pay their huge operating costs: and plenty of it. Cash flow, that’s what the Civil Aviation Authority insists on seeing in airlines’ books, to satisfy themselves that this airline can pay engineering maintenance so their aeroplanes do not come crashing down out of the skies. (So you can’t even cheat on your income tax.) Cash flow, that is what bank managers insist on from little airlines who haven’t got big shareholders behind them: cash constantly flowing in, to justify the huge amounts of revolving credit the airline needs to keep it aloft from one week to the next: no sufficient cash flow, no more credit, no more airline.

‘Five million pounds was our gross cash flow last year.’

‘Yes, but our local branch had to lend you over four and a half million while you earned it,’ the bank executive pointed out.

It was Mahoney’s first venture into the City. He didn’t like messing with bank managers, men who could cut off his lifeline at any time, but if he had to he preferred the suburban variety who held Redcoat’s purse-strings at Gatwick, not these silver-haired, heavy-duty gentlemen of the City.

‘You’ve earned a lot of interest,’ he said. ‘We’ve been good business for Barclays.’

‘Indeed,’ the banker said, sitting up. ‘Mr Mahoney, we are not belittling Redcoat. We respect you as hard-working and ingenious. In fact we’re amazed that you’ve survived, let alone prospered. Your local manager’ – he consulted a letter – ‘says that, when you first arrived, the airline wallahs expected you to collapse in two weeks.’

Mahoney knew he wouldn’t get the money. ‘But?’ he said grimly.

The banker decided to cut through all this.

‘Mr Mahoney, five million pounds turnover a year is a great deal of money to you and me. But to banks, Redcoat is a very small business.’

Mahoney nodded. ‘But if British Airways were asking you for fifteen million pounds, it would be different.’

‘Obviously it would put a different complexion on the matter.’

‘British Airways’, Mahoney said heavily, ‘lost eighty million pounds last year. Redcoat made a good profit.’

‘But’, the banker went on, ‘even if it was British Airways, I would not be financing an airship project. I am a good deal older than you, and I remember the old airships, though I was only a boy. I remember them flying over London, darkening the sky. Wonderful things – but completely impractical.’ He shook his head. ‘I remember the Hindenburg crashing in New Jersey. Our R 101 crashing in France—’

Mahoney groaned. ‘Modern airships …’

‘I know. Will use helium instead of hydrogen. But I took the trouble, when your branch manager referred you to us, to approach a client who is the chairman of one of the biggest airlines in the world.’

‘And I bet he’s losing money. Well?’

The executive smiled thinly. ‘He gave me seven reasons why airships will never work. I’ll read them.’

He picked up a letter.

‘One. The huge cost of design and development …’

Mahoney said, ‘They have already been designed by Major Todd and his consultants. The only cost was Major Todd’s army career, and the shares he will give in his company to the consultants for their work.’

‘Two,’ the banker said. ‘The slow speed, about a hundred miles an hour, which means it will be very difficult to keep to schedules in high head winds.’

Mahoney shook his head. ‘Speed is so unimportant, Mr Hampstead. Who needs speed? Only fat businessmen flying to New York and Tokyo. I’ll be flying not them but their products. And a hundred miles an hour is a lot faster than ship and rail.’

‘Three. The powers of lift vary with atmospheric temperatures and pressures. For instance, in the tropics, twelve percent of lift is lost by the heat.’

Mahoney said, ‘Aeroplanes are affected too! Who is this guy?’

‘Four,’ the banker said resolutely. ‘The problems of having to fly low. For every one thousand feet of height the helium expands three percent, so you either have to valve it off, which is expensive, or start off your voyage less than fully inflated.’

‘Sure!’ Mahoney shrugged. ‘Who wants to fly high?’

‘But what about mountains?’

‘Fly around the high ones! Plan your routes.’ He shook his head. ‘Next complaint?’

The banker shot him a look. ‘Five. The environmental objections to flying a monstrous and noisy machine low and slowly over inhabited areas.’

Mahoney was amazed. That this ignorance, from an alleged expert, was stopping his loan.

‘Noisy?’ he exclaimed. ‘It’ll make a fraction of the noise of a jet! Good Lord – ask the people who live near Heathrow and Kennedy about jet noise! And airships will cause one-fifth of the pollution from engine exhaust!’

The banker looked at him. ‘What about this one? Six: the problems, especially in high winds, of controlling a monstrous machine as large as the Albert Hall and as light as a feather?’

Mahoney sighed. There was no point in antagonizing the man. ‘All aeroplanes are affected by winds. So are ships. But airships will also use the winds, like the sailing ships did, to push them along. They’ll fly trade-wind routes. And as for landing in winds, an aeroplane can only tolerate so much cross-wind, but an airship doesn’t use a straight runway like an aeroplane. It can approach its mast from any direction, so it’s always flying into the wind when it’s docking. And it can fly away and stay up there for days, waiting for the weather to improve. An aeroplane can’t do that.’

The banker put the letter down. ‘Finally,’ he says, ‘a 747 can fly five times the number of miles that an airship could in a year – therefore do five times the work. Earn five times as much.’ He looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Mahoney sat back.

‘Bullshit, sir.’ (The banker blinked.) ‘Who is this guy? Which airline?’

‘I’m afraid—’

‘Look, all the big airlines are losing money – British Airways, Pan American, Air France … How many failures do you people need? Of course a jumbo 747 can fly five times as many miles a year, because it flies at five times the speed. But at five times the cost of fuel for each mile! And the world’s going to run out of fuel! And a jumbo can only fly to big expensive airports – it can’t fly to the middle of the Sahara or the Amazon jungle! So add to the cost of a jumbo’s cargo the onward transmission of it by road or rail – if they exist! And for every 747 you’ve got to have at least three crews: one flying, one resting, and one about to take over! Big airlines have six or seven crews.’

‘And how many crews for an airship?’ the banker asked.

Mahoney held up a finger. ‘One.’

The banker looked surprised. ‘How?’

‘Because’, Mahoney said, ‘they’ll sleep aboard. A ship only has one crew, doesn’t it? We’ll keep watches, like a ship at sea. A captain and two officers. Plus an engineer. Plus a loadmaster – who’ll double as cook.’ He shook his head. ‘They’ll have proper sleeping cabins, bathrooms, dining room – they’ll five aboard.’

The banker was silent. Then he smiled, and sat forward. ‘It’s a romantic notion,’ he admitted. ‘Young man, may I ask your age?’

‘Thirty-nine.’ Mahoney had decided to stay thirty-nine for some years.

The banker nodded, for a moment envy flickered on his face. ‘You look younger. But will you forgive me if I offer some friendly advice?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘You used to be a lawyer. And I suspect you were a good one. Now you’re an airline owner, and doing it well too. But you’re a romantic, I can tell. Which is fine. Enjoy it. But out here in the big bad world of business, it’s cold-blooded. Not romantic.’

‘So what’s your advice?’ Mahoney smiled grimly.

‘Stick with your proven aeroplanes. Because this real world of business does not lend money on dreams.’

Friends. And lots of them. That’s what you need if you’re an impoverished ex-army major trying to launch a multi-million pound airship industry. Plenty of good, long-suffering friends, to invest in a dream.

‘I’m in, for five hundred pounds,’ David Baker said.

‘Who’s David Baker?’ Mahoney said.

‘Insurance pal of mine,’ Malcolm Todd said. ‘He’s bought five hundred shares. And Admiral Pike’s buying three thousand.’

‘Three thousand! Who’s Admiral Pike?’

‘Retired Royal Navy. Nice old boy. Sees a great future for the small, non-rigid airship in coastal surveillance. Knows lots of people in the right places. I can pay Redcoat some back rent now.’

‘Pay your consultant,’ Mahoney smiled, ‘he deserves it. Pay yourself some salary too. And take Anne to dinner.’

‘A hamburger’s all I’ll get from the O.C.,’ Anne said. ‘And we’ll talk airships all through it … Piss-off, cat!’ A cat fled.

Malcolm said, ‘We can’t afford any salaries, but we’re paying Redcoat some rent.’

‘We’ll take shares in your company instead.’

Malcolm smiled. ‘You’re a bloody good friend.’

‘And a bloody good worker,’ Anne said.

One advantage of being a barrister, perhaps the only one, is that you train yourself out of sheer necessity to absorb huge volumes of fact rapidly, marshall them correctly, then present them persuasively: middle-aged soldiers, however, are often men of few words, and often the wrong ones. ‘There’re the facts,’ Malcolm Todd tended to say, ‘take it or leave it, just look snappy about it!’

‘Malcolm,’ Mahoney said, ‘these guys are big wheels. Captains of commerce. You’ve got to grab their attention cleverly.’

‘I should grab their shirtfronts and bang their thick heads together.’

‘Malcolm, explain it to me, and I’ll say it for you.’

‘It’s all written down there! Self-explanatory! Clearly!’

‘Clear as mud. Even I can’t understand it, and I’m pretty smart about airships, now.’

‘Listen to Joe, darling,’ Anne called from the kitchen.

‘Will you’, Malcolm said, ‘tell that woman in there to shut up?’

‘Malcolm, start at the beginning.’

‘You tell him, Joe,’ Anne called. ‘I couldn’t understand that essay, and I’m pretty smart about airships too, now. Boy!’ – she rolled her eyes – ‘have I heard all about airships …’

One advantage of being boss of an airline, perhaps the only one, is that you can give your captains orders, even if you’re only the co-pilot. And, definitely, the only advantage of being a pilot at all, in Mahoney’s view, was that it gave you plenty of time to think. Being a pilot, in Mahoney’s view, was about the most stultifying job an intelligent man could have: flying is vast stretches of intense boredom punctuated only with moments of intense crisis. The more he learned about aeroplanes the more he considered them a dangerous business. As managing director, Mahoney insisted on doing take-offs, even though he hated take-offs, because he wanted his two hours and the nasty congestion of Europe over with, so he could go aft and work: as soon as his two hours were up he said, ‘O.K., Captain, I’m off,’ and he went to his folding table. He was reworking the screeds of brochures that Malcolm was writing to precondition the public for the launching of his company on the stock market. Mahoney thought he knew everything about airships now, but every time he went back to Malcolm there were new drawings and notes. Then one day he found Malcolm busily reworking designs for small, non-rigid airships, with Admiral Pike. That really worried him.

‘We have to have designs of several different ships available to show to potential buyers,’ Malcolm explained.

‘But these small blimps hardly carry any cargo, Malcolm.’

‘Two tons, plus seven people!’ Admiral Pike said. ‘It’s an ideal machine for naval surveillance. Patrolling fishing grounds, for example. Stays aloft thirty-six hours cruising at sixty miles an hour! No aeroplane or naval vessel can match that performance – and it’s much cheaper. I’m sure old Ocker Anderson will go for it.’

‘Who’s Ocker Anderson?’

‘Admiral Anderson, Australian Navy, chum of mine. Dinkum Aussie, rough as they come, but a good egg. Can’t sail ships, of course, without pranging them into each other, but he’s got a lot of clout with the government.’

Mahoney smiled despite himself. He had never met a real, live admiral. The old boy was as ramrod straight with a bristly beard, exactly as an admiral should be. ‘Ocker will go for it,’ the Admiral insisted, ‘save risking his precious ships at sea, old Ocker will love that. Those vast coastlines patrolled for him by airships? And the government, you know how jumpy they are about those yellow fellahs in Asia – if there’s one thing that makes an Aussie uptight more than suggesting that Donald Bradman wasn’t the world’s greatest cricketer, it’s those Japs and yeller fellahs. Little Johnny Johnson will go for it too.’

‘Is he another admiral?’

‘New Zealand Navy, nice little chap. I’ll buzz down there and bang some sense into them.’

Mahoney was very impressed by all these admirals but he was worried about Malcolm being sidetracked. ‘Those are wonderful contacts, but think this through …’

‘I know,’ Malcolm said, ‘I don’t like these blimps either, Mickey Mouse little things —’

‘Mickey Mouse? …’ the Admiral said indignantly.

‘– but we’ve got to get a name for ourselves and the navy wallahs are our most likely first customers. Then, we’ll be in good shape to tackle the big rigids.’

‘What about China?’ the Admiral said, ‘their vast coastline, and borders with Russia? It would be an ideal patrol vehicle for those fellahs.’

‘Do you know Admiral Wong too? Listen,’ Mahoney said worriedly, ‘no government will buy airships until they’ve actually seen one. Demonstrated. That means you’re going to have to build one. Then they might not buy! And we’re stuck with a white elephant. Stick with the big cargo rigids, Malcolm.’

‘Have you’, Admiral Pike said frostily to Mahoney, ‘got fifteen million pounds?’

Mahoney took a worried breath. ‘O.K. … I’m only a shareholder; it’s your company, not mine. But please don’t go off half-cocked. Let me rework your brochures. Redcoat will print them up.’

The Admiral slapped him on the back. ‘That’s it, young fellah! Good to have you aboard! And I’ll buzz Down Under to talk some sense into old Ocker and Johnny Johnson.’

‘Wait.’ Mahoney said. ‘Until our literature’s perfect and you’re properly briefed, Admiral.’

‘Right-oh, good thinking! Meanwhile, what can I do? I’ll go and see those RAF fellahs, shall I, and talk them into giving us those hangars at Cardington. I know old Air-Marshal Thompson, used to play rugger against him. Hopeless at rugger, he was, couldn’t catch a pig in a passage, but he knows a bit about aeroplanes, I suppose.’

‘Excellent,’ Malcolm said.

When the Admiral had gone Mahoney said: ‘Malcolm, be careful of him. Don’t get talked into building a blimp unless a government has actually ordered it.’

‘We may have to.’

Mahoney shook his head. ‘Malcolm, it’s time we started on the Onassis principle. Go to places like China and Brazil to talk them into giving us a contract to carry their cargo, then go back to the banks.’ He added soberly: ‘Redcoat will finance the trips, by buying some of your shares. Buy yourself a new suit too.’

‘The pot calling the kettle black!’ Malcolm said.