Rudyard Kipling: With The Night Mail

"Our planet's overlighted if anything," says Captain Purnall at the wheel, as Cardiff–Bristol slides under. "I remember the old days of common white verticals that 'ud show two or three thousand feet up in a mist, if you knew where to look for 'em. In really fluffy weather they might as well have been under your hat. One could get lost coming home then, an' have some fun. Now, it's like driving down Piccadilly."

He points to the pillars of light where the cloud–breakers bore through the cloud–floor. We see nothing of England's outlines: only a white pavement pierced in all directions by these manholes of variously coloured fire—Holy Island's white and red—St. Bee's interrupted white, and so on as far as the eye can reach. Blessed be Sargent, Ahrens, and the Dubois brothers, who invented the cloud–breakers of the world whereby we travel in security!

"Are you going to lift for The Shamrock?" asks Captain Hodgson. Cork Light (green, fixed) enlarges as we rush to it. Captain Purnall nods. There is heavy traffic hereabouts—the cloud–bank beneath us is streaked with running fissures of flame where the Atlantic boats are hurrying Londonward just clear of the fluff. Mail–packets are supposed, under the Conference rules, to have the five–thousand–foot lanes to themselves, but the foreigner in a hurry is apt to take liberties with English air. "No. 162" lifts to a long–drawn wail of the breeze in the fore–flange of the rudder and we make Valencia (white, green, white) at a safe 7,000 feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet.

There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream round Dingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast. A big S. A. T. A. liner ( Société Anonyme des Transports Aëriens ) is diving and lifting half a mile below us in search of some break in the solid west wind. Lower still lies a disabled Dane: she is telling the liner all about it in International. Our General Communication dial has caught her talk and begins to eavesdrop. Captain Hodgson makes a motion to shut it off but checks himself. "Perhaps you'd like to listen," he says.

"'Argol' of St. Thomas," the Dane whimpers. "Report owners three starboard shaft collar–bearings fused. Can make Flores as we are, but impossible further. Shall we buy spares at Fayal?"

The liner acknowledges and recommends inverting the bearings. The "Argol" answers that she has already done so without effect, and begins to relieve her mind about cheap German enamels for collar–bearings. The Frenchman assents cordially, cries " Courage, mon ami ," and switches off.

Their lights sink under the curve of the ocean.

"That's one of Lundt & Bleamers's boats," says Captain Hodgson. "Serves 'em right for putting German compos in their thrust–blocks. She won't be in Fayal to–night! By the way, wouldn't you like to look round the engine–room?"

I have been waiting eagerly for this invitation and I follow Captain Hodgson from the control–platform, stooping low to avoid the bulge of the tanks. We know that Fleury's gas can lift anything, as the world–famous trials of '89 showed, but its almost indefinite powers of expansion necessitate vast tank room. Even in this thin air the lift–shunts are busy taking out one–third of its normal lift, and still "162" must be checked by an occasional downdraw of the rudder or our flight would become a climb to the stars. Captain Purnall prefers an overlifted to an underlifted ship; but no two captains trim ship alike. "When I take the bridge," says Captain Hodgson, "you'll see me shunt forty per cent. of the lift out of the gas and run her on the upper rudder. With a swoop upwards instead of a swoop downwards, as you say. Either way will do. It's only habit. Watch our dip–dial! Tim fetches her down once every thirty knots as regularly as breathing."

So is it shown on the dip–dial. For five or six minutes the arrow creeps from 6,700 to 7,300. There is the faint "szgee" of the rudder, and back slides the arrow to 6,500 on a falling slant of ten or fifteen knots.

"In heavy weather you jockey her with the screws as well," says Captain Hodgson, and, unclipping the jointed bar which divides the engine–room from the bare deck, he leads me on to the floor.

Here we find Fleury's Paradox of the Bulkheaded Vacuum—which we accept now without thought—literally in full blast. The three engines are H. T. &. T. assisted–vacuo Fleury turbines running from 3,000 to the Limit—that is to say, up to the point when the blades make the air "bell"—cut out a vacuum for themselves precisely as over–driven marine propellers used to do. "162's" Limit is low on account of the small size of her nine screws, which, though handier than the old colloid Thelussons, "bell" sooner. The midships engine, generally used as a reinforce, is not running; so the port and starboard turbine vacuum–chambers draw direct into the return–mains.

The turbines whistle reflectively. From the low–arched expansion–tanks on either side the valves descend pillarwise to the turbine–chests, and thence the obedient gas whirls through the spirals of blades with a force that would whip the teeth out of a power–saw. Behind, is its own pressure held in leash or spurred on by the lift–shunts; before it, the vacuum where Fleury's Ray dances in violet–green bands and whirled turbillions of flame. The jointed U–tubes of the vacuum–chamber are pressure–tempered colloid (no glass would endure the strain for an instant) and a junior engineer with tinted spectacles watches the Ray intently. It is the very heart of the machine—a mystery to this day. Even Fleury who begat it and, unlike Magniac, died a multi–millionaire, could not explain how the restless little imp shuddering in the U–tube can, in the fractional fraction of a second, strike the furious blast of gas into a chill grayish–green liquid that drains (you can hear it trickle) from the far end of the vacuum through the eduction–pipes and the mains back to the bilges. Here it returns to its gaseous, one had almost written sagacious, state and climbs to work afresh. Bilge–tank, upper tank, dorsal–tank, expansion–chamber, vacuum, main–return (as a liquid), and bilge–tank once more is the ordained cycle. Fleury's Ray sees to that; and the engineer with the tinted spectacles sees to Fleury's Ray. If a speck of oil, if even the natural grease of the human finger touch the hooded terminals Fleury's Ray will wink and disappear and must be laboriously built up again. This means half a day's work for all hands and an expense of one hundred and seventy–odd pounds to the G. P. O. for radium–salts and such trifles.

"Now look at our thrust–collars. You won't find much German compo there. Full–jewelled, you see," says Captain Hodgson as the engineer shunts open the top of a cap. Our shaft–bearings are C. M. C. (Commercial Minerals Company) stones, ground with as much care as the lens of a telescope. They cost £37 apiece. So far we have not arrived at their term of life. These bearings came from "No. 97," which took them over from the old "Dominion of Light," which had them out of the wreck of the "Perseus" aëroplane in the years when men still flew linen kites over thorium engines!

They are a shining reproof to all low–grade German "ruby" enamels, so–called "boort" facings, and the dangerous and unsatisfactory alumina compounds which please dividend–hunting owners and turn skippers crazy.

The rudder–gear and the gas lift–shunt, seated side by side under the engine–room dials, are the only machines in visible motion. The former sighs from time to time as the oil plunger rises and falls half an inch. The latter, cased and guarded like the U–tube aft, exhibits another Fleury Ray, but inverted and more green than violet. Its function is to shunt the lift out of the gas, and this it will do without watching. That is all! A tiny pump–rod wheezing and whining to itself beside a sputtering green lamp. A hundred and fifty feet aft down the flat–topped tunnel of the tanks a violet light, restless and irresolute. Between the two, three white–painted turbine–trunks, like eel–baskets laid on their side, accentuate the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle of the liquefied gas flowing from the vacuum into the bilge–tanks and the soft gluck–glock of gas–locks closing as Captain Purnall brings "162" down by the head. The hum of the turbines and the boom of the air on our skin is no more than a cotton–wool wrapping to the universal stillness. And we are running an eighteen–second mile.