Eoin Colfer: Airman

‘Gun smoke,’ noted Vigny. ‘One cannot help wondering who the target might be.’

‘No need to wonder, monsieur ,’ said Catherine, her voice shaking. ‘Look above you. The balloon.’

Both men searched the golden envelope for a puncture. Both found one. The bullet had entered through the lower starboard quadrant and exited through the upper port section.

‘Why are we not dead?’ wondered Declan.

The bullet was not enough to ignite the hydrogen,’ explained Vigny. ‘An incendiary shell would have done so.’

Catherine was badly shaken. For the first time in her short life, mortality was at hand, and not just her own. By stepping into the balloon’s basket she had put her child’s life at risk. She folded her arms across her stomach.

‘We must descend. Quickly. Before the envelope rips.’

In the fraught minutes that were to follow, Vigny proved his skill as an aeronaut. He perched on the basket’s lip, gripping a stanchion in one hand and the gas-release line in the other. With a tap of his boot he pushed the tiller wide. Le Soleil swung in a gentle arc. Vigny intended to set her down inside the velvet rope.

Declan Broekhart stayed at his wife’s side. Strong and stubborn as Catherine was, the gunshot had shocked her system. This had the effect of bringing forward her child’s due time. The body realized that it was in mortal danger, so the best chance for the baby was in the wide world.

A spasm of pain buckled Catherine’s knees. She collapsed backwards, cradling her stomach.

‘Our son is coming,’ she gasped. ‘He refuses to wait.’

Vigny almost fell off his perch. ‘ Mon Dieu. But, madame , this is impossible. I cannot allow it on my ship. I do not even know if this is good luck or bad luck. I will have to check the aeronaut’s manual. It would not surprise me if we had to sacrifice an albatross.’

It was Vigny’s habit to chatter wittily when anxious. Wit in times of danger was, in his opinion, very cavalier. This did not stop him performing his duties. He guided the dirigible expertly towards the chosen landing spot, compensating for the leaks with expert tugs on the gas line.

On the basket’s cramped floor, Catherine struggled to deliver her child. Her leg shot out involuntarily as the pain hit. The stroke was a lucky one, catching her husband on the shin and snapping him out of his near panic.

‘What can I do, Catherine?’ he asked, keeping his voice steady, his tone light, as though giving birth in a falling balloon was the most natural thing in the world.

‘Hold me steady,’ replied Catherine through gritted teeth. ‘And give me your weight to push against.’

Declan did as he was told, calling over his shoulder to Vigny.

‘Steady. Keep her steady, man.’

‘Talk to the Almighty,’ retorted Vigny. ‘He is sending the gusts of wind, not I.’

They were in reasonably good order. The envelope was damaged, but holding her integrity. The Broekharts huddled on the floor, engrossed in the business of bringing life to the world.

They would have made it. Vigny was already imagining the first sip of the champagne he planned to order the moment his feet touched solid ground, when the air was split with a brace of gunshots. Both bullets pierced the balloon, and this time their effect was more severe. One passed straight through as its predecessor had, but the second clipped a seam, sending a rip racing to the crown of the balloon. Air and gas screamed from the distressed dirigible like a company of banshees.

Vigny pitched forward into the basket, bouncing off Declan Broekhart’s broad back. They were in God’s hands now. With the envelope so grievously ruptured, the Frenchman could not claim a single degree of control over the balloon’s path. They dropped rapidly, the deflating envelope flapping above them.

Catherine and Declan ignored their own fates, concentrating on their child’s.

‘I see the baby,’ said Declan, shouting into the wind. ‘Almost there, my darling.’

Catherine Broekhart held back the despair clamouring in her mind and pushed her baby into the world. He arrived without a cry, reaching out to grip his father’s finger.

‘A boy,’ he said. ‘My strong son.’

Catherine gave herself not a minute to recover from her brief labour. She leaned forward and grasped her husband’s lapel.

‘You cannot let him die, sir.’ It was an order, plain and simple.

Vigny swaddled the newborn in his blue Aeronautical Squadron jacket.

‘We can but pray,’ he said.

Declan Broekhart climbed to his feet, taking in the literal gravity of their situation at a glance. The basket was in virtual freefall now, slicing east directly towards Lady Liberty’s head. Any considerable impact would surely result in the baby’s death, and he had been forbidden to allow that. But how to avoid it?

Fortune saved them, at least temporarily. The envelope spent its last breath, then impaled itself on the third and fourth rays of Liberty’s crown. The material ripped, bunched and jammed between the rays, halting the basket’s murderous descent.

‘Providence,’ breathed Captain Broekhart. ‘We are spared.’

The basket swung like a pendulum, grazing the lower curve of Lady Liberty’s cheek with each pass. The copper bust rang, attracting gawkers like church worshippers. Catherine held on to her baby son, absorbing the impact as best she could. The envelope’s threads popped with cracks like gunfire.

‘The balloon will not hold,’ said Vigny. ‘We are still twenty feet up.’

Declan nodded. ‘We need to lash her to the statue.’ He grabbed Le Soleil ’s anchors, tossing one to Vigny. ‘A case of the finest red wine if you make the shot.’

Vigny tested the anchor’s weight. ‘Champagne, if you don’t mind.’

Both men threw their anchors high between the last two rays of Lady Liberty’s crown. Their aim was true and the anchors bumped the statue’s ringlets, then slid back down, raising sparks as the metal surfaces cracked together. The anchors bit on both sides of the crown and stuck fast. Declan and Vigny quickly pulled a loop of rope through the basket’s bow and stern rings, cinching them tight.

Not a moment too soon. With the screech of a seabird, the balloon material ripped itself free of the statue’s crown, dropping the basket a further stomach-lurching yard until the anchor ropes took the strain. The ropes groaned, stretched and held.

‘My basket is now a cradle for your baby,’ panted Vigny, and then, ‘Champagne. A case. The sooner the better.’

Declan squatted below the basket’s rim, tugging the Frenchman’s cuff until he too bent low.

‘Your hunter may have more bullets to spend,’ he said.

‘True,’ agreed Victor Vigny. ‘But I think he will have fled. We no longer present such an enormous target, and by now the gendarmes will be on his trail. I imagine it was an anarchist. They have been making threats.’

In the Trocadéro gardens, the entire crowd had pooled below the basket. They had come to the World Fair expecting spectacle, but here was high adventure. The Aeronautical Squadron leaned long ladders against the wicker basket to rescue Le Soleil ’s stranded passengers. Catherine climbed down first, aided by the gallant Captain Vigny. Then came the proud father, cradling the miraculous baby in his arms. People gasped and surged forward. A child. There had been no child in the basket when it took flight. It was as if the world had never before seen a baby.

Born in the sky. Imagine it. A child of wonder.

Ladies and gentlemen elbowed each other shamelessly, longing for a glimpse of his cherubic face.

Look, the eyes are open. His hair is almost white. Perhaps the altitude ?