Eoin Colfer - Airman

The coral’s green glow traced the dawning horror on Arthur Billtoe’s face. The misery he had visited on so many others was now to be his.

Bonvilain winked at Sultan. ‘As I said. Poetic.’

Forlorn Point

Due to the night’s activity, not one fight but two, Conor got no more than an hour’s sleep. And that sleep was filled with dreams of prison guards with blades for hands and diamonds for eyes. There was something else, though, leaping up and down in the background, seeking attention. A small memory of Conor and his father rowing across Fulmar Bay when he was nine.

Watch the oar’s blade , Declan Broekhart had said. See how it cuts the water. You want to scoop the water, not slide through it.

Then in the dream Declan said something that he had never said in real life.

The same theory applies to the blades of a propeller. That might get your aeroplane off the ground.

Conor sat up in bed, instantly awake. What was it? What had he been thinking? Already the dream was fragmenting. The oar. Something about the oars. How could an oar help to fly an aeroplane?

It was obvious really. The oar had a blade, just like the propeller.

See how it cuts the water…

Of course! The oar was not bashed flat into the water, it was presented at an angle to reduce drag and maximize thrust. The same ancient principle must be applied to the propeller. After all, the propeller was really a rotating wing. When the aeroplane eventually flew, the propeller would have to absorb the engine’s power and overcome the flying machine’s drag. It must be treated like a wing, and shaped accordingly.

Flat propellers are of no use , thought Conor, hurriedly pulling on his clothes. They must be angled and the blades shaped to provide lift.

By the time Linus negotiated the stairs with bacon, soda bread and hot coffee, Conor was chiselling the second blade on his new propeller.

‘Ah,’ said Linus. ‘A new propeller.’

This pronouncement stopped Conor in mid-motion. ‘You are blind, are you not? How can you possibly know what I’m doing.’

Linus laid the breakfast tray on a bench. ‘I have mystical powers, boy. And also you’ve been talking to yourself this past hour. Lift, drag, propulsion, all that interesting stuff. We blind folk ain’t necessarily deaf you know.’

The scientist in Conor wished to continue to work, but the ravenous young man dragged him away from his precious propeller to the delicious breakfast.

Linus listened to him tuck in with a cook’s satisfaction.

‘I picked up the bread fresh in the village. The folk down there are all a-frenzy over stories about this Airman creature. Apparently he slew twenty men on the island last night.’

‘I hear he’s ten feet tall,’ said Conor, around a mouthful of bread.

Linus sat beside him at the bench.

‘This is no joke, Conor. You are in danger now.’

‘No need to fret, Linus. The Airman’s short career is over. No more night flying for me. From this day on, scientific flights only.’

Linus stole a strip of bacon. ‘Perhaps you might think of finding yourself a girl. You are of an age, you know.’

Conor could not help but think of Isabella. ‘Once, there was a girl, or could have been. I will think of females again when we reach America.’

‘When you reach America. I plan to stay here and conspire against Bonvilain. There are others who think like I do.’

‘You mean it,’ realized Conor sadly. ‘I had hoped you would change your mind.’

‘No. I lost friends. We both did.’

Conor had no desire to rake over the coals of this familiar argument.

‘Very well,’ he said, pushing away his plate. ‘The tower is yours, and there will be abundant funds too. But I am going. In America there are airmen like me, eager for the sky.’

‘I see. And when will you go?’

‘I had planned to leave today, but now I am impatient to test this new propeller. She is a thing of beauty, don’t you think?’

Linus Wynter tapped the velvet sleep mask that he now wore over his ruined eyes.

‘I’ll take your word for it. I had this mask sent from the Savoy. Did I ever tell you that I once stayed there?’

‘Let us make a bargain,’ said Conor. ‘Today I transport my aeroplane to Curracloe beach. It will take two days to assemble and another to test. When I return we will ship my equipment to New York and go by ferry and train to London. We will live like kings for one week in the Savoy, with no talk of revolution or science, then review our situation.’

‘That is a tempting offer,’ admitted Linus. ‘Some of the suites have pianos. My fingers twitch at the thought.’

‘Let us agree then. One week for ourselves, then back into the world. Separately perhaps, but I pray that we will be together.’

‘I pray for that too.’

‘Then we are agreed. The Savoy.’

Linus extended a hand. ‘The Savoy.’

They shook on it.

Bonvilain and Sultan came ashore incognito, faces shadowed by broad-rimmed toquilla hats. Their Saltee uniforms lent them no authority on the mainland and they were unlikely to attract attention dressed in civilian clothes. Local rowdies are far less likely to trouble dangerous-looking strangers than they are soldiers off their patch. In fact, some of the Kilmore lads knocked huge sport from taunting Saltee Army boys who were under strict orders not to retaliate. Bonvilain and Sultan were restrained by no such orders. They made no overtly hostile gestures and were the very definition of gentility, but still the local harbour boys got the impression that to trifle with this odd pair would lead to immediate and lasting discomfort.

They strolled down the quayside and into the smoky depths of the Wooden House.

‘I have visited taverns all over the world,’ confided Hugo Bonvilain, ducking under the lintel. ‘And they all have one thing in common.’

‘Drunks?’ said Sultan Arif, toppling a sleeping sailor from his path.

‘That too. Information for sale is the common factor I had in mind. That wretch for example…’

The marshall pointed to a solitary man, elbows on the bar, staring at an empty glass.

‘A prime candidate. He would sell his soul for another drink.’

He sidled up beside the man, and called to the innkeeper for a bottle of whiskey.

‘Do I know you?’ asked the innkeeper.

‘No, you don’t,’ replied Bonvilain cheerfully. ‘And I recommend you keep it that way. Now leave the bottle and make yourself busy elsewhere.’

Most good innkeepers develop an instinct about their customers and their capabilities. The proprietor was no exception. He would ask no more questions, but he would check the load in his shotgun just in case the oddly familiar broad-beamed customer and his grinning companion unleashed the trouble that they were surely capable of.

Bonvilain opened the bottle, turning to the solitary, glass-gazing man.

‘Now, good sir, you look like a gent that could use a drink. I certainly hope so, because I have no intention of imbibing one drop of this ripe spirit, which by the smell of it has already been passed through the stomachs of several cats.’

The man pushed his glass along the bar with one finger. ‘I’ll do you a favour and take it off your hands.’

‘Very noble of you, friend,’ said Bonvilain, filling the glass to the rim.

‘We ain’t friends,’ said the man, grumpy in spite of his sudden good fortune. ‘Not yet.’

Half a bottle later they were friends and Bonvilain steered the conversation as though the man had a rudder fixed to the back of his head.

‘Stupid gas lamps,’ said the man. ‘What’s wrong with candles? A candle never ruptured and exploded. I hear a gas explosion destroyed an entire city in China, ’cept for the cats what are immune to gas.’