John Davis - Seize the Reckless Wind

‘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 air ships 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.’