The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [160]
“Ah do.”
“Can you then find a way to get me that information at either Inverness or Thurso?”
“Ah've a colleague in Inverness, although Ah dunno if Ah'll have the information by the time you reach there.”
“We shall probably be forced to spend the night at Inverness,” I told him. “Have your colleague there ask for us at the air field. And lacking Inverness, send a wire to the telegraph office in Thurso.”
A large, warm parcel was thrust into my arms by the breathless waitress, and I duly dug out the cost of the luncheon, laying one of the gold guineas on top. She wandered off, transfixed by the gleam in her palm. I thanked MacDougall and trotted back to the aeroplane, to share out the meal with Javitz and eye the repair on the undercarriage. It looked like a splint held in place with baling wire and sticking plasters; I opened my mouth, closed it, and climbed into my seat. We made it down the field and into the air without it breaking, so that was good.
The fur coat and rugs around my shoulders were almost adequate. The knowledge that the child was alive warmed my thoughts, but made little inroad on my icy toes.
The Stars (1): The man was but a child when he heard
the message of the stars, seeing the precision of the link
between their paths and those of human beings.
Testimony, IV:7
A HUNDRED TWENTY MILES FROM EDINBURGH TO Inverness, and we fought the wind and rain every inch of the way. We followed the railway lines, which added miles but gave us sure guidance. As the clouds dropped ever lower, we did as well, until I feared we might meet an engine head-on. Javitz hunched over the controls, the juddering of the stick knocking through his body like a blow. Every so often, I saw him peer forward at the instruments, and I could tell when he braced his knees around the control stick to reach out and tap at the instruments.
The wind howled, the rain beat us sideways, the 'plane groaned and cracked, and even the wind clawing at the cover could not take away the stink of fear in my boxed-in space.
On a good day, we might have covered the distance in ninety minutes, but between the head-wind and being continually blown off course, it was twice that by the time we saw signs of a city below. The number of times Javitz leant forward to rap at the gauges did not make my stomach any easier around the stony eggs and sloshing coffee.
We came down ominously close to dusk, slowing, dropping, teetering on the gusts. Javitz chose what appeared to be a mowed hayfield, although as we descended I noticed a faded red length of cloth nailed to a high post at the far end, tugged back and forth, tautly horizontal to the ground. He slowed us further, rising into a half-stand so he could see past the nose. No aerodrome here: If his undercarriage repairs failed, we would be grounded.
Then again, if the repairs failed on landing, further transportation might be the least of our worries.
Clearly, the danger was foremost on the pilot's mind, as well. Javitz fought the machine for control, our low tanks and the 405 square feet of wing threatening to upend us before we touched down. When he did tap the wheels to the ground—gently, cautiously—the wind perversely refused to let us go, lifting and playing us on the razor's edge of flipping over all the way down the field.
We came to a halt, wings still quivering, ten feet from the hedgerow at the field's end.
Javitz peeled one hand off the control stick and cut the fuel.
Silence pounded at our eardrums. In a calm voice that sounded very far away, Javitz said, “I'm going to go get drunk now, if you don't mind. I'll meet you back here at dawn.”
“What—” I strangled on the word, cleared my throat and tried again. “What about the machine?”