The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [59]
Burton had never flown before and he was thoroughly enjoying the sensation. He thought of John Speke sitting in a box kite being towed by a giant swan over East Africa and felt a pang of jealousy-then intense regret. Bismillah! It was only three days ago that he'd learned John had shot himself!
Soon, woods and tracts of cultivated land started to separate the clumps of houses and the fog retreated, reduced to a white mist, which lay in heavier ribbons along the courses of rivers, canals, and streams.
The rotorchair ahead of Burton started to lose altitude. He gently pushed the middle lever and felt his own machine sink.
They flew on for a mile, past the outskirts of Chislehurst, then Kapoor angled his machine slightly more eastward and descended, with Burton following. They landed in a field near cottages on the edge of a village, which Burton would later learn was named Mickleham. There were six rotorchairs already parked on the grass beside a mud-caked traction engine to which a plough was attached.
Even before the wings of Kapoor's rotorchair had stopped spinning, the young constable was out of it and sprinting across the grass to where a couple of policemen stood by a garden gate outside a ramshackle old dwelling. He spoke to them briefly then came running back, reaching Burton just as he stepped out of his machine.
"No!" he shouted above the noise of the engines. "We have to go up again!"
"Why-what's happening?"
"Spring Heeled Jack is still in the area! They've chased him northward. We'll have to circle, see if we can spot anything. We'll spread out and fly low, Captain, cover as much ground as we can. Look out for a group of villagers and policemen-but keep me in sight and head my way if you see me land!"
Burton jumped back into the rotorchair, buckled himself in, and powered up the wings. He took off and followed Kapoor. The vapour trails they'd made on their way to the field were still hanging in the air.
Burton bore to the west until the other machine was a mere speck in the sky off to his right, with an irregular white line extending out behind it. They flew back past Chislehurst, the king's agent peering at the landscape to the right, left, and ahead.
Five minutes later he saw figures gathered on a golf course. He steered his rotorchair toward it and, as he approached and descended, saw that it was a crowd of constables and townspeople. The latter were milling about, brandishing shovels and broom handles.
People scattered as he landed the machine, thudding into the grass rather too heavily.
A burly man came running over; it was Detective Inspector Trounce.
"Captain Burton!" he yelled. "It's gone into Marvel's Wood, there!"-he waved his cane at a wide expanse of forest on the eastern edge of the course"Fly over, see if you can drive it out!"
The king's agent nodded and took to the air again.
As his machine slid over the trees, he flew it as low as he dared, sending loose leaves flying in every direction as branches whipped about beneath the rotorchair's downdraught. Leaning over the side, Burton scanned the woods below, seeing flashes of the ground through the foliage. He passed at a slow speed around the outer part of the wood then began to spiral inward.
Despite his heavy overcoat, he was feeling cold. The past few days had pushed his body too far; he'd been drunk, attacked, and beaten; had spent an entire night in the noxious atmosphere of the East End; and had slept a mere two hours. The quinine he'd taken might stave off a malarial attack but he was nevertheless concerned; he needed proper rest.
Something moved below but he'd flown past before he could see what it was. He dug his heels into the footboard, bringing the rotorchair to a stop, then turned it around to face the way he'd come. To avoid flying back into his machine's trail of steam, he