“Ready?” asked Sabriel as she settled the bandoleer across her chest and adjusted the strap.
“Ready,” confirmed Touchstone. “Or as ready as I’m going to get. I hate flying at the best of times, let alone in one of those unreliable Ancelstierran machines.”
“I expect it’s going to be worse than usual,” said Sabriel, “but I don’t think we have any choice.”
“Of course,” sighed Touchstone. “I hesitate to ask – in what particular way will it be worse than usual?”
“Because, unless I miss my guess,” said Sabriel, “Jorbert will have flown his wife out in the two-seater Beskwith. That will leave his single-seater Humbert Twelve. We are going to have to lie on the wings.”
“I am always amazed at what you know,” said Touchstone. “I am at a loss with these machines. All of Jorbert’s flying conveyances looked the same to me.”
“Unfortunately they are not,” said Sabriel. “But there is no other way home that I can think of. Not if we are to make Barhedrin before the end of Anstyr’s Day. Come on!”
She strode out of the room and did not pause to look back to see if Touchstone was following. Of course, he was.
Jorbert’s flying school was a very small affair, not much more than a hobby for the retired Flying Corps colonel. There was a single hangar a hundred yards from his comfortable extended farmhouse. The hangar sat on the corner of Wyverley College’s West Field which, suitably lined with yellow-painted oil drums, served as the runway.
Sabriel was correct about the aeroplane. There was only one, a boxy green single-seater biplane that to Touchstone looked as if it depended far too much on its many supporting struts and wires all holding together.
Felicity, almost unrecognisable in helmet, goggles and fur flying suit, was already in the cockpit. Another girl stood by the propeller, and there were two more crouched by the wheels under the fuselage.
“You’ll have to lie on the wings,” shouted Felicity cheerfully. “I forgot that the Colonel took the Beskwith. Don’t worry, it’s not that difficult. There are handholds. I’ve done it heaps of times... well, twice... and I’ve wing walked too.”
“Handholds,” muttered Touchstone. “Wing walking.”
“Quiet,” ordered Sabriel. “Don’t upset our pilot.”
She climbed nimbly up the left side and laid herself across the wing, taking a secure hold on the two handgrips. Her bells were a nuisance, but she was used to that.
Touchstone climbed less nimbly up the right side – and almost put his foot through the wing. Disturbed to find it was only fabric stretched over a wooden frame, he lay down with extreme care and tugged hard on the handholds. They didn’t come off, as he had half expected they might.
“Ready?” asked Felicity.
“Ready!” shouted Sabriel.
“I suppose so,” muttered Touchstone. Then, much louder, he called out a hearty “Yes!”
“Contact!” ordered Felicity. The girl at the front spun the propeller expertly and stepped back. The prop swung around as the engine coughed, faltered for a moment, then sped up into a blur as the engine caught.
“Chocks away!”
The other girls pulled at their ropes, dragging out to either side the chocks that held the wheels. The plane rocked forward, then slowly bumped around in a slow arc till it was lined up on the runway and facing the wind. The sound of the engine rose higher and the plane started forward, bumping even more, as if it were an ungainly bird that needed to jump and flap a long way to get airborne.
Touchstone watched the ground ahead, his eyes watering as their speed increased. He had expected the plane to take off like a Paperwing – fairly quickly and with ease and elan. But as they sped down the field, and the low stone wall at the northern end grew closer and closer, he realised that he knew nothing about Ancelstierran aircraft. Obviously they would leap into the sky sharply at the very end of the field.
Or not, he thought a few seconds later. They were still on the ground and the wall was only twenty or thirty paces in front of them. He started to think it would be better to let go and try and jump away from the imminent wreck. But he couldn’t see Sabriel on the other wing, and he wasn’t going to jump without her.
The plane lurched sideways and bounced up into the air. Touchstone sighed with relief as they cleared the wall with inches to spare, then yelled as they went back down again. The ground came up hard, and he was too winded to do anything else as they bounced again and then were finally climbing into the sky.
“Sorry!” shouted Felicity, her voice barely audible over the engine and the rush of air. “Heavier than usual. I forgot.”
He could hear Sabriel shouting something on the other side but could not hear the words. Whatever it was, Felicity was nodding her head. Almost immediately the plane began to spiral back to the south, gaining height. Touchstone nodded to himself. They would need to get as high as they could in order to have the greatest gliding range. With a north wind, it was likely the engine would fail within ten miles of the Wall. So they would have to be able to glide at least that far, and preferably a bit further. It would not do to land in the Perimeter.
Not that landing in the Old Kingdom would be easy. Touchstone looked at the fabric wing shivering above him and hoped that most of the plane was man-made. For if parts of it were not, they would fall apart too soon, the common fate of Ancelstierran devices and machinery once they were across the Wall.
“I am never flying again,” muttered Touchstone. Then he remembered Ellimere’s message. If they did manage to land on the other side of the Wall and get to Barhedrin, then they would have to fly somewhere in a Paperwing, to engage in a battle with an unknown Enemy of unknown powers.
Touchstone’s face set in grim lines at that thought. He would welcome that battle. He and Sabriel had struggled too long against opponents manipulated from afar. Now whatever it was had come out in the open, and it would face the combined forces of the King, the Abhorsen and the Clayr.
Provided, of course, that the King and the Abhorsen managed to survive this flight.
part three
chapter seventeen
coming home to
ancelstierre
Wind’s veering nor-noreast, sir,” reported Yeoman Prindel as he watched the arrow on the wind gauge, which was mechanically linked to the weathervane several floors above them. As the arrow swung, the electric lights overhead flickered and went out, leaving the room lit by only two rather smoky hurricane lamps. Prindel looked at his watch, which had stopped, and then at the striped time candle between the hurricane lamps. “Electric failure at approximately 16:49.”
“Very good, Prindel,” replied Lieutenant Drewe. “Order the switch to oil and sound general quarters. I’m going up to the light.”
“Aye aye, sir,” replied Prindel. He uncovered a speaking tube and bawled down it, “Switch to oil! General quarters! I say again, general quarters!”
“Aye aye!” came echoing out the speaking tube, followed by the scream of a hand-cranked siren and the clang of a cracked handbell, both of which could be heard throughout the lighthouse.
Drewe shrugged on his blue duffel coat and strapped on a broad leather belt that supported both a revolver and a cutlass. His blue steel helmet, adorned with the crossed golden keys emblem that proclaimed his current post as the Keeper of the Western Light, completed his equipment. The helmet had belonged to his predecessor and was slightly too large, so Drewe always felt a bit like a fool when he put it on, but regulations were regulations.
The control room was five floors below the light. As Drewe climbed steadily up the steps, he met Able Seaman Kerrick rushing down.