Holy God, he thought. I hope this is a straight-shooting rifle.
But he knew Bates, and the only thing sharper than his mouth was his aim.
Declan pulled the rifle’s nose up a few inches to allow for the drop off, then a few to the left to compensate for the cross breeze. Marksmanship could be learned up to a point, but after that it was all natural talent.
Balloons and guns, thought Declan. Just like Paris the day you were born, Conor. But that time you came down with the balloon.
Declan felt his eyes blur and he blinked them clear, this was not the time for tears.
Conor, my son, your mother and brother need me now, but I will never forget you and what you did for the Saltees. Look down and see this as a sign.
Declan took a breath, held it, then caressed the trigger, leaning into his right foot to absorb the recoil. The nitroglycerine bullet sped from the extended barrel towards its target.
That’s for you, Conor, he thought, and the final Coronation Balloon exploded, brightly enough to be visible from heaven.
Behind him, the entire island roared in appreciation, except for Bonvilain, who seemed lost in thought, which was never good for the one being thought of.
Declan tossed the rifle to Bates. ‘Nice weapon you have there, Lieutenant, nearly as dangerous as your mouth.’
Even Bates was awed by this impossible shot. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That was a historic hit, Captain. Where do we stand on the beer now?’
But Declan was not listening; he was staring across the square, over the heads of the cheering mob. Catherine met his gaze across the distance. Her hands covered her nose and mouth; all he could see of that beautiful face were her dark eyes. In the orange glow of electric orbs, Declan could see that his wife was crying.
Her husband has come home.
The balloon exploded, flames igniting the fireworks pack before the fuse ever had the chance. The concussion perforated one of Conor’s eardrums and a riot of sparks peppered his skin like a million bee stings. He was engulfed in a cocoon of raging flame which ate his clothing and crisped the hairs on his arms and legs, singeing his beard back to the jawline. As serious as these injuries were, Conor had expected much worse.
Then gravity took hold, yanking him back to earth with invisible threads. Down he went, too shocked to cry out. This had never been the plan. There was supposed to be ten fathoms of rope between him and the balloon, dangerous certainly, but a lot healthier than riding the balloon itself.
There was something he was supposed to do. The plan had a next stage surely.
Of course! The device!
Conor forced his good hand down against the airflow, pulling aside the smouldering remnants of his jacket.
My God! There were sparks on the device.
The device was, of course, a parachute. Aeronauts had been jumping out of balloons for almost a century with varying success. In America, dropping animals from balloons had become popular after the Civil War. But jumps had only been performed as entertainment, in perfect weather conditions. Rarely at night, hardly ever from an altitude under 6,000 feet and positively never with a flaming parachute.
Conor located the release cord and pulled. He’d been forced to pack his chute carefully into a flour bag then strap it across his chest. He could only pray that the lines would come out untangled, or else the parachute would not even open. As it was, at this low altitude it was quite possible that the parachute would not have time to spread at all, and would merely provide him with a shroud for his watery grave.
The release cord was sewn to the tip of a tiny parachute, much like those Victor and Conor had often used to sail wooden mannequins from the palace turrets. In theory, the drag on this parachute would be enough to pull out the larger one. This was one of the many new ideas Conor had scrawled in the mud at the back of his cell. He had hoped, at the time, that all of his inventions would not have to be tested in such outrageous circumstances.
Though Conor did not see it happen, his small parachute performed perfectly, slipping from its niche like a baby marsupial from the pouch. It shivered in the wind for a moment, then popped its mouth open, catching the air. Its fall was instantly slowed, while Conor’s was not. The resulting tension dragged the larger parachute into the night air. The silk rustled past Conor’s face, bouncing the wind in its folds.
No tangled lines. No snagged folds. Please, God.
His prayers were answered, and the white silk of the parachute sprang open to its limits cleanly, with a noise like cannon shot. The severity of the deceleration caused the harness straps to snap hard against Conor’s back, leaving an x-shaped rope burn that he would carry for the rest of his life.
Conor was largely beyond rational thought now and could only wonder why the moon seemed to be following him. Not only that, but it appeared to be on fire. Angry orange sparks chewed away large sections, so that he could see the stars through the holes.
Not the moon. My parachute.
It seemed to Conor then, that he was still in his cell, in the planning stages and his imagination was throwing up possible problems.
If sparks from the balloon catch on the parachute silk, that will indeed be a dire development, because it will mean that someone has shot the balloon, in spite of me loosing it from the wall. If this happens, I can only hope that my velocity has decreased sufficiently to make a water landing survivable.
Conor’s descent was steady enough now that he could distinguish sea from sky. Below him the islands were rushing up fast. He could see Isabella’s palace and of course the Great Saltee Wall, with its rows of electric lamps, that had been described by The New York Times as the First Wonder of the Industrial World.
If I could steer, Conor thought, the lights would guide me in.
The boats spun below him in a maelstrom of light. Quickly the largest of the boats filled his vision and he realized that he would land there. There was no avoiding the craft. It loomed from the black depths like one of Darwin’s bioelectric jellyfish.
Conor felt no particular sadness, more the disappointment of a scientist whose experiment has failed.
Ten feet left and I might have survived, he thought. Science is indeed a slave to nature.
But chance had one more freakish card to play on this night of unlikely extremes. A heartbeat after his parachute dissolved into blackened embers, Conor crashed into the royal yacht Victoria and Albert II at a speed of some forty miles an hour. He hit the third starboard lifeboat, slicing a clean rent in the blue tarpaulin, which would not be noticed for two days. Below the tarpaulin was a bed of cork lifejackets, temporarily stored there until hooks could be hung to hold them.
Two days earlier and the recently requisitioned jackets would not have been on-board, three days later and they would have been distributed about the yacht.
Despite the parachute and tarpaulin, Conor’s bulk and speed drove him through the cork to the deck. His dislocated shoulder punched through to the floorboards, where he bounced once then came to rest.
The bilges must be spotless, he thought dimly. Nothing to smell but wood and paint.
And then: I do believe the impact righted my shoulder. What are the odds? Astronomical.
This was his final thought before oblivion claimed him. Conor Broekhart did not move a muscle for the rest of the night. He dreamed vividly but in two colours only: crimson and gold.
