It all came back in a rush: Karen had agreed to fly him to England in the Hornet Moth.
He sat upright suddenly, displacing Pinetop, who leaped to the floor with an indignant yowl.
The danger was that they might both be caught, arrested, and killed. What made him happy, despite that, was that he would be spending hours alone with Karen. Not that he thought anything romantic would happen. He realized she was out of his league. But he could not help how he felt about her. Even if he was never going to kiss her, he was thrilled at the thought of how long they would be together. It was not just the journey, though that would be the climax. Before they could take off they would have to spend days working on the aircraft.
But the whole plan depended on whether he could repair the Hornet Moth. Last night, with only a flashlight for illumination, he had not been able to inspect it thoroughly. Now, with the rising sun shining through the high windows over the apse, he could assess the magnitude of the task.
He washed at the cold tap in the corner, pulled on his clothes, and began his examination.
The first thing he noticed was a long piece of stout rope tied to the undercarriage. What was that for? He thought for a minute, then realized it was for moving the aircraft when the engine was off. With the wings folded, it might be difficult to find a point at which to push the machine, but the rope would enable someone to pull it around like a cart.
Just then, Karen arrived.
She was casually dressed in shorts and sandals, showing off her long, strong legs. Her curly hair was freshly washed and stood out around her head in a coppery cloud. Harald thought angels must look like that. What a tragedy it would be if she died in the adventure that was ahead of them.
It was too early to talk of dying, he told himself. He had not even begun to repair the aircraft. And, in the clear light of morning, it looked a more daunting task.
Like Harald, Karen was pessimistic this morning. Yesterday she had been excited by the prospect of adventure. Today she took a more gloomy view. “I’ve been thinking about mending this thing,” she said. “I’m not sure it can be done, especially in ten days-nine, now.”
Harald felt the onset of the stubborn mood that always came over him when someone told him he could not do something. “We’ll see,” he said.
“You’ve got that look,” she observed.
“What?”
“The look that says you don’t want to hear what’s being said.”
“I haven’t got a look,” he said tetchily.
She laughed. “Your teeth are clenched, your mouth is turned down at the corners, and you’re frowning.”
He was forced to smile, and in truth he was pleased that she noticed his expression.
“That’s better,” she said.
He began to study the Hornet Moth with an engineer’s eye. When he first saw it, he had thought its wings were broken, but Arne had explained that they were folded back for easy storage. Harald looked at the hinges by which they were attached to the fuselage. “I think I could refit the wings,” he said.
“That’s easy. Our instructor, Thomas, did it every time he put the aircraft away. It only takes a few minutes.” She touched the nearer wing. “The fabric is in a bad state, though.”
The wings and the fuselage were made of wood covered with a fabric that had been treated with some kind of paint. On the upper surface, Harald could see the stitches where the fabric was attached to the ribs with thick thread. The paint was cracked and crazed, and the fabric was torn in places. “It’s only superficial damage,” Harald said. “Does it matter?”
“Yes. The rips in the fabric might interfere with the airflow over the wings.”
“So we need to patch them. I’m more worried about the undercarriage.”
The aircraft had been in some kind of accident, probably an awkward landing such as Arne had described. Harald knelt down to look more closely at the landing gear. The solid steel stub axle appeared to have two prongs that fitted into a V-shaped strut. The V-strut was made of oval steel tube, and both arms of the V had creased and buckled at their weakest point, presumably just beyond the ends of the stub axle. They looked as if they would easily break. A third strut, that looked to Harald like a shock absorber, appeared undamaged. Nevertheless, the undercarriage was clearly too weak for a landing.
“I did that,” Karen said.
“You crashed?”
“I landed in a crosswind and swerved sideways. The wingtip hit the ground.”
It sounded terrifying. “Were you scared?”
“No, I just felt such a fool, but Tom said it’s not uncommon in a Hornet Moth. In fact he confessed he had done it himself once.”
Harald nodded. That fitted with what Arne had said. But there was something in the way she spoke about Thomas the instructor that made him feel jealous. “Why was it never repaired?”
“We don’t have the facilities here.” She waved at the workbench and the tool rack. “Tom could do minor repairs, and he was good with the engine, but this isn’t a metalwork shop, and we have no welding gear. Then Daddy had a minor heart attack. He’s fine, but it meant he would never get a pilot’s licence, and he lost interest in learning to fly. So the work never got done.”
That was discouraging, Harald thought. How was he going to do metalwork? He walked to the tail and examined the wing that had hit the ground. “It doesn’t seem to be fractured,” he said. “I can easily repair the tip.”
“You can’t tell,” she said gloomily. “One of the wooden spars inside might have been overloaded. There’s no way to be sure just by looking at the outside. And if a wing is weakened, the plane will crash.”
Harald studied the tailplane. Its rear half was hinged, and moved up and down: this was the elevator, he recalled. The upright rudder moved right and left. Looking more closely, he saw that they were controlled by wire cables that emerged from the fuselage. But the cables had been cut and removed. “What happened to the wire?” he said.
“I remember it being taken to repair some other machine.”
“That’s going to be a problem.”
“Only the last ten feet of each cable is missing-as far forward as the turnbuckle behind the access panel under the fuselage. The rest was too difficult to get at.”
“All the same, that’s forty feet, and you can’t buy cables-no one can get spare parts for anything. No doubt that’s why they were cannibalized in the first place.” Harald was beginning to feel overwhelmed by misgivings, but he deliberately spoke cheerfully. “Well, let’s see what else is wrong.” He moved to the nose. He found two catches on the right side of the fuselage, turned them, and opened the cowling, which was made of a thin metal that felt like tin but was probably aluminum. He studied the engine.
“It’s a four-cylinder in-line layout,” Karen said.
“Yes, but it seems to be upside-down.”
“By comparison with a car engine, yes. The crankshaft is at the top. That’s to raise the level of the propeller for ground clearance.”
Harald was surprised by her expertise. He had never met a girl who knew what a crankshaft was. “What was this Tom like?” he said, trying hard to keep the note of suspicion out of his voice.
“He was a great teacher, patient but encouraging.”
“Did you have a love affair with him?”
“Please! I was fourteen!”
“I bet you had a crush on him.”
She was miffed. “I suppose you think that’s the only reason a girl would learn about engines.”
Harald did think that, but he said, “No, no, I just noticed that you talked about him in a fond way. None of my business. The engine is air-cooled, I see.” There was no radiator, but the cylinders had cooling fins.
“I think all air-engines are, to save weight.”
He moved to the other side and opened the right cowling. All the fuel and oil hoses seemed to be firmly attached, and there were no outward signs of damage. He unscrewed the oil cap and checked the dipstick. There was still a little oil in the tank. “It looks okay,” he said. “Let’s see if it starts.”