Read Conquerors of the Sky Online
Authors: Thomas Fleming
Conquerors of the Sky (12 page)
When Frank looked down again, Sammy's body was on the grass, arms flung out in a final plea. Buzz was circling above her. Somehow he had pulled out of the dive.
Only as Frank landed did he realize that he and Buzz were the bereaved parents of William Craig McCall, already known as Billyâthe son of the uncaring sky.
It took Adrian Van Ness several months to absorb the discovery that his mother and Geoffrey Tillotson were lovers. Already adept at masking his feelings, Adrian was able to deal coolly, affably with both of them at business and on social occasions. But the revelation inevitably affected his feelings for his wife. From a figure of pity and sympathy, Amanda became a burden, a walking, talking mistake.
Amanda also changed her mind about him. Their disagreement over Oakes Ames meant a great deal to her. She brought it up again and again until Adrian finally told her he was sick of arguing about it. Having jettisoned idealism, he found it hard to grasp how much it still meant to Amanda. She blamed his fall from grace on Geoffrey Tillotson, whom she saw changing her sensitive poet into a hard-hearted bankerâthe sort of grasping amoral capitalist her father had fought in California.
Adrian also grew irked by Amanda's inabilityâhe saw it as unwillingnessâto adapt to their social life. When she accompanied him to house parties, she was intimidated by the upper class. She thought they were snubbing her. Adrian tried to explain the difference between English and American manners. “Just because they don't use your first name doesn't mean they're unfriendly,” he said.
“I know when I'm being snubbed, Adrian,” Amanda insisted. “You're so eager to kowtow to them, you barely notice it.”
“There's no need for you to come. I'm perfectly happy to kowtow on my own,” Adrian said.
A few weeks after that nasty exchange, Adrian was invited to a house party in Sussex. Amanda, wheezing and sneezing with her worst cold yet, stayed in London. The house was Ravenswood, country home of Lord Elgin, chairman of the Cunard Line. It had a hundred rooms and at least that many servants. Around it were miles of woods and fields where guests shot grouse and hunted foxes.
The weather was cold and rainy. After unpacking, Adrian descended to the great hall and drank mulled wine before a blazing fire. A small dark-eyed brunette joined him, introducing herself as Beryl Suydam. She ordered sherry, remarking she was half frozen.
“What brings you here? Are you a member of the family?” Adrian asked.
“I was engaged to Lord Elgin's son, William. He was killed on the Somme.”
“Oh. I'mâsorry.”
“Don't be. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. At least, that's what they want us to think.”
“Are you inclined to blame someone?”
“Yes. But I don't know who.”
Her bitterness coincided with Adrian's inchoate sense of betrayal and his deeper melancholy about history's pain. He felt an extraordinarily powerful attraction to dark, mournful Beryl Suydam. This was a woman who was grappling with more than a personal loss. She was trying to think about her pain historically, as Adrian had struggled to do since boyhood.
“What was he likeâyour fiance?” Adrian asked.
“He was quite homely. A great lumbering bear of a man. But with the kindest heart, the most sympathetic nature I've ever seen. He was deeply interested in the social question. If he lived I think he might well have led a bloodless revolution in this country. He was not your ordinary aristocrat.”
“A tragedy for youâand England,” Adrian said.
“Beryl darling.” Lady Elgin, a tall elegant blonde, clutched Beryl's hands and kissed her on the cheek.
Beryl introduced her to Adrian. “Are you married?” Lady Elgin asked.
Adrian reluctantly admitted he was. Lady Elgin sighed. “I drag Beryl to these parties because I want her to meet some eligible men. They're few and far between to her discriminating taste.”
Beryl smiled gravely. “I'd like to pay a visit tomorrow. Will you come?”
Lady Elgin's good cheer disintegrated. “Oh, my darling girl. I don't think so. There's such a thing as too much sorrow. Edward's forbidden me to go there. I think he's right.”
More guests arrived in the great hall. Lady Elgin regained her social smile and began greeting them. Among them were Clarissa Van Ness and Geoffrey Tillotson. Adrian enjoyed his mother's inquisitive glance at Beryl.
“Whatâwhereâare you going to visit?” Adrian asked.
“William's grave. It's about a mile away. On a lovely hill.”
“I hate to think of you going there alone. May I come with you?”
“You're very kind.”
“I lost some friends of my own on the Somme. From the Anson School. I'd much rather join you than make a fool of myself on horseback or shooting.”
Adrian was a terrible shot and his enthusiasm for fox hunting was sharply curtailed by the memory of Robert Van Ness's fatal accident.
“Do you object to killing birds and beasts on principle?”
“If you think I should, I'll become a fanatic on the subject.”
“I object to killing anything,” Beryl Suydam said with sudden vehemence.
The next day, rain poured down but the shooters, the beaters, the whole party, struggled into macs and wellies and vanished into the drizzle. Adrian and Beryl enjoyed a second coffee before the fire and donned similar raingear for the walk to Viscount William Elgin's grave.
The rain stopped as they labored up the modest hill. An ancient cast-iron fence surrounded the two dozen graves, each guarded by a simple headstone. From the crest the rolling Sussex countryside, with its thick woods and pastures, was visible for several miles. Beryl opened the gate with a key and walked to William's grave.
“I used to bring flowers,” she said. “I don't anymore. Maybe that's a good sign.”
She did not kneel or say any sort of prayer that Adrian could detect. This was sorrow untouched by religious faith. Sympathy in its root meaningâthe same feelingâstirred Adrian. He wanted to love or at least console this dark-haired wounded woman although history may have destroyed the very possibility of her loving him in return. For some reason he liked that idea.
The rain came down again. They walked back to Ravenswood while hunting guns thundered in the distance. William, the large-hearted nobleman with a social conscience, walked beside them, an invisible, formidable third. Adrian resolved to challenge him.
“Five years is a long time to mourn someone.”
“It isn't just William's death. My father was a surgeon in France. What he saw there has left him a wreck. He can barely practice. I worked as a nurse, here. I saw some of the same things. I'll never forget what one man told meâthe soldiers in the trenches hated everyone back here, enjoying the English way of life. We were their executioners.”
“No you weren't. You were allâall of usâwereâareâhistory's victims. Once you realize that, once you realize history's essential barbarism, you can begin to accept itâ”
Beryl's face was almost invisible in the recesses of her hooded green mackintosh. “I like that idea,” she said.
“It helps if you share the experience with another person.”
“Where shall I find this historical hero?”
“He doesn't have to be heroic. We're talking about spiritual courage. That may occur in the most unlikely peopleâeven in those who detest killing birds and beastsâand human beings.”
Adrian yearned to tell her about his ruined father, his faithless mother, his naive California wife. But it was too soon. Beryl seemed to retreat deeper inside her green hood. They trudged silently through the rain, which had turned to a fine cold mist. Adrian sensed the third's looming presence.
“Have I made a fool of myself?” Adrian said.
“No,” Beryl said.
That night after dinner Adrian sat down next to his mother and told her about the remarkable young woman he had met today. “She's very knowing,” he said. “She tells me these house parties are really nothing but discreet assignations. Half the guests here are seeing each other illicitly, as the tabloids say.”
“I'm sure that's an exaggeration,” Clarissa said.
“Ah, here he is,” Geoffrey Tillotson said, handing Clarissa a demitasse. “I've got a man over there who's ready to put a million pounds into an airline somewhereâAustralia, America. Convince him of the glorious possibilities in your native land.”
He nodded toward a rotund Liverpool shipping executive named Edward Jenkins. He had sideburns that reminded Adrian of his Anson headmaster, Mr. Deakwell.
“I wish I could stay in London a bit longer,” Clarissa said. “But I must get home. There are so many things to do.”
“I'mâI'm sorry to hear that,” Tillotson said, sitting down on the couch opposite her like a man who has suddenly had a heavy sack dumped in his lap. Adrian strolled over to sell a paper airline to the man from Liverpool.
When a young man is angry at someone, it comes out in cruel ways. But retaliation never solves the deeper more dangerous anger at fate. That required a father's mediationâand a son's acceptance. For the time being Adrian had no fatherâand he was no man's son. He was at war with his world. As in most wars, the first victim was an innocentâAmanda.
The Waco 10 biplane came in low and fast, just missing a line of eucalyptus trees. Frank Buchanan slammed the plane down for a rough three-point landing and bounced ten feet into the air. A crouching man scuttled beneath him. The Waco came down for another tremendous bounce and headed toward a second line of eucalyptus trees on the other side of the field.
In a perfect imitation of a pilot who had lost control of his plane, Frank tore between two of the trees. He sheared off the right wings within two feet of the fuselage. The left wings lost only their tips. Still going fifty miles an hour, the Waco flipped on her side and Frank dove into the bottom of the cockpit to keep his head from being mashed into the dirt. The plane hurtled to a cracking, crunching stop, the propeller spewing up sod until it splintered.
Silence except for the
plop
of leaking gasoline. Frank struggled to unfasten his safety belt. Pounding feet. Hands reached to help him. They dragged him away from the plane, yelling “Are you okay?” He nodded. As far as he could tell, he still had the use of his arms and legs.
plop
of leaking gasoline. Frank struggled to unfasten his safety belt. Pounding feet. Hands reached to help him. They dragged him away from the plane, yelling “Are you okay?” He nodded. As far as he could tell, he still had the use of his arms and legs.
“That was great,” cried the excited unit director. He was standing in an open truck with the cameras. “I can hardly wait to see the rushes.”
Buzz McCall was waiting on the other side of the field, his arm around the picture's second lead, a sultry Theda Bara-type named Tama Moreno. “Nice going, sport,” Buzz said. “Now we can have a party instead of a funeral.”
It was the last stunt on their list for this movie, a comedy called
Loop the Loop,
about a rich idiot learning to fly. Tomorrow they would collect two thousand dollars for two weeks of risking their necks. They had wrecked four planes and come close to smashing a half-dozen more, flying them upside down under bridges and around telephone poles. As usual, Buzz had done the really dangerous stunts, leaving the obvious ones like crash landings to Frank.
Loop the Loop,
about a rich idiot learning to fly. Tomorrow they would collect two thousand dollars for two weeks of risking their necks. They had wrecked four planes and come close to smashing a half-dozen more, flying them upside down under bridges and around telephone poles. As usual, Buzz had done the really dangerous stunts, leaving the obvious ones like crash landings to Frank.
They had gone into the movie stunt business after trying several other ways to make a living in aviation after Sammy's death. Frank had been adamant about
getting out of the barnstorming game. He told Buzz it was Sammy's last wish and they had to fulfill it. That did not solve the problem of what to do with one-month-old Billy McCall. At first they tried boarding him with Frank's mother but her hostility to the boy disturbed Frank. She told him Billy was not a child of light or of darkness. She did not know what he was. They moved Buzz's widowed mother from Detroit and set her up in a house in Laguna Beach with the infant. It took six hundred dollars a month to pay the mortgage and support themâmore money than most people were making from planes in the twenties.
getting out of the barnstorming game. He told Buzz it was Sammy's last wish and they had to fulfill it. That did not solve the problem of what to do with one-month-old Billy McCall. At first they tried boarding him with Frank's mother but her hostility to the boy disturbed Frank. She told him Billy was not a child of light or of darkness. She did not know what he was. They moved Buzz's widowed mother from Detroit and set her up in a house in Laguna Beach with the infant. It took six hundred dollars a month to pay the mortgage and support themâmore money than most people were making from planes in the twenties.
At first they tried flying the mail. Their old barnstorming buddy, Charles Lindbergh, recommended it. The pay was eight hundred dollars a month, which left them enough to do some carousingâa must with Buzz. But the risks were so hair-raising, even he started to wonder if they were out of their minds. The planes had no instruments and a lot of the flying was at night. As a pilot came in for a landing, he had to listen to the sound of the wind whistling through the struts to estimate his airspeed.
Flying through clouds, pilots became completely disoriented and flipped upside down and spun to their dooms. There were no official weather reports. A pilot had to land and ask local farmers their opinion of what tomorrow might bring. Worst of all was the cold. Even with bulky bearskin suits, the below-zero wind whipping through holes in the base of the windshields was agonizing. Soon a pilot was so numb he no longer cared whether he lived or died. Many died. Planes crashed by the dozen. Twice Lindbergh escaped death by bailing out at the last second.
Buzz got a better idea. On a mail flight to Houston, he met the state's richest bootlegger. The gangster offered ten thousand dollars to build a plane big enough to carry two hundred cases of Scotch per flight from Mexico. Frank spent three months designing and constructing a gullwinged monoplane with this awesome load capacity. To his disgust the bootlegger refused to pay another thousand dollars for a decent engine. They had to settle for a motor from a Curtiss-Wright Jenny. The plane needed about a mile to take off and could barely maintain a survivable airspeed.
They wobbled back and forth from Mexico in this flying disgrace for several months, making money for their employer and a fair amount for themselves. One day they heard a strange sound, a sort of angry thud in the fuselage. “I'd swear that was a bullet,” Buzz said.
Frank saw numerous white clusters of smoke on the ground. A lot of people were down there shooting at them. The bootlegger's friends apparently disliked airborne competition. After a few more trips the plane looked like a flying sieve. This did not improve its handling characteristics. Buzz decided it was time to try to get back into the Army Air Service, where dodging bullets would be an honorable profession if a war started.
Old friends such as Jimmy Doolittle and George Kenney, still flying World War Iâvintage crates, told him to forget it. The Air Corps was the Army's unloved, unwanted stepchild. General Billy Mitchell was in imminent danger
of being court-martialed for complaining about it. They flew back to California with about ten thousand dollars from their Scotch running and tried to find someone who would back Frank's monoplane with a real engine in it.
of being court-martialed for complaining about it. They flew back to California with about ten thousand dollars from their Scotch running and tried to find someone who would back Frank's monoplane with a real engine in it.
They built another version of the plane. But no one could see beyond the struts and wire biplanes being used by the army and the airmail service. Broke again, Buzz took charge and did the only thing that occurred to himâuse his skills as a pilot to get a cut of the tidal wave of cash pouring into Hollywood. By this time Sammy had been dead almost three yearsâand he was also ready to enjoy the other commodity that Hollywood had in abundance: beautiful women.
Enjoyment was the watchword of the party to celebrate the completion of
Loop the Loop
. The festivities got going around 8:00. The movie company had rented all the bungalows around a small lake near Modesto. The star, a baby-faced blonde named Mabel Durand, had the biggest bungalow, of course. Everyone called it the Villa Modestoânot a bad joke, if you knew Mabel. Modesty was not among her virtues. The villa was party headquarters but they had the whole lake to themselves, which fueled an exorbitant excitement in everyone.
Loop the Loop
. The festivities got going around 8:00. The movie company had rented all the bungalows around a small lake near Modesto. The star, a baby-faced blonde named Mabel Durand, had the biggest bungalow, of course. Everyone called it the Villa Modestoânot a bad joke, if you knew Mabel. Modesty was not among her virtues. The villa was party headquarters but they had the whole lake to themselves, which fueled an exorbitant excitement in everyone.
In Mabel's bathroom was a tub full of iced champagne. For those with cruder palates, there was Scotch, bourbon, and gin, all guaranteed to have genuine labels, direct from Canada. Mabel's favorite bootlegger, a bullnecked Italian from San Francisco, had brought it in by plane earlier in the day. There was also plenty of cocaine on the side, delivered by a cheerful Mexican who was kicked out for daring to think he could snort with the Anglos.
Before everyone got too drunk, they had to see a rough cut of the film, which they spiced with exuberantly obscene comments. As usual, Tama Moreno had lined up one of the extras for Frank. She was a blonde from Texas named Gloria, a good ole cowgirl. She drawled about her heart bein' half out of her mouth when he crashed the Waco. After that gush of praise, conversation became a desperate struggle.
Buzz could never figure out why Frank wanted to talk to them in the first place. “Let them talk to each other,” he said, a piece of wisdom that virtually echoed Craig.
By ten o'clock the party was taking off. Everyone was drunk and the grips were starting to snort cocaine. A black band was floating around the lake on a raft, playing New Orleans jazz. Buzz decided it would be fun to throw them into the water and see how well they played wet. Their British director organized a rowboat flotilla and commanded it Lord Nelson-style, screaming at every man to do his duty. They threw the terrified musicians into the lake, ignoring their pleas that they could not swim. Frank and a few others sensitive to race relations rescued them. They were left to shiver in their sodden clothes on Mabel's porch while the director staged a scene from
Anthony and Cleopatra,
the way he claimed it was played in ancient Egypt.
Anthony and Cleopatra,
the way he claimed it was played in ancient Egypt.
On a barge christened the HMS
Pussy,
Mabel and her ladies in waiting wore nothing at all. Floodlights were used to guarantee no one missed a detail. Mabel
did a shimmy while her ladies Charlestoned around her. It was memorable. All that female pulchritude gyrating and jiggling in the white intensity of the ten-thousand-candlepower lights. “Hieronymus Bosch, Rabelais, Breughelâit beats them all!” the director shrilled.
Pussy,
Mabel and her ladies in waiting wore nothing at all. Floodlights were used to guarantee no one missed a detail. Mabel
did a shimmy while her ladies Charlestoned around her. It was memorable. All that female pulchritude gyrating and jiggling in the white intensity of the ten-thousand-candlepower lights. “Hieronymus Bosch, Rabelais, Breughelâit beats them all!” the director shrilled.
Buzz commandeered a crew of stripped galley slaves in one of the larger rowboats who towed the HMS
Pussy
around the lake to massed applause from the drinkers and sniffers on shore. From another boat the director filmed the whole thing and shrieked he was sending it to
Ripley's Believe or Not
to claim the record for the most pubic hair in a single frame.
Pussy
around the lake to massed applause from the drinkers and sniffers on shore. From another boat the director filmed the whole thing and shrieked he was sending it to
Ripley's Believe or Not
to claim the record for the most pubic hair in a single frame.
By midnight the orgy was in the stratosphere. The jazzmen had gotten into the champagne and cocaine and were playing very strange music, a dissonant assortment of howls and groans and wails. Buzz reeled past with his hand in Tama's black pussy. “Ain't this livin', Sport?” he roared. “I just fucked Mabel. Put in a good word for my ole wingman. Go for it, kiddo. She liked the way you crashed that plane.”
Whether he took Buzz's advice, Frank was unsure. He dimly recalled swimming to the raft but the next thing he clearly remembered was a bungalow room with Gloria. She had shed her clothes and was telling him she liked to get on top. She liked almost everything, including Tama, who was in the room too, giving them instructions. Gloria and Tama went down on each other while half the crew, including Mabel and the director with his ubiquitous camera, screamed encouragement.
Suddenly a voice boomed in Frank's head.
Ain't this living?
It was Buzz's words but the voice seemed to belong to his brother Craig. Instead of the swaggering satisfaction in Buzz's question, the voice seemed mocking, almost contemptuous. Dazed, Frank slowly backed away from the two groaning, panting women on the bed. He shoved through the drunken crowd and stumbled to the shore of the lake in the darkness.
Ain't this living?
boomed the voice.
Ain't this living?
It was Buzz's words but the voice seemed to belong to his brother Craig. Instead of the swaggering satisfaction in Buzz's question, the voice seemed mocking, almost contemptuous. Dazed, Frank slowly backed away from the two groaning, panting women on the bed. He shoved through the drunken crowd and stumbled to the shore of the lake in the darkness.
Ain't this living?
boomed the voice.
Pulling on a discarded shirt and pants, Frank wandered forlornly around the lake wishing he had hit the left-hand tree head-on in the Waco. Wishing, wondering, weeping in the darkness, while the jazzmen howled despair on the wind. Maybe the best thing to do was walk into the lake and abandon the mess he was making of his life.
He was sick of risking his neck for two hundred dollars a stunt, sick of crashing planes instead of building them. He knew why he could not find a backer to build the planes flying in his head. Most people found it hard to believe that Frank Buchanan, with his sloppy clothes, his rambling swooping conversation, which could leap from planes to poetry to mystical religion in a single sentence, was businessman enough to run a company, pay his bills and produce a given number of planes according to a contract.
For the past six months he had been begging Buzz to join him in another try at manufacturing. Buzz had the toughness, the leadership qualities, to get things done on schedule. But Buzz had fallen in love with the movies. He had already played a daring pilot in two films and Tama Moreno, among others,
thought he had a future as an actor. Frank knew what he was really doingâusing broads and booze to drown his dreams of warrior gloryâand forget Sammy and her son, Billy.
thought he had a future as an actor. Frank knew what he was really doingâusing broads and booze to drown his dreams of warrior gloryâand forget Sammy and her son, Billy.
Frank refused to forget Sammyâand to Tama Moreno's barely concealed chagrin, he made sure Buzz did not forget Billy. He insisted on a ritual weekly visit. He frequently reminded Buzz that Sammy did not want their son to become a barnstorming bum like his two fathers. She would have had the same opinion of stunt-flying bums. They made more money than barnstorming bums but they were still moral and spiritual disasters.
“Excuse me, mister. Have you seen my mother? The lady was supposed to stay with me but she left me all alone and there was all kinds of noises and I'm scared.”
The voice belonged to a small figure a half-dozen cautious feet away in the darkness. It was Cliff, Tama Moreno's six-year-old son by a vanished husband. She took the boy on location with her, claiming she had no relatives or friends to mind him. He was one of the reasons she liked Buzz. She thought he was the kind of father Cliff neededâa man's man.
The little boy reminded Frank of Billy, the only person in the world Frank loved at this forlorn point in his life. “There's nothing to be afraid of,” he said, putting his arm around him. “You know me. I'm Frank. Buzz's friend. We'll sit here together for a while and talk about planes. Do you like them?”
“Sure.”
“Would you want to learn to fly them some day?”
“I guess so.”
“You're not sure?”
“If they crash you can get hurtâeven killedâcan't you?”
“Not if you're a good pilot.”
Frank described the new planes that were appearing in the American skyâthe Ford trimotor, the Sikorsky seaplane, lumbering creatures that were lucky to go 115 miles an hour. He told Cliff someday they would have planes that could whiz across the continent in a single day. Even fly the Atlantic and Pacific.
“Hey, Sport, where the hell have you been? We were gettin' ready to drag the lake.”
It was Buzz, followed by Tama. The night sky was turning gray. It was almost dawn. Tama exploded when she saw Cliff. Why wasn't he in bed? He tried to explain as she dragged him back to their cottage on the other side of the lake.
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