Inherit the Skies (47 page)

There was only one person, he told her, with whom he would trust her as a pupil – and that person was Adam.

Sarah had heard this pronouncement with dismay. Marriage to Eric had done nothing to change her feelings for Adam. When he came into a room she still felt a little as if she were standing too close to the edge of a very high cliff; there were still times when she dreamed of him and woke bathed in a rosy glow of happiness until she remembered the reality – that she had lost him forever. For the most part she believed that she concealed her feelings successfully. They met seldom for he was away from Chewton Leigh a good deal and on the occasions when they were unable to avoid one another they each maintained a chilly politeness. But how different it would be if he were to be detailed to teach her to fly! They would be alone then for long periods with no-one else to break the awkward silences, no barrier of habit or protocol for protection. The prospect was at once tempting and terrifying and Sarah knew it would be the turn of the screw which would be quite unbearable. She loved Adam still; she simply could not trust herself to be alone with him. Regretfully she had abandoned her dream.

Now, sitting on the beach at Weston-super-Mare, Sarah remembered it briefly. But Annie was chattering on, oblivious as she always was these days to anything outside her world of domestic contentment.

‘It would have been so nice, wouldn't it, if Max and Eric had come with us as planned. Max sees so little of John I sometimes think one of these days John is going to ask me who his father is and why he doesn't come with us on holiday like other boys' daddies. And what am I to tell him? I don't understand myself what was so important just now that he and Eric had to cry off at such a late stage. It's so disappointing. After all, you got away, didn't you, Sarah? You didn't say work was more important. So why did they?'

Sarah refrained from answering. She did not wish to spoil her friend's enjoyment of the longed-for holiday by telling her now of the rumblings of international crisis she had been privy to at Morse Bailey or mentioning her own unease at the developing situation. It was disappointing, of course, when well-laid plans had to be disrupted but there were worse things. And Sarah had the uncomfortable feeling that this time, at any rate, Max and Eric had been right to put work before pleasure.

Sarah glanced along the beach at the thronging crowds. Everywhere, it seemed, people were making the most of the glorious weather. Family groups were gathered in deck-chairs and on rugs around laden picnic baskets, young people shrieked with laughter as they ran down the long expanse of muddy beach to splash and gambol in the fast retreating tide, older folk, with wide-brimmed hats or even knotted handkerchiefs to protect their heads turned their faces to the sun. A constant procession of girls emerged coyly from the ladies-only bathing machines in their gaily-coloured and voluminous costumes to the admiring glances of the young men. On the pier couples strolled arm in arm, some tucking into dishes of cockles and prawns which they had purchased from the sea food stalls, the men jaunty in their straw boaters, the girls keeping pace with them with some difficulty as they minced along in their up-to-the-minute ‘hobble skirts'. The entire scene was one of jollity and good carefree fun but somehow it did nothing to lighten Sarah's mood. Instead it served only to increase her creeping sense of foreboding.

‘Ah well, even without the men it's been a good holiday, hasn't it, and I dare say we shouldn't complain.' Annie lifted a pork pie from the picnic hamper. The crust shone with glaze and it was decorated with small pastry flowers. ‘Goodness, this looks delicious! The cook at our hotel is a wonder. I shall be going home fat as a house if I'm not careful.'

The sound of a newsboy's cry was blown along the beach by the stiff breeze and Sarah looked past Annie to see him plodding along the sand. ‘Evening Post! All the latest! Evening Post!'

‘I'm going to buy a paper.' Sarah reached for her bag but was arrested by Annie's touch on her arm. She looked up, surprised, and as her eyes met those of her friend she saw her own anxiety mirrored there.

‘Don't, Sarah. This is all so perfect. Don't spoil it.'

‘But I want to find out …'

‘Whatever it is we'll know soon enough. Oh, I expect you think I am just burying my head in the sand but we need good days, like this one, to make us strong for the bad ones. It's a little like having a post office savings account, except that we are banking happiness instead of money.' Annie's voice was urgent and reluctantly Sarah gave in. How strange, she thought, that for all Annie's apparent serenity the same dark fear was hovering around her heart.

‘All right, Annie,' she said, ‘we'll try to forget what's going on in the big wide world and just enjoy today.'

Annie nodded, relieved. The shadow left her eyes and as she called to the boys her tone was as carefree as it had been before.

‘John! Stephen! Lunch is ready now.'

The newsboy was wending his way back along the beach, his cries almost lost now in the shrieks of laughter from the holidaymakers and the plaintive cries of the seagulls as they wheeled above the receding tide and swooped in for crumbs thrown by the picnickers. But Sarah was unable to shut out reality as Annie seemed capable of doing. Deep inside a small voice was whispering to her that today would be forever burned into her mind and not for the carefree pleasures of a Bank Holiday spent on a sandy beach beneath a clear blue sky.

As usual Sarah's instincts were correct.

The day was 3rd August, the year was 1914. It was a date which would go down as one of the blackest ever in the annals of British history.

In Gilbert Morse's large and well-appointed office at the headquarters of Morse Bailey Aeroplane Company world events were also under discussion but here there was no drawing a veil over the harsh and threatening reality as Annie had done.

‘There is no doubt about it,' Gilbert said, lighting a cigarette and crossing to the window that overlooked the expanse of flat open land where the aeroplanes were tested, ‘things are looking very black indeed. If Germany proceed with their plan to violate Belgian neutrality then there will be no alternative but to keep our promises to King Albert and go to his assistance. Our ultimatum to the Kaiser expires at midnight their time. If he fails to agree to withdraw by then there will be no options left. We shall have to declare war on Germany.'

There was a moment's silence in the room. The bald statement came as no shock to them for they had watched helplessly all summer as the situation in Europe had grown steadily worse but to hear their darkest fears put into words, and by Gilbert Morse, the most far sighted and least sensational of men, put flesh on the skeletons of their nightmares.

After a moment Adam Bailey eased his long frame away from the table on which he had been perched.

‘I suppose it was inevitable it would come to this,' he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. ‘The Germans have been getting too big for their boots for some time. After the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered I suppose the chance to show their might by backing Austria against Serbia was too great a temptation for them.'

There was a murmur of agreement from the others assembled in the room but Leo de Vere thumped on the table petulantly.

‘That is all very well but I fail to see why the rest of Europe has to be drawn in. Let the Croats fight their own battles, I say.'

Gilbert threw him a look of distaste. Try as he might to like his wife's son he had no more patience with him now than he had when Leo had been a boy.

‘It's not as simple as that, Leo. First we have Germany supporting Austria and Hungary, then Russia come in on the side of the Serbians, dragging France and England along with it. I have no doubt Sir Edward Grey has done his best to keep the peace but if you want my honest opinion I believe that there are those in Europe who are set on war and matters moved too far too fast. It's a damnable business, of course, but we cannot desert our allies. If we do, God help us all, for the Kaiser is not so far from us either, just the other side of the North Sea – or the German Ocean as they insist on calling it – and if we fail to present a united front he will simply pick us off one by one.'

‘He'll do that anyway,' Leo argued. ‘The trouble is Germany is prepared for war and we are not.'

‘He's right there,' Max said. For once his mobile face wore an expression of extreme seriousness. ‘ The German army is a well-trained, well-equipped fighting force. Haldane has done his best to bring the Territorials up to strength and get the regular army up to scratch but the fact is we are heavily outnumbered. Thanks to Winston Churchill's foresight the fleet is gathered in the North Sea, of course, and that is something of a comfort. But no-one knows better than we do how many aeroplanes and trained pilots the Germans have compared to us. Not to mention their Zeppelins.'

Again there was a moment's silence while they ruminated on the unpalatable truth of Max's statement. Britain had lagged far behind the continent in the development of air services and although public opinion had forced some improvement the combined force of the Royal Flying Corps and the Naval Air Service could still muster less than 150 aircraft while the Germans were able to boast many times that number, in addition to the nine rigid airships Max had mentioned – the Zeppelins.

‘The trouble is I don't believe anyone at the Ministry quite realises how important air power is going to be in a war,' Gilbert said bluntly. ‘It seems to me they are all rooted in the past, each jealously guarding whichever wing of the fighting forces they happen to favour. Just look at the fuss and palaver last year when Seely took £86000 from Army funds to help build up the military wing of the RFC – ridiculous! Instead of working together and seeing the pattern as a whole they engage in their petty squabbles like dogs fighting over a bone. And none of them seem to realise it is air power which will be the deciding factor in any conflict now.'

‘How can you say that?' Leo sneered. He was still smarting from Gilbert's dismissal of his views on British involvement. ‘They have been a little tardy I admit but things have changed lately. Haven't we just been given a good contract to supply BE2c's for the services?'

‘That is true,' Gilbert admitted. ‘And though I would prefer to be building aeroplanes that we had designed ourselves rather than simply making up the brain children of the boffins at the Government's Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough I am very glad we were considered for the order. No, I'm not knocking the planes. I believe Geoffrey de Havilland was responsible for their design and he is a young man who should go far. I wish I could get him to join our company – he and Max would make an unbeatable team. But BE2c's are reconnaissance aircraft. And reconnaissance aircraft alone will not be enough to win a war nowadays.'

‘But you have always been such a keen advocate of planes for reconnaissance purposes,' Lawrence said, speaking for the first time.

When the new company had been formed, Lawrence had remained with Morse Motors and the years of nominal authority had only served to make him more ponderous and pedantic. He disliked joint meetings with the board of the Aeroplane Company, considering them an uncomfortable mix of crackpots and hustlers and the smoke-filled atmosphere irritated the cough that had troubled him since the winter and which not even the hot summer weather seemed able to cure. He viewed the success of their enterprise with a certain amount of suspicion, but with world events taking such a serious turn Gilbert had insisted he should be present at this afternoon's deliberations.

‘Of course aeroplanes will revolutionise reconnaissance,' Gilbert said now, unconsciously adopting the patient tones he habitually used when addressing his eldest son. ‘But it won't stop there. One only has to take the argument a stage further to see how things will develop. If both sides are using aeroplanes for reconnaissance there will be only one way to preserve the security of operations – other aeroplanes, equipped to fight off the scouts. There will be a fight for supremacy in the air. It is inevitable.'

‘You are right of course,' Adam said. ‘And where, I ask myself, are they coming from? As far as I know there are only two gun-carrying aeroplanes in service, both of them belonging to the Navy.'

‘Just so.' Gilbert stubbed out his cigarette and immediately fit another, a sure sign of his preoccupation. ‘Now what I propose is this. That we set to work immediately with a view to producing an aeroplane to help offset the problem.'

‘Put our money into a prototype the Ministry may not even be prepared to consider, you mean?' Leo asked incredulously.

‘That is hardly a new departure,' Gilbert returned tartly. ‘Practically every advance in aviation has been made thanks to private enterprise. We would still be in the dark ages if it had been left to the Government. In any case I am quite prepared to use what resources we have if it is for the good of the country. None of our lives will be worth living if we don't win this war. Better a little spent on the defence of our island now than stand aside, do nothing, and see it all appropriated by the Kaiser.'

Max leaned forward. Gilbert's suggestion had fired his enthusiasm; already he was itching to begin plans for a fighting plane.

‘You want me to design it, Gilbert?'

‘Who else?' Gilbert smiled, if a little bleakly. ‘I have complete faith in your ability, Max. There is one thing, though. I think you should work in complete secrecy, well away from the rest of the company staff.'

‘Don't you trust them?' Lawrence asked.

‘Of course I do. But we must not lose sight of the fact that this is war – or will be if the Kaiser does not respond to our ultimatum by midnight. If – when – it comes, everything will be different. A great many people work in the Aeroplane Company building now – it would not be so difficult for an infiltrator to penetrate the place. I would prefer it, Max, if you moved into an office well away from the main house – in the old Morse Motors buildings, perhaps.'