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diff --git a/29135.txt b/29135.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab30c8e --- /dev/null +++ b/29135.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2396 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of With The Night Mail, by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: With The Night Mail + A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the + comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Illustrator: Frank X. Leyendecker + H. Reuterdahl + +Release Date: June 16, 2009 [EBook #29135] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH THE NIGHT MAIL *** + + + + +Produced by Stephen Hope, Carla Foust, Joseph Cooper and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's note + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original. + + + + + WITH THE NIGHT MAIL + + A STORY OF 2000 A.D. + + (TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY + MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED) + + + + +BOOKS BY RUDYARD KIPLING + + + BRUSHWOOD BOY, THE + + CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS + + COLLECTED VERSE + + DAY'S WORK, THE + + DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES AND BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS + + FIVE NATIONS, THE + + JUNGLE BOOK, THE + + JUNGLE BOOK, SECOND + + JUST SO SONG BOOK + + JUST SO STORIES + + KIM + + KIPLING BIRTHDAY BOOK, THE + + LIFE'S HANDICAP; Being Stories of Mine Own People + + LIGHT THAT FAILED, THE + + MANY INVENTIONS + + NAULAHKA, THE (With Wolcott Balestier) + + PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS + + PUCK OF POOK'S HILL + + SEA TO SEA, FROM + + SEVEN SEAS, THE + + SOLDIER STORIES + + SOLDIERS THREE, THE STORY OF THE GADSBYS, and IN BLACK AND WHITE + + STALKY & CO. + + THEY + + TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES + + UNDER THE DEODARS, THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW and WEE WILLIE WINKIE + +[Illustration: "A MAN WITH A GHASTLY SCARLET HEAD FOLLOWS, SHOUTING THAT +HE MUST GO BACK AND BUILD UP HIS RAY."] + + + + + With the Night Mail + + A STORY OF 2000 A.D. + + (TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY + MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED) + + + BY + RUDYARD KIPLING + + _Illustrated in Color_ + + BY FRANK X. LEYENDECKER + AND H. REUTERDAHL + + [Decoration] + + NEW YORK + + Doubleday, Page & Company + + 1909 + + + + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1909, BY RUDYARD KIPLING + PUBLISHED, MARCH, 1909 + + REPRINTED IN BOOK FORM BY PERMISSION OF + THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "A man with a ghastly scarlet head + follows, shouting that he must go + back and build up his Ray" _Frontispiece_ + + FOLLOWING PAGE + + "Slides like a lost soul down that + pitiless ladder of light, and the + Atlantic takes her" 31 + + The Storm 39 + + "I've asked him to tea on Friday" 58 + + + + +WITH THE NIGHT MAIL + +A STORY OF 2000 A.D. + + + + +With the Night Mail + + +At nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower stages of +one of the G. P. O. outward mail towers. My purpose was a run to Quebec +in "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be appointed"; and the +Postmaster-General himself countersigned the order. This talisman opened +all doors, even those in the despatching-caisson at the foot of the +tower, where they were delivering the sorted Continental mail. The bags +lay packed close as herrings in the long gray under-bodies which our +G. P. O. still calls "coaches." Five such coaches were filled as I +watched, and were shot up the guides to be locked on to their waiting +packets three hundred feet nearer the stars. + +From the despatching-caisson I was conducted by a courteous and +wonderfully learned official--Mr. L. L. Geary, Second Despatcher of the +Western Route--to the Captains' Room (this wakes an echo of old +romance), where the mail captains come on for their turn of duty. He +introduces me to the Captain of "162"--Captain Purnall, and his relief, +Captain Hodgson. The one is small and dark; the other large and red; but +each has the brooding sheathed glance characteristic of eagles and +aeronauts. You can see it in the pictures of our racing professionals, +from L. V. Rautsch to little Ada Warrleigh--that fathomless abstraction +of eyes habitually turned through naked space. + +On the notice-board in the Captains' Room, the pulsing arrows of some +twenty indicators register, degree by geographical degree, the progress +of as many homeward-bound packets. The word "Cape" rises across the face +of a dial; a gong strikes: the South African mid-weekly mail is in at +the Highgate Receiving Towers. That is all. It reminds one comically of +the traitorous little bell which in pigeon-fanciers' lofts notifies the +return of a homer. + +"Time for us to be on the move," says Captain Purnall, and we are shot +up by the passenger-lift to the top of the despatch-towers. "Our coach +will lock on when it is filled and the clerks are aboard."... + +"No. 162" waits for us in Slip E of the topmost stage. The great curve +of her back shines frostily under the lights, and some minute alteration +of trim makes her rock a little in her holding-down slips. + +Captain Purnall frowns and dives inside. Hissing softly, "162" comes to +rest as level as a rule. From her North Atlantic Winter nose-cap (worn +bright as diamond with boring through uncounted leagues of hail, snow, +and ice) to the inset of her three built-out propeller-shafts is some +two hundred and forty feet. Her extreme diameter, carried well forward, +is thirty-seven. Contrast this with the nine hundred by ninety-five of +any crack liner and you will realize the power that must drive a hull +through all weathers at more than the emergency-speed of the "Cyclonic"! + +The eye detects no joint in her skin plating save the sweeping +hair-crack of the bow-rudder--Magniac's rudder that assured us the +dominion of the unstable air and left its inventor penniless and +half-blind. It is calculated to Castelli's "gull-wing" curve. Raise a +few feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of an inch and +she will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under control +again. Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. +Cant the whole forward--a touch on the wheel will suffice--and she +sweeps at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle and +she presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring her up all +standing within a half mile. + +"Yes," says Captain Hodgson, answering my thought, "Castelli thought +he'd discovered the secret of controlling aeroplanes when he'd only +found out how to steer dirigible balloons. Magniac invented his rudder +to help war-boats ram each other; and war went out of fashion and +Magniac he went out of his mind because he said he couldn't serve his +country any more. I wonder if any of us ever know what we're really +doing." + +"If you want to see the coach locked you'd better go aboard. It's due +now," says Mr. Geary. I enter through the door amidships. There is +nothing here for display. The inner skin of the gas-tanks comes down to +within a foot or two of my head and turns over just short of the turn of +the bilges. Liners and yachts disguise their tanks with decoration, but +the G. P. O. serves them raw under a lick of gray official paint. The +inner skin shuts off fifty feet of the bow and as much of the stern, but +the bow-bulkhead is recessed for the lift-shunting apparatus as the +stern is pierced for the shaft-tunnels. The engine-room lies almost +amidships. Forward of it, extending to the turn of the bow tanks, is an +aperture--a bottomless hatch at present--into which our coach will be +locked. One looks down over the coamings three hundred feet to the +despatching-caisson whence voices boom upward. The light below is +obscured to a sound of thunder, as our coach rises on its guides. It +enlarges rapidly from a postage-stamp to a playing-card; to a punt and +last a pontoon. The two clerks, its crew, do not even look up as it +comes into place. The Quebec letters fly under their fingers and leap +into the docketed racks, while both captains and Mr. Geary satisfy +themselves that the coach is locked home. A clerk passes the waybill +over the hatch-coaming. Captain Purnall thumb-marks and passes it to Mr. +Geary. Receipt has been given and taken. "Pleasant run," says Mr. Geary, +and disappears through the door which a foot-high pneumatic compressor +locks after him. + +"A-ah!" sighs the compressor released. Our holding-down clips part with +a tang. We are clear. + +Captain Hodgson opens the great colloid underbody-porthole through +which I watch million-lighted London slide eastward as the gale gets +hold of us. The first of the low winter clouds cuts off the well-known +view and darkens Middlesex. On the south edge of it I can see a postal +packet's light ploughing through the white fleece. For an instant she +gleams like a star ere she drops toward the Highgate Receiving Towers. +"The Bombay Mail," says Captain Hodgson, and looks at his watch. "She's +forty minutes late." + +"What's our level?" I ask. + +"Four thousand. Aren't you coming up on the bridge?" + +The bridge (let us ever bless the G. P. O. as a repository of ancientest +tradition!) is represented by a view of Captain Hodgson's legs where he +stands on the control platform that runs thwartships overhead. The bow +colloid is unshuttered and Captain Purnall, one hand on the wheel, is +feeling for a fair slant. The dial shows 4,300 feet. + +"It's steep to-night," he mutters, as tier on tier of cloud drops under. +"We generally pick up an easterly draught below three thousand at this +time o' the year. I hate slathering through fluff." + +"So does Van Cutsem. Look at him huntin' for a slant!" says Captain +Hodgson. A fog-light breaks cloud a hundred fathoms below. The Antwerp +Night Mail makes her signal and rises between two racing clouds far to +port, her flanks blood-red in the glare of Sheerness Double Light. The +gale will have us over the North Sea in half an hour, but Captain +Purnall lets her go composedly--nosing to every point of the compass as +she rises. + +"Five thousand--six, six thousand eight hundred"--the dip-dial reads ere +we find the easterly drift, heralded by a flurry of snow at the +thousand-fathom level. Captain Purnall rings up the engines and keys +down the governor on the switch before him. There is no sense in urging +machinery when AEolus himself gives you good knots for nothing. We are +away in earnest now--our nose notched home on our chosen star. At this +level the lower clouds are laid out all neatly combed by the dry fingers +of the East. Below that again is the strong westerly blow through which +we rose. Overhead, a film of southerly drifting mist draws a theatrical +gauze across the firmament. The moonlight turns the lower strata to +silver without a stain except where our shadow underruns us. Bristol and +Cardiff Double Lights (those statelily inclined beams over Severnmouth) +are dead ahead of us; for we keep the Southern Winter Route. Coventry +Central, the pivot of the English system, stabs upward once in ten +seconds its spear of diamond light to the north; and a point or two off +our starboard bow The Leek, the great cloud-breaker of Saint David's +Head, swings its unmistakable green beam twenty-five degrees each way. +There must be half a mile of fluff over it in this weather, but it does +not affect The Leek. + +"Our planet's overlighted if anything," says Captain Purnall at the +wheel, as Cardiff-Bristol slides under. "I remember the old days of +common white verticals that 'ud show two or three thousand feet up in a +mist, if you knew where to look for 'em. In really fluffy weather they +might as well have been under your hat. One could get lost coming home +then, an' have some fun. Now, it's like driving down Piccadilly." + +He points to the pillars of light where the cloud-breakers bore through +the cloud-floor. We see nothing of England's outlines: only a white +pavement pierced in all directions by these manholes of variously +coloured fire--Holy Island's white and red--St. Bee's interrupted white, +and so on as far as the eye can reach. Blessed be Sargent, Ahrens, and +the Dubois brothers, who invented the cloud-breakers of the world +whereby we travel in security! + +"Are you going to lift for The Shamrock?" asks Captain Hodgson. Cork +Light (green, fixed) enlarges as we rush to it. Captain Purnall nods. +There is heavy traffic hereabouts--the cloud-bank beneath us is streaked +with running fissures of flame where the Atlantic boats are hurrying +Londonward just clear of the fluff. Mail-packets are supposed, under the +Conference rules, to have the five-thousand-foot lanes to themselves, +but the foreigner in a hurry is apt to take liberties with English air. +"No. 162" lifts to a long-drawn wail of the breeze in the fore-flange of +the rudder and we make Valencia (white, green, white) at a safe 7,000 +feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet. + +There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream round +Dingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast. A big +S. A. T. A. liner (_Societe Anonyme des Transports Aeriens_) is diving +and lifting half a mile below us in search of some break in the solid +west wind. Lower still lies a disabled Dane: she is telling the liner +all about it in International. Our General Communication dial has caught +her talk and begins to eavesdrop. Captain Hodgson makes a motion to shut +it off but checks himself. "Perhaps you'd like to listen," he says. + +"'Argol' of St. Thomas," the Dane whimpers. "Report owners three +starboard shaft collar-bearings fused. Can make Flores as we are, but +impossible further. Shall we buy spares at Fayal?" + +The liner acknowledges and recommends inverting the bearings. The +"Argol" answers that she has already done so without effect, and begins +to relieve her mind about cheap German enamels for collar-bearings. The +Frenchman assents cordially, cries "_Courage, mon ami_," and switches +off. + +Their lights sink under the curve of the ocean. + +"That's one of Lundt & Bleamers's boats," says Captain Hodgson. "Serves +'em right for putting German compos in their thrust-blocks. _She_ won't +be in Fayal to-night! By the way, wouldn't you like to look round the +engine-room?" + +I have been waiting eagerly for this invitation and I follow Captain +Hodgson from the control-platform, stooping low to avoid the bulge of +the tanks. We know that Fleury's gas can lift anything, as the +world-famous trials of '89 showed, but its almost indefinite powers of +expansion necessitate vast tank room. Even in this thin air the +lift-shunts are busy taking out one-third of its normal lift, and still +"162" must be checked by an occasional downdraw of the rudder or our +flight would become a climb to the stars. Captain Purnall prefers an +overlifted to an underlifted ship; but no two captains trim ship alike. +"When _I_ take the bridge," says Captain Hodgson, "you'll see me shunt +forty per cent. of the lift out of the gas and run her on the upper +rudder. With a swoop upwards instead of a swoop downwards, _as_ you say. +Either way will do. It's only habit. Watch our dip-dial! Tim fetches her +down once every thirty knots as regularly as breathing." + +So is it shown on the dip-dial. For five or six minutes the arrow creeps +from 6,700 to 7,300. There is the faint "szgee" of the rudder, and back +slides the arrow to 6,500 on a falling slant of ten or fifteen knots. + +"In heavy weather you jockey her with the screws as well," says Captain +Hodgson, and, unclipping the jointed bar which divides the engine-room +from the bare deck, he leads me on to the floor. + +Here we find Fleury's Paradox of the Bulkheaded Vacuum--which we accept +now without thought--literally in full blast. The three engines are +H. T. &. T. assisted-vacuo Fleury turbines running from 3,000 to the +Limit--that is to say, up to the point when the blades make the air +"bell"--cut out a vacuum for themselves precisely as over-driven marine +propellers used to do. "162's" Limit is low on account of the small size +of her nine screws, which, though handier than the old colloid +Thelussons, "bell" sooner. The midships engine, generally used as a +reinforce, is not running; so the port and starboard turbine +vacuum-chambers draw direct into the return-mains. + +The turbines whistle reflectively. From the low-arched expansion-tanks +on either side the valves descend pillarwise to the turbine-chests, and +thence the obedient gas whirls through the spirals of blades with a +force that would whip the teeth out of a power-saw. Behind, is its own +pressure held in leash or spurred on by the lift-shunts; before it, the +vacuum where Fleury's Ray dances in violet-green bands and whirled +turbillions of flame. The jointed U-tubes of the vacuum-chamber are +pressure-tempered colloid (no glass would endure the strain for an +instant) and a junior engineer with tinted spectacles watches the Ray +intently. It is the very heart of the machine--a mystery to this day. +Even Fleury who begat it and, unlike Magniac, died a multi-millionaire, +could not explain how the restless little imp shuddering in the U-tube +can, in the fractional fraction of a second, strike the furious blast of +gas into a chill grayish-green liquid that drains (you can hear it +trickle) from the far end of the vacuum through the eduction-pipes and +the mains back to the bilges. Here it returns to its gaseous, one had +almost written sagacious, state and climbs to work afresh. Bilge-tank, +upper tank, dorsal-tank, expansion-chamber, vacuum, main-return (as a +liquid), and bilge-tank once more is the ordained cycle. Fleury's Ray +sees to that; and the engineer with the tinted spectacles sees to +Fleury's Ray. If a speck of oil, if even the natural grease of the human +finger touch the hooded terminals Fleury's Ray will wink and disappear +and must be laboriously built up again. This means half a day's work +for all hands and an expense of one hundred and seventy-odd pounds to +the G. P. O. for radium-salts and such trifles. + +"Now look at our thrust-collars. You won't find much German compo there. +Full-jewelled, you see," says Captain Hodgson as the engineer shunts +open the top of a cap. Our shaft-bearings are C. M. C. (Commercial +Minerals Company) stones, ground with as much care as the lens of a +telescope. They cost L37 apiece. So far we have not arrived at their +term of life. These bearings came from "No. 97," which took them over +from the old "Dominion of Light," which had them out of the wreck of the +"Perseus" aeroplane in the years when men still flew linen kites over +thorium engines! + +They are a shining reproof to all low-grade German "ruby" enamels, +so-called "boort" facings, and the dangerous and unsatisfactory alumina +compounds which please dividend-hunting owners and turn skippers crazy. + +The rudder-gear and the gas lift-shunt, seated side by side under the +engine-room dials, are the only machines in visible motion. The former +sighs from time to time as the oil plunger rises and falls half an inch. +The latter, cased and guarded like the U-tube aft, exhibits another +Fleury Ray, but inverted and more green than violet. Its function is to +shunt the lift out of the gas, and this it will do without watching. +That is all! A tiny pump-rod wheezing and whining to itself beside a +sputtering green lamp. A hundred and fifty feet aft down the flat-topped +tunnel of the tanks a violet light, restless and irresolute. Between the +two, three white-painted turbine-trunks, like eel-baskets laid on their +side, accentuate the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle of +the liquefied gas flowing from the vacuum into the bilge-tanks and the +soft _gluck-glock_ of gas-locks closing as Captain Purnall brings "162" +down by the head. The hum of the turbines and the boom of the air on our +skin is no more than a cotton-wool wrapping to the universal stillness. +And we are running an eighteen-second mile. + +I peer from the fore end of the engine-room over the hatch-coamings into +the coach. The mail-clerks are sorting the Winnipeg, Calgary, and +Medicine Hat bags: but there is a pack of cards ready on the table. + +Suddenly a bell thrills; the engineers run to the turbine-valves and +stand by; but the spectacled slave of the Ray in the U-tube never lifts +his head. He must watch where he is. We are hard-braked and going +astern; there is language from the control-platform. + +"Tim's sparking badly about something," says the unruffled Captain +Hodgson. "Let's look." + +Captain Purnall is not the suave man we left half an hour since, but the +embodied authority of the G. P. O. Ahead of us floats an ancient, +aluminum-patched, twin-screw tramp of the dingiest, with no more right +to the 5,000 foot lane than has a horse-cart to a modern town. She +carries an obsolete "barbette" conning-tower--a six-foot affair with +railed platform forward--and our warning beam plays on the top of it as +a policeman's lantern flashes on the area sneak. Like a sneak-thief, +too, emerges a shock-headed navigator in his shirt-sleeves. Captain +Purnall wrenches open the colloid to talk with him man to man. There are +times when Science does not satisfy. + +"What under the stars are you doing here, you sky-scraping +chimney-sweep?" he shouts as we two drift side by side. "Do you know +this is a Mail-lane? You call yourself a sailor, sir? You ain't fit to +peddle toy balloons to an Esquimaux. Your name and number! Report and +get down, and be----!" + +"I've been blown up once," the shock-headed man cries, hoarsely, as a +dog barking. "I don't care two flips of a contact for anything _you_ can +do, Postey." + +"Don't you, sir? But I'll make you care. I'll have you towed stern first +to Disko and broke up. You can't recover insurance if you're broke for +obstruction. Do you understand _that_?" + +Then the stranger bellows: "Look at my propellers! There's been a +wulli-wa down under that has knocked us into umbrella-frames! We've been +blown up about forty thousand feet! We're all one conjuror's watch +inside! My mate's arm's broke; my engineer's head's cut open; my Ray +went out when the engines smashed; and ... and ... for pity's sake give +me my height, Captain! We doubt we're dropping." + +"Six thousand eight hundred. Can you hold it?" Captain Purnall overlooks +all insults, and leans half out of the colloid, staring and snuffing. +The stranger leaks pungently. + +"We ought to blow into St. John's with luck. We're trying to plug the +fore-tank now, but she's simply whistling it away," her captain wails. + +"She's sinking like a log," says Captain Purnall in an undertone. "Call +up the Banks Mark Boat, George." Our dip-dial shows that we, keeping +abreast the tramp, have dropped five hundred feet the last few minutes. + +Captain Purnall presses a switch and our signal beam begins to swing +through the night, twizzling spokes of light across infinity. + +"That'll fetch something," he says, while Captain Hodgson watches the +General Communicator. He has called up the North Banks Mark Boat, a few +hundred miles west, and is reporting the case. + +"I'll stand by you," Captain Purnall roars to the lone figure on the +conning-tower. + +"Is it as bad as that?" comes the answer. "She isn't insured, she's +mine." + +"Might have guessed as much," mutters Hodgson. "Owner's risk is the +worst risk of all!" + +"Can't I fetch St. John's--not even with this breeze?" the voice +quavers. + +"Stand by to abandon ship. Haven't you _any_ lift in you, fore or aft?" + +"Nothing but the midship tanks and they're none too tight. You see, my +Ray gave out and--" he coughs in the reek of the escaping gas. + +"You poor devil!" This does not reach our friend. "What does the Mark +Boat say, George?" + +"Wants to know if there's any danger to traffic. Says she's in a bit of +weather herself and can't quit station. I've turned in a General Call, +so even if they don't see our beam some one's bound to help--or else we +must. Shall I clear our slings. Hold on! Here we are! A Planet liner, +too! She'll be up in a tick!" + +"Tell her to have her slings ready," cries his brother captain. "There +won't be much time to spare.... Tie up your mate," he roars to the +tramp. + +"My mate's all right. It's my engineer. He's gone crazy." + +"Shunt the lift out of him with a spanner. Hurry!" + +"But I can make St. John's if you'll stand by." + +"You'll make the deep, wet Atlantic in twenty minutes. You're less than +fifty-eight hundred now. Get your papers." + +A Planet liner, east bound, heaves up in a superb spiral and takes the +air of us humming. Her underbody colloid is open and her +transporter-slings hang down like tentacles. We shut off our beam as she +adjusts herself--steering to a hair--over the tramp's conning-tower. The +mate comes up, his arm strapped to his side, and stumbles into the +cradle. A man with a ghastly scarlet head follows, shouting that he must +go back and build up his Ray. The mate assures him that he will find a +nice new Ray all ready in the liner's engine-room. The bandaged head +goes up wagging excitedly. A youth and a woman follow. The liner cheers +hollowly above us, and we see the passengers' faces at the saloon +colloid. + +"That's a good girl. What's the fool waiting for now?" says Captain +Purnall. + +The skipper comes up, still appealing to us to stand by and see him +fetch St. John's. He dives below and returns--at which we little human +beings in the void cheer louder than ever--with the ship's kitten. Up +fly the liner's hissing slings; her underbody crashes home and she +hurtles away again. The dial shows less than 3,000 feet. + +The Mark Boat signals we must attend to the derelict, now whistling her +death song, as she falls beneath us in long sick zigzags. + +"Keep our beam on her and send out a General Warning," says Captain +Purnall, following her down. + +There is no need. Not a liner in air but knows the meaning of that +vertical beam and gives us and our quarry a wide berth. + +"But she'll drown in the water, won't she?" I ask. + +"Not always," is his answer. "I've known a derelict up-end and sift her +engines out of herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weeks +on her forward tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George, and +look sharp. There's weather ahead." + +Captain Hodgson opens the underbody colloid, swings the heavy +pithing-iron out of its rack which in liners is generally cased as a +settee, and at two hundred feet releases the catch. We hear the whir of +the crescent-shaped arms opening as they descend. The derelict's +forehead is punched in, starred across, and rent diagonally. She falls +stern first, our beam upon her; slides like a lost soul down that +pitiless ladder of light, and the Atlantic takes her. + +[Illustration: "SLIDES LIKE A LOST SOUL DOWN THAT PITILESS LADDER OF +LIGHT, AND THE ATLANTIC TAKES HER"] + +"A filthy business," says Hodgson. "I wonder what it must have been like +in the old days." + +The thought had crossed my mind too. What if that wavering carcass +had been filled with International-speaking men of all the +Internationalities, each one of them taught (_that_ is the horror of +it!) that after death he would very possibly go forever to unspeakable +torment? + +And not half a century since, we (one knows now that we are only our +fathers re-enlarged upon the earth), _we_, I say, ripped and rammed and +pithed to admiration. + +Here Tim, from the control-platform, shouts that we are to get into our +inflators and to bring him his at once. + +We hurry into the heavy rubber suits--and the engineers are already +dressed--and inflate at the air-pump taps. G. P. O. inflators are +thrice as thick as a racing man's "flickers," and chafe abominably under +the armpits. George takes the wheel until Tim has blown himself up to +the extreme of rotundity. If you kicked him off the c. p. to the deck he +would bounce back. But it is "162" that will do the kicking. + +"The Mark Boat's mad--stark ravin' crazy," he snorts, returning to +command. "She says there's a bad blow-out ahead and wants me to pull +over to Greenland. I'll see her pithed first! We wasted an hour and a +quarter over that dead duck down under, and now I'm expected to go +rubbin' my back all round the Pole. What does she think a postal +packet's made of? Gummed silk? Tell her we're coming on straight, +George." + +George buckles him into the Frame and switches on the Direct Control. +Now under Tim's left toe lies the port-engine Accelerator; under his +left heel the Reverse, and so with the other foot. The lift-shunt stops +stand out on the rim of the steering-wheel where the fingers of his left +hand can play on them. At his right hand is the midships engine lever +ready to be thrown into gear at a moment's notice. He leans forward in +his belt, eyes glued to the colloid, and one ear cocked toward the +General Communicator. Henceforth he is the strength and direction of +"162," through whatever may befall. + +The Banks Mark Boat is reeling out pages of A. B. C. Directions to the +traffic at large. We are to secure all "loose objects"; hood up our +Fleury Rays; and "on no account to attempt to clear snow from our +conning-towers till the weather abates." Under-powered craft, we are +told, can ascend to the limit of their lift, mail-packets to look out +for them accordingly; the lower lanes westward are pitting very badly, +"with frequent blow-outs, vortices, laterals, etc." + +Still the clear dark holds up unblemished. The only warning is the +electric skin-tension (I feel as though I were a lace-maker's pillow) +and an irritability which the gibbering of the General Communicator +increases almost to hysteria. + +We have made eight thousand feet since we pithed the tramp and our +turbines are giving us an honest two hundred and ten knots. + +Very far to the west an elongated blur of red, low down, shows us the +North Banks Mark Boat. There are specks of fire round her rising and +falling--bewildered planets about an unstable sun--helpless shipping +hanging on to her light for company's sake. No wonder she could not quit +station. + +She warns us to look out for the backwash of the bad vortex in which +(her beam shows it) she is even now reeling. + +The pits of gloom about us begin to fill with very faintly luminous +films--wreathing and uneasy shapes. One forms itself into a globe of +pale flame that waits shivering with eagerness till we sweep by. It +leaps monstrously across the blackness, alights on the precise tip of +our nose, pirouettes there an instant, and swings off. Our roaring bow +sinks as though that light were lead--sinks and recovers to lurch and +stumble again beneath the next blow-out. Tim's fingers on the lift-shunt +strike chords of numbers--1:4:7:--2:4:6:--7:5:3, and so on; for he is +running by his tanks only, lifting or lowering her against the uneasy +air. All three engines are at work, for the sooner we have skated over +this thin ice the better. Higher we dare not go. The whole upper vault +is charged with pale krypton vapours, which our skin friction may +excite to unholy manifestations. Between the upper and the lower +levels--5,000, and 7,000, hints the Mark Boat--we may perhaps bolt +through if.... Our bow clothes itself in blue flame and falls like a +sword. No human skill can keep pace with the changing tensions. A vortex +has us by the beak and we dive down a two-thousand-foot slant at an +angle (the dip-dial and my bouncing body record it) of thirty-five. Our +turbines scream shrilly; the propellers cannot bite on the thin air; Tim +shunts the lift out of five tanks at once and by sheer weight drives her +bulletwise through the maelstrom till she cushions with a jar on an +up-gust, three thousand feet below. + +"_Now_ we've done it," says George in my ear. "Our skin-friction that +last slide, has played Old Harry with the tensions! Look out for +laterals, Tim, she'll want some holding." + +"I've got her," is the answer. "Come _up_, old woman." + +She comes up nobly, but the laterals buffet her left and right like the +pinions of angry angels. She is jolted off her course in four ways at +once, and cuffed into place again, only to be swung aside and dropped +into a new chaos. We are never without a corposant grinning on our bows +or rolling head over heels from nose to midships, and to the crackle of +electricity around and within us is added once or twice the rattle of +hail--hail that will never fall on any sea. Slow we must or we may break +our back, pitch-poling. + +"Air's a perfectly elastic fluid," roars George above the tumult. "About +as elastic as a head sea off the Fastnet, aint it?" + +[Illustration: THE STORM] + +He is less than just to the good element. If one intrudes on the +Heavens when they are balancing their volt-accounts; if one disturbs the +High Gods' market-rates by hurling steel hulls at ninety knots across +tremblingly adjusted electric tensions, one must not complain of any +rudeness in the reception. Tim met it with an unmoved countenance, one +corner of his under lip caught up on a tooth, his eyes fleeting into the +blackness twenty miles ahead, and the fierce sparks flying from his +knuckles at every turn of the hand. Now and again he shook his head to +clear the sweat trickling from his eyebrows, and it was then that +George, watching his chance, would slide down the life-rail and swab his +face quickly with a big red handkerchief. I never imagined that a human +being could so continuously labour and so collectedly think as did Tim +through that Hell's half hour when the flurry was at its worst. We were +dragged hither and yon by warm or frozen suctions, belched up on the +tops of wulli-was, spun down by vortices and clubbed aside by laterals +under a dizzying rush of stars in the company of a drunken moon. I heard +the rushing click of the midship-engine-lever sliding in and out, the +low growl of the lift-shunts, and, louder than the yelling winds +without, the scream of the bow-rudder gouging into any lull that +promised hold for an instant. At last we began to claw up on a cant, +bow-rudder and port-propeller together; only the nicest balancing of +tanks saved us from spinning like the rifle-bullet of the old days. + +"We've got to hitch to windward of that Mark Boat somehow," George +cried. + +"There's no windward," I protested feebly, where I swung shackled to a +stanchion. "How can there be?" + +He laughed--as we pitched into a thousand foot blow-out--that red man +laughed beneath his inflated hood! + +"Look!" he said. "We must clear those refugees with a high lift." + +The Mark Boat was below and a little to the sou'west of us, fluctuating +in the centre of her distraught galaxy. The air was thick with moving +lights at every level. I take it most of them were trying to lie head to +wind but, not being hydras, they failed. An under-tanked Moghrabi boat +had risen to the limit of her lift and, finding no improvement, had +dropped a couple of thousand. There she met a superb wulli-wa and was +blown up spinning like a dead leaf. Instead of shutting off she went +astern and, naturally, rebounded as from a wall almost into the Mark +Boat, whose language (our G. C. took it in) was humanly simple. + +"If they'd only ride it out quietly it 'ud be better," said George in a +calm, as we climbed like a bat above them all. "But some skippers +_will_ navigate without enough lift. What does that Tad-boat think she +is doing, Tim?" + +"Playin' kiss in the ring," was Tim's unmoved reply. A Trans-Asiatic +Direct liner had found a smooth and butted into it full power. But there +was a vortex at the tail of that smooth, so the T. A. D. was flipped out +like a pea from off a fingernail, braking madly as she fled down and all +but over-ending. + +"Now I hope she's satisfied," said Tim. "I'm glad I'm not a Mark +Boat.... Do I want help?" The C. G. dial had caught his ear. "George, +you may tell that gentleman with my love--love, remember, George--that I +do not want help. Who _is_ the officious sardine-tin?" + +"A Rimouski drogher on the lookout for a tow." + +"Very kind of the Rimouski drogher. This postal packet isn't being towed +at present." + +"Those droghers will go anywhere on a chance of salvage," George +explained. "We call 'em kittiwakes." + +A long-beaked, bright steel ninety-footer floated at ease for one +instant within hail of us, her slings coiled ready for rescues, and a +single hand in her open tower. He was smoking. Surrendered to the +insurrection of the airs through which we tore our way, he lay in +absolute peace. I saw the smoke of his pipe ascend untroubled ere his +boat dropped, it seemed, like a stone in a well. + +We had just cleared the Mark Boat and her disorderly neighbours when the +storm ended as suddenly as it had begun. A shooting-star to northward +filled the sky with the green blink of a meteorite dissipating itself in +our atmosphere. + +Said George: "That may iron out all the tensions." Even as he spoke, the +conflicting winds came to rest; the levels filled; the laterals died out +in long easy swells; the airways were smoothed before us. In less than +three minutes the covey round the Mark Boat had shipped their +power-lights and whirred away upon their businesses. + +"What's happened?" I gasped. The nerve-storm within and the volt-tingle +without had passed: my inflators weighed like lead. + +"God, He knows!" said Captain George, soberly. "That old shooting-star's +skin-friction has discharged the different levels. I've seen it happen +before. Phew! What a relief!" + +We dropped from ten to six thousand and got rid of our clammy suits. Tim +shut off and stepped out of the Frame. The Mark Boat was coming up +behind us. He opened the colloid in that heavenly stillness and mopped +his face. + +"Hello, Williams!" he cried. "A degree or two out o' station, ain't +you?" + +"May be," was the answer from the Mark Boat. "I've had some company this +evening." + +"So I noticed. Wasn't that quite a little draught?" + +"I warned you. Why didn't you pull out round by Disko? The east-bound +packets have." + +"Me? Not till I'm running a Polar consumptives' Sanatorium boat. I was +squinting through a colloid before you were out of your cradle, my son." + +"I'd be the last man to deny it," the captain of the Mark Boat replies +softly. "The way you handled her just now--I'm a pretty fair judge of +traffic in a volt-flurry--it was a thousand revolutions beyond anything +even _I_'ve ever seen." + +Tim's back supples visibly to this oiling. Captain George on the c. p. +winks and points to the portrait of a singularly attractive maiden +pinned up on Tim's telescope-bracket above the steering-wheel. + +I see. Wholly and entirely do I see! + +There is some talk overhead of "coming round to tea on Friday," a brief +report of the derelict's fate, and Tim volunteers as he descends: "For +an A. B. C. man young Williams is less of a high-tension fool than +some.... Were you thinking of taking her on, George? Then I'll just have +a look round that port-thrust--seems to me it's a trifle warm--and we'll +jog along." + +The Mark Boat hums off joyously and hangs herself up in her appointed +eyrie. Here she will stay, a shutterless observatory; a life-boat +station; a salvage tug; a court of ultimate appeal-cum-meteorological +bureau for three hundred miles in all directions, till Wednesday next +when her relief slides across the stars to take her buffeted place. Her +black hull, double conning-tower, and ever-ready slings represent all +that remains to the planet of that odd old word authority. She is +responsible only to the Aerial Board of Control--the A. B. C. of which +Tim speaks so flippantly. But that semi-elected, semi-nominated body of +a few score persons of both sexes, controls this planet. "Transportation +is Civilization," our motto runs. Theoretically, we do what we please so +long as we do not interfere with the traffic _and all it implies_. +Practically, the A. B. C. confirms or annuls all international +arrangements and, to judge from its last report, finds our tolerant, +humorous, lazy little planet only too ready to shift the whole burden +of private administration on its shoulders. + +I discuss this with Tim, sipping mate on the c. p. while George fans her +along over the white blur of the Banks in beautiful upward curves of +fifty miles each. The dip-dial translates them on the tape in flowing +freehand. + +Tim gathers up a skein of it and surveys the last few feet, which record +"162's" path through the volt-flurry. + +"I haven't had a fever-chart like this to show up in five years," he +says ruefully. + +A postal packet's dip-dial records every yard of every run. The tapes +then go to the A. B. C., which collates and makes composite photographs +of them for the instruction of captains. Tim studies his irrevocable +past, shaking his head. + +"Hello! Here's a fifteen-hundred-foot drop at eighty-five degrees! We +must have been standing on our heads then, George." + +"You don't say so," George answers. "I fancied I noticed it at the +time." + +George may not have Captain Purnall's catlike swiftness, but he is all +an artist to the tips of the broad fingers that play on the shunt-stops. +The delicious flight-curves come away on the tape with never a waver. +The Mark Boat's vertical spindle of light lies down to eastward, setting +in the face of the following stars. Westward, where no planet should +rise, the triple verticals of Trinity Bay (we keep still to the Southern +route) make a low-lifting haze. We seem the only thing at rest under all +the heavens; floating at ease till the earth's revolution shall turn up +our landing-towers. + +And minute by minute our silent clock gives us a sixteen-second mile. + +"Some fine night," says Tim. "We'll be even with that clock's Master." + +"He's coming now," says George, over his shoulder. "I'm chasing the +night west." + +The stars ahead dim no more than if a film of mist had been drawn under +unobserved, but the deep air-boom on our skin changes to a joyful shout. + +"The dawn-gust," says Tim. "It'll go on to meet the Sun. Look! Look! +There's the dark being crammed back over our bow! Come to the +after-colloid. I'll show you something." + +The engine-room is hot and stuffy; the clerks in the coach are asleep, +and the Slave of the Ray is near to follow them. Tim slides open the aft +colloid and reveals the curve of the world--the ocean's deepest +purple--edged with fuming and intolerable gold. Then the Sun rises and +through the colloid strikes out our lamps. Tim scowls in his face. + +"Squirrels in a cage," he mutters. "That's all we are. Squirrels in a +cage! He's going twice as fast as us. Just you wait a few years, my +shining friend and we'll take steps that will amaze you. _We'll_ Joshua +you!" + +Yes, that is our dream: to turn all earth into the Vale of Ajalon at our +pleasure. So far, we can drag out the dawn to twice its normal length in +these latitudes. But some day--even on the Equator--we shall hold the +Sun level in his full stride. + +Now we look down on a sea thronged with heavy traffic. A big submersible +breaks water suddenly. Another and another follow with a swash and a +suck and a savage bubbling of relieved pressures. The deep-sea +freighters are rising to lung up after the long night, and the +leisurely ocean is all patterned with peacock's eyes of foam. + +"We'll lung up, too," says Tim, and when we return to the c. p. George +shuts off, the colloids are opened, and the fresh air sweeps her out. +There is no hurry. The old contracts (they will be revised at the end of +the year) allow twelve hours for a run which any packet can put behind +her in ten. So we breakfast in the arms of an easterly slant which +pushes us along at a languid twenty. + +To enjoy life, and tobacco, begin both on a sunny morning half a mile or +so above the dappled Atlantic cloud-belts and after a volt-flurry which +has cleared and tempered your nerves. While we discussed the thickening +traffic with the superiority that comes of having a high level reserved +to ourselves, we heard (and I for the first time) the morning hymn on a +Hospital boat. + +She was cloaked by a skein of ravelled fluff beneath us and we caught +the chant before she rose into the sunlight. "_Oh, ye Winds of God_," +sang the unseen voices: "_bless ye the Lord! Praise Him and magnify Him +forever!_" + +We slid off our caps and joined in. When our shadow fell across her +great open platforms they looked up and stretched out their hands +neighbourly while they sang. We could see the doctors and the nurses and +the white-button-like faces of the cot-patients. She passed slowly +beneath us, heading northward, her hull, wet with the dews of the night, +all ablaze in the sunshine. So took she the shadow of a cloud and +vanished, her song continuing. _Oh, ye holy and humble men of heart, +bless ye the Lord! Praise Him and magnify Him forever._ + +"She's a public lunger or she wouldn't have been singing the +_Benedicite_; and she's a Greenlander or she wouldn't have snow-blinds +over her colloids," said George at last. "She'll be bound for +Frederikshavn or one of the Glacier sanatoriums for a month. If she was +an accident ward she'd be hung up at the eight-thousand-foot level. +Yes--consumptives." + +"Funny how the new things are the old things. I've read in books," Tim +answered, "that savages used to haul their sick and wounded up to the +tops of hills because microbes were fewer there. We hoist 'em into +sterilized air for a while. Same idea. How much do the doctors say we've +added to the average life of a man?" + +"Thirty years," says George with a twinkle in his eye. "Are we going to +spend 'em all up here, Tim?" + +"Flap along, then. Flap along. Who's hindering?" the senior captain +laughed, as we went in. + +We held a good lift to clear the coastwise and Continental shipping; +and we had need of it. Though our route is in no sense a populated one, +there is a steady trickle of traffic this way along. We met Hudson Bay +furriers out of the Great Preserve, hurrying to make their departure +from Bonavista with sable and black fox for the insatiable markets. We +over-crossed Keewatin liners, small and cramped; but their captains, who +see no land between Trepassy and Blanco, know what gold they bring back +from West Africa. Trans-Asiatic Directs, we met, soberly ringing the +world round the Fiftieth Meridian at an honest seventy knots; and +white-painted Ackroyd & Hunt fruiters out of the south fled beneath us, +their ventilated hulls whistling like Chinese kites. Their market is in +the North among the northern sanatoria where you can smell their +grapefruit and bananas across the cold snows. Argentine beef boats we +sighted too, of enormous capacity and unlovely outline. They, too, feed +the northern health stations in ice-bound ports where submersibles dare +not rise. + +Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurely +out of the north like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not pay +to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than is necessary; but the +risks of transhipping to submersibles in the ice-pack off Nain or Hebron +are so great that these heavy freighters fly down to Halifax direct, and +scent the air as they go. They are the biggest tramps aloft except the +Athabasca grain-tubs. But these last, now that the wheat is moved, are +busy, over the world's shoulder, timber-lifting in Siberia. + +We held to the St. Lawrence (it is astonishing how the old water-ways +still pull us children of the air), and followed his broad line of +black between its drifting ice blocks, all down the Park that the wisdom +of our fathers--but every one knows the Quebec run. + +We dropped to the Heights Receiving Towers twenty minutes ahead of time +and there hung at ease till the Yokohama Intermediate Packet could pull +out and give us our proper slip. It was curious to watch the action of +the holding-down clips all along the frosty river front as the boats +cleared or came to rest. A big Hamburger was leaving Pont Levis and her +crew, unshipping the platform railings, began to sing "Elsinore"--the +oldest of our chanteys. You know it of course: + + _Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic_-- + _Forty couple waltzing on the floor!_ + _And you can watch my Ray,_ + _For I must go away_ + _And dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!_ + +Then, while they sweated home the covering-plates: + + _Nor-Nor-Nor-Nor-_ + _West from Sourabaya to the Baltic--_ + _Ninety knot an hour to the Skaw!_ + _Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic_ + _And a dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!_ + +The clips parted with a gesture of indignant dismissal, as though +Quebec, glittering under her snows, were casting out these light and +unworthy lovers. Our signal came from the Heights. Tim turned and +floated up, but surely then it was with passionate appeal that the great +tower arms flung open--or did I think so because on the upper staging a +little hooded figure also opened her arms wide towards her father? + + * * * * * + +In ten seconds the coach with its clerks clashed down to the +receiving-caisson; the hostlers displaced the engineers at the idle +turbines, and Tim, prouder of this than all, introduced me to the maiden +of the photograph on the shelf. "And by the way," said he to her, +stepping forth in sunshine under the hat of civil life, "I saw young +Williams in the Mark Boat. I've asked him to tea on Friday." + +[Illustration: "I'VE ASKED HIM TO TEA ON FRIDAY"] + + + + +AERIAL BOARD OF CONTROL BULLETIN + + + + +Aerial Board of Control + +Lights + + +No changes in English Inland lights for week ending Dec. 18. + +PLANETARY COASTAL LIGHTS. Week ending Dec. 18. Verde inclined +guide-light changes from 1st proximo to triple flash--green white +green--in place of occulting red as heretofore. The warning light for +Harmattan winds will be continuous vertical glare (white) on all oases +of trans-Saharan N. E. by E. Main Routes. + +INVERCARGIL (N. Z.)--From 1st prox.: extreme southerly light (double +red) will exhibit white beam inclined 45 degrees on approach of +Southerly Buster. Traffic flies high off this coast between April and +October. + +TABLE BAY--Devil's Peak Glare removed to Simonsberg. Traffic making +Table Mountain coastwise keep all lights from Three Anchor Bay at least +five shipping hundred feet under, and do not round to till beyond E. +shoulder Devil's Peak. + +SANDHEADS LIGHT--Green triple vertical marks new private landing-stage +for Bay and Burma traffic only. + +SNAEFELL JOKUL--White occulting light withdrawn for winter. + +PATAGONIA--No summer light south C. Pilar. This includes Staten Island +and Port Stanley. + +C. NAVARIN--Quadruple fog flash (white), one minute intervals (new). + +EAST CAPE--Fog flash--single white with single bomb, 30 sec. intervals +(new). + +MALAYAN ARCHIPELAGO lights unreliable owing eruptions. Lay from Somerset +to Singapore direct, keeping highest levels. + + _For the Board_: + CATTERTHUN } + ST. JUST } _Lights._ + VAN HEDDER } + + +Casualties + +Week ending Dec. 18th. + +SABLE ISLAND LANDING TOWERS--Green freighter, number indistinguishable, +up-ended, and fore-tank pierced after collision, passed 300-ft. level 2 +P.M. Dec. 15th. Watched to water and pithed by Mark Boat. + +N. F. BANKS--Postal Packet 162 reports _Halma_ freighter (Fowey--St. +John's) abandoned, leaking after weather, 46 deg. 15' N. 50 deg. 15' W. Crew +rescued by Planet liner _Asteroid_. Watched to water and pithed by +postal packet, Dec. 14th. + +KERGUELEN MARK BOAT reports last call from _Cymena_ freighter (Gayer +Tong-Huk & Co.) taking water and sinking in snow-storm South McDonald +Islands. No wreckage recovered. Addresses, etc., of crew at all A. B. C. +offices. + +FEZZAN--T. A. D. freighter _Ulema_ taken ground during Harmattan on +Akakus Range. Under plates strained. Crew at Ghat where repairing Dec. +13th. + +BISCAY, MARK BOAT reports _Carducci_ (Valandingham line) slightly spiked +in western gorge Point de Benasque. Passengers transferred _Andorra_ +(same line). Barcelona Mark Boat salving cargo Dec. 12th. + +ASCENSION, MARK BOAT--Wreck of unknown racing-plane, Parden rudder, +wire-stiffened xylonite vans, and Harliss engine-seating, sighted and +salved 7 deg. 20' S. 18 deg. 41' W. Dec. 15th. Photos at all A. B. C. offices. + + +Missing + +No answer to General Call having been received during the last week from +following overdues, they are posted as missing. + + _Atlantis_, W. 17630 Canton--Valparaiso + _Audhumla_, W. 809 Stockholm--Odessa + _Berenice_, W. 2206 Riga--Vladivostock + _Draco_, E. 446 Coventry--Puntas Arenas + _Tontine_, E. 3068 C. Wrath--Ungava + _Wu-Sung_, E. 41776 Hankow--Lobito Bay + +General Call (all Mark Boats) out for: + + _Jane Eyre_, W. 6990 Port Rupert--City of Mexico + _Santander_, W. 5514 Gobi-desert--Manila + _V. Edmundsun_, E. 9690 Kandahar--Fiume + + +Broke for Obstruction, and Quitting Levels + +VALKYRIE (racing plane), A. J. Hartley owner, New York (twice warned). + +GEISHA (racing plane), S. van Cott owner, Philadelphia (twice warned). + +MARVEL OF PERU (racing plane), J. X. Peixoto owner, Rio de Janeiro +(twice warned). + + _For the Board_: + + LAZAREFF } + MCKEOUGH } _Traffic._ + GOLDBLATT } + + + + +NOTES + + + + +Notes + +High-Level Sleet + + +The Northern weather so far shows no sign of improvement. From all +quarters come complaints of the unusual prevalence of sleet at the +higher levels. Racing-planes and digs alike have suffered severely--the +former from unequal deposits of half-frozen slush on their vans (and +only those who have "held up" a badly balanced plane in a cross wind +know what that means), and the latter from loaded bows and snow-cased +bodies. As a consequence, the Northern and Northwestern upper levels +have been practically abandoned, and the high fliers have returned to +the ignoble security of the Three, Five, and Six hundred foot levels. +But there remain a few undaunted sun-hunters who, in spite of frozen +stays and ice-jammed connecting-rods, still haunt the blue empyrean. + + +Bat-Boat Racing + +The scandals of the past few years have at last moved the yachting world +to concerted action in regard to "bat" boat racing. + +We have been treated to the spectacle of what are practically keeled +racing-planes driven a clear five foot or more above the water, and only +eased down to touch their so-called "native element" as they near the +line. Judges and starters have been conveniently blind to this +absurdity, but the public demonstration off St. Catherine's Light at the +Autumn Regattas has borne ample, if tardy, fruit. In future the "bat" +is to be a boat, and the long-unheeded demand of the true sportsman for +"no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be +conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike. The +gas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, +but the water-ballast central tank is rendered obligatory. These things +work, if not for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane and +wholesome _waterborne_ cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by the +new rules, so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson make (the patent on +which has just expired) come largely into use henceforward, though the +strain on the sternpost in turning at speeds over forty miles an hour is +admittedly very severe. But bat-boat racing has a great future before +it. + + + + +CORRESPONDENCE + + + + +Correspondence + + +Skylarking on the Equator + +TO THE EDITOR--Only last week, while crossing the Equator (W. 26.15), I +became aware of a furious and irregular cannonading some fifteen or +twenty knots S. 4 E. Descending to the 500 ft. level, I found a party of +Transylvanian tourists engaged in exploding scores of the largest +pattern atmospheric bombs (A. B. C. standard) and, in the intervals of +their pleasing labours, firing bow and stern smoke-ring swivels. This +orgy--I can give it no other name--went on for at least two hours, and +naturally produced violent electric derangements. My compasses, of +course, were thrown out, my bow was struck twice, and I received two +brisk shocks from the lower platform-rail. On remonstrating, I was told +that these "professors" were engaged in scientific experiments. The +extent of their "scientific" knowledge may be judged by the fact that +they expected to produce (I give their own words) "a little blue sky" if +"they went on long enough." This in the heart of the Doldrums at 450 +feet! I have no objection to any amount of blue sky in its proper place +(it can be found at the 2,000 level for practically twelve months out of +the year), but I submit, with all deference to the educational needs of +Transylvania, that "sky-larking" in the centre of a main-travelled road +where, at the best of times, electricity literally drips off one's +stanchions and screw blades, is unnecessary. When my friends had +finished, the road was seared, and blown, and pitted with unequal +pressure-layers, spirals, vortices, and readjustments for at least an +hour. I pitched badly twice in an upward rush--solely due to these +diabolical throw-downs--that came near to wrecking my propeller. +Equatorial work at low levels is trying enough in all conscience without +the added terrors of scientific hooliganism in the Doldrums. + + Rhyl. J. VINCENT MATHEWS. + +[We entirely sympathize with Professor Mathews's views, but unluckily +till the Board sees fit to further regulate the Southern areas in which +scientific experiments may be conducted, we shall always be exposed to +the risk which our correspondent describes. Unfortunately, a chimera +bombinating in a vacuum is, nowadays, only too capable of producing +secondary causes.--_Editor_.] + + +Answers to Correspondents + +VIGILANS--The Laws of Auroral Derangements are still imperfectly +understood. Any overheated motor may of course "seize" without warning; +but so many complaints have reached us of accidents similar to yours +while shooting the Aurora that we are inclined to believe with Lavalle +that the upper strata of the Aurora Borealis are practically one big +electric "leak," and that the paralysis of your engines was due to +complete magnetization of all metallic parts. Low-flying planes often +"glue up" when near the Magnetic Pole, and there is no reason in science +why the same disability should not be experienced at higher levels when +the Auroras are "delivering" strongly. + +INDIGNANT--On your own showing, you were not under control. That you +could not hoist the necessary N. U. C. lights on approaching a +traffic-lane because your electrics had short-circuited is a misfortune +which might befall any one. The A. B. C., being responsible for the +planet's traffic, cannot, however, make allowance for this kind of +misfortune. A reference to the Code will show that you were fined on the +lower scale. + +PLANISTON--(1) The Five Thousand Kilometre (overland) was won last year +by L. V. Rautsch, R. M. Rautsch, his brother, in the same week pulling +off the Ten Thousand (oversea). R. M.'s average worked out at a fraction +over 500 kilometres per hour, thus constituting a record. (2) +Theoretically, there is no limit to the lift of a dirigible. For +commercial and practical purposes 15,000 tons is accepted as the most +manageable. + +PATERFAMILIAS--None whatever. He is liable for direct damage both to +your chimneys and any collateral damage caused by fall of bricks into +garden, etc., etc. Bodily inconvenience and mental anguish may be +included, but the average jury are not, as a rule, men of sentiment. If +you can prove that his grapnel removed _any_ portion of your roof, you +had better rest your case on decoverture of domicile (See Parkins _v_. +Duboulay). We entirely sympathize with your position, but the night of +the 14th was stormy and confused, and--you may have to anchor on a +stranger's chimney yourself some night. _Verbum sap!_ + +ALDEBARAN--War, as a paying concern, ceased in 1967. (2) The Convention +of London expressly reserves to every nation the right of waging war so +long as it does not interfere with the world's traffic. (3) The A. B. C. +was constituted in 1949. + +L. M. D.--Keep her dead head-on at half-power, taking advantage of the +lulls to speed up and creep into it. She will strain much less this way +than in quartering across a gale. (2) Nothing is to be gained by +reversing into a following gale, and there is always risk of a +turn-over. (3) The formulae for stun'sle brakes are uniformly unreliable, +and will continue to be so as long as air is compressible. + +PEGAMOID--Personally we prefer glass or flux compounds to any other +material for winter work nose-caps as being absolutely non-hygroscopic. +(2) We cannot recommend any particular make. + +PULMONAR--For the symptoms you describe, try the Gobi Desert Sanitaria. +The low levels of the Saharan Sanitaria are against them except at the +outset of the disease. (2) We do not recommend boarding-houses or hotels +in this column. + +BEGINNER--On still days the air above a large inhabited city being +slightly warmer--i. e., thinner--than the atmosphere of the surrounding +country, a plane drops a little on entering the rarefied area, precisely +as a ship sinks a little in fresh water. Hence the phenomena of "jolt" +and your "inexplicable collisions" with factory chimneys. In air, as on +earth, it is safest to fly high. + +EMERGENCY--There is only one rule of the road in air, earth, and water. +Do you want the firmament to yourself? + +PICCIOLA--Both Poles have been overdone in Art and Literature. Leave +them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send a stamp with +your verses. + +NORTH NIGERIA--The Mark Boat was within her right in warning you up on +the Reserve. The shadow of a low-flying dirigible scares the game. You +can buy all the photos you need at Sokoto. + +NEW ERA--It is not etiquette to overcross an A. B. C. official's boat +without asking permission. He is one of the body responsible for the +planet's traffic, and for that reason must not be interfered with. You, +presumably, are out on your own business or pleasure, and should leave +him alone. For humanity's sake don't try to be "democratic." + + + + +REVIEWS + + + + +Reviews + + +The Life of Xavier Lavalle + +(_Reviewed by Rene Talland. Ecole Aeronautique, Paris_) + +Ten years ago Lavalle, "that imperturbable dreamer of the heavens," as +Lazareff hailed him, gathered together the fruits of a lifetime's +labour, and gave it, with well-justified contempt, to a world bound hand +and foot to Barald's Theory of Vertices and "compensating electric +nodes." "They shall see," he wrote--in that immortal postscript to "The +Heart of the Cyclone"--"the Laws whose existence they derided written in +fire _beneath_ them." + +"But even here," he continues, "there is no finality. Better a thousand +times my conclusions should be discredited than that my dead name should +lie across the threshold of the temple of Science--a bar to further +inquiry." + +So died Lavalle--a prince of the Powers of the Air, and even at his +funeral Cellier jested at "him who had gone to discover the secrets of +the Aurora Borealis." + +If I choose thus to be banal, it is only to remind you that Cellier's +theories are to-day as exploded as the ludicrous deductions of the +Spanish school. In the place of their fugitive and warring dreams we +have, definitely, Lavalle's Law of the Cyclone which he surprised in +darkness and cold at the foot of the overarching throne of the Aurora +Borealis. It is there that I, intent on my own investigations, have +passed and re-passed a hundred times the worn leonine face, white as the +snow beneath him, furrowed with wrinkles like the seams and gashes upon +the North Cape; the nervous hand, integrally a part of the mechanism of +his flighter; and above all, the wonderful lambent eyes turned to the +zenith. + +"Master," I would cry as I moved respectfully beneath him, "what is it +you seek to-day?" and always the answer, clear and without doubt, from +above: "The old secret, my son!" + +The immense egotism of youth forced me on my own path, but (cry of the +human always!) had I known--if I had known--I would many times have +bartered my poor laurels for the privilege, such as Tinsley and Herrera +possess, of having aided him in his monumental researches. + +It is to the filial piety of Victor Lavalle that we owe the two volumes +consecrated to the ground-life of his father, so full of the holy +intimacies of the domestic hearth. Once returned from the abysms of the +utter North to that little house upon the outskirts of Meudon, it was +not the philosopher, the daring observer, the man of iron energy that +imposed himself on his family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a +farceur incarnate and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must +be written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as she +writes five years after the marriage, to her venerable mother, found "in +this unequalled intellect whose name I bear the abandon of a large and +very untidy boy." Here is her letter: + +"Xavier returned from I do not know where at midnight, absorbed in +calculations on the eternal question of his Aurora--_la belle Aurore_, +whom I begin to hate. Instead of anchoring--I had set out the +guide-light above our roof, so he had but to descend and fasten the +plane--he wandered, profoundly distracted, above the town with his +anchor down! Figure to yourself, dear mother, it is the roof of the +mayor's house that the grapnel first engages! That I do not regret, for +the mayor's wife and I are not sympathetic; but when Xavier uproots my +pet araucaria and bears it across the garden into the conservatory I +protest at the top of my voice. Little Victor in his night-clothes runs +to the window, enormously amused at the parabolic flight without reason, +for it is too dark to see the grapnel, of my prized tree. The Mayor of +Meudon thunders at our door in the name of the Law, demanding, I +suppose, my husband's head. Here is the conversation through the +megaphone--Xavier is two hundred feet above us. + +"'Mons. Lavalle, descend and make reparation for outrage of domicile. +Descend, Mons. Lavalle!' + +"No one answers. + +"'Xavier Lavalle, in the name of the Law, descend and submit to process +for outrage of domicile.' + +"Xavier, roused from his calculations, only comprehending the last +words: 'Outrage of domicile? My dear mayor, who is the man that has +corrupted thy Julie?' + +"The mayor, furious, 'Xavier Lavalle----' + +"Xavier, interrupting: 'I have not that felicity. I am only a dealer in +cyclones!' + +"My faith, he raised one then! All Meudon attended in the streets, and +my Xavier, after a long time comprehending what he had done, excused +himself in a thousand apologies. At last the reconciliation was effected +in our house over a supper at two in the morning--Julie in a wonderful +costume of compromises, and I have her and the mayor pacified in beds in +the blue room." + +And on the next day, while the mayor rebuilds his roof, her Xavier +departs anew for the Aurora Borealis, there to commence his life's +work. M. Victor Lavalle tells us of that historic collision (_en plane_) +on the flank of Hecla between Herrera, then a pillar of the Spanish +school, and the man destined to confute his theories and lead him +intellectually captive. Even through the years, the immense laugh of +Lavalle as he sustains the Spaniard's wrecked plane, and cries: +"Courage! _I_ shall not fall till I have found Truth, and I hold _you_ +fast!" rings like the call of trumpets. This is that Lavalle whom the +world, immersed in speculations of immediate gain, did not know nor +suspect--the Lavalle whom they adjudged to the last a pedant and a +theorist. + +The human, as apart from the scientific, side (developed in his own +volumes) of his epoch-making discoveries is marked with a simplicity, +clarity, and good sense beyond praise. I would specially refer such as +doubt the sustaining influence of ancestral faith upon character and +will to the eleventh and nineteenth chapters, in which are contained the +opening and consummation of the Tellurionical Records extending over +nine years. Of their tremendous significance be sure that the modest +house at Meudon knew as little as that the Records would one day be the +world's standard in all official meteorology. It was enough for them +that their Xavier--this son, this father, this husband--ascended +periodically to commune with powers, it might be angelic, beyond their +comprehension, and that they united daily in prayers for his safety. + +"Pray for me," he says upon the eve of each of his excursions, and +returning, with an equal simplicity, he renders thanks "after supper in +the little room where he kept his barometers." + +To the last Lavalle was a Catholic of the old school, accepting--he who +had looked into the very heart of the lightnings--the dogmas of papal +infallibility, of absolution, of confession--of relics great and small. +Marvellous--enviable contradiction! + +The completion of the Tellurionical Records closed what Lavalle himself +was pleased to call the theoretical side of his labours--labours from +which the youngest and least impressionable planeur might well have +shrunk. He had traced through cold and heat, across the deeps of the +oceans, with instruments of his own invention, over the inhospitable +heart of the polar ice and the sterile visage of the deserts, league by +league, patiently, unweariedly, remorselessly, from their ever-shifting +cradle under the magnetic pole to their exalted death-bed in the utmost +ether of the upper atmosphere--each one of the Isoconical +Tellurions--Lavalle's Curves, as we call them to-day. He had +disentangled the nodes of their intersections, assigning to each its +regulated period of flux and reflux. Thus equipped, he summons Herrera +and Tinsley, his pupils, to the final demonstration as calmly as though +he were ordering his flighter for some midday journey to Marseilles. + +"I have proved my thesis," he writes. "It remains now only that you +should witness the proof. We go to Manila to-morrow. A cyclone will form +off the Pescadores S. 17 E. in four days, and will reach its maximum +intensity in twenty-seven hours after inception. It is there I will show +you the Truth." + +A letter heretofore unpublished from Herrera to Madame Lavalle tells us +how the Master's prophecy was verified. + + (_To be continued_.) + + + + +ADVERTISING SECTION + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS + + +WANTS + +Required immediately, for East Africa, a thoroughly competent Plane and +Dirigible Driver, acquainted with Petrol Radium and Helium motors and +generators. Low-level work only, but must understand heavy-weight digs. + + MOSSAMEDES TRANSPORT ASSOC. + 84 Palestine Buildings, E. C. + + * * * * * + +Man wanted--Dig driver for Southern Alps with Saharan summer trips. High +levels, high speed, high wages. + + Apply M. SIDNEY + Hotel San Stefano. Monte Carlo + + * * * * * + +Family dirigible. A competent, steady man wanted for slow speed, low +level Tangye dirigible. No night work, no sea trips. Must be member of +the Church of England, and make himself useful in the garden. + + M. R., + The Rectory, Gray's Barton, Wilts. + + * * * * * + +Commercial dig, central and Southern Europe. A smart, active man for a +L. M. T. Dig. Night work only. Headquarters London and Cairo. A linguist +preferred. + + BAGMAN + Charing Cross Hotel, W. C. (urgent.) + + * * * * * + +For sale--A bargain--Single Plane, narrow-gauge vans, Pinke motor. +Restayed this autumn. Hansen air-kit. 38 in. chest, 15-1/2 collar. Can +be seen by appointment. + + N. 2650. This office. + + +=The Bee-Line Bookshop= + +BELT'S WAY-BOOKS, giving town lights for all towns over 4,000 pop. as +laid down by A. B. C. + +THE WORLD. Complete 2 vols. Thin Oxford, limp back. 12s. 6d. + +BELT'S COASTAL ITINERARY. Shore Lights of the World. 7s. 6d. + +THE TRANSATLANTIC AND MEDITERRANEAN TRAFFIC LINES. (By authority of the +A. B. C.) Paper, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s. 6d. Ready Jan. 15. + +ARCTIC AEROPLANING. Siemens and Galt. Cloth, bds. 3s. 6d. + +LAVALLE'S HEART OF THE CYCLONE, with supplementary charts. 4s. 6d. + +RIMINGTON'S PITFALLS IN THE AIR, and Table of Comparative Densities. 3s. +6d. + +ANGELO'S DESERT IN A DIRIGIBLE. New edition, revised. 5s. 9d. + +VAUGHAN'S PLANE RACING IN CALM AND STORM. 2s. 6d. + +VAUGHAN'S HINTS TO THE AIR-MATEUR. 1s. + +HOFMAN'S LAWS OF LIFT AND VELOCITY. With diagrams, 3s. 6d. + +DE VITRE'S THEORY OF SHIFTING BALLAST IN DIRIGIBLES. 2s. 6d. + +SANGER'S WEATHERS OF THE WORLD. 4s. + +SANGER'S TEMPERATURES AT HIGH ALTITUDES. 4s. + +HAWKIN'S FOG AND HOW TO AVOID IT. 3s. + +VAN ZUYLAN'S SECONDARY EFFECTS OF THUNDERSTORMS. 4s. 6d. + +DAHLGREN'S AIR CURRENTS AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 5s. 6d. + +REDMAYNE'S DISEASE AND THE BAROMETER. 7s. 6d. + +WALTON'S HEALTH RESORTS OF THE GOBI AND SHAMO. 3s. 6d. + +WALTON'S THE POLE AND PULMONARY COMPLAINTS. 7s. 6d. + +MUTLOW'S HIGH LEVEL BACTERIOLOGY 7s. 6d. + +HALLIWELL'S ILLUMINATED STAR MAP, with clockwork attachment, giving +apparent motion of heavens, boxed, complete with clamps for binnacle. 36 +inch size, only L2. 2. 0. (Invaluable for night work.) With A. B. C. +certificate, L3. 10s. 0d. + +Zalinski's Standard Works. + + PASSES OF THE HIMALAYAS. 5s. + + PASSES OF THE SIERRAS. 5s. + + PASSES OF THE ROCKIES. 5s. + + PASSES OF THE URALS. 5s. + + The four boxed, limp cloth, with charts, 15s. + +GRAY'S AIR CURRENTS IN MOUNTAIN GORGES. 7s. 6d. + +=A. C. BELT & SON, READING= + + + + +SAFETY WEAR FOR AERONAUTS + + + Flickers! Flickers! Flickers! + + =High Level Flickers= + + "_He that is down need fear no fall_" + _Fear not! You will fall lightly as down!_ + +Hansen's air-kits are down in all respects. Tremendous reductions in +prices previous to winter stocking. Pure para kit with cellulose seat +and shoulder-pads, weighted to balance. Unequalled for all drop-work. + +Our trebly resilient heavy kit is the _ne plus ultra_ of comfort and +safety. + +Gas-buoyed, waterproof, hail-proof, non-conducting Flickers with pipe +and nozzle fitting all types of generator. Graduated tap on left hip. + + =Hansen's Flickers Lead the Aerial Flight= + =197 Oxford Street= + + The new weighted Flicker with tweed or cheviot surface cannot + be distinguished from the ordinary suit till inflated. + + Flickers! Flickers! Flickers! + + + + +APPLIANCES FOR AIR PLANES + + +What + +"SKID" + +was to our forefathers on the ground, + +"PITCH" + +is to their sons in the air. + +The popularity of the large, unwieldy, slow, expensive Dirigible over +the light, swift Plane is mainly due to the former's immunity from +pitch. + +Collison's forward-socketed Air Van renders it impossible for any plane +to pitch. The C. F. S. is automatic, simple as a shutter, certain as a +power hammer, safe as oxygen. Fitted to any make of plane. + + COLLISON + 186 Brompton Road + _Workshops_, _Chiswick_ + + LUNDIE & MATHERS + Sole Agts for East'n Hemisphere + + * * * * * + +Starters and Guides + +Hotel, club, and private house plane-starters, slips and guides affixed +by skilled workmen in accordance with local building laws. + +Rackstraw's forty-foot collapsible steel starters with automatic release +at end of travel--prices per foot run, clamps and crampons included. The +safest on the market. + + _Weaver & Denison + Middleboro_ + + + + +AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLE GOODS + + +_=Remember=_ + + =Planes are swift--so is Death= + =Planes are cheap--so is Life= + +_Why_ does the 'plane builder insist on the safety of his machines? + +Methinks the gentleman protests too much. + +The Standard Dig Construction Company do not build kites. + +They build, equip and guarantee dirigibles. + +=_Standard Dig Construction Co._= + +Millwall _and_ Buenos Ayres + + * * * * * + +Remember + +We shall always be pleased to see you. + +We build and test and guarantee our dirigibles for all purposes. They go +up when you please and they do not come down till you please. + +You can please yourself, but--you might as well choose a dirigible. + +=STANDARD DIRIGIBLE CONSTRUCTION CO.= + +Millwall _and_ Buenos Ayres + + * * * * * + +HOVERS + + POWELL'S + Wind Hovers + +for 'planes tying-to in heavy weather, save the motor and strain on the +forebody. Will not send to leeward. "Albatross" wind-hovers, +rigid-ribbed; according to h. p. and weight. + + _We fit and test free to 40 deg. east of Greenwich_ + + L. & W. POWELL + 196 Victoria Street, W + + * * * * * + +Gayer & Hutt + + Birmingham AND Birmingham + Eng. Ala. + + Towers, Landing Stages, + Slips and Lifts + public and private + +Contractors to the A. B. C., South-Western European Postal Construction +Dept. + +Sole patentees and owners of the Collison anti-quake diagonal tower-tie. +Only gold medal Kyoto Exhibition of Aerial Appliances, 1997. + + + + +AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLES + + +C. M. C. + + Our Synthetical Mineral + BEARINGS + +are chemically and crystallogically identical with the minerals whose +names they bear. Any size, any surface. Diamond, Rock-Crystal, Agate and +Ruby Bearings--cups, caps and collars for the higher speeds. + +For tractor bearings and spindles--Imperative. + +For rear propellers--Indispensable. + +For all working parts--Advisable. + + Commercial Minerals Co. + 107 Minories + + * * * * * + +Resurgam! + +IF YOU HAVE NOT CLOTHED YOURSELF IN A + + Normandie + Resurgam + +YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT BE INTERESTED IN OUR NEXT WEEK'S LIST OF AIR-KIT. + +Resurgam Air-Kit Emporium + +HYMANS & GRAHAM + + 1198 + Lower Broadway, New York + + * * * * * + +Remember! + +¶ It is now nearly a century since the Plane was to supersede the +Dirigible for all purposes. + +¶ TO-DAY _none_ of the Planet's freight is carried _en plane_. + +¶ Less than two per cent. of the Planet's passengers are carried _en +plane_. + +_We design, equip and guarantee Dirigibles for all purposes._ + +Standard Dig Construction Company + +MILLWALL and BUENOS AYRES + + + + +BAT-BOATS + + +[Illustration] + +Flint & Mantel + +Southampton + +FOR SALE + +at the end of Season the following Bat-Boats: + +=GRISELDA=, 65 knt., 42 ft., 430 (nom.) Maginnis Motor, under-rake rudder. + +=MABELLE=, 50 knt., 40 ft., 310 Hargreaves Motor, Douglas' lock-steering +gear. + +=IVEMONA=, 50 knt., 35 ft., 300 Hargreaves (Radium accelerator), Miller +keel and rudder. + +The above are well known on the South Coast as sound, wholesome +knockabout boats, with ample cruising accommodation. _Griselda_ carries +spare set of Hofman racing vans and can be lifted three foot clear in +smooth water with ballast-tank swung aft. The others do not lift clear +of water, and are recommended for beginners. + +Also, by private treaty, racing B. B. _Tarpon_ (76 winning flags) 137 +knt., 60 ft.; Long-Davidson double under-rake rudder, new this season +and unstrained. 850 nom. Maginnis motor, Radium relays and Pond +generator. Bronze breakwater forward, and treble reinforced forefoot and +entry. Talfourd rockered keel. Triple set of Hofman vans, giving maximum +lifting surface of 5327 sq. ft. + +_Tarpon_ has been lifted _and held_ seven feet for two miles between +touch and touch. + +_Our Autumn List of racing and family Bats ready on the 9th January._ + + + + +AIR PLANES AND STARTERS + + +Hinks's Moderator + +¶ Monorail overhead starter for family and private planes up to +twenty-five foot over all + +Absolutely Safe + +_Hinks & Co., Birmingham_ + + * * * * * + +J. D. ARDAGH + +I AM NOT CONCERNED WITH YOUR 'PLANE AFTER IT LEAVES MY GUIDES, BUT _TILL +THEN_ I HOLD MYSELF PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE, SAFETY, AND +COMFORT. MY HYDRAULIC BUFFER-STOP _CANNOT_ RELEASE TILL THE MOTORS ARE +WORKING UP TO BEARING SPEED, THUS SECURING A SAFE AND GRACEFUL FLIGHT +WITHOUT PITCHING. + +Remember our motto, "_Upward and Outward_," and do not trust yourself to +so-called "rigid" guide bars + +J. D. ARDAGH, BELFAST AND TURIN + + + + +ACCESSORIES AND SPARES + + +CHRISTIAN WRIGHT & OLDIS + +ESTABLISHED 1924 + +Accessories and Spares + + +Hooded Binnacles with dip-dials automatically recording change of level +(illuminated face). + + All heights from 50 to 15,000 feet L2 10 0 + + With Aerial Board of Control certificate L3 11 0 + + Foot and Hand Foghorns; Sirens toned to any club note; + with air-chest belt-driven from motor L6 8 0 + + Wireless installations syntonised to A. B. C. + requirements, in neat mahogany case, hundred mile range L3 3 0 + +Grapnels, mushroom anchors, pithing-irons, winches, hawsers, snaps, +shackles and mooring ropes, for lawn, city, and public installations. + +Detachable under-cars, aluminum or stamped steel. + +Keeled under-cars for planes: single-action detaching-gear, turning car +into boat with one motion of the wrist. Invaluable for sea trips. + +Head, side, and riding lights (by size) Nos. 00 to 20 A. B. C. Standard. +Rockets and fog-bombs in colours and tones of the principal clubs +(boxed). + + A selection of twenty L2 17 6 + + International night-signals (boxed) L1 11 6 + +Spare generators guaranteed to lifting power marked on cover (prices +according to power). + +Wind-noses for dirigibles--Pegamoid, cane-stiffened, lacquered cane or +aluminum and flux for winter work. + +Smoke-ring cannon for hail storms, swivel mounted, bow or stern. + +Propeller blades: metal, tungsten backed; papier-mache; wire stiffened; +ribbed Xylonite (Nickson's patent); all razor-edged (price by pitch and +diameter). + +Compressed steel bow-screws for winter work. + +Fused Ruby or Commercial Mineral Co. bearings and collars. Agate-mounted +thrust-blocks up to 4 inch. + +Magniac's bow-rudders--(Lavalle's patent grooving). + +Wove steel beltings for outboard motors (non-magnetic). + +Radium batteries, all powers to 150 h. p. (in pairs). + +Helium batteries, all powers to 300 h. p. (tandem). + +Stun'sle brakes worked from upper or lower platform. + +Direct plunge-brakes worked from lower platform only, loaded silk or +fibre, wind-tight. + +_Catalogues free throughout the Planet_ + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's note + + +The following changes have been made to the text: + +Page 30: "passenger's faces" changed to "passengers' faces". + +Page 41: "Instead of shuting" changed to "Instead of shutting". + +Page 68: "orgie" changed to "orgy". + +Page 71: "earth,and water" changed to "earth, and water". + +Page 82: "Milwall and Buenos Ayres" changed to "Millwall and Buenos +Ayres". + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of With The Night Mail, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH THE NIGHT MAIL *** + +***** This file should be named 29135.txt or 29135.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/3/29135/ + +Produced by Stephen Hope, Carla Foust, Joseph Cooper and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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