Love, Death, Chariot of Fire Read online

  This scenario draws calls of ‘Shame!’ and ‘Unthinkable!’, and much merriment.

  ‘Yes, I know it’s an appalling thought,’ Smith resumes. ‘But I can’t help noticing that more and more airfields and aerodromes are cropping up. Not just in this country but elsewhere in the Empire and the rest of the civilised world. In our very own markets! They’re not pretty sights for seaplane people like us.

  ‘But let’s put away our crystal ball and celebrate what we are today, and what we’ve achieved. We who freeze in winter and swelter in summer, under the tin roof of a glorified shed. While the production teams beneath our feet make a racket that would wake the dead with their screaming jigsaws, panel-beating, rivet-hammering, and loud cursing that would make the devil himself blush. Many in this country rejoice in our ability to produce the world’s fastest aeroplanes, as D’Arcy Greig sitting over here demonstrated once more last month by clocking up 320 miles an hour in one of our S.6s. But few realise that our creative fellowship is forged under such torrid conditions.’

  Glasses thumping on the tables and yells of ‘Hear, hear!’ signal assent.

  ‘Well, that’s it from me. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone! Does anyone else want to say a few words?’

  A disconcerted silence follows the abrupt end of Smith’s speech. Then someone calls out, ‘RJ!’ It sets off a rhythmic chant, accompanied by slow clapping: R-J-R-J-R-J-R-J-R-J.

  Mitchell makes a jocular attempt to crawl under the table. Two colleagues sitting nearby rush to stop him, and drag him to his feet, to even more jollity. He gestures his capitulation, and the two men resume their seats.

  ‘Friends and colleagues! Yes, as Joe has said, we’ve had a pretty good year. The Flying Radiator has successfully flown to the defence of The Flying Flirt, and she’s back safe and sound at the Royal Aero Club. But for some reason everyone has stared themselves blind at that success, and so missed our far greater sporting achievement for the year – our Technical Department’s winning second place in the Supermarine Sports and Social Club Rowing Section’s inter-departmental four-oar galley race this summer. Next summer we’ll take out the cup!’

  Laughter and roars of approval greet this boast.

  ‘We’ve even managed to keep the wolf well away from the door by selling quite a few usable flying boats – our Southamptons, Seagulls and Scarabs. In particular we have to thank the Australians, their interminable coastline, and their good taste in flying boats from which to survey and watch over it.

  ‘I know we were all nervous about Vickers taking us over last year, but that has gone reasonably well too. In spite of some meddling from on high, Supermarine has retained its autonomy, and its character. Financially speaking, thanks to Vickers, we have a bit more water under the keel. Lack thereof has worried us the whole time I’ve worked for the firm. Unfortunately you can’t pay wages out of the ballyhoo surrounding Schneider wins. And Vickers has added a valuable colleague to our team in the person of Agony Payn, now my assistant. You don’t mind me using your Supermarine nickname, eh Major?’

  Payn shakes his head vociferously as the guests cheer.

  ‘Let me round out what Joe was saying about our working fellowship. It’s such a rich experience working with you all. No! Let me put that a better way: it’s such a rich experience being one of you as we break new ground at work. Above all, there’s the recurring experience of a group of us standing around a drawing board as we ponder a problem together. Sometimes silent, sometimes tossing around some pretty wild ideas, until precisely the right one leaps from someone’s lips. And we others instantly recognise it as such.

  ‘The same miracle comes to pass when we’re gathered round a prototype that’s just revealed a weakness during a test flight, and we have to find a solution. These sparks that fly between us – they’re what make a Schneider winner, a valuable defence contract, or an export success. And make us a uniquely flexible and creative team. In an industry where technical changes are occurring at such bewildering speed. To borrow words Flo used the other day to capture the magical effect that her choir achieves when it’s on song: it comes from people coming together to do the same thing, at the same time, for the same purpose.

  ‘I know I can get a bit testy at some of these times, and I apologise for that. But you who work closely with me seem to roll with the punches and understand it’s nothing personal. Just me getting over-excited, I suppose.

  ‘We’re so fortunate to have each other. We’re also blessed in having so much invaluable support from outside the firm. Both public and private. There are the wind tunnels and other facilities of the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the National Physical Laboratories. There’s the close cooperation we enjoy with the lads just across the water at RAF Calshot. And beyond them, with the Air Ministry. Finally, of course, there’s the Rolls Royce experimental team. We wouldn’t have been able to hang onto the Flying Flirt without the mighty R engine.’

  Mitchell wonders whether to risk breaking the festive spell with some words of warning. But his audience seems quiet and attentive now, and he feels he shouldn’t let the opportunity pass.

  ‘We need to keep our fellowship, resources and strengths in mind. Because we may find ourselves flying into quite a strong headwind soon. The crash on the New York stock exchange two months ago is already wreaking havoc on the American economy. I fear it will infect the European economies before long, including our own. We’ve already had to lay off some of our shopfloor coworkers for the winter. I’m sure you share my deep regret over that.

  ‘As you’re all aware, even at the best of times quite a few of our designs don’t attract interest from customers and never get built. When we do get further contracts to build prototypes, some of them never get to the next stage to become production aircraft. Because they disappoint the customers – and us too, sometimes. Soon we could well find orders evaporating for even our best designs, and we’ll be left relying on our ingenuity and a lot of good luck to keep our teams intact.

  ‘Ten years ago, when Supermarine was a much smaller and even more vulnerable outfit, we faced just this predicament in the sharp depression that followed the Armistice, and all our defence contracts dried up. How did we come through it? We made wheelbarrows and sold them to hardware stores – that’s how! Today we’re still a relatively small firm in the aviation industry. But we’re now a firm of national significance. If we have to make wheelbarrows again, then so be it, and they’ll be damned good ones! But we will come through. Because we have to.

  ‘Supermarine! Thou shalt survive this hour: England hath need of thee!’

  God knows where that flourish came from – studying poetry at school most likely, mixed with the brandy and wine. Anyway, it brings the guests to their feet, clapping and hooting, so it seems a good note to end on. Mitchell sits down, reaches for his glass.

  Smith stands up. ‘Colleagues! We’ve kept the ladies and the band waiting for long enough. Let us now invite both into vigorous action!’

  On cue, the band strikes up a lively Charleston number, I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle. Chairs scrape as the guests make for the dance floor. Mitchell turns to Flo with a broad grin and extends his hand.

  ‘May I have the honour of this dance, dear madam?’

  Chapter 3

  A patriot

  ‘Hazeldene’, Russell Place, Southampton. Friday 16 January 1931, 7 am. It’s still dark outside as Mitchell tackles the breakfast that Eva has put before him (kippers, soft-boiled egg, toast, butter, marmalade, a pot of tea), and then the local Southern Daily Echo. The news he has been dreading confronts him on the front page. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, and Philip Snowdon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have met with representatives of the aviation industry and the Royal Aero Club, and once again refused to finance a British defence of the Schneider Trophy in the contest due in September. Nor would it make facilities available at RAF Calshot or reconstitute the High Speed Flight. The Depression, and the need for ‘fiscal respon
sibility’ to meet it, put the estimated £100,000 necessary to field a British entry in the 1931 contest out of the question.

  The public controversy has been intensifying for six months. The government has shown itself quite unmoved by the prospect of national humiliation due to the RAeC’s inability even to host the competition – with or without British entries – as the Schneider rules require of the most recent winning country. Not even the French and Italian governments’ underwriting their own national entries, and paying the requisite hefty deposit to accompany their registration, cut any ice with MacDonald and Snowdon.

  In the face of a shrinking economy, the government has held to its parsimonious line, to Mitchell’s disgust. It has done so in defiance of a rising tide of popular hostility to this betrayal of British pride – a hostility whipped up by the Daily Mail and many other newspapers around the country. Prominent figures such as Sir Samuel Hoare, former Secretary of State for Air, have contributed rational arguments to an otherwise rather jingoistic campaign in support of British participation. Senior RAF officers have chimed in, not least Air Vice Marshal Hugh Dowding, the new Member for Supply and Research on the Air Council – the air force’s governing body.

  Mitchell himself has tried to follow suit in interviews he’s given to the Stoke-on-Trent Evening Sentinel and the Southampton Echo. In these interviews he’s emphasised the importance of Britain’s Schneider entries for its aviation industry’s technical progress and export sales, and its reputation as the world leader in the field. But he hasn’t shied away from suggesting that the government’s whole belt-tightening approach to the Depression is fundamentally wrong-headed – the product of economic quackery that exacerbates the disease it’s intended to cure. Like prescribing strangulation to relieve an asthma attack.

  He’s read the Liberal Summer School’s closely reasoned manifesto, Britain’s Industrial Future – the so-called Yellow Book published two years ago – and found it compelling. The government should be stimulating and coordinating industrial development, not hobbling it, he’s argued on the basis of this book. MacDonald and Snowdon are in thrall to the same economic humbug that probably triggered the Depression in the first place – letting the economy overheat and seize up, causing it to crash. Just like a Schneider racer if it isn’t skilfully flown.

  The government made one concession at yesterday’s meeting, the Echo reports: if the RAeC can itself raise the £100,000 from private sources and hand it over to the Exchequer, then it will release the funds that the relevant firms need to develop Britain’s entries; and it will cooperate by making Calshot available and reconstituting the High Speed Flight. It’s a purely symbolic – perhaps even cynical – concession. Who has even a fraction of that exorbitant sum to spare these days? Certainly not the aviation firms themselves, which are all struggling to survive.

  The news triggers one of Mitchell’s ‘moods’. As usual, Vera Cross notices it as soon as he walks into the office. ‘I’ll see that you’re not disturbed, RJ,’ she calls to him before he shuts the door of his office behind him. It’s not much of an office – graceless utilitarian shelving, threadbare carpet, hand basin in the corner for when he returns from his forays to the shop floor downstairs – but it’s his precious workspace, his haven. The din from below penetrates it without troubling him. It’s like birdsong to a farmer. Vera more than anyone understands what this space means to him.

  He marvels at this daily dependence on Flo at home and Vera at work to register his state of mind, shield him, keep him functioning, forgive his fits of temper. The two women speak on the phone almost daily to coordinate their efforts.

  Three years ago Vera was a bright young woman all set to go to university, when the sudden death of her father left her without the means to do so. Instead of embarking on an academic career she was abruptly diverted into a brief secretarial course. Her walk to the college took her past a view of Supermarine’s slipway, and the strange flying machines she saw there fascinated her. So she made the firm her first port of call when she finished her course and was looking for work.

  The tall, brown-haired, bespectacled young woman with her quick wit impressed Mitchell when he interviewed her. Now she not only types his correspondence, but opens all his incoming mail, and off her own bat composes and types his replies ready for his cursory checking and signature. Correspondence is a chore for which he has little aptitude, and lacks all patience. She also acts as his formidable gatekeeper.

  Unusually under the circumstances, the phone on his desk does ring as soon as he’s taken off his hat and coat and sat down. ‘Sorry, RJ, but Sir Robert wants a word,’ Vera says.

  Sir Robert McLean chairs the boards of both Vickers Aviation and Supermarine. The hard man from head office who has been imposing ‘efficiencies’ at the Supermarine works since the Vickers takeover two years earlier. But thank God the man’s an engineer who lives in the real world, not one of those heartless, blundering ‘scientific-management’ types who don’t. He respects Mitchell, and Mitchell harbours a grudging respect for him that is growing into a friendship.

  ‘Good morning, RJ,’ the Scottish voice says. ‘You’ve read about the outcome of the meeting with the government yesterday, I take it.’

  ‘Yes, Bob, I have. Extremely disappointing. But not unexpected, of course. I guess that’s it as far as the Schneider is concerned.’

  ‘Not quite, as it happens. Someone might be about to throw us a lifeline. Long shot at this stage. But if they do so – very soon – what are our chances of producing a credible contender by September?’

  Mitchell isn’t used to fielding hypothetical questions, but he’s talking to the boss and should play along. Anyway, he senses his own pulse quickening at the mere suggestion of getting away from producing mundane flying workhorses and components for existing aircraft, and returning to the pursuit of speed.

  ‘Just how credible would it have to be, Bob?’

  ‘In with a chance to beat the Italians. Their bloody Macchi M.72 we keep hearing ominous rumours about. I’m not worried about the French. Disorganised as usual. And the Yanks have already missed the deadline for entries.’

  ‘We can’t develop an entirely new plane in that time, that’s clear,’ Mitchell replies. ‘But just off the top of my head: if we hopped to it I suppose we could modify our two S.6s and tune up their engines to start with. For testing and training purposes. And perhaps as back-up entries. Then we could look at constructing a more advanced version of the S.6 for September. God knows we’ve got quite a lot of idle capacity downstairs at the moment. The crunch question is whether the Rolls-Royce team could come up with the right engine in that time. We’d need a lot more horsepower.’

  ‘Thanks, RJ. That’s the answer I wanted. As usual I’ll be on site down there in Woolston on Tuesday. Do you think you could get a couple of senior Rolls-Royce people to meet us then, and thrash out what’s feasible?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do and let you know. Might start with a phone call to Henry Royce. Now that he’s been created a baronet, he no doubt speaks with added authority. He can put the Derby lot in a receptive state of mind. But I might need to assure them that this is a serious proposition. Where would the money be coming from? Some sort of consortium in the City?’

  ‘No, RJ. The source would be an individual definitely not from the City. I’m loath to reveal her identity in case it tempts you to dismiss the whole idea.’

  ‘Her identity?!’

  McLean sighs. ‘All right, RJ. Are you sitting down? The potential donor is Lady Lucy Houston. Heard of her?’

  ‘ “Heard of her”! Who hasn’t? She’s notorious! Survivor of several marriages to rich and titled men, and quite the eccentric. Former chorus girl, suffragette, nudist, publicity hound, and now yachtswoman. Patriotic partisan against the MacDonald government, and a Mussolini-admirer. Grounds for scepticism, don’t you think, Bob?’

  ‘Look, RJ, we need to take a balanced view here. Her latest lamented husband, a shipping magnate, l
eft her an enormous fortune – including the luxurious steam yacht she now lives on. Yes, she’s a showy super-patriot, but she’s also a Dame of the British Empire for her own contributions to the common weal. The point is this: she has the money and the motivation. If and when she makes her decision, she won’t play games with us – just sign the cheque and leave us to get on with it. I’m in direct touch with her. I’m quite sure of that.’

  Mitchell pauses to digest this argument. It’s not as if there’s any alternative offer on the table. And Lucy Houston might well lend a bit of colour to the drab world of the Depression. She’d also deliver a poke in the eye to a government that thought it had struck a fatal blow against the Schneider contest. And he likes the idea of using money from an admirer of Mussolini to withhold the Flying Flirt from his regime forever. A third British triumph in a row would deliver outright victory and put an end to the Schneider series.

  Above all, the hectic preparation of Supermarine’s entries would banish the deadly grip of the Depression on its offices and workshops. In the struggle to stay afloat they’ve even resorted to fabricating wings and other components for other firms’ planes. What if Supermarine could get back to its own agenda?

  ‘All right, Bob. I’ll get onto Rolls-Royce. They needn’t know where the money’s coming from just yet.’

  ‘Excellent, RJ. We need to be discreet, of course. If we can haul our Derby friends on board, we’ll meet Lucy Houston on Thursday and hopefully clinch the deal.’

  Thursday 22 January 1931, 10 am. In cold overcast weather, four men – rugged up in hats, gloves, scarves and overcoats – are helped aboard the Supermarine speedboat from the firm’s Woolston jetty by its skipper, Herbie Grimes. The party consists of Mitchell and McLean; Ernest Hives, head of the Rolls-Royce experimental department; and Commander Harold Perrin, the jovial secretary of the Royal Aero Club.