Contango (Ill Wind)

Contango (Ill Wind) by James Hilton Page B

Book: Contango (Ill Wind) by James Hilton Read Free Book Online
Authors: James Hilton
Tags: Romance, Novel
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fancy.”
    “I often wonder what he would have done in times like
these.”
    “I can tell you. He’d have done now what he did
then—adapted himself to the circumstances of the age and made a
fortune…. Well, here we are—this is the spot I’ve chosen for
our young friend to make his hit or miss. And, by the way, I haven’t
arranged it as a public spectacle. There’s only you here, myself,
Mathers, and a few workmen pledged to secrecy. Time enough for the flourish
of trumpets, if any, later on.”
    The car pulled into the side of a narrow lane in rather pleasantly rural
country. Parceval led the way across a few fields to a prettily situated
sheet of water fringed with tall reeds. Amidst the sudden tranquillity of the
scene, and under that cloudless October sky, Brown felt happier than he had
been for days. Perhaps money did not matter so much, after all, so long as
there were still such things as fields and sunshine. He wondered how much of
England there was, secret and lovely like this, within a few hundred yards of
the roads along which he so often motored. He sniffed the warm, hay-scented
air and felt all his worries relax in almost muscular contentment.
    Presently Mathers joined them and Parceval explained his plans for the
afternoon’s experiment. “The plane’s taking off from a
field several miles away; I said we’d all be here by three
o’clock. I don’t think the fellow will want to waste time.
He’s very keen and plucky. Of course it’s a chancy business, but
if he keeps over the water I think he can’t hurt himself much. The
thing’s airtight enough to come to the surface.”
    To Brown the waiting, the shimmer of sunlight on the lake, and the
spaciousness of that unknown countryside, seemed all a part of some very
strange dream. He could hardly believe he was about to witness an actual and
perhaps exciting event, and he missed even the approaching aeroplane till his
attention was drawn to it by Parceval. Then, as he heard it zooming overhead,
he felt a tense agitation rising in him. Twice the machine made a circuit of
the lake, while the three principal spectators stared upwards.
    “He’ll do it soon,” said Parceval.
    Brown’s heart began to beat more quickly still, and then all at once
to ache with a peculiar and almost intolerable apprehension. His own son had
been killed like that—pioneering in the air in the early days of
flying. He called to mind that dreadful day before the War; and then he
called to mind the eager, smiling face across the table in the French
train—he saw it continually, that smile of such undaunted belief in
things that Brown was more than a little doubtful about. He thought as he
stood: “We are old men, Parceval, Mathers, and I; and we stay here,
safe and contemplative, watching that youngster risk his life.”
    Just then something that looked like an elongated drop of quicksilver
detached itself from the tail of the aeroplane and began to slew round in a
wide circle. It moved at first too fast for Brown to see anything but its
shape and colour; but after a few seconds it swooped nearer to the
water-level and exhibited details of whirring propellers and fins that
glistened in the sunlight. “Like a baby Zepp, by Jove!” exclaimed
Mathers, trying to focus it in his binoculars. Then, in the midst of
seemingly effortless cruising, it checked its horizontal motion and all at
once plunged headlong. It was perhaps thirty or forty feet high when that
happened, and the dive took it just beyond the lake into a swamp at the
water’s edge, where it buried itself nose-foremost with only the
tail-propeller visible above the reeds.
    “Come on, let’s get him out!” yelled Brown, and began to
run towards the scene, the others hastening after him. Striding up to his
knees in mud and water, he kept thinking: “He’s there, he’s
in that thing—it’s all my fault—it wouldn’t have
happened if I hadn’t met him on

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