The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

Captain Reagan’s cabin. Then I went up to the bridge. We were about to let go. This was when it was worth being on the bridge and I never tired of the experience. One by one the anchor cables were released and I felt the ship surge a little as if impatient to be freed completely and get back aloft. The motors began to murmur and in the side-mirrors I could see the propellers slowly turning. The captain looked forward and then below and checked his periscopes to make sure our stern was clear. He gave the instructions and the catwalk was drawn away from the mast, back into the hull. Now all that held the ship were the couplings attaching her to the mast.
    Captain Quelch spoke into the telephone. “Stand by to slip.”
    “Ready to slip, sir,” replied the Mast Controller’s voice from the receiver.
    “Slip.”
    There was a slight jerk as the couplings fell free. The Loch Etive began to turn, her nose still nestling in the cone.
    “All engines half-speed astern.” By his tone, Captain Quelch was relieved to be on his way. He stroked his white walrus moustache rather as a satisfied cat might stroke its whiskers. The diesels began to roar as we pulled out of the cone. Our bow rose.
    “Half-speed ahead,” said the captain. “Two degrees to port, steering coxswain.”
    “Aye, aye, sir. Two degrees to port.”
    “Take us up to five hundred feet, height coxswain, and hold steady.”
    “Five hundred feet, sir.” The height cox turned the large wheel at which he was positioned. All around us on the spacious bridge instruments were whirring and clicking and we were presented with a display of readings which would have thoroughly confused an old-time ship’s captain.
    The vast airpark fell away below us and we turned towards the sparkling ocean of San Francisco Bay. We saw the hulls of the land-bound ships dwindling in size. The Loch Etive was behaving as beautifully as usual, almost flying herself.
    Now we were over the ocean.
    “Five degrees to port, steering coxswain,” said Captain Quelch, leaning over the computer console.
    “Five degrees to port, sir.”
    We began to turn so that from our starboard portholes we could see the skyscrapers of San Francisco—painted in a thousand dazzling colours.
    “Take her up to two thousand feet, height coxswain.”
    “Two thousand feet, sir.”
    Up we went, passing through a few wisps of cloud, into the vast sea of blue which was the sky.
    “All engines full ahead.”
    With a great roar of power, the mighty engines pushed the ship forward. She surged on at a steady hundred and twenty miles an hour, heading for South America, carrying three hundred and eighty-five human souls and forty-eight tons of cargo as effortlessly as an eagle might carry a mouse.
    B y that evening, the story of my encounter with the scout-leader had spread throughout the crew. Fellow officers stopped me and asked how I was getting on with “Roughrider Ronnie” as someone had nicknamed him, but I assured them that, unless he proved to be a dangerous saboteur, I was going to avoid him punctiliously for the rest of the voyage. However, it was to emerge that he did not share my wish.
    My second encounter came that night when I was making my tour of duty through the ship, normally a long and rather boring business.
    The fittings of the Loch Etive were described in the company’s brochures as “opulent” and, particularly in the first-class quarters, they were certainly lavish. Everywhere the “plastic” was made to look exactly like marble, like oak, mahogany and teak, like steel or brass or gold. There were curtains of plush and silk drawn back from the wide observation ports running the length of the ship, there were deep carpets in blue and red and yellow, comfortable armchairs in the lounges or on the decks. The recreation decks, restaurants, smoking rooms, bars and bathrooms were all equipped with the latest elegant gadgets and blazed with electric lighting. It was this luxury which made the Loch