The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock Page A

Etive one of the most expensive aerial liners in the skies, but most passengers thought it worth paying for.
    By the time I had reached the third-class section I was looking forward to turning in. Then, suddenly, from out of a subsidiary passage leading to the dining rooms, stormed the Captain of Roughriders himself. His face was scarlet. He was spluttering with rage and he grabbed me by the arm.
    “I’ve a complaint!” he shouted.
    I hadn’t expected a compliment. I raised my eyebrows.
    “About the restaurant,” he continued.
    “That’s something to take up with the stewards, sir,” I said in relief.
    “I’ve already complained to the chief steward and he refused to do anything about it.” He eyed me narrowly. “You are an officer, aren’t you?”
    I admitted it. “However, my job is to look after the security of the ship.”
    “What about the morals?”
    I was frankly astonished. “Morals, sir?” I stuttered.
    “That’s what I said, young man. I have a duty to my scouts. I hardly expected them to be subjected to the indignities, the display of loose behaviour... Come with me.”
    Out of curiosity more than anything else, I allowed him to lead me into the dining room. Here a rather insipid jazz band was playing and a few couples were dancing. At the tables people were eating or talking and not a few were staring at the table where all twenty boy Roughriders were seated.
    “There!” hissed Reagan. “There! What do you say now?”
    “I can’t see anything, sir.”
    “Nobody told me that I was coming aboard a flying Temple of Jezebel! Immoral women displaying themselves—look! Look!” I was bound to say that the girls were wearing rather scanty evening frocks, but nothing one would not see every night in London. “And disgusting music—jungle music!” He pointed at the bored-looking band on the rostrum. “And, worse than that.” He drew closer and hissed in my ear, “There are, young man, niggers eating right next to us. What kind of a decent ship do you call this?”
    At the nearest table to the scouts sat a party of Indian civil servants who had recently finished their exams in London and were on their way to Hong Kong. They were well-dressed and sat quietly talking among themselves.
    “White boys being forced to eat elbow to elbow with niggers,” Reagan continued. “We were transferred without our agreement to this ship, you know. On a decent American ship...”
    The chief steward came up. He gave me a weary, apologetic look. I thought of a solution.
    “Perhaps this passenger and his boys could eat in their cabins,” I suggested to the steward.
    “That won’t do!” There was a hard, mad gleam in Reagan’s eye. “I have to supervise them. Make sure they eat properly and keep themselves clean.”
    I was ready to give up when the steward suggested, pokerfaced, that screens might be placed around the table. They would not keep out the music, of course, but at least the captain and his lads would not be forced to see either the scantily dressed ladies or the Indian civil servants. Reagan accepted this compromise with poor grace and was about to return to his table when one of the boys came rushing up, his handkerchief over his mouth, his face very green indeed. Another boy followed. “I think Dubrowski’s being airsick, sir.”
    I hurried off, leaving Reagan shouting wildly for a “medic”.
    F or all that it is primarily a psychological illness, airsickness can be catching and I soon learned to my relief that Reagan and his entire troop had gone down with it. When, two days later, we reached Quito in British Ecuador, I had heard nothing more of the scout-master, though I believe one of the ship’s doctors had been kept pretty busy.
    We made a quick stopover at Quito and took on a few passengers, some airmail and a couple of cages of live monkeys bound for a zoo in Australia.
    By the time we headed out over the Pacific, Reagan was well known to crew and passengers alike and though