under the fuselage. The rest was too difficult to get at.”
“All the same, that’s forty feet, and you can’t buy cables-no one can get spare parts for anything. No doubt that’s why they were cannibalized in the first place.” Harald was beginning to feel overwhelmed by misgivings, but he deliberately spoke cheerfully. “Well, let’s see what else is wrong.” He moved to the nose. He found two catches on the right side of the fuselage, turned them, and opened the cowling, which was made of a thin metal that felt like tin but was probably aluminum. He studied the engine.
“It’s a four-cylinder in-line layout,” Karen said.
“Yes, but it seems to be upside-down.”
“By comparison with a car engine, yes. The crankshaft is at the top. That’s to raise the level of the propeller for ground clearance.”
Harald was surprised by her expertise. He had never met a girl who knew what a crankshaft was. “What was this Tom like?” he said, trying hard to keep the note of suspicion out of his voice.
“He was a great teacher, patient but encouraging.”
“Did you have a love affair with him?”
“Please! I was fourteen!”
“I bet you had a crush on him.”
She was miffed. “I suppose you think that’s the only reason a girl would learn about engines.”
Harald did think that, but he said, “No, no, I just noticed that you talked about him in a fond way. None of my business. The engine is air-cooled, I see.” There was no radiator, but the cylinders had cooling fins.
“I think all air-engines are, to save weight.”
He moved to the other side and opened the right cowling. All the fuel and oil hoses seemed to be firmly attached, and there were no outward signs of damage. He unscrewed the oil cap and checked the dipstick. There was still a little oil in the tank. “It looks okay,” he said. “Let’s see if it starts.”
“It’s easier with two people. You can sit inside while I swing the propeller.”
“Won’t the battery be flat after all these years?”
“There’s no battery. The electricity comes from two magnetos, which are driven by the engine itself. Let’s get into the cabin and I’ll show you what to do.”
Karen opened the door then let out a squeal and fell back-into Harald’s arms. It was the first time he had touched her body, and an electric thrill went through him. She seemed hardly to notice that they were hugging, and he felt guilty for enjoying a fortuitous embrace. He hastily set her upright and detached himself. “Are you all right?” he said. “What happened?”
“Mice.”
He opened the door again. Two mice jumped through the gap and ran down his trousers to the floor. Karen made a disgusted noise.
There were holes in the cloth upholstery of one seat, and Harald guessed they had nested in the stuffing. “That problem is quickly solved,” he said. He made a kissing sound with his lips, and Pinetop appeared, hoping for food. Harald picked the cat up and handed him into the cabin.
Pinetop suddenly became energized. He darted from one side of the little cockpit to the other, and Harald thought he saw a mouse tail disappear into a hole under the left-hand seat through which a copper pipe ran. Pinetop leaped onto the seat, then onto the luggage shelf behind, without catching a mouse. Then he investigated the holes in the upholstery. There he found a baby mouse, and began to eat it with great delicacy.
On the luggage shelf, Harald noticed two small books. He reached into the cabin and picked them up. They were manuals, one for the Hornet Moth and one for the Gipsy Major engine that powered it. He was delighted. He showed them to Karen.
“But what about the mice?” she said. “I hate them.”
“Pinetop chased them off. In the future, I’ll leave the cabin doors open, so he can get in and out. He’ll keep them away.” Harald opened the Hornet Moth manual.
“What’s he doing now?”
“Pinetop? Oh, he’s eating the babies. Look at these diagrams, this is great!”
“Harald!” she yelled. “That’s disgusting! Go and stop him!”
He was taken aback. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s revolting!”
“It’s natural.”
“I don’t care if it is.”
“What’s the alternative?” Harald said impatiently. “We have to get rid of the nest. I could dig the babies out with my hands, and throw them into the bushes, but Pinetop would still eat them, unless the birds got them first.”
“It’s so cruel.”
“They’re
“How can you not understand? Can’t you see that I hate it!”
“I do understand, I just think it’s silly-”
“Oh, you’re just a stupid engineer who thinks about how things work and never about how people feel.”
Now he was wounded. “That’s not true.”
“It is,” she said, and she stomped off.
Harald was astonished. “What the hell was that all about?” he said aloud. Did she really believe he was a stupid engineer who never thought about how people felt? It was very unfair.
He stood on a box to look out of one of the high windows. He saw Karen marching off up the drive toward the castle. She seemed to change her mind, and veered off into the woods. Harald thought of following her, then decided not to.
On the first day of their great collaboration, they had had a row. What chance was there that they could fly to England?
He returned to the aircraft. He might as well try to start the engine. If Karen backed out, he would find another pilot, he told himself.
The instructions were in the manual.
He could not find the chocks, but he dragged two boxes of junk across the floor and pushed them hard up against the wheels. He located the handbrake lever in the left-hand door and checked that it was fully engaged. Pinetop was sitting on the seat, licking his paws, wearing a sated look. “The lady thinks you’re disgusting,” Harald told him. The cat looked disdainful and hopped out of the cabin.
He opened the door and leaned into the cabin. It was small enough for him to reach the controls without climbing in. The fuel gauge was partly hidden between the two seat backs. Next to it was a knob in a slot. He moved it from “Off” to “On.”
The left cowling was still open, and he immediately spotted the two fuel pumps, each with a small lever sticking out. The carburetor tickler was harder to identify, but he eventually guessed it was a ring pull with a spring-back mechanism. He pulled the ring and worked one of the levers up and down. He had no way of telling whether what he was doing was having any effect. For all he knew, the tank might be dry.
He felt dejected now that Karen had gone. Why was he so clumsy with her? He was desperately keen to be friendly and charming and do whatever it took to please her, but he could not figure out what she wanted. Why could girls not be more like engines?
He hated manuals that could not make up their minds. Should the throttle be closed, or slightly open? He found the control, a lever in the cabin just forward of the left door. Thinking back to his flight in a Tiger Moth two weeks ago, he recalled that Poul Kirke had set the throttle at about half an inch from the “Off” end. The Hornet Moth ought to be similar. It had an engraved scale graduated from one to ten, where the Tiger Moth had nothing. Guessing, Harald set the throttle at one.
