amongst them, whispering to the flowers.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of good,” he said, laughing softly at the perfect perversion of his own small joke, “is for evil men to do nothing.”
Chapter Eighteen
Penobscot Bay, Maine
“GOOD LORD,” ALEX HAWKE HEARD CONGREVE SAY IN HIS headphones, “What was that?” They’d encountered a patch of rough air climbing out and the little seaplane was bucking like a frisky bronco.
“Mere bumps in the road, Constable,” Hawke said, grinning.
“Well, I don’t see any bloody bumps,” Ambrose said, peering down at Penobscot Bay out his starboard window, “And I certainly don’t see any roads down there, although I dearly wish I were on one!”
“Nothing to fret about, old thing,” Alex said, “It’s just that there’s more turbulence the closer you are to the surface. It will be smoother once we climb out and gain a little altitude.”
“Hmm.”
“At any rate, according to my charts here, there are no roads leading from Maine to Nantucket Island.”
“It must be great fun to find oneself so amusing.”
“It is, actually.”
The famous detective closed his eyes, and attempted to lean back in his small seat and compose his hands, interlacing his fingers upon his sizeable belly. He was in heather tweeds, a three-piece suit; but, in a typical display of sartorial indifference, Ambrose was wearing a yellow and white striped shirt from Thomas Pink and an old pinkish-green madras bow tie he’d acquired long ago at Mr. Trimingham’s shop on Front Street in Bermuda. All accented with a white silk scarf.
Alex Hawke banked the seaplane, carving a graceful arc into the dome of sky over the dark blue waters of the bay. His flight plan called for climbing initially to five thousand feet. He rechecked his compass and charts and set a southeasterly heading towards Nantucket Island. The sun was taking a peek over the eastern horizon, sending arrows of gold streaking across the dark bay and slanting through the deep Maine forests falling away beneath the silver plane.
Congreve was exhibiting his usual uneasiness with small aircraft. His situation was not helped by the fact that he’d consumed a fair amount of Irish whiskey in the cozy bar of the Dark Harbor Inn the night before. So he was suffering a mild hangover, he’d announced at breakfast that morning, and pointedly informed Alex that he would appreciate a smooth flight back to the island of Nantucket.
As long as Alex had known Congreve, the man would never admit to an actual fear of flying. He simply masked his jangled nerves and discomfort in a cloak of cranky irritability. Alex had long ago concluded that what bothered Ambrose most about going up in the sky with someone else was that it involved the total surrender of control. ‘I don’t enjoy hurtling through space sealed in an aluminum tube,’ was the oft-heard quote.
“All I’m saying, Alex,” Congreve now said, eyes still clenched shut, “is you designed the damn plane yourself. I’ve mentioned this to you before. I simply don’t see why you couldn’t have at least added an extra engine.”
“Could have done, Constable. But the result would have been a somewhat less airworthy aircraft.”
“What?” Congreve sputtered. He sat forward and looked at Alex. “You don’t mean to say that an airplane with one engine is safer than one with two! Preposterous.”
“I mean almost exactly that,” Alex said, smiling over at him. “I know it’s counterintuitive but it’s true…in a way.”
“Now I’m going to hear one of your infamously breezy explanations, am I not? I’m quite sure that, should we now be plunging into the sea, I’d be hearing a most complete scientific explanation of the deadly malfunction at fault in my demise.”
“Should we lose Kittyhawke’s single engine, Constable,” Alex said patiently, “we would have the ability to simply glide until we found a suitable landing spot. The plane would respond perfectly normally to all controls.”
“Ridiculous,” Congreve sniffed, jamming his unlit pipe between his teeth. “If you had a second engine we shouldn’t have to ‘glide,’ as you put it, at all. We should simply keep flying on the second engine until we reached our destination.”
“Quite right, except for the fact of torque,” Alex said. “A twin-engine craft loses power on one side, and the force of torque produced by the remaining engine wants to flip the plane over on its back. Quite dicey, actually. Responsible for many fatal crashes.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Certainly. I assumed you were interested in the aeronautics of—”
“Fatal crashes? Please.”
“Here’s an idea, old thing. Why don’t you fly the plane?”
“What?”
“I’m quite serious. I think it would be good for you. Here, I’m turning it over to you. You’re flying. You have control.”
Alex took his hand off the Y-shaped yoke between them. “Now, you take the stick and say, ‘I have control.’ ”
“Are you mad?”
“Better take the wheel, Constable. Plane will fly itself for a while, but watch what you’re doing…”
Ambrose regarded him for a long moment and then put his hand gingerly on the yoke.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘I have the airplane,’ ” Alex said. “So there’s no confusion, you see.”
“All right, then, I have the airplane,” Ambrose said and hauled back sharply on the yoke. “Let’s take her up.”
“Easy, watch your airspeed,” Hawke said. “You don’t want to stall.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we lose lift, go into an uncontrolled downward spiral, excessive speed rips the wings off, and we plunge screaming into the ocean. Unless, of course, you use the rudder to stabilize the plane, regain control. Then, we climb once more into the wild blue yonder and live happily ever after.”
“What needs to happen now?” Congreve asked, and Alex saw that perhaps he was beginning to enjoy himself.
“Your nose needs to come down before you stall us out.”
“Ah. So I just push this thingy forward?”
“Yes. Easy on the thingy, however. These are subtle adjustments, requiring a light touch. Just ease the nose down smoothly. I’ll throttle back a bit…good…right there is quite good. Steady. I’ll adjust the elevators and the ailerons for trim. Give me the wheel a tick. Turn left, we bank left, see? So, I correct and level her out. And use the rudder for yaw.”
“Rudder? Where the hell’s the rudder?”
“Those foot pedals you see in your footwell. I have a set as well. Right and left rudder pedals. I’ll deal with those. Okay. She’s trimmed. Now, we just use throttle to change altitude. Watch this. Revs up, we go up. Revs down, we go down. Quite simple, this airplane. Just like a see-saw that moves in three axes.”
“It is, actually, isn’t it?” Congreve said, a broad smile on his face as he toyed gently with the plane’s attitude. “I never realized.”
Hawke turned and stared at his lifelong friend, a warm smile lighting up his eyes. The man simply never failed to startle and amaze. Despite his little snips and snaps and idiosyncrasies, the man had no end of courage and displayed sangfroid under any circumstance. Like Churchill himself, the man could wander through a hail of bullets with a bemused smile on his face. Hell, Hawke had seen him do it and more than once. Subsequently, he would quote Winston, saying, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
“Well, Captain Congreve, your copilot is going to take a little nap,” Hawke said. “See the horizon line? Just keep our wings level with that. Left and right stick controls the ailerons, remember. Watch your airspeed and the rev counter dials. There, and there. See them?”
“Yes, yes.”
