"ArkCovenantPart3" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacClure Victor)

CHAPTER THREE of The Ark of the Covenant
The Merlin


THE cluster of buildings close to Gardiner Bay, where we did our construction
and experimenting, was beginning to find definition on the white margin of the
sea, when there dropped from the clouds in front and above the Sieve a beautiful
silver shape. It was the Merlin which Milliken had out for a trial flight.
Until that moment I had never seen her in the air. She was my design and had
been built in the sheds on the beach under my supervision. Her tests had all
been carried out at my hands, and she had never been in the air without me.
Milliken had often handled her, but always with myself at his elbow. Until now
he had not taken her up on a solo spin.
To see her so, as an outsider would, was a queer experience for me. I felt
pretty much as a dramatist might if he saw a play of his acted for the first
time. I wish I could write down just what that moment meant to me, but I can't.
The clean look of the Merlin gave me a thrill. I wanted to fly her myself and be
able, at the same time, to watch her from a distance.
It was something of a surprise to me to see her up in the hands of Milliken,
though I couldn't say that he had exceeded his privilege. It was quite a natural
thing for him to do, considering the way I trusted him. But even while I was
admitting that he handled her splendidly, a sort of jealousy had hold of me for
a minute or two. He passed me, and I signaled half angrily that I would land
first.
The graceful silver shape swept dizzily over my bows, turned banking into a
sideways loop round me, and righted again to come about after the clumsy
oldSieve like a great, slim-winged bird. No, I'm wrong. There isn't a bird that
could repeat the manoeuvre, and I had thought, until I saw Milliken do it, that
only the Merlin and myself had the knack, but the mechanic had copied my stunt.
Stupidly annoyed, I planed down for the shore and flattened out to taxi up to
the jetty. The mechanics ran out and brought the old seaplane to rest in the
shed, and I disembarked to watch Milliken bring in the Merlin. She came down
perfectly in the hovering flight that had been designed into her, and landed on
the water so like some great seagull that the expectation was she would next
fold her wings. It was gracefully done and by the time Millikenstepped ashore my
jealousy and irritation were swept from me by a feeling of gratitude.
"What's she like, Milliken?" I asked.
"Oh, sir! Oh, sir!" he cried, ablaze with delight. "She's a dream! There's
nothing to touch her on sea or land--and we made her, sir--we made her!"
Now Milliken, as a rule, is prone neither to call other men "sir," nor to wax
enthusiastic, and his excitement surprised me.
"You handled her well," I said casually. "You've got the hang of that side loop
all right."
"Oh, that!" said Milliken. "Why, do you know, a baby could handle her. She's a
credit to you, Mr. Boon--it's all in the design."
This from Milliken was by way of an amende honorable. When I first introduced
him to the design of the Merlin, and showed him the wing modifications that were
meant to achieve the steep hovering which now distinguished her, he had thought
the notion impossible. The idea had evolved from stalling, and he then had the
old fixed idea that the only safe way of landing was to plane down on a thin