The Airshipmen: A Novel Based on a True Story. A Tale of Love, Betrayal & Political Intrigue. Read online

  THE AIRSHIPMEN

  A NOVEL

  BASED ON A TRUE STORY

  A Tale of Love, Betrayal & Political Intrigue.

  DAVID DENNINGTON

  FOR THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

  GO TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by David Dennington

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior permission of the author. http://www.daviddennington.com

  This is a work of fiction with both real, historical figures and fictitious characters based on actual events surrounding the British Airship Program between 1920 and 1931. Some events, dates and locations have been changed for dramatic purposes and great artistic license has been taken throughout.

  While The Airshipmen is based on real events, characters, characterizations, incidents, locations, and dialogue have been invented and fictionalized in order to dramatize the story and are products of the author's imagination. The fictionalization, or invention of events, or relocation of events is for dramatic purposes and not intended to reflect on actual historical characters, history, entities or organizations, past or present. This novel is not intended to right any wrongs or ‘set the record straight’ regarding past events or actions, but is intended to entertain. Readers are encouraged to research the vast array of books on this subject from which the author has drawn facts as well as the essence of events and characters. In all other respects, resemblance to persons living or dead must be construed as coincidental.

  Available in paperback printed by CreateSpace, an Amazon.com Company.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  BEGINNING

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  PROLOGUES

  PART ONE - YORKSHIRE

  1. OVER THE HUMBER

  2. A COURT OF INQUIRY

  PART TWO - SCOTLAND

  3. THE BRIGADIER GENERAL & THE FLYING SCOTSMAN

  4. HIGHLAND WALKS

  PART THREE – RISE OF THE PHOENIX TWINS

  5. LOU AND CHARLOTTE

  6. LOW ACKWORTH VILLAGE

  7. ST. CUTHBERT’S

  8. CHEQUERS

  9. OUT OF THE BLUE

  10. BACK IN BEDFORD

  11. THE DIE IS CAST

  12. OH, SHENANDOAH!

  PART FOUR - HOWDEN

  13. A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

  14. THE WALLISES

  15. 'MR. SHUTE' & FRIENDS

  16. CARDINGTON VISITS

  17. 'BURNEY’S MEETING'

  18. 'NERVOUS NICK'

  19. JESSUP

  20. OLD HINKLEY’S FARM

  21. A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE

  22. GOODBYE LENNY

  23. LEAVING ‘CANDLESTICK’

  PART FIVE - CARDINGTON

  24. THE IN-BETWEEN YEARS

  25. MOVING SOUTH

  26. VICEROY TO INDIA

  27. THE FISHING PARTY

  28. THE BRIEFING

  29. SHOW ME YOUR SHIP, MY CAPTAIN

  30. THE OLD GASBAG

  31. SPEECHES & SURPRISES

  32. DINING ALONE

  PART SIX – THEIR TRIALS BEGIN

  33. ENTER THE PRINCESS

  34. THE WRATH OF LORD SCUNTHORPE

  35. BITTER SWEET

  36. GAS BAGS & ENGINES

  37. THE QUARREL

  38. LIGHTEN HER LOAD

  39. THE SIGNAL

  40. THE GYPSY FORTUNE TELLER

  41. A WORD WITH MR. JESSUP

  42. CHARLOTTE’S PARTY

  43. ST. MARY’S - THE BLESSING & HARVEST THANKSGIVING

  44. OVER LONDON

  45. SANDRINGHAM

  46. MISHAP AT CARDINGTON TOWER

  47. BLACK TUESDAY

  48. OVER YORKSHIRE

  49. ONE HUNDRED MPs & AN ULTIMATUM

  PART SEVEN – THE DUEL BEGINS

  50. THE LAUNCHING OF HOWDEN R100

  51. HOME FOR DINNER

  52. HOLIDAYS IN SWITZERLAND & PARIS

  53. BACK TO WORK

  54. THE DINNER PARTY

  55. THE WHISTLEBLOWER

  56. CHEQUERS & A MEETING WITH BRANCKER

  57. CHEQUERS & A MEETING WITH BURNEY & CO.

  58. CANADA PREFLIGHT CONFERENCE

  59. ENEMIES IN THE CAMP

  60. TIME TO SAY GOODBY

  PART EIGHT - CANADA

  61. LIVERPOOL

  62. THE IRISH SEA

  63. THE ATLANTIC

  64. NEWFOUNDLAND

  PART NINE – TROUBLE IN AMERICA

  65. EZEKIAH WASHINGTON

  66. UNION STATION

  67. REMINGTON’S FARM

  68. TENT CITY

  69. JULIA

  70. A FEW GOOD MEN

  71. GOODBYE MY FATHER

  PART TEN – THE DAYS BEFORE THE INDIA VOYAGE

  72. WELCOME HOME!

  73. OLIVIA

  74. ROSIE

  75. SUNDAY PAPERS

  76. QUESTIONS

  77. RACE AGAINST TIME

  78. TRAIN RIDE NORTH

  79. A FEW LOOSE ENDS

  80. THE ALMIGHTY BLOODY ROW

  81. A DAMNED GOOD BOLLOCKING

  82. FIXING SCOTT

  83. CELEBRATION & FAREWELL AT THE KINGS ARMS

  84. GO BREAK A LEG

  85. THE THIRD WATCH

  86. THE MAGIC CARPET

  PART ELEVEN - INDIA

  87. GRAND FAREWELL

  88. ON BOARD RECEPTION

  89. THE WEATHER CONFERENCE

  90. SALUTE TO BEDFORD

  91. EVENING (DOG) WATCH: 16:00—20:00 HOURS

  92. FIRST NIGHT WATCH: 20:00—23:00 HOURS

  93. MIDDLE WATCH: 23:00—02:00 HOURS

  94. MORNING WATCH: 02:00–05:00 HOURS

  PART TWELVE - AFTERMATH

  95. MOGOSOËA

  96. THE NUNS OF BEAUVAIS

  97. BLACKOUT IN BEDFORD

  98. THERAIN WOOD

  99. CHURCH

  100. ANOTHER FUNERAL

  PART THIRTEEN - EPILOGUE

  101. ANOTHER COURT OF INQUIRY

  102. CHRISTMAS EVE IN PARIS

  103. A NEW DAY

  104. THE TOMB

  VOYAGE OF HOWDEN R100

  VOYAGE OF CARDINGTON R101

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES

  IMAGES: SOURCES AND CREDITS

  AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY

  i

  ii

  My deepest gratitude to my consulting editor,

  Lauren Dennington

  —the very best

  iii

  For my Mother and Father.

  And for Jenny, Christian and Ava with great love.

  Also for Richard—my own Lou Remington.

  iv

  “Airships are the devil’s ’andiwork in defiance of God’s laws and we should avoid them like the plague!”

  Lord Scunthorpe, House of Lords.

  July 4th, 1929

  FIRST PROLOGUE

  Arras, France. March 1918.

  Midnight. The relentless German barrage continues ever closer, shaking the ground under her feet. She pulls back the tent flap and steps into hell. The dreary, foul-smelling casualty clearing station is packed with moaning soldiers. She lights her lamp and holds it out before her, illuminating her breath in the gloom; off duty after countless hours, back to give a sliver of comfort, to wipe a brow, offer water, loo
sen a dressing.

  To one side, a priest administers last rites to a soldier, his leg, his arm, his life gone. She looks at the priest accusingly.

  Where is your precious God? What use are your prayers in this miserable place where the devil roams free?

  The priest continues his mumbling. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

  Stretcher bearers stand ready. The cot is needed. Dozens more are being brought in from no man’s land by the hour. At the end of the tent, fifty yards off, a civilian wearing a black overcoat enters, hat in hand. He is accompanied by two officers in dress khakis. The young nurse frowns.

  Another damned politician playing to the press, come to tell them this disgraceful crime is justified.

  The man stops for a moment to witness a surgeon at work removing the remains of a young boy's leg. That area is well-lit and attended by orderlies and nurses holding the boy down. He cries out, but it's no use. The surgeon does not dally, proceeding with ruthless precision.

  The civilian stands his ground a few more seconds, he can’t just turn away. When he does, she sees his shoulders slump, the burden too heavy. As he passes, he glances at her with piercing, blue eyes. In them, she sees tears of bewilderment and sorrow. He’d obviously meant to stop and offer words of encouragement to others. Instead, he moves wearily on and out through the entrance through which she had come. She glances at his back, now with respect. His escorts trail behind. They hear him retching outside in the darkness.

  “Our future Prime Minister,” one of them, a major, says.

  “Preposterous!” his companion scoffs.

  The nurse moves to sit beside a young soldier barely older than she, her look grave. The boy shakes uncontrollably, tears flowing from wild eyes. She unravels his dressings, caked in dried blood, and sighs.

  If they don’t get here soon, then God help us!

  SECOND PROLOGUE

  Number 10 Downing Street, London.

  Friday Evening, October 3, 1930.

  At 10 o'clock, Thomson and MacDonald emerge from MacDonald's study on the second floor, having gone over the agenda for the Imperial Conference of Dominion Prime Ministers scheduled to begin later that month. They stand on the wide landing overlooking the grand staircase. MacDonald puts his hand on Thomson’s arm, eyes intense.

  “Forgo this trip. I need your wise council for this conference. Do this for me, CB.”

  “Are you ordering me not to go, sir?”

  “No, I’m asking you as my dearest friend.”

  They hold each other’s forearms and Thomson looks earnestly into the Prime Minister’s face.

  “How can I not go? I’m committed. And besides, the troops are expecting me. I need to rally them.” Thomson moves to the top of the stairs. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back for the conference—have I ever let you down, Ramsay?”

  MacDonald’s eyes, moist earlier, now glisten. Thomson sees this before he starts down the stairs. When he gets to the bottom, he stares up at MacDonald and waves. Thomson crosses the black and white checkered floor, stopping at the door.

  “Farewell, my good friend,” MacDonald calls down weakly.

  Thomson’s voice echoes up the stairway. “Don’t look so glum, my dear chap. Don’t you remember? Our fate is already written.”

  MacDonald stands hunched like a man watching his brother going off to war. He wipes his eyes with a handkerchief. “Yes, I do,” he whispers. “Yes, I do.”

  “Ramsay, if the worst should happen, it’d soon be over.”

  As Thomson leaves, the door slams behind him, the sound echoing around the great hall like thunder.

  Thomson leaves Downing Street and crosses Whitehall to Gwydyr House. He passes the nightwatchman, giving him a curt nod. His office is in darkness. He switches on the picture light over the huge oil painting of the Taj Mahal and sits down, staring at the airship he’d had superimposed upon it by Winston Churchill. He hopes for some sort of divine affirmation. But he gets none. He gets up and goes to the window and peers out over the river, faintly glimmering under the dim street lamps. The bitter taste and the feeling he has is something akin to buyer’s remorse. Brancker’s words continue their stinging assault:

  I will go CB—and I’ll tell you why. I encouraged people to fly in this airship—people like O’Neill and Palstra—believing it’d be built and tested properly. I believed all your rhetoric about ‘safety first.’ I didn’t think you’d use this airship for your own personal aggrandizement, for your own personal agenda, with everything set to meet your own personal schedule. People like O’Neill put their faith in me and my word. I will not abandon them now.

  Then he hears the young American’s voice like an echo, depressing him further.

  You’re putting all your chips on black, Lord Thomson… You’re putting all your chips on black…

  PART ONE

  YORKSHIRE

  1

  OVER THE HUMBER

  Wednesday August 24, 1921.

  The lighthouse keeper at Flamborough Head checked the time as he peered at the airship cruising overhead. It was 4:40 p.m. Aside from him, no one noticed except three carrion crows intent on the carcass of a rabbit. They paused in their evisceration, following the airship with blank eyes, as if it were a larger bird of prey and then, after much scolding, returned to their meal, black beaks tearing at the dead creature’s flesh. The air was humid—a late summer afternoon storm pending. Their instincts knew the day would end in rain, and wind, and worse.

  His Majesty’s Airship R38 swept across the Yorkshire sky at twenty-five hundred feet. After this last training flight the ship would become the property of the U.S. Navy. In the control car, crowded with silent British and American officers and coxswains, Lou Remington, newly promoted chief petty officer and former marine, anxiously rechecked his watch. He glanced down at the lighthouse on the headland surrounded by the North Sea, the salty air and cries of gulls, drifting in an open window. They cruised smoothly at fifty-five knots on six Cossack engines. The British commodore turned to Lou.

  “Chief Coxswain, find out what Bateman’s got to say about the rudders and elevators. We need to start this last test if we’re to land before dark. Report back to me after the next watch change would you, there’s a good chap.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I’ll go and talk to him,” Lou answered.

  Lou left the control car and headed along the catwalk toward the crewmens’ mess. He needed to check on ‘New York’ Johnny before visiting Bateman who’d been monitoring the control gear all afternoon in the stern cockpit. These final tests could soon be over, perhaps within the hour, depending on Bateman’s report.

  Maybe we can head home soon—God willing!

  Lanky Josh Stone, a blond, Californian rigger, smiled pleasantly as Lou passed him on the catwalk. “Ready for some o’ them good ol’ American hamburgers, sir?”

  “You betcha! And a cold one,” Lou answered.

  “I wish!”

  Along the catwalks shouts and jeers in British and American accents echoed from all directions as riggers and engineers mustered for the watch change.

  “I’ll be glad to get away from you bloody Brits!”

  “And your rotten, soggy fish and chips!”

  “And yer lousy, warm Limey beer!”

  “Tastes like cat’s piss.”

  “You bin drinkin’ it, ain’tcha!”

  “It’s better than what you gonna get over there, me old cock!”

  Lou suddenly remembered Prohibition had started in the States the year before—a fact most of his crewmen had completely forgotten.

  “California, here we come. Yeehaw!”

  A Brit had the last word in this exchange, “Good luck to life wiv no beer, boys!”

  Lord have mercy!

  Lou knew he was going to miss this ragged bunch with their strange expressions and eccentric ways. Many of their foibles had rubbed off on the America
ns. Goodness knows what their families would think when they got back to the U.S. These Brits were great guys and England was a manicured wonderland, but he longed to be home. He looked forward to sitting on his parents’ porch in balmy Virginia air, playing his guitar, as he’d done as a kid. That all seemed a long time ago.

  The atmosphere aboard R38 was of both nervous tension and exuberance. The banter between the English and American crews had been building over the past few hours. Their elation was only natural—soon the ship would be officially re-designated USS ZR-2. Lou had listened to their merciless teasing all afternoon. At twenty-three, he was younger than many of the men under his command, including most of the British crewmen, whom he now outranked.

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin while, like adolescents, they jeered and poked fun. They even danced and sang. Lou marched on, though their tempting Providence made him uncomfortable. There was no need to dampen their spirits—for now.

  It’s nervous bravado—they’re damned scared, that’s all.

  When Lou entered the crewmen's mess, Al Jolson’s latest hit, “My Mammy”, was belting out from the gramophone and little Jerry Donegan, a lively soul from Kentucky, was doing a perfect mime on one knee, hat in hand, his face smeared with old engine oil.

  On the final note, his small audience gave him a round of applause, while New York Johnny, a sandy-haired nineteen-year-old from Brooklyn, sat motionless, staring at the fabric wall. No one paid him any attention.

  Lou leaned over him and whispered. “You gonna be okay to do your watch, Johnny?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy answered weakly.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, course.”

  “I’ll come and get you just before five.”

  “Sir!”

  Lou stepped out onto the catwalk and stopped for a moment. He worried about that kid.

  This life’s definitely not for him!

  Lou would’ve stood him down, but he was a man short. Wiggy, an engineer from Cleveland, hadn’t reported for duty at Howden before they took off. Something must have happened to him; he was usually reliable. Lou made his way toward the stern, studying the massive structure around him. He breathed in the odor of gasoline, grease, and dope, as if it were fresh-cut hay. Some days it was like being in church, on others, in the belly of a great whale: six hundred and ninety-nine feet of girders, beams of meccano-like steel, held together with rivets, cables, guy wires, nuts and bolts, shrouded by a silver-painted outer cover of finest linen canvas. Walking this labyrinth was exhilarating.