Pursuit chapter 12

Chapter 12

To understand what had happened with Katie MacArran in New Guinea, it was necessary to understand that chain of events that led her to the island in the first place.

It had all begun with a simple, if seemingly unimportant inquiry....one to which the pinto mare didn’t really need to know the answer. It was hardly pressing matter now that Colin had been put in permanent check.

But Katie MacArran was a horse and, despite the old saw about cats, horses are also a naturally curious species.

So it was inevitable that she would ask it sooner or later...and that she would pose it to Ewan Barclay, formerly the head of her father’s ( and briefly, her brother’s ) household staff, probably the one fur who knew more of the MacArran family secrets than anyone else.

It happened early on a cold, February morning. Katie had come downstairs for an early cup of tea, before setting off for her new job in Woolston, and found Ewan already there with the kettle on.

“Getting an early jump on the day, Dame MacArran?” the rat inquired by way of a greeting.

“That’s right, Ewan.” Katie responded, unsurprised. Ewan Barclay had always been an early riser

“I’ll have another cuppa tea on right away then.” he said, turning to fetch one from the sideboard.

They spent the next few minutes making small talk over their tea, mostly about the new position Katie was starting, when to expect her home, that sort of thing.

It was when they finally began to run out of minor matters to discuss that she decided to broach the big one.

“Ewan,” she said, laying her hooves on the table and leaning back just a little, “There’s something I’d like to ask you about...but first, I want you to understand that you’re under no obligation to talk about it if you’d prefer not to.”

“Very good, Miss.” said the rodent, assuming a stiff and formal pose in his chair, a sure sign that he had already discerned the gist, if not the specifics, of her inquiry.

Katie reached up to brush her forelock from her eyes.

“You’ve known my brother all his life, Ewan. Hell, you know him better than anyone except my father. What the Hell happened to him? After our mother died, he...he seemed like such a paragon. How could he have changed so suddenly? And so completely?”

Ewan looked into his tea. For a second, Katie had the odd mental image of him as a gypsy fortuneteller, trying to read the future in the leaves.

Then, he looked up again.

“I..can’t tell you that, Miss MacArran. I was wi’ yer faither in Strathdern wi’ while he was off on that...” he spit out the next words out like a cobra, “that HOLIDAY of his...but I can tell you a few other things yer not aware of. Things tha’ might make it all a wee bit clearer.”

“All right,” said Katie, leaning forward across the table, “Tell me, then.”

Ewan puffed out his cheeks and glanced downward into his tea again, then looked up.

“Right...well, you knew about yer mum having to be confined. Did yer da ever tell ye why?”

“Yeah.” said Katie, also finding interest in the table-top for a moment, “Because she...she was...refusing to eat, and doing things to hurt herself.”

Ewan’s expression became grim.

VERY grim.

“Aye,” he said, leaning back and folding his arms, “That’s true, Miss MacArran. I was there, an’ I saw it. But that’s not the whole story, not by a long chalk.”

“What...What do you mean?” asked Katie, in a wavering voice. She was beginning to get an uneasy feeling about all of this

The rat shook his head slowly, then looked down again.

“It was him, Miss MacArran. It was yer brother. Every time Colin would misbehave an’ yer da would want to discipline ‘im, he’d go running to yer mum and she’d tell yer faither, “You lay one finger on my darling colt, and I won’t speak to you for a week.”

Katie’s eyes widened, and she fell back in her chair. It would have been unthinkable had it not all made perfect sense. The way her brother had threatened Grandpa Joe that her mother would never speak to HIM again. The way her mother had referred to Colin as ‘my darling colt’ in her will.

“That’s how it started.” Ewan was saying, “just refusing to talk to yer da if he tried to punish Colin for his offenses. But then, Frances started refusing to eat if His Grace wouldn’t leave yer brother to his own devices. Then she started...ah, I’d rather na’ go into the details of what she did next, Miss MacArran. What’s important is...well, you can guess what happened wi’ Colin; his antics just got worse an’ worse. He even blackmailed yer faither at least once that I know of. Told yer da that if he wouldn’t let him go to London for the Ashes Cricket Tests, he’d say to yer mum ‘Daddy HIT me’ when o’ course, he’d actually done no such thing.”

“Did...Did my father give in to him?” queried Katie, aghast. She couldn’t imagine ANYONE making her father back down like that...especially such a sniveler as Colin.

“Aye, Miss MacArran.” said the rat with another bleak nod, “He did...THAT time. But you knew yer da. He would na’ suffer that sort of thing forever. After yer mum almost killed that poor serving girl and had to be put in confinement...well, Colin didn’t find out about it until he tried to make another one of his threats. I forget what it was about, but this time yer faither told him, ‘No...and DON’T go running to yer mother again.’ Of course, Colin did just tha’. Only when he entered yer mum’s apartments, they were all empty. And I mean completely empty, no furniture, bed, or anything. They’d all been sent to Broadmoor Asylum along with her.” For the first time since the rodent had begun the story, a smile creaked it’s way across his muzzle, a nasty, oily smile that would normally have made Katie’s hackles rise.

Except she knew she had a similar expression on HER face.

“When Colin turned round, it was just in time to see yer da standing there...with a section o’ bamboo fishin’ rod in his hoof. I didn’t see what happened next. His Grace ordered me out of the room. But I heard it. The whole household heard it...an’ I’m not ashamed to say, we had a bit of a celebration while we listened.”

He took a long sip of his tea.

“No one saw Colin again for a week...but after that he was so bloody docile, a rumour went round the staff that yer da had accidentally gelded him in his fury. He hadn’t o’course, but the rest...well, that yer already heard from His Grace, God rest his soul.”

“God rest his soul.” Katie intoned solemnly. No...this didn’t explain everything. But it was a big piece of the puzzle, a very big piece. Christmas, no wonder Ewan had called her brother a cad, and in public. The only real mystery was what had taken him so long.

She got up from the table.

“Well, I’d best be off, Ewan. New day...new challenges, and all that.”

“Very good, Miss.” said Ewan, assuming his formal role once more.

A moment later, the garage door opened and Kaitie pulled out onto the road astride her new Brough-Superior SS1000 motorbike, headed for the airport at Croydon and from there to her new job in Woolston, Lancashire.

Of course, riding a motorbike was hardly considered a ‘proper’ activity for a young pinto mare, circa 1929 -- especially the motorbike that the previous year had set a new land speed record of 136 mph. But then again, proper young ladies didn’t fly solo to Cape Horn and back either. And if there was one thing Katie had learned about the British, it was that they were willing to accept almost any kind of social heresy, especially amongst the upper classes, if it could be put down to eccentricity.

( That is...as long as it was an activity that didn’t break any laws. )

Besides, traveling to the airport by motorcycle was nothing if not convenient. Katie could climb off her bike and directly into the cockpit without even having to change clothes. Everything she wore for flying; boots, breeches, helmet, goggles, etc...worked equally well for riding her motorbike.

It had been a busy last few months for the pinto mare. Shortly after dealing with Colin, she had gone to Croydon to witness the first flight of the production model Bristol Bulldog pursuit plane. Enchanted by the aircraft’s performance she had immediately approached Bristol’s chief aircraft designer, a muskrat named Frank Barnwell with a proposition that she thoroughly expected him to reject out of paw; to lend her the use of a Bulldog to enter in the upcoming King’s cup race. To her utter amazement, the rodent’s response was enthusiastic.

“Splendid idea...just splendid.” he’d said. “Excellent chance to show what the Bulldog can do over the long haul, eh?”

It was Katie’s first experience flying a pursuit plane, and it took some getting used to, but once she’d mastered the intricacies of the aircraft, she’d ended up posting her first win in an airplane race. Afterwards, she had written a paper detailing how the Bulldog’s design might be improved in future versions. That had led to a job offer from Frank Barnwell that she’d turned down with real regret.

“I genuinely appreciate this, Mr. Barnwell,” she’d told him, “But I’ve just accepted another job offer...with Reginald Mitchell, on the Supermarine S.6. design team.”

And that was why Katie was winging her way to the northwest on this cold and frosty February morning. There was no way she was going to decline an offer to help build Britain’s new Schneider-Cup racer.

Not hardly.

Supermarine Aviation Works was, in fact, a company in which Katie had a financial stake; it was owned by Vickers, in whom she now held a considerable number of shares. This had nothing to do with the job offer though. Katie had not lobbied for a place on the S.6 team. In fact, she hadn’t even applied for one; the offer had come to her straight out of the blue. Indeed, when she was introduced to Reginald Mitchell, a blue fox with eyes that seemed perpetually inquisitive, he turned out to be wholly unawares of her holdings in Vickers.

As a matter of fact, Katie’s new-found celebrity as conqueror of The Horn had also had nothing to do with Reginald Mitchell’s job offer. It had turned out to be based largely on the paper she had published as a graduate student at Purdue; the one regarding the way oversized wheel-pants actually tended to be more aerodynamic than smaller ones.

“What I’d like to know,” said the vulpine, folding his paws on his desk, “Is if this same principal might also be applied to seaplane floats. If we could make the S.6 more streamlined by equipping her with larger, rather than smaller wing floats, it would be of tremendous benefit to us. Think you can help us, Dame MacArran?”

Katie did, and immediately accepted his offer.

Once she arrived in Woolston, however, things quickly became anti-climactic. Mitchell, it turned out, had ordered only minimal changes to the S.5 airframe in creating the S.6. The fuselage would be lengthened by two feet, and the wingspan by three, but other than the new wing-floats, that was about it,...and even then, Katie was instructed to “do nothing radical. We’re leaving that to the Italians.”

And the proposed Italian entries were flights of fancy, all right. Very frequently, one or the other of Katie’s fellow aeronautical engineers would tack a blown up-photograph of the latest Italian entry onto an oversized cork-board in the hangar -- to the uproarious delight of all present.

For example, there was the Savoia-Marchetti S.65, a seaplane with not one, but two 1000-hp Isotta-Fraschini engines, mounted in a push-pull configuration. Katie took one look at it’s complicated tail section and almost doubled over with horse-laughter.

“If they wanted that much drag, why didn’t they just SAY so?” she sniggered.

She was not particularly impressed by it’s pencil slim wing-floats, either.

Even more bizarre was the Piaggio-Pegna P.c.7...a plane with NO wing-floats at all. Instead, it had a set of hydroplanes...and a design scheme more outlandish than anything Katie and John Redruth had come up with as joke when the two of them had worked together on the R-100.

The Piaggio’s 1,000-hp AS-5 engine was connected by a long metal shaft to a two-blade propeller with automatically adjustable pitch -- and, by means of a second shaft, to a smaller propeller, similar to that of a motorboat, under the tail. Before takeoff, the Pc.7 floated up to its wings on its watertight fuselage. For takeoff, the pilot started the engine, then a clutch engaged the tail screw and the plane started to move. It was raised above the water's surface almost instantly by the high-incidence hydroplanes. At that point, the pilot opened the normal carburetor air intake and gave full power to the engine, at the same time engaging the flight propeller, which automatically went from feathered to flight pitch. Then the pilot, straining to see through the spray from the hydroplanes, would take off. Freed of the drag and weight of floats, the Pc.7 was theoretically supposed to reach a projected maximum speed of 434.7 mph.

Theoretically

Even the Italian’s premier entry, the Macchi-Castoldi MC 67 was not without it’s design quirks. To counteract the propellor torque, which made the Macchis tend towards lopsided take- offs, more fuel was stored in the starboard than the port wing-float tanks. Furthermore, it’s ultra-high compression Isotta-Fraschini engine sported a mind-numbing 18 cylinders – unheard of back in 1929.

The S.6 too, was to be powered by a new engine. Reginald Mitchell felt that he had pretty much gone as far as he could with the Napier Lion that had propelled the Supermarine S.5 to victory two years earlier. In fact, it was this new power-plant that was to by the lynchpin of the new Supermarine S.6.

To create this new engine, Mitchell had turned to Sir Henry Royce, head of the venerated firm of Rolls Royce Ltd. One morning in late May, Katie journeyed to the Rolls factory in Derby, where she met, and was mightily impressed by Sir Henry; an old squirrel, who always walked with a cane.

“There’ll be no excess of cylinders here.” he’d told Katie, as he hobbled beside her towards the garage where the latest incarnation of the S.6 engine was being readied for a test run, “That sort of thing’s either a recipe for victory...or a recipe for disaster.” He stopped, leaning on his cane and raising a finger in the manner of a Roman orator. “Remember what we say here at Rolls, Dame MacArran: ‘Invent nothing! Inventors always go for broke.’.”

Katie nodded solemnly and filed the squirrel’s words away for future reference.

“No,” said Royce, continuing on his way. “Our engine will have 12 cylinders, no more. And we shall eschew the dangerously high compression ratios of the Italian power plants. Instead we shall employ the use of a supercharger to boost our engine power.”

Katie also learned from Henry Royce that a special racing fuel was currently under development to power the new engine; approximately three parts Benzol to one part Av-gas, with a dash of tetra-ethyl lead thrown in for good measure.

It was the method by which Sir Henry and his team were working the bugs out of their new engine that most astounded Katie; a technique as Draconian as it was simple. They would put the engine on a test bed, run it till it self destructed, then tear it apart to see what had failed and why.

After they’d corrected the problem, the entire process would be repeated. “As many times as it takes us,” old Sir Henry informed Katie, with a good dose of stiff, British, upper lip.

Katie’s job also frequently took her to Felixstowe, where the British High Speed Flight racing team was located. There, she conducted a series of test flights of her own...trying out various wing-float designs and configurations on a Supermarine S.5.

She also took up the opportunity to cage a few lessons in high-speed flying from several of the team members, all of whom had nothing but praise for her skills.

“You should seriously think about trying out for the ‘31 team.” said their Flight Commander, a thoroughbred horse named Augustus H. Orlebar.

In fact, Katie was already planning to do just that...but for the moment, she had some work to complete. And in late June of 1929, she presented Reginald Mitchell with her finished design for the S.6. wing-float. A pair of them were promptly fitted to the new race-plane, where they were found to perform even better than expected. High praise quickly followed for Katie from Reginald Mitchell and the rest of the design team. Even old Sir Henry Royce sent her a note of appreciation

But after that, everything became a comedown. With her work accomplished, there was almost nothing for Katie to do around Woolston. Most of the other S.6 airframe modifications were already complete, and what little remained to be done was proceeding nicely on it’s own, thank you. The only problem that still lingered was the new Rolls Royce engine, and Katie’s area of expertise was aerodynamics, not mechanics.

And so, she continued her sojourns to Felixstowe, wheedling lessons whenever she could, and to Derby to observe the process of development for the new S.6 engine. Though at the time the latter seemed about as interesting as the counting grains of sand in an hourglass, a seed was planted during Katie’s trips to Derby that would one day bear fruit when the time came to select a power-plant for HER Schneider-Cup racer.

In the meantime, she couldn’t wait for the final week of August.

Then, in the final week of July, two events occurred:

The first was when Katie learned that the Italians had asked for an extension of the starting date, as they were having some serious problems with the Macchi-Castoldi M.C. 67. ( Their other two prospective entries, the Savoia-Marchetti S.65 and the Piaggio-Pegna P.c.7 had already been withdrawn from the competition...the former due to chronic engine-overheating, and the latter due to...you need a reason? )

The request set off a heated debate in the Royal Aero Club.

“Certainly, we should not grant them an extension,” was the opinion of the nays, “We’ve already made the Schneider a biannual rather than an annual competition. If the Italians can’t have their planes ready after a full extra year, well that’s their problem, isn’t it?”

“Certainly we should,” countered the ayes, “Fair play’s part of our British tradition, yes? And who wants to win a race that’s a non-event? Furthermore, if we don’t grant Signor Castoldi that extension, everyone’ll say it’s because we’re frightened of the M.C. 67. And besides that, we’re still not sure if Rolls will have OUR new engine ready by the starting date.”

It was this final argument that carried the day. The start of the 1929 Schneider-Cup was postponed from late August to the third week of September, much to the annoyance of everyone on the S.6. design team, particularly a young English Hunter/Mustang mare named Dame Catherine MacArran.

“Great...three more weeks with nothing to do!” she grumbled to herself

Not necessarily. The very day she made that complaint, she received a transatlantic phone call from none other than William Randolph Hearst.

“Pack your bags,” he told her, by way of greeting, “You’re going on the Graf.”

What the newspaper magnate was referring to was the proposed around-the-world flight of the new Graf Zeppelin, of which his publishing empire was the principal sponsor, kicking in a cool $100 grand towards the expense of the voyage.

It was the chance of a lifetime, and ordinarily Katie would have jumped at it. Only 20 passengers would be traveling aboard the Graf for it’s historic circumnavigation of the globe, and as a former crew-member of the Norge and a member of the R-100 design team, she was eminently qualified to report on the journey for the Hearst papers.

There was just one problem. Katie now owned a newspaper of her own, The Daily Observer, which had also chipped in a contribution towards the flight -- not nearly as generous as Hearst’s, but there it was. For her to report on the flight for him rather than for her own paper would, in her mind at least, constitute a serious conflict of interest. Furthermore, she resented the high-pawed way in which the golden bear was practically ORDERING her to go on the Graf. Though she genuinely appreciated all he’d done for her in the days following the death of her sire, one thing she did not owe him was subservience.

On the other hoof, it would still not do to anger him, and so she said, “Well, Mr. Hearst...that’s a fantastic offer, but I have my own newspaper to think about. So...what about ringing up George Stafford over at the Observer and seeing if we can negotiate for some reprint rights?”

“Hmmm,” said Hearst, “That sounds reasonable enough. I’ll call him right away.”

When Hearst rang off, Katie was feeling highly pleased with herself...until she realized that Hearst had hung up still blithely assuming she was going on the Graf. One of these days, she was going to have to assert her independence with that bear...and in a way that he would probably not find much to his liking.

In the present scheme of things however, it all worked out. George Stafford was able to wangle exclusive reprint rights for the Observer out of Hearst. It was from him that Katie learned that she would be sharing the reporting duties with another member of the British Gentry, Lady Grace Hay-Drummond-Hay, ( mercifully no relation to her brother’s best friend, Josslyn Hay. )

Obtaining a release from Reginald Mitchell to go on the Graf Zeppelin turned out to be much easier than she expected, “just as long as you’re back for race-day.” he stipulated, and thanks to the extension of the Schneider starting-date, that was not going to be an issue.

On August 1, 1929, Katie boarded the Graf Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen for the flight across the Atlantic to the starting point at Lakehurst, New Jersey. ( One of Hearst’s stipulations for sponsoring the Graf’s round-the-world flight had been that it must begin and end in America. )

It was going to be flight both Spartan and luxurious; each passenger was allowed only to carry only 50 pounds of luggage on board. On the other paw, the dining room featured fine champagne and gourmet meals, served on exquisite, Bavarian porcelain...a far cry from the simple rations consumed on board the Norge during her crossing of the arctic.

Katie hit it off instantly with Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay, with whom she would also be sharing a cabin. ( They were the only two females on board. ) Grace Drummond Hay, a white-furred cat, was one of Hearst’s star reporters, and the two of them soon discovered that they made an excellent writing team.   Lady Hay would write about the daily routines of the passengers and officers, while Dame MacArran would distill the technical details of the Graf Zeppelin into language any layfur would readily comprehend. It was also her job to report on the daily activities of the Graf’s lower ranking crew-members.

On their second day out, Katie was approached by Dr. Hugo Eckner, the Graf Zeppelin’s designer. He had heard that she’d had a hoof in helping to build the R-100 and wanted her opinion of his new dirigible. The request put Katie in a bit of a flap. Should she be circumspect in her review, or pull no punches? As it was, her opinion of the Graf Zeppelin was almost wholly positive ( certainly better than her feelings towards the R-100's sister ship, the R-101. ) But there was nonetheless, one thing about the Graf Zeppelin’s design scheme that she didn’t like, and after detailing for the German walrus the things about his airship that most impressed her, she made bold to venture that the Graf would have been much more aerodynamically efficient had she been constructed with a larger circumference. “And she’d have had more useful lift, too.” the pinto mare pointed out.

To her considerable surprise and relief, Herr Eckener just laughed, wryly.

“Ja, ja...we should have liked to increase the diameter of the gas envelope. Only this is the largest we could make the Graf Zeppelin and still fit him into his shed. We simply didn’t have the capital to make the shed any larger you see...simply couldn’t raise the money. After all the funding difficulties you have experienced mit der R-100, Fraulein Dame MacArran, I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, you better believe that.” said Katie, from the heart.

When the Graf Zeppelin arrived at Lakehurst to take on the rest of her passengers, the list turned out to include several guests of considerably high profile.

There was Commander Charles E. Rosendahl, a mink who had survived the wreck of the U.S. Naval Airship Shenadoah in 1925, and who would one day would survive an even greater catastrophe -- the fiery destruction of the airship Hindenburg. Almost as soon as he was on board, Commander Rosendahl sought Katie out to ask her about the Norge Expedition.

“We had hoped to take the Shenadoah over the Pole before we lost her.” he explained.

Even more illustrious was Sir Hubert Wilkins, an Australian dingo whose career eerily paralleled Katie’s...and in some cases, eclipsed it.

Sir Hubert had covered the Balkans War of 1912 as a cinematographer. He had joined the Canadian Arctic expedition of 1913. He had served as a combat photographer on the Western Front during World War I. In 1919, he had competed in the great England to Australia air race. ( Only getting as far as Crete. ) He had been with Sir Earnest Shackleton on the great explorer’s final expedition to the antarctic. He had scouted the Australian Outback, where he had several times crossed paths with the Observer’s reporters, Bume and Rang. ( “As fair dinkum a pair of scalawags as ever I’ve met.” ) In 1926, along with American Carl Ben Eielson he had made the first crossing of the Arctic via heavier-than-air aircraft, a feat that had earned him his knighthood. And in 1928, at almost the same time that Katie was making her epic flight to Cape Horn, Sir Hubert had been the first to fly an airplane in Antarctica.

It was only natural that they would gravitate towards one another.

Katie found Sir Hubert to be a canine of deep convictions. During the Great War, he had stubbornly refused to carry a firearm, somehow still managing to win the Military Cross, not once but twice. Of the Australian Aborigines he said, “In many ways their state of civilisation is higher than ours." She responded to this by telling him the story of how the Hawaiian mattang had saved her life during the Dole Derby.

“You can guess what I learned from that experience; that the level of a civilization is NOT just based on it’s level of industry.” she said, earning an approving wag from the dingo’s tail.

It was when the Graf Zeppelin reached Europe that the atmosphere aboard the dirigible turned festive. Almost as soon as the airship lifted off again from Friedrichshafen, someone put a record on the phonograph in the dining room, and Katie was treated to the amusing spectacle of a Japanese journalist dancing a solo Charleston. At 6 PM, the Graf passed into Soviet Airspace and was soon droning across a vast expanse of land where no aircraft had flown before.

Because of her experience in helping to build the R-100, and her participation in the Norge’s arctic flight, Katie MacArran was granted a level of access on board the Graf that the other journalists making the voyage could only dream about. She was permitted to view one of the gas cells at close range; she was allowed to examine the construction girders; She was allowed to traverse the entire length of the ship’s central walkway; She was allowed to enter one of the engine pods, and observe the maintenance of one of the huge Maybach power plants. She was even permitted to ascend one of the maintenance shafts to the top of the mighty Zeppelin, peering out in astonishment at the seemingly endless panorama of the Siberian wetlands, thousands of feet below.

In the evenings after dinner, Katie, Lady Grace Drummond-Hay, Commander Rosendahl and Sir Hubert would gather at a table in the dining salon for a rubber of bridge. At such times, Katie would frequently expound upon the virtues of the new R-100 airship, now nearing completion in Howden

“You simply MUST come aboard when she’s completed.” she told her table partners. Practically everything she had seen aboard the Graf left her more convinced than ever of the simple genius of Barnes Wallis’ design for his airship.

It was when the Graf Zeppelin passed at low altitude over the remote Siberian village of Verhkne Imbatskoye that the first unpleasant incident of the voyage occurred. Startled by the giant airships’s sudden appearance, the villagers panicked. Some ran into their huts and slammed the doors, others remained helplessly rooted to the spot.   Domestic animals fled in all directions, one of them flattening two huts with the cart it was pulling.

Most of the passengers seemed to find this spectacle highly amusing. Two who did not were Sir Hubert Wilkins and Dame Catherine MacArran, both of whom treated their fellows to a low-grade tongue-lashing once the village was in the Graf’s wake.

From Verhkne Imbatskoye, the Graf Zeppelin moved north-east across the Siberian Steppe, towards the ancient fur-trading post of Yakutsk, ( which also happened to have been the place where the Grand Duke Peter Korvanov had been exiled following his role in the killing of Rasputin.) By now, late summer or no late summer, the mornings were getting desperately cold in the Graf’s unheated cabins. Fortunately, Katie had anticipated this changer of climate and had brought with her the fur-trimmed parka and felt-lined boots she had worn during the Norge expedition. Sir Hubert Wilkins, even more experienced in arctic travel, was similarly well prepared.

At Yakutsk, the Graf dropped a sack of postcards and letters for mailing to every part of the world. And now came the most ticklish part of the flight; between Yakutsk and the Sea of Okhotsk, rose the largely unexplored and uncharted Stanovoi range, averaging 6500 feet high. There was, however a 5000 foot pass leading to the ocean through the Stanovois...at least that was what the literature said, and it towards this gap that Eckener now pointed the Graf Zeppelin.

Quickly, the valley narrowed to a canyon, until there was only 250' of clearance on the Zeppelin’s either flank. Then the pass began to rise in height...5000 feet, 5200 feet, 5500 feet. At 6000 feet, the Graf’s gondola was only 150 feet off the ground, and Katie saw several of the passengers holding on to one another and one or two of them praying. Only, Hugo Eckener Sir Hubert, Commander Rosendahl, Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay, and she herself remained stoic.

Then, mercifully, the earth began to drop away...and there, dead ahead, was the bright blue of the Sea of Okhotsk, gateway to the Pacific.

That was when Hugo Eckener allowed himself a rare moment of puffery. Throwing his arms in the air, he declared, “Now, THAT’S airship flying!”

Katie and the others could only heartily agree with the walrus’s verdict. It had been a marvelous feet of lighter-than-air navigation, one that in her mind was equaled only by Umberto Nobile’s remarkable, unassisted landing of the Norge on an open field of ice in Alaska, four years earlier.

She could not then have begun to imagine that another seed had just been planted.

Two days later, after passing over cheering crowds in Yokohama and Tokyo, the Graf Zeppelin docked at the Kasumigaura naval airship base, aided by 500 sailors of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Japanese were thrilled to have the Graf’s passengers and crew as their guests, and regaled them with speeches, teas, banquets, and gifts...and in Katie’s case, some culture shock. As luxurious as the Graf Zeppelin had been, one thing neither it, nor any other dirigible of the day carried was a proper washing facility. The only thing she’d been able to think about on the last day before their landing had been, “A bath...a Bath...a BATH.”, and the desk clerk at the Imperial hotel had been only too happy direct her to the nearest public bathhouse.

That was when Katie made two discoveries about Japan. The first came when she slid blissfully into the waters of her bath...and immediately discovered that the Japanese liked bathing in water kept at anything but a blissful temperature. As a matter of fact, at that moment she beginning to understand how a dinner lobster must feel. With a shrill neigh of pain, Katie leaped from the tub...or would have except at that moment, a pair of unclad male Akitas came strolling into the bathhouse, giving her not even the most cursory of glances as they passed her by.

They then settled into the tub nearest hers with no more difficulty than if it’s contents had been merely lukewarm.

Recovering from this ordeal, Katie returned to her hotel for dinner with her three companions, before turning in for the night.   She fell instantly asleep and awoke the next morning feeling more refreshed than she had in months.

Maybe there was something to the Japanese way of bathing after all.

After breakfast and some arrangements to have her clothes cleaned, she went out with Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay to catch a taxi and catch up on some shopping. As fortune (and Hearst) would have decreed, it so happened that they had an excellent guide, a Japanese macaque named Takeo Shinmyo; a reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, ( which was hoping to obtain reprint rights for Katie and Lady Drummond-Hay’s articles. )

There were two things Katie wanted to get her hooves on before she left Tokyo. The first item was...like all horses, she adored the feel of silk. Lady Grace Drummond-Hay wasn’t exactly averse to the idea of purchasing some fine silk clothing either, and so off they went, not to the Ginza as the two femmes expected, but towards the train station.

“The best place to buy silk is in Kyoto,” explained Shinmyo, “It is the center of Japan’s silk trade. And it’s also the best place to find that other item you wanted Dame Katie-san.”

Katie was also hoping to make the purchase of a fine katana, the long sword of the samurai, to add to the collection of edged weapons her father had left her. These included a Ghurka Kukri, a Burmese Dah, two Indian Daggers, a fine Arabian Scimitar in Damascus Steel, a Sudanese Gurade, a Balkan Yataghan Sword from the 18th Century, an Afghan Shamshir, a Javanese Kris, and a Mandau, the weapon carried by the Dayak head-hunters of Borneo.

When their train pulled out of Shimbashi railway station, however, Katie couldn’t help but notice that while their car was hardly empty it wasn’t nearly as full as it should have been, not in a country as heavily populated as Japan, and certainly not during the morning rush. Perhaps a third of the seats were unoccupied. Then, as the train began to chug it’s way through the outskirts of Tokyo, she saw neighborhoods that should have been bustling with activity looking drab and largely deserted, this despite the fact that it was brilliantly sunny morning, with the promise of heavy heat to follow later in the day. Those few residents who were up and about seemed to move as though in a trance. One section of the city that they passed wasn’t active at all. It was flattened like a row of dominoes. When Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay asked their guide why this was so, he just said, “Jishin-da...earthquake.” and that was all he said.

Katie’s ears locked upwards, “There’s been another earthquake?”

“Uh, yes.” said Shinmyo, and then hurried to reassure his charges, adding, “But do not be alarmed, Dame Katie-San. This earthquake was two years ago.”

Katie was NOT reassured. Two years? Two years, and they STILL hadn’t started to rebuild that neighborhood?

She was beginning to get a very uneasy feeling about this country.

That feeling of disquiet turned to outright foreboding when halfway to Kyoto, they passed by a stand of pine trees with long, rectangular patches missing from the bark. Katie was about to inquire as to what that was all about when the question answered itself. The train came upon a group of foxes clad in rough, patched kimonos and straw sandals, all of them in the process of stripping bark from another grove of pines.

“Who are they?” asked Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay.

“They are farmers, Lady Drummond-San.” responded Shinmyo, and that seemed to satisfy the cat-femme.

Katie for her part, was far from satisfied, especially when she saw something that her two companions did not observe...one of the vulpines taking a BITE out of a piece of tree-bark.

Something was wrong here...very wrong.

When the train arrived in Kyoto, Katie couldn’t wait to get off...and not just because of what she had observed during the journey. The temperature was climbing rapidly now, and the railway cars were turning into so many solar ovens. Telling his charges to wait for a second, Takeo Shinmyo hurried off into the bustling throng and returned momentarily with a pair of rice-paper fans and two cups of tea.

Arriving at the silk markets, Katie and Grace Drummond Hay made what should have been fortuitous discovery. Silk was going for far less than what they expected. In fact, it was selling at almost absurdly low prices; the merchants were practically begging the two femmes to take some of their wares off their paws -- for whatever amount they felt like paying.

Katie bought three kimonos to use as robes, two happi coats, three sets of silk sheets and pillowcases, two silk dresses, two sets of silk pyjamas, plus one for grandpa Joe, along with a silk jacket for her grandsire, and both an American flag and a Union Jack, rendered in fine silk.

And, of course, a full selection of silk undergarments.

As thrilled as her Scots’ genes were to be buying at such prices, another part of her remained wary. It was that...that IMPLORING look in the eye of every merchant she dealt with. A Japanese marten whose product she turned down looked for a second as if he were going to burst into tears.

When they left the silk markets, Katie made bold to inquire about it of their guide, and for once the macaque responded with a full explanation.

“It is because of Rayon, Dame Katie-san, the new artificial fiber from DuCleds Chemicals. It is...how does it go? It is all the rage in America right now...and much less expensive to produce than silk. So, America is not buying Japanese silk.”

Katie nodded in both understanding and disgust. She had tried on a pair of rayon stockings once and absolutely hated the fabric’s feel...an opinion not shared by most middle-class Britons, if what she’d seen in England over the past year was anything to go by. Everyone, it seemed, was wearing Rayon. She might have let the matter drop then and there if the aviatrix in her had not added a placating comment:

“At least you still have the market for silk parachutes.” she said, and immediately wanted to kick herself. It was an insensitivity worthy of her older brother.

But Shinmyo just said, through a mask-like face, “Yes, we do.” And for the first time, Katie sensed that he was lying.

From the silk markets, they went to have lunch at a Tempura shop, veggies for Katie, prawns for Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay. While they waited for their order to arrive, Takeo Shinmyo excused himself for a moment, and Katie took advantage of his absence to voice her concerns to her companion.

“I rather don’t see what you’re so disturbed about.” the white furred cat responded, “Certainly, the silk markets are down, but you know how fashion trends go. Rayon’ll fall out of vogue soon enough, and they’ll come back up again.”

“What about those foxes, Lady Grace?” Katie responded, “I saw one of them EATING tree-bark.”

“Yes, well they also eat seaweed here, don’t they?” said the feline with a laconic shrug.

Katie was about to bring up the flattened neighborhood, when their guide returned, waving a sheet of paper decorated with Japanese characters and smiling.

“Ah, but this is a most fortunate day, Dame Katie-san.” he said as he took his seat, “It so happens that the son-in-law of Admiral Baiko Kazanake-san is liquidating his estate. You should find a very fine katana and wakizashi for sale there. The Kazanake were a great samurai family before the Meiji restoration and the admiral served with much distinction in the war against Russia.”

At the door of the Kazanake house, they were greeted deferentially by the late admiral’s son-in-law, a Shiba Inu dog named Saburo Riida...and with a coldness bordering on incivility by his daughter, Hiroko...a canine of the same breed. Neither one of them spoke English and so it was left to Takeo Shinmyo to explain his charges’ purpose in coming there. When he spoke the word ‘katana’ Katie saw the Shiba femme glare at her with an almost homicidal intensity and turn to stalk away, only to be stopped at the last second by her husband grabbing her elbow.

“What’s going on, Takeo-san?” she asked their guide, and before the monkey could respond, she added, “And please tell me everything.”

Shinmyo dropped his shoulders and sighed. “She does not wish to sell her father’s swords, Dame Katie-san...and she especially does not wish to sell them to a westerner. They have been in her family since the Battle of Tennozan in 1582, and were given to her ancestor, Takiji Kazanake by the great Hideyoshi Torotomi himself.”

“I see,” said Katie, tapping a finger against her nose, “All right, tell her this. Tell her I’m the descendent of William MacArran, baron of Strathdern. At the Battle of Langside in 1568, it was his forces that turned the tide and gave victory to the army of James Stewart, Earl of Moray and regent of Scotland. In recognition of William’s services, the Earl elevated him to become the first Duke of Strathdern and presented him with a Claith Mhore, that’s the great sword of Scotland, engraved with our clan motto, ‘Never Surrender’.”

Katie waited until Takeo finished translating and looked right at the Shiba-femme.

“I do not possess this sword, Hiroko-san. It is in the care of my brother, the 13th Duke of Strathdern   But if I did, I would never sell it...not at any price, not even if I were destitute. Like your father’s katana Hiroko-san, my father’s claith mhore is where the honor of my ancestors resides. How could I ever consider purchasing your father’s katana, now I know it’s history? Were I to do that, it would be no better than if I were to sell off my family’s claith mhore.”
As Takeo translated, Katie saw Hiroko’s eyes growing ever wider...and when he finished, the canine-femme bowed deeply in her direction, then began to speak rapidly to the macaque again, this time in a much friendlier tone. He responded with something that sounded like a question, and she answered with a short sentence and another bow.

“Oh, but this is most excellent, Dame Katie-san,” the macaque told Katie, with a broad smile, “She says that there is another sword in her family’s collection that she would be more than willing to part with...and it is a very rare find indeed, one of the few shikomi-zue in existence crafted by a master swordsmith.”

“A shikomi-zue?” asked Katie, “What’s that?”

The shikomi-zue was a cane-sword once carried for fursonal protection by priests and traveling monks....furs normally forbidden to carry weapons during the Tokugawa period. Later, during the Meiji restoration, when the samurai themselves were forbidden by the Haitorei edict to wear their swords in public, many got around the ban by carrying the shikomi zue instead.

“Most of these swords, as you may imagine, are of inferior grade.” Takeo Shinmyo was telling her, “But not this one. It was forged by the great swordsmith Sanjo-kokaji Munechika as a gift to a Zen priest, the only shikomi-zue he ever fashioned. Later, it was acquired by the younger brother of Hiroko’s father, Nissho Kazamake.”

Katie’s ears began to work back and forth.

“Why would she be willing to sell such a rare sword?” she asked. Hiroko’s lips pulled back as she responded, and Katie could see an equally contemptuous look on her husband’s face. When Takeo translated what the Shiba femme was saying, it was practically unnecessary.

“She says that her uncle was a gambler and a wastrel who brought nothing but shame on the family honor. It is thanks largely to him that she and her husband are having to sell off what remains of her father’s possessions.”

“Tell her I know the type.” said Katie, folding her arms and nodding, “And tell her, yes...I would be VERY interested in seeing this shikomi-zue.”

The shikomi-zue turned out to have a straight, rather than a curving blade and was set in a scabbard of fine cherry-wood, lacquered to a deep red in the traditional shu-nuri style. With a hilt that curved slightly at the top, it looked for all intents and purposes to be single, seamless piece of wood. And when Kazamake-san drew the sword and showed it to Katie, she knew at once that it must be hers. Never had she seen such a finely turned blade, with such an exquisite bluish luster.

Then next morning, when Takeo Shinmyo arrived to collect Katie and Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay, Katie’s companion was delayed by the arrival of a telegram from William Hearst. That was when she took the opportunity to relate her misgivings about all she had seen since her arrival in Japan, and to ask the Japanese macaque what was happening. “I give you my word of honor that nothing you say to me will make it into print...but tell me what’s going on around here...please.”

Takeo Shinmyo pursed his lips. “Is there some way you can meet me alone...perhaps this evening?” he asked.

In fact, Katie was able to see Shinmyo-san after Grace Drummond-Hay had retired for the night. They met at a small noodle-shop near Hibiya Park, and as soon as they had taken their seats, the macaque got right down to business.

“What you have seen since your arrival here in Japan, Dame Katie-san, is the result of a financial panic. Two years ago, the Tokyo Stock Exchange collapsed and Japan was plunged into an economic depression.”

“What?” said Katie, almost dropping her glass “but...h-how?” Everyone knew that Japan was the economic powerhouse of Asia...wasn’t it?

What had happened was the investors in the Japanese stock market had been buying more and more stocks on credit. As a result, stocks had become greatly overvalued. Then, when Rayon had burst onto the scene, the sudden loss of markets for Japan’s greatest export had been the pinprick to the Japanese stock market’s bubble. Japan’s other foreign markets had also quickly dried up, most notably India. With no exports going out, few imports were coming in...and Japan had been buying most of it’s rice from abroad in 1927.

“The things you have seen so far, Dame Katie-san are only the tip of the iceberg. Recently, I visited a shelter housing girls from the country. They had been sold into prostitution to buy food for their families. The social worker in charge of the shelter told me they had only found their deliverance because the market for pillow girls has become entirely glutted. Only the very prettiest and/or most skilled females can attract customers. Japan is in her most desperate financials straits since end of the Shogunate...and I fear it is a cancer that is beginning to spread abroad.”

“Spread...abroad?” asked Katie “Cancer?”.

What Takeo Shinmyo told her in response was something that would profoundly alter the direction of her life.

“You said, in something of a throwaway fashion mentioned that there was still a market for Japanese silk to manufacture parachutes. Alas, that is not the case. Nor is there a market now for our silk within the American garment industry, even though Rayon has already begun to lose it’s novelty. The foreign buyers, both British and American have been unable to afford our silk as we can extend them no more credit. Instead they buy from China, where silk may still be purchased without hard cash...even though, with our depressed markets, Japanese silk is now far less expensive than is Chinese silk.”

Katie MacArran practically stumbled out of the noodle shop. The American and British silk importers were unable to buy silk except on credit...even at bargain prices? And what about the things Takeo Shinmyo had told her about the Japanese stock-market?   The Tokyo Stock Exchange of 1927 sounded an awful lot like the New York Stock Exchange of...of...

Of TODAY!

Arriving back at her hotel, the first thing Katie did was summon the night clerk, and send an urgent cable off to Jim Spanaway in New York.

Then, exhausted, she fell into bed...and into a sleep haunted by dreams she couldn’t remember when she awoke.

When she checked in at the front desk the next morning, there was no reply from Jim Spanaway. That was odd. A cable sent at midnight from Tokyo would arrive in New York at 1 in the afternoon...and the mountain-goat had always made it a point of honor in replying promptly whenever she had telegraphed him before.

At noon, when she returned from sightseeing, there was still no reply. Nor was there one that evening.

Nor was there one the next morning...and that afternoon was when the Graf Zeppelin was scheduled to lift off again.

The flight across the North Pacific to America turned out to be the most monotonous part of the journey. Most of the time the Graf was hemmed in by clouds and fog, and little could be seen from the gondola...which or course only added to Katie’s feelings of trepidation. WHY hadn’t Jim Spanaway responded to her telegram?

At one point in the flight, the clouds broke for just a second, revealing just a glimpse of a verdant ring of islands far below.

“Is that Hawaii?” asked Lady Hay-Drummond-Hay, patting Katie on the arm and pointing.

“No,” she answered, peering out at the islands alongside her collaborator, “I’d know Hawaii if I saw it from the air...and anyway, we’re too far north.”

“Das ist der Spontoon Islands.” said a voice from the other end of the dining compartment. It was Hugo Eckener speaking.

At that moment, the clouds closed in again.

When the Graf Zeppelin reached San Francisco, the reception that awaited her was even more tumultuous than the one that had greeted her arrival in Japan. Two squadrons of planes escorted the German airship over the Golden Gate, hundred of ships in the bay sounded sirens and whistles, and it seemed as if every fur in the city who owned an automobile had turned out merely for the privilege of tooting his horn in salute to the mighty airship.

And the Graf wasn’t even scheduled to land in the Bay Area. Instead, Hugo Eckener swung her south along the coast, where she touched down at Mines Field, outside of Los Angeles, at 5 AM the next morning.

When Katie descended the gangway, she saw George Hearst there, waiting to greet her. ( His father was in New York where the Graf would complete it’s voyage. )

She also saw the answer to her question about why Jim Spanaway had not answered any of her cables.

Because there he was, also.

next

Aircraft references:
Bristol Bulldog:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=137

Supermarine S.6.:
http://www.hydroretro.net/coupeen/avions/sms6.htm

Savoia-Marchetti S 65:
http://www.oldbeacon.com/plans/resource4/savoia-marchetti_s65.htm

Piaggio-Pegna P.c.7:
http://www.oldbeacon.com/plans/resource4/piaggio-pegna_pc7.htm

And, of course, the Graf Zeppelin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graf_Zeppelin