Post by Lorpius Prime on Feb 3, 2007 3:25:41 GMT -5
Baron Blake rode with Jay in the carriage to the air station. The Baron claimed that he was going to leave to sit in Parliament for a few days, and wanted a suit tailored in town. Jay just shrugged.
The air station was just south of town, on the east side of the river, near Topsham. Exeter had fought hard to get Devon’s air station. Plymouth was probably a better site, all things considered, but ultimately Exeter had more clout in Westminster.
The Baron smoked a cigar as the carriage rattled across the ash-grey cobblestones of Exeter; he’d apparently left his usual pipe at home. Jay amused himself by tugging at a loose string in the rough twill of his coat. He’d probably need to replace it himself before too long. Jay didn’t mind weathered clothing so much as his father. In fact, he rather preferred to wear old broken-in items; but they did wear out eventually.
The carriage hit a pothole in the road and Jay seized his hat before it could fall off his knees. Baron Blake sighed and took the half-smoked cigar from his mouth. He glanced about the carriage for a moment, then threw the smoking butt out the window with a dismissive grunt.
“All right," he said, "I’ve got something for you, Jay Thomson.”
Jay let go of the coat fiber and raised an eyebrow, “What’s that?”
Baron Blake reached into his own coat, made of a much finer black cotton, “Something I suppose I should have passed on a while ago. But… well, here.”
What he pulled out was a battered leather-bound book. He tossed it into Jay’s lap. The black cover was beaten and soft, and the pages were brown with age.
Jay picked it up. It was a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. An old copy, at that. Jay hadn’t touched one of these since before he was twenty.
He tilted his head towards his father, “Um…”
The Baron looked thoroughly uncomfortable, “It belonged to your grandfather, my father. About the only thing of his that I have.”
“Er, thanks…” Jay knew almost nothing about his paternal grandfather: he’d died long before Jay was born, and Baron Blake never really spoke about the man. He opened the book, and whistled. The pages were filled with hand-scrawled notes. Jay squinted at a page, but couldn’t decipher the writing.
“It’s nothing profound,” Baron Blake nodded to the book, “he was a priest. It’s mostly just notes on services I guess he did. There’s some stuff on his family towards the back, and a few stray thoughts scattered throughout. Closest thing to a journal I think he had.”
Jay nodded, still confused, “All right. And why are you giving this to me?”
His father shrugged, “He gave it to me when I was about your age. Well, no, I guess he didn’t, I was a lot younger. It was when I first went off to Royal Albert. He said a boy shouldn’t be going out in the world without a good prayer book. He died three years later.”
Jay cracked the book again and made another attempt at reading the scratchy handwriting. It looked like it was just a list, topics for the day’s prayers, maybe.
His father went on, “Anyway, I don’t really look at it anymore, and it’s the last real bit of wisdom he left me with. I know you don’t really bother much with these things, but I’ve never shared much about your grandparents, so I thought…” he trailed off.
Jay spoke quickly, “No, I understand, Father, really. Thank you.”
The elder Blake exhaled, nodded, then sat back in the carriage and gazed out the window. Jay tried to escape the awkward silence by flipping through his grandfather’s prayer book. He found a page where the words were slightly clearer, perhaps written in less of a hurry.
A good shepherd knows when his flock no longer needs him, when it is time to pass on the crook. Who can say why the Lord calls us when He does, or how He finds our purpose. We are His people, and so we go, with faith and trust in His wisdom.
I am fortunate that the Lord has chosen to grant me a new path despite my years, and I give thanks for His blessings during the time I have served Him and for this new gift, even though I do not profess to understand. Perhaps it is a message, more proof that in every tragedy there is good, and I feel this is no small miracle.
My last mass shall be in two weeks then, and I can only pray that my flock will see it as I do. But they will be in good hands, and I am certain of nothing if not that they have the strength to carry on through any hardship. I think that I may take some pride in having taught them that.
Jay looked up to his father, the Baron, “Grandpa sounds awful full of himself.”
Edward Blake seemed startled, probably woolgathering. He looked at the book Jay held open, “Here, let me see.”
Jay handed it over, and the Baron read for a moment as they were jounced around in the carriage. He chuckled at the page, “He’s talking about my mother. They fell in love after her first husband died. She didn't want to live at the rectory, though, so your grandfather had to resign from the priesthood to marry her. I think he was afraid of the rumors about them when he did.”
“Scandalous,” Jay took back the prayer book. “The parish didn't want to let him go, then?”
The Baron laughed, “Keep reading. They were surprised he took so long to make the announcement. Some of them clearly thought your grandparents had been fooling around for quite a while. But they were patting him on the back about it rather than throwing things. Father was just shocked at the impropriety. He still couldn’t believe it twenty years on.” Edward Blake smiled, engulfed in a warm memory.
Jay flipped through the pages of the old book to see if he could find any more clear writing. “So I take it he was rather uptight.”
His father picked his words carefully, “He was… a very pious man. Took the word of God quite seriously.”
“Rather than seeing the Old Man as history’s greatest comedian. I see.”
The Baron’s eyes narrowed a little. He wasn’t a priest, but plenty of his father’s faith had rubbed off on him. Jay shrugged. He was no heathen himself, he went to mass when he could and paid his tithe, but he still found much of the Church’s pomp and ceremony rather silly.
The coachman knocked on the roof, “Here’s the air station!”
And, indeed, they were passing beneath the enormous stone and iron archway which marked the entrance to Her Majesty’s Royal Air Station—Devon.
It wasn’t the largest such station in Britain, actually it was one of the smallest, but it was still an impressive sight. Giant grey cigar-shaped airships littered the field, tethered to the ground with spidery anchor cables. A handful were in the air, just arriving or departing; all guided by bright signal flares from the towers placed strategically throughout the station grounds.
They passed an infantry company marching in their bright red uniforms toward an Army transport. The Captain must have recognized Baron Blake for he snapped a salute, polished boot heels clicking smartly. Baron Blake returned the gesture with his own more casual salute and a grave nod. Jay just stared in wide-eyed wonder.
The soldiers must be heading for occupation duty on the continent. Their flashy uniforms would be a mortal hazard in any other portion of the Empire’s vast deployment. The continent and the British Isles themselves were the only places well-behaved enough to let Her Majesty’s soldiers dress up like 18th-century nutcrackers.
Jay giggled at the mental image: one of the soldiers standing stiffly beside his Captain would make a good nutcracker. His beard and square shoulders made him look faintly Russian, and Jay could easily see him breaking enormous walnuts with his jaw. An axe hanging from the man’s waist could not have been standard issue. Jay wondered at that for a bit before the carriage had left the marching company behind.
“What boggles my mind,” Jay mused as the carriage turned towards a collection of massive long-distance craft, “is that we’ve got the Royal Navy, we’ve got the Royal Air Corps, we’ve got the Royal Marines, and the Royal ruddy Volunteer Corps; so why can’t we have a Royal Army already?”
Baron Blake rolled his eyes, “Because someone would pitch a fit if we tried that. If not the Hindus and Micks, then some club of generals trying to save their bailiwicks from being dissolved. Some messes are just too big for anyone to clean up. Her Majesty’s Royal Redundancy Regiments aren’t going anywhere.”
Jay snorted in an abbreviated laugh, but the horses’ hooves slowed and clattered to a stop. They’d reached the airship. Jay donned his hat, hefted his suitcase, and climbed out of the carriage. The Baron exited on the other side, and took an unusually large breath of the open air while stretching his limbs. The coachman hurried around to relieve Jay of his suitcase and carried it off to be checked by a man with a clipboard before finally passing it to a scrawny porter who whisked it away towards the enormous airship.
Jay was a little baffled when his father made to follow him towards the great oblong flying machine, but he soon discovered why. Halfway to the long gondola slung beneath the passenger ship’s gas bag, the two Blakes were met by a man in a deep blue uniform with gold piping and buttons: the airship captain. He tipped his white cap to the elder Blake, “Morning Baron.” Then he nodded to Jay, “Jay Thomson.”
Edward Blake cracked a friendly smile and clapped the other man on the shoulder, “Good Morning, Perry, glad to see you’re well. How’s your mother?”
Jay watched the two shake hands, and Perry said, “Mum’s fine. She thanks you and Lily for the paintings.”
“Entirely my wife’s idea, I assure you. I can’t see what makes a picture of grass any better than looking out the window, but I guess that’s why I’m not a woman.”
The airship captain laughed, and Edward Blake continued, “Well, I saw my son was taking your airship down to the continent, so I thought I’d drop by to say hello. It’s been too long.”
“It has," Perry nodded. "I like to keep busy, and flying’s the best job in the world. But it doesn’t leave much time for friends and family.”
“Well, take a vacation sometime," Baron Blake told him. "You can’t say they don’t owe it to you.”
The other man laughed again, “That they do. I’ll probably look into in a few months. Mum wants to see Ireland and I ride for free when I’m off.”
At this point, the Blakes’ coachman interrupted, “Excuse me, Master Blake, Master Morgan, but we’ll be needing to depart if we want to be at Mr. Sarto’s before lunch.”
Perry glanced at a pocket watch and said, “I need to be going myself for the flight-check. We’re expecting some bad winds over the Channel and I want to make sure all the control lines are in order.”
Baron Blake nodded, “Wire us next time you’re back in England for a while.” Then he looked over to Jay, “Stay out of trouble, son. Be sure to write or your Mother worries.”
“Yes, sir. Give ‘em Hell in Westminster.”
His father rolled his eyes again, then tipped his hat to Perry Morgan before strolling back to the waiting carriage.
The uniformed man nodded back, gestured towards his airship. “Well, Jay Thomson, if you want to come along, I’ll give you the Captain’s welcome.”
“Sure.” Jay walked after him.
Before he’d died, Perry Morgan’s father had been friends with Edward Blake. Perry was five years older than Jay, and had occasionally helped tutor the Blakes’ son in the sciences, which was Jay’s worst subject. Jay had always found the older boy intimidating, although he was friendly enough. Perry was very smart, but had an odd and distant manner."
Jay noticed that he walked with a slight limp. Jay hadn’t seen Perry in years, but had heard from Baron Blake that he’d been injured in a fall while on duty with the Air Corps. After being laid up for a long time in recovery, he’d retired from the service to fly passenger airships.
“Mum says you’re writing for the Times these days. Is that why you’re heading for the continent?”
“Ah, yeah,” Jay looked up, but Perry was still gazing straight ahead toward his vessel. “They’ve got me doing a special for this year’s Victory Day.”
Perry nodded disinterestedly, “It’s a big deal for some.”
Lily Blake had once suggested Perry would make a good suitor for Margaret. At the time Margaret had responded—rightly, Jay thought—that he was too old for her. Perry himself had never shown the slightest bit of interest, and the matter never came up again. Now it seemed that he was still a bachelor. Jay shrugged mentally, Perry didn’t sound as if he minded.
“Do you read the Times?” Jay asked, thinking the answer had to be no.
He was right. “Not really. My aeronautical journals are enough for me. The quarrels of politicians don’t hold much interest, and I’ve got far better resources to tell me the weather.”
Jay nodded. He wondered what the other man had been doing going into the Air Corps if he didn’t care. Jay supposed an engineer in the service must get to do things an ordinary civilian couldn’t.
Like killing people, he thought grimly. But Perry had never struck him as particularly malicious. Even so, duty on Her Majesty’s combat airships was not for the squeamish.
Staying on board a passenger liner, however, was something else entirely. They reached the plush, carpeted steps which led up to the gondola. The massive gas envelope hung over them, casting a great shadow across the concrete.
Captain Morgan bounded happily up the rolling steps. He turned around, put a loving hand on the steel doorway, and grinned, “Welcome aboard the Welsh Rover, Mr. Blake.”
<<6<<_>>8>>
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-
The air station was just south of town, on the east side of the river, near Topsham. Exeter had fought hard to get Devon’s air station. Plymouth was probably a better site, all things considered, but ultimately Exeter had more clout in Westminster.
The Baron smoked a cigar as the carriage rattled across the ash-grey cobblestones of Exeter; he’d apparently left his usual pipe at home. Jay amused himself by tugging at a loose string in the rough twill of his coat. He’d probably need to replace it himself before too long. Jay didn’t mind weathered clothing so much as his father. In fact, he rather preferred to wear old broken-in items; but they did wear out eventually.
The carriage hit a pothole in the road and Jay seized his hat before it could fall off his knees. Baron Blake sighed and took the half-smoked cigar from his mouth. He glanced about the carriage for a moment, then threw the smoking butt out the window with a dismissive grunt.
“All right," he said, "I’ve got something for you, Jay Thomson.”
Jay let go of the coat fiber and raised an eyebrow, “What’s that?”
Baron Blake reached into his own coat, made of a much finer black cotton, “Something I suppose I should have passed on a while ago. But… well, here.”
What he pulled out was a battered leather-bound book. He tossed it into Jay’s lap. The black cover was beaten and soft, and the pages were brown with age.
Jay picked it up. It was a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. An old copy, at that. Jay hadn’t touched one of these since before he was twenty.
He tilted his head towards his father, “Um…”
The Baron looked thoroughly uncomfortable, “It belonged to your grandfather, my father. About the only thing of his that I have.”
“Er, thanks…” Jay knew almost nothing about his paternal grandfather: he’d died long before Jay was born, and Baron Blake never really spoke about the man. He opened the book, and whistled. The pages were filled with hand-scrawled notes. Jay squinted at a page, but couldn’t decipher the writing.
“It’s nothing profound,” Baron Blake nodded to the book, “he was a priest. It’s mostly just notes on services I guess he did. There’s some stuff on his family towards the back, and a few stray thoughts scattered throughout. Closest thing to a journal I think he had.”
Jay nodded, still confused, “All right. And why are you giving this to me?”
His father shrugged, “He gave it to me when I was about your age. Well, no, I guess he didn’t, I was a lot younger. It was when I first went off to Royal Albert. He said a boy shouldn’t be going out in the world without a good prayer book. He died three years later.”
Jay cracked the book again and made another attempt at reading the scratchy handwriting. It looked like it was just a list, topics for the day’s prayers, maybe.
His father went on, “Anyway, I don’t really look at it anymore, and it’s the last real bit of wisdom he left me with. I know you don’t really bother much with these things, but I’ve never shared much about your grandparents, so I thought…” he trailed off.
Jay spoke quickly, “No, I understand, Father, really. Thank you.”
The elder Blake exhaled, nodded, then sat back in the carriage and gazed out the window. Jay tried to escape the awkward silence by flipping through his grandfather’s prayer book. He found a page where the words were slightly clearer, perhaps written in less of a hurry.
A good shepherd knows when his flock no longer needs him, when it is time to pass on the crook. Who can say why the Lord calls us when He does, or how He finds our purpose. We are His people, and so we go, with faith and trust in His wisdom.
I am fortunate that the Lord has chosen to grant me a new path despite my years, and I give thanks for His blessings during the time I have served Him and for this new gift, even though I do not profess to understand. Perhaps it is a message, more proof that in every tragedy there is good, and I feel this is no small miracle.
My last mass shall be in two weeks then, and I can only pray that my flock will see it as I do. But they will be in good hands, and I am certain of nothing if not that they have the strength to carry on through any hardship. I think that I may take some pride in having taught them that.
Jay looked up to his father, the Baron, “Grandpa sounds awful full of himself.”
Edward Blake seemed startled, probably woolgathering. He looked at the book Jay held open, “Here, let me see.”
Jay handed it over, and the Baron read for a moment as they were jounced around in the carriage. He chuckled at the page, “He’s talking about my mother. They fell in love after her first husband died. She didn't want to live at the rectory, though, so your grandfather had to resign from the priesthood to marry her. I think he was afraid of the rumors about them when he did.”
“Scandalous,” Jay took back the prayer book. “The parish didn't want to let him go, then?”
The Baron laughed, “Keep reading. They were surprised he took so long to make the announcement. Some of them clearly thought your grandparents had been fooling around for quite a while. But they were patting him on the back about it rather than throwing things. Father was just shocked at the impropriety. He still couldn’t believe it twenty years on.” Edward Blake smiled, engulfed in a warm memory.
Jay flipped through the pages of the old book to see if he could find any more clear writing. “So I take it he was rather uptight.”
His father picked his words carefully, “He was… a very pious man. Took the word of God quite seriously.”
“Rather than seeing the Old Man as history’s greatest comedian. I see.”
The Baron’s eyes narrowed a little. He wasn’t a priest, but plenty of his father’s faith had rubbed off on him. Jay shrugged. He was no heathen himself, he went to mass when he could and paid his tithe, but he still found much of the Church’s pomp and ceremony rather silly.
The coachman knocked on the roof, “Here’s the air station!”
And, indeed, they were passing beneath the enormous stone and iron archway which marked the entrance to Her Majesty’s Royal Air Station—Devon.
It wasn’t the largest such station in Britain, actually it was one of the smallest, but it was still an impressive sight. Giant grey cigar-shaped airships littered the field, tethered to the ground with spidery anchor cables. A handful were in the air, just arriving or departing; all guided by bright signal flares from the towers placed strategically throughout the station grounds.
They passed an infantry company marching in their bright red uniforms toward an Army transport. The Captain must have recognized Baron Blake for he snapped a salute, polished boot heels clicking smartly. Baron Blake returned the gesture with his own more casual salute and a grave nod. Jay just stared in wide-eyed wonder.
The soldiers must be heading for occupation duty on the continent. Their flashy uniforms would be a mortal hazard in any other portion of the Empire’s vast deployment. The continent and the British Isles themselves were the only places well-behaved enough to let Her Majesty’s soldiers dress up like 18th-century nutcrackers.
Jay giggled at the mental image: one of the soldiers standing stiffly beside his Captain would make a good nutcracker. His beard and square shoulders made him look faintly Russian, and Jay could easily see him breaking enormous walnuts with his jaw. An axe hanging from the man’s waist could not have been standard issue. Jay wondered at that for a bit before the carriage had left the marching company behind.
“What boggles my mind,” Jay mused as the carriage turned towards a collection of massive long-distance craft, “is that we’ve got the Royal Navy, we’ve got the Royal Air Corps, we’ve got the Royal Marines, and the Royal ruddy Volunteer Corps; so why can’t we have a Royal Army already?”
Baron Blake rolled his eyes, “Because someone would pitch a fit if we tried that. If not the Hindus and Micks, then some club of generals trying to save their bailiwicks from being dissolved. Some messes are just too big for anyone to clean up. Her Majesty’s Royal Redundancy Regiments aren’t going anywhere.”
Jay snorted in an abbreviated laugh, but the horses’ hooves slowed and clattered to a stop. They’d reached the airship. Jay donned his hat, hefted his suitcase, and climbed out of the carriage. The Baron exited on the other side, and took an unusually large breath of the open air while stretching his limbs. The coachman hurried around to relieve Jay of his suitcase and carried it off to be checked by a man with a clipboard before finally passing it to a scrawny porter who whisked it away towards the enormous airship.
Jay was a little baffled when his father made to follow him towards the great oblong flying machine, but he soon discovered why. Halfway to the long gondola slung beneath the passenger ship’s gas bag, the two Blakes were met by a man in a deep blue uniform with gold piping and buttons: the airship captain. He tipped his white cap to the elder Blake, “Morning Baron.” Then he nodded to Jay, “Jay Thomson.”
Edward Blake cracked a friendly smile and clapped the other man on the shoulder, “Good Morning, Perry, glad to see you’re well. How’s your mother?”
Jay watched the two shake hands, and Perry said, “Mum’s fine. She thanks you and Lily for the paintings.”
“Entirely my wife’s idea, I assure you. I can’t see what makes a picture of grass any better than looking out the window, but I guess that’s why I’m not a woman.”
The airship captain laughed, and Edward Blake continued, “Well, I saw my son was taking your airship down to the continent, so I thought I’d drop by to say hello. It’s been too long.”
“It has," Perry nodded. "I like to keep busy, and flying’s the best job in the world. But it doesn’t leave much time for friends and family.”
“Well, take a vacation sometime," Baron Blake told him. "You can’t say they don’t owe it to you.”
The other man laughed again, “That they do. I’ll probably look into in a few months. Mum wants to see Ireland and I ride for free when I’m off.”
At this point, the Blakes’ coachman interrupted, “Excuse me, Master Blake, Master Morgan, but we’ll be needing to depart if we want to be at Mr. Sarto’s before lunch.”
Perry glanced at a pocket watch and said, “I need to be going myself for the flight-check. We’re expecting some bad winds over the Channel and I want to make sure all the control lines are in order.”
Baron Blake nodded, “Wire us next time you’re back in England for a while.” Then he looked over to Jay, “Stay out of trouble, son. Be sure to write or your Mother worries.”
“Yes, sir. Give ‘em Hell in Westminster.”
His father rolled his eyes again, then tipped his hat to Perry Morgan before strolling back to the waiting carriage.
The uniformed man nodded back, gestured towards his airship. “Well, Jay Thomson, if you want to come along, I’ll give you the Captain’s welcome.”
“Sure.” Jay walked after him.
Before he’d died, Perry Morgan’s father had been friends with Edward Blake. Perry was five years older than Jay, and had occasionally helped tutor the Blakes’ son in the sciences, which was Jay’s worst subject. Jay had always found the older boy intimidating, although he was friendly enough. Perry was very smart, but had an odd and distant manner."
Jay noticed that he walked with a slight limp. Jay hadn’t seen Perry in years, but had heard from Baron Blake that he’d been injured in a fall while on duty with the Air Corps. After being laid up for a long time in recovery, he’d retired from the service to fly passenger airships.
“Mum says you’re writing for the Times these days. Is that why you’re heading for the continent?”
“Ah, yeah,” Jay looked up, but Perry was still gazing straight ahead toward his vessel. “They’ve got me doing a special for this year’s Victory Day.”
Perry nodded disinterestedly, “It’s a big deal for some.”
Lily Blake had once suggested Perry would make a good suitor for Margaret. At the time Margaret had responded—rightly, Jay thought—that he was too old for her. Perry himself had never shown the slightest bit of interest, and the matter never came up again. Now it seemed that he was still a bachelor. Jay shrugged mentally, Perry didn’t sound as if he minded.
“Do you read the Times?” Jay asked, thinking the answer had to be no.
He was right. “Not really. My aeronautical journals are enough for me. The quarrels of politicians don’t hold much interest, and I’ve got far better resources to tell me the weather.”
Jay nodded. He wondered what the other man had been doing going into the Air Corps if he didn’t care. Jay supposed an engineer in the service must get to do things an ordinary civilian couldn’t.
Like killing people, he thought grimly. But Perry had never struck him as particularly malicious. Even so, duty on Her Majesty’s combat airships was not for the squeamish.
Staying on board a passenger liner, however, was something else entirely. They reached the plush, carpeted steps which led up to the gondola. The massive gas envelope hung over them, casting a great shadow across the concrete.
Captain Morgan bounded happily up the rolling steps. He turned around, put a loving hand on the steel doorway, and grinned, “Welcome aboard the Welsh Rover, Mr. Blake.”
<<6<<_>>8>>
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-