The Battle of Harmingsdown: Chapter 10
“It’s quite short.”
Edmund had not expected much more from Colonel Muggeridge. He had not struck Edmund as a particularly curious or attentive officer, instead as more of a Colonel. In addition, the Colonel was not new to war. He knew what worked, and therefore mistrusted anything unfamiliar.
He wasn’t a complete fool, however. He knew he was not a genius, and the two recently commissioned Colonels were, so when they brought out their first invention since arriving at Harmingsdown, he knew it had to be a remarkable and revolutionary invention.
This resulted in the Colonel staring in silence at the rifle for over five minutes — along with the small cluster of other officers he had brought along to the Wickes demonstration — in hopes of discerning what made this rifle different than the standard issue bolt-action rifles his men were already supplied with.
In the end, he had noticed that the rifle in question was a good two feet shorter in the shaft.
Edmund had used those five minutes to also stare, studying the rifle’s every facet. Of more interest to Edmund than its length was the complete lack of a bolt. The gun was clearly a breechloader, with the chamber to load and eject the cartridges on top, but where was the bolt? How did the bullets position themselves? The weapon looked less like a rifle and more like a toy.
For a week’s worth of hiding away in their barn, emerging only for meals and to reject requests from the Colonel, he had expected more from the Wickes.
“It is, yes, a bit short,” Mr. Wickes said from the other end of the makeshift firing range. He gestured with his cane to the table where the rifle lay. “Nevertheless, this rifle will — according to my calculations — provide our soldiers with at least seventy-percent more effectiveness in the trenches.”
“Seventy?” the Colonel lifted his eyebrows. “I say, is that a lot?”
“A pittance,” Mr. Wickes smiled, “when measured against our coming Great Invention. Indeed, Mrs. Wickes begged me to not call for this demonstration. She is ashamed of it, I say! Ashamed that this fine rifle will result in only that much of an improvement for our soldiers, compared to our future magnum opus!”
Edmund looked up from the rifle to Mrs. Wickes. She didn’t look like she was able to beg anyone or be ashamed of anything.
“Speaking of demonstration,” Mrs. Wickes snapped her fingers. “Major, if you please?”
Major Schitllhart flinched at the finger-snap before holding out the rifle. The tall woman gripped the carbine in a single hand and stepped away from the table. Positioning herself opposite the stacks of straw that served as sighting targets, Mrs. Wickes — with all the flourish of a corpse — pulled the carbine to her shoulder, sighted down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.
A clap of gunpowder puffed from the barrel, followed by another, and another. Five bullets had spun their way downrange of Mrs. Wickes before the stubby rifle dropped to her side.
“I say…” the Colonal gaped along with his officer retinue, “Do you know, I was watching and I’m sure she fired as fast as she could pull the trigger. I even saw the cartridges eject —”
“And no need for bolt-action!” Mr. Wickes’s cane crashed into the dirt. “I present to you, Colonel, the first of the Wickes inventions for the King’s army; the self-loading carbine rifle! Do away with soldier-loaded breechloaders, and allow the gun itself to chamber every bullet and eject every cartridge!”
Edmund stared in amazement as Mrs. Wickes returned to the table and thrust the rifle back into Major Schtillhart.
“Amazing!”1 Schtillhart turned the rifle over in his hands. “That’s faster than a bullet every second! And only one barrel! How many bullets can it hold?”
“Five,” Mrs. Wickes snapped her fingers and offered her palm to Mr. Wickes. With a small sniff, the man plucked a stack of five bullets from his pocket and handed them to his wife. Accepting the bullets without any grace, she grabbed the rifle back from the Major, flipped the chamber door back with a click, and pressed the bullets down.
There was a snapping noise, then a soft “ping” like a dropped pin. A small metal plate snapped away from the chamber, and the five bullets vanished into the thick stock of the rifle. The chamber door snapped close, and Mrs. Wickes looked at the collection of officers expectantly.
There was a pause.
“I say, that’s it? By Jove! You mean to tell me the rifle’s reloaded?”
Mrs. Wickes turned back to the firing range, and fired five more times.
“Oh, I say!” The Colonel clapped his hands. “Well done! By Jove, this will show those blighters what for, won’t it? An amazing piece of work, what? Jolly well done!”
Major Schtillhart seemed equally impressed, as did the small cluster of other officers the Colonel had brought with him. Edmund, however, had stepped away from the table and walked towards the targets at the far end of the range. He had seen something else that interested him.
“We call it a ‘charger clip,’ Mr. Wickes pulled another five bullets from his pocket. “Empty the weapon in less than three seconds and reload in less than five. Its compact design makes it ideal for trench-fighting; easier to aim, lighter to carry, and perfect for close-quarters combat. It’s even compatible with bayonets.”
“Incredible,” Muggeridge shook his head, “just incredible. How fast can you produce these for our troops?”
Mr. Wickes opened his mouth just in time to be interrupted by Edmund’s voice at his shoulder. “Excuse me, may I see the bullets for a moment?”
“What? Oh…of course, young man,” Mr. Wickes threw a charger clip at him. “Now, as I was saying, our new Manufactory is still in the process of being completed,” he waved his hand off into the immaterial air. “We had to make this gun with steel, of course, instead of Chrome; but once we send the designs back to our Manufactory, we should be able to refit your soldiers within the month!”
Edmund sniffed at the cartridges before managing to pull one apart to inspect the powder.
“By Jove, a gun that fires almost as fast as a Maxmillion — Oh! I say, I’ve just had a ripping idea.2 If you’ve gone and invented a gun that loads itself, could you invent a gun that also fires itself?”
“Hm?” Mr. Wickes ran his thick fingers over his chin. “What a unique idea, Colonel. I can see you have the ingenious mind of a true officer. But,” he waved his hand over the onlooking crowd, “I mean no disrespect when I say you are thinking too small! Bullets and rifles are all well and good, but they are nothing compared to what we will invent for you before the month is out!”
“Excuse me,” Edmund said to Mrs. Wickes. “May I see the rifle for a moment?”
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Wickes pulled back, her face full of disgust as she glared at the table. “You’ve pulled apart a bullet? Are you planning to pull the rifle apart too?”
It had certainly crossed Edmund’s mind to do so, if simply to confirm his guesses about how the rifle was designed, but his focus was less on the rifles function than its quality.
“You’re using standard black powder instead of the prismatic powder invented a year ago,” Edmund noted. “That means a very high muzzle velocity.”
“Of course!” Mrs. Wickes snapped.
“I looked at the target,” Edmund pointed. “From ten yards away, this rifle seems to be half as accurate as a standard cavalry carbine.”
The hate from Mrs. Wickes eyes burned into Edmund like a drill before she turned to her husband.
“Stuff and nonsense,” the large man dropped the butt of his cane to the dirt, pounding a saucer-sized disc into the ground. “We are but humble inventors and scientists, not soldiers. My wife, as fiendishly clever as she is, has no experience with a rifle.”
Stuff and nonsense yourself. She set her frame and sighted down the barrel like a marksman. Edmund opened his mouth, and stopped. In the span it took for him to take a breath, these were the thoughts that passed through Edmund’s head:
The short design means lower accuracy. Faster rate of fire means more wasted cartridges. High muzzle velocity and high heat from the black powder will strain the barrel, and if its made of a weaker metal — such as chrome — the gun will explode or shatter with repeated usage. The design of the rifle was clever, but the implementation…this rifle was terrible!
Why did he want to fix it?
In all his concern over the Wickes and their masterful manipulation of the army, Edmund had never suspected that once they had achieved their places as inventors for the military, that they wouldn’t be any good at it. But here they were, looking at a rifle that was, across all the metrics Edmund could think of, worse than the weapons they already had. If all their inventions were of this poor quality and likely to break, the Colonel would soon see the Wickes for the frauds they were and send them back to Brackenburg. Edmund wouldn’t have to do a thing!
Edmund closed his mouth, and handed the bullets back to a furious Mrs. Wickes.
He wasn’t scared of them anymore. At least, not as scared as he had been. They may still have been clever, dangerous, and quite capable of causing him no end of trouble, but weren’t geniuses. Like their attempts to maintain a social status above their own, they were pretenders. Once that became clear, the Wickes would be finished.
All Edmund had to do was wait and watch it happen.
Unless — and it was here that Edmund became quite irritated with his solicitous nature — the Wickes had some other scheme in mind. He had “known” the Wickes’ plan before, and he had been wrong. So wrong, in fact, that he had helped them. He was not about to make the same mistake again. He needed to wait, and watch, and learn exactly what the Wickes were doing.
He glanced back at the front lines. He had the time; the war didn’t seem to be ending any time soon.
The first of the three pivotal events during the Battle of Harmingsdown was known in the post-war years as The Scrapnel Push. Accounts differ on if the push occurred two, three, or four days after the Wickes demonstrated their semi-automatic carbine rifle to Colonel Muggeridge, but this is widely considered to be inane pedantry by obsessives.
Edmund was not present for the Push. He was focused on his work insuring that the Colonel’s reports were properly typed and filed before sending them via telegraph to the Board of Generals. Once he was finished, he sent letters full of cautions, advice, and banal platitudes to several of his contacts in Brackenburg, all carefuly designed to insure a productive and fruitful future for the Moulde Family.
As such, the first he heard of the Push was a frustrated argument between Colonel Muggeridge, the Wickes, and Major Schtillhart.
“Well, all I can say is we came a bit of a cropper, what?” the Colonel’s voice drifted through the trenches to Edmund’s ear, which was then quickly and quietly cocked in the conversation’s direction.
“I must protest at your choice of words,” Mr. Wickes familiar protestations followed after. “The Wickes Semi-automatic Carbine was a complete success! I have been assured most strongly by Major Schtillhart that our advance into no-man’s-land was a glorious victory! Isn’t that so, Major?” Edmund caught the inflection, at once a casual suggestion coupled with a threat.
“Oh?” Colonel Muggeridge blustered before the Major could answer, “and might I ask then, why I see my men climbing back down into our own trenches? I say, if it was some glorious victory, then we might have taken some territory, yes?”
“We did, sir,” Major Schtillhart’s voice was strained. “We took several yards of trench in the no-man’s-land.”
“Did we indeed? I say, that’s a spot of good news, then.”
“Only,” Major Schtillhart spoke slower, fighting between saying nothing and saying everything, “we lost it again.”
“I say, you what?” Their voices were getting louder.
“The rifles worked…well enough, sir. At least twenty Spaniards wounded…only —”
Edmund dipped down, suddenly preoccupied with his boot-lace, seconds before Colonel Muggeridge rounded the corner. He was as polished as ever, his brass buttons shining through the brown air. He was followed by the others; the Wickes glittered a glossy black, their skin as pale as ever, while Major Schtillhart was covered in the same gritty grime that covered the other soldiers, the mark of a trench-rat.
“Spit it out, man,” the Colonel grumbled. “Only what?”
“Well, we relieved quite a few wounded of our own. Forty nine, in fact, sir.”
“What?” Colonel Muggeridge stopped and turned between the Wickes and the Major, unsure where to project his confusion. “Do you mean to say they retaliated? Did they attack the same day we took some of their territory?”
“Not exactly, sir,” Major Schtillhart explained as best he could. “They did retaliate, with these.” The Major reached out and dropped a small metal object into the Colonel’s hand. “They look like normal grenades, only the explosion isn’t very big. Poor explosive, I think, and the iron’s a pretty bad quality. It’s brittle.”
“Ingenious!” Mr. Wickes slammed his cane in the muddy dirt of the trenches, pausing as the thick iron squelched on the ground, instead of crashed like he was used to. “Colonel, I think we might have an unforeseen obstacle to contend with.”
“Do we?” The Colonel stared at the black metal object in his hand. “I say, doesn’t appear that way to me, what? It seems to me that my men were rousted out of their trenches by a few poorly made bangers!”
“No, you don’t understand, sir,” Schtillhart interrupted. “The metal shatters like glass. Hot scrap is sent every which-way. That’s what wounded our men, sir.”
Edmund could picture it quite clearly. The Spanish wouldn’t even have to be accurate; even a miss could put two or three soldiers in the hospital. A hundred shards of iron glass, cutting through muscle and nerve. They’d leave the hospital limping, or without full use of their hand. The heat would make it worse, sealing up the wound like a surgeon’s lance. The scrap wouldn’t kill, not even without treatment for a while, but it would hurt like hell and keep the soldier out of service for days…or in pain for the rest of their life, depending on their luck.
“Well,” Colonel Muggeridge sniffed, handing the grenade back, “I suppose it shows how desperate they are, doesn’t it? I say, I knew they had inferior weapons compared to good solid British engineering, but this is quite another thing, what?”
“I must beg your pardon, sir,” Mr. Wickes interrupted with a raised hand, “But this grenade is not, as you so eloquently put it, a sign of Spanish desperation and inferiority.”
“I say, it’s not? I should think using weak explosives and poor iron in their grenades shows an army in disarray, what?”
“Not at all, Colonel. You see, these new grenades are, in fact, designed to hurt, maim, hinder, but not kill.”
“Ah…/not/ kill? Hmm…I say, that doesn’t seem very war like, does it?”
“War always changes,” Mrs. Wickes’ mouth twisted into a sneer.
“One bullet can kill one soldier,” Mr. Wickes interjected, “but one wounded soldier must be rescued! Then healed and cared for. A corpse is a corpse, over and done, but one wounded soldier means two more soldiers must carry him off the battlefield, then the medic must do their job, supplies will be used, time spent…a dead soldier is easy to deal with. A wounded soldier is expensive.”
“Ah…yes, well. That’s a spot of bad luck for us, then, isn’t it?”
“Bad luck?” Mr. Wickes gasped. “Bad luck? Good Colonel, it is tremendous good fortune! Don’t you see? These grenades, this…this scrapnel, is obviously the invention of a genius!”
“What what? I say, you don’t mean to suggest that…the Spaniards have inventors like you too?”
“I dare say they do,” Mrs. Wickes sneered. “A half-wit drunk on wine and fish, no doubt.”
“My wife’s disregard notwithstanding,” Mr. Wickes’ smile was as oiled as a diesel engine, “can you imagine the damage this inventor could have caused? Such immeasurable luck the Empire has, that we are here! I assure you, Colonel, for every invention this Spaniard provides them to win the war, we will be here to thwart their every attempt. We will be their nemesis, as they are ours, except we will have something they do not!”
“Ah, um…” Colonel Muggeridge rubbed his jaw. “Proper British spirit?”
Mrs. Wickes’ didn’t bother smiling. “Precisely, Colonel.”
Two weeks later, Colonel Muggeridge and his entourage met once more at the Wickes behest.
“This is a Mine.” Mrs. Wickes said.
“Oh yes?” Colonel Muggeridge blinked at the dinner-plate sized disk in Major Schtillhart’s hands. “What does it do?”
“It explodes,” Mrs. Wickes sneered.
“Oh? Seems a bit…awkward to throw, doesn’t it?” The Colonel sniffed as he cocked a curious eyebrow. “I say, It’s heavy too, isn’t it? I’ve skipped a few stones in my life as a nipper; light and flat is the way to go.”
“Ah, yes,” Mr. Wickes gripped his cane in both hands, “true, but this is not for throwing! This is for placing on the ground. Like so.”
Mrs. Wickes snapped her fingers. With the familiar grimace of a man with a short leash, Major Schtillhart stretched out his arms and dropped the mine. It landed on the earth with a thud as loud as Mr. Wickes’ cane.
“Ah,” Colonel Muggeridge looked hopefully at his benefactors. “And…then it explodes?”
Edmund waited patiently while the Wickes explained the concept to the Colonel, walking him through it step by step.
“I say, that’s a brilliant idea!” Muggeridge nodded happily. “Why, put these in our trenches, and any Spaniards who step on them will have a rough old time of it, won’t they? How many solders can one mine kill?”
Likely no one, Edmund thought as he studied the mine, noting every design flaw.
“It works on the same principle as their scrapnel grenades, Colonel,” Mrs. Wickes crooned. “It will not kill anyone, just hurt them.”
“And with every stab of pain,” Mr. Wickes grinned with maniacal glee, “they will become more and more anxious of ever stepping foot in a British trench ever again!”
“Yes, well,” the Colonel coughed before scratching his chin, “I’m sure you know best. We’ll have these…mines, you say? Yes, we’ll have these mines laid all across the front as soon as possible. See to it, will you old chap? Jolly good. Now…”
A single gunshot echoed through the morning air, reverberating through the trenches like a clap of thunder.
“Ah,” Colonel Muggeridge lifted his finger into the air. “That reminds me; we’ve had a strange little string of poor luck. You see, we have observation balloons floating up there so our soldiers can have a good look at the battlefield. All well and good, but recently the Spaniards…blasted if I know how…have started shooting them down. I mean, how could they be hitting those balloons? They’re so high up, what?”
Observation balloons were the obvious modern evolution of the lookout- and watch-towers of antiquity. They could reach any height, be moved with great ease, and provided a perfect position to see anything and everything that was happening on the ground below. They were pivotal resources in any military confrontation.
But now, the Spanish were causing real havoc. Somehow, the Spanish were putting bullets through the balloons from the other side of the battlefield. Once that happened, the balloon was condemned to a slow and steady descent as the air leaked out. The process took almost a full day, as the balloon saw less and less of the battlefield, becoming less and less useful. The British army only had so many balloons, and they were very carefully positioned along the front lines. With no replacements, they could do nothing but wait for the balloon to descend.
Once it touched ground, half a day would be spent finding the bullet holes, patching them up, and making sure the balloon held air. Another half day was spent returning the balloon to its rightful place in the sky, which they would occupy for a few minutes at least before the Spanish brought them down again.
“Telescopes,” Mrs. Wickes said a bit too quickly.
“What?” the Colonel blinked. “Yes, well, of course we have telescopes in the balloons. They’re awfully high up, you see. How could they see what was going on down here, if they didn’t have —”
“No, telescopes on their rifles.” Mrs. Wickes bared her teeth.
Edmund had come to the same conclusion in less than a minute after hearing the story from Old Tom. It was such a simple idea; put a telescope on top of a rifle and you could snipe at a stationary target a full kilometer away from where you were standing. At least you could if the rifle were made to be accurate; Edmund didn’t know how to make a rifle that accurate, but he was certain it could be done.
“Most likely, my wife is correct,” Mr. Wickes said. “Rifles with telescopes. Simple enough, even for a moderate inventor. But don’t you worry, Colonel Muggeridge, we will be able to invent something better than balloons! You won’t ever have to risk sending your soldiers up in those dangerous things again to be shot at. We’ll send them up in something marvelous.”
“I say, jolly good…and, I don’t suppose you could stick some telescopes on our rifles, could you? That sounds like a jolly useful trick. Won’t half help our sharpshooters, what?”
The Wickes looked at each other, their gaze as inscrutable as any pair of statues. “I’m sure we can put something together.”
In his seminal work on the concept of opposites, Sir Edmund Moulde details no less than seven different kinds of dichotomatic opposition. It is from his research that we understand that while love and sadness are a kind of opposites, love and hate are a different kind.3 It is assumed that it was during the war that Edmund realized that Anticipation and Terror were “mechanical” opposites.
For months Edmund watched the operations at Harmingsdown, waiting for the Wickes to fail so spectacularly that Colonel Muggeridge had no choice but to cast them out, pariahs of the highest order.
There was ample opportunity; the Wickes, for all their vices, were remarkably prolific as inventors. At least once a week, the Wickes would emerge from their barn on the other side of Harmingsdown and make the long journey to the Colonel’s office, where they would demand the opportunity to demonstrate their latest successful creation.
The day after, a delighted Colone Muggeridge would transmit instructions to Brackenburg by telegraph. There, the newly built Wickes Family Manufactory would spring into action, and the invention would be shipped to Harmingsdown and distributed to the soldiers in less than a week.
It troubled Edmund to no end. The Wickes inventions, while clever, were shoddy. Every single one had some fundamental flaw that reduced its effectiveness or even made it as dangerous to their own side as to the enemy. The rifles did indeed break easily. The Mines were stepped on by the British as readily as any Spaniard. The spotlight bullets had a tendency to explode in hot weather, and the first-generation “Black Lung” flame-throwers were notorious for their volatility.
They always had an explanation or excuse. The soldiers weren’t using them properly, or some vital component was damaged by substandard transit. Their favorite excuse, however, was often provided for them by their nemesis: the Spanish Inventor. From timed grenades, to flak-jackets, to improved artillery, it was clear to Edmund that the Wickes, as clever as they were, had met a Spaniard of comparable cleverness who would not let them win the war so easily.
At first, the inventor was just another factor to work into Edmund’s understanding of Harmingsdown as a whole, but as time went on, Edmund became fascinated with this mysterious foreigner. What most interested4 Edmund, as well as prompted three papers on the subject, was the intricate and almost symbiotic relationship between this inventor and the Wickes. Not one week after the Wickes invented the “spotlight” bullets, for example, the Spaniards fielded their own bullets that they loaded into their sniper rifles. Now, instead of putting holes in the balloons that caused a slow and steady descent, their bullets burst into flame, burning the canvas and sending the balloons towards the earth with startling speed.
It happened every time. No sooner had one side been outfitted with a new weapon, than the other would reveal some new armor or weapon of their own that countered it.
Colonel Muggeridge was no coward, however, and nor was he particularly interested in recognizing patterns. Every time the Wickes provided his soldiers a new invention, he ordered his soldiers to climb over the tops of the trenches and charge the Spanish to claim what territory they could. And every time he did so, his soldiers won the day.
And not half a week later, the Spanish would climb over their trenches, and take their land back. Then the Spanish would charge, forcing the British back under the weight of their new invention, only for the whole process to start again the very next week.
The back and forth of the war was on full display. Edmund appreciated the near clock-work regularity of it. Like waves upon the sandy beach, you find your goal beyond your reach / so back and forth and back once more, you can’t help but return to shore…
“I say,” the Colonel always said after every demonstration, “I don’t suppose you’ve made any progress on your great invention that will end the war in victory for Britannia, have you?”
“Patience, Colonel,” was the reliable answer. “It is a complex invention. It is a matter of acquiring the proper tools, the right materials, and solving one or two pervasive problems. I assure you, Colonel, we will provide you with what you need.”
So beguiling was this pattern that Edmund almost didn’t notice how it was ruining everything; the Wickes’ shoddy work was tactfully being overlooked. Somehow, the Wickes had managed to find a perfect equilibrium of tension. Their designs were poor, but the army needed the Wickes. As long as the Spanish genius continued to innovate new and terrifying ways of waging war, the Colonel wouldn’t dare risk losing the only edge they had.
This Spaniard. They were the lynchpin. For the Wickes to fail, he needed to stop the Spanish Inventor. And as Edmund’s good fortune and foresight would have it, he had the perfect tool for the job.
One day, as Edmund was walking through the trenches without his officer’s gear, he stopped next to a shadow that looked like any other. For a moment he leaned against the trench wall, and then began to talk to himself.
“The Spaniards have a genius,” he said. “They are an inventor, like the Wickes.”
The shadow shifted in pleasant anticipation.
“Ah, and so you…thought of me?”
“It does seem to fit with your modus operandi,” Edmund nodded before he realized what Pinsnip was likely hearing. Sure enough, the glint in Pinsnip’s eye was telling. “I need to know who they are, that’s all. Is it one person or more? Man or woman? Old or young? Family names, that sort of thing.”
The glint faded, only to be replaced by something much darker. “Spying behind enemy lines? And not to…kill an officer? I wonder, Master Moulde…if you are certain how far you can…push me.”
“They’re keeping the Wickes in check. I don’t want to do anything until I know more.”
“Very well…” Pinsnip grumbled. “I am almost out of your…chloroform.”
Already? You must be using it in your spare time… “I will have more for you when you return.”
“I say! Private!”
Edmund stood up as Colonel Muggeridge pointed at him. “Run along now and fetch Lieutenant Mauve. Tell him the Wickes have a demonstration for us at the barn. Move lively now!”
Edmund’s heart skipped a beat. Regularity was comfortable for Edmund, and the Wickes had never invited anyone to the barn. The doors were always locked, off limits to everyone.
It was but the work of a moment for Edmund to fetch his officer’s regalia and join Colonel Muggeridge along with the rest of his officer staff. The long journey from the trenches to the barn did not provide Edmund with much comfort, though the Colonel was obviously unburdened with concern, as his step was light and his moustache fluttered as he whistled a merry marching tune.
When they all arrived, the Wickes were waiting, standing next to a large covered object in front of the barn.
“By Jove, that’s large,” Colonel Muggeridge said as they approached. “Going to be a big one, this week, is it?”
“Bigger than you think, Colonel,” Mrs. Wickes muttered.
“Gentleman, thank you for making the long trek to our humble little laboratory. I am delighted to announce that the armies struggles with observation balloons are soon to be over!”
Colonel Muggeridge’s eyes lit up. “I say, really? Jolly good, old chap! Jolly good! Is that what is under this cover, here? Some new and improved balloon?”
“That is what we considered first,” Mr. Wickes admitted. “After all, a stationary balloon is easy enough to hit, but if it were moving, like a zeppelin? Ah, but bullets move much faster than zeppelins. No, we had a much more difficult problem to solve, and we have solved it!”
Mrs. Wickes snapped her fingers. Major Schtillhart, with a grumble, stomped over to the cover and pulled it off.
Edmund couldn’t hear Mr. Wickes continue to extol the virtues of their invention. He didn’t hear the murmurs of confusion from the officers. He didn’t even hear what the Wickes called it. Instead, he could only marvel at the revealed contraption.
Edmund had thought that the Wickes were poor inventors. He had thought they were shoddy, clumsy, or foolish. He had thought they weren’t true geniuses. Now, he knew he had been wrong. Somehow, they had solved a problem even the greatest minds of the age had considered hopeless.
“I say, are you pulling my leg?” Colonal Muggeridge muttered. “How could that thing ever get off the ground?”
Mathematical equations flew through Edmund’s head as he stared. Not only could it get off the ground, but it would do so quickly. The frame was hardened wood, covered in light fabric. There were two main wings, not just one! The bottom wing was attached to the center fuselage, while the second attached to the first with struts. A stronger shape, but lighter, Edmund noted. The top wing was staggered forward slightly, and there was a propeller on the front, attached to an engine inside, Edmund realized, remembering the Wickes requisition form for an expensive diesel engine. The fabric was taut, but not so tight as to snap the wings under stress. The engine was powerful, but not so heavy as to keep the machine grounded. The frame was sturdy, but not so hard as to be un-aerodynamic.
There were two seats, one for the operator, and one for the scout. The two of them could fly over the trenches, see everything, and land again without ever being at risk. What bullets could hit something that moved so fast? Amazing. I didn’t think it could happen in my lifetime. This was not his fault, as any amateur historian of the time could clearly see the history of aviation as little more than a series of spectacular failures, and Edmund prided himself on recognizing patterns.
“Indeed,” Mr. Wickes voice filtered through the haze of Edmund’s amazement. “A hundred failures. Thousands, and every one a lesson! But we did not give up, gentlemen, and so now the heretofore unattainable grail of powered flight is in front of you, ready for the taking!”
“I say!” Colonel Muggeridge covered his mouth. “This is absolutely amazing! I must notify HQ at once, and request permission to test this…contraption.”
“We already did,” Mrs. Wickes hissed. “Via the Telegraph.”
“And received a positive reply within minutes!” Mr. Wickes grinned wickedly. “We already commissioned a team of ‘aeronauts’ who are being trained to pilot these machines all along the front lines! Reconnaissance is a problem of the past! There is nothing you will not be able to see, flying in the air like a bird!”
“Amazing!” Colonel Muggeridge clapped his hands. “Absolutely amazing! I say old chaps, you have outdone yourselves!”
“We will send the blueprints to our Manufactory,” Mrs. Wickes interrupted, her fan clapping shut.
“Yes, indeed, see to it, won’t you, Lieutenant?”
Another snap of Mrs. Wickes fingers put the diagrams and blueprints of the Wickes flying machine into Edmund’s hands. With a curiosity born of desperation, Edmund scoured through them, searching for any sloppy mistake or clear flaw in the design.
There was none. No matter how Edmund looked at the blueprints, he couldn’t find a single improvement he could make. The design was perfect.
“True genius is, after all, perseverance,” Mr. Wickes brought his cane down onto the ground. “We never graduated from a prestigious institution like Grimm’s; we fought tooth and nail for every discovery, with failure after failure piled at our backs. And now, you see the result of this perseverance! Mark my works, gentlemen, the future belongs to the persistent. We will never give up one inch of ground, one yard of earth, one stretch of true Britannian land to the — I say, do you hear something?”
When it was mentioned, Edmund too heard the sound echoing from the trenches. It was gunfire, and shouting, and above it all the sound of something harsh and metallic.
The collected officers all turned, and looked back down towards the trenches of Harmingsdown.
“I say,” Colonel Muggeridge gaped. “What on earth is that?”