was so new and different. He had had some rather shattering experiences while on earth and up here in the sky it was wonderfully quiet and exciting, peaceful and thrilling all at the same time.
‘Those big, white, thundery-looking ones,’ Captain Hawk explained, and indicated a huge mountain of billowy white clouds rising straight up into the air, like packages of cotton wool piled one atop the other. ‘There will be some nice up-draughts. The clouds cool at the top, you see, and the hot air rises from below. They’re what we call “thermals”. You watch – we’ll cut our engines and …’
To Manxmouse’s alarm the great wings on either side of him had stopped and he wondered whether something had gone wrong, or whether the Captain was ill. The stillness was frightening after the whir of their beating. But now, close to the edge of the towering, white clouds, they suddenly shot up into the sky like an express lift in an office building.
‘There,’ Hawk said, ‘isn’t it fun? We can go as high as we like on one of these currents and then glide across to that cloud beyond, miles away, and pick up another. Tremendous saving on fuel, and a nice, smooth ride.’
They rose on the column of warm air. Manxmouse thought what a wonderful thing it must be to be a hawk and be able to live up here in the quiet of the sky.
They went up higher and higher, until at last Captain Hawk wheeled in a wide circle. He said, ‘I mustn’t overdo it. I’m actually not licensed for passengers and so I don’t carry oxygen equipment.’
‘What’s that?’ Manxmouse queried.
‘Oh, of course,’ Captain Hawk explained, ‘since you’ve never flown before you wouldn’t know about that. The further up you go, the thinner the air. People who live on earth begin to feel very funny, and have to have special tanks of oxygen and masks to breathe properly. I don’t, of course, because I’m used to it. My own ceiling is a good deal above this, but I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. Enjoying yourself?’
‘Marvellously!’ said Manxmouse. Beneath him the landscape of fields and woodlands with silver threads of streams and rivers, small towns and villages was unreeling at dizzying speed as they flew down wind now.
Captain Hawk must have done a great deal of flying close to the big airliners criss-crossing the country, listening to what was being broadcast inside them, for he suddenly said, ‘This is your Captain speaking. We are now cruising at an altitude of 7,000 feet; our air speed is 250 mph and we are overflying St Albans. Hello, there’s a nice looking vole by that hedge. Pity I’m busy.’
‘Can you really see tiny things down there on the ground?’ Manxmouse asked again.
‘Of course. I told you that’s my speciality,’ replied Hawk. ‘There’s a mother rabbit in that field below with six little ones, and a green grass snake just disappearing into some thorn. I see a mouse, but just an ordinary one, not an extraordinary chap like you. And there are three fat trout lazing in that brook we’re just overflying.’
Manxmouse could not even make out the brook, much less any fish in it, and marvelled, ‘I can hardly see anything at all.’
‘Oh, but I’ll wager you’ve got good ears instead,’ Hawk said, and then added, ‘Especially those long, rabbity ones. That’s what you need to hear things coming – particularly things like Manx Cat.’
For the first time Manxmouse felt something like a cold shiver. He had been born without fear and so the Clutterbumph had had no power over him. But the constant repetition of the threat to his life by Manx Cat was beginning to have an effect. He had felt so happy, free, safe and secure up in the blue, but now he was reminded that somewhere below was Manx Cat.
‘We’re approaching central London,’ Hawk said. ‘That river you see winding in and out is the Thames, of course. We are now directly over Buckingham Palace, the Mall and Admiralty Arch. Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament are on your right and that long thing sticking up is Nelson’s column. We’ll turn west now.’
Manxmouse forgot about Manx Cat once more in the fascination of the great grey city beneath, as Hawk banked steeply. He had started his engines again, or rather his wings, and they passed over roof tops, domes, spires and streets down which thousands of cars were crawling.
‘People down there,’ commented Captain Hawk, ‘millions of them – some good, some bad. I avoid them all.’
‘When you’re always on the ground, as I am, I suppose you can’t,’ said Manxmouse.
The ceramist, of course, had known a great deal about people and so Manxmouse too knew what they were.
‘Oh, they won’t bother you if you keep out of their way,’ said the Captain. ‘But every so often if I come down too low, I encounter anti-aircraft fire. Hunters with shotguns.’
At last the grey houses began to thin out and suddenly they came upon a most curious place that seemed to be an enormous field of stone on which sat hundreds of silver birds, but not like Captain Hawk or Billibird, or any others he had seen.
‘London Airport,’ his pilot commented.
‘But what are all those birds down there?’
‘Birds! Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed the Captain. ‘Those are aeroplanes, the things that people fly in. Here comes one now. We’ll have a look at it.’
With a whoosh, a roar and a whine, an enormous four-engined jet passed by overhead to begin its descent, its vast expanse of wings blotting out the sun momentarily, and Manxmouse saw that its tail, instead of being flat like Hawk’s, was as high as two houses, one on top of another.
‘Did you ever see anything so silly?’ Captain Hawk said. ‘They can’t flap their wings; they can’t soar or glide; they make a noise and they smell. And they call that flying!’
At that moment there was another strange noise: ‘Rackety-rackety! Clattery-clattery!’ Something that was a cross between a beetle, a dragonfly and a windmill whirled past them. Hawk had to veer off so sharply that Manxmouse was compelled to cling on for dear life.
‘What is it?’ Manxmouse cried in alarm.
‘Helicopter. Real crazy! I can’t understand what holds it up. The other thing at least has wings, even though they’re not my idea of wings. But that’s only an egg-beater. I don’t often come this way because it’s too dangerous for a bird. I had a friend once who was sucked into one of those jet engines and that was the end of him. But I wanted you to have a look-see.’
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