HEDY LAMARR - WITH MR. JOHNSTON, THEN BRINGING FREDERICK STEELE ABOARD AND MAKING PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE<br/><br/>With a whine and a clunk the tower elevator arrived. Footsteps across the steel deck of the connecting umbilical bridge that joined the<em>Blue Ridge</em>to<em>terra firma</em>told me that our guest was aboard. The steady, heavy pace of my right-hand man was unmistakeable. I tried to form a mental picture of the slightly lighter but no less steady pace of the other pair of feet.<br/><br/>I was surprised. My mental image didn't match the tall, muscled, sun-worn but grey haired man who stepped into my ship. I had pictured someone older, fatter and altogether less sexy.<br/><br/>He approached without smiling and offered a card. I took it and glanced at the print. Apart from<em>'Mister Johnston and Assoc.'</em>the small white rectangle was blank. I looked Mr. Johnston in the eye. This was a game and we the players. One had to act as though one knew what one was doing and since my guest seemed to be a man to eschew the social pleasantries, I did also. Clearly I was supposed to know who<em>'Mister Johnston and Assoc.'</em>were so I acted as if I did.<br/><br/>I was taking a pretty big risk with this job. It had been offered out of the blue yesterday at the telegraph office and since I had just the other cargo run to do - which would be a walk in the park - I accepted. I needed the cash. It was risky, yes, particularly with a set of new pilots aboard; it might even be stupid but I needed the dough and I'd bet my silk knickers my pilots did too.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Noticed several... characters congregating near here. New pilots, I assume, Miss Lamarr?"</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>I decided to play it like they do in Anchorage, Alaska; like ice. Ignoring his comment about my new pilots and keeping an unsmiling face I held out a hand, indicating the elevator to the passenger deck below.<br/><br/><strong>"Welcome aboard the <em>Blue Ridge</em> Mr. Johnston. We will be departing shortly. My associate will show you to Cabin 3, it's one of the larger ones with its own bath closet. If you need anything, just ring for the porter. There is passenger dining and a promenade deck available for you. The trip to your destination will go via a cargo drop to the north-east and will take twenty hours but the ship will be conducting shake down manoeuvres this afternoon, so I expect to be able to have you at your preferred location by four tomorrow afternoon."</strong><br/><br/>Like the motors and a number of other parts on the ship, the passenger cabins were numbered in sequence, odd numbers down the port side, even numbers to starboard. I stood aside and pretended to be a worldy-wise hard core pirate who conducted illegal shipments every day. The fact that my illegal flights currently amounted to zero I kept as well hidden as I could. Being a former actress helped - that old dear R.K.Maroon had once said I'd make a fine poker player.<br/><br/>With Johnston going below escorted by Benson I rang down on the lounge telephone to the control gondola. Joe Bell responded. I enquired if the navigator I had hired was at the tower, giving a description of the threadbare Virginian. Bell left the mouthpiece for a minute and then returned.<br/><br/><strong><em>"Aye, Cap'n, he's below. With what looken' like four of our pilots."</em></strong>Joe's Irish accent was broader this afternoon, most likely nerves at the upcoming flight with the new engines and patched gasbags.<br/><br/><strong>"Send a man down to collect him. Tell him not to talk with the pilots."</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Aye, Cap'n."</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"Oh, and Joe?"</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Aye, Cap'n?"</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"We're not pirates yet. A simple, 'yes, ma'am' will do, as before."</strong><br/><br/><strong><em>"Yes, Ma'am, of course, Ma'am."</em></strong><br/><br/>I put the mouthpiece back in its cradle with a smile. I had to admit, "Aye, Cap'n" did have a certain ring to it.<br/><br/><div align="center">~ * * * 0 0 0 * * * ~</div><br/>ABOARD SHIP<br/><br/>The crewman went down the tower and at the bottom he looked around the assembled faces. The two women and the man with the weasel on his head were not the navigator, that much was certain. That only left two gentlemen, one of whom looked like he had washed his uniform and then put it on without ironing it. Then slept in it. For a week. In a ditch. That was the one the crewman wanted.<br/><br/><strong>"Mister Steele, sir? Miss Lamarr requests you to come aboard."</strong><br/><br/>Ignoring the others as he had been told, the crewman ushered the crumpled Virginian into the elevator and slamming the outer and inner concertina wire doors across, pressed the button that whined them with a rattle of cables and rumbling counterweights to the nose of the zeppelin hundreds of feet above.<br/><br/>Upon stepping out the man led Frederick Steele across the umbilical bridge to the now empty lounge and with a gesture, showed him to the zeppelin's much smaller elevator, crowded with just two in it, that gave access down to the lower decks. When this small elevator rattled down to the control gondola deck the man slid the two sets of doors open.<br/><br/><strong>"This way, if ya pleasin', sir."</strong><br/><br/>In the control gondola all was hustle and bustle. Five men were present, plus the captain. The structure was some thirty feet long, ten wide and ten high, widening towards the bow so that in plan view it was pear-shaped, broad end forwards. It also widened towards the ceiling and had windows placed at a slant all along the sloping sides to give a good view of the ground for mooring manoeuvres. At the bow a panoramic window of a dozen large panes formed a forward facing 'bridge' from which the ship was navigated. The structure, with the major exception that it was the lowest deck slung below millions of cubic feet of helium instead of the highest deck on the top of a ship, was indeed much like a modern sea-going vessel's bridge. Like a ship, there were small 'wings' at the very front of the cabin which were glazed cubby holes, big enough for two people and these extended out beyond the main structure to give a view back along the underside of the vast hull of the<em>Blue Ridge</em>. These allowed the watch officers to see the ground crew as they handled the mooring lines and also gave an excellent view of the engine pods, which, with their streamlining, were arrayed like small submarines built on extended girder frames out from the flanks of the hull.<br/><br/>Behind the main forward windows was the helmsman's post with the big open-spoked polished duralinium wheel that worked the hundreds of square feet of the ships vertical tail fins. Such a big area of fin could never be turned against a high wind pressure by the muscles of even the strongest man so the wheel was power operated; taut wires ran up to electrical actuators mounted above the ceiling of the control car which were linked to powerful servos that were operated by an electric motor whose power came from the 'command engine', an internal aero engine inside a protective armoured cell deep in the ship that provided power for all the ships control systems.<br/><br/>Abaft the helmsman's post was the planesman's desk. This seat had two joysticks, one to either side of the chair, like car hand brake levers, that moved the horizontal tail surfaces or elevators up and down. Thus the<em>Blue Ridge</em>, in common with all zeppelins, was not steered by just one man, but by two, one to point the nose up or down and one to swing it to port or starboard. A crew had to be well trained and work extremely well together, especially in combat.<br/><br/>The planesman was also in command of the trim dials which gave fine tuning of the ships nose trim and he could release water ballast from the nose or tail areas to keep the ship on an even pitch if she were damaged and losing gas.<br/><br/>On the opposite side of the car from the planesman's desk was the navigators table which was large and well lit, with space enough to unroll charts and maps. A modern innovation on board the<em>Blue Ridge</em>was a vertical panel of plexiglass on which the ship's track could be marked with grease pencils on a transparent overlay of any chart the ship carried. This allowed the other crew members to look across from their stations and see the navigator's plot which, if it were laid flat on a conventional table surface, would not be possible. Beside the navigation chart, and placed so that the helmsman could see it, was the binnacle, containing the gyro compass, altimeter, barometer, thermometer and airspeed indicator.<br/><br/>Astern of these officers positions were two officers watch seats which had unequalled views to port and starboard and were usually crewed by junior crew members with good eyesight.<br/><br/>At the rear of the cabin, beside the door from the elevator vestibule, was the engineer's desk with a large panel of gauges and dials giving oil pressures and temperatures, engine revolutions, and half a dozen other measurements from each of the ships ten giant motors, each one twice the size of the planes of the pilots gathering below.<br/><br/>Each position except the navigator's chair was filled.<br/><br/><div align="center">~ * * * 0 0 0 * * * ~</div><br/>HEDY LAMARR<br/><br/><strong><em>"Mister Steele, Ma'am,"</em></strong><br/><br/><strong>"Thank you, Morgan, to your post, please."</strong><br/><br/>The crewman who had brought the new navigator aboard touched his cap and exited the control car. He was a motorman and would sit and watch one of the big engines, fine tuning it as it ran and man the twin machine guns mounted atop it if we were attacked.<br/><br/>I looked at the crumpled man who entered. The state of crumpling would need addressing soon, I didn't allow hobos in my control car.<strong>"Mister Steele, welcome aboard the <em>Blue Ridge.</em> I'm Miss Lamarr, owner and captain. We will be aloft shortly. Your first test, so I can see what you can do... Please depart the tower, following Haven traffic control's instructions. There is a low cloudbase; the weather station advises it tops out at seven thousand feet. I will leave it to you to take us below or above it. You will set a course to the north east, bearing true 040 at forty five knots. Joseph Bell back there is your engineer and Wickens and Maddox are your helmsman and planesman. The other two officers are Evans and Lightoller.</strong><br/><br/>I glanced past Steele and looked down the car astern at Joe Bell.<strong>"Mister Engineer, twenty five percent astern revolutions on all motors if you please. Helmsman, prepare to uncouple. Mister Steele, please call Haven traffic control for clearance to power free of the tower."</strong><br/><br/>No matter how many times I started a trip, it always filled me with excitement, there was something awe-inspiring about these giant zeppelins this close to the ground. Applying low reverse thrust against the tower coupling was standard practice, it ensured that when release occurred the ship would back away smartly and there was no possibility of a freak wind gust driving her nose against the steel structure. I left the departure details to Steele and sat back in my leather padded captain's chair in front of the helmsman's position to carefully observe him. The two watch officers were out in the wings, Evans ready with the message tube once Steele had declared our course, speed and altitude. The huge ship shuddered and strained at the steel link to the tower as the big engines wound up to fifteen hundred revs.<br/><br/>Down below the new pilots might be curious that the big ship above them that they were supposed to be joining was apparently making preparations to leave without them.