The Infinite Air Read Online Free PDF Page B

side of the world, two letters from London, the other from ‘Somewhere in France’. Nellie had bought them some maps of their own, and John and Jean traced lines across the world, working out the location of the cities from where the letterswere written. ‘All the way across the sea to Australia, and across the equator, right away up there,’ John said.
    Harold came home for the May school holidays, and joined in these searches, just as he had when they were small, his yearning to be far away as strong as ever. In his first months at his new school Harold had been writing home saying he hoped the war would last forever because soon he would be old enough to join up and he could put this
b_____ school
behind him.
    ‘I’m going to London some day,’ Jean said. Her brothers thought this funny.
    ‘I’m not going back to Wellington,’ Harold said to his mother one morning, when the time for him to leave drew close. ‘I told you I was going to join up.’
    ‘Stop that nonsense,’ Nellie said. ‘You’re too young.’
    ‘Too old, too young, that’s all you ever think about,’ Harold said, venom in his voice. ‘There’re kids in the trenches who are fifteen. I know, I’ve heard about it. One of the boys in my house has a cousin in England and he ran away to the war.’
    ‘Yes, and they would have caught him and sent him home,’ Nellie said.
    ‘Oh no they didn’t.’
    ‘I knew I’d have this trouble with you when your father went away,’ Nellie said, her face red with exasperation. ‘He’s hardly gone and you’re trouble. I don’t know how he ever expected me to keep control of you.’ She was standing at the kitchen bench, peeling potatoes. Her hand lifted, holding the knife, as if she were about to strike her son.
    ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said. There was something about his face that reminded Jean of the day by the lake, when she had been challenged by the swan. She was eight now, and had forgotten about it until then, but the memory bubbled up unbidden.
    ‘Listen,’ Nellie said, as if exhausted with anger, even though they had been quarrelling for only a minute or so, ‘let’s all go down to the harbour this afternoon. We can look at the flying boats at the training school. They’re training pilots to serve with the Royal Flying Corps,you know. They’ll go to France, just like your father.’
    This seemed, temporarily, to appease Harold. The seaplanes and their pilots were a fast-growing Auckland legend. A youth called Malcolm MacGregor had made a name for himself doing crazy stunts and aerobatics, swooping low over the city’s buses and trains, as well as trying to knock the tops of church spires. He was known as ‘Mad Mac’. When interviewed, he said he was just letting off a bit of steam because he hadn’t been allowed to go to war on account of his age. Harold’s eyes lit up when he heard of these exploits.
    A dozen young men lived in rough huts and tents, between the bush and the water, flying from morning until night. Mac had gone off to war, of age now. The trainees, handpicked by the Walsh brothers who ran the school, dazzled and burned with risk and daring. When the Battens reached the water’s edge, they saw small seaplanes skimming across the water, showering spray behind them before rising into the sky. Like seagulls, Jean thought. The spindly flying boats flew back, circling the bay, sun gleaming on their wings.
    Jean stood on the tips of her toes. ‘I want to do that. Mother, I want to fly aeroplanes.’
    ‘Oh yes, darling, yes,’ Nellie cried. ‘You know how I’d like to do that, too.’ Her face was shining with excitement, the upset of the morning forgotten.
    ‘We can go flying together, you and me. I can drive the plane,’ Jean said.
    On the shoreline, a pilot was beckoning the two boys over to look inside his machine. They ran across the grass to where it was anchored.
    As Harold and John climbed into the cockpit Jean stamped her foot. The pilot saw her and