The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe Read online

  THE GHOST

  OF

  CAPTAIN HINCHLIFFE

  A NOVEL

  BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS

  DAVID DENNINGTON

  I

  ii

  ALSO BY DAVID DENNINGTON

  THE AIRSHIPMEN

  iii

  My deepest gratitude to my consulting editor,

  Lauren Dennington—the best.

  iv

  ISBN- 13: 978-1546638506

  ISBN- 10: 1546638504

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 by David Dennington

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior permission of the author.

  Website: http://www.daviddennington.com

  Twitter: @ddennington!

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  This is a work of fiction with both real, historical figures and fictitious characters based on actual events which occurred between 1920 and 1930. Some events, dates and locations have been changed for dramatic purposes and artistic license has been taken throughout.

  While The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe is based on actual events, characters, characterizations, incidents, locations, and dialogue have been invented and fictionalized in order to dramatize the story and are products of the author's imagination. The fictionalization, or invention of events, or relocation of events is for dramatic purposes and not intended to reflect on actual historical characters, history, entities or organizations, past or present. This novel is not intended to right any wrongs or ‘set the record straight’ regarding past events or actions, but is intended to entertain. Readers are encouraged to research the vast array of books on this subject from which the author has drawn facts as well as the essence of events and characters. In all other respects, resemblance to persons living or dead must be construed as coincidental.

  Printed by CreateSpace, an Amazon.com Company.

  Available from Amazon.com and other retail outlets.

  Available on Kindle and other retail outlets.

  v

  For Laurie & Lee

  And

  Richard & Katie

  With Great Love

  vi

  “Death gives you a whole new perspective on life.”

  The Ghost of Captain Hinchliffe.

  May 1928.

  Table of Contents

  1 CAXTON HALL

  2 THE FOKKER

  3 PICKWICK COTTAGE

  4 A DRINK AT THE ROYAL AERO CLUB

  5 LUNCH AT THE RITZ

  6 THE QUARREL

  7 THE PLANE

  8 A VISIT TO CARDINGTON

  9 THE CHRISTENING

  10 ELSIE'S PORTRAIT

  11 GRANTHAM

  12 A SURPRISE VISITOR

  13 BAD NEWS

  14 CONFESSION

  15 LEAVING CRANWELL

  16 THE ATLANTIC

  17 THE DEAFENING SILENCE

  18 ENTER MRS. EAST

  19 HELLO MR. DOYLE

  20 THE FIRST SÉANCE

  21 THE SECOND SÉANCE

  22 GLENAPP CASTLE

  23 BRANCKER BRINGS NEWS

  24 THE THIRD SÉANCE

  25 ANOTHER VISIT TO CARDINGTON

  26 LORD THOMSON'S GARDEN ADDRESS

  27 WHEN THE SPEECH WAS OVER

  28 LAMBETH TOWN HALL

  29 DOYLE SUMMONED

  30 OFFER REJECTED

  31 THE NIGHTCLUB

  32 WINSTON CHURCHILL

  33 THE DEATH OF FREDDIE MARSH

  34 AN APPEAL TO CAPTAIN IRWIN

  35 BLACK TUESDAY

  36 MILLIE'S COUNTRYWIDE TOUR

  37 A FAREWELL CELEBRATION

  38 DEPARTURE

  39 PASSAGE TO INDIA

  40 CAXTON HALL

  WEATHER MAP OF N. ATLANTIC OCEAN

  FLIGHT OF ENDEAVOUR MAR 13, 1928

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES

  AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY

  THE AIRSHIPMEN

  vii

  Elsie Mackay

  1

  CAXTON HALL

  Saturday, December 20, 1930.

  It was dark and it was cold when Millie arrived at Caxton Hall in a black Daimler sent by the organizers to collect her from Pickwick Cottage. Despite the weather, there were throngs of people under the canopy awaiting Millie's arrival at the front steps. Two festive Christmas trees, decorated with colored lights, stood each side of the entrance. An advertisement in a glass case announced coming events.

  TONIGHT 8 p.m.

  MRS. HINCHLIFFE SPEAKS

  LIFE AFTER DEATH

  Speed Graphics flashed as Millie elegantly eased herself out of the limousine onto the sidewalk. For a few moments she posed, beneath a striking red cloche hat, wrapped in black furs, her face radiant. Photographers and reporters pushed forward excitedly around her, calling out their questions.

  “Mrs. Hinchliffe, what've you come to tell us this evening?”

  “I am overjoyed! And tonight I shall tell you why,” she responded.

  “Is it true you're writing a book, ma'am?”

  “How do you feel about airships now?”

  Millie closed her eyes, pained. “I'm very sad—and extremely bitter, as you can imagine. I suppose hard lessons have been learned by our government—at least we can only hope so!”

  She made her way to the doors and was escorted along a corridor to the rear of the stage in the Great Hall. Caxton Hall, a place of some notoriety, built of red brick and pink stone, had once been Westminster's town hall. It'd also been a meeting place for British suffragettes, who held a Women's Parliament there and then marched to the Houses of Parliament each year to present a petition to the prime minister. The hall was also used by occultist Aleister Crowley, where his Rites of Eleusis—which some considered blasphemous and immoral—were performed. This was where concerts were held and where the famous performed.

  There was an excited buzz in the auditorium filled with mostly older ladies dressed in their Sunday best. At last, the house lights were dimmed and a voice came over the speakers.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Caxton Hall. It gives us great pleasure to bring you a lady who needs no introduction, a person whom the British people have taken to their hearts, a lady who has for the past two years issued dire warnings—warnings from the grave. Mrs. Emilie Hinchliffe will speak to you about her experiences and the subject of ‘life after death’. Please give a big welcome to Mrs. Emilie Hinchliffe!”

  Enthusiastic applause erupted. All eyes watched the dark blue stage curtains in anticipation. And then, to everyone's delight, came the lamentation of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in its own mournful, ghostly voice. The Great Hall fell silent. The curtains slowly opened to reveal Millie at a grand piano, dressed in cobalt blue, surrounded by her artwork displayed on easels, each bathed in its own beam of light.

  When Millie had finished playing the first movement, she got up and came to the lectern amid cheers and more applause. She looked down into the front row seats into faces she knew well, especially her good friend, Mrs. East. As the applause died, Millie instinctively scanned the auditorium for Hinchliffe. She checked the end seat on the back row. It was the only empty one in the house. A wave of sadness washed over her and her heart almost stopped. He'd gone. She'd be on her own from now on. For solace, she put her hand to her neck, touching Elsie's gold crucifix, preparing herself to begin. But before she did, she thought of Doyle. How she missed him. He'd been so good to her—a protective father figure. She remembered his words, and did as he'd instructed. She lifted her head high and spoke boldly to those at the back of the auditorium.

  �
��Good evening, my name is Emilie Hinchliffe—my friends call me Millie.” More applause. “I've come here tonight to tell you my story.” She gestured to the relevant subject of artwork as she spoke. “It's about an heiress, an aeroplane, a ghost, and the mightiest airship the world has ever seen.”

  Five hundred ladies and a handful of men listened in rapt attention, eager for answers. Nearly three years ago, Mrs. East, whom Millie had come to know and love, had been as equally transfixed at her kitchen table, next to the fire-grate oven. The old woman had sat watching the planchette on her Ouija board move slowly from letter to letter. Keeping her left hand on the wheeled gadget, with her right, she'd written down an incoming message in wobbly block capitals with a thick, black pencil.

  PLEASE HELP ME I AM A DROWNED PILOT

  Later, when Millie read those words, they'd made her cry. She smiled at Mrs. East and went on, “I know you've read the story of what happened to me, and to my husband and to many of his friends recently. Tonight, I'm going to tell you the whole story. During and after that terrible war, Ouija boards became an obsession. How could they not—with so many of our husbands, sons, fathers and brothers lost—not to mention our sisters who went to nurse those very men at the Front in those fields of death, to comfort and to heal, and who were, themselves, killed. My husband always called them 'our Angels of Mercy'. There wasn't a family that hadn't lost someone. First, I'm going to tell you about the man I love and why at this moment I'm so happy. No, it’s not about the money, although that will help of course, and guarantee our family's future, which Raymond so desperately wanted.”

  At this, applause broke out again accompanied by cheers—they'd heard all about that.

  “Life was perfect. Raymond was a vibrant man, full of life and energy—and still is, I want you to know! He was a decorated war pilot, having shot down six enemy planes. Then he, himself, was shot down in the dark of night, crash-landing in a tree in Nieppe Forest. He never spoke of the horrors of that night—even to me. He didn't like to think about it.”

  The audience was giving Millie its undivided attention.

  “Getting shot down cost 'Hinch' his left eye, and caused a bad leg injury. But this horrendous event didn't stop him, or diminish his love of flying, nor did it reduce his great sense of humor. He spent six months in hospital and three months at a convalescent home. He continued flying, getting certified in just about every plane there was. After the war, Raymond joined the new Royal Dutch Airline KLM, becoming their chief pilot. It was there, in Holland, that we met. I was at art school and working for KLM part time as a shorthand typist. A year later, we were married at a lovely little church here in England. Many of his friends were in attendance—some of whom sadly are no longer with us, due to recent tragic events.

  “After six blissful years of marriage, we had two beautiful daughters. Most days, he was off flying passengers to the Continent, at first with KLM, and then later with Imperial Airways. They loved him, but he said some passengers were a little fearful being flown by a one-eyed pilot.

  There were a few chuckles at this.

  “He pioneered new routes for Imperial with his close friend, 'Johnny' Johnston 'the Navigator'. They’d flown to India, Ismailia and Baghdad.

  “One year, Hinch was asked to go to an aerodrome in France to discreetly retrieve a German Fokker war plane, which many of the French had taken exception to. They didn't want it anywhere near their Paris Airshow—and who could blame them for that?”

  2

  THE FOKKER

  Monday, June 15, 1925.

  Water splashed into the hedgerows from the brown and khaki war limousine as it rushed along the country roads near Thiepval toward Hinchliffe's old aerodrome. He'd been based there during the war—one of several places. He sat in the back seat. Smoke swirled from a cigarette he held in his left hand. In his right, between his thumb and forefinger, he rolled a string of worry beads with its black cat lucky charm—something he'd picked up at the souk in Baghdad and carried with him always. At this moment, being alone, his rugged face was haunted, his jaw set, his piercing gray eye, searching. Memories were still vivid, especially in this place. He heard the rat-a-tat-tat of Fokkers on his tail; saw exploding Archie and black smoke around him, planes on fire, men in flames, friends leaping out in death agony.

  He was jarred from his reverie as the car slowed to turn onto the aerodrome. He resumed his determined air, taking a last drag on his cigarette before throwing it out. At the airport building, the car came to a stop and Hinchliffe clambered out with a word of thanks to the driver. He drew up his six-foot-one frame, his back ram-rod straight, and marched across the gravel parking area, his slight limp just discernible. He entered the office building. Two young secretaries looked at him approvingly, and then at one another.

  “Bonjour, mesdemoiselles,” Hinchliffe said.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” the girls said together.

  “I'm Captain Hinchliffe. I'm here to pick up the Fokker for KLM.” His English was tinged with a Scouse accent. He repeated it in French.

  The girls’ eyes met again knowingly. One licked her lips.

  “Zee Fokker is 'ere, waiting for you, monsieur,” one said. Hinchliffe smiled to himself.

  A small, balding man fluttered in from an adjoining office, a look of disdain, a permanent smell under a bulbous nose. “So, you 'ave finally come to remove this piece of junk from French soil, monsieur!” he snapped.

  Hinchliffe grinned, unfazed—prone to toy with such people.

  “I understand your sentiments exactly. I've had my share of encounters with these lousy Fokkers. I've had them shooting at me on many occasions.”

  The little man was suddenly interested. “Ah, really, monsieur?”

  “One thing I can tell you though, these Fokkers are not junk!”

  “It is junk, I tell you! Pah!”

  Hinchliffe winked at the secretaries. “Bon après-midi, mesdemoiselles,” he said, as he turned and walked out the glazed doors.

  “Good riddance to you, English pig, and to your damned Fokker!” the airport manager snapped as the door closed.

  “Beautiful English pig!” one girl purred.

  Hinchliffe walked round the building to the plane: a gleaming red Fokker DR1 triplane. Hinchliffe caught his breath when he saw the black German crosses emblazoned on the side and tailplane. He'd seen these things in the Red Baron's flying circus. They used to swarm in masses of thirty or forty. They'd been imposing, although not always ready to engage.

  He was joined by a mechanic, who told him the plane was gassed up, checked and ready. They nodded to each other, and after Hinchliffe had physically made his own inspection, he climbed aboard, pulling on his leather flying cap and goggles. He checked the gauges and worked the rudders and ailerons. Everything appeared to be in order. He ritualistically pulled out his lucky black cat on its chain of worry beads and hung it on the instrument panel and then gave the signal for the mechanic to prime the engine. This was done with a couple of turns of the propeller. The mechanic stood back.

  Hinchliffe shouted, “Clear!” After turning on the magnetos, he gave another shout, “Contact!”

  The mechanic swung the propeller. It caught first time with a pop, and the chocks were pulled away from the wheels. Hinchliffe eased on the throttle and with a roar, the Fokker pulled away. With a wave to the man, he moved toward the grassy runway.

  Hinchliffe gave it full throttle and the aeroplane charged forward. The mechanic stood watching; in moments, the shiny machine was airborne, tearing into low cloud. The manager, who was watching from the window, stood with his hands behind his back, relaxed, pleased to get that horrible reminder of the war removed from his aerodrome. He nodded in satisfaction. But this was short-lived. Suddenly, they heard the unmistakable screaming whine of a plane descending from a great height above their heads—the sound of a crashing plane.

  A broad grin filled Hinchliffe's face in the inverted Fokker's cockpit as it sped toward the airport building. T
he little Frenchman rushed back to the window, where he saw the Fokker speeding toward him at an elevation of twenty feet. The girls threw themselves under their desks. After skidding across the polished parquet floor, the manager dived down to join them.

  In the cockpit, Hinchliffe whooped with glee and then pulled the plane up at the last moment. The tail missed the roof by inches and the building shook violently. Hinchliffe rolled twice, turned right side up, and climbed away into the clouds.

  “Well, so much for discretion!” he muttered. He banked the plane around and set course for Holland, leaving a glorious red sky in his wake.

  3

  PICKWICK COTTAGE

  Tuesday, June 16, 1925.

  The following afternoon, Hinchliffe made a return flight with a plane full of passengers from Amsterdam to Croydon Airport. On arrival, he climbed into his sporty, dark green Bentley Continental and sped home. He always loved to get home to Millie and their three-year-old daughter, Joan. They'd bought the cottage with a small inheritance from his aunt in Lancashire and they'd built a modern, glazed addition, complete with a stone fireplace, as a studio for Millie. The blend of old and new set off the ancient cottage exceedingly well. They’d also built an extension at the other end, adding a bedroom and bathroom for guests.