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MISSION NIGHTINGALE
Fourth Donald Campbell Report in 1844:
I trained my sights on setting the land speed record first. But the weather rather put paid to that. The 1844 Hologram Bluebirds were different animals to the real beasts. It wasn’t solid, so I couldn’t risk Flo observing the raindrops going straight through instead of bouncing off Bluebird’s sleek body. These holograms are a magnificent piece of technology, but they do have their limitations.
Two hours utterly wasted. I can never remember such an intensely foul spell. At my lowest ebb, my dear old father appeared in the cockpit where I was sat twiddling my thumbs and cursing the day I would eventually be born. He had a half smile on his face and he looked down and he said, ‘Don’t worry, old boy. It will be alright’.
And I’ll be damned if my dear old pater wasn’t right. Within a minute or two the rain had stopped and I was able to cruise in Bluebird from under the cover of the trees and onto the flat where my record would be set.
‘May good fortune accompany you, Skipper!’ Miss Nightingale said.
‘Don’t wish me luck,’ I responded. ‘That’s one of my superstitions.’
‘There’s no such element as luck,’ she replied. ‘Every possible eventuality can be accounted for with the application of statistics without the infusion of such comical mumbo jumbo.’
‘Excuse me!’ I replied rather miffed. ‘It’s my neck at risk. In this game you are either champion or you’re nothing. If I want to put faith in mumbo jumbo then I’m perfectly entitled to do so.’
All this talk of superstition reminded me that I didn’t have my lucky mascot, my teddy bear Mr Whoppit! Professor Delphi had supplied me with holographic Bluebird vehicles but not included the most essential component of them all my lucky talisman Mr Whoppit! Leo Villa, my trusted friend and head mechanic, would never have made such an error. He always ensured the engine was running at its optimum but that my mind was well oiled too.
‘I simply cannot continue,’ I told Flo. I don’t mind admitting that fright had entered my body like a bad case of rust. ‘Mr Whoppit always looks after me. Unless he’s alongside, I won’t risk my neck.’
Florence doesn’t go into reverse gear in a crisis, she came into her own at that moment and really put her stamp on Team Bluebird. Having collected specifications she excused herself returning thirty minutes later from a nearby village with a resident’s whippet she’d borrowed. It wasn’t Mr Whoppit but was as near as damn it. I admired her pluck.
The major consideration with having a whippet alongside in the cockpit was the fact that as there was no physical Bluebird-Proteus CN7 to take the weight off its paws, I was restricted to travelling at the dog’s top speed. This transpired to be, by Flo’s calculations, 38.7 mph. Impressive for a whippet, boosted by the fright of having the vehicle on its tail, but a bit of a washout for a car designed to do 500 mph top whack. Thankfully, the designers, the Norris brothers, wouldn’t be turning in their graves as they’d yet to be born.
I’ve got a lot of evaluating to do on the result achieved this afternoon. I will be in my element tomorrow morning, weather permitting, attempting the water speed record. I am more at home on the water. But the question dogging me is will the whippet be?
Over
REPORT 4 ENDS
Jonty Morgan Humour Sampler 