My monoplane was at last completed, and ready for delivery. All three of us became greatly excited, for after so many months of patient experimenting and designing, all was now ready for a practical trial in the air.
Lionel had returned from the North, but was gone to France in connexion with some trials of a new French monoplane at the aerodrome at St. Valéry-en-Caux. Therefore he was in ignorance of our pending experiments.
That we were being closely watched by spies, and that our every movement was being noted, we knew quite well. Indeed, Roseye seemed, curiously enough, to be filled with serious apprehensions.
Because of this, I decided not to fly from Hendon, but to experiment out in the country. Therefore on Thursday, the Tenth of February, in greatest secrecy, I removed my machine in two motor-lorries down to a little place called Nutley, on the borders of those high lands of Ashdown Forest, about eleven miles north of Lewes.
There, after some search, we found a convenient barn at a lonely, out-of-the-world place called Holly Farm, and this we soon converted into a suitable hangar.
The farmer and his wife were quite ready to rent us the house furnished as it stood, so next day we found ourselves in full possession.
Our party consisted of Teddy Ashton, the Theeds (father and son), Roseye, the maid Mulliner, and myself. Roseye and I made another journey by car up to Gunnersbury, and also to my rooms, in order to fetch down the remainder of the apparatus, and on the third day of our arrival all the parts were ready for assembling.
Holly Farm was a small but comfortable old house, with an ancient whitewashed kitchen which had black oak beams across its ceiling. The living-room was typical of the “best room” of the old-fashioned British farmer. In the deep-seated window stood a case of wool-flowers beneath a glass dome, while upon the horsehair-covered furniture were many crocheted antimacassars, and upon the wide, open hearth the farm-hand, an old fellow of nearly eighty, made huge log fires which were truly welcome in that wintry chill.
We had brought with us an ample stock of provisions, for the place we had chosen stood upon one of the highest points, not far from Chelwood Beacon, and miles from any town or village of any size.
From the attic windows which peeped forth from the thatch, we commanded a magnificent view both away north over Surrey, and south across the Downs to the Channel. We were up upon what the Bathy-orographical map of England terms “The Forest Ridge,” which lies between the North Downs and the sea.