This is the first time that the Knolly Estate has allowed the great man's memoirs to be published. What follows is the eleventh chapter of 'The African Adventure'.

Ballunatics - Part Two

I hurtled downwards, the only sounds now being the wind whistling past me trying to tear my clothing from me (very refreshing) and the strain of the airships engine attempting to do things it had never been designed to do. I landed on the canopy with very little elegance and quickly grabbed hold of the ropes encasing the silver skin and dug the knife in deep then, holding the knife in one hand, I let go of my handhold and dropped earthwards letting the rope take the slack. The knife performed wonderfully and gave me the same satisfaction that Auntie's cats must have with a new set of curtains, and such a resounding ripping noise. I reached the underside of the airship and pushed myself away before reaching the gondola and waved to the crew inside at which point I reached the extent of the rope and bounced upwards and away. Well at least Bertie had tied the other end to something.

The airship heaved about the sky as its crew tried to control its
deathroes, but it soon wallowed and crumpled before my eyes spiralling
down towards the ground while I bobbed up and down letting the rope have
its fun. I looked up at the basket to see Bertie smiling and shaking his
head in disbelief. I waved back to him and then settled myself to watch
the sun starting to set. I could get used to this, I thought as Bertie
thoughtfully lowered a bottle and a glass in a basket. I poured myself a glass and toasted Bertie and began to sing.

'With tuppence, some paper and string

You can have your own set of wings... hahaha

Let's go fly a kite

Up to the highest height.

Let's go fly a kite

And send it soaring

Up to the atmosphere

Up where the air is clear...

Oh lets go fly a kite.

Bertie joined in and the sun began to set spreading a wonderful redness before it.

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I can't remember how I got back in the basket or how long Bertie had let me sleep for, but when I eventually got my eyes to focus I noticed that he was peering through the field glasses at something below. I pulled myself to my feet, took a look over the side and noticed that the landscape had changed. For one thing it was much greener.

'What's that you're looking at then Bertie?'

'Hum, Oh and good morning to you! The wind changed in the night and we seem to be heading more in a southerly direction now.'

'Good... good, now what were you looking at?'

'Knolly, you know you told me that there were no tigers in Africa? Well what's that down there?' and he pointed. I frowned, which hurt and took the glasses off him.

'Bertie, you need a rest old chap. That is a lioness buried up to its
haunches in zebra.'

'Lioness... silly me... so lions live out here then?' Sometimes I was never sure when Bertie was playing the giddy goat. I
smiled and threw a bag of sand at him. The rest of that day was spent
drifting over what we now assumed and hoped to be Bechuanaland, taking in the sites of all the wildlife scattering before us. Stately giraffes
squinted up at us amazed to see something higher than themselves, herds of wildebeest and zebra wandered amongst dozing fully fed lions and myriad's of birds took flight before something more gaudy than them.

'How long do you think we can stay aloft for Bertie?' I asked tucking into our now meagre rations.

'I think the balloon will be all right for another few hours, but I'd rather get it down in daylight than at night when we can at least try and pick a landing spot. Mind you we could go another day with this wind, but we need fresh drinking water and I could do with a wash.' I nodded in agreement.

'Trouble is, I was hoping to see some signs of humanity by now and all we've seen is the exotic wildlife so we may have to do a bit of a forced march if we do land this afternoon.'

Alas the decision was soon to made for us as, just before lunchtime I think, the wind direction played a dirty trick and moved round send us
back in a westerly direction.

'Well, Bertie, you managed to get us up here without too much bother, do you think you can land it and us in one piece?' Bertie looked at me and scoffed.

'Ha! The man that laughs in the face of danger, you should worry. Of course I can land it! It's just a case of turning a few knobs and letting out the hot air in a slow, efficient manner, like this.' Instantly we began to plummet earthwards and I hastily looked for
something to hang on to.

'Scared you then, eh Knolly?' I nodded and then pointed out that we were still dropping in a way that didn't even attempt to defy the laws of physics.

'OH... NOOOOOO!... quick, Knolly, grab this whilst I try to get the fire going again.' I held on to whatever Bertie had handed me and stood out of his way as he rushed around the confines of the basket and looked about to see where we might be landing. In the distance something flashing caught my eye. I waited for Bertie to hurtle past me once more, got hold of my binoculars, then focused them on the area of trees.

'Good Lord... there are troops of some description over there with a
heliograph.'

'Are they signalling us? Bertie puffed and wheezed.

'Oh it's stopped now, but I don't think they were... How we doing now
then?'

'Um... well I've slowed us down, but I think we better start waving at them in a friendly manner and ask them to move out of the way.'

'Right ho! Is there anything else you want me to do? Hold something, pull something? You know I hate to sit here and do nothing.' Bertie thought and went on.

'No, I think it's under control now.' He looked up at the silk above. 'Right then, here we go... LOOK OUT BELOOOOOOOOW.'

Then the burner spluttered out once again. I was mesmerised by the
African landscape, in particular, the bit directly below us that seemed to be approaching with a menacing serenity. As he was working busily at
trying to get the burner firing, Bertie tried to cheer me up with a little homily that went along the lines of 'It's not the fall that kills you - it's the sudden stop at the bottom that does all of the damage'. Ho ho ho, indeed.

'How is it looking, Bertie?' I asked nervously, my fingers now embedded into the wicker basket edging.

'Can't get the bally thingy to ignite and I've tried nearly all me
tricks.' He sounded quite matter-of-fact - almost quite flippant - as he carried on fiddling and tweaking and adjusting.

Something about Bertie's statement irritated me. The ground was looming larger and larger, bringing with it almost certain death and I found myself peeved by my colleague's manner of speech.

'Bertie. Do you *have* to always refer to the burner as 'the thingy'?' He smiled and said;

'Come over here and look at this.' He showed me a small plaque on the burner-contraption thingy that read 'Thos. Thingy and Sons Ltd, Birmingham, England'. It was, indeed, a 'thingy'. Having made his point, Bertie began to busy himself once more.

'Bertie. Is there anything I can do to help?'

'Yes. Take a letter, would you please?'

'What!!?'

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