Miles Green’s dream

Sir Miles Green MP had simply done everything it was possible to do on this Earth.

His steel company had made him rich beyond calculation. Greenville, the town he built around his steelworks, had grown to the size of a small city and he owne all of it: three steel factories, two cotton mills, 10,000 houses, the Greenville Park, twenty churches, he’d built it all, even 120 miles of canal and 923 miles of railtrack. The whole town owed everything to him: he was their employer, their MP, their lord, a god in all but name.

But Sir Miles was not the sort to sit at him and enjoy his riches, he was an adventurer, an explorer. He read with glee the stories of polar expeditions and discoveries, and trusting his entire business empire to his oldest friend, spent three years venturing unfeasibly close to the south pole. “I’ve missed archery targets by more,” he would complain upon his return, “another six huskies and I’d have planted my flag there.”

Upon return from his Antarctic adventures he married a girl named Sally, just over half his age, daughter of a Peer he’d helped out of financial difficulties. Sally was as beautiful as any girl described by the great poets, but Sir Miles was no poet, he didn’t waste her beauty on wistful words, rather he worked her as hard as he worked the rest of his town, siring no less than thirteen children, all of whom lived to healthy adulthood, a feat unheard of at this time.

Sire Miles retained his adventurous side, however, and would disappear for months at a time hunting tigers in India, bagging lions in Africa and a brace of elephants, one from each continent.

But for all he achieved on Earth, Miles Green had a dream that seemed beyond even his capability, beyond the wit of man entire. He dreamt every time he gazed up from his study into the night sky, God’s nightime illumination. The moon, our nearest neighbour, yet she had only ever been visited in the realms of fiction, and then usually by Frenchmen or American’s.

When he reached the age of 67, to the surprise of everyone that knew him and most of those that didn’t, Sir Miles announced his retirement from business and parliament. His eldest son was by now more than capable of taking over the business and Sir Miles simply stepped aside. Another son, who had shown unusual interest in politics, was handed the seat at an impromptu by-election.

Of course, like everything else he had done in his life, there was a reason behind his actions, and having announced his retirement he went on to announce his intention to travel to the moon.

He hired the best scientists of the day and instructed them to build him a moon rocket. Reluctantly, after six months work, they regretted to inform him that he had set them an impossible task, that travel to the moon was beyond human capability.

Undeterred, Sir Miles simply replaced the best scientists in the world with a team of scientists who, while less respected within the profession, were all confident that travel to the moon was possible.

The rocket took seven years to build and equip, but eventually it was ready. Build with his own steel and powered by an immense steam engine, together with a gunpowder ‘charge’ the rocket, once launched, would take Sir Miles a week to get to the moon and a similar time to get back, or so the scientists calculated. Sir Miles, however, was a seasoned explorer and equipped the rocket with enough supplies to last him six months or more, reckoning that he “May as well have a little look round while I’m there, I might even get to bag a lunar elephant.”

The scoffers still scoffed, saying that the rocket would never leave the ground, but they came to watch the launch just the same, as did, seemingly, the rest of the world. Sir Miles laid on refreshments for everyone, both solid and liquid, and the day became soaked in a party atmosphere.

Sir Miles waited until early evening, when he could “see his target,” donned his steel-booted gravity suit and entered his ship to the loudest of cheers, proclaiming from the steps that he would claim the moon for Queen and country.

The fuse wire fizzed for a moment and then boom, an explosion wrought the air, a mighty roar that was heard in London, leaving nothing of the rocket, nothing of Sir Miles and, if the local paper is to be believed, a crater half the size of Wales.

The moon, unaware of the trouble it had caused, shone brightly on the newly sober crowd of shocked onlookers and would remain undisturbed by mankind for another hundred years. But that, dear reader, is another man’s dream and at this point in the story my pen must cease.