John Viking yelled at me over the continuing roar of the burner, 'Hold on bloody tight with both hands. If the basket hits the tops of the trees we don't want to be spilled right out.'

The trees looked sixty feet high and a formidable obstacle, but most of the balloons had cleared them easily and were drifting away skywards, great bright pear-shaped fantasies hanging on the wind.

John Viking's basket closed with a rush towards the tree tops with the burner roaring over our heads like a demented dragon. The lift it should have provided seemed totally lacking.

'Turbulence,' John Viking shrieked. 'Bloody wind turbulence. Hold on. It's a long way down.'

Frightfully jolly, I thought, being tipped out of a hamper sixty feet from the ground without a crash helmet. I grinned at him, and he caught the expression and looked startled.

The basket hit the tree tops, and tipped on its side, tumbling me from the vertical to the horizontal with no trouble at all. I grabbed right-handed at whatever I could to stop myself falling right out, and I felt as much as saw that the majestically swelling envelope above us was carrying on with its journey regardless. It tugged the basket after it, crashing and bumping through the tops of the trees, flinging me about like a rag doll with at times most of my body hanging out in space. My host, made of sterner stuff, had one arm clamped like a vice round one of the metal struts which supported the burner, and the other twined into a black rubber strap. His legs were braced against the side of the basket, which was now the floor, and he changed his footholds as necessary, at one point planting one foot firmly on my stomach.

With a last sickening jolt and wrench the basket tore itself free, and we swung to and fro under the wobbling balloon like a pendulum. I was by this manoeuvre wedged into a disorganised heap in the bottom of the basket, but John Viking still stood rather splendidly on his feet.

There really wasn't much room, I thought, disentangling myself and straightening upwards. The basket, still swaying and shaking, was only four feet square, and reached no higher than one's waist. Along two opposite sides stood eight gas cylinders, four each side, fastened to the wickerwork with rubber straps. The oblong space left was big enough for two men to stand in, but not overgenerous even for that: about two feet by two feet per person.

John Viking gave the burner a rest at last, and into the sudden silence said forcefully, 'Why the hell didn't you hold on like I told you to? Don't you know you damned nearly fell out, and got me into trouble?'

'Sorry,' I said, amused. 'Is it usual to go on burning, when you're stuck on a tree?'

'It got us clear, didn't it?' he demanded.

'It sure did.'

'Don't complain, then. I didn't ask you to come.'

He was of about my own age; perhaps a year or two younger. His face under his blue denim yachting cap was craggy with a bone structure that might one day give him distinction, and his blue eyes shone with the brilliance of the true fanatic. John Viking the madman, I thought, and warmed to him.

'Check round the outsides, will you,' he said. 'See if anything' s come adrift.'

It seemed he meant the outside of the basket, as he was himself looking outwards, over the edge. I discovered that on my side, too, there were bundles on the outside of the basket, either strapped to it tight, or swinging on ropes.

One short rope, attached to the basket, had nothing on the end of it. I pulled it up and showed it to him.

'Damnation,' he said explosively. 'Lost in the trees, I suppose. Plastic water container. Hope you're not thirsty.' He stretched up and gave the burner another long burst, and I listened in my mind to the echo of his Etonian drawl and totally understood why he was as he was.

'Do you have to finish first, to win a balloon race?' I said. He looked surprised. 'Not this one. This is a two and a half hour race. The one who gets furthest in that time is the winner.' He frowned. 'Haven't you ever been in a balloon before?'

'No.'

'My God,' he said. 'What chance have I got?'

'None at all, if I hadn't come,' I said mildly.

'That's true.' He looked down from somewhere like six feet four. 'What's your name?'

'Sid,' I said.

He looked as if Sid wasn't exactly the sort of name his friends had, but faced the fact manfully.

'Why wouldn't your girl come with you?' I said.

'Who? Oh, you mean Popsy. She's not my girl. I don't really know her. She was going to come because my usual passenger broke his leg, silly bugger, when we made a bit of a rough landing last week. Popsy wanted to bring some ruddy big handbag. Wouldn't come without it, wouldn't be parted from it. I ask you! Where is the room for a handbag? And it was heavy, as well. Every pound counts. Carry a pound less, you can go a mile further.'

'Where do you expect to come down?' I said.

'It depends on the wind.' He looked up at the sky. 'We're going roughly north-east at the moment, but I'm going higher. There's a front forecast from the west, and I guess there'll be some pretty useful activity high up. We might make it to Brighton.'

'Brighton.' I had thought in terms of perhaps twenty miles, not a hundred. And he must be wrong, I thought: one couldn't go a hundred miles in a balloon in two and a half hours.

'If the wind's more from the north-west we might reach the Isle of Wight. Or France. Depends how much gas is left. We don't want to come down in the sea, not in this. Can you swim?'

I nodded. I supposed I still could: hadn't tried it one-handed. 'I'd rather not,' I said.

He laughed. 'Don't worry. The balloon's too darned expensive for me to want to sink it.'

Once free of the trees we had risen very fast, and now floated across country at a height from which cars on the roads looked like toys, though still recognisable as to size and colour.

Noises came up clearly. One could hear the cars' engines, and dogs barking, and an occasional human shout. People looked up and waved to us as we passed. A world removed, I thought. I was in a child's world, idyllically drifting with the wind, sloughing off the dreary earthbound millstones, free and rising and filled with intense delight.

John Viking flipped the lever and the flame roared, shooting up into the green-and-yellow cavern, a scarlet and gold tongue of dragon fire. The burn endured for twenty seconds and we rose perceptibly in the sudden ensuing silence.

'What gas do you use?' I said.

'Propane.'

He was looking over the side of the basket and around at the countryside, as if judging his position. 'Look, get the map out, will you. It's in a pouch thing, on your side. And for God's sake don't let it blow away.'

I looked over the side, and found what he meant. A satchel-like object strapped on through the wickerwork, its outward-facing flap fastened shut with a buckle. I undid the buckle, looked inside, took a fair grip of the large folded map, and delivered it safely to the captain.

He was looking fixedly at my left hand, which I'd used as a sort of counterweight on the edge of the basket while I leaned over. I let it fall by my side, and his gaze swept upwards to my face.

'You're missing a hand,' he said incredulously.

'That's right.'

He waved his own two arms in a fierce gesture of frustration. 'How the hell am I going to win this race?'

I laughed.

He glanced at me. 'It's not damned funny.'

'Oh yes it is. And I like winning races… you won't lose it because of me.'

He frowned disgustedly. 'I suppose you can't be much more useless than Popsy,' he said. 'But at least they say she can read a map.' He unfolded the sheet I'd given him, which proved to be a map designed for the navigation of aircraft, its surface covered with a plastic film, for writing on. 'Look,' he said. 'We started from here.' He pointed. 'We're travelling roughly north-east. You take the map, and find out where we are.' He paused. 'Do you know the first bloody thing about using your watch as a compass, or about dead reckoning?'