by Nevil Shute
‘It seemed like five minutes. Can I have another one tomorrow?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to learn to fly, it’s quite a good thing to go on and do it every day, if you can manage to. You don’t forget things in between.’
‘How long would it take me before I could go solo?’
I smiled, and thought for a moment as we walked towards the office. Women usually take longer than men, but she had very good hands and some knowledge of motor cars. Still, I’d have to be very sure of her before I let her go. Navigation would probably be a weakness; she might lose sight of the aerodrome and get lost. ‘Most people take ten or twelve hours dual,’ I said. ‘Twenty or twenty-five lessons.’
‘Three weeks,’ she said. ‘Then one day you just get out of the front seat and tell me I can go alone?’
I laughed. ‘That’s right. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I’d love a cup of tea.’
We went into the office and I sent the boy for tea, and she took off my coat and helmet and ran a comb through her short, curly hair. She was full of questions about the machine and her instruction, really interested and very much alive. I took twenty-five bob off her for the lesson and three guineas for her membership, and seven and six for a book of flying instruction that I thought would do her good. Then the tea came, and she took a cigarette off me.
As she was smoking it, she asked, ‘Tell me, Captain Pascoe – are you English? I’m afraid that’s a frightfully rude question.’
I laughed. ‘It’s a very natural one. I’m Canadian. Have I still got an accent?’
‘Not an accent,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s more of a rhythm. I thought at first you were American, and then I didn’t think you were. Forgive me for asking.’
‘I come from Hamilton, Ontario,’ I told her. ‘I came to England in 1915 to join the R.A.F., and I’ve hardly been home since. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get to talk quite like an Englishman.’
‘You’d rather be here than in Canada?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘I’ve grown into things here. I’d probably feel like a fish out of water back at home now, after all these years.’
‘I’ve never been out of England,’ she said. ‘It must be fun to travel.’
I was very much surprised, for she was evidently well off, to live in a house like Duffington Manor. I would have expected her to know the south of France, and Italy. ‘You’ve never been to France?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been anywhere. I suppose you’ve been to France a lot of times.’
‘As a matter of fact, I haven’t. Only in the war, and that doesn’t count.’
‘Esmé said that you were flying fighters in the war.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Were they very difficult to fly?’ A shaft of the January sunlight came in weakly through the office window and made a golden aureole around her in the blue haze of the coke stove.
‘They were much more difficult than a Moth, although they only had about the same performance. They had rotary engines without any proper throttle control, most of them. It was much more difficult to learn to fly in those days than it is now.’
‘What you taught me today wasn’t very difficult.’
‘You seemed to get hold of it all right.’
‘Will it be more difficult when I get further on?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s like everything else – don’t try and learn too much all at once. Don’t bother about that loop, for example – put that out of your mind for the present. I’ll teach you that later. Just concentrate on what you’ve done, and then next time we’ll do a little bit more, and so on. You won’t have any trouble.’
She finished her tea, and made an appointment for another lesson next morning, at the same time; she asked me to ring her up if the weather should be too bad. As she was leaving, she said, ‘I’m not sure that I’m dressed right, Captain Pascoe. A skirt isn’t very convenient. Would it be better if I wore a pair of trousers?’
That was a very daring suggestion, and I was surprised. ‘Well – yes, it would,’ I said. ‘It might make you a bit conspicuous, though.’
‘I could change here, couldn’t I?’ she asked. ‘In the Ladies’ Room?’
‘It would be better,’ I said. The Lady of the Manor had a position to keep up in Duffington. ‘Have you got a pair of trousers?’
She shook her head. ‘I know a shop in London where they sell them for ladies, ready made.’
‘If you’re going to do that,’ I said, ‘I think I’d go the whole hog and wear an overall, a boiler suit. There’s always liable to be a bit of oil about an aeroplane. We try and keep them clean, but they aren’t like a car. If you wore a boiler suit over everything, it might save your clothes.’
She nodded. ‘I believe you can get white ones in London. One could have them laundered, then.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You can get white ones, and they look very nice. You could come in your own clothes and change over at the clubhouse.’
She got into the Alvis and drove off, still bright and excited, and looking very pretty. That afternoon it was sunny, and Colonel Chance came out for a lesson, the Chief Constable. He had had four or five before, and he was doing turns. I had him up for half an hour, and when he landed we stood smoking outside the hangar for a few minutes.
‘I got a new member yesterday,’ I told him. ‘Mrs Marshall joined. She had her first lesson this morning.’
‘Mrs Derek Marshall?’ he asked. ‘From the Manor?’
‘That’s right.’
He smiled. ‘How did she do?’
‘All right. She might make a good pilot.’
He stood thoughtful behind bushy grey eyebrows, the short, clipped grey moustache. ‘I should think she might. She drives that car too fast, but she drives quite well. Pity about her husband.’
‘He’s in some kind of hospital, isn’t he?’
He said shortly, ‘He’s in The Haven.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’ The Haven was a very expensive private home exclusively for mental cases, on the outskirts of Leacaster.
‘He got shell-shock in the war,’ he said. ‘When they were married everybody thought he was cured, but then he got a relapse. He’s been in and out of The Haven ever since.’ He paused, and then he said, ‘Of course, it wasn’t the shell-shock. There was a weakness there before. The Marshalls all used to marry their cousins.’
‘Is he in there permanently?’ I asked.
‘I think so. He’s certified now, anyway. They keep on trying every new thing, of course.’ He drew on his cigarette, and then he said, ‘She’s had a time with him.’
I was grateful to him for telling me. It’s better to know the scandal about members, and then one can avoid saying the wrong thing. I think that was in his mind, too, and that was why he told me.
‘They must be pretty well off,’ I said.
‘Wool spinners,’ he replied. ‘Marshall and Collins. They’ve got a big mill in Halifax. His brothers run the business.’
I wrinkled my brows; now was the time to find out everything I ought to know. ‘Who’s the old lady – Mrs Duclos, that lives at the Manor?’
‘That’s her mother,’ he told me. ‘She came to live there after Marshall was certified. I suppose it was lonely for Brenda living in that big house all alone.’
‘Are there any children?’
He shot a glance at me. ‘Children? Oh, no. I suppose they had more sense.’
He went away, and I went back to writing up the log books and digested my new information. Next day my pupil came again for another lesson, and told me she was going down to London. There was a gap of a few days then, and when she came for her third lesson she had a brown paper parcel in her hand as she got out of the car.
I smiled: ‘You got it?’
‘I got three of them,’ she said, ‘and a white flying helmet. Look, are they all right?’ She undid her parcel on
the bonnet of the car and spread her purchases out, child-like, for my approval.
I turned the flying helmet over in my hands. ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a spare pair of headphones we can put in this.’
‘I asked about that,’ she said. ‘They told me these ear flaps were designed to take the standard R.A.F. phones.’
‘That’s right. It should look very nice when you’re wearing it.’
‘I got a pair of goggles, too, like yours,’ she said. She showed them to me. ‘And I got this leather waistcoat to go underneath.’
I turned the garments over, smiling. ‘You’ve got everything. You must have spent a lot of money.’
She said simply, ‘I had a lot of fun. Shall I go over to the club and put them on?’
I nodded. ‘I’ll get the machine pushed out while you’re changing, and fit a pair of headphones in the helmet for you.’
When she came across the tarmac to the machine in the weak, frosty sun she was dazzling in white, boyish with her short, curly hair. She put on her new white helmet and I adjusted the headphones for her; with the strap done up beneath her chin the white fabric framed her face giving her, queerly, the appearance of a nun. I stood back and looked at her, and then went round behind her and did up the strap of the boiler suit behind her back. ‘That’s better.’ And then I said casually, ‘You look like a million dollars.’
She laughed self-consciously. ‘It feels very businesslike.’
‘Well, let’s get to business. We’ll try a turn or two today.’
‘How do you do a turn?’
‘I’ll tell you when you’re in the air. Can you remember how to do your belt up?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, get in and do your belt up while I get my coat, and then I’ll come and see if you’ve done it right.’
When we were in the air I told her about climbing and gave her the machine to hold on a straight climb. When we got up to a thousand feet and she was flying straight and level I found that she was doing it quite well; over the gasworks and the railway station the air was a bit bumpy, but her corrections were quick and accurate. I turned the machine and set her to fly back through the bumpy bit for practice, and then I started in to show her Rate One turns. By the time that her half hour was up she was doing those quite nicely, and I was reflecting that I’d have a job to spin out her instruction for twelve hours, the time I always like to give a woman pupil as a minimum.
When we landed and got out of the machine I told her, ‘That was very good, Mrs Marshall. You were doing those turns quite nicely. You were slipping outwards just a bit on one or two of them. Holding off a little too much bank. Try and think of your behind when you’re in a turn. Get the feel of it so that you don’t feel you’re slipping either way upon the cushion.’
‘Isn’t that what the little bubble is supposed to tell you?’
‘Don’t think about the bubble. Think of your behind. I’ll tell you about the bubble later. The only instrument you want to use at present is the airspeed indicator.’
She nodded. ‘I do like flying in this boiler suit. It seems to make it so much easier.’
‘Does it?’
She nodded. ‘My skirt was always blowing up before.’
I wondered if a boiler suit would help Esmé Haughton, whose progress had been slow. ‘None of my other women pupils fly in boiler suits,’ I said. ‘I wish you’d show it to them.’
‘I never see them,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s ever here when I come.’
‘That’s because you’ve always been here on a weekday,’ I told her. ‘There’s a crowd here all the time on Saturday and Sunday – all three aircraft going hard. If you want a lesson tomorrow or on Sunday I’d better put you down for a time now. We’re liable to get booked up.’
She hesitated. ‘Do none of the other women wear boiler suits like this?’
‘They don’t yet,’ I said. ‘When they’ve seen you, they’ll all be getting them.’
‘You don’t think it looks a bit conspicuous?’
‘It looks swell,’ I told her. ‘It is conspicuous, but it’s so very practical. I think you’ll set a fashion here when they see that.’
I was surprised when she came to the club next day to find how few members knew her. Leacaster is a fair-sized city and she lived in one of the biggest houses in the neighbourhood, but she came shyly, as a stranger. She came with Esmé Haughton and they both had a lesson, the doctor’s daughter wearing one of Mrs Marshall’s spare boiler suits. It didn’t make a lot of difference to her flying, but the owner of the suit was getting on quite well. I was too busy that afternoon to be able to give them much attention after their lessons, but I introduced my new member to young Peter Woodhouse, the honorary secretary. When darkness came and I landed for the last time that day with the last pupil, I went into the bar for a can of beer and found Peter there. He told me that they had both changed back into their ordinary clothes directly they had finished flying, and he had given them afternoon tea in the club room. Then they had watched the flying for a little and had gone away. Mrs Marshall had put her name down for a lesson next afternoon.
‘I thought she was rather nice,’ he said. ‘She thaws out after a bit. At first I thought that she was snooty, but I’m not sure that she isn’t just shy.’
I nodded. ‘She doesn’t know many of the members.’
‘I’d never met her before,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve seen the car, sometimes. It’s a wizard car. If I had that I wouldn’t wash it. I’d lick the dirt off it.’
‘She seems to live a very retired sort of a life,’ I told him. ‘Nobody knows much about her in the village. Her mother does most of the shopping. The vicar says she was a concert pianist before she married, and she plays beautifully.’
He took a drink of beer. ‘I suppose it’s natural,’ he said. ‘For any woman who’s a bit sensitive, after that hoo-ha with her husband.’
‘Hoo-ha?’
He nodded. ‘It must be three years ago now, but it caused quite a rumpus at the time, and made a lot of talk. They had him in court for it.’
‘What for?’
‘Little girls,’ he said. ‘After that they put him in the bughouse.’
I was grateful for the information, but I changed the subject and ordered him another can of beer. ‘She’s going to make a very good pilot if she goes on with it. I don’t know when I’ve had a woman that got hold of it so quickly.’
He grinned. ‘Looks all right, too.’
‘See if you can introduce her to a few people,’ I suggested. ‘When there’s an opportunity. I don’t like to see a couple of women coming here and knowing nobody, and having tea alone.’
He was a good secretary, Peter Woodhouse, and he took up my suggestion. He didn’t introduce her to the motor racing crowd, not just at first. I dashed into the clubhouse for a quick cup of tea next afternoon between lessons while the Moth was being refuelled, and I saw her having tea with Ronnie Clarke. Ronnie was mad on flying. He was only just seventeen and still at school, in the fifth form of St Peter’s College. He spent all his spare time out at the aerodrome watching the flying and going up as a passenger whenever he got the chance, but his father wouldn’t let him learn to fly till he was eighteen and had passed his matriculation. I thought then that Peter had made a good choice, because she wouldn’t be shy with Ronnie and he was a pleasant sort of boy, and he was always there at the week-ends. Later, she could get to know the tougher guys.
We got a spell of bad weather after that, with westerly gales and rain, but she still made an appointment for a lesson each day, though frequently I had to ring up in the morning and cancel it. Once when I did that she said, ‘The clouds are quite high, aren’t they?’
‘They’re all right,’ I said, ‘but there’s a wind of about thirty miles an hour, and very gusty. You wouldn’t be able to learn anything on a day like this – it’s much too rough.’
‘Could you fly in this?’ she asked. ‘Safely, I mean?’
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br /> ‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘Have to have someone on the wing tips, taxi-ing. It’s just that it’s too rough for instruction.’
‘If I came out, could you take me up?’ she asked. ‘Just so that I can feel what you do in rough weather, resting my hands and feet on the controls?’
‘We could do that, if you like,’ I said. So I took her up and flew her round a bit, battling with the Moth and using full aileron now and then. At the end of twenty minutes I asked her if she would like to try it straight and level by herself, and she did, and did it fairly well. After that she never let me cancel a lesson unless I could assure her that I wouldn’t fly myself. We flew in mist and rain, groping our way around the countryside at a few hundred feet. I was glad in a way because it gave me an excuse to prolong her instruction to my twelve hours minimum for women; otherwise she’d have been fit to go solo at seven or eight.
She went solo early in March. She had been ready for a week or two, but I kept her doing landings and little cross-country trips around Leacaster till we got the perfect day. Then one morning it was bright and sunny, cold with a northerly wind and a rising barometer. We did two landings together, and then I undid my belt and turned to look at her. ‘Like to try it alone?’
She nodded.
I got out on to the wing, and closed the door of the front cockpit, making sure my safety belt was secured across the seat. I got down on to the ground and stood beside her in the slipstream of the slowly running engine. ‘Take your time,’ I said. ‘Do a circuit or two at a thousand feet till you feel comfortable, and then bring her in to land. If your gliding turns don’t come out just the way you want them, put on engine and go round again. You’re flying very nicely this morning. If you feel quite comfortable after the first landing, do another one. If you’re not quite happy, bring her in and we’ll do a bit more together. Okay?’
She nodded, and smiled at me. ‘Don’t get heart failure …’
I grinned at her. ‘I shan’t do that.’ I turned and walked across the grass towards the hangar, not looking back because it fusses a pupil when he sees the instructor looking at him. It was not until I heard the engine open up that I turned to watch her rather wobbly take-off.
