by Nevil Shute
I stared at it for half a minute, incredulous, watching for the gust to blow it out. No gust came; the sock hung motionless. I turned to my passengers, elated. ‘Money for jam,’ I said. ‘I’ll make one dummy run, and if it looks all right I’ll land upon the strip. Keep your belts done up.’
The sun was coming up over the mountains to the east as I turned on to final. There was no wind at all to hinder us in landing. The only problem now before me lay in coming in slow enough to put the wheels down within a few feet of the near end of that short strip, and so to stop her before running off the far end of it. But Austers had landed there before in good conditions like we had, and I was feeling fine. I had had a good sleep and I was right on the top line. Everything was going to be all right, this time.
I lined up on the strip to come in for my dummy run, throttled back a bit, and put my hand up to pull down half flap. I brought her in upon the throttle, watching it ahead of me. There was a little stunted tree with a bush beside it about seventy yards from the end of the strip; if I pulled down full flap there when I was about six feet up, ready to catch her with a burst of throttle, I should just about make it. I shot a quick glance at the flagstaff and the sock to make sure there was no sudden gust of wind.
There was something funny there. I took my attention from the runway and looked at the sock properly. It was hanging vertical, but it was only half way up the mast. Then the woman caught my attention. She was standing by the mast and waving both arms horizontally.
I turned back to my flying, and moved the throttle forward. We passed over the strip twenty feet up as I gently raised the flaps. I turned to the doctor by my side. ‘See that?’ I asked.
‘You mean, the sock? It was at half mast, wasn’t it?’
I nodded.
‘Was she trying to tell us not to land?’
‘I think so. She seemed to be waving us off.’
I put the machine on a climbing turn and turned to the nurse in the seat behind the doctor. ‘It doesn’t look so good,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry.’
She had gone rather white. ‘That’s all right,’ she muttered.
We circled round. ‘What would you like to do?’ I asked the doctor. ‘I can land there normally, but I don’t suppose that I can stay there very long. This calm won’t last longer than an hour, at most.’
‘I think I ought to have a look at him, perhaps,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t take very long.’
The girl leaned forward at my shoulder. ‘I want to land, please, Captain Clarke.’
I nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll do another dummy run, and then run in.’
I turned on final again and brought her in. It was still calm; I used half flap, touched my wheels a few feet from the near end of the strip, and took off again. There was plenty of room to pull her up if I did it like that again. I brought her round, lined up again on final, put full flap down at the little tree, and plumped her well and truly down in the right spot. We came to rest about thirty yards from the far end. I glanced at the windsock; there was still no wind. The woman was running towards us.
I turned to the doctor and the nurse. ‘Be as quick as you can,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay with the machine.’
I left the engine ticking over, and we all got out. The woman, Mrs Hoskins, came panting up. ‘I tried to stop you landing,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I suppose you didn’t see.’
The doctor asked, ‘He’s dead, is he?’
‘I’m sorry to say so. You took off before the radio schedule, or I’d have let you know. I told them, so they’re not sending the Lincoln.’
‘What time did he die?’
‘A little after four, it must have been,’ she said. ‘A quarter past, perhaps. It’s hard to say exactly when he went, you know.’
‘I’ll just come down with you and have a look at him,’ he said.
Beside me, Sister Dawson stirred. ‘Have you got any news of the ground party?’
‘They’re a little way this side of Gordon River,’ she said. ‘They don’t think they’ll be here today – tomorrow dinner time, they thought. Some of them, the doctor and another, I think they’ll go back now. But I said I’d like someone to come on.’ She hesitated. ‘I mean, there’s things to be done.’
The girl asked, ‘Is there a burial ground here?’
The woman hesitated, and then said, ‘Well, there’s a nice little place where we put Grandpa, looking out over the sea. It’s not consecrated, of course, but he could lie there, by Grandpa, if you think that’d do. Or they could take him out … But it’s a long way.’
The girl said, ‘We’ll bury him here.’ She had taken charge completely of the situation. She turned to the doctor. ‘I’d like to go down now. Then you can get away with Captain Clarke, and I’ll stay here and do what’s necessary.’
They all went down to the house and I was left alone with the Auster, its engine still ticking over, on the little airstrip on the ridge above the sea. The sun had come up and it was very beautiful there between the mountains and the Southern Ocean in the blue dawn. I walked a little way back along the strip and stood looking down upon the wreckage of the other Auster at the foot of the little cliff; then I climbed down to it. The engine was worth salvaging, but there was nothing else worth bothering about in that locality. I stood sadly for a few minutes, thinking back. He had been a great influence upon me in my youth; he had been part of my whole life. I would have said I knew him pretty well, if I had thought about it at all, but now it seemed to me I knew him much, much better.
I climbed back to the little gravel runway. The strip was too narrow for me to turn the Auster in the normal way, so I carried the tail round and taxied down to the lee end. I turned her in the same way there and carried the tail back till the main wheels were at the extreme end of the strip, gave the motor a burst to clear the plugs, and shut down to wait.
The doctor came up from the house presently, just as I was beginning to get worried about a little rising air that moved the limp windsock. He was carrying the battered suitcase that we had dropped on the scrub the day before. I took it from him. ‘Did anything get broken?’
‘One bottle,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter now, of course.’
‘Is Sister Dawson coming back with us?’ I asked.
‘No. We’re taking the child back to hospital, for observation. There’s not much wrong with her now. The mother’s just dressing her up in warm clothes.’
‘She’ll have to hurry up,’ I said. ‘I can’t stay here much longer.’
‘She knows that. She’ll be here in a minute.’ And as he spoke I saw the woman leave the house carrying the child, and come hurrying up the hill.
‘How is Sister Dawson going to get out?’ I asked.
‘She’ll come out with the ground party, or else by sea. Probably the ground party. She wants to stay here for the burial.’ He hesitated, and then asked, ‘Is she a relation, do you know?’
I faced him. ‘She’s his illegitimate daughter,’ I said. ‘Don’t go telling everyone.’
‘Are you quite sure of that?’ he exclaimed.
‘Quite sure,’ I said.
‘However did you find that out? You only met her this morning!’
‘I knew her mother,’ I said. ‘She was a fine woman. I remember when this girl was born. They had pretty bad luck.’ I paused. ‘I’ve known Johnnie Pascoe a great many years. We were old friends. There are some things a friend ought to know.’ And then I wondered why I had said that, and where I had heard it before.
I turned to the aircraft. ‘Here she comes. Let’s get in now, and get going before the wind gets up again.’
I started the motor, and we got into the machine. The woman came up and handed the child to the doctor, who took her on his lap, wrapped in about three blankets. I ran the engine up, checked everything, and took off down that appalling little strip. We made it all right with a bit to spare; I turned over the house and set a course for Buxton. We flew back up the coast without incident though the weath
er was closing in and the wind getting up again, and landed back upon the aerodrome under a grey sky at about half past eight.
I taxied to the hangar and stopped the motor. Billy Monkhouse, the ground engineer, came up to the machine as I was undoing my belt. ‘You heard the news?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘They got it from the Lewis River soon after you took off. Too bad it had to happen.’
I nodded, and got out of the machine, and looked around. Something was missing. I asked, ‘What’s happened to the Proctor?’
‘They took off about an hour ago for Hobart,’ he said. ‘Wanted to get down while the good weather lasted. The woman, Mrs Forbes, she went with them.’
‘Damn good job,’ I said.
‘You left the nurse there?’ he asked.
I nodded. One of the boys was near us, and I took the old ground engineer to one side. ‘Look, Mr Monkhouse,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen here now. I mean, about these two aircraft, and the house, and all the rest of his stuff. I don’t know if he made a will, or if so, where it is.’
‘Mr Dobson would have it, if there is one,’ he remarked. ‘He’s the solicitor.’
‘You’d better go and ask him if he’s got one. If there is, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’s left everything to Sister Dawson.’
He stared at me. ‘You mean – this nurse – here?’
I nodded. ‘She’s visited him before, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes. She’s been here two or three times.’ He hesitated. ‘Looks a bit like him.’
‘Well, there you are,’ I said. ‘That’s none of my business, and none of yours. But she’ll probably be telling you what she wants done here.’
He asked, ‘What’s the other machine like – the one he piled up in, at Lewis River?’
‘The airframe’s a write-off,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t be worth trying to bring that out. The engine didn’t look too bad. It would be worth going in for that some time, and bring it out by sea.’
We talked about that for a minute or two. Then he said, ‘What will you be doing now, sir?’
‘I’ll get some breakfast somewhere and pick up my haversack,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll get back to Melbourne. There’s nothing else that I can do here.’
‘Mrs Lawrence is over in the house, waiting to cook you breakfast,’ he said. ‘I got that fixed for you.’
‘You’ve told her about Captain Pascoe?’
‘Aye, I went over and told her. It’ll be better if you have your breakfast in the house. They’re a nosy kind of party, up at that hotel.’
The doctor joined us, and I told him what I was going to do. ‘I think there’s a plane from Devonport today about the middle of the morning.’ The old ground engineer nodded, and said, ‘Eleven thirty-five.’ The doctor said, ‘I’ll run you over in my car.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’ I paused and then I said, ‘I understand that there’s some breakfast going in Johnnie’s house. Would you like to join me?’ So we went together to the little house by the aerodrome that I had left so full of quiet hope before the dawn, only a few hours before.
Mrs Lawrence was in the kitchen, looking as if she had been crying. I told her we’d be glad of breakfast for two, and she started in to get it. The doctor and I threw off our coats and went to wash and clean up, and presently we were sitting down to breakfast at the kitchen table.
Mrs Lawrence had gone over to her own house next door taking the child with her, after telling us to leave everything as it was. She would come in later to wash up the breakfast and clean up the house. We said little while we ate, but after we had finished and were smoking at the table over a final cup of coffee, the doctor brought the subject up that was on both our minds.
‘I’ve been thinking over what you told me about Sister Dawson,’ he said. ‘After I’ve taken you to Devonport, I think I’ll go on home. I’ll leave Betty in Hobart with her father on my way through. We’ve got a place down on the Huon. Then when the ground party come out from the Lewis River I could meet Sister Dawson with my car at Kallista and bring her back up here.’
It seemed to me that that meant leaving his practice to look after itself for three or four days, but that was his affair, not mine. ‘That would certainly be a help to her,’ I remarked. ‘I think she’ll want to come back here.’
‘She’ll have to,’ he said. ‘She left a suitcase at the Vicarage.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Of course, I could take that down with me in the car.’
‘I should do that,’ I observed. ‘By the time you meet her she won’t have had a change of clothes for three or four days, and she’ll have walked about forty miles through the bush.’
‘Of course. I’ll take it with me.’
‘I think she’ll want to come back here, in any case,’ I said. ‘There’s probably a will, and Johnnie probably left everything to her. She’ll have to come and settle up what’s to be done.’
He nodded slowly. ‘I hadn’t thought of that …’
I glanced at him. ‘You’ll be seeing a good deal of her?’
He met my eyes. ‘Probably.’
‘Well – look,’ I said. ‘She won’t have a lot of money to throw around. She’ll want to sell the two aircraft that are here. She doesn’t have to pay a pilot to fly them away. I can get over here for nothing, any time, and I’d be very glad to fly them to Moorabbin to be sold. I shan’t be seeing her again, but will you tell her that? I’d like to do that for her.’
‘That’s really very kind of you,’ he said. ‘That’s a very generous offer.’
I flushed a little. ‘Her father was a very old friend,’ I said. ‘It was he who taught me to fly, back in the dark ages. And the girl’s a good type, too.’
He said quietly, ‘I think she’s a very wonderful person.’
‘She’s going to be a very lonely one now,’ I said practically. ‘I don’t think she’s got a single relation left in the world. Except, perhaps, some second cousins up at Colac.’ I grinned at him. ‘Good luck.’
He smiled, a little self-consciously. ‘Thank you.’
I got up from the table. ‘I’ll give you a ring in a few days’ time when you’ve got back here, and you can tell me what the form is.’
He drove me to Devonport and put me down at the aerodrome. Then he went on southwards, while I waited for the midday plane. I got back to Essendon about half past one, reported at the office, and told them what the form had been at Buxton. They had a crew fixed up to do my flight to Sydney that afternoon, Flight 82, so I got the day off; I had a late lunch in the restaurant and walked out to my car. It was only about thirty-six hours since I had left it in the park, but when I unlocked the door and got into it, it seemed like so many years.
There was nobody at home when I got back to my house in Essendon. Sheila sometimes did the shopping in the afternoon before fetching the children home from school, and I guessed that that was where she was now. She must be walking, because I had had the car locked up in the car park, and I was sorry about that. I put down my haversack and leather coat and wandered round the house, fingering the children’s toys, Sheila’s fur stole that I had saved up for for so long, the small tools in my workshop. Johnnie Pascoe had been a better man than I, but he had never had the little benisons of life that I had got. I hoped his daughter would be luckier. She would be, I thought, if the doctor had anything to do with it.
I got the cutter, the half-moon thing with the long handle, and began to trim the edges of the lawn.
Sheila came home with the children before I got it finished. They were surprised and glad to see me, and came running to hug me. When the children were sent into the house to take their coats off, Sheila said, ‘He died, didn’t he? They said so on the wireless.’
I nodded. ‘We couldn’t get in to him yesterday. It clamped right down. I got a doctor and a nurse in there at dawn today, but they were just too late.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said softly. Peter came running from the house towards us.
‘Tell me about it after they’re in bed.’
We went into the house together because it was a bit cold in the garden for the children, and I lit the fire in the sitting room, and we had tea. Then Diana showed me her latest paintings and Peter showed me the arrows he was making for the bow that he had made, and I helped him a bit with that. Bed-time was coming near and it was time for me to read to them, and I took Diana on my knee and read to her from Doctor Dolittle as we always did on Fridays, my day off, till it was time for her to go with Mummy to her bath, and after that I read Coot Club to Peter. When he was off to bed I laid the supper table and got a glass of sherry for us both, and sat on the edge of the kitchen table talking to Sheila while she grilled the steak. Somehow, I felt that evening that I had never appreciated my home so much.
We ate our steak and apple pie, and washed the dishes up. Then in the sitting room, smoking by the fire, I told her everything factual that had happened in Tasmania. I didn’t tell her anything about my dreams because people who insist on telling you what they dreamed are a bit of a bore, and anyway, they didn’t mean a thing.
When I had told her everything, and we had discussed it all, I said, ‘I’ll probably have to go over there again, and fly the aircraft to Moorabbin to be sold. I offered to do that. I’d like to do that for him.’
She nodded. Then she said, ‘You’d known him a long time, hadn’t you?’
‘Nearly thirty years,’ I said. ‘I never knew till now that we were such close friends.’
