by Nevil Shute
The way was clear then for me to go to England. I sent Gujar off in the Fox-Moth for a couple of charter trips and he came back all right from those; I turned over the books to him and told him to do the best he could with the business while I was away, and transferred most of the cash in the account to London. When I’d left sufficient for him to carry on with safely in my absence, I found that I’d got two thousand two hundred pounds to transfer—not bad for six months’ work with one little aeroplane. But I’d had to work for it.
I left Bahrein six months and two days after I landed there. I got a cheap ride as far as Rome on a Norwegian Skymaster that had taken a load of Italian emigrants to Australia and was on its way back to pick up another lot. There was nothing going to England from Rome except regular services which would have charged me the full fare, so I took a second-class ticket by rail. It took me longer to get from Rome to London than it had to get from Bahrein to Rome, and when finally I got out of the train at Victoria Station I was thankful that, if all went well, I should be going out by air in a week or two.
I got on the Underground and went to the same hotel near Euston that I always stayed at because it was cheap. I had written to Basing Aircraft from Bahrein on my cheap notepaper, and they had sent me out details of the Airtruck. I rang up their sales manager, a Mr. Harry Ford, first thing next morning and said that I was coming down to see them right away. He told me a train and said he’d send a car to meet me. I drove from Basingstoke Station to the works behind a chauffeur like a lord, the first time I’d ever been to an aircraft works like that. It felt very odd.
Harry Ford was quite a decent chap, but I could see he didn’t quite know what to make of me. He’d been in aviation a long time; I knew of him, though I had never met him. I think he knew a little about me. He gave me a cigarette, and then he said,
“We got your letters, Mr. Cutter. What did you think of the stuff about the Airtruck we sent you?”
“Looks all right, for what I’m doing,” I said. “I’d like to have a look at one in the shop.”
“We’ll go out in a moment,” he replied. “There are just one or two things I’d like to clear up first. What’s the name of your company?”
“I haven’t got a company,” I said. “There’s nobody in this but me.”
He was a little taken aback, I think. “You mean, you’re trading as an individual?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re doing charter work?”
“That’s right,” I said. “I’ve got a Fox-Moth, but I want something a bit bigger now.”
“Just one Fox-Moth?” He was smiling, but in quite a nice sort of way.
“Just one Fox-Moth,” I said firmly. “Maybe you’d think more of me if I’d got fifty thousand pounds of other people’s money, and a dozen disposals Haltons, and a staff of three hundred, and a company, and a thumping loss. As it is, I’ve got just one Fox-Moth and a thumping profit. Show you my accounts if you like.”
“Have you got them here?”
I pulled the envelope from my pocket, and unfolded the various papers; the accounts certified by the Iraqui accountant in Bahrein up to three days before I left, together with the complete schedule of the jobs I’d done, the hours flown on each, and the payments received to balance with the income side of the accounts. “I’m showing you these,” I said, “because I want to buy an Airtruck if it’s the aeroplane I think it is, and I’ve not got enough money to pay for it.”
“Fine,” he said. “I wish some of my other clients came to the point so quickly.”
He ran his eye over my papers, and I saw his eyebrows rise once or twice. He did not take more than a couple of minutes over it; it was clear that he was very well accustomed to this sort of thing. “On the face of it, that’s a very good showing, Mr. Cutter,” he said. “I don’t suppose many Fox-Moth operators can show profits like that.”
“I don’t suppose many Fox-Moth operators work as hard as I’ve worked,” I said.
“You do all the maintenance yourself, as well as the piloting and the business?”
“That’s right.”
“I see.” He thought for a minute. “I take it that if you bought an Airtruck you would want credit.”
I nodded. “I’d want a hire purchase agreement, over a year.”
“Could you find anyone to guarantee your payments?”
“No,” I said firmly. “I’ve got no rich friends. I’ve got the record there of what I do, and that shows I can keep up the payments. If we can’t do business for an Airtruck upon those terms I’ll have to go elsewhere, and buy a cheaper aeroplane.”
“I see.” He took up the papers. “We’ll go outside and you can have a look at an Airtruck, and talk to our test pilots, Mr. Cutter. They’ll be interested to hear about your operations in the Persian Gulf. While we’re doing that, would you mind if our secretary has a look at these figures of yours?”
“Not a bit,” I said, “so long as they’re kept confidential. I wouldn’t want any other operator to see them.”
He left me for a time and took my papers out of the room with him; when he came back we went out to see the Airtruck. He took me through the works; there were a lot of Airtrucks there on an assembly line, and there were two or three new ones in the flight hangar, unsold. They could give delivery at once. If I’d been able to pay cash I’d have got one at a discount off list price, I’m sure.
I spent a couple of hours going over the machine from nose to tail, and had a short flight in one with a test pilot. When I had finished, I knew that that was the machine I wanted for the Gulf. It had a big, wide cabin with low loading, high wing which would keep the cabin cool upon the ground in the tropical sun, and full blind-flying instruments. With the addition of a small V.H.F. radio set it made an aeroplane that would take a ton of load anywhere, and very cheaply. I knew that I could make money with that out in the Gulf, and I knew that I could learn to fly it without much difficulty. I was very pleased, although I did my best not to show it.
We went back to the office to talk turkey. Harry Ford got the secretary to come along to his office, a lean Scotsman called Taverner. He had been through my figures and gave the papers back to me, and then we talked about a hire purchase deal.
“How much could you pay in the way of a deposit, Mr. Cutter?” the secretary asked.
“A thousand pounds,” I said.
“That’s only twenty per cent of the cost of the aircraft. From the profits you show, you should be able to do better than that.”
“I’ve got to keep some liquid capital in the business,” I said. “The cost of flying out the Airtruck to Bahrein is one thing. I don’t think I can do more than that.”
“Mm. I think that leaves too much for your business to carry. Ye can’t pay off four thousand pounds in a year.”
“Why not? You see what I can make with just a Fox-Moth.”
“Aye,” Mr. Taverner said. “Ye’ve done very well, but you won’t go on like that. You’re paying no insurance for a start. Maybe that’s wise with just the Fox-Moth, and in any case, you’ve got away with it. But if we give you credit terms upon this Airtruck, you’ll have to insure it with a policy that we approve. That’s a bit off your profits.”
He paused. “But the big difference is going to be that from now on you’ve got to employ pilots and ground engineers. Up till now you’ve been doing everything yourself, and you’ve made close on two-thousand-five-hundred-pounds’ profit in six months. But you’ve taken no pay yourself. I’ll guess that you’ve been working like a horse and you’ve been making money at the rate of five thousand a year, and maybe you’re worth it. But it’s going to be different from now on.”
He turned to Ford. “What will he have to pay a pilot, working from Bahrein?”
“A thousand to twelve hundred.”
“And a ground engineer?”
“About eight hundred.”
The secretary turned to me. “Ye’ve got to have staff now, Mr. Cutter, with two aeroplane
s, and that’s going to alter the whole picture. Put in the wages of yourself at fifteen hundred, and a pilot at twelve hundred, and a ground engineer at eight hundred, and there’s three thousand five hundred pounds added to your overhead expenses right away. I’m not saying that there’ll be no profit left, but I doubt, I doubt very much, if you can pay off four thousand pounds on an Airtruck within a year on the work you’ll do with it. It does not seem possible to me, or in two years either.” He paused. “Ye’ll not get the utilization with the larger aeroplane that you get with your Fox-Moth.”
“I agree,” said Ford. “All operators find the same thing. When you’re operating just one aeroplane, a charter service can look very promising. Directly you have to start in and employ a staff, the whole thing alters and the costs go leaping up. I’ve seen it happen over and over again.”
There was a pause.
“That may be,” I said. “This thing of mine is different.”
They smiled. “In what way?” Ford asked.
“If other operators go on the way you say, they must all be bloody well daft,” I said. “I can’t afford to go paying pilots twelve hundred a year. I’ve got a pilot flying the Fox-Moth for me now while I’m away, a darned good pilot, running the business side as well. Do you know what I’m paying him?”
“What?”
“Two hundred and fifty rupees a month,” I said. “That’s two hundred and twenty pounds a year.”
They stared at me. “With flying pay?”
I laughed shortly. “No. Two hundred and twenty pounds a year, flat.” I paused. “I’ve got a boy of sixteen cleaning down the aircraft. He’ll work up and be a ground engineer one day. Do you know what he gets? Thirty bob a month.” I snorted. “I’m not surprised that charter operators go broke right and left if they pay the wages that you say.”
They sat staring at me. Then Ford said, “Are these natives?”
“That’s right,” I said. “The pilot’s a Sikh. The boy’s an Arab.”
“Oh. Would you propose that this native pilot should fly the Airtruck?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“We’d have to think about that one, if you’re going to want credit terms on the sale. We should have an interest in the machine.”
“Think all you like,” I said, “so long as you do it quick. This Sikh I’ve got is an ex-officer of the Royal Indian Air Force, and he’s done over three hundred hours on Hurricanes without an accident, much of it operational flying. If your Airtruck’s so bloody difficult to fly that he’s not safe on it, I don’t know that we can go any further.”
Ford laughed. “You know I don’t mean that. Anybody could fly an Airtruck. The proposal to employ a native pilot is a bit of a novelty, you know.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You’ve got to go on the record. If he’s got a record of safe flying and if he’s got a B licence, that’s good enough for me.”
“I suppose so. If the business grows, would you propose to employ more than one?”
“I’ll answer that in six months’ time,” I said. “If Gujar Singh is the success I think he will be, he’ll be the chief pilot, under me. In that case, any other pilots I take on may very well be Sikhs. I don’t see that there’d be any place in a set-up like that for British pilots at a thousand a year.”
Taverner asked, “What about the ground staff? Would you use Asiatic ground engineers for your maintenance?”
“I don’t know,” I said frankly. “That’s much more difficult than the pilots. I’m fully licensed as a ground engineer myself, A, B, C, and D. I can use Asiatic labour for a time, under my supervision. Then we’ll have to see. But I think by the time. I need them Asiatics will turn up. I had some working under me in Egypt during the war. They were all right.”
Harry Ford laughed. “You’re planning an air service staffed entirely by Wogs!”
I was a bit angry at that. “I call them Asiatics,” I replied. “If you want to sell an Airtruck you can quit calling my staff Wogs.”
“No offence meant, Mr. Cutter,” he said. “One uses these slang phrases.… I take it that the point you’re making is that by the use of native staff you can reduce your overheads to the point when you can bear the hire purchase cost of eighty per cent of an Airtruck spread over a year.”
I nodded. “That’s right. I can pay off the aircraft in a year, and still make money.” I thought for a moment. “I don’t want you to think that a native staff is solely a question of money,” I said slowly. “If I extend my operations, it will be in the direction of India, not towards Europe. Europe’s crowded out with charter operators already, all going broke together. There’s more scope for charter work as you go east. If I develop eastwards, then by using Asiatic pilots and ground engineers exclusively, I shall be using the people of the countries that I want to do business with. That’s bound to make things easier.”
Taverner chipped in then, and we went over my prospective overheads in the light of the payments I would have to make for Asiatic staff, and the sum naturally came out a good bit better. They left me then to go off and have a talk about it by themselves, and when they came back they said, fifteen hundred down and the machine was mine. I stuck my heels in and refused to pay a penny more than twelve hundred, and when I left the works that evening the machine was mine for delivery in about ten days, subject to the completion of all the formalities.
I went to Southampton that night, and got home at about nine o’clock. There was no telephone at home, of course; I’d sent a telegram from the works to say that I was coming, but it was nearly six o’clock when we telephoned it and after delivery hours, so Ma hadn’t got it. I walked in at the street door and put my bag down. Ma was in the scullery, and when she heard the door go she called out, “That you, Alf?” She thought it was Dad.
I said, “It’s me, Ma—Tom!” She came rushing out and put her arms round me and kissed me, and ticked me off for not letting them know which day I was coming. And then she said, “My, Tom, you do look brown. How long have you got at home?”
“Only a week or two,” I said. “I’m getting a bigger aeroplane, and flying out again as soon as it’s ready.”
“Not bust yet?” she asked.
“Not quite,” I said. “Where’s Dad?”
“He stepped out to the Lion for his game of darts,” she said. “He should be back now, any minute.”
“Mind if I go down there and fetch him, Ma?”
She nodded. “He’ll like you to meet his friends, Bert Topp and Harry Burke, and Chandler. Don’t be more’n a quarter of an hour, Tom. I’ll start getting supper now.”
I went down to the pub, and there was Dad playing darts with Harry Burke. I said, “How do, Dad,” and he said, “How do, Tom,” and I told him I’d been home, and he told the barman to give me a pint, and went on with his game. The barman said, “Been out in the sun?” and I said, “Persian Gulf,” and he said, “Uh-huh,” and I sat and watched Dad going for the double at the finish of the game. It was just as if I’d never been away at all, as if Bahrein and Gujar Singh, and Sharjah, and Yas Island were places and people I’d read about in a book.
I walked home with Dad when he’d finished the game, and told him something about what I’d been doing on the way. Back home when we sat down to the light supper that they had before going to bed, Ma asked me, “What’s it like out where you’re working, Tom? What does it all look like?” She paused. “Is it all palm trees and dates and that?”
“Not in the country,” I said. “Nothing grows outside the towns, because of the water. There’s no water at all. The land is desert-great flat stretches of sandy sort of earth, with maybe rocky hills or mountains here and there. All yellow and dried up under the sun. You get groves of date palms and greenery outside Bahrein and outside most towns, where they irrigate with water from wells.”
Dad said, “Sounds a bad sort of country.”
“I rather like it, Dad,” I said. “It gets hold of you, after a bit. It’s good for people—y
ou don’t get any of the pansy boys out there. It can be lovely when you’re flying, too. Some places and in some lights, the desert goes a sort of rosy pink, all over, and then if you’re flying up a coast the sea can be a brilliant emerald green, or else a brilliant blue, with a strip of white surf all along the edge like a girl’s slip showing.”
“Ever had a forced landing in it and got stranded?” Dad asked,
I shook my head. “Not yet, and I don’t want one. I had to put down once because of a sandstorm, and sit it out in the cabin for five or six hours; then it got better and I took off and went on. I always take a petrol can of water in the aircraft.”
Ma said, “My …”
They wanted to know if I’d got anyone to help me, and I told them about Gujar Singh and Tarik. It was difficult, of course, to make them understand, however hard I was trying, however much they wanted to. Dad said,
“Like niggers, I suppose they’d be?”
I shook my head. “No, not like niggers. Gujar Singh’s an Indian.”
“Lascars are Indians, I think,” Dad said. He only knew the types he’d seen about the docks, of course.
“That’s right,” I said. “But this is a different sort of Indian. A better sort than lascars, more of an Army officer type.” I went on to describe what Gujar looked like, but I don’t know that a description of him really helped me in describing what I had come to feel; that our minds ran on similar tracks.
Ma said, “They’d be heathens, I suppose?”
The question worried me a bit, because I wanted her to like them. I wanted her to understand. “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Both of them believe in God—just one God, not a lot of Gods. I suppose you’d call them heathens. They don’t believe in Jesus Christ as God—the Moslems think He was a prophet, just like Moses. But I must say, they seem to say their prayers very regular, which is more’n we do.”
