The Atlantic Sky

by Betty Beaty

  ‘Where’s Heron Bay?’ Patsy asked.

  'South of Goose. Not brilliant even there. But at least it’s above limits. At the moment.’

  Patsy nodded and smiled and walked back to her passengers. Now that they were into the winter, she was beginning to see Captain Prentice’s lecture fulfilled with uncanny accuracy. Winds and rain, a clear sky like now, and then, right in their path, a suffocating blanket of snow. She shivered a little as she walked down the aisle, picking up a forgotten magazine, tucking in a blanket, leaning over and switching off the reading lamp above the head of a now sleeping passenger.

  And then thinking of his lecture made her remember the man himself. She looked at her watch. The strong winds had already blown them back an hour behind flight plan. It was past midnight in England. He would be over a thousand miles behind them now, studying perhaps without surprise the reports of the weather that lay ahead of him.

  ‘Heron Bay 03.05,’ Captain Laycock murmured. He looked at his watch. ‘About another hour.’

  Patsy said ‘Yes, sir,’ and looked out doubtfully. It didn’t seem possible that anything or anyone else existed in this world but them.

  And yet, fifty minutes later, after rather reluctantly she had wakened those of the passengers who had managed to snatch some sleep and handed round tea and rolls and orange juice, the seat belt sign most reassuringly glowed red. And as if by magic, she felt the lowering aircraft floor pull slightly at her feet, she saw the thick cotton-wool cloud thin a little and begin to shred, and then rather grudgingly part in order to allow them a brief peep below. To Patsy’s relief and surprise, she saw lights—yellow and white, reflecting in the snow around them. Very slowly now they went down and down. And then suddenly they were through the cloud.

  The last shreds of it for a moment flurried past the window and then they saw the flarepath lights glistening on the high banks of shovelled snow on either side of the runway, and the tyres gently brushed the ground.

  Like a snowy turntable, a circle of white field edged by muzzy airfield buildings moved past the windows as they ran, their tyres sizzling softly along the damp, cleared runway. Then as they taxied up to what appeared to be the main airport buildings, the passengers wearily reached to unfasten their straps, blinked at the dark desolation around them and murmured that at least they wouldn’t have to stay here very long, and weren’t they glad.

  But they were wrong. An hour after they had obediently followed the Canadian Station Officer who did duty for all the airlines in this isolated station, Captain Laycock was in earnest, exasperated conversation with a take-it-or-leave-it foreman in charge of maintenance in the hangar.

  And half an hour after that, Captain Laycock was in earnest, very technical and very depressing conversation with Patsy. As far as her brief lectures on aircraft construction permitted her to understand, a bad oil leak had developed in Number Three engine, and until it could be fixed, here they must stay. It wouldn’t be very long, not more perhaps than fifteen hours or so, but Miss Aylmer must understand, and with her, of course, the passengers, that this was a bad-weather alternative airfield and therefore didn’t have the same facilities for maintenance as, say, Gander. Patsy, who hadn’t the slightest idea of the engineering facilities at Gander and was only vaguely aware of them at London, murmured, ‘Of course.’

  What she had more than a slight idea of, though, was what the passengers would say to the prospect of a night and most of another day in this isolated, snow-bound place.

  She had managed to find a few beds so that the women and children could lie down, but because there was no hotel at Heron Field, most of the passengers had to get what rest they could in the chairs of the reception hut. Just as she’d given three of the more wakeful ones a cup of tea, and they’d been grumbling to her about the delay and the discomfort, small dark shapes appeared along what appeared to be the only road that led out of the airfield into the forest beyond. Patsy saw them as she stood by the window, looking out at the snow-dotted darkness, and as she watched, gradually the shapes became a sledge drawn by dogs, and followed by three figures muffled in furs.

  Patsy watched them wearily and incuriously. One of the passengers, coming up behind her, remarked that there were human beings here after all, but apart from that, no one took the slightest notice.

  No one even took much notice when the airport nurse, a quiet, pleasant-faced Canadian girl, came into the reception hut and, holding her cloak around her shoulders, tiptoed over to Patsy and whispered something to her.

  But Patsy was instantly alert. ‘A woman ill?’ she repeated. ‘But where?’ Automatically, like a good shepherdess, her eyes travelled the room, counting her flock. There were nine she’d seen safely to bed. No one was missing. But the Canadian nurse’s soft, sing-song voice was going on. ‘Oh, not on the sledge?’ Patsy’s face was gentle with sympathy and concern. ‘But of course I’ll come. Yes,’ she said, getting up and hurrying beside the nurse, ‘I’d no idea.’ She listened while the nurse went on explaining about outlying trapping stations: how they were dependent on aircraft for all transport, how they came here to see her, and if they were really bad were flown out on the first available aeroplane, since there was no doctor for hundreds of miles.

  ‘And is she very ill?’ Patsy said softly, stepping carelessly through the deep drifts.

  The nurse clutched her cape in her hands. Her face, her hair, the dark blue-covered shoulders were spattered with snowflakes. She nodded her head. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she murmured without looking at Patsy. ‘Acute appendicitis, I’d say.’ And then more briskly, ‘The sick bay is over there.’ She waved her hand towards a small hut just past the maintenance hangar. To get to it, they passed by the World Span charter plane, and Patsy eyed it with a mixture of hope and despair. ‘Will it,’ the nurse said, ‘be serviceable soon?’ Patsy shrugged her shoulders, and murmured that she would ask Captain Laycock as soon as she got back. But suddenly she was terribly frightened. There was a kind of quiet resignation in the nurse’s manner, as though, reared in this land of isolation, she had come to accept die inevitable. If an aircraft wasn’t available, then there was nothing much she could do about it.

  Then they flung open the door, and the nurse’s round face became altogether different. ‘This,’ she said, speaking slowly and cheerfully to the patient in the quiet side ward, ‘is the hostess of the British aircraft. They,’ she added firmly, ‘will be taking you to New York.’

  But we won’t, Patsy thought. Not tonight.

  Just like that. Patsy stared sadly back at the hunched-up figure of an old lady, and a middle-aged man standing behind her. The mother and the husband of the patient. Patsy forced a vestige of a confident smile to her lips and willed that the man’s eyes and the old lady’s smile should stop expressing relief and gratitude, while the whole weight of this leaden North Atlantic sky seemed to descend on her inadequate shoulders.

  ‘I hope,’ she said at last, knowing that they expected some sort of remark from her, ‘that she’s feeling a little better.’ They all nodded politely.

  ‘I’ll—Patsy started to say ... and immediately three pairs of brown eyes fastened on her alertly, expectantly, even oddly enough, affectionately. Just, Patsy thought miserably, as though she were their very own and extra special fairy godmother.

  Only her wand, Patsy thought, as she murmured lamely, ‘I’ll let you know as soon as the aircraft is serviceable,’ was quite utterly and completely useless.

  Glad to be outside the sick bay at last, glad to shrink once more to her own very unimportant size, Patsy hurried, head down against the ice-laden wind, towards the hangar.

  ‘Another ten hours, I should say.’ Captain Laycock appeared from under the tail, and frowned down at her.

  ‘The woman...’ Patsy began. ‘There’s a woman that’s...’

  ‘Yes, I heard about that,’ Captain Laycock turned away. Then after a minute, more gently, he turned back to her and added, ‘They’ll be trying to contact other aircraft, you kn
ow. There may,’ but there was heavy emphasis on the word, ‘be one within an hour or two’s flight.’

  And because there just wasn’t anything that anyone could do, and certainly nothing that Patsy needed to do then for her passengers, she walked outside and down the pathway into the office.

  ‘No.’ The Station Officer got up when she came in and shook his head. ‘The wireless station’s sending out a message.’ He jerked his head towards a hut on the far side of the perimeter track. ‘Too early yet to get anything back.’

  Patsy nodded her head. Even in here, too, the silence was oppressive. Just waiting and waiting, and doing nothing.

  ‘How’d you like,’ the young Canadian said suddenly eyeing her with a sympathetic understanding, ‘to go over to the wireless station? Then you can hear what’s going on.’

  ‘Oh, could I?’ said Patsy. ‘Would they mind?’ She glanced again out of the window. ‘I could walk it in about twenty minutes, and I don’t suppose the passengers will be needing...’

  ‘I’ll take you.’ The Station Officer unhooked a peaked cap and a thick flying jacket from behind the door, and put them on. ‘There’s my jeep at the back.’

  Patsy followed him to a shed at the back of the hut and clambered up into the seat beside the driver.

  The wheels of the jeep kicked up a muddy slush behind them. Now and again the tyres skidded on bare patches of wet ice. The wind whistled down long lines of whitecoated firs, their tops jerking and tossing spasmodically in the darkness.

  ‘There’s the Radio Station,’ the Canadian said, pointing ahead to where the headlights glittered on a rectangular building crouching under four high ariels that disappeared into the snow-dotted pattern of the night above it.

  The brakes squealed. The jeep stopped. Wrapping her coat firmly round her, Patsy hurried beside the Station Officer up to the wooden front door.

  At least it was warm inside. Two men in shirt-sleeves sat beside a table on which there was a single Morse key, and a litter of papers and teacups. The wall in front of them was filled to the roof with enormous radio transmitters and receivers. One of the men had earphones over his head. The other’s eyes were closed, his head nodding over his chest. He opened his eyes when he heard their steps on the stone floor and said, ‘Hello.’

  The other did not look up. His hand was vibrating the Morse key so fast that the dots and dashes seemed to blur into each other. Small cracks of light flickered from inside the transmitters, and over all the room was the steady hum of a dynamo.

  ‘Any luck?’ the Station Officer asked.

  The operator off duty shook his head. ‘Static,’ he said laconically.

  He picked up a spare pair of earphones and plugged them in so they could hear the ear-splitting crackle and buzzing of electrical disturbance.

  Patsy caught sight of a square message pad among the papers on the table. URGENT, it said, ALL AIRCRAFT VICINITY HERON FIELD, REQUEST DIVERSION TO ONLOAD EMERGENCY CASE NEEDING IMMEDIATE HOSPITALIZATION. CONDITION CRITICAL.

  ‘Any reply?’

  The operator shook his head. ‘Hopeless! Can’t raise a soul!’

  He put his hand back on the key. But just before he pressed it, in the midst of the jangle of electrical and atmospheric sounds, came a faint answering rattle of dots and dashes that was unmistakably human.

  ‘Is it...?’ Patsy said to the Station Officer, her eyes wide and eager.

  The Canadian nodded and leaned forward to read the message that the operator was writing down in plain language.

  ‘He’s giving a position about six hundred miles southeast.’ He glanced back at Patsy. And then, ‘It’s one of yours. World-Span Able King. Isn’t that some special flight?’

  Patsy nodded. ‘It’s a charter for the United Nations...’ and then impatiently, ‘But will they come?’

  But the Station Officer wasn’t listening. ‘Give him the latest weather,’ he said to the operator. ‘Cloud base three hundred feet. Visibility half a mile in heavy snow. With bad weather all around us, he may well decide not to come.’

  The wireless operator sent the weather. Then there was a full minute of agonizing suspense. Nothing came through the earphones, but the hurly-burly of the static. Then, suddenly, the operator began to write, and as he did so a smile began to spread across his face. ‘Cool customer this one,’ he said. ‘Sends Weather received. Estimating your field 08.42z.’

  The Station Officer rubbed his hands together happily. ‘Fine! Now we’re four hours behind Greenwich time ... that’s what the Z is,’ he explained to Patsy, ‘so he’ll be here in an hour and a half.’ He walked over to the map on the wall. Lightly he drew a line from the position of the aircraft, nearly ninety degrees to its New York track, towards Heron Field.

  Patsy, looking at that pencilled line, translated it in her mind to World-Span’s newest and best aircraft. The one that very faintly still carried a stain from the lunch she’d spilled on her first flight, laden with high-ranking officials of the United Nations, with a hand-picked crew and the very best pilot, now promptly and deliberately and rightly turning aside to the help, of an unknown woman.

  ‘Well,’ the Station Officer said, turning away from the map and walking over to the door, ‘someone’s coming. That’s the main thing.’ He held the door open for Patsy, and then whistled softly. ‘Getting worse already,’ he said, staring through the thick white curtain of snow towards the blurred lights of the jeep.

  Patsy bit her lip. Abstractedly she said good-night and thank you to the wireless operators and followed the Canadian’s wide steps across the snow to the jeep.

  ‘Better not bank on it,’ the Station Officer said, wiping the snow off the windscreen with his gloved hands.

  He settled himself in his seat and went on, ‘Wouldn’t want to raise their hopes, if he’s not going to make it.’ He let in the clutch and they slid out on to the perimeter track.

  ‘You see, there’s his own passengers to think of. If it gets any worse he won’t even try...’

  For a few minutes they could see only their own headlights—huge snow-filled cornets of yellowish white light, Then as they skidded around a curve, they could make out just beside them the six squares of light from the passenger reception hut. ‘Tell them it isn’t certain,’ the Canadian said, leaning over and opening the door for Patsy. ‘And keep your fingers crossed.’

  Patsy said good-night, ran the few paces to the door of the reception hut, and threw it open. As she’d half expected, the woman’s husband and mother had been persuaded that it would be better to leave sick quarters and to sit with the passengers. And as soon as they heard the door, the murmur of conversation died away. From all over the room, eyes scanned her face. For a moment, accurate explanations ran through her mind, the Station Officer’s uncertainty, the grave doubts about the weather. Then she smiled and shut the door against the icy wind that was trying to bluster its way in behind her. She looked straight across at the mother and the husband. ‘Captain Prentice,’ she said simply, ‘is coming.’

  For an hour, Patsy sat beside the two people. Everyone’s ears were strained to catch the first faint murmur of an aircraft’s engines.

  When it did come, it was the man who heard it first. Patsy noticed that his hands had stopped their almost ceaseless clasping and unclasping of each other. His whole body froze into sudden stillness. Only his eyes were wide and alive, and now alight with hope. Then the stillness and the quietness seemed to radiate from him to every corner of the room.

  Very quietly, Patsy slipped out of the hut and into the darkness outside. It was bitterly cold. The snow and cloud had blotted out the lights of the sick bay, and even the hangar lights were only a faint glimmer. Strong and reassuring now, the engines throbbed out. Patsy blinked her eyes against the icy particles, trying to catch a glimpse of the red and green navigation lights in the darkness above.

  But there was nothing.

  She could tell from the noise of the engines that he was flying low, searching for the glowing ru
nway lights on an instrument approach. And then suddenly she was afraid. Breathlessly, she watched. It seemed suddenly tremendously important that she herself should catch the first glimpse of his lights. The engine note had got slightly softer, and more deliberate. She thrust her hands in her coat pockets so that she could clench them harder. She didn’t care if they could see in the dark that she was crying. She hardly knew herself.

  A faint red light glimmered beyond the runway’s end, then a green one in dead straight line with it. For a moment they seemed to hover, softly phosphorescent in the blurring, blinding snow. Then gently, majestically, between the golden strings of the runway, the navigation lights on the wings grew brighter, more solid, filled themselves in with cabin lights, and then the wet, faintly glimmering outline of World-Span’s newest Astroliner, Able King.

  Patsy went back into the hut and said, in a voice that she tried to keep as steady and unconcerned as she could, ‘We’d best get over to Sick Quarters now...’ but all her brisk air-stewardess manner had deserted her. The words came in trembles and half sobs. She went over to the waiting couple, put her hands through both of theirs as she guided them, re-treading in their own footmarks, back to the pathway, and then towards the Sick Bay.

  But from there, too, the nurse had been watching. ‘She’s ready to go,’ she said briskly,, as soon as rather fearfully they pushed open the door.

  To Patsy’s raised eyebrows, she gave a reassuring nod. And then, ‘Your wife’s dozed off again,’ she said to the man. ‘Don’t worry, she’s going to be all right.’

  Bravely, the old woman who had never been away from the trapping station for over ten years said goodbye to the man, and walked behind the stretcher to the airfield ambulance. From here she could see the floodlit apron, and the enormous hull of the aircraft. Just for a moment, she looked from it back to the lighted Sick Bay and the man. Then she raised her hand and smiled and stepped inside.