by Betty Beaty
‘It’s not very far,’ Patsy said, sitting down opposite to her. ‘Only a few hundred yards round there to the apron. And they’ll look after you well ... the stewardess is a friend of mine ... she’s awfully kind. Look,’ she pointed through the window, ‘there she is now, standing at the top of the steps...’
The ambulance came to a sizzling stop, right beside the aircraft. ‘That you, Patsy?’ Janet called. ‘How is she?’
‘All right,’ Patsy answered. And then as Janet walked down and stood beside her, she added softly, ‘I think. I hope.’
Then from the shadows, beyond the range of the headlights’ beam, came a tall figure; Captain Prentice nodded vaguely to Patsy. His face was set and unnoticing and remote. For a moment, he stood watching the men gently slide the stretcher out of its bearings. Then, satisfied they were doing their job properly, he stepped over beside the old woman. The light from the main building fell straight on to his face. Patsy could see that it was very gentle. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said softly to the old woman, ‘that you’ve been having a very anxious time.’ He put a large hand on the woman’s shoulder (how comforting it must have felt) and turned her towards the aircraft. ‘Never mind,’ he went on. ‘It’ll be all right now.’
Just for a moment, almost longingly, Patsy watched them go. It looked so warm and safe and comfortable inside his cabin. Then as though he felt her eyes on him, Captain Prentice suddenly turned. ‘Good-night, Miss Aylmer,’ he said. ‘And thank you.’
And then, as though he had seen something hitherto unnoticed in her unguarded face, as though the anxiety, the longing, the misery of these last few hours were there for him to see, he narrowed his eyes. Just for a moment, they stood there looking at each other. For a second it seemed as though he had some of that same kindliness and tenderness that he had proffered the old lady left over for her.
Then he seemed to remember something. His face hardened. The absent Senior Captain returned. ‘You look tired,’ he said, almost accusingly. ‘Get some rest. Remember,’ but although he said it to her, it was himself that he seemed to be reminding, ‘there are other people ...’ he paused for a second, ‘... who have a call upon your time as well.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and watched him go.
But for once, she didn’t hurry to obey him. She stood back in the shadows of the hut. And while the door was closed, and the ghostly faces of the delegation peered out at, this ghostly land, and while he ran up the four engines at the end of the runway, and until the murky sky had gathered them up again, Patsy Aylmer watched and waited.
CHAPTER NINE
It was just getting dusk when, hours later, Astroliner Easy Mike followed her sister aircraft down through the airways that led to Kennedy Airport, New York. Patsy, peering out of the very last porthole on the starboard side, saw the vague outlines of the New England hills, faint in the half light, the long straight roadways, the first lights of winter evenings at isolated homesteads and in the towns.
It was quite dark when they landed. Now that the long spell of duty was over, Patsy felt great waves of weariness wash over her. She was only sleepily aware of checking in her supplies, of going through Immigration, and the great warehouse of a Customs Hall. The hurrying, honking crew car along the wide highway to New York was only a gently murmuring cradle. The bright lights, the neon signs, the reflections across the bridge in the black water as they crossed the East River weren’t exciting or splendid, they just made her close her eyes. And then keep them closed.
She opened them again only when the car stopped with a jerk, the rest of the crew started to fumble for brief-cases and caps, and then, like a sleep-walker, she followed them into the hotel.
Only the thought that she must see Janet before she went to bed kept Patsy a little more than half awake. As if mindful that at last they were really going to be able to sleep, the crew waited silently in the foyer for their room numbers. One by one, they took their keys, followed the bell-hops and disappeared into the lifts, like silent, weary ghosts.
‘Miss Morley?’ the room clerk said impatiently in answer to Patsy’s query. ‘Room Seventeen Fifty. Right next to yours.’ He banged the key down on the polished counter, and said ‘You’re welcome,’ to Patsy’s thank you.
High above the New York rush hour, Patsy looked down at Lexington Avenue. Already the shops and roads and sidewalks were crowded with the pre-Christmas rush. Now, the homecoming workers swelled the noise and the traffic. Quickly Patsy took off her cap and her jacket, took out her nightgown and slippers and turned back her immaculate bed and patted it lovingly. Then she walked out of her room and very gently, lest Janet was already sleeping, tapped on the door marked 1750.
‘Come in, if it’s you, Patsy,’ Janet called out. And then as Patsy pushed open the door and saw she was in bed, ‘Yes, still come in. I’ve been asleep, but I’m wide awake now.’ She patted the edge of the bed for Patsy to sit down, and carefully put down her book. ‘Well, we did it.’
‘You got her to hospital?’
Janet nodded. ‘Captain Prentice rang up a few hours ago.’ She put up her thumbs.
‘Thank heaven for that,’ said Patsy.
Janet snuggled down under the bed cover's, luxuriating in the comfort. ‘Prentice,’ she said, smiling in reminiscent admiration, ‘was wonderful. Very quick trip ... we got tail winds for the last hour. Ambulance and hospital bed laid on by wireless before we landed. And he was very decent to the woman. And her mother, too.’ She looked across at Patsy as though expecting contradiction. ‘Prentice,’ she said solemnly, ‘is all right.’
The two of them sat in silence for a moment, digesting this not-over-helpful conclusion. It was easier, Patsy thought, in the days when she had a healthy dislike of him.
‘He’s a strange man,’ Janet said at last.
Patsy didn’t really need to ask, but she said ‘Who?’ in any case.
‘Prentice. You know what I mean ... unexpected.’
Patsy said nothing.
‘And I don’t mean about yesterday. That’s the sort of thing he would do. That’s just one of the things that really makes the job worthwhile. No,’ she smiled one of her sweet gentle smiles, ‘it was something else.’ She looked at Patsy rather shyly. Then she said, ‘You wouldn’t call me the confiding kind, now would you?’
Patsy shook her head slightly.
‘And you wouldn’t call Captain Prentice the kind you’d confide in?’
Patsy shook her head vigorously.
‘And you wouldn’t say that a crew car coming from Kennedy to the hotel after a transatlantic trip, with a diversion to Heron Field, would be the ideal place for a personal chat?’
Patsy merely stared disbelievingly.
‘I thought not.’ Janet pursed her lips. ‘Well,’ she said primly, ‘you’d be wrong!’ She glanced at Patsy’s face. ‘Look, am I keeping you up, or anything?’
For some reason, the thought of Janet’s conversation with Captain Prentice was far more attractive to Patsy now than any thought of bed. ‘No, of course you’re not,’ she said.
‘Well, it was quite a busy trip to New York. Superduper breakfast on board. Captain Prentice came around and fairly did his stuff. Pointed out that the delay was only two hours, after all. Barbara Mayhew was a tremendous hit, too. When we landed, Barbara went in the transport with some of the delegates, and I was dogsbodying around at the Catering Section, and Captain Prentice was busy writing his report in Ops. Anyway, to get to the point ... the rest of the crew went on ahead, and Captain Prentice and I shared a car back to the hotel.’ She looked at Patsy. ‘You looked quite scared at the thought,’ she said gently. Then she looked again. ‘No,’ she said, even more gently. ‘Maybe not exactly scared.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘But I was ... a bit. There isn’t a girl in World-Span who isn’t a little in awe of Captain Prentice.’
‘Except Monica Fairways,’ Patsy said promptly.
‘Mm, I heard that somewhere, too,’ Janet said. ‘But don’t break in. It’s very dis
tracting. Now, let me see ... yes, we had the car just for the two of us. And he started off by being very formal, but very nice. Saying how pleased he was with both of us. You know, me and Barbara ... you looked quite hopeful. Then we talked about the route and about the roster, and of course he asked me if I’d be in for Christmas. This,’ Janet went on, ‘is the strange bit. I told him I was taking leave and going up to Iceland for Christmas ... and what d’you think ... he nearly jumped out of his seat! He looked so surprised ... and you know what a poker face he usually has... that I wondered if I’d broken some company regulation. Then, instead of saying Oh, and minding his own business as I’d have expected, he said Why? Just like that. So,’ Janet added sturdily, ‘as there wasn’t any reason why he shouldn’t know, or anyone else for that matter, I said I was going to see Geoff Pollard ... and then you really could have knocked him down with a feather...’
‘Go on,’ Patsy said. ‘Go on.’
‘But that’s it!’ Janet protested. ‘That’s the story! He seemed so taken aback and yet so pleased.’ And then, as though conscious that her story had fallen distinctly flat, for good measure, she added, ‘Very surprised, and quite delighted.’
‘As I was,’ Patsy reminded her teasingly. ‘As we all were. You had everyone on World-Span surprised. Even the grapevine...’
Janet permitted herself a small smile. ‘Why, yes,’ she murmured. ‘Cynthia told me that the grapevine declared it was Geoff and you ...’ Her voice trailed away, her kind eyes grew suddenly thoughtful. ‘But, Patsy,’ she said, ‘why d’you think he was so pleased?’
Patsy stood up and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘He and I aren’t exactly on the same wavelength.’ She rumpled her hair and yawned. ‘Unless it was fellow feeling. He’s in love. Or so they say. I wouldn’t know.’ She smiled down at Janet. ‘Anyway, I’m for bed. Are you doing a quick turn-round?’
Janet nodded. ‘Off tomorrow. Oh, and Patsy...’
‘Anyway, it’s nice about the woman,’ Patsy said brightly. ‘I’m glad everything came out all right, in the end.’
‘Patsy,’ Janet repeated sternly.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you like Captain Prentice?’
First, Patsy laughed rather shakily and unconvincingly. ‘What on earth...’ she murmured. Then she closed her eyes as though trying to recall the profile that had filled her mind for the last fifteen hours. ‘He’s a good pilot,’ she said judiciously, and opened her eyes to see if she’d answered correctly.
Janet clucked impatiently.
‘And a good captain, I suppose...’ she tried again.
Janet tut-tutted.
‘And they all say he’s excellent in Training...’
‘You,’ Janet snapped. ‘Personally.’
‘Oh, I.’ Patsy grasped the door handle, and stood with erect and weary dignity. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ she said loudly, remembering Monica Fairways, and slightly re-arranging Joanna Trent’s harrowing words of comfort, ‘I hardly know he exists.’
But with the unkindness of fate or the roster (or both) Patsy was reminded, after her return trip to London, not only that Captain Prentice did indeed exist, but also that his existence was tied up fairly closely with her own. For there, just inside the doorway of London Operations, the roster for the coming week was posted on the notice board. And eight days before Christmas, Service No. 401/33 to Montreal was to be captained by Robert Prentice, and stewardessed by Patsy Aylmer.
Nothing remarkable about that, of course. The roster tied up a mixed bag of people for a trip, and then re-did the bundle again with slightly different crew members. And it was just about her turn to be out again with the Training Captain. Besides which, Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, and it being a three-day stop-over in Montreal, it meant that she would be in nice and comfortably two days before Christmas Eve, in lots of time to do the last of her shopping, and to get packed and go home and lend a hand with the decorating. All in all, a trip that she should have been very glad to have.
From the moment that the crew car drew up outside Mrs. Waterhouse’s, Patsy was more than uncomfortably aware of Captain Prentice’s existence. She thought (but no doubt it was the early working of the Christmas spirit) that he gave her a more than kindly ‘Good afternoon.’ But then so did everyone else. She was part of World-Span now, and the men on the crew and the ground staff and the people on the route gave her the sort of friendly, unromantic greetings that she’d been used to all her life at Blanthwaite.
Yet all the time the name of Prentice had a way of leaping into life at her.
When she went in Ops, there it was on the Movements Board. In the Catering Section, it headed the blackboard in the section labelled Commander (how truthful was the board, she thought wistfully) and there it was again on the top manifest, so companionably close to the name of Alymer, P.
But if her own feelings appeared to have undergone an unacknowledged chance, his most certainly had not. For once again (this time a little earlier than she need have done) Miss Fairways walked gracefully across the tarmac followed by an admiring band of passengers. For so lovely, so willowy and so gentle-looking a girl, she had a purposeful look in her velvety eyes.
‘There you are,’ she said quickly to Patsy. ‘Only fifty. Nice easy trip for you!’ She smiled, vaguely and abstractedly, while she glanced from the metal stairway to an area under the port wing, in which were visible only two long uniformed legs. Then she bent down a little so that she could identify the owner.
‘Ah, cheerio,’ she said hastily, a pretty blush just lightly touching the soft perfection of her cheeks. ‘Must rush now!’
She waved a hand mechanically at Patsy and the passengers, and sped away in a direction directly opposite to the Traffic Section, and as Patsy went down the last few steps to help up an old lady who appeared to be having difficulty, she heard that melting voice say with disarming informality, ‘Oh, there you are, Robert! I almost missed you!’
But even that brief encounter with Monica appeared to have put Captain Prentice in good spirits. Not that he showed it obviously, of course. He was still, aboard the aircraft, formal, unhurried, accurate and unbending. But with an extra added intuition (the source of which Patsy dared not question) she knew that he was happy, and she did her very best to be glad for him, too.
It was the easier-than-usual trip, which gives you far too much time to think. So that Patsy was especially glad of Mr. and Mrs. Hitchin. She’d brought them over to London on one of her earliest trips, and now, after a long holiday in Europe, they were returning to Montreal in time for Christmas.
‘Not that we’ll be staying there,’ Mrs. Hitchin said to Patsy as they sipped coffee half-way across the Atlantic. All the other passengers were dozing, and Patsy sat beside them in the seat across the aisle, and chatted about this and that because they obviously wanted to talk.
‘No, sir!’ Mr. Hitchin declared. ‘Not when there’s real honest-to-goodness snow ... Think of that!’ He rubbed his sunburned face where it had trapped the last of the Mediterranean sun, and winked at his wife.
‘We’ll be going up to our ski lodge,’ Mrs. Hitchin explained, diving into her handbag and bringing out a great wallet of snapshots. ‘Sid here bought it way back, and we’ve hardly ever used it ... but now this year, with the snow coming early, before Christmas, Sid had the bright idea of getting the gang up and having a party.’ She handed to Patsy the snapshot of a huge wooden chalet, built Swiss style on the slopes of a thickly wooded mountain.
‘Looks wonderful!’ Patsy exclaimed enthusiastically.
‘It is wonderful,’ Mr. Hitchin said. ‘And we’ll get some of the boys...’
‘... and the girls ...’ Mrs. Hitchin added. Then they both seemed to lapse into contemplation of what boys and what girls would be invited. And then as though they’d simultaneously had the most splendid idea: ‘Say now, why don’t you come along?’
‘Why, I’d love to!’ said Patsy. ‘But I can’t. You see we’ve only
got a three-day stand-off ... and anyway I can’t ski, and even if I could I haven’t got any skis or a ski-suit, only slacks...’
‘That’s all right,’ said Mrs. Hitchin. ‘No need to have a suit, and you can hire skis. It’s a deal, eh?’
Patsy smiled and nodded.
‘We’ll call for you tomorrow, then,’ Mr. Hitchin said. ‘A couple of days in the mountains is just what you need!’
‘Sure is,’ Mrs. Hitchin echoed.
They both regarded their first guest with considerable satisfaction. ‘We’re on the phone up there,’ Mr. Hitchin said. ‘So they can call you if they want you. In fact,’ the Canadian wound up, ‘there just isn’t any excuse we’ll take. Except that you don’t want to...’
‘I’d love to,’ Patsy said quickly. ‘And thank you very much.’ She stood up. ‘And now I’ll just go to the back and get an extra blanket. You might get an hour or so’s sleep.’
And then, as their reading lamp, too, went out, Patsy sat herself down in the rear seat and, leaning her chin on her hand and her elbow on the armrest, gazed out at the clear night sky.
She didn’t see the tall quiet figure moving down the blue-lit aisle among the sleeping passengers. But she did hear Captain Prentice’s voice, as he said, ‘Admiring the scenery again, Miss Aylmer?’
But this time his voice was gentle, and she wondered if she’d been mistaken before in thinking that unsmiling face sarcastic and unkind. Now he leaned a little forward and rested his hand on the back of her seat, so that he could look out at the same patch of star-filled sky. ‘That’s Altair,’ he said, and pointed at one small glittering point among a thousand. ‘Sometimes the navigator uses that for sextant shots ... remember?’ He smiled a gently teasing smile that carried her back to the classroom. Only with a difference.
Here was a hazard of the North Atlantic ... new and unforecasted ... the greatest hazard of all that they never taught you anything about.
‘And there’s Vega.’ His hand was so near her shoulder that if she’d leaned a little back, she would have touched it. And she couldn’t see Vega, or any other star for that matter. She could only see that profile, so close to her own. She didn’t want any lecture on stars or sextant shots or navigation. She just wanted to stay here, in the middle of the Atlantic, the only two people awake in this sleeping cabin, and see his face and hear his voice.
