The Higher They Fly

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  ‘Of course I will. Only you must tell me what’s the matter.’

  The child made a frantic effort to keep herself under control, then managed ‘A man rang up. It’s something about Daddy’s aeroplane.’

  There came in Jeannie a pang which struck with the force of hammer upon anvil. Then, from the shock of the impact, came the protecting numbness. She spoke with slowed precision, like a linguist interpreting at dictation speed. ‘Where is mummy?’

  ‘She’s . . . not very well again.’

  ‘Does she know what the man on the telephone said?’

  ‘No.’ The child then used a phrase whose tragic implications she should not have known. But it was a phrase too often overheard. ‘She’s out for the count.’

  ‘Oh, you poor darling. You look after mummy and I’ll be round as soon as I can get there.’

  Ann’s tears forced themselves through the barricade of pride. ‘Soon. Please come soon!’

  ‘I promise.’

  Jeannie’s movements, like her speech, were precisioned by an enforced discipline which permitted of no panic. Alert to the futility of hysteria, she dialled a Skyport number and discovered the nature of the emergency which involved Statelines Flight Forty-Six.

  Fighting tears of profound relief, because it was not what she expected to hear, she fought with herself also not to allow her hopes to rise above the limits delineated by the situation. She permitted herself faith and optimism . . . but left a blank page in her mind for what might still come. Without this reserve, the shock of what could follow would be multiplied beyond human endurance. The double impact of a verdict reversed—back from reprieve to the original death sentence—is a trial disallowed by any court save that over which no human judge presides.

  Ann Crooke had been waiting at the front door. When she saw the taxi arrive she rushed out and threw her arms around Jeannie and sobbed. Jeannie exchanged a look with the taxi driver. He was a kindly man. Switching off the engine, he climbed down from the cab and spoke while the child was still expressing salt gratitude. ‘Anything I can do, miss?’

  Jeannie, in that moment, so wanted to correct this small error in mode of address. She so wanted to tell this nice, gentle-looking man about Roger, about danger, and the simplicities of a love she knew he would understand She wanted to hear him reply, as she knew he would: ‘He’ll be all right. You trust an old taxi driver. I just have a feeling about it.’

  But she said, ‘No. I’ll be okay. But thanks.’

  She paid him, and led Ann indoors. The child had fallen silent, but gripped Jeannie’s hand tightly.

  They went into the living room.

  Mrs David Crooke, recalcitrant member of Alcoholics Anonymous, lay sprawled on the sofa. Her face, despite the stupor, was gentle. But on it was imprinted the compound interest of incurable torture.

  She did not look ugly, but rather seemed almost beautiful, in the manner of an old master in need of restoring. The cracked varnish and pitted indentations where the bare canvas showed through did not conceal the basic sensitivity of the original. But there existed no craftsman skilled enough to retouch the face of a human being, nor the mind it reflected, so raped by the cruel processes of chemistry.

  Mrs Crooke responded with extraordinary alacrity to black coffee. She remained drunk, but understood what Jeannie said, and her sympathy fell to her. She spoke in a tuneless rasp.

  ‘Crookey-Boy will fly out of it, Jeannie. He’s got himself out of every jam there ever was . . . except this one.’

  Chapter Nine

  A curious peace reigned in the cockpit of Flight Forty-Six. Through the still, thin, stratospheric air the jet cut an eyeline path, requiring no assistance of any kind from the crew.

  Every system functioned to perfection. Precision gyroscopes, sensitive to the slightest change in any of the three dimensions, channelled their findings to electronic equipment which translated them into slight movements of rudder, ailerons and elevators. Without human intervention the Jet-Four was held on an exactly computed course and within a few yards up or down of her known height above sea level.

  Air compressors within the engine bays circulated air and kept the pressure throughout the occupied parts of the aircraft at a constant and comfortable level. Rows of instruments cross-checked themselves against each other and agreed. Four robust jet turbines, each of sixteen thousand pounds static thrust, sucked-in the air they ate during their forward progress, whipped it to high pressure by means of thousands of blades each perfectly balanced, ignited the air-paraffin mixture inside the combustion chambers and woofed the result out of the back. Proof of this process, of its smooth running and safe operation, showed upon the dials of Geoff’s panel.

  As an aeroplane the Jet-Four was flying superbly; and in this did not vary in her performance from a hundred flights prior to this one.

  Yet as a lorry, as a vehicle which would inevitably, as a sine qua non of its existence after a certain point in time, be compelled to alight smoothly and run a mile or so along a stretch of concrete until it stopped, the Jet-Four, for all its elegant swiftness in flight, was a heap of ironmongery in which there had been planted a time bomb.

  At very best, crash-landing an aircraft of this size would mean a loss of half a million pounds in terms of damage. Nobody cared about that now.

  At worst, she would turn turtle and explode, cartwheel into twisted remnants, crush human bodies to death and reduce stupefied onlookers to torment, tragedy and tears. In the wreckage, some would burn, others would be compressed into unrecognizable carcasses and the rest survive more or less unscathed, according to where they sat and which part of the airliner suffered the most severe damage.

  Ditch her in the sea and about the same odds could be quoted by the bookies of fortune. Water is virtually hard as concrete if you strike it at a hundred miles an hour. And although an aircraft is conceived so that a ditching is feasible, that’s what it is—feasible. You need calm water and you must touch at just the right angle; and even then you’ll probably break her back. The aeroplane will sink rapidly and you have to get the passengers clear in conditions tailor-made for panic. Despite the violent inrush of water, which will impede evacuation to an inestimable degree, the danger of fire will still be paramount.

  Crooke was well aware of the potential cost in terms of human lives as he turned his mind to an alternative to these desperation measures.

  While the aircraft flew on unattended, he and Geoff pored over the technical drawings and information contained in the large flight manuals always carried aboard an airliner, though they are seldom needed except as reading matter for conscientious flight engineers who have time to kill.

  But Geoff wasn’t killing time as he opened out the large cut-away plan of the airliner and ringed, with a crayon, a part of the structure which was marked ‘Frame 580’. Within the pencilled circle was included the undercarriage, Number Three Systems Bay, and that section of the passenger accommodation immediately above it.

  Crooke, who still conveyed—to all outward appearances—the impression that he was engaged in a game of chess, tossed a question over his shoulder to Perkins. ‘How many more flying hours?’

  Perkins had this immediately to hand. It was number one issue; for the fuel tanks were now the clock-springs which unwound relentlessly minute by minute. ‘Allowing for letdown, four hours and thirty-five minutes. That leaves no reserve for diversion. Do you agree, Geoff?’

  ‘Yes, I make it four and a half with a bit to spare.’

  Crooke said: ‘I shall stick to my deadline. If at all, we don’t start any surgery for another thirty-five minutes. That’s all the time I can give them downstairs to assess Fleming.’

  Geoff said: ‘What’s the line-up down there?’

  ‘Well, you heard the radio. Roughly speaking, there’s this chap Gregg backing Fleming on the one hand, and Scrivens backing Dawlish on the other.’

  ‘What do you think of Dawlish?’

  ‘He’s a director of the company. That�
��s what I think of Dawlish.’

  ‘And Fleming?’

  Crooke did not answer immediately. He gazed forward at the instruments, as if they could tell him. They remained inscrutable. Eventually Crooke said: ‘We have the answer aboard this aircraft. And we won’t get it.’

  ‘Truman.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Crooke spoke abstractedly. ‘Let’s get Jill up here.’ He used the interphone. ‘Jill? . . . Come up front a moment, will you?’

  Geoff threw him a sceptical look. ‘Will that help?’

  ‘It might.’

  Geoff had his own views on feminine intuition. But he kept his mind on the entrails of the Jet-Four and made no further comment until Jill came in.

  Crooke asked her: ‘How’s the invalid?’

  ‘He’s . . . very odd. We have a doctor on board. She’s talking to him now.’

  ‘A woman doctor? What’s she say?’

  ‘Susan spoke to her.’

  ‘I see. Is Jimmy Truman still in the alcove bar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where he can be seen by some of the passengers . . .?’

  ‘I know, Captain. But there’s nowhere else he can go, really.’ She added: ‘I’m afraid Dr Rogers isn’t really getting through to Jimmy. He just . . . sits there.’

  ‘All right. Sit down, Jill.’

  She sat by Geoff’s panel. Geoff remained in the co-pilot’s seat.

  Crooke went on: ‘This might be a bit embarrassing for you, but it’s pretty important if you can help.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘All this hoo-ha between Jimmy Truman and that chap Fleming—how much do you know about it?’

  ‘To be honest I don’t know what to think now.’

  ‘Did you meet Fleming?’

  ‘Yes, a few times.’

  ‘What did you make of him?’

  ‘Pretty nasty, I thought. He was absolutely ruthless about Jimmy—especially about his flying.’

  ‘How do you know? Are you going by what Jimmy said?’

  ‘No, not entirely. I was there once or twice when they were having an argument. There’s a girl called Julie. It was all mixed up with her.’

  Crooke strove for patience. There wasn’t much time and it was necessary to stick to the vital issues. ‘I thought we were talking about flying. How does she come into the picture?’

  Jill answered with vehemence. ‘She was never out of the picture. Fleming couldn’t discuss anything without dragging her into it.’

  ‘It was Fleming who did this? Not Jimmy?’

  ‘Oh . . . I don’t know. It just happened. It would have gone on happening——’

  ‘—Then what about you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I mean, didn’t it strike you as rather unsatisfactory that Jimmy was involved with two women at once? . . . You, and Julie?’

  ‘These are difficult questions.’

  ‘And a great deal depends on the answers.’

  ‘All right. I was fighting Julie tooth and nail. I thought she was very bad for Jimmy——’

  ‘—And you wanted him. Did you get him?’

  ‘No. I said he had to leave Julie first.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. So of course you must remember that your jealousy of her must have influenced the way you thought at the time. Agreed?’

  ‘Captain Crooke, I——’

  ‘Agreed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Crooke adjusted the brilliance control of the storm radar by means of his foot. ‘Now tell me, what really emerged during these battles between Fleming and Truman?’

  She looked up at him suddenly, as if something had fallen into place for the first time. ‘Fleming complained that he didn’t always have his mind on his flying. I didn’t believe him because I knew that Jimmy was particularly conscientious.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  Geoff chipped in: ‘Jill came to me about it once. I told her that Fleming was talking nonsense. I have never seen a better co-pilot—until tonight.’

  Crooke said. ‘I would have given the same answer. What else did Fleming say?’

  Again, it was as if she had just remembered. ‘He said that flying an aeroplane wasn’t a battle for supremacy. He used an expression something like “fighting him on the controls”—Does that mean anything to you?’

  Crooke and Geoff exchanged glances. ‘Plenty,’ said Crooke. ‘Go on.’

  ‘That’s all there is,’ said Jill, a little too firmly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Susan told me you were worried about Jimmy this flight. Why?’

  Jill looked away. Crooke realised, for a second, how pretty she was. For some reason this made him more vehement. ‘I haven’t got time to play games. It’s important I know what’s been going on. Now let’s have it.’

  Jill looked at him directly and answered in kind. ‘All right, but I don’t suppose you’ll understand it. I didn’t.’

  ‘Try me.’ He smiled at her this time.

  She fixed her stare upon the turn-and-bank indicator, and wondered vaguely what it did. When she spoke her voice was quite different. ‘It was . . . a bit odd. Do you understand classical Greek?’

  Perkins halted in the act of peeling his last banana. ‘I know a little.’ He half expected Crooke to come up with some caustic comment on this. He didn’t; he sat absolutely still, twisted around in his seat so as to face the girl, his right arm resting on the leather back.

  Jill looked from him to Perkins, and for a moment it seemed that some element of the mystic had intruded into the cockpit. The sensation disturbed even Geoff, whose placid nature was not easily alerted to intangible things. ‘He said it in Greek first,’ she said, speaking slowly and deliberately as if determined to recapture the exact impression of a bygone moment. ‘I told him I didn’t understand. He looked at me in a way I’d never seen him look before . . . sort of transparent, as if he wasn’t really there at all. He said: “Don’t you?”—as if he thought I should have known something he could only feel himself.’

  Perkins thought he knew already. ‘“To destroy a man, find his weakest point . . .”’

  Jill stared at him, then completed the quotation in a numbed voice. ‘“. . . for therein lies the source of your own triumphs.”’

  There was silence.

  Then Jill said: ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because it fits.’

  Geoff cleared his throat. ‘I have a feeling I would like a breath of clean fresh air,’ he said.

  Chapter Ten

  Julie ambled into the padded cell as if the entire ramifications of Flying Control had been left to her in someone’s will. She looked at Fleming, who was comparing a technical drawing of the Jet-Four—identical with the diagram carried by Geoff—with a sketch he himself had done of the gear assembly, wheels down.

  Julie said: ‘You seem better.’

  ‘That’s encouraging.’

  ‘I’ve brought you a coffee.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he echoed. ‘There’s quite a lot going on, in one way or another.’

  ‘That isn’t why you’re looking at me like that.’ He didn’t comment, so she said: ‘I saw Mr Gregg a few minutes ago. Did he talk to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It must have been some conversation if you restricted yourself to monosyllables.’

  She sat on the table.

  Such a terse statement as ‘she sat on the table’ could not, however, do justice to the manner in which she did it. Even in his present mood, Fleming could not help a wry smile playing around his lips at this display of perfectly coordinated feminine movements. The performance was something to be admired for its own sake; and when she arrived at what might loosely be termed a sitting position the effect would have done credit to a movie magazine.

  But Fleming reserved the smile for himself. It was necessary to be immunised, at any rate to all exter
nal appearances, as a matter of perverse pride. He knew how necessary she found it to arouse him whenever she observed any signs of indifference; and somehow this game of cat and mouse had never quite died. The truth was that neither of them wanted it to, and so both contributed to a perpetuated brand of tension which was futile because all she ever required of Fleming by way of response was a sign—usually a tenseness of manner—which would reassure her of her own allure.

  When, as on this occasion, she thought the witchcraft had failed in its rather limited object, she would sink into a negative despondency. Her voice would assume a flattened tone and her manner would become defensive.

  Fleming saw it all. The pattern was as familiar to him as the manner in which knives, forks and spoons are arranged on a dinner table. But with Julie, the meal had very seldom been served.

  ‘Julie, you’d better go home and get some sleep.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s nothing you can do here.’

  ‘I was worried about you.’

  ‘Yes I know. I’m sorry about what I said earlier.’

  She tired of her perch on the table and slithered down from it, then ambled over to the window. She somehow contrived to get there faster than her apparent speed seemed to warrant. She stood, looking out of the window; but took in nothing that was visible. ‘I hear Jimmy Truman cracked up.’

  This was something Fleming had not been told. ‘Cracked up? What do you mean?’

  She shrugged, still with her back to him. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, waving aside the information as if she had never provided it.

  ‘Well, what happened?’

  ‘They removed him from the cockpit. That’s all I know.’

  Her bored voice, which implied she had already lost interest in this subject and was now thinking about something quite different, was very deceptive.

  Fleming said simply: ‘Good God.’

  She permitted herself a reaction. ‘I expected you to be pleased.’

  ‘At a time like this? Crooke’s going to need all the help he can get. This is hardly the time for personal issues. Anyway, it isn’t going to make any difference to the situation between you and me.’