by Nevil Shute
“I’m all right,” I said. “I’ll get into the air pretty soon, I think, and get my wireless going.”
“Right you are. I’m packing up now. We’ve got that ship all right; I can see the destroyer alongside, and the sloop standing off a little way. Cheer-oh, and good luck.”
“I’ll need it,” I said, and put down the instrument. I turned to the Sapper officer and told him briefly what had happened, that we had got the vessel that had brought the dope to England.
“That’s the stuff,” he said phlegmatically.
I left him and went out to the machine. It was a little before four o’clock; it was time I got under way. I talked for a minute or two to the mechanic; then he left me and went clambering about over the engine. I took my leather coat and helmet from the lower plane and began to dress.
It was getting a little grey towards the east. The moon was still high and there was plenty of light for me to see to get off the ground. The subaltern came out and watched me as I made my final preparations. I talked to him for a little about the wireless and the reports that he was to put through to me. He wished me luck.
“Ready when you are,” said the mechanic.
I clambered up on to the rounded fuselage of the machine and slid heavily down into the cockpit. I busied myself there for a minute or two, head down in the cockpit, settling into my seat and peering at my faintly luminous instruments. Then I sat up.
The mechanic was standing ready by the propeller.
“Switch off?”
“Switch is off.”
He began to turn the propeller slowly, blade by blade. I stared round over the field, looking more spacious than it really was in the dim light, and decided which way I would take off. There was very little wind.
The mechanic stopped turning the propeller, settled one blade into a convenient position, and stood waiting for me, both hands grasping the blade above his head beyond the long tapering nose of the machine.
“Contact.”
I thrust an arm out of the cockpit and fumbled with the switch on the fuselage.
“Contact,” I said. “Let her rip.”
He flung the propeller round and swung clear; the engine fired with a cough and steadied into a regular, even beat. I left her to warm up for a little; then ran her up to full power and throttled down again.
I waved my hand and the mechanic pulled the chocks from under the wheels. I settled my goggles securely on my helmet, and nodded to the officer. Then I opened the throttle a little and we went rolling over the grass towards the hedge.
Close to the hedge I swung her round and faced up into the wind. Before me the field stretched, wide and dim. I remember that I was glad to be flying again. I was getting back to work that was peculiarly my own. On the ground I was one among many, but in the air it was different. There weren’t many people in England that were better in the air than I. That heartened me, but there was another point, I remember, that appealed to me very strongly at the time. It’s not often that people like me get a chance of doing something that’s worth while in England. We knock about, fly, make money and lose it, get drunk, get sober again, play golf ... and do damn-all good to ourselves or anybody else. But just once and again we get our chance — the chance to do with our cunning hands what the whole world of cunning heads cannot achieve.
I pushed open the throttle, and we went rolling over the grass and up into the air above the shadowy hedge. I let her climb on steadily straight ahead as I always do when flying at night, and looked back to mark the faint glow of the lighted tent. The country was in utter darkness. I saw one light in what I imagined to be Taunton, and then I picked up one or two coloured lights from the railway signals. For the rest, it was as black as the pit below me.
I turned and flew back over the tent at about a thousand feet. Then I set about winding down my aerial and getting into touch with the wireless. I got through to them without difficulty. As soon as I plugged in my telephones and switched on I heard the voice of the corporal monotonously droning from the tent his call signal and my own.
I spoke to the officer, and as I did so I turned again in the dim light and made for the north coast, near Watchet, climbing steadily as I went. A glance at the map will show that the peninsula of Devon and Cornwall narrows considerably in the region of Taunton, forming a sort of neck barely thirty miles from north to south, from Watchet to Lyme Regis. It was for this reason that we had chosen Taunton. Travelling all out I could cover that thirty miles in about a quarter of an hour; in daylight I should have the whole of it in view from the sea on one side to the sea on the other at any height above three thousand feet, given decent visibility. It would be luck if I succeeded in picking up the seaplane, but I had a good sporting chance.
The east began to show very grey. I kept in conversation with the subaltern as I flew on. There was very little cloud about to worry me; I climbed to about seven thousand feet and steadied her at that. It was high for observation in the half light — very high. I had two reasons for it. In the first place, putting myself in the other man’s shoes if I had to fly over land unostentatiously I should fly high, and it seemed to me that I ought to be above him at the beginning of the pursuit. The second reason was that if I were well above him I should have an additional advantage of speed over him, in that I could gain an extra ten or twenty miles an hour by putting my nose down and gradually losing height.
When I was nearly up to Watchet the Sapper broke off the desultory conversation that we had been keeping up. In a minute or two he spoke again.
The sound-ranging people had reported an aeroplane near Padstow. They had not sighted it, but reported that it appeared to be travelling northwards along the coast. They identified it with the machine that had gone down before.
The time was then twenty minutes past four. I scaled off the distance on the map, made a guess at the speed of a float seaplane with a Rolls Eagle, and came to the conclusion that she would pass Taunton a little before five. I asked the Sapper to wake up the look-out on Hartland who had missed the machine before, and set to patrolling between Taunton and Watchet.
We had great luck with the weather. The dawn came up in yellow streaks, and practically cloudless. I could see that visibility was going to be good and got the wind up that I should be seen by the seaplane before I could see them, and climbed to about eleven thousand feet. I thought I should be pretty safe up there; I didn’t think that the seaplane would be able to get up so high as that without a great effort. I put six or seven thousand as her comfortable height.
We got no report from Hartland. Later we discovered that the seaplane turned inland in the neighbourhood of Boscastle and never went near Hartland at all. We should have done better to have planted more posts inland; as it was, it was the ones along the Exeter-Barnstaple road that really pulled us through. At about a quarter to five one of them rang up from a point a few miles south of Barnstaple.
The seaplane had passed about a mile to the north of him, he said. He had seen it clearly. It was flying high, but when questioned he could not say how high. We pressed him for a rough guess, and extracted from him the opinion that it was about as high as a cloud on a fine day.
I edged down towards Taunton, and began searching the horizon and the ground for any sign of the seaplane creeping slowly over the fields. It was a heartbreaking task. The light was fairly good by this time, but the detail of the ground, the pattern of the fields and woods and hedges confused the eye. I could see nothing of the machine. Time slipped by, and still there was no sign. I was getting thoroughly worried when the subaltern spoke through the telephones into my ear.
“We can hear an aeroplane here,” he said. “I’m not sure that it isn’t you. Where are you now?”
I leaned forward and spoke into the mouthpiece strapped to my chest. “I’m about three miles south of Watchet,” I said. “I’ll throttle my engine — see if you hear the note change. It’ll take a minute or two before you hear it, remember.” I pulled the throttle back and
put the machine on the glide. “I’ve throttled down now. I’m making practically no noise at all.”
“Right you are,” he replied. “Now wait while we listen.”
I sat up and looked anxiously all round ahead of me. Without my engine I was losing height rapidly, at the rate of about a thousand feet a minute. I kept glancing at the slow movement of the second hand of my wrist-watch. When a minute and a half had gone by I leaned forward and spoke again.
“What’s happening now?”
“The noise is still continuous.”
“It’s probably the seaplane. I’ll give it half a minute more for luck before I switch on my engine. Go on listening.”
We sank lower and lower. At about nine thousand feet I tried again.
“What does it sound like now?”
“The noise is still quite continuous. I think it must be the seaplane — can’t be anything else. I’ve got all the men out looking for it, but we haven’t seen it yet. It sounds as if it was to the south of us.”
I opened my throttle, shoved the nose of the machine down, and went full out for Taunton, losing height as I went. I was halfway there and doing a hundred and forty miles an hour at six thousand when the subaltern spoke again.
“Captain Stenning. Can you hear what I am saying?” He spoke very distinctly. “We’ve sighted the seaplane. Your man saw her first. She’s about three miles due south of us now.”
“Keep her in sight,” I said. “I’m going to come right over you. Be ready to give me a compass bearing of her when I’m directly above you. What height is she?”
There was a pause. “Your man says she’s about four thousand feet up.”
I shoved my nose down a bit more and raced full out for Taunton. I had revised my ideas about height. I should be coming up on the seaplane from behind; in that position I should be less conspicuous if I were below her, hidden by her own tail and with a dark background of fields. Moreover, it would be easier for me to pick her up if she were silhouetted against the sky. I kept in touch with the ground, and passed over the tent at about a thousand feet.
As I drew near they gave me a course and a distance — southeast by east about six miles. I swung the machine round on to the course and went full out along that line, heading for Yeovil.
The voice of the subaltern spoke clearly into my ear. “Turn about ten degrees more to your left,” he said distinctly. “You are aiming behind her.”
I swung round a little, and then suddenly I saw the seaplane clearly outlined against the sky.
“Right you are,” I said. “I’ve got her now.”
She was two or three thousand feet above me and several miles ahead; I was creeping up on her fast. To reduce my speed I climbed a little and finally took up a station a couple of miles behind her and fifteen hundred feet below; I knew that in that position I would be practically invisible from her. While I was getting into position I thanked the Sapper for his help and told him to tell the Bournemouth Broadcasting Station that I was trying to get in touch with them. We had arranged that several stations in the south should be standing by, and we had an inspector at most of them.
The Sapper said that my mechanic wanted to speak to me before they shut down, and in a minute I heard him on the phone.
“Is that Captain Stenning? It’s me speaking — Adams, sir. You come quite close here — we seen you swing round and go after them a fair treat. Don’t forget that what I told you, about not running her too slow. It’s the perishing oil they give us — all right in the winter. Keep her going and she won’t give you no trouble. You give them blighters ‘ell, sir. That’s right, you give them ‘ell.”
With that as a valediction I switched off; soon afterwards I picked up Bournemouth and spoke for a little to the superintendent there. We passed directly over Somerton and began to follow the railway in the direction of Frome. It was pretty obvious by that time that we were making for Salisbury Plain; indeed, I had been privately of that opinion all along. There was really nowhere else that could give the secrecy in landing that they would require. I felt this so strongly that I made the Bournemouth people switch me through to Salisbury by a land line, and spoke a few minutes to the superintendent there. He told me that he had motors and police in readiness at Salisbury and at Devizes, and that the Air Force were standing by with a couple of machines at Upavon.
We passed over Bruton. I was sure from the steady course that the seaplane was keeping that I hadn’t been spotted. I had done everything that I could to ensure them a warm reception; my only duty now was to keep Bournemouth informed of the course that we were heading. I had leisure now to study the seaplane more closely; suddenly I realized what she was, and why she had seemed vaguely familiar.
She was the old Chipmunk. She was the only one of her sort, built to the order of a wealthy young coal merchant just after the war. I don’t know who it was who first called her the Chipmunk — her owner repudiated the name vigorously. (He called her Queen of the Clouds, and had it painted on the fuselage.) There was something about her tubby lines that suggested a chipmunk, and it was as the Chipmunk that she was universally known. She was very slow. For five years she had been entered for every King’s Cup race, ambling round the course at a speed that defied the most benevolent efforts of the handicappers. I knew that she had been sold, and I knew to whom she had been sold — a young chap called Bulse who described himself as a stockbroker. He was always about at Croydon. It was the Chipmunk all right. She had suffered a sea change; her wheels and undercarriage had been removed and floats substituted, probably with wheels incorporated to make her into an amphibian. But there was no doubt about her.
I passed this information on to the superintendent at Bournemouth, who forwarded it to the Yard. That gave us one good line to put us in touch with the organization in England, at any rate.
We followed the railway as far as Bruton, but here we left it as it trended a little to the north, and took a course that would carry us a little to the south of Warminster. I got pretty busy with the wireless again. Before us I could see the great rolling deserted stretches of the Plain. I knew that the Chipmunk might be landing any time now.
We passed a mile or so south of Warminster. Directly we were past the town the Chipmunk changed direction and headed a little more to the north. I watched her intently, half afraid that they had spotted me. Then as I watched I saw her tail cock and her nose go down into a glide, and she began to lose height. She was going down to land.
I became furiously busy on the wireless. Everything was ready; I had only to tell them the exact point of landing. I kept my eyes fixed on the Chipmunk as she slipped rapidly down on to the Plain, and turned away from her, in order that they should not see my machine till they were actually on the ground. I turned almost at right-angles and watched her as she landed beyond my wing tip, and all the time I was telling Salisbury about it. Then I saw her touch the Plain, run along, and come to rest.
Within half a minute I had given Salisbury the map reference, and the first part of my job was done. I knew now that the police were on the way.
I was then at about a thousand feet and two miles to the east of the Chipmunk, now stationary upon the grass. I reeled in my aerial, swung the machine round towards her, and put my nose down to go and have a look-see.
The machine had landed about three miles southwest of the little village of Imber. There was a road that ran from Imber to Warminster across the plain, and there were three touring cars halted together on this road at the point nearest to the machine. The Chipmunk was stationary on the grass about two hundred and fifty yards from the road. As I got closer I saw that there was a ditch running across the plain that had evidently prevented the pilot from landing in a more convenient position for the cars, or from taxi-ing towards them.
I don’t know when they first realized that I was there. I came on them from the east travelling at a hundred miles an hour or so at a height of about a hundred and fifty feet, and flying erratically as I craned over the si
de of the cockpit to have a good look. I saw the Chipmunk standing on the grass with her engine stopped, and I saw a little crowd of eight or nine men standing beside her, all looking up at me. Then, as I passed over them, my eye travelled on to the three cars on the road, a good two hundred and fifty yards away.
The cars were deserted.
I don’t generally pride myself on rapid headwork, but when I saw that, I crashed my hand down upon my thigh and broke into a burst of laughter as I heaved the machine round in an Immelmann turn and dived straight on to the Chipmunk. I saw at once what had happened. All the men in the cars had run over to meet the seaplane when she landed, and there they were, with a good two hundred and fifty yards of open grass between them and their cars. To get away in the cars they had to cross the grass.
“By God!” I laughed. “We’ll show these ruddy Dagoes what’s what!”
I dived for the seaplane with my engine full out and pulled up over her at the last minute, missing her top plane by a few feet. I saw the little crowd shrink close into the shelter of the seaplane as I dived on them, and then I was up and away, and turning round in the cockpit to watch their fright. I was really quite close to them for a moment, and as I swept up over them laughing like hell I caught them looking up at me, and I knew that they had seen me laughing. Then I thought of all that I must mean to them — defeat, imprisonment, ruin, perhaps even death itself. And then I thought of how they must have felt when they saw me laughing at them, and I laughed again.
I should like to be able to record that I took what followed in a serious vein. I can’t say that. There is an elation in the dangerous game of stunting an aeroplane close to the ground that quickly becomes overpowering. I can only remember two sensations clearly during the next ten minutes. The first was that I was laughing almost continuously, and the other was that when I was not laughing I was singing the unexpurgated version of a popular song.
