by Nevil Shute
My heart sank as I studied it. Lanaldo lay about six miles inland from the sea, and about three from the French frontier. It stood on the side of the Roja valley, about three hundred feet above the main road that runs up the valley from Ventimiglia to the north. No road was shown leading to the town itself. I knew what that meant. It would be one of the walled, cavernous little mountain towns of that neighbourhood, where every street serves as a sewer and every cellar as a stable. That would not have worried me, but that I knew the sort of country that those towns stood in.
As I stood there studying the map upon the table before me I was appalled at the mountainous nature of the country. Literally, it was all up on end. Beyond the bed of the river, I could see nothing to indicate flat country of any description there. Behind the town the hills rose up into a peak about three thousand feet high, called Monte Verde; the country was simply studded with things like that. There was no possible place where one could put down an aeroplane, unless it were in the bed of the river. And I knew what sort of landing that would be.
I lingered for a little while longer over the map. The scale was too small to show houses, but I was able to make a pretty good guess at the probable position of the Casa Alba. I decided that if it were a centre for Soviet activities it must be near the road; if then its address was Lanaldo, it must be on the road immediately below the town. I didn’t think that there’d be much difficulty about finding the house if once I got out here.
I left the maps lying open on the table, meaning to come back and consult them again later in the night. In the stable-yard I found Kitter putting away Sheila’s car. We should want that car before the night was out, I thought.
“Kitter,” I said, and he turned and came towards me. He was a young chap, and very smart on his job; I don’t suppose he was thirty. “Ever had anything to do with aeroplanes?”
He shook his head. “No, sir. I was with the Tanks in the war.”
I nodded. “I’ve got a machine out on the down, this side of Leventer. She wants a new bit of oil pipe — about a foot of seven-eighth stuff, or it may be inch. Rubber pipe. Can you find that for me — to-night?”
“For an aeroplane, sir?”
I nodded.
He shook his head. If he was at all startled, he didn’t show it. “Young Saven might have a bit at his place, sir. I’ve got nothing like that.”
He was a sound man, and I knew that he’d be for me in this thing. I rested one foot upon the running-board of the Talbot and stared at him reflectively. “This has been a damn bad day’s work, Kitter,” I said quietly.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
I put it to him frankly then. I forget exactly what I said, but told him straight out that there was fishy business on hand , and that it hadn’t been quite an ordinary burglary.
And then I told him something about the Breguet, and I told him that I was going to fly it out to Italy at dawn.
And I told him a little more than that — that if he was to help me he’d be putting himself well within the reach of the law, and it might be that I shouldn’t be able to get him out of the mess. I told him all that, and that it was up to him to make his own decision as to whether he gave me a hand with that machine or not. And at the end of that he scratched his head and said:
“I don’t know where you’d go to get a bit of pipe like that,” he said. “There’s just a chance that we can get a bit off young Saven.” And then he said: “Will we be working all night, sir?”
I nodded. “Most of it, if I’m to get away at dawn.”
He considered for a minute. “I think we ought to get young Saven in on this, sir,” he said. “I do, straight. He’s only just come out of the Air Force.”
“Can he keep his mouth shut?”
Kitter laughed. “He’d kill his grandmother for the chance to handle an aeroplane again, sir. Tell him this is on, and he’ll never rest till he sees you in the air. If he gets to know that the police’ll stop you flying if they get on to it . . . I do think we ought to have Saven, sir.”
And so we had Saven, and we got out Sheila’s car and ran down to Under in it, and ran Saven to earth in his father’s pub. Kitter went in to broach the matter with him while I went on to the police station. They kept me there discussing the burglary for over half an hour; in the end we came to the conclusion that Sanders must have disturbed the burglars before they had had time to get to work on my safe. I signed a deposition that they had stolen my cash-book, since Sanders had admitted to seeing them with something black. The Inspector congratulated me that nothing more important was missing.
I got away from there at last, and went back to the pub. Kitter and Saven were in the little garage in the yard, turning over a heap of scrap and junk in the light of a candle stuck in a bottle.
Saven turned to me as I came in. The flickering candle flung great shadows around the little place as I stood in the doorway, peering around among the wrecked and derelict ten-pound cars that Saven deals in.
“Evening, Saven,” I said. “Kitter told you about this machine?”
He came forward, and nodded. He was a little short man, quite young, and with a shy, bird-like manner. “He told me as you wanted a bit of oil union for it, sir. This stuff the right size, do you think?”
I took the pipe he handed me. “I couldn’t say till we try it on the job.”
“What’s the machine, sir? That’s what they use on Avros, and the like o’ that.”
I shook my head slowly. “She’s a Breguet Nineteen.”
In the flickering darkness he stared at me in amazement. “The French Breguet — what they done the long-distance flights on?”
I nodded. “That’s the machine.”
“Lord, sir,” he said. “She’s as big as a Fawn.”
I nodded. “I’ve never seen a Fawn,” I said. “But this one’s pretty big.”
I had aroused his interest thoroughly. “How would it be if I was to come along with you and fit this bit o’ pipe, sir?” he inquired. “I’ve never worked on one o’ them, but I’ve got a ticket for most of our Service types, and I expect it’s about the same.”
In the darkness I was suddenly aware that I was very tired. “I came to ask if you could give a hand,” I said.
We went out of that place and got into the car. Saven was talking to Kitter in low tones. From what I heard, Kitter was telling him he’d got to keep his mouth shut. I thought, as I drove, that the gods had been very good in sending me a couple of first-rate mechanics at this time. With their help I had just a sporting chance of getting this machine into the air; without them the odds would have been so heavily against me that I do not think I should have had the courage to go through with it. They were local men, both of them, born and bred within ten miles of the place where I was born and bred myself. West Sussex, all of us. I had known of them, and they of me, since we were ten years old. I knew they wouldn’t let me down in this affair, however fishy it might seem to them, and that knowledge heartened me.
It was very dark, but a fine, overcast night. I remember that I turned to Kitter once during the drive. “We’ll take this car right up to the barn,” I said. “We shall need the lights.”
And so we left the road not very far from the spot where I had picked up Lenden on that first night of all, and we went wandering over the grass upon an ancient track, barely distinguishable in the darkness, down the incline of the slopes. It was rough going but we went slowly, and so we arrived at the barn at about eight o’clock in the evening of that night. Behind the barn the broad overhanging wings of the Breguet loomed deserted in the headlights, exactly as she had been when I saw her last.
“Lumme!” said Saven. “She isn’t half a size!” He turned to me as I got out of the car. “Did you say you’re going to take her up yourself, sir?”
I nodded at him in the dim, white light. “That’s the big idea.”
He seemed about to say something, but didn’t say it. We swung the car round behind the barn until the lights bore on t
he engine cowling of the Breguet, and then we got to work. It was a pleasure to watch Saven on the job. In five minutes he had stripped the cowling with our help and had got a clear idea of the run of the petrol and oil systems. He had brought with him in the car a great assortment of stuff, with many tools.
By nine o’clock the job was done. He had examined every oil and petrol pipe, and had remade the majority of the flexible unions. He had examined the water system, and had run over every other component of the engine very systematically. And then, at the last, he dropped down from the nose of the machine and stood wiping his hands upon a bit of rag.
“Well,” he said quietly. “She should run now.”
It took us about twenty minutes to get her started. She went off with a rush then and surged forward against the pig-trough that we had fitted for chocks, till Saven caught her on the throttle. We let her run warm for a bit, and then we ran her up to full power. She ran up sweet and true, for all her week out in the open. In the end Saven throttled her down, and we saw him begin to clamber from the cockpit. He hesitated up there for a minute, and then climbed slowly to the ground.
“She’s running very sweet,” he said. He turned to me. “About the petrol, sir. Will she have enough for what you want?”
I had been thinking about that. “Lenden said she had fuel left for seven hours,” I muttered. “We’d better make it up to ten. What’ll she use an hour?”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “I couldn’t rightly say. Twenty-five gallons an hour, cruising, perhaps — maybe thirty. Say we’ll want another forty to forty-five tins of Shell. That’ll mix up with the stuff what’s in the tank, if it’s Aviation, and she won’t notice the difference, I don’t think.”
I nodded. “Can you get that quantity to-night?”
He said he thought he had that much in store.
I clambered up into the cockpit, and Saven came up and sat on the cowling beside me, and for a quarter of an hour he coached me in the massed controls till I knew every tap in the petrol system and every gadget on the dash by heart, with its appointed function in the scheme of things. Essentially the flying controls were the same as when I used to fly. Those were straightforward, and my skill was the only criterion for their proper use. The engine and fuel controls had to be learned by heart, and he coached me till I was word-perfect. It worried me that all the labels were in French.
Finally Saven and Kitter got out on to the wing-tips, and we set to work to taxi her up the hill.
There was a south-westerly wind that night. I had decided with Saven that we would take her up to the top of the down, and then along as far as we could get her to the east. That would give me about half a mile in a south-easterly direction for my take-off before I came to the telegraph wires bordering the road. I’d got to get her over those.
Those wires were a worry to me. The first three or four hundred yards of that run was flat; from there the ground sloped gently down to the road. I didn’t know how much run a machine like this would want; I only knew that that old B.E. that I used to fly in the war would have got off in about half that distance if she was ever going to get off at all. Things might have changed a bit, however, since last I flew. It scared me to think how long ago that was.
I knew what would happen if she didn’t clear the wires, of course. She would trip up on them and go crashing down nose first into the field beyond, and with all that petrol in the fuselage she was pretty certain to take fire.
It’s sometimes an encumbrance to know too much. The thought of that fire didn’t help me a bit.
We got her up on the top of the down all right, and then we began to manœuvre her into the correct position. Finally we settled her quite comfortably at the extreme end of the run, with her tail in among the gorse bushes that formed the limit of the good ground. That was the last that we could do with her for the present. I stopped the engine, took a last look round the cockpit, and clambered down to the ground.
Kitter and Saven were talking together by the wing-tip. They broke off as I approached, and Kitter came towards me.
“I’ve been talking to Saven, sir,” he said. “You don’t want to start away before it’s light, do you?”
I shook my head. “I’ll get away directly we can see the road from here.”
“You’ll go back to the Hall, an’ get a bit of sleep now, sir?”
He eyed me anxiously. “Reckon you’ll want a bit of sleep before starting, sir. Flying all that way. I’d come and call you when you want. There’s nothing more to do here, bar filling her up, and Saven and I can do that.”
I hesitated. “Somebody’s got to stand by the machine all the time she’s out here,” I said. “It won’t do for her to blow away now.”
“That’s so,” said Saven. “I tell you what. I’ll run you back to Under while Mr. Kitter stays out here, sir. Then I can get the petrol from my place, and come back. And then Mr. Kitter can come and call you when you want. . . .”
I considered for a moment. “It will be light enough by half-past five,” I said. “I should have to be called soon after four.”
“That’s right, sir,” said Kitter.
And we arranged it so. I knew that a little sleep might make all the difference to the upshot of this flight; I was tired and sleepy as it was, and I was most terribly worried about those telegraph wires. I should want to be absolutely on the spot when it came to getting over those, I thought. Curiously enough, I cannot remember that I worried very much about the other end of the flight. That was hopeless, I suppose.
We left Kitter with the pickets and the mallet in case the wind got up, and I went back to the Hall with Saven in the Talbot. He dropped me at the entrance to the yard, swung her round, and went back, by the way that he had come, to load the little car with petrol cans.
I went into my house. There was nobody there and the fire was nearly out; on the mantelpiece the clock showed five minutes to eleven. I kicked the fire together and threw on a little more coal, poured myself out a whisky and soda, and then I went over to the mansion.
Everyone had gone up to bed, for I had to let myself into the mansion with my key. The lights were all out, and in the darkness the great house was very still. I went up into the library and settled down there for half an hour; in the stillness of the house the small rustling of my movements startled me with their immensity. I was very tired.
I had only indifferent material for my study. There was a good map of France in the Encyclopædia Britannica, but to a lamentably small scale. I settled down to plot my course with that and with the “Maps of Europe”, which were on much too large a scale to give me much assistance. I had no protractor, and only a slip of paper for a scale. But as I bent over the maps the old practice began to come back to me in flashes; there was the Mediterranean — a big mark to hit — and there was the straight course to it. I noted the compass bearing. For windage, I must try to correct my course by landmarks as I went along.
I stayed up there for half an hour, but there was very little that I could do. I tore the map out of the Encyclopædia and folded it carefully, and I tore out three pages from the “Maps of Europe”. Those three are still missing, and one can see the pruned edges in the volumes; I replaced that volume of the Encyclopædia, but the others were irreplaceable. And then, having done what I could to lay my amateurish course, I went back to my house.
In the sitting-room the fire had burnt up well, and was throwing great flickering shadows upon the walls and ceiling. I lit the reading-lamp by the piano and busied myself for a time in minor preparations for the flight. I had an old automatic pistol with a few clips of cartridges that I used to carry in the war in case of fire. I got out this thing, saw that the mechanism still worked freely, and slipped it into my pocket. Then I set to looking out warm clothing.
By a quarter to twelve all that was done. There was nothing for it now but to go to bed till Kitter came to call me.
I stood in the middle of the room, and stared around. Lenden would be in the train on
his way south from Paris by now, getting on towards Dijon. I could picture him huddled in the corner of a French second-class carriage, nursing his new-found patriotism and the image of his wife, awake and dark-eyed in the night. I could see him in the long pauses of the train in the stations, his long hair ruffled and falling down upon his forehead, rubbing the dew from the window to try and find out how far he had gone upon his way, while the train went “Whew . . .” and a little horn sounded from the rear. I wondered if he was armed. I wondered what story he was going to tell at the Casa Alba.
I moved over to the piano and sat down, wondering impersonally whether I should live to see him again.
I sat there for a little time before the piano, thinking about the work I’d done in Sussex since the war, and the small noises from the fire made me company, so that I was not quite alone. And then, after a time, I stirred a little on the stool and began to play.
I cannot remember what I played that night. There was almost certainly a strong vein of Chopin, and I dare say I played a little Grieg, because I was in that mood. I may have gone on playing for twenty minutes or so. And then, in a pause, I dropped my hands sharply from the keys and swung round on my seat. There was somebody coming in by my front door.
Long before she came in sight I knew that it was Sheila. She came and stood in the open doorway of my room, and I smiled at her from the music-stool.
“Good evening,” I said. “I hope I didn’t wake you up by my playing?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said. “I heard you playing, and so I came over.”
She moved closer to the fire, and crouched down before it. She had only a coat on over her pyjamas, and bedroom slippers on her bare feet; she had, in some queer way that I am not competent to describe, the appearance of having slept in her hair, and being only recently awake. And because she hadn’t got the proper quantity of clothes on, I didn’t go over to her, because I was afraid of making her feel awkward, and so we sat at opposite ends of the room, she crouched down before the fire and I on my music-stool. And for a little while we sat like that in silence.
