by Nevil Shute
By eleven o’clock they were near Yarmouth, cutting across a corner of the land again on their way to the coast of Lincolnshire.
The pilot sat motionless at the wheel. He wore a flying helmet fitted with headphones; he had turned on the radio to one of the continental stations and was listening to dance music. From time to time he made a small adjustment to the tail control above his head; as fuel was consumed the trim of the machine altered very slightly. Now and again he pulled a map from beneath his leg and compared it with some feature on the ground; from time to time he did a little sum upon a slide rule to check his ground speed. Every twenty minutes he reset the directional gyro in agreement with the compass. These little occupations lessened the monotony for him; between them he listened to the dance band.
In the seat beside him, Lockwood had fallen asleep.
Behind the pilot Alix sat motionless, staring at the slowly moving countryside. She had not expected that a flight would be like this. She had expected that to fly would be thrilling, or at least interesting. In fact, she found that it was neither. Her head felt thick and woolly from the clamour of the engine. A patch of sunlight lay across her lap; that part of her in the sun was unbearably hot; out of the sun she was a little cold. She could not move to any other seat; there was no blind to be pulled down.
They had been two hours in the machine; already she was tired, bored, and cross. The pilot said there were another five hours to go.
Her seat was getting very hard. She shifted her position uneasily.
At twelve o’clock they passed the mouth of the Humber, and Spurn Head. There were clouds in the sky now, and more ahead; the day was gradually becoming overcast as they got further north. Lockwood was awake again and studying the map, comparing it with the coast. Behind them the girl was falling into an uneasy coma of fatigue.
Presently Ross suggested lunch. They had brought sandwiches with them from the hotel at Hythe; they ate these off Sunderland, proceeding steadily towards Scotland. The food woke them up, and refreshed them. The weather here was almost wholly overcast and rather cold; they came down to fifteen hundred feet and felt better.
At two o’clock they were off the Firth of Forth; away to the west they saw the smoke of Leith and Edinburgh. They crossed the mouth of the firth and met the coast again at Arbroath; then for nearly an hour they followed it to Aberdeen. At Aberdeen they took a cut across the land, and came to Banff at about three o’clock.
Up there the day was bright again, and the sun warm. Ross turned northwest by compass for Cromarty; presently he was able to show his passengers an indentation in the heather-covered cliffs ahead, and an appearance of water behind.
“Cromarty Firth,” he said. “Invergordon’s on the north side somewhere.”
Lockwood smiled. “I shan’t be sorry to get there.”
“I know. It’s very boring, isn’t it?”
He turned and spoke to Alix. “Are you very tired, Miss Lockwood?”
She shook her head. “No — I’m not tired. But I shall be very glad to get out.”
“So shall I.”
Ross brought the machine down to a thousand feet and flew into Cromarty from the sea. He had never been there before, but he found Invergordon without difficulty and circled low over the water to find the red buoy that he had arranged should be prepared for him to moor the seaplane to. He saw it in the position that he had arranged, a little to the west of the main jetty. There were no ships in the firth, and no sign of any boat to meet him at the buoy. He went up to a thousand feet again and turned to Lockwood.
“When we land,” he said, “we’ve got to make fast to that red buoy. I can taxi up to it on the water; can you get down onto the float and catch it?”
“Of course I can. Tell me what I’m to do.”
The mooring gear was very simple. A bridle of steel cable joined two stout bollards, one in the nose of each float. From the centre of this bridle a cable was led down the outside of the port float to a point near the cabin door, and was held in clips from which it could readily be pulled out. At the aft end this cable carried a large spring hook, exactly like a dog-leash clip, on an enormous scale.
To moor the seaplane, somebody had to get down from the cabin and stand upon the curved top of the float as the plane taxied up to the buoy. The top of the float was only a few inches from the water; if there were waves they would wet his feet. He had to pull the cable from its clips along the float and have the spring hook ready in one hand. Then the machine would manœuvre to bring the buoy to his feet; he would catch it with a little boathook that they carried in the cabin, clip the hook onto it, and let it go. The seaplane would then ride to the buoy, attached to it by the cable and the bridle to the floats.
Ross explained this to Lockwood as they cruised around over Invergordon; the don had no difficulty in understanding what he had to do. But the girl interposed.
“You’d better not do that, Daddy,” she said. “I can get down there much better. You stay here.”
She turned to Ross. “I’ve just got to catch the buoy with the boathook, and clip the spring hook onto it?”
He nodded. He was glad that she had volunteered. It seemed to him that there was nothing difficult about it, but perhaps it was a job better for youth than for age. “That’s all you’ve got to do,” he said. “Keep a good hold on something — the float may be slippery. Try not to lose the boathook. There’s a little leather loop on it — put that over your wrist. And look, don’t try and hold onto the buoy if you can’t manage. Let it go, and I’ll bring her round to it again.”
“I suppose there’s something on the buoy for the spring hook to clip on to?”
“There ought to be a metal ring.”
“That’s quite clear, Mr. Ross.”
“All right. I’ll put her down now. Don’t open the cabin door until I tell you.”
He made a wide sweep into wind and sank to the surface of the water. He touched down gently; the machine sank forward on the floats and pulled up quickly. Ross opened the side window at his elbow to its full extent, swung the machine round, and taxied towards the buoy. When he was near it he slowed the machine down to a walking pace and turned to the girl.
“All right now, Miss Lockwood. Be careful how you get down on the float.”
She got up from her seat and opened the door. The float below was practically awash; she did not like the look of it at all. Still, she had said that she could do it. In any case, it had to be either her or her father, since the pilot could not leave his seat. She was suddenly angry that he should expect her to do such a thing. It was absurd that she should have to do this. It was an error in the organisation, an inefficiency for which he was responsible. Still, there was nothing for it.
She crawled backwards out of the open door and lying on her stomach on the sill, felt for the float with her toes. She levered herself out further, and touched it. Her skirt was rucked up to her waist, making her angrier still; mercifully there was nobody there to see.
She found her foothold on the float and stood erect. He had warned her that it might be slippery; it was. She was wearing her normal walking shoes, with leather soles and medium high heels. She ought to have had rubbers on for this. He should have told her.
She clutched the wing strut and turned forward; from his window he was watching her intently. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She said shortly and acidly, “I’m quite all right, thank you, Mr. Ross.”
She turned gingerly and took the boathook from the floor of the cabin; then she stooped down and unfastened the spring hook from the float. The pilot opened a chink of throttle very gently, keeping one eye upon the girl standing behind his shoulder on the float; the machine crept forward to the buoy.
There was a strong tidal current running past the buoy. The wind was light; he made a circuit and approached up the tide. He knew from much experience in the past that the only real danger in this sort of thing lay in allowing the machine to become held by the mooring wi
th the floats broadside to the tide. Then, if the tide were strong enough, the seaplane might be capsized; it was a real danger, that. In a way the tide made it easier, however; he could keep steerageway and yet come very slowly to the buoy. The girl should have no difficulty, he thought.
A wave slopped over the float and over the girl’s feet, filling her shoes with water. She became suddenly furious, but said nothing.
The buoy appeared beside the float. Ross nursed the machine gently up to it. Alix stooped as it came to her, caught it easily with the boathook, and clipped the cable to the ring. From the window ahead of her the pilot said:
“Good show. Let it go now.”
She did not hear him very well. She stood there with the buoy held in her hand, looking forward at him. “Do you mean put it in the water?”
He sat screwed round in his seat, looking backwards at her. “Just throw it all in.”
She shuffled a little, and threw the buoy back into the sea with the cable attached to it. “Do you mean like that?”
“That’s fine.”
The pilot swung round in his seat. In the short time that he had taken his eyes from the forward view the seaplane had been blown round, and she now lay well across the tide, drifting rapidly downstream as the slack of the cable took up. There was no time to be lost.
He said, “Bloody hell!” and thrust the throttle wide open, treading hard upon the rudder to get her straight again. The engine opened out with a roar and a blast of air from the propeller; at the same moment there was a considerable jerk from the floats as the machine was brought up sharply on the mooring. There was a scuffling noise behind him as the plane swung back to the stream, and then a splash. The machine swung straight; he pulled the throttle back, and turned in his seat, aghast. The girl had fallen in.
Ross jumped from his seat, pushed past Lockwood, and was at the cabin door in a moment. She was swimming strongly a yard or two away from the float; the swing had carried the machine a little way from her. He was down on the float in an instant, caught her hand, and pulled her up beside him; she still held the boathook.
Her wet silk blouse clung to her like a bathing dress. For the fraction of an instant the pilot’s eyes rested on her figure in subconscious surprise. She could be beautiful. Then he was full of stammering apologies.
“I say, Miss Lockwood — I’m terribly sorry. Did you hurt yourself?”
In the cabin door her father stooped looking down at her, and he was laughing.
She swung round on the pilot. She was streaming with water and she had lost one shoe; she balanced precariously on the other upon the slippery float.
“You did that on purpose!” she said furiously. “You meant me to fall off!”
Her father had stopped laughing. “Don’t talk such nonsense, Alix,” he said sharply. “It was an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident at all! He put on his engine, and the rush of air pushed me off the float!”
Ross said, “I’m really most awfully sorry. I had to open her up and get her straight, or I’d have had her over. She was all across the tide.”
She said, “I don’t believe a word of it.” The pilot said nothing; in stony silence she got back into the cabin, helped by her father.
Over her shoulder Lockwood glanced at the pilot expressively; Ross smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. He followed her into the cabin, squeezed past them, and stopped the engine. Through the windscreen he saw a motor boat approaching them from the shore.
He got down on to the float again and held the boat off as it came alongside, fearful of damage to the machine. The boatman knew his job, however; it was not the first time he had had to deal with seaplanes. In silence the girl and her father got down into the boat. Ross went back into the cabin, closed the windows, and handed down their personal luggage; he passed her flying boots down to the girl.
“I should put these on, Miss Lockwood,” he said impassively. She could not walk up to the hotel without a shoe.
She took them without a word.
The pilot joined them in the boat, and in the golden summer afternoon they were carried to the shore in silence. Ross spoke a few words to the boatman to arrange for him to be available in half an hour to refuel the seaplane; then they were at the jetty and he was helping the Lockwoods from the boat. They walked up through the little town to the hotel with hardly a word spoken.
The hotel was a good one, situated in the middle of the one street of the little town; it was owned and run by the British Government. There were no warships in the firth and the hotel was practically empty. Ross made arrangements for their rooms, and they went to them at once.
Lockwood came into the pilot’s room with him. “I’m sorry my daughter said what she did,” he said directly. “I saw the whole thing. It was a pure accident.”
Ross smiled. “Don’t think any more about it, sir. She’s probably a bit tired. Anyway, I ought never to have let her get down on the float in shoes like that. She’ll be all right in the morning.”
The don bit his lip. “I shall have to have a talk with her,” he said at last.
“I wouldn’t do that, sir. Let it blow over. I’ll see if I can think up some other way of picking up the moorings.”
“I don’t see how you can do the whole thing. You must have somebody to help you.”
He walked over to the window and stood looking out over the sunlit blue water of the firth, the purple, heather-covered hills. The air was fresh and sweet. He turned back to Ross. “I know you would rather have had a young man on this trip, in place of Alix,” he said. “I’m beginning to see what you meant.”
The pilot lit a cigarette. “I’ve no quarrel with Miss Alix, sir,” he said. “I should be quite prepared to carry on as we are. But you’ve got to understand what we’re in for. I reckoned Invergordon as an easy landing, and it was. From now onwards we’re going to have a whole lot of difficulties that we haven’t had yet. This is a tough trip, Mr. Lockwood. I’ve said so all along, and nobody believed me. We can make it all right if we all pull together. But the sort of little accident we had today is going to happen every day, in one form or another. We’ll have to get out of the way of slanging each other, or we shan’t get very far.”
“That’s very true.”
Ross said, “I expect she’s tired. After all, it’s the first flight she’s ever made, except the short one we had yesterday. You have a cup of tea with her alone, sir. Then we’ll meet for dinner, and I’ll see if I can make things right with her this evening.”
The older man looked at him. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got to see to the refuelling, and look over the engine. Don’t worry about me.”
“How long will that take?”
“Two or three hours.”
“I’ll come and give you a hand.”
Ross shook his head. “You stay with Miss Alix, sir. The boatman can give me all the help I want. I’ll meet you for dinner.”
“You must have a cup of tea yourself before you go.”
The pilot smiled. “I’ll get something. Then this evening I’ll ring up the Air Ministry for a weather forecast. If it’s any good, I’ll get another one at four o’clock in the morning. If that’s all right, we’ll make a start for Reykjavik. If not, we’ll have to wait until it is all right. I want decent weather for the big crossing.”
The don left him and went to his own rooms. Ross undid his personal kit, sponged his face, and went down to the jetty again to meet the boatman and commence refuelling.
A quarter of an hour later Lockwood tapped at the door of his daughter’s room. She opened it to him, clad in a kimono and very little else. He could see that she was still very angry; her clothes were in a wet heap on the floor. “How are you getting on?” he asked. “Put on some things, and come down and have tea.”
“I can’t come down. I haven’t got anything to change into.”
“But you’ve got other clothes?”
“I’ve got everything exce
pt a skirt. I thought that one would do.”
He said, “There are shops here. I’ll go out and get you one. What size waist?”
She sniffed despondently. “I don’t suppose there’ll be a thing that I can wear.”
He was suddenly cross with her. “You’ll wear what I get you,” he said sharply. “What size waist?”
“Twenty-five inches, Daddy.”
He went out and down into the wide, straight street. The only draper’s shop could make a skirt in half a day, but had nothing in stock. They directed him to the ironmonger’s, a comprehensive establishment that sold everything from sheepskin rugs to sporting cartridges and salmon rods. Here he got a tweed skirt of the right waist measurement from a dusty package labelled July 1923.
“There’s not a great demand for these goods,” the man told him. “Just once and again.”
It was a bright green tweed. He knew she would not like it, but he bought it and took it back to the hotel with him. He took it up and gave it to her in her room; she took it meekly and without a word. He told her to come down to tea.
She joined him a quarter of an hour later, silent and subdued. She was wearing a pale blue roll neck sweater with her vivid green skirt, a combination which was impressive but not pleasing. The tea refreshed the girl; by the end of the meal she was venturing a little conversation with her father.
When it was over, Lockwood suggested that they go out to explore the little town. In the warm summer evening they found their way down to the jetty, built out on piles into the firth. From there they could see the seaplane at her moorings with the boat alongside. Ross was in the cabin engaged in the endless, wearisome task of pouring the contents of seventy petrol cans into the big tank, stopping from time to time to pump fuel from the big tank into the service tanks up in the wings. From the shore the Lockwoods could not see exactly what was going on. They saw enough to make it clear to them that the pilot, as tired as they were, was still working.
Lockwood said gently, “You’ll have to take back what you said to him this afternoon, Alix.”
