Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  The pilot was entirely satisfied. “Give Hitler a bit of a sick headache when we start on him with this,” he said with satisfaction. “Have we got to wait till Tuesday before making a start?”

  “The battleship won’t be ready till Tuesday.”

  “We could start on a cruiser.”

  “The battleship is the least sensitive to start on.”

  The boy said, “I don’t mind starting on a cruiser, if it means we could get ahead this week.”

  The wing commander said, “I think we’ll stick to the programme.”

  “All right, sir. In that case, can I take Sunday off?”

  “I should think so. Get some exercise.”

  “I’ll walk her till she drops.” The wing commander laughed.

  That was on Friday. He went to the snack bar that night, picked up Mona, and took her dancing. She said, “We’ve got to be back earlier tonight, Jerry. My dad was cross as anything when we got home at two o’clock.”

  “Did he beat you?”

  “Don’t talk so soft. Of course he didn’t.”

  “I believe he did. You’d better show me the marks.”

  “He’d beat me all right if I showed you where the marks would be, if there was any.”

  He let the vicious circle drop. “I’d just as soon get home to bed in decent time myself, for the next few days. About Sunday.”

  “What about it?”

  “Can you walk?”

  “If I’ve got to.”

  “You’ve got to walk on Sunday. I’ve not got enough petrol to go riding round all day.”

  She laughed at him. “Who said we were going out all day on Sunday, anyway?”

  “I did. I’m getting sandwiches from the mess.”

  “Where are we going to?”

  He considered for a minute. “I think we’ll take the car to South Harting and leave it there, and then walk up onto the Downs.”

  “It’ll rain.”

  “If it does, you’ll get wet. That won’t hurt you.”

  They went and danced again. He took her home when the place closed at midnight, kissed her soundly in the car, and drove back to Titchfield. In his bedroom he turned on the wireless and listened for a time to a station that was dedicated to Enlightenment, and studied the handbook of instructions for the manufacture of the caravel. Then he got into bed, and slept at once.

  Sunday was fine, a windy sunny day of late February. The little car drew up outside the furniture shop at half-past ten, the hood down for the first time in several months. Mona was waiting ready in her room. She shot downstairs and out of the door into the car before there could be any questions from her father; Chambers let in the clutch and drove away with her.

  In the shop her father and mother stood in the background among the furniture, looking out of the window, seeing though themselves unseen. They saw their daughter get into the car, saw the boy greet her, watched the car move off.

  Her mother said, “That’s the one what gave her the ship. . . .”

  The old warrant officer said, “He’s a proper young officer, that one. Not like some you see about.”

  She said, “I’ve never know Mona go so regular with any one, Stevie. I think she’s ever so serious about him.”

  He said, a little gloomily, “It’s no use crossing her.”

  “But I think he looks nice.”

  “Oh, ay,” he said. “But he’s an officer. She’d never learn his ways.”

  “I dunno, Stevie. Mona’s very quick.” She turned to him. “You wouldn’t mind if she come back one day and said they wanted to be married?” She was an incorrigible optimist.

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Not if that’s what they wanted. In the old days, if an officer married a barmaid he sent in his papers. That’s what they used to do.”

  She said, “Things is different now, what with the war, and everything.”

  He admitted that. “But if she wanted to do that, we’d see no more of her, Ma,” he said. “Officers is officers, and the lower deck’s the lower deck.”

  She was silent. The same thought had been lurking in the back of her mind.

  “Give them a fair crack of the whip,” he said a little heavily. “Our ways ain’t officers’ ways, and never will be.”

  The little car made its way out of the town into the country beyond. Mona asked, “Where are we going to?”

  He said, “South Harting. My doctor says I’ve got to get some exercise.”

  “You and your doctor! What are we going to do when we get there?”

  “Leave the car at the pub, and walk to Cocking over the Downs.”

  “How far is that?”

  “About seven miles. And,” he said firmly, “seven miles back.”

  She stared at him. “I can’t walk that far.”

  “Let’s see your shoes.”

  She drew one up for him to see beneath the instrument panel of the cramped little car; he peered down at it, and swerved violently to avoid a lorry. They were broad-toed walking shoes. “I got them for the holiday camp last year,” she said.

  “They’re all right. You’ll walk fifteen miles and like it.”

  “I’ve never walked so far before.”

  “You walk that far every night round the floor of the Pavilion.”

  “Don’t be so silly. That’s dancing.”

  “I’ll borrow a mouth organ from the pub, and you can dance to Cocking, then. But that’s where you’re going.”

  They came to South Harting presently, a village close beneath the Down, a place of thatched cottages in one long street, a village pub with the spacious rooms of an old coaching house, and a church that stood among elm trees. Chambers parked the little car beside the stocks outside the church. “This,” he said, “is where we start to walk.”

  He was wearing uniform, as he had to. He had put on his oldest tunic and slacks, spotted with indelible oil stains from the aeroplanes he flew, and faded with much cleaning. He slipped his forage cap into his hip pocket, and he was ready to walk. The girl wore a blue jumper and an old tweed skirt.

  She stared at the hill above them. “You’re not going to walk up that?”

  “My doctor says I’ve got to. It’s part of the treatment.”

  “I think you ought to change your doctor.”

  They set off up the hill.

  Three hours later they dropped down a muddy lane into Cocking, another hamlet underneath the Down. They had seen a herd of deer, four squirrels, and a woodpecker, and had attempted — unsuccessfully — to have a ride upon a sheep. With the muddy winding of the track over the Downs and through the woods, they had walked a good deal further than the seven miles that he had guessed; they dropped down into Cocking tired and footsore and hungry and thirsty and happy.

  Mona asked, “Where do we go now, Jerry?”

  He said, “To the pub, of course.”

  They found the village inn, a modest one devoted to the local farm labour. In the private bar they ordered beer and shandy at a table covered with linoleum, and unpacked their sandwiches, egg and sardine and ham. He had taken pains over the provision of sandwiches, had explained to the grey-haired sergeant of the W.A.A.F. in the mess that his young lady was rather particular. She had said, in motherly fashion, “All right, Mr. Chambers, I’ll see to it that she gets what she likes.” It was by a narrow margin that she had not called him “dearie.”

  The sandwiches did not satisfy them; they topped up with a plate of bread and cheese from the bar and a few chocolate biscuits.

  Presently they began to walk again, more slowly this time, towards South Harting by the lanes that ran beneath the Downs. They got back there by tea time, having tarried a little while to try a pig with chocolate biscuits.

  At the Ship in South Harting they demanded tea, and were shown into a large, upstairs sitting room that overlooked the village street. A bright fire made it cheerful. They washed in an adjoining bathroom; presently they sat down to their boiled eggs and tea and cake, refreshed a
nd pleasantly tired.

  Chambers said, “I’m not going to change my doctor, not for you or anybody else. It’s been a good day, this.”

  The girl nodded, her mouth full. “I’ve liked it ever so,” she said presently. “Are your feet tired?”

  “Not too bad. Are yours?”

  She nodded. “I got heavy shoes on.”

  “Take them off for a bit.”

  She bent down and unlaced them, kicked them off and stretched her toes. “That’s better.”

  He said, “You ought to do this oftener. I’ll speak to my doctor about your feet. He’ll probably say you’ve got to have a walk like this every week.”

  “What about my church?”

  “There’s no church like the open vault of heaven. Ruskin or Thoreau or Walt Whitman or somebody might have said that.”

  “If they’re friends of yours they’d say anything. But really and truly, I’ve enjoyed this ever so. I’d like to come again, next week or any time.”

  He was silent for a minute. “I don’t know about next week,” he said. “I shall be working pretty steadily from Tuesday onwards. When we start, we shan’t knock off for the week-end.”

  She said, “You and your work! I believe you just play about, out at that aerodrome.”

  He grinned, and said, “Have another doughnut.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve finished.”

  He took one himself. “Honestly,” she said, “what do you do all day?”

  He eyed her for a moment. “I can tell you one thing that I did last week.”

  “What’s that?”

  He said, “Made my will.”

  This was quite true. He had been to Smiths, the booksellers, and had bought a will form in an envelope for sixpence. He had read the instructions carefully, as carefully as if they had been for the circuit of his wireless set or for the rigging of his caravel. Then he had sat down and had written what he wanted to say upon the ruled lines of the form, without erasures or alterations. He had folded it over and got a couple of the batmen to witness his signature. Then he had sealed it in an envelope and put it at the back of the drawer in which he kept his collars.

  Mona stared at him, uncertain whether to believe him. “No kidding?”

  He munched the doughnut. “Not a bit. Show it you, if you like.”

  She was puzzled, uncertain of his mood. “I don’t believe you made a will at all.” People didn’t make wills till they were old, about to die.

  He took a drink of tea. “Well, I did. I can’t show it to you now, because I haven’t got it with me. But I’ll tell you what’s in it.”

  She was silent. There was something that she didn’t understand.

  His eyes smiled at her. He said, “Like me to tell you?”

  She said quietly, “If you want to, Jerry.”

  He said, “I left everything to you.”

  In the short evening of the winter day it was already dusk. In the long room it was getting dark; the flickering firelight was already brighter than the windows. Outside the trees massed blackly against the deep blue sky, which seemed to pale towards the whaleback of the Downs. It was quiet outside in the village street. Quiet, and cold.

  Mona said softly. “What did you do that for?”

  He grinned at her, a little embarrassed. “It’s not enough to bother about,” he said. “There’s a couple of hundred pounds in War Loan, that Aunt Mollie left me. That’s all there is, really, except things like my wireless set — and the car, of course. That’s worth about thirty quid.”

  There was a silence. She leaned towards him, puzzled and distressed. “But, Jerry, I don’t want your money. Honest, I don’t.”

  “I hope you’re not going to get it. I shall be very much upset if you do.”

  She stared at him. “But what did you want to make a will for, anyway?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Well, somebody’s got to have what I’ve got. In case I should get killed, or anything.”

  “So you thought you’d leave it all to me. . . .”

  He nodded.

  She got up from the table and came round to his chair. She stood by him, looking down at him as he leaned back, balancing on the back legs of the chair with one leg crooked beneath the table.

  “Why me?” she said gently.

  He began fingering the bottom edge of her jumper, and he was silent for a moment. Then he looked up at her. “Because we’ve had a fine time,” he said, “ever since we met. Because you were so frightfully nice to me after I sank Caranx. You know, you did a lot for me then. I wanted to do something, if I could, to pay back what I owe you. Even if I was to do myself a bit of no good.”

  Her eyes moistened. “You don’t want to talk like that, Jerry.”

  He grinned. “All right — let’s drop it. Let’s talk about something else.”

  Her mother had quite rightly said that Mona was quick. “That’s right,” she said. “Let’s talk about what happens if you live to be ninety.” She laughed down at him tremulously. “You’re trying to make out you owe me something. If you die, I get two hundred quid and your car.”

  He was uncertain what was coming. “And my wireless set,” he said. “You mustn’t forget that. I got Chunking the other night.”

  “But that’s all if you’re dead. What do I get if you live to be ninety?”

  With the hand that had been fingering her jumper he smacked her seat. “A bloody good spanking. You can have the first instalment of it now, if you like.”

  She looked down at him. “What do I get?” she repeated.

  “If I told you, you’d slap my face and start out to walk home.”

  “It’s twenty miles. I couldn’t walk that far.”

  “You’d have to take a bus.”

  “There aren’t any buses.” There was a short pause, and then she said, “You’d better tell me, Jerry.”

  He jerked forward in his chair, and got up. He took her hands in his and stood there looking down on her, blushing pink. Her eyes were hardly higher than the stained and drooping wings upon his chest. “All right,” he said, “I’ll tell you. If this was peace time and things were ordinary, I should want you to marry me, Mona. But I don’t want that.”

  She said in a small voice, “What do you want then, Jerry?”

  He laughed. “Your mind runs in a groove,” he said. “I don’t want that one, either. I want to go on as we are.”

  She was silent.

  He said, “I’ve not got a lot of use for people who think they’re going to get bumped off next week, and so they take a running jump into a honeymoon. If I got married I should want to have a kid or two and see them growing up. And if I couldn’t see beyond the middle of next week, I’d just as soon lay off it altogether.”

  “I feel that way, too. It wouldn’t be like being married if you didn’t have kids.”

  He grinned. “They’ll want people like us when this war’s over.”

  She looked up into his face. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “All this you say about you’re going to be killed. What’s it all about?”

  “Indigestion, I should think. I’ve been missing my Enos.”

  “Talk sensible, for once, Jerry.”

  “It does happen from time to time, even in the best conducted wars.”

  “Is this what you do at Titchfield very dangerous?”

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. He wanted to make her understand, to see the matter in its true proportions.

  “Look,” he said. “There’s a little bit of risk in every sort of flying in war time, just as there is for ships at sea. When I was at Emsworth three chaps from my squadron fell into the drink. A month ago I was over Germany, down as far as Leipzig. This new job isn’t any more dangerous than any of the other things. But in a war, in any sort of job, things do sometimes happen. That’s why I made that will.”

  “I see.”

  There was a long pause. Presently she said, “I dunno i
f it’s going to be so easy for us to keep on the way we are now, Jerry.”

  He was silent. The feel of her shoulder warm beneath his hand had put the same idea into his head.

  She turned in his arms, and looked over to the window. “If we found we couldn’t, I don’t want to jump into a honeymoon, the way you said. It wouldn’t do. I’d rather that it was the other way.”

  Gently he turned her back to him. “Is this what they call an improper proposal in the Sunday papers?”

  She giggled. “I suppose it must be.”

  “You mean, you’d rather that we went away together somewhere, for the week-end or something?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to set about it.”

  “Nor would I. But we could learn.”

  They looked at each other, and laughed.

  Chambers said, “I’d have to get a book about it, and read it up. I suppose I’d have to get a wedding ring for you, and then we’d go to a hotel and register as Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

  “We’d want to have an engagement ring as well. It’d look awfully fishy if I went with just a wedding ring.”

  “A very new one, too.”

  “That’s right. Wouldn’t it be awful if we got found out?”

  He said, “They can’t do anything to you for that. The police, I mean.”

  “Not even if you register with a false name? In war time?”

  “I’m not so sure about that one. They might not like that very much.”

  “They could be terribly nasty, anyway.”

  He laughed down at her. “I don’t think very much of your idea,” he said. “It’s too risky and too complicated. It’d be a damn sight simpler to be old-fashioned, and get married and have done with it.”

  She said, “I don’t want to do that.”

  He asked gently, “Why not?”

  “I dunno, Jerry. . . .” There was a pause, and then she said, “It wouldn’t do. I’d like to go on like we are. But if we found we couldn’t, then I’d rather we was Mr. and Mrs. Smith for a bit.”

  He said very quietly, “Every word you utter goes like an arrow to my heart. A barbed arrow. I should say. You know, you’re the Bad Girl of the Family. The Scarlet Woman.”

  She smiled a little. “You do say awful things.”

  “Added to which,” he said gently, “my pride’s cut to the quick. Here I am, Lord Jerry of Chambers Hall, Chambers, Chambershire, and you spurn my suit.”