by Nevil Shute
She did not laugh. “That’s it,” she said softly.
He stared at her. “I believe you’ve got this wrong,” he said. “Are you thinking of our families?”
She said honestly, “That’s right. We aren’t really the same sort, Jerry, and being married is forever. We’d want to be terribly careful, or we’d be unhappy all our lives. Both of us.”
“I am being careful. I haven’t been so careful since I first went solo.”
“Talk serious. I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“Well then . . .”
She turned in his arms and faced him. “Look, Jerry,” she said, “let’s talk sensible. You know how I feel about you. You can have anything you want from me — honest, you can. And there’s never been any one before, either.”
“I know that,” he said.
“But I don’t want to marry you — not for a long time, anyway.” She looked down. “It wouldn’t do.”
“Why not?”
She said, “I wouldn’t marry you unless I could talk like the other officers’ wives, and dress like them, and play tennis and that and — and sort of think like them. I can’t do any of them things. If we got married now we’d be happy for a month, and then we’d be unhappy ever after. That’s not good enough.”
He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You’re wrong. You won’t be an officer’s wife, not when the war’s over. I shan’t be able to stay on in the Air Force — not with the Caranx business on the record. And in the war, it doesn’t matter a hoot.”
She looked up into his face. “You’ll stay in the Air Force,” she said, “and you’ll go right up to the top. You’ll be an air vice marshal before you leave, or something of that. You will, Jerry — I know.”
He grinned at her, but there was moisture in his eyes. “Fat lot you know about it,” he said. “Look, Mona. I want you to marry me, at once.”
“I daresay you do,” she said. “But I’m not going to.”
They argued for a quarter of an hour and got no further. Presently she said, “It’s getting very dark, Jerry. If we’re going to get on the road before blackout, we’ll have to go.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Next week,” he said, “I’ve got to do a little work. I’ll have to get to bed early each night; I can’t be late. I’ll make a date to come and take you dancing on Monday of next week for certain. If we get a day of bad weather I’ll come in during the day, but don’t count on that. Don’t be worried if I don’t turn up till Monday week.”
She said, “That’s a long time to wait, Mr. Smith.”
“Lord Jerry of Chambers Hall to you. I’ll have no lèse majesté.”
She laughed up at him. “Mr. Smith to me.”
7
“I DON’T SEE what he’s getting so worked up about,” the pilot said. “He’s only got to watch. God help him if he ever got into a real jam.”
The wing commander turned, and glanced with the pilot at the civilian pacing nervously up and down in front of the aeroplane. “He feels responsible for this. He took it very badly when the Navy cut the time short. Since then he’s been working long hours on his distribution curves.”
The pilot said, “He looks as if he’ll have a litter of them any minute.”
Professor Legge had a headache. He walked up and down before the aeroplane, anxious and fretting. From time to time he went round to the tail and got into the cabin, inspecting the last adjustments that the electricians were making to the apparatus, bothering them with his evident anxiety.
He had worked hard for the last week, too hard for his health. Unaided, he had covered in a week the research which he had estimated would take six weeks. He had covered about half the ground that would have been necessary to ensure safety for the enterprise. Now the trials were upon him, and he could do no more.
In the mental fatigue and strain from which he suffered he had lost a great deal of his sense of proportion. He had slept, in the last week, for a total of about thirty hours. He had been compelled to go to Cambridge to collect certain data, and he had visited the aerodrome three or four times. For the whole of the rest of the week he had sat in the sitting room of his Southsea flat, plodding through endless computations with slide rule, graphs, and the little black comptometer. His wife had helped him very much. She had brought him tea and biscuits at intervals of two hours all through the night, had given him aspirins to help him sleep, had slept little more than he had in the week. This she had done without any understanding of the work, because for reasons of secrecy he had told her nothing. All he had said was that he was terribly afraid that they might have an accident, because the Navy were in such a hurry. For Mrs. Legge that had been sufficient.
Now on the morning of the trial, fretting and apprehensive as he waited for the adjustments to be finished, he blamed himself most bitterly that he had not worked harder, had not got through more in the time. Passing through London on his return from Cambridge he had slept a night at his club. He had got to London no later than half-past eight at night, having travelled and worked since dawn. There had been a train down to Portsmouth at nine-forty-seven, which would have got him to his flat in Southsea before midnight.
He might have got in three or four hours’ more work before going to bed that night. Instead, he had given up and slept at his club, travelling down next day. Those hours now were lost forever. They might have made a difference. There might be some new factor only a few hours ahead of him, some presage of disaster.
He tortured himself with the thought that he could have worked harder, got through more, if he had not been lazy. His laziness might mean the death of this young man.
Wing Commander Hewitt came up to him. “Pretty well finished now, I think. Professor. The car’s waiting. It’s about time we went down to the pier.” They were to watch the trial from a trawler.
The civilian hesitated, irresolute. “Just one moment,” he said. He walked quickly round the machine and went into the fuselage again. The wing commander waited patiently till he reappeared.
“All right?”
“I think so. Just let me have another word with the pilot.”
They crossed the grass to where Chambers was chatting to the flight lieutenant. “You will remember to keep looking at the milli-ammeter the whole of the time?” Legge said. There was a note of entreaty in his voice. “That really is very important indeed.”
Behind him the wing commander winked at the pilot merrily. With a grave face Chambers said, “I understand that, sir. It’s all right up to forty milliamps. If it goes over that I throw the switch.”
Legge said, “That’s it. It will be quite all right if you do that. Mind, it ought not to go over twenty-five.” He hesitated, and then he said, “I wouldn’t let it go quite to forty. Say thirty-eight.”
“Very good, sir. I’ll cut the switch at thirty-eight.”
The professor sighed. “That’s better, perhaps. You are quite happy now about what you’ve got to do?”
“Quite all right, sir. I understand everything perfectly.”
The wing commander said gently, “I think we’ll have to get along now, Professor.”
“All right.” Legge turned to the pilot again, and smiled with attempted cheeriness. “All the best.”
The pilot grinned. “We’ll go out on a blind tonight if this thing works all right, sir.”
He watched the wing commander and the civilian as they walked over to the car. He turned to the flight lieutenant by his side. “And we’ll go to the bloody mortuary if it doesn’t. What about a beer before lunch?”
In the trawler a small party of naval officers were already waiting. Captain Burnaby was there, and greeted them affably.
“Good morning, Wing Commander. Good morning, Professor Legge. I hope we’re going to see a good trial today.”
The civilian licked his dry lips. It was incredible that these officers did not seem to realize the risk of absolute disaster staring them in the face. He s
aid, “I hope so, too.”
Burnaby turned to the air force officer. “Everything all right, Hewitt?”
“Quite all right, sir. The machine is ready to take off now.”
“Very good.” He turned to the R.N.V.R. officer in the little wheelhouse. “You can cast off, Captain.”
The trawler slid away from the quayside and headed for the Solent. Half an hour later they were passing through the Gate; in the open sea outside the island the trawler began rolling. It was a grey, cold day with clouds down to about fifteen hundred feet. As soon as the vessel left the quay the naval officers all bolted down below, and crowded into the little cuddy, filling it with their gossip and tobacco smoke. Legge followed them, but the motion of the vessel, the smoke, and the tension of his anxiety combined to drive him up on deck again into the cold salt air. He stood in a sheltered corner watching the flung spray drive past him from the bows, cold and miserable, and feeling rather sick. Presently the R.N.V.R. officer invited him into the wheelhouse; he sat down on a bench inside the door behind the helmsman, and went on torturing himself with mental calculations of the influences round the battleship.
An hour later the trial took place.
The trawler lay rolling head to sea; every one was now on deck. Most of the officers held field glasses in their gloved hands; Legge had no glasses, but the captain of the trawler lent him his own. Half a mile away the battleship lay, practically stopped, rolling very slightly in the trough of the sea. Above her, circling around, was the twin-engined monoplane.
Captain Burnaby said, “All right. Give him the light.”
A signalman began flashing at the aeroplane with an Aldis lamp. In answer, a red flare detached itself from the machine and floated slowly down against a cold grey sky. Hewitt said, “He’s ready now.”
The aeroplane withdrew a couple of miles to the south, then turned and flew straight for the battleship. Legge watched, tense and apprehensive. The naval officers watched with interest, tempered with unbelief.
The machine came on . . . and on . . . and on. Nothing happened. Sick with anxiety, Legge watched it fly over the ship, turn slowly, and fly back towards the south.
There was a general relaxation, and a few faint smiles. Somebody said aloud, “The bloody thing won’t work.”
The minutes crawled by. The machine returned, flying a little lower. Again it passed over the ship, and nothing happened. Again it turned towards the south.
Captain Burnaby turned to Legge. “What do you think can have happened, Professor?” he said. There was a grim set to his face; he did not like to be trifled with.
“I’ve no idea.” The suspense was unbearable.
Hewitt said, “The pilot’s probably just being very careful.”
Again the monoplane approached the ship. But this time, that happened which was meant to happen.
The machine roared down upon the trawler in a power dive, pulled out twenty feet above her masthead, and went rocketing up from her in exultation. On her decks the tension was snapped; every one was talking at once. Burnaby said, “I do congratulate you, most heartily, Professor. And you too, Hewitt. It went splendidly.”
The civilian said weakly, “Thank you, sir.” Above everything, he wanted to go somewhere and sit quietly, and rest. He was desperately tired, too tired to be pleased with the success.
The naval officers stood round in little groups, discussing in low tones. What they had seen disturbed them very much. Ships were their homes, their livelihood, their very lives. It hurt them and distressed them to see a ship treated in the way that that one had been treated.
Somebody said ruefully, “There wouldn’t have been much left of her if that stuff had been loaded.”
Another said, with doubtful optimism, “I should think the multiple pom-poms would have got the machine. . . .”
The discussions ranged in low, uncertain tones, all the way back to harbour.
The trawler made fast to the quay at about four o’clock. Burnaby said to Hewitt, “I’ll come up with you to the aerodrome, if I may. I should like to see the installation in the aeroplane.”
“By all means. We’re going back there in the car.”
They drove up to the aerodrome. Hewitt and Burnaby went straight into the hangar to the machine; Legge turned aside, and went to the pilots’ office to find Chambers.
The pilot was reading a novel at the bare wooden table. He got up as the professor came in.
The civilian said, “That was a great success, Chambers. Everyone was very pleased.”
The pilot blushed a little. “I’m glad of that, sir. It seemed to go all right.”
“It went very well indeed. What was the matter on the first two runs?”
Chambers said, “On the first one, the milli-ammeter went right up, sir. It went to somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-six. It was jumping about a bit, so I switched off.”
A cold hand clutched again at the professor’s heart. There was no ending to the tension of this job.
“What happened on the second run?” he said quietly.
“On the second run it didn’t work at all. The milli-ammeter stuck round about eighteen. It never got over twenty, and nothing happened.”
This was terrible. Legge’s half-formed theories of the distribution round the ship went crumbling into dust. They were just blundering in the unknown.
“And the third time?”
“The third time, it went perfectly, sir. The milli-ammeter got up to twenty-five quite a long time before, and stayed there steadily. I didn’t feel it go at all. I just saw the ammeter go back to zero.”
The Cambridge man said absently, “It all went very well. The Navy thought it was wonderful. In fact, I don’t think they liked it much.”
The pilot laughed. “I don’t suppose they did. Hitler could give them a sick headache, if he had it.”
“Yes. As soon as we’ve got this to work, we’ll have to concentrate on the defence against it.”
“How can you do that?”
“Increase the influence from the ship, or oscillate it rapidly.”
The pilot thought for a minute. “That would mean my milli-ammeter would go all haywire?”
The professor nodded. “The explosion would take place in the aeroplane.”
The pilot laughed. “Bloody good fun. You can get another pilot when you start on those experiments.”
The civilian smiled faintly. “I shall want a lot more time for pure research before we can begin on that.”
Outside in the hangar, Wing Commander Hewitt crawled out of the fuselage onto the stained, greasy floor. Captain Burnaby followed him, and adjusted the brass-peaked hat upon his head. “I do congratulate you again,” he said. “It’s very neat, and certainly it seems to work.”
The air force officer nodded. “Would you like a word with the pilot, sir? I haven’t heard his story yet.”
“Yes, I’d like to see the pilot.”
The wing commander sent an airman to the pilot’s office. Legge came with Chambers out into the hangar. They walked round the tail of the machine, and came face to face with Burnaby and Hewitt.
The wing commander said casually, “This is Flying Officer Chambers, the pilot, sir. Captain Burnaby.”
There was a terrible pause. The pilot slowly became crimson, blushing to the roots of his hair, embarrassed and furious with himself for blushing. The naval officer stood staring at him, foursquare, the grim eyebrows knitted in a frown, the square jaw set firm. He did not offer to shake hands.
He said at last, “Good evening, Mr. Chambers. Do you feel satisfied with the trial today?”
The pilot said in a low tone, “Yes, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I think it went all right.”
The grey eyes bored into him. “And do you feel competent to carry on, and complete the series of trials?”
The pilot said huskily, “Yes, sir.”
The captain swung round on his heel. “I’d like to have a word with you alone, Wing Commander,” he said
. They walked together out onto the tarmac.
Professor Legge turned to the pilot. “That was very queer of him,” he said.
“He’s a queer fellow.”
“You knew him before?”
The boy nodded. “I suppose he’s telling Hewitt all about it now,” he said. There was a note of resignation in his voice. “I sank one of his bloody submarines last December.”
The civilian stared at him. “You sank a submarine — a British one?”
The pilot nodded curtly. “It was miles out of position. I took it for a German.”
“Oh . . .” The professor said no more. He felt himself in the presence of a service quarrel that was far above his head, and which he could do nothing to resolve. What the pilot had told him, so curtly and so shortly, was entirely shocking, and must obviously have created the bitterest feelings in the Navy. It was difficult to suppose that Burnaby would consent to the trials proceeding in the hands of Flying Officer Chambers. And with that thought there came to the professor the swift corollary, that he would get more time. The trials could not proceed if the pilot were to be changed; they would be held up for a few days, and in that few days he could press forward with his calculations. It might still be possible to mitigate the frightful risks that they were taking.
On the tarmac the two officers paced side by side in silence for a few minutes. At last Hewitt said, “I didn’t know a thing about this, Captain Burnaby. If I had, I’d never have accepted him for this work. I can’t think what Postings were about.”
The naval officer preserved a grim silence. He would not say what he was thinking of the organization of the Royal Air Force.
The wing commander went on, “At the same time, there he is and we must make the best of him.”
Captain Burnaby stopped dead. “I hope you don’t propose that these trials should continue in his hands? In our view he’s completely irresponsible.”
The wing commander turned and faced him. “I’ll tell you what our view of that is tomorrow morning, sir,” he said coolly. “In the meantime I’ll get onto the Coastal Command right away and find out all about him. Probably I’ll go over tonight and see them at Emsworth.”
