by Nevil Shute
“The trial tomorrow must be cancelled.”
The air force officer said, “Not by us. We shall cancel it if we find our pilot is unfit to do the work. If not, we shall be ready to proceed tomorrow morning in accordance with the pro forma.”
There was an angry pause. At last the captain said, “Do you consider him to be a fit pilot, then?”
The wing commander said directly, “I’ve not made up my mind, and I must see my A.O.C. If you had asked me that an hour ago, I should have said that I thought him a very suitable pilot for the job.” He paused, and then he said, “His conduct of the trials to date has been both serious and competent.”
The captain gave him a long, reflective look. “I can’t deny that,” he said at last. “At the same time, the trials have only just begun. We very much object to going on with him.”
Hewitt nodded slowly. “I see that. Will you leave it with me for this evening, Captain? I must find out his record, and I must see his late C.O.; after that we’ll make up our minds. We’ll run no risks by using a bad pilot for sentiment. But to change him will set back these trials a week, and I’m not going to do that because you don’t like his face.”
“No,” said Burnaby. “But in our view he’s not responsible.”
“I understand that, sir. Tell me, where can I get hold of you tonight?”
“I live at Shedfield.” The wing commander took down the telephone number.
“Very good, sir. I’ll get in touch with you on the telephone after I’ve been to Emsworth.”
He saw the naval officer to the grey-blue car with the airman chauffeur, watched him drive away. He turned back towards his office, but Legge was at his elbow.
The professor said, “Could you spare me a few moments?”
“Of course.” They went into the office together.
The civilian said, “I’ve been talking to Chambers.” He told the wing commander of the vagaries shown on the milli-ammeter. “That means the distribution round the ship is very far from what I had assumed. I’m afraid it means we simply don’t know what we’re doing.”
“But the thing worked all right, Professor.”
“I know it did — at the third shot.” There was strain in the civilian’s voice. “But don’t you see — if he hadn’t switched off on the first run it would have gone off in the aeroplane.”
The wing commander nodded. “I see that. But after all, that’s what we put the switch there for.”
Legge picked up a pencil from the desk and rolled it absently between his fingers. “I’ve got to tell you that I think this programme is extremely dangerous. We simply don’t know what’s happening.”
Hewitt said, “We’re finding out very quickly.”
The other could not deny that. “Going at it in this way, we learn a great deal in a short time. But the risk is enormous.”
There was a short silence in the office. At last Hewitt said, “If we stopped the trials completely for a week — how would that suit you?”
“It’s what I should like best. A fortnight would be better.”
The wing commander smiled. “I couldn’t give you more than a week, and then only if the pilot had to be changed. The Navy don’t like Chambers.”
“I know. He told me about that.”
“What do you think of Chambers, Professor?”
“I think he’s a very good lad. Too good to be treated as we’re treating him in this programme.”
The wing commander sighed. “I can’t do anything about the programme,” he said heavily. “We made our decision at the last meeting that we’d do it this way, and nothing’s happened since to alter that decision. But if we have to change the pilot, that does give us breathing space.”
Legge left the office. Hewitt sat down at his desk, rang for the clerk, and signed the papers in a couple of files. Then he put on his hat and coat, and walked back to the hangar in the fading light. On the road he met Chambers, going towards the mess.
He stopped. “I want a word with you, Chambers. Come back to my office.”
In the office, he said, “Captain Burnaby told me about the spot of bother you had in the winter.”
The pilot was angry and defensive. “Yes, sir.”
The wing commander said, “I hadn’t heard of it before, and I’m very sorry it’s arisen now.”
“Yes, I got posted away to Yorkshire. Then they posted me back here.” He hesitated. “Does Captain Burnaby want another pilot?”
Hewitt said, “This is an Air Force station, not a bit of the Navy. We work in with the Navy and, in general, we do what they want, but only if it’s reasonable. I want to go to Emsworth tonight, to see Air Commodore Hughes.”
“He’ll give me a good chit, sir. There was a lot of doubt about that submarine. I still think it was a German.”
“The Court of Enquiry didn’t, Chambers.”
The pilot said bitterly, “It was a Naval Court, sir.”
There was a short silence.
The wing commander said at last, “What on earth possessed you to come back here from Yorkshire?”
The boy faced him. “The usual thing,” he said. “There was a girl down here, sir, who’d been decent to me, that I wanted to see again. And that’s the truth of it.”
The wing commander sighed. There was no answering that one.
Captain Burnaby drove back to the Dockyard in the Air Force car, dismissed it, and walked up to his office, that old-fashioned, Georgian building attached to Admiralty House, with ships in repair in docks all round about it. He was angry with the Royal Air Force. He knew that it had been the merest chance that had made Chambers into the test pilot for these trials, but it seemed to him to be one of those chances that should not happen in a well-regulated service. To him it was the inefficiency of the Royal Air Force once again, an inefficiency that existed largely in his own imagination. In his opinion nothing that the Air Force did was right; the Coastal Command never would become efficient until it became a subdepartment of the Admiralty. The daily rubs that must occur in the liaison between two fighting services irritated and inflamed his views; he was inclined to suspect antagonism to the Navy where none existed. He was accustomed to work long hours, never sparing himself; the strain of war was telling on him, making him difficult.
He worked for a couple of hours, then left his office and walked down to the Unicorn Gate, where his car was parked. In the blackout he drove slowly through the town and out into the country, a heavy pouch of official papers at his side. Forty minutes later he turned into his little country house, put the car into a small wooden garage, and went indoors.
He lived in a modest style, as he had done all his life. He had married twenty years before, just after the last war; for most of that twenty years he had lived in furnished rooms and scantily furnished flats. It was not until he had achieved the brass hat of a Commander that he had been able to afford a regular maid to live in the house. He had two children, a boy of seventeen and a girl of fifteen, both at boarding schools; their school fees made a heavy drain on his income. When he had been promoted to captain he had moved to the little country house at Shedfield without quite realizing how much it would cost him; in consequence he had not yet escaped from the gnawing of anxieties about money. He did not regret the move; it was proper that a captain should live in the country, and his wife’s delight in the garden was a pleasure to him. But the wages of the second maid, and of the part-time gardener, were a burden and a difficulty to him and did not help his attitude towards the Royal Air Force.
Enid, his wife, came out to meet him in the hall. “Had a good day?” she asked.
He slung his gasmask down into a chair, and laid the pouch beside it. “No,” he said. “The trials went all right. But you remember that young Air Force cub, who sank Caranx?”
“Yes?”
“Well, he’s back again. The Air Force have made him pilot for these trials.”
“Oh, Fred, I am sorry. Whatever made them do a thing like that?”
/> He turned away. “I never know what makes them do these things. I told them that they’d got to shift him out of it.”
He turned away to go and wash. She said, “Come down and have a drink. Dinner’s nearly ready.”
“In a minute.”
They sat down together to dinner, served by a maid with fat red hands, who breathed heavily as she handed the vegetables. He told his wife a little of the successful trial that they had had, enough to please her without violating the Official Secrets Act. She told him about the garden, about the crocuses that were beginning to appear and about the snowdrops. He saw very little of his garden in the winter months, because he left the house soon after eight and did not return till after dark. It pleased him to hear her talk about it.
They went into the drawing room after dinner and sat down before the fire, with coffee. They listened to the nine o’clock news on the wireless, and turned it off again. Enid got out her knitting; presently she said. “I don’t know how I shall get through this month, Fred. Do you think you could let me have another five pounds?”
He raised his eyes from the buff paper he was reading. “Where’s it all gone to?”
She said, “There seem to have been a lot of things this month.”
They had been married twenty years. He knew when she was trying to conceal a small expenditure.
He frowned at her. It was the same frown that had made him cordially disliked in the Royal Air Force, but long experience had robbed it of all terror for her. She said placidly, “Repairing Jim’s motor bike was one thing.”
He was mildly irritated; if there had been an accident his son should have told him. “I never heard of this. What happened to it?”
“He ran into the back of the milk cart during the holidays, and buckled the front wheel and the forks.” She knitted on in soft contentment. “I told him not to bother you about it, because it was just after Caranx, dear.”
He said irritably, “I can’t go on paying out for that motor bike like this. If Jim has accidents, he’ll have to save up out of his allowance and get the thing repaired.”
“He couldn’t have done that. It cost six pounds fifteen. But it’s all right; I paid it out of my own money. I told him he wasn’t to bother you by asking for the money for it.”
“Well, how does that make you short now?”
“I had to have some new shoes and things, and there wasn’t any money left in my account, so they had to come out of the housekeeping.”
Her tortuous reasoning in money matters was no novelty to him. “Jim’s got no business to go running into milk carts,” he said. “He’s got to learn that damage has to be paid for. If he can’t pay for it, he’ll have to sell his motor bike and find the money that way.”
She laid down her knitting. “Don’t be too hard on him, Fred.”
He stared at her, surprised. “I’m not being hard on him, my dear. But he’s got to learn.”
She said quietly, “I know he’s got to learn. He has learned already, from running into the milk cart. He’ll never do that again. There’s no point in making him miserable by making him sell his motor bike.” She paused, and then she said, “You know, you are hard on young people, Fred.”
He was silent. As a young lieutenant, when he had first been married, he had thought what fun it would be to have a family, to watch his children growing up. It hadn’t worked out quite like that. A trip round the world with Royalty had intervened, then a three years’ commission on the China Station. He had been home for a year, and then there had been a commission in New Zealand. A couple of years in the Mediterranean followed by another spell in China had filled all the twenty busy years. In the pressure of work that falls to a successful officer he had had little time to get to know his children. He knew very little of their nature, or the reasons why they did odd things that seemed to him to be so silly.
“Am I hard on them?” he said.
She gathered up her knitting, got up, and crossed the room to him. “A little bit,” she said. She kissed him gently on the forehead. “You’re a good father, but you don’t know a lot about the young.” She smiled at him. “I think I’m going up. Don’t sit up late.”
He said, “I’m expecting a telephone call, and I’ve got a few things to look through.” He indicated a heavy pile of buff files lying on the empty pouch. “I shan’t be very late.”
She left him, and he heard her moving about overhead. He sat there working quietly by the dying fire until the telephone rang by his side. He picked up the receiver.
“Hewitt here,” it said. “I’m speaking from Emsworth. I’m just leaving, Captain Burnaby, and as Shedfield’s on my road I thought I’d look in and see you, if you’re still up.”
“Certainly. Come in and have a whiskey, Wing Commander.”
“I’ll look in just for a minute. I’ll be with you in about half an hour.”
He rang off, and the naval officer settled down again before the fire. The papers on his knee failed to hold his mind. His thoughts drifted to his son, the boy that he considered to be so full of promise, who went and did a silly thing like running into the back of the milk cart. Perhaps Enid was right in saying that he didn’t understand the young. These accidents that seemed to him to be so criminal, so desperately wrong, perhaps they were just — youth. It might well be that no further punishment or persecution was required, that the collision with the milk cart was its own lesson.
It was quite true what Enid said; he didn’t understand the young. A great part of his life had been spent in dealing with them, moulding them into the old naval form in the old naval way. He was too good a technician not to realize that methods must change with the years. His methods had not changed since he had left Dartmouth as a midshipman. He had continued blindly on the old, worn tracks of rigid discipline because he lacked the understanding to thrash out a method of his own for dealing with young officers.
He sat there, deep in thought, before the dying fire. It had hurt him to be told that he was hard.
Presently he heard a car upon the gravel of the drive outside. His servants had both gone to bed; he got up and let Hewitt in himself. In the drawing room he poured out a whiskey and soda for him.
The wing commander said, “I won’t stay long, Captain. I’ve been dining at Emsworth with Air Commodore Hughes, and we had a long talk about Chambers. The air commodore feels that as this is a naval trial we must be guided by your wishes. In view of his past record, if you feel that you’d like a change of pilot we are quite prepared to make it.”
The grim bushy eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Give my compliments to Air Commodore Hughes,” the naval officer said, “and tell him I appreciate that very much. But as a matter of fact, I’ve altered my decision. I want that young man to continue with the trials.”
8
THE TRIALS WERE resumed next day at the appointed time. On Chambers his reprieve had a tonic effect. He had gone to bed miserable and resentful, planning yet another transfer, this time to a single-seater squadron, which he thought could never under any circumstances require liaison with the Royal Navy. At midnight he had been roused by a batman, who brought him a signal confirming that the trials would proceed as ordered, and that the Navy had agreed to Flying Officer Chambers as pilot. A great surge of relief came over him and he slept well, with pleasant thoughts of Mona. In the morning he went straight to the wing commander’s office and heard of the surprising change in Captain Burnaby. He did not understand it, nor did anybody else, but the new atmosphere that it implied was very welcome.
Chambers put all other matters out of his head and concentrated on the work in hand, keen and enthusiastic for the coming trial.
Professor Legge had got the news by telephone about midnight, and he received it with the deepest disappointment. He had spent the evening relieved and rested. His wife had seized upon the respite that a change of pilot was to give him, and had made him take an evening off from work. They had dined together in the snack bar of the Royal Cla
rence Hotel on a grilled steak and a fruit salad; the professor had been able to detach his mind sufficiently from distribution curves to take note of the pretty barmaid serving drinks to the young officers across the bar. From the Royal Clarence they had gone on to a movie, where they had see a film called Blondie Gets Her Man. For seventy-five minutes all thought of battleships, of electronic influences, and of explosives had been swept from his mind, he had laughed almost continuously throughout the film, and he was better for it. They had returned to their little flat in Southsea in the blackout happy and amused. Mrs. Legge had persuaded him to go to bed at once in order that he could be really fresh to recommence the work next morning. He had agreed willingly, and had gone to bed anticipating a long, restful night of sleep.
At midnight the telephone rang, to tell him that the trials would proceed next day according to the programme. He slept very little after that.
At nine o’clock he went on board the trawler in the Dockyard, worried and resentful. There were more naval officers than ever this time, by reason of the success of the experiments the previous day. Legge said to Hewitt, “I thought this trial would be postponed. Is it still Chambers flying the machine, or have you got another pilot?”
Hewitt smiled. “Burnaby took a less extreme attitude after all. So we didn’t have to change from Chambers, and the trial could proceed.”
The professor laughed shortly. “That’s very unfortunate from my point of view. I hoped that we were going to get a bit more time.”
The wing commander nodded. “I had that in mind as well. But I’m afraid it’s not panned out that way.”
There were three trials to be carried out that day, each with the battleship. Between each trial it was necessary for the aeroplane to go back to the aerodrome for loading up. All day the trawler lay and rolled a mile from the battleship, while a protective screen of three destroyers kept guard to seawards on the alert for submarines. Between each trial the civilian sat in the wheelhouse, cold and apprehensive, and rather sick.
