by Nevil Shute
“If I’ve got to beat it back to England our date’s off,” he said. “But if it’s not, where shall we dine, and when?”
“Do you mind if we dine here, fairly late?” she asked. “Say about eight o’clock? If it’s a day like yesterday I shan’t feel up to going anywhere where I should have to dress. Would you mind that?”
“Of course. Look, Rosemary — if it’s a day like that give me a ring here about six o’clock and we’ll scrub it. You’ll want to get to bed.”
“Of course not, David. It’s only that I may be feeling like old Jorrocks — where I dines I sleeps. I’d love to see you and hear all your news.”
“I’ve not got much,” he said. “I’ll be at the hotel about eight, then. Look after yourself.”
“Good-bye,” she said. “See you tonight, unless they send you back.”
He rang off and went into the mess for breakfast. By half past ten the fuelling and the inspection of the machine was finished and he dismissed the crew, with warning that they should not leave the camp till further notice. Frank Cox turned up shortly before lunch in one of the Royal cars, and David reported to him. “We’re in readiness again now,” he said. “Any orders, sir?”
“Keep standing by,” the Group Captain said. “I’m going out to Gatineau again after lunch. They’re having a high level conference there now, I think. One or other of them will probably be going back tonight.”
“If we’re still here, in readiness, tonight, I’ve got a dinner date I’d like to keep at the Château Laurier,” the pilot said. “Be all right if I’m on the telephone there?”
“I suppose so. Ryder had better stay here in the mess if you’re away.”
They lunched together in the mess. Frank Cox drove off again in his car, and David, left with the afternoon upon his hands, went and lay down on his bed. He had the prospect of another flight that evening back to England in front of him; although he had received no orders it was most unlikely that the Prince of Wales would stay away from England for more than a day in the absence of the Queen. It was morally certain, David felt, that he would receive instructions very shortly to fly the Prince back that night, and in anticipation he would catch up on his sleep. He took his coat and shoes off and set his alarm clock for six o’clock, and lay down on the bed, and pulled a blanket over him. In ten minutes he was asleep.
He was roused at about five by Dewar coming quickly into the room. He said something, and David roused and sat up. “All right,” he said. “Have you told Ryder? What time do we take off?”
“It’s us,” said Dewar. “I’m taking him in Sugar.”
“Who?”
“Wake up, you silly bastard. I’m taking the Prince back to England in Sugar. We’re pushing off at half past six.”
“Well, what’s happening to me?”
“I don’t know. I wish to God I did. I’ve got Mollie’s father and mother coming up here from Toronto tomorrow.”
“I’ll take this trip for you,” said David. “We can fly tonight.”
“No, that’s all right, old man. I did say something to Frank, but there’s more behind it than that. They’ve got something else lined up for you, I think. I sent a telegram to put off Mollie’s people.”
“You don’t know what they’ve got lined up for me?”
“I don’t.”
He went out of the room, urgent and busy in the preparations for his flight. David got up and dressed with care; in all these swift alarums and excursions there was still a chance that he would be allowed to keep his dinner date with Rosemary, although the prospects were now getting fainter. The autumn evening was chilly and he put his greatcoat on, and went out to the tarmac where Sugar was running engines in the park.
Most of the crew of Tare were there helping to get Sugar ready for the flight; for some months the Australians had worked side by side with the Canadians in the hangar at White Waltham and though each was concerned chiefly with his own machine their loyalty to the Queen’s Flight was strong. Frank Cox turned up shortly after David got out to the aerodrome, and David raised the matter of the maps with him and with Dewar.
“I’ve got the whole stock of maps here in Tare,” he said. “I brought everything we’ve got for the whole world — maps, radio, and radar. How had we better split it?”
The Group Captain turned to the Canadian. “How are you fixed for going home?”
“I’ve got everything I want between Vancouver and White Waltham,” the Canadian said. “I’ve got nothing else.”
Frank Cox thought for a moment. “Leave the lot in Tare,” he said at last. He turned to the Canadian. “If you get another job away from Canada you’ll have to raise maps from the R.A.F. in London.”
“Okay, sir,” said Dewar. “You’re not coming back with us?”
“No. I shall be staying here, or going on with Tare.”
Dewar went off to his machine, and David said, “Any gen about our movements yet, sir?”
“Not yet,” said the Group Captain. “They’re still talking out at Gatineau. They’ll probably decide something tonight.”
The Australian said, “I’ll stay here till Dewar gets away. After that, is it still all right for me to keep my dinner date at the Château Laurier? I’ll be on call there.”
“That’s all right,” the other said. “I may be in there later on myself, with Macmahon.”
In the dusk Sugar was drawn with a tractor to the departure tarmac and the officers stood in a small group waiting for the passengers. At half past six exactly the Prince came with his valet; they saluted and he said a word to them, and got into the aircraft, followed by Dewar. The door closed and the engines started up and the machine moved off towards the runway; Cox and David watched the take off and watched the machine circle and head off towards the east.
At five minutes to eight David drove up to the hotel. He dismissed the taxi and went into the enquiry desk and asked for Miss Long. The clerk said, “She said, to go up to Suite 23 second floor.” He went up in the elevator and found the door. Rosemary opened it to him, and he went into the sitting room with her. There was a faint colour in her cheeks, and though she was evidently tired he thought her prettier than ever.
“My word,” he said, “they do you proud. I don’t get a suite.”
She laughed. “This isn’t mine,” she said. “It’s Major Macmahon’s, but he’s dining at Gatineau with the Queen tonight.” She hesitated. “There are so many reporters here,” she said. “We’d probably have trouble with them if we dined down in the public rooms, so I asked him if we could have dinner up here. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” he replied. He took his coat off. “I shan’t stay very long,” he said. “I know you’re tired.”
She smiled. “I’m all right,” she said a little wearily. “It’s just being cooped up in the office gets you down a bit. I tried to go out for half an hour’s walk yesterday afternoon, but there was a woman reporter just walked with me all the way. The Daily Sun, I think. I had to give up and come back. They know there’s something in the wind, but they don’t know what it is.”
“You’ve not been out at all today?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t try it.”
“Never mind,” he said. “Let’s order a drink and talk about boats.”
She smiled at him and pressed the bell, and presently the sherry and tomato cocktails came, and then the dinner. They tried to keep the conversation upon boats, but the pressure of great events was against them. Once she said, “Did you hear anything about this row in England, David?”
He smiled at her. “Nothing but what’s in the newspapers,” he said. “We don’t gossip in this servants’ hall.”
She laughed. “Oh, you pig. To throw that up at me!”
“Why not?” he laughed with her. “I had a very good teacher.” He paused. “I haven’t seen the newspapers here,” he said. “Can you tell me anything about what’s happened at this end, without gossiping too much?”
“I typed a communiqué this afternoon — three drafts and then the final,” she said. “It’s being issued to the Press by now. I can tell you what’s in that.”
“What?”
She said, “Her Majesty has taken the opportunity afforded by her residence in Canada to hold conversations upon Commonwealth affairs with the Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and with various elder statesmen of the federal and the provincial governments. These conversations will be continued as opportunity presents itself in the other countries of the Commonwealth.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Nigger,” she replied. “I only wish I did.”
“I can tell you, or make a pretty good guess.”
“What’s your guess?”
“They’ve been debating what the hell they’re going to do about England.”
She sat in silence for a minute, staring at the tablecloth. Then she raised her head, and said, “You’re probably right, Nigger. But I’m an Englishwoman, and so is the Queen. I don’t like hearing that sort of thing put into words. I don’t suppose that she does, either.”
“I’m sorry, Rosemary,” he said. “I’m just a bloody Colonial, I suppose. Forget it.”
“I can’t forget it,” she said unhappily. “I can’t forget it, because I know it’s probably true. It’s just that I don’t care to hear it said.”
They finished dinner and got up from the table; she rang the bell and the French Canadian waiter came to clear the table. When he had gone, he said, “I’m going to beat it pretty soon, Rosemary. If I go now, will you go to bed?”
She said, “Stay till ten o’clock, David. I shouldn’t go to bed before Major Macmahon comes back, because I said I’d be here to mind the telephone. He said that he’d be back here about ten.”
They sat down in armchairs before the radiants of the electric stove in the ornamental fireplace. “Let’s play a game of some sort, Nigger,” she said wistfully. “Let’s try and stop thinking about this wretched thing. Do you know any games?”
“You’ve not got any cards? Or chess? Or draughts?” She shook her head. He grinned and thought for a minute. “I tell you what,” he said. “Suppose you got a little illness — not too bad, but just enough to make you lose your job in the Palace. And suppose you couldn’t take another real job because of your bad health. And suppose then, somebody left you five thousand a year. What would you do with yourself? You tell me first, and then I’ll tell you what I’d do.”
She laughed. “You mean, I’d be well enough to do whatever I wanted to, but too ill to do any work?”
“That’s right.”
“What lovely illnesses you do think of!”
“Too right,” he said. “What would you do?”
She thought for a minute. “I believe I’d have a boat like yours,” she said. “A five-tonner, just big enough for one to live in comfortably, or two at a pinch. I’d have a cottage with just a couple of bedrooms and a sitting room and kitchen, looking out over the sea. Somewhere near Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, I think.”
“And just live there, and sail your boat?”
“I think so.”
“Wouldn’t you get bored with doing nothing but that?”
“I don’t know. Wouldn’t I be able to do any work at all?”
“Of course not. You’re very ill, you know.”
She smiled. “I think one would get bored if there was no work at all. I think I’d like to do a half time job of some sort, even if it killed me.”
“Very unwise,” he said. “As your medical adviser I can’t recommend it.”
“Good thing you’re not my medical adviser,” she replied. “Now you tell me what you’d do. Mind — no flying. You’re too ill to work.”
“I think I’d get a shark boat and fit it up as a yacht,” he said.
“What’s a shark boat like?” she asked.
“It’s a big boat, sixty or seventy feet long,” he said. “It’s generally got one big diesel in it — I’d like to have two smaller ones. It’s got a high bow and a low stern, with a steep sheer, rather like some of your English fishing boats, with a little wheelhouse at the stern. They’re splendid seaboats; you could go round the world in a shark boat.”
She laughed. “Do you want to go round the world, David? You must have been round it about twenty times already.”
He laughed with her. “Ah, but that’s flying. You never see anything when you’re flying.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t know that I want to go round the world in my shark boat,” he said. “I’d like to cruise in it about Australia. Tasmania’s full of lovely creeks and harbours. And then up north, it would be tremendous fun to cruise about the Celebes, and the Sunda Islands, and the Moluccas, all the way to Borneo. That’s a huge cruising ground that no one ever visits.” He paused. “Years ago,” he said, “during the war, I was flying a new Hatfield up to Luzon in the Philippines. I put down at Darwin for fuel, and after that we’d got enough fuel to fly low, so I went at about a thousand feet all the way, just for fun. I’ve never seen anything so lovely. After Timor it was just hundreds and hundreds of islands, the Celebes and the Moluccas and the Philippines, all coral islands, so it seemed, and nobody much living on them. I always promised myself that one day I’d go there in a boat.”
“I’m not sure that you aren’t cheating,” she said. “There’s not much difference between going in a boat and going in an aeroplane. If you’re too ill to fly, are you well enough to go in a shark boat?”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s only work that makes me go all queer.”
“You wouldn’t have a place on shore at all?”
“I don’t think so. You could live on a shark boat.”
“And you wouldn’t want to do any work?”
He grinned. “Getting a small yacht from A to B through a lot of uncharted coral reefs is work enough for me.”
“I wouldn’t be happy without some kind of a job to do,” she said thoughtfully. “However interesting the rest of it might be.”
He glanced at her. “You’d better come and cook for me on the shark boat.”
“You wouldn’t want an invalid cook, liable to die on you at any moment,” she laughed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’d be a couple of old crocks together, with ten thousand a year.”
“You might have a lot of fun on ten thousand a year,” she said reflectively.
“We could have a lot of fun together on a darn sight less than that,” he replied.
She coloured a little, and said nothing. She sat staring at the elements of the fire, and he sat silent, noticing the curl of her hair behind her ear, the soft lines of her neck, wondering if he had said too much. She stirred at last, and looked at her wrist watch. “Quarter past ten,” she said prosaically. “I’m going to have a cup of tea before going to bed. Will you have one, David?”
He got to his feet. “Don’t you think I’d better go home?” he said. “You ought to get to bed, and so ought I. I may have to work tomorrow, and you certainly will.”
The door of the sitting room opened, and they turned towards it. Macmahon walked in with the Group Captain.
Frank Cox turned to the pilot. “The Queen’s changed her plans,” he said. “She wants to go from here to Canberra, in Tare.”
6
THE PILOT STOOD in thought for a moment by the fireplace. Then he said, “Which way round?”
“You know the form better than I do, Nigger,” the Group Captain said. “Which way would you rather?”
Macmahon asked, “What’s the point at issue?”
David turned to him. “I should think it’s practically the same distance going east or west from here to Canberra. No — wait a minute — seventy-five west and a hundred and fifty-two east—” He stood for a moment in thought. “No, it’s much shorter across the Pacific. It just depends if there’s enough fuel held on Christmas Island.”
He glanced at the G
roup Captain. “You don’t want to land outside the Commonwealth? There’s fuel for us at Honololu.”
“Christmas Island would be better. Can you make Christmas from here in one hop?”
“I’m not sure,” said the pilot. “I’ll have to get down to it on the maps. If we can’t we could refuel at Vancouver. We can do Christmas to Canberra all right, provided that they’ve got the fuel there.”
“Four thousand gallons, and a hundred and fifty gallons of oil?” The pilot nodded. “I’ll get a signal off at once.”
“If there’s no fuel there,” the pilot said, “we’d better go the other way about. In that case, we’d better go back to White Waltham, and then on with one stop at Colombo.”
“Not England,” said Macmahon.
David looked up quickly. “Oh. Well, Malta. There’s all the fuel that we’d need at Malta.”
The Secretary said, “I think the Pacific route would be the better. Is there an alternative if there should be no fuel at Christmas Island?”
The pilot bit his lip. “Fiji, from Vancouver,” he said. “That’s the only one that keeps inside the Commonwealth. I’m not sure if that’s too far for us or not. You’ll have to let me go and work it out.” He turned to the Group Captain. “What time does she want to start?”
“As soon as possible, I think.”
“West about,” said David. “If it’s Christmas, I think we’ll try and get there in daylight. Take off about nine thirty, after breakfast?”
“I think that would be all right. Have you been to Christmas?”
David nodded. “I’ve been there three times. It’s just a staging post, you know, on an island that’s a coconut plantation. I don’t know that it’s been used much since the war. The R.A.A.F. still have a detachment there.” He paused for a moment in thought. “Food,” he said. “We’d better stock up here for the whole trip to Canberra. We shan’t get much at Christmas, and we’ll only be there to refuel for an hour. How many people will be coming?”
