by Nevil Shute
It struck him that she looked tired. It would be a good thing if he could get her away for a holiday; it was absurd for her to spend all her life at Little Tinney.
They had tea in the library. After the meal was cleared away they sat gossiping for a little before the fire; Wallace decided to seize his opportunity. He leaned back in his chair and commenced to bore her to distraction with a long account of the family investments in China. He gave her full details of each stock in turn with the history of each company, and the date the stock had come into their possession, the price at purchase and at the present time, the yield, and the prospects of improvement or otherwise. From that he passed to an appreciation of the political situation in China, with especial reference to its effect on certain companies. He noticed that she was growing restive, and smiled covertly to see her smothering a yawn. Finally he passed to the (fictitious) desirability of having an independent observer on the spot.
‘I’ve been wondering lately whether Dennison would care to do anything for us in that way,’ he said thoughtfully, and smiled again to see her suddenly stiffen to attention. ‘He might be able to send us a weekly cable with certain information. It would be very much to his own advantage.’ He was watching her closely, but found time to reflect, ‘What utter rot I’m talking.’ Still, she knew very little of business methods.
‘It sounds a very good idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you write to him?’
‘One might do that,’ said Wallace. ‘Where does he live?’
‘He’s in rooms,’ she said. ‘I’ve got his address upstairs. It might be nicer if you went and saw him one evening.’
‘Have him to dinner one night,’ said Wallace. ‘When’s he going out?’
She did not answer. He glanced at her and saw that she was not looking his way, but staring into the fire. Presently she turned and met his eyes, a little wistfully. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he ought to — a bit.’ She glanced at him again, and this time he noticed a slight quivering of her lips.
‘Lord bless me,’ he thought in alarm. ‘I believe she’s going to cry.’
‘Please, Jimmie,’ she said. ‘I want to tell you about it.’
He sat up in his chair. ‘Why, of course,’ he said kindly.
The girl slipped from her seat on to the floor beside his feet, and sat with her back against his chair, facing the fire so that he could only see the back of her head.
‘I don’t think he ought to go out to China,’ she said rapidly, ‘and he wanted me to marry him and I wouldn’t.’ Though he could not see her face, Jimmie knew that tears were very near.
‘I guessed as much,’ he said equably. He ran his fingers down through her soft hair and pulled her ear. ‘What are you going to do about it now? Seems to me that you’ve got yourself into a mess and you don’t know how to get out of it. Want me to assist, I suppose.’
There was a pause, but when she spoke again he knew that the danger was over.
‘It’s not a mess at all,’ she explained. ‘Only sometimes — one gets worried over it all. It’s having nobody to talk to. It was all right while Antony was here, but now ... You see, I knew as soon as Peter came back that he wanted to ask me to marry him. You remember when he came; that first evening? I knew quite well — I think he wanted me to know. And then he told me all about going out to Hong Kong, and I knew that the only reason he was going out there was because it — it gave him a chance to get married, and he wanted that so badly. And then he went away, and I had time to think it all over.’
She turned from the fire and glanced up at him. ‘Jimmie,’ she said earnestly, ‘he wouldn’t be happy in Hong Kong. It wouldn’t do. He’s not that sort. He’d be miserable out there — I know he would. I found out that — he doesn’t really want to go a bit. It was only — only for me that he was taking it.’ She turned back to the fire and resumed her old position. ‘And directly I knew that I — I sort of knew that it was up to me, you see, and if he spoilt his life and gave up all that he cared for, it would be my fault.’
She paused, and played a little with his shoe-lace. When she spoke again it was so softly that Wallace had to listen intently for her words. ‘A man isn’t like a girl, you know,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘A girl when she marries is quite happy with her home, and her children, and she doesn’t want much else. But a man is different. He’s like a little boy that has to have his toys ... a man has to have his toys, and if you take them away from him you — you just kill him. The round of golf, or the club, or — or yachting. Once he gets really fond of a toy ... if his wife takes it away from him she can never make it up to him, however much she loves him. It’s just gone, and you can’t replace it with anything else.’ She paused, and repeated piteously, ‘She can never make it up to him.’
‘I suppose that’s so,’ said Wallace.
The girl nodded. ‘I know that’s true,’ she said simply. ‘And then, it was pretty obvious that it was up to me to get him out of his mess. Because he really was going to make a frightful mess of things and I sort of felt — I felt that it was up to me to get him out of it all. You see, if he’d gone out to China as a junior partner in that firm, he couldn’t have chucked it after a year or two if he didn’t like it. He’d have been there for keeps. And so, when he asked me, I told him I was afraid of going to China and I couldn’t marry him if he was going out there. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t go out there without me. And I think he’ll rout about now and find a job in England that we can marry on, and then he’ll come back again.’ She paused, and then, ‘I just couldn’t let him give it all up for me, Jimmie. I had to have a shot at — at piloting him out.’
‘I see,’ said Wallace gently. ‘How did he take it?’
For a while the girl did not answer. ‘He was so sweet about it,’ she said at last, very softly. Then, ‘Oh, Jimmie,’ she said piteously, ‘it was four years since I’d seen him, and he remembered all that time and came back just the same. I — I didn’t know men ever did that sort of thing, except in books.’
For a moment Jimmie Wallace had an eccentric impulse to lean down and kiss his sister — an action that he had not performed since he was four years old. Manfully he beat it down, but fell to stroking her short, fine hair as they sat together in the firelight wondering ... wondering ...
What on earth was he to do about it all? And what if Dennison were killed?
That evening Dennison returned to his rooms in Chelsea. He had paid a flying visit to London previously, had told Lanard briefly what he had taken on, and had visited his firm of solicitors. He had had a long interview with the head of the firm and had managed to interest him sufficiently in the scheme to obtain the necessary leave. They were maritime solicitors.
Then he had returned to Cowes, and had lived for the month as the guest of Sir David on board the Clematis, watching and taking his part in the arrangements for the flight. During that time the flying-boat had been completed in Flanagan’s great hangar, and had made several flights. Morris had flown her off the water alone on the first flight. Then he and Dennison had paid a flying visit to Farnborough, where they had had a lengthy consultation with two or three authorities on aerial navigation. They had then returned to Cowes and proceeded to practise what they had learned by taking observations in the air. During this month the catapult had been completed and fitted to a fast cargo vessel of the Fisher Line, the Iberian. She was now on her way from the Clyde to the Solent. On arrival she was to take the flying-boat on board for two trial launchings, after which she would pick up a cargo at Southampton and sail for New York. Dennison had returned to London for a couple of days.
‘To make my testamentary dispositions, for one thing,’ he informed Lanard.
Lanard smiled sourly; the jest was not to his taste. He had seen nothing of Dennison for three weeks, when he had burst in one evening, informed Lanard of his part in the projected flight, and returned to the Solent. Lanard was dismayed; that Dennison of all people should go rushing off upon a
mad scheme of this nature struck him as a very bad business. He summed the position up to himself in a trenchant phrase, clarified, perhaps, by the light of his own experience. Dennison was ‘on the run’.
He blamed himself most bitterly that he had not gone with Dennison on the Irene. Then, if ever, Dennison had needed his friends about him most of all; Lanard had allowed himself to be put off. If he had been there, he thought, this would never have happened.
Dennison began to talk about the Chrysanthe and her prospects in the coming summer. It was settled that he was to sail her in her races throughout the season; after the Eastern regattas and Cowes they were to go on down the coast with the object of getting in as much racing as possible to gain experience on the vessel. It would mean a good two months of it, said Dennison cheerfully.
‘But look here,’ said Lanard. ‘What about your work? You’re having six weeks’ holiday now over this infernal American trip. You aren’t going to get leave for the Chrysanthe as well? If you aren’t pretty careful, you’ll find yourself upon the cold, hard world.’
Dennison kicked the coals down into the fire. ‘The Lord will provide,’ he said calmly.
Lanard gazed hard at him. ‘Do you mean Sir David Fisher?’ he said at last.
‘Perhaps,’ said Dennison. ‘The sparrows and the crumbs — and the rich man’s table, and all that, you know.’ Lanard had to make what he could of that, for he could get no more out of Dennison. He was in a queer temper.
Lanard picked up The Times, and Dennison lit a pipe; for a full twenty minutes neither of them spoke a word. Then Lanard dropped the paper into a rustling heap beside his chair.
‘What about Hong Kong?’ he said.
‘What about it?’
‘Are you going out there?’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Dennison curtly. ‘It was a damn silly scheme at the best of times. I turned it down.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lanard dryly. ‘But it brings us back to the immediate question — what do you propose to live on when your firm sacks you?’
Dennison grinned. ‘Probably on a yacht,’ he said.
Lanard knew very well that at times his friend was capable of displaying the rudiments of a subtle sense of humour; he considered this reply with some care. ‘Do you mean that Sir David’s going to keep you all the year round simply to sail the Chrysanthe in the summer?’ he said. ‘It seems an optimistic view of the situation.’
‘Lord, no,’ said Dennison. ‘Whatever put that idea into your head?’
He was silent for a little, and knocked out his pipe against the heel of his boot. Presently he spoke again. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he said quietly. ‘All the time since the war I’ve been keeping my little nose to the grindstone because — because I wanted to get married. Well, that’s all over and done with now. What’s the use of going on working like this — in London? So long as I can keep myself ... You called me a married man in embryo once. Well, a married man works like hell. But afterwards ...’
He was silent. Lanard continued his sentence.
‘Afterwards one settles down and goes on working,’ he said evenly. ‘One piles up comfortable things. One makes money, and that acts as an insurance against — mistakes. And presently one forgets, and one marries again.’
Dennison broke in. ‘I’m damned if that’s your creed,’ he said roughly.
The other considered. ‘It’s the only reasonable creed,’ he said at last.
There was a silence. Lanard got up and went to the window and stood looking down into the lamp-lit street, in characteristic attitude.
‘It’s not my business to butt in,’ he said presently, without taking his eyes from the street. ‘That’s why one does it, I suppose. It’s always seemed to me that it’s never fair to take a girl at her word — at first. It’s so different for them. And they expect to be given a second chance — traditionally.’
‘I know,’ said Dennison. ‘They book their ticket at Cook’s, return it after a couple of days, and a week later go and badger the life out of the clerks because they can’t have it back again.’
Lanard turned to him, his brow wrinkled in perplexity. ‘Which means?’ he said.
‘A journey to China, I should think,’ said Dennison, a little wearily. ‘The clerks haven’t got any self-respect to lose, I suppose. But in this case, when the ticket was returned it was final.’
He turned to Lanard. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he said again. ‘If I had the money I could get married tomorrow. I think I could probably count on being married next year if I wanted to be. I could probably afford it by then.’
He paused. ‘The point is that I was turned down because I was going to China, and for no other reason at all. Well, you see — I was going to China for her, and if she couldn’t come to China for me ... It was a sort of test case, you see. She cared — quite a lot. But not enough to come to China. That absolutely put the lid on it.’
Lanard turned from the window. ‘I see,’ he said slowly.
‘That being the case,’ said Dennison, ‘it wasn’t any use going on. Marriage has to be everything or nothing, you know.’ He paused. ‘Sixpence for fourpence halfpenny,’ he said very quietly. ‘It was a bad bargain.’
He laughed suddenly, and there was a note in his laughter that Lanard did not care to hear. ‘I was done, all the same,’ he said, ‘because by the time I found it out, I’d spent the sixpence.’
It was inevitable that the Press should discover the experiment. They had kept the secret well, but as soon as the Iberian arrived in the Solent with a peculiar superstructure on her forecastle, ill-informed comment and speculation began.
‘The only thing that one can say,’ remarked Sir David, ’is that we have been very fortunate that it did not begin before.’
He stood in the chart-room of the Iberian with Morris and Dennison as the vessel proceeded down the Solent towards Spithead. It was early in the morning; the air was fresh and salt; the sun streamed in through the ports and fell in sliding patches upon the papers littered on the chart-room table. On deck was the catapult with the track laid down and extending over the hold to the forecastle, and on the catapult was the flying-boat with Rawdon and the chief mechanic making a final inspection. There were to be two trial launchings that day; the first with no load at all, the second fully loaded.
Sir David turned again to the pile of newspapers. No statement had been issued to the Press in regard to the flight, with the result that the graver journals barely referred to the matter, while the more democratic sheets seethed with inaccurate information about the ‘birdmen and their giant plane’.
‘Fair makes me retch,’ said Morris crudely. He was fortunate in that the identity of the crew had not yet leaked out.
The two technical papers dealt editorially with the matter. One regretted the paucity of information and was strictly non-committal. The other assumed a bolder attitude and gave a remarkably accurate forecast of the flight in the first paragraph. In the remaining three columns the discourse touched rapidly upon the deplorable condition of maritime aviation and settled down with gusto to a tirade against the Navy, illustrated by anecdotes that should have been unprintable, finally declaring that dear old Clausewitz was right after all, and that all things worked together for good.
Finally, on the day that they sailed for America, The Times, in a leading article, dropped a heavy benediction upon the flight.
The Iberian pushed her way out between the twin forts and headed for the Warner and the Nab Tower. Presently Sir David and Dennison left the chart-room and went up on to the bridge; Morris was left alone. On the first trial he was to fly the machine off the deck alone, after which he was to fly back and put down off Flanagan’s yard. There the machine would be lifted on to a lighter, so that by the time the Iberian returned, she could be hoisted on board again, for a second flight.
They passed the Warner. Morris moved across the cabin to the port and stood looking down upon the machine, ready upo
n its catapult. Above the pulsing of the engines and the wash of the sea, he could hear the pumps clucking and sighing as they charged the reservoirs for the pneumatic ram that would catapult him off the deck into the air ...
A mechanic climbed up on to the planes of the machine and commenced to turn a crank upon the engine; the propeller began to revolve, infinitely slow. It seemed incredible that she should start. Suddenly he heard a half-hearted spit; the propeller leaped forward and became half invisible, and a steady rumble told him that the engine was running. They were nearly up to the Nab.
Morris turned from the window and took his helmet and gloves from the table. He opened the door of the little house and stood for a moment in the doorway, looking back over the water to the Island. It was a warm, sunny day; the clouds were white and the sea was very blue. It was a day on which one could do anything.
He stood in the doorway and stretched himself. From below came the steady rumble of the engine. ‘She runs very sweetly,’ he thought. ‘She’s better on the benzole mixture than the other.’
As they passed the Nab, Morris was in his seat and running his engine up to its full power. Satisfied, he throttled down again. Rawdon stepped to the side of the machine and looked up at Morris in the pilot’s seat above him.
‘You all right?’ he shouted.
The helmeted figure nodded cheerfully. ‘Quite all right.’
Rawdon stepped back and stood with the engineer of the catapult by the gear that would release the machine. On the bridge, Captain Willett broke off his conversation with the baronet.
