by Nevil Shute
She rose, and stood fingering the bulging letter. ‘As for China,’ she said. ‘I see you know all about it. I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Do you think it would have been good for Peter to have gone to China?’
‘No,’ said Lanard slowly, ‘I don’t.’
‘Nor do I,’ said the girl. She turned to go. ‘Think it over, Mr Lanard.’ She smiled. ‘I think we shall be good friends one day,’ she said. ‘Good-bye.’
Lanard was left alone. Moodily he stood in the window and watched her out of sight down the street, conscious that he had made a most colossal fool of himself. Whether it was the excitement of the interview, or whether unconsciously he had taken a chill, he became aware of the approach of one of his chronic gastric attacks, a very prince of stomach-aches. He spent the evening huddled in his dressing-gown over a fire that smoked but would not burn, a glass of tepid water at his side, one of the most anxious and most miserable men in London.
Sheila left the house and walked away down the street, dazed and numb. In a sense she was relieved in that she knew everything now. That is, she knew the broad outlines of the matter. The details she must find out. She was hot with anger against her brother. He had known of this all the time, and yet he had not told her.
She turned into the King’s Road, bought a budget of newspapers at a tobacconist, and sat down in a teashop to read them. During this interim period the subject had been largely dropped; she found little in the daily papers. One of the weekly journals printed a map of the North Atlantic, showing the approximate point of commencement of the flight. Sheila gazed at it for a while in a growing horror; it was right out in the middle, nearly half-way across.
In another paper she found a small paragraph to state that the Iberian had arrived in New York. Morris and Dennison were mentioned by name.
So it was true.
It was a painful week-end for Jimmie Wallace. It culminated in a journey, for instead of going up to town on Monday morning, he took the car and drove in a slightly different direction. He did not start till after lunch, so that it was nearly teatime when he came driving down the lane to the aerodrome.
He passed the entrance to the works, drove on for half a mile, and stopped outside the little new house that stood by itself among the rudiments of a garden.
The maid opened the door. ‘Can I see Mrs Morris?’ he inquired.
He was shown into the drawing-room. Outside in the garden he could see Helen Morris and another girl grubbing about in a border, and Morris’s terrier puppy in vain pursuit of a bee. He glanced aimlessly about the room. Morris had never been a man for any display of his work and there was nothing in the house to show his profession, no ostentation of propellers or model aeroplanes. The room was very comfortable, with an open brick hearth surrounded by deep, chintz-covered chairs. To Wallace the whole room spoke of the man that he had known at Oxford. The little things were eloquent; the pipe upon the mantelpiece, the toasting-fork in the fender, the long untidy bookcases filled with the russet and black of old calf.
His examination of Morris’s ménage was interrupted by the entrance of his wife.
She came into the room like a breeze. ‘Mr Wallace,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad to see you. Can you stay to tea? Stephen’s away — but of course you know that. I was forgetting.’
‘I’d love to have some tea,’ said Wallace. ‘Afterwards I must get back — I motored up from Berkshire and I must get back in time for dinner.’
Helen Morris wrinkled her brows a little. ‘That’s miles and miles,’ she said in wonder. ‘Would you like tea now — or wait till it comes? We can have it now — almost at once.’
Wallace smiled. ‘I’d rather wait till it comes,’ he said.
He took off his coat and sat down on the arm of a chair. ‘First of all, I want to get my business off my chest if I may. I’m awfully glad to find you here. I was afraid you might have gone away for a change while Stephen is on this stunt.’
‘No,’ said the girl. ‘Stephen wanted me to go home, but I wanted to get on with the garden, so I got Eileen Thatcher to come and stay with me. You remember Eileen? She was at Somerville when we were up. And I didn’t want to go home.’
Wallace nodded. He knew something of the opposition that the girl had had to face at home over her marriage. She had been one of the Rileys of Gloucestershire and of all her relations the only one to take kindly to Morris had been her father, now a great age. She was an only child; one day they would be well off. Wallace, sharing rooms with Morris at Oxford after the war, had watched them from the start.
He perched himself on the arm of his chair and plunged into his subject. ‘I’ve come to you because I want you to do something for me.’ He paused, worried by the difficulty of broaching his subject to the girl. At last he said, ‘Did you ever meet this man Dennison?’
The girl shook her head. ‘No. Stephen wanted him to come here, but they were so busy before they left and he had too much to do.’
She glanced quickly at the perplexed young man. ‘It’s about Sheila, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘That’s it,’ said Wallace with evident relief. ‘She’s been having rather a bad time lately.’
Helen Morris nodded. ‘Stephen told me there was something in the wind between those two,’ she said. ‘He never heard any details, because the man wouldn’t speak a word about any of you. And Stephen didn’t mention it, of course. You told him about it, didn’t you?’
Wallace, intent on piecing together his story, disregarded the question. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was like this. She first met him about four years ago when he was in hospital, or rather convalescing with an aunt of mine. Then he went away and only turned up again at Easter — this Easter. Mind you, he was quids in all the time I think, only they didn’t write or anything.’
Some strain of imagination latent in the girl enabled her to piece together this narrative and made the dry bones live. ‘I see,’ she said gravely.
‘Well, then he got a job in Hong Kong or somewhere that was good enough to marry on — better than most. So back he came at Easter and put it to her as a workable proposition. Well, Sheila got an idea into her head that it wouldn’t be a good thing for him to go to China. You see, it was pretty evident that he was only going out there because he wanted to get married. She thought that if they waited a year or two longer and he poked about a bit, he could get a job that they could marry on in England. So she turned him down, nominally because of China. It was taking a pretty big chance, of course. She thought that doing it that way would give him an incentive to find something else that he’d be happier in himself, and that then he’d come back again.’
‘She didn’t tell him?’
‘No. She thought it would be better that way. As it turned out, she was a damn sight too clever.’
The girl gazed out of the open window into the sunlit garden. ‘Of course, every man is a perfect infant,’ she said, ‘but they aren’t such infants as all that. It was brave of her.’
‘Anyway,’ said Wallace, ‘this lad took his pill and I was sorry to see him go. He’s a good sort. Then — so far as I can make out — he went off in his yacht for a bit and got run down by your husband and co. That seems to have happened immediately after he left us.’
He paused for a moment. ‘Now Sheila’s found out all about it,’ he said, ‘and there’s a most fearful scene of woe.’
Helen nodded comprehendingly.
‘It’s really rather rotten,’ said Wallace gravely. ‘She never thought he’d go off the deep end like this — I don’t suppose she thought about it at all. And now she thinks she’s sent him off on a thing that’s dangerous. She thinks that his taking part in this expedition is all her fault. She thinks he’s going to be killed.’
The girl did not move.
Wallace rose to his feet and looked her squarely in the face. ‘I came over to ask if you’d come and see her,’ he said, ‘and stay with her a day or two. I know it’s a damn funny thing to ask. Pe
rhaps it’s a rotten thing to ask you — I don’t know about that. But you’re the only person who can tell her all about the flight and what the danger really is. That’s what she wants to know, though she doesn’t say so. She’ll believe you. You know, and I know, that there’s not much risk about it. They prepare so carefully. I’ve told her all that, but she doesn’t believe me — she thinks I’m just saying it on purpose for her.’
‘Stephen always says,’ the girl said absently, ‘that if anyone was to get hurt it would wreck the scheme at the outset — destroy the confidence of the public. It would ruin it financially. And they can’t afford to let that happen.’
She turned to Wallace. ‘Of course I’ll come,’ she said. ‘I’m frightfully sorry Sheila’s taking it so much to heart. I think I can tell her as much as anyone can. I’m awfully glad I can help.’
There was a silence. The girl moved slowly to the mantelpiece. ‘He left his pipe behind,’ she said in a troubled tone. ‘Wasn’t it silly of him? He’ll be miserable without it. I do hope he got one in Southampton.’
Wallace could find nothing to say.
The girl left him and walked down the garden to where her friend was still weeding the border, to where the puppy was still snapping at the bees.
‘Eileen!’ she said. ‘Come here. I’ve got a funny story to tell you. I’ve got to go away tomorrow.’ She laughed queerly. ‘I’ve got to go and convince a girl that there’s really no danger in flying half-way across the Atlantic.’
She explained the circumstances.
Her friend plucked a grass and chewed the end of it. ‘Best thing in the world for you,’ she said.
So Rawdon’s arrangements underwent a modification.
He sat in his shabby little office on the aerodrome, laboriously construing an article in a German technical paper with the aid of a dictionary. It was half an hour after lunch on a hot afternoon. He was unbearably sleepy; he could hardly keep his eyes open; the print grew misty before his eyes. He sat relaxed in his deck-chair, his brows knitted in a frown, the paper on his knee. One would have said that here was an amateur golfer reckoning his handicap in the club-house of an impecunious golf club, instead of a celebrated engineer at work.
A knock at the door made him raise his head. ‘Come in,’ he called, in a voice curiously soft and deep.
His commissionaire opened the door. She was a pretty child about fifteen years of age, with short fair hair, dressed in a blue gym tunic. She gazed kindly at the red-haired man in the chair.
‘Please, sir,’ she said, ‘Mrs Morris would like to speak to you.’
Rawdon laid down his paper. ‘Tell her to come in,’ he said. He gazed at her severely. ‘Then you’d better go and find your hair ribbon.’
The child put her hand to her head and smiled shyly, then disappeared. Rawdon heaved his great bulk out of the chair. A moment later Helen Morris entered the room.
Rawdon greeted her and gave her his deck-chair. Then he sat himself on his desk and swung his legs like a schoolboy.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve got rooms at both hotels. The arrangements are that we meet at Truro on the evening of the first. Then we get up very early next morning and drive to Poldhu and wait there for the wireless from the Iberian. That should come in about eight in the morning — as soon as they get away. Then we drive to Padstow and get there in time for lunch. I’ve got rooms at the hotel there for us all — for you, Sir David, and myself — and also for Dennison and your husband. They should be arriving about six in the evening, if they get away up to time.’
Helen nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘We meet at Truro, then.’
‘That’s it,’ said Rawdon. ‘I’m driving down in my car — probably I’ll take two days over it. But I’ll meet you at Truro. Sir David will be coming down by train. Have you ever met him?’
‘No,’ said Helen. ‘But what I came to ask you was this. Do you mind if I bring another girl with me?’
Rawdon hesitated. ‘We don’t want to get any more people there than we can possibly help, you know,’ he said gently.
‘I know,’ said the girl. ‘This is a friend of mine — and of Dennison. I couldn’t leave her behind.’
Briefly she explained as much of the circumstances as she thought it necessary for the designer to know.
‘Anyway,’ she said finally, ‘I can’t possibly go traipsing about the country with you and Sir David without a companion.’
Rawdon smiled, but still hesitated. From the start he had been opposed to taking Helen Morris to Padstow, though it had been impossible to refuse. He owed that to Morris. But he had never lost a certain feeling of uneasiness. He was a level-headed man and had to look at every aspect of the situation. Suppose the thousandth chance turned up to defeat all their care and labour, and the machine were lost. Padstow would be no place for the wife of the pilot.
And now there would be two of them . . .
He turned to her. ‘I don’t suppose Sir David will mind,’ he said, ‘so long as she keeps her mouth shut. You’ll impress that on her? It’ll be nice for you to have a companion. I’m afraid you’d be very bored otherwise.’
He slipped from the table. ‘So that’s all right,’ he said softly. ‘We shall like to have her very much. I’ll write and get an extra room at the hotel.’
8
RAWDON CAME OUT of the little wireless house and walked down the path to the car.
‘Nothing in yet,’ he said.
They had left Truro early in the morning for Poldhu. Rawdon drove with Sir David beside him, Helen and Sheila in the rear seat.
It was a delicious morning, calm, sunny, and fresh. Rawdon laughed, settled himself into his seat, and swung the car along the deserted roads at a good pace. As they drove through the lanes, Sir David leaned back chatting cheerfully with Sheila, in contrast to his habitual reserve. It was exhilarating. Upon all of them lay the feeling that that day history would be made; that that day there would be a tiny advance in the utilization of science, in the civilization of the world. And they were the only people in England who knew about it. At that moment in the towns and cities the people were going to work as they had done every morning of their working lives. To them this day would be like any other day. But to the little party motoring through Cornwall, this day would be different, a day to which they would look back with wonder as one upon which they had helped in doing something new.
Sir David got out of the car, fumbled for his watch, and closed it again with a sharp click.
‘Twenty minutes to nine,’ he said briefly. ‘They’re late off the mark, I’m afraid.’
They chatted for a little round the car, then turned and fell to pacing up and down the road, Rawdon and Sir David a little way ahead of the others.
‘We are fortunate in the weather,’ said Sir David. ‘A very high barometer.’
Rawdon did not answer. Sir David glanced at him; he was evidently uneasy and paced up and down in silence for a little. At last, ‘We ought to be hearing something by now,’ he said. ‘They must have got away by this time.’
Sir David glanced again at his watch. ‘They may not be in position,’ he said. ‘If the vessel were too far out they’d have to wait, of course — even if it meant finishing the flight in the dark.’
Rawdon bit his lip. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘We ought to have given them night-flying equipment. It comes out so frightfully heavy. The dynamo, and the batteries . . . For that we could give them extra fuel for half an hour.’
At a quarter past nine Helen Morris came strolling towards them. ‘No news?’ she inquired.
‘Not yet,’ said Rawdon, in his soft, gentle little voice. ‘It means that the Iberian hasn’t got within flying distance up to time. We’re going to give them an hour more, then we’ll try and get a message through to them and find out what’s happening.’
He laughed, and stretched his immense frame. ‘I didn’t have half enough breakfast,’ he said cheerfully.
They turned and walked up and d
own the road again. Presently Rawdon stopped and glanced towards Helen and Sheila. They were not looking at them.
‘Look at that,’ he said to the baronet.
He pointed to a cottage about a mile away to the north of them. From the one stone chimney a thin wreath of blue smoke rose almost vertically into the air and drifted seawards.
Sir David regarded it for a while in silence. ‘Coming out easterly — nor’-easterly,’ he said at last. ‘I was afraid it might with this high glass.’
He turned to Rawdon. ‘Probably entirely local,’ he said. ‘It comes round that hill.’
The designer did not speak, and they resumed their pacing up and down the road. Presently Sir David stopped.
‘How would it be to try and get through to them now?’ he said. The wind had risen to a light air, and fanned his cheek as he spoke. ‘They ought to know about this east in the wind. We didn’t count much on that.’
‘It was a hundred to one against it at this time of year,’ said Rawdon fretfully.
They turned towards the wireless-house. As they approached, a man in shirt-sleeves appeared at the door and waved a paper at them. Rawdon looked at the baronet for a moment without speaking.
‘That’s bad luck,’ he said quietly, and went to fetch the message. It ran:
9.57. Goods safely despatched as arranged Scheme one 963 miles. Willett.
Helen looked over Rawdon’s arm at the paper. ‘What does Scheme one mean?’ she asked.
‘Scheme one means coming to Padstow,’ said Sir David. ‘Scheme two was for use if it was very bad weather and meant making for Baltimore Harbour — west of Ireland, you know.’
‘I see,’ said Helen.
Rawdon turned cheerfully to Sheila. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘That’s just over nine and a half hours’ flight. They’ll arrive about half-past seven in the evening, in time for a late dinner.’ He turned to the car. ‘Talking of food,’ he said, ‘what about another breakfast? We’ve got all day to get to Padstow.’ He turned. ‘Where’s Sir David?’
