by Nevil Shute
‘He went into the wireless-hut,’ said Helen.
Rawdon left the girls to pack themselves into the car and swung jauntily down the path and into the office. He found Sir David at a table, pencilling figures on a scrap of paper.
Rawdon’s jaunty bearing dropped from him like a garment. ‘They’re cutting it mighty fine,’ he said grimly.
Sir David tapped his pencil on the table and gazed at the other for a moment in silence. ‘Evidently they were late in getting to the spot,’ he said. ‘It was to be a maximum of nine hundred and fifty miles.’
Rawdon nodded. ‘Nine hundred and sixty-three miles,’ he said. ‘That’s just over nine and a half hours’ flight, say nine hours and forty minutes — in a calm. And petrol for ten and a quarter hours. They didn’t count on having a head wind,’ he added grimly.
Sir David glanced out of the door at the open moor. ‘It’s probably entirely local,’ he said again.
They returned to the car and drove back to Truro. At the hotel where they had passed the night they had a second breakfast.
‘I say,’ said Sheila. ‘Let’s get some lunch put up and have it on the way. We shan’t want much after a breakfast like this.’ So they set off for Padstow, driving in the sunshine through the heart of Cornwall.
Sir David sat in the front seat by Rawdon, calm and impassive. They did not speak at all. Behind them Helen and Sheila were cheerful enough; the keen wind and the sunshine had lifted their troubles from them and they were enjoying the drive.
At about half-past one they stopped for lunch on the summit of the moor, not very far from the point where the road branches away down-hill to Padstow. On the moor the wind blew strong and free. Rawdon and Sir David left the girls with a perfunctory remark or two, and walked up on to a knoll while they laid out the lunch.
For a long while neither of them spoke.
At last, ‘Fifteen miles an hour at least,’ said Rawdon. ‘Probably nearer twenty.’
‘Will they know they have a wind against them?’
Rawdon considered. ‘The smoke of a steamer might tell them,’ he said. ‘Nothing else.’
There was a pause, and presently Rawdon spoke again. ‘One couldn’t have foreseen a wind like this at this time of year,’ he said. ‘The weather report said south-westerly. It’s practically dead east.’
He turned to the other. ‘We may as well face the facts. If this wind holds all day, they can’t do it. They haven’t got the petrol.’
Down the road the girls sat on the heather beside the car, the lunch spread on a patch of grass before them. Helen Morris gazed at the two men on the knoll a little anxiously.
‘What’s the matter with them?’ she said to Sheila. ‘Why don’t they come?’
They looked uneasily at the men. Presently they stirred, and rose to their feet. ‘What are they talking about up there?’ said Sheila. ‘There’s something up.’
‘I know.’
The wife of the pilot went to the other side of the road and stood erect upon a little heap of stones looking intently round at the sunlit moor, at the yellow gorse, and at the sea, mistily blue away upon the horizon. Sheila stood watching her, reminded in a queer way of a child that ventures timidly into a darkened room.
Helen turned slowly towards the knoll; the breeze caught her hair and blew a wisp of it across her face.
‘Oh!’ she cried. For a moment she stood quite still, then turned and walked across the road to Sheila.
‘My dear,’ she said quietly. ‘I know what it is. It’s the wind. It’s blowing against them — and it’s very strong.’
That afternoon dragged wearily away. They made a hurried lunch and drove down to the little seaport town. At the hotel Rawdon was very good to them, and showed them to their rooms overlooking the estuary. Sir David, on the other hand, had retired absolutely into himself and had become again the man of affairs. He left them and retired to the manager’s office and the telephone. Rawdon joined him as soon as he could decently leave the two girls.
Helen and Sheila wandered out into the little town and along the quays, miserably endeavouring to hearten each other. Down the river the wind blew strongly, raising little rollers upon the surface.
At the end of the jetty Sheila turned to Helen.
‘I’ve never been here before,’ she said, ‘but Peter knows it well. He’s often been in here in his boat.’ She paused. ‘I suppose he rows up to these steps in his dinghy,’ she said, ‘and ties her up to that ring. And then he walks up there and does his shopping. Bully beef, and tinned milk and things . . .’
Helen passed a hand through her arm, but could find nothing to say.
The other did not move. ‘It all seems so unreal,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen a flying-boat close to and I — I don’t know what it’s like . . .’
Presently they returned to the hotel. At tea Sir David was more communicative. He had managed to get a telephone call through to the Admiralty where he had spoken to a cousin of his. A destroyer would be held ready to proceed to sea at Plymouth. No authority for her to sail could be issued till the machine was two hours overdue. Sir David was to put through another telephone call at ten o’clock, if necessary.
At the end of the day they got into the car again and drove out to the headland at the mouth of the river, Stepper Point. It was half-past seven when they arrived, the time fixed for the arrival of the machine. They left the car in a lane and walked over a field to a stretch of open gorse-covered land where they could see the whole expanse of the western horizon. The wind was dying with the evening.
Sheila and Helen sat down together on a mossy slab of granite overlooking the sea; Rawdon and Sir David stood behind a little way off.
‘I’m afraid there’s not a chance of it,’ said Rawdon quietly to the baronet.
‘It was better to bring them out,’ said the other. ‘And we can do nothing till ten.’
Slowly the sun drew nearer the horizon; in the deepening sky appeared the silvery disc of the full moon. The day had been very hot; on the headland the falling breeze grew cool and refreshing. At last Sir David closed his watch with a sharp click. Rawdon raised his eyebrows.
‘Twenty past eight,’ said the baronet. By calculation the petrol would be exhausted by a quarter past.
‘It would be possible to run for a little bit longer,’ said Rawdon. ‘By cruising at a slower speed they might get as much as half an hour more.’
The sun sank lower and lower. The two girls sat together motionless, now and again speaking a word or two in a whisper. At last the lower limb of the sun dipped into the sea. Rawdon looked at his watch; it was nearly nine o’clock.
He glanced towards Helen and Sheila.
‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘We oughtn’t to have brought them.’
The baronet shifted a little, and raised the collar of his ulster. He was stiff with standing, and suddenly to Rawdon he seemed to have grown old.
‘We must get them back to the hotel,’ he said. ‘Will you take Mrs Morris? You know her better than I.’
He moved forward to where the two girls were still watching the afterglow of the sunset. ‘Come,’ he said, and there was nothing of the man of business about him now. Only an old man was speaking to the two girls; a man tall, white-haired, and a little old-fashioned in his manner.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must get back to the hotel. They must be down by now. I think by the time we get back to the hotel we shall find a message from them from Ireland.’
He turned to Sheila and offered her his arm. ‘Will you come with me?’ he said.
The girl took his arm and they went stumbling over the heather towards the car.
‘All evening,’ she said, ‘I’ve been watching the gulls. They do it so easily — so effortlessly. All along the cliff.’ She turned to the old man. ‘It’s worth it, isn’t it?’ she said pathetically.
‘My dear,’ said the baronet, ‘you should ask them.’
And that was all that anybody said until they reached
the hotel.
Rawdon dropped them at the porch and took the car round to the garage. Sir David ushered Helen and Sheila into the hall. He dropped his hat on to a peg and turned to face them.
‘You must go upstairs and go to bed,’ he said incisively. ‘I promise you that I will come and tell you the moment we get any news.’ They stood before him like two children, mesmerized by their own trouble, by his sharply-defined features, by the clear enunciation of his words. ‘You understand? You are to go straight upstairs and get your things off and go properly to bed. And go to sleep. Good night.’
Without a word they turned and went upstairs.
To everyone in pain there comes a breaking point, the point where fortitude breaks down. As often as not the crisis is precipitated by some discomfort of the most trifling description, the last straw in very fact. To Sheila as she lay in bed came the last straw. For three hours she had lain tossing from side to side, feverish and hot. Now as a crown to her misery came an irrational booming in her ears, a droning that she knew she could not stifle from her head.
And then, suddenly, she knew that Dennison was dead. She had reached the breaking point.
For a minute she lay stupefied, then came diversion. Through the thin partition between her room and Helen’s, she heard the bed creak suddenly, heard a footstep on the floor, and heard a window flung up. Then there was silence for a little; the girl opened her eyes and lay listening.
Somewhere down the passage another window opened, a door slammed, and then there was Rawdon bellowing in the passage outside her room to Sir David in the manager’s office.
‘Fisher! I say, Fisher! All right. They’re coming in now.’
Sheila leaped from her bed and opened the door. ‘Where are they?’ she asked.
Rawdon turned to her with a broad grin. ‘Listen,’ he said.
Faintly they heard the booming rising and falling gently on the night air, and a little louder.
‘That’s them coming in,’ he said in his soft little voice. ‘Go and put something on — you’ll catch cold.’ He tapped at Helen’s door; they went in and stood together at the window. Helen was leaning on the window-sill.
Outside the moon was bright, the air very still. Beneath their window lay the river, black and mysterious, running out of sight into the darkness. From the night came the roar, louder now, droning and pulsating. Suddenly it ceased.
‘Shut off,’ said Rawdon quietly. ‘They’re putting down into the harbour.’
For an interminable time there was no sound. It must have been three minutes or more before there was a sudden sharp burst of engine, clearer now, and much closer. Then, after a long pause, came a gentle rumble rising and falling, now and again shutting off altogether. Rawdon relaxed his attitude and stood erect.
‘All over now,’ he said. ‘They’re on the water — taxiing into the beach, I should think.’
He bent again to listen. Far away down the estuary sounded the rumble, subdued and steady. It broke into a roar, died, and roared again. Then came a curious, slow coughing noise, a choking murmur and then silence, perfect, absolute.
Helen turned to Rawdon. ‘What did they put the engine on like that for?’ she asked.
‘Climbing up the beach. Now watch — they’ll send up a flare in a minute to show us where they are.’
For a quarter of an hour they stood by the window, staring into the darkness, watching for the signal. At last Rawdon stood up and looked at his watch.
‘Half-past one,’ he said. ‘They must have run out of Very lights.’ He turned to Helen. ‘I’m going down to see if I can raise a motor-boat,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that we shall be able to do much before dawn.’
9
DENNISON SAT BESIDE Morris, cold and stiff. He had long ceased trying to peer ahead into the darkness and, but for an occasional glance over the side at the coast they were following, concentrated his attention on holding the electric torch steady on the compass. The torch was the only provision for night flying that they had made; it had been put in as an after-thought. Already the light was very low, but it would last them out.
He leaned over Morris to scrutinize the dim coast. They were flying on a compass course at about three thousand feet, the coast just visible on their beam and below. As Dennison leaned near Morris he could hear him singing something above the roaring of the engine, and smiled a little. Morris had a habit of singing old-fashioned Puritan hymns to pass the time; occasionally he would beat time with the unoccupied hand upon his knee.
‘He who would valiant be
‘Gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy
Follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement
Shall make—’
Dennison touched him on the arm and pointed seawards to a light. He raised himself in his seat and placed his mouth close to the other’s helmet.
‘Lundy,’ he shouted. ‘North End. We ought to pick up Hartland in a minute.’
Morris nodded without making the effort to reply, stooped, took Dennison’s hand and directed the torch to the watch and to the petrol gauge. Then he replaced the hand in its former position with the light on the compass and nodded cheerfully.
In a minute they picked up Hartland Light. Morris stirred in his seat, throttled the engine a little, and put the machine on a slow downward slant. Dennison caught his eye and nodded. This was the last lighthouse on the coast before the entrance to the river; both were afraid of overshooting Padstow and flying on in search of it, uncertain of their bearings.
Morris brought her down to a thousand feet and flew close along the coast, scrutinizing every bay. At this height the visibility was better; they could see every beach and headland and even the cottages on the cliffs, bright in the moonlight. After a quarter of an hour Dennison touched the pilot’s arm and spoke again.
‘This is Pentire Head,’ he shouted. ‘It’s a mile on the other side of this — one mile.’
Morris nodded and held up one finger in comprehension. They passed the head; before them lay a gap in the coast. It was Padstow Harbour.
Morris beat his hand cheerfully upon his thigh.
Dennison raised himself in his seat again, and pointed. ‘Put down well inside the low point,’ he said, ‘because of the bar.’
Morris settled himself into his seat, nodded again, and pulled back the throttle. The roar of the engine died from behind them; silence leaped up from the darkness and hit them shrewdly. Dennison put his head over the side and peered downwards. Already they were nearly over the mouth of the harbour; they sank rapidly towards the level, faintly corrugated water.
Lower and lower they sank. Silently they flitted between the points and into the mouth of the river. Morris sat tense and motionless, straining his eyes forward in an attempt to read the dim surface of the water. Gently he flattened the glide and settled to the surface. Suddenly, at the last moment, he thrust the throttle hard open. The engine burst into life with a roar; Morris swung the machine through a small angle, shut off the engine, and sank down on to the water.
The machine took the water with a crash and a heavy lurch to starboard. Morris was flung from his seat on to Dennison; a cloud of spray came over them, the water foamed along the gunwale. One wing-tip dipped perilously into the water; Morris, half out of his seat, thrust violently upon his controls. The machine steadied on to an even keel and lost way upon the surface.
‘Damn it,’ said Morris. ‘I must have put her down cross wind after all. Feel if she’s making any water.’
Dennison stopped and felt beneath his feet, and listened.
‘All right,’ he said.
They looked towards the shore. ‘There’s a beach that we can put her up on over there,’ said Dennison. ‘There — just beside that hill. The town’s the other side — over there somewhere. We can’t get near it. It’s all rocky over there.’
‘Get the wheels down,’ said Morris. Dennison began to wind the wheels into the landing position; Morris
opened up his engine and turned towards the beach.
The machine, running at ten knots, took the beach with a lurch and a jar, rearing her long bow up the sand. Morris gave her a burst of engine; she wallowed forward and crawled out of the water upon her wheels and up to the beach. Another burst, and she was ploughing through powdery sand above high water level. The sand, caught up by the propeller, beat stingingly against their faces.
Morris leaned clumsily forward to the instrument-board and switched off the engine. The rumble died to an irregular, intermittent coughing; the engine choked and came to rest. From all sides the silence closed in upon them strangely, so that their tiniest movements made a rustling that their stunned ears were able to detect and wonder at.
For a long time they sat motionless in the machine. At last Morris put up a hand and tugged feebly at the straps of his helmet. Dennison followed his example, unfastened the chin-strap with fumbling hands, and pulled the helmet from his head.
Morris sighed deeply, tried to raise himself from his seat, and sank back with a spasm of cramp. ‘Poop off a Very light,’ he said.
Dennison felt for the pistol in the rack beside his seat. Pistol and rack were gone. ‘I smashed against it when we landed,’ he said. ‘I expect it’s gone down into the bilge.’
With an effort he heaved himself from his seat, drew his legs over the gunwale, and dropped down on to the sand. Morris followed him: they stumbled painfully a little way along the beach, working their cramped muscles. Presently Dennison climbed back into the machine and searched vainly for the pistol; it had slipped somewhere into the recesses of the hull beyond his reach.
‘Leave the bloody thing,’ said Morris from the beach. ‘It will be light in a few hours. I’m going to lie down up in those sandhills. Chuck down the seat cushions and my helmet.’
Dennison dropped down from the cockpit and they went ploughing through the heavy sand to the dunes at the top of the beach, clumsy in their fleece-lined suits.
They found a hollow and threw themselves down. Morris scraped a hole for his hip, drew up the deep fur collar about his ears, and shifted the leather cushion beneath his head.
