by Nevil Shute
‘Well, we haven’t got lots of money,’ she said. ‘Not for hiring ships and that. I suppose you’d say that if you can get a free ride out to this place Honolulu you can do the rest of it free, too.’
‘I could try,’ he said simply. ‘Maybe I could do some work out there or something, if I get into a jam. How much money do you think I could take with me? I was thinking I could take a hundred pounds.’
She laid her teacup down. ‘I’ll get the bank book.’
They discussed finances for a time, upon the basis that he would be away for three or four months. ‘You forgot about the rest of the top flat,’ she said. She figured with a stub of pencil on the back of the cheque book. ‘I think it would be all right if you took a hundred and ten pounds,’ she said. ‘But we’d have to have money coming in by the middle of April or we wouldn’t be able to pay school fees for the summer term for Janice at Miss Pearson’s.’
‘She’d have to go to the Council school.’
‘I know. But Jo was against that.’
He nodded. ‘That gives me a deadline, anyway.’
She sat deep in thought. At last she said, ‘It’ll be hot out in those parts, Keith. You’ll have to take your cricket shirts and your blazer.’ On that note they went to bed.
He knew shop hours, and he knew that half-past six on a pitch-dark January morning was no time to ring a busy man hurrying to catch the transport out to work at Blackbushe, forty miles from London. He waited until eight o’clock and rang Mrs Thorn, and got from her the telephone number of Albatross Airways, and the extension number. He enquired a little delicately if it was all right to ring Mr Thorn at his work, and got a somewhat affronted reply. ‘Of course it’s all right,’ she said. ‘Mr Thorn has a secretary.’ He apologised and hung up, well pleased. Mr Oliver Thorn apparently was somebody at Albatross Airways Ltd.
Ten minutes later he was speaking to the man himself. He got a courteous reception, somewhat to his own surprise. ‘Nice to hear your voice, Mr Stewart. We met last at the Ealing and District exhibition.’
‘That’s right,’ said Keith. ‘I liked your Petrolea - liked it very much. If I’d been judging the locos I’d have given it a bronze.’
‘It wasn’t worth it, Mr Stewart, not really. I should have fluted the connecting rods, and it’s got cheesehead screws all over where they should be hex. I’ll do better next time. But it goes all right.’
‘Well, that’s the main thing,’ said Keith. ‘Tell me, Mr Thorn, did you hear anything from Mr Sanderson about me?’
‘Sure. He said you wanted to know if there was any chance of a ride with us to Honolulu.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well now, there is and there isn’t, Mr Stewart. What I mean is, we don’t carry passengers; we aren’t allowed to. We run a freight service. We do sometimes stretch a point, but then it’s for someone special like yourself, and we sign them on as crew - second engineer under instruction, or something like that. It’s all at the discretion of the Chief Pilot, Captain Fielding. He’ll be taking this Honolulu flight, and he’s the one you’d have to get round.’
‘You have got a machine going to Honolulu?’
‘Oh, yes. Thursday or Friday of next week, as soon as the component is finished. We load at Liverpool, at Speke.’ He paused. ‘Are you doing anything today, Mr Stewart?’
‘Nothing urgent.’
‘Think you could come out here to Blackbushe and meet the boys? Captain Fielding, he’s taking off for Ankara about three o’clock with four jet engines and spare parts and that, and then on the way back he picks up a load of cut flowers at Nice. He’ll be gone three or four days. Then his next trip is the Honolulu one. He’ll be here at dinner time, and you could have a talk with him.’
‘What’s the best way for me to get out to you at Blackbushe?’
There was a pause, and Keith heard, ‘Daisy, what time is that truck leaving Belgrave Road with the manifolds? … Why not? … Okay.’ He came back on the line. ‘We’ve got a truck leaving Belgrave Road, that’s by Victoria, about ten-thirty, Mr Stewart. One of our red trucks with Albatross all over it. If you wait for him on the Great West Road at the corner of South Ealing Road, say - say about ten-fifty, I’ll ring him and tell him to pick you up there then.’
‘I’ll be there waiting for him.’
‘That’s fine, Mr Stewart. There’s four or five of the boys in the maintenance shop would like to meet you. I’ll have a word with Captain Fielding, tell him what it’s all about.’
There was plenty of time before he had to meet the truck. Janice went off to school, and Katie to the shop, and he went down into his workshop to find something that would entertain the fitters at Blackbushe. A couple of years before he had been doing some research upon miniature electric generators in connection with the Showman’s version of his traction engine. He had evolved a little six-volt generator no more than an inch and a half in diameter running at three thousand revs. For research purposes he had adapted the basic castings of his Hornet engine to make a new four-stroke 7 c.c. engine running on petrol with a little carburettor, and in place of the reduction gear he had fitted a governor; ignition was by a tiny magneto of his own design and a miniature sparking plug. The whole lot mounted on a little baseplate was about four inches long, two inches wide, and two and a half inches high. It was an easy starter. He could flick it into life by swinging the flywheel at one end with his thumbnail, and as it speeded up to the governed revolutions a pea bulb at the other end glowed with the electricity it generated. It had always been a great success in workshops, and he put it in a little box and slipped it into his pocket.
By half-past eleven he was sitting in the office with Mr Thorn, drinking a cup of tea. Albatross Airways Ltd was an independent company operating three ten-year-old Vikings and a couple of D.C.6.b.s, one of which was permanently on a trooping contract. Their offices in an old wartime hutment were not luxurious, but their shops were clean and adequately equipped.
Mr Thorn said, ‘Glad to see you again, Mr Stewart. Look, before we start, would you mind telling me what this is all about? Do you just want to go to Honolulu, or was it your idea to go there and come back with the aircraft?’
‘I don’t really know.’ Keith Stewart pulled the newspaper cutting from his wallet and showed it to the chief storekeeper, and told his story. ‘I’ve got to try and get to this place Tahiti and fix up about the grave and the salvage and all that,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got the money to get there in the normal way - it’s too expensive. But I did think if I could get a lift to Honolulu it would be a help.’
‘Sure.’ Mr Thorn handed back the cutting to him. ‘You want to show that to Captain Fielding,’ he said. ‘I won’t say we’ve never done this before, Mr Stewart, because we have. But I can tell you now, we’d have to have it both ways if Captain Fielding agrees to take you. We’d have to sign you on as second engineer under instruction at a salary you wouldn’t get, and at the same time you’d have to sign our legal form of indemnity to say that there’d be no claim against us if you get killed or injured on the flight.’
Keith nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
‘You haven’t got any Ground Engineer’s tickets, I suppose?’
Keith shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. You know what I do.’
‘I do indeed. I don’t know if Captain Fielding does, though. We’d better get along down to the hangar and see if we can find him. He’s down there somewhere.’
Keith pulled the box a little shyly from his pocket. ‘I brought a bit along with me I thought the boys might like to see.’
Mr Thorn took the tiny generator set and examined it with interest. ‘My …’ he breathed. ‘That really is something! Does it go?’
‘Of course it goes.’ Keith took it from him, primed the tiny carburettor by turning the model upside down, and flipped the little engine into life with his thumbnail. It buzzed like an infuriated wasp as he made delicate adjustments to the jet and settled to an even note as the pea bulb lit
up. Mr Thorn gazed at it entranced. ‘Have you ever shown it?’
Keith shook his head. ‘I only made it up for research, when I was working on the generator.’ He paused. ‘The commutator is the tricky part. The rest of it’s quite simple.’
He stopped the little engine by shorting the plug with his propelling pencil.
‘Bring that down into the shop,’ Mr Thorn said. ‘The boys will like to see it.’
Ten minutes later the little generator set was running on a workbench in an annexe to the hangar, surrounded by a crowd of mechanics attracted by the noise and by the rumour that Keith Stewart of the Miniature Mechanic was actually there in person. He faced the barrage of questions that he was accustomed to at exhibitions, dealing with them one by one, a little shyly. In the middle of all this a man in uniform, dark-haired with a small dark moustache, pushed his way through the crowd. ‘What’s all this going on?’
Mr Thorn said, ‘This is Captain Fielding, Mr Stewart.’
Keith stopped the engine with his pencil, and turned to the newcomer. ‘Glad to meet you, sir.’
The pilot nodded, smiled, and fixed his eyes on the little model on the bench. ‘Don’t you know we aren’t supposed to run engines in the hangar? Start it up again - if you can.’
‘She usually starts all right,’ Keith said diffidently. He flipped it into life again with his thumbnail; the note steadied, the pea bulb lit up, and it went on running evenly. The pilot bent to examine it. ‘I wish our engines started as easily as that.’
‘She’s warm,’ Keith said apologetically.
‘Ours are worse when they’re warm.’ The pilot moved Keith’s hand and studied the tendency of the running model to move about the bench. ‘Not badly balanced. What revs is she doing?’
‘About three thousand.’
‘Where did you get the dynamo from?’
‘I made it.’ Someone in the crowd said, ‘And designed it. He wrote an article about it in the Miniature Mechanic. Two years ago, was it?’
‘About that,’ Keith said.
The pilot grunted. ‘What about the magneto?’ Somebody said, ‘He designed that, too.’
The pilot looked at Keith. ‘What didn’t you design and make in it?’ Keith said, ‘The sparking plug.’ He added diffidently, ‘Working in ceramics is a bit specialised, and you can buy them so easily.’ He stopped the little motor again with his pencil, and the pea bulb glowed red and went out.
Captain Fielding took it in his hand and examined it closely. Then he passed it to somebody else, and it went from hand to hand. He said to Keith, ‘Just a minute, Mr Stewart.’ He turned and they walked together out into the main hangar under the wing of the D.C.6.b. ‘Mr Thorn was saying something about you wanted a ride with us to Honolulu.’
Keith started in to tell his story again, and showed the pilot the cutting from The Times. ‘I don’t know anything about the services from Honolulu to Tahiti,’ the pilot said at last. ‘Do you?’
‘No. I was thinking I’d find out in Honolulu, and if it wasn’t any good or expensive, then perhaps you’d let me come back with you.’
Captain Fielding stood in thought. ‘That’s possible.’
‘How long will you be there?’
‘Two days at least. Probably three - or four. It’s over thirty hours from Speke to Honolulu, and there’s such a thing as crew fatigue. I’ve told the directors it’ll be a week’s job altogether.’ He paused. ‘The officers of the Cathay Princess might know about services to Tahiti - or they could find out.’ He turned to Keith. ‘All right, Mr Stewart - you’re in. Mr Thorn told you the conditions?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the new second engineer under instruction.
‘Okay. You’ll need a passport and an American visa and a vaccination certificate. Got any of them?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you’ll have to hop around. I can’t take you in the aircraft without them. Keep in touch with Mr Thorn. We’ll probably be leaving here for Speke on Thursday morning.’
Keith made a good start on his formalities before he left Blackbushe. The provision of passports at that aerodrome was a matter of routine; the Ministry of Civil Aviation had a supply of application forms and a tame Justice of the Peace to witness signatures. He presented this at the Passport Office in Westminster next day, got himself vaccinated, and was well on the way through the formalities by the week-end.
He saw Mr McNeil, the managing editor of the Miniature Mechanic, and told him that there would be a gap of several weeks in his articles. Mr McNeil was disgruntled, but less so when Keith had told his story and had shown him the cutting from The Times. ‘Well, if you’ve got to go, I suppose you’ve got to,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I think I’ll put a para in the book to say you’re on holiday. Or - wait now. Think you could do a piece upon the flight to Honolulu and mail it when you land? Flying to Honolulu … right from the flight deck, over the North Pole … The readers might like that as a change.’
‘I think I could do that,’ said Keith. ‘I’d have to get the permission of Albatross, of course. The trip’s a bit irregular, you see, because they aren’t allowed to carry passengers. I’ll ask them.’
‘When do you think you’ll be back?’
‘April, I hope,’ said Keith. ‘It’s got to be early April, somehow or other, because of the school holidays. My wife works, you see.’
The editor opened his eyes. ‘I never knew you had any children.’
‘I haven’t,’ said the engineer. ‘This is my sister Jo’s little girl, Jo who got drowned.’ He indicated the cutting from the paper. ‘She left her with us to look after till they got to Vancouver,’ he explained. ‘She’s ours for keeps, now.’
The editor’s eyes softened a little; it was just what a silly unbusinesslike mutt like Keith Stewart would let himself in for. But a fine engineer in his own line … ‘Going to make things difficult?’ he asked.
Keith shook his head. ‘Katie says we can manage.’
Mr McNeil sat for a moment in thought. ‘You know what it’s like with the book,’ he said. ‘We just scrape along. We have to use such a hell of a lot of blocks. Still, we do scrape along. If while you’re away you want a bit of an advance on stories that you’ll do when you come back, let me know. If there’s any cash in the kitty, I’ll do my best.’
Keith thanked him, and went back to Ealing. Janice was now one of their main problems because school ended at four and Katie did not get home much before six; moreover there were Saturday mornings to be considered, when Katie worked and there was no school. What to do for Janice in those periods perplexed them very much indeed; always before, Keith had been at home. It worried Keith far more than the problem of how he was to get from Honolulu to Tahiti.
‘I might ask Mr Buckley if she could come to the shop just for the hour before closing,’ Katie said doubtfully.
‘John and Jo wouldn’t have liked that,’ said Keith uneasily.
‘I know. I’ll find out about that dancing class from Miss Pearson. Some of the children do go to that, I know. Miss Grayson, or Gleeson, or some name like that.’
The dancing class filled one evening and the Saturday morning, and Mrs Soskice, mother of Diana, filled the rest; Janice could go to Mrs Soskice and play with Diana till Katie called for her. With that problem cleared away, it then remained to tell Janice that Keith was going to the island. They decided that they had to tell her where he was going to rather than to fob her off with some indefinite journey. She was too intelligent, and would probably find out where he had gone to, and lose confidence in them.
They told her together. ‘Going to the place where my Daddy and Mummy was drowned?’ she asked. It was the first time, so far as either of them knew, that she had spoken of her parents. She had been putting on a little weight, however, and was no longer quite so peaky.
‘That’s right,’ said Keith. ‘We’ve got to see about selling the engine and the bits and pieces from the wreck and that.’
‘Can I go too?’
> Katie shook her head. ‘No, darling. It’s too far, and it costs too much.’
‘Mummy and Daddy took me to China when I was little.’
‘That’s right,’ said Katie. ‘But you were very little then, just a baby, and you know a baby doesn’t have to pay a fare on the bus or the Underground or anything. But you’re a big girl now, and you’d have to pay.’
Janice nodded thoughtfully. ‘I have to have a half ticket. Diana’s much bigger than me, but she has a half ticket just the same.’
‘We couldn’t afford even a half ticket,’ Katie said. ‘It’s going to clean us right out if Uncle Keith goes there. But we think it’s necessary.’
Janice nodded again. Already she had become accustomed to the straitened finances of the Stewart household; the free spending ways of her father and mother were already fading from her memory. She turned to Keith. ‘Are you going to see that my Daddy and Mummy are buried right?’ she asked.
‘That’s one of the things I was going to do,’ he replied.
She wriggled on his knee, and prompted by some obscure chain of thought she asked, ‘Would you like to take one of my eggs with you?’
‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘That would be a lovely thing to take.’
‘Which one would you like to take?’
‘Which one can you spare most?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You choose.’
The case-hardened one would take the friction of a long journey in his pocket best. ‘I’d like the grey one,’ he said.