by Nevil Shute
I nodded. “That’s what I had in mind.”
She said. “A brand-new flat, that one could plan and have everything just right from the start! You do have lovely ideas.”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “One’s got to live somewhere and that ground was all housing at one time. I think one’ld get a permit to do that all right.”
I thought about it for a minute or two, drinking my beer. “Keep a boat, perhaps,” I said. “I’d like to do that. A little sailing yacht that one could take away for the week-end.”
She said, “It sounds just heavenly.…”
I sat there staring out over the heath. It was as she said, just heavenly, too good to be true. I was getting tired, I suppose, at the end of the day, and I hadn’t slept a lot the night before. It was all within my grasp and I could grab it if I wanted to, and my other life out in Bahrein could go to hell. In time I’d probably forget all that, even if it took a year or two to do it.
I put the tankard down. “Let’s get going,” I said quietly. “Dad and Mum will be wondering what’s happened to us.”
I ought to have pulled up somewhere on the way back, in the shade under a tree in some quiet spot, and given her a kiss or two, and told her that I loved her. It would have made her day perfect if I’d done that, and mine too, perhaps. But it’s no good getting into things too deep unless you’re sure of yourself; I’d done that once before, with Beryl. That was how I started killing her, although I didn’t see it at the time. I wasn’t going to have that happen to Doris. I still had Bahrein on my mind, and so I drove straight on, and presently got home and dropped her at her father’s house.
She said, “It’s been a lovely day, Tom. Thank you ever so much for taking me.”
I smiled. “I’ve enjoyed it. I’ll let you know how things go on.”
I went back to the house, and there was a letter for me there from Gujar Singh, and another one from Connie; they wrote to me every two or three days to tell me how things were going. I opened Connie’s first.
There was not much in it except news that his sister was on her way to Bahrein; she was coming in an American ship to Alexandria and from Egypt she would fly. He expected her to arrive in about a week, and said that he had fixed up accommodation for her in the house that he lived in. I wondered how a girl from San Diego would react to the conditions in the souk; it was none of my business, of course, except that I had offered to give her a trial in the office. He said that one of the ground engineers, a chap called Salim, had left and had taken a job with Sind Airways Ltd in Karachi, and he was looking for another one. I knew that Salim had worked in Karachi during the war, and I was not surprised that he had left to go back there. The rest of the letter was about the routine work going on in the hangar.
Gujar’s letter was more serious. After telling me about the flights that had been made and booked ahead for the next few days, he went on:
I think it will be better when you can return. The secretary from the Residency, Mr. Connop, came to the office yesterday and asked when you would come back, and when I said a fortnight he seemed angry. He did not say his business, and went away. In the bazaar men are saying that the Resident is angry with you for the loan of money from the Sheikh of Khulal because they say that religious influence has been used to make that old man lend his money. There is much talk about this so that some say that what goes on in our hangar is good and comes from God, and others say that it is evil. I do not think it would have entered anybody’s head that it was evil if the English people at the Residency had not been angry, and the servants told it in the souk. And now there is a great deal of talking going on.
Shak Lin has told you that Salim has gone back to Karachi. I think he has gone to tell the engineers in Sind Airways our way of doing things, but that is nothing to us, because he is gone. Shak Lin is looking for another one.
Ma was in the room as I was reading this one. “Bad news, Tom?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Just business.” I was furious over what had happened in Bahrein. The loan that had been offered by the Sheikh of Khulal was not of my seeking, nor was it due to any religious trickery on the part of Connie Shaklin. News of it had got to the Residency as some distorted rumour, and they had assumed that we had swindled the old Sheikh with a confidence trick and got away with sixty thousand pounds of his money. If they believed that, of course, it was their duty to commence enquiries because it was their job to do what they could to protect the Arab population from exploitation. They had been ham-handed in the Residency and had talked in hearing of the servants, and now God knew what might be stirring in Bahrein. It might end in religious riots, easily.
I didn’t get much sleep that night, either. I lay and tossed upon my bed all night, wakeful and in a weary, anxious maze. Salim had left and gone to Sind Airways, in Karachi. I knew Salim; he was one of the most devout of our ground engineers. Gujar said that he had gone to teach the engineers of Sind Airways our way of doing things. What way? The religious way? Gujar could hardly mean anything else. Was Salim, then, a missionary, spreading a new gospel amongst ground engineers? Was he starting up a cult of Shak Lin’s teaching in Karachi, as U Myin had started it in Rangoon? What was ahead of us, and where was it all going to end?
If riots started in Bahrein because of Shak Lin’s teaching, how far would they spread? Would the flame run from Bahrein to Karachi, to Rangoon, and on to Bangkok in Siam?
I lay unhappy and distressed in our small slum house in Southampton all night through, between the gasworks and the docks. Out in the East the situation might be getting out of control, and here was I in England, away from the job and powerless to influence events. There were eight days to go before the Tramp was ready for delivery.
I got up in the morning, tired and stale. It was Sunday so we had breakfast late. Over the meal Dad said, “We’ve not heard anything about how you got on yesterday, Tom. See anything you fancied?”
I stared at him; my mind was far away in the Persian Gulf. “Anything I fancied?”
“Any garages?”
Recollection came flooding back to me, but it all seemed unreal now, and vastly unimportant. “Oh—garages. We saw one or two, but nothing very much.”
He grunted. “What are you going to do—go on looking?”
I had to get away and be alone, to think things over. “Yes,” I said. “I think I’ll go out today and look around a bit more.”
Ma said, “Taking Doris again?”
I shook my head. “I’ll go alone. I’ve got a lot of things I’ve got to have a think about.”
She said no more, and I went out after a time and got the car from the bombed site and drove down to the central post office. I sent a very long cable to Gujar Singh from there, two sheets of it. I asked him to let me know at once by cable if I ought to return; I said I would fly back immediately if there was any need, and come back again to England a week later to fetch the Tramp. If everything was quiet and in order in Bahrein, I said, he should fly to England himself by B.O.A.C. on Friday arriving on Saturday, and I would meet him at Heath Row. We would go to Plymouth on Monday morning and take delivery of the Tramp and fly it out to Bahrein as soon as possible.
I sent this off and went back to the car. I had done the right thing, I felt, and I had done what was in my power to take control of the events that I had started, but I was most unhappily aware that I was vacillating wildly. Twenty-four hours before I had been driving out with Doris Waters to look for a garage and an English home, perhaps with her. Now all that had gone down the wind and was almost forgotten, so that Dad had had to remind me about it at breakfast, and here I was, having just sent off a cable committing myself to go back to Bahrein.
It crossed my tired mind that I could go back for a week or two, perhaps, just to get things straightened up in order to hand over clean to Airservice Ltd.
I drove north that day, through Winchester and Whitchurch, on the road to Newbury. I drove on in a dream, not thinking much where I was goi
ng to, not really caring. I got sleepy presently for I had had two bad nights, and so I pulled into the side of the road somewhere and slept in the driver’s seat a bit, nodding forward on the wheel.
I woke up half an hour later with a bad taste in my mouth, and wondered where I was, and what the hell I had come there for. There was no sense in it. I turned the car and drove back south again, and presently I found a pub and stopped, and went in for a pint and a couple of packets of biscuits as my lunch. I felt better after that.
By mid afternoon I was running south and entering the outskirts of Winchester. I had been a choir boy once, when I was young. When you’re in a bit of trouble I think your mind goes back to childhood, to the time when you had no responsibilities, when all decisions were made for you. That’s a grand time, that is. I got to thinking of my time in the choir that Sunday afternoon as I drove into Winchester. I’d got nothing better to do, and I turned left down the High street and then right, and parked by the cathedral.
It was quiet, and dim, and cool in the cathedral. I stood at the end of the nave vaguely looking round; it was restful, and a good place to think in. Presently I went into the north aisle and began to walk slowly up it, looking at all the names of famous people on the walls and on the floor I walked on, Sir Henry Wilson who was murdered, and Jane Austen. Maybe they’d had their troubles too, I thought, and like me they’d not known what to do for the best.
There was an old man in a long black cloak at the end of the aisle. He came up to me and said quietly, “The service is in the choir this afternoon, sir. May I show you a seat?” It was on the tip of my tongue to say I didn’t want to go to any service, and then I thought perhaps I did, and so he took me through the carved screen and put me in a choir stall of old, carved wood, with more prayer books in front of me than you could shake a stick at.
There wasn’t anything in particular about that service. Good singing, a hymn or two, an anthem, all in the familiar ritual that I had known as a boy. I was still tired, and once or twice I nearly fell asleep upon my knees. Maybe God did that for me. I know when it was over and I walked out of the choir I was rested and quite calm. I knew what I’d got to do. I’d got to go back to Bahrein and forget about the garage.
I drove back to Southampton with a mind at ease. It was bad luck on Dad and Mum and Doris, but it had to be. It was just one of those things. I parked the car upon the vacant lot and before going home I walked round to the Waters’ house. The old man came to the door himself.
“Evening, Mr. Waters,” I said. “Doris in?”
She came to the door behind him, and he went back into the room. “Look, Doris,” I said. “I’ve got to tell you something. Like to walk down the street a minute?”
She came out, and we walked together down the road past all the kids playing. “About that garage business,” I said. “It’s all off. I’m going back to Bahrein.”
“Oh, Tom! Wouldn’t they buy the business?”
“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s something different. Things aren’t so good out there.”
“How long will you be gone for?”
“A long time,” I said quietly. “When once you start a thing, you’ve got to see it through.” I turned to her. “You mustn’t count upon me coming back at all.”
“I see,” she said quietly. “I understand, Tom.”
She didn’t understand, of course, but her way was the best. “I thought I’d better let you know,” I said a bit awkwardly. “I’ll have to be getting back out there as soon as ever I can.”
She smiled. “Then all I can do is wish you luck.” She’d got plenty of guts.
I smiled with her. “Maybe I’ll need it.” I held out my hand, and she took it. “Good-bye, Doris. I’m sorry it’s turned out like this.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “Good-bye, Tom.”
I walked back to our house, and went down to the Lion with Dad and had a game of darts with him. There’s no sense in agonizing over what can’t be helped, and it pleased Dad no end to have me in the pub with him. I only had a few days left to please them in.
Next morning there was a letter for me, from Mr. Norman Evans of Airservice Ltd. He said they’d had a board meeting and he was pleased to be able to tell me that they had unanimously resolved to make an offer for my business. He went on to the details. Broadly speaking, they would take over the Tramp contract. They would pay sixty-five thousand pounds for the remainder of the assets at that date. That meant that after paying back the loan from Sheikh Abd el Kadir I’d have thirty-five thousand pounds’ clear profit from the sale of the business.
It was about seven thousand pounds better than I thought they’d go to. At the end of the letter, Mr. Evans said he hoped that I’d be able to reconsider my decision to leave aviation. He said that if I should do so, would I get in touch with him?
I walked down to the telephone box at the corner of our street, and rang him up at Morden. As I stuck the sixpences and shillings in the slot while the children gaped at me through the glass, I felt as if I was signing my own death warrant, and perhaps I was.
He came on the line at last. “This is Cutter,” I said. “Mr. Evans, I’ve been thinking this thing over, and I’m not selling just yet. I’m in a bit of trouble out there, and I’ve got to get back quick. I’m sorry if I’ve led you up the garden.”
CHAPTER SIX
To Meccah thou hast turned in prayer with aching heart and eyes that burn:
Ah, Hajji, whither wilt thou turn when thou art there, when thou art there?
JAMES ELROY FLECKER
I GOT a cable from Gujar Singh on Tuesday evening, in reply to mine. He said that there was no immediate trouble likely to arise in Bahrein, largely due to the Imam, who had visited the aerodrome and had himself conducted evening prayer outside the hangar one day; this service had been attended by about a hundred people from the town. The Liaison Officer had been up at the aerodrome that afternoon, but had taken no part in the proceedings. He said that according to the gossip in the souk the people in the Residency were still very much upset about the loan. There was no reason why he should not come to England, however, and he proposed to leave on Friday as arranged.
I met him at Heath Row airport on Saturday evening when he came in on the Constellation from Australia, and drove him down to Southampton in the little Ford. Gujar had never been in England and this was a great thrill for him; he was amazed at the fertility of the country. “I did not know it was like this,” he said. “I had read about the green grass and the fields, and seen pictures and the cinema, of course, but even so, I did not know it was like this.”
He created quite a sensation amongst the kids in our street when he got out of the car. I had no need to apologize to him for our house because he knew quite well that I was a working man, and my father too, and anyway the house was probably a better one than the one he lived in in Bahrein. I took him in and introduced him to Dad and Mum, and fixed him up in the top bedroom, and then we all had tea together downstairs.
Dad and Mum took to Gujar, as I had thought they would. Once you got accustomed to the great black beard and the turban Gujar was all right, and before long he was telling Mum all about his kids. He didn’t drink or smoke, of course, so it was no good taking him down to the Lion, and so we sat at home all evening, just talking.
He confirmed that there was no cause for alarm about the doings in Bahrein, largely due to the statesmanlike action of the Imam. He said that he had called at the office of the Arabia-Sumatran Company after a telephone call with Mr. Johnson, and there were developments there. As I had supposed would happen, they wanted to transfer a load of scientific equipment and three technicians from Bahrein to their new oil field on the East Alligator River in the Northern Territory of Australia, and they wanted a date as soon as possible for the flight. The load totalled about three tons, so it would have to be either the Carrier or the Tramp. Gujar had discussed my absence and the Tramp delivery with them, which they already knew about, and had q
uoted a date about three weeks ahead, which would give me about ten days in Bahrein after I got back before leaving on this journey. Being a flight over new ground, he knew that I would want to go myself.
I took him for a joyride next day in the little Ford, finishing up at Portsmouth and taking him over the Victory, Nelson’s flagship berthed for ever in her dry-dock in the middle of the dockyard. He was very much impressed with that.
Next day we went by train to Plymouth. The Tramp was standing ready for us on the aerodrome, clean and new and shining. With the sales manager we got into it and inspected it all through, and then, with one of the test pilots flying it and myself in the co-pilot’s seat, we took it off and flew round a bit. After a landing or two we changed seats, and with Gujar standing behind us I took it off and landed it a couple of times. It handled rather better than the Carrier; everything worked and everything was right. We spent an hour on the ground then checking over the inventory, and paid the final cheque. Then the machine was mine.
We stayed that night at Plymouth in the firm’s hotel, and spent a couple of hours next morning buttoning and unbuttoning every cowling with the firm’s engineers, getting to know the aircraft intimately. Then we said good-bye to those efficient people, and took it off, and flew it down to Eastleigh. We landed there about dinner time, and I took a taxi and went home and fetched Dad and Mum out to the aerodrome as soon as Dad got home from work, and showed it to them.
Dad stared up at it in awe. “Bit different from the first one, Tom,” he said. What impressed Ma most, I think, was the toilet in the rear fuselage. “I declare, it’s nicer than what we’ve got at home …” she said. I don’t think the rest of the machine really registered with her; it was too big and too complicated for her to take in. “All those clocks and things in front of you,” she said. “However do you get to know what they all mean?”
While I had been fetching them out, Gujar had had the Tramp refuelled; she had tankage for twelve hundred gallons, giving her a still air range of about two thousand miles. I was taking a small load out with me, a spare engine for the Proctors and one for the Airtrucks, and a few airframe spares, and he had got all this stuff loaded in. When we left her that night and went home with Dad and Mum we were all ready to go.