by Nevil Shute
"1 see," said Wallace attentively. "Flying?"
Morris nodded. "Well, we had the devil of a lot of work to get through, and it was very desirable for us to be near Cowes to do it. So for the last week or so we've been living on board the yacht and working pretty hard in spasms. Well, the day before yesterday, we were cruising down the Solent on a dirty sort of day. While we were at lunch, there was the hell of a row alongside, and when we got on deck, we found we'd run down this chap Dennison in a little cutter, and knocked him about a bit—not badly. He put his thumb out and got a nasty whack on his ribs. His vessel was disabled, so we took him on board while she's being repaired; as soon as he's fit, we're going to push him off again."
"I see," said Wallace. "He's on board now?"
"Yes. I'm going back there this evening. But as soon as I saw him, it struck me that he had certain qualities that—that we could very profitably work into our scheme. In fact, he seems to be just the man for our job. Well, the trouble is that this thing's got to be kept pretty dark for the present, so we don't want to tell more people about it than we can help. Sir David insists on that. I don't mind telling you that the only people in my firm who know anything about it are the directors and myself."
Wallace nodded slowly.
"Well—you see the difficulty? We want to know rather more about him before we can let him into it so far as to put a proposal to him. That's why I came up today."
There was a short silence.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you very much about him," said Wallace at last. "I first met him four years ago, and I met him again last Easter, when he stayed with us. I think he's a thoroughly sound lad, if that's any good to you."
"That's exactly what I do want to know," said Morris. "That's the main thing. Now, what's his job?"
"Sea lawyer," said Wallace laconically. Morris raised his eyebrows. "Maritime solicitor."
"I see. Is he married?"
Wallace glanced shrewdly at his guest. "No," he said. "He'd like to be, but there seems to have been a hitch about that. A regrettable incident. Is he in very deep mourning?"
"Not that I've noticed," said Morris. "Who's he supposed to be in mourning for?"
"Sheila," said Wallace briefly. He did not seem very much inclined to add to this information.
"I see," said Morris. "His matrimonial affairs don't affect our business much, of course. I only wanted to know what ties he has."
"I don't think he's tied in any way," said Wallace. "I think he's quite his own master. He talks of going out to Hong Kong in the autumn."
"In the autumn? We shall have done with him by then."
"Probably have done for him, too," said Wallace, "if I know anything of you and your schemes. Mad as coots, all the lot of you."
Morris laughed. "One more thing," he said. "Do you know anything about his Navy record, or what sort of a navigator he is?"
"Not a word. He can navigate his yacht all right. And he broke his leg in the war jumping into the water to pull a chap out. He was reckoned a good officer by his men. That's all I know about his Navy service."
"I sec," said Morris. "Well, that's really all I want to know about him." The conversation drifted to general subjects and reminiscences; at the end of three-quarters of an hour Morris rose to go.
"I'm damn sorry I can't tell you more about this stunt," he said. "For the moment it's got to be kept pretty quiet. But look here, come and have dinner with me one night before it comes off, and I'll tell you all about it. It's really rather interesting. I'll let you know later when to come."
"Right you are," said Wallace. They moved towards the door. "I suppose you don't know anyone who wants a thousand sewing machines, do you? Or we can do you a very nice line in inferior Continental pig iron . . . No? Oh, well, cheer oh. See you sometime."
Morris left the building, glanced at his watch, and walked up Cheapside. The business that had brought him to London was concluded. He had telegraphed to his wife that he would meet her for tea at her club; he made his way towards the West End.
He noticed his little car outside the club, found his wife, and sat down with her to tea. He had married a girl whom he had met at one of the Oxford women's colleges; Helen, the daughter of Sir James Riley. She was considered by her family to have married badly; a censure that she bore with equanimity. In her life she had only known two men that she respected; one of whom was her cousin and Morris's friend, Malcolm Riley, who had been killed while flying a racing machine a year or two after the war. Morris himself was a pilot of considerable skill, but incidentally to his work. He was a mathematician, and held a position of some importance in the Rawdon Aircraft Company, flying their aeroplanes on test.
He picked a piece of buttered toast from the dish and held it in mid-air between finger and thumb. "I've found a navigator," he said. "At least, I think I have." Briefly he described Dennison's arrival on the Clematis.
"Is he a nice man?" inquired his wife.
Morris munched steadily. "Not bad," he said at last. "Yes, I think you'd like him. Funnily enough he knows the Wallaces; I've just been asking Jimmie Wallace about him. I got quite a good account, so I'll see if he'd like to take it on. Oh, yes, and Jimmie told me another thing. This chap's been endeavouring to establish a lien upon Sheila, but there's been a hitch in that."
His wife smiled. "He would have to be a very nice man to be good enough for Sheila," she said.
"That's the funny part of it—he is a very nice man. Sheila will probably go and marry some little squid with a made-up tie and a banjo." He paused reminiscently.
He accompanied his wife to the door of the club after tea, and watched her get into the car to drive home. He lived in the suburbs on the border of the aerodrome. He stood watching her a little uneasily.
"Go carefully," he said.
He was one of that great class of Englishmen who love their wives and trust them unquestioningly with their money and their honour, but are apt to hedge a little over their motorcars. The girl made a grimace at him and laughed, then let in the clutch and moved away. Morris watched her out of sight, a lean cadaverous figure, turned away, took a taxi to Waterloo, and made his way back to Cowes.
Dennison got up stiffly after breakfast and went on deck. From the saloon came a low hum of voices; Sir David was busy with his secretary, a hard-driven bespectacled young man. Dennison spent the morning in the deckhouse, smoking and yarning with Captain Rawdon.
He asked no direct question, but he was pretty certain that he could place Rawdon now. During the war he had had several friends in the Flying Corps and, though he had taken little interest himself in aeroplanes, the name Rawdon seemed to recall memories of these men. At one time they had been enthusiastic over a machine called, if he remembered rightly, the Rawdon Rat, and later there was another one, the Rawdon Ratcatcher. It was not a very common name, and, coupled with the fact that Morris was an aeroplane pilot, seemed good evidence to Dennison. It was evident to him that they had some very secret experiment on hand; he guessed that it had to do with aeroplanes and that it was maritime. However, it was certainly no concern of his. It surprised him rather that they had taken him on board.
He went ashore with Rawdon after lunch and walked, a little painfully, to Flanagan's yard to inspect the Irene. They met Flanagan and inspected the little vessel. Then, rather to his surprise, Rawdon left him to himself with the intimation that he would meet him at the jetty at four o'clock, and disappeared with Flanagan along the yard, deep in conversation. Dennison finished his examination of his vessel and walked up into the town, a little puzzled at the relations between Flanagan and Rawdon. He had had no idea that Rawdon was interested in yachts. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the relations between them were not those of yacht owner to builder but more intimate, suggesting some closer tie between them. Besides, to the best of his knowledge, Rawdon was not a yachtsman.
He decided to leave the Clematis next day and to put up at a hotel till the Irene was ready. N
ow that he was able to get about, it was evident that his presence on the vessel would quickly become an embarrassment to them; they were engaged in some matter that they wished to keep dark. It was clearly his place to leave them as soon as he could. For these reasons, and because his side was hurting him more than a little, he retired to bed after tea, and so did not see Morris on his return, about nine o'clock in the evening.
He heard the dinghy come alongside and bump gently at the ladder, and steps over his head. The door of the saloon opened and he heard Sir David's voice outside his cabin.
"Mr. Morris? Have you had dinner?"
Morris came down the companion. "I had it on the train," he said. "A very comfortable journey."
"Right. Come in and tell us how you got on—after you have taken off your things."
Dennison heard Morris move into his cabin and presently emerge and pass into the saloon. For a moment the door was left ajar.
"Well," he said cheerfully. "I found out quite a lot about him—all that's of any importance, I think. It seems he's quite all right. I asked—" Then the door was closed and the remainder of the sentence lost.
Dennison was immensely disgusted. Though scrupulous, he was a man of keen natural curiosity and he had been eager to hear before he left the vessel exactly what it was that they were engaged upon. He felt that this would be the last chance that he would have, and it had produced nothing that was of any interest whatsoever.
He decided to leave the vessel after breakfast next morning, and dropped off to sleep while the others still sat talking in the saloon, talking away the quiet hours of darkness.
Dennison got up for breakfast and was first into the saloon in the morning. The table was laid and the coffee steaming in the pot, sending a little column of vapour up into a patch of sun. On deck the movements of a couple of men attracted Dennison's attention; he glanced up through the open skylight and saw that they were taking the cover off the mainsail. He was concerned. He had planned to leave the vessel that morning and go ashore in Cowes to wait for the Irene. If they were making sail, he would not have an opportunity to leave them.
It's their funeral, he thought.
His side began to pain him a little, and he moved to the settee to sit down. It was littered with loose-leaf books full of typescript, a number of loose sheets of pencilled calculations, and one or two great sheets of engineers' blueprint, evidently cleared from the table by the steward when the time came to lay the cloth. Dennison cleared a place to sit down on, and wedged himself into a corner with a cushion, to consider the position. It would be devilish inconvenient if they were to leave Cowes that morning.
His eye fell on one of the blueprints, open upon the settee beside him. He glanced at it curiously, bewildered by the strangeness of the white lines on the blue paper and by the wealth of minute detail. Gradually, he began to comprehend what he was looking at, and to glean some idea of the outline of the scheme. It was a picture of a flying boat apparently furnished with wheels outside the hull, perched at one end of a long horizontal structure of steel girders. Close beneath this structure lay a long cylindrical machine, apparently something in the nature of a hydraulic or pneumatic ram.
There was a sound of voices outside the door and Raw-don entered the room, followed by Morris. The latter greeted Dennison, crossed to the settee, and began to tidy up the papers.
"I forgot we left all this stuff out last night," he said. "Mr. Evans usually tidies it up—Sir David's secretary—but he turned in early last night with a headache."
"There's no need to put it away on my account," said Dennison. "I mean—that sort of thing is a sealed book to me.
Morris laughed. "There's nothing here that we mind you seeing," he said. He turned to Rawdon waving the blueprint in his hand. "Where do we keep the arrangement of the catapult?"
"In the table drawer, I think," said Rawdon. Dennison rose to his feet as Sir David entered the room.
"Good morning," said the baronet incisively. "A little late, I'm afraid. good morning for a turn down to the Forts and back. A fine sailing breeze." He turned to Rawdon. "You are spending the morning ashore at the yard?"
"I think so," said Rawdon. "They're putting the engine in this morning—and Flanagan was worrying about his slipway, too. I'll go ashore after breakfast, before you get under way."
Here Dennison broke in and diffidently set out his plan to leave the vessel. He proceeded in an embarrassing silence; the suggestion that he had thought would be so welcome to them was evidently received with something approaching consternation. Presently Dennison stopped talking and looked from one to the other, utterly at a loss. Sir David stepped into the breach.
"I shall be very disappointed if you leave us, Mr. Dennison," he said genially. "As a matter of fact, I was hoping that you would take the helm this morning and wake up my crew for me. These are some of the men that I shall put in the Chrysanthe. Of course, we can't do very much till we get her in commission. I thought of having a turn round the buoys, though, to try and rub some of the corners off."
Dennison flushed with pleasure. "It would be a great treat to me," he said. "But I must tell you, I've never handled a crew before—racing, that is, and I've never happened to sail a vessel with a wheel."
"The skipper does the hazing," said the baronet equably. "You just tell him what you want. As for the wheel, I shouldn't think that ought to worry you very much. Really, I should be very glad if you would take her round a course this morning."
After breakfast, Rawdon went ashore alone. He paused on the jetty and watched his boat row back to the Clematis, watched it hoisted on the davits and secured. Then the mainsail crept to the hounds and took shape, to the accompaniment of a slow rattle of chain from the bows. Finally she broke out a jib and bore away towards the mainland, cutting her anchor and crowding on sail as she went, white and majestic in the sunshine. Rawdon turned and made his way to the yard.
Three hours later Flanagan pointed out to Rawdon the Clematis returning; he left the large hangar and walked to the jetty. The vessel did not come to an anchor as he had expected, but dropped her topsail and lay to outside the Roads, lowering a dinghy. Presently it arrived at the jetty i he embarked and was rowed out to the vessel.
Morris met him at the gangway. "Sir David thinks of running down to the Needles this afternoon," he said. "It's a great day for sailing." They dropped into a pair of basket chairs. "I say, that chap Dennison's nuts at this game."
Rawdon glanced round the deck. "Where is he now?" he asked. "Have you seen him yet?"
Morris shook his head. "Not yet. He's in the saloon, talking to Sir David about the Chrysanthe. Sir David's all over him—it was an extraordinarily good show, apparently. Even I could see he knew the job all right." He paused, and laughed suddenly. "It was the funniest thing out. When he took over, the skipper sort of stood over him to tell him what to do. It took this chap just about five seconds to put him in his place, and then they stood together side by side. I never heard him give any orders, but now and again he'd say something confidentially to the skipper and I tell you—the skipper got those fellows moving all right. Fair made me sweat to watch 'em." Rawdon smiled. "Where did you go?" "Twice round some buoys, down about as far as Ryde. It was really rather odd to see him standing there sort of whispering shyly to the skipper now and then, and the men swearing blood as a result. There was that spinnaker, for instance ... I couldn't judge the whole nicety of it, of course. I noticed one or two things. Whenever we had to cross the tide between two buoys, he set a course directly we came about that looked as if it would miss the other buoy by half a mile. Well, each time I watched the compass, and I swear he never altered course a degree, but we hit the buoy to within ten yards each time. And another thing I noticed was how smoothly it all went. No fuss, no waste of time, no talking—a clean turn at each buoy and away on the new course like a knife. I'm really very glad to have seen it." They lunched, and after lunch got under way again.
Morris arid Dennison went up on
deck; Sir David and Raw-don stayed in the saloon with their cigars.
Rawdon glanced at the other. "So he did well?" he said.
The baronet blew a long blue cloud. "Very well," he said quietly. "Very Veil indeed. It's not the first time that Flanagan has put me right."
Morris and Dennison went up on deck and sat in the basket chairs, watching the Island slip past them. Dennison was tired and willing enough to rest; the act of standing all morning had made his side ache painfully, though he had not noticed it at the time.
"You must be an authority on this coast," said Morris. "I suppose you know pretty well every harbour and inlet in the south."
Dennison lit a pipe. "I know a good many," he said cautiously.
"Do you know Padstow?"
"Not very well. I've been in there two or three times. But one doesn't cruise up that coast much, you know. Padstow and Bideford are the only two possible inlets, and they're neither of them much fun to get into except in clear weather. Bideford dries out pretty well at low water, and Padstow's got a shocking great sandbank right across the entrance. You have to go carefully into both of them."
"You know the west coast of Ireland, too, don't you?"
"Lord, no," said Dennison. "I spent one summer holiday mucking about between Baltimore and Valentía, but that's all."
A gull swooped down upon the vessel, made a circuit or two, approached the stern, hovered for a moment, and dropped accurately to perch on top of the mizzen mast. Both watched it intently.
Morris laughed. "Slow landings," he said. "It's having the nerves next to the muscles, I suppose. We'll never get it quite like that."
The helmsman waved his arm and the gull flew away. Dennison turned to Morris.
"Your business is flying, isn't it?" he said. "I remember Miss Wallace mentioned you once."
"That so?" said Morris. "Yes, my business is flying. Though I work chiefly on design stuff now, under Captain Rawdon. I fly most of the Rawdon machines on test."
"One sees a lot about commercial aviation in the papers," said Dennison. "It doesn't pay, does it?"