The Higher They Fly

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

He looked at the instrument. ‘4922. But there’s nothing you can do. I’m just waiting for news.’

  There was an anxious edge in her voice now which threw all the promise of sleep away. Like many others, she wasn’t going to get any tonight. ‘Are there . . . any missing flights?’

  ‘Nobody crashed.’

  ‘But surely, wouldn’t they know if they’d been damaged on take-off?’

  ‘I can only say that they can’t have. Nobody reported anything. Nobody is missing. It’s incredible, but there you are.’

  ‘They’ll know all right when they try to get down.’ There came a pause, then she went on in a voice that had changed again. ‘Can you do anything to help?’

  ‘Me? You’re forgetting, aren’t you? I’m the big failure around these parts. You’ve told me so, frequently, yourself.’

  ‘Robert, this is no time for self-pity. You test-flew the Jet-Four and they won’t find anyone else in time.’

  ‘They wouldn’t listen to me anyway. And I certainly don’t know how to land an aircraft that size with an undercarriage that’s going to be at right-angles to the line of flight when they lower it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m not going into the technicalities of the thing now. All I can say is he’ll have to try a belly landing and hope for the best.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like you to let them all go to blazes.’

  ‘I can’t change anything.’

  ‘Probably not, until you do something about changing yourself.’

  ‘I must say that sounds pretty hollow coming from you, Julie.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘You know, from your attitude I don’t know why you’re bothering to wait up there. Why don’t you just go out and get drunk and let them all go hang?’

  ‘Good idea,’ he snapped savagely, ‘I probably will.’ And hung up.

  Scrivens came in abruptly and said: ‘You’re wanted.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Don’t let’s stand here arguing. I thought you wanted to be useful.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Come on, then.’ Scrivens led the way out into the corridor and they took the elevator. ‘We’ve got Woodford on the line. When I told him you were here he said he wouldn’t talk to anyone else.’

  ‘I presume,’ said Fleming sardonically, ‘he doesn’t know what has happened to my reputation since I last saw him?’

  Scrivens answered coldly. ‘Your reputation doesn’t matter a damn to anybody just now. What matters is that there’s an aircraft aloft which can’t get down. Woodford apparently thinks you can help. I hope he’s right. Here we are. Let’s get on with it.’

  There were several men in the room when Fleming and Scrivens arrived. None of them said anything, but the telephone receiver was off the hook and lay, like a question mark, on the desk.

  Fleming hesitated a moment, glanced at the curiously withdrawn faces around him, then picked up the receiver. ‘Fleming.’

  ‘Robert, this is Ken Woodford here. Scrivens phoned me up and told me what happened. He also mentioned that you were on the spot at LAP. Why the hell didn’t you call me yourself?’

  Fleming looked at the faces again, and decided not to go into details. ‘I didn’t know where you were.’

  There came an exclamation from the other end, but Woodford broke it off in the middle, and said. ‘Well, one day I’ll ask you what’s been going on, but that must keep. The point is I’m stuck down here in Bresham, as you know perfectly well, which isn’t much good to the captain of that Jet-Four. How much is known, so far?’

  Those faces, those faces!

  Fleming felt, if only I were alone . . . if only these people, every single one of them, weren’t looking at me as if, as if . . .

  ‘Robert, are you there?’

  It seemed to Fleming suddenly that the floor was dropping physically from under him. Desperately he rummaged around in his brain for words with which to answer the simple question: How much is known?

  He tried to answer, but he could not do it, because the question hung in the air and seemed remote from him—as remote as he himself felt from flying, from realities, from anything other than those faces.

  They peered at him, vicious and antagonistic, waiting for him to confirm all their suspicions. They were only waiting for him to fall apart, to flounder and vacillate in this crisis. As in another . . .

  As he stood there, he could hear a weird sustained note in his mind. It was like the first chord of the Amen, but it refused to resolve itself. It grew louder, until, unrequited, picking out each note of the dominant seventh until the unfinished progression shrieked in his ears, it took over from all else and left him helpless, as if hypnotised.

  ‘Ken . . . it’s no good. You’d better speak to Scrivens.’

  Woodford came back harshly: ‘Robert, this is a matter of life and death. You must help!’

  ‘I . . . don’t see what can be done.’

  ‘Nor do I, yet. But you know as well as I do what the chances are of getting a Jet-Four down on its bare tummy. Just about nil.’

  Fleming replied bitterly: ‘No worse than they would be if he lowered what he’s got.’

  ‘They’ll have to do some engineering in flight.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  ‘Possibly. But in this kind of situation you have to be. Now, look. I’ve asked Scrivens to get hold of the drawings—there should be a set in the Link Lines hangars or at any rate one of the companies will have them available. I want you to work out from the drawings what can be done. I understand that an analysis is already being made of what has been found on the runway. From that, you should be able to work out what he’s got left and how he can use it.’

  Fleming stammered out the obvious question with difficulty. ‘But how can they work on the undercarriage? You can’t get near it.’

  ‘They can get into Number Three Systems Bay——’

  ‘—Yes, but——’

  ‘—and from there they can smash their way through the floor. Now put Scrivens on.’

  The full impact of reaction had held off until the moment when Fleming dropped the receiver and staggered from the room. He was vaguely aware that several of those contemptuous faces were abruptly turned away. Having defeated him, they were now embarrassed by their victory. Fleming just managed to get through the doorway before he vomited.

  Scrivens picked up the phone and exchanged a helpless glance with the nearest man. Into the telephone he said: ‘I can’t trust him.’

  There was a silence from the other end, while Woodford did a rapid assessment of the situation. Then he said: ‘I think you’ll have to.’

  Scrivens’ lips tightened. ‘Sorry, Mr Woodford. Captain Fleming is in no shape to advise in this situation.’

  ‘Who else have you got?’

  ‘There are,’ said Scrivens evenly, ‘a number of licensed engineers available.’

  Woodford still didn’t raise his voice. ‘They are in no position to advise the pilot on a matter which comes quite outside their orbit . . . I would remind you that Fleming flew the test programme for undercarriage endurance. He was a line captain before he came on to the Jet-Four project, and is a creative engineer in his own right. And you’re trying to tell me you don’t need him. What do you need? A baby-carriage consultant?’

  ‘I tell you the man is ill. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

  ‘I understand your problem, Mr Scrivens. There isn’t much time and you’re the man who has to decide. Perhaps it does seem that a sick man—if that’s what he is—wouldn’t be any help. But in my opinion he is the only person you’re likely to get hold of tonight who can assess the situation technically and advise the crew on the best landing technique. All I’m saying is, if you can get him to function he’ll do the best job. If you can’t, then God help the passengers and crew of that aircraft.’

  ‘Time isn’t on our side.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’
Scrivens hung up with unnecessary force and immediately picked up the other phone. ‘Shan-wick Centre? Give me the chief. Scrivens here.’

  A pause.

  ‘Talbot speaking.’

  ‘John, have they traced that Jet-Four yet?’

  The tension in Talbot’s voice was immediately evident. ‘It’s difficult. Since we had that warning about not lowering wheels to find out, captains have been a bit cautious in their replies. Well, we only have five Jet-Four flights at the moment, and all of them seem certain they’re in the clear except one, who we’re waiting to contact.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Statelines Flight Forty-Six, London to New York.’

  Scrivens found his hand tightening on the receiver. His eyes were fixed on the face of the big man who had just come in from the scatter site. This man was holding something. Without a word he put it down on the table.

  Scrivens covered the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand. To the man he said: ‘Well, what is it?’

  The man wrenched his eyes from the component and looked at Scrivens only briefly. ‘Cam-actuator, sir.’

  Scrivens said impatiently: ‘I mean what’s it do?’

  ‘It ensures that the wheels are facing fore-and-aft when they are lowered.’

  ‘Don’t they anyway?’

  ‘No. When they retract, they turn through ninety degrees.’

  ‘So without this bit, the wheels would face sideways?’

  The man nodded, and looked at the component again.

  Scrivens snapped into the telephone: ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  Talbot’s voice was calm now. Insufferably calm. ‘Just checking with Forty-Six.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘They don’t know yet.’

  Scrivens was sweating. He burst out: ‘But do they suspect anything? We must know who it is!’

  ‘Hang on a moment. He’s on the radio now.’

  In the minute it took for Talbot to come on the line again, a spider began a journey across the table.

  Scrivens found himself watching it, watching the way it moved.

  Most of those in the room were watching it; how it moved in short, sudden spurts and then stopped dead. It had no evident momentum, but was quixotic as a thought.

  It came to a blotter, near where the engineer had placed the cam-actuator from the crippled Jet-Four. The spider began to climb on to the blotter, but someone moved an arm abruptly and cast a shadow where there had been light. The spider stopped . . . and waited.

  It seemed to those watching it that it was vastly important what the creature did next.

  Its ultimate decision was surprising. It scuttled back over the edge of the blotter and disappeared underneath.

  Talbot came on the line. ‘Statelines Forty-Six just reported. Don’t know much yet but the captain is . . . not entirely satisfied. He’s checking and will call us.’

  ‘That sounds as if it’s probably him,’ said Scrivens.

  ‘Yes.’

  Someone lifted up the blotter. The spider, mercilessly exposed, skeltered across the table and became lost in the shadows. Scrivens said; ‘Keep us advised.’

  He replaced the receiver slowly, and looked around the room.

  ‘At least we know,’ he said.

  Chapter Three

  Dulcie Rogers made a fussy adjustment to her seat and tried to look yet more sternly at a copy of Life Magazine, which was elaborately bound in the airline’s own leatherette cover.

  Hubb, an aggressive New Yorker who must have been taught at Yale never to take no for an answer, persisted in a series of advances which were unashamedly predictable in their time-honoured pattern. Jack Hubb’s philosophy was that you may get a lot of snubs, but you get a lot of women as well.

  Dulcie, who had avoided what she regarded as the indecorous routine of sex, was insufficiently skilled in repartee—simply due to lack of practice—to know even how to snub the man. The aircraft was full in the tourist section. To change her seat would have led to a minor commotion, and would have admitted to the existence of the male if only as an irritant. In her ordered life men were an intrusion—and especially men like Jack Hubb. When the time came, she knew exactly what kind of husband would suit her. Meanwhile there was her work.

  Not that she was unattractive to look at. This was what misled Hubb, whose experience was that more often than not reactions were mutual.

  That they were not had become perfectly clear to stewardess Susan Eccles who, though not by any means sharing Miss Rogers’ generic disapproval of men, felt that Mr Hubb should be prevented from becoming a nuisance. Susan secretly wished she could dope his coffee. This, unfortunately, was not permitted by the airline.

  ‘Mr Hubb, is there anything I can get you?’

  Jack Hubb looked her up and down; and having felt an inner jolt of approval, allowed his face to break into a practised grin which might have been more effective had not Susan been through all this innumerable times before. He said: ‘Well, now I come to think of it, yes.’

  Susan stood motionless, knowing exactly what followed next upon this frayed old tape recording. ‘Yes, Mr Hubb?’

  ‘There’s a brand new place just opened, on Lexington and Fifty-Sixth. Food: superb. Music: impeccable. And you’re my date.’

  Dulcie Rogers smiled to herself in sheer relief. A new victim had been found. She stopped reading about Child Nutrition Problems in California and listened with interest to the duel.

  Susan’s tactics were simple and strictly rule-book. ‘I’m so sorry, but we are not allowed to have any personal associations with passengers.’

  ‘Do you always have to stick to the rules?’

  ‘At times, Mr Hubb, the rules suit me very well. Is there anything else I can get you?’

  His smile became a little less aggressive. ‘Yes; something for a slightly damaged ego.’

  Susan relaxed. ‘I think you’ll survive, Mr Hubb, I expect you have on many previous occasions. How about a Martini?’

  He agreed to this suggestion, and watched Susan disappear up the gangway. As he did so he wondered why he had made this asinine pass.

  Dulcie said: ‘Not having much luck, are you?’ She sounded triumphant.

  ‘I deserved that.’

  She looked at him and he found it disconcerting. She said: ‘If you know you deserved it, why did you do it?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a habit I’ve got in.’

  ‘Well, it’s none of my business. But does it get you anywhere?’

  ‘It depends what you mean by anywhere.’

  ‘I think I see. No; I don’t call that “anywhere”. Surely it’s too indiscriminate. And anyway, doesn’t one know who will and who won’t?’

  ‘You’re really putting me on the hot seat, aren’t you?’

  ‘No. The stewardess was the one who did that!’

  ‘Yeah. I guess you’re both right, in fact.’

  Dulcie smiled slightly and said: ‘You’re too easily bored, Mr Hubb. Or is it that you’ve always been too easily interested?’

  ‘Maybe it’s both. Okay, I repent. Quits now?’ He grinned at her, and this time it was genuine.

  She let him off. ‘All right—quits, as you say.’

  Susan collected some trays and arrived at the forward galley beyond the first class. Jimmy Truman, First Officer, a youngish pilot with a shock of blond hair, was practising Simonised charm on the other stewardess. He smiled at Susan; which made her register the thought that Mr Hubb might benefit from a lesson or two from Jimmy, whose acting performance benefited from superior stagecraft.

  He watched Susan and said: ‘I know that look. It means we’ve got a professional Romeo aboard.’

  ‘When haven’t we? And anyway, what are you doing in here?’

  ‘I’m Romeoing Jill. She likes it. Don’t you, Jill?’

  ‘I’d prefer it if you had a haircut.’

  ‘I can’t very well do that now.’

  Jill placed herself in one of her tempting a
ttitudes and enjoyed Jimmy Truman’s reaction to it. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said, ‘you don’t seem to have anything else to do.’

  ‘I could always spank you, if you don’t stop being impertinent to the aircraft’s officers.’

  ‘Children,’ protested Susan, ‘please go and play somewhere else.’

  Jill said: ‘Anyway, there isn’t room in here,’ and moved off with a tray of unappetising sandwiches. Jimmy watched her go, and fingered his hair thoughtfully. Maybe he should have it cut. It might pay off.

  On his way back to the flight deck he tried to dodge Mr Valentine, a large man who panted from the effort of hulking his body about the aircraft.

  Valentine was a first-class passenger, and was accommodated forward of the section occupied by the aggressive Mr Hubb and some seventy other tourist passengers. There were only nine first-class passengers on this flight.

  Valentine refused to be dodged. It was amazing to Truman that it was possible to acquire a club bore during the mere six to seven hours that it took to cross the Atlantic. Yet already Valentine, who had written an elaborate note to the captain asking if he might see the cockpit, had spent nearly an hour there, recounting his early flying experiences. In the relatively cramped circumstances of an airliner’s flight deck, nobody particularly enjoys having whisky breathed over them for an hour.

  ‘Of course, it’s all very different nowadays,’ said Valentine, throwing himself into his seat and pressing the service bell at the same time. He spoke as if he and Truman had been already engaged in the discussion. Actually, Truman had been talking to two younger passengers who had also been up front but had not prefaced their visit by anything other than a hesitant request made of Jill and Susan respectively.

  Diplomacy still being an important feature in a line pilot’s life, Truman could not escape immediately.

  ‘I mean,’ said Valentine, fumbling for cigarettes, ‘as far as I can see, you chaps have pretty well nothing to do.’ He spoke expansively, as if the whole thing were only done because he had given his express permission. ‘Auto-pilots, altitude-locks, course-locks, and God knows what else. Piece of cake. Eh?’

  Susan appeared, and asked what she could get him, sir? With this went a regulation smile. The Valentines of this world had to be buttered-up at whatever cost to one’s pride; otherwise they simply became a nuisance to other passengers and sometimes the crew.