The Stick

by David Beaty

But there was no flying feel in it. And here came the red boundary lights! He heaved back with all his might. But all that happened was a God-Almighty crash. Lights came flickering on again. Bells rang.

  Harker shouted ‘Crash Action Check List!’ Adams and Griffiths began shutting down the engines, closing the fuel valves, turning off all hydraulics and engine electrics and unstrapping themselves.

  ‘Bloody thing’s gone US again!’ Harker said to Osborne, when everything had subsided to a stop and silence. ‘What the hell’s the matter now?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Osborne said smoothly. ‘ Nothing’s the matter with the simulator.’

  ‘There must be!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Why don’t you ask … ‘‘what’s the matter with me’’?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You tried to do the impossible. You tried to take off without flap.’

  ‘Without flap?’ Then he remembered. ‘That was a trick to see if I’d forget.’

  Osborne stroked his cheek. ‘Not a trick at all.’

  ‘You interrupted me so I’d forget!’

  ‘I was simply checking to see if you’d go back to the beginning of the Check List again before you took off. In fact, you simply put your head down and charged!’

  Harker turned to Adams. ‘ It’s your job to do the Check List. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Sir, I tried to bring your attention to it, but I thought you knew what you were doing.’

  Osborne shook his head sadly. ‘You should have checked, Adams. You both should have checked.’ And then, after a full half-minute’s pause to let that sink in, he added, ‘Well, let’s try again, shall we?’

  The rest of the Check passed uneventfully. The usual take off, cross country, a runway stabiliser emergency and a let-down into Paris in foggy conditions. Archie signed them off in a very French accent, and Harker called ‘Finished with the engines!’

  But they had not finished with Osborne. As usual, he talked to each of the three operating crew. Separately. Harker was last.

  ‘Well, Paul,’ George Osborne said. ‘ This is really rather embarrassing.’

  Harker looked at him stonily.

  ‘I should fail you. I’ve already failed Adams.’

  Harker still said nothing.

  ‘You crashed well and truly, did you not?’

  ‘That was an underhand trick of yours.’

  ‘They all say that. But you know as well as I do, that could have happened on Service. You should have done the Before Take Off Check again from the beginning. Shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harker said shortly.

  ‘‘Then why didn’t you?’ Osborne paused. He had eyes of the very palest, watery green. ‘If you manage to figure that one out, this Check will have been worthwhile.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘No,’ Osborne said at last, ‘I’m not going to fail you. Of course I couldn’t. We’ve known each other for years. You’re the Flight Captain. It would be bad for company morale.’ He stopped. He appeared to be waiting for Harker to say something.

  He’s actually expecting me to thank him, Harker thought. For a dirty trick like that! He raised his hand. ‘See you, George,’ he said briefly as he collected his coat. Then he was off through the doors while Osborne turned his attention to writing his reports.

  Harker joined Adams and Griffiths. They were halfway along the corridor when, from the other side of the Training Complex, came a bevy of stewardesses, one of whom was Belinda.

  Griffiths greeted her warmly. Adams grunted a greeting. Ignoring them both, Belinda said, ‘Captain Harker … I haven’t seen you in weeks!’

  ‘I haven’t seen you either, Miss Chafford.’

  ‘I spend all my time on the route.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh just emergency drill. What about you, Captain Harker?’

  ‘Oh, just a flying Check.’ He felt cheered to see her smiling face. ‘Come and have a coffee with us.’ He turned to Adams and Griffiths. ‘We need it after our ordeal, don’t, we?’ They didn’t contradict him. Belinda accepted prettily. In the cafeteria, she chattered unselfconsciously. It was the conversation between the three men that was stilted.

  Harker left as soon as he decently could. At the glass entrance doors to the Training Complex, he ran into Osborne, all his reports completed and now going home.

  ‘Going off, too, Paul?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Been a hard day, eh?’

  Harker just nodded.

  As they went out into the car park, it started to rain. Ahead of them, they saw a tubby grey figure dashing through the downpour towards an ancient car.

  ‘Poor old Archie … caught without his mackintosh,’ Osborne said. And when Harker didn’t answer, he added, ‘There but for the grace of God go you!’

  Chapter Four

  The implication of that remark never left him. It lay like Belinda just beneath the surface of his consciousness, to rise sometimes in the middle of the night, waking him as he lay beside Harriet.

  Of course Osborne was a twit, he said to himself, and a malicious twit at that. But unfortunately he had right on his side, a mistake had been made, albeit a perfectly understandable one. The mistake had a certain similarity to the one that had caused Archie’s crash, in that there was an interruption. But what he couldn’t forgive Osborne for was his bloody irritating remark – you manage to figure that one out … The inference being, you’ll perhaps avoid doing it again.

  Hell, what sort of help was that? He’d asked himself a hundred times why he’d done it but he was no nearer giving himself the bloody answer. He’d gone over meticulously in his mind the exact sequence of events. There were stones on the taxiway that might have damaged his flaps. Going back to the ramp for a visual check with the take off flap retracted was the right safeguard against any further damage. Being suddenly told it had all been a false alarm. Then immediately turning round back onto the runway and trying to become airborne without the flaps. That was the sequence of events right enough.

  He had been concentrating and had been suddenly interrupted in that concentration. In his anxiety to take off and get on with the Check, he’d forgotten to go back to the beginning and go through the whole Before Take Off Check List again. Why?

  Carelessness? No, he was a careful sort of chap. Laziness? He certainly wasn’t lazy. Forgetfulness? He had always had a particularly good memory. Had? Was had the operative word? Was his memory beginning to fail? His noticing? His seeing? Was it his hearing? Adams had said he’d tried to bring his attention to the fact that the Before Take Off Check List hadn’t been done again. What did that mean? Did Adams say something, and he hadn’t heard? You don’t listen, Harriet had said. Or perhaps he just didn’t hear? Heard well enough to pass the physical, but was not hearing on some mental level? Or was it simply an accident? And what was an accident?

  He was back to the beginning again. What caused it, who caused it and why?

  Why?

  To get away from the spectre of that unanswered question, he began to bury himself in office work. The Flight Captain’s job was really administrative, but because airmen despised desks and paperwork, had to keep in flying practice and didn’t want to get stuck at home indefinitely, the incumbent in fact still continued to fly, though not so much as the Line pilots.

  The fact that he was now more chairborne had obviously pleased Harriet. ‘ How long do you expect to be home?’ she asked him at supper on Wednesday of the following week.

  ‘Quite a while yet. There’s a helluva lot of bumf. I’m trying to wrestle with pilot requirements for 1987 at the moment.’

  She passed him the cheese board and smiled. ‘Good!’

  Immediately he felt suspicious. ‘Why? Why is it so good?’

  ‘To have you at home, of course.’

  ‘Why?’

  She raised her brows. A few months ago he wouldn’t have dreamed of asking such a q
uestion.

  ‘Because I like having you at home. I like this nine-to-five routine. Knowing you’ll be home in the evening.’

  But it was more than that. There was an inexplicable shadow at the back of her eyes. She wanted him near her for some special reason. There were only two things it could be. Either some gossip had reached her about Belinda, or she had noticed some deterioration in him.

  He dismissed the idea it could be Belinda. Had she heard gossip, Harriet would immediately tax him with it. No, if Harriet were worried it must be because she had noticed something. A slowing down of his reflexes, a blunting of his senses. Last night when Jane had rung, he had not heard the telephone bell until Harriet was on her feet and halfway across the room. On Sunday he had forgotten where he’d put his reading glasses. Harriet would have noticed that he was sleeping badly too. He’d been having that dream again – landing an Astrojet in a tiny field, being pleased and then trying to take off again. Their sex life had obviously diminished, but then whose in regular flying hadn’t? Sooner or later on the flight deck, conversation got round to that hoary ribald chestnut of punching the incident button.

  ‘I was saying to Madge yesterday,’ Harriet went on, seeing him still frowning, ‘ she’s lucky to have had Archie home …’

  She broke off as Paul said furiously, ‘Why the hell d’you always have to bring up Archie?’

  ‘I don’t. Not really. I was talking about Madge …’

  ‘And Archie. Always Madge and Archie!’

  ‘I thought you’d be interested.’

  ‘Well, I’m not. Archie is a poor pathetic bore!’ And Madge is worse!’

  ‘And you’re insufferable! Not a bore, but a b-o-o-r!’

  Harriet jumped to her feet and hurled her napkin on the table. ‘They’re supposed to be your friends. More yours than mine. What’s the matter with you?’ She clenched her fists, fighting to control her temper and her tears. ‘ Ever since you came back from that trip.’

  ‘Which trip?’ He tried to look blank. Christ, he thought, it is Belinda. He felt a hot wave of guilt and anger and relief.

  ‘You know damned well! The last but one trip you did to New York. The one when I telephoned you. You haven’t been the same since.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense. You’ve been moody. Withdrawn. Irritable.’

  ‘The mixture as before,’ he scowled. ‘Surely that sums me up, doesn’t it?’

  She waved his remark aside. ‘Something happened, didn’t it? Something happened on that trip?’

  He pushed his chair back from the table. ‘Of course it didn’t! Nothing happened!’

  ‘Promise?’

  He drew in a deep breath. ‘If you really must know, Harriet, something did happen. But not on that trip. After it. On my Check to be precise. I made a bit of a balls-up, love. Not the sort of Check the Flight Captain should do.’

  He reached out his hands and pulled her over so that she was perched on his knee. He was struck with how thin she had become in middle age, but distantly, a sign of his ageing more than hers.

  She melted of course, as he had known she would. She listened in sympathetic silence, her eyes bright and alert, weighing every word, until he finished with that unanswered question. ‘What on earth possessed me to make a silly mistake like that?’

  ‘But was it entirely your mistake? Shouldn’t the First Officer have seen the Before Take Off Check was done again?’

  ‘He should have, yes. But it was Adams, the lad who used to be so keen on Jane. He’s a bit backward in coming forward.’

  Harriet smiled faintly. ‘Frightened of you?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘All the same he should have, shouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So he saw and did nothing?’

  ‘He says he tried to bring my attention to it. Whatever that means.’

  Paul watched Harriet’s expression keenly. Now would be the time when she might say, Well, you haven’t been hearing too well lately.

  But she didn’t. She simply said, ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘I didn’t hear him if he did.’

  ‘So he didn’t. Jane was right. She said he was wet behind the ears.’ Harriet patted his hand. ‘And anyway, surely he shouldn’t have just sat there and done nothing?’

  ‘Exactly what Osborne said. He should simply have pulled the throttles back. But you’d be surprised how frightened some of the crew are of getting out of line.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. It’s the same at the hospital. No one will tell a consultant he’s wrong. And anyway, Osborne failed him, didn’t he? So he thought his was the major blame.’

  ‘But mine was the overall blame. I’m the Captain. I can’t get away from that. I made a mistake and I’ve got to find out why.’

  ‘We all make mistakes, lovie. All of us, at some time or other.’

  ‘But in my job …’

  ‘Your job … a surgeon’s job … a doctor’s job … a train driver’s. You’ve all got to watch yourselves like hawks. And you’ve got to have people to watch you, like Adams should have done.’

  ‘Even so, mistakes still get made. Do you think there’s a pattern in them?’

  ‘I think there’s a pattern in everything we do. Mistakes too, probably. The important thing is to have the power and ability and character to surmount them.’

  He gave her a whimsical smile. ‘ Is there anything about my pattern you’ve noticed?’

  ‘Well, I do think you tend to make an Aries rush at things. Like going through the flood water last trip. That worried me.’

  ‘And maybe I’m getting slower.’ He tapped his head, ‘But not steadier.’ He smiled faintly and held out his hands. She caught them in hers.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your hands. Steady as a rock. Still get-you-there hands.’

  ‘Should I retire?’

  ‘When you’re ready.’

  ‘But as of this moment, Harriet, you personally wouldn’t want me to?’

  She took a long time answering. Then she said slowly, ‘No.’

  He drew in a deep breath. He felt disproportionately relieved and reassured. He kissed her cheek, noticed absently how much older it looked, set her on her feet and stood up.

  ‘But I am getting older,’ he said cheerfully, running his hand through his thick hair, I can’t deny that. Twice as old as most of these youngsters.’

  ‘Just so long as you don’t try proving you’re not getting older,’ Harriet said lightly enough. But he thought it a strange remark.

  He didn’t however brood upon it. He felt infinitely better after his little talk with Harriet. He beavered away at the bumf, and then feeling the old urge to be on the route again, he picked a simple two-day turn round to New York. Before he committed himself, he did take the precaution of checking who would be on his crew, especially the catering crew. The name of Belinda Antoinette Chafford not being on the list, he took over the trip.

  ‘I’m doing a quickie to New York next Friday,’ he told Harriet as soon as he got in.

  ‘Shall you have time to do any shopping?’ she asked him with what seemed genuine innocence.

  ‘Doubt it. Why?’

  ‘I could do with some fudge and pecan sauce. You used to bring it from Macy’s, remember, years ago?’

  ‘I’ll do my best. Margaret Fisher’s the Chief Stewardess, you remember her? Flew with us back from our honeymoon. Due to retire next year. I’ll ask her, if I don’t get the time.’

  Harriet seemed immensely reassured about such a small matter. But when he boarded the Astrojet on Friday, he found there had been some changes in the catering crew. As he climbed the front steps, he saw a slim form waiting for him at the top. He blinked his eyes, in almost equal hope and fear that the vision would go away.

  The vision solidified. Blue eyes, blinking reproachfully, gazed up at him.

  A sweet familiar voice said formally; ‘Good evening, Captain Harker,’ and more softly, ‘you don’t seem v
ery pleased to see me.’

  To which he found himself replying with utter sincerity, ‘Oh but I am!’

  Have you ever been to Coney Island?

  Harker stared disbelievingly at the fragment of catering indent that lay tucked under a plate of steak and chips. The stewardess who had brought up his lunch tray had not been Belinda, but he had not the slightest doubt that these big loopy letters in green ink were her handiwork.

  The Astrojet was halfway across. Thirty-five thousand feet below, the Atlantic glittered lazily up at him. On his right a respectful First Officer. Behind him, a conscientious Engineer. All in all, so far a very pleasant trip.

  Then this.

  The strange thing was that the little piece of paper, now curling up under the heat of the plate, had about it an aura of fun and laughter, of merry-go-rounds and coconut shies, ghost trains and big dippers, of gypsies telling fortunes. It wasn’t the steak he was smelling but onions and pop-corn and toffee apples and engine oil and that tramped-down grass scent of fairgrounds. All at once, he was nine years old, scampering up the steps to the top of the helter-skelter.

  He took his pen out of his breast pocket and glanced to his right. The First Officer was totally engrossed in finishing off the last of his chips. George, the automatic pilot, gave a little metallic chuckle as he wrote on the note in big letters ‘NO’ and tucked it under the plate again.

  The same disinterested stewardess took all their trays away. Harker waited to see what would happen now.

  Nothing for three hours. Then just as they were being cleared by Boston control to descend to Kennedy, up came the stewardess again with a tray of tea and biscuits.

  Harker waited till the First Officer was looking out of his side window, then lifted the plate of biscuits. Sure enough, the same little note was there. There had been an addition in loopy green: Then why don’t we go tomorrow?

  It was all so cloak-and-dagger. I’m right at the back of the form, he thought, checking the First Officer’s eyes were still absorbed with the view outside, the teacher can’t see me. Shielding the indent with his hand just in case, in minute letters this time, he wrote, Meet me in the Plaza foyer at two, and slipped it under the plate.