by Nevil Shute
Chapter Five
Morris walked up from the slipway through the narrow little main street of West Cowes towards the castle, deep in thought. He was a man of moods and impulses, a man of quick decisions. He walked up to the castle and stood for a time gazing vacantly out to sea, to where the Clematis lay in the Roads, then turned about and went to find the post office.
On the steps of the office he hesitated for a moment, then went out again and bought a penny time-table at a stationer’s. In the street he consulted this, then returned to the post office and sent off two telegrams. His business finished, he strolled back towards the landing, and met the others in the main street, returning from Flanagan’s.
They returned on board for tea; Morris went down to speak to Dennison. Dennison had not got up; in point of fact, he had fallen asleep after a very good lunch, and when he awoke he found that it was so nearly tea-time that he decided to take his medical advice and stay in bed for the day. He greeted Morris cheerfully.
‘I’m going to get up tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’d have got up this afternoon, only I went to sleep after lunch.’
‘As a door upon its hinges,’ said Morris sententiously, ‘so turneth the sluggard upon his bed.’
‘I wish to hell he did,’ said Dennison grimly. ‘This old side of mine’s been giving me gippo whenever I move. Did you hear anything of the Irene?’
‘They’re going to have her ready by Friday evening,’ said Morris. ‘Though I don’t think there’s a chance of you being able to sail her by then. Let’s have a look at that thumb.’
The thumb was still swollen, though it was rapidly becoming normal again. ‘You can’t do anything with that yet,’ said Morris, ‘and you’ll have to be jolly careful that you don’t go and put it out again, if you go messing about trying to do too much. You don’t seem to realise that you’ve just shaved by what might have been a pretty sticky crash.’
Comprehension came to Dennison in a wave with the words; he remembered now what it was that Sheila had said about Morris. ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose I shall do much more sailing just at present. I only intended to take ten days off, and it will be a week by the time I get on board again, I suppose.’
They chatted for a time, then Morris left him and went to his tea. Dennison was left alone, pondering the information that had come to him. There was a mystery on board the Clematis; that was obvious even to him as he lay in his berth. There was something going on that was to be kept dark; Sir David was in it, and Rawdon and Morris, and probably Flanagan, from the way they had spoken of him. His curiosity was piqued; he had little else to interest him in his enforced idleness. He held this clue to the mystery; Morris was a pilot for experimental aeroplanes.
That was what Sheila had said.
Sir David paid him a visit after tea. Very soon, in some manner that he could not afterwards account for, Dennison found himself telling the baronet all about the Runagate and the four glorious seasons before the war when they had carried practically everything before them. Sir David fetched his bound volumes from the saloon, and they spent an hour and a half poring over the accounts of old regattas, recalling memories of the crack vessels of ten years before.
After dinner, he was left alone. It is painful to relate that he spent most of the evening endeavouring to interpret the confused murmur from the other side of the bulkhead, with little success. When the steward went in with the whisky, there was a lull in the conversation; Dennison learnt no more. Presently he dropped asleep, and was awakened by voices outside his door and the footsteps of the men as they went to their state-rooms. He looked at his watch; it was half-past one in the morning.
Next morning when he awoke, Morris was gone, vanished away in the early hours to catch the paddle-boat from Cowes. Rawdon came in to Dennison before breakfast, and explained the circumstances in his soft little voice, strangely out of keeping with his red-haired bulk. Morris had had to go up to Town on business, he said, and would be back that evening.
‘I think I’ll get up after breakfast,’ said Dennison.
Morris caught the first boat from Cowes and proceeded to Southampton and London, breakfasting on the train. He reached Waterloo shortly after eleven and walked over Charing Cross bridge. On the Embankment, he paused for a moment before a hoarding on which a brand of face-cream was advertised by the portrait of a girl in evening dress. It reminded him of his wife.
He made his way across Trafalgar Square and up Regent Street, loitering to kill time. Half-past twelve found him in Oxford Circus; he looked at his watch, and took the Tube to the City.
He turned out of the station, walked a hundred yards or so down a side street, and entered a large block of offices. On the first floor he turned in at a door labelled ‘Inquiries’. A girl rose from a typewriter.
‘Mr Wallace?’ said Morris.
The girl led him down a long corridor, knocked timidly at a door, and ushered him into an office in which the Great Man spent his days behind a portentous desk.
‘Cheer oh,’ said Jimmie. ‘I won’t keep you a minute. Get a chair. Miss Haynes! Get these sent along to Mr Anderson. Tell him that if he’ll endorse them, I’ll get them off this afternoon.’ He handed her a sheaf of papers.
The door closed behind her. Wallace swept the litter on his desk to one side, and gazed critically at the door. ‘She’s getting fat,’ he said. ‘You should have seen her when she came … The sedentary life, I suppose.’ He pushed aside his papers, checked, picked out one that had caught his eye, glanced it over, and threw it with the others. ‘Heigh-ho,’ he said. ‘Time for lunch – or near as dammit.’ He got up and fetched his hat from behind a screen. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s a sort of eating club just round here that I usually go to. I got your wire yesterday.’
They entered the club and sat down to lunch. Morris broached his subject with the soup.
‘I say,’ he said. ‘You know a man called Dennison, don’t you?’
He happened to be watching the other’s face, and was vastly surprised to see the effect that his question made upon the other. Wallace laid down his spoon and gazed at him in simple wonder. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know a man called Dennison. Peter Dennison. But I had no idea he was a friend of yours.’
Morris crumbled his bread. ‘I only met him recently,’ he said. ‘Two days ago, in point of fact. But he told me that he knew you and – well, frankly, I came up here because I wanted to find out one or two things about him.’
Wallace wrinkled his brows in perplexity. ‘You want me to tell you about him?’ he inquired.
‘That’s it.’ Morris paused to consider his words. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s rather a curious story, and it’s all mixed up with – with a business deal that I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much about at present. But the main facts are these. I’ve been yachting in the Solent as a guest on a biggish vessel. The owner and my firm are acting together in this deal, and part of it means that I’ve got to chuck a stunt.’
‘I 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 troubl
e 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 see,’ 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 some time.’
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 motor-cars. 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 deck-house, 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. Now 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 o
n – 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’ blue-print, 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 blue-prints, 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.