by Nevil Shute
He did not know what he should say to his sister – if anything at all, seeing that he was bound under a pledge of secrecy to Morris. So far he had told her nothing of Dennison’s connection with Morris; he had thought it wiser to leave the whole subject alone. The more he thought of it, the more clearly he perceived that there was only one thing that could have sent Dennison flying off the deep end in this manner, and that one thing was Sheila. This was a very disturbing conclusion.
What would happen, for example, if the flight were to fail and Dennison were to be killed? He knew that his sister was very much attached to Dennison. On the other hand, what could he do about it? He could not very well go to his sister and tell her what Dennison was up to and make her pull him back by the coat-tails. For one thing, she wouldn’t be able to do it. Nobody could pull Dennison back when he had set his mind on a thing, and he was evidently far too deeply involved in this matter to withdraw.
Perhaps it would be better to wait and hope that Dennison would not be killed.
‘Oh, damn it all,’ said Wallace irritably.
It was in an irritable mood that he travelled down to Berkshire. On the way it struck him to wonder whether by any chance Sheila knew of what Dennison was doing. It was just possible that he was wrong all along the line and that she was in touch with Dennison. He did not think that was the case; Dennison had departed too suddenly. Moreover, Morris had reported him taciturn on the subject of the Wallaces. In any case, he would see if he could not find out more how the land lay during this week-end. If he got an opportunity he would sound his sister on the subject.
Sheila met him with the car and drove him home to tea. Antony had departed three weeks previously for the Engadine, and had written her a rambling, incoherent letter, enclosing a little wooden bear. She had written back to him at needless length, a letter almost equally diverse in which she mentioned everything but Dennison. With the exception of this correspondence she had been quite alone since Antony’s departure; her father ranking as somebody to talk to but not company. Wallace, as they drove home, found her far more subdued than usual, and mentally raised his eyebrows. Clearly, it would pay him to go carefully.
It struck him that she looked tired. It would be a good thing if he could get her away for a holiday; it was absurd for her to spend all her life at Little Tinney.
They had tea in the library. After the meal was cleared away they sat gossiping for a little before the fire; Wallace decided to seize his opportunity. He leaned back in his chair and commenced to bore her to distraction with a long account of the family investments in China. He gave her full details of each stock in turn with the history of each company, and the date the stock had come into their possession, the price at purchase and at the present time, the yield, and the prospects of improvement or otherwise. From that he passed to an appreciation of the political situation in China, with especial reference to its effect on certain companies. He noticed that she was growing restive, and smiled covertly to see her smothering a yawn. Finally he passed to the (fictitious) desirability of having an independent observer on the spot.
‘I’ve been wondering lately whether Dennison would care to do anything for us in that way,’ he said thoughtfully, and smiled again to see her suddenly stiffen to attention. ‘He might be able to send us a weekly cable with certain information. It would be very much to his own advantage.’ He was watching her closely, but found time to reflect, ‘What utter rot I’m talking.’ Still, she knew very little of business methods.
‘It sounds a very good idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you write to him?’
‘One might do that,’ said Wallace. ‘Where does he live?’
‘He’s in rooms,’ she said. ‘I’ve got his address upstairs. It might be nicer if you went and saw him one evening.’
‘Have him to dinner one night,’ said Wallace. ‘When’s he going out?’
She did not answer. He glanced at her and saw that she was not looking his way, but staring into the fire. Presently she turned and met his eyes, a little wistfully. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he ought to – a bit.’ She glanced at him again, and this time he noticed a slight quivering of her lips.
‘Lord bless me,’ he thought in alarm. ‘I believe she’s going to cry.’
‘Please, Jimmie,’ she said. ‘I want to tell you about it.’
He sat up in his chair. ‘Why, of course,’ he said kindly.
The girl slipped from her seat on to the floor beside his feet, and sat with her back against his chair, facing the fire so that he could only see the back of her head.
‘I don’t think he ought to go out to China,’ she said rapidly, ‘and he wanted me to marry him and I wouldn’t.’ Though he could not see her face, Jimmie knew that tears were very near.
‘I guessed as much,’ he said equably. He ran his fingers down through her soft hair and pulled her ear. ‘What are you going to do about it now? Seems to me that you’ve got yourself into a mess and you don’t know how to get out of it. Want me to assist, I suppose.’
There was a pause, but when she spoke again he knew that the danger was over.
‘It’s not a mess at all,’ she explained. ‘Only sometimes – one gets worried over it all. It’s having nobody to talk to. It was all right while Antony was here, but now … You see, I knew as soon as Peter came back that he wanted to ask me to marry him. You remember when he came; that first evening? I knew quite well – I think he wanted me to know. And then he told me all about going out to Hong Kong, and I knew that the only reason he was going out there was because it – it gave him a chance to get married, and he wanted that so badly. And then he went away, and I had time to think it all over.’
She turned from the fire and glanced up at him. ‘Jimmie,’ she said earnestly, ‘he wouldn’t be happy in Hong Kong. It wouldn’t do. He’s not that sort. He’d be miserable out there – I know he would. I found out that – he doesn’t really want to go a bit. It was only – only for me that he was taking it.’ She turned back to the fire and resumed her old position. ‘And directly I knew that I – I sort of knew that it was up to me, you see, and if he spoilt his life and gave up all that he cared for, it would be my fault.’
She paused, and played a little with his shoe-lace. When she spoke again it was so softly that Wallace had to listen intently for her words. ‘A man isn’t like a girl, you know,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘A girl when she marries is quite happy with her home, and her children, and she doesn’t want much else. But a man is different. He’s like a little boy that has to have his toys … a man has to have his toys, and if you take them away from him you – you just kill him. The round of golf, or the club, or – or yachting. Once he gets really fond of a toy … if his wife takes it away from him she can never make it up to him, however much she loves him. It’s just gone, and you can’t replace it with anything else.’ She paused, and repeated piteously, ‘She can never make it up to him.’
‘I suppose that’s so,’ said Wallace.
The girl nodded. ‘I know that’s true,’ she said simply. ‘And then, it was pretty obvious that it was up to me to get him out of his mess. Because he really was going to make a frightful mess of things and I sort of felt – I felt that it was up to me to get him out of it all. You see, if he’d gone out to China as a junior partner in that firm, he couldn’t have chucked it after a year or two if he didn’t like it. He’d have been there for keeps. And so, when he asked me, I told him I was afraid of going to China and I couldn’t marry him if he was going out there. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t go out there without me. And I think he’ll rout about now and find a job in England that we can marry on, and then he’ll come back again.’ She paused, and then, ‘I just couldn’t let him give it all up for me, Jimmie. I had to have a shot at – at piloting him out.’
‘I see,’ said Wallace gently. ‘How did he take it?’
For a while the girl did not answer. ‘He was so sweet about it,’ she said at last, very softly.
Then, ‘Oh, Jimmie,’ she said piteously, ‘it was four years since I’d seen him, and he remembered all that time and came back just the same. I – I didn’t know men ever did that sort of thing, except in books.’
For a moment Jimmie Wallace had an eccentric impulse to lean down and kiss his sister – an action that he had not performed since he was four years old. Manfully he beat it down, but fell to stroking her short, fine hair as they sat together in the firelight wondering … wondering …
What on earth was he to do about it all? And what if Dennison were killed?
That evening Dennison returned to his rooms in Chelsea. He had paid a flying visit to London previously, had told Lanard briefly what he had taken on, and had visited his firm of solicitors. He had had a long interview with the head of the firm and had managed to interest him sufficiently in the scheme to obtain the necessary leave. They were maritime solicitors.
Then he had returned to Cowes, and had lived for the month as the guest of Sir David on board the Clematis, watching and taking his part in the arrangements for the flight. During that time the flying-boat had been completed in Flanagan’s great hangar, and had made several flights. Morris had flown her off the water alone on the first flight. Then he and Dennison had paid a flying visit to Farnborough, where they had had a lengthy consultation with two or three authorities on aerial navigation. They had then returned to Cowes and proceeded to practise what they had learned by taking observations in the air. During this month the catapult had been completed and fitted to a fast cargo vessel of the Fisher Line, the Iberian. She was now on her way from the Clyde to the Solent. On arrival she was to take the flying-boat on board for two trial launchings, after which she would pick up a cargo at Southampton and sail for New York. Dennison had returned to London for a couple of days.
‘To make my testamentary dispositions, for one thing,’ he informed Lanard.
Lanard smiled sourly; the jest was not to his taste. He had seen nothing of Dennison for three weeks, when he had burst in one evening, informed Lanard of his part in the projected flight, and returned to the Solent. Lanard was dismayed; that Dennison of all people should go rushing off upon a mad scheme of this nature struck him as a very bad business. He summed the position up to himself in a trenchant phrase, clarified, perhaps, by the light of his own experience. Dennison was ‘on the run’.
He blamed himself most bitterly that he had not gone with Dennison on the Irene. Then, if ever, Dennison had needed his friends about him most of all; Lanard had allowed himself to be put off. If he had been there, he thought, this would never have happened.
Dennison began to talk about the Chrysanthe and her prospects in the coming summer. It was settled that he was to sail her in her races throughout the season; after the Eastern regattas and Cowes they were to go on down the coast with the object of getting in as much racing as possible to gain experience on the vessel. It would mean a good two months of it, said Dennison cheerfully.
‘But look here,’ said Lanard. ‘What about your work? You’re having six weeks’ holiday now over this infernal American trip. You aren’t going to get leave for the Chrysanthe as well? If you aren’t pretty careful, you’ll find yourself upon the cold, hard world.’
Dennison kicked the coals down into the fire. ‘The Lord will provide,’ he said calmly.
Lanard gazed hard at him. ‘Do you mean Sir David Fisher?’ he said at last.
‘Perhaps,’ said Dennison. ‘The sparrows and the crumbs – and the rich man’s table, and all that, you know.’ Lanard had to make what he could of that, for he could get no more out of Dennison. He was in a queer temper.
Lanard picked up The Times, and Dennison lit a pipe; for a full twenty minutes neither of them spoke a word. Then Lanard dropped the paper into a rustling heap beside his chair.
‘What about Hong Kong?’ he said.
‘What about it?’
‘Are you going out there?’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Dennison curtly. ‘It was a damn silly scheme at the best of times. I turned it down.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lanard dryly. ‘But it brings us back to the immediate question – what do you propose to live on when your firm sacks you?’
Dennison grinned. ‘Probably on a yacht,’ he said.
Lanard knew very well that at times his friend was capable of displaying the rudiments of a subtle sense of humour; he considered this reply with some care. ‘Do you mean that Sir David’s going to keep you all the year round simply to sail the Chrysanthe in the summer?’ he said. ‘It seems an optimistic view of the situation.’
‘Lord, no,’ said Dennison. ‘Whatever put that idea into your head?’
He was silent for a little, and knocked out his pipe against the heel of his boot. Presently he spoke again. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he said quietly. ‘All the time since the war I’ve been keeping my little nose to the grindstone because – because I wanted to get married. Well, that’s all over and done with now. What’s the use of going on working like this – in London? So long as I can keep myself … You called me a married man in embryo once. Well, a married man works like hell. But afterwards … ’
He was silent. Lanard continued his sentence.
‘Afterwards one settles down and goes on working,’ he said evenly. ‘One piles up comfortable things. One makes money, and that acts as an insurance against – mistakes. And presently one forgets, and one marries again.’
Dennison broke in. ‘I’m damned if that’s your creed,’ he said roughly.
The other considered. ‘It’s the only reasonable creed,’ he said at last.
There was a silence. Lanard got up and went to the window and stood looking down into the lamp-lit street, in characteristic attitude.
‘It’s not my business to butt in,’ he said presently, without taking his eyes from the street. ‘That’s why one does it, I suppose. It’s always seemed to me that it’s never fair to take a girl at her word – at first. It’s so different for them. And they expect to be given a second chance – traditionally.’
‘I know,’ said Dennison. ‘They book their ticket at Cook’s, return it after a couple of days, and a week later go and badger the life out of the clerks because they can’t have it back again.’
Lanard turned to him, his brow wrinkled in perplexity. ‘Which means?’ he said.
‘A journey to China, I should think,’ said Dennison, a little wearily. ‘The clerks haven’t got any self-respect to lose, I suppose. But in this case, when the ticket was returned it was final.’
He turned to Lanard. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he said again. ‘If I had the money I could get married tomorrow. I think I could probably count on being married next year if I wanted to be. I could probably afford it by then.’
He paused. ‘The point is that I was turned down because I was going to China, and for no other reason at all. Well, you see – I was going to China for her, and if she couldn’t come to China for me … It was a sort of test case, you see. She cared – quite a lot. But not enough to come to China. That absolutely put the lid on it.’
Lanard turned from the window. ‘I see,’ he said slowly.
‘That being the case,’ said Dennison, ‘it wasn’t any use going on. Marriage has to be everything or nothing, you know.’ He paused. ‘Sixpence for fourpence halfpenny,’ he said very quietly. ‘It was a bad bargain.’
He laughed suddenly, and there was a note in his laughter that Lanard did not care to hear. ‘I was done, all the same,’ he said, ‘because by the time I found it out, I’d spent the sixpence.’
It was inevitable that the Press should discover the experiment. They had kept the secret well, but as soon as the Iberian arrived in the Solent with a peculiar superstructure on her forecastle, ill-informed comment and speculation began.
‘The only thing that one can say,’ remarked Sir David, ‘is that we have been very fortunate that it did not begin before.’
He stood in the chart-r
oom of the Iberian with Morris and Dennison as the vessel proceeded down the Solent towards Spithead. It was early in the morning; the air was fresh and salt; the sun streamed in through the ports and fell in sliding patches upon the papers littered on the chart-room table. On deck was the catapult with the track laid down and extending over the hold to the forecastle, and on the catapult was the flying-boat with Rawdon and the chief mechanic making a final inspection. There were to be two trial launchings that day; the first with no load at all, the second fully loaded.
Sir David turned again to the pile of newspapers. No statement had been issued to the Press in regard to the flight, with the result that the graver journals barely referred to the matter, while the more democratic sheets seethed with inaccurate information about the ‘bird-men and their giant plane’.
‘Fair makes me retch,’ said Morris crudely. He was fortunate in that the identity of the crew had not yet leaked out.
The two technical papers dealt editorially with the matter. One regretted the paucity of information and was strictly non-committal. The other assumed a bolder attitude and gave a remarkably accurate forecast of the flight in the first paragraph. In the remaining three columns the discourse touched rapidly upon the deplorable condition of maritime aviation and settled down with gusto to a tirade against the Navy, illustrated by anecdotes that should have been unprintable, finally declaring that dear old Clausewitz was right after all, and that all things worked together for good.
Finally, on the day that they sailed for America, The Times, in a leading article, dropped a heavy benediction upon the flight.