by Nevil Shute
And then she said— “Peter!” — and I went over to her by the fire, and drew up a chair near her.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to find you all evening, but nobody knew where you were.”
She paused for a minute, and then she said: “We’ve made a frightful bloomer over this thing, Peter.”
I nodded. “It was a mistake not to tell him that I’d exposed those plates. But it didn’t seem like that at the time, did it?”
She shook her head. “I thought it was the best way then, doing it like you did.”
“What’s happened to his wife?”
“She’s asleep — I think. I put her to bed quite early — about half-past nine. She’s quite happy about it now. She thinks he’s doing a perfectly splendid thing. Heroic. She’s most awfully proud about it all.”
I grinned, but there was very little laughter in me at that time. “That’s what it is,” I said mechanically. “Heroic.”
She twisted round and looked up at me puzzled. “It seems so funny,” she said. “I didn’t know that heroes were like that.”
“Nobody ever does,” I said.
There was a little silence then, and we sat together there before the fire in the dim light of my room. I had a vague feeling that she oughtn’t to be there at all at that time of night, especially in her pyjamas, and that instead of sitting there with my hand upon her shoulder I ought to be packing her off back to the mansion and to bed with a few delicate, well-chosen words. Instead, I did nothing about it, and we sat there till she turned to me again.
“Where do you suppose he is now?”
“In the train,” I replied. “Round about Dijon or Macon, or somewhere down that line. So far as I can see, he must be going out by Ventimiglia. That means going through Marseilles; he gets there about nine o’clock to-morrow morning, as I reckon it.”
She stared up at me pleadingly. “Isn’t there any possible way of getting at him to tell him? What was that you said about going after him to catch him up? Wasn’t it any good?”
I didn’t want much to tell her about that. I had meant to slip off in the early dawn before she was about and so prevent an explanation, but there was nothing for it now. “I think it may work all right,” I said, and smiled down upon her. “Anyway, it’s worth trying.”
She twisted round upon the floor and stared up into my face. “What is it? You can’t catch him now?”
I hesitated for a moment, and leaned forward and chucked a bit more coal on the fire. “There’s only one way of doing it, so far as I can see,” I said. “That’s by air. His aeroplane’s still out there on the down.”
“Oh . . .” she said softly. “Do you mean you’re going to fly it out there after him?”
Beneath my hand her hair was very soft. Like spun silk. “Why yes,” I said simply. “That’s the big idea. I’ve been out there all evening with Kitter, and with Saven from the Red Bear, getting the machine ready. I’m pushing off in her at dawn.”
I paused. “According to my reckoning, that’ll get me out there just before noon, or about noon. She’ll go all the way without a stop, that machine. The real trouble will be at the other end, I’m afraid — after I’ve landed. I haven’t got any papers for myself or for the machine. The machine hasn’t got any registration letters. I haven’t even got a passport. That means they’ll jug me for a cert in Italy, if they can get hold of me. After I’ve landed I’ve got to keep out of the way of everybody, and yet get into touch with Lenden before he reaches this house — the Casa Alba. That’s the real difficulty.”
She eyed me seriously. “It’s a ripping scheme, Peter,” she said. “If there’s anyone can make it work, it’s you.”
“It’s a fifty per cent chance,” I replied. “I don’t put it higher than that.”
“What are you going to do when you’ve landed?” she inquired.
I left her for the moment, got up and fetched my maps from the table, and came back and sat down as I had been before. She knelt up before the fire and leaned against my knee to see the maps. I spread out the large-scale one of that district and showed her the main features of the land.
“You see this hill behind Lanaldo,” I said. “Monte Verde, it’s called here. It looks to be all woody, and I think these little squiggles mean it’s pine trees. I’m going to put the machine down up there — it’s about three miles from Lanaldo and looks to be pretty desolate. Then I’m going to work down through the woods — down here — across that little col and down that sort of ravine till I get out on to the main road — there. It looks as if there might be pretty good cover all the way. When I get to the road, I shall have to wait there in a sort of ambush. If he comes by Ventimiglia he’s got to get to the house by that road, and I suppose he’ll be in a car. I should be able to stop him there.”
I didn’t tell her the rest of the plan — which was simply that I was going to wait there upon the road till five o’clock. If by that time I had not succeeded in intercepting him, then I should have to assume that he had passed, and the only thing to do would be to go up quietly through the woods and see what was going on at the White House. I didn’t know what that might lead to, but it was with that in mind that I had resurrected my old automatic. I hoped to God that the cartridges were still all right.
She leaned across my knee, pulling the map towards her and studying it with brows wrinkled in a frown. “Peter, I don’t see where you’re going to land on Monte Verde from this map,” she said slowly. “I thought aeroplanes needed a great big open space for landing. It doesn’t look as if you’d find anything like that there.”
Girls in these days know too much. I didn’t quite know what to say to that.
“They don’t need so much room as all that,” I said uncomfortably. “Not the way I’m going to land this one.”
She looked up very quickly at that. “Do you mean you can’t land it properly out there?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”
I smiled at her in what I hoped was a reassuring way, though if anyone needed reassuring it was me. “There’s two ways of landing an aeroplane,” I explained. “One so that you can use it again afterwards, and one so that you can’t. The second one is quite a good way, if you don’t happen to want the aeroplane particularly.”
She was about to say something, but I stopped her. “In a place like that,” I said, “it’s pretty certain that there’ll be clearings. If there’s a really flat, eligible bit of greensward, I shall put her down the first way, because I don’t like waste. But if there isn’t anything like that, then I shall put her down on the tree-tops. In the war, I always used to look for two things when I had the wind up or engine failure. A good big field, or, failing that, a wood. Trees are soft, you know.”
She was staring up at me intently; beneath my hand her shoulder was very still. “You mean you’re going to crash?”
I laughed at her. “That’s a hard word to use,” I replied. “I’m going to put her down on the tree-tops. Nobody ever got hurt doing that.”
She was still staring up into my face. “Peter,” she said. “Don’t go and get hurt.”
I shook my head. “All right,” I said, and smiled a little. “I’ll be careful about that.”
She wasn’t satisfied at all, but she looked down and began playing with the poker in the ashes of the hearth. “Must it be done like that?” she asked. “Isn’t there any place where you could land ordinarily?”
I shook my head. “You see, it means being arrested if I put down on an aerodrome with that machine. At one time I did think of going to London and chartering a machine from Imperial Airways. But I haven’t got a passport, and it’d mean spending all the morning getting one. No, this way’ll be all right.”
A new idea struck her. “Is this a very big machine? Very powerful?”
“Bit of a lump,” I said.
She twisted round again to look at me. “Peter, when did you fly last? Are you in practice?”
I shifted a little une
asily in my chair, and because she was leaning up against my knee she noticed it. “One doesn’t lose practice in a thing like that,” I lied. “That’ll be all right.”
“D’you mean you haven’t flown at all since the war?”
“Not very much,” I said.
I had done it by saying that. She slipped round and stood erect, pulling her clothes a little more closely about her. I got up too, and we stood looking at each other before the fire. “You can’t do this, Peter,” she said. “It’s a most frightful risk you’re taking. I won’t have it.”
I smiled at her. “I’m afraid you don’t come into it,” I said.
“Peter. You simply mustn’t. Please . . . Peter.” She stood there before me, flushed and dishevelled, and very sweet. If there had been less at stake between us at that moment, I would have been no gentleman and kissed her. But I didn’t do that, and so I only stood there grinning at her. And when she saw me grinning at her like that she gave up, and there were tears in her eyes when she spoke again.
“Peter dear,” she said unsteadily. “You mustn’t do it. Really. It’s frightfully dangerous.”
I took one of her hands in mine. She has very small hands, not half the size of my own. I had never had the chance to examine one of them before. “But I must,” I said.
She looked at me dumbly for a moment. “I don’t see why.”
I stood there with her in the glow of the fire, playing with her hand and wondering at the littleness of it. “Because I’ve got to live with myself,” I said. “You can’t shirk that. And because I’d like to see Lenden have another cut at living with his wife again. That’s all.”
And we stood there silent like that for a long time. In the end she looked up at me. “You really mean it, Peter?”
“I’m afraid so,” I replied. “I don’t see that there’s any other way of getting in touch with him in time. If there was any other way, I’d take it. God knows I don’t want to fly the ruddy thing.”
I was still examining her fingers; she had made no movement to regain her hand. “When must you start?” she asked.
“At dawn,” I said. “Kitter will be coming to call me soon after four. He’s getting the machine filled up with petrol now — with Saven.”
She looked up at me anxiously, and tried to withdraw her hand. But I didn’t allow that. “You must get to bed,” she said softly. “At once.”
I nodded slowly. “I know I must,” I said. “And so must you. You oughtn’t to have come over, really.”
In all the years that I have known Sheila she has never been quite repressible. There was a glint of humour in her eyes when she looked up, like a spot of sunlight in a puddle of rain. “I suppose not,” she said. “But then you oughtn’t to be holding my hand like this, in the middle of the night.”
I slipped my arm round her and drew her a little closer to me. “In regard to that,” I said, “I suppose no gentleman would take advantage of you so far as to tell you that he loved you, in the middle of the night and when you’ve only got about half the proper complement of clothes on.”
She stood there very quietly in my arms. “Peter,” she said softly, “are you asking me to marry you?”
I grinned down at her. “Lord, no,” I said. “Not at this time of night. It wouldn’t be proper. I’ll do that one morning before breakfast in the cold light of day, when I can see your freckles and you can see the cigarette stains on my fingers. But for tonight, I just wanted you to know that I love you. Before I pack you off to bed.”
She drew a little closer to me. “Peter dear,” she said, “I’ve known that for the last two years.”
There was hiatus then — an interlude which must have lasted for ten minutes or so. I sometimes think that no gentleman — and certainly no lady — would have enjoyed that interlude so much as we did, or indeed would have permitted it to happen at all. But at last:
“It’s time you went to bed,” I said, and I wrapped her cloak more closely round her, and we went out of my house and across the stable-yard in a still, moonlit night. In the hall, at the foot of the great staircase, she left me, and I stood and watched her mounting in the dim light till she was lost in the shadows of the passage at the head. I let myself out of the mansion and went back to my house across the yard, and then, since it was one o’clock, I threw off my clothes, and took a couple of aspirins, and went to bed. And I slept at once.
I was roused almost immediately, before I had had time to realise that I was asleep. The reading-lamp by my bed was switched on, and I became drowsily aware that somebody was shaking me by the shoulder. I rolled over and opened one eye, and it was Sheila.
“It’s time to get up, Peter,” she said softly. “Kitter’s just come with the car. It’s four o’clock.”
It was still quite dark. I stirred, sat up in bed, and looked at her sleepily. “All right,” I muttered, and I sat there looking at her sleepily for a minute while she smiled at me. “I say . . . was I dreaming, or did I tell you that I loved you last night? Because if by any chance I didn’t, I’d like to tell you now.”
She laughed softly. “You did tell me something about it, Peter,” she said. “But it’s sweet of you to say your piece all over again.” And she then leaned over the bed and kissed me, and I put an arm round her and returned it sleepily, as I have done a hundred times since then. And when that was over:
“Now you shoot off,” I said, “while I get up.” And as she moved away I noticed for the first time that she was fully dressed in a light-blue jumper and a tweed skirt. She paused in the door.
“What d’you want for breakfast, Peter?” she inquired. “I’ve got some coffee here, and toast and marmalade, and there’s some eggs. Would you like one poached?”
I passed my hand over my forehead. “I don’t know that I can eat anything at this time of the morning.”
She nodded slowly. “I’ll poach a couple, anyway. If you can’t eat them you can mess ’em abaht a bit. But I expect you can.”
And then she was gone, and I got up.
I dressed as if I was a starter for a Polar expedition, and when I was ready I went sleepily through into the sitting-room. Sheila had turned my fireplace into a sort of camp kitchen, and breakfast was in train. Kitter was crouching over the fire and helping her; I crossed the room to them. “Have you been to bed at all?” I asked.
She nodded. “Mm. I’ve only been up half an hour. Now sit down and have something to eat.”
“Morning, Kitter,” I said. “How’s the machine?”
“Saven’s been having another go at her, sir,” he said. “We got the juice into her all right, and we’ve been running the engine again, so’s she’d be warm to start when you want her. She’s running a treat.”
“Glad to hear it,” I remarked, and sat down to breakfast. “It should be light enough by half-past five.”
I didn’t eat very much. Sheila ate one of my eggs, and she cut a couple of packs of sandwiches for me. I took these in the pocket of my ulster, together with a fair-sized flask of brandy. And then, having swallowed a couple of cups of coffee, I was ready.
We left the house at about five o’clock, and set off for the down. That was a silent drive. Sheila was beside me, and Kitter in the dickey-seat behind. I was preoccupied with the details of my course. I remember that I was very much concerned whether I should be able to fix my position when I came to France on the other side of the Channel. The wind was from the south-west, and light. That would help, I thought.
We came to the down at about a quarter-past five, and left the car by the roadside. It was light enough to see fifty yards or so by then; as soon as I stopped the engine of the car I heard a low rumble in the distance, away to the east. Saven was running the engine of the Breguet. That walk over the short grass to the machine seemed to take an infinite time. It was trying, that. I remember that Sheila and I were speaking inconsequently of little trivial things, in short, disjointed sentences. I promised to send her a cable as soon as I got an opportunity, tell
ing her what had happened. It was in both our minds that she would know what had happened if she didn’t get the cable, but we didn’t talk about that. I hurried on to other subjects hoping that she hadn’t noticed the break; long afterwards she told me that she had hoped the same of me. Funny, in a way, but I didn’t see it then.
At last we got to the machine. It was very nearly light enough for the take-off by then; already I could see the line of the road half a mile away. Saven was up in the cockpit of the machine, and the pig trough was securely wedged beneath the wheels as chocks. I clambered up to the cockpit beside him, out of earshot of the others on the ground.
He throttled the engine till she was just ticking over. “She’s running fine, sir.” He put his hand on the lever controlling the adjustable propeller. “You want to leave this just like it is. I wouldn’t touch it at all, not if I was you. I’ve set it right for you from the static revs.”
I nodded, and asked him one or two questions about the machine. I went over the fuel system with him again to ensure that I had forgotten nothing. And then:
“You’d better get along down to the road for the take-off,” I said. “Behind those telegraph wires. I want somebody down there.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, and then: “Lord, sir,” he said, “she should go up over those all right. It’s only half a load, or something o’ that. You want to hold her down on the ground, you know, with the tail well up, till she flies off of herself. And then if you feel she’s a bit close, just give her a yank up and she’ll be all right.”
I nodded. “I know. That’s how I used to take off my B.E. with a full load of bombs. But get along down there, all the same.” I paused, and then I said: “I’d hate to get singed.”
He grinned. “Reckon you won’t be able to keep her on the ground. But I’ll get along down there, sir, just in case. She’s all ready for you to take off. You’ve got the chocks under now, but Kitter can take them out when you’ve run up.”