by Nevil Shute
It came to an end in 1933. The air line had been declining for some time as Canada grew poorer in the slump. As it became more difficult to make ends meet the pilots were laid off one by one till only two of them were left, Ross and the managing director. Then the end came; the machines were seized by the creditors in partial payment of their claims, and the company became a memory of a good effort stultified by world conditions.
With many other pilots, Ross decided to go home. Internal air lines were beginning to spring up in England; the depression did not seem to be so violent over there. He put his affairs in Canada in order. The Packard went back to the overstocked, disgruntled dealer who had given it to him on the instalment plan, the sailing boat paid off his debts, and the ice yacht bought his passage back to Liverpool on a cargo boat. He landed in England with a good outfit of clothes, a slight American turn of speech, a vast experience of flying in the frozen North, and seventeen pounds, six shillings, and fourpence in his pocket.
He went straight to Aunt Janet at Guildford, glad to be back with her again. She greeted him unemotionally but made him genuinely welcome. He told her his situation on the first evening and counted his money in her presence; it was then a trifle under sixteen pounds. She reached across the table and took eight of them.
“Ye’ll not be needing these,” she said; “I’ll keep the money by me. Eight pounds will pay your food and washing for the next three months, Donald — maybe four. If ye get another job before that time I’ll gie ye back the change.”
“All right,” he said. “But can you do it on that money?”
“Oh, ay.” She sighed. “I’d like fine to have you free, Donald, but things are deeficult. The lassies dinna take the mathematics as they used to. I have but the two afternoons a week to work, this term.”
He saw that she was looking tired and frail. He was very sorry that he had not run a Chevrolet in Canada.
It was late in March. He made several journeys up to London on a workman’s ticket; within a fortnight he succeeded in getting a job as pilot to an air circus. It was not a good job, and it was poorly paid. The circus was a very small one, a thin imitation of the highly successful National Aviation Day run by Sir Alan Cobham. It was financed by an East End clothier, and managed by an unsuccessful theatrical producer. It was badly advertised, badly equipped and badly managed. It started operations in the Midlands at the end of April; within the first week two children had been killed, wantonly and unnecessarily, at Leamington. At the end of the second week Ross left the show, without his money.
He went to see his friend Clarke at the Guild of Air Pilots.
“The thing’s a regular menace,” he declared indignantly. “There’s no discipline, and no maintenance and no money in the show. The ships aren’t even airworthy, let alone the rest. They’re trying to run on motor gasolene.”
“Petrol in this country, old boy.”
“Petrol then. And there isn’t an air-speed indicator working in the whole outfit.”
“Why did you leave them? What reason did you give?”
“I told them I was afraid of being killed. And that’s the truth.”
The other smiled. “They still owe you fifteen pounds, do they?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll ring up Morrison and see if he can help you. What are you going to do now?”
“Anything that I can get.”
The other nodded slowly, tapping his pencil on the table. “You’re a bit late for this season, you know. Most operators have booked up the pilots they want this year.”
“I know that. But I couldn’t stay on in that show. Better to be a live coward than a dead hero.”
“Of course, new things are always coming up. I’ll let you know if I hear of anything.”
“Good enough. Let it be soon.”
The other glanced at him keenly. “It’s like that, is it?”
“A bit.”
“All right. I’ll let you know the minute that I hear of anything that would suit you.”
Ross went back to Guildford, and began writing letters in answer to the advertisements for pilots in the flying papers. For want of other occupation he took to the domestic life. He got up early in the morning and cooked breakfast for Aunt Janet before she went to work at the school; he swept and dusted for an hour after breakfast, and washed the kitchen floor. Later in the morning he went marketing with her shopping basket, and returned in time to lay the lunch. The work amused him, and kept him from worrying too much about the future. She had sense enough to realise this and acquiesced in this disturbance of her household, grumbling and finding fault with all he did.
“I doubt ye’ll never make a housewife, Donald,” she would say, “buying butter at elevenpence the pound.”
“What ought I to have got, Aunt Janet?”
“Why, Sunray Margarine of course. Threepence three farthings for the half pound. There’s no reason to go buying a whole pound at once.”
A fortnight later, when he was worrying about his future a good deal, a telegram arrived from Clarke. It read:
CONTACT LOCKWOOD PAUL’S COLLEGE OXFORD FOR JOB PILOT GREENLAND EXPEDITION.
He sat down in the kitchen on a chair and stared at the message. A great feeling of relief swept over him, succeeded by a pleasurable anticipation. His first reaction was that a Greenland expedition would suit exactly the experience that he had. He knew all the hazards of flying aeroplanes and seaplanes in the North, the difficulties of maintenance. Very few pilots in England had the knowledge of such things that he had. He could hold a job like that if anybody could, and do well in it. Perhaps the pay might not be very good, but then the cost of living would be practically nil. It would be difficult to spend much money in Greenland.
In his later reflections there was solid genuine pleasure. That was the time just after the successful British Arctic Air Route Expedition, and very soon after the tragic death of its leader in Greenland in the following year. Greenland was in the news; Ross, and the world with him, knew all about these Greenland expeditions. They were recruited from young men, very young; at the age of twenty-nine, Ross might well be older than any other member of the party. It would be a light-hearted affair of youth, a brave business nonchalantly carried out. It would probably be a year of freedom from anxiety and of good fellowship; a time that he would look back upon with pleasure for the remainder of his life.
The name Lockwood meant nothing to him. At that time he had very little knowledge of the Universities. From the first he was prepared to find that this man Lockwood was much younger than he was himself; he would have to adjust himself to that. He did not think he would have any difficulty in doing so.
In any case he must get on with this at once. There was no time to be lost. He mustn’t let a chance like this one slip away.
His aunt’s house had no telephone, of course. He went and changed into a dark lounge suit, packed a dinner jacket and a few things for the night into a suitcase, and caught the next train up to London. He telephoned to Clarke from Waterloo.
“I don’t know any more about it than I said in the telegram,” Clarke told him. “We got the letter in the post this morning, and I thought of you at once. The letter just asks if we can recommend a pilot for an air expedition to Greenland. It’s a funny sort of phrase to use — an air expedition.”
Ross frowned. “Who is this chap Lockwood — do you know?”
“I’ve no idea. I’ve never heard of him before.”
“Well, anyway, I’m going after it. It’s just the sort of thing I want.”
“I thought you’d feel like that. Would you like me to send him a telegram?”
“If you would. I’m speaking from Waterloo; I thought of going down to Oxford right away.”
“That’s the stuff. Nothing like getting after these things right away. I’ll send him a wire to say you’re coming.”
Ross went by underground to Paddington, and took the next train down to Oxford. He got there about five o’cloc
k. He did not know the city and he had no money to spare for a taxi; he enquired the way to St. Paul’s College, and walked up from the station carrying his suitcase.
It was the middle of May and a warm, sunny afternoon. The streets seemed to be full of young men and young women dashing about on bicycles. It struck Ross as a very pleasant town. The grey stone walls of the colleges stood cheek by jowl with very large shops and enormous cinemas; before them the streets were packed with cars. On that sunny evening there was an atmosphere of wealth, virility, and youth about the place. It seemed to Ross to be a busy, cheerful town; he wished that he knew more about it.
He was amused to see a hansom cab, the first that he had seen since he was ten years old. He stood and watched it as it ambled down the street.
He found St. Paul’s College and asked at the lodge for Mr. Lockwood.
“I don’t think Mr. Lockwood’s in his rooms, sir. You might find him at his house.”
“Where is that?”
“In Norham Gardens.”
“And where’s that?”
The porter told him. “I’ll ring up the house, sir, if you like, and find out if he’s at home.”
“Thanks a lot.”
There was an interval while the porter telephoned. Ross stood by the lodge and looked around him. He had never seen a college before. He saw a grey stone, cloistered quad with a carpet of very smooth green turf in the middle; in the centre of this there was a little round pond with goldfish in it, and a fountain of weathered stone. Above the cloister there were rooms with open windows; at one window sill a young man was carefully painting golf balls white, and arranging them in a row to dry. At another window a young man was talking earnestly to a girl, a very young girl with a queer black cap upon her head. Somewhere there was a gramophone playing dance music.
The porter came to him. “Mr. Lockwood said, would you go down to his house, sir.”
“All right.”
He turned and walked down through the pleasant streets still carrying his bag. He found Norham Gardens after walking for a quarter of an hour, and stopped for a moment before the house. A puzzled little frown appeared between his eyes; this was not at all the sort of house he had expected. It was a very large brick house half covered in ivy; the brickwork was ornamented at the corners with stone insets. It had a Gothic stone porch over the front door, giving it a half-hearted mediæval effect; before the house there were a few clipped laurels. The path up to the door had been newly laid with gravel; the steps were very white, and the brass upon the door was very clean. It looked a solid, prosperous, substantial house, built in the more spacious Victorian age, and kept up in the manner that its style demanded. It was not quite the house that he had expected to find as the home of the young leader of a Greenland expedition. Unless, of course, there was a son.
His immediate reception did nothing to encourage him. A grey-haired old servant, infinitely prim and neat in a black dress and a white cap and apron, opened the door to him.
Ross said, “Can I see Mr. Lockwood?”
She eyed him severely. “Mr. Lockwood is giving a tutorial,” she said. “You can’t see him now.”
Ross said mildly, “I think he’s expecting me. They rang him up from the college a quarter of an hour ago. He asked me to come down here.”
She looked very doubtful, but motioned him to enter. “Wait here,” she said, indicating the exact position on the hall carpet. “I’ll see how long it will be before he will be free.”
She went up to a door opening off the large hall, and knocked reverently. A murmur of voices inside ceased, with a clearer invitation to come in. The old parlourmaid slipped inside the door, and closed it behind her.
Ross was left standing in the hall alone. He was bewildered. This was like his headmaster’s house at the Guildford school. He must have come to the wrong place.
The elderly maid came out again, and closed the door softly behind her. “Mr. Lockwood will see you in a little while,” she said primly. “Now will you wait in here. No, leave your bag there.” She led him to a drawing-room, opened the door, and showed him in. The door was closed carefully behind him.
The drawing-room was unoccupied, and a little cold. It was a large, white room opening with French windows onto a garden. Deep brocaded chairs and setees stood about the room, each cushion uncreased and most beautifully smooth. Ross felt that it would be a social blunder to sit down on any of those chairs. The room itself seemed hardly meant for use. It was too precious. A fine gilded clock under a glass bowl swung a slow pendulum upon a pure white marble mantelpiece; in a corner a white marble head of Justinian stood five feet from the ground on a white marble column. A long case of Sèvres china stretched along one wall. A fine oil painting of the Colosseum at sunset occupied another wall. It was a fine, wealthy room, furnished in advanced Victorian taste. It was a room in which one could have entertained royalty, and it looked as if it had never been used for anything else.
The pilot moved over to the window, and looked out into the garden. It was a large suburban garden between high brick walls, with a couple of fine old beech trees at the end of it. It was infinitely neat and tidy. The flowers stood regimented in the beds in neat array. The lawn was mown and trimmed as primly as a tablecloth. In the shade of the beech trees two cane chairs and a cane table stood mathematically arranged upon the lawn, with a polished brass ashtray precisely in the middle of the table. The centre of the lawn was laid out for clock golf, the figures beautifully white.
Ross turned away depressed. He was sensitive to atmosphere, and this atmosphere was far removed from that of flying seaplanes in the North. However, he took a small grain of comfort from one feature of the place. It might be frigid and schoolmasterly, but it was not a poor house. Seaplane flying cost a lot of money. No one knew that better than Ross.
He waited for some time, puzzled and a little worried.
Presently there was a sound of movements in the hall outside; a door opened and closed. A few minutes later the elderly parlourmaid came to him.
“Would you kindly step this way?”
He followed her out into the hall. She knocked at the study door, waited for a moment, and then showed him in.
Ross went forward into a large room. The walls were lined with books and the furniture was dark, but the room was light and airy from very large windows opening onto the garden. A man got up from the desk and came to meet him, a man about fifty-five or sixty years of age. For his years he was a well set up man, tall and broad-shouldered, with iron-grey hair thin on the top but still not bald. He was clean-shaven, with a firm, slightly humorous expression; he wore rimless glasses.
He came towards Ross, holding the glasses in one hand.
“Ross? Good afternoon — I’m sorry you had to wait so long. It’s Captain Ross, I suppose.”
The pilot shook his head. “Plain Mr. Ross,” he replied. “I was only a flying officer.”
Lockwood said vaguely, “Oh, really? I thought all you flying people were captains.” He motioned to a chair. “You’ve been very prompt in coming down. I only wrote to the — the, er, the Guild or something or other yesterday. Or was it the day before? No, it was yesterday.”
Ross smiled. “I was very interested when I heard what you had written to them.”
“Capital — capital. Have you had tea, Mr. Ross?”
The pilot hesitated. “Well, I haven’t. But don’t bother about that for me. I don’t often take it.”
The other pulled a watch, a silver hunter, from the pocket of his rather shabby waistcoat, opened it in his palm, and looked at it. “Oh, it’s only six o’clock.” He rang the bell; the parlourmaid appeared almost immediately. “Tea,” he said. He turned to Ross. “Do you like Indian or China tea, Mr. Ross?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I like Indian. But it really doesn’t matter.”
“Indian for Mr. Ross, Emily, and China for me.”
He made the pilot sit in a deep leather chair, and sank down himself into the
chair at his desk. “I understand that you know all about aeroplanes, Mr. Ross,” he said conversationally.
The pilot said cautiously, “I’ve been messing about in them for quite a while. I was in the Air Force for five years, mostly in Iraq. Since then I’ve been flying for the last four years in Canada.”
“In Canada? How interesting.”
Ross had nothing to say to that.
The don put on his glasses. “Well, now let’s get to business.” He bent down, pulled open one of the drawers of his desk, and took out a large, untidy portfolio. He put this on the desk before him and opened it; it was stuffed with a great mass of manuscript. He turned these papers over, talking half to himself as he did so. “There are several things here that I must show you presently. But this — no, this — and where is the other one? Where can it be? Here we are. These two will do to start with.”
He thrust two large photographs across the desk to Ross. “Now, what do you make of those?”
The pilot took them in silence. One was an air view of a field, taken vertically downwards from about two thousand feet, with a bit of a wood across one corner of the area. There was nothing on the photograph to show where it was. The other was an oblique downwards view taken from a lower altitude, possibly from a hill-top, of a barren-looking stretch of land running into the sea at a little promontory. Again there was no information on the print.
The pilot looked at these two photographs in silence, and his heart sank. It was clear that he was expected to say something intelligent, and at first glance he could think of nothing to say. They were just photographs. He was no good at puzzle pictures, but he couldn’t say that. He scrutinised them in silence; there must be something in the prints to connect them with each other, or they would not have been given to him together. Presently he remarked: