Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  It was a little after five o’clock in the morning. In spite of the heated cabin they were all stiff with cold; with the relaxation from the strain of being over Germany they began to feel their fatigue. Chambers took over the controls and brought the bomber down to a more reasonable height, about ten thousand feet; they took off their oxygen masks and breathed naturally once again. Dixon got out the thermos flasks and passed round mugs of coffee and a tin of boiled sweets; the drink refreshed them.

  Presently, as they flew, a faint tinge of grey came into the sky behind them and the stars grew paler in the east.

  They approached the coast of Yorkshire in a long descent, with navigation lights alight and with their very pistol charged with a flare cartridge showing the colour of the day. They made their landfall at the mouth of the Humber and flew north a little up the coast before turning inland towards Market Stanton. In the grey light of a frosty dawn they came to the aerodrome and circled round it at a thousand feet. Dixon was at the controls; he brought the big monoplane in low over the hedge and put her down upon the runway.

  They taxied into the hangar and cut the engines. The duty officer came out to meet them, muffled to the ears in greatcoat and muffler. He asked, “What was it like over there?”

  Dixon said, “Bloody cold.”

  They handed over their notes and wrote a short report. Then they went back to their respective messes. Chambers was cold and sleepy; about them the camp was coming to life. He went to the breakfast table in the mess and had a cup of coffee and a plate of very sweet porridge. Then he went over to his bedroom, undressed and tumbled into bed, and slept till lunch.

  There followed ten days of stagnation, of routine duties and short test flights, of reading the papers and waiting for orders. In this time Chambers made a start upon his caravel, decarbonized his little car, and brooded restlessly about the mess. It ended in a summons to the group captain’s office.

  Two other pilots came with him; none of them knew beforehand what it was about. They stood in a row before the C.O.’s desk, a middle-aged officer, rather portly and going a little bald.

  He said, “Good morning, gentlemen. I sent for you because I’ve been asked to supply a volunteer for special duties. I don’t know what the work is, except that it’s some sort of testing, to be carried out on Wellingtons.”

  He paused, and smiled a little. “I want a volunteer,” he said, “because I understand that it’s not quite so safe as — as flying over Germany, shall we say. I sent for you three because you all have the basic qualifications for the work, because you’re none of you married so far as I know. It’s the sort of job that might lead to something. On the other hand, it may go flat after a week or two.”

  One of the flying officers said, “Can we have some idea what sort of work it is, sir?”

  “Not much. It’s out over the sea, and that’s about all I know. I picked you three because you’ve all had a good bit of experience over water, and because you’re all adequate pilots on the Wellington.”

  Chambers said, “Can you tell us what the establishment is?” It was important for a regular officer to know that, to avoid stagnation in promotion.

  “I don’t think there is any establishment. The pilot who gets this job will be the first. He should be quite all right in that way.”

  One of them said, “Unless he falls in the drink.”

  The group captain said, “Unless he falls in the drink.” He eyed them for a minute. “I want a volunteer for this,” he said, “because I understand that it’s a tricky sort of business. You’d better go away and let me know this afternoon if any of you want it. If more than one of you are keen to have it I shall have to choose somebody; I’ll have to choose somebody if I don’t get any volunteers.” He paused. “That’s all for the present.”

  They filed out of the office and walked over to the mess. Chambers said, “Well, what does any one make of that?”

  The other two were lukewarm. One of them said, “I put in a month ago for posting to a fighter squadron. I was put down for fighters at the F.T.S., and then they sent me here. I’m not so stuck on going on on Wellingtons, myself.”

  The other was silent. His home was in York, and Market Stanton was near enough to York for him to get home at week-ends and on half days of leave, especially when the days got longer and one could motor later before blackout. He said presently, “I’d rather go on here.”

  He turned to Chambers. “Do you want it?”

  The young man shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care much either way. It sounds as if it might be interesting.”

  “Bloody sight too interesting, if you ask me,” said the first. “Fighters are the thing to go for. Nice to fly, and you get a chance of acting on your own. They’re safe, too. Ruddy great engine in front of you to keep the bullets off, and eight guns for you to hose him with. Safest job in the war, these Hurricanes and Spitfires. I wish to God they’d ask for volunteers for them.”

  The other said to Chambers, “Are you putting in for it?”

  “I might do. Do you want it?”

  The other shook his head. “I’d go if I had to, of course — if the C.O. picked me. But I’d rather stay here.” He hesitated, and then said, “I’m getting married in the spring.”

  Chambers said, “Are you? Have a beer. The young people — they will do it. Can’t stop ’em. That lets you out of it, anyway.”

  The other said, “You want to get into a fighter squadron if you’re getting married. Safest job in the war, old boy.”

  Chambers sat down in a long armchair before the fire with a copy of Picture Post. He did not dislike the idea of a change. The monotony of sitting on the ground week after week waiting for orders for a raid was irking him, as it was irking all of them. After the continuous patrol that he had been used to on the Coastal Command the inactivity was galling. The thought of more work was attractive, and test flying should be interesting. He had been at Market Stanton for about six weeks, and he did not care for the station. It was too far from a picture house for his liking. It was twenty miles from a decent grill room. As he thought about it his heart ached for the Portsmouth scene, where there had been grill rooms, and pictures, and Mona, all within ten miles of the aerodrome.

  To hell with it. This place was no damn good. He’d put in for this job and get away.

  He presented himself before the Group Captain that afternoon. “I think I’d like to put in for that job, sir,” he said. “Can you tell me where it would be?”

  The C.O. said, “I don’t know that myself, Chambers. I rather think it’s on the Clyde.”

  The boy nodded. Anything was better than Market Stanton. “I think I’d like to have a stab at it,” he said.

  “All right. Are any of the others putting in for it, do you know?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Neither of them seemed very keen.”

  “I’ll give them the rest of the afternoon. If they don’t show up by then I’ll put you forward for it.”

  “It means going pretty soon, sir, I suppose?”

  “Almost immediately, I should think. We’ll probably get a postagram about it in the morning.”

  “I’d better start putting my things together, then.”

  “I should think so. I know they want somebody quite urgently.”

  Chambers went back to the bedroom hut and began to collect his scattered belongings ready for packing. Before dinner he met the group captain in the mess. “I put you in for that, Chambers,” he said. “I sent off a signal about it. We should hear by the morning.”

  The boy said, “I’ll get ready to go, then, sir.”

  The C.O. said, “I’m sorry you’re going, Chambers. You’ve done quite well here. I was going to send you as first pilot, in charge of a machine, next time we had a show.”

  “It’s very nice of you to say that, sir.”

  “I mean it. I’m sorry you’re going.”

  Chambers went back to his bedroom, and began to dismantle his wireless set.
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br />   Next morning he was summoned to the C.O.’s office. The Group Captain said, “I’ve got the postagram about your posting, Chambers. You’re to report to Titchfield aerodrome at once, to the Marine Experimental Unit. Titchfield — that’s somewhere down by Portsmouth.”

  The pilot swallowed something. “I — I’ve just come from there, sir.”

  “Have you? I thought you came from the Coastal Command.”

  “Yes, sir. I was at Emsworth aerodrome.”

  The group captain smiled. “Well, you’re going back again to the same part of the world. I hope you’ve enjoyed your trip to Yorkshire.”

  The boy stood dumbfounded. It was clear to him that the group captain knew nothing of the reasons that had caused him to be moved from the Portsmouth district. Now the die was cast, and he was shifted back there again. In the stress of war the papers in his personal record had been overlooked by Postings, if indeed his personal record had been consulted at all before the appointment had been made.

  Now was the time to make a protest, if one was to be made.

  He thought of Market Stanton, and he thought of Portsmouth. It was two months or more since Caranx had been lost. There would be embarrassment, perhaps, but he would be with a different unit on a different aerodrome. In all probability he would meet none of the same people. He hesitated, irresolute.

  The group captain eyed him keenly. “What’s the matter?”

  “I didn’t much want to go back to Portsmouth, sir. For a personal reason.”

  The commanding officer said, “Well, it’s done now, Chambers. Is your reason very serious?”

  The pilot hesitated again. If he braved it out and went back to Portsmouth he would see Mona. He said slowly,

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  The older officer stood up. “Well, you’d better take it, and get off to your new job. I’m sure you’ll do well in it. In war time we can’t pick and choose the postings as we used to do, you know. I’m sorry if it’s not quite what you wanted, but one has to take the rough with the smooth.”

  Chambers nodded. “I know.” And then he said, “What does the Marine Experimental Unit do?”

  “I haven’t an idea — you’ll find out when you get there. I’ve never heard of it before.”

  “Is it a new unit, then?”

  “It must be. It certainly wasn’t in existence before the war.”

  “It sounds as if it might be interesting.”

  He said good-bye to his commanding officer, and went over to his bedroom hut. His packing was very nearly finished. He strapped his bags, and gave a tip to his batman; then he drove the little roadster round and loaded everything he had into it. He went over to the mess and paid his mess bill, and then to the adjutant’s office to get petrol coupons for his journey south.

  He got onto the road directly after lunch.

  Although his little roadster made a good deal of noise, it did not get along the road very fast. It was getting dark when he arrived at Barnby Moor; he stopped there for the night. Next day he went on down the Great North Road, skirted round London in the early afternoon through Watford and Slough, and came to Titchfield aerodrome on the edge of the darkness. He drove straight to the adjutant’s office and reported.

  The adjutant said, “You’re the Wellington pilot for the Marine Experimental Unit, then?”

  Chambers said, “Yes, sir. Can you tell me what it is I have to do?”

  The adjutant said, “I’m not supposed to know anything that goes on over in that hangar. But I can tell you, more or less.”

  He did so.

  That evening Mona walked to the snack bar in the grey dusk. It was the first time in months that she had gone to work in daylight, but it had been a fine light evening, and she was a little early. As she went she was wondering whether to change her job. The snack bar was all right, but since Jerry went she had been restless. Now with the prospect of light evenings once again, specially when daylight saving came in in the coming week, it did not seem to her a good thing to be starting work at six o’clock.

  She was restless with the spring. It might be fun to try it in a shop. If she could get into a big shop, now, in the perfumery or the ladies’ gowns. . . . It might even be she could become a mannequin, and that led to the films, or so she thought.

  She arranged her glasses behind the bar. A few officers came in at six o’clock and she was mildly busy; by half-past six the place was starting to warm up. There was a lean, saturnine lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. there that she knew as Mouldy James; she was not sure if the mouldiness was his nature or whether it meant that he had specialized in torpedoes. As a Portsmouth girl, born and bred, she knew it might be either.

  Mouldy was with one or two others; they had a paper in their hands that they were laughing over. At first sight she took it for a rude story in typescript such as she knew men liked to circulate. Then she saw it was a cutting from a newspaper. She caught the eye of Lieutenant James, who grinned at her.

  Business was slack for the moment. She said, “What’s that you’ve got there?”

  The officer took the cutting and flipped it across the bar to her. “My uncle in America sent it to me,” he said.

  She took it, wondering. “Is this a bit of an American paper?”

  “That’s right. He lives in Norfolk, Va.”

  “Just fancy.” She looked at the print. “It’s really just the same as our papers, isn’t it?”

  “God forbid.”

  She smiled politely, not quite understanding what he meant. “What did you mean by saying that your uncle lived in Norfolk, Vah?”

  “Virginia. Just like you might say Portsmouth, Hants.”

  She said again, “Just fancy . . .” Then she read the cutting:

  ACE WARTIME SKIPPER

  SAW BRITISH SINK

  NAZI U-BOAT

  Alex Jorgen, blue-eyed red-haired captain of Dutch motor ship Heloise told Star reporter of hairbreadth escape in England’s blockade zone.

  Traversing English Channel on December 3, said Dutch captain, we saw a U-boat sunk by British off Departure Point. Violent explosion about two miles in-shore broke glasses in the steward’s pantry, then bow and stern of U-boat appeared separately before vanishing forever.

  Jorgen said British were as bad as Nazis in the war on neutral shipping. On last voyage was forced to jettison 600 tons of rubber at Weymouth, British contraband control port, following navicert trouble.

  Somebody came up to the bar, and said, “Two half cans, please.”

  She served him, and returned to the cutting. “I don’t see what the joke’s about.”

  Mouldy Janies took the cutting back and put it carefully into his notecase. “There isn’t any joke, really,” he said. “Only I know the captain. I was in the Contraband Control when they brought him in. He’s the biggest liar that we ever got. He said the rubber was for contraceptives.”

  She sniffed. It was the sort of joke the barmaid has to sniff at.

  One of the others said, “His U-boat story is a bloody great lie anyway. We never got one in these parts till January.”

  Mona opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again. In a sickening moment she realized that the date was the date when Caranx had been sunk, December 3rd. These officers had not appreciated that; quite possibly they had none of them been in the district at that time. She must keep her mouth shut, because of Jerry. He had gone out of her life and she would never see him again, but she would not rake his trouble up in idle talk.

  She turned away and began rinsing out her glasses.

  When she turned back to the bar, Mouldy James and his friends had gone away; she saw them sitting up at the grill bar, eating. She served her drinks listlessly, depressed. For some time now she had forgotten about Caranx; the reminder of the submarine increased her restless urge to make a change. Outside in the street there might still be a faint glow of sunset in the blackness of the sky. It was too bad to be cooped up in the snack bar every night.

  In
a slack moment, Miriam said, “You look proper down, tonight. Anything wrong, dear?”

  She said, “Everything. I’m getting to hate this work.”

  The other girl said, “Well, I don’t know about that. It’s regular. I thought you liked it here.”

  “I did used to. I don’t know.”

  She looked around the long room. In a far corner a group of three young ladies, officers of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, sat together at a table, looking a little out of place and self-conscious. Mona said “That’s what I’d like to be. Join the Wrens.”

  The other girl followed her glance. “You won’t get a uniform like them. The ordinary uniform isn’t half so nice as the officers’. I do think they look ever so smart.”

  Mona considered this. There was good sense in what Miriam had said. After all, it would be lovely if she got a job in the perfumery. . . . She had a great craving for beautiful things, for silks, perfume, and beauty creams in elegant white alabaster pots, all wrapped in cellophane. She was sick of handing sloppy cans of beer across the bar.

  Miriam was still looking at the Wrens. “You see that one in the middle? That’s Miss Hancock.”

  Mona looked idly across the room. “Who’s she?”

  “Her pa works in the Dockyard, or used to do before the war. He was Captain of the navigating school. They lived inside the gates, just this side of Admiralty House.”

  “How d’you know that?”

  “My cousin Flora — she’s in service with them. Before the war, I used to go and have tea in the kitchen. But they won’t let you in the Dockyard now, not without you’ve got a pass.”

  Mona was mildly interested. “What does an officer do, like that Miss Hancock?”

  “I dunno what they do, I’m sure. She works in Admiralty House, along with the Commander-in-Chief, so Flora says.”

  Mona said, “They get all the good jobs, officers’ daughters and that. I believe I’d like to try it in a shop, in the perfumery or something.”