by Nevil Shute
His mind glowed at the message they had had from Group. A girl had sent that message; it was not in the words that a man would have used. And if it was a girl at Pilsey, it could only be one of two: either the operator had slipped it in upon her own, or else the WAAF officer in charge had sent it — Gervase Robertson. He was convinced as soon as he had heard it that it was Gervase; she had sent the message to cheer them.
He said down the intercom: ‘Captain to flight engineer. Do you think that port engine’s doing us any good?’
‘It’s helping us along, Cap.’
‘I think it’s drinking half our bloody juice and doing no work. We’re only doing a hundred and eighty. We can do that on one engine. We’d be better off to stop the port altogether and go on the starboard, wouldn’t we? How much fuel is there left?’
Cobbett scrambled up to the fuel board and plugged in his intercom there. ‘Gauges say about twenty-five gallons, Cap.’
‘Well, that’s the thick end of half an hour for one engine. Stop the port engine — switch it off and let it stop. Then I’m going to throttle back the starboard until we’re doing a hundred and thirty. Navigator, give me a new course at speed hundred and thirty.’
The port engine died and came to rest; the note of the starboard engine dropped slowly as Marshall eased the throttle back. A new sensation as of silence broke upon them; their ears were so attuned to the roar that the lessened level of the noise came as quiet to them. When they spoke now the intercom, set at the previous volume, seemed to bellow in their ears.
Gunnar said: ‘New course is 279.’ He came through to the cockpit and set it on the verge ring himself.
‘Where does that bring us over land?’
‘Just north of Spurn Head, Cap.’
‘Okay. Get through to Group and ask for another fix to check up.’ He paused, and then said: ‘Captain to crew. If we get over land we’ll bale out, so be ready for that because we haven’t got much height. Rear-gunner, got your dinghy ready?’
‘All ready, Cap.’
‘Well, now clip on Leech’s parachute and tie that cod-line to the ring. If we bale out, we’ll drop him out first.’ They would make the line fast at the machine before they dropped him; as he fell away the line would pull the ring and the parachute would open as he fell. Unconscious and inert he would land heavily, but it was the best that they could do for him if it came to baling out.
They flew on in the darkness, peering forward and down. Their slow speed now seemed to mock them; it needed intellect and mental effort to appreciate that they would get a few more miles by creeping along like this. Cobbett lay on the floor and peered down through the bomb-aimer’s hatch. Gunnar Franck moved rapidly between the navigator’s table and the wireless. Phillips worked over Leech, and pulled and lifted him nearer to the escape-hatch.
Marshall sat on in the cockpit, quiet and resigned. If now they went into the drink it was too bad; he had done everything possible. Gervase had sent him a message; that meant she was still interested. He knew it was a very tiny thing, but after the trouble of the last few weeks it came to him as balm, as a little faint voice whispering that things would be all right. Immediately it had reacted on his work; he had started to take an interest in R for Robert once again, and had shut off the damaged engine.
At 12.52 Gunnar got a third fix, plotted it, and pondered for a moment. It showed them to be about fourteen miles from land. He said: ‘ETA the coast seven minutes, Cap.’
‘Okay. What’s the petrol looking like?’ But the needle of the gauge was jumping at the zero stop, and might have been two gallons or ten.
They sat tense and motionless as the minutes crept by. Each of them had found his own position from which to watch the sea: Cobbett through the triplex of the bomb-aimer’s window, Gunnar from the starboard window of the cockpit, Phillips from a cellon panel under the rear fuselage. Each strained his eyes down to the black, ruffled sea below them; each had his ears tuned to the beat of the engines, ready at the first falter to get up and stand by for their captain’s orders.
Cobbett said: ‘Flight engineer to Captain. Breakers, Cap — on a beach. We’re coming over land.’
Marshall peered down into the darkness. ‘Okay — I see. Navigator — put on our navigation lights. What’s the gauge showing?’
Gunnar switched on the wing-tip and tail lights and turned to the fuel board; Cobbett got up and stood beside him. The needle stood steady and uncompromising at zero, without even a flicker. ‘All fuel gauges zero, Cap.’
They were over land, anyway. Marshall said: ‘Okay. Bring Leech along here to the hatch, and drop him out, quick as you can. Everybody stand by to bale out.’
He pulled the nose of the machine up a little, hoping to gain more height for their jump. Beside him there was heaving and struggling as they pulled the heavy, unconscious body of the wireless operator to the hatch, and a sharp blast of cold air as the floor hatch opened.
Suddenly Marshall said: ‘Hold everything!’ He leaned over and grabbed Gunnar by the shoulder, and pointed forward. Before them stretched the dim, twin lines of light that showed a runway barely three miles ahead. ‘What’s that?’
The Dane said: ‘There is here a station, Whitsand. That must be Whitsand.’
They stood fixed for a minute, staring ahead at the lights, listening to the engine. ‘Okay,’ said Marshall. ‘We can make it now.’ He paused for an instant, and then said: ‘Shut that hatch, Cobbett.’
The flight engineer stooped to the open hatch to close it. Something unusual in the blackness of the space beneath them drew his attention; he stooped to the cold rush of air and jumped back in horror. He thrust his plug into the intercom. ‘Climb, Cap,’ he said urgently. ‘There’s another kite exactly underneath us!’
Marshall looked quickly down through his side window, but could see nothing. Gunnar shouldered Cobbett back and knelt down at the hatch. ‘Lancaster, Cap,’ he said, ‘about a hundred feet below, on the same course, going in to land. Better go round again.’
Marshall thought quickly. They had no fuel to go round again; to try that could only mean disaster. Better to put his trust in the captain of the Lancaster to land according to the book, and to hope that the far end of the runway was soft. He said: ‘Okay, Gunnar. Put out navigation lights, Cobbett. Gunnar, stay at the hatch and tell me how we go. I’m going to land over him, and chance it.’
Cobbett screwed himself round to the instrument board and put out the lights. Marshall said: ‘Gunnar, tell me how we go. I want to keep fifty feet above him, and land in front of him.’
With a dry mouth the Dane said: ‘Okay, Cap. He is now going ahead of us, and sixty or seventy feet below. You should now see his wing from your window.’ And then urgently: ‘He has throttled; he is falling away below us now.’
‘Okay,’ said Marshall quietly. ‘I see him.’
He throttled back the one engine that was running and sank after the Lancaster towards the landing lights. Cobbett!’ he said urgently. ‘Quarter flaps down.’
He sat motionless at the controls, his face turned to the open window at his side, watching the Lancaster intently. If the big machine ahead became aware of them and took fright, and put on power to go round again, Marshall was ready to slip quickly out to starboard, away from its probable turn. If it went on to make a normal landing they would be all right, provided that the captain of the Lancaster kept his head.
For a moment he considered landing in the black, unknown terrain beside the runway. It would probably be quite all right provided that the ground was hard, but on a strange aerodrome in April would the ground be hard? He felt that of the dangers that lay round about them he preferred the danger of collision with the Lancaster upon the ground.
He said: ‘Sergeant Phillips. Get back to the turret and plug in the intercom. I’m landing ahead of this Lanc. When we’re down on the runway, tell me how we go, so that I can keep ahead of it, in case it butts us up the arse.’
He heard the sergeant laugh, an
d say: ‘Okay, Cap.’
They were very low now, and the lights were near. The pilot ordered half flap; they sank down with the Lancaster towards the ground at something over a hundred miles an hour in the dim blackness of the night. There was a faint glow upon the wing-tip of the Lancaster reflecting the red navigation light that showed Marshall the machine below him; that faint red glow, and the dim yellow lights that marked the runway, were the only clues to safety and disaster that the pilot had.
Gunnar had moved to the bomb-aimer’s window. He said: ‘Cap, he is down.’
‘Okay,’ said Marshall. He drawled the word out absently.
His hand moved on the throttle; the note of the one engine rose in a slow burst and slowly died again. They levelled and swept over the big machine as it ran down the runway and sank down ahead of it. Marshall said: ‘Navigation lights now, Cobbett — quick. Rear-gunner — how do we go?’
Phillips said: ‘Well ahead of him.’ The wheels touched on the ground; the machine bounced, sank, and touched again. Marshall steadied her on the dim lights still ahead of them as they ran on tail-up. Phillips said suddenly: ‘Keep going, Cap — he’s closing up on us.’
Marshall moved his hand upon the throttle very slightly; they ran on tail-up. The dim lights flashed past them one by one; they were very near the end of the runway. Without more ado he closed the throttle firmly; if the Lanc ran this far they would all pile up into the hedge together. The tail sank to the ground and the last light loomed up to them; he pulled the wheel hard back and pressed the brakes on to the utmost that he dared. The drums squealed, the tail bounced light upon the ground, and the Wellington ran on past the last light, down a little hill, and on to grass. Sergeant Cobbett switched off the engine and turned off the petrol; they ran on, slowly now, until the port wing hit a post and felled it, slewing them round to port with a tangle of telephone wires across the fuselage. So R for Robert came to rest, somewhere in England, after bombing Mannheim.
Chapter Five
OH WHAT CAN ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful — a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild. . . .
JOHN KEATS, 1818
Marshall travelled back to Hartley in the train next day by way of London and Oxford. He travelled with his crew in a third-class compartment; the fact that they might not travel in first-class comfort with him added its quota to his black mood.
They were all short of sleep. They had, in fact, spent the night battling with trouble ever since they had put down at Whitsand. They had dropped out of the fuselage hatch down on to the ground in the black darkness, landing one by one into a bed of stinging-nettles; getting to their feet most of them had fallen again over the telephone lines that lay draped over R for Robert, and the remains of the little short telegraph pole that they had felled. Stumbling back to the runway to find somebody to fetch an ambulance for Leech, they had come upon the sergeant pilot of the Lancaster, now stopped upon the ring runway a short way behind them. The sergeant pilot was considerably shaken and told Marshall all that lay upon his mind; he did not know that he was speaking to an officer and would not have altered one word if he had known. In the end Marshall had to appeal to the crew of the Lancaster, now gathering in the darkness. ‘For Christ’s sake put a sock in it,’ he had said. ‘Which of you is the radio operator? You? Well, get back in your machine and call up your control, and tell them I want an ambulance down here at once for my own operator. And look sharp, or I’ll put you on a charge.’
The ambulance came presently, and with it lights and a young medical officer; they got Leech carefully out of the machine and saw him carried off. A truck materialized out of the night and took them to the control office; Marshall, reporting to the control officer, was received with some coldness and was informed that by his act and deed he had cut off the station from all contact with the outside world except by radio. His comment on a station that was served by overhead lines at the runway’s end did not help the matter.
The three sergeants were taken to the sergeants’ mess, where they were given a meal and camp-beds hastily arranged; Marshall had to wait till four in the morning before traffic on the W/T permitted him to send his message to Hartley stating briefly what had happened to R for Robert. He had then slept for a few hours on the bed in the control office.
Morning found them gathered at R for Robert, sourly inspecting the damage. The port wing was clearly for the scrap-heap: the geodetic torn and buckled over nearly a third of the surface, the tanks ripped and pierced by cannon fire. The port cowling and exhaust manifold were obviously U/S; the port propeller had one tip bent forward and ripped fantastically. Until the cowlings were stripped off for inspection it was difficult to say what other damage she had suffered, but clearly the aircraft was in no condition to fly back to Oxfordshire. Marshall went back to the Headquarters office, made his apologies to the Group Captain, and asked for air transport. The weather was poor, so they gave him a railway guide.
All afternoon and evening they sat together in a crowded third-class carriage in a packed train, dozing and shifting restlessly. A mood of the blackest depression had descended on the pilot. After so many operations it was an acute personal grief to him that he had pranged his Wimpey. It was clearly in his mind, far too clearly, that the cause of their misfortune was an error of his own, a gross and unpardonable mistake in navigation. But for the grace of God, he thought, they’d all have been cold meat; a fit and proper end for the incompetent, but bad luck on the chaps that had to crew for him. The fact that they had been so decent to him, with never a word of reproach, only made it worse. Now he would have to tell the Wing Commander all about it, but what to tell, or how to explain their trouble, left him utterly defeated. Moreover, to top everything, they had to travel for ten hours in a slow railway train to get to Oxford just before midnight, and that was eleven miles from Hartley Magna. If he had any sense at all, he thought, he’d go into the lavatory and cut his throat.
They crossed London in a taxi in the black-out, had a slender meal at the Paddington buffet, and took the train for Oxford. There was transport there to meet them, and they got back to the station shortly after midnight. Marshall got down from the truck and, carrying his parachute and harness, went into the mess.
In the ante-room the lights were on still; he stuck his head in at the door, and there was Pat Johnson sitting by the fire. Mr Johnson raised his head. ‘Evening,’ he said. ‘There’s some beer and sandwiches here if you want it.’
Marshall hesitated, a little touched at the thought, and went forward into the room. ‘Bloody trains,’ he said awkwardly. And then he said in explanation: ‘I had to leave Robert up there.’
Mr Johnson nodded. ‘We guessed you would. Bring the boys back with you?’
‘All but Leech. Got him into hospital.’
‘Bad?’
‘Not very.’
He turned to the side table and took a sandwich and poured himself a glass of beer. Pat Johnson said: ‘What sort of a place is Whitsand?’
‘Bloody.’
‘Sounds like something out of a limerick. “There was a young lady of Whitsand” . . .’ Mr Johnson mused for a minute, a coarse rhyme on the threshold of his mind, but it escaped him. ‘How did you come to get up there?’
They had been friends for a year, and there was no one else in the room. Marshall said bluntly: ‘I put the wrong course on the mucking compass.’
‘Many a better man than you has done that, laddie,’ said his comforter. ‘All be the same in a hundred years.’
‘I don’t know what in hell I’m going to tell Winco.’
‘I know what I should tell him.’
‘What?’
‘Tell him you put the wrong course on the mucking compass. So what?’ P
at Johnson got up from his chair and yawned. ‘I’m going up to bed.’
Marshall took a couple of the sandwiches in his hand. ‘I’m coming too. Did everybody else get back all right?’
Mr Johnson nodded. ‘You were the only mutt. It was “Where is my wandering boy tonight?” until we got your signal. Your young woman got into a proper state, she did.’
Marshall stared at him. ‘My young woman?’
‘The black-haired one, the one you gave the pike to. Fair blubbering her eyes out, she was. I had to muscle in and do a bit of comforting, old boy — as between friends, I mean, I thought you wouldn’t mind.’ He dodged hastily and made off upstairs before Marshall, cumbered with his flying-suit and parachute, could come up with him.
There was an element of truth in what he said. At the Group W/T station three miles from the aerodrome Gervase had watched the girls working the bearing upon R for Robert during all three fixes that they had asked for, had seen them transmit to the leading station. She had marked down the first fix on the plot that they kept and had stared at it in dismay; thereafter all her work became a nightmare. She had slipped in the little message of good cheer to them quite irregularly; that was all that she could do. After that she had to go on with her work as if nothing was happening; in her misery her training gave her strength. All the other machines asking for fixes were asking for her help; she did not fail them.
By one in the morning her work at Group W/T was over; she could close down for the night. She rang through to the control at Hartley to enquire for Robert, but no news had come through. She was told that the air/sea rescue routine was being put in hand for them; at dawn the Lysanders and the Walruses would go out flying low over the grey, dirty sea, questing and searching on the line of drift. It was uncertain, she was told, what the chances were; the only station in the vicinity that they might possibly have reached was not taking any signals.