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Title: No Highway
Date of first publication: 1948
Author: Neville Shute Norway (1899-1960)
Date first posted: August 9 2012
Date last updated: August 9 2012
Faded Page eBook #20120814

This eBook was produced by: David T. Jones, woodie4, Al Haines
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




    _Also by_

    NEVIL SHUTE

    MARAZAN
    SO DISDAINED
    LONELY ROAD
    RUINED CITY
    WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CORBETTS
    AN OLD CAPTIVITY
    LANDFALL
    PIED PIPER
    MOST SECRET
    PASTORAL
    THE CHEQUER BOARD

    VINLAND THE GOOD (_A film script_)



    NO HIGHWAY

    _by_

    NEVIL SHUTE



    WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD
    & THE BOOK SOCIETY LTD


    THIS EDITION ISSUED ON FIRST PUBLICATION BY
    THE BOOK SOCIETY, LTD., IN ASSOCIATION WITH
    WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD

    DECEMBER 1948

    PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
    AT THE WINDMILL PRESS
    KINGSWOOD, SURREY


  . . . Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find
  No highway more, no track, all being blind,
  The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.

  Though you have conquered Earth and charted Sea
  And planned the courses of all Stars that be,
  Adventure on, more wonders are in Thee.

  Adventure on, for from the littlest clue
  Has come whatever worth man ever knew;
  The next to lighten all men may be you . . .

                                JOHN MASEFIELD


The three stanzas by John Masefield from _The Wanderer_ are quoted by
kind permission of Dr. John Masefield, O.M., and The Society of
Authors.




NO HIGHWAY




1


When I was put in charge of the Structural Department of the Royal
Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, I was thirty-four years old. That
made a few small difficulties at first, because most of my research
staff were a good deal older than I was, and most of them considered it
a very odd appointment. Moreover, I wasn't a Farnborough man; I started
in a stress office in the aircraft industry and came to Farnborough from
Boscombe Down, where I had been technical assistant to the Director of
Experimental Flying for three years. I had often been to Farnborough, of
course, and I knew some of the staff of my new department slightly; I
had always regarded them as rather a queer lot. On closer acquaintance
with them, I did not change my views.

In spite of my appointment from outside I found them quite co-operative,
but they were all getting on in years and beginning to think more about
their pensions than about promotion. When I got settled in I found that
each of them had his own little niche and his own bit of research. Mr.
Morrison, for example, was our expert on the three-dimensional
concentrations of stress around riveted plate joints and he was toying
with a fourth dimension, the effect of time. What he didn't know about
polarised light wasn't worth knowing. He had been studying this subject
for eight and a half years, and he had a whole room full of little plate
and plastic models broken upon test. Every two years or so he produced a
paper which was published as an R. and M., full of the most complicated
mathematics proving to the aeroplane designer what he knew already from
his own experience.

Mr. Fox-Marvin was another of them. I discovered to my amazement when I
had been in the department for a week that Fox-Marvin had been working
since 1935 on the torsional instability of struts, with Miss Bucklin
aiding and abetting him for much of the time. They were no laggards at
the paper work, for in that time they had produced typescript totalling
well over a million words, if words are a correct measure of reading
matter that was mostly mathematical. At the end of all those years they
had got the unstabilised, eccentrically loaded strut of varying section
just about buttoned up, regardless of the fact that unstabilised struts
are very rare today in any aircraft structure.

I knew that I had been appointed from outside the Royal Aircraft
Establishment as a new broom to clean up this department, and I had to
do a bit of sweeping. I hope I did it with sympathy and understanding,
because the problem of the ageing civil servant engaged in research is
not an easy one. There comes a time when the research worker,
disappointed in promotion and secure in his old age if he avoids
blotting his copybook, becomes detached from all reality. He tends to
lose interest in the practical application of his work to the design of
aeroplanes, and turns more and more to the ethereal realms of
mathematical theory; as bodily weakness gradually puts an end to
physical adventure he turns readily to the adventure of the mind, to the
purest realms of thought where in the nature of things no unpleasant
consequences can follow if he makes a mistake.

It is easy to blackguard these ageing men and to deride their
unproductive work, easy and unprofitable and unwise. Short-term _ad hoc_
experiments to solve a particular problem in the design of aircraft were
the main work of my department, but I was very well aware that basic
research also has a place in such a set-up, the firm groundwork of pure
knowledge upon which all useful short-term work must be erected. In the
great mass of typescript chaff turned out by the Fox-Marvins and the
Morrisons within the R.A.E. were hidden grains of truth. Callow young
men entering the Establishment from the universities, avid for knowledge
and enthusiastic in their early years, would read through all this guff
and take it very seriously, and find and recognise the little grains of
truth, and take them into their experience and use them as their tools
for short-term work.

I had to steer a middle course, therefore, as every sensible new broom
must do. Within the first year I had transferred two of the oldest of my
scientific officers, and I had changed the line of three others. It was
a busy year, because I got married soon after I went to Farnborough.
Shirley was a local girl who had taught drawing and music in a little
school in Farnham before the war; when the school evacuated she had
become a tracer at the R.A.E. In the fourth year of the war she was sent
to Boscombe Down to work in the drawing office; she had her desk and
drawing board just outside my little glass cubicle so that every time I
looked up from my calculations I saw her auburn head bent over her
tracing, which didn't help the calculations. I stood it for a year,
high-minded, thinking that one shouldn't make passes at the girls in the
office. Then we started to behave very badly, and got engaged.

We got a flat in Farnham with some difficulty and got married into it
soon after I took up my new job. It was a very small flat, with just one
bedroom and a sitting-room and a bathroom, and a kitchen that we had our
meals in. It was big enough for all we wanted, and we were very happy.
There wasn't much for Shirley to do, since I was away all day, and we
didn't plan to start a family for a year or so. So she went back to
teaching music and drawing in the school that she had taught in before,
and one of the girls she taught was Elspeth Honey.

She told me about Elspeth one evening when we were sitting after the
nine-o'clock news. Shirley was sewing a slip or something, and I was
working at the first paper that I had been asked to read before the
Royal Aeronautical Society, which I called PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF
AIRCRAFT FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS. It was something of a distinction
that I had been asked to read this thing, and I was very busy working
on it in the evenings.

Shirley told me about Elspeth as we sat there; she was teaching her to
play the piano at that time. "She's such a funny little thing," she said
thoughtfully. "I can't make out if she's immensely clever, or just plain
bats."

I looked up, laughing. "I've been wondering that about her father ever
since I took over the department." Because Mr. Theodore Honey was
another one of the old gang of budding Einsteins that I had inherited.
So far I had left him alone, feeling that the work that he was doing on
fatigue in light alloy structures was probably useful. But I must admit
that there were moments when I had my doubts, when I wondered if Mr.
Honey was not sliding quietly into an inoffensive form of technical
mania.

Shirley bent over her sewing. "She _looks_ so odd," she said presently,
"with her straight black hair and her white little face, and those ugly
frocks she wears. She never seems to play with the other children. And
she does say the queerest things sometimes."

"What sort of things?" I asked. I was not quite happy in my mind about
her father; subconsciously I was interested in anything to do with the
Honey family.

Shirley looked up from her sewing, smiling. "Pyramidology," she said.

I stared at her. "What's that?"

She mocked me. "Call yourself a scientist, and you don't know
pyramidology! Even Elspeth knows that."

"Well, I don't. What is it?"

"It's all about the Great Pyramid, in Egypt. Prophecies, and all that
sort of thing."

I grinned. "That's not the sort of science that I learned at college. Is
that what they teach at your school?"

She bent to her work again, and said quietly, "No, it's just Elspeth.
She came and asked me if she could do her practising in break on the
school piano, and I asked her why she couldn't do it at home. She said
there wasn't time now, because she was helping her Daddy with his
pyramidology. I asked her what that was, and she told me all about it.
It seems that there's a sort of directional bearing from two points in
the Great Pyramid which is lined up on Iceland, just like a radar beam,
and that's where Our Lord will come down to earth at the end of the
world, and that's going to be quite soon. But Elspeth says her Daddy
found a mistake in the calculations and he's working it all out again,
and she's been helping him with the sums. She says it's all terribly
exciting because her Daddy thinks it will turn out that the ray goes
through Glastonbury, because Jesus Christ came to live in Glastonbury
when he was a young man and so He'll probably want to go back there when
He comes again. But Elspeth hopes that the ray will go through
Farnborough because that's the most important place in the world and,
besides, it's where her Daddy works."

Shirley said all this without a smile, concentrated on her sewing. I
stared at her incredulously. "Does Mr. Honey believe all this?"

She looked up at me. "He must do, mustn't he? Or he wouldn't have told
Elspeth. It's such a pity that she hasn't got a mother. It's rather
unnatural for a kid of twelve to go on like that, don't you think?"

"What happened to her mother?" Anything about Honey was of interest to
me now.

"I think she died during the war. Elspeth and her father live in one of
those little houses in Copse Road."

I nodded, visualising the small villas. "Who looks after them?"

"I don't think anybody does. I believe they've got a charwoman who comes
in now and then. But Mr. Honey does the cooking for them both. I know
that, because Elspeth told me that she cooks the breakfast on Sundays,
but next year she's going to be allowed to do it every day."

"She's twelve, is she?"

"Just twelve--her birthday was last month. But she's small for her age.
You wouldn't think to look at her that she was more than ten."

I sat deep in thought. I was visualising my Mr. Honey going home each
evening to his little house to cook a high tea for his little girl, and
then to spend an hour telling her about the tangled prophecies connected
with the Great Pyramid, and then putting her to bed. Did he hear her say
her prayers, and if so, were they all about the Pyramid? And after that,
alone in his small villa, what did he do? Did he go out to the cinema? I
did not think that he was one to spend the evening in a pub--or was he?
Did he spend the evenings pondering the energy absorption factor of
light alloy structures, or checking the position of the stars in the
year 2141 B.C., the datum year of the Great Pyramid? I wanted to know
all I could about his background, because I had not then made up my mind
if he was a useful research scientist or not. What Shirley had told me
was not very reassuring.

"I was talking to Sykie about Elspeth," she said quietly. "Of course,
Sykie doesn't really know much botany, only just enough to teach the
children something elementary. Elspeth got her floored in class the
other day by saying that a buttercup was pentamerous, and Sykie didn't
know if that was something rude or not. And so she made Elspeth tell
them what she meant, and what she meant was that the buttercup has five
of everything--five sepals in the calyx, five petals in the corolla,
five carpels in the pistil, and so on. Sykie looked it up in the book
afterwards, and she was quite right. But then she went on to say that
the Bible was septamerous because it had seven of everything, and that's
why seven was a holy number. Sykie got out of that one by saying that it
wasn't botany."

"Did Mr. Honey tell her that--about the Bible?"

"I suppose he must have done. She didn't learn it at the school."

I went to the department next day resolved to give a good part of my
time to checking up on Mr. Honey and the progress of his research. I had
not bothered him a great deal up till then, because it seemed to me that
the work he was engaged on was of real importance to the modern
aircraft, which was more than could be said for some of the other stuff
that I had found going on in the place. Because the work was of
importance to the aviation world it was imperative that it should be
properly conducted, and although Mr. Honey's religious beliefs were no
concern of mine a man who is eccentric in one sphere of his interests
may well be eccentric in another.

As I have said, Mr. Honey was working on fatigue in aircraft structures.
Fatigue may be described as a disease of metal. When metals are
subjected to an alternating load, after a great many reversals the whole
character of the metal may alter, and this change can happen very
suddenly. An aluminium alloy which has stood up quite well to many
thousands of hours in flight may suddenly become crystalline and break
under quite small forces, with most unpleasant consequences to the
aeroplane. That is the general story of the effect that we call fatigue
in aircraft structures, and we don't know a great deal about it. Mr.
Honey's duty was to try and find out more.

I went down to his stamping ground to see what he was doing. The
Farnborough buildings at that time were a mixture of the old and the
new, and Mr. Honey occupied a shabby little room of glass and
beaverboard in the annexe to the old balloon shed. Here he sat all day
and covered sheet after sheet of foolscap paper with the records of his
research, or pored over the work of scientists in many languages; he
could read both French and German fluently. Outside his office an area
of the ground floor of the balloon shed had been allocated to his work,
and here he had quite a major experiment in progress.

The Rutland Reindeer was the current Transatlantic airliner at that
time, and still is, of course; the Mark 1 model which went into
production first had radial engines, though now they all have jets. Two
years before I came upon the scene the strength tests of the tailplane
had been carried out in my department, and for this two tailplanes had
been provided by the Company for test to destruction. They were quite
big units, fifty-five feet in span, as big as a twin-engined bomber's
wing. It had only been necessary to break one of these expensive
tailplanes for the strength tests for the airworthiness of the machine,
and the other one remained upon our hands until eighteen months later
Mr. Honey put in a plea for it, and got it.

He had set it up in the balloon shed, horizontally as it would be in
flight. He had designed a considerable structure of steel girders to
support it at the centre section as it would be held in the aircraft,
and this structure was pivoted in such a way that it could be vibrated,
or jiggeted, by a whacking great electric motor driving a whole battery
of cams to simulate the various harmonics that occur in flight. He had
chosen a loading for the tailplane that would reproduce the normal
cruising flight conditions, and he had started up the motor a couple of
months before and sat back to wait for something to happen.

All that was going on as I was settling in to my new job and as my
predecessor had authorised it I had to let it take its course, though I
was not too happy about it. I had a feeling that a competent researcher
could have got his data from a less expensive test, and apart from that
the thing was a considerable nuisance for the noise it made. It may be
possible to make mechanical vibrations without making noise but it's not
often done, and this thing could be heard all over the Establishment.
And apparently it was going to go on for ever, because nobody but Mr.
Honey thought that tail would ever break by reason of what he was doing
to it. It looked much too strong.

Honey got up as I went into his office. He was a smaller man than I am,
with black hair turning grey; he was dressed in a very shabby suit that
had been cheap to start with. He always looked a bit dirty and down at
heels, and his appearance did not help him, because he was one of the
ugliest men I have ever met. He had a sallow face with the features of a
frog, and rather a tired and discontented frog at that. He wore
steel-rimmed spectacles with very thick glasses, and he was as blind as
a bat without them. Looking at him, my wife's description of his
daughter came into my mind, the dark-haired, white-faced, ugly little
girl. Of course, she would be like that.

I said, "Morning, Mr. Honey. I've just come down to have a look at your
tailplane. Anything happening to it yet?"

He said, "Oh no--everything is going on quite normally, so far. We can't
expect much yet, you know." He had a few strain gauges mounted on
various parts of the structure and he was reading them every three hours
and graphing the readings. He showed me the curves illustrating the
daily deformations of the structure as the test went on; after a few
initial disturbances, due to the rivets bedding down, the curves
flattened out and went along as a straight line. It was behaving just
exactly as one would expect a safe structure to behave.

We stood and looked at it, and walked around it in the noise. Then we
went back into his office, where the noise level was lower, and talked
about it for a bit. I cannot say I was impressed with what I saw and
heard. But for the expense of the set-up, I should have been very much
tempted to call off the entire experiment.

"What's your prognostication, Mr. Honey?" I asked presently. "How long
do you think it will go on for?"

He smiled nervously, as the pure researchers always do when you try to
pin them down to something definite. "One has to make so many
assumptions," he said. "The mass energy absorption factor, the factor
that I call U_{m} in my papers--that varies somewhat with each type of
structure, and one really has to do a preliminary experiment to
establish that."

That sounded like an old story to me, and I was not impressed. "You
mean, with a tailplane like this you've got to break one first under a
fatigue test, just like this, to establish the factor?"

"Yes," he said eagerly, "that's right."

"And then," I said, rather naughtily, "having found out the factor you
can calculate back and find out when it broke."

He glanced at me, uncertain if I were laughing at him or not. "Of
course, you can then apply that factor to other tails of similar design,
vibrated on a different range of frequencies."

I said doubtfully, "Yes, I suppose so, when you've built up a good deal
of experience."

I spent most of the rest of the morning going through his papers with
him and getting acquainted with his theory. I knew the broad outline of
his ideas already, and because I knew them I had avoided going into them
in more detail until I really had to. Because, like all my other
Einsteins, Mr. Honey in his research upon fatigue had gone all nuclear.

When the fundamental theories about atomic fission became generally
known to scientists in 1945, they came as a god-send to all middle-aged
researchers. Here was a completely new field of pure thought to explore,
whether it had anything to do with their immediate job or not. Each of
them very soon convinced himself that in an application and extension of
nuclear theory lay the solution to all his problems, whether they were
concerned with the effect of sunlight on paint or the formation of
sludge in engine-lubricating oil. It seemed at times that every
scientist in the Establishment had made himself into an expert upon
nuclear matters, all but me, who had come from the material and earthy
pursuit of testing aeroplanes in flight, and so had started late in the
race. I didn't know much about the atom, and I was very sceptical if
nuclear matters really affected my department at all.

However, Mr. Honey was convinced they did, and he had built up an
imposing structure of theory upon a nuclear basis. Quite simply, what he
held was that when a structure like a tailplane is vibrated a tiny
quantity of energy is absorbed into it, proportionate to the mass of the
structure and the time that the treatment goes on for and a certain
integral of strain. He had some evidence for this assertion, for he
produced papers by Koestlinger of Basle University and by Schiltgrad of
Upsala indicating that something of the sort does happen. Schiltgrad
had made attempts to trace what happens to this lost energy, and had
produced the negative result that it did not appear in any of the normal
forms, as heat, electrical potential, or momentum. Mr. Honey, sitting
brooding over all this work, had convinced himself that this small
energy flow produced a state of tension within the nucleus of aluminium
of which the alloy is mainly composed, and that when this tension has
built up to a certain degree one or more neutrons are released,
resulting in an isotopic form of aluminium with crystalline affinities.
This was the bare bones of his theory, and it was supported by about
seventy pages of pure mathematics. It all seemed a bit like the Great
Pyramid to me, and as difficult to criticise.

At the end of an hour or so with him I said, "What value have you
assigned to this quantity U_{m} for that tailplane out there?"

He said, "Well--provisionally--just for getting a rough idea of how long
the trial is likely to go on for, you see, I made a rough estimate----"
He fumbled with his papers, shuffled them, dropped one on the floor and
scrabbled after it, picked it up, looked at it upside down, turned it
right way up, and said, "Here it is. 2.863 × 10^{-7}. That's in C.G.S.
units, of course."

I took the sheet from him and studied it. It was untidy work, half in
pencil and half in ink, written in a vile hand, rather dirty. "Those are
just the rough notes," he said nervously. "I shall write it all up
properly later on."

I nodded. One must not, must not ever, be influenced by _gaucheries_
when dealing with these people. Untidiness may be a sign of slovenly
thinking in an adult man, but it can also be a sign of an immensely
quick intellect that gives no time for neat and patient writing. Mr.
Honey was obviously nervous of me, and he was showing at his worst.

"This figure, 2.863," I said at last. "That's a pretty exact figure, Mr.
Honey--four-figure accuracy. When that constant goes into your theory,
the time to reach fatigue failure will be directly proportional to that,
won't it?" I turned to one of the final sheets of mathematics that he
had displayed before me.

"That's right," he said. "The time to nuclear separation is directly
proportional to U_{m}."

"Well, I don't call that a rough estimate," I said. "That's a pretty
detailed estimate, surely? I mean, that figure says that in a given case
something may be going to happen in two thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three hours. I should have said a rough estimate was one that said
something would happen between two and three thousand hours." I glanced
at him.

He shifted uneasily. "Well, naturally, I went into it as carefully as I
could." He showed me what he had based his estimate upon. It was a pile
about three feet high of the Proceedings of practically every
engineering learned body in Europe and America. "I couldn't find
anything about light alloy structures in fatigue prior to the year
1927," he said dolefully. "I don't know if there's anything else I ought
to have got hold of."

I laughed. "I shouldn't think so, Mr. Honey. If you've gone back to 1927
you've probably got everything there is."

"I hope I have," he said.

I turned over the sheafs of papers that were his analysis of previous
trials and from which he had deduced the value of 2.863 × 10^{-7} for
U_{m}, and I came to the conclusion that whatever bees he might have in
his bonnet, he was at any rate a patient and an indefatigable worker, if
rather an untidy one. At the end of ten minutes I said, "Well, if this
is what you call a rough estimate, Mr. Honey, I'd like to see a detailed
one."

He flushed angrily, but did not speak. I had not meant to be offensive.

I turned over the papers before me. "What does that mean to that
tailplane out there?" I indicated the Reindeer tail upon the framework
outside, booming and droning, filling the whole building with its noise.
"When do you expect something to happen?"

He said, "There should be some evidence of nuclear separation in about
1,440 hours--taking that value for U_{m}."

"That's till it breaks? It ought to break in 1,440 hours?"

He hesitated. "I rather think that the material could be expected to
suffer some change about that time," he said, hedging. "Under the normal
loads imposed upon it--yes, I think that failure would probably occur."
He shifted uneasily and said, as if in self-defence, "The isotope is
probably crystalline."

"I see." I stood for a moment looking at the test through his window.
"How long has it been going on for now?"

"About two months," he said. "We started on the twenty-sixth of May. Up
till this morning it had run four hundred and twenty-three hours. It
only runs in the daytime--the Director wouldn't allow it to run on night
shift. It's basic research, you see."

I calculated in my head. "So it's got another four or five months to
go?"

He said, "Well--yes, about that time. I was expecting to learn something
from it before Christmas, anyway."

I stood silent for a minute, deep in thought. "Well, that's all very
interesting, Mr. Honey," I said at last. "May I take what you've
re-written so far and glance it over in my office? It all takes a bit of
absorbing, you know."

He sorted out a bunch of papers and gave them to me, and I tucked them
under my arm, and walked back to my office in a brown study. Mr. Honey
was experimenting on a Reindeer tail, and what Mr. Honey had lost sight
of altogether was that Reindeer aircraft had come into service on the
Atlantic route that summer. They were flying the Atlantic daily with
full loads of passengers, from Heath Row to Gander, from Gander to New
York or Montreal.

Although he didn't seem to realise it, Mr. Honey had now said that the
Reindeer tail was quite unsafe, that in his opinion it would break,
suddenly and without warning, after 1,440 hours of flying.

It was the end of the morning. I left the papers in my office and
walked up to the senior staff lunch-room. I found the Director there
drinking a sherry; I waited for an opportunity when he was disengaged,
and said, "Have you got a quarter of an hour free this afternoon, sir?"

"I think so," he replied. "What is it, Scott?"

"It's about Mr. Honey and his fatigue test," I said. "I'd like you to be
aware of what's going on."

"Can't help being aware of it," he answered. "You can hear the damn
thing at the other end of the factory--it's worse than the wind tunnels.
When is it coming to an end?"

"He says it's going on till Christmas," I replied. "I think it ought to
be accelerated. But if I can come along this afternoon I'll tell you
about it."

"Quarter-past three?"

"I'll be there, sir."

I turned away to go in to have lunch, but he detained me. "Has Honey
been all right recently?"

"All right? I think so, sir. I don't think he's had any time off."

"I'm glad to hear that." There was a momentary pause. "You know," he
said, "there has been a little trouble in the past. He seems to hold
very firm ideas on certain semi-religious subjects." I glanced at him in
inquiry. "About the lost ten tribes of Israel and their identity with
Britain, and that sort of thing."

"I hadn't heard that one," I said. "What I heard was something to do
with the Great Pyramid."

He laughed. "Oh, that's another part of it--that comes in as well." He
spoke more seriously. "No, just before you came there was a procession
of these people in Woking, and it got broken up by a number of Jewish
rowdies, and Honey was taken up and charged with creating a breach of
the peace. He got bound over. I mention that because it's one of the
matters that one has to bear in mind, that he has rather odd ideas on
certain subjects."

I nodded. "Thank you for telling me, sir."

"Poor old Honey," he said thoughtfully. "He's a man I'm very sorry for.
But if you should decide at any time that a change would be desirable, I
wouldn't oppose it."

I went in to lunch aware that the Director didn't think a lot of Mr.
Honey. Anderson was there, who looks after radar equipment and
development for civil air lines. I sat down next to him and said, "I
say, you can tell me. How many Reindeers are Central Air Transport
Organisation operating now?"

He said, "Five or six."

"Do you know at all how many hours they've done?"

He shook his head. "Not much, anyway. They only put them on the route
last month, because they waited until four had been delivered. I
shouldn't think any of the machines had done more than two or three
hundred hours yet."

I thought with relief that we had a bit of time. "How do they like it?"

"Like the Reindeer? Oh, they're very pleased with it. It's a lovely job,
you know--nice to fly in and nice to handle. I think it's going to be a
great success."

I went back to my office after lunch and sat turning over Mr. Honey's
papers, studying his Goodman diagrams, thinking out what I was going to
say to the Director. Nuclear fission was quite outside my experience; I
did not know enough about it even to read Mr. Honey's work
intelligently, let alone criticise it or determine for myself the truth
of his prognosis. And turning over his pages, disconsolate, I saw one or
two sentences that made me wonder if Mr. Honey knew much more than I
did, for all his pages of mathematics.

I went down to the Director that afternoon and told him all about it.
"On his estimates, he reckons that the Reindeer tail, the front spar,
will fail by fatigue in 1,440 hours," I said. "I don't much like the
sound of that. The Reindeers are in service now."

"What is this estimate based on?" he asked.

I told him all about the nuclear fission theory and the separation of
the neutron that produced an isotopic form of aluminium within the
alloy. "Quite frankly, sir," I said, "I don't understand all this
myself. I'm not capable of criticising it. If he's correct it's very
serious indeed, and all those aircraft should be grounded. But knowing
something about Mr. Honey--well, he may not be correct."

He thought for a moment. "The test will show. How long is that going on
for?"

"It's only done four hundred and twenty-three hours," I replied. "He's
not expecting it to break before next Christmas." I paused, and then I
said, "I should think the aeroplanes are piling up hours quicker than
the test. After all, they fly day and night, but the test only runs in
our normal working hours."

"What is the longest time that one of the aircraft has done?"

"I don't know, sir. One of them flew into a hill the other day, in
Labrador or somewhere. I asked Anderson at lunch how many hours the rest
of them had done. He said they'd only done two or three hundred hours
each."

"That gives us a little time," he said. "I didn't know they'd lost one
of them."

"It was in all the papers," I told him. "The Russian Ambassador to
Ottawa was killed in it, Mr. Oskonikoff or something. All the lot of
them were killed."

"Oh, that one--I remember. Was that a Reindeer?"

I nodded. "That was the prototype Reindeer, the one we had here for the
trials. But that's a clear case; it flew into the mountain. Hit just at
the top of a precipice and fell about five hundred feet down into the
forest, in flames. It always beats me how a pilot manages to get into
that sort of position, with all the aids we give them."

"It's the human factor," he said. "Still--I agree, you wouldn't expect
mistakes of that sort in a decent air line." He turned to the papers. "I
don't quite know what to say about all this, Scott. I'm like you--I
can't criticise this nuclear stuff, myself. It's clearly a matter of
urgency. I think we ought to put it up to I.S.A.R.B., on a high
priority."

The Inter-Services Atomic Research Board were certainly the proper
people to advise us upon Mr. Honey's stuff, provided they would do it
quick. "I'm very nervous about any delay," I said. "Could you send it
personally, sir?" I hesitated. "I'd really like to ground those
Reindeers till we get the thing cleared up, but I suppose that isn't
practical."

He stared out of the window. "That means, stop the entire operation of
C.A.T.O.'s Atlantic service ... I think we'll have to get some
supporting evidence for Mr. Honey's theories before we could do that.
But I agree with you, Scott, this thing has to be taken seriously. I'll
send it to Sir Phillip Dolbear tonight, with a personal note."

I went back to my office satisfied with this; I knew Dolbear to be acute
and hardworking, a good chairman for the Atomic Board. I sent for Mr.
Honey and told him what was in the wind. I reminded him that he was
playing with a real Reindeer tail, and that when he said blithely that
his experiment would culminate at 1,440 hours, he really meant that real
aeroplanes would crash after that flying time.

He blinked at me through his heavy glasses. "Of course, I know that," he
said. "But till the research work is completed, everyone is guessing in
the dark. You must realise that in all this kind of work one has to feel
one's way. I may be very much in error, very much indeed. There's
nothing definite about it yet."

"Do you think it could fail sooner?" I asked.

"Oh, I shouldn't think so. In fact, I've been preparing myself for a
real disappointment about Christmas time. It could quite well go on till
April, or even longer."

He lived and thought in quite a different world from me, if he could
contemplate waiting a year for data on a thing like this. He was pure
scientist all through, and I suppose I'm not. I told him that Sir
Phillip Dolbear would probably want to have a talk with him in a day or
two, and he went away.

At the end of the week Mr. Honey went to London at the request of Sir
Phillip. I sent for him next day and asked him how he had got on.

He looked uneasy and unhappy. "I don't think he was really very much
interested in the subject," he said.

"What makes you think that?" I asked quietly. It looked as if they had
not agreed too well.

He was silent for a minute. "He was just out to pick holes in it," he
said at last. "You aren't going to get a very good report. He's the sort
of man who wants everything docketed and proved, and each stage made
secure and buttoned up before you go on to the next. Well, as I told
you, there's a great deal still to be confirmed in the entire basic
theory. It will take years to do that. These experiments we are doing
now are meant to confirm all the points that I have made assumptions on,
one by one. I told him that. But he insisted on regarding the test we're
doing now as a test of the Reindeer tail. I told him it was nothing of
the sort. It's a test to find our errors in the theory."

"But Mr. Honey," I said, "this test is, in fact, a fatigue test of the
Reindeer tailplane. The Reindeer is out and flying, carrying passengers
across the Atlantic, and what you say is that the tailplane will break
up in 1,440 hours of flying. That's a very serious thing to say. It
means that all those aircraft should be grounded."

He said unhappily, "I never said anything of the sort. I told you I was
quite prepared for a disappointment. Theoretically, and if all the
assumptions I have made should be exactly and precisely correct, a
separation of the neutron should occur at 1,440 hours. The purpose of
this test is to show where the assumptions are wrong and to correct the
theory. You're trying to turn a piece of basic research into an _ad hoc_
experiment. Well, you can't do that."

He glared at me angrily through his thick glasses. He was very much
upset.

"I see your point," I said slowly. "But that doesn't help us in deciding
what to do about the Reindeers that are in service now."

"I don't know anything about that," he retorted. "It certainly won't
help them to keep badgering me like this. Sir Phillip Dolbear didn't
believe a word I said, and he's quite right. Nothing is proved yet,
nothing is confirmed. You're trying to make me run before I can walk,
and the result is I just look a fool. Well, that's not very helpful."

"I didn't mean to do that, Mr. Honey," I said. "I'm just trying to find
out what we ought to do about these aircraft that are in service now."

"Well, I can't help you there," he said. "I've told you all I can, and
I'm not going to be bullied into saying any more. You've got your
troubles, and I've got mine." He did not say that most of his troubles
were of my making, but he meant it.

He went away, and I rang up Ferguson in the Department of Experiment and
Research at the Ministry, who serves as our London office. "Ferguson," I
said, "this is Scott speaking. Look, we're getting a bit doubtful about
the Reindeer tailplane; there's a suggestion that fatigue failure might
crop up at a fairly early stage. It's got rather an exaggerated aspect
ratio, you know. I believe I'm right in saying that C.A.T.O. are
operating five or six of them on the Atlantic route. Could you get on to
the Corporation or the A.R.B.--without alarming anyone unduly, because I
think it may be a mare's nest--and find out how many hours flying these
machines have done?"

He said at once, "They can't have done much. They've only been
operational for about a month. What number of hours represents the
danger point?"

"Mr. Honey's estimate is 1,440 hours. But as I say, I think it's a
mare's nest."

He laughed over the telephone. "Oh, this is Honey, is it? In that case,
I should think it might be. I'll find out from the Corporation, and let
you know." He rang back later in the morning. The longest time that any
of the machines had done was 305 hours, up to the evening before.

Next day at about tea-time Shirley rang me up in the office. She said,
"Dennis, darling, I'm sorry to worry you. I've got Elspeth Honey here
because she wanted to listen to the Pastoral Symphony on the wireless,
and theirs is bust. I'm just going to give her tea. She wanted to let
her father know where she is, because she won't be home when he gets
there. I was wondering if you'd like to bring him back with you to pick
up Elspeth."

"Okay, dear," I said. "I'll do that."

I rang up Mr. Honey and told him, and suggested that he came back with
me in my car instead of going by the bus, as he usually did. I was
rather pleased to have the opportunity to do something for him, because
the last time that we had spoken our relations had not been exactly
cordial, and I didn't like to feel that he was nursing a grievance
against me. I was aware, too, that there was a good deal of reason on
his side. He met me at the car at half-past five, and we drove out on
the road to Farnham.

"It's very kind of Mrs. Scott to invite Elspeth like this," he said
diffidently. "She mustn't let her make herself a nuisance."

"Not a bit," I said. "She's probably company for Shirley--for my wife.
It gets a bit slow for her sometimes when I'm away all day."

"That is the trouble, of course," he replied. "I mean, with Elspeth.
It's all right in the term time, but in the holidays it's sometimes very
difficult."

"I should think it is," I said, thinking of his womanless menage. "What
do you do with her in the holidays?"

He said, "There's a clergyman who runs a holiday home for children down
at Bournemouth, and she goes there sometimes, but it's rather expensive.
And he's started to take mental defectives now--very backward children,
you know--so it's not quite so suitable as it used to be. But really,
Elspeth's so good at playing by herself that I don't know that she isn't
just as happy at home."

The thought of his little girl of twelve spending her holidays alone all
day in the villa in Copse Road was not an attractive one. "It's very
difficult," I said.

"It's a great deal easier in term time," he remarked. "Elspeth likes
being at school, and she's very fond of Mrs. Scott. She talks about her
a great deal."

I was not surprised to hear that Elspeth liked being at school, if her
holidays were spent alone in a deserted house. "You've met my wife, have
you, Honey?" I asked. "Miss Mansfield, who used to be a tracer in the
Aerodynamics? A girl with fair, sort of auburn hair?"

He did not think that he remembered her.

At the flat we found Shirley and Elspeth sitting over tea in the
sitting-room listening to the wireless; we went in quietly, not to
disturb them. I made a fresh pot of tea for Honey and myself, and we sat
listening to the symphony with them till it was finished. It was the
first time I had seen Elspeth Honey, and this pause gave me an
opportunity to study her. As Shirley had said, she was an ugly child,
but this ugliness seemed to me to be more associated with her unbecoming
clothes and the way her hair was cut than with the child herself. She
had rather sharp, pale features; she was thin, and she looked
intelligent. She did not look to be a very happy child. She had fine,
well-shaped hands, and when she moved she did not seem to be clumsy. If
she had had a mother, I reflected, she might have been very different.

The symphony came to an end, and Shirley reached over and switched off
the set. She turned to the child. "Like it?" she asked.

The little girl nodded vigorously with closed lips. "Mm."

My wife got up and began to gather up the plates and put them on the
trolley. "I thought you would. They're going to do one every week. Would
you like to come again?"

Honey said nervously, "You mustn't let her be a nuisance, Mrs. Scott."

"I won't," said Shirley. "I like listening to symphonies."

Elspeth said, "I'd like that ever so. May I do the washing up?"

Shirley said, "Of course not. I was only going to pile these things
together and take them out."

"They've got to be washed up sometime, Mrs. Scott. I can do
it--honestly, I can."

Her father said, "Do let her help you, please. She's very good at
washing up."

"I can do it," the child repeated. "Daddy drops things, so I always do
it at home."

My wife said, "All right, we'll do it together."

They took the trolley out with them, and I sat talking with Honey as we
smoked. I had only half my mind on our conversation and I forget what it
was about to start with. I was furtively studying the man that I was
talking to and trying to sum him up, the man who said the Reindeer tail
would come to bits in 1,440 hours. The man who believed that, and who
also believed in the Great Pyramid and in the descent of Our Lord to
earth at Glastonbury or Farnborough in the very near future. The man who
lived alone, and seemed quite unconscious that by doing so he was
denying most of the simple joys of childhood to his little girl. The man
who took umbrage in the office at small slights, the man who lived in an
unreal, scientific dream. The man who walked in some queer
semi-religious procession in Woking, and got had up by the police for
some brawl that arose from it. The man who said the Reindeer tail would
come to bits in 1,440 hours. The man whose judgment we had to accept, or
to discard.

And presently he added something to the picture I was building up. He
was looking at the backs of my books in the bookcase, reading the
titles, as one always does in a strange house. I woke up suddenly from
my abstraction to hear him say, "I see you've got Rutherford's book
there." And he indicated _The Aryan Flow_ stuck in among the novels.

When I was at college I was interested for a very short time in the
movements of the races of peoples about the world, and this volume was a
relic of that passing enthusiasm. I had not opened it for at least ten
years, but it was there still. I said idly, "I think it's very good."

He got up and picked the book out of the shelf, and turned the pages.
"Sharon Turner covers much of the same ground," he said. "But it's
Rutherford who identifies the ten tribes with the Scythians. And after
all, that must have been the most difficult part, mustn't it?"

I was a little at a loss. "I've really rather forgotten," I said. "It's
a long time since I read it."

"You ought to look it over again," he said earnestly. "It was the most
wonderful migration in the world." He stared at me through his thick
glasses. "The ten tribes, led away into captivity by Shalmaneser, King
of Assyria--that's all in the Second Book of Esdras. The Persians called
them Sakae--our word Saxon, of course, and Rutherford proves their
identity with the Scythians. And then, from his end, Sharon Turner
traces back the Anglo-Saxons all through Europe to the Scythians. It's
fascinating."

I was completely out of my depth. "Absolutely," I said.

He went on, "It explains so much. The Druidic forms of worship, that
were nothing but the old religion of Israel brought here in its
entirety." He paused and then said, "That's what impressed Joseph of
Arimathea so much when first he came to England on his tin business.
That's why he brought his nephew here when He was a little boy, because
he saw the Child was something quite unusual, and he wanted Him to come
in contact with the priests of England. That's why Our Lord came back to
Glastonbury as a young man and lived here for years before His ministry,
because he had to live in the precepts of the old Israel which the Druid
priests had kept here undebased. That's why Joseph came back to
Glastonbury with Martha and Mary and Lazarus after the death of Christ,
because they wanted to settle down and found His church in the place
that He had loved so well."

The Reindeer tail, he said, would come to bits in 1,440 hours. "I'm not
very well up in all this, I'm afraid," I said.

He put the book back carefully upon the shelf. "It's the most
fascinating story in the world," he said quietly. "It explains so much.
That's why Simon Zelotes, His apostle, came here as soon as he could.
That's why St. Paul came here." He drew himself up, a short, earnest,
spectacled figure, not unimpressive. "That's why the English are the
greatest people in the world and always will be, because in the
beginning we were blessed by the advice and the example and the teaching
of the greatest people who have ever lived."

Elspeth came running into the room, and saved me from the necessity of
commenting on that. Her father took off his thick glasses and wiped
them, and said, "Finished the washing up?"

She nodded. "Daddy, Mrs. Scott washes up with a little mop so that you
never have to put your hands into the water at all! Isn't that a good
idea? May we have a little mop like that?"

He blinked at her without his glasses. "Mop?"

She pulled him by the sleeve. "Daddy, come and see. And they've got hot
water all the time, made by the electricity!" She drew him away into our
little kitchenette to see these wonders for himself.

They went away soon after that, absurdly grateful for the trivial
hospitality that we had shown to them. We closed the front door behind
them and went back to the sitting-room. "I rather like your Mr. Honey,"
Shirley said. "But he does look a mess."

"That's just what he is--a mess." I turned to her. "Tell me, had he
really never seen a mop for washing up? Or an electric water-heater?"

She laughed. "Honestly, I don't think he had. I don't know what his own
kitchen can be like!"

I lit a cigarette and flopped down in a chair. "Tired?" she asked.

"A bit." He said the Reindeer tail would come to bits in 1,440 hours,
but he didn't know what an electric water-heater looked like. Could that
possibly make sense? Did he know enough about real life to speak with
confidence on anything? Was his opinion of any value whatsoever? Could
one trust his judgment? I did not know, and I sat there turning it over
and over in my mind.

Shirley said, "Here you are." I roused myself to what was going on, and
the wonderful girl had been out to the kitchen and got a tumbler of
whisky and soda, and she was offering it to me. I kissed the hand she
gave it to me with, and said, "Like to go to the pictures tonight?"

"I'll look and see what's on." She picked up the paper, turned the
pages, and said, "I heard your Mr. Honey holding forth very earnestly
about something or other while we were washing up. What was it all
about?"

I blew a long cloud of smoke. "It was about the lost ten tribes of
Israel, and the Druids, and about Jesus Christ coming to Glastonbury,
and all sorts of stuff like that." I looked up at her. "I wish to God I
could make up my mind if he's plain crackers, or something different."

"Is it important?" she asked.

"It is rather," I told her. "You see, he says the Reindeer tail will
come to bits in 1,440 hours. And I'm supposed to be able to check up on
his work. And I can't do it. I'm not good enough...."

The next week was a torment of anxiety and uncertainty. I had to keep
the matter to myself; I did not want to keep on badgering Mr. Honey or
to go wailing to the Director. Every day, I knew, the Reindeers were
flying over the Atlantic piling up the hours faster than Mr. Honey's
test, each machine probably doing the best part of a hundred hours a
week towards the point when Mr. Honey said their tails would break. On
the sixth day I couldn't stand it any longer, and suggested to the
Director that perhaps he might give Sir Phillip a jerk up on the
telephone.

On the ninth day the report came in. The Director rang through to tell
me he had got it, and I went down to him. He handed it to me, and I sat
down in his office to read it through.

Sir Phillip said that he had examined the work submitted to him in
detail and had received certain explanations verbally from Mr. Honey. He
accepted, with considerable reserve, the work of Koestlinger indicating
that an energy loss occurred when a material was subjected to repeated
reversals of stress, and that this lost energy could not be accounted
for by any balance of the normal forms. It was a wild assumption on the
part of Mr. Honey, said Sir Phillip, that this lost energy became
absorbed into the structure of the atom in the form of nuclear strain.
He could only regard that as an interesting hypothesis which might
perhaps be a fit subject for research at some date in the future. If
ever it should be confirmed that something of the sort did happen, then
he was very doubtful if the stress induced would, in fact, produce a
separation of the neutron that Mr. Honey postulated. He said, a little
caustically, that in his experience it was not so easy to split the atom
as amateurs were apt to think. If such a separation should take place,
he saw no present indication that the resulting new material would be
the crystallamerous isotope that Mr. Honey had observed in substances
broken under a fatigue test. That, he seemed to think, was little more
than wishful thinking on Mr. Honey's part.

In spite of all this, he recommended that the trials of the Reindeer
tail should be continued, as the subject was obviously important. If it
was desired that research upon the problems of fatigue should be
undertaken by the I.S.A.R.B., no doubt the representative of the
Ministry would bring the matter up at the next meeting of the Board,
when the priority to be allocated to the investigation could be
determined.

I could have wept. Sir Phillip Dolbear had seated himself firmly on the
fence, and had offered us no help at all. And the Reindeers were still
flying the Atlantic.

I said heavily, "Well, this doesn't take us very much further, sir."

The Director raised his eyes from the other work that he was reading. "I
thought that myself. I had hoped that we should get more out of him."

We discussed it glumly for a few minutes. "I should like to think it
over for the rest of the day," I said at last. "At the moment I can't
see anything for it but to go back to our old rule of thumb methods of
guessing if the tail was dangerously flexible, and so on. May I think it
over for today, and come in and see you tomorrow morning?"

"By all means, Scott," he said. "I'll be thinking it over in the
meantime myself. It's certainly a difficult position, but fortunately
we've got time for a little thought."

I picked up the report and turned to go. "In any case," I said, "I think
we must face up to the possibility of having to ground all those
Reindeers after seven hundred hours. I don't think we should let them go
for more than half the estimated time to failure."

"No," he said slowly, "I don't think that we should, although I wouldn't
put too much weight on Mr. Honey's estimate after this. If we said seven
hundred hours, how long does that give us?"

"About three weeks from now," I said. "I'll find out definitely before
tomorrow, sir."

I went back to my room and dumped the report, and then went down and out
of the building, and walked down to the aerodrome, to the flight office.
Squadron-Leader Penworthy was there. I said, "I say, Penworthy. You did
the flying on the prototype Reindeer, didn't you?"

"Most of it," he said.

I offered him a cigarette. "What was the tailplane like?" I asked. I
explained myself. "I know it was quite safe, but was it very flexible?
Did it have much movement of the tip in flight?"

He said, "Well, yes--it did. It never gave us any trouble, but it's got
a very high aspect ratio, you know, so you'd expect a certain amount of
waggle. On the ground you can push the tip up and down about six inches
with your hand."

I nodded slowly. "Did it have much movement in the air?"

He hesitated. "I don't think it had any continuous movement--it wasn't
dithering all the time, or anything like that. You could see it flexing
in a bump, from the aft windows of the cabin."

I turned this over in my mind. "Was that in very bumpy weather? What
time of year was it?"

He said, "We had it flying in all sorts of weather. It was here
altogether for about three months."

"So long as that? How many hours did it do?"

"Oh," he said, "it did a lot. I did about two hundred hours on it
myself. Before that there were the firm's trials, of course."

A vague, black shadow was forming in my mind. "What happened to it after
it left here?"

"I flew it down to the C.A.T.O. experimental flight," he said.

I blew a long cloud of smoke, thoughtfully. "Any idea how many hours it
did there, before they put it into service?"

He shook his head. "I'd only be guessing. But several hundred, I should
think, because they did a whole lot of proving flights over the route
before they put it into regular operation. They always do a lot of time
on new machines before they go on service. They're pretty good, you
know."

I stared out over the aerodrome. "That's the machine that flew into the
hill in Labrador, isn't it?"

"That's right," he said. "Somewhere between Goose and Montreal."

I went back to the office with a terrible idea half formed in the back
of my mind. I rang up Group-Captain Fisher of the Accidents Branch; I
had had a good bit to do with him at Boscombe Down on various occasions
that had not been great fun.

I said, "You remember that Reindeer that flew into the hill in Labrador?
Tell me, sir--could you let me know how many hours it had done before
the crash?"

He said he'd look into the matter and let me know.

He came back on the telephone twenty minutes later. "That figure that
you asked about," he remarked. "The aircraft had done thirteen hundred
and eighty-three hours, twenty minutes, up to the time of the take-off
from Heath Row."

I said quietly, "Add about nine hours for the Atlantic crossing?"

"About that, I should think."

"And say another hour from Goose on to the scene of the accident?"

"I should think so."

"Making 1,393 hours in all?"

"That's about right."

I put down the telephone, feeling rather sick. It was my job to stop
that sort of thing from happening.




2


That afternoon the Director was in a conference; I was not able to get
in to see him until six o'clock in the evening. He was tidying up his
papers to go home, and I don't think he was very glad to see me at that
time. "Well, Scott, what is it?" he inquired.

"It's that Reindeer tail," I said. "Rather a disconcerting fact came to
light this afternoon."

"What's that?"

"You remember the prototype, the one that flew into the hill in Labrador
or somewhere?" He nodded. "Well, it had done 1,393 hours up to the
moment of the crash."

"Oh.... Mr. Honey's figure for tail failure was 1,440 hours, wasn't it?"

"That's right, sir." I hesitated. "The figures seem so close I thought
you ought to know at once."

"Quite right," he said. "But, Scott, in fact, that machine _did_ come to
grief by flying into a hill, didn't it?"

I hesitated again. "Well--that's what we're told, sir, and that's what
everybody seems to have accepted. The story as I've heard it is that it
hit the top of a mountain and fell down into a forest. Nobody saw it
happen, and everyone in it was killed. So there's no direct evidence
about what happened to it."

"Marks on the ground, to show where it hit first," he said.

"Oh yes," I said. "I've no doubt that there was that sort of evidence.
But if the tail came off at twenty thousand feet it would have to fall
somewhere."

"Is that what you think?"

I was silent for a moment. "I don't know," I said at last. "I only know
that this figure of 1,393 hours, the time that this machine did till it
crashed--that figure's within three per cent of Mr. Honey's estimate of
the time to failure of the tail. I can't check that estimate, and Sir
Phillip Dolbear won't." I paused in bitter thought, and then I said,
"And that three per cent is on the wrong side. It would be."

"It certainly is a coincidence," he said. "Rather a disturbing one." We
stood in silence for a minute. "Well," he said, "clearly the best thing
is to establish what actually did happen to that aircraft. If it was a
tailplane failure, then there must be some evidence of it in the
wreckage. I should make a careful check of that upon the basis of
Honey's theory. After all, a fatigue fracture is quite easily
recognisable."

I nodded. "I was thinking on those lines, sir. I think the first thing
is to get hold of the accident report, and talk to the people who
prepared it. If you agree I'd like to go to London in the morning and
see Ferguson, and go with him to see Group-Captain Fisher in the
Accidents Branch."

"Will you take Honey with you?"

"Not unless you want me to particularly," I replied. "He isn't very good
in conference, and I'd really rather that he stayed down here and got on
with the job of verifying his theory. What I'd like to do would be to
see him this evening and tell him that you've authorised the trial upon
the Reindeer tail to go ahead by day and night from now on. I really
think we ought to run a night shift on it, sir."

"I think we should, Scott. Can you provide the staff?"

"I'll take young Simmons away from Mallory and put him to work with
Honey," I said. "Simmons can watch the thing at night for the time
being. He can have a camp bed in the office, and an alarm clock. That'll
do for a week or so: I'll have Dines to put on it when he comes back
from leave."

"All right, Scott. You can tell Honey that I'll see about the night
shift in the morning."

I was greatly relieved to have got that settled: at any rate we were now
doing all we could upon the technical side. "He'll have plenty to do
tomorrow, sir, getting all that cracking. I'd rather he was down here
doing that than coming up with me to London."

It was nearly half-past six by the time I left the Director. I went back
to my office and rang Honey's office but there was no reply: he had
probably gone home. I asked the exchange to give me his home number, and
they said he hadn't got one. I packed up my work and went down to the
balloon shed on my way out, to see if by any chance he was still there
working late. But his office was locked and deserted. Outside, the great
span of the tailplane stood upon its testing rig beneath the loading
gantries, still and silent. It was not a happy thought that there were
Reindeers in the air at that moment, putting up the hours towards the
point when Mr. Honey said their tails would break.

It was nearly half-past seven by the time that I got home. Shirley had
had dinner waiting for me for half an hour, and she was not too pleased
about it. "You might have rung me up," she said.

I told her I was sorry. "I've got to go out afterwards and dig up
Honey," I said. "There's a bit of drama on."

"What's the trouble?"

"It's that Reindeer tail," I said.

"The one that Mr. Honey says will come to bits in 1,440 hours?"

I nodded. "Do you remember seeing in the paper that a Reindeer flew into
a hill in Labrador a month or so ago? With the Russian Ambassador on
board it?"

"I remember the Russians kicking up a stink," she said. "Was that a
Reindeer?"

"That was the prototype Reindeer," I replied. "We heard this afternoon
that it had done just on fourteen hundred hours when it came to grief."

She had not worked at Boscombe Down all those years for nothing, and she
knew quite a bit about aeroplanes. "Oh, Dennis! Do you think it was the
tail?"

"I just don't know," I said unhappily. "If it was, I suppose the bloody
Russians will say we knew that it was going to happen, and we did it on
purpose."

She smiled. "They couldn't say that, surely. Nobody suspected there was
anything wrong with the tail when that one crashed."

"Mr. Honey did," I said. There was no end to the trouble that might come
out of this thing. But the first thing to do was to make darned sure
that it could never happen again.

We had dinner, and washed up; then I went out and got into the car
again, and drove round to Mr. Honey's little house in Copse Road. It was
about a quarter-past eight when I got there; the door was locked. It was
one of those suburban doors with a window in the top part; through this
window I could see past the stairs down the narrow hall into the kitchen
at the back. I pressed the bell; it rang, but there was no sign of life.
Then as I waited there was a stir upstairs and footsteps coming down,
and Honey appeared in the hall and opened the door for me.

He said, "Oh, Dr. Scott--I didn't expect to see you. Come in. I was just
putting Elspeth to bed."

I went into the hall with him. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Honey," I
said. "But something came up about the Reindeer tail this afternoon that
I wanted to talk to you about. I've been with the Director this evening,
and I've got to go to London in the morning. If you can spare a minute
I'd like to have a talk about it now."

He led the way into the front room, which would normally have been the
parlour. It was furnished with a long table pushed against the wall, and
with an enormous drawing-board in the bay window; on this was pinned a
large-scale map of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, but drawn to some
curious projection with which I was not familiar. The other walls were
lined with rather dirty unpainted deal cupboards and bookshelves. Books
and papers were everywhere, and overflowed in piles upon the floor. I
noted some of the titles of the books upon the table--_Numerics of the
Bible_, _The Gate of Remembrance_, _Hysteresis in Non-Ferrous
Materials_, _The Apocrypha in Modern Life_, and _A Critical Examination
of the Pyramid_. The room was unswept and rather dirty, with cigarette
ends stubbed out on the bare boards of the floor. There were two small
upright wooden chairs; he pulled one forward for me.

"I'm afraid it's not very comfortable in here," he said apologetically.

I smiled. "It looks as if you do a bit of work, now and again." I turned
to the matter in hand. "What I came about was this. You know that
prototype Reindeer, the one that crashed in Labrador? The one that we
all thought had flown into a hill?"

He said vaguely, "I think I do remember something about it. It was in
the papers, wasn't it?"

"That's right. It crashed and everyone was killed, so no one knows
exactly what did happen to it. Well, I checked up on the hours that it
had flown before the crash. It had done 1,393 hours."

He stared at me. "Had it? There'd be nothing to say that the crash
wasn't due to tailplane failure?"

"That's just the point. I think the tail might possibly have failed. The
crash wasn't seen by anyone, of course. It happened in the middle of
Labrador."

A slow smile spread over his face. "Well, that's a real bit of luck," he
said.

I was staggered. "Luck?"

He beamed at me. "It's just what we wanted--it will shorten down our
work enormously." He explained himself. "I mean, if this tail that we're
testing now also fails at about 1,400 hours we shall have two trials,
one confirming the other. We really shall feel that we're getting
somewhere then."

I said weakly, "Well--that's one way of looking at it."

From one of the rooms upstairs Elspeth called out, "Daddy, Dad-dee!" She
sounded impatient.

Honey turned to me, and said nervously, "Would you mind excusing me for
just a minute? I didn't pull her blind down."

There was no point in playing the high executive, the little tin god; I
had nothing else to do that evening. "Not a bit," I said. "Can I come up
with you?"

"She'd be very thrilled if you came up to say good night to her," he
said. "It would be kind of you."

He took me up into a little bare bedroom at the back of the house;
rather to my surprise it was all reasonably clean, though most
unfeminine. Elspeth was lying on her back in bed, mathematically in the
centre, with the sheet tucked smooth and unruffled across below her
chin. Her eyes watched me as I paused in the doorway.

"Hullo," I said. "I've come to say good night." And then I noticed that
in bed with her, with its white tasselled head beside her dark one on
the pillow, was one of those little cotton mops that you use for washing
up.

She saw me looking at it. "Is that your dolly?" I asked, trying to be
pleasant.

"No," she said scornfully. "That's a mop."

Honey was busy at the window. I sat down for a moment on the end of her
bed. "Is it your best thing?" I asked. "Is that why you've got it in bed
with you?"

She nodded vigorously.

"I should use it for washing up," I remarked. "Then you won't have to
put your hands in."

She said, "We've got another one for washing up. We went to Woolworth's
and Daddy got two, and he said I could have this one to take to bed till
we have to use it if the other one wears out. The other one's downstairs
in the sink."

Honey had finished at the window. He crossed to the bed, and bent down
and kissed his daughter. "Go to sleep now," he said. "Good night."

I said, "Good night, Elspeth. Sleep well."

"Good night, Daddy. Good night, Dr. Scott. Will you say good night to
Mrs. Scott for me?"

"I'll tell her. Good night from her."

We went downstairs again to that dirty, littered room with the great
drawing-board. "It's all very well to think about the scientific value
of that prototype crash," I said, taking up from where we had left off.
"But thirty or forty people must have lost their lives in it, and if it
was the tail we've got to make darned sure that doesn't happen again,
Honey."

"The important thing is to find out if the tailplane really was the
cause of that accident," he said. "You see, it may affect the programme
for this tail that we are testing now. I've been thinking. A
confirmatory experiment is valuable, of course, but it may not be making
the best use of the material at our disposal. We might alter the
frequency, for example. It's not easy to do that in the middle of a
trial, but I'd like to think around it."

"That's for the long-term programme," I said patiently. "What I'm
bothered about is--ought we to ground all the Reindeers that are in
service now?"

"I suppose that is important, too," he said.

"It's the most important thing of all, Honey, because it's got to be
decided now, or very soon, at any rate."

He said thoughtfully, "Of course, we don't really _know_ any more than
we did yesterday. We don't _know_ that that tail failed in the air."

"An examination of the wreckage will show that, though, won't it?"

"Oh, yes. If there's a fracture of the main spars of the tail, and if
the structure of the metal at the fracture should be crystalline, that
would be positive evidence of failure in fatigue."

I stood for a moment deep in thought. Somebody would have to go and have
another look at that tailplane; it really ought to be brought back to
Farnborough for metallurgical examination. But it was a big unit to
transport, and it was urgent that the matter should be settled one way
or the other. Where was the wreckage now? In Montreal? Or still in
Labrador? I should have to find out that, and find out quick.

"I'm going up to London in the morning to see the Inspector of
Accidents," I said at last. "That's why I came in tonight, Honey. I
shan't be in the office tomorrow. But I saw the Director this evening
and told him about this, and he agreed to running your trial night and
day from now on."

"Did he? That's very good news. I only wish he'd done it earlier,
though. It's a pity that you have to have an accident to impress on
people the urgency of basic research."

I disregarded that one, and went on to tell him about young Simmons and
to discuss with him the detailed arrangements that he would have to make
next day in my absence. Mr. Honey was quite wide awake and businesslike
in any matter that concerned his trial, and having worked for so long in
the R.A.E. he knew all the ropes. At the end of ten minutes I was
satisfied that everything would go ahead all right in my absence, and I
turned to go.

"Well, I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Honey," I said. "I'll be away
all day tomorrow, but I'll let you know what happens in London when I
come in on Thursday."

"It was good of you to come round," he said. He came with me to the
front door, and then he stopped me just as I was going out to the car.
"There's just one thing I wanted to ask you, if you could spare a minute
..."

"Of course," I said.

He hesitated. "I wonder if you could tell me where you got that
hot-water-heater? Are they very expensive things?"

"Why, no. They're very cheap. I don't know what they cost to buy
outright, but you can hire them from the electricity company, you know.
We hire ours. I forget what it costs--something quite small. Two bob a
quarter, or something like that."

"Really--so little as that? They're very useful, aren't they? I mean,
with one of those you've got hot water all the time."

"That's right," I said. "We couldn't do without ours. You can get a big
one for the bath, you know."

"Can you!" He paused in thought. "I think I must see about getting one
for the kitchen, anyway. It's stupid to go on boiling up kettles to wash
up with."

"It makes everything much easier," I said. "You know the electricity
office in the High Street? Go in and tell them that you want to hire
one. They'll fix you up all right."

"I'll do that," he said. "Thank you for telling me. It does seem to be a
thing worth having."

I got into my car and drove home, and put it in the garage at the back
of the flats, deep in thought. It seemed long odds to me that the
tailplane of the prototype Reindeer would be still lying where it fell,
in some Labrador forest. It was most urgent to get hold of it for
technical examination; we must have a report on it within a week at the
very latest, unless we were prepared to ground the Reindeers upon Mr.
Honey's word alone. One thing I was resolved upon, that no Reindeer
should go on flying after seven hundred hours unless this thing had been
cleared up. But to achieve that end, to stop the whole British
Transatlantic air service before another accident happened, I should
have to show some better evidence than I had got up to date that
Reindeers were unsafe.

Shirley was waiting for me in the flat. "Did Mr. Honey take it
seriously?" she asked.

"And how!" I said, sinking down into my chair. "He was as pleased as
Punch about it. He thought it was a wonderful thing to have happened."
And I told her all about it.

She heard me to the end. "He is a funny little man." And then she said.
"Tell me, Dennis--do you really think, yourself, that Honey's right? Are
the Reindeer tails dangerous?"

"There's not a shred of evidence that you can hang your hat on that
there's anything wrong with them at all," I said evenly. "But--yes, I
think he's probably right."

"Why do you think that," she asked quietly, "if there isn't any
evidence?"

"Fifteen years in the aircraft industry," I said. "One gets to know the
smell of things like this."

I reached for the cigarettes and gave her one, and lit one myself. We
sat in silence for a time; I lay back in my chair and watched the blue
clouds rising slowly to the ceiling, deep in thought. And presently she
asked, "What's Mr. Honey going to do about it?"

I grinned at her. "He's going to hire an electric hot-water-heater," I
said. "He's already bought a mop."

I went up to the Ministry in London first thing next morning and saw
Ferguson; I told him the whole thing. He was inclined to regard it as a
mare's nest, having had some experience of Mr. Honey over the lunch
table while he had been at the R.A.E. himself. "I don't want to say
anything against a member of your staff, Scott," he remarked. "But there
may be things you wouldn't know about, that you really ought to know.
Poor old Honey had a lot of trouble at the end of the war, you know--he
lost his wife. That changed him a lot--he's never been the same man
since. It was very distressing, that."

He paused, and glanced at me. "Did he ever tell you about his
experiments with planchette?"

I was not now surprised at anything to do with Mr. Honey. "You mean,
spiritualistic stuff?" I asked. "I've heard a lot about him, but I
hadn't heard that one."

He hesitated. "I dare say it's all over now. It was probably an effect
of the distress he suffered at the time. But he used to do a lot with
that."

I was suddenly deeply sorry for the uncouth little man. "Trying to get
in touch with her, and all that sort of thing?"

He nodded.

I thought about it for a minute. "I hadn't heard of that," I said at
last. "I knew that he was religious, in an eccentric sort of way. But I
don't think any of that really concerns us now. What I feel is
this--that we can't let this thing slide, even if we both think that
Honey's as mad as a hatter. He _has_ made this forecast, for what it's
worth, and the prototype did crash about that time. We've got to get to
the bottom of it, now."

"Oh yes, of course we have," he replied. "But in the meantime, I shan't
lose much sleep myself."

He rang through to Group-Captain Fisher in the Accidents Branch, and we
went down to see him. After the preliminary greeting, I said:

"Look, sir--I've come up because we want to know a bit more about that
accident to the prototype Reindeer."

He nodded. "You rang me up for the flying time. Just under 1,400 hours,
if I remember right."

"That's right, sir. We've been studying fatigue down at Farnborough, and
a suggestion has been made that the tailplane might have failed on that
machine." I started in and told him the whole thing again, of course
omitting the gossip about Mr. Honey. I was getting to know my story off
by heart by that time, from having told it to so many people.

As I talked, the frown deepened on his face. I came to the end, and he
said, "Do I understand, then, that there is a suggestion that my staff
have been completely in error in their analysis of this accident?"

I hesitated. I did not want to get on the wrong side of the
Group-Captain at the start. "I wouldn't put it quite like that," I said.
"We feel down at our place that this new evidence requires consideration
alongside of all the evidence you have gathered up to date."

He glowered at me. "I don't know about new evidence," he said. "If I
understood you correctly, you have an estimate from a research worker of
what he hopes will happen in a trial which is in progress now. Is that
right?"

I said, "That's about it. We have been very much impressed with the way
his estimate coincides with the flying time to crash of this first
Reindeer."

"Well, I'm not," he said. "There's no magic in the figure 1,400." He
rang a bell upon his desk. "In this department, when we speak of
evidence, we mean evidence, sworn testimony that can be proved and that
would stand up in a court of law. Not supposition and impressions." A
girl appeared, and stood in enquiry at the door. "Get me the report upon
the Reindeer accident, Miss Donaldson," he said.

We sat in silence while the girl fetched the report; he did not seem to
be in a very genial mood, and I did not want to put my foot in it again,
so I was saying as little as possible. She brought in a bulky folder
bound up in the manner of a final report, and handed it to him, and went
away. He turned over the pages of it on his desk in silence for a time.

He said at last, "Well, this is the report. The actual investigation was
carried out by Ottawa, of course, with our representative assisting. I
suggest you take it away and read it, as a first step. Then if you want
any more information, we can have another talk."

"That's very kind of you, sir," I said. "I'll read this through at once,
and get in touch with you again."

I went back with Ferguson to his office. When we got there, "What's
eating the old boy?" I asked. "I've always found him very helpful in the
past."

Ferguson said, "Well, of course--this is a final report." He took it in
his hands thoughtfully, considering it. "It's gone to the Minister, and
there was a question in the House of Commons--the Minister based his
reply on this. Because of the Russians, you know." I nodded. "Naturally,
Fisher won't exactly jump for joy if you turn up and prove that it's all
wrong."

I said irritably, "But damn it, man--we all make mistakes. I make them,
so do you, and so does every living being in the world. One just has to
admit them--Fisher's not a child. If this report is based on a
misapprehension it'll have to be corrected--we can't hide things up.
There's no future in that."

"I know," he said thoughtfully. "The trouble is that Fisher's department
has been making rather a lot of mistakes recently." He paused. "You
heard about the Zulu crash at Whitney Sutton?"

"I heard the wings came off, or something. I didn't hear why."

"That's right," he said. "It was diving at round about Mach unity, and
the wings came off. The ailerons came off first, and then the wing broke
up. Fisher's party got it all buttoned up as pilot's error of judgment.
But then Cochrane from the Medical Research came in and proved
pre-impact head wounds on the pilot's body. The windscreen broke up and
crashed into the pilot's face--that's why it dived. It didn't do Fisher
any good with the R.A.F. types."

I was interested. "Is that established? Is that what really happened to
it?"

He nodded. "Keep it under your hat, old boy. No point in spreading
things like that about."

I settled down in Ferguson's armchair to read the report upon the
accident to the prototype Reindeer.

It had flown from London Airport on the night of March 27th with a crew
of nine and a passenger list of twenty-two persons including the Russian
Ambassador to Ottawa, thirty-one people in all. It had been diverted
from Gander on account of fog and had landed at Goose at about 7 a.m.
G.M.T. on the morning of the 28th. It had refuelled there, and had taken
off for Montreal at 9.17 in weather that was overcast and raining: the
temperature was above freezing, unusual for the time of year. The crew
had not reported any trouble at Goose. One wireless message of a routine
character was received at 9.46 reporting that the aircraft was on course
at 16,500 feet. That was the last that was heard of it.

It was three days before it was reported by one of the search aircraft,
though the spot where it was finally located had been flown over several
times. It was another two days before a party succeeded in getting to
the wreckage. They flew up in a Norseman fitted with skis and landed in
deep snow on a frozen lake called Small Pine Water: the landing was a
hazardous one because of the alternate thaw and freeze: the skis mushed
in beneath the icy crust. The party then had to force their way eleven
miles over the snow-covered hills, thickly covered with a forest of
spruce and alder. The night temperatures were as low as -45° Fahrenheit,
making it a most difficult search: several of the party suffered from
frostbite. In the deep snow and the forest growth they would never have
found the crash at all but for the continuous guidance given by the
aircraft working with them.

In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that their investigation
was, in some respects, perfunctory.

The spot where the Reindeer crashed was about 250 miles from Goose,
about 50 miles west of the Moisie river and about 100 miles north of the
sea coast in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It was just in Canada, in the
Province of Quebec.

The bulk of the aircraft was found lying in deep snow among trees at the
foot of a cliff, the estimated height of which was 340 feet. It had been
on fire after the crash, and everything in it was totally destroyed. All
the bodies were found within the flattened shell of the fuselage,
indicating that nobody had survived the accident. The cliff face at that
point ran approximately east and west along the aircraft's course, and
the Reindeer had hit first at the top of this cliff, very near the edge.
It had knocked down three trees, and here the starboard wing had been
torn off; the wing was found at some distance from the rest of the
machine, at the foot of the cliff. Two propeller blades and portions of
the engine cowling were found on top of the cliff. The fuselage had then
toppled over the cliff and had crashed down into the forest below, and
burnt out.

From the damage to the trees it seemed that the original impact, the
first touch, had been with the machine at a small angle of descent,
probably not more than ten degrees below the horizontal. From that the
investigators had deduced that the machine was under control up to the
moment of impact, and from that, that the pilot had been deliberately
losing height through the overcast in order to check his position by a
sight of the ground.

Ferguson, reading all this over my shoulder, said doubtfully, "Well,
that could be. But it sounds a bit odd to me. He was only an hour out
from Goose. What should he want to check his position for?"

I shrugged my shoulders, and turned to the photographs bound up with the
report. The photographers were technicians, not sensation-mongers, and
they had not gone out of their way to photograph the horrors; but it was
not a pretty scene. The wreckage, of course, was hardly recognisable as
an aircraft at all; in modern accidents it never is. It looked like the
scrap heap of a tin factory. I turned the pages one by one, examining
each photograph in turn minutely.

"I don't see the port tailplane anywhere," I said at last.

"If it's missing, it'll be referred to somewhere in the text," said
Ferguson. "Let me have a look."

He turned the pages till we found what we were looking for. The passage
read:

     The party remained on the site of the accident for three days,
     during which time the 31 bodies were buried in individual
     graves. The whole of the units of the aircraft were not
     accounted for, due to the dense nature of the forest at this
     point. It was impossible to see further than three yards in any
     one direction because of the thickness of the undergrowth laden
     with snow, and no progress was possible except along paths cut
     for that purpose. The daytime thaw made all work wet and
     difficult and greatly hampered the search. The units of the
     aircraft unaccounted for were the starboard aileron, the outer
     starboard engine No. 6, the port tailplane and elevator, the
     port landing wheel assembly, No. 3 propeller (parted from the
     engine by a fracture of the crankshaft), and about five feet of
     the tip of the starboard wing.

I glanced at Ferguson. "Port tailplane and elevator," I said. "There we
are."

He nodded. "It's not evidence, of course," he said. "It keeps the
fatigue theory in the field, in that if the tailplane had been there and
intact it couldn't have come off in the air. But the mere fact that the
port tailplane was missing, when so much else was missing, doesn't take
us very far."

"It's beginning to tot up," I said. "It's one more thing."

I settled down to read the report through carefully; when I got to the
end I turned back to the beginning and read it through again, making
notes as I did so. It was clear from the circumstances of the accident
that the wreckage could not possibly have been removed. It would still
be lying where it fell three months before, with the new growth of the
forest coming up around it and through it, gradually obliterating
everything. There was my evidence, all right, there in the woods. In one
of the photographs I could see the broken stump of the front spar of the
port tailplane. It would not be necessary, perhaps, to search the woods
for the tailplane itself. If that broken spar attached to the rear
fuselage showed the typical form of fatigue crystallisation of the metal
at the fracture, there would be all the evidence we needed. It would, of
course, be better and would make the matter more complete if we could
get the tailplane, too.

In the middle of the afternoon I went down to see the Group-Captain
again, ready to be firm.

"I've read through this report," I said. "It's very interesting,
sir--and, if I may say so, the most comprehensive report I've yet seen
on an accident. It's very thorough."

He smiled. "Got all you want from it?"

"I think so," I said. "I should like to take it down to Farnborough to
talk it over with the Director, if you could spare this copy for a few
days?"

"That's all right," he said.

I went on, "Well, sir--about this suggestion that's been made about
tailplane fatigue. You'll hear from us officially in the next day or
two, if we want anything done. My present feeling--what I shall advise
the Director--is that we should send an officer out there at once to
make an examination of this broken tailplane spar." His face darkened; I
opened the report and showed him the photograph. "This one. As the port
tail was missing altogether we can't rule out this theory that has
arisen. Of course, if it should be proved that fatigue is present in
these aircraft at such an early stage, it's a matter of the greatest
urgency to put it right."

I stared down at the photograph before us; it was horrible. "We don't
want another one like this," I said.

Fisher said stiffly, "If you really think that necessary after the very
careful investigation that has been already made, I suppose Ottawa can
arrange it. If it comes at our request, of course, financial sanction
will be necessary; these expeditions to out-of-the-way places like this
are very costly, you know. It's in a dollar area, too, so the
Secretariat will have to submit the matter to the Treasury. But if you
people insist upon it, I suppose it can all be arranged."

"I can only state my own view, sir," I said. "I think it's necessary,
and a matter of great urgency. That's what I shall tell the Director; I
can't say, of course, what he'll decide. But I should like to see an
officer on his way to Ottawa tomorrow, or the day after, at the latest."

"It all seems rather ridiculous," he grumbled. "The matter was most
carefully gone into."

I did not want to argue it with him, and I had given him warning of what
was coming, as was only fair. I said good-bye and left the office with
Ferguson. He was rather amused; in the corridor outside the office he
turned to me, and grinned. "He's putting up a good fight," he said. "He
knows all the tricks. He'll run round to the Secretariat tonight and
tell them that your journey isn't really necessary."

"He wouldn't do a thing like that," I said. I was a little worried at
the mere suggestion. "He's a good old stick--I've known him for years.
And this thing concerns the lives of people in the air. He wouldn't want
to see another stinking crash like this."

"Of course he wouldn't," Ferguson replied. "But you see--he thinks
you're absolutely wrong, and just kicking up a stink in his department
irresponsibly. People believe what they want to believe."

I got back to Farnborough too late to see the Director. I went home with
the report under my arm, tired and depressed by what had been my
reading for the day. I was due to read my paper on the PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS OF AIRCRAFT FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS on the following
Thursday, the first paper that I had been asked to read before a learned
society. When I got home I found that the advance printed copy of this
thing had arrived, and that Shirley had been reading it all afternoon.
She had taken it upstairs to show to Mrs. Peters in the flat above; it
was a great thing for us, because it was the first distinction we had
managed to collect since we were married. Fingering it and turning over
the pages, and discussing with Shirley the cuts that I would make when
reading it, served as an anodyne; it took my mind off the Reindeer
misery, so that I slept fairly well.

I went down to see the Director first thing next morning. I showed him
the Reindeer accident report, and told him all about my interviews with
Group-Captain Fisher. "In spite of what he says, I think we ought to
send somebody out there," I remarked. "I should like to see an officer
from here sent out by air straight away, sir, to make a metallurgical
report on that spar fracture."

"I think you're right, Scott," he said slowly. "I believe that's the
only thing to do. Who would you send?"

"I should send Honey."

"You have sufficient confidence in Honey, Scott?"

I said, "I have, sir. I'm beginning to get quite a respect for Mr.
Honey. I'm beginning to think he's right in this thing, and he's
certainly the man in the Establishment who knows most about fatigue."

"Yes, he is that." He turned over the pages of the report, thoughtfully.
"This place where the accident is located--I understand it's eleven
miles from a lake where you can land a seaplane? That's a journey of
eleven miles through the Canadian woods?"

"I think so."

"I'm not so sure that Honey is the right man for that sort of
assignment, Scott. He isn't what I should describe as an outdoor type."
He paused. "You wouldn't rather go yourself?"

I hesitated in my turn. I would have given my eyes to go off on a trip
like that, and it would have been a very welcome change from my office
routine. But whoever went would have to go at once. "I'd go like a shot,
sir," I said. "But I've got this paper to read on Thursday of next week,
the one on the performance of high Mach numbers. Of course, I could
cancel it."

He said, "I had forgotten that." He shook his head. "You'll have to stay
for that--after all, the Royal Aeronautical Society is an important
body; you can't treat them like that. No, it will have to be Honey. You
really think he will get on all right upon a trip like this?"

"I'm sure he will, sir," I replied. "Technically, he's certainly the
best man we've got to send. And as regards the physical aspects of the
journey, we can warn Ottawa that we're sending over somebody who isn't
very fit. They'll make things easy for him, and push him through all
right."

We stood in silence for a minute; evidently he didn't like it much. "I
only wish he had a better presence," the Director said at last. And then
he straightened up. "All right, Scott, I'll tell Ferguson what we've
decided, and I'll get on to the Secretariat about the air passage. You'd
like him to fly out at once?"

"Immediately, sir. I don't think we can afford to waste a day."

I went up to my office and sent for Mr. Honey. He came in blinking
through his thick spectacles; his hair was untidy, his collar was dirty,
and there was a smear of what I judged to be egg upon the front of his
waistcoat. He looked even more of a mess than usual. It was certainly a
problem how to clean him up without hurting his feelings and making him
bloody-minded, to make him look a little more presentable before I
pushed him off to Ottawa.

I told him what had happened in London, and I showed him the report of
the accident. He did not seem to be very interested in the factual
circumstances of the crash, but he seized on the photographs and looked
for a long time at the stump of the tailplane front spar. "It has all
the appearance of a fatigue fracture," he said at last. "Look. There's
no crumpling or elongation of the metal there. There's practically no
distortion of the flange at all, right up to the point of fracture.
That's not natural. That's a short fracture, that's what that is. The
metal must have been terribly crystalline to break off short like that."

I could see what he meant, though the detail was very tiny in the
photograph. It was one more thing.

I told him that we had decided that an officer should fly to Ottawa at
once, and that we were arranging for a seaplane or amphibian take a
party up to Small Pine Water immediately for a further technical
examination of the wreckage. "I want you to go and do that, Honey," I
said. "I don't know anybody who could do it better."

He stared at me. "You mean--that I should go to Canada?"

"That's right," I said. "I want you to go at once, starting the day
after tomorrow. It really is most urgent that we should get this matter
settled up and find out if that tailplane failed in fatigue or not."

"I don't know that there's all that rush about it," he said. "I
agree--it's information that we must have ultimately, and the sooner we
get it the better, I suppose. But we've still got to go on with the
trial here, and I can't possibly get out even a preliminary report for
limited circulation till November."

"I know," I said patiently. "But that's the other aspect of it,
Honey--the long-term research. What I'm concerned about now is--have we
got to ground the Reindeers that are flying now?"

He said irritably, "Oh, the _ad hoc_ trial. Surely, anybody can do that,
and leave me free to get on with the stuff that really matters."

"This is the most important thing of all at the moment, Honey," I said
firmly. "Look. You're an older man than I am, and probably a better
scientist. Perhaps I'm better as an administrator than you would be--I
don't know. In any case, here I am sitting in this office, and it's part
of my job to decide the priorities of work in this department. I think
this trip to Canada is top priority of anything that's going on at
Farnborough today and I want you to drop everything else and go and do
it, because I can't think of anybody who could do it better. It's not an
order, because we don't work that way. But I hope you'll accept my
decision about priorities, because that's what I'm here for."

He smiled, a shy, warm smile that I had never seen before. "Of course,"
he said. "I wasn't trying to be difficult. I only hope I shan't have to
spend too long away from here."

I thought about that for a moment. "I know it's important to get you
back as soon as ever we can," I said. "I don't want to see the basic
work held up. I'll see that you get an air passage home immediately the
job is done. I should think you'd probably be away from here for ten
days or a fortnight."

His face fell. "So long as that?"

"I don't believe you'd do it in much less. First, you've got to get from
here to Ottawa. Then there's the flight back from Ottawa to north-east
Quebec, and then to reach the site of the accident is a day's trek on
foot. And then the whole thing in reverse again, to get back home."

"It's an awful waste of time," he grumbled.

"It's not," I said. "That's my sphere of decisions, Honey, and I tell
you that it's not a waste of time."

"It is from the point of view of the basic research."

"So is eating your breakfast," I remarked. "But you've got to do that,
too."

I went through the various arrangements that would have to be made for
carrying on his trials in his absence; he was quite businesslike and
alert where anything to do with basic trials was concerned, and in ten
minutes we were through with that. "Now about your trip," I said. "It's
going to mean some days of living rough in the Canadian woods, I'm
afraid. You'll be with the R.C.A.F. and they'll look after you, but I
understand that there's a ten or fifteen mile walk from the lake you
land on to the site of the crash, and the same back again. It'll
probably be quite difficult going. Have you got an outfit of clothes
that would do for that, Honey?"

"I've got some good strong boots. I haven't looked at them for years,
but I think they're all right." He paused, and then he said, "We used to
do a lot of hiking on Sundays, when my wife was alive ..." He stared out
of the window, and was silent for a moment; I did not care to interrupt
him. "We used to go in shorts ... I've got those somewhere, I think. Do
you think shorts would be suitable?"

The thought of Mr. Honey turning up in Ottawa in short hiking pants as a
representative of the Royal Aircraft Establishment made me blench. "I
wouldn't take those," I said. "I don't believe they wear shorts in the
woods, on account of the mosquitoes. I'll get a letter through to Ottawa
asking them to kit you up for the trip, and we can charge it up as
necessary expenses. I should take the boots with you, or ... no, they'll
supply those too. But look, Honey, go in your best suit. You're going as
the representative of this Establishment. Put on a bit of dog, you know.
Don't let anybody sit on you in any technical matter; you're the expert,
and you're the man that counts. We'll back you up from here in anything
you feel you've got to insist on."

He nodded. "I'll remember that," he said.

"Now, how about your personal affairs? Are you all right with those?"

He hesitated. "Well, no, I'm not. I've got a man from the Electricity
Company coming in one day next week to fit up that electric
hot-water-heater. And then there's Elspeth--I shall have to see if I can
get somebody to come and sleep in the house, I suppose. It's rather a
long time for her to be alone."

I was a bit staggered at the suggestion that he could leave Elspeth
alone at all. "What about her?" I asked. "Have you got a relative who
could come and stay with her?"

He shook his head. "I don't think there's anybody like that." He paused
for a minute in thought, and then he said, "Don't worry about that, Dr.
Scott--I'll think of something. I've left her for two days at a time,
once or twice, when I had to. Of course, she's older now, but I think
this is much too long to do that. I think I can get Mrs. Higgs--that's
my charwoman--I think she'd come and sleep in while I'm away."

The thought was distasteful to me, but it was at any rate a possible
solution to his problem. If we had had a second bedroom at the flat I
would have offered to put up his child myself, but we hadn't. Moreover,
Honey's domestic affairs were really no concern of mine, and there was a
limit to the extent that I could allow them to influence me in the work
of the Establishment. But I was sorry for Elspeth.

"I'll see that you get back as soon as ever we can manage it," I said.

"That's very good of you--I really don't want to be away longer than is
necessary, for a variety of reasons." His eyes dropped to the accident
report on the desk before us. "Have you told the Rutland Company
anything about this yet?"

I had forgotten all about the design staff who had produced the
Reindeer, or if I had remembered them I had placed them in the
background of my mind. "I haven't told them anything about it yet," I
said slowly. "I thought perhaps it was better to wait until the matter
was rather more definite. Do you think we ought to get in touch with
Prendergast now?"

"I don't want to," he said quickly. "I was wondering if you had."

"No, I hadn't done anything about it." The apprehension of a new series
of difficulties swept over me. E. P. Prendergast was the Chief Designer
of the Rutland Aircraft Company, and the author of the Reindeer. In
person, he was a big, dark man with bushy black eyebrows and the face of
an ascetic monk. He was about six foot four in height and broad in
proportion to his height; he was nearly sixty years old, but he was
still a very powerful man. He was one of the oldest and most successful
chief designers in the country, and the Reindeer was the last of a long
line of lovely aircraft that had come out of his office. He was a very
great artist at the business of designing aeroplanes, and like all great
designers in the aircraft industry, he was a perfect swine to deal with.

There is, of course, a good explanation in psychology for this universal
characteristic of the greatest aeroplane designers. A beautiful aircraft
is the expression of the genius of a great engineer who is also a great
artist. It is impossible for that man to carry out the whole of the
design himself; he works through a design office staffed by a hundred
draughtsmen, or more. A hundred minds, each with their own less
competent ideas, are striving to modify the chief designer's original
conception. If the design is to appear in the end as a great artistic
unity, the chief designer must be a man of immensely powerful will,
capable of imposing his idea and his way of doing things on each of his
hundred draughtsmen, so that each one of them is too terrified to insert
any of his own ideas. If the chief designer has not got this personality
and strength of will, his original conception will be distorted in the
design office and will appear as just another, not-so-good aeroplane. He
will not then be ranked as a good chief designer.

All really first-class chief designers, for this reason, are both
artists, engineers, and men of a powerful and an intolerant temper,
quick to resist the least modification of their plans, energetic in
fighting the least infringement upon what they regard as their own
sphere of action. If they were not so, they could not produce good
aeroplanes. For the Government official who detects an error in their
work the path is not made easy, and of all men in the aircraft industry
the most dangerous to cross was E. P. Prendergast. He was deeply
religious in a narrow, Calvinistic way. He could be in turn a most
courteous and charming host, a sympathetic and an understanding
employer, and a hot-tempered fiend capable of making himself physically
sick with his own passion, so that he would stalk out of a conference
of bitter, angry words, and retire to the toilet and vomit, and go home
to bed, and return to his office three days later, white and shaken with
the violence of his illness. He was about the greatest engineer in
England at that time and he produced the most lovely and successful
aeroplanes. But he was not an easy man to deal with, E. P. Prendergast.

The Director sent for me again that evening. He had had Ferguson working
all day on the matter; cables had been passing to and fro with Ottawa,
and the Treasury had been persuaded that it was necessary to spend the
dollars. Priority had been allocated for the passage, and it looked as
if Mr. Honey would get off on Sunday.

After all that, I raised the matter of the Rutland Aircraft Company. I
said, "At what stage do you think we ought to get the firm in on this
thing, sir?" I paused, and then I added, "E. P. Prendergast ..."

He glanced at me. "Yes ... Prendergast." He was silent for a minute, and
I knew what he was thinking. If anybody dared to say the Reindeer tail
was not above suspicion and could not produce good evidence for that
assertion, E. P. Prendergast would go up in a sheet of flame. He would
complain to the Minister, as he had done before, that he could not carry
on his work in an atmosphere of petty back-biting and vilification by
minor civil servants. He would offer, in the most dignified way, to give
up his post and go to America if it would assist the Minister in his
direction of the Industry. But if it was the desire of the Minister that
he should continue to design British aircraft, then he must be protected
from the expression of the petty jealousies of petty Government
officials. As I have said, we had had some of this before.

The Director said, "I doubt if Mr. Prendergast would find Honey's
theoretical work very convincing."

"I'm damn sure he wouldn't," I said. "He'd chew him up and spit him out
in no time."

"I don't know that the time is quite ripe to inform the firm," he said
thoughtfully. "After all, there's nothing they can do till it is proved
that fatigue is actually taking place. We ought to have a cable from
Honey in a few days which will indicate what really happened to that
prototype machine. I think that would be the time when we should get the
firm into the matter, when the question of some modification arises."

"I think so, too," I said. "I think it's a bit early yet to worry them."

I told Honey to make preparations for his passage on Sunday, and I put
him into touch with Ferguson, who knew him well, over the matter of his
passport and his money. Then I went home, and that evening over supper I
told Shirley all about it. "He's going to get the charwoman to come and
sleep in the house with Elspeth," I said.

"Oh, Dennis--the poor child! Is that the best he can do?"

"I asked him if he hadn't got a relation who could come in," I said
defensively. "He said he hadn't got one."

She was indignant. "But do you mean to say she's going to be all alone
for a fortnight, except for the charwoman? Dennis, you can't let him go
away like that! He _must_ make some better arrangement for her."

"I can't help it if he goes away and leaves her like that," I said
irritably. "I can't run his life for him. I'm his boss; I'm not a ruddy
welfare worker."

"I know." She was silent for a minute, and then she said, "Perhaps after
he's gone we could go round there and see how she's getting on."

"I think we ought to do that," I agreed. "It's a rotten way to leave a
child, but there doesn't seem to be much else that he can do. And he's
the only man to go to Canada."




3


It was the practice of the Central Air Transport Organisation at that
time to fly the Atlantic by night. The aircraft took off from London
Airport at about eleven o'clock, landed at Gander in Newfoundland to
refuel before dawn, and continued on to arrive at Montreal or New York
about the middle of the morning.

Mr. Honey travelled up to the air terminal at Victoria after supper on
Sunday night. He was tired and confused with the events of the day. He
had had a good deal of trouble in persuading Mrs. Higgs, his charwoman,
to leave her husband and come to sleep in his house; in the end she had
agreed to do it "to oblige" and for ten shillings a night. He had had
little sleep the night before because he had stayed up late making every
possible arrangement he could think of for the comfort and security of
his small daughter while he was away. Although by normal standards he
looked after her very badly, he worked hard to do his best, and he took
his responsibility for her quite seriously. He had had much to do at the
office, too, to secure the smooth progress of his trial by day and night
during his absence. With all these responsibilities he started off upon
his journey tired and a little worried lest he had forgotten something
that he should have done.

At Victoria, however, the C.A.T.O. travel organisation took him in its
arms and wrapped him round as if with cotton-wool. While he was waiting
in a deep armchair in the assembly hall a pretty stewardess brought him
a cup of coffee with a couple of biscuits, and a choice of newspapers to
read; he blinked and thanked her shyly. Presently his name was called
out on a list, and he had to rise and walk a few steps to the
motor-coach, where a rug was wrapped around to preserve him from the
evening chill. He was driven to the airport and passed quickly through
the emigration formalities; then he was ushered down a covered passage
and into an aeroplane before he had even time to look at it. He
probably would not have looked at it in any case, because he was not
much interested in aeroplanes unless they had fatigue trouble.

In the warm, brightly lit cabin of the aircraft he was received by a
tall, dark girl in the uniform of a stewardess, one of two that served
the Reindeer passengers upon their flight. She showed him to his seat
and took his coat and hat from him, and saw that he was comfortably
settled down with magazines within his reach. Then she pulled out the
safety belt from behind the seat and showed him how to clasp it round
his body, talking to him brightly and cheerfully all the time. "It's
only just for taking off and landing that you have to do this," she
said. "Just for the first five minutes. I'll come and tell you when you
can undo it." She adjusted the strap for him with quick, expert hands.
"There--is that quite comfortable?"

He said, "Quite, thank you. You don't have to worry about me--I know
something about all this. I work with aeroplanes."

She smiled. "Are you the gentleman from Farnborough, sir? There was an
expert from Farnborough coming across with us tonight."

He smiled up at her through his thick glasses, that shy, warm smile that
had made me wonder once before. "That's right," he said.

"Oh well, then--you know everything." She smiled down at him with a new
interest, but habit was strong in her and she went on with her patter.
"Captain Samuelson says we've got a very good weather report. You'll see
it will be quite fine half an hour after we get started." She said that
every time and she was always right, because they flew at a high
altitude above the overcast.

She left him, and turned to attend to her other passengers. The aircraft
was to cross with only about fifty per cent of its designed passenger
load so the stewardesses were putting one person only into each of the
double seats; Mr. Honey had room to spread his paper and his briefcase
on the seat beside him. He sat in warm comfort staring round at the
furnishings of the long cabin, exploring the reading-light switch and
the control of his reclining chair. He was impressed with the comfort
and security of everything, as he was meant to be. He had never been in
such a comfortable and well equipped aircraft cabin before, and for the
first time he wondered idly what sort of aeroplane he was sitting in. He
thought that he would ask the nice girl who had buttoned him into his
safety belt, when she came to unbutton him.

He screwed round in his seat to look down the length of the wide cabin
behind him, to the stewardesses' pantry and the toilets and the entrance
door. The other passengers were mostly men, but there were three or four
women. Mr. Honey's eyes rested on a woman travelling alone; he paused,
and stared at her in frank curiosity. She was seated two rows behind
him, on the other side of the aisle. She was a very beautiful woman with
deep auburn hair, carefully made up, wearing a most magnificent mink
fur. In spite of all the trimmings her face remained keen and
intelligent, giving added charm to her great beauty. Mr. Honey knew her
at first glance and his heart rose in sudden emotion, and he felt a
tightening in his throat and tears welling up behind his eyes. She was
Monica Teasdale.

When Honey had married one of the girl clerks in the Airworthiness
Section back in 1934, he had married a girl as unsophisticated as he
was. They were a very simple couple: they liked going for long hikes on
Sundays with rucksacks on their backs; they liked amateur photography,
and they did a bit of Morris dancing, too, with flying ribbons and
little bells that jangled at the knee. They went a good deal to the
movies but they were discriminating picturegoers; if they didn't like
the film they would walk out of it, preferring to lose their money than
to sit through an unworthy show. They never walked out of anything with
Monica Teasdale in it.

They loved Monica Teasdale with all the enthusiasm of very simple
people; throughout their life together they did not miss one of her
films. If they had been less inhibited they might have written to her
to tell their admiration of her work; they talked of doing so a number
of times, but when they came to frame the words upon paper once it
seemed too stupid, and they never wrote. They did not do that, but they
saw all of her pictures, and they remembered them, and could discuss the
details of the story with each other years afterwards. That went on from
the day that they became engaged till Mary Honey was killed in the year
1944. That finished it abruptly; since that time Mr. Honey had not been
inside a picture house.

Monica Teasdale was for Mr. Honey part of his lost life, a part of the
simple pleasures and enthusiasms he had shared with his young wife. She
was inextricably associated in his mind with Mary Honey. As he stared at
her across the aisle in the warm, bright cabin of the aircraft the tears
welled up in his weak eyes behind the thick glasses of his spectacles;
he had to turn away and blow his nose and take off his spectacles and
polish them. The memory of his dead love was very vivid with him at that
moment. He could see her sitting by the fire upon the rug one evening
with a cup of cocoa in her hand, when they had just come in from seeing
Monica Teasdale in _Temptation_. He could see her expression as she had
looked up at him. "Theo, darling--would you think it stupid if we went
to see that one again? Before it comes off?"

He stared at the back of the seat in front of him, a worn, tired little
man, wiping his glasses.

Behind him the door closed; the chief steward passed by him on his way
to the flight deck, a sheaf of papers in his hand and carrying a black
briefcase. The forward door closed behind him and the engines started
one by one, deep, reassuring rumbles faintly heard as though from a
great distance. Presently the cabin stirred beneath him. Mr. Honey
looked out of the window and saw the lights of the airport buildings
pass him by as the aircraft moved down the ring road to the runway's
end.

He never felt the machine leave the ground. At the runway's end she
turned across the wind and cleared engines one by one, then before Mr.
Honey realised what was happening the runway lights were sliding past
his window in acceleration and presently they fell away below. It was
the first time he had ever travelled in an aeroplane with modern
soundproofing and it took him by surprise, because he had expected to be
warned for the take-off by a great burst of noise. But there was no such
roar, and before he realised quite what was happening the airport was
below him and behind. Then there was nothing to be seen out of his
window but a blackness that reflected his own face and everything in the
brightly lit cabin.

He leaned back in his seat and relaxed, savouring the comfort. Presently
the stewardess who was attending to the passengers at his end of the
cabin came up the aisle, stopping by each passenger and saying a few
words, helping to tuck away the safety belt, taking orders for meals
upon a little pad. She came to Mr. Honey presently, and said, "I'm sure
you'd like a little supper before settling down, sir. What can I get
you?" She told him what he could have.

He ordered a cup of coffee and a plate of sandwiches; she noted it. And
then he said, "I say, is that Monica Teasdale sitting over there?"

The girl nodded. "That's right. She came over about a fortnight ago.
Quite a number of film actors and actresses travel with us--American as
well as British. She always travels this way."

He said in wonder, "She looks just like she does in her pictures,
doesn't she?"

"I know. But she looks old when you see her close up, in the early
morning." The stewardess laughed, and Mr. Honey laughed with her. "But
she's ever so nice."

"One more thing," Mr. Honey asked. "What sort of aeroplane is this?"

The girl said, "This is one of the latest, sir--what they call the
Reindeer type. That isn't what we call them on the line, of course; this
one is called Redgauntlet. But it's the Reindeer type, made by the
Rutland Aircraft Company. It's the very latest thing--we've only had
them in service for a few weeks." She broke off, smiling. "I was
forgetting, sir. You must know all about them."

He said, "Oh, this is a Reindeer, is it?" He was not in the least
perturbed, because he had complete confidence in the check that I was
keeping on the flying time that all the Reindeers had done, but he
looked about him with new interest. "I must say it's very comfortable,"
he said.

The stewardess said, "I think it's lovely. I've only just come on to
Reindeers; this is my first trip in one. I was working in Eagles up till
last week. They're very nice, of course, but this is the most modern
plane there is. You really must come down and see the galley later on,
sir--it's a perfect dream. We've got everything we want, and a telephone
to the flight deck. And plenty of room to work."

She went away, and presently she came back with his coffee and
sandwiches. Later she came and took away the tray, and asked him if he
wanted to sleep. Although he had had a long and tiring day, Mr. Honey
was not ready for sleep; she adjusted the little reading-light for him,
and showed him the switch. "We shall be turning off the main lights in a
minute," she said. "If you feel sleepy, here's the switch for this one."

He asked, "What time do we land?"

"About seven o'clock of our time, at Gander. That's before dawn, on
account of the change of time."

The lights went down, and Mr. Honey sat on, reading his magazine in a
little pool of light. He looked round once or twice at Monica Teasdale
but she had soon stopped reading and turned out her light, and now she
lay resting or sleeping in her reclining chair, in the half darkness.
Mr. Honey never read a magazine in normal times, but these times were
not normal; the novelty of his experiences had taken him out of his
mental groove, and he found novelty in the little love stories and in
the advertisements about unpleasant breath.

At about two o'clock in the morning the second pilot, a cheerful young
man called Dobson, came down into the cabin and walked aft in the dim
light, and went to the galley, where he stood drinking coffee and
chatting to the stewardesses for ten minutes. Then he said:

"Which is the boffin?"

They laughed. "What's a boffin?"

"The man from Farnborough. Everybody calls them boffins. Didn't you
know?"

"No. Why are they called that?"

"I dunno. Because they behave like boffins, I suppose. Which of you is
looking after him?"

"I am," said Miss Corder. "His name is Mr. Honey."

"The little half-pint size, with thick glasses?"

She nodded. "Sitting on the starboard side, near the front."

"I knew it. I knew that was the boffin when I saw him. You can't mistake
them."

"What about him?" asked Miss Corder. The joke was over, so far as she
was concerned.

Dobson said, "The captain sent me down to offer to show him the upper
deck. Is he awake?"

She glanced down the aisle. "I see his light's on still. Will you take
him now, if he wants to go?"

He nodded. "Get it over."

"I'll ask him." She walked down the aisle softly, with Dobson following
behind her. "Mr. Honey," she said. "Captain Samuelson has asked if you
would care to see the upper deck--the pilot's cockpit, and the
navigation, and so on. Mr. Dobson, here, could take you now, if you feel
like it. Or would you rather go after Gander, on the run to Montreal?"

Mr. Honey thought for a moment. He had no real interest in flying,
though in the course of his work at the R.A.E. he had picked up a fairly
comprehensive knowledge of an aeroplane's controls. If it had been that
alone, he would not have bothered to leave his seat, unless from a sense
of duty or politeness. He was, however, genuinely interested in the
navigation. His investigations in connection with the Pyramid had led
him to a study of chart projections, and he was glad of the opportunity
to examine the charts prepared especially for navigation over the
Atlantic. It was unlikely that the charts used for the flight overland
from Gander would show many novel features. "That's very kind of the
captain," he said. "I think I'd rather go now."

The stewardess introduced him to the first officer, and with Dobson he
went forward through the door and up the narrow duralumin stair that led
to the flight deck. He found himself standing in a fairly spacious area,
well lit, with windows showing the black night outside. An engineer was
seated at a desk garnished with levers, before an instrument board a
yard square that was completely filled with black-faced dials. A
wireless operator was seated at his instruments; to one side of him the
green trace of radar showed upon its screen. Behind him was the
navigator's desk, and beyond that again the two pilots' seats with the
flying controls, and the windscreen that showed nothing but the black
night. A man of about fifty, Captain Samuelson, sat in the port seat,
but his hands were not on the controls, which made tiny movements now
and then upon their own. It was very peaceful up on the flight deck.

Mr. Honey asked, "What altitude are we flying at?"

Dobson said, "About eighteen thousand feet." He glanced at the sensitive
altimeter above the navigating table. "Eighteen thousand five hundred.
Of course, we're pressurised, you know. The pressure in here corresponds
to about seven thousand feet."

The sense of solidity and security impressed Mr. Honey very much;
nothing, it seemed, could ever go wrong in a thing like this. "This is a
Reindeer, isn't it?" he asked.

"That's right."

"How do you like it?"

"Oh, it's a lovely job. I've been in this one for about six months, and
I never want to go back on to anything else. As a matter of fact, this
is our first trip across the Atlantic--the North Atlantic, that is.
We've been operating down to Buenos Aires on loan to Anglo-Brazil Air
Services for a tryout, but this is our proper route." He turned to the
chart table. "This is about where we are now." He indicated on the
chart. "Matter of fact, I have to keep on looking at it myself--it's
extraordinary how one can get rusty. On the other route I hardly ever
looked at the chart, we went backwards and forwards so often."

Mr. Honey was not interested in that gossip; he was only interested in
the navigation. His eyes were on the chart: not only was the projection
a new one to him, but it was crossed by a family of cycloidal lines each
with a Greek letter to identify it, most intriguing. He began to ask a
lot of questions about the methods of navigation; as celestial
observations and radio beams and bearings were inextricably mixed up
with the chart work, he had a grand time, and Dobson had to think very
hard indeed to answer some of the questions Honey fired at him. The
second pilot was not to know that Honey had gained much of his
information upon chart projections as a by-product of his Pyramid
research. At last they left the chart table, and went to the cockpit,
where the controls were explained to Mr. Honey. He was familiar with the
basic aeroplane controls, of course, but the undercarriage and flap
controls were new to him, and were explained to him in detail.

From the cockpit they went to the wireless and the radar, from the radar
to the engine panel. The engineer explained his intricacies, and then
went on to answer a few questions about the engines. "Oh, they're very
good," he said. "We never get much trouble with engines nowadays, you
know." Honey asked how often they did a top overhaul. "Never do top
overhauls," the man said. "Not in the nacelles, that is. Take 'em out
and change them every six hundred hours. Six hundred hours they
run--then they get taken out and overhauled in the shop. Complete
overhaul, that is. This is the third lot of engines, the ones in her
now. We did the change last month. Didn't take long--about three days.
They should be able to do it in less time than that."

Mr. Honey stared at him through his thick glasses; something within his
body seemed to have turned over. "Do you mean you've already had two
sets of engines, and they've each done six hundred hours?"

"That's right," the man said. "Six hundred hours, they do. Then they get
a complete overhaul--put another set in."

He licked his lips, aghast. "How many hours has the airframe done,
then?"

"Airframe? Fourteen or fifteen hundred, I suppose."

Mr. Honey blinked at him dumbly. "Let you know exactly if you're
interested." He reached for a pile of blue-jacketed log-books in a rack
and picked out one, and turned the pages. "Here we are. 1,422 hours, up
to the time when we took off this evening."

"Oh...."

For a minute Mr. Honey stood confused. Environment has its effect on
everybody, and for a time it had a numbing effect on him, preventing him
from thinking clearly. He was moving in two worlds. Here in the aircraft
everything was firm and steady and secure; the even tremor of the
engines, the faintly heard rush of air over the outer skin, these bred
confidence; there was nothing insecure about their passage. It needed a
strong mental effort to force his mind back to the old balloon shed at
Farnborough and to his untidy little office where one calculated over
months or even years to estimate when something would break, where one
set up a test to break it and confirm the calculations, where one
actually saw it crumple and sag down towards the concrete floor. It
needed mental effort to recall that at this moment the test upon the
Reindeer tail was going on, that he had estimated that that tail upon
the testing gantry would collapse about the time that this machine had
flown. It needed mental effort to identify the photographs that he had
seen of the first Reindeer, split asunder and burned out beneath that
cliff in Labrador, with this firm, lovely thing that he was standing in.

He turned to Dobson. "Please," he said, "would you come over here a
minute?"

He drew him over to the navigating table, and made him bend over it so
that their conversation was private. "What is it?" Dobson asked.

Mr. Honey moistened his lips, and said, "I don't know how to put this to
you, but this aircraft is in a very dangerous condition. It's got a very
serious fatigue trouble in the tailplane. You must turn back to England
at once." He repeated earnestly, with a rising inflection in his voice,
"At once."

The second pilot stared at him. "Fatigue trouble? What's that? We can't
go back to England, you know."

"But you must." His voice rose to a little nervous squeak. "I tell you,
this is very serious indeed. This aeroplane should not be flying at all.
The tail is liable to fail at any moment--the front spar may fail.
You've got a positive download on the tail in this condition. You'll go
into a dive, quite suddenly, and there'll be no control to get you out.
I tell you, you must turn back at once. Turn back and land at the first
aerodrome in Ireland." The young man stared at him in growing tolerance
and amusement. "If you stop the inboard engines and reduce the
revolutions on the middle ones, right down to a minimum, there's just a
chance that we may get back safely."

"Take it easy," Mr. Dobson said. "Whatever are you talking about? You
must have heard of an airworthiness certificate, surely? This aircraft's
all okay. I'll show you the daily inspection note, if you like."

"This is something quite new," said Mr. Honey. "No Reindeer is allowed
to fly more than seven hundred hours until this question of the tail has
been cleared up. And this one has flown double that, and that's right on
the estimated time for failure. I assure you, something can happen any
moment now. You really must turn back."

"What's all this about a Reindeer not being allowed to do more than
seven hundred hours?"

"It's true. They've all got to be grounded when they reach that time."

Dobson stared at him; impatience and hostility were beginning to appear.
"First I've heard of it." He beckoned to the engineer, who left his
seat and came to them. "Cousins, have you heard anything about Reindeers
being grounded after seven hundred hours?"

"Not a thing," the engineer said in wonder. "I never heard of that. Who
says so?"

"Chap from Farnborough," Dobson said. He had forgotten Mr. Honey's name.

"That's not right," the engineer said scornfully. "What do you think the
Air Registration Board would have been doing?" He turned to Mr. Honey.
"Who told you that?"

"It's true," he said desperately. "My chief, the head of my department,
Dr. Scott--he was arranging all about it." They stared at him in utter
disbelief. "Please--you must pay attention to this. Stop the inboard
engines and turn back. If you stop the inboard engines it will break up
the harmonic and modify the effective frequency, and the amplitude will
be less, too."

The engineer turned to Dobson and said, "What on earth is he talking
about?"

The second pilot said quietly, "All right, Cousins--I'll handle this.
I'll have a word with the captain." The engineer went back to his seat,
but kept a wary eye on Mr. Honey. Eccentric passengers with odd ideas
about the safety of the aircraft are never very welcome on the flight
deck of an airliner on passage.

Mr. Honey caught the last words. "Please do that," he said. "I must have
a talk with the captain. It's very serious indeed, really it is. We must
turn back at once."

Dobson crossed to where Captain Samuelson was sitting at the controls,
and bent beside him. "That passenger from Farnborough that you asked me
to show round is up here now, sir. He's making a good deal of trouble."

From the navigating desk Mr. Honey could see them talking quietly
together; he saw the captain turn in his seat to look at him. He stood
at the desk waiting for them. His agitation was subsiding; already he
was becoming aware that he had not got it in him to make these men
believe that what he said was true. He had had so much of this in the
past; he was accustomed to being right and being disbelieved on vital
issues. It was what happened to him; other people could put across their
convictions and win credence, but he had never been able to do that. Now
it was happening again, probably for the last time. In the black night
the aircraft moved on quietly across the sky above the cloud carpet,
seen faintly in the starlight far below.

Captain Samuelson got out of his seat; the second pilot slipped into it,
and sat at the controls. Samuelson crossed the floor to Honey, standing
by the desk. He was a small, sandy-haired man of about fifty, rather
fat; he had been sitting in the pilot's seat of airliners for over
twenty years.

He introduced himself to Mr. Honey, and said, "I understand from Dobson
that you're not quite happy about something, Mr. Honey."

He stood in silence while Honey poured out his tale, nodding every now
and then. Honey was more collected now and told his story better, and in
Samuelson he had an older and a more experienced man to talk to. The
Senior Captain had heard of fatigue troubles once or twice, and he even
knew something of the eccentricities of scientists. He knew something of
the routine of the Ministry of Supply, and a good deal about the routine
of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Presently he started asking
questions, and they were informed and penetrating questions. He very
soon uncovered the fact that officially there was nothing wrong whatever
with the Reindeer aircraft, that there was no ban upon its operation
after seven hundred hours, and that there was no real evidence that the
tailplane was subject to fatigue trouble at all.

Mr. Honey said miserably at last, "I've got to tell you what I know. If
you don't turn back to England now and do what I say about the engines,
we'll all probably be killed."

Samuelson stood deep in thought. Once or twice before in his career he
had had over-excited passengers to deal with, who had required restraint
during a flight; once he had had an attempted suicide, a woman who had
been found struggling to open the main entrance door during the flight.
He was not antagonistic, but he could not discount the likelihood that
the excitement of the journey might have inflamed the fixed ideas of a
man who, from his appearance, might well be a little bit unbalanced. He
was, however, disposed to pay attention carefully to everything that Mr.
Honey said, and for a special reason that had not been spoken of between
them. Captain Samuelson had known Captain Ward, the pilot of the
Reindeer that had crashed in Labrador, very well indeed.

Samuelson and Bill Ward had both been short-service officers in the
Royal Air Force in 1925; Samuelson had flown Bristol Fighters in Iraq
and Ward had flown Sopwith Snipes in India. They had met as civil pilots
in an air circus in 1927; they had met again as minor airline pilots in
Canada in 1928. In 1932 they had come together once more, as pilots on
the Hillman airline operating out of Romford in Essex; shortly after
that both had joined Imperial Airways. From that time on they had met
frequently, up till the time when Ward had received command of the first
prototype Reindeer. Then Ward had been killed.

The accident report, when it came out, was a great shock to Samuelson;
he disbelieved it utterly. He had known Ward as a fellow pilot for more
than twenty years. It was incredible to him that Ward should have done
what the report said he did, that he should have descended through the
overcast to zero altitude above the hills of Labrador to check up his
position by a sight of the ground. There were things a Senior Captain of
C.A.T.O. just did not do, and that was one of them. Samuelson did not
know what had happened to Bill Ward, but he did know one thing very
certainly. The accident report was absolutely and completely wrong.

He had been flying for more than twenty-five years. Deep in his mind lay
the feeling that there was something not right with the Reindeer; that
this beautiful and efficient aircraft had a weakness that would
presently show up. Some unknown Gremlin in it had leaped out upon Bill
Ward suddenly, so suddenly that he had been unable to send word upon the
radio, and it had killed him, and thirty other people with him. His
instinct, bred of nearly twenty thousand hours in the air, told him that
one day that thing would happen again.

He glanced at Mr. Honey thoughtfully. He saw the weak eyes behind the
thick glasses, the unimpressive figure, the shabby clothes, the nervous
movements of the hands, the quivering wet lips. He thought, rather
sadly, that he could not change his flight plan upon this man's word
alone. Mr. Honey looked a crank, and what he said was unsubstantiated by
any evidence at all. The captain decided, heavily, he must go on. If
Honey turned out to be right, well, that was just too bad.

He said, "Look, Mr. Honey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to shut down
the inboard engines as you say, and I can throttle down the middle ones
to nineteen hundred revs. That drops our speed by fifty miles an hour
and makes us nearly two hours late at Gander. I'll do that if you think
it's the right thing to do. But I'm not going to turn back."

"You're taking a great risk if you go on. You ought to turn back now--at
once--and land in Ireland," said Mr. Honey.

"That's what you think," the captain said quietly. "But this decision
rests with me, and we're going on."

Mr. Honey met his eyes, and that shy, warm smile spread over his face,
surprising to Samuelson as it had been to me. "Well, let's wish
ourselves luck," he said.

At that moment, Samuelson very nearly became convinced. It was on the
tip of his tongue to say they would turn back, but one could not chop
and change. One had to take a line and stick to it. He turned to the
flight engineer and gave him a few orders; then he crossed to the
pilot's seat and spoke for a minute to Dobson. The second pilot got out
of the seat and Samuelson slipped back into it, knocked out the
automatic pilot and flew the aircraft manually while the inboard engines
died and the note changed. Dobson crossed to Mr. Honey at the navigating
table.

"I'll take you back to the saloon," he said. As they left the flight
deck Samuelson motioned to the radio operator, demanding a signal pad.

In the saloon Dobson showed Honey to his seat with studied courtesy;
then he went on down the cabin to the galley at the rear end. The tall
dark stewardess was there, the one who was looking after Mr. Honey.

He greeted her with a grin. "Fun and games," he said. "The boffin's
going mad."

Miss Corder stared at him. "What _do_ you mean?"

"He's absolutely crackers. Says the tail's going to fall off."

She asked quietly, "Is it?"

"No, of course it's not. It's the altitude or something, even
pressurised down like this. The captain wants him specially looked
after--he's a bit excited. Got any bromide with your medicines?"

She turned to the medicine chest and pulled out a drawer, and examined
two or three little flasks of tablets. "I've got these."

He took the flask from her and read the label. "That looks all right,"
he said. "Give him two or three of these if he gets restless. But he's
quiet enough now; I don't think he'll make any trouble. Give us a ring
through if he does, and one or other of us'll come down."

She nodded. "What does he think is going to happen?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Says the tail's due to fall off after this
number of hours. Says we ought to turn back and land in Ireland. It's
all sheer nonsense, something he's made up. It really is a most
fantastic place, that Farnborough. There's not a whisper of truth in
it."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

He laughed. "Do you think the Inspection would have let this aircraft
fly if there was any danger of that sort of thing? Be your age."

She nodded slowly. "That's right, of course. I suppose he's been
overworking or something."

"Overdrinking. Someone's given him an egg-cup full of ginger cordial."

She said, "He's a nice little man." Above her head the telephone buzzer
from the flight deck rang; she lifted the hand microphone. "Yes," she
said, "he's here. I'll ask him to come up at once."

She turned to Dobson. "Captain wants you on the flight deck."

"Okay. I like your idea of a nice little man. Ruddy little squirt, I
call him, coming up with a tale like this and frightening us all into a
fit." He turned away, and moved forward up the aisle in the soft, dimmed
lights of the quiet cabin, past the sleeping passengers stretched in
their reclining seats. She watched him till he passed through the door
at the forward end; then she moved up the aisle herself and stopped by
Mr. Honey. He was sitting upright in his seat, his hands playing
nervously with the fringe of his overcoat upon his lap.

She said, "Can I get you a hot drink, sir? We've got plenty of milk;
would you like a cup of Ovaltine and a few biscuits?"

He said nervously, "Oh no, thank you. I don't want anything."

She said gently, "Would you rather have some soup, or a whisky and soda?
It's better to have something, when you can't sleep."

He turned to her, roused from his obsession. Airline stewardesses are
not chosen for their repellent qualities, and Miss Corder was a very
charming girl. "It's awfully kind of you," he said. "I'll be all right.
It's--it's just a bit worrying, that's all."

"Let me make you a hot milk drink," she said. "It's very good when
you've got something on your mind. We've got Horlicks if you'd rather
have that than Ovaltine."

It was years since any woman had spoken in that way to Mr. Honey; he was
irresistibly reminded of his dead wife, and the tears welled up behind
his eyes. It might have been Mary speaking to him. "All right," he said
thickly. "I'd like Ovaltine."

She went away to get it, and a minute or two later the door at the
forward end opened, and Captain Samuelson came into the cabin. He moved
down the aisle, nodding and smiling at Mr. Honey as he passed. He went
on past the galley, past the toilets, and opened a door in the rear wall
and went through the aft luggage bay to the end of the pressurised cabin
and the concave dome of the rear wall. There was a perspex window in the
dome and a switch that turned on an electric light for the inspection of
the tailplane and the elevator mechanism in the space behind. He stood
peering through the perspex, looking for trouble.

Mr. Honey saw him go through into the luggage bay towards the tail, and
smiled, a little bitterly. He got out of his seat and followed him,
passing Miss Corder as she tended a saucepan of hot milk over the
electric stove. She turned, and saw him go through into the luggage bay,
following the captain; she said, "Oh, damn!" and turned off the current
of the hot plate, and went after him. It was one of her jobs to keep the
passengers from wandering about the aircraft.

In the luggage bay Mr. Honey came up behind Samuelson. "It's no good
looking at it," he said a little bitterly. "You won't find anything
wrong." Behind him the stewardess came up, but seeing that he was
talking to the captain and that Samuelson was attending to what was
being said, she did not intervene.

"If what you say is right, there might be some preliminary sign,"
Samuelson said. "But there's nothing to be seen at all. No paint
cracking, or anything. It's all perfectly all right. Have a look for
yourself."

"I don't need to," Mr. Honey said. "The spar flanges are perfectly all
right now, or we shouldn't be here. In half a minute it may be a very
different story. When it happens, it happens as suddenly as that."
Captain Samuelson's brows wrinkled in a frown. "If you cut a section of
the front spar top flanges now and etched it for a microscopical
examination, ten to one you'd find the structure of the metal absolutely
normal. But all the same, it may be due for failure in ten minutes.
There's nothing to be seen in the appearance of it that will tell you
anything."

Samuelson stood in silence for a moment, cursing his own irresolution.
This little insignificant man was getting terribly plausible. He had
sent a radio signal to his Flight Control reporting briefly what Honey
had said and stating his decision to go on; the signal had been
acknowledged but not answered. He could hardly expect such guidance from
his Flight Control in view of the difficulty of the technical points
that were involved and the fact that it was then the middle of the night
when all right-minded technicians would be in bed and sound asleep. The
most that he could hope for would be guidance when they got to Gander,
by which time it would be nine o'clock in the morning in England.

"I've shut down the inboard engines," he said at last.

"That should help it," Mr. Honey said. "But you ought to go back while
there's time. Really, you should."

Samuelson smiled brightly and confidently, more for the benefit of the
stewardess than for Mr. Honey. "Oh, I don't think so," he remarked. "I
think we're quite all right."

He ushered Mr. Honey forward out of the luggage bay, and went forward up
the aisle himself to the flight deck. Mr. Honey stayed at the aft end of
the cabin with Miss Corder, scrutinising the structure of the fuselage
so far as could be seen by reason of the cabin furnishings; he opened
the doors of the toilets and investigated the methods of staying the
bulkheads, peering at everything through his thick glasses.

He was behaving very oddly, Miss Corder decided. She came to him, and
said, "I should go back to your seat, sir. I'll bring you the Ovaltine
in a few minutes."

"I'll go in just one moment," he said meekly. "Let me have a look at
your stove first." Thinking to humour him she showed him into the galley
and began to explain the operation of the various switches and ovens to
him, but she found he was not interested in that at all. He examined
very carefully the methods of fixing the unit to the floor and the
fuselage side; then he was through, and went back to his seat. She
brought him a tray with his Ovaltine and biscuits a few minutes later,
full of a queer, detached pity for him in his self-induced trouble. He
seemed so very helpless.

She said quietly, "I've brought you your Ovaltine, Mr. Honey. Do you
like these sweet biscuits? I've got some oatmeal ones if you'd rather
have those."

He said quickly, "Oh, thank you so much. These will do splendidly."

She smiled down at him. "Would you like a little drop of rum in the
Ovaltine, to help you sleep?"

"Oh no, thank you. I never take spirits."

"All right. Drink it while it's hot. I'll come back presently and take
the tray."

The Reindeer moved on steadily across the starlit sky, alone in space
above the overcast seen dimly far below, shrouding the blank, empty
wastes of sea. In the quiet cabin Mr. Honey sat sipping his Ovaltine,
gradually relaxing with the warmth and comfort of the drink. His hands
ceased to fiddle nervously, the tight set muscles round about his mouth
relaxed, and the feeling of a tight band round his forehead eased a
little. He no longer sat tense waiting for the first movement of the
aircraft that would herald the steep dive to their destruction; his ears
were no longer strained to hear the first crack from the tail that would
be the beginning of the sequence.

It now seemed to him that he could take things as they came. There were
six hours more at least to go before they came to Gander; it seemed to
him most probable that they would all be dead before that time was up.
The thought did not now appal him as it had. Death came to everybody in
its time; it had come to Mary earlier than they had dreamed it could. If
now it came to him, well, that was just one of those things; he had a
simple faith that somewhere, somehow, after death he would catch up with
Mary once again, and they would be together.

He was saddened and distressed for Elspeth. But Elspeth was twelve
years old; her character was formed for good or ill, it would not alter
her so much if now he had to go. Materially he knew that she would be
looked after by the Ministry; she would get as good an education as if
he had lived. I am almost ashamed to record that for all the little
homely pleasures that make the life of a child happy, he put his trust
in Shirley and myself. I do not think he quite thought that we should
adopt his daughter, but he did think very certainly that we should never
let her suffer the lack of a home life; he thought that when he caught
up with his Mary he could tell her that their daughter would be happy. I
hope we should have lived up to his expectation of us. I don't know.

Miss Corder came to take away his tray. She bent to him, and asked,
"Would you like another cup? I've got some more hot milk all ready, if
you'd like it."

He said, "No, I've done excellently, thank you." He blinked up at her
through the thick glasses. "It's been terribly kind of you to take all
this trouble."

She smiled at him, "Oh no, sir. I'm so sorry you've got all this worry
on your shoulders."

This dark, kind girl would go too, when it happened. "Are you married?"
he enquired.

She stared at him in wonder; surely he wasn't one of those? She laughed.
"Me, married?" she said. "No."

"That's a good thing," he said quietly. "Nor am I. There won't be a lot
of trouble over us."

The meaning of his words got through to her in a short pause. She
hesitated for an instant, not knowing how to take it. She reached for a
rug. "Let me put your chair back for you and put this over you," she
said. "Then you'll probably get a little sleep."

She helped him to arrange his chair and tucked the rug around him; then
she took the tray and went back to the galley. A quarter of an hour
later she said to the other stewardess, "I'm going up to the flight
deck. Keep an eye on No. 11 for me, will you--Mr. Honey. I think he's
asleep."

"That's the boffin? Is he liable to cut his throat, or anything?"

Miss Corder said, "No, he's not. He's just a little, worried man, that's
all. I'll be back in a few minutes. I just want to tell Dobson how he's
going on."

Mr. Honey lay relaxed in his reclining chair. He did not want to sleep;
so little time was left he had no use for that. His mind drifted to the
accident as it would happen, objective and dispassionate. He began to
calculate in his head, as he had calculated all his working life.

The download on the tail in this condition he knew to be about 6,000
lbs. Assuming half of the tail failed only, leaving the rest of the
plane intact, that meant a nose-down pitching moment of, say, 300,000
lbs. feet. He did not know the power of the one remaining elevator, but
he guessed it might provide one half of that. The balance of the
nose-down moment would be satisfied by an increase of speed, by diving
till the forces came in equilibrium. He figured for a time, and came to
the conclusion that a diving speed of 420 m.p.h., attainable at perhaps
7° of flight path to the horizontal, would be somewhere near it. With
the maximum control that would be left to him, the pilot would not be
able to do better for them than to dive at over four hundred miles an
hour until he hit the sea.

He wondered what would happen when they hit. At that small angle they
might well bounce up again and not plunge straight in, though there
seemed to be a likelihood that the wings would be torn off. They might
bounce once or twice, reducing speed each time. The impacts and
decelerations would be very violent. After that the fuselage might float
for a few moments before sinking; if anybody had survived the crash they
might be able to get out into the sea, to float about in lifebelts till
they died of cold. There was only one chance in a million that there
would be a ship in the vicinity that could help, even if anyone got out.

He put all thought of safety from him; when it happened he would die.
Now that he had become used to the idea he did not mind about that
much; his mind was filled with memories of Mary. His life since Mary
died had not been happy; he had no great ambition to hold on to it. Mary
had gone before him; somehow, somewhere, he would catch up with her
again. Again they would go on hiking on long summer days over the Hog's
Back, drink beer in little pubs together after the day's march, make
love, go Morris dancing together with little bells and ribbons at the
knee, buy a new enlarger and play with it together, go to the pictures
and see all their favourites, David Niven, Monica Teasdale ...

Monica Teasdale ...

He thought ingenuously that it would be something to tell Mary when he
met her, that he had seen Monica Teasdale in the flesh; she would be
thrilled. His young wife was very real to him still. His mind dwelt on
the actress, on her parts that they had seen together in the years gone
by, on the pleasure she had given Mary. And suddenly it seemed to him to
be important that the actress should be saved in the disaster that was
coming to them all. He could not meet his Mary and tell her that he had
neglected to do what was possible for Monica Teasdale, whom she had
loved so well. All his knowledge must be used to save Miss Teasdale's
life, or at any rate to give her a fighting chance of survival. He knew
one place within the aircraft where a passenger could survive the impact
with the water when it came. If then she drowned, well, that was just
too bad, but with his knowledge he could get her through the crash.

He leaned up on one elbow and turned to look across the aisle to where
the actress was reclining. She was not asleep; she was lying there
awake, smoking a cigarette. There was an empty seat beside her.

He turned back his rug and got up, and moved down the aisle to her, and
said, "Please, Miss Teasdale, may I talk to you for a few moments?"

The shadow of a frown crossed her face; one travelled by air to get away
from all that sort of thing. She had been at rest before this uncouth
little man with the weak eyes had come to bother her. Then her
professional charm took over and she withdrew herself within its mantle,
and spoke the phrases she had used so often that they came mechanically.
Half of her, at least, could go on resting while she said, "Why
certainly, I'd be pleased." She spoke with a slight mid-Western accent.

He sat down beside her and plunged straight into his story. "Miss
Teasdale, my name is Honey. I'm a research worker at the R.A.E.--the
Royal Aircraft Establishment--that's the British experimental station
for aeroplanes at Farnborough, you know. I've been doing some
experiments recently on the tailplane of the Reindeer aircraft--that's
this aircraft that we're travelling in now. I'm afraid we're all in
rather a dangerous position."

She said impassively, "Is that so?" She noted his nervous movements, his
excited urgency. It was a nuisance that she had attracted an unbalanced
fan; in her career she had had that before, several times. She lay
listening to him with one part of her mind only, waiting for an
opportunity to be delivered from the nuisance of this wretched little
man, making a soothing comment now and then.

Miss Corder, coming down into the cabin from the flight deck, was
surprised and concerned to see that Mr. Honey's seat was empty. She
spotted him immediately talking to the actress and her lips tightened;
she should have thought of that. Unbalanced people always made for
actresses. As she approached them Miss Teasdale raised her eyebrows
slightly in appeal; the stewardess stopped by the double seat, and to
her horror heard the actress say lazily:

"Mr. Honey, can't I use the Ladies' Toilet? It seems more kind of
suitable."

He said earnestly, "You see, the galley stove is up against the bulkhead
of the other one, and that makes the bulkhead firm----" It was at that
point that Miss Corder touched him on the arm, and said, "Mr. Honey, I'm
sure Miss Teasdale wants to get some sleep. Will you come back to your
own seat?"

He stared up at her, hurt and affronted. "I've been trying ..." He
glanced at the actress; she lay impassive and uninterested, her face a
mask of indifference. "I'm sorry," he said with some dignity. "I was
only trying to help."

"I'm sure you were," Miss Teasdale said. "Some other time, perhaps ..."

Without a word Mr. Honey got up and went back to his seat, his face
crimson. Miss Corder followed him, and tucked the rug around him once
again. "You shouldn't have done that," she said quietly. "You mustn't go
alarming other passengers, Mr. Honey. Will you promise me not to do that
again? Promise to stay quiet in this seat?"

He said bitterly, "If you say so. There's one place in this aircraft
where a human body would be safe in the deceleration of a crash. I was
trying to tell her what to do if things look bad. But if she doesn't
want to know, I can't do more."

The girl said, "If I get you a small pill to help you get some sleep,
will you take it?"

He said, "No, I don't want that."

"Will you promise not to talk to any of the other passengers?"

He knew that she was doing her duty; he knew that she was doing it with
kindness and with tact. He warmed towards her in spite of the role of
prisoner and warder that they were assuming. "All right," he said. "I
won't talk to anyone again." He glanced up at her thoughtfully. "What's
your name?"

She smiled down at him. "Corder," she said. "Marjorie Corder. What do
you want to know that for?" It was her object to make him talk, to get
his mind on something different from the accident he thought was going
to happen.

He said quietly, "You've been very nice to me, Miss Corder. I'd like to
do something for you. Will you listen if I tell you what I was trying to
tell Miss Teasdale?"

She said, "Of course I will. But after that, will you try and get some
sleep?"

He motioned to the empty chair beside him. "Sit down there for a
minute."

She hesitated, and then sat down on the edge of the seat, turned towards
him. "What is it?" she asked.

He said evenly, "I think this aircraft's going to crash in the next hour
or so. You don't, nor does Captain Samuelson, nor anybody here. But I
know more about it than the lot of you, and that is what I think. When
that happens, there may be about three minutes from the time when you
first know that something has gone wrong until the moment that we hit
the sea."

He paused. "We shall most of us be killed," he said quietly. "We shall
die with the deceleration of the crash. There's just one place to go to
where a person could avoid that, and get out unhurt into the sea in a
lifebelt. That doesn't give much chance for living, even then, but it's
a better chance than all the rest of us will have. If I tell you where
to go and what to do, will you do it?"

She said, "Mr. Honey, all this isn't going to happen, really it's not.
But if it did, I've got my jobs to do."

He said, "If I tell you, will you listen?"

She nodded.

He said. "You must go into the Gentlemen's Toilet and sit down on the
floor facing to the tail, with your back against the forward bulkhead
and your head back in contact with the bulkhead, too. I was trying to
tell this to Miss Teasdale, but she wouldn't listen. Get a pad of
something--a towel or a blanket, and put it behind your head. The stove
behind that bulkhead will hold it firm for the instant of the crash, and
your body will be well supported. If you do that, you'll live through
the impact. You must have your lifebelt on. When the machine comes to
rest, before it sinks, pull down the emergency hatch in the toilet roof,
and get out at once. Don't stay to try and help the rest of us, or
you'll be trapped and drown. Get out immediately the motion stops.
There's just a chance you may be picked up when dawn comes."

She stared at him. "Is that what you were trying to tell Miss Teasdale?"

"That's right," he said. "She doesn't want to know. But will you
remember what to do, if what I say is true?"

She said, "I'll remember, Mr. Honey. But I don't say I'll be able to do
it."

"Do your best," he said quietly. "If you get through this and we don't,
get yourself married and bring up a family. I think you'd be good at
that."

She coloured a little, and laughed. "Will you go to sleep now, if I
leave you?"

"No," said Mr. Honey. "But I'll lie down, if you say."

"I do say," she replied. She arranged the rug around him and saw that he
was comfortable; then she turned away behind him down the aisle, her
forehead furrowed deep with thought. For a madman, he was damnably
convincing.

She stopped by the actress and said quietly, "I'm so sorry you were
troubled in that way, Miss Teasdale. It won't happen again."

The woman turned her head, and said, "Don't think of it. Is the little
man nuts?"

"I'm afraid so," said the stewardess. "He seems to have some rather odd
ideas. But he's quite quiet now."

"I'll say he's got some odd ideas," the actress said. "He was trying to
make me go into the Men's Room and sit down on the floor. If that's not
an odd idea, I'd like to hear one."

Miss Corder felt she could not leave the matter in that state. "He's not
as mad as all that," she explained. "He was trying to tell you what you
ought to do if--" she hesitated "--well, if anything should happen to
make you feel that an accident was going to take place. It's probably
true enough that in an accident the safest place would be sitting on the
floor in there with your back against the bulkhead. He was trying to do
his best for you."

Miss Teasdale was more wide awake now. "Well, that was nice of him," she
said. "Who is the little guy anyway--apart from being nuts and apart
from being a fan? Do you know anything about him?"

"Oh yes. He's a scientist from the Royal Aircraft Establishment, at
Farnborough. He's an expert upon aeroplanes."

"Well, what do you know? And he thinks that we're going to have a
crash?"

Miss Corder said, "Oh, nothing like that, Miss Teasdale. It's just that
he's got into rather a nervous state. You mustn't pay any attention to
him. I'm so sorry that he came and troubled you."

The actress stared at her, and then sat up. "He's not the only passenger
that's in a nervous state right now," she said.




4


Miss Corder had a momentary, sickening feeling that the situation
amongst her passengers was getting out of control. She made a valiant
effort to restore it. "There's no need to think of it again, Miss
Teasdale," she said brightly. "Captain Samuelson himself has had a long
talk with this passenger, and I'm afraid there is no doubt that he's a
little bit unbalanced. It's probably the altitude or something. But he's
quite quiet now."

"More than I am," said the actress. She was sitting up and smoothing out
her clothes. "If I'm going to meet my Maker, I won't go with my nylons
down round my ankles. Say, where in heck did my shoes get to? Oh, thanks
a lot." She studied her face in the mirror of her powder compact. "I was
a darned fool not to travel in a U.S. airplane," she observed. "But you
haven't had so many accidents lately, and I thought I'd be safer. That's
how one gets caught."

Marjorie Corder said, "I assure you. Miss Teasdale, there's nothing in
what Mr. Honey says. There's no chance of any accident. Can I get you a
cup of coffee?"

The actress said a little sharply, "Look, this scientist from
Farnborough thinks this airplane's going to crack up pretty soon, and
Captain Samuelson, he thinks it isn't going to crack up. And now you
come along to give the casting vote, and put it with the captain's.
Well, just you run along and get that cup of coffee, and bring it to me
over there. You say his name is Honey? It would be. I'm going visiting
with Mr. Honey; bring my coffee there."

The stewardess said anxiously, "I wouldn't go and talk to him, Miss
Teasdale--really. It'll only excite him again."

"I can handle that, my girl," the actress said. "Just you go right down
and get that coffee."

Miss Corder hesitated, but there was nothing she could do against this
strong-willed woman, twenty years older than herself. She went to get
the coffee.

Miss Teasdale finished her appearance to her satisfaction and got up,
and moved up the quiet aisle of the saloon to Mr. Honey's seat. He was
lying wide awake, in rather bitter reflection. He stirred as she
approached, and looked up in surprise. It was about half-past three in
the morning. The Reindeer was still flying steadily and quietly on
course, above the overcast seen faintly down beneath them in the
starlight.

Miss Teasdale said, "Mr. Honey, do you mind if I sit down here for a
while?" He sat up, blinking at her through his glasses. "I was half
asleep when you were talking just now, and maybe I was just a little bit
rude. I didn't mean to be, but you know how it is."

He said, "Oh, please--don't think of it. Do sit down." He was a little
flustered and confused. He had seen Monica Teasdale so often in the past
upon the screen, had been stirred to deep emotion by her parts so many
times, that he had difficulty now in knowing what to say to her in the
flesh. When he had crossed the aisle to speak to her he had been carried
away by the impulse to do something for the safety of this woman; he
had something definite to tell her. Now he was flustered and nonplussed.

She said, "That's real nice of you." She sat down and turned to him.
"Say, when you started talking about going into the Men's Room, Mr.
Honey, I thought you were plain nuts. But then that stewardess came
along and told me one or two things, and then it seemed to me that maybe
I was nuts myself for having brushed you off. Would you mind starting
off and say your piece again?"

He blinked at her through the thick glasses. This was not the ethereal
girl that he had known upon the screen, the Madonna-like heroine of
_Temptation_. This was someone very different, but someone who was out
to make amends for a discourtesy, someone who was trying to be pleasant.

He said, "I'm sorry--I'm afraid I ought not to have alarmed you, Miss
Teasdale. I was just trying to help."

She nodded slightly. She had had this so often, but more with
adolescents than with grown-up men. Fans went to every kind of trouble
to speak to her, but when she stopped and met them half-way they could
only stammer platitudes, with nothing to say, so that she had to help
them out of their embarrassment. She set herself to help out Mr. Honey,
and she said,

"The stewardess, she told me that you work at airplane research, Mr.
Honey? Is that the sort of work they do at Langley Field?"

He turned to her, pleased and surprised. "Not quite," he said. "My work
is on structures, more like what they do at Wright Field. We've got the
whole of that work concentrated with the flying experimental side, at
Farnborough. That's about forty miles south-west of London."

She said, "That must be interesting kind of work." It was a part of her
technique, this art of making men talk about themselves.

He said, "Well, yes, it is. It's rather lengthy, sometimes--you go on
for a long time at a thing without seeing any results." He smiled at
her, that shy, revealing smile that he pulled out so unexpectedly from
time to time.

"You must feel that it's something well worth doing, though," she said.

"Well, yes--it is. There was the wing flutter on the Monsoon in the
war." He started in to tell her all about the research he had carried
out into the wing flutter, and the effect of moving the mass of the guns
and ammunition boxes six inches farther back upon the chord of the wing.
From that she had little difficulty in steering him on to the Reindeer
tail.

When Miss Corder came back with the coffee she found them deep in
conversation, with Mr. Honey talking freely to the actress. She was
divided in her feelings over this; it was her duty to prevent the spread
of alarm from one nervous passenger amongst the rest, but at the same
time she had been troubled over Mr. Honey. It was pleasant to see him
animated and cheerful. She was grateful to the actress that she had done
that for him. She went to get another cup of coffee for the little man.

Within a quarter of an hour Miss Teasdale knew a good deal more about
the Reindeer tail than Captain Samuelson. She knew more of the
background of the story; she knew something about Elspeth, and a little
about Shirley, and a good deal about me, as Mr. Honey's boss. She knew
the way the matter had arisen, the urgency with which I regarded it, the
sacrifice that Honey had made in leaving his small daughter to the
uncertain mercies of a charwoman. Captain Samuelson knew the bald facts
of the matter; he knew nothing of the background of those facts.

Miss Teasdale said, "That's very, very interesting, Mr. Honey. Tell me,
have I got this right? You reckon that the stabiliser of this airplane
that we're sitting in is kind of dying of old age?"

He blinked at her. "Well, yes. Yes. I think that's a very good way to
put it. It's not very old, as structures go, but--yes, it's dying of old
age. In fact, it must be just about dead by now."

"And when it dies it breaks? What happens--does it come right off the
fuselage, so that we'd have no tail at all?"

"I think half would fail first. One side--yes, I think it would come
off. I think it did in the first one, the one that fell in Labrador."

She stared down the quiet aisle of the cabin. "You never think, somehow,
this sort of thing can ever happen to you," she said.

"It may not happen," Mr. Honey said. "I wasn't able to convince the
captain, or to make him land in Ireland. But he did agree to stop the
inboard engines. That helps us, certainly."

She thought for a minute. "How much flying time did you say the one that
fell in Labrador had done?"

"1,393 hours."

"And this plane we're riding in--how long has that done up till now?"

"About 1,426 hours. I calculated that the tail would fail about 1,440,
but it's not very easy to forecast as accurately as all that. The first
one went at 1,393 hours; I'm afraid the only thing that one can say is
that this one might go at any time. Dr. Scott intended that no Reindeer
should fly over 700 hours until this thing had been thrashed out. But
this one's slipped through, somehow."

She said, "You told the captain all this, did you?"

He nodded. "There's no real evidence yet that the captain could act on,
I suppose. We don't _know_ yet that the one in Labrador did crash for
that reason. That's what I'm going out to Ottawa for now. But it looks
as if I may not get to Ottawa. They may have to send out someone else."

She said, "Looks like Mossy Bauer'll have to look around for a new star
for the new picture, too."

He turned to her. "You mustn't think of this as certain," he said. "We
may quite well get safely to Gander. I--I just don't know. I only know
that this machine is liable to accident at any moment now. But it might
go on like this for another hundred hours, or even longer."

She nodded. "Say, would it help any if I were to have a talk with
Captain Samuelson? I mean, there's all these other people to consider."
She indicated the sleeping passengers in the other seats.

"I don't think it would do any good at all," Mr. Honey said. "He thinks
I'm just unduly nervous, and really, there is no proper evidence at all
yet that the tail is liable to failure. That's what I'm going to Ottawa
to find out." He outlined to her in detail what Samuelson had done. "I
really don't think it would be much good for you to talk to him. He's
the captain, and he's made his decision." He hesitated. "And anyway, we
must be very near the point of no return by now."

She said, sharply, "The point of no return?"

"That's the point when it is shorter to go on than to go back," Mr.
Honey explained. "Sort of, half-way."

She breathed. "I thought you meant something different. So you think
there's nothing we can do but sit here with our fingers crossed?"

"I don't see what else we can do," he said. "If we were going to turn
back we should have done it long ago."

His coffee came, brought on a small tray by the stewardess, who put it
down upon his knees, and left them. Mr. Honey sipped it gratefully. If
death was near at hand, there were worse ways to meet it than by sitting
in the utmost comfort in a warm, delicately furnished cabin, sipping a
cup of very good coffee, and talking to a very beautiful woman.

"Say," she said, "just to pass the time, then, you can tell me what you
meant about the Men's Toilet."

He coloured and said nervously, "I wasn't trying to be rude. It's just
that the safest place in the whole aircraft in a crash is sitting on the
floor in there. And at the altitude we're flying, there'd be plenty of
time for you to get back there and sit down."

She stared at him. "Say, why would that be any safer than staying right
here where we are--with the safety belts on, of course?"

"Your body gets thrown forward, very violently. If the belt holds you,
it could injure you so badly that you'd die in any case. But if you're
facing backwards with your spine and your head pressed up against a firm
support, you can stand a far greater deceleration without injury." He
went on to tell her all the details of what she ought to do, as he had
told Miss Corder.

She listened to him with attention. "That's something to know about,"
she said at last. "Will I meet you in there when the time comes?"

He hesitated. "I don't think so. I shall try and get to the flight cabin
up forward when--when things start to happen. It's just possible that I
could help the captain in some way." He hesitated. "I've been a long
time in aircraft research," he said. "Something might happen after the
tail fails that we could take advantage of, and that the captain might
not recognise in time."

She nodded without speaking. She had been travelling by air for twenty
years, and she knew a little about accidents. She knew that when a
high-speed aircraft crashed those in the flight cabin were almost always
killed, whereas those in the tail of the aircraft frequently escaped.
She recognised that no one knew that better than Mr. Honey, who had
sought out the safest place in the Reindeer and told her about it. She
realised that this shabby, weak-eyed, insignificant little man who had
been discredited by the crew was proposing to put aside the chance of
safety and go to the point of maximum danger when the crisis came,
following his calling to the end.

"Does anybody else know about this place in the Men's Room?" she asked.
"I mean, is there going to be a run on it? Because I'm kind of allergic
to a crowd."

He hesitated. "I told the stewardess, Miss Corder," he said. "When--when
I thought perhaps you didn't want to hear about it. But it's all
right--the stove is quite wide enough. There'll be room for two, if you
crush up close together."

The actress said, "That's the girl who waited on us with the coffee?"

He nodded. "She was so--so kind."

There was a silence. Miss Teasdale sat staring up the cabin in front of
her, thoughtful and silent. What she had heard bore the stamp of truth
to her; in the quiet comfort of this aeroplane she realised that death
might be very near. She could take that philosophically, so long as it
was quick; with the Atlantic down beneath them it would be so. She would
have liked to live, but she had no dependants, and as she sat there she
knew that she had had the best of life. She had been born of
middle-class parents in Terre Haute, Indiana; when she left school she
had gone to work in an insurance office as a stenographer. Then, at the
age of nineteen, she had won a beauty competition, becoming Miss Terre
Haute; she had gained a screen test and her first job in Hollywood. She
had been three times married but never with success; twice she had
created the divorce. The last time she had married Andy Summers, the
band leader, and had divorced him after eighteen months; since then she
had lived alone. She had never had a child. Twice she had visited her
own state in glorious pageantry to start the Indianapolis Motor Race;
these visits were to her the climax of a long career. She treasured the
memory of them more dearly than her Oscars. She had a brother who ran a
flourishing automobile agency in Louisville, and a sister who had
married an attorney and lived in Norfolk, Va.; she had not seen either
of them for many years. When her star waned she planned to rent an
apartment in Indianapolis, in her own state where people were proud of
her, but she would spend her winters in Miami. There were indications at
the box office that that time was not very far off now.

So, if it had to end, she would be missing little but old age, and she
could do without that, anyway.

Presently, she turned to Mr. Honey. "Why did you pick on me to give me
the best seat in the house for this show?"

He said awkwardly, "Well, you're a very well-known person, Miss
Teasdale. You've given so much pleasure to so many people."

All her life she had received compliments; they had become commonplace
to her, just things that people said. With death very near, this one
struck rather a new note, and arrested her attention with its sincerity.
She said quietly, "You thought so much about my pictures? Do you go to
the movies a great deal?" She had not taken him for an escapist.

He hesitated. "Well--not now," he said. "I used to go a great deal when
my wife was alive. But I've gone very little in the last five years. I'm
afraid I haven't seen any of your recent films."

"You haven't missed a lot," she said. "There was more adventure in the
picture business in the 'thirties. Every picture that I made had
something new about it then. Now--well, I don't know. Directors seem to
have got cautious."

"That's what we always said," said Mr. Honey eagerly. "There was always
something new about your pictures. I think we saw everything that you
were in, from the first day we got engaged right up to the end."

She asked, "When did your wife die, Mr. Honey? Was it in the war?"

He nodded. "It was at the time of the V.2s--the rockets, you remember.
We had a flat in Surbiton." He stared up the aisle. "It was rather a
long way from the factory, but there's a very good train service to Ash
Vale. And there was always something going on in Surbiton; there was the
Country Dancing Club, and the Art Club, and the Camera Club. We _did_
have such fun ..." He was silent for a minute, and then he said, "I'd
have been at home when it happened, only I was doing my turn
firewatching at the factory. I didn't even hear about it till the
morning. Elspeth was quite all right when they got her out--just a bit
shocked, you know. But Mary--well, she died ..."

She said impulsively, "Oh, I'm sorry." And then, to keep him talking and
to ease the difficulty, she said, "What did you do, Mr. Honey? About
Elspeth, I mean?"

"It was a terrible job," he said simply. "You see, all our furniture was
gone, everything we had. We'd only just got the clothes that we were
in--Elspeth was in her pyjamas. Of course, everyone was frightfully kind
and we got fitted out all right, and lots of people offered to give
Elspeth a home in the country right away from the bombing--places in
Wales and Cornwall--all that sort of thing. But--well, there were only
the two of us, and I thought that sending her away to be with strangers
would do more harm than good." The actress nodded thoughtfully. "So I
kept her with me and we managed to get digs in Farnham to start with;
there wasn't much bombing there. And then we got a house, and bit by bit
we got some furniture together. I think it was the best thing to do."

"Who lives with you to keep house?" she asked.

"Nobody," he said. "We get along all right, Elspeth and I. Of course,
now that she's growing up and can do things for herself it's getting a
great deal easier."

"How old was she when that happened?" Miss Teasdale asked.

"Eight," he replied. "It's bad luck to have a thing like that happen
when you're only eight."

She breathed, "I'll say it is."

They sat in thoughtful silence for a time. At last the actress asked,
"Was your wife a great movie fan, Mr. Honey?"

He said, "We both were, for good pictures like yours. We used to pick
and choose. But Mary was terribly fond of your films." He turned to her.
"That's really why I want you to do what I say, and go and sit down in
the Men's Toilet if anything happens. You will, won't you?"

There was a sudden watering behind her eyes. He certainly was the oddest
little man. "Surely," she said gently. "Of course I'll go."

He stared past her through his thick glasses. "I don't know if there's
any truth in what they say in church about meeting people again," he
said. "When the end of the world comes or when you die. Or if it all
just finishes. It's an idea that kind of--helps, to think you'll meet
people again. If it's true, I wouldn't want to go to Mary and tell her
I hadn't done everything that could be done to help you. You see, you
gave her so much pleasure."

"I'll do just what you say," the actress said humbly.

They sat in silence while the Reindeer moved across the night sky above
the overcast, beneath the stars, in steady effortless flight. From time
to time this thing had happened to her before, that she had suddenly
been brought face to face with the incredible power of the honky-tonk,
of the synthetic, phoney film business. Story-teller, script writer,
producer, director, cameraman, musician, cutter, actors and actresses,
all came together for the purely commercial business of creating
something that would sell; if they succeeded they created something that
would sway the lives of men and women by the million, in all the
countries of the world. That happened on the side. It was purely
accidental to the business what they came together for, which was to
make money.

She had few illusions about her profession; few film actresses have. In
the endless, monotonous sequence of takes and retakes on the set she had
a faculty for carrying through the emotion of a scene from one shot to
another taken ten days later, so that given the proper opportunities by
her director she could turn quite an ordinary script into a masterpiece.
That, with her beauty, had made star material of her, fit for publicity.
She had few other talents; but for that knack she might still have been
Miss Myra Tuppen, stenographer in the Century Insurance Office in Terre
Haute. At first she had attributed her screen success to her young
beauty, but soon she had discovered that in Hollywood beauties were two
a penny, and it was years before she got an inkling what it was that
differentiated her from all the stand-ins and the walkers-on. When she
discovered what it was, that she had a knack that other women had not, a
tenuous knack not clearly understood even by herself, she had been
terrified for years that she would lose it. That fear had left her now;
she had put away a fortune in safe stocks and real estate, and now she
did not greatly care if she stayed on in the commercialised
entertainment business that had been her life, or not. Sometimes she
felt that her life might even have been more fun if she had remained
Miss Tuppen of Terre Haute instead of becoming Miss Teasdale of Beverly
Hills.

When such thoughts came to her she put them away; they were the
discontents of middle age, and she must not be middle-aged while she
remained in business. They were nonsense anyway; life had given her
everything, everything but children. That was one thing that she had had
to miss; her income had been much associated with her beauty, so that
she could not afford to run risks with her figure. But treasonable
thoughts returned from time to time, and recently she had wondered now
and then what would have happened to her if she had not gone into the
movies, if she had stayed on in the office. She would have married and
settled down and raised a family, no doubt. Whom would she have married?
One of her brother's friends in the automobile business? She hardly
thought so. One of the boys she had met in High School, Dwight
Henderson? Dwight had been a nice boy; she had heard of him during the
war. He was Vice-President of a corporation that made women's shoes, in
New York City. Her mind turned to the Century Insurance Office, well
remembered after all these years, all these experiences. It would have
been funny if she had married little Eddie Stillson, the lame ledger
clerk....

Of all the people in the office, she remembered Eddie Stillson best. His
desk was next to hers; because he was a low-grade clerk the noise of her
machine was supposed not to disturb his work. She had been seventeen
when she went to the Century office from her school of commercial
typing; she supposed now that Eddie must have been twenty-one or
twenty-two, but at that time she had thought him older. He had a pasty
face and he wore steel-rimmed spectacles; one leg was shorter than the
other, so that he could not take much exercise, or dance. He wore a sort
of iron extension fitted to his right boot. Thinking back now more than
thirty years in time, she remembered Eddie Stillson as one of the
kindest men that she had ever known.

It had begun on the first morning, her first morning in her first job.
At the school the machines had all been modern Remingtons. In the office
she had been given a worn-out Underwood. It was just different enough to
spoil her work; each time she forgot and worked up speed her flying
fingers would depress two keys together or print ½ instead of a stop, so
that each letter that she typed was spoiled and messy with erasions. By
the middle of the morning she was near to tears of apprehension and
frustration, when the office boy put down upon the table by her side a
glass of milk and a stick of chocolate.

"I always stop'n take a lil' drink of something, middle of the morning,"
Eddie had said, drinking his milk. "I see they've given you the lousiest
old machine in the office. Nobody else wouldn't have it." After that,
things had gone better.

She had worked in that office for two and a half years. Her evenings
gradually became a whirl of dances, movies, and walks with various young
men, though she found it better to cut out the walks as time went on. In
all that time she never went out with Eddie Stillson. He never asked her
to the movies; if he had done so she would have regarded it as a
disaster, and would have told her friends about it, laughing. All she
ever talked to him about was carbon papers, and the weather, and how
many bits they owed the office boy for milk. Yet when opportunity came
to her with a minor contract in Hollywood and she went round the office
saying good-bye in a whirl of excitement and congratulations, the only
leave-taking that left the smallest pang was that with Eddie Stillson,
though it only took two minutes. In later years she knew he would have
married her if she had so much as lifted her finger. She had sometimes
thought that she would have had a very happy life if he had.

This man Honey was just such another one as Eddie Stillson, shy,
insignificant, brave and kind. With her experience of married life
behind her, she now knew that such men made good husbands, though girls
seldom realised it. There was security in them. She wondered what kind
of girl his wife had been.

In the rear of the cabin Marjorie Corder sat with the other stewardess,
Miss Peggy Ryan, by the galley. She had told Peggy all about Mr. Honey's
apprehensions, and they had agreed facilely that they were bunk. Now she
sat silent, recalling her crash drill. Although in conversation she was
prepared to write off Mr. Honey as a nervous crank, she was not in the
least prepared to do so deep in her own mind. If things started to go
wrong with the aircraft she had certain duties to perform; she sat
quietly, conning her drill over. Safety belts had to be fastened; she
must go up and down her end of the cabin, not hurrying, smiling
reassuringly, but seeing that the passengers did fasten them, helping
those who were agitated. The upholstery rip cords must be pulled
disclosing the escape hatches, but on no account must the hatches be
opened till the differential pressure indicator showed zero. She must be
ready to jettison the cabin doors by pulling the hinge-pins. She must be
ready with her first-aid box. She must be ready at the telephone to the
flight deck for taking any orders that might come by it, and all the
time she must be cheerful and composed, and charming. Only by the
sheerest chance would she be free to fling herself down on the deck in
the Men's Toilet when the crash was imminent; in any case it would be
wrong for her, the stewardess, to take the only place of safety in the
aircraft. She could hardly do that.

Her home was in Ealing, a suburb to the west of London; her father was a
vegetable merchant in Covent Garden. She had gone to the London Hospital
as a probationer early in the war, and then she had exchanged into the
R.A.F. Nursing Service; she had given up nursing eighteen months before
for the more varied life of an airline stewardess. She had been engaged
during the war to an Ealing boy who had died in a Lancaster over
Dortmund a month before her marriage; that had happened five years
before, but she had not ventured into love again. She was rather older
than the general run of stewardesses and had already exceeded the
average length of service.

She sat quiet, thinking of the threat of death held by the Reindeer
tail. It would be queer if it happened to her as it had to Donald,
though his tail had been removed from the machine by A.A. fire. She
still had his photograph upon the mantelpiece of her bedroom; she still
heard from his mother at Christmas and on her birthday. If it had to
happen to her now, it was a pity; she would go without the experience of
marriage, motherhood, and children; she would go incomplete. She thought
of Mr. Honey and the queer thing he had said an hour or so ago--"If you
get through this and we don't, get yourself married and bring up a
family. I think you'd be good at that." Funny.

Mr. Honey, she thought, was a very clever little man. He could see
farther through a brick wall than most; he had penetrated her secret.
She would be good at that, she knew. She knew that she would be able to
be patient with a crying baby, loving with a fractious child. She knew
that, but that Mr. Honey should have known it too was a very queer thing.
Of course, he must be terribly clever to be a research scientist at a
place like Farnborough, and with that there came to her the certainty
that he was right about the Reindeer tail. A man who had the
perspicacity to be right in one thing was very likely to be right in
another, and he had been very right about her.

Captain Samuelson sat in the first pilot's seat staring at the
instruments in front of him, at the silvery cloud floor ahead and below
them, at the bright stars above. It was very quiet and peaceful on a
fine night at that altitude; he had time for thought. Although he flew
continually from continent to continent he was a very ordinary man; his
interests were essentially suburban. Nothing that he had ever seen in
all his travels pleased him so much as his small home in Wimbledon,
chosen for its proximity to the Bowls Club, of which he was
Vice-Captain. He had three children, a son of nineteen in the R.A.F.
and a boy and a girl who were still at school. He did not believe that
anything was going to happen to the Reindeer tail before they got to
Gander; he thought that Mr. Honey was a nervous crank, exaggerating the
importance of his own work. At the same time, Bill Ward stood in the
background of his mind. Something had killed Bill Ward, and it was not
coming down through cloud to check up his position and so flying into
the hill.

Samuelson was an experienced and a competent man. He had put the matter
to his Flying Control in a radio signal and he had received no answer;
the responsibility for the decision was left to him. He had decided to
go on to Gander, anyway. When they got to Gander he would have to make
another decision, whether to continue the flight normally to Dorval, the
airport of Montreal, or whether to ground the aircraft and stay at
Gander till he did receive instructions. The latter would be quite a
serious step to take upon his own responsibility; it meant stranding
passengers at Gander and delaying the mail. He could hardly stop at
Gander without evidence that something really was the matter with the
aircraft. Like every pilot in the world, he veered instinctively away
from a policy of playing safe. If he grounded the machine at Gander, and
it turned out to be quite all right, people would say that he was windy,
that he was getting old....

Another point bulked largely in his mind. There were no facilities at
Gander for a major modification to the Reindeer, but there were all the
facilities required at Dorval. Unless the aircraft proved to be
completely unsafe, it would have to be flown from Gander to Dorval, or
else back across the Atlantic to England, before any work could be done
on it; if then it had to fly from Gander he might just as well continue
on his scheduled flight without delay. He thought that he would turn all
his engineers on to make a thorough check of the tailplane while the
aircraft was refuelled at Gander; if that was satisfactory, he would go
on. He had no great confidence that instructions from his Flying Control
would have reached him by the time he was ready to leave Gander. Work
would only just be starting in England at that time in the morning, and
to ground an aircraft on a technical suspicion such as this would need a
good deal of conferring between the various technicians who were
involved.

The shadow of Bill Ward stayed by his side, perturbing him. This man
Honey had at any rate provided a lucid and a feasible explanation of
what could have killed Bill Ward, of what could kill them all that very
night, perhaps. He sighed a little, in perplexity. If only this man
wasn't such an obvious nervous crank....

They passed the point of no return, and as a routine matter the
navigator reported to him. He nodded, and handed over the control to
Dobson, and got out of his seat, and went down into the saloon and
walked the length of it into the luggage bay to have another look at the
tailplane structure through the little perspex window. He stood gloomily
scrutinising the structure in the light of the rear fuselage lamp,
flashing the beam of his powerful torch upon each point in turn. It all
seemed perfectly all right, but that infernal little man had said it
would, right up to the moment when it broke. He wondered if he ought to
station one of the crew to stand by that perspex window looking through
it all the time, a permanent watch. But what good would that do, anyway,
if Mr. Honey should in fact be right? They would know at the controls as
soon as something happened.

Presently he turned and went back into the main saloon. As he passed the
toilets he raised his eyebrows; was everybody crackers in this ship? The
film actress, Miss Monica Teasdale, was standing at the door of the
Men's Toilet, holding the door open, looking in.

He smiled brightly, and said, "I'm afraid you've got that wrong, Miss
Teasdale. The Ladies' is on this side."

She said, with cool irony, "Say, what do you know?" And then she said,
"I was just kind of looking where I'd got to go in case we had an
accident, Captain."

It was true; everybody was crackers in this ship, or was it he himself?
"There's not the slightest prospect of an accident, Miss Teasdale," he
said, laughing brightly. "If ever there was anything of the sort, the
stewardess would come and help you fasten your safety belt. That's what
the seats and belts are designed for, to hold you safely and to prevent
injury in bumpy weather, or anything like that."

She said, "You don't say!"

He flushed a little, irritated. "I should go back to your seat," he
said. "There's nothing to see in there."

She laughed, and she was very beautiful in her laughter, so that he was
mollified. "I believe you think that I've been playing 'Peeping Tom'."

In all his years of experience as an airline captain he had never had
this one before. "Of course not," he said weakly.

"Be your age," the actress said. "Mr. Honey told me that was the place
to go to in an accident, down on the floor and facing back, with your
spine pressed flat against the partition. I've been taking a look
around."

He stared at her. "Honey said that? But why?" He opened the door and
stood inside, looking at the partition.

"Something to do with the kitchen stove, he said."

"The stove? Oh, I see what he means." He hesitated; there was no denying
that it was a very safe place, very safe indeed against deceleration. He
came out into the passage, closing the door behind him. "I'm sorry Mr.
Honey has been bothering you, Miss Teasdale," he said. "I think he must
have been overworking at Farnborough, and perhaps our altitude affects
him too, if he's not used to flying. There's not the slightest
foundation for thinking that there's anything the matter with this
aircraft, I can assure you. I'm very sorry that he's troubled you with
his ideas. I suppose he must have seen your pictures at some time."

"You don't believe in his ideas?" the actress asked.

The pilot laughed. "Of course not, Miss Teasdale. There's not the
slightest evidence that there's anything the matter."

Her eyes dropped to the torch he carried in his hand. "That's why
you've been taking a darned good look at our stabiliser, then."

He smiled. "I should go back to your seat and try and get some sleep."

"Are we going to be on time at Gander, Captain?"

"No," he said. "We shall be about an hour and forty minutes late."

"Is that because you've shut down on the inboard engines?"

He cursed Mr. Honey in his mind for a talkative busybody. "Partly," he
said. "I think Mr. Honey is a little bit unbalanced, between you and me.
But I have given that much weight to his ideas, because he really does
come from Farnborough; I've shut down the inboard engines at his
request, although it's going to make us very late."

She nodded. "I don't think he's unbalanced," she said. "I think he's as
sane as you or I. I've met a few unbalanced people in my time--fans, you
know--and believe me, they don't talk that way. If I were you, Captain,
I'd put a good amount of weight on what he says."

They stood for a moment, thoughtful. "I've not neglected it," he said at
last. "I've done everything that he suggested, except turning back to
land in Ireland. In any case, now, it's shorter to go on than to go
back."

"Okay, then," said the actress. "I'll just keep my fingers crossed."

"Miss Teasdale, has Mr. Honey been talking to any of the other
passengers?"

She shook her head. "He came across and spilled it all to me, but then
the stewardess got after him for spreading alarm; she did everything but
take him across her knee and spank him, so he won't do that again. I
don't think anybody else knows a thing about all this."

He nodded. "I'd just as soon it didn't go any further. There's
absolutely nothing in it."

"Says you," she said rudely. "Still, I don't see that it's going to help
any to get the other passengers worked up. You needn't worry. I'll stay
with him till we land at Gander, so that he won't talk to anyone."

"That's really very good of you, Miss Teasdale. It's very helpful."

"Don't thank me. I guess I kind of like the little man, and I'd not
sleep now, anyway." She turned to him. "If I do that for you, Captain,
will you do something for me?"

He said, "If it's anything that I can do. What do you want?"

"If our stabiliser starts flying on its own," she said, "and things
start going wrong, Mr. Honey says he's going up to the flight deck. He's
been a long time in airplane research, and maybe he could help you. If
he comes up, will you listen to him, and not shout him down?"

He knew that if that happened he would have little time and little
inclination to listen to anybody about anything, but he said, "Of course
I will, Miss Teasdale."

She said, "I'll feel easier in my mind that way."

They moved forward up the aisle past the galley. He said, "Will you have
a cup of coffee, or anything?"

She shook her head. "Guess I'll go back and sit with Mr. Honey. This is
the darnedest flying trip I ever made." She left him and moved quietly
up the aisle in the dim light.

She sat down beside Mr. Honey and began talking to him about other
matters than the imminence of their disaster. They had said all that was
to be said about that; now it remained only to wait and see if it
happened. She asked him how it had happened that the aircraft had
escaped our vigilance at Farnborough and in the Ministry, how it had
managed to accumulate so many hours of flying unknown to any of us.

He told her what he had heard on the flight deck, about its loan to
Anglo-Brazil Air Services for a trial. "It slipped past everyone by
sheer stupidity," he said quietly. "The Power of Evil in the world.
It'll be different in fifty years from now."

She asked, "What'll be different?"

"Evil," he said. "This sort of thing won't happen after 1994. I shan't
live to see that time, and you won't, even if we get through tonight.
But my daughter will, when she is an old lady."

She asked, "What's going to happen in 1994?"

"Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden in the year 4007
B.C.," he said. "Sin, foolishness, and evil came into the world then and
are to last six thousand years. That finishes in the year A.D. 1994 at
the autumn equinox on the twenty-first of September. After that we get
another chance again, I think."

She stared at him. "Where did you get all that from?"

"You can work it all out from the prophetic calculations in the Talmud,"
he said. "It's confirmed by the measurements to the base of the Dead End
passage in the Pyramid. That's a totally different source, of course.
There's no doubt at all that something absolutely cataclysmic is going
to happen in the autumn of 1994. It's probably the end of this world, as
we know it. The Talmud rather indicates that the millennium starts then,
but that's a bit vague."

She was startled. "Say," she said, "do you believe all this?"

He said, "Believe--that's not a scientific way to look at it. You don't
believe in an hypothesis until it's proved to be true, and then it's a
known fact, and doesn't have to be believed in. You don't believe in
this seat you're sitting in, because it's _there_; you don't have to
show your trust in it. I don't believe the end of the world is coming to
us in 1994. But it's a theory that has been put forward by a number of
very competent investigators, and the only theory that I know which
forecasts what is going to happen to us in the future. Until a better
theory turns up, one has to base one's life on that, because it's the
only one."

She stared at him. "That kind of makes sense, when you look at it that
way," she said. "You say the world is coming to an end in 1994? It
doesn't mean a lot to you and me."

"No," he said. "We shall probably just miss it. It's bad luck, after six
thousand years, to miss it by ten years or so. But we prepare the
people who will see it, and that's something. That's why we've got to
work so hard and well, we people in the world today. We lay foundation
stones."

She thought of her work, of the endless, mean, commercial haggling on
story points, of jealousies and irritations on the set, of the endless
manœuvrings for star parts. "I guess I don't lay many foundation
stones," she said bitterly.

He turned to her, astonished. "The whole world looks to you," he said.
"People are finer and better for seeing one of your films; you give them
an example. Do you really think you don't do any good? You can't think
that!"

The power of the honky-tonk! She could not explain to him; if he
believed that her films were conceived with a high motive, let him go on
in that faith. She said quietly, "I guess there's different ways of
looking at these things. You kind of see the smutty side of any job
you're working at, and maybe you forget about the rest."

"I know. You've got to get away from a job, and stand back, sometimes,
and see what you've been doing in perspective."

She turned to him. "This daughter of yours, Mr. Honey. Your little girl,
Elspeth, what do you think that she's going to see in September 1994?
What's going to happen then?"

It was quiet in the long saloon; the aircraft moved on steadily beneath
the stars. The lights were dimmed for sleeping; it was a quiet place, a
place fit for meditation before the end. "I don't know what's going to
happen," he said quietly. "Nobody knows. You and I will live our lives
out without knowing; we may know in half an hour. But I have thought
about it; I have read about it; I have worked on it--a lot. If you like,
I'll tell you what I think may happen in September 1994."

"Tell me," she said.

He was silent for a moment. "I think the Principle of Goodness will
appear and take away all sin and evil from the world," he said. "I don't
know how it will come about, but I think this, that to everybody in the
world, Buddhist or Mohammedan, Christian or Jew, there will come a
revelation of the truth, at the same time. Every religion in the world
is due for a clean-up; I think they'll get it then. And when that is
done, the Truth will be seen to be universal, and we shall all believe
in the same things."

She nodded slowly. "That could be."

"I think the revelation will be graded to our understanding," he said.
"I think it will occur in terms that we can recognise. I shan't see it,
but I think my little girl, Elspeth, will see it in the form that Our
Lord will come to Glastonbury, to the place of meditation that He lived
in as a boy. I think that's what the indicator sockets in the ascending
passage of the Pyramid show, if you make allowance for the subsidence of
the structure, as you must. I've done a great deal of work on this. I
think something terrific is going to happen at Glastonbury, then."

She stared at him; could he be nuts after all? "Say," she said, "where
is this place Glastonbury?"

"It's a little town in Somerset," he said. "The legend is that Jesus
Christ came there to live in meditation as a young man, before His
Ministry. His great-uncle, Joseph of Arimathea brought Him there; he
used to trade in the tin business between Palestine and Cornwall. He
brought Jesus there, because Glastonbury was the religious centre of the
Druids, who practised the original pure form of the Hebrew religion.
Jesus is supposed to have lived in Glastonbury in meditation for a long
time as a young man. That's the story, and there's a good deal to
support it. You can believe it or not, as you like. I think I do."

She said in wonder, "I never heard that one."

He went on to tell her all about it, talking with the quiet enthusiasm
of a man with a hobby that he has worked at for years. She sat listening
to him, her mind in the past. Eddie Stillson had been just such another
one, but his hobby was monkeys. He had read a lot about the Origin of
Man, and he used to talk about the Missing Link, and one day he had
produced from beneath his ledgers a book that had a lot of photographs
of people's skulls, thousands and thousands of years old, dug up all
over the world. It had photographs of human skulls in it, and monkeys'
skulls too, and she had listened with a sort of horrified fascination
while he expounded to her all the differences and similarities. Looking
back over all those years, she felt that he had meant it as a compliment
to her, that he had revealed his secret interests in that way. After
three marriages and thirty years of adult life, she now felt that you
never really knew a man until you knew his secret interests. Mr. Honey
was extraordinarily like Eddie Stillson, the same insignificant
appearance, the same warm, indefinable charm. It had taken her much of
her life to realise it, but she had made a terrible mistake in losing
touch with Eddie. When you were young and the world lay before you, you
did that sort of thing. You met a man that you could really get to care
about, and you thought there would be plenty of other ones in Hollywood,
or wherever life took you to. It was only when you began to grow old
that you realised they weren't as plentiful as all that, that you would
have done better to stick to Eddie Stillson.

In the flight deck, Dobson the first officer took a star sight with his
bubble sextant through the astrodome; the navigator took another one to
check it, and they plotted the position lines upon the chart. They had
about two and a half hours flight to go before landing at Gander. Their
hands were dirty and soiled the chart as they drew in the position line,
for they had had some trouble in the flight deck. One of the electrical
circuits of the undercarriage-operating mechanism had become defective
and was blowing fuses with monotonous regularity; they had worked for
two hours with the engineers in an attempt to rectify the fault, only to
discover that it lay in the safety circuit of the retracting
undercarriage mechanism and could be reached only from the ground; it
was not important, so they had isolated that circuit and put it out of
action. Then navigational necessities had intervened before they could
wash, and they had taken their star sights with dirty hands.

Dobson walked down the saloon to the toilets; he noted with surprise
that Mr. Honey had got off with the actress; she was sitting by him,
smiling at him, listening to what he said. He washed his hands and came
out, and went into the galley, and said to Miss Corder, "I see the
boffin's got off."

She put her head out and looked up the aisle. "She's been sitting and
talking with him for some time. How far off are we?"

"About two and a half hours. Had any more trouble with him?"

She shook her head. "Have you had any trouble with the tail?"

He laughed. "It's still there, so far as I know. Be still there in ten
years' time, if you ask me."

"It's funny," she said thoughtfully. "He was so positive that we were
going to have an accident. But nothing's happened yet."

He grinned. "Nothing's going to happen either," he said. "He's got a bee
in his bonnet--all those Farnborough types are the same. They just don't
know what it's all about. It really is the most fantastic place. We
might get some decent aircraft if it wasn't for them."

He moved off up the aisle towards the flight deck.

The Reindeer flew on towards the last of the night, in rising moonlight.
An hour later the navigator crossed to Samuelson sitting in the
captain's seat and spoke a word to him. The captain spoke to Cousins,
the engineer, and knocked out the automatic pilot; the engineer drew
back the throttle levers a little, watching the boost gauges. The note
of the engines dropped, the nose tilted down a fraction, and the
Reindeer started on a slow descent, losing height at about two hundred
feet a minute. Gander lay ahead.

At ten thousand feet they started up the inboard engines at reduced
power and went into the cloud layer. A quarter of an hour later they
were below it in diffused moonlight. They made their landfall at a
rocky, barren point of land that lay between two islands, seen dimly
beneath them in the hazy, silvery light. At three thousand feet they
flew for a quarter of an hour above fiords and inlets of the rocky
coast, all full of ice. Then straight ahead of them appeared the
twinkling runway lights and the cluster of lights round the airport
buildings of Gander.

In the saloon the stewardesses were busy waking the passengers who were
still asleep, and making them do up their safety belts for the landing.
Miss Corder, bending over Mr. Honey, said, "Well, we've got here all
right."

"I know," he said. "We're very lucky."

Miss Teasdale had gone back to her own place. Mr. Honey sat looking out
of his window as they circled the airport and went off over the spruce
woods and the river to turn into the runway. They turned in to land and
the note of the engines died; the nose dropped a little, and he saw the
flaps come down. The ground came closer and closer till the tops of the
fir trees were near to the machine. Then there was the surface of the
runway close beneath them; they sped over it, and suddenly a rumble and
a forward tilt of the fuselage told him they were down.

Samuelson slowed the machine to a walking pace, and turned the Reindeer
on to the taxiing track, towards the hangars and the airport buildings.
He yawned. Cousins, the engineer, came forward to his elbow and said,
"Watch the undercart switch, sir. The safety locks are out." He nodded.

Dobson leaned across to him, grinning, and said, "Well, we've still got
our tail."

Samuelson nodded; he had not yet reached the point when he could joke
about it. He still had to decide whether to go on normally to Montreal
or to ground his aircraft at Gander, one of the most bleak and desolate
airports in the world at which to strand a load of passengers, and one
where there were few facilities for any serious repair. He sat gloomily
considering this as they rolled up to the tarmac. He had heard nothing
from his Flying Control in reply to his signal stating Mr. Honey's
bleat. Perhaps a signal would be waiting for him here to give him
guidance and to take the onus of deciding what to do from him.

It was then shortly before dawn, about nine o'clock in the morning by
British time. The stewardesses disembarked the passengers and took them
to the restaurant for breakfast; the refuelling tank trucks drew up to
the Reindeer and began pumping in their load. Captain Samuelson went to
the Control and asked if there was any signal waiting for him; there was
nothing. He tightened his lips; the responsibility for the decision lay
on him.

He sent Dobson to find the local Air Registration Board Inspector. Very
naturally, Mr. Symes was in bed, and he was not too pleased at being
woken up at that hour in the morning to make a difficult decision. He
was a man of fifty-seven, and Gander was his last appointment before
retirement. He had never risen very high in his profession because he
had never shown initiative; in his view an inspector should stick
closely to the rules as they were framed for him. That quality made him
valuable enough at a place like Gander where he was far from the control
of his head office; his superiors could rest content that Mr. Symes
would never put a foot wrong or deviate one hair's breadth from the
typescripts sent to him from time to time.

Dobson stayed with him while he pulled on his trousers, putting him _au
fait_ with the position. "This little squirt from Farnborough, he's
clean off his rocker, I believe. I don't know what you'll make of him,
but that's what we all think. Of course, if there is anything the matter
with the tail, we'll have to stop here, but Cousins hasn't heard a thing
about it, nor have any of us. Captain Samuelson wanted you to have a
good look at the structure with us, and see if it's all right."

Mr. Symes grunted, "You get some funny sort of people coming from
those places," he said. "You remember Skues in the Airworthiness at
Farnborough, back in 1928 or so? No--before your time. He always used
to take his Siamese cat with him, in the offices, or into
conferences--everywhere he went he took this blessed cat...."

They walked together from the dormitory block where Mr. Symes stayed
back to the Reindeer on the tarmac. Dawn was just showing in the
darkness as a grey line to the east; there was a bitterly cold
north-east wind, and Mr. Symes had had no breakfast. Samuelson met them
on the tarmac with Cousins, the engineer. A tall, wheeled gantry gave
them access to the tailplane twenty feet above the ground; they
commenced a meticulous examination of everything externally visible,
moving the gantry from time to time. The bitter wind whipped round them
mercilessly; very soon they were so cold that even holding torches
became difficult.

They could find nothing wrong at all externally. They came down and went
into the rear fuselage, behind the pressure cabin; clambering about in
there they could see the structure of the tailplane spars where they
passed through the fuselage and intersected with the fin girders. They
twisted their bodies in amongst this structure, flashing their electric
torches upon channels, webs, and ribs, laying the straight edges of
steel rules along duralumin angles to check for any distortion, peering
carefully at scratches on the paint and anodising. At the end of an hour
of the most thorough examination they had finished; they had found
nothing whatsoever wrong with the machine.

It was too cold to hold a conference outside or in the hangar. They went
up into the heated flight deck of the Reindeer, and sent for Mr. Honey
from the restaurant. While they were waiting for him, Dobson and Cousins
made an examination of the defective safety circuit of the
undercarriage-retracting mechanism, climbing up the undercarriage legs
from the ground into the engine nacelles. Mr. Honey, hurrying across the
tarmac to the Reindeer, saw them go back into the fuselage ahead of him;
when he reached the flight deck the engineer was making his report to
Samuelson.

"Port switch is burnt out, sir," he said. "We haven't got a spare. I've
got both circuits isolated now. If Mr. Symes agrees----" he indicated
the inspector--"I'd suggest we go on like we are to Dorval. They've got
spare switches in the stores at Dorval."

The inspector said, "That means no safety locks are operating on the
undercarriage."

"That's right," the engineer replied. "It just means being careful not
to trip the operating lever while you're getting in or out of the seat.
That's while she's on the ground, of course; it wouldn't matter in the
air." Mr. Honey waited his turn patiently in the background, till they
were ready to attend to him. The inspector and the engineer and
Samuelson moved over to the control pedestal between the pilots' seats.
"This one," the engineer said, fingering the undercarriage lever. "It's
just a matter of being careful not to put this up, while the auxiliary
engine's running, like it is now." It was running to provide the heat to
keep the aircraft warm. "When the auxiliary's stopped, of course,
nothing could happen if you put this up, because there wouldn't be any
current."

They talked it over for a minute or two. "All right," the inspector said
at last to Samuelson. "You can go on like that. But have somebody
standing by it all the time you're taxiing, just to watch that nobody's
coat catches in it or anything."

Samuelson nodded. "I'll see to that." He turned to Mr. Honey, and
introduced him to the inspector. "Look, Mr. Honey--we've made a very
careful inspection of the tailplane, and there's nothing wrong with it
at all. I don't know if you'd care to tell Mr. Symes here what you told
us on the way across?"

Mr. Honey started wearily to tell his tale again. He had had no sleep
and he was overtired, blinking more even than usual. He had not shaved
and he had not been able to eat his breakfast, spoiled as it had been by
his anxieties; he was feeling rather sick. He told his story badly,
defeated before he started by the atmosphere of utter disbelief he
sensed around him.

Mr. Symes gave him some little attention because he came from
Farnborough, but his mind was already made up. He was a man who had
never taken any action except on physical facts; it was not his business
to assess the eccentric theories of wandering scientists and take a
chance on them. There were no written instructions in his files that he
should take any special precautions in regard to the Reindeer tail. On
the suggestion that there was something wrong with it, he had made a
thorough inspection and had found everything correct. That put him in
the clear, and he had no intention of imperilling his pension by a rash
display of individuality, at that stage of his career.

They talked for a quarter of an hour. At last Samuelson said, "Well, if
Mr. Symes agrees, I think the best thing we can do now is to go on to
Dorval. I'm prepared to shut down the inboard engines after climbing up
to operating height, as I did coming over, if you think that will ease
things, Mr. Honey. At Dorval we can assess the matter properly."

Mr. Honey, nearly in tears of weariness and frustration, said, "I assure
you ... I assure you that's the wrong thing to do. It's absolutely----"
his voice cracked, and went up into a little nervous squeak--"it's
absolutely courting disaster to go on. You _must_ ground this aircraft.
Really you must."

Samuelson glanced at Symes, and their eyes met in common agreement; this
was not a normal, reasonable man. This was an eccentric plugging away at
a fixed idea, a man whose mental balance was abnormal. "If you would
rather stay here, Mr. Honey," the captain said, "I can make arrangements
for you to finish the journey in another aircraft, probably tomorrow.
But I'm afraid I can't listen to any more of this."

The inspector nodded in agreement. This Reindeer would be off before
long, and he could get back to bed and have a couple of hours more
before breakfast. Then, in the course of the morning, he would write out
a report upon the incident and send it in to his headquarters. Two
copies would be sufficient, and one for his own file.

Honey said desperately, "Is that your final decision? You're really
going on?"

Samuelson turned aft, partly to hide a final irresolution. "That's
right," he said. "We're going on."

"I assure you ..." Mr. Honey's voice died in despair; it was useless to
go on trying to convince these men. He turned forward to the pilots'
seats. And then, quite nonchalantly, he put his hand upon the
undercarriage lever and pulled it to UP.

He did it so quietly that it did not register with anybody for an
instant; Symes was the only man who actually saw him do it, and it took
a second or two for the inspector to appreciate what was happening. Then
he cried, "Here--stop that!"

The note of the auxiliary motor changed as the load came on the dynamo.
Samuelson turned, saw what Honey was doing, said, "For Christ's sake!"
and made a dive for the lever.

Mr. Honey flung his body up against the pedestal, covering the controls.
He said, half weeping, "If you won't ground this aircraft, I will."

The motors of the retracting mechanism groaned, the solid floor beneath
their feet sagged ominously. Cousins, with quick wit, leaped for the
electrical control panel and threw out the main switch to cut the
current from all circuits. He was a fraction of a second too late. The
undercarriage of the Reindeer was just over the dead centre. She paused
for a moment; for an instant Samuelson thought that Cousins had saved
her, as he struggled to pull Honey from the pedestal. Then she sagged
forward, and the undercarriage folded up with a sharp whistling noise
from the hydraulics. A pipe burst and fluid sprayed the ground beneath
her, and she sank down on her belly on the concrete apron, all the
seventy-two tons of her. By the mercy of Providence nobody was standing
underneath her at the time.

The noise of the crumpling panels and propellers, a tinny, metallic,
crunching noise, brought the mechanics running to the wide doors of the
hangars. Marjorie Corder, going from the Reindeer to the reception and
booking hall, turned at the mouth of the passage and stared aghast to
see her Reindeer lying wrecked upon the tarmac. Instinctively she began
to run back towards it, horrified: she met Dobson running from the
machine to the Control.

She cried, "What happened?"

He paused for an instant. "The boffin did it," he said furiously. "I
told you that he'd put the kiss of death on it. Well, now he has!"




5


That Monday was a bad day.

It began normally enough. I went to the office as usual. When I had left
on Saturday the arrangements had been all set up that Mr. Honey was to
leave for Ottawa on Sunday night by C.A.T.O.; I had seen nothing of him
over the week-end, and I had not expected to. I went down to the old
balloon shed at about ten o'clock as soon as I had cleared my desk,
however, to see that he had really got away and to see that young
Simmons was getting on all right with the responsibilities of the trial
on the Reindeer tail.

The trial was running; I had heard it above the noises of my car when I
was driving into the factory; it filled the whole district with its
booming roar. In the old balloon shed it was as deafening as usual;
Simmons was up upon the gantry taking readings of the strain gauges; he
saw me and came down, and came up to me smiling, and proffered his
foolscap pad showing the rough daily graph of the deflections. We could
not talk in the noise; I ran my eye over the results, and they were
absolutely normal. The trial was going smoothly.

I led him into the office and shut the door; in there we could talk.
"Everything all right?" I asked. "Did Mr. Honey get away all right?"

"Oh, yes, I think so, sir. He was in most of Sunday; I was here with
him. He left at about four o'clock to go home and have a meal and pick
up his luggage. He was catching the eight-forty up to London from Ash
Vale."

"That's fine." I stayed with him for ten minutes going through the work;
he was a clever, competent young man who only needed guidance now and
then. I soon found that I had nothing to worry about. When I couldn't
think of anything more to ask him, I looked around the littered little
office before leaving; there was a neat pile of stamped and addressed
letters on his desk, ready for the post. I glanced idly at them; the top
one was addressed to Miss Elspeth Honey, No. 4, Copse Road, Farnham. I
lifted it, and the second bore the same address, and the third, and all
of them.

Simmons said, "Don't get them out of order, sir. I've got to post one
each day, and they're all dated."

"Dated?"

"The letters inside are dated with consecutive days, as if he was
writing to her every day. I've got to post one each day."

I stared at them in wonder. "How many are there?"

"Twenty-one, sir. He said that he was reckoning to be away three weeks."

"Are all the letters different?"

"I don't know--I think they must be." He picked up one of them and
fingered it. "From the feel, they've each got two sheets of paper, too."

I was staggered by the magnitude of the work, because Honey had only had
about three days' notice of his journey, and those three days had been
very busy ones for him. I said, "Well, I'm damned!"

Simmons smiled and said, "He must be a very devoted father."

The telephone bell rang then. It was the exchange trying to locate me;
Ferguson had been on the line from the Ministry, but while looking for
me they had lost the connection. I said I would go back and take it from
my office.

I got through to Ferguson ten minutes later. He said, "Scott, rather an
awkward thing has just come up. C.A.T.O. have had a radio signal from
the Reindeer that left last night for Gander, the one with Honey on
board. It seems that that machine has done over fourteen hundred hours,
and Honey has been making a good deal of trouble during the flight. The
pilot asks what action he should take."

I had an awful feeling of apprehension in my stomach, suddenly. I said,
"That's terrible. That aircraft must be grounded at once. How on earth
did it get through? I thought you told me none of them had done more
than three or four hundred hours."

He said anxiously, "I know, old man--I did tell you that. I got that
from C.A.T.O. The trouble is, this aircraft wasn't operating with them
at that time." He went on to tell me about its loan for trial operations
with A.B.A.S.

I bit my lip. It was the position that I had been anxious to avoid, at
any cost. "Has it landed yet at Gander?" I asked.

"I haven't heard that it has," he said. "I should think it must have, by
this time. Wait a minute--no--oh hell, their time's all different of
course. I don't know exactly when it took off."

"Look, Ferguson," I said. "It's got to be stopped at Gander. It mustn't
fly one minute longer. Can you get through now to C.A.T.O. and ground
it, ground it positively and for good at Gander?"

He hesitated. "I'd have to see the Director for that."

I said, "I'll have to see my own Director. But we've got to jump at this
decision, now, just you and me. We can clue up the official side later.
Will you get through to C.A.T.O. and tell them that?"

"It's a bit awkward," he said slowly. "I don't know that we're justified
in taking a snap decision, quite ... I mean, it might be very awkward if
it turned out later there was nothing wrong with it. I think it should
go through the proper channels."

I said bitterly, "We won't look quite so good at the Court of Inquiry,
if that tail fails in the air while you and I are looking for our senior
officers. If you won't ring up C.A.T.O., I will."

He said doubtfully, "I could get through to them and say that's what you
recommend, explaining that it's not official yet."

"Will you tell them that I insist on grounding that machine?" I said.
"That's what I'm telling you. And that's what I should tell a Court of
Inquiry."

"You're taking a great deal of responsibility upon yourself," he said
resentfully.

"I am."

"Have you got any evidence at all upon this tailplane yet?"

"Nothing," I said. "Nothing to call evidence."

"But you insist that I ring up C.A.T.O. and have that aircraft grounded
here and now, before consulting anyone?"

"I do."

"All right," he said. "I'll get through to them now."

I put down the telephone, sick and angry at the position that we had
been forced into. I picked it up again and asked for the Director's
office. The operator said, "I've got an outside call for you, Dr.
Scott."

"Hold it," I said. "Put me through to the Director's office now. I'll
take that outside call immediately I've finished."

The Director's girl told me he was up in London for a meeting of the
Aeronautical Research Committee. I swore; I should have thought of that.
I could not now shelve my responsibility. I asked for the waiting call,
thinking it was C.A.T.O., but it was Shirley.

She said urgently, "Dennis, please, can you come and help me? I'm
speaking from the call box at the end of Copse Road. It's Elspeth Honey.
I found her lying in a heap at the foot of the stairs in their house;
she's quite unconscious and she's awfully cold. Please, do come at
once."

I hesitated. I could not take in properly the substance of what she was
saying; my mind was full of the blazing row that I had landed myself in
by grounding a C.A.T.O. aircraft at a place like Gander, without any
previous notice and without any real evidence that there was anything
the matter with it at all. I knew that it was only a question of
minutes now before the storm burst; Ferguson must be already speaking
to Carnegie, the Technical Superintendent. I forced my mind back to what
Shirley was saying. "Is she ill?" I asked foolishly. "Couldn't you ring
up the doctor--Dr. Martin? His number's in the book."

She said desperately, "I've rung up Dr. Martin--he's out on his
rounds--I can't get hold of him till lunch time. I can't remember the
name of anyone else. I've got her lying down and covered up with
rugs--she's on the floor. There's nowhere else to put her
downstairs--there's no couch or anything. I couldn't carry her up those
stairs by myself. The old woman next door is boiling kettles up for
hot-water-bottles, but Dennis--she's looking awful--she's so blue. I'm
frightened that she might be going to pass out. Do please come, Dennis."

I could not leave her in the lurch; moreover, this was Honey's daughter.
If the child Elspeth was really dangerously ill it would react straight
back upon the grounding of the Reindeer. I should have to send Honey a
cable, and he would obviously want to come home on the first available
plane. If he did that, it would mean that the first Reindeer crash in
Labrador would remain an enigma; we should not secure the evidence that
we required to justify grounding the one at Gander. All this was running
through my mind while I was listening to Shirley, and coupled with it
was the thought that I had counted on two quiet days for finally
rehearsing the paper that I was to read before the Royal Aeronautical
Society on Thursday night upon the PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AIRCRAFT
FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS.

It was a blazing mess--just one thing after another. I said, "All right,
darling, I'll be with you in ten minutes. Keep her warm. I'll come right
away, in the car."

I put down the receiver and rang the bell for Miss Learoyd. But before
she came, the telephone bell rang again, and it was Carnegie.

He said, "Is that Dr. Scott? Look, Dr. Scott, I've had the most
extraordinary request from Ferguson. He says you want to ground one of
our Reindeers, and ground it at Gander. Is that right?"

I said, "That's right. We're getting rather concerned about the
possibility of fatigue trouble in the tailplane. We've got people
working on it on the highest priority now, and we've sent a member of
the staff to Canada to have another look at the prototype Reindeer
structure that crashed in Labrador. We've come to the conclusion that
until this matter is cleared up no Reindeer ought to fly more than 700
hours. It was rather a shock when I heard this morning that one of your
machines had done 1,400."

"Well, it's very disconcerting having this sprung upon us at a moment's
notice," he said. "I can't think what the Ministry are up to. They
haven't said a word to us about it, and the A.R.B. don't know a thing
about it, either."

"It's not the Ministry," I said. "It hasn't got as far as them yet, on
an official level, that is to say. Ferguson knows all about it, of
course. It's all come up very recently, very recently indeed."

He asked, "The firm--Rutlands--do they know anything about it?"

I said, "Not yet."

"The only people who know anything about it, then, are your department
down at Farnborough?" He was becoming hostile.

"That's right," I said. "Everything starts down here. As a matter of
fact, we thought we had plenty of time to get the whole thing sorted out
before any question of grounding your existing machines arose. We were
told that none of your Reindeers had done more than 400 hours. Then we
sent one of our staff across last night by C.A.T.O., and he seems to
have discovered in the air that the machine that he was flying in had
done over 1,400, which just about coincides with our theoretical
estimate of the time to failure of the tailplane in fatigue."

He broke in, "Who told you that? Who told you that none of our machines
had done more than 400 hours?"

I hesitated. "Ferguson," I said at last. Obviously everything was going
to come out now. "We put the inquiry through him."

"It didn't come to me," he retorted. "I must say, I would rather like to
know why that was. Who did Ferguson get his information from--the office
boy? If you people would only have the courtesy to come to the right
person when you want to know anything, you might get the right answers."

It would not do to tell him at this stage that I had asked Ferguson to
get the information without calling too much attention to the inquiry. I
said, "Look, Mr. Carnegie, let's settle on the action now and we can
have the inquest and the slanging match later. I understand the Reindeer
that our Mr. Honey is travelling in is at or near Gander at this moment.
We say it must be grounded right away, wherever it is. You must take my
word for it that the machine is in a dangerous condition."

There was a long silence. I said at last, "Are you there, Carnegie?"

"I was just thinking," he replied. "I know nothing whatsoever about
this, because you haven't thought fit to take me into your confidence.
But at the same time, I am responsible for the technical state of the
aircraft of this Organisation. What you suggest that I should do is to
tell the Traffic side that this Reindeer is no longer airworthy, when I
myself know of no technical reason why it shouldn't go on flying. Is
that what you want?"

Put in that way it sounded very awkward. "Yes, I suppose so," I said.
"I'm sorry to put you in that position, but we're all in a difficulty
together over this."

He said evenly, "I'm sorry, too. And what's more, I won't do it. If you
want that aircraft grounded without giving us more technical reasons
than we have had up to date, you'll have to do it on a higher level."

"Look, Mr. Carnegie," I said. "I'll give you all the technical reasons
that you want as soon as we can get together, but we can't do that over
the phone. I'll come to you, or you come to me, and we'll have a
session on it, this evening, if you like. But we've got to stop that
Reindeer flying now, this minute."

He said, "All right. Get your Director to ring up my Chairman--Sir
David's in his office. If you're making it a question of confidence
because of the time element, then that's the way to do it."

I bit my lip. "I can't do that," I said. "The Director's in London, at a
meeting of the Aeronautical Research Committee."

He was on that one like a knife. "Does he know anything about this?"

"He knows of our suspicions about fatigue trouble," I said. "He doesn't
know that one of the machines has done 1,400 hours."

"Well, don't you think you'd better take him into your confidence first
of all, even if you don't take us?"

I became angry. "Look, Mr. Carnegie," I said. "All that can be settled
later. I'm telling you now that in the view of this Establishment that
Reindeer is in a grossly unsafe condition, and should not fly one moment
longer. The time is now eleven-fifteen, when I have told you that. If
there's an accident, that will be my evidence at the Court of Inquiry.
Whether you ground it now is entirely up to you, but you'll get a letter
grounding it in the post tomorrow. That's all I've got to say to you."

He said evenly, "Well, Dr. Scott, I hear what you say. And I will think
it over, and discuss it with my Chairman. The only thing I have to say
now is that it's most difficult for us to do our job and keep the
airline running if you people are allowed to carry on like this."

I put down the receiver, breathing rather quickly, and glanced at my
watch. We had been talking for ten minutes, and I had told Shirley that
I would be with her by that time. I rang for Miss Learoyd again, and
when she came I was at the door with my hat on. "Miss Learoyd," I said,
"I've got to go out for an hour, but I'm expecting several rather
urgent calls. Will you sit in here and take them, and tell everyone that
I'll ring them--oh, say at two o'clock." I left her, and hurried away
down to my car.

I stepped on it on my way to Farnham, because I was anxious to get
Shirley settled up and get back to my office and my row. I could not
imagine what had happened to Elspeth Honey, and I had an unpleasant
feeling that whatever had happened to her was partly my fault, for
having sent her father off to the other side of the world at such short
notice that he hadn't had time to make proper arrangements for her.

The door of the house was ajar; I parked the car and went in. I heard
Shirley's voice upstairs, and went up. Elspeth was lying in her bed,
which was tumbled and slept in; she was an unpleasant greyish colour
with a huge bruise on her forehead close up to the hair; she seemed to
be unconscious. Shirley was there with an elderly woman, Mrs. Stevens
from next door.

Shirley and I withdrew on to the landing. "What happened?" I asked.

She said, "I really don't know, but I think she must have fallen
downstairs some time in the night. I was just a bit worried, Dennis,
because she didn't turn up at school this morning, and you know I never
thought much of this charwoman arrangement. So I came round here at
break, but the front door was locked, of course, and I couldn't get in.
Well, then I looked through the window in the door, and, darling--there
she was, lying in a heap at the foot of the stairs, in her pyjamas. I
couldn't make her hear, or anything, so I went round to the back and
broke the kitchen window and got in, and there she was."

I said, "I'm frightfully sorry. But wasn't the charwoman here last
night?"

"I don't think she can have been. But I don't know. I don't even know
who she is."

"How is she now?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Very much the same. I think she's warmer
than she was--she was terribly cold. Mrs. Stevens helped me to carry her
upstairs to bed, and we've got three hot bottles in bed with her. I do
wish the doctor would come."

I stood by the door looking in. The little dark-haired girl lay in bed
with eyes half open but immobile, like a dead rabbit; she looked very
like her father. My wife said softly, "Poor little brat. It _is_ a
shame."

There was nothing more that we could do, for the moment, till Dr. Martin
turned up. I stood there with them in silence. Back in my office the
telephone, I knew, would be ringing almost continuously as various
infuriated people tried to find me; the storm would be mounting as
frustrations multiplied because I was not at the office. Too bad; they
would have to multiply. I had to tackle each of my responsibilities in
turn; one thing at a time.

The doctor came at last; I knew him slightly. We told him all we knew;
then he went in to her with Shirley. He came out after ten minutes, and
we went down to the sitting-room, so called, that was Honey's drawing
office.

"Well," he said, "she's got concussion, of course. I can't find any
fracture. You think she fell downstairs; the bruising supports that. She
was alone in the house ... I think that's very wrong, if I may say so."
He stared at us severely. "A child of that age is much too young to be
left alone at night."

"I quite agree with you," I said. "Unfortunately, her father is abroad,
and the arrangements that he made for her seem to have broken down."

He nodded. "Well, she needs care now. She'll probably wake up before
long, and when she does there may be a good deal of vomiting. She must
stay in bed for at least a week. I'll look in again this afternoon. Who
is in charge of her?"

There was an awkward pause. "I don't think anybody is," said Shirley.
"There's only us."

I explained. "I'm the head of his department at the R.A.E."

"Well, who is going to look after her?"

I said doubtfully, "Couldn't she go into a hospital?"

"Not here," the doctor said. "I haven't got a bed. We might be able to
get her into Guildford or Woking."

Shirley said, "Dennis, we can take her. I mean, we _are_ mixed up in it,
in a sort of way. And if it's only being sick and that sort of
thing--well, I can cope with that. I think we ought to take her. I'd
hate to think of her waking up in hospital amongst strangers."

I said, "Yes, old thing--but where? You couldn't keep her here?"

She turned to the doctor. "Could we take her to our flat? Can she be
moved?"

In the end we telephoned for the ambulance, and put her on the stretcher
unconscious as she was, and took her to the flat and put her in bed. We
both skated over the implications of that, because Shirley and I only
had one bed between us and we put Elspeth in that one, and there was no
other bed in the flat. We shelved the problem of where we were going to
sleep ourselves till bedtime got a little nearer, and that was the quiet
evening on which I had planned to sit down and run over my lecture on
the PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AIRCRAFT FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS.

By the time all that was done and sorted out it was ten minutes past
two; I had had no lunch and had to get into my car and dash back to the
office to catch up with my blazing row.

Miss Learoyd had a whole list of people who had left their numbers
asking or demanding that I should ring them. There was Ferguson and
Seabright in the Ministry, and Carter in the Ministry of Civil Aviation,
and Sir David Moon of C.A.T.O. and Drinkwater in the Air Registration
Board and--my heart sank--Mr. Prendergast of the Rutland Aircraft
Company, the designer of the Reindeer.

I asked Miss Learoyd to see if she could locate the Director. She asked
his secretary, who told her that after his committee meeting he had
intended to come back by Kew Gardens, to look at the flowers.

I sighed, and put in a call first of all to Ferguson. But before it came
through, the exchange asked me if I would take an incoming call. It was
from Sir David Moon, the Chairman of C.A.T.O.

He said, "Is that Dr. Scott?"

"This is Scott speaking," I replied.

"Is a Mr. Honey a member of your department, Dr. Scott?"

"Yes," I said. "He's not here at the moment. He's in Canada."

"I am very well aware of that," he said. "I have been trying to make
contact with your Director, but he seems to be away. Are you aware of
what your Mr. Honey has been doing, Dr. Scott?"

"No--I haven't heard from him yet. There's hardly been time." I wondered
what on earth the trouble was.

"Then you don't know that he has been responsible for destroying one of
our aircraft?"

I had a sudden sickening feeling in my stomach. "Destroying one of your
aircraft? Whatever do you mean, sir?"

"I understand that he deliberately raised the undercarriage while the
machine was standing on the ground at Gander. I need hardly say that the
damage is very extensive indeed."

I was staggered. "But--but how could he have done that? There must be
some mistake, sir. Our people don't make errors of that sort."

"I tell you, this wasn't an error," he said forcibly. "It was done
deliberately and maliciously, according to the report we have received."

"I'm afraid I just can't believe that," I said. "I know Mr. Honey very
well. He's not a fool. You say this happened at Gander?" I was beginning
to recover from the shock, and think.

"That is correct."

"What sort of aircraft was it?" I inquired.

"A Reindeer."

"The Reindeer that he had flown over in last night? The one that was on
loan to A.B.A.S. and had flown 1,400 hours?"

"I don't know how many hours it had flown. Thanks to the antics of your
officer it will be a long time before it flies again."

I said, "If that's the machine, Sir David, this may possibly be true.
Have you seen Mr. Carnegie since I spoke to him this morning, insisting
that that aircraft should be grounded?"

He said, "Yes, I have. And I may tell you here and now, Dr. Scott, that
this Organisation will not tolerate technical secrecy where our aircraft
are concerned. If you suspect at any time that there are latent defects
in the aircraft that we operate, it is your duty to come forward and
tell us immediately. I understand from Mr. Carnegie that you have been
considering a defect in the tailplane of the Reindeer for some weeks
behind closed doors, till suddenly you came forward this morning and
demanded that a certain aircraft should be grounded and put out of
service at ten minutes' notice, without disclosing any technical reason
for your action. Now, is that correct or not?"

"Broadly speaking," I said slowly, "that is quite correct. It came as a
complete surprise to us this morning to learn that a Reindeer had done
1,400 hours. When we got that news quick action became necessary, and we
decided that it must be grounded right away. Tell me, this machine that
had the undercarriage accident at Gander--was that the same machine?"

"It was the machine that flew across last night," he said. "The one that
had your representative on board."

"Then it _was_ the same machine," I replied. "You say that Mr. Honey was
responsible for retracting the undercarriage while the aircraft was
standing on the ground?"

"That is so. The signal that we have received states that in the most
explicit terms."

"I can only say I'm very sorry this has happened," I said. "Where is Mr.
Honey now?"

"I presume that he's at Gander."

I thought quickly. This new row over the smashed Reindeer was likely to
overshadow the one about grounding the Reindeer; there would be a
thumping repair bill to be paid by somebody. If it was true that Honey,
a Government servant, had pulled up the undercarriage deliberately,
inevitably the Treasury would come in at some stage or another; there
was no knowing where the thing would end. Honey would have to come back
to this country to tell us his end of it, and the investigation of the
crash in Labrador would have to wait for a few days. There was probably
no urgency about that now, in any case.

"I think we ought to get Mr. Honey back at once and hear his account," I
said.

He snorted. "By all means, Dr. Scott, so long as you don't ask for a
passage for him in one of our aircraft. Get him back by all means."

Gander is a day's journey in the train from St. John's, and the train
goes twice a week; a steamer leaves St. John's for Liverpool about once
a month, and takes a week or so to make the crossing.

I said, "I think we ought to get him back without any delay."

"Dr. Scott," he said, "I have to make myself very clear. The signal that
we have received suggests that Mr. Honey is mentally unbalanced. He has
already gravely damaged one of our aircraft. We do not consider him a
fit person to travel by air, and I very much doubt if any other line
will take him in the face of our refusal. If you consider that he should
be brought back to this country by air, then your proper course is to
send an aircraft of R.A.F. Transport Command for him. And I should
recommend you to send suitable medical attendants with it, to look after
him upon the journey."

This was simply terrible. I said, "I can't believe that it is quite so
bad as that, Sir David."

He replied, "I think I should like to speak to your Director, Dr. Scott.
Would you kindly put me through?"

"I'm afraid he isn't in," I said. I could not say that he had snatched
an afternoon to go and see the flowers in Kew Gardens. "He's been up in
London at a meeting of the Aeronautical Research Committee. I'm
expecting him in later this afternoon."

"Oh. Can I reach him on the telephone?"

"I don't think you can. He's probably on his way back here now."

"Very well. Would you kindly ask him to telephone me immediately he
arrives. I shall wait for his call in this office until six o'clock."

"I'll tell him that, Sir David," I said. "I'll get him to call you up
immediately he comes in."

I put down the receiver in a cold sweat, but within half a minute the
bell was ringing again, and it was Ferguson to tell me that Honey had
ruined a Reindeer at Gander by pulling up its undercart. I said, "I
know. I've just had Sir David Moon upon the telephone."

He said, "Whatever can he have been thinking of? Do you think he's mad?"

"I don't know if he's mad or not," I said angrily. "I know that Reindeer
had done 1,400 hours, and that I asked you this morning to have it
grounded. Well, now we hear that Honey's grounded it, so his action
seems to be exactly in accordance with my own."

"I don't think this is a time for flippancy, old man," he said. "The
consequences of this thing are going to be very serious indeed."

"I quite agree with you," I said forcibly. "The implications here are
very serious indeed. We are the research establishment concerned, and we
have asked that a certain aircraft should be grounded, because we think
it dangerous to fly. There's been some hours of argument, and now we
hear that our representative who is with the aircraft has taken
energetic action to prevent that aircraft flying any farther. If it
turns out that Honey did that as the only way to stop that Reindeer
taking off from Gander, I shall support him. The lives of people are at
stake in this affair, a fact that you chaps up in London tend to forget
sometimes."

"There's no need to talk like that," he replied. "We're just as much
concerned to keep the airlines safe as you are. What worries us is that
up to the present you don't seem to have any real technical
justification for the action that you are taking."

"That depends on what you regard as technical justification," I replied.
"We suspect that trouble may occur at about 1,400 hours, and to some
extent the first Reindeer accident confirms that. Till the matter is
cleared up, no Reindeer is to fly more than 700 hours. Now, that's my
attitude, and I'm sticking to it. My staff work under me, and that's
their attitude."

"Is the Director back yet?" he inquired.

"No," I said. "I think he's looking at the flowers in Kew Gardens, if
you really want to know where he is. And if you want the full story,
Elspeth Honey, Honey's twelve-year-old daughter, fell downstairs last
night, and she's unconscious with concussion and shock in my bed, and
God knows where I'm going to sleep tonight."

"I say, old man, I'm sorry about that. Can I do anything to help?"

"Yes, you can," I said. "You can keep these ruddy blood-hounds off my
track and give me time to get things sorted out. We'll have to have a
meeting of some sort tomorrow, I suppose, but I would like to get Honey
back in time for it and hear what really happened at Gander. That bloody
old fool Moon has just told me that he won't bring Honey back by air in
case he wrecks another aeroplane. Will you see if you can get that one
sorted out, and get Honey back here, pronto?"

He said doubtfully, "I'll do what I can. But I'm afraid they're taking
rather a firm line."

He rang off, and then Carter in the Ministry of Civil Aviation rang
through to tell me that Mr. Honey had ruined a Reindeer by pulling up
its undercarriage while it was standing on the ground.

I got rid of him after ten minutes, and in a momentary breathing space I
rang up Shirley. She said, "Oh, Dennis dear, I'm so glad you are there.
Dr. Martin's been again. Yes, she's sort of half awake now, but I don't
think she knows where she is; she hasn't said anything. Dr. Martin said
to keep her absolutely quiet--complete rest. He's given me a list of
things we've got to get, but I can't leave her to go out to the chemist.
Could you possibly get them on the way home, if I give you the list
now?"

I blinked. "What time do the shops shut?"

"I'm not quite sure. Five o'clock, don't they?"

I could not possibly leave the office by that time. I said, "All right,
dear--let's have the list, and I'll do something about it. But I shan't
be home before seven, at the earliest. There's the hell of a row going
on here, and I'm in a perfect shambles."

"Oh, I _am_ sorry, Dennis. Well, we've got to get another
hot-water-bottle, and a bedpan, and some tablets of Veganin ..." She
went on with the list and I wrote it all down on my blotter and rang
off, and then I rang for Miss Learoyd, and said, "Miss Learoyd, can you
drive my car?" But then the telephone bell rang again, and she waited
while I answered it.

It was Seabright from the Ministry ringing up to tell me that Honey had
crashed a Reindeer at Gander by pulling up its undercart.

Ten minutes later I resumed my conversation with Miss Learoyd. She said,
"I'm afraid I can't drive, Dr. Scott."

I said, "Oh well, then, never mind." Test pilots never have anything to
do but stand around on the tarmac and goop at the aeroplanes; I rang
through to the flight office and got hold of Flight-Lieutenant
Wintringham, and said, "Wintringham, are you doing much for the next
hour?" He said he wasn't, and I got him to come up to my office, and
gave him the list for the chemist and the key of my car, and got him to
go out and get the stuff and take it round to Shirley. Then Drinkwater
in the A.R.B. came on the telephone to tell me that a member of my
department had damaged an aeroplane of C.A.T.O. at Gander by pulling up
its undercarriage.

And then Miss Learoyd, bless her, came in with a cup of tea.

I asked her to find out if the Director had come to life yet, but she
came back in a couple of minutes and said he had not returned; his girl
would let us know immediately he came in. I sighed and pulled my IN
basket towards me, full of the arrears of work, but a quarter of an hour
later I was speaking on the telephone again, this time to E. P.
Prendergast, designer of the Reindeer.

He said, "Is that Dr. Scott?"

"Speaking, Mr. Prendergast," I said. "It's very nice to hear you again."

"Dr. Scott, Mr. Carnegie of C.A.T.O. rang me up before lunch and told me
rather a curious story about trouble with the Reindeer tail. He said you
want to ground all our machines. Is that correct?"

"Not quite," I said. "We're not quite happy that the crash of the first
Reindeer was, in fact, due to the pilot's error of judgment. Obviously I
can't tell you the whole story over the phone, but we suspect that
trouble with fatigue may crop up in the tailplane, due to the particular
harmonic modes induced in cruising flight. We thought it wise to ground
one Reindeer that has flown rather a long time until the matter is
investigated further. We are quite happy to allow the others to go on,
for the time being."

"This is the very first that I have heard of it," he said, "when Mr.
Carnegie rang through today and told me that a Reindeer had been
grounded at a moment's notice, and asked if it was done with my
approval. I told him that of course it wasn't."

"I know," I said. "I feel we owe you some explanation for that." I
searched my mind hurriedly to think up some sort of explanation that I
could give. "The matter came up very suddenly, I am afraid, and in
connection with a piece of basic research upon fatigue, for which we
used the second Reindeer tail that you delivered for experimental
purposes."

"I see, Dr. Scott. Don't you think it would have been more courteous, if
you suspected trouble with the aircraft designed by this company, to
have taken us into your confidence? It is just possible that we might
have been able to assist you. After all, we did give the design a great
deal of consideration in this office, and we are not wholly
inexperienced in problems of fatigue."

I could not tell the truth, that Prendergast had become so difficult in
recent years that one was most reluctant to approach him upon anything.
I said, "The thing moved very quickly from the basic research stage to
the stage of immediate urgency. As a matter of fact, we had no idea
until last night that any Reindeer had done anything like 1,400 hours.
Our information was that they had all done about 400, and at that the
matter was not urgent."

"I see. Of course, you have your own way of doing things. I must say, I
should appreciate it if we could be told before long what you think is
the matter with our product."

"Of course, Mr. Prendergast," I replied. "I want to have a meeting on
the thing as soon as possible, at which everybody will be represented.
I'm going to fix that up as soon as ever I can get Mr. Honey back from
Gander, possibly tomorrow. But apart from that rather formal meeting, if
you could come down here one morning we should be only too pleased to go
into the matter thoroughly with you. In fact, I think a private meeting
of that sort might well precede the formal conference."

"I think it might," he said. "I think it might have happened some
considerable time ago." He paused. "I think perhaps that it would be as
well if I come down immediately," he said. "Would ten-thirty tomorrow
morning be convenient for you?"

I hesitated. "I think that may be just a trifle too soon for us," I
said. "Mr. Honey has been doing all the work on this research, and I
should very much prefer that he were present at our meeting. At present
he's at Gander in Newfoundland, and I am expecting him to cross by air
tonight." I did not think it wise to mention that C.A.T.O. had flatly
refused to bring him back, because I hoped that Ferguson would get
around that one. "If I could give you a ring tomorrow morning, perhaps,
and fix the date then?"

"Do I understand that Mr. Honey is the only man at Farnborough who is
conversant with the trouble that the Reindeer tail is supposed to be
having?" he asked.

"Not at all, Mr. Prendergast," I replied. "I am conversant with it
myself, although I have not been able to work on problems of fatigue
over a period of years, as Mr. Honey has. You'll naturally want the
fullest information that's available in this department, and so I think
perhaps that we should wait till he gets back."

"Mr. Honey has been doing all the work on this research, then?"

"That's correct."

"Mr. Theodore Honey? A small man, with glasses?"

"That's right."

"And you expect to get him back by air by tomorrow morning, from
Gander?"

I could see myself being driven into a corner. "I expect so. The
Ministry are arranging for a passage now."

"Oh. Are you aware, Dr. Scott, that C.A.T.O. have refused to carry this
man in their aircraft, on the grounds that the mental instability from
which he suffers makes him a danger to the safety of the other
passengers? Are you aware of that?"

I coloured hotly at his tone. "I know that that has been said in the
heat of the moment," I replied. "It's perfect nonsense. I have told Mr.
Ferguson that we take a most serious view of allegations of that sort,
and that Honey must come home by air at once."

"I might reply that I take a serious view of allegations against the
structural safety of the Reindeer, Dr. Scott. I understand that Mr.
Honey has already destroyed one Reindeer standing on the ground at
Gander. In the circumstances the action of C.A.T.O. appears to me to be
not unreasonable."

I checked an angry retort. "I think we'll have to leave that matter to
be settled later, Mr. Prendergast," I said. "What we have to decide now
is the date when we shall meet. May I give you a ring tomorrow morning,
making a proposal? I shall be able to see my way a little bit more
clearly then."

"If you wish it so," he said. "But I must make it clear to you, Dr.
Scott, that until these allegations, as you call them, about Mr. Honey's
health have been cleared up I shall be most unwilling to accept the
results of his work, or even to waste much time in studying them." He
paused. "I have worked in this industry for nearly forty years, Dr.
Scott. I have watched the personnel engaged in research come and go. I
know the members of your staff. Probably I have known all of them longer
than you have; I may even know some of them better. Take Mr. Honey, for
example. Did he not write a paper, published in the Journal of the
Interplanetary Society in 1932 or 1933 advocating the construction of a
rocket projectile for an exploratory journey to the moon?"

I felt rather helpless. "I haven't the least idea," I said. "If he did,
what of it?"

"I merely call your attention to the lines on which his mind appears to
run," he replied. "I believe he has been Chairman of the Surbiton branch
of the Society for Psychic Research, and that much of his leisure time
has been spent in the detection of ghosts. I understand that he has been
in trouble with the police arising out of his activities with the
British Israelites. He has more than once forecast the coming
dissolution of the world to members of my staff, over the lunch table.
We now have a--er, an allegation by the officials of C.A.T.O. that Mr.
Honey is mentally unbalanced. I must say that I should like to see that
allegation disposed of before I am required to waste much of my time in
an examination of his work upon the Reindeer tailplane."

I said, "Very well, Mr. Prendergast. The most that I can do is to let
you know tomorrow morning when we shall be ready to meet you to discuss
the Reindeer tail. If then you prefer not to attend the meeting that we
offer, that, of course, is your affair entirely. As regards these
allegations against Mr. Honey we shall, of course, investigate them
fully, and if we find that they have substance in them we shall
reconsider our position. If we find that they are irresponsible
slanders, we shall maintain our attitude, which is that till this matter
is cleared up to the complete satisfaction of all parties, no Reindeer
aircraft should fly more than 700 hours." I put a little vehemence into
the last words.

"Will you please transfer this call to your Director?" he asked.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," I said. "He isn't here this afternoon."

"That is a great pity, Dr. Scott. I had hoped to avoid troubling the
Minister. Would you ask the Director to telephone to me as soon as it
may be convenient to him?"

"Certainly," I said. "I don't suppose that that will be until tomorrow
morning, by which time I hope the matter will have become rather
clearer."

He rang off, and I sat staring at the piles of work in my IN basket. The
attack was developing, and it was going to take the form that Mr. Honey
was mad, and all his work upon the Reindeer tail was worthless rubbish.
Inevitably it would come out that we had put it up to the Inter-Services
Atomic Research Board, and that Sir Phillip Dolbear had thought nothing
of it; that was bound to happen at some stage of the affair. Moreover,
we had nothing positive to put upon the credit side. I had a hunch that
he was right, a hunch derived from a study of the accident report on the
first Reindeer and from a study of the little man himself. But could my
hunch stand up against the formidable array of evidence now massing up
that Honey was irresponsible, and that his work was therefore worthless?
Would the truth emerge that the Reindeer tail was quite safe after all?
And if so, what would my position be?

The only other thing that happened on that most unpleasant afternoon was
that Ferguson came through again, to say that C.A.T.O. were adamant that
they would not carry Mr. Honey back across the Atlantic in one of their
aircraft. He said that they were taking a firm stand upon the question
of safety. They had no facilities in the aircraft or upon their staff
for the control of passengers who might become unbalanced in the air,
and in view of this man's record they would have nothing more to do with
him. "They just won't carry him, and that's all about it," Ferguson
said. "I don't see that we can force them, in the circumstances. And I
don't see that we can ask a foreign or Dominion line to take him,
either. We'd have to go back to the Treasury for that, and that would
mean explaining all the circumstances there."

I bit my lip. "We must get him back," I said. "Until we have him here,
we can't have a really effective meeting on the technicalities of this
fatigue story. And everybody's clamouring for a meeting now."

He said, "Well, the only other way would be to get him back by means of
R.A.F. Transport Command. And that's really going just a bit above my
head, you know. I think that that would have to be put through by your
Director, on a higher level."

"All right," I said. "That's how we'll have to do it."

The Director came into his office soon after five; Miss Learoyd got the
news, and I went down at once to see him. He was in a calm and cheerful
frame of mind, and greeted me warmly. "Good afternoon, Scott," he said.
"I came back by Kew and spent an hour in the Gardens. You really ought
to go and see them now--the rose gardens are perfect, and they've got
the most magnificent hedge of sweet peas that I have ever seen in all my
life. You really ought to go. It's very delightful there at most times
of the year, of course, especially in spring, but really I think I
prefer the formal effects that you get in a made garden in July. I think
I do. However. You've got something for me?"

"I'm afraid I have," I said. "I've got a major row."

He made me sit down, and I told him all about it. It took a quarter of
an hour. "Well, there it is," I said at last. "I think that the
immediate thing is to get Honey back here at once, and for that I'm
afraid we'll have to ask for the assistance of Transport Command."

"I see," he said thoughtfully. "You wouldn't let him go on now and do
his job in Labrador?"

I met his eyes. "Do you think that anything he did in Labrador would be
accepted as a valuable contribution, sir--after this?"

He stared out of the window. "It's a question of fact ... But I think
that I agree with you, it might be better to recall Honey and send out
somebody to Labrador whose findings would be readily accepted by our
critics." He turned to me. "We depend entirely on the evidence from the
Labrador crash, do we not? We have nothing else to show, except Honey's
theoretical investigations, which Sir Phillip Dolbear won't accept?"

I shook my head. "Nothing, unless you count this photograph." I had the
accident report with me; I opened it upon his table and we studied the
one print that showed the port tailplane front spar fracture at the
fuselage. The print was an enlargement from a Leica frame, carried up
already to a size at which the detail was becoming fuzzy; it would
obviously go no bigger without losing definition. At that, the bit that
interested us was no more than one-eighth of an inch long, and the
really vital part considerably less than that. We studied it together
with a magnifying glass. "It certainly looks like a fatigue fracture,"
he said quietly. "It might come up more clearly in the stereoscope."

He turned to me. "That's all the evidence we've got to go upon, until we
get this portion back from Labrador?"

I nodded. "That's right, sir. That, and what we think of Mr. Honey as a
reliable research worker."

"And what do you think of that, now?"

There was a long pause. "I think the same as I did," I said heavily at
last. "I think that there's a very fair chance that he's right. The fact
that one Reindeer last night flew up to 1,430 hours or so before he
wrecked it means nothing, of course; it might have been due to fail in
the next hour. We don't yet know the full story of why he raised the
undercarriage. But if, as I suppose, he felt it was the only way to stop
that aircraft flying any more, I think that he was right. In his shoes I
should probably have done the same, if I had had the guts. That hasn't
shaken my opinion of his work."

"It was a very extreme step to take," he said thoughtfully. "It's
obviously going to make a lot of trouble."

"It makes a lot of trouble when airliners crash, and people lose their
lives," I said.

He walked to the window, and looked out upon the aerodrome, deep in
thought. "I made a mistake in this thing, Scott," he said at last. "I
should have sent somebody upon this job who had more personality. I
ought to have sent you. Honey's an inside man. I can quite see that in
the circumstances that obtained at Gander, when the aircraft was due to
fly on, he would have had difficulty in enforcing his point of view.
Probably, in view of what both you and he feel on the likelihood of this
fatigue trouble, he did as well as he could be expected to. He probably
did right. But it will make a lot of trouble for us; I can see that
coming."

"I'm very sorry about that, sir," I replied.

He smiled. "It's none of your making."

"I feel it is," I said. "If I could have handled things a bit more
cleverly, all this could have been avoided."

He shrugged his shoulders. "We'll get over it."

"What about Honey?" I asked. "I presume that he's at Gander now. Will
you start up something with Transport Command to get him back?"

He glanced at the clock. "Not tonight. I think I'd like to sleep upon
it, Scott, and take some action in the morning. It won't hurt Honey to
stay there for another twelve hours or so." He smiled at me. "You sleep
on it, too. Take your wife out tonight, and forget about all this."

I moved with him towards the door. "I can't do that," I said. "I've got
another spot of Honey trouble on my plate at home." And I told him all
about little Elspeth Honey falling downstairs in the middle of the
night.

"But wasn't anybody looking after her?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "That's one of the things that hasn't been
cleared up."

I went back to my office and started my day's work, and for a merciful
two hours I had respite from the telephone so that by seven o'clock I
had got well down into my IN basket. I gave it up then, and went home.
Shirley was in the bedroom; she heard me in the little hall and came out
to meet me.

"She's much better," she said in a quiet voice. "She's awake now." We
went into the sitting-room. "Flight-Lieutenant Wintringham brought along
the stuff from the chemist, and I've given her some of the Veganin,
because her headache was so bad. She's been sick, but the doctor said
that would happen. I think she's getting on as well as can be expected."

I grunted. "Well, that's one thing going on well, anyway." I glanced at
her. "Her father's in a stinking mess over at Gander."

"Mr. Honey is? Why, Dennis?"

"I'm not quite certain why," I said. "But what happened was this. He
pulled up the undercart of a Reindeer while it was standing on the
ground. Retracted it."

She stared at me. "You mean, so that it sat down on its tummy?"

I nodded wearily. "That's right."

She said, "What a naughty little man!" And then she laughed, and freed
from the strain of the day, I hesitated for a moment, and then laughed
with her. "Oh," she said, "I would like to have seen him doing it!"

"All very well," I said at last. "But you just wouldn't believe the
trouble that it's made."

"Is the damage very serious, Dennis?"

"I simply don't know, yet." I thought for a moment; somebody had once
told me that the contract price of each Reindeer was £453,000. "I
suppose the repair bill will be something like fifty thousand pounds," I
said ruefully.

"Oh, Dennis, how bad of him! However did he come to do it?"

I started to tell her, and she went and got me a drink, so that I
finished telling her about it in a more cheerful frame of mind. And then
we went into the bedroom to see Elspeth.

She was lying in our bed, drowsy with the drug, but she opened her eyes
when we came in. "Hullo, Elspeth," I said. "How are you getting on?"

She said, "I put on Daddy's warm dressing-gown and I trod on it and fell
down." And then she said, "Will you tell Daddy that I want him?"

"He's coming back at once," I said. "He doesn't know you're ill yet, but
he's coming home tomorrow, or the day after at the latest."

The little girl said, "Was there a burglar?"

"A burglar--in your house last night, do you mean? I don't think so."
Beside me Shirley shook her head. "There was nobody there this morning
but you, and everything was quite all right."

She said, "I heard a burglar, so I put on Daddy's warm dressing-gown but
I trod on it and I fell down."

"Don't worry about burglars now," I said. "You just get well again
before your daddy gets back. He won't want to find you in bed, will he?"

She shook her head slightly on the pillow. The little movement drew my
attention to the mop, its white cotton head, now rather grubby, on the
pillow near her own. Shirley had found it in her bed and brought it
round, to comfort her in her loneliness amongst strangers.

"Are you quite warm now?" I asked.

She said, "I've got three hot-water-bottles, all rubber ones."

"Fine. Do you want any supper?"

"No, thank you, Dr. Scott. I was sick three times and Mrs. Scott held my
head. May I go back and sleep in our house tonight?"

"I don't think that's a very good idea," I said. "I think you'd better
stay with us till you're quite well again."

"I must go back to our house," she said in agitation, "because it's
empty and there'll be a burglar because of Daddy's work. It's very
valuable, and burglars come and break into empty houses and steal
valuable things. Please, Dr. Scott, may I go back and sleep in our
house? I'm quite all right now."

"Your daddy's work will be quite safe," I told her. "Burglars don't come
to steal that sort of valuable thing, because they can't sell it. They
come and steal silver spoons and things like that."

"Would they steal electro-plate, Dr. Scott? It's just like silver."

"No," I said, "they never steal electro-plate."

"But there _was_ a burglar last night, Dr. Scott, because I heard him.
And I put on Daddy's warm dressing-gown, and I trod on it, and I fell
down."

This was where I had come in. I told her that I'd have a talk with
Shirley and decide who was going to sleep where that night, and I left
her, and went and found Shirley in the kitchen. "I simply must eat
something," I said. "I haven't had any lunch."

"Oh Dennis! Look, supper will be ready in about ten minutes. Have a
couple of biscuits, and go in and eat them with Elspeth."

I took the biscuits, but before I got to Elspeth there was a little
wail, and Elspeth was in trouble again. What's more, she hadn't got her
basin handy. I called to Shirley, "All right, you go on cooking; I can
cope with this." And I did, and I can testify that there's no better
anodyne to worry than coping with a vomiting child.

Presently supper was ready; I went to it with a reduced appetite, partly
on account of the biscuits. While we were eating I told Shirley about
the burglars. "That poor kid's got burglars on the brain, Dennis. She's
been talking about them ever since she woke up. She's terribly upset
that somebody will come and steal Mr. Honey's work on the Great
Pyramid."

"Is that what's on her mind?"

She nodded.

"But that's absurd," I said weakly.

"I know it is. But that's what's on her mind. She's got a great sense of
responsibility." She turned to the dresser and picked up a dirty half
sheet of notepaper. "I do think it's a blasted shame," she said
vehemently. "I went round to get her night things while Wintringham was
here, and this is what I found in the kitchen."

It was an ill-written note. It read:

     Dear Miss,

     I find I wont be able to come tonight as my husband is took
     poorly.

                                             Yours respectfully,
                                                       E. Higgs.

I gave it back to her. "Just like that," I said.

"Just like that," she said angrily. "I'm keeping it to show to Mr.
Honey."

I thought for a minute. "About these bloody burglars," I said. "I've got
to sleep somewhere, anyway, and so have you. I could sleep round there
tonight, if that would help."

"I think it would help, Dennis," she said. "As a matter of fact, I don't
quite know where else you _are_ to sleep tonight, unless you went to a
hotel. I thought I'd sleep on the sofa here."

"All right," I said. "I'll go round and sleep there." At any rate, I
thought, it would be quiet, and I could take the PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF
AIRCRAFT FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS with me.

"I'm awfully sorry," Shirley said. "But I think it might be quite a good
thing if you did sleep there. I kicked the glass out of the kitchen
window this morning, to get in to her, so there really might be a
burglar tonight. I mean, the house is wide open."

I went round there after supper, in the dusk. I found a piece of
three-ply and a hammer and some tacks, and tacked the plywood up to the
frame of the broken window; then I carried my bag up to the front
bedroom, Honey's room, and made the bed. I took the typescript of my
thesis from the bag, and went down to the sitting-room, meaning to
settle down in the one armchair that the house possessed and concentrate
upon it.

The house was still and quiet, but I could not concentrate. The Honey
matter was so urgent that here, surrounded by all Honey's personal
belongings, I could not bring my mind to bear upon the aircraft flying
at high Mach numbers. That afternoon various responsible people had
stated bluntly their opinion that Mr. Honey was mad. I had taken my
stand on my opinion that his work was valuable; very soon the matter
would be decided one way or the other. If I was right there would be a
complete disruption of C.A.T.O.'s Atlantic service. If events should
prove that Honey's work was worthless, my position would be very much in
question; it would hardly be possible for me to continue in charge of
the Department after having been proved wrong in such a major row as
this was going to be.

Probably I should have to leave the R.A.E., leave Government service
altogether, having put up such a black as that. I should have to start
again in industry; possibly it would be better to make a complete break,
and emigrate and start again in aviation in Australia, or in Canada
perhaps. If Honey's work was worthless, that would be my future: to
leave the country, go down in salary and in prestige, and start again in
a strange place. But then, was Honey's work worthless?

My eyes strayed to his books, untidily arranged upon three long shelves.
The _Psychology of the Transfiguration_ rubbed shoulders with _An
Experiment With Time_, and next came _A Discussion of the Infinite_.
Then there was _The Serial Calculus Applied to Numerical Analysis_, and
then, surprisingly, _Great Motion Pictures, Past and Present_. I picked
this out in curiosity and opened it; upon the flyleaf there was written,
"Mary with all my love from Theo, March 16th 1939". I put it back, a
little thoughtfully. There had been a human side at one time, long ago.

There was more such evidence farther along the shelf. Between _The
Pyramid in History_ and _The Stability of a Harmonic Series_ there stood
a large gift volume, richly illustrated and interspersed with musical
scores, called _Country Dancing_. This was inscribed "Theo dear, from
Mary, September 2nd 1936". It was a well-used book that lay open at any
page; clearly it had seen some service on a music stand. Beside that was
another well-worn paper-covered volume called _Rambles in Old World
Sussex_. I thought of the short hiker's pants and the good strong boots;
they would be upstairs somewhere, probably with a rucksack. It would be
interesting, I thought, to look and see if the good strong boots had
been used recently, if Honey still went hiking, if he took any exercise
at the week-ends. It would all add up.

The thought got me out of my chair and set me wandering about the empty
house. On the kitchen table somebody had put three or four letters. All
were bills or receipts saving one, addressed to Miss Elspeth Honey in
her father's handwriting, the first from the pile standing on his office
desk. I put it on one side to take to her in the morning.

The little house was rather dirty, and rather bare of furniture.
Upstairs there were three bedrooms, but one, although it had a bed set
up in it, was clearly never used and served more for a box-room. At the
back of the house looking over the small gardens of the row was
Elspeth's room, which I had seen; a small, bare, rather bleak little
room. On the mantelpiece there was a photograph of a dark-haired young
woman with a pleasant, rather appealing expression. I stared at it in
thought for a minute; would that be the mother, who had died? I came to
the conclusion that almost certainly it was.

I went into Honey's room, the room I was to sleep in. There was no such
photograph there, and that seemed odd to me until it struck me that he
might have taken it away with him in his bag, to Canada. In a cupboard
in his room I found the strong hiking boots. There was mud on them, but
it was very old and dry, and flaked to dust beneath the pressure of my
fingers. They had not been worn for years.

There was a small writing table, or bureau, by the window. I had lost
all scruples by that time about intruding into his privacy; too much lay
at stake for that. Here, alone in his house, I had the opportunity of
learning more of Honey than I should ever get again. I wanted to find
written arguments by him, essays, theses, papers for learned societies,
or anything of that sort. I wanted to see how his mind worked, whether
the conclusions and the inferences that he drew from given facts were
reasonable, on other matters than the Reindeer tail.

The bureau yielded nothing much to help me. He kept his cheque book and
his unpaid bills and his receipts there; I did not hesitate to look into
his affairs. I found them in good order. There were two life insurance
policies, and his Will, which I did not read because I could guess very
well what would be in it. His bills were paid up to date, but this was
evidently not usual, because a study of the counterfoils in his cheque
book showed that he had had a field day at them before leaving for
Canada. He had a credit of about three hundred pounds in the bank. I
found no evidence of anything but a modest and a frugal life.

In a drawer, at the back, there were a large number of letters, faded,
all in the same girlish hand, tied up in bundles with red tape out of
the office. I did not look at any of those.

I went downstairs again to his living-room, more like a drawing office
than a parlour, and there in a big cupboard was a row of files
containing what I was in search of. These files were all labelled on the
back--PYRAMID DEDUCTIONS, MIGRATION (ANIMALS), and MIGRATION (MEN). Then
there was one called HEBRAIC FORMS IN DRUID RITUAL, and another, PSYCHIC
PHENOMENA. I was interested to notice one called INTERPLANETARY (MASS
ATTRACTION OF CELESTIAL BODIES), and another, INTERPLANETARY (VEHICLES).
And there was one simply entitled OSMOSIS. In all there must have been
about fifteen of them.

I pulled a few of them out of the cupboard and sat down at his table to
study them.

An hour later I sat back, filling a pipe, very thoughtful. In the year
1932 he was already writing about the bi-fuel propulsion of rockets, and
had demonstrated clearly how a three-stage rocket projectile could be
constructed which would have sufficient energy and range to escape from
the gravitational field of the Earth, with an intent to reach the Moon.
He had made weight estimates and he had gone in some detail into the
technique of launching. He had not dealt with matters of control, so far
as I could discover. His work here seemed to parallel very closely the
early German investigations; indeed, in point of date, it seemed to me
that he was some years in advance of German work. I could not say that
there was evidence of madness in this work of his, but there was sad
evidence that we had not made use of genius that lay under our hand, in
the last war.

OSMOSIS was the same story, so far as I could understand the
technicalities involved, which were quite outside my beat. It had
arisen, queerly, from the design of a radio valve for use in centimetre
wave reception; this had apparently been a little mental relaxation from
his normal work. In the course of it the properties of the metal thorium
had seemed to him unusual when in the presence of argon, and upon this
he had built up a considerable research, apparently all carried out in
this front sitting-room. It had not been completed, for some reason that
I was unable to discover, perhaps because of prior publication by some
other research worker. But the work was careful, reasonable and probably
correct.

In the other subjects I was quite out of my depth; I knew nothing about
the Pyramid, and the Hebraic forms left me cold, except that they were
interesting as evidence of his wide interests. Everybody, however
ignorant, is attracted by Psychic Phenomena, or Ghosts, and though I was
growing sleepy I pulled that towards me, and opened it at random.

The first part of this set of papers consisted of a series of
temperature recordings taken in a house that was troubled by a
Poltergeist. The evidence was that the house, a modern villa occupied by
the manager of a motor garage and his wife, was the scene of various
unexplainable occurrences. At a time when the family was at dinner and
there was nobody else in the house, the barometer which normally hung in
the hall had been thrown with a clatter into the kitchen sink, through a
closed door. In similar circumstances a disused paraffin lamp, normally
kept in the loft, was thrown downstairs; and kitchen plates were broken
with a crash under the bed of the main upstairs bedroom. Unlike the
majority of such cases, there was no adolescent in the house. In every
instance observers had noticed an apparent fall of temperature at the
time of the occurrence. Honey had installed three recording
thermographs, probably borrowed from the R.A.E., at different points in
the house, and a mass of these records occupied the first part of the
file. I could not find that the research had yielded much result.

The rest of the file was filled with records of communications by
planchette; in some cases these were transcripts of the questions and
answers, and in other cases the actual sheets covered with scrawled
automatic writing were preserved. Most of them were concerned with a
Roman aqueduct and water distribution system in the neighbourhood of
Guildford; Honey had apparently selected this as a test case because the
details of its plan had been lost in the passage of the centuries, and
anything discovered by planchette could be verified fairly easily by
excavation. He had amassed a thick bundle of communications from a
spirit called Armiger, who was apparently a Roman soldier, but much of
the other side of the investigation, the verifying excavations, was
missing.

Next came a thin sheaf of papers filed in an envelope; upon the cover
was the one word MARY. I hesitated over this, and finally passed on,
leaving them unread.

Last came a draft for a thesis, perhaps a paper he had read before the
local Society for Psychic Research; it was entitled AUTOMATIC WRITING.
It was a carefully prepared description of the Guildford experiments,
which showed considerable verification by digging of the facts stated by
the planchette. What interested me most, however, as in every technical
paper that one scans through quickly, was the paragraph headed
"Conclusions". Here Honey said,

     "It is beyond question that information can be obtained by
     automatic writing which is not obtainable in any other way,
     provided that the matter is approached in a spirit of serious
     inquiry, and that the investigator is not put off by the
     somewhat bizarre donors of information on the other side. It is
     not possible to obtain information upon any subject that one
     chooses. It is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain
     information benefiting the inquirer. The information which
     appears to come most readily is that benefiting mankind as a
     whole, or which will benefit a third party who is not aware of
     the inquiry."

I put the files back thoughtfully, and went to bed.




6


I went to see the Director when I got in first thing next morning. "I
had E. P. Prendergast upon the telephone last night, at my house," he
said. "He's very much upset."

"I suppose he told you that Honey's off his head," I replied. "I had him
yesterday afternoon."

"Yes, he said that. Of course, Honey lays himself wide open to that sort
of thing, and that makes it rather difficult for us. Prendergast has
been digging up a lot of Honey's activities in regard to ghosts. I must
say, that was news to me."

"It was news to me, too, yesterday," I said. "I know a bit more about it
now." There was nothing to be gained by concealing things; I told the
Director that by no design of mine I had been forced to spend the night
in Honey's house, and that I had spent the evening going through his
private papers. He smiled gently. "Very wise, if somewhat
unconventional," he said. "And what do you think of him now, Scott?"

It was sunny and fresh that morning. "I think exactly as I did," I said.
"I think that there's a very fair chance that he's right about the
Reindeer tail. I think he has a very logical mind. The fact that his
interests spread very wide doesn't mean that he's mad. It means that
he's sane."

"And so you feel inclined to maintain your attitude?"

"I do indeed," I said. "I don't think we should dream of letting any
Reindeer fly more than 700 hours."

He smiled again, "Well, I don't mind a fight." He glanced at me. "I
think we must get Transport Command to fetch Honey back for us," he
said. "I'll see to that this morning. Then there arises the problem of
who to send to Labrador in place of him. When are you reading your paper
before the Royal Aeronautical Society, Scott?"

"On Thursday," I said.

He nodded. "I want to come to that. But afterwards I think you had
better go to Labrador yourself and get this thing cleared up. If we have
the formal meeting on Thursday morning at the Ministry, and then you
read your paper on Thursday night, you should be able to get the night
plane to Ottawa after that?"

"If C.A.T.O. will consent to carry me," I said. "I think Honey is as
sane as you or I, so they'll probably look a bit old-fashioned at me."

He laughed. "I want you to go yourself. It's getting on to quite a high
level, this thing is, and it's obviously going to make some
difficulties."

"Well, I'd be very glad to go," I said. "I'm beginning to feel a trip to
Canada would do me good."

I went out of his office; on my way back to my own place I had to cross
the road outside the main administration block. A very large blue
Daimler limousine was just drawing up to the door, driven by a
chauffeur; everything about it shone in the sunlight, including the
buttons on the man. I wondered sardonically which of the aircraft firms
had thought fit to send their representative to us that way, until I saw
that the only passenger in it was a woman. I passed on without thinking
any more about it.

Five minutes later, in my office, Miss Learoyd came in and said,
"There's a lady downstairs wants to see you, Dr. Scott. Miss Teasdale."

I stared at her. "Who the hell's Miss Teasdale?"

"I don't know. Shall I ring down and ask what her business is?"

I nodded. "Yes, do that. I'm very busy today." I was, but I was rather
intrigued; in my job it was quite unusual to have a stranger as a
visitor, and especially a woman.

Miss Learoyd came back in a minute, round-eyed. "It's Monica Teasdale,
Dr. Scott. She says she's come to see you about Mr. Honey."

The name was vaguely familiar in some way, and anything about Honey now
concerned me very much indeed. I wrinkled my brows. "Who is Monica
Teasdale?" I asked.

Miss Learoyd gazed at me reproachfully. "Wouldn't she be the film
actress?"

I stared at her. "Well, I don't know ..." The thought offended me; I was
too busy to be bothered by that sort of person. On the other hand, the
Honey matter was now vitally important, and if a movie star had anything
to say about him, I should see her. "You'd better tell them to send her
up," I said at last.

Miss Learoyd, pop-eyed, showed her in a few minutes later; I got up from
my desk and met Monica Teasdale in the flesh, whom I had seen upon the
screen so many times. She was an older woman than I had thought; she
still had the same beauty and appeal, still the same slight figure, the
same unwrinkled face, but there was an indefinable sense of age about
her; she was not the young girl that I knew upon the screen. Later, I
learned to my surprise that she was over fifty.

She came forward with a dazzling smile, with hand outstretched. "Dr.
Scott?" she said. "Dr. Scott, I heard so much about you from Mr. Honey
that I thought, maybe, since there's a mite of trouble going on, I'd
come right down and see you and tell you all about it."

I said, "Well, Miss Teasdale--that's very good of you. Er--have you
known Mr. Honey long?" And then I said, "Would you sit down?"

She said, "I only met him night before last, flying over to Gander in an
airplane."

I was amazed. "But ... did you go to Gander?"

"Sure I did," she said. "I was at Gander with him yesterday, up till
around midnight when my plane took off for London."

"Then you know about the accident to the Reindeer?"

"Surely," she said. "I actually saw it happen. I could have died
laughing."

It was satisfactory, perhaps, to hear that somebody had got some fun out
of this business. I leaned over and offered her a cigarette, which she
refused, and said, "But how did you get back here, then?"

She said, "I flew right back last night. Out there, your Mr. Honey's got
himself in quite a spot, Doctor. I guess you know he pulled the landing
wheels up, so Redgauntlet couldn't take off from Gander." I nodded.
"Well, after that there was some trouble, as you'd suppose, and folks
were going around declaring that he's mentally deranged--that's what
they're saying out there." I nodded. "Well, I don't think he's mentally
deranged at all, but it's got so that no airline will carry him away
from Gander, and as there is no other way to get away from Gander it
looks like he'll stay there for quite a while. And that worried him a
lot, because he thought he ought to get back and report to you, and tell
you what he did."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. "How do you come in on this, Miss
Teasdale?"

"I got to kind of like the little man," she said frankly. "Seems like
he's getting a raw deal. I said that I'd come right back myself, and
tell you just what happened. At first I couldn't get a passage--they
said all the planes were full up, but I got a call long distance to New
York--four hours it took to come through, would you believe it!--and I
spoke to Solly Goldmann and I said, 'Solly, this is Monica, I've just
_got_ to get a seat on that Trans World Airline plane this evening back
to London. I've just _got_ to, Solly, don't you ask me why, I'll tell
you when I see you on the lot, but just you go right round and see the
President for me and say that Monica's set down at Gander by the British
and she's just _got_ to get back to London on that plane tonight.'
That's what I said. Well, then I stuck around with Mr. Honey, and sure
enough when that plane landed around nine o'clock they had a seat for
me, and here I am."

"Did anybody else come back with you from Gander?" I inquired. "Any of
the crew?"

She shook her head. "They're all sitting around grieving about their
airplane, and trying to think of ways of getting it up on its wheels
again. They say it weighs seventy tons, and that's a mean load to handle
at a place like Gander, seemingly, where all the tools they've got is
one jack from the tool-box of a Ford. I expect they'll be there some
time with it."

I asked her, "Would you tell me exactly what did happen, Miss Teasdale?
I'd like to know it all, right from the start."

"Surely," she said. "I only came into the story half-way through, but
we were barely clear of Ireland, only an hour or so out, when Mr. Honey
first discovered that that airplane had flown twice the hours it should
have done." She settled down to tell me the whole tale. Honey had
briefed her well; she had a little paper of notes in her handbag, and
she had a letter for me, half a dozen lines scrawled in his vile
handwriting, telling me I could depend upon her story, and asking me to
cable him instructions whether to go on by land or to come back. In half
an hour I had the picture very clearly in my mind of what had happened.

"It's been most kind of you to come back here and tell us all this," I
said at last. "It's really very helpful."

She said, "Well, it seemed kind of wrong to go on to the Coast and leave
it so." She glanced at me. "I like your Mr. Honey," she said quietly. "I
think he's a nice person."

"It's good of you to say so," I replied. "I'm afraid he's interrupted
your journey, though."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Guess I'd rather be sitting in this office
than lying dead some place, even if I am back in England when I meant to
be over on the Coast today."

"You think that there was danger in going on?" I asked curiously. "Honey
convinced you, did he?"

"I don't know anything about these things," she said. "Out there at
Gander they're all saying that he's nuts. Well, I don't think that--and
I've met some crackpots in my time, believe me. I'm just as glad I
didn't have to fly on in that airplane, after hearing what he said." She
paused, and then she said, "I reckon Captain Samuelson, the pilot of the
plane, he was kind of relieved, too, when it sat down on its belly,
though he was as mad as hell."

I nodded thoughtfully. "Miss Teasdale," I said, "would you mind waiting
here a minute, while I go and see my chief--the Director of this
Establishment? I think he might like to meet you."

"Sure," she said. "Go right ahead."

I went down to the Director; fortunately he was free. "About this Honey
business, sir," I said rather desperately. "I've got a film star here
who knows a lot about it. Miss Monica Teasdale." I had a feeling that my
blazing row was getting altogether out of control.

He looked at me, smiling. "Do you want me to see her, Scott?"

"I think you ought to," I said. "She travelled over with Honey and knows
all about what happened on the crossing, and at Gander. She came back
specially to tell us all about it, and so far as I can make out she's
the only witness who has come back to this country."

"Are you going to put this lady from Hollywood up against Sir David Moon
and E. P. Prendergast?" he asked. But he was grinning, and I knew that
he was pulling my leg.

"I think you ought to see her," I said stubbornly. "I don't suppose
you'll ever get another chance of moving in such high society."

"By all means bring her down," he said. "I've never met a film star in
the flesh."

She came into his office with a radiant smile and hand a little bit
outstretched, a perfect gesture from a very lovely woman. "Say," she
said, "it's just terribly nice of you to see me, and I'll try not to
waste any of your time. I just wanted to tell you what a marvellous
front your Mr. Honey put up out at Gander, and how grateful to him I
feel as a passenger."

She launched into the story, as she had with me, and talked for about
ten minutes. At the end of that the Director thanked her, talked to her
about a few casual matters, asked if she would like to see the less
secret parts of the Establishment, and asked me to show her round. I
took her out on to the tarmac where the aeroplanes were parked awaiting
test, and walked her round a little, and introduced her to
Flight-Lieutenant Wintringham, who was properly impressed. And while we
were chatting in among the aircraft, he inquired, "How's Elspeth this
morning?"

"Better," I said. "She's got a headache and she was sick again during
the night--Shirley was up with her a good bit. But she's going on all
right."

"Honey know anything about it yet?"

"No," I said. "He's got enough on his plate out at Gander without
bothering him with that." It was common knowledge by that time what had
happened.

He laughed boyishly. "I would like to have seen him do it."

"Miss Teasdale did," I said. "She saw the whole thing happen."

He turned to her. "You did?" But she was already speaking to me.

"Who is this Elspeth, anyway?" she asked. "Not Mr. Honey's little girl?"

"That's right," I replied. "She fell downstairs the night he went away,
the night that you flew over to Gander, Sunday night. She's been rather
bad."

She stared at me. "How did that happen? Mr. Honey told me that he'd got
the hired woman to come and stay in the house."

"She didn't turn up," I explained. "Elspeth was alone in the house. She
thought she heard a burglar in the middle of the night and got up to
see, and fell downstairs and knocked her head. She was unconscious for
over twelve hours; my wife found her about eleven o'clock on Monday
morning, lying in a heap at the foot of the stairs. But she's getting on
all right now."

She stared at me in horror. "The poor child! Where is she now?"

"As a matter of fact, she's lying in my bed," I said ruefully. "My
wife's looking after her. I slept round at Honey's house last night, and
I suppose I'll do the same tonight."

She said slowly, "I'm just terribly sorry to hear this, Dr. Scott. I
know how anxious Mr. Honey's going to be when he gets to hear of it--he
just thinks the world of his little girl. Is there anything that I can
do?"

I smiled. "It's quite all right, thanks. We shan't tell him about it
till he gets back here, I don't think. She's getting on quite well, and
it would only upset him."

She said, "Your Mr. Honey was mighty nice to me, Doctor. Isn't there any
little thing that I can do at all?"

I thought for a minute, wondering how far this actress was sincere, or
putting on an act. It would thrill Shirley to meet her, in any case.
"What are you doing for the rest of today, Miss Teasdale?" I inquired.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm completely free."

"There is just one thing you could do," I said. "My wife's tired out;
she got practically no sleep last night, sitting up with Elspeth. If you
could go and sit with Elspeth while Shirley takes a nap on the sofa, it
really would be very kind indeed."

She said, "Why, certainly." She was more Miss Myra Tuppen than Miss
Monica Teasdale at that moment; far from the honky-tonk the simple past
was opening before her. "I'd be real glad to do that. Tell me, where do
I go? And will you call your wife and tell her that I'll come right
over?"

We went back to the offices and I rang up Shirley and told her simply
that a friend of Honey's, a Miss Teasdale was coming over to sit with
Elspeth while Shirley got some sleep. I didn't feel equal to explaining
to my tired wife upon the telephone that I was sending her a movie
queen. Then we went down and she got into her enormous car, and I told
the chauffeur where to find my little flat, and Wintringham and I were
left as they moved off.

"The old devil!" he said with a note of admiration in his voice. "Fancy
Honey collecting a Popsie like that!"

It did seem rather curious, when you came to think of it.

I went up to my office, but Miss Learoyd said the Director wanted me,
and I went down again. He said, "What have you done with our
distinguished visitor, Scott?"

"I've sent her off to sit with Elspeth Honey while my wife gets some
sleep," I said. "She seemed to want to help, so I took her at her word."

He raised his eyebrows, "And she went?"

I grinned. "She did. Just like an ordinary woman."

"Really ..." He asked me about Elspeth, and I told him. And then he
said, "You know, the thing that interested me most in Miss Teasdale's
story was the reaction of the pilot, Samuelson. He didn't seem to be
sorry that it was impossible to fly that aircraft any farther."

"I know," I said. "I think that wants looking into. He couldn't have
diagnosed anything wrong with the machine, though, from his own
experience. I wonder if old Honey shook his confidence a bit?"

"Maybe," he said. "About Honey, Scott. I've been talking to the Air
Ministry. There's an old Lincoln from the Navigation School due to fly
from Winnipeg back here one day this week, and they're instructing it to
land at Gander and pick Honey up. I've got a draft signal here from us
to him that I'd like you to look at."

We got that off, and I went back to my office to deal with my
overflowing IN basket.

Shirley, wearily cooking up a cup of arrowroot for Elspeth to see if she
could keep that down, heard a ring at the door and thought it was the
butcher; she was so tired she had already forgotten all about Miss
Teasdale. She went with her overall on and a wisp of hair hanging down
across her eyes and an enamel tray in her hand to receive the joint, and
there was a most lovely and most beautifully turned out woman standing
at the head of the dark staircase that led up to our flat. Her face was
vaguely familiar and her voice soft and husky and slightly Middle West.

She said, "Say, it's Mrs. Scott, is it?"

Shirley said, "Oh ... of course. My husband rang me up." She fumbled
with the tray in her hands. "I'm so sorry--I thought it was someone
else. Please, do come in."

Miss Teasdale said, "I was visiting with Dr. Scott this morning, and he
told me what a time you're having with Mr. Honey's little girl, and he
suggested I could come and sit with her a while so you could get some
sleep. I'd be glad to do that, if it suits you, Mrs. Scott. I'm free all
day."

Shirley said mechanically, "Oh, you don't need to bother--really." She
hesitated. "Would you come in?"

Miss Teasdale took hold firmly as they went into the sitting-room. "My
dear, you're looking real tired," she said. "I'm a kind of friend of Mr.
Honey. I'm quite free to stay here up till ten o'clock tonight, or all
night if it suits. Just show me where things are and where the little
girl is, and then you get off to bed and get some sleep."

Shirley stared at her. "Aren't ... don't I know you?"

"Sure you know me, if you ever go to pictures," said the actress. "But
that doesn't mean I can't look after a sick child, same as anybody
else."

"Monica Teasdale?"

"That's right."

"But--do you know Mr. Honey?"

"Surely. Now you just----" She stopped and glanced out of the window at
the Daimler. "Just one thing first of all, my dear," she said quietly.
"We don't want any trouble here with Press or fans or anything. I don't
think anybody noticed when I came in. Do you mind--would you go down and
tell the chauffeur he's to go right back because I'm staying here a
while? Say I'll call them at the office later in the day."

Shirley went down to the car in a state of tired bemusement; the
chauffeur touched his cap to her, and the great car moved off. When she
got back to the flat Miss Teasdale was not in the sitting-room; Shirley
went down the passage to the bedroom and there she was, standing in the
doorway, leaning reflectively against the jamb, looking in at Elspeth
who was sleeping in our double bed, with a basin at her side.

She turned at Shirley's step. "She's just the image of her father," she
said quietly.

Shirley stopped by her; together they stood looking at the sleeping
child. "She is and she isn't," she said. "She's got his features, but
she's awfully well proportioned. Look at her hands. I think she may be
beautiful when she gets older."

The actress said quietly, "That could be." And then she said, "Did you
know her mother?"

Shirley shook her head. "I only met Mr. Honey a few days ago." She drew
away from the door. "Don't let's wake her."

They moved back to the sitting-room. "Say, is that the only bed you've
got?" the actress asked.

Shirley nodded. "It's only a small flat," she said. "We've not been
married very long."

"Kind of difficult for nursing a sick child, isn't it?"

"It's a bit hard on Dennis--my husband. He had to go and sleep in Mr.
Honey's house last night."

"Where did you sleep, then?"

Shirley laughed. "I didn't sleep much, anyway. I lay down on the sofa
for a bit."

"Well, you lie right down on that sofa again, and get some sleep. I'll
sit in the bedroom to be near her if she wakes." She was tired herself
after two nights sitting up in an aircraft, but she did not want to
sleep. She could rest sufficiently by sitting quiet by the sleeping
child.

Shirley said, "It's awfully kind of you--I would like to lie down a bit.
Let me get some lunch first." They went together to the kitchen; the
actress watched, a little helplessly, while Shirley got out the cold
meat and salad and put on a kettle. And then she said, "Would you like
for me to take her up to Claridge's? We've got a suite there permanently
reserved where she could have a bedroom and a private nurse and
everything ..."

Shirley said quickly, "Oh thank you, but that wouldn't do. She'd be
worried to death--she wants to get back into her father's house. She's
worrying that all their things will get stolen. It wouldn't do to move
her up to London--honestly it wouldn't."

"Okay," said the older woman. "It was just an idea." She watched Shirley
for a minute, and then said, "What were you doing before you got
yourself married?"

"I was a tracer."

"In a drafting office?"

Shirley nodded. "That's where I met Dennis."

There was a long pause. "I was a stenographer," the older woman said.
"But that was quite a while ago." She stood in thought, her mind full of
memories of Eddie Stillson, the lame ledger clerk.

Shirley stared at her. "Really? I thought you were always in films."

"You don't get born that way," Miss Teasdale said. "How old are you?"

Shirley said, "Twenty-four."

"Well, I've been in pictures all your life, and maybe a bit longer. But
I was a stenographer one time, in an insurance office."

Shirley said curiously, "How did you come to meet Mr. Honey, Miss
Teasdale?"

"It was this way." They sat down to lunch at the dining table in the
little kitchen; as she heard all about it Shirley studied her visitor.
She had never before sat and talked with any American; she was
overwhelmed by the sophisticated, carefully tended beauty of the
actress, and confused by the real kindliness of the woman that lay under
the sophistication. Above all she was tired, too tired to take much in.

Miss Teasdale said, "Now, you go right into that sitting-room and lie
down with a rug over you, and let me see you make yourself real
comfortable and warm."

Shirley said, "I'll just wash these things up first."

"Wash--oh, the dishes. No, you leave those where they are. I'll see to
them."

It was too incongruous; the woman was not dressed for housework, her
nails too carefully manicured for washing dishes, her costume too good.
Shirley said, "No--really, it won't take me a minute."

"You do what I say." Shirley was too tired to argue any more; she took
off her overall and gave it to the actress, showed her the rusty tin
that contained soda. "This double saucepan's got arrowroot in it," she
said. "Keep it warm, and give Elspeth a cup if she wakes up. The
sugar's here. She'd better not have anything else, and if she's sick,
just empty the bowl down the lavatory and wash it out, you know. Dr.
Martin may look in this afternoon. It's awfully kind of you."

She went into the sitting-room and let down the end of the sofa; under
the disciplinary eye of the older woman she lay down and pulled a rug
over her. In ten minutes she was fast asleep.

Back in the kitchen, Monica Teasdale started gingerly upon the washing
up. She had not done that in years because her negro house servants were
genuinely fond of her, and had seldom let her down, but long ago Myra
Tuppen had done it after every meal as a matter of course. The greasy
feel of hot wet plates stirred memories in her. Old tunes came creeping
back into her mind as she stood there at the sink, the dance tunes of
her early youth, _Redwing_, _That Mysterious Rag_ ... She stood there
with these old tunes running through her head, washing the dishes
mechanically, a middle-aged woman who had crept back into the past when
everything was bright, and promising, and new ...

She finished washing the dishes without breaking anything, and found
places for them in the cupboard where they seemed to fit. Then she took
off her overall and did up her face in the small mirror of her flapjack.
If she had married Eddie Stillson this would have been her life, the
kitchen and children in Terre Haute or in some other city of the Middle
West. She had done better for herself than that, or had she? She had
seen India and China and the Philippines in films upon location, but
Eddie Stillson's wife could have learned as much as she about those
countries by seeing the films. She had travelled once or twice in Europe
for her holidays between the wars, but Eddie Stillson's wife could have
learned as much by reading the _Geographic Magazine_--possibly more. She
had, however, tangible experiences that Eddie Stillson could not have
provided. Twice she had started the Indianapolis Motor Race, in her own
State. She had adventured three times into marriage. She had met
interesting people in all walks of life; she had entertained
Ambassadors. Now as her career was drawing to its close a life of
idleness alone in an apartment lay ahead of her. All her experience and
all the money she had earned had not secured for her a home and quiet
interests for her old age, had not brought her children and
grandchildren. She could never have those now, even if she married
again. She smiled, a little cynically; for the fourth time. If ever she
ventured into matrimony again she would look for very different
qualities in a man.

She moved quietly to the sitting-room door and looked in; Shirley was
asleep upon the sofa. She glanced around our room, thoughtfully, noting
the second-hand carpet, the ten-year-old radio, the bookcases I had made
in the evenings out of the planks of packing-cases stained with
permanganate of potash. There were many flowers in the room because
Shirley was fond of them; one spray of roses stood in a tall glass
bottle etched with the legend MANOR FARM DAIRY. With a little pang she
recognised the room for what it was, something she had never really
known, the beginning of a home. Somehow, it seemed easier for folks to
make a place like that when there wasn't very much money. When you built
a bookcase with your own hands instead of ordering it by telephone from
the department store complete with books, it was a little tenuous link
that bound you to the home.

She was forgetting her charge; she moved down the short corridor to the
bedroom. Elspeth had turned over in bed; as the actress came to the door
she moved and blinked sleepily, her hair over her eyes, only half awake.
Miss Teasdale said, "It's all right, honey. Mrs. Scott's having a nice
sleep and I said I'd stay around and look after you."

Elspeth said, "What's your name?"

"Teasdale--Monica Teasdale. You'd better call me Monica."

The child asked directly, "Then why did you call me Honey?"

The actress laughed. "Why, that's what we call folks back in America,
in Indiana where I was raised. I didn't mean it for your name."

"My name's Elspeth," said the child. "I've been sick six times."

"Well, don't you be sick again till Mrs. Scott wakes up, or maybe I'd
not know what to do about it."

"Why don't you call her Shirley?"

"I don't know--I only just met her today. That's her name, is it?"

The child nodded. Then she said, "May I get up and go along the
passage?"

"Surely," said Miss Teasdale quickly. "Wait--you'd better put something
on." She looked around a little helplessly.

"It's hanging up behind the door," the child said. Miss Teasdale looked
and found a very small, worn dressing-gown; Elspeth slipped it on, and
put her feet in bedroom slippers, and went off. The actress moved to the
bed, and smoothed out the bedclothes and pulled out the
hot-water-bottles, which were cold, and then Elspeth was back again and
climbing into bed.

The actress watched the little active figure in pyjamas getting into
bed, watched with her hands full of hot-water-bottles and with her heart
full of regret. She said, "How do you feel now?"

The child said, "My head aches when I move about."

"Sure, it will do, after giving it a bump like that. Does it hurt when
you stay still?"

"Not till I think of it. It hurts then."

Miss Teasdale laughed. "I'll get these bottles filled."

"I don't want them, please. They're too hot."

"Okay. Mrs. Scott left arrowroot upon the stove for you. Think you could
take a cup of that?"

"No, thank you."

The actress said, "Come on, honey, try a little bit. It'll do you good."

Elspeth said, "It can't do me any good if I sick it all up."

"You won't."

"I did last time."

"You won't this time."

She went into the kitchen and found a cup and saucer and a tin of
biscuits, and came back to the bedroom with the arrowroot and crackers
on a little tray. The child obediently ate the food and said, "Do you
live in America?"

"Most of the time," the actress said.

"My daddy's in America--not really in America. He's in Canada. He went
on Sunday."

"I know it. I travelled over with him--that's how I met him. Then I had
to come back again directly, and he asked me if I'd come and see how you
were getting on."

Elspeth accepted this without much interest. "When's he coming home?"

"Quite soon now, I think. Maybe this week."

"He's been away an awfully long time."

"Only since Sunday, honey. This is Tuesday."

"It seems an awfully long time," the child said.

There was a jigsaw puzzle started upon my drawing-board. "Say," said the
actress, "that's an elegant picture. Going to be Southampton Docks,
isn't it, with all the liners?" She fetched the board, and they began
doing it together.

When I got home that night at about half-past six I found Shirley just
waking up upon the sofa; she sat up sleepily as I came in and asked what
time it was. We went together to the bedroom. Miss Teasdale got up as we
came in. She had been reading to Elspeth; the bed was littered with
books from our bookcase: _The Oxford Book of English Verse_, _Puck of
Pook's Hill_, and _The Earthly Paradise_. Elspeth had not been sick
again, and they had had a cup of tea together and some bread and butter.
"We finished the puzzle," said the actress. "We've been reading for a
while."

Elspeth said to Shirley, "She does read well, Mrs. Scott. She reads much
better than Miss Lansdowne, or anybody at school. You sort of actually
see things happening when she's reading out loud."

Miss Teasdale laughed, a little self-consciously, which was odd in so
sophisticated a woman. "I guess I've had some practice," she said
quietly.

"She says she'll teach me to read like that when I get bigger," Elspeth
said.

"Sure I will, honey." She gathered up the books. "You've got a nice
selection of good books," she said. "This author, William Morris--I've
never met his work before. Elspeth wanted me to read her some of this."

Shirley took over to give Elspeth a bath and make her ready for bed; I
took Miss Teasdale into the sitting-room and mixed her a drink. "It's
been terribly kind of you to come and help us out like this," I said,
lighting her cigarette. "Shirley slept five hours this afternoon."

She nodded. "I might say it's kind of you folks to look after Mr.
Honey's little girl," she said. "As I see it, you hadn't any call to do
so."

I laughed. "Well, it was I who sent her father off."

She nodded. "Surely." And then she said, "I don't know if you'll believe
me if I say it's been a real pleasure to me, sitting here this
afternoon, playing and reading with Elspeth," she said. She hesitated.
"Some women have a lot to do with children, and some don't," she said.
"I'm one of the ones who don't."

I nodded. It seemed difficult to pursue that subject with this exotic
woman. "We fixed up about Mr. Honey coming back from Gander," I said.
"An R.A.F. Lincoln is going to pick him up one day this week and bring
him over."

She nodded. "And what happens after that?"

I laughed. "Then we're going to have the hell of a row."

"Say, not over what he did at Gander, pulling up the wheels?"

"Oh, not with him," I said. "We're on his side--I think he did quite
right. The trouble is we haven't any evidence to prove it."

I told her briefly what the row was all about, and mentioned that I
should be going out to Labrador myself. Then I asked her plans, and
persuaded her to stay and have supper with us. "It'll probably only be
the same bit of cold meat you had for lunch," I said. "We might cook up
a Welsh rarebit or something, afterwards." She called her office in
Wardour Street, and ordered the car for nine o'clock to take her back to
Claridge's. Summoning the company's car forty miles out into the country
to pick her up at that time of night seemed the most natural thing in
the world to her.

She was interested in Honey, and kept leading the conversation round to
him. She wanted to know what place he held in the organisation of the
R.A.E., what we thought about him in the office. I had some difficulty
in answering that one. "He's an inside man," I said, using the words
that the Director had used about him to me. "He's deeply interested in
research, and he doesn't concern himself very much with user problems.
Opinions vary about him; lots of people think he's crackers."

"Do you?" she asked.

I laughed. "No--I think he's very good, within his own sphere. But I
shan't send him out upon a job again. From now on he stays in the
laboratory, where he belongs."

"I don't think that's fair," she said. "He wants to get around and meet
more people."

I smiled at her. "He can do that at the week-ends. I don't want any more
Reindeers broken up." That seemed badly phrased, and I regretted it as
soon as the words were out of my mouth. "I mean, a man who was more
interested in operations would have found some other means of stopping
that thing flying on."

"I don't know about that," she objected. "The little man was in a mighty
tough spot. Nobody believed him."

"That's what I mean," I said. "He's an inside man. If he'd been an
athletic type six foot two in height and weighing fourteen stone, with a
red face and a fist like a ham, they'd have believed him all right, and
he wouldn't have had to crash the aeroplane."

"Maybe," she said thoughtfully.

"He hated going, anyway," I said. "I had to force him, and now I'm sorry
that I did. I thought he was the best man to send. He's only really
happy on his own research."

Later on, while we were eating the cold meat and salad, she said, "Have
you got a lot of scientists like Mr. Honey in your organisation,
Doctor?"

"Hundreds," I said. "I'm one of them. We're all bats in our own way."

She said, "He knows an awful lot about a lot of things. I never mixed
with scientists before. He was telling me about the end of the world
coming, all from the Great Pyramid. Say, do you believe in that?"

"No," I said, "I don't. But then I didn't really believe him first of
all when he said the Reindeer tail was going bad on us. Now I think I
do." I turned to her. "There's no doubt that he's got a very penetrating
mind," I said. "He's full of scientific curiosity. We'd have done better
in the war if we'd paid some attention to his crazy notions." I was
thinking of the rockets.

"I think he's a great little man," she said quietly. "With a brain like
that, and at the same time, so simple and so kind."

Her car came for her at nine o'clock. She said to Shirley almost
diffidently, "Mrs. Scott, do you think I might come down tomorrow and
sit with Elspeth? I certainly would like to do that."

Shirley said, "Oh please, don't bother. It's been terribly nice of you
to help us out today, but we'll be all right now. I think she'll sleep
tonight."

The actress said, "It wouldn't be a trouble. I'd be glad to do it. I did
enjoy being with her this afternoon."

Shirley said doubtfully, "Would you really like to? Haven't you got more
important things to do?"

Miss Teasdale shook her head. "I've got nothing fixed. I've got to be
back on the West Coast in ten days from now, but up till then I'm free.
I certainly would like to spend another day with her."

Shirley laughed. "I won't say 'no' to that. She's got to stay in bed a
week, and keeping her amused is going to be a job."

"Okay," said the actress. "I'll be with you in the morning, around
eleven o'clock."

We stood and watched the car move off. Elspeth was still occupying our
only bed so it was necessary for me to go and sleep in Honey's house
again, while Shirley slept on the sofa. "I rather like the sofa," she
said. "I'll be all right there if Elspeth doesn't keep on being sick all
night again."

We went back into the house to get my bag with my night things in it.
Shirley walked round to the little villa in Copse Road with me; it was
only ten minutes away and she felt that she could leave Elspeth for that
time. "I was round there this morning," she said as we went. "Isn't it
simply foul?"

I hadn't noticed anything much wrong with it. "It hasn't got much
furniture in the sitting-room," I said.

"I don't mean that. Didn't you see the kitchen floor? It's absolutely
filthy, and the scullery's disgusting. It can't have been properly
washed out for years."

We reached the house, and she took me and showed me all the horrors.
They didn't seem very bad to me, but then I am a man. Shirley said, "We
can't send Elspeth back here with the place like this--it isn't
healthy." She thought for a minute. "I'll come round tomorrow and have a
go at it."

"You don't have to do that," I said. "It's not our house, and we've not
made it dirty."

"We can't leave it like this," she said firmly. "If Miss Teasdale turns
up, I'll come round here tomorrow."

"What about the school?"

"I've only got one period tomorrow."

"I shouldn't bank upon Miss Teasdale," I said. "You'll probably get a
phone call saying she can't make it."

Shirley said, "I think she'll come. Do you know----"

She stopped.

"What?"

"Oh--nothing. It was just a stupid idea."

"What's that?"

She hesitated. "It would be funny if there was something between her and
Mr. Honey, wouldn't it?"

I stared at her. "There couldn't be ..."

"I suppose there couldn't. But one or two things she said made me kind
of wonder."

She went away, and I got in a couple of hours upon the AIRCRAFT FLYING
AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS before I got too sleepy.

Next morning, in the office, the Director sent for me. "I have arranged
a meeting for eleven o'clock tomorrow morning," he said, "--at the
Ministry. It's going to be quite a big meeting, with representatives of
C.A.T.O. and the Company, and M.C.A., as well as the M. of S. and
ourselves. You'll bring up everything we're likely to require?"

"Very good, sir. You'll be coming up yourself?"

"Oh, I think so. I think we shall need all the weight that we can
muster, Scott."

"What about Honey, sir?" I asked. "Will he be back?"

"I rather doubt it. I think we may have to get along without him. I only
know that the Lincoln is picking him up at Gander one day this week."

"Pity," I said. "It would have been better if we could have had him
there."

He nodded. "Carnegie wanted to see Sir Phillip Dolbear's letter about
Honey's work. I sent him a copy of that yesterday."

I made a grimace. It was impossible to hide up evidence like that, but
it wasn't going to make it any easier for us to persuade them that the
Reindeer tail was dangerous.

"They're getting back the pilot of the Reindeer, Captain Samuelson, in
time for the meeting, I understand. We should get an informed account
from him upon exactly what took place."

"I don't like that," I said. "We're going to get the Organisation's
account of what happened, but not our own. If we're going to have the
pilot of the aircraft, we should have Honey too."

He shrugged his shoulders. "We've got to work on the assumption we shall
get a fair account. You wouldn't suggest bringing in Miss Monica
Teasdale, I suppose?"

I grinned. "I don't think she could add much to our meeting, except
glamour."

He said grimly, "Well, we may need light relief before this thing blows
over." He paused. "I forgot to say, the Treasury are sending somebody,
to hold a watching brief for the expenditures involved."

I left him, and went down to the old balloon shed to see how the
Reindeer tail on test was getting on. It was now running day and night;
the graphs showed nothing yet that we could cite as any evidence of
trouble. I had hoped that something would have turned up in the readings
that I could take with me to the meeting as an evidence of abnormality,
as a warning. There was nothing of that sort at all.

"I don't think there will be, sir," young Simmons said. "Mr. Honey was
convinced that it would go on like this right up to the end."

While I was down there, Miss Learoyd rang through. "There's a lady
waiting in the Reception to see you," she said. "A Miss Corder."

I said, "Do you know who she is?"

"She's got a letter to give you from Mr. Honey, sir."

I blinked; another woman from Honey. "All right," I said. "Have her
shown up and ask her to wait. I'll be up in a few minutes."

When I got up to my office there was a tall, dark girl sitting on an
upright chair against the wall, waiting for me. She was dressed quietly
in a dark blue coat and skirt; she wore a very simple hat. She was quite
young, very attractive, and with the most beautiful features and
colouring.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," I said. "It's Miss Corser, is it?"

She had risen to her feet as I entered. "Corder," she said. "I have a
letter for you, sir, from Mr. Honey." She opened her bag and gave it to
me. "He said that it was very urgent, so I thought it would be better if
I brought it down by hand."

"Oh--thank you," I said. "When did he give you this?"

"Last night, sir," she said, "at about ten o'clock--just before I left
Gander." She explained, "I was one of the stewardesses on the Reindeer
that got damaged at Gander, the one that Mr. Honey crossed in. Most of
the aircrew are staying at Gander with the aircraft, but we stewards
were recalled to London. I suppose they'll put me in another aircraft;
there's no point in keeping us with the machine till it's repaired. So
as I was to come back last night, Mr. Honey asked me if I would bring
this letter with me and let you have it immediately I landed. I thought
I'd better bring it down at once."

"You landed this morning?"

"Yes, sir."

She stood silent, holding her bag in her hands before her while I opened
and read the letter.

It was not a very long one. He said that I must know all the facts by
that time from Miss Teasdale. He had been thinking it all over, and
while he did not see what else he could have done, he realised that his
action must have let down the reputation of the R.A.E. He said that for
some time past he had felt that perhaps he was out of place in the
department, and it might well be that this was the time when he should
make a break and find some other employment. He did not want to
embarrass me in any way, but he would like me to consider that letter as
his resignation.

I said quietly, "Oh, damn ..." and read it through again, biting my lip.
It was another complication in this business; if Honey resigned, how
could I maintain my attitude of taking a firm line by showing confidence
in his judgment? He would have to be persuaded to withdraw his
resignation and fight this thing through with me, and now he was in
Gander, inaccessible. I raised my eyes, and the dark stewardess was
staring at me in distress.

I said, "Well ... thank you for bringing me this, Miss Corder. I'll have
to think it over." I paused, and then said, "Do you know what's in it?"

"I think so--more or less." She stared at me appealingly. "It's his
resignation, isn't it?"

I nodded. "That's right. I didn't want him to resign."

"You didn't want him to? He thought you'd all be so angry with him."

I cursed the comedy of misunderstandings. "I'm not angry with him," I
replied. "I wish he hadn't had to stop it flying in that way, but if
that was the only way to ground it, then I think he did quite right. I'm
backing him up all I can. Probably lose my own job over this, before
we're through."

"Oh," she said, relieved. "I wish he'd known that."

I chucked the letter on to my desk. "You'll have a cup of tea?" She
protested, but I opened the door and told Miss Learoyd to see if she
could raise two cups of tea, and coming back I made the stewardess sit
down beside my desk. I offered her a cigarette, which she refused. "Tell
me," I said, "how is Honey, in himself? Is he worrying about this very
much?"

"He is, rather," she said. "You see, he hasn't anything to do, and the
crew said some horrid things to him after it happened. Not Captain
Samuelson, but some of the others." I sat watching her as she talked,
wondering who did the picking of the stewardesses, and where they found
such very charming girls. "I thought a little exercise might take his
mind off it, sir, so I got him to take me for a long walk yesterday, and
I think that helped. He's very fond of hiking."

I smiled. "You've been looking after him, have you?"

"He was the only passenger I had left," she replied. "All the others
went on, the same day."

I nodded. "Tell me just what happened."




7


When the Reindeer settled down upon the tarmac she went slowly; the men
standing in the flight deck staggered and reached for something to hang
on to, but they were not thrown down. They stood petrified for an
instant after the fuselage reached the ground, listening aghast to the
rending and crashing noise of crumpling propeller blades and duralumin
panels as the weight came on to yielding parts of the structure; then
there was silence, and they came to life again.

Samuelson was the first to speak. He said dully, "Well, that's the
bloody limit." And then he turned to Symes, the inspector. "Come
outside, Mr. Symes."

He turned away without a word to Mr. Honey, who got up from the control
pedestal that he had been embracing, his face scarlet and with tears
running down his cheeks. The inspector looked him up and down, snorted,
and followed the captain down into the saloon and so to the ground, to
view the damage from outside.

In the control deck Dobson turned to Honey. "You bloody little squirt,"
he said. "Pleased with what you've done?"

Mr. Honey made a helpless gesture with his hands, but said nothing.
Behind them the note of the auxiliary motor dropped and died; the
engineer had switched it off, in case of fire.

Dobson said again, "Pleased with what you've done?"

Honey raised his head. "It was the only thing to do. You wouldn't
believe me. If you'd gone on everybody might have been killed."

Cousins, the engineer, pressed forward passionately. He loved his
aircraft. He had worked upon it for three months before it flew; since
then he had lived in it for much of the time, and he had tended it
lovingly; he existed for nothing else. "Nonsense," he said passionately.
"There was nothing wrong with that tail, and you know it. Who the hell
are you, anyway? Just a bloody penpusher and slide-rule merchant. What
the hell do you know about aircraft?"

Dobson said, "That's right. Have you ever flown anything? Ever piloted
anything yourself? Come on, speak up."

"No," said Honey helplessly, "I've never been a pilot."

"What the hell do you know about aeroplanes, then, if you've never had
to do with them? You say you come from Farnborough. God, I've heard some
tales about that place, but this beats everything."

Cousins laughed bitterly. "That's what they do there, come around and
smash things up. He'll get an O.B.E. for this, you see." He turned to
Honey passionately. "Get out of here, you dirty little swine, before I
sock you one."

Honey turned and went down into the saloon without a word. From the
ground Samuelson called up to Dobson to bring down a signal pad. The two
pilots stood in front of the wrecked Reindeer drafting a quick signal to
their Flight Control in London; then Dobson went hurriedly with it to
the control tower, passing Miss Corder on the way.

Mr. Honey stood around upon the tarmac for an hour, with nobody paying
any attention to him. There was a bitter north-east wind and he grew
colder and colder; presently he got back into the fuselage and sat down
in his seat, miserable and chilled. Miss Corder, coming to the aircraft
presently to clean up and remove the unused food, observed him sitting
in the unlit cabin half-way down the aisle.

She went up to him, "I should go into the lounge, sir," she said. "In
the restaurant building. All the other passengers are there."

He said dolefully, "I don't think they'd be very pleased to see me."

She said, "Oh ... But have you had any breakfast?"

He shook his head. "I don't want any."

"But you must have some breakfast!" She thought for a moment. "I know,"
she said. "There's a little private office you can use. Come with me."

He followed her obediently out of the aircraft and across the tarmac
and into the main building by a side door. She took him to a little room
marked on the door PASSPORTS AND IMMIGRATION. It was rather a bare room
with a deal table, ink-stained, and a few hard chairs, but it was warm
and it was private. She said, "Stay here and make yourself comfortable,
Mr. Honey. I'll bring you some breakfast."

She came back presently with a tray of eggs and bacon and coffee and
toast and marmalade, and set it down before him on the table. "There,"
she said. "Get that in you and you'll feel better."

He said warmly, "It's terribly kind of you to look after me like this,
especially when I've made such a lot of trouble."

She smiled at him. "You've not made any trouble for me," she said.

"What about the other passengers? What's going to happen to them?"

"We've had a signal that a Hermes is coming up to fetch them," she said.
"It's arriving about two o'clock." She hesitated, and then said, "Will
you be going on with them, sir?"

"I don't know. I should like to have a talk with Captain Samuelson, as
soon as he can spare the time."

She nodded. "I'll tell him. Now, eat your breakfast. I'll be along for
the tray presently."

Mr. Honey was hungry, and made quite a substantial meal. When it was
over he lit a cigarette, feeling more at ease. Samuelson, coming in to
see him, found him sitting in a chair beside the radiator.

"Morning, Mr. Honey," he said. "You wanted to see me?"

Honey got up from his chair. "I wanted to apologise for all the trouble
that I've caused you," he said simply. "Not for the Reindeer--that had
to be grounded anyway. But I'm sorry about the work I've had to put on
you, and for the inconvenience to all the other passengers."

The pilot laughed shortly. "Don't bother about me. If I wasn't doing
this I'd be doing something else."

Mr. Honey asked, "Is the aircraft very much damaged?"

"I don't know. Until we raise her up we can't make a proper inspection,
and that won't be for some time. There's no equipment here to lift an
aircraft of this size. We've got no air bags. They'll have to be shipped
from England. The whole job may take months."

The scientist said nothing.

The captain said, "I've had to send a full report about it all to
Headquarters, Mr. Honey. The other passengers are going on to Montreal
this afternoon, but I'm rather doubtful if C.A.T.O. will carry
you--after this. I think you may have to go down to St. John's and go on
by boat."

Mr. Honey blinked at him. "Oh ..."

"Well, look at it from their point of view. They don't have to carry you
if they're afraid of you damaging their equipment."

"I don't make a habit of doing this," said Honey unhappily. "I don't do
it every time."

"No. Well, it will all have to be sorted out in London. I expect we'll
get some signals as the day goes on."

"I don't know what the R.A.E. will want me to do," said Mr. Honey,
"--after this. They may cable me and tell me to come home, and not go on
to Labrador."

"I see ..." The pilot glanced at him. "You were going out to reopen an
inquiry on Bill Ward's crash?"

"Er--the Reindeer that fell in Labrador."

"That's right. The one that is supposed to have flown into the hill.
Bill Ward's crash."

"That's the machine. I was to inspect the spar fractures in the
tailplane, and bring samples back for metallurgical examination."

"You think the tail came off that aircraft in the air, don't you?"

"It might have done," said Mr. Honey. "It had flown nearly 1,400 hours,
which comes in very close accord with the estimated time to failure."

The pilot stared out of the window. "Bill Ward never flew into a hill,"
he said. "He couldn't have done. I knew that part of the accident report
was utter nonsense from the first."

Mr. Honey blinked at him. "You think that something else happened?
Something like a tailplane failure?"

The pilot said, "I just don't know, and it's not for me to guess. But
strictly between you and me, Mr. Honey, I'm not sorry personally that
you've taken a strong line, in spite of all the trouble that it's going
to mean for both of us. If I'd been able to, I'd have taken that machine
on to Montreal. But as things are, I can't say that I'm sorry. I don't
aim to be the bravest pilot in the world. Just the oldest."

He went away, and crossing the waiting-room he had to run the gauntlet
of the passengers. He answered a number of questions about transport on
to Montreal; then came the film actress, Miss Teasdale.

She said, "Say, Captain, I don't see Mr. Honey anywhere around. Is he
here some place?"

He told her where she could find him, and presently she tapped at Mr.
Honey's door. He called out, "Er--come in," and she opened the door and
stood there looking at him quizzically.

"Well," she said, "you certainly have got the strength of your
convictions, haven't you?"

He smiled weakly. "You've got to do what you can. Won't you come in and
sit down? I'm afraid it's not very clean in here."

She seated herself on a hard chair on the other side of the table, and
lit a cigarette with a gold lighter. "How do you think your people back
at Farnborough will react now?" she asked.

Honey said, "I don't know, and I don't much care. You've got to do the
best you can," he repeated a little desperately. "You've got to do what
you think is the right thing to do."

She nodded. He was terribly like what Eddie Stillson had been, thirty
years ago--always worrying about doing the right thing. She asked, "This
Dr. Scott that you were speaking of. He's the boss, isn't he? How will
he take it?"

Honey said, "I think he'll be all right. He's quite a young man, much
younger than I am. I think he'll see it was the only thing to do. But
he's not the head of the Establishment by any means--and then there's
the Ministry over the whole lot of us. I'm afraid there'll be a great
deal of trouble."

She laughed. "I'll say there'll be some trouble. You should hear the
second pilot talking, Mr. Dobson. He takes it kind of personally." She
paused. "What do you plan to do now, Mr. Honey? Will you go on to
Labrador?"

He shook his head. "I can't make up my mind. But from what the captain
said I can't go anywhere--by air, that is. He says the company won't
take me."

She nodded. There had been some very frank talk in the waiting-room
about the passenger who had become mentally deranged by the excitement
of the flight. "It's just a lot of hooey," she said. "But if they won't
carry you by air you can't make them, though your office might be able
to."

"I don't know what to do," he said irresolutely. "If I write a letter it
would take about three days to get to Farnborough. I suppose I ought to
try and send a cable somehow, and ask what I'm to do."

"What do you want to do, yourself?" she asked. "Go on to Ottawa or go
back to Farnborough?"

He replied, "Oh, I'd like to go back. I didn't want to come away at all.
You see, there's nobody looking after Elspeth except Mrs. Higgs, and she
isn't very reliable. I'd much rather go back to Farnborough. After all,
the basic work is more important than this sort of thing."

They talked about his movements for some time. She learned that he had
little interest in his mission to Canada; the travelling, the change of
scene, did not excite him. He regarded it as so much time wasted from
the progress of his real work, as a distraction which he had been forced
by discipline to submit to. She found him restless and unhappy,
uncertain whether he could exploit the damage to the Reindeer as an
excuse to give up his mission in Canada and to return to the work he
loved, and to his home.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "I can't make up my mind. And one
can't put it all into a cable, either."

They sat talking of his difficulties for some time. For many years the
actress had been out of touch with the hard realities of life. She had
not been short of money for thirty years, and she would never be again.
All her working life had been spent in the facile world of honky-tonk,
of synthetic emotion and of phoney glamour. Now she was getting a
glimpse into a new world, a world of hard, stark facts, a world in which
things had to be exactly right or people would be killed. There was no
place for glamour or emotion in a world that had to say if the Reindeer
tail was going to break or not. She was beginning to perceive that
little insignificant men like Mr. Honey were the brains behind that
world, just as lame Eddie Stillson had been the coming brain of the
Century Insurance office. The perception brought out everything that was
still good in her; nineteen-year-old Myra Tuppen came to life again,
suppressing Monica Teasdale. As she sat talking to Mr. Honey the desire
to help him grew; she felt that she could play a small part in a bigger
production than any she had starred in. And help she could; in
travelling Monica Teasdale had unquestioned priority.

She said, "Say, Mr. Honey, how would it be if I went back to England and
took a letter to your Dr. Scott? It would get to him first thing
tomorrow morning, that way. I'd be real pleased to go, if it would help
any."

He was staggered at the suggestion. Unused to travelling himself, it
seemed extraordinary to him. "You mean, you'd fly back to England? But
you're going on to Montreal, aren't you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not dated up. I've got to be in
Hollywood on the twenty-seventh, but that's eleven days from now. I was
reckoning I'd stop off in Indianapolis for a few days before flying on
home, but I'd just as soon stop over those few days at Claridge's in
London. I kind of like London, for all it's such a dirty town."

He blinked at her. "But it would be so expensive for you to go back."

She said simply, "I wouldn't pay. All my travelling goes on to the
expense account. Honestly, Mr. Honey, I'd be real glad to do that if it
would help."

He was bewildered by this woman, whom with his dead wife he had adored
upon the movies; bewildered by her hard competence, by her
sophistication, by her carefully tended beauty and her luxurious
clothes, by the incongruous kindliness and small-town warmth of her
consideration. He had never met anyone in the least like her before,
never had dealings with anybody from her world. He said uncertainly,
"Well, that would be very helpful, certainly, Miss Teasdale. But it
seems an awful lot to ask you to do."

She said, "I'm interested in this thing, Mr. Honey, and I'd like to see
it through. And if I can help any by going back instead of stopping in
the Middle West a week, I'd like to do it. After all, it is kind of
important, this, and Indiana's no novelty to me."

He said, "But can you get a passage back today?"

Her lips tightened. "I can try."

She left him to think out a letter to me that she could take with her,
and found Dobson, and smiled dazzlingly at him so that he took her
meekly to the Control, where she was very charming and just terribly
sorry to be such a nuisance, but could she get a call down to New York?
She delighted the Control Officer for four hours with her conscious
charm, and left his office in the end with her return passage to London
arranged, and little lines of strained fatigue around her lovely eyes.
Time was, she thought a little bitterly, when she could do that sort of
thing just naturally. With the last remnants of her energy she charmed
Dobson into arranging a bedroom for her use, and went and pulled the
shade down, and lay down upon the bed to rest.

Marjorie Corder was busy all the morning cleaning up the galley and the
passengers' quarters of the wrecked Reindeer and in arranging lunch for
the stranded passengers. She found time to visit Mr. Honey with a cup of
coffee in the middle of the morning, and to bring him a selection of
magazines. She arrived just after Samuelson had visited him again, to
break the news to him that C.A.T.O. had refused to carry him any farther
in their aircraft. She found him worried and distressed; he told her all
about it.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "I suppose I'll have to try and get
away from here by train. But now they say there isn't a train till
Thursday."

"Drink your coffee while it's hot," she suggested. "It'll all come out
all right, you see."

He sipped it obediently. "What are you doing?" he inquired. "Are you
going on with the passengers to Montreal?"

She shook her head. "We shall stay here till we get some orders. The
aircrew always stay with their own machine. The Hermes that's coming up
will have its own steward." She smiled. "So after all the rest have gone
on, I shall only have you to look after."

He said diffidently, "I'm terribly sorry to make so much trouble."

She stood looking down upon him kindly. "Last night you told me where to
go if anything happened," she said, "--where it would be safe. I don't
suppose I'd have gone, but it was nice of you to tell me. I'm glad to be
able to do something in return. It's my job to see that you're made
comfortable, of course, but I'd want to do that anyway, for what you
tried to do for me."

He said awkwardly, "I didn't do anything."

She said, "You'd rather have your lunch in here, sir, wouldn't you? You
don't want to mix with the other passengers?"

He said, "Er--if it's not an awful lot of trouble."

"Of course it's not," she said. "I'll bring it you about one o'clock.
There's cold meat, or hot Irish stew, and I saw some cold salmon in the
larder, but there's not enough of that to go round so I think the staff
are having it. Would you like a salmon mayonnaise?"

He said, "I'd love that, if it's going." And he gave her one of his shy,
warming smiles.

She nodded. "There's treacle tart afterwards, or semolina pudding."

"Treacle tart, please."

She nodded. "And coffee?"

"Please."

"Bottle of beer?"

"Well--if there is one--yes, that would be very nice."

She nodded. "Have you got enough to smoke?"

"Well--I would like another packet of cigarettes. Player's, if they've
got them."

"I'll get you those at once."

She brought his cigarettes and a box of matches, and a few minutes later
she took an easy chair from the lounge and carried it along the passage
and put it in the office for him. Mr. Honey sat reading the
_Cosmopolitan_ and smoking his cigarettes in some comfort, warmed by the
solicitude of the girl. He felt in better spirits now, ready to face
whatever might be coming to him.

The Hermes from Quebec came in and landed before lunch; Mr. Honey stood
at his window and watched it taxi in. Miss Corder brought him his tray
of lunch, with the salmon and the bottle of beer. "All the other
passengers are having their lunch now," she said. "They're going on in
the Hermes as soon as it's refuelled. All except Miss Teasdale, who's
decided that she wants to go back to England."

He said, "She's very kindly offered to take a note back to Dr. Scott for
me. It seems an awful imposition, but she offered to, and it really is a
great help."

The girl said, "I should think she's very nice, when you get to know
her."

"I think she is," said Honey. "Of course, one thinks one knows her from
seeing her films, but really, she's quite a different person
altogether." He laughed. "It's a bit confusing."

Miss Corder said, "I think her films are lovely. I never miss one, if I
can help it."

She went out, and Mr. Honey ate his lunch, and presently stood at his
window watching the Hermes load up with its passengers and taxi out
towards the runway's end, watched it as it left the ground and slid off
into the distance. He turned again to the _Cosmopolitan_; presently the
stewardess came back to take his tray.

"You don't have to use this office any longer, sir, unless you want to,"
she said. "There's nobody here now except the crew and Miss Teasdale."

He said, "Well--I'll sit in the lounge. Where is Miss Teasdale?"

"I think she's lying down, sir. Shall I bring your coffee to the
lounge?"

"Oh--yes, please do."

He stayed in the lounge all afternoon. Three or four aircraft landed to
refuel, and there was a stream of passengers from them in and out,
stretching their legs and gossiping together over cups of coffee or
short drinks. Mr. Honey sat insignificant in a corner, unhappy. Now that
the first excitement had passed, he was miserably anxious about his own
position; clearly there was going to be a most appalling row about the
Reindeer, and he was quite unused to rows, and hated them. Personal
unpleasantness always upset his work; he could not think clearly if his
mind was full of hard things that had been said about him, and he liked
thinking clearly. Rows frightened him; he would go to considerable
lengths to avoid them. For the first time in years the thought of
resigning his position at the R.A.E. entered his mind.

If things got too nasty, he could always do that. He could resign, and
not go there any more. True, it would be a terrible wrench to part from
the work he loved; true, he would have to find another job. But he was
not unknown in the intimate, unpublicised, middle world of science; he
was on blinking and smiling terms with the heads of several other
research departments. Perhaps a little niche would open out for him at
the National Physical Laboratory, or the Admiralty Research Laboratory.
He knew people at both places, and he could be happy there, though not
so happy as he now felt he had been while dealing with fatigue in light
alloy structures.

By tea-time he was in a state of deep dejection. When Marjorie Corder
brought him his tea, unasked, she noticed his preoccupation. "Haven't
you been out?" she asked. "Have you been sitting here all the time?"

He nodded. "I've had a lot to think about."

"It's nice outside," she said. "There's a cold wind, but if you wrap up
well it's rather lovely."

He was not listening to her words; he only heard her sympathy. "I wish
they'd cable and say what I'm to do," he muttered. "I'm afraid I shall
have to resign."

"Resign your job?" she said. She looked down at him with deep
compassion; he was such an unhappy little man, and yet so terribly
clever. "You mustn't think of that. They'll understand, back at your
office."

"I think I'll have to," he said miserably. "I think it's the only thing
to do."

She said gently, "Look, I got you some buttered toast, and there's
anchovy paste here, and jam. I got you strawberry jam, but would you
rather have apricot? There's apricot if you'd rather have that."

He roused, and smiled at her. "No--I like strawberry, thank you."

She poured out his tea for him. "Is that how you like it? I brought you
a piece of cherry cake and a piece of madeira, but there's more of
either if you want it."

"Oh--thank you very much, but I don't think I shall want any more. I
don't think I shall get through all of this."

"Well, let's see you try."

She went away and had her own tea in the staff room, but in her turn she
was preoccupied. She recognised in Mr. Honey a man of moods, capable of
deep depression; all geniuses, she had read, were men like that. She was
not a very talented girl herself, nor very highly educated; she had had
to go to work too early. She was firmly convinced that Mr. Honey was a
genius and that he was right about the Reindeer tail. She could not help
him in the matter of the Reindeer directly, but she might be able to do
something to ease the burdens on his mind. It shocked her that he should
be talking of resigning from the R.A.E. She felt, dimly, that if that
were to happen her country would have suffered an irreparable loss,
because he was the cleverest man that she had ever met. He had seen
through into her secret places at one glance, and had known that she
would be good with children.

When she went to take his tray, she asked, "Do you play chess, Mr.
Honey?"

He looked up in surprise. "Chess? I haven't played for years. My--my
wife and I used to play in the evenings, sometimes. It's a very good
game."

"I can play a little," she said. "I'm not very good. Would you like a
game, or would you rather read?"

He roused. "No--I'd like a game of chess. Are you sure that you can
spare the time, though?"

"I've only got two passengers left now," she said, "--you and Miss
Teasdale, and she's still lying down. I'll bring the things along." She
took his tray.

She played three games with him, and beat him once; she suspected that
he had contrived to be mated by her, and she liked him for it. In the
course of the two and a half hours she had learned a good deal about
Elspeth. "What do you do about her clothes, Mr. Honey?" she had asked
curiously. "Who buys those for you?"

He said, "Oh, whenever she needs anything I take her to a shop in
Farnham. The woman that keeps it is really very helpful, and I buy what
she says."

She stared at him. "But do you just take what's in the one shop?"

He replied, "Well, yes I do. I suppose one ought to go to other shops
sometimes, but it's so much easier to do it that way." He hesitated.
"I've sometimes thought that Elspeth isn't dressed quite like the other
girls at school," he admitted. "I suppose I ought to learn a bit more
about what schoolgirls wear. Do you think if I took in _Vogue_ or some
paper like that it would help?"

She was at a loss. "I don't think that's quite the right sort of paper,"
she said. "I'll think of something, and let you know, if you like."

"I wish you would," he said. "She's getting so big now that I think I
ought to do something." He paused, and then he said, "Mrs. Higgs gives
me a lot of advice, but I don't know that Elspeth isn't outgrowing
that."

"Who's Mrs. Higgs?"

"She's the charwoman. She's got a lot of children of her own, and she's
really been very helpful."

"Oh ..."

Later on she asked him, "What do you do at the week-ends?"

He said, "Well, we don't do very much. Cleaning the house up takes us a
lot of time, of course, and then there's the garden to be done, and
cooking. It just seems to go." He turned to her. "There never seems to
be time for anything. When--when Mary was there we always had time to do
things on a Sunday--photography, or hiking in the summer. But now there
just doesn't seem to be time."

She nodded. "Are you fond of hiking?"

"We used to do a lot," he said.

"Staying in Youth Hostels?" she inquired, her eyes gleaming.

"Sometimes. Have you done that?" He was interested.

She nodded. "I had a lovely holiday in the Lake District once," she said
thoughtfully. "Four of us, staying in Youth Hostels every night, for a
fortnight. It _was_ fun." She turned to him. "That was when I was
engaged," she said simply.

"Oh ..." He glanced at her hand, but there was no ring. She saw his
glance. "That was a long time ago," she said. "He was in Bomber Command,
and got shot down over Dortmund. I thought the end of the world had
come. But I suppose it hadn't."

"My dear," said Mr. Honey, "I'm so very sorry."

She roused herself. "Your move," she said.

She went away after the third game to assist in serving dinner, and
presently Miss Teasdale appeared, looking fresh and radiant and about
eighteen years old. She said, "Say, Mr. Honey, I just heard my plane's
coming in around nine o'clock, so we'll have time for dinner before I
go." She ordered an Old-fashioned for herself and persuaded him to join
her; beer was his normal drink and he took the novelty gingerly, and
under the influence he pulled out his wallet and showed her a photograph
of Elspeth.

"My," said the actress, "doesn't she look cute?"

He agreed. "I think she's more intelligent than children of her age
usually are," he said. "She's only twelve, but she's got a very good
grasp of crystallography."

She stared at him. "What's that?"

He smiled. "Everything," he said. "All matter is built up of the
associations that result in crystals, like miniature universes. It's an
extraordinary thing that schools don't teach more about it." He turned
to her. "Schools only teach results," he said. "All the basic knowledge
that Elspeth has, she seems to have got from me."

"I'd believe that," she replied. "Say, does she get around at
all--parties with boy friends, and that sort of thing?"

"Who--Elspeth? She's only just a child." He was amazed. "She's only
twelve years old."

Miss Teasdale laughed. "From what you say about her
crystal--crystall--what you said, she sounds to be about forty. Still,
maybe English children don't get around so early as they do at home. Has
she got a flapjack?"

"What's that?"

She stared at him. "For powder." She rummaged in her bag. "Like this."

He was at a loss. "No," he said weakly. "Ought she to have one?"

She laughed. "It's not obligatory. I guess she ought to have it when she
wants it."

"I really don't think she's old enough for that," he said. "I don't
think any of the other children at her school have those."

"Maybe not." And then she said, "Tell me about this Dr. Scott that I'm
to go and see. And how do I get to this place you work at, Farnborough?"

He told her, and wrote a short letter for her to give to me, and
presently they dined together. Then her plane landed to refuel and the
lounge was filled with passengers stretching their legs after the flight
up from New York. In the bustle he said good-bye to her as her luggage
was carried out. "I'll tell him just the way you're fixed," she said.
"Leave it to me. And I'll say that you'd appreciate it if you could get
back to your work in England."

"Do please tell him that," he said earnestly. "I really feel I'm much
more use in the Establishment than on this sort of thing."

The passengers departed and the plane taxied away for the take-off for
England in the dusk. Mr. Honey was left reading the _Saturday Evening
Post_ in the deserted lounge. At ten o'clock the stewardess came up
softly behind him. "I've got a bedroom ready for you, sir," she said.
"Would you like me to show you which it is? It's just over the road."

He said, "Oh, thank you," and got up, and went with her out into the
night. It was cold and bright and brilliantly starry out on the road. To
the north the sky was shot with spears of glimmering white light
reaching up towards the zenith. They paused for a minute, looking at it.
"That's the aurora," the girl said. "They call it Northern Lights here.
We often see it."

He said, "It's associated with the cosmic rays, I believe. It would be
interesting to find out more about it." And then he said, unusually for
him, "It's very beautiful."

"It's wild," the girl said, "and uncanny. I don't like it much." She
took him into a two-storeyed wooden hutment, one of a row upon the other
side of the road, and opened a door. He saw rather a bare bedroom, but
his bag had been unpacked for him, and his hairbrush and shaving things
laid out neatly on the dressing-table, and his pyjamas put to air upon
the radiator so that they would be warm for him to get into, and the bed
was turned down invitingly. "I put a hot-water-bottle in the bed," she
said. "I hope you'll find everything all right, sir."

He had not been treated like that for years. "Oh, thank you," he said.
"It all looks most comfortable. Did you do all this for me?"

She smiled. "It's what I'm here for, sir." She hesitated. "I hope you
don't mind--I've taken two pairs of your socks to darn. They've both got
holes in the toe. I'll bring them with your tea in the morning."

He said, "Oh please, you don't have to bother. They won't show."

The girl said, "I've got nothing else to do, and you can't go around
like that." She hesitated. "I did notice your pyjama coat has a great
tear in the back," she said. "If you let me have that tomorrow I'll mend
it for you. It must be terribly uncomfortable wearing it like that."

He flushed. "It's so old," he said. "I ought to get another suit, but
there never seem to be any coupons."

She asked curiously, "Who mends your clothes when you're at home?"

"Oh, I do that myself," he said. "It's really very little trouble, and
Elspeth's getting quite good at it, too. We get along splendidly, only
the coupons are so short."

Coupons, she knew, were always short for the bad managers. "I'll take
your jacket anyway tomorrow," she said. "The material's quite
good--it'll patch all right."

"I don't like putting you to so much trouble," he said.

"I'd like to do it," the girl said. "I like mending things."

She went away, and Mr. Honey went to bed in greater comfort than he had
experienced for many years. He stood for a few moments in his torn
pyjamas before opening the window, looking at the Northern Lights,
noting the form of the radiation. Then he got into bed; with his feet
resting snugly on the hot-water-bottle he was able to relax and think
about the geographical distribution of the cosmic rays, a subject that
was beginning to intrigue him. He lay in warm comfort doing mental
calculations of the strength of the earth's magnetic field in various
latitudes and computing its effect upon the distribution of the protons
and the positrons as they approach the planet, till sleep came to him.

He was roused at eight o'clock in the morning by the stewardess, who
brought him a cup of tea and a few slices of bread and butter on a tray.
She pulled his curtains and let in the sunlight. "It's going to be a
lovely day, sir," she said. "What would you like for breakfast?"

He smiled at her. "What can I have?"

"Orange or pineapple juice," she said. "Porridge or cereals. Eggs anyway
you like. Bacon, cold ham, sausages. Buckwheat cakes and syrup with a
sausage on the side--that's very good. Toast, hot rolls ..."

He considered this. "Could I have porridge and bacon and eggs?"

"Two eggs?"

"Well--yes, if I can."

"Coffee or tea?"

"Er--coffee, I think."

She nodded. "What time would you like it? It's eight o'clock now."

"Oh, I don't take long. Half-past eight?"

"Very good, sir." She paused, and then she said, "I want to go out for a
walk this morning--it's such a lovely day. Would you like to do that?"

He considered this. "Well--yes, I would. It seems rather stupid to be in
Newfoundland and see nothing of the country, doesn't it? May I come with
you?"

"Of course," she said. "The Gander River's only about two miles away
and there's a road down to that, but there's nothing much to do there
except bathe, and it's frightfully cold still. But going the other way,
out past the restaurant, there's a path that takes you to a lake; it's
awfully pretty there. That's where people go to fish. Do you do any
fishing, sir?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't."

"The staff, the people stationed here, go fishing there on their days
off," she said. "They catch salmon and trout and all sorts of things.
But apart from that, it's terribly pretty. We could go there, if you
like."

He said eagerly, leaning up upon one elbow in his bed, "Do let's. I
haven't done that sort of thing for years."

She hesitated. "Would you like to take out lunch? I could cut some
sandwiches."

He said doubtfully, "It'd be fun.... But do you think I ought to be away
all day? I mean, there might be a cable for me from the office."

She smiled. "It could wait. We'd be back anyway by four, and if you're
ordered to go on or to go back, you won't miss a plane because they all
come through at night. I think a day out in the country would do you
good."

He said, "I think it would."

She nodded. "I'll see about the sandwiches. Oh, and here are your
socks--I did them last night."

He took them gratefully. "It's terribly kind of you to do all this for
me."

"Not a bit," she said. "Let me have your pyjama jacket when we get back
and I'll do that for you." She glanced at the tear. "You can't go on
wearing it like that."

"I know," he said ruefully. "It got bigger in the night."

When she was gone he sat in bed sipping his tea and fingering his socks,
full of pleasure. He had not been looked after like that since Mary
died; since then he had battled on alone, doing everything for himself
and most things for his little girl. When Mary had been killed he had
resigned himself to a life of celibacy; it had never entered his head,
as practical politics, that he should go looking for another girl. He
would not have known how to set about it. He had not married Mary; she
had married him, to the surprise and consternation of her friends in the
office, who thought she might have done a great deal better for herself
than that. Mary had just happened in his life, a rare, sweet interlude
that he had done very little to provoke; when she had gone he had
slipped back quietly into his bachelor ways, more complicated now that
there was Elspeth to look after.

He got up presently, and as he dressed looked ruefully at his pyjama
jacket; not only was it very badly torn but it was indisputably dirty.
He could not hand it over to her to be mended in that state; he washed
it ineffectively in the basin in his room and hung it over the radiator
to dry. As a consequence he was late for breakfast and it was nearly ten
o'clock before he was ready to start off.

He met her in the lounge. "I say," he said diffidently, "I hope I
haven't kept you waiting."

"Not long," she said. She had a small blue stewardess's bag in her hand.
"I've got the sandwiches, and I brought a thermos of coffee, too." She
hesitated. "I didn't ask you what sort of sandwiches you like," she
said. "I made some chicken ones, and some sardine, and some cheese. Is
that all right?"

"Oh--of course," he said. "That's fine." Food did not mean a great deal
in his life; his meals were either canteen meals at the factory or
scrappy messes that he cooked himself at home; moreover, his mind was
usually too full of other matters for him to pay much attention to what
he was eating. "I like all those," he said.

She was relieved. "I had an awful feeling that perhaps you wouldn't like
sardine ..."

They set out walking down the path away from the hangars; as they went
he asked her how she knew the way so well. He learned a little of her
life. She made three Atlantic crossings, on the average, each week; most
times she came to Gander for a short stop to refuel. Sometimes, on the
rare occasions of easterly gales in the Atlantic, the flight had been
delayed there for a day or longer; once before she had been stranded
there for several days due to defective motors in the aircraft. "But we
shan't have to stop here for weather in the future, I don't think," she
said. "The Reindeer carries so much petrol we can make the crossing even
against the worst gales in the winter. That's what Captain Samuelson was
saying."

Mr. Honey said, "Well, that will save a lot of trouble. But we've got to
get its tailplane right, first of all."

She nodded. "How long do you think that will take, sir?"

He smiled up at her. "Please--don't you think you might stop calling me
sir? I mean, you're doing so much for me that you don't have to."

She laughed. "All right. But how long do you think the Reindeers will be
grounded for?"

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "These things usually seem to take
three or four months to put right. But that's supposing that what I
think is correct." His face clouded, and he was in distress again. "It's
just an estimate," he said. "I didn't want people to take me up on it
like this. I should have had more time, and now there's all this row
..."

She said sympathetically, "I know. But it had to be done this way,
didn't it?"

He shook his head. "We should have gone on working in the department in
the proper way until we had some positive results to show."

She smiled. "I'm glad you didn't."

"Why?"

She said gently, "I should have been killed."

He blinked up at her, taller than he was, slim and lovely against a
background of Newfoundland fir trees and blue sky. It was Mary all over
again, incredible that girls like that should come to death. He stared
at her, confused by the clash of the theoretical and the practical in
his work. "Jean Davenport and Betty Sherwood were the stewardesses in
Captain Ward's Reindeer," she said. "The one that fell in Labrador. If
you'd gone on working in the proper way, I should have been killed too."

He said, a little timidly, "Did you know them?"

"Of course I did. I knew them very well."

"Oh. Were they people like you?"

She glanced at him curiously. "They were both fair. Betty was smaller
than me. I suppose Jean was much the same."

"But were they young, like you?"

"I suppose they were about twenty-five," she said. "It's not a job for
people much older than that. Most of us are round about that age."

They walked on for a time in silence through the woods. "I suppose Dr.
Scott was right," he said at last. "But there ought to be more time for
scientific work. One can't produce results all in a hurry, out of the
hat, like this."

She said, "It must be terribly difficult."

He glanced up at her, distressed. "I don't know what to do. There must
be a tremendous row going on in England because I damaged this Reindeer.
You see, there isn't any proof yet. Sir Phillip Dolbear didn't believe a
word I said."

She was sorry for him; if it would help him to tell her all about it she
wanted him to do so. "Who is Sir Phillip Dolbear?" she asked.

She listened while he told her the whole story. "You see," he said at
last, "there isn't any proof at all--it just rests on my estimate. I was
on my way to Labrador to find out if the fracture at the tailplane of
the crashed one is crystalline--if it supports the theory of failure in
fatigue. They never meant me to do anything like this. They'll all be
very angry about it, I know. But it seemed the only thing to do."

"It _was_ the only thing to do," she said gently. "It was playing safe.
Captain Samuelson isn't angry about it. And after all, he's been flying
nearly thirty years, and he does know about things."

He shook his head. "I told them they'd do better to send someone else. I
always do this sort of thing all wrong."

To distract his mind she said, "Look, there's the lake. It's lovely,
isn't it?"

It lay blue and shimmering before them under the summer sky, fringed
with tall fir trees, its shores broken up into little rocky bays.
Waterfowl were dotted about upon its surface; three or four deer,
grazing on a rocky sward beside the water half a mile away looked up as
they stopped, and vanished into the woods. "There are all sorts of wild
things here," she said. "There's a stream running out at the far end
where there were beavers last year. And there are bears here, too."

He stared at her. "Are they dangerous?"

She laughed. "The only time I saw one he ran like a rabbit. They say
they're all right unless you feed them; then they come after more and
you get clawed. But if you let them alone they're quite harmless."

The path ran alongside the lake, made by the fishermen from the
airfield; they passed a couple of rough dorys moored to the bank. They
went on and came to the place where the deer had been and studied their
tracks, and on until they came to the beaver stream. But the beavers
were gone, and only fragments of their dam remained.

They laid out their lunch by the stream, on a bare rock. "It's so quiet
here," she said. "You might be a thousand miles from anywhere."

"Apart from the airport," Mr. Honey said, "we probably are."

She nodded. "It's a mistake to leave the path, they say," she remarked.
"You can quite easily get lost in these woods, and that's not so funny.
All this country looks the same."

"Do people ever get lost?" he asked in wonder.

"Oh yes. Two of the boys from the airport got lost last year. One of
them died; it was eight days before they were found."

He thought this over for a minute. "You have a very adventurous life,"
he said at last. "What will you do? Can you go on as a stewardess
indefinitely?"

She smiled. "I suppose you could if you wanted to," she said. "I don't
know that I should want to, though."

"Don't you like it?"

She picked up a twig of fir, and absently scratched a little furrow in
the earth. "It's been quite fun," she said. "It's been fun meeting
people and going to new places. I went into it after the war when I was
restless, with Donald being killed, and everything. But now--well, I
don't know. I sometimes feel I'd like to give it up."

"You'd find it rather difficult to settle down," he said. "After this."

She said, "When you've seen all the new places you've got no more new
places to see. And anyway, one new place is just like another new place
... I used to like meeting new people every trip--and I still do. But
those things, meeting new people, seeing new places, they aren't
everything. And while you go on in that sort of life you can't have any
real friends, or any real home. Because you're never there ..."

"You don't get worried about the risks?" he asked.

She shook her head. "There's so little danger in flying now. I know Jean
and Betty bought it in the first Reindeer, but that sort of thing
happens so seldom." She flashed a smile at him. "Thanks to people like
you." He was confused, and she went on, "No--it's fun living this sort
of life, but there's nothing _permanent_ about it, if you understand.
Sometimes I'd like to be a bit more permanent ..."

"You'll be looking for another job?" he asked.

"I suppose so."

He said, "So shall I."

She glanced at him. "Are you going to leave Farnborough?"

He nodded. "I've decided to resign."

"Oh ..." There was a pause, and then she said, "Do you think that's
necessary? Surely they'll understand?"

He shook his head. "They've got nothing tangible on this fatigue at
all--just my own hypotheses which nobody really believes in but myself.
And there's certain to be a row about this Reindeer, because I'm a
Government servant and so the Government will have to pay for its
repair. And that means the Treasury and--oh, all sorts of things. I
thought it all out last night. I want to write a letter to Dr. Scott
putting in my resignation, and get it to him as soon as I can."

She was convinced in her own mind that he was doing the wrong thing, but
she knew too little of the problems that confronted him to argue. She
said, "But what will you do? What sort of a job would you look for, Mr.
Honey?"

He said, "I think they might take me on at the National Physical
Laboratory--I know a lot of people there. And the work might be quite
similar.... I should try that first of all. Or else, I might try
teaching."

She was distressed for him. With her wider knowledge of the world she
knew one thing very certainly; that Mr. Honey would not be much good at
keeping order in a class of boys. He would be ragged unmercifully, grow
bitter and morose. She said, "I should think the other one would be
better."

"I think it might be more interesting," he said thoughtfully. "There's
such a lot of new stuff coming up about the earth's magnetic field, and
its relation to cosmography. It's all getting rather exciting."

"I'm sure it must be," she said. "Look, try one of these chicken
ones--they're rather nice."

He brought his mind back to the matter in hand. "They're very nice," he
said. "Things you make yourself always taste better than what you get in
a canteen, don't they?"

She said, "You take a lot of your meals in the canteen, do you?"

He said, "Well, yes, we do. We get our own breakfast, but then I always
have lunch at the factory, and Elspeth has hers at school. There's a
very good British Restaurant in Farnham and we go there sometimes in the
evening, but it shuts at six and that sometimes isn't very convenient.
It's such a lot of work getting meals at home, you know, when you're
both working all day."

She nodded slowly. "It isn't very good, having so many meals out, is
it?"

He said, "It makes it rather expensive. I think you're right in a way--I
get a lot of indigestion that I didn't seem to get before. But one can
always take magnesia for that."

She laughed. "That's expensive, too."

They sat by the lake for a couple of hours, talking, finding out about
each other. In the middle of the afternoon they recalled the cables and
the signals that might be waiting for them in the airport office from
the outside world, and got up reluctantly, and walked slowly back up the
path.

At the edge of the airport clearances they stopped for a moment. "It was
terribly kind of you to suggest coming out like this," Mr. Honey said.
"I haven't had a day like this for years."

"Nor I," she said. "I'm getting rather tired of aeroplanes, I think, and
racketing around the world. A quiet day like this is rather a relief."

Mr. Honey hesitated, uncertain how to put in words what he wanted very
badly to say. "Do you think we might do it again some time in England,"
he asked timidly, "--one Sunday? There are some lovely walks along the
Hog's Back ..."

She smiled down at him, "I'd love to do that, Mr. Honey," she said.
"I'll give you my address."

They went back together to the airport, rather quiet. In the C.A.T.O.
office there was a signal ordering her to take passage on the night
aircraft for London; there was a cable for Honey telling him to stay at
Gander till an R.A.F. aircraft arrived later in the week to bring him
back to England.

He wrote a short letter to me giving in his resignation, and gave it to
Marjorie Corder to deliver; at dusk he walked with her to the plane.

"It's been terribly kind of you to do all that you have for me," he
said. And then he added wistfully, "We'll meet again in England, won't
we?"

For some odd reason, tears welled up behind her eyes. "Of course, Mr.
Honey," she said quietly. "Of course we will."




8


I sat fingering Mr. Honey's letter of resignation while Miss Corder was
telling me what had been going on at Gander; I was only listening to her
with half my mind. With the other half I was wondering if I dared put
his letter in the waste-paper basket and tell him not to be a bloody
fool when I saw him, or whether I ought to show it to the Director. I
sat fingering it uncertainly as she talked.

I looked down at it when she had finished, and read it through again. "I
see," I said thoughtfully. And then I said, "I wish he hadn't written
this."

She said, "He was so positive that you would all be very angry with
him."

"So we are," I said. I raised my eyes and grinned at her. "He's been a
silly fool. There _must_ have been other ways of stopping that thing
flying on without wrecking it. But if that was the best way he could
manage, then he did quite right to wreck it. I should never have
forgiven him if he'd let it fly on."

She stared at me, puzzled, trying to absorb that one. "I don't think
he's quite the person to deal with things of that sort," she said.

I nodded. "You're quite right. He's an inside man. The fault was mine
for ever sending him." I waggled the letter in my fingers. "But that
doesn't help me in deciding what to do about this."

She was silent.

I glanced at her. "Did he write this reluctantly, because he thought it
was the thing to do in the circumstances? Or does he really want to
leave and get another job?"

"He doesn't want to leave," she said. "He thought that things would be
so unpleasant for him if he came back here--well, he'd rather go
somewhere else. He talked of going to some place called the National
Physical Laboratory to try and get a job on cosmic radiations or
something."

I nodded; it was a likely story. He was quite capable of taking cosmic
radiations in his stride. "Things won't be unpleasant for him here," I
said. "That Reindeer had to be stopped flying, and he stopped it." I
fingered the letter in my hand. "I should be very sorry to lose him," I
said thoughtfully. "I've got a feeling that he's working on the right
lines in this matter of fatigue, and that we'll find in a few months'
time that his estimates are very near the truth." I raised my head and
looked at her, thinking of what I should have to say at our formal
conference next day. "He's a valuable man in this department. I don't
want to take this letter seriously. I think it would be a loss to the
Establishment, and even to the country, if he left his work upon fatigue
just at this stage."

She said, "If he's as important as all that, I can't understand why you
don't look after him a bit better."

I stared at her. "How do you mean?"

She said firmly, "He gets a terrible lot of indigestion, and he's always
taking pills for it. He'll be getting a duodenal ulcer if you don't look
out, and then he won't be able to work for you at all."

The indigestion was news to me, and there didn't seem to be much that I
could do about that, but it fitted in with his complexion, and one bit
more was added to the picture of him in my mind. "I can't help that," I
said. "I wish his home life was a little easier for him, but that's just
one of those things."

She got up to go. "I know, sir," she said. "It was stupid of me to say
that. I know you can't help him in that way." She hesitated. "I told him
that I'd go and see his daughter, Elspeth, while I was down here," she
said. "There's only a charwoman looking after her. He lives in Copse
Road, Farnham. What's the best way for me to get there, sir? Is there a
bus?"

I blinked; another lovely woman to see Elspeth Honey. "She's not there
now," I said. "As a matter of fact, you'll find her in my flat. She had
a bit of an accident." And I told her shortly what had happened.

Miss Corder was upset. "The poor kid!" she said. "I _am_ glad Mr. Honey
doesn't know about this--he'd be terribly worried. I mean, on top of all
the other trouble." She asked a few more questions, and then said,

"It's awfully kind of Mrs. Scott to have done so much, sir. I was
wondering if I could help at all? I went into the office at the airport
this morning, and they've given me a few days' leave. I'm a nurse, you
know. I trained at the London Hospital." She paused. "If I can help, I
really would like to. Mr. Honey was so kind to me, and I'm quite free."

I thought quickly. There was some substance in this offer; Miss
Teasdale, charming and good-hearted as she was, was not a trained nurse.
But here was a trained nurse who felt herself to be under some
obligation to Honey, and who was free for some days, and anxious to
assist. In fairness to Shirley I could not pass this over.

"It's very nice of you to say that," I replied. "As a matter of fact,
Miss Monica Teasdale came down and helped a bit yesterday, and I think
she's coming again today. But she's just an amateur; I know my wife
would be awfully glad of your help."

I told her how to get to my flat and that I would ring up Shirley; then
I showed her out, because I had a lot to do that day. At the door she
turned to me.

"You won't let him resign, will you, Dr. Scott?" She looked up at me
appealingly; she was a very lovely girl. "He's not the sort for changes
and adventures. He'd be much happier going on quietly here."

I nodded. "I don't want to lose him," I said. "I'll do what I can."

She went, and I read Honey's letter of resignation again. Then I asked
Miss Learoyd to find out if the Director was free; he was, and I went
down to see him, forgetting all about my call to Shirley.

I said, "Good morning, sir. I've got a letter from Mr. Honey here,
resigning his position with us. With your permission I'm going to tear
it up and forget I ever had it."

He smiled, and stretched out his hand. "Let me see."

He read it carefully, and then said, "Why, particularly, do you want to
destroy it?"

"We've got this conference tomorrow, sir," I said. "I still think he's
probably right about this Reindeer tail, and as a member of my staff I'm
going to back him up. But if we accept this letter, then he's not a
member of my staff any longer, and I don't know where we are. We'll all
look pretty good fools, and the right decisions probably won't be made."

He said thoughtfully, "You are quite sure about him still?"

I was silent for a moment, thinking. "I don't want to be stupid about
this," I said at last. "I don't want to back him automatically, just
because he _is_ a member of my staff. I've got a strong feeling that
he's probably right about the Reindeer tail, but that's not evidence.
I'm basing my opinions more on the quality of his other work, the stuff
I found in his private files. He's a fine mathematician, he's very well
informed on physical chemistry, and he's got a very clear analytical
mind. Apart altogether from the Reindeer tail, I think it would be a
great loss if he left us, sir."

He handed me back the letter. "All right, tear it up." He paused, and
then said, "How did that get here?"

I grinned. "The stewardess from the Reindeer flew over last night and
brought it down to me by hand. Miss Corder. She's a very beautiful young
woman."

He smiled. "Stewardesses usually are. What have you done with her?"

"Sent her off to see Elspeth. It's just a procession of girl friends
from Honey--two in two days." I turned to him. "Old Honey with his face
like a frog. What's he got that we haven't, sir?"

He laughed. "I can't tell you that--but I'm not a bit surprised. Mrs.
Honey, who got killed, you know, she was a very beautiful girl." He
paused, reflectively. "She used to work in the Airworthiness
Department, when we had that here. Really lovely, she was."

I stood in thought for a moment; every little thing I could find out
about Honey was important to me at that time. I was staking my career on
my opinion that his work was valuable, that he was a credible person.
"When Mrs. Honey was alive," I said slowly, "was he just the same as he
is now? Or was he any different?"

The Director did not understand. "He was younger," he replied.

"I know. But was he different in himself? Was he always as touchy and
difficult in the office?"

"Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he was very different. He was much tidier
in his dress, and he had a better colour. Now you mention it, I don't
think he was so difficult in the office. He used to make little jokes.
He probably got better food at home, and more exercise."

The heavy boots came into my mind, and the indigestion. "I should think
that's right," I said thoughtfully.

"Mary Honey did a great deal for him," said the Director. "It was a
tragedy when she got killed. She was such a lovely girl."

All this drove the thought of telephoning Shirley clean out of my mind;
when I got back to my office I pulled my IN basket towards me and
started on it, my mind still running upon what I had learned of Honey's
past life. In consequence, when Shirley opened the door of my flat, she
opened it on a completely strange young woman, who said, "Good morning,
Mrs. Scott. I'm Miss Corder--Marjorie Corder."

Shirley stared at her blankly; she had Miss Teasdale in the bedroom
sitting with Elspeth, and she herself was just about to go round for a
day of cleaning in Honey's house.

The stewardess said, "Didn't Dr. Scott ring you?"

"No. Ought he to have done?"

She explained. "I've just come from him. I brought a note to him from
Mr. Honey in Newfoundland--I flew across last night, I told Mr. Honey I
could come and see his little girl, and Dr. Scott told me to come here."

Shirley's brain reeled; another beautiful stranger had flown the
Atlantic with a message from Mr. Honey and was diving deep into his
private life. She said weakly, "Do you know Miss Monica Teasdale? She's
here."

"I thought she might be. I was with her at Gander--I'm the stewardess,
you see. Dr. Scott told me that she might be here."

Shirley nodded. "She came yesterday. She's in the bedroom reading to
Elspeth, now. Do come in." She took Miss Corder into the sitting-room
and explained to her.

The stewardess laughed, flushing a little. "You won't want the two of us
fussing round, Mrs. Scott," she said. "I'd just like to look in and see
Elspeth for a moment, and then I'll go away. Unless there's anything I
can do to help you?"

Shirley said, "Oh--no, not really. I was just going round to clean up
Mr. Honey's house a bit, but I've got nothing else to do."

"What's the matter with it? Is it dirty?"

"Perfectly filthy. The kitchen floor simply makes you sick."

The stewardess laughed. "Well, I can do that, Mrs. Scott. I'm used to
scrubbing."

If there is one job Shirley loathes, it is scrubbing a floor. "Would you
really like to come and help?" she asked. "I was going to take some
lunch round there, and make a day of it."

"I'd love to."

They made their plans together; then Shirley took Marjorie down the
corridor to our bedroom, where Monica Teasdale was reading _Just So
Stories_ to Elspeth Honey, lying in bed. She looked up in surprise at
the stewardess.

"Good morning, Miss Teasdale," Marjorie said. "I came over last night,
and brought another note from Mr. Honey to Dr. Scott. He asked me to
come on and see Elspeth when I was down here."

Elspeth from her bed said, "Is Daddy coming home soon?"

"My name's Marjorie," the stewardess said. "I saw your daddy last night.
Yes, he's coming back soon. In two or three days, perhaps."

"Why can't he come sooner?"

"He's got to wait for an aeroplane to bring him. It's a long way, across
the Atlantic."

"Didn't an aeroplane bring you?"

"Yes, but he has to wait for a special one, in two or three days' time."

"Couldn't he have come on the same one that you came on?"

She shook her head. "He's got to wait for a particular one, that has to
do with his work."

That satisfied Elspeth. "My Daddy works on things to do with
aeroplanes," she said. "He works at Farnborough. He's terribly clever."

"I know," said the stewardess. "I know that."

Miss Teasdale asked, "They've fixed that difficulty there was about his
passage home?"

The stewardess said, "He's coming on an R.A.F. aircraft of the School of
Navigation. It's coming across some time this week."

Shirley said, "I'm just taking Marjorie down with me to your house,
Elspeth, so that we can do some cleaning before your father gets back.
Is there anything you want from there? We could bring it when we come."

She shook her head. "May I sleep at home tonight, Mrs. Scott?"

"I don't think tonight, dear. Better stay here till you feel quite
well."

The child said in distress, "If nobody's there, there'll be a burglar."

"Don't worry about that," Shirley said. "Dennis--Dr. Scott--slept there
last night, and I expect he'll be there again tonight. One or other of
us will be there. We won't leave the house empty."

Elspeth said, "I do want to go back."

"You shall, the very minute you're well."

Miss Teasdale said, "You'll just have to hurry up and get well, honey."

Elspeth snuggled down in bed. "I like the way you always call me honey."

Shirley collected scrubbers and soap and Vim and a dust-pan and brush,
and put them in a basket with the lunch, and started out with Marjorie
Corder to Copse Road. As they walked through the suburban streets, the
stewardess said, "She's very anxious to get back into her own house,
isn't she?"

"I know," said Shirley. "It's a sort of fixed idea. She feels
responsible for all her father's papers, and she's terribly afraid a
burglar will get in and steal them. As if anybody would want to steal
that sort of stuff! But that's what she thinks. That's how she came to
fall downstairs--she thought she heard a burglar."

They came to the little house in Copse Road and opened it, and went
through it with curious disdain. The products of Honey's creative
research in the many files in the front room meant nothing to them,
except that they were papers to collect a lot of dust. There was little
in the house that they approved of. "My dear, that kitchen!" Shirley
said. "The whole place wants doing out from top to bottom, really."

Marjorie nodded. "I'll start off on the kitchen floor, and after that I
think I'll wash the walls," she said. "It wouldn't be a bad room if it
was cleaned up. It's got quite a nice outlook."

Shirley said, "If you make a start on that I'll slip round to the
builder and tell him to come and put some glass in this window, where I
kicked it out. After that, I think I'd better start off in the bedrooms
and turn those out, and work down." She paused. "I'll get some Harpic
for that ghastly lavatory ..."

They worked together till the middle of the afternoon; then Shirley left
to do her own housekeeping. Marjorie stayed on in the house, partly
because she was not yet tired and partly because the glazier was
working on the window. She roamed through the house for a little,
smoking a cigarette, touching and feeling things, rather as I had done
two nights before. She stared in wonder at the many files and books and
drawing instruments, relating them to the man she had known at Gander.
This was what the home of a genius looked like. A genius who had no
woman to look after him.

There was one small rug on the bare boards of the front room, that
mixture of drawing office and study. She took this rug up and fetched a
bucket of hot water from the kitchen, and got down on her knees again to
scrub the floor. Better to make a job of the whole house, while she was
at it. And this was where he did his work, and so the most important
room of all.

There was a step on the path outside, and the front door opened. She
raised her head and knelt back on her heels, thinking to see Shirley
again. But it was Miss Teasdale, delicately gowned and perfectly made
up, who stood in the doorway looking down at Marjorie as she knelt on
the scrubbing mat.

"Say," she said, "Mrs. Scott just told me all that you've been doing.
She's back in the apartment now for a while, so I just stepped around to
see."

Marjorie flushed a little. "I was just going to start scrubbing this
floor."

"So I see." The actress stared around her curiously. "Is this some kind
of a laboratory?"

"It's his study, where he does his work."

Standing in the door, Miss Teasdale glanced out into the kitchen and the
stairs leading to the rooms above. "Which is the sitting-room, then?"

"This is it. It's the only sitting-room there is."

She stared around her, at the drawing-board, the deal cupboards and
shelves loaded with books and files, the bare floor. "The little girl,"
she said at last. "Where does she go?"

The stewardess said, "They've got a couple of armchairs in the
kitchen--basket ones. I think they sit in there a good deal." She
stared around her. "It doesn't have to be like this," she said. "I'm
sure it doesn't. He could be much more comfortable."

The actress glanced at the pail of steaming water. "I see you're doing
all you can to make it so."

"Me? All I'm doing is to get rid of some of the dirt. But he could have
curtains in this room, and a carpet on the floor and some decent
lampshades, as a start."

The actress smiled. "Kind of wants a woman round about the place?"

Their eyes met. Marjorie said evenly, "I think he does."

"Okay," said Miss Teasdale. "Just so as we know." She turned and
wandered into the kitchen. It was scrubbed and clean and smelling of
antiseptic soap. The window was open and the sun streaming in; on the
wooden table there was a small vase of flowers. A little pang struck at
her heart again, as many pangs had in the last two days. Kitchens had
been like that back in her youth in Indiana, before they got to look
hygienic, like a hospital. She called over her shoulder, "You've done a
swell job in here."

Marjorie got up from her knees in the sitting-room and came and stood
behind the actress. "It's clean now, anyway," she said. "But it's all so
old-fashioned. It must seem terrible to you."

"Maybe." The actress stood for a moment in thought. "I kind of like a
scrubbed table," she said at last. "I haven't seen one in years. But
they were all that way when I was young, and it carries you back."

"All right if you haven't got to scrub them yourself," the stewardess
said. "But the metal ones are so much easier."

Miss Teasdale glanced at her. "Kind of interested in housework, aren't
you?"

Unaccountably, beside this sophisticated woman Marjorie Corder felt like
a child. "Everybody's interested in that," she said defensively.
"Besides, I was a nurse once, before I went to the Air Transport
Organisation. I know a lot about scrubbing."

"Going to stay with the airline? Or leave, and marry the boy friend?"
She glanced at the stewardess's hand. "Or isn't there a boy friend?"

The girl shook her head. "Not now."

"No? I'd have thought there'd have been plenty."

"I got inoculated," Marjorie said. "There was one once, but he was
killed. He was a bomber pilot."

"In the war?"

She nodded.

"That was quite a while ago," the actress said. And then she said, "I
see."

Miss Corder flushed, in spite of herself. "I don't know what it is you
see," she said. "I've got this other floor to do." And she went back to
the sitting-room, and went down on her knees beside the pail.

"Okay," the older woman said. "You don't have to get worked up about it.
Guess I'll go along now and get Mrs. Scott to telephone the office for
my car."

Marjorie raised her head. "All right," she said. "Tell her I'll be round
in about half an hour for my coat."

Miss Teasdale walked back slowly to our little flat, deep in thought; it
did not now seem very important to her whether she was recognised or
not. One or two women, and three men, glanced at her curiously in the
street, but no one spoke. She reached the garden gate just as I drove up
from the factory; I had left early that night, resolved to get in a
couple of hours more upon my lecture that evening, somehow and in some
place. I had to give it the following night; indeed the next day with
our full-dress meeting upon Reindeer fatigue in the morning and my
lecture in the evening, and flying to Montreal that night, was likely to
be quite a heavy one.

I took her into the flat and telephoned for her car; it would take an
hour or so to come from London. I poured her out a glass of sherry.

"Tired?" I said. She looked rather limp.

"Just a bit." She roused herself. "I walked around to see where Mr.
Honey lives. Miss Corder, she's still there scrubbing the floor. Says
she'll be another half an hour. She's got energy, that kid has."

"Well," I said, "she's young." I could have bitten my tongue out an
instant later for having said that.

The actress nodded briefly. Presently she said, "Say, Dr. Scott--this
research on airplanes you and Mr. Honey do. Can that be done any place?
I mean, suppose a man had money, enough money to set up a swell
laboratory, say, at some place like Palm Beach, and maybe another one in
Vermont for the summer months. Could the work be done that way?"

"Research on aeroplanes?" I asked. "You mean, the sort of things that we
do here at Farnborough?"

"That's right. Fatigue, is that it?"

I shook my head. "I don't think you could do any effective work upon
fatigue effects in airframes in a private laboratory," I said. "You'd
have no access to the secret information, for one thing, so you'd never
be up to date. But apart from that, the expense would be prohibitive to
any private individual."

"What's that about secret information?"

"All the work done on military aeroplanes is secret," I said. "If the
wings start coming off our latest bomber in a dive, we don't tell the
world about it. Not until we get it put right, anyway. But at
Farnborough, all that experience is at our disposal when we're dealing
with the Reindeer tail--in fact, we should ourselves be working on the
secret troubles of the bomber at the same time. A private research
worker would always be behind, for that reason alone."

"He wouldn't cut any ice, working that way?"

"I don't see how he could. Research on aeroplanes is a big business,
too. I don't know what this fatigue story on the Reindeer is going to
cost before we're through with it. Apart altogether from the repair of
the one at Gander, what's going on at Farnborough may cost thirty
thousand pounds before we're through with the first stage of it."

She opened her eyes. "A hundred and twenty thousand dollars. That's
quite a lot of money. How long would that be spread over?"

"About a year," I said. "But I don't think it could be done at all upon
a private basis. There's the buildings and the plant to be considered
too, you see."

She nodded. "Like the stages."

I did not understand her. "No, I mean the actual buildings to house the
experimental work."

"That's right. Like the stages that we put up the sets in, ready to
start shooting the scene."

I thought of the great barnlike buildings I had read about. "Yes--just
like that," I said. "You'd need something just about as big as that, and
a corresponding staff."

She turned the conversation and asked me about my lecture that I was to
give upon the Performance Analysis of Aircraft flying at High Mach
Numbers. Elspeth had told her about it, it seemed, and had confused Miss
Teasdale with her erudition. The child, it seemed, knew quite a lot
about high Mach numbers and the difficulties that aeroplanes get into in
those regions. The actress had no idea what a Mach number was, high or
low, and was hazy about the meaning of the word analysis. But she was a
very beautiful and charming woman; I did not find the explanations
tedious.

Shirley came in while that was going on, and almost immediately Miss
Corder followed her. I poured them both out a glass of sherry. Monica
Teasdale said, "Dr. Scott's been telling me about his lecture tomorrow
night, Mrs. Scott. Elspeth told me first. She said it was a great
distinction for a young man like Dr. Scott to be asked to read a paper
to the Royal Aeronautical Society." She glanced at me mischievously.
"I'm just repeating what she said."

"I can quite believe it," I replied. "That child's got the mind of a
woman of forty."

Shirley said artlessly, "I do wish I could come up and hear it."

I stared at her; it had never entered my head that she would not be
coming to London. "Aren't you coming?" I suppose there was
disappointment in my voice, because we had worked at it a good deal
together. And then, it struck me that she was talking with a purpose.

"I _can't_, Dennis," she said. "There's Elspeth."

Miss Teasdale sat motionless, staring at the sherry in her glass. The
faint lines upon her face seemed suddenly deeper.

Marjorie Corder burst out, "But Mrs. Scott, of course you must go! I've
got a few days' leave. I'd love to come down again tomorrow and sit with
her, or stay the night, if you like. She'll be perfectly all right with
me. If anything should happen, I _am_ a nurse, you know."

The actress sat silent, motionless.

Shirley said, "Would you--really?"

"Of course, Mrs. Scott. I'd love to do that." The girl was bright-eyed
and eager.

Shirley said, "It really is most awfully kind of you--I do want to go,
terribly." And then we all said what a good idea it was and Shirley
said, "And after the lecture we can go on and have dinner somewhere, and
then I'll come to the Airways place at Victoria and see you off."

I grinned. "Fine," I said. "But you'll miss the last train home."

"Then I'll stay in Town, and make a night of it," she said. She turned
to Marjorie Corder. "Did you really mean that you'd spend the night here
with Elspeth? It means sleeping on the sofa, I'm afraid."

"Of course, Mrs. Scott. I'd love to do that."

Presently I suggested that we'd better go and tell Elspeth about it, and
we all walked down to see her in the bedroom. "Guess what's going to
happen tomorrow," I said.

The child's face lit up. "Am I going back to our house?"

Marjorie sat down on the bed and took her hand. "Not quite that," she
said gently. "But Mrs. Scott wants to go to London to hear Dr. Scott
give his lecture, so I said I'd come and spend the night here and look
after you. Would you like that?"

The stewardess, as I have mentioned before, was a very charming young
woman. She made a sweet picture, sitting talking to the sallow little
girl. Elspeth said, rather shyly, "Yes." And then she said, "Will Dr.
Scott be coming back after the lecture?"

"No," said Marjorie. "He's got to fly to Montreal and he's leaving that
night from London, and Mrs. Scott's going to see him off and stay the
night in Town. So there'll be just you and me alone down here tomorrow
night."

Elspeth said in distress, "But that means there'll be nobody at all in
our house, and there'll be a burglar."

We stared at each other in consternation. We had all heard about this
burglar in the last few days, sufficiently to realise that it was the
sort of phobia that a child has to be led out of, that it may not be
very good to repress. In Elspeth's case she certainly would not sleep
while that house remained empty, and she was a mild concussion case.

Shirley said, "Oh dear. I never thought of that."

There was a momentary silence.

Marjorie Corder said slowly, "Mrs. Scott, would you think this very
awful? I don't believe Mr. Honey would mind me sleeping in his house, in
the circumstances. They won't want me at Air Transport before the
week-end, and Mr. Honey will probably be back himself by then. What I
was thinking was, we might move Elspeth back into her own house and her
own bed tomorrow morning. I'd be very glad to sleep there tomorrow night
and look after her there, and the next night, too, if that would help.
I'm sure Mr. Honey will be back in a day or two."

I said, "It'll only be a couple of days at the most. There's a Lincoln
from the Navigation School picking him up this week."

Shirley said slowly, "I don't think it would matter a bit. After all, he
did ask you to come and see if Elspeth was getting on all right. I don't
think he could possibly mind if you moved in for a night or two to look
after her, as things are. But surely, it's a great tie for you?"

The girl said, "I'd like to do that, honestly."

I said that I thought it would be a darned good idea. Shirley had had
quite enough of sleeping on the sofa, I thought, and if I was to go away
to Labrador upon this trip, I did not want to leave her with a sick
child on her hands. If this Miss Corder who was a trained nurse wanted
to take over and move Elspeth back into her own place and look after her
there, I was all for it, and the sooner the better.

Everyone was very pleased about the decision we had taken, except
possibly Miss Teasdale, who said very little. We made all the
arrangements; Marjorie was to come down first thing in the morning,
Shirley was to drive me to the station in the car and then bring back
the car and transfer Elspeth back into her own house.

Soon after that, the stewardess went off to catch the bus to the station
for the train that was to take her up to London. As soon as she was
gone, Miss Teasdale said, "I guess I'll have to say good-bye, now, to
you folks. I don't see any reason to come down again tomorrow." She was
brightly cheerful.

Shirley said in disappointment, "Oh. Can't you stay and see Mr. Honey
when he gets back? You've done such a lot for him."

She smiled. "It's you folks have done everything--all I did was read a
while with Elspeth. I certainly did enjoy doing that. But now she's
going to be all fixed up, and as for me, I've no right to be over on
this side at all. I'm due back on the Coast in five days' time."

She was emphatic that she had to go, and she went through into the
bedroom again to say good-bye to Elspeth. "One day," she said, "when
you're a little older, I want you to come over to the States and spend a
holiday with me. We'll go on a ranch up in the mountains, riding and
swimming all day. In the spring, when all the flowers are out. Would you
like that?"

The child nodded. "Mm."

"Okay, honey," said the actress brightly. "We'll look forward to it."
She paused, and then she said, "If I write you sometimes, would you
like to write me back and say what you've been doing?"

Elspeth nodded again. "I'll write four pages," she said.

"Okay, honey," said Miss Teasdale again, "that's a deal. I must go now."
She stooped and kissed the little sallow face. "Tell your daddy I'm
sorry that I couldn't wait to see him. Tell him I'll look forward to
seeing you both again next time I'm over on this side."

"How long will that be?" the child asked.

"A couple of years, maybe. But we'll write in the meantime, won't we?"

Elspeth nodded vigorously.

Miss Teasdale turned to the door, and waved her hand brightly.
"Good-by-ee," she said, with rising American inflection.

As we walked down the passage there was a ring at the door, and it was
the chauffeur. We went into the sitting-room where she gathered up her
things. And then she said, "It's been swell knowing you folks. Going
around the way I do, one never gets to know the real English people, the
way you live and work. But this two days has been just like it used to
be at home, as if you were all Hoosiers. It certainly has been grand
knowing you."

I forget what we said in reply; it doesn't matter. We walked down with
her to her car, and this time there was a little crowd of ten or fifteen
people on the pavement, for the news had leaked. Two little girls with
autograph albums stopped her as she crossed the pavement and said, "Miss
Teasdale, would you sign my book?" She smiled brilliantly,
professionally, at them, scrawled her name, and got into the car; we
stood and watched it as it slid away, conscious of the eyes of the small
crowd now focused upon us, friends of the great.

Shirley asked, "Dennis, what's a Hoosier?"

"Blowed if I know," I said.

We went in and had supper, and gave Elspeth hers, and made her bed for
her, and put her down to sleep. Then we washed up the supper things,
and then I had to pack a suitcase with everything that I would need for
a fortnight or three weeks in Ottawa and Labrador. By half-past nine I
was finished, and could take my overnight bag and the printed script of
my paper and go round to Honey's house to do a final trial reading of
the thing, and finally, to sleep.

Shirley came with me to the gate of the front garden of our little block
of flats. "Good night, Dennis," she said softly. "Don't stay up later
than midnight, will you?"

It was reasonable that I should get a good night's sleep. "All right," I
said.

She stood for a moment, looking down the road in the dusk, in the
direction that Miss Teasdale's car had gone. "That poor woman," she said
thoughtfully.

I asked her, "Why do you say that?"

She kicked absently at a tuft of grass. "I don't know. I think she's
having rather a rough time." She turned back to the house. "Mind now,
don't stay up too late."

I went off down the road, and the PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AIRCRAFT
FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS put the matter from my mind.




9


I travelled up to London next morning with the Director for our meeting
at the Ministry of Supply. It took place in one of those long bleak
conference rooms you sometimes find in economical Government offices,
furnished only with a long table and about twenty hard seats. It was a
very hot day, with the sun streaming in across the table. Our Chairman
was Stanley Morgan, the Director of Research and Development. Ferguson
was seated by his side, and on his other hand was a chap from the
Secretariat that I did not know, and next to him there was a lean,
cadaverous beggar from the Treasury whose name I never learned. Then
there was Carter from the Ministry of Civil Aviation with some stooge or
other. Next was Sir David Moon, the Chairman of C.A.T.O., with Carnegie
beside him, and next to them and in their party was a little
sandy-haired man, rather stout, who turned out to be Samuelson, the
Captain of the Reindeer that Honey had had his fun with. There were two
chaps from the Air Registration Board, and Group-Captain Fisher of the
Accidents Branch, with somebody to help him. Next came E. P.
Prendergast, the designer of the Reindeer, looking like thunder, and
with him was a chap in a black jacket who turned out to be the legal
adviser to the Company. Finally, there was the Director and myself. I
don't know what he felt like. I know I felt like a bag fox about to be
let loose in front of a pack of hounds.

The Chairman opened the meeting by saying that as there was no formal
agenda he would lay down terms of reference right away. The meeting had
been called to discuss the airworthiness of the Reindeer aircraft with
particular reference to tailplane failure by fatigue. He hoped that as a
result of our discussions we would reach agreement upon whether any
steps were necessary to restrict the operation of the aircraft, either
now or in the future. He wished to emphasise that any decisions taken
must be taken upon sound technical grounds alone. At the same time, he
said, the matter was of grave political importance. The Reindeer
aircraft was now maintaining more than half of the British Transatlantic
passenger service, and by the end of the year would be doing the lot. If
those aircraft had to be taken out of service the consequences would be
very serious indeed. He was sure that the technicians present, of whom
he was one, appreciated these hard facts. With that, he would ask the
Director of the R.A.E. to give a short account of the investigations
which had been proceeding on the Reindeer tail.

The Director said that the matter arose from certain basic researches
into the question of fatigue, for which the second Reindeer tailplane
submitted for structural tests, and unbroken in those tests, was used.
This choice had been entirely fortuitous; the tailplane happened to be
there, and so we used it. The research was directly in the hands of Mr.
Honey, working under Dr. Scott; it was unfortunate, he said dryly, that
circumstances prevented Mr. Honey from being present at that meeting.
Sir David Moon tightened his lips and looked annoyed, but said nothing.

The Director went on to outline what had happened up to the point where
the Reindeer crash in Labrador came into the picture. Here he called on
me to speak. "I was very much impressed with the coincidence of flying
times," I said carefully. "The Reindeer crashed in somewhat mysterious
circumstances when it had flown for 1,393 hours. Mr. Honey's estimate of
the time to tailplane failure, under normal weak mixture cruising
conditions, was 1,440 hours--that is, 3½% greater than the point at
which an accident occurred. 3½% is nothing in investigations of that
sort, of course. Clearly, it is very possible that the accident may be
related to the estimate."

Group-Captain Fisher said, "If I may say a word, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Scott
speaks of the Reindeer accident--the _first_ Reindeer accident, perhaps
I should say--as having taken place in somewhat mysterious
circumstances. I cannot agree with that. The accident was very fully
investigated and was fully explained. There is no mystery about that
accident at all."

Morgan said, "Quite so, Captain Fisher. I think we may come on to that a
little later."

Prendergast raised his head. "I should like to say a word, Mr. Chairman.
I quite agree that the coincidence of flying times deserves attention,
provided that one has confidence in the estimate produced by Dr. Scott
and Mr. Honey. May we hear a little of the nature of this research, and
of the substance of this estimate?"

The Chairman said, "I was about to ask the R.A.E. if they would deal
with that next."

The Director said, "A point of difficulty arises here at once, sir. This
estimate was produced by Mr. Honey as an incidental to a programme of
pure research into fatigue problems. In the course of this research Mr.
Honey has made a completely new approach to the fatigue problem. It is a
very great pity that he could not have been brought here to tell you
about it himself. However, I will do my best to outline it to you."

He paused, and then he said, "Mr. Honey's work is nuclear. He bases it
on the small energy loss of materials under strain detected first by
Koestlinger and further investigated by Schiltgrad at Upsala University.
That work is public property. Mr. Honey related those investigations to
certain work of a more secret character recently carried out at the
N.P.L. which, with your permission, sir, I propose to gloss over."

The Chairman nodded.

"Arising out of these investigations," the Director went on, "Mr. Honey
produced a completely novel theory of the fatigue effects in light alloy
structures, which involved a considerable extension of the accepted
nuclear theory. If confirmed by experimental tests, this theory would
present for the first time a firm basis for designing structures to
resist fatigue, instead of the somewhat hit and miss empirical design
factors that we have used to date. Accordingly we put in hand a test
upon the Reindeer tail left over from the airworthiness investigations,
to confirm or to disprove the theory. That test has now run for about
five hundred and ten hours, and on the present rate of progress, running
twenty-three hours a day, we expect to reach Mr. Honey's figure of 1,440
hours running time about the end of August."

There was some discussion of the trial programme then, and the nature of
the test. I produced some photographs of it from my attaché case and
circulated them around the table. Prendergast seized them at once, and
began studying them intently.

The Director went on, "At the R.A.E. we do not pretend to expert
knowledge upon every branch of natural science. There are bodies in this
country charged with the investigation of nuclear matters; we are not
one of them. When nuclear matters come our way we submit them to the
appropriate authority, and in this case we submitted Mr. Honey's thesis
to the Inter-Services Atomic Research Board for guidance. In addition,
Mr. Honey visited Sir Phillip Dolbear to discuss the matter. The letter
from the Board is there, sir."

The Chairman picked it up. "Well, yes. I think I'd better read it to the
meeting."

He did so.

At the conclusion he smiled wryly. "Well, gentlemen," he said. "We all
appreciate that the Inter-Services Atomic Research Board has a very full
programme, but unfortunately this letter does not take us very much
further. In its concluding paragraph it expresses the willingness of the
Board to put fatigue problems upon their programme, indicating that they
consider that an extension of the nuclear theory may yield useful
results in assessing the effects of fatigue; at the same time, they
clearly don't think very much of Mr. Honey's work in this field. They do
not go so far as to say that his work is inaccurate or worthless. They
refer to it"--he glanced at the letter--"as a wild assumption, which
needs much experimental verification."

I said, "Which is what we are trying to do."

"Exactly, Dr. Scott. Well, gentlemen, I must confess I don't see what
further steps the R.A.E. could have taken in the matter. The
confirmatory trial is running night and day, and such assistance as
could be obtained has been obtained, from the I.S.A.R.B. I understand
that in the circumstances the R.A.E. have a recommendation to make."

The Director glanced at me.

"I have an opinion," I said. "A recommendation, if you like, sir. I
don't think any Reindeer should fly more than 700 hours until this thing
has been cleared up."

The Chairman nodded. "Any comments upon that?"

Carnegie, the technical superintendent of C.A.T.O., said, "Well, sir, I
should like to ask one or two questions. First of all, why seven hundred
hours? What is the magic in that number?"

I said, "It's half the estimated time to failure."

"No, it's not," he said. "Half the estimated time to failure is seven
hundred and twenty hours."

I swallowed. "All right," I said. "Make it seven hundred and twenty
hours, if you like. But I don't think any aircraft carrying passengers
should fly more than half the estimated time to failure."

Sir David Moon said, "I don't want anyone to think this is a trivial
point. Twenty more hours flying, on an average of six aircraft only,
means twelve more Atlantic flights, which would earn a revenue of over
sixty thousand pounds. I am very grateful to Dr. Scott for allowing us
to make that money by his concession."

I flushed at his tone. The battle was evidently on.

"I have another question," said Carnegie. "Who decided this ratio of one
half? We are all agreed that safety comes first, up to a point. If
safety precautions are unreasonable, of course, they can stop aviation
altogether, and we can all go home."

He paused. "I should like to suggest that it is perfectly safe to permit
these aircraft to fly up to two-thirds of Mr. Honey's estimated time to
failure--that is, to 960 hours. As operations are going, some of the
aircraft will reach seven hundred hours before the test reaches 1,440
hours. As far as I can see, when the test has reached 1,440 hours the
first aircraft will have flown about 910 hours, and after that the test
should keep ahead of the aircraft if it runs twenty-three hours a day,
because the aircraft seldom exceed ten hours a day, operating as at
present. Two-thirds seems to me to present a fair margin of safety."

Prendergast said, "I would certainly agree with that."

The Chairman turned to me. "Dr. Scott."

"I don't agree," I said. "I should like to. But we know too little about
fatigue problems, and their onset. All estimates that I have ever seen
upon fatigue in built-up structures, and there aren't very many to see,
have been very much in error, and in the majority of cases failure has
taken place before the estimate. I think a factor of two is necessary
in a case like this--seven hundred and twenty hours. I shouldn't like to
see the aircraft flying on to nine hundred and sixty hours."

Carnegie said, "I take it, Dr. Scott, that that is just your personal
opinion."

"My personal opinion," I agreed. "That's what I think."

Prendergast said, "Dr. Scott, am I not right in saying that another
Reindeer, the one that there has been some trouble with at Gander, has
flown 1,429 hours without any trouble at all?"

"I think that's about right," I said.

"Well, in view of that, do you still feel that so large a factor of
safety as two is desirable?"

"For all we know that one may be on the point of failure," I replied.
"If it is, then I think a factor of two is necessary. We know too little
about fatigue problems to sail nearer the wind than that, where
passenger services are concerned. If it were a military aircraft, I
might take a different view."

Sparkes, of the Air Registration Board, spoke up. "Mr. Chairman, with
every respect, the allocation of factors of safety is our
responsibility, and not that of the R.A.E."

"Certainly," I said. "I'm just telling you what I think."

There was a short pause.

Then Sir David Moon said, "Mr. Chairman, nobody here wishes to subject
the travelling public to any undue risk. But this factor of safety seems
to be a matter of opinion. Opinions should be based upon the
consideration of all the factors involved, including both the technical
factors _and_ the operational ones. Now, here there is a political
issue. If these aircraft are grounded at 720 hours, the British
Transatlantic air services will virtually come to an end, probably for
several months, with the most deplorable results to the prestige of this
country. If they are allowed to go on flying up to 960 hours and
thereafter to two-thirds of the time currently run by the test at
Farnborough, there is a very good prospect that it may not be necessary
to interrupt the services at all." He paused. "I should like to ask Dr.
Scott if he has taken that into consideration."

The Chairman glanced at me.

I stuck my chin out. "No, I haven't," I said. "This is a technical
matter. For safety, I think this thing should carry a factor of two.
That is, the aircraft should be grounded at 720 hours, subject to the
further investigation of the fatigue problem."

Sir David Moon said, "That's a very positive statement, Dr. Scott."

"It is," I agreed.

Prendergast leaned forward. "Dr. Scott," he said. "Is it not the fact
that we have no evidence that there is any fatigue trouble in the
Reindeer tail at all? Let me put it another way. Mr. Honey has produced
a theory of fatigue which is unsupported as yet by any experimental
evidence. This theory states that the Reindeer tail is dangerous. That
is all we have to go upon?"

"Not quite," I said. I opened the accident report lying on the table
before me. "The tailplane of the first Reindeer crash is still lying in
Labrador, and a metallurgical examination of that in the region of the
fracture will show if that tail failed in fatigue or not. Here's a
photograph of that crash, and I've drawn a pencil circle round the stump
of the front spar. It's very tiny, I'm afraid, but it looks not unlike a
fatigue fracture to me."

There was a pause while the report was passed eagerly round the table.
Group-Captain Fisher said irritably, "Nobody can possibly tell anything
from that--it's only about a sixteenth of an inch long. The accident was
very carefully sifted, and all the parts examined. There's no question
about what happened."

Prendergast said, "Have any steps been taken to recover these parts for
examination?"

The Director said, "We sent out Mr. Honey to investigate the matter on
the spot. Unfortunately circumstances have prevented him from doing so.
Instead, Dr. Scott is flying to Ottawa this evening to recover the
parts and to carry out any other investigations that may be necessary,
in conjunction with the Accidents Investigation Branch."

The Chairman said, "Dr. Scott is going out there personally? That seems
a very good thing."

Prendergast said, "But at this moment, all the evidence we have upon
this matter is this photograph and Mr. Honey's theories?"

I nodded. "That is correct." I knew that it was coming now, and it did.

He said, "Dr. Scott, leaving aside the photograph, have you got
confidence in Mr. Honey's theory of fatigue?"

"I'm not sure that that is quite a fair question," I said slowly. "I'll
tell you quite frankly, that I don't understand it very well, and I
doubt if anybody in this room would understand it any better. I have a
bowing acquaintance with nuclear theory, as many of us have. I don't
know enough about it to criticise the work of somebody who has made a
deep study of nuclear matters, as Mr. Honey certainly has. I'm sorry,
gentlemen, but that's the way it is."

The Chairman said, "I think that is a reasonable answer. Dr. Scott's
appointment does not call for experience in nuclear matters--indeed, no
appointment at the R.A.E. has called for that experience up to the
present. The R.A.E. very properly applied for advice to the I.S.A.R.B.,
and it is unfortunate for us that no very definite advice has been
forthcoming. However, there it is, and we must make the best of it."

Prendergast said, "Making the best of it, Mr. Chairman, may I ask
another question? Dr. Scott, are you satisfied with Mr. Honey's work in
general? In technical matters, have you got confidence in him as a
credible person?"

It was very hot in the conference room. I was beginning to perspire.

The Chairman said, "Well, that's rather an unusual question."

Sir David Moon said, "These are rather unusual circumstances, Mr.
Chairman. So far as I can make out there is grave danger that we may be
called upon to suspend the entire operation of the British Transatlantic
air service because Mr. Honey has produced a theory of fatigue which the
I.S.A.R.B. think nothing of, and which nobody else has checked. Some of
my staff have had experience with Mr. Honey recently, as you know, and
we are not at all impressed. Indeed, so little impressed were we with
his mental stability that we have felt compelled to refuse him any
further passages in our aircraft."

There was a tense pause. I said, "I should like to answer Mr.
Prendergast's question, if I may, sir. I have complete confidence in Mr.
Honey. I think his work, in general, is very advanced and very
competent. I think that in this matter he is very likely to be right."

And I thought to myself as I said that, there goes your job.

Prendergast said slowly, "I am astonished."

The Chairman said, "I think we should accept the opinion of Dr. Scott,
Mr. Prendergast. Mr. Honey is a member of his staff, and he is better
known to Dr. Scott than to anybody in this room."

Sir David Moon said, "With every respect, Mr. Chairman, I should like to
say a word about that. In C.A.T.O. we also know a good deal about Mr.
Honey. We consider him to be a man with an obsession on this question of
fatigue that impels him to the most extravagant acts. I do not think I
need go into what happened at Gander; I imagine we are all aware that
Mr. Honey has wrecked one of our aircraft in deference to his theory."

"No," I said. "In deference to me. I told Mr. Honey before he left
England that no Reindeer was to fly more than seven hundred hours."

Carnegie exclaimed, "You did?" He turned to the Chairman. "Really, sir,
I think that was a little bit high-handed. This meeting has been called
to consider that very point."

I said, "In emergencies, somebody has to say something. At that time we
had no idea that any Reindeer had flown more than four hundred hours.
But Mr. Honey knew my views, and he acted on them to the best of his
ability. I don't think he was backing up his theory by preventing that
Reindeer from flying on. He was doing his best to ensure the safety of
the travelling public."

Sir David Moon said, "Nobody questions that Mr. Honey was doing his
best, Dr. Scott. What we feel in C.A.T.O. is that it was the best of an
unbalanced man. I do not know if you quite realise the seriousness of
his acts. I have no exact figures yet of the cost of repair of the
Reindeer which is now lying at Gander, nor of the loss to which my
Organisation will be subjected due to that aircraft being out of service
for a period of many weeks. It does not seem possible to me that the sum
of those two figures will be less than eighty thousand pounds. I do not
feel that my Organisation should be liable for that amount."

The Chairman pursed his lips, and wrote down the figure on his pad.

"We feel in C.A.T.O. that that large financial loss has been forced upon
us lightly and unreasonably by an employee of the State who, let us say,
thinks differently from ordinary people." Sir David glanced at the chap
from the Treasury, who made a note upon his pad in turn. The legal
representative of the Rutland Aircraft Company was already scribbling
busily; clearly there was going to be a fine dogfight over who was to
pay for that aircraft. "Having had this experience of Mr. Honey and his
obsessions we are quite unwilling to accept him as a passenger again in
any of our aircraft. And equally, we shall be most reluctant to accept
any reduction of our services based upon the uncorroborated work of this
man, in view of our experience with him."

Prendergast said, "As one who has known Mr. Honey by repute for a great
many years, may I say a word, sir?" The Chairman nodded.

The designer said, "I have worked in this industry for thirty-nine
years. I came into it as a boy two months after Bleriot flew the English
Channel, and I have been working in it ever since. At that time the
R.A.E. was still known as the Balloon Factory. I have seen that
establishment grow from practically nothing to its present size, and all
that time I have been in close and intimate touch with it. I have seen
scientists come and go at the R.A.E.; I know them, and I know their
ways, and many of them have been most able and devoted men. But I can
tell this meeting frankly I consider Mr. Honey to be exceptional.
Scientists, like other men, are subject to mental disturbances, perhaps
more so in view of the continuous mental efforts that they are required
to make. Some scientists grow senile at an early age; they develop
kleptomania and steal small articles from little shops"--he was speaking
very slowly--"or they behave indecently in the Park, or they engage in
treasonable activities, or they slip into religious mania."

The Director flushed. All these were true incidents that had bedevilled
him within the last three years.

"All my life I have watched these men in their careers," Prendergast
continued. "I fancy that I know the initial symptoms of a scientific
mental decline by this time, and I could make a tolerably good guess of
what the future holds for Mr. Honey." The Chairman stirred restively,
but Prendergast was Prendergast, senior in age and in experience to the
lot of us. "We have here a man," he continued, "who takes a deep
interest in psychic phenomena--that is, gentlemen, in ghosts. Mr. Honey
believes in ghosts; he has been chairman of a body dealing with psychic
research. Apart from that, Mr. Honey will forecast the date of the
coming dissolution of the world to anyone who cares to listen to him,
based, I believe, on the structure of the Great Pyramid. If you take
fright at that, and wish to escape from a planet which is doomed to
destruction"--there was infinite sarcasm in his tone--"Mr. Honey is your
man again, because he has been concerned with the Interplanetary Society
and at one time produced designs for a rocket-propelled Space Ship, I
think he called it, for a projected journey to the moon."

There were smiles around the table. I spoke up in a cold fury. "I don't
know much about the ghosts or the end of the world," I said. "I have
looked over his work on interplanetary rockets, which was carried out in
his own time in the years 1935 and 1936. So far as I can see, modern
developments in guided missiles are following exactly on the lines that
he forecast."

Prendergast glared at me. "I wish I could believe that certain other
forecasts made by Mr. Honey would come equally true," he said harshly.
"As it is, they appear to me to be a particularly offensive form of
blasphemy. Are you aware that Mr. Honey expects Our Lord to descend to
Earth in this country in the year 1994? Are you aware of that, Dr.
Scott?"

I said angrily, "Are you aware that He won't?"

The Chairman said, "Gentlemen, I don't think any of this is really
relevant to our consideration of what action we should take, if any, in
regard to the Reindeer."

Prendergast said, "Our action depends upon our confidence in Mr. Honey's
work, sir. For my part, I have no confidence at all. The eccentricities
that I have mentioned are plain indications of mental decline. Unless
fresh evidence, as from the Reindeer crash in Labrador, should be
produced, I don't think we should take any action at all, though I would
agree to Mr. Carnegie's proposal to limit the flying time to two-thirds
of the time done by the test."

The Chairman said, "Well, Mr. Prendergast, as I understand the matter no
question of grounding any aircraft upon Mr. Honey's estimate alone is
likely to arise. It has already been decided to send a representative of
the R.A.E., Dr. Scott, to make a fresh investigation of the wreckage in
Labrador, in conjunction with the Accidents Department. How long do you
suppose that that will take?" He turned to the Director.

"It should not take longer than a fortnight," the Director said. "That
is, assuming that there is no further obstruction in regard to the air
transport of my staff." He said that very quietly.

Sir David Moon said, "Sir, any action that we may have taken has been
for the protection of the travelling public. If we consider any
passenger, _any_ passenger, to be mentally unstable, we refuse to carry
him. We do not wish to obstruct the R.A.E. in any way."

The Director said gently, "I should like to say a word upon this
question of mental instability, if I may. A wiser man than I once said
that an unusual man is apt to look unusual, gentlemen. I will admit that
Mr. Honey sometimes presents an unusual, an untidy appearance in his
manner and his clothes. I do not condone that, but I should be sorry to
see the R.A.E. staffed entirely by correct young men in neat,
conventional, civil service clothes, with neat, conventional, civil
service minds." A smile ran around the table. "In my department," he
went on, "we seek for original thinkers, for the untiring brain that
pursues its object by day and by night. If the untiring brain refuses to
leave its quest to attend to such matters as the neat arrangement of
collar and tie, or to removing food stains from its waistcoat, I do not
greatly complain."

He paused. "As regards Mr. Honey's other interests, I would say this.
You cannot limit a keen intellect, or try to fetter its activity. At
times, perhaps, I have no job on hand for a few weeks that will wholly
occupy the energies of some member of my staff, but I cannot put the
untiring brain into cold storage, or prevent the thinker from thinking.
If there is a hiatus in the flow of work my research workers will start
researching on their own, into the problems of thought transference, or
ghosts, or the Lost Tribes of Israel, or the Great Pyramid and the
coming dissolution of the world. That, gentlemen, does not mean that
they are going mad. It means that I have picked my men well, because the
true research worker cannot rest from research."

Prendergast said acidly, "May I ask if other members of your staff
destroy aircraft when they are not fully occupied?"

The Chairman said hastily, "I think, Mr. Prendergast, we can pass on."

Prendergast interrupted hotly, "With every respect, I think we should
hear more about the circumstances in which Mr. Honey wrecked the Gander
aircraft. We have the captain of the aircraft here, Captain Samuelson.
May we not hear what he has to say about Mr. Honey, sir?"

"If you wish," the Chairman said reluctantly. "Captain Samuelson?"

The pilot hesitated. "Well, sir, I don't know what to say. At the time I
thought he was off his head, but having heard all this it seems there's
something on the other side as well. I think it's a matter for the
doctors," he concluded weakly.

"Exactly," said the Chairman. "Well now, gentlemen----"

Samuelson spoke again. "Excuse me, sir," he said. "May I add just one
more thing?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I've heard a great deal this morning that I don't really
understand," the pilot said. "I mean, I'm just the b.f. who knows how to
fly the thing. But one thing I'm quite certain of, and that's that that
first accident report is wrong." He pointed to the folder lying on the
table before me. "That thing says that Bill Ward came down through the
overcast to check his position, and flew into a hill at about fifteen
hundred feet. I never heard such bloody nonsense in all my life. I've
known Bill Ward for twenty years. He was as senior as I am in the
Organisation. It's just bloody nonsense to suggest that he'd have done a
thing like that."

Group-Captain Fisher, red as a turkey cock, said, "The whole weight of
the evidence supports that explanation of the accident."

The pilot said, "I don't give a mugger about that, sir. It's plain
bloody nonsense. Senior pilots in the Organisation just don't do that
sort of thing. Whatever happened to that Reindeer, it wasn't that."

Sir David Moon stared down the table at his pilot thoughtfully. "I think
that we should give that view a great deal of consideration," he said.

The Chairman said, "I think we should. Well, gentlemen, I think we have
heard all that can be said upon the matter at this stage. The R.A.E.
will recover the relevant parts of the wreckage of the first machine and
will report to me, if possible within a fortnight." He glanced at the
calendar. "That is, by the 25th. We cannot settle anything this morning,
or, indeed, until we have that report upon the first machine. In the
meantime, I will see Sir Phillip Dolbear and see if any interim
investigation is possible, on high priority. If any action then seems
necessary, we must have another meeting."

Prendergast said sullenly, "Very good, sir. If any action on our part is
required, no doubt somebody will consent to let us know, sometime."

The chap from the Air Registration Board said, "It looks as if a little
preliminary investigation for the modifications that may be required
would be justified."

Prendergast said sourly, "It's rather difficult to do that when there is
no fault apparent in the present structure. Certainly, I can invent a
weakness and get out a modification to put it right, if that is what you
wish."

On that the meeting broke up; the various members stood about in little
groups. Sir David Moon went down to the end of the room and stood in
close conversation with his pilot, Samuelson; in a lull in the
conversation I heard the little sandy-haired man expostulating, "I tell
you, it's all a lot of bloody nonsense, sir." Group-Captain Fisher was
complaining to the Chairman, who was trying to brush him off; he did so
just as I was leaving the room with the Director, and bustled over to
us.

"You're crossing over to Ottawa tonight, then, Scott?" he said.

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"Fine," he said. "Do your best to get this settled quickly, one way or
the other. It's very disturbing to everybody when these things drag on
in uncertainty."

I left then, and went to the Royal Aero Club for lunch. The Director
had to go back to the R.A.E. so I lunched alone in the snack-bar and sat
for half an hour smoking in the lounge over a cup of coffee. I was very
tired. The last few days had been a bit of a strain, and the tensions in
the meeting that morning had left me feeling slack and ill. Hanging over
my head was the lecture in the evening; it should have been the great
day of my life, but now it was just another hour of tension to be
battled through. I sat trying to rest and read an illustrated magazine,
till it was time to go back to the Ministry to see about my journey to
Canada.

I went to see Ferguson first of all. "I thought old Prendergast was
going to break a blood-vessel this morning," he said cheerfully.
"Specially when you picked him up on Jesus Christ. I must say, we do
have fun at our meetings. That chap from the Treasury said he'd never
been at one quite like it."

I went with him to the Secretariat and spent an hour in various
departments getting my passport and my tickets and my money. We got back
to his office at about a quarter to four, and his secretary was waiting
for me with a message from the Director of Research and Development, our
chairman that morning. "Dr. Scott, Mr. Morgan wants to see you ..."

When I got into his office, he said, "Sit down, Scott. I want to have a
talk with you about this morning's meeting. How well do you know Mr.
Honey?"

"Not very well," I said. "This matter of fatigue is the first job of his
that I've investigated. He was working on it when I took over the
department.'"

"Is he a friend of yours? Do you know him personally?"

"No," I said. "He's been to my house a couple of times, and I've had his
daughter staying with me for the last two days." I told him about
Elspeth.

"I take it that you're friendly with him, then?"

"Not specially," I said. "I think he has rather a hard time, living
alone after the death of his wife, and all that, sir. And I think he's
an able little man. As regards his daughter, I hope we'd do that much
for any of my staff who got into a jam."

"You think he's able?"

"I do, sir."

He drummed on the table for a moment, staring out of the window. "Well,
I hope you're right," he said at last. He raised his head and looked at
me kindly. "There's going to be a row about this Reindeer, either way,"
he said. "If it proves that there is real trouble in the tailplane, that
you and Honey are right, then there's going to be Parliamentary trouble
over the suspension of the North Atlantic service. People will start
saying that this country can't build aircraft so we'd better give up
trying."

"We can plough through that one, sir," I said.

He nodded. "Of course we can. But if it goes the other way, and it turns
out to be a mare's nest--that there's nothing wrong with the tailplane
at all, then there'll be trouble of a different sort. Then the Treasury
will come in over the payment for the aircraft Honey wrecked at Gander.
I rather wish you hadn't thrown your weight on his side quite so
definitely this morning, Scott."

"There'll be a row about that, will there, sir?"

"I'm rather afraid there will. I had the Treasury man with me for half
an hour after lunch. He's very much concerned about the action that
Honey saw fit to take."

"Too bad," I said wearily. "But I can't help that. Honey knew my views
and what he did was certainly influenced by what he knew my attitude to
be. You can't go through life sitting on the fence. You've got to make
decisions, and sometimes you're pretty sure to make them wrong. If
you're going to chuck Honey to the lions, sir, you'll have to chuck me,
too."

He said doubtfully, "Oh, I don't think it will come to that." He stared
out of the window for a minute; it was hot in his office, and I was
sweating a little. "You must have thought about this for a long time,"
he said. "What makes you so positive that he is right?"

I could not relate the sum of tiny things that had built up my judgment,
the strong hiking boots, the rocket thesis, the quality of his discourse
upon automatic writing, his spartan mode of life, the beauty and
intelligence of the women who had loved him. "I don't know," I said.
"I've just got a hunch that he's right."

"From your experience?"

I knew he understood. "That's right, sir," I said eagerly. "I just kind
of smell trouble here. Honestly, I think there's something the matter
with the Reindeer tail."

"I believe I agree with you," he said slowly. He smiled. "Well, we'll
keep our fingers crossed and hope you bring something definite back with
you from Canada." He stood up and held out his hand. "Good luck. You've
got everything you want for the journey--money and tickets and all
that?"

"Everything," I said. "I'll come back with the evidence all right,
sir"--I smiled--"for or against."

I went back to Ferguson's office. "What did he want?" he asked casually.

"He wanted to break it to me that if the Reindeer hasn't got fatigue
trouble I could start looking for another job," I said. "But he didn't
get around to putting it in so many words."

I left the office and walked slowly across the Green Park towards the
club. I was tired and dispirited; everything was massing up on me as if
for a disaster. I had backed Mr. Honey in his fatigue theory because one
has to take a positive line. I had thought it out and come to the
conclusion that he was probably right, and I had plumped for that, but I
could not overlook the other side of the question. What if he were
wrong? He had never seen a washing-up mop or an electric
hot-water-heater; he had walked in a provocative procession and had been
taken up by the police and charged with creating a breach of the peace.
Lucky that Prendergast did not bring out that one at the meeting!
Suppose, in fact, he was a stupid, trivial man; suppose, in fact, I
found nothing wrong at all with the wreckage in Labrador? My name would
then be mud; it would take a long time to live down the stink that this
would make in official circles. Probably it would mean that there would
be no more promotion for me at the R.A.E. In that case I would do better
to get out of the country, go down to the bottom and start again,
perhaps in Australia or New Zealand.

I sat for a long time on a bench in the park, tired and trying to rest,
wondering miserably if my life in my own country was coming to an end.

Presently I got up and went back to the club. Shirley was waiting for me
there, and I ordered tea. "We got Elspeth moved all right," she said.
"She's back in her own room now, with Miss Corder looking after her.
She's a nice girl that, Dennis."

"She is," I said. "Where's she sleeping?"

She looked at me reproachfully. "In the little spare room, of course.
All in among the suitcases. You didn't think she'd sleep in Mr. Honey's
bed?"

"Not yet," I said. She aimed a kick at my ankle under the table. "Is
Elspeth happy to be back in her own place?"

"Oh yes. Marjorie was going to wash the stairs and the hall this
afternoon, and she can talk to Elspeth while she's doing that. After tea
they were going to make toffee."

"Where's she going to get the sugar from?"

"Mr. Honey's got about thirty pounds of it in the larder. It's their jam
sugar ration for about four years. He doesn't know how to make jam."

"She'd better make him some."

"She's going to do that tomorrow. There are strawberries in the shops
now, and they're reasonably cheap."

She turned to me. "How did the meeting go, Dennis?"

"Not too well," I said. "There's going to be the hell of a row if these
machines have got fatigue, and a worse one if they haven't."

"Oh, darling, I _am_ sorry."

Presently we left the club and walked across the park to the lecture
hall; my lecture was at half-past six, but I had to go through the
slides with the lantern operator first. Then came a period of waiting
and nervous, distracted talk with various people in the industry while
the hall filled up, till there was an audience of six or seven hundred
people. Finally I went through with the President on to the platform,
with the Secretary behind me, and sat nervously trying to control my
twiddling fingers while the President introduced me as the lecturer on
the PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AIRCRAFT FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS.

When I got on my feet, all my nervousness vanished after the first few
words. I was very tired and stale, but I knew my subject, and the
familiar graphs and diagrams followed each other on the screen without a
hitch. I spoke for about fifty minutes; at the end I was a little
hoarse, and was glad to sit down and take a drink of water, happy that
the damn thing was over. There was applause, of course; there always is.
It seemed a terribly long time before it stopped; the next fence was the
discussion, and then it would be over. To my dismay I saw Prendergast
get heavily to his feet in the second row. I waited with sick
anticipation for what he was going to say.

He said, "Mr. President and gentlemen. I have worked in this industry
for nearly forty years, and during that time I have attended most of the
meetings of this Society. I have several points on which I wish to cross
swords with the lecturer, but at the outset I wish to pay my tribute to
his clarity. I have very seldom listened to a lecture that explained so
difficult a subject in such simple language. I am left with the feeling
that the most inexperienced student in this hall must have learned as
much as I have this evening, and I have learned a great deal which will
be of value to me."

I sat blinking as I listened to this incredible man. He changed like a
chameleon, but I sat back sick with relief that he was not going to go
for me in public as he had that morning at the meeting. The fact that he
then proceeded to tear to pieces my analysis of the critical area of the
pressure plate based upon the harmonic surges that occur when passing
through the compressability zone, did not worry me a bit; it was done
constructively and in one instance at least suggested a line well worth
further investigation. Morgan was there and I could see that he was
pleased. Other speakers took their tone from Prendergast, and the
discussion went on for another three-quarters of an hour. I replied to
the various points as best I could, and then it was all over.

Shirley met me in the lobby. "Dennis, it was marvellous," she said.
"Everybody said it was awfully good. Was that Mr. Prendergast who spoke
first?"

"That's right," I said.

"What a nice man he must be. I can't think why people say such horrid
things about him."

I could, but I did not want to spoil her pleasure in the good reception
that my talk had had, and so I marched her off back to the club and
there we had dinner with a bottle of red Algerian wine to celebrate our
success, and to put me to sleep on the plane, and a glass of port to
follow. Then it was time to get a taxi and take my suitcase to the
Airways terminal. On the steps I kissed Shirley good-bye.

"Back in about a fortnight," I said. "Look after yourself."

"You look after _yourself_," she said a little tremulously. "Don't go
and get eaten by a moose in Labrador, or anything, Dennis."

I said I wouldn't, and we parted, and I went into the hall and showed my
passport and my tickets. And as I turned away, a woman in a great fur
came up behind me with a swirl, and it was Monica Teasdale.

"Evening, Miss Teasdale," I said. "Are you crossing over tonight?"

She stretched out a hand in her most dazzling, professional gesture,
that made me feel that everybody in the hall was taking note of us.
"Say, Dr. Scott, isn't this nice? Are you going over too?" And then she
said, "Did you give your lecture? How did it go?"

"All right," I said. "They didn't throw any eggs."

There were several sleek young men with shiny black hair and flashing
eyes with her to see her off, and one portly old gentleman with a very
hooked nose; I drifted away and left her to her other life. We travelled
down in different seats of the bus; at the airport I did not speak to
her. I was amused to note that we were to travel in a Reindeer; I
decided to ask no questions about that one, and to refuse any invitation
from the captain that I should go to the flight deck. What the eye
doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.

We took off, and as we climbed up on our way to the Atlantic I relaxed
for the first time that day. The Algerian wine was doing its work; as I
leaned back in the reclining chair fatigue came soaking out of me in
great waves. Three rows ahead of me I could see Miss Teasdale's auburn
hair; as on Honey's trip, the aircraft was only half full. After half an
hour or so, when I was beginning to doze, she got up and went aft down
the cabin; on her return she stopped beside me.

"Say, Dr. Scott," she asked, "is this a Reindeer, too?"

I sat up. "I'm afraid it is," I said. "But I don't think you need be
afraid of anything going wrong this time."

She smiled. "Will we be landing at Gander again?"

"I imagine so," I said.

She laughed. "You'll be interested to meet your Mr. Honey there," she
said. "Mind if I sit down a little while and visit with you?"

"Do--please." I picked my papers off the seat, and she sat down beside
me. "I hope Honey will be on his way home by this time. The Lincoln that
was to pick him up was due through Gander today."

"He won't be at Gander when we land?"

"I hope not. I hope he'll be at home."

She was silent. I glanced at her after a moment, and was surprised to
see the hard lines of age and suffering on her face as she stared up the
cabin. People had told me that she was over fifty, but I had never
really believed it till then.

I said, "Are you going back to the west coast?"

She nodded. "I'll go from Montreal to Chicago, and pick up with the
airline there. I kind of like this way of travelling, unless there's
business in New York."

"When will you be over here again?" I asked. "Do let us know, so that
Honey can bring Elspeth up to see you." It's extraordinary how cruel one
can be, quite unintentionally, when one is too tired to be careful any
more.

She turned to me, and she was every day of fifty. "I don't just know
when that will be," she said. "Maybe not for some years. I guess a
person ought to stay in her own place."

I was more awake now to the situation. "Don't think like that," I said.
"We've loved having you, and it's been terribly kind of you to spend so
much time with Elspeth. It's taken a lot off Shirley."

She said quietly, "It's been real nice getting out of Wardour Street and
Claridge's a little while, and getting to know you folks in your homes.
I never knew that British people lived so much like folks in the U.S.
But I guess if you've been born American you're better off in your own
country. Maybe you British think the same way."

"I think that's true, after a certain age," I said. "If you're going to
make your life in a new country you should go before you're twenty-five.
After that you start to get associations, little grooves and anchors,
that make it difficult to change."

She nodded. "I know it. Not only living places, either--that goes for
what you do. Take pictures, now. You get set in pictures when you're
young and maybe you think you can give up and get right out of it any
time you say, like marrying and bringing up a family like any other
woman. But then when you come down to hard brass tacks, you find you
can't. So many little grooves and anchors, like you said."

I said thoughtfully, "You mean, you've got to make the pattern of your
life before you're twenty-five. I never thought of that, but I dare say
it's true."

"I'd say that's true," she replied. "By that age you either go for
marrying and raising a family and making a home, or you go for a job and
forget about the other. If it happens later, maybe it works out, maybe
it doesn't. But if you want to be sure, then you've just got to drop the
job and do the other by the time you're twenty-five." She was about to
add something, but checked herself.

I was fully awake by that time. I smiled; the woman wanted to talk.
"Marjorie Corder," I said.

She turned to me. "You're clever," she said. "I guess that's why they
made you boss of your department, all about fatigue and things like
that. Well, there's a case for you. I'd say she's around twenty-four or
twenty-five. And now she's switching over."

I glanced at her. "You think she wants to marry Mr. Honey?"

"She's moved into his house already," she said bitterly.

There was a long pause. "I don't say that I blame her," she went on at
last. "He's a grand little guy, and he deserves a young wife." Her face
was lined and old. "I guess she knows she wouldn't find a man like that
so easily again; she's been around, that girl has, and she's got to know
about men. I guess she's in love with him all right."

There was a long silence. My eyes drooped in fatigue; sleep was not far
away. But presently the actress said, "It's funny the way those little
quiet men get you. I knew a man one time, oh, years and years ago,
before ever I went into pictures. In the office, that was, back in Terre
Haute. He was so kind, but he was lame and I was a young fool and
thought I'd meet ones like him around every corner, and get married when
I wanted to. Well, I did get married, but it wasn't like it might have
been if I had married Eddie Stillson. I'd have had about four kids then
and no money, and a lot of work and worry and been old and tired and
worn out by this time."

"Sorry?" I inquired.

"Sometimes," she said. "I never did my stuff. Seems I've always been a
kind of passenger."

There was another of those long, slow pauses. "It's too late to do
anything about it now," she said. "That kind of man, he's got a right to
have a family when he marries. It wouldn't be good for him to marry
somebody like me, not now. That kind of man, he's got a right to a young
wife, who'll have some children for him, and not mind living in a little
house like that and working, with just two weeks in a summer camp some
place each year. I couldn't do that, now.

"You can't put back the clock," she said. "You may want to, terribly
badly. But some things you just can't do, and that's one of them."

I was desperately tired, and closed my eyes for a moment to think this
over. When I opened them again the lights in the saloon were dimmed and
Miss Teasdale, the World's Pin-Up Girl, had gone back to her own seat
three rows ahead of me. I turned on my pillow and slept again, and when
next I woke the stewardess was standing over me, telling me to fasten my
belt. We were going in to Gander.

We came round in a great sweep, low over the forests in the moonlight.
The approach lights came in view, the flaps came down and the runway
appeared immediately beneath our wheels; then we were down and rolling
towards the hangars and the office buildings. We drew up near the
Reindeer lying on its belly on the tarmac.

As soon as we were allowed to disembark I went to the reception hall and
asked for Honey at the C.A.T.O. desk. But he had left about tea-time the
day before in a Lincoln for Shawbury; he must have been already in the
British Isles when I took off for Gander. Probably by that time he would
already have arrived back in Farnborough. I went and had a wash and a
shave and then crossed the road to the restaurant; as I went in I passed
Miss Teasdale coming out, fresh and blooming like a rose.

I stopped. "I was terribly rude last night," I said. "I went clean off
to sleep while we were talking."

She laughed, and passers-by stared at me with interest and with envy.
She said, "You must have been tired after a day like that. I felt real
sorry for you."

"I've just heard that Honey left for home yesterday," I said. "He'll be
there by now."

"You see he stays there," she said. "He's a great little guy, but not
the sort to go wandering around the world alone."

"Too true," I said. The sight of the first Reindeer lying on its belly
was still fresh in my mind. "What's the breakfast like in here?"

She laughed. "I had just a cup of coffee--I never take more in the
morning. The people at the next table had buckwheat cakes and syrup,
with a sausage on the side."

I asked anxiously, "Can I get porridge, do you think?"

She laughed. "I wouldn't know about that. You're on our side of the
Atlantic now."

I did not speak to her again. I breakfasted in a hurry on cornflakes and
bacon and eggs, and then went out with one of the C.A.T.O. officials to
the tarmac to inspect the first Reindeer. It was a sad sight, the
propellers, flaps, and engine cowlings crushed and distorted, and the
belly of the fuselage on which it rested badly crumpled. The air bags to
raise it had not yet arrived and were not expected for another week;
when they came they would be placed under the delicate wing structure
and inflated; by bearing on so large an area they would gently lift the
great thing without further damage. The A.R.B. inspector, Symes,
appeared while I was looking at it, and the official introduced me.

He grunted. "We got rid of your Mr. Honey yesterday," he said. Evidently
he did not think much of Honey.

I asked, "Have you made any examination of the tail?"

"It's perfect," he replied. "There's not a sign of trouble, of any sort.
Of course, I know that this fatigue may not give very much warning, but
I'd stake my reputation that that tail's as perfect as when it left the
factory. About the only thing that is," he said gloomily, looking at the
aircraft. "Just wanton destruction, I call it."

"There are two views on that," I said. "It's just possible that he might
turn out to be right."

"I've been in this industry since 1917," he said. "I don't say that
fatigue never does occur. What I say is, that you don't very often meet
it."

We climbed up into the fuselage and went aft through the luggage bay.
They had taken out a panel from the pressure bulkhead and I was able to
crawl in and get all round the spars with an electric torch. What the
inspector had said was quite true; the structure seemed in perfect
condition. I knew that that meant nothing in the case of fatigue
trouble, but it was depressing all the same. The evidence was running
all in favour of the diehards.

Mr. Symes clearly did not believe in the least that there was anything
the matter with the machine at all, apart from what Honey had done to
it. I had to leave them, because the passengers were being marshalled
out to the other Reindeer, the one that I had come from England in. I
followed them and we took off for Montreal.

We landed there at about ten o'clock in the morning, local time. Miss
Teasdale was surrounded in the reception hall by a little crowd of
friends and fans; I was met by a flight-lieutenant of the R.C.A.F. who
had a four-seat Beaver waiting to fly me down to Ottawa. The actress was
busily engaged and I was reluctant to keep my officer waiting, moreover,
I had nothing more to say to her. I left her to her other life, and went
with him to the Beaver and took off for Ottawa.

We got there in about an hour and there was a car to meet me. We drove
straight to the Bureau of Civil Aviation, and in half an hour I was
sitting in conference with the Director, a Group-Captain Porter, and the
Inspector of Accidents, Squadron-Leader Russell.

A small population in a big country seems to breed a clearer-headed sort
of man than we get in England, although they may be less well informed.
These men knew all about my business, and they were very ready to accept
the possibility of fatigue in the Reindeer tail. Indeed, they were very
interesting in their opinions of the onset of fatigue at sub-zero
temperatures. When operating a certain high-speed jet-propelled medium
bomber at temperatures exceeding thirty degrees below zero they had had
two cases of structural failure by fatigue, one of a vertical fin and
one of an elevator. They were convinced that temperature came into it, a
new idea to me. They suggested that the life of Mr. Honey's Reindeer had
been prolonged by the fact that it had operated mostly in the tropics.

All this was very stimulating, and they were not less helpful in the
practical investigation of the crash in Labrador. They had a Norseman
seaplane all laid on for the journey, and all the equipment and
provisions for a week or ten days in the woods already loaded into it.
The pilot was to be a civilian bush-pilot called Hennessey, a thick-set
tough who knew that country intimately; Russell and an assistant of his
called Stubbs were coming with us, making a party of four. The programme
was that we should fly up and land on Small Pine Water, about eleven
miles from the wreck; from there a trail made by previous visitors to
the scene led over the hills and through the forests. It was, of course,
quite impossible to put a landplane down in such country.

"They say the trail's pretty well defined," Russell said. "There was our
party first of all, and then there was a funeral party went up there,
and then the Russians sent a third party to bring away the body of their
Ambassador for burial in Russia. They had the hell of a job carrying a
coffin down that trail."

"Our people were all buried up there, were they?" I inquired.

"Oh yes. It wasn't practical to bring the rest of them away. There were
over thirty, and all would have had to be carried eleven miles. No, we
buried them all up there; a padre went up for the funeral service."

They were all ready to start, and were only waiting for me. We lunched
and then they took me to a sort of store and fitted me out with a bush
shirt, breeches, and high laced boots that buckled close below the
knee. "The mosquitoes are liable to be mighty bad this time of year,"
Hennessey said. They had hammocks for sleeping in, provided with a sort
of roof of waterproof fabric with a mosquito net attached.

I transferred some small personal kit from my suitcase into a small
kitbag; then I was ready and we drove down to the dock, where the
Norseman was moored. It was only about three o'clock in the afternoon,
and we were all ready to start. "I guess we'll make Ivanhoe by sundown,"
Hennessey said. "Tank up there, 'n have plenty up at the lake."

The others agreed with this programme. "How far is this place Ivanhoe?"
I inquired.

Russell said, "About five hundred and fifty miles. It's on the north
shore of the St. Lawrence, about a hundred miles from the crash."

I said good-bye to the Director and thanked him for all his help; then
we got into the machine. Hennessey started the engine and someone on the
pontoon swung the wing tip round; we taxied out into the lake, running
up the engine in short bursts as we went. Then we headed into wind and
took off after a long run, about fifty seconds. The machine was very
heavily loaded for its power.

We circled the city and steadied on our course back over the route I had
flown that morning. The machine was equipped for hard commercial work in
the Canadian north, mostly for carrying freight. The passenger seats
were small and rather hard, designed to be quickly removable; they
wasted no weight upon blinds, and the cabin on that sunny afternoon
became very hot. I sat drowsing and sweating and tired, but unable to
sleep as we droned back past Montreal towards Quebec, a slow,
interminable journey. Finally as the sun was getting down to the horizon
we came to Ivanhoe, a little town of white wooden houses on the shore of
an inlet of the sea. Behind it stretched the fir woods, apparently
pathless, impenetrable. Such roads as there were came to an end
immediately outside the town. There were three churches, with white
wooden steeples, a little dock with a few fishing vessels and another
seaplane moored to it, a small air-strip suitable for very little
aeroplanes. That was all there was of Ivanhoe.

We saw all this as we circled round for the landing; then Hennessey put
her down on the water gently; he was a very good pilot, on that aircraft
anyway. She touched with a quick slapping of the small waves on the
bottoms of the floats; the floats bit down into the water and she leaned
forward and decelerated, and slowed, and floated on the water off the
town, pitching a little. Hennessey turned her, and we taxied into the
pontoon.

A sergeant in the gay red tunic of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was
there to meet us; he knew Hennessey, and said, "Guess you folks'll have
to sleep in the store tonight. Hotel's full of summer visitors."

In the fading light he took us to a sort of marine store, a wooden shed
full of old ships' ropes and other gear. There were big hooks down each
wall especially put there, it seemed, for slinging hammocks; it was
frequently used as a dormitory. We slung ours, Stubbs assisting me and
showing me how to do it, and made the seaplane fast at the pontoon; then
we walked into the little town and sat down at the counter of the only
café, and ordered dinners of steak and onions and fried potatoes, from a
girl who spoke nothing but French. Over the ice-cream and coffee we
talked a little.

The crash was about four months' old, but Hennessey had been up there
within the last month as a guide to the party of Russians who had come
from the Embassy to disinter the body of their Ambassador and carry him
away. "Great big jars of stuff they had with them," he said, "and a kind
of zinc tank with a lid you could screw down on a rubber gasket. He
didn't smell so bad when they got him all sealed down. Eight handles it
had, for carrying, but gee, that was a mean load. I never want another
one like that again. Eleven miles, and a rough trail at that."

He stared at his cup. "I'm not sure even now they got the right one. It
was the right grave, but when we buried them they weren't too easy to
identify, and it didn't seem to matter which got which cross; they were
all there together. We tossed a dime for which cross to put on some of
them. Still, it wouldn't make a row of beans, anyway."

We went back to the store in the soft darkness; at the pontoon near-by
the Norseman loomed with a great shadowy wing over the water. We
undressed partially and got into our hammocks, but for a long while I
could not sleep. I was overtired, and lay restless, wondering what the
Director was saying to Honey in my absence, wondering what the next day
would bring for me, wondering if corrosion would have destroyed the
evidence for which I sought. Then, unhappily, I wondered if temperature
did enter into this fatigue problem. If so, it might well mean a year's
investigation before we could say definitely if the Reindeer was, in
fact, unsafe. In that case it would be quicker to take the aircraft out
of service and modify them whether they were dangerous or not, but what
a stinking row there would be about that!

I rolled insecure, sleepless, overtired, and unhappy for most of the
night. The store was full of rats, who scurried all around incessantly.

Early in the morning we were up and breakfasting in the same café,
served by the same French-speaking girl. Then we began the weary task of
filling six forty-gallon drums of petrol into the tanks of the Norseman
through a semi-rotary pump. Each barrel had to be rolled from the petrol
store a hundred yards away down to the pontoon, and the empties rolled
back again. It took us about two hours, and by that time the sun was
high and hot, and we were tired and sweating. At last it was finished,
and we got into the machine and started up the engine, and took off.

Small Pine Water is about an hour's flight from Ivanhoe. We left the St.
Lawrence and flew approximately north-east, over a desolate country
covered in fir woods and fallen timber like spillikins, on hills which
grew gradually higher beneath us as we went on inland. Presently Russell
asked me if I would like to see the scene of the accident from the air
before we landed on the lake. I said I would, and Hennessey brought the
Norseman down to about five hundred feet above the tree tops and began
circling around. But there was very little to be seen from the air. I
saw a cliff that the aircraft had evidently hit, but it was not very
conspicuous or very high. I saw a few shells of dulled duralumin between
the fronds of new vegetation, and there was a little clearing where a
few trees had been felled; in this clearing there were planted two rows
of neat white crosses. That was all that could be seen from the air, and
we turned back and landed on the lake.

When we were down, we turned and taxied in to a beach. People had been
here before us, for trees had been felled and undergrowth cleared at the
landing. There were oil stains on the ground, and a few empty tins, and
burnt ashes in a fireplace built of stones, and stuck up in the fork of
a tree there was a bundle tied around with sacking. The floats of the
Norseman grounded upon rotting and decayed vegetation on the bottom of
the lake about a couple of yards from the shore. We stopped the engine
and got out on to the float, and walked along, and splashed through the
shallow water to the shore. We took mooring lines with us and made the
seaplane fast to screw pickets; immediately the flies were all around us
in a cloud.

It was then about noon. We unloaded all the gear out of the Norseman on
to the beach, and Stubbs set about cooking a meal. It was arranged that
he should stay there at the beach to look after the aircraft while
Hennessey and Russell and I walked the eleven miles up to the crash,
carrying upon our backs the packs containing our hammocks, blankets,
ammunition, and food for two days. In addition each of us carried an
axe, and Hennessey carried a rifle, Russell a shot-gun.

I am ashamed to say how much that walk distressed me. It was a very hot
summer afternoon, for one thing. My pack weighed about fifty pounds and
it was comfortable enough on a light duralumin frame carrier. But I was
out of condition with years of office work, whereas both Russell and
Hennessey were wiry and perfectly fit. They took an easy pace to avoid
tiring me too much and several times they offered to carry my pack for
me, but pride made me refuse. It took us nearly five hours to get there,
blind and drenched with sweat, and tormented by the flies.

The country that we passed through was appalling. It was a forest of
spruce and alder; in some parts the trees were no more than three feet
apart. It was full of the rotting trunks of fallen trees, and these
trees and the decaying vegetation round them made a queer, stifling
aroma that was more a gasp than a smell. For much of the way the ground
was soft muskeg in which the feet sank up to six inches. It was
impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction; at the same
time the trees were fairly small so that they gave little shelter from
the sun. The trail wound in and out among the fallen trunks marked here
and there by a fading blaze upon a standing tree, but it was difficult
to discern except to the practised eye, and in no way resembled a path.
In places it was swampy and here if you put a foot down incautiously you
would go in knee deep. And always the flies were an incessant torment.

When finally we came out into the clearing with the double row of wooden
crosses I was practically foundered. I slid the pack from my back and
sat down on it for a moment with my head swimming and the flies in a
great cloud around me. I thanked God in my fatigue that circumstances
had prevented Honey from coming on this trip; I might be quite unfit for
it, but I was certainly a great deal fitter than he was. Russell and
Hennessey set about making a fire and boiling up a kettle for tea; by
the time that was well under way I was feeling better, and able to
assist them a bit by gathering the wood.

Tea refreshed us all, though none of us could eat anything. While
Hennessey put the things together and began to arrange a camp, Russell
and I walked over to the wreck. It lay about two hundred yards away,
under the stony cliff that had appeared in the photographs. New
vegetation had grown up and was covering it over; by next year it would
have merged into the forest.

We came first to the bow, to the smashed cockpit where Bill Ward had
died, to the broken control columns, the scattered instruments, the
flattened and corroded boxes of the radio and radar gear. Then came the
broken wing and the engines, and the cabin with smashed seats and burnt
upholstery, and the galley stove and lavatory behind it, practically
undamaged amongst all the wreckage. I reflected that Honey had been
quite right about that; was it to prove that he was right about fatigue
as well?

Then we came to the tail.

The starboard side was more or less intact; the port tailplane and
elevator were missing completely, as in the photographs and the
description in the accident report. I went straight to the broken stumps
of the spars still attached to the rear fuselage, that in the tiny
detail of the photographs had suggested a fatigue fracture.

They were not as they had been in the photograph. A clean, recent
saw-cut had been made to cut both spars through close up to the
fuselage. The evidence had been removed.

Russell was dumbfounded, and shouted to Hennessey, who came running. We
showed him what had happened. "Oh, aye," he said, "the Russians did
that. They cut them bits off with a hacksaw, 'n took them away. They
took some other bits as well."

He eyed us with mounting anxiety. "We thought it was all so much junk,"
he said. "Not important, were they?"




10


Mr. Honey travelled back across the Atlantic in a Lincoln of the Empire
Air Navigation School that had been wandering about the north of Canada
doing something or other with the lines of flux at the Magnetic Pole.
Now it was on its way back to Shawbury and the R.A.F. navigators were
glad to oblige by giving Mr. Honey a lift back to England. Originally
they had been bound straight for their base in Shropshire, but being
navigators they rather enjoyed going out of their way in bad visibility
on tortuous courses that would test their skill. They landed Mr. Honey
at Farnborough outside his own office door at half-past one in the
morning, put him out upon the runway, kissed their hands to him, and
took off again for Shawbury in the darkness. Mr. Honey was left holding
his suitcase in the middle of Farnborough aerodrome, in the middle of
the night.

Characteristically, he went into the office. He walked in, blinking, to
the bright lights of the old balloon shed where the night shift test
upon the Reindeer tail was clattering and booming away, and there was
young Simmons entering the routine hourly strain readings upon the
routine graphs of the distortion of the structure, all of which went
along as a perfectly straight horizontal line as the strain graphs of a
safe structure should. He blinked at the great clattering thing,
sniffed, savoured the familiar atmosphere; everything was all right, and
he was home again.

He stayed about half an hour, examining the records; he had only been
away for four days, but so much had happened in that time he felt that
it was several months, that something must have changed, some
catastrophe must have happened to his trial during his absence. But
finally he satisfied himself that it was going on all right, and asked
if Simmons had been posting the letters to Elspeth properly.

The boy hesitated. "Well, yes I have, sir," he said, "but I don't know
that they've been getting to her. You know she fell downstairs the night
you went away, and she's been staying with Dr. Scott ever since, I
think."

He told Honey what he knew, which was not very much, and satisfied him
that Elspeth was not very ill. Honey said warmly, "It was very kind of
Dr. Scott to do that. Is he at home now?"

"I think he flew to Canada this evening, sir. He was going to, after his
lecture on the Performance of Aircraft flying at high Mach Numbers. We
all went up to that. It was awfully good."

It seemed to Honey that there was not much else he could do but to go
home and go to bed; he could hardly burst in on Shirley in the middle of
the night and demand to see Elspeth, who was apparently being well
looked after. As regards getting home, there was a little difficulty.
There were no buses at that hour, and no R.A.E. transport. Simmons had a
motor-bicycle, but Honey could not ride it and Simmons could not leave
the Reindeer trial. In the end Honey left the suitcase in his office,
and set out to walk the four miles to his home through the deserted
lanes and streets.

He got there at about half-past three, walked up the path through the
front garden, and let himself into the house with his latchkey. He went
into the front sitting-room and snapped on the light. The familiar room
was somewhat changed in the short time that he had been away; there was
a smell of soap that he could not at first identify, and there was a
vase of roses on the table. He wondered who could have done a thing like
that, and then he remembered that something had happened to Elspeth and
other people must have been in the house.

A door opened upstairs, and he heard someone moving on the landing. He
went out into the hall and looked up the one flight, blinking, and at
the head of the stairs there was a young woman standing looking down, a
very pleasant-looking young woman in pyjamas and a kimono. He did not
recognise her at first; I don't know what he thought about it. Something
that his Fairy Godmother had done for him, perhaps.

She said, "Mr. Honey! We didn't expect you back so soon."

He said, "Who is it?"

"It's me," she said. "Marjorie Corder." She laughed a little awkwardly.
"I'd have stayed up if I'd known that you were coming home tonight, but
we didn't think you could be here before tomorrow."

She came downstairs to him. "You must think it terribly funny for me to
be here," she said. "But Elspeth was so anxious to get back here, and
Mrs. Scott couldn't have her for tonight. So I said I'd sleep here with
her." She broke off. "Did you know she had an accident?"

"They told me something at the office. What _did_ happen?" he asked.
"Simmons--he's my assistant there--he said Mrs. Scott had taken her into
their flat."

She told him briefly what had been going on. "Dr. Scott wouldn't let
anybody cable you about it," she said, "because you couldn't have got
home any sooner and he thought it would only worry you. She's quite all
right now--she's upstairs, asleep. She's going to get up a bit
tomorrow."

He said, "I'll just go up and see her."

She smiled. "Don't wake her up, will you? She's sleeping so nicely."

"I won't wake her up," he said.

She stopped him as he turned to the stairs. "Have you had any supper?"

He thought back vaguely over the last few hours. "We had some sandwiches
and things in the aircraft," he said.

"But when did you have your last proper meal?"

He thought for a minute. "Gander, I suppose."

She nodded. "I'll get you something--you must be hungry. Scrambled eggs
all right? Cocoa? Or Bovril?"

"Cocoa, please," he said. "But please don't bother----"

"But of course," she said. "You must have something."

He went upstairs and peeped in on Elspeth, who was sleeping, with the
washing-up mop in bed with her. On the table by her bedside, pulled
forward where she could see it, was another little vase of roses and the
photograph of her mother, his Mary, that somebody had taken from the
mantelpiece and arranged specially for his daughter, in case she should
be lonely amongst so many strangers. Mr. Honey closed the door quietly
with more moisture even than was usual in his weak eyes, washed his
hands, and went down again to the kitchen.

He found Miss Corder at the gas-stove cooking for him; there was a
cleaner, fresher air about the kitchen which seemed strange to him and
which he did not understand. "Please let me do that," he said. "There's
no need for you to stay up now. I'll be all right."

She turned half round from the stove. "I feel an awful pig going to bed
at all," she said. "If we'd thought that there was any chance of you
getting back tonight I'd have had a decent meal ready for you."

He said weakly, "It's terribly nice of you," and began to lay the table.
"When did you get here?"

"Yesterday," she said. "I brought your letter down to Dr. Scott and then
I heard that Elspeth was in bed, so I came round to see what I could do.
And then she was so anxious to get back here, and Mrs. Scott wanted to
be up in London tonight to see her husband off to Canada, so I said I'd
sleep here with Elspeth until you came back. I do hope you don't mind.
It did seem the best thing to do."

"Of course I don't mind," he said warmly. "It's so very, very kind of
you to take the trouble."

She brought the scrambled eggs on toast to the table for him on a warm
plate, and poured out cocoa for them both. As he supped she told him
what they had been doing. "Dr. and Mrs. Scott have been so kind," she
said, "but really, Elspeth's much happier round here. She likes being in
her own room and her own bed. I was doing the stairs this afternoon and
we could talk, and then after that I made some toffee with her on the
gas-ring in her room, and we played Sevens."

Mr. Honey realised dimly that nobody had played with Elspeth like that
for many years; perhaps that was what was wrong with her. He said, "You
did the stairs? Do you mean, brushed them down?"

"I washed them," the girl said. "They did need it. I hope you don't
mind. I did this room, too."

Mr. Honey glanced around the kitchen; so that was what had happened to
it. "It's awfully nice," he said ingenuously. "What did you do to the
walls to make them like that?"

"I washed those, too," she said. "It didn't take long. An awful lot of
dirt came off."

He looked at her in slight distress. "I didn't know it had got so bad."

"Of course not," she said gently. "One wouldn't, living in the house
the whole time. It's only when you come in fresh that it hits you in the
eye."

"I did tell Mrs. Higgs to do some scrubbing, only last week," he said.
"Or sometime. I suppose she didn't do it."

"I don't think she can have," the girl said positively. "I should give
her the sack if I were you. She doesn't seem to be very reliable."

"The one I had before used to steal things," Mr. Honey said. "Mrs. Higgs
is very honest, and she's given me a lot of help with Elspeth's
clothes."

The girl compressed her lips and took a drink of cocoa. "Do you think I
might look through Elspeth's clothes tomorrow?" she said. "I don't want
to barge in. But she tells me that she hasn't got any light cotton
frocks for summer. Not one."

"Ought she to have?" asked Mr. Honey. "I wear the same myself all the
year round. You mean, like her party frock? I told her she could wear
that when it's hot."

Miss Corder moistened her lips, and started off from the beginning to
inform Mr. Honey what a child should wear. As they talked the cocoa
cooled; the first streak of light appeared at the black window.
Presently she gathered the cups together. "Let me have a look at her
clothes while you're at work tomorrow," she said. "Then I'll make you
out a list of what she ought to have."

He said, "I would be so grateful. It's so hard to find out, and one
doesn't think, I suppose." He hesitated. "Could you stay with her till I
get back tomorrow evening, possibly? I can fix up something else by
then."

"I could stay till Sunday night if you like," she said. "They won't want
me at the Airways before Monday."

His face lit up. "I know Elspeth would like that," he said. "It would be
horribly dull for her to be in bed alone here, even if I could get back
for lunch." And then he looked troubled. "I don't know if that would do,
though, would it?"

She said, "You mean, for me to sleep here?"

"That's right."

She considered for a minute. "Not if the neighbours are going to start
talking," she said. "I suppose they wouldn't like it at the R.A.E.
either."

He stared at her. "I wasn't thinking of that. It wouldn't matter what
anyone at the R.A.E. thought, and I don't even know the neighbours.
Elspeth knows the people in No. 23, I think, but I don't know any of
them."

She laughed. "Well that's all right then. Were you thinking about me?"

He nodded. "You don't want to get a bad reputation," he said awkwardly.

She smiled. "Would it be all right if I put on my nurse's uniform?"

He stared at her. "Well, I suppose it would. That's rather funny, when
you come to think of it."

"I'll do that if you like," she said. "It means I'll have to go back
home and get it." She paused. "If you like, I'll sleep at home and come
over each day."

He smiled slowly. "It's an awfully long way."

She met his eyes. "I think so, too. I don't mind if you don't."

"I don't mind," he said. "I was just thinking about you."

"Think about yourself," she said gently. "Think about what _you_ want
for a change, what _you_ want out of life." She put the plates together
on the draining board. "I'll do these in the morning before breakfast.
You go to bed now, or you won't be fit to go into the office in the
morning. And I know you're dying to do that."

He smiled. "I did look in for just a minute after we landed, this
evening."

"I might have known it. Go on up to bed. It's all made up and ready for
you."

In the door he paused. "Good night, Marjorie," he said.

"Be off with you," she laughed. "Good night, Theodore."

He was very tired, but he lay awake in bed for some time thrilled and
excited by the thought that Marjorie had come to stay with him, to take
some of the aching responsibility for Elspeth off his shoulders, if
only for three days. He was deeply grateful to her; from the first
moment in the Reindeer when she had talked to him about the weather they
would have upon the crossing, he had known that she was naturally kind.
He had been right in that; at the first hint of trouble she had come to
his house to help him in his absence; she had cared for his little
daughter and played with her; she had washed his floors and made him
supper in the middle of the night when he had turned up hungry. Now she
was going to go through Elspeth's clothes and tell him what to buy.

Only one woman in his life had treated him like that before. Some girls
radiated kindness; this one was fit to set beside the memory of Mary.

He drifted into sleep.

She would not let him help in getting breakfast; instead she sent him up
to sit with Elspeth, who was wide awake and sitting up in bed. She told
him what had happened to her. "There was a burglar," she said, "so I put
on your warm dressing-gown and then I fell downstairs. And then when I
woke up I was in Mrs. Scott's bed and I was sick seven times and once
the basin wasn't there and Dr. Scott wiped it up and said it didn't
matter."

Honey said, "Oh dear. I _am_ sorry that happened."

She reassured him. "He didn't mind a bit, Daddy, honestly he didn't. He
said he could remember being sick in a motorcar when he was a little boy
and he wasn't ill at all. He was just sick. I do like Dr. Scott. He's
nice, isn't he?"

He nodded. "You like Mrs. Scott too, don't you?"

"I like them both, and Monica and Marjorie. Can Marjorie stay till
Sunday, Daddy? She said she could if you said yes. Then she's got to go
to Canada in the aeroplane but she's coming back on Thursday and she
said she'd come down and see me again. Would that be all right?"

He said, "Who's Monica?"

"Monica Teasdale. She was nice, too, but she's old. She reads out loud
awfully well and she kept calling me honey. Why did she do that,
Daddy?"

"I don't know. Is she still here?"

The child shook her head. "She went away the day before yesterday. She
said I was to come and spend a holiday with her and go on a dude ranch.
What's a dude ranch, Daddy?"

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "Something they do in America, I
suppose."

Marjorie called him for his breakfast, a better one than he had tasted
in that kitchen for years. She took up a tray and got Elspeth started;
then she came down and smoked a cigarette while he finished his. And
presently she pushed him off to the office just as Mary used to do, and
he with difficulty restrained a crazy impulse to turn and kiss her in
the doorway, as he had used to kiss Mary. He walked down to the bus with
his old felt hat crammed untidily on his head and his briefcase in his
hand, very thoughtful.

He went to the Director's office as soon as he got to the R.A.E., and
stood for a few minutes nervously explaining what had happened at
Gander. "I didn't know what else to do," he said unhappily. "Dr. Scott
had said that it was so important that the aircraft shouldn't fly if
there was any risk. And I couldn't make them understand why it shouldn't
go on. But I do realise that it has made a very awkward situation, sir.
I sent my resignation in to Dr. Scott."

The Director said, "I know--he came and saw me about it. He tore your
letter up."

"My letter of resignation, sir?"

"Yes. It's not going to help anybody if you resign and afterwards it
turns out you were right, Honey. It only makes the matter worse. Leave
that for the present, and go on with the trial on the Reindeer tail. I
won't pretend that I was pleased when I heard what you did at
Gander--it's made a lot of trouble. But if it turns out you were
justified--well, there's an end of it, of course. And that we ought to
know quite soon. I'm expecting a cable from Scott tomorrow or the next
day, when he's been up to the wreckage."

There followed two halcyon days for Mr. Honey. At the office he dived
straight back into his routine; while he had been absent a report had
come in of some work carried out in Oslo on the strain energy absorption
of copper alloys with particular reference to high tension electrical
conductors, and this report blew a small sidewind on to his fatigue
investigations. He plunged deep into consideration of what this might
mean, and dismissed the Reindeer altogether from his mind; it was for
other people, me particularly, to deal with trivial matters like the
fate of C.A.T.O.'s North Atlantic Air Service, while he got on with the
real work, the stuff that really mattered. That did not prevent him,
however, from leaving the office punctually at half-past five. He found
that Shirley had been round to tea with Marjorie and Elspeth and that
they had all been playing Monopoly on Elspeth's bed, a game new to Mr.
Honey. Elspeth insisted that he should play too, and ruined him without
the slightest difficulty, and by the time they all woke up to the time
it was half-past seven.

He supped simply on a fish pudding and stewed fruit with a milk pudding,
all cooked by Miss Corder, and it was with a sense of internal
well-being and ease unusual for him after a meal that he sat down with
her when they had done the washing-up to study Elspeth's clothes. "She's
all right for winter things," Marjorie said, "but really, she's got
practically nothing for the summer. Those flannel pyjamas that she wears
must be lovely in the winter, but she's awfully hot in them now. And
she's got no frocks at all ..."

He went through the list with her and she priced the various garments
for him. "She doesn't need all of these at once, of course," she said.
"In fact, two frocks would do to start with if you could get the washing
done at home." She turned to him. "I was thinking we might get her up on
Sunday for a bit. If we could get her some of these things tomorrow
afternoon for her to get up into, it'd give her a tremendous lift."

Mr. Honey said, "We'd better get them all at once, hadn't we? I'll have
to go to the bank, but I think there's plenty of money. Plenty for this,
anyway."

"I think we'd better get just what she needs for the moment," the girl
said. "Later on, when she can get about, it would be fun to take her up
to London to the big shops; I saw some lovely children's frocks in
Barker's the other day, awfully cheap. And she'd get a great thrill out
of buying her own frocks in a big shop."

The week-end passed in quiet, happy intimacy. On Saturday afternoon, the
Transatlantic stewardess and the research scientist on whose work
depended all the lives of people travelling in Reindeer aircraft went
out with a string bag to go shopping together down the High Street of
the little Hampshire town, and came back loaded with brown paper parcels
like any other suburban couple living in more regular circumstances, to
have tea in the kitchen and turn over their purchases on Elspeth's bed,
and watch the child's delight. Then Honey went down quietly to the front
room to consider his more recent calculations on the Pyramid, and
presently became immersed in them till Marjorie put her head into the
door to tell him supper was ready. And after that, he told her all about
it.

On Sunday morning they got Elspeth up after breakfast in her new print
frock and sat her in a chair in the garden while Mr. Honey mowed the
lawn, and Marjorie weeded and cooked alternately. They made Elspeth lie
down on her bed after dinner while they dozed in the garden in
deck-chairs, and then they all had tea together on the lawn. Then it was
time for Marjorie to go; in order to be at Heath Row by eight-thirty in
the morning she would have to sleep at home in Ealing.

Elspeth said, "Please, will you come down on Thursday, like you said?"

She glanced at Honey. "If your father says I may."

He said, "Oh please do. I do wish you could stay on now. It makes such a
difference ..."

She shook her head. "I wish I could. But I'm almost sure they'll have a
trip for me tomorrow. That means Montreal on Tuesday morning and back
again on Wednesday afternoon. I ought to be able to get down here again
by tea-time on Thursday," she said to Elspeth. "But don't worry if I'm
late, because I might not get down till Friday morning. But I will come.
I promise you."

They left Elspeth sitting in the garden with a rug round her and went
together to the front door. "Let her have a little of the semolina
pudding for her supper, with some of the jam," she said. "I wouldn't
give her any more. And she ought to be in bed by seven--it's her first
day up, you know. I'd give her her supper in bed."

He said, "I do wish you were staying. It's such a help, and it's been so
lovely having someone ..." He hesitated awkwardly. "Someone to talk to."

She met his eyes. "If by any chance they don't want me at the airport,"
she said, "may I come back?"

He said earnestly, "Please do."

She nodded. "I'll do that if they don't want me, Theodore. But I'm
afraid they'll have a trip for me, and in that case it'll probably be
Thursday evening."

He said simply, "We shall be looking forward to that, both of us."

She left him, and walked down the road to catch the Green Line bus for
London. She hated the thought of going back to work. For her the run to
Montreal held little charm; she was tired of serving coffee and biscuits
with a smile, like any waitress in a café. The glamour of an airline
stewardess was dead for her; she could not rate it equal in importance
with the job of making something out of Elspeth Honey, of broadening her
warped, one-sided life. For Honey himself she had a deep respect,
verging upon love. He seemed to her to be the most unassuming, the
bravest, and the cleverest man she had ever met, and she knew that her
own qualities could help him tremendously. She was shrewd enough to know
that she would never equal him in mental power, but with her cooking and
her care behind that power he could do great things.

On Monday morning Mr. Honey went into the office thinking mainly of the
strain energy absorption factor of copper-tungsten alloys, with a side
thought or two to Marjorie Corder; I think he had forgotten all about
C.A.T.O. and my mission in Labrador. It was quite a surprise when he
received a message in the middle of the morning that the Director would
like to see him; he blinked and wondered what it could be all about,
and then remembered that there was some trouble going on about the
Reindeer, trouble that was really nothing to do with him at all. He went
to the office unwillingly, reluctant to be dragged into the Reindeer
controversy again.

The Director said, "Oh, Honey. I want you to keep _au fait_ with what
Dr. Scott is doing about this Reindeer accident. Quite a lot has
happened over the week-end. To begin with, this radiogram came in on
Saturday night."

He passed the slip across the table. Mr. Honey took it, blinking. It was
headed IVANHOE P.Q.

"What does this word Ivanhoe mean, sir?" he asked, puzzled. "Isn't that
a book or something?" It seemed to him to be some kind of code, and he
was intrigued.

"It's a small town on the Gulf of St. Lawrence," the Director said
patiently. "It _is_ a book as well, but it's the name of the place Scott
sent that cable from."

"Oh ..."

The message read,

     Have visited crashed Reindeer but broken stubs of tailplane
     spars have been removed with hacksaw stop local evidence states
     that these and other portions of the wreckage were removed by
     Russian personnel visiting the scene to recover body of M.
     Oskonikoff for reburial at Moscow stop suggest demand these
     parts from Russians as difficult country will make finding of
     port tailplane uncertain if not impossible stop cable further
     instructions to me at Ivanhoe--Scott.

Mr. Honey handed this back to the Director. "It's very unfortunate if
these parts have been lost," he said.

"Very," said the Director dryly. "I spoke to D.R.D. about it yesterday
morning as a matter of urgency and, to cut a long story short, a cable
about the matter went off yesterday to our Embassy in Moscow. But I'm
sorry to say that the Russians don't seem to be very co-operative in the
matter."

I doubt if he knew more than that himself; it was weeks later that I got
something of the story of what had happened in Moscow. The story as I
heard it was that Sir Malcolm Howe had rung up M. Serevieff immediately
he got the cable and asked for the parts to be sent to England for a
further examination. M. Serevieff had countered by saying that he was
glad that Sir Malcolm had raised this matter, which was one of some
moment. It was certainly the case that the Russian burial party had
included certain members of their Accidents Bureau; he could not say
whether any parts had been removed and anyway, that was a matter of no
importance. What _was_ important was that the British Government had
tried to trick the Russians, to conceal the evidence of their crime. The
body handed to the Russian mission in Labrador was not that of M.
Oskonikoff; the dentures did not correspond and expert examination of
the body in Moscow had proved it to be that of a considerably younger
man. Would the Ambassador kindly explain this action of the British
Government? His manner left no room for doubting that the Russians
thought that the accident had been contrived to secure the murder of
their Ambassador in a remote place where detection would be difficult,
and that the substitution of another body was all part of the plot.
Indeed, M. Serevieff said so, in so many words.

I need hardly say that this charge raised considerable stir in
diplomatic circles, to the extent that it was impossible even to try any
further to make the Russians disgorge the bits that they had taken from
the crash. I don't know how it all ended; I doubt if anyone outside the
Foreign Office and the Cabinet knows that. I only know that, on that
Monday morning, the Director with Mr. Honey blinking at his elbow
concocted the following cable, which reached me a couple of hours later
at Ivanhoe, in the telegraph office of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police,

     Foreign Office consider it inadvisable to press for recovery of
     Reindeer parts from Russians as wider issues are involved stop
     it is therefore imperative to locate and examine missing port
     tailplane however long this takes rely on you to do your
     utmost. R.A.E.

They sent that one off to me, and Mr. Honey went blithely back to his
office and the copper-tungsten alloy papers, relieved that he had not
been called upon to do something in a matter that held little interest
for him.

I got that cable about breakfast time, when by reason of the difference
in local time Mr. Honey was just going home to lunch to get Elspeth out
of bed for the afternoon. The Mounties called me into their office as we
were walking from the store where we had slept again in our hammocks,
walking down the sunlit main street of that small Canadian lumber town
to the café with the French-speaking waitress. I took the message slip
from them and read it in dismay, and showed it to Hennessey and Russell
and Stubbs in the middle of the street.

Russell went up in a sheet of flame, rather naturally. "My Christ!" he
said, "the British Foreign Office must be nuts. They just don't know the
way we're fixed out here! If that tailplane came off in the air the way
you think it did, it might be twenty miles away from the rest of the
machine. How do they think we're going to find that in this type of
country? Do they suppose a street cleaner'll find it and bring it in?"

I stared at him in despair. "I don't know what they think."

We went and sat down at the stainless bar and ordered flakes and eggs
and bacon from the French girl. I studied the message again, and
compared it with the copy I had kept of my previous one to the Director.
I pointed out to them, "See, I said 'finding of port tailplane uncertain
if not impossible'."

"You're darn right," said Hennessey.

"Well, now they come back with this," I said. I turned to them. "It just
means we've got to do our best to find the thing. After all, it's quite
a big unit--over twenty feet long. It might be visible from the air."

Hennessey said doubtfully, "It's a chance. It's a pretty thickly wooded
section of the country, though, and spruce and alder, they grow pretty
fast this time of year. And all the leaves on, too."

We talked about it for an hour, and then worked out the following
programme. We would go up to the lake again in the Norseman, and trek up
again to the scene of the crash, prepared to camp there for four days.
We would mark out an area half a mile each way from the crash, one
square mile in all, with the crashed Reindeer in the centre, and we
would search that area minutely whatever the difficulties. If we did not
discover the port tailplane there would be a strong presumption that the
unit had come off in the air; it was too big a thing for the Russians to
have removed _in toto_. That in itself would lend some substance to the
theory of failure in fatigue.

After that area had been searched, we would then return to the lake and
begin an air search of the district, flying the Norseman low above the
tree-tops endeavouring to see the fallen tailplane, flying on closely
parallel strips as in an air survey. None of us had much confidence in
this procedure, but it was the only thing that we could do.

"One thing," said Russell. "We'd better set to work and draft a cable to
your chief telling him not to expect too much." We set to work to do so.

Back in England, Mr. Honey hurried home to lunch with Elspeth. He did
not normally go home to lunch because the journey from the office to his
house took half an hour, or three-quarters if he was unlucky with his
bus, and this meant over an hour spent in travelling alone, whereas his
nominal lunchtime was an hour only. So he hurried to get Elspeth out of
bed and give her a cold lunch and get her settled in a chair with a book
to read before he had to hurry off again back to the office. She told
him, "Mrs. Scott came and sat with me a little this morning, Daddy. She
said she'd come in and give me tea, and you weren't to worry because
she'd be able to stay here till you got back."

He said, "That's very kind of her."

Elspeth nodded. "She said she'd bring some rock cakes round with her,
too."

"Don't let her do this washing up," he said. "And don't you do it,
either. I'll just leave the things stacked here, and then I'll do it
with the supper things this evening."

He hurried back to the office, and got in three-quarters of an hour
late. In the normal course this would not have mattered and no one would
have known, because he worked in a watertight compartment and he was apt
to stay late in the evenings so that I, for one, would never have
bothered him about small irregularities in timekeeping. As luck would
have it, the Director had sent for him at five minutes past two to meet
E. P. Prendergast, who had turned up at the R.A.E. shortly before lunch
to investigate these allegations about the Reindeer tail. The Director
had had to hold Prendergast in play with smooth words till Honey had
showed up at ten minutes to three, and neither the Director nor Mr.
Prendergast were very pleased about it.

Mr. Honey said breathlessly, "I'm sorry I'm late, sir. I had some
personal matters that kept me."

The Director said, "This is Mr. Prendergast of the Rutland Aircraft
Company, Honey. He has come down to look into this matter of the
Reindeer tail." Mr. Honey gazed at the great bulk of the designer
apprehensively; Mr. Prendergast did not seem to be in a very good
temper. "I have told him the outlines of what we have been doing here. I
think, perhaps, if he went with you to your office and you went through
the work in detail with him, and bring him back here after that, it
would be best."

Prendergast said, "Certainly. I shall be most interested to hear what
Mr. Honey has to say about the Reindeer tail."

That was about the last thing he said for the next hour, according to
Honey. Whatever the little man showed him or explained, the designer did
nothing but grunt. This was one of his more offensive techniques; he
would stand in silence listening to a halting explanation, and then
grunt, a grunt expressing an ill-tempered scepticism or plain
disbelief. They stood under the great clattering bulk of the Reindeer
tail while Honey nervously expounded the harmonics that were being
imposed on it; they stood in the office while Honey, nearly in tears by
that time, endeavoured to explain his hypothesis of nuclear strain to a
designer who knew nothing of the atom and cared less, grunting in
disbelief of this newfangled nonsense. He only spoke once, so far as
Honey remembers; that was to say, "I understand, then, that there is no
experimental evidence at all yet that confirms the truth of all this
theory?"

Honey said unhappily, "It's too early. You can't rush basic research
like everybody here is trying to do."

The designer grunted.

When finally Mr. Honey took Prendergast back to the Director's office he
was in a state of acute nervous tension, noticed by the Director, who
released him as soon as was polite. As the door closed behind him the
designer relaxed, and smiled for the first time that afternoon. "Queer
customer," he said.

The Director said politely, "I hope he gave you all the information you
need?"

Prendergast grunted. "He gave me plenty of information. Whether any of
it's any good is another matter." However, when he came to go away he
was quite cordial to the Director, almost benign.

The Director did not have time to speculate on that, because as the door
closed behind Prendergast, his secretary brought in my cable in reply
from Ivanhoe. This read,

     Propose search for tailplane an area one square mile around
     crash intensively estimate this will take four days stop
     thereafter propose search from air by strip flying an area
     approximately 100 square miles this may take a fortnight stop
     am pessimistic of flight search yielding results owing to
     density of forest growth and recommend all possible pressure on
     the Russians to surrender parts removed. Scott.

The Director sent for Honey again, who appeared white and nervous and
trembling a little in frustrated rage after his hour with Prendergast.
The Director showed him this cable; Honey read it without properly
taking it in.

"It's no good putting pressure on me, sir," he said, nearly weeping,
handing it back. "I can't make this test go any faster."

The Director said, "I'm not putting pressure on you, Honey. But you're
in charge of the Reindeer tail investigation in Dr. Scott's absence. I
want you to realise the very difficult position that Dr. Scott is in,
that's all."

Honey flushed angrily. "He's not in a difficult position. I'm the one
who's in a difficult position, with everybody trying to extract _ad hoc_
data from an incomplete piece of basic research. I can't do my work if
you keep on badgering me like this--I'll have to give up and go
somewhere else. First of all it was Sir Phillip Dolbear, and now
Prendergast. I've got nothing to show to anybody yet, and every time I'm
made to look a fool. And Dr. Scott's as bad as any of them." He was very
much upset.

The Director said, "Mr. Honey, I don't think you quite realise how much
you owe to Dr. Scott. At last Thursday's meeting with D.R.D. he
expressed complete confidence in your estimate of this fatigue failure,
in the face of the most damaging attacks, I may say, from both C.A.T.O.
and the company. He staked his own reputation on your work. He told the
meeting that he thought that you were right, and when he left this
country he was confident that if he brought back the parts in question
they would prove beyond all doubt that you were right in your diagnosis
of the cause of this accident, and that he was right in standing up and
putting his whole reputation on your side. Well, now he finds he can't
produce that evidence unless he finds this tailplane, and in that
country that seems to be like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay."

Honey stared at the cable through his thick glasses. "Oh," he said, "is
that what this means? It wasn't very clear."

"That's exactly what that means," the Director said shortly. "If you
were as good a friend of Dr. Scott as he has been to you, you'd talk
about him rather differently."

Mr. Honey flushed crimson. "I'm sorry," he said weakly. And then he
waved the cable in his hand. "May I take this tonight and think about
it?" he inquired. "I'll let you have it back in the morning, sir."

The Director shrugged his shoulders; he was tired of Mr. Honey. "If you
like."

Mr. Honey went back to his office distressed and confused. He was a
sensitive little man and absurdly grateful to Shirley and to me for the
little trivial things that we had done to help him; the Director had
hurt him very deeply by what he had said. He stood for ten minutes in
humiliated unhappiness in his office, re-reading my cable and
re-orientating his ideas; then he went out and caught his bus back home,
lost in deep thought.

His ruminations were rudely interrupted at his own front gate, and he
was jerked into another world. Elspeth had been watching for him, and
she came rushing down the path to meet him, flushed and excited in her
new frock. "Daddy," she cried, "the water-heater's come! The men came
with it just after you went, and they worked all the time and made a new
pipe and fixed it on the wall over the sink, and it's making hot water!
They're coming in to paint the pipe tomorrow!"

She dragged him by the arm to show him this wonder in the kitchen. In
the front door Marjorie Corder came forward to meet him, with Shirley
behind her. "I came back," she said simply. "They didn't want me for
another week at the airport, so I came back."

She did not tell him that she had put in for a week's leave, and got it,
after some argument.

Mr. Honey said, "Oh, I _am_ glad," and Shirley standing close behind the
girl saw the radiance on his frog-like features, and understood why
Marjorie had bothered to come back. And then they all went into the
kitchen and admired the hot-water-heater, and gave it its first job to
do by doing the lunch wash-up.

He pressed Shirley to stay to supper, and as she was alone in our flat
she was glad to do so, so they set to and made a shepherd's pie and put
it in the oven to cook. And while that was doing they all had a game of
Monopoly with Elspeth, which Mr. Honey played unusually badly even for
him, so that he was ruined in ten minutes. His mind was so obviously
remote from the game that when they were dishing up the supper, Marjorie
asked him quietly in a corner by the gas-stove, "Is anything wrong,
Theo?"

"Nothing much," he said heavily. "It's been rather a bad day. I had the
designer of the Reindeer on my hands most of the afternoon, a Mr.
Prendergast. He was very difficult."

Shirley overheard this. "Everyone says he's difficult. I thought he was
such a nice man at the lecture. I hope you told him where he got off."

Honey smiled weakly. "He's not a very easy man to tell that to. And
there were other things, too ..." He hesitated, and then decided to
unburden himself to them. "We've had a lot of cables from Dr. Scott over
the week-end," he said. "He can't find the fractured pieces of the
tail."

Shirley said sharply, "But they _must_ be there!" and Marjorie said,
"Oh, Theo!" Both girls were very well acquainted with the issues that
were involved, but none of them had even considered before what it would
mean if I failed to find a fatigue fracture in the first Reindeer crash.
They pressed Honey for more details of what had happened, and he told
them a stumbling and confused narrative, and showed them the crumpled
copy of my last cable that he had brought from the Director's office. A
sense of disaster descended on them and spoilt their party; they talked
through supper in depressed tones with long pauses between each remark.
Elspeth, who did not understand what it was all about, asked, "What's
the matter with Dr. Scott in Labrador, Daddy?"

Marjorie, to relieve him, said, "He's lost something, and he can't find
it. Something very important."

"What can't he find, Daddy?"

Honey said, "A piece of an aeroplane."

"Is it a very important piece?"

"Very important," Honey said. "He's in dreadful trouble." Shirley,
watching him, was interested to see that he had suddenly lost his air of
impotent worry. He looked, she said, like a dog just coming on the
scent. A funny sort of simile, but that's how she described him.

Elspeth said, "Oh, poor Dr. Scott."

"Poor Dr. Scott," Honey repeated with deep, emphatic sympathy. "He's in
terrible trouble. And he's been so kind to us, hasn't he? Would you like
to try and find it for him with the little trolley?" The two girls
stared uncomprehending at them across the cooling food upon the table.

Elspeth nodded vigorously. "Mm."

Honey got up from the table, his entire attention fixed upon his little
white-faced daughter. "All right, let's go into the other room and get
the little trolley."

He got up from the table and took Elspeth by the hand, entirely
oblivious of the two girls. They moved to the door; Marjorie half rose
from her seat. "Where are you going?" she asked.

Honey turned in the doorway. "Please," he said sternly, and there was a
confidence of command about him that was new to both of them. "You may
come with us if you sit very quiet at the back of the room, but you
mustn't speak at all, or interrupt in any way. If you feel you can't
control yourselves, you must stay here."

He went out into the front room; the girls glanced at each other in
mystification, and then followed him. They found him pinning a fresh
sheet of paper down upon the drawing-board and laying it horizontal on
the table at a comfortable height for Elspeth sitting in a chair before
it. Then he pulled the heavy curtains to shut out the daylight, and
switched on a powerful desk reading-lamp upon the table. Next he went to
the cupboard and got out two instruments. The first was a small affair
of rotating black and white segments, worked by a small air turbine from
a rubber bulb held in the palm of his hand; by pressing the bulb he
could make the black and white segments alternate at varying speeds. The
second instrument was a planchette, a little flat triangular trolley of
three-ply wood about nine inches wide, supported on two tiny castoring
wheels, and a pencil at the third corner. He put this down upon the
drawing-board and Elspeth laid the tips of her fingers upon it; Marjorie
noted with a shock that she was evidently well accustomed to this
routine.

Then he arranged the powerful light to focus only on the rotating black
and white segments immediately in front of his little daughter; the rest
of the room was in darkness.

"Is that light too strong?" he asked quietly.

"No, Daddy, it's all right," she said. It was the first time they had
spoken.

"All right," he said. "Just look at the whizzer." The segments started
to turn white and black in turn before her eyes in the bright light.

He said softly, "Poor Dr. Scott, he's in such terrible trouble. He wiped
up the mess you made when you were sick, didn't he?" The black and white
segments were changing places more quickly now.

Her eyes fixed upon them, Elspeth whispered, "Yes."

"He's been so kind," he said quietly. "He showed us how to get the
hot-water-heater so that we'll have hot water all the time now."

She repeated, "He's so kind." Her eyes were fixed upon the changing
segments in the brilliant light.

"He showed us how to use the washing-up mop, so that we don't have to
use the rag," Honey said in an even tone.

The little girl said drowsily, "We don't have to use the rag now."

In the darkness at the back of the room the two young women sat
motionless, tense. In Marjorie there was a great tumult of feelings. She
was deeply shocked at what was going on; every fibre in her being
revolted at the use that Honey was making of his child. At the same
time, she could not interrupt; there was a power and a competence about
him in this matter that she dared not cross. She must stay quiet now and
see it out, but never, never, never should this happen again.

Honey said quietly, "Poor Dr. Scott, he's been so kind to us, and now
he's in such terrible trouble, because he can't find what he's looking
for. He's so unhappy. It's lost in the forest, all among the trees, in
the wild land where no people have ever been." The black and white
segments were changing places quickly now; the white-faced little girl
was sitting with glazed eyes, motionless. "Try and help poor Dr. Scott
find what he's looking for. Try and help him. He's been so kind to us.
It's in the forest, lying somewhere in the trees, where nobody has ever
been. It's a big metal piece, nearly as big as this house."

The faint whirring of the segments was the only sound in the room. The
blackness was oppressive, intense, around the girls. Shirley found later
that her palms were bleeding from the unconscious pressure of her
finger-nails, so great was the tension.

"Poor Dr. Scott," Honey repeated monotonously, "he's so unhappy, in the
forest, looking for it, and he can't find it. Try and help him find it.
Try and help him. Try now. Try."

Beneath the child's fingers the planchette began to stir, and crept
across the paper in uneven, jerky spasms.




11


Mr. Honey went to the Director's office in the morning with the greatest
reluctance. He did not like contact with any of his superior officers,
ever, on any subject. He regarded technical executives as mean creatures
who had abandoned scientific work for the fleshpots, for the luxuries of
life that could be bought with a high salary. He had no opinion of any
of us, judged as men; for this reason he preferred his own company or
the company of earnest young men fresh from college who were not yet
tainted with commercialism. He went cynically on this occasion, already
embittered by the anticipation of disbelief. It had always been so when
he had put forward new ideas; he had not got the happy knack of making
people credit him from the start.

He had to wait some time in the outer office, because the Director was
engaged. When finally Mr. Honey got in to see him he was rather short of
time and rather overwhelmed by the pressure of other work; later that
morning he would have to entertain and show round a commission of French
scientists on a visit to our aeronautical research establishments. He
said, "Well, Honey, what is it?"

Mr. Honey said, "Is it possible to get in touch with Dr. Scott, sir?"

"We can send cables to him. There is a routine in force by which Ottawa
can get in contact with the radio in his aeroplane once a day." The
procedure was that a cable from the R.A.E. was telephoned to Ferguson at
the Ministry of Supply. It was then radioed to the Department of Civil
Aviation in Ottawa who relayed it to the Royal Canadian Air Force post
at Rimouski on the lower St. Lawrence. We could reach Rimouski on the
two-way radio in the Norseman, and made contact with them each day at
six in the evening to receive or transmit any message of urgency.

Mr. Honey hesitated. "I should like to send him a cable, sir. I've got a
message here that might be helpful to him."

"What sort of message, Honey?"

"It's about this tail unit that he's trying to find, sir. I think I've
got something that might help."

The Director stared at him. "What sort of thing?"

"Automatic writing," Mr. Honey said reluctantly. "I've had a great deal
of experience with that--not in office time, of course. It gives really
remarkable results in certain cases."

The Director wrinkled his brows. "Automatic writing? You mean produced
by someone in a mental trance?"

Mr. Honey said eagerly, "That's right, sir. I got it through my
daughter, Elspeth, last night. She's only twelve, but she's really got a
remarkable gift. Of course, children do produce the most amazing results
sometimes. They don't often retain their powers in later life, though."

The Director was too busy to allow Mr. Honey much latitude to discourse
on his researches in that field. "What is it that you've got?"

Mr. Honey produced a small roll of drawing paper, cut from the large
sheet he had pinned down on the drawing-board the night before. "Well,
this is what was actually produced," he said. He unrolled it on the
desk.

It was covered all over with pencil jabs, squiggles, and irregular
traces. Some of these appeared to form themselves into letters, and some
into half words; thus in one part of the paper the letters ING were
fairly clear, and in another there was a very definite capital R. Mr.
Honey turned the paper round. "This is what I mean, sir."

Across one corner the squiggles ran consecutively in a fairly straight
line. They were certainly writing, jerky and uneven though the letters
were; it was not too difficult to decipher the message. It read, UNDER
THE FOOT OF THE BEAR.

"I'm sure that means something," Mr. Honey said. "I think we ought to
cable it to Dr. Scott."

The Director grunted, not unlike the grunts that Mr. Prendergast had
dispensed the day before, and Honey winced. "We should have to cable
some explanation of how the message was produced," he said.

"Oh yes, sir. We must let Dr. Scott have all the facts, of course."

The Director suffered an instinctive feeling of revulsion, and I don't
blame him. He was in charge of a large Government research establishment
of the most serious character. Honey was suggesting that he should send
out, in the name of that establishment, a message which could only imply
his own confidence in a spiritualistic message produced by a little girl
of twelve, the daughter of an official who was believed by many to be
mentally unbalanced. This message had to be sent through the Ministry of
Supply who were his parent body, and through Canadian Government
organisations. Inevitably its subject matter would attract attention; it
would become the subject of a tea-time joke up in the Ministry. People
would start saying he was mentally unbalanced, too, if he sent out a
thing like that.

He said slowly, "I don't think we should bother Dr. Scott with this,
Honey. It's too unscientific for us to put forward as evidence."

That touched Honey on the raw; he was the scientist, and the Director a
renegade who had deserted the pure field of science for the fleshpots of
administration. "It's not unscientific at all," he said hotly. "It's the
product of a carefully controlled piece of research extending over a
good number of years. The fact that aeronautical people don't know much
about research in that field doesn't prove that it's unscientific. They
don't know much about cancer research, either."

The Director was very busy that morning, but he had a few moments to try
and placate the angry little man before him. "I didn't mean that in any
derogatory sense, Honey," he said. "But it's not the sort of science
that usually emanates from this Establishment, and not the sort that
anybody here could possibly endorse."

"That doesn't mean it isn't true," Honey retorted.

The Director turned the paper over in his hands. "Before you can say if
it's true or not, you've got to decide what it means," he observed.
"UNDER THE FOOT OF THE BEAR. The Bear means Russia, I suppose. I told
you yesterday that the Russians had refused to release these parts that
they have taken from the wreck of the Reindeer in Labrador. Would it not
be correct to say that those parts are, in fact, under the foot of the
Bear?"

Mr. Honey stared at him. "I don't know," he said weakly. "I never
thought of that."

The Director said, "I merely put that out as a suggestion, Honey, that
if this message does, in fact, mean anything, it may merely refer to
something we already know about."

Honey said, "That might possibly be so. But Elspeth knew nothing about
the Russians, sir. I didn't discuss that with her."

"You knew about it, though," the Director said. "Might not thought
transference come in? I merely put that forward as a suggestion."

Honey was silent. He could not think of any answer to that one.

The Director handed him back the paper. "I don't think we could send
that out through official channels in the name of the R.A.E., Honey," he
said. "If you feel strongly about it you could write a private letter to
Scott, care of the Department of Civil Aviation in Ottawa."

"Would he get that up in this place where he is, sir?"

"I should rather doubt it. I shouldn't think he'd get it till he returns
to Ottawa."

Honey said irritably, "What's the use of that? It wouldn't be any help
to him to let him have this after the job is over."

The Director did not think that it would be any help to me anyway, but
all he said was, "I'm sorry, Honey, but that's the only thing I can
suggest. Now, if you don't mind, I have a great many things to do this
morning."

Mr. Honey said hotly, "And I bet they're none of them more important
than this," and flounced out of the room. The Director stared after him
a little sadly. Was Prendergast right, after all? He had had doubts of
Honey's mental stability himself from time to time, but my faith in the
little man had reassured him, and had made him stalwart in his defence
at the D.R.D. meeting. Now I, the buffer, was away in Canada, and he had
had a taste of Honey direct from the cup, pure and undiluted. He sighed
as he turned to other work. Was another problem looming up before him,
another scientist upon his staff who would start pilfering from small
shops, or behaving rudely in the park?

Mr. Honey went back to his office in frustrated rage, not for the first
time. He was convinced from his experience in psychic matters that the
words they had received were an indication that would be helpful in the
future and were not a mere record of current knowledge; he had received
too many in connection with the excavation of the Roman aqueduct not to
know the style. The flat denial of official methods of communication was
sheer frustration to him, because a little reflection showed him that
there was, in fact, no possible means of getting into touch with me
except through the official channels. He could give no attention to his
work, could think of nothing but the grievance that he suffered from,
the disregard with which his seniors treated him. He raged inwardly all
through lunch, thinking of other jobs that he was going to apply for so
that he could shake the dust of the R.A.E. from off his feet. In the
middle of the afternoon he came suddenly to his senses. He had done
nothing, and now he was exhausted by his rage, with a nervous headache.
He would do no work that day, and in his present mood he would not stay
upon the scene of his frustration for mere office discipline. If the
R.A.E. didn't like his way of doing things, well, they could get along
without him; he would be leaving before long in any case. At half-past
three he put on his hat and went home.

He got back to Copse Road in time for tea. Marjorie was in the kitchen
laying out a tray with tea for two. She said, "Oh, Theo, you're back
early. You're just in time for tea." She explained. "I thought Elspeth
had better stay in bed today, so we're having it upstairs. I'll cut some
more bread and butter."

He was naïvely surprised. "Isn't Elspeth well?"

The girl hesitated. "She's all right," she said. "She was just tired,
and I thought she'd better stay in bed." She did not want to hurt him,
or to remind him that they had had some difficulty in getting Elspeth
out of her trance the night before; Marjorie had carried her upstairs
and put her to bed still in a dazed state, and had sat with her holding
her hand till she was sleeping naturally. She had certain things to say
to Mr. Honey about that, but they could wait a favourable chance. She
said, "You must have got off early."

"I know," he said. "Everything went wrong at the office today and it
didn't seem to matter, so I thought I'd come home."

He sounded tired and depressed, and she could guess the reason. She had
talked it all over with Shirley that morning, who knew more than she
about the workings of the R.A.E. "They won't pay any attention to him,"
Shirley had said. "Dennis might, if he was home, although I'm not too
sure about that. But everybody else regards him as a joke, you know."

Marjorie had flushed. "If that's the way they think about him, the
sooner they accept his resignation the better," she said angrily.

"Dennis believes in him," said Shirley gently. "And Dennis is his boss.
But planchette at the R.A.E.... It's going to take a bit of stomaching,
you know."

"I suppose it is," said Marjorie slowly. "They ought to listen to him,
if they're proper scientists."

"We'll see," Shirley had said. "I don't think they're as scientific as
all that."

And so Marjorie said hesitantly to Mr. Honey, "Couldn't you get them to
do anything, Theo?"

He shook his head. "They're so stupid. It's maddening having to work
under fools like that...."

"Oh, Theo, I am sorry!" And then, to ease his burden and divert his
mind, she said, "This tray's all ready to go up. If you'll take it, I'll
bring up the teapot and the hot water."

They went up together to the bedroom and had tea with Elspeth. Elspeth
was reading _Swallows and Amazons_ bought for her that morning by
Marjorie, the first child's book that she had had for over a year with
the exception of those she got at school. She told her father all about
it. "It's ever so exciting, Daddy," she said. "They did all sorts of
things in boats, without any grown-ups with them at all! Can we go
somewhere in the holidays and sail a boat, Daddy? Marjorie says there's
a sort of series of books all about the same children. May I have
another for my birthday?"

He sat looking at Arthur Ransome's pictures with her, his troubles
assuaged and sunk into the background of his mind. Presently Marjorie
took the tray down to the kitchen to begin washing up, and after a few
minutes Mr. Honey went down to dry for her. And there he asked, "Aren't
you going to let her get up at all today?"

She was filled suddenly with a great pity for the two of them; he was so
completely innocent of any will to hurt. There were things she had to
say to him. By the draining-board, piled with the soiled dishes, she
reached impulsively for his hand; it was the first time that they had
done that.

"Theo," she said, "I don't want to be beastly to you. Please don't take
offence at this. But honestly, you oughtn't to have done that last night
with Elspeth. It's terribly bad for her."

He blinked through his thick glasses. "Oh, do you think so? She's done
it quite a lot of times before."

"I know she has," the girl said. "But, Theo, she must never do it again.
It's a terrible thing to make any child do. And Elspeth's only just
getting over concussion...." He was silent and distressed. "I know it
was important," she said gently. "But Elspeth is important, too. You
could warp her whole life by making her do this sort of thing, at her
age. You could make her grow up morbid and neurasthenic. She might get
fits of depression; she might even become suicidal. Things like that do
happen, Theo, I know. I've been a nurse. One always thinks they happen
to other people, that they can't happen to you. But they can. And, Theo,
children's brains aren't balanced like ours are. They--well, they're
just _young_. They can't throw off unhealthy influences like we can. You
could do terrible harm to her. Honestly, Theo, she must never do that
again."

She stood holding his hand, looking at him in appeal. She knew that this
was a crux in their relations. She knew that she could help him, and she
wanted to help him more than anything in the world, but she could only
help him if he would accept her ruling in the matters that were properly
her sphere. If he took her interference as a slight, or turned the
matter off with a laugh, she might as well go home.

He stared at her with blurred eyes behind his thick spectacles. "I never
thought of it like that," he said unhappily.

She squeezed his hand in sympathy with his distress. "Of course you
didn't. But you do want to watch out, Theo--honestly you do. She doesn't
seem to know any other children, and she talks quite like an old woman
sometimes. It's not natural, you know. It's not as she should be."

He said miserably, "I know. I know she's not like other children, but I
don't see what one can do about it." He glanced at the girl beside him.
"I know one thing. It makes a very great deal of difference to her
having you here."

"That's only natural," she replied. "She's got somebody to talk to,
instead of being alone all day." Gently she freed her hand. "But do
remember, Theo--try and treat her as a child, not quite so much as a
grown-up. It's better for her--really it is."

"I suppose it must be," he said. "But living alone as we do, it's so
difficult to know where to begin."

"I know it is," she said. She stood in thought for a moment. She could
not tell him to start playing with his child; he was as he was, and her
words could not change his character. If Elspeth got played with it
would be through other people, through herself. She turned to the
draining-board. "Let's just wash these few things."

He dried for her as she washed; as they worked together they talked
about the water-heater, about children's books, and about Elspeth's
clothes, and presently she said, "Tell me some more about the R.A.E.,
Theo; wouldn't they pay any attention to the message?"

He shook his head, his face clouded. "I saw the Director. I don't think
he believed in it at all. He wouldn't let me send a cable through
official channels, and there is no other way to get a cable to Dr.
Scott except through the official channels. They're just afraid of being
laughed at, by sending out a cable dealing with matters they don't
understand." He laid down the plate that he was drying and stared out of
the window, the cloth drooping unheeded from his hand. "I'm sure this
does mean something," he said quietly. "It always did before, when we
were finding out about the aqueduct. It's a very well established means
of getting information, this--only those fools haven't bothered to learn
about it."

She was impressed again by his sincerity of purpose. "Is there no
possible way of letting Dr. Scott know, so that he could form his own
judgment?" she asked.

He snorted in disgust. "They said I could write him a private letter.
And when I asked when that would get to him they said when he got back
to Ottawa! That's after the job is all over!"

"Oh, Theo!"

She took the drying-up cloth from his hand as he stood in abstraction,
and dried the last two plates, unnoticed by Mr. Honey. Presently she
asked, "Where, exactly, is Dr. Scott, Theo?"

He said vaguely, "In Canada, I think--or else in Labrador. Sometimes
they say one and sometimes the other."

"It's on the north side of the St. Lawrence River, isn't it?"

He said, "I really couldn't tell you. I could find out, perhaps."

She said thoughtfully, "Mrs. Scott would probably know."

She sent him up to play a game of dominoes with Elspeth after tea, and
told him she was going out to the post. Instead, she walked round to see
Shirley in our flat. She said, "Mrs. Scott, can you tell me just where
Dr. Scott is now? You were quite right about the people at the R.A.E.
They've not been very helpful."

"Won't they send his message?"

Marjorie shook her head. "He's awfully disappointed."

Shirley said, "I had a night letter from Dennis, from a place called
Ivanhoe. He said they were about a hundred miles due north of it, and
ten miles to the west of Small Pine Water, and I could look it up on the
map. Well, I looked in the atlas, but the map's all just plain white
paper north of Ivanhoe." She pulled out the atlas and they studied it
together. "There's Ivanhoe."

"That doesn't help much."

"No."

Marjorie frowned, staring at the map. "However did it come to get up
there? I've been on the Montreal route for three months, but we don't go
north of the St. Lawrence at all. We go just south of the Gaspe
peninsula, _here_. We don't come to the St. Lawrence till we're nearly
into Montreal."

"Dennis said that this machine went to Goose, because there was fog at
Gander. Goose is up here somewhere, isn't it? It doesn't seem to be
marked either--I do think this is a rotten atlas. But I know he told me
once the crash was on the line between Goose and Montreal."

"I see ..." Marjorie hesitated for a minute, and then said, "I wonder,
might I use your telephone?"

"Of course."

She called up Directory Inquiries, and then rang a Wimbledon number. She
asked, "Is that Captain Samuelson's house? Is he there?"

A woman's voice said, "Well, he's out now."

Marjorie said, "Would he be at home if I came round--oh, say in an hour
and a half? I'm speaking from Farnham. I'm one of his stewardesses, Miss
Corder. I do want to see him this evening, if possible. It's rather
important."

"Well, I don't know if he'll be home before dark. He's down at the Bowls
Club, and there's been a tournament today. He's the vice-captain of the
club, you know, and so he couldn't leave before the end, could he? You
could go down there and see him on the greens, of course."

Marjorie said, "Oh, that would do. The club isn't very far away from
your house?"

"It's only just around the corner. That's why we had to have this house,
so that he could get his bowls. I'd rather we lived nearer to the
shops."

"Oh, thank you so much," Marjorie said. "I'll be along at about seven
o'clock."

She rang off and turned to Shirley. "Thank you ever so much," she said.
"I'm going to Wimbledon to see Captain Samuelson. I believe C.A.T.O.
could get a message to them ..." She was silent for a minute, standing
in thought. "I wonder if I might ask something?"

Shirley glanced at her.

"I wonder--could you go in and sit with Elspeth, Mrs. Scott? Captain
Samuelson knows Mr. Honey, and I would like Mr. Honey to come with me to
see him."

Shirley said, "I was only going to the pictures. You're going up this
evening?"

"I think so. There's a train every half-hour from Aldershot, isn't
there?"

They walked back together to the house in Copse Road. Marjorie said,
"Theo, I'm going up to Wimbledon to have a talk with Captain Samuelson.
He lives there; I've just rung his wife up. I'd like to have a talk
about this thing, getting in touch with Dr. Scott. C.A.T.O. have got
their own communications service, you know. There might be some way of
getting a message or a letter to Dr. Scott through them without it going
through official channels at all. Captain Samuelson would know, and I
believe he'd help us. Anyway, it's worth trying. Will you come with me?"

He blinked at her. "That never entered my head. Do you think C.A.T.O.
would help?"

She did not tell him what was really in her mind; it was too long a
shot. "I don't know," she said. "They send wireless messages about the
aircraft all over the place, of course--to machines in flight and
everything. I don't see why they shouldn't be able to get in touch with
Dr. Scott, if they wanted to. But Captain Samuelson will know."

Mr. Honey nodded. "I'd like to come," he said. "I thought Samuelson was
very reasonable. Not like that other pilot, the young one."

She laughed. "Peter Dobson!"

An hour and a half later they were at the door of the house in
Wimbledon, with the sun dropping down towards the horizon. It was a
commonplace, medium-sized house in a suburban road; from somewhere
within came the noise of children going to bed, with resonance from the
bathroom. The door was opened to them by his wife. "Oh, Miss Corder,"
she said, "he's still down at the club. There's been a tournament today,
and when there's a tournament there's just no knowing when he'll be
home. If I were you I should go down and catch him there." She gave them
the directions.

At the Bowls Club they found a few spectators drifting away; out upon
the greens there were three or four groups of middle-aged and elderly
men in shirt-sleeves, very intent upon their game. They walked round the
green till they saw the rather stout, sandy-haired figure of the
Transatlantic pilot. Marjorie called, "Captain Samuelson!"

He raised his head, stared in surprise, and crossed the lawn to them.
"Miss Corder--what are you doing here?" He glanced at her companion. "I
know you. Wait--yes. Mr. Honey, isn't it? You got back all right from
Gander, then?"

Honey said, "The Royal Air Force brought me back."

"Fine."

Marjorie said, "Captain Samuelson, I've got something I want to ask you
about. I wonder if we could go somewhere and talk for a few minutes?"

He glanced back at his game. "Well--we can talk here, if it's not very
long."

"I'll be as quick as I can." She told him what had happened, about the
deadlock in Labrador over the location of the missing tailplane, about
Mr. Honey's trials with planchette. She told her story quickly and well,
far better than Mr. Honey could have done. "Nobody can say, of course,
whether this information will actually help Dr. Scott or not. But it
does seem to be all wrong that it shouldn't get to him at all."

The pilot nodded. "I see that. But what am I supposed to do about it?"

She hesitated. "I know you'll think this a terrible suggestion," she
said diffidently. "But I was wondering if you could fly over Dr. Scott's
camp on your way tomorrow, and drop a letter to them."

"Oh, you were, were you?" His manner was not encouraging. "Where is this
place? North of the St. Lawrence, isn't it?"

She said, "There's a lake called Small Pine Water, about a hundred miles
north of a place called Ivanhoe, on the St. Lawrence."

He nodded. "I know Ivanhoe."

"Well, there's this lake a hundred miles north of it and the crash was
eleven miles west of the south end of that lake. That's where they are."

Behind them came the clink of woods upon the green. The pilot said,
"Well, I can't go rushing off there. Miss Corder. That's a hundred and
seventy miles or so off our course."

"It wouldn't mean that much extra distance, would it?" she pleaded.
"Honestly, it does seem a thing that ought to be done. And after all, it
_was_ an Organisation aircraft that crashed."

He said testily, "Well, yes, I know it was. But if I go off wandering
about the world instead of sticking to the route, I'll get myself the
sack, Miss Corder, and quite right, too. You can't run airlines in that
way."

There was a long, slow pause. A bee droned past them; from the lawn
somebody called, "Samuelson!" The pilot raised his head and glanced in
that direction. "In about three minutes," he called. "Roll for me, Doc."
He stood looking down, kicking the turf at the edge of the path
irritably. "The Russians took away the spar stumps, did they? And you
reckon that you've found the other part by planchette?"

"I don't quite go so far as that," Mr. Honey said cautiously. "All I've
got is a sentence--UNDER THE FOOT OF THE BEAR. But that was produced
under well controlled conditions, conditions that were identical with
those of another research, in which we got some quite remarkable
results."

"I see." The pilot stood deep in thought, his mind back on what had
happened at D.R.D.'s meeting. Many people, Prendergast amongst them,
took the view that this small man with the weak eyes was off his head;
others, Dr. Scott and the Director were emphatic that he wasn't. He had
oscillated from one view to the other, himself, several times; on the
balance he was now inclined to believe in Mr. Honey. But God, what types
that Farnborough place did produce!

He asked, "Do you still think Bill Ward had this fatigue trouble?"

Mr. Honey blinked. "Bill Ward?"

"The machine that crashed in Labrador. Do you still think that that one
had fatigue trouble?"

"Oh, I see. Well, yes, I think that's very probable," Mr. Honey said. "I
think that's very likely indeed. In fact, I should be rather surprised,
if they ever find these parts, if they don't show a very marked fatigue
fracture."

The pilot stared at the gabled line of the suburban roofs behind the
almond trees. "That bloody old fool--that Group-Captain the Accidents
Department, I've forgotten his name--he said it was pilot's error of
judgment. I've never heard such cock in all my life."

"I shouldn't think it was that," said Mr. Honey. "It would be a very
remarkable coincidence if the pilot had made an error of judgment just
at the time when we could reasonably anticipate a failure in fatigue."

Samuelson said keenly, "At the same time, I suppose you can't prove that
it was failure by fatigue unless Scott comes back with that tail?"

"Well, no. I think you'd have to have some evidence from the crashed
parts, if you're going to upset the accident investigation."

Marjorie Corder said, "Surely the Organisation would be interested in
finding out what actually happened? Enough to let you go off your course
a bit to drop a letter?"

"I don't know about the Organisation ..." The pilot stood in silence,
staring out across the level greens. Bill Ward was dead, and vilified
after his death when he could not defend himself. Small, stupid people
said that he had come down from altitude to check up his position, and
had hit a hill, like any pupil on his first cross-country. He had been
furious when first he heard of that report; he was furious still. He had
spoken his mind at D.R.D.'s meeting; he would speak his mind again, at
any time, to anybody who would listen. That was not how Bill Ward had
met his death.

Professional pride was very strong in him, and the memory of Bill Ward
in many a pilot's room, in many countries.

"All right," he said. "Let's have your letter, and I'll see what I can
do."

       *       *       *       *       *

We searched that square mile of Labrador forest for three days, and it
was a terrible job.

Before I went there I thought that Labrador was a country of rocks and
sparse, scattered trees. I mentioned that to Russell once, who told me
that it was, all except this particular bit. That bit was dense
jungle--there is no better word. On the first day we did no more than
cut a trail round our square mile, blazing the trees and cutting a track
through the undergrowth as we went, sinking deep in the swampy muskeg in
the bottoms and clambering over hills strewn with rotten, fallen trees.
The flies were sheer torment all the time; we had fly-nets to protect
our faces and streamed with sweat in them; our hands and wrists grew
puffed and swollen with the bites.

The others were more used to these conditions than I was, and they were
certainly in better training, but I found that I could keep pace with
them in the work. The very novelty of these conditions was a stimulus to
me; moreover, I knew that as a scientist from Farnborough I was
expected to be a passenger, useless in the woods, and I was determined
to show them that a scientist can also be tough. I found that I could do
as much as they did or a bit more, but there is no doubt that at the end
of the three days I was far more exhausted than they were. I couldn't
have kept up much longer.

On the second and third days we split up into two pairs and set to work
to traverse the area in twenty yard strips; in places the vegetation was
so dense that even that left quite a possibility that we could pass each
side of the tailplane and never see it. We found the starboard aileron
and the No. 6 engine. We did _not_ find the port landing wheel assembly,
the No. 3 propeller, or the port tailplane and elevator. The position on
the evening of the third day was therefore still inconclusive; we had
not found the parts that we were looking for, but that was not to say
they were not in the immediate vicinity. The port landing wheel and the
No. 3 propeller were almost certainly lying somewhere very near us, and
we had not found them.

That evening we were tired to death; I was so tired myself that I could
eat nothing, though I drank some tea. Only a small piece of our
self-imposed task remained to be done. We planned to finish that in the
forenoon and get down to the Norseman on the lake shore after dinner,
and fly down to Ivanhoe and rest for a couple of days before commencing
the air search. I remember I was deeply depressed that night, and hardly
slept at all.

We were all anxious to get finished with the wretched job. The fourth
morning we were up at dawn and started off after a cup of tea and a few
biscuits. It was better early in the day; it was cool, and the flies did
not get going in full strength until the day was well advanced. We
worked for a couple of hours and knocked off for breakfast a little
after eight, with only a trifle left to do. We were still sitting
smoking when the Reindeer flew over at about a quarter to ten.

She came from the south-east, flying very low, only about five hundred
feet above the tree-tops. She passed to the east and north of us and
came round in a great circle to the west; then they evidently saw our
camp, because they turned directly for us and flew over. From the port
window of the cockpit someone waved to us and we ran out into the
clearing in among the crosses of the graves and waved back to them; she
flew over us so low that we could see the faces of the passengers at the
windows.

I cannot describe what a beautiful sight she was, that summer morning,
above the fronds of the spruce trees, shining in silvery silhouette
against the bright blue sky. She was flying well throttled back, a great
shining lovely thing that slipped through the air without effort, with
only a murmur of noise. I stood and watched her, fascinated by her
beauty. Down in the forest we were tired and hot and grimy and bitten to
death by bugs of every sort, but up there they were clean and well fed
and comfortable and safe, up in the clear air in that lovely, lovely
thing. I remember looking at her perfect lines and at the great clean
grace of her, and thinking it was worth while, after all, to bear with
Prendergast, who could turn out so wonderful a design as that.

They went well over to the east and turned again, and now they came so
low that they were not a hundred feet above the trees. We stood out in
the little glade amongst the graves and as she came to us I saw
someone's head half out of the starboard window of the cockpit, and I
recognised Samuelson whom I had met in London a few days before at
D.R.D.'s meeting. I doubt if he would have recognised me. His arm was
out of the window and he was holding something with coloured streamers
flying from his hand, and as they approached he let this go, and it came
parabolically down to us, its bright tails flashing in the sun. It
landed on the edge of the clearing and Stubbs ran to get it; the
Reindeer opened up her engines and climbed away from us towards the
west.

Stubbs came back with the message bag and gave it to Russell, who opened
it. It contained one letter, addressed to me in the uncouth scrawl that
I had come to know as Mr. Honey's writing. I slit it open; there were
two sheets of notepaper. As I read it, I sighed with disappointment. It
was just sheer stupidity; it seemed that he had been playing with
planchette, and he sent me an incomprehensible message that he thought
must be important. Honey again ...

I raised my eyes, and the other three were standing there looking at me
eagerly, waiting to hear what it was all about. I smiled wryly. "I don't
think it's very important," I said. I hesitated, embarrassed. "One of my
staff has been messing about with spiritualistic stuff--planchette. He
got a message that he thought might be useful to us."

Russell laughed. "Oh!"

"I know," I said ruefully. "You know what people are."

"What's the message?"

"'Under the foot of the bear'," I said.

"That's all? Just, 'Under the foot of the bear'?"

"That's all," I said. He turned away; I think he was as disappointed as
I was. When we had seen the message bag flash down we had expected
something that would help us.

"Which foot?" asked Hennessey, with ox-like stupidity. He was a good
bush pilot, but he was pretty slow sometimes.

"I don't know," I said irritably.

"The one he stands on, I suppose," he said. "That's what it must mean."

Russell knew him better than I did. He turned back, suddenly. "Say, is
there a place round here that's called Bear anything?"

"Dancing Bear Water," Hennessey replied. "That's the only Bear I know of
round these parts. But it's the heck of a long way from here."

I stared at him. "Which way is it?"

He looked towards the sun. "Over that way," he said, pointing.
"East--east with a bit of north in it, maybe. Thirty--forty miles."

Russell said quickly, "Back along the course to Goose, from here?"

"I dare say it would be," he replied. "It's right next to Piddling Dog."
He turned to me. "I guess these names sound kind of funny to you," he
explained. "This section of the country was mapped out first by an air
survey, back in 1929. Nobody hadn't ever been here, only a few Indians,
maybe. When they got the survey all laid out in Ottawa they found they'd
got the heck of a lot of lakes they didn't know about, so they set down
to give 'em all names from what they looked like on the map. I got a map
down in the Norseman that shows Dancing Bear. Just like a bear it is,
with a little island for the eye, 'n everything."

And there, that afternoon, we found the port tailplane of the crashed
Reindeer. We saw it first from about a thousand feet as we flew over; it
was standing nearly vertical between the spruce trees, about a quarter
of a mile due south of the sole of the foot of the Dancing Bear. It was
about thirty-seven miles from the crash. We might have found it
ultimately in our air survey if we had gone so far, but I think we might
have stopped short of that.

We landed on the lake and taxied in to the shore, and beached the
Norseman on a little bit of shingle. The going was fairly easy upon
land, and we reached the tailplane in about a quarter of an hour. And
when we got to it, it was a clear case if ever I saw one; a fatigue
fracture of the top front spar flange, the metal short and brittle and
crystalline at the break. The rear spar had been twisted off after
failure, and the metal there was good.

Bill Ward must have kept her in the air for five or six minutes after
losing half his tail, before they hit the trees and they all died. One
thing puzzled us a lot at first; how was it that they had not managed to
get out a wireless signal in that time? Then we found the insulators of
a wireless aerial on the tip of the tailplane, and that, too, was
explained.




12


I got back to England three days later, and I was very tired indeed. I
had slept very little, because the itching of the bites that I had got
in the woods was with me still when I got home; indeed they took a
fortnight to subside completely. Moreover, the strain and tension of the
travelling and the research were having their effect, preventing sleep.
I should have asked some doctor to prescribe for me, but I could not
wait for that. I felt it urgent to get back to Farnborough without
delay.

We landed at Heath Row from Montreal about midday. A car was there to
meet me; I had a packing-case for luggage and we got it into the back
seat with difficulty, and drove to Farnborough. I went straight to the
main office block, to the Director's office.

I got in to see him at once. "Good morning, sir," I said. "You got my
cable?"

He got up from his chair. "Yes, thanks." He looked at me, and then said,
"Rather a hard trip?"

"It was anxious for a time," I said. "I thought at one time that we
weren't going to find it."

"You brought some samples back with you?" he asked.

"Oh yes. They're in a crate outside. I couldn't transport the whole
thing, of course, so I cut off all the bits that seemed to matter. I've
told the Transport to take them to the Metallurgical. It's absolutely
clear, sir. It's a straightforward fatigue fracture of the front spar,
the top spar flange." And I told him what it looked like.

"Really ..." He stood in silence for a moment. "Well, that's very
satisfactory from our point of view," he said. "We come well out of it.
That's not what matters, though. It's shocking bad for C.A.T.O., and bad
for the country. This means that all those machines will have to come
back for modification, and that means the end of the British
Transatlantic service for the time being, I'm afraid. But there's
nothing for it, now."

I made a small grimace. "It's just one of those things. It's a frightful
shame. That Reindeer's a delightful thing to travel in."

"You crossed in one, did you?"

"Both ways. It's a lovely job."

"I know it is," he said. "Still, I don't know that I'd have fancied it
myself, in the circumstances."

I laughed. "You have to shut your mind to that," I said. "Be like an
ordinary passenger. Forget about the structure and take an interest in
the stewardess."

He glanced at me quizzically. "I understand that Mr. Honey has been
doing some of that." It's extraordinary how the Director gets to know
what's going on.

"A very good thing, too," I said.

"Oh, very." He turned the conversation back to business. "I'll wait
until those parts are ready for me to see and we've all seen them," he
said. "Then I'll ring up D.R.D. and I expect he'll want to call another
meeting."

"Had we better let Prendergast know, unofficially?" I suggested. "He had
a bit of a drip last time because we kept him in the dark."

He nodded. "Yes, we'd better do that. Will you get in touch with him,
Scott?"

We stood talking over details for a few minutes. Then I said, "There's
just one more thing, sir. I got a note in Ottawa from Captain Samuelson,
the pilot of the Reindeer, asking me not to broadcast the fact that he'd
dropped that note from Honey to us. It seems that he went a long way out
of his course without telling the Organisation anything about it, and
he'd rather like to keep it dark." I grinned. "If Sir David Moon had
seen him assing about down among the tree-tops in the middle of
Labrador, he'd have had twins."

"I see ..."

"I spoke to Russell and Group-Captain Porter," I said. "They won't let
it out from Ottawa."

The Director said slowly, "I think it might be rather a good thing to
gloss over all the automatic writing side of this business." I smiled.
"After all, you went out to find and to examine this wreckage, and you
found it, and you examined it. That's all that matters to anybody. I'm
quite sure the Foreign Office would very much object to any publicity
about the Russian element."

"And we should very much object to any publicity about planchette," I
said.

"Exactly," he replied. "Until that type of research becomes one of the
regular activities of this Establishment, which I hope won't be in my
time, the less said about it the better."

I nodded. "I should think so, sir." I turned towards the door.
"Everything has been all right in my party while I've been away, I
hope?"

He said, "So far as I know." He glanced down at his desk. "There's a new
job coming on. They're having trouble with the Assegai."

"They were bound to do that," I said. The Assegai was one of the jet
interceptor fighters coming into squadron use. For rapid climb it had
the new Boreas engine; in level flight at over thirty thousand feet it
was probably capable of exceeding the speed of sound. Because the forces
on the structure were still very much a matter of guesswork in the
trans-sonic range, its speed in level flight was supposed to be limited
to Mach .90. People who knew the fighter pilots said from the start that
those young men would never pay attention to that sort of restriction,
and they hadn't.

"They lost one of them about a month ago," the Director said, "and then
they lost another one last week. All with structural failure of the
wing. Then the day before yesterday they lost a third, but this time the
pilot got out safely with his parachute. Apparently he was looking out
along the wing and saw the whole thing happen. He says he saw a line of
light along the leading edge before it broke."

I stared at him. "A line of light?"

"That's what he says he saw. It seems he's very positive about it."

I was dumbfounded. "But what could cause that?"

He smiled. "I don't know, Scott. That's what we've got to find out."

I said ruefully, "Well, that's a new one."

"I said that it had better wait till you came back," the Director said.
"They'll send the pilot here to see you and tell you the whole story in
his own words, as soon as you like. Who would you put on it?"

"Morrison," I said. "It's right up his street."

He nodded. "I think so. The only thing is, Morrison is having
trouble--oh, that's since you went away. His wife has got T.B.; she's
got to go into a sanatorium. I think that you may have some difficulty
in getting any useful work out of him for a month or so."

"I'm very sorry to hear about Mrs. Morrison," I said. "I'll have a talk
with him. He's certainly the man who ought to handle anything like
this."

I went back to my office. My desk was piled high with dockets and papers
that had come in during my absence, waiting for my attention. I told
Miss Learoyd to put them all on the side table, and I rang down for Mr.
Honey, and asked him if he would come up and see me. When he came I told
him all about it, the success of his fatigue estimate and the success of
his automatic writing. He did not seem very greatly interested in
either, except technically; success did not thrill him in the least. He
regarded a success merely as a convenient platform from which to plan a
further advance.

He was, however, viciously pleased at the effect the news would have on
Prendergast. "These ignorant fools in the design offices," he said
angrily, "they don't know what they're doing, half the time. They come
down here and strut about, and treat you like so much dirt. If only
they'd pay some attention to the people who know something about the
job, they wouldn't have these accidents."

He displayed a characteristic reaction to the news that the entire
British Transatlantic service would be suspended for an indefinite time
by the grounding of the Reindeer fleet. He asked if we could get hold of
the tailplanes of two of the grounded aircraft for further experiments.
It seemed a golden opportunity to him. "If they can't fly they won't
want their tailplanes," he pointed out. "It really would be a great
assistance if we could carry through a complete research on tailplanes
of one type."

He was deeply grateful to Shirley and to me for the little we had done
for Elspeth. "I don't know what to say to thank you," he muttered. "If
Mrs. Scott hadn't come round that morning and found her, I--I don't know
what would have happened."

"Forget about it," I said gently. "You'd have done the same for us. But
Honey, if you don't mind my saying so, you ought to make some
arrangements that Elspeth isn't left alone quite so much. It's taking a
bit of a risk."

"I know it is," he replied. "As a matter of fact ..." and then he
stopped. He began again. "I've got somebody staying with me now, for a
little while. I do agree with you, it's very bad for Elspeth being so
much alone."

"It's none of my business," I said. "But it's a bit hard on the kid."

He said ingenuously, "I'm very hopeful that I'll be able to do something
before long."

I thought of Marjorie Corder, and kept my face as straight as a judge.
"That's fine."

They rang through from the Metallurgical Section a few minutes after
that and said that my crate was there, and they were opening it. I rang
the Director, and we all went down together to inspect the bits that I
had brought back with me from Labrador. There was a little surface
corrosion as one might expect from parts that had been lying for some
months in thawing snow, but there was general agreement that the
evidence was absolutely clear. I went back to my office and rang up
Prendergast.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Prendergast," I said. "This is Scott speaking.
Yes, this morning. Oh yes, thank you--not quite a holiday, you know, but
very interesting, all the same. Look, Mr. Prendergast--I'm sorry to say
that we found a very definite fatigue fracture. I brought the parts back
with me--yes, I cut the spars beyond the fractures and brought the
fractures back. They're here now, if you'd like to come down and see
them." And I told him where the fractures were.

He said, "Really? How very, very interesting. I should very much like to
see those pieces." He spoke very pleasantly; I was amazed. He went on to
discuss the repetitive stresses on the tail for a little; he was
cordial, benign, and considerate. "I had a most interesting visit to
your department while you were away," he said. "Mr. Honey showed me the
research that you have going on. I was very much impressed."

So had Mr. Honey been, but I would not tell him that. I said, "I'm very
sorry about the Reindeer, Mr. Prendergast. I'm afraid this is bound to
mean that all those aircraft will be grounded now at seven hundred and
twenty hours."

He said genially, "Oh well, worse things happen at sea. I expect we
shall get over it, one way or another."

Well, that was one way of looking at it. I wondered if Sir David Moon
would take it quite so philosophically when he was told that all his
Reindeers were going to be grounded for an indefinite period, but that
was none of my business. I talked to Prendergast for a few minutes more,
and the extraordinary man was as smooth as silk, when I had expected him
to be as a raging demon. I put the telephone down, wondering if I should
ever understand designers.

It was five o'clock, and I was very tired. I had to start something
going on the Assegai before I could relax, and I rang through to Mr.
Morrison. After some delay the girl answered the call. She said that Mr.
Morrison wasn't in the office; he had not been in that day. His wife was
very ill; he had taken her to the sanatorium at Bognor Regis. No, she
didn't know if he was coming in tomorrow.

The Assegai, it seemed, was going to be my baby.

I had a wife; I had not seen her for ten days and about nine thousand
miles. I rang up Shirley at our flat and said, "Darling, I'm back."

She said, "Oh Dennis, _dear_. Where are you now? In the office?"

"That's right. Will you come and fetch me with the car? I've done all
that I'm going to do."

She came, and we drove home together to the flat, and mixed a drink.
Everything was strangely as I knew it; it was curious to think of all
that I had seen and done since I had been home last. We had a vast
amount to talk about; I had to tell her what had gone on in Canada and
she had to tell me what had gone on in Mr. Honey's little house in Copse
Road. "I crossed over in the same machine as Monica Teasdale," I said.
"We had a long talk in the middle of the night."

"That poor woman," she said softly. "I did like her. Was she very much
cut up, Dennis?"

"I think she was," I said. "It's hard to tell with an American,
especially an actress like that. You can't tell if she's putting on an
act."

She was silent for a minute. "I can't help thinking about her," she said
at last. "She was awfully fond of him, you know. I think it was heroic
of her, to go away like that. Do you think we'll ever see her again,
Dennis?"

"No," I said, "I don't think so. Only on the screen." I rubbed my wrists
and hands; they were itching again like fire.

Shirley said, "Dennis, come and let me put something on those bites.
I've got some cream that will soothe them." We went into the bedroom and
she put it on for me, and then she said, "What about our holiday,
Dennis? You really must take one this year; you're looking awfully
tired. The Reindeer must be just about cleaned up, isn't it? Couldn't we
go away now, before anything else crops up?"

I grinned at her. "Too late," I said. "It's cropped." And I told her
about the Assegai.

"Oh Dennis! Someone else must deal with that. You can't go on for ever
without a holiday."

"I'll have to hold the fort till Morrison gets back," I said. "I don't
suppose that'll be so long. I'm seeing the pilot in a day or two." I
stared out of the window of our little bedroom. "I can't make out why
there should be a light," I said. "It doesn't make sense."

She laid her hand upon my arm. "Forget about it now," she said gently.

I roused myself to talk of matters that were more up Shirley's street.
"How's Marjorie Corder getting on with Honey?"

"Oh, she's a dear. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if they got
married."

"So they ruddy well ought to," I replied. "From what you tell me they've
been living in sin for the last week."

She turned on me. "Oh Dennis, they haven't! Mr. Honey wouldn't know
how."

"Don't you be too sure about that," I said. "Are they engaged?"

"I don't think so," she said. "Not yet. But her leave's up at the end of
the week. Perhaps they will be then."

As a matter of fact, they got engaged that night. Mr. Honey went back to
his little house that evening anxious to justify himself in Marjorie's
eyes. What she had said about his treatment of Elspeth had made a deep
impression on him. He regarded her as a woman of the world and more
knowledgeable than he; somebody who travelled repeatedly to Canada and
the United States and liked it. He had a deep respect for her.
Curiously, she seemed to have a deep respect for him, and in this she
was unusual; most people treated him with very little respect. He did
not want to lose her regard.

He went into the kitchen and beamed at her through his thick glasses.
"Dr. Scott's come back," he said. "The message we sent got to him all
right. Captain Samuelson flew over and dropped it."

Her face lit up. "Oh Theo, I _am_ glad. Was it any good?"

"Yes it was. There's a lake there called Dancing Bear and they found the
tailplane just south of its foot."

"Theo! So it was under the foot of the Bear, after all?"

He nodded. "I knew it must be something like that. It was just the same
with the aqueduct. You couldn't understand the message till you'd
thought about it for a bit. But in this case, of course, we hadn't got
the data. We didn't know there was a lake called that."

"It's wonderful!" she exclaimed. There was a light of admiration in her
eyes that he could not mistake.

He coloured a little. "Well," he said diffidently, "it just comes of
proceeding in the proper scientific manner. So many people start off
right, but then when they come up against something they don't
understand, they turn round and say the whole research was started on
wrong lines. But I _am_ glad this turned out to be useful, because of
Elspeth." He looked at her appealingly. "You don't really think it did
her any harm, do you?"

She laid her hand impulsively upon his arm. "Of course not, Theo--don't
worry about that. We must find her and tell her--she'll be thrilled!"

He said, "Do you think that's wise?"

She stared at him. "But don't you want to tell her?"

He blinked at her through his glasses. "Well, what do you think,
Marjorie? Won't it impress it on her mind? I thought you wanted to
forget all about that sort of thing."

"Wouldn't you tell her at all?" she said thoughtfully. "Just forget
about it?"

"Well, yes--I think I would. After all, it's not important any longer.
Tell her in some years' time, when she's a bit older. She hasn't talked
about it again, has she?"

The girl shook her head. "That's very sweet of you, Theo," she said
soberly. "You really are the kindest man I've ever met."

He coloured; it was a long time since anyone had said that sort of thing
to him. "There's another thing," he said unsteadily. "It _was_ a fatigue
fracture."

"Oh Theo! So you were right in that, too?"

He blinked. "I thought it must have been. It's really very satisfactory,
because it adds another trial without wasting our time, if you
understand. This trial that I'm doing at the R.A.E. becomes a
confirmatory experiment--it means that we're about six months further
ahead than we thought we were. If this one confirms the results of the
first, the Labrador accident, we really will be on a firm foundation, so
that we can go ahead with confidence."

She did not understand what all that meant, but it was evidently
something very near his heart, and so she said, "How splendid!"

He beamed at her. "It's really very satisfactory," he repeated. "I think
we're on the way to getting something useful now."

She thought for a minute, and then asked, "Theo, what's going to happen
to the Reindeer if it gets fatigue like this? Can they go on using it?"

"The Reindeer? Oh--you mean the machines they're using now. They've got
to stop, I think. Dr. Scott said something about grounding them all. I
think he said they could go on to 720 hours--that's half the estimated
time to failure."

"Oh ..." With her knowledge of the Organisation she tried to visualise
how the Montreal and New York services could be run without any
Reindeers, and failed. "I suppose they aren't safe any longer."

"I should think they'd be all right up to 720 hours," he said. "But
after that they ought to stop. I think Dr. Scott's quite right in that."

She said slowly, "Then the one at Gander must have been very dangerous,
Theo."

He laughed, almost boyishly; his success and her approval had lifted
years of care and grief and worry off his shoulders. "You know, I think
it was. I'm rather surprised we got across all right, really I am. It
did 1,430 hours, that one, without breaking. The only thing is, Dr.
Scott says the Canadians are quite certain that fatigue fractures are
governed by the temperature, that they come sooner when it's cold.
That's one of the parameters I haven't dealt with yet, that and the
question of electrical conductivity. It might possibly explain why that
one didn't break, because it had been operating in the tropics, you
see. There's a whole field to explore," he said enthusiastically. "All
sorts of things." He was like a little boy let loose in a toy shop,
uncertain which of the attractive treasures to pick up first.

Marjorie said, "If you hadn't pulled up its undercarriage, Theo, I
should have gone on flying in it. And I should have been killed, like
Betty Sherwood and Jean Davenport."

He stared at her dumbly, blinking in distress at the idea.

She said thoughtfully, "I wonder how many lives you've saved, Theo? How
many people are now living who would be dead by now, or just about to
die, but for your courage and your genius?"

He blinked at her in silence. Much more important to him at that moment
was the curve of her throat as it slid into her dress, and a small curl
of hair beside her ear.

"You're a great man, Theo," she said quietly. "This was all your doing.
But for your work and your devotion other Reindeers would have crashed
and other people would have been killed--hundreds, perhaps. Captain
Samuelson would have been killed, as Captain Ward was killed. I should
have died, as Betty and Jean died. I happen to know about it, so does
Captain Samuelson. The passengers, who would have died but for your
courage and your work, they'll never know. But I can speak for them.
Thank you, Theo, for all that you've done for them, and for their wives,
and for their children."

Mr. Honey was never a very articulate man. He just put his arm round her
shoulders and kissed her. As Marjorie put it to Shirley, that kind of
broke the ice. By the time Elspeth, who was reading Arthur Ransome lying
on her bed upstairs, awoke to the fact that she was hungry and came down
to see what was happening about tea, her father was engaged to Marjorie
Corder. Elspeth, who had been expecting that to happen for some time,
thought it was a very good idea.

Marjorie went round and saw Shirley alone at tea-time on the following
afternoon. "I know it's no good trying to kid you and Dr. Scott," she
said candidly. "You think I've worked for this, that it's been all my
doing. Well, up to a point, it has."

Shirley smiled. "I don't think anyone that Mr. Honey married could
expect to be exactly passive in the matter," she observed. "Any girl
would have had to have done most of the work."

Marjorie nodded. "I think that's true. But that doesn't mean that we
aren't going to be terribly happy together."

"My dear, I know you will," said Shirley. "I can tell you one
thing--he's an awfully kind man."

"I know," the stewardess said softly. "You wouldn't think it, but he's
brave, too--and just terribly clever." She turned to Shirley. "I'm not a
very clever person," she said, "and I don't really understand very much
about his work. But I do know this--it's just about as important as a
man's work can be. I've only known him a short time, but in that time
I've seen him save hundreds of lives--literally hundreds. When you think
of what might have happened to the Reindeers if he hadn't found out this
about fatigue ..."

"I know," said Shirley. It was in her mind to say that I had had a bit
to do with it as well, and so had Marjorie herself and Captain
Samuelson, but she did not want to be ungracious, or to spoil her
pleasure.

"All my life," the girl said, "ever since Donald got killed, I wanted to
be in aviation. That's why I manœuvred to get this job with the
Organisation, to be a stewardess. I love being on aerodromes and seeing
aeroplanes. It's a sort of bug that gets in you, you know."

Shirley nodded. "I've got it, too."

The stewardess said, "Serving teas and drinks, and asking passengers to
fasten safety belts and helping them to do it--that's one way to work in
aviation. It's all right, if you can't do anything more important. But
then when I met Theo, when he pulled the undercart up out at Gander, I
started wondering if that was really the best thing I could do. He's
such a--such a _big_ little man," she said. "His work is so vastly more
important than mine, and he does need someone's help so very, very
much."

"My dear," said Shirley softly.

Marjorie said, "I never went to college, and I won't be able to do much
to help him in his work. I don't think he'd want that, anyway. But I can
help him for all that, in all the things he can't do properly himself.
And I can make him young again, I think, and make him enjoy things. If I
can do that, he's bound to do better work even than he does now. And I
think that's a better way to work in aviation than just serving teas and
drinks, and telling the passengers when to do up their safety belts ..."

       *       *       *       *       *

D.R.D. called his second meeting on the Reindeer tail two days later, at
11.30 in the same room in the Ministry of Supply. I killed two birds
with one stone, that day, by arranging for the pilot of the Assegai to
meet me an hour previously in Ferguson's room.

His name was Flying-Officer Harper. He was a dark-haired, fresh-faced
boy of twenty-one or twenty-two, who adopted the pose that everything
was a joke and nothing really mattered, whether being crossed in love or
being killed in an Assegai. He came into the room warily, as if walking
into a trap.

"Flying-Officer Harper?" I said. "Good morning. My name is Scott, and
I'm from Farnborough. We've got to start a special investigation into
these accidents that you've been having with the Assegai, and I asked if
you could meet me here to tell me just what happened." I motioned him to
a chair and gave him a cigarette. "Tell me, what happened first of all?"

"Well," he said, "the wing came off."

"I know. Any idea why it came off?"

"I suppose it just isn't strong enough."

"Tell me just what happened," I said. "It's my job to try and make it
stronger. First of all, what height were you at?"

"About thirty-five thousand, I should think. Anyway, between thirty and
forty thousand."

"Were you alone, or were there other machines about?"

"There were other machines up at the time, but nobody near me. Nobody
else saw what happened."

"What were you doing? Were you flying level, or diving?"

"I was in a shallow dive, sir."

"What speed were you going at?"

"I don't know," he said evasively. "The air-speed indicator goes all
haywire--it was flipping about all over the scale."

"What was the Machmeter showing?"

"I never look at that," he said. "It's no bloody good, that thing. Half
the time it's U/S."

One has to be patient. I said, "Would you say that you were near the
speed of sound?"

He said reluctantly, "I might have been. It's rather difficult to tell."

I smiled. "What about the restriction on the speed of the Assegai? The
one about not doing more than .90 Mach?"

He laughed cynically. "That's just a bit of bloody nonsense. Nobody pays
any attention to that."

"You mean, in combat practice you go faster than that in Assegais?"

"Of course. Everybody does. It's just a lot of nonsense put out by the
boffins, that."

I grinned. "What's the fastest you have ever been in an Assegai?"

He said proudly, "I got it up to 1.2 on that Machmeter thing. That was
in about a thirty-degree dive. I believe you'd get her faster than that
if you started at about fifty thousand."

1.20 Mach is getting on for a thousand miles an hour. "Did you have any
trouble getting through the speed of sound?" I asked.

"It's just like being inside a kettledrum," he said. "Everything's sort
of hammering at you, very quick, and it gets bloody hot. Then as you go
through it all gets smooth again. Then it's the same as you slow down,
and come back through."

I stared at him. It had never been contemplated that ordinary squadron
pilots would do that. "Have you done that often?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Half a dozen times," he said. "It's rather
fun."

"Does everybody do this?" I asked.

"Of course they do," he said. "Wingco hands out a raspberry if he hears
anyone talking about it. But everybody does it."

R.A.F. discipline was no concern of mine; my job was simply to do what I
could to see that aircraft were built strong enough to be safe in the
way that they were used. I said, "Let's say that you got out of control
when flying at Mach .90 and inadvertently approached the speed of sound.
I suppose it was around that region that this accident happened?"

He grinned. "That's right. I got out of control."

"Well now, what happened?"

"She stuck in it," he said. "In the kettledrum, I mean. I suppose I
wasn't going fast enough to go through. I think you've got to make it
quick or not at all. I tried to get out of it by slowing down, but the
stick was jammed or something, and everything you touched was vibrating
like one of those electric shocking coils, you know. Everything was
getting bloody hot to touch, and I thought, 'Oh, Momma!!'" He laughed.
"Well, then I looked at the port wing, and there was a sort of line of
light right from the root to the tip, right along the leading edge, and
then there was a bloody great bang and the whole wing was gone--just
like that. Well, then I pulled the blind down over my face and the seat
ejected all right, and there I was sitting in the air with bits of metal
all around me. So I pulled the chute and came down normally." He paused.
"I can't think of anything else."

He had had a most miraculous escape. I thought about it for a minute,
and then said, "This line of light along the leading edge. What did it
look like?"

"It looked sort of incandescent," he replied. "Like the crack of light
you see at a furnace door."

I could not make head or tail of that. "Do you remember how it ran?" I
asked. "I've got an Assegai wing down at Farnborough. If you came down
there, could you mark that wing with a pencil to show exactly where you
saw the crack of light? Or don't you remember well enough for that?"

He said, "Oh yes, I could do that. I know just how it went."

Well that was something to start from; at any rate we had a description
of the symptoms, if the cause of the disease was quite obscure. I talked
to Harper for some time, but he could add little more. He treated it as
rather a joke, regardless of the fact that his Assegai had cost the
taxpayer about twenty thousand pounds. He was taking his girl friend to
see _Lovely Lady_ at the Hippodrome that evening, so I fixed for him to
come to Farnborough next day and draw his line upon my Assegai wing.

I went on down to D.R.D.'s meeting, in the same conference room as the
previous one. I had had the bits of spar that I had brought from
Labrador sent up from Farnborough and placed at the end of the table, in
case there should be any argument about it from the diehards. As each
member came in for the meeting he made for these bits of structure and
examined them. E. P. Prendergast pulled out a pocket magnifying glass
and examined the fractures for a long time, grunting sourly when anybody
spoke to him; he was in no genial mood that day. Carnegie and Sir David
Moon examined the parts gloomily, talking in low tones. Group-Captain
Fisher came in just before the meeting opened, red-faced and irritable:
he did not examine the parts because he had seen them the afternoon
before.

D.R.D. opened the meeting by saying that the representative of the
R.A.E. had brought back certain parts from the Reindeer accident in
Labrador, some of which were on the table. Technical opinion was
unanimous that they indicated a fatigue fracture of the front spar
flanges of the port tailplane. He would ask Dr. Scott to outline his
investigation to the meeting.

"There's not much to say," I remarked. "When we reached the scene of the
accident we discovered that the spar fractures at the fuselage had been
removed for examination by the Russian burial party who had come to
exhume the body of their Ambassador." There were incredulous smiles and
raised eyebrows round the table. D.R.D. nodded shortly. "It therefore
became necessary to locate the tailplane itself. We found this
thirty-seven miles east-north-east of the scene of the accident--that
is, back along the course to Goose. These fractures on the table, there,
were cut from the tailplane as it lay. There was, of course, no means of
bringing the whole unit down to the coast for shipment. I think that's
all about it. I'm sorry not to have both parts of the fracture to show
you, but I understand that political difficulties have prevented that."

D.R.D. said, "I'm afraid that is so." Then he turned to the Inspector of
Accidents. "I don't know if you have had an opportunity to consider the
matter, Group-Captain?"

The old man raised his head. "Not yet," he said definitely. "I have not
received any report of this investigation from Ottawa, and until I do so
the matter must remain _sub judice_, so far as I am concerned." He was
so ill advised as to go on, clutching at a straw, "I understand that the
wreckage from which these parts were cut was found thirty-seven miles
from the main crash. That seems to me to be a very long way away. It is
at least possible that these parts do not belong to the Reindeer at all,
but to some other accident. I think that point wants some
investigation."

With that, I think, the bowler hat descended firmly on his head.
Prendergast stuck out his great jowl and said, "What on earth do you
mean?"

D.R.D. interposed hastily, "The identification of these pieces is
clearly part of the procedure, Mr. Prendergast."

The designer grunted offensively. "I should have thought that was hardly
necessary, since I am present at this meeting. I am not accustomed to
wasting my time investigating casual bits of aircraft junk. These are
all portions of the front and rear spar structures of the Reindeer
tailplane."

D.R.D. said, "Well, that settles that. It seems that this first machine
had flown 1,393 hours up to the time of the accident, and these samples
clearly show that the cause of the disaster was a fatigue failure of the
nature postulated by the investigation undertaken by the R.A.E. We now
have to consider what action we must take." He turned to me. "Dr.
Scott?"

"I have not changed my views," I said. "Action must be taken by some
other body. But I think that some modification to the present design of
the tail structure is clearly necessary, and until that has been carried
out, no Reindeer should fly more than 720 hours. That's my opinion."

Carnegie said, "Based on Mr. Honey's work and on this evidence?"

"That's right," I replied. "Some rather unfortunate things were said
about Mr. Honey at our last meeting. I should like to point out that
he's the only one among the lot of us who has been consistently right
all through. If he hadn't damaged that second Reindeer at Gander, you'd
have had another accident, beyond all doubt."

There was a glum silence. It was broken by Carnegie, who said, "That
aircraft might as well stay at Gander, if we can't use it. In fact, I
suppose it will have to. I suppose I may take it that that one, which
has flown something over 1,440 hours, is grounded from now on."

D.R.D. said, "That is an executive decision, to be taken as a result of
this meeting. But I think it's very likely."

Sir David Moon said, "Mr. Chairman, the news that we have heard this
morning is bad news for us, as you can suppose. It entails laying up our
fleet of Reindeer aircraft for a major modification, probably for a
matter of months, if our past experience is any guide. That means, this
country must cease to operate a Transatlantic service, unless we care
to do so by reverting to the obsolete and uneconomic types that we
lately discarded. And in fact, there are too few of those now available
to enable us to maintain our services. That is a very heavy blow to us,
and to this country." He was speaking quietly and seriously. "We do not
question its necessity, but we ask for a hand in framing what
restrictions on the Reindeer are deemed necessary, with a view to making
the optimum use of the aircraft."

I was not paying much attention; I was thinking of the Assegai. The
Reindeer was over, so far as I was personally concerned; what happened
now was for others to decide. The Assegai was vital and urgent. It had
never been intended that the Assegai should be flown in the trans-sonic
region, but the young men were doing it, and doing it every day. It had
already killed two of them. It might well be impossible to prevent the
fighter pilots from getting the most out of their machine; they were not
of the temperament to submit to restrictions based on safety. Either the
Assegai must be taken away from them, or it must be strengthened, and
strengthened quickly, to withstand the forces that they put on it. What
those forces were was very little known. It was a complete mystery to
me, at that time, why one thin line along the leading edge should have
become incandescent. And till we found the answer to that one, the
Assegai would go on killing the young men.

I came back to the meeting with a start. D.R.D. was saying, "The first
thing is to find out what modifications are necessary." He glanced down
the table at the designer. "Perhaps Mr. Prendergast can give us some
indication of what will be involved?"

Prendergast reached for his attaché case, pulled out a white print, and
opened it upon the table. "I have given this matter a good deal of
attention, personally," he said ponderously. "Clearly, there is no
alternative to increasing the mass of the spar flanges at the root and
for several feet out from the root, and it is desirable that the elastic
modulus of the spar flange should be increased as well. I propose to
insert a steel channel section, nesting into the existing duralumin
flange." And he went on to talk about families of nesting sections, one
of his structural fetishes, and fitted bolts in reamed holes prepared on
the spar drilling jig. He showed us his drawing.

Carnegie asked gloomily, "What's the delivery of these special steel
sections?"

"Enough for two machines will be available on Thursday next," the
designer said. "The remainder will follow on after that as required."

We stared at him incredulously. Carnegie asked, "Do you mean to say that
we can get these special steel sections without any delay at all?"

"I am not accustomed to having my word doubted, Mr. Carnegie," said the
designer haughtily. "I have been thirty-seven years in this industry,
and I hope I know what I am talking about. I have chosen this particular
solution, one of several, because it seemed to offer certain production
advantages, though at a small cost in extra weight. We already have the
necessary dies, prepared as part of our policy of laying by the dies
required for all our nesting sections." He glared down the table at the
Treasury official. "And I may say, in passing, that we experience
continual and increasing difficulty in obtaining payment for dies which
are not immediately required for our contracts. If it were not for our
foresight and prudence in preparing these dies in the face of all the
obstructions thrown in our path by the officials of this Ministry, I
should not be able to assist you in this way." The Treasury official
made a note upon his pad. E. P. Prendergast swelled himself out like a
frog. "The great company which I have the honour to represent," he said,
"has placed the full facilities of its Sheffield steel plant behind this
matter, with overriding priority, in anticipation of our requirements. I
see no reason to suppose that we shall be held up for materials."

D.R.D. remarked, "Well, I'm sure we all feel that that is very
satisfactory, Mr. Prendergast. Have you been able to prepare any
estimate of the time that the modification is likely to take?"

"I have." The designer pulled a paper from his case. "In the first
place, I have assumed that you will give me verbal authority to commence
work now--this morning--upon the preparation of the necessary parts,
which are, in fact, already in hand." The man from the Treasury frowned,
and then laughed. "I also assume that you sanction night-shift work upon
this contract, and overtime excepting Sundays. Am I correct?"

D.R.D. was somewhat at a loss. "I think so."

The designer grunted offensively. "Well, you must make up your minds if
you want this work done or not."

Ferguson leaned over and whispered to D.R.D., who said, "Yes. We can
give verbal instructions to proceed, Mr. Prendergast."

Sir David Moon said, "Mr. Chairman, in view of the extreme urgency of
this matter to us, may I ask if Sunday work can be authorised?"

E.P. Prendergast stuck out his great jowl and said, "On no account would
I agree with that. If you want work done on Sundays, you must go
elsewhere. It is uneconomic upon any account, and it strikes at the root
of family life, which is the basis of the greatness of this country." We
stared at him, blinking. "God comes before the Reindeer, gentlemen," he
said.

D.R.D. said smoothly, "Of course. On the assumptions you have made, Mr.
Prendergast, how long do you suppose this job will take?"

The designer consulted his paper. "We can accept the first machine for
modification on Monday the 18th, and the work will be completed by the
evening of the 21st. Thereafter we can modify one machine in each four
complete working days."

We stared down the table at him. Sir David Moon said, "Am I to
understand that each aircraft will only be out of service for four
days?"

"That does not include the time of the delivery flights to and from our
Stamford works," said Prendergast.

Carnegie said impulsively, "But that's fantastic!"

Prendergast glared at him. "I am not accustomed to that language in
relation to my statements," he said harshly. "If you are unable to
accept our estimates, you must take your work elsewhere."

All good designers are difficult men or they could not be good
designers; I think everybody at the table was more or less aware of
that. We set ourselves to mollify the great man, and I say that with
sincerity. A great man he was, a great designer and a superlative
engineer. But not an easy man to deal with. No.

In the end Sir David Moon said, "This represents a different picture
altogether, Mr. Chairman. If the company can do the necessary
modifications in so short a time, there will be no need to interrupt our
present schedule of services at all." Prendergast nodded. "We can
allocate the machines off service one by one for this work to be done.
The general public need not know anything at all about it."

D.R.D. said, "I think that's very desirable. It never does any good to
have a garbled version of these troubles in the newspapers."

The Director leaned across to me. "They'd only print half the story,
anyway," he remarked. "They wouldn't believe the other half."

The meeting broke up. I said to him, "I had a chat with that Assegai
pilot, sir. It was at the speed of sound, of course; it stuck for
several seconds in the region of high drag. He said he'd been through to
the supersonic zone several times. He was quite positive about that
incandescent line along the leading edge. He's coming down tomorrow to
sketch it on the wing."

He nodded. "Morrison back yet?"

"Not yet," I said. "I think he's coming in tomorrow. I hope he sees more
daylight in this matter than I do."

He smiled gently. "It'll come," he said.

Honey got married to Marjorie Corder about a month later, and on the
third day of his honeymoon the test tail broke, at 1,296 hours only,
which gave him something to think about. Flight-Lieutenant Wintringham
said it was a wedding present for him. He came hurrying back from
Bournemouth, where they were staying, to view the body, and I sent him
back to his honeymoon with a flea in his ear. But I don't know what kind
of a honeymoon they had after that, because he came back to the office
with a considerable extension to his nuclear theory of fatigue,
expressed on twenty-six pages of pure mathematics.

That autumn I was restless after office hours. I had nothing much to
work at in the evenings, and I was very worried about the Assegai. I
tried reading Shirley's novels, but I can't take any interest in those
things; real life always seems to me to be so much more stimulating. I
tried listening to the wireless and got fed up with that. And it was
much too soon to write another paper for the Society.

One evening Shirley laid her sewing down. "Dennis, I wish you or
somebody would write up some of these things that happen, like the
Reindeer tail. I mean, write literally all about it, not just the
scientific part. All about Monica Teasdale, and Elspeth, and planchette,
and the Director going to Kew Gardens--all the bits that made it fun. We
shall forget what really happened in a few years' time, and we'll have
lost something worth having. I'd like to try and save some of the fun
we're having now, to look at when we're old."

I stared at her thoughtfully. "That's not a bad idea," I said. "It'd be
better than sitting worrying about the Assegai."




                             AUTHOR'S NOTE


This book is a work of fiction. None of the characters are drawn from
real persons. The Reindeer aircraft in my story is not based on any
particular commercial aircraft, nor do the troubles from which it
suffered refer to any actual events.

In this story I have postulated an inefficient Inspector of Accidents,
with a fictitious name and a fictitious character. Only one man can hold
this post at a time, and I tender such apologies as may be necessary to
the distinguished and efficient officer who holds it now. I would add
this. The scrupulous and painstaking investigation of accidents is the
key to all safety in the air, and demands the services of men of the
very highest quality. If my story underlines this point, it will have
served a useful purpose.

                                                          NEVIL SHUTE




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  | Transcriber's Note:--                                              |
  |                                                                    |
  | Punctuation errors have been corrected.                            |
  |                                                                    |
  | The following suspected printer's errors have been addressed.      |
  |                                                                    |
  | Page 105. plentful changed to plentiful. (weren't as plentiful)    |
  |                                                                    |
  | Page 258. it'ld changed to it'd. (it'd give her a tremendous lift) |
  |                                                                    |
  | Page 292. straighforward changed to straightforward. (It's a       |
  | straightforward fatigue)                                           |
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  | Page 314. It'ld changed to It'd. (It'd be better than)             |
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[The end of _No Highway_ by Neville Shute Norway]