No Highway (12 page)

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.

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 recognized 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.