Stephen Morris (26 page)

He leaned back in his chair and ran on. ‘Suppose we could expedite the mails to America. Suppose we could start a mail service to America that only took five days instead of seven, and suppose we were able to run that service with, say, eighty per cent regularity. Do you see how we should improve our position with America? Look at the pull that it would give us over every other country in Europe. Suppose we could do that by surprise, and suddenly one day reduce the time from London to New York to five days – and we can save more than two days.’

Dennison glanced at Morris attentively. ‘I am no financier, but anyone can see that it would benefit us very greatly – if it could be done,’ he said.

Morris gazed over the blue water to the steep bluff of Egypt Point astern. ‘It would be done tomorrow,’ he said absently, ‘ – it could have been done last year. The Atlantic was flown in eighteen hours, years ago.’ He sat up and became animated. ‘The real point is this,’ he said. ‘Can it be done as a commercial proposition? Is it likely to pay? That’s the point.’

Dennison considered for a moment. ‘I always understood,’ he said, ‘that a scheme of that sort couldn’t pay, because it was all that an aeroplane could do to carry its own petrol across the Atlantic, without any cargo.’

‘Seventy years ago they were saying that of steamships,’ said Morris. Dennison was silent.

Morris continued after a moment. ‘We don’t propose to do it by direct flight. It isn’t possible at present; we can’t hope to make that a paying proposition. The scheme that we intend to try, briefly, is this. We carry a flying-boat on a liner, mounted on a sort of catapult arrangement. The aeroplane is loaded with a small amount of urgent mail which pays a special surcharge. When the liner is in mid-Atlantic, about a thousand miles from her destination, she turns full speed into the wind and catapults the machine off her deck. The machine then flies to land, taking just about ten hours over the thousand miles. In that way we hope to be able to carry five hundred pounds’ weight of urgent cargo.’

Dennison gazed at him attentively. ‘You say you are going to try this?’

‘In about six weeks’ time. One of Sir David’s vessels is in the Clyde now, being fitted with the catapult. I’m doing it, with another man – a navigator. We do it on the way home – it’s really a sort of a full-dress rehearsal. They shoot us off one morning about nine hundred and fifty miles out at sea, and we fly to Padstow. The natural thing would have been to have flown to Ireland, of course, but Sir David won’t have that. He doesn’t believe
in basing any financial calculations on the stability of Ireland just at present.’

Dennison regarded him steadily. ‘It sounds to me an uncommonly risky experiment,’ he said.

Morris smiled, and picked his words carefully. ‘It has its risks,’ he said, ‘and one would be a fool to deny them. The first is that something may happen to us in the launching and we don’t get a clean start from the deck. In that case we flop down into the water under the vessel’s bows – and get run over. They won’t be able to dodge us, you know. The only other point is that we may have engine failure or run out of petrol, and have to come down. We minimise that by keeping directly on the track of the liner so that she comes along and picks us up – if we float so long.’ He blew a heavy cloud of smoke.

‘What made you choose Padstow?’ asked Dennison.

‘Because it’s the nearest harbour, and because it’s usually quite empty of ships. Falmouth was out of the question – too crowded and too public for this rehearsal. As a matter of fact, all this is being kept very dark at present. It may be convenient to publish the fact that we shall land at Falmouth later, if there’s much stir about it all. But it will really be Padstow.’

Dennison nodded in silence.

Morris tossed his cigarette over the rail and turned to him. ‘I don’t know if you are wondering why I’ve told you all this,’ he said evenly. ‘As it happens, there’s one point still incomplete. We’re still without a navigator. I’ve been wondering if you would care to take it on.’

‘I see,’ said Dennison slowly. ‘Are you the pilot?’

Morris nodded. ‘I ought to tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘This is a serious matter for us, and we didn’t want to let a complete stranger in on it. I went up to Town yesterday and got a sort of a reference of you from
Jimmie Wallace. I hope you don’t mind. It was more a matter of form than anything else – to satisfy Sir David.’

‘How do you know I can navigate?’ asked Dennison suddenly.

‘For one thing, you told me you could. But as for that, the navigation will be very simple. What I really want is someone to work out courses for me in the air, look after the petrol pressure, and the food, and all that sort of thing. And, if we get a chance, to get a sight or two to check our position. The navigation is very simple – I could do it myself, only I shall be flying.’

‘I should be all right for that,’ said Dennison absently.

Morris rose to his feet. ‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘think it over. After dinner this evening we’ll talk about it again, if you like. There’s a lot that you ought to know before you decide. Sir David will be able to put the points of the scheme before you much better than I can and he’ll go into everything with you – money, for one thing. There’s a pretty good fee attached to it. But I told him I’d tell you about it first.’

Dennison rose and walked aft with him. ‘Thanks very much,’ he said. ‘I’ll think about it.’ He mused a little. ‘I’ve never seen a flying-boat close to.’

Morris laughed. ‘Soon put that right,’ he said. ‘We’ve got her in Flanagan’s yard.’

They cruised on down the Solent till tea-time, then came about and returned to Cowes in the dusk. They came to an anchor in their old place in the Roads just before dinner, and, after dinner, sat down to the usual round-table conference. This time, however, Dennison was of the party.

He had already made up his mind. He was tired of working, willing enough to go wandering for a little. He was willing enough to take some months’ leave from his office and come in on this experiment. He listened absently while Sir David laid the matter before him. It
was dangerous – he knew that. That was beside the point. This was a thing that would amuse him. It was different. He was free to turn his interests where he liked; there was nobody that had a better claim on him than himself. If he had been engaged, or married, it would have been different. But now he was free, and this would be good fun and would give him something to think about.

He roused himself. ‘The real object of this experiment,’ Sir David was saying in his level, incisive tones, ‘is to demonstrate that the flight is a commercial proposition. This journey hasn’t merely got to be completed somehow or other – that’s no good at all. We know that it can be done. We know that it is possible to launch a machine from a ship and to fly a thousand miles on it. What we want to find out is if that can be done under the ordinary, normal conditions of service. That is, the flight has got to be done to a time-table. The aeroplane has to arrive at a stated place at a stated time, carrying a stated load. It has to do that under any weather conditions that happen to be prevailing – except a hurricane. If these conditions cannot be fulfilled, then the experiment is a failure.’

Rawdon broke in. ‘The weather conditions aren’t of any great importance at this time of year,’ he said in his soft little voice. ‘The flight will take place at the end of May and – as you know – the prevailing wind in the Atlantic is westerly. That, of course, will be a help in this flight – not a hindrance. A moderate westerly breeze would be the best thing possible for you.’

‘That’s practically a certainty at the end of May,’ said Dennison absently.

He offered evidence of his navigating ability, and they discussed the details of the scheme for a little. Finally Sir David stated the fee that they were prepared to give for a navigator.

Dennison opened his eyes. It seemed a very large sum for a very little work.

‘It’s like a recruiting poster,’ said Morris flippantly. ‘See the world for nothing. It’s a joy-ride. A first-class trip to America – and half-way back.’

There was a pause. Dennison felt called upon to say something.

‘It should be pretty good sport,’ he said.

It took a good deal to destroy the serenity of Jimmie Wallace’s outlook upon the world, but undoubtedly something had happened seriously to impair it. He sat idle at his desk in the palatial little office, chewing his penholder, about a month after Morris had visited him to inquire about Dennison. He was worried. He had dined with Morris the previous evening, when Morris had pledged him to secrecy and had broken to him the news of the wildcat scheme upon which he and Dennison were engaged. It had not altogether been news to Jimmie. Already rumours were beginning to circulate about the City of the great benefits that might accrue if such a scheme were suddenly to come into operation as a regular service; already there were guarded expressions of these rumours in the Press. He had not been long in connecting these tales with Morris’s visit to him. Here was confirmation of the whole thing.

He sat in his chair and chewed his penholder morosely. He did not know how this would affect his family – if at all. He did not know exactly what had passed between Dennison and his sister, though he was capable of making a tolerably good guess. He did not know to what extent his sister was responsible for what Dennison had done. In these first days he had got a very clear idea of the danger of the enterprise. He was a keen motorist, and knew sufficient about aeroplanes to appreciate the position. The success of the flight depended upon an ordinary petrol engine running steadily at full power for ten hours, without attention, under indifferent
conditions. Well, it might. It was about a fifty per cent chance. And then there was the launching …

He did not know what he should say to his sister – if anything at all, seeing that he was bound under a pledge of secrecy to Morris. So far he had told her nothing of Dennison’s connection with Morris; he had thought it wiser to leave the whole subject alone. The more he thought of it, the more clearly he perceived that there was only one thing that could have sent Dennison flying off the deep end in this manner, and that one thing was Sheila. This was a very disturbing conclusion.

What would happen, for example, if the flight were to fail and Dennison were to be killed? He knew that his sister was very much attached to Dennison. On the other hand, what could he do about it? He could not very well go to his sister and tell her what Dennison was up to and make her pull him back by the coat-tails. For one thing, she wouldn’t be able to do it. Nobody could pull Dennison back when he had set his mind on a thing, and he was evidently far too deeply involved in this matter to withdraw.

Perhaps it would be better to wait and hope that Dennison would not be killed.

‘Oh, damn it all,’ said Wallace irritably.

It was in an irritable mood that he travelled down to Berkshire. On the way it struck him to wonder whether by any chance Sheila knew of what Dennison was doing. It was just possible that he was wrong all along the line and that she was in touch with Dennison. He did not think that was the case; Dennison had departed too suddenly. Moreover, Morris had reported him taciturn on the subject of the Wallaces. In any case, he would see if he could not find out more how the land lay during this week-end. If he got an opportunity he would sound his sister on the subject.

Sheila met him with the car and drove him home to
tea. Antony had departed three weeks previously for the Engadine, and had written her a rambling, incoherent letter, enclosing a little wooden bear. She had written back to him at needless length, a letter almost equally diverse in which she mentioned everything but Dennison. With the exception of this correspondence she had been quite alone since Antony’s departure; her father ranking as somebody to talk to but not company. Wallace, as they drove home, found her far more subdued than usual, and mentally raised his eyebrows. Clearly, it would pay him to go carefully.

It struck him that she looked tired. It would be a good thing if he could get her away for a holiday; it was absurd for her to spend all her life at Little Tinney.

They had tea in the library. After the meal was cleared away they sat gossiping for a little before the fire; Wallace decided to seize his opportunity. He leaned back in his chair and commenced to bore her to distraction with a long account of the family investments in China. He gave her full details of each stock in turn with the history of each company, and the date the stock had come into their possession, the price at purchase and at the present time, the yield, and the prospects of improvement or otherwise. From that he passed to an appreciation of the political situation in China, with especial reference to its effect on certain companies. He noticed that she was growing restive, and smiled covertly to see her smothering a yawn. Finally he passed to the (fictitious) desirability of having an independent observer on the spot.

‘I’ve been wondering lately whether Dennison would care to do anything for us in that way,’ he said thoughtfully, and smiled again to see her suddenly stiffen to attention. ‘He might be able to send us a weekly cable with certain information. It would be very much to his own advantage.’ He was watching her closely, but found
time to reflect, ‘What utter rot I’m talking.’ Still, she knew very little of business methods.

‘It sounds a very good idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you write to him?’

‘One might do that,’ said Wallace. ‘Where does he live?’

‘He’s in rooms,’ she said. ‘I’ve got his address upstairs. It might be nicer if you went and saw him one evening.’

‘Have him to dinner one night,’ said Wallace. ‘When’s he going out?’

She did not answer. He glanced at her and saw that she was not looking his way, but staring into the fire. Presently she turned and met his eyes, a little wistfully. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he ought to – a bit.’ She glanced at him again, and this time he noticed a slight quivering of her lips.

‘Lord bless me,’ he thought in alarm. ‘I believe she’s going to cry.’