An Old Captivity Page 8

  He weighed her again. She was still twenty-seven pounds over weight, but he let it go at that.

  Then for three days he laboured with the wireless mechanics to install the radio. They worked eighteen hours a day, far on into each night. When it was finished they made a ground test of the wireless in the middle of the night. An unexpected fault developed in the set; it had to go back to the works next morning in a car.

  Ross was on the telephone to the technical director of the wireless company early next morning, speaking his mind. Then he had the seaplane fuelled, and took it out for a short test flight. He took off down Southampton Water after a short run and climbed to about two thousand feet; he stayed up for about an hour, pleased with the machine.

  He landed with three pages of his pad covered with notes of minor adjustments and modifications to be done. Work started on those in the afternoon. Late that evening the wireless set came back again; they worked far on into the night refitting it to the machine. A ground test carried out at three in the morning was satisfactory; in the grey dawn Ross went to bed and slept for a few hours.

  He was in the air again by ten o’clock, with two engineers of the wireless company with him. Transmission from the set seemed to be good. Reception was nil; the only thing that could be heard in the headphones was the rattle of sparks from the ignition systems of the engine. The homing indicator did not work at all.

  Ross landed without delay, and taxied into the slipway in a black temper. Again he spoke his mind upon the telephone. Two officials started hurriedly from London; that afternoon there was a conference in the hangar and another short test flight to rub the experts’ noses in the mess. By the late afternoon the fault was diagnosed. The magnetos and ignition wiring of the engine were electrically screened; the sparking plugs were not. The sensitivity of the receiver made screened plugs a necessity.

  The telephone came into play again. One plug manufacturer could deliver a set of screened plugs in three months’ time, another had plugs in stock but unsuitable for an American engine. The representative of the engine manufacturer, when appealed to, thought that he might get a set in Amsterdam.

  Ross reported his difficulties by telephone to Hanson in Coventry and to Lockwood in Oxford, left Hythe, and went to London. He got there late at night, turned into a hotel, and slept very badly; early next morning he was with the engine representative. Together they rang up Amsterdam and talked for a quarter of an hour. Finally they had the satisfaction of arranging that a parcel of screened plugs, a set and a spare set, would be upon the afternoon plane from Amsterdam to Croydon.

  Ross reported again to Coventry, and went down to Croydon. He met the air liner, claimed his parcel, travelled back to London, and went down to Hythe. He got to the hangar late at night; an engineer was waiting there to help him. Together they changed the eighteen sparking plugs, refitted the cowling of the engine, and saw the machine all ready for flight before they went to bed at about two o’clock in the morning.

  That night he hardly slept at all. He was down at the hangar by eight o’clock and in the air by half-past eight with the wireless experts in the machine with him. The wireless troubles were now over. He stayed up for an hour and a half operating the set himself on all wave-lengths, transmitting in morse, homing on various stations. Finally he was satisfied, and landed with a lighter heart than he had had for some time.

  He rang up Lockwood at Oxford. “We’re all set now, sir,” he said. “I’d like to get away to Invergordon as soon as we can.”

  “Is everything ready?”

  The pilot said: “The machine is all ready to start now. So far as I know, the only thing we’ve got left to do is to get your personal flying kit, sir, and Miss Lockwood’s. If you could both meet me in London to-morrow morning we could get that, and then come on down here. Then we could have a short flight in the afternoon, sleep in the hotel here, and get away in the morning.”

  He arranged that with them.

  He went back to Guildford to his aunt, to spend the night with her. He had not been there for a week; she raised her eyebrows when she saw him.

  “My! Donald,” she exclaimed, “you’re looking awfu’ tired. Whatever ails you?”

  He said irritably: “I’m all right.”

  “You’re not all right—you’re looking thin and peaked. What have you been doing with yourself?”

  He said: “It’s been hard work getting this thing ready in the time. But the back of the job’s broken now. Now there’s only the flying to be done, and there’s no real work in that.”

  “Is there not?” There was a pawky sarcasm in her voice.

  He sighed. “Well, anyway, it’ll be easier than the last month has been.”

  “It will need to be.” She took him into her little sitting-room. “Sit ye down, now, Donald, and stay quiet a bit while I get the supper. I got some meat and vegetables in when I got your telegram, so we could have a nice drop of Scots broth. And then there’s the rice pudding with the golden syrup that you like. Go on, and sit ye down.”

  He sank into a chair, and lit a cigarette. She came back from the kitchen in a minute. “There’s your evening paper.”

  He did not open it, but sat smoking cigarettes quickly and restlessly, lighting one from the stub of the last. His mind kept running over the arrangements for his flight, searching for points that he had forgotten. Once or twice he made a note in pencil on the back of an envelope; in the last few days he had discovered that he could not altogether trust his memory.

  When his aunt came into the sitting-room an hour later to call him to his supper she found him asleep in the chair, the paper unopened on his knee. She stood looking at him grimly for a minute, pursed her lips, and woke him up.

  They went through to supper in her tiny kitchen.

  Over the meal she said: “I have over the half of a bottle of Phosferine left, that I was taking last winter when I was poorly. If I give it to you, Donald, will you mind and take it?” She paused. “You’re looking terribly run down.”

  He was touched. “I’m really quite all right, Aunt Janet.”

  “Ye’ll be better for the Phosferine.”

  He said: “I won’t take yours. I’ll get another bottle.”

  “There’s no call for you to go to that expense. I’ll put it in your bedroom, and mind you take it.”

  “It’s awfully good of you. It might make me sleep a bit better.”

  He began to tell her all his plans for the flight. She was not well versed in the geography of the North; he sketched a map for her on the back of a calendar that the grocer had sent her at the New Year. She watched intently as he traced the outlines of Greenland, Iceland, and Labrador; then she took it and hung it upon its nail in the wall, the back outwards so that she could see the map.

  “I’ll be keeping it by me,” she said. “Will they pay for you to send a telegram now and again, Donald, the way I’ll know where you are?”

  He smiled. “I’ll be able to do that, Aunt Janet.”

  “Only if they pay for it on your expense account, Donald. Now that you’re making good money again you don’t want to be throwing it away on telegrams, or any other way. Ye want to put it by.”

  “All right, Aunt Janet. I think I can manage to squeeze in a telegram for you from time to time.”

  She sighed. “I’d like fine to have come and see you off, Donald. But with the examinations coming on next week I canna get away.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “It’s just a seaplane taking off. There’s nothing much to see.”

  “All the same, I’d like fine to have come.”

  He went to bed early that night; in the bed that he had slept in when he was a boy he had a good night, and awoke refreshed. He had to get up early in order to meet Lockwood and his daughter in London; he left the house at Guildford at about eight o’clock.

  His aunt came with him to the gate. “Mind and take the Phosferine, Donald,” she said.

  He smiled: “All right. I won’t forget.
I’ll be back about the end of September, Aunt Janet.”

  “I’ll have the room all ready for you. Guid luck, Donald.”

  “Good luck, Aunt Janet.”

  He travelled up to London, and met Lockwood and Alix at their hotel. The sole luggage that they had was the linen kitbags with fifteen pounds of their personal luggage in them; Ross gathered that the hotel had looked askance at them. “They didn’t seem to think that this was luggage at all,” said Lockwood, smiling; “they made us pay for the rooms in advance.”

  The girl seemed to take it personally. “It’s perfectly absurd,” she said. “We’ll never come here again.”

  She was wearing a grey coat and skirt and a grey felt hat with a brim. There was something in her appearance that Ross could not place. She seemed different, younger. It was not until they reached the outfitters to try on flying clothing that the mystery was solved.

  She took off her hat to try on a black leather helmet. The yellow hair clustered round her head in a clipped shingled mass.

  Ross stared at it, caught unawares: “Why—you’ve had your hair cut!”

  “I know. I thought it would be less trouble.” She did not repeat the rather coarse remark that Uncle David had made, but turned to the glass.

  The pilot fitted them both with helmets; then he had padded combination flying suits brought out. He said to Lockwood: “Would you mind slipping this one on, sir? It looks about right in length.” To the girl he said: “You’ll have to get rid of your skirt for this, Miss Lockwood.”

  She gave him a freezing look, and said nothing. He turned to the man. “You’ve got a dressing-room?”

  “Certainly. If madam would step this way?”

  She went with him; Ross sighed, and turned back to her father. Things were going to be very difficult in the intimacy of camp life. He ought to have been firmer, and refused to take a girl at all.

  She came back presently, dressed in the flying suit, and laughed shortly when she saw her father. “I don’t know what you look like, Daddy.”

  He said maliciously: “I know what you look like, Alix. You look as if you’d just come off the pillion of a motor bicycle.”

  “Oh …”

  Ross fitted them with soft sheepskin boots with the fur inside. It was a very hot July day; within a minute or two Lockwood was sweating and the girl was red in the face. “It’s all very comfortable, Mr. Ross,” she said. “May I go and get out of it now?”

  He looked at her critically. “You’re quite sure the boots aren’t tight?”

  “There’s heaps of room. I shall die if I have to stay in this thing any longer.”

  She went back to the dressing-room. Presently she reappeared, normally dressed and carrying the suit over her arm. “Mr. Ross,” she said, “I’m sure this is going to be lovely when we get up North, but I shan’t have to wear it in this weather, when we start, shall I?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless you want to, Miss Lockwood. Up to Invergordon you’ll be quite all right as you are. You may want to wear it after that.”

  He had their flying clothes packed up, and they took the parcels with them in the taxi to Waterloo. They had lunch in the train on their way down to Southampton. Over lunch Ross learned that Sir David was coming down from Coventry late in the afternoon to stay with them for the night and see them off.

  They took a taxi to Hythe; Ross took them into the hangar and showed them the machine, standing upon its beaching wheels before the open doors, ready for flight. “There she is,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’ll get her pushed out to the slipway.”

  He went off to find the foreman. The girl stared at the seaplane, the first she had ever seen. It was certainly an arresting sight. It was painted a vivid orange colour all over, wings and fuselage, relieved only by the dead-black registration letters. It was so bright it almost hurt the eyes to look at it.

  Alix turned to her father. “Daddy,” she said, “it’s awful! Whatever made you have it that appalling colour?”

  “I never said a word about the colour,” he replied. He hesitated uncomfortably. “It certainly is very bright.”

  “It’s simply terrible. I suppose that’s his idea of what looks nice—he probably thought we’d like it. Do you think we can get it changed? We can’t go round looking like a circus.”

  A squad of men began to push the seaplane out; Ross came back to them. “Like it?” he asked cheerfully.

  The don said mildly: “It’s rather a conspicuous colour.”

  The pilot nodded, still cheerful. “The most conspicuous one there is, on any background. You’d see that ten miles away.”

  The girl said irritably: “I don’t know that we want to be quite so conspicuous as that, Mr. Ross.”

  The pilot said patiently: “I had it that colour on purpose, Miss Lockwood. It’s the best colour of all for a job like this. If anything happens to us and we have to land, they’ll send out a search party for us—either by land or in another aeroplane. That colour shows up like a flame, on any background—snow, or trees, or grass, or water. It’s saved dozens of lives, that colour has.”

  Lockwood looked at it with new interest. “That’s very sensible,” he said. “I should never have thought of that.”

  Alix said nothing. In theory, she had known what she was in for; she had known that there were elements of danger in the flight, and she was not afraid of them. What was good enough for her father was good enough for her. At the same time, it was a new idea to her that the colour of the paint might mean for her the difference between living and enjoying life, and dying in the wilderness. It made her thoughtful. It was in a milder tone that she said to Ross:

  “It’s only got one wing. Is that as good as having two?”

  The pilot nodded. “It’s a monoplane,” he said. “As aircraft go, it’s a very good machine. Your uncle insisted on your having the best I could get.”

  “I know. I suppose that’s why it’s costing such a lot of money.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “You can’t get something for nothing.”

  He helped them up into the cabin and showed them the rather cramped accommodation. A good deal of the space was occupied by a large petrol tank; with the tank and the three seats there was only just room for their sleeping-bags, emergency rations, mooring and refuelling gear. The welded tubes of the structure stood bare and stark to the interior of the cabin, innocent of any trimming or upholstery.

  “It all looks very workmanlike,” said Lockwood at last. He stared at the array of instruments before the pilot, at the grey boxes of the wireless by his elbow.

  “It’s a good machine,” said Ross. “I never saw a better one for the job.”

  The girl stared round the cabin, and said nothing. It seemed to her like sitting in the engine-room of a ship, or on the footplate of a locomotive. So far as she had thought about it at all, she had imagined that the aeroplane would be like a saloon car, or like a first-class carriage in a railway train. She had never travelled on an air line, but she knew that they were like that. This was very different. She would have to sit upon a little air cushion with a bare metal tank containing a hundred and fifty gallons of petrol at her elbow, already smelling strongly, filling the cabin with its tang. Everything she touched was bare metal, new and shining, slightly oily, and rather smelly. Clustered around the pilot’s seat immediately in front of her there was a vast array of dials and little handles, forty or fifty little things, perhaps. She did not know the name, or the function, or the purpose of one of them.

  For the first time she began to realise what this expedition meant to her. She was stepping from the world she knew into a world of different values. For the first time she appreciated the weight of what her uncle had said to her in Oxford. On this trip she would be adverse to its success; she knew nothing of what had to be done, or how it could be achieved.

  “It all looks very nice,” she said at last, a little weakly.

  Ross settled them in their seats, and
saw that they were comfortable. Then he had the machine pushed to the head of the slipway. She started with a hand inertia starter; he had chosen that method rather than risk exhaustion of the batteries by electric starting. With run-down batteries they would have inefficient wireless; with inefficient wireless they might be in danger.

  He knelt upon the pilot’s seat awkwardly in the confined space, fitted the crank and began grinding away at the flywheel. By the time it was spinning sweat was pouring off him, that hot summer afternoon. The girl sat and watched him labouring at the crank, almost on top of her; she had not imagined it would be like this. The hum of the flywheel rose to a high whine; the pilot stopped cranking suddenly, pulled a little handle on the instrument board. The propeller in front of her started to revolve, the engine burst into life, and the airscrew was lost to sight. The pilot took out the crank and stowed it behind his seat, wiping his forehead.

  He smiled at her. “I shan’t be sorry when we get up North,” he said.

  “It looks terribly hot work.”

  Lockwood said: “You must teach me how to do that. I could give you a hand turning that thing, anyway.”

  “It’s not so bad,” said Ross. “Take it easily, and it goes all right.”

  He slipped into his seat, and sat for a few minutes warming up his engine. He showed them the oil pressure and temperature gauges, and explained what he was doing. The don was able to follow what he said; the girl sat watching the little needles move under the glasses without understanding. She sat silent, feeling rather lost.

  The pilot signalled to the ground crew and the seaplane was eased down the slipway. She took the water and floated for a few minutes while the men in waders cleared the beaching trolley; then Ross opened his throttle a little and moved out over the water. Lockwood was in the seat beside him, watching his movements with interest, asking a question now and then. Behind him the girl sat stiff and rigid, worried and alert.