Inherit the Skies (65 page)

‘So – the Atlantic has been conquered then. Well, I can't say I am surprised. They have been practically lined up in Newfoundland to try to be the first for weeks now.'

‘I dare say we should be drinking to Alcock and Brown, but I haven't the heart to. I am too damned envious, truth to tell. I only wish it could have been me,' Eric admitted.

‘And who knows, perhaps it might have been if we hadn't decided to commit ourselves to starting an airline instead,' Gilbert said. ‘I'm sure one of Max's planes would have had just as good a chance as any of the other contenders.'

Eric nodded, recalling the other serious attempts that had been made in the last few weeks. Harry Hawker had been the first to set out in one of Tom Sopwith's machines but he and his mechanic, Mackenzie-Grieve, had been forced to ditch in the sea and had been missing for a week, feared lost, as the Danish tramp steamer which had picked them up had no radio and was unable to report the rescue. Then A V Roe's test pilot, Fred Raynham, had made the attempt, taking off just an hour after Harry Hawker. But he had been caught in a crosswind on take off, his undercarriage had collapsed, and that was the end of that attempt. But now Jack Alcock and Arthur Whitten-Brown had done it, landing in an Irish bog and astonishing the soldiers who found them by claiming to have come from America. At first the soldiers had laughed, then, realising it was no joke, they had begun to cheer.

Eric, however, in spite of his admiration, did not feel like cheering. The Atlantic crossing was one more ‘first' achieved – and one less still to be claimed. Eric longed to do something to write himself into the record books – and he had an idea which might enable him to do it and perhaps give the embryonic airline, Condor Airways, a boost of publicity at the same time.

‘I'd like to have a go at setting some record or other,' he said now. ‘And if I could time it to coincide with the launch of the airline then the press would be that much more keen to give us coverage. Perhaps you might think it sounds cheap but from my days in the ballooning business I believe publicity is invaluable.'

Gilbert smiled wryly. ‘You don't have to tell me that. To be honest, I think you have got something, Eric. Max's prototype will soon be ready for a test flight and if there are not too many modifications to be made we could have the first airliner in service before the year is out. But I doubt we are the only ones with such an idea and I have a feeling it will become a cut-throat business before long. We need every advantage we can get if we are to survive.' He paused, sipping his drink, then asked: ‘ What Exactly did you have in mind? An east to west crossing of the Atlantic?'

Eric shook his head. ‘The reason the crossing was made west to east was to take advantage of the tail winds. East to west would be much more difficult but to the majority of lay folk it would be just another Atlantic crossing. If we want to capture the imagination I believe we should go for something quite different.'

‘I take your point. Well, since such a flight would be advertising for our aeroplanes as well as publicity for the airline perhaps we should be looking towards a country where we have some hope of selling our wares. Before the war we were demonstrating all over the world – India, Malaya, South Africa. Any of those could provide a market place.' He paused, looking at Eric narrowly. ‘It would be a long haul, of course, and would make Alcock and Brown's sixteen and a half hours look like a pleasure flip. You would be lucky to do a trip like that in less than a month by the time you put down for refuelling and any running repairs along the way. How would you feel about leaving Sarah for so long?'

‘I left her for a good deal longer than that in the war.'

‘This isn't the war though, Eric. Then it was unavoidable. This would be from choice.'

Eric was silent for a moment. He could scarcely tell Gilbert that sometimes he wished it was still war time when he had indeed been able to pretend that his separations from Sarah were inevitable. Since they had returned to some semblance of normal life he had become increasingly aware that all was not well between them. They did not quarrel, Sarah was never anything but a dutiful wife, yet there was a distance between them which he found distressing. Perhaps it had come about as a result of Stephen's death, perhaps it was rooted deeper. Sometimes he wondered if it had always been the same only he had been too blinded by love to see it.

‘If I don't get on and do it fairly soon Sarah will probably beat me to it!' he said with a smile. ‘She is enjoying her flying lessons far too much for my liking and I don't need to tell you about her spirit of adventure. Just think what a stir it would cause for a
woman
to fly from one continent to another! No, I'm game to attempt anything – and the sooner the better!'

‘Good.' Gilbert fetched the brandy bottle to replenish both his glass and Eric's. ‘Well, if it were left to me I'd whittle it down to a choice of two. Australia or South Africa. We are in with a chance of selling aeroplanes to either – or both. Australia is further, but I believe their government is offering a substantial prize to the first Australians to make the flight. You wouldn't qualify for that – but it might be possible to steal some of their thunder.'

‘True. But on the whole I think I favour South Africa.'

Gilbert drained his glass. He felt like celebrating.

‘Perhaps I should ask Max to have a look at any special refinements that might be necessary for such a trip – adapting the aircraft for higher temperatures than usual, for instance, or altitude. This would be an ideal time for him to do it, whilst he's kicking his heels waiting for the prototype airliner to come off the line.' He broke off as a telephone jangled in the outer office. ‘Who can that be at this time of night? Dammit, I told Hazel she could go half an hour ago.'

‘Do you want me to answer it?' Eric asked.

‘No, it's bound to be for me. Probably Rose to make sure I'll be home for dinner …' He broke off, looking slightly puzzled at his own slip of the tongue.
Rose
? Why had he said
Rose
? Rose had been dead these twenty years. Perhaps he was drinking more brandy than he should. He put his glass down hastily and went to answer the telephone.

Left alone Eric crossed to the cabinet and surreptitiously refilled his own glass. He had scarcely noticed Gilbert's slip, he was far too excited by the conversation they had just had. If he could be the first man to pilot an aeroplane from England to South Africa that really would be something!

There was a globe on a stand in a corner of the office; he spun it so as to find both England and South Africa and then ran a line from one to the other, plotting a course. Across the Channel, France and the Mediterranean, then south across the African continent …

He heard Gilbert re-enter the office and glanced up, ready to describe the route he would suggest, and was alarmed to see how pale and shocked the older man looked.

‘What's wrong?' he asked.

‘Sarah and Adam.' His voice was expressionless. ‘They have crashed.'

‘
What
?'

‘Oh, it's all right. They aren't hurt. But they lost a propeller. A propeller! Good God, just wait until I find out who was responsible for checking that plane over before they left! I'll have him out of my works so fast his feet won't touch the ground. They could have been killed, Eric!'

‘Where are they now?'

‘Somewhere in Worcestershire. That was Adam on the telephone. He wants us to send a couple of mechanics and a lorry for the wreckage first thing in the morning. Of course there is nothing we can do until then … except find out what damn fool was in charge of the maintenance …'

He broke off, passing a trembling hand over his forehead, and Eric realised just how much this had upset him.

‘There's no point in trying to apportion blame until we know what went wrong,' he said reasonably. ‘ These things can happen for all kinds of reasons. Now – would you like me to take you home? You look pretty shaken up to me.'

‘No, no, I'll be all right,' Gilbert assured him. ‘But what about you? Would you like to come to Chewton Leigh for dinner? Otherwise it looks as if you will be in for a solitary evening meal.'

Eric grimaced, displeased by the thought that Sarah was alone somewhere in Worcestershire with Adam – and would be all night. But since she could so easily have been killed he decided that was a churlish thought. He should be counting his blessings.

‘That is a very kind offer, Gilbert,' he said. ‘I think I will take you up on it.'

The private dining-room at the village inn was small and dark – one of its two windows, bricked up at the time of the poll tax, had never been opened up again and since the remaining one faced east it caught none of the setting sun. But the landlord had lighted the oil lamps, one on the window ledge, one on a dresser, and they cast a soft golden glow to warm the fading light.

At the table closest to the window Adam and Sarah sat eating a meal of beefsteak pie, carrots and tiny new potatoes. They were the only diners – the Apple Tree Inn was hardly a mecca for travellers, buried as it was along with the rest of the hamlet in a fold of the Worcestershire hills, but they were glad to be alone at last. There had been too many questions and explanations – first to the irate farmer, then to a horde of villagers who had never encountered an aeroplane before and who treated them with an awe which suggested they thought they had come not from Somerset but from the moon, and lastly to the landlord of the Apple Tree and the woman at the tiny post office from which Adam had eventually managed to put through a telephone call to Gilbert. It had all been trying, to say the least, and the atmosphere around the table was somewhat less than cordial.

‘So they are coming for us tomorrow then,' Sarah said.

‘I already told you that'

‘Did they say what time?'

‘No.'

‘What time do you think it will be?'

‘I really couldn't say. It depends what time they set out.'

‘And Gilbert gave you no idea at all?'

‘None.'

‘Oh, I wish had spoken to him. At least then I would know what is happening.'

‘You could have if you had taken the trouble to come with me to find a telephone.'

‘But Adam, we had already walked miles. All the way from the cornfield to the farmhouse and then the farmhouse to the village. If I had gone another step I'd have dropped.'

‘The Post Office is only just around the corner.'

‘Yes, but I was dying to have a wash – the dust from the corn was making me itch all over.'

‘Stop complaining then. You can't have it all ways. Besides you would only have complicated matters by wanting to talk to Eric too.'

‘Was he there then?'

‘Apparently.'

‘You didn't tell me that.'

‘You didn't ask.'

‘It never occurred to me.' She put down her knife and fork. ‘Why are you being so horrid and snappy, Adam?'

‘I'm not.'

‘You are. You can't hear yourself. You said it wasn't my fault we crashed – so why are you taking it out on me now?'

He made no reply, simply shovelled steak pie into his mouth and washed it down with cold foamy beer. He could hardly tell her the truth, he thought, that the prospect of spending the night alone with her under the same roof was almost unbearable, even if they were in separate rooms. Those rooms were too damned close for comfort, next door to one another along the slanting passageway at the top of the old inn. And in spite of the thick walls, when he had returned from telephoning he had been able to hear her quite clearly splashing water in the jug and basin. There must be a connecting door through which sound travelled clearly and the intimacy of it was another irritation to his already frayed nerves. As if it wasn't bad enough to be forced into her company day after day, now this. Christ, was there no end to the torture of it? He could hardly believe that at his age one woman could stir him so – but she did.

He drained his glass. ‘I'm going for a walk.'

‘A walk! I should have thought we'd walked far enough today.'

‘I want to clear my head.'

She pushed back her chair. ‘All right, I'll come with you.'

He spun round, bringing his fist down on the table with a thud. ‘Christ, woman, can't you see I want to be alone? And don't stand there looking as if you don't know what I'm talking about, because you damned well do!'

‘I don't know! What's wrong with you?'

‘Very well.' He faced her. She had never seen him quite like this before. He usually took things so calmly. Now the layers of self-control were peeled away and the anger in his face frightened her. ‘I have had just about as much as I can take of your games, Sarah. It might seem like fun to you to be married to one man and lead another on but I assure you that way lies certain trouble.'

‘I don't know what you mean!' Her heart was beating very fast, pulses echoing in her throat and at her temples.

‘Oh yes you do. Don't pretend. Ever since I have known you you have been leading me on. We were going to be married once, if you remember, before you toddled off and wed someone else.'

‘Because Alicia was going to see you and Max cut off without a penny.'

‘So you say.'

‘It's true. It's true!'

‘Next I find you with Hugh and you give me another highly coloured story maligning the poor fellow. Then when you think you have me in your pocket again it is time for the protestations of the faithful little wife trying to do her duty by her husband. Yet even then the game is not over. I suppose it has become too much fun. You lead me on yet again then tell me it was all a mistake, that sort of thing happens in war time. But still not prepared to let me off the hook you continually flaunt yourself in front of me.'