No Highway (18 page)

“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 bloodhounds 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 laid, “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 laid he wasn’t, and I g
ot
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 maybe 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?”