The Atlantic Sky (20 page)

She sighed, and touched her smooth hair lovingly. ‘There’d be something
rather
wonderful,’ she murmured, as though unwilling to let the subject go easily, ‘about a man like Prentice...’
,
she looked at her face in her handbag mirror, ‘... breaking his heart...’
,
she brought out a little bottle of cologne and dabbed behind her ears, ‘... for a girl like me...’

She was aware of a sudden silence in the confined space behind the counter of Bay Number Three. She glanced impatiently at Patsy. Then she looked more closely. A small smile just curled her soft red lips. It grew wider and then wider. ‘While all the time...’ she began, and then, pacifically, ‘Oh well, never mind.’

She stood on tiptoe as the Tannoy requested the passengers for Flight 401/45 of World-Span Airways to Montreal to report to Bay Number Three. ‘Here come the customers ... good morning, sir!’ She smiled sweetly. ‘May I have your ticket and your passport? Thank you.’ And as she bent her dark head over t
h
e two documents, she was humming very softly under her breath, with a sideways flicker of her eyes at Patsy,
Lover come back to me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was just getting dark when Captain Maynard took the New York service out from London Airport into the cool pink-and-blue-grey tranquillity of the western sky. The last light of the dying sun burnished the silver belly of Astroliner Able Peter, piped a thin gilt line along the leading edges of her wings, and, as they climbed on course, turned the port windows into a string of outsize pink beads.

Somewhere, Patsy thought, looking out of the rear starboard porthole, down among the thickening snowfall of white lights of outer London, Miss Fairways would be hurrying home to put last-minute touches to her party preparations, Janet would be starting her long thrice-weekly letter to Geoff, Cynthia would be going back to Mrs. Waterhouse’s after her stand-by.

And a thousand (or perhaps two thousand) miles away, out in the Atlantic sky, but heading east for home, Astroliner Easy Mike commanded by Captain Prentice would pass them, a little above, or a little below them, unseen, as though their world and his world were as far apart as the North Star from the Southern Cross.

When they got into Kennedy Airport, it was about six o’clock, New York time. New York was going home with a caravan of cars in lines of three and four to the commuting areas from the city centre, and the salty, dusty, river-smelling air was full of the incessant noise of blaring horns.

And the clamour and the impatience and the itch to be on and away was somehow in keeping with Patsy’s mood. It was as though she couldn’t wait to see the glamour of the city. She hadn’t time to see the graceful sweep of the East River, the oriental brooding of the skyscrapers along the Manhattan skyline, the excitement of the huge ocean-going liners, held fast in their berths along the dockside. She wanted to be on that aircraft, and back home again, just as fast as those engines would carry her.

When Cynthia landed the next day, Patsy had done her shopping (she was still an inveterate and incurable present-giver) and was sitting dreamily looking out at the traffic along Lexington Avenue.

‘You look miz,’ Cynthia commented, walking into Patsy’s room and flinging her cap on the bed. ‘Are you?’

Patsy shook her head without taking her eyes from a black-and-white checked taxi-cab that was trying to crowd another car off the road.

‘I saw Captain Prentice just as we took off...’ Cynthia nodded, looking at her friend with a sideways birdy look of enquiry.

There was no answer.

‘He looked miz too,’ Cynthia volunteered cheerfully. She drew a deep breath and murmured, ‘Oh, for a shower!’ And then said softly, ‘Could there be the remotest possible connection?’

‘No.’

‘Turn round, poppet, there’s a good girl! I love the way your hair curls so nicely round the back of your head ... but I can’t tell a thing from it. That’s better.’ She put her hands on her lips and smiled. ‘There now,’ she said. ‘Positively no connection?’

Patsy said nothing.

‘All right, my child, I don’t want to poke my fine long nose in ... especially where it isn’t wanted.’ There was a moment’s pause. Softly, far below them, the hum of the New York traffic, punctuated by the harsh discord of the blaring horns, went on in its endless monotone.

‘There
was
just one other thing,’ Cynthia went on diffidently, picking up her cap and fingering the metal badge thoughtfully.

‘I’m listening.’

‘It isn’t anything to do with Bill Maynard?’

‘Of course it isn’t!’ Patsy laughed. A stray shaft of sunlight coming in the window behind her caught and turned to gold the soft auburn hair. For a moment, she looked very young and happy and carefree.

‘That of course not,’ Cynthia said soberly,
‘really
sounded like of course not.’

‘Because,’ Patsy said, still smiling, ‘it really
meant
of course not.’

‘Not like the other no you said a few minutes ago ... the one to do with Captain Prentice.’

Patsy’s smiled faded. She looked down at her hands folded in her lap.

‘That,’ Cynthia went on, ‘sounded like—I don’t think so, but—’ She walked ov
e
r to the window and leaned against the hot-water radiator. 'She tapped her heels against the metal pipes for a moment and then she said, ‘Remember Janet?’

‘Of course.’

‘And Geoff?’

‘Well, naturally.’

‘Remember what you used to say to me in the days of our youth about four months ago ... that they were always quarrelling, that they didn’t even seem to like each other?’ Patsy nodded.

‘And what did that intelligent woman called Cynthia Waring say to that ... don’t tell me you’ve forgotten
that
sage’s words of wisdom? I’ll remind you. She said
you’ll learn, poor poppet, you’ll learn.
And now,’ she put a firm but gentle hand on Patsy’s shoulder, ‘if my acutely active sixth sense doesn’t deceive me, you, my child, are learning!’

‘The hard way,’ Patsy said, and half smiled. Then she drew a deep breath. ‘But you’re not
quite
right, Cynthia. A bit right and a bit wrong...’

‘Everyone is when it comes to someone else’s love life,’ Cynthia said weightily.

‘You see, if there
had
been anything to learn, like Janet and Geoff, it’s all over now. You see,’ and her candid blue eyes clouded over, ‘I ... I ... quarrelled...’ her voice shook at the enormity of her offence, ‘... with
him.’

‘Did you now?’ Cynthia said cheerfully. She patted Patsy’s shoulder. ‘A medal should be struck in your honour, girl! Did he eat you up?’

‘No.’

‘Did he seize you by the hair of your head?’

‘No.’

‘Did he clap you in irons?’

‘No.’

‘Then that,’ Cynthia said, throwing up her hands in a gesture of absolute finality, ‘is love.’

‘But it’s
not.’
said Patsy. ‘And anyway, if it had been once, it’s much too late. He’ll never speak to me again ... I may never see him again, the roster being what it is...’

‘And,’ Cynthia straightened up as though the whole subject was now properly cleared up, ‘Captain Prentice being what he is, if he wants to see you ... quarrels!’, she snapped her fingers in the air, ‘
Pouff
... and the roster,’ she snapped her fingers in the air again,
‘Pouff
to that, too ... rain, hail or shine,’ she snapped her fingers for the third and final time,
‘Pouff
to them too!’

Patsy smiled quite cheerfully. Then another thought struck her. ‘We don’t,’ she suggested soberly, ‘know that he wants to.’

Cynthia turned her eyes up to the ceiling. This,’ she said, picking up her hat, ‘was where I came in!’

And for the rest of Patsy’s stay in New York, the subject of the Training Captain wasn’t mentioned. Patsy and Cynthia did another round of the shops because Cynthia wanted to buy a new dress, and then Captain Maynard invited them both to a film at Radio City, but Patsy (who was beginning at last to acquire a little of Cynthia’s sixth sense) pleaded a lot of packing to do, and watched the two of them go off happily together without needing over-much persuasion.

She was beginning to think that such might well be her place in the scheme of things, when the aircraft took off eastbound to London—the role of introducing her friends to nice young men. But she hadn’t much time to pursue this theory, because they had a full load of passengers and an evening take-off, which meant that she had to serve tea and dinner to everyone within the first hour and a half.

Just two hours out of Kennedy, Patsy walked down the aisle and tucked the last blanket round the last wakeful passenger. ‘Should be a nice calm night,’ she said to the old lady. ‘Look how clear it is!’ and she pointed out to the moonlit sky, at the red navigation light moving as steady as a pencil tip across the silvered slate of the night. Then, satisfied that everyone was comfortable, she made the tea, brought out the ham sandwiches and a pile of biscuits, and pushed open the door to the flight deck.

For once, Bill Maynard didn’t smile at her.

‘Put it down,’ he said curtly. ‘We’ll have it in a minute.’ She saw that over his shoulder he was watching the engineer’s instrument panel. ‘Is Number One oil pressure still going down, Mr. Barnes?’

‘Still going down, sir.’

Patsy looked from one to the other. In the bluish light, their faces were only vague outlines, telling her nothing. Then she looked at the glowing phosphorescent faces of the engine instruments.

The needle on one of them was moving slowly downwards. Fascinated, she watched it. Then crisply, calmly, Bill Maynard said, ‘Check Number One, Mr. Barnes.’

The engineer’s big hand came out and pressed a large red button in front of him.

‘Number One going, sir,’ he said.

Patsy followed their eyes. The wings still held their course steadily against the sky. But out through the port window of the flight deck, she could see a sudden change in the appearance of the Number One jet, White vapour poured out, then alarming-looking black—then nothing.

Beside the still Number One, Number Two, its partner on the port wing, continued untroubled. But Patsy was suddenly terribly afraid. It was the first time in all the months she’d been flying that there had been any mechanical trouble in flight. As she looked out now in the moonlight, the dead engine seemed to throw out its arms to the sky for help. Down below them, somewhere beneath the soft carpet of stratus, were the two thousand miles of icy Atlantic water.

‘Passengers asleep?’ Bill Maynard asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

Then he turned to the Navigation Officer and asked for the latest position.

‘If they do wake, don’t say anything. If they notice it’—he jerked his head out towards the port wing—‘tell them exactly the truth. It’s packed up,’ he smiled up at her. ‘You know what that means?’

Patsy withdrew her eyes from the frightening, fascinating spectacle of the useless engine, and forced her mind to concentrate. ‘It’s not working, but the other three can still take the strain.’

Bill Maynard nodded. ‘And impress on them’—but really he was telling her to remember—‘that an Astroliner flies almost as well on three as on four. Or on two for that matter. Remember a certain Miss Aylmer on a certain first training trip?’

Patsy smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’ She picked up her tray and turned to go back to the passenger cabin.

As she moved away from the pilots’ seats, Captain Maynard called back. ‘Got that position yet, Mr. Craigie?’

The navigator looked up from his calculations. ‘Thirty-three West, Captain. Just on the Point of No Return.’

Patsy was glad when it was time to take the next lot of tea up front. It was lonely at the back, being the only one in charge, it seemed, of these peacefully sleeping people, so blissfully unaware of the dead engine on the port wing.

And then, as she walked up the aisle with the laden tray, glancing out of one of the portholes at the useless jet, to her dismay she saw its next-door neighbour, as though suddenly hit by the same fatal illness, discharge black vapour. Patsy closed her eyes and then opened them again, to see if it was a trick of the glass or her own rather tired eyes. But it wasn’t.

Quietly, she opened the door to the flight deck, and said quite calmly, ‘Your tea, sir.’

‘I was just going to send for you. Anyone awake yet?’ And when Patsy shook her head, ‘We’ve had to cut out Number Two.’

‘I saw that as I came in.’ Rather frightened though she was, she could still feel detachedly pleased that her voice was quite cheerful, and that her hand when she gave the Captain his tea was perfectly steady.

‘She’s flying all right,’ Captain Maynard said, and drew a deep breath. ‘We’ve sent out an emergency call. We’re in touch ... they know where we are ... in case.’

Patsy closed her eyes for a moment. The last time there’d been an emergency call was up at Heron Field. She could feel the ice and the snow on her face, and the breathless anxiety of waiting for Captain Prentice to land. Then she said, and her voice was as easy and as conversational as thinking about Captain Prentice could make it, ‘If it wasn’t ... all right, I mean, sir ... we’d get some warning to get the passengers ready?’

Bill Maynard nodded. With an effort at lightness he said, ‘I’ll tell you in good time, if you’re going to get your feet wet.’

‘Then I’ll go back now, sir, in case any of them wakes.’ She gave the whole of the flight deck a sweet smile. Now that real danger was here, it didn’t seem as bad as it might have done. She wondered if Captain Prentice knew. He would, of course. They’d phone him from Operations, if he wasn’t already at the airport, starting the day’s training programme. Would he, after a little while, think, that’s Patsy Aylmer’s aircraft? And thinking it, would he feel any small part of the misery and anxiety that she had known at Heron Field?

She walked up to the flight deck and collected the dirty cups. It was heavy work for the two pilots. With a pang of sympathy, she saw the sweat on their faces, as they held the one-sided aircraft steady on course. Then she went back to the galley and opened a can of orange juice and made iced drinks and a fresh pot of tea.

Captain Maynard looked up at her gratefully. ‘Head winds now,’ he said. ‘As if we didn’t have enough!’ Only half powered, the heavy aircraft was being blown back by forty-mile-an-hour winds, dead on its nose.

Patsy looked around the flight deck. They all seemed such a small band to pit themselves against the Atlantic sky, with two of their engines gone, and what looked like a gale force wind blowing up. All the same, they weren’t alone. The Radio Officer’s headphones seemed to be filled with the continuous jabber of morse dots and dashes. She looked down at his table as she handed him his drink, and he turned and smiled up at her and pointed to plain language messages in his log.
S.S. Boston Bay altering course to 075 degrees. Estimate twenty miles south of your track 09.30Z.