Stephen Morris (2 page)

He entered the big hangar, talked to the mechanic, and walked over to have a look at the Avro. The man told him this was to be his machine. It looked in very fair condition, well kept and decently painted. He placed a hand on the lower plane; the fabric drummed taut beneath his fingers. The engine, he was told, was practically new; the whole machine looked smart and efficiently cared for. He was agreeably surprised; he had expected a far more ‘commercial’ state of affairs. He might have known that any machines of Riley’s would be in apple-pie order. Moreover, as he found later, a smart machine did better business than a dirty one.

He examined the machine carefully, feeling queerly light-hearted. He had not flown at all for eighteen months, and it was long before that that he had last flown an Avro. He called the mechanic over, and they lifted the tail of the machine on to a trestle till it was in the flying position. Then the man went back to his work; Morris climbed up on to the lower plane and lowered himself into the pilot’s seat.

It was all just as he remembered it. Avros never seemed to change. It was a wonderful design; originated in 1913 it had remained unaltered all through the war as a training machine, and as such it retained the front rank to the present day. The rapidly dying rotary engine still lingered on, chiefly because the Avro had a rotary engine; the machine atoning for the defects inherent in the engine.

Morris slipped his feet into the stirrups on the rudder bar, fingered the stick, and stared ahead of him. He could fly this machine. Here on the ground, trestled up into the position she would be in when flying, she felt just right. The seat was right for him, neither too high nor too low; his legs were not cramped; he had a good view. The wings stretched out on each side of him, solid and friendly and familiar. He was all right in this machine, could fly her all day - as, indeed, he would have to. He sat on in her, daydreaming; he was back in aviation at last, away from the humanities and all that they implied.

Presently he got out of the machine and walked back to the hut. He was hungry; it was after his usual teatime. He found a pot of jam and some bread and made a satisfactory meal. Then he lit a cigarette and walked back along the wide, deserted roads to the hangar. The mechanic was shaping a new tail-skid.

‘We always keep one on ’em in reserve,’ he said. ‘Mr Riley bust one the day before yesterday.’

‘Where was that?’ asked Morris. ‘On this aerodrome?’

‘Just out there,’ said the man, and walked to the door. ‘You see that big bush in the hedge over the far side there? Well, there’s a ridge runs right away from there to that corner. You want to be careful of that when you’re coming in of an evening, especially with a bit of north in the wind, you know, or you’ll land right on it.’

‘Mr Riley did that?’

The mechanic nodded, and glanced up at the streamer on the flagstaff. ‘North to north-east - nor-nor-east - you want to watch that.’ He turned and walked back towards his bench. ‘There’s worse things happen at sea nor that,’ he remarked inconsequently. Morris laughed, and strolled out a little way on to the aerodrome to examine it for himself.

He was back in aviation again.

He made a circuit of the aerodrome and returned to the hangars, seated himself on a pile of lumber, and produced a pipe.

And then, as the evening drew on, came the complement to the scene, the wide aerodrome and the great white hangars. Somewhere far away he caught a faint hum, rising and dying away, and rising again more distinctly. He got up, and looked into the distance between the hangars. Presently he caught sight of the machine, far away, threadlike against the sunset.

He called to the mechanic. ‘Who’s this coming in from the west?’

‘Oh, ay,’ said the man, ‘that’ll be Mr Stenning coming in first then.’ He came out and stood by Morris to watch the machine land.

The machine came swiftly to the aerodrome, not very high, the note of the engine rising evenly and true. The pilot made a wide sweep to the south and turned into the wind with a vertical bank and a flash of light from his planes in the sunset, switched off his engine, and came in to land. Morris watched tensely; he would not have believed it possible that the sight could move him so. His hair seemed to bristle with a sense of adventure; he moistened his lips and dug his nails into his palms. His spirits rose like a great crescendo in music; he was back, back in aviation again.

He had not known how much he wanted to be back. He was keen on nothing else.

The machine slipped lightly down over the hedge with two sudden little growls from the engine as the pilot lengthened out his glide. Then she settled to the aerodrome and skimmed lightly over the grass, perhaps two feet up, the pilot holding her off the ground till the last moment. Then he put her down; she touched, undulated gently in a vertical plane, ran along with her tail down, slowed, swayed, and turned towards the
hangar. A small figure, the clerk who had been with him to take the money, jumped out and ran to a wing tip to help the machine on the turn; she taxied slowly to the hangar.

‘Lands her nicely, don’t he?’ said the mechanic.

‘Yes,’ said Morris, ‘he lands her well.’

He taxied her up to the hangar. Morris watched for him to stop, but he went on. The great sliding doors were open, and he taxied the machine right inside, managing her cleverly with little bursts of engine at crucial moments. Not till the machine was well inside and berthed alongside the other one with the help of the clerk did he switch off and allow the engine to come to rest. Morris watched, interested, wondering if he could have done that so easily on a rotary-engined machine. Evidently it was a trick that had to be picked up on this work.

‘Very pretty,’ he said.

‘He always does that,’ said the man, ‘saves a terrible lot of handling. There’s none too many of us.’

The pilot jumped down from the machine and came towards Morris; a small, broad-shouldered man with a big chin, in a dirty pair of tweed breeches and gaiters.

‘Mr Morris?’ he said. ‘My name’s Stenning.’ Morris made the usual greetings; the little man unbuckled his leather helmet. ‘Mr Riley told you how things are here?’

Morris nodded.

‘Things aren’t going so badly as they were,’ said Stenning. ‘It’s no use denying we had a bad winter - worse than we counted on.’

‘Have a fag,’ suggested Morris.

‘Thanks.’ He took a long look at the sky. ‘It still holds,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think it was going to this morning. Of course,’ he added casually, ‘this extra machine will make a difference in the profits. Riley said there wasn’t enough work for three machines - nor there is. But what I said
to him - what I said to him was that we shan’t have three machines. One will usually be in dock for overhaul while the other two carry on. I told him, it means we can keep an efficient service with two machines. And not only that - not only that, I said - there are the incidental passengers, the people who come up here and want a ride and we’re both away. Those are the important people, too; the people who come and look you up are the people who want a ride, or who want a machine for an hour. That’s what I said to him; we want a third man so that one of us can be on the spot most days … ’

‘I see,’ said Morris. ‘Do you get much special charter work?’

The other glanced at him shrewdly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Between you and me, we don’t. It’s been a great disappointment that - a great disappointment to both of us. We’ve only had one real charter since Easter; a man called Simpson whose wife started dying in Manchester one Sunday morning - I got him there in about three hours. But that’s the only one,’ he added impressively, ‘- the only one since Easter.’

‘I suppose you depend on that rather in the winter. Try and work it up when joy-riding’s slack?’

‘Try hard enough,’ said Stenning grimly, ‘the people just don’t come. Cut our prices for long distances to rock bottom - too low I say. The people don’t come and we don’t make any profit to speak of on the ones that do … ’

He spat a little fragment of tobacco from his lip. ‘It’s been a great disappointment, that side of it,’ he repeated. ‘Riley says it needs more advertising and boom than we can afford. I don’t know about that - he does all that side of it. All I know is that we don’t get the business. Of course, the joy-riding pays all right in the warm weather.’

He entered on a string of admonitions, mostly concerned
with the upkeep of the machines and the method of picking up passengers with the least expenditure of time and petrol. Morris listened respectfully; the little man knew his business from end to end. Riley had chosen his partner well; a plain little man who knew his own limitations and who would work like a horse at the practical running of the business.

He was a great talker; he rambled on from one subject to another. Morris had been to the hut? They had thought it out when they started up in this business, and Riley had said it would be best if at first they lived like on Service, or more so. It cut the overhead charges. It suited them well enough. It had been a bit of luck getting this place. It had been quite empty when they came; they fixed up to rent it from the farmer on whose ground it stood, who could get nothing out of the Air Ministry for it. It had been put on his land during the war and just left there. They paid a very low rent. The farmer grazed cattle on the aerodrome; one had to watch them when taking off or landing. Riley said they had no legal tenure here at all. Six weeks after they had come, a caretaker had arrived and reported that they were there. There had been a little fuss about it at first, but the Air Ministry had not gone to the length of evicting them. Riley said that so long as they paid rent to the farmer and the Air Ministry didn’t, they were all right - unless the Air Ministry took away the buildings. He (Stenning) didn’t know much about the Law. He thought the Air Ministry didn’t want to bust up a company that was doing good work. Anyway, they had been there just over a year now, and nothing had happened.

Then a low hum from the north announced the other machine. Riley came in low over their heads and waved a hand as he passed, went to the south of the aerodrome, turned into the wind, and put the machine down just
outside the hangars. He, too, taxied into the hangar, assisted by Stenning and the mechanic.

They closed the great sliding doors and walked back to the hut. Presently a hot meal made its appearance.

‘Didn’t do so badly today,’ said Riley. ‘You’ve got those Air Ministry licences, have you? The ones I wrote to you about.’

‘I got those,’ said Morris. ‘When do I start work? I’d like half an hour or so on the machine before going out - I never did more than five hours or so on the Avros, and that was years ago.’

‘You’ve seen your machine?’ asked Riley. ‘Oh well, you’d better stay at home tomorrow. Have an hour or so in the air, brushing up short landings, particularly. It’s easy enough work. Then if anyone comes up and wants a flight, you can take them up. They’re always doing that, and it’s awkward when we’re all away.’ He paused. ‘Did you use the car?’

‘Yes,’ said Morris. ‘That gear’s nothing serious. The gate’s shifted a bit - it’s all loose.’

‘Is that all?’ said Riley. He yawned sleepily. ‘It only happened yesterday - I must see about it some time. Or if you’re at home tomorrow you might see if you can do anything, will you? If you find anything bust, get Peters - the chap in the hangar - and put him on to it. He’s all right, but he wants watching on any job he hasn’t done before. Let’s have supper.’

After supper he cleared the table and produced a small typewriter from a case and a bundle of letters. He set up the machine on the table and proceeded to answer the letters in rapid succession. Stenning settled down with a pipe and a novel.

‘Can I help at all with those?’ asked Morris.

‘Don’t think so, thanks,’ said Riley. ‘They don’t take long.’ He read another. ‘Stenning.’

Stenning looked up.

‘Town Council of Lymington got an annual fair and horse show on the fifteenth. That’s the place I went to alone last year and turned away more than I could take up - you remember. They offer us a field and two policemen.’

‘Wish other towns ’d do that.’

‘How many machines shall we send?’

‘Let’s send two, and t’other chap stay at home; then if we want him we can telephone for him, or he can go to Seaview or somewhere for the afternoon. And I say, why not put out a placard like we do for Bournemouth?’

‘What’s that?’ asked Morris.

‘Offer the seats in the machines going and coming back at rather reduced rates,’ said Riley. ‘We often manage to make the cost of sending the machine there and a bit over.’ He picked up the letter and read it again. ‘I think that’s best,’ he said, and began to type rapidly.

He looked up again presently. ‘Air Ministry want to know why we haven’t reported those centre section modifications yet. All the machines have got ’em, haven’t they? The front spar fittings, they were - three laminations instead of two to the wiring plate.’

‘Mine has,’ said Stenning.

There seemed to be nothing for Morris to do; he got up and went to the door of the hut. It was quite dark, and a fine, starry night. It was attractive outside; he put his head back inside the hut.

‘Be back in half an hour or so,’ he said, and vanished into the darkness.

Stenning took his pipe from his mouth.

‘Where’s he going?’ he inquired, surprised.

‘Dunno. He’s a queer bird.’

‘Well, that’s a funny thing, going off like that. It’s all dark out there. Anyone would think he had a date.’

Riley smiled. ‘He’s all right - he’s like that. I remember him in the Squadron. What d’you think of him?’

‘He’s all right,’ said Stenning, ‘if he can fly. I like him; we might have done a lot worse.’

‘Oh, he can fly all right,’ said Riley, and bent to his work.

Outside it was cool and fine. A fresh night breeze was blowing down Channel, bringing a tang of salt water with it. It had gone round a bit, Morris thought, and was now easterly, which should be a good sign for this part of the world. He glanced up and tried to see the ‘stocking’ but it was hidden in the darkness.