Night Over Water

CHAPTER SIX

As the train rolled south through the pine woods of Surrey toward Southampton, Margaret Oxenford’s sister, Elizabeth, made a shocking announcement.

The Oxenford family were in a special carriage reserved for Pan American Clipper passengers. Margaret was standing at the end of the carriage, alone, staring out of the window. Her mood swung wildly between black despair and rising excitement. She was angry and miserable to be abandoning her country in its hour of need, but she could not help feeling thrilled at the prospect of flying to America.

Her sister, Elizabeth, detached herself from the family group and came up to her, looking solemn. After a moment’s hesitation, she said: “I love you, Margaret.”

Margaret was touched. Over the last few years, since they had been old enough to understand the battle of ideas raging throughout the world, they had taken violently opposite points of view, and because of that, they had become estranged. But she had missed being close to her sister, and the estrangement made her sad. It would be wonderful if they could be real pals again. “I love you too,” she said, and she hugged Elizabeth hard.

After a moment Elizabeth said: “I’m not coming to America.”

Margaret gasped with astonishment. “How can you not?”

“I shall simply tell Mother and Father that I’m not going. I’m twenty-one—they can’t force me.”

Margaret was not sure her sister was right about that, but she let it pass for the moment: she had too many other questions. “Where will you go?”

“To Germany.”

“But, Elizabeth,” Margaret said, horrified, “you’ll get killed!”

Elizabeth looked defiant. “It’s not only socialists who are willing to die for a cause, you know.”

“But for Nazism!”

“It’s not just for Fascism,” Elizabeth said, and there was an odd light in her eye. “It’s for all the thoroughbred white people who are in danger of being swamped by niggers and half-breeds. It’s for the human race.”

Margaret was revolted. It was bad enough to be losing her sister—but to lose her to such a wicked cause! However, Margaret did not want to go over the bitter old political argument now: she was more concerned about her sister’s safety. She said: “What will you live on?”

“I’ve got my own money.”

Margaret remembered that they both inherited money from their grandfather at the age of twenty-one. It was not much, but it might be enough to live on.

She thought of something else. “But your luggage is checked through to New York.”

“Those cases are full of old tablecloths. I packed another set of bags and sent them ahead on Monday.”

Margaret was astonished. Elizabeth had arranged everything perfectly and carried out her scheme in total secrecy. Bitterly, Margaret reflected how impetuous and ill thought-out her own escape attempt had been by comparison. While I was brooding and refusing to eat, she thought, Elizabeth was booking passage and sending her luggage on ahead. Of course, Elizabeth was the right side of twenty-one and Margaret the wrong; but that had not counted as much as careful planning and cool execution. Margaret felt ashamed that her sister, who was so stupid and wrong about politics, had behaved so much more intelligently.

Suddenly she realized how she would miss Elizabeth. Although they were no longer great friends, Elizabeth was always around. Mostly they quarreled, and mocked one another’s ideas, but Margaret would miss that, too. And they still supported one another in distress. Elizabeth always suffered bad period pains, and Margaret would tuck her up in bed and bring her a cup of hot chocolate and Picture Post magazine. Elizabeth had been deeply sorry when Ian died, even though she disapproved of him, and she had been a comfort to Margaret. Tearfully, Margaret said: “I shall miss you dreadfully.”

“Don’t make a fuss,” Elizabeth said anxiously. “I don’t want them to know yet.”

Margaret composed herself. “When will you tell them?”

“At the last minute. Can you act normally until then?”

“All right.” She forced a bright smile. “I shall be as horrible as ever to you.”

“Oh, Margaret!” Elizabeth was on the point of tears. She swallowed and said: “Go and talk to them while I calm down.”

Margaret squeezed her sister’s hand, then returned to her seat.

Mother was leafing through Vogue magazine and reading occasional paragraphs to Father, oblivious of his complete lack of interest. “ ‘Lace is being worn,’ ” she quoted, adding: “I haven’t noticed, have you?” The fact that she got no reply did not discourage her in the least. “ ‘White is glamour color number one.’ Well, I don’t like it. White makes me look kind of bilious.”

Father was wearing an unbearably smug expression. He was pleased with himself, Margaret knew, for reasserting his parental authority and crushing her rebellion. But he did not know that his elder daughter had planted a time bomb.

Would Elizabeth have the pluck to go through with this? It was one thing to tell Margaret and quite another to tell Father. Elizabeth might lose her nerve at the last minute. Margaret herself had planned a confrontation with him, but had ducked it in the end.

Even if Elizabeth went ahead and told Father, it was not certain that she would escape. She might be twenty-one and have her own money, but he was fearfully strong-willed and quite ruthless about getting his own way. If he could think of some means of stopping Elizabeth he would, Margaret felt sure. He might not mind her joining the Fascist side, in principle, but he would be furious that she was refusing to go along with his plans for the family.

Margaret had been in many such fights with Father. He had been furious when she learned to drive without his permission; and when he found out she had gone to hear a speech by Marie Stopes, the controversial pioneer of contraception, he had been apoplectic. But on those occasions she had succeeded only by going behind his back. She had never won in a direct conflict. He had refused to let her go on a camping holiday, at the age of sixteen, with her cousin Catherine and several of Catherine’s friends, even though the whole thing was supervised by a vicar and his wife: Father had objected because there would be boys as well as girls. Their biggest battle had been over going to school. She had begged and pleaded, screamed and sobbed and sulked, and he had been stonily implacable. “School is wasted on girls,” he had said. “They only grow up and get married.”

But he could not go on bullying and bossing his children forever, could he?

Margaret felt restless. She stood up and walked along the carriage, just for something to do. Most of the other Clipper passengers seemed to share her dual mood, half excited and half depressed. When they all joined the train at Waterloo Station, there had been a good deal of lively conversation and laughter. They had checked their baggage at Waterloo: there had been a fuss about Mother’s steamer trunk, which exceeded the weight limit many times over, but she had blithely ignored everything the Pan American staff said, and eventually the trunk had been accepted. A young man in uniform had taken their tickets and ushered them into their special carriage. Then, as they left London behind, the passengers had become quiet, as if privately saying goodbye to a country they might never see again.

There was a world-famous American film star among the passengers, which partly accounted for the undertone of excitement. Her name was Lulu Bell. Percy was sitting with her now, talking to her as if he had known her all his life. Margaret herself had wanted to speak to her, but she did not have the cheek just to go up and engage her in conversation. Percy was bolder.

In the flesh Lulu Bell looked older than on the screen; Margaret guessed she was in her late thirties, although she still played debutantes and newlyweds. All the same she was pretty. Small and lively, she made Margaret think of a little bird, a sparrow or a wren.

Margaret smiled at her, and Lulu said: “Your kid brother has been keeping me entertained.”

“I hope he’s being polite,” Margaret replied.

“Oh, sure. He’s telling me all about your great-grandmother, Rachel Fishbein.” Lulu’s voice became solemn, as if she were speaking of tragic heroism. “She must have been a wonderful woman.”

Margaret was embarrassed. It was wicked of Percy to tell lies to total strangers. What on earth had he said to this poor woman? Feeling flustered, she smiled vaguely—a trick she had learned from Mother—and passed on.

Percy had always been mischievous, but lately he seemed to be getting bolder. He was growing taller, his voice was getting deeper, and his practical jokes were verging on dangerous. He was still afraid of Father, and would only go against parental authority if Margaret backed him up; but she had an idea that the day was coming when Percy would rebel openly. How would Father deal with that? Could he bully a boy as easily as he had bullied his girls? Margaret was not sure it would be quite the same.

At the far end of the carriage was a mysterious figure who seemed vaguely familiar to Margaret. A tall, intense-looking man with burning eyes, he stood out in this well-dressed, well-fed crowd because he was as thin as death and wore a shabby suit of thick, coarse cloth. His hair was cut painfully short, like a prisoner’s. He seemed worried and tense.

She looked at him now and he caught her eye, and suddenly she remembered him. They had never met, but she had seen his photograph in the newspapers. He was Carl Hartmann, the German socialist and scientist. Deciding to be bold like her brother, Margaret sat down opposite him and introduced herself. A longtime opponent of Hitler, Hartmann had become a hero to young people such as Margaret for his bravery. Then he had disappeared about a year ago, and everyone had feared the worst. Margaret assumed he had escaped from Germany. He looked like a man who had been through hell.

“The whole world has been wondering what happened to you,” Margaret said to him.

He replied in heavily accented but correct English, “I was placed under house arrest, but permitted to continue with my scientific work.”

“And then?”

“I have escaped,” he said simply. He introduced the man beside him. “Do you know my friend Baron Gabon?”

Margaret had heard of him. Philippe Gabon was a French banker who used his vast wealth to promote Jewish causes such as Zionism, which made him unpopular with the British government. He spent much of his time traveling the world trying to persuade countries to admit Jewish refugees from the Nazis. He was a small, rather plump man, with a neat beard, wearing a stylish black suit with a dove gray waistcoat and a silver tie. Margaret guessed he was paying for Hartmann’s ticket. She shook his hand and returned her attention to Hartmann.

“Your escape hasn’t been reported in the newspapers,” she said.

Baron Gabon said: “We have tried to keep it quiet until Carl is safely out of Europe.”

That was ominous, Margaret thought: it sounded as if the Nazis might still be after him. “What are you going to do in America?” she asked.

“I am going to Princeton, to work in the physics department there,” Hartmann replied. A bitter expression came over his face. “I did not want to leave my country. But if I had stayed, my work might have contributed to a Nazi victory.”

Margaret did not know anything about his work—just that he was a scientist. It was his politics that interested her. “Your courage has been an inspiration to so many people,” she said. She was thinking of Ian, who had translated Hartmann’s speeches, in the days when Hartmann had been allowed to make speeches.

Her praise seemed to make him uncomfortable. “I wish I could have continued,” he said. “I regret having given up.”

Baron Gabon interjected: “You haven’t given up, Carl. Don’t accuse yourself. You did the only thing you could.”

Hartmann nodded, and Margaret could see that in his head he knew Gabon was right, but in his heart he felt he had let his country down. She would have liked to say something comforting, but she did not know what. Her dilemma was resolved by the Pan American escort, who came by, saying: “Our luncheon is ready in the next car. Please take your seats.”

Margaret stood up and said: “It’s such an honor to know you. I hope we can talk some more.”

“I’m sure we will,” Hartmann said, and for the first time he smiled. “We’re going three thousand miles together.”

She moved into the restaurant car and sat down with her family. Mother and Father sat on one side of the table, and the three children were squeezed together on the other, Percy between Margaret and Elizabeth. Margaret looked sideways at Elizabeth. When would she drop her bombshell?

The waiter poured water and Father ordered a bottle of hock. Elizabeth was silent, looking out of the window. Margaret waited in suspense. Mother sensed the tension and said: “What’s up with you girls?”

Margaret said nothing. Elizabeth said: “I’ve got something important to tell you.”

The waiter came with cream of mushroom soup, and Elizabeth paused while he served them. Mother asked for a salad.

When he had gone, Mother said: “What is it, dear?”

Margaret held her breath.

Elizabeth said: “I’ve decided not to go to America.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Father said irritably. “Of course you’re going—we’re on the way!”

“No, I shan’t be flying with you,” Elizabeth persisted calmly. Margaret watched her closely. Elizabeth’s voice was level, but her long, rather plain face was white with tension, and Margaret’s heart went out to her.

Mother said: “Don’t be silly, Elizabeth. Father’s bought you a ticket.”

Percy said: “Perhaps we can get a refund.”

“Be quiet, foolish boy,” said Father.

Elizabeth said: “If you try to force me, I shall refuse to go on board the airplane. I think you’ll find that the airline will not permit you to carry me aboard kicking and screaming.”

How clever Elizabeth had been, Margaret thought. She had caught Father at a vulnerable moment. He could not take her aboard by force, and he could not stay behind to deal with the problem because the authorities were about to put him under arrest as a Fascist.

But Father was not beaten yet. He now realized she was serious. He put down his spoon. “What on earth do you suppose you would do if you stayed behind?” he said scathingly. “Join the army, as your feeble-minded sister proposed to do?”

Margaret flushed with anger at being called feeble-minded, but she bit her tongue and said nothing, waiting for Elizabeth to crush him.

Elizabeth said: “I shall go to Germany.”

For a moment Father was shocked into silence.

Mother said: “Darling, don’t you think you’re taking all this too far?”

Percy spoke in an accurate imitation of Father. “This is what happens when girls are allowed to discuss politics,” he said pompously. “I blame that Marie Stopes—”

“Shut up, Percy,” said Margaret, digging him in the ribs.

They were silent while the waiter cleared away their untouched soup. She’s done it, Margaret thought; she actually had the guts to come out and say it. Now will she get away with it?

Margaret could see that Father was already disconcerted. It had been easy for him to scorn Margaret for wanting to stay behind and fight against the Fascists, but it was harder to deride Elizabeth, because she was on his side.

However, a little moral doubt never troubled him for long, and when the waiter went away he said: “I absolutely forbid it.” His tone was conclusive, as if that ended the discussion.

Margaret looked at Elizabeth. How would she respond? He wasn’t even bothering to argue with her.

With surprising gentleness, Elizabeth said: “I’m afraid you can’t forbid it, Father dear. I’m twenty-one years old and I can do what I please.”

“Not while you’re dependent on me,” he said.

“Then I may have to do without your support,” she said. “I have a small income of my own.”

Father drank some hock very quickly and said: “I shan’t permit it, and that’s that.”

It sounded hollow. Margaret began to believe that Elizabeth might really get away with it. She did not know whether to feel delighted at the prospect of Elizabeth defeating Father, or revolted that her sister was going to join the Nazis.

They were served Dover sole. Only Percy ate. Elizabeth was pale with fright, but there was a look of determination about her mouth. Margaret could not help admiring her fortitude, even though she despised her mission.

Percy said: “If you’re not coming to America, why did you get on the train?”

“I’ve booked passage on a ship from Southampton.”

“You can’t get a ship to Germany from this country,” Father said triumphantly.

Margaret was appalled. Of course you couldn’t. Had Elizabeth slipped up? Would her entire plan founder on this detail?

Elizabeth was unruffled. “I’m taking a ship to Lisbon,” she said calmly. “I’ve wired money to a bank there and I have a reservation at an hotel.”

“You deceitful child!” Father said furiously. His voice was loud, and a man at the next table looked around.

Elizabeth went on as if he had not spoken. “Once I’m there I’ll be able to find a ship going to Germany.”

Mother said: “And then?”

“I have friends in Berlin, Mother—you know that.”

Mother sighed. “Yes, dear.” She looked very sad, and Margaret realized she had now accepted that Elizabeth would go.

Father said loudly: “I have friends in Berlin, too.”

Several people at adjoining tables looked up, and Mother said: “Hush, dear. We can all hear you just fine.”

Father went on more quietly: “I have friends in Berlin who will send you packing the moment you arrive.”

Margaret’s hand went to her mouth. Of course, Father could get the Germans to expel Elizabeth: in a Fascist country the government could do anything. Would Elizabeth’s escape end with some wretched bureaucrat in a passport control booth shaking his head woodenly and refusing her an entry permit?

“They won’t do that,” said Elizabeth.

“We shall see,” said Father, and to Margaret’s ear he sounded unsure of himself.

“They’ll welcome me, Father,” Elizabeth said, and the note of weariness in her voice somehow made her sound more convincing. “They’ll send out a press release to tell the world that I’ve escaped from England and joined their side, just the way the wretched British newspapers publicize the defection of prominent German Jews.”

Percy said: “I hope they don’t find out about Grandma Fishbein.”

Elizabeth was armored against Father’s attack, but Percy’s cruel humor slipped under her guard. “Shut up, you horrible boy!” she said, and she began to cry.

Once again the waiter took away their untouched plates. The next course was lamb cutlets with vegetables. The waiter poured wine. Mother took a sip, a rare sign that she was upset.

Father began to eat, attacking the meat with his knife and fork and chewing furiously. Margaret studied his angry face, and was surprised to detect a trace of bewilderment beneath the mask of rage. It was odd to see him shaken: his arrogance normally weathered every crisis. Studying his expression, she began to realize that his whole world was falling apart. This war was the end of his hopes: he had wanted the British people to embrace Fascism under his leadership, but instead they had declared war on Fascism and exiled him.

In truth they had rejected him in the mid-thirties, but until now he had been able to turn a blind eye to that, and pretend to himself that one day they would come to him in their hour of need. That was why he was so awful, she supposed: he was living a lie. His crusading zeal had developed into obsessive mania, his confidence had degenerated into bluster, and having failed to become the dictator of Britain, he had been reduced to tyrannizing his children. But he could no longer ignore the truth. He was leaving his country, and—Margaret now realized—he might never be allowed to return.

On top of all that, at the moment when his political hopes were unmistakably turning to dust, his children were rebelling, too. Percy was pretending to be Jewish, Margaret had tried to run away, and now even Elizabeth, his one remaining follower, was defying him.

Margaret had thought she would be grateful for any crack in his armor, but in fact she felt uneasy. His unvarying despotism had been a constant in her life, and she was disconcerted by the thought that he might crumble. Like an oppressed nation faced with the prospect of revolution, she felt suddenly insecure.

She tried to eat something, but she could hardly swallow. Mother pushed a tomato around her plate for a while, then put down her fork and said: “Is there a boy you like in Berlin, Elizabeth?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. Margaret believed her but, all the same, Mother’s question had been perceptive. Margaret knew that the appeal of Germany to Elizabeth was not purely ideological. There was something about the tall blond soldiers, in their immaculate uniforms and gleaming jackboots, that thrilled Elizabeth at a deeper level. And whereas in London society, Elizabeth was thought of as a rather plain, ordinary girl from an eccentric family, in Berlin she would be something special: an English aristocrat, the daughter of a pioneering Fascist, a foreigner who admired German Nazism. Her defection at the outbreak of war would make her famous there: she would be lionized. She would probably fall in love with a young officer, or an up-and-coming party official, and they would marry and have blond children who would grow up speaking German.

Mother said: “What you’re doing is so dangerous, dear. Father and I are only worried about your safety.”

Margaret wondered whether Father really was concerned for Elizabeth’s safety. Mother was, certainly; but Father was angry mainly at being disobeyed. Perhaps underneath his fury there was also a vestige of tenderness. He had not always been harsh: Margaret could remember moments of kindliness, and even fun, in the old days. The thought made her terribly sad.

Elizabeth said: “I know it’s dangerous, Mother, but my future is at stake in this war. I don’t want to live in a world dominated by Jewish financiers and grubby little Communist trade unionists.”

“What absolute twaddle!” Margaret said, but no one was listening.

“Then come with us,” Mother said to Elizabeth. “America is a good place.”

“Wall Street is run by Jews—”

“I do believe that’s exaggerated,” Mother said firmly, avoiding Father’s eye. “There are too many Jews and other unsavory types in American business, it’s true, but they’re far outnumbered by decent people. Remember that your grandfather owned a bank.”

Percy said: “Incredible that we went from knife-grinding to banking in just two generations.” Nobody took any notice.

Mother went on. “I agree with your views, dear—you know that. But believing in something doesn’t mean you have to die for it. No cause is worth that.”

Margaret was shocked. Mother was implying the Fascist cause was not worth dying for; and that amounted almost to blasphemy in Father’s eyes. She had never known Mother to go against him like this. Elizabeth was surprised, too, Margaret could see. They both looked at Father. He reddened slightly and grunted disapprovingly, but the outburst they were expecting did not come. And that was the most shocking thing of all.

Coffee was served and Margaret saw that they had reached the outskirts of Southampton. They would arrive at the station in a few minutes. Would Elizabeth really do it?

The train slowed down.

Elizabeth said to the waiter: “I’m leaving the train at the main station. Would you please bring my suitcase from the other carriage? It’s a red leather bag and the name is Lady Elizabeth Oxenford.”

“Certainly, m’lady,” he said.

Redbrick suburban houses marched past the carriage windows like ranks of soldiers. Margaret was watching Father. He said nothing, but his face was taut as a balloon with suppressed rage. Mother put a hand on his knee and said: “Please don’t make a scene, dear.” He did not reply.

The train pulled into the station.

Elizabeth was sitting by the window. She caught Margaret’s eye. Margaret and Percy got up and let her out, then sat down again.

Father stood up.

The other passengers sensed the tension and looked at the little tableau: Elizabeth and Father facing one another in the aisle as the train came to a halt.

It struck Margaret once again that Elizabeth had chosen her moment well. It would be difficult for Father to use force in these circumstances : if he tried it he might even be restrained by other passengers. Nevertheless she felt sick with fear.

Father’s face was flushed and his eyes bulged. He was breathing hard through his nose. Elizabeth was shaking, but her mouth was set firm.

Father said: “If you get off this train now, I never want to see you again.”

“Don’t say that!” Margaret cried, but she was too late; it had been said, and he would never take it back.

Mother began to cry.

Elizabeth just said: “Goodbye.”

Margaret stood up and threw her arms around Elizabeth. “Good luck!” she whispered.

“You, too,” Elizabeth said, hugging her back.

Elizabeth kissed Percy’s cheek, then leaned awkwardly across the table and kissed Mother’s face, which was wet with tears. Finally she looked at Father again and said in a trembling voice: “Will you shake hands?”

His face was a mask of hate. He said: “My daughter is dead.”

Mother gave a cry of distress.

The carriage was very quiet, as if everyone knew that a family drama was reaching its tragic conclusion.

Elizabeth turned and walked away.

Margaret wished she could pick her father up and shake him until his teeth rattled. His needless obstinacy made her livid. Why the hell couldn’t he just give in for once? Elizabeth was an adult: she wasn’t obliged to obey her parents for the rest of her life! Father had no right to banish her. In his rage he had split the family, pointlessly and vindictively. At that moment Margaret hated him. As he stood there, looking furious and belligerent, she wanted to tell him that he was mean and unjust and stupid; but as always with Father, she bit her lip and said nothing.

Elizabeth walked past the carriage window, carrying her red suitcase. She looked at them all, smiled tearfully and gave a small, hesitant wave with her free hand. Mother began to sob quietly. Percy and Margaret waved back. Father looked away. Then Elizabeth passed out of sight.

Father sat down and Margaret followed suit.

A whistle blew and the train moved off.

They saw Elizabeth again, waiting in line at the exit. She glanced up as their carriage went by. This time there was no smile or wave: she just looked sad and grim.

The train picked up speed, and she was lost from view.

“Family life is a wonderful thing,” Percy said; and although he was being sarcastic, there was no humor in his voice, just bitterness.

Margaret wondered whether she would ever see her sister again.

Mother was dabbing at her eyes with a little linen handkerchief, but she was unable to stop crying. It was rare for her to lose her composure. Margaret could not remember ever seeing her cry before. Percy looked shaken. Margaret was depressed by Elizabeth’s foolish attachment to such an evil cause; but also she could not help feeling a sense of exultation. Elizabeth had done it: she had defied Father and got away with it! She had stood up to him, defeated him and escaped from him.

If Elizabeth could do it, so could she.

She smelled the sea. The train entered the docks. It ran along the waterfront, moving slowly past sheds, cranes and ocean liners. Despite her grief at parting with her sister, Margaret began to feel the thrill of anticipation.

The train stopped behind a building marked IMPERIAL HOUSE. It was an ultramodern structure that looked a bit like a ship: its comers were rounded, and the upper story had a wide veranda like a deck, with a white rail all around.

With the other passengers, the Oxenfords retrieved their overnight bags and got off the train. While their checked baggage was being transferred from the train to the plane, they all went into Imperial House to complete the departure formalities.

Margaret felt dazed. The world around her was changing too rapidly. She had left her home, her country was at war, she had lost her sister, and she was about to fly to America. She wished she could stop the clock for a while and try to take it all in.

Father explained that Elizabeth would not be joining them, and a Pan American official said: “That’s all right—there’s someone waiting here hoping to buy an unused ticket. I’ll take care of it.”

Margaret noticed Professor Hartmann, standing in a corner, smoking a cigarette, looking around him with nervous, wary glances. He looked jumpy and impatient. People like my sister have made him like this, Margaret thought; Fascists have persecuted him and turned him into a nervous wreck. I don’t blame him for being in a hurry to get out of Europe.

They could not see the plane from the waiting room, so Percy went off to find a better vantage point. He came back full of information. “Takeoff will be on schedule at two o’clock,” he said. Margaret felt a shiver of apprehension. Percy went on: “It should take us an hour and a half to get to our first stop, which is Foynes. Ireland is on summer time, like Britain, so we should arrive there at half past three. We wait there an hour while they refuel and finalize the flight plan. So we take off again at half past four.”

Margaret noticed that there were new faces here, people who had not been on the train. Some passengers must have come directly to Southampton this morning, or perhaps stayed overnight at a local hotel. As she thought this, a strikingly beautiful woman arrived in a taxi. She was a blonde in her thirties, and she wore a stunning dress, cream silk with red dots. She was accompanied by a rather ordinary, smiling man in a cashmere blazer. Everyone stared at them: they looked so happy and attractive.

A few minutes later the plane was ready for boarding.

They went out through the front doors of Imperial House directly onto the quay. The Clipper was moored there, rising and falling gently on the water, the sun gleaming off its silver sides.

It was huge.

Margaret had never seen a plane even half this size. It was as high as a house and as long as two tennis courts. A big American flag was painted on its whalelike snout. The wings were high, level with the very top of the fuselage. Four enormous engines were built into the wings, and the propellers looked about fifteen feet across.

How could such a thing fly?

“Is it very light?” she wondered aloud.

Percy heard her. “Forty-one tons,” he said promptly.

It would be like taking to the air in a house.

They came to the edge of the quay. A gangplank led down to a floating dock. Mother trod gingerly, hanging on tight to the rail: she looked almost doddery, as if she had aged twenty years. Father had both their bags. Mother never carried anything—it was one of her foibles.

From the floating dock, a shorter gangplank took them onto what looked like a stubby secondary wing, half submerged in the water. “Hydrostabilizer,” Percy said knowledgeably. “Also known as a sea-wing. Prevents the plane from tipping sideways in the water.” The surface of the sea-wing was slightly curved, and Margaret felt as if she might slip, but she did not. Now she was in the shadow of the huge wing above her head. She would have liked to reach out and touch one of the vast propeller blades, but she would not have been able to reach it.

There was a doorway in the fuselage just under the word AMERICAN in PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS SYSTEM. Margaret ducked her head and stepped through the door.

There were three steps down to the floor of the plane.

Margaret found herself in a room about twelve feet square with a luxurious terra-cotta carpet, beige walls and blue chairs with a gay pattern of stars on the upholstery. There were dome lights in the ceiling and large square windows with venetian blinds. The walls and ceiling were straight, instead of curving with the fuselage: it was more like entering a house than boarding a plane.

Two doorways led from this room. Some passengers were directed toward the rear of the plane. Looking that way, Margaret could see that there was a series of lounges, all luxuriously carpeted and decorated in soft tans and greens. But the Oxenfords were seated forward. A small, rather plump steward in a white jacket introduced himself as Nicky and showed them into the next compartment.

This was a little smaller than the other room, and was decorated in a different color scheme: turquoise carpet, pale green walls and beige upholstery. To Margaret’s right were two large three-seater divans, facing one another, with a small table between them under the window. To her left, on the other side of the aisle, was another pair of divans, these a little smaller, seating two.

Nicky directed them to the larger seats on the right. Father and Mother sat by the window, and Margaret and Percy sat next to the aisle, leaving two empty seats between them and four empty seats on the other side of the aisle. Margaret wondered who would be sitting with them. The beautiful woman in the dotted dress would be interesting. So would Lulu Bell, especially if she wanted to talk about Grandma Fishbein ! Best of all would be Carl Hartmann.

She could feel the plane moving up and down with the slight rise and fall of the water. The movement was not much: just enough to remind her that she was at sea. The plane was like a magic carpet, she decided. It was impossible to grasp how mere engines could make it fly: much easier to believe that it would be borne through the air by the power of an ancient enchantment.

Percy stood up. “I’m going to look around,” he said.

“Stay here,” Father said. “You’ll get in everyone’s way if you start running around.”

Percy sat down promptly. Father had not lost all his authority.

Mother powdered her nose. She had stopped crying. She was feeling better, Margaret decided.

She heard an American voice say: “I’d really rather sit facing forward.” She looked up. Nicky the steward was showing a man to a seat on the other side of the compartment. Margaret could not tell who it was—he had his back to her. He had blond hair and wore a blue suit.

The steward said: “That’s fine, Mr. Vandenpost—take the opposite seat.”

The man turned around. Margaret looked at him with curiosity, and their eyes met.

She was astonished to recognize him.

He was not American and his name was not Mr. Vandenpost.

His blue eyes flashed her a warning but he was too late.

“Good grief!” she blurted out. “It’s Harry Marks!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Moments such as this brought out the best in Harry Marks.

Jumping bail, traveling on a stolen passport, using a false name, and pretending to be American, he had the incredibly bad luck to run into a girl who knew he was a thief, had heard him speak in different accents, and loudly called him by his real name.

For an instant he was possessed by blind panic.

A horrid vision of all he was running from appeared before his eyes: a trial, prison and then the wretched life of a squaddie in the British army.

Then he remembered that he was lucky, and he smiled.

The girl looked totally bewildered. He waited for her name to come back to him.

Margaret. Lady Margaret Oxenford.

She stared at him in amazement, too surprised to say anything, while he waited for inspiration.

“Harry Vandenpost is the name,” he said. “But my memory is better than yours, I’ll bet. You’re Margaret Oxenford, aren’t you? How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said dazedly. She was more confused than he. She would let him take charge of the situation.

He put out his hand as if to shake, and she extended her own; and in that moment inspiration came to him. Instead of shaking her hand, at the last moment he bent over it with an old-fashioned bow; and when his head was close to hers, he said in a low voice: “Pretend you never saw me in a police station and I’ll do the same for you.”

He stood upright and looked into her eyes. They were an unusual shade of dark green, he noticed, quite beautiful.

For a moment she remained flustered. Then her face cleared, and she grinned broadly. She had caught on, and she was pleased and intrigued by the little conspiracy he was proposing. “Of course, how silly of me, Harry Vandenpost,” she said.

Harry relaxed gratefully. Luckiest man in the world, he thought.

With a mischievous little frown, Margaret added: “By the way—where did we meet?”

Harry fielded that one easily. “Was it at Pippa Matchingham’s ball?” “No—I didn’t go.”

Harry realized he knew very little about Margaret. Did she live in London right through the social season or hide away in the countryside? Did she hunt, shoot, support charities, campaign for women’s rights, paint watercolors or carry out agricultural experiments on her father’s farm? He decided to name one of the big events of the season. “I’m sure we met at Ascot, then.”

“Yes, of course we did,” she said.

He allowed himself a little smile of satisfaction. He had turned her into a coconspirator already.

She went on: “But I don’t think you’ve met my people. Mother, may I present Mr: Vandenpost, from....”

“Pennsylvania,” Harry said rashly. He regretted it immediately. Where the hell was Pennsylvania? He had no idea.

“My mother, Lady Oxenford. My father, the marquis. And this is my brother, Lord Isley.”

Harry had heard of them all, of course: they were a famous family. He shook hands all round with a hearty, overfriendly manner that the Oxenfords would think typically American.

Lord Oxenford looked like what he was: an overfed bad-tempered old Fascist. He wore a brown tweed suit with a waistcoat that was about to pop its buttons, and he had not taken off his brown trilby hat.

Harry spoke to Lady Oxenford. “I’m thrilled to meet you, ma’am. I’m interested in antique jewelry, and I’ve heard you have one of the finest collections in the world.”

“Why, thank you,” she said. “It is a particular interest of mine.”

He was shocked to hear her American accent. What he knew about her came from his careful reading of society magazines. He had thought she was British. But now he vaguely remembered some gossip about the Oxenfords. The marquis, like many aristocrats with vast country estates, had almost gone bankrupt after the war because of the world slump in agricultural prices. Some had sold their estates and gone to live in Nice or Florence, where their dwindling fortunes bought a higher standard of living. But Algernon Oxenford had married the heiress to an American bank, and it was her money that had enabled him to continue to live in the style of his ancestors.

All of which simply meant that Harry’s act was going to have to fool a genuine American. It had to be faultless, and he would have to keep it up for the next thirty hours.

He decided to be charming to her. He guessed she was not averse to compliments, especially from good-looking young men. He looked closely at the brooch pinned to the bosom of her burned orange traveling suit. It was made of emeralds, sapphires, rubies and diamonds in the form of a butterfly landing on a wild rose spray. It was extraordinarily realistic. He decided it was French from about 1880 and took a guess as to the maker. “Is your brooch by Oscar Massin?”

“You’re quite right.”

“It’s very fine.”

“Thank you again.”

She was rather beautiful. He could understand why Oxenford had married her, but it was harder to see why she had fallen for him. Perhaps he had been more attractive twenty years ago.

“I think I know the Philadelphia Vandenposts,” she said.

Harry thought: Blimey, I hope not. However, she sounded rather vague.

“My family are the Glencarries of Stamford, Connecticut,” she added.

“Indeed!” said Harry, pretending to be impressed. He was still thinking about Philadelphia. Had he said he came from Philadelphia, or Pennsylvania? He could not remember. Maybe they were the same place. They seemed to go together. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Stamford, Connecticut. He remembered that when you asked Americans where they came from they always gave two answers. Houston, Texas. San Francisco, California. Yeah.

The boy said: “My name’s Percy.”

“Harry,” said Harry, glad to be back on familiar ground. Percy’s title was Lord Isley. It was a courtesy title, for the heir to use until his father died, whereupon he would become the Marquis of Oxenford. Most of these people were ludicrously proud of their stupid titles. Harry had once been introduced to a snot-nosed three-year-old named Baron Port-rail. However, Percy seemed all right. He was courteously letting Harry know that he did not want to be addressed formally.

Harry sat down. He was facing forward, so Margaret was next to him across the narrow aisle, and he would be able to talk to her without the others hearing. The plane was as quiet as a church. Everyone was rather awestruck.

He tried to relax. It was going to be a tense trip. Margaret knew his true identity, and that created a big new risk. Even though she had accepted his subterfuge, she could change her mind, or let something slip by accident. Harry could not afford to arouse misgivings. He could get through U.S. Immigration if no searching questions were asked, but if something happened to make them suspicious, and they decided to check up on him, they would quickly find out that he was using a stolen passport, and it would be all over.

Another passenger was brought to the seat opposite Harry. He was quite tall, with a bowler hat and a dark gray suit that had once been all right but was now past its best. Something about him struck Harry, who watched the man taking off his overcoat and settling in his seat. He had on stout well-worn black shoes, heavyweight wool socks and a wine-colored waistcoat under his double-breasted jacket. His dark blue tie looked as if it had been tied in the same place every day for ten years.

If I didn’t know the price of a ticket on this flying palace, Harry thought, I’d swear blind that man was a copper.

It was not too late to stand up and get off the plane.

No one would stop him. He could simply walk away and disappear.

But he had paid ninety pounds!

Besides, it might be weeks before he could get another transatlantic passage, and while he was waiting he might be rearrested.

He thought again about going on the run in England; and once again dismissed the idea. It would be difficult in wartime, with every busybody on the lookout for foreign spies; but more important, life as a fugitive would be unbearable—living in cheap boardinghouses, avoiding policemen, always on the move.

The man opposite him, if he were a policeman, was certainly not after Harry, of course; otherwise he would not be sitting down and making himself comfortable for the flight. Harry could not imagine what the man was doing; but for the moment he put it out of his mind and concentrated on his own predicament. Margaret was the danger factor. What could he do to protect himself?

She had entered into his deception in a spirit of fun. As things stood he could not rely on her to keep it up. But he could improve his chances by getting close to her. If he could win her affection she might begin to feel a sense of loyalty to him; and then she would take his charade more seriously, and be careful not to betray him.

Getting to know Margaret Oxenford would not be an unpleasant duty. He studied her out of the corner of his eye. She had the same pale autumnal coloring as her mother: red hair, creamy skin with a few freckles, and those fascinating dark green eyes. He could not tell what her figure was like, but she had slender calves and narrow feet. She wore a rather plain camel-colored lightweight coat over a red-brown dress. Although her clothes looked expensive, she did not have her mother’s sense of style: that might come as she grew older and more confident. She wore no interesting jewelry: just a plain single strand of pearls around her neck. She had neat, regular features and a determined chin. She was not his usual type—he always picked girls with a weakness, because they were so much easier to romance. Margaret was too good-looking to be a pushover. However, she seemed to like him, and that was a start. He made up his mind to win her heart.

The steward, Nicky, came into the compartment. He was a small, plump, effeminate man in his middle twenties, and Harry thought he was probably a queer. A lot of waiters were like that, he had noticed. Nicky handed out a typewritten sheet with the names of the passengers and crew on today’s flight.

Harry studied it with interest. He knew of Baron Philippe Gabon, the wealthy Zionist. The next name, Professor Carl Hartmann, also rang a bell. He had not heard of Princess Lavinia Bazarov, but her name suggested a Russian who had fled from the Communists, and her presence on this plane presumably meant she had got at least part of her wealth out of the country. He had most certainly heard of Lulu Bell, the film star. Only a week ago he had taken Rebecca Maugham-Flint to see her in A Spy in Paris at the Gaumont in Shaftesbury Avenue. She had played a plucky girl, as usual. Harry was very curious to meet her.

Percy, who sat facing the rear and could see into the next compartment, said: “They’ve closed the door.”

Harry began to feel nervous again.

For the first time he noticed that the plane was rising and falling gently on the water.

There was a rumble, like the gunfire of a distant battle. Harry anxiously looked out of the window. As he watched, the noise increased, and a propeller began to turn. The engines were being started. He heard the third and the fourth give voice. Although the noise was muffled by heavy soundproofing, the vibration of the mighty motors could be felt, and Harry’s apprehension increased.

On the floating dock a seaman cast off the flying boat’s moorings. Harry had a foolish feeling of inevitable doom as the ropes tying him to the land were carelessly dropped into the sea.

He was embarrassed about being afraid, and did not want anyone else to know how he felt, so he took out a newspaper, opened it and sat back with his legs crossed.

Margaret touched his knee. She did not need to raise her voice to be heard: the soundproofing was amazing. “I’m scared, too,” she said.

Harry was mortified. He thought he had succeeded in appearing calm.

The plane moved. He grabbed the arm of his chair, holding on tight; then he forced himself to let go. Of course she could tell be was scared. He was probably as white as the newspaper he was pretending to read.

She was sitting with her knees pressed close together and her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She seemed apprehensive and excited at the same time, as if she were about to take a roller-coaster ride. Her flushed cheeks, wide eyes and slightly open mouth made her look sexy. Harry wondered again what her body was like under that coat.

He looked at the others. The man opposite him was calmly fastening his safety belt. Margaret’s parents were gazing out of the windows. Lady Oxenford appeared unperturbed, but Lord Oxenford kept clearing his throat noisily, a sure sign of tension. Young Percy was so thrilled he could hardly sit still, but he did not seem in the least frightened.

Harry stared at his paper but he could not read a word, so he lowered it and looked out of the window instead. The mighty aircraft was taxiing majestically out into Southampton water. He could see the ocean liners in a row along the dockside. They were already some distance away, and there were several smaller craft between him and the land. Can’t get off now, he thought.

The water became choppy as the aircraft moved into the middle of the estuary. Harry was not normally seasick, but he felt distinctly uncomfortable as the Clipper began to ride the waves. The compartment looked like a room in a house, but the motion reminded him that he was sailing in a boat, a fragile craft of thin aluminum.

The plane reached the middle of the estuary, slowed and began to swing around. It rocked with the breeze, and Harry realized it was turning into the wind for takeoff. Then it seemed to pause, hesitating, pitching a little with the wind and rolling with the slight swell, as if it were a monstrous animal sniffing the air with its enormous snout. The suspense was almost too much: it took an effort of will for Harry to restrain himself from leaping out of his seat and yelling to be let off.

Suddenly there was a terrific roar, like a fearsome storm breaking out, as the four huge engines were pushed to full power. Harry let out a cry of shock, but it was drowned out. The aircraft seemed to settle a little in the water, as if it were sinking under the strain; but a moment later it surged forward.

It picked up speed rapidly, like a fast boat, except that no boat this big could accelerate so quickly. White water sped past the windows. The Clipper still pitched and rolled with the movement of the sea. Harry wanted to close his eyes, but he was afraid to. He felt panicky. I’m going to die, he thought hysterically.

The Clipper went faster and faster. Harry had never traveled at such a pace across water: no speedboat could reach this velocity. They were doing fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour. Spray flew past the window, hazing his view. We’re going to sink, explode or crash, Harry thought.

There was a new vibration, like a car driving over ruts. What was it? Harry felt sure something was terribly wrong, and the plane was about to break up. It occurred to him that the plane had begun to rise, and the vibration was caused by its bumping across the waves like a speedboat. Was that normal?

Suddenly the water seemed to exert less drag. Peering through the spray, Harry saw that the surface of the estuary appeared to have tilted, and he realized that the plane’s nose must be up, although he had not felt the change. He was terrified and wanted to throw up. He swallowed hard.

The vibration changed. Instead of bumping across ruts they seemed to be jumping from wave to wave, like a stone skimming the surface. The engines screamed and the propellers thrashed the air. It might be impossible, Harry thought; maybe such a huge machine could not take to the air after all; perhaps it could only ride the waves like an overweight dolphin. Then, suddenly, he sensed that the plane had been set free. It surged forward and up, and he felt the restraining water fall away underneath him. The view from the window cleared as the spray was left behind, and he saw the water receding below as the plane went up. Gorblimey, we’re flying, he thought; this huge great palace is actually bloody flying!

Now that he was in the air, his fear dropped away and was replaced by a tremendous feeling of exhilaration. It was as if he were personally responsible for the fact that the plane had succeeded in taking off. He wanted to cheer. Looking around, he saw that everyone else was smiling with relief. Becoming conscious of other people again, he realized he was wet with sweat. He took out a white linen handkerchief, surreptitiously wiped his face, and quickly stuffed the damp handkerchief back into his pocket.

The plane continued to rise. Harry saw the south coast of England disappear beneath the stubby lower sea-wings; then he looked ahead and saw the Isle of Wight. After a while the plane leveled out and the roar of the engines was suddenly reduced to a low hum.

Nicky the steward reappeared in his white jacket and black tie. He did not have to raise his voice, now that the engines had been throttled back. He said: “Would you care for a cocktail, Mr. Vandenpost?”

That’s exactly what I would care for, Harry thought. “Double whiskey,” he said immediately. Then he remembered he was supposed to be American. “With lots of ice,” he added in the correct accent.

Nicky took orders from the Oxenfords and then disappeared through the forward doorway.

Harry drummed his fingers restlessly on the arm of the seat. The carpet, the soundproofing, the soft seats and the soothing colors made him feel as if he were in a padded cell, comfortable but trapped. After a moment he unbuckled his safety belt and got up.

He went forward, the way the steward had gone, and stepped through the doorway. On his left was the galley, a tiny kitchen gleaming with stainless steel, where the steward was making the drinks. On his right was a door marked MEN’S RETIRING ROOM, which he assumed was the carsey. I must remember to call it the john, he thought. Next to the john was a staircase spiraling up, presumably to the flight deck. Beyond that was another passenger compartment, decorated in different colors, and occupied by uniformed flight crew. For a moment Harry wondered what they were doing there; then he realized that on a flight lasting almost thirty hours, crew members would have to take rests and be replaced.

He walked back along the plane, passing the galley and going through his compartment and the larger compartment by which they had boarded. Beyond that, toward the rear of the plane, were three more passenger compartments, decorated in alternating color schemes, turquoise carpet with pale green walls or rust carpet with beige walls. There were steps up between the compartments, for the hull of the plane was curved, and the floor rose toward the rear. As he passed through, he gave several friendly nods in the vague direction of the other passengers, as a wealthy and self-confident young American might do.

The fourth compartment had two small couches on one side, and on the other the ladies’ powder room—another fancy name for a carsey, no doubt. Beside the door to the ladies’ room, a ladder on the wall led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. The aisle, which ran the length of the plane, ended at a door. This must be the famous honeymoon suite that had caused so much press comment. Harry tried the door: it was locked.

Strolling back the length of the plane, he took another look at his fellow passengers.

He guessed that the man in smart French clothes was Baron Gabon. With him was a nervous fellow with no socks on. That was very peculiar. Perhaps he was Professor Hartmann. He wore a really terrible suit and looked half starved.

Harry recognized Lulu Bell but was shocked to find that she looked about forty: he had imagined she was the age she appeared in her films, which was about nineteen. She was wearing a lot of good-quality modern jewelry: rectangular earrings, big bracelets and a rock-crystal brooch, probably by Boucheron.

He saw again the beautiful blonde he had noticed in the coffee lounge of the South-Westem Hotel. She had taken off her straw hat. She had blue eyes and clear skin. She was laughing at something her companion was saying. She was obviously in love with him, even though he was not strikingly good-looking. But women like a man who makes them laugh, Harry thought.

The old duck with the Fabergé pendant in rose diamonds was presumably the Princess Lavinia. She wore a frozen expression of distaste, like a duchess in a pigsty.

The larger compartment through which they had boarded had been empty during takeoff, but now, Harry observed, it was in use as a communal lounge. Four or five people had moved into it, including the tall man who had been seated opposite Harry. Some of the men were playing cards, and it crossed Harry’s mind that a professional gambler might make a lot of money on a trip such as this.

He returned to his seat and the steward brought him his scotch. “The plane seems half empty,” Harry said.

Nicky shook his head. “We’re full up.”

Harry looked around. “But there are four spare seats in this compartment, and all the others are the same.”

“Sure, this compartment seats ten on a daytime flight. But it only sleeps six. You’ll see why when we make up the bunks, after dinner. Meanwhile, enjoy the space.”

Harry sipped his drink. The steward was perfectly polite and efficient, but not as obsequious as, say, a waiter in a London hotel. Harry wondered whether American waiters had a different attitude. He hoped so. On his expeditions into the strange world of London’s high society, he had always found it a bit degrading to be bowed and scraped to and called “sir” every time he turned around.

It was time to further his friendship with Margaret Oxenford, who was sipping a glass of champagne and leafing through a magazine. He had flirted with dozens of girls of her age and social station, and he went into his routine automatically. “Do you live in London?”

“We’ve got a house in Eaton Square, but we spend most of our time in the country,” she said. “Our place is in Berkshire. Father also has a shooting lodge in Scotland.” Her tone was rather too matter-of-fact, as if she found the question boring and wanted to dispose of it as quickly as possible.

“Do you hunt?” Harry said. This was a standard conversational ploy: most rich people did, and they loved to talk about it.

“Not much,” she said. “We shoot more.”

“Do you shoot?” he said in surprise: it was not considered a ladylike pursuit.

“When they let me.”

“I suppose you have lots of admirers.”

She turned to face him and lowered her voice. “Why are you asking me all these stupid questions?”

Harry was floored. He hardly knew what to say. He had asked dozens of girls the same questions and none of them had reacted this way. “Are they stupid?” he said.

“You don’t care where I live or whether I hunt.”

“But that’s what people talk about in high society.”

“But you’re not in high society,” she said bluntly.

“Stone the crows!” he said in his natural accent. “You don’t beat about the bush, do you!”

She laughed, then said: “That’s better.”

“I can’t keep changing my accent. I’ll get confused.”

“All right. I’ll put up with your American accent if you promise not to make silly small talk.”

“Thanks, honey,” he said, reverting to the role of Harry Vandenpost. She’s no pushover, he was thinking. She was a girl who knew her own mind, all right. But that made her a lot more interesting.

“You’re very good at it,” she was saying. “I would never have guessed you were faking it. I suppose it’s part of your modus operandi.”

It always baffled him when they spoke Latin. “I guess it is,” he said without having the faintest idea what she meant. He would have to change the subject. He wondered what was the way to her heart. It was clear that he could not flirt with her as he had with all the others. Perhaps she was the psychic type, interested in seances and necromancy. “Do you believe in ghosts?” he said.

That drew another sharp response. “What do you take me for?” she said crossly. “And why do you have to change the subject?”

He would have laughed it off with any other girl, but for some reason Margaret got to him. “Because I don’t speak Latin,” he snapped.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I don’t understand words like modus andy.”

She looked mystified and irritated for a moment; then her face cleared and she repeated the phrase, “Modus operandi.”

“I never stayed at school long enough to learn that stuff,” he said.

The effect on her was quite startling. She flushed with shame and said: “I’m most dreadfully sorry. How rude of me.”

He was surprised by the turnabout. A lot of them seemed to feel it was their duty to stuff their education down a man’s throat. He was glad that Margaret had better manners than most of her kind. He smiled at her and said: “All forgiven.”

She surprised him yet again by saying: “I know how it feels, because I’ve never had a proper education, either.”

“With all your money?” he asked incredulously.

She nodded. “We never went to school, you see.”

Harry was amazed. For respectable working-class Londoners it was shameful not to send your children to school, almost as bad as having the police round or being turned out by the bailiffs. Most children had to take a day off when their boots were at the menders’, for they did not have a spare pair; and mothers were embarrassed enough about that. “But children have got to go to school—it’s the law!” said Harry.

“We had these stupid governesses. That’s why I can’t go to university—no qualifications.” She looked sad. “I think I should have liked university.”

“It’s unbelievable. I thought rich people could do anything they liked.”

“Not with my father.”

“What about the kid?” Harry said with a nod at Percy.

“Oh, he’s at Eton, of course,” she said bitterly. “It’s different for boys.”

Harry considered. “Does that mean,” he said. diffidently, “that you don’t agree with your father in other things—politics, for instance?”

“I certainly don’t,” she said fiercely. “I’m a socialist.”

This, Harry thought, could be the key to her. “I used to belong to the Communist party,” he said. It was true: he had joined when he was sixteen and left after three weeks. He waited for her reaction before deciding how much to tell her.

She immediately became animated. “Why did you leave?”

The truth was that political meetings bored him stiff, but it might be a mistake to say so. “It’s hard to put into words, exactly,” he prevaricated.

He should have realized that would not wash with her. “You must know why you left,” she said impatiently.

“I guess it was too much like Sunday school.”

She laughed at that. “I know just what you mean.”

“Anyway, I reckon I’ve done more than the Commies in the way of returning wealth to the workers who produced it.”

“How is that?”

“Well, I liberate cash from Mayfair and take it to Battersea.”

“You mean you rob only the rich?”

“There’s no point in robbing the poor. They haven’t got any money.”

She laughed again. “But surely you don’t give away your ill-gotten gains, like Robin Hood?”

He considered what to tell her. Would she believe him if he pretended he robbed the rich to give to the poor? Although she was intelligent, she was also naïve—but, he decided, not that naive. “I’m not a charity,” he said with a shrug. “But I do help people sometimes.”

“This is amazing,” she said. Her eyes sparkled with interest and animation, and she looked quite ravishing. “I suppose I knew there were people like you, but it’s just extraordinary to actually meet you and talk to you.”

Don’t overdo it, girl, Harry thought. He was nervous of women who became too enthusiastic about him: they were liable to feel outraged when they found out he was human. “I’m not that special,” he said with genuine embarrassment. “I just come from a world you’ve never seen.”

She gave him a look that said she thought he was special.

This had gone far enough, he decided. It was time to change the subject. “You’re embarrassing me,” he said bashfully.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. She thought for a moment then said: “Why are you going to America?”

“To get away from Rebecca Maugham-Flint.”

She laughed. “No, seriously.”

She was like a terrier when she got hold of something, he thought: she wouldn’t let go. She was impossible to control, which made her dangerous. “I had to leave to stay out of jail,” he said.

“What will you do when you get there?”

“I thought I might join the Canadian air force. I’d like to learn to fly.”

“How exciting.”

“What about you? Why are you going to America?”

“We’re running away,” she said disgustedly.

“What do you mean?”

“You know that my father is a Fascist.”

Harry nodded. “I’ve read about him in the papers.”

“Well, he thinks the Nazis are wonderful and he doesn’t want to fight against them. Besides, the government would put him in jail if he stayed.”

“So you’re going to live in America?”

“My mother’s family come from Connecticut.”

“And how long will you be there?”

“My parents are. going to stay at least for the duration of the war. They may never come back.”

“But you don’t want to go?”

“Certainly not,” she said forcefully. “I want to stay and fight. Fascism is the most frightful wickedness and this war is dreadfully important, and I want to do my bit.” She started to talk about the Spanish Civil War, but Harry was only half listening. He had been struck by a thought so shocking that his heart was beating faster, and he had to make an effort to keep a normal expression on his face.

When people flee a country at the outbreak of war, they do not leave their valuables behind.

It was quite simple. Peasants drove their livestock before them as they ran from invading armies. Jews fled from the Nazis with gold coins sewn inside their coats. After 1917, Russian aristocrats such as Princess Lavinia arrived in all the capitals of Europe clutching their Fabergé eggs.

Lord Oxenford must have considered the possibility that he would never return. Moreover, the government had brought in exchange controls to prevent the British upper classes from transferring all their money abroad. The Oxenfords knew they might never again see what they left behind. It was certain they had brought whatever assets they could carry.

It was a little risky, of course, carrying a fortune in jewelry in your luggage. But what would be less risky? Mailing it? Sending it by courier? Leaving it behind, possibly to be confiscated by a vengeful government, looted by an invading army, or even “liberated” in a postwar revolution?

No. The Oxenfords would have their jewelry with them.

In particular, they would be carrying the Delhi Suite.

The very thought of it took his breath away.

The Delhi Suite was the centerpiece of Lady Oxenford’s famous collection of antique jewelry. Made of rubies and diamonds in gold settings, it consisted of a necklace with matching earrings and a bracelet. The rubies were Burmese, the most precious kind, and absolutely huge: they had been brought to England in the eighteenth century by the general Robert Clive, known as Clive of India, and set by the Crown Jewelers.

The Delhi Suite was said to be worth a quarter of a million pounds—more money than a man could ever spend.

And it was almost certainly on this plane.

No professional thief would steal on a ship or plane: the list of suspects was too short. Furthermore, Harry was impersonating an American, traveling on a false passport, jumping bail and sitting opposite a policeman. It would be madness to try to get his hands on the suite, and he felt shaky just at the thought of the risks involved.

On the other hand, he would never have another chance like this. And suddenly he needed those jewels the way a drowning man gasps for air.

He would not be able to sell the suite for a quarter of a million, of course. But he would get about a tenth of its value, say twenty-five thousand pounds, which was more than a hundred thousand dollars.

In either currency it was enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.

The thought of that much money made his mouth water—but the jewelry itself was irresistible. Harry had seen pictures of it. The graduated stones of the necklace were perfectly matched; the diamonds set off the rubies like teardrops on a baby’s cheek; and the smaller pieces, the earrings and the bracelet, were perfectly proportioned. The whole ensemble, on the neck and ears and wrist of a beautiful woman, would be utterly ravishing.

Harry knew he would never again be this close to such a master-piece. Never.

He had to steal it.

The risks were appalling—but then, he had always been lucky.

“I don’t believe you’re listening to me,” Margaret said.

Harry realized he had not been paying attention. He grinned and said: “I’m sorry. Something you said sent me into a daydream.”

“I know,” she said. “From the look on your face, you were dreaming about someone you love.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nancy Lenehan waited in a fever of impatience while Mervyn Lovesey’s pretty yellow airplane was readied for takeoff. He was giving last-minute instructions to the man in the tweed suit, who seemed to be the foreman of a factory he owned. Nancy gathered that he had union trouble and a strike was threatened.

When he had finished, he turned to Nancy and said: “I employ seventeen toolmakers and every one of them’s a ruddy individualist.”

“What do you make?” she asked.

“Fans,” he replied. He pointed at the plane. “Aircraft propellers, screws for ships, that kind of thing. Anything that has complex curves. But the engineering is the easy part. It’s the human factor that gives me grief.” He smiled condescendingly and added: “Still, you’re not interested in the problems of industrial relations.”

“But I am,” she said. “I run a factory too.”

He was taken aback. “What kind?”

“I make five thousand seven hundred pairs of shoes a day.”

He was impressed, but he also seemed to feel he had been trumped, for he said: “Good for you,” in a tone of voice that mixed mockery with admiration. Nancy guessed that his business was much smaller than hers.

“Maybe I ought to say I used to make shoes,” she said, and the taste of bile was in her mouth as she admitted it. “My brother is trying to sell the business out from under my feet. That,” she added with an anxious look at the plane, “is why I have to catch the Clipper.”

“You will,” he said confidently. “My Tiger Moth will get us there with an hour to spare.”

She hoped with all her heart that he was right.

The mechanic jumped down from the plane and said: “All set, Mr. Lovesey.”

Lovesey looked at Nancy. “Fetch her a helmet,” he said to the mechanic. “She can’t fly in that bloody silly little hat.”

Nancy was taken aback by the sudden reversion to his previous offhand manner. Clearly, he was happy enough to talk to her while there was nothing else to do, but as soon as something important cropped up he lost interest in her. She was not used to such a casual attitude from men. Although not the seductive type, she was attractive enough to catch a man’s eye, and she carried a certain authority. Men patronized her often enough, but they rarely treated her with Lovesey’s insouciance. However, she was not going to protest. She would put up with a lot worse than rudeness for the chance of catching up with her treacherous brother.

She was mightily curious about his marriage. “I’m chasing my wife,” he had said, a surprisingly candid admission. She could see why a woman would run away from him. He was terribly good-looking, but he was also self-absorbed and insensitive. That was why it was so odd that he was running after his wife. He seemed the type who would be too proud. Nancy would have guessed he would say: “Let her go to hell.” Perhaps she had misjudged him.

She wondered what the wife was like. Would she be pretty? Sexy? Selfish and spoiled? A frightened mouse? Nancy would find out soon—if they could catch up with the Clipper.

The mechanic brought her a helmet and she put it on. Lovesey climbed aboard, shouting over his shoulder: “Give her a leg up, will you?” The mechanic, more courteous than his master, helped her put on her coat, saying: “It’s chilly up there, even when the sun shines.” Then he hoisted her up and she clambered into the backseat. He passed her overnight case to her and she stowed it under her feet.

As the engine turned over, she realized, with a shiver of nervousness, that she was about to take to the air with a total stranger.

For all she knew, Mervyn Lovesey might be a completely incompetent pilot, inadequately trained, with a poorly maintained plane. He could even be a white slaver, intent on selling her into a Turkish brothel. No, she was too old for that. But she had no reason to trust Lovesey. All she knew was that he was an Englishman with an airplane.

Nancy had flown three times before, but always in larger planes with enclosed cabins. She had never experienced an old-fashioned biplane. It was like taking off in an open-top car. They sped down the runway with the roar of the engine in their ears and the wind buffeting their helmets.

The passenger aircraft Nancy had flown in seemed to ease gently into the air, but this went up with a jump, like a racehorse taking a fence. Then Lovesey banked so steeply that Nancy held on tight, terrified she would fall out despite her safety belt. Did he even have a pilot’s license?

He straightened up and the little plane climbed rapidly. Its flight seemed more comprehensible, less miraculous, than that of a big passenger aircraft. She could see the wings and breathe the wind and hear the howl of the little engine, and she could feel how it stayed aloft, feel the propeller pumping air and the wind lifting the broad fabric wings, the way you could feel a kite riding the wind when you held its string. There was no such sensation in an enclosed plane.

However, being in touch with the little plane’s struggle to fly also gave her an uneasy sensation in the pit of her stomach. The wings were only flimsy things of wood and canvas; the propeller could get stuck, or break, or fall off; the helpful wind might change faithlessly and turn against them; there might be fog, or lightning, or hailstorms.

But all these seemed unlikely as the plane rose into the sunshine and turned its nose bravely toward Ireland. Nancy felt as if she were riding on the back of a big yellow dragonfly. It was scary but exhilarating, like a fairground ride.

They soon left the coast of England behind. She allowed herself a small moment of triumph as they headed west over the water. Peter would be boarding the Clipper soon, and as he did so would congratulate himself on having outwitted his clever older sister. But his jubilation would be premature, she thought with angry satisfaction. He had not got the best of her yet. He would get a dreadful shock when he saw her arrive in Foynes. She could hardly wait to see the look on his face.

She still had a fight ahead, of course, even after she had caught up with Peter. She would not defeat him just by appearing at the board meeting. She would have to convince Aunt Tilly and Danny Riley that they would do better to hold on to their shares and stick with her.

She wanted to expose Peter’s vicious behavior to them all, so that they would know how he had lied to his sister and plotted against her; she wanted to crush him and mortify him by showing them what a snake he was; but a moment’s reflection told her that was not the smart thing to do. If she let her fury and resentment show, they would think she was opposing the merger for purely emotional reasons. She had to talk coolly and calmly about the prospects for the future, and act as if her disagreement with Peter were merely a business matter. They all knew she was a better businessman than her brother.

Anyway, her argument made simple sense. The price they were being offered for their shares was based on Black’s profits, which were low because of Peter’s bad management. Nancy guessed they could make more just by closing down the company and selling off all the shops. But best of all would be to restructure the company according to her plan and make it profitable again.

There was another reason for waiting: the war. War was good for business in general and especially for companies such as Black’s, which supplied to the military. The U.S. might not get into the war, but there was sure to be a precautionary buildup. So profits were set to rise anyway. No doubt that was why Nat Ridgeway wanted to buy the company.

She brooded over the situation as they crossed the Irish Sea, blocking out her speech in her head. She rehearsed key lines and phrases, speaking them out loud, confident that the wind would whip the words away before they could reach the helmeted ears of Mervyn Lovesey a yard in front of her.

She became so absorbed in her speech that she hardly noticed the first time the engine faltered.

“The war in Europe will double this company’s value in twelve months,” she was saying. “If the U.S. gets into the war, the price will double again—”

The second time it happened, she snapped out of her reverie. The continuous high roar altered momentarily, like the sound of a tap with air trapped in the pipe. It recovered to normal, then changed again, and settled into a different note, a ragged, altogether feebler sound that made Nancy feel totally unnerved.

The plane began to lose height.

“What’s going on?” Nancy yelled at the top of her voice, but there was no response. Either he could not hear her or he was too busy to reply.

The engine note changed again, mounting higher, as if he had stepped on the gas; and the plane leveled out.

Nancy was agitated. What was happening? Was the problem serious or not? She wished she could just see his face, but it remained resolutely turned forward.

The engine sound was no longer constant. Sometimes it seemed to recover to its previous full-throated roar; then it would quaver again and become uneven. Scared, Nancy peered forward, trying to discern some change in the spin of the propeller, but she could see none. However, each time the engine stuttered the plane lost a little height.

She could not stand the tension any longer. She unbuckled her safety belt, leaned forward and tapped Lovesey’s shoulder. He turned his head to one side and she shouted in his ear: “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t know!” he yelled back.

She was too frightened to accept that. “What’s happening?” she persisted.

“Engine’s missing on one cylinder, I think.”

“Well, how many cylinders has it got?”

“Four.”

The plane suddenly lurched lower. Nancy hastily sat back and buckled up. She was a car driver, and she had a notion that a car could keep going with one cylinder missing. However, her Cadillac had twelve of them. Could a plane fly on three out of four cylinders? The uncertainty was torture.

They were losing height steadily now. Nancy guessed the plane could fly on three cylinders, but not for long. How soon would they fall into the sea? She gazed into the distance and, to her relief, saw land ahead. Unable to restrain herself, she undid her belt and spoke to Lovesey again. “Can we reach the land?”

“Don’t know!” he shouted.

“You don’t know anything!” she yelled. Fear turned her shout into a scream. She forced herself to be calm again. “What’s your best estimate?”

“Shut your mouth and let me concentrate!”

She sat back again. I may die now, she thought; and once again she fought down the panic and made herself think calmly. It’s lucky I raised my boys before this happened, she told herself. It will be hard for them, especially after losing their father in a car crash. But they’re men, big and strong, and they’ll never lack for money. They’ll be okay.

I wish I’d had another lover. It’s been ... how long? Ten years! No wonder I’m getting used to it. I might as well be a nun. I should have gone to bed with Nat Ridgeway: he would have been nice.

She had had a couple of dates with a new man, just before leaving for Europe, an unmarried accountant of about her own age; but she did not wish she had gone to bed with him. He was kind but weak, like too many of the men she met. They saw her as strong and they wanted her to take care of them. But I want someone to take care of me! she thought.

If I survive this, I’m going to make damn sure I have one more lover before I die.

Peter would win now, she realized. That was a damn shame. The business was all that was left of their father, and now it would be absorbed and disappear into the amorphous mass of General Textiles. Pa had worked hard all his life to build that company and Peter had destroyed it in five idle, selfish years.

Sometimes she still missed her father. He had been such a clever man. When there was a problem, whether it was a major business crisis such as the Depression or a little family matter like one of the boys doing poorly at school, Pa would come up with a positive, hopeful way of dealing with it. He had been very good with mechanical things, and the people who manufactured the big machines used in shoemaking would often consult him before finalizing a design. Nancy understood the production process perfectly well, but her expertise was in predicting what styles the market wanted, and since she took over the factory Black’s had made more profits from women’s shoes than from men’s. She never felt overshadowed by her father, the way Peter did; she just missed him.

Suddenly the thought that she would die seemed ridiculous and unreal. It would be like the curtain coming down before the play ended, when the leading actor was in the middle of a speech: that was simply not how things happened. For a while she felt irrationally cheerful, confident that she would live.

The plane continued to lose height, as the coast of Ireland came rapidly nearer. Soon she could see emerald fields and brown bogs. This is where the Black family originated, she thought with a little thrill.

Immediately in front of her, Mervyn Lovesey’s head and shoulders began to move, as if he was struggling with the controls; and Nancy’s mood switched again, and she started to pray. She had been raised Catholic, but she had not gone to Mass since Sean was killed; in fact the last time she had been inside a church had been for his funeral. She did not really know whether she was a believer or not, but now she prayed hard, figuring that she had nothing to lose, anyway. She said the Our Father; then she asked God to save her so that she could be around at least until Hugh got married and settled down; and so that she might see her grandchildren; and because she wanted to turn the business around and continue to employ all those men and women and make good shoes for ordinary people; and because she wanted a little happiness for herself. Her life, she felt suddenly, had been all work for too long.

She could see the white tops of the waves now. The blur of the approaching coastline resolved into surf, beach, cliff and green field. She wondered, with a shiver of fear, whether she would be able to swim to shore if the plane came down in the water. She thought of herself as a strong swimmer, but stroking happily up and down a pool was very different from surviving in the turbulent sea. The water would be bonechillingly cold. What was the word used when people died of cold? Exposure. Mrs. Lenehan’s plane came down in the Irish Sea and she died of exposure, The Boston Globe would say. She shivered inside her cashmere coat.

If the plane crashed she probably would not live to feel the temperature of the water. She wondered how fast it was traveling. It cruised at about ninety miles per hour, Lovesey had told her; but it was losing speed now. Say it was down to fifty. Sean had crashed at fifty and he had died. No, there was no point in speculating how far she could swim.

The shore came nearer. Perhaps her prayers had been answered, she thought; perhaps the plane would make landfall after all. There had been no further deterioration in the engine sound: it went on at the same high, ragged roar, with an angry tone, like the vengeful buzzing of a wounded wasp. Now she began to worry about where they would land if they did make it. Could a plane come down on a sandy beach? What about a pebble beach? A plane could land in a field, if it were not too rough; but what about a peat bog?

She would know only too soon.

The coast was now about a quarter of a mile away. She could see that the shoreline was rocky and the surf was heavy. The beach looked awfully uneven, she saw with a sinking heart: it was littered with jagged boulders. There was a low cliff rising to a stretch of moorland with a few grazing sheep. She studied the moorland. It looked smooth. There were no hedges and few trees. Perhaps the plane could land there. She did not know whether to hope for that or try to prepare herself for death.

The yellow plane struggled bravely on, still losing height. The salty smell of the sea reached Nancy’s nose. It would surely be better to come down on the water, she thought fearfully, than to try to land on that beach. Those sharp stones would tear the flimsy little plane to pieces—and her, too.

She hoped she would die quickly.

When the shore was a hundred yards away, she realized the plane was not going to hit the beach: it was still too high. Lovesey was obviously aiming at the clifftop pasture. But would he get there? They now seemed almost on a level with the clifftop, and they were still losing height. They were going to smash into the cliff. She wanted to close her eyes, but she did not dare. Instead she stared hypnotically at the cliff rushing at her.

The engine howled like a sick animal. The wind blew sea spray into Nancy’s face. The sheep on the cliff were scattering in all directions as the plane zoomed at them. Nancy gripped the rim of the cockpit so hard her hands hurt. She seemed to be flying straight at the very lip of the cliff. It came at her in a rush. We’re going to hit it, she thought; this is the end. Then a gust of wind lifted the plane a fraction, and she thought they were clear. But it dropped again. The cliff edge was going to knock the little yellow wheels off their struts, she thought. Then, with the cliff a split second away, she closed her eyes and screamed.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then there was a bump, and Nancy was thrown forward hard against her seat belt. For an instant she thought she was going to die. Then she felt the plane rise again. She stopped screaming and opened her eyes.

They were in the air still, just two or three feet above the clifftop grass. The plane bumped down again, and this time it stayed down. Nancy was shaken mercilessly as it shuddered over the uneven ground. She saw that they were headed for a patch of bramble, and realized they could yet crash; then Lovesey did something and the plane turned, avoiding the hazard. The shaking eased; they were slowing down. Nancy could hardly believe she was still alive. The plane came unsteadily to a halt.

Relief shook her like a fit. She could not stop trembling. For a moment she let herself shudder. Then she felt hysteria coming on, and got a grip on herself. “It’s over,” she said aloud. “It’s over, it’s over. I’m all right.”

In front of her, Lovesey got up and climbed out of his seat with a toolbox in his hand. Without looking at her, he jumped down and walked around to the front of the aircraft, where he opened the hood and peered in at the engine.

He might have asked me if I’m all right, Nancy thought.

In an odd way, Lovesey’s rudeness calmed her. She looked around. The sheep had returned to their grazing as if nothing had happened. Now that the engine was silent, she could hear the waves exploding on the beach. The sun was shining, but she could feel a cold, damp wind on her cheek.

She sat still for a moment. When she was sure her legs would hold her, she stood up and clambered out of the aircraft. She stood on Irish soil for the first time in her life, and felt moved almost to tears. This is where we came from, she thought, all those years ago. Oppressed by the British, persecuted by the Protestants, starved by potato blight, we crowded onto wooden ships and sailed away from our homeland to a new world.

And a very Irish way this is to come back, she thought with a grin. I almost died landing here.

That was enough sentiment. She was alive, so could she still catch the Clipper? She looked at her wristwatch. It was two fifteen. The Clipper had just taken off from Southampton. She could get to Foynes in time, if this plane could be made to fly, and if she could summon up the nerve to get back into it.

She walked around to the front of the plane. Lovesey was using a big spanner to loosen a nut. Nancy said: “Can you fix it?”

He did not look up. “Don’t know.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Don’t know.”

Clearly he had reverted to his taciturn mood. Exasperated, Nancy said: “I thought you were supposed to be an engineer.”

That stung him. He looked at her and said: “I studied mathematics and physics. My specialty is wind resistance of complex curves. I’m not a bloody motor mechanic!”

“Then maybe we should fetch a motor mechanic.”

“You won’t find one in bloody Ireland. This country is still in the stone age.”

“Only because the people have been trodden down by the brutal British for so many centuries!”

He withdrew his head from the engine and stood upright. “How the hell did we get onto politics?”

“You haven’t even asked me if I’m all right.”

“I can see you’re all right.”

“You nearly killed me!”

“I saved your life.”

The man was impossible.

She looked around the horizon. About a quarter of a mile away was a line of hedge or wall that might border a road, and a little farther she could see several low thatched roofs in a cluster. Maybe she could get a car and drive to Foynes. “Where are we?” she said. “And don’t tell me you don’t know!”

He grinned. It was the second or third time he had surprised her by not being as bad-tempered as he seemed. “I think we’re a few miles outside Dublin.”

She decided she was not going to stand here and watch him fiddle with the engine. “I’m going to get help.”

He looked at her feet. “You won’t get far in those shoes.”

I’ll show him something, she thought angrily. She lifted her skirt and quickly unfastened her stockings. He stared at her, shocked, and blushed crimson. She rolled her stockings down and took them off along with her shoes. She enjoyed discomposing him. Tucking her shoes into the pockets of her coat, she said: “I shan’t be long,” and walked off in her bare feet.

When her back was turned and she was a few yards away, she permitted herself a broad grin. He had been completely nonplussed. It served him right for being so goddamn condescending.

The pleasure of having bested him soon wore off. Her feet rapidly became wet, cold and filthy dirty. The cottages were farther away than she had thought. She did not even know what she was going to do when she got there. She guessed she would try to get a ride into Dublin. Lovesey was probably right about the scarcity of motor mechanics in Ireland.

It took her twenty minutes to reach the cottages.

Behind the first house she found a small woman in clogs digging in a vegetable garden. Nancy called out: “Hello.”

The woman looked up and gave a cry of fright.

Nancy said: “There’s something wrong with my airplane.”

The woman stared at her as if she had come from outer space.

Nancy realized that she must be a somewhat unusual sight, in a cashmere coat and bare feet. Indeed, a creature from outer space would be hardly less surprising, to a peasant woman digging her garden, than a woman in an airplane. The woman reached out a tentative hand and touched Nancy’s coat. Nancy was embarrassed: the woman was treating her like a goddess.

“I’m Irish,” Nancy said, in an effort to make herself seem more human.

The woman smiled and shook her head, as if to say: You can’t fool me.

“I need a ride to Dublin,” Nancy said.

That made sense to the woman, and she spoke at last. “Oh, yes, you do!” she said. Clearly she felt that apparitions such as Nancy belonged in the big city.

Nancy was relieved to hear her use English: she had been afraid the woman might speak only Gaelic. “How far is it?”

“You could get there in an hour and a half, if you had a decent pony,” the woman said in a musical lilt.

That was no good. In two hours the Clipper was due to take off from Foynes, on the other side of the country. “Does anyone around here have an automobile?”

“No.”

“Damn.”

“But the smith has a motorcycle.” She pronounced it “motorsickle.”

“That’ll do!” In Dublin she might get a car to take her to Foynes. She was not sure how far Foynes was, or how long it would take to get there, but she felt she had to try. “Where’s the smith?”

“I’ll take you.” The woman stuck her spade in the ground.

Nancy followed her around the house. The road was just a mud track, Nancy saw with a sinking heart: a motorcycle could not go much faster than a pony on such a surface.

Another snag occurred to her as they walked through the hamlet. A motorcycle would take only one passenger. She had been planning to go back to the downed plane and pick Lovesey up, if she could get a car. But only one of them could be taken on a bike—unless the owner would sell it, in which case Lovesey could drive and Nancy could ride. Then, she thought excitedly, they could drive all the way to Foynes.

They walked to the last house and approached a lean-to workshop at the side—and Nancy’s high hopes were dashed instantly; for the motorcycle was in pieces all over the earth floor, and the blacksmith was working on it. “Oh, hell,” Nancy said.

The woman spoke to the smith in Gaelic. He looked at Nancy with a trace of amusement. He was very young, with the Irish black hair and blue eyes, and he had a bushy mustache. He nodded understanding, then said to Nancy: “Where’s your airplane?”

“About half a mile away.”

“Maybe I should take a look.”

“Do you know anything about planes?” she asked skeptically.

He shrugged. “Engines are engines.”

She realized that if he could take a motorcycle to pieces he might be able to fix an airplane engine.

The smith went on: “However, it sounds to me as if I might be too late.”

Nancy frowned. Then she heard what he had noticed: the sound of an airplane. Could it be the Tiger Moth? She ran outside and looked up into the sky. Sure enough, the little yellow plane was flying low over the hamlet.

Lovesey had fixed it—and he had taken off without waiting for her!

She gazed up unbelievingly. How could he do this to her? He even had her overnight case!

The plane swooped low over the hamlet, as if to mock her. She shook her fist at it. Lovesey waved to her and then climbed away.

She watched the plane recede. The smith and the peasant woman were standing beside her. “He’s leaving without you,” the smith said.

“He’s a heartless fiend.”

“Is it your husband?”

“Certainly not!”

“Just as well, I suppose.”

Nancy felt sick. Two men had betrayed her today. Was there something wrong with her? she wondered.

She thought she might as well give up. She could not catch the Clipper now. Peter would sell the company to Nat Ridgeway, and that would the end of it.

The plane banked and turned. Lovesey was setting course for Foynes, she presumed. He would catch up with his runaway wife. Nancy hoped she would refuse to go back to him.

Unexpectedly, the plane kept on turning. When it was pointing toward the hamlet it straightened up. What was he doing now?

It came in along the line of the mud road, losing height. Why was he coming back? As the plane approached, Nancy began to wonder whether he was going to land. Was the engine faltering again?

The little plane touched down on the mud road and bounced along toward the three people outside the blacksmith’s house.

Nancy almost fainted with relief. He had come back for her!

The plane shuddered to a halt in front of her. Mervyn shouted something she could not make out.

“What?” she yelled.

Impatiently, he beckoned to her. She ran up to the plane. He leaned toward her and shouted: “What are you waiting for? Get in!”

She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to three. They could still make it to Foynes in time. Her spirits bounded with optimism again. I’m not finished yet! she thought.

The young blacksmith came up with a twinkle in his eye and shouted: “Let me help you up.” He made a step with his linked hands. She put her muddy bare foot on it and he boosted her up. She scrambled into her seat.

The plane pulled away immediately.

A few seconds later they were in the air.

CHAPTER NINE

Mervyn Lovesey’s wife was very happy.

Diana had been frightened when the Clipper took off, but now she felt nothing but elation.

She had not flown before. Mervyn had never invited her to go up in his little plane, even though she had spent days painting it a lovely bright yellow for him. She discovered that, once you got over the nervousness, it was a terrific thrill to be this high in the air, in something like a first-class hotel with wings, looking down on England’s pastures and comfields, roads and railways, houses and churches and factories. She felt free. She was free. She had left Mervyn and run away with Mark.

Last night, at the South-Western Hotel in Southampton, they had registered as Mr. and Mrs. Alder and had spent their first whole night together. They had made love, then gone to sleep, then woken up in the morning and made love again. It seemed such a luxury, after three months of short afternoons and snatched kisses.

Flying the Clipper was like living in a movie. The decor was opulent, the people were elegant, the two stewards were quietly efficient, everything happened on cue as if it were scripted, and there were famous faces everywhere. There was Baron Gabon, the wealthy Zionist, always in intense discussion with his haggard companion. The Marquis of Oxenford, the famous Fascist, was on board with his beautiful wife. Princess Lavinia Bazarov, one of the pillars of Paris society, was in Diana’s compartment, in the window seat of Diana’s divan.

Opposite the princess, in the other window seat on this side, was the movie star Lulu Bell. Diana had seen her in lots of films: My Cousin Jake, Torment, The Secret Life, Helen of Troy and many others had come to the Paramount Cinema in Oxford Street, Manchester. But the biggest surprise was that Mark knew her. As they were settling into their seats, a strident American voice had called out: “Mark! Mark Alder! Is that really you?” and Diana had turned around to see a small blond woman like a canary swooping on him.

It turned out they had worked together on a radio show in Chicago years ago, before Lulu was a big star. Mark had introduced Diana, and Lulu had been very sweet, saying how beautiful Diana was and how lucky Mark had been to find her. But naturally she was more interested in Mark, and the two of them had been chatting ever since takeoff, reminiscing about the old days when they were young and short of money and lived in flophouses and stayed up all night drinking bootleg liquor.

Diana had not realized that Lulu was so short. In her films she seemed taller. Also younger. And in real life you could see that her hair was not naturally blond, as Diana’s was, but dyed. However, she did have the chirpy, pushy personality she displayed in most of the movies. She was the center of attention even now. Although she was talking to Mark, everyone was looking at her: Princess Lavinia in the corner, Diana opposite Mark, and the two men on the other side of the aisle.

She was telling a story about a radio broadcast during which one of the actors had left, thinking his part was over, when in fact he had one line to speak right at the end. “So I said my line, which was: Who ate the Easter cake? And everybody looked around—but George had disappeared! And there was a long silence.” She paused for dramatic effect. Diana smiled. What on earth did people do when things went wrong during radio shows? She listened to the radio a lot but she could not remember anything like this happening. Lulu resumed. “So I said my line again: Who ate the Easter cake? Then I went like this.” She lowered her chin and spoke in an astonishingly convincing gruff male voice. “I think it must have been the cat.”

Everyone laughed.

“And that was the end of the show,” she finished.

Diana remembered a broadcast during which an announcer had been so shocked at something that he said, “Jesus H. Christ!” in astonishment. “I heard an announcer swear once,” she said. She was about to tell the story, but Mark said: “Oh, that happens all the time,” and turned back to Lulu, saying: “Remember when Max Gifford said Babe Ruth had clean balls, and then couldn’t stop laughing?”

Both Mark and Lulu giggled helplessly over that, and Diana smiled, but she was beginning to feel left out. She reflected that she was rather spoiled: for three months, while Mark had been alone in a strange town, she had had his undivided attention. Obviously that could not go on forever. She would have to get used to sharing him with other people from now on. However, she did not have to play the part of audience. She turned to Princess Lavinia, sitting on her right, and said: “Do you listen to the wireless, Princess?”

The old Russian woman looked down her thin beaked nose and said: “I find it slightly vulgar.”

Diana had met sniffy old ladies before, and they did not intimidate her. “How surprising,” she said. “Only last night we tuned in to some Beethoven quintets.”

“German music is so mechanical,” the princess replied.

There would be no pleasing her, Diana decided. She had once belonged to the most idle and privileged class the world had ever seen, and she wanted everyone to know it, so she pretended that everything she was offered was not as good as what she had once been used to. She was going to be a bore.

The steward assigned to the rear half of the aircraft arrived to take orders for cocktails. His name was Davy. He was a small, neat, charming young man with fair hair, and he walked the carpeted aisle with a bouncy step. Diana asked for a dry martini. She did not know what it was, but she remembered from the movies that it was a chic drink in America.

She studied the two men on the other side of the compartment. They were both looking out of the windows. Nearest her was a handsome young man in a rather flashy suit. He was broad-shouldered, like an athlete, and wore several rings. His dark coloring led Diana to wonder whether he was South American. Opposite him was a man who looked rather out of place. His suit was too big and his shirt collar was worn. He did not look as if he could afford the price of a Clipper ticket. He was also as bald as a lightbulb. The two men did not speak or look at one another, but all the same Diana was sure they were together.

She wondered what Mervyn was doing right now. He had almost certainly read her note. He might be crying, she thought guiltily. No, that was not like him. He was more likely to be raging. But who would he rage at? His poor employees, perhaps. She wished her note had been kinder, or at least more enlightening, but she had been too distraught to do better. He would probably phone her sister, Thea, she guessed. He would think Thea might know where she had gone. Well, Thea didn’t. She would be shocked. What would she tell the twins? The thought upset Diana. She was going to miss her little nieces.

Davy came back with their drinks. Mark raised his glass to Lulu, and then to Diana—almost as an afterthought, she said to herself sourly. She tasted her martini and nearly spat it out. “Ugh!” she said. “It tastes like neat gin!”

Everyone laughed at her. “It is mostly gin, honey,” said Mark. “Haven’t you had a martini before?”

Diana felt humiliated. She had not known what she was ordering, like a schoolgirl in a bar. All these cosmopolitan people now thought she was an ignorant provincial.

Davy said: “Let me bring you something else, ma’am.”

“A glass of champagne, then,” she said sulkily.

“Right away.”

Diana spoke crossly to Mark. “I haven’t had a martini before. I just thought I’d try it. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“Of course not, honey,” he said, and patted her knee.

Princess Lavinia said: “This brandy is disgusting, young man. Bring me some tea instead.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

Diana decided to go to the ladies’ room. She stood up, said, “Excuse me,” and went out through the arched doorway that led rearward.

She passed through another passenger compartment just like the one she had left, then found herself at the back of the plane. On one side was a small compartment with just two people in it, and on the other side, a door marked LADIES’ POWDER ROOM. She went in.

The powder room cheered her up. It really was very pretty. There was a neat dressing table with two stools upholstered in turquoise leather, and the walls were covered with beige fabric. Diana sat in front of the mirror to repair her makeup. Mark called it rewriting her face. Paper tissues and cold cream were laid out neatly in front of her.

But when she looked at herself, she saw an unhappy woman. Lulu Bell had come like a cloud blocking the sun. She had taken Mark’s attention away and made him treat Diana like a slight inconvenience. Of course, Lulu was nearer to Mark’s age: he was thirty-nine, and she had to be past forty. Diana was only thirty-four. Did Mark realize how old Lulu was? Men could be stupid about things like that.

The real trouble was that Lulu and Mark had so much in common: both in show business, both American, both veterans of the early days of radio. Diana had not done any of that sort of thing. If you wanted to be harsh, you could say that she had not done anything except be a socialite in a provincial city.

Would it always be this way with Mark? She was going to his country. From now on he would know everything, but all would be unfamiliar to her. They would be mixing with his friends, for she had none in America. How many more times would she be laughed at for not knowing what everyone else knew, like the fact that a dry martini tasted of nothing but cold gin?

She wondered how much she would miss the comfortable, predictable world she had left behind, the world of charity balls and Masonic dinners at Manchester hotels, where she knew all the people and all the drinks and all the menus, too. It was dull, but it was safe.

She shook her head, making her hair fluff out prettily. She was not going to think that way. I was bored to distraction in that world, she thought; I longed for adventure and excitement; and now that I’ve got it, I’m going to enjoy it.

She decided to make a determined effort to win back Mark’s attention. What could she do? She did not want to confront him directly and tell him she resented his behavior. That seemed weak. Maybe a taste of his own medicine would do the trick. She could talk to someone else the way he was talking to Lulu. That might make him sit up and take notice. Who would it be? The handsome boy across the aisle would do just fine. He was younger than Mark, and bigger. That ought to make Mark jealous as hell.

She dabbed perfume behind her ears and between her breasts, then left the powder room. She swung her hips a little more than was necessary as she walked along the plane, and she took pleasure in the lustful stares of the men and the admiring or envious looks of the women. I’m the most beautiful woman on the plane, and Lulu Bell knows it, she thought.

When she reached her compartment she did not take her seat, but turned to the left-hand side and looked out of the window over the shoulder of the young man in the striped suit. He gave her a good-to-see-you smile.

She smiled back and said: “Isn’t this wonderful?”

“Ain’t it just?” he said; but she noticed he threw a wary glance at the man opposite, as if he expected a reprimand. It was almost as if the other man were his chaperon.

Diana said: “Are you two together?”

The bald man answered curtly. “You could say we’re associates.” Then he seemed to remember his manners, and held out his hand, saying: “Ollis Field.”

“Diana Lovesey.” She shook his hand reluctantly. He had dirty fingernails. She turned back to the younger man.

“Frank Gordon,” he said.

Both men were American, but all resemblance ended there. Frank Gordon was smartly dressed, with a pin through his collar and a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. He smelled of cologne and his curly hair was lightly oiled. He said: “What part is this, that we’re flying over—is this still England?”

Diana leaned over him and looked out of the window, letting him smell her perfume. “I think that must be Devon,” she said, although she really did not know.

“What part are you from?” he said.

She sat down beside him. “Manchester,” she said. She glanced over at Mark, caught his startled look and returned her attention to Frank. “That’s in the northwest.”

Opposite, Ollis Field lit a cigarette with a disapproving air. Diana crossed her legs.

Frank said: “My family come from Italy.”

The Italian government was Fascist. Diana said candidly: “Do you think Italy will enter the war?”

Frank shook his head. “Italian people don’t want war.”

“I don’t suppose anybody wants war.”

“So why does it happen?”

She found him difficult to make out. He obviously had money, but he seemed uneducated. Most men were eager to explain things to her, to show off their knowledge, whether or not she wanted it. This one had no such impulse. She looked over at his companion and said: “What do you think, Mr. Field?”

“No opinion,” he said grumpily.

She turned back to the younger man. “Perhaps war is the only way Fascist leaders can keep their people under control.”

She looked at Mark again, and was disappointed to see that he was once again deep in conversation with Lulu, and they were giggling together like schoolgirls. She felt let down. What was the matter with him? Mervyn would have been ready to punch Frank’s nose by now.

She looked back at Frank. The words on her lips were “Tell me all about yourself,” but suddenly she could not face the boredom of listening to his reply, and she said nothing. At that point Davy the steward brought her champagne and a plate of caviar on toast. She took the opportunity to return to her seat, feeling despondent.

She listened resentfully to Mark and Lulu for a while; then her thoughts drifted away. She was silly to get upset about Lulu. Mark was committed to her, Diana. He was just enjoying talking about old times. There was no point in Diana’s worrying about America: the decision had been taken, the die was cast, Mervyn had by now read her note. It was stupid to start having second thoughts on account of a forty-five-year-old bottle-blonde such as Lulu. She would soon learn American ways, their drinks and their radio shows and their manners. Before long she would have more friends than Mark. She was like that: she attracted people to her.

She began to look forward to the long flight across the Atlantic. She had thought, when she read about the Clipper in the Manchester Guardian, that it sounded like the most romantic journey in the world. From Ireland to Newfoundland was almost two thousand miles, and it took forever, something like seventeen hours. There was time to have dinner, and go to bed, and sleep all night and get up again, before the plane landed. The idea of wearing nightclothes that she had worn with Mervyn had seemed wrong, but she had not had time to shop for the trip. Fortunately she had a beautiful café-au-lait silk robe and salmon pink pajamas that she had never worn. There were no double beds, not even in the honeymoon suite—Mark had checked—but his bunk would be over hers. It was thrilling and at the same time frightening to think of going to bed high over the ocean and flying on, hour after hour, hundreds of miles from land. She wondered if she would be able to sleep. The engines would work just as well whether she was awake or not, but all the same she would worry that they might stop while she slept.

Glancing out of the window she saw that they were now over water. It must be the Irish Sea. People said a flying boat could not land in the open sea, because of the waves; but it seemed to Diana that it surely had a better chance than a land plane.

They flew into clouds, and she could see nothing. After a while the plane began to shake. Passengers looked at one another and smiled nervously, and the steward went around asking everyone to fasten their safety belts. Diana felt anxious, with no land in sight. Princess Lavinia was gripping the arm of her seat hard, but Mark and Lulu carried on talking as if nothing was happening. Frank Gordon and Ollis Field appeared calm, but both lit cigarettes and drew hard on them.

Just as Mark was saying: “What the hell happened to Muriel Fair-field?” there was a thud and the plane seemed to fall. Diana felt as if her stomach had come up into her throat. In another compartment, a passenger screamed. But then the aircraft righted itself, almost as if it had landed.

Lulu said: “Muriel married a millionaire!”

“No kidding!” said Mark. “But she was so ugly!”

Diana said: “Mark, I’m scared!”

He turned to her. “It was only an air pocket, honey. It’s normal.”

“But it felt as if we were going to crash!”

“We won’t. It happens all the time.”

He turned back to Lulu. For a moment Lulu looked at Diana, expecting her to say something. Diana looked away, furious with Mark.

Mark said: “How did Muriel get a millionaire?”

After a moment Lulu replied: “I don’t know, but now they live in Hollywood and he puts money into movies.”

“Unbelievable!”

Unbelievable was right, Diana thought. As soon as she could get Mark on his own she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

His lack of sympathy made her feel more scared. By nightfall they would be over the Atlantic Ocean, rather than the Irish Sea; how would she feel then? She imagined the Atlantic as a vast, featureless blank, cold and deadly for thousands of miles. The only things you ever saw, according to the Manchester Guardian, were icebergs. If there had been some islands to relieve the seascape Diana might have felt less jittery. It was the complete blankness of the picture that was so frightening: nothing but the plane and the moon and the heaving sea. In a funny way it was like her anxiety about going to America: in her head she knew it was not dangerous, but the scenery was strange and there was not one single familiar landmark.

She was getting jumpy. She tried to think of other things. She was looking forward to the seven-course dinner, for she enjoyed long, elegant meals. Climbing into bunk beds would be childishly thrilling, like going to sleep in a tent in the garden. And the dizzying towers of New York were waiting for her on the other side. But the excitement of a journey into the unknown had now turned into fear. She drained her glass and ordered more champagne, but it failed to calm her. She longed for the feel of firm ground under her feet again. She shivered, thinking how cold the sea must be. Nothing she did could take her mind off her fear. If she had been alone, she would have hidden her face in her hands and shut her eyes tight. She stared malevolently at Mark and Lulu, who were chatting cheerfully, oblivious to her torment. She was even tempted to make a scene, to burst into tears or have hysterics; but she swallowed hard and stayed calm. Soon the plane would come down at Foynes and she could get off and walk around on dry land.

But then she would have to board again for the long transatlantic flight.

Somehow she could not bear that idea.

I can hardly get through an hour like this, she thought. How can I do it all night? It will kill me.

But what else can I do?

Of course, no one was going to force her to get back on the plane at Foynes.

And if no one forced her, she did not think she could do it.

But what would I do?

I know what I’d do.

I would telephone Mervyn.

She could hardly believe that her bright dream should collapse like this; but she knew it was going to happen.

Mark was being eaten alive in front of her eyes by an older woman with dyed hair and too much makeup, and Diana was going to telephone Mervyn and say: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I want to come home.

She knew he would forgive her. Feeling so sure of his reaction made her a little ashamed. She had wounded him, but he would still take her in his arms and be happy that she had returned.

But I don’t want that, she thought miserably. I want to go to America and marry Mark and live in California. I love him.

No, that was a foolish dream. She was Mrs. Mervyn Lovesey of Manchester, sister of Thea and Auntie Diana to the twins, the not-very-dangerous rebel of Manchester society. She would never live in a house with palm trees in the garden and a swimming pool. She was married to a loyal, grumpy man who was more interested in his business than in her; and most of the women she knew were in exactly the same situation, so it must be normal. They were all disappointed, but they were better off than the one or two who had married wastrels and drunks, so they commiserated with each other and agreed that it could be worse, and spent their husbands’ hard-earned money in department stores and hairdressing salons. But they never went to California.

The plane plunged into emptiness again, then righted itself as before. Diana had to concentrate hard not to throw up. But for some reason she was no longer scared. She knew what the future held. She felt safe.

She just wanted to cry.

CHAPTER TEN

Eddie Deakin, the flight engineer, thought of the Clipper as a giant soap bubble, beautiful and fragile, which he must carry carefully across the sea while the people inside made merry, oblivious of how thin the film between them and the howling night was.

The journey was more hazardous than they knew, for the technology of the aircraft was new, and the night sky over the Atlantic was uncharted territory, full of unexpected dangers. Nevertheless, Eddie always felt, proudly, that the skill of the captain, the dedication of the crew and the reliability of American engineering would take them safely home.

On this journey, however, he was sick with fear.

There was a Tom Luther on the passenger list. Eddie had kept looking out of the flight-deck windows as the passengers boarded, wondering which of them was responsible for kidnapping Carol-Ann; but of course he could not tell—they were just the usual crowd of well-dressed, well-fed tycoons and movie stars and aristocrats.

For a while, preparing for takeoff, he had been able to turn his mind away from tormenting thoughts of Carol-Ann and concentrate on the task in hand: checking his instruments, priming the four massive radial engines, warming them up, adjusting the fuel mixture and the cowl flaps, and governing engine speeds during taxiing. But once the plane reached its cruising altitude, there was less for him to do. He had to synchronize engine speeds, regulate the engine temperature and adjust the fuel mixture; then his job consisted mainly of monitoring the engines to check that they were performing smoothly. And his mind started wandering again.

He had a desperate, irrational need to know what Carol-Ann was wearing. He would feel just a little less bad if he could picture her in her sheepskin coat, buttoned and belted, and wet-weather boots, not because she might be cold—it was only September—but so that the shape of her body would be disguised. However, it was more likely she would have on the lavender-colored sleeveless dress he loved so much, which showed off her lush figure. She was going to be locked up with a bunch of brutes for the next twenty-four hours and the thought of what might happen if they started drinking was agony to him.

What the hell did they want from him?

He hoped the rest of the crew would not notice the state he was in. Fortunately, they were all concentrating on their own tasks, and they were not crammed together as closely as in most aircraft. The flight deck of the Boeing 314 was very large. The spacious cockpit was only part of it. Captain Baker and copilot Johnny Dott sat on raised seats side by side at their controls, with a gap between them leading to a trapdoor that gave access to the bow compartment in the nose of the plane. Heavy curtains could be drawn behind the pilots at night so that the light from the rest of the cabin would not diminish their night vision.

That section alone was bigger than most flight decks; but the rest of the Clipper’s flight cabin was even more generous. Most of the port side, on the left as you faced forward, was taken up by the seven-foot-long chart table, at which navigator Jack Ashford now stood, bending over his maps. Aft of that was a small conference table, at which the captain could sit when he was not actually flying the plane. Beside the captain’s table was an oval hatch leading to the crawlway inside the wing: a special feature of the Clipper was that the engines could be reached during flight via this crawlway, and Eddie could do simple maintenance or repairs, such as fixing an oil leak, without the plane having to come down.

On the starboard, right-hand side, immediately behind the copilot’s seat was the staircase that led down to the passenger deck. Then came the radio operator’s station, where Ben Thompson sat facing forward. Behind Ben sat Eddie. He faced sideways, looking at a wall of dials and a bank of levers. A little to his right was the oval hatch leading to the starboard wing crawlway. At the back of the flight deck, a doorway led to the cargo holds.

The whole thing was twenty-one feet long and nine feet wide, with full headroom throughout. Carpeted, soundproofed and decorated with soft green wall fabric and brown leather seats, it was the most unbelievably luxurious flight deck ever made: when Eddie first saw it he thought it was some kind of joke.

Now, however, he saw only the bent backs and concentrated frowns of his crewmates, and judged, with relief, that they had not noticed that he was beside himself with fear.

Desperate to understand why this nightmare was happening to him, he wanted to give the unknown Mr. Luther an early opportunity to make himself known. After takeoff Eddie hunted around for an excuse to pass through the passenger cabin. He could not think of a good reason, so he made do with a bad one. He stood up, mumbled to the navigator, “Just going to check the rudder trim control cables,” and went quickly down the stairs. If anyone should ask him why he took it into his head to perform that check at that moment he would just say: “Hunch.”

He walked slowly through the passenger cabin. Nicky and Davy were serving cocktails and snacks. The passengers were relaxing and conversing in several languages. There was already a card game in progress in the main lounge. Eddie saw some familiar faces, but he was too distracted to figure out who the famous people were. He made eye contact with several passengers, hoping that one would reveal himself to be Tom Luther, but no one spoke to him.

He reached the back of the plane and climbed a wall-mounted ladder beside the door to the ladies’ powder room. This led to a hatch in the ceiling that gave access to the empty space in the tail. He could have reached the same place by remaining on the upper deck and going back through the baggage holds.

He checked the rudder control cables in a perfunctory way then closed the hatch and descended the ladder. A boy of fourteen or fifteen was standing there watching him with lively curiosity. Eddie forced himself to smile. Encouraged, the boy said: “Can I see the flight deck?”

“Sure you can,” Eddie said automatically. He did not want to be bothered right now, but on this of all planes the crew had to be charming to the passengers, and anyway the distraction might take his mind off Carol-Ann briefly.

“Super. Thanks!”

“Honk back to your seat for a minute and I’ll pick you up.”

A puzzled look passed briefly over the boy’s face; then he nodded and hurried away. “Honk back” was a New England expression, Eddie realized: it was not familiar to New Yorkers, let alone Europeans.

Eddie walked even more slowly back along the aisle, waiting for someone to approach him; but no one did, and he had to assume the man would wait for a more discreet opportunity. He could have just asked the stewards where Mr. Luther was seated, but they would naturally wonder why he wanted to know, and he was reluctant to arouse their curiosity.

The boy was in number 2 compartment, near the front, with his family. Eddie said, “Okay, kid, come on up,” and smiled at the parents. They nodded rather frostily at him. A girl with long red hair—the boy’s sister, maybe—gave him a grateful smile, and his heart missed a beat: she was beautiful when she smiled.

“What’s your name?” he asked the boy as they went up the spiral staircase.

“Percy Oxenford.”

“I’m Eddie Deakin, the flight engineer.”

They reached the top of the stairs. “Most flight decks ain’t as nice as this,” Eddie said, forcing himself to be cheerful.

“What are they like usually?”

“Bare and cold and noisy. And they have sharp projections that stick into you every time you turn around.”

“What does an engineer do?”

“I take care of the engines—keep them drivin’ all the way to America.”

“What are all those levers and dials for?”

“Let’s see.... These levers here control the propeller speed, the engine temperature and the fuel mixture. There’s one complete set for each of the four engines.” This was all a bit vague, he realized, and the boy was quite bright. He made an effort to be more informative. “Here, sit in my chair,” he said. Percy sat down eagerly. “Look at this dial. It shows that the temperature of number two engine, at its head, is two hundred five degrees centigrade. That’s a little too close to the maximum permissible, which is two hundred thirty-two degrees while cruising. So we’ll cool it down.”

“How do you do that?”

“Take that lever in your hand and pull it down a fraction.... That’s just enough. Now you’ve opened the cowl flap an inch more to let in extra cold air, and in a few moments you’ll see that temperature drop. Have you studied much physics?”

“I go to an old-fashioned school,” Percy said. “We do a lot of Latin and Greek, but they’re not very keen on science.”

It seemed to Eddie that Latin and Greek were not going to help Britain win the war, but he kept the thought to himself.

Percy said: “What do the rest of them do?”

“Well, now, the most important person is the navigator: that’s Jack Ashford, standing at the chart table.” Jack, a dark-haired, blue-chinned man with regular features, looked up and gave a friendly smile. Eddie went on. “He has to figure out where we are, which can be difficult in the middle of the Atlantic. He has an observation dome, back there between the cargo holds, and he takes sightings on the stars with his sextant.”

Jack said: “Actually, it’s a bubble octant.”

“What’s that?” Percy asked.

Jack showed him the instrument. “The bubble is just to tell you when the octant is level. You identify a star, then look at it through the mirror, and adjust the angle of the mirror until the star appears to be on the horizon. You read off the angle of the mirror here, and look it up in the book of tables, and that gives you your position on the earth’s surface.”

“It sounds simple,” Percy said.

“It is in theory,” Jack said with a laugh. “One of the problems on this route is that we can be flying through cloud for the whole journey, so I never get to see a star.”

“But surely, if you know where you started, and you keep heading in the same direction, you can’t go wrong.”

“That’s called dead reckoning. But you can go wrong, because the wind blows you sideways.”

“Can’t you guess how much?”

“We can do better than guess. There’s a little trapdoor in the wing, and I drop a flare in the water and watch it carefully as we fly away from it. If it stays in line with the tail of the plane, we’re not drifting; but if it seems to move to one side or the other, that shows me our drift.”

“It sounds a bit rough-and-ready.”

Jack laughed again. “It is. If I’m unlucky, and I don’t get a look at the stars all the way across the ocean, and I make a wrong estimate of our drift, we can end up a hundred miles or more off course.”

“And then what happens?”

“We find out about it as soon as we come within range of a beacon, or a radio station, and we set about correcting our course.”

Eddie watched as curiosity and understanding showed on the boyish, intelligent face. One day, he thought, I’ll explain things to my own child. That made him think of Carol-Ann, and the reminder hurt like a pain in his heart. If only the faceless Mr. Luther would make himself known Eddie would feel better. When he knew what was wanted of him he would at least understand why this awful thing was happening to him.

Percy said: “May I see inside the wing?”

Eddie said: “Sure.” He opened the hatch to the starboard wing. The roar of the huge engines immediately sounded much louder, and there was a smell of hot oil. Inside the wing was a low passage with a crawlway like a narrow plank. Behind each of the two engines was a mechanic’s station with room for a man to stand upright, just about. Pan American’s interior decorators had not got into this space, and it was a utilitarian world of struts and rivets, cables and pipes. “That’s what most flight decks are like,” Eddie shouted.

“May I go inside?”

Eddie shook his head and closed the door. “No passengers beyond this point. I’m sorry.”

Jack said: “I’ll show you my observation dome.” He took Percy through the door at the back of the flight deck, and Eddie checked the dials he had been ignoring for the past few minutes. All was well.

The radioman, Ben Thompson, sang out the conditions at Foynes: “Westerly wind, twenty-two knots, choppy sea.”

A moment later, on Eddie’s board, the light over the word CRUISING winked out and the light over LANDING came on. He scanned his temperature dials and reported: “Engines okay for landing.” The check was necessary because the high-compression motors could be damaged by too abrupt throttling back.

Eddie opened the door to the rear of the plane. There was a narrow passage with cargo holds on either side, and a dome, above the passage, reached by a ladder. Percy was standing on the ladder looking through the octant. Beyond the cargo holds was a space that was supposed to be for crew beds, but it had never been furnished: off-duty crew used number 1 compartment. At the back of that area was a hatch leading to the tail space where the control cables ran. Eddie called: “Landing, Jack.”

Jack said: “Time to get back to your seat, young man.”

Eddie had a feeling that Percy was too good to be true. Although the boy did as he was told, there was a mischievous glint in his eye. However, for the moment he was on his best behavior, and he went obediently forward to the staircase and down to the passenger deck.

The engine note changed, and the plane began to lose height. The crew went automatically into the smoothly coordinated landing routine. Eddie wished he could tell the others what was happening to him. He felt desperately lonely. These were his friends and colleagues; they trusted one another; they had flown the Atlantic together; he wanted to explain his plight and ask their advice. But it was too risky.

He stood up for a moment to look out of the window. He could see a small town, which he guessed was Limerick. Outside the town, on the north bank of the Shannon estuary, a large new airport was being constructed, for land planes and seaplanes. Until it was finished the flying boats were coming down on the south side of the estuary, in the lee of a small island, off a village called Foynes.

Their course was northwest, so Captain Baker had to turn the plane through forty-five degrees to land into the westerly wind. A launch from the village would be patrolling the landing zone to check for large floating debris that might damage the aircraft. The refueling boat would be standing by, loaded with fifty-gallon drums, and there would be a crowd of sightseers on the shore, come to watch the miracle of a ship that could fly.

Ben Thompson was talking into his radio microphone. At any distance greater than a few miles he had to use Morse code, but now he was close enough for voice radio. Eddie could not distinguish the words but he could tell from Ben’s calm, relaxed tone of voice that all was well.

They lost height steadily. Eddie watched his dials vigilantly, making occasional adjustments. One of his most important tasks was to synchronize engine speeds, a job that became more demanding when the pilot made frequent throttle changes.

Landing in a calm sea could be almost imperceptible. In ideal conditions the hull of the Clipper went into the water like a spoon into cream. Eddie, concentrating on his instrument panel, often was not aware that the plane had touched down until it had been in the water for several seconds. However, today the sea was choppy—which was as bad as it got in any of the places where the Clipper came down on this route.

The lowest point of the hull, which was called the “step,” touched first, and there was a light thud-thud-thud as it clipped the tops of the waves. That lasted only a second or two, then the huge aircraft eased down another few inches and cleaved the surface. Eddie found it much smoother than coming down in a land plane, when there was always a perceptible bump, and sometimes several. Very little spray reached the windows of the flight deck, which was on the upper level. The pilot throttled right down and the aircraft slowed immediately. The plane was a boat again.

Eddie looked out of the windows again as they taxied to their mooring. On one side was the island, low and bare: he saw a small white house and a few sheep. On the other side was the mainland. He could see a sizable concrete jetty with a large fishing boat tied up to its side, several big oil-storage tanks, and a straggle of gray houses. This was Foynes.

Unlike Southampton, Foynes did not have a purpose-built jetty for flying boats, so the Clipper would moor in the estuary and the people would be landed by launch. Mooring was the engineer’s responsibility.

Eddie went forward, knelt between the two pilots’ seats, and opened the hatch leading to the bow compartment. He descended the ladder into the empty space. Stepping into the nose of the plane, he opened a hatch and stuck his head out. The air was fresh and salty, and he took a deep breath.

A launch came alongside. One of the hands waved to Eddie. The man was holding a rope attached to a buoy. He threw the rope into the water.

There was a collapsible capstan on the nose of the flying boat. Eddie lifted it and locked it into position; then he took a boat hook from inside and used it to pick up the rope that was floating in the water. He attached the rope to the capstan, and the aircraft was moored. Looking up at the windshield behind him, he gave Captain Baker the thumbs-up sign.

Another launch was already coming alongside to take the passengers and crew off the plane.

Eddie closed the hatch and returned to the flight deck. Captain Baker and Ben, the radioman, were still at their stations, but the copilot, Johnny, was leaning on the chart table chatting to Jack. Eddie sat at his station and closed down the engines. When everything was ship-shape he put on his black uniform jacket and white cap. The crew went down the stairs, passed through number 2 passenger compartment, went into the lounge and stepped out onto the sea-wing. From there they boarded the launch. Eddie’s deputy, Mickey Finn, remained behind to supervise the refueling.

The sun was shining but there was a cool, salty breeze. Eddie surveyed the passengers on the launch, wondering yet again which one was Tom Luther. He recognized a woman’s face, and realized with a faint shock that he had seen her making love to a French count in a movie called A Spy in Paris: she was the film star Lulu Bell. She was chatting animatedly to a guy in a blazer. Could he be Tom Luther? With them was a beautiful woman in a dotted dress who looked miserable. There were several other familiar faces, but most of the passengers were anonymous men in suits and hats, and rich women in furs.

If Luther did not make his move soon, Eddie would seek him out, and to hell with discretion, he decided. He could not stand the waiting.

The launch puttered away from the Clipper toward the land. Eddie stared across the water, thinking of his wife. He kept picturing the scene as the men burst into the house. Carol-Ann might have been eating eggs, or making coffee, or getting dressed for work. What if she had been in the bathtub? Eddie loved to look at her in the tub. She would pin up her hair, showing her long neck, and lie in the water, languidly sponging her suntanned limbs. She liked him to sit on the edge and talk to her. Until he met her, he had thought this kind of thing only happened in erotic daydreams. But now the picture was blighted by three coarse men in fedoras who burst in and grabbed her—

The thought of her fear and shock as they seized her maddened Eddie almost beyond endurance. He felt his head spinning and he had to concentrate to stay upright in the launch. It was his utter helplessness that made the predicament so agonizing. She was in desperate trouble and there was nothing he could do, nothing. He realized he was clenching his fists spasmodically, and forced himself to stop.

The launch reached the shore and tied up to a floating pontoon connected by a gangway to the dock. The crew helped the passengers disembark, then followed them up the gangway. They were directed to the customs shed.

The formalities were brief. The passengers drifted into the little village. Across the road from the harbor was a former inn that had been almost entirely taken over by airline personnel, and the crew headed for that.

Eddie was the last to leave, and as he came out of the customs shed, he was approached by a passenger who said: “Are you the engineer?”

Eddie tensed. The passenger was a man of about thirty-five, shorter than he but stocky and muscular. He wore a pale gray suit, a tie with a stickpin and a gray felt hat. Eddie said: “Yes, I’m Eddie Deakin.”

“My name is Tom Luther.”

A red haze blurred Eddie’s vision and his rage boiled over in an instant. He grabbed Luther by the lapels, swung him around and banged him against the wall of the customs shed. “What have you done to Carol-Ann?” he spat. Luther was taken completely by surprise: he had expected a frightened, compliant victim. Eddie shook him until his teeth rattled. “You Christless son of a whore, where is my wife?”

Luther recovered from the shock quickly. The stunned look left his face. He broke Eddie’s hold with a swift, powerful move and threw a punch. Eddie dodged it and hit him in the stomach twice. Luther expelled air like a cushion and doubled up. He was strong, but out of condition. Eddie grabbed him by the throat and started to squeeze.

Luther stared at him out of terrified eyes.

After a moment Eddie realized he was killing the man.

He eased his grip, then let go completely. Luther slumped against the wall, gasping for air, his hand on his bruised neck.

The Irish customs officer looked out of the shed. He must have heard the thump as Eddie threw Luther against the wall. “What happened?”

Luther stood upright with an effort. “I stumbled, but I’m okay,” he managed.

The customs man bent down and picked up Luther’s hat. He gave them a curious look as he handed it over, but he said no more and went back inside.

Eddie looked around. No one else had observed the scuffle. The passengers and crew had disappeared around the other side of the little railway station.

Luther put his hat on. In a hoarse voice he said: “If you mess this up we’ll both be killed as well as your damn wife, you imbecile.”

The reference to Carol-Ann maddened Eddie all over again, and he drew back his fist to hit Luther, but Luther raised a protective arm and said: “Calm down, will you? You won’t get her back that way! Don’t you understand that you need me?”

Eddie understood that perfectly well: he had simply lost his reason for a few moments. He took a step back and studied the man. Luther was well-spoken and expensively dressed. He had a bristly blond mustache and pale eyes full of hate. Eddie had no regrets about punching him. He had needed to hit something and Luther was an appropriate target. Now he said: “What do you want from me, you pile of shit?”

Luther put his hand inside his suit jacket. It crossed Eddie’s mind that there might be a gun in there, but Luther took out a postcard and handed it over.

Eddie looked at it. It was a picture of Bangor, Maine. “What the hell does this mean?”

Luther said: “Turn it over.”

On the other side was written:44.70N, 67.OOW

“What are these numbers—map coordinates?” Eddie said.

“Yes. That’s where you have to bring the plane down.”

Eddie stared at him. “Bring the plane down?” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes.”

“That’s what you want from me—that’s what this is all about?”

“Bring the plane down right there.”

“But why?”

“Because you want your pretty wife back.”

“Where is this location?”

“Off the coast of Maine.”

People often assumed a seaplane could splash down anywhere, but in fact it needed very calm waters. For safety, Pan American would not allow a touchdown in waves more than three feet high. If the plane came down in a heavy sea, it would break up. Eddie said: “You can’t land a flying boat in the open sea—”

“We know that. This is a sheltered place.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Just check it out. You can come down there. I made sure of it.”

He sounded so confident that Eddie sensed he really had made sure. But there were other snags. “How am I supposed to bring the plane down? I’m not the captain.”

“I’ve looked into this very carefully. The captain could bring the plane down in theory, but what excuse would he have? You’re the engineer. You can make something go wrong.”

“You want me to crash the plane?”

“You’d better not—I’m going to be on board. Just have something go wrong so the captain is forced to make an unscheduled splashdown”—he touched the postcard with a manicured finger—“right there.”

The engineer could create a problem that would force the plane down, no doubt about that; but an emergency was difficult to control, and Eddie could not immediately see how to arrange an unscheduled splashdown at such a precise location. “It just ain’t that easy—”

“I know it’s not easy, Eddie. But I know it can be done. I checked.”

Who had he checked with? Who was he? “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Don’t ask.”

Eddie had started out threatening this man, but somehow the tables had turned, and now he felt intimidated. Luther was part of a ruthless team that had planned this carefully. They had picked out Eddie to be their tool; they had kidnapped Carol-Ann; they had him in their power.

He put the postcard in the pocket of his uniform jacket and turned away.

“So you’ll do it?” Luther said anxiously.

Eddie turned back and gave him a cold stare. He held Luther’s eyes for a long moment, then walked away without speaking.

He was acting tough but in truth he was floored. Why were they doing this? At one point he had speculated that the Germans wanted to steal a Boeing 314 to copy it, but that far-fetched theory was now washed out completely, for the Germans would want to steal the plane in Europe, not Maine.

The fact that they were so precise about the location at which they wanted the Clipper to come down was a clue. It suggested there would be a boat waiting there. But what for? Did Luther want to smuggle something or somebody into the United States—a suitcase full of opium, a bazooka, a Communist agitator or a Nazi spy? The person or thing would have to be pretty damned important to be worth all this trouble.

At least he knew why they had picked on him. If you wanted to bring the Clipper down, the engineer was your man. The navigator could not do it, nor could the radio operator, and a pilot would need the cooperation of his copilot; but an engineer, all on his own, could stop the engines.

Luther must have got a list of Clipper engineers out of Pan American. That would not be too difficult: someone could have broken into the offices one night, or just bribed a secretary. Why Eddie? For some reason Luther decided on this particular flight, and got hold of the roster. Then he asked himself how to make Eddie Deakin cooperate, and came up with the answer: kidnap his wife.

It would break Eddie’s heart to help these gangsters. He hated crooks. Too greedy to live like regular people and too lazy to earn a buck, they cheated and stole from hardworking citizens and lived high on the hog. While others broke their backs plowing and reaping, or worked eighteen hours a day to build up a business, or dug for coal under the ground or sweated all day in a steelworks, the gangsters went around in fancy suits and big cars and did nothing but bully people and beat them up and scare them to death. The electric chair was too good for them.

His father had felt the same. He remembered what Pop had said about bullies at school: “Those guys are mean, all right, but they ain’t smart.” Tom Luther was mean, but was he smart? “It’s tough to fight those guys, but it ain’t so hard to fool ’em,” Pop had said. But Tom Luther would not be easy to fool. He had thought up an elaborate plan, and so far it seemed to be working perfectly.

Eddie would have done almost anything for a chance to fool Luther. But Luther had Carol-Ann. Anything Eddie did to foul up Luther’s scheme might lead them to hurt her. He could not fight them or fool them: he just had to try to do what they wanted.

Seething with frustration, he left the harbor and crossed the single road that led through the village of Foynes.

The air terminal was a former inn with a central yard. Since the village had become an important flying-boat airport, the building had been almost entirely taken over by Pan American; although there was still a bar, called Mrs. Walsh’s pub, in a small room with its own street door. Eddie went upstairs to the operations room, where Captain Marvin Baker and First Officer Johnny Dott were in conference with the Pan American station chief. Here, amid the coffee cups and ashtrays and the piles of radio messages and weather reports, they would take the final decision whether to make the long transatlantic crossing.

The crucial factor was the strength of the wind. The westward trip was a constant battle against the prevailing wind. Pilots would change altitude constantly in a search for the most favorable conditions, a game known as “hunting the wind.” The lightest winds were generally found at lower altitudes, but below a certain point the plane would be in danger of colliding with ships or, more likely, icebergs. Strong winds required more fuel, and sometimes the forecast winds were so strong that the Clipper simply could not carry enough to last the two thousand miles to Newfoundland. Then the flight would have to be postponed, and the passengers would be taken to a hotel to wait until the weather improved.

But if that should happen today, what would become of Carol-Ann? Eddie took a preliminary glance at the weather reports. The winds were strong and there was a storm in the mid-Atlantic. He knew that the plane was full. Therefore, there would have to be a careful calculation before the flight could get the go-ahead. The thought ratcheted up his anxiety: he could not bear to be stuck in Ireland while Carol-Ann was in the hands of those bastards on the other side of the ocean. Would they feed her? Did she have somewhere to lie down? Was she warm enough, wherever they were holding her?

He went to the Atlantic chart on the wall and checked the map reference Luther had given him. The spot had been quite well chosen. It was close to the Canadian border, a mile or two offshore, in a channel between the coast and a large island, in the Bay of Fundy. Someone who knew a little about flying boats would think it an ideal place to come down. It was not ideal—the ports used by the Clippers were even more sheltered—but it would be calmer than the open sea, and the Clipper would probably be able to splash down there without great risk. Eddie was somewhat relieved: at least that part of the scheme might be made to work. He realized he had a big investment in the success of Luther’s plan. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth.

He was still worried about just how he would bring the plane down. He could fake engine trouble, but the Clipper could fly on three engines, and there was an assistant engineer, Mickey Finn, who could not be fooled for very long. He racked his brains, but did not come up with a solution.

Plotting to do this to Captain Baker and the others made him feel like the worst kind of heel. He was betraying people who trusted him. But he had no choice.

Now an even greater hazard occurred to him. Tom Luther might not keep his promise. Why should he? He was a crook! Eddie might bring the plane down and still not get Carol-Ann back.

The navigator, Jack, came in with some more weather reports, and shot a peculiar look at Eddie. Eddie realized that no one had spoken to him since he came into the room. They seemed to be tiptoeing around him: had they noticed how preoccupied he was? He had to make more effort to behave normally. “Try not to get lost this trip, Jack,” he said, repeating an old joke. He was not much of an actor and the gag seemed forced to him, but they laughed and the atmosphere eased.

Captain Baker looked at the fresh weather reports and said: “This storm is getting worse.”

Jack nodded. “It’s going to be what Eddie would call a honker.”

They always ribbed him about his New England dialect. He managed to grin, and said: “Or a baster.”

Baker said: “I’m going to fly around it.”

Together, Baker and Johnny Dott produced a flight plan to Botwood, in Newfoundland, skirting the edge of the storm and avoiding the worst of the head winds. When they were finished, Eddie sat down with the weather forecasts and began his calculations.

For each sector of the trip, he had predictions of the wind direction and force at one thousand feet, four thousand, eight thousand and twelve thousand. Knowing the cruising airspeed of the plane and the wind force, Eddie could calculate the ground speed. That gave him a flight time for each sector at the most favorable altitude. Then he would use printed tables to find the fuel consumption over that time with the current payload of the Clipper. He would plot the fuel requirement stage by stage on a graph, which the crew called “the Howgozit Curve.” He would work out the total and add a safety margin.

When he completed his calculations he saw to his consternation that the amount of fuel required to get them to Newfoundland was more than the Clipper could carry.

For a moment he did nothing.

The shortfall was terribly small: just a few pounds of payload too much, a few gallons of gas too little. And Carol-Ann was waiting somewhere, scared to death.

He should now tell Captain Baker that takeoff would have to be postponed until the weather improved, unless he was willing to fly through the heart of the storm.

But the gap was so small.

Could he lie?

There was a safety margin built in, anyhow. If things went badly the plane could fly through the storm instead of going around it.

He hated the thought of deceiving his captain. He had always been aware that the lives of the passengers depended on him, and he was proud of his meticulous accuracy.

On the other hand, his decision was not irrevocable. Every hour during the trip he had to compare actual fuel consumption with the projection on the Howgozit Curve. If they burned more than anticipated they simply had to turn back.

He might be found out, and that would be the end of his career, but what did that matter when the lives of his wife and his unborn baby were at stake?

He worked through the calculations again; but this time, when checking the tables, he made two deliberate errors, taking fuel consumption for the lower payload in the next column of figures. Now the result came inside the safety margin.

Still, he hesitated. Lying did not come easily to him, even in this appalling predicament.

Finally Captain Baker got impatient and looked over Eddie’s shoulder, saying: “Snap it up, Ed—do we go or stay?”

Eddie showed him the doctored result on the pad and kept his eyes down, not wanting to look his captain in the eye. He cleared his throat nervously, then did his best to speak in a firm, confident voice.

He said: “It’s close, Captain—but we go.”