He smiled at her. “Nothing but what’s in the newspapers,” he said. “We don’t gossip in this servants’ hall.”
She laughed. “Oh, you pig. To throw that up at me!”
“Why not?” he laughed with her. “I had a very good teacher.” He paused. “I haven’t seen the newspapers here,” he said. “Can you tell me anything about what’s happened at this end, without gossiping too much?”
“I typed a communiqué this afternoon—three drafts and then the final,” she said. “It’s being issued to the Press by now. I can tell you what’s in that.”
“What?”
She said, “Her Majesty has taken the opportunity afforded by her residence in Canada to hold conversations upon Commonwealth affairs with the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and with various elder statesmen of the Federal and the Provincial Governments. These conversations will be continued as opportunity presents itself in the other countries of the Commonwealth.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Nigger,” she replied. “I only wish I did.”
“I can tell you, or make a pretty good guess.”
“What’s your guess?”
“They’ve been debating what the hell they’re going to do about England.”
She sat in silence for a minute, staring at the table cloth. Then she raised her head, and said, “You’re probably right, Nigger. But I’m an Englishwoman, and so is the Queen. I don’t like hearing that sort of thing put into words. I don’t suppose that she does, either.”
“I’m sorry, Rosemary,” he said. “I’m just a bloody Colonial, I suppose. Forget it.”
“I can’t forget it,” she said unhappily. “I can’t forget it, because I know it’s probably true. It’s just that I don’t care to hear it said.”
They finished dinner and got up from the table; she rang the bell and the French Canadian waiter came to clear the table. When he had gone, he said, “I’m going to beat it pretty soon, Rosemary. If I go now, will you go to bed?”
She said, “Stay till ten o’clock, David. I shouldn’t go to bed before Major Macmahon comes back, because I said I’d be here to mind the telephone. He said that he’d be back here about ten.”
They sat down in armchairs before the radiants of the electric stove in the ornamental fireplace. “Let’s play a game of some sort, Nigger,” she said wistfully. “Let’s try and stop thinking about this wretched thing. Do you know any games?”
“You’ve not got any cards? Or chess? Or draughts?” She shook her head. He grinned and thought for a minute. “I tell you what,” he said. “Suppose you got a little illness—not too bad, but just enough to make you lose your job in the Palace. And suppose you couldn’t take another real job because of your bad health. And suppose then, somebody left you five thousand a year. What would you do with yourself? You tell me first, and then I’ll tell you what I’d do.”
She laughed. “You mean, I’d be well enough to do whatever I wanted to, but too ill to do any work?”
“That’s right.”
“What lovely illnesses you do think of!”
“Too right,” he said. “What would you do?”
She thought for a minute. “I believe I’d have a boat like yours,” she said. “A five tonner, just big enough for one to live in comfortably, or two at a pinch. I’d have a cottage with just a couple of bedrooms and a sitting room and kitchen, looking out over the sea. Somewhere near Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, I think.”
“And just live there, and sail your boat?”
“I think so.”
“Wouldn’t you get bored with doing nothing but that?”
“I don’t know. Wouldn’t I be able to do any work at all?”
“Of course not. You’re very ill, you know.”
She smiled. “I think one would get bored if there was no work at all. I think I’d like to do a half time job of some sort, even if it killed me.”
“Very unwise,” he said. “As your medical adviser I can’t recommend it.”
“Good thing you’re not my medical adviser,” she replied. “Now you tell me what you’d do. Mind—no flying. You’re too ill to work.”
“I think I’d get a shark boat and fit it up as a yacht,” he said.
“What’s a shark boat like?” she asked.
“It’s a big boat, sixty or seventy feet long,” he said. “It’s generally got one big diesel in it—I’d like to have two smaller ones. It’s got a high bow and a low stern, with a steep sheer, rather like some of your English fishing boats, with a little wheelhouse at the stern. They’re splendid sea-boats; you could go round the world in a shark boat.”
She laughed. “Do you want to go round the world, David? You must have been round it about twenty times already.”
He laughed with her. “Ah, but that’s flying. You never see anything when you’re flying.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t know that I want to go round the world in my shark boat,” he said. “I’d like to cruise in it about Australia. Tasmania’s full of lovely creeks and harbours. And then up north, it would be tremendous fun to cruise about the Celebes, and the Sunda Islands, and the Moluccas, all the way to Borneo. That’s a huge cruising ground that no one ever visits.” He paused. “Years ago,” he said, “during the war, I was flying a new Hatfield up to Luzon in the Philippines. I put down at Darwin for fuel, and after that we’d got enough fuel to fly low, so I went at about a thousand feet all the way, just for fun. I’ve never seen anything so lovely. After Timor it was just hundreds and hundreds of islands, the Celebes and the Moluccas and the Philippines, all coral islands, so it seemed, and nobody much living on them. I always promised myself that one day I’d go there in a boat.”
“I’m not sure that you aren’t cheating,” she said. “There’s not much difference between going in a boat and going in an aeroplane. If you’re too ill to fly, are you well enough to go in a shark boat?”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s only work that makes me go all queer.”
“You wouldn’t have a place on shore at all?”
“I don’t think so. You could live on a shark boat.”
“And you wouldn’t want to do any work?”
He grinned. “Getting a small yacht from A to B through a lot of uncharted coral reefs is work enough for me.”
“I wouldn’t be happy without some kind of a job to do,” she said thoughtfully. “However interesting the rest of it might be.”
He glanced at her. “You’d better come and cook for me on the shark boat.”
“You wouldn’t want an invalid cook, liable to die on you at any moment,” she laughed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’d be a couple of old crocks together, with ten thousand a year.”
“You might have a lot of fun on ten thousand a year,” she said reflectively.
“We could have a lot of fun together on a darn sight less than that,” he replied.
She coloured a little, and said nothing. She sat staring at the elements of the fire, and he sat silent, noticing the curl of her hair behind her ear, the soft lines of her neck, wondering if he had said too much. She stirred at last, and looked at her wrist watch. “Quarter past ten,” she said prosaically. “I’m going to have a cup of tea before going to bed. Will you have one, David?”
He got to his feet. “Don’t you think I’d better go home?” he said. “You ought to get to bed, and so ought I. I may have to work tomorrow, and you certainly will.”
The door of the sitting room opened, and they turned towards it. Macmahon walked in with the Group Captain.
Frank Cox turned to the pilot. “The Queen’s changed her plans,” he said. “She wants to go from here to Canberra, in Tare.”
Six
THE pilot stood in thought for a moment by the fireplace. Then he said, “Which way round?”
“You know the form better than I do, Nigger,” the Group Captain said. “Which way would you rather??
??
Macmahon asked, “What’s the point at issue?”
David turned to him. “I should think it’s practically the same distance going east or west from here to Canberra. No—wait a minute—seventy-five west and a hundred and fifty-two east——” he stood for a moment in thought. “No, it’s much shorter across the Pacific. It just depends if there’s enough fuel held on Christmas Island.”
He glanced at the Group Captain. “You don’t want to land outside the Commonwealth? There’s fuel for us at Honolulu.”
“Christmas Island would be better. Can you make Christmas from here in one hop?”
“I’m not sure,” said the pilot. “I’ll have to get down to it on the maps. If we can’t we could refuel at Vancouver. We can do Christmas to Canberra all right, provided that they’ve got the fuel there.”
“Four thousand gallons, and a hundred and fifty gallons of oil?” The pilot nodded. “I’ll get a signal off at once.”
“If there’s no fuel there,” the pilot said, “we’d better go the other way about. In that case, we’d better go back to White Waltham, and then on with one stop at Colombo.”
“Not England,” said Macmahon.
David looked up quickly. “Oh. Well, Malta. There’s all the fuel that we’d need at Malta.”
The Secretary said, “I think the Pacific route would be the better. Is there an alternative if there should be no fuel at Christmas Island?”
The pilot bit his lip. “Fiji, from Vancouver,” he said. “That’s the only one that keeps inside the Commonwealth. I’m not sure if that’s too far for us or not. You’ll have to let me go and work it out.” He turned to the Group Captain. “What time does she want to start?”
“As soon as possible, I think.”
“West about,” said David. “If it’s Christmas, I think we’ll try and get there in daylight. Take off about nine-thirty, after breakfast?”
“I think that would be all right. Have you been to Christmas?”
David nodded. “I’ve been there three times. It’s just a staging post, you know, on an island that’s a coconut plantation. I don’t know that it’s been used much since the war. The R.A.A.F. still have a detachment there.” He paused for a moment in thought. “Food,” he said. “We’d better stock up here for the whole trip to Canberra. We shan’t get much at Christmas, and we’ll only be there to refuel for an hour. How many people will be coming?”
“The whole party,” said Macmahon. “Eight passengers and the Group Captain.”
From the background Rosemary said quietly, “Am I going, Major?”
“Of course. Couldn’t do without you.”
The pilot said, “I’d better go and do my sums.” He turned to Cox. “Would you ring Ryder for me, sir, and tell him that I’m on my way out? Then if you could check up on the fuel held at Christmas, I can ring you about midnight and we’ll make the definite decisions. Will you be here?”
“Yes, I’ll be here.”
David turned to Rosemary. “Thanks for the dinner, Miss Long. See you in the morning.” He put his coat on, and went out.
A reporter intercepted him while he was waiting for a taxi, and got a rude rebuff. He drove out to the aerodrome and worked for half an hour with Ryder at the navigator’s table in the Ceres, for the maps had been left in the aircraft. They walked back to the mess across the frosty tarmac under a bright moon, and talked again by telephone to Frank Cox in the hotel suite. Christmas Island, it appeared, had fuel; they confirmed the take off time as nine thirty and rang off, Cox to ring the Consort at Gatineau and David to start negotiations with Area Control for clearance to fly over the United States. Their course crossed the Pacific Coast in the vicinity of Los Angeles.
He slept then for a few hours, but he was out on the aerodrome at seven with the crew as the machine was prepared for flight, checking the navigation and the flight plan with Ryder. At half past eight he sent the crew to breakfast, and at nine-fifteen the machine was drawn by the tractor to the tarmac.
News of the Queen’s departure had got around, and a crowd of several thousand people had assembled on the aerodrome to see her go. A detachment of the Mounted Police were there to keep the tarmac clear, and to control the press photographers and the television crew.
It was a bright, sunny morning with a sharp nip in the air. The first car to arrive was that of the Governor-General, known to soldiers and airmen throughout the Commonwealth as Tom Forrest. He got out and greeted Frank Cox genially, and walked to the machine, a powerful, fresh-faced, friendly man. He was introduced to David and shook hands with him, and made a quick inspection of the aircraft before the Queen came. Then they went out and joined Mr. Delamain and several members of the Cabinet upon the tarmac.
The Royal car arrived, and the cameras whirred and flash bulbs flared as the Queen stepped out, followed by the Consort. David had only seen the Queen once before when she had inspected the new aircraft at White Waltham; in comparison with her appearance on that happy afternoon she now seemed tired and worn. There was a short period of shaking hands and leave taking upon the tarmac, and then she hurried into the machine with only a brief smile towards the crowd.
The rest of the party were already on board. Frank Cox and David followed the Queen and Consort through the door, which closed behind them. David waited till the gangway was clear and the Queen in her cabin; then he went forward and settled into his seat with Ryder by his side. The roof trap above their heads was open, and the Royal Standard flapped above them lazily in the light airs.
Frank Cox came up the alleyway behind them, and David looked back at him over his shoulder. The Group Captain said, “Ready to go now. Take off in your own time, Captain.” David nodded, and turned to his job.
An hour later they were cruising at their operating height in brilliant sunshine, above a white, flocculent cloud floor far below. He left the control to Ryder and walked aft down the length of the machine. He stopped and talked to Macmahon for a little and to the middle aged Miss Turnbull, and finally he came to Rosemary.
“Getting on all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said. “Where are we now?”
“I should think we’re somewhere over the bottom end of Lake Michigan,” he said. “We go a little bit north of Chicago.”
“You can’t see anything, can you?”
He shook his head. “You might see something of the Rockies in a couple of hours’ time,” he said. “The gen is two tenths cloud at Denver. But it won’t look very interesting.”
“Where is Christmas Island, Nigger?”
“Twenty degrees south of Hawaii,” he said. “We get there in about ten hours from Ottawa, at half past seven by your watch, more or less. But there’s nine hours time difference and we’re going with the sun, so it will still be the middle of the morning when we get there.”
“Oh dear. How long do we stay at Christmas Island?”
“Only just an hour or so—the time it takes us to refuel. Then we go on again another seven and a half hours to Canberra. We might be there about four in the morning by your watch.”
She smiled at him. “It’s going to be a terribly long day.”
“I know,” he said. “We’ll have lunch in about a couple of hours’ time. I should try and sleep a bit, if I were you.”
He made sure that she knew how to adjust the reclining chair. “I’ll come along after lunch,” he said, “if everything’s all quiet, and you can come up forward and sit there a bit. It makes a change, and I can show you where we’re going on the chart.”
“I suppose you get a marvellous view from the cockpit?” she said.
“Too right,” he replied. “Miles and miles and miles and miles of nothing at all.”
She smiled. “Can’t you see the ground?”
“Not at midday,” he said. “Not very much. At sunset or at sunrise you see plenty. But at this height the sun’s so bright and the sky so dark—we don’t bother much about the ground.”
“How high are we
?” she asked.
“About forty-eight thousand,” he told her. “We go up slowly as the flight goes on and the machine gets lighter.”
He went on aft and spoke for a time to the steward and the stewardess about the meals. Then he asked, “What’s Her Majesty doing?”
“She’s lying down, sir. I made up her bed.”
“She’s all right, is she? Not sick, or anything?”
The girl shook her head. “I think she’s just very tired, sir. She said she hadn’t been sleeping well.”
The doctor was the eighth member of the Royal party, a Harley Street physician, Dr. Mitchison. David stopped by his chair on his way back to the cockpit and had a word with him, and was reassured. He went on forward; passing the Consort’s cabin the door was open, and the Consort standing in it. He said, “May I come up to the flight deck, Captain?”
“Sure, sir,” said David. For a quarter of an hour he discussed the navigation with the naval officer, and then for a time they played with the periscopic sextant and took a line of position. The machine hung suspended in the sky, apparently motionless; it needed careful scrutiny of the cloud floor below to detect any forward movement at all. Slowly they crept across Iowa and Nebraska.
The Consort stayed with David for an hour, sitting in the pilot’s seat, learning the function of the many instruments and flight controls. “I’d like to bring the Queen up here when she gets up,” he said. “She’s a bit tired now.”
“Of course, sir.”
The Consort went back to his cabin presently, and David sat at the control while Ryder rested on one of the berths at the rear of the flight deck. The stewardess brought him a tray of lunch and he ate it in the pilot’s seat as they passed over Arizona with the grey and red mountains showing far below. Frank Cox came forward and relieved him at the control, and David went down aft to Rosemary. “We’re just going to cross the coast,” he said. “Would you like to come up to the office now? There won’t be anything to look at for a long time after this.”