“Is that far?”
He shook his head. “It’s only a few miles out of town. It’s a suburb—quite a good one.”
She looked about her with interest as they drove in through the outer suburbs. “Such a lot of new houses,” she said. She turned to him. “David, could we stop and look at one?”
He said, “Of course.” He leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “That’s one that’s practically finished—there. Stop at that one.”
They got out of the car, and she looked around at the littered garden plot. “I suppose all this builder’s mess is inevitable,” she said. “It must take an awfully long time to get the garden right, though.”
She stood looking around. “And anybody who has the money can just buy a bit of land, like this, and build a house on it, like this?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“And then it’s your own property, and you can do what you like with it—sell it, or alter it, or live in it, or let it for as much as you can get? Without asking the Ministry?”
“I think that’s right. I’ve never heard that you have to ask anybody.”
“It would be fun,” she said, “to have a house that was really your own, like you own a boat.”
The door was open, and the painters and the electricians were in putting the finishing touches. The girl said, “Can you spend as much as you like on it? I mean, if you wanted one really lovely room, with a stainless steel floor and mirrors all round and a sunk alabaster fishpond in the floor with a glow of light shining up through it—could you have it?”
He laughed. “I don’t think there’s anything to stop you, if you’d got enough money and you wanted to spend it that way.”
“I just wanted to know,” she replied thoughtfully. “I don’t want a stainless steel floor with a fishpond in it, or mirrors all round. But it’s nice to know that you could have it if it was what you really wanted more than anything.”
They wandered from room to room. The detail fittings intrigued her, the design of the taps and the latches and the kitchen sink. “Of course,” she said, “we just don’t get new things like this in England, because there aren’t any new houses. The taps and the sink in our house must be sixty or seventy years old. Things like that never wear out.”
She turned to him. “David, how much would a house like this cost? I mean, a brand new house, like this one.”
“Three bedrooms,” he said. “There’s nothing particular about it. I should think it’ld cost about four or five thousand pounds.”
She looked up at him, smiling. “If you ever married anyone, could you afford a house like this?”
He grinned down at her. “Yes,” he said. “We could afford a house like this.”
She turned away. “I didn’t say that,” she remarked. “I said, you.”
They got back into the car and drove on into Melbourne. “There’s nothing much about this city,” he said. “It’s not particularly big, only about two million people. But to my mind it’s got everything you want, clubs and theatres and picture galleries and concerts. And—I don’t know, but it’s a gracious place, with plenty of parks and wide streets. I’ve seen a good bit of the world, but I think I like Melbourne just about as well as any place I know.”
By the end of the day she was inclined to agree with him. They lunched at a small Greek restaurant where he was known to the proprietor, who made a fuss of them because his name had been much in the papers in connection with the Queen’s unexpected visit to Australia. From there they drove to the Treasury Gardens, where he showed her Captain Cook’s cottage, saved by a generous benefactor from demolition in Whitby and reverently transported stone by stone twelve thousand miles to be re-erected in the Antipodes that he explored. They drove then to the Royal Brighton Yacht Club, and here the smell of salt water and seaweed, and varnish, and clean timber brought nostalgic memories of Itchenor to Rosemary. “Oh David—there’s an International fourteen footer—and there’s another!”
“That’s right,” he said. “They’ve got a class of them here.”
“I never knew that,” she said in wonder. “I mean, I always thought of them as English boats.”
He laughed at her. “That’s why they’re called International.”
They ducked under the bows of vessels laid up in the boat shed and came to his Dragon standing on shores at the back, covered in dust. “This is Ariadne,” he said. “That’s her mast and boom.” He pointed to the spars on racks beside the vessel on the wall.
“She’s just like an English Dragon,” said the girl. She stepped back and looked critically at the hull. “They have got beautiful lines.”
“She’s a bonza thing to sail,” the pilot said. “She must be forty years old, I think, but she’s perfectly sound still.” He caressed the topsides with his hand, and smiled at the girl. “It’s nice to see her again, and know she’s waiting for me when I get back to Australia.”
She stood studying the boat for a moment. Then she said, “You’re longing to get back here, aren’t you?”
“It’s my own country,” he replied. “I wouldn’t have missed this job in the Queen’s Flight for the world. I’m glad I didn’t turn it down when it was offered to me—I very nearly did. I think I’m beginning to understand a bit more about England, too. But I’ll be glad to get back here again one day, and get this thing out, and sail her.” He patted the boat. “Would you like to get up into the cockpit? It may be a bit dirty.”
“I’d like to see what she’s like on deck, David.” So he got a ladder and they climbed up into the cockpit, and she brushed the dust off the varnished coaming and sat looking up and down the deck. “She must be very fast,” she said. “I’d love to have a sail in her one day.”
“I hope you will,” he replied.
She disregarded that. “What did you mean just now by saying that you were beginning to understand about England?” she enquired. “Are you getting to like it a bit better?”
He thought for a moment. “I’d never want to live there,” he replied. “I think there are better places to live, and this is one of them. No—what I mean is this. There’s so much in England to admire and like. Their technical achievements, their courage in the bad conditions they’ve had forced on them, the Queen herself. There’s a good deal to dislike, their political system, their subservience to civil servants. I’m not sure that we’ve got the right to pat ourselves on the back, here in Australia, because we’ve not got those bad things. Maybe it’s just the luck of the game, and if we couldn’t feed our people out of what we grow ourselves we’d get to be the same as England.”
She smiled reflectively. “There, but for the Grace of God, goes Australia,” she said.
“What? Well—yes. I feel that if we’d had as bad a spin as England we might: be in the same boat. We’re basically the same people, and we’d probably react in the same way.”
She smiled. “You don’t think that Australians are a superior race of people?”
“I used to think that,” he said candidly. “I used to think we’d got a know-how of government that England had lost, and that’s what made this country happier and more prosperous. But now I’m not so sure. Compared with England, we’re still backward in the sciences and the techniques. I’m not sure that things aren’t just easier here because it’s still an empty country, because it’s still expanding, because almost anyone with any guts can start up a new business and see it prosper. More saucepans wanted every year, more food, more power, because more people. I’m not sure that it’s really any virtue in ourselves, although we like to kid ourselves it is.”
She repeated his words. “Just the luck of the game.”
“That’s right. How do you like it here?”
“I’ve only seen the very top layer of it, David,” she protested. “I’ve been here for about four days, and all I’ve seen is the Canberra Hotel, and the Royal Residence, and the restaurant we lunched in, and this boat shed.” She laughed. “I’m not going to even t
hink if I like it or not. I’ll say this—that I never knew it was so lovely, or that so many flowers grow here, or so many flowering trees. But it would be silly if I said I liked Australia when I’ve only seen the bits of it I’ve seen.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “You want to live on a station for a year with nobody to talk to but the cattle and the sheep, and have a drought and a couple of bush fires.”
She laughed. “If I did that I’d probably be glad to get back to my flat in Dover Street.”
She got up, and he held the ladder for her while she went down. They walked around and found the foreman and talked a little about Ariadne, and then they went into the club house and had tea in a window looking out over the bay. Then it was time to get into the car for the drive back to Berwick.
A considerable crowd had collected at the aerodrome by that time, with a number of pressmen, for the news of the Queen’s visit had got out. Rosemary passed through the crowd unchallenged and got into the machine, but David had to submit to the photographers and to an interview. He cut it short and went into the machine to see about his business, and presently the Queen and Consort drove up and posed for a moment for the cameras, and then got in. Frank Cox came forward and spoke to the pilots, and David swung the Ceres towards the runway and presently took off. At ten minutes to seven, in the evening light, he put her down at Canberra.
Next day Frank Cox came to him at lunch time in the mess at Fairbairn aerodrome. “It’s back to London next,” he said. “Tomorrow or the next day. They want a proposal for the best time to take off.”
The pilot nodded. “They’ll want to get back in the evening, I suppose?” he said. “Land at White Waltham about seven o’clock?”
“I should think so. That would give them a night’s rest before they start on anything.”
“Ten hours time difference,” said David. “Refuel at Ratmalana. Two equal legs of about ten hours, allowing for average headwind going westwards. Do they want to stop in Ceylon?”
The Group Captain shook his head. “They want to go straight through, and get back to London as soon as possible.”
“Well, say an hour at Ratmalana. That makes twenty-one hours on the way, less ten, leaves eleven. I’d like an hour for contingencies, perhaps. Take off from here at seven in the morning would get them to White Waltham at seven in the evening.”
“Daylight all the way?”
“That’s right.” The pilot paused. “You can usually do a daylight flight going westwards, with our cruising speed.”
“I’ll tell them. They’d better have a cup of morning tea at Tharwa, and then breakfast on board.”
“That’s right,” David said. “Breakfast at eight o’clock, when we level off for cruising. It’s a bit awkward for them on the climb, because of the tables.” He thought for a moment. “Twenty hours,” he said. “Breakfast and four other meals. What’ll we make it? Four lunches?”
“I should think so. See if you can make them a bit different.”
David nodded. “Two hot and two cold. I’ll see the stewards, and get that worked out. When can you let me know the time of take off definitely?”
“No snags with the machine?”
“No. We’d be ready to go now. It’s just the food.”
“I’ll ring you about four o’clock this afternoon.”
He rang later, and confirmed the flight for England for the next day. David briefed his crew; in the evening light they had the Ceres drawn out of the hangar and did an engine run, and finally topped up with fuel for the flight to Colombo. It was seven o’clock when he got back to the hotel; he found Rosemary waiting for him in the lounge as he passed through.
He stopped by her. “I won’t be a minute,” he said. “I’ve just got to wash.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I saw the head waiter, and they’re keeping dinner for us. Australians dine early, don’t they?”
He came back to her in five minutes, and they went in to the meal. The dining room was emptying; he glanced around, but there was no one seated near them. “Back to London,” he said. “Has it been announced yet?”
She shook her head. “It’s to be released for the nine o’clock news. It’s going to cause a lot of disappointment here, they say.”
He nodded. “It’s bound to. She’s not been here for two years, and it’s much longer than that since she was over in West Australia. Now, when she does come, she has to go back to England after less than a week. People are bound to be disappointed.”
“Australians aren’t the only ones to be disappointed,” the girl replied.
“Who else?”
“She is,” the girl said. “She’s not going back to England for a holiday.”
“I suppose not.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Rosemary said, “Tharwa isn’t going into mothballs.”
“What’s that?”
“The cars are staying in the garage and the staff are being kept on in the house. It was all on a care and maintenance basis before we arrived. They had an awful job getting it ready for her this time—everybody worked all through the night. If we hadn’t stopped at Christmas Island nothing would have been finished. It’s not so easy on the domestic side when she can suddenly make up her mind in Ottawa that she’s coming to Tharwa after two years, and she can arrive less than a day later.”
“I never thought of that,” he said. “The house isn’t being put on care and maintenance this time?”
She shook her head.
“Does that mean that she’s coming back here pretty soon?”
“It could mean that,” she said. “It may be Charles or Anne. But anyway, the house is being kept open.”
He smiled. “Perhaps Uncle Donald’ll see the Ceres after all.”
“Perhaps I shall see Uncle Donald,” she remarked.
He glanced at her. “If she comes back here after doing what she’s got to do in London, would you come with her?”
“I might. It’s all worked quite smoothly this time. Macmahon seems to be able to handle all her work, and if he came he’d probably want me. I can’t see Lord Marlow travelling about much, at his age. Besides, I don’t think he’d go down so well here as Macmahon. He’s too much the old aristocrat.”
David nodded. “He wouldn’t go down here. Macmahon’s all right.”
They finished the meal, and went out into the cloister around the garden courtyard, and sat down in long chairs with their coffee. “I’m going to bed as soon as I’ve drunk this,” the pilot said. “I’ve got a call in for five o’clock. There’s a car coming for me at five-twenty.”
The flower beds were scented in the warm darkness. “We shan’t be able to sit out like this tomorrow night,” the girl said. “It will be nearly midwinter—only three weeks before Christmas.”
“I bet we strike a packet of misery going in to White Waltham,” David remarked. “We’ll have a freezing fog and zero visibility. If it’s like that, I’ll probably divert and take them in to London Airport, where there’s proper ground control for radar landings.”
In spite of the early hour, there was quite a crowd at Fairbairn aerodrome next morning to see the Queen depart. When the Royal car drew up before the aeroplane the Queen and the Consort got out and talked for a time with the Governor-General and the Prime Minister while the cameras whirred and flash bulbs exploded around. Then they got into the Ceres and the door closed behind them; Frank Cox came forward and spoke to David, and the pilot started the inboard motors and swung the machine towards the runway. Five minutes later they were in the air with a fighter escort at each wing tip, climbing to operating altitude over New South Wales.
The weather was bright and cloudless over central Australia. Over the scarred earth of Broken Hill they levelled off for cruising; the Queen sent a radio message of thanks to the fighter escort, who peeled away and went down to land, and the Royal party went to breakfast. Oodnadatta on the railway line that runs south from Alice was passed at about nine o’cloc
k, and then there was nothing before them but the golden and pink wastes of the Australian desert. They flew on steadily, monotonously, and came to the Indian Ocean at about eleven o’clock near a place called Marble Bar, and the sea lay in front of them. David handed over the control to Ryder, lunched, and went to lie down for a time. They passed over the other Christmas Island and flew roughly parallel to the coasts of Java and Sumatra and about a hundred and fifty miles south of them, droning along in a cloudless sky all the afternoon. At four o’clock by Canberra time they began to lose height for the landing at Colombo and had afternoon tea, and an hour later David put the Ceres down upon the runway of Ratmalana aerodrome, ten hours out from Canberra. It was then a little after noon, by local time.
At the Queen’s request no announcement of her passing visit had been made to the Press and there was no crowd at the aerodrome, and only one photographer exercising his scoop, but there was a little party grouped around the Governor-General and the Prime Minister waiting to welcome her upon the tarmac. The Queen and Consort got out and stood talking with them in the shade of the airport buildings while the Ceres was refuelled and inspected; in fifty-five minutes David reported to Frank Cox that they were ready to go. Ten minutes later they were in the air again, and climbing up to operational height over Cape Comorin on a course for the Persian Gulf and Cyprus. A direct course would have taken them over Kurdistan and the Black Sea, still territories that were somewhat hostile and disturbed, and better avoided by the Queen of England in her flight.
It was about eight o’clock in the morning by Greenwich time when they took off from Colombo. They moved on across the Arabian Sea, weary now; most of the passengers were dozing in their seats, and the Queen and the Consort had retired into their cabins. On the flight deck Frank Cox and David and Ryder were taking three-hour watches at the controls though there was little to be done; the machine flew steadily upon course in the control of the automatic pilot. At half past eleven they came to the Gulf of Oman at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and passed over the town of Muscat; at one o’clock they flew over Kuweit. An hour and forty minutes later Cyprus was beneath them and they altered course for London. At four o’clock they were in the dusk a little to the south of Belgrade and an hour later, in the vicinity of Munich, David started to let down upon the long descent at the flight end. And here they ran into trouble.