The two men glanced at each other. ‘So long as it can’t be proved that you looted the thing…’ The R.A.F. officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘The trouble with Control Commission is that they think in terms of supporting the Jerries. You don’t have to worry as far as I’m concerned, Saeton. Three years ago I was bombing the beggars and if you’d looted the complete article …’ He turned to his companion. ‘What’s your view, Garside?’
The other looked helplessly round the hangar. ‘Even if it was looted,’ he said slowly, ‘it would be very difficult to prove it now.’ He turned to Saeton. ‘In any case, you’ve done three years’ work on your engines. My advice is, get it patented as soon as possible. Doubtless the Patents Office will compare your design with the German company’s, if they can produce one and if they put in a claim.’
‘I notified Headquarters at the time I saw the Rauch Motoren prototype,’ Saeton said.
The R.A.F. officer nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve looked over your report. Had the devil’s own job digging it out of its pigeon hole in the Air Ministry. You acted perfectly correctly as far as the authorities were concerned. You don’t have to worry about that. But as Garside says — get your patents. Every day you delay, German pressure is becoming more effective.’ He held out his hand to Saeton. ‘Well, good luck!’
‘You’d better come and have some coffee before you drive back,’ Saeton suggested and he shepherded them out of the hangar.
‘Well, what’s all that about, Tubby?’ I asked as the door of the hangar closed behind them.
‘Just that our problems won’t be over even when we get into the air,’ he answered and went back to the bench.
Saeton was looking pleased with himself when he came back. ‘What I didn’t tell them,’ he said with a grin, ‘is that the designs are already with the Patents Office. If the German company want to put in a claim they’ll have to get busy.’
‘Do you think Randall had anything to do with that visit?’ Tubby asked.
‘Randall? Of course not. If they got hold of Randall, then there would be trouble.’
At dinner that night he announced that he was going to London. ‘I want to have a word with Dick,’ he said. ‘Also it’s time I saw the patents people.’
Diana paused, with her fork half-way to her mouth. ‘How long will you be gone, Bill?’ Her voice was tense.
‘A couple of days.’
‘Two days!’
It’s strange how you can live with people and not notice what’s happening right under your nose because it happens so gradually. Tubby glanced at his wife, his face pale, his body very still. The atmosphere had suddenly become electric. In the way she had spoken she had betrayed herself. She was in love with Saeton. And Tubby knew it. Saeton knew it, too, for he didn’t look at her and answered too casually: ‘I shall be away one night. That’s all.’
It was queer. Nothing of any importance had been said, and yet it was as though Diana had shouted her infatuation from the middle of the runway. She had stripped herself naked with that too interested, too tense query and her repetition of the time as though it were eternity. Silence hung over the table like a storm that has revealed itself in one lightning stab but has still to break.
Tubby’s hand had clenched into a fist and I waited for the moment when he’d fling the trestle table over and round on Saeton. I’d seen men break like that during the war, sane, solid men pushed over the edge by nerves strung too taut through danger, monotony and the confined space of a small mess.
But he had that essential stolidity, that Saxon aversion for the theatrical. The scrape of his chair as he thrust it back shattered the silence. ‘I’m going out for a breath of air.’ His voice trembled slightly. That was the only indication of the angry turmoil inside him — that and his eyes, which showed bright and angry in the creases of fat. His cheeks quivered slightly as he turned from the table. He shut the door quite softly behind him and his footsteps rang on the frozen earth outside and then died away into the woods.
The three of us sat there for a moment in a stunned silence. Then Saeton said, ‘You’d better go and talk to him, Diana. I don’t want him walking out on me. Without him, we’d be lost.’
‘Can’t you think of anything but your engines?’ The violence of her emotion showed in her voice and in her eyes.
He looked at her then. There was something in his face I couldn’t fathom — a sort of bitterness, a mixture of desire and frustration. ‘No,’ he said. The one word seemed drawn out of the depths of his being.
Diana leaned quickly forward. Her face was white, her eyes very wide and she was breathing as though she were making a last desperate effort in a race. ‘Bill. I can’t go on like this. Don’t you understand-’
‘I didn’t ask you to come here,’ his voice rasped. ‘I didn’t want you here.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ She seemed to have forgotten my presence entirely. Both of them had. Their eyes were at grips with each other, face to face with something inside them that had to come out. ‘But I’m here. And I can’t go on like this. You dominate everything. You’ve dominated me. I don’t care how long you’re away. But I can’t-’ She stopped then and looked at me as though aware of my presence for the first time.
I started to get to my feet, but Saeton leaned quickly forward and gripped my arm. ‘You stay here, Neil,’ he said. I think he was scared to be left alone with her. Still gripping my arm as though clutching hold of something solid and reasonable, he turned and looked at her. ‘Go and find Tubby,’ he said. His voice was suddenly cold and unemotional. ‘He needs you. I don’t.’
She stared at him, her lips trembling. She wanted to fight him, to beat at his resistance till it was down. But I think the essential truth of his words struck home, for suddenly there were tears in her eyes, tears of anger, and she turned and fled from the room. We heard the door of her room slam and it muffled the sound of her sobs.
Saeton’s fingers slowly released their grip of my wrist. ‘Damn all women to hell!’ he muttered savagely.
‘Do you want her?’ I had put the question without thinking.
‘Of course I do,’ he answered, his voice tight as a violin string and trembling with his passion. ‘And she knows it.’ He gave a growl of anger and got to his feet. ‘But it isn’t her I want. Any woman would do. She knows that, too — now.’ He was pacing up and down and I saw him feel automatically in his pocket for a cigarette. ‘I’ve been lost to the world up here too long. God! Here I am with the future almost within my grasp, with everything I’ve dreamed of coming to the verge of reality, and it can all be thrown in jeopardy because a woman senses my primitive need.’
‘You could send her away?’ I suggested.
‘If she goes, Tubby goes, too. Tubby loves her more than he loves himself or his future.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘And Diana loves him, too. This is merely-’ He hesitated. And then almost bitterly, ‘You know, Neil, I don’t think I’m capable of love. It isn’t a word I understand. Else knew that. I thought she’d see me through this period of monasticism. But when it came to the point, she wanted something I wasn’t prepared to give her.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Diana is different. But she’s got Tubby. She’s driven by nothing more than an urge for excitement. There’s that in women, too. The constant craving for novelty, conquest. Why the hell can’t she be satisfied with what she’s got already?’ His hand gripped my shoulder. ‘Go and find Tubby, will you, Neil. Tell him… Oh, tell him what you like. But for Christ’s sake smooth him down. I can’t get this engine to the flying stage. Nor can you. He’s been in it from the beginning. The prototype didn’t work, you know. For months I studied engineering, made inquiries, picked other people’s brains. I produced a modified version, flew it in an old Hurricane and crashed it. Then I found Tubby and with his genius for improvisation we built one that worked. Go and talk to him. He’s got to stay here, for another month at any rate. If he doesn’t, you’ve lost your money.’