Saeton nodded and we climbed out. As we did so I saw a movement in the trees that screened the quarters. It was Else. Saeton had seen her, too. ‘What’s that girl doing up here?’ he muttered angrily. Then he turned quickly to me. ‘Did you tell her we were flying tests this morning?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I thought I warned you to keep away from her.’ He glared at me as though I were responsible for her presence there on the edge of the airfield. Then he switched his gaze to the fringe of trees. Else had disappeared. ‘It’s about time the authorities took some action about her.’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
‘She’s here on false papers. Her name isn’t really Langen.’
‘I know that — now,’ I said. And then suddenly I understood what he was driving at. ‘Do you mean to say you’ve reported her to the authorities?’
‘Of course. Do you think I want her snooping around the place, sending reports to the Rauch Motoren. They’d no right to let her into the country.’
‘Haven’t you done that girl enough harm?’ I said angrily.
‘Harm?’ He glanced at me quickly. ‘How much do you know of her story?’ he asked.
‘I know that it was her father who designed these engines,’ I said. ‘She worked on them with him.’ I caught hold of his arm. ‘Why don’t you come to terms with her?’ I said. ‘All she really wants is recognition for her father.’
He flung my hand off. ‘So she’s got round you, as she got round Randall — as she nearly got round me. She’s just a little tart trading her body for the glorification of the fatherland.’
I felt a sudden urge to hit him. ‘Don’t you understand anybody?’ I exclaimed through clenched teeth. ‘She loved her father. Can’t you understand that all she wants is recognition for his work?’
‘Recognition!’ He gave a sneering laugh. ‘It’s Germany she loves. They killed her father, bur still it is Germany she thinks of. She offered to be my mistress if I’d, allow the Rauch Motoren to manufacture the engines. My engines! The engines Tubby and I have worked on all these years! She traded on my weakness, on the fact that I was alone up here, and if Diana hadn’t come-’ He half-shrugged his shoulders as though shaking off something he didn’t like. ‘Her father has got about as much to do with these engines as you have.’
‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘it was his prototype you stole-’
‘Stole! Damn it, man, a country that has gone through what we have on account of the blasted Germans has a right to take what it wants. If Professor Meyer had completed the development of those engines-’ He stopped and stared at me angrily. ‘You bloody fool, Neil. Why waste your sympathy on the girl or her father? She was a good little Nazi till the S.S. took Meyer to Dachau. And Meyer was a Nazi too.’ His lips spread in a thin, bitter smile. ‘Perhaps you’re not aware that Professor Meyer was one of the men who developed the diesel engine for use in bombers. London is in his debt to the tune of many hundreds of tons of bombs. My mother was killed in the blitz of 1940.’ He turned away, his shoulders hunched, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and walked across the tarmac to the hangar. I followed slowly, thinking of the tangled pattern of motive that surrounded these engines.
For over an hour Tubby worked on the engine. Then he checked over the others. It was just on one o’clock when he climbed down and pulled the gantry away. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more I can do.’
‘All right,’ Saeton said. ‘Let’s have a bit of food.’ His voice was over-loud as though by speaking like that he could convince us of his confidence. I glanced at the plane. The rain clouds had broken up and she was caught in a gleam of watery sunlight. It was one thing doing ground tests, quite another to commit ourselves to the take-off. But she looked just like any other
Tudor. It was difficult to realise, seeing her standing there on the tarmac, that this wasn’t to be a routine flight.
Saeton had brought a loaf and some cheese and butter up from the quarters. We ate it in the hangar, none of us talking, all of us, I think, very conscious of the emptiness of the place and of the aircraft standing out there on the apron waiting for us. As soon as we’d finished we got into our flying kit and went out to the plane. Saeton insisted we wear our parachutes.
Once more we sat in the cockpit — Saeton and I the pilots’ seats, Tubby in the well between us — the engines ticking over. Saeton’s hand reached out for the throttle levers. The engines revved and we moved away across the apron, along the perimeter track and swung on to the runway end, the concrete stretching ahead of us, a broad white path shining wet in sunlight. ‘Okay?’ Saeton looked at us. His jaw had broadened with the clenching of the muscles. His features looked hard and unsmiling. Only his eyes mirrored the excitement that held him in its grip.
‘Okay,’ Tubby said. I nodded. Again Saeton’s hand reached up for the throttle levers, pressing them slowly down with his palm. The four motors roared in unison. The fuselage shuddered violently as the thrust of the props fought the brakes.
Then he released the brakes and we started forward.
I won’t pretend I wasn’t nervous — even a little scared. But it was overlaid by the sense of excitement. At the same time it was difficult to realise fully the danger. Viewed from the cockpit all the engines looked ordinary standard models. There was nothing to bring home to us the fact that those inboard engines were the work of our own hands — only the memory, now distant, of the countless hours we’d worked at them in the hangar. In a sense it was nothing more than I’d done hundreds of times before — a routine take-off.
I tried to concentrate on the dials, but as we gathered speed my eyes strayed to the concrete streaming beneath us, faster and faster, and thence to the ploughed verge of the runway and to the woods beyond. I caught a glimpse of the quarters through a gap in the trees. It suddenly seemed like home. Would we ever again sit at the trestle table drinking Scotch in celebration of success? Would we again lounge in those hard, uncomfortable chairs talking of a huge freighter fleet and our plans for a constant stream of aircraft tramping the globe? And as these questions appeared in my mind, my stomach suddenly became an empty void as panic hit me. Suppose those pistons I’d worked on when I first arrived were not quite true? Suppose … A whole stream of ugly possibilities flooded through my mind. And what about the engine that had been completed before I arrived? My hands tightened automatically on the control column as I felt the tail lift.
I glanced at Saeton. His face was tense, his eyes fixed unblinkingly ahead, one hand on the throttles, the other on the control column. I saw his left foot kick at the rudder to counter a sudden swing of the tail. The end of the runway was in sight now. It ran slightly downhill and a bunch of oaks was rushing to meet us.
No chance now of pulling up. We were committed to the take-off. The new starboard engine was still running a little rough. The tail swung. Left rudder again. I held my breath. God! He was leaving it late. I should have been watching the rev counters and the airspeed indicator. But instead my eyes were fixed on the trees ahead. They seemed to fill all my vision.
Then the control column eased back under my tense, clutched hands. The wheels bumped wildly on a torn-up piece of concrete. The starboard motor still sounded rough, the tail swung and the engine notes changed to a quieter drone. We were riding air, smooth, steady, the seat lifting me upwards as the trees slid away below us. Through the side window I saw Membury dropping away to a black circle of plough criss-crossed by the white pattern of runways and circled by the darker line of the perimeter track, the hangars small rectangles that looked like toys. We were airborne and climbing steeply, the full thrust of the motors taking us up in a steady, circling climb.