The strings and patterns of lights along the French coast looked like lace sewn with diamonds, and were just as precious. I turned and followed them westwards, looking for Nice airport. It was easy to spot by day: the runways seemed to be almost on the beach, as the airfield had been built on an outward curve of the shoreline. But either I was further west than I thought, or the airport had closed for the night, because I missed it. The first place I was sure of was Cannes with its bay of embracing arms, and that was so close to Nice that if the runway had been lit I must have seen it.
A wave of tiredness washed through me, along with a numb feeling of futility. Even if I could find one, which was doubtful, I couldn’t fly into a major airport without radio, and all the minor ones had gone to bed. I couldn’t land anywhere in the dark. All I looked like being able to do was fly around in circles until it got light again and land at Nice... and the fuel would very likely give out before then.
It was at that depressing point that I first thought about trying to go all the way to England. The homing instinct in time of trouble. Primitive. I couldn’t think of a thing against it except that I was likely to go to sleep from tiredness on the way, and I could do that even more easily going round in circles outside Cannes.
Committed from the moment I’d thought of it, I followed the coast until it turned slightly north again and the widespread lights of Marseilles lay beneath. The well-known way home from there lay up the Rhone Valley over the beacons at Montélimar and Lyons, with a left wheel at Dijon to Paris. But though the radio landmarks were unmistakable the geographical ones weren’t, and I couldn’t blindly stumble into the busy Paris complex without endangering every other plane in the area. North of Paris was just as bad, with the airlanes to Germany and the East. South, then. A straight line across France south of Paris. It would be unutterably handy to have known where Paris lay; what precise bearing. I had to guess again... and my first guesses hadn’t exactly been a riotous triumph.
Three-twenty degrees, I thought. I’d try that. Allow ten degrees for wind drift from the south-west. Three ten. And climb a bit... the centre of France was occupied by the Massif Central and it would be fairly inefficient to crash into it. I increased the power and went back up to ten thousand feet. That left fuel, the worst problem of all.
I’d taken off on the main tanks and the gauges now stood at half full. I switched over to the auxiliaries and they also were half full. And half empty, too. The plane had been refuelled at Milan that morning, ten centuries ago. It carried... I thought searchingly back to Patrick’s casually thrown out snippets of information the first day I flew with him... it carried twelve hundred United States gallons, giving a range of approximately eighteen hundred miles in normal conditions with a normal load. The load, though unconventional, was normal enough in weight. The condition of the weather was perfect, even if the condition of the pilot wasn’t. Nine hundred miles from Marseilles would see me well over England, but it wouldn’t take much more than four hours at the present speed until the tanks ran dry and it would still be too dark...
There was just one thing to be done about that. I put my hand on the throttle levers and closed them considerably. The airspeed fell back from two-twenty, back through two hundred, one-eighty, steadied on one-fifty. I didn’t dare go any slower than that because one thing Patrick hadn’t told me was the stalling speed, and a stall I could do without. The nose wanted to go down heavily with the decreased airspeed and I was holding it up by brute strength, the wheel of the control column lodged against my whole left forearm. I stretched my right hand up to the trimmer handle in the roof and gave it four complete turns, and cursed as a piece of shirt which was sticking to the furrows and burns unhelpfully unstuck itself. The nose of the plane steadied; ten thousand feet at one-fifty knots; and blood oozed warmly through my jersey.
A hundred and fifty knots should reduce the petrol consumption enough for me to stay in the air until long enough after dawn to find an airfield. I hoped. It also meant not four hours ahead, but more than five: and I’d had enough already. Still, now that I knew roughly where I was going, the plane could fly itself. I made small adjustments to the trimmer until the needle on the instrument which showed whether she was climbing or descending pointed unwaveringly to level, and then switched in the automatic pilot. I took my hands off the wheel and leaned back. The D.C.4 flew straight on. Very restful.
Nothing happened for several minutes except that I developed a thirst and remembered Rous-Wheeler for the first time since take-off. Still on his knees, I supposed, and extremely uncomfortable. His bad luck.
There was water in the galley only five or six steps behind me, cold and too tempting. Gingerly I edged out of my seat. The plane took no notice. I took two steps backwards. The instruments didn’t quiver. I went into the galley and drew a quick cup of water, and went back towards the cockpit drinking it. Clearly the plane was doing splendidly without me. I returned to the galley for a refill of the cold delicious liquid, and when I’d got it, nearly dropped it.
Even above the noise of the engines I could hear Rous-Wheeler’s scream. Something about the raw terror in it raised the hair on my neck. That wasn’t pain, I thought, not the sort he’d get from cramp anyway. It was fear.
He screamed again, twice.
One of the horses, I thought immediately. If Billy hadn’t boxed them properly... My newly irrigated mouth went dry again. A loose horse was just too much.
I went back to the cockpit, hurrying. Nothing had moved on the instrument panel. I’d have to risk it.
The plane had never seemed longer, the chains and racks more obstructing. And none of the mares was loose. They weren’t even fretting, but simply eating hay. Half relieved, half furious, I went on past the packing case. Rous-Wheeler was still there, still kneeling. His eyes protruded whitely and his face was wet. The last of his screams hung like an echo in the air.
‘What the hell’s the matter?’ I shouted to him angrily.
‘He...’ his voice shrieked uncontrollably. ‘He... moved.’
‘Who moved?’
‘Him.’ His eyes were staring fixedly at the blanket covering Patrick.
He couldn’t have moved. Poor, poor Patrick. I went across and pulled the rug off and stood looking down at him, the tall silent body, the tumbled hair, the big pool of blood under his down-turned face.
Pool of blood.
It was impossible. He hadn’t had time to bleed as much as that. I knelt down beside him and rolled him over, and he opened his yellow eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
He’d been out cold for six hours and he was still unconscious. Nothing moved in his eyes, and after a few seconds they fell slowly shut again.
My fingers were clumsy on his wrist and for anxious moments I could feel nothing; but his pulse was there. Slow and faint, but regular. He was on his way up from the depths. I was so glad that he wasn’t dead that had Rous-Wheeler not been there I would undoubtedly have wept. As it was, I fought against the flooding back of the grief I’d suppressed when Billy shot him. Odd that I should be tumbled into such intense emotion only because the reason for it was gone.
Rous-Wheeler stuttered ‘What... what is it?’ with a face the colour and texture of putty, and I glanced at him with dislike.
‘He’s alive,’ I said tersely.
‘He can’t be.’
‘Shut up.’
Billy’s bullet had hit Patrick high, above the hairline and at a rising angle, and instead of penetrating his skull had slid along outside it. The long, swollen and clotted wound looked dreadful, but was altogether beautiful in comparison with a neat round hole. I stood up and spread the blanket over him again, to keep him warm. Then, disregarding Rous-Wheeler’s protest, I went away up the plane.