“Number One tank almost empty so I’ll switch to Number Two.”
He threw the switch and the turbine rumbled and promptly died.
“Now that is not the normal thing I’m sure,” said he with a slight frown. “But not to worry. I‘ can switch to tank Number Three.”
Which he did and still the engine remained silent and they began to fall.
“Well, well, tank Four.” Which proved to be as ineffective in propelling the ship as had its earlier mates. “But we cannot crash, bach, there is that. We windmill down to a soft landing.”
“Wet landing,” Gus said pointing out at the ocean.
“A well made point. But there, should be enough fuel left in tank One to enable us to reach the shore.”
The flying officer seemed cheered by these final words because they were the first true prediction he had made in some time, for when he switched back to the first tank the turbine rumbled to life instantly and the helicopter surged with power. As he curved their course towards the shore he tapped, each in its turn, the dials set above the switch, then shook his head.
“They all read full, I cannot understand it.”
“Might I suggest you radio the base at Gander about our situation.”
“A fine idea, sir, would I could. No radio. Experimental ship you know. But there, beyond that field, a farmhouse sure, perhaps a telephone, contact reestablished.”
As though to defy his words the turbine coughed and stopped again and their forward flight changed to an easy descent. Jones hurriedly lowered the landing legs and they had no sooner locked into position than the craft touched the ground in the center of a plowed field. Instants later the pilot had thrown open a door in the floor and had dived down into the maze of machinery below.
“That is very interesting,” he said, spanner in hand and banging on the cylindrical tanks below him. “They are empty, all of them.”
“Interesting indeed, and I shall report their condition if I can find a telephone at that farmhouse.”
The hatch release was easy to locate and Gus pushed it open and threw the rope ladder out and was on it and down it even before the lower end had touched the ground. At a quick trot he crossed the field, angling towards the patch of woods behind which the farmhouse was located, running as quickly as he could across the stubble, running his thoughts no less quickly over the hours remaining before the train left London, the darkening sky above a dire portent of their vanishing number. Nine a.m. the train departed, nine in the morning and here he was on the other side of the Atlantic the evening before, running, which was not the most efficient form of ocean crossing imaginable. For the very first time he felt that he might not make it in time, that all the effort had been in vain—but still he kept on running. Giving up were two words he simply did not know.
A farm track, a wooden fence and finally, reluctantly, the trees thinned out to permit a wood framed farmhouse to come into view. The door was closed, no one in sight, the shutters drawn. Deserted? It could not be. With raised fist he hammered loudly on the door, again and again, and almost abandoned hope before there was the rattle of a moving bolt and it opened a crack to reveal a suspicious eye set in an even more suspicious face and, if a beard can be said to be suspicious, wrapped around about by a full and suspicious graying beard.
“Aye?” a suspicious voice muttered, nothing more.
“My name is Washington, sir, and I am in some distress. My flying vehicle has been forced down in your field and I would like very much to make a call with your telephone, for which you will be reimbursed.”
“No telephone.” The door closed far quicker than it had opened and Washington instantly pounded upon it until it reluctantly opened for a second time.
“Perhaps you could tell me where the nearest neighbor with a phone—”
“No neighbors.”
“Or the nearest town where a phone—”
“No towns.”
“Then perhaps you could allow me into your house so we could discuss where I could find a telephone,” Washington roared in a voice accustomed to giving orders over the loudest of background clamor. Where good manners had not prevailed this issuing of a command had, for the door opened wider, though still reluctantly, and he stamped after the owner into the house. They entered a modest kitchen, lit by glowing yellow lights, and Washington strode back and forth the length of it, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, while he attempted to discover from the reluctant rustic what his next step would be. A good five minutes of questioning managed to worm out the tightly held information that nothing could possibly be done in any reasonable. length of time. The nearest town, far distant, the neighbors, nonexistent, transportation in fine, only equine.
“Nothing can be done then. I have lost.”
With these sad words Gus smacked his fist into his palm with great force, then held his wristwatch towards the lamp so he could tell the time. Six in the evening. He should have been at the air base by now, boarding the Super Wellington for the jet flight to England, instead he was in this primitive kitchen. Six, now, eleven at night in London and the train departed at nine in the morning. The light hissed and flickered slightly and the hands on the watch irrevocably told the lateness of the hour. The light flickered again and Gus slowly raised his vision to the shade, the transparent globe, the glowing hot mantle within.
“What… kind… of… light… is… this—?” he asked with grim hesitation.
“Gas,” was the reluctant answer.
What kind of gas?“
“In a tank. The truck comes to fill it.”
The light of hope was rekindled in Gus’s eyes as he spun about to face the man again. “Propane? Could it be propane? Have you heard that word, sir?”
Squirming to hold in the fact, the fanner finally had to release it. “Something like that.”
“It is that, because that is the only sort of liquid gas that can be used in the north because butane will not vaporize at lower temperatures. There is hope yet. I wish to purchase that tank of gas and rent your farm wagon and horse to transport it for me. What do you say to that, sir?”
“No.”
“I will pay you one hundred dollars for it.”
“Maybe.”
“I will pay you two hundred dollars.”
“Let me see it.”
Gus had his wallet out on the instant and the bank notes smacking on the table. The head and the beard shook in a very definite and negative no.
“Colonial money. I don’t take it. Canadian greenbacks or sterling, either.”
“I have neither.”
“I ain’t selling.”
Gus would not give in, not surrender to this backwoods agrarian, the man who had triumphed over the ocean would not admit defeat at the hands of a pastoral peasant.
“We will swap then.”
“Whatcher got?”
“This.” He had his watch off in an instant and dangling tantalizingly before the other’s eyes. “A two-hundred and thirty-seven dollar waterproof watch with four hands and seven buttons.”
“Got a watch.”
“Not a shockproof, self-winding, day-of-the-week-and-month-revealing watch that tells the time when this button is pressed,” a tiny bell struck six times, “and contains an infinitesimal radio permanently tuned to the government weather station that gives a report when this one is pressed.”
“…Small craft warnings out, snow and winds of gale velocity…”
A report he would just as well not have heard. Standing there, the watch of many qualities extended in silence until, with the utmost reluctance, a work-gnarled hand came up and, with the greatest trepidation, touched it. “It’s a deal.”