“You sit there, sir, those straps for strapping in, sir.”
While he spoke, and even before Gus had dropped into the second chair in the tiny chamber, Jones’s fingers were flitting over the controls putting into operation this great flying engine. There was a hissing rumble from somewhere beneath their feet, a sound that grew rapidly to a cavernous roar and, as it did so, the long-bladed rotors above their heads stirred to life and began to rotate in opposite directions. Soon they were just great shimmering disks and as they bit into the air the helicopter stirred and shook itself like a waking beast—then leaped straight up into the air. A touch on a button retracted their landing legs while the tiny artificial island dropped away beneath them and vanished, until nothing except ocean could be seen in all directions.
“Being an engineer yourself, Captain Washington, you can appreciate a machine such as this one. A turbine, she has, that puts out two thousand horsepower to turn the contra-rotating rotors for a maximum forward speed of two hundred seventeen miles in the hour. Navigation is by radio beam and right now we are locked onto the Gander signal and all I need do is keep that needle on that point and we’ll be going there directly.”
“Your fuel?”
“Butane gas, in the liquid form, very calorific.”
“Indeed it is.”
Within a matter of minutes the coast of Newfoundland Island was in sight and the city of St. John’s moved smoothly by beneath them. Their route took them along the coast and over the countless bays that fringed the shore. Jones looked out at the landscape then back to his controls and his hand reached out to touch a switch.
“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?”