No Highway by Nevil Shute

Author:Nevil Shute [Shute, Nevil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780307474124
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-10-11T23:00:00+00:00

7

WHEN THE REINDEER settled down upon the tarmac she went slowly; the men standing in the flight deck staggered and reached for something to hang on to, but they were not thrown down. They stood petrified for an instant after the fuselage reached the ground, listening aghast to the rending and crashing noise of crumpling propeller blades and duralumin panels as the weight came on to yielding parts of the structure; then there was silence, and they came to life again.

Samuelson was the first to speak. He said dully, “Well, that’s the bloody limit.” And then he turned to Symes, the inspector. “Come outside, Mr. Symes.”

He turned away without a word to Mr. Honey, who got up from the control pedestal that he had been embracing, his face scarlet and with tears running down his cheeks. The inspector looked him up and down, snorted, and followed the captain down into the saloon and so to the ground, to view the damage from outside.

In the control deck Dobson turned to Honey. “You bloody little squirt,” he said. “Pleased with what you’ve done?”

Mr. Honey made a helpless gesture with his hands, but said nothing. Behind them the note of the auxiliary motor dropped and died; the engineer had switched it off, in case of fire.

Dobson said again, “Pleased with what you’ve done?”

Honey raised his head. “It was the only thing to do. You wouldn’t believe me. If you’d gone on everybody might have been killed.”

Cousins, the engineer, pressed forward passionately. He loved his aircraft. He had worked upon it for three months before it flew; since then he had lived in it for much of the time, and he had tended it lovingly; he existed for nothing else. “Nonsense,” he said passionately. “There was nothing wrong with that tail, and you know it. Who the hell are you, anyway? Just a bloody penpusher and slide-rule merchant. What the hell do you know about aircraft?”

Dobson said, “That’s right. Have you ever flown anything? Ever piloted anything yourself? Come on, speak up.”

“No,” said Honey helplessly, “I’ve never been a pilot.”

“What the hell do you know about aeroplanes, then, if you’ve never had to do with them? You say you come from Farnborough. God, I’ve heard some tales about that place, but this beats everything.”

Cousins laughed bitterly. “That’s what they do there, come around and smash things up. He’ll get an O.B.E. for this, you see.” He turned to Honey passionately. “Get out of here, you dirty little swine, before I sock you one.”

Honey turned and went down into the saloon without a word. From the ground Samuelson called up to Dobson to bring down a signal pad. The two pilots stood in front of the wrecked Reindeer drafting a quick signal to their Flight Control in London; then Dobson went hurriedly with it to the control tower, passing Miss Corder on the way.

Mr. Honey stood around upon the tarmac for an hour, with nobody paying any attention to him. There was a bitter north-east

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.