Ned Ordway came in, closing the office door.
3
Trans America Airlines Flight Two was twenty minutes out of Lincoln International, and in a steady climb which would continue until reaching thirty-three thousand feet near Detroit, in eleven more minutes. Already the flight was on its airway and great circle course for Rome. For the past several minutes the aircraft had been in smooth air, the storm clouds and accompanying turbulence now far below. A three-quarter moon hung above and ahead like a lopsided lantern; all around, the stars were sharp and clear.
On the flight deck, initial pressures were over. Captain Harris had made a progress announcement to the passengers over the p.a. system. The three pilots were settling down to routines of their long flight.
Under the second officer’s table, behind Captain Harris and Demerest, a chime sounded loudly. At the same instant, on a radio panel forward of the throttles, an amber light winked on. Both chime and light indicated a radio call on Selcal radio system through which most airliners could be called individually, as if by private telephone. Each aircraft, of Trans America and other major airlines, had its own separate call code, transmitted and received automatically. The signals which had just been actuated for aircraft N-731-TA would be seen or heard on no other flight.
Anson Harris switched from the radio to which he had been listening on air route control frequency, and acknowledged, “This is Trans America Two.”
“Flight Two, this is Trans America dispatcher, Cleveland. I have a message for the captain from D.T.M., LIA. Advise when ready to copy.”
Vernon Demerest, Harris observed, had also changed radio frequencies. Now Demerest pulled a notepad toward him and nodded.
Harris instructed, “We’re ready, Cleveland. Go ahead.”
The message was that which Tanya Livingston had written concerning Flight Two’s stowaway, Mrs. Ada Quonsett. As it progressed, with the description of the little old lady from San Diego, both captains began smiling. The message ended by asking confirmation that Mrs. Quonsett was aboard.
“We will check and advise,” Harris acknowledged. When the transmission ended, he clicked the radio controls back to air route control frequency.
Vernon Demerest, and Second Officer Jordan who had heard the message from an overhead speaker near his seat, were laughing aloud.
The second officer declared, “I don’t believe it!”
“I believe it.” Demerest chuckled. “All those boobs on the ground, and some ancient old duck fooled them all!” He pushed the call button for the forward galley phone. “Hey!” he said, when one of the stewardesses answered. “Tell Gwen we want her in the office.”
He was still chuckling when the flight deck door opened. Gwen Meighen came in.
Demerest read Gwen the Selcal message with Mrs. Quonsett’s description. “Have you seen her?”
Gwen shook her head. “I’ve hardly been back in tourist yet.”
“Go back,” Demerest told her, “and see if the old woman’s there. She shouldn’t be hard to spot.”
“If she is, what do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Just come back and report.”
Gwen was gone only a few minutes. When she returned, she was laughing like the others.
Demerest swung around in his seat. “Is she there?”
Gwen nodded. “Yes, in seat fourteen-B. She’s just the way the message said, only more so.”
The second officer asked, “How old?”
“At least seventy-five; probably nearer eighty. And she looks like something out of Dickens.”
Over his shoulder, Anson Harris said, “More likely
“Is she
Harris shrugged. “On the ground they say so. And I guess it explains why your head count was wrong.”
“We can easily find out for sure,” Gwen volunteered. “All I have to do is go back again and ask to see her ticket counterfoil.”
“No,” Vernon Demerest said. “Let’s not do that.”
As best they could in the darkened cockpit, the others regarded him curiously. After a second or so, Harris returned his eyes to the flight instruments; Second Officer Jordan swung back to his fuel charts.
“Hold on,” Demerest told Gwen. While she waited, he made a check point report on company radio.
“All we were told to do,” Demerest said when he had finished the report, “was to see if the old lady’s aboard. Okay, she is; and that’s what I’ll tell Flight Dispatch. I guess they’ll have someone waiting for her at Rome; we can’t do anything about that, even if we wanted to. But if the old girl’s made it this far, and since we’re not turning back, why make her next eight hours miserable? So leave her alone. Maybe, just before we get to Rome, we’ll let her know she’s been found out; then it won’t be a whole big shock. But for the time being, let her enjoy her flight. Give Grandma some dinner, and she can watch the movie in peace.”
“You know,” Gwen said; she was watching him thoughtfully. “There are times when I quite like you.”
As Gwen left the flight deck, Demerest — still chuckling — changed radio channels and reported back himself to the Cleveland dispatcher.
Anson Harris, who had his pipe alight, looked up from adjusting the auto-pilot and said drily, “I didn’t think you were much of a one for the old ladies.” He emphasized the “old.”
Demerest grinned. “I prefer younger ones.”
“So I’d heard.”
The stowaway report, and his reply, had put Demerest in a thoroughly good humor. More relaxed than earlier, he added, “Opportunities change. Pretty soon you and I will have to settle for the not-so-young ones.”
“I already have.” Harris puffed at his pipe. “For quite some time.”
Both pilots had one earpiece of their radio headsets pushed upward. They could converse normally, yet hear radio calls if any came in. The noise level of the flight deck — persistent but not overwhelming — was sufficient to give the two of them privacy.
“You’ve always played it straight down the line, haven’t you?” Demerest said. “With your wife, I mean. No mucking around; on layovers I’ve seen you reading books.”
This time Harris grinned. “Sometimes I go to a movie.”
“Any special reason?”
“My wife was a stewardess — on DC-4s; that was how we met. She knew what went on: the sleeping around, pregnancies, abortions, all that stuff. Later, she got to be a supervisor and had to deal with a lot of it in her job. Anyway, when we were married I made her a promise — the obvious one. I’ve always kept it.”
“I guess all those kids you had helped.”
“Maybe.”
Harris made another minute adjustment to the auto-pilot. As they talked, the eyes of both pilots, out of training and habit, swept the illuminated banks of instruments in front of them, as well as those to each side and above. An incorrect instrument reading would show at once if anything in the aircraft was malfunctioning. Nothing was.
Demerest said, “How many children is it? Six?”
“Seven.” Harris smiled. “Four we planned, three we didn’t. But it all worked out.”
“The ones you didn’t plan — did you ever consider doing anything about them? Before they were born.”
Harris glanced sharply sideways. “Abortion?”
Vernon Demerest had asked the question on impulse. Now he wondered why. Obviously, his two conversations earlier with Gwen had begun the train of thought about children generally. But it was uncharacteristic of him to be doing so much thinking about something — like an abortion for Gwen — which was essentially simple and straightforward. Just the same, he was curious about Harris’s reaction.
“Yes,” Demerest said. “That’s what I meant.”
Anson Harris said curtly, “The answer’s no.” Less sharply, he added, “It happens to be something I have
