Night Over Water

Constable Steve appeared and picked up her empty mug. “Feeling better, Lady Margaret?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Harry Marks react to her title. “Much better, thank you,” she said. For a moment she had forgotten her own troubles in talking to Harry, but now she remembered all she had to do. “You’ve been so kind,” she went on. “Now I’m going to leave you to get on with more important things.”

“No need for you to rush off,” the constable said. “Your father, the marquis, is on his way to fetch you.”

Margaret’s heart stopped. How could this be? She had been so convinced that she was safe—she had underestimated her father! Now she was as frightened as she had been walking along the road to the railway station. He was after her, on his way here at this very minute! She felt shaky. “How does he know where I am?” she said in a high, strained voice.

The young policeman looked proud. “Your description was circulated late yesterday evening, and I read it when I come on duty. I never recognized you in the blackout, but I remembered the name. The instruction is to inform the marquis immediately. As soon as I brought you in here, I rung him up on the telephone.”

Margaret stood up, her heart fluttering wildly. “I shan’t wait for him,” she said. “It’s light now.”

The policeman looked anxious. “Just a minute,” he said nervously. He turned to the desk. “Sarge, the lady doesn’t want to wait for her father.”

Harry Marks said to Margaret: “They can’t make you stay—running away from home isn’t a crime at your age. If you want to go, just walk out.”

Margaret was terrified that they would find some excuse to detain her.

The sergeant got off his seat and came around the counter. “He’s quite right,” the sergeant said. “You can go any time you like.”

“Oh, thank you,” Margaret said gratefully.

The sergeant smiled. “But you’ve got no shoes, and there’s holes in your stockings. If you must leave before your father gets here, at least let us call a taxi.”

She thought for a moment. They had phoned Father as soon as Margaret arrived at the police station, but that was less than an hour ago. Father could not possibly get here for another hour or more. “All right,” she said to the kindly sergeant. “Thank you.”

He opened a door off the hall. “You’ll be more comfortable in here, while you wait for the taxi.” He switched on the light.

Margaret would have preferred to stay and talk to the fascinating Harry Marks, but she did not want to refuse the sergeant’s kindness, especially after he had given in to her. “Thank you,” she said again.

As she walked to the door she heard Harry say: “More fool you.”

She stepped into the little room. There were some cheap chairs and a bench, a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and a barred window. She could not imagine why the sergeant thought this more comfortable than the hallway. She turned to tell him so.

The door closed in her face. A presentiment of ruin filled her heart with dread. She lunged at the door and grabbed the handle. As she did so her sudden fear was confirmed and she heard a key turn in the lock. She rattled the handle furiously. The door would not open.

She slumped in despair with her head against the wood.

From outside she heard a low laugh, then Harry’s voice, muffled but comprehensible, saying: “You bastard.”

The sergeant’s voice was now anything but kindly. “You shut your hole,” he said crudely.

“You’ve got no right—you know that.”

“Her father’s a bloody marquis, and that’s all the right I need.”

No more was said.

Margaret realized bitterly that she had lost. Her great escape had failed. She had been betrayed by the very people she thought were helping her. For a little while she had been free, but now it was over. She would not be joining the A.T.S. today, she thought miserably: she would be boarding the Pan Am Clipper and flying to New York, running away from the war. After all she had been through, her fate was unchanged. It seemed so desperately unfair.

After a long moment she turned from the door and walked the few steps to the window. She could see an empty yard and a brick wall. She stood there, defeated and helpless, looking through the bars at the brightening daylight, waiting for her father.

Eddie Deakin gave the Pan American Clipper a final once-over. The four Wright Cyclone 1500- horsepower engines gleamed with oil. Each engine was as high as a man. All fifty-six spark plugs had been replaced. On impulse, Eddie took a feeler gauge from his overalls pocket and slid it into an engine mount between the rubber and the metal, to test the bond. The pounding vibration of the long flight put a terrific strain on the adhesive. But Eddie’s feeler would not go in even a quarter of an inch. The mounts were holding.

He closed the hatch and climbed down the ladder. While the plane was being eased back into the water he would change out of his overalls, get cleaned up and put on his black Pan American flight uniform.

The sun was shining as he left the dock and strolled up the hill toward the hotel where the crew stayed during the layover. He was proud of the plane and the job he did. The Clipper crews were elite, the best men the airline had, for the new transatlantic service was the most prestigious route. All his life he would be able to say he had flown the Atlantic in the early days.

However, he was planning to give it up soon. He was thirty years old, he had been married for a year, and Carol-Ann was pregnant. Flying was all right for a single man, but he was not going to spend his life away from his wife and children. He had been saving money and he had almost enough to start a business of his own. He had an option on a site near Bangor, Maine, that would make a perfect airfield. He would service planes and sell fuel, and eventually have an aircraft for charter. Secretly he dreamed that one day he might have an airline of his own, like the pioneering Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American.

He entered the grounds of the Langdown Lawn Hotel. It was a piece of luck for Pan American crews that there was such a pleasant hotel a mile or so from the Imperial Airways complex. The place was a typical English country house, run by a gracious couple who charmed everyone and served tea on the lawn on sunny afternoons.

He went inside. In the hall he ran into his assistant engineer, Desmond Finn—known, inevitably, as Mickey. Mickey reminded Eddie of the Jimmy Olsen character in the Superman comics: he was a happy-go-lucky type with a big toothy grin and a propensity to hero-worship Eddie, who found such adoration embarrassing. He was speaking into the telephone, and now when he saw Eddie he said: “Oh, wait. You’re lucky. He just walked in.” He handed the earpiece to Eddie and said: “A phone call for you.” Then he went upstairs, politely leaving Eddie alone.

Eddie spoke into the phone. “Hello?”

“Is this Edward Deakin?”

Eddie frowned. The voice was unfamiliar, and nobody called him Edward. He said: “Yes, I’m Eddie Deakin. Who are you?”

“Wait. I have your wife on the line, ”

Eddie’s heart lurched. Why was Carol-Ann calling him from the States? Something was wrong.

A moment later he heard her voice. “Eddie?”

“Hi, honey. What’s up?”

She burst into tears.

A whole series of awful explanations came to mind: the house had burned down, someone had died, she had hurt herself in some kind of accident, she had suffered a miscarriage—

“Carol-Ann, calm down. Are you all right?”

She spoke through sobs. “I’m ... not ... hurt—”

“What, then?” he said fearfully. “What’s happened? Try to tell me, babe.”

“These men... came to the house.”