Trustee From the Toolroom (15 page)

The island grew ahead of them, and there was more activity upon the flightdeck. Dick King was in the folding seat between the pilots and the captain was talking into the small microphone. They dropped off height as they approached the island and approached it from a little to the south of east. A considerable town with docks and shipping lay upon the southern shore, and to the west of this there was an enormous airport, apparently about five miles long. They made a wide circuit of this and approached from the southwest, and touched down upon a runway halfway up die length of the field. They taxied to the customs entry building near the garlanded civil airport building, and stopped the motors.

Keith asked the flight engineer, 'What time is it here?'

'Ten minutes to five — in the afternoon.'

Steps were wheeled up to the aircraft, the door opened, and they made their way out on to the tarmac, carrying their luggage. The humid heat hit Keith like a blow. He was wearing a blue serge suit with a waistcoat, a woollen shirt, and thick woollen underwear, clothes that had been reasonable enough in England thirty-six hours before but which were intolerable in the tropics, where everybody seemed to be wearing a light shirt and trousers and little else. Moreover, he was carrying his suitcase and his raincoat. He stood with the crew in a small group while a small Oriental man in charge of a brawny customs officer came up and greeted Captain Fielding.

'Very good afternoon, Captain,' he said. He spoke with a slight American accent. ' I am Harold Yamasuki, of the Yamasuki Trading Company, Incorporated. We are agents for the tanker ship, the
Cathay Princess.
You have had a good flight? You arrived exactly on time.'

Captain Fielding put out his hand. 'Nice to meet you, Mr Yamasuki,' he said. ' Yes, we had a good flight - no troubles.' He turned around. 'This is Mr Adams, who is to superintend the installation of the rotor. You had a cable about him?'

Mr Yamasuki stopped shaking hands with the captain and shook hands with Mr Adams. 'Very glad to know you,' he said. 'Yes, we had the radiogram about Mr Adams. He will be great help. Now, everybody must go to the entry formalities with passports and vaccination certificates ready, please, and after that the customs. You give bags to the boy here and he will meet you with them in the examination room. There are nine? Yes, nine. I will now call the Beachcomber Hotel and arrange accommodation. You will not mind if two must share a room, a room with two beds
?
I will meet you as you come from customs, and we go to the hotel. Then we can talk more. Now you go with officer to passport examination.'

The captain said, 'They'll want us to shift the aircraft away from here before we go to the hotel. Are you unloading tonight?'

'It is too late now,' said Mr Yamasuki. 'Tomorrow, I think, at seven o'clock we will begin to unload. By the time we could begin tonight it will be dark, and there would be the possibility of accident and damage to the rotor. I think it will be better in the day."

Mr Adams said, 'I'm with you there, mate, all the way.'

They went from the brilliant sunshine into the cool shade of the air-conditioned examination room. Keith passed through with the crew without difficulty and emerged into the customs shed with them. Nobody had anything to declare and only a cursory examination was made. The bags were loaded into an elongated motor car, the captain spoke to the control tower and to Shell upon the telephone, and the crew went back to the machine to move it to the park. Keith Stewart went with them, leaving his coat, jacket, and waistcoat in the car. Even so, he sweated profusely as he walked out to the aircraft in his braces and blue trousers.

There were palm trees by the foreshore, and the sea was glittering and blue. It was incredible that he, Keith Stewart, should be in a place like this.

Moving the aircraft nearly a mile away and refuelling it took an hour. The sun had set and the quick darkness was covering the airport when the last man got down from the aircraft, slammed the door, and locked it. In the fading light the aircraft movements seemed to be continuous; they took off and landed with their winking navigation lights in the soft, velvety dusk, in what appeared to be an endless stream. Keith stood watching them, fascinated. 'Busy place, this,' remarked Mr King.

The long car appeared with Mr Yamasuki and took them to the hotel. The agent consulted with the desk clerk about the rooms, and then turned to the captain. ' I will now leave you to rest,' he said. ' Tomorrow, at half past six in the morning, I will come back with a car, and the truck will be beside the aeroplane at seven.'

They talked about the mobile crane. 'I will arrange,' said Mr Yamasuki. ' One thing. I have called the ship, the
Cathay Princess
to say you have arrived. I think some of the officers may come here tonight to meet you, and to talk about the electrical work with Mr Adams.'

As he was going down the steps to the car Keith Stewart stopped him. 'You can tell me, Mr Yamasuki. Is it possible to get from here to Tahiti ?'

'To Tahiti? There is no regular service. The Matson ships, they go Tahiti to Honolulu but not from here to Tahiti. There are rumours that they will change, but I do not know. There are Norwegian cargo steamers which call sometimes from Vancouver to Tahiti. They carry a few passengers.'

'Will one of those be going soon?'

Mr Yamasuki shook his head. 'I do not think so. One was here last week. Perhaps in two months' time. I will find out. Sometimes there is an island trading schooner going to Tahiti. They take passengers, not very comfortable. Sometimes, to sleep on deck.'

' Would one of those be going soon ?'

'I do not know. I will ask tonight, and tell you in the morning. You wish to go from Honolulu to Tahiti, yourself?'

'That's right.'

' I do not think it will be easy. But I will ask.'

Keith Stewart was depressed, and tired, and very, very hot in his unsuitable clothes. He went back to the group at the desk and signed his name in the register and found no that he had been allocated .to share a room with Dick King. They went up in the elevator to the fifth floor.

The Beachcomber was a fairly modern hotel on the unfashionable, dockside side of the city, much used by aircrews and ships' officers on account of its nearness to the airfield and to the docks. It had no swimming pool, but it commanded a pleasant view out over the ocean in the front and the mountains at the back. Keith and Dick King found themselves in a back room with a shower, two beds converted into lounges for the day, and a wide, deep verandah furnished with wicker chairs and table. The door of the room was louvred for the full height, permitting the cool trade wind to blow through the room continuously.

'I'm for a shower,' said Dick King, throwing off his clothes and making for it.

Keith Stewart had never had a shower in the whole of his life. He had seen them in shop windows and had read about them, but one had never come his way. As a boy and a young man in Renfrew he had had a bath once a week, and though he had graduated from that to having a bath whenever he felt like it, it would have seemed to him a senseless extravagance to have one every day. He certainly felt like one now. While Dick was in the shower he stripped off his heavy woollen underwear with a sigh of relief, and stood in the cool breeze with a towel round his waist. Presently he opened his suitcase and stood looking at his clothing ruefully. His woollen cricket shirts and grey flannel trousers were the best he could do; they might be tolerable after dark but he knew now that they would be very hot in the daytime^ Still, they were all he had.

Presently Dick King came out and he went in and tried the shower experimentally. He found it -strange but not unpleasant and he stayed under it for a long time, gradually reducing the temperature of the water and washing away his fatigue with the sweat. When he came out he was cool and refreshed.

He would have to have some money in his pocket, and they used dollars here, it seemed. He had never cashed a travellers' cheque before and consulted Dick, who showed in him where to sign it and told him they would cash it at the desk. He followed this advice when they went downstairs. Then they went to the verandah bar.

'Beer's the cheapest,' said Dick. 'Not like the English beer - a kind of fizzy lager. But it's what we mostly drink here, on account of the dollar allowance.'

In the bar most of the rest of the aircrew were already gathered, with Captain Davies of the
Cathay Princess,
the chief engineer, and the third engineer, a lad called Alec Bourne. Captain Fielding turned to Dick and Keith to introduce them. 'This is Mr King, flight engineer,' he said. He smiled. 'This is Mr Keith Stewart. We call him flight engineer under instruction, which means he's come along with us for the ride. He writes for a model paper in London. We're hoping that he'll give us a good spin when he gets back.'

The third engineer's jaw dropped, and they all shook hands. The Third said, 'It wouldn't be Keith Stewart of the
Miniature Mechanic,
by any chance?'

Dick King said, 'The very same. You read the
Miniature Mechanic
?'

'I've read it every week, ever since I was a little nipper,' said the lad. 'I've got every copy since 1948 at home, and a lot on board. Ma sends it to me every week. Fancy meeting you, sir. I never thought I'd do that, except maybe to see you opening an exhibition.' He hesitated, and added, -'Would you like a beer, sir?'

A beer was just exactly what Keith Stewart needed, and while it was coming he talked models to the third engineer. ' I made a Hornet about two years ago,' the young man told him. 'I'm working on a Gannet now.'

' Did the Hornet go all right ?'

' It went fine. I had a bit of difficulty getting it started at the first go off, but then I got a bottle of American fuel, and she goes fine. I got a little airscrew on her for the load.'

Keith nodded. 'They generally put more ether in the American fuels. If you're using that, I think I should wash out the cylinder with a light oil after each run. I've heard that the American fuels are more corrosive than ours. Put in a drop or two of Three-in-One, or something like that.'

The young man nodded gratefully. 'Thanks for the tip, Mr Stewart.'

' Where do you work ?'

'Oh, in the engine-room workshop,' the Third said. 'We've got a six inch lathe there, and a shaper. It's quite well equipped, really.' He paused, and added a little shyly, ' If you've got the time to come on board and have a look round, Mr Stewart, there's one or two of the lads would like to meet you.'

' I'd like to do that very much,' said Keith. ' I'd like to see your workshop.' Twelve beers arrived upon a tray carried by a very pretty Asiatic girl in a cheongsam of figured silk. These were distributed around, and the talk became general. Alec Bourne turned to his captain. 'I've just asked Mr Stewart if he'd like to come on board and see the engines and the workshop, sir.'

'Of course.' Captain Davies turned to Keith. 'There's more model engineering done in that workshop than was ever done on bits for the ship. You should see the commotion when Alec here was trying to get his little engine started up. They had to use the main engines as a starter motor for it, so the Chief was telling me.'

The Third flushed uneasily. ' Mr Stewart designed it, sir. It was the fuel that was wrong.'

There was general laughter. 'Come on board any time you like, Mr Stewart,' said the captain.

'That's very good of you, sir,' said Keith. 'I thought perhaps I'd stick with the rotor and lend a hand unloading that tomorrow morning, and perhaps come down with it to the dock.'

'Fine. What are your movements, Mr Stewart? Are you staying here a bit, or going back to England with the aircraft ?'

Keith said, 'Well, that's just the point. I really want to get to Tahiti, but I asked Mr Yamasuki and he said he didn't know of any service from Honolulu to Tahiti. He was going to find out this evening and let me know.' He hesitated. ' I suppose you don't know of any service, sir?'

Captain Davies shook, his head. ' I never heard of one. There must be an odd tramp or two, of course. It's got to be Tahiti, has it? You've got some business there, or something?'

'That's right.' These merchant service officers would probably be understanding and sympathetic about events following on a wreck. He pulled out his wallet and took the cutting from
The Times
from it. 'My sister and my brother-in-law were sailing out here in a yacht,' he said. 'They got wrecked on an island in the Tuamotus. I've got to get down there and see about things - the grave, and ' salvage, and anything that might need to be done.' He gave the cutting to the captain.

The officers were very interested, and asked a number of questions about the yacht, and about John Dermott. Captain Davies had been an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve in the last war. 'I'm almost sure I remember him,' he said thoughtfully. 'At Invergordon ... or was it Scapa ? An RN two-and-a-half, in one of the Tribal class. Wait now. The man I'm thinking of had a broken nose, boxing or something.'

'That's right,' said Keith. 'He had a broken nose.'

The captain dropped his eyes again to the cutting. 'He was a good seaman,' he said. 'Better than most RN. It's curious it should have to end like this.'

The three merchant officers turned their minds to Keith Stewart's problem, and discussed it carefully. 'There's a fortnightly air service from Fiji through Samoa to Tahiti,' said the captain. ' You can probably fly from here to Samoa, but it's the hell of a long way round.'