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?”
“No.”
“I will pay you one hundred dollars for it.”
“Maybe.”
“I will pay you two hundred dollars.”
“Let me see it.”
Gus had his wallet out on the instant and the bank notes smacking on the table. The head and the beard shook in a very definite and negative no.
“Colonial money. I don’t take it. Canadian greenbacks or sterling, either.”
“I have neither.”
“I ain’t selling.”
Gus would not give in, not surrender to this backwoods agrarian, the man who had triumphed over the ocean would not admit defeat at the hands of a pastoral peasant.
“We will swap then.”
“Whatcher got?”
“This.” He had his watch off in an instant and dangling tantalizingly before the other’s eyes. “A two-hundred and thirty-seven dollar waterproof watch with four hands and seven buttons.”
“Got a watch.”
“Not a shockproof, self-winding, day-of-the-week-and-month-revealing watch that tells the time when this button is pressed,” a tiny bell struck six times, “and contains an infinitesimal radio permanently tuned to the government weather station that gives a report when this one is pressed.”
“…Small craft warnings out, snow and winds of gale velocity…”
A report he would just as well not have heard. Standing there, the watch of many qualities extended in silence until, with the utmost reluctance, a work-gnarled hand came up and, with the greatest trepidation, touched it. “It’s a deal.”
Then physical work, a harsh anodyne to the frustration of impotent waiting, struggling with the ponderous tank by the light of a paraffin lantern, loading it into the farm cart, harnessing the reluctant beast, driving it down the track, pushing mightily to get it over the ruts in the field towards the lighted helicopter where Jones’s head popped out of the open hatch when he was hailed.
“Found the trouble, sir, and strange it is since I filled the tanks myself. They are empty and the indicators somehow broken so they read only full. It could only be—”
“Sabotage. But I have the answer here. Propane, and may there be enough of it to reach the base at Gander.”
It was the work of seconds to remove the access ports and reveal the hulking forms of the helicopter’s fuel tanks. Jones spat on his palms and reached for his toolbox.
“We’ll have to have these out since there is no way to transfer the fuel. If you will tackle the fittings above, Captain, I’ll tackle the clamps and we’ll have them pulled before you can say Rhosllanerchrugog.”
They worked with a will, metal struck metal and there was no further sound other than an occasional muffled curse when a wrench slipped and drew blood from barked knuckles. The tanks were freed and toppled out to the ground, after which with an even greater effort, they managed to raise the replacement tank into their vacated position.
“A lorry will return your tank and remove these,” Jones said and received a reluctant nod in return.
Straps had to be arranged to secure the new tank in position, and there was some difficulty in attaching the fitting to its valve, but within the hour the job was done and the last connection tightened, the plates lifted back into place. The wind had accelerated while they worked and now the first flakes of snow sped by in the lantern’s light. Gus saw them but said nothing, the pilot was working as fast as he could, but he did glance at his wrist before he remembered his watch was no longer there. Surely there was still time. The new jet Wellingtons were rumoured to do over six hundred miles an hour. There must still be time. Then the job was done, the last fastener fastened, the last test completed.
They climbed the ladder and rolled it up and at the touch of the switch the great engine stirred and roared to life once more. Jones turned on the landing lights and in that fierce glare they saw the snow, thicker now, the frightened horse kicking up its heels against the wagon then stampeding out of sight with the shouting farmer in hot pursuit while the rotors spun, faster and faster until they were up, up and away into the blinding storm.
“Instruments all the way,” said Jones with calm assurance. “There’s nothing over five hundred feet high between us and the field so I’ll hold her at a thousand, no need to waste fuel going higher. Follow the beam and keep an eye on the altimeter and that’s all there is to it.”
That was not all there was to it for the weather worsened with every mile they flew until the great mass of the helicopter was tossed and spun about like a child’s kite. Only the ready skill and lightning reflexes of the pilot held them on course while, despite his outward calm, the dampening of his shirt collar indicated the severity of the task. Gus said nothing, but held tight to the seat and looked out at the swirling snow as it blew through the golden cone of their lights and tried not to think about the minutes quickly slipping by. There was still time, there had to be time.