Night Over Water - Ken Follett [194]
There had been a stand-up row between Baker and Ollis Field, with the F.B.I. man threatening to have the captain charged with obstruction of justice. In the end Baker had called Pan American in New York and dumped the problem on them; and the airline had decided to let Gordino fly on; and once again Eddie was relieved.
He had got one more piece of good news in Shediac. A cryptic but unmistakable message from Steve Appleby had confirmed that a U.S. Navy cutter would be patrolling the coast where the Clipper was going to come down. It would stay out of sight until the splashdown, then intercept any vessel that made contact with the downed plane.
That made all the difference to Eddie. Knowing the gangsters would be caught afterward, he could with a clear conscience make sure the plan went off without a hitch.
Now the deed was almost done. The plane was close to the rendezvous and flying on two engines only.
Captain Baker was at Eddie’s side in a moment. Eddie said nothing to him at first. With a shaky hand he switched the engine feed so that the starboard wing tank was fueling all engines, and restarted the port engines. Then he said: “The port wing tank ran dry and I can’t fill it.”
“Why not?” the captain snapped.
Eddie pointed to the handwheels. Feeling like a traitor, he said: “I’ve switched the pumps on but nothing’s happening.”
Eddie’s instruments did not show either fuel flow or fuel pressure between the reserve tanks and the feeder tanks, but there were four glass sights at the rear of the control cabin for visual checking of the fuel in the pipes. Captain Baker looked at each in turn. “Nothing!” he said. “How much is left in the starboard wing tank?”
“It’s almost dry—a few miles.”
“How come you’ve only just noticed?” he said angrily.
“I thought we were pumping,” Eddie said feebly.
It was an inadequate answer and the captain was furious. “How could both pumps go at the same time?”
“I don’t know—but thank God we have a hand pump.” Eddie seized the handle next to his table and began to operate the hand pump. This was normally used only when the engineer was draining water from the fuel tanks in flight. He had done this immediately after leaving Shediac, and he had deliberately omitted to reset the F-valve that allowed the water to escape overboard. In consequence, his vigorous pumping action was not filling the wing tanks, but just dumping fuel overboard.
The captain did not know this, of course, and it was not likely that he would notice the setting on the F-valve; but he could see that no fuel was moving through the sight gauges. “It’s not working!” he said. “I don’t understand how all three pumps could fail at the same time!”
Eddie looked at his dials. “The starboard wing tank is almost dry,” he said. “If we don’t splash down soon we’re going to fall out of the sky.”
“Prepare for emergency splashdown, everybody,” Baker said. He pointed a finger at Eddie. “I don’t like your role in this, Deakin,” he said with ice-cold fury. “I don’t trust you.”
Eddie felt rotten. He had good reason to lie to his captain, but just the same he hated himself. All his life he had dealt honestly with people, and scorned men who used trickery and deceit. Now he was acting in a way he despised. You’ll understand in the end, Captain, he thought; but he wished he could say it aloud.
The captain turned to the navigator’s station and bent over the chart. The navigator, Jack Ashford, shot a puzzled look at Eddie, then put a finger on the chart and said to the captain: “We’re here.”
The whole plan relied on the Clipper coming down in the channel between the coast and Grand Manan Island. The gangsters were betting on that, and so was Eddie. But in emergencies people did strange things. Eddie decided that if Baker irrationally chose another location, he would speak up and point out the advantages of the channel. Baker would be suspicious,