Night Over Water - Ken Follett [77]
For a moment nothing happened.
Then there was a bump, and Nancy was thrown forward hard against her seat belt. For an instant she thought she was going to die. Then she felt the plane rise again. She stopped screaming and opened her eyes.
They were in the air still, just two or three feet above the clifftop grass. The plane bumped down again, and this time it stayed down. Nancy was shaken mercilessly as it shuddered over the uneven ground. She saw that they were headed for a patch of bramble, and realized they could yet crash; then Lovesey did something and the plane turned, avoiding the hazard. The shaking eased; they were slowing down. Nancy could hardly believe she was still alive. The plane came unsteadily to a halt.
Relief shook her like a fit. She could not stop trembling. For a moment she let herself shudder. Then she felt hysteria coming on, and got a grip on herself. “It’s over,” she said aloud. “It’s over, it’s over. I’m all right.”
In front of her, Lovesey got up and climbed out of his seat with a toolbox in his hand. Without looking at her, he jumped down and walked around to the front of the aircraft, where he opened the hood and peered in at the engine.
He might have asked me if I’m all right, Nancy thought.
In an odd way, Lovesey’s rudeness calmed her. She looked around. The sheep had returned to their grazing as if nothing had happened. Now that the engine was silent, she could hear the waves exploding on the beach. The sun was shining, but she could feel a cold, damp wind on her cheek.
She sat still for a moment. When she was sure her legs would hold her, she stood up and clambered out of the aircraft. She stood on Irish soil for the first time in her life, and felt moved almost to tears. This is where we came from, she thought, all those years ago. Oppressed by the British, persecuted by the Protestants, starved by potato blight, we crowded onto wooden ships and sailed away from our homeland to a new world.
And a very Irish way this is to come back, she thought with a grin. I almost died landing here.
That was enough sentiment. She was alive, so could she still catch the Clipper? She looked at her wristwatch. It was two fifteen. The Clipper had just taken off from Southampton. She could get to Foynes in time, if this plane could be made to fly, and if she could summon up the nerve to get back into it.
She walked around to the front of the plane. Lovesey was using a big spanner to loosen a nut. Nancy said: “Can you fix it?”
He did not look up. “Don’t know.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Don’t know.”
Clearly he had reverted to his taciturn mood. Exasperated, Nancy said: “I thought you were supposed to be an engineer.”
That stung him. He looked at her and said: “I studied mathematics and physics. My specialty is wind resistance of complex curves. I’m not a bloody motor mechanic!”
“Then maybe we should fetch a motor mechanic.”
“You won’t find one in bloody Ireland. This country is still in the stone age.”
“Only because the people have been trodden down by the brutal British for so many centuries!”
He withdrew his head from the engine and stood upright. “How the hell did we get onto politics?”
“You haven’t even asked me if I’m all right.”
“I can see you’re all right.”
“You nearly killed me!”
“I saved your life.”
The man was impossible.
She looked around the horizon. About a quarter of a mile away was a line of hedge or wall that might border a road, and a little farther she could see several low thatched roofs in a cluster. Maybe she could get a car and drive to Foynes. “Where are we?” she said. “And don’t tell