Night Over Water - Ken Follett [85]
For a while, preparing for takeoff, he had been able to turn his mind away from tormenting thoughts of Carol-Ann and concentrate on the task in hand: checking his instruments, priming the four massive radial engines, warming them up, adjusting the fuel mixture and the cowl flaps, and governing engine speeds during taxiing. But once the plane reached its cruising altitude, there was less for him to do. He had to synchronize engine speeds, regulate the engine temperature and adjust the fuel mixture; then his job consisted mainly of monitoring the engines to check that they were performing smoothly. And his mind started wandering again.
He had a desperate, irrational need to know what Carol-Ann was wearing. He would feel just a little less bad if he could picture her in her sheepskin coat, buttoned and belted, and wet-weather boots, not because she might be cold—it was only September—but so that the shape of her body would be disguised. However, it was more likely she would have on the lavender-colored sleeveless dress he loved so much, which showed off her lush figure. She was going to be locked up with a bunch of brutes for the next twenty-four hours and the thought of what might happen if they started drinking was agony to him.
What the hell did they want from him?
He hoped the rest of the crew would not notice the state he was in. Fortunately, they were all concentrating on their own tasks, and they were not crammed together as closely as in most aircraft. The flight deck of the Boeing 314 was very large. The spacious cockpit was only part of it. Captain Baker and copilot Johnny Dott sat on raised seats side by side at their controls, with a gap between them leading to a trapdoor that gave access to the bow compartment in the nose of the plane. Heavy curtains could be drawn behind the pilots at night so that the light from the rest of the cabin would not diminish their night vision.
That section alone was bigger than most flight decks; but the rest of the Clipper’s flight cabin was even more generous. Most of the port side, on the left as you faced forward, was taken up by the seven-foot-long chart table, at which navigator Jack Ashford now stood, bending over his maps. Aft of that was a small conference table, at which the captain could sit when he was not actually flying the plane. Beside the captain’s table was an oval hatch leading to the crawlway inside the wing: a special feature of the Clipper was that the engines could be reached during flight via this crawlway, and Eddie could do simple maintenance or repairs, such as fixing an oil leak, without the plane having to come down.
On the starboard, right-hand side, immediately behind the copilot’s seat was the staircase that led down to the passenger deck. Then came the radio operator’s station, where Ben Thompson sat facing forward. Behind Ben sat Eddie. He faced sideways, looking at a wall of dials and a bank of levers. A little to his right was the oval hatch leading to the starboard wing crawlway. At the back of the flight deck, a doorway led to the cargo holds.
The whole thing was twenty-one feet long and nine feet wide, with full headroom throughout. Carpeted, soundproofed and decorated with soft green wall fabric and brown leather seats, it was the most unbelievably luxurious flight deck ever made: when Eddie first saw it he thought it was some kind of joke.
Now, however, he saw only the bent backs and concentrated frowns of his crewmates, and judged, with relief, that they had not noticed that he was beside himself with fear.
Desperate to understand why this nightmare was happening to him, he wanted to give the unknown Mr. Luther an early opportunity to make himself known. After takeoff Eddie hunted around for an excuse to pass through the passenger cabin. He could not think of a good reason, so he made do with a bad one. He stood up, mumbled to the navigator, “Just