SOUTH TO THE SUN

Betty Beaty

Of all the professions open to women, the one with the highest marriage rate is surely that of air stewardess. Here is the story of one of them, Susan Shelton, and the officers - fickle or faithful, gay or serious - with whom she flew on the sunshine route to South America." 'Airlines don't need good-time girls!' Captain John Jefferson's words struck Susan like a sharp slap. It was bad enough that he thought she.

CHAPTER I

With a rattle of hail on her metal sides and a huffing and puffing of rain-filled gusts, the air above London said its goodbye to Astroliner Able Dog of World Wide Airways, as she spread her huge silver wings into the evening sky. The long nose nudged its way out of the wet-topped cumulus and set itself upward and forward towards the long haul across the mid-Atlantic to Bermuda and the sun.

But inside, there was already warmth and comfort. The passengers, obedient to the red-lettered sign, unfastened their seat belts, lay back with relief that the take-off was over, reached for cigarettes or a magazine, or leaned forward to talk.

And up on the darkened flight deck in the nose, Susan Shelton was serving the inevitable tea. The blue-green phosphorescent glow of the instrument panel showed a slim girl of less than average height.

"Two lumps, isn't it, sir?" she said, leaning forward between the two pilots, and putting Captain Kane's on the throttle pedestal between them. He nodded and grunted, his eyes still on the dials in front of him.

From her other side, First Officer Alan Heathley looked up at her and smiled. Then he leaned back in the small right-hand seat, pushed his cap to the back of his fair head, and said, "As I told you, sir... the best stewardess of the line!"

Susan gave them both a shy look from her large brown eyes and felt her cheeks redden. She was glad that this half light made everyone the same ghostly green. Because Alan Heathley had the power, by his voice and his expression, of making even those simple words sound like the most extravagant of compliments.

He stretched out his hand for the cup, and she was horrified to see that her own was trembling very slightly - just enough for some of the liquid to slop over into the saucer.

"Looks as though there's a spot of vibration. Engines out of synchronization," Mr. Heathley said, and grinned.

He took a sip of tea, helped himself to a ham sandwich, and stretched out his long legs in front of him, as though he hadn't a care in the world. As he probably hadn't, Susan thought, smiling for a moment at the look on his handsome, assured face.

She moved a little to the rear of the pilots towards a pool of white light from an Anglepoise lamp, and put down the Navigator's cup on his small table, beside sheets of paper that were already being filled with calculations. Over his shoulder, she watched him write, "Top of the climb 18.05. Estimate Santa Maria (Azores) 00.13" - the words that opened their three- week trip to South America.

A little wistfully, Susan looked round the unnoticing men on the flight deck, and wondered what might happen before that same navigator closed the trip with "Touched down -Heathrow Airport..."

And a little longer, and much more wistfully, her eyes lingered on Alan Heathley.

Then she pushed open the door to the passenger cabin, and passed through to a different world. Here, under the bright lights, the tempo of life was slowed down. There was nothing that need be done except eat and drink and read and sleep. Already some of the passengers were dozing in the pleasant warmth and comfort of the cabin. She smiled at the expectant faces of the others, who always looked up eagerly when anyone opened the flight deck door. It was amazing how fond one got of the passengers on these long trips. It was rather like parting with a member of the family by the time they reached the end of the journey.

Susan picked up a complimentary box of cigarettes, a pile of magazines and some sweets, and took them around.

This was usually where she got to know the people. It wasn't quite time to serve the pre-dinner sherry, so she had time for a few words with everybody. Just the routine questions, of course. Was this their first flight? Did they enjoy flying? Was it business or pleasure?

Susan usually found that she had particularly pleasant passengers, and this list didn't look like being any exception. And for their part, they looked up into maybe just an ordinarily pretty face, but with the kindest eyes and the friendliest mouth, and they, too, settled themselves for the journey with that much greater confidence.

Eighteen passengers, bound for some of the most exotic-sounding places in the world, made themselves comfortable in their seats, and blinked at the grey wraiths of cloud that intermittently smeared the soft sunset light. Only one of them wanted anything at the moment. Miss Diana Forbes, her delicately lovely face a little pale under her make-up, would have a large tomato cocktail.

Susan hummed to herself in the galley. She peeped at her own face in the tiny mirror (a concession to the feminine) just by the porthole, at the light powdering of her short straight nose, and the not too brilliant lipstick (because of company orders) and wondered what it felt like to be as beautiful as Miss Forbes. Still, just at this moment, she thought, she wouldn't have changed places with anyone. For here she was, taking a long trip on what had always been christened "the sunshine route", with a pleasant lot of passengers, a kindly crew, and in her opinion (and in lots of other people's besides) the most attractive man in the world.

She dropped two lumps of ice and then a dash of Worcester sauce into the tomato juice, and then turned around to see him standing in the galley doorway behind her.

"Hello," he said, bending his head a little, because airliners weren't built for the comfort of anyone over six feet one.

"Hello," she repeated shyly, always a little uncertain how far one should be friendly on the aircraft with the First Officer, even allowing for the fact that he'd taken you to the theatre three times, and a discotheque twice, and that the grapevine always said your names in the same breath. "Does it look like a smooth trip?"

"Very smooth," Alan Heathley said mockingly.

"Can I get you anything? Some more tea? Or a cup of coffee?"

"What's that you're concocting?"

"Tomato juice for seat twenty-two. Miss Forbes."

"Ah, yes, Miss Forbes." He pushed his cap back from his forehead in his characteristic way. With a little catch of her breath Susan thought, for the hundredth time, how attractive he was. Tall and broad, with bright blue eyes in a suntanned face, a lean jaw, and steady capable hands. But just now, he was gazing down the passenger cabin, looking for the occupant of seat twenty-two. Meeting Susan's eyes, he smiled. "Very smooth, too," he said, giving her that little-boy, half-sheepish, half-mischievous look that always left her feeling puzzled and a little unsure.

When she came back from taking the tray to Miss Forbes, he was still standing where she had left him.

"Your turn off watch?" she asked him.

He nodded. "Two hours on. Two hours off. Kane always likes it that way." He lit a cigarette. "Bring my dinner to the rest compartment, will you?"

"Yes, of course."

He still stood there, looking down at her, with a half smile around his firm mouth.

"Did Miss Forbes like her tomato juice?" He appeared to be simply making conversation.

"I think so. Why?"

"I just wondered." He shrugged his shoulders. "She's quite a V.I.P., you know."

Susan reached out for her passenger list. "There's a note about it here. Her father's on the Legislative Council in Bermuda."

"And owns half the islands," Alan Heathley said.

"And she's very beautiful," Susan said softly.

"Mmm, I hadn't noticed." Alan Heathley laughed. Then, more briskly and efficiently, "Anyway, see she has everything she wants."

For a moment Susan felt rather surprised. It wasn't often that the Captain, let alone the First Officer, would think it necessary to tell an experienced stewardess to see that the passengers had all they wanted. It was the first and cardinal rule. Almost as much a part of flying as the aeroplane taking off into the sky. Still, Alan was a highly conscientious First Officer, so she only smiled and nodded and said it must be pleasant to live in Bermuda.

"Which reminds me," Alan said gently. "D'you know something?"

"No?"

"This is the first trip we've done together since that first one."

"Oh, I knew that," she said softly.

"You'd forgotten, I'll bet."

She looked up indignantly and then, seeing he was teasing her, gave him a rather shy smile.

"Three whole days in Bermuda! Think of that! What shall we do?" He raised his eyebrows a little, and looked oddly humble, as though it was he who wasn't sure of her.

"Oh," she sighed happily, visions of Bermuda, riding the blue waters like a pleasure yacht, filling her mind. And the two of them together on those cream-coloured beaches under the hot sun, or dancing under the palms to the sound of the calypso. "Swim, I expect. And sight-see. And dance."

"With me?"

"If you'd like me to."

"I'd like you to."

She turned her head away quickly to switch on the hotplate and the oven, but really so that he wouldn't see the warm pleasure in her cheeks.

"Every day?" he went on.

She nodded, too happy to say anything.

A buzzer sounded in the galley. She glanced up and murmured, "Seat twenty-two again."

"More tomato juice," Alan Heathley said, and smiled.

"Could be," she laughed up at him, feeling as though she could never feel tired, no matter how long and bothersome this trip might be.

As she walked down the carpeted aisle she smiled and nodded at the passengers. A pace or so behind her, Alan Heathley followed her down. Presumably he was going now into the rest compartment which was between the passenger cabin and the flight deck. As they came to seat twenty-two Miss Forbes looked up. She was looking extremely cross.

Then suddenly she smiled. But not quite at Susan. It was as though, if she was aiming at Susan, her smile was about ten degrees to the right of the target.

Apparently she wasn't. Mr. Heathley had stopped when Susan did, and was now looking down at Miss Forbes with his peculiarly endearing smile.

"Everything all right, I hope, Miss Forbes?"

It would have been a hard woman who could have said that it wasn't.

Miss Forbes hesitated. "We-ell." She twisted her expensive pigskin handbag in her hands. "Beautifully smooth, so far, isn't it?"

She looked up at the First Officer, and Susan could see that under the dark mascaraed eyelashes her eyes were almost as blue as his. Then she turned to Susan. "This seat I've been put in ... the view is completely obscured by the wing." She glanced reproachfully at the porthole window which, in common with all the others, now showed nothing but the night outside. They looked, Susan thought, like a row of identical ink blots on the vellum-coloured side of the cabin.

"Then we must change it," Mr. Heathley put in before Susan could speak. "I'd suggest seat seven over there."

Well pleased, she allowed Susan to take her tiny overnight bag, and a still larger beauty box, further down to the other side of the aircraft. Susan watched Miss Forbes' face gravely. She hadn't missed the nervous movements of the passenger's hands, nor her increasing pallor. A year's experience had taught her to recognize the signs of fear.

"That's much better!" Miss Forbes said, sitting down and glancing out now at the starboard side of the night sky.

"A pleasure." Alan Heathley started to move away. He glanced back. "Oh, and Miss Forbes..."

"Yes?"

"Let us know if you're not absolutely comfortable, won't you?"

Miss Forbes smiled and nodded and said that she would.

And for the next three hours she kept her promise with meticulous devotion.

The pre-dinner sherry was too sweet. The cocktail she ordered instead was too dry. The hors d'oeuvres contained chopped onion, which she couldn't abide. And horror of horrors, there wasn't a speck of garlic in the omelette!

And while she tasted and rejected the food that was offered her she smoked Turkish cigarettes almost incessantly.

Susan raced from the galley to seat seven with tempting dishes, substitutes, peace offerings, anything and everything that her small refrigerator contained. And if it hadn't been dinner-time, with seventeen other hungry men and women to serve, as well as the five men up front, she would have liked to sit down beside this highly strung girl, and, just by talking gently and quietly, ease the tension out of her. As it was, she did her best. And happily every other passenger was kind and pleased and completely co-operative.

In the passenger cabin now there was an air of contented comfort. A few of the men sniffed appreciatively at their gently-heated brandy, while cigarette smoke and the low hum of after-dinner conversation mellowed the air. And the steady drone of the engines, which at first seemed harsh and unpleasant, now had the soothing murmur of millions of busy and utterly reliable bees.

Even Miss Forbes was leaning her well-groomed head on the linen head-rest. But as if she heard Susan's footfall as she passed, she opened her eyes. "How much longer now?" she asked.

"We'll be landing at the Azores in ..." - Susan looked at her watch - "about another two hours." She smiled down at Miss Forbes. Rather reluctantly, the girl smiled back in return.

"Would you like something to drink? Fruit juice? Or more coffee, madam?"

Miss Forbes would have ... She hesitated. Then, as though on an inspiration, "Iced tea."

Susan hurried back to the galley. She was busy. Someone stopped her en route and asked for a large sherry. Someone else wanted a Tom Collins. Another, rye on the rocks. And one lady wanted aspirin. Nevertheless, the iced tea would be good for Miss Forbes, and with any luck she would probably settle down quite happily and be asking for something nice and light to eat, in place of the dinner which she had hardly touched.

And then they hit some turbulence. Nothing very much - just enough to make Susan glad that the dinner was safely cleared away, because nothing was more irritating to the passengers than to have to eat from rattling trays or get food spilled on best travelling clothes. But not enough to make the Captain switch on the "Fasten-your-Seat-Belt" sign. Often, across the Atlantic, they hit these unforecasted clumps of cumulus. .

Miss Forbes turned her head. She called out to Susan, "I thought it was going to be a smooth trip."

The stewardess walked up to her seat. "It's nothing," she said. "It'll be over in a minute."

But like a mocking echo of her words, the right wing gave a lurch downwards; rain and hail suddenly began to bang at the windows. Susan saw the girl's knuckles go white as she gripped the arm-rests of her seat.

"It's getting worse, not better!"

The beautiful face had crumpled, and the blue eyes were very wide and very frightened.

"There's nothing to get worried about."

"It's a storm! Why didn't they tell us there'd be a storm?"

Susan said gently, "It's difficult for meteorologists. They get so few reports from an ocean like the Atlantic. And it isn't a storm. A storm's much worse than this."

"But we've only just got into it!"

"And we'll soon be out of it."

The girl looked up at her disbelievingly. "I never like travelling. I get worried at the very thought of a long journey ‑"

Susan stood quietly talking to her: anything to get away from the subject of weather. But Miss Forbes' mind was fixed on that one subject. She was talking very fast now, her voice high-pitched. "In Bermuda we sometimes get hurricanes."

The girl scanned Susan's eyes for confirmation that this bad weather was, in fact, a hurricane.

The stewardess laughed. "Miss Forbes ... this is only a high cloud!" And just as she said it, the nose of the aircraft dropped. The cabin floor vibrated and shook under her feet. And now, after all, the "Fasten-your-Seat-Belt" sign flashed out red over the flight deck door.

Susan said quickly, "The Captain doesn't want us to walk around, in case we fall. That's all it is. I'll be back with you in a minute."

She walked up the aisle to take a look at her other passengers. She smiled at them. They smiled back. All of them seemed to be taking it well: the men joking about the bumps: the old lady in seat twenty-four still unconcernedly knitting.

But when she got back to seat seven Miss Forbes had buried her nose in a lace handkerchief and closed her eyes. As she strapped herself in beside the girl, she could feel the tense silent aura around her. Susan had a feeling that she had closed up completely against her.

She tried to talk. But there was no answer. Only, now and again, a mixture of a sniff and a sob as a wing dropped or the fuselage shook. Susan watched the tears quietly ruin the pink-and-white cheeks.

"Look," she said softly, "die rain's stopped. It'll be over in a minute."

But the girl wouldn't look.

"It was just an odd patch. We sometimes do get them. Especially at this time of the year." And now, as if belatedly to confirm her efforts at comfort, the seat-belt sign snapped off.

"There," she said soothingly, as she unstrapped diem both.

"Wasn't so bad, was it? And we're on schedule. We'll be in Bermuda by breakfast-time!"

Rather pathetically, Miss Forbes remained quite immobile, except that two slender fingers crossed themselves hard. They were still in cloud; now and again there was a lurch or a bump. Miss Forbes would not be comforted.

"I'm going to see if everyone else is all right," Susan told her. "I won't be long."

As she left her seat, the door of the flight deck opened. Alan Heathley came in with that confident quiet smile he often had on his face. His seemingly lazy blue eyes moved round the passenger cabin. As Susan knew, they missed nothing. Very casually, he came over to Miss Forbes.

While Susan was talking to the old lady in seat twenty-four, who was still knitting, she heard Alan say, "Sorry about that cloud. It came up very suddenly."

The fair head raised a little. "It was just a... cloud?"

"That's all. A big one, but soon over."

The blue eyes looked suspiciously at the black-and-grey portholes. "We're still in it."

"This is only stratus. No real bumps."

And then Susan heard him bring the conversation round to Bermuda: did Miss Forbes do any sailing, because sailing and flying were very similar. Rather tremulously, Miss Forbes admitted that she did.

"Does it get rough?"

A small smile played round the girl's lips. "I like it best when it's rough."

"And in the air," Alan Heathley said, "I like it best when it's rough, too!"

And this time they both laughed together.

Five minutes later, when Susan passed them on her way to the passengers up at the front on the port side, Miss Forbes was talking happily. She had managed to replenish her lipstick, and had straightened her hair. Like a flower after the rain, she looked more mistily beautiful than ever.

The Engineer passed on his way to the back. "Estimating Santa Maria in half an hour." He put his head round the galley door. "Well be starting to descend in a couple of minutes."

"Thanks." Susan came out into the cabin, ready to get everyone strapped in, checking with her list that no one was actually disembarking here in the Azores.

She heard the engine note go softer. Gradually she felt the aircraft sinking under her feet, as it began to lower itself through the three miles that separated them from sea level. The wing banked over to the left, and the flaps and the undercarriage whined down as the Astroliner made its final approach.

Then they glided down out of the darkness between the bright lights of the runway. The wheels touched. The first leg of the trip was completed.

*

Fifteen minutes later, as she came out of the Catering Section, her head down against a wind from the sea, Susan saw that the moon was coming out fitfully from behind the clouds. The airfield, perched on the south-west corner of the island under the conical hills, looked neat and bare as though the wind had been a vacuum cleaner that had scoured everything away but the barest essentials.

The restaurant door was wide open. Susan walked across to the two round tables by the window where the Portuguese waiters were serving coffee to her passengers. They were all rather sleepy now; it was past midnight by London time. As she sat talking to them Geoffrey Matthews, the Company representative in the Azores, came up and smiled, "We'll have finished the refuelling in another five minutes."

"A long flight plan?" she asked him.

"Not too bad. Under eleven hours."

Just for a moment she closed her eyes, visualizing all that duty time that still stretched before her. Then she said brightly to Miss Forbes, who was beside her, "That means an eight o'clock arrival, Bermuda time. You'll have breakfast at home, after all!"

When all her passengers had finished their coffee, she shepherded them through the reception hall out to Astroliner Able Dog standing by itself on the wet and windy tarmac. After everyone had been strapped in and the rear door closed, she reported up to the front, and the aircraft moved forward on the two-thousand-mile leg across the empty Atlantic. The lights of Santa Maria faded into the darkness behind, but Susan didn't see them. She was too busy in the galley, and another two hours went by before everything was quiet.

Miss Forbes had needed aspirin and two lots of hot milk, and a cold compress on her forehead, before she finally dozed off. At last, somewhere about the time that Big Ben would be chiming out the cold early morning hour of four, and the little church in the foothills behind the Azores airport was saying two-thirty, Susan crept back to the rear seat. She kept the light on above her head, rather like a nurse on duty in a sleeping ward, so that immediately anyone wakened, they would know she was there.

The night passed slowly, marked only by the hourly tray of coffee to the flight deck, the stirring of a passenger, the request for a glass of water, or a sleepy "How far now?"

The engines purred sweetly onwards, taking them on a true and steady course through the landscapeless air.

Just before seven, local time, as Susan came up with the coffee, the Captain looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Less than an hour now!" Alan Heathley was busy talking over the R.T. to the island, getting clearance to descend.

In the grey light of the prolonged dawn that the westward path of the sun brought, Susan took around fresh iced orange juice and gently awakened the passengers. The crew were coming through the cabin one by one to shave before landing, and the electric shaver in the men's room was buzzing almost as constantly as the engines outside.

The passengers sipped sleepily at their orange juice, and some of them had morning tea as well. Then they sniffed expectantly at the delicious coffee-and-toast smell coming out of the galley.

Even Miss Forbes was smiling contentedly, Susan thought sympathetically, as she took around the health and landing cards, it must be very wearing to be as highly strung as that. She was probably quite a nice person when you got to know her. Fear made some passengers irritable and disagreeable, and most of the times all the ill-humour disappeared like morning mist at the sight of their landfall.

She watched Miss Forbes nibble a hot roll and sip her coffee with enjoyment. The girl was already beautifully made up, and her gold head still gleamed in spite of the pressurization. She watched Miss Forbes slip off her well-cut jacket, and admired the flattering sun-top dress underneath. Already everyone was beginning to feel they were in the rich man's playground. With growing excitement Susan whisked the dishes and trays into the galley, washed up in double-quick time, and strapped herself in.

Majestically, they rode down. Susan, if she pressed her cheek against the porthole, could just see the island. It seemed a long, hazy grey cloud, only a little longer and lower than the wispy stratus that hung about the sky like puffs of smoke around the sun's damp kindling.

Now the sea below them was shot with indigo and aquamarine as though the rocks had been hewn out of precious stones. Now a froth of white wave over the creamy sands, now a patch of lush green vegetation. Here a sudden clearing, and there a wide, seemingly barren stretch. Then a joltless whisper of tyres, the flashing past the window of white distant buildings and brownish grass, and the gentle pull of the brakes.

They were down.

The aircraft ran to the end of the runway and then around the taxiing track to the ramp. This airfield always looked strangely naked amid the rich tropical vegetation around it, as though (which was in a sense true) it had been shaved like a poodle. The wind sock was hardly stirring in the warm air. The square control tower and the airport buildings gleamed white as pebbles. Susan collected the health and landing cards, and several passengers had filled in the comment cards - favourably, if the kindly smiles with which they handed them over were anything to go by.

Then Susan watched a swarm of white-coated men wheel over the Company steps, and she felt them clank against the side. The heavy door was flung open, and the medical officer and the airport representative came aboard.

There was no illness to report. The Company representative made the usual welcoming speech, telling them the local time, the period of the stop for those who were going on to Jamaica or Panama or as far as Santiago, and details of transport into Hamilton for the others.

After she had said good-bye to the passengers, Susan went into the galley to check everything ready for the new southbound stewardess to take over. The aircraft and the Santiago-bound passengers were now handed on to an entirely different crew, while the present one waited for three days to take on the next aircraft, an arrangement known as "slipping".

She heard the clicking of heels up the steps, and then a tall willowy figure appeared in the doorway. "Anyone at home?" called out a low husky voice that could only belong to Penelope Fielding. "Ah, it's you, poppet! I saw Beth Martin on the way across the apron. She's the north-bound stewardess." Penelope walked the couple of paces to the galley doorway and leaned elegantly against the stanchion. "Well, what d'you know? Now we're all in Bermuda. All Mrs. Potter's prodigies!"

Susan smiled. Beth, Penelope, and herself all had bed-sitting-rooms in Mrs. Potter's house in Osterley Park. "Yes, and we're ahead of schedule. I'll bet you were up early!"

"So I was, poppet. Isn't it frantic?" Penelope Fielding raised her exquisitely flaring eyebrows and pouted her lips.

"I've checked everything. If you'll just go over it to make sure."

Penelope yawned. "Oh, no, anything you say. I don't have to bother to do it all again. And in this heat!" She took out a thin gold pencil and signed her name at the bottom of the sheet with a flourish. "Now tell me, did you have a good trip over? It's been simply scorching here."

"Yes, thanks. Have you had a good time? Have you got a nice crew?"

Penelope gave a long sigh. "No."

"What? Not a nice crew? And no good time?" Susan smiled indulgently at Penelope's beautiful face. "I just don't believe it!"

They walked down the steps and on to the terrace. Susan felt the sudden heat like a hot arm across her shoulders.

"It's all perfectly true." Just outside the airport building, Penelope looked around as though the man might be lurking behind one of the oleander bushes. "It was all because of the Captain, you know."

"Oh?"

"Yes ... you know how they say it's always the Captain that sets the tone of the crew?"

"Yes."

"Well, he simply set the wrong tone. Oh, absolutely terrible! I can hardly describe it."

"Oh, do! I'm all agog."

Penelope looked at Susan, put her hands on her hips and whispered, "He organized sightseeing. Sightseeing! Imagine that! And then he took the men off under-water fishing. Can you believe it?"

Susan laughed aloud. Penelope was deservedly known as the airline beauty. Among girls who were well above the average in looks, she was easily the loveliest. "I must admit it's odd with you around!"

"Yes," Penelope said, a little mollified. "It seemed so ... well, unnatural." In spite of herself, she smiled with Susan. "And there was I all on my ownsome. Or at least, almost."

"Except for...?"

"Well, one or two rather pleasant Americans. Aircrew. And, of course, a very nice Canadian on holiday."

"Not too bad in the end, all in all?" Susan started to move towards the building. "Look, I must dash ... I'll never catch the hotel bus if I stay here all day."

"Oh, but my sweet child, I simply haven't started! Just hang on a sec. Now I didn't tell you anything about in the air. Captain Jefferson..."

"Oh, it was Jefferson, was it?"

"Yes." Penelope sighed. "Have you flown with him? This is my first trip with him."

"No, I haven't. But I've heard of him, of course. He's the Flight Captain."

"And, brother!" Penelope turned her eyes up to the sky. "Is he not! On the ground. In the air. In his bath too, I shouldn't wonder."

"Who is what?" Beth Martin's voice came up from behind them. "What are you two nattering about?" as though they were just chatting in Mrs. Potter's instead of suddenly meeting each other three thousand miles away.

"Hello, Beth." Susan turned and smiled at the round-faced girl with the pleasant mouth who had just come up. "Had a nice time?"

"We were talking about Captain Jefferson," Penelope said firmly, and took a deep breath, prepared to start from the beginning again.

"Oh, yes, I know Jefferson," Beth said. "I love flying with him.'

"Oh, come, darling," Penelope said reproachfully. "Didn't you find him frightfully strict?"

"Nonsense," Beth said. "Never heard him raise his voice. Yet there's always perfect discipline."

"Ye-es," Penelope said. "But ... well, maybe that's the trouble. You see, he just sort of drawls an order and there you are rushing around doing it in double-quick time. It seems a little uncanny:'

Beth said drily, "If I saw you rushing about in double-quick time I'd jolly well know it was uncanny."

They all smiled.

"And anyway, the men all like him," Beth was saying, when a deep but quiet voice said, "If you girls have nothing to do with yourselves, will you please allow my stewardess to get on with her work."

Three heads turned simultaneously, and looked up into Captain Jefferson's face. And then, as if they had been suddenly hit by the sun, they all went scarlet.

Susan had a glimpse of a strong sunburned face, and a pair of cool grey eyes. She heard herself say "Sorry" in a chorus with the others. And she heard Captain Jefferson say quietly to Penelope, "A joining passenger's child is a little upset I'd be glad if you went to her."

They all hurried towards the reception building as though Captain Jefferson's voice had been a slipstream, and they were pieces of paper.

"See what I mean?" Penelope whispered under her breath, before she disappeared from view.

"You know something?" Beth said with awe. "She really did move at the double!"

"Come to that," Susan said softly, as they reached the door of the Customs Shed, "we're not going all that slowly ourselves !" They both laughed. "Anyway," Susan went on, "have a good trip. And give my love to Mrs. Potter."

She watched Beth walk towards the London-bound aircraft that now stood just behind Able Dog.

In the long Customs Hall, her bag was already on the counter. "Nothing," she said, and without opening it the Customs Officer smiled and chalked a squiggly hieroglyphic on , the side.

She walked out to the bus. Most of the crew were already waiting, and after a porter had loaded her case she climbed inside and sat down in a seat at the back. Captain Kane and Alan Heathley arrived at last, and the bus moved off over the rickety wooden bridge on the road to Hamilton.

The bus jogged placidly along the narrow road past Harrington Sound. It climbed little hills, rimmed with green bushes and crowned with the grey-white trunks of the dead cedar trees, past the cool verandahs of white bungalows, past the long palm-shaded drive of Government House, until finally it began to twist and turn between great cliffs hewn out of solid coral that cut off all their view until suddenly, those huge blinkers seemed to be whipped away, and like a surprise, there was the pink-and-white town of Hamilton, curving in a wide semicircle round the deep blue of its harbour.

And then Susan caught that first glimpse that she loved of the Palatine Hotel where the crew always stayed. It was right in the centre of a small shallow bay, a square pink-washed building with tiny turrets and plaster decorations, looking exactly like a giant birthday cake.

The bus pulled up at the main entrance. Everyone reluctantly stirred. Brief-cases and caps were collected. Just as they were getting off, Alan said, "Well, bed for me now, Susan! But I'll see you on the beach tomorrow."

She nodded happily, and smiled.

"Not a bad trip," he said to her as they walked to the hotel desk together.

"It couldn't have been better."

They registered and collected their room keys. "They've put me in the annexe again." Alan wrinkled up his face as he started to walk over to the side door. Then the grimace turned into a grin. "See you tomorrow, then. Early."

Inside the hotel it was beautifully air-conditioned and cool. Its floors were of tile or polished pine, and it was built around an open courtyard which was used for dining or dancing. The rooms were tiny, and, because of the heat, sparsely furnished, and there was a small bathroom to each one, with an armchair-shaped bath of vivid blue tiles. Outside the window the garden was a riot of tropical flowers. Oleanders, poinsettias, hibiscus, sweet jasmine, and a host of others made great blobs of red and blue and yellow under the tall clumps of gently whispering palms.

Susan had a tepid bath, and, not bothering about food, went to bed. Once she was off duty, the tiredness which she had kept at bay for all these hours suddenly crowded in on her. To the sibilant lullaby of the waves and the trees, she went immediately to sleep.

In the morning she awoke with the earliest dawn light. She could smell the strong tang of the sea, floating in through the wide-open windows. She felt wonderfully refreshed. Even her face in the mirror looked prettier for the long sleep.

She had a cold shower and then put on her new yellow cotton dress. The sun was climbing into a sky of unbelievable blue. She hummed to herself, wondering how soon she would see Alan.

She walked downstairs into the cool morning quiet. Inside the dining-room breakfast was being served. Not at all like the ordinary breakfast one had at home, but a sort of splendid harvest of all the good things of the island. Enormous clinking glasses of iced fruit juices, cereals and fish, bacon and ham, meat and chops, pancakes and syrup, crunchy rolls and thick pats of butter, bananas and whipped cream, and dishes of sliced tropical fruits. While assistant waiters, like subsidiary tempters, stood at one's elbow with sweet croissants and iced almond buns and a kind of waffle biscuit just to fill in the odd corner that might have been left unfilled by the more important dishes.

Susan lingered over her coffee, enjoying the quiet elegance of the room, and the view of the sailing boats in the bay. Just as she was leaving, Alan Heathley came across the hall, his head down, his hands in the pockets of his linen tropical suit. "Hi," he said vaguely, just lifting a hand and walking on.

"See you on the beach," she sang out to him over her shoulder.

Susan went upstairs and laid her best swimsuit on the bed. Then she put on fresh light make-up and brushed and combed her wavy brown hair. The result really wasn't too bad.

She tidied her room and then, to give Alan time to finish his breakfast, she wrote a few letters and varnished her nails before changing into her swimsuit. She could hear voices floating up to her from the beach, and looking at her wrist-watch and seeing that it was half-past ten, she gave a last look in the mirror and then closed the bedroom door behind her.

There was a short beflowered and arched walk across the hotel garden, a strip of sandy pathway, and then there was the beach, almost by the hotel front door. The sand was clean and crunchy as lemon-tinted sugar, and the sun was as burning hot as yesterday. A little flag was flying at the end of the hotel jetty, and parties of bathers were already gathered around it.

She looked for Alan along the strip of sand. Then a hand waved to her from somewhere just a little out in the water, and fastening her cap she plunged into the sea and swam over towards it. Ted Phillips, the Navigator, and Fred Foster, the Radio Officer, called out, "Come on, Susan! We'll race you to the rock!"

She looked around for Alan, but she couldn't see him. On the ground he was rather a lazy and languid sort of person, so he was probably still lounging in the hotel.

Meanwhile, it was pleasant enough swimming with Ted and Fred, and feeling the cool clear water on her body. When she looked down, she could see the shells and the weeds and the fishes below her legs in the water.

They were in and out of the sea for most of the morning. More and more Susan kept glancing towards the hotel doorway, looking anxiously for Alan. Eventually she said carelessly, as she swam along beside Ted, "Is Alan coming down this morning? He said he might."

"Did he?" Ted said gruffly, and with a casualness as elaborate as her own. "I haven't seen him. Look, I'll show you the Australian crawl. One of the Yanks staying here showed it me. Now watch!"

Susan watched. She also went on watching the hotel doorway. At last, when both men offered to buy her an iced drink in the garden before lunch she said, "I'll see you up there in half an hour," and went for a swim half-way to the reef and back, in case Alan might wonder if he found her gone.

Then she padded across the sand. Just outside the hotel front door was one of the horse-drawn buggies, all neat and varnished, that were used for sightseeing. She patted the little horse on the nose as she went by. Then, framed in the hotel doorway, she saw Miss Forbes.

"Good morning, Miss Forbes," Susan called out gaily. Passengers always liked you to remember their names. "Isn't it a beautiful..."

But Miss Forbes wasn't listening. She swept, all frills and flouncy parasol, towards the Bermuda buggy. And from the verandah at the side came Alan Heathley.

"You're late, Diana," he said as he caught her up and handed her in with polished eighteenth-century chivalry. He looked as though he might at any moment kiss her hand. "But well worth waiting for!"

Susan felt very conscious of her wet swimsuit, and the sand clinging to her bare legs.

But she needn't have worried. Neither of them noticed her.

CHAPTER II

On the third evening after dinner, Susan smiled rather mistily across the table at the crew. For the fourth time, the stout red-faced Engineer Officer had embarked on a short history of Bermuda. The Navigator was chipping in with the beauties of the stars in the night Bermudan sky, and the Radio Officer was talking alternate technicalities and tennis - talking about anything and everything, except that significantly empty chair and Alan Heathley and Miss Forbes.

And because she was surprised and touched and grateful for their masculine, obvious comfort, she did her best to listen and talk, and show that she hadn't noticed either. Just as she hadn't noticed it at lunch that day, nor the whole of the day before, nor his absence from the quiet cocktail party that the hotel manager usually gave for them, nor the rattle of the buggy late at night under her window, and the sound of that pretty sophisticated voice.

Susan looked at her watch. The dinner had been long and slow. Already it was nearly ten, and tomorrow's trip to Panama would mean an early call. "I think I'll just have a stroll in the garden," she said, smiling at the other three. "And then bed for me."

They all got up and watched her go. Now, she thought gently, they would be able to relax and sit back and smoke their pipes, and say nothing unless they wanted to.

She strolled across the hall and along the terrace. Outside in the hotel garden, the harsh rasp of the night insects underlined the almost continuous rustling of the palms and the more rhythmic sound of the sea. Away on the headland, a small lighthouse spread the white fan of its light across the waters, between the blobs of Hamilton's lights and the prickling of stars in the calm clear sky.

There was a little seat by the sandy track to the beach where the music from the hotel was muted, and seemed to blend with the soft rhythm of the sea. It was the kind of quiet retreat to come to when things hadn't turned out so well. This trip, Susan had come here quite often.

As she sat down, she heard a voice say quietly, "Hello, Susan. I thought I'd find you here."

Behind her she saw the red glow of a cigarette, and then the dark figure of Alan Heathley as he walked towards her from the beach.

"Hello," she said.

He sat down beside her. "You sound all cool and frosty," he said, taking her hand, and giving it a little squeeze. "Are you?"

Susan turned round and looked into his face. Her dark eyes were solemn and searching, while his own expression was pleasant, good-humoured, and perhaps a little puzzled. Just as it ought to be if he hadn't a thing to hide.

She drew her breath in sharply. "Yes," she said slowly. Then with her natural honesty and directness, she said, all in a rush, to cover her embarrassment, "I thought we were... going to see each other. That's what you said. Don't you remember ... on the aircraft? I thought..."

He put out his hand and laid his finger gently on her lips. "Hang on a second, Susan! Give me a chance!" He looked across at her and smiled rather ruefully; and in spite of herself, she softened a little towards him.

He took up her hands and kissed the tips of her fingers. "My sweet, you don't for a moment imagine I forgot?" He smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "For heaven's sake, you don't think that?"

"I did," Susan said firmly.

"Well, at least you said 'did'. You don't think it now?" He leaned forward.

"I don't really know!"

"No, of course you don't know. That's something." He smiled down at her. "You know, darling, you really have got things mixed."

They sat for a moment in silence. Then his expression seemed to change to one of gentle solicitude. "You haven't had a dull time, have you?"

Susan shook her head. "No, it's been fun."

"What did you do?"

"We swam."

"We?"

"The rest of the crew, except Captain Kane, of course. And me."

"What else?"

"We danced. And we went to the hotel cocktail party."

"Without me?"

"I didn't have much choice," Susan said drily, and they both smiled.

"And now, my sweet, sympathetic Susan, ask me what sort of time I had?"

"Must I?" she said sadly.

"Yes, you must."

Her voice was wary. "Well, tell me then."

"Grim." He stretched out his legs in front of him and sighed wearily. "There was I stuck with a V.I.P., doing the Company's business in my off duty! And all the time," he squeezed Susan's hand, "I was wanting to see you."

As if discomfited by Susan's half-wistful, half-puzzled eyes, he went on a shade irritably, "Well, I couldn't be rude. Now could I? A fine hope of a command course, if I'd got a complaint from old man Forbes! And that's important." He looked more seriously at Susan. "I want to be a Captain. And not just for me ... either." He paused, and in the quietness Susan felt her own breathing quicken.

"What do you mean?" she asked gently.

Alan Heathley smiled. "I'll leave you to guess." Then, as if satisfied at her reaction, he laughed. "Anyway, instead of a complaint from Forbes..." He glanced sideways at Susan. "Don't you want to know?"

"Yes."

"I've seen him write a glowing letter to the company about the efficient and kindly service his daughter received." He chuckled. "And a promise that in future all his air freight and all his employees' travelling would be done through World Wide."

He lit a cigarette. In the light of the match his face was gently amused and quietly content. "All that for looking after his daughter for a day and a half while he was away in New York! She stayed the first night in the hotel, because she didn't want to go back to the house with only the servants."

"And when he came back?" Susan prompted quietly.

"Then? Oh, well, the old boy insisted on entertaining me. Very royally, too." He puffed at his cigarette. "I don't think I had to have one meal in the hotel."

"No, I don't think you did."

"But if it's any consolation - and it certainly should be — I was bored rigid. Diana Forbes isn't like you ... not gentle and sweet..." He reached out his hand to pull her nearer to him, but Susan stood up quickly.

"It isn't any consolation," she said quickly. "And there's something unkind and unpleasant and ... oh, I don't know how to say it... in taking someone's hospitality, just to help you get your captaincy. And looking after a girl and then grumbling about it. And saying you had a grim time." He caught hold of her hand, but she pulled it away from him, as she went on, "I'd much rather you'd simply taken her out and been honest and enjoyed it..." Her voice trembled and then trailed away.

"Would you, Susan?" Alan Heathley leaned forward, a sardonic smile curving his lips. "I wonder."

Susan blinked her eyes. Then she said flatly, "It's late ... I was just going to bed anyway."

Very slowly, Alan Heathley stood up beside her. "As you wish," he said, almost sulkily. In silence they walked across the grass, on to the verandah, and through into the lighted hall. At the bottom of the stairs he said good-night to her very coolly. As she ran lightly upstairs, she heard him murmur, half crossly, half teasingly, "And you still didn't answer my question!"

The next morning the island was wrapped in a soft swaddling of haze, Susan said sleepily, "Thank you," as the porter banged on her door for the early call. Then she lay back in her pillows, remembering with unpleasant suddenness her quarrel with Alan. Her anger had disappeared with the night, leaving only a feeling of sadness and a sense of misunderstanding.

She swung herself out of bed. Perhaps, after all, he had only meant to be kind to the girl, and disguised his kindness in his rather flippant way by pretending that it was all very boring. Or maybe (she couldn't help remembering what Beth Martin had once said) it was because Alan couldn't resist a pretty face.

There were lots of possibilities, Susan thought, turning the shower on and standing underneath it while she soaped herself. And somehow, foolishly perhaps, she wasn't thinking so much of what the explanation might be, but just wishing that the quarrel had never happened.

She dressed quickly and went downstairs. The dining-room was deserted and she ate a quick light breakfast. Then there was the manager's wife, who was always so kind to them, to say good-bye to and thank, and her bag to collect from her room.

Outside, the bus was waiting to take them to the airport Susan climbed on board and smiled good morning to the humped-up figures of the Engineer and the Navigator, who sat as though they had dressed and shaved and breakfasted while still asleep. She knew that no one would get a word out of them until the sight of the aircraft awoke them into life.

She walked to the back of the bus and sat down on the side nearest the sea. That way, she wouldn't have to stare at Alan as he came out of the hotel. She kept her eyes cm the little pale blue waves and the short strip of creamy sand.

And yet, as soon as he appeared, something made her look up. His uniform was the same as usual, his cap was set at that familiar jaunty angle, and he walked with that same slightly arrogant ease. But for all that there was something different about him.

Susan looked at him for a moment, trying to decide what it was. Something in his face. A tautening of his normally pleasant, easy-going expression. A suppressed irritation. Almost, she thought gently, a little-boy sulkiness about his mouth. As if he felt her eyes on him, Alan Heathley looked over towards Susan and nodded coldly.

She was glad when Captain Kane climbed aboard and the bus started. There had been a quietness amongst them all that she found oppressive.

Finally, the bus rattled away from the coast road and bumped up the concrete way to the airport. The Astroliner from London was just in the circuit as they turned in through the entrance gates. For a moment Susan thrilled to the majesty and grace of the huge aircraft, its undercarriage down, its flaps extended, hovering almost motionless, it seemed, as it lined up with the runway. Then, with accurate smoothness, it swept down, its wheels touching near the beginning of the runway, and flashed along in the morning sunlight until it came to rest beside the ramp.

For the next hour, Susan was glad to be occupied with the checking and taking over from the incoming stewardess, the meeting with her passengers, and the arrangements for their comfort. They had a fairly full load. And there were two children, a rather frail-looking old gentleman, and a middle-aged couple who spoke only Spanish and had a connection to catch at Panama. The sort of load to make the stewardess forget any complications in her own life.

After she had checked that the rear door was closed, and seen that the smaller of the two children, sitting so innocently beside his mother, had not for the second time unclasped his seat belt, she walked up to the flight deck, squeezed past the Navigator and the Engineer and stood beside the Captain's seat.

Alan Heathley was sitting in the left-hand seat. Obviously, as he was one of the most experienced First Officers, Captain Kane would allow him to do a number of the landings and take-offs. She saw his hand resting at the ready on the four red-topped throttle levers, his eyes narrowed on the instruments in front of him.

Standing very trim and erect, she turned to Alan and said, "Passengers strapped in and rear door shut, sir," and was disturbed to feel her face flushing and her breath coming quickly as though she had been running all around the perimeter track.

For a moment Alan Heathley remained quite immobile, almost as though he hadn't heard her. Then he turned his head and looked straight into her face. It was a cold, unfriendly look.

Then suddenly, his face softened. "Thank you, Miss Shelton," he said gently, and gave her a warm, oddly forgiving smile.

Quite spontaneously, she found herself smiling back, and as she watched the wild race down the runway, felt the gentle rise of the aircraft under her feet, and saw the island fall away undo the starboard wing, she thought how right she had been that morning. Because it didn't really matter why Alan had taken out Miss Forbes, nor what the explanation might be, nor who forgave whom. All that mattered, she thought, unstrapping herself and watching the frail old gentleman, with a maternal eye, was that now they didn't appear to have quarrelled, after all.

For the next few hours the aircraft seemed to lie motionless as a butterfly pinned against the backcloth of the sky. Below them the smooth sea, above them the unclouded sky took away all sense of movement. They broke no cloud; they flew by no clumps of cumulus; they moved over no changing countryside. The only thing that moved was the temperature gauge in the cabin. And as though all movement had been crystallized there, it soared rapidly upwards.

Then, first of all, a small rocky island came up and melted away again in the blue under the starboard wing. Then another. Then a whole turquoise underwater reef. Next, as she was finishing washing up, Susan caught a glimpse of Eleuthera Island, looking from this height like a great green sea-horse silhouetted on the sea. They were nearing the islands near Nassau.

Almost imperceptibly, the aircraft started to lower itself in the clear warm air as it started its descent to Oakes Field. Here most of the passengers disembarked, and they took on a new load - mostly American holidaymakers, all in gay summer clothes and straw hats - for the two-hour flight to Jamaica. It was always more tiring, this stopping and starting along the route, than a really long leg, where you could sometimes settle down for a little while when everyone was served and satisfied.

After taking off again, the Astroliner skirted the sinister jungle coastline of the almost uninhabitable Andros Island on the right-hand side, and droned on towards Cuba. All this calm sea below them had once been the playground of pirates and buccaneers. It all looked so peaceful now - a kind of special luxury tourists' lake where motor-boats and yachts and pleasure boats roamed, looking for tuna and swordfish and deep-sea fishing.

The aircraft hardly seemed to reach cruising altitude before they once more started to descend - this time over the green hump-back of Jamaica. The huge bulk of the Blue Mountains loomed up above the orderly square pattern of the red and white town of Kingston. And then the seat-belt sign came on, and they glided down over the harbour and on to the bumpy runway of Palisadoes Airport.

It was two o'clock Jamaica time, and it was still glaringly hot. The surface of the apron was sticky with tar. All the airline offices, the tourist stalls and stores were housed in a disused hangar, where the numerous fans seemed to make little difference to the heat.

A perspiring Operations Officer came up for the aircraft's papers, and said in the rather sing-song voice of most Jamaicans, "There's an unaccompanied child for Panama, Miss Shelton. His mother was asking, if you could perhaps spare the time..."

"Of course," Susan said promptly. Of all the small heartbreaks that the daily traffic of an airline seemed to uncover, the one that moved her most deeply was the sight of an anxious parent committing its awestruck child to the care of complete strangers on board a huge four-jet monster. She knew that immediately they had waved good-bye they regretted it, and spent hours of anxiety imagining storm and disaster in even the bluest of skies.

Susan followed the Operations Officer to the roped-off passenger enclosure where an anxious-looking woman sat talking to a boy in shorts.

"This is the stewardess of the flight, Mrs. Dallington," the Operations Officer said.

Mrs. Dallington looked up and gave Susan a rather pleading smile. "How d'you do? I hope it isn't too much to ask you to keep an eye on him. My father is ill in hospital here, and I feel I can't go back at the moment. But Keith's school…"

"I understand, Mrs. Dallington. Please don't worry. We'll look after him for you. And we often get unaccompanied boys and girls." She turned and smiled at the boy.

"I'll be all right, Mum," he said stolidly. "I'm old enough to look after myself."

"I thought perhaps," the woman went on, "there might be other children on the flight. If he could sit with them, I mean?"

"I'm afraid there aren't on this trip, Mrs. Dallington. But I'll put him in a seat at the back, just beside me."

"Oh, would you? That would be nice. It would take a great load off my mind. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Keith?"

The boy agreed, politely but unenthusiastically.

"His father's going to meet him in Panama."

Knowing that Susan had to go to the Catering Section, the Operations Officer cut in with, "I'll see him aboard, Miss Shelton," and after a final smiling reassurance to Mrs. Dallington, Susan hurried off to collect her stores.

It was once more a full load of passengers, all waiting thirstily for tea to be served after the dust and heat of Kingston. Just after take-off, Susan had time for a short talk with the boy, and then gave him some magazines she thought might interest him. But the farther they got from Kingston, the sadder and quieter did he become. He just said "Yes, thank you," or "No, thank you" and hardly touched the extra cakes that Susan slipped on to his plate at tea-time. After all, Susan thought, looking at the passenger list, he was only seven and a bit and probably it was the first time he'd been away from his mother.

She went back to the galley to clear away the dishes and try to think, as she washed up, exactly what she could do to make him feel more at home. Then, as she dried her hands and peeped around the stanchion to see how things were going, she saw with a smile that she could stop thinking.

She heard Alan Heathley, busy on his courtesy round, bend over the small stiff-backed figure and ask gently, "And what's your name?"

"Dallington, sir. Keith Dallington, sir."

"You keep your sirs for the Captain, Keith. I'm only the First Officer, and my name's Alan. Enjoying yourself?"

There was the smallest pause. Then, "Yes, sir... Alan."

"And where are you going?" Alan Heathley's voice was warm and calm and friendly. Under its spell, the stiff back relaxed, the mouth took on an upward tilt.

"Panama. My father's an engineer there. We've been staying in Kingston with my granny."

"This isn't the first time you've flown?"

"Oh, no! I flew up from Panama, too. But -" A trace of wistfulness reappeared in the voice. Then he looked up at Alan and said firmly, "But my mother was with me then."

"I see." Alan stopped for a moment. Susan saw him bend closer to the boy as though he had a secret to share with him. "Know something, Keith? I'll be on watch in an hour while the Captain has some tea. All on my own. Right up at the front. Empty seat beside me."

Uncertainly the boy asked, "A pilot's seat?"

"A pilot's seat." Alan nodded gravely. "And I thought it might be a good time for you and me to have a chat."

"Me up at the front?"

"If you'd like to." Alan Heathley straightened up and, catching Susan's eye, beckoned her over. "Now you ask Miss Shelton to bring you up to the cockpit, as soon as she's given the Captain his tea in the rest compartment."

The boy's eyes shone up at her, very wide and excited. "Will you?"

Mindful of Company regulations, she looked doubtfully at Alan. "If Captain Kane..."

"Of course she will, Keith." He gave a big wink. "Don't worry, I'll fix it with the Captain."

And an hour later to the minute, Susan brought the boy up to the front, and Alan beckoned him into the Captain's empty chair by his side. Then he turned to the girl and said casually, "You've been on your feet ever since we left Bermuda. Now tea's over, can't you have a few moments' break?"

So, taking it as an invitation to stay on the flight deck, Susan sat down thankfully in the jump seat beside the Engineer, and looked out at the silky sea glittering in the sunshine, threaded over here and there with the cottony wisps of thin cloud. Alan and the boy took no further notice of her, as though they had become immersed in an all-male world whose mysteries were beyond her.

Susan looked at her watch. The explanations on the flight deck looked like going on for some time, so she got up and walked back into the passenger cabin. Everyone now seemed placid and contented, and most of them were having a quiet doze. The Spanish-speaking couple were looking at their watches and nodding happily. The aircraft, Susan said to them, blessing her two years with an export firm and her consequent knowledge of Spanish, was slightly ahead of schedule.

She changed magazines for a few of the passengers, took round cigarettes and offered tea or coffee or fruit drinks. Three people chose orange juice, the rest decided to wait for sherry. Susan, walking up and down the aisle, wished that the lady from Milchester had not disembarked at Kingston. A chat about Milchester and the Somerset countryside would have allayed some of the loneliness all too apparent in the English lady's eyes.

Still, it was nice to see all her passengers happy now. And to think of the happiest one of them all, sitting up at the front beside Alan Heathley. If anything had been needed to make her see how wrong she had been about his attentions to Miss Forbes, it was this further proof of his kindness. Not just to important people, not just to attractive, spoiled girls, but to the smallest, humblest passenger of them all.

Susan came quickly out of her daydream. It was nearly an hour since she'd left the flight deck, and it would soon be time for the landing. She hurried up to the cockpit, expecting to find Alan now anxious to be rid of his small pupil.

But neither of them seemed to notice her come in. They were still deep in technical jargon. Alan had a natural gift for simple explanation. Susan had heard other pilots explain their mysteries in such an involved and technical manner (what the aircrew referred to as "baffling them with science") that their victims had looked up at them with glazed eyes, none the wiser.

Then, out of the haze ahead of them, came a long thin tentacle - first of cloud colour, then of green.

"The coast," Alan Heathley said. "Time to go down." Turning to the Radio Officer, he asked him to get clearance to descend. And five minutes later, when descent had been approved by Tocumen Field, he disengaged the automatic pilot and said, "Captain Dallington is going to take us down."

All the time, Alan kept his hands and feet on his own set of dual controls, so that, of course, the boy was doing nothing. He just had the joy and excitement of seeming to control the large Astroliner, an experience which would no doubt be talked of in the lobbies and classrooms of the small school in Panama for many a long day.

The aircraft gradually descended until they could see the long coast. The sun was going down now, and the evening light touched up the silver wings into a blaze of red and gold. Then Captain Kane came up from the rest compartment, and Alan Heathley grinned first at the square-faced man in uniform, and then at the boy.

"We'll let Captain Kane do the landing, shall we, Keith?"

The boy smiled happily and got out of the left-hand seat.

Very gravely and politely he said, "Thank you, Alan," and then to Captain Kane, "Thank you, sir."

As Susan led him back to his seat he gave her a summing up of all his experience in the cockpit: "That chap Alan ... certainly some chap!"

The aircraft flew lower over the isthmus of Panama. The sun was just balanced on the tightrope that separated sea and sky. The Astroliner seemed to fly straight towards it along the yellow path of light laid over the calm water below.

And then, abruptly they wheeled to the right and retraced their tracks. Descending over Tobago Island, obediently Captain Kane lowered his wheels - a signal to the ever-watchful gunners who guarded this vitally important canal that this was a friendly aircraft. Then down and down and down, quietly over the sea, over the yellow strip of beach, over the dusty palms and the green eucalyptus trees, till the engine noise died completely away and the wheels brushed lightly over the single white concrete runway that lay in the shadow of the jungle-covered hills.

"We have now arrived at Tocumen Airport," Susan announced over the loudspeaker system. "Through passengers to Lima and Santiago may go direct to the Reception Hall, where they will be called in three-quarters of an hour. But will disembarking passengers please follow me to Customs? "

Then she opened the door, and the steamy heat of Panama came rushing into the cabin to greet her. Even from this distance, she could identify Mr. Dallington. Standing a little in front of all the others on the apron, and more than a little too near the aircraft, he waved at the disembarking passengers with impartial enthusiasm. "There's your father!" Susan whispered to Keith. "Hell see you if you wave now!"

She hurried the small boy away from the aircraft, where he was disposed to linger for a last word with Alan, and delivered him safely to his father. Then, remembering the mother's anxious face, she said, "If you'd like to send a message to your wife, Mr. Dallington, you can hand it in over the counter at the Reception Hall," and firmly led them towards it before the exciting account of the flight put all other thoughts out of both their heads.

While she took one group to the Reception Hall, and another lot of passengers to Customs, Susan kept a look-out for Penelope Fielding, who would once more be taking over from her. Susan walked past the petrol bowsers that were already converging on the aircraft, and looked in again through the open door of the now crowded passenger lobby.

Then she saw a number of heads turn and heard clickety-click, clickety-click. Miss Fielding was hurrying through the admiring audience in the hall, as usual a little late.

"Sorry," she said, adjusting her cap on her red-gold hair, "but you know what it's like. In this heat and everything! I simply couldn't get my make-up on properly!"

Susan looked with unclouded admiration at the clear magnolia-petal skin and the pretty Cupid's bow of a mouth, so carefully tinted. "It looks fine now," she said. "And I hadn't been here very long ..."

"Oh, I know it's all right now," Miss Fielding said in a voice that implied that she wouldn't have come out anyway until it was. "Come on," she said, and took Susan's arm. "I can see Captain Jefferson looking at us suspiciously out there. Let's get going."

They walked on to the tarmac, passing Captain Jefferson, who was standing under the port wing. "I don't think anything would dare go wrong with him on board," Penelope whispered, not at all displeased at the thought. Then aloud she said, as they came abreast of him, "Good evening, sir," with a very self-conscious smile. And then after a giggle of pure nervousness, "Looks like being a smooth trip, doesn't it, sir?"

Captain Jefferson nodded pleasantly enough to the girls and said, "Good evening." Then he looked at his wrist-watch. Susan stared up at the other girl thoughtfully. She was in even more of a feminine flutter than usual.

As they walked up the steps and into the galley, Susan asked conversationally, "What sort of time did you have here?"

Penelope Fielding drew a deep breath. "As a matter of fact, poppet, all things considered, not too bad! In fact, quite nice. And Captain Jefferson actually took us all out to dinner!" She gave that little high-pitched laugh again. "I do believe he's getting quite human underneath!"

Just for one unaccountable moment, Susan felt a sense of disappointment that this strangely detached and authoritative young man should in the end fall, like so many others, for Penelope and her undoubted beauty.

Then she dismissed it as nothing to do with her anyway, and probably quite a good thing. For underneath her apparent scatterbrain and her vanity, Susan was sure that Penelope was a kind-hearted pleasant girl. And as for Captain Jefferson, well, being the youngest Flight Captain ever and the airline's most eligible bachelor was liable after a while to turn any man's head.

"Well," Susan said, poising her pencil and bringing her mind back to galley and equipment and bar accounts. "Shall I go over these things and get them done?"

"Yes, poppet," Penelope said meekly. "And don't laugh, but this time I really will go over them with you." She gave Susan a consciously virtuous smile, and with elaborate adjusting of her pencil, and making herself comfortable on her stool, for the first time in many months she went over the lists she was signing for, item by item. But there was such a soft glow in her eyes that, looking at her, Susan wondered if it wasn't less a reviving sense of duty than a labour of love.

This rime, when Susan walked to the back of the crew car at Tocumen Airfield, Alan Heathley came and sat down beside her. Captain Kane sat in the front seat by the driver, and the rest of the crew bunched around him, talking together in a languid, desultory, after-trip way. The short dusk was pleasant and restful. In a moment, darkness would come down like a curtain, and the bright lights of Panama would spring into life beyond the curve of the bay ahead of them.

The bus trundled down the forest-lined road till it reached the corrugated iron roofs of the crowded higgledy-piggledy shanty town. Susan turned her eyes away from the sad squalor of the overcrowded dwellings and the broken-down buildings. Very gently, as they sat by themselves right at the back, Alan squeezed her hand.

Then all the disorder was suddenly sliced away by a clean and antiseptic-looking American highway. And behind this apparent line of demarcation arose the prosperous comfort of the American part of Panama City; white buildings, graceful blocks of flats, airy homes with well-tended lawns, decorated with borders of properly tamed blooms of nicely matched tropical flowers.

Absorbed in the contrast, Susan heard Alan say, "Nice lad, Keith."

"Wasn't he?" Susan turned her head and smiled warmly. "You were very kind to him, Alan. I did want to say thank you."

He smiled at her wryly. "Is that all you wanted to say?"

"Yes... I think so. Why?"

"You didn't mind" - he wrinkled his brow - "this time?"

"Of course not, why should..." she started to say, when suddenly she broke off, remembering Miss Forbes. She flushed. "Oh, Alan. That's not fair! I mean..."

"What you mean, my sweet," he said gravely, "is that you weren't fair. Before." As if to take some of the sting out of his words, he smiled quite pleasantly.

Susan swallowed. "If you really want to know, Alan, that's just what I was telling myself on the way down. I felt very sorry. And very much in the wrong."

Alan looked more mollified. "Then how," he said easily, "about saying it to me, instead of to yourself?"

She looked at him for a moment with a puzzled expression in her eyes. "You mean, you want me to say sorry to you?"

"That's usual, isn't it, Susan? When someone's in the wrong? Or am I being old-fashioned?"

"No," Susan said slowly. "Not old-fashioned." She paused for a moment. Then she said, "I'm sorry, Alan. I was quite wrong about you in Bermuda. Will you forgive me?"

Alan laughed, just like his old self again. "And very prettily said too!" He stretched out his legs and pushed his cap to the back of his head. "That's what I like about you, Susan. You're fresh and sweet and uncomplicated. And if you say a thing, you mean it."

Susan said nothing.

Alan went on, "You know, there's something very nice in having a pretty apology from a pretty girl. Don't know why, but there it is." He stared for a moment out of the window. "Whoa now! We're just about here. Hope the water's hot this time." He surveyed the outside of the rather tawdry-looking hotel with disapproval. Then he stood up and pulled his overnight bag and brief-case from the rack. "I'm going to hit the hay straight after dinner. What about you?"

"Same here," Susan said. She suddenly felt tired.

"And tomorrow -" Alan said, "weather permitting and, of course, unless Keith's dad goes away" - Susan felt too wearied of what she considered a rather laboured joke to smile - "I'll take you out to Colon. And if you're a good girl we might go out for dinner and a dance."

"Thank you," Susan said drily, and stood up.

The porter took her bag from her as she walked over to the desk. She was given a room on the third floor at the back of the hotel. It meant that she overlooked the main thoroughfare with its assortment of music halls and honky-tonks, and the noise was immense. Still, she thought, letting the politely-smiling bellhop lead her to the lift, at this moment she could sleep through anything.

And after a quick supper, so she did. It was nearly half-past ten local time, and the morning sun was streaming in through the slatted blinds, when she heard a knock on the door. Getting quickly out of bed, she opened it, to see a tall smart girl in the same uniform as her own. It was Lisa Carlisle, the northbound stewardess.

"Hello, Susan," Lisa said, coming in and sitting on the bed. "We're going off today. Is there anything you want taken to London?"

Susan rumpled her hair sleepily and tried to think. It was always so difficult to wake up quickly from an after-trip sleep. "Thanks awfully, Lisa. It's very nice of you... now let me see. Ah, yes. I bought a set of table mats for Mother. If you don't mind paying the Customs, I'll settle up with you when I get home."

Lisa smiled. "I reckon your mother will be setting up in the raffia table-mat business very shortly. I've taken at least four sets over." She yawned. "Heaven knows how many you've taken over yourself!"

Susan was busy pulling at her case from under the bed.

The other girl smiled at her kindly. "You know," she said, "you're an incorrigible present-giver. Oh, I don't mind taking them! Don't worry about that. I never seem to have time to get anything."

Miss Carlisle smoothed her already immaculate skirt. She was one of the most senior of the stewardesses - quiet, sensible and very pleasant.

"Come on, sleepyhead," she said, as Susan handed her the package. "Write a quick note with the address on for me." She walked over to the window. "Awful little room you've got here. You should have got one of the men to swap. Who's on, besides Captain Kane?"

Susan paused in the middle of her writing. "Ted Phillips ... Alan Heathley ..."

"Alan Heathley, eh?" Lisa interrupted. Then she lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring up towards the ceiling. With her eyes on it, she said casually, "They tell me you're going around with him quite a lot. Things getting serious, so I'm told." She paused. Then quite nicely, she said, "Are they?"

It was impossible to be disturbed by such a frank and kindly-meant question. Susan lifted her eyes and looked at the other girl. Then she said quietly and honestly, "I don't really know."

Lisa Carlisle's mouth tightened, and the whole expression of her face seemed to alter. She stood up and held out her hand for the note. "That's the trouble," she said briskly. "No one ever does."

"Does what? " Susan asked gravely.

"Know with Alan Heathley. Whether it's serious or not." She gave a wry smile. "Oh, don't worry!" She patted Susan's arm. "Most of us girls have had our little dose of Heathley fever. But" - and her voice made a disastrous attempt at lightness - "we get over it." She moved towards the door. "And," she went on with almost deadly softness, "believe me, we're inoculated then." She avoided Susan's indignant eyes. "And the immunity lasts for the rest of your life!"

Susan opened her mouth to defend Alan. "Well, so long," Miss Carlisle said. "And don't get all loyal and indignant!" She smiled at Susan.

"Have a good trip," Susan said.

"Enjoy yourself," Miss Carlisle nodded, and closed the door behind her.

Then suddenly she opened it again. "Just remember, take him with a whole oceanful of salt. Then you might be all right." She waved jauntily. "I only used a pinch."

Susan sat down on the edge of the bed. The day was not exactly getting off to a flying start. She padded into the tiny bathroom and turned on the water. A brownish liquid came out and then, after a bubble and snort, a jet of not over-clean-looking hot water. Alan had been right about the plumbing, she thought, as she bathed, and then dressed. But - brushing her short wavy hair briskly - Lisa Carlisle had been quite wrong about him.

It was one of the quirks of her nature that people became doubly precious to her when she had to defend diem. Now her heart warmed even more to Alan, her determination increased to show that she liked him, she believed in him, she admired him.

When he finally rang her about noon, her voice was happy, light-hearted and friendly. She had entirely forgotten Bermuda, the rather jarring conversation on the bus last night, Lisa's remarks today. What she did remember was his smile, his bright blue eyes, his kindness to small boys who flew alone on big aeroplanes.

"Sorry I'm late," he said casually. "I meant to phone you earlier."

"I expect you were tired," she said sympathetically. "And anyway I hadn't noticed that you were late."

"Hadn't you now?" he said more alertly. "Then you should have done."

They both laughed.

"Look, pet," Alan said. "The sun's shining, in case you hadn't noticed that either. But there's a nice breeze. So I say Colon. What about you?"

"I say Colon, too," she replied gaily. This was the town at the other end of the Panama Canal, and was a favourite place for a day's outing.

"And there's a nice kind waitress here has promised to pack us an enormous lunch, with all sorts of delicacies. Just for you and me."

"Just for you, Alan," Susan without rancour.

"Well, perhaps two-thirds for me," Alan said modestly. "Anyway, there's a whole roast chicken and lots of fruit and wine. So hurry up! I'll be waiting in the hall."

Susan gave herself a critical look in the mirror before she left. The light suntan she had acquired at Bermuda suited her dark eyes and had tipped the edges of her softly waving hair with deep gold.

She dabbed a little flower perfume behind her ears, made quite certain that her lipstick was immaculate and that there wasn't the slightest sign of a crease in her bright cotton dress. Then she opened her bedroom door and walked across to the lift.

As the door clanged open in the foyer, Alan was waiting, and she could tell at a glance that he was in a holiday mood. He was leaning against one of the pillars, watching the voluble Latin crowds, his blue eyes crinkled quizzically.

Then he saw her, and straightened up and moved over to the little crowd by the lift. In full view of them all, he took her hands and gave her a small kiss on her forehead. "Mmm," he said, pushing her a little away from him, and looking at her face, her hair, her dress. "You smell sweet. And you look wonderful!"

She smiled up at him, thinking to herself that now she felt wonderful, too.

They made a very English couple in the foyer. Among the bright plain-coloured silk dresses of the South American ladies with their shining, elaborately-dressed black hair. Susan in her flowered cotton looked trim and fresh and dainty, while Alan, blond and lean and keen-eyed, towered a head and broad shoulders over the men. And he guided her towards the entrance, one hand holding the picnic basket, the other rather possessively around her shoulders, as if she were as fragile and crushable as she looked, instead of a hard-working, strong-as-steel stewardess. And for a change, it was all very pleasant.

They walked out on to the sunlit pavement, and round the corner down a small slope towards the railway. Inside the station there were only two platforms. The paint, the same dark green shade found on so many English stations was peeling in the hot sun, and the same rather ornate iron uprights, and the scalloped edging to the steeply sloping roof, might well have been at one of the smaller stations near Milchester.

But the enormous engine that came heaving and sighing into the Colon line was large and American, and looked as though it had just come from the trans-Rockies route. While trailing behind it, Susan was sure to its shame, came a troupe of old-fashioned wooden carriages rather like Victorian trams.

Susan and Alan clambered up the two large steps into one of them. The carriages were undivided, and the seats were down each side like long benches, facing each other. Alan found a seat in the corner for her. It was disconcerting to stare continuously at the curious faces of the Spanish-looking people opposite her. Alan turned to her and smiled.

"There'll be lots to see when we get going," he whispered. "And everyone will go to sleep, anyway. Just you watch!"

He looked around, a smile still softening his mouth. Opposite, a middle-aged Mexican woman smiled back and nodded at them both.

Then, with the weird whistle of American trains and much puffing of steam, the engine pulled out of the platform.

Susan twisted half round, so that she could look out of the window as the train began to skirt the Panama Canal. All the time, she could feel Alan's gaze on her face. Rather disconcerted by his prolonged stare, after a while she looked up. There was an odd, unfamiliar expression in those blue eyes. Half troubled, half pleasantly excited by it, she looked away again, at the brown-grey width of the water.

"You know something?" Alan asked, without taking his eyes from her face.

This time she didn't look up at him. With a curious detachment, she watched them steam past one of the huge lodes, in which a three-funnelled ocean liner was caught, like a game of oranges and lemons, between what seemed two enormous stone arms. "No," she said slowly, "what?"

"Well, look at me!" he said peremptorily.

Obediently, she dragged her eyes away from the large modern buildings with their red and white roofs by the lode side. "All right, Alan," she said, "I am looking."

He said nothing for a moment. Then, quite sharply, "Don't frown!"

"I didn't mean to," she smiled, with a trace of apology. "The sun's in my eyes."

"There's something else there too."

Startled, her brown eyes widened. "What is, Alan?"

He lit a cigarette, and drew deeply on it before answering. She had an uncomfortable feeling that he was rather enjoying keeping her guessing.

"That you like me," he said after a moment. Then he grinned deprecatingly. "Oh, it doesn't embarrass me," he added, waving his hand. "That's not the point. What I want to say..." - he lowered his voice, although no one in the train could possibly hear above the rattle of the wheels, and even if they did, they wouldn't understand - "is that I like you. Rather more than's good for me."

Susan looked out of the window, at a loss for the right words. It was terribly important that she should say nothing to spoil things now. Alan stretched out his hand and gently took hold of her chin, and turned her face towards him. "Well?" he said, and waited.

Susan felt for a moment like a child who has been given a very expensive and much-longed-for gift, and, while the indulgent uncle awaits his thanks, stands completely tongue-tied.

At last she said huskily, "I'm very glad ... thank you for telling me. I do like you ...."

But she was interrupted by a burst of unfeigned laughter from Alan. "You're an odd little thing," he said, playfully touching the end of her short nose. "Very odd ... very sweet ... very lovable." He twisted his head around, as though he was now about to devote all his attention to the scene outside. As he did so, he lightly brushed her hair with his lips. "And I won't say another word to make you all dewy-eyed and confused." He paused. "So long as you know."

To show that she did, she put out her hand and squeezed his fingers. "Bless you, darling," he whispered, and then in his normal casual voice, he pointed out the number of natural lakes that formed a large part of the water-way, joined together by short man-made canals. Susan looked at the rather sinister colouring of the scene outside - the dark green of the jungle, the grey-white skeletons of trees choked with creepers, the glimpses of the olive-green water of the French canal, now weed-grown and stagnant, which was started first but had to be abandoned after enormous loss of life from malaria and other tropical diseases. There was something awe-inspiring about this tropical neck of land in the middle of the world, about this stretch of water that cut the Americas in two, and yet made an easy connection possible between the two vital oceans of the Pacific and the Atlantic.

"Nearly time to get off," Alan said, smiling down at her thoughtful face. The train was hurrying now, side by side with a stretch of water, straight and grey like the rails it ran on.

Then they steamed into the station of Colon, perched, it seemed, cm the very last piece of land strong enough to hold it, before the waters of the Canal ended and the brilliant blue of the sea in the bay began.

There was a strong salty tang in the air, and all the hustle and bustle of the meeting and mingling of people from every corner of the world. And riding at anchor in the bay, ships of every size and nationality waited their turn to go through the Canal. At intervals came the long sustained hoot, thrilling and yet mournful, of a ship's siren, a signal to the port authorities or to her passengers who had disembarked at Colon that she would soon be entering the Canal.

The town itself was not beautiful. The three-storied buildings looked too tall and insecure, and red brick, white stucco, and rusting tin were all jumbled together. All along the waterfront were the shops catering especially for the forgetful tourist. It didn't seem to matter, Susan thought, what article a traveller might have neglected to buy, in whatever part of the world. The ivory ornaments from China, the elephants from India, the temple bells from Ceylon, the skins from Africa were all handy for the globe-trotter to buy before going home. And if his travels had been in the Western world, then another shop had the oddly macabre stuffed clockwork birds from France that sang and pecked and fluttered like live ones. There was Tyrolean embroidery, Spanish lace, Italian silver. The pottery shops had the lovely blue-grey Scandinavian figures, Worcester and Delft figurines, Royal Doulton and Crown Derby figures and dishes. And as if in memorial to the number of well-fleeced tourists that had passed through their hands, there were models of lambs in any and every size, shape and colour.

Fascinated, Susan walked around from window to window, while Alan followed good-humouredly. Then he said quite firmly, "Just look at those price tags! Now come on," and he took hold of her hand and tucked it through his arm. "We've done enough window shopping. And I'm hungry!"

They walked past the expensive, grey stone hotel that with its waving coconut palms looked like a Government House, and on towards the rocky beach. Alan led the way to a quieter cove, where they were sheltered from the high spray from the sea. Then he put down the basket and Susan unpacked it.

Sitting there on the sand, it was all very pleasant and domesticated. Alan broke the chicken, small and Panamanian (not like its plump English counterpart) in half and they ate it in their fingers with rolls of sweet bread. They ate bananas and small juicy oranges, peaches and pawpaw. Then, with the remains of the picnic cleared away, Susan sat with her arms clasped around her knees, staring out at the sea.

"And now what are you thinking?" Alan came up behind her, and rested his hand on her shoulder.

"I was watching that ship," Susan said, without looking round.

"But what were you thinking? "

"Oh," she said lightly, "this and that."

He sat down beside her and tilted her chin with his hand. "This being us?"

"Perhaps."

There was a long and what seemed a heavy silence. Alan picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them one by one towards the edge of the water.

"I've thought about us, too. Quite a lot." He was frowning.

"Well, don't if it makes you feel like that," she said rather sadly, putting out her hand.

He turned and gave her a quid; kiss, and then looked down again at the sand around his feet. Away beyond the small promontory that kept them sheltered, a ship's siren sounded out across the sea. Neither of them stirred.

At last, Alan pulled her round until her face was close to his. "I'm an odd sort of person, Susan," he said, half defensively, half proudly.

Susan said nothing. She tried to read the expression in his eyes.

"Now you're looking all dewy-eyed and tremulous again," he said, and put his arm round her shoulder, and his mouth close to hers. Then he smiled rather quizzically, and stood up. Casually, he looked at his watch.

"Time we were going," he said. "If we're to get back to Panama and change and have dinner, we'd better step on it."

He pulled her on to her feet, picked up the basket and helped her over the rocks. He was gay and laughing and boyish, just as she always thought of him. And yet, somehow, quite different.

All the way home on the train, all through dinner, and while they danced, she tried to tell herself what it was. She had still not decided by the time she decided into bed, and lay wide awake, listening to the blare of the nickleodeons from the amusement halls, before at last falling asleep.

CHAPTER III

The next day Alan and Susan had lunch together and sat on the verandah, sipping coffee and watching the crowded street below them. It was pleasant and companionable. The verandah had striped red and white shades that kept them sheltered from the now blistering sun. The coffee was good, and the clamour of the street was distant enough to be undisturbing.

"You know," Alan said, stirring his coffee, "you're the sort of person who grows on people."

Susan raised her eyebrows and half smiled.

"You know what I mean," Alan went on. "At first I thought you were nice enough, but not, well, what shall I say -?"

He hesitated.

"Not your type?" Susan suggested a little drily.

He gave her a teasing frown. "No," he said. "Very much my type ... now." He smoothed his hair back from his head. "But not the kind you'd notice straight away. If you see what I mean?"

"I do," Susan said. It was the kind of remark that she was fairly used to.

"But ever since I've got to know you, I wonder why not. Because, each day, I find newer and nicer things about you." He leaned across the coffee table and took her hand.

But he dropped it again when the rest of the crew came out on to the verandah. Seeing the two alone together, they exchanged rather doubtful glances. Then the Engineer Officer came to the point. The Mess President of an American Officers' Mess at Panama had invited the men to spend the rest of the day over there. "Captain Kane told me to find you and see if you were coming along. But I don't suppose ..." The Engineer looked across at Susan and back again at Alan and then his voice died away under the First Officer's cool stare.

Alan looked across at Susan, shrugged his shoulders and hesitated.

"Don't worry about me," she said quickly. "I've stacks of shopping to do. And my uniform to press, and ..."

"Well, if you're sure ..." Alan said, and smiled. Then he turned to the Engineer Officer, and said, "Count me in."

Susan looked at her watch and got up. She smiled reassuringly at the rather older Engineer, who had chivalrous ideas about girls not being left alone in some of the less healthy foreign cities. Then she said "Cheerio" to them all, and walked towards the lift. Before she had got very far, they were discussing, with all the meticulousness they condemned in women, exactly what dress would be in order.

The prospect of a quiet afternoon and evening was not unpleasant. Sometimes she found it rather difficult to keep up with Alan. Even when he was in the best possible mood, like yesterday and today, it was hard to tell when he was teasing and when he was serious. And a few times, when she had looked into his face, his eyes and his mouth had told her different things. She shrugged her shoulders, impatient with herself as she walked along the corridor. It was difficult to understand lots of people. All the same, uncomfortably, the words of Lisa Carlisle came back to her.

Then she closed her bedroom door firmly behind her, as though to shut out Miss Carlisle and her uninvited confidences. This stop-over so far had been wonderful. There still lay before them the trip to Santiago, one of her favourite cities. Four days there, and then the trip home. As far as she was concerned, she told herself, preparing to wash and press and mend and write letters, her sky was clear and blue, and, to borrow a meteorological term, "ceiling unlimited". If there was the smallest doubt in her mind about Alan, it was just a seemingly mysterious, fair-weather one. Not the cloud the size of a man's hand.

But Susan, like all the other stewardesses, had never really been taught meteorology.

For the rest of their stop-over in Panama, everyone rested as usual for the last leg of the outbound trip. Susan saw Alan only at meals, and always with the rest of the crew.

Their aircraft arrival dead on schedule. It always amazed Susan that an Astroliner, which twenty-four hours previously had been at Heathrow, should now be skimming jungle trees, six thousand miles away, to make a perfect landing on the runway at Tocumen: and that, when the cabin door opened, faces she knew so well would smile at her in recognition in this steamy tropical evening.

"Managed to survive?" the incoming stewardess asked her as she handed over. Susan said she had.

"Bit too hot in Panama, if you ask me!" the other girl said, and mopped her face.

After the heat and bustle, it was a relief to roar up again into the night sky. The next leg to Lima was one of the easiest on the whole route: the weather was usually clear and cloudless, and the passengers (especially those who had flown all the way from London) were so tired that after dinner had been served they usually curled up to go to sleep.

And this flight was no exception. In between taking tea up to the flight deck and getting the disembarking passengers' health and landing cards ready, there was nothing to do except sit in the seat at the back and watch the stars keeping them company, high above their heads.

Captain Kane brought the aircraft in for a competent night landing at Lima Airport, recognizable from the air as being the only patch of darkness among all the brilliance, and wearing across the middle of it a single string of pearly lights that marked the runway in use.

Then he taxied up to the terminal - the most impressive oh the route - a huge white building gleaming with glass. Susan marshalled her passengers inside the hall which arched above their heads, the wide staircase leading out of it resplendent with chromium and marble. Blinking the sleep out of their eyes, they looked around them as though they were wondering whether or not they were awake.

And after coffee and light refreshments (always, in airline parlance, a synonym for ham sandwiches) back again to the aircraft they went, where the passengers thankfully, as though this was the only home they had, returned to their old familiar seats.

Then once again they were flying, down the dark coast of South America, until three hours later, just as Susan was serving the last tray of tea to the crew on the flight deck, a red smudge of light suddenly stained the sky to the east.

Alan Heathley, who was on watch by himself, turned towards her, and in the slight glow from the instruments she could see the well-known charm of his smile break through the lines that tiredness had made on his face.

"Stand by for dawn over the Andes," he said. "A present to the stewardess with the compliments of the First Officer!"

She smiled back at him and looked out of his left-hand window.

The band of scarlet widened. A thin piping of cream and palest green appeared on its outer rims. And then, out of a black nothing, came the shadow of the Andes, showing up like the serrated edges of a giant saw. Gradually, as the light increased, the jagged skyline turned rose, then green, as the snow-covered peaks reflected the dawn - until finally, when the sun burst above them, the endless range of mountains glittered dazzling and diamond-like under the long horizontal shafts of light.

"Show over," Alan said, as though he had himself provided it. "Good while it lasted, eh? Pour me another cup of tea, there's a good girl."

Susan stood beside him, still rather breathless from the awe-inspiring scene. Then, recovering herself, she did as she was told, took a last look at the rocky inhospitable coast of Chile over which they were now passing, and went aft to the cabin, where her passengers, unaware of the wonder that a few minutes ago had filled all the left-hand portholes, were still quietly and contentedly asleep.

As she watched from the rear window, the countryside seemed to come up to meet them as the hills grew higher, until they seemed to be skimming just over the tops of brownstone lakes and gulleys. Then the mountains gave out in a sheer cliff face beneath their feet, and they seemed to be catapulted into space over a green Shangri-la far below - a fertile valley irrigated by rivers, and striped by the long straight lines of roads. Far beyond, now slightly on the port side, Susan could see at the furthest end of the valley the smudge of glittering white that was Santiago.

The passengers started to wake up as the aircraft began its descent. Captain Kane followed the valley down, while the passengers sipped their iced fruit juice and sleepily filled in their landing cards. Then finally they made a wide circuit over the Cerro San Cristobal, passed the greener Santa Lucia hill with the city sprawled all around it, and touched down on an airfield that was almost entirely hemmed in by mountains.

There was much handshaking and many smiles and bows as Susan stood at the top of the steps and said good-bye. Then she did the last tidy-up of the interior before the ground engineers came over with the tractor to tow the aircraft over to the hangar. After the long journey, there had to be a thorough mechanical check-over before its departure back to England the next day.

But Captain Jefferson's crew would be taking that service. And Susan, as she climbed into the bus, thought gratefully of the few days' stop-over here at the Company's rest-house, built on the eastern edge of the city.

Alan Heathley got on board deep in technical conversation with Captain Kane, and sat next to him. The rest of the crew dispersed themselves over the bus.

It seemed strange, Susan thought, to be making their way to breakfast and then bed, just as these streets were filling with workers starting their day. She watched the crowded ramshackle motor-coaches, known illogically as "gondolas", and the tooting taxis and the trams. Their own crew car moved slowly down the Avenida Bernardo O'Higgins (named, like so many other things in Santiago, from bus companies to military academies, after Chile's Irish national hero). Finally it reached the outskirts of the town, then turned right abruptly down a rutted lane, and swung through the open gates and up the short drive to the long white rest-house.

In the cool quietness inside, breakfast was waiting for them. Susan saw a couple of Captain Jefferson's crew sitting in the lounge, but there was no sign of Penelope Fielding.

Nobody said much during the meal, except a few desultory comments about the weather and the aircraft. But just as she was getting up to go to her room, Alan Heathley, after yawning loudly, asked her if she was tired. Susan said she was rather.

"All right then," he said. "Rest up today, and I'll see you tomorrow."

Before she undressed to go to bed, Susan opened the glass doors of her room and walked out on to the tiny balcony. The newly cut grass of the gardens outside was scattered with peach and orange trees. Then beyond the fuchsia hedge was a hill covered in a cornfield that could have been in her native Somerset. And then she lifted her eyes - higher and higher still, till her head was right back on her shoulders, and it couldn't have been Somerset at all. The mighty Gran Muralla Nevada, main chain of the Andes, slate grey and snow-capped, towered above her. But not frighteningly or suffocatingly as some mountains in the world do, but quietly and majestically, giving the same sense of tranquillity as the garden below.

At peace, as she always felt in this place, she walked back into her room.

Before she got into bed, she gave Penelope's number a ring. She must surely be up by now. But there was no reply. She had, Susan knew, quite a number of friends in Santiago, whom she often stayed with in her off-duty time. It might be that, or she might have got up early to go out for the day with Captain Jefferson or one of the crew. Then she thought of her own date for tomorrow with Alan, of whether they would go up the funicular to the huge statue on the top of San Cristobal, of how comfortable the bed was, and then, quite suddenly, of how happy she was. And still thinking that, off she went to sleep.

Only a split second later, it seemed, the telephone was ringing madly in her ears. For a moment it was part of her dream. She was on the aircraft. It was an alarm bell. She sat up in bed in the darkness and snapped on the bedside light, before she realized she was in a room, somewhere or other. She lifted the receiver, blinking her eyes in the light. Panama? No, too cool, and anyway, that was yesterday. Santiago, she said to herself. And aloud, very sleepily, "Hello?"

An anonymous voice with a heavily Spanish accent bubbled up into the receiver. Susan picked up a glass of water from the bedside table and drank it quickly to waken herself. The voice repeated its message. "Can you hear me? You are warned for service 409/73. There has been a change of schedule. Departure is now at 07.00 local."

Instinctively Susan looked at her watch. It was 3.30 and she had been in an exhausted after-trip sleep for nearly sixteen hours. Then she sighed. 409/73 was Penelope's service. With typical South American vagueness, they had put the call through to her room. Quite often the airport just asked for the English stewardess, and forgot that for two nights in every week there were two of them staying in the rest-house..

"Oh," she said sleepily, "you want the other stewardess, Miss Fielding." And because she was a kindly girl, "Room 12," and even before the man had time to apologize, as she put the receiver down, "That's all right. It didn't matter a bit."

Then she snuggled down under the bedclothes and pulled the quilt over her head. All the same, she heard the telephone ring just as loudly a moment later. But she was used to Chilean ways by now. So this time she just let it ring.

For a moment, there was a battle of nerves. Then the black instrument gave up, and all was silent.

Then, as she was floating away into a deep sleep again, it started to ring once more. Patient as she was, Susan felt that this was a bit much.

She picked up the receiver and said sternly, "Yes?"

A voice, crisp and English and very much sterner, said, "Miss Shelton?"

"Yes," she said, but much less surely this time.

"Captain Jefferson here." The name and the voice gave her an odd little apprehensive shudder inside her. "How many times must we attempt to contact you?"

Susan moistened her suddenly dry lips. "I ... er... I thought-"

"The Operations Officer is trying to warn you for service in three hours' time. On my orders."

"But sir, I mean - Miss Fielding -"

"I'm perfectly aware who my stewardess should be," Captain Jefferson said evenly. "What I want to ensure is that you understand who it is now." He said the last words very slowly. Throughout the short unpleasant conversation his voice had been perfectly quiet, and although stern, it was not unkind. Nevertheless, it had alerted her with much the same potency as a good hot cup of coffee.

More normally, and much less sleepily, she asked, "Is Miss Fielding ill, sir?"

"I don't think so," Captain Jefferson said. "As far as I gather she's staying with friends, and, in complete disregard of the Company's rules, has not troubled to leave an address."

"But the service has been put forward," Susan said, rising to Penelope's defence.

"Something the Company, subject to satisfactory maintenance, is liable to do at any time. Surely you've been flying long enough to know that?"

And as Susan said nothing because there didn't appear to be anything she could say, he went on, "And now I suggest you get ready. The crew car will be round in half an hour's time."

Susan was just about to say, "Yes, sir," when she heard the voice at the other end of the line say more crisply, "You're not going to sleep, are you... again?"

Susan flushed. "No, sir," she said into the mouthpiece, and then put it down quickly as soon as he cut off.

For the first time in her year as a stewardess, she felt angry and mutinous. Any other Captain, she told herself, turning the shower on at full blast, would have been kindly and apologetic. Would have asked her how much sleep she'd had. After all, it did say in Line Standing Orders that all crew must have at least two clear days at the end of a long trip.

She rubbed herself with a towel, wondering what exactly would be the expression on Captain Jefferson's face if she quoted that particular rule at him. On second thoughts, she decided, she wouldn't very much like to try the experiment.

With an angry little gesture, she pulled her tie straight and put her arms into her uniform jacket. Then she stared at her face in the mirror. Even that was depressing. It was pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her short hair, still damp from the shower, curled round her cap loosely and childishly.

But at least her anger and disappointment had carried her through her dressing and packing with remarkable speed. She went downstairs and into the dining-room, where Captain Jefferson and his crew were finishing breakfast.

None of the stewardesses liked changing crews in mid-trip. By the time you'd spent a week or ten days with a crew, you got used to their likes and dislikes and learned to settle down with one another. They would be just as unwilling to exchange Penelope for her as she was to exchange her crew for them. Very shyly, and acutely conscious of being something of a cuckoo in the nest, she slid into the empty chair - by a bit of bad luck, next to Captain Jefferson.

"Bacon and eggs for one, Pedro," he said without asking her. "Rapido."

The waiter smiled and sped away with much the same promptness as Penelope had done at Bermuda. Then, as if he had completed all the duties required of him, Captain Jefferson picked up a yesterday's newspaper he'd been reading and put it in front of him, rather like the curtain which the pilots could pull across in the cockpit to separate them from the rest of the crew. And it worked in much the same way. The crew resumed a normal conversation with themselves and Susan as though he hadn't been there.

Then, one by one, they left the table to collect their bags and brief-cases. Susan, gulping her bacon and eggs with haste, was left with Captain Jefferson sitting behind his paper as immobile as a statue.

At last he put it down, folded it neatly, and said without any preamble, "Miss Shelton, no one regrets more than I do having to call you out like this."

Susan paused with a fork half-way to her mouth, and blushed. The way he said that sounded exactly as though what he regretted was having to bring her on to his crew.

"I'm sorry, too," she said, and then wished most sincerely that she hadn't. It sounded even more ungracious than his remark.

"A fact," he said slowly, "that you've made no effort to conceal."

With maddening deliberation, he pushed the coffee cup away from him and leaned forward towards her. "I must remind you, Miss Shelton, that you're doing a job of work. Not enjoying a sort of airborne pleasure cruise."

Susan was used to seeing a certain amount of friendliness in practically all the faces that she spoke to : a reflection of that quality in her own. Now she stared back, abashed by the cool grey eyes and the unsmiling mouth. For a second she thought how different was this face from Alan Heathley's. With Alan, you were immediately aware of the bright blue eyes, the fair hair, the boyish good looks. But this face allowed her to notice nothing but the impact of the man's personality.

Susan lowered her eyes, which felt suddenly aching and prickly as though they might give the impression of tears. And she clamped her lips firmly together as they threatened to tremble in a miserable mixture of tiredness, shyness and disappointment.

Captain Jefferson continued unopposed. "Some of you girls -" He paused for a moment and glanced again at what appeared to be the sulky set of the small girl's mouth. Then he frowned. His working day had started ten hours ago with the sudden news of the alteration of schedule. It had taken a wearisome course of what had seemed continuous battering of half-asleep hangar staff, ground crew, aircrew, and now one reluctant stewardess into some semblance of co-operative working. "Some of you girls," he went on sharply, "appear to think that the airline should be run to suit your own romantic attachments."

Susan's eyes flew open. "No, we don't," she said hotly. And then, seeing his slightly raised eyebrows, "Sir."

He continued to stare at her. She had the feeling that those keen, slightly narrowed eyes were penetrating the defences of her own, in the same was that they found their course through apparently impenetrable cloud. Alan Heathley and their proposed day together in Santiago appeared to be written large and clear for him to read. Guiltily, she lowered her eyes.

She heard Captain Jefferson push back his chair. She glanced at the tall figure towering above her.

"The crew car will be here in a few minutes," he said. "I'll give you five more to be ready." He thrust out his left hand and looked at his watch.

Then he said in curt staccato sentences, "Tell the housekeeper you're going, I'll send the boy up for your bags. At the airfield go straight to Catering. You can see the passengers after that."

He paused in his list of orders to make sure that all points had been covered. Then his keen eyes alighted on the remains of her bacon and egg congealing on her plate. "And," he said, in the same authoritative voice, "eat your breakfast." He looked at her again, as though there was nothing she could possibly accomplish satisfactorily, and added, "All of it."

As the aircraft flew steadily on towards Lima, the first thing Susan noticed was that the buzzer from the flight deck never sounded. She walked up and down the aisle, smiling at her load of contented passengers, and wondered why.

Of course, she thought, Captain Jefferson had given her full (in fact, rather over-full) orders of what he wanted done on the trip, and there was no need for him to keep her constantly running up to the front, as some of the newer and rather buzzer-happy skippers liked to do.

As soon as she had reported up at the cockpit that all the passengers were strapped in and the rear door shut, he had smiled at her as detachedly as though she had been the red light that appeared when the undercarriage was safely up, and had said crisply, "Thank you, Miss Shelton. Please come up front immediately after take-off. And bring the stores sheet and menu with you."

She had said, "Yes, sir."

But she had been surprised. It was quite in order for him to examine the stores sheet and approve the menu. In fact, he was supposed to. But every other Captain she had flown with had regarded it as the sort of womanly kitchen-job that was quite properly left to the only female crew member. Obviously, she thought, strapping herself in, Captain Jefferson took seriously the Captain's prerogative of being in charge of all people in all their activities, all the time they were on board his aeroplane.

And when she brought him the menu, he examined it carefully, and then said, "That seems fair enough. The crew will have their lunch after the passengers. I will have mine last, in the rest compartment."

"Yes, sir," she said, as he looked at her for some sort of acknowledgment.

He glanced down at his watch. "Start serving at 12.00 local. That should give you time to get through everything before we get to Lima. It'll be a slower trip than usual, owing to headwinds." He gave her a look that obviously blacked out her face, her hair, her whole self, and highlighted the brilliance of her buttons, the well-pressed uniform, the unfrivolous Cuban-heeled shoes. Quite satisfied, he went on, "And tea on the flight deck every hour. And you may serve complimentary wine with the lunch. This change of schedule was rather a nuisance for the passengers."

And for me, Susan thought bitterly.

As if he had read her thoughts, the smile faded from his face. "That will be all, thank you, Miss Shelton." And with that, she was dismissed from the flight deck.

The aircraft droned on over the sea, with the coastline just visible on the starboard horizon. Three hours out of Santiago, Captain Jefferson came to the back to do his first courtesy round of the passengers. No delegating even that small authority to the First Officer, Susan thought, as she switched the oven and hotplate on, and started to prepare the plastic trays for lunch.

Half-way through filling the small compartments on the trays with a tube of mustard, a crisp roll, butter, mayonnaise in a miniature crock, cutlery and a paper table-napkin, Susan peeped round the galley stanchion to see how the passengers were faring with this extremely authoritative Captain. Against all her preconceived ideas, almost against her wishes, they were laving him.

He had a very different way from Alan, of course. As soon as Alan appeared, you noticed his good-looking face, his charming anile, his athletic figure and bearing. Susan frowned in confusion. Somehow she couldn't define this man, even to herself. His height, his broad shoulders, the firm unhurried walk seemed quite unimportant. It was something of himself. A kind of presence. Instinctively, you got from him a feeling of power, a certainty of strength.

In a way, it was as Penelope had said - you could hardly imagine things daring to go wrong when Captain Jefferson was in command. She took the sherry bottles and started to open them, pulling and tugging at the corks, as though once they were out she would see the solution to the problem of this oddly disturbing young captain. Then she wondered why she had thought of him as disturbing. It was quite the wrong word. Over-assured, dictatorial - those were the adjectives that were nearer the truth. And he didn't disturb her. He merely angered her.

Still absorbed in Captain Jefferson, she took down a tin of tomato juice, and opened the refrigerator for the ice-cubes. As usual, the plastic ejector stuck. She pulled at it three or four times, and then tried the rough-and-ready treatment (which did both her and it a power of good) of banging it smartly on the table top. Nothing happened, so she whacked it again.

Then a shadow, unnoticed, blacked out most of the light that came from the doorway.

"In difficulties, Miss Shelton?" a pleasant, half-amused voice said quietly. "Let me."

Captain Jefferson took the two paces in through the galley doorway to stand right beside her. Then he picked up the tray of ice-cubes, and worked the plastic ejector gently and patiently. As she watched him, Susan noticed the sensitive strength of his large hands. For a moment, she thought how much all the occupants (herself included) of this flying metal world depended on them. Then she watched the inevitable popping up of the ice-cubes out of their moulds. Even they did what he wanted, she remarked to herself, eyeing them even more coldly than they looked.

Aloud she said, "Thank you, sir."

Alan Heathley would have returned her smile mockingly, and then stayed to talk in his teasing, half-flattering way.

Captain Jefferson certainly smiled. But it was just a pleasant, uncomplicated smile. "They're a nuisance, these things," he said. "Time they did a modification on them." Then he nodded to her and walked away to continue his round, now talking to the passengers on the port side of the compartment. The strange thing was that he left her feeling slightly better than before - a thing she could never remember Alan doing.

The serving of lunch went off very well. The soup was followed by cold chicken and salad, tropical fruit compote and whipped cream. Then there was coffee - Susan prided herself on making a good pot - and liqueurs if the passengers wanted them, and plenty of free cigarettes. The cabin settled down in contentment. The slow murmur of conversation was like a long communal sigh of weary pleasure, before they all gently relaxed and lay back for a well-earned siesta.

Meanwhile, Susan took the trays up to the front. Captain Jefferson continued to fly the aircraft while the First Officer ate his meal, and the rest of the crew took their plates and polished the food away abstractedly.

Twenty minutes later, after she had managed to wash and dry and stack most of the trays and dishes, she took Captain Jefferson's lunch to the rest room. It had been kind of him to wait, she thought. Many of the captains believed it helped their authority to insist on being first in all things. "Now," he said, eyeing the tray keenly but not unkindly, "have you washed up?"

She looked into his cool grey eyes. "Almost, sir."

He looked at his watch. "Then make it quite." He started to unfold his napkin. "After that, I shan't need you. This tray can wait. The crew won't need you. And if I know the passengers, especially the South Americans, they won't need you, either. Most of them are asleep already, I'll bet."

"I think they are, sir."

"Then go to the back, put up your feet, and try to do the same yourself."

She smiled. "All right, sir," she said dubiously. "If you think I ought-"

"I don't think you ought, Miss Shelton. I'm telling you to do it." Then he nodded to her. "That's all, thank you."

When she got to the door, she said rather shyly, "Sir?"

"Yes?" He looked at her as though he thought she'd gone hours ago.

"I just wanted to say thank you."

"Oh ... for that?" He spoke sharply, but for once his face was slightly embarrassed. "I merely thought you might be tired." And then to change the subject, "This looks a very pleasant lunch." It was the same lunch that a habit-bound catering section always provided, so it could have been no novelty to him. Nevertheless, the remark served its purpose. Susan said, "Yes, sir," once more and closed the door behind her.

Back in the galley, she finished washing and drying and stacking with methodical speed. Then she cleaned the tops of the oven and the tables and tidied the ladies' powder room. Then, giving a last look round to make sure that everything was all right, she adjusted her seat into the reclining position and sat down.

The short relaxation did her good. For a moment, she must have dozed off. She had a muddled dream of being in an aircraft with Alan Heathley and Captain Jefferson and Penelope Fielding. Then she opened her eyes to see the Captain's tall broad figure disappearing through the door to the flight deck.

She looked at her watch guiltily, and was relieved to see that she could only have slept for about ten minutes. But it was getting near their estimated time of arrival at Lima. Susan got up and stretched. Then she remembered the unwashed tray in the rest compartment. She hurried up to collect it.

But the tray had gone. She walked back to the galley, and it wasn't there, either. Then she counted the trays in the rack. She had her full quota. Captain Jefferson must have brought it himself to the back, and washed it up and put it away. She just couldn't believe it - a four-ringer captain doing a thing like that. And yet that's what must have happened. And the strange thing was, it didn't make him less dignified. In some curious way, it made him much, much more so.

Five minutes later, after she had washed and put on fresh make-up, she made a pot of tea and took a tray up to the flight deck. She couldn't thank Captain Jefferson. He was obviously the sort of person who didn't like thanks. And he didn't ask her if she had had a good rest. He merely looked at her face, and, satisfied that she had, said, "Estimating Lima in forty minutes. No need to wake the passengers yet. I'll flip the sign on when you should."

"Yes, sir."

"And we'll be doing an instrument let-down."

Susan had said "Yes, sir," and smiled before she even remembered that those words "instrument let-down" usually gave her a passing tremor of nervousness. She was getting used to them on this route, for Lima was so often hung in cloud. But there was something unpleasant in flying lower and lower and looking out and seeing nothing but dark grey cotton-wool cloud. It was like travelling at over a hundred miles an hour through a London pea-souper without a light to see or a sound to hear, and knowing that all the time there were hills hidden somewhere in that blanketing camouflage.

But today she hardly gave it a thought. She woke her passengers and strapped diem in when the seat sign glowed red. Then she reassured them as the sunshine dimmed, the first wisps of cloud fled past the portholes, and the suffocating fog clung fast about diem.

They were a pleasant and quiet load. They read their papers or did their crosswords or stolidly chewed at barley sugar while they could feel the aircraft turning, as the Captain manoeuvred into a let-down position with the help of his instruments. The flaps whined down as they began to descend. Only the odd passenger or two looked up quickly and then almost shamefacedly looked down again, hoping no one had noticed.

Then as the fuzzy outline of buildings appeared, the first hundred yards of the grey runway jutted out of the mist, the aircraft wheels almost imperceptibly made contact with the runway and, slowing up, went smoothly along towards the taxi-ing track. The slight tension eased out of the cabin in a murmur of "Very pleasant trip," or some of the English ones, "To think that old Saunders still goes by sea and train!"

Susan smiled at them all. Tea, she said, would be served in the restaurant. It was only a short refuelling stop and (as none of the passengers was disembarking) she would see them all there.

As soon as she had finished her duties she hurried to the gift shops in the hall. On her way down she had spied a pair of very elegant embroidered slippers, made of soft white skin, which she was sure her married sister would love. The price was high, but she bought them without question because the seller looked much too poor for her to try to beat him down, and was turning away when she saw Captain Jefferson.

He was buying a beautiful handbag, and now he hesitated over a dainty pair of hand-made gloves. Susan had just time to smile to herself because the man made no attempt to overcharge the Captain, when Jefferson looked over and smiled at her. For a moment she was quite touched to see that the smile he gave her was one of genuine pleasure.

"Ah, Miss Shelton!" He moved over to her side. "The very person I wanted to see!"

For some reason Susan blushed.

He paused and pitied up the gloves lovingly. "What size d'you take, Miss Shelton?" he said, looking at her small hands critically. Susan wished fleetingly that a stewardess's job wasn't so hard on the hands. Then she said, "Six and a quarter, usually."

Perhaps he was buying gloves for his mother, she thought gently. The vision of a sweet old lady filled her mind and made her mouth very soft.

"Mmm, let me think. She ... the girl I'm getting them for" - the words hung in the air chillingly - "takes six and a half. I think she's got rather longer fingers. So if these are a bit too big for you, that should be all right, shouldn't it?"

"Fine," Susan said without enthusiasm, thinking now of someone tall and soignee, with a long cigarette holder held in longer fingers.

Susan tried on the gloves. Next, he had to buy slippers, and it was her feet that were needed. At the end of the shopping session she looked rather wistfully at his bowed head as he obviously cleared himself out of all his currency. It wasn't that she envied the gifts, she much preferred giving them to getting them. But it must be nice to have someone take all that trouble. It would have been pleasant if Alan for instance ... and then quickly repressing what she felt was downright disloyalty, she said good-bye to Captain Jefferson and walked back to her passengers in the restaurant.

The rest of the trip passed smoothly. By eight o'clock local time they were in the circuit over Tocumen Airfield at Panama, and half an hour later they had landed.

In the crew car going to the hotel, Susan said laughingly to the First Officer, who had come to sit beside her, "Well, I didn't think I'd be seeing all this again quite so soon."

The First Officer smiled with her, but Captain Jefferson turned and gave her an odd sort of stare. And for the rest of the journey she sat abashed and quiet as the changing scene of Panama City unrolled before her eyes.

And now, back at the same hotel, she had time to miss Alan.

The black old-fashioned telephone remained silent. Only the blare of the pleasure halls filled the tiny room.

On the second day, the Navigator, Ginger Murray, took her out to lunch at a waterfront cafe, and in the evening Captain Jefferson (it was obviously a duty he did every trip) chartered a taxi and took the whole crew out sightseeing, and then to dinner in a cool and pleasant hotel on the outskirts of Panama.

In the end Susan found it all quite perfect. The sight of the rolling dark green hills beyond the sea, the dusty journey: then the cool hotel, the well-cooked meal, and the easy uncomplicated conversation. Airline life, she decided, sipping her coffee, even without romance, was really great fun.

The next day everyone slept late in order to get as much rest as possible before the long night haul across the Caribbean Islands to Bermuda. During the afternoon Susan did a little shopping, posted a highly-coloured picture postcard to a travel-hungry young cousin, and then, after tea, started to clean her buttons.

As she was tying her tie the telephone rang. It was the Operations Officer, speaking from Tocumen. The incoming aircraft had reported some slight mechanical trouble, and Captain Jefferson had put back their departure one hour, to give the engineering staff time to rectify it.

Susan kicked off her shoes, lay on her bed and read a book. An hour and a half later, the telephone rang again. The aircraft had arrived now and the trouble must have been rather more than was expected, because the time of departure was put back a further hour and a half. Captain Jefferson was already out at the airport. If this went on much longer (and it usually did when it started) he would be calling a night-stop.

The third time the telephone rang Susan picked up the receiver and waited with her pencil poised to write down the new departure time - in the morning, she was sure.

Alan's voice came over the wire. "Have you missed me?"

"Oh ... Alan! Yes, of course I have. How nice to hear you!"

"Well, I've something nicer to tell you. Jefferson's just told me. In fact, he's here in Operations now. So I'll be along in an hour, and we'll do Panama City tonight..." There was a mumble of voices, as Alan spoke to someone at the other end of the line. "No, of course I won't keep her out late. Yes, I know it's an early start, sir."

Susan smiled wryly. That would be Jefferson. Into the telephone she said, "Are you sure you're not too tired?"

"No. Not a bit."

"I'll see you when you get to the hotel then, Alan."

"That's right, my sweet. Sorry you had a dull time." Then Alan put down the receiver.

For a moment Susan stood frowning at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn't had a dull time, and she certainly hadn't said so. If Captain Jefferson was still in Operations, he would think she had. Irritated that he might consider her ungrateful, she was still worrying about it when the Operations Officer came through with the new time of departure in the morning.

And her evening out with Alan went only indifferently well. She was anxious not to be out late, and Alan was inclined to take it that she didn't want to be with him. Then, as if to show her that there were other fish in the sea (or, as he would have put it, other stewardesses in the air) talked at length about Penelope, about the amusing things she'd said to the passengers, about how surprised she'd been when she found that she'd missed the aircraft.

"You should have seen her face," Alan said, puffing a cigarette and smiling into the distance. "You know what?"

"No," Susan said, knowing what was coming and wishing awfully hard not to hear it.

"Well -" He gave her a sweet innocent grin. "I do believe she's quite smitten with Jefferson. Not that you'd be interested."

Susan looked down at her hands.

Alan went on, "Mind you, he gave her a tremendous ticking-off when he saw her."

Susan looked up, surprised. Captain Jefferson didn't seem to be the sort of person to tell a girl off in front of other people. "Did you hear him? "

"No, of course not," Alan said irritably. "But I saw him call her over. And then... I saw their faces."

Susan refused the cigarette he offered her, and said vaguely that it wasn't really Penelope's fault. After all, the schedule had been altered. And at the very last minute, at that.

They wandered round the crowded streets of Panama, drank an over-luscious milk-shake at one of the American-type soda fountains, and then went back to the hotel. Just before he said good-night, Alan remarked, as though in apology for their evening petering out like this, "Nothing much to do in this dump, anyway ... when you come to take a look at it." He yawned. "And now I am tired. Odd how it suddenly catches up with you."

After he had gone, Susan walked over to the desk to check once more that the time of their departure remained the same. There had been no alteration, but there was a message for her to ring Room 49. "The lady said very, very urgent," the man behind the counter told her with avid interest. '

Susan smiled as she went up in the lift, guessing immediately who it would be. As soon as she had put her bag down on the table in her room she asked for the number, and Penelope's voice came sweet and husky across the wire. "Susan, darling ... a thousand apologies about Santiago! Alan said you would be absolutely livid with me. Didn't you have some terrific date with him?"

Penelope paused for breath, and Susan said firmly, "That's all right. I'm not livid now. And if I was at Santiago, it wasn't with you."

"Who then, poppet? It really was all my fault, so I've been most severely told."

"I know I shouldn't have been," Susan told her. "But I felt pretty angry with Captain Jefferson. He -"

"Oh, don't tell me, poppet! As if I most definitely didn't know. I've just had ..." she sighed, "such a blistering from him." Her voice changed. "But all the same, Susan, granted he's massively severe" - she said the words cooingly, as though they were delicate compliments - "when you know him, he really is rather splendid."

The last remark left them both speechless. Then Susan said that she supposed he was.

As if to change the subject, Penelope said, "Where have you been, poppet?"

"Just seeing the city," Susan said. "We didn't stay out long."

"We, being Alan?"

"Yes."

Penelope said virtuously, "D'you know what I'm doing?"

Susan said she couldn't see from there.

"I'm in bed."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Susan said quickly. "Can I get you anything? Aren't you feeling well? Or did you have a tiring trip?"

"Neither. I'm feeling fine. Now please do listen to me. I've got a perfectly splendid idea."

Susan waited cautiously. In her time she'd been involved in a number of Penelope's good ideas, and the experience hadn't encouraged her taste for them.

"Now I know you just love being with Alan..."

Sometimes I do, Susan thought.

"And I know you love being in all these foreign places, like here for instance..."

Panama ranked almost bottom on the list of aircrew's favourite cities.

"... so I thought I'd do a swop here and now, and go out tomorrow morning with Captain Jefferson."

"You'd be much too tired," Susan said firmly. "It's one long rush to Bermuda. Now isn't it?"

"But you know me, poppet. I never rush."

"Anyway, Captain Jefferson wouldn't allow it. And I really would rather go on now."

"Look, Susan." Penelope's voice was confiding. "If Captain Jefferson did agree, and something tells me he might... and if, between you and me, there's some tremendously strong personal reason why I must get on that trip ... I simply know you'd be the last person to refuse." Her voice shook ever so slightly. "Now wouldn't you, poppet?"

"If that's how you feel," Susan said gently, "of course you can go. At least, you can ask. I know Captain Kane would agree. But -"

"Well, that's fine," Penelope said cheerfully. "I'll ring up 'but Captain Jefferson' this very moment. I'll hang up now, Susan darling, and beard the lion on the wire."

Susan put down the receiver slowly. Then she walked across the room to the window and pulled up the heavy slatted blinds. The colours of the neon lights outside had run into the tropical night sky above them. Street lights in long rectangular patterns showed up white against the advertisement signs and the cinema lights. Different kinds of music, all at the same turned-up volume, seemed to come from every side. Determinedly cheerful juke-box tunes, dance bands, Latin-American rhythms and the jiggety-jog of the smiling calypso.

Then once more the telephone rang, like a thin sharp thread in the colourful disharmonies. Susan closed the window and walked over to the table.

"Yes?" she said into the receiver, expecting to hear Penelope's voice. Then after a second, she added, "Sir."

"Miss Fielding tells me that now that Captain Kane's service has caught up with us you wish to change back. Is that right?"

Susan paused. It was near the truth and yet not quite. But she was too disturbed by the tone of his voice to say anything but "Yes, sir."

"You've just come in, haven't you?" Captain Jefferson said.

Susan told him that she had.

"I don't want to discuss this with you on the phone." There came the guilty click of the man on the switchboard who delighted in improving his English and his knowledge of human nature at the same time. "So as I'm in the lounge I suggest you come down."

Susan could recognize a command when she heard one. She made a wry face at herself in the mirror as she put on a little more lipstick and combed her hair.

All the same, she was not quite prepared for her cool reception in the lounge. As she opened the door, the long figure sitting comfortably in one of the cane chairs got up and nodded to her. He waved her into a chair opposite to him, and pulled his own up more closely. Then he offered her a cigarette. At first she was going to shake her head and say "No, thank you," but seeing the expression round his firm mouth she decided that maybe this was an occasion when one really needed a cigarette.

"Miss Shelton," he said, snapping his lighter shut. "I" - the cool grey eyes suddenly looked across at her searchingly - "am as unwilling to have a reluctant member of my crew as you are to be one."

Susan drew her breath in quickly. The words, the tone of voice, the look that accompanied them, were like a sharp slap. Her brown eyes sparkled. "I am not," she said furiously, "an unwilling member of your crew. At least, I haven't been. Not up to now."

He ignored her interruption.

"The reason for your wish to change," he went on with a devastating quietness that made her own voice seem rude and childish and uncontrolled, "is purely personal."

Susan shook her head.

"So I understand," he said with finality. "Personal reasons strong enough to make you want another girl to do your job without sufficient rest."

It was so untrue, so unfair that for a moment Susan could say nothing. Then she stood up in front of him, twisting her handkerchief in her hands behind her back, but speaking with an odd dignity. "Captain Jefferson, I know what you're thinking..."

"Do you, now?" he interrupted her swiftly, and his well-defined eyebrows shot up. Then a thin smile quirked his mouth. "I wonder!"

"You think..." she started to say again.

"And before you have to repeat what I'm thinking, and before we go any further... sit down."

Susan sat on the chair, with her feet firmly together and her eyes wide and angry. With a loudness that was only an attempt to quell the trembling in her voice she said, "You think I'm letting my personal life interfere, but I'm not. It's not that."

"No need to shout, Miss Shelton. I can hear you quite well.'

"And there's no need to talk to me as though I were a child," she flashed back at him. Then seeing that she had already gone miles too far, she went on recklessly, "I haven't got a reason. Not this time. But I don't care about that. I'm glad to go anyway ... back to Captain Kane."

Captain Jefferson stood up and Susan followed suit. His face was almost expressionless.

"You've forgotten one thing, Miss Shelton," he said slowly. "You aren't getting off my crew." He looked straight into her eyes for a moment. Then he said, "The change is not approved." And stood aside for her to leave the lounge.

As he followed her out he said, "A word of advice, Miss Shelton, before you go. The airline isn't run for your personal attachments. And the less you mix the two, the happier you'll be."

A slight breeze the next morning relieved the heavy tropical heat, and filled the wind sock to a plump white sausage above the airport buildings. The aircraft, now fully serviceable, was gleaming silver in the sun. And the knot of passengers, and the bowsers and trucks and the bustle of an airport, would have given Susan normally a pleasant feeling of setting off. But today she was conscious of Captain Jefferson's presence from the moment he stepped into the crew car.

And although neither there, not at the airport, nor aboard the aircraft, did he give any sign that their conversation of the previous night had ever taken place, Susan remembered. The thought of it made her less efficient than usual. She took longer than usual in the Catering Section. She had some trouble balancing the escudos, the pesetas and the dollars and sterling that she needed for change in the bar. And only when she met her passengers and talked to them, and became immersed in their problems and troubles, did she forget that expression on his face, that scorn in his voice.

Then the aircraft was levelling out, its nose pointed north and east across the calm waters of the Caribbean. Once again the colourful scene unfolded itself under their wings. The water changed to every shade of blue. Here and there, it was shot with milky turquoise and aquamarine where the underwater reefs lay near the surface. Sometimes the only mark on the sea was their own dark shadow across its unruffled water. Sometimes the smooth emptiness was broken by an odd uninhabited island of rock and palm; now by a pleasure steamer or a fishing boat; now by a whole string of islands, thick with jungle green and edged with pale yellow sand and froths of water.

But all this was only a changing backcloth to the usual flight routine of drinks and meals and washing up, of snacks and coffee and tea and cigarettes; of strapping in passengers, of reporting to the flight deck, of landing at their intermediate stops of Kingston in Jamaica and Nassau in the Bahamas; of explaining schedules and catching connections, of filling in landing cards and translating and explaining. And all the time catching odd glimpses of a profile that she liked and disliked, feared and trusted, with a vehemence that surprised her.

Even at Bermuda, Susan did her best to keep out of Captain Jefferson's way. She picked up a package from Dick Featherstone, the Company representative at Hamilton, to take to Beth Martin, to whom he was practically engaged. She shopped in the colourful market down by the harbour. And she swam and read and lay on the beach.

When Captain Jefferson hired a couple of buggies for a tour of Bermuda he asked her to join the rest of the crew so casually that she assumed he wanted her to refuse, which she did most promptly. From then on, he organized the stand-off in exclusively male activities. Susan was glad when the day of departure for London came at last. She only wanted two things - a tail wind behind them and a full load of passengers. Both of which, being the season of westerly winds and holiday traffic, she got. Plus a couple of babies in arms, to change and make bottles for, and to comfort and quiet.

About half-past six on a cold morning, when they had been on duty for nearly eighteen hours, and Susan had been so busy there had been no time to think once about herself and her own particular problems, the sun parted the clouds gingerly after a pale dawn. Then, as though it didn't like what it saw, it allowed them to close over again. Up on the flight deck, as she handed round the morning tea to the five men, their faces tired and unshaven, Susan looked down at the very different scene the night's flying had brought them to. No more blue seas, calm skies, palmy islands. A wind blustered the huge rollers into frothy white plumes. The rocky coast of Cornwall showed the sombre colours of a dying autumn on the land. And beyond lay no white city, no buildings of marble and chromium; but a grey city under grey smoke, incomparably the most beautiful city of them all.

With an unconscious smile around her soft mouth, Susan watched the fields of England march by under her feet. She felt Captain Jefferson's eyes on her face. "So you're glad to be back?" he said.

Susan watched a straggling village and a miniature farm move behind their port wing. "Very," she said, the never-dimmed joy of return filling her voice. If it had been any other captain she would have said it was always wonderful to come home, and he would have understood.

Still feeling his eyes on her face, she turned her head a little. She looked into eyes that were greyer than the sky, colder than the sea.

"Well... not long now," he said drily.

With a little catch of her breath, she realized that she had spoken the final ungracious comment to him. Unwilling, he would think, to come on his crew. Unwilling to continue at Panama. Glad only when they came home.

She shivered. She was angry with herself for not explaining, angry with him because he wouldn't understand. And angry, too, because now those grey eyes, like the English sea and the English sky, possessed for her a sudden overwhelming feeling of homecoming and of strength.

CHAPTER IV

For the next few weeks, Susan was caught up in the vast impersonal merry-go-round of the airline roster. Every now and again, the music seemed to stop. A car full of World Wide men - any five, in the different trades of Captain, First Officer, Engineer, Navigator and Radio Officer - would halt for a moment to allow her to get on board. And then off she would go, sometimes for a short trip, once for a long one, but always coming back where she started - London, and Mrs. Potter's, and her small room, with its view of the railway embankment in the foreground and the gasworks beyond.

She did a charter to Lisbon and back, a positioning flight to the Azores, and a full round trip to Santiago; but by the perverse irregularity of the roundabout roster, the faces she saw as she whirled round the routes were fairly unfamiliar ones - and Beth Martin, Alan Heathley, Captain Jefferson and Penelope Fielding were usually only names she noticed some way distant from her own on the typed roster-list that was pinned to the green baize notice board in Operations.

And then, as though the roundabout had relented, had adjusted its stops and starts to put her once more among her friends, one day Susan suddenly came face to face with Beth Martin in the deserted crew rest-room. It was the first time for weeks that she had set eyes on her friend, for with the devotion to duty of a girl with a boy-friend as the Company's representative in the Hamilton town office, Beth was clocking in the flying hours as fast as she could, doing her best to close the gap that three thousand miles of Atlantic kept between them.

Beth put down her case and said, "Susan, you're not going out again just as I come back!"

Susan smiled. "Afraid so, Beth. A short one this time. Special flight just to Bermuda and back."

"Bermuda!" Beth said dreamily. "The place I've just so unwillingly left!" She closed her eyes. "Seems like a century ago, but it's really only twenty hours."

"Tired?" Susan asked sympathetically.

"A bit. But I'd love a cup of coffee with you. That is ... if you've time."

Susan looked at her watch. "I've got time. You sit down and I'll bring some over to you."

Susan walked across the matting on the concrete floor to the urn always kept on the table by the window. On her way she stopped for a minute to collect the S's from the pigeon-holed rack for aircrew's letters, and thumbed quickly through them. There was only one for her - with the company's winged stamp on the envelope, and opening it up, she read: "As you know, you are rostered for special service 021/33x. You will now have under supervision Miss M. Elvington. A confidential report to be filled in is herewith enclosed. Special attention is requested to the following items -" Then, heavily underlined, were "Tact" and "Co-operation".

When she brought the coffee over to Beth, Susan said wryly, "I've got someone under supervision."

"Who?"

"Margot Elvington."

"Oh." A world of meaning they both understood lay behind Beth's casual emphasis on that small word. Though neither of them knew the girl, even by sight, through the everlasting grapevine they were both fully informed of the fact that Miss Elvington was a doubtful stewardess. She had passed her exams - but only just. And it would be left to the girl who supervised her, and the Captain she flew with, to say if she would finally make the grade.

"Poor girl," Susan said.

Beth put her coffee cup down sharply, and retorted, "Poor you!" She leant over Susan, and saying "May I?" took the much-hated confidential report and ran her eyes down the long list of virtues. Besides the two underlined, there were loyalty, proficiency, initiative, appearance, morale, passenger handling -

"I reckon," Beth said drily, "if you had above average on all those items, your wings wouldn't be sewn on your uniform jacket. You'd be growing 'em!"

They both laughed.

"Who else are you with?" Beth asked. "You're ahead of Alan now on the roster, aren't you? "

"As a matter of fact," Susan's voice was studiedly blank, "he's caught up with me now. He's the First Officer."

In exactly the same off-hand tone as her friend, Beth went on, "And the Captain? Jefferson again?"

"No... not Jefferson. Davis."

As she spoke, Susan turned her head suddenly away. Her brown eyes, usually wide and trusting, were now wary. And her mouth, no longer smiling, looked oddly vulnerable.

Beth, seeing the change, leaned forward, and this time in a voice no longer deliberately casual but full of concern and kindness, she said, "D'you know, Susan ... I've noticed something."

Susan said nothing. She looked down at her hands, and Beth could only see the dark sweep of her lashes on her cheeks and the now carefully calm mouth.

Unabashed and very earnestly, Beth went on, "Ever since you came back from that trip ... the short time we've seen each other ... we've talked about the weather you had and the shopping you did. The little boy passenger and an old gentleman. You've told me about seeing Dick ... and that was nice of you." Beth stopped for a moment for breath. "And we've talked about leave and going home, and whether Dick and I will get married. But what I want to know is" - she paused for emphasis, but still Susan didn't look up - "why you always look angry and worried whenever Captain Jefferson's name is so much as mentioned ... and why Alan Heathley's hardly ever is."

Susan looked up at last. "I told you," she said slowly. "I just didn't get on with the man. My fault, I suppose. But he didn't like me... and most of the time, I didn't like him."

Beth looked at her friend strangely for $ moment. Then she said quietly, "I wonder."

"And about Alan..." Susan's voice was very low, "There wasn't much to tell. We had a lovely time at Panama on the way down... that was all."

There was a long pause. And then Beth, as though he had decided, for the time being, that was that, became her normal bustling kindly self.

"Ah, well!" She finished off her coffee and stood up. "Mustn't keep you any longer, I suppose." Reverting to her former mood for a moment, she said softly, "No use me giving any advice, is it?"

Susan looked up and smiled gratefully. "No, Beth. Thanks all the same. But it isn't."

"And anyway" - Beth stood with her arms folded in front of her aggressively - "as far as Alan Heathley's concerned ... I'm biased."

She gave a quick glance at the other girl, but Susan said nothing. Then Beth turned, gave her friend a mock salute, and grinned. "Tell Dick you saw me ... and give him my love. And have a good trip."

She opened the door, and Susan watched her stride sturdily out towards the main gates against the sharp wind that now was blowing fitfully across the grey tarmac outside.

Ten minutes later, the door of the crew room opened again and let in a gust of cold air, a whiff of strong perfume, heavy and spicy, and a very thin girl with the face of an exquisite doll. For a moment, she stood holding on to the handle as though the rough wind might blow her clean across the room. Then, seeing the place was empty except for Susan, she came in with quick, firm little steps. She held out her hand and said in a hard bright voice, "My name's Margot Elvington. I'm with you on this trip. How d'you do?"

Susan smiled and took her hand. "Hello, Margot," she said in her own low soft voice, which sounded quite blurred and husky after the high clipped voice of the other girl. "Yes, I'm Susan Shelton," and then glancing out of the window at the darkening sky, "Let's hope it'll be a pleasant trip!"

"I hope so, indeed," Margot Elvington agreed crisply. And to Susan it sounded as though she would like to know the reason why if it wasn't.

"We're early," Susan said, mindful of her own nervousness on the awful day of the supervision trip. "So we can relax for a few minutes and get to know one another a bit, before we go over to the section."

"Actually," Miss Elvington said, with that unnervingly precise and definite voice, "I know quite a lot about you."

Susan raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, no need to worry. It was nice. Very nice." Margot surveyed her pink-tipped fingers with satisfaction. "But if you wanted to know about me - I'm twenty-two, five feet one, unattached, and next to the bottom on the course." She smiled a small pretty smile of infinite pride. Then she added, "The bottom one was kicked out. And then there was me." Her laugh was exactly as it should have been. The tinkling of bright bangles or jingling gold coins.

Susan filled up a cup of coffee and handed it to her. "I don't suppose you've done much flying..." she started to say, when Miss Elvington interrupted with, "Oh, but I have! I was with Prothero's for six weeks." She paused. Prothero's was a rival airline. "And I've flown as a passenger lots and lots of times." She showed her white, even teeth as she gave a little laugh full of complete assurance. "So you really don't have to worry about me."

Susan looked across at the dainty figure in the chair opposite to her, immaculate and shining from the smooth cap of pale gold hair to the tips of her tiny and unpractical shoes, and wondered. All the same, she smiled. There was something about the girl that was oddly endearing.

"Well, in that case," Susan said, "we might as well skip the rest of the chat, and get going." She picked up her cap from the chair beside her and adjusted it in the mirror, while with her lipstick Margot Elvington attended to the miniature mouth which already looked like a perfect bow cut out of velvet and stuck onto the pale pink petal of her face.

All the way across the tarmac, Miss Elvington kept up a long high-pitched commentary on airline life. Her views were definite, if unusual, and the more uninformed, the more authoritative.

When they reached the section, Miss Elvington did condescend to stop talking and listen without interruption to Susan's checking of the passenger lists, and supervising of the catering stores, and the rather complicated arrangements for the bar, and the giving of change in the different currencies. But all the time her light blue eyes, restless as butterflies, roamed over the counters at the white-overalled assistants packing the food in boxes and heated containers, and then out on to the tarmac where adventure was surely waiting to begin.

"We've got one V.I.P., two children and thirty adults," Susan said as they walked in step towards the aircraft. "Looks like a busy trip."

Miss Elvington adjusted her cap jauntily. "Count me in with the V.I.P.," she said. "And out with the children." And just to show Susan she wasn't really being impertinent, she gave her a funny little impish smile.

And all through the trip she amply fulfilled her promise. The children she regarded with a mistrust that was mutual, but she had a definite way with the V.I.P., Mr. Rolfe. He had come quietly aboard the aircraft, hedged in by a crowd of passengers, as though shamefacedly aware of the label that the company had hung around his neck. He had put up the Englishman's impregnable barrier of the newspaper and had retired behind it for the first two hours.

Susan glanced at the notes that the conscientious company public relations officer provided for the stewardess when she took charge of such valuable human cargo as Mr. Rolfe. He was a former Minister of Civil Aviation, he had been a pioneer pilot, a pioneer of aircraft engineering, and was now a substantial stockholder in many companies connected with aviation.

He thawed out a little when Margot took the pre-dinner sherry around, and he complimented Susan on the excellence of the steaks. Just around coffee time, Margot had quite a long chat with him, and as Susan served the brandy, he produced a folded cockpit pass, signed by the Chairman of World Wide Aviation, from his inside pocket.

"I saw you were busy before with all this" - he waved his hand at the remnants of the dinner being cleared away - "so I didn't bother you. But if I'm to get up in front before Santa Maria" - he consulted a large gold watch - "we'd better get a move on." Then with a quick change of tone he said briskly, "Give this pass to Captain Davis with my compliments and I'd like to come up when it's convenient. It's particularly important, because I'm trying to get all the information I can about Astroliners - to advise a company I'm involved in on a possible purchase." Then he smiled with complete naturalness and lack of affectation. "That is... if you don't mind."

Susan said, "I'll do it right away, sir." And then, just as she took the cockpit pass, she noticed that behind her, further down the cabin, Margot was having an argument with a woman passenger about the number of Portuguese escudos to the pound sterling. Susan hurriedly interposed and smoothed the lady down. "Look," she said to Margot, after she'd got the other girl in the galley and out of earshot of the passengers, "never argue with a passenger. Never."

Margot drew herself up with dignity. "But arguing was just what I wasn't doing! I was only telling her she was wrong."

Then the passenger in the rear seat wanted aspirin. A lady on the port side couldn't manage to adjust her seat so as to lie right back. Someone else was cold and needed a blanket. And the man beside the main door insisted rather loudly on cigarettes immediately.

Hurrying as fast as she could, Susan suddenly noticed that Mr. Rolfe was looking back at her, this time with no smile on his face at all. And when at last, clutching the cockpit pass she had been given nearly ten minutes before, she passed him on her way to the flight deck, he had shut himself behind the disapproving, unseeing, black-and-white wall of his newspaper.

Up front. Captain Davis was off watch and in the crew rest compartment. Alan Heathley was flying the aircraft. When she saw his face in the dim light from the instruments, Susan realized with a shock that he had hardly crossed her mind since they had left London Airport.

He turned his head. "Oh, it's you," he said, pleasantly enough. "Thought it might be the new job."

Susan said quickly, "The V.I.P., Mr. Rolfe, wants to see the cockpit. He's got a pass signed by the Chairman. Shall I bring him up now?"

Alan took the pass she gave him and then glanced at the Radio Officer, who was writing busily on the pad in front of him. "Not just now," he said abstractedly. "Tell him a bit later."

"He's very anxious because -"

"I know... I know!"

"And he's getting off at Santa Maria."

"Don't bind!" Alan said reproachfully. "Just say..." He paused. "No, on second thoughts, don't say anything. I'll have him up in a few minutes. Fred here will fetch him. Or if not -" he smiled at Susan, "I'll come back and see him myself. Just as soon as the skipper comes on watch. All right?"

"All right," Susan said, and walked back to the cabin, where Mr. Rolfe was still immured behind his newspaper.

From then till their arrival in the Azores an hour later, it seemed to be one long rush. This lot of passengers did not believe in settling down to sleep. What with explaining things to Margot and dealing with their endless requests, Susan was on her feet all the time, all over the cabin, her mind feverishly busy, sorting the things that had been done from the things left to do.

They had come down in the Azores, disembarked six passengers, taken on four new ones, refuelled and set off on the two-thousand-mile leg to Bermuda, before she really thought again about Mr. Rolfe.

She had been so busy that she hadn't actually seen him leave his seat and go up front. On the other hand, she had remembered to glance down the cabin once or twice, and on one occasion his seat had been empty. But whether he was up front, or in the cloakroom or talking to another passenger, she hadn't had time to find out.

All the same, just to make sure, the next time she took tea up to the flight deck, she said to Alan, who was once more on watch, "Mr. Rolfe did come up all right, I suppose?"

Alan Heathley was not in a particularly good mood. He had already complained to the crew that Captain Davis appeared to be spending most of the flight in the rest compartment. All he said, rather irritably, to Susan was, "I knew there was something I'd forgotten."

"But he wanted some information on Astroliners. He said it was very important."

"With those V.I.P.s," Alan said, "everything is just like their name. Always very important."

"But he was very nice, and I..."

"He'll think we were too busy to have him up. As a matter of fact I was rather busy."

"But then," Susan said hotly, "I think at least he should have been told!"

"Don't worry so!" Alan retorted. "He'll understand. He won't mind. After all, there are other Astroliners he can look over." Then he turned away from her, and said to the Engineer, "Number Three's vibrating. Can you richen it up a little?"

It was, Susan knew, intending to be a form of dismissal. She said, half to herself, "Oh, well, if you think it's all right ..." and leaving the flight deck, she had walked to the rear end of the passenger cabin, still remembering how very unlike his label of Very Important Person the considerate Mr. Rolfe had been, before she finished the sentence off, half angrily, half sadly with,"... I don't"."

Apart from the discourtesy to Mr. Rolfe, there was another cloud on the horizon on that particular flight. Nothing to do with the weather - the Astroliner purred steadily through a clear moonlit sky, eating up the miles to Bermuda at a rate of over two hundred an hour.

This cloud was inside the fuselage, and became bigger and bigger as the flight progressed.

Alan Heathley was lavishing a rather exaggerated amount of attention on Miss Elvington. Every time he came to the back, he had made a point of addressing all his remarks to the new girl. He had greeted her weakest joke with apparently unfeigned laughter, and had complimented her on everything from her undoubted prettiness to her doubtful devotion to duty.

But that wasn't what troubled Susan most. After all, it had happened before with other girls, at other times, and in other places. And if she went on standing aside and being sweetly patient, it would happen again. What really worried her was how little she cared. She was numb inside, as though she was beyond feeling. Several times she had found herself standing between the two of them as they enjoyed a mildly flirtatious conversation, and as she watched them, she hadn't felt the least sorry for herself. She had looked at the pretty doll-like creature with the affected, exaggerated ways, and then up to Alan with his worldly wisdom and poise, and it had all seemed so unfair. She wasn't sorry for anyone but Margot. All her sympathy was with her.

Susan sat with her hands clasped in her lap, her smooth brow wrinkled in disturbing thought. In this place, and at this time, half-way across the ocean and half-way through the night, came all her clearest thoughts. As though when the aircraft reached the "point of no return", the time when, no matter what difficulties arose, they would have to press on to their destination, rather than return to where they had started the flight, her own mind examined where she was going, and where her ultimate landfall would be. And tonight, as though the coldness of the night and the stars and the darkness of a deserted universe had come into her heart, she hid her face in her hands and her small shoulders shook with sobs.

As if the whole island had been waiting for the arrival of Astroliner G-AHAK to set off its festivities. Captain Davis and his crew arrived at the hotel in Bermuda for the first day of carnival week. On the way up from Kindley Field, Margot had pointed out the flags flying, the garlands of flowers hung from the balconies, and the coloured lamps in the trees. And as they drew up in front of the portico, they could see that preparations were in full swing for the bumper dance of the season.

The Manager was away down the garden supervising the cutting of the floral decorations, and his wife was imprisoned somewhere in the vast kitchens, watching the cooks prepare and garnish the lobsters, crabs, salmon, turkeys, chickens and ices and fruit for the buffet. Men on ladders toiled in the bright morning sunlight, putting up fairy lights along the terrace, and hanging Chinese lanterns in the shrubbery. With wholehearted devotion to merrymaking, the mundane job of letting rooms and booking in residents had been flung aside for harder, pleasanter activities.

Even the odd-job boy, languidly sweeping the sand from side to side of the shallow steps, regarded their request for rooms as an interruption. No one, he said, a broad grin gleaming on his black face, would get much sleep tonight.

Seven tired faces, surveying the jolly preparations from dark-circled eyes, silently agreed with him, and disappeared, as soon as they had managed to secure the keys for their rooms, up the staircase, like shades at the feast.

But ten hours later, a sleep (though nowhere near as long as usual), a shower, and most powerful of all, the steady rhythm of the calypso band pulsing the party excitement through the length and breadth of the building, had wonderfully restored them. Telling themselves that they might as well see it now they were here, as anyway they wouldn't get much sleep because of the racket, one by one, they started to prepare.

Susan unpacked the multi-coloured silk caftan that she always took on a trip because some hotels on the route expected guests to change in the evening, and hung it in the steam of the bath to freshen. She brushed her hair, varnished her nails, and clipped on pointed gilt earrings.

Then, in case she wanted to go down, but was shy, Susan walked along and tapped gently on the new stewardess's door. There was no answer. Very quietly she opened the door, in case Miss Elvington was asleep. But the room, in a vivid disorder, was quite empty. Susan smiled. Evidently the Pied Piper tune of the ten-piece band had found an early follower in Margot.

She walked along the corridor, hearing the exciting party noises below: people arriving from Hamilton, the shutting of car doors, the rattle of trolleys as drinks were wheeled around, voices and laughter and the rhythm of dancing feet on the floor.

Susan went down the wide staircase slowly, feeling her colour deepen as it always did before she had to make any sort of entrance anywhere. Hesitating before she plunged into what seemed to be a multi-coloured sea of dancers swirling through the hall, the dining-room, on to the terrace, the loggia and even the starlit courtyard beyond, she saw Margot dance past, held closely and tenderly in Alan Heathley's arms. She had just time to admire the white froth of the other girl's white lacy dress before she felt someone catch her arm, and Captain Davis with old-fashioned gallantry led her on to the floor.

With the instinctive knack they seemed to have of carving out a little island for themselves in whatever country they went to, the crew had found themselves a table by the terrace, and Captain Davis led her back to it when the music died away.

Very spruce in tropical dress, they were unmistakably men on leave from uniform. They stood up sheepishly when Susan came over and subsided with relief when she sat down. They ordered the waiter to bring her iced fruit cordial and when it came, remarked that with cucumber and mint and feathery green leaves it looked exactly like Covent Garden. Then they danced with her in turn and remembered to intersperse their technical discussions with special remarks about her pretty dress, the nice decorations in the room, and wasn't that Rogers from the northbound crew over there?

By the time the supper interval had been and gone, Alan and Margot had been over once and then only briefly. When they had gone, Susan sat looking unseeingly at the dancers, wondering how soon she could make her excuses and go back to her room. Captain Davis had seen some of the Santiago- bound crew and gone over to chat with them, and the men at Susan's table were obviously wondering how Heathley did it.

And Susan watched and knew. Hadn't Lisa Carlisle said that once you were inoculated, it lasted a lifetime? Now she began to feel, not just to hear, what the older girl had said. It was all happening again, just on the other side of the ballroom. The same pleasant smile, the admiration in the blue eyes, the flattering attention. The fair head half inclined as though not to miss a word that might fall from those lips. Whose lips? Any pretty lips.

Susan put both her hands round the glass and looked down into the colourful liquid. It was painful to watch Alan and Margot. Rather like watching an age-old film being played again. You saw all the faults, the overplayed parts, the faint air of ridicule or insincerity. And somehow, she wanted no more part of it. She was only sorry that she had been too involved herself to offer this latest player any help in playing or leaving her part.

And the tears that magnified her gentle eyes and threatened to spill over down her lightly powdered cheeks weren't for herself, nor for Alan. They were for the end of a dream of a man who didn't exist. The end of a love affair when the love had never begun.

She was too absorbed in her own thoughts, as she idly stirred the pieces of cucumber and mint around her glass with the swizzle stick, to notice that a shadow seemed to stand a little to one side of her, blocking the cascade of light from the crystal wall light just above.

"Would you care to dance, Miss Shelton?"

The voice was one that was so familiar to her thoughts that she started. Turning her head, she looked up into Captain Jefferson's face. Rather guiltily, she blinked her eyes, and again looked anxiously into his, to see if, by any change of expression, he would show that he knew she'd been almost crying.

But there was nothing on his face but a faint polite smile, and a slight raising of his eyebrows as though to tell her she was taking a long time in accepting his invitation.

"Thank you, Captain Jefferson," she said shyly, and let him lead her on to the floor.

"They tell me," he said, making the usual aircrew polite conversation, "that it's a Special you're on."

Susan said that it was. He held her quite lightly and moved around the floor with a sort of effortless abstraction. And yet she was acutely conscious of his arm around her, the strength of the shoulder on which the tips of her fingers just rested.

"Have you had a good trip so far?" she asked him, feeling that she must make some contribution to the conversation.

"Pretty fair." He smiled down at her, as though rewarding her for being a good girl and making the effort. "Too many headwinds and too few passengers. Bit cold at Santiago. But otherwise all right." Then with a rapid change of subject, "Aren't you due for leave?"

Susan said that she was.

"Then why don't you take it?" He held her a little away from him, while his grey eyes moved slowly over her face.

Susan flushed. "I am taking it, after this trip."

He nodded as though in approval. "Do you good."

For a while they went on dancing in silence. Susan peeped up to see if she could make out the expression on his face. But it was still utterly composed and as inscrutable as ever.

As they came by the wide-open doors to the terrace, without any perceptible change of direction, and without the slightest flicker of expression on his face, he gently waltzed her into the fairy-lit quietness outside. And, still in time to the music, out to the far end of the terrace and to the top of the three or four shallow steps that led down to the darkened garden.

"I think we'll walk down these," he said, as though this was the only part of the excursion that might be subject to query, and dropped his hands to his sides.

Their feet made no sound on the thick grass as Captain Jefferson walked towards one of the iron seats near the shrubbery. "Quite pleasant here," he remarked, which she rightly took to be his party manners' equivalent of Sit down.

Susan sat down.

Captain Jefferson felt in his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter before sitting down beside her. Then he gave her a cigarette and lit it. For a moment they both stared at the glowing ends, half listening to the mixed tropical night sounds around them. Here, Susan thought, is where he presses his argument to its logical conclusion. Here, after two warnings, is where he says: if you hadn't mixed duty with romance, how much happier you would be. But somehow, that didn't quite seem to fit the man. Nor did the thought of it fit this night with the starlit sky, the swell and fall of the music, the whisper of the palms and the smell of flowers and the sea.

"And where will you go for your leave?" he said suddenly.

Susan looked up. Her thoughts had been so far away from leave and plans. "Oh, home, of course," she said softly, clasp- nig her hands round her knees.

"And where's home?"

"In Somerset. A little place called Milchester. You won't have heard of it because it's very small, but all the same it's a market town. And there's a sixteenth-century church and the ruins of an abbey quite close by..." She broke off suddenly and smiled at him half apologetically. "Maybe you have heard of it?"

"Not till now. But I'd like to see it..." And then, in case she should get the wrong impression, "The church and the abbey, I mean."

For a moment they listened to the sound of the music from the hotel, spilling out of the open doors, and then falling more softly and quietly down the slopes of the terrace until only a gentle stream of it seemed to lap around the garden. Behind them, the clump of palms rustled restlessly as though a small animal moved in the shrubbery. The sustained chorus of the crickets filled the air around them.

"Miss Shelton," Captain Jefferson started to say, and then laughed. It was a pleasant, reassuring sound. "Look, I can't go on calling you Miss Shelton. What's your other name?"

"Susan."

"Good! Splendid, in fact! I've got a niece called Susan, so it's already in the family."

They both smiled politely at this coincidence.

"Look, Susan..." he started to say again, and then broke off. "My name's John. What I wanted to say was this ..." Just for a second, his large hand took hers and squeezed it gently. But, as though he had now satisfactorily pigeon-holed her with his niece, it was very much the gesture of a kindly uncle. "If you get away from things for a while ... somehow or other, well," his voice became very quiet, "they usually sort themselves out."

He looked across at her. "How old are you, Susan?"

"Twenty-three. And a bit."

"Not so very old." His mouth was gentle. "And not so easy to get things in proportion. Not at that age." His voice seemed to come across the six or seven years that separated their ages, and they might have been as many centuries.

There seemed to be no answer to such a statement, so Susan went on staring at the ground between her feet, the broken blades of grass and the scarlet petals of the windblown poinsettias. In the silence she started to count the petals, easily counting up to twenty-three, then turning the grass a little with her feet to look for another seven.

"Are you listening to me?" he said so quickly and sharply that she turned her head.

"Yes, I'm listening," she said.

He looked at her keenly for a moment. Then he went on, "Especially in a job like an airline, where ... associations" - he hesitated over the word as though not sure that it was quite apt - "tend to develop rather quickly."

Wrapped in the fancy cellophane of a tropical dance, sugared with the romantic setting of a seat under the palms, disguise it how he would, there was no mistaking the pill. Here came another of Captain Jefferson's lectures. The third instalment of how not to let romance upset your airline life.

She kept her eyes full on his face. "If you mean about Alan ... you don't have to worry."

"I was meaning," he said quietly, "you."

Just behind them, the dark rhododendron bushes suddenly rustled. Then a twig creaked. Susan turned her head quickly round, glad of an excuse to get away from the look in John Jefferson's eyes. "Did you hear something?"

"I did," he said grimly. "And I have an idea what."

And out of the bushes behind them, complete with a miniature guitar, stepped a ten-year-old piccaninny. He bowed as though this was his prearranged cue, and these his audience. John Jefferson started to fumble in his pockets for the inevitable coins.

"He looks awfully thin," Susan whispered, as the child, his broad smile and the whites of his enormous eyes shining in the moonlight, started to sing a long involved calypso. He moved like a sprite in front, beside and behind them. The smooth up and down rhythm of the scrag was broken here and there by little bubbles of childish giggles, quickly broken and stifled.

"Ill send him away," Jefferson said impatiently, and leaned forward.

"Oh, no," Susan said quickly, catching hold of his sleeve. "Let him stay. Anyway for a little while."

He raised his eyebrows. "Have you heard them before?"

"Well, not exactly. And never here. I heard some of them in Nassau, and once in Jamaica. But," she laughed gently, "never such a little one as this!"

"Well, I've warned you." Captain Jefferson folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, and looked resignedly at the stars. "They can be..." - he looked at the boy mistrustfully - "an awful nuisance."

But Susan was watching the badly nourished little figure moving in time and in complete enjoyment to his song, "Oh, I don't mind," she said, smiling at the child with the chirruping voice.

And the boy, like a true performer, sensed a sympathetic audience. The shuffling rhythm of his feet became more complicated. The calypso, like the minstrel songs of old, was nearly always improvised to suit the occasion as it went along. This version soon tired of the blue Bermuda skies and the holiday visitors coming to the island to make carnival, and took on a decidedly more personal note. Now the boy was in front of Susan, his own beaming face seeming to draw out the smile in hers, as her foot beat time to the music.

"Would you like to go inside?" Captain Jefferson asked suddenly.

"Oh!" Susan looked at him, surprised. "I don't think so. I mean not unless you want to." She glanced at the anxious ten-year-old face. "I mean," she said, smiling at the child encouragingly, "he's only just started."

"Very well." The pilot shrugged his shoulders. "So long as you're enjoying it ..."

"Oh, but I am!"

"And you don't imagine that I invited him ...."

Susan smiled. "But why should I? I mean, why should I think you would?"

"Quite." Captain Jefferson folded his arms and again looked up at the stars.

Then a very odd phrase made Susan sit up straight. Something about a tall Englishman ... and the big blade eyes rolled saucily to Captain Jefferson's frigid face. Then, "And his pretty little lady, with a face so sweet," and the eyes rolled back to her again.

"Not us?" She moved closer to John Jefferson to try to whisper. Then she saw that even that small movement was being noted as a welcome subject for another verse, and widened the distance once more between them.

"Of course it is," John Jefferson said sharply. "This is what they nearly always do. That's why I asked you if you'd heard them. And you said you had."

"Well, I had. But mostly they were with the dance bands in the hotels. And they were nothing at all like this. In fact, they were about the islands - the Caribbean Islands."

"Then you were fortunate," Captain Jefferson said curtly. "Usually, if they see a man and a girl together, they reckon they're fair game."

"I hope you don't think -" Susan said quickly, and then, as the man beside her pointedly said nothing, "How long has he... been singing... about..."

John Jefferson cleared his throat. Then with quite unnecessary emphasis, he said, "This child has been singing some rubbish about a mythical situation between us" - he looked at his watch - "for the last five minutes."

Susan blushed. "I'm awfully sorry," she said suddenly, and put out her hand. "I had really no idea it would be like this." Even as she did so, the song changed swiftly into the sweetness of making up. "Why," she said penitently, "it's the last thing in the world ..." and she groped for words to express that she didn't want to embarrass him. But embarrass wasn't the right word to use of a man with so much dignity. Offend? That wasn't right either. Annoy? Irritate? All of them quite, quite wrong.

"I'm sure it is." Captain Jefferson stood up decisively. "And as the implication is most unpalatable -"

Susan flushed with embarrassment.

"I suggest we've heard quite enough."

"More than enough," Susan said quickly, and then in case the small child should suffer for it, eased the last of her coins out of her evening bag.

"Not that he deserves it." The pilot fumbled in his pockets. "And time he was in bed!"

But the little blade boy had heard the sound of jingling silver. Hastily and loudly he gabbled through his song, pealed out a lightning carillon of wedding bells, summoned a parson, produced a ring and raced them to the altar. They were living happily for as many afters as there were coins to count, when Captain Jefferson took her arm and hurried her across the garden.

"Come on," he said. "We've got quite far enough as it is! Let's get inside before he starts the sequel!"

Susan looked up at his face to see if he was smiling. But now they were walking, apparently on purpose, further apart, his face was in shadow, the expression hidden.

The hotel got nearer and nearer. The music grew louder, but there was still complete silence between them. They left the darkness of the garden, first for the red and green and blue glow of the fairy lights on the terrace, then for the yellow beams of light that spilled out from the verandah, and finally, all traces of night faded away under the blazing glitter from the hotel ballroom.

Just as they reached the table where Captain Davis and some World Wide aircrew were still sitting, John Jefferson said, as though confirming that now they were back in the everyday world, back in their places in the airline hierarchy, "Miss Shelton and I have just been listening to the youngest calypso singer in Bermuda. But what he hadn't got in size he made up for in flights of fancy." He gave a pleasant, detached, faintly amused laugh, before turning to her and asking, "Didn't he, Miss Shelton?"

"Yes, Captain Jefferson. He certainly had a wonderful..." - Susan paused for a moment over those three gay syllables, before adding sadly - "imagination."

CHAPTER V

"Well, there we are!" Margot Elvington looked around the gleaming ladies' powder room with considerable pride. "And it was in an awful mess, too! Powder spilled, bottles fallen over, tops unscrewed. And a very grubby wash-basin, what's more!" Her light blue eyes surveyed Susan carefully.

"Much better now. You'll find it's nearly always in an absolute ruin by the time we get back." Now nearing the end of a smooth flight on their special service from Bermuda, Susan was busy thinking of landing cards and entering forms and bar accounts. "It's always best to give it a quick tidy before you land."

"Yes." Margaret surveyed the tips of her nails, as though she wasn't quite sure about the colour. "Always supposing... well, you know what!"

Susan felt the questioning silence rather than actually hearing what was said.

"You know" - Margot gave her high tinkle-bell laugh - "supposing I'm still a stewardess." She stood up straight. "Am I still a stewardess?" She stifled a giggle. "Or did I -? "

Susan had an awful feeling that she was going to ask her if Alan Heathley would be held against her. Margot uncharacteristically was still hesitating. "Or did I..." she began again, and this time bit her lip,"... fail on tact?"

Susan looked steadily for a moment at the light blue eyes in the small heart-shaped face. "I'll be quite honest with you," she said. "On the outbound, you were below average all round." She paused. All the time, she was trying to decide what it was that was so strange about the girl opposite her. As she went on slowly, "But above average on the way home," she had decided it was her eyes. Very slightly pointed at the corners, they were the softest blue, like a very young kitten's, and their expression never seemed to alter. "You worked hard.

When you try... I know you can do well."

"Thank you." Margot Elvington paused and blinked. "And now we're on the subject ... what about in between trips?" She looked away from Susan's indignant brown eyes to the haven of ten pink talons on the end of her fingers. "What do I rate on that?"

"That," Susan said, opening the door into the cabin, "is where you rate yourself. Doesn't affect me. Or the confidential report. As far as the Company's concerned, the two trips balance each other up. And you'll do."

Two hours later, Susan arrived back on Mrs. Potter's doorstep, feeling it couldn't be only four days since she had left. They had flown over six thousand miles, travelled through space against the turning of the world, and then reversed it and flown with the earth's motion. And like every trip she had ever done, it seemed to have completed a chapter in her life. Slowly and thoughtfully, she inserted her key in the lock and stepped over the newly scrubbed threshold.

As the door slammed behind her, a voice came floating down the stairs, "Who is it?"

"It's me. Susan."

"Oh, hurrah!" Beth's voice sang out. Then there was the clicking of heels on Mrs. Potter's ancient carpeting, which Beth always said aged a generation from floor to floor. "Have you?"

"Got a letter from Dick? Yes!" Susan waved it high in the air, so that Beth could see it as she rounded the second corner.

Beth arrived in the hall rather breathlessly. "Had a good trip?" she asked absent-mindedly as she tore open the letter, and then not waiting for an answer from Susan she sat down on the bottom step and began to read it.

"Is Mrs. P. in?" Susan asked, and when Beth nodded went on, "I'll go and have a natter to her, and come back when you're more with us."

Beth looked up and grinned.

But the kitchen was empty. Susan put down the flowered work-basket she had bought for Mrs. Potter in a corner of the dresser where she'd find it later, and called out to her landlady, who was busy hanging out the week's wash in the back garden.

"That you, Miss Shelton, dear?" Mrs. Potter lifted up a corner of a sheet and peered from behind it. "There was a phone call for you, about a half-hour back. If you look on the pad in the hall, I've written a message."

Susan called "Thanks, Mrs. Potter," and smiled as she walked back slowly into the house.

Beth was still sitting exactly where she had left her. "Susan !" she hissed as the kitchen door banged shut. "Come here a sec!" She patted the stair beside her invitingly. "Read that!"

She held out a carefully folded sheet of the letter, which said, "I've drawn leave for round about the third week in December and so -"

Susan smiled. "Am I allowed to read on?"

Beth shook her head violently.

"But I'm to guess? Is that it?" Susan cupped her chin in her hands. "I'm not finding it awfully difficult." She looked at her friend gently. "There's going to be a vacancy for yet another stewardess. Am I right?"

This time, Beth nodded.

"I'm awfully glad!" Susan gave her a little hug. "And awfully sorry... both at the same time. But glad mostly."

"Not long now!" Beth said dreamily. "We didn't think he'd get leave so soon." Then like her old self again, "But not a word to a soul! Not that I need to say that to you. But I don't want to get sent on the Hong Kong route or something awful!"

Susan shook her head and said she wouldn't, but it would get around anyway, because aircrew were mind-readers. The threat of posting to another route was the mild weapon that the management used to safeguard its dwindling stock of carefully selected and highly trained stewardesses.

"Well" - Beth stood up and stretched, as though she now had had her little fling, and digested her own not unexpected news - "have you had your leave confirmed? Did you have a good trip, or have I asked you before?"

Susan pushed her cap from her forehead, and sighed, "Oh, I almost forgot. There was a phone message for me... maybe it was about my leave. Did you hear anything about it, Beth?"

Beth shook her head.

Together they walked across the polished tile hall to the table beside the telephone. "Here it is," Susan said, picking up the well-filled jotting block. Undo: the heading Miss Shelton was written "Please ring the Airport, Extension 79".

"Seven-nine." Susan looked up at Beth. "That's the Line Manager, isn't it?" A small frown drew together her usually smooth brow. "What could that be?"

"Search me." Beth shook her head. "All depends what you've been up to," she laughed. "Is there anything you ought to tell your Aunty Beth?"

Susan smiled. "Lots," she said. Then she went on, "But seriously, Beth... what d'you reckon?"

Beth sat on the table, and put both hands up to her forehead. "Can't be your leave. He wouldn't bother himself about that."

"No," Susan said.

"You've taken all those beastly language exams, haven't you?"

Susan nodded.

"And you're long past the stage of getting bad confidential reports." She grinned at her friend. "Unless you'd done something highly irregular."

Susan smiled. "Now you're just fishing," she said. But her eyes were still worried.

"Who was your skipper, duckie?" Beth said. "Did it turn out to be the redoubtable Jefferson, or did you have to make do with plain Davis?"

"Davis?"

"Well, he wouldn't say a word wrong about you."

"I had the stewardess under supervision, of course."

"And she couldn't." She put her arm round Susan's shoulders. "So what, my child, are we all worrying about? Ring him up like a good little girl, and he'll probably tell you you've been lucky enough to be chosen for some God-forsaken route. And all you'll have to do is to say thank you very much, sir, and the same to you!"

She picked the receiver off the cradle and handed it over. "Or," she said, looking at Susan critically, "don't you want to be posted either? Alan again?"

Susan shook her head and became very busy dialling the number.

"You've gone pink," Beth said severely.

"Suntan," Susan said. "I've been to Bermuda, remember." She smiled.

Beth murmured that that bit of suntan had just come up, and then slid off the table, and said, "I'll see you upstairs, in case it's anything I oughtn't to hear."

"World Wide Airways. Can I help you?" the operator said, and Susan asked for Extension 79.

"Miss Shelton ... oh, yes!" the Line Manager's secretary said at the other end. Susan listened carefully. Her voice was an unfailing barometer. This morning it read low. "Yes, Miss Shelton," she said briefly. "Mr. Adamson would like to see you, just as soon as you're rested up." Her tone seemed to add that Susan might as well make it a good rest. She was sure to need it.

Susan put the receiver down carefully, and went upstairs. Now she knew definitely that it was for something that had been done wrong. All the time she had been talking lightly to Beth, her mind had been considering what had gone wrong in her last two trips. And gradually it had narrowed down to one small incident - Mr. Rolfe and the cockpit pass that hadn't in the end secured admission to the front.

That was the only thing she could think of. Everything else had gone remarkably smoothly. But Mr. Rolfe was such a pleasant, unassuming man. Surely he wouldn't have written a letter of complaint to the Company? And surely, when the matter was referred to Captain Davis, he would have said that the pass had been brought up to the front, so how could she be blamed?

And then it suddenly struck her that Captain Davis would know nothing of the pass she had handed to Alan Heathley.

"What was it, Susan?" Beth put her head over the banister. "Whatever it was, it was short and sweet. At least, I hope it was sweet."

"It was nothing at all," Susan said lightly, unwilling to worry her friend when she would be wanting to talk of plans and preparation and leave and Dick. "Just to go in some time. Didn't seem important."

"Well, that's something," Beth smiled broadly. "For a moment it had me worried. Now, to business. I've put the coffee on to perc, and we can have a natter after you've got that uniform off and had a shower." She started to get out the cups and saucers.

"Only two?" Susan raised her eyebrows. "Where's Penelope? She isn't on the route, is she?"

Beth shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know to the first. And no, to the second. She isn't on service. And she's probably out for the day with the latest."

Susan walked to the door. "And who's that?" she said lightly. "Do I know him?"

Beth shook her head. "For once in her young life, Miss Fielding isn't talking. Not even to me," she said, seeing Susan's disbelieving expression. "I know I like to find out. But this time, it's no go. So ..." She stopped and clapped her hand to her head. "How much coffee did I put in the perc? That's what comes of talking! Oh, never mind, what was I saying? Ah, yes... Penelope! It's my belief we would know him if we did. If you get me. And that's why she isn't telling."

Susan smiled. "A bit involved. But I see what you mean."

"Good," Beth said abstractedly, hunting round now for the spoons. "Sometimes it's more than I know myself."

"I'll go and have a quick shower," Susan told her, "and be back in ten minutes."

Even after only these few days away, her room looked shut up and forlorn, as it always did when she'd been away. Susan drew back the curtains, opened the windows and let the pale weak sunshine in over the threadbare carpet. Then she lit the gas-fire, just for the pleasure of its cosy-looking glow and the wheezy real-life sound it made. Susan turned on the shower, treated herself to a lavish helping of her new talcum powder and then zipped on her red housecoat and went back to Beth.

As she opened the door, she heard a familiar husky voice say, "And so I said to him..."

Susan popped her head round the door. "But what we want to know is... who is him?" and laughed.

"Oh, there you are, my poppet." Penelope got up and smiled prettily. "I've just, my lamb, drunk your cup of coffee ... but not to worry. Our friend here" - she waved a deliberately languid braceleted arm at Beth - "is busy on the brew."

She walked over to the mirror and adjusted her immaculate hair, and then came back in front of Susan. "You're looking, my lamb, all sweet and schoolgirlish. Slippers, housecoat, and a pink innocent face."

"And you," Susan said brightly, "are looking ravishing."

Penelope smiled. "I was wondering when someone would say it. And now" - she turned to Beth - "what was I saying? Oh, I've forgotten. I expect you have, too." She came back to Susan. "I really have to fly! I've got a lunch date and I've just been out on a coffee one. Oh, I'll bet you're going to say I shouldn't have drunk yours, but I'm madly thirsty. And I did want to see you. Tell me, poppet. What goes on?"

"Oh, this and that," Susan said, sitting herself down on a stool and hugging her knees. "I only did a quick turn-round to Bermuda."

"Who with?"

"Davis."

"Deadly dull." Penelope walked to the window. "Been flying with anyone I might be interested in?"

Susan considered. "No one very interesting, except Jefferson ..." Then Beth came in from the kitchenette with the percolator and said briskly, "Come on, Penelope. I'm dying to ing with anyone I might be interested in?"

Penelope smiled in her well-known sultry manner.

"Well now," she said. "You really want to know?" She paused, while Beth waited breathlessly and Susan looked down at her steaming cup of coffee. "We-ell... on second thoughts, maybe it's best not to tell," and escaping to the door, she slammed it quickly behind her.

On their own again, Susan and Beth talked about this and that. But mainly about Dick. After about half an hour, Susan looked at her watch. "Going to hit the hay now?" Beth said. "I should. You look a bit tired." She got up and followed her friend to the door. "And if you're a good girl, I'll bring you a good hot cocoa before I go to bed tonight."

The next morning was cold and grey. And at ten o'clock, an hour she'd worked out as probably the most favourable, when after-breakfast gloom had just worn off, but weariness had not quite begun, Susan knocked at Mr. Adamson's outer office door.

The Line Manager was in conference, his secretary said. But if Miss Shelton would take a chair. Come back later? No, Mr. Adamson was anxious to see her as soon as possible. From time to time, the secretary eyed Susan over the top of a file, or over the roller of her typewriter. Once even, which was worst of all, she smiled in a kindly and sympathetic manner.

Then the discreet buzzer sounded and Susan was led in.

Mr. Adamson lived in a walnut-panelled office, with a window as wide and clear as the front panel of an aircraft, and everyone believed that it had telescopic properties. Everything that happened was known to Mr. Adamson at the moment that it did, or even slightly before. He was a small man, with a jerky manner and a tiny pointed beard.

He put her in a comfortable armchair, facing the window, and offered her a cigarette from a box decorated with the company colours. "And now, Miss Shelton, how are you enjoying the route?"

"Very well, thank you, sir," Susan said meekly, now quite terrified!

"Not finding it too much for you?" He looked at her for a few seconds and his thick glasses glinted benignly.

"No, sir."

"Well, then!" He put the tips of his small chubby hands together and sighed. "I had feared it was. Let's see now, you're only twenty-three." He appeared to muse on the follies and pitfalls of that particular age, while Susan remembered those were almost Captain Jefferson's words. He had reported her for something. She sat on the edge of her chair expectantly.

"But all the same" - Mr. Adamson's voice had subtly changed - "no excuse," he suddenly rapped out, "for this." He produced a piece of paper from his desk and held it gingerly in the tips of his fingers as though it was unpleasantly soiled.

"You may not recall a Mr. Rolfe..."

"Oh, but I do," Susan said quickly, "very well."

"Please don't interrupt, Miss Shelton. I'm trying to make it easy for you." He drew a deep breath. "Mr. Rolfe, a man of the greatest importance, had a cockpit pass. Not unusual, as you surely know."

Susan nodded.

"But" - Mr. Adamson leaned forward - "did he, Miss Shelton, ever see the inside of the cockpit? "

Susan blinked. Before she could speak, Mr. Adamson had gone on, "I can tell you, Miss Shelton. He didn't. I've got Mr. Rolfe's word for that. I've also got Captain Davis's. But Mr. Rolfe also goes on to say that he definitely handed his cockpit pass to you. Do you remember his giving it to you?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Adamson contemplated her dispassionately. "Have you any excuse for not making sure he went up?"

Susan shook her head.

"And you do agree that" - Mr. Adamson paused - "I have every justification in taking disciplinary action on this complaint?"

This time, Susan nodded. Mr. Adamson was a martinet with an admiration for the democratic system of the accused condemning himself. "In which case," he rapped out, "suspend flying duties three weeks. Consequent loss of flight pay."

Susan swallowed. "I'm sorry, sir," she said.

"And so am I," Mr. Adamson agreed.

"And my leave?" Susan said tentatively.

"... I agree with you, must wait," Air. Adamson said for her. Then, as though at heart he was really the mild-mannered little man he set up to be, Mr. Adamson popped behind his desk, and for the first time smiled.

Susan walked out of the office, carrying her head as high as if it were her colours. But underneath her trimly pressed uniform, and behind her composed face, she was carrying away with her a mixed bag of feelings.

Anger with Alan for not telling anyone that she had in fact asked for Mr. Rolfe to be allowed up front, anger with herself for not actually seeing that he went, humiliation that here and now her unblemished career as a stewardess was marred with that most loathed of all punishments, being sent back to the dining-rooms like a naughty little girl. It was just like being told to stand in a corner with Dunce on your hat, while all the other pupils watched. You weren't allowed to wear your blue uniform, with its hard-won gold wing. Back you went to the thick white overall, back you went to hovering over half a dozen tables. And all the while, people that you knew and worked with (like other crew members) came into the room for a meal. They either tried to pretend they hadn't seen you, or laughed it off, or made believe there was nothing odd about it anyway, according to their different temperaments.

The medieval stocks, Susan thought, waiting at the bus stop, and stamping her feet with the cold, were run on much the same principle.

The next day Susan had to be up at six-thirty. She made herself a quick cup of tea and a slice of toast, and then let herself out into the still sleeping street. Up at the airport, the lights still gleamed out of all the operational buildings, although the greyness of the dawn had given way now to a sort of neutral light of a cold clouded morning. Susan said "Good morning" to the guard on the gate and walked in past Operations, along the concrete path that led in front of low buildings with huge different signs on top of each - B.OA.C., B.EA., PAN AM, K.L.M., Sabena, and turned the corner. Just past the door bearing the blue and gilt letters "World Wide", was another which said "Catering". She-pushed open the door and walked inside.

She went in and hung her hat and coat on the peg. Some of the cooks were in there and they nodded to her sympathetically. They had got quite used over the years to this sudden reappearance of one or other of the stewardesses, for reasons which were never known, but luridly speculated upon.

For the whole of the morning, Susan conscientiously did as she was told. If a sense of injustice and anger gave her added energy, the results of it were good. At twelve o'clock she was handed over to Gustav the head waiter, a pleasant swarthy man from Lambeth who was in charge of the Manager's dining-room, and the annexe adjoining where quick meals were served to any of the aircrew who wanted them.

She was sent to look after the four tables in the annexe, and in due time had them laid and ready with faultless covers, while she herself stood with parade-ground stiffness behind them.

A couple of pilots came in, and Susan served them. They nodded at her as though they'd seen her somewhere but couldn't quite remember where. That was quite usual. They travelled so far, and saw so many people, that a familiar face might be one from the other side of the world, or it might be the girl next door. And as often as not, they didn't bother to decide which.

Then the door opened briskly. A tall, frighteningly familiar figure went striding through to the sanctum of the Manager's dining-room. Then Captain Jefferson stopped dead, looked at Susan, looked at his watch, and as though deciding he hadn't the time for the more leisurely meal, did a smart right wheel to bring him up to one of her tables.

"Afternoon, Miss Shelton," he said, shaking out his napkin, and glancing at the menu. "Not a very bright day."

"No, sir," Susan said with real feeling. She couldn't haw agreed with him more. And then, to prevent, she hoped, an enquiry as to what exactly she was doing there, "Soup, sir? There's Julienne, Brown Windsor, and..."

"I think not, thank you, Miss Shelton."

"Mixed grill then?" She watched him apprehensively. Somewhere, she was sure, between or in the middle of one of the courses, would come the frown of concentration, the "Let's see, Miss Shelton, what are you doing here?" followed (quite naturally) by the master lecture of them all. What was it again? Mixing personal attachments with airline duty. And here was his Tightness completely proven. For now her very presence behind his chair, menu in hand, was the moral of his story.

He could be excused, here and now, for a reproving look at the very least, a sarcastic smile, or even a triumphant "I told you so!"

Instead, he said with the utmost gravity, as though it was the only question on his mind, "Yes. Mixed grill would suit me fine," and he gave her only a speculative look as she sped away.

For some reason that she couldn't explain, Susan felt an almost increased resentment against him. It was keeping her in suspense, just saying nothing, ignoring the strangeness of her presence there, taking it all as though it was perfectly natural. And to add to her confusion with herself, when she arranged his mixed grill on the plate, another inexplicable motive made her pop on an extra juicy helping of mushrooms, despite the fact that he was her least favourite customer.

By the time Susan had served Captain Jefferson with his apple tart and clotted cream, she was convinced that he knew all about her crime and had probably conferred with Mr. Adamson on the punishment it merited. There was no other reason for his complete lack of all surprise. "Will you have coffee, sir, in the lounge?" she asked, sweeping his sweet plate away almost before the last crumb was swallowed. She stood behind his chair and willed him to say, "Yes, in the lounge."

"I'll have it here, thank you, Miss Shelton." He glanced out of the window at the distant view of the grey roof of a hangar, and added, "Very pleasant in here."

When she brought him the coffee he stirred it carefully, and in much the same tone as one would enquire about someone on holiday, he asked, "And how long are you here for, Miss Shelton?"

Susan drew in her breath sharply, and flushed. "Three weeks," she said, staring down at the tips of her flat and comfortable shoes. And to herself, she finished off, "as if he didn't know!"

"And your leave?"

"To wait until afterwards," she said stonily.

"I see." Captain Jefferson was absorbed in trying to catch a grain of coffee in his spoon.

"And what hours d'you work?" he went on.

Susan felt her anger mounting. He must know. She moved her feet uneasily. Then before she could stop herself, she flashed out, "Far too many," and glared down into his calm unruffled face.

"What time d'you finish?" he said slowly, as though rephrasing a question for a slightly backward child.

"Four o'clock," she said, and frowned rebelliously. Somewhere, somehow, a warning voice inside told her that he was leading up to something unpleasant. Perhaps a cosy chat in his office about airline stewardesses in general, and not so good ones in particular.

"Miss Shelton," he said, fingering his spoon and avoiding her eyes. He had, Susan thought grimly, the grace to feel embarrassed. Then with a sudden smile he went on, "That was an excellent lunch. Excellently served!"

The sugar coating on the pill. Can't he remember I've tasted them before?

For one minute in the restaurant, the clock ticked, the other diners scraped forks and knives or rattled spoons on plates, but Susan and Captain Jefferson were frozen into silence. A little unnerved, Susan peeped sideways at his profile. It told her nothing.

"Miss Shelton." Captain Jefferson stood up, and now she was really at a disadvantage. In her low-heeled shoes, she had to bend her head a little back to look at him. "I want..."

Here it came. Susan clenched her hands. Whatever he said, she would defy him. On her smooth cheeks, the colour mounted.

"I would like..."

She would say she had to go straight home. She positively would not have another lecture for something she hadn't really done.

Captain Jefferson murmured something in a quite un- Jefferson-like manner, ending with: "... if you would let me take you out to dinner."

Susan blinked her eyes. She had heard someone else's conversation from another table. She had imagined it. "I beg your pardon?" she murmured.

He repeated the invitation, although much more stiffly this time. As if, Susan thought, he knew that one thing was certain, she would refuse. As she certainly would. This was where she could, for once in her flying life, turn down the Captain's requests.

Savouring her triumph, she said, "Thank you, Captain Jefferson," and very gently, "I should love to."

Susan arrived back at Mrs. Potter's feeling that life in the kitchens and dining-rooms was not, after all, so bad a punishment. The day, the hour, the place of the dinner date had been chosen. There now remained the pleasant time of anticipation until the day after tomorrow, to be filled with what she should wear, and what she should say when Captain Jefferson picked her up, right here on Mrs. Potter's doorstep, at eight o'clock sharp.

Susan walked slowly up the staircase, her head down, thinking about the things that had happened these last few weeks. She was just on the second landing, and had walked past Beth's door, when a hand seized her arm, and Beth's voice said, "No, you don't!"

Susan turned round. "Don't what, Beth?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

"Don't," Beth said firmly, "go quietly upstairs to brood. I just won't have it. There's a cup of tea brewing, and a nice slice of buttered toast. And chocolate biscuits and fruit cake."

Susan laughed. One thing Beth firmly believed in (a conviction probably strengthened by a year's flying) was that there was very little that couldn't be cured by hot strong tea, and the right food in generous quantities. Then she saw that Beth's kindly face was crinkled up in definite concern. She said gently, "Honestly, Beth, I was going to do no such thing. I haven't a brooding thought in me. But I'd love a cuppa."

"That's fine! That's what I thought!" Beth led the way into her bed-sitting-room, with the tiny kitchenette off to the right. She waved her hand at the neatly set table. "Take a pew. Toast's made. And the kettle's just boiling." She walked into the kitchenette. "And how did it go?" she called through the open door. "You know, duckie, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard." She snapped the lid back on the tea-caddy with real feeling. "Why on earth didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't see you. You were out when I got back from the airport. Remember?"

"Yes, I know that. But" - she clattered the kettle down - "you could have left a note if you'd wanted to."

"I didn't," Susan said softly, "want to."

Beth came through carrying the huge brown teapot, and the kettle to do duty as the hot-water jug. Her face flushed. "No, of course you didn't want to. And you know why. What's more, I know, too!"

Susan raised her eyebrows and smiled.

"Oh, yes, I do!" Beth said indignantly, as though Susan had denied it. "You didn't want to spoil the excitement about Dick. That was number one." She started to raise the fingers of her left hand, as if it would take all of them to count the number of motives. With her right, she poured the tea and milk into the cups before going on, "And number two" - raising another finger - "you knew I'd smell a rat." She muttered under her breath, "And what a rat, too!"

"Beth," Susan protested, "you're making an awful fuss about nothing!"

Beth pursed her lips. "And," she said, ignoring Susan's remark, "I happen to know now, you did take that pass up to the front. Not to Davis, oh no! But to his lordship himself!"

"You know an awful lot," Susan said crisply, "considering you weren't there."

"No," Beth retorted, unabashed. "Maybe I wasn't. But other people were. The flight deck wasn't empty, was it? There's still a Navigator and a Radio Officer and an Engineer. And they've got tongues in their heads, haven't they?" She blinked her hazel eyes furiously across the table at Susan. "And," she added with dignity, "I keep my ear to the ground."

Susan laughed. "Well, lift it up a moment, and listen to me. If you must know ... yes, I did take it up. But Alan was busy, and that was that. And he forgot, and I didn't remind him, because we were pretty busy, too, and ..."

"And you got the punishment," Beth supplied.

Susan shrugged her shoulders. "I honestly don't mind. And Alan's about due for his command, and he wouldn't want even the tiniest thing..."

"Is that," Beth interrupted again, "so important to you?"

"Is what important?" Susan sighed. "Beth, you don't half nag..." She laughed. "I shall warn Dick.'

"Important to you," Beth said stonily, "that Alan gets his captaincy?"

"To him, you old dear, I said." Susan patted her friend's arm affectionately. "You don't listen."

"I do," Beth said with kindly exasperation. "It's just that ..." She stopped as though waiting for Susan to fill in the rest of the sentence.

But Susan went on sipping her tea and nibbling her toast. When at last she did look up at Beth, her eyes were grave. "Look, Beth," she said quietly. "I know exactly what you want to say to me. At least I think I do." She gave her friend a brief smile. Beth didn't smile back. "You're worried in case I'm too involved with Alan to see anything clearly. In case this business of the V.I.P. is just an example of how he twists me round his little finger, as you used to say."

Beth nodded. "Well, isn't it?"

Susan shook her head. "Honestly, Beth." She stirred her tea absent-mindedly. "It wasn't like that at all. Quite the reverse." She paused for a moment. "It's awfully difficult to know how to put it. You see, the last trip we did, the one with Margot Elvington..." She frowned down at the tea-table.

"A very pleasant one, I hear," Beth said quickly."For her."

"Oh!" Susan looked up. "You heard that, too! The old grapevine doesn't miss a move, does it?"

Beth said, "No, it doesn't. And do go on."

Susan shrugged her shoulders apologetically. "It's all so simple, when it comes to it. After all that build-up, I just ... well, saw things rather differently, that's all."

"Because of Margot Elvington? "

"One reason, perhaps. There are others."

"I know," said Beth tartly. "Blondes, brunettes and redheads. Dozens of reasons."

"Not that sort of reason," Susan said for the first time really indignantly. Then she thought for a moment and added, "Not altogether. It's just that Alan and I ... have different ideas. I'm not the person for him." Her voice was very low and soft. "And I think he knows it. And you can't blame him for that. It's just that once... I had an idea I might be."

"Which he, of course, didn't encourage. Not much!"

"Well," Susan said briskly, "there it is." She stretched out her hand. "Looks nice fruit cake, Beth. Where did ..."

"No, you don't! You haven't finished yet. Then why didn't you tell old Adamson? Mistaken loyalty, or what? "

"Oh, Beth! It's awfully difficult to say exactly why you did this or that. For lots of motives, I suppose. I don't like telling tales. And I was partly to blame. And not telling, too, was ... well, making up a bit for not minding so much about him ... and Margot. Does it sound awfully muddled?"

"Awfully!" Beth said. But this time she smiled. She drank her cup of tea. "Is it really true? That you don't mind?"

Susan said firmly, "Yes."

"And you won't get hurt if you hear their names together?"

"No."

"Then" - Beth contemplated the tea table for the first time with satisfaction - "things aren't so bad, after all."

"Of course they're not."

"Except for being grounded, duckie. That's an awful blow."

Susan helped herself to a biscuit. "It's a bind about the leave. But being in the dining-room..." - she blushed furiously - "has its compensations."

"Oh, has it?" Beth said. She put down her piece of cake. "Well, before we start on another complication ... and for the sweet and gentle country flower, you certainly have them" - she raised her eyes to the ceiling - "I'm going to talk about Dick and me and wedding plans."

With a little sigh of relief, Susan folded her hands on her lap, and prepared for the much less difficult job of listening.

Two days later, Susan glanced up at John Jefferson's face as he drove the car through the yellow-lit meshes of outer London.

"Well," he said, resting his hands lightly on the wheel, and glancing down at her, "what were you thinking?"

Susan hesitated. "Oh, just this and that..." It would have been difficult for her to sort out all the tangled skein of feelings with which she had looked forward to this evening. All the various shades of pleasure and as many different ones of dread."... All sorts of things, you know."

"I don't," he said lightly, and smiled. Then he looked away again at the long dark stretch of the road in front of them.

He turned the car down a side lane, and stopped outside a long low hotel, nestling down by the riverside. Then he looked down at her. "You sure this is all right for you? I know we can get a good meal. But if you'd prefer something more..."

"I'd like this," she said, getting out of the car and standing beside him, looking up at the old oak timbers and the inn sign that swung above their heads.

"Let's go in, then." He took her arm lightly, just to guide her along the dimly-lit flagged courtyard, and across the threshold into the warmth and comfort of the hotel.

And then, as she sat in the dining-room, lit by the pink glow of the table-lamps, Susan's mixed feelings resolved into nervousness. She looked at his large steady hands holding the menu, at his strong pleasant face. And suddenly she felt inadequate. A twenty-three-year-old stewardess, not especially pretty, rather small and insignificant, and even in disgrace over her job.

He looked up suddenly. "I'll have to get you to translate this." He smiled at her. Then he laughed. It was the most reassuring sound she'd ever heard. "D'you know something, Susan?"

She shook her head.

"You make me feel extremely nervous. I see those big brown eyes peeping up at me, and I'm not sure," he said gravely, "when I see them, if you're thinking I haven't shaved properly. Or if you're saying to yourself 'and what big teeth he's got'."

"Neither," she said promptly. "And I'm not Little Red Riding Hood." She laughed. "It was just that I was feeling nervous too."

"Of me?" He seemed genuinely surprised. "Well, never mind. That'll make two of us."

And as though that had been all that was necessary to stop her feeling shy, Susan felt wonderfully at ease.

The meal was well cooked and unobtrusively served. They sat in a little alcove at the far end of the dining-room, the window looking out on a dark garden leading to the bare shapes of trees that stood by the water's edge.

Susan talked about home and going on leave and her sister who was married. And John Jefferson asked the right questions and talked to her about himself only a very little. Once or twice she wondered if she should apologize for her outburst to him at Panama, or if she should say she was sorry about Mr. Rolfe. But as if to forestall her, he said, "It's a relief to get away from the airline, and talking shop, and just to enjoy ourselves, isn't it? That is," he added gravely, "if you are enjoying yourself."

Susan nodded her head and smiled and said that she was.

When at last, all too quickly, the evening was over, Susan climbed up the stairs at Mrs. Potter's, now quite quiet as Beth was on service and Penelope was on leave, she was thinking how pleasant it had been, how much nicer than she had expected, but best of all was that brief moment, just at her door, when he had said, "This has been nice, Susan. Shall we do it again some time?"

But before the words "some time" could materialize into a definite time and place, the airline roster, as though it had left her affairs much too static for far too long, stepped in and took a firm line. Leaving her standing high and dry, still on her punishment time in the kitchens and dining-rooms, it sent Captain Jefferson, with Alan and Margot on his crew, out to Santiago, and caused a great tremor of interest throughout the length and breadth of the grapevine.

Susan, as if they were stepping stones back to grace, washed thousands of plates, polished as many glasses, cleaned a small mountain of knives and forks and spoons, served hundreds of World Wide employees. And almost wore through her most comfortable pair of shoes.

CHAPTER VI

A week went by, and then another. As though the roster was really a roulette wheel that changed their fortune, now it started to turn in full circle, slipping Beth at Bermuda, picking up Captain Jefferson and Alan and Margot and turning their heads for home. And bringing Penelope, who, as befitted the fairest of them all, had spent her time (travelling by the cheap ticket allowed to employees) with her cousin in Paris, near the end of her leave.

Quite often, especially when she was left on her own in Mrs. Potter's in these last two weeks, Susan had the unpleasant feeling that the airline was moving on without her, and beyond her reach.

But on the Friday, she hardly had time to think of it any more. It was always a busy day in the kitchens, and then, at last, Penelope and Beth were both due home.

At five o'clock, when she pushed open Mrs. Potter's polished front door, a husky voice from the sitting-room called out languidly, "And how's our little worker today?"

"Penelope!" Susan said. "You're back in good time. What sort of a leave did you have?"

"Oh, absolutely wonderful! I'm simply exhausted. It was one long round of fun." For the next twenty minutes or so, she described it. Then, as though settling down again to the life she'd left behind, she asked, "And what's been happening here, poppet? Anything and everything? Or just jogging?"

Susan sipped her tea. "Mainly jogging."

"Too bad about your banishment to the ovens," Penelope said, and frowned. "And you're probably a bit out of touch with the grapevine, back there in the kitchens," she added severely.

"I might be, at that," Susan smiled. "And as you're just fresh back from leave, how about getting up and pouring our second cups?"

Penelope eased herself out of her chair and walked over to the side table. "I wouldn't do this for anyone else," she said, holding the brown pot elegantly in her well-manicured hand. "But seriously, poppet. Has anything happened? Mrs. P. tells me we're to expect wedding bells." She looked back at the other girl over her shoulder. "You can relax, Susan. Not you. Beth''

"We-ell," Susan said slowly. "You mustn't go spreading it around."

"Listen, darling." Penelope handed Susan her cup. "By the way, it's quite, quite cold. But let me go on. It's so much a secret about Beth that everyone's wondering what they'll wear for it. Not excluding Mr. Adamson." She sighed. "But never mind. We'll wait and have it straight from Beth. I don't suppose she'll be very long now."

Penelope sat herself down carefully in the chair, and arranged her new skirt in its knife-pleats. "D'you like this, darling? It's gen-u-ine Paris."

Susan admired the skirt and the new jacket. Then Penelope turned her big eyes towards her again. "I know you don't like gossip. So how about us talking about you?"

Susan blushed a little and said there was nothing to tell. Then she frowned. "Actually, Penelope, I was wrong," she said. "There is something."

"There you are!" Penelope in a wide gesture announced it to the room in general. "If you try hard enough, you can always extract something of interest." She paused and cupped her lovely face in her hands. "Go ahead."

"It's nothing very much." It had been just enough to be a small cloud on the pleasant horizon of her evening out with John Jefferson.

"Now don't" - Penelope sat up straight on the edge of her chair - "tell me you're not going to say it now."

"But I hope you won't: be annoyed," Susan said carefully.

"And now" - Penelope put her hand to her head - "I'm simply agog!"

Susan drew a deep breath and said, "John Jefferson took me out to dinner."

Penelope went on staring at her in absorbed concentration. "Go on," she said. "Don't keep stopping and starting."

"I've told you."

"No, you haven't. What happened then?"

"That's all. We had dinner and came home."

Penelope smiled. "Well, I really don't think you should get all fussed up about it. Was it very dull? Did he tell you off about airline rules in general? And naughty girls in particular? No? Ah." She gave a long sigh. "You are rather a poppet. You thought I might be interested?"

Susan nodded. "You see, the last time I followed you around the route, you did seem ..."

"Rather smitten? Oh, so I was! I had it really badly for at least a week. But darling, that was aeons ago, wasn't it?"

"A month or so."

"Yes, I knew it must have been. Why, I've been smitten with at least two others since then! So Jefferson, bless his stern heart, is a bit old-fashioned as far as I'm concerned. You know me by now, my dear serious-eyed poppet! That's why I never tell anyone anything. By the time it's got around the grapevine, it's positively historical'.' She leaned over and patted Susan's arm. "And in any case, just to put you wise, poppet ... in case, on the rebound from you-knew-who, you might feel a tiny bit interested in Jefferson, didn't have the slightest encouragement. At the time ... well, for a day or so, anyway, I was a bit devastated. He couldn't have encouraged me less." Her eyes looked quite mournful at the thought of such a strange and heartless young man. Then she looked across at Susan and grinned. "Most odd, I do think. But there it was!"

Susan moved over and started packing up the dirty cups, while Penelope, as though for reassurance, peered at herself in the painted mirror of Mrs. Potter's firescreen. "But then," Penelope went on, "in the end I didn't feel so badly at all. In the end, I understood." She paused for effect. "Hey!" she said, and laughed at Susan. "That three weeks in the kitchens is doing you a power of no good! You're rattling those cups like a skeleton's bones!" She patted her hair. "Now what was I saying?"

"Something about Captain Jefferson?"

"Was I? Were we still on with him? Oh, yes... then I heard via our friend, the grapevine, that he's very seriously tied up. Engaged, did you say? Oh, I don't know about that. But she's been seen with him quite a lot!"

"Who is she?" Susan said, putting the cups down on the tray with elaborate unconcern.

"Oh, nobody knows. But she's connected with the airline. And of course, you can't imagine anyone asking Jefferson about his personal affairs, now can you?"

Susan said very slowly and quietly, no - she couldn't.

Then suddenly the door burst open, and all in the same breath Beth Martin said hello, how were they, don't take that tea-tray out, and the way they were both nattering, it sounded as though the room was full of a hive of busy little bees. And before either of them could say anything in reply, she came in and put her arm round Susan's shoulders and asked, "How's life?"

"Fine," Susan said, and tried hard to look as though it was. "And if you sit yourself down, I'll go and get you a hot cuppa."

When she got back, Beth was lying in one of the chairs with her cap pushed to the back of her head, and Penelope was asking the usual questions about what sort of a trip she'd had.

"Not bad," Beth said. "Only to Panama and back. And it's still" - she smiled - "very nice in Bermuda." Then she took the cup from Susan, and sipped the tea gratefully. "And what scandal," she went on, grinning at Penelope, "were you talking as I came in? You sounded very eloquent."

"Did I, poppet?" Penelope frowned. "Now what could that have been about? "

"I thought," Beth said casually, stirring her tea, "that I heard the name ... Jefferson." Her round face was quite innocent.

"Oh, yes. How right you are!" Penelope smiled. "Susan here thought I might have a thing for him."

"Had you?" Beth chose her tense with care.

"Of course! But not now. And I was telling her that there's a Keep Off the Grass sign. Or so I'm told."

"Who told you? " Beth said. "How you girls gossip!"

"It wasn't a girl that told me." Penelope grimaced at Beth. "And how you can talk! As a matter of fact it was one of his crew. He'd seen them." She looked as though she might have added, "So there."

Beth put down her cup carefully. "Still doesn't mean a tiling," she said judiciously. "Since I've been flying, I've heard about at least two secret marriages, at least half a dozen secret engagements and not a word of truth in any of them." Her nice hazel eyes were very solemn.

"What about that secret romance between a certain stewardess and a man named Dick Featherstone?" Penelope teased her, and they all laughed.

"Well, there it is," Beth said. "For all that, you can't believe a word the grapevine says. And how did all this start in the first place? I'm out of touch." She looked from one to the other.

"Susan here had a dinner date with Jefferson," Penelope said.

"Just that?" Beth said practically. "In a few weeks you'll probably find it's magnified to a romance or something stupid like that, now won't you?"

And the other two agreed. Pleased with her role of judge and jury, Beth went on, "You see, people on an airline don't see each other for weeks. And when they do, and they see a man and a girl together, they're sure it must have been going on for ages, and they're just coming in at the end, as it were."

But now neither of diem was really listening. Beth theorized away to the placid round face of her nicely brewed cup of tea. "An ordinary dinner date," she went on, "doesn't mean a thing ..."

But there she was wrong, Susan thought. It hadn't been ordinary at all. It had meant something.

It took hours to make even the rough plans for Beth's wedding. Supper came and went, and still the two girls were talking. As she had no parents, Beth was getting married from Mrs. Potter's, and their landlady was already looking forward to it with breathless enthusiasm. The three girls, roster permitting, were going to do the wedding-breakfast buffet between them. And Mrs. Potter was going to bake the cake.

They had just decided that Beth should wear white and that they'd make the dress themselves, when Susan looked at her watch and saw it was past eleven, and said that for someone who had to be up at six it was past bedtime.

The next day the plans altered and shifted and reformed like a military campaign. And three days later, when at last Susan finished her time in the kitchens, they were by no means firm.

But there were still a few days left for discussion before Susan went on leave. She had her American visa to renew, and her new uniform to be fitted, and then after that she had to have her yearly medical.

The day before she was at last going to Milchester, Susan caught the bus up to the airport. Because of some odd quirk of her memory, she kept remembering that today Captain Jefferson was due back from service. And for a moment, although only in passing, it made her reluctant to go away, even when away this time meant home.

As she hopped off the bus at the stop near the airport gates, savouring the bustle and noise of the airport like a land-locked sailor sniffing the brine, she saw an Astroliner in the circuit.

There it was, away to the west of London, hovering somewhere over Windsor Great Park, slowly lining up with the runway. She watched it as it came lower and larger, only snatching her eyes away to look at her wristwatch. Yes. Right on schedule. Captain Jefferson on the northbound service from Santiago was in the circuit at London.

With a little sigh, she clasped her hands together and then walked in through the gates and across the passenger hall.

The voice of the woman announcer on the Tannoy was saying, "World Wide Airways announce the arrival of their service from Santiago, Lima, Panama, Jamaica, Nassau, Bermuda and the Azores," and a little bunch of people stood up, preparing to go out and meet their friends and relatives. With a shrug of her shoulders in impatience at herself, Susan tried to throw off the feeling that she, too, would like to join them, to hold out her hands and say, "You're back! How glad I am to see you!"

Then she went across to the Catering Section, and to the crew room to collect her mail quickly before the northbound crew came in, and then back to the World Wide personnel office about her leave.

By the time she got back to the passenger hall the last of Captain Jefferson's passengers were coming out of Customs, hugging their relatives and answering questions about the trip and themselves and the places they'd seen. There was no sign of Margot Elvington with them. And no sign of Alan Heathley.

Then as Susan walked through the far end of the reception hall, and out on to the roadway between the concrete airport buildings, she saw a tall broad figure striding across the tarmac. She turned her head sharply as the familiar voice of Captain Jefferson shouted, "Hallo, there!"

For a moment Susan blinked her eyes. She stood stock-still. A little crowd of passengers had come out just after her, and now they started to ask among themselves where the bus to Waterloo was. Susan soon became surrounded by them. Automatically, she assured them that the bus would be along in a moment.

"Isn't that our Captain?" one of them said, smiling towards Captain Jefferson's advancing figure.

Susan said quietly that it was. For a moment, she was cut off from sight of him by a very tall man in a homburg hat.

Then she heard his voice say, "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

Susan peeped out a step. But Captain Jefferson was not looking at her. He wasn't even bothering to do more than nod at the admiring faces of his passengers. He was bending down to the driver of an opulent cream-and-chromium car, low slung and racy, that had been standing in front of the reception hall.

A woman's gay laugh answered him. "John," she said in a voice that even to another woman's ear was sweet and pleasant and musical, "you're well worth waiting for."

Susan caught a glimpse of a pretty, smiling face, as the girl held the door open for John Jefferson, and dark, shoulder- length hair. Then it all became blurred, as though she was looking at a picture under water. There was the slamming of a car door, the rising noise of the engine as the girl hastily moved the car along to make room for the passenger bus.

The passengers good-humouredly watched them go. Then they began looking for their hand-baggage and climbing on to the bus. Susan stayed where she was, until she saw some of the people looking at her curiously from out of the windows. Almost with surprise, she realized she was still standing by herself in front of the building, staring at the dispersing cloud of exhaust by the bend where the car had disappeared.

Then she felt in her pockets for her handkerchief. Her fingers brushed against the stiff sides of the envelope containing the official typewritten approval of her leave. She drew a deep breath and bit her lip. At least that was something. Everything. In the midst of the ups and downs of airline life there was always a refuge.

With a sudden sense of urgency, she walked quickly towards the gates, away from the noise and the hurry and all the symbols of travel and change. Away from it all to leave and peace, and most of all to home.

CHAPTER VII

It was the fourth day of her leave, and the post was late. Susan's father had already gone off to Milchester Grammar School, where he was headmaster, by the time Mrs. Shelton came into the breakfast-room with the morning's mail and said, "Letter for you, Susan. Typewritten, too."

She eyed her daughter anxiously as she handed over the envelope. Then she added, "It wouldn't be recalling you from leave, would it?"

Susan finished off her last cup of tea, and smiled. "I shouldn't think so. Beth's got a typewriter." She opened up the envelope. "Yes... it's from Beth, all right."

Her mother, who knew all about Beth and Penelope and Mrs. Potter, asked, "I suppose she's full of the wedding?"

Susan grinned back at her. "Changing her plans for the tenth time! She's worrying now whether Penelope and I will both be in for it. She's been down to look at the roster to see when we're next out."

"And will you be in, do you know?"

"Yes, with any luck. I'm out on service two days after I get back from leave."

"They don't give you long," Mrs. Shelton said. She was always mindful of the unknown man she was entrusting her daughter to when she went flying. It was almost worse, she had once half-smilingly confided to her greatest friend, than seeing her married each trip: she had to go with them for better or worse, sometimes through all kinds of storm and trouble, and very occasionally even danger. "And who, dear," she added, her kind brown eyes so much like older, wiser versions of Susan's own, "who is the Captain?"

For a moment Susan said nothing.

"Did Beth," Mrs. Shelton gently persisted, "say who it was?"

Susan picked up the letter and folded it carefully into its envelope. "Yes," she said slowly.

"Is it Captain Davis?" her mother suggested, hazily remembering names she had confidence in, because Susan had mentioned than before. "Or Captain Kane?"

As though she had suddenly become aware of her mother's questions and the understandable anxiety that lay beneath them, the girl said, "No, darling," and getting up quickly and kissing the top of her mother's grey head, she added, "Neither." She started to stack the dirty dishes. "A man called Jefferson.

"No," she went on, as Mrs. Shelton frowned in concentration, "I don't think I've ever mentioned him before. But he's the Flight Captain. You've no need to worry. He's far and away the best pilot in the Company. The best Captain, the..." and her voice faltered.

"Yes?" her mother asked.

Susan glanced down at her mother, still sitting at the table. Her own eyes were misty and sad and far away.

"You didn't finish about Captain Jefferson."

"Oh yes, I did." She clattered the knives and forks on to the tray and said wasn't her mother lucky to have such a well- trained waitress for a daughter. Then she added, "And about Captain Jefferson, all I meant to say was that there wasn't the slightest reason to have the remotest worry on that score."

And Susan smiled affectionately at her mother.

"I see, dear. I'm glad about that" Mrs. Shelton watched her daughter's slight straight figure, as she pushed open the door to the kitchen and disappeared with the loaded tray. "I'm glad about that," she repeated to the crochet-edged cloth, as she folded it up to put back in the sideboard. And then she wondered how soon her daughter would tell her the real reason why, after all, she had to worry about Captain Jefferson.

The rest of Susan's leave passed quickly. She seemed to be back at the station, waving good-bye to her parents, before she'd done much more than look up old friends, and potter around the house and garden. And yet, at the same time, much as she loved her home, the other part of her life was pulling her back to the route and the airline, as the train sped over the tracks on the main line to London.

Everything was quiet at Mrs. Potter's. Susan could always tell almost as soon as she stepped inside the hall if the other two were away. The house had an air of quiet empty waiting. And then, to confirm it, Mrs. Potter would come out of the kitchen for the pleasure of a little gossip that she hadn't had for days.

But tonight, waiting on the hall table was a note to say that the landlady had gone to the pictures and there was some cold ham in the larder, if she was hungry. And in the neat Company- stamped envelope was the notification from Operations drat she was rostered, as Beth had foretold, on service to Panama with Captain Jefferson.

It was this note she held in her hands a little longer than the others, before putting it away in her bag and walking slowly up to her room.

Two days later, a rough wind was scurrying everyone along the London streets and flinging splashes of muddy-coloured smoke across an already grey-gloom sky, when the blue, blunt- nosed crew car pulled up outside Mrs. Potter's green-painted front gate. Five lean and healthy suntanned faces looked oddly out of season on this cold winter's day, while five pairs of much- travelled eyes watched Susan dispassionately as she ran lightly down the steps.

"Cheerio, Mrs. Potter." Susan turned and waved to her landlady, waiting at the top of the steps for this nearest glimpse she ever got of life in the Caribbean, and then pulled herself up the high step into the crew car. "Hello," she said, smiling, and then a little breathlessly, "Good afternoon, sir."

She sat down between the Radio Officer and the Navigator and agreed with them that it would be nice to get a bit of sunshine. And "Yes, thank you, sir. Very nice," she said as Captain Jefferson turned round and asked her if she'd had a good leave.

Then for the rest of the ride up to the airport, they all stared silently out of the window ft the traffic, the buildings, the shops and factories and the colourless sky in the background. From time to time Susan glanced at the back of Captain Jefferson's head, noticing the crisp dark hair, the strong neck and the wide and capable-looking shoulders. Then she would shrug her own small ones, and turn her eyes away and make herself remember in every detail the long low car, the sweet pleasant voice of the girl she had seen meeting this same man at the airport.

But just after they had swept in through the airport gates, and had turned the corner and were pulling to a halt outside Operations, Susan didn't have to bother to conjure her out of her imagination.

"Looks as though the skipper's going to have a nice send- off," Jack Millar, the Radio Officer, said under his breath to Susan, and jerked his thumb out of the window. And there, pulled up close to the concrete kerb, and just a little in front of where they would stop, was the long cream car.

Captain Jefferson must have seen it more or less at the same time, for he leaned forward and told the driver to give a couple of toots on the horn, and then opened the door and jumped down. A girl's head appeared out of the side window and she smiled and waved.

Susan turned away and started to fumble with her overnight bag, while the rest of the crew, rooted to their seats, watched the little scene in front with unabashed interest.

It was quite a relief, Susan told herself, to be back again on service, doing the mechanical pre-flight duties and meeting her passengers. And she threw herself into the accomplishment of them with extra zeal. That way, she hardly thought at all about Captain Jefferson or the girl in the car, or about herself. It was only when she saw his name on the board as commander of the aircraft or someone said, "Let's see, who's the Captain?" that she remembered him at all.

But once they were airborne, they were fastened together in this flying metal world, and she couldn't help but look at him, talk to him, obey him and think of him. And at first he seemed to put himself out to be particularly nice to her.

As usual, he went through everything he wanted her to do at the beginning of the flight. And again, as usual, he came back and did the rounds of the passengers himself. And when he had chatted to the passengers, he also came back to her and stood for a moment in the galley doorway.

"I'm glad you had a pleasant leave, Miss Shelton," he said, and it would have been rather nice if he'd added, "and I'm glad to see you back."

"Thank you, sir," she said formally.

Just for a moment, she saw a slight frown. Then he went on, "I expect you're quite pleased to be back again, though."

Susan's small chin went up. "No," she said carefully, "I had a lovely time," and he could think what he liked. "And... oh, well, I am back, and that's that," she finished lamely.

"You are back, and that isn't quite that," Captain Jefferson said evenly, but not unkindly. Just a gentle warning.

"Of course, sir," she said, and started to switch the oven on and look as though she was right in the midst of dinner preparations. It wasn't, she told herself after he'd gone, pulling out the plastic trays with unnecessary force, that she was taking notice of the grapevine. But that, and the girl meeting him off trips and then seeing him off, too, in such a cosy wifely way, could only possibly add up to one thing.

She was suddenly terribly glad that they had a heavy load of passengers, and hoped they were hungry, thirsty and difficult to please. For the first time in her flying career, she looked upon them, not as so many people to be cared for and cosseted, but as thirty stout and stalwart barriers between herself and her own thoughts.

Captain Jefferson, either because he realized she was overworked or because he sensed a hostility, made only the briefest calls upon her time. The night crossing passed slowly and wakefully. There was always the odd reading-lamp glowing over passengers' head as well as the dimmed blue lights down the centre. And up on the flight deck, Captain Jefferson or the First Officer guided them carefully through the thick stormy clumps of cloud with which the winter season always seemed to thicken the Atlantic sky.

But above Bermuda the sky cleared to a silky sheen of palest blue. The sun, cooler now, poured down a paler, more dazzling light, as if to make up for the rich yellow warmth that had faded with the season. The hotels and beaches were emptier now, and the houses and the buildings were being repaired and painted and burnished for next season's opening.

The crew, sitting on the bus that took them from Kindley Field to the hotel, blinked their eyes as sleepily as cats in the unaccustomed dazzle. Outside on the terrace there were still a number of striped umbrellas where some holiday-makers sipped their ice-cold drinks in the shade. And away at the far end, not quite so tanned, and obviously English, the northbound crew lifted their hands in greeting as the bus ground to a gravelly stop, and rather stiffly they all clambered down.

For most of the day and all the night the southbound crew slept. Then, rather gingerly, one by one they emerged into the sunlight, sat once more at snowy white tables, waited on by attentive waiters, and for a brief time got used to life in Bermuda again.

Susan, as she always did, rang Dick Featherstone, and chatted about Beth, and the plans that he was allowed .to know about the wedding. As befitted a man not much longer to be a bachelor, he was sounding extremely nervous. "Look, Susan," he said at last when they'd talked, or rather Susan had talked and he had apprehensively listened, about the buffet they were planning and the people they expected, "how about your coming round this evening? Mrs. Chalmers could do supper for us. There's lots more I want to talk about. Unless, of course, you're doing something..."

"No, Dick. I'm absolutely free. And I'd love to come along."

"Fine, then!" Dick sounded quite relieved. "If you don't mind making your own way from the hotel, I'll hurry back as soon as I can and we can discuss things in peace. Oh, and Susan...?"

"Yes?"

"Is Beth feeling nervous?"

"Of course she is," Susan laughed. "It's a good thing you're not."

And Dick Featherstone agreed that it was.

The rest of the day passed quietly. Susan saw two of the crew just long enough to have a chat and share ice-cream sodas with them in the garden. Then she wrote letters and went down to the market to see if there were any little odds and ends she could buy as presents to take home.

She was just enjoying the nearest equivalent outside Britain to a good cup of tea under one of the umbrellas, when she heard a crisp tread on the flagstones of the terrace that could only belong to the two best-put-down feet in the world. She lowered her head to peep under a corner of the umbrella and looked straight into a pair of grey eyes that in a highly dignified manner were doing just about the same thing.

"Oh, hello," Captain Jefferson said, and pulled up a chair. "D'you mind if I join you? That looks just what I'd like." He lifted his hand for one of the waiters who literally seemed to inhabit the bushes to bring some more, and then settled back in his chair and looked across at Susan.

"You're spending your stand-off quietly," he said, and smiled.

Susan said that she was and that the temperature was just about right, wasn't it, and there the conversation seemed to peter out.

"I was wondering," Captain Jefferson said, after a whole minute's pause, "whether you'd care ..."

Susan looked across at him, while (just as he had done with his cup in the aircrew dining-room) he started to hunt down a speck, this time of tea-leaf, "... if you'd care to sample a Bermudan dinner. In Hamilton. Tonight, with me."

It was pleasantly and quite matter-of-factly said. But to Susan it suddenly constituted a great revelation. Why, she asked herself, had she ever thought that he was being anything more than kind and friendly? The very way he asked was cool and detached, and what in any other man would have seemed like shyness, in him expressed no more than indifference.

And so she was glad to be able to say, "I'm sorry, Captain Jefferson, but I've already made other arrangements." And some of the gladness leaked through into the words themselves, into her face, and into the tone of her voice. Even though she reminded herself that he was not interested in her, that he was interested in someone else, her refusal sounded churlish and ungrateful. And if the pilot had troubled to give her another look (which he didn't) he would have seen that written very clearly in her troubled brown eyes.

"Oh, that's all right. I just thought I'd ask you...." His voice stopped rather abruptly. Then he remarked once more on the temperature and the brown state of the lawn, and assured her again that the cup of tea was exactly what he'd been looking for. Then he got up, looked at his watch and said he wouldn't keep her, and hoped she would have a pleasant evening.

And about five minutes after he had disappeared in through the hotel doorway, the little black bell-boy came calling, at first quite incomprehensibly, "Ma-as Shay-er-atan," and after letting it swirl musically around her head for a few seconds, she suddenly realized she was being paged, for the telephone. The receptionist smiled as she passed, and waved her hand at the first of the glass-sided boxes.

"Susan?" Dick Featherstone's voice said, as soon as she lifted the receiver.

"Yes, it's me, Dick."

"Look, I'm frightfully sorry. But we've just had all the paper work through for a special charter ferry between Kindley Field and New York. New York office is binding to have it back straight away, so I'll be working pretty well all evening. D'you mind if..."

"If we leave the little get-together till I'm northbound? No, of course not. I don't mind a bit. Then we can make up our minds what we've got to buy and perhaps go round the shops."

"Oh, that's fine, then." Dick sounded pretty harassed. "I only hope I didn't upset any of your plans or anything?"

"Don't worry, Dick," Susan laughed. "I didn't have any."

As she put down the receiver and walked out of the box and back to the terrace, a small foolish voice inside herself reminded her that now she could really go out with John Jefferson; another pleasant evening perhaps, like the one they spent in London. But Susan promptly silenced it by recalling that vision of the girl in the car which was now stamping itself on her mind, thanks to the number of times on this trip that she was being forced to think about it. She reminded herself, too, that an evening on her own was exactly what she most wanted. She could walk along the path by the seashore and see the lights of Hamilton suspended like a gleaming necklace between the two darknesses of the sea front and the island behind. She could listen to the wind through the palms, and the crying of the crickets, and think how very soon, when Beth came to live in one of the white Company bungalows just above the harbour, this would be her daily scene.

And so, after an early dinner, shortly after the sun went down, that was exactly what she did. So, too, did someone else. Just as she came round a clump of cedars, head down, rather childishly scuffing the sand on the path with the sides of her shoes, she heard a quick footstep muted by the grass, and John Jefferson came walking up behind her over the lawn.

Immediately, she looked guilty. Not because of the date that she'd assured him she had. She only thought about that a moment later. But for the ridiculous reason of being caught making a wall of sand with her feet as she walked along.

Then, just to her embarrassment, she remembered the previous arrangements she was supposed to have, and she blushed furiously.

If only he had said something, or even looked surprised, she could quite easily have explained. Instead, he merely said good evening and walked on, as though firstly he didn't mind anyway, and as though secondly he was not in the least surprised that she had told him what appeared to be far from the truth.

Susan was glad that they were going on their way tomorrow. She would be happier still, she told herself, when this uncomfortable journey was done.

For the rest of the way down to Panama, across the lovely Caribbean sea, she spoke not a single sentence to Captain Jefferson that did not contain the words "passengers", "lunch" or "time of arrival". They could not have been more formal, no matter how hard they tried.

Only once or twice did she find those cool grey eyes on her face. Once when he was doing a round of his passengers, again when they were having a quick meal at Nassau, and then, too, when they were swishing along the concrete road at Panama towards the hotel. And each time his face had been almost expressionless, and any interest he had displayed, detached and practically clinical, as though, with the enquiring mind of an intelligent man of authority, he wondered what exactly made her tick. Or rather, she told herself, as she hung up her uniform jacket in the tiny room at Panama, what made her tick in such a thoroughly unreliable manner.

But Panama had its compensations, just as most trips, some time or other, had. Jack Millar, the Radio Officer, whom she'd flown with several times, was a keen organizer of sight-seeing trips, and insisted on showing her round. He showed her some of the views from the outskirts of the city, and they took pictures of the large liners waiting to go up through the canal towards Colon and the Atlantic.

Then, at breakfast-time on their last day in Panama, Jack Millar looked at the blue sky just visible in zebra stripes through the blinds. "Looks like being a scorcher," he said.

"Again," Susan said, and smiled. The Navigator and the First Officer groaned.

"I know what," Jack said to the other three sitting at the table. "Instead of watching those ships and taking pictures of 'em, how about going on one ourselves?"

"Where to?" The First Officer looked at him doubtfully. "I've been on a Millar expedition before," he explained to the others. "Ski-ing expedition ... and when we arrived, there was no snow!"

Jack Millar said, "This is different This is Taboga Island.

There's a fine beach there. Grand bathing. And I think you can get lunch."

"How long does it take?" Susan asked.

"Oh, about an hour, I should say."

Susan spooned the last of the iced melon into her mouth and thought about it. Usually she liked to rest all day before they went out on service at night. But she was finding this clammy heat especially trying, coming as they did from early winter in England. And despite the fan, her room was like a Turkish bath.

In the end, when Jack went round the table asking what about it, she nodded like the other two and told him to count her in.

But, as was quite typical with these crew excursions, after she'd fetched her swim-suit and wrap from her room, only Jack Millar was waiting in the hall. "The other two decided in the end they'd try and get a bit of shut-eye," he grinned. "So it's just you and me."

They walked over to the reception desk, and after a good deal of confusion eventually got a list of the sailing times.

"There you are," Jack said. "Couldn't be better. One going over in about half an hour. And comes back at three. What did I tell you? Stacks of time for lunch and a swim, and another two hours after we get back before the crew transport arrives for service."

The ride across the water was smooth. There was hardly a ripple on the surface as they edged their way in between massive hulls of liners, and then out to the open blue waters beyond the harbour mouth.

Taboga Island itself was a smudge of jungle green and lemon sand and frothy white water as they moved crab-like towards the landing-stage. The few rollers seemed to break in a constant soap-sud froth against the dean shore, and the light wind cooled the heat of the unclouded sun.

Susan and Jack walked down the slatted wooden landing- stage, peering down at the dear blue sea under their feet. Now and again, they could see the bright-coloured flash of a tropical fish, the waving pinks and greens of underwater ferns.

Then they made their way through the tiny town, and, finding the beach beyond the headland, settled down in the sand by some rocks to enjoy the sea and the sunshine.

*

The sun crawled round the stubby little hill above them, sending its shadow sideways, and nearer and nearer to the white line of surf that divided the beach from the blueness of the sea.

They had bathed three times, and three times they had dried out under the hot sun. They had talked or read or just rested as the mood took them. Back from the beach, at an American- style barbecue place, they had eaten a light lunch and had drunk two long glasses of iced lime juice. Susan felt infinitely fresher, isolated somehow from the airline here, and able to take from this island and the Radio Officer's quiet companionship a more detached view of the life that surrounded her.

And then, conscious of the fact that she was now lying a little in the shadow of the hills as the sun sank lower in the west, she propped herself on her elbow and looked at her watch. "You know, Jack, I'd like to get on the ferry in good time. It would be pretty awful if we missed it."

Jack Millar agreed that it would indeed be pretty awful, and reluctantly they both got to their feet.

Leaving the beach behind, and rounding the small rocky headland back into the town, they could see the ferry still sitting sleepily exactly where they had left it.

"Bags of time," Jade said, emptying the sand out of his shoes. "Looks as though we'll be the first aboard."

There was hardly anyone about as they walked down the landing-stage. A couple of Panamanian sailors were lying asleep just by the capstan, their heads pillowed in their arms, and the ship itself rocked up and down as gently as a cradle on the small waves.

Jack helped Susan aboard and then looked at his watch. "Another twenty minutes before sailing time. Might as well find ourselves a nice shady spot."

They settled themselves down in the stern, near a tarpaulin awning, and waited.

Three o'clock came and went.

"Just like this place. Never on time," Jack Millar murmured impatiently, walking up and down and looking at his watch for the tenth time. "Maybe I'm a bit fast. What time d'you make it?"

"Nearly quarter past," Susan said quietly.

Jade frowned. "Still stacks of time, of course. Wouldn't matter if it didn't go for another hour."

All the same, his voice carried a tinge of anxiety.

"I expect the captain's still having his siesta." Susan waved her hands towards the still sleeping figures on the landing- stage.

Jack Millar attempted to smile with her. His eyes travelled over the deserted little ship, and this time he really did look worried. "Another thing. Don't you think it's odd that we're the only passengers?"

Susan nodded. "Of course, there's a waiting-room at the end of the pier. They may be staying there till the boat shows signs of moving."

They sat together, right in the stern, staring at the green ooze of sea-water that rose up through the worn boards, at the silent desolation and lack of movement round the wharves and the landing-stage. Only the waves seemed still alive, smacking and splashing round the dirty black plates of the hull.

"Half past." Jack stood up decisively. "I'll go and make some enquiries. Might be an hour's hold-up." He gave her a rather wan smile. "Or something."

He hauled himself up on to the landing stage. Susan watched him move towards the buildings on the shore. She tried not to worry.

She kept her eyes on the turning round which Jack had disappeared. Still no sign of him. The figures curled on the rope went on sleeping. Bump ... bump ... bump ... wait the boat against the rotting wood of the landing-stage, as though chiming the precious minutes as they passed.

Then she saw Jack. He was walking slowly. She thought to herself - if it was only a short delay he'd be hurrying over to tell me.

He came up to the ship, jumped in, and came ruefully over to her. All he said was, "Trust Millar!"

"Did you find somebody, Jack? "

"Oh, I found somebody all right." He hesitated. "Look, Susan, I'm awfully sorry. All my fault. Everything I organize..."

A momentary sense of panic went through her at the thought of being stranded on this foreign island. As steadily as she could, she asked, "We're going to be late for the crew transport?"

Jack nodded. "That wretched time-table in the hotel..."

"Yes?"

"It's the summer time-table, for the busy season. There were two ferries back then. Now" - he banged one fist on top of the other - "there's only one. Leaves at five-thirty."

"What time shall we get in?"

"Depends on harbour traffic. Bound to be at least an hour, though. That would mean docking about six-thirty. And then a fifteen minutes' walk to the hotel."

"That makes us forty-five minutes late for the crew transport."

"I'm awfully sorry," Jack began again. "I ought..."

"I ought, too," she said, and seeing the expression on his face she pointed out, "Could be worse."

Jack went on gloomily, "If we delay departure time of the Bermuda service, I don't know what Jefferson ..."

"But we won't delay the service. We can still just do it."

Jack Millar seemed to be cheered by her confidence. More brightly he said, "You never know. Might be a quick crossing."

"And we might get a taxi to the hotel."

"Might even start off early from here."

"The northbound might be delayed coming from Lima."

"Or the crew transport might be late."

With every possibility, they both grew more cheerful.

Then there was a long pause. Jack Millar said, "Would be Jefferson!"

There was a very much longer pause as over all other of their thoughts came the vision of cool grey eyes, a stern jaw and an uncompromising voice. All their hopeful little might-be's melted into nothing beside that particular image. In their minds there appeared two opposing teams, separated by this stretch of sea - on the Panama side, the efficiency of Captain Jefferson, with whom nothing ever seemed to go wrong. At the Taboga end, their side -

Their eyes travelled over to the sailors still sleeping on the coiled rope. Then they turned their heads and faced each other.

"I've a feeling -" Jack Millar began.

Susan nodded sadly. "Me, too," she said.

And sure enough, although they didn't stir from their places in the stern, and with all their might willed these Panamanians to get a move on, the boat didn't start early, but late. The harbour was crowded and the little stubby vessel chugged this way and that distractedly until it found its place by the pier. There wasn't a taxi to be seen, and although they ran desperately hard through the streets, there were crowds of homecoming workers who stood in their way and stared at such extraordinary haste. Breathlessly, they pushed open the glass doors of the hotel, and looked towards the lobby desk.

The crew car had not been late.

Normally, a pile of shabby baggage would have been waiting there, stuck over with multi-coloured labels from hotels all over the world, and on the handles in bold black and white letters: crew.

But the reception hall was empty of anything remotely British. The man behind the desk, who spoke fairly good English, looked at them with almost moist-eyed sympathy. He had seen the English Captain's face, and that had been enough. Besides, the unpunctuality that he had gathered was their crime was practically a virtue to his Latin-American heart. He produced the note that the English Captain had left for them, handing it to them mournfully, as one would a loaded revolver to an unsuspecting friend.

It was brief and to the point. "I shall send the crew car back for you," Captain Jefferson had written. "Don't keep it waiting this time."

Going up in the lift, Jack Millar said, "At least he knew we'd turn up. If we hurry, the schedule won't be held up ... so he can't say very much..." His voice trailed away as they both reflected on the undoubted fact that not only could Captain Jefferson say a good deal, but also that he most assuredly would.

When the car did come, the journey out to the airport was quiet and mournful, but owing to the Captain's orders to the driver to step on it, at least it was quick. Susan looked at the Radio Officer's downcast face and then patted his hand. "I don't suppose it'll be so very bad," she said. "After all" - she searched around for a single virtue that might be of comfort - "Captain Jefferson's very fair."

"Yes, he is, isn't he?" Jack Millar said, and brightened. All the same, as the crew car swept them into the concrete entrance, the squat buildings, the dark heat-baked earth, the barbed wire, the high bright lights, reminded Susan uncomfortably of pictures of Sing-Sing or Alcatraz.

As soon as they got out, Captain Jefferson was waiting for them in the doorway of the Operations Block. "I'll see you both later," he said, cutting short their apologies. "Go straight to the aircraft, Miss Shelton. The incoming stewardess has stayed behind -" But Susan didn't wait to be reminded what the incoming stewardess had stayed behind for.

She hurried through the little throng of people on the apron and half ran across the tarmac to the waiting aircraft.

Breathlessly, she rushed up the steps into the cabin.

"Don't panic ... don't panic!" a cool, calm voice said from the galley. "Everything's under control."

"Lisa!" Susan saw with relief the quiet, sensible face of the senior girl. "It's awfully sweet of you, and I'm terribly sorry. We missed -"

"I know ... I know." Lisa Carlisle smiled at her. "Don't worry." She waved her hand round the galley. "Stores stocked ... crockery correct... cutlery counted ... bar balanced. The works! So long as you take my word for it that everything's here, you'll be off on time."

Susan nodded her head vigorously.

"Good. Sign here, please." Lisa produced a pencil and pushed the catering form under Susan's nose. "Thank you very much. Now go to Operations and collect the ship's papers. Then you're all set."

"Lisa... thanks so much."

"Think nothing of it. These things happen. One of these days you'll be doing the same for me." She waved goodbye as Susan made her way back to the door.

But, as though to balance out the easy sympathy of her reception on the aircraft, her arrival at Operations was marked by a very different sort of welcome. When she knocked, a strangely familiar voice told her to come in.

"Ah, I thought it might be you," Captain Jefferson said. He was leaning against the window-sill, surveying her coolly from head to foot. "I've got the ship's papers." He tapped the large buff envelope in his hands. "And Mr. Horton is just getting the Journey Log. But..."

"Then I think I'd better," Susan mumbled, doing a quick about-turn to the door, "get back to the aircraft."

"Don't go away, Miss Shelton. I'd like a word with you."

As though she'd just been shot in the legs, Susan stopped dead and looked back at him. "About Taboga Island and the ferry?"

"About being late for service, Miss Shelton. Where or why doesn't concern me."

"Of course not." Her face was flushed now, her feet firmly together: but behind her back her hands were clasped tightly together, so that they could comfort one another if things got too bad.

"Miss Shelton." Captain Jefferson straightened himself suddenly, and his voice was deceptively soft. "Don't start off with the wrong attitude to this. For your sake," he went on. "Not mine."

Susan muttered something about being sorry, but it was very difficult to think properly with those eyes on her face, and even when she managed a coherent thought, it was impossible to express it because of the almost suffocating beat of her heart, and the painful hurrying of her breath.

"Remember," he said bitingly, "that as long as you're on my crew you will arrive at the proper time, and do your duty in the proper manner. And while you're on stand-off you will do nothing that might conceivably interfere with that duty."

"I'm sorry, sir," she said at last. There was no defence that she could muster. Anyway, he knew it all, and had decided it was not enough. As, she admitted even to herself, it wasn't. But as a last attempt to change the coldness in his eyes, she said, "We thought we'd be back..."

"Of course you did. But you weren't."

She waited for a moment. She half expected him to heap upon her head all the other times it had been necessary to reprimand her. But he said nothing more.

She looked up. His face was gentler, as though, now he had had his say, he would be prepared to let her go. "You see," she started off again, "we thought as it was so hot and ..."

But he interrupted her. "Miss Shelton, your comings and goings on your stand-off are my problem as the Captain of your crew. But the whys and wherefores of your personal pleasures are not of any interest."

The colour flamed in Susan's cheeks. "That," she said, with quivering dignity, "you have always made abundantly clear," and as she swung on her heel, the mild-mannered Mr. Horton, World Wide representative at Tocumen, came bustling back, and blinked at them both over his spectacles. "Here's the Journey Log, sir," he said to Captain Jefferson, and to Susan, "Ah, Miss Shelton. The Captain here has got all the papers." Tactfully, he did not mention the rush to get off in time. "Have a good trip."

"Thank you, Mr. Horton," Susan said, in a voice that amply recognized the hollow futility of such a parting wish.

She closed the door behind her, and thankfully joined the anonymous throng in the reception hall, catching up her passengers as they threaded their way out to the apron, where the waiting silver shape of the Astroliner glittered under the arc lights.

High above her, in utter contrast to the pilot's deadly quiet voice, the Tannoy sounded sweet and soothing and oddly victorious, as it blared out: "World Wide Airways announce the departure of its northbound service from Santiago, Flight 251 .. .on schedule."

CHAPTER VIII

But the flight back to Bermuda turned out, as it happened, not nearly so bad as she had expected.

And while she hurried with the last of the clearing-up in the galley during the descent to Kindley Fidd, Susan was sorting out in her mind all the reasons why: the stops at Jamaica and Nassau had made the time go fast: the crew had had light refreshments at both places, so she hadn't had to go up to the front so often: and when she did have to go up, the dimmed lights of the cabin and the cockpit on that all-night trip had given faces a shadowy, comfortable privacy.

Lastly, Jack Millar, when he'd come to the back for a shave, hadn't seemed in the least depressed, though he'd had to sit within inches of the man for the last eleven hours. He had asked her quite cheerfully if Jefferson had torn her off a strip.

She had nodded rather gloomily.

"Cheer up," he'd said. "I told him it was all my fault ... and anyway, there was no harm done. Now he's got it off his chest, that's that." He seemed perfectly confident. "Best way," he informed her judiciously. "You know where you stand with Jefferson."

She didn't, Susan thought to herself, remembering his words now as she started checking the bar account. But at least it was cheering to know that the things he had said to her were for her own consumption only, and would be most unlikely to appear in the very large blank space the Company thoughtfully provided in their Confidential Reports for Remarks.

Away down below and a little to the left lay Bermuda, a long diamond-studded brooch in the black velvet of sea and sky. As she watched, the port wing banked steeply to line the aircraft up with the runway. She left the galley and strapped herself in her seat. Lights were coming slowly to meet them, widening and glowing like slowly bursting fireworks. She heard the whine of the flaps, and then the luminous line of the green threshold whipped under the wheels, and the tyres swished softly down on the darkness of the unseen runway.

When the steps thudded against the side of the aircraft, and the door opened and the airport representative came aboard, Susan could smell the cool early-morning air.

Then the stewardess who was taking the service on to London came aboard, yawned and sighed and said it was an awful time to be starting a journey, and then began the business of taking over from Susan.

"Oh, by the way," the girl said, putting her overnight bag on the floor by the galley, "I have a message for you from Dick Featherstone. He says he'll come up to the hotel and see you tomorrow evening. If that's all right, he says not to bother phoning him. I gather he had to put you off at the last minute on your way out." She lowered her eyes to the stores on the table. "Hey, you've had a run on the cigarettes, haven't you? And the barley sugar!"

By the time she had finished, everyone had gone through Customs, and Susan approached the deserted counter on her own. The Customs officer knew her, and just smiled and winked at her as he let her through without opening her bag. She hurried out into the road beyond the terminal towards the twin beams of the crew car's lights. On her right she saw the lights of their own aircraft, with the northbound passengers beginning to trickle out to it. And then she noticed that another Astroliner was just in front, with men working round it connecting it with a tow-bar to a tractor, preparatory to taking it over to the hangar.

She was wondering about its unexpected appearance as she stepped up into the crew car. Then Penelope Fielding's husky voice said, "You're in the wrong beehive, darling. This one belongs to Able Zebra, just ahead of you on the circuit. But come and ride with us, do! I'm aching for a little feminine chat."

There was a subdued chuckle from the male crew members.

Susan said, "I'd no idea you were coming, Penelope...."

"Neither, darling, had we. I don't think the Company had either. I was sitting in Mrs. Potter's one minute, and then out they dragged me. And here I am! But come on in and tell me all your scandalous doings, poppet. Who's your skipper?"

"Jefferson."

"Oh well, poppet. Never mind. Just come in and tell me how you've survived."

Susan said she'd go and tell the driver of the car behind, in case the rest of her crew waited for her. Then she came and settled herself in the darkness beside Penelope.

"I was hoping it would be you." Penelope leaned back in the rather hard seat, and crossed her shapely ankles. "I had an idea it was from what I could remember of the roster."

Someone called out to the driver, "O.K., we're all here now." And the vehicle started off at a smart pace along the deserted road.

"We had a simply marvellous flight from London," Penelope went on. "Special charter for a film company. Stacks of film stars. Well, anyway, two. And all rather fun."

Susan asked, "And how's Beth?"

"Oh, simply quaking."

They sat in silence for a few minutes as they rocked along the coast road. Everywhere it was beginning to get lighter; everyone in Bermuda was waking up.

With a fearful crashing of gears and a quick stepping on the brakes the driver whirled them round a corner, and stopped in a spray of sand and gravel outside the hotel portico.

They got out slowly, and in a thin, rather tired-looking crocodile made their way to the reception desk. The Manager's wife always greeted them kindly, and did her best to give them all rooms where they could sleep to all the hours round the clock.

"I've got two adjoining rooms," she said to the girls. "It'll mean sharing a bathroom."

"Suits me," they both said, now in the weary haze they all sooner or later entered into after a flight.

"And very nice too!" Penelope said, brightening up again as she followed Susan up the stairs. "We can have a natter whenever we feel like it."

They both stopped outside Susan's door. "You know," Penelope went on, "I never did really get around to telling you about the flight and about this ..."

"Come on in," Susan said resignedly. "I'll give you fifteen minutes. Then it's bed."

Penelope looked around the room, arranged her hair in the mirror above the wash-basin, and pulled down the shutters. "Fifteen minutes starting from now?"

Susan laughed. "Starting from when we opened the door," she said, and looked at her watch. She sat herself on the foot of the bed. "Go on. I'm listening."

For ten minutes, Penelope talked non-stop about the flight. Someone had told her she was definitely photogenic, and one of the actors had invited her out to dinner.

"You know we're taking some of the executives up to New York the day after tomorrow, don't you? And then straight back home?"

"Well, I didn't. But I do now." She smiled at Penelope. "And anyway, you must have a pretty good idea by now that you're photogenic. Who do the Company choose if they ever want any publicity photos?"

"Why, me, darling!" she laughed. "But I thought it was because they'd really rather photograph me than fly me, as it were." She got up from the only armchair and walked to the mirror. "However, poppet, it's always nice to be told. And now that we've talked ... or I've talked," she corrected herself as Susan raised her eyebrows quizzically, "what's been happening to you?"

"Nothing," Susan said firmly. "At least, nothing interesting enough for you to miss your beauty sleep over." She got up and started to open her overnight bag.

"But darling! You've just told me I don't need it! And anyway" - she leaned against the window-sill, and faced the other girl - "I simply refuse to be thrown out until I'm bang up to date!"

Susan smiled. Then she shrugged her small shoulders resignedly. "It was nothing nice, Penelope. In fact, quite the reverse. I went out to Taboga Island with Jack Millar..."

Penelope murmured that Susan had her sympathy.

"... and we were late back on the ferry."

"Well, you might have known. Poor old Jack Millar couldn't organize a bunfight! Anyway" - she moved herself slightly to have a better view of her own profile in the glass - "let's hope you had a sympathetic skipper." Then she put her hand to her head and struck a tragic pose. "Didn't you say it was Jefferson... you poor poppet!"

Susan said nothing. The very mention of his name made her eyes prick with tears.

"Never mind, love," Penelope said softly. "You've lived to tell the tale. So long as you can walk away from it. Isn't that the airline test of a happy landing, darling?"

Susan nodded her head.

Penelope moved towards the door. "I expect you're a bit tired."

"Yes, I am rather. The Caribbean leg is always..."

"Simply exhausting," Penelope finished for her. And then, as though a thought had suddenly struck home, she came back the few paces from the door and sat down on the bed. "Look, darling, this sounds simply frightful. Coming from me it's quite unbearable," she said piously. "But aren't you slipping a bit? On the job? And I don't mean changing crews!" She quickly lit a cigarette, then dived back into her bag for her case, and popping another into Susan's mouth, lit it as well. "You'll want to throw me out, but you're not big enough- A thing has struck me." She corrected herself. "Two things."

Susan looked up at her. Her face was very pale. "Go on."

"One is that you've been having a number of slight..." - she hesitated for the right word - "difficulties, contretemps... what have you, in your work."

"Yes," Susan said honestly, "I have."

Penelope narrowed her eyes and waved the cigarette smoke away from her face.

"And what else have you noticed?" Susan smiled rather wryly.

"Just this, poppet." Penelope leaned forward and took Susan's hand. "Come here a second." She led her friend over to the mirror. "Take a good look!"

Susan blinked at her own reflection in the mirror with the lovely face of Penelope behind.

"Notice anything?" Penelope said.

Susan shook her head.

"Well, discounting the handsome after-trip pallor, don't you think you're looking rather beautiful these days?"

Susan shook her head vehemently and sat down again on the bed. "Don't tell me," she said, "that all this heart-to-heart talk has been about that!" She laughed suddenly, and shook her head affectionately. "You really are the end, Penelope!"

"Maybe. In some things. But I can add up two and two with the best of them. And make four. And when I see a sweet little thing becoming all dewy-eyed and beautiful, and getting into trouble on her job and being ticked off by the best-looking skipper on the line, I say to myself ..."

She winked at her friend's solemn face.

"... that girl's in love."

Penelope looked across the room expectantly. She had been anticipating indignation, laughter, scorn or even downright anger. All she got was complete silence.

She raised her beautifully arched eyebrows. "I can understand people not listening when I'm talking about myself," she began. "But when I'm actually talking about them ..."

"I'm sorry," Susan said. "It's been a long day and we had a lot of passengers ... and then of course I felt a bit worried when we set off ..." - she was talking in a flat tired voice - "and Captain Jefferson said..."

"Is it," Penelope said gently and insistently, "him?"

Once again, Susan's reaction was a complete surprise. Suddenly the small girl stood up, very pale and tense. Her hands were clenched tightly at her sides. "No," she said vehemently. "It isn't! Not anyone. Least of all Jefferson."

"I see," Penelope said huskily, and moved towards the door. And as though the other girl had never spoken, "I was afraid it was."

The next day, Penelope had her lunch date with one of the film party, and Susan heard her running the shower in the bathroom between the two rooms. Then, a long time later, Susan heard Penelope click along the corridor and pause outside her room door. "See you some time, poppet, if you're awake."

"Fine. Enjoy yourself," Susan murmured, and then lay back among the pillows, pondering this trip and her life on the airline and the complications that seemed to weave themselves around a flight.

Then, unable to settle in comfort any longer with her thoughts, she got up and dressed, and took herself for a long walk along the shore and down towards the harbour.

The rest of the day, until it was time to change in the evening, she spent quietly by herself. She peeped into Penelope's room just before it was time to go down to the lounge to meet Dick, but it was empty.

And downstairs, the hotel was filling up as people came in from the beaches or sightseeing, to change into their best and most glamorous clothes.

Susan hesitated for a moment outside the door to the lounge, watching the people sitting at tables, talking to one another or crowding around the bar at the other end of the room.

"Hi, Susan" Dick Featherstone came hurrying through the crowd. He put out a big heavy hand and shook her own. "Good to see you! Thought you were never coming." He sighed and blew out his red cheeks. "Pretty hot in there tonight. Well, come on! Let's go and sit down. I've got a table all lined up by the window. And there are a couple of very special friends of yours there, too."

Susan followed Dick's broad, well-covered shoulders as he made a pathway for her through the lounge. "Just over here," he turned and grinned at her. "Are you still with me?"

Then he stopped.

"Hello there, poppet!" said a well-known voice. "I met this man in Hamilton, and he squandered his savings to give me dinner." Then, as Dick held a chair out for her, Susan found herself staring into the calm grey eyes of the other particular friend of hers.

"Good evening, Captain Jefferson," she said, and sat down quickly.

"We're very formal tonight, aren't we?" Dick Featherstone pulled a wry face. "I thought we were all among friends."

"An effect," John Jefferson said drily, "that unfortunately I sometimes have on people.'

"But not on Susan?" Dick smiled at her paternally.

The pilot swirled his glass around in his hand, and darted her a quizzical smile. "Susan in particular," he said.

Dick looked from one to the other as though he was vaguely puzzled. He had a big pleasant face, and when he didn't understand anything he wrinkled his brows and pulled down the corners of his mouth rather like a Great Dane. "Ah, well," he said philosophically after a moment, "I expect there's a very good reason."

And everyone seemed agreed to leave it at that.

"But I'm forgetting," Captain Jefferson said, and got up. "What will you have? I'm afraid we started without you."

"I said women were always late," Dick said in a worldly- wise manner, and wondered why Susan caught her breath rather sharply, and why, when she looked across guiltily at Captain Jefferson he gave her one of his rarest, gentlest smiles.

"There's some quite nice sherry. Or anything else you think you'd like."

"Just the fruit cordial, I think, thank you," Susan said rather shyly.

And the other three sat in silence for a moment, as Captain Jefferson called the waiter over.

"Well now, Susan," Dick Featherstone said, leaning over the table. "Sorry about the last time we fixed up a meeting. Only hope it didn't mess your evening up."

"Oh, that's all right," Susan smiled.

"And what's all this about?" John Jefferson said casually, as though he was just keeping the conversational ball rolling.

"When you were southbound," Dick said, "I asked Susan here to come into Hamilton and have a bit of supper and give me all the latest griff on the wedding plans and whatnot..." He made a humorous face of utter horror. "And then, just at the last moment, I had all the stuff in for the New York shuttle, and had to cry off."

"Oh, I see," John Jefferson said. "Last Wednesday, eh?"

Susan flushed uncomfortably, and, noticing her obvious embarrassment, Dick Featherstone gave an oddly understanding look at the pilot's unruffled face.

"Yes," Dick said slowly, "Wednesday it was. And now" - he turned to Penelope - "sorry to stand Susan up again and all that. But Penelope here is bang up to date with all the plans and the latest shoots from the grapevine." He stopped to look significantly at Susan before going on. "So if you two don't mind for a moment, we'll just have to go into a bit of a huddle."

"But Dick darling, I've simply told you every atom I ... Oh, Dick, mind your big feet... well, all right, but I tell you, Dick..."

Dick Featherstone said, "Now you know the plans can't possibly be the same as when Susan left. As far as I can tell from the way things have shuttlecocked around, I may not even still be the bridegroom. So why don't we have a talk while Susan and John have their dinner, and then we can all have a drink together afterwards, if there's time."

Susan frowned a little. The last thing she wanted was a tête-à-tête with John Jefferson. She looked across appealingly at Penelope, but the other girl was absorbed in examining a slight bruise that was coming up under the fine nylons around her ankle, and Dick was gazing fixedly into his beer.

She became conscious that Captain Jefferson was staring at her with his eyebrows slightly raised. "I beg your pardon," she said, feeling rather than hearing that he'd said something.

"Not really worth repeating," he said as she stood up. "I merely said it was an excellent idea."

They walked, Susan a little in front, across the lounge and through into the thickly-carpeted dining-room. She noticed for some inconsequential reason that his arm, when he opened the glass door for her, was just level with the top of her head. Then they sat down together, oddly isolated at a white island of a table in the now almost deserted room.

They said little to one another over the soup. Captain Jefferson appeared content to sit in this deceptive appearance of domesticity that a man and a girl eating together always seems to give. Or maybe it just didn't occur to him to talk.

And then, after he'd started on his steak, he suddenly looked across at Susan and asked abruptly, "How do you think your friend will settle down?"

"Settle down? Beth, do you mean?" Beth was such a practical, managing sort of person that Susan had never really considered the question. Faced with it now, she said vaguely, "Oh, fine."

"Featherstone's a nice chap."

"Oh, Dick's a dear! And there's nobody like Beth. They're the perfect couple really."

"The times I've flown with Beth Martin," the pilot said, "she was always keen ... capable ... efficient. And yet very warm-hearted, I thought. She'll make a wonderful wife for him."

Noticing the ingredients for a happy marriage, and their orders, Susan smiled rather ruefully. She heard him go on, "But don't you think she'll miss flying?"

"Of course she'll miss it," Susan said definitely. "Any girl who's been doing this sort of job is going to miss ... well, the excitement, the travel, the new faces, the movement -"

She stopped. The atmosphere, which had got quite chatty and comfortably warm during this conversation on Beth's marriage, went flat and vaguely hostile. John Jefferson, who had appeared quite concerned over the Featherstones' future happiness as he ate his steak, now it was finished seemed no longer interested in what Beth was going to miss. He picked up the very large menu and studied it carefully, as though all along the only thing that had really been bothering him was what they should have for a sweet.

"The fruit salad?" he suggested to her.

"The fruit salad," she said.

"The fruit salad," he said to the coloured waiter. "Fruit salad for two."

There didn't seem to be anything more to say. A nervous silence descended between them, finally broken by the clink of their glittering spoons against the glass edges of bowls full of fresh melon, pawpaw, pineapple and passion-fruit.

"Cold! "he said.

"Icy!"

"But great fun, all the same, to make up, I should imagine. In a kitchen of your own, I mean."

"With fruit out of your own garden!"

He studied the tropical medley of colour floating in his bowl, and gave as his opinion, "Apples and plums and raspberries can taste just as good, you know."

"Oh, I know!"

But her emphatic agreement did not seem to encourage him to pursue the subject. For the next few minutes they both ate with a kind of fierce distraction. Then the pilot, as though the topic had for him the unhappy fascination of a hollow tooth, began once more on the Featherstone engagement. "I hear they've got a very nice bungalow just by the harbour."

"Yes," Susan said dreamily. "White walls. Huge windows ... oh, and cedar window-seats. And boxes and boxes of flowers outside. Not just round one of the windows. Round all of them! And the colours ... and the kitchen -" She paused, almost out of breath with enthusiasm. "But I don't suppose you're really interested in houses and that sort of thing."

"Oh, but I am! I always go to the Ideal Home Exhibition. All the gadgets and appliances they've got these days makes a modern kitchen look like the cockpit of an Astroliner!"

She watched a grin of almost boyish delight spread across his face. Of course he would be intrigued, she said to herself, with the mechanical side, the heating systems, the electric motors.

"But it's the home that's the important thing," a much more serious voice said, breaking into her thoughts. "A place for each other... somewhere to have your friends -"

"And that's where Beth's lucky," Susan interrupted. "People from the airline will always be dropping in. She'll be seeing her friends on the crews all the time. If she was just in London or somewhere out in the country, she might feel a bit out of things." Her eyes travelled round the large dining-room, to the Negro waiters, the black tropical night outside the palms over by the window.

John Jefferson watched her closely. "You'd miss it?" he asked.

"Oh, I expect I should. But" - and she laughed with an unsuccessful attempt at lightness - "I don't suppose I'll be put to the test. Not for a long time, that is," she added, with confusion at the conversation's taking such an unfortunately personal note.

"I wouldn't say that," he said, in a maddeningly judicial tone of voice, exactly as though, Susan thought, he was trying to encourage the most backward possible pupil with hopes of an eventual university scholarship.

"But anyway," Susan retorted, bringing the subject back to where it had started, "Beth will have it all. And she won't even have the worry of Dick away flying!"

There was a long pause. Both of diem had finished their fruit salad. For something to do, somewhere to keep her eyes away from his, Susan studied the stain the purple juice had left on her plate. As though from a long way away, she heard him say, "I suppose some girls would worry if their husbands had a flying job."

"Most, I should say."

"But Beth's done it. She knows it's all right."

"Oh, yes, I don't suppose she'd really worry. At least, not nearly as much as girls who haven't been flying as stewardesses."

"Quite," he said, as though she had proved his point.

"But there are other disadvantages in being a pilot's wife."

He raised his eyebrows. "Such as?"

"Well... having him away from home so long. Never knowing when he's going to be in and when he's going to be out. Living in a world of coming and going."

He looked at her without speaking for a few moments. When he did say something, his voice was flat and rather tired, "Of course, having lived it, you've got airline life all weighed up."

That remark provided the final full stop to the conversation. Susan said nothing. She sat with her eyes down, resenting the rebuke his words seemed to contain. John Jefferson folded his arms.

She sat quite still. Feeling that she had somehow failed him, now she said, "It would all, of course, depend on the two people."

"In what way?"

"Well ... if they were in love" - underneath the table she twisted her hands together tightly - "nothing else would matter. Nothing." She forced her voice to sound coldly scientific, utterly detached, definite. Lightly, she added, "Are they?"

If he heard her question, he gave not the slightest indication. This was the time he chose to notice they were the last in the dining-room, that the coffee had been ordered minutes ago, that all the other tables were being prepared for breakfast in the morning. He put down his napkin. Pushing back his chair, he stood up.

"Shall we go out on the terrace?"

"I'd like to."

She walked beside him through the glass doors, out to the wicker chairs and tables - all deserted now, huddling together in the half-darkness, facing the wind from the sea. They sat down side by side.

"Nice night," he said to her, as the waiter came out of the shadows with their coffee. He looked up into the sky where not one star had penetrated the thick overcast above. A gust shivered the leaves of the shrubs round the balustrade. "It was getting a bit stuffy in the dining-room. Cooler out here, don't you think?"

Susan nodded, pulling the sleeves of her dress as far as they would go over her bare arms. Then she asked, "Black or white?"

"Black."

She poured it out and handed him the cup. They sat quietly for a while, using the stirring of their coffee as an excuse for silence, until he said suddenly, quite softly and sadly, "There's no doubt about the man."

Susan swallowed down a sob that tried to break the surface of her voice. "And the girl? Does she know?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I'm not a woman, but they tell me there's a lot in this womanly intuition. Is that right, Susan?"

She looked down at her hands and blinked her eyes furiously. "You haven't told her, then?" she asked him, thinking of the love and joy that awaited this unknown girl somewhere back home in England.

"Not in so many words, Susan. I haven't said 'I love you', and I haven't asked her to marry me." He paused. "But I have,"' he said in his more usual voice, "well... talked" - he laughed rather bitterly - "around and about the subject."

"I know what you mean," Susan said slowly. Rushing off to meet her as soon as the aircraft landed. Snatching the last moments together before he went out on service. Remembering to buy her presents even after a difficult landing at Lima. And if he looked at her exactly as he was looking now, just at the thought of her... of course any girl would know.

Then Susan thought of something else; maybe the girl had known a man like Alan Heathley. Maybe she'd learned that you couldn't ever take any man for granted.

Very slowly, trying to choose her words carefully, she said, "She may not know ... she may think ... that you merely like her. You see..." - she turned her solemn brown eyes up to his - "it's not much use talking around it...

"No?" he said, bending his head a little as though to hear her low voice better.

"No," she said firmly. "You've got to say so. Especially someone like you..." Unaccountably her voice trembled. A vision of John Jefferson proposing to another woman suddenly filled her mind. And here she was sending him to do it. Suddenly horrified at the very thought of it, her eyes filled with tears.

She kept her head down, turning her face away from him. "I just thought that maybe ... she had met someone very attractive. Before she met you, I mean. And he'd taken her out, and paid her a lot of attention" - her words were coming out now in a great embarrassed rush - "and she thought he was in love and that some time -"

She lifted her eyes and looked across at him for support But even in the darkness she could see that his face was blank and unhelpful. All he seemed to be doing was waiting courteously for her to continue.

Then, as she seemed to have nothing to say, he gave her a quick sideways glance. "This someone," he said. "Would it be... someone like Heathley?"

She thought for a moment. "Well ... someone like Alan. The same sort of person."

The silence between them, the wind whistling round the stone pillars, the leaves rustling in the dark bushes, the slight scrape of his chair on the tiled floor - all seemed to solidify into a moment of time she would remember for ever. Again the tears pricked behind her eyes. She said - hopelessly now, "You see what I mean."

"Yes." His voice was very low. "I see."

Her shoulders shivered under the thin dress. She drew her arms tightly together like a protection over her body.

He said, "You're cold!"

"Not really. I was just -"

But it was as though he had suddenly woken up out of a dream. He seemed to notice for the first time the biting whip of the wind, the blackness of the sky beyond the terrace. Quickly, he stood up. "Good heavens," he said, "I'd no idea. You must be frozen!"

His voice was still warm, concerned - but with the polite consideration now of any man to any woman. Looking out at the night, he wait on, "This stuff must have come up very fast. When we came on to the terrace after dinner, it seemed quite a nice evening." His eyes dropped to his watch. "It's half-past ten!"

"Already?"

"Already!"

Susan got up. Together they started to walk along the terrace, leaving behind them the empty chairs and tables to the wind and the weather.

"Dick and Penelope -" he murmured politely.

"Will be wondering what on earth -" she went on.

He opened the door of the lounge for her. From a table on the other side of the room, Dick Featherstone waved. "Penelope and I," he said jovially as they came over, "have been wondering what on earth -"

He stopped. His eyes took in how stiff and straight and apart they walked. It was Penelope who finally finished off the sentence for all of them,"- had happened to the pair of you I"

CHAPTER IX

But the next day, Penelope made no mention of the evening before. She was too busy having lunch with one of her ex- passengers and getting ready to go up to New York and grumbling about the evening departure. Susan did some shopping, looked round the market, wandered round the town, and then went to bed early in time for the dawn departure in the morning.

There was still a stiff wind blowing by the time they reached the airport. The Astroliner had already landed from Nassau. And Lisa Carlisle, as usual, had everything in apple-pie order ready for Susan to do her checking. "Well, you made it in good time today," she smiled from the top of the steps.

Susan nodded. "It was awfully good of you to stay behind at Panama ..." she began.

But Lisa waved her thanks away. "That was nothing. I just didn't want Jefferson eating you. You've got time to do everything properly today."

Susan stood beside her and looked down at the catering forms, while Lisa looked out at the Bermudan landscape through the galley porthole. "Nice stop-over?" she asked Susan.

"Quite nice. Bit colder now," Susan said vaguely.

"Going to London direct, aren't you?"

Susan nodded.

"Nice easy trip then. No Santa Maria traffic. That always helps."

"Mmm," Susan said doubtfully. "But there's bad weather! Or so I heard them say in the crew car.... Met had rung up Captain Jefferson."

"Oh." The two girls automatically turned towards the cool blue sky outside. But it was clear as tinted glass. "Looks all right," Lisa said. "A very easy trip, I should say." But six hours later, after clearing all the lunch trays back to the galley, Susan noticed that the cabin was gradually growing darker. The earlier bright sunshine had faded. And as though dusk was coming down, a shadowy gloom seemed to have penetrated from the air outside. This would be the beginning of the storm that Captain Jefferson had mentioned, showing up a little earlier than she'd expected.

Feverishly, she washed up the last of the cups and plates and stacked them carefully away. Then she worked methodically from the left around the tiny aluminium-sided room, checking the storage of the trays and cutlery, and tightly securing all her stores.

Satisfied that everything was firmly in position, she turned her attention back to the passenger cabin, where the cheerful buzz of conversation that had continued since take-off from Bermuda had suddenly died down.

She looked over to the flight deck door, and saw that the red seat-belt sign was on.

Her first concern was the baby sleeping peacefully in its portable cot on the rear seat. Taking him gently in her arms she walked half-way down the aisle and said to his mother, "I'm afraid you'll need to hold him for a little while. We can't fasten him properly in the cot. So if you keep him in your arms, I'll strap the two of you in together, and he'll be quite snug."

After that she went round the rest of the cabin, ensuring that all the grey webbing straps were now fastened over her charges.

A young couple coming back from their honeymoon in Bermuda protested that it was still as calm as a mill-pond. Before she could reply to them the floor tilted, and she had to make a grab for the back of their seats to keep herself upright.

As she moved on to the front of the aircraft, Susan could feel the vibration increase under her feet. Very slightly, the aircraft began to shudder from side to side.

"It's all right," she said to a woman passenger who was looking at her with questioning eyes. "We're going up, that's all. Doing our best to get on top of the cloud."

On all the portholes, the rain had begun to make a pattern of crystal beads; and stray rags of cloud, torn away from the main mass by the high wind, now and again scudded across the wings. She had just satisfied herself that all the lap straps were fastened when the buzzer sounded from the flight deck.

As she made her way up to the nose, it struck her that this was the first time she had ever known Captain Jefferson use it.

From the left-hand seat in the front of the cockpit, he asked her, "Passengers well strapped in?"

"Yes, sir." Outlined against the swirling mist and the movement of the rain, his profile was a quiet monument of calm.

"This stuff's worse than they thought. Much worse." Her eyes followed his to the altimeter, now reading 21,000 feet. "We won't be able to get above it."

The windscreens now were alive with warning streaks of electric rain, its pale sparkle standing out all the brighter against the jet-black background of the storm ahead.

"Lightning on the starboard quarter," the First Officer called out.

Captain Jefferson watched it for a moment. Then he turned back to Susan. "And we won't be able to get round it," he said softly. "So that leaves only one alternative." His voice was completely quiet and unhurried. His face as he assessed the power of the storm, on the strength of the machine that he commanded, was as austere, detached and impartial as that of a judge. "I want you," he said to Susan, "and the First Officer," turning slightly to the other pilot, "to go back and take everything off the luggage racks. Stick as much as you can under the seats, and stow the rest on the floor."

All the time his hands were holding hard to keep the control column steady. A violent jerk quivered the airframe. For a moment Susan held on to the back of the Captain's seat. "Now," he said. "Start now. Be quick, and Miss Shelton ... be careful"

Back in the cabin, the First Officer said, "I'll take the port side, you take the starboard."

She nodded and started to work from the front, lifting the bags and small cases, one rug roll and two typewriters and putting them on the floor.

"That's all right," she said to a man who was unstrapping himself to help her. "I can manage. It's only in case a bag falls down and hits someone."

The whole aisle was beginning to rock sideways by the time the job was finished. Susan had to clutch the stanchion by the coat cupboard as an updraught caught the starboard wing and sent the aircraft reeling off to the left. She strapped herself in at the back, watching the First Officer thread his way carefully to the front and disappear through the door.

An unnatural hush now hung over the cabin, broken only by the mutter of the engines as they hauled the Astroliner through the outskirts of the storm. Cloud had swamped over the whole aircraft, and from its depths the hidden force of the updraughts and downdraughts started to punch and pummel the wet skin of the fuselage outside.

A two-year-old girl started crying; the baby joined in; a small black overnight bag, escaping from behind a seat, did a rolling, bouncing dance down the aisle.

Susan bit her lip and held on tightly to the arm of her chair. She had been in some bad weather before, but this looked like being the worst yet. Anxiously, sympathetically, she kept a watch on her passengers, stiff and taut, with nothing to do but gaze in anxious fascination at the weather outside. For they had none of them seen the most comforting sight of all. Away beyond that cream-painted door was a quiet, courageous, skilful man. The worst Atlantic storm could pull its most frightening faces, try to turn upside down, punch them out of the sky. But it wouldn't perturb the grim face that stared out at its gloom. In spite of herself, and the storm and the fear in the cabin, she smiled.

A lady in front of her turned round and said, "Will it go on much longer?"

Susan said hopefully, "I shouldn't think so. Usually, the more violent it is, the shorter."

But this was to be an exception. During the next ten minutes the rolling gradually got worse and more frequent, until the aircraft never seemed to be level for a moment. To be imprisoned in this black, invisible world was, Susan thought, even worse for the passengers than a storm at sea, because there at least they would see what was going on, draw a certain comfort from the steel plates and the bulky hull. While here, only the thickness of the window glass and the thin alloy of the fuselage protected than from the very centre of the storm itself.

Right at the back, already several of the passengers had been sick. The baby was crying louder, and from where she sat Susan saw that the mother had gone white and her eyes were closed. She unbuckled her seat belt to go over to her. Sitting beside them, she took the baby in her own arms and tried to comfort them both at the same time.

They all sat together in this topsy-turvy world. Half of the cabin had succumbed to sickness. As soon as the baby quietened, Susan whispered, "Do you think you could manage him yourself for a moment?" and when the mother nodded, she groped around, trying to make those who were ill feel a little more comfortable.

The storm had turned the air outside as black as night. Ice clanked and rattled against the fuselage. And then, in the middle of the nightmare around them, there was a sudden blinding flash, followed by a bang as loud as gunpowder exploding.

A woman's voice, thin against the deeper noise of the engines, wailed, "We've been struck by lightning!"

Purposely loudly, Susan replied, "It's all right." Her voice carried clearly in the sudden hush. "You couldn't have a safer place in a thunderstorm than an aircraft."

Out in the middle of a North Atlantic sky, pummelled by clouds and buffeted by the weather, thirty pairs of eyes looked at the black hostile battlefield outside. Then they looked back to Susan's calm untroubled face. Maybe because they wanted to, maybe because they had to, Susan won. They believed her.

"And it won't have done us any harm? " a man said.

Susan shook her head. "None at all," she said, with perfect truth.

"I wonder, all the same," the woman said, a little more firmly, "if I could have a drink of water and a couple of aspirins?"

Susan went back to the galley. Then, just after she'd made her painful way back to the lady, and held on grimly while she took her aspirins and sipped her water, a sudden sickening lurch, the last triumphant flick in the storm's tail, hurled her backwards across the aisle. Back and back she went, skidding from one seat to another, clutching at the upholstery as she slithered. A man stretched out a hand to stop her, but the storm twisted the aircraft this way and that until Susan, with a violent thud, came to rest against the rear stanchion. She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment. The force of the impact had been against her left arm.

All the passengers turned to look at her. "Don't get out," Susan said, as a couple of the men started to unstrap themselves. "I'm not hurt. I'm used to it." Then, so that they wouldn't see the tears of pain in her eyes, she bent down and added, "I think my tights got the worst of it!"

"Sure you're all right?" the man in the rear seat asked as she got up.

Susan nodded her head. "Look," she said, to take at least a dozen pairs of eyes from her pale face. "It's getting lighter!"

Smoother, too. As they followed her pointing finger they saw the sky grow paler. The rain disappeared from the windows. The portholes turned from black to grey, and then, as though the weather outside had at last been washed clean, to pure white.

The Astroliner steadied. Back in the galley, Susan sat for a moment on the stool, while for her only, by an odd anomaly, the aircraft seemed to be swaying and turning, doing its own sickening bucking bronco act especially for her. Very gingerly, she fingered her aching upper arm. It was much larger than its twin.

She took a drink of water and some sal volatile and put her head between her knees. Then she gave herself a little shake, as though to shake away the dizziness like water.

The floor of the aircraft was steady now. Quietly she moved back into the cabin, tidying paper bags away, wiping clammy foreheads with cool Cologne-soaked tissues, giving drinks of water, the promise of tea in a moment. But nothing she could do was half so good as the seat-belt sign suddenly snapping off.

"Like the All Clear," an old gentleman said, and smiled.

"Yes," Susan said thankfully. "All over now."

And proudly and majestically, gleaming as though she had been burnished for battle, the Astroliner rode over the last grey and white screes of cloud, and sailed, spotlighted by shafts of sunlight, out into the clear.

As she took the paper water cup from one of the passengers, Susan saw the door to the flight deck open, and Captain Jefferson, immaculate and unruffled, came through. He gave a quick professional look round as though for any damage. Then he said to the four people in the front seats, "I'm sorry you had such a rough hour."

"Was that all it was?" a red-faced man said. "It felt like a lifetime!"

They all smiled.

"Everyone's all right?"

"The stewardess," a woman passenger said, "looked after us wonderfully."

"And no casualties?" Captain Jefferson smiled confidently.

"Only this young lady." The red-faced man jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Susan. And then, as though the storm would have lost some of its value as an anecdote if they hadn't had an injury of some kind, he went on, "Knocked for six, from half-way down the aisle."

Captain Jefferson looked across sharply at Susan and frowned. Just, she thought angrily, as though to fall down in front of your passengers was hardly airline etiquette.

"Hurt?" he said gruffly, half to the passenger, half to her.

Susan shook her head. Rather disappointedly, the red-faced man admitted that she didn't appear to have been.

Captain Jefferson gave Susan another look. This time, by a trick of the sunlight now streaming in, his face looked gentle and worried.

"Sure?" he asked her quietly.

"Quite sure, thank you, sir." And she turned and walked back to the galley to make the passengers their much-needed tea.

A few minutes later, a dark shadow blocked out the light through the galley doorway.

"Your arm, wasn't it?" Captain Jefferson said.

Susan looked up quickly. "How did you know?"

"I watched the way you held it. Your left arm." He eyed her gravely. "Let me see it."

"It's all right."

He said nothing. But the silence seemed to repeat his request. With a little shrug of resignation she slipped off the white linen monkey jacket she was wearing. It was difficult getting the left sleeve off.

"Let me." His fingers were very gentle, his face, when she looked at it, quiet and concerned.

They both looked at the huge bruise just under the rolled- up sleeve of her shirt. Carefully, he touched the puffy discoloured skin. His eyes examined it thoughtfully. She looked up into his face. Now it looked tired and oddly strained.

For a moment, she had the strangest desire suddenly to bury her face in that shoulder, now so comfortingly near. "Just a minute," he said. "I'll put a compress on it for you."

"Don't bother," she half protested. But only feebly. If he said he'd do a thing he would do it, so any protest was useless. And anyway, she thought with a little sigh, watching him get the first-aid box and the bowl and the water, it was a comfort to have him there.

"Any better?" he said, wringing out the compress and putting it on her arm.

She nodded her head. "Much better, thank you."

His eyes stayed for a moment on her face. Then he walked through the doorway. "Take it as easy as you can. I'll send the Engineer back to give you a hand with the trays."

She was going to say it didn't matter, she could manage. But she felt suddenly tired, and very willing to place herself under this man's protective care. "Thank you, sir," she said. But he had already gone.

Now, after the storm, the passengers attacked their dinners with the added zest of people who had been through a little danger and come through without making too much fuss. They were well pleased with themselves, the aircraft, the Company, the Captain and his crew, and most of all with the stewardess.

Darkness had come down now. Steady as a rock, the moon- silvered wings spread themselves towards England.

Four hours later, a lighthouse flickered out over the first glimpse of the British coastline. Then a string of lights; here and there, a cluster of white; the long line of a town road. And then darkness again, as they swept across the sleeping countryside.

It was quite calm when they landed at London - one of those still, frosty calms so frequent in winter. The air, when the cabin door was opened, was bracingly fresh. Though it was past eleven English time, the arc lamps made everything as bright as day. When all the good-byes and thank-yous had been said, Susan went down the steps, and crossed the great white cave of light scooped out of the darkness by the powerful lights.

A little ahead of her, Captain Jefferson walked from the crew exit with the First Officer. "Not too bad a trip after all," she heard him say to the second pilot.

Then, just before they disappeared into Operations, as though he sensed her behind him, he turned suddenly and said, "I wanted to say thank you, Miss Shelton ... you did a splendid job."

Susan stood still for a moment. The lights were behind him, so that his face was in shadow. The shade from his uniform cap was like a black mask over his face. But her own face, caught in the drench of the arc lights, must have been only too easy to read. Disappointment, tenderness, underlined the weariness of her eyes and mouth. She had the illusion that he took a half step towards her. Then she said crisply, "Thank you, sir," and then, as she turned away towards the Catering Section, "Good-night, sir."

"Wait a minute, Miss Shelton."

"Yes?"

"I've just thought of something. You're tired. You're still feeling a bit bruised." She could sense rather than see his small smile. "Get a move on through Catering! Tell them I'm waiting, and I'll see you home. Don't bother with the crew car."

Susan caught her breath, hardly able to believe her ears. "Thank you..." she started to say again. The bright lights suddenly looked all festive and fairy-like. The trip, now she came to think of it, had been the most enjoyable ever.

"I'll be as quick as I can," she said over her shoulder.

"Do that," he called back, as he strode towards Operations.

It was always much easier late at night. Catering, Immigration officials, Customs officers, all treated the weary storm- tossed travellers kindly. London Airport staff, like bustling nannies, seemed to do their best to hurry them off to home and bed.

"I wasn't long, was I?" she said breathlessly, as she hurried up beside Captain Jefferson.

"No," he said as they crossed the tarmac. He looked around. "Now where's the car?"

"Where do you usually leave it?" Susan asked politely.

"Oh, I don't. It's not mine." He looked down at her and laughed apologetically. "It's my friend's."

"Your friend's?" Susan said. An awful suspicion was beginning to dawn.

"Yes," he said. But he wasn't listening. Then he looked down at Susan. "Oh, she won't mind. Don't worry about that."

Then simultaneously, as they rounded the administrative block they saw the hump-back rear of the faithful cream car. "There she is," Captain Jefferson said, and his voice was suddenly gentle. Just as it had been on the terrace at Bermuda.

"Midnight," he said softly. "On a cold winter's night. That ..." he said, and it was without any trace of vanity or self- esteem, "that's devotion for you." He looked down at Susan, as if for some comment.

"Yes," she said, looking around at the mournful grey face of the airfield, the icy crystals of stars in the sky above. "Yes . ..it certainly is."

With a slight encouraging smile at Susan, Captain Jefferson opened the door of the cream car. A gloved hand waved from the interior. A low voice said, "There you are, John!"

Susan stood quite still, a pace or so from them - but it felt like ten thousand miles. She wondered if it would be too awful if she just disappeared towards the broad safe hulk of the crew car further down the roadway, and then looked down at her feet, and wished they'd get their greetings over and done with.

But, obviously constrained by her presence, John Jefferson merely said, "Hello, Angela. Been waiting long?" And almost as an afterthought, "I hope you don't mind ... I've brought along another passenger."

From the warmth of the interior, Angela said no, of course she didn't, and hurry up and get in because it was midnight and freezing at that.

Obediently, John Stood back to let Susan sit in front beside the driver. She had a confused impression of a girl with long dark hair, and a heart-shaped face and a pair of bright eyes that inspected her with undisguised but quite friendly interest The other girl gave a little smile. "Just throw all that luggage into the back, John," she called over her shoulder. And turning back to Susan, "I'm Angela."

"And my name's Susan."

They heard Captain Jefferson open the boot, and stow the bags in. "Still haven't oiled this hinge!" he called out, and Angela laughed.

"That's the worst," she said to Susan, "of not having a man around the house!" Her sweet mouth went momentarily wistful. Then after a moment, she added brightly, "You're the stewardess, aren't you?"

She had, Susan decided, a rather attractive way of speaking, so that she gave even that ordinary remark a kind of significance, as though you weren't just any stewardess, but a rather special one. "I mean," she went on, "I recognized the uniform. Like John's, only... feminized ... if there's such a word?"

Susan glanced down at the plainly cut blue barathea, and then at Angela's smart loose-fitting coat - of what in this half light looked like soft oatmeal-coloured wool.

"Not very feminized," she murmured, and laughed as though it didn't matter anyway. Then, rather shyly, she said it was very kind of Angela to give her a lift, and she hoped it wasn't too much out of her way.

"Oh, that's all right," Angela said. "I always take John home ... it's the least I can do. He's absolutely," she lowered her voice confidentially, "absolutely marvellous to me."

Susan stirred uncomfortably. She was glad when the pilot opened the door behind, grumbled about the way the boot was crammed full of everything under the sun, and said suspiciously - what was Angela whispering about anyway?

"You, dear," Angela said sweetly, and started the car.

"You two got acquainted already?"

"Oh, yes," Angela said as she selected first gear. "We know all about each other now."

Susan sat back in her seat, as though to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. This was the moment when they ought to be able to exchange a kiss, or touch hands (although she hated the thought) and here she sat like a wretched duenna betwixt and between the two of them.

The cream car slid along the airport roadway and out through the gates. "Turn right," John Jefferson said. "Tell us when to branch off, won't you, Susan?"

Angela headed the car along the deserted Great West Road. "Now," she said, resting her hands comfortably on the wheel, "all the news, please, John."

"Well ... I told you before we started we weren't going to Santiago. Only Panama."

"Yes, I know. But what have you brought back?"

The car stopped at the traffic lights. In a kindly, teasing way, John Jefferson said, "That's all she really meets me for. Can't waste a moment to get those hands on anything."

Susan glanced at those hands, now on the wheel, snugly encased in gloves from Lima. Angela glanced at her, and held them up. "Nice, aren't they? John bought them for me."

"She helped me choose them," the pilot put in.

"You did?" Angela said warmly. "That was nice of you." The lights changed to green, and the cream car moved forward. "Come on, John. What have you got? Please!"

"Total freight... two parcels."

"Give!" Angela stretched her left hand behind her.

"Put your hand back on the wheel! It's bad enough sitting here at night watching you drive this monster without -"

"Oh, all right." Obediently Angela again began to drive with two hands. She turned her head towards Susan, and gave a momentary look of droll exasperation up to the roof of the car. The bonnet veered towards the kerb.

"And keep your eyes on the road!"

Abruptly, the wheels straightened up.

"Is he like this on the aeroplane, Susan?"

The voice from the back announced, "I am much worse than this on the aeroplane." And then, more softly, "Which reminds me.. .how's that bruise on your arm?"

"Don't tell me," Angela interposed in mock alarm, "that he actually knocks you around as well?"

"Not exactly me," John Jefferson said. "The weather. She had rather a nasty fall."

"Oh, I am sorry." No longer bantering now, Angela's voice was full of concern. "Are you sure you're all right in that seat?"

Susan stirred uncomfortably. "Sure, thanks. It's nothing. I can hardly feel it now."

Which was perfectly true. As the car sped past the sleeping houses, her mind was far too preoccupied to have time to notice it. She was trying to fit these two pieces - John Jefferson and the girl who saw him off and welcomed him home - back into the jigsaw where they had once belonged in her memory. They seemed to have come apart in a bewildering way. Certainly there was the uncomplicated easiness of long understanding between them. But there was something missing - she was sure of it - something that, before, her imagination had provided, and which now reality completely failed to produce.

She listened while they talked unconcernedly to each other. John Jefferson was saying, "I handed the parcel you gave me before we left to the Captain of the southbound to pass on to Robin when he arrived at Santiago. The northbound skipper told me he'd seen him. As far as I can gather, he remains faithfully pining for you."

"He didn't say if Robin had told him when the Company would let me go out there? Or whether he'd found a house?" Angela turned to Susan. "If ever you have the bad luck," she said, "to fall in love with a mining engineer ... take good care that he gets a job with the Coal Board before you marry him!" And then, as though this wisecracking bravado was too much to keep up, she added wistfully, "John was at university with Robin. I don't know what we'd have done without him."

"You'd have wheedled someone else to do it."

"Difficult," protested Angela. "It makes such a difference when it's someone who really knows Robin well. So that he can tell me just how he looks, how he's settling down. Someone I won't mind giving all my loving messages to."

The car slowed up behind a line of lorries. John said, "Susan's a someone too."

Susan smiled. "You mean Beth and Dick?"

"I'll guarantee he gave you a message for her."

She nodded. "He did."

"That's one thing at least we share in common." He seemed to be speaking especially to her. "We're both go-betweens."

"Who are Beth and Did;?" Angela asked. And while John was telling her, Susan stared out at the street lights that flashed one by one past the dark side window. They weren't in the usual orthodox street pattern for lights at all. Some were up in the sky, some shone up from the pavement, some seemed double and some seemed treble, and all were misty and muzzy. Surreptitiously, she blinked and bit her lip.

Her mind flashed back to Bermuda, to that conversation she had had with John Jefferson, when she thought Beth and Dick's marriage was being used as a screen to get her views on airline pilots marrying girls in cream cars.

She turned her head slightly to the right. John and Angela were still talking to each other. The pilot had propped his arms on the seat behind them and was quietly chatting about the Featherstones' beautiful house in Bermuda.

He'd talked about that to her, she remembered. He'd said something about a home and a home: something about not having told a girl he loved her in as many words: something about having tried to tell her in other ways.

And then she remembered the things she'd said: something of the excitement of foreign countries: something about the disadvantages of being a pilot's wife: something about Alan Heathley.

"Susan."

She gave a start. She looked over her shoulder and saw his eyes on her.

"Were you asleep?"

"No. Just dreaming, I'm afraid."

"From what I can remember, it's right now isn't it?"

"Yes... right. The third house down. Just by the lamp."

The car squealed to a stop. Two lights glimmered at the top of Mrs. Potter's high narrow house. The bare branches of the beech tree at the gate threw a spindly shadow up to the steps.

"Back home again," Susan said, but she looked away from Mrs. Potter's, to the inside of the car again. Back to John Jefferson's enigmatic profile. With a kindly, quite dispassionate chivalry, he took out her bag, walked the five steps up to Mrs. Potter's front door and deposited it there.

"Thank you," Susan said to Angela. "It was awfully good of you. It's been a great help."

"Glad any time." Angela waved a friendly Lima glove, as she moved over to the vacant seat to let John do the driving. "I hope we meet again, Susan. Soon."

Captain Jefferson said, "Have a good sleep now. And I hope your arm isn't any trouble. If it is, let me know." Then, his duties done, he climbed into the car behind the wheel, called good-night, and smoothly slid it away from the kerb.

It seemed, almost regretfully, to be taking away all her hopes, all her love, all her dreams, and she was left standing like someone at a deserted platform. Just a little too late.

For of one thing she was certain. He was not the man to offer his love twice.

"Good night," she said to the last glimpse of the car before the black buildings at the corner blanked it from her sight. "Good night... and God bless."

The next day, Susan threw herself into the preparations for Beth's wedding with a desperate kind of fervour. That way, she found, you didn't sit around hoping that the phone might ring, the door might open, that John Jefferson might come.

The first thing was a phone call, one of so many that Beth rubbed her dusty hands on her overall and sighed at Susan up in the attic, where they were testing the legs of a discarded table for an extra for the buffet. "Ask who's speaking, please," she called over the well of the stairs to Mrs. Potter.

And Mrs. Potter immediately came back with the information, "A Mr. Adamson, Miss Martin, dear."

Susan heard Beth's feet fly down the stairs. A few minutes later, she reappeared, a broad smile on her face. "You'll never guess," she said. "Not in a hundred guesses."

Still kneeling on the floor, Susan looked up and pushed back a stray curl from her face. "Tell me, then."

"Well, first of all, you know what old Adamson is like -" Susan murmured she did indeed. "- and he was full of enquiries about where I was going to live, and all that (as if he didn't know), and he hoped we'd have a nice day for the wedding and it was Saturday, wasn't it? So naturally, with him being so sociable, I was quite, quite sure I was for it. I was wondering what I'd done wrong, and how he'd found out, when he said very gravely that he'd just been having a chat to my fiancé - pronounced in his best French accent!"

"Go on," Susan objected. "You've not told me a thing."

"Well," Beth said judiciously, "at this stage, neither had he. Anyway, he said he'd been given to understand that I had no uncles." Beth paused. "Naturally, he knew I hadn't any parents. But he appeared to have been banking on an odd grandfather or uncle or third cousin twice removed." She drew a deep breath. "What he wanted to know - after a long spiel about the welfare of us girls, was - who intended to give me away."

"Strictly at the wedding," Susan murmured, and smiled.

"Oh, yes, this was strictly wedding only," Beth laughed. "And when I said Dick was going to rope in one of the aircrew, but he didn't know who yet, there was a long and very painful pause."

Beth sat down on a packing-case, and cupped her face in her hands.

"Come on," Susan said, "you don't have to repeat the pause as well!"

"Then" - Beth's hazel eyes went dramatically large - "he said a whole lot about how busy senior airline officials always were. And how very happily, Saturday was about the one day the poor busy bees could get off."

"So you said he'd be very welcome, if he could come?"

"Oh, that... naturally. But Mr. Adamson, little though he is, never takes a back seat. You should know that. In short, he said that he always took a fatherly interest in the doings of us girls. That we were all young, and in a sense didn't I think he stood really in loco parentis? Well, my Latin not being what it ought to be, I said - of course, and everyone else thought so, too. So the gist of it was, how about Mr. Adamson himself giving the bride away?"

"I think it was rather sweet of him," Susan said. "And I hope you're going to let him. It makes it all a sort of family affair."

"As a matter of fact, your old friend Beth was just a little bit touched, if you really want to know. And I couldn't have been more pleased." She looked suddenly quite pink, and started to turn the table upside down to see if one of the wooden cross-pieces could be mended. "Anyway, that's that."

But that turned out not to be that. The next day, Mrs. Potter opened the door to find a dark swarthy-faced man, with a pointed French-looking beard and an air of prosperity and sophistication. Through his heavily foreign accent, Mrs. Potter managed only to identify the words wedding and Miss Martin.

Gustav, it appeared, also insisted on taking a hand. To supervise, or so he explained to Mrs. Potter over a potent brew of tea in the kitchen, in an accent suitably brought nearer home and more comfortable to both of them, the girls who had had the benefit of his arduous years of training.

Then, too, everyone who had been out on service the week of the wedding seemed to have brought home tins of food, tropical fruit, bottles of champagne and even festive-looking dolls from Jamaica to decorate the buffet table.

Every single stewardess seemed to have seen just a very cheap bag, they said, that might come in useful. Or gossamer tights. Or lace, or gloves, or a length of silk. Beth sniffed one night amidst all these offerings, "You know, I never expected everyone would be like this ... somehow it makes me feel I belong, if you know what I mean... and I never felt it before."

"Well, don't feel it now," Susan advised gently, trying to stave off the threatening pre-wedding tears. "Not when you're just leaving us. It's too late to ..." And her own voice trailed away.

Too late seemed to toll in her ears like a melancholy bell. Everything fitted itself in to the rhythm of those words. Too late, the phone bell sang in the hall. Too late for John Jefferson to phone. Too late to tell him it was only a misunderstanding.

"Well, I suppose it is." Beth scrubbed her eyes determinedly. "And there's the phone again, and Mrs. P. is at the pictures, and I'll bet it's for me."

She got up, touching, as she passed, the long white wedding- gown hanging on the wardrobe door, and then clattered down the stairs.

Susan sat on the small pouffe by the gas-fire, watching its little hissing flames, listening abstractedly to its sing-song wheeze. Then she looked across at the ghostly glimmer of the satin gown that had just been put on for its last before-the-day try on, at the foam of the lace veil, at the coronet of orange blossom.

"You look all hunched up and dejected." Beth came breezing like her old self again. "What were you doing, brooding like that by the fire? That" - and she waved her hand behind her - "was a particular friend of yours on the phone. Well" - she looked at Susan sideways - "ask me who it was."

"Who was it?" Susan asked obediently.

Beth made a bow. Then, as though she was putting a name to Susan's thoughts, she said, "Captain Jefferson himself ... and very much at your service!"

Susan's eyes widened hopefully. "At mine?"

"No, you goose! Who's getting married? At the bride's service, of course! Matter of fact," she said, "he seemed to think it might be you at first. Started off something about 'Is that you, Susan?' However, that's not important. Not at the moment. What he rang for was to say he was sure we'd never be able to lay our hands on all the cars we needed for all the guests that are insisting on coming. And as taxis are scarce in this big city, how about Captain Jefferson taking some guests to the wedding and doing a bit of general ferrying? "

"Nice of him," Susan said flatly.

"Wasn't it?" Beth's face was glowing with delight. "Now practically everyone who's in has done their very best..." She pulled up a chair beside Susan and stared beside her into the flames. "My last night here," she said suddenly.

"Yes."

"And tomorrow ... I wonder how I'll feel..." She cupped her firm chin in her hands. "You know," she went on softly, "I think I'll feel... not excited then. A bit nervous of everyone, perhaps. Then I'll see they're all my friends. Then I'll see Dick ... and it won't seem like a wedding you read about... it'll be just -"

"Just like walking to meet Dick..."

"And to be with him ..."

"For ever," Susan murmured softly. "Then you wouldn't be nervous or frightened or worried -"

"Just happy," Beth said.

"And," Susan whispered, "so safe... so comforted ... so -"

Beth put out a hand across the blue-pink gas-lit hearth. "How long, Susan," she said gently, "have you been in love?"

CHAPTER X

The next morning, Susan woke early. With a small sigh, meant to disperse a vision, uninvited and unwanted, of John Jefferson in these first few hours of Beth's wedding day, Susan swung herself out of bed and pulled back the curtains.

She blinked at the dark sky above the row of houses opposite, and tried to guess the sort of day that was still wrapped in the blackness of a late winter dawn. Around and below her, she could hear doors opening and shutting, water being run, coal buckets filled. As though conscious that it sheltered the most exciting person of the day, the house stirred early.

But Susan hadn't quite reached the haven of jobs and work and the downstairs bustle, before she began wondering what it would feel like if this was her wedding day.

And then she was trapped again by her own thoughts.

For the bridegroom who waited at the bottom of the aisle wore, despite her attempts at impartial anonymity, the unmistakable features of John Jefferson. The voice that would make the responses with such love and authority could belong to none other. The hand that held hers, as steadily as he had held the aircraft through storm and danger, was comfortingly his.

And then, to complete her self-deception, she told herself that the bright glaze of tears that framed this impossibly lovely picture had nothing to do with John Jefferson and herself, but had come into her eyes (and she firmly scrubbed them away) because Beth was her best friend, and it was all a bit of a wrench, and the excitement of a wedding made everyone rather sentimental and weepy.

An idea, as it happened, which, downstairs in the kitchen, Mrs. Potter seconded. Already, as she made the essential first cups of tea, she was sniffling a little into the steam. She was upset that Miss Martin was going, she was sure the rolls would not arrive in time from the baker's, and the lady next door had still not produced the silver-lacquered toy model of an aeroplane that she had promised for the very top of the cake. Not only all that - she looked out at the two black squares of London sky let in through her back door - it was going to rain.

Bat three-quarters of an hour later, the pale sun had cracked open an encouraging rent in the overcast. Breakfast, very small and very light, had been eaten and cleared away, and best of all - Gustav had arrived.

And as though he alone possessed the key of this smaller and newer World Wide merry-go-round, everything began to tick over properly. The rolls arrived, the flowers came early, the lady next door produced the prettily silvered aircraft, and was allowed also to volunteer to help with the washing up.

Gustav worked tirelessly. In the early days Mrs. Potter had often wondered why the girls had been in such awe of him; now she wondered why they hadn't been even more so. He inspected her cleaning of the silver, clucked impatiently over her arrangement of the canapés, and insisted on polishing the bowls and vases with vinegar and newspaper till they shone like genuine cut-glass. There were moments when it appeared doubtful whether he would allow Mrs. Potter to hand around the food in her own house. Twice, at his kitchen practice, she fluffed her cue and approached Gustav from the right, and as far as managing the spoon and fork technique was concerned, Gustav made no secret of the fact that her rating was zero.

But as the clock ticked unhurriedly towards eleven, all the different cells of activity in this beehive seemed to get themselves organized. By half-past ten, Susan had rooted Penelope out of bed, done Beth's hair, pressed all their brand-new dresses and fled upstairs again to change.

She slipped the dress of sprigged blue and white cotton over her head. The tightly fitting bodice showed off her small waist to perfection. The skirt fluttered reassuringly. She looked at herself in the mirror, carefully put a little rouge into her pale face, and tried to smile away the sadness in her eyes; to will herself into the happiness of her friend's happiest day.

When she came downstairs, Mr. Adamson, dapper in his morning-suit, had arrived to escort the bride to church. And punctual to the minute, the white-beribboned taxis slid alongside the kerb.

"There you go, Beth darling!" Susan walked over from the window where she'd been watching the road below. She flung her arms round her friend. "I know you'll be happy, Beth, and" - she pointed to the pale gilding of sunshine that softened the hard town landscape - "it's going to be a lovely wedding-day!"

Beth made a gruff choky noise, picked up her spray of roses, and squeezed Susan's hand.

"We'll be right behind you," Susan smiled mistily. "And if you think of Mr. Adamson right beside you, you won't dare to do anything wrong!"

Laughing rather shakily, they both went downstairs.

First, the two bridesmaids, Penelope and Susan. Then Mrs. Potter and the lady next door, with Gustav sitting regally in between. Then the bride's car.

The church, three streets and then round a corner away, stood in a small quiet square, its patch of precious grass surrounded by iron railings, the top of its spire reaching up to the shafts of the winter sun. A little crowd of people from the houses around stood by the gates, stiffening into interest as they saw the white-ribboned car.

"I'm feeling massively nervous," Penelope said, adjusting her tiny hat on her gleaming hair. She looked sideways at Susan as they approached the gates. "You know, poppet, I distinctly saw your little chin wobble just now. Don't tell me you're the sort of gal who always weeps at weddings!"

Susan denied indignantly that she was.

"The only time one's allowed to weep is if it's one's own," Penelope said judiciously. "Though now I come to think of it, you're looking very beautiful and bridal yourself." She broke off. "Oh, I say, do look! Old Adamson is really being quite paternal. I do believe he's telling Beth not to be nervous ! Can't," she went on, opening the car door, "resist a pep talk, even with the wedding-bells literally sounding in his ears."

They stood for a moment in the cool winter morning, behind Beth and Mr. Adamson. The porch was dark, and smelled of old stone and wood and hymn-books like the small church at home. "You're most unfashionably on time," Penelope said, and smiled encouragingly at Beth. And Mr. Adamson remarked with highly self-conscious facetiousness that it was due to World Wide's excellent training.

Like a lovely reverent finger of quiet over them, the organ started very softly to play the Wedding March. And then, as Beth turned and put her hand lightly on Mr. Adamson's arm, gradually the music swelled into all its beauty and majesty.

There was a rustling, whispering sound as the large congregation rose. Through the stained glass windows, the sun sent shafts of red and blue and golden light towards them. The music seemed to take their feet and put them down in solemn, unhurried time on the old worn flagstones of the aisle.

As she walked behind the bride, the peace and the beauty and the reverence of this moment came quietly into Susan's heart.

Outside the church, the winter sunshine was bright on the walls and the pavement. Susan blinked her eyes, passing, it seemed, through a curtain of light, down the worn steps, on to the flagstones of the courtyard.

The sharp wind blew at their dresses, ruffled the veils and crumpled the confetti and sent the wedding-group, despite the clicking of the cameras, for the shelter of the long line of sleek cars.

Beth and Dick, laughing and holding hands, were into the first car and away. Then Penelope, captured by the best man, was off in the second. And into the third, without fuss, without even a word, and with only his authoritative hand on her arm, Susan found herself swept by John Jefferson.

It all seemed perfectly natural. She sat back in her seat, straightened her rumpled hair. Her eyes were sparkling. The cold wind had whipped the colour into her cheeks. So normal did it seem to be sitting there that for a few seconds she forgot that, since the night of the trip, they had not exchanged a single word.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at John Jefferson's face. He was frowning at the road, as though written on the blackboard of the macadam road was an abstruse mathematical calculation.

"This turning," Susan said gently, so as not to interrupt his thoughts too much. "This turning," she said more loudly. "Oh, there ... you've missed it." She arranged the little posy of flowers on her lap. "Never mind," she said, "you can take the next one ... then turn right and right again. It comes out to the same place in the end. There now. This turning here." Then after a second, "Oh, you've missed it again."

She looked out of the window. Suddenly it was imperative to go on talking. "If you take the next turning..."

"And the second right, then the third right?" John Jefferson spoke for the first time.

"We'll land in the same place," she finished for him.

There was no answer for a moment, except for a slight increase in the speed.

"That," he said at last, and treading on the accelerator a shade more, "is precisely why I'm avoiding all turnings to the right."

"You're not going to the reception?"

"We're not," John Jefferson said. "At least, not yet."

"But Beth and Penelope and Dick... they'll all be expecting us..."

John Jefferson gave her a cryptic smile. "To be a little late," he said. He stopped at the traffic lights and looked across at her. Just for a moment, he touched her hand lightly. Then he said, "How's your arm?" And immediately after she had said, "Better, thank you," lapsed back into his frowning concentration on the road.

The buildings and the houses began to thin out. The main road became a highway. Then he turned down a side-street, then off into another. Then down a quiet winding lane with bare hedges on either side. A small stream ran parallel in the meadow beyond. Then the hedges fell back. A grassy heath opened up in front, bounded by the river.

"Here, I think," he said, bending down and pulling up the brake. With careful deliberation, he switched off the ignition and dropped the key into his pocket.

Then he said, "Susan...?"

He stopped. It was as though the one word was a question, and now he was waiting for the answer.

For a moment Susan looked back at him. Even in the not too revealing light of a winter day, his face was tense and anxious. The landscape behind him - the brown fields and hedges, the gunmetal grey of the cold river, seemed to suit his mood. It was as though he could face with ease the wide unlimited horizons of the sky, the vast and complicated problems of the aircraft he commanded, but now he was baffled by this problem of the girl who sat beside him, unsure of how to find a love that might not exist.

Very gently, oddly proud that for once she could help him, she put out her hand and touched his.

He gave her a small, grateful, abstracted smile. Then, as though even in this he had to be the master spirit, he suddenly straightened his shoulders, squeezed the hand that still held his a little harder, and started off again, very slowly and very quietly, "Susan." He took a deep breath. Then he smiled at her, "I didn't make much of a job of it in Bermuda, did I?"

Susan looked down at her hand, lying so deceptively quietly in his. "It all depends" - she paused - "what you wanted to say."

"I wanted to say..." He stopped abruptly, and stared at the dashboard of the car. He seemed to have gone back to Bermuda, to the night on the terrace, to all the things he'd meant to say. Then suddenly he went on, "I wanted to say, will you marry me, Susan? That I love you. That I've loved you ever since I saw you."

Susan shook her head slowly. "All that?" she said. "Then you didn't..."

"Didn't what, Susan?"

"You didn't make a very good job of it." She let him pull her by the hands until his face was close to hers.

"But now?"

She waited. Now, in this moment, there seemed nothing she could say. She let him stare down into her eyes, she turned up her face to his. Her small hands gripped his even tighter. And her eyes told him that she loved him.

Very gently, he put his arm round her shoulders, and held her close to him, and kissed her.

"Now you know," he said, holding her a little way from him, so that he could watch her face.

"Now you know, too," she whispered.

There was a brief peaceful quietness, while the grey waters of the river hurried past the meadow's end, while the scurrying leaves rattled along the pathway, while she rested her head against his shoulder, and heard the strong beat of his heart keep time to the quickened pulse of hers.

Then John said, "That's what I should have done at Bermuda." He paused. "Only there were ... well, difficulties. And I didn't know about you. How you felt."

"But didn't you ever suspect?" Susan asked. "Never? Not even in the garden at Bermuda when the piccaninny sang his calypso?"

He shook his head. "How could I? All I was trying to find out was whether you had got over Heathley."

"And of course I had," she said simply. "Because there was never really anything to get over. No love. Not" - she lifted up her eyes to his - "like this." She said nothing for a moment. Then she added thoughtfully, "I don't know what it was about Alan. He was nice to be with, and attractive. And when he was pleased, he could be awfully good company. But underneath .. .well, he just didn't seem a real person. And we weren't ever in love," she said definitely. "That I do know. Now."

"But I didn't know," John reminded her gently. "And when you wanted to change back at Panama to fly with him..."

"But I didn't." Susan sat up straight. "I didn't mind being ticked off so much, but I did mind your thinking that. Especially when it wasn't true."

"And when you started talking about him in Bermuda ..."

"No, no. Not him." Susan put a finger on his lips. "Not at all about him. About somebody like him."

"The difference," John said drily, "naturally escaped me."

"You see," Susan went on quickly, ignoring the interruption, "I knew that, as Lisa Carlisle said, once you'd had a dose of Alan Heathley fever, you're inoculated for life. And I thought this other girl might have met someone similar, and ...."

"Which other girl?"

"Why, Angela, of course. I thought you wanted to marry her."

"Marry Angela?" He raised his eyebrows. "What on earth -?"

"She was always down at the airport. You always seemed to be buying her presents."

He smiled. "Always meaning the slippers and gloves I bought as Robin's birthday present for her."

"I'm very glad you did, too ... now. But I wasn't to know."

He watched her face in silence. Then he said reflectively, "No, you weren't. I see that now. I suppose I should have seen it earlier. And other things too. They seem to have been plain enough to other people."

"What other things?"

"Well... just after you got out of the car, Angela turned to me and said, 'You know, that girl looks a bit like I feel. As though she's in love with someone a long way away.' Then she drove on a bit further and said, 'Or who's a bit too blind to see it. One or the other.' And that made me think a little harder."

"Bless her," Susan said. "And then?"

"And then I realized that it wasn't much use talking around the subject of love..."

"The way you did at Bermuda."

"But don't forget," he objected, "that at Bermuda I had to fed my way pretty carefully. The last time we'd been alone together - "

"I was getting my third ticking off…"

"Was it as many as that?"

She shook her head vigorously. "More, really. There were some I didn't count."

He laughed. The sound echoed warmly round the car, in utter contrast to the winter scene beyond the windscreen. "An odd way to tell you that I loved you."

"Was that what it was?"

Gently, he disengaged his hand from hers, and put it round her shoulders. "However unbelievable," he said gravely, "the answer to that is yes. That's how a man reacts, if he finds himself in love" - he gave her shoulders a gentle hug - "with a girl who has to work with him ... on his crew. And for whom he's very much responsible. It makes him all the firmer, all the more determined not to show her favour. Yet even more anxious to look after her ... to protect her. That's how he'd feel." His eyes left hers to stare out over the meadow. "At least," he added simply, "that's how I felt."

She said softly, "Yet when I needed someone ... when I was in disgrace ... then you were very much there. And in the storm, I thought ... it doesn't matter what happens, I know he'll be able to look after us."

"I'd at least try to do it better than saying those few words to you in Bermuda." He smiled across at her. "But I know now that, unlike flying between two places, the shortest distance between two people in love is not a Great Circle. And I love you too much to let you go without asking once at least, quite plainly, with no possible misunderstanding ... if you'll marry me." He stopped and looked down at her. "Will you?"

"Of course," she said gently.

"You don't want time to think it over?"

"I have thought it over," she laughed. "For weeks and weeks and weeks."

He took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. "It'd mean separations and hellos and good-byes..."

"I know," Susan said. "But what we have will be doubly precious."

"And watching me go off, instead of flying yourself. No more south to the sun, Susan."

"No," she said. "None of that. But then I won't need to. I won't need to go to the other side of the world to find it. For here ..." She put his arms around her, and her own round him. "Right here is my sun."

She leaned her head comfortably against his shoulder, while they contemplated the grey landscape outside. Together they watched a cool shaft of light escape from the blanket of clouds around the afternoon sun. It lighted up the sturdy blades of winter grass. It burnished the river, gilded the swirls of the tiny stream. Very lightly, it touched the two clasped hands, the two heads close together. Then as softly and as quickly as it had come, it hid itself behind the barrier of the clouds.

The two pairs of eyes watched it go. Then, simultaneously, they turned to one another.

And the invisible sun enveloped them.