Landfall Read Online Free PDF Page B

said:
    “Well, I must go and feed. I’ll keep my eyes skinned for your little friend when I’m out tomorrow.”
    The officer who had rescued the survivors said suddenly and harshly: “If you see the bloody thing, give it everything you’ve got.”
    There was a momentary silence.
    The young flying officer nodded soberly. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do that, with your love.”
    He went off to the grill.

II
    I N the Pavilion the lights swung and changed colour on the dancers. The floor was crowded. Most of the dancers were in uniform, sailors and officers mixed indiscriminately. There was a sprinkle of khaki and of Air Force blue, but most of the uniforms were naval.
    Chambers swung the girl deftly in and out of the crowd of dancers on the floor. They were laughing together in the changing lights. She still wore the plain black frock that she had worn when serving in the bar: he had not allowed her time to go back home to change.
    I like to dance and tap my feet,
   But they won’t keep in rhythm—
You see I washed them both today
   And I can’t do nothin’ with them.
    They turned and side-stepped merrily in an open space.
    Ho hum, the tune is dumb,
   The words don’t mean a thing—
Isn’t this a silly song
   For anyone to sing?
    He said: “Don’t sing that song. It sends an arrow right through my heart.”
    She bubbled with laughter. “You do talk soft. What’s it this time?”
    “I had a date with Snow White. I broke it to come here and dance with you.”
    “You do tell stories. It was Ginger Rogers last time.”
    “I know it was. They’re all after me because I dance so well.”
    “Do you tchassy in a reverse turn when you dance with Ginger Rogers?”
    “We won’t go into that again,” he said, with dignity. “I do it every time I dance with Snow White. And what’s more, Disney makes it look all right.”
    She laughed again up into his face. “He must stretch out one of your legs to make it look all right, like Pluto’s tail.”
    Presently the dance came to an end. He took her back to the table which they had left loaded with their overcoats to retain it and bought strawberry ices for them both. Presently she said:
    “What do you do when you aren’t flying?”
    He said: “I’m writing my autobiography. It’s the right thing to do that when you’re twenty-three.”
    She looked at him uncertainly. “You don’t know how to write a book, I don’t believe.”
    “Anyone can write that sort of book. I’m going to call it
Forty Years a Flying Officer.”
    The dance-hall was built out upon a pier on the sea-front. Beneath their feet the tide crept in over the sand, menacing in the utter darkness. Outside no lights whatever showed upon the waste of waters. On the black, tumbling sea a very few ships moved unseen, unlit, and stealthily. Twenty miles out two little wooden vessels lay five miles apart, with engines stopped and drifting with the tide. In each of them a man sat in a little, dimly lit cabin. Before him was an electrical apparatus; he wore head-phones on his head. From time to time he turned the knob of a condenser.
    He sat there listening, listening, all the winter night.
    Over her strawberry ice the girl said: “No, but seriously, what do you do when you aren’t flying?”
    He said: “I build ships.”
    She laughed again. “No—seriously.”
    “Honestly, that’s what I do. I’m making a galleon.”
    “Like what you buy in shops, in bits to put together?”
    “That’s right.”
    Her mind switched off at a tangent. “Wasn’t it terrible about them people in that ship today?”
    His mind moved quickly. There had been no mention of the loss of the
Lochentie
in the evening paper. He said innocently:
    “What ship was that?”
    She said, wide-eyed: “The one you was talking about in the bar. You know.”
    He said: “I never talk of naval matters in a bar. It tells you not to on the poster.”
    She said: “Don’t talk so soft. You was talking to the officers