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...

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