Night Without End by Alistair MacLean Page A

"Well?" 
         
         "I'm afraid - I'm afraid I did it," the stewardess faltered. Her brown eyes were as unnaturally large, her face as white and strained as when I had first seen her. "It's all my fault." 
         
         "You! The one person here who should know just how vital radio really is. I don't believe it." 
         
         "You must, I'm afraid." The quiet controlled voice belonged to the man with the cut brow. "No one else was anywhere near it at the time." 
         
         "What happened to you?" I could see he was nursing a bruised and bleeding hand. 
         
         "I dived for it when I saw it toppling." He smiled wryly. "I should have saved myself the trouble. That damned thing's heavy." 
         
         "It's all that. Thanks for trying anyway. I'll fix your hand up later." I turned to the stewardess again, and not even that pale and exhausted face, the contrition in the eyes, could quieten my anger - and, to be honest, my fear. "I suppose it just came to pieces in your hand?" 
         
         "I've told you I'm sorry. I - I'was just kneeling beside Jimmy here-" 
         
         "Who?" 
         
         "Jimmy Waterman - the Second Officer. I-" 
         
         "Second Officer?" I interrupted. "That's the radio operator, I take it?" 
         
         "No, Jimmy is a pilot. We've three pilots -we don't carry a radio operator." 
         
         "You don't-" I broke off my surprised question, asked another instead. "Who's the man in the crew rest room? Navigator?" 
         
         "We don't carry a navigator either. Harry Williamson is - was -the Flight Engineer." 
         
         No wireless operator, no navigator. There had been changes indeed since I'd flown the Atlantic some years previously in a Stratocruiser. I gave it up, returned to my original question and nodded at the smashed RCA. 
         
         "Well, how did it happen?" 
         
         "I brushed the table as I rose and - well, it just fell." Her voice trailed off uncertainly. 
         
         "It just fell," I echoed incredulously. "One hundred and fifty pounds of transmitter and you flicked it off the table just like that?" 
         
         "I didn't knock it off. The legs collapsed." 
         
         "It's got no legs to collapse," I said shortly. "Hinges." 
         
         "Well, hinges, then." 
         
         I looked at Joss, who had been responsible for the erection of the table as well as the radio. "Is it possible?" 
         
         "No." His voice was flat, definite. 
         
         Again the silence in the cabin, the hush, the tension that grew from the merely uncomfortable to the all but unbearable. But I was beginning to see that there was nothing to be gained now by further questioning, much to be lost. The radio was wrecked. Finish. 
         
         I turned away without a word, hung up my caribou furs on nails on the walls, took off goggles and gloves and turned to the man with the cut brow. 
         
         "Let's have a look at your head and your hand - it's a pretty nasty gash on your forehead. Forget the radio for the moment, Joss - let's have coffee first, lots-of it." I turned to Jackstraw, who had just come down the steps from the hatch and was staring at the smashed radio. "I know, Jackstraw, I know. I'll explain later- not that I know anything about it. Bring seme empty cases for seats out of the food tunnel, will you. And a bottle of brandy. We all need it." 
         
         I'd just started to wash the cut forehead - a nasty gash, as I had said, but surprisingly little signs of bruising - when the big amiable young man who had helped us lower the second officer from the wrecked plane came to us. I looked across up at him, and saw that I could be wrong about the amiability: his face wasn't exactly hostile, but his eyes had the cool