“Are you enjoying the flight, Miss Rowe?”
“Yes, it’s very smooth and pleasant.”
The girl glanced up as she spoke. She was in her early twenties and did rather resemble the girl in Gravy’s vague portrait, except that her hair was dark brown. Vicki had expected from the portrait that it would be light brown. As for the squarish face, Vicki could not decide whether Gravy had exaggerated its shape. Her large eyes and wide mouth resembled the portrait. Did this girl look like a topnotch secretary? She was trimly dressed, well groomed, and well made up. Did she look like an outdoors girl? That was harder to guess.
Vicki looked to see whether Miss L. Rowe wore the Bryant family’s silver ring; but she wore no rings at all. This, too, proved nothing. Most women wore little or no jewelry while traveling. Vicki longed to ask Miss Rowe her first name, but she had no right, no excuse, no time to do so. She smiled at the girl and went on with her tasks.
The trouble started shortly before they were due to land. The captain’s buzzer sounded on the stewardesses’ call board, and Vicki—wanting another glance at Miss L. Rowe—went forward to the cockpit, unlocking and then closing the steel door behind her.
In the bright light of the cockpit she saw that the faces of the two pilots and the navigator were strained but calm. Chuck Smith, the young navigator, had his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, and there were grease stains on his shirt and arms.
Captain Jordan said: “Vicki, we’re having a little trouble. We discovered the nose wheel has not retracted properly.” Vicki knew it was not uncommon for nose wheels to get stuck like this.
“We’ve tried everything we can to repair it, but no luck,” Captain Jordan went on. “I’ve decided to make our scheduled landing, anyway. I think the shock of landing will jolt the wheel down into place. We have tricycle landing gear, so that this landing won’t be too risky. In fact, I expect it to be a success. However, if it doesn’t work, we’d better be prepared.”
Vicki was trained for emergencies. Her heart pounded but she listened calmly to the pilot.
“I want you and Jean to inform the passengers of our situation, and to use emergency landing procedures. Just in case.”