Stephen Morris (novel)

Stephen Morris and Pilotage are two short novels by Nevile Shute; the first novels he wrote after writing poetry and short stories. Stephen Morris was finished in 1923 while Shute was working at Stag Lane for de Havilland, and Pilotage was written in 1924. Unpublished during his lifetime, but published by his estate in one volume as many of the characters are common to both novels. They are set in the budding (but nascent) post-war aviation industry in Britain, and also on yachts (Pilotage).

Stephen Morris studies mathematics at Oxford, but when he finishes the unusually good job in rubber in Malaya he expects has fallen through as business is bad and the firm cannot afford him. He sees no prospect of marrying now or in the future and sets fellow student Helen Riley free of any promise to him instead of carrying through with his letter proposing marriage. He gets a low paid (but back in aviation) job as a pilot cum mechanic in the Isle of Wight Aviation Company with her cousin Malcolm Riley and his partner Stenning. The firm fails after the wartime ministry hangar they are occupying is taken back, and he goes (initially on trial, unpaid) to Captain Rawdon’s Rawdon Aircraft Co. He becomes head, for a while the only staff, of the technical department; he studies aeronautical engineering and publishes a paper on fuselages. He turns down an offer from an armament firm Pilling-Henries and gets a new screw or rise when Rawdon gets an order for their new two-seater fighter – from Denmark, not from the Air Ministry: we must hope the government won’t risk a war with Denmark.

Morris tells Riley about breaking his engagement to Helen, saying he thinks that she will wait for him. But she is shortly to marry Lechlane, who is going into politics and needs a hostess wife. Riley funks telling Helen in person, but drafts a letter to her. He is then killed when a plane he is piloting for Rawdon makes a forced landing. Christie, back from the Argentine, tells Morris about Helen’s engagement, having seen a newspaper item about it. Morris gives up hope of Helen, but while motoring near the Riley’s place in Bevil Crossways in Gloucestershire is seen by her. She tells him that she broke off the engagement after Lechlane, who was sent to sort out Riley’s affairs finds the draft letter and sends it to her: a most reliable man, Lechlane; a man who could be trusted to always do the right thing.

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