No Highway
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No Highway is a 1948 novel by Nevil Shute, later forming the basis of a 1951 motion picture. As a story, it is one of Shute's finer examples, along with A Town Like Alice, What Happened to the Corbetts and Round the Bend. It was required reading on many 1950s school curricula, containing many of the ingredients that made Shute popular as a novelist, including an element of the supernatural.
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The novel
Background and cultural impact
No Highway bravely addresses the complex issues of airliner safety at a time when air travel was a much more hazardous experience than it was to become by the end of the 20th century. The book was notorious in its time for appearing prescient of the disasters that would befall the de Havilland Comet Mk 1 airliner in the mid-1950s. The fictional aircraft of the novel is called a Rutland Reindeer, suggesting allusion to the Comet. Comet is one of the twelve reindeer that pull Father Christmas' sleigh in Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.
Part of the novel is set in Canada which was very much "the Northern American land of dreams" for Shute since his visit there in the 1930s onboard R100.
Cold War resonances are apparent in the book through the casting of the Soviet Union as villain.
The title is taken from the poem The Wanderer by John Masefield:
- Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find
- No Highway more, no track, all being blind,
- The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.
Characters
- Theodore Honey: A recently widowed worker at the Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough, Hampshire (RAE);
- Dr. Dennis Scott: Recently appointed head of the structural department at the RAE, a young aeronauticist;
- Marjorie Corder; Airline stewardess with the fictional C.A.T.O (Commonwealth Atlantic Transport Organisation);
- Monica Teasdale, a middle-echelon Hollywood actress;
- Captain Samuelson: Reindeer pilot;
- Elspeth: Honey's daughter;
- Shirley Scott: Dr. Scott's wife, a local school teacher.
Plot summary
The anti-hero of the story, Honey, is engaged in research on the fatigue of aluminium airframes. His current project, overseen by Scott, is to investigate possible failure in the high aspect ratio tailplane of a new airliner, the Rutland Reindeer. The events are narrated by Scott, in the first person, driving the pace of the story.
Honey has predicted, by a (fictional) novel theory supposedly related to quantum mechanics, that it is possible for a alloy structure to fail long before the design life predicted by current design standards. The metal at the root of the tailplane will fatigue and fail with a crystalline fracture. While for Honey this seems merely to be an esoteric and engaging problem in pure science, to Scott it is a concern of the first magnitude, as Reindeers are flying across the Atlantic daily, carrying hundereds of passengers. Honey's prediction becomes all the more alarming when a Reindeer carrying the Soviet ambassador, with total flying hours close to his estimate, is reported to have crashed over Labrador.
Honey is sent to Canada to examine the debris of the crash, travelling onboard a Reindeer aircraft on which he meets the two heroines of the novel, Corder and Teasdale. In flight, Honey realise that the flying hours of the craft are close to his predicted failure time and he becomes increasingly anxious for the safety of the aircraft. He confides in Teasdale, whose work he admires, and goes on to give her some advice of the safest behaviour in case of a crash. Despite his panic, he remains persuasive and sincere and impresses Corder and Teasdale and also the pilot, Samuelson, who knew the captain of the recently stricken Reindeer.
During a stop-over at Gander International Airport, a panic-stricken Honey grounds the Reindeer by operating its undercarriage while it is standing on the runway.
Honey is recalled to Farnborough after his sabotage but is delayed as C.A.T.O. refuse to carry him. While he is away, trouble arises on a second front. For the duration of his trip, he has abandoned Elspeth to her own devices in their rather dingy and badly looked after home in (fictional) Farndon, near his work. Shirley Scott visits Elspeth who confirms her misgivings about the state of Honey's home life. Elspeth displays a touching mix of precocity and serious intelligence but betrays Honey's hobbies of spritualism and his interest in prophecy. That notwithstanding, Elspeth's outlook is tempered with serious thought and childhood happiness in simple things.
Teasdale visits Scott and relates her story of events to the Director of the RAE before offering Elspeth some feminine care and affection. However, the responsibility is not one that she seeks and she returns home. She is rapidly followed by Corder who bears Honey's letter of resignation to Scott and her own account of the escapades in Gander.
By the time Honey returns, Scott has left for Canada to retrieve the tailplane roots. On reaching the crash site he discovers that the starboard tailplane has been removed by the Soviets who suspect a plot to assassinate their ambassador. The port tailplane remains lost in the wilderness. Honey comes to the rescue but in a highly unorthodox way. He puts his daughter into a light trance which, to Corder's shock, Elspeth has clearly experienced before. Using a planchette and automatic writing, a message is written UNDER THE FOOT OF THE BEAR. Sceptical of the message's value, the Director refuses to send it to Scott and a heated exchange follows. The Director points out that the bear probably refers to the Soviets and that the message tells them no more than they already know. With Corder's and Samuelson's help and their C.A.T.O. contacts, Honey manages to pass the message along to Scott in the Canadian woods. Scott and his party work out that the bear refers to a nearby lake and, in due course, they find the taiplane. The find vindicates Honey and makes him a minor hero. His early warning even allows for a timely redesign by the manufacturers, ensuring no loss of service of the Reindeers over the Atlantic. Corder and Honey become engaged.
Publication history
- First published in 1948 by William Heinemann, London.
- A current edition of the book was published in 2000 under ISBN 1842322737.
Motion picture
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No Highway | |
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IMDB Page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043859/) (external link) | |
| Written by: | R. C. Sherriff, Oscar Millard and Alec Coppel from the novel by Nevil Shute |
| Starring: | James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins |
| Directed by: | Henry Koster |
| Photography by: | Georges Périnal |
| Art direction by: | C.P. Norman |
| Edited by: | Manuel del Campo |
| Music by: | Malcolm Arnold |
| Distributed by: | TCF |
| Release Date: | 1951 |
Strapline: Turn back, I tell you! Any minute may be too late.
A motion picture was made from the book, starring James Stewart as Honey and Jack Hawkins as Scott. The film was released as No Highway in the Sky in the USA.