These two novels were found among Shute’s papers after his death -written in the 1920s, they are his first works. Stephen Morris: Stephen Morris studies mathematics at Oxford but when he finishes, the good job in rubber in Malaya he expects has fallen through. He sets his fiancee, Helen, free of any promise of marriage to him He gets a low paid job as a pilot /mechanic in the Isle of Wight Aviation Company with her cousin Malcolm and his partner Stenning. The firm fails after the wartime ministry hangar they are occupying is taken back, and he goes to Captain Rawdon’s Rawdon Aircraft Co. He becomes head of the technical department, studying aeronautical engineering. He turns down an offer from an armament firm Pilling-Henries and gets a rise when Rawdon gets an order for their new two-seater fighter from Denmark. He finds that Helen is shortly to marry Lechlane, who is going into politics and needs a hostess wife. Morris gives up hope of Helen, but is he being premature in abandoning hope?
Pilotage: While on holiday in England,Peter Denniston proposes to Sheila Wallace, who he has known for four years; he has a job in Hong Kong with his uncle, as a maritime solicitor. She turns him down, saying she could not live in China. While yachting on the Solent, his yacht Irene collides with Sir David Fisher’s large yacht Clematis which fails to give way to him. Fisher realises that he was in the wrong and takes him on board the Clematis to recover. Two other men, Rawdon and Morris are also on board, discussing a secret aeronautical venture, a proposed transatlantic urgent cargo service that will reduce the transit time from 7 days to 5. Denniston is offered the position of navigator in this bold new venture.
