Stephen Morris (novel)

Stephen Morris reads mathematics at Oxford but when he finishes, the unusually good job in rubber in Malaya he expected has fallen through because 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 job as a pilot cum mechanic in the Isle of Wight Aviation Company with her cousin Malcolm Riley and his partner Stenning.Peter Denniston proposes to Sheila Wallace; he knew her four years ago, and has a job in Hong Kong with his uncle, as a maritime solicitor.The trial flight from New York to Padstow, Cornwall with Morris as pilot and Dennison as navigator is awaited by Rawdon and Wallace, with Helen who is accompanied by Sheila.Not only do they provide evidence of Shute's fine narrative gift, but they each contain strong personal elements which readers will find an interesting supplement to the author's autobiography, Slide Rule.He'll be a useful man on the design side ..."[5] Shute's Great War experience was restricted to training at Woolwich and as a gunner and failing to get a commission, before enlisting "in the ranks" in August 1918 and guarding the Isle of Grain in the Thames Estuary, plus serving in military funeral parties in Kent during the 1918 flu pandemic.Stephen Morris breaks off with Helen Fisher after he loses a proposed job with prospects with an uncle (an old rubber merchant [6]) in Malaya.