Atdtda36: Our clients are insistent, 1028-1029

[Paul Nightingale]

The certainty of this section's opening ('Once hostilities were over ...')
is undermined by what we have read previously, the emphasis on continuity
rather than change (most clearly the final paragraph of 68.3 on 1027). And
cf Padzhitnoff, later: 'War is not over ...' etc (1029). Hence the Chums
find they have more of 'the same kinds of relief and repatriation jobs' as
well as 'civilian assignments, more in the tradition of the boys' earlier
adventures' (1028). Yet, in the light of, here, 'propositions of a
grandiosity unknown to the world before 1914', cf: 'Don't you boys just have
adventures anymore?' (Ksenija, on 1019).

New business opportunities include a return to the United States, '[s]unny
California, no less' (1028). A return of sorts, to 'a remote and mythical
locale', one that does and does not exist. As they depart Randolph notes the
technological developments that allow them to 'just light off the engines
and let 'er rip' (1029), as though this power confers (new) agency. Here:
'Remember when we had to go where the wind took us?' Cf 'the updraft over
the deserts of Northern Africa' at the start of the chapter (1018) and the
attendant discussion of agency throughout 68.1. And then, following
Randolph's statement, 'Lindsay remind[s] everyone' of the realities of their
situation: 'Our clients are insistent ...' etc (1029). Going back to the
start of the chapter we find a 'greatly improved flow of revenue' (bottom of
1018). Circumstances might be somewhat different now. At the top of 1019 the
description of the transformed Inconvenience presumably means increased
overheads. And then, bottom of 1021: 'Their contractual operations began to
bring in less revenue than sources unrelated to the sky ...' etc.

Mid-section is Randolph's exchange with Padzhitnoff, perhaps a continuation
of their meeting in the previous section, ie unaccompanied, apart from
others. Padzhitnoff insists the Chums have 'always been free to go', but
then, having said the war goes on ('Consequences may never end'), he
suggests the Chums' 'obligations may be to different consequences',
undermining the notion of freedom he begins with. Moreover, California ('a
... mythical locale') has been offered as a fictional setting. The absence
of information about what they are going towards is in sharp contrast to the
detailed description of what they are leaving behind, albeit a narrative
description offered as interpretation of Randolph's gesture: 'he waved his
hand a little desperately, as if to include ...' etc.