Course due west, height 2,000 feet, making good (he reckoned) about 38 mph, while carrying a few degrees of starboard rudder to offset a light breeze from NNW. He’d get a more accurate speed check when he overflew the river Arun and set course for the out station at Slindon, vicinity of Arundel – distance between the rivers Ardur (north of Shoreham) and the Arun on this track being ten and a half miles. He’d taken off from Polegate about an hour ago. There was enough of the old moon left to illuminate the rivers as well as the coastal railway and, about a mile and a half to port, the coastline and soft gleam of sea.
This time last evening he’d been with Amanda in her cottage. It hadn’t gone quite as he’d anticipated, that reunion.
‘Out station’, though, actually meant mooring-out station – a sheltered location where blimps could be moored when there wasn’t shed-space for them on their airfields. The Slindon one was on the edge of woodland; you moored in the lee of the wood, not in it, but it was similar enough to the terrain in which they’d be putting themselves down in France.
Yesterday, Sunday, after an early breakfast at the Scrubs, to Charlie’s surprise McLachlan had come up with a new and, Charlie thought, entirely practical idea on the subject of getting themselves down without any handling party on the ground.
‘Holt…’
He’d had his nose in a cup of coffee and his mind occupied with plans he’d initiated the day before, for the ship’s engine-noise trials to be carried out during the flight down to Polegate on a slightly roundabout route. Two runs over the Scrubs first, both at 5,000 feet but the first at half-throttle and the second flat out, then over the air station at Farnborough at 6,000 feet, and again full throttle – shouldn’t be detectable at all, since at that height you were likely to be in cloud – and finally at Polegate, where he’d bring her down from 6,000 with pauses at 5,000, 4,000 and 3,000 at varying engine speeds. Ground observers’ reports when collated would give him all he needed – what speeds he could or couldn’t safely make at those varying heights over Hun-held territory.
Weather conditions permitting, of course. Engine power having to be matched to winds that might be anything from light airs to gale force. In gale force you ordinarily wouldn’t fly, but with the importance that was being attached to this operation, maybe you’d have to.
Frightening notion…
McLachlan was still staring at him – frowning slightly. Charlie said, ‘Sorry, sir. Thinking about—’
‘What I’ve been thinking about is our landing without any chaps on the ground, the hazards as you’ve explained them – very major problem you said it was at one stage – and a possible or at any rate partial solution.’
He held the hawkish eyes, and nodded. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘You’ll bring her down to within a few feet of the ground, you hope with the grapnel on your trail-rope snagged in hedges or undergrowth, and – as you tend to reiterate – the wind state permitting—’
Charlie cut in, ‘Wind is a vital factor, sir. Sorry if I harp on it rather, but the truth is we have to count on a good measure of plain good luck. I’ve got to get her down, pretty well static and close enough to the ground for Stavely to jump out and secure her to whatever’s handy and strong enough and in the right place, and/or knock in a scrulex for either the new head-rope or—’
‘Why not Stavely out on one side and me on the other?’
‘Well – if you were willing to do that…’
‘Of course I am. From what you say it’ll be a bloody difficult, perhaps even impossible otherwise.’
‘And two pairs of hands’d be better than one. It’d help enormously. Certainly would. But at the same time create its own new problem. One man’s weight removed suddenly at that stage of things presents a problem, but double that, and—’ he shook his head – ‘Christ. Even in the best of weather conditions…’
‘As you said, though, two pairs of hands…’
‘Yes. It’s swings and roundabouts. Putting it plainly, the danger is that as you jump, she might suddenly shoot up a hundred feet or more!’
‘Couldn’t you take her in trimmed heavy so that the loss of our weight returns you to the status quo?’
‘No. Because we have to be what you might call vertically manoeuvrable. At six thousand feet, no less, to cross the lines – avoiding searchlights and AA fire. Our best defence against Hun fighters, too – we can climb faster than they can, get out of their reach. That’s how Zeppelins get away with it over London nine times out of ten: by the time a fighter can struggle up to that height the Hun’s higher still – and gone. Anyway, our problem…’
Gazing at McLachlan, thinking about that sudden loss of weight, equably sudden upward lurch. Lose control at that stage, you could shoot up a thousand feet. He and Stavely wouldn’t have a hope in hell – they’d be launched into space themselves. And to hold her in control through engine power – you couldn’t, couldn’t go in at full tilt with trees all round you: needed in fact to be virtually at rest.
On the other hand, to have two of them on the ground for the mooring operation might indeed go some way to solving that problem.
Only one answer, therefore. Valve – lose gas – the thing one had been swearing one would not do.
McLachlan was pointing at him with his egg spoon. ‘There’s more to this line of thinking anyway. As far as the actual disembarkation is concerned – what about rope ladders? Primarily in my own interests and Stavely’s, I suppose, but I dare say making things rather easier for you – wouldn’t need, to be quite so close to the ground. One ladder from my cockpit and one from Stavely’s, so that from even ten or twelve feet—’
‘Now that’s a damn good idea!’
Silence. The Marine decapitating his boiled egg and nodding to himself, pleased to have had his brainwave so well received, and Charlie visualising the detail of it. Rope ladders twelve or fifteen feet long, say, rolled up and secured on the outside of the car. For’ard one on the starboard side and the after one to port – to keep them out of each other’s way. You’d need a weight at the foot of each ladder so that when released they’d unroll and drop vertically, not fly out in the wind. Well – what better weight could one have than a scrulex secured horizontally to each ladder’s bottom rung, to be detached from it by the users as they reached the ground?
Still have to valve out gas, at that last minute. Back to the further problem that would follow, therefore: getting her up off the ground later in the night with the passengers on board and less disposable lift than you’d started out with. He put down his napkin, nodded to the Marine. One was committed to this, had no option but to see it through, had therefore to find solutions. ‘Capital notion, sir. I’ll get through to Polegate, have a word to Bob Bayley. He’ll have put a few things in hand already – he can add rope ladders to his list.’
The ladders themselves would be the only extra weight, and only a few pounds at that. They were to be fitted tomorrow, Tuesday – having arrived this afternoon from Chatham dockyard, which happened to be where Bayley had cadged them from. They were too long, he’d said, were having to be cut down to the required length and respliced, with suitable lashings provided for the scrulexes.
With the widening loops of the Arun a mile or two abaft the beam to port, from the point where the railway bridged it, he brought her round to starboard – to northwest – with about three miles to go. Twelve minutes past eight. The ten and a half miles between the rivers had been covered in sixteen minutes, so the ship’s speed over that stretch at about two-thirds throttle had been as near as dammit 40 mph. She was flying closer to the wind now and carrying no helm – at 1,000 feet, beginning a further descent to 500. Wishing he had the ladders now for this exercise. He, McLachlan and Stavely had discussed the sort of drill they’d follow, would be trying it out with ladders tomorrow in the vicinity of Polegate in daylight, then at this time again tomorrow evening in the dark. Tonight, they’d simply have to jump – as they had in today’s daylight practice – which meant he’d need to have the ship – the car – within a few feet of the ground.
Not wanting any broken necks.
Five hundred feet. Dark stain of woodland away on the bow to port, blurry miasma of light seeping up from around Arundel to starboard. Using his glasses he could make out the castle’s bulk and the cathedral spire. At a distance of – mile and a half, say. Admitting air into the for’ard ballonet now, for a bow-down trim to get her down a little faster; with only a mile to go over open countryside and a few small villages, easing her down – in the process making her a little heavier, too.
There’d been no snow here, although yesterday there’d been plenty around Polegate and Eastbourne, and for the first half-hour of this flight the fields and woods below him had still been patched with it. More so earlier in the day: there’d been a bit of a thaw since then, but it was freezing hard again now. There’d also been snow all over Kent, apparently. SSP-7 passing over a village now – Binstead – at 200 feet. Scent of woodsmoke in the icy air. Off to port about half a mile away was Walberton. He had the topography in clear and recent memory, from having made this same trip earlier in daylight and before that studied the maps. As an exercise for France therefore it was a bit of a fudge. Over there, for instance, he’d need to stay well up, out of sight and sound, wouldn’t have anything like such easy and positive identification of ground features.
Hundred and fifty feet. Throttling back. He was over the fringes of the wood now and intending to park her on its eastern flank – the lee side, to get shelter from as much wind as there was. A matter of principle rather than necessity. Starboard rudder now, therefore. Swinging, and at one hundred feet taking some of the bow-down angle off her, to let her down gently and smoothly, since conditions permitted that, and leaning to the plywood voicepipe (voice-tunnel might describe it better: it wasn’t a hell of a lot of use, wasn’t by any means noise-proof) to bawl through it to McLachlan in his for’ard cockpit: ‘Mac! Stand by! One minute!’ They’d agreed on ‘Mac’ and ‘Holt’ as the way to address each other when airborne – short, clear sounds, not easily mistakeable. Stavely would remain Stavely – the same factor applying, and he had no voicepipe; in any case knew what he was doing and what his skipper would be doing. Like throttling back some more now, easing her down with the black wall of trees rising to port and on that bow as he released the trail-rope, which already had a grapnel on it. (Didn’t have to have: you could release the trail-rope and slide the grapnel down it when it was wanted.) Fifty feet. Grapnel would have hit the hard ground and bounced, and some of the hemp rope’s weight being on the ground would be lightening the ship, more and more so as she descended, laying yet more of it out astern, grapnel then maybe digging itself in anchor-fashion, dragging through turf and undergrowth. Thirty feet. If there’d been more wind than this, being so close to the wood it might have been pouring over the mass of trees in the form of a waterfall, downward as the ship sank below treetop level and into the force of it. Different hazards then – the danger of her being rolled over and/or her bow smacked down into damaging impact with the ground – car and/or its suspension damaged, the envelope ripped, even. As had happened to a pilot by name of Monk at Pembroke a year ago – he’d been damn lucky to come out of it alive. Fifteen feet. Mental note to tell McLachlan the Monk story, the major having had no experience of flying in bad weather – yet – and seeming to think that one exaggerated the potential dangers.
The ship was making very little forward progress now, although still having enough engine power to allow effective control by elevators and rudder; opening both crabpots, letting slipstream into the ballonets to weigh her down with air. As yet had not valved. Ten feet. Eight. Crabpots shut, left hand back on the throttle. Six feet. Throttle shut, he yelled, ‘Go!’, and as the engine died they heard that, then felt and heard the skids touch down. Charlie saw them both clambering over, about to let go. Valving: had to. Heart in mouth – having felt the lurch, that loss of weight, but the valving had started first and countered it. Gas-release valve shut now, and engine stopped. Very well-timed valving, that had been, as well as minimal. By luck rather than by good judgement? He shouted into the darkness, ‘Don’t bother securing her – except the trail-rope. Waste of time – we’ve done it, let’s go home!’ To Amanda – the Amanda crisis, for God’s sake. Course of true love never did – etc. Settle it tonight, anyway. Be with her well before midnight, touch wood. If she’ll let me in… That thought in a single flash while finishing with, ‘All right, Mac? Stavely – one scrulex for the trail-rope’s all we need, OK?’
Conditions were favourable – so little wind, and enough moon to see by. It had been an exercise on the face of it for McLachlan – his first night-time excursion – but actually, as neither of the others would realise, for Charlie himself, in that he’d got her down with that minimum of valving, mainly through having left it to the last few seconds. Now had only to let out some air via the ballonets’ release valves to lighten her at least to some extent, while also trimming her bow-up. Having prior to that re-embarked the other two, of course. Then as she left the ground he’d release the trail-rope from the scrulex (which Stavely was now planting) by means of the recently devised Charlie Holt Releasing Gear – the timber toggle made by shipwrights at the Scrubs and the 20-fathom hank of 3-pound Italian hemp line to wrench it out with.
Thinking of how it would have been, though, if there’d been a lot more wind and you’d had to stay on the ground for any length of time. Take six scrulexes, he thought, not four. Four would have allowed one to anchor a couple of handling guys as well as the trail-rope and the head-rope, but having spares would enable one to shift them if the wind drastically changed direction. One did live and learn – or, better way of putting it, things that were really pretty darned obvious did occur to one sooner or later. Not that there was room now for complacency. Just a little too much valving and you wouldn’t be able to deflate the ballonets without risk of collapsing the envelope. Which on the ground in France really wouldn’t help at all. On the other hand, one could, if necessary, dump a bag or two of sand-ballast – if mum was as heavy as she might be, for instance, or if in adverse weather conditions one had had to valve out more gas than one should have.
He took off from Slindon just before nine, and within minutes was at a thousand feet and steering east, at about the same engine revs as had given her 40 mph but should deliver more than that now, with the wind on her quarter giving her a little help. He’d steer this course for thirty miles, then over the Ouse – which even if the moon was down by that time would surely be visible from this altitude – then alter a few degrees to starboard for the last ten miles to Polegate. Be on the ground by ten, clean up and shift out of flying gear, get to Amanda by eleven.
Get things back on an even keel, please God.
Last night he’d got to the cottage not long after seven, expecting his knock on the door to be welcomed by whoops of joy and shortly after that to be throwing clothes off on their way upstairs – might not even make it beyond the stairs, he’d guessed, thinking about it on and off pretty well all day, during SSP-7’s engine-noise trials and when he’d put her down on the snow-covered Polegate field at about three in the afternoon. There’d been various things to do then, including a fairly pointless conference with old Peeling the CO, then a far more practical session with Bob Bayley on the subjects of yellow dope, scrulex anchors, Italian White Line and a few other items – an axe was one, a 14-pound hammer another – for which he’d indented. The yellow (or yellowish) dope had come from Howden, up on the Humber to the west of Hull, and one of the biggest RN airship fields, where Bayley said they’d been experimenting with different colours. God only knew what for: yellow for invisibility in some desert, maybe? Actually that might be it: blimps had been employed in the Middle East. Howden had sent a drum of the stuff down by rail to Polegate at the request of the CO at Wormwood Scrubs – more likely Engineer Lieutenant Hallet, bless him – and it could be sloshed on that very evening, if Charlie liked.
‘That’s capital, Bob. Most grateful for all of this. See, I’ll be taking her up about mid-forenoon, but – heck, it’s quick-drying, isn’t it? Mind you, we only want it applied on the top of the envelope – camouflage purposes.’
‘Tell the painter what you want. Why not see the job started yourself?’
He’d had to, obviously, had gone up on one of the riggers’ long ladders to see it wasn’t laid on too heavily – not wanting a bright-yellow blimp to dazzle Hun searchlights and fighters, or dope in such quantity that it might run down her sides. Only a bit of a patchwork or stripey effect to break up the otherwise equally noticeable solid black. If she happened to be on the ground in daylight – God forbid – and Hun aircraft passed over with sharp-eyed observers in them. Anyway, the painter assured him it would be dry in an hour or two, let alone tomorrow forenoon. So that was fine, but Stavely was there as well, poking around the engine in a boiler-suit – as a first-class, conscientious AM would have, after the day’s full-throttle trials – and Charlie had chatted with him for a while. Not that Stavely was much of a chatterer – far from it – but Charlie liked the man and thought he’d done well to steal him from the Scrubs. In consequence he hadn’t got away as early as he’d thought he might.
Needn’t in fact have set off even that early. His first sight of the cottage had told him she wasn’t there. No lights in its few small windows, no scent of chimney-smoke, and the snow’s surface unbroken all around, both in front and at the back where he parked the Douglas in the yard.
So now what? He was wearing a greatcoat over his serge uniform, half-boots with thick socks in them, a vest under his shirt, and sheepskin gloves, but it was still very cold. Might become less so by morning – there was a steady dripping from the roof guttering, and not much wind, but – hell, wait maybe half an hour…
She might be spending the night with Colonel and Mrs Sneem, he’d thought. Having lunched with them, and Seaford being – oh, a good ten miles by that winding, narrow road, with this snow to make driving hazardous. And she hadn’t been expecting him until tomorrow.
He got into the bike’s side-car – certainly wasn’t warm, but, quoting the Bairnsfather cartoon character Old Bill, If you knows a better ’ole, go to it, he settled down and got a pipe going. Telling himself he’d wait twenty minutes or half an hour, then call it a day – back to the mess, and ring her in the morning. But within just minutes he heard the car – Sneem’s, a Morris as it happened. Didn’t know for sure it was Sneem’s then, of course, only sat tight and mentally crossed his fingers. The car was coming very slowly down the slight incline, tyres muffled by the snow, being driven so cautiously that it was almost at a halt before it turned into the yard. Masked headlights a weak yellow, stubby bonnet, body a dark, white-patched cube. Morris Ten, he thought, as the lights such as they were washed over him where he was now prising himself out – pipe jutting, cap somewhat askew. Car door jerking open in the very second that it stopped, and Amanda jumping out, in overcoat, hat, scarf gloves, for some reason pointing at him – ‘Charlie?’
‘Who else’d sit here patiently all day and half the night?’
‘But you said Monday!’
‘Managed to improve on that, and no way of getting in touch with you, was there. Only been here a quarter of an hour, to be honest. Might’ve given up pretty soon. Who’s that?’
The car was being reversed with its wheel hard over, to put it in a position to drive out. Reasonable thing to do, Charlie thought, no matter how long its driver had meant to stay. Amanda had stopped a few feet short of him and the bike. No hug – not much point, admittedly, in thick coats, headgear, etc., but would she have kept her distance like this if there’d been no third party present?
‘Colonel Sneem, Charlie. I did tell you I was having lunch…’
‘You did indeed.’ The car’s lights went out, driver’s door opened, and she’d turned that way. ‘Colonel, this is Flight Lieutenant Holt. Charlie – Colonel Sneem.’ A smallish man, no features visible as yet. He’d swung the door shut and was coming around the bonnet, treading carefully through the snow. Amanda inviting him, ‘Colonel, you’ll come in for a cup of coffee, thaw out a bit before…’
Before making new tracks home to Seaford, Charlie thought. Of course he’d have been coming in, in any case – why else would he have got out of the car, or brought it round to the back here? If he’d only been bringing her home he’d have dropped her at the front, then turned by backing into this yard. He’d now grunted acceptance of the invitation anyway, and Amanda was leading them round to the front door, remarking as she went that ‘thawing out’ might not be anything like immediate; with no fire in there all day it was going to be igloo-like. She’d get a fire going though, and the stove would, she very much hoped, boil a kettle. She was twittering a bit, Charlie thought. Door open, after some fumbling round the keyhole, and she was in, calling back, ‘Charlie, you must be frozen!’
‘Hadn’t been here all that long.’ He’d already told her that. ‘After you – sir. You were Don’s CO, I think?’
‘Friend of his, were you?’
‘Of them both. Known Amanda for – oh, donkey’s years. Mandy, I’ll set the fire – the makings all here, I see.’
‘Lovely.’ She was lighting an oil-lamp – one of several. ‘And I’ll see to the stove and coffee.’
‘What can I do, my dear?’ Sneem. My dear, indeed. Charlie, on his knees at the fireplace crumpling up a newspaper, thought, Best thing might be to bugger off, old chap… He was short and pasty-faced, with thinnish greying hair shiny with oil. Late forties had been Charlie’s estimate, from a single glance in the first glow of lamplight: impression of a triangular face, small, sharp chin, pointed nose and rather large, round eyes. Like something in a cage – you might feed it nuts or bamboo shoots. Amanda had gone through to the kitchen: water gushed into a kettle before she called back to Sneem, ‘Nothing, really. I’ll just riddle the stove, wake it up a bit. There’s still some life in it, thank heavens!’
‘You’re RNAS – stationed here, the airship station, Holt?’
‘At Polegate. Yes.’ He had the fire more or less ready to light. ‘Been away, off again shortly. Chasing one’s tail around the place, just at this stage… You run all the hospitals and suchlike over a big area, must be – I mean, Seaford, and—’
‘Eastbourne’s the hub of it. But I don’t exactly run the hospitals. We’ve had to expand the RAMC establishment and services enormously, of course. Right from the start we had our own training camp at Whitbread Hollow – training recruits in ambulance work and emergency dressings, all that how d’ye do, sending ’em on to divisional training then, d’you see. As it happens, I set all that up, and young Bishop took over the running of it. We were under canvas ourselves to start with – at Cow Gap, know where that is? But with such a spread of military camps all over – as you must have seen for yourself, bird’s eye view, eh? – as well as an urgent need of more and more hospital beds for the wounded coming in, then the need for literally thousands of billets – and recruitment of Red Cross volunteers – all now very ably organised by Mrs Bishop – Amanda, I should say…’ Yapping on, while Charlie put a match to the paper – the Eastbourne Chronicle, he’d happened to notice – and it flared up immediately, began to crackle in the kindling. The split logs arranged wigwam-fashion over all that would soon ignite. It was surprising, he thought, that this talkative quack hadn’t known of his existence. Amanda keeping her own counsel – for reasons of her own? When she’d just spent half a day with the fellow, you’d guess she might have broken a silence with, ‘Oh, must tell you, very old friend of mine just reappeared, flies one of the naval blimps you see bumbling over…’
Unless they talked medical shop all the time. Or with Don killed so recently, Sneem or his wife might not have approved?
Or just he might not have?
‘Know a flight lieutenant by name of Caterham, by any chance?’
Charlie had just stood up from the fire, and Sneem had edged closer to it, unbuttoning his British Warm. They’d both thrown their caps down on a table. Charlie nodded – looking at him in the face now and no more impressed than he’d been at first glance. A nod: ‘Certainly. He’s based at Newhaven – or was. Flies a Short 184. Amanda knows him too – like she knows me, from way back. Why – I mean how…’
‘Had him to lunch with us today. My wife’s idea. Asked Mrs – Amanda – whether she knew any young people whom we might ask – to jolly things up for her, don’t you know.’
‘And did he?’
‘Very much so. Excellent fellow, I thought. He’d known Don quite well, apparently.’
‘Yes, he was around a bit when I was here at Polegate, year or so ago.’ Turning then, seeing Amanda in the kitchen doorway, looking apprehensive, definitely. He told her, ‘Tommy Caterham, we’re talking about.’
‘Yes. I heard.’ A glance at Sneem. ‘Coffee won’t be long.’ Then: ‘Oh, you have been clever with the fire, Charlie!’
‘Don’t you want to light the one upstairs, though? While I watch the kettle for you?’
‘Well.’ Her laugh wasn’t entirely natural. ‘You really are a genius.’ For remembering that she had a heater up there, he supposed. He’d known the suggestion with its possible implications might have embarrassed her, had thought in the same instant, Why the hell not? The general line of his thinking being at this stage, Easy come, easy go. Although a counter to that was, Why cut off your nose to spite your face? Amanda adding, on her way to the door beyond which were the stairs, ‘Only a small oil-heater up there, no fireplace, but it does – contribute.’ Voice diminishing as she went up: ‘The low ceilings help, of course.’
Charlie went through to the kitchen, saw the kettle on the black iron stove but no steam yet. He was wondering how she’d try to handle this – have him and Sneem leave more or less together? If so, would one comply?
No. Bloody well would not. And Sneem had a wife to get home to, wasn’t likely to hang around too long. Might say he’d been stuck in the snow somewhere. Although conditions weren’t all that bad: Mrs Sneem might well smell a rat. She’d know where the smell came from, too. Kettle still not boiling. He went back into the other room, found Sneem standing at the fire holding his coat open to its warmth: he’d put another log on. Charlie said quietly, ‘Rotten business – Don Bishop, that’s to say.’
‘Yes.’ An assessing look, as if wondering how much Charlie knew about it – how much he might be in Amanda’s confidence, how close they actually might be. As Charlie sensed it, anyway, that was his real interest. In other words, Amanda was. He’d sighed, shaken his head. ‘Need not have gone to France at all. I tried to dissuade him, in fact.’
‘So she told me.’
‘Then he needn’t have gone forward as it seems he did. When that attack went in – the Cambrai show that started off so well – he insisted on going in with the infantry immediately behind the tanks, to set up RAPs.’
‘RAPs?’
‘Regimental Aid Posts.’
‘But could he have – insisted?’
‘You might call it “volunteered”. Anyway, I don’t know who’d have stopped him. Might have been on his own, in fact. He was determined to be in the thick of it, that’s what it comes down to.’
‘Well…’
The same obvious question – why? It must be on her mind, he guessed, day and night. In fact it was – she’d said so, the other evening. But it must virtually possess her, and she’d feel a need to explain it to other people – wouldn’t she? – as well as to herself?
To exonerate herself?
She was back: clattering down the stairs, still in her outdoor bootees, asking brightly, ‘Kettle doing its stuff yet?’ Hurrying on through, Charlie telling her, ‘Not when last seen, but—’
‘It’s starting now.’ Calling back to them, ‘Do sit down. Won’t be a jiffy.’ Rattling on, ‘That was a brilliant idea you had, Charlie, the place is becoming almost habitable. Low ceilings really do help, don’t they? Help to get some therms into the pair of you before you stagger back out into the blizzard… Hooray, it’s actually boiling!’
Sneem murmured – neither of them had moved from the fire’s warmth, and Charlie had put yet another log on – ‘Can’t escape the feeling I should have stopped him going. Damned if I know how I could have, in point of fact, but—’ movement of his head towards the kitchen – ‘feel so damn sad for her, don’t you know. Oh, him too, of course, and for his people, naturally, but…’
Blathering on. Awful little swine…
He brought the ship in to the Polegate field after making a sweep to the south, passing quite close over Amanda’s place in order to come in on a course of northwest by north – into the wind – dropping to fifty feet, the guardhouse and Coppice Avenue off to starboard, sheds and gas plant fine on the bow. There was still snow lying around – you could bet it would be frozen hard – and the roads, incidentally, more dangerous than they’d been last night. A ground crew of about thirty men was out there, opposite this western end of the sheds, and they’d lit the flares to guide him in. Twenty feet, ten. Throttling back. Easy as pie. Wondering whether she’d have heard him passing over and guessed it might be him. That burly figure commanding the handlers was Bob Bayley. Seemed to spend a lot of his time out here. Handlers splitting into two sections, one each side: edging in now, faces all upturned, airmen in overcoats, caps and leather or rubber boots, some having grabbed the handling guys, others reaching to the skids. So – throttle shut, engine puttering out. Behind him, Stavely would be shutting off, shutting down. Time – nine fifty-two. Get to her by ten-thirty, with any luck. He’d told her last night, ‘As long as I can make it by midnight,’ and her answer had been, ‘If you’re quite sure you want to. I can’t swear I’ll—’
‘Earlier than that if possible. Early as I can. Mandy, darling – please’?’
First time he’d called her darling. Next thing you knew it’d be, I love you, Mandy darling.
On the other hand, it might be curtains. The thought of that gave him what felt like a constriction of the gut. Ridiculous, even shaming, but…
How it took one, that was all. He said goodnight to Stavely, reminding him, ‘Ladder drill tomorrow’. Stavely’s comment was, ‘Blooming trapezes next.’ Laughing, he joined McLachlan for the walk across to the accommodation buildings.
‘If all goes well tomorrow, sir…’
‘Wednesday, to France. I’ll tell London that, first thing in the morning. Take off Wednesday at first light, eh? Save a few hours, could mean saving a whole day on that side. Ground staff should be well on their way by now – waiting for us, even.’ A nod: ‘I’ll check on that.’ A hand grasped Charlie’s shoulder then. ‘We haven’t done at all badly, you know. Most of it your doing, of course. Golly, Holt, if we do pull it off…’
‘Medals and promotion?’
‘Count on it. Count on it!’
He shook his head, reminding himself that one thing not to do was count on anything at all. But – back to practicalities – ‘Only point of more exercises tomorrow is really for you and Stavely to try out the ladders. But I don’t think we need go as far as Slinfold. We could do it – well, Jevington way, for instance, five minutes’ flight instead of an hour each way.’
‘I’ve no idea why we went so far in any case.’
‘Because in the CO’s mind it had to be one of our own mooring-out stations, so that’s what went into the orders. In fact, with so little wind we didn’t need the shelter.’ Another thought struck then: ‘Since we’re on the ground you’re now my CO, sir – all right to take all-night leave?’