WHY THE HELL NOT?

1

Silk spent the rest of the war on attachment to the U.S. Army Air Force. Barney Knox was a colonel with a good record as a formation leader over Germany. Now he had a roving commission to travel around the many aircrew training schools and tell them stuff he wished he’d known on his first bombing mission.

They developed a Pat-and-Mike routine. To a class of trainee pilots, Knox said: “Who here has seen a corpse up close?” Three hands went up. “Shot to death?” Two went down. “See here.” He passed out some 8-by-10 prints. “My old command,” he said. “Consequences of flak. Or fighter attack.” Some trainees glanced and quickly passed the pictures, others kept looking. “Battle damage happens,” Knox said. “You better be ready.”

“Each of you has eight or nine pints of blood in him,” Silk said. “All of it gets pumped around your body three times a minute. If a crewman gets badly hurt...”

“Arm blown off,” Knox said.

“...he’ll lose blood twice as fast because in a crisis the heart pumps twice as hard.”

“Three pints looks like six gallons,” Knox said.

“Your casualty is swimming in blood,” Silk said. “And screaming. Crewmen are panicking.”

“First thing you do?” Knox asked.

Total silence. Grim faces. This wasn’t why they volunteered.

“Disconnect the casualty’s intercom,” Silk said.

“Restore silence!” Knox shouted.

“Rear gunner’s trying to report enemy fighters three o-clock high,” Silk said, “but he can’t because...”

“Shit, you know why,” Knox said. “Questions so far?”

Nobody was in a hurry. Then a trainee raised his arm. “Sir: the casualty – ”

“Casualty’s dead, son. Question is: will your ship live?”

Later, they took up a few trainees in whatever bomber was available and Silk corkscrewed the aircraft. Back on the ground, there were many questions. Someone always pointed out that corkscrewing in close formation was suicidal. “You won’t always be in close formation,” Knox said. “Hell, some days we ended up in no damn formation at all.”

“Look at it from the enemy’s point of view,” Silk said. “He likes to get in fast and fire and get out fast. To follow a corkscrew he’s got to slow down and stay close, which brings him near my gunners. No, thanks. He’ll scram. Look for easier pickings.”

“The squadron leader knows,” Knox said. “He’s done it.”

Next day they moved on. They flew in a Harvard single-engine two-seat trainer. Knox said he won it in a poker game. Maybe he did. They cruised across America, from one aircrew school to another. “You learn success,” Silk told pupils. “Good. But it also pays to practise failure. What can go wrong? Before take-off, I always wrote the courses to target on my left hand, courses from target on my right. I wrote big. My navigator gets the chop, I don’t want to guess where to steer next.”

“And stay away from ships,” Knox said. “All sailors hate flyboys. They’ll kill you if they can.”

2

They were in Virginia when Knox asked Silk if he’d like to make a call to England. Silk said it was a nice idea, but wasn’t the transatlantic telephone confined to official military business? Knox said, “You’re military, I’m official, and besides I know a guy.” An hour later Silk was talking to Zoë. She was in her Albany apartment. “Should you be in London?” he said. “I worry about all those flying bombs.”

“Yes, nasty. And the rockets, too. We’re not supposed to know about rockets. The government keeps saying it’s just another gas main exploding. Not very clever, are they? That’s the worst thing about war. One gets treated like a child. Laura’s safe and sound, of course, and fat as an Irish pig. Are you well?”

“Never better. Lots of flying. Lots of oranges.”

“Haven’t seen an orange since...” She sneezed. “Damn... Another cold coming on. Eddy Skinner got killed.”

“Tough luck.” That was what he always said. “Eddy who?”

“Oh, I forgot. You didn’t know him. He was in the Grenadiers. Not that it makes any difference. London’s awfully dreary without you, Silko. When are you coming home?” The line was cut, no warning, he was left listening to a harsh buzz. He rattled the cradle and said: “Hullo? Hullo?” It was what they always did in the movies and it did nobody any good, then or now.

Knox said, “All well in the old country?”

“She wants me to come home.”

“Sure. That’s what they always want. Heard it a hundred times.”

“You’re married? I had no idea.”

“Nor did Jessy. She fell for the uniform, wings on the tunic, very romantic. Then she expected me to come home every night to eat her meatloaf, drop my pants and do my husbandly duty. Thought she could educate me out of flying. That’s the difference between women and airplanes, Silko. An airplane kills you quickly, a woman takes her time.”

“I don’t think Zoë’s like that.” But a corner of his mind was thinking: You don’t really know what Zoë’s like, she’s a beautiful mystery, all you really know is flying. Another part of his mind answered: So why did you marry her, if you want to spend your life in the sky? Yes, but on the other hand...

Barney was talking about a great new airplane from Lockheed. “It’s coming into Washington DC,” he said. “If we go now...”

“Why the hell not?” Silk said.

They borrowed a jeep.

3

There was a crowd at Washington airport, many of them newsmen. Knox had told Silk all he knew: the C prefix made the model a transport, it had four engines and it was said to be something special.

It arrived from the west, low; made a half-circuit; and came straight in to land. The crowd roared its applause. “That can’t be a transport,” Silk said. “Too beautiful.” It was the first aeroplane he had seen that was as sleek and streamlined as a big fish. Nothing seemed straight, everything was gently curved. It had tricycle undercarriage and triple fins, and it was a shining silver. It turned at the end of the runway and taxied back and the PA system announced, “A new American record – from Burbank, California to Washington DC in exactly seven hours and three minutes!” The crowd cheered. Knox cheered. Even Silk clapped his hands quite warmly.

They got a close look at the plane, talked to a Lockheed representative, took a copy of a press release, and went for a beer.

“We have seen the future, and it flies,” Knox said.

“It’s a work of art, I agree. But it’ll make a lousy transport.”

“Grow up, Silko.”

“Truly lousy. They’ll crop the wings and enlarge the tail and add a bloody great cargo loading bay and it won’t make two hundred knots. You watch.”

“No, you watch. This war’s got another year left in it, maybe less. What d’you aim to do then? Go back to England? Drop a rank? Flight Lieutenant Silk, boring the pants off everyone in the Mess?”

“There I was over Berlin,” Silk said dreamily, “flak so thick you could get out and walk on it, and would you believe it, the port wing fell off. ‘Damn,’ I said.”

“Seven hours, three minutes,” Knox said. “You realise what that means? Breakfast in LA, dinner in New York. Coast to coast in a day! Who wants to spend three days and nights in a train? Or a week in a car, you arrive with your ass feeling like hamburger, very rare, hold the onion. Air travel, Silko, is gonna be big. Very big.”

“And you reckon there’s a job in it for blokes like you and me?”

“I’ve had two offers already.”

A spark of patriotism burned inside Silk. “What makes you think I won’t go home and fly for British Overseas Airways?” he asked.

“What makes you think Britain has an airliner?”

“There’s the Sunderland.”

“It’s a flyingboat, for Christ’s sake. Ten passengers at a hundred and twenty knots. This C-69 carries sixty at three hundred plus!” Knox waved the company hand-out. “A pressurized cabin, yet!”

“We’ll build our own. Britain’s got a bloody good aircraft industry – ”

“Warplanes, Silko. You make warplanes. US companies were building big passenger aircraft five, ten years ago. Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas... This beauty already has a name. Constellation.”

“Oh, bollocks,” Silk said.