KICK LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE

1

They met again at the Reform Club.

Silk had slept at the Albany apartment. He’d taken a long bath and had a haircut, and now for the first time in years he was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt with a cutaway collar and a dull tie, polished black shoes. He’d never been to the Reform Club and he was taking no chances. “I feel like a Harley Street pox doctor,” he said.

“Wrong club.” Freddy looked at the crowd of members near the bar. “Try the RAC. Now then: we haven’t much time, I should have been in Bonn half an hour ago...” He checked his watch. “They’ll just have to start without me. Here’s my idea. You rejoin Bomber Command.” Freddy had a confident smile. “Solves all your problems.”

Silk scratched the back of his neck; barbers never got rid of all the bits. “Rejoin,” he said. “You’re the one with the problem. Your bowler must be five sizes too small. I’m thirty-eight, Freddy. Bomber Command doesn’t want me. Never did. They tolerated my funny ways, that’s all. Rejoin now? I wouldn’t get past the commissionaire. He’d chuck me in the gutter along with the rest of the garbage.”

“So you say. But I think I’m in a better position to judge.”

Silk stared at him. Freddy had put on a few pounds and his hair was silvering gently at the temples, but there was something more than that. He had a calm and steady gaze that Silk always associated with ranks of group captain and above. “Better position? What’s your racket?”

“Air Ministry. I’m the tenth assistant deputy director as you enter on the right. Bomber Command’s changed, Silko. Even you must have heard –”

“Yeah. Big jets. Doesn’t change me. I’m still thirty-eight.”

“So what? We’ve got bomber captains who are over forty.”

It took a few seconds for Silk to take in that information. “Thank God for a navy, is all I can say.”

Freddy took a photograph from an inside pocket and gave it to Silk. It was a close-up of a four-engined jet bomber taking off. “Vulcan,” he said. “I don’t know how many Lancasters we made for the price of one of these, forty or fifty, certainly. This is a very valuable aeroplane. Air Ministry isn’t going to give it to some slap-happy twenty-two-year-old so he can hedge-hop across the Cotswolds and fly under the Clifton Suspension Bridge.”

“Nobody’s that crazy.”

“Aren’t they? You were. I can remember looking out of the navigator’s window and seeing the church steeples go by.”

Silk was silent. His shoulders were hunched and his mouth was compressed. Painful memories. Painful because he could remember the happiness of living a blink away from death.

“Forget it, Silko. That was then and now is now,” Freddy said. “Air Ministry is looking for serious, mature aircrew with big flying hours, counted by the thousand. We want great experience, proven flying skills, self-discipline, balance, solidity. Good health, obviously.”

“All right,” Silk said cautiously. “Suppose I did a tour. I see more of Zoë, but when the tour’s over you post me to Hong Kong. She won’t live in Hong Kong.”

“It’s a five-year tour. All part of the policy. We keep the same crew together, on the same base, for five years. Think of it. Bags of flying, and Zoë nearby, for five long years.”

Silk studied the photograph. “Big beast, isn’t she?”

“Handles like a Spitfire with twice the speed, and one sortie can do more damage than the whole of Bomber Command managed in the entire war... Now I really must go.”

“What are those engines?”

“Bristol Olympus jet turbines. Twenty thousand pounds of thrust each. Noise like a volcano. Kick like an earthquake. Don’t get up. The Vulcan leads the world, Silko. Think of that. And Zoë, of course.”

“Tell me one thing.” Silk said. “If it’s so damn special, how come you need new crews so badly?”

“A couple of bad prangs,” Freddy said. “And the odd suicide. We’ll talk tomorrow, shall we?” He strode away.

2

It was a long and strenuous medical. First he met the Chief Medical Officer, a wing commander. “I don’t smoke, I drink the occasional beer, and I swim half a mile every day if I can find a pool,” Silk told him. “No venereal disease, and no insanity in the family.”

“All pilots are slightly mad,” the CMO said.

“Not this one.”

“Well, that’s what you said once. It’s down here, in your records.” He held up a typed page. “Must be true. Take your clothes off.”

All day, men in white coats tested his health and strength, his stamina and resilience. They made him toil at a series of machines until his legs cramped and his lungs burned and sparks raced across his eyeballs. They measured his reactions. They looked deep into his eyes and ears and throat. They seemed obsessed with his blood pressure and his pulse. Finally they said he could get dressed. “Thank God that’s over,” he said.

“It’s only just begun.”

They strapped him to the end of a centrifuge forty feet long, and spun it at increasing speeds until his eyes greyed out and finally blacked out.

“G forces,” he said. “Tremendous fun.” They said nothing.

Next day began with sea survival training: several hours, dressed in flying kit, with or without a lifejacket, in an indoor pool where artificial waves fought to keep him out of a rubber dinghy. Then – wet, cold and hungry – he was put in a flight simulator. Nobody told him that the controls and the instruments were all reversed. To bank right, you had to steer left. The altimeter revolved the wrong way. Green meant red. Ten years with Air America’s mongrel fleet helped Silk here. He adjusted rapidly, even when some hidden bastard pressed a switch and reversed the reverse. It was a game. They tired of it before he did, and sent him to the decompression chamber to see how his heart and lungs liked going up to and coming down from great height. That was definitely not fun; but he came through it, went back to the white coats, gave blood and urine samples, even had a cup of tea and a biscuit. “What did I score?” he asked.

“Score? There is no score.” Which made him think.

Next day was very relaxed. A few x-rays, some hearing and eyesight tests, a good lunch, a long wait in a room where the armchairs were comfortable. An army officer came in: a colonel, fiftyish, red moustache, three rows of medal ribbons, clipboard. “Milk?” he barked. “Flying Officer Milk?”

“No, sir. Silk. Flight Lieutenant.”

“Damn.” The colonel took a pencil from behind his ear and altered the sheet on the clipboard. “Bloody admin orderlies... Makes no difference. You’ve got the chop, Silk. Blown it. Flunked, as the Yanks say. Down the pan.” He rapped the clipboard with his knuckles. “If this is the best you can do, you’re not fit to drive a Naafi van.”

“That’s... disappointing, sir.”

“What? It’s bloody unpatriotic.” He advanced on Silk and poked him in the chest with the pencil. “You thought you could bullshit your way into Bomber Command! Look at these fucking pathetic scores! What? What have you got to say?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“A gentlemen would apologise!” The pencil-prodding got harder. “Damned insolence! Damned arrogance! Don’t try to deny it. To think we fought two wars for the shoddy, shabby likes of you.” Spots of saliva were reaching Silk’s tunic.

“Three wars, sir.” Silk pointed at one of the colonel’s medal ribbons. “Isn’t that the Boer War medal? Sixty years ago. You must have been jolly young.”

The colonel’s face turned red. He began to shout. He damned and insulted Silk, cursed him for a sponger and a wastrel and a fraud, and stamped out.

Ten minutes later an orderly arrived and escorted Silk to the Chief Medical Officer. “Boer War gong,” he said. “How did you know?”

“My uncle won it. Used to wear it every Armistice Day. Anyway, what’s a pongo colonel doing in Bomber Command?”

“Testing your self-control, see if you would crack. It’s a bloody silly idea, but just occasionally it draws blood... Anyway, you’re medically fit to fly Vulcans.” He signed a form. “You have the heart and stomach of a sixteen-year-old boy. Pass it on to me when you’ve done with it.”

“You’ll have to lose thirty pounds first.”

The CMO added the date to the form. A five looked slightly unstable, so he straightened it. “You’ve been out of the Service for a long time, flight lieutenant. You have forgotten the courtesy due to senior rank.” He looked up, his eyes wide open; and Silk’s toes curled.

“Yes, sir.”

“Group Captain Evans is in Room 800. Do not joke with Group Captain Evans.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Silk found Room 800. Evans told him to take a seat. He was a big man, almost completely bald, with a permanent frown. Silk suddenly worried about his taxes. He’d left all that stuff to Barney Knox.

Evans leafed through a thick file. He closed it, and said: “You’re a bloody mercenary, flight lieutenant.” It was true. Silk stayed silent. “A whore of the skies, that’s you,” Evans said. “What?” Silk frowned, as if thinking. “Scum rises to the top, flight lieutenant. That’s your story too, isn’t it?” Evans whacked the file. “What?” No reply.

Evans went back into the file. He found a tattered page that briefly made him hold his breath. “Christ Almighty,” he muttered. “You could go to jail for this.” He read it again. “Didn’t anybody...? No, of course not. They gave you the saw and sent you up the tree, and watched you cut off the branch you were sitting on. Now look at you: stark bollock naked. What?”

Silk chewed his lip and studied the group captain’s face. Large wart on the left cheek. Must make shaving tricky.

“Air America,” Evans said. “Cowboys paid by crooks. CIA pulls the strings, Mafia makes a killing.” He tossed a reporter’s notebook at Silk, then a ballpen. “Come clean, flight lieutenant. Full confessions, and I mean full. It’s your only hope.” He went out. A key turned in the lock.

Evans came back five hours later. It was dusk; a lamp burned on the desk. Silk gave him the notebook.

“1835 hours,” Evans read aloud. “Urinated in waste-paper bin. Appears to be watertight. 1907 hours: telephoned Officers Mess, spoke to Duty Officer. 1920 hours: airman opened door with master key. 1930 hours: Mess servant delivered dinner on tray with half-bottle of claret. 2015-2050 hours: took a nap. 2100 hours: discussed football with office cleaner.”

“He emptied your waste-paper bin,” Silk said. “I gave him ten shillings.”

Evans grunted. “Extravagant. Five bob would have done. And I’m not paying for your wine.” He sat at his desk. “You’ve read your file?” Silk nodded. “Anything to add?” Silk shook his head. “Thank God,” Evans said. “You’ve been okayed by MI5, Special Branch, the FBI and the Dagenham Girl Pipers. Also, it didn’t hurt that President Eisenhower invited your titled wife to dinner at the White House.”

“Did he really, sir?” Zoë’s not titled, Silk thought: “She never told me,” he said.

“Amazing. Why on earth d’you want to join Bomber Command again?”

The honest answer was To be near Zoë. Silk briefly considered To help defend the West. He said, “To fly the Vulcan, sir. Finest aircraft in the world.”

“It’s a nuclear weapon with wings. Killing a quarter of a million Russians doesn’t bother you?”

Silk thought of all the Germans he must have killed in two tours. “Not if it doesn’t bother you, sir.”

Evans got up and walked to the window. “Britain’s not a bad country, you know. I’d certainly kill to save it. When you think of the Hitler war, of the huge pressures we put bomber crews under... They wouldn’t have been human if they hadn’t gone on the razzle, got drunk, got laid, got into fights...”

“It helped, sir.”

“Not now, Silk. Not in the Cold War. Too dangerous. A Vulcan crew is the closest thing to God hurling down thunderbolts. The crew can never relax. On duty, all day every day, for five years. Hell of a burden. If you’ve got a weakness, flight lieutenant, it will find you out, it will break you and you will crack, you will fall apart, collapse, kill someone, probably yourself, anything to escape the nightmare of being God, not the God who allegedly created the world but the God who exists to destroy it. If you find that weakness, come and tell me.”

“Yes, sir.” Silk relaxed. He was in. He was flying. He had no weakness. “Thank you, sir.”