Nights melded into days, the hours marked with a cup of broth, a cold cloth on his brow, tepid tea that Annie forced on him. The pre-dawn hours were the worst; the long night not easily relenting. His bed sheets damp, the soft rattle of the window told him snow was afoot. Sure enough, within the hour, a thrumming at the window, then, before long, an insistent padded tapping that told him that there was ice, too. He yearned to witness the wintry theatrics, went so far as to lift the covers and place one foot on the floor, but the effort proved too much, the room drifting, and he sunk back into the pillows.
He should not be here. Three days captive in his bedroom, a weakness from fever, from dehydration, and from mental exhaustion as he worried about what it meant to have influenza at a time like this. At a time when he should be training with the Air Transport Auxiliary. He’d received the letter two weeks ago. Report to Maidenhead, Feb 23, 1939.
A summons. An official letter that told him to come. He was wanted.
A drink in the pub to celebrate. Peter insisted. A beer, a whisky, the over-stoked fire that turned their cheeks ruddy. The talk of flights made, near misses, failed engines, bad winds, superb landings. Then plans, to Canada. There were air races in Canada, and Frank imagined a kind of freedom that allowed him to be someone else, someone who could travel that far, fly in those races. Was there a future in this, an enterprise they might make of it? They could think about it. Dream about it.
But for now, cheers! To the ATA. Now, that’s worth celebrating. A chance to fly across the country, a different airplane each time. He was going to be paid to train, as they saw it. Lancasters, Spitfires—an opportunity, that’s what it was. It was temporary, of course, but still if he did it for a year, he’d have experience, and, yes, he could go to Canada; they could establish an enterprise, he and Peter.
Let’s drink to it. More whisky. Another beer.
The influenza made details a fog. Had they agreed to fly in Canada, or merely suggested it?
“It’s dangerous what we do.”
Did Peter say this, or was it the fever’s contortion?
Where was Peter now? The weather abysmal these days, he would surely not be flying. London. That’s what he’d said. He would be going to London for a few days, and Frank had wanted more. Why London? But they did not possess each other in the way Frank wanted to be possessed, so the question remained unasked.
Once, on his third solo flight, Frank flew through a thin layer of unbroken cloud, and flying above this white blanket, the rapturous blue sky above, he had this intense sensation that he was entirely alone, so much so that he panicked. He cut the throttle and sliced through the clouds back to the dull grey he’d left not minutes before. That was the one time, his one moment of panic in flight. It was enough, all the danger he wanted.
Frank held on to that word, danger. Wrapped up in damp sheets, his body fighting itself, the cool draught from the window recalibrating his temperature. It was not a brave thing that he would be doing with the ATA. He would not be a fighting man. He would be a flying postman. He would deliver planes where they needed to be. This was the brainchild of Gerard d’Erlanger, who proposed to the government that if war should come to their shores, should the expected German attack take place, communications across the country might be lost, and in such circumstances a pool of amateur pilots in light aircraft would be useful.
Is this what he talked about, Peter, when he spoke of danger?