Day (32 page)

Hamburg again.

Longer route.

You didn't want a longer route.

Hamburg again.

Good to get up and over the cloud, look down at the broad moon country it makes. And watch for snappers dipping up out of it, watch for the bastards everywhere while B for Beer flicks and switches her tail and you keep hold.

Think of it sometimes like sitting out over the end of a plank, swinging your feet loose in the sky – gets you happy, that: gets a smile inside the oxygen mask.

‘And what the bloody hell is that, d'you think?' It's Skip. But he's not worried, only asking. You think he's not worried. He doesn't sound it – difficult to tell with the words so thin by the time they reach you.

‘Flak?' Torrington chipping in. ‘New kind of flak.'

The Bastard, ‘If that's fucking flak . . .'

Catches of light. Revolve your turret hard to starboard and glance forward. More light. Can't be flak – too pale. Too huge.

‘Skip?' You have to ask him. ‘What's up?' Don't want to trouble him, but you have to ask. ‘Anything?'

‘It's, ah . . . It's a bloody great storm, Boss.'

‘Don't you fret, Little Boss.' Molloy, you think it's Molloy – the intercom very ropy tonight. ‘I'll bring along your cocoa when we're done.'

Colder. Check the connections to your suit, but they're fine.

‘We'll go in and see how we manage, boys. Then it's another trip. Any sign of icing, any sign of anything . . . tell me. Cu-nimbus aren't my favourite . . . but . . . we go.'

Colder.

Feeling her taken in – the first slam down, as if she's dropped a step, before the cloud grinds by your turret, a cliff to either side, so much higher than you, so far to the ground when the lightning fires, shows you the chasm you're chinked inside.

‘Jesus.'

It throws you, as if you are nothing – because you are nothing – pounds and slams, slaps until you don't think, can't.

‘Fuck.'

‘Can't turn her.'

Hands on the grips, as if they could help you, help anyone.

Walls closing, sealing.

My poor little Lanc, she's moving in ways that she can't, she's kicked sideways, backwards.

And the cloud is something more again – it has a mind that sucks away your breath – and its light only uncovers what you shouldn't look at, spaces you couldn't survive in, vaults that leap to 30,000 feet.

Our fault, this – we burned up the sky and now it's come for us.

‘Jesus.'

No.

Just a storm. Yo'm norra babby. It's only weather.

‘Jesus.'

Blue flame starting from your muzzles, your turret blinding – don't know if the ammo will go up – and anyone could see you from miles off, props shining like bloody fireworks while you hurt with the cold – and there's a bright knock to port and you breathe the fresh smell of a lightning strike.

‘Miles? Miles? . . . Skip . . . a shock . . . I don't . . . through his set. Skip? I'll . . . back . . . His head, I think.'

Youwilllightmywaytonightyouwilllightmywaytonightyouwilllightmywaytonightyouwill

Only weather.

And its heart looking out at you and laughing.

You

Will

Light

My

Way

Tonight

Until it spits you free.

Merlins so quiet without the thunder.

A miracle.

When you don't believe in them.

But you get one, anyway.

‘Fires over there, Skip.'

‘I see them. That Hamburg?'

‘It'll do.'

Someone got through, then. And we got through. Dead reckoning and we've something to hit.

And then home.

Get the fucking bombs down and get home.

You can feel her relaxing, tender.

Get fucking on with it, put them down.

‘Steady, steady.'

Left leg shaking for some reason. Can't stop it, so leave it be.

‘Bombs gone.'

And keep on north and outrun the bastard weather, jink across when we can, when it's clear. Feel the skipper sink you into the usual, normal bed of cloud cover, trying to hide you, because you are clearly alone now and bombers should never be alone.

That's why it isn't fair when it happens – because everybody is doing their very best.

And because it makes you be alone.

Flak you know what it is when it hits and that it hasn't ruined you because you are still thinking and when it hits it's faster than you think and then it comes again you smell its skin before it blows up stink of smoke and sneaked in the cloud and got you and yo hear the skipper yo can tell it's him and there's other things yo hear like hurt babbies and somebody callin out Molloy and your poor lickle Lanc she seems so sad around yo and wallowing and Perspex to yer right yer winder there's a big ole in it which seems daft and abracadabrajumpjumpjump yo hear that in Skip's voice and someone blartin for their ma and hard to breathe with stuff in your air and abracadabrajumpjumpjump and yo'm tryin but yo cor turret jammed cor get it round enough and yo bay frit but yo do seem away far off and slow and yo try and crank again and it's hard and she's dyin on yer yo can feel how she cries and three engines is all that's gooin and yo gerrout through the doors yo do gerrout and clomber and drap and yo see there's no more Bastard and no more turret where he would have been all shattered and pummellin wind about yo and ash and Window magic Window flying all about and the flak's stopped which is good and why yo'm alive and there's no people yo cor find any people and yo go forward and there's no one yo'm alone legs rattlin under yo everything rattlin apart and remember portable oxygen remember yo'll die otherwise only yo'm breathin already without it and so yo'm low flyin now and doe need it and yo breathe more panicky with the taste of fuel and glycol and that other thing on the floor that bad thing that might be the Bastard part of the Bastard and goo forward and now there's Miles there's this creature they made of Miles and its arms moving but he doe mean them to they're only moving with the Lanc and yo cor look at it and it's like a poor wammell a poor lickle dog that's crouched with no chest and yo've got to see your skipper soon you need him or Dickie Molloy or anybody to not be alone and my how she's weeping and singing and slipping down your lovely Lanc only gliding now she can't manage better and there's all red on the floor and clip on your chute and make yerands do it make sure they do it and the astrodome is gone blown out and no Parks and no sign of Parks and forward yo'm gooin on and she makes a stagger down but she's brave a brave wench and here he is yer skipper yer safety yer best yer gaffer and white white in his face doesn't see when yo shout and yo mun get him to listen because jeth is set by him atein him up yo can see it and his mouth sayin abracadabra again and his mask off and lollin and wet and he's took poorly took terrible badly and his cap is gone again and yo cor find it and his flying helmet tore open and red in his hair not sandy as it should be and yo want to find his cap but yo cor because maybe it jumped out the hatch like Torrington must have and Parks is gone and Molloy and they've left their red behind and yo behind and yo cor jump because yo look down through the hatch and yo just cor and so yo goo back and the skipper is still there and still flyin and now he turns awful slow and different to how he is and he does see yo now he sees.

‘Alongin a moment, Boss. On you go.'

Bad smile he gives you horrible.

‘To pleaseme onyougo.'

Yo can tell he's weary with holdin her and wants to go home and yo'd like to goo wum with him and he has such blue eyes the skipper like he's got all the morning sky inside his head.

drop

There never is any memory of leaving, nor of pulling the cord to open the parachute. You only tumble into thinking again when your harness yanks you up so hard you feel you've been split in half, or your balls knocked up into you somewhere and no chance of getting them back.

And this is just you now – you and infinity and the cold, deep silence it's made for you to sway about in. For a while you think something will reach down and touch you, something you can't understand and this is the first time you've truly been frightened all night.

Which unhinges everything and you don't know if this is a silence or you are deaf and if this is a mist or you are blind, or maybe this is dying – one last joke to get your hopes up before you get the final drop.

But then you notice you've lost your boots and your Type D linings and your socks and your feet are aching – there they are, your sore naked feet – and a dead person wouldn't be bothered with that and here is some sound, hissing and pressing back in, of the silk above you and the harness and your racing breath and you can understand that seeing will be tricky because you are in a cloud which is why you are wet and freezing, but there is some light, a type of glow which means that day is coming in an overcast dawn.

You wish for a moment that Sweden will be beneath you – the skipper would have tried for Sweden if he could, if he'd thought they wouldn't make it home.

The skipper.

There's no Lancsound. So he's gone. But no fire, no sign of fire, so you can believe that he hasn't crashed, that maybe he's still flying. Or he could have jumped. You want to think that he'll make it to Sweden. Or you don't want to think at all.

Except maybe your hearing's not so hot as you'd thought because there's this rush now, a terrible racket, keeps getting louder, and the mist thinning while your chute starts to buffet a bit more.

And then you see – the whole thing clearing, the whole bloody mess – that you're coming down over water, over a coast, some thin bit of coast – Jesus, a tiny strip of land, island, something, and if you don't make it you'll be in the fucking ocean, you'll be fucking dead.

Tugging and hauling to steer yourself and the wind impossible, can't tell if it's set to take you out or save you – maybe both. Dropping faster now, or it seems that way, and you are – fuckit – you are going to hit the water, but not on the ocean side, you think not on the ocean side, you hope – unless you've got it all wrong – remember to release the harness, hit the release before you're in the water, get away from the fucking 'chute.

Much nearer now, much too near – it will be the water – can't bloody swim – get out of the harness, get out of it now, get the bloody thing, get it away before it drowns you.

And then suddenly it's your business to live, fight for it.

Landing in a way you don't completely feel and the canopy coming down after like a wet skin, like your shroud, and you're breathing water, but it's all queer – your legs are wrong, make no sense of your being in water – and your hands caught for a moment in this soft stuff, warm – before it comes clear in your head how you are and where you are and that you have Joyce to be alive for, maybe nothing else, but she is enough – and you are dragging and dragging and dragging the silk from your back, your head, but also standing, toes sunk in cream-feeling mud – almost – because the water here is up just to your waist and now you're free, open, and it's raining – there's a cold and beautiful thin rain falling on you, washing your face, and this warmish water that you're thick in, that you can walk through – alive – a living man who has fallen from a plane and hasn't died – shove down the 'chute, sink it as best you can – and work your way up to the shore from this lagoon that's bright with the threat of sunrise, that's sparking as it sinks to your thighs and then your knees.

Not too hard to keep on wading along this sort of channel – whistly little birds stirring away from you, but no other disturb-ance, no shouts, no alarms. Then the channel dries and rises to some kind of springy soil and then there is scrub and then woods, pine smelling – too sparse to hide you.

You keep walking and here is a little road to crouch across and run to its other side until you are on grass – horrible fierce stuff that hurts your feet, so you move to a path and it's getting very light – no houses, no sign of shelter, but that's maybe good – no people, quiet still, but a silver shine everywhere that makes your head ache – you ache a good deal – but you keep on trotting – sand now, more gentle – and you go further, you're in dunes – ocean sound coming at you and tussles of wind, the last of the storm leaving as the rain fades and there's this wonderful smell of roses and bushes: a high, thick mass of bushes, a hill that seems it is roses and nothing else and it pains you, but you tuck yourself in under it – this grey coming when you look and you have to sleep now, you really do have to sleep.

And when you wake there is a kind of heaven with you.

Cloudless sky and warm and the smell of your ma's garden – so many roses – and a calm tide breathing in and out somewhere at the edge of the white sand where you're lying.

Dog roses.

And a tiny blue flower by your face, trembling.

So comfortable here.

Except for your shoulder and your feet.

And they'll know now, back at home – that you're too late to be anything but gone.

And you realise you're thirsty, taste of clay and salt in you mouth.

And you roll yourself over, which causes you this long, tugging pain and you look up and see three faces, three men standing over you, peaked caps elegantly tilted and pencil moustaches – makes you think of a movie, the comic-opera type of thing – gleaming boots and dapper greatcoats.