Sentimental Journey (26 page)

It had been a mere eight days since he had buried his wife and unborn child in a quiet ceremony at Keighley. Eight nights that seemed like eight decades and eight days that seemed like eight seconds.

He’d brought back an aunt to stay with his mother until she could be released from the hospital, then spent two days and nights in a pub near Piccadilly. For hours he sat in a dark corner and stared at a red, black, and white
“My Good, My Guinness”
poster with a fat seal balancing a beer bottle on its nose while it served a foaming stout to a thirsty soldier. Empty bottles of single-malt scotch lined up on the table like enlisted men while Skip knocked back glass after glass. He tried and failed to forget his vacuous existence, tried and failed to forget the obsequious platitudes people said to him, well-meant though they were.

Buck up, old chap. It will get better with time.

It’s God’s will, you know.

She’s in a much better place.

You’ll marry again.

That one was his favorite. It implied nothing except that people were like replacement parts on a motor. No problem, old chap, you go out and get another.

The brakes of the train squealed as they scraped metal, and the rail carriage came slowly to a stop. The engine spit a burst of steam, and it floated into his open window, condensed, and dripped down the glass of a small framed tobacco ad by Churchman’s No. 1 with a pilot smoking and reminding you to recycle cardboard cigarette packets.

A female ticket collector in a grey woolen uniform with a slim skirt and fitted jacket—new styles that used less fabric—moved through the narrow aisle on low-heeled, sensible shoes created to conserve wood for the war effort.

She rang a small bell and called out, “Wellingham!”

The next moment he was stepping down from the train onto a wooden platform that was less than three miles from the airbase. The hard soles of his shoes made a hollow, empty sound as he walked with his musette bag slung over a shoulder, heading toward a base vehicle— an American-made Dodge WC12 half-ton that had been part of the Lend-Lease agreement from the Yanks. It was parked under an iron streetlamp seldom used anymore with the blackouts and bombing raids.

He tossed his bag in the back of the lorry and started to crawl inside, but froze when he looked up.

The men inside were all staring at him.

He hated that look on their faces, the one that said they didn’t know what to say to him, looks that were awkward and pitying, but also tinged with a small edge of relief that it hadn’t happened to them.

It was a long three miles back to base. A few of them tried to make inane conversation, then gave up and talked amongst themselves. Pilot Officer Mallory had the most kills. Eleven. He was now the squadron top ace.

The lorry drove through the gates and pulled to a stop in front of the pilots’ quarters. No sooner was he out than the siren wailed and someone shouted, “Scramble! Scramble!”

Skip stiff-armed the barracks door; it slammed against the wooden wall. He ran toward his cot and tossed his bag on it, then jerked open his footlocker.

Within minutes he was zipped in a jumpsuit and leather jacket, strapped in flight gear, and pulling on his gloves as he ran across the grass for his Spit. Over half the squadron was already in the air, which smelled of high-octane plane fuel and an even higher level of anticipation. A tin-hatted ground crewman handed him a chute, while another checked the ammo supply. From the corner of his eye he saw that seven swastikas had been painted on the fuselage of his plane.

He tossed the chute in the cockpit as they shoved him onto the wing. He hopped inside and slid the canopy closed with one hand. The crew scattered like grouse while he strapped in and flicked a look at his gauges.

A second later he hit the switches. The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine rang up in vibrations through the control stick and into his palm, where it purred pure power. Boots on the rudder pedals, the sky overhead, and he was off down the field, bouncing over the jagged, wheel-churned ground of the grass airfield, the engine roaring toward takeoff speed, that sweet moment when he pulled back and left his stomach, his body weight, and the ground behind him.

And he was flying.

“
ALL
OR NOTHING AT
ALL
”

He broke the old squadron record of four kills in a day. He was rather surprised when he reflected on it as he flew back to base. It was quite easily done. Almost as if the enemy were flying into his sight. He’d pressed the button, tracers shot out, and he watched the planes spiral down in flames until they hit the Channel, disappearing and leaving no sign they had ever existed apart from a pale green patch in the water.

There were no chutes today. A Nazi bomb had ended his world. He would do what he had to, to keep Nazi bombs from ending anyone else’s. He merely kept firing until the planes exploded or fell apart.

The wheels of his Spit touched the field with a bounce, and he rolled over toward the maintenance hangars, then stopped. He shoved back the canopy and climbed out. The ground crew had made it a habit of waiting a few minutes after he landed before they came to work on the plane. The sergeant of the ground crew was a brittle old mechanic from
Dorchester
, a man with an understanding of pride, who gave him time to vomit.

Skip jumped down from the wing. He shoved an anchor brick against a front wheel, then slowly walked around the plane. He’d taken some hits in the wing from the dorsal gunner on a Heinkel. It wasn’t too bad. Some holes in the starboard wing skin and a few chewed-up places on the tail.

Corporal Andrews came up to him. “Sorry, sir. No hits today.”

“Five.”

“What?” The kid turned and looked at him. “But, sir . . . ”

“I didn’t up jack my insides?” His laugh was biting. “I don’t think I’ll be having that problem any longer. I say, come here. Looks like one of them got the rear navigation light.”

“Yes, sir.”

The rest of the crew joined Andrews and began going over the plane. As Skip turned away, he saw the corporal lean over and whisper to another crewman. He didn’t care what they were saying. He removed his fleece-lined gloves and strode towards the dispersal hut. He wanted some coffee.

Inside, he grabbed a sandwich from a plate and took a few bites as he poured himself a cup of strong black coffee. He leaned against the wall and crossed his boots at the ankle as he finished off the farmer’s sandwich of cheddar and tomato, then ate another one that tasted like chicken salad. He wasn’t certain what it was; he ate the whole thing in four bites. He was still chewing when his flight commander came in a few moments later.

“Good job, Inskip.”

“Thanks.”

Mallory came inside grousing about his sight being off. He hadn’t a single kill. Skip sipped his coffee.

Soon the hut was filled with flyers all talking at once about the mission, the near hits and the damage, the one that got away. They hadn’t lost a man that day. Eight sorties and no one pranged.

The CO tallied up the day’s score. As he chalked up the squadron’s kills, the talking in the room tapered off to almost nothing. Soon it was so quiet that all you could hear was the scratching of chalk on the blackboard.

After a moment the scratching stopped and the CO looked up.

There was no sound left in the room.

“We have a new squadron top ace.” He turned and looked at Skip. “Flying Officer Inskip has twelve kills.”

The room erupted in cheers, and he found himself smiling as they pounded him on the back and toasted his success with coffee and teacups and a few good bawdy jests.

He was top ace. The goal of every flyer.

The men all shook his hand, including Mallory, who swore he’d catch up with him the next day.

After Skip promised to meet a few of them in an hour for a celebratory beer, he left the hut and headed for the barracks. He walked into his quarters and began to remove his gear. He set his air jacket on the bunk, unbuckled his chute and let it fall. He took off his helmet and goggles, unstrapped his flight belt, and dumped his survival kit along with everything else into his footlocker, then kicked the lid closed. He was still in his flight suit, his gloves stuffed inside and hanging out of a pocket as he went into the WC and washed up. He bent over the basin and scrubbed the rubber smell of his oxygen mask off his cheeks and mouth, then straightened and rubbed a towel vigorously over his damp face.

He looked in the small round mirror above the basin.

Five kills.

And he felt nothing.

PART SIX

NORTH AFRICA
,
 
1941

“CALL OF THE CANYON”

Sometimes God answered your prayers. The rattling, squeaking truck was on level ground. No mountain roads. No more hairpin turns. No heart-stopping moments where Kitty imagined her own death: free-falling in a rickety, smelly old truck off a high cliff into some vast Moroccan valley, sandwiched between a man who sweated garlic and turmeric and a U.S. Army officer with a cocky tone behind most of his words.

Once they were out of the mountains, they took a turn away from the roads leading to the coast and towns, and instead, cut across the vast, open steppe that bordered the pre-Sahara. Cassidy told her they were heading for a desolate flatland near a gorge at the edge of the Hamada du Guir, where they would meet a plane to fly them safely to
Gibraltar
.

Not long afterward, the road had changed from pavement to hard dirt. Then, about two hours ago, they’d had a flat tire. The stop was more than convenient to her. Apparently the U.S. Army didn’t require its men to have bladders. But then she remembered that her brothers did the same thing. They got behind the wheel of a car, hell-bent for a destination, and they would drive on curses and fumes before they ever stopped.

Hot, dusty air that tasted chalky and bitter blew inside the truck and whipped her hair into her damp face, where it stuck. She swiped it away and felt the sweat trickle down her underarm and ribs. She was so hot she felt like she was melting.

For the last hour the truck jarred and bounced along with Cassidy muttering all the time as he rattled the paper maps he’d spread all over the dash. “Is this as fast as this heap’ll go?”

“Iya. Oui.
Yes,
Capitaine.”

“That flat tire cost us time. Too much time. The plane has to take off before dark.”

Kitty faced him.

“We’re late,” he said again.

“We didn’t know that, Captain. We couldn’t tell from the first five hundred times you mumbled it.”

“You know, Kincaid, we could just—” He stopped mid-word, stiffening in the seat. “What was that?”

The truck engine hiccupped.

No one spoke. They were all listening. The engine sounded fine, and they drove along the same hard terrain for another half an hour or so.

“I need to stop soon.” Her voice sounded cranky and terse. It was embarrassing to have to ask him to stop.

The truck engine stuttered again, then missed.

Sabri downshifted, revved the gas. The engine coughed, then died into silence.