Flying Without Wings

by Paula Wynne

  He glanced over his shoulder. After a moment, he murmured, ‘That’s not an option.’ He lifted his hand to stop any protest. ‘Please, don’t go there.’

  She bit her lip. ‘Okay.’

  How could he explain to a girl that being in the RAF was all he had dreamed about all his life? Not only did it mean self-esteem and pride, and flying: the thing he’d always dreamed of, but he would be following in Dad’s footsteps.

  ‘Matt, you can still be a pilot. And listen, who cares about a wobbly foot? Grown-ups aren’t bothered by things like that. How did it happen, anyway?’

  Suddenly, Matt’s heart started pounding, striking his ribs double-time as he remembered that day. His heavy breathing roared in his ears. ‘I’ve only got myself to blame for being so dumb. For taking up such a dangerous challenge.’ Sweat formed in his armpits.

  The pressure in his chest burst painfully up into his throat causing his breath to come in short, sharp gulps. Matt was suddenly hauled back to that day.

  22

  6 Years Ago, Little Hollow Airfield

  On the far side of Little Hollow Airfield, the latest protestors had set up camp in the woods. They had begun by stringing ropes to get from tree to tree to avoid the coppers. Several fireplaces were dotted around. Pots and pans lay beside them and buckets of water balanced on bricks. There were knotted ropes leading into the trees that they could climb and pull up behind them if the coppers were chasing them. Camouflage netting hid various treehouses and make-shift storage huts.

  The only sound was the wind gusting between the trees, as if it was picking its way through the campsite and inspecting it.

  Matt waited a long while to see if anyone was there, but they must have all gone to the protest up at the wire fence.

  The inquisitive breeze tugged at his shirt and flapped it, as if to check he was authorised to be here. Which of course he wasn’t, but it had been too interesting to resist coming to have a look.

  Suddenly, a voice called out behind him. ‘What you doing here?’

  Matt swung around to see Ben leaning against a tree. Above him, Luke scrambled up a makeshift tree ladder.

  Matt groaned. Ben had been alright enough, he guessed, when he was just some other boy in their class, but then a few months ago Luke had decided to befriend him. Matt had no idea why. Apart from being kind of obviously stupid, Ben was fat and awkward. Although he was strong enough, he was slow and useless at football, but now that he was Luke’s friend he kept ending up on Matt’s team. It would have been alright if he would have just played in goal, but he wanted to be a striker, and that was always Matt’s position.

  Up in the trees, Luke scampered across a rope and wood bridge joining two thickly-branched trees.

  Matt stepped out into the clearing, where he could be seen. ‘Luke! Come down!’ He shouted to his brother. ‘Mum will be mad if she finds out you’re up there.’

  ‘How will she know?’ Luke called down, glaring at him. ‘You gonna split on me?’

  ‘He will,’ Ben yelled, ‘he finks he’s the boss of you.’ He turned to Matt. ‘I bet you can’t climb that as fast as your brother.’

  Matt turned to Ben. ‘Push off fatso, d’you reckon I care what you think?’

  But Luke heard and leant down from the tree towards Matt. ‘Yeah, I bet too. Come and show us what you’re made of, mister win-it-all, unless you’re too scared’

  Matt grimaced. Yeah, okay, he had won all the school races and his silver cups now lined the mantelpiece waiting for Dad to see when he came home, but why shouldn’t he be proud of that? It wasn’t his fault Luke was almost a year younger than him and not as fast or strong. Why couldn’t Luke just let it go?

  ‘I def…nitly don’t fink he can cross that rope bridge,’ Ben called out to Luke. ‘What do you fink?’

  ‘I agree!’ Luke yelled. ‘Come on up, Matt, show us if you’re only good at kids’ stuff in school. I officially dare you to cross the rope bridge or you’re a wuss!’

  Matt huffed and bit his lip. He knew he’d be in serious trouble if he was caught, but it also looked easy enough and it seemed like the best way to shut his kid brother up and his new, loudmouth, fat moron friend.

  ‘Alright little bro, but then you stop going on about the school races, okay?’ He leapt onto the nearest tree ladder and was up it in a jiffy. Standing on the edge of the branch, he tugged the rope bridge. The ones lower down had planks and ropes on both sides, but this one was just two ropes, one about four foot above the other. It looked sturdy enough, though.

  ‘Come on,’ Ben hollered, ‘don’t get cold feet now.’

  One day soon he was going to find Ben on his own and give him a fat lip. Matt took a long, deep breath and glared at his brother, looking up from one of the treehouses below.

  The breeze flowed around him, stronger up here, plucking at his shirt. It kept at him as if warning not to take up the dare. A mysterious feeling that his life was about to change overwhelmed him.

  Suddenly, he feared his brother’s challenge. And for a moment, a brief few seconds, he wanted to climb back down and race home for lunch.

  But he couldn’t. He didn’t get scared of stuff like this. He wasn’t about to show himself up in front of Luke, and definitely not in front of Ben. He’d be branded as a coward. A pussy.

  Matt gripped the top and placed one foot onto the thickly knotted rope below. Then the other.

  Slowly, he made his way across.

  Ben and Luke had gone silent on him. This wasn’t all that difficult after all, and it would certainly keep the both of them quiet for a bit.

  Halfway across, he looked down and saw the wind pulling at the camouflage netting covering a wooden storage hut.

  From the treetops above him came a sound like the waves at the beach, and he realised it was the rustling of thousands of tiny leaves all together. The sound came closer and now the wind whipped around his head, tugging at his curly locks. Hair fell over his face.

  Matt suddenly realised he had made a big mistake. As he did he felt his body tense, and suddenly the two ropes seemed to be like snakes trying to break free of his grasp. He was scared now. He glanced down and saw Luke staring up at him, clearly terrified. Which only made things worse. Ben had gone, he caught a glimpse of the fat slob running away.

  And then suddenly one foot slipped from the lower rope. He gave a cry, unable to stop himself. His hands were sweating, and the rope was slick with it and becoming hard to grip. He pivoted and twisted, but he couldn’t get his foot back to the bottom rope and the more he moved the more the ropes seemed to buck and shudder with a life of their own. And all the while the wind whispered around him, tugging and throwing him off balance. The lower rope came near and he saw a chance to get his foot back onto it. He lunged, but as he did his hand slipped on the upper rope. He yelled as every fibre of his body and self-preservation instinct tried to stretch his arm so he could reach the rope. His fingers closed on it momentarily, but it slid from his grasp, burning his hand, although he barely noticed that as the world span and he toppled downwards.

  He crashed through the camouflage netting over the hut. His right foot struck the wooden boards and splinters of pure torture shot through his ankle and up his leg. More pain as his outstretched foot skidded through the sodden mud and wedged between a pile of campaign banners and thick metal chains.

  All Matt could remember before the darkness overwhelmed him, was an agony in his right foot so profound that he wanted to curl up right there and just have everything stop.

  23

  Matt’s hands trembled, but Cami clutched them tightly. ‘Matt?’ She leaned closer. ‘Are you okay?’

  Slumping over, he wrapped his arms around his body as the spinning in his head gradually changed into nausea. His body felt numb as Cami bent over him.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ her voice purred in his ear. Her minty breath tickled the hairs on his neck.

  For a bizarre moment, he imagined he was floating above them both, lookin
g down at them. Feeling detached from his body and with his brain vibrating, he watched himself continue hyperventilating.

  Cami stroked his arm. ‘Shh, shh, you’re not there anymore.’

  Forcing out the words, he finally said, ‘I shattered my foot and ankle in …so many places they couldn’t …repair it back to the way it was.’

  ‘How come?’

  He was finding that keeping a grim focus on the facts could give him a calm of sorts. ‘The bones were shattered, compressed together. A lot of tissue, muscle and nerves were destroyed in the fall and by the surgery they had to do to try to repair it. And then after a couple of the operations, things got infected. It went on for a couple of years until they finally said that the risks of further surgery outweighed the likely benefits. Now there’s very little feeling in anything around the ankle in my right leg, and that makes it pretty damn near impossible to control.’

  ‘Oh, Matt…’

  ‘I can walk pretty much pain free, but only by using my arms to balance swinging the leg, and that makes me look like a spazz. I started training myself to walk in a way which looks more normal, but that causes constant pain. That’s why I fall easily. You can’t blame Mum for not wanting me as a waiter!

  ‘And then there’s Luke. The whole reason we had the argument before…Well it was just because I’m eleven months older than him, and so even though we were in the same year at school I’ve always been…well, I was always faster and stronger than him and he resented that. He got his wish, though. Now he goes places, gets to do things, way before I can even think of them.’

  ‘Matt, I’m so, so sorry.’

  He stood beside her, smelling the sweetness of her scent and then feeling her comforting embrace as she placed tentative arms around his shoulders.

  ‘Why are you sorry?’ He squinted at her, ‘You didn’t do anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry for making you remember it.’

  ‘Bout time I got it all out,’ he exhaled hard and clutched his stomach. ‘I was in a cast for years. They kept having to rebuild my foot with pins and new bone growth and …God knows what else.’

  Cami stared into his eyes.

  ‘I’ll never walk properly again. It’s as good now as it’s ever going to be. For the rest of my life.’

  ‘So…it was Luke’s fault?’

  ‘No! Mine for being stupid enough to do it. At first, I was really mad at him, but then when I was in the hospital, he actually offered me his foot.’

  She gaped and then sighed. ‘Oh, that’s so sweet.’

  Matt huffed. ‘Well, obviously I didn’t take up his offer, but I realised he felt as shitty as I did, so I suppose I forgave him.’

  ‘Even sweeter of you to forgive him.’

  As she pressed her hand over her heart, her sparkly, painted nails drew his eyes to her cleavage. He focused there for a second or two, and then quickly pulled his gaze back up to her face.

  He hadn’t expected to have some kind of panic attack, but it seemed to have turned out alright. It had drawn him closer to her in such a short time.

  ‘Anyway, it’s just a slight limp. Like mine.’ She latched her hand in the crook of his arm and murmured, ’Now, tell me about your cousin’s documentary. I’ve heard gossip that he’s asking some pretty heavy questions about Nazis and hidden secrets.’

  24

  Allan spent hours telling them all about the protest until long after midnight, when Mum finally insisted that everyone get to bed.

  Matt wasn’t used to getting only a few hours’ sleep, so when Mum woke him to help out at the café he secretly hoped he would be let off but, as usual, the morning was spent preparing The Cinnamon Stick with cakes for the old ladies who came in to chat about their day. Feeling zonked, he dragged himself around his list of chores.

  Allan joined them for breakfast, and now Mum plied him with tea and breakfast muffins, while he set up his tripod’s legs and slid his camera, with its fat zoom lens, into the cradle before peeling the film off a new video cassette and loading it in.

  Having lied and said he was working on someone’s car the day before, today Luke made up for it by cleaning The Cinnamon Stick’s kitchen for Mum while she baked the day’s cakes.

  ‘Is this documentary something to do with AWRE?’ Matt asked, rubbing his grainy eyes so he could peer closer at Allan’s camera.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Matt!’ Mum ghosted up to them and plied Allan with another cup of tea and one of her famous cinnamon buns.

  ‘No, he’s right,’ Allan said. ‘About a year ago Panorama did a big thing on it. And they reported on how Gerard Balmaine had sold a huge chunk of land, where they’d built that bomber command unit in the Second World War, to the RAF, which eventually became home of the Atomic Weapons Establishment.’

  ‘You see!’ Matt gave Mum a look of triumph.

  She swatted him with her tea towel and hurried back to the kitchen, where delicious smells of vanilla and cinnamon were oozing from the oven.

  ‘And?’ Matt quizzed Allan.

  His cousin slurped a little of his tea and placed the cup in its saucer. ‘Yow, that’s hot! The place was RAF Aldermaston in those days and was transferred to the US Air Force in the war. After the war ended, the airfield was surrendered to the Air Ministry and was supposed to become a flying school for former RAF pilots to be retrained to fly civil aircraft. But,’ he shook his head as if disgusted, ‘instead it eventually became the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.’

  Holding the cup with his pinkie finger in the air like the posh snobs did, Allan sipped the tea again. He took a bite of cinnamon bun and muttered, with his mouth full, ‘Ooh, these are good!’

  Matt became impatient to know more. ‘Mum said you’re doing something on a Nazi. What’s that all about?’

  ‘Yeah, I was getting to that. After the first documentary aired, my boss told me to do some research. You know, snoop around to see if there’s any other story there at AWRE.’ Allan dropped his bun on the saucer and licked his fingers, then stabbed them into a serviette. After wiping them, he pointed at his camera.

  Matt had spent the previous evening green with jealousy. Even though Mum didn’t pay rent, the coffee shop only gave them an okay living, not one that afforded fancy things like a VHS video camera with zoom lens.

  ‘Hang on, just let me find the right tape.’ Allan fished in his bag and pulled out another video cassette, which he swapped for the one in his machine. ‘Here.’

  Hiding his envy, Matt put his eye to the viewfinder and watched a tiny black and white scene of their local countryside.

  Allan said, ‘We had some guys come in and take some cut-away shots like this one. Our fellas at the studio will twiddle some buttons to get a blast of Spitfire engines onto the screen.’

  Matt was engrossed. It was amazing that this tiny device, only the size of a loaf of bread, could not only shoot moving pictures but also play them back.

  Allan wiped his mouth. ‘I’ll do a voice over, reporting on how Gerard’s brother, Victor Balmaine, joined the war with his own slice of history in the deep woodlands. He rented some of his fields to the British army during the war for storage. Dummy aircraft and false buildings were positioned around the field, along with flare path lighting that looked like a runway. As well as drawing the Luftwaffe bombers away from major nearby targets, it was close enough for the pilots based at Aldermaston to react quickly to an airstrike. We’re going to call it the Lost Airfield, because after the war it was just abandoned and now it’s completely overgrown and derelict.’

  A surreal sensation gripped Matt as he imagined seeing his childhood playground on television. ‘I walk through there every day.’

  Allan lifted his gaze to Matt. ‘Really? Can you show me?’

  ‘Course, I can. We call it the nuclear camp because―’

  ‘I know all about their protests. My boss has filmed those for years, that’s why he’s dead keen to get a real meaty story. Always said he suspected something more was going on arou
nd in the area than anyone let on. And of course, that’s the Nazi story you were asking about. It’s probably just nonsense, but what they used to claim in the camps was that the Nazis had some really futuristic, massively deadly weapons in development by the end of the war, and that the RAF smuggled one of their top scientists out in 1945 and hid him here to help develop top secret British weapons.’ He slurped his tea again. ‘So, having had the dubious good fortune to grow up around here, yours truly was picked to come and poke around.’

  Mum appeared beside Allan with another saucer of freshly baked scones. ‘Allan, would you like one?’

  He patted his midriff and doubled over as if about to burst. ‘Sorry, I’m so full! Your cinnamon buns are to die for, but I’ve no space for anything more.’

  Mum’s face dropped.

  Matt jumped. ‘Keep one for Allan, Mum, he can have it later.’

  At that moment, wiping his hands on a damp apron, Luke joined them. ‘So, are you going to make us all famous?’

  Allan grinned. ‘Hope so.’ He looked at Mum. ‘Then you’ll sell more cinnamon buns.’

  Matt ignored the cheesy remark.

  Allan said, ‘I’m going to film at Little Hollow Airfield, get some shots of pilots climbing out of their Cessna or whatever planes they have down there.’

  Luke shouted, ‘Yeah, like Bomber.’

  Mum froze for a second, then muttered, ‘He doesn’t like publicity. He’s a bit of a hermit.’ She moved off and started placing fresh flowers in the little vases on each table.

  ‘Then he shouldn’t be running an air festival,’ Matt couldn’t help the bitterness spilling out into his voice.

  ‘It’s to get enough money to keep the airfield going,’ Luke explained.

  ‘And the Balmaines don’t have enough money for that?’ Matt argued.

  ‘Bomber told me that complying with all the new health and safety rules costs a lot,’ Luke murmured.

  ‘You shouldn’t be hanging around him,’ Matt shot an acrid glare at Luke.