The Final Flight

by James Blatch

  Mary’s arms stretched out and they fell into a tight embrace.

  Rob sat at a worn kitchen table in a dark farmhouse kitchen, nursing a lukewarm cup of tea.

  Someone would have to move the bodies off the hillside. They would secure the crash site, throw a cordon around the secret military equipment, whatever was left of it.

  The farmer appeared in the doorway.

  “So what happened?”

  Rob shook his head. “I’m not sure. We struck the ground, I think, and bounced back up, but it disabled us.”

  Again, a vision: Millie and Bright scrambling to evacuate.

  The terror in their eyes.

  They knew they were going to die.

  He didn’t expand on his answer, and the farmer didn’t pursue the conversation.

  A distant beating in the air.

  Rob rose from his seat.

  “I think that’s my helicopter.”

  Immediately beyond the house was a small cottage garden, and beyond that, a paddock with two horses.

  “Is it possible to move the horses?”

  The farmer bustled out, pushing past Rob, and waddled up to the paddock. The horses, perhaps sensing food, came to greet him. He unlatched a five-bar gate and let them through to a narrow garden that ran down the side of the house.

  Rob scanned the sky. A yellow dot, growing larger; an RAF Wessex, with the word RESCUE emblazoned on the side. It came to a loud hover just short of the paddock, dust and soil swirling in the downwash. The machine inched forward before settling down on its vast wheels.

  Rob gathered his helmet and harness and thanked the farmer, who handed him his bundled parachute, tied with a cord.

  As he left the kitchen and made his way to the open gate, a small contingent of soldiers jumped out of the Wessex. A sergeant with a moustache met him as he approached the paddock.

  “Flight Lieutenant May?” he shouted over the noise of the whirring blades.

  Rob nodded.

  “Where’s the crash site?”

  He pointed at the farmer.

  “A few miles away. He’ll tell you.”

  “OK. Thank you.” The sergeant then looked him up and down. “Rescue 3 has instructions to take you back to West Porton, unless you need urgent medical treatment?”

  Rob shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  As the helicopter sped above the Welsh borders, Rob stared out of the only window, blind to the rolling countryside.

  He saw only the wreckage, the outstretched arm.

  The winchman shouted over the intercom.

  “About forty minutes.”

  Susie sat on a bench opposite the phone box, waiting for a quiet time to make her daily call.

  After a procession of pram pushers, she got her chance.

  “Any news?” Roger asked in his sing-song voice.

  “Nope. I really don’t see the point of being here.”

  “You’re protecting England’s precious military assets, my dear. One more week, they think. So be a good girl and sit tight.”

  “Fine.”

  “There is one more thing. A minor task for you.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “You’re to meet an RAF chappie, a squadron leader. He has something for us. Listen to him and report in afterwards.”

  “Oh. That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “It happens from time to time. Might be nothing, but he had the wherewithal to find the right number to call us, so they want him heard. Tomorrow morning 8AM, St Mary and St Melor Church, Amesbury. Choose a rear pew and wear something blue.”

  “Something blue?”

  “Yes, so he knows it’s you. He’s five feet nine, balding, and described himself as ‘podgy’. And be discreet, for god’s sake.”

  The helicopter settled onto the taxiway across from TFU. Rob removed his helmet, thanked the winchman and climbed out. Two NCOs appeared next to him and carried his parachute, harness and helmet.

  Mark Kilton stood at the door, waiting. He held out a hand; Rob shook it.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  Kilton led the way into the planning room. Rob tried not to catch anyone’s eye, but Red intercepted him, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “Buddy, tough situation. Come and see me when you want.”

  Rob nodded and followed Kilton into his office.

  Kilton shut the door.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. We were at three hundred, as planned. It was all fine. I looked at the chart just for a few seconds and we struck the ground. It must have been a glancing blow, as we went back up. But the port side was wrecked and we rolled. Speedy ejected when we were banked over. Millie and Brighty got themselves out of their seats, but not much more…” He tailed off.

  “Speedy had control?”

  “Yes.”

  Kilton made a note.

  “Millie didn’t want us to go down to three hundred. In fact, he—”

  “Of course he didn’t. We knew he was against it. But it’s what we agreed. You were right.”

  Rob furrowed his brow. “But we didn’t listen to him—”

  “Robert.” Kilton held up a hand. “We did. Look, there’s a procedure to follow. We will recover the wreckage and find out what happened. Do not, and I repeat, do not speculate to anyone about the cause, is that clear? Be especially careful what you tell Georgina. She doesn’t need an unpleasant situation made worse with ill-informed speculation.”

  Kilton opened his office door and motioned Rob to leave.

  “Can I go home?”

  “We drink tonight for the men. You need to be there. So, come back. Understood?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You need to. I’ll see you later.”

  Cars littered the street around Millie and Georgina’s married quarter. Rob approached and paused for a moment, listening to the sounds of tea and sympathy within.

  He pushed open the door.

  Mary appeared in the hallway and rushed up to him. She hugged him tightly, and he screwed his face up, willing the tears to stay away.

  He wrapped his arms around her, gripping her shoulders. He didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world but in her arms.

  She pulled back and kissed him.

  “Are you OK? Mark says you ejected.”

  He nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “What did he tell you?”

  Her arms slipped down his body and she held on to his hands.

  “Only that it was routine. There was some sort of problem and that the others didn’t make it out.”

  She let go of one hand.

  “He also phoned a few moments ago and told us that you should go to the mess tonight. He says it’s important you’re all together. I honestly don’t mind and I think he’s right. You need your friends tonight.”

  Rob stared at her and saw something terrible in her eyes: relief.

  She had the winning ticket. Her husband had come home.

  She led him into the living room. “Come and see Georgina first.”

  The new widow sat on the sofa, eyes puffy, a hanky in her hand.

  He couldn’t bear it. He shouldn’t be there.

  She spotted him and let out a little yelp.

  “Darling, darling, Robert.”

  She held out her arms, beckoning him in. He knelt down. They locked together in another tight hug. He inhaled, trying to smell Millie on her clothes.

  Rob felt dizzy. The room was warm. He pulled back from the hug but remained on his knees. Someone put a small glass of whisky in his hands. The smell brought a smiling Millie to mind.

  He downed it in one gulp. The smoky scotch tasted sweet.

  “Are you OK?” Georgina asked.

  He stared at her; the room was spinning.

  “Rob?”

  Mary eased him back into a soft chair. The room settled down.

  He leant back and closed his eyes, listening as they talked about
Charlie.

  He was still at Oxford, helping with the summer school. The college bursar had relayed the news and he was on his way back home.

  Mary appeared in front of him.

  “Are you OK? You went very pale.”

  He nodded.

  “I think Kilton’s right. I should go.”

  Officers from every quarter of West Porton crowded into the mess bar; men and women from Boscombe Down, too.

  Everyone knew Millie.

  Everyone loved Millie.

  As Rob stumbled into the room, a few heads turned.

  Red led him to the bar. On the way, he received several pats on the shoulder and a few muttered words of sympathy.

  Red pushed his way through the throng and held up a hand to attract a white-coated steward.

  He turned back to Rob to check what he wanted and ordered a couple of beers.

  As the pints appeared, the TFU boys gathered around them.

  “Put this on Squadron Leader Christopher Milford’s tab,” Red told the barman, following the tradition to drink on the dead man’s bill, knowing it would never be settled.

  The boys raised their glasses in unison.

  “To Speedy, Brighty and Millie,” someone said. They all muttered their own personal toasts.

  Rob downed half a pint in a single go.

  There was an awkward silence. Rob stared at the rising bubbles in his Skol.

  Red broke the moment by putting a hand on his shoulder. “You wanna talk about it, buddy?”

  He desperately wanted to talk to him. He wanted to tell him everything.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Listen, man, you need to get this off your chest. If you want to talk over the weekend, just holler. Remember, we all have to go flying again on Monday.”

  “I can’t imagine ever flying again.”

  Red squeezed his shoulder. “You will, buddy, and you’ll make Millie proud. Y’know, I think you always were the son he really wanted.” He picked up the empty glasses. “I’ll get a refill.”

  The other pilots talked among themselves: tales of Millie, and the many comical moments he had presented them with over the fourteen months of TFU’s existence.

  “He was clumsy, but no-one knew the electronics like him,” one said.

  Rob stood on the edge of the group. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to see one of the oldest officers at West Porton: JR from the Maintenance Unit, and two of his colleagues.

  Rob stepped away from the TFU set.

  “We wanted to pay our respects, Robert. Millie was a fine man. More one of us than one of you, I think.” He smiled, nodding toward the gaggle of TFU pilots. “And I know you two were close, so we just want to say how sorry we are. If there’s anything we can do, Rob… If you need to finish anything Millie started, you know where we are.”

  “Here you go, buddy.” Red appeared next to them and handed him his second drink. JR smiled a greeting at Red and then looked back at Rob.

  “As I say, you know where we are.” He and the other MU men headed back to their corner of the bar.

  Red laughed. “Living fossils. Quite something to see.”

  “Yes. Indeed.”

  He rejoined the TFU men and downed his next pint.

  The crash had left him aching, particularly his lower back. His head was slowly spinning. If it was the beer, why wasn’t it helping with his emotional pain?

  He found the drinking ritual distasteful. He looked around at the sea of laughing and smiling heads in the bar, but he couldn’t bring himself to join in.

  This was the RAF way. To tell stories of the fallen, to drink. And to forget.

  Perhaps it was OK for everyone else, but not him.

  The thick fog of cigarette smoke and stench of booze was a comfort blanket for them, but Rob was surrounded by jagged edges. He was still in the centre of the broken remains.

  Another vision: Millie’s cold, dead arm in the dark on the Welsh hillside.

  In the centre of the room, his eyes rested on Mark Kilton. The boss stood by a pillar with two junior pilots.

  Something told him his only salvation was through the boss. The man in charge, whose orders he followed.

  The two men with Kilton made their excuses as he approached.

  “May,” Kilton said in greeting, before sipping his pint.

  “What happens now?” Rob asked.

  “There’ll be a Board of Inquiry, but because of the nature of the project we’ll have some control over it, purely to protect the secrecy.” He appraised Rob for a moment. “Why? Are you worried?”

  “So, Millie was right. There was a problem with the laser. And we didn’t listen to him.”

  Kilton put down his glass down and leant closer. “They will comb the wreckage for clues. You’re free to describe what happened, but you will not second-guess the outcome of the inquiry. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kilton smiled, a look that didn’t suit his face. “You’re part of my team, Rob, don’t forget it. Come in tomorrow and write everything down before the memory fades, and leave the rest to me.” Kilton looked over Rob’s head toward the bar. “You do not discuss this with anyone. If you do, I won’t be able to protect you and you’ll land yourself in deep water, quickly.”

  Rob felt confused, as if he was missing something, but Kilton walked off, leaving him standing alone by the pillar.

  For the first time in weeks, he wanted to talk to Millie properly. To talk to him about Guiding Light.

  Red Brunson appeared with fresh drinks.

  “There you are!”

  Rob took another long drink of soothing beer.

  He felt dizzy again, but finally the beer was taking the edge away, dulling his heightened senses.

  Jock MacLeish joined them and told a story of the time Millie rode in his sidecar with an open-faced helmet on backwards. They all laughed at the vision.

  “He was adept at many things,” Jock said. “But borderline incompetent at the menial tasks. Like putting on a crash helmet.”

  Toward the end of the evening, Rob was very drunk, pushed into a corner of the room with Jock and Red keeping watch over him.

  He wanted to go home. To climb into bed next to Mary. And to cry without being seen.

  19

  Saturday 25th June

  An elderly woman pushed an upright shopping trolley as she headed toward the newsagents. A tradesman drove by in a Morris Minor van. Two men passed each other walking their dogs.

  Susie noted that both men had military haircuts.

  Amesbury was busier than she expected for an early Saturday morning. Not ideal.

  She glanced at the two military men again. Both slim. Neither matched the description of Squadron Leader Christopher Milford.

  The church clock bells tolled 7.45AM. Susie kept close to the stone wall that ran around the elevated graveyard and dipped into the path that ran to the porch. Lifting the heavy metal latch, she slipped inside the Norman building, taking a pew immediately to her left.

  She lowered herself into a praying position and monitored the entrance.

  It was cool in the church. After a few minutes, her knees hurt, and she shifted back onto the wooden bench.

  Another glance at her watch. 7.55AM.

  Milford might arrive early.

  She imagined a nervous man unaccustomed to stepping outside strict military protocols.

  A copy of The Book of Common Prayer sat on a wooden ledge on the back of the pew in front. She browsed it, keeping the doorway in her peripheral vision.

  Most of her field training anticipated the briefest of exchanges with other agents, or distanced observation of a mark. This was different; she’d been authorised to speak to an outsider.

  An informant.

  The CND sting had given her a taste for field work.

  As the seconds ticked toward the appointed time, she went through her pre-contact checklist a final time.

  Had the contact been followed? W
ould they be overheard? How reliable is he?

  The bells tolled for 8AM.

  The church stayed silent.

  She frowned. She didn’t expect him to be late.

  The standard operating procedure was to abandon a meeting the moment the mark failed to show, but she gave Milford some allowance. After all, he wasn’t an intelligence professional.

  A bird flapped high up in the rafters.

  After a few minutes, the door latch made a sharp metallic scrape which echoed around the empty church.

  She startled as a man in a dog collar and long black cassock swept in.

  He walked straight to the centre of the church and headed up the aisle, without glancing. She had chosen her position well.

  Once his flowing frock disappeared into a room by the organ, she slipped out.

  8.12AM.

  Susie cursed her luck at the failed meeting, already anticipating the grief from Roger.

  She crossed the road outside the church. More Amesbury folk were up and going about their Saturday morning. She walked over to the newsagent, picking up a copy of The Daily Telegraph from a rack outside before entering.

  A man with a labrador was chatting to the ancient shop owner. She stood in line, occasionally glancing toward the church, just in case she saw a balding, slightly plump man who looked as if he was running late for a meeting.

  “Not good. Not good.”

  The man in front shook his head, gossiping with the owner.

  He tapped the newspaper on the counter. “Happened in Wales, apparently, but they were all from around here.”

  Susie ignored them. She might go home and snuggle down in an actual bed tonight. The thought made her feel warm.

  “See you later, Peter.”

  She set her paper down on the counter and pulled the change out of her pocket. As she did so, she noticed the picture on the bottom half of the front page: a grainy shot of twisted metal and the smoky remains of an RAF jet. The headline sat beneath the photograph.

  RAF BOMBER CRASHES – THREE DEAD.

  “Thruppence please, love.”

  She held out the money as her eyes continued to scan the article. Below a brief paragraph describing the barest details were three pictures, each one an RAF officer in his peaked cap, looking proudly into the middle distance.