by John Harris
Mackay, the last of the three, was a big man, the biggest in the dinghy, hefty and hard-faced, and Waltby remembered, on being introduced, forming an opinion of a man not given to introspection, someone confident in his own size and his own ability to take hold of life and beat the best out of it, and yet someone who had somehow lost his sense of humour in doing so – as though he had never had the leisure to be happy merely for the sake of happiness.
As though to prove his independence, without help from the others, Mackay had taken off his tie and knotted it round his left hand as a tourniquet, so that the black material bit cruelly into his whitened flesh and reduced the bleeding from the gash in it to a mere occasional spot of bright blood that fell into the water sloshing about their feet.
It was in the first few minutes of relaxation, as they were all getting their breath back, that Waltby first noticed the motion of the dinghy. Its bounding, sweeping movements were brought to his attention when he realised in a state of alarm that he was having to hang on with his free hand to stop himself sliding helplessly about the well. It rose slowly out of the trough of a grey wave, as though climbing by its own power up the veins of foam that the breeze dragged down from the crest, balanced for a second on the top, and lurched sickeningly over so that he was flung against Ponsettia before skating perilously down the other side in a stomach-heaving slide.
For a second, as they hovered on the top, Waltby could see across the empty miles of sea the broken surface of the horizon. Mile upon mile, the sea stretched grey and forbidding beyond the curve of the earth, and for a man used to the land there was something awful and terrifying about the loneliness and the absence of other life upon it, something in the wetness and the smell that clutched at the heart. Waltby had never seen the sea so close before. Watching it from an aircraft or the deck of a great ship, he had never realised its power, but down here in the dinghy, as though he were one with it, he sensed its barbaric strength from the ease with which it lifted them. A feeling of desolation crept over him as he stared, so that he was momentarily unaware of the other three, better drilled in how to use a dinghy, settling down and sorting out their belongings from the pile among their feet. Then through the motion he became aware of the ache in his head and, putting his hand up, realised it had been bleeding and the blood had dried to a hard, cracked enamel on his cheek.
He heard Ponsettia speaking to him and the cheerful voice drove his own old-womanish misery out of his mind.
“Tough tit, ending in the drink,” the Canadian was saying, without however seeming unduly disturbed himself. “Just think, but for this the Prime Minister and the boys in the Cabinet would have been whooping it up with you for that lot at 10, Downing Street, or wherever it is these guys whoop it up.” He indicated the briefcase. “Just our luck to get pooped in the engine by a Messerschmidt when you’ve got that.”
“Christ,” Mackay growled. “Anyone’d think it was the plans for the atom bomb, the fuss you lot are making.”
Waltby pretended not to hear. “All I heard was the bang,” he said.
“Sure, I know. Worst of being a passenger. Can’t see a goddamned thing. Still, if it’s any comfort, we returned the compliment and Jerry’s in the drink himself now somewhere south of us – sitting on his own little rubber platform wondering what happened. Boy, he sure is going to be lonely!”
“All the same,” Ponsettia went on thoughtfully after a pause, “his wet behind don’t help us none. And me, I had a date for tonight.”
“Another new popsie, Canada?” Harding enquired, and to Waltby, concerned with the safety of the briefcase and the wretchedness of their condition, they both seemed empty-headed and trivial in their chatter.
“Not me,” Ponsettia replied. “Same as last week. And the week before. It’s sure enough the real thing this time. Hell, I didn’t pluck up the courage to kiss her for two nights running. Isn’t that enough to prove it? No necking. We go for long walks, holding hands – me, Joe Ponsettia, the scourge of the Waafery.”
They all laughed, but the laughter died quickly, as though the chill froze it in motion, and Waltby realised abruptly that the banter had been merely to keep their spirits up – empty but more important than he had realised. Then Harding called them briskly together and Waltby, who’d been watching the sea again, was glad to draw his eyes away from the fascinating but frightening movement of the waves. “Well, now we’re here,” the pilot was saying, “the first thing we’d better do is try to look after ourselves. Anybody any suggestions?”
“We’d better get the sail rigged,” Mackay said quickly. “And make sure the flares work. And there’s a hand-operated squawk box here that sends out a wireless signal.”
“OK, Captain Bligh, take it easy.” Ponsettia waved a hand. “There’s no hurry. No need to go busting a gut. We’re here for quite a bit yet.”
“Think so?” Mackay said fiercely, his words bursting out of him as though they were infected with his own energy. “Not if I can help it.”
“That’s just the point,” the Canadian grinned. “You can’t.”
“Can’t I?” Mackay wrenched off his helmet, and his flattened, greasy hair was ruffled into spikes by the wind. “Can’t I? I’ve been in trouble before, chum, and got out of it. When I was in Greece I’d have been a prisoner if I hadn’t killed a Jerry. With my bare hands I killed him.” He crooked his fingers and stared at them as though he were suddenly afraid of their power. “When I was in the desert I walked forty miles back from a crashed kite. In that sunshine,” he said, trying in his inarticulate way to impress them with the heat and the sand and the flies and the brassy glare which had seared into his memory so that he would never forget it. “I got out of those two, didn’t I, with my own efforts?”
“Maybe you did, bud,” Ponsettia said quietly. “But I guess this is one you won’t get out of by your own efforts – not unless you’re a sea lion or something.”
“I’ll get out,” Mackay said with angry determination, as though he were challenging them to dispute the statement.
“In a pig’s eye,” Ponsettia insisted. “Not by your own efforts, bud. This is one of the times when you’ve gotta sit and wait.”
Mackay seemed to lose patience. “Aw, go to hell,” he said. “Let’s get on with something. We’d better get the squawk box operating first. At least then we’ll be doing something towards saving ourselves.”
“If you nip over the stern,” Ponsettia said slyly, “you can probably push us ashore. How’s your breast stroke?”
Mackay gave him a sharp look, obviously uncertain in his humourless way whether the Canadian was pulling his leg or not.
Harding interrupted. “How about you, sir?” he asked Waltby. “Have you any suggestions?”
Waltby jumped as he realised he was being addressed, and was at once conscious that it was a mere gesture of politeness and respect for his rank. He had been absorbed in the growing friction between Mackay and the navigator and had been crouching between them, fiercely trying not to look at the disturbing motion of the sea which held him like the eyes of a snake.
“I really don’t think I can contribute much,” he said uncertainly. “I’m entirely in your hands. All I want is to get this briefcase back to where it’ll be of some use. Consider me one of the crew.”
His voice died away to a croak as he finished and he licked his lips nervously. The lurch and slide of the dinghy over the waves was filling him with a trembling nausea. Now that he had time to think about it, now that the excitement of getting aboard was over, he realised how violent the motion was. Every time the dinghy balanced on the broken crest of a wave and slid down the other side his stomach plunged away with it.
“How about trailing some fluorescein on the water?” Mackay queried. “Makes a big marker.”
“Better save it until we see an aircraft,” Harding said. “No point in wasting it.” He was little more than a boy and he spoke quietly but there was no disputing the authority in his voice. As he finished the d
inghy lurched again and he winced and put his hand to his side. Mackay leaned over towards him immediately.
“Skipper,” he said, “you all right?”
“I’m all right.”
“How’s the bread-basket?”
“Oh, dry up!” Harding grinned, faintly embarrassed. But his smile was tight and not very convincing. “It’s a bit sore, that’s all.”
“Sure you haven’t broken something?”
“I’m damned sure I have! A rib, I expect. But it’s not as bad as all that.”
“Skip, let’s have a look.” Mackay’s voice suddenly became urgent, but Harding shoved him away.
“God, you’re worse than an old woman.”
“Well, you never know.” Mackay seemed to feel no resentment at the rebuke. He sat back, his eyes watching Harding, noting with satisfaction that he wore a leather flying jacket and appeared to be warm enough in spite of his pale face. Then he sat up sharply.
“Skip,” he said, “you haven’t got flying boots on!”
“No, old boy,” Harding said. “Nor my winter combinations. I borrowed these from a bloke where we forced-landed. I forgot to swap ’em back. Somebody’s going to be a bit browned off, I expect.” He stared suddenly at Mackay. “Here, cheese it, Mac. You’re making me feel embarrassed.”
He pulled himself upright as the dinghy climbed slowly up a moving wave and began its sickening slide down into the next trough. They had lost contact with the aircraft already. It had not taken the tide long to carry them away from the waterlogged machine.
“Well,” Harding said, examining the dinghy, “this job seems to have inflated all right. It’s hard enough. How about paddling round for a bit? We might find something floating that will be useful. A parachute, for instance. If we could pick up a parachute it would be just the thing to wrap round us. Might keep the wind off a bit. We’re pretty wet and exposure’s as great a danger as running out of food.”
Waltby felt a flood of shivering guilt as he remembered the inexperience which had led him to fall into the sea so that Ponsettia had had to go in after him.
“Blokes have survived days in a dinghy when they could beat the cold,” Harding went on. “It’s up to us. Besides, any kite that comes near would spot a parachute more quickly, being white.”
Glad to have something to do, they freed the paddles with difficulty – for the dinghy was crowded and they had not yet got used to their proximity to each other – and tried to propel themselves through the water, leaning over the maddeningly high sides to scoop at the sea. But they couldn’t make the dinghy ascend the waves just when they wanted to, they found – it seemed to prefer to make its own way up – and they had to abandon their plan and lie back, gasping with the action.
Then Mackay pointed to a scattering of wreckage floating a short distance away.
“There’s a piece of wood or something among that lot over there, Skipper,” he said. “Let’s get hold of it. It would make an extra paddle. Then we might be able to get along.”
“Looks splintered to me,” Harding observed.
“Might bust the old rubber bag we’re riding on,” Ponsettia agreed.
Waltby said nothing, clutching his briefcase to him in a wretched silence. He felt ill and completely lost and bewildered in this swiftly moving world of young men which, he realised, had left him behind years before, and he became uneasily aware how much more fitted he was to wage war from behind a desk.
He’d been too long away from the squadrons, he thought, too long away from the young men who flew the planes, the young men who were the breath and life of the Air Force. He’d spent too much time among the thinkers and not enough among the men who did the work. He suddenly felt, watching the three young men opposite him taking active measures to save their lives, that his mind had been running too long on the rails of theory, without the refreshing halts when the muscles took over. He’d spent too much time in his office and at his drawing board. He’d grown stuffy and middle-aged too soon, and he was aware of his plump pale face and the incipient stomach, which made his uniform bag uncertainly. I’m beginning to look like a damned shop manager, he thought, instead of an airman. I’ve been behaving like a city clerk too long to be a soldier. Still, he excused himself, for the scientist – even the Service scientist – there wasn’t much chance to swagger down foreign streets and shake off the cobwebs a bit. Someone had to fight the war from behind a desk.
As the thoughts slipped by in his mind like a set of flipped cards in the files in his office, he was watching the others lifting themselves up in the dinghy to see over the intervening waves that came in inexorable phalanxes from the north, in a slow marking time like the seconds ticked silently off by a moving line on the face of an electric clock. Then a wave lifted the dinghy up again and they got another quick glimpse of the piece of jagged wood, green-painted and floating limply a few yards away.
“The ends look pretty rough to me,” Harding said.
“And it sure is safer,” Ponsettia pointed out dryly, “to have a dinghy and no paddles than an extra paddle and no dinghy.”
They settled back once more against the round, tightly blown sides of the raft, which had a comforting hardness against their backs.
“Water’s pretty high in here,” Mackay remarked, staring at his feet.
“Better bale.” Harding started to look about him for something to scoop out the water and his eyes fell on Mackay’s hand. “You’d better lay off the baling with that,” he said.
“Not likely,” Mackay growled. “I can bale as well as anybody.”
“Don’t be a stupid clot, man.”
“I can bale.”
“OK. If you like.” Harding shrugged. “What’re we going to bale with?”
“Use my helmet.” Mackay held up the helmet from which he had taken the earphones and wire lead. “Might be some good.”
“You’re an optimist,” Harding retorted, studying it. “If you ask me, it’ll make a lousy baler. Still, here goes.”
“That briefcase would shift a bit of water.” Mackay was eyeing Waltby. The briefcase seemed to be crystallising into a symbol of his ready aggressiveness. “Holds quite a bit. How about it?”
“I think not,” Waltby said quietly, already aware of Mackay’s hostility towards him.
“You could shove the papers in your pockets.”
“I think not,” Waltby said again, feeling more than ever like a stuffy old aunt.
“Can’t see why not,” Mackay persisted.
“Wrap up, Mac,” Harding snapped and Mackay fell into a resentful silence, resentful not against Harding but against Waltby and more particularly against his briefcase and all it seemed to him to represent – the brass-hats, the cups of tea from WAAFS, the hide-bound traditions of the Service against which he had always rebelled without ever fully understanding them, the parades and the orders from the high-ups to such as himself, the flying men who were winning the war for the office-bashers. It represented the mistakes and the fumbling and the absence of equipment, everything that had bogged the war down and dragged it on into its sixth weary year while he only wanted to get back to Civvy Street with his plans for the future, plans which he had to keep thrusting into the junk-room of wartime, the place where all the peaceful pursuits had to be stored, gathering dust and growing old, some of them never to emerge again. The plans which drove him on and on to finish his two operational flying tours, the plans which, in fact, had been responsible for his struggles for freedom in Greece and the Desert and even here and now in the dinghy.
Mackay’s plans were only trivial compared with the vast machinations of great countries but, to Mackay, they were important. They were concerned only with a little street-corner shop he had started in the last uneasy days of peace but to Mackay they were Casablanca and Teheran and the Freedom of Nations, and he grew more impatient with every day he had to go on leaving them stacked away in the dark.
He stared hard at Waltby, not in the least abashed by the broad rin
g on each of the shoulders of his saturated coat, then, still nursing his anger to himself, he tried to make himself comfortable among the conglomeration of feet, legs and the odd bits of equipment attached by cord to the dinghy.
“Say, did we have any pigeons with us?” Ponsettia asked suddenly.
“Yes.” Harding looked up. “They put ’em aboard before we left. We were flying a Coastal Command Hudson, so we had to have pigeons. The fact that we were flying the thing to the boneyard didn’t matter. We had to have the pigeons because there was somewhere in the aircraft for the poor little blighters to sit. Now they’re drowned.”
“Poor little bastards.” Ponsettia sighed. “Me, I’m fond of animals and birds. There was one I remember used to fly with us when we were doing Atlantic sweeps from Cornwall. It had lovely eyes, that pigeon. Just like Betty Grable. I got quite fond of that little son-of-a-bitch before I finished. That bird had got more flying hours in than some of the boys at headquarters.”
He glanced quickly at Waltby as he finished, realising he had made a faux pas. Waltby didn’t resent the comment, but Mackay caught the glance, too, and went on maliciously. “Heard the story about the bloke who brought the pigeons into the Mess?” he asked. “He put them on the table that the chairborne blokes always use. You know the one. He left a notice on the crate. ‘These birds fly,’ it said. ‘Do any of you birds?’ They didn’t like it.”
Waltby caught the sharp inquisitive glance directed at him as Mackay finished but he deliberately looked the other way and pretended not to have noticed.
“Think anyone saw us?” he asked.
Again he caught that fleeting expression of malice on Mackay’s face, this time also vaguely one of triumph, and he guessed it was because Mackay took the question to be one of anxiety.
