The other side of the runway, the pilot in the singed flight suit had stopped shouting and was advancing on the Chief designer with definite menace. Suddenly. Yakovlev's nerve broke and he fled, hotly pursued by his nemesis. He tried to shelter behind the camera stand but Bubnov was following him, swinging kicks at his plump backside. Yakovlev had obviously decided that halting was a bad move and was frantically running away from the furious pilot. After their fifth circuit of the camera stand, the ground crew grabbed Bubnov and started calming him down. Yakovlev kept running for a few meters then stopped, sobbing for breath. Pokryshkin guessed that was further than the distinguished VIP had run in thirty years.
Beside him Major Clancy was looking exceptionally pleased. “l must remember that next time we're down at the Convair plant. You know, I think I really like Russia.”
Part Two - Hammer
Chapter One Raised
WalIsend, Tyneside, UK
“Why, Maisie luv, you look beautiful. Really.”
Maisie McMullen beamed with delight. She'd taken the South African bonuses her husband had earned, five of them in a six-day week, combined them with a few pennies she'd managed to save and her clothing ration coupons and bought herself a new dress. But it wasn't the dress that made the difference, it was the glow that shone from inside. For the first time in years there was hope of things getting better. She'd paid off the slate at the grocers and made a start at the butchers and the greengrocer. Soon, they'd be out of debt something that a few weeks ago would have seemed a remote, unlikely dream. Somehow, Wallsend seemed to have become a less grimy, less depressing place over the last few days. Work in the shipyard meant life brought back into the community.
“We've got a few pennies left after paying the rent, Maisie.'“ John McMullen could hardly believe it, the rent paid on a Fridays and it wasn't due until next week. Their landlord had been patient during the bad years, not that he'd had much choice. If he'd evicted one set of tenants for being late, their replacements wouldn't have been any better off. Still, he'd put up with late payment when times were bad. Now they were changing, McMullen took a stiff-necked pride in paying early. “How would you like to go down the pub? Been a long time since we went down to The Foundry together.”
Maisie McMullen’s beam got even bigger. It had, indeed, been a long time since they'd been out for an evening. The lean times, then the danger from the American “Navy carrier strikes, all had made people stay at home. “That's a wonderful idea. I'll get my coat.”
As McMullen closed the door of their home behind them, he realized his wife had been right about getting her coat, even old and worn as it was. McMullen privately promised himself that he'd swing a good hammer next week and get her a new coat even if he had to go down the corner to get it. There was an unseasonable chill in the air, even at the end of August, the air had a bite to it that shouldn't be there. Just wasn't right. Damned Yanks dropping atom bombs on everybody.
McMullen looked up. Early evening, the sky was clear but high up, so high and so faint it could hardly be seen, was a faint streaking of gray. When the sun set, it would catch that thin shroud and turn it into a spectacular display of color, everything from the faintest of pinks to the deepest, most intense scarlets. It had been more than a year since The Big One and every one of those days had seen sunsets so spectacular that they made the eyes water.
It had been the fires, according to the radio. The atom bombing in Germany had burned the cities, all of them, to ash but it had done something else as well. It had started forest fires across the country and, without anybody to put them out, they'd burned for weeks. The smoke had been driven so high that it couldn't come down and that was the cause of the sunsets and the unseasonable chill. Or so the radio said. Stood to reason, McMullen thought. It was the Yanks fault. It hadn't been fair how they'd ended the war like that, never given the Germans a chance. Just flew the bombers over and blew their country out of existence. That wasn't fighting fair.
He took his wife's arm and they walked down the street, together, greeting neighbors as they passed. That was something that came hard, five years of living with the Gestapo watching every move had left people reluctant to say anything they didn't have to. Only now were the old habits coming back. McMullen made himself a private bet that at least one of the people they were greeting as neighbors had been an informer.
Still, best forgotten now. Old Winnie, now Prime Minister Churchill again, had been right on that. Obsession with revenge lead to - Germany. Wallsend had nothing to be ashamed of, it might have had its informers and its Nazi sympathizers but it had also had its resistance. McMullen had been surprised when they'd come out into the open after the German surrender and he'd seen who they were and how many of them. Now, they were the town council and their leader was the Mayor.
“Here we are luv.” They'd reached The Foundry and McMullen held the door to the Saloon Bar open for his wife. Carpet on the floor, padded seats and booths down a wall. If he'd been on his own, he'd have gone to the Public Bar where the floor was bare wood and sawdust and the seats were simple stools. No decent woman went into the Public Bar. A man with his wife went to the Saloon Bar. Maisie had taken off her coat, catching the envious glances at her dress from the other women.
McMullen seated her in a booth and collected two halves of beer. Another thing that had changed. Once a man wouldn't dare order a half pint of beer. Men drank full pints and to do less invited ridicule that could last for weeks. Only, now, rationing meant that a pint cost a point so a man who went to the pub with his wife split their rationed pint into two halves, dividing it between them.
“Here's to us luv.” They chinked their glasses and drank. The beer was thin, watery stuff, a far cry from the rich foaming brown that they'd had years before. But it was beer and this was their first night out in years. They spoke of small things, of stories of experiences in the shops and down the corner. McMullen told his wife the funny stories of the yard, of the tricks played on apprentices. Especially the 'prentice who they'd sent to the stores for a “long weight”. Maisie McMullen had chuckled at that, sitting erect in her seat and sipping at her beer. After a while, they'd got their ration book out and started adding up the numbers to see if they could afford 'the other half’.
“Hey, Johnno, don't worry about that let me get it for you.” The thick South African accent made the name sound like 'Yunno'.
“Thank you Mister....” To his embarrassment, McMullen realized he didn't know the man's name.
“Piet. Piet van der Haan. Please, this round on me, I have a visitor's ration card and you deserve a beer. Never seen a man swing a better hammer. And this is your lady wife?”
Maisie McMullen flushed slightly. Her husband looked up at van der Haan proudly. “Aye Sir. That she is. My wife Maisie. And we both thank you for a beer.”
“On its way.” Van der Haan waved and the barman started to ready the drinks. “But not so much of the sir Johnno. Not the way for two good Union men speak to each other is it?''
“You're Union? I thought you were with the bosses.”
Van der Haan laughed, then paused to pay for the beers and have the points taken off his ration card. “Since when would a bossman know who was swinging a good hammer? Been a Union man all my life. Work the Simonstown yard.”
“Which Union Brother? Boilermakers?”
“Shipbuilders. We only have one Union per yard in the Republic. Everybody who works in a shipyard is a Shipbuilder. Except the kaffirs of course.” Van der Haan saw the puzzled look. “Blackfellers. You know. They just fetch and carry so there's no need for a Union for them. But for the rest of us, we're all Shipbuilders. Stops the bossmen playing one Union off against the others you see.”