He stared out once more across the fields beyond the defences, raising the rifle and squinting through the telescopic sight. There was still no sign of enemy troops or armoured vehicles, but it was only a matter of time before the advance began again in earnest. Dawn had broken a few minutes ago, and the sun was already bright and streaming through broken cloud spread across the eastern horizon… in truth, Kransky as surprised an attack hadn’t come already, although he was more than happy for the unexpected period of grace to continue.
In the tense silence of that first morning light, as an entire world waited for the terrible roar of battle to commence once more, Richard Kransky heard a soft rumbling that reached his ears from somewhere far overhead. It took a moment or two for him to work out what direction the sound was coming from, and after realising it came from the west, he placed his rifle on the floor of the belltower and moved quickly across to the window on the opposite side. With some difficulty, he managed to crane his head out through the opening and scan the cloudy skies above.
Fooled by the direction of the noise, he spent some time searching in the wrong area before finally discovering the source. He knew what he was looking at the moment he’d spotted it: three thin streaks of silver tracking south across the reddened morning sky that could only be the contrails of high-flying aircraft. It was the unmistakeable sound of jet engines that made Kransky certain he wasn’t just staring at conventional heavy bombers, and with a sigh of released breath, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile for the first time since he’d left the others the evening before.
He’d heard the F-35E overhead as he’d run on that night, and had caught sight of its afterburner from a distance as the Lightning had launched skyward from the A20 soon after, carrying Thorne out of harm’s way… the sight of those three jets overhead now was incontrovertible proof that his new and very dear friends were finally headed somewhere safe where they’d be able to carry on the fight, albeit from a far greater distance. He allowed himself a moment of sentimentality as he pulled his head back inside the belltower, and as he glanced up and beyond the wooden beams of the roof toward that particular patch of sky, he silently blew a kiss to one of the passengers on that flight as it continued its journey, already far away to the south. Another moment, and Kransky had cleared any remaining pleasant thoughts from his mind. He picked up the rifle once more and settled down before the eastern window, returning his full attention to the front lines, and the war that was about to continue around him.
Hindsight Phoenix Flight
Bay of Biscay, North Atlantic
Ten thousand metres above the Bay of Biscay, the three jets flew on unseen and unchallenged. There was a quiet, calm acceptance among the Hindsight crew as a whole: while the current journey was physically longer, it could certainly be no greater than the one they’d already made months before, and they all knew that their mission was a long way from being over… in real terms, it hadn’t yet even begun. On the passenger deck of the Galaxy, Michael Kowalski and Bob Green chatted animatedly about some ridiculously academic historical point, while Evan Lloyd listened to a small Walkman through headphones, and Trumbull sat alone, silent and completely immersed in a well-thumbed Tom Clancy novel Green had given him. Hal Markowicz snoozed in his own chair, oblivious to everything around him, and many of the Marines, Rangers and SAS troopers took the professor’s lead regarding catching up on their sleep: in armed forces the world over, spare time for sleep was always at a premium, and was never taken for granted.
Thorne stared out through one of the windows on the Galaxy’s flight deck, Eileen seated beside him as they cruised on above the scattered cloud cover, the rising sun off their port wing.
“Penny for your thoughts,” she asked softly, and he turned his head to look at her.
“I’d be ripping you off,” he replied with a shrug, smiling in return. “I was just thinking it’s a little ironic that the first time I’ll be back in Australia in more than ten years will be fifty years before I’ve even left! Of all the times I thought of ‘going home’, this certainly wasn’t how I’d imagined it.”
“Never been to Australia,” Eileen mused thoughtfully, knowing Thorne was already well aware of that fact. “Heard you and others go on about how great it was so many times, but I never got the chance to see for myself.”
“It’s a great place, all right,” Thorne said with feeling. “Always has been.” He shook his head slowly, almost seeming sad for a moment. “It’s hard to understand why I stayed away so long, now I’m on my way back… although I’m not really sure what I’m coming back to…” He fell silent for a moment, the anticipation clear in his tone and expression as he turned his eyes back to the window. He chuckled softly as a thought occurred to him.
“What is it…?”
“I was just thinking; it’ll be nice to be back in an Australia where cricket is still more popular than basketball!”
“Stupid bloody game, if you ask me!” Eileen grinned at his return to an old joke between them. “There’s not a Scot born who can understand it, or wants to!”
“Blasphemer…!” Thorne chuckled, knowing she was referring to the game of cricket and watching the clouds below the plane as he made a grand show of ‘crossing himself’.
“I’m glad you’re still here with us,” Eileen added with honest feeling a moment later, her hand resting gently over his and giving it a light squeeze. “…Here with me…”
“Me too,” he replied with an equally genuine smile, staring into her eyes and realising that he meant the words for reasons other than those that were simple and obvious.
Two hundred metres off to port, Davies cruised slowly past in the Lightning, waggling his wings slightly and giving a wave, before disappearing once more as he banked away to carry out another radar sweep, happy to be in his element as a fighter pilot.
‘England expects every man will do his duty’… Not for the first time, Thorne considered what Eileen had told him of the naval battle the day before… of the broadcast Henry Harwood had made as he’d taken Nelson in to the fray for her last hurrah. Thorne smiled thinly as he thought of Ritter, of Richard Kransky, and of the eager young RAF squadron leader they were bringing with them to the ‘New World’.
Not only England expects… He thought to himself as he laid his head back in his seat and stared for a moment at the ceiling overhead. Thorne closed his eyes, happy to be going home.
Copyright
Empires Lost
Charles S. Jackson
Copyright 2011 Charles Jackson
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