“Yes, nasty. And the rockets, too. We’re not supposed to know about rockets. The government keeps saying it’s just another gas main exploding. Not very clever, are they? That’s the worst thing about war. One gets treated like a child. Laura’s safe and sound, of course, and fat as an Irish pig. Are you well?”
“Never better. Lots of flying. Lots of oranges.”
“Haven’t seen an orange since…” She sneezed. “Damn… Another cold coming on. Eddy Skinner got killed.”
“Tough luck.” That was what he always said. “Eddy who?”
“Oh, I forgot. You didn’t know him. He was in the Grenadiers. Not that it makes any difference. London’s awfully dreary without you, Silko. When are you coming home?” The line was cut, no warning, he was left listening to a harsh buzz. He rattled the cradle and said: “Hullo? Hullo?” It was what they always did in the movies and it did nobody any good, then or now.
Knox said, “All well in the old country?”
“She wants me to come home.”
“Sure. That’s what they always want. Heard it a hundred times.”
“You’re married? I had no idea.”
“Nor did Jessy. She fell for the uniform, wings on the tunic, very romantic. Then she expected me to come home every night to eat her meatloaf, drop my pants and do my husbandly duty. Thought she could educate me out of flying. That’s the difference between women and airplanes, Silko. An airplane kills you quickly, a woman takes her time.”
“I don’t think Zoë’s like that.” But a corner of his mind was thinking: You don’t really know what Zoë’s like, she’s a beautiful mystery, all you really know is flying. Another part of his mind answered: So why did you marry her, if you want to spend your life in the sky? Yes, but on the other hand…
Barney was talking about a great new airplane from Lockheed. “It’s coming into Washington DC,” he said. “If we go now…”
“Why the hell not?” Silk said.
They borrowed a jeep.
There was a crowd at Washington airport, many of them newsmen. Knox had told Silk all he knew: the C prefix made the model a transport, it had four engines and it was said to be something special.
It arrived from the west, low; made a half-circuit; and came straight in to land. The crowd roared its applause. “That can’t be a transport,” Silk said. “Too beautiful.” It was the first aeroplane he had seen that was as sleek and streamlined as a big fish. Nothing seemed straight, everything was gently curved. It had tricycle undercarriage and triple fins, and it was a shining silver. It turned at the end of the runway and taxied back and the PA system announced, “A new American record – from Burbank, California to Washington DC in exactly seven hours and three minutes!” The crowd cheered. Knox cheered. Even Silk clapped his hands quite warmly.
They got a close look at the plane, talked to a Lockheed representative, took a copy of a press release, and went for a beer.
“We have seen the future, and it flies,” Knox said.
“It’s a work of art, I agree. But it’ll make a lousy transport.”
“Grow up, Silko.”
“Truly lousy. They’ll crop the wings and enlarge the tail and add a bloody great cargo loading bay and it won’t make two hundred knots. You watch.”
“No, you watch. This war’s got another year left in it, maybe less. What d’you aim to do then? Go back to England? Drop a rank? Flight Lieutenant Silk, boring the pants off everyone in the Mess?”
“There I was over Berlin,” Silk said dreamily, “flak so thick you could get out and walk on it, and would you believe it, the port wing fell off. ‘Damn,’ I said.”
“Seven hours, three minutes,” Knox said. “You realise what that means? Breakfast in LA, dinner in New York. Coast to coast in a day! Who wants to spend three days and nights in a train? Or a week in a car, you arrive with your ass feeling like hamburger, very rare, hold the onion. Air travel, Silko, is gonna be big. Very big.”
“And you reckon there’s a job in it for blokes like you and me?”
“I’ve had two offers already.”
A spark of patriotism burned inside Silk. “What makes you think I won’t go home and fly for British Overseas Airways?” he asked.
“What makes you think Britain has an airliner?”
“There’s the Sunderland.”
“It’s a flyingboat, for Christ’s sake. Ten passengers at a hundred and twenty knots. This C-69 carries sixty at three hundred plus!” Knox waved the company hand-out. “A pressurized cabin, yet!”
“We’ll build our own. Britain’s got a bloody good aircraft industry – ”
“Warplanes, Silko. You make warplanes. US companies were building big passenger aircraft five, ten years ago. Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas… This beauty already has a name. Constellation.”
“Oh, bollocks,” Silk said.
RUMBLED
When Germany surrendered, the US Government gave Silk a medal and the Embassy sent him back to England. He asked for immediate demobilisation and he got it. While he was at Air Ministry he called on Air Commodore Bletchley, to say goodbye.
“I hear you cracked up in California, Silk,” Bletchley said. “Good choice. I blew a gasket in Libya, poor choice, everyone was more or less batty in Libya, it helped to pass the time, you lost your friends in the morning and lost your marbles in the afternoon. Not important any more. How did you get on with the Americans?”
“They like to fly, sir, and so do I.”
“You’re wise to leave the Service. Britain can’t afford another war for ten years. Imagine spending ten years in clapped-out Lancs, dropping dummy bombs on the Suffolk ranges.”
“Done that, sir. I hit Norfolk once. Similar spelling.”
They shook hands. “Give my regards to your wife. She intends to enter Parliament in the coming elections, or so I read. Brave girl.”
It gave him something to think about, on the midday train back to Lincoln.
Zoë was waiting there, with the Frazer-Nash. After American roads, English lanes seemed dangerously narrow and twisting. This is worse than Bremen, he thought; but they arrived intact.
He dumped his suitcases in the middle of the living room. He had forgotten how small the place was, how low the ceiling. He went out and stood in the garden. Flowers everywhere, a riot of colour. Not like America. Zoë appeared, carrying two gin-and-tonics. “Bed,” she said.
“I was looking at the hollyhocks.”
“Awfully pretty.” They touched glasses and drank. “But non-starters in the bed stakes.”
In the bedroom, his fingers felt clumsy, fumbling with shirt buttons until Zoë, wearing nothing at all, told him to stand still and she rapidly stripped him. The bed felt pleasantly cool. Zoë felt blissfully warm. Silk had a brief memory of his sense of total relief and relaxation as the Lanc touched down after a long and dodgy op. Then he got down to business. After ten minutes it was obvious that business had shut down for the day.
“Buggeration. What a hell of a homecoming.”
“Don’t worry, darling. Not important.” She very nearly said It happened to Tony once, but she stopped herself in time. “Just one of those things.”
“Actually it’s two of those things,” Silk said, “Rumpty and Tumpty, remember? Each as useless as the other.” Then he remembered the day when Tony told him he had the same problem, he couldn’t keep pace with Zoë, the well had run dry. That was three years ago. In those days, Silk had lusted after her. Everyone had. But Tony had been his best friend, his only surviving friend. And sex was just an itch to be scratched, it was nothing compared with sudden death, three or four miles high, of which there was more than enough to grip the squadron’s attention. Tony had solved his sex difficulty with special bath salts, or so he said, but the bigger problem caught up with him over Osnabrück.