Half a mile later, he said, “Listen: if I don’t create highpowered, high-falutin, highly polished bullshit, the kind that has Members of Parliament wetting themselves with joy…”
“Please no. Awful thought.”
“Well, it’s not because I’ve got my brain switched off and my thumb up my bum. I’ve got plenty to say that you’ll never hear. The Official Secrets Act sees to that.”
“I know, Silko. I’ve signed it too.”
He was so surprised that his foot gave the accelerator a small stab. “You have? Why?”
She snuggled down in her seat. “If I told you, I’d be breaking the Act. Slow down, darling, before you get arrested.”
There was a lot to learn. The Vulcan looked sleek and simple on the outside, but the cockpit was dense with dials, gauges, buttons, switches. There were 56 items of equipment for navigation, signalling and lighting, from the accelerometer to the second pilot’s knee-pad lamp. There were 37 separate controls for the engines and fuel system, starting with the bomb-bay tanks control panel and ending with the throttle control levers (re-light press switch in handles). All this equipment fed vital, or at least valuable, information and assistance to the pilot and co-pilot. They also had to manoeuvre the aeroplane. 38 flying controls and instruments made that possible. Some were familiar: rudder pedals, auto-pilot, air speed indicator. Some were not: artificial feel failure, yaw damper, machmeter. Instruments and equipment overflowed onto side panels. Yet more items filled the elbow space between the pilots. The Vulcan’s cockpit was small and intensely crowded. By contrast the Lanc had been as simple as a country bus.
Silk was quick learner. All those years flying all those types for Air America had kept his brain sharp.
As they were walking out to the bomber, his instructor said, “You know what makes her tick, but do you trust her?”
For one mad moment, Silk thought he meant Zoë. But Silk had never mentioned Zoë. “Trust her?” he said.
“Some people have a problem. The nose pokes out so far in front of the aeroplane, we can’t even see the wingtips, let alone the tailplane, which of course doesn’t exist. We have to take everything on faith.”
“I’ve got faith. The Ascension into Heaven was good enough for the Almighty, so it’s good enough for me.”
“That’s blind faith. Do you always trust the instruments? Don’t you get a flicker of doubt sometimes? You’re out in front, driving, all alone. Maybe the rest of the Vulcan isn’t following.”
“It wouldn’t dare. No, I haven’t got a problem that way. I’m beginning to worry about you, though.”
The instructor laughed. “Oh, I trust her. Some kites are just heaps of hardware, but…” They reached the bomber and strolled around it. He touched the tailfin. He patted a jet pipe, and rapped its end-cap with his knuckles. “Purpose?” he said.
“Keep the dust out.”
“And the rain. The Vulcan is packed full of electrics. Wet weather is bad for her vitals. You get all sorts of nasty little short circuits.”
Silk looked at the huge sweep of the wings. Close to the fuselage they were thick enough to swallow the engines. At their extremes they tapered to thin, finely curved tips. You could play tennis on top of a Vulcan. Doubles tennis. “You’re quite fond of her, aren’t you?”
The instructor saw a thin streak of birdshit and picked it off. “More than fond. Flying the Vulcan is the greatest privilege imaginable. It makes sex look like gardening.”
Silk had done a lot of gardening at weekends. Zoë was always busy: writing, phoning, meeting VIPs whose names he’d never heard of. Silk didn’t want to think about sex. “Not that I’m complaining,” he said to the instructor, “but isn’t it odd that Air Ministry should recruit an elderly gent to fly such a beautiful beast? Why me?”
“You’ve been flying everything for twenty years. You haven’t crashed and burned. I suppose they trust you.”
“Big mistake,” Silk said. “I never paid my last mess bill, in 1944. It was a whopper, too.”
Later, the instructor put him in the left-hand seat, the captain’s position, while he took the second pilot’s place. At twelve thousand feet they found a sheet of cirrus cloud, thin as lace curtains. “You’ve shown me you can fly fast and high,” the instructor said. “Piece of cake, in a Vulcan. Now show me you know how to fly slow. Assume the cloud is ground level. Perform a little display for the crowd.”
Silk flew wide circles, letting the speed decay to 180 knots. “Too fast,” the instructor said. Silk eased the throttles a hint more. “Trust me,” the instructor said. “She’s a lady. She won’t stall.” Silk banked. He was two hundred feet above the cirrus. The Vulcan seemed to be hanging in the sky, yet it flew beautifully. Cautiously, he reversed the bank. The Vulcan swung comfortably from one wingtip to the other. He turned through a slow half-circle and came back. “I could open the bomb-bay doors,” he suggested. “The crowd would like that.”
“You’re the captain.”
Silk did it. The Vulcan revealed what she was made of.
When they landed, the instructor said, “That went okay. But don’t try anything flashy. Every aeroplane has its limits. A couple of years ago someone displayed a Vulcan at low level, flew too fast, exceeded the ‘g’ limits, and the entire starboard wing disintegrated, bang. Ass over tit, straight into the deck. God knows what anyone found to bury.”
“Sandbags, probably.” Silk looked at the bomber. “Doesn’t seem possible,” he said.
“That’s what they thought, right up to the bang. After that it was too late to think.”
The course lasted ten weeks. Silk studied every aspect of the Vulcan: airframe limitations, engine controls, fuel economy, emergency procedures, ejection seat, oxygen system, ditching drill, airbrakes, and a hundred others. He worked hard on everything except the ditching drill. He feared the sea. If 120 tons of Vulcan stopped flying over the ocean, it would make an almighty splash, as if God had dropped anchor. There would be no paddling away in a life raft. Silk was convinced of this. Ditching drill was irrelevant.
He spent many sweaty hours in the flight simulator, where every part of the Vulcan was fallible. Single engine failed on take-off. Double engines failed. The take-off was aborted, or he got airborne only to hit severe buffeting. He had to land crosswind. Or with only one undercarriage leg down. Or in thick rain with no windscreen wipers. He had engine flame-outs and relighting at altitude. Instruments failed. Cabin pressure failed. Heating failed. He enjoyed it all. Air America had had cock-ups, but nothing like this.
Silk completed the course, qualified, got his posting, packed his bags and drove to the cottage. A man with a shaggy grey beard was painting the window frames. A fat spaniel sprawled on the grass and watched. “It’s not for sale,” the man said. “We just bought it.”
“Damn.” Silk felt cheated: he hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye to the old place. “I… uh…” He didn’t know how to define himself. “Used to live here,” he said.
The man stopped painting. “Are you the husband? Good. I found something in the attic you can take away.” He went inside. Silk squatted on his haunches and stroked the spaniel. It growled and tried to bite, but it was too fat and slow. “Well, sod you, then, you miserable bitch,” he said. The man came out with a leather suitcase. “Locked,” he said. “No key.”
Silk took it. “I suppose all our stuff is now at the manor?”
“Manor? Don’t know anything about a manor. Forwarding address I got given is Rich something. Goodrich? Goodrich House…” He squinted at Silk. “Didn’t she tell you?”