Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

“Bomb? Whatever are you talking about?”

She laughed. “Don’t you remember at Christmas? We found it hilarious that he was going on about the bombe they used for calculations?”

“Oh, yes. A bombe. With an e. He told us it came from a wartime deciphering operation, didn’t he?”

“God knows. Something like that.”

A bombe. Millie turned the unusual word over in his mind. He imagined a large mechanical machine with rotating dials, tearing through calculations faster than a human could read them.

“I can’t talk to Charlie about this.”

He looked back at the figure. This felt like an insurmountable problem. What was the point of gathering data he couldn’t read?

Susie Attenborough sat naked in a tent. Legs crossed, in her unzipped sleeping bag.

She stretched before fumbling through a pile of clothes to find her wristwatch.

5.45AM.

The sun had been up for forty minutes; the thin canvas did little to keep the light out.

She wound the watch for a new day. Outside in the nearby hedgerow and copse, the dawn chorus was underway. She savoured the gentle birdsong, knowing it would soon be replaced by howling jet engines.

Susie yawned, climbed over the detritus of her clothes out into the daylight.

Her bare feet felt cold on the dewy grass. Rabbits hopped around the taxiway on the other side of the high security fence, their lower portions disappearing into a sliver of mist.

The peace camp was still. Her eyes swept over the other tents, scattered around the central wigwam. Silently she counted them, checking for new arrivals, until she caught site of a man: tall with a beard, bare chested in cut-off shorts. He smiled back at her.

Susie recognised him from an introduction when she’d first arrived. David?

As it wasn’t normal behaviour to stand around stark naked in the UK countryside, even at a peace commune, she put one arm over her breasts and the other between her legs and awkwardly backed into the tent.

She took her time in pulling on her clothes: a short skirt and a white blouse.

When she re-emerged, David was gone, but a few more campaigners had emerged from their burrows. She exchanged smiles before heads turned at the sound of a deep rumble reverberating from the airfield.

She checked her watch; barely 6AM.

She wandered over to the fence and looked toward the three large green hangars at the other end of the runway. A few aircraft were out already and one, with propellers turning, was the source of the noise.

A movement caught her eye: a Land Rover with a canvas hood over its back, speeding around the peritrack, heading their way. She stood her ground as the vehicle passed her, just a few feet the other side of the wire.

The driver and passenger glanced in her direction. She noted the green lining on their caps but couldn’t place the uniform.

Since her arrival, all the talk had been about when they would come for them, armed with an eviction notice.

So far they’d been left alone.

She knew that would change once the direct action began.

MILLIE ARRIVED at TFU with a plan. A vague, not-thought-through plan. But at least it was a plan.

The map tables were empty as the pilots and some navs were at the morning weather brief.

He walked over to the admin office and ensured the Vulcan they were allocated was not needed too soon after they were due to return.

Rob appeared along with other aircrew as the met brief broke up.

Millie fixed an amiable look on his face. Rob looked nervous, but he greeted him loudly and asked if he wanted a tea.

He accepted the offer and his face brightened. They moved to the tea bar together and Millie kept up the conviviality, chatting about the cricket.

“Sobers was magnificent at Lord’s apparently. One hundred and sixty-three not out.”

Rob looked a little uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure what was going on. But he joined in.

“It’ll be hard for us to win the match from here.”

“Indeed,” said Millie. He paused and put a hand on Rob’s back. “It’s better to be on good terms, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Speedy Johnson announced himself in the room and Millie took them over to a planning table. He spread out a chart that covered most of Northern England with the dramatic brown relief of the Lake District prominent in the top-left corner.

He pointed at the middle of the hills. “The Lakes. We need some big dips below us.”

Speedy peered at where Millie’s finger had landed.

“Wales has dips, famous for it. And it’s a lot closer.”

Millie nodded. “It does, but we need to cover as much different terrain as possible. We’ve done Wales a lot recently. Time for a change of scenery.”

Speedy shrugged. “All good with me. It’ll give Brighty something new to plan.”

Rob kept quiet.

The group broke up and Millie found Steve Bright to brief him before moving to the admin office. While the flight lieutenant stood over him, he withdrew eight blank tapes from the secure cabinet, placing the cardboard sleeves into his flight case.

AN HOUR LATER, Millie stood on the edge of the TFU apron in his flying coveralls, helmet on, his oxygen mask hanging loosely by his chin.

He realised he was pacing and made an effort to keep his feet planted, concentrating on the ballet of manoeuvring aircraft in front of him.

A roar caught his attention and he watched an English Electric Lightning thunder along the runway. Its silver wings glinted in the sunshine as the pilot pulled it into a vertical climb and rolled around three hundred and sixty degrees. He smiled as the aircraft became a small silver dart and disappeared into a layer of cloud.

A moment later, Steve, Speedy and Rob appeared by his side and they walked toward the white, delta-winged Vulcan. Speedy climbed in while Rob set off around the aircraft, peering into the undercarriage recesses and checking various nooks and crannies.

Millie followed Steve Bright into the rear bay and settled in.

After agreeing that Bright would carry out the post hatch checks, he strapped himself in and set about organising the tapes.

He removed one from its sleeve and pre-loaded it, glancing across at the navigator as he did so. It wasn’t so unusual, but ordinarily he loaded the reels only when needed during the flight.

Steve Bright was busy with his own preparation; a longer trip to a less visited part of the country for the young navigator.

Rob’s head appeared in the hatchway.

“Ready to go?”

“Yep!” the navigator replied.

Rob climbed the next few steps into the cockpit and Bright checked the hatch was closed and latched.

They brought the Vulcan to life. The pilots weren’t on the intercom yet, but he could hear them proceeding through the various checklists.

Ticking sounds and various mechanical whirrings preceded the familiar spooling up of the engines.

A few minutes later, they bounced along the runway before the aircraft pitched up and Millie and Bright were pressed forward against their straps.

Millie moved a hand forward and flipped the master switch on the Guiding Light panel.

It was unusual to power the system up so early. He knew the smaller repeater panels in the cockpit would also come to life; he could only hope neither Speedy or Rob would pay any attention to them at this stage in the flight.

He started the tape running.

After twenty minutes, an orange indicator blinked out and it was time to switch to a fresh tape.

Millie opened the metal flap over the reels; his hand was trembling.

He removed the full take-up reel, then switched the empty reel onto the take-up spindle. He reached down and retrieved a new blank reel from his flight bag.