Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

“Very good, Mr Milford. I will await your next communication.”

The professor hung up. It would look odd if he went into work on a Sunday, but he was desperate to get to the Guiding Light files and make a start on identifying the fields.

He sat on the small bench by the phone, in his striped pyjamas.

It would have to wait; he’d displayed enough unusual behaviour for one weekend.

MILLIE AND GEORGINA meandered through the married quarter patch into the village.

Sunday church was more a habit than a rite, although Millie enjoyed the quiet moments of reflection the service offered.

As they sang their way through hymn 233, Oh thou who camest from above , Millie cast his eyes around the busy congregation. Mary stood a few rows in front, in a blue cloche hat, with Rob presumably just beyond her, although a pillar obscured his view.

He smiled at his women’s hat identification skills.

Outside in the bright sunshine, Mille and Georgina waited for the Mays to appear. Eventually, the younger couple emerged, surrounded by a group of RAF colleagues. All smiles and handshakes.

“They look like minor royalty,” Georgina said.

At that moment, Mary caught his eye, and she and Rob walked toward them.

“Who would like some lunch?” Millie asked.

Rob grinned. “We were hoping you’d say that. We have dresses and hats in the house, but no food, apparently.”

“Just the essentials then,” Georgina said.

BACK AT THE MILFORDS’ quarter, the women got busy in the kitchen while Millie took Rob through the firs to spy on the peace camp.

“What do you think of the new fence?” asked Rob.

The new structure was unmissable: four or five feet higher than the existing fence and topped with angry looking razor wire.

“Appropriately nasty,” said Millie. “Do you think it’s there to keep them out or has Kilton installed it to keep us in?”

“He’s not that bad, Millie. Just doing his job in the face of a serious threat to us all.”

“Well, maybe the fence is there to keep you in and me out,” Millie said, and watched for a reaction.

Rob didn’t respond.

They walked back into the garden and Millie enlisted Rob’s help in carrying the dining room table and chairs out onto the patio.

The more sherry Millie drank, the more he convinced himself that Rob was now a lost cause, sucked into Mark Kilton’s gravity well.

During dinner, the sound of singing drifted over from the camp, accompanied by guitar and tambourine.

Rob tilted his head and tutted.

“I’m afraid Rob is becoming grumpy about our new neighbours,” Mary said.

Georgina smiled at her. “I think it sounds rather gay. Brightens the place up. They don’t do any harm, do they?”

“Ah! I’m afraid my husband thinks quite the opposite.”

Rob looked grave. “It’s what’s underneath the gaiety that we should be concerned about, Georgina. They may look like a ragtag group of misfits who’ve failed to get a decent job, but believe me, they’re dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Georgina raised her eyebrows.

“Yes, dangerous. And frankly, it’s a little disrespectful to the work we do to think otherwise.”

A short silence fell, broken only by cutlery scraping on plates.

Millie piped up. “It’s odd though, isn’t it? I watch them from a distance sometimes and wonder. I saw a pretty young thing—”

Georgina gasped. “Millie!”

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t in that way. I’m old enough to be her grandfather. But I can’t help thinking that people like her just want to rid the world of weapons that can destroy entire cities. I find it hard to see her as a secret Soviet agent.”

“Why then, does she only want us to disarm and not Russia?” Rob asked.

“I suppose she also wants the Russians to get rid of their weapons, but she doesn’t have any influence over them, does she?”

“If she was in Russia,” snapped Rob, “she’d be shot, or sent off to the gulags. They don’t think about that, do they? The peace they enjoy is created by us being strong, not weak. They abuse it and undermine it.”

“Gosh, it’s like having lunch with Mark Kilton,” said Georgina.

Millie held up his hands. “Well, we’re all on the same side. Let’s remember that.”

“I hope we are. West Porton’s now a large station. A lot of people work there. Can we be sure about everyone?” Rob looked up at Millie.

Millie stared back at him, their eyes unflinching until Rob eventually looked back down at his plate.

Millie picked up his glass and sipped his wine.

After lunch, the girls disappeared into the house with the crockery.

“You OK, Rob?” Millie asked. “You seem a little pent up.”

Rob lit a cigarette.

“There’s so much at stake for us, Millie. Don’t you feel that pressure?”

“The pressure to stop communism in its tracks? No, not really. Of course it’s a terrible tyranny, it really is, where life is not valued and no-one is free. But we, you and I, can only do our bit. We can’t walk around with that sort of weight on our shoulders.”

“But these people…” He waved his cigarette vaguely in the direction of the singing. “It’s the way they hang their banners on the fence and tell the world they are the ones fighting for peace, when they’re doing quite the opposite. They put us in danger.”

“Give some allowance, Rob. They’re young, idealistic. Naive, if you like. But the world needs a little naive optimism, doesn’t it?”

Rob didn’t respond.

“Come on, where’s the old Rob? My carefree friend. Is he in there somewhere?”

He got the merest hint of a smile, but nothing more.

Even at 6.45AM, the new gate security measures made it a slow plod into the station.

Logic told Millie he had nothing to be concerned about, but he still felt his heart thumping as the guard peered into his car.

Inside, the TFU planning room was quiet, and he headed straight for the admin office.

Standing in front of a large board with magnetic strips, he scanned the list of unit aircraft, checking the allocations for the various trial flights.

He and Rob were due to fly to Warton to inspect the next Guiding Light Vulcan. They were down for an old De Havilland Devon; a 1940s propeller driven workhorse.

But there was no experimental Guiding Light on the Devon, and he didn’t want to waste a flight opportunity.

Of the two aircraft fitted with Guiding Light, the Vulcan was a non-starter for such a menial trip. But the Canberra wouldn’t be out of place.

He scanned the board. The Canberra was allocated to a different crew in the afternoon.

“ Damn .”

He was about to leave when he spotted one of the unit’s other Canberras listed under ‘spare’, at the bottom of the board.

He looked around and found the young flight lieutenant who ran the admin office.

“Morning, Pete.”

“Good morning, Squadron Leader Milford,” the young man replied, while sorting a pile of papers.

Millie pointed at the board. “I wanted to check something about the aircraft allocations.”

“Oh, yes?” Pete put down the papers and looked at the wall.

“This PR.3 is serviceable?”

“Should be.”

Millie nodded, as if he was having a thought for the first time. “I’d prefer if Rob May and I had a Canberra rather than the slow boat to China we’ve been given.” He pointed up to the Devon with Flt Lt May (Warton) written next to it. “Any chance we could swap for the PR.3? In fact, ideally, we’d like that PR.3.” He placed his finger on the Guiding Light Canberra, allocated to a different trial.