Ian Slater - World in Flames

Up in PRIFLY, the air boss was going over everything that could possibly go wrong. He called down to flight deck control. “Harris!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Phil — you have the new weight for two oh three?” The loss of weight occasioned by the Tomcat burning up as much fuel as possible before landing would have to be vectored in so the arrestor wires wouldn’t be too taut.

“We’ve got it covered, sir.”

“Good man.”

“Barricade’s up, sir,” reported the mini boss.

“Clear the deck!” ordered the air boss, his voice projected by the powerful PA system designed to cut through any noise on the carrier, including the cacophony of noise attending the launch of a full air operation, when the air boss dispatched the carrier’s planes at a rate of one every thirty seconds.

“Decks clear,” came the confirmation two minutes later.

“Very good,” acknowledged the air boss.

“Fog bank closing,” another voice informed him.

“Not good,” said the air boss, turning around. There was a nervous chuckle. The air boss then ordered the Sea King helo off the starboard beam to move from its plane guard position three miles away from the carrier to one mile. If the pilot overshot and had to ditch, there was no way the ninety-thousand ton ship, at twenty-two knots, could stop or alter course to assist, risking the integrity of the entire battle group. Besides, even if all engines were shut down, it would still take the ship over a mile to stop.

After crossing the loch, Robert and Rosemary noticed how many more cars were coming south from Mallaig than those, like themselves, heading north toward the fishing port. And after a while, when the Prices’ car hadn’t shown up behind them, Robert Brentwood grew even more suspicious of the Englishman’s story. If the Prices, or whatever their real name was, were really protecting him and Rosemary, then they’d be going on to Mallaig. For Robert, the choice was clear. Either he and Rose could go on ahead to Mallaig, looking over their shoulders all the time in the fog—”a hell of a way,” he murmured, “to spend your honeymoon”—or he could do something about it. As he made the U-turn cautiously in the swirling fog, heading back in the direction of the ferry, Rosemary asked him to pass her another Gravol. Whether it was morning sickness or from their “run-in” with the Prices, she didn’t know, but she felt “awful.”

Brentwood saw the vague shape of a car coming at him from the direction of the ferry. It wasn’t the Prices. It occurred to him they might have turned back to the ferry, recrossed the loch, and made a call perhaps — arranged a little surprise for the captain of the Sea Wolf in Mallaig — away from witnesses and the busload of kids on the ferry?

After another five minutes or so, he saw what at first seemed to be a cluster of lambs and a shepherd at the roadside, but on getting closer, he could see it was a group of teenage girls and, immediately behind them, the school bus. The girls, in buff-colored skirts and maroon blazers, stood near the bus, which had a miter with a scroll underneath painted on its side. It was pulled off on the opposite side of the road where it had been heading for Mallaig, and soon he could read “St. Mark’s” written in black letters above the more colorful school emblem. The girls were all standing in a group, subdued. A moment later he saw two figures, a man and a woman, emerging from behind the bus, but saw it wasn’t the Prices. The woman, in a gray pleated skirt and coat, was walking toward him briskly, and behind her was a man who appeared to be the bus driver, wearing an anorak. The woman, obviously in charge, nodded brusquely.

“Anything the matter?” he asked.

“There’s been an accident,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Can you help?”

“I know first aid,” said Brentwood, getting out of the car. “What—”

“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid,” she said. “First aid.” The bus driver looked shaken, turning, his arm pointing behind the bus to a car, lopsided in a ditch, almost completely hidden by bracken. Brentwood’s first thought was that it was the Prices, but he couldn’t tell from this distance.

“I think,” began the bus driver, “what Miss Sawyers means, sir, is that you could help us if you’d take a message for us to Mallaig. We can’t go over sixty kilometers an hour on the bus. Be a while ‘afore we get in.”

“If you’re going in that direction,” said the schoolmistress.

“No problem,” said Robert. “Be glad to help. Just give me the message and I’ll—”

“Noo, lass—” called out the bus driver. “… Miss Wilson! Where you think you’re going?” Robert saw it was one of the schoolgirls across the road moving away from the group.

“Mother nature,” the girl replied.

“Up t’other way,” the driver instructed her. “And not too far from the bus, mind. We could lose you in this lot.”

The schoolmistress was leading Brentwood back to the car obscured by the bracken. It was the Prices’s.

“A terrible accident,” she said. “Perhaps we shouldn’t touch anything.”

“Christ!” said Brentwood, the mistress wincing at his blasphemy. “Sorry—” he went on, not wanting to look any further but feeling compelled.

“I think we should keep it quiet,” she said, her voice calm but nevertheless strained. “Until you reach Mallaig. No point in upsetting the girls any more than they have been. One or two of them saw the broken glass — otherwise we wouldn’t have seen the car in the bracken. Thank goodness Wilkins — our bus driver — had the sense to keep them away from it.”

“Yes,” agreed Robert. “Well, leave it to me, miss. I’ll tell the police in Mallaig. Maybe you should give me your name.”

“And you?” she asked. Robert showed her the U.S. Navy card with his photo. She was visibly relieved.

“Oh, thank goodness. I saw you leaving the ferry, you see, and wondered—”

Brentwood suddenly remembered something, too — the car speeding past him in the rain, shortly after he’d made the U-turn to come back. What if he and Rosemary hadn’t turned but, like the Prices, had kept on in the fog toward Mallaig?

“Listen, Miss Sawyers,” he said urgently. “I think we should all go into Mallaig. On your bus. Can we hitch a ride with you?”

“Why, yes, but—”

“I haven’t time to explain fully yet.”

He saw her suspicion return. “Look, when we get to Mallaig, you can call this number — here on my card. It’s the U.S. Navy attaché at the U.S. Embassy in London. But right now I think it’d be best if we all go in together to Mallaig.”

“Perhaps one of us should stay here and—” she began.

“No,” cut in Brentwood. “No one stays here. Everyone gets on the bus.” The teacher and the driver looked uneasily at one another. “Trust me!” said Brentwood. “I know what I’m doing, believe me.” The driver made noises about sweeping the glass off the road. “Leave it,” said Brentwood. “Believe me, I know what I’m doing.”

“Very well, I suppose —” began Miss Sawyers. “You’d best get the girls back on the bus, Wilkins.”

“Yes, miss.”

The drive to Mallaig was a mournful one, only a few of the girls talking, a few giggling, trying to act nonchalant despite their having come across what Miss Sawyers had somberly told them was a “fatal accident.”

“But I didn’t see any damage to the car,” Rosemary insisted.

“It was on the driver’s-side fender,” Robert told her. “On the right side — you couldn’t see it from where our car was parked. Slammed right into the ditch. Price probably dozed off at the wheel.”