Frederick Forsyth: The Shepherd

While he talked I finished my meal and emptied the remainder of the half-bottle of red wine he had brought from the bar store. A very good steward was Joe. After finishing I rose from the table, fished a cigarette from the pocket of my flying suit, lit it and sauntered round the room. The steward began to tidy up the plates and the glass from the table. I halted before an old photograph in a frame, standing alone on the mantel shelf above the crackling fire. I stopped with my cigarette half raised to my lips, feeling the room go suddenly cold.

The photo was old and stained, but behind its glass it was still clear enough. It showed a young man of about my own years, in his early twenties, dressed in flying gear. But not the blue nylon suits and gleaming plastic crash helmet of today. He wore thick sheepskin-lined boots, rough serge trousers and the heavy sheepskin zip-up jacket. From his left hand dangled one of the soft-leather flying helmets they used to wear, with goggles attached, instead of the modern pilot’s tinted visor. He stood with legs apart, right hand on hip, a defiant stance, but he was not smiling. He stared at the camera with grim intentness. There was something sad about the eyes.

Behind him, quite clearly visible, stood his aircraft. There was no mistaking the lean, sleek silhouette of the Mosquito fighter-bomber, nor the two low-slung pods housing the twin Merlin engines that gave it its remarkable performance. I was about to say something to Joe when I felt the gust of cold air on my back. One of the windows had blown open and the icy air was rushing in.

“I’ll close it, sir,” the old man said, and made to put all the plates back down again.

“No, I’ll do it.”

It took me two strides to cross to where the window swung on its steel frame. To get a better hold I stepped inside the curtain and stared out. The fog swirled in waves around the old mess building, disturbed by the current of warm air coming from the window. Somewhere, far away in the fog, I thought I heard the snarl of engines. There were no engines out there, just a motor cycle of some farm boy, taking leave of his sweetheart across the fens. I closed the window, made sure it was secure, and turned back into the room.

“Who’s the pilot, Joe?”

“The pilot, sir?”

I nodded towards the lonely photograph on the mantel shelf.

“Oh, I see, sir. That’s a photo of Mr. Kavanagh. He was here during the war, sir.”

He placed the wineglass on top of the topmost plate in his hands.

“Kavanagh?” I walked back to the picture and studied it closely.

“Yes, sir. An Irish gentleman. A very fine man, if I may say so. As a matter of fact, sir, this was his room.”

“What squadron was that, Joe?” I was still peering at the aircraft in the background.

“Pathfinders, sir. Mosquitoes, they flew. Remarkable pilots, all of them, sir. But I venture to say I believe Mister Johnny was the best of them all. But then I’m biased, sir. I was his batman, you see.”

There was no doubting it. The faint letters on the nose of the Mosquito behind the figure in the photo read J K. Not Juliet Kilo, but Johnny Kavanagh.

The whole thing was clear as day. Kavanagh had been a superb pilot, flying with one of the crack squadrons during the war. After the war he’d left the Air Force, probably going into second-hand car dealing, as quite a few did. So he’d made a pile of money in the booming fifties, probably bought himself a smart country house, and had enough left over to indulge his real passion flying. Or rather re-creating the past, his days of glory. He’d bought up an old Mosquito in one of the R.A.F periodic auctions of obsolescent aircraft, re-fitted it, and flew it privately whenever he wished. Not a bad way to spend your spare time, if you had the money.

So he’d been flying back from some trip to Europe, had spotted me turning in triangles above the cloud bank, realized I was stuck, and taken me in tow. Pin-pointing his position precisely by crossed radio beacons, knowing this stretch of the coast by heart, he’d taken a chance of finding his old airfield at Minton even in thick fog. It was a hell of a risk. But then I had no fuel left anyway, so it was that or bust.

I had no doubt I could trace the man, probably through the Royal Aero club.

“He was certainly a good pilot,” I said reflectively, thinking of this evening’s performance.

“The best, sir,” said old Joe from behind me. “They reckoned he had eyes like a cat, did Mister Johnny. I remember many’s the time the squadron would return from dropping flares over bombing targets in Germany, and the rest of the young gentlemen would go into the bar and have a drink. More likely several.”

“He didn’t drink?” I asked.

“Oh yes, sir, but more often he’d have his Mosquito re-fueled and take off again alone, going back over the Channel or the North Sea to see if he could find some crippled bomber making for the coast and guide them home.”

I frowned. These big bombers had their own bases to go to.

“But some of them would have taken a lot of enemy flak fire, and sometimes they had their radios knocked out. All over, they came from. Marham, Scampton, Cotteshall, Waddington; the big four-engined ones, Halifaxes, Stirlings and Lancasters; a bit before your time if you’ll pardon my saying so, sir.”

“I’ve seen pictures of them,” I admitted. “And some of them fly in air parades. And he used to guide them back?”

I could imagine them in my mind’s eye, gaping holes in the body, wings and tail, creaking and swaying as the pilot sought to hold them steady for home, a wounded or dying crew, and the radio shot to bits. And I knew, from too recent experience, the bitter loneliness of the winter’s sky at night, with no radio, no guide for home and the fog blotting out the land.

“That’s right, sir. He used to go up for a second flight in the same night, patrolling out over the North Sea, looking for a crippled plane. Then he’d guide them home, back here to Minton, sometimes through fog so dense you couldn’t see your hand. Sixth sense, they said he had; something of the Irish in him.”

I turned from the photograph and stubbed my cigarette butt into the ashtray by the bed. Joe was at the door.

“Quite a man, I said, and I meant it. Even today, middle-aged, he was a superb flier.”

“Oh yes, sir, quite a man, Mister Johnny. I remember him saying to me once, standing tight where you are before the fire: ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘whenever there’s one of them out there in the night, trying to get back, I’ll go out and bring him home.’” I nodded gravely. The old man so obviously worshipped his wartime officer.

“Well,” I said, “by the look of it, he’s still doing it.”

Now Joe smiled.

“Oh, I hardly think so, sir. Mister Johnny went out on his last patrol Christmas Eve 1943, just fourteen years ago tonight. He never came back, sir. He went down with his plane somewhere out there in the North Sea. Good night, sir. And Happy Christmas.”