Hammond Innes - Air Bridge

‘I will go,’ Else said. She eased herself gently away from me and dropped to the ground. In a moment the darkness had swallowed her. I waited, my nerves tense for the challenge of a Russian sentry. But no sound broke the stillness, only the soft whisper of the rain falling. Then Else was back. ‘It is okay,’ she whispered and we started forward again. Else was at the horse’s head and she backed the cart against the door of the fuselage.

It was queer to think that that plane was the bridge between us and Berlin. Standing there, it was just an inert piece of metal. And yet with a pilot’s direction it would set us down at Gatow. It seemed to me symbolic of the whole airlift, symbolic of the ingenuity of man to do the impossible, to jump in a few minutes from alien to friendly ground. But it required the direction of a pilot and my body cringed at the thought that it was I who had got to bridge that gap — in a night of black darkness, without a navigator and with a bullet wound in my shoulder. At least it was a Dakota. I don’t think I could have handled a four-engined job.

Else helped Kleffmann to get Tubby’s body into the fuselage. Saeton and I were alone in the cart. I saw him shift his position. ‘Keep still!’ I ordered him.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘Fly your plane back to Gatow.’

‘What a bout me?’

‘You’re coming, too.’

There was a pause and then he said, ‘You’re wounded, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll make it.’

‘And if you don’t?’

‘If I don’t you’ll be able to take over and fly where you like.’ It wasn’t subtlety on my part that made me say that. But looking back on it I think that was why he didn’t make a break for it there on Hollmind airfield. Maybe he was too weak. He had been out for a hell of a long time. But if he’d jumped from the cart right then he’d have had a chance.

Else and Kleffmann appeared at the fuselage door again. ‘Get in!’ I told Saeton. I had the gun in my hand now. ‘And don’t try anything,’ I said. ‘I’m quite willing to fire.’

He got up without a word. His movements were slow, but that was the only indication he gave that he had been hurt. I followed him, feeling sick and a little giddy as I moved my cramped limbs. Kleffmann dropped into the cart and picked up the reins, clicking his tongue to the horse. I called my thanks to him from the door of the fuselage, but he didn’t answer. Where horse and cart had, been there was nothing but the blackness of the airfield and only the faint creaking of the cart told me that a moment before it had stood there beside the plane.

‘Herr Kleffmann is glad to go, I think,’ Else said in a strained voice.

I couldn’t blame him, but I wished I could have done something to compensate him for what had hap pened. He and his wife had been very good to Tubby. ‘All right, get the door closed,’ I said. I switched the lights on and for the first time I saw Saeton’s face. It was streaked with mud and blood and the skin was quite white. His left arm hung limp at his side and blood trickled from his shot-pitted hand. ‘Sit down,’ I said.

He began to move towards the long line of seats that flanked the fuselage. Then he stopped and faced me again. ‘Neil. Can’t we come to an arrangement?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You know damn well we can’t.’

‘Because of Tubby?’

‘Yes.’

He grunted and pushed his hand across his face, smearing the blood. ‘It was necessary,’ he said heavily. ‘You made it necessary.’

‘It was cold-blooded murder,’ I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You left me no alternative. It’s a pity you can’t see the wider issues. What’s one man’s life against what we planned?’

‘The man was your friend,’ I said.

‘Do you think I enjoyed doing what I had to?’ he said with a trace of anger. And then, almost to himself: ‘He took rime to die and he knew what I was going to do as I pulled the pillow from under his head. I hated doing it. And I hated you for making me do it.’ My hand clenched round the butt of the revolver at his sudden violence. ‘Now it’s done,’ he added, ‘why not leave it at that? Why make his death pointless?’

It was the same argument that he’d used before when he had been trying to stop me making that report. The man could see things only from the standpoint of his own ambition. ‘Sit down!’ I said again and turned to Else. ‘You’ll have to watch him. Do you know how to use one of these?’

She took the gun from me and examined it. ‘Is the safety catch on now or is it off?’

‘It’s off,’ I told her.

She nodded. ‘That is all I have to know. I understand how to use it.’

Saeton had sat down now. ‘Sit over there,’ I told her. ‘And keep well away from him. If he moves from that seat, you’re to shoot. You understand? Are you capable of firing just because a man moves?’

She glanced at Saeton. ‘You do not have to worry. I know how to shoot.’ Her hand had closed over the gun and she had the muzzle of it pointing towards Saeton. Her eyes were steady and her hand did not tremble. I knew she would fire if Saeton moved and I started forward towards the cockpit. But she put out her hand. ‘Are you all right, Neil? Do you need some help?’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said.

She smiled and pressed my sound arm. ‘Good luck!’ she whispered.

But I wasn’t so sure I would be all right. When I had struggled into the pilot’s seat a wave of dizziness came over me and I had to fight it off. The engines started without difficulty and I left them running to warm up whilst I went back to the navigator’s table and worked out my course. It would be easy enough getting back to Berlin once I had got the plane into the air. What worried me was the airlift. I could go in above the lift-stream, but when I was over Berlin I should have to come down to the line of flight of the other planes. Somehow I’d have to fit myself into the pattern and with the weather closing in I might have to do this in cloud. There would be a big risk of collision then.

For a moment I sat there, fighting a growing weakness and the frightened emptiness of my belly. I needn’t go in to Berlin. I could make for one of the base airfields — Wunstorf, or Celle, which was nearer — or I could fly north to Lubeck, which was nearer still. But I had no navigator and I was very conscious of the fact that I was in no fit state to pilot a plane. Lubeck was the better part of 150 miles away, nearly an hour’s flying, whereas I could be in Gatow in twenty minutes.

I reached up to the throttle levers and revved the engines. It would have to be Gatow. I switched on the twin spotlights, released the brakes and taxied out to the runway end. As I swung the plane into position for take-off I called to Else: ‘All set? Have you fixed your safety belt?’

‘Yes,’ she called back. ‘I am okay.’

‘Fine,’ I shouted and reached up to the throttle levers. Reaching up to control the engines stretched the muscles of my back and I bit my lip with the pain of my shoulder. My right hand was useless. To adjust the engines I had to let go of the control column. Again I was conscious of that feeling of emptiness in my stomach. I was a fool to try and fly in the state I was in. But there was no alternative. We had to get out of the Russian Zone.

The plane rocked and juddered as the engines revved. My eyes ran over the dials of the control panel. Everything was okay. I peered through the windshield. It was sheeting with rain now. The spotlights showed a few yards of weed-grown concrete streaming with water and then lost themselves in the steel curtain of the rain.

For a moment I hesitated, unwilling to commit myself to the take-off. Then, quickly, before reason could support my instinctive fear, I released the brakes and the plane began to move forward into the steel rods of the rain. The concrete came at me out of the murk and streamed beneath me, faster and faster. I braced my knees against the control column, steadying it as I adjusted the engines. Then the tail lifted and a moment later my hand was on the control column, pulling it back, pulling the plane up off the ground. Something slid away beneath us — it may have been a tree or the top of one of the ruined airfield buildings. After that I was alone in the lighted cockpit, riding smoothly through the inky blackness of the night, seeing nothing in the windshield but the water washing down it and the image of my own face, white in the glass.