Hammond Innes - Air Bridge

Another plane thundered in down the runway. The station commander took my arm. ‘I’m sorry, Fraser. It seems we’ve all made a mistake. Now we’ll get you to the M.O.’ He piloted me to the door. An ambulance was waiting. ‘Ah, there you are, Gentry. Fraser’s hurt. Better get him across to the sick bay right away.’

Else and the station commander helped me out of the fuselage. The rain drove in sheets across the runway lights. We were just moving across to the back of the ambulance when Pierce flung out of the plane shouting for a car. ‘What is it, Pierce?’ the station commander called.

‘Saeton,’ he shouted. ‘Control have just come through on the R/T. Plane 481 — that’s Saeton’s Tudor — has just passed the tower, taxiing towards the runway. They’ve ordered him to stop, but he doesn’t answer. They’re calling an R.A.F. Regiment patrol car now.’

We halted and our eyes were turned eastwards towards the purple lights of the perimeter track. Faintly through the driving rain the lights of an aircraft showed, swinging on the last turn, moving forward to line up at the runway end. The driving squalls of rain periodically wiped it out, but a moment later we caught the roar of its engines and twin spotlights came hurtling through the murk towards us, went roaring past us and swept up and on into the night, a single white light that dwindled and was lost almost instantly. In the moment of its hissing, thundering passage past us I had recognised Saeton’s Tudor — my Tudor — the cause of Tubby’s death.

I felt suddenly sick at heart at the thought of Saeton getting away with it. There were the engines, too. They were Tubby’s work as much as his. ‘You must stop him,’ I said to the station commander. ‘Stop him!’

‘Don’t you worry,’ was the reply. ‘We’ll get him. We’ll send fighters up and force him down.’

I felt sorry then. I had asked for a man-hunt and it seemed I was going to get it. I shivered violently and the M.O. hustled me into the ambulance. All the way to the sick bay I was thinking about Saeton, alone up there in the cockpit of his plane. He was injured, like I had been. But there was no comforting goal for him, nothing for him to try for. He would eventually black out and then….

‘It is best he go like this,’ Else said quietly.

I “nodded. Perhaps it was best. But I couldn’t help thinking about it. Where would he try to make for — Russia? One of the satellite countries? He could sell those engines to the Russians. He would be safe behind the Iron Curtain.

Again as though she had read my thoughts, Else said, ‘You do not have to worry about Saeton. He is gone behind the Iron Curtain. Now I must work to reproduce the engines that we of the West have lost. And you must help, Neil. You are the only person now who know what those engines are like.’

I didn’t say anything. I was only remembering that Saeton had fought in two wars for his country. He had murdered a man so that those engines would be produced in British factories. Surely he wouldn’t barter them with the Russians for his life?

The M.O. wanted to put me straight to bed. But as soon as he had dressed my shoulder I insisted on being taken down to the Operations Room. He tried to make me remain in the sick bay, but somehow I couldn’t face the thought of lying there, waiting for news. In the end he agreed to let me go, but before I left he gave me a dry overcoat and a blanket to wrap round me.

The Operations Room seemed crowded. There was the station commander and Pierce, the Wing Co. Flying and the I.O. Somebody tried to stop Else from coming in with me. I told him to go to hell, and then Harry Culyer was coming towards me. ‘I just been down to the mortuary with Di,’ he said. ‘She asked me to tell you how much she appreciated…’ His voice trailed off. ‘She was pretty cut up, poor kid.’

‘What’s the news of Saeton?’ I asked.

‘They’ve got fighter squadrons up searching for him.’

The station commander turned at the sound of my voice. ‘We’ll get him,’ he said. The weather’s clearing to the west.’

To the west?’

He nodded.

‘He’s flying westward?’ I asked.

‘Yes. One of our mobile radar outfits located him a few minutes back just south of Hanover.’

‘Then he did not go to Russia?’ Else exclaimed.

‘Of course not,’ I said.

‘But why does he not go to the Soviet Zone? Is he so stupid he does not know he will be safe there? I do not understand.’

It was impossible for me to explain to the satisfaction of her logical German mind why Saeton had turned his back on the East, so I let it go. I found a chair and slumped into it. Reports were coming in all the time on an R/T loudspeaker, but I didn’t listen. It was squadron-to-base stuff — the fighters reporting back. I didn’t want to listen. It was horrible to think of Saeton up there being hounded by a pack of fighters. And he could so easily have turned eastwards.

The minutes dragged slowly by. Five-thirty … six … six-thirty. Dawn was breaking over the airfield. And then suddenly there was a whoop and somebody’s voice was crackling over the radio: ‘I’ve got him now. Flying at 10,000 feet, course slightly north of west. He is now over the Scheldt estuary. Making for England, home and beauty, I should say. What do I do now? Over.’ ‘Tell that boy to start heading him off, back into Germany,’ the station commander ordered. ‘And get the rest of the squadron up with him.’

We followed it all in the RTF messages. In a moment the whole pack of them were buzzing round Saeton, beating him up, diving past his nose, flying just above him, trying to force him down and away from the coast. And I sat there and thought of Saeton alone there in the cockpit of the Tudor, his hand undressed and bleeding, and the fighters hurtling across the perspex so close that he could almost touch them. I could almost feel him wincing at each roar of a machine scraping at the paint of the aircraft. I remembered the pain I had suffered at each movement of the control column. God! It was horrible.

Intermittently the voice of a radio operator kept calling Saeton, ordering him to return to base, to return to Wunstorf. I sat rigid in my seat, expecting all the time to hear Saeton’s voice come in. But he didn’t answer. And as the minutes dragged by, the Operations Room, with its constant stream of instructions to planes coming in and the group of officers waiting, became unreal. In my mind I was there in the cockpit of the Tudor with Saeton. He has turned north now. He has turned north. We are diving right across his nose, hut we are making no impression. He won’t turn back. The bastard won’t alter course. What are your instructions please? We cannot fly any closer. Over. The voice of the leader of the fighter squadron, excited, tensed up with the danger of the thing he was doing.

I didn’t hear the reply. I was with Saeton, seeing him hunched over the control column, his face grey, the blood oozing between his fingers and sticky on the wheel. I could see him in my mind so clearly — solid and square, as immovable from his purpose as a bull who has seen the red of the matador’s cloak. What was his purpose? What did he plan to do?

And as if in answer to my question the leader of the squadron came back on the air. He’s putting his nose down now. We’re over the North Sea. And then more excited. He’s going into a power dive. He’s trying to shake us off. He’s going straight down now. My God! No, it’s all right. F for Freddie swept right across his nose, but he’s clear now. Thought they’d tangle that time. I’m right on his tail now. He’s diving on full power. Air speed 320. I’m keeping right on his tail. He’s going straight down. We’re at 5,000 now. Four — three — two. My God! Isn’t he ever going to pull out? I don’t think he can pull out. He can’t possibly pull out. There was a pause then. The fighter was pulling out of his dive. I knew the rest of it before the squadron leader came back on the air. I’ve just pulled out and am banking. The Tudor drove straight into the sea. There’s a great column of water. It’s settling now. Can’t see anything of the plane. There’s just some slick on the surface of the sea. That’s all. He went straight in. Never pulled out of that dive. Went slap in. Am returning to base now. Am returning the squadron to base. There was a heavy silence in the Operations Room, broken only by the squadron leader’s voice calling his aircraft into formation. In that silence I had a strange feeling of loss. One shouldn’t have any sympathy for a man like Saeton — his ambition had outrun the bounds of our social code, he had killed a man. And yet… There had been something approaching greatness in him. He was a man who had seen a vision.