The Final Flight

¹ TUESDAY 7TH JUNE

The peace of Blethwyn Valley was shattered for thirteen seconds.

The rabbits sensed the man-made thunder first and bolted for their burrows. The sheep, slow to react, scattered only as it arrived overhead, briefly blotting out the June sun. Invisible vortexes sent a buzzard tumbling in the air.

The four engines left a trail of black smoke in the disturbed wake and a deep rumble that quickly faded.

There were no witnesses.

The RAF Avro Vulcan bomber had come and gone on a sleepy weekday in a remote part of Wales.

The Welsh were at work.

And that’s how the men of the Royal Air Force Test Flying Unit liked it.

To be unobserved.

Had there been a witness—maybe a farmer turning his head at the sudden and loud intrusion to his otherwise tranquil surroundings—it’s doubtful he would have noticed anything unusual about this particular flight.

He may have been able to identify the Vulcan, perhaps because of its distinctive delta wing, but it’s less likely he would have spotted the bulge of white casing with a glass-panelled front, nestled under the nose of the bomber.

Although unremarkable in appearance, it was the most secret and significant item of military equipment on the planet.

Inside the white casing, behind the small glass panel, was a laser.

As far as the outside world was concerned, laser was a rudimentary and far from mobile technology.

But then the world doesn’t know what the world doesn’t know, and the men of the TFU were under threat of arrest to keep it that way.

As the Vulcan exited the far end of the valley, the wings rolled left, and the throttles edged up to eighty-five per cent of maximum to sustain the target speed through the turn. The stick eased back, the rudder deflected left—just a smidge—as the nose heaved thirty degrees and the jet rolled out on a new heading.

On board, not a single member of the crew had touched a flying control.

In fact, they were discussing the football.

Chris Milford tried to ignore the navigator’s drone regarding the England squad for the forthcoming World Cup. He didn’t share Steve Bright’s concern that there were too many West Ham players in the side. He understood the point about the Hammers being a pedestrian, unglamorous side that didn’t produce the type of flair players needed to win a World Cup, but Millie had work to do.

He concentrated on inserting a reel of magnetic tape into a brown cardboard sleeve. A simple enough task on the ground, but difficult when your seat is being hauled through the bumpy, low-level air at three hundred and fifty knots.

After a successful struggle, he scribbled a serial number on the cardboard and dipped into a pocket on his flying coveralls to pull out a small notepad. Millie adjusted the light that hung down on a pipe from the panel in front of him and added the tape serial number to a list. He had to pause as the jet rose and fell, weaving its way through the Welsh hills.

Alongside the serial number, he noted the date, flight number and time. He paused, casting his eye up the list of previous entries, noting the accumulation of flying hours.

So far, so good for project Guiding Light.

Millie tucked the notebook back into his pocket and turned his attention to the switches, dials and readouts in front of him.

Sitting in a well below the cockpit, facing backwards, he studied the converted navigator radar station.

The Guiding Light panel sparkled orange, electronically generated numbers pulsing as they changed in a rhythm directly linked to the aircraft’s proximity to the ground in feet.

Millie scrutinised the numbers.

The digits 307 flicked over to 312 and a moment later 305.

They had asked Guiding Light to fly the jet as close to, but not below, three hundred feet. It was doing a good job of the task.

Millie relaxed into his chair, but kept his eyes on the numbers.

He was still getting used to the marvel of it all. Somewhere behind the panel, electronics connected the laser’s range-finding data to the Vulcan autopilot.

Two pieces of technology in direct communication. Millie hoped they didn’t fall out with each other.

To Millie’s relief, the pilot Brian Hill interrupted Steve Bright’s football monologue with a clipped question over the intercom.

“How many more tapes?”

Millie pulled his oxygen mask over his face.

“That was the last one. I’m out now.”

“OK, we’ll stay at low-level until we get to the estuary as planned,” Hill replied.

With the recorder no longer capturing data from the laser, Millie wondered why they would continue at low-level. But he remained silent on the matter. It would only be a few minutes and he would continue to keep his human eyes on the orange digits.

Millie’s hand went up to a small black rotary dial beneath the main height readout. He rotated it, checking the distance to the ground at eleven pre-defined positions around the nose of the Vulcan.

In fact the system scanned twenty-seven separate positions sweeping from thirty degrees left and eighty degrees down all the way across to the same position on the right, taking in the view up to forty degrees above the nose.

The design engineer at DF Blackton once told him they began by mimicking how much a pilot’s eyes absorbed from the picture in front of him, and then worked to improve on that.

Millie noted the twelve hundred feet or so of space to their left and imagined the rocky side of a Welsh hill. He turned the dial back to the number one position, more or less straight down.

Two hundred and sixty-one feet to the unforgiving ground beneath them.

“Do you ever take your eyes off those numbers?”

Millie glanced across to Steve Bright and shrugged.

“Our lives in the hands of a stream of digits fed to a computer with this aircraft’s flaky electrical system? Yes, I like to keep an eye on them.”

Millie tried to be an amiable crewmate, but it was no secret he no longer enjoyed these trips. Squashed into a flying dungeon with the ever present threat of a sudden end to everything.

He looked back at Brighty; the nav looked bored. A consequence of his job being replaced by a flying computer.

“Hungry?”

Brighty perked up as Millie passed over a sandwich from his flight case.

He unlatched his seat, swivelled it around to face the empty middle position and stretched his legs. They ached from being squeezed under the workstation.

With his oxygen mask dangling under his chin, he muttered to himself, “This is a young man’s game.” But his words were lost in the perpetual roar as the jet thundered its way across Wales.

He looked up the short ladder to the cockpit, where Brian Hill craned his neck, looking down toward him.

“Getting ready for your afternoon nap, Millie?”

Millie smiled and pulled his mask across his face so his words would be heard on the intercom.

“Would be lovely. Try and fly smoothly.”

Hill laughed and turned back.

A third voice piped up on the loop. Rob May, the youngest among them.

“We’re not here for smoothness, my old friend.”

Millie noted the briskness of Rob’s words; the co-pilot was technically in command of the aircraft, although much of the decision making had been ceded to Guiding Light.

Hill drew the curtain back across to cut out the light glare from the windshield, allowing Millie and Bright to see their dials and displays clearly.

Millie turned his chair back to the workstation and again kept a close eye on the height data as it ticked over.

The numbers pulsed, updating every three quarters of a second. It was hypnotic and Millie had to fight the urge to close his eyes.

He tried to think of the technology behind the figures. He was told by a boffin at DF Blackton that the computer made decisions forty-seven times a second.

Forty-seven times a second.

That sounded like indecision to him.

Millie reached forward and turned the small black dial. Position two showed 1,021 feet, position three showed 314 feet. They were hugging a valley, just three hundred feet from one side.

The computer was showing them what good tactical flying looked like.

He rotated it back to position one. Nine hundred and fourteen feet directly below them.

Nine hundred and fourteen feet. Really?

Suddenly Millie was lifted in his seat.

He felt the aircraft plummeting.

Must be trying to get back to three hundred feet above the ground.

He called into the intercom. “Why are we so high?”

“We’re not,” Rob May’s clipped voice responded.

The aircraft continued down.

Millie grabbed the desk to steady himself.

“What?” he shouted, urgently needing clarification. If they weren’t really at nine hundred feet but the jet thought they were, it would try and descend into the…

“What’s happening, Rob?” Millie shouted. He glanced at Steve Bright, who also held on to the desk.

Millie’s eyes darted back to the range reading.

803.

“What’s going on, Rob? How high are we, for god’s sake?”

He needed to know what the picture looked like outside.

“Rob?”

Eventually, Rob replied. “About one hundred feet.”

Millie looked back at the reading.

749.

“Talk to me, Millie.”

“Christ, it’s gone wrong. Cancel. CANCEL.”

They were under instruction not to intervene with Guiding Light unless absolutely necessary. But surely they were about to die unless they took control?

Sweat dripped from Millie’s forehead. Why was Guiding Light suddenly blind? Why was the laser looking straight through solid rock?

In the back, they felt a lurch as the autopilot disengaged.

Millie sensed the angle change as the nose raised, but he knew the momentum of the heavy aircraft was still downward.

He looked over his shoulder and stared up into the cockpit; the curtain wasn’t fixed and in the g-force it rippled open.

Millie saw Brian Hill’s hands gripping his ejection handle.

“Oh, shit.”

Ejection was only an option for the two pilots. Millie and Steve Bright had no chance of getting out alive at this height.

He closed his eyes and braced for death.

The aircraft continued to sink.

Is this it?

He thought of Georgina, beautiful Georgina. And Charlie. Where was he right now? In a maths lecture, probably. Oblivious to the enormity of the moment.

The aircraft shuddered.

It was almost imperceptible, but the plane’s momentum switched from a descending path to a climbing one.

He opened his eyes and looked around again, in time to see Hill release his grip on the yellow-and-black handle.

Hill pointed forward and shouted. “Trees.”

The aircraft rolled right and Millie was pinned to his seat as the engines surged to full throttle and Rob May threw them into a spectacular powered, turning climb.

Vibrations rumbled through the fuselage from the howling engines, the aircraft groaning and creaking under the stress.

Millie groaned under the sudden g-force.

He continued to hold on to the desk.

They held the gravity-defying manoeuvre for a few seconds, until the wings levelled.

Millie let out a long breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in.

He looked across at Steve Bright, the nav’s eyes bulging wide above his mask.

The throttles eased back and the aircraft settled.

It seemed like a full minute before anyone spoke.

Eventually, the silence was broken by the normally unflappable Brian Hill.

“Jesus Christ.”

Millie’s eyes rested on the tape data recorder.

It was switched off and empty. Whatever just happened, it had happened after he’d stopped recording the height readings from Guiding Light.

He realised he needed to write down the readings he’d seen with his own eyes, but he couldn’t move.

Too much adrenaline in his system.

He settled his breathing and fished out a pencil to scribble down what he could recall.

The system had taken them to within a whisker of a catastrophic crash. The all-singing, all-dancing laser had seen straight through solid earth and told the onboard computer to descend.

How it had happened was beyond him, in every sense.

It was someone else’s problem now. Someone back at DF Blackton in Cambridge.

Back to the drawing board with this one.

He added a note to the end of his description of the event.

Guiding Light evaluation suspended.

WING COMMANDER MARK KILTON struggled with the acetate sheet. The image in the overhead projector was either upside down or back to front, and now it was out of focus and too large to fit the screen.

The tall and wide American lieutenant general took his seat at the table. “You fly jets better than you operate a projector, Kilton?”

Kilton offered Eugene Leivers III a thin smile and gave up with the projector. He took his own seat at the repurposed dining room table that had somehow found its way into the side office he’d commandeered for the meeting in the station headquarters building.

Paint peeled from the walls of the 1930s construction and the unseasonable heat of an English June made life uncomfortable for the five men in the room.

Leivers removed his jacket, replete with three rows of medal ribbons, and hung it on the back of his chair. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand toward the white screen intended to display Kilton’s diagrams, and spoke with a Louisianan drawl.

“Forget it, Kilton. I know what Guiding Light does. What I need to know is, does it work?”

Kilton glared at him. “It works.”

“Outstanding.”

RAF Air Vice Marshal Richard Mannington stood up and opened the curtains. Kilton winced as daylight flooded in.

“Sunshine,” said Mannington, “to illuminate a moment of British engineering triumph.”

Kilton turned to the general. “Guiding Light is working and it will change everything.”

A broad grin spread across Leivers’s face. “Damn straight it will, Kilton.” The general leaned forward and banged the table. “Gentlemen, I have to tell you, we’ve carried out some theoretical simulations using the information you’ve provided about Guiding Light, and the results have been phenomenal. Phenomenal.”

He took a deep breath, lowered his voice.

“What I’m about to tell you will never leave this room. Understood?”

The general’s eyes darted between Kilton, Mannington and the two other men sitting at the table. They each gave a nod of acknowledgement.

“Terrain-following radar, the new technology we’re both rushing to fit to our new jets, is dead.”

“Dead?” Mannington asked.

“Dead, Dickie. The Russkies can detect it.”

Kilton tried not to show his shock.

“But we’re planning to fit TFR to everything,” Mannington said. “The laser… Guiding Light. It’s supposed to be a backup.”

Leivers continued. “It just got promoted. Instead of helping our boys get in and out of the badlands, TFR will do the opposite. Every Russkie SAM from Berlin to Vladivostok will lock on and blow them out of the sky. They may as well be flying with floodlights and a big arrow that says SHOOT HERE. Damn shame.”

Kilton inhaled. “Do the Russians know we know this?”

Leivers smiled at him. “No, Kilton. They do not. And neither do they know about Guiding Light. Your silent laser solves a very big headache at just the right time. This goes all the way up the line. And I mean all the way. This is not about winning World War Three. It’s about preventing it. Once we have an unassailable advantage over the Reds, it’s game over for them.” He leaned back and spoke a little more slowly. “And that’s why I’ve got POTUS’s attention on this one.”

Mannington turned a pencil over in his hands. “What’s Potus?”

“POTUS is the President of the United States, Dickie.”

Minister of State David Buttler cleared his throat. “General. The United Kingdom is not putting Guiding Light on a shelf for sale to all comers.”

Leivers balked. “All comers? I thought we had a special relationship, Mr Buttler.”

“Of course we have a special relationship, General. But we must remember that Guiding Light is a system that gives us all an advantage only so long as the enemy remains oblivious to its existence. At least until it’s fitted to the fleets.”

“You don’t trust the US to keep a secret?”

“Britain trusts America implicitly. It’s just that the chances of the secret getting out are simply higher the more people know about it. How many aircraft are you considering it for?”

The general shrugged. “Two thousand to start with.”

Ewan Stafford appeared nonchalant, but Kilton knew him of old and knew damn well the short, tubby managing director was doing cartwheels inside.

“And what else?”

“Excuse me?” said Leivers, tilting his head to one side.

Buttler spoke with patient clarity. “The order for Guiding Light would be substantial, and I’m sure our colleague here from DF Blackton is doing his best not to burst into song. But we’d like to know that our most secret military breakthroughs can be shared both ways.”

The general shrugged again. “Well, that’s a little beyond my powers, Minister.”

“But not beyond the powers of POTUS, I assume?”

“Well, no—”

“And you have POTUS’s attention on this?”

The general thought for a moment. “Yes, sir. I do. And I dare say there will be some good deals for both of us in the pipeline. But this is something to discuss when we’re ready to talk turkey. So far, we haven’t seen this thing working.”

Kilton felt the eyes swing back to him.

Stafford spoke up. “Perhaps Mark could give us all an update on the trial work his team have been carrying out for a while now. A very long while.”

“As you’re aware, Mr Stafford, the Royal Air Force Test Flying Unit will be the sole and final arbiter of Guiding Light’s operational effectiveness. We have a detailed trial timetable and it is being executed even as we speak. The two working Guiding Light systems have been fitted to a Vulcan and a Canberra. The Vulcan is airborne at this moment with a TFU crew.” He glanced at his RAF issue pilot’s watch. “We’ve flown one hundred and ninety-four hours as of this morning.”

“And no problems?” said Leivers.

“No. We’re still a few weeks from sign-off. We did agree three hundred hours of intensive airborne time. You want to fit this to two thousand jets and we want to equip more or less our entire Bomber Command fleet. I think it’s in all our interests that it’s working as advertised.”

“Fine,” said Stafford. “But I need not remind the room that the longer we wait, the more chance there is of a leak.”

Kilton ignored him and turned to General Leivers. “You’re sitting in the United Kingdom’s most secure RAF station. As long as the project remains under wraps here, there is no scenario where it’s rendered ineffective. The Soviets will have no clue what it is or how to defend against it. And when it’s operational, and it will become operational soon, NATO jets will for the first time be able to operate deep into Russian territory without giving off any radar energy whatsoever. At low-level we will be invisible.”

Leivers clapped his hands together and beamed. “That’s what we’re doing this for. Kilton, you deliver this system and it’s not just Mr Stafford’s accountant you’re gonna make happy. We are gonna be friends for a long time.”

“Excellent, Mark,” said Buttler. “Very good work from TFU. This won’t be forgotten.”

General Leivers’ hand appeared at Kilton’s shoulder. The man from Baton Rouge leaned in close and whispered loud enough for all to hear. “I’ve dedicated my life to defeating communism, boy. It’s a nasty, lethal plague and you, my friend, have its final demise in your hands. Don’t let me down.”

Kilton nodded. “General Leivers, you have my word.”

THE MEETING BROKE UP. Kilton reminded the room that they allowed no papers relating to Guiding Light to leave West Porton. The men obliged by pooling their briefing notes into a single pile for him to deliver to TFU’s secure cabinets.

Leivers looked suitably impressed with the emphasis on security. “You really do run a secret operation here, don’t you, Kilton?”

The air vice marshal cut in before Kilton could answer. “You’d be forgiven for thinking there’s no station here at all. At Group we call West Porton RAF Hidden.”

“Then I’d suggest we’re doing our job properly,” said Kilton.

Leivers disappeared out of the room.

Mannington turned to Kilton. “What’s that American expression you used once, Mark? Need to know. I suppose you think your superiors don’t need to know anything.”

Kilton continued to shuffle the papers into a brown folder.

“We do need to know something, Mark,” Mannington continued. “There is still a chain of command. Just keep that in mind, please.”

He walked out of the room; Ewan Stafford followed close behind, offering a tip of his hat before he placed it on his head.

The minister paused for a moment, allowing the others to move out of earshot.

“That was impressive, Mark.”

“I thought the same of you, sir. Quite the card player.”

The minister smiled and clicked his briefcase shut.

“You realise this project cannot fail. After the mess of TSR-2, we need this victory. Having to cancel a high profile fighter-bomber project was embarrassing to say the least. Guiding Light needs to be a success. As I said, it won’t go unrewarded. The PM’s always on the lookout for reliable men in the upper echelons of the military. You deliver Guiding Light, we authorise Blackton’s sale to the Americans. That’s an extremely welcome injection of cash just when we need it. A winning scenario for all of us.”

Kilton looked out of the window where Mannington was helping Leivers into his staff car. Buttler followed his gaze.

“And we’ll make sure the Americans know who it was who delivered this project. But Mark, if we have another debacle, particularly a leak from TFU, then it’s going to be very hard to justify the existence of this unit you’ve created. You’re already ruffling feathers with the RAF brass as it is.”

“There will be no leak from here, but I don’t like information going up the line to Group.” He nodded toward the receding staff car outside. “I start to lose control of who knows what, and that’s when it can get leaky.”

“I understand. So, how can I help?”

Kilton looked at him. “Allow me to report direct to you, direct to the Air Ministry and cut out Group and the RAF Main Building.”

“You realise what you’re asking? The men with gold braid on their shoulders won’t be happy.”

Kilton thought for a moment and shrugged.

Buttler smiled. “I can talk to the PM. I think he’ll see the benefit of such an arrangement. Between you and me, he believes most of the RAF now hate him for ending TSR-2.”

“They do,” Kilton answered quickly. “But then they’re mostly old romantics who think we’re stuck in the 1940s. Some of us exist in the real world.”

“They’re a powerful bunch, those old romantics as you call them. Your head’s above the parapet now Mark.” The minister walked to the door. “You’ll find your life was a lot less complex in 1940, shooting down the Luftwaffe and staying alive for another day. I’ll talk to the PM. I think we can probably agree you report direct to the Ministry for now. Keeping in tight in the name of secrecy. It would be a tragedy for all if this project failed before that deal was signed.”

The minister’s heels made a clicking noise on the hard floor as he disappeared, leaving Kilton alone with a brown envelope filled with papers and stamped TOP SECRET.

MILLIE REACHED FORWARD and flipped a switch marked DATA PANEL ELEC. The orange numbers presented by the Guiding Light system went dark as the electrical supply was cut off.

He tucked his flight case back under the navigator station and secured it with a bungee cord. Inside were the four reels of magnetic tape he had filled with height data, recording the flight at low-level. He thought four would be enough to cover the run, but he missed the last couple of minutes, which included the moment when the system went haywire.

But it wouldn’t matter, since there were four men on board, and they could describe what happened accurately between them.

The aircraft’s wings rolled and he felt the g-force increase, pressing him into his seat. But it was gentle; Rob was guiding the delta-winged jet smoothly onto finals for RAF West Porton. It was a flying style that matched his nature.

A moment later, with a squeal of rubber beneath them, they were down.

Once the aircraft came to a stop at the end of a brief taxi, Steve Bright was quickly out of his seat and opening the hatch. Millie stayed put, but watched as the nav extended the yellow ladder.

It was a warm June day. Millie removed his helmet and oxygen mask, and ran a gloved hand through what was left of his sweaty grey hair, now matted to his head.

Eventually, Brian Hill pulled aside the curtain, looking haggard. He nodded at Millie but said nothing as he descended the steps.

Rob was behind him. Millie winced at the sight of his reddened face with pronounced stress lines, squashed into the helmet.

He looked like a man in his forties, rather than a fresh faced twenty-nine-year-old.

“You OK?”

Rob looked serious. He nodded and continued down the ladder. Millie picked up his case and followed him out, feeling for the metal rungs below him. Everything seemed to take more time these days.

He felt Rob’s hand on his back, giving him some help as he concentrated on jumping backwards the last couple of feet below the bottom rung. He landed and wobbled in his cumbersome flying boots, grateful for the support of his friend.

“They didn’t make this thing with fifty-four-year-olds in mind,” he said, relieved to see Rob smile back at him.

As they turned and walked toward the TFU hangar and offices, Millie instinctively rested a hand on Rob’s shoulder.

“You did well. You saved us and the jet.”

“I don’t know if I did do well, Millie. I was slow to react. You had to shout at me.” Rob paused and glanced back at the Vulcan: pristine white, hunched on its landing gear. “I nearly lost it.”

“We’ve been told not to interfere unless absolutely necessary and we’ve logged, what, nearly two hundred hours? All your experience was working against you. But you got there.”

Rob kept glancing back at the aircraft. “It can be overwhelming if I stop to think about it. The jets are large, new, colossally expensive. Three crew members I’m responsible for.”

“It’s a lot for a youngster, isn’t it?” Millie smiled at him. “Look. You did well today. You acted in time, and frankly that’s all that matters. Think it through. If you feel you could have done better, work out why and learn. But it’s always going to feel messy when things go wrong, Rob. And boy did they go wrong.”

“It did go wrong, didn’t it? What happened?”

“The laser saw straight through the ground, or at least the computer misinterpreted the feed. Either way, it commanded the autopilot to descend as if we were nine hundred feet not three hundred.”

“Can we ever trust it again?”

Millie scoffed. “Not until what happened today is completely and utterly understood and the problem solved.”

They carried on into TFU, where they drank tea and didn’t discuss the incident with anyone. That was the TFU way. Mark Kilton had made it clear that you only discussed projects with those who needed to know.

But Millie could tell by their colleagues’ glances that they knew something was up.

It was such an odd way of operating. In any normal squadron they would be sharing their tale, getting it off their chest, drawing comfort from the looks of horror and empathy from their friends.

But not at Mark Kilton’s Test Flying Unit.

After handing in their flying equipment and coveralls, Millie ushered the crew into a side office to debrief.

Once the door was shut, Brian Hill led the questions, all aimed at Millie as the project leader and the man most familiar with the inner workings of Guiding Light.

Millie looked at his hastily scrawled notes.

“I happened to be rotating the selector, checking our general position. When I switched it back to number one position, it showed nine hundred odd feet below us.”

“Nine hundred? Christ, Millie, we were still at three hundred,” Hill said. “So that’s why Guiding Light dived us toward the ground. It couldn’t see it.”

Millie shook his head in bewilderment. “I suppose it was doing what we asked it to do. Fly us at three hundred feet. It was just trying to get us back down.”

“It chose a perfect time to go blind,” said Brian Hill. “A state of the art, one hundred thousand-pound system descending a four engine Vulcan jet bomber with four people on board into the Welsh rock? Someone, somewhere better get the sack.”

Millie took out the chart and with Steve Bright’s help, they did their best to draw the aircraft’s track along the valley, marking the spot with an X where it had all gone wrong.

“And you definitely didn’t have a tape running?” Rob asked Millie.

“No. I brought four tapes based on the low-level run time and I’d just finished the last one.”

“Damn shame,” Hill said. “The tapes record everything, don’t they?”

“Erm, I think so,” said Millie. “I’ve never seen what they do or don’t record. They all go off to Cambridge for a mainframe computer to read. But it doesn’t matter, does it? If we’d been in a standard fit Vulcan and the autopilot had misbehaved, we’d report it just like this.” He motioned to the chart and notes on the table. “Just everyone write it down now while it’s fresh and I’ll speak with Kilton.”

Hill laughed. “Good luck with that, old boy.”

“He won’t have a choice, Brian. We have to shut it down.”

“I agree, chap. But all the same, good luck.”

Millie folded up the chart and gathered the notes.

Hill stood up to his full six feet four inches and put his arms around Rob and Steve Bright.

“You know what I need?”

Rob tilted his head. “Does it have something to do with the mess bar?”

“Exactly. Beer. I need beer and I need drinking companions. I’ve had enough of this malarkey for one day.” He led the two younger men out of the room.

“I’ll secure the paperwork,” Millie said to the empty room.

THERE WAS a short queue at the NAAFI shop as Millie picked up a packet of John Player No. 6. Five minutes later, he pushed open the door to the mess bar to discover the usual crowd of men, back in uniform but looking a little dishevelled from the day’s airborne activities.

Beers in hand, cigarettes in mouth; tales of flying and smoke filled the air.

Brian Hill, Steve Bright and another TFU pilot, Jock MacLeish, stood by one of the pillars in the middle of the room. Millie went to the bar first, where the white-coated steward was already pouring an Islay single malt scotch.

“I’ve been here too long,” he said as he took the tumbler.

When he arrived at the pillar, Hill was speaking, and he caught the tail-end.

“…anyway, it was damn close.”

Millie opened his new packet of cigarettes and screwed up the flap of silver paper folded over the filter ends. He offered the pack around, and Hill leaned forward to take one. When they were close, Millie spoke quietly.

“I hope you’re not being indiscreet, Brian?”

Hill shrugged, and tapped his cigarette on the drinks shelf surrounding the pillar.

“We can trust old MacLeish. He’s Scottish. The most trustworthy of the Celts, I believe.”

“That may be,” Millie continued, more quietly than Hill, “but he doesn’t need to know.”

Hill snorted at the incongruous use of Kilton’s new buzz phrase, but Millie continued to look at him, waiting. Eventually, Hill gave a resigned look and nodded in acknowledgement.

In the awkward silence that followed, Millie drained half the measure of scotch, savouring the smoky flavour. The alcohol dulled his senses; it felt good.

He scanned the room, looking for Rob. The bar was filling up quickly as officers came off duty from various parts of the station: air traffickers in one corner, station adminners in another.

An ageing man with sunken eyes raised his glass. Millie lifted his tumbler in return, nodding at JR, a pilot with 206 Maintenance Unit, an unglamorous outfit nestled in the far corner of the airfield.

The rest of the room was TFU. Loud, brash, elite. His colleagues occupied the bar and most tables. What would it have been like thirteen months ago, with 206 MU as the sole flying unit? Rather nice, he suspected, and he suddenly felt a pang of jealousy for aircrew whose only task was the final flight of retired aircraft.

Finally his eyes landed on Rob. He was nestled among the elite of the elite: the chosen few senior test pilots, grouped at one end of the bar.

Millie raised an eyebrow and looked at Brian Hill.

“How did Rob end up over there?”

Hill glanced over. “Ah, the big boys came and took him before you got here, I’m afraid”.

Millie studied Rob. On one side of him was Red Brunson, an American on exchange from Edwards. Glamorous and larger than life, he flew with his own grey ‘flight suit’ as he called it, and a fancy helmet complete with mirrored visor. He looked like an Apollo astronaut.

At the other side was Speedy Johnson, a legend to every schoolboy in the 1940s and 1950s. Kept breaking speed records for the RAF as the jet age blossomed.

“You can’t blame him,” Hill said and it took Millie a moment to notice he was being spoken to.

“Huh?”

“You can’t blame Rob, having his head turned by that lot. He’s a promising test pilot.”

“Let’s hope they don’t corrupt him,” Millie eventually said.

A round of drinks arrived; as Millie reached for his next glass of scotch, he noticed a ripple of movement across the room.

Mark Kilton had arrived.

This precipitated a stiffening of backs and subconscious opening of groups, hoping he would join them.

Kilton inevitably moved in to drink with the set crowded at the bar. Rob smiled at Kilton, who slapped him on the back.

The room was now heaving. Thick smoke hung in the air, and the heat of the day was making it uncomfortable.

Millie glanced at his watch. Six already. Georgina and Mary would be waiting for him and Rob, impatient to eat and get on with the card game.

He drained his glass, said his goodbyes, and approached the group at the bar. Red Brunson gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder as he arrived. Speedy Johnson exclaimed, “Ah, Milford. Come to talk to us about data?”

The group laughed.

“Well, someone has to look after the computers that are replacing you lot.”

This provoked some mock booing from the pilots.

On a whim, he turned to Kilton.

“Boss, can I have a word, please?”

Kilton nodded and they moved off to a corner near the mess piano.

“I was going to brief you tomorrow, and I will, but I thought I should let you know. Guiding Light failed today.”

Kilton’s expression didn’t change at first. Then he looked puzzled.

“What do you mean, ‘failed’?”

“It went blind, at three hundred feet and three hundred knots, in Wales.”

“Blind?”

“Suddenly we were descending. I happened to be looking at the panel at the time. The laser thought there was nine hundred below us. In reality we were still at three hundred.”

“So you cancelled?”

“It took a moment for us all to adjust to what was happening, but yes, Rob did a good job and intervened in time. Just.”

“Just? How close did you get?”

Millie paused and took a breath. “The tape wasn’t running, so I can’t be certain.”

“You don’t have any record of it?”

“I made some notes, but no, the tapes were used up at that point. It was the end of the run.”

Kilton stayed silent, studying Millie, making him shift on his feet.

“Anyway, we’ve no option, boss, but to ground Guiding Light until Blackton can identify the issue and see if they can rectify it. If they can rectify it, I’d suggest we start the trial from scratch.”

A flash of anger crossed Kilton’s face and Millie took half a step back.

“And you don’t think you’re making too much of this, Millie, as usual?”

“I’m sorry? With respect, boss, it nearly killed us.”

Kilton shook his head. “Put it all in writing and drop it on my desk tomorrow morning.” He made to leave, but then turned. “And no discussion with anyone.”

Millie nodded. “Of course, boss.”

He watched as Kilton joined Brian Hill and Jock MacLeish, rather than go back to the bar group.

Millie went back to the bar and tugged Rob on the shoulder.

“We’d best be getting back, young man. The wives will be waiting for their card game.”

“Oh no! Rob’s dad’s here to pick him up,” said Johnson. “Ooh, please, Rob’s dad. Can he stay for just one more drink?”

Rob looked at his newly presented pint.

“I might just have this first, Millie. I’ll see you at yours later.”

THE RUSTING WHEELS of Millie’s ten-year-old Rover complained as he scraped the kerb outside his married quarter.

“And that’s why I’m not a pilot,” he reminded himself, clambering out and into the warm June evening.

The sound of laughing women drifted from the back garden as he made his way down the side passage.

Georgina and Mary sat in two tatty garden chairs. Summer dresses, floppy hats, and what looked like gin and tonics in hand. Georgina in her favoured red, Mary in yellow. Millie stood and watched for a moment.

“Darling!” Georgina shouted when she spotted him. “Whatever are you doing lurking in the shadows?”

Millie set down his flight case just inside the open French doors and picked up a third garden chair.

“Just admiring the local beauty.”

“Peeping Tom, more like.” Georgina lifted herself and kissed him hello. “Drink? scotch?”

“Do we have any ice?”

Georgina thought for a moment. “I don’t think so, but I’ll see if I can pull something off the inside of the freezer if you like.”

“Needs must.”

Millie’s relief at being home must have shown in his eyes, as Georgina loitered for a moment.

“Everything OK?”

He tried not to glance at Mary; this wasn’t the time to say anything about the incident. It was up to Rob and every member of aircrew what they shared with their wives.

“Yes, fine. Just tired.”

Georgina looked unconvinced, but then disappeared into the house.

“Well,” Millie said turning to Mary, “I thought you might be missing us, but apparently not.”

Mary laughed. “The heatwave is so gorgeous. It’s just nice to be in the sun.”

“No cards tonight?”

“Well, we need four for cards. Did Rob go home to change?”

“Actually, he was still in the bar when I left. I expect he’ll be along later.”

“Fine, well we can enjoy the evening sun, the three of us.” She leant back in her chair and closed her eyes, her shoulder-length brown hair gently shifting in the breeze. Millie smiled at her; so young and pretty and with an up and coming test pilot by her side.

He felt a twinge of jealousy as he recalled the time after the war when he was promoted, and he and Georgina were considered the young ones.

The three of them ate outdoors and remained there in the last of the warmth; it was unusual for it to last so long into the evening.

The Milfords’ grandfather clock tolled, its gentle clangs seeping out of the house through the open doors and windows. Ten bells. It was apparent Rob would not be appearing that evening. He was either still in the mess or had headed home, worse for wear.

Millie walked Mary back to their married quarter, two streets away in Trenchard Close.

The house was dark.

“Not here, either.” She turned to Millie. “Has my husband forgone us for some new drinking pals?”

“I fear so. We all need to let our hair down every now and again.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, of course. A bit rude as we had cards planned. Sorry, Millie.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said and they kissed their goodbyes on the cheek. “I’m sure he’ll be back presently.”

Millie sauntered home. Had he missed anything important in the bar of the officers’ mess?

It was nagging at him, the brief exchange with Kilton.

Making a bit much of this… Bloody silly thing to say.

He thought of Kilton going over to Brian Hill as he was leaving.

Were they discussing the Guiding Light situation without him?

He looked up as he approached the house and saw Georgina in the kitchen looking at him. He gave a little wave and pushed open the front door.

She was at the sink, apron on, finishing the washing up.

“Let me help you,” he said, and he picked up a drying up cloth.

“Thanks. You know what I thought watching you waddle back home?”

“How handsome I look?”

“Yes, obviously, but also how porky you look. You need to lose some weight, mister.” She poked him in his side.

“I know, but it’s so tedious exercising and, god forbid, dieting.”

Georgina stopped washing up. “What happened today?”

Millie smiled. “I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”

“Nope.”

Millie shrugged and spoke as casually as he could.

“We had a little moment in the air.”

“Oh, god.” Georgina pulled off her yellow rubber gloves. “Tell me.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Everyone’s OK. It was just a moment. Briefly scary, but we got out of it and that’s all that matters. Actually, Rob was flying and did a sterling job.”

“Rob was flying? Is that why he isn’t here tonight.”

“I think so. Letting off some steam in the mess.”

“Fair enough. Did you say anything to Mary?”

“No. That’s up to Rob. Everyone’s different.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Millie thought for a moment. “Not really. Sorry.”

She reached forward and put her hands on his cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re safe, Squadron Leader Milford.”

They kissed and he welled up, the near-death experience catching up with him.

He’d seen it in others: a delayed reaction.

Georgina didn’t seem to notice. She released him and walked over to their wall calendar, pinned to a cork board over the table.

“I nearly counted the days today. It’s something like one hundred and twenty. She lifted the pages until October showed.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Her finger rested on October 19^th. “This is the day, isn’t it? October 19^th. Your last day in the RAF.”

“Ah. Yes.”

She let the pages of the calendar fall back down.

“One hundred and twenty days, Millie, that’s it. All I ask is that you remain in one piece. OK?”

He laughed. “I promise. Believe me, I’m looking forward to it as much as you are.”

“Are you?”

“Yes, of course. I’m going to take up sailing, remember? I’m sure the RAF pension can stretch to the Lee-on-Solent place we saw. Just.”

She tilted her head, appraising him. “Good. It’ll be fine, Millie. We’ll still see all our friends, wherever they get posted.”

Millie finished the drying up. Georgina disappeared and reappeared with a tumbler of whisky.

He sat down at the kitchen table and lifted it to his nose.

“Ah, the Lagavulin.”

“Well, I think you need a treat. And it’s the posh tumbler, the wedding set. Last one standing.”

“The last one? We started with eight.”

She smiled. “All things must pass, Millie. Anyway, the attrition rate for glasses in married quarter is pretty high. We’ve had some pretty wild nights over the years. I think we must have lost three of them in Hong Kong playing that silly game with the cricket ball.”

Millie laughed at the memory. “Test Match Sofa was a brilliant game. I was quite the slip catcher when positioned correctly near the piano.”

“I’m sure you were, I’m sure you were.”

She kissed him on the head and whispered, “I’m glad you’re home, Squadron Leader Milford.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled up at her.

“Don’t worry, our retirement is safe. I’ll be getting under your feet every day before you know it.”

“Good.” She smiled back and headed upstairs, turning off the hall light.

The kitchen light was dim; the midsummer sun had finally set. Orange sodium light from the street lamps filled the window. Millie turned the tumbler over in his hand and let the light glint off it. A beautiful piece of crystal. Such a shame they’d lost the others. But maybe it was a price worth paying for the fun they’d had.

He made a mental note to ensure this tumbler survived into retirement. Something to drink from and remember the glory days.

He drained the glass, suddenly remembering his morning appointment. Nobody came away from a Mark Kilton encounter without bruises.

A DRUNKEN TEST pilot played the piano, badly. Rob laughed, still huddled in among the senior pilots.

Kilton watched from the bar, as the pianist beckoned the men around Rob to join in with the song. Most of them sprung up, but Rob remained in his seat, enjoying the show.

The TFU boss picked up his drink and made his way over, choosing the vacant space next to his young prodigy.

“I’ve been thinking about this nonsense in the Vulcan. I don’t think we can let a single uncorroborated incident derail an internationally important project.”

He studied Rob, who nodded slowly.

“Its strategic importance cannot be underestimated, you understand that don’t you, May?”

The music grew raucous as the men sang a bad version of Cliff Richard’s ‘Livin’ Doll’.

Rob nodded again, staying silent.

Kilton had to raise his voice above the singing.

“Don’t you think there was a chance you could have overridden the autopilot with the stick?” Rob furrowed his brow, but Kilton continued. “It won’t disengage if you touch the stick. The computer will fight you for a bit until you let go.”

“I didn’t grab the stick until we cancelled,” he finally said.

“Maybe not grabbed it, but it’s a tight space, and you may have gently leaned on it or subconsciously pushed it forward while monitoring the flight. You wouldn’t have been the first to do that, May.”

Rob pondered.

“I mean,” Kilton continued, “it would be enormously helpful to me personally to hear that there might be some other explanation. And it’s possible. Isn’t it, May? You might have accidentally nudged it. That’s all it would take at that speed and height to cause a scare.”

Rob bowed his head.

“You’re not in trouble, May. This is what testing is all about. Now we know how she’ll react.” He paused and spoke slowly. “It’s important you agree that you may have nudged it.”

Rob’s head came back up and he turned to look at the boss. Kilton gave a small nod of encouragement.

“I suppose it’s always possible.”