The Final Flight

⁴ FRIDAY 10TH JUNE

Susie Attenborough sat naked in a tent. Legs crossed, in her unzipped sleeping bag.

She stretched before fumbling through a pile of clothes to find her wristwatch.

5.45AM.

The sun had been up for forty minutes; the thin canvas did little to keep the light out.

She wound the watch for a new day. Outside in the nearby hedgerow and copse, the dawn chorus was underway. She savoured the gentle birdsong, knowing it would soon be replaced by howling jet engines.

Susie yawned, climbed over the detritus of her clothes out into the daylight.

Her bare feet felt cold on the dewy grass. Rabbits hopped around the taxiway on the other side of the high security fence, their lower portions disappearing into a sliver of mist.

The peace camp was still. Her eyes swept over the other tents, scattered around the central wigwam. Silently she counted them, checking for new arrivals, until she caught site of a man: tall with a beard, bare chested in cut-off shorts. He smiled back at her.

Susie recognised him from an introduction when she’d first arrived. David?

As it wasn’t normal behaviour to stand around stark naked in the UK countryside, even at a peace commune, she put one arm over her breasts and the other between her legs and awkwardly backed into the tent.

She took her time in pulling on her clothes: a short skirt and a white blouse.

When she re-emerged, David was gone, but a few more campaigners had emerged from their burrows. She exchanged smiles before heads turned at the sound of a deep rumble reverberating from the airfield.

She checked her watch; barely 6AM.

She wandered over to the fence and looked toward the three large green hangars at the other end of the runway. A few aircraft were out already and one, with propellers turning, was the source of the noise.

A movement caught her eye: a Land Rover with a canvas hood over its back, speeding around the peritrack, heading their way. She stood her ground as the vehicle passed her, just a few feet the other side of the wire.

The driver and passenger glanced in her direction. She noted the green lining on their caps but couldn’t place the uniform.

Since her arrival, all the talk had been about when they would come for them, armed with an eviction notice.

So far they’d been left alone.

She knew that would change once the direct action began.

MILLIE ARRIVED at TFU with a plan. A vague, not-thought-through plan. But at least it was a plan.

The map tables were empty as the pilots and some navs were at the morning weather brief.

He walked over to the admin office and ensured the Vulcan they were allocated was not needed too soon after they were due to return.

Rob appeared along with other aircrew as the met brief broke up.

Millie fixed an amiable look on his face. Rob looked nervous, but he greeted him loudly and asked if he wanted a tea.

He accepted the offer and his face brightened. They moved to the tea bar together and Millie kept up the conviviality, chatting about the cricket.

“Sobers was magnificent at Lord’s apparently. One hundred and sixty-three not out.”

Rob looked a little uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure what was going on. But he joined in.

“It’ll be hard for us to win the match from here.”

“Indeed,” said Millie. He paused and put a hand on Rob’s back. “It’s better to be on good terms, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Speedy Johnson announced himself in the room and Millie took them over to a planning table. He spread out a chart that covered most of Northern England with the dramatic brown relief of the Lake District prominent in the top-left corner.

He pointed at the middle of the hills. “The Lakes. We need some big dips below us.”

Speedy peered at where Millie’s finger had landed.

“Wales has dips, famous for it. And it’s a lot closer.”

Millie nodded. “It does, but we need to cover as much different terrain as possible. We’ve done Wales a lot recently. Time for a change of scenery.”

Speedy shrugged. “All good with me. It’ll give Brighty something new to plan.”

Rob kept quiet.

The group broke up and Millie found Steve Bright to brief him before moving to the admin office. While the flight lieutenant stood over him, he withdrew eight blank tapes from the secure cabinet, placing the cardboard sleeves into his flight case.

AN HOUR LATER, Millie stood on the edge of the TFU apron in his flying coveralls, helmet on, his oxygen mask hanging loosely by his chin.

He realised he was pacing and made an effort to keep his feet planted, concentrating on the ballet of manoeuvring aircraft in front of him.

A roar caught his attention and he watched an English Electric Lightning thunder along the runway. Its silver wings glinted in the sunshine as the pilot pulled it into a vertical climb and rolled around three hundred and sixty degrees. He smiled as the aircraft became a small silver dart and disappeared into a layer of cloud.

A moment later, Steve, Speedy and Rob appeared by his side and they walked toward the white, delta-winged Vulcan. Speedy climbed in while Rob set off around the aircraft, peering into the undercarriage recesses and checking various nooks and crannies.

Millie followed Steve Bright into the rear bay and settled in.

After agreeing that Bright would carry out the post hatch checks, he strapped himself in and set about organising the tapes.

He removed one from its sleeve and pre-loaded it, glancing across at the navigator as he did so. It wasn’t so unusual, but ordinarily he loaded the reels only when needed during the flight.

Steve Bright was busy with his own preparation; a longer trip to a less visited part of the country for the young navigator.

Rob’s head appeared in the hatchway.

“Ready to go?”

“Yep!” the navigator replied.

Rob climbed the next few steps into the cockpit and Bright checked the hatch was closed and latched.

They brought the Vulcan to life. The pilots weren’t on the intercom yet, but he could hear them proceeding through the various checklists.

Ticking sounds and various mechanical whirrings preceded the familiar spooling up of the engines.

A few minutes later, they bounced along the runway before the aircraft pitched up and Millie and Bright were pressed forward against their straps.

Millie moved a hand forward and flipped the master switch on the Guiding Light panel.

It was unusual to power the system up so early. He knew the smaller repeater panels in the cockpit would also come to life; he could only hope neither Speedy or Rob would pay any attention to them at this stage in the flight.

He started the tape running.

After twenty minutes, an orange indicator blinked out and it was time to switch to a fresh tape.

Millie opened the metal flap over the reels; his hand was trembling.

He removed the full take-up reel, then switched the empty reel onto the take-up spindle. He reached down and retrieved a new blank reel from his flight bag.

In his peripheral vision, it seemed like Steve Bright was looking at him.

He glanced across, but in fact Bright was staring at his chart with his finger poised on the next waypoint.

Millie quickly dropped the new tape onto the spindle, closed the flap and restarted the data recorder.

He sat back, relieved.

The change took ten seconds; it had felt like ten minutes.

He put a white sticky label on the reel and marked it, simply BLANK ‘A’.

A nonsense label that meant something only to him.

He retrieved a brand new pocket-sized notepad and opened it, noting down the date, time and location for the recording. He paused for a moment; even this note could be used against him at some point. After hesitating, he completed the entry anyway. There was no way around it.

He looked at his watch and checked the navigation plan. He had time for two reels more before they reached the entry gate.

Sitting back, he let the static whine from the intercom wash over him. It was warm inside from the time the aircraft had sat on the ground. He closed his eyes.

“You still with us, Millie?” called Steve Bright.

Millie woke.

“Falling asleep in a nuclear bomber? And we’re only going to Keswick, chap. Not Vladivostok.”

Millie looked at his stopwatch. Eighteen and a half minutes gone. Time to change reels again.

As he removed the second tape, Steve Bright turned to him again.

“We’re not there yet, Millie.”

He felt a spike of adrenaline in his stomach.

He looked up and smiled. “I know, just making sure we’re ready.”

Bright gave him a thumbs up.

Had Rob heard the exchange on the intercom?

Fourteen minutes later, they began their descent, and Millie swapped out the second reel, taking advantage as Steve Bright’s attention switched to the nav-radar.

He quickly marked up his second tape and loaded the first of the official reels for today’s run.

The Vulcan settled at one thousand feet straight and level. Millie glanced at his copy of the route. They should be about twenty miles north of Bassenthwaite Lake. He felt a jolt as Guiding Light engaged. The ride became bumpy as the computer, with none of the finesse of a human, mirrored the contours of the ground beneath them.

“Tape running, Millie?” Rob called over the intercom.

“Roger,” Millie confirmed.

The ride became more undulating as they continued deeper into the valleys and hills of the Lake District. In the dark confines of the rear crew area, Millie started to feel nauseous.

After nineteen minutes of being heaved around, he was able to occupy himself briefly, changing another reel. As they passed the thirty-minute mark and began to climb out, he changed once more.

He had two official tapes to enter into the system, and he was onto his third unofficial tape.

On the transit home, he recorded one more reel, labelling the four sleeves BLANK ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’.

Ten minutes out, as they descended into the West Porton circuit, he powered down the Guiding Light panel, loosened his straps and tried to stretch in the limited space.

SUSIE WATCHED the white jet sweep directly overhead, her eyes following its wide arc around the airfield. The plane’s landing gear unfolded as it travelled south before banking again, lining up to land.

It arrived over the fence and she watched it descend toward the runway, where it seemed to loiter in the air for a while before finally settling on its wheels with a screech and a puff of smoke.

David and his bushy beard appeared next to her.

“They take off heading that way and land coming back,” he said.

“Wind. It must have changed during the day.”

“Ah, I see. And that’s a Victor, I think.”

“Avro Vulcan,” she corrected him.

He raised his eyebrows. “No, I think the Vulcan looks different, has a high tail at the back.”

“The Victor is the one with the high tail, David. The white aircraft that’s just landed is an Avro Vulcan. It’s distinguished by its delta-shaped wing. Unique in bombers, I believe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure, David. It’s a bloody Vulcan.” She smiled at him.

“Hmm.”

She laughed. “Sorry. Don’t mean to sound bossy. I grew up with three brothers and a father in the Navy. I can identify most cars, ships and planes. I could probably name you the England team for the World Cup as well.”

“A tomboy? Fair enough.”

They headed back toward the tents.

“So, David, what are we doing here? I mean, I know we’re a protest camp, but what are we actually going to do?”

He reached into the back pocket of his shorts, produced a small packet of tobacco and began rolling a cigarette.

“Keen, aren’t you?”

“Just don’t want to waste my time.”

He studied her. “Well, we’re alerting the world to a new technology that’s doing god knows what with aircraft capable of dropping nuclear bombs.”

“OK, but that sounds rather… passive.”

He smiled at her.

“Maybe, but it’s important. We’re also disrupting the military as they prepare for an unthinkable and unwinnable war.”

“How?”

“What do you mean, ‘how’?”

“How are we disrupting the military? I mean, we haven’t exactly shut down anything or stopped anything happening, as far as I can see.”

The smell of burning paraffin drifted over, and a noise rose from their left. They looked to see a dark grey Canberra taxiing. Inside the cockpit, the pilot looked directly at them, and Susie could have sworn he was laughing under his mask. She waited for the noise to dissipate, but as the aircraft turned onto the runway, the engines wound up into a scream. The Canberra rolled forward, disappearing behind trees.

Susie shrugged. “As I say, we don’t appear to be disrupting very much.”

He lit his cigarette.

“Well, we don’t know that for sure. For a start, our very presence here is bringing attention—"

“We’ve got to do more than that, surely?”

“Let me finish. We’re bringing attention to an installation the government seems desperate to keep out of the public’s eye. Plus, they may have modified their behaviour. Do you think they would parade anything secret in front of us? We have no idea how much activity they have curtailed because we’re here.” He sucked on his cigarette. “You seem impatient, I hope you’re not thinking of leaving us?”

She shook her head. “No. Well, I can’t stay forever. It’s just that if there’s something going on that needs to be stopped, I think we should stop it. I didn’t come here to watch planes.”

He smiled at her before looking around.

“Not everything worthwhile involves a set of bolt croppers, Susie. Some things require a little more subtlety.” He moved off toward the wigwam. “Patience is a virtue.”

BACK IN THE PLANNING ROOM, Millie sat at his desk, flight case by his feet.

He had already logged the two official reels into the project cabinet, leaving six in his bag, each filled with height readings from Guiding Light.

He tried to concentrate on some paperwork, but he found it hard. His eyes kept drifting down to the case containing the illicit reels.

He wanted to go to the loo, but was reluctant to leave it unattended.

“This is silly,” he muttered to himself.

Kilton emerged from his office, in blue coveralls and orange Mae West life jacket, holding his gloves and flying helmet.

“Ready?” he called over to a group of pilots at the tea bar. Rob left the group, also dressed to fly. The pair of them disappeared through the airfield door.

“Appraisal trip with the boss, apparently.”

Millie looked up to find Jock MacLeish standing over him.

“Oh. Unusual, isn’t it? For Kilton to take a junior pilot.”

“Yes. But then Mark Kilton works in mysterious ways, Millie.”

He helped MacLeish with his own project paperwork, instructing him on what could safely remain in his locker or case and what had to be placed in the secure cabinets.

“What would we do without you, Millie?” MacLeish said, and headed off to deposit his trial reports.

After lunch, Millie spent the afternoon on more admin, tea drinking and wondering how the hell he was going to smuggle Top Secret tapes out of the country’s most secure Royal Air Force station.

ROB AND KILTON arrived back at 2.30PM, a long time after they left for a simple check of a pilot’s flying proficiency.

Rob was all smiles on his return; clearly it had gone well.

Millie kept an eye on the clock, trying to judge the best time to leave and avoid a random search.

Best when it’s busy? Quiet? He couldn’t recall many car searches after leaving the mess in the evening. They were generally carried out during the morning and evening rushes.

Jock MacLeish worked at a desk nearby.

“Hey, Jock. Are you heading to the mess tonight?”

“It’s Friday, Millie. Need you ask?”

“Ah, of course. Happy Hour.”

As soon after 4PM as they could get away with, a group left TFU heading to the mess.

Millie stood up, lifted his case, and walked to the door. The case suddenly felt heavy in his hand and he was conscious of every step he took.

He left the planning room and walked the few yards toward the door that opened out into the car park. As he got closer, it swung open and the commanding officer of the RAF West Porton security police walked in.

The man, in smart light blue uniform with green stripes on his sleeves and cap, walked directly toward him.

Millie held his breath, but the officer brushed past him without making eye contact.

He exhaled and headed to his car, placing his flight bag in the passenger footwell.

At the mess, he carefully locked every door before heading inside to the bar.

He spotted MacLeish sitting with the old men of the Maintenance Unit. The Scot waved and held up a pint for him.

Millie took his seat and clinked glasses.

JR, one of the MU pilots, looked as old as the aircraft they flew. His dark, sunken eyes seemed to swallow light. But there was a twinkle in his eye and Millie always enjoyed the old boys’ company.

The beer tasted good.

The room filled with smoke and chatter. Millie spied Rob at the bar, surrounded by the senior test pilots.

Jock informed him that Rob and the boss had landed away at Daedalus, a Navy base near Portsmouth. Had lunch together in the mess, apparently.

Around 8PM, several hours after he’d started drinking, Millie said his goodbyes and headed toward his car. He was a bit wobbly and realised he was not in the best state to cope with his first attempt to smuggle out a tape. Maybe the alcohol would provide Dutch courage.

After two attempts, he persuaded the Rover’s engine to start. He steered through the full car park, peering across the playing-field toward the lights of the main gate.

There was one man on the barrier, maybe a corporal. In the hut next to him, a sergeant with a clipboard.

He got to the main road that ran through the middle of the domestic side of the station and turned left.

Slowing down, he willed the barrier to rise.

Nothing.

The sergeant, complete with clipboard, appeared by the side of his car.

Millie wound down the window.

The sergeant leant down to bring his head level.

“Good evening.”

“Hello,” Millie managed.

“Just a word of caution, sir. We’ve spotted protestors out and about tonight. Best not to stop on the way home.”

“I wasn’t planning to, Sergeant, but thank you for the tip.”

The sergeant nodded, then appeared to scrutinise Millie, before he glanced at his car.

“You haven’t had too much to drink, have you, sir?”

“Certainly not. Just one or two, Sergeant.”

The man nodded again, but didn’t change his expression. He raised himself back up and moved to the front of the hut.

After an age, the barrier slowly lifted.

Millie put the car into first gear, pushed the accelerator with his foot, released the clutch. The car lurched forward and stalled.

His heart pounded.

He waited for the sergeant to reappear, probably convinced that he was drunk.

Before he tried to restart the engine, he forced himself to pause. He put the car in neutral, left his foot on the clutch and turned the key.

It started.

This time, Millie made sure he pulled away with no further issues. He glanced into his wing mirror to see the sergeant staring, his image growing smaller.