The Unquiet heart

TWENTY THREE

The Russian tanks were soon encircled by a contingent of American and British armour and troops. They could have held their own mini-war out there on the patched-up runway. We got reports second-hand from the control tower. Seems the Reds got wind of our departure and threw away the protocol handbook on how to stay pals with your allies. Those boys were mad. Mulder was an important guy.

They wanted our skins, and had been prepared to invade our sector to get their hands on us.

On more than one occasion we heard an exchange between the tower and our friendly RAF guys which made it clear that handing us over was being seriously considered. I couldn’t blame them; I would have chucked us over the side in a flash. I just hoped our team had more scruples. Besides, the enormity of the Russian invasion of the airfield would get through to the top brass. How could they let the Reds win this one? Regardless of how expendable we were, they couldn’t lose face. Give the Red Army an inch and they’d take Poland.

The pilot shut the engines down and we waited. Eve fell into a despairing silence. Her chances of rebalancing the press reports were at rock bottom. The standoff continued all morning. Almost on the stroke of noon we felt the nudge of the wooden stairs being placed against the hull. We’d long since opened the door to let some air in and smoke out. We heard steps on the ladder, then a head appeared. It was round and red and sported an American cap with three stars on it. The rest of the general’s body eased its way through the door and filled the tight space between us and the cabin. The Redcaps struggled to get to their feet and get a salute in, and the pilot and navigator came down to the deck.

“Easy, boys,” the general drawled. “No time for that.” He looked straight at me with fierce blue eyes that could strip paint off a door.

“You McRae?”

“Sir.”

“And I guess we know who you are, miss.”

“And who might you be, major?” asked Eve with all the tact of a turd in a punch bowl. I waited for the explosion. Instead he smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile.

It wasn’t a gentle smile.

“Why, excuse my lack of politesse, ma’am. I’m General Willard J Stonecroft. And I’m minded to hand you and your boyfriend over to the Ruskies out there. Is that your preference?”

Eve eased back in her chair and didn’t reply. Partly because I had a grip on her index finger that signalled I would break it if she said another word. I coughed.

“Sir, we’d rather you didn’t do that, if it’s all the same to you. We’d rather face the music in England,” I said.

General Stonecroft stuck his thumbs in his belt that ran round his massive girth like the hoop of a barrel.

“Thought that might be your choice. But you know what? I don’t give a squirrel’s nuts what you think. We got a bigger thing going on here. Lieutenant?” He turned to the RAF blokes and spoke to the pilot. “We can’t have these guys thinking they can bust into our aerodrome any time they feel like it, now can we?”

The pilot looked as though he didn’t care one way or the other.

“So, you’re going to taxi all the way back to the end of this here runway. Far as you can go. Then you’re going to put the foot on the gas and get this tin can in the air. Preferably before you hit the tanks.”

The RAF men looked at each other. They knew they were dealing with a madman.

“General, there isn’t enough run-up.”

“Sure there is. You don’t think I got these from flying a desk?” He pointed at the set of wings on his chest. “I reckon there’s plenty of room. If you get the revs up.”

He waited while the pilot stuck his head out the door, conferred with his colleague and sized up the problem.

“General, is this an order?”

“If you like.”

“What if the tanks shoot?”

“That’s my job. I’m gonna tell those Red guys if they shoot you down, they get it too. We’ll blast them to pieces.”

“Well, that’s all right then, sir,” said the pilot. “Fair’s fair is what I say.”

The general looked at him suspiciously but grunted and slid back down the ladder. The flyers shrugged at us and slid back into their seats. We heard the general’s jeep racing away from us. A little later air traffic control told us to start up and taxi to the end of the runway.

We rolled away from the mкlйe on the runway, and when we ran out of tarmac we swivelled on the spot and aimed back down the long strip. The RAF team had switched into professional mode, their voices calm and unforced through the check routine. The noise grew from the big Merlin engines and the vibrations rose through the fuselage until the plane felt as if it would implode. We heard a last good luck from the tower and the brakes were released. Then we catapulted forward and the engines strained up through the revs.

Call me a masochist, but I wanted to see. I jammed my face to the porthole and peered forward as best I could. Ahead was the growing blob of machines and men.

It looked very much like we’d plough straight through them. We used to play chicken on the swings up at the park. We’d make them swing faster and higher, and see how high we could go before we jumped off. Sometimes we’d work them up above the horizontal before making the great leap. One of my boyhood pals – Archie, who died over Dresden – broke his leg that way. This was one monstrous game of chicken. With more than a broken leg at stake.

As we hurtled towards the mass of armour, I saw some of the troops throwing themselves to ground. A few others scampered to the side. The two Russian tanks kept guns trained straight at us, while on their flanks the American and British took point blank aim at them. This was going to be some fireworks display. I couldn’t look any more and sank back in the chair alongside Eve. There was no sound from the Redcaps behind us. Too busy with their rosaries, I suppose. I smiled at Eve and gripped her hand. And waited for either the tank shell or the tank itself to shatter our flimsy frame.

Suddenly the engines screamed louder and higher and the nose tipped up. We braced ourselves for the impact. Then the thunder beneath our wings dropped away. We were airborne, but were we high enough? I peered through the screen again and wished I hadn’t. The tanks were rushing towards us. They were still holding fire, but we weren’t going to make it. We couldn’t make it. Up in the cockpit the pilot was heaving at his sticks for all he was worth. Slowly, slowly, we eased up and I saw faces flash beneath us, distorted in horror.

There was a big bump like you get when you land, and a double “Fuck!” from the MPs. Then we were up and away. We kept climbing, and the undercarriage came up with a thump and a groan of steel. The noise of the machine straining to stow the wheels continued then stopped. It started again then whined to a halt. It didn’t feel good. But at least we were airborne. Eve had a line of perspiration on her top lip and her face was deathly. Mine must have looked as drained. The navigator came back to us. He had his professional smile on.

“All right back here?”

“Couldn’t be better, Flight,” I answered. “Bloody well done.”

He nodded. “Well, we got up. But not so sure about getting down. We hit something and the undercarriage is jammed. Bit of a nuisance, really. Cuts our speed and could be a bit bumpy at the other end.”

Flyboy’s understatement meant we were probably going to crash-land. Frankly I was past caring. My nerves would only stretch so far. I was past hysteria and into stupor. I felt slugged. And I wasn’t getting much support from my pal next to me.

You would think that sharing a pair of handcuffs would draw folk together, but we were miles apart. It didn’t help to have two goons breathing down our necks, though they seemed more interested in the bars they planned to hit on their one night in England before the return trip in the morning. They were over-ambitious by half, but I envied them their youth and bravado.

The endless flight gave me plenty of time to think. To try to get some perspective on the last few days, few years. I realised I wasn’t where I thought I’d be. Not that I had a crystal clear picture of my future ten years ago. None of us ever gave it much thought, or spoke about it. It was too personal, something only girls talked about. But there was an assumption and unspoken expectation that we’d get married and have kids. Like our folks. It’s what you did. It’s what everybody did. It was the path of least resistance. But now it seemed as likely as a squadron of pink pigs doing a flypast for the King.

I realised that at some stage – before she disappeared – I’d been harbouring thoughts of a future with Eve. Like what she’d think of Kilpatrick. Or more interestingly, what Kilpatrick would think of her. She’d meet my mother, and I’d watch as these two women circled each other, wondering what each expected of the man standing between them. I’d take her walking through the town parks. Or we’d hop on a bus and go to Largs for the day and eat ice-creams at Nardini’s, and paddle in the freezing sea. I’d show her Arran and the bump of granite called Ailsa Craig, and the low-slung hulk of the Mull of Kintyre. But it wouldn’t happen now. We’d come too far, seen too much. And instead of pulling us closer, our sojourn in Berlin had ripped us apart.

I still loved her. But it was a love for someone in my past. Someone who went away. Maybe – given her revelations – someone who was never there in the first place, except in my imagination. I glanced across at her, but she was staring inward like a yogi.

The plane droned on across the scarred earth of northern France. Through breaks in the clouds I could see the land far below. I imagined it a year ago, after great armies had chewed up the ground with their heavy treads and high explosives. But it wouldn’t have taken long for nature to cover our sins. New grain would wave in the summer heat and apples ripen in drowsy orchards. The rows of white crosses would glint in the sun in the great cemeteries from the first war. New mounds would be settling alongside them, filled with young men who’d never see the wheat fields of Iowa or Essex again. I fingered my scar and tried to tell myself I was lucky.

“OK, chaps,” called the pilot. “We’re over the Channel and heading for London.

We’re going into RAF Hendon. We’ve radioed ahead. It won’t be the first time they’ve had a wonky Lanc drop in for tea.”

Soon afterwards we began the descent, and I saw London spread out underneath us.

We were tracing the Thames westwards. From the ground it was hard to get a perspective on the damage. From up here its scars were fully visible. Docklands and the area around the Tower of London displayed their wounds. St Paul’s stood secure and insolent above the acres of devastation, as though its great dome was cannibalised from the flattened buildings all around it. We turned north and slid over Regent’s Park, levelling out at about a thousand feet over Hampstead Heath.

Again we dipped, and the runway of RAF Hendon sliced the green sward ahead. We circled, waiting for the tower’s instructions. At their bidding we tried twice, then a third time to lower the landing gear. But whatever had stopped the wheels coming up was stopping them going down. The last words from the pilot before he turned in for the landing were, “Brace yourselves.” We needed no telling.

I didn’t try to look forward this time. I took Eve’s hand. It was cold and limp.

“Just in time for the late editions,” I said. She tried a weak smile but it didn’t come off. The pilot called out the height. One thousand feet, eight hundred, six… a hundred feet…

The plane was flying level and true. I leaned out and saw a line of trees and beyond them some houses at the far end of the airfield. The runway was to our right. We were heading for the grass alongside. I prayed they’d had a lot of rain the last few days. I felt the tug on our wings as they pulled up the ailerons and feathered the engines. The grass rushed towards us and a fire truck charged out to meet us along the runway. Bizarrely I saw one of the firemen hanging on with one hand, yanking on his bell rope. I don’t know who he was warning, but we didn’t need it.

We hit once and bounced, then a second time. When we came down for the third time we stayed down, skidding along the grass in a series of thumps and bangs.

The flyboys had kept the nose up as long as they could but now it tipped and caught; our starboard wing went down and we pitched over. There was a great metallic screaming and a smashing and splintering as the starboard propellers buried themselves in the ground. The plane swung round like someone had grabbed its trailing wing. It tipped, and we were up in the air, balancing on one wingtip like a mad ballet dancer. Then we were falling back to earth and the whole shebang seemed to be fragmenting around us – then… nothing.