Permissible Limits (52 page)

Bombing and strafing, naturally enough, took me to air-to-air combat, an application I approached with considerable misgivings. It turned out that the damaged Mustang I’d seen the day I went solo in fact survived the landing, but I’d talked to the pilot since - a young guy from the Venezuelan Air Force - and it was obvious that the line between make-believe and the real thing was - at Standfast - dangerously thin. Harald, he said, believed in rattling a few cages. That was a phrase I recognised, the phrase Harald had used the morning I popped a smoke bomb at Chuck’s flailing soldiers, and it made me aware yet again what kind of cage life had constructed for Harald himself.

The day I was due to become a fighter pilot began, as always, with a briefing. It was cooler than usual, a grey, overcast morning with the wind blowing down from the north. Harald and I were to fly as a pair, and we stood beside the wing of my Mustang while Harald rattled briskly through an introduction to air combat tactics.

Way back in the thirties, he said, squadron commanders had flown in triangular ‘vics’ of three aircraft. Then the smarter guys had dreamed up something he called a ‘finger-four’ formation, each aircraft covering the other. This, in turn, had led to a Luftwaffe variation called the
rotte,
which was basically a two-ship formation, with the pilots hunting in pairs. In the jet age, thanks to the Americans, the
rotte
had become known as ‘loose-deuce’, two aircraft flying side by side with lots of sky between them.

Harald’s phrase for this was ‘lateral separation’, and when I looked bemused, he produced two little diecast models - both Mustangs - and weaved them around in front of me. Watching his hands, I was instantly back in the hot darkness outside his den, the night I’d ventured into Monica’s wilderness. In my mind, the significance of that little episode was still unresolved. What would make a man fly a plastic Messerschmitt around? Was he a child at heart? Did he have an inexhaustible supply of little plastic 109s? To be honest, I hadn’t a clue, but watching him now it occurred to me that the real answer was probably very simple. At some point in his life, Harald had lost touch with that glorious muddle that is - for most of us - real life. Flying, having to rely on no one but yourself, was infinitely safer.

Was I right? No, of course I wasn’t, but it seemed a reasonable enough theory at the time, and when we finally got airborne that morning I was concentrating far too hard to give this strange man’s motivation a second thought.

The object of the exercise was close formation work. I was to be Harald’s wingman. We’d be flying against a couple of guys from Honduras. At all costs I was to stick to him, and stick close.

‘
How close?’ I asked him.

‘
Like shit on a shovel,’ he grunted, hauling on my seat harness and giving me a good-luck pat on the shoulder.

We were in the air for less than an hour but it felt like all day, and by the time I wobbled in for an untidy three-pointer, I swear I’d lost pounds in weight. My face was bathed in sweat. My pulse rate was still in three figures. And when Harald finally taxied to a halt in front of me I found myself physically shaking with what I can only describe as delayed shock.

I pulled back the canopy, sucking the air into my lungs. Harald was up on the wing and beside me in seconds. He looked excited. For reasons I didn’t begin to understand, we’d evidently won the dogfight.

‘
We shot them down?’

‘
Smoked them both.’ He nodded. ‘Twice.’

The Hondurans had been practically invisible. We’d been way up above the thick eiderdown of cloud but I’d only spotted them a couple of times, twisting silver fish against the blue, blue sky. For the rest of the time they’d only existed in my headphones, brief clues from Harald. Five o’clock high. Eight o’clock low. Up-sun. Down-sun. I’m sure he was right, they were doubtless there, but I was concentrating far too hard on keeping formation, matching him move for move as he dived and banked and turned in his determination - in his phrase - ‘to kick them in the nuts’.

The key, of course, was to get behind them, get in their six o’clock. A fighter pilot’s love affair with the average timepiece begins and ends with six o’clock. Slide into his six o’clock, and your opponent’s war is over. Let him get into yours, and it’s goodbye world. That, at least, was the way Harald saw it.

‘
So how did I do?’

We were walking back across the apron. Just putting one foot in front of the other was suddenly very difficult. Inside the hangar, Harald patted me on the shoulder. ‘My wingman,’ he murmured.

Still dazed, I watched him heading for the stairs that led up to his office, and he’d disappeared before it occurred to me that I’d just won the ultimate accolade. Harald’s wingman. Lucky old me.

It was later that day, in the kitchen back at the Casa Blanca, that I brought up the subject of Karel Brokenka. Ralph had written to me by now, enclosing a long list of detailed questions, and it was becoming important to fix some kind of appointment. I had another five days down here at Standfast. As soon as I could, I wanted to phone this man, introduce myself and find out exactly where he lived.

To my surprise, Harald had it all worked out.

‘
It’s a nursing home called Shoreview. It’s along the lake, west of Chicago.’

‘
How do you know?’

‘
I talked to the guy on the phone. Ralph gave me his number. We’re going up there together, first thing next week.’

‘
We?’

‘
Yes, you and me. Any objections?’

Next week was June. I’d promised Andrea and Jamie I’d be back at Mapledurcombe by the seventh, well in time for my birthday. Wasn’t this cutting it just a little bit fine?

‘
Not at all. I’ll get you a ticket back from O’Hare. If that’s really what you want.’

O’Hare is Chicago’s main commercial airport. I blinked, listening to Harald detailing the trip he’d planned. We’d take the dual Mustang. We’d need to refuel en route but held arranged for the auxiliary tanks to be fitted and it should be a pretty easy go. If the weather was right, he was thinking of a little detour, a huge left-hand curve that would take us west over Texas and Arizona. It was, he said, a pity to have me leave the US without at least a glimpse of the Grand Canyon.

‘
Sounds lovely.’ I was still thinking of his first remark.
If
that’s really what you want.
What did that mean? Why shouldn’t I want to go home?

Harald was making space for his mother at the table. She’d come in from somewhere at the back of the house. She was wearing a pair of rubber gloves. I glanced at my watch. It was exactly half past four. Monica sat down, and mother and son exchanged glances before Harald got to his feet.

‘
Ralph says he’s nearly finished the book.’ Harald was heading for the door.

I followed him.

‘
That’s right,’ I said. ‘He sounds quite excited.’

‘
You’ve talked to him?’

‘
A couple of times.’

‘
Recently?’

‘
Last night.’

‘
So how’s he getting on?’

We were outside now. The sun had come out at last and the swimming pool looked especially inviting. Harald was heading for a long, low wooden shed out of sight of the main house.

‘
He’s finished the picture research and he’s done a couple of drafts on the text,’ I said. ‘I think he must have left a hole for this man Brokenka.’

‘
The Czech guy’s that important?’

‘
Ralph thinks so. It was the only time our Mustang scored.’

Harald had produced a key for the padlock on the door of the hut. He paused, looking back at me.

‘
What about the other guy? The guy in the 109? Wasn’t Ralph trying to get a picture or something?’

‘
That’s coming.’

‘
It is?’

‘
Yes, he’s been in touch with the German archive people. They’ve found the file now. It’s just a question of getting the photo across.’

‘
And this Brokenka? He hasn’t got a photo already?’

‘
No, but it’s the account Ralph wants. He’s talked to the man on the phone, of course, and I think he’s written a couple of times, but what he really wants is a proper sound recording, me talking him through it. Ralph’s really keen. It’s the least I can do.’

‘
Of course.’

Harald opened the door. I used to keep rabbits back home at Gander Creek and I recognised the smell at once. There were dozens of them in a long wired-off run. The tiny ones looked adorable.

Harald was rummaging around in the corner. When he appeared beside me he had something in his hand. It was Monica’s metal cage. He pulled the little door open. I stared at it.

‘
What’s that for?’

Harald nodded down at the rabbits. Most of them had disappeared inside their hutch.

‘
Some of these little fellas. My mother does it most days.’

‘
Why? Why does she need them?’

Harald had opened the wooden door to the run. One of the rabbits he grabbed couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks old. It blinked up at me, wet button nose, twitching whiskers, perfect blue eyes.

‘
She feeds them to her pet,’ he said.

‘
What pet… ?’ My voice faltered. I knew the answer already. I heard the clang of the metal as he shut the rabbits in the cage.

‘
She’s got a pet alligator.’ He glanced up at me. ‘She had an old Seminole Indian guy trap him. Down in the Everglades.’

I was still looking at the rabbits, remembering the unblinking yellow eye and the sour stink of the alligator’s breath. No wonder he’d come to me. No wonder he’d opened those huge jaws.

‘
She does this every day?’

‘
Without fail.’ Harald was heading for the door. ‘I tell her it’s unfair but she pays no attention.’

‘
Unfair?’ Sickened, I could think of far stronger words.

Harald laughed, fumbling with the padlock.

‘
Sure. Damn reptiles are supposed to be out there hunting. Any more silver service and this one’ll die of boredom.’

My last
day’s
flying at Standfast nearly killed me.

The thunderheads had been piling up all morning and it was only my eagerness to fit in one last sortie that persuaded Harald to fuel up my Cavalier Mustang and let me have my way. The forecast, he said, was dire. I was to avoid the coastal area and keep well away from the towering stacks of cloud. When he asked whether I needed an escort, I shook my head. Greedy for one final hour alone in the Florida sky, the last thing I wanted was company.

I took off to the north-east. After ten minutes or so I was up at 12,000 feet. From here, just, I could see both sides of the Florida panhandle, the long appendage that hangs down into the Caribbean. The visibility, for once, was good - a sure sign of impending rain -and as we began to climb again I checked the settings on my camera. The souvenir picture I’d dreamed about would show the entire coastline of southern Florida. To achieve that, I needed to go south.

I winged the Mustang over, still climbing. The higher you fly, the thinner the air becomes, and I nudged the throttle forward, watching the airspeed push past 160 knots. Pilots will tell you that the Mustang is a very slippery aircraft and they’re right. It’s got a very thin wing, and poor manners at low speeds, but up here in the cold, thin air it was a joy to fly. I banked again, the gentlest of turns, checking the view. Below me, quite suddenly, there was nothing but haze, and as I watched - literally - the haze thickened into a blanket of ripply grey cloud. Like an idiot, I’d failed to keep a detailed note of my speeds and headings, convinced I’d be staying visual. With the cloud below me, I’d run out of landscape. Not only had my photograph disappeared but so had all the clues I relied upon to get home. In short, I was lost.

I throttled back and stored my camera in the starboard bin. That lovely warm feeling of euphoria I’d felt earlier had quite gone. In its place, the first cold stirrings of fear.

It was now 17.14. I checked the fuel gauges, calculating exactly how much I had left. If I called up Standfast, I thought, and they got a radar bearing on my transponder, they’d be able to give me a heading back to the airfield. Provided I could fly that heading, I’d be fine. If I had to divert for some reason, I’d have around half an hour’s extra fuel to play with. I stared down at the cloud, trying to estimate how thick it might be. If I got low again, down below the cloudbase, then at least I’d be visual to the ground. Then, with a radar heading, getting home would be that much easier.