Air Bridge by Hammond Innes

Author:Hammond Innes
Format: mobi, epub

CHAPTER SIX

There was no problem of navigation to distract my mind on the homeward run. The earth lay like a white map below me. I found the North Sea at Flushing, crossed the southern extremity of it, flying automatically, and just as automatically picked up the Thames estuary, following the curves of the river till it met the Kennet. And all the time I was remembering every detail of what had happened. It seemed such a waste that he should die like that. And all because he’d called me a crook. My face, ghostly in the windshield, seemed to reflect the bitterness of my thoughts.

I had three hours in which to sort the thing out and face it. But I didn’t face it. I know that now. I began that flight hating myself. I ended it by hating Saeton. It was he who had forced me into it. It was he, not I, who was responsible for Tubby’s death. By the time I was over the Kennet I had almost convinced myself of that.

I dropped to a thousand feet in a mood of cold fury, picked up Ramsbury and swung north-east. The trees of Baydon Hill were a dark line and there, suddenly, were the hangars of Membury and, as I swept low over the field, I caught a glimpse of the quarters nestled snugly in their clearing in the woods. All just as I had left it. Nothing changed. Only a man dead and the moon bathing everything in a white unreal light.

I had no need of any flares. I skidded in a tight, vicious turn, dropped flaps and undercarriage, and slammed the machine down on to the runway not caring whether I smashed it up in the violence of my anger.

Saeton was at the hangar and came running out to meet me as I cut the engines. He was waiting for me as I stepped out on to the concrete, his face alive with excitement. ‘Well done, Neil! Magnificent!’ He seized my hand and wrung it.

I flung him off. I couldn’t say anything. The words choked in my throat. He was gazing at the plane, caressing it with his eyes, like a father who has been presented with another son to replace one that has died. My hands clenched with the desire to hit out, to smash the eagerness of his face.

Then he turned and met my gaze. ‘What’s the trouble?’ His hand reached out and caught my arm in a hard, unyielding grip. His voice was urgent, his mood tuned to mine.

I faced him then, my guts screwed up in a right little knot in my belly and my teeth clenched.’Tubby’s dead,’ I said.

‘Dead?’ His fingers dug into the muscles of my arm and he stared at me hard. Then his grip relaxed. ‘What happened?’ he asked, in a flat tone.

I told him what had happened - how Tubby’s body had slumped unconscious through the fuselage door, how I’d searched the area and found no sign of a parachute.

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