Another Great Day at Sea by Geoff Dyer

Author:Geoff Dyer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781782113355
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2014-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

‘The aircraft’s been jarred on landing and needs to be put on jacks, sir!’ I didn’t wait for Ron to say, ‘Affirmative’ or ‘Cor- rect’, I just held my arms aloft, fists clenched, basking in it. In what? In that raising-the-flag-on-Iwo-Jima, watching-the-Zulus-slink-away-from-Rorke’s-Drift glow otherwise known as V for victory in a Q for quiz.

There was no time to gloat. Ron was continuing his explanation of what went on here. Like Charles in the kitchens he used the first-person possessive when talking about the flight deck, as in ‘getting a damaged aircraft off of my flight deck.’ This intense personal investment in the site of his expertise was justified on the grounds that he’d been doing it—or working his way towards it from his early days as an enlisted man—for twenty-eight years. For a long time working on a flight deck was regarded as the most dangerous job in the world; now, Ron explained, it was ‘the safest most dangerous job in the world.’6 At least on his watch it was. In twenty-eight years there’d been no deaths or serious injuries on any of the decks he’d worked.

The birds would soon be launching and recovering. With the tempo and intensity of concentration and activity increasing, the snapper and I would need to leave—but not before another triumph on my part. The money under the glass, round the edges of the table; what was the story behind that?

‘A fine paid by any visitor who touches it or puts stuff there.’ This had proved a profitable form of taxation. When they were stateside and receiving visitors every day they collected four thousand dollars in a nine-month period—all of it donated to a scholarship programme. I had put my coffee on Ron’s Ouija board—but only after checking that it was OK to do so!

‘That’s correct,’ he said. ‘You had my permission.’

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