The Final Flight by James Blatch (books to read in your 30s .TXT) 📗

everything up over a whim? You’re months away from your cottage by the sea. Seriously, Millie, what are you thinking?”

“I’m not thinking about me, Rob. It’s not me losing anything that worries me. It’s the crews. Other men like us, who follow us. Our duty is to them.”

Rob stood up, drained his whisky and ginger. “Thank you for the drink, Millie.” He started to walk toward the side gate.

“Rob, please sit down.”

“I think not. I’m actually scared you might tell me something I’ll regret. Sorry Millie, it’s a no-go. Time to let it go. Leave the politics to Kilton. It’s for the best.”

“Whose best, Rob?”

His friend stood for a moment, looking unsure of himself, before disappearing down the side of the house.

Millie stewed in his own thoughts for five minutes. Georgina appeared from the house with a whisky bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“You look like a tramp on a night out,” Millie observed.

She laughed. “Thanks. Rob gone?”

“Yes.”

She sat down next to him.

“Everything alright between you two?”

“Not exactly.”

“If it’s work stuff, I know you can’t talk about it, but… Maybe Rob’s changing. He’s not the green-around-the-gills pilot you took under your wing anymore.” She leant in toward him. “Is it time to let him fly the nest?”

“Can I have some more whisky?”

She passed the bottle over.

He poured an inch more scotch. “You might be right, dear, but it’s bloody inconvenient timing.”

“Why?”

“I really wanted his help, but he’s not playing ball.”

“There are other pilots at TFU. I’m sure someone will help you?”

Millie sipped the whisky, again enjoying the dulling of the senses that came with alcohol. “Not for this particular task. I need a close friend.”

Georgina narrowed her eyes. “Mr Millington, you’re not getting yourself into trouble, are you?”

“Absolutely I am.” He laughed.

She shook her head. “I’m serious, Millie. We have weeks left. Don’t do anything stupid. Especially don’t cheese off Mark Kilton. You know what that man’s like.”

“I have to do this.”

“Jesus, Millie, it sounds ominous.”

He smiled and patted her thigh. “Absolutely nothing to worry about. Really. It’s just boring old work stuff.”

Later that evening, Millie sat at the bureau in the lounge and doodled some figures. He wanted to calculate how many height readings he’d end up with after recording one hundred reels.

From his memory, he understood the tapes recorded three moments in time every second, so just one twenty-minute tape would produce more than three thousand five hundred lines of records. More than a quarter of a million lines over one hundred tapes.

He stared at the result. It would take forever to look through them all. Even if he could get the numbers off the tapes.

Georgina appeared over his shoulder.

“I assume that’s not our savings?”

Millie laughed. “Sorry, no. Work. Just lots of numbers.”

“Oh, count me out. I don’t do maths. Your son inherited that talent from you.” She slumped down on the sofa and opened a copy of Woman magazine. Millie studied the front cover: a model with a brown bob of hair which, according to the headline, was a ‘go anywhere hairstyle’.

Georgina’s eyes appeared over the magazine. “Maybe Charlie could help with his bombe?”

“Bomb? Whatever are you talking about?”

She laughed. “Don’t you remember at Christmas? We found it hilarious that he was going on about the bombe they used for calculations?”

“Oh, yes. A bombe. With an e. He told us it came from a wartime deciphering operation, didn’t he?”

“God knows. Something like that.”

A bombe. Millie turned the unusual word over in his mind. He imagined a large mechanical machine with rotating dials, tearing through calculations faster than a human could read them.

“I can’t talk to Charlie about this.”

He looked back at the figure. This felt like an insurmountable problem. What was the point of gathering data he couldn’t read?

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