Night

‘Not long now, old lady,’ Hamish Iain said aloud, hard to make out in the rising screech of dying machinery. There was no-one else alive to hear him. The navigator lay glassy-eyed at his post just over his shoulder, and there had been no response from the mid or rear gunners. Hamish Iain piloted the Lancaster alone now, once their mother and likely to be his tomb.

     The bomb doors remained open, having discharged their cargo. Enemy anti-aircraft fire had badly damaged the bomber, and the doors remained stuck in a sort of yawn, letting in huge currents of night air. Hamish Iain kept a picture of a brunette lady pinned above the controls. His comment might have been addressed to her, to prospects of a safe return.

     The bomber coughed and laboured across the sky over the English Channel, emitting thick smoke. This would certainly be her last flight. Then he saw the white cliffs of Dover, the rocks coming out suddenly like a pale hand in greeting. The Lancaster was dying. The wireless coughed and spluttered behind him, mocking any prospect of communicating with the airfield.

     Hamish Iain wrestled with the controls, hoping for at least a beach landing. The parachutes were all gone. Given the state of the aircraft, perhaps a sea landing would be better. The traumatised engines continued to shriek. ‘Not long,’ said Hamish Iain quietly. He closed his eyes, and pictured a beach in Fife. He heard a soft female voice, magnified over the tannoy.

     ‘The train now departing from Platform Four is the 3.15 to Leuchars. Please have your tickets ready for inspection.’ He smiled, opened his eyes and touched the picture.

     ‘I wish I was there. By the train on Platform Four.’