Onward and Upward

by Tony Wilson

Chapter 25

  As spring finally sprung towards summer I was feeling pretty good with myself. The restoration works on the aircraft were going well, and Michael was ever dropping hints about a permanent ‘Spanish subsidiary’, wishful thinking; or maybe not, and at every opportunity I was up in the air in the Storch, it was definitely a love affair made in heaven. I would fly it around the airfield and surrounding area on the slightest pretext and this morning was no exception, and thereby came my downfall, and everything from then on was to change.

  After an early start, my late starts were now becoming a thing of the past, I spent half an hour at my desk, of course wearing my flying overalls, and then it was into my golf buggy (green with gold stripes – and nicknamed Lady S) and down to ‘A’ hangar. A cheery Fred helped me push the Storch out (it was her turn to watch out for ‘station flight’ – visiting aircraft) and I climbed in, and as soon as the P’s and T’s were right I blipped the throttle and was airborne. I ‘air taxied’ a few feet above the taxi way, giving Topsy a heart attack as I overtook him, as he made his way to work, although I did resist the temptation of bouncing my port wheel off his roof, that would teach him not to forget his rear view mirror, then I throttled back and ground taxied up to Zulu hangar. After checking on the progress of the first Stuka coming along the production line I walked over to Lady S (the jet one) and clambered in, and once settled in, and the ground crew had arrived, I flashed her up and was airborne in next to no time. After spending half an hour exercising my heart in the clouds, and extending my life expectancy by another thirty years in the process I returned her to the line, switched back into the Storch and was off again. The architects designing the railway line had suggested that a small station be constructed at my solar panel/wind farm, giving the rubbernecks the chance to check out some of my green credentials, and then if they fancied a bit of a walk, they could walk to the picnic area, under David’s watchful eye(s) of course. After setting down on the taxi track I disembarked and had a walk round, it looked perfect, I was really getting into this miniature railway idea, then it was back to the Storch, oops I had a queue, there were four Hunters waiting to get past so I cheerfully waved at them and was quickly out of their way. As I ‘air’ taxied along I came across a red light, it was unsafe to cross the runway so I quickly set down and came to a stop a couple of meters from the light, just in time to see the clipper (a regular bi-weekly service run by a charter company between El Campo and London City Airport) overfly the runway, the Captain was obviously taking advantage of no landing fees to give his co-pilot a few practice ‘circuit and bumps’. Once the lights changed back to green I was off again into the air, and as I approached ‘A’ hangar I edged out over the empty golf course slightly, so that I could line up with the entrance to the hangar. When I had departed I had noticed that the hanger was as usual empty, the rest of my fleet were now in ‘B’ hangar, so I decided to save Fred some ‘leg work’. Normally I would land on my ‘little’ runway on the taxi track, and then turn and taxi up the slightly inclined apron of the hangar, and shut down just before I reached the doors - but gradually I started to improve on this, and now if the wind was right and the hangar empty I would swing over the golf course, line myself up with the hangar and actually land on the apron (and for the last few times I had switched the engine off as I touched down and coasted right into the hangar). I would then slow down to a walking pace and trundle to a stop by the Storchs bay, smart or what! This time I left the touch down on the apron a slight bit too late and the aircraft’s nose was actually in the hangar before I switched the engine off, no problem though, I was still at walking pace before I had gone half way down the hangar, and as I came to the bay I still had a little umpf left so I trod on the starboard brake and swung her round, coming to a stop with her tail pointing at her bay, double smart or what. As I climbed down Fred appeared, not her usual cheerful self though (perhaps she was feeling peckish), and we pushed the Storch back, and once the chocks were in I was into my golf buggy and back up to Mi Casa, just in time for a shower and change of clothes before lunch, now that is what I call a productive morning.

  As I entered the greenhouse there was not the usual chatter, perhaps Wigan had won the cup or something, and after a quick visit to the salad bar I found an empty table and sat down, perhaps I wouldn’t put the fear of Christ up some unfortunate newbie today, and then, just as I was finishing my starter, a few tables away I saw Topsy slam his knife and folk down, give a loud growl, stand up and come marching my way, his face like thunder. He stopped in front of me, opened his mouth to say something, took a look around, and changed his mind. He spun around, and over his shoulder he barked ‘FOLLOW ME, NOW’. As there was nobody else nearby that he could possibly be talking to, I got up and followed him. No one moved a muscle as he marched outside, with me trailing bemused behind. Outside he commandeered a buggy; all but Lady S were fair game for anyone wanting to move around the area, and nodded for me to get in, and we shot off to ‘A’ Hangar. He came to a halt at the doors, disembarked, stormed into the hangar and came to a halt about two meters inside. I presumed that he wanted me to follow him, so I slowly disembarked and went and stood beside him, very cosy I thought, and then I looked down at what he was staring at, a skid mark, with another one to one side of it. Oops, I had actually touched down inside the hanger, but what was his problem, so I went on the attack, ‘so, I make one little mistake, what’s the big deal’, and then he reamed me a new rectal orifice.

  1.The first mistake that I had made this morning was waking up, I hadn’t bothered to tell anyone that I wanted to go flying; everyone had to just assume that I was.

  2.Apparently helping to push the Storch out wasn’t too bad, although I hadn’t checked with Fred that it was serviceable, I ‘as usual’ just assumed that it was.

  3.When I had ‘air’ taxied away I hadn’t bothered to tell anyone where I was going, again everyone had to guess, ‘god, you act as though you own the place’ he said in exasperation.

  ‘I do’ I thought, but let it slide.

  4.Then he got to the car bit, I just knew that he would, ‘can’t you take a joke’ I said.

  ‘No, please tell me the difference between you putting your wheel a foot in front of my windscreen for a bit of fun, and an aircraft crashing onto my bonnet for real, because at that moment in time my heart certainly couldn’t tell.

  I grudgingly gave him that point.

  5.‘Then you FLY down a line of parked aircraft, not a Marshaller in sight, frightening half a dozen mechanics that had their heads inside their aircraft’

  (That’s a lie – there were only four).

  6.‘Then you land and park your aircraft outside a hangar, without chocks in, assuming that no big jet engine is going to start up and blow it away’.

  I was starting not to like the direction this one sided conversation was going in.

  7.‘Then, leaving it there you climb into the Lady S, again assuming that she is serviceable and has the right amount of fuel in it’ (I had checked the gauges),

  8.‘And then you charge off down the taxi track while the rest of the pilots are having the need to be careful with their brake pads continually drummed into them’.

  I was slowly getting the idea.

  9.‘On landing you assume that I can read your mind about the serviceability of the Lady S, and then you are off in that ‘bloody’ Storch again, (actual word censored) not bothering to thank the mechanics that had moved it before it could be blown over the top of the hangar, and again letting everyone guess where you were going’.

  ‘Before you say anything about me parking on the taxi track, I’m sorry; I should have taxied off of it’.

  10.‘That would have been even worse’ he shouted. ‘Four Hunters taxiing past would have certainly blown it over the fence.

  11.‘Then there is the clipper driver seeing an aircraft about to fly into the side of him as he was about to touch down, he didn’t have time to think oh, it’s a Fieseler Storch, it can land
on a sixpence (he obviously wasn’t into decimalisation either), he just saw an aircraft about to collide with him. It took Chalkie half an hour to talk him back down.

  12.‘And then you go flying off over the golf course, everyone expecting you to be shot down by a 43mm golf ball at any time’.

  13.‘THEN the piece de résistance, you actually fly into the hangar, with everyone outside waiting for the crash, and my Fred, inside, waiting to die. She was sat at the end of the hangar, servicing the ground equipment and she looked up just in time to see the Storch, propeller turning, engine noise reverberating around the hangar, and daylight below the wheels, flying towards her - INSIDE THE ‘EFFIN HANGAR, please don’t tell me that you expected her to get out the pilots notes and ascertain it’s landing distance’.

  The wind then seemed to go out of his sails slightly, but he still continued.

  14.‘You may be one of the most naturally gifted pilots that I have ever come across, and what you can do with that ******* Storch will most likely go down in history, BUT, if your brakes had failed, or Fred had just finished driving the deck scrubber around the hangar floor, you, the Storch and my Fred would have had to have been scraped off the end wall, and whilst a few of us might actually have missed you, most other people at El Campo would have reached for the ‘situations vacant’, as this place would be a ghost town within a week’. ‘You seem to fail to understand the simple fact that where there is power, then there is responsibility’, and then he was out of the hangar, into the trolley and back off to finish his dinner.

  I didn’t think it was prudent to ask him for a lift.

  I walked to the hangar door and sat on a block of concrete that supported something or other, and stared out over the golf course, and started to have a ‘reality check’. Everything he had said was of course true, although I had seen it all from a different perspective. Admittedly I did fly around as though I owned the place, as I actually did, but unfortunately everyone else had to obey the rules, or find another job. I blithely went around assuming that everyone was my friend, chuckling admiringly at my antics, and never realising that perhaps they didn’t even like me, just the money that I put in their bank accounts every month, and in my mind I went through my list of staff/employees/friends, and it didn’t make easy thinking.

  The first one to join me had been Maria, if I had met her in different circumstances I doubted if she would have even noticed me, her I.Q. was about three times that of mine, and then there was David. He was through and through a military man, although to give him his due he was always professional, and Caroline I think could easily have been friends with Sheila, although I think Charlie and I could have been mates down the pub. Vicente always has been Vicente, and always will be, although I think that I would have crossed over the road to avoid Teddy. In fact the only ones that I seemed to be totally relaxed with were Topsy and Chalkie, and I seemed to have blown them both away. It was time for me to come to terms with the fact that El Campo wasn’t a democracy, it was a totalitarian regime, with me as its dictator, whether I liked it or not. It really couldn’t be anything else, or anarchy would rule, and then it slowly dawned on me about all my antics in the Storch, I had not been showing off to anyone else, I had been showing off to myself. Letting my own insecurities not only put myself into harm’s way, but endangering other people in the process, and I finally reached a conclusion, perhaps the same one that Sasha’s crowd had come to all those centuries ago, with the benefits came responsibility, so I climbed down from that friendly concrete block (at least it hadn’t shouted at me) and went and sat next to Topsy. He must have realised that I was missing when he got back to the greenhouse and come back to collect me (he had been patiently waiting there for an age, whilst I was churning everything around in my brain).

  ‘Where to’ he asked ‘front door or greenhouse?’

  ‘Greenhouse’ I said. He gave an approving nod and we drove off, I wonder if he knew what decision I had come to.

  As I entered the side door that I had exited half an hour earlier, I doubted if anyone in the dining room had moved a muscle, they were still sitting there, cutlery poised, frozen in time, and letting their lunches get cold. I quickly walked up to Fred, who tried to politely stand up, but I signalled her to keep seated, and then apologised to her from the bottom of my heart, and everyone else in the room knew that it wasn’t just her that I was apologising to, it was to everyone, and then I turned to walk out with as much dignity as I could muster, although I didn’t get very far, I glanced up at the mezzanine and noticed that not one person up there was looking at me.

  ‘’A’ team meeting in the cinema in ten minutes’, I said quietly, and walked out.

  Five minutes later I was stood in front of them, and I was still seething, so I read them the riot act, although hopefully most of them knew that it was really only meant for the consumption of one man, but the rest could still remain and take in the fact that things had just changed around El Campo. What it boiled down to was that these people were paid top dollar to protect me, feed me and cater to my every whim, but it had been someone halfway down the food chain that had finally had the spherical’s to grab me by the throat and try and protect me from myself. He hadn’t put his job security before his mechanics safety. As I slowly lost steam I realised that I may be heading for a pile of resignation letters so I gave two examples of how thing would be from now on, and the first one up was David. Every time that I wanted to do something stupid he would forcibly point out the error of my ways, but if I decided to ignore his advice anyway he would put plan ‘B’ into operation, and make the best of a bad job, at the end of the day I was still his employer. The next one up was Carole; now that got her attention, when we were approaching the pirates off Somalia she had asked me to go with her into her sea cabin, at the time I thought that her timing was a bit out, but what she wanted me to do was go below to comparative safety, along with the passengers and all non-essential crew, put on half a dozen flak and life jackets and wait for the bullets to stop flying. I had quickly told her that I appreciated her concern but I was not asking any member of her/my crew to face something dangerous whilst I was cowering below. The buck stopped with me, so I would listen to everyone’s advice, but when the time came it would be me, and me alone that would take the decision to press the button, and face the consequences afterwards. As I was now a Dictator I didn’t take any questions, I just left them to their thoughts and made my way to my bedroom.

  As I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, I wondered ‘what next’, and Sam answered that, she took the ‘blue gel thing’ out of my man fridge and placed it over my eyes, and slowly I started to relax, and as it started to warm up she removed it and massaged my eyes, and then after rolling me over, my shoulders; finishing off with reflexology on my feet. Thank god I hadn’t gone for the male of the species, she was worth every penny that I was paying her (I wasn’t into decimalisation either), and Marcus was a very lucky chap. After I had been pummelled into submission I lay quietly there for a few minutes, and then heard Sam moving about, a sure sign that it was time to move, and after another shower and change of clothes I looked quizzically at her.

  ‘Perhaps a visit to your office might be in order’ she suggested, and left it at that.

  On my desk were four resignation envelopes, Maria had fortunately fended off the others, and the first one was from Teddy. ‘Of course it was my fault - but he was in-charge ‘air-side’ so the buck stopped with him’. Very heroic, I thought, but he just didn’t understand that he was not the Station Commander any more, he didn’t make the rules now, I did, and I sat there for a few minutes twirling von Beneckendorf’s fountain pen in my fingers, trying to put something appropriate onto paper, but finally I gave up and put my new maxim of ‘why keep a dog, and bark yourself’ into force. I pressed the buzzer and Maria entered carrying a yellow folder (something for me to sign), placed it in front of me, and said ‘something I prepared earlier - Sir’, with just a hint of a forced humour. I opened
it and of course it was my letter to Teddy accepting his resignation, thanking him for all ‘his sterling work on my behalf’ and wishing him well in the future, perhaps not quite how I would have put it - but close enough, so I signed it. ‘Is he outside?’ I asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘No Sir, he is on the Clipper’, and as if on cue I heard it lifting off the runway on its way back to London, and absent mindedly wondered how many of the others were on board it. I picked up the second letter and of course it was from David. I looked up at Maria and asked ‘is David outside?’

  ‘Yes sir, shall I send him in?’ I had a feeling that all my quaint little nicknames were now a thing of the past. The last time I had heard so many ‘sirs’ in one conversation it had ended with the Gentleman’s Barber from Brighton asking me if ‘I would like anything for the week-end, sir?’, when I said ‘a crate of Guinness’ he looked rather sad, and it took me less than two minutes to sort David out; I was not going let him go, even if he tried to kung Fu me, so I tore up his letter, although he did pause before he left my office, I could see that he had something else on his mind. ‘Yes David, what is it?’

  ‘The range, Sir, it’s alright for you to blaze away in the middle of the night with a Uzi if you cannot sleep, but really there should always be at least two people there at any one time, and I can always tell when you cannot sleep, my morning shift are dog tired’.

  The bachelor quarters were above the indoor range and it appeared that the sound proofing left a lot to be desired. I paused for a few seconds then reached into my pocket and removed a small bunch of keys, detached one, and handed it to him. ‘If I need to go into the weapons locker in the future, I am sure that you will be the first to offer to keep me company’. The next letter was from Chalkie, ‘Is Chalkie there Maria?’ I said into the intercom, and almost instantaneously he came in and stood in front of me. I looked at his letter, and then up at him, ‘Group Captain Heslop has offered his resignation, and I have accepted it’ do you still want to do this?’

  A smile came on his face and he shook his head, ‘If it’s OK with you then I might just hang around for a bit longer, and perhaps we can devise a system of Morse code on your ‘P to T’ (press to transmit) if you don’t want to actually talk to me’. Then he was off, but not very far, he stuck his head back around the door and said ‘I wonder, has anyone ever landed a Storch on a moving miniature train?’ then he was off, whistling tunelessly, I wonder if his singing was any better!

  The last one in was Topsy, and he sheepishly entered my domain, but I was not at my desk, I was sat in one of my La-Z-Boy’s, and indicated for him to sit in the other, and on the coffee table in front of us lay the torn up shreds of his letter. ‘If you think that you can escape that easily then you have another think coming’, and then I went on to thank him for standing up to me before I killed myself, or even worse, killed or injured someone else. We then had a coffee and chatted for a while about ‘something and nothing’ until I finally plucked up enough courage to say what I wanted to say, ‘about friends and employees, I hope you realise that I look on you as a friend, possibly my only real friend at El Campo (well perhaps Chalkie as well, he always lets me win at uckers), and as a friend I have to tell you that you are wasted as ‘king of the crap’ (I’m not as blunt as him), now that Teddy has gone there will be changes made, and I definitely want you higher up the food chain’.

  He lounged there for a moment longer, then gave a resigned sigh, stood up, and as he headed towards the door he said ‘OK Andy, but only if you let me win at uckers tonight?’

  ‘You are joking’ I shouted at his back ‘I don’t like anyone well enough to do that’.

  As I settled back into the chair I thought that that was more than enough for one day, but no, there was a tap on the door (funny place to keep a tap), and in came Beryl, and confusion racked my brain again. I had presumed that she was sat beside Teddy on the clipper – wrong, it turned out that I had done something terrible when I had offered her the position of Horticultural Manager, she found out that she had an identity all of her own.

  On leaving Uni she had met Flight Lieutenant Heslop RAF, and a little while later became ‘Flt Lt Heslop’s wife’. Then as he progressed, she became ‘Squadron Leader, then Wing Commander and finally Group Captain Heslop’s wife’ although with the last one came the title ‘the Station Commanders wife’ as well. When he retired he still hung onto his title so she was still ‘the wife of Group Captain Heslop RAF (Retired) until that fateful day when I had offered her the job. To me it had just been a means to an end, but apparently to her it had been a life changing moment. The first thing that Maria had done was to arrange to have some business cards printed off for her, Beryl Heslop – Horticultural Manager, and there was no mention of Teddy anywhere, and she just loved it, so after my full, frank and meaningful chat with them (him), hubby had come out and told her to ‘go and pack whilst I write out our resignations, we are out of this dump’.

  Her answer had been a categorical, ‘go pack yourself, I’m going nowhere’ (I think she said ‘pack’). She had wanted to stand up to him for years, but had never before had the self-confidence to do so.

  ‘If it’s not going to cause a problem, please can I stay?’

  ‘Of course you can, but only as long as I can have those purple’y things with white edges on, on my desk, instead of those horrible yellow and orange thingy’s’.

  She threw her head in the air, whooped and did a little jig; I think I had just set someone free, but as she skipped out of the door she turned and said ‘do you mean the Phalaenopsis Prchidaceae or the Paphiopedilums?’

  I just loved it when she talked dirty.

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