Drake mirrored the man’s posture and gave him a nod. ‘Thank you, sir. You too.’
Askwith returned the nod, then closed the door.
Drake stood for a long moment, staring at it, wondering if he would ever see Askwith again.
They had never been very close; Askwith had been an old-style commander, holding himself aloof from those below him in order to maintain discipline, but he’d been something of a hero to him and the other younger officers and it had hurt when he’d gone down in France. And now he was losing him for a second time.
A hand settled on his shoulder and he turned to find Tanya gazing at him with a soft expression. She was beautiful, even with the missing teeth, still-swollen lips and bags under her eyes from exhaustion. ‘He’ll be alright, don’t worry.’
‘How will he be alright? He’s aboard a bloody great airship and even if they succeed and jettison all the springs he’ll still be trapped here!’
Tanya shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I thought that was just what you British say in this kind of situation.’
Drake blinked, then started laughing as the tension washed away from him. After only a second or two, Tanya joined him.
When Drake managed to get a hold of himself he shook his head and smiled wryly. ‘This is all happening so quickly. Less than an hour ago I was contemplating my future as a Prussian slave, forced to tell Hans bloody Gruber all the useless information I know about a girl I grew up with, but now...’ He reached out to stroke Tanya’s bruised cheek. ‘It’s like a dream.’
Tanya reached up and put her hand over his. ‘I know.’ She smiled and swayed towards him, her eyes locked on his.
A discreet cough came from behind them and they started, the mood shattered, and turned to find the entire group grinning at them, fully prepared in Prussian-issue flightsuits, glidewings in place on their backs and breathing masks on top of their heads, ready to be put in place when the air got thin.
The two smiled at them sheepishly, then Tanya slapped Drake lightly on the cheek. ‘Come on, Ace, let’s get ready.’
Drake grimaced as he turned away and began to strip out of his red jumpsuit. ‘Please don’t call me that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it makes it sound like I’m special, like I’m better than other pilots, but I’m not.’ He had been very glad when the nickname hadn’t survived the disaster in France and had been content not to have one, although he had to admit he wasn’t too unhappy that Gwen had resurrected her old one for him, Digger, despite how he’d earned it.
Tanya laughed.
‘What? What’s so funny?’
‘Just thinking back to a little conversation we had in a cell a few days ago.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one about you being a hero.’
Drake frowned, which only provoked more laughter and he just shook his head and said nothing as he finished doing up his dark grey insulated flightsuit.
Together, they checked the glidewings, giving the springs that powered the small rotors on them a few turns to fully wind them, then helped each other heft the heavy packs onto their backs.
Finally they were ready, but then Tanya paused and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You know, I think I deserve another present.’
Drake glanced at her, amused at this return to how she had been while they had been trying to get home from Finland. When she had been full of hope. ‘Another one? What on earth for?’
She shrugged. ‘No reason, I just deserve it.’
He chuckled. ‘So I have to pay for your teeth and buy you, how many expensive things is it now? Two? Three?’
‘Five.’
Drake frowned. ‘Five? Are you sure? I don’t think...’
Tanya put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. ‘Are you really going to argue with the woman who saved your life four times?’
‘Four? Are you sure you know how to count in English?’ Drake laughed. ‘It would be cheaper and a hell of a lot easier just to marry you and give you half of everything I own!’
He gave her his most winning smile, the one he’d practised in the mirror so often as a child when he’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to impress Gwen. He hoped that it would work on this woman and that she would understand the unspoken question in his words.
There was a brief silence as Tanya blinked at him, scowl gone and mouth open, but then she squealed in a very feminine manner that was extremely unlike her and leapt into his arms, knocking him back into the wall next to the pressure room door. ‘Took you long enough!’ She kissed him enthusiastically, leaving him breathless, before pulling back and taking his hands with her calloused ones. ‘Why do you think I never left you behind?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought it was just for the gifts you were extorting from me.’
She slapped his face gently. ‘Silly boy! I loved you from the first moment I saw you - you were like a helpless puppy, struggling through the snow.’
‘Um... thank you?’
A soft hissing caught their attention, preventing any more musing on his weak showing in the forest and they grinned at each other.
‘Looks like the plan’s working,’ said Drake.
They snatched a last quick kiss before hurriedly putting their masks on, then sat and grabbed onto the railings of the balcony, peering through them to watch the floor down below, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen.
For long minutes there was silence as the air fled the room and, as the time stretched on, Drake was beginning to think that something had failed, that there was perhaps some backup somewhere that prevented the springs detaching while the ship was in the air. He turned to Tanya to ask if there was an alternate plan but, before he could, the klaxon blared three times, deafening in their ears and the overhead lights flashed red, so he just grinned at her instead.
The men and women on the balcony pressed their faces against the railing eagerly, unblinking and holding their breath, not wanting to miss the momentous event.
However, when it came, the release was anticlimactic; one second the capstan and the faintly marked circle was there, the next there was a gaping hole. There was no sudden list to one side as the airship lost a quarter of its propulsion, no lurch, no plunge from the skies, there was not even the expected rush of air, since the pressure had been almost completely equalised. There was just the same silence as before, but now it was tinged with a creeping cold, presaging an uncomfortable flight.
Slowly, they became aware of a hooting alarm going off somewhere in the airship as the Prussians woke to the danger in their midst and one by one the others looked to Drake and Tanya.
Faced with holding the fate of the improvised expedition in his hands, Drake felt the first doubts of the wisdom of the plan rising up, but he swallowed his nerves and stood, then led them down the stairs.
The group of men and women stood at the edge, looking down.
Far below, a solid layer of clouds shone pearlescent in the moonlight. It was beautiful, but also unfortunate; there had been no compasses with the flightsuits or glidewings because they were only for emergencies, to get people directly to the ground. They were not meant to be used to travel the kind of distance they were planning to. Drake hadn’t worried about that, though, because from their height they should have been able to see the entirety of Sicily and at least part of Italy and would have been able to use those reference points to navigate. They would even have been able to see Malta when they’d gotten just a bit closer. The clouds prevented that, though.
Drake swore. ‘Dammit, I was hoping for a clear night. How are we going to know we’re heading the right way?’
Tanya put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Rudy, I can read the stars. I was a sailor before...’
‘Yes, yes, before the war. Right,’ interrupted Drake with a laugh, his breath steaming the inside of her mask momentarily. ‘Was there anything you weren’t before the war?’
‘Of course.’
Dr
ake waited for her to elaborate, but when she didn’t he chuckled again. ‘Well? What?’
‘A pilot,’ she said simply with a shrug, as if it were obvious, then jumped.
About the Author
Simon Brading’s interest in aviation began when he was very young and at thirteen he joined the RAF section of the Combined Cadet Forces of Dulwich College with the aim of becoming a pilot. However, when he was 18, had reached the rank of Flight Sergeant in the CCF and was trying to get into a University Air Squadron, he was told that his eyesight wasn’t good enough to be a pilot, so he had to move onto plan B... something else.
He never lost his interest in flight, though, and hopes to add a PPL to his very basic and probably extremely expired glider license.
As well as the odd novel he writes screenplays and every so often does some acting.
www.simonbrading.co.uk
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Also by Simon Brading
Displacers
The Pirate's Heir
The Secret of the Ancients
The Whitechapel Plot
The Price of Greed
The Time for Vengeance
Dismal Futures Books
Empath
The Lifeboat at the End of the Universe
Twin Ambitions
Fight to Dance
Back to Basics
Misfit Squadron Series
The Battle Over Britain
The Russian Resistance
A Misfit Midwinter
The Lion and the Baron
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