by Joe Lane
“Wonderful old rust buckets,” I said, as any true admirer would.
“Old rust buckets!” he countered, his throat hoarse and dry.
I pointed skywards as a Spitfire roared overhead followed by a second plane which I had no chance of identifying in a month of Sundays.
He scowled at me and replied acidly, “They’re more than rust buckets, lad.” His voice warbled as he talked. “Those magnificent 1030 horse-power machines helped save England from certain destruction during war, lad, and don’t you forget it!”
“Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m not ridiculing the crafts,” I said reassuringly. “But for comfort, compared to modern planes, they must have felt like carpet handbags.”
I touched a nerve with that one too.
“They weren’t built for comfort, lad,” he scowled fiercely. “Fighting machines, that’s what they were. The finest in their time and as fast as they come; swift, so manoeuvrable it could turn on a sixpence.”
“You obviously know a lot about them?”
“Know lad! During the war I happened to be part of the ground crew that kept those beauties air worthy when they were needed. ‘Erks’, we were nicknamed but we were a skilled bunch with it. When those battle battered Spits returned we would work through the night to patch them back up again in readiness for the next flight.”
“So you were actually stationed here during the war?”
“Aye lad, I was.”
“The war certainly kept you busy.”
“Aye, it did that, lad, and more. In a short space of time, when the V12 Rolls Royce Merlin engines became the power of the Spitfire, we had to become experts. We didn’t have time to be taught the intricate workings of those engines. ‘Erks had to quickly require the skills to repair stressed skin, split flaps, hydraulics, pneumatics, and the electrics; some wage packet if you could do all that nowadays! Aye lad, needless to say those wonderful crafts didn’t require much love and care to fight. They were awesome fighters.”
This chap was beginning to interest me. “What about the pilots based here during the war, did you get know any of them?”
“Vaguely; they came and went for various reasons. The war took a lot of good young men. I didn’t exactly socialize with them personally; you didn’t have the time for niceties; too busy.”
“Do you know if any of the pilots are still alive today?”
“Hard to say, lad, but I wouldn’t count on any of them holding a pilots licence anymore.” His chuckle of laughter was drowned by the sound of an ancient plane rattling overhead.
“I wasn’t looking for flying lessons.”
“Aye, I know, lad, just having a bit of fun.”
I pushed ahead. “Do you remember a pilot stationed here who went by the name of Wing Commander Ralph Craven?”
His saggy eyes lit up. “Now that chap I’ll never forget. Such a considerate man too. He always had a kind word to say and he made sure we had piping hot mugs of tea and lashings of toast when we grafted during the cold nights. Sometimes he would stay with us in the hangars while we worked, reminiscing on the good days before the outbreak of war. Aye, he was a grand chap alright. Went out on a mission one day and never came back, missing in action. That was the problem with the damn war, a pilots life seemed more expendable than most.”
“Yes, I’m already aware of Ralph Craven’s fate. I’m more interested in talking to any surviving war veterans who served with him here at Duxford. Someone he may have been chummy with.”
“Are you related to Craven? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“He was my Grandfather.”
His jawbone drooped, as if he’d said something dreadfully wrong. “How tactless of me, I never stopped to think.”
“There’s no problem; honestly! It was all a long time ago.” Frigging hell, I was beginning to sound so sincere I began to believe every bit of bullshit I spoke. I now knew how a thespian feels when he plays a character so believable he has problems distinguishing what was fictional and what was reality. It was a strange feeling to have. I prompted him to continue. “I was asking about any of his flying chums?”
I waited impatiently for the rusty cogs of his brain to clanged into action, the skies exploding above our heads when two modern fighter planes zoomed across, the sound of the jet engines blasting my eardrums to the point of insanity that I wanted to scream. As for the old man remembering ex-patriots it was probably a long shot but then I was desperate for any scrap of information.
I could have sworn I heard a metallic ping echo from between his ears just a second before he got all excited and raised a finger of remembrance. “Group Captain Bane!” he suddenly bellowed above the racket. “He’s still alive. Or at least he was.”
Stooping to hear him because of a noisy jet overhead, I said, “Who did you say?”
“Group Captain Bane. I spoke to him here two years ago. Never saw him last year though. He told me he always made the annual pilgrim to Duxford to honour the fallen.”
I actually felt deflated. “Two years is a long time. He must be getting on a bit with his age; he could have passed away by now?”
“Aye, lad, he may well have. But I doubt it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Bane gave me the impression that he looked after himself physically; he didn’t half look youthful for his age, made me feel like his father. We were gossiping about the war like two old women. He knew his planes alright. He said he made the trip every year from Yorkshire, though I only ever saw him that one time, two years ago.”
“Yorkshire’s a big place. Did the chap mention whereabouts in Yorkshire he lived?”
He nodded. “He did as a matter of fact.”
I hurried him along. “Can you remember where exactly?”
“It was a village with a funny name.”
“Can you remember the name of the village? It’s important that I meet and talk to him.”
He suddenly snapped his fingers. “It’s Gaggle or something that sounds just like that.” He frowned. “Gagglestone I think. No not Gagglestone.” His face creased in deep thought.
I couldn’t help him in any way as I’d no idea where he was trying pinpoint. Seconds seem like minutes before he sprung back to life.
“It’s Giggle-something. Yes, that sounds more like the place he lived.” I could feel the heat of his brain going into uncontrollable overdrive and then he was talking excitedly as he remembered. “I’ve got it! Giggleswick! That’s where he said he lived.”
“It was definitely Giggleswick?”
“Yes I’m sure that was the place he mentioned.”
“Would that be Giggleswick near, Settle?” I prompted.
He looked at me vacantly. “I wouldn’t know that. To be truthful, I’ve never been further north than Birmingham.”
“Did he happen to mention if he’d retired there? What I mean: do you think he still lives in Giggleswick?”
“I wouldn’t know that either, lad. I’d be guessing.”
I didn’t prompt him for any further details. I would have to hunt down Bane myself and hoped he still resided there. I mean: how big is the village of Giggleswick? At least I’d a trail to follow which was a lot more than I had yesterday.
I made my excuses for not stopping any longer, thanked him for the information and left the commotion and fuss of the air show with more enthusiasm in my step than I had an hour ago. Strangely, I was beginning to enjoy my days as a detective and I was seriously considering it as a secondary occupation for when the treasure trails slackened during the winter when the ground was frozen hard. I smiled. Me! A private dick! Shackleton Speed P.I. It sounded great, adventurous.
Yes I was seriously thinking along those lines as I trundled along. But isn’t it funny how ideas can change so dramatically? And suddenly the thought of being a competent detective didn’t seem logical anymore, as I was about to discover as I approached the Roadster.
I was focusing too much on Winston at the time, wondering why he was
bouncing insanely around the car’s interior. I should have anticipated something was wrong only I’d relaxed on my security, and inadvertently, I never noticed nor heard anything untoward other than the roar of aircraft engines hurtling across the skies. Some detective I’d make because there was good reason for the dog’s madness only I didn’t see the problem until it was almost too late.
By sheer luck, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the rampaging steel bull hurtling straight at me. Somehow I jumped and twisted in one movement and scaled the bonnet of a blue car a tenth of a second before the large van smashed into the side frame of the vehicle precisely where my legs and midriff would have been. So violent the crash, the van shunted the car clear of its path. The impact sent me sprawling from the bonnet and as I crunched to the ground I managed to roll onto my knees, picking up the sound of the van accelerating away as erratically as it had approached.
I’d had a lucky escape, and a few inches either way I’d have been telling a different tale, if any at all. Okay, I’d have a few bumps and the inevitable bruises would show later, but I was still in one piece and I was quickly up on my feet watching the back end of a battered white van leaving the scene. I attempted to make a mental note of the registration but I was wasting my time because the van didn’t have one. The only visible identification I saw was on the right hand rear door and highlighted in the dirt in big letters was the impoverish scrawl of ‘wash me’.
By the time I’d considered giving chase the frigging van had disappeared from the car-park and could have taken a number of routes to escape. I cursed my incompetence for not being more alert and cursed even more knowing that my flash with death was no accident. Therefore, even though I’d taken a great deal of effort to prevent such a thing occurring, it was obvious someone had tagged me. I’d been followed. And not only had my body been bruised but also my ego.
I hand brushed the dust from my clothing, glancing around for any witnesses to the serious attempt on my life and found precisely none. I approached the Roadster with extreme caution this time. I suppose after what had just happened it would be my moral and lawful duty to alert someone to the mess of smashed vehicles. I did consider it, but that was as far as it went. It was important that I got out of there fast. Some idiot had tried to run me over. They might return for a second attempt and I didn’t wish to be around if they did. I climbed into the Roadster and patted Winston.
“Good boy! You certainly scared them off good and proper.”
I drove away from the car park and half a mile down the road, slowed and pulled in at the side of the road. Something bothered me. I couldn’t help wondering how they had found me so easily. I had this ridiculous, unimaginable thought. I got out and began a search of the exterior of the Roadster for some sort of tracking device. Checked under the bonnet, probed under the wheel hubs, finger searched along the underside of the body, bobbed my head underneath and found nothing but grime. I checked if the boot had been forced, it hadn’t. I checked inside anyway to be certain. There was nothing untoward.
I stood back away from the car scratching the back of head and totally confused. It hadn’t been sheer luck that they had found me. I was too far from London to be that unfortunate. I gave the Roadster another scan in case I’d missed anything, circling the vehicle one way then the other. At the rear of the car I felt my bootlace had loosened and bobbed down to tighten the lace. That’s when I saw the interesting piece of hardware that I’m sure wasn’t in the price when I bought the Roadster. There inside the mouth of the exhaust tail-pipe was a small device, black in colour and no bigger than my thumbnail. It was attached magnetically as I found out when I forcibly pulled it free. It gave no indication of being a tracking device, no blips, no sign of an L.E.D., no audible sounds of operation, but I had to assume it was some sort of tracker because I didn’t put it there and it made sense on how they found me so easily.
I thought about throwing the device into the hedgerow but I assumed they’d realized I found the frigging thing because the tracker wouldn’t show any movement. I was considering my options as what to do with the device when a passing motorist slowed down to admire the Roadster. The driver nodded his approval. I smiled and discreetly attached the device to the side of the passing car. I got back into the Roadster and drove on. The car, I’d attached the tracking device to, turned south. I turned north and accelerated as far away from Duxford as quickly as possible and joined the M1.
Chapter Six
Yorkshire in early summer in the afternoon is without contradiction a splendid piece of green and fresh English countryside. In comparison to the appalling air pollution across London, here I could fill my lungs and not have to cough or collapse into an asthmatic heap. Not that I suffered such ailments, but I might do in later years.
Finding Group Captain Josh Bane in the village of Giggleswick had all the adventurous excitement of scouring a tatty directory inside a piss smelling telephone kiosk I located in the vicinity. I rang him first to explain my predicament and the urgency to discuss the recent discovery of the crashed Spitfire. Thankfully he was at home and willingly invited me for a chat. I suspected he was probably lonely and needed the company and would have probably agreed to anything, even a bogus salesman with the intention of depriving him of his hard earned money.
Sweet-pea cottage, where Josh Bane lived, was awash with an abundance of flowering colour and fragrance. I followed the narrow brick pathway and rapped my knuckles on the solid oak wood door. It took him a while to answer. When he finally did the door creaked opened and I saw a frail bent man clutching a Zimmer frame for support. If he had appeared youthful to others two years ago then something had savaged his complexion to a gauntly sick grey, and without being too distasteful or unkind, I found him just before the grim reaper did.
It was hard to imagine this white haired bony old man capable of commanding the skies of Britain during the war. His suspicious watery, grey eyes scanned me with inescapable apprehension.
I smiled to reassure him I wasn’t the enemy. “Hello, Mister Bane. Shackleton Speed. I rang a little while ago. I’m here to talk about the Spitfire discovered in Berkshire.”
A slight glow of life brightened his eyes. “Ah, yes, yes, young man! Come in,” he beckoned, his voice slow and slightly hoarse, yet within that mixture of an aged larynx there was the educated posh tone of an ex-Cambridgeshire man.
I said, “It’s good of you to see me at such short notice.”
“I’m always one for a good chat, young man. If you can just squeeze past the old Zimmer chariot and head straight on to the sun lounge, I’ve got a pot of tea and some digestive biscuits ready on the table.”
I slipped past him. I heard him close the door. I walked slowly through, trying to avoid being nosey, an almost impossible thing to do in a strangers home. I heard Josh Bane scraping along after me, his bout of genuine asthmatic breathing sounding as if a stalking dragon followed my every footstep.
On reaching the sun lounge a faint flow of fresh air brushed my face and rustled the leaves of various potted plants that filled the window sills, some plants like towers and filtering the sun-light entering the room. I was impressed with the spectacular rear view of the rolling hillside.
As he shuffled into the room, I said, “Very pleasant in these parts.”
“Yes, we’ve been lucky these past years with Yorkshire summers.”
Josh Bane puffed out his cheeks as he eased himself into one of the cushioned basket chairs placed around the pine coffee table. “Sit yourself down, young man, can’t have guests standing about. If you would be so kind as to pour the tea, my shaky hands never seem to fill a cup properly anymore.”
The chair creaked as I made myself comfortable. I talked while I poured. “When I phoned, you confirmed that you were stationed at Duxford air field during the war?”
I noticed colour returning to his cheeks as he reminisced. “Indeed I was, young man. 66 Squadron based at Duxford fighter command.” His tired eyes widened.
Those were exciting times, dangerous, but exciting nevertheless. I flew a Spitfire.”
He was obviously proud of his past and he would have surely brought out his ribbon of war medals to prove it, if his legs had been more stable. I handed him a cup and took a taste of mine while observing the old boy, noticing his hands did shake slightly as he slurped his drink.
Josh Bane nodded towards the table. “Help yourself to biscuits. They’re very nice dipped in tea.”
I politely declined as I wasn’t particularly peckish, though if I’d allowed Winston inside the cottage I knew he’d have scoffed the lot without introduction.
“Do you recall a pilot by the name of Ralph Craven?”
“Wing Commander Ralph Craven! Indeed I do. Never forgot the chap. Ralph Craven was an outstanding Officer. The type of comrade you wanted beside you in those bitter times of conflict. A strong willed chap, as I remember, admirably respected amongst the men. In comparison to the other pilots under my command, I could trust him totally with anything.” His eyes dropped from mine. “Alas…one day he went out on a mission and never returned. He was listed as ‘lost in action’.”
“You obviously knew him better than most?”
“He’s the kind of chap you can never forget. But he had no connection to the fighter plane found recently?”
“You mustn’t believe everything you read in the papers. It was Craven, or what was left of him, strapped in the cockpit.”
He nearly choked on the mouthful of tea he had just sipped into his mouth. He swallowed hard, coughed and said, “Absolutely impossible young man! I might be old and withered but my eyes are still pretty damn good. The newspapers categorically stated the pilots name as being Flying Officer Derek Rowland, missing in action in 1943.”
“The information was wrong. Or the wrong information was given to the media deliberately.”
“I very much doubt that the military would make such a massive mistake when it comes to missing personal, young man.” And then he added, “Don’t let your tea get cold.”