‘Looks like a pretty good alibi to me,’ I said, breathing in the familiar atmosphere of the BBMF hangar. It was as though I’d never been away, but until now I had avoided all invitations to go back to Coningsby since the accident. My motives for staying away were a jumble of reason and irrationality, ranging from a wish to remember the happy times and a fear that going back would turn the knife in the wound by showing me just how much I had lost.
Riggs is one of those canny Yorkshiremen who doesn’t say much but never misses a thing. He stood beside me, reading my thoughts no doubt, keeping quiet for fear of intruding on the cascade of emotions that flowed through my mind. Seeing the dear old Lanc again was like being reunited with a long-lost friend. Even stripped down for servicing, surrounded by scaffolding and access ladders, and perched on a series of trestles and tree-trunk sized screw jacks, it had lost none of its elegance.
Riggs folded his arms across the front of his flying suit and gazed at the Lancaster like a proud father. ‘Nothing’s changed since you were here, Bill. The display season still runs from April to October and we use the winter period for servicing. She had new props and magnetos last year and this time we’re working on the hydraulics. Some of the actuators are getting a bit long in the tooth so we’re changing them.’ Riggs ducked under the barrier delimiting the public viewing area and indicated to me to follow. An RAF corporal was working on the starboard rudder and nodded his assent to Riggs’ request to show the visitor around. We climbed the short aluminium ladder to the door in the rear fuselage, ducking into the narrow space which was lit by a row of lights clipped to the fuselage frames. At once, my nostrils filled with the unmistakable smell of old aircraft – a cocktail of aviation fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, old electrical wiring and leather. For an instant I felt happy once more – something that rarely happens these days – but then came reality’s bucket of cold slops. This wasn’t part of my life any more. I was nothing more than a ghost, haunting the byways of my past. It was the same feeling I got whenever I visited the suburb of London where I grew up – a place of familiar names, but where the old bricks have been replaced by new concrete and the once familiar streets now throng with hurrying strangers.
Savouring the atmosphere, I followed him into the belly of the whale, climbing onto the walkway above the bomb bay, then sliding over the wing spar covers into the forward crew compartment. We squeezed past the navigator’s station into the cockpit. ‘Go on, take a seat,’ Riggs said with a smile. ‘I think you know the way.’
For a moment I was speechless. Although the view through the Perspex was of the inside of a hangar rather than the green fields of Lincolnshire, I felt a surge of joy, an emotion I had thought completely lost to me. ‘Thank you, Harry. You’ve no idea what it means to be back,’ was all I could manage without choking up.
‘I thought you might like it. Sit there as long as you like,’ Riggs said.
‘Careful, I’ll be here till the display season starts,’ I replied, swinging myself down from the seat and following him back down the narrow green tunnel to the door. I paused in the hatchway, looking aft towards the rear gun turret. ‘That must’ve been a horribly lonely place to die,’ I said.
Riggs shook his head in admiration. ‘God only knows how those blokes did it, night after night, getting shot up, seeing aircraft going down in flames all around them, but still going back for more.’
We made our way back across the hangar to Riggs’ office and he closed the door. His face was serious now. ‘So what’s going on?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Bill, don’t give me that. You of all people must be in the know. This is something to do with the new town at Leckonby, isn’t it?’
‘I think it must be. Someone’s going to a lot of effort to scare people off buying houses there. They’ve even had a go at putting the frighteners on me.’
Riggs leaned forward, I could see I had caught his imagination. ‘Go on, what did they do?’
‘Well, you know that people say the place is haunted?’
He gave a derisive snort. ‘Yes, lights, strange apparitions, things going bump in the night. Load of old cock if you ask me.’
‘Couldn’t have put it better myself. But if they, whoever they are, can convince enough people the place is haunted, no one will want to live there.’ I told him about the meeting with Colonel Aubrey Cavendish and my visit to Hobbs End Hall.
‘And this Cavendish, he shook your hand, you say? Doesn’t sound like a ghost to me.’
‘Nor me,’ I replied. ‘At the time I didn’t know what to think. You see, it’s a bit embarrassing really, but since the accident, I’ve been having hallucinations and I thought at first Cavendish was one of them. But he was solid flesh and blood. So was his dog, it even licked my hand.’
‘And the manager at the old folks’ home with his conveniently long-lost photo album?’ Riggs asked, eyebrows raised.
I shrugged. ‘Could be all part of the game. I’m guessing he probably lives nearby and doesn’t want a bloody great housing estate on his doorstep any more than the other locals do.’ Then I remembered and reached into my coat pocket. ‘You know what I said about the Very flare? Well I found this.’ I laid the cartridge case on the desk between us.
Riggs examined it for a moment. ‘I don’t know anything about these, but I know a man who does.’ He picked up the telephone and dialled. Moments later there was a knock on the door and a Flight Sergeant, clad in blue overalls, came into the office. ‘This is Flight Sergeant Harris,’ Riggs said. ‘Better known as “Bomber”. One of our armourers, if he doesn’t recognise it, nobody will. Here you go, Bomber.’
Harris picked up the cartridge, closed his eyes and smiled, mimicking the tones of a fortune-teller. ‘I’m seeing red. Am I right, sir?’ he asked me, opening his eyes once more.
‘Yes, how did you know?’ I asked.
He handed it back to me. ‘Feel the metal base. It’s milled all the way round. That means it’s a red flare. No milling means green. Half-milled is white and quarter-milled is yellow. The tops were different too. All so you’d know which flare was which in the dark – the system started during the First World War.’
‘Can you tell me anything else about it? Like where the people who fired it might’ve got it from.’
He examined the cartridge carefully. ‘You say this was fired recently, sir?’
‘Yes, last week. Why?’
He smiled, ‘Talk about past its sell-by date. It’s a wonder it didn’t misfire. This is a museum piece.’
‘How old is it?’ I asked.
He pointed to a series of numbers and letters stamped in black on the side. This shows it was made in October 1943, the code here is for the manufacturer – Schermuly in this case – and finally, we can see it came from their factory in Surrey – Newdigate to be precise. Where they found an antique like this is anybody’s guess – it’s illegal to buy flare cartridges without a permit so it’s not something you’d pick up at a boot sale.’
After the Flight Sergeant had left I told Riggs about the voices I’d heard from the Leckonby air traffic control tower and the people running towards the ops block. I skipped over the inconvenient vanishing trick they seemed to have pulled by passing through a solid wall. I also kept quiet about the old bus that had forced me off the road. For now, I would mark those up as among my more vivid hallucinations.
‘I think you’re right, Bill,’ Riggs said. Someone’s going to a lot of time and effort over this. Still seems a strange tack to take though. You know, ghosts and all that. Especially in this day and age.’
‘So how do you explain what the airline crew saw?’ I asked him. ‘Getting hold of vintage flare cartridges is difficult, but not impossible. But a Lancaster? The only airworthy one in Europe is sitting out there being serviced.’
Riggs paused, deep in thought. ‘No other explanation,’ he said at last. ‘They’re in on it too.’
‘Who are?’ I asked.
‘The Anglia Airways crew. Stand the aircraft on its ear, frighten the passengers, then log an Airprox report against an aircraft that couldn’t possibly be there.’
The penny dropped. ‘Of course. I must be getting slow in my old age. If it couldn’t possibly be there, then it must be a ghost.’
‘Precisely,’ Riggs replied. ‘And in the markings of a Leckonby-based aircraft. What a coincidence.’
‘But why? Cui bono?’
His face creased into a rare smile. ‘No idea. That’s for you to find out, old lad. You’re the ace news-hound. Questions like that are out of my pay grade.’
***
The following day I drove to Humberside airport. I got there a few minutes early so I drove past the signs to the terminal car park before turning left off the main road towards Kirmington village. Just before the church, I stopped the car and got out to look at the memorial to the aircrew of 166 Squadron, killed on operations while flying from what was then RAF Kirmington. In a small, neatly-tended square of grass and trees stood the simple stone plinth with its metal plaque, and behind it, a single blade from a Lancaster propeller. As I often do when standing in silent contemplation in front of one of these monuments, I wondered what the men they commemorate would make of the modern world. I hoped they wouldn’t think their sacrifice had been in vain.
The Anglia Airways crew were waiting for me in the airline’s offices. The captain, a bull of a man with a shock of dark curls overshadowing a square-chinned face, towered over his younger first officer who to me looked barely out of his teens. I introduced myself and handed each of them a business card. Neither man made eye contact and I sensed a strong atmosphere of tension in the room as we each took a seat.
My feelings were confirmed when the captain spoke. A vein stood out on his forehead and his voice was almost a shout. ‘They reckon we’re making it up,’ he said.
‘Who do?’ I asked.
‘The Civil Aviation Authority. Air traffic. The Anglia Airways management, that’s who,’ he replied. His first officer flinched
‘And you’re sure it was a Lancaster?’
‘Course I’m sure. And before you tell me, yes, I know the only airworthy Lancaster on this side of the Atlantic is sitting in a hangar at RAF Coningsby being serviced. But we both saw it, didn’t we?’ he said, turning to glare at the first officer, who nodded his assent, eager to please.
‘Anything on the radar trace?’ I asked.
‘Just us, that’s what’s so bloody annoying.’ He handed me a copy of the radar print-out. ‘Here, keep this one if you like.’ I spread it out on the desk and he jabbed a beefy finger at the line indicating the track of his aircraft. ‘This is where we began our descent to two thousand feet for an RNAV approach to runway 02. And here,’ down came the finger again, ‘just before we levelled off is when we came out of cloud and saw the Lancaster. It was at the same height as us, crossing right-left and bloody close.’
‘And I understand you had to take pretty severe avoiding action,’ I said, remembering what I had read in the CAA report.
‘Ninety degrees of bank and four g.’ It was the first time the first officer had spoken. ‘One of the cabin crew fell and broke her collarbone, and all the overhead lockers came open so lots of passengers got hit by luggage.’
I wrote this down. ‘What’s the g-limit of the aircraft?’
‘Two point five,’ he replied.
‘You were lucky not to pull the wings off. Did you get another look at it after that?’ I asked him, but before he could reply, the captain butted in again.
‘Bloody right we did. I wanted to make sure I got a good look at the idiot’s registration before we lost him in the murk again. The visibility wasn’t great.’
I looked down at my notes. ‘Battle letters CD-O and HK807 by the tail. You’re both agreed on that?’
They nodded. I then took a half-million scale topographical aviation chart from my bag and together we transcribed the track of the airliner onto it, together with the assumed trajectory of the Lancaster.
Then, trying to make the question seem as innocent as possible I asked each of them where they lived. The first officer, like me, lived in Lincoln, but it was the captain’s answer that seemed to confirm my suspicions. His address at Lingate Heath was no more than a mile from the village of Leckonby. ‘So what do you think about the new town and the wind farm?’ I asked him.
‘It’ll mean a lot of construction traffic for a year or so. But if the appeal against the planning permission fails, I suppose we’ll have to live with it.’
The captain’s answer took me by surprise. I had been expecting a full-scale rant. I tried another tack. ‘You do realise the markings of your Lancaster make it a Leckonby-based aircraft?’
‘Yes, I looked it up. Funny coincidence that,’ he replied, still without any trace of emotion.
I had a last try. ‘They say the airfield’s haunted. You don’t think the appearance of the Lancaster could have a supernatural origin?’
He gave a derisive snort. I half expected him to paw the ground and charge at me. ‘Supernatural? Nothing supernatural about what we saw. It was solid all right and so were the crew inside the cockpit. We got one hell of a bump when we went through its slipstream too. And before you ask, no, it couldn’t have been a model. We nearly hit a full-size Lancaster, no mistake. Sorry if that spoils a good story, Mr Price.’
***
During the drive back to Lincoln I tried to make sense of what I’d heard. At first, the answer had seemed obvious. Take one large, aggressive captain whose house was about to be blighted by a new housing development and unsightly wind turbines. Add a biddable, timid young co-pilot, willing to back a claim that they had nearly hit an aircraft that couldn’t possibly be real. Then throw in an overenthusiastic attempt to avoid the “collision” during which they’d overstressed the aircraft, injured one of their cabin crew and battered their passengers with a shower of falling luggage. It was the most plausible answer and certainly would have explained the tension I had sensed between the two men. The trouble was, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were telling the truth. Yet at the same time, my mind kept going back to the more logical explanation that this was all part of the attempt to sell a wholly fictitious ghost story to a credulous public.
The airline captain’s fears were realised. The latest appeals against the planning process by the “Leckonby Action Group”, or “The Lags”, as they liked to call themselves, had failed, and work began on the airfield.
Demolition and building always seem to attract those with an eye for a quick turn and for making off with other people’s property. A group of traveller caravans now huddled on a section of concrete near the old shooting butts, giving “The Lags” something else to worry about.
The small museum on the airfield was broken into and a World War Two parachute stolen. Other buildings were ransacked for copper piping and several houses in Leckonby village lost the expensive wooden gates to their drives. Inevitably, the travellers got the blame and the curtains of Leckonby twitched frantically every time one of their number was spotted in the village.
As for me, my story in the Lincoln Post about the phantom Lancaster had its fifteen minutes of fame – it even made national TV – and attracted the usual cast of conspiracy theorists, UFO-spotters and the deranged, until, like its subject, it faded from view.
On several nights, lights were seen on the airfield and worried “Lags” called the police. After the third late-night call-out, the police lost interest and persuaded the building company to put up security cameras. Blurry images of people moving about in the dark were recorded, logged and duly ignored. The travellers denied all responsibility, but nobody in Leckonby believed them.
Then came an event that even an old sceptic like me couldn’t explain. Opposite the entrance to the RAF Leckonby site stands a memorial to the airfield’s bomber crews who lost their lives during the war. On a base of Portland limestone, the bronze figure of an airman in flyin
g gear stands looking towards the eastern horizon, with one hand raised to shield his eyes from the rising sun.
The report I got from the police went something like this – at about four in the morning, the owner of one of the houses on the edge of the village was woken by the sound of a man screaming. ‘Like a soul in torment,’ he described it.
After a second 999 call, the police finally arrived in the village to find one of the gypsies, lying in the gutter in the foetal position, incoherent and babbling, tears streaming down his face and his clothes soaked by the rain. Over and again he repeated the same words. ‘It’s the statue. It’s the statue.’ The police patrol called an ambulance to take care of him, and when it arrived, drove on towards the airfield. Lying in the middle of the road opposite the memorial, the figure of a man was lit up by their headlights. His neck lay twisted at a grotesque angle and the dull sheen of his sightless eyes showed that he had been dead some time. In the road next to him was a powerful disc cutter, itself badly battered.
By the time I arrived at Leckonby later that morning, there was little sign of the previous night’s drama, and the overnight rain had been replaced by a watery November sun. As far as the police were concerned, it was a simple case of two men trying to steal what to them was merely a valuable lump of bronze. A line of new, bare metal on the airman’s leg showed where they had started cutting. The dead man had obviously slipped from the wet plinth and broken his neck in the fall. The stolen ladder they had used to get up to the statue lay in the wet grass by the roadside.
I confess that at first I found it hard to feel too sorry for him. Then I realised that somewhere, probably in one of the caravans huddled on the cracked concrete on the other side of the airfield, a family was now mourning, and I rebuked myself for being so callous.
Bomber Boys - a Ghost Story Page 4