The Long Flight Home

by Alan Hlad

  “FDR says we’re going to stay neutral,” Mother said.

  “We’ll be in this war eventually.” Ollie’s father tapped his thigh. “If I didn’t have a bum leg, I’d have a mind to walk to Montreal and join the Merchant Navy. At least the Canadians have the guts to stand by Britain.” He lowered the paper. “Our family may have lost our accent . . .”

  “But our blood is, and always will be, British,” Ollie said, cutting off his father. “We know.”

  The porch turned silent, except for the creek of the swing and the caw of a crow in the potato field.

  “I suggest that you never forget it.” Ollie’s father dropped the paper, retrieved his cane, and stood.

  “Dad, I didn’t mean to . . .”

  Father raised his hand. “Your mother and I have errands to run.” He turned and went inside, the screen door banging against the frame.

  Mother sighed and looked at Ollie. “Have you forgotten how your father lost his brother?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ollie said, recalling the uncle he had never met. Uncle Henry was killed in the Great War, two years before Ollie was born. Each year on Henry’s birthday, Ollie’s father honored his brother’s memory by going salmon fishing, their favorite childhood sport in northern England. Ollie often joined his father for the day, fly-fishing in the solitude of the Saco River’s rippling waters. Although his father spoke little of the details, Ollie had managed to piece together that a cloud of chlorine gas had forced Henry to abandon his trench in exchange for machine-gun fire. Henry died, and so did a piece of his father, in a French field on the Western Front.

  “You should be more respectful of your father’s feelings about the war. And mine.” Mother paused. “Want something to eat?”

  Ollie shook his head, feeling as if his stomach was filled with clay.

  “You and your father can continue this discussion when we get back from town.” Mother stood. “And I expect you to apologize.”

  “I will.”

  She placed her hands on her hips.

  “I promise.” Ollie retrieved the rubber band and slid it onto his wrist. “I better get going. Lots of dusting to do.”

  “Be careful,” his mother said, going inside.

  Behind the barn, Ollie saw the weathered canary-yellow biplane, looking like a prehistoric bird warming its old bones in the morning sun. The plane was fully fueled and loaded with insecticide, or what his father aptly called pixie dust. He checked the tension wires strung between the upper and lower wings, stepped into the cockpit, and put on his leather cap. As he flipped the ignition, the engine coughed and the propeller turned over, sending a vibrating buzz through his body. He advanced the power, moving the plane down a bumpy earthen runway that split the potato field. The plane accelerated, and the tail began to rise. Sensing the proper speed, considering the instrument panel didn’t work, he pulled back on the stick, and the plane lifted into the air. He circled their house, wondering how he would smooth things over with his father. Flying west to the farmlands, he replaced thoughts of war with his longing of someday going away to college.

  The Maine potato harvest would soon be over, bringing an end to another crop-dusting season and his third year of staying home to run the family potato farm. Assuming the fall crop had a good yield and the price for potatoes didn’t plummet, perhaps they’d have enough money for him to leave for college next year. He’d already been accepted at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. But before he would allow himself to leave, his father’s health would need to improve. If everything went perfectly, five or six years from now, he’d have his aeronautical engineering degree, his ticket out of Buxton.

  There was nothing wrong with Buxton. In many respects, a farm was a great place to grow up, and he had no regrets about staying to help his father. But most of his friends had left home years ago; many were now cutting logs for a paper mill or hoisting crustaceans from the back of a lobster boat. And the lucky ones had gone off to college, including his girlfriend, Caroline, who went to Bowdoin, where her letters had dwindled and eventually stopped. Even his high school buddies, Stan and James, had gone to the University of Maine and seldom came home on breaks. They were reveling in their life of academia and social parties, while Ollie was still living with his parents. They had taken different paths, and Ollie couldn’t blame them for falling out of touch.

  Caroline had been Ollie’s first girlfriend. They’d dated during their senior year of high school. Caroline had been cute and popular, and her family owned one of the largest lumber mills in York County; they were wealthy by Buxton standards. And she’d been charmed, Ollie believed, by his ability to fly a plane, an attractive trait when compared to boys who were driving their parents’ car. Initially, he thought Caroline might be the girl he was going to spend his life with. But things changed when Ollie’s dad was injured. Caroline, who claimed that she didn’t do well with hospitals, had reluctantly joined Ollie and his mother to visit Ollie’s dad in the recovery ward. And Caroline had turned reticent when Ollie brought up the subject of having to defer college to take care of the family farm. In the end, Ollie had stayed home, and Caroline had gone to college, where she distanced herself from Ollie, even making excuses on holidays for why she was too busy to see him. He’d been dejected. She doesn’t want to risk being stuck with me on a farm. But as time passed, Ollie realized that it was best that he and Caroline had gone their separate ways. More importantly, he now knew that he wanted what his parents had in a relationship. They would always be there for each other, regardless of life’s unexpected circumstances. Someday, I’ll love a woman as much as Dad loves Mom.

  Despite spending his entire life in a town where he knew everyone by their first name, he now felt out of place. In Buxton, one either farmed or fished, not a good fit for someone who preferred the speed of a plane to the crawl of a tractor. And besides, he had always been allergic to shellfish, unable to have even a nibble of lobster without breaking into hives and running for the bathroom.

  With a college degree, he would certainly have options to design or build planes, taking him to new parts of the country, perhaps as far as California. But what he really wanted to do was fly. Since the first time his father had taken him crop-dusting, he was hooked. Ollie’s father had placed Ollie on his lap, slid a leather flight cap on him that was several sizes too big on his son’s head, and took to the sky. Ollie, a grin carved into his face, loved the way the plane angled upward to the clouds as he pulled the stick to his chest. He felt his father laugh, his back bouncing against his father’s tummy. Then his father eased his hands forward to keep from pulling a loop, a dangerous maneuver considering the biplane was missing safety harnesses. By the time he was fourteen, when he had grown big enough to reach the pedals, his father acted as a copilot, gradually weaning him from instructions. Within a year, he was flying on his own, much to the chagrin of his mother, who still worried about him getting hurt playing football. To help put his mother’s mind at ease, his father installed new safety harnesses, but considering Ollie’s fearless acrobatics, that was about as useful as giving a tightrope walker an umbrella.

  As he approached a large farm, Ollie pushed the stick forward and felt his body rise, and the nose of the biplane tipped down. The engine roared. Wind pressed against his face. Approaching the ground, he adjusted the stick, feeling the pull of gravity sink him into his seat. The plane leveled off. Five feet above a potato field, he pulled the lever. A spray of dust streamed behind the tail and fell like snow. At the end of the field, he pulled back hard on the stick, shooting the plane over a row of towering pines. He arced to the left and came around for another pass.

  Ollie spent the morning dusting fields. Finishing his last farm, he checked the fuel gauge—the only instrument that seemed to work—and tipped the wings to the north. The scattered fields disappeared, and in the distance, he saw his favorite spot, Sebago Lake. There were few farmers in this area, at least none who were clients of his father’s business, making it unlikely that w
ord about Ollie’s stunts would get back to his mother. Otherwise, he’d be skinned alive.

  Above the lake, he did a snap roll, as if the fuselage spun on a skewer. He pulled the nose straight to the sky, flying toward the clouds until the propeller lost its battle against the pull of gravity and tipped the plane over, just before the engine stalled, into a hammerhead dive. As he fell to the lake, he pulled up and glided over the still water, feeling the urge to dip the landing gear.

  A young girl in pigtails ran out of a cottage—the only home on the north side of the lake—and stood on a dock. She waved and jumped. Ollie tipped the wings, buzzed the shoreline, and performed his usual show for an audience of one. The girl, whom Ollie only knew from the air, was probably in grade school. Attracted by the roar of the plane’s engine, she often came outside to watch. As the girl took a seat on the dock, Ollie swooped the plane high into the sky, pulling a barrel-roll maneuver, then leveled off. He performed a split-S, an inside loop, and a series of spins.

  For the finale, he decided to perform a less practiced and more challenging maneuver, the tailslide. He did a quarter loop that sent the plane straight vertical, with full power. Wind whistled. His adrenaline rushed. The aircraft continued to climb until it lost momentum, then hung for a second before falling backward. As the nose dropped through the horizon, he pushed the stick forward and sent the plane into a dive. He pulled hard on the stick and leveled off a few feet above the lake, much too close for comfort. His pulse pounded in his ears. He saw the girl standing on the shoreline clapping her hands.

  As he swooped by the cottage, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a note that was tied to a small piece of wood. He released the package. It fell gently to a grass clearing several yards from the shoreline.

  The girl ran to the package, untied the string, and read the note.

  Thanks for being a great audience. Ollie.

  The girl waved her arms. And he flew away.

  Ollie eased back the throttle and zigzagged on his way home, maximizing his time in the air before he’d have to begin his farm chores. As he neared Buxton, the thick forest of pines turned to rolling plots of corn, potatoes, and hay. As the family farm came into view, he noticed his father’s truck was gone, replaced with a shiny new-model car. He swooped over and saw a man in dark clothing standing on the porch. He banked around to the runway and landed. Ollie cut the engine, got out of the cockpit, and walked to the house. As he approached, he glanced at the ’39 Plymouth with an unmistakable white top and green sides. The Portland police officer stepped from the porch and removed his cap, exposing a bald head with stubbly gray sideburns.

  “Oliver Evans?” the officer asked.

  A knot formed in Ollie’s gut. “Yes.”

  “There’s been an accident.”

  Ollie opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “It’s your parents.”

  “Are they okay?”

  The officer wiped his face with a handkerchief from his pocket. “I’m sorry.”

  A shock jolted Ollie. He bent over like he’d been punched in the gut. “No,” he whimpered in disbelief. A bombardment of thoughts and emotions made him feel as though the ground was spinning. Numb and having difficulty walking, he was helped into the police car by the officer. As they drove away, the smell of cigar smoke embedded into the interior made Ollie’s stomach churn.

  “The driver had been drinking,” the officer said, gripping the steering wheel. “He ran a red light, veered onto a sidewalk, and struck your parents as they were leaving Casco Hardware.”

  “There must be some mistake.” Ollie’s head throbbed, and his heart was ravaged by a mixture of anger and despair.

  The officer cleared his throat. “I wish there was, son.”

  Ollie slumped in his seat like a marionette with its strings severed. This can’t be happening! He had an impulse to pull the door handle and jump out, anything to escape this nightmare. Ollie, his eyes welled with tears, buried his head into his hands. He bit his lip and tasted copper.

  Twenty minutes later, Ollie arrived at the Cumberland County Morgue. A scent of rubbing alcohol hung in the air. The coroner, a thin, stoic man who was washing his hands over a sink, turned off the water and then led Ollie to a wall of nickel-plated cooler drawers. The coroner wiped his hands on his lab coat, pulled two latches, and slid the bodies out.

  Ollie’s heart sank. His eyes watered. A flash of his father picking oxeye daisies, his mother’s favorite flower. An image of Mom placing a handwritten note into Dad’s lunch box. Simple gifts were symbols of their affection for each other. But there would be no more flowers for Mom to place on the kitchen table. And no more sweet notes for Dad to add to the stack that he kept in a bedside drawer.

  The officer, standing in the doorway, turned his head.

  The coroner finished drying his hands, using the tail of his lab coat. “Are these your parents?”

  Mother was missing a shoe, her toes a pasty blue. Father’s chest was sunken, and his left arm was badly broken. Unable to bring his eyes to look at their faces, Ollie touched their hands, cold and stiff. He began to weep, then nodded to the coroner. Steel casters rolled. And his parents disappeared into the chamber.

  CHAPTER 3

  EPPING, ENGLAND—SEPTEMBER 11, 1940

  Susan woke to the smell of damp earth. She opened her eyes but saw only black, as if she had gone blind in her sleep. A rush of fear flooded her body. Her heart pounded. She shot up in her cot.

  “Are you all right?” Bertie whispered.

  Susan found Duchess nestled beside her leg. She touched her wings, feeling the softness of feathers beneath her fingers. “Yes.”

  Bertie lit a lantern, casting a glow over the shelter. He rubbed his eyes. “Are you sure?”

  Susan looked up at the ceiling, a mosaic of broken bricks, stone, and mortar. She listened. No explosions. No sirens. No grinding engines. Only tweets of predawn sparrows outside the door. “Are they gone?”

  “I believe so.” Bertie looked at his pocket watch. “But we should wait.”

  Susan stroked Duchess. The pigeon cooed. Susan’s heartbeat slowed, her breath gradually returning to normal. Within a few minutes, a loud, monotone siren sounded from North Weald Airfield, giving the all-clear signal.

  Susan tucked Duchess into her arm, stood, and opened the shelter door. She took in a deep breath—a mixture of fresh air, dew, and discharged gunpowder. A few remaining stars were dissolving into the sky, giving way to a rising sun. She looked toward London. Fires glowed. Streams of smoke rose from the horizon, as if the bombing had cracked open the earth, creating a gateway to hell.

  Susan felt her grandfather’s arm on her shoulder. She lowered her head and leaned into him.

  It had been four straight nights of bombing. The ashen haze would dissipate throughout the day as fire brigades relentlessly fought raging fires. But night would bring another round of bombing and more destruction, forcing them to burrow into the shelter like moles, only to emerge each morning to learn what remained of London.

  “Will they ever stop?” Susan asked, wiping her eyes.

  “Eventually,” Bertie said, a slight hesitation in his voice. He shifted his weight and grimaced.

  “How’re the knees?”

  Bertie rubbed his kneecaps. “A bit dodgy, I’m afraid.”

  “You should be using your walking stick.”

  Bertie shook his head. “Saving it to break over Hitler’s arse.”

  Susan squeezed her grandfather’s hand. “Come inside, and I’ll get you some ointment.”

  In the living room—a cozy space with a stone fireplace and timber-beam ceiling—Susan helped Bertie into his chair, rolled up his pant legs, and rubbed ointment into his knees as Duchess sat perched on the mantel. She wiped her hands with a towel, then walked to the radio in the corner of the room and flipped the switch. Static cackled. She adjusted the knob and found the signal.

  They listened to news reports, which provided only vague descript
ions of the destruction and no mention of fatalities.

  “Why aren’t they giving details?” Susan asked.

  “Spies. We don’t want to provide the Nazis with any intelligence on what they accomplished.”

  Susan shivered at the thought of spies in London. She desperately wanted to know more, and more importantly, she wanted to know what she could do to help. An hour later, she got her answers when the prime minister addressed the nation.

  As Susan rubbed another round of ointment into Bertie’s knees, the scent of eucalyptus filling the air, they listened to Winston Churchill’s confident and unwavering voice. Churchill spoke of Hitler’s goal to obtain air superiority over Britain, before the Germans commenced a land invasion. And while Churchill addressed the barbaric attacks on civilians, his broadcast was much more than about the bombings on London. His speech, Susan believed, was intended to ignite a fire in the hearts of the British people and galvanize their will to fight.

  Susan’s breath quickened. She noticed Bertie, his jaw dropped, staring at the radio. She imagined German troops landing on British shores and marching through Epping Forest, burning everything and slaughtering everyone in their path.

  After Churchill’s brief broadcast, calling every man and woman to their post, Susan stood and turned off the radio. She thought of Londoners struggling to return to a sense of normalcy. Despite the hope in Churchill’s words, teachers would return to their classrooms to find that most of their students had been sent to the countryside, iron workers would return to flattened foundries, bakers would find no flour to make their rationed bread, and police officers would patrol deserted streets. But they would all go about their duty, whatever that might be. And so would she and Bertie.

  “We have work to do,” Susan said.

  Bertie nodded, tightened the wrappings on his knees, and stood.

  Susan carried Duchess outside, kissed the top of the bird’s head, and tossed her into the air. Duchess circled the yard and landed on the roof of the loft. The bird tucked her head under her wing, as if to shield her eyes from London’s glowing embers.