Air Bridge

by Hammond Innes

  I hit the concrete with my legs too firmly braced for the shock. I hit it as though I’d jumped from a building into the street. The jar of the touchdown ran up my spine and hammered at my head and then all was confusion as my parachute harness jerked me forward. I had the sense to throw up my arms and duck my head into the protection of my shoulder as I hit the concrete. I remember being pitched forward and over and then there was a stunning blow on the front of my head and I lost consciousness.

  I couldn’t have been out for long because I came round to find myself being slowly dragged along the concrete by my shoulders. I dug my hands and feet in, anchoring myself for a moment. Blood ran down my face and dripped into a crack in the concrete. Somebody shouted to me and I caught hold of the strings of the parachute, struggling to fold it as I’d been taught to do. But I hadn’t the strength. I dropped back, half-unconscious, a feeling of terrible lassitude running along my muscles.

  The pull of my shoulders slackened. Somebody stooped over me and fingers worked at the harness buckles. “Neil! Are you all right? Please.”

  I looked up then. It was Else. “What—are you doing here?” I asked. I had some difficulty in getting my breath.

  “I came to see the test. What has happened? Why have you jumped?”

  “The undercarriage,” I said.

  “The undercarriage? Then it is not the engines? The engines are all right?”

  “Yes, the engines are all right. It’s the undercarriage. Won’t come down.” I looked up at her and saw that she was staring up into the sky, her eyes alight with some emotion that I couldn’t understand. “Why are you so excited?” I asked her.

  “Because——” She looked down at me quickly, her mouth clamped shut. “Come. I help you up now.” She placed her hands under my arms. The world spun as I found my feet and leaned heavily against her, waiting for the aerodrome to stop spinning. Blood trickled into my mouth and I put my hand to my forehead. It was the old cut that had reopened and I thought: This is where I came in. “What about Tubby? Is he all right?”

  “Yes. He is coming here now.”

  I shook the blood out of my eyes. A small dot was running down the runway. He shouted something. I didn’t understand at first. Then I remembered Saeton and the aircraft. Ambulance! Of course. The quarters were not five hundred yards away. “Quick, Else. I must get to the phone.” A muscle in one of my legs seemed to have been wrenched. It was hell running. But I made it in the end and seized hold of the telephone. My voice when I spoke to the operator was a breathless sob. She put me through to the Swindon hospital and then to the fire brigade. Tubby came in as I finished phoning. “Ambulance and fire brigade coming,” I said.

  “Good! You’d better lie down, Neil. Your head looks bad.”

  “I’m all right,” I said. “What about the plane?” The need for action had given me strength.

  “Saeton’s stooging round over the field at about 5,000 feet using up his remaining gas.” He turned to Else. “You’d better get some water on to heat. He may be a bit of a mess when we get him in.” She nodded quickly and hurried out to the kitchen. “What’s that girl doing here?” he asked me. But he didn’t seem to expect an answer, for he went straight out to the airfield. I followed him.

  Looking up into the sun brought a blinding pain to my eyes, but by screwing them up I could see the glint of the plane as it banked. The air was very still in the shelter of the woods and the sound of the engines seemed quite loud. Time passed slowly. We stood there in silence, waiting for the inevitable moment when the plane would cease its interminable circling and dive away over the horizon for the final approach. My legs began to feel weak and I sat down on the ground. “Why don’t you go and lie down?” Tubby asked. His voice sounded irritable.

  “I’ll stay here,” I said. I wasn’t thinking of Saeton then. I was thinking of the plane. There it was, flying perfectly. Only that damned undercarriage stood between us and success. It seemed a hard twist of fate.

  “I have arrange plenty of hot water.” It was Else. She had a steaming bowl with her and she plumped down beside me. “Now we fix that cut, eh?” I winced as the hot water touched the open cut across my forehead. The water smelt strongly of disinfectant. Then she bandaged my head and it felt better. “That is finished. Now you look like you are a wounded man.”

  “So I am,” I said. Her face hung over me, framed by the darkening blue of the sky. She looked young and soft and rather maternal. My head was in her lap. I could feel the softness of her limbs against the back of my skull. We should have been lying like that in a hay field in May. The distant drone of the aircraft was like the sound of bees. I caught the gleam of its wings just beyond her hair.

  “Where the devil’s the ambulance?” Tubby demanded. “He’s coming in now.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was twenty minutes since I’d phoned. “They’ll be here in about ten minutes,” I told him.

  He grunted a curse. “They’ll be here too late then.”

  I could see the plane gliding over Ramsbury, a black dot against the sunset. I thought of the engine we had laboured to complete all these weeks, of Saeton alone up there at the controls. The pain of my head was nothing then. My eyes were strained on the sky over Ramsbury and every fibre of my being was concentrated on the plane, which was banking sharply as it disappeared behind the trees, turning for the final approach.

  It seemed an age before it appeared again. Then suddenly it was there over the end of the runway, hanging like a great, clumsy bird over the trees, dropping towards the concrete, its landing flaps down, the props turning slowly. I scrambled to my feet and began to run. Tubby was running, too. Saeton levelled out for the touchdown and as the gap between plane and concrete lessened, the aircraft seemed to gather speed till it was rushing towards us.

  Then the belly hit the concrete. Pieces of metal were flung wide. There was a horrible scraping. But when the sound reached me the plane had bounced several feet above the runway. It came down then with a splintering crash, swivelling round, the fuselage breaking up as the tail disintegrated, grinding the concrete to puffs of powder, the metal sheeting stripping from her belly like tinplate. She slewed broadside, tipping crazily, righted herself, straightened up and broke in half. The appalling grinding sound went on for a second after she had stopped. Then there was a sudden, frightening silence. The plane lay there, a crumpled wreck, unnaturally still. Nothing moved. The sunset was just as red, the trees just as black, nothing had changed as though the aerodrome had taken no interest in the accident. Somebody had pranged a plane. It had happened here countless times during the war. Life went on.

  Tubby was running towards the machine. For a second I stood rooted to the spot, my stomach quivering in expectation of the sudden blossoming of the wreck into a blazing fury of fire. But it just lay there, inert and lifeless, and I, too, started to run.

  We got Saeton out. There was a lot of blood, but it was from his nose. He was unconscious when we laid him on the concrete, his hand badly cut and a livid bruise across his forehead. But his pulse beat was quite strong. Tubby loosened his collar and almost immediately his eyes opened, staring up at us blankly. Then suddenly there was life behind them and he sat up with a jerk that brought a groan from his lips. “How’s the plane? Is she——” His voice stopped as his eyes took in the wreck. “Oh, God!” he murmured. He began to swear then—a string of obscene oaths that ignored Else’s presence and were directed solely at the plane.

  “The engines are all right,” Tubby said consolingly.

  “What’s the good of engines without a plane?” Saeton snarled. “I got the tail too low.” He began swearing again.

  “You better lie back,” Tubby said. “There’s nothing you can do about the plane. Just relax now. The ambulance will be here in a minute.”

  “Ambulance?” He glared up at us. “What damn fool phoned for an ambulance?” He got out his handkerchief and wiped some of the blood from his face. “Get down to the main road and stop them,” he o
rdered Tubby hoarsely. “Tell them it’s all right. Tell them there wasn’t any crash after all—anything, so long as you get them away from here without them coming on to the airfield.”

  “But even if you’re all right, there’s Neil here needing treatment,” Tubby said.

  “Then take him with you and pack him off to hospital. But I don’t want them on the field. I don’t want them to know we’ve crashed.”

  “But why?” Tubby asked.

  “Why?” Saeton passed his hand across his eyes and spat blood on to the concrete “I don’t know why. I just don’t want anyone to know about this. Now for God’s sake stop arguing and get down to the road.”

  Tubby hesitated. “That nose of yours looks as though it’s broken,” he said. “And there may be something else——”

  “There’s nothing else broken,” Saeton snarled. “If there is I’ll get to a doctor under my own steam. Now get going.”

  Tubby glanced at me. “I’m all right,” I said. He nodded and started at a steady trot across the field towards the quarters. Saeton struggled to his feet and stood there, swaying weakly, staring at the wreckage, bitter, black despair in his eyes. Then, as he turned away, he caught sight of Else and his thick hands clenched with sudden violence of purpose. “I thought you were going back to Germany,” he said hoarsely.

  “I go on Monday.” Her eyes were wide and she looked frightened.

  “Wanted to be in at the death, eh? You timed it nicely.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You do not understand, eh?” he mimicked her crudely. “I suppose you don’t understand what happened up there?” He was moving towards her, staggering slightly, the sweat standing out in great drops on his forehead and running down into his eyes. “Well, the connecting rod was snapped. We couldn’t lower the undercarriage. That surprises you, eh? You didn’t know the connecting rod was broken.”

  The expression on his face held me rooted to the spot. It was a bloody mask of hatred. Else stood quite still, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open. And then suddenly she was talking, talking fast, the words tumbling out of her as though in themselves they could form a barrier between herself and what was moving so inevitably upon her. “I do not touch your plane. I have nothing to do with what has happened. Please. You must believe me. Why should I do this thing? These are my father’s engines—my father’s and mine. I wish them to fly. I wish to see them in the air. It is all I have left of him. It is the work we do together. He was happy then, and I was happy also. I want them to fly. I want them——”

  “Your father’s engines!” The contempt in his voice stopped her like a slap in the face. “They’re my engines. Mine. Your father’s engine wouldn’t work. It crashed. I broke my leg trying to fly the bloody thing. It was no good. We had to start again. All over again. A new design.”

  She flung up her head then, facing him like a tigress defending her young. “It is not a new design. It is different, but it is the same principle. Those engines belong to him. They are——”

  He laughed. It was a wild, violent sound. “You’ve smashed what I’ve lived for for three years. You’re happy now, aren’t you? You think now that Germany will get control of them again. But she won’t.” He was very close to her now. “You tried to kill us. Well, now I’m going to——”

  “That’s a lie!” she cried. “I have nothing to do with it. Nobody has touched the airplane.”

  “Then why are you here—on the spot, gloating——”

  “Oh, will you never understand?” she cried furiously. “I come to see them up there in the air. They are my father’s work. Do you think it is no excitement for me to see them fly? Please, I have nothing to do with the crash.” His hands had reached out to her and gripped her shoulders. She was suddenly pleading. “I have done nothing—nothing. You must believe what I say.”

  But he didn’t seem to hear her. “You tried to kill us,” he whispered hoarsely. “You tried to smash everything I have worked for. First you try to bribe me with your body. Then you try to get control of my company. When you don’t succeed you try to destroy what I’ve worked for. If you can’t get what you want you must destroy it. That is the German in you. Everything you touch, you destroy. And always you work for Germany.”

  “Not for Germany,” she cried. “Only for my father. Everything I do, I do for my father. Why could you not give him the credit for what he do?”

  “You’re a part of the Germany I’ve hated since I was a kid,” he went on, his voice thick as though clotted with blood, his hands gripping her violently, fumbling blindly for her throat. “My father in one war, my mother in another. All you can do is smash and break things. And now I’m going to break you—break you in little pieces.”

  Her eyes started wildly as his blunt fingers dug into her neck. Then she began to struggle, and in that instant I came to life and moved forward. But I needn’t have bothered. His hands clawed at her clothes and his body slowly sagged against her, his knees giving under him and pitching him forward on to his face.

  Saeton had fainted.

  Else stared down at him, fear and horror stamped on her face. I think she thought he was dead. “I didn’t do anything to the airplane.” The words were a strangled sob. “Neil!” She glanced wildly at me. “Nobody touched the airplane. You must believe that.”

  Saeton moved suddenly, his fingers digging into the earth, scrabbling at it as he tried to rise, and when he had pushed himself up on to his knees, she broke and ran.

  Tubby came back and we got Saeton to the quarters and put him to bed. His ribs were badly bruised, but nothing seemed to be broken. It was shock more than anything else. Still half-dazed he ordered us to get one of Ellwood’s tractors and have the wreckage dragged into the hangar. He wanted it done that night. He seemed to have an unreasoned, instinctive urge to get the evidence of failure under cover as quickly as possible. It was as though he felt none of his own injuries, only the hurts of the aircraft and wanted to let it crawl away into the dark like a dog to lick its wounds.

  By ten o’clock that night it was done and all trace of the crash landing was concealed behind the closed doors of the hangar. The plane was a hell of a mess. The tractor took it in in two pieces, the tail having ripped off completely as soon as we began to drag the wreck along the concrete. Saeton himself came out to the runway to make sure there was no trace of the accident left.

  Whether the plan had formed in his mind then, I can’t be certain. Personally, I don’t think so. It was a matter of instinct rather than planning. If nobody knew we had crashed there might still be a chance. At any rate, if the idea was in his mind, it didn’t show that evening as we sat over a drink and tried to sort out the future.

  Tubby was through. That was clear from the start. “I’m going back to flying,” he said. His tone was obstinate and quite final. “You know Francis Harcourt? He’s got two Tudors on the tanking lift, and he’s back in England now negotiating the purchase of two more. Just before Christmas he wrote asking me to join him as a flight engineer.”

  “And you’ve accepted?” Saeton asked.

  For answer Tubby produced an envelope from his pocket. It was already stamped and sealed.

  “We’ve still a month before we’re due on the airlift—if we hold the Air Ministry to their first date,” Saeton said quietly.

  “A month!” Tubby grunted. “Six months wouldn’t see that kite ready to fly—six months and a lot of money.” He leaned forward and caught Saeton by the arm. “Listen, Bill. I’ve worked with you for nothing for just on two years. I haven’t got a bean out of it. If you think I can go on any longer, you’re crazy. Anyway, where the hell would you get the money from? You’ve cleaned me out. You’ve just about cleaned Neil oat. We owe money all over the place. The company is broke—finished.” His voice softened as he saw the bitter set of Saeton’s mouth below the bandages. “I’m sorry, chum. I know what this means to you. But you’ve got to face the facts. We can’t go on.”

  “Can’t
we? Well, I say we can. I don’t know how—yet. But I’ll find a way. You’ll see me on the airlift next month. I’ll do it somehow.” His voice was trembling, but it had no conviction, only violence. His fist beat at the table. “If you think I’m going to let a little bitch of a German destroy everything I’ve worked for, you’re wrong. I don’t care what it costs me, I’ll get those engines into the air.”

  “How do you know she was responsible for what happened?” I asked.

  “Of course she was,” he snarled. “Either her or one of the Rauch Motoren agents.”

  “You can’t be certain,” I said.

  “Can’t be certain! Damn it, man, how else could it have happened? She tracked me down to this airfield. How she did it I don’t know. But suddenly she arrived at the Manor and because we were short-handed I got her to come up and cook and clean for us in the evenings. I thought she was just a D.P. It never occurred to me she was Professor Meyer’s daughter.”

  “When did you discover who she really was?” I asked.

  “That night you arrived and found us together in the hangar.” He suddenly clicked his fingers. “She must have done it then. It’s the only time she’s ever been alone in the hangar.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting the girl filed through the undercarriage connecting rod?” Tubby asked.

  “She’s an engineer, isn’t she? And she had about half an hour up there on her own. She couldn’t be sure the plan to buy up the outfit through Randall’s mortgages would succeed. Anyway, what’s it matter?” he added, his tone suddenly rising. “Finding out whether it was German thoroughness or a natural break won’t put the crate back into the air. We’ll sort it out to-morrow.” He spoke through clenched teeth and his hands trembled as he thrust back his chair. I think he was in the grip of a bitter, raging anger, on the verge of tears. The man was dead beat anyway and his nerves must have been just about stretched to the edge of screaming hysteria. He had risen to his feet and he stood, staring at Tubby. “Are you going to post that letter?”