The Higher They Fly

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  It was like having a nightmare . . .

  *

  First, his father’s voice echoing along a corridor, not unlike this one.

  But it was a school corridor.

  Mr Trenadin, a master there, was in deep discussion with his father. Now, the two men had entered the schoolroom, and closed the door. He could hear them pacing up and down.

  The boy Fleming had been told to wait outside; but sometimes, when his father and the other man reached the door of the room, Fleming could hear snatches of the conversation . . .

  He heard his father say: ‘So Robert confessed to taking all these things?—even that boy’s football boots?’

  ‘Yes. But I . . .’

  The pacing took the men out of earshot again. Fleming’s thinking processes stopped. They could only begin once more when the voices again became audible. White from strain, he could only wait for the voices to stimulate him into life each time, then dull him into nothingness as they receded.

  ‘. . . How long has this been going on, Mr Trenadin?’

  ‘We’ve been rather worried about him for most of the term. Then, when these things started disappearing . . .’

  Once more, blackness. Nothingness. Waitingness. Yet the passage he was standing in wouldn’t quite keep still. The windows were jumping up and down, just slightly—a sort of shimmering.

  ‘. . . Naturally, Mr Fleming. The doctor has interviewed him several times.’

  ‘What does he think? Should my boy be punished?’

  More silence, more suspense, more oblivion. There was a kind of horror in all this that the situation itself couldn’t explain. It was not only the thought of being punished, there was something else, too. A reason for it that had nothing to do with the precise topic under discussion.

  The voices came again, and this time the two men stopped by the door for a little while, so that Fleming could hear them clearly.

  ‘. . . No, I haven’t noticed anything like that at home. Of course, Canada is new to him.’

  Trenadin was emphatic on this point. ‘It’s not that. A change of surroundings doesn’t explain why he’s confessing to things we know he didn’t do.’

  His father: ‘You are quite sure he didn’t?’

  ‘Oh yes. We found the culprit and he got a damn good thrashing.’

  ‘You mean, my son wanted to be punished?’

  ‘No, it’s more involved than that. It seems that whenever suspicion of any kind falls on him he is incapable of denying the charge. In other words, Mr Fleming, if he were in court, he would consider himself guilty just on hearing the prosecution witnesses. He is unable to believe what he knows is true, unless everybody else believes it also. This is a recognised ailment, and the doctor here thinks he should see a psychiatrist; but of course we had to consult you first.’

  There was a short silence. Then: ‘No, Trenadin. I’d rather not. Much rather not. I’m sure you can cope. I don’t want people tinkering about with Robert’s mind.’

  Trenadin sounded slightly taken aback. ‘It would hardly be that, Mr Fleming. You mean you really are against it? We didn’t expect you to be.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid my mind’s made up. In my opinion it would be a much more effective cure if my son got punished for a few things he didn’t do. It seems to me that would soon put a stop to it . . .’

  The boy’s head was reeling. His own father, promoting unjust punishment!

  ‘I hate him!’ said the boy, in a terrorised whisper. The words seemed to ring round the walls of the school corridor.

  Then he hated himself for the thought.

  From now on, it would be necessary to make excuses for his father, and others, to maintain what was left of his love for them. Otherwise he could not accept them, and the gods would fall from their thrones.

  To do this, he must sacrifice himself . . .

  *

  Fleming recognised other archways in the sequence—the golden one of his first solo flight, a favoured landmark in any pilot’s history.

  Then Clare’s arch, a simple affair that looked as if it had been fashioned out of branches of green leaves. It smelled of freshly mown grass and salt, sea air and—suddenly a comic, practical note—steak and kidney pudding, which Clare had always produced out of a can when the larder (as was frequently the case) failed to contain anything except a forlorn-looking piece of cheese, or a very old orange which had shrunk.

  After that, Julie’s archway, which proved to be a strange mixture of architectural incongruities. Passing under it was not an easy sensation to analyse. It was a little weird at first, and you could feel the warm glow from the electric fire; and that reminded you of the island planet to which you escaped with her when she had removed herself from you upon this one. You felt the tingle of excitement, an ecstasy literally breathless, as you remembered the perfection of her body when conjoined with your own. And then you grinned broadly because of the memory of that last talk with her, when still she couldn’t resist torturing you and yet at the same time offering an essential that had been missing from your makeup—the chance to depress your end of the see-saw through an act of will. You have yet to show that you can do it.

  There was one more arch—ill-defined in its structure. It seemed familiar, like something seen out of the corner of an eye. It concerned Julie and Fleming himself, but the words Gregg had uttered a minute or so before sketched in the faint outline that could be sensed . . .

  You’re like a man with a stammer. You trip over yourself when there’s no need . . .

  After this last ghost-like edifice, there remained only the physical reality of the door to the radio room, London Approach Control.

  Fleming went in.

  Scrivens was brief in the extreme. He said: ‘Here’s the mike. It’s all yours.’

  ‘Anyone else on this frequency?’

  ‘No,’ said Scrivens, and added lugubriously: ‘This is a piece of radio entertainment I’d much prefer other captains not to hear.’

  *

  Crooke handed the headset to Hubb. Attached to it was a long cable which would reach down into the systems bay with some to spare. Crooke said: ‘He’s on. You can say what you like . . . we’re not sticking to ordinary RT procedure. Far too dull. Geoff will be on your circuit most of the time, so you can talk to each other. If you don’t want something to go out on the air to Fleming, speak without pressing the microphone switch. That means we can hear you in the cockpit but Fleming can’t. I’ll be listening most of the time myself, except when I have to speak to London on the other set.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good luck.’ He indicated the length of rope tied round Hubb’s middle. ‘You must secure that before we lower the undercart. Fix it to one of the bulkhead struts . . . only not the one you undo from either bulkhead. That’s like sitting on a branch of a tree and sawing it off. The effect is spectacular, but unhelpful. And if you want to pee, for gawd’s sake keep it off the electrics. You might cause a short circuit.’

  Geoff said: ‘You can draw fresh water down there if you need a drink. The yellow-painted cock at the rear of the systems bay, above your head.’ He handed Hubb the items needed and checked them off. ‘Quite a handful, I’m afraid . . . emergency axe, tool-box containing everything you need, including the insulated wire for the last operation; one pair of gloves (put them on now) . . . I don’t think they’re too thick to work in but you may have to take them off when you make those electrical connections. Carry the loose end of the rope in your hand on the way down, it might get caught in something. And here’s the check-list I made. I went through this on the radio with Captain Fleming and he’s made an identical one. He won’t stick to it word for word because he’ll depend on your judgement to tell him how things are going. And if you’ll take my advice, don’t rush anything. We’ve allowed adequate time; you don’t gain anything by wasting energy through haste. All right. Off you go.’

  Without further ceremony Hubb left the cockpit and walked aft, pulling the vital radi
o-cable behind him. Geoff paid it out from the cockpit.

  The pressure hatch in the floor had already been opened. Hubb glanced at Truman briefly before climbing down through it. Truman didn’t react in any way. Susan was watching from outside the galley. Hubb deliberately didn’t look at her. He didn’t want to play hero and wave a brave goodbye. But he felt her presence and was grateful for it. He felt, as if in parentheses, that she was going to be important in his life. This was not the time to italicise his hopes.

  Soon he found himself crawling along the hull, beneath the flooring of the passenger cabin. Having got there, he wondered what madness had led him to undertake the job, or how he had got there at all. The spasm of panic was only brief. Then he began to shove his way along in earnest.

  It was easy to see why the flight engineer—that guy Geoff—had found this impossible to negotiate. Geoff would have found it hard enough to lever his ample body into the driving seat of the Jaguar. The thought made Hubb grin for an instant . . . immaturity again. That woman Dulcie made him feel as if he were still at high school.

  Tunnelling your way along this boat-shaped cavern was a cold business that made you feel winded. Although icy slipstream syphoned along the framework Hubb still found himself short of breath.

  He also felt afraid, though not as he had done upon entering. You’re crawling along the inside of some enormous mammal’s skeleton. The frames, which run round the visible part of the tubular construction of the hull at tight intervals, are its ribs. These are riveted to the skin of the aircraft, and are intersected by the stringers—the long, thin girders which run the entire length of the fuselage like the planks of a wooden boat. The entire effect is like being swallowed by a whale. An eerie thought.

  But you haven’t time to brood. You can see the lamp glowing from inside the systems bay and it seems mighty far away. It reminds you of Truman, who put it there. What an oddball he is! Those glazed, pale eyes . . .

  There’s a cluster of equipment here. You’ve got to drag your body and a tool-box and an axe around it somehow. Be careful not to damage that electric cable! It’s the one link you have with the other human beings aboard, and with the man on the ground who will try and think himself into your shoes. The headphones are clapped hard over your ears, deadening the swish of the slipstream which planes along the keel. Through the radio you can hear the characteristic hiss of VHF; but there is nothing to say until you have reached your objective, and all voices are silent.

  You press your way forward and somehow get past all that gear. Using the frame-members as footholds, it seems like horizontal mountaineering. Your thoughts are very mixed. They interchange with each other and dovetail into a pattern of assessment.

  You are assessing your mentors, the men you must trust completely and yet whom you have only known for a matter of minutes. The one on whom you must depend on most you’ve never even seen. He is, at this moment, about seventy miles away from you, though the distance changes all the time as the aircraft shuttles back and forth through the same old bit of sky. But this man Fleming will be with you as you work in the small hollow cube of that cubbyhole; his eyes are your eyes, and his hands will guide your own. You must trust him implicitly . . . and yet the few brief references made about Fleming which you overheard leave a good deal to question. You wonder about the nature of his link with that staring creature who sits motionless in the alcove bar. There’s something screwy about all that.

  At least you feel reassured about the active crew of this airplane. Although they are British and therefore slightly foreign to your ideas of manner and speech and metaphor, they’re doing the same job as their American counterparts, and doing it well. And though this is a British airplane, several companies in the United States are operating them and seem pleased with their performance. You decide that the nationality difference is of no importance. You have been racing a British car anyway; with it you’ve collected a few humble trophies and you intend to collect a lot more.

  That girl Susan . . . she isn’t the sexy type you’ve always pursued. Funny that. She’s attractive but, you would have thought, nothing to go wild about. You wouldn’t be alert to her in a crowd at one of those parties on Long Island, when the steak frizzled on an open barbecue and the sea lapped at the lantern-lit beach and Sinatracated music floated out of loudspeakers planted discreetly out of sight. Unless, of course, you suddenly fell into conversation with her and found you had some link you never sought before. Then, you might have taken her aside from all the synthesised Hamburger Heaven of the New Yorkese, and find yourself talking about things that interested her rather than yourself. And you would have stood still and relaxed, instead of planning moves to assure yourself of excitement too soon gained, and therefore too quickly dulled. You couldn’t imagine Susan in the context of your former invariant; a few weeks’ swimming and sun-bathing and parties and physical expression of something much less than love.

  You couldn’t imagine feeling, toward Susan, what you have often felt in the sexual aftermath but which you have been too courteous to express in so many words—‘Thanks a lot; but now I feel assuaged, honey, why don’t you get lost?’

  On the contrary, Mr Hubb. You’ll settle down and marry and rear children until you’re blue in the face . . .

  Kids? Well, you never damn well know. There was not actually any disgrace attached to having kids. Other men he knew had survived the catastrophe, and still held their heads comparatively high.

  Hey, what am I betting on her for? I only just met her. I made a routine pass at her and received a routine snub in return.

  Then I talked to her in the little galley up there—just about exactly overhead from where I am now—and I felt something and I know she felt it too; and she was honest and sweet enough to admit it in the way she looked at me. I needed that; you don’t get any inspiration from female Talent that is so easily substituted by another that you can’t even remember some of their names. And for once, thank God, you didn’t come up with one of those well-tried phrases which arose from simple lust—the glossy mating call which the routine-girl didn’t find nauseous because the routine-girl didn’t care enough. If the phrase was delivered with the drive of desire, and its recipient happened to want what was implied, the formula worked because of its basic ingredients, rather than as a result of the particular flasks which had been chosen for the conducting of an oft-proven experiment.

  Susan was different. She needed much more than this; and with Hubb’s recognition of that fact he realised he did also. He had had enough of the closed-circuit racetrack; it was time to find a highway which led somewhere. And he understood something of what that woman Dulcie had meant about immaturity; to go around and around at a high lapping speed wasn’t the same as setting out to arrive somewhere . . .

  On reaching the systems bay, Hubb dumped the axe on to the floor, lowered the tool-box down and himself after it.

  As he stood there he found himself confronted with a mass of electrical and hydraulic equipment which confused him through its complexity. It was all very well to study a mechanical drawing and a layout which had been marked by Geoff. Now he had to identify the targets of the operation and make some sense out of it all. Where the hell do you start? . . .

  *

  Robert Fleming had anticipated this moment.

  As he sat with the microphone in his hands he remembered the words of the Chief Instructor at the technical wing of the Royal Air Force station which had been such an important part of his life.

  The Chief Instructor at the time was Ken Woodford.

  Fleming was one of ten men who had been picked to train as special instructors. At this time he had not known Ken Woodford well; it was several years later that Ken had selected him from many applicants to fill a vacancy for assistant test pilot. The vacancy had occurred suddenly and tragically, with the loss of a research aircraft and a young pilot who had demanded a fraction too much from the structural strength of a very fast machine. The wings had folded double, lik
e a frightened tulip, trapping the pilot and making it impossible to bail out. But this is the manner in which the fruits of excitement are made available, clinging to a high branch, to those who are sure they will not repeat a forerunner’s mistake; and Fleming, after two interviews with Woodford and a long one with Gregg, had got the job.

  But now he sat, in uniform, in the lecture room of the Wing. Ken Woodford, the lank genius who was later to head the team which created the Jet-Four, stood by a blackboard and rammed home his final points. This was the end of the course; and soon these men, who had studied with him and taken swift notes and thereafter sweated over them far into many brain-reeling nights, would be enlightening youngsters of enthusiasm and talent in advanced aerodynamic engineering.

  Ken Woodford’s voice echoed round the chilly Nissen hut as he wound up the last lecture in the series. ‘If,’ he said, punching out the word, ‘you have been as alert to my methods as you have to the curriculum, I hope it has occurred to you to wonder why I have spent time with each one of you individually, chewing things over in the mess, or walking across the moor down at Bresham. You are all men I picked myself, and therefore these personal episodes have been partly because I enjoyed them. And those of you who have suffered my fanatical lust for open air and the smell of bracken and riding horses through valleys have, it is my hope, caught a little of that disease yourselves.

  ‘But there was, aside from this, a very necessary ulterior motive.’ He had arrived at his Text. ‘Know your man! Everyone has his own capacity, and each is different. Your written and practical exams have, of course, been quite essential; and it is very gratifying to me that every single one of you has passed. I expected it: I have an abhorrence of failure.

  ‘But the precise jobs you will be doing, after your three weeks’ leave—and you have certainly earned it!—have been very largely dictated by my own observations of you as individuals, as people. I don’t wish to convey the idea that I am a wizard with an extraordinary insight into the human mind—far from it! At best, one can only go on intuition and a few obvious human traits.’ He turned to one of them. ‘You, Richardson, never stopped talking about Frank Whittle’s work and you eat, live and dream the gas turbine. I couldn’t shut you up for two consecutive minutes while I was trying to listen for the elusive beat of a distant herd of wild ponies.’