Shooting Script

by Gavin Lyall

  But that wasn’t the point right now. I said: ‘Right – I attack at first light or last light. All things considered, it hadbetterbe-‘

  ‘Dusk would be best,’ Miss Jiminez said briskly. ‘You would be more certain to catch all of them on the ground, then.’

  ‘It had better be dawn,’ I said firmly.

  I got a sharp, rather startled, look.

  ‘Purely military problem,’ I said soothingly. ‘With bombs and full fuel that plane’s going to be pretty heavy for a short strip like Boscobel or Port Antonio. So I want the air as cool as I can get it for takeoff; more power for the engines, more lift for the wings. If I go in at last light, I take off in the afternoon: If I attack at first light, I take off “around two in the morning. It’s as simple as that.’

  She frowned.‘Capitán, even Clausewitz believed that a “purely military judgment is a distinction which cannot be allowed”.’

  ‘He should’ve tried flying an overloaded Mitchell off a 3,000-foot runway in hot weather before he started making wild statements like that.’

  ‘One cannot avoid all risks, Capitán. As Clausewitz said-‘

  ‘Clausewitz never said one horse made a cavalry charge. If I miss a couple of Vampires, the attack’s still eighty per cent successful. But if I pile into the trees on takeoff, you’ve got a hundred per cent flop. There won’t beany attack.’

  There’d be a few per cent of Keith Carr missing, too, if I went tree-pruning with a load of 500-pounders. But probably Clausewitz had said something reassuring about that as well, so I kept quiet.

  Whitmore said firmly: ‘Okay, so you hit ‘em at sun-up. If they do get any jets up, you’re going to have to come a-run-ning. Be daylight.’

  I just nodded. Speed wouldn’t be much help against a Vampire that could go twice my speed and more. And no clouds to hide in, not around dawn. ‘But at least I won’t be making a night landing on a strip that doesn’t have any lighting.’

  Nobody had thought of that, of course. Whitmore crooked his eyebrows and said: ‘But you’ll have to take off in the dark – how about that?’

  ‘A sight easier than landing. I can do it with just a hurricane lamp planted at die end of the strip.’

  There was a silence while everybody thought up the next problem.

  J.B. said suddenly: ‘What about radar? Won’t they see you coming?’

  I had my mouth open when Miss Jiminez said: ‘There is no radar in the Caribbean except at Puerto Rico and Cuba. You should know these things if you wish to help.’

  J.B.‘s face shut with a snap like a rat-trap.

  Luiz said:‘Señorita Penroseonly does our legal work; she does not pretend to be a general.’

  ‘She makes contracts for my father to sign,’ Miss Jiminez said scornfully.

  Whitmore came to the rescue again. ‘All right, kids. This is just a planning session. The real fighting comes later – and Carr does that.’ He looked at me. ‘Anything more, fella?’

  There was one thing that had better be said, but I was uneasy about saying it in front of Miss Jiminez. I dug out my pipe and started to fill it while I gave myself time to think. Whitmore sighed, grunted, and threw me a cigarette.

  I lit it, decided I’d better say my piece anyway, and said: ‘Just one thing: we’re dealing with an old aeroplane. It could go unserviceable – seriously – at any time. So the attack could be called off at the last minute.’ I turned to Miss Jiminez. ‘If your father’s depending on the raid, you’d better tell him not to move until heknows it’s coming off.’

  There was no warmth in her look now. It was a hard searchlight stare.‘Capitán-the attackmust happen. You must takeany risk.’

  There wasn’t much warmth in my look, either. Til give you a quotation you don’t know: Keith Carr is not, repeatnot expendable. Source, Keith Carr.’

  ‘Capitán, you have joined a noble cause,’ she blazed. ‘It is too late to remember you are a coward, now.’

  ‘I haven’t joined a damn thing. I’m just a hired hand. I’ll fly the raid if-‘

  ‘For money! ‘ She bounced up, feet spread, hands on hips, her dark eyes glaring furiously. ‘Teach me to fly it, then. / will make the attack! ‘

  I just stared at her: a magnificent, angry huntress, dominating the room, turning Whitmore into a small boy flopped in a corner.

  Then I shook my head and said: ‘That isn’t the point anyway. A starter motor could go, a tyre could burst. Then we wouldn’t even get her off the ground – nobody could. Just tell your father wecan’t give a guarantee.’

  She went on standing there. Luiz said judiciously: ‘Perhaps we could give the most careful overhaul, then…’ he waved a hopeful hand.

  ‘Overhauls wouldn’t do it,’ I said wearily. ‘She’s just too old – all of her. If we started that, we’d find we needed new wings, fuselage, tail, engines… a new aeroplane. I’ll check her out on the film flying and fix anything that busts, but she’ll still be held together by rust and habit – and even die rust’s a bit past it by now. Well, maybe the habit’ll keep up long enough. If it does, I’ll fly the attack.’

  Whitmore nodded. ‘Okay, that sounds good enough.’ He looked at Miss Jiminez. ‘Better tell your old man the position, He can move when he knows Carr’s on his way.’

  She went on looking at me. ‘Perhaps,’ she said coldly, ‘if the Capitánkeeps his courage in his wallet, he wants us to pay him a little more courage.’

  Whitmore said firmly: ‘Planning session’s over. We got a movie to make tomorrow.’

  She gave me one last glare, announced: ‘I am eating,’ and marched out.

  In the silence there was just the click of her heels down the passage to the front door.

  Luiz said softly: ‘She should have been her brother.’

  J.B. stared at him incredulously, ‘Jesus, Luiz’s gone queer.’

  There was a sudden moment of pain on his face, then he smiled and shrugged. ‘In political terms only, of course.’

  Then he hurried out after her.

  When he heard the apartment door shut, Whitmore shook his head and said: ‘She’s really got him jumping, huh?’

  ‘He’s probably rehearsing to play the lead in The Clausewitz Story,’ J.B. said sourly.

  ‘Yeah? And I play the small fat guy Napoleon?’

  ‘You could still do most of the scenes on a horse,’ I pointed out.

  He just looked at me. ‘Thanks, fella.’ Then he finished hisdrink, lit a cigarette, and reached for one of the yellow scripts.

  ‘So,’ he said after a while, ‘if you get the ship ready in acoupladays, we’ll schedule the flying shots so you’ll be clear whenever Jiminez rings the bell.’

  ‘We’ve got Roddie’s church, too,’ J.B. said. ‘Should be ready in a day or two.’

  ‘You’re actually building a Spanish church?’ I asked.

  Whitmore looked up. ‘Sure. You want us to haul the whole unit to Mexico just for a three-minute sequence?’

  J.B. said: ‘In films, it’s always cheaper to bring the mountain to Mahomet – with Mahomet on union rates.’

  I shook my head; it would obviously be stupid to ask if it wouldn’t be cheaper still to write the church out of the script. Anyway, it was nice to know a business where the costs were higher than in aviation.

  Whitmore made a note on his script, then stood up and stretched. ‘So if you’re working on her up this end of the island, you better move in here. ‘ He looked at J.B. ‘We got a room booked?’

  She nodded.

  I said: ‘If it’ll save you money, I don’t mind moving in with J.B. She’s got space.’ I waved a hand around the big suite.

  ‘Pull your throat in, Carr,’ she snapped.

  Whitmore grinned. ‘Suddenly everybody’s sex-crazy.’ He nodded at me. ‘I don’t mind, fella. But if she talks contract law in her sleep don’t blame me and don’t try to stop her. That’s what she’s hired for.’

  ‘Get out, you broken-down old cow-catcher.’ The anger wasn’t entirely fak
ed either.

  He just grinned again, waved in one of his big, slow gestures, and strolled whistling down the passage.

  J.B. looked at me. ‘Your room number’s 17, Carr-‘

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘ – at the Plantation Inn.’

  I winced. It was only a few hundred yards up the road, but damn it all…

  ‘You don’t trust yourself in the same hotel as me?’ I asked.

  She just went on looking.

  ‘One last drink,’ I suggested. ‘Before the intrepid aviator wings off on the dawn patrol.’

  ‘If you’re going to work for us we’d better put a real writer on your dialogue. All right – a Scotch. A thin one.’

  I mixed it, found myself a bottle of Red Stripe, and sat down again. The evening wound down gently; the surf hissed politely on the beach beyond the patio; the lizard sentries drowsed at their posts.

  After a while, she said quietly: ‘Carr – whyare you flying this raid?’

  ‘I’m making a profit at it – I’m getting an aeroplane out of it, one way or anodier.’

  She shook her head impatiently. ‘You’re not a damn fool, Carr. I know your record; I saw you figure out everything we’d been up to with Diego and getting that bomber. You know you could’ve tried other ways of getting your plane back. Diplomatic pressure, spilling the story to the papers, bringing law-suits – I’d’ve been forced to help you, morally, anyway. But this way you may not get your plane but you damn sure will get run out of the Caribbean.’

  The grey list. I shrugged, then asked: ‘That’s my legal position, is it?’

  ‘Ah, legally you probably aren’t too badly off. It doesn’t seem to be an offence in Jamaica to start a war as long as you don’t start it here. They might get you under the Foreign Recruitment Law, but they need an order in council to bring that into force. And they’ll get you for having bombs – unless you swear you picked them upen route. But all that isn’t the real trouble.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A pilot’s always vulnerable. If they want to get you, they can trip you up on a dozen licencing troubles, safety standards… They’ll run you out.’

  ‘I know.’

  She eyed me carefully. ‘You’renot a damn fool, not that way.’ Then she tossed her empty glass on to the crowded table; two other glasses toppled, rolled, smashed on the floor. She watched them, expressionless. Then said quietly: ‘When you first walked in here, I thought you were a pretty toughindependent character. I thought maybe you’d be able to tell the Boss Man to go climb a tree. But then he calls for a posse and everybody grabs a deputy’s badge and jumps on a horse -and then they can say “I rode with Whitmore.” I’ve seen it happen before.’

  ‘You think that’s why I’m going?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ she flared. ‘It isn’t for your plane – and you don’t give a damn about Jiminez, that’s for sure. Well, you’ve joined the posse; the Boss Man thinks you’re really one of the boys. That’s wonderful.’

  I stood up. The evening was dead. Among other things. ‘Room 17, I think you said? And the desk knows I’m coming?’

  She nodded. I found my own way out. And I didn’t feel a thing. And that was pain enough.

  TWENTY

  The next morning I got the boys down at Port Antonio to work stripping out the seats and bomb-bay tank from the Mitchell, then wangled a company car over to Kingston to pick up my jeep (the cops had finally got tired of finding each other’s fingerprints on it) and a suitcase of dirty shirts I’d been saving until my laundry could go on the company’s bill.

  By the time I’d got back to Port Antonio via dumping the jeep at Boscobel, they’d nearly finished. The seats, the central heating, and the bomb-bay tank were all out, and they were just sealing off the ends of the fuel feed, which seemed to have been designed by a kitten and a ball of wool.

  Then I fired them, handed over a wad of Whitmore’s dollars, and let them find their own way back to Palisadoes. When they were out of sight, I took out my torch and ducked down for a private look around the bay itself.

  Standing on the ground, I was inside it from about my hips up: a hot, dark metal box full of old oily grime and petrolfumes. About eight feet lengthways nearly four wide, and six high. And the first quick flash of the torch convinced me the attack was off: the roof of the bay was quite bare.

  I ducked out for a breath of air and a reconsideration. To be quite honest, as an ex-fighter pilot I couldn’t remember ever having seen a bomb rail or shackle before; they were just words I’d picked up. But I was quite certain the roof of that bay didn’t have any, and just as certain that anything that’ll hold a 500-pound bomb can’t be knocked up in a dull evening with a cigar box and a couple of rusty hairpins.

  And it isn’t something you put a ‘wanted’ ad in the Daily Gleaner for, either.

  I took a deep breath and ducked in again just to make sure.

  The roof of the bay was still empty. But when I turned the torch on the sides, they were lined with heavy metal stringers that seemed far too strong just to support the thin metal of the box – it wasn’t even the outside skin of the aeroplane itself. And spaced along them, two to each side, were four thin, irregular-shaped steel boxes. I stared at them in the torchlight. They were just over a foot long,“with two flat hooks sticking down at either end.

  I dipped a finger in a pool of petrol on the tarmac beneath and rubbed it over one of the boxes. And I knew the attack was on again.

  Surprisingly clear and non-rusty under the grime, the lettering came up: Bomb Shackle Mk, S.

  ‘You know, they must’ve hung the bombs on thesides of the bay, one above the other, and let ‘em roll out and down?’ I said. ‘I suppose I should have guessed: you wouldn’t need a bay six foot high if you were just going to hang ‘em from the roof, and I suppose it must’ve worked – as long as you pressed the buttons in the right order – but still-‘

  ‘Will it work now?’ Whitmore asked.

  He and Luiz had been waiting for me on die Boscobel strip when I flew the Mitchell in soon after five. Apparently J.B. was off visiting a sick contract and Miss Jiminez had decided, after all, that she’d better go and watch Diego’s coffin being shoved aboard a Venezuelan freight plane.

  ‘With a lot of work,’ I said slowly. I held up the shackle I’d managed to get off the rail. ‘The shackles are in pretty good condition – I suppose because the thing was being used as a bomber in Colombia up to a couple of years back. You get the shackles off the rails, hook on the bombs – two hooks, you wouldn’t want a bomb waggling around on just one – winch the whole lot up, fit the shackle back on to the rail. Then these’ -1 tapped a couple of little levers sticking out of the top of the shackle – ‘fitted into some sort of release gear.

  “The trouble is,’ I went on, ‘that all that gear’s gone. It must’ve worked on electro-magnets, with a coil in the circuit to step up the power, and probably the whole thing duplicated to avoid hang-ups. And on top ofthat, a fusing circuit – you wouldn’t take off with the bombs fused and there’s no way of getting at them from inside the plane.’

  Whitmore nodded, reached out, and pushed the hooks closed. Then slapped the trip levers with a huge finger. The hooks came open with a vicious littleclack.

  It was a cold shivery sound in the hot sun. Whitmore looked at Luiz and grinned slowly. ‘Sounds simple enough.’

  ‘Simple?’ I stared at him.

  ‘Hell, fella – one thing afilm unit’s got is electricians. We got ‘em like that guy in The book had pimples.’

  ‘Job,’ Luiz said. ‘And boils.’

  Whitmore jerked his head. ‘He played a Bible picture once. Anyhow, I’ll get the boys down to work on her tomorrow. Hell, she’s in the script – so why can’t she drop a few bombs? Rig some dummies outa beer cans or something. Have ‘em going off along the river, bang-bang-bang; use dummy charges. We got a scene there.’

  He walked off to look at my jeep.

  Luiz sighed. ‘Another scene where I g
et my feet wet.’

  I grinned, then asked: ‘Can they really do it?’

  ‘My friend – you recall we are already building a fifty-foot church for this picture? A little matter like arranging a bomb-release circuit… They will do it.’

  Whitmore walked back. ‘That your jeep, fella?’

  I’d said ‘yes’ before I realised my mistake. They needed an old, battered jeep for the scene outside the church. Of course.

  The next morning, the boys moved in. They were either good electricians or good actors; either way, they knew more about what they were doing than I did. So I just suggested where they could mount the release buttons – over some of the empty sockets at the top of the instrument panel – and left them to get on with it.

  The art director had also arrived, without his crocodile jacket, but with a couple of scene-painters to help give the Mitchell a little movie make-up. This consisted of spraying her silver, shoving a couple of painted broomsticks in the nose and tail positions to look like machine guns, and inventing Amazonian Air Force insignia for her wings and sides. I tried to help on this last one by pointing out that every combination of shapes and colours they dreamed up had already been used by a real South American country.

  Finally the art director told me they’d use a mixture of Malayan and Congolese symbols – a completelydarling yellow star on a totallyravishing square of ultramarine (he was going to redecorate his bathroom inexactly the same colours just assoon as he got home) – and meantime would Ipleasego away?

  So I checked up on the weather – a maximum of 15 knots from 70 degrees, with a slightly suspicious circular disturbance north of Barbados – then went away to die Golden Head Tavern, just up the road.

  At that time of day, the little bar was quiet, almost empty. The only other customer was sitting up at the bar, his back to me.

  I went up and ordered a Red Stripe. The customer said quietly: ‘Can I buy you that one?’