Shooting Script

by Gavin Lyall

  The Mitchell reared as the weight poured out, pitched as the dragging net clutched at the airflow. I stabbed the second button… and the third – then didn’t touch the fourth. The line of Vampires flickered beneath and we were over the hangars, throttles going up to hold the speed against the trailing nets.

  Luiz hadn’t fired. Then he did – and shouted: ‘I see them! ‘

  I saw them myself: two Vamps taxiing sedately around the perimeter track towards the east end of the runway, hidden from us by the control tower on our approach. And we were too far right to pass over them.

  Dust puffs spat up around them; Luiz was good, all right, shooting part-sideways at close range – but twenty rounds of •30 fire wouldn’t stop two Vamps. Then we were past, and I hauledulto aleft-hand turn over the middle of the airfield.

  ‘I think I hit them,’ Luiz reported soberly. But over my shoulder I could still see them moving, one just ahead of the other. And I knew who would – who must – be leading thefirst strikeof die Air Force’s big day.

  As we curled back die line of eight Vampires came in sight again; a jagged line now, in a drifting mist of yellow brick dusj. Two – no, diree collapsed, part of the undercarriage gone; another with a broken tail boom, another-But it only needed one, just one, left untouched…

  I lined up on the perimeter track, the taxiing Vamps several hundred yards ahead. Suddenly there was die silenttick-tick-tick of tracers slanting across below. Somebody had reached a mounted machine-gun.

  ‘Never mind that! ‘ I yelled. But he hadn’t fired anyway.

  I straightened, reached for the last button and die last net. Luiz fired, and again dust spattered die Vamps. I felt the net go – but saw the leading Vampire swerving suddenly on to the grass.

  We swung away in a tight Sand I looked back. One Vamp lay slewed across the track, wingtip on die ground. But the other – Ned – was bouncing across the grass towards the runway.

  I had one pass: just the one. Ned couldn’t take off on the grass, die field wasn’t wide enough; he’d have to turn on to die runway. And when he did I had to be behind him.

  ‘Reloaded?’ I asked.

  After a pause, Luiz said: ‘Ready to fire.’

  ‘I’ll bring you in behind him.’

  I dirottled back, losing speed in a gentle upward curve diat I could change into a fast, diving turn at any moment, waiting and judging… Anodier burst of tracer arched towards us, but fell low. Nobody had seriously trained for AA defence.

  He was almost on die runway, but I had to wait, daren’t commit myself -dienthe starboard engine misfired. Damn it, live, you old bitch! Just a few seconds longer, just that…

  Then Ned was swinging smoothly on to die runway and I had die throttles wide open and diving in behind him. More tracers – and a rattle in die tail diis time, but nodiing seemed to break. I was pulling up on the accelerating Vampire. Two hundred yards. Down to one, and down to less… Luiz fired and dust puffs spurted behind. Another burst and I thought I saw holes open on the Vampire’s wings. And another and moreholes – but now the gun was empty and the Vampire ran on.

  Luiz started to say something. We were overtaking the jet, pulling just over and ahead. I snatched back the throttles, pushed down the nose, and sat down right on top of it.

  A shatteringclang, the Mitchell wrenched and swerving wildly, and then racing away a few feet above the grass, filled with a terrible tearing shudder that wouldn’t go away. We just lifted over the line of palms at the edge of the field.

  Luiz was shouting, but so was I. The airspeed was down to 100 – or something: the needles on every instrument were shaking wildly with the shudder. Whatever it was, it was the Mitchell’s death-rattle.

  I over-rode Luiz’s voice. ‘Get out of the nose! ‘

  We skimmed a small rise and then the ground fell away and ahead was the grey glitter of the sea. Luiz appeared at my elbow, scrambled into the copilot seat and plugged in his headset.

  ‘What happened?’ he yelled.

  ‘Bust or bent the port prop – hit the Vamp or something. Come off the wing in a moment. Strap yourself in. What happened to the Vamp?’

  ‘It ran through the boundary fence.’

  I was fighting the shuddering controls, and should have cut the port engine by now – but with the starboard engine likely to cut itself at any time… Then we were over the sea and out to starboard, half a mile away, a long white beach.

  Holding my breath, I edged into a turn, and we didn’t quite fall out of the sky. Then pushed down full flap, cut the throttles and ignition, and held her off as long as possible -and she flopped on the beach in a long tearing hiss of flying sand.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘SHE did all right, in the end,’ I said. And I patted the silver paint below the cockpit window which hid the faded Beautiful Dreamer. Perhaps I should have painted that on again before the raid. She might have liked it.

  She would never fly again. She lay on – and in – the sand at the end of a 100-yard trench she’d dug for herself. The propellers were folded right back over the engines, and buried to the hubs in the sand they’d piled up in front. The bomb doors had torn off and lay halfway back down the trench, and for the first time I discovered I’d lost the port wingtip. It must have hit the ground when the prop hit the Vampire.

  But she looked oddly restful lying there. Without the hunched, alert look she had had sitting on her wheels. An old lady who had finally got her feet up.

  I looked round for Luiz. He was standing beside the nose and lighting a cigarette with hands that shivered just a little. He caught my eye and said: ‘You professionals play rough.’

  ‘Aren’t you the man who talked about dumping us both in the sea?’

  ‘Ah, I was younger then.’

  I started to work out where we were. About six or seven miles west of Santo Bartolomeo, I guessed, with the air base just a little way inland. The beach itself was about six hundred yards long, littered along the tideline with logs and planks tossed up by the waves behind Hurricane Clara. Above, were low, broken cliffs topped by an uncombed tangle of bushes and palms. No buildings in sight.

  Luiz asked: ‘How far are we from the air base?’

  ‘Couple of miles.’

  ‘Will they come looking for us?’

  ‘They don’t necessarily know we’re down. They just saw us going away low. We’d have done that anyway.’

  ‘If they get an aeroplane up, they will see us.’

  True: we were probably on one of the approaches to theairfield, and the Mitchell would stand out like a coffin at a cocktail party on that white sand.

  Luiz said: ‘So we had better move.’

  ‘Yes.’ I was watching the sky. We’d been down nearly five minutes. A wide-awake base – and that one certainly was, by now – should have had a flight of Vamps up already. If any were still serviceable.

  Or was I fooling myself? Should we take the BAR and park just outside at the end of the runway in case anything tried to take off? Or was there a better way still, now I was on the ground?

  ‘The Hotel Colombo,’ I said firmly. “Then the civil airport.’

  Luiz thought about it, then nodded. ‘But of course, we are on the wrong side of town. Jiminez is in the old town, the east.’

  ‘So let’s get started.’

  ‘Yes. You see now what I mean about being respectably dressed? We do not look like rebel airmen, I think.’ Then he spoiled it by adding: ‘But I will take the rifle – just in case the disguise does not work.’

  He yanked off the emergency escape hatch in the side of the nose and climbed in for the Browning. I patted the side again – then took out a pencil and scrawled ten quick little aeroplane symbols just below the cockpit. If she hadn’t got all ten, it had been my fault, not hers. She’d done all right.

  Then we walked away from her.

  By six, when the sun finally rose above the clouds over the eastern hills, we’d come perhaps a mile and a half. Along the beach, up the cliffs, t
hen threading through overgrown palm plantations. It was heavy going, still soaked from the rain and scattered with uprooted bushes and blown-down palm fronds. By now we were probably out of danger from any ground patrols sent out from the base, and I hadn’t heard any aircraft. But we weren’t making much progress.

  ‘At this rate we won’t be in town until about nine,’ I said.

  Luiz stopped, and delicately patted his brow with a handkerchief. He’d taken the hurried going over rough ground well – he must have been nearly fifty, after all – but from now onthe day was going to start hotting up, and he was humping a 15-pound automatic rifle. I had the snake pistol; I had it in my hand, too, but only for snakes.

  He said: ‘What do you suggest, my friend? That we run?’

  ‘We can go up to the road, or back down to the beach; walking on sand’ll be easier than this.’

  He looked reproachful. ‘Another plot to get my feet wet. On the beach we will be a little obvious – and with no retreat.’

  ‘All right: the road.’

  ‘There, we may be able to borrow a car.’ He hefted the Browning expectantly.

  ‘That’s not exactly helping the formal dress image,’ I growled. ‘Throw the damn thing away.’

  He frowned. ‘When we reach the road, perhaps. But Jiminez could use it,’

  ‘If you’re expecting to walk down theavenidasof the west town withthat-‘

  ‘It would be quite fashionable, today.’

  ‘One day a year, pheasants suddenly get fashionable, too.’

  It took us about a quarter of an hour to zigzag inland and find a road: a straightish, narrowish, newish concrete affair.

  I looked up and down it, saw nothing, and asked: ‘D’you know where this road leadsthat way?’ I nodded west, away from the city.

  Luiz just shrugged.

  I said: ‘It’s your country, isn’t it?’

  ‘I do not remember every road, my friend. Anyway’ – he tapped a neat brown Chelsea boot on the concrete – ‘it is new.’

  I scowled at the road, then the map. But air maps don’t bother much with roads: they aren’t usually much use navigationally. ‘If it’s the usual route from the air base to town,’ I said, ‘it’s not going to be healthy for us. But if it’s just the coast road…’

  He shrugged again. ‘We can sit behind a bush and see.’

  ‘We aren’t making much progress sitting behind a bush.’

  ‘Quite true.’ He lit a cigarette and waited for me to make a decision.

  ‘Ah, hell,’ I decided finally, ‘we’ll risk walking. Throw away that blasted field gun.’ I offered him the snake pistol.

  Reluctantly, he laid the Browning and two spare magazines down behind a tree, studied the place carefully, then took the pistol and shoved it in his hip pocket. We started walking.

  For five minutes nothing happened. Then a car appeared, coming from the city. We hopped behind a bush, but it went past like a scared rabbit. All I could see was the orange roof that labelled it a taxi.

  Luiz said thoughtfully: ‘The taxi-riding classes are leaving town. That is a good sign.’

  We walked on. Ten minutes later I heard another car, coming slower, behind us.

  Luiz looked at me. ‘Shall we try to beg a ride? Or borrow the car?’

  I glanced at my watch. It was nearly half-past six. ‘I suppose we’ll have to.’

  He pulled out the snake gun and held it behind his back. ‘If I still had the Browning, it would be much simpler.’

  ‘If you had that thing, you’d have had to shoot anybody who saw you with it.’

  The car swung into sight; a white Mercedes saloon. Not likely to be one of Jiminez’s supporters, but not an official Air Force car either.

  Luiz stepped forward and waved a hand in gesture that was friendly but commanding. The car slowed, then suddenly stopped a good twenty yards off. The front doors jumped open.

  An airman with a submachine gun piled out of one; Ned, in flying overalls, with a streak of dried blood on his face, and the stubby revolver in his hand, out of the other.

  Twenty yards was much too far for the snake gun; the machine-gun made it even farther. Luiz sighed and I heard the pistol clatter on the concrete behind him.

  Ned walked slowly forward and there was a grim, satisfied smile on his face. ‘The gallant aviators themselves,’ he said quietly. ‘I’mso glad to meet you.’

  Then he swung the gun.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I didn’t go out, but I didn’t bother to notice much of what was happening until I was seated in Ned’s suite at the Americana witha tauglass of Scotch in my hand. Seven in the morning is a little early for the first drink of the day usually, but usually I don’t seem to have toothache in every tooth I own and several sets borrowed for the purpose. The gun barrel had clipped me just on the left jawbone.

  Ned was on the telephone; Luiz was standing by the window staring out over what he could see of the city. The guard was just inside the door, still with his submachine gun.

  Ned put down the phone and said: ‘A short delay before we meet the General. Better think up something good.’

  Luiz turned round. ‘Ah, we are to meet the newpresidente?’

  ‘I came in to report to him personally. It’s nice to have you two on the credit side of the sheet.’

  ‘Tell me something, Ned,’ I said out of the corner of my mouth, just like any amateur George Raft down in the casino, ‘was that the usual road from the base?’

  He looked at me. ‘No. You were just lucky to meet me. Your pal Jiminez started shooting up our people on the normal road just before first light. That’s what I was taking off so early for: clear the roadblock. And why I had to come into town on the coast road.’

  Luiz sighed. ‘Just lucky. I understand.’

  ‘How many did we get, Ned?’

  He looked at me hard for a while before answering. ‘All bloody ten,’ he said slowly. ‘Three need engine changes. Three, maybe four, are complete write-offs – that includes mine.’

  ‘Glad it didn’t include you,’ I said politely.

  ‘Yeh – I noticed how bloody careful you were. Just tried to chop me up with the prop.’ He shook his head disbelievingly. ‘I never thought I’d see a man like you take a risk like that, Keith.’

  Luiz murmured: ‘I also found it somewhat surprising.’

  Ned came over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Swan beer. ‘It don’t look like I’m going to be flying today, so…’ He started pouring. ‘Bricks. Bleedingbricks. You should’ve been in jail, Keith. I knew you’d be coming back, but I knew you hadn’t got any bombs. Them bricks was all your own idea.’

  He turned away, then back again, and said quietly: ‘In case it interests you, I was just off the ground when you hit me. So you can count me. That makes five, don’t it? You’re finally an ace, Keith. But round here, aces count low. Bosco’ll tell you just how low.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s over now, anyway.’ I glanced as casually as I could at the guard by the door. He was propping up a wall, the submachine gun still in his hands, but gazing at the carpet with an expression left over from the Stone Age. If he understood English, I was going to lose an expensive bet, but I was prepared to have a side bet that understanding wasn’t something he specialised in anyway.

  I said: ‘So where’s the Dove, Ned? Still at the airport or over at your base?’

  He stared at me. ‘What the hell are you worrying aboutthat for?’

  ‘You’ve got a car downstairs; we could be airborne in half an hour. I’ll give you a free ride to Kingston or PR – whichever you like. What d’you say?’

  There was a crackle of gunfire from the old town, a couple of miles away. The snap of a grenade, the buzz of a machine gun. It lifted quickly to a crescendo, then died away.

  Ned was still staring, now incredulously. Then he said slowly: ‘You really think because we was once Dear Old Pals, that-‘

  ‘You need a pal right now, Ned.’

 
‘I need one? What about yourself?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got friends in this town.’ I waved at the window. ‘They’re not too close just yet, but they’re there. What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Suppose Castillo and the Army come back in: they’ll cut your throat because you’re Bosco’s right-hand man. Right? Or suppose Jiminez takes over: he’ll cut your throat, too, except with the personal touch because you’ve actually been shooting at his people. Right? So that leaves Bosco.’

  Tvegot news for you, Keith: I’m already on Bosco’s side.’

  ‘That might be news to Bosco, too. He had just one weapon, Ned, one: the Vamps. Andyou lost them for him, every damn one. You’ve probably lost him the revolt. I wonder if Boscoisyour pal any more.’

  Luiz had turned away from the window. Now he nodded with grave approval.

  Ned said softly: ‘I wish I’d killed you, Keith. I wish I’d got her up.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any odds by then. You weren’t hired as just a pilot, Ned: you were thecoronel, the boss, the thousand-a-week man. You were incommand-and by then you’d lost nine-tenths of your command. Because you left ‘em neatly lined up for me to hit them on one run.’

  ‘Hell, I didn’t think you’d be comingtoday: we didn’t think Jiminez was ready. And we’d sent a couple of-‘ Then he stopped.

  I nodded. ‘I know: I met them. I was sleeping in the plane that night. But don’t make your excuses to me, chum, make ‘ em to Bosco. He’d hiredyou to do the thinking about those Vamps.’

  After a while he said again: ‘I still wish I’d killed you, Keith. Just personal reasons.’

  One of the phones buzzed.

  Ned walked across, studied them, and said: ‘That’s Bosco. Here we go.’ He picked up the green one, listened, said: ‘Yes,’ several times, put it down and turned round. ‘On your feet, boys. Sorry there hasn’t been time for a hearty breakfast.’

  We filed out, Ned leading, the airman with the submachine gun bringing up the rear. We went along the soft-lit, thick-carpeted corridor, up a wide staircase, and out in front of the double doors of the pent-house suite – with a double armed guard outside.