One Summer at Deer’s Leap. Elizabeth Elgin

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter Five

      My heart was thudding; the little pulse behind my nose had joined in too. I felt a choking excitement and, at the same time, an amazing calm. I willed him to get in.

      ‘Thanks a lot.’ He took off his cap and pushed it under the epaulette at his shoulder. Then he tossed his respirator on the floor of the car, and sat down. This time he could stretch his legs because I hadn’t moved the passenger seat forward. He banged the door shut and I began to wish for a flock of sheep again. Without them it would take less than three minutes to Deer’s Leap, and he would take off, I knew it, just as soon as he saw the kissing gate.

      ‘In a hurry, are you?’ I said, staring ahead.

      ‘Afraid so. I shouldn’t be here really. I’m on standby …’

      ‘What’s that?’ This time, I had the chance to ask.

      ‘It means we might be going tonight.’

      ‘Going?’ I prompted carefully, driving slowly.

      ‘On ops. We might go, and then again, we mightn’t. I shouldn’t be here. When we’re on standby, we can’t leave the aerodrome – or we shouldn’t.’

      ‘Security?’ I suggested, trying to be with it.

      ‘Yes. And there might be a call to first briefing.’

      ‘And if that happens, you won’t be there, will you? What’s first briefing?’

      I was talking gibberish; talking for the sake of talking so he wouldn’t get out.

      ‘First briefing is just that. Pilots and navigators only; the rest of the crew join in later on.’

      He was being very patient with me, and I was grateful for the fact that his mind seemed to be on other things. Not that I blamed him. To Berlin and back in inky blackness with searchlights trying to pick you out and night fighters ready to pounce would have been a bit distracting, to say the least.

      ‘I see.’ I didn’t really; didn’t understand the half of it – only what I’d read in books and seen in films. There had been a lot about his war on television four years back. ‘Are you billeted at Deer’s Leap?’

      ‘Oh, no. The farmer lives there still. There’s a chance that the RAF will take it, though it hasn’t happened yet.’

      ‘They seem to do pretty well as they like, don’t they?’

      ‘Yes, they do.’ He turned to look at me, frowning. ‘But there is a war on.’

      My God! Indoctrinated by propaganda about the nobility of the cause! I’d read about it, but I hadn’t quite believed it. And I could tell him, I thought wildly, the exact day that Hitler would commit suicide, and about the two atom bombs the Americans would drop on Japan. I could, I thought, horrified, tell him the exact day he would die!

      ‘I hope you won’t go tonight; not with this moon …’

      ‘The moon’s good for fighters. They get above it, then fly out of it, and they’re on to you before you’ve got time to think. We call it a bomber’s moon because you could go without a navigator on nights like this. Everything’s there, below you, as clear as day. On the other hand, a Lanc makes a great silhouette against the moon. Given a choice, I wouldn’t go tonight.’

      ‘Do you know Susan Smith?’ I asked like a fool, straight out of the blue.

      ‘Of course I know her! That’s why I’m going to see her; tell her I might not be able to make it. I haven’t met her parents yet, so we decided it would have to be tonight …’

      ‘Only you’re on standby,’ I finished for him.

      ‘Yes, and I don’t want her to think I’ve stood her up. We always meet at the kissing gate, you see. She’ll be waiting …’

      ‘Are you both – I mean, is it steady between you?’ Oh, but I was pushing my luck!

      ‘If you mean are we in love then yes, we are. Very much …’

      His voice trailed off again. He seemed never quite to finish a sentence.

      ‘And you’re going to meet Susan’s parents – ask them if you can get married?’ СКАЧАТЬ