Code Name Verity(32)

What’s a lass like you need with a big toy like this?

Maddie laughed aloud, and said to Dympna, ‘Run me through the checks.’

‘What’s so funny?’

‘This is the biggest toy ever.’

‘We’ll get bigger ones soon,’ Dympna assured her.

Maddie felt like the last day of school, like the summer holidays beginning.

‘Two fuel tanks in each wing,’ said Dympna. ‘Two oil pressure gauges, two throttle levers. But only one mixture control – set that to normal for start-up. The ground crew takes care of the priming pumps –’ (I am making this up. You get the idea.)

Maddie had taxied this familiar airfield and roared down the rutted runway in her head so many times it felt as though she’d done it before; or as though she were dreaming now. The Anson leaped into the air in a gust of headwind. Maddie fought the aircraft for a while, straightened the rudder, felt the speed increase as Dympna’s laborious cranking of the undercarriage began to progress and the extra drag fell away. The wings lifted and dipped in the blustering wind like a motorboat riding swells. It was lovely flying a low-winged plane, with its unblocked endless view of sky – or, on that occasion, low-hanging cloud.

‘Hey, Scottie!’ Dympna ordered, shouting over the engines. ‘Stop squeaking and give me a hand.’

The skriking Scot crept towards the cockpit, keeping low to the floor of the aircraft to avoid having to look out. Maddie glanced over her shoulder again; she could tell her friend was manfully battling some demon or other.

‘If you’re scared, do something,’ Maddie shouted, not without irony.

The Scot, whey-faced and determined, reached down alongside the pilot’s seat and took hold of the undercarriage crank. ‘My real fear,’ Scottie gasped, giving the crank a turn, ‘is not of heights’ – another turn – ‘but of being sick.’

‘Doing something should help,’ yelled the Yank from the back, enjoying the view ahead of him for different reasons than the rest of them.

‘Looking at the horizon helps,’ yelled Maddie, her own far-seeing eyes focused on the distant place where the battered grey land met tumultuous grey cloud. Conversation was not really possible. Most of Maddie’s being was absorbed in flying the buffeting Anson. But a little corner of her mind was sorrowing that her friend’s first flight was not being made through a still summer evening of golden light over the green Pennines.

Maddie landed the Anson into wind with a wallop, and Dympna kept her hands to herself, letting Maddie do it. The Yank said it was a whale of a landing, which he meant as a compliment. Afterwards the Scot stood quivering on the runway with gritted teeth while the aircraft was refuelled and the Branston ground crew chatted with the ferry pilots. Maddie stood close by, not close enough to touch, not anything so babyish. But offering silent sympathy.

Minus the Yank ferry pilot, the Anson crew set off back to Maidsend. Fitful sunlight, low on the horizon, gleamed through the heavy cloud in the west, and Maddie, rather desperate to improve the experience for her suffering passenger, was able to climb a little higher where the wind was brisker and not so gusty. (The ferry pilots are not allowed to fly higher than 5000 feet. Engel will have to do the metric conversion – sorry about that.)

Blooming crosswind, Maddie swore to herself as they crawled back towards home.

‘Still feeling sick?’ Dympna bellowed at the hapless Scot. ‘Come and sit in the front.’

The Scot, in weakened state, was easily bullied (as you know). Dympna crawled out of her forward seat and Scottie crawled into it.

Maddie glanced at her friend, grinned and took hold of the finely manicured hand that gripped the edge of the copilot’s seat. She forced the hand round the flight controls.

‘Hold this,’ she bellowed. ‘See how we’re slant against the sun? ’Cause there’s a whopper of a crosswind, so we have to crab. Just like sailing. You point the plane sideways. Got it?’

Scottie nodded, face pale, jaw set, eyes alight.

‘See?’ Maddie held her own empty hands aloft. ‘You’re in control. You’re flying the plane. The Flying Scotsman!’

The Flying Scotsman squeaked again.

‘Don’t cling to it – just hold it gently – oh, well done.’

They beamed at each other for a moment. Then they looked back at the sky.

‘Dympna!’ cried Maddie. ‘Look, look at the sun!’