‘I have arrange plenty of hot water.’ It was Else. She had a steaming bowl with her and she plumped down beside me. ‘Now we can fix that cut, eh?’ I winced as the hot water touched the open cut across my forehead. The water smelt strongly of disinfectant. Then she bandaged my head and it felt better. ‘That is finished. Now you look like you are a wounded man.’
‘So I am,’ I said. Her face hung over me, framed by the darkening blue of the sky. She looked young and soft and rather maternal. My head was in her lap. I could feel the softness of her limbs against the back of my skull. We should have been lying like that in a hay field in May. The distant drone of the aircraft was like the sound of bees. I caught the gleam of its wings just beyond her hair.
‘Where the devil’s the ambulance?’ Tubby demanded. ‘He’s coming in now.’
I glanced at my watch. It was twenty minutes since I’d phoned. ‘They’ll be here in about ten minutes,’ I told him.
He grunted a curse. They’ll be here too late then.’
I could see the plane gliding over Ramsbury, a black dot against the sunset. I thought of the engine we had laboured to complete all these weeks, of Saeton alone up there at the controls. The pain of my head was nothing then. My eyes were trained on the sky over Ramsbury and every fibre of my being was concentrated on the plane, which was banking sharply as it disappeared behind the trees, turning for the final approach.
It seemed an age before it appeared again. Then suddenly it was there over the end of the runway, hanging like a great, clumsy bird over the trees, dropping towards the concrete, its landing flaps down, the props turning slowly. I scrambled to my feet and began to run. Tubby was running, too. Saeton levelled out for the touchdown and as the gap between plane and concrete lessened, the aircraft seemed to gather speed till it was rushing towards us.
Then the belly hit the concrete. Pieces of metal were flung wide. There was a horrible scraping. But when the sound reached me the plane had bounced several feet above the runway. It came down then with a splintering crash, swivelling round, the fuselage breaking up as the tail disintegrated, grinding the concrete to puffs of powder, the metal sheeting stripping from her belly like tinplate. She slewed broadside, tipping crazily, righted herself, straightened up and broke in half. The appalling grinding sound went on for a second after she had stopped. Then there was a sudden, frightening silence. The plane lay there, a crumpled wreck, unnaturally still. Nothing moved. The sunset was just as red, the trees just as black, nothing had changed as though the aerodrome had taken no interest in the accident. Somebody had pranged a plane. It had happened here countless times during the war. Life went on.
Tubby was running towards the machine. For a second I stood rooted to the spot, my stomach quivering in expectation of the sudden blossoming of the wreck into a blazing fury of fire. But it just lay there, inert and lifeless, and I, too, started to run.
We got Saeton out. There was a lot of blood, but it was from his nose. He was unconscious when we laid him on the concrete, his hand badly cut and a livid bruise across his forehead. But his pulse beat was quite strong. Tubby loosened his collar and almost immediately his eyes opened, staring up at us blankly. Then suddenly there was life behind them and he sat up with a jerk that brought a groan from his lips. ‘How’s the plane? Is she-’ His voice stopped as his eyes took in the wreck. ‘Oh, God!’ he murmured. He began to swear then — a string of obscene oaths that ignored Else’s presence and were directed solely at the plane.
‘The engines are all right,’ Tubby said consolingly.
What’s the good of engines without a plane?’ Saeton snarled. ‘I got the tail too low.’ He began swearing again.
‘You better lie back,’ Tubby said. There’s nothing you can do about the plane. Just relax now. The ambulance will be here in a minute.’
‘Ambulance?’ He glared at us. ‘What damn’ fool phoned for an ambulance?’ He got out his handkerchief and wiped some of the blood from his face. ‘Get down to the main road and stop them,’ he ordered Tubby hoarsely. ‘Tell them it’s all right. Tell them there wasn’t any crash after all — anything, so long as you get them away from here without them coming on to the airfield.’
‘But even if you’re all right, there’s Neil here needing treatment,’ Tubby said.
‘Then take him with you and pack him off to hospital. But I don’t want them on the field. I don’t want them to know we’ve crashed.’
‘But why?’ Tubby asked.
‘Why?’ Saeton passed his hand across his eyes and spat blood on to the concrete. ‘I don’t know why. I just don’t want anyone to know about this. Now for God’s sake stop arguing and get down to the road.’
Tubby hesitated. ‘That nose of yours looks as though it’s broken,’ he said. ‘And there may be some-thing else-’
‘There’s nothing else broken,’ Saeton snarled. ‘If there is I’ll get to a doctor under my own steam. Now get going.’
Tubby glanced at me. ‘I’m all right,’ I said. He nodded and started at a steady trot across the field towards the quarters. Saeton struggled to his feet and stood there, swaying weakly, staring at the wreckage, bitter, black despair in his eyes. Then, as he turned away, he caught sight of Else and his thick hands clenched with sudden violence of purpose. ‘I thought you were going back to Germany,’ he said hoarsely.
‘I go on Monday.’ Her eyes were wide and she looked frightened.
‘Wanted to be in at the death, eh? You timed it nicely.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘You do not understand, eh?’ he mimicked her crudely. ‘I suppose you don’t understand what happened up there?’ He was moving towards her, staggering slightly, the sweat standing out in great drops on his forehead and running down into his eyes. ‘Well, the connecting rod was snapped. We couldn’t lower the undercarriage. That surprises you, eh? You didn’t know the connecting rod was broken.’
The expression on his face held me rooted to the spot. It was a bloody mask of hatred. Else stood quite still, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open. And then suddenly she was talking, talking fast, the words tumbling out of her as though in themselves they could form a barrier between herself and what was moving so inevitably upon her. ‘I do not touch your plane. I have nothing to do with what has happened. Please. You must believe me. Why should I do this thing? These are my father’s engines — my father’s and mine. I wish them to fly. I wish to see them in the air. It is all I have left of him. It is the work we do together. He was happy then, and I was happy also. I want them to fly. I want them-’
‘Your father’s engines!’ The contempt in his voice stopped her like a slap in the face. ‘They’re my engines. Mine. Your father’s engine wouldn’t work. It crashed. I broke my leg trying to fly the bloody thing. It was no good. We had to start again. All over again. A new design.’
She flung up her head then, facing him like a tigress defending her young. ‘It is not a new design. It is different, but it is the same principle. Those engines belong to him. They are-’
He laughed. It was a wild, violent sound. ‘You’ve smashed what I’ve lived for for three years. You’re happy now, aren’t you? You think now that Germany will get control of them again. But she won’t.’ He was very close to her now. ‘You tried to kill us. Well, now I’m going to-’
‘That’s a lie!’ she cried. ‘I have nothing to do with it. Nobody has touched the airplane.’
‘Then why are you here — on the spot, gloating-’
‘Oh, will you never understand?’ she cried furiously. ‘I come to see them up there in the air. They are my father’s work. Do you think it is no excitement for me to see them fly? Please, I have nothing to do with the crash.’ His hands had reached out to her and gripped her shoulders. She was suddenly pleading. ‘I have done nothing — nothing. You must believe what I say.’ ‘