The man who met him was Group Captain Evans.
“Silk,” he said. “Slippery stuff. I thought I might see you again. Hoped not, but… here you are.”
“Here I am, sir.” It was dusk. Hours ago, sweat had dried on his face: low flying could be hard work. A wash would be nice.
“We’re worried about your eyesight, Silk. It’s not good enough, is it? Anyone who goes looking for trouble, the way you did, and finds it, must have rotten eyesight. Agree?”
“I could do with a drink, sir.”
“You still owe us for half a bottle of claret. Follow me.”
They went to his office and Evans gave him a whisky and water. “So you’re leaving the Service,” Evans said. “Retiring on medical grounds. In fact you’re out already – the paperwork was completed while you were still in the air. Slightly irregular, but I’m sure you can see your way clear to accepting the change.”
Silk stirred his drink with his finger, and sucked the finger. “I can barely see you, sir. And I don’t know what’s become of that bottle.”
Evans gave him another half-inch of Scotch. “The first time I saw you, I warned you that Vulcan duty was no piece of cake. I told you that any weakness was terminal, it would eat away at you until you cracked. And here we find you playing silly-buggers at sea level in the wildest corner of the Scottish highlands.” There was no anger in his voice; only flat amazement. “What went wrong?”
“People kept disappearing,” Silk said. “And I worked it out – I’ve got fewer years ahead of me than behind me. And they’ll scrap the Vulcan soon. I knew I’d never get another chance like today. That’s all. Now I’d like to wash my face.”
When Silk came back from the bathroom, Evans said: “The best thing for all of us would be if you were to disappear. Go a very long way from Britain. I’ve looked at your file. You must know people in Air America.”
“Barney Knox was my boss. The last I heard, he was in their California office. Los Angeles.”
“The West Coast.” Evans looked at his watch. “Eight hours difference. It’s worth a try. Here’s their number in LA.”
Silk took the slip of paper. “You know everything, don’t you?”
“It’s reciprocal.”
Silk made the call. Naturally, Knox was glad to hear from him. Surprisingly, his old job was available. “Preferably somewhere not a million miles from Seattle,” Silk said. Knox suggested Vietnam; plenty of Air America work there. Silk said he thought Vietnam was quiet now the French had gone. “Think again,” Knox said. Silk took the offer.
He handed the slip of paper to Evans but he didn’t release it. They stood in the middle of the office, each holding the end of a piece of paper. “You had this ready,” Silk said. “You didn’t write the number and give it to me. It was all prepared.”
“I spoke to Knox an hour ago. He was waiting for your call.”
Silk let go. “I feel somewhat manipulated,” he said.
“Well, you manipulated Bomber Command, Silk. So now we’re quits. We’ve booked you onto a plane to LA tonight. Ticket and passport will be at the check-in. Hungry?”
They walked down the corridor, to the mess. “Vietnam,” Evans said. “Jolly good. Don’t come back soon, will you?”
Author’s Note
Hullo Russia, Goodbye England is a fiction based on fact. The reader is entitled to know which is which.
The major events are true. References to Bomber Command’s operations in World War Two, the formation of Vulcan bomber squadrons by the RAF, the policy of nuclear deterrence in the Cold War, and the American attack on Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 – these all happened in much the way I have described. However, there was no Vulcan squadron numbered 409, and no RAF Kindrick in Lincolnshire. Air America was only one of many CIA-owned airlines; for the sake of simplicity I allowed it to represent them all.
Accounts of the design and performance of aircraft are as accurate as I could make them. This includes details of the Blue Steel stand-off nuclear weapon, the Thor ballistic nuclear missile, the AEO’s jammers (Red Shrimp, Blue Diver and so on), simulators, Micky Finn exercises, electromagnetic pulse, nuclear targets in the Soviet Union, and Vulcan training flights to Benbecula and to Rockall, including the presence of Russian trawlers engaged in electronic snooping on Nato activities.
The characters are fictional, although some of them have been around for years. Skull and Air Commodore Bletchley first appeared in my novel Piece of Cake, and then turned up again in A Good Clean Fight, while Silk played a big part in Damned Good Show, as did Zoë. Silk’s morale-boosting tour of American war factories, and his visits to U.S. Air Force flying schools, are invented; so is the hectoring interrogation he gets when he rejoins Bomber Command.
But Silk’s generous treatment by Ronald Colman fits the facts. During the war, the British colony in Hollywood was very hospitable to passing RAF aircrew, and I have not exaggerated the warmth of the welcome that beautiful stars gave to young pilots.
The eyepatches are not fiction. The Vulcan cockpit had windshield blinds which could be used to hide a nuclear flash; but as an extra safeguard against total blindness, aircrew were indeed issued with an eyepatch. By 1962, Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) and Operational Readiness Platforms (ORP) were standard procedures on Vulcan squadrons. When bombers were scrambled, the thrust of their engines was truly massive: on one base it repositioned the town rubbish dump, unwisely sited near the perimeter fence. Ejection seats – ‘bang seats’ – were provided only for pilot and co-pilot. In time of trouble, the rest of the crew were expected to bale out through the door in front of the nose wheel – by no means an easy exit, given the height, speed and perhaps damaged condition of the aircraft.
The title is apt. If the policy of nuclear deterrence failed and Vulcans were sent to retaliate, they would never turn back until their task was done; and then turning back would be pointless, because every home base would have been obliterated. Few aircrew, if any, seem to have lost any sleep over this bleak scenario. Perhaps their maturity and experience shaped their outlook. Many had served in Bomber Command since the early days of World War Two, when they flew such vintage machines as the Battle or the Hampden. Silk’s arrival on 409 Squadron brought the average age of Quinlan’s crew below forty. This situation was not unknown. Bomber Command liked seasoned performers in its nuclear aircraft.
The Cold War needed no invention: the reality of MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction – was chilling enough. Reports by the Conservative Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing are fact. Captain Red Black’s task – to bomb East Berlin while, within a minute, it was being destroyed by two Thor missiles – was part of the strategy known as ‘cross-targeting’. An official history of the Cuban Missile Crisis comments: ‘The pilot assigned this task is remembered as the individual who sweated the most during cockpit alert.’
I had no need to embroider that Crisis: the bare facts provide ample material. It is true that the telephone link between SAC HQ and Bomber Command HQ fell silent; that SAC signals were transmitted in plain English for the benefit of Soviet ears; and that B52s flew threateningly close to Soviet borders. In mid-Crisis, SAC – without warning the Soviet Union – launched an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific, later revealing that it was unarmed. At about the same time, the US radar network reported a missile launch in Cuba, aimed at America – a radar technician had mistakenly inserted a test tape into the system. Luckily someone aborted the process of knee-jerk retaliation. That was not the only cock-up.