‘Hello, Ginny!’ the car phone crackled. ‘Come in, Ginny, over.’
‘I’m here, Jeff. Over.’
‘Request more detail about caterpillars. Are they… widely scattered… loose pattern… close… or… thick? Over.’
‘Jeff, they’re close but in patches. Do you read me? Over.’
‘I read you, Ginny. Any change, let me know, please. Over.’
Just my bloody luck, Jeff thought. No fire tenders. No foam. No rescue services of any kind. And he only had to put his wheels where the caterpillars were thickest to risk spinning off the runway.
‘A bit like landing in slush,’ he said with a wink at Enoch. ‘Filthy, half-frozen, mucky slush.’
‘Landing gear,’ Pierre intoned.
‘Down,’ came Enoch’s voice. ‘Three greens.’
‘Anti-skid.’
(God, we’re going to need that!)
‘On. Four releases.’
‘Flaps,’ said Pierre.
‘Give me forty, please.’
‘Forty selected. Moving. Forty checked. Two greens.’
Ginny’s voice came urgently through his headset, cutting across Enoch’s response. He could sense the fear as she spoke.
‘Jeff, I can see moths. A thick swarm of moths just visible in the field glasses. You’ll fly into them. Over.’
‘Roger, Ginny. Can’t spot ’em yet, but…’ He glanced at the fuel. There was still enough in the tanks to roast them all alive. Time to speak the unthinkable. ‘Ginny — any problems when we land, you and Bernie stay well clear. Okay? Over and out.’
Pringle’s luck — it couldn’t be anything else! All his life it had dogged him. Everything would go like a dream, then when he least expected it — Wham! Dropped in the shit. Like that time he’d dumped a plane-load of holiday makers into a potato field, overshooting the runway for Chrissake! No one hurt save for cuts and bruises, and that stewardess who’d lost the baby she’d told no one she was expecting. Not even his own fault, as the Inquiry established beyond doubt. Could have happened to anyone, but it didn’t. Happened to him: Pringle’s luck.
They were spot on for a perfect touchdown. There was the runway straight ahead. Then he saw the moths, bloody thousands of them directly in his approach path.
‘Oh-oh!’ he heard Enoch murmur alertly.
Ginny held her breath. The Boeing was over the end of the runway, its wheels seemingly — from where she was parked — only inches above the ground when the roar of its engines coughed and faltered. Despite this, the great aircraft touched down elegantly and began to race along.
For a second she relaxed, until she realised the Boeing’s ground speed was not reducing and its engines still produced desperate choking sounds. Then came silence as they finally cut out. It left the runway, skidding through almost ninety degrees across the grass until at last it did a kind of bellyflop and came to rest on the far side of the airfield.
‘Jeff, are you okay? Over.’ She shouted into the mouthpiece hysterically. ‘Jeff, for God’s sake say something. Over.’
‘Ginny, what’s happened?’ Alan’s voice broke through. ‘Are they okay?’
She examined the Boeing through the field glasses, only too aware that it might blow up at any moment. Jeff had warned them. But nothing was happening. The aircraft was on its belly on the grass, motionless.
‘Alan, I’m going over there to take a look. Keep trying him, will you? Over and out.’
Winding down her window just a crack, she briefly told Bernie what she intended before setting out, keeping at first to the taxiway. It was like driving over a carpet of caterpillars, the wheels crunching them to death and slithering over the green juice they extruded. Coming along behind her Bernie seemed to be in even greater difficulty, at one point skidding on to the grass.
He waved to her through the windscreen, trying to indicate that the grass might be the easier option. She joined him and they drove side by side. The ground was soft after all the heavy rain and their tyres left deep muddy ruts. Moths flew against the windows and windscreen; she used her washer and wipers to try and keep them out of her line of vision, but they never let up for a moment. She was the intruder, they seemed to be saying; there was no longer any hint of welcome in their interest.
Every few seconds Alan’s voice came thinly from the handset, begging for a response from the Boeing. Its radio remained silent, as if the whole plane had died.
Some twenty yards away from the aircraft she stopped the car and called Alan to describe what she could see. They were not far from the extreme end of the runway. Through the expanse of grass the Boeing had gouged a long, wide causeway of mud before coming to a final stop. She could see no one at the windows; no movement of any kind.
But — just as she was about to finish — the outer skin to the rear of the aircraft began to bulge and shift. She took the field glasses and focussed on it.
‘They’re opening the doors!’ she yelled excitedly. ‘I can see them opening the doors. Oh Alan, they’re still alive! I’m going over to help. Over and out!’
Bernie too had noticed the plane’s doors opening. He was already putting on his safety helmet and fumbling with the press studs of the rubber face mask. He had rejected the offer of an Army suit, saying he found it too restricting. Ginny agreed with him and now preferred heavy overalls, though still using the Army helmet. But nothing they had tried so far was ideal; that was another area where more research was needed.
They clumped over the grass towards the Boeing. The caterpillars were thick on the ground. With every footstep she felt them writhing beneath her boots. By now the moths were whistling again in an eerie concert of high-pitched squeaks which were steadily becoming louder.
Bernie touched her arm, pointing. Something was happening in the plane. In the open doorway, two figures were manhandling what looked like a long, flat crate. Then they tipped it over and seemed to be thumping the bottom.
Out of it fell two of the biggest lizards she had ever seen. Five feet long at least, with whipping tails and stumpy legs which carried them rapidly a short distance away from the plane. They stopped, suddenly motionless; then their heads looked around, as if bewildered.
Watching the nearer of the two, Ginny saw its tongue shoot out. The caterpillars didn’t have a chance against it, though some were already beginning to crawl over its back. Lazily, the second lizard picked them off.
One of the men on board came down to join them. He and Bernie together took the weight of the next crate as it was lowered to them and placed it carefully on the ground. Someone tossed down a crowbar which Ginny seized. She levered the lid off, tugging it open to release the next two lizards, almost falling as they tangled with her legs in their eagerness to escape.
Moths came screaming at her as she worked, spitting their venom across her visor and helmet. Caterpillars — some longer and more agile than any she’d ever come across before — crept over the crates and on to her gloves, or clung to the leather of her high boots. Occasionally she paused to pick them off, but more always appeared. She began to feel desperately that they had chosen her out as their special target until she noticed that Bernie and the other man were also covered with them.
She lost count of how many crates she’d opened — more than ten, it must have been — before at last she straightened up, gasping for breath, the sweat pouring over her body beneath the thick overalls. Everywhere she looked she saw these long, slender lizards, dark in colour with pale yellow rib-like patches at intervals down the full length of their bodies. The moths were fewer now; any that ventured too near the ground were soon trapped by those darting tongues.