“I was on final approach….” Four other aircraft were set to land after him. Normally he would have a small crew in training on board but that day he was alone.
“I was flying the old twin-engine Anson….” A very forgiving little aircraft, unless you’re ground-looping on the tarmac — lovely in the sky, but a handful on the ground.
“The sky was clear as a bell….” It’s overcast but the ceiling is high, visibility good. Most pilots will fly their missions in clear moonlight over the Channel, slow and heavy with six tons of bombs to put on the target five hours away. They’ll see their own shadows rippling across the grey sea below while watching for German fighters, Messerschmitts mainly, as the crust of Europe comes into view: patchwork fields and spires below like a diorama, visibility augmented by the criss-crossing cones of German searchlights, by the flames of each other’s airplanes caught in the sticky web of light, the spritz and arc of anti-aircraft fire. And far below, their bombs tilting away, tumbling like dominoes toward earth, ending in soundless puffs of smoke. Some will make it back to Yorkshire — better to be hit on the way back, with less fuel and an empty bomb bay. If they’re lucky enough to be hit but remain airworthy, they might be able to put out the flames by diving. If not, and they’re lucky enough still to be alive, they and their crew might be able to squeeze past the equipment that crowds the narrow cabin and try to get out, climbing up the aircraft as it spins earthward. They rarely think about this. No one talks about it.
“I got clearance from the tower, so I banked left and started bringing her in for a landing….” This time next month I’ll be in England.
“Down below on the tarmac I saw another Anson rolling away from the flight line, and I took it for granted he was headed for the taxiway….” The airstrips are black with recent rain but it isn’t raining now, a bit slippery, no big deal. His worst fear has been that he will be sentenced to instructor school rather than posted overseas — the trick is to be good, but not too good….
“At about a hundred and fifty feet I saw the Anson roll past the taxiway and turn onto the runway right smack dab where I was headed….” Unconcerned as a bug on a leaf, the yellow aircraft below makes a slow right turn onto the runway and begins to pick up speed. “And I said to myself, what the heck is he doing?” Something’s fouled up. “But there wasn’t much time to think….” Too late for Jack to go around again, and at one hundred feet a decision occurs in his central nervous system, causing his hand to pull up hard and lean right on the stick. “I figured I’d pour on the power, bank and get the nose up….” His aircraft responds with sixty degrees to the left but no altitude; he is too low and slow for that at fifty feet. His port wing clips the edge of the landing strip, he cartwheels into the field, yellow plywood splintering off in all directions, let her go, he thinks, less to catch fire, he thinks, because at that point he has plenty of time to think, five spinning seconds. “But she spun in and there I was, tail over teakettle in the field.”
What is left of his aircraft jams to a stop up on its nose in the dirt. At some point his head has snapped forward into the instrument panel—“I got a pretty good bump on the head”—the knob of the radio dial, most likely. It has all but taken out his eye. “But somebody up there likes me, I thought….” Had he been operational at the time of the accident, he’d have kept his aircrew category—
Madeleine says, “But your eye was bleeding.”
“Well I didn’t know that then, I just figured I’d banged my head.”
— twenty-twenty is nice but not essential, that’s why you fly with a crew. All you really have to be able to see is your instrument panel, and Jack can see it fine, it’s bent into itself below him. He is suspended over it by his seat belt, big drops of blood are splashing onto the shattered dial faces, the fuel gauge reads low and that’s good news, where is the blood coming from? He touches his face. There’s a storm raging behind his left eye—
“And Uncle Simon rescued you,” says Madeleine.
“That’s right.”
A sound like a heavy zipper — Simon slices him out of his seat belt and hauls him out. Jack feels the earth travelling backwards beneath his butt — there are his boots bouncing along in front of him, how long have we been travelling like this?
“Simon saw the accident and he was the first one across the field.”
Grass rippling past, a pair of elbows hooked under his armpits.
There’s been an accident, Jack hears his own voice.
Yes you foolish bastard, there’s been a fucking accident.
Hi Si. Sorry, sir.
He hears Simon laugh at the same moment as he glances up to see his yellow airplane — in a headstand twenty-five feet away, skeleton wings drooping — burst into flames like a flower unfolding, burning pollen on the air.
He wakes up in the infirmary. Why is the nurse smiling? Why does Simon offer him a shot of whiskey?
“You did the right thing, mate.”
What is there to celebrate? His war is over. It ended thirty yards south of the runway at Number 9 Service Flying Training School, Centralia Aerodrome, April 7, 1943. SNAFU. Situation Normal All Fouled Up.
“And you got a medal,” says Madeleine.
“That’s right, I got my gong.”
“But you couldn’t fly any more.”
“Nope, but it turned out for the best ’cause otherwise I never would have met Maman and you never would have been born, and what would I do without my Deutsches Mädchen?” Jack gets up from the bed and leans to tuck the blankets around her.
“Dad, tell the story of Jack and Mimi.”
He laughs. “We said one story.”
“But it is one story, it’s part of the story.”
“You’re going to be a lawyer when you grow up.” He switches off the light.
“Dad, what was the name of that place again?”
“What place?”
“Where Johnny said Hitler’s secret weapon was?”
“Johnny …? Oh, that was Peenemünde.”
Pain Amunda. The name sounds like needles. “Did the Germans capture her?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Did they torture her?”
“No, no … she got away.” He slips out the door.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“What would’ve happened if you died in the crash?”
“… I didn’t die.”
“But what if?”
“Well. You wouldn’t have been born.”
“Where would I be?”
“I don’t think you’d be anywhere.”
What is worse? Being dead? Or not being born? How come we’re afraid to die, but we’re not afraid of before we were born? “Dad—?”
“Have a good sleep, sweetie, think nice thoughts.”
Jack closes her door halfway, to allow light from the hall to spill into her room. He goes to his bedroom and crosses to his dresser without switching on the light. That other Anson never should have been cleared for takeoff. The Air Force Cross was in recognition of his decision, in disregard of his own safety, to peel left into a certain crash, rather than risk trying to overtake the aircraft on the ground and land in front of it — a risk that, had it resulted in a collision with the fuelled-up airplane, would have killed its pilot, its instructor, its student navigator and its wireless operator. Along with Jack. For valour, courage and devotion to duty whilst flying, though not in active operations against the enemy. Jack reaches into his drawer and finds what he’s looking for.
He crosses the hall to his son’s room. On the wall, the Canadian Golden Hawks fly in formation, their gold and red Sabre jets in a starburst. Below the picture, the bed is neatly made, the boy is no slouch. He shakes his head at the new poster, however; where did he get that thing? The United States Marine Corps Wants You. Jack has a back-to-school gift for his son: a brand-new “RCAF 4 Fighter Wing” baseball cap from the boy’s old team in Germany. He tosses it onto the bed and it bounces. Regulation corners. He smiles and heads downstairs.