African Sky (24 page)

His words were obliterated by a boom that shook the boggy ground beneath him and a shock wave that knocked Bryant and the medical orderly to the ground. He rolled painfully over onto his side. Radiant heat and the blinding brightness of burning incendiaries from the flames engulfing the rear half of the Lancaster seared his cheek, and his leg was afire with pain. Above the fire and the blare of an ambulance klaxon, he heard screaming.

Two airmen in bulky fire-retardant suits were running towards the cockpit. Paul dragged himself to his knees, but fell when he tried to stand. Blood oozed from several holes in his trousers, made by pieces of flying metal blasted loose from Popsy's skin.

The firefighters raised arms to the hoods protecting their faces. The blaze had spread quickly to the nose of the Lancaster. Bryant heard a final scream and saw something moving and burning inside the cockpit. The noise finally died.

He heard voices and looked up to see the other members of the crew standing around him.

‘Well done, skip,' one of them said. He thought he heard irony, even bitterness, in the empty compliment.

‘Shame about old Will, though.'

Pip rolled onto one elbow on the rock and looked into his eyes. She saw the raw pain still there, the self-loathing, the emptiness where the dogged fighting spirit of a bomber pilot had once been.

‘Funny thing is, they gave me a gong for that. A medal. Distinguished Flying Cross.'

‘It wasn't your fault that Will died, Paul,' she said.

Deep down, he knew she was right. He'd replayed the scene a thousand times in his mind and his nightmares, sober and drunk, and usually came to the same conclusion. But that didn't make it any easier to deal with. ‘That's not the point, though, is it?'

‘Why?'

‘He died and I lived. Where's the fairness in that? I was the pilot, the skipper. I should have forced him to jump, should have pushed him out of the plane before me, but I didn't. I found blood on the shoulder of my flying jacket later. Not mine – I'd been wounded in the leg. I realised then that it was Will's. His face had been so white, but I thought he was just scared, like I was. He must have been too badly hit to make it to his jump station. It probably happened when the flak hit us. I suppose he thought that the medics would get to him eventually.'

‘Look at me,' she ordered him as he turned his face away. She grabbed his chin between two fingers, realising as she did that it was the first time they had touched, and that some invisible line had been crossed. She brought his face back around to hers and fixed him with her gaze. ‘Will would have known that you would have stayed with him if you knew he was wounded. That's why he didn't say anything.'

He shrugged.

‘It's true, you know it. He said nothing so that you'd have a chance at living.'

‘I've thought about that many times.'

‘You saved the lives of five other men, too, Paul. Don't forget that. You deserved your medal.'

‘Bullshit. I deserved what I got. A chit from the medical officer that kept me off flying duties, even when my leg healed up, and a posting to the middle of fucking nowhere to see out the war. They wanted me out of sight where I wouldn't be bad for morale and the butt of conversations about the cowardly pilot who left a wounded man to die in a burning kite.'

‘They – whoever
they
are – probably realised that you'd done your bit and needed a break.'

‘It doesn't work that way, Pip. You see, the MO knew that I didn't
want to go back, that I couldn't finish my tour. I was spent. He did me a favour by not stamping LMF on my file and kicking me out.'

‘LMF?' she asked.

He shook his head as he spoke. ‘Lack of Moral Fibre. Jesus, how I despised the men who went absent without leave, who just disappeared because they couldn't take it any more. I thought them weak, disgusting, and there was I, in the end no better.'

‘I saw the way you put down that riot the other day, Paul. I saw you stand up to those men, and I saw the way they respected you. There was nothing lacking out there in the street. That took courage, and it required the respect of a bunch of men who had turned into an unruly mob. You probably saved some lives that day too.'

‘It's getting late,' he said, gesturing to the waning African sun, the long shadows on the plain below them. ‘I should get you home.'

‘Have you ever talked to anyone about your last mission?' she asked as she gathered up the food bag and the empty beer bottles.

‘No. You're the first.'

‘Then we've both shared our deepest secrets. I can't forget my husband, Paul, for all the wrong reasons. He was a part of my life, but I'm free now. As terrible as it sounds, his death has given me a second chance. Will Freeman is gone, and you must remember him, for the right reasons.'

‘I do,' he said. ‘Every day of my life.'

And he gave you a second chance, Paul. It's up to us what we do with the rest of our time from now on,' she said as she turned away from him and walked down the face of the granite rock, which glowed a soft, warm pink in the sun's late rays.

It was nearly dark by the time they got back to her farm.

‘Now, how about that cup of tea,' she said as she climbed stiffly off the Triumph's pillion seat.

‘I should be getting back to the base,' he said, still straddling the bike.

She thought he'd come so far that day, opening up to her as she had to him. She remembered the feel of his bristly jawline in her fingers, the hard muscles of his stomach as she'd clung to him through the twists and turns of the road there and back. She thought again of the erotic trysts he'd been involved in. She wondered what it would be like to be Catherine De Beers – to make love to whomever she wanted, whenever she wanted. The drink had worn off and her head was clearer, and she felt that to say goodbye to this handsome stranger, for that was still what he really was, would leave an emptiness, a hunger in her. ‘Nonsense, come in for a cup. We don't want you falling asleep on the way back to base.'

‘All right then.' He put the bike on its stand and followed her in.

She stood in the doorway of the kitchen, arms folded, looking at him. Not smiling, not frowning. A little confused, as if she had forgotten what it was that she had to do.

It was dark and warm inside the farmhouse, like a cocoon. ‘Tea?' he said, standing, facing her, not more than two feet away.

‘Maybe . . .' she began.

‘Later . . .'

He stepped to her, crossing the barrier and pulled her to him. She fancied she could feel the heat from her cheeks reflected off his face. They kissed, greedy for each other. He put his hands under her bottom and lifted her off the ground.

She lost herself in the taste of his mouth, the grip of his muscled forearms, and she let him lift her. ‘Down the hallway,' she whispered. ‘Second door on the right.'

‘No, here,' he said. He laid her on a big, velvet-upholstered wingback chair and knelt in front of her.

‘What are you doing?' She was unsure of exactly what he wanted. Why was he kneeling?

He put a finger to her lips, then unbuttoned her shorts. She raised her hips to let him slide them down. He hooked two fingers in the elastic waistband of her pants, and she accommodated him again.

She glanced down and saw he was fully aroused. ‘Paul . . .'

‘Shush,' he said as he placed a hand on each of her bare knees and parted her legs. He lowered his head and opened her with the tip of his tongue.

She squirmed, amazed and a little shocked at what he was doing down there. ‘It
tickles!'
she said. Then, as his hot tongue found the spot where she sometimes touched herself, alone in her bed at night – the place that Charlie had never bothered to find – she closed her eyes and felt herself melt into the chair. ‘Oh my.'

He could read her body. It felt to her as though he knew her intimately already, her body's signs, its messages to him. She was breathing faster, heavier, and starting to chew rapidly on her bottom lip. He stopped. She opened her eyes and mouth, silently beseeching him.

‘Second door on the right?' he said.

‘You're a fast learner,' she breathed.

He stood and picked her up, carrying her in his arms. They kissed hungrily all the way to the bedroom. He kicked open the door and laid her on the cover. She sat up, reaching for him, hurriedly undoing his belt and fly buttons as he pulled her half-undone blouse over her head. She couldn't see, but felt he was doing something down there, to himself.

He stayed standing and she wrapped her legs around his waist, as though they'd planned it this way, and gasped as he entered her, slowly, and with a mixture of tenderness and strength that she'd not thought possible in a man. He felt different from Charlie. Bigger, for sure, but she could accommodate him. But the texture was different. It suddenly dawned on her. He was wearing something.

‘Don't hurt me,' she said, looking up into his eyes.

‘Never,' he said. ‘That's a promise.'

He leaned forward to kiss her hot cheeks at the end of each long stroke.

Pip started breathing rapidly again. He'd brought her so close with his tongue and now it was as if he had never stopped. She felt her body starting to grip him harder, involuntarily. She dug her nails into his back and lifted herself off the bed to meet him, crushing her breasts to the wiry hair on his chest. Suddenly, too soon, her body shuddered. She felt his climax, saw it in his eyes, but there was no wetness inside her.

He looked down at her and she felt the tears start to well in her eyes. Still inside her, he reached down and wiped her cheek with a thumb. ‘Are you all right?'

She smiled. ‘God, yes.' It was the first time she had experienced an orgasm with a man. Charlie had been her first and only lover, and he'd needed to hit her to get an erection. He'd cared nothing for her pleasure. How could she tell this handsome, troubled, scruffy stranger that he'd changed her life, sexually?

‘Stay there,' she said, and started to move again under him.

F
ortunately, Pip had left a curtain open in the bedroom. The dawn light woke them. ‘I've got to go,' Bryant said as he pulled on his trousers.

She lay back, one arm crooked behind her head, and watched him. ‘I wish we could stay here all day – never leave the bed,' she said, surprised at her own lasciviousness.

‘I'd pass out, I think. I want to get across the border and check out the area where Smythe went down. Also, there are still a few things to do to get ready for tomorrow's wings parade.'

‘You'll never do all that in one day. Besides, I thought you weren't going to drive across into Bechuanaland until after the parade was all over.'

‘I'm a pilot, aren't I?'

She beamed at him. ‘You're going to
fly!'

‘Yep. I'll take a Harvard.'

‘Good for you, Paul!

He sat back down on the bed next to her and took her hand in his. ‘I woke up feeling like I'd just come out of a terrible fever, or a nightmare. I can't ever change what happened to Will, but it was strange just how much it seemed to help talking to someone about it all.'

‘I know just how you feel. It helped me to talk as well.'

He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘I've got to face up to the rest of my life, Pip. The medical officer back in England suggested I talk to a trick-cyclist, but I fobbed him off. I wonder now if that would have helped.'

‘I'm better therapy than any psychiatrist,' she grinned.

‘Mmm, you are.' He brushed a strand of golden hair from above her eye. ‘I think I have to start flying again, just to make sure. I just hope I remember how.'

‘Oh, Paul, you'll be fine.'

His eyes widened as a thought entered his head. ‘Want to come?'

‘Surely that's against regulations?' He hadn't let Catherine De Beers go up in military aircraft, and that made Pip feel special, though she didn't let on.

‘I could say it was part of our new air force-police liaison program.'

She laughed. ‘That would be the program we began last night.'

‘Exactly. How about it?'

‘It's tempting, and I might take you up on the offer some other time, but I've still got some work to do on the murder investigation.'

He stopped buttoning his shirt. ‘I thought that was all sewn up. You've charged that African bloke, haven't you?'

She saw the puzzlement in his face. ‘True, but there are still some . . . loose ends we have to tie up.'

‘I'd have thought they'd have given you a few days leave at least, after getting the news about your husband.'

‘No one put a limit on it. Besides, if you're not going to stick around and liaise with me any more, I may as well be at work. I shall try very hard to play the grieving widow, devoted to her job.'

‘I'm sure you'll give an admirable performance. When can I see you again?'

‘You mean you want to?'

‘Of course . . . if you do.'

She hadn't thought that far ahead. She'd been drunk yesterday, unsure of whether or not she would sleep with him, right up to the
moment where he'd taken her in his arms. ‘I want you to know, Paul, that there haven't been other men, since Charlie went away.'

‘It wouldn't worry me either way.'

‘No, but all the same, Charlie was my first and you, um, were my second. Don't think I'm not . . . God, what's the word?'

‘Grateful?' he suggested as he tied his shoelaces.

‘Yes, I suppose so. I'm very grateful . . .' she started to laugh, ‘very grateful for last night, but things have moved rather quickly between us, don't you think?'

‘Are you giving me the brush-off?' he asked. She thought she saw the sadness creep back into the eyes that had seemed so bright a moment before.

‘No, no! Please don't get the wrong idea. Yes, I do, very much, want to see you again.'

‘Let's not rush it, then,' he said, businesslike. ‘Come to the wings parade tomorrow. I'll arrange an official invitation for you and introduce you to Jan Smuts. After that we can get some dinner in town.'

‘That would be lovely. I've never met a prime minister. Don't you have to stay for some sort of celebration afterwards, though?'

He gave a derisive snort. ‘The last celebration ended with a WAAF's knickers being run up the parade ground flagpole. I'll let the graduating pilots have their fun by themselves and then deal with the aftermath on Wednesday.'

‘Dinner would be lovely,' she said.

He leaned over and kissed her again. Neither of them wanted it to stop, but she knew he had to go if he were going to get back to the base and changed into uniform before eight. ‘I'll see you tomorrow, at the parade,' he said.

‘What should I wear?' she asked.

‘Don't wear your police uniform. I want to ravage you when I see you in it.'

She laughed and threw a pillow at him. ‘Get out!'

*

Bryant whistled as he piloted the bike at full speed back to Bulawayo, and waved a cheery, sloppy salute at the stony-faced Henderson as an askari raised the boom gate for him.

Before heading for his office and the flight line he turned off on a back road that led to the askaris' barracks and, beyond that, the growing cluster of mud and thatch huts where the African men's wives and children lived. It was here that Kenneth Ngwenya's school was continually being expanded to keep pace with the influx of labour to feed the base's ceaseless growth.

The four classrooms and administration building were a mix of the ancient and modern. The walls were mud brick painted with air force whitewash, the floors a traditional hard-wearing mix of cow dung and water which dried to a smooth, concrete-like hardness. The roofs were corrugated iron – a donation from the air force.

Ngwenya was not teaching, but he still wore his customary dark suit pants and white shirt. He stood, hands on hips, talking to a white Rhodesian Air Force engineer.

The men exchanged greetings as Bryant stopped the bike beside them. ‘Looks like you're making headway,' he said.

‘Sheesh, man, if I could get my workers to pull their weight like this we'd have the new hangar up in half the time,' the engineer said, wiping his brow with the back of his uniform shirt sleeve.

Bryant watched a mixed gang of black askaris and white trainee pilots and base staff pulling on a rope to raise a long wooden post into a foundation hole. The Africans sung a deep, rhythmic cadence, which the whites did their best to emulate. It had the desired effect – after a few seconds of trying, all the men started pulling together. Bryant noticed that one of the air force men was Carmichael, the Ulsterman who had been in the thick of the riot in Bulawayo a few days earlier. He laughed and clapped an askari on the back in a friendly gesture as the pole slid home. Bryant had made service on the next school work party a condition of Carmichael's return to duty. The man had tried to protest, but Bryant had reminded him of the consequences of disobeying another order. A gaggle of African
children in torn hand-me-downs danced around the workers, shouting encouragement.

‘Squadron Leader Bryant, can I speak with you for a moment?' Kenneth asked, adopting a formal tone in front of the engineering officer.

‘Don't mind me, I've my work cut out for me keeping these Pommie
skellums
on the job,' the Rhodesian said, then walked off, clipboard in hand.

‘Hello, Kenneth, how's it?' Bryant asked.

‘Did you notice anything unusual about Mrs De Beers when you went to her ranch the other day?'

Bryant was surprised by the way his friend came straight out with this question, ignoring the pleasantries that usually preceded any conversation with an African. He was also concerned by the sombre look in Kenneth's eyes. He explained how Catherine had broken down at the news of Felicity Langham's death, but said nothing about anything else that had gone on during the visit. ‘It was a normal reaction, I suppose.'

‘No, I meant her demeanour towards her servants. I spoke to my father again this morning by telephone. He said Mrs De Beers is leaving, but he was very distressed. He said someone had beaten him.'

‘Who, Catherine?' Bryant was shocked. He'd noticed that she was abrupt to the point of rudeness with her African staff, but he could never imagine her physically abusing them.

‘No. My father was almost incoherent. He said it was a man who had hit him, but I couldn't get a name out of him. Most whites I know, whatever their feeling about Africans, are at least civil towards their staff, Paul. I want to involve the police if this is a criminal assault on my father.'

Bryant understood, but didn't know of another man in Catherine's life. Kenneth's story intrigued him as much as it concerned him. As you know, she's planning on moving to Salisbury, Kenneth. We might be too late to contact her.'

‘Nevertheless, I am going to catch the bus up there to see my father. I still have a few days before classes resume. I wanted you to know
where I was going and, if it comes to it, I would like to think you would stand by my father if this becomes a police matter.'

It would be the old man's word against that of another – presumably a white man if he were a friend of Catherine's. He didn't fancy the old man's chances but he wanted to help Kenneth if he could. ‘If I hear from her again, I'll find a way to raise it with her. I promise I'll let you know what she tells me.'

‘How the bloody hell are you today, Corporal Richards?' Bryant said to the orderly-room NCO as he swung open the door.

Richards had never had such a hearty greeting from the adjutant, and his confusion showed plainly as he said, ‘Err, fine, sir, and you?'

‘Fit as a fiddle. Get on to dispersal and organise me an aircraft. A Harvard.'

This was odd. Very odd. Richards had never seen the adjutant fly. Some of the old sweats reckoned he'd lost his bottle in England. ‘An aircraft, sir?'

‘Big things with wings and propellers. While you're at it, pull the files on the investigation into the loss of Smythe's Harvard. I want the map showing the site where those hunters found the body. Don't stand there looking like I ordered you to have sex with a zebra, Richards!'

‘Yes, sir. Or, no, sir.'

‘Get on with it!' he barked good-naturedly.

Richards picked up the phone and dialled dispersal. After telling the equally surprised duty officer that the adjutant was going flying, he found the file Bryant wanted.

‘Ah, good. Thanks, Richards.' He looked up. The corporal was still standing there with the same bemused look on his face. ‘That'll be all, Corp.'

He checked the map and reread the reports prepared by the pilots who had overflown the place where Smythe's body was found. The site was easily located thanks to the presence of tyre tracks left by the vehicle the white hunters had been driving. Bryant had overflown the
saltpan once, during his initial training, and remembered being told that footprints or tyre marks stayed clear for years. He shouldn't have any trouble finding the place.

He rolled the map, put on his cap and headed out into the morning sunshine. He thought about Pip Lovejoy as he strode across to the dispersal hut, absent-mindedly saluting airmen and trainees along the way. The way she smiled, the firmness of her lithe, petite body.

‘Morning, sir,' said Johnson, a Canadian flight lieutenant. Johnson was one of the instructors on Harvards at Kumalo, and duty officer for the day.

Bryant returned the other man's salute and greeting.

‘Your kite's ready, sir,' Johnson said. ‘Gassed up and good to go. Perhaps you'd like me to run you through the cockpit layout?'

‘Phil, I trained on these things – even though it was a thousand years ago, when Pontius was a pilot.'

The tall Canadian smiled and said, ‘Didn't mean no offence, sir.'

‘None taken. Now, which end is the propeller on?'

‘What's got into him?' an English sergeant fitter in grimy overalls asked Flight Lieutenant Johnson quietly as Bryant left the hangar and walked to his waiting aircraft.

Johnson scratched his head. ‘Whatever it is, I want some of it. Haven't seen him this cheery since I got here.'

An airman passed the restraint straps over Bryant's shoulders as he settled himself into the front seat of the Harvard trainer. He had already done a walk around the aircraft and he buckled himself into his parachute harness. The packed silk canopy was beneath him, doubling by design as a seat cushion.

He scanned the instrument panel. His bravado in front of the Canadian had been as false as the smile and thumbs-up he gave to the young airman, who now jumped off the wing, leaving him all alone in
the cockpit. The smells brought back a thousand memories, a thousand nightmares. Leather, fuel, oil, sweat, fear. He swallowed hard and forced himself to concentrate.

In front of him, the erk began turning the two-bladed propeller. He remembered the lessons now. Oil sank to the bottom of the big radial engine. By turning the prop through five full rotations the airman was redistributing the oil through all of the nine cylinders. His brain needed similar priming. A member of the ground crew had thankfully left a typed checklist in the cockpit.

He made sure the brakes were on and looked at the fuel gauges on the cockpit floor on either side of him. The tanks were full. The oil temperature needed to rise to forty degrees after start-up, so he pulled a lever shutting off the air intake, which kept the engine cool in flight. Radio, off. Generator battery switch, on. Magnetos, off.

He checked the flaps and the rudder and then set the throttle half an inch forward and the fuel mixture to rich. Next, he grabbed the handle of the manual Ki-gas primer in the lower centre of the instrument panel, turned it and pulled it out, using his right hand. With his left he worked the fuel pump handle, between the aileron and rudder trim wheels. When the fuel pressure was up around three or four pounds per square inch he pushed the Ki-gas primer handle in, which squirted fuel into the engine's lower cylinders. As the engine was cold he repeated the procedure eight times, then locked the priming handle back in place by pushing it in and turning it to the right.