A Future Arrived (37 page)

“Did you pack the parcels?” she asked.

“That's about the tenth time you've asked.”

“All right,” she snapped. “I'm asking again.”

“Yes, Mama,” he said quietly. “I packed them.” He drove slowly on to the administration building and parked the car alongside half a dozen others. Turning on the seat, he put an arm across his mother's shoulders. “Please try to understand.”

She nodded grimly, not looking at him. “I do understand. That's the awful part of it, Colin. I understand you perfectly.”

“It's not blind patriotism … England, home and duty. None of that stuff. I just want to be part of this. I have a skill that they can use. If Derek can join up, I can.”

“It's all a great adventure to you,” she said bitterly.

“That may be part of it. I won't argue. Anyway, the way the war's going at the moment they might call it off out of sheer boredom.”

“You don't believe that and neither do I.”

“Okay, I don't believe it. A Fred Allen joke. Look, Mama, I'm not a good pilot, I'm a
goddamn
good pilot. I'm going to be just fine.” He got out of the car and removed two large canvas duffel bags from the back seat. “Are you going to stick around and watch us take off?”

Alexandra slid over behind the wheel. “Maybe … maybe not.”

“Sure,” he grinned. He bent his great height and kissed her on the forehead. “If you drove off, I'd spot you on the road and buzz the car all the way to La Jolla.”

Her hand touched his cheek, lingered there. “I'll go over to the tower and watch. Look after yourself. Please?”

“Like I was made of glass.”

The preflight briefing was held in the conference room next to James Ross's office. It was conducted by a short, sandy-haired Englishman of forty-five named Fergus, a civilian sent to San Diego by the Air Ministry to test fly the planes and shepherd them home. Before the war, he had been the chief test pilot for an English manufacturer of large commercial flying boats. The other men in the room were American pilots hired for the ferry job. Colin was going along as a copilot and radio operator.

“Let's keep together,” the Englishman said. “No straggling and no chummy chatter over the radios. The weather forecast for the next forty-eight hours looks quite good. Should be some heavy rains over Northern Ireland, but no storm fronts expected. All the ships are ticking away like hundred-guinea watches so I don't anticipate any problems.”

“Where do we hit the Gulf?” someone asked.

“Corpus Christi. That should be marked on your maps.”

“Right. It is. Sorry.”

“Cheery-bye, then. See you in Pensacola for supper.”

As the men filed out of the room, he walked up to Colin. “Your father tells me you're coming across to join up.”

“If they'll take me.”

“They'll do that all right.” He looked up at him, grinning. “You'll be Pilot Officer Ross in no time, though God knows where you'll find a uniform to fit.”

James walked slowly beside his stepson toward the dock where the motor launch was moored. He was nearing fifty, but was still as lean and wiry as he had been in his twenties, when he had been the Earl of Stanmore's driver. His spectacular success in America had not changed him either. He still wore coveralls when at the plant, and he usually had grease on his hands.

“I'm sorry to see you going,” he said. “I'll not pretend otherwise.”

“I know Mama's upset.”

“She'd not be much of a mother if she weren't. You know, lad, there's more than one way to serve. They wouldn't take me into the army in the last war. Said I was of more value to England building aero engines than mucking about in the trenches. I felt a proper slacker at first, but it was machines that whipped the Kaiser. It'll be machines that cook Hitler's goose in the end.”

“I'm sure you're right, Jamie.”

“Some admirals I know feel it's only a question of time before Japan jumps in. If that happens there'll be a raft of planes being built on the West Coast and we'll be needing good men to test them.”

“It's not what I'm looking for.”

“I know. You have hot blood. I'm not trying to stop you, Colin, just make you aware that there are honorable and exciting alternatives to firing a gun.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” He turned to Jamie before boarding the launch that would take the crews out to the planes. “You're one heck of a father and a damn good man. Just in case I never told you before.”

He didn't dare look back. He stood in the bow and stared fixedly ahead at the graceful twin-engine planes that in a matter of days from now would be carrying machine guns and depth bombs and flying operational patrols with RAF crews. The Ross-Patterson Colorados winging over the English Channel and the cold North Sea—a long way from sunny California.

R
AIN SLASHED INTO
the dark, sullen waters of Lough Foyle and slapped like buckshot on the curved metal roof of the Quonset hut. Through a small, steam-blurred window Colin could see a swampy wasteland dotted with similar huts and wood buildings. The bay could be seen in the distance, the seven Colorados and three deep-hulled RAF Sunderlands tied to buoys in the stream. It was the morning of his second day in Ireland and the rain had not let up for so much as a second. He was alone in what was facetiously called the “visiting dignitaries' hotel.” The other pilots had left for Belfast where they would sail for New York on an American freighter.

He was scowling at the sodden landscape and wondering what the hell he was doing there when the door at the far end of the hut flew open, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. An RAF officer hurried inside, slamming the door behind him. The man plucked off his hat and shook the rain from it before clapping it back on his head at a raffish angle.

“You Ross?”

“That's right.”

“Allison here.” He removed a rain-blackened coat to reveal the two bands of a flight lieutenant on the sleeves of his uniform. He gave the coat a shake and hung it on a peg beside the door. “Lord! It's a bloody wonder kids in Ulster aren't born with gills. Do you have anything worth drinking or must we swim over to the club?”

Colin waved a hand toward a row of cots. “The guys left half a bottle, but I don't drink whisky.”

“Really? A week here would fix that, I can tell you.”

He was not much older than himself, Colin was thinking as he watched the man home in on the bottle and take a pull, but there was a weary, ageless quality about him. He looked like a man who had done a great deal of flying and little of it pleasant.

“Allison, you said?”

“Right. Kenneth Allison, Coastal Command. I'll be flying one of those beauties of yours to England.”

“When?”

He took another long drink, then recorded the bottle and tossed it on a cot. “An hour or two. The weather chaps say we're in for a break. Not much of one, but enough to tell the difference between sea and sky. Get out while the going's good.” He straddled a chair and rested his chin on the top rung. “Fergus tells me your father made those boats.”

“That's right. Stepfather, to be correct.”

“And that you've popped over to fly one for jolly old England.”

There was something mocking in the icy blue eyes. Colin tensed. “Fly Spits … if possible.”

“Of course. Spits. Everyone wants to fly those. Well, Ross, I don't know what you'll fly, or even if you
will
fly for the jolly old firm, but Uncle Fergus has persuaded me to give you a lift across.”

“He told me he'd try.”

“Tried and succeeded, chum. Quite against RAF regulations, you see, but as senior officer of the ferry detachment, I'm not above bending the old rules in a worthy cause. I'll jot you down in the log as a civilian engineer employed by the manufacturer … making unexpected adjustments. Where are you heading for in Blighty?”

“London. Stay with my grandparents.”

“Oh? Bit of English blood in the Yank veins?”

“All of it.”

“Do tell? Welcome home, then.” He stood up abruptly, glancing at his wristwatch. “I'd better get my chaps briefed. You can fly with me if you'd like … number-two ship.”

“Fine. Ever fly a Colorado before?”

“No, chum … none of us have, but old Fergie explained the little oddities to us. If one can fly a Sunderland, one can fly anything.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Normally, yes … out of Loch Broom in Scotland. Long-range patrols. Western Approaches.” A shadow of bitterness crossed his face. “They may talk of the ‘Bore War' over in France and the ‘phony' war in the London press, but it's bloody real on the North Atlantic.”

F
LIGHT
L
IEUTENANT
A
LLISON
let him take over the controls as they crossed the English coast at Liverpool. A brace of Hurricanes burst through the overcast to have a look at them, waggled their wings, and then roared on ahead, barrel rolling before plunging back into the murk below.

“Ah,” Allison said, “the fighter chums at their boyish sport. Envious, Ross?”

“Well, this is sort of like driving a bus.”

“It is indeed.” He leaned back in his seat and tipped his cap over his eyes. “Wake me when you spot the Thames estuary and I'll land her on the Medway.”

There was no need to navigate. He simply held his position in the formation and kept his eye on Fergus in the lead plane. The weather became clear as they swung down across the midlands at eight thousand feet. A clean, snow-dusted landscape lay below, sparkling like a Christmas card in the wintry sun. The broad, ice-green mouth of the Thames estuary came into view and the middle-aged test pilot who had made a thousand landings on the Thames dipped to three thousand feet and gave instructions over the radio. Colin glanced at Allison and decided not to wake him. It was routine—monkey see, monkey do. The little squadron fell into a staggered line astern behind the leader, dropped to a thousand feet over Southend, and curved down toward the ancient fleet anchorage of the Medway past Sheerness. He touched the ship to the broad reach of the bay as gently as a feather floating into a bathtub. As he began to taxi after the others toward the seaplane base, Allison pushed his cap back and sat up.

“Neatly done, old chum. I'll drive her in from here. You fly well, but you're a bit too free and easy with the controls. This is not California of the balmy skies and tranquil seas. Winds can kick up as you're making your final approach and slap you arse over tea kettle into the drink. Happened to a chum of mine when we were in final training on the Solent last year. Quite altered his old-age retirement plans.”

C
OLIN HAD ALWAYS
liked his grandparents' London house at Regent's Park. It was one of two limestone houses designed by John Nash in 1812 for mistresses of the royal dukes. It was far smaller than Abingdon Pryory and had a warm, comfortable ambiance that was in sharp contrast to the formalities of the country house. He sat in the drawing room with its glowing Renoirs on the walls and watched his grandmother open the parcel he had lugged from home.

“But what on earth? …” Hanna said in bewilderment as she removed cans, boxes, and jars.

Colin laughed. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she's read about the U-boat sinkings and was convinced you'd be starving.”

She held up a jar, looking puzzled. “What is this?”

“Instant coffee. A kind of syrup. You put one teaspoon in a cup and add hot water.”

“Sounds perfectly ghastly.”

“I have identical packages for Aunt Marian and Dulcie.”

“I'm sure they'll be as delighted as I am. Your mother's intentions have always been good, so I can't be angry with her.” She picked through the assortment. “Cook will welcome the sugar I'm sure. Spaghetti with meat balls? In a
tin!
I've never even
heard
of tinned spaghetti with meat balls. Have you, Tony?”

The earl glanced up from his magazine. “Don't be ridiculous.”

She put the assortment back into the box. “I'll take these in to cook and let her figure it out. You men have time for one drink before dinner. You serve, Colin. Your grandfather has a heavy hand.”

“One finger?” Colin asked as he picked up the whisky decanter.

“Have a heart. I'd give a boy more than that.”

He poured a stiff whisky and opened a bottle of Guinness for himself. “Cheers.”

“By all means. Cheers and good luck—the latter most heartfelt. It's good seeing you, but I wish in my old heart that you'd stayed in California.”

“Don't you start, please. It's what I want to do.”

The earl glared at the fire burning softly in the grate. “Bloody damn war. Rotten waste of a young man's time. Still, may not come to anything after all. The troops staring at one another from their Maginot lines and Siegfried lines. Queer sort of war if you ask me. How do you go about joining it?”