LITMIR.BIZ

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was low and leisurely with the unmistakable tones of Texas in it.

      ‘That’s right, Sergeant Gill.’

      ‘Take it real easy, sir. These airplanes are a handful, even for someone who’s had a full night’s sleep.’

      ‘Is she a good one?’

      ‘She’s not my regular ship, sir. But she’s a dandy plane, and I’ve got to say it.’ Gill smiled. He was a big muscular man with a black square-ended moustache that drooped enough to make him look mournful. ‘Mixture off, pitch control forward,’ he prompted.

      ‘It’s okay, Sergeant Gill,’ said Farebrother. ‘I have a few Mustang flights in my log.’

      ‘You don’t want to listen to what people tell you,’ Gill said. ‘This place is no better and no worse than any other unit I’ve been with.’

      Farebrother nodded. The rain continued to drizzle down from the grey stratus. Its droplets made a thousand pearls on the Plexiglass canopy. He almost changed his mind about flying up into such an overcast, but it was too late now. He grinned at Sergeant Gill, who seemed reassured by this but remained on the wing watching the whole cockpit check.

      When Farebrother set the throttle a fraction forward and switched on the magnetos and battery, the instruments sprang to life. Gill used his handkerchief to wipe the rain from the windshield, and then raised the side of the canopy and thumped it home with the heel of his hand. It was a gesture of farewell. He jumped down. Farebrother looked round to be sure Gill was clear and then hit the fuel booster and starter.

      There was a salvo of bangs from the engine, and the four-bladed propeller turned stiffly and halted. To the south sunlight lit the cloud. The rain was lighter now but still coming into the cockpit. He closed the side panel.

      Sergeant Gill’s jacket collar was up high round his neck, but his knitted hat and fatigue trousers were dark with rain. He put his fist in the air and swung it round. Farebrother tried again. The big Merlin engine fired, stuttered, almost stopped, and then after some faltering picked up and kept going. At first not all the cylinders were firing, but one after the other they warmed up until all twelve combined to produce the ragged but unmistakable sound of a Merlin engine.

      Farebrother checked the magnetos one by one before running the power up. He left it there for a moment. Sergeant Gill gave a thumbs-up and Farebrother throttled back to fifteen hundred revs and looked at his instruments once more. She seemed okay, but the Merlins were notoriously susceptible to water vapour and he let her warm up until she was very smooth.

      The rain stopped and a beam of sunlight spiked through the overcast. By now there was someone on the balcony of the control tower and the men painting it had paused in their work to watch the Mustang taxi out to the runway. The engine cowling obscured his view and Farebrother steered a zigzag course along the perimeter track to make sure he didn’t let the wheels go into the muddy patches on each side. At the runway he stopped. The figure on the balcony waved an arm and Farebrother ran the engine against the brakes before letting the plane slip forward and gather speed.

      She lifted easily off the ground and he brought the wheels up quickly. The cloud was lower than he’d thought; even before he was turning into a gentle circuit there were tiny streaks of grey cloud rippling across his wings.

      A man has to be very young, very stupid, or very angry to do what Farebrother did that December afternoon in 1943. Perhaps he was a little of all three. First he went up to find out how low the overcast was, and then he took her on a circuit to test the controls and look over the local terrain. He treated her gently, just as he had treated the ones at Dallas every time Charlie Stigg had been able to persuade his test pilot brother that two hardworking air force instructors needed the taste of real flying once in a while.

      Farebrother decided that, by luck or judgement, the unknown Lieutenant Morse had chosen a fine machine. Mickey Mouse II responded to every touch of the controls and had that extra agility the Mustang has when its main tank is more than half empty.

      He pulled back the stick and eased up into the overcast. A few wisps of dirty cotton wool slid over the wings, then suddenly the cockpit was dark. The wet rain cloud swirled off the wing tips in curly vortices but the Merlin gave no cough or hesitation. It drank the wet cloud without complaint. Contented, Farebrother dropped out of the lower side of the stratus in time to see the crossed runways of Steeple Thaxted just ahead of him. He levelled off and slow-rolled to a flipper turn that gave turning force to the elevators. Then he went higher, banked steeply, and came back. This time he dived upon the field to gain speed enough for a loop. As she came up to the top of the loop, belly touching the underside of the stratus, he rolled her out and snaked away, tearing little pieces from the underside of the cloud base.

      He had their attention now. Men had come out of the big black hangars, and others stood in groups on the parade ground. There was a crowd outside the mess tents and Farebrother saw their mess kits glint in the dull light as he made a low run across the field. There were people in the village streets too, and some cars had pulled off the road so the drivers could watch. Farebrother wondered whether Colonel Dan and the Exec were among the men standing in the rain outside the Operations Building.

      By now he had enough confidence in the plane to move lower. He made another pass—this time so low that he had to ease her up to clear the control tower, and only just made it. The men working there threw themselves onto the wet ground, and on his next run he saw pools of spilled white paint that made big spiders on the black tarmac. He went between the hangars that time, and did a perfect eight-point roll across the field. For a finale he half-rolled to buzz the runway, holding her inverted until the engine screamed for fuel, and then split-essed in for a landing that put her down as soft as a caress.

      If Farebrother was expecting a round of applause as he got out of the plane, he was disappointed. Apart from the amiable Sergeant Gill, who helped him unstrap, there was no one in sight. ‘Everything okay, sir?’ said Gill, deadpan.

      ‘You’d better change the plugs, Sergeant,’ said Farebrother. He noticed that Gill had put on a waterproof coat, but his face and trousers were wet with rain.

      ‘She’s due for a change. But I figured she’d be okay for a familiarization flight,’ Gill said in his Texan drawl.

      ‘You were quite right, Sergeant Gill.’

      ‘You can leave the chute there. I’ll get one of the boys to take it back.’

      Gill walked back to the dispersal hut with Farebrother. There was a primitive kitchen there and some coffee was ready in the percolator. Without asking, Gill poured coffee for the pilot.

      ‘She’s a good ship, and well looked after.’

      ‘She’s not mine,’ said Gill. ‘I’m crew chief for Kibitzer just across the other side of the hardstand. That one belongs to a crew chief named Kruger.’

      ‘But he allows Lieutenant Morse to fly it once in a while?’

      ‘That’s about the way it is,’ said Gill without smiling.

      ‘Well, I hope Kruger and Lieutenant Morse won’t mind my borrowing their ship.’

      ‘Lieutenant Morse won’t mind—Mickey Mouse they call him—and he’s mighty rough with airplanes. He says planes are like women, they’ve got to be beaten regularly, he says.’ Gill still didn’t smile.

      Farebrother offered his cigarettes, but Gill shook his head. ‘Kruger, he won’t mind too much,’ said Gill. ‘It don’t do an airplane any good to be standing around in this kind of weather unused.’ He took off his hat and looked at it carefully. ‘Colonel Dan now, that’s something else again. Last pilot who flew across the field…I mean a couple of hundred feet clear of the roofs, not your kind of daisy-cutting—Colonel Dan roasted him. He was up before the commanding general—got an official reprimand and was fined three hundred bucks. Then the Colonel sent him back to the US of A.’

      ‘Thanks for telling me, Sergeant.’

      ‘If Colonel Dan gets mad, he gets

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