Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

He checked the de-icing equipment for a second time in ten minutes and said, ‘This bird won’t fly with more than a quarter of a ton of ice on her, and the de-icers were U.S. last week[172]’. He grinned. ‘It’s O.K., I’ve checked them six times since they were repaired, they’re doing all right.’

He peeled and ate one of a large bunch of bananas lying on the ledge over the instrument panel, then calmly unhinged the window beside him a few inches and threw the skin out. I laughed to myself in appreciation and began to like Patrick a good deal.

The co-pilot returned to claim his place, and I went back to the horses for the rest of the journey. Uneventfully we went down across France to Dijon, turned south down the Rhone valley, east at Saint Tropez, and north again at Albenga, landing at Malpensa Airport, Milan, in exactly four hours from Gatwick.

Italy was cold. Shivering as the open doors let in air thirty degrees below the cabin temperature we watched about ten airport men in royal blue battle dress push the wide top-class ramp into position, and waited while three customs men made their way over from the building. They came up the ramp, and the eldest of them said something in his own language.

‘Non parlo italiano[173]’, I said apologetically, which useful sentence was all I knew.

‘Non importa[174]’, he said. He took from me the mares’ temporary import permits which had been made out in both English and Italian, and his two assistants began going from horse to horse calling out their descriptions.

All was in order. He gave me back the papers with a courteous nod of the head, and led his shadows away down the ramp. Again we went through the familiar routine of transferring the cargo from the plane to the waiting horseboxes, Conker making a great fuss of the mare going to Molvedo.

With an hour to spare before we set about loading another cargo of mares bound in the opposite direction for the same reason, Conker, Timmie and I walked across a quarter of a mile of tarmac to the airport building to have lunch. We were met at the door by Patrick, looking very official with gold-braided shoulder tabs[175] on his navy uniform jacket, and wearing an expression of resignation.

‘We can’t go back today,’ he said. ‘So you chaps don’t need to hurry over your beer.’

‘What’s up, then?’ asked Timmie, sniffing loudly.

‘A blizzard. Came down like a burst eiderdown in a wind tunnel after we left this morning. It’s raging all over the south and halfway across the channel, and snowing clear up to John o’ Groats[176]. The bottom’s dropped out of the barometer and… well, anyway, my instructions are not to go back.’

‘All that pasta[177]’, said Conker philosophically. ‘It does my tripes no good.’ He and Timmie went off to the snack bar and Patrick showed me the telegraph office to send ‘no go’ messages[178] to Yardman and the expectant studs. After that we went back to the aircraft, where he collected his overnight bag and I turned homewards the arriving convoy of Italian mares. He waited for me to finish and helped me shut the big double doors from inside at the top of the ramp, and we walked forward across the flattened dismantled boxes, through the galley, and down the staircase which had been wheeled up to the door just behind the cockpit.

‘Where will you stay?’ he said.

‘Hotel, I suppose,’ I said vaguely.

‘If you like, you could come with me. There’s a family in Milan I berth with[179] when I’m stranded, and there’s room for two.’

I had a strong inclination, as usual, to be by myself, but principally because I couldn’t even ask for a hotel room in Italian let alone find entertainment except looking at architecture for the rest of the day, I accepted his offer, and thanked him.

‘You’ll like them,’ he said.

We went two hundred yards in silence.

‘Is it true,’ he said, ‘that you’re a viscount?’

‘No,’ I said casually. ‘A Boeing 707.’

He chuckled. ‘A bleeding viscount, that little Welshman said you were, to be precise.’

‘Would it make any difference to you if I were?’

‘None whatever.’

‘That’s all right, then.’

‘So you are?’ ‘On and off.[180]’

We went through the glass doors into the hall of the airport. It was spacious, airy, glass-walled, stone-floored. Along one side stretched a long gift counter with souvenir presents crowded in a row of display cases and stacked on shelves at the back. There were silk ties on a stand, and dolls in local dress scattered on the counter, and trays of paper-backed books and local view postcards. In charge of this display stood a tall dark-haired girl in a smooth black dress. She saw us coming and her coolly solemn face lit into a delicious smile.

‘Patrick’, she said. ‘Hullo, Patrick, come sta[181]?’

He answered her in Italian, and as an afterthought waved his hand at me and said, ‘Gabriella… Henry.’ He asked her a question, and she looked at me carefully and nodded. ‘Si[182]’, she said. ‘Henry anche.[183]’