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

A quarter to five. Time to go down. I checked all the gauges, found I was still carrying the box of ampoules, and put it up on the ledge beside the bananas and the cup of water. I switched out the cockpit lights so that I could see better outside, leaving the round dial faces illuminated only by rims of red, and finally unlocked the automatic pilot.

It was when I’d put the nose down and felt again the great weight of the plane that I really doubted that I could ever land it, even if I found an airfield. I wasn’t a mile off exhaustion and my muscles were packing up[536], and not far beyond this point I knew the brain started missing on a cylinder or two, and haze took the place of thought. If I couldn’t think in crystalline terms[537] and at reflex speed I was going to make an irretrievable mistake, and for Patrick’s sake, quite apart from my own, I couldn’t afford it.

Four thousand feet. I levelled out and flew on, looking down through the moonlit blackness, searching for the sea. Tiredness was insidious and crept up like a tide, I thought, until it drowned you. I shouldn’t have taken that codeine, it was probably making me sleepy… though I’d had some at other times after racing injuries, and never noticed it. But that was on the ground, with nothing to do but recover.

There. There was the sea. A charcoal change from black, the moonlight just reflecting enough to make it certain. I flew out a little way, banked the plane to the right and began to follow the shore. Compass heading, eastsouth-east. This seemed extraordinary, but it certainly had to be the north-east coast of France somewhere, and I wasn’t going to lose myself again. There were lighthouses, flashing their signals. No charts to interpret them. The biggest port along that coast, I thought, was Le Havre. I couldn’t miss that. There would be a lot of lights even at five in the morning. If I turned roughly north from there I couldn’t help but reach England. Roughly was just the trouble.[538] The map in my head couldn’t be trusted. Roughly north could find me barging straight into the London Control Zone[539], which would be even worse than Paris.

It wouldn’t be light until six at the earliest. Sunrise had been about a quarter to seven, the day before.

The lights of Le Havre were ahead and then below me before I’d decided a thing. Too slow, I thought numbly, I was already too slow. I’d never get down.

The coast swung northwards, and I followed. Five-twenty a.m. The fuel gauges looked reasonable with dawn not far ahead. But I’d got to decide where I was going. I’d got to.

If I simply went on for a bit I’d reach Calais. It still wouldn’t be light. Somewhere over in Kent were Lympne, Lydd and Manston airports. Somewhere. My mind felt paralysed.

I went on and on along the French coast like an automaton until at last I knew I’d gone too far. I hadn’t watched the compass heading closely enough and it had crept round from north to nearly east. That light I’d passed a while back, I thought vaguely, the light flashing at five second intervals, that must have been Gris Nez. I’d gone past Calais. I was nearly round to Belgium. I’d simply got to decide.

The sky was definitely lighter. With surprise I realised that for several minutes the coastline had been easier to see, the water beneath lightening to a flat dark grey. Soon I could look for an airport: but not in Belgium. The explanations would be too complicated. Back to Kent, perhaps.

In a way, the solution when it came was simple. I would go to the place I knew best. To Fenland. In daylight I could find my way unerringly there from any direction, which meant no anxious circling around, and familiarity would cancel out a good deal of the tiredness. The flying club used grass runways which were nothing like long enough[540] for a D.C.4, but its buildings had once been part of an old Air Force base, and the concrete runways the bombers had used were still there. Grass grew through the cracks in them and they weren’t maintained[541], but they were marked at the ends with a white cross over a white bar, air traffic signal for a safe enough landing in an emergency.

My mental fog lifted. I banked left and set off North Seawards, and only after five decisive minutes remembered the fuel.

The burns were hurting again and my spirits fell to zero. Would I never get it right? I was an amateur, I thought despairingly. Still an amateur. The jockey business all over again. I had never achieved anything worthwhile and I certainly hadn’t built the solid life I wanted[542]. Simon had been quite right, I couldn’t have gone on carting racehorses all my life; and now that Yardman Transport no longer existed I wouldn’t look for the same job again.