In the Balance

Grinding through the air high above the Isle of Wight, George Bagnall thought he could see forever. The day was, for once, brilliantly clear. As the Lancaster wheeled through another of its patrol circuits, the English Channel, France across it, and England were in turn spread out before him like successive examples of the cartographer’s craft.

“Wonder how they ever made maps and got the shapes right back before they could fly over them and see the way they were supposed to look,” he said.

In the pilot’s seat beside him, Ken Embry grunted. “I wonder what it looks like to the Lizards. They get up high enough to take in the whole world at a glance.”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” the flight engineer said. “It would be something to see, wouldn’t it?” He was filled with sudden anger that the Lizards had a privilege denied mankind. Under the anger, he realized, lay pure and simple envy.

“We’ll just have to make the best of what we’ve got.” Embry leaned forward against the restraint of his belts, pointed down toward the gray-blue waters of the Channel. “What do you make of that ship, for instance?”

“What do you think I am, a bloody spotter?” But Bagnall leaned forward, too. “It’s a submarine, by God,” he said in surprise. “Submarine on the surface in the Channel… one of ours?”

“I’d bet it is,” Embry said. “Lizards or no Lizards, somehow I don’t think Winnie is dead keen on having U-boats slide past the skirts of the home islands.”

“Can’t blame him for that.” Bagnall took another look. “Westbound,” he observed. “Wonder if it’s carrying something interesting for the Yanks.”

“There’s a thought. Lizards aren’t much when it comes to sea business, are they? I expect a sub’d be all the harder for them to take out.” Embry leaned forward once more himself. “A bit of fun to guess, eh? Most days we’d be all swaddled in cotton batting up here and not,have the sport of it.”

“That’s true enough.” Now Bagnall twisted around in his chair to peer back into the bomb bay-which for some time had housed no bombs. “Most days Goldfarb has a better view of the world than we do. Radar cares nothing for clouds: it peers right through them.”

“So it does,” Embry. said. “On the other band, given the choice of jobs, I’d sooner peep out through the Perspex on a scene like this-or even on the usual clouds, come to that-than be stuck in the bowels of the aircraft watching electrons chase themselves.”

“You get no arguments from me,” Bagnall said. “None whatevet But then, I dare say Goldfarb’s a bit of a queer bird all the way around. Fancy spending so long mooning after that barmaid Sylvia, finally getting her, and then throwing her aside bare days later.”

The pilot laughed goatishly. “Maybe she wasn’t as good as he’d hoped.”

“I doubt that.” Bagnall spoke from experience. “Never a dull moment there.”

“I’d have thought as much from her looks, but one can’t always judge by looks, enjoyable as it may be to try.” Embry shrugged. “Well, it’s not my affair, in either the literal or figurative sense of the word, and just as well, too. Speaking of Goldfarb, however…” He flicked the intercom switch. “Any sign of our scaly little chums, Radarman?”

“No, sir,” Goldfarb said. “Dead quiet here.”

“Dead quiet,” Embry repeated. “Do you know, I quite like the ring of that?”

“Yes, rather,” Bagnall said. “One more mission from which we have some reasonable hope of landing? The flight engineer chuckled, “We’ve been living so long on borrowed time by now that I sometimes entertain hopes we shan’t have to repay it one day.”

“Disabuse yourselves of those, my friend. The day they took the limit off the number of missions an aircrew could be ordered to fly, they signed our death warrants, and no mistake. The trick lies in evading the inevitable as long as one can.”

“After you got us down safe in France, I refuse to believe anything is impossible,” Bagnall said.

“I was at least as surprised at surviving that as you, believe me: nothing like a bit of luck, what?” Embry laughed. “But if the Lizards choose not to stir about for another couple of hours, I concede we shall have had an easy time of it today. We are orcasionally entitled to one such, don’t you think?”

The Lizards did stay quiet. At the appointed hour, Embry gratefully swung the Lanc back toward Dover. The return descent and landing were so smooth that the pilot said, “Thank you for flying BOAC today,” as the bulky bomber rolled to a stop. No commercial passengers, however, ever deplaned so rapidly as the men who flew with him.

As Bagnall scrambled out of the cockpit and down onto the tarmac, one of the groundcrew men gave him a cheeky grin.

“ ’Ere, you must’ve heard they’ve got the power on again, you’re out an’ ’eadin’ for the barracks so quick.”