Seven Stones to Stand or Fall Read online

  Dolly’d given him a white silk scarf as a parting present. He didn’t know how she’d managed the money for it and she wouldn’t let him ask, just settled it round his neck inside his flight jacket. Somebody’d told her the Spitfire pilots all wore them, to save the constant collar chafing, and she meant him to have one. It felt nice, he’d admit that. Made him think of her touch when she’d put it on him. He pushed the thought hastily aside; the last thing he could afford to do was start thinking about his wife, if he ever hoped to get back to her. And he did mean to get back to her.

  Where was that bugger? Had he given up?

  No, he’d not; a dark spot popped out from behind a bank of cloud just over his left shoulder and dived for his tail. Jerry turned, a hard, high spiral, up and into the same clouds, the other after him like stink on shite. They played at dodgem for a few moments, in and out of the drifting clouds—he had the advantage in altitude, could play the coming-out-of-the-sun trick, if there was any sun, but it was autumn in Northumberland and there hadn’t been any sun in days…

  Gone. He heard the buzzing of the other plane, faintly, for a moment—or thought he had. Hard to tell above the dull roar of his own engine. Gone, though; he wasn’t where Jerry’d expected him to be.

  “Oh, like that, is it?” He kept on looking, ten degrees of sky every second; it was the only way to be sure you didn’t miss any— A glimpse of something dark, and his heart jerked along with his hand. Up and away. It was gone then, the black speck, but he went on climbing, slowly now, looking. Wouldn’t do to get too low, and he wanted to keep the altitude…

  The cloud was thin here, drifting waves of mist, but getting thicker. He saw a solid-looking bank of cloud moving slowly in from the west, but still a good distance away. It was cold, too; his face was chilled. He might be picking up ice if he went too hi— There.

  The other plane, closer and higher than he’d expected. The other pilot spotted him at the same moment and came roaring down on him, too close to avoid. He didn’t try.

  “Aye, wait for it, ye wee bugger,” he murmured, hand tight on the stick. One second, two, almost on him—and he buried the stick in his balls, jerked it hard left, turned neatly over, and went off in a long, looping series of barrel rolls that put him right away out of range.

  His radio crackled and he heard Paul Rakoczy chortling through his hairy nose.

  “Kurwa twoja mac! Where you learn that, you Scotch fucker?”

  “At my mammy’s tit, dupek,” he replied, grinning. “Buy me a drink, and I’ll teach it to ye.”

  A burst of static obscured the end of an obscene Polish remark, and Rakoczy flew off with a wig-wag of farewell. Ah, well. Enough skylarking, then; back to the fucking cameras.

  Jerry rolled his head, worked his shoulders and stretched as well as could be managed in the confines of a II’s cockpit—it had minor improvements over the Spitfire I, but roominess wasn’t one of them—had a glance at the wings for ice—no, that was all right—and turned farther inland.

  It was too soon to worry over it, but his right hand found the trigger that operated the cameras. His fingers twiddled anxiously over the buttons, checking, rechecking. He was getting used to them, but they didn’t work like the gun triggers; he didn’t have them wired in to his reflexes yet. Didn’t like the feeling, either. Tiny things, like typewriter keys, not the snug feel of the gun triggers.

  He’d had the left-handed ones only since yesterday; before that, he’d been flying a plane with the buttons on the right. Much discussion with Flight and the MI6 button-boffin, whether it was better to stay with the right, as he’d had practice already, or change for the sake of his cack-handedness. When they’d finally got round to asking him which he wanted, it had been too late in the day to fix it straight off. So he’d been given a couple of hours’ extra flying time today, to mess about with the new fix-up.

  Right, there it was. The bumpy grey line that cut through the yellowing fields of Northumberland like a perforation, same as you might tear the countryside along it, separating north from south as neat as tearing a piece of paper. Bet the emperor Hadrian wished it was that easy, he thought, grinning, as he swooped down along the line of the ancient wall.

  The cameras made a loud clunk-clunk noise when they fired. Clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk! Okay, sashay out, bank over, come down…clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk…He didn’t like the noise, not the same satisfaction as the vicious short Brrpt! of his wing guns. Made him feel wrong, like something gone with the engine…Aye, there it was coming up, his goal for the moment.

  Mile-castle 37.

  A stone rectangle, attached to Hadrian’s Wall like a snail on a leaf. The old Roman legions had made these small, neat forts to house the garrisons that guarded the wall. Nothing left now but the outline of the foundation, but it made a good target.

  He circled once, calculating, then dived and roared over it at an altitude of maybe fifty feet, cameras clunking like an army of stampeding robots. Pulled up sharp and hared off, circling high and fast, pulling out to run for the imagined border, circling up again…and all the time his heart thumped and the sweat ran down his sides, imagining what it would be like when the real day came.

  Mid-afternoon, it would be, like this. The winter light just going, but still enough to see clearly. He’d circle, find an angle that would let him cross the whole camp and please God, one that would let him come out of the sun. And then he’d go in.

  One pass, Randall had said. Don’t risk more than one, unless the cameras malfunction.

  The bloody things did malfunction, roughly every third pass. The buttons were slippery under his fingers. Sometimes they worked on the next try; sometimes they didn’t.

  If they didn’t work on the first pass over the camp, or didn’t work often enough, he’d have to try again.

  “Niech to szlag,” he muttered, Fuck the Devil, and pressed the buttons again, one-two, one-two. “Gentle but firm, like you’d do it to a lady’s privates,” the boffin had told him, illustrating a brisk twiddle. He’d never thought of doing that…Would Dolly like it? he wondered. And where exactly did you do it? Aye, well, women did come with a button, maybe that was it—but then, two fingers?…Clunk-clunk. Clunk-clunk. Crunch.

  He reverted to English profanity, and smashed both buttons with his fist. One camera answered with a startled clunk! but the other was silent.

  He poked the button again and again, to no effect. “Bloody fucking arse-buggering…” He thought vaguely that he’d have to stop swearing once this was over and he was home again—bad example for the lad.

  “FUCK!” he bellowed, and ripping the strap free of his leg, he picked up the box and hammered it on the edge of the seat, then slammed it back onto his thigh—visibly dented, he saw with grim satisfaction—and pressed the balky button.

  Clunk, the camera answered meekly.

  “Aye, well, then, just you remember that!” he said, and, puffing in righteous indignation, gave the buttons a good jabbing.

  He’d not been paying attention during this small temper-tantrum, but had been circling upward—standard default for a Spitfire flier. He started back down for a fresh pass at the mile-castle, but within a minute or two, began to hear a knocking sound from the engine.

  “No!” he said, and gave it more throttle. The knocking got louder; he could feel it vibrating through the fuselage. Then there was a loud clang! from the engine compartment right by his knee, and with horror he saw tiny droplets of oil spatter on the Perspex in front of his face. The engine stopped.

  “Bloody, bloody…” He was too busy to find another word. His lovely agile fighter had suddenly become a very clumsy glider. He was going down and the only question was whether he’d find a relatively flat spot to crash in.

  His hand groped automatically for the landing gear but then drew back—no time, belly landing, where was the bottom? Jesus, he’d been distracted, hadn’t seen that solid bank of cloud move in; it must have come faster than he…Thoughts flitted through his mind, too fa
st for words. He glanced at the altimeter, but what it told him was of limited use, because he didn’t know what the ground under him was like: crags, flat meadow, water? He hoped and prayed for a road, a grassy flat spot, anything short of—God, he was at five hundred feet and still in cloud!

  “Christ!”

  The ground appeared in a sudden burst of yellow and brown. He jerked the nose up, saw the rocks of a crag dead ahead, swerved, stalled, nose-dived, pulled back, pulled back, not enough, Oh, God—

  HIS FIRST CONSCIOUS thought was that he should have radioed base when the engine went.

  “Stupid fucker,” he mumbled. “Make your decisions promptly. It is better to act quickly even though your tactics are not the best. Clot-heid.”

  He seemed to be lying on his side. That didn’t seem right. He felt cautiously with one hand—grass and mud. What, had he been thrown clear of the plane?

  He had. His head hurt badly, his knee much worse. He had to sit down on the matted wet grass for a bit, unable to think through the waves of pain that squeezed his head with each heartbeat.

  It was nearly dark, and rising mist surrounded him. He breathed deep, sniffing the dank, cold air. It smelt of rot and old mangelwurzels—but what it didn’t smell of was petrol and burning fuselage.

  Right. Maybe she hadn’t caught fire when she crashed, then. If not, and if her radio was still working…

  He staggered to his feet, nearly losing his balance from a sudden attack of vertigo, and turned in a slow circle, peering into the mist. There was nothing but mist to his left and behind him, but to his right, he made out two or three large, bulky shapes, standing upright.

  Making his way slowly across the lumpy ground, he found that they were stones. Remnants of one of those prehistoric sites that littered the ground in northern Britain. Only three of the big stones were still standing, but he could see a few more, fallen or pushed over, lying like bodies in the darkening fog. He paused to vomit, holding on to one of the stones. Christ, his head was like to split! And he had a terrible buzzing in his ears…He pawed vaguely at his ear, thinking somehow he’d left his headset on, but felt nothing but a cold, wet ear.

  He closed his eyes again, breathing hard, and leaned against the stone for support. The static in his ears was getting worse, accompanied by a sort of whine. Had he burst an eardrum? He forced himself to open his eyes, and was rewarded with the sight of a large, dark irregular shape, well beyond the remains of the stone circle. Dolly!

  The plane was barely visible, fading into the swirling dark, but that’s what it had to be. Mostly intact, it looked like, though very much nose-down with her tail in the air—she must have ploughed into the earth. He staggered on the rock-strewn ground, feeling the vertigo set in again, with a vengeance. He waved his arms, trying to keep his balance, but his head spun, and Christ, the bloody noise in his head…He couldn’t think, oh, Jesus, he felt as if his bones were dissolv—

  IT WAS FULL DARK when he came to himself, but the clouds had broken and a three-quarter moon shone in the deep black of a country sky. He moved, and groaned. Every bone in his body hurt—but none was broken. That was something, he told himself. His clothes were sodden with damp, he was starving, and his knee was so stiff he couldn’t straighten his right leg all the way, but that was all right; he thought he could make shift to hobble as far as a road.

  Oh, wait. Radio. Yes, he’d forgotten. If Dolly’s radio were intact, he could…

  He stared blankly at the open ground before him. He’d have sworn it was—but he must have got turned round in the dark and fog—no.

  He turned quite round, three times, before he stopped, afraid of becoming dizzy again. The plane was gone.

  It was gone. He was sure it had lain about fifty feet beyond that one stone, the tallest one; he’d taken note of it as a marker, to keep his bearings. He walked out to the spot where he was sure Dolly had come down, walked slowly round the stones in a wide circle, glancing to one side and then the other in growing confusion.

  Not only was the plane gone, it didn’t seem ever to have been there. There was no trace, no furrow in the thick meadow grass, let alone the kind of gouge in the earth that such a crash would have made. Had he been imagining its presence? Wishful thinking?

  He shook his head to clear it—but in fact, it was clear. The buzzing and whining in his ears had stopped, and while he still had bruises and a mild headache, he was feeling much better. He walked slowly back around the stones, still looking, a growing sense of deep cold curling through his wame. It wasn’t fucking there.

  HE WOKE IN the morning without the slightest notion where he was. He was curled up on grass; that much came dimly to him—he could smell it. Grass that cattle had been grazing, because there was a large cow pat just by him, and fresh enough to smell that, too. He stretched out a leg, cautious. Then an arm. Rolled onto his back, and felt a hair better for having something solid under him, though the sky overhead was a dizzy void.

  It was a soft, pale blue void, too. Not a trace of cloud.

  How long…? A jolt of alarm brought him up onto his knees, but a bright yellow stab of pain behind his eyes sat him down again, moaning and cursing breathlessly.

  Once more. He waited ’til his breath was coming steady, then risked cracking one eye open.

  Well, it was certainly still Northumbria, the northern part, where England’s billowing fields crash onto the inhospitable rocks of Scotland. He recognised the rolling hills, covered with sere grass and punctuated by towering rocks that shot straight up into sudden toothy crags. He swallowed, and rubbed both hands hard over his head and face, assuring himself he was still real. He didn’t feel real. Even after he’d taken a careful count of fingers, toes, and private bits—counting the last twice, just in case—he still felt that something important had been misplaced, torn off somehow, and left behind.

  His ears still rang, rather like they did after an especially active trip. Why, though? What had he heard?

  He found that he could move a little more easily now, and managed to look all round the sky, sector by sector. Nothing up there. No memory of anything up there. And yet the inside of his head buzzed and jangled, and the flesh on his body rippled with agitation. He chafed his arms, hard, to make it go.

  Horripilation. That’s the proper word for gooseflesh; Dolly’d told him that. She kept a little notebook and wrote down words she came across in her reading; she was a great one for the reading. She’d already got wee Roger sitting in her lap to be read to after tea, round-eyed as Bonzo at the coloured pictures in his rag book.

  The thought of his family got him up onto his feet, swaying, but all right now, better, yes, definitely better, though he still felt as though his skin didn’t quite fit. The plane, where was that?

  He looked round him. No plane was visible. Anywhere. Then it came back to him, with a lurch of the stomach. Real, it was real. He’d been sure in the night that he was dreaming or hallucinating, had lain down to recover himself, and must have fallen asleep. But he was awake now, no mistake; there was a bug of some kind down his back, and he slapped viciously to try to squash it.

  His heart was pounding unpleasantly and his palms were sweating. He wiped them on his trousers and scanned the landscape. It wasn’t flat, but neither did it offer much concealment. No trees, no bosky dells. There was a small lake off in the distance—he caught the shine of water—but if he’d ditched in water, surely to God he’d be wet?

  Maybe he’d been unconscious long enough to dry out, he thought. Maybe he’d imagined that he’d seen the plane near the stones. Surely he couldn’t have walked this far from the lake and forgotten it? He’d started walking toward the lake, out of sheer inability to think of anything more useful to do. Clearly time had passed; the sky had cleared like magic. Well, they’d have little trouble finding him, at least; they knew he was near the wall. A truck should be along soon; he couldn’t be more than two hours from the airfield.

  “And a good thing, too,” he muttered. He’d picked a
n especially godforsaken spot to crash—there wasn’t a farmhouse or a paddock anywhere in sight, not so much as a sniff of chimney smoke.

  His head was becoming clearer now. He’d circle the lake—just in case—then head for the road. Might meet the support crew coming in.

  “And tell them I’ve lost the bloody plane?” he asked himself aloud. “Aye, right. Come on, ye wee idjit, think! Now, where did ye see it last?”

  HE WALKED FOR a long time. Slowly, because of the knee, but that began to feel easier after a while. His mind was not feeling easier. There was something wrong with the countryside. Granted, Northumbria was a ragged sort of place, but not this ragged. He’d found a road—but it wasn’t the B road he’d seen from the air. It was a dirt track, pocked with stones and showing signs of being much travelled by hooved animals with a heavily fibrous diet.

  Wished he hadn’t thought of diet. His wame was flapping against his backbone. Thinking about breakfast was better than thinking about other things, though, and for a time, he amused himself by envisioning the powdered eggs and soggy toast he’d have got in the mess, then going on to the lavish breakfasts of his youth in the Highlands: huge bowls of steaming parritch, slices of black pudding fried in lard, bannocks with marmalade, gallons of hot, strong tea…

  An hour later, he found Hadrian’s Wall. Hard to miss, even grown over with grass and all-sorts like it was. It marched stolidly along, just like the Roman legions who’d built it, stubbornly workmanlike, a grey seam stitching its way up hill and down dale, dividing the peaceful fields to the south from those marauding buggers up north. He grinned at the thought and sat down on the wall—it was less than a yard high, just here—to massage his knee.

  He hadn’t found the plane, or anything else, and was beginning to doubt his own sense of reality. He’d seen a fox, any number of rabbits, and a pheasant that’d nearly given him heart failure by bursting out from right under his feet. No people at all, though, and that was giving him a queer feeling in his water.