“Do you suppose we shall ever live that way again?”
“Oh, who knows? Given sufficient champagne and ether.”
“Maybe if we stay drunk to the end of our days, we shan’t remember.”
“That will take systematic drinking. We’ll need to stay drunk in cities, towns and villages. And in the hills and in the fields—How does it go?”
“And on the beaches and on the landing grounds.”
“Yes, exactly. We’ll have to stay drunk in some inaccessible spots.”
“And with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, don’t forget that.”
They leaned shoulders companionably and looked out to sea. Perhaps it was true, thought Alistair, that Septembers would come again. People would love the crisp cool of the mornings, and it would not remind them of the week war was declared. Perhaps there would be such a generation. Blackberries would ripen, carefree hands would pick them, and jam would be poured into pots to cool. And the jam would only taste of jam. People would not save jars of it like holy relics. They would eat it on toast, thinking nothing of it, hardly bothering to look at the label.
Alistair let the idea grow: that when the war’s heat was spent, the last remaining pilots would ditch their last bombs into the sea and land their planes on cratered airfields that would slowly give way to brambles. That pilots would take off their jackets and ties, and pick fruit.
He understood that he was finished with the war. He could not stop seeing the enemy airman, choking on yellow dust. He could not stop smelling Briggs, burning. It was too much. He had given everything that had been asked of him: fighting when fighting could be done, retreating when retreat was wise, and holding fast when it was all that remained. He had not favored himself, or measured his effort, or taken more than his share. He had done his best to help the men, and now all he wanted was to go home and see if he could help Mary. When set against the great corruption of the war, one’s own small rot seemed, if not excusable, then at least unexceptional.
“You know that I joined up voluntarily?” said Alistair.
“Bully for you. So?”
“So, will you think less of me if I leave the same way?”
“I’d be furious if you didn’t.”
Alistair hesitated. “Then I believe I will take up your kind offer.”
“Very sensible. The food on this island really isn’t as advertised.”
Alistair made to shake Simonson’s hand. His right arm surprised him again by not being there, and the lurch almost toppled him. Simonson held him steady.
“I shall pick you up at midnight,” he said. “Do try not to fall off the floor in the meantime.”
—
They left the fort on foot, under extravagant stars. A raid came in after they went, and they made their way southwest while the flashes sent their shadows flickering before them on the road. It was five miles to the airstrip at Luqa, and they said nothing on the way. Though they walked together they were distant. Alistair supposed this was the only possible end for a war: when men and women, who had thronged together to join it, made their way home alone.
On the airstrip the Wellington was already running its engines. An orderly hurried across the field to meet them. Alistair felt sick.
“Well,” said Simonson, “goodbye.”
They shook hands, with the left.
“Goodbye,” said Alistair. “I can’t even begin to—”
“Then don’t. Don’t begin.”
“I shall miss you, Douglas.”
Simonson wiped his eyes. “Yes, well, let’s just hope the enemy does.”
They embraced. The orderly helped Alistair up the steps and into the belly of the aircraft. They put him in the companionway, forward of the rear gunner, on top of the mound of mailbags. They loaned him a sheepskin coat and told him not to go anywhere the airplane wasn’t going. The engine noise swelled, the airframe shuddered over the uneven runway, and Malta dropped away into the night.
Alistair lay back on the sacks. As soon as the aircraft door closed, the war was over. The hot, thyme-scented air of Malta was sealed outside. In here in the cold, with the smell of sacking and oil, London was already close. They would land at Gibraltar, and decant him into a convoy for England. There would be children and women and food, and clothes that weren’t all brown. Alistair slept until fifty miles from Gibraltar, when the pilot put the airplane down on the sea.
Alistair came awake in a frenzy of shouting and spray. The incredible deceleration shunted him and all the mailbags up to the navigator’s position. Water rose through the rips in the canvas skin of the fuselage. They all got out through the astro hatch.