African Sky Read Free

coughed. ‘Live life, Wilson. Enjoy it while you can. Get rat-arsed tonight and hit the town. When you get to England, live every day like it’s your last.’
    â€˜You make it sound like I won’t be coming back, sir.’
    Bryant smiled, and stubbed out his cigarette. He looked hard at the boy. He reckoned he could tell, during his tour, who’d make it and who would die. He’d been right more often than wrong. He was certain about Wilson. The boy had the look, the attitude, the cocky smirk, the swagger. He even wore his peaked air force cap at that rakish angle he thought made him already look like a veteran. ‘You’ll be fine, Clive,’ he lied.
    â€˜Well, um, thanks, sir. I’d best be off. I’d like to talk more, if you have the time. Maybe over a beer or ten tonight?’
    â€˜I’ll try to be there.’ He searched the younger man’s eyes to see if he were taking the mickey out of him. Bryant knew he drank too much, and he suspected the rest of the base was also aware of the fact.
    â€˜Thanks again, sir, for . . . for your words.’
    â€˜You’re a good pilot. Do your job, look after your crew, and you’ll all get home in one piece.’
    â€˜I hope so, sir. See you tonight,’ Wilson said as he left, and shut the door.
    He gave the young pilot officer a month in England. No more. Probably wouldn’t even make it out of the OTU alive.
    Bryant checked his watch. It was five minutes to eleven. Fuck it, he thought. Searches ran themselves once the operations room was alerted. He slid open the second drawer of his desk. He lifted the single sheet of blank paper that covered the Santy’s gin bottle. Rarely did he take a nip before eleven. His hand shook as it closed around the smooth glass neck. He told himself it was the talk about Roberts and the severed Lancaster.
    He started to lift the bottle, felt the saliva fill his mouth. The telephone rang. He put the bottle down and closed the drawer again. ‘Adjutant, Squadron Leader Bryant,’ he said.
    â€˜Flight Sergeant Henderson on the front gate, sir. I’ve two police officers here, sir.’
    â€˜God. Which pub have the trainees destroyed this time?’ Usually the drunken brawls, property damage and car accidents happened on the final night of a course, not five days before graduation. While they were learning to fly, the student pilots tended to control their behaviour, lest they get kicked out of flight school and wind up as wireless air gunners, where they could look forward to freezing their balls off in front turrets or short lives as tail gunners.
    â€˜They won’t say what it’s about, sir. Should I send them through with an escort?’
    That would have been the normal procedure. Bryant could probably have had a quick drink while he waited for the coppers to arrive. No, that wouldn’t do. ‘Don’t worry, Flight. I’ll walk down and pick them up.’ The walk would keep him away from the bottle. He wasn’t so desperate that he didn’t realise he was developing a problem. That had to be a good sign, he told himself.
    â€˜Very good, sir.’
    Bryant hung up. He took his peaked cap off the hook on the wall and opened the metal locker in the corner of his office. There was a small mirror on the inside of the door. His eyes were bloodshot. He adjusted his hat and gave himself what he hoped was a winning smile. ‘Cheer up, you’re alive,’ he said to himself. The smile fell from his face and he shut the locker.
    His office door opened onto the orderly room. Corporal Richards, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the base’s daily paperwork war, looked up from his typewriter.
    â€˜Back soon. I’m going to the gate to pick up some coppers. I’d call my lawyer now if I were you, Richards.’
    â€˜Very good, sir,’ the younger man smiled. ‘Should I burn the pictures of you and the goat,