The Spitfire
by Julie K. Rose
The Spitfire Mk 1 can reach speeds of 362 mph, particularly when evading a Bf 109e. Its speed is significantly lower when wheels-up in the middle of a Welsh creek, known to the locals as a cilfach. Which is where we find RAF Flight Lieutenant Robert K-S, of the –- Group, – Squadron, who was brought down in late July 1940 by a Messerschmitt somewhere west of Cardiff, in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Since the early, summer-yellow morning he had been on patrol above Wales, protecting Cardiff and the other shipping ports as best he could, waiting for the chance to engage the enemy out over the southern coastline. He had to cool his heels in the late afternoon; the fighting had moved to Dover, at least temporarily, and he was ordered back to the base.
Which is why he had been surprised by the attack of the Bf 109e. He returned fire and evaded, quite niftily he thought, but stalled out at the top of his climb-and-dive, and ended up unconscious and upside-down in a tiny Welsh creek while the fighting went on without him.
He eventually woke and pulled himself away from the wreckage of his plane, heartbroken at her shattered bullet-proof glass and flaming tail section. He didn’t notice that he was also bleeding and broken until he tried to heave himself up the gentle slope.
It was a bloody bad turn of events, he had to admit through the haze of pain. He lived for that flying time, high above the wreckage of his own life, his marriage, the broken mind of his Clara.
And now, he might never fly again, he thought, digging his fingers into the thick mud of the creek bank, not with this leg injury. Stuck behind a desk. Home every night for tea. “No,” he grunted, and continued digging and dragging himself away from the plane.
Down in the creek the lazy buzzing of the dragonfly had given way to the gentle trickle of water over small rocks and moss, and the tick-ticking of a 6,000 lb. fighter plane about to explode.
Growling with frustration, Robert gritted his teeth and pulled himself up the slope, his right leg sticking out at an odd and disconcerting angle. He continued inching along, grasping at tiny stones and delicate wildflowers, anything to help pull him away from the time-bomb wreckage.
With a final grunt he heaved himself to the top of that gentle rise, dizzy and exhausted by shock and blood loss. Leaning against the rough bole of the twisted oak, he closed his eyes, panting. He thought of his Clara, and the bruise blossoming under her eye like a wood violet the last time he saw her, on leave weeks before. He never meant to strike her, but she never seemed to mind.
Down in the cilfach, the Spitfire pinged and knocked, spluttering gas into the bucolic little waterway. He turned his attention back to the tiny creek and his sad wreck of a plane. “Poor girl,” he muttered. And then, the world filled with the sound of tinkling, shattering glass.
The cilfach went shining and golden.
And the world went black.
He coughed himself into wakefulness, the smoke’s tendrils wound deep in his lungs. He wiped his stinging eyes and looked around. The gentle slope was blackened and the only remnants of his beloved plane were the pieces of shrapnel sticking into his legs, his arms, the tree behind his head. “Bloody hell,” he whispered slowly.
The tiny creek had become a river of fire, the gasoline that had leaked now lit and leaping high into the black night. The flames grew taller and taller, swirling. Mesmerized, he watched them dance. The fire grew and spread until it seemed to fill the entire sky, astonishingly beautiful and, he thought, quite horrible.
Heart pounding, he pulled himself quickly to his feet, impervious to the heat and the ugly and jagged wounds torn into his skin. He backed away, toward the darkness of the far reaches of the countryside, where the shimmering heat and light could not reach, where he heard those clear, high voices. He turned his back on the fire and stumbled forward a few paces. He stopped suddenly, a chill racing from the top of his head down his back.
“Stay,” a voice whispered.
He shook his head. “I am hallucinating – concussion. Blood loss,” he muttered, struggling away across the hillocks of grass beyond the cilfach. He looked down at his leg and realized it was no longer bleeding, no longer stuck out at a right angle from his knee, but straight and whole. “My God,” he whispered. “What – what –“ He looked around, wild-eyed, heart now pounding furiously. “What in the bloody hell –“
“Sssstay,” the voice whispered again, sinuous and warm.
The heat at his back intensified, and he cried out as it reached out and seared his shoulder, spinning him around to face the wreckage.
The flames had formed themselves into a great arch. Fire-winged angels, fierce-faced and beautiful, hovered near the acanthus-wreathed capitals. “Stay,” a voice whispered on the smoke. Robert blinked, and the great archway opened further and beyond, he saw cool, green grass and flowing blue water and sparkling summer sky.
“Come.”
He understood that it was not a request, and walked toward the great flaming arch. “I am dreaming,” he muttered, his heart strangely calmed. The slope down to the water’s edge and the final resting place of his beautiful plane was no more than a foot or two. He stepped down easily and stood ankle-deep in the stream, realizing only now that the crash and blast had left him with only one boot. He reached down and pulled the other off, tossing it onto the grassy slope.
The water was not boiling, as he expected, with the flames and the writhing smoke, but gentle and cool as it had been minutes, or hours, or perhaps days before when he had crashed. He stood in the water, feeling the tiny, inexorable current, feeling the pebbles between his toes.
He felt as though he stood in that water for hours, feeling only the cool blueness. “I’m dreaming,” he muttered again, eyes wide in wonder, looking up at the still-flaming arch that seemed to eat the entire sky.
And then, on the far side of the archway, beyond the night and the fire, suddenly stood Clara, barefoot in the green grass.
His heart constricted. “Darling –“ Robert began, walking toward the arch. “Be careful –“
She looked up at him and nodded. “We were sent to the country, remember? After they began bombing London? After they nearly destroyed St. Paul’s?”
“What?” he asked, stopping short of the arch. “They – no, only the docks, Clara,” he said, shaking his head. She was so sweet, but so simple sometimes, he thought. “No one has bombed St. Paul’s, darling.”
“Ah,” she sighed, shaking her head sadly. “What day is it?”
“July the 30th. 1940.”
“Yes, too early,” she nodded, chewing her bottom lip in that way that maddened him.
More of her nonsense, he thought sadly. “Clara, I’m sorry,” he said, stepping toward the arch.
“Hmm?” Her pale blond hair was frizzy and wild, not in the elaborate pincurls she usually wore.
It looked like a halo, he thought wildly. It suited her.
“I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to hurt –“
She scowled slightly and waved him away with her hand. She counted off on her fingers. “Six weeks, Rob. Six weeks until it begins.”
“Until – Clara, the war’s already begun. I was on patrol today. I crashed –“
“Until hell,” she said, shaking her head. “St. Paul’s…the smoke and the noise. The twisted bodies. Sirens. Every night, Robert. Every night. It will never, ever end. Hell on earth forever and ever. And then they said, ‘You’ll be safe in the country,’” she said, then suddenly laughed. It sounded wrong and hard in her mouth. “Coventry, and Plymouth, and the countryside…”
“Clara, what –“
“And you, you bastard,” she said, looking up and pointing a finger, as if she had just remembered he was there.
“I said I was sorry,” he whispered. “I swear, I will never strike –“
“You went and left me all alone.”
“You know it is my duty to serve.”
She shook her head and looked down and counted on her fingers. Finally, she looked up at him again, with a sigh. “Today. In Glamorgan. You died. You left me all alone with the fiery skies.”
He took another step forward, standing on the threshold, just under the great, hot arch. “Clara, I’m dreaming,” he laughed. “I’m not dead.”
She smiled sadly. “Nor am I, my love. Nor am I.”
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