“He was certainly a good pilot,” I said reflectively, thinking of this evening’s performance.
“The best, sir,” said old Joe from behind me. “They reckoned he had eyes like a cat, did Mr. Johnny. I remember many’s the time the squadron would return from dropping marker flares over bombing targets in Germany and the rest of the young gentlemen would go into the bar and have a drink. More likely several.”
“He didn’t drink?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, sir, but more often he’d have his Mosquito refueled and take off again alone, going back over the Channel or the North Sea to see if he could find some crippled bomber making for the coast and guide it home.”
I frowned. Those big bombers had their own bases to go to.
“But some of them would have taken a lot of enemy flak fire and sometimes they had their radios knocked out. All over, they came from. Marham, Scampton, Waddington; the big four-engined ones, Halifaxes, Stirlings, and Lancasters; a bit before your time, if you’ll pardon my saying so, sir.”
“I’ve seen pictures of them,” I admitted. “And some of them fly in air parades. And he used to guide them back?”
I could imagine them in my mind’s eye, gaping holes in the body, wings, and tail, creaking and swaying as the pilot sought to hold them steady for home, a wounded or dying crew and the radio shot to bits. And I knew, from too recent experience, the bitter loneliness of the winter’s sky at night, with no radio, no guide for home, and the fog blotting out the land.
“That’s right, sir. He used to go up for a second flight in the same night, patrolling out over the North Sea, looking for a crippled plane. Then he’d guide it home, back here to Minton, sometimes through fog so dense you couldn’t see your hand. Sixth sense, they said he had—something of the Irish in him.”
I turned from the photograph and stubbed my cigarette butt into the ashtray by the bed. Joe was at the door.
“Quite a man,” I said, and I meant it. Even today, middle-aged, he was a superb flier.
“Oh, yes, sir, quite a man, Mr. Johnny. I remember him saying to me once, standing right where you are, before the fire: ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘whenever there’s one of them out there in the night, trying to get back, I’ll go out and bring him home.’”
I nodded gravely. The old man so obviously worshiped his wartime officer.
“Well,” I said, “by the look of it, he’s still doing it.”
Now Joe smiled.
“Oh, I hardly think so, sir. Mr. Johnny went out on his last patrol Christmas Eve 1943, just fourteen years ago tonight. He never came back, sir. He went down with his plane somewhere out there in the North Sea. Good night, sir. And Happy Christmas.”