The Escort 29

This is a one-off short story I wrote while finishing up a longer novel-length piece that I hope to post before the end of the summer. A quick warning: despite the clickbait title, there is no sex in this story. If that's what you're looking for, you may want to choose one of the other excellent stories on this site.

Cheers,

CGN

The Escort

You would think, that with all of the wonders of the modern world, they would come up with a way to wake you up in the morning that doesn't require a blaring alarm. Despite being alive for more than three quarters of a century, the first noise I heard that morning was still a constant high-pitched whine. Preposterous. Still, when you're 76 years old and you've spent the last 10 days in the hospital, I guess you should be grateful to be waking up to any noise at all.

I slowly opened my eyes and took a look around my room. I was half expecting to see Nurse Higgins with her ridiculous bosom stuffed tightly into her uniform, bustling around my room like she did most mornings, but my room was empty. John, my grandson who I loved dearly but was a bit of a cad, would be ever so disappointed if he stopped by to check in on me. His visits often seemed to coincide with the times when the pretty Nurse Higgins was on duty.

Surprisingly, I felt pretty good that morning. Some people will try to sell you on the benefits of getting older--don't listen to them, they don't know what they are talking about. Getting old consists mostly of accumulating new aches and pains and trying to decide how badly you need to go to the bathroom and whether it is really worth the trip upstairs to do so. Overall, I had had a good life with no complaints, but I would not consider the last few years to be amongst its highlights.

Amongst other challenges, I really hadn't been that mobile for the better part of the last decade, what with the issues with my hips and knee and all. This stay in the hospital certainly hadn't helped in that regard. But when I swung my legs off the side of the bed and stood up, I felt pain-free for the first time since before Thatcher became Prime Minister. "They must be giving me some good drugs," I thought to myself with a chuckle. "Now, if they would just turn off whatever was making that annoying whine..."

Taking advantage of the temporary reprieve from the doctors, nurses and well-meaning family members who had filled my room since I was admitted, I decided I was going to go for a walk. I knew it would upset the staff when they found out, and my children would probably get all in a tizzy, but I needed a break. A woman needs her solitude, don't you know. And hospitals are just so damned depressing.

As I got out of bed, I noticed that I was already dressed in my Sunday best, so I didn't even need to get changed before I left. I just needed to slip into the hall and past the nurse's station, and I would be away. It was time for the Sunday morning shift change, so they didn't even notice me leaving. I felt a bit guilty for sneaking by them like that but not guilty enough to stop and go back.

A bit further down the hall, I passed the waiting room. I glanced inside and noticed that all three of my children, along with most of my grandkids, were there. Margaret, always the more emotional of my daughters, looked like she had been crying, and Liz had her arms around her shoulders. James was talking to the doctor in a hushed tone and seemed unusually emotional.

Since my husband, John's namesake, had died in the war, James had grown up as the man of the house. I did the best that I could to let him just be a kid, but he had taken that burden on himself and had carried it ever since. If any of them had seen me, they would have had me back in bed in no time at all, so I hurried past.

"To heck with that," I thought. "What I need is some fresh air and a break from noises and smells of the hospital."

I slipped into the stairwell and was gone before anyone even noticed I was missing.

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Outside, it was a beautiful spring morning. The sun shone brightly and felt warm on my face. I had no real destination in mind for my adventure other than to get away from the hospital for a little while. As I started walking, I thought back to other Sundays, fifty years ago now, when I used to walk down to the airfield to greet my husband on his return from the escort missions that he flew out over the Channel. He had been old for a fighter pilot--24 when the war started and forever 27 in my memory, the age when he didn't come home.

It was unusual for the Air Force to let a father of three fly active combat missions, but John insisted. His younger brothers were both gunners on Lancaster bombers, and he swore that every night that they were flying missions, he would be up there as well in his Supermarine Spitfire to bring them home. His brothers both survived the war, but John did not.

The old airfield that John flew out of wasn't too far from the hospital, so I decided that that was where I would go. Most of the old airfields had been decommissioned after the war and converted to estate housing for returning veterans, but for reasons known only to the Chief of the Air Staff, our local airfield had sat untouched for the better part of the last 50 years.

There weren't many people out this early in the morning on a Sunday, but I passed several young families out for a stroll or on their way to the early service. I nodded my head and smiled at them as I passed by, but they were too distracted to notice. That was one of the sad realities of being an older woman. I blended into the background of everyday life without so much as a head nod in recognition. Still, I had been a single mother once, raising three kids alone, so I was more sympathetic than annoyed by their lack of acknowledgement.

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As I made my way down the hill from the hospital, the airfield came into view. During the war, it would have been bustling with people--pilots, air and groundcrews, mechanics, security and seemingly endless others, all working together to keep as many planes in the air as possible to hold the Germans to the other side of the Channel. Wives weren't allowed on base, but when I could find someone to mind the children, I would often sit on this very hill and watch the planes land after their night out on patrol.

Even fifty years on, the bones of the airfield were still visible. Most of the buildings and aerodromes had been decommissioned following the war, but the Quonset Hut that had served as the main administrative building still sat quietly by the runway, a semi-cylindrical monument in corrugated steel to a long-gone era.

Despite its age, the runway was still in remarkably good shape. The paint had long since faded and weeds were growing through cracks in the asphalt, but if you closed your eyes, you could still picture squadrons of planes starting their journeys off to war and many fewer returning afterward.

Although the airfield was not still in regular use, maybe 20 years prior, an amateur pilot who had gotten lost in the fog over the Channel but managed to make an emergency landing there despite being hopelessly lost and almost out of fuel. It even made the 6 o'clock news that night. The was the last time, to my knowledge, that a plane had landed at the field.

As I sat lost in my memories, I began to hear a faint rumble. I recognized the sound right away. It was a Supermarine Spitfire Mark IX, with its powerful Merlin 61 engine and two-stage supercharger. That was the plane that John had flown, and I would recognize its distinctive sound anywhere.

It started with a distant low rumble when the Spitfire was still so small on the horizon that it was almost invisible. As it got closer, the rumble would grow into a deep pulsating growl. By the time it was lining up for its descent to the runway, you could feel the rhythmic throb of the engine in your chest. As it began its descent, the pitch of the engine would get higher as the pilot throttled back, and then it would settle into a steady but more subdued roar once the plane was on the ground.

For most, this was the sound of safety and, eventually, victory and celebration. For me, it was the sound of my love coming home.

I figured there must be an airshow nearby. It had been nearly a half-century since the end of the war, but Spitfires still held pride of place in many airshows. The deep rumble of their Merlin engines still brought a swell of pride and excitement that couldn't be matched by the dull roar of the jet fighters that had long since replaced them.

For the first time in fifty years, I found myself looking up to the horizon to see if I could spot the source of the sound. My eyes weren't what they once were, but soon I saw a small black dot that grew steadily larger as it approached.

As it got closer, I remembered those mornings so long ago sitting on this hill, waiting to hear the three short bursts of sound that was John's way of letting me know that he had made it home safely. Pilots were strictly forbidden from "blipping" their engines like that, but he was never a stickler for rules, saying, "What are they going to do, fire me?" By 1942, they were so desperate for skilled pilots that he could have buzzed over the Prime Minister's house and gotten little more than a reprimand.

As I was lost in my memories, the Spitfire I was watching made the same three short bursts of sound that my John had made all those years ago. It made me smile to know that that trick lived on with a new generation of pilots, and I imagined that he was letting his wife know that he was passing overhead and would be home soon. I wondered if after hearing it she would slip into her best knickers, getting ready to greet him when he came through the door like me and the other wives had back in the day. I hoped so.

There was something delicious about the anticipation of a morning spent together after your man has come home safely from the skies, cheating death for another day. If I was totally honest, it was that thrill which led to Liz being born early in 1941. John and I had intended to stop after James and Margaret, but one Sunday we were less careful than we could have been, and Liz was the result. But John had loved the three of them so fiercely, and he would have been so proud to see them now.

The Spitfire's engines kept getting louder as I sat, and I soon realized that it intended to land at the airfield. I wondered if it was in some kind of distress since there were no services of any kind at the field. I decided that I should go down to make sure that everything was okay. There wasn't much help I could offer at my age but, if necessary, I could go for help or call for an ambulance from the nearest phone box.

I stood up and started to make my way down the hill as the Spitfire lined up for its final approach to the runway.

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Even with the benefit of whatever the hospital had given me to dull the pain in my hips and knee, I was still moving pretty slowly, so the Spitfire had already landed by the time I made it down to the runway. Thankfully, it touched down smoothly and rolled to the end before pulling off into a field, its engines still idling.

The fences surrounding the airfield were as old as the field itself, and I was able to step through one of the many gaps that had opened over the years as I made my way towards the plane. Whoever was sponsoring the airshow the Spitfire was destined for had spared no expense, as the pilot's uniform was historically accurate down to the leather flying helmet and sheepskin-lined Irvin jacket. The pilot wasn't particularly tall, but he had broad shoulders, and he carried himself with a quiet confidence that set my heart to beating faster.

As I got closer, I saw that the pilot had gotten out and was kneeling down beside a beautiful Border Collie that was out of its mind with excitement, bouncing and spinning and licking him all at the same time. Our first dog, Daisy, had been a Border Collie. We had many dogs afterward, but Daisy would always be our dog. We got her while I was pregnant with James, and she loved our little family fiercely. She was kind, gentle, and ever vigilant, watching over the kids while John was away, protecting them and keeping them safe. She was the glue that held our family together in the months after John was lost, and her loyalty and devotion was unmatched by any of the dogs that followed.

"If I was fifty years younger..." I started to think before catching myself. If I was fifty years younger, I still wouldn't have done anything with the pilot beyond offering him a polite smile. In all the years since that morning John hadn't come home, I had never been with anyone else. I had certainly had some offers over the years, particularly once the kids got older and left the house, and had even been tempted once or twice, but no one could ever replace John in my heart.

As I got closer, the Border Collie's head came up and she came bounding over to me. She was beautiful, and she looked up at me like I was an old friend who had come home at last.

"She's been waiting for you too."

That voice. I knew that voice but hadn't heard it in fifty years.

John.

My John.

He looked the same as he had on that last evening before he was lost. Curls of his wavy light brown hair fighting their way out from under his flight helmet, and his big expressive brown eyes held my gaze as he came closer.

"How? How are you..." I started.

"I told you I would always come home to you. It just took a little longer than either of us imagined."

"But they told me that you were lost. How are you still here?"

"I was lost, Dear Heart, but I told them that I would wait for you, before I went on."

"Who did you tell?"

"Air Command, Dear Heart. It turns out that just because you're dead it doesn't mean that you can avoid red tape or orders from the top. The top brass are just a little bit higher up now, is all. But let me tell you, they still do NOT like it when you ignore their instructions. They spent the first thirty years or so after I went down telling me that I needed to move on, that my time here was done. But I told you I was coming home, and I wasn't going to break my promise to you, not for them and not for anyone.

"They eventually got off my case though, after I helped that young lad who was lost in the fog out over the Channel. It wasn't his time yet, but someone got their signals crossed, and it wasn't looking good for him until I guided him back to this airfield.

"That being said, though, it was still pretty lonely for a while until Daisy showed up to keep me company. I told her that she should go on, that I would be fine, but it turns out that she is just as stubborn now as she was when she was alive."

Daisy's ears perked up when she heard her name, and she made some happy little circles in the grass.

"I missed you so much, John."

"I know, Dear Heart, I know. I'm sorry."

"What happened to you? No one would say, or if they knew, they weren't willing to tell me."

John got a distant look on his face as he started to tell me his story.

"I was on an escort mission that night. We were sent to pick up our boys in the big birds as they reached the Channel on their way home from bombing the Germans. Unfortunately, they were buzzing with German fighters when we arrived at the rendezvous, and not just the older Messerschmitt Bf 109s either. There was a whole squadron of those new Focke-Wulf 190s as well.

"By the time the big birds fought their way free, my cannons were almost out of ammunition, and I was running low for my Brownings as well. I got separated from the squad and a stray bullet had smashed my comms, so I had no choice but to fly solo back to base.

"I was just climbing back up to altitude when I saw a lone Lancaster limping its way back out over the Channel. It was badly damaged and down two engines, leaving a trail of dark smoke in its wake. With only two engines left, it was struggling to maintain its speed and altitude as it limped its way home.

"As I marked the Lancaster's progress, I saw a pack of four German fighters approaching it at speed from the northeast. They would attack from above, flying directly out of the rising sun to hide them from the Lancaster's gunners until it would be too late to stop them. One on four is never good odds, even at the best of times, and I knew I only had enough ammo for one good pass. But I couldn't leave our boys out there like a sitting duck when they were so close to home.

"The German fighters were above and behind our bird, but I was above and behind them as well, and I was on them just as they started their attack. My plan was to hit them with the old Boom and Zoom, dropping from out of the sun with guns blazing before climbing back up to safety, but I was only partially successful.

"I managed to take out one fighter with my Brownings and another with my cannons before I ran out of ammunition. The third fighter strafed me pretty badly as I passed by, damaging my engine so that I couldn't climb to safety. The last fighter stayed on the Lancaster while the other chased after to finish me off. I had to trust that gunners on the Lancaster knew their business, so I tried to lead the last fighter, who was on my tail, as far away as possible. I made it about a mile before he caught me, but I am pretty sure that the bomber made it home with seven of our boys on board.

"On that last desperate flight, when I knew I was done, I could picture how disappointed you would be that I didn't keep my word to you that I would come home. So, when my new Air Command told me it was time for me to move on, I decided that I would wait until you and I could go home together. They said that it was a direct order, but I guess it was more like a very strongly worded suggestion. So, I waited here to keep my word to you.

"What do you say, Dear Heart? Are you ready to go home?"

"But what about the kids? I need to know that they will be alright before I go."

"You did so well with the kids. They are all adults and can care for each other now the way that you have cared for them all of these years. You can put down that burden. You can rest."

I started walking towards the Spitfire and I felt John take my hand, while Daisy ran in front of us and then behind, herding us towards our destination.

"Is there room in there for both of us?" I asked, knowing that Spitfires weren't built to carry passengers.

"Do you want to know a little secret?" John asked with a wink and a rakish grin. "This isn't a real plane. It can hold anything that we need it to."

True to his word, the cockpit had two seats and more than enough space for Daisy to lie down at our feet. John looked back at me from the pilot's seat, and I felt my heart swell in a way that it hadn't for far too long.

"Where do you think we're going?" I asked as John taxied out to the end of the runway.

"I don't really know, Dear Heart. And I guess I don't really care as long as I am going there with you. And I am sure that Air Command will have some choice words for me when I get there, but hopefully they will understand. Maybe they once had a girl that they loved too."

With that, the big Merlin 61 engine roared to life as John opened the throttle for the last time and eased us into the air.

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As always, thanks for reading and I hope to have something a bit longer ready for you in the near future. Please feel free to leave a rating or comment if you are so inclined, it's always nice to hear from you.