Read Online Blackbirds by Garry Ryan - Free Book Online

turn and headed back toward them.
    Sharon heard the bell of the fire tender. Another alarm sounded as the ambulance rushed to follow.
    They saw the Spitfire turn onto finals with its wheels and flaps down. Flames licked along the belly of the aircraft.
    â€œChrist, hurry!” the mechanic said.
    Sharon started to run.
    Linda flared for a landing. The propeller windmilled, causing smoke to boil over the wing roots.
    With the limited visibility, she misjudged her height. The wheels hit the ground and the Spitfire bounced back into the air.
    It dropped harder the second time. One undercarriage leg buckled, and the Spitfire started a ground loop as the lowered wingtip gouged the grass. The other undercarriage leg collapsed.
    The propeller chewed into the ground. Dirt and grass flew into the air. The propeller blades curled back on themselves.
    A wing bent up at the tip. The Spitfire slid along the grass and halted, with flames licking its nose and along the fuselage.
    Linda pulled back the canopy.
    The fire truck pulled up next to the wreck. Sharon saw a fireman running along a wing toward the cockpit, where the fire rose up on either side of him. The images of Linda and her rescuer’s silhouette shivered in the heat. He reached inside, cut her safety harness, and hauled her out. He pushed her ahead of him as they ran back over the wing and away from the wreck.
    Sharon grabbed at the pain under her ribs and gasped for air as she reached her friend.
    Linda was pulling off her flying helmet.
    Sharon looked down and saw that the fabric on the knees and shins of Linda’s slacks hung in black tatters.
    Sharon took a closer look at how pale Linda’s face was.
    Sharon looked at the front of Linda’s legs. It wasn’t just tattered black fabric hanging from her knees and shins — it was skin. Sharon inhaled the now-familiar stink of charred flesh.
    Again, Sharon experienced the clarity of mind that she’d discovered while under attack by the Messerschmitt pilots.
    She looked behind her and saw that the petrol bowser was next to the air taxi that brought them to Castle Bromwich. She spied the ambulance attendants pulling a stretcher out of the back of the ambulance.
    Someone said, “We need tannic acid!”
    â€œNO!”
    Everyone, including Linda, turned toward Sharon.
    â€œPut her on that stretcher!” Sharon pointed at the ambulance. “She’s going on that aircraft!” She pointed at the Dragon Rapide. It had just finished refueling.
    Everyone stood looking at her.
    â€œNOW! She’s being transported to the burn unit at East Grinstead! MOVE!”
    It was later, when she had time to think, that she decided she had her father to thank for the voice she’d found.
    By the time the ambulance pulled up next to the air taxi, the pilot was about to climb inside the aircraft.
    He turned.
    â€œThere’s a slight change in plans. The three of us —” Sharon pointed at Linda on the stretcher “— are going to East Grinstead.”
    â€œWhere’s your authorization?” the pilot asked.
    Sharon lifted the blanket covering a shivering Linda. The lower half of both legs were blackened and blistered.
    Sharon heard the pilot inhale. She knew he could smell the burned flesh. She took a breath and kept her voice low. “She’s going into shock, and the hospital at East Grinstead treats burns. You’re going to fly us there.”
    The pilot hesitated.
    â€œOtherwise, these men” — she pointed at the ambulance driver and his assistant — “are prepared to restrain you, then help me load up my friend. I’ll fly her to the hospital myself.” Sharon prayed that no one would contradict her.
    Linda moaned. The men unloaded the stretcher from the back of the ambulance and moved toward the Dragon Rapide.
    â€œAll right. Get her on board.” The pilot turned, climbed onto the aircraft’s wing, and entered through the side