Read Online Death Before Time by Andrew Puckett - Free Book Online Page A

the plane had gone down, but then Jamie suddenly popped up in the water with me. We were picked up next day.” He sighed reflectively. “Christ, it was cold! They gave us a week off, generous bastards, then it was back into another Halifax and back off to Germany …”
    *
    They’d dropped their bombs, turned and were headed for home. Harold worked the hydraulic levers in the rear turret, searching the sky for nightfighters – then the whole plane shuddered as though hit by a pneumatic drill…
    There was a scream of agony in his earphones , then nothing . He flipped the switch on the mouthpiece –
    “ Skipper , you OK ?”
    No answer .
    “ Jamie ?”
    Nothing , except the note of the four engines rising as the plane slid into a dive …
    He could guess what had happened – a night fighter , probably a JU 88 , had come up underneath them and raked the bomber along its length with explosive shells – its length except the tail , that is …
    He banged the release button at his belly and stumbled through the hatch into the plane . Nothing was recognisable ; the shells had reduced the inside of the bomber to a smoking refuse tip . “ Jamie ! Jamie !”
    He struggled along the walkway and looked up into the dorsal turret - Jamie’s hand hung motionless , blood running down it and splashing into his eyes . He started climbing the ladder but a rung gave way and he fell back to the floor . The angle of the plane steepened and the engines began to howl .
    He got to his feet and was about to try again when a ball of flame whooshed at him , burning his eyebrows and hair - without thinking , he turned and ran …
    His parachute lay just outside the turret hatch … he reached it and in slow motion , threaded his arms through the harness , pulled the belt up between his legs and snapped the tongue into place – another fireball licked at him , then another – the plane was at forty degrees now , engines screaming their guts out …
    He turned , tried to pull himself through the hatch but the chute caught the top and he was stuck …
    Breathe out , he told himself , get lower , pull , pull … and he squeezed himself through .
    He sat , flicked the hydraulic lever and incredibly , the turret turned … and turned – then a freezing gale tore at him and he somersaulted into space …
    *
    “ … Just in time, I hit the ground just after the plane did. I was a POW for a year.”
    Fraser looked at the ordinary, insignificant little man, thought about the thousands of other ordinary little men who’d had to do extraordinary things.
    “Was it bad?” he asked. “The POW camp?”
    “Not really, ‘cept there was never enough food. We sat tight and in the end we were released by the Ruskis of all people.”
    He looked up at Fraser. “I meant to go and see your Grannie, tell her what happened, but time went by and after a while, I couldn’t. I was too ashamed.”
    “Why, for God’s sake?”
    “’Cos I didn’t save his life after he’d saved mine. ‘Cos I ran away instead of helping him.”
    “Harold …” Fraser found himself calling him by his given name without thinking about it … “He was dead. There was nothing you could have done for him.”
    “But I didn’t know that at the time, did I? I just ran.”
    “If you’d hung round thinkin’ about it, you’d have been dead yourself.”
    “Maybe.” He gave a twisted smile. “But I’ll be dead soon anyway. All comes down to dust in the end, dunnit?”
    Fraser said, “What was he like, Harold? Would you tell me about him? I don’t know much, you see …”
    *
    It was as though his life had grown another dimension; all he’d known about his grandfather was that he’d been in the RAF and won a medal, and before that had been a dockie. Now, he knew why he’d won it, whose life he’d saved – suddenly, he’d acquired some history.
    “He had to fight to get out of the docks,” Harold told him. “Reserved occupation, y’see, and they didn’t want to