Spit | Fire
He’s sworn two oaths. One to his homeland, one to King George.
He’s skimmed the cordite skies of his homeland Poland, barrelled the shrapnel-strewn Belgium ether, endured the insectile fury of the Messerschmitt swarms above France.
Each time, one of the few to survive – he starts again in a new land. He becomes another foreigner, not accepted. At worst, he’s despised. The best welcome he can hope for is suspicion and contempt.
Yet, the RAF needs pilots. So, grudgingly, they accept him and those like him – on the lowest ranks – he must know his place.
The cockpit is familiar. His worn leather gloves clasp the controls as if they are extensions of his soul.
A private chapel of hellfire. A crucible of death.
He once carried the Bible. Once folded a photo of his latest wielbiciel into his breast pocket. But these are talismans of false hope. He has lost those that hoped. Hope is a luxury for those that mourn.
Hope is for those that can’t fly the Spitfire like he can.
Perhaps his enemy has his own lucky charms. They will fail him.
She feels shaky, skittish and flimsy compared to the Hurricane, yet the sound, oh that sound. She rattles the skies of London, rumbles the cratered earth. The noise is like the god of thunder, Thor, dying of consumption.
Some brave kids must hear the noise. He sees the excited dots below. Escaped vagabonds from the wire-frame chicken-run Morrison shelters which sit precariously beneath the trembling tables of their terraced house. The dots attempt to outrun him –but only God can outrun the Spitfire.
Above the Home Counties, he has the enemy in his sights. Overwhelmed in number, these odds are normal for him, for the RAF, for his countrymen that are not welcome despite being the few I owe to which so much.
The sky is black like it is being devoured by hunger-ravaged locusts.
The enemy is a cloud casting shadows on the green lands of his adoptive home. Their shadow is greater than that of the darkening horizon, it is blackness itself.
Yet …
They fall.
Fall.
Fall.
He dreams of the skies, infinite, vast, blue, so blue. And where can these skies be found? His friends say there are places where the fields never end, where they roll so gently that they carpet the ground in cornflower blue, and barley creams. Where the farrow soil rests in russet expectation of future harvests. Where there is silence, but for the birdsong and the wind.
He feels the weight above him, below him, inside his soul. It is not gravity, G-force, or manoeuvres he has no right to make – no, it is the weight of the providence of an entire nation. It is the weight of the lives of millions.
Perhaps when he lands, he will dream of an end to this war. Of a world of toleration, even acceptance, he is not foolish enough to dream of gratitude.
But dreams are for the fanciful. Dreams are not made of tracer fire and crushed metal. He never dreams when he flies. Dreams can kill a man as surely as they inspire him.
When he lands, there is no celebration, no credit. He has helped save this land, fought for freedom for these men, their children, and generations from now that won’t remember his role, or those of his people.
And his prize? Disdain. Then the sound of another siren.
