Free The Blasphemer: A Novel by Nigel Farndale

has a high frequency and is scattered ten times more than red light which has …’ He swallowed. ‘Which has a lower frequency.’ He yawned again and stretched involuntarily. ‘So the background scattered light you see in the sky is blue.’ His mouth was dry; heart stuttering. He wiped the window again. Closed the blind.
    ‘Do you know why the army term for a friendly fire incident is “a blue-on-blue”?’ Nancy asked.
    Daniel frowned. He knew this one. ‘Is it because …’ He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’
    Nancy grinned triumphantly. ‘It refers to the colour used to mark friendly troops on maps.’
    A hissing sound came from the back of the plane. The passengers turned as one in their seats to see what it was. Then it happened: a dull explosion; a violent jolt; a gut-wrenching plummet. It was so sudden no one screamed. The dive lasted for several hundred feet before the plane levelled off. Nancy grasped for a handhold. ‘ Jesus .’ It sounded like she was in a wind tunnel. ‘Dan? What’s happening? Was that an air pocket? What’s happening? ’
    An angry metallic sound came from the right side of the plane; the sound of metal ripping. This was followed by a popping noise in the fuselage below, like bubble wrap being burst. The plane banked left. People were screaming now. The flight attendant, who had been thrown the length of the plane, tried to stand up, grabbing a trolley to steady himself. He had a small gash on his head. For the next thirty seconds the plane pitched and rolled and there was a sickening series of thuds, like hammer blows against an anvil. Theair tightened. The temperature in the cabin dropped – a chill of terror passing through the plane.
    Daniel flicked his blind up. Five feet out on the wing the engine spluttered and stopped. It was missing a blade. Another blade was bent at a ninety-degree angle. The cowling was mangled, its aluminium peeled back and twisted, its wires and cables whipping in the airstream. Fuel was spewing from steel-braided hoses. With fumbling hands, Daniel reached for a sick bag from the seat pocket, but didn’t manage to open it in time. The vomit splashed over his knees and shins and on to what Nancy always called his ‘scientist’s sandals’.
    The left engine sounded louder on its own – so loud Daniel thought he had gone deaf in his right ear. Partial deafness. An image of his father’s face flashed into his head for a second before his attention focused on the door to the cockpit. It was swinging open and closed and he could hear shouted snatches of the pilot’s broken English: ‘G362ES. G362ES.’ Next came some co-ordinates followed by the word ‘north’, and some more followed by ‘east’. The pilot shouted: ‘We out at two zero zero at this time. Angels twenty. We losing power. We attempt emergency landing. Ecuador Centre. G362ES declaring an emergency. We have engine failure. Repeat. We have engine failure .’
    The plane was gliding in a wide, downward spiral. The engine was no longer loud. A whistle of rushing air could be heard. The screams had turned to whimpers. Behind them, Susie was muttering: ‘ Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod .’ Towards the back of the plane someone was praying in Spanish. Daniel turned round. An elderly woman was fingering a string of rosary beads. She didn’t notice that she had a nosebleed. Incongruously, Greg was holding his Handycam up to his eye again, filming the scenes of panic. There was a powerful smell of aviation fuel and vomit. Oxygen masks flopped down from the overhead lockers. Daniel stared dumbly at his. We must be below 10,000 feet by now, he calculated with shock-induced detachment, because I am still conscious. With a rapid decompression you have only twenty seconds to get your oxygen mask on; after that you lose the ability to think clearly orco-ordinate properly. And after that a feeling of euphoria comes over you, a symptom of the brain not getting enough oxygen. We are definitely