Free The Lost Flying Boat by Alan Silltoe

me. Yet how could he expect such loyalty when he would not say why it was needed? If I knew what was in his mind I might have been sincere in my agreement to do more than the duty I was paid for. The text of my returned handshake must have been understood, however. He tapped the photo-triptych of his family, maybe by accident, so that I wondered if he had indicated it to the others on their separate briefings. I nodded, my hand on the doorknob.
    â€˜I’m going to need your loyalty above that of everyone else, Adcock. I hope you understand.’
    There’s a mock-solemn, patronizing quality about those who continually speak your name when talking to you. I don’t like it. They look upon you as a child, and have an unjustified feeling of their own significance. Yet Bennett seemed less of the type. Whether his hands trembled from too much drink (the bottle was again half empty) or from sleeplessness, or from fear of something he would rather die than tell, I couldn’t say. It seemed an act of mercy rather than friendship to affirm, before opening the door: ‘I’ll do all I can.’
    Such candour, while helpful to him, got me nowhere. My curiosity was at its highest, but if I wanted to satisfy it I would have to wait till such time as I, and maybe the rest of us, became a victim to whatever was intent on destroying him – because when, in an aircraft flying at eighteen thousand feet above the ocean, the captain discovers himself beset by enemies from within or without, then surely those foes – whoever and whatever they might be – become equally dedicated to the destruction of everyone else who has the misfortune to be on board with him. Bennett wanted to be the master of his own destiny, but I questioned the validity of this desire to involve me in any way.
    A dream-serial played while I slept off the food and drink. A flying boat was hundreds of miles out, with but two of its four engines working. Instead of a normal aircraft interior there were the domestic furnishings of an ordinary house. There was no fuel left, and the flying boat came down on a rough sea and began to disintegrate. Waves spun and splashed with malevolence over the windscreen. When the perspex panels fell away I woke from the horrors.
    Nash banged from next door: ‘You all right, Sparks?’
    16
    Rose sat in the smoking room, reading a copy of Flight Magazine, legs straight out as if ‘don’t disturb’ was printed on the soles of both shoes. The high leather armchair in the shade of the aspidistra hid most of his body, and he was so engrossed in whatever piece of technical exposé had taken his fancy that I could hardly believe he was alive. He seemed in a state of repose that would be impossible to disturb, as if blessed with a power of automatic detachment that had been with him since childhood; and because the devastation of the scar was turned away from me, I saw him as if before his accident. Just as a person who has lost an arm eventually finds more strength than he originally had in the two together, so perhaps the livid corrugation of bone and flesh had in some compensatory way beautified the side I looked at and made it more perfect than if the other part had never been injured. Yet the boyishness that would stay even if he lived to be a hundred was only marred by a painful sensitivity which made his head too big for his body.
    I had decided to tackle him about the real nature of our trip in the hope that his replies would at least indicate the direction in which any further questions ought to point. As chief mate, he was not exactly matey; but if he told me to vanish or get dive-bombed I would leave him alone.
    A navigator, like others of the aerial fraternity, was jealous of his guild-secrets even when they were obsolescent, or sufficiently simplified that they could be passed on without revelation. I felt the same about my own trade. Questioned by an outsider, I would tell nothing