Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [2]
He would get through this war. For her.
Something caught his eye, stark and incongruous against the black earth like a shark’s tooth in caviar.
Reaching down, he plucked it from the ground. It was about three inches long, jade-coloured and crystalline. In his ruddy palm, it seemed to glow.
He frowned and tucked it into his jacket pocket, then turned on his heel and walked towards the aerodrome gates, the roar of the Spitfire engines still ringing in his ears.
Deep in the earth, under cover of the flattened mud, something stirred...
Chapter One
Summer Lightning
A ladybird dropped out of the clear blue sky on to Jobey Packer’s hand; bright against his skin like a bead of blood.
He paused in his work and, instead of swatting it away, watched it amble slowly over his knuckles. The ticklish sensation, he decided, was rather nice.
The ladybird’s wing-case cracked open and, in an instant, it was gone.
Jobey smiled to himself and craned his head backwards to take in the enormity of the sky. Out here, away from the village, it dominated everything, like a vast canvas only precariously fixed to the narrow strip of the earth. Curlews arced and fluttered in it – dark flecks against the perfect blue.
Jobey closed his eyes and listened to their sad cries muffled by the warmth of the summer afternoon.
The land rolled out under the sky like a great streak of muddy watercolour, dotted here and there with stubby trees or the shining mirrors of inland waterways.
Jobey craned his old head back further till his straw hat almost flopped to the ground. Its tightly bound weave was coming undone, exposing the peeling red skin on his tanned forehead. Perhaps one day he’d treat himself to a new hat. He let the sun beat at his face.
He’d never even been tempted to move away from Culverton, though he’d seen plenty of life elsewhere. Even in the parched deserts of Alexandria, under the stars where the pharaohs once walked, Jobey had always dreamed of his little village. Safe, secure, always the same. As old as the hills –
except, of course, that there were no hills in Culverton. None to speak of in all his beloved East Anglia. Just land and sky.
Land and sky.
Nowhere else ever seemed quite the same.
Jobey had found himself in London once, many years ago, crushed together with other countless thousands when the king and Mr Churchill had emerged on to the balcony of the palace to celebrate the end of hostilities. He had cheered and wept with the best of them, of course, but after a couple of days in the capital he was desperate to come home. London was such a mean, filthy, rabbit warren of a place. Everyone in such a rush. No time to say a ‘good morning’ or a ‘how d’you do?’
Not like Culverton.
When he was a little boy, Jobey would stand and windmill his arms round and round and round, just to make the most of the emptiness. Sometimes, when no one was looking, he still did.
He shaded his eyes now as he looked out across the marshy farmland. There was the green with the old pump, the post office with its subsiding wall, the hotchpotch of cottages and houses clustered around the russet-coloured church as though seeking sanctuary. The air hummed with insects and the mournful song of the birds, turning and turning. Jobey gave a contented sigh and turned back to his work.
He lifted the hammer and, with a few swift strokes, banged a couple of nails into the sign he’d spent most of the morning attaching to the gates in front of him. Jobey paused and shook his head. There he was, getting all misty-eyed about Culverton never changing, yet here was change staring him in the face.
The end of an era. He took a step back to take in his handiwork. The sign, red on white, glared back at him like an accusation.
CULVERTON AERODROME
CLOSED
BY ORDER M.O.D
Commander Harold Tyrell decided the time had come to say goodbye.
A great bear of a man, his rumpled face and infectious laugh had endeared him to the whole village throughout his time in charge of the aerodrome. He had seen it through some of its finest hours. Postwar