The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [155]
So here it was, then, the moment I’d been dreading. Any minute now he’d lean across and start to kiss me. Then, unless I stopped him, a hand would sneak between the buttons of my dress. What was I to do? How could I explain? And what if I did tell him it was over between us, and tonight was the night he never came back from patrol over the dark Channel coast?
Davey didn’t move. He was staring out of the windscreen, his eyes ringed with fatigue.
‘You’re done in,’ I said. ‘Start the car, take us back after all.’
‘No,’ he said, still not making a move. ‘I don’t want to go back yet.’
There was something in his voice. ‘You hate it, don’t you?’ I said. ‘You should’ve stayed an erk after all.’
He shook his head. ‘No, that’s not it. I’d rather be doing this.’ He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
‘There’s a but missed off the end of that sentence.’
‘It’s…hard sometimes, that’s all’ He was twisting his cap between his hands.
‘Hard?’
‘Hard to explain. Just…you have to push yourself.’
His face was all screwed up with tension and he couldn’t meet my eyes.
‘Is it frightening, going out at night?’ I asked.
He started to shake his head, then nodded instead. ‘But not like I thought. I’m never afraid when we take off. It’s coming back.’ He tried for a laugh. ‘Nobody really talks about it, except they call it the Twitch. Some have it more obvious than others. Some never seem to have it at all. But if you do, you keep it to yourself He couldn’t look me in the eye, afraid I was going to condemn him. ‘Same as…I used to care when we shot a bomber down. Used to watch out to see if they’d managed to bale out, used to hope the poor buggers had. And then I stopped caring. Same time I started thinking about whether or not I’d be coming back.’
So that was it, the reason he’d been awkward with me.
‘You’re burned out,’ I said. ‘They were on at you to take an easier posting. You shouldn’t have joined that squadron. Tell them, Davey. You can’t go on this way’
He ignored me because he’d unstoppered himself, and it all had to come pouring out now. ‘Something keeps you going for the first hour or so after takeoff. Looking for trade, we say, waiting for the controller to give you a vector to steer onto on a bomber’s tail. And when you do make contact, you’re too busy staying alive, too busy reading off the AI screen, looking at them blips, working out is he above you or below you, how far before your pilot can shoot the bastard out of the sky, will the gunner at the back of the bomber wake up and see us first. But afterwards…I think, dear God, how did we make it? Why did You pick us to come home, and not those poor sods in the flamer we shot down?’ He stared down between his knees, and began picking at a loose thread in the fabric of his cap. ‘Ought to feel glad on the way home, but I never do. Keep looking over my shoulder or listening to the note of the engine and thinking, any minute, God’ll change His mind, and we’re going to fall out of the sky. And you know what’s the worst? Nights there’s no contact, when we fly all over the sky searching for the buggers and they never show up. When the order comes to head for home, I think, that’s torn it. Soon as our backs are turned, there’ll be a Messerschmitt sneaking out from the dark side of the moon and sitting on our tail’
He twisted in his seat to face me, with a rueful grin on his face. ‘You know what I do then? I start saying what I call the Navigator’s Prayer. The Lord is my shepherd, he leadeth me up the Bristol Channel, above safe waters. Over Bridgwater Bay, he hideth me in clouds, to turn east at Avonmouth. Yea, though we fly through the valley of the shadow of death, if we follow the rivers, watch for the moon on the water, we’ll come home at last. I think about you, coming home to you, and I keep repeating to myself, watch for the moon shining on water. Helps push down the panic, when we’re leaking fuel and the pilot’s depending on me to find the quickest way back to base. And when