Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 46

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fell to the earth as David passed only feet above his head.

All fuel cocks closed, all switches off, master switch off, David went

into the final ritual for crash-landing.

Ahead of him lay the smooth brown field, open and clear.  He might just

be lucky enough, it might just come Off.

The Mirage was losing flying speed, her nose coming up, the airspeed

needle sinking back, 200 miles per hour, 190, 180, dropping back to her

stalling speed of 150.

Then suddenly David realized that the field ahead of him was latticed

with deep concrete irrigation channels.

They were twenty feet wide, and ten deep, a deadly hazard, enough to

destroy a Centurion tank.

There was nothing David could do now to avoid their gaping jaws.  He

flew the mirage in, touching down smoothly.

Smooth as a tomcat pissing on a sheet of velvet, he thought bitterly,

aware that all his skill was unavailing now.  Even Barney would have

been proud of me.  The field was rough, but the Mirage settled to it,

pitching and lurkin& shaking David ruthlessly about the cockpit, but she

was up on all three wheels, losing speed handily, her undercart taking

the strain.  However, she was still travelling at ninety miles an hour

when she went into the irrigation ditch.

it snapped her undercart off like pretzel sticks and she nosed in,

struck the far bank of concrete that sheered through metal like a

scythe, and sent the fuselage cartwheeling across the field with David

still strapped within it.  The wings broke away and the body slid on

across the soft earth to come to rest at last, right way up like a

stranded whale.

The whole of David's left side was numb, no feeling in his arm or lethe

straps had mauled him with their rude grasp, and he was stunned and

bewildered in the sudden engrossing silence.

For many seconds he sat still, unable to move or think.  Then he smelled

it, the pervasive reek of Avtur jet fuel from the ruptured tanks and

lines.  The smell of it galvanized him with the pilot's deadly fear of

fire.

With his right hand he grabbed the canopy release lever and heaved at

it.  He wasted ten precious seconds with it, for it was jammed solid.

Then he turned his attention to the steel canopy breaker in its niche

below the lever.  This was a tool specially designed for this type of

emergency.  He lifted it, lay back in his seat and attacked the Perspex

dome above his head.  The stink of jet fuel was overpowering, filling

the cockpit, and he could hear the little pinging and tinkling sound

made by white-hot metal.

His left arm hampered him, he had no feeling or use in it.  The straps

bound him tightly to his seat and he had to pause in his assault upon

the canopy to loosen them.

Then he began again.  He tore an opening in the Perspex, the size of a

hand, and as he worked to enlarge it, a ruptured fuel pressure line

somewhere in the shattered fuselage sprayed a jet of Avtur high in the

air.  It fell in a heavy drizzle upon the canopy like a garden

sprinkler, poured down the curved sides and dribbled through the hole

David was cutting.  It fell into his face, icy cold on his cheeks and

stinging his eyes, it drenched his shoulders and the front of his

pressure suit, and David began to pray.  For the first time ever in his

life the words took on meaning and he felt his terror receding.  Hear O

Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  He prayed aloud, striking up

at the softly yielding Perspex and feeling the soft rain of death in his

face.  He tore at the opening with his hands, bringing away slabs of

transparent material, but ripping his gloves and leaving his blood

smearing the jagged edges of the opening.

Blessed be His name, whose glorious kingdom is for ever The opening was

large enough.  He hauled himself up in the seat, and found himself

caught by the oxygen and radio lines attached to his helmet.  He could

not reach them with his crippled left arm.  He stared down at the

offending limb, and saw the blood welling out of the torn sleeve of the

suit.  There was no pain but it was twisted at a comical angle from the

elbow.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart - he whispered, and

with his right hand he tore loose the chin strap and let his helmet drop

to the floorboards.  The Avtur soaked into the soft dark mop of his hair

and ran down his neck behind his ears, and he thought about the flames

of hell.

Painfully he dragged himself out through the opening in the canopy, and

now not even prayer could hold off the dark hordes of terror that

assaulted his soul. - For the anger of God will kindle against you

Laboriously he crawled across the slippery sleek metal of the wing root

and fell to the ground. He fell facedown and lay for a moment, exhausted

by fear and effort.

I, remember all the commands of God, He heard voices then as he lay with

his face against the dusty earth, and he lifted his head and saw the

women from the orchard running towards him across the open field.  The

voices were shrill but faint and the words were in Hebrew.  He knew that

he was home.

Steadying himself against the shattered body of the Mirage, he came to

his feet with the broken arm dangling at his side, and he tried to shout

to them.

Go back!  Beware!  but his voice was a throaty croak, and they ran on

towards him.  Their dresses and aprons were gay spots of colour against

the dry brown earth.

He pushed himself away from the aircraft and staggered to meet the

running women.

Go back!  he croaked in his own terrible distress, with the grip of his

G-suit strangling his movements and the evaporating fuel cold as ice in

his air and down his face.

Within the battered hull of the Mirage a puddle of Avtur had been heated

by the white-hot shell of the jet compressor.  its low volatility at

last was raised to flash point and a dying spark from the electronic

equipment was enough to ignite it.

With a dull but awful roar, the Mirage bloomed with dark crimson flame

and sooty black smoke, the wind ripped the flames outwards in great

streamers and pennants that engulfed all around them, and David

staggered onwards in the midsts of the roaring furnace that seemed to

consume the very air.

He held his breath, if he had not, the flame would have scorched his

lungs.  He closed his eyes tightly against the agony and ran on blindly.

His body and his limbs were protected by the fireproof pressure suit and

boots and gloves, but his head was bare and soaked with jet fuel.

As he ran his head burned like a torch.  His hair frizzled off, in a

stinking puff of flame and the skin of his scalp and neck and face were

exposed.  The flames burnt his ears off and most of his nose, they

flayed off his skin in a blistering sheet and then they ate into the raw

flesh, they burnt away his lips and exposed his teeth and part of the

bone of his jaw.  They ate through his eyelids and stripped the living

meat from his cheeks.

David ran on through the burning air and smoke, and he did not believe

that such pain was possible.  It exceeded all his imaginings and swamped

all the senses of his body and mind, but he knew he must not scream.

The pain was a blackness and the vivid colours of flame in his tightly

closed eyes, it was a roaring in his ears like all the winds of the

world, and in his flesh it was the goads and whips and burning hooks of

hell itself.

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