exchanged a single brief glance and then Jake jerked the cabin door and
roughly they thrust the two girls into the tiny cramped cabin.
'Hold it,' Gareth shouted into the pilot's ear. 'We've got another
small one for you.' They carried Gregorius between them, trying to be
as gentle as haste would allow. The pilot was already turning the
machine into the wind and they staggered after it lifting the boy's
body into the open door as it was moving.
'Jake-'Vicky shouted, and her eyes were wild with grief.
'Don't worry,' Jake shouted back, as they tumbled Greg.
onus across the girls' laps. 'We'll get out just remember I
love you.'
'I love you, too,' Vicky called back, and her eyes swam with bright
tears. 'Oh Jake-' He was struggling to close the cabin door,
running beside the fuselage as the aircraft gathered speed for the
take-off, but one of Gregorius's feet was holding it open. Jake
stopped to free the foot, and rifle-fire snapped past his head, and
twanged into the canvas fabric of the fuselage.
He looked up in time to see the next shot star the side window of the
cockpit and then go on to strike the young pilot in the temple,
killing him instantly, and knocking his body sideways so that it hung
drunkenly out of the seat, held only by the shoulder straps.
The aircraft slewed sideways at the loss of control, and Jake saw
Vicky reach over the pilot's body and close the throttle, but he was
turning away and running back towards Priscilla the Pig.
More rifle-fire kicked up spurts of dust around them as they ran.
'Where are they? 'he shouted at Gareth.
'On the left.' Jake twisted his head and glimpsed the Italians in the
scrub and grass two hundred yards away on the edge of the field.
Beyond them was parked the transport that had carried them ahead of the
lumbering tank formation.
Priscilla's engine was still running, and he headed her in . k turn
for the riflemen in the grass. Above him, a qUIC Gareth fired the
Vickers and the Italians jumped up and ran like rabbits.
One quick pass scattered them and a burst of Vickers fire exploded the
transport in a dragon's breath of flame, and then Jake swung the car
back to where the little blue aircraft stood forlornly on the edge of
the field. He parked the tall steel hull close beside her to screen
her from Italian snipers.
Sara and Vicky between them had dragged the pilot's body out of the
cockpit. He was a big man, heavy in the shoulder and belly, and the
blood oozed from the bullet hole in his temple into the thick mop of
his hair as he lay on his back in the short grass under the wing.
Vicky turned away from him and scrambled up into the cockpit settling
herself behind the controls.
'Jesus!' said Jake, relief shining on his face. 'She said she could
fly.' A . rifle bullet spranged against Priscilla's hull and went
wailing away over their heads.
Gareth glanced down at the pilot's body. 'He was a big one, poor
beggar.'
'There's room for one more now,' Vicky shouted from the cockpit; 'with
