As David sat in his cockpit, dressed from head to foot in the stiff
constricting embrace of afull-pressure suit, breathing oxygen from his
closed face mask, although the Mirage still crouched upon the ground,
there were four black, red and white miniature rounders painted on the
fuselage below his cockpit. The scalps of the enemy.
It was a mark of Desert Flower's trust that Bright Lance flight had been
selected for high altitude Red standby. With the statter lines plugged
ready to blow compressed air into the compressors and whirl the great
engines into life, and the ground crew lounging beside the motor, the
Mirages were ready to be hurled aloft in a matter of seconds. Both
David and Joe were suited to survive the almost pressureless altitudes
above sixty thousand feet where an unprotected man's blood would fizzle
like champagne.
David had lost count of the weary uncomfortable days and hours he had
sat cramped in his cockpit on Red Standby with only the regular
fifteen-minute checks to break the monotony.
Checking 1115 hours, fifteen minutes to stand down. David said into the
microphone, and heard Joe's breathing in his ears before the reply. Two
standing by. Beseder.
Immediately after stand-down, when another crew would assume the arduous
waiting of standby, David would change into a track suit and run for
five or six miles to get the stiffness out of his body and to have his
sweat wash away the staleness. He was looking forward to that,
afterwards he would There was a sharp crackle in his earphones and a new
voice. Red Standby, Go! Go!
The command was repeated over loudspeakers in the under-ground bunker,
and the ground crew boiled into action. With all his pre-flight checks
and routine long ago completed, David merely pushed his throttle to
starting position, and the whine of the statters showed immediate
results. The engine caught and he ran up his power to one hundred percent.
Ahead of him the blast doors were lifting.
Bright Lance Two, this is leader going to take off power.
Two conforming, said Joe and they went screaming up the ramp and hurled
themselves at the sky.
Hallo, Desert Flower, this is Bright Lance airborne and climbing. Bright
Lance, this is the Brig, David was not surprised to find that he was in
charge of command plot.
Distinctive voices and the use of personal names would prevent any
chance of the enemy confusing the net with false messages. David, we
have an intruder approach at high level that should enter our air space
in four minutes, if it continues on its present course. We are tracking
him at seventy-five thousand feet which means it is either an American
U. 2, which is highly unlikely, or that it is a Russian spy plane
coming over to have a look at our latest dispersals. Beseder, sir,
David acked.
We are going to try for a storm-climb to intercept as soon as the target
becomes hostile in our air space. 'Beseder, sir.
Level at twenty thousand feet, turn to 186 and go to maximum speed for
storm-climb. At twenty thousand, David went to straight and level
