with both hands but still it shook. After a while she spoke again. Are
you still there? 'Yes, he whispered, I'm still here They were silent
again, but David broke it at last. That's it, then, he said. Yes. I'm
afraid that's it, Davey. Joe stuck his head around the door. -'Hey,
Davey. Cut it short, will you. Time to go. 'I have to go now, Ella.
Thanks for everything. 'Goodbye, David, she said, and even over the
scratchy connection he could hear the compassion in her tone.
It heightened the black anger that gripped him as he rode beside Joe to
the Mirage bunker.
For the first time ever, David felt uncomfortable in the cockpit of a
Mirage. He felt trapped and restless, sweating and angry, and it seemed
hours between each of the fifteen-minute readiness checks.
His ground crew were playing backgammon on the concrete floor below him,
and he could see them laughing and joshing each other. It made him
angrier than ever to see others happy.
Tubby! he barked into his microphone, and his voice was repeated by the
overhead loudspeakers. The plump, serious young man, who was chief
engineer for Lance squadron, climbed quickly up beside his cockpit and
peered anxiously through the canopy at him.
There is dirt on my screen, David snapped at him. How the hell do you
expect me to pick up a MIG, when I'm looking through a screen you ate
your bloody breakfast off?
The cause of David's distress was a speck of carbon that marred the
glistening perfection of his canopy.
Tubby himself had supervised the polishing and buffing of it, and the
carbon speck was wind-carried since then.
Carefully he removed the offending spot, and lovingly he polished the
place where it had been with a chamois leather.
The reprimand had been public and unfair, very unlike their top boy
Davey. However, they all made allowances for Red standby nerves, and
spots on a canopy played hell with a pilot's nerves. Every time it
caught his eye it looked exactly like a pouncing MIG.
That's better, David gruffed at him, fully aware that he had been
grossly unfair. Tubby grinned and gave him a high sign as he climbed
down.
At that moment there was a click and throb in his earphones and the
distinctive voice of the Brig.
Red Standby, Go! Go!
Under full reheat and with the driving thrust of the afterburners
hurling him aloft David called, Hello, Desert Flower, Bright Lance
airborne and climbing.
Hello, David, this is the Brig. We have a contact shaping up for
intrusion on our air space. It looks like another teaser from the
Syrians. They are closing our border at twenty-six thousand and should
be hostile in approximately three minutes. We are going to initiate
attack plan Gideon. Your new heading is 420 and I want you right down
on the deck.
David acked and immediately rotated the Mirage's nose downwards. Plan
Gideon called for a low-level stalk so that the ground clutter would
obscure the enemy radar and conceal their approach until such time as
