Vets Might Fly Read online

  expectantly She threw it and he brought it back again.

  I gasped incredulously. A feline retriever!

  The Bassets looked on disdainfully. Nothing would ever have induced

  them to chase a ball, but Buster did it again and again as though he

  would never tire of it.

  Mrs Ainsworth turned to me.

  "Have you ever seen any thing like that?"

  "No," I replied.

  "I never have. He is a most remarkable cat."

  She snatched Buster from his play and we went back into the house where

  she held him close to her face, laughing as the big cat purred and

  arched himself ecstatically against her cheek.

  Looking at him, a picture of health and contentment, my mind went back

  to his mother. Was it too much to think that that dying little

  creature with the last of her strength had carried her kitten to the

  only haven of comfort and warmth she had ever known in the hope that it

  would be cared for there? Maybe it was.

  But it seemed I wasn't the only one with such fancies. Mrs Ainsworth

  turned to me and though she was smiling her eyes were wistful.

  "Debbie would be pleased," she said.

  I nodded.

  "Yes, she would.... It was just a year ago today she brought him,

  wasn't it?"

  "That's right." She hugged Buster to her again.

  "The best Christmas present I ever had."

  Chapter Eleven I stared in disbelief at the dial of the weighing

  machine. Nine stone seven pounds! I had lost two stones since joining

  the RAF. I was cowering in my usual corner in Boots' Chemist's shop in

  Scar borough, where I had developed the habit of a weekly weigh-in to

  keep a morbid eye on my progressive emaciation.

  It was incredible and it wasn't all due to the tough training.

  On our arrival in Scar borough we had a talk from our Flight Commander,

  Flt Lieut Barnes. He looked us over with a contemplative eye and

  said,

  "You won't know yourselves when you leave here." That man wasn't

  kidding.

  We were never at rest. It was PT and Drill, PT and Drill, over and

  over.

  Hours of bending and stretching and twisting down on the prom in sing

  lets and shorts while the wind whipped over us from the wintry sea.

  Hours of marching under the bellowings of our sergeant; quick march,

  slow march, about turn. We even marched to our navigation classes,

  bustling along at the RAF quick time, arms swinging shoulder high.

  They marched us regularly to the top of Castle Hill where we fired off

  every Conceivable type of weapon; twelve bores, .22 rifles, revolvers,

  Browning machine oud guns. We even stabbed at dummies with bayonets.

  In between they had us swimming, playing football or rugby or running

  for miles along the beach and on the cliff tops towards Riley.

  At first I was too busy to see any change in myself, but one morning

  after a few weeks our flight was coming to the end of a five-mile run.

  We dropped down from the Spa to a long stretch of empty beach and the

  sergeant shouted, "Right, sprint to those rocks! Let's see who gets

  there first!"

  We all took off on the last hundred yards' dash and I was mildly

  surprised to find that the first man past the post was myself and I

  wasn't really out of breath. That was when the realisation hit me. Mr

  Barnes had been right. I didn't know myself.

  When I left Helen I was a cosseted young husband with a little double

  chin and the beginnings of a spare tyre, and now I was a lithe,

  tireless greyhound.

  I was certainly fit, but there was something wrong. I shouldn't have

  been as thin as this. Another factor was at work.

  In Yorkshire when a man goes into a decline during his wife's pregnancy

  they giggle behind their hands and say he is 'carrying' the baby. I

  never laugh at these remarks because I am convinced I 'carried' my

  son.

  I base this conclusion on a variety of symptoms. It would be an

  exaggeration to say I suffered from morning sickness, but my suspicions

  were certainly aroused when I began to feel a little queasy in the

  early part of the day. This was followed by a growing uneasiness as

  Helen's time drew near and a sensation, despite my physical condition,

  of being drained and miserable. With the onset in the later stages of

  unmistakable labour pains in my lower abdomen all doubts were resolved

  and I knew I had to do something about it.

  I had to see Helen. After all, she was just over that hill which I

  could see from the top windows of the Grand. Maybe that wasn't

  strictly true, but at least I was in Yorkshire and a bus would take me

  to her in three hours. The snag was that there was no leave from ITW.

  They left us in no doubt about that.

  They said the discipline was as tough as a Guards regiment and the

  restrictions just as rigid. I would get com passionate leave when the

  baby was born, but I couldn't wait till then. The grim knowledge that

  any attempt to dodge off unofficially would be like a minor desertion

  and would be followed by serious consequences, even prison, didn't

  weigh with me.

  As one of my comrades put it: "One bloke, tried it and finished up in

  the Glasshouse. It isn't worth it, mate."

  But it was no good. I am normally a law-abiding citizen but I had not

  a single scruple. I had to see Helen. A surreptitious study of the

  timetables revealed that there was a bus at 2 p.m. which got to Darrow

  by at five o'clock, and another leaving Darrow by at six which arrived

  in Scar borough at nine. Six hours travelling to have one hour with

  Helen. It was worth it.

  At first I couldn't see a way of get ting to the bus station at two

  o'clock in the afternoon because we were never free at that time, but

  my chance came quite unexpectedly. One Friday lunchtime we learned

  that there were no more classes that day but we were confined to the

  Grand till evening Most of my friends collapsed thankfully on to their

  beds, but I slunk down the long flights of stone stairs and took up a

  position in the foyer where I could watch the front door.

  There was a glass-fronted office on one side of the entrance where the

  SPs sat and kept an eye on all departures. There was only one on duty

  today and I waited till he turned and moved to the back of the room

  then I walked quietly past him and out into the square.

  That part had been almost too easy, but I felt naked and exposed as I

  crossed the deserted space between the Grand and the hotels on the

  opposite side. It was] better once I had rounded the corner and I set

  off at a brisk pace for the west.: All I needed was a little bit of

  luck and as I pressed, dry-mouthed, along the empty street it seemed I

  had found it. The shock when I saw the two burly SPs Strolling towards

  me was like a blow but was immediately followed by a strange calm They

  would ask me for the pass I didn't have, then they would want to know

  what I was doing there. It wouldn't be much good telling them I had

  just popped out for a breath of air this street led to both the bus and

  railway stations and it wouldn't need a genius to rumble my little