Flight of Eagles

My wife often discusses her flying with me, so I was aware of the problems in landing a fixed wing light twin aircraft in the sea. You had to approach with landing gear retracted and full flaps and reasonable power, a problem with one engine dead.

Light winds and small waves, land into the wind, heavy wind and big waves, land parallel to the crests. But we didn’t know what waited down there. We couldn’t see.

Denise throttled back and we descended and I watched the altimeter. One thousand, then five hundred. Nothing – not a damn thing – and then at a couple of hundred feet, broken fog, the sea below, small waves and she dropped us into the wind.

For those few moments, I think she became a truly great pilot. We bounced, skidded along the waves and came to a halt. The shock was considerable, but she had the cabin door open in an instant.

‘Bring him with you,’ she called and went out fast on to the wing.

I leaned over, unfastened Dupont’s seat-belt, then shoved him head first through the door. She reached for him, slid off the wing into the water and pulled him after her. I went then and slipped off the wing. I remembered some statistics she’d shown me on landings at sea. Ninety seconds seemed to be about par for the course before the plane sank.

Denise was hanging on to Dupont as they floated away in their yellow life-jackets. As I followed, the plane sinking, she shouted, ‘Oh God, Tarquin’s in there.’

This requires a word of explanation. Tarquin was a bear, but a unique bear. When we found him sitting on a shelf in a Brighton antique shop, he was wearing the leather flying helmet, flying boots and blue flying overalls of the Second World War’s Royal Air Force. He also wore Royal Flying Corps Wings from the First World War. He had had an enigmatic look on his face, which was not surprising, the dealer informed us, because he had flown repeatedly in the Battle of Britain with his former owner, a fighter pilot. It was a romantic story, but I tended to believe it, and I know my wife did, because he had the appearance of a bear who’d done things and been places. In any case, he’d become her mascot and flew with her frequently. There was no question of leaving him behind.

We’d placed him in the rear of the cabin, in a supermarket shopping bag, and I didn’t hesitate. I turned, reached for the handle of the rear cabin door, got it open and dragged out Tarquin in his bag.

‘Come on, old lad, we’re going for a swim,’ I said.

God, but it was cold, like acid eating into the bones and that, I knew, was the killer. You didn’t have long in the English Channel, as many RAF and Luftwaffe pilots had found to their cost.

I held on to Dupont and Tarquin, and she held on to me. ‘Great landing,’ I said. ‘Very impressive.’

‘Are we going to die?’ she demanded, in between gagging on sea water.

‘I don’t think so,’ I told her. ‘Not if you look over your shoulder.’

Which she did, and found an RNLI Tyne Class lifeboat emerging from the fog like some strange ghost. The crew were at the rail in yellow oilskins and orange life-jackets, as the boat coasted to a halt beside us and three men jumped into the water.

One old man stood out, as he leaned over the rail. He was in his eighties obviously, white-haired and bearded, and when he spoke, it was that same strong voice that we’d heard on the radio. Zec Acland. ‘By God, you brought it off, girl.’

‘So it would appear,’ Denise called.

They hauled us into the boat – and then the strangest thing happened. Acland looked at the soaked bear in my arms, a look of bewilderment on his face. ‘Dear God, Tarquin. Where did you get him?’

Denise and I sat on a bench in the main cabin, blankets around us, and drank tea from a thermos flask while two crew members worked on Dupont, who lay on the floor. Zec Acland sat on the bench opposite, watching. He took out an old silver flask, reached over and poured it into our mugs.

‘Rum,’ he said. ‘Do you good.’ At that moment, another man entered, black-haired, energetic, a younger version of Acland. ‘This is my boy, Simeon, cox of this boat, the Lady Carter.’

Simeon said, ‘It’s good to see you people in one piece. Makes it worthwhile.’

RNLI crews being unpaid volunteers, I could imagine how he felt. One of the two crew members kneeling beside Dupont fastened an oxygen mask over the Frenchman’s face and looked up. ‘He’s still with us, but it’s not good.’

‘There’s a Navy Sea King helicopter landing at Cold Harbour right about now,’ Simeon Acland said. ‘Take you people to civilization in no time.’

I glanced at Denise, who made a face, so I said, ‘Frankly, it’s been one hell of a day. Our friend Dupont needs a hospital, that’s obvious, but do you think there’s a chance my wife and I could stay overnight?’

Simeon laughed. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. My Dad, here, is publican at the Hanged Man in the village. Usually has a room or two available.’ He turned and saw the very wet bear on the bench beside his father. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s Tarquin,’ Zec Acland said.

A strange expression settled on Simeon’s face. ‘You mean –? Dear God, you weren’t lying, you old bugger. He really existed. All these years, I thought you just made it up.’ He picked Tarquin up and water poured out. ‘He’s soaked.’

‘Not to worry,’ Zec Acland said. ‘He’ll dry out. He’s been wet before.’

It was all very intriguing, and I was just about to take it further when my wife had a severe bout of seasickness, due to swallowing so much water. I followed her example only minutes later, but we were both back to normal by the time we rounded a promontory and saw an inlet on the bay beyond, a wooded valley above.

There was a grey stone manor house in the trees, no more than two or three dozen cottages, a quay, a few fishing boats moored. The Lady Carter eased into the quay, two or three fishermen came forward and caught the thrown lines, the engines stopped and then there was only the quiet, the fog and pouring rain.

In the near distance, we heard a sudden roaring, and Simeon said, ‘That’ll be the helicopter. Better get him up there.’ He nodded at Dupont.

His father said, ‘Good lad. I’ll see to these two. Hot baths in order. Decent dinner.’ He picked up Tarquin.

I said, ‘And an explanation. We’d love that.’

‘You’ll have it,’ he said, ‘I promise you.’

They had Dupont on a stretcher by then, carried him out and we followed.

The whole place had been put together in the mid-eighteenth century by a Sir William Chevely, we were told later, the cottages, harbour, quay, everything. By repute, Chevely had been a smuggler, and the port had been a front for other things. The pub, the Hanged Man, had mullioned windows and timber inserts. It certainly didn’t look Georgian.

Zec took us in and found a motherly sort of woman behind the bar who answered to the name of Betsy and who fussed around Denise immediately, taking her off upstairs. I stayed in the old, beamed bar with Zec and sat in front of the roaring log fire and enjoyed a very large Bushmills Whiskey.

He sat Tarquin on a ledge near the fire. ‘Let him dry natural.’

He took out a tin of cigarettes and selected one. I said, ‘The bear is important to you?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He nodded. ‘And to another. More than you’ll ever know.’

‘Tell me.’

He shook his head. ‘Later, when that wife of yours is with us. Quite a girl, that one. Got a few years on you.’

‘Twenty-five,’ I said. ‘But after fifteen years together, we must have got something right.’

‘Take it day by day,’ he said. ‘I learned that in the war. A lot of dying in those days.’

‘Were you in the Navy?’

‘Only for the first year, then they pulled me back to be coxswain of the lifeboat. It was like a full-time occupation in those days. Ships torpedoed, pilots down in the Channel. No, I missed out on the real naval war.’

As I discovered later, this was a totally false impression of a man who had earned the Distinguished Service Medal during his year with the Navy, then the George Cross, the MBE and four gold medals from the RNLI during his extraordinary service to that fine institution.

I said, ‘The sign outside the inn shows a young man hanging upside down suspended by his ankle. That’s a tarot image, isn’t it? I think it means regeneration.’

‘Ah, well, it was Julie Legrande painted that back in the big war. Housekeeper of the manor and ran the pub. We’ve had to have it freshened over the years, but it’s still what Julie painted.’

‘French?’ I asked.