26. The Lost Pilot

THROUGH THE GATES OF TIME - Part 26

His language when he spoke was pidgin German, but he frowned when he heard Roger tell him that although he’d done German at school years ago he couldn’t make any sense out of what the intruder was saying.

The wind continued to blow.

“You mean, you’re English?” the man asked, stepping fully into our room and letting the door to the closet shut behind him. As he did so the wind stopped as suddenly as it had started.

“What else would I be?” snapped Roger.

“I thought… I believe I’ve crashed in German territory,” he stammered, “and my kite’s blown itself to smithereens behind me. So this is Heaven, is it?”

“What do you mean?” Roger frowned as he tried to add one and one together and come to a satisfactory answer.

“Just tell me where I am,” begged the newcomer, from the cut of his jacket and flying goggles Roger took him to be a pilot.

“You’ve just stepped from my closet, which is in number 10 Portland Crescent and I’m bloody fed up with all the interruptions today,” replied Roger tartly.

The newcomer burst into tears and fell on his knees to the floor, shaking his head.

“I could have sworn I was crashing in France,” he said, “shot down somewhere near Alsace on my way back to Blighty. “And you say I’m not in France?”

Roger shook his head. “It’s Brumpton in the Midlands and nothing’s been shot down near here since the war,” he said, “when a Spitfire managed to attract the only bullet anywhere near the county that day and smashed into the park, killing a small dog and, sadly its pilot.”

The pilot looked numb. “So you’re not German?” he said.

“Look, chummy, it’s been one hell of a lousy Christmas day and all my wife and I want is a little peace and quiet, if only for the sake of the kids,” Roger told him, “and you probably can’t help it, but you’ve come from nowhere and I’d be happier if you hadn’t.”

“I … I don’t understand…”

“Neither do I, but no matter. Look, fellow, it’s a fifth of the way into the twenty-first century, we’ve got two, no, three kids in beds up stairs and the whole day’s turned into a damned shambles. So you just come off the floor where grovelling will do you no good at all, sit over here and tell me why you want us to Heil Hitler?”

“I thought … it’s what you say to Germans if you want to stay alive,” he mumbled, “and I thought that’s what you were.”

“Well we’re not, though some of our good friends are,” Roger told him.

“The twenty-first century, you say?”

Roger nodded. “Exactly.”

“What sort of trick is this?” demanded the pilot, “Time doesn’t pass without a fellow noticing! And as far as I’m concerned it’s December 1943 and always will be, until it’s January 1944!”

Roger was beginning to feel frustrated. He was even beginning to wonder whether it really was the year or even the century that he thought it was, or somewhen else entirely.

“Calm down, Roger,” murmured May, seeing the way his mind was going from the expression on his face.

“I don’t know whether we’re coming or going,” he grumbled.

“I tell you what. You have another one of your gorgeous drinks and I’ll lock the closet door, so give me the key,” she said, standing up. “And you, Mr…?”

“Pickett. George Picket,”

“You, George, then, can tell us where you were when you got shot down, as close as you can remember.”

She took the closet key from Roger and pushed it into the closet keyhole. It turned easily, and she hard the lock click as it finally locked.

“That was easy enough,” she smiled, though in truth she didn’t feel like smiling. Like her husband, she wanted the day to make sense and then come to an end, preferably without there being any waifs and strays from the long past of history arriving to spoil it any more.

“We’d been on a secret mission,” George muttered in reply, “and I’m not saying anything about it because it’s secret and maybe the outcome of the war depends on it staying that way. Then, out of the blue just as night was falling this damned Jerry came from behind a cloud and my plane bought it. I couldn’t bail out, so down I went with my kite, and found myself here, and I thought that maybe if you were French civilians you might be under German rule, so I said the only bit of German I properly know.”

“And you end up in the here and now,” sighed Roger, still shaking his head.

“I thought I was dead,” George whispered, “I really did. The blast was dreadful, and I was saying my prayers…”

May looked at him sympathetically. “Would you like a drink before you go back to your plane?” she asked.

“Go back to me plane? It’s all shot down!”

“Well, it seems that’s what people do when they arrive in our front room through that closet,” May told him, “they go back to where they were before they came. And that’s probably what you’ll do. We can’t do anything about that. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with us”

The pilot George leapt to his feet. “No!” he shouted, “what trickery is this? What kind of fool do you take me for? We were warned that the Germans had a few tricks up their sleeves, and this must be one of them! And offering me a drink, were you? Something that would lull me to sleep and make me spill the beans?”

Then with an unexpected flourish he pulled out a pistol from its holster on a belt round his waist. “I’ll shoot the lot of us before I tell you one thing…” he shouted, “because if this is a trick and I’m caught up in it I’m damned if I’ll tell you one more thing!”

“But you haven’t told us anything, and what’s more we don’t want you to,” snapped Roger, “and if you wave that thing around any longer it might go off, then where would you be?”

“Please mister, can I have a drink?” interrupted a quiet voice from the doorway.

It was Oliver Twist, and at the unexpected intrusion George Picket swung round and pulled the trigger on his pistol.

And in response Oliver Twist collapsed to the floor, and lay still.

“That’ll learn you!” George snarled, “I’ll have none of it!”

“So this is what brave pilots do, is it? Shoot children?” snarled May as she ignored the confused gun-waving pilot and went to see what she could do for the stationary Victorian boy.

© Peter Rogerson, 18.12.20