Category: Creative Writing

In a word: Flight

There is a saying, if God wanted us to fly then he would have given us wings.

Unfortunately, he didn’t, so we do not get to know what it’s like to be in flight,

Unless…

We take an aeroplane, which usually has a flight number such as QF607, or in conversation, ‘I’ll be taking the 6 o’clock flight’.

If someone runs away, then we say they have taken flight.

If we roll back a few years, say about 80, to World War 2, flight tales on a whole new meaning.

It refers to a group of planes, in one case a number of spitfires, or,

The man in charge, a flight lieutenant, also colloquially known as ‘flight’.

This is not be confused with the word flite which has several very obscure meanings,

First, it means to quarrel or argue, or engage in a debate, and

Second, to make a complaint.

But one that sticks in my my mind is Flyte, from Brideshead Revisited.  they were a very interesting family.

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.

PIWalthJones1

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 46

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

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This is Chester. I just told him it’s Dog Appreciation Day.

And it got the expected response, you don’t have a dog.

Agh.

Then I tell him that a neighbour had a dog just like the one we’re thinking of getting, and they’re going to lend him to us for a few hours.

You can’t do that. This is not a dog-friendly environment. Remember the last time you had a dog. Fleas in the carpet, stains on the wall, and as for toilet training…

Yes, he has a point. The last dog we had was almost a disaster, besides the fact it was ten times larger than Chester. Friendly though, when Chester didn’t hiss at him.

This dog, I say, is smaller, not much bigger than you. A jovial chap who doesn’t bark much, just when recalcitrant cats annoy him, so I’m told.

Who are you calling recalcitrant?

No mistaking that distinct look of displeasure, almost recalcitrant I thought.

It’s going to happen, get over it.

Was that a cat shrug I saw? Another icy stare just to chill the atmosphere in the room, and he leaves.

Yes, I do like stirring the pot. You think he’d know by now.

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 42

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

I was not sure how the Congo commander was going to react when four cars with people who looked more like mercenaries than a film crew turned up at the front gate.

Not that we had the film equipment to use as a cover. I guess that was the reason the kidnappers had removed it from our cars. One less reason to believe our story. I would have been curious to hear just how the commander had described us to his Congo counterpart.

Or what sort of treatment we were going to get. I don’t think the hostages were going to like the idea of becoming hostages again, albeit with a new set of ransom demands, and probably a lot of harsher treatment. Mercenaries could be rough, but they needed resources, and trying to negotiate with overly damaged goods wouldn’t set much of an example.

The Government military, on the other hand, would not be too particular. And capturing an invading enemy force, spies if you will, well, that was going to be a feather in the cap of the airfield commander.

But would he tip his hand at the gate or wait till we pulled up outside the headquarters building. If there was one.

We were about to find out. The gate was in sight and flanked by two very bright lights which we had all seen for about the last half mile, flickering through the undergrowth. The road was well made, and we would have made good time, but I deliberately slowed down to give Monroe time to get into place.

Another brief report from the Colonel told me they reckoned on 20 troops deployed at different parts of the field, just in case we decided to ‘sneak’ in on foot.

At the gate the road widened into a large turning circle for turning back cars.

I stopped right on top of the gate. A non-commissioned officer came out of a small shack by the gate and joined two men standing either side of the gate. Weapons weren’t pointed in our direction, but that could change quickly.

I was going with the film crew going home story first.

“Who are you?” I noticed the officer had a clipboard and made a show of looking at it, and the page underneath. “You are not on my list.”

“Probably not. We have been filming a documentary, and it’s time to go home. We have an aircraft coming in tomorrow morning to pick us up.”

One of the guards came through the gate and went down one side of each car, then came back up the other side, peering in through the windows. Back at the gate, he spoke to the officer.

“You have weapons. That is unusual for a film crew isn’t it?”

Highly, if we were anywhere else in the world. “We were warned about militias. Luckily we didn’t run into any.”

“Then, before you enter the airfield I suggest you, and your men, surrender any weapons.”

“Of course.” I relayed the instruction back through the cars. The soldier then came down the car and collected the weapons in a bag. As I’d assumed, we were not going to gain admission to the airstrip armed. It was probably also a law which in any country made perfect sense.

Once the soldier returned the officer had the gate opened, and came over to me.

“Fill in the form, and we’ll get you on your way soon enough.”

He handed me the clipboard, and then stepped away, taking out a radio unit of his own and spoke into it in a language I didn’t understand. Perhaps we should have kept Jacobi with us for a little longer so he could interpret.

When I filled out the form and handed it back, he said, “Drive up the road about a half-mile to a hanger and park your cars out the front. I suggest when getting out of the cars not to make any sudden or suspicious moves.”

Like we’d been told almost word for word back at the commander’s camp. Interesting.

The men at the gate didn’t follow us, but I did see, coming from two separate points back from the runway, or what looked to be the runway, two groups of five soldiers in each, in a proper formation. That was not the actions of a motley militia.

Serious soldiers perhaps.

It didn’t take long to reach the hanger, quite large, but in a sorry state of repair. Beside it was two old army huts that were in better repair and lit up. At the top of the steps of one stood the commander, a Captain. Clean, fresh, snug-fitting uniform, looking the part. Newly promoted, with something to prove.

With him were another six soldiers, armed and ready. That made 16 plus him. Where were the others?

Another non-commissioned officer came out of the hut and briefly spoke to his commander. Then he went back inside, and the commander came down the stairs to greet me. The rest of the team stood together, in front of the third car, and about 20 feet away. They were trying their best to cover the two hostages.

“Good evening Mr. James.” Reasonably good English, polite, but there was a slight edge to his tone.

“Good evening.”

“May I ask, which way do you come?”

“From Faradje, on the way to Nagero. I was going to drive into Nagero but changed my mind. Best to get here and be ready.”

“I heard there were some elements of the militia on the road. Did you meet any?”

“No. I was told that this country is quite safe and that we would not be harmed, thanks, I’m told to the good services of the Government’s military. You will be pleased to learn that it is quite safe, a point I will be spreading when I return home. Hopefully that will bring in more tourists.”

“If, as you say, you’ve been making a documentary, it seems odd to me that on one hand, you don’t have any equipment, and on the other, that you have not included Garamba.”

“A valid observation. We had to call the shooting off because two of our crew are ill and need to be returned home, and we left the equipment back in Faradje, our last stop, ready for the replacement crew who will be scheduled to fly in, in the next week or so.”

I had considered what I might say and tried to make it sound plausible, but in the end I don’t think it mattered what I said, especially if the other commander had forewarned the Captain of our impending arrival.

“Yes. That may be true, or it might not. I’m assuming the two sick members of your team are over next to the film crew. In that case, I believe both of us know that those men do not belong to your crew, but are escaped prisoners.”

He gestured towards his men and they went over to the group and extracted the two hostages.

Seemingly it was game over.

“So Commander Ntumba called you after we left?”

“Not a lot happens here without my knowing it. It was in his best interest to inform me.”

Something in the distance caught his eye, and I moved my line of sight to match his. Shurl, hands in the air, with two more soldiers behind him, coming from the bush line on the other side of the runway.

Commander Ntumba would also have told him about our sniper, as I’d surmised, and there was no mistaking the look of glee on his face. Outsmarting what he would consider a crack team of mercenaries from the United States.

I turned back and shrugged.

“Yes, he also told us about your sniper Mr. James. You didn’t think he was going to sneak up on us like he did Commander Ntumba did you?”

“It was worth a try,” I said in my best-defeated tone.

“Right. For the time being you will be kept in detention until I speak to my commander. You will not be leaving this airport. Your rescue plane, when it arrives, will be detained. I will have further questions for you later. Film crew indeed. Take them to B Block,” he said to the officer, then headed back up the stairs to his office.

As far as he was concerned, it had been all too easy.

© Charles Heath 2020

“The Enemy Within” – the editor’s second draft – Day 20

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

And so it begins…

…

Everyone lies

…

Of course, they do, this is espionage at it’s finest. If everyone told the truth, we wouldn’t need spies, would we?

Then, of course, there are different versions of the truth, half-truths, perhaps, little white lies, and then just the truth but so much is omitted, it’s like reading a novel without the last chapter.

Hang on, wasn’t there a series on TV about just that?

Well, no one is telling Jack all of the story, so he has to find it out for himself, with a little help from his father, and friends, but just how far can he trust any of them?

But before he can worry about that, he receives a mysterious text message from the number of the phone that he gave Evelyn. He was not expecting her to use it.

It will provide a little welcome relief from being hunted by the people who are looking for Luigi Marchesi, and or the stolen cryptocurrency. If it is indeed about that because it had implausibility written all over it.

Back to Evelyn….

She’s had a hard time of it, but rescue is imminent, and revenge, well, that’s been keeping her from that edge tortured people reach and more often than not go over.

Just remember, revenge is best served cold. And, really, I don’t know why that is so.

Searching for locations: We’ve just arrived in Beijing International Airport, China

Instead of making a grand entrance, arriving in style and being greeted by important dignitaries, we are slinking in via an airplane, late at night. It’s hardly the entrance I’d envisaged. At 9:56 the plane touches down on the runway.  Outside the plane, it is dark and gloomy and from what I could see, it had been raining.  That could, of course, simply be condensation.

Once on the ground, everyone was frantically gathering together everything from seat pockets and sending pillows and blankets to the floor.  A few were turning their mobile phones back on, and checking for a signal, and, perhaps, looking for messages sent to them during the last 12 hours. Or perhaps they were just suffering from mobile phone deprivation.

It took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate. That’s when everyone moves into overdrive, unbuckling belts, some before the seatbelt sign goes off, and are first out of their seats and into the overhead lockers.  Most are not taking care that their luggage may have moved, but fortunately, no bags fall out onto someone’s head. The flight had been relatively turbulent free.

When as many people and bags have squeezed into that impossibly small aisle space, we wait for the door to open, and then the privileged few business and first-class passengers to depart before we can begin to leave. As we are somewhere near the middle of the plane, our wait will not be as long as it usually is.  This time we avoided being at the back of the plane.  Perhaps that privilege awaits us on the return trip.

Once off the plane, it is a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they could be.  It’s why it took another 30 odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a few hiccups along the way. We got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, which seemed to have a problem if your fingers were not straight, not in the center of the glass, and then if it was generally cranky, which ours were, continue to tell you to try again, and again, and again, and again…That took 10 to 15 minutes before we joined an incredibly long queue of other arrivals,

A glance at the time, and suddenly it’s nearly an hour from the moment we left the plane.

And…

That’s when we got to the immigration officer, and it became apparent we were going to have to do the fingerprints yet again.  Fortunately this time, it didn’t take as long.  Once that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.


We found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come out of the arrivals hall.  It wasn’t a difficult process in the end.  We were in the blue group.  Other people we had met on the plane were in the red group or the yellow group.  The tour guide found, or as it turned out she found us, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which there were eventually 28.Gathered together we were told we would be taking the bags to one place and then ourselves to the bus in another.  A glance in the direction of the bus park, there were a lot of busses.

Here’s a thought, imagine being told your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.

Yes, yours is, and 25 others because all of the tourist coaches are the same.  An early reminder, so that you do not get lost, or, God forbid, get on the wrong bus, for the three days in Beijing, is to get the last five numbers of the bus registration plate and commit them to memory.  It’s important.  Failing that, the guide’s name is in the front passenger window.

Also, don’t be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another. In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide called the baggage porter.  It is an opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage; much better than the airlines it appears.


That said, if you’re staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long drive from the airport.  It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that it was very late on a Sunday night.

Climbing out of the bus after what seemed a convoluted drive through a park with buildings, we arrive at the building that will be our hotel for the next three days.  From the outside, it looks quite good, and once inside the foyer, that first impression is good.  Lots of space, marble, and glass.  If you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, find your bags, get to your room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.

Sorry, that boat has sailed.

We were lucky, we were told, that our plane arrived on time, and we still arrived at the hotel at 12:52.  Imagine if the incoming plane is late.

This was taken the following morning.  It didn’t look half as bland late at night.

This is the back entrance to Building No 4 but is quite representative of the whole foyer, made completely of marble and glass.  It all looked very impressive under the artificial lights, but not so much in the cold hard light of early morning.

This the foyer of the floor our room was on.  Marble with interesting carpet designs.  Those first impressions of it being a plush hotel were slowly dissipating as we got nearer and nearer to the room.  From the elevator, it was a long, long walk.

So…Did I tell you about the bathroom in our room?

The shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower curtain doesn’t reach to the floor.  Water pressure is phenomenal.  Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go to the toilet you’re basically underwater.

Don’t leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess.

And the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half.  Only a small turn of the tap is required to get that tingling sensation going.

It’s after 1:30 before we finally get to sleep.

As for the bed, well, that’s a whole other story.

Curious children find a curiosity

I am constantly reminded of how curious grandchildren can be when they are not asking you what it was like to live with dinosaurs!

The second eldest who is a rather clever 17-year-old considers it interesting that I’m a writer, and having just met a ‘real’ author who came to visit them at school, asked me a few questions, some of which sounded like those that had been asked of my ‘real’ counterpart.

Like, “how old were you when you first wrote a story, and what was that story about?”

I didn’t think it was when I was at school, but sometime after that, and after a lot of reading.  Perhaps it had been one of those moments when a light bulb goes on in your head, and I said to myself, I can write these stories too.

Of course, that wasn’t an answer, so she asked again, when did I start writing?

That required a little thought, and there were several triggers that gave me a date, where I lived at the time, the fact I used my mother’s old portable typewriter, and the fact I had not been long out of school.  I was, in fact, about 17.  It was 53 years ago; I’ll let you do the math!

What was it about; that I couldn’t tell her, but I said I had rescued a lot of old scribbling of mine and put them in a box to look at later when I had the time.

I guess that time had arrived.

And, yes, there was the book, the individually typed pages, some with corrections, unfinished.

The pages were brown with age.

The story, well, I read the first few pages, and it seems I’d started down the thriller path then, the story so far, an agent comes ashore from a trawler to a bleak and isolated village, perhaps on the Scottish coast.

Then there was the inevitable next question; “What was the first story you read that put you on the path to wanting to become a writer”.

That was easy, Alistair Maclean’s HMS Ulysses.  I showed her a copy of the book.

That led to, “but this is about the British Royal Navy in World War 2…”

Perhaps I didn’t answer that correctly, it was after reading about a dozen of his novels, most of which were precursors to the modern-day thriller, perhaps more along the lines of action adventures.

The next question, understandably; “What was the first book you ever finished?”

That was The Starburst Conspiracy, the manuscript of which was in the box along with another completed novel, and quite a few short stories.

Back in those days, I remembered that I had sent some of my stories off to various publishers, and had entered a number of short story competitions, all to no avail.  And for a number of years, until I because to old, used to write and enter a novel in the Vogel novel competition but never made it to the shortlist.

It’s probably why I gave up writing for a number of years, until I worked for an interesting company who had a rich history of phosphate mining in the Pacific and being given permission to look into the archives, began writing what could only be described a saga, and by the time I’d left, it was over 1200 closely typed pages long.

I showed the bulky manuscript to her, but by this time her interest had moved to something else.

For me, however, it seemed there was a lot of unfinished business.

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

Searching for locations: The apartments at Greve in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy

When we first planned to stay in Tuscany for a few days, we wanted to be in a central area.  We had thought of staying in Florence and making daily treks, but the tour operator we selected told us it would be better if we stayed closer to Arezzo.

We picked Greve in Chianti, and a place called Antico Pastificio, we booked a standard apartment with two bedrooms, and it was about as authentic Italian you could get.  The building we stayed in was the yellow pasta factory, and the apartment named ‘Iris’.

It was only steps away from the main square, shops, restaurants, and at the opposite end, the quaint ringing of church bells at various times during the day.

Gaining access was through a very narrow arch which required some deft driving and then up the road.  There were villas and two large apartment blocks.

You can just see the archway at the end of the road. 
This was the entrance to our room,

 along a passage and up the stairs, turning left at the top.

 Going straight ahead through the gate to the car park, 

and access to the grounds behind the buildings.

This was the view from the lounge/living room.  The days were hot, and on several evenings it rained, breaking the heat and making the evenings sitting by the window cool and refreshing.

 And the last view is looking towards the town piazza and the church

“The Enemy Within” – the editor’s second draft – Day 19

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

And so it begins…

…

I’m looking at the title and seeking the hidden meaning behind it.

…

The Enemy Within.

Exactly what enemy are we referring to?

The people we work with, or for?

Someone closer like a relative?

A boyfriend or a girlfriend.

What lurks in the back of our mind, where do the dark thoughts come from?

Or more tangible enemies, the people who are trying to kill you for whatever reason.

None of the above,

The enemy is someone you know, someone you would least expect, and that makes them all the more insidious and effective in destabilising you.

All you have to do is open your eyes.