Tag: Serial

Writing about writing a book – Day 16

As we now know Bill realizes that he had been captured and interrogated by someone, ostensibly Chinese, but not exactly from the Viet Kong

I’ve been pondering how Bill ends up in the hands of the Chinese, well, I know how he does, and this needs to be put down.

Some pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

”’

Davenport arrived at the airstrip where I was waiting in a makeshift building, with windows, easy chairs, a self-serve bar, and best of all air conditioning.  Waiting for the chopper that was bringing in my replacement from Singapore airport.

He didn’t normally come to see us off so I thought it either odd or just a change of heart.  He had brought the shiny Cadillac, an ostentatious piece of Americana that never failed to capture the local’s imagination.

Davenport was, I soon discovered, a man who liked to impress upon the world how great America was.  I hadn’t the heart to tell him it failed on me.

He had crisp fatigues on and looked as though he had just stepped out of the shower, very clean, very cool, and very refreshed.  The car’s air-conditioning would have helped.  We all got that first ride from the strip to the camp in that car, and it was memorable, to say the least.

The driver stayed in the car, engine running, as he stepped into the lounge.  “Chandler.”

“Sir.”  No snapping to attention, neither of us was in uniform.

“There’s been a change of plans.”

“Sir.”  This didn’t sound very good.

“Your replacement is not coming.  Some trouble on the plane over.  Can’t spare a man so you will have to fill in.  I’m sorry.”

I went to say that I’d done my rotation, but the look on his face told me it would fall on deaf ears, so instead, I shrugged, let the driver, who had appeared out of the car as if on cue, collect my case, and followed Davenport out to the car.

It was definitely cooler in the car.  Davenport slid in the other side, the driver closing his door, then got in himself.  I had to close my own.  We headed back towards the camp slowly.

“We need 6 men for this op, Bill.  I’ll find some way of making this up to you.”

I shrugged.  “If you say so.”

I’d been looking forward to getting out of the jungle and getting back to civilization, as well as Ellen, who had been waiting patiently for the last six months.  She would not be very happy when I finally got to tell her.

“Oh, but the way, I took the liberty of calling your wife and apologizing on your behalf and said you’d probably be another week at the most.  She didn’t seem to mind.  She sounds like a nice lady.”

“She is.  She has to put up with me.”

“Yes.  We all have that problem.”

I listened to the hum of the air conditioning, the only other sound inside the car.  Usually, Davenport had a symphony playing over the radio, but not today.  He seemed different, more aloof, but, then, after the altercation, I had with him recently, we hadn’t spoken much after that.  Not unless we had to.

“The job isn’t difficult,” he said when we were nearing the compound.  “Another prison camp, and this time the intel is solid.  Buggers were careless and we’ve got some pictures.  The only problem is getting there.  It’s going to be a bit of a hike.”

Another of his understatements.  I could remember the last ‘bit of a hike’.  “When do we leave?”

“First light tomorrow.  Chopper to the drop zone then a day’s march to the camp.  RV at the drop zone from day 4 till you get there.”

“Who’s in charge?”  I’d run the last operation so I was hoping it would carry forward.

“If you’d been staying instead of being a last-minute replacement, it would have been you.  Instead, we had to bring in a couple of specialists who have been on the ground here quite some time.  They know the terrain and the people.”

New guys.  I hated new guys.  Especially those who purport to have experience on the ground.  Invariably they didn’t and I’d had words with Davenport more than once about it, especially when we had such a high attrition rate.  I believed it was only a miracle that I had lasted this long, and I was now tempting providence this time around.

“I hope they are better than the last two.”

“They are.  I picked them myself.  At least you will be there to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Which was exactly what I didn’t want.

Damn.

Back at the compound, I dragged myself back to my old quarters, hoping they hadn’t given away my billet just yet.  It was a hut if you could call it that, which had seen better days, but it kept the rain out.

I shared it with another soldier, or ex, I didn’t really know, and he was not the sort of man you asked, and even less talkative than most.  I knew his name was Barry McDougall, that he was Scottish, he didn’t wear a kilt and had killed men with his bare hands, one in a barroom fight.

Allegedly.

I was not surprised.  He was six feet six inches tall, all muscle, and always surly, and unlike many of the English that had come and gone, didn’t complain about the heat.

I dumped my bag on the locker at the end of the bed and sat in one of the two well worn easy chairs.  Barry was in the other, reading.

He lowered the paper and looked at me.  “Back, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Miss the chopper?”

“No.”

“Beer’s cold.”

“Thanks.”

I got up and went to the fridge.  One of the perks of the job.  An endless supply of cold beer.

“Get me one too.”

I did and passed it to him, the sat down again.  He took the beer and went back to his paper.

“Seen the new guys,” I asked.

A voice from behind the paper, “Yes.”

“Any good?”

“No.”

“Another fun run in the jungle then?”

“Looks like it.”

We drank in silence.  What more could be said?

There is more but I have to let the words jumble around in my head while I sleep.  More on this tomorrow!

…

© Charles Heath 2018-2021

NaNoWriMo 2021 – Day 26

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is NaNoWriMo-WriterBadge-851-2x.png

A score to settle

…

There is a history of strong female characters. They don’t have to be the lead character in order to become a focal point in the story.

I’m reminded of the CIA agent in Cuba in the latest James Bond Film, No Time To Die, where she literally kicks ass. To my mind, that is a girl to be reckoned with, and no, I would not want to meet her in a dark alley or be her enemy.

I wanted one, and put her in the Zoe series, an assassin without a conscience, but has one of those life-defining moments that doesn’t take away anything from her character, just adds another dimension.

This story is going to have one too, Teresa, only she is a different kettle of fish, to quote an analogy.

She is just the sort of person our main character’s handler recruits in a heartbeat. The fact she is in jail when we first meet her just adds to the mystique.

And when the main character and her meet, it’s like water and oil. She had a role to play, even if it’s not the one our main character is led to believe is.

The trouble is, I’m having too much fun playing to the two off against each other, so much so, I’m beginning to like her, as much as I would, in real life (if such a person existed) fear her.

Interesting question: how would I react if my imaginary world suddenly become all too real?

I guess that’s another story.

…

Today’s word count: 3,914 words, for the running total of 71,535.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 31

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.

…

The folder had half a dozen single-page sheets with a photo attached to each with a standard-issue army paper clip.  There was no top secret in pale red ink diagonally scribed across any of the pages which somehow diminished the exercise.

I guessed this was the hand-picked team selected for me to take on our suicide mission.  It didn’t have the officer overseeing the mission, or the go-between Jacobi.  Not exactly a useful man to have along in a firefight, because he would be too busy working out who would pay the most if or when he survived.

It still astonished me that we hired people like Jacobi, fully knowing that they would sell out their own mother if the price was right.  I was going to reserve one bullet in my gun to execute him the moment he even looked the wrong way.

Trust him, I did not.

Nor any 0f the six members of that hand-picked team.

Sergeant Barnes.  Tall, wide, deadly, that last attribute courtesy of a line in his resume that said he killed three soldiers of the army we were supposed to be training and supporting.  No meaningful reason was given as to why he did, only that he’d just finished serving a five-year sentence, cut short by a month so he could join this force.  Hand to hand combat, and a handy man to have if you’ve got a handheld rocket launcher handy.

Private Williamson.  Had been a Corporal, but considered that too much of a burden, having men look up to him, and having to give orders.  He decided to go AWOL instead.  Used to be a butcher before signing on to see the world, and as described very handy with a knife.  Refused to use a gun, and refused orders too, which was the reason why he was in the stockade, with his friend, the next man on the list.

Private Shurl.  If we needed a man who excelled at sword fighting, he was our man.  A very accomplished swordsman, but I doubt we were going to need a man of his talents because enemy swordsmen seemed only to exist in the old movies.  I guess Lallo was expecting the three musketeers or something.  Other than that, he was a useful radioman and would be handling the communications once we were on the ground in enemy territory.

Corporal Stark.  His claim to fame was reading maps.  He was also an expert on the ground in the country whose borders we were about to violate.  He lived in the country for several years with his wife, who came from there, and who’d been killed by the dictator in a case of mistaken identity.  Stark would have to be carefully managed.

Staff Sergeant Mobley.  A man who had been up and down in ranks for a long time, suggesting a bad attitude, his latest bout leaving him fresh from a stint in the stockade.  He had no valid reason to be in on this disaster and yet had volunteered.  That took courage, to apply for a suicide mission with little hope of return.  I suspect he had an agenda that no one else knew about.

And, lastly

Lieutenant Lesley Davies.  A woman marine, no longer a lieutenant but just another soldier who obviously didn’t understand the concept of taking one step back when everyone else steps in another direction.  It didn’t say what it was she did wrong, but my guess there were a few men out there frightened of meeting her on a dark night.  Some women are dainty, some women are large, and then there’s Davies, a powerhouse that could be dangerous if out of control.

Out of all of that team, she was the one who interested me the most.

There was a knock on the door, interrupting my thoughts.  I called out, “Enter”, surprised the person outside hadn’t just shoved their way into the room.

The door opened, Monroe walked in and closed the door behind her.

“Let me guess,” I said.  “You’re running point.”

“And save your sorry ass from those recruits.  Not a brain between the lot of them, and we need people who can think, given the nature of the forthcoming exercise.  The brains trust has decided the rescue team reports to us.  I didn’t ask for it by the way.  This is one of Lallo’s sick jokes.”

Maybe he had a problem with her too and was hoping she wasn’t coming back.

“You and me both,” I said.

She threw another folder on the table.  “Operational orders, wheels up at 0600 tomorrow.  Make sure you get a hearty meal before we leave, it might be your last for a while.”

I shrugged. 

“Suit yourself.”  She went back to the door, gave me a curious look, and left.

I opened the file and looked at the one piece of paper in it.  It was marked Top Secret in red diagonally across the page, probably specially done by Lallo to make me feel important.  It had departure time, the weather, the flight time, how long the stopover would be before going on to the target.

Tightly planned, no room for missing connections, though this was the army, not an airline taking us, no room for errors.  New intel said that we had five days before the prisoners were to be executed.

No pressure then.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Writing about writing a book – Day 15

Our main character Bill probably needs to give an account of the situation he found himself in.  I have, for a while, considered that he is just another soldier who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now, I want to add a dimension.

He finishes up where he is, in the end, because he chose to be there, and it was something of a rocky ride to get there.

That I’m still planning in my head.

In the meantime, this is the initial piece I wrote for his situation description:

I used to joke about telling people my middle name was ‘danger’.  It seemed I was not the only one, and for a time, worked with a group of soldiers and ex-soldiers in a capacity similar to that of being a mercenary.

Each one of us had a specialty.  Mine was being the sniper.  Johnny had knife skills and not the sort that was used in a kitchen.  Freddie, explosives, Bill, well, you just left Bill alone because he had a grudge against the world and everyone in it.

The Colonel used to say we were all handpicked, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.  I knew for a fact some of the team came straight out of the stockade before their time was up.

Because some of us were expendable.

The thing was; none of us cared.  For those who were ‘rescued’, it was better out in the jungle, dodging bullets, than being inside, your fate left in the hands of the Gods. 

I knew how it was.  I’d been there once or twice myself.

This morning had started the same as many others.  Rise and shine, a breakfast of sorts, into the chopper, and after an hour or so, dropping into a grassy patch, with nothing but jungle in every direction.  Our mission was to find and liberate a number of our people who had gone missing, read captured, on the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.  It was a familiar country because I had, over the last year or so, gone hunting missing POW’s in the area.  Old prisons had been converted into drug laboratories, and we’d broken up a few of those too.

The noise of the chopper put paid to any sort of stealthy approach and, by the time it dropped us off, if there was anyone nearby, our advantage, if we ever had one, was gone.  The trouble was, to cover the same distance by foot would take a week, and, by the time we arrived, if we arrived, more than half the team would be dead.  We may have been good, but we were not that good.  It was not our home turf.

It was hot, sticky, and nothing like home.  There wasn’t a day that passed when I thought to myself it was getting harder and harder to remember when I wasn’t constantly hot and sweaty, nor as frightened.  It happened that way, towards the end of a tour.

Once on the ground, every man was on full alert.  We changed the lead and tail end constantly, to make sure we didn’t lose anyone.  And it was hard going, the constant heat, sweat, punctuated with slight relief when it rained.

Then as quickly as it came, it went, leaving you wet then sticky.

And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, there was the enemy.   You couldn’t see them, nor hear them yet you had the feeling he was watching you the whole time, and it made your skin crawl.

Sometimes the enemy attacked when we had to camp, invisibly swooping, shooting from the trees, and firing a mortar or two, then disappearing back into the luminous greenery without a trace.  These were the remnants of the Viet Cong, Cambodian armed forces, disaffected Laotians, or the Chinese, or so we believed, but they were well-trained mercenaries and just the sort of people the drug cartels would use.

And surviving the operation, any operation, was like playing Russian roulette.  Was it your turn this time, or someone else’s?  You could be walking along, straining your eyes and ears, and next minute, find the man who was covering your back, dead.  Booby traps were silent and swift.  Landmines are loud and very messy.  Both hangovers from the war, and never cleaned up.  People you’d meet, you never knew whose side they were on, so it was best to avoid all contact.

© Charles Heath 2015-2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 30

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.

At the end of the discussion, which began to get quite heated, I was escorted from the room and taken to another interrogation room.

Fresh from his intimidatory success with Jacobi, Lallo was, no doubt, going to try and press on his advantage with me though I was not quite sure what it was he thought I could help him with, other than to dissuade him from his current plan.

I had to wait an hour in that small, stuffy room considering the possibilities.  Surely he wasn’t expecting me to join his band of merry men.

When he finally came, he arrived with a folder and two bottles of cold water, one of which he gave to me before he sat down.

I took a sip of water out of the bottle, after checking the seal hadn’t been broken.  I still didn’t trust him, and with good reason considering the trick he’d played on me.

“Now, I’m sure you saw and heard everything that happened with Jacobi.”

I nodded.

“He’s the reason your mission failed.  He met the other team on the ground and was supposed to lead them to the building where the targets were hiding.  Instead, he told the Government forces, Bahti, the plan for their rescue and their location.  It was a double-cross brought on by greed.”

“It always is.  But he’s more than likely right about the fate of the two prisoners.”

“Half dead, yes, pressed into working on a prison farm, but neither has been cracked yet.  After the last attempt at rescuing them, we cultivated new agents on the ground.  Their advice has led to us being able to formulate a new attempt to rescue them.”

Had they asked my opinion long before the first attempt, I would have told them to have more than one source, and particularly if they were paying handsomely for information.  It was always an opportunity for double-cross.

There still was, but I don’t think that eventuality was factored into Lallo’s thinking.

“Who’s the fool you have in mind to lead this disaster.”

“You.”

Good thing I’d braced myself for the bad news, and it came as no surprise.  In that hour of considering possibilities, they all seemed to come back to one person.  I was the only one left who’d been there, if only for a few hours.

It had also given me time to work on an excuse not to go.

“I don’t think so…”

Lallo put his hand up to stop me.  My protestations might have worked on a reasonable man, but Lallo wasn’t reasonable.

“Well, you, too, have a choice.  Stay and be court marshalled for your failure to follow orders in the last attempt or redeem yourself and volunteer to lead the next.”

“I did nothing wrong the last time.”

“Not according to the investigation I’ve just completed, the one that I intend to submit to the JAG if you are unwilling to follow orders.”

And there it was.  All the time I’d been in Lallo’s hands he had been compiling a feasible case against me, just so that I could be induced to do his bidding.  I was stupid not to connect the dots long before this and shut my mouth.  Everything I had denied, was the same evidence he could use against me.

n typical military-style, someone had to shoulder the blame for the previous mess.

And to be given a choice, one that made me as expendable as Jacobi, was, as far as Lallo was concerned, a masterstroke.

If I went and was killed in action, he would have a scapegoat he needed.  If I didn’t go, I would be court marshalled and thrown in a cell for the rest of my life.  And if I went, and succeeded, he would become the golden boy in the intelligence services, and the same fate as any other scenario would befall me.  It was lose-lose.

“You’re not throwing out any bones?”

“Don’t have to.  But you get to pick the team you want to go with you.”  He tossed a file across the table to me, and I opened it.  Several pages, with photos attached.

A who’s who of the military types that spent more time in the stockade than on the battlefield.  Men who would do anything to stay out, men who had nothing to lose.  Men who were expendable.

“You’re kidding?”  I looked up at him, but his expression told me he wasn’t.

“Are you sure any of these will obey orders?”

“You have my assurance they will.  We’re sending an observer, just to make sure everyone stays on mission.  You have three days to pick a team of four men, establish command, and prepare to leave.”

Something else I thought about in that hour, other than it was probably the last time I would have for reflection, was that it would have been better to die in the helicopter crash.

I waited until he left the room before I reopen the file.

© Charles Heath 2019

Writing about writing a book – Day 15

Our main character Bill probably needs to give an account of the situation he found himself in.  I have, for a while, considered that he is just another soldier who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now, I want to add a dimension.

He finishes up where he is, in the end, because he chose to be there, and it was something of a rocky ride to get there.

That I’m still planning in my head.

In the meantime, this is the initial piece I wrote for his situation description:

I used to joke about telling people my middle name was ‘danger’.  It seemed I was not the only one, and for a time, worked with a group of soldiers and ex-soldiers in a capacity similar to that of being a mercenary.

Each one of us had a specialty.  Mine was being the sniper.  Johnny had knife skills and not the sort that was used in a kitchen.  Freddie, explosives, Bill, well, you just left Bill alone because he had a grudge against the world and everyone in it.

The Colonel used to say we were all handpicked, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.  I knew for a fact some of the team came straight out of the stockade before their time was up.

Because some of us were expendable.

The thing was; none of us cared.  For those who were ‘rescued’, it was better out in the jungle, dodging bullets, than being inside, your fate left in the hands of the Gods. 

I knew how it was.  I’d been there once or twice myself.

This morning had started the same as many others.  Rise and shine, a breakfast of sorts, into the chopper, and after an hour or so, dropping into a grassy patch, with nothing but jungle in every direction.  Our mission was to find and liberate a number of our people who had gone missing, read captured, on the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.  It was a familiar country because I had, over the last year or so, gone hunting missing POW’s in the area.  Old prisons had been converted into drug laboratories, and we’d broken up a few of those too.

The noise of the chopper put paid to any sort of stealthy approach and, by the time it dropped us off, if there was anyone nearby, our advantage, if we ever had one, was gone.  The trouble was, to cover the same distance by foot would take a week, and, by the time we arrived, if we arrived, more than half the team would be dead.  We may have been good, but we were not that good.  It was not our home turf.

It was hot, sticky, and nothing like home.  There wasn’t a day that passed when I thought to myself it was getting harder and harder to remember when I wasn’t constantly hot and sweaty, nor as frightened.  It happened that way, towards the end of a tour.

Once on the ground, every man was on full alert.  We changed the lead and tail end constantly, to make sure we didn’t lose anyone.  And it was hard going, the constant heat, sweat, punctuated with slight relief when it rained.

Then as quickly as it came, it went, leaving you wet then sticky.

And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, there was the enemy.   You couldn’t see them, nor hear them yet you had the feeling he was watching you the whole time, and it made your skin crawl.

Sometimes the enemy attacked when we had to camp, invisibly swooping, shooting from the trees, and firing a mortar or two, then disappearing back into the luminous greenery without a trace.  These were the remnants of the Viet Cong, Cambodian armed forces, disaffected Laotians, or the Chinese, or so we believed, but they were well-trained mercenaries and just the sort of people the drug cartels would use.

And surviving the operation, any operation, was like playing Russian roulette.  Was it your turn this time, or someone else’s?  You could be walking along, straining your eyes and ears, and next minute, find the man who was covering your back, dead.  Booby traps were silent and swift.  Landmines are loud and very messy.  Both hangovers from the war, and never cleaned up.  People you’d meet, you never knew whose side they were on, so it was best to avoid all contact.

© Charles Heath 2015-2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 30

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.

At the end of the discussion, which began to get quite heated, I was escorted from the room and taken to another interrogation room.

Fresh from his intimidatory success with Jacobi, Lallo was, no doubt, going to try and press on his advantage with me though I was not quite sure what it was he thought I could help him with, other than to dissuade him from his current plan.

I had to wait an hour in that small, stuffy room considering the possibilities.  Surely he wasn’t expecting me to join his band of merry men.

When he finally came, he arrived with a folder and two bottles of cold water, one of which he gave to me before he sat down.

I took a sip of water out of the bottle, after checking the seal hadn’t been broken.  I still didn’t trust him, and with good reason considering the trick he’d played on me.

“Now, I’m sure you saw and heard everything that happened with Jacobi.”

I nodded.

“He’s the reason your mission failed.  He met the other team on the ground and was supposed to lead them to the building where the targets were hiding.  Instead, he told the Government forces, Bahti, the plan for their rescue and their location.  It was a double-cross brought on by greed.”

“It always is.  But he’s more than likely right about the fate of the two prisoners.”

“Half dead, yes, pressed into working on a prison farm, but neither has been cracked yet.  After the last attempt at rescuing them, we cultivated new agents on the ground.  Their advice has led to us being able to formulate a new attempt to rescue them.”

Had they asked my opinion long before the first attempt, I would have told them to have more than one source, and particularly if they were paying handsomely for information.  It was always an opportunity for double-cross.

There still was, but I don’t think that eventuality was factored into Lallo’s thinking.

“Who’s the fool you have in mind to lead this disaster.”

“You.”

Good thing I’d braced myself for the bad news, and it came as no surprise.  In that hour of considering possibilities, they all seemed to come back to one person.  I was the only one left who’d been there, if only for a few hours.

It had also given me time to work on an excuse not to go.

“I don’t think so…”

Lallo put his hand up to stop me.  My protestations might have worked on a reasonable man, but Lallo wasn’t reasonable.

“Well, you, too, have a choice.  Stay and be court marshalled for your failure to follow orders in the last attempt or redeem yourself and volunteer to lead the next.”

“I did nothing wrong the last time.”

“Not according to the investigation I’ve just completed, the one that I intend to submit to the JAG if you are unwilling to follow orders.”

And there it was.  All the time I’d been in Lallo’s hands he had been compiling a feasible case against me, just so that I could be induced to do his bidding.  I was stupid not to connect the dots long before this and shut my mouth.  Everything I had denied, was the same evidence he could use against me.

n typical military-style, someone had to shoulder the blame for the previous mess.

And to be given a choice, one that made me as expendable as Jacobi, was, as far as Lallo was concerned, a masterstroke.

If I went and was killed in action, he would have a scapegoat he needed.  If I didn’t go, I would be court marshalled and thrown in a cell for the rest of my life.  And if I went, and succeeded, he would become the golden boy in the intelligence services, and the same fate as any other scenario would befall me.  It was lose-lose.

“You’re not throwing out any bones?”

“Don’t have to.  But you get to pick the team you want to go with you.”  He tossed a file across the table to me, and I opened it.  Several pages, with photos attached.

A who’s who of the military types that spent more time in the stockade than on the battlefield.  Men who would do anything to stay out, men who had nothing to lose.  Men who were expendable.

“You’re kidding?”  I looked up at him, but his expression told me he wasn’t.

“Are you sure any of these will obey orders?”

“You have my assurance they will.  We’re sending an observer, just to make sure everyone stays on mission.  You have three days to pick a team of four men, establish command, and prepare to leave.”

Something else I thought about in that hour, other than it was probably the last time I would have for reflection, was that it would have been better to die in the helicopter crash.

I waited until he left the room before I reopen the file.

© Charles Heath 2019

Endless flight – a short story

It had been billed as the longest commercial flight in the world.  London to Sydney.

Previous times it had been flown, it was devoid of passengers and cargo, except for a few reporters and airline staff; not more than about 20.

The plane, state of the art, was capable of flying twenty-one hours straight.  We would only need Nineteen and a half.  It was the first flight of its kind, and we were the first to participate in what was being touted as history-making.

I was on board only because I’d won a competition.  To be honest, I couldn’t believe my luck.

I guess it was the same for the other 287 of us on board.  With baggage and cargo included, oh, and not forgetting fuel, I guess our biggest concern was getting off the ground.

It wasn’t long before that fear had been dispelled, though for a moment more than one of us thought we might not get into the air.  There were collective sighs of relief when we finally lurched into the air.

Once the seat belt sign went off, the First Officer spoke to the passengers, more or less telling us we were going to make history and to sit back and enjoy the in-flight service.

I guess it was ironic that as someone who didn’t like flying I was in this plane.  The thing is, I didn’t expect to win the competition.  But, I was on board for the experience and was going to make the most of it.  I’d brought half a dozen crossword books.

I woke from an uneasy sleep about two hours before I e plane was due to land.  The cabin lights had come on, and breakfast was about to be served.

Everyone else was in varying states of awareness.  Some hadn’t slept at all, which was what usually happened to me, and they looked like I felt.  Bleary-eyed and half awake.

I looked at the flight path in the headrest in front of me, and it said we had about an hour and fifty minutes, and from the outset, precisely on time.  We’d had headwinds and tailwinds but neither had any lasting effect on our arrival time.

Something else did.  After breakfast had been cleared away, and we were all getting ready for the last hour of the flight, word came through from the flight deck that we had to go into a holding pattern due to a problem on the ground.

The first question on everyone’s mind, did we have enough fuel.  The Captain, this time, allayed that fear.

But, I was sitting over the wing where I could see the engine.  I was not an expert but I thought I’d heard a murmur, the sort an engine made where the fuel supply was running out.

Perhaps not.  Perhaps it was my overwrought imagination after not enough proper sleep.

Another half-hour passed, and I could feel a change in the plane’s flight.  I was now listening and waiting and interpreting.  The Captain said the problem was resolved and we were cleared to land.

That’s when the engine outside my window stuttered, if only for a fraction of a second.

Fortunately, we were well into our descent, and I could see the ground below.  Now, going through some low cloud, the ride became bumpy, and I was sure it was covering the more frequent stuttering of the engine, and once, I was not the only one to hear it.

As the wheels went down and clunked into place, I think the engine stopped, though I couldn’t be sure, because there was little or no change in the plane’s flight other than a slight change in the plane’s speed but not its rate of descent, and none of us would have been any wiser had the pilot, in his usual calm manner, not told us there was a small problem with one of the engines but there was no problem with landing, and we would be on the ground in ten minutes.

In fact, the landing was, as any other I’d been on, flawless, even though I was sure I heard a slight stutter in the other ending, but by that time we were on the ground.

The only difference between this and any other landing was the accompaniment of several emergency services trucks, and the fact we were not going to a gate.  Instead, we were taken to a bay not far from the runways, and then calmly taken off the plane.

From the ground, just before being loaded onto a bus, I could see the plane, and it looked the same as it had any other time.

What did bother me was several words spoken by what looked to be an engineer.  He said, “That plane was literally flying on vapor.  What you’re seeing is 228 of the luckiest people in the world.”

If ever there was an excuse to buy a lottery ticket…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Writing about writing a book – Day 14 Continues

Whilst Davenport’s backstory is now coming together, I’m back with the main character, and working on a bit of his backstory too, mainly what he is about to remember of his past, locked away for many years, most likely caused by the trauma he suffered at the hands of the enemy, though the definition of ‘enemy’ here will have a number of different meanings.

These first dreams are disjointed but point to one certainty, Bill was, for a time, a prisoner, whether it was as a prisoner of war, or something else, he is yet to discover.

Another certainty he will learn in time is that he holds a secret, a secret several people would like to find out about, and who will go to extreme lengths to get it from him.

This memory fragment confirms he was a prisoner, despite the assurances to the contrary:

 

I woke suddenly, tense, eyes open, and alert.  I could feel the fear coursing through my veins, every nerve end tingling.

I had only one thought in mind.

Escape.

Now.

Before it started again.

I moved my hand and found it strapped down as was my other hand and my legs.  I was barely able to move.

A sudden jolt of pain went through me, starting at my shoulder where the knife had been dug in and twisted, the memory of which was very clear in my mind.  It increased as I struggled against the restraints, the fear of it happening again stirring me to try harder.

I’d been here before and the result was bad.

Very bad.

I struggled harder.

I looked around and saw no one or anything else.  The room seemed different from the one I last remembered, more closed in, claustrophobic.  The light came on, bright neon lights, blinding me.  The flash I got before I closed my eyes, it was a hospital room.  I was captive, and it was after the torture session, where the doctors put me back together just enough to last the next session.

Torture, recovery, torture, recovery, over and over, night, day, light, dark, warm, cold.  I had no idea where I was, what day, week, month, or year it was, when I’d last eaten, or eaten at all.

And I didn’t know why.

Why they didn’t kill me and get it over with.  I didn’t know anything.

The door opened and I opened my eyes, now a little more adjusted to the bright light.  He came over and looked down at me.

Chinese.

The enemy.

One of the insidious men keeping me alive.

I kept my eyes on him as he looked at the folder beside the bed, and checked my vital signs.

“How are we this morning?”

English, with only a trace of a Chinese accent.  They all spoke nearly perfect English, confusing me, making me think I was safe.  That I would talk to them.  Confide in them.

I didn’t feel safe and I had nothing to say.

“You had a very bad night.”

Tell me something I didn’t know.  I struggled against the restraints.

“They’re for your own protection.  You tried to get out of bed and reopened your wound.  I’m sorry, but we have had to restrain you.”

“Let me go,” I hissed, “or kill me.”

“I assure you no one wants to kill you.”

I didn’t believe him.  He was trying to trick me.  Trying to allay my fears.  I knew all of their tricks now.

I had to escape.  I had to get away or die trying.  I could not take another session.  Not in that dark, dank, evil room.

I tried harder to escape, felt the restraining hands of his friends, holding me down as he administered another injection, silence, and darkness closing in once again.

 

Still not sure where this is going, but it’s defining the past of our main character, and will become a lot clearer as the story progresses.

I am intending for these dreams, if extracted and put in order, will be the basis of the missing past the main character has not been able to remember, and given how horrific some of them are, it’s no surprise they’ve been buried very deep in his subconscious.

 

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

NaNoWriMo 2021 – Day 24

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A score to settle

…

I’ve come to the realization that I’m not going to get this story finished in the allotted time.

In fact, there are aspects of the story that have been bugging me, and it’s been the devil’s own job not to go back and fix some of it up. It’s probably why today’s output is terrible compared to previous days.

What I have done, as elements of the previous part of the story have had to be changed so that what happens later makes sense, I have a copious quantity of post-it notes on the desktop to remind me.

And that tells me that the whole project is getting out of hand.

As it stands, at a guestimate, this story is going to finish up over 100,000 words. If I meet the targets I’ve set myself for the rest of the month, that 30th November total should be around 85,000 words.

It’s an achievement in itself, but I’m not happy with the product as it stands. There’s going to be a huge editing blitz next month if I can face it.

As for now, it’s about 2 am and I’m very tired, I’ve just thought of another change that needs to be made, so I’m going to scribble it down and get to bed.

Thank goodness I don’t try to write all my books in a month!

…

Today’s word count: 1,764 words, for the running total of 63,514.