Blackbirds - Garry Ryan Page 0,1

moustache. “About bloody time you two showed up!”

Linda reached inside the breast of her flight suit.

Bloggs watched her intently.

“We’ve got our flight plan ready for you, sir,” Linda said. “Course plotted, winds estimated, and time computed, sir. All as you requested.” She handed the plan to Bloggs.

Bloggs stared at Linda and then Sharon, searching for evidence of sarcasm.

Sharon raised her right hand to salute but was stopped by a glare from Linda.

“We’re ready to go as long as the weather is accommodating. We were hoping you would have the weather report, sir.” Sharon looked in the direction of the windsock.

“Met report, you mean?” Bloggs looked at the flight plan. “Headed for Ilkley. It’s a longer than normal trip into ungodly West Yorkshire. Well then, get going, and don’t get bloody lost along the way or you’ll both be washed out!” He turned his back on the pair and walked into the hangar.

“We’re off.” Linda smiled at her friend.

Sharon leaned close. “Can’t wait for some of that real home-cooked food from your mom’s kitchen,” she said.

“And a chance for you to walk over and introduce yourself to your grandmother.” Linda headed toward the Tiger Moth.

“We’ll see.” Sharon followed with a knot growing in her stomach.

The knot grew tighter as they approached Ilkley. As agreed, Sharon had flown the first leg of the flight to the refueling at Digby, in the central part of England. Now Linda took the scenic route flying overtop of a castle Sharon’s mother had often talked about. It looked much like every other castle Sharon had seen from the air on the way north. She was struck instead by the wealth of green. The fields that looked so tiny from the air. They were not as big as what she was used to back at home. In England, rock walls, rather than barbed wire, often fenced the fields. As Linda throttled back and lost altitude, Sharon realized the black-and-white photographs in her mother’s album did not do justice to the spring colours spread out below them.

Linda added power to the Gipsy Major engine to clear a stand of trees at this end of a field. They settled onto the grass, bounced once, and rumbled over the uneven ground until they reached the end of the pasture. Linda opened the throttle and swung the tail around.

Linda shut the engine down. Sharon saw a grey-haired woman in a long-sleeved shirt and tweed trousers standing by a rock wall. She opened the gate and stepped into the fresh silence.

“Stupid British engineering,” Sharon said as she tried to extricate herself from the cockpit without snagging her parachute, Irvin jacket, coveralls or flying boots.

Linda was smiling and placing the wooden wheel chocks on either side of the tires.

“I’ll get the wings.” Sharon pulled out two lengths of rope and a pair of pegs to tie the wings down in case the wind picked up.

“You Canadians and your rope,” Linda said.

“Gets windy where I come from.” Sharon undid her jacket and set it on the wing. The sun felt warm on her neck. She took off the flying helmet and combed her brown hair with her fingers.

“You picked a beautiful day for it,” Linda’s mother said.

Sharon stood and turned to face a woman with more grey than red in her hair. She was a stockier version of her daughter.

“Mom, this is Sharon. Sharon, this is Honeysuckle,” Linda said.

“Remarkable,” Honeysuckle said.

“Pardon?” Sharon felt the heat of attention from both women.

“The likeness is remarkable. It’s like Leslie is back and no time has passed.” Honeysuckle wiped at her eyes and turned. “Come on, lunch is almost ready.”

Linda ran to catch up with her mother and put an arm around her shoulder. Honeysuckle hugged her daughter around the waist. “What’s happened?” Linda asked.

Honeysuckle stopped. “No news on Michael’s whereabouts.”

“Oh,” Linda said.

Sharon felt as if there were a hundred different places she should be other than here.

“He must have been taken prisoner.” Linda let the sentence hang in the air like the promise of a storm.

Sharon followed along behind while looking over her shoulder for a possible escape route.

Honeysuckle glanced back. “Come along. We’ve got some catching up to do. There are stories to tell and stories to hear. Your mother and I were friends when we were young, that is until the old bastard put an end it.”

“The old bastard?” Sharon asked.

“Your grandfather.”

Sharon trailed them to the rear of a rambling two-storey farmhouse made of grey stone. The stone was stained darker where it had been