WOULD YOU BELIEVE
It's hard to imagine, but even the most reliable people let you down, and to make matters worse, at the most inopportune time as well. The door had slammed shut, probably by a gust of wind, although this did not seem possible as the day had dawned as no other autumn day, crisp still air, the fog had burnt off earlier in the morning revealing a translucent blue sky, speckled with wispy clouds, appearing motionless in the air above, but being a leading meteorologist Ken knew differently, the Jet Stream was in fact whisking the clouds along at speeds in excess of 600 kilometers per hour. All this did not matter, because Ken had got himself trapped in the bloody shed. Where was that woman, she had promised to come and help him look for his old headsets that he had misplaced some time ago. If only she had not answered the phone as they were walking out of the main house. It was probably her mother, the old bat could talk for hours, stupid bitch he thought.
The temperature must have been about 50 degrees Celcius at least and it was totally dark, he could not even see his hand in front of his face. A rank smell, he could not place was permeating through the air, making him feel nauseous and light headed. He stood up from his crouched position, hitting his head on a solid wooden shelf, the last thing he heard was a crack, and then "the lights went out"
Climbing through 15000 feet for his cruise altitude of 21000 feet, Ken and his wing man Tom, whose call sign was ICEMAN, broke cloud and into the clean cold air they climbed. The Spitfire's Merlin engine was purring like the proverbial kitten, temperatures and pressures all normal, looks like they sorted out the oil cooling problem he said aloud, half expecting someone else to offer a comment or remark. He looked across at his wing man and ICEMAN waved cheerfully back at him. This was his 13th sortie this week and they were expecting little to happen. Suddenly he heard ICEMAN over the radio, what a wonderful invention this had been; it had certainly revolutionized the aviation industry. Affirmative ICEMAN, we are to proceed on course, maintaining 21 angels, the term used to express thousands of feet. DUKE as Ken was known had a reputation for being a bit of a chancer, a little reckless at times, but there was no doubt, DUKE could fly. He had already collected a fair number of "downed" enemy aircraft, these were depicted on the side of "Miss Stacey", the name he had given to his beloved Spitfire, named after his daughter who was as beautiful as the Spitfire is powerful. DUKE called ICEMAN on the radio, they chatted about the visibility and generally good flying conditions, the smooth air made it easier to keep a lookout for 'bogies", the elusive enemy, who rumour had it, had a new and vastly superior flying machine, being able to out climb and out perform the Spitfire. He had never seen one, but from all accounts, if you did see one, it would be one of the last things you would see, or so he had been told. These thoughts were hardly out of his mind when ICEMAN burst into flames, not even 15 foot away from him, the aircraft disintegrated in a ball of flame and peppered his machine with flying pieces of red hot metal, there was absolutely no way he could have got out of that. Miss Stacey jostled and bucked in the now upset air, at one time almost flipping over on her back, if it had not been for his exception flying ability he might have lost total control.
The very next moment, without any warning, a bright shiny metal object passed within inches of his spinning propeller, and once again the Spitfire was thrown around as though it was a leaf in a tornado. Trying his best to recover and to stay focused on the issues at hand, let alone ensuring that he was not dealt a similar fate as poor old Tom, looking all around, twisting his head from left to right, he knew that this elusive enemy was out there, somewhere, perhaps at this very moment making his final turn in towards the Spitfire. Duke's mind was spinning, he had cracked his head against the canopy, his eyes watering as he tried to focus on the instrument panel, then he realized, his oxygen mask had been dislodged from his face and at this altitude, the air was far to thin to support human life. He quickly snapped the mask back into place and almost immediately his vision cleared and the nagging headache began to recede.
Then he heard it, a high pitched scream, the scream that he knew would be the last thing he heard before………….
Tom, Tom, wake up, what happened to you, why are you lying on the ground? why is your head bleeding? Why did you close the door.
Tom propped himself up on one elbow, and smiled to himself, knowing now that the high pitched scream was only his beloved wife and not some menacing enemy about to send him to his grave.
Now would you believe !