Blitz. Robert Westall

the end of the world. Louder and louder and louder ’til it couldn’t possibly get any louder. Only it did.

      The noise pressed you flat like a huge hand. And kept on pressing. Just when I had given up all hope, and Albert’s mouth kept opening and shutting and no sound came out, a great fat Jerry plane, a Heinkel, whizzed into view, all pale-blue belly and the machine-gun underneath sparking away like a firework.

      And then it was just a dwindling speck, and the stink from its smoking exhausts.

      “There was a British fighter after that Jerry,” said Albert. “The Jerry was shooting at it.”

      “Where is it then?” I said.

      It was then we heard the crash. It was like the night me mam pulled the Welsh dresser over, trying to hang up the Christmas decorations, only worse.

      Then silence. Only a dog barking in the distance.

      “Something’s got shot down,” said Albert.

      “Wasn’t the Jerry.”

      “Oh God.”

      We sort of screwed up, like when the opposing team score the winning goal. It was an awful feeling.

      “Shall we go and look?”

      “He might be trapped … He might be …”

      It was unsayable. But we went.

      It took a long time to search ruined Kor. Expecting at every corner …

      But what we found was a surprisingly long way off. A new row of furrows in the field beyond Kor, as if a farmer with six ploughs joined together had …

      And a gap in the hedge that something had vanished through. Something definitely British, because a lump of the tail had fallen off, and lay with red, white and blue on it.

      We tiptoed through the gap.

      It looked as big as a house.

      “Spitfire.”

      “Hurricane, you idiot. Can’t you tell a Spitfire from a Hurricane yet?”

      “It’s not badly damaged. Just a bit bent.”

      I shook my head. “It’ll never fly again. It looks … broke.”

      The tail was up in the air; the engine dug right into the ground, and the propeller bent into horseshoe shapes.

      “Where’s the pilot?”

      “He might have baled out,” suggested Albert, hopefully.

      “What? At that height? His parachute would never have opened. Reckon he’s trapped inside. We’d better have a look.”

      “Keep well back,” said Albert. “There’s a terrible smell of petrol. I saw petrol take fire once …”

      There was no point in mocking him. I was so scared my own legs wouldn’t stop shaking. But it was me that went a yard in front.

      The cockpit canopy was closed. Inside, from a distance, there was no sign of any pilot.

      “Baled out. Told ya,” said Albert.

      “With the canopy closed?”

      “The crash could’ve closed it, stupid.”

      “I’m going to have a look.”

      I don’t think I would have done if I’d thought there was anybody inside. I edged up on the wing, frightened that my steel toe and heel caps would strike a spark from something. The smell of petrol was asphyxiating.

      He was inside.

      Bent up double, with only the back of his helmet showing. And there was a great tear in the side of the helmet, with leather and stuffing … and blood showing through.

      “He’s a dead ’un,” said Albert, six inches behind my ear. I hadn’t even heard him come – he was wearing gym-shoes. “Look at that blood.”

      I felt sick. The only dead thing I’d ever seen was the maggot-laden corpse of a cat in the ruins of Billing’s Mill.

      “Let’s go an’ fetch the police,” said Albert. “They deal with dead ’uns.”

      I was just edging carefully back down the wing, when a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye made me jump.

      The dead ’un was sitting up.

      The dead ’un was looking at me with two bright blue eyes.

      The dead ’un grinned at me. Made a little ‘hello’ gesture with his gloved hand. My terror turned to rage. I was so angry with him because he wasn’t dead. So I hammered on the closed canopy and shouted, “Open up, open up!” like a policeman.

      His hand went up, and he undid a catch and pushed the canopy back, where it locked open.

      “Hi, kids.” He sounded American, or at least Canadian.

      “Boy, have I got a headache! Haven’t got a fag, have you?”

      I didn’t think. I had a fag and a half, in an old tobacco tin, that I’d pinched from my father’s cigarette case. We sometimes came to Ruined Kor to smoke, in secret. And now I got it out. I mean, the RAF were our heroes, the Brylcreem Boys …

      Albert gave one look at my box of matches and fled. Screaming about petrol.

      It was then that I realised the dean ’un mightn’t be dead, but he was in a pretty queer way. That bullet in the head must have driven him mad; his brain was not working right …

      “Come on,” I shouted. “Get out. You can’t stay here.”

      He just grinned lazily again. “What’s the hurry, kid? It’s a lovely evening. Let’s take it easy.”

      I looked at where the engine was. The engine-covers had crumpled up and I could see the engine. And feel it. It was so hot it was practically giving my bare knees a sunburn.

      As I watched, some liquid dripped on to it and vaporised into a puff of white smoke. Then a little shower of electrical sparks …

      I ran like hell. I didn’t stop running for fifty yards, I was so terrified the plane was going to blow up.

      We stood and watched him from a safe distance. We saw the heat-shimmer rising from the engine, the petrol oozing dark from the tank in the fuselage behind his head.

      And he went on smiling at us, waving to us.

      “Like he’s on his holidays,” whispered Albert.

      I just wanted to run away. The idea of seeing him smiling one minute, then frizzling up like a moth in a candle-flame the next …

      Then I had my brainwave. I took out my tobacco tin and waved the whole cigarette at him. Greatly daring, edging towards him, at a distance of thirty yards, I lit up the half-fag and blew a luxurious smoke-ring in the still evening air.

      It worked. He bellowed, “For God’s sake, kids,” and began to heave himself out of the cockpit with a big grimace.

      The first time it didn’t work. The second time he managed to remember to undo his parachute and safety-harness.

      Then he was weaving slowly across the grass towards us, like the town drunk. Snatched the fag off me, cupped his hands round mine, which were shaking so much I could hardly strike a match, took a big drag, and fell flat on his back, and lay there laughing up at us and blowing much better smoke rings than mine, and groaning what a headache he had.

      “We’re still too close,” screamed Albert, looking at the plane. “Get up, Mister.”

      The pilot just lay there and laughed.

      “Grab his feet,” said Albert. We dragged him away by main force, ’til his