Scarecrow

With outstretched arms and button eyes The scarecrow stands his ground; He keenly scans the open skies

For any crows around.

With turnip head and hair of straw, His hat stuck on askew,

He listens for the slightest “caw”, On guard the whole day through.

His greatcoat, flapping in the breeze, May scare some birds away,

But others, watching from the trees, Get braver by the day.

They scrutinise the whole terrain And wait for him to doze,

Then swoop in low to steal the grain From right beneath his nose!

Dennis W. Turner.

neither winning.

It had been assumed by everyone they would marry and, until the day he’d met Joan, Johnny assumed so, too.

But one look into Joan’s beautiful brown eyes and the love he felt for Vi had cracked and fallen away.

He had gone to see Vi as soon as his next leave had come up.

It had been a painful, sad visit. Her hurt had engulfed him in guilt.

He could find no words to assuage her pain.

Johnny’s parents had railed against Joan, his mum crying and ashamed, worried how she would face Vi’s parents in their small community, upset in the face of a change she didn’t want or understand.

His father had shouted, called him stuck up, all his hurt over the boat bursting out in one violent lunge that sent Johnny crashing into the sideboard.

White chrysanthemums had scattered as his mum’s precious glass vase had smashed into pieces.

It had brought on a heart attack, his father joining spilled water and crushed petals on the freshly brushed carpet.

Though Johnny had waited for hours in the hospital to speak to him, to try to explain, his father had refused to see him.

The guilt had eaten away at him as his father had slowly recovered, regaining some strength, while the Jenny-May stood silently rusting against the harbour wall, its hold empty.

Johnny had sent as much money as he could to his mum, but the rift between him and his dad was still too big to close and he hadn’t been home since.

With a sigh, he pats his mum’s letter, hoping it has good news.

The radio buzzes and the skipper’s voice comes hurtling through.

“Bandits at four o’clock below.”

They follow him, one after the other, in a steep downward wave.

The German fighters see them, veering to the right, climbing fast to meet them, protecting their bombers.

All dive at full speed, committed to the attack; engines straining, thumbs hovering over triggers.

Vapour trails lace across the clear September sky as the planes twist and turn.

Red fire flashes as bullets rip into wings and fuselages, embedding themselves in soft flesh and hard metal and igniting gallons of fuel to burst in fire balls.

Johnny can see trails of white smoke rising from ack-ack guns as crews on the ground fire on the bombers from below.

A plane is hit, exploding in a vast ball of searing orange fire as the bombs ignite.

Debris flies in every direction, and a whole wing blasts free before crashing into the following plane.

Eyes staring, he strains forward in his seat, nerves stretched as he searches the crowded sky.

Johnny feels the thuds as bullets hit the fuselage, digging deep into the heart of his plane.

He twists hard to the right, diving down and round to come up behind the Messerschmitt below, all four guns blazing, spitting out hundreds of red-hot bullets in foursecond bursts.

Johnny’s attack finds the enemy’s right wing and flames erupt into the sky.

His own plane jerks and falls to the left.

For a frozen moment he can see the scared face of the other pilot before smoke fills the cockpit.

He pulls away from the falling plane, eyes searching for danger and his next target.

The controls feel sluggish; he jiggles the wings, pulling the stick left and right.

The needle on the fuel gauge is dropping, the reading already low. The tank has been hit and is bleeding out fuel. The engine coughs.

“Johnny – bandit – eleven o’clock high!”

Fletch’s voice rips through his headphones. Then, with the sound of shattering glass, the radio goes quiet.

“I’ve got your tail!” Jenkins is there, climbing high to his right, guns blazing, but the German fighter dives away, unharmed.

Heart thumping, Johnny pulls the plane into a steep upward curve.

He glimpses a Spitfire plummeting down, out of control, smoke pouring from the cockpit.

Fletch.

He turns his head to the right and sees another German fighter, arcing down out of the sun, all guns firing.

Again, he feels the thuds as bullets hit the fuselage and wing.

His plane lurches sideways, the controls bouncing, useless in his hands.

He can hear the dying scream of the engine as he rolls to face the ground.

The canopy is pockmarked with black oil, the right wing hanging in tatters, the propellers slow and bent back.

He grabs the canopy release but nothing happens.

Bile rises in his throat. Desperate, he tries again, grunting with the effort, fighting the straps tying him to his seat, but the canopy is jammed shut.

His last chance is to pull the plane out of its dive; to try to land.

Using all his strength, he pulls the joystick back towards his chest, straining his legs against the cockpit floor.

For a moment he feels the nose lift and he’s looking at the horizon, but then the joystick loosens and he’s roaring towards the ground, out of control.

His body sags. He knows the end; he’s seen it dozens of times.

With shaking hands he takes his mum’s letter from his pocket and opens it.

Lavender fills the air as tiny purple flowers fall into his lap.

He takes one last look as the ground rushes to meet him, and closes his eyes.

****

The crippled plane crashes into the field, tumbling and turning in grotesque cartwheels through the ploughed brown earth, broken parts flying away, until it lands on its side, one painted wing pointing to the sky, a broken wheel hanging useless, slowly turning.

The shattered plane creaks and groans as it comes to a shivering halt. The hot smell of metal fills the air.

Nothing moves inside. Sparrows and song thrushes, frightened away by the noise, return to the copse of horse chestnut trees to sit on branches weighted with fruit and once more send their pure, high songs out into the world.

A tawny fox wanders with nervous curiosity along the hedgerow, hesitating, her nose twitching at the strange smells.

She carefully picks her way through the crushed bright red hawthorn berries and dark green leaves that litter the ground.

The plane moans and settles further, sending the lone wheel crashing to the earth.

The vixen backs away, hiding among the pricking brambles and nodding teasel heads to watch and wait.

A gust of wind rustles the air and a folded piece of paper falls free of the shattered cockpit.

A single lined sheet, red stained and torn.

Blue words sit on faint grey lines, wishing him a happy twenty-second birthday.

A quote from his old Shakespeare book, that he’d carefully circled in red one rainy afternoon, had been painstakingly copied:

Be great in act, as you have been in thought;

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust

Govern the motion of a kingly eye,

Be stirring as the time; Be fire with fire;

Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow Of bragging horror.

Sent with love, sealed with kisses.

The End.