Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

I smiled inwardly. From the lack of detail or excitement, it was clear the report had come from someone like the trainer to whom Okinawa had been travelling, not from airport reporters sniffing a sensational story. No journalist who had seen or even been told of the shambles on that plane could have written so starkly. But the horse had been disposed of now, and I had helped wash out the plane myself, and there was nothing to see any more. Okinawa had been well insured, a vet had certified that destroying him was essential, and I had noticed that my name on the crew list was spelled wrongly; H. Gray. With a bit of luck, and if Yardman himself had his way, that was the end of it.

‘My dear boy,’ he’d said in agitation when hurriedly summoned to the airport, ‘it does business no good to have horses go crazy on our flights. We will not broadcast it, will we?’

‘We will not,’ I agreed firmly, more for my sake than for his.

‘It was unfortunate.’ he sighed and shrugged, obviously relieved.

‘We should have a humane killer,’ I said, striking the hot iron[146 - striking the hot iron – (разг.) решив ковать железо, пока горячо].

‘Yes. Certainly. All right. I’ll get one.’

I would hold him to that[147 - I would hold him to that – (разг.) Я от него не отстану (буду напоминать)], I thought. Standing peacefully in the bar at Kempton I could almost feel the weight of Okinawa and the wetness of his blood, the twenty-four hour old memory of lying under a dying horse still much too vivid for comfort. I shook myself firmly back into the present and went out with Julian’s father to watch a disliked rival ride a brilliant finish.

Saturday night I did my level best to be civil to Mother’s youngest female week-end guest, while avoiding all determined manoeuvres to leave me alone with her, and Sunday morning I slid away before dawn northwards to Lincolnshire.

Tom Wells was out on the apron when I arrived, giving his planes a personal check. He had assigned me, as I had learned on the telephone the previous morning, to fly three men to Glasgow for a round of golf. I was to take them in an Aztec and do exactly what they wanted. They were good customers. Tom didn’t want to lose them.

‘Good-morning, Harry,’ he said as I reached him. ‘I’ve given you Quebec Bravo. You planned your route?’

I nodded.

‘I’ve put scotch and champagne on board, in case they forget to bring any,’ he said. ‘You’re fetching them from Coventry – you know that – and taking them back there. They may keep you late at Gleneagles until after dinner.

I’m sorry about that.’

‘Expensive game of golf,’ I commented.

‘Hm,’ he said shortly. ‘That’s an alibi. They are three tycoons who like to compare notes in private[148 - like to compare notes in private – (зд.) хотят обсудить важную сделку так, чтобы им никто не мешал]. They stipulate a pilot who won’t repeat what he hears, and I reckon you fit that bill, Harry my lad because you’ve been coming here for four years and if a word of gossip has passed your lips in that time I’m a second class gas fitter’s mate[149 - a second class gas fitter’s mate – (ирон.) ср. русск. старший помощник младшего дворника].’

‘Which you aren’t.’

‘Which I’m not.’ He smiled, a pleasant solid sturdy man of forty plus, a pilot himself who knew chartering backwards and ran his own little firm with the minimum of fuss. Ex-R.A.F., of course, as most flyers of his age were: trained on bombers, given a love for the air, and let down with a bang when the service chucked them out as redundant[150 - chucked them out as redundant – (разг.) выкинули их за ненадобностью]. There were too many pilots chasing too few jobs in the post-war years, but Tom Wells had been good, persistent and lucky, and had converted a toe-hole copilot’s job in a minor private airline into a seat on the board, and finally, backed by a firm of light aircraft manufacturers, had started his present company on his own.

‘Give me a ring when you’re leaving Gleneagles,’ he said, ‘I’ll be up in the Tower myself when you come back.’

‘I’ll try not to keep you too late.’

‘You won’t be the last.’ He shook his head. ‘Joe Wilkins is fetching three couples from a weekend in Le Touquet. A dawn job[151 - A dawn job – (зд.) Работа до рассвета], that’ll be, I shouldn’t wonder…’

I picked up the three impressive business men as scheduled and conveyed them to Scotland. On the way up they drank Tom Wells’ Black and White and talked about dividend equalisation reserves, unappropriated profits, and contingent liabilities: none of which I found in the least bit interesting. They moved on to exports and the opportunities available in the European market. There was some discussion about ‘whether the one and threequarters was any positive inducement,’ which was the only point of their conversation I really understood.

The one and three quarters, as I had learned at Anglia Bloodstock, was a percentage one could claim from the Government on anything one sold for export. The three tycoons were talking about machine tools and soft drinks, as far as I could gather, but the mechanism worked for bloodstock also. If a stud sold a horse abroad for say twenty thousand pounds, it received not only that sum from the buyer, but also one and three quarters per cent of it – three hundred and fifty pounds – from the Government. A carrot before the export donkey. A bonus. A pat on the head for helping the country’s economy. In effect, it did influence some studs to prefer foreign buyers. But racehorses were simple to export: they needed no after sales service, follow-up campaign or multi-lingual advertising, which the tycoons variously argued were or were not worth the trouble. Then they moved on to taxation and I lost them again[152 - lost them again – (разг.) потерял нить разговора; перестал понимать, о чем речь], the more so as there were some lowish clouds ahead over the Cheviots and at their request I was flying them below three thousand feet so that they could see the countryside.

I went up above the cloud into the quadrantal system operating above three thousand feet, where to avoid collision one had to fly on a steady regulated level according to the direction one was heading: in our case, going northwest, four thousand five hundred or six thousand five hundred or eight thousand five hundred, and so on up.

One of the passengers commented on the climb and asked the reason for it, and wanted to know my name.

‘Grey.’

‘Well, Grey, where are we off to? Mars?’

I smiled. ‘High hills, low clouds.’

‘My God,’ said the weightiest and oldest tycoon, patting me heavily on the shoulder. ‘What wouldn’t I give for such succinctness in my boardroom.’

They were in good form, enjoying their day as well as making serious use of it. The smell of whisky in the warm luxurious little cabin overcame even that of hot oil, and the expensive cigar smoke swirled huskily in my throat. I enjoyed the journey, and for Tom’s sake as well as my own pride, knowing my passengers were connoisseurs of private air travel, put them down on the Gleneagles strip like a whisper on a lake[153 - like a whisper on a lake – (разг.) мягко, как пушинку].

They played golf and drank and ate; and repeated the programme in the afternoon. I walked on the hills in the morning, had lunch, and in the late afternoon booked a room in the hotel, and went to sleep. I guess it was a satisfactory day all round.

It was half past ten when the reception desk woke me by telephone and said my passengers were ready to leave, and eleven before we got away. I flew back on a double dogleg[154 - on a double dogleg – (сленг) по радиопеленгам], making for the St. Abbs radio beacon on the Northumberland coast and setting a course of one sixty degrees south-south-east from there on a one five two nautical mile straight course to Ottringham, and then south-west across country to Coventry, coming in finally on their 122.70 homer signal.

The tycoons, replete, talked in mellow, rumbling, satisfied voices, no longer about business but about their own lives. The heaviest was having trouble over currency regulations with regard to a villa he had bought on the Costa del Sol: the government had slapped a two thousand pound ceiling on pleasure spending abroad[155 - the government had slapped a two thousand pound ceiling on pleasure spending abroad – (разг.) правительство установило верхнюю границу денежных затрат на развлечения за рубежом в две тысячи фунтов], and two thousand would hardly buy the bath taps.

The man sitting directly behind me asked about decent yachts available for charter in the Aegean, and the other two told him. The third said it was really time his wife came back from Gstaad, she had been there for two months, and they were due to go to Nassau for Easter. They made me feel poverty-stricken[156 - made me feel poverty-stricken – почувствовал себя законченным нищим], listening to them.

We landed safely at Coventry, where they shook my hand, yawning, thanked me for a smooth trip, and ambled off to a waiting Rolls, shivering in the chilly air. I made the last small hop back to Fenland and found Tom, as good as his word, on duty in the control tower to help me down. He yelled out of the window to join him, and we drank coffee out of a thermos jug while he waited for his Le Touquet plane to come back. It was due in an hour: earlier than expected. Apparently the client had struck a losing streak[157 - had struck a losing streak – (разг.) проигрался вчистую] and the party had fizzled out.

‘Everything go all right with your lot?’ Tom said.

‘They seemed happy,’ I nodded, filling in the flight details on his record chart and copying them into my own log book.

‘I suppose you want your fee in flying hours, as usual?’

I grinned. ‘How did you guess?’

‘I wish you’d change your mind and work for me permanently.’

I put down the pen and stretched, lolling back on the wooden chair with my hands laced behind my head. ‘Not yet. Give it three or four years; perhaps then.’

‘I need you now.’

Need. The word was sweet. ‘I don’t know. I’ll think it over again, anyway.’

‘Well, that’s something I suppose.’ He rufled his thinning light brown hair and rubbed his hands down over his face, his skin itching with tiredness. ‘Sandwich?’

‘Thanks.’ I took one. Ham, with French mustard, made in their bungalow by Tom’s capable wife Janie, not from the airport canteen. The ham was thick and juicy, home cooked in beer. We ate in silence and drank the hot strong coffee. Outside the glass-walled high up square room the sky grew a thick matt black, with clouds drifting in to mask the stars. The wind was slowly backing, the atmospheric pressure falling. It was getting steadily colder.

Bad weather on its way.

Tom checked his instruments, frowned, leaned back on his chair and twiddled his pencil. ‘The forecast was right,’ he said gloomily, ‘snow tomorrow.’

I grunted sympathetically. Snow grounded his planes and caused a hiatus in his income.

‘Have to expect it in February, I suppose,’ he sighed.

I nodded in agreement. I wondered if Stratford races would be snowed off[158 - would be snowed off – (разг.) будут отменены из-за снега] on Thursday. I wondered if weather interfered much with Yardman’s trips. I reflected that Janie Wells made good coffee, and that Tom was a sound sensible man. Untroubled, organised surface thoughts. And it was the last night I ever spent in my calm emotional deepfreeze.

The sky was a sullen orange-grey when we took off at eight the next morning from Gatwick, the as yet unshed snow hanging heavily as spawn in a frog’s belly. We were carrying eight brood mares in an old unpressurised D.C.4, flying away from the incoming storm, en route to Milan. Timmie and Conker were back, to my relief, but neither had had a scintillating holiday, by the sound of it[159 - neither had had a scintillating holiday, by the sound of it – (разг.) судя по всему, выходные они провели паршиво]. I overheard Conker, a much harassed small father of seven large hooligans, complaining as he loaded the cargo that he’d done nothing but cook and wash up while his wife curled up in bed with what was, in his opinion, opportunist malingering influenza. Timmie showed his sympathy in his usual way: a hearty gear-changing sniff. A thick-set black-haired square little Welshman, he suffered from interminable catarrh and everyone around him suffered also. It had been his sinuses, he unrepentantly said after one particularly repulsive spitting session, which had stopped him going down the mines like his pa. The February holiday, Timmie agreed, was not much cop[160 - was not much cop – (сленг) не порадовал].