Authors' Playhouse - Flight to Aras

Author's Playhouse presenting Anfon de sanzu perries deeply stirring account of France at war flight to Arts. Those days in June nineteen forty were faithful days for France. They were faithful days for the whole world. Knowing their doom, Frenchmen went to war to make a gesture. And yet something may come of a gesture, and what it meant for one man is told by the brilliant author and airman

We ran into a patrol of them in twenty eight thousand, controls frozen.

What could you do well?

I've always said it's funny.

They must have had at least eighty search lights funny before us, full of pillars.

And then he tried to land. There's undercarriage half shot away, guns jammed, not a chance.

What do you say, Jean, Oh, hello, Renee, Come sit down. I'll do some card tricks for you.

All right.

Here, take a card, anyone, yes, anyone, look at it there now, remember what it was and put it back in the deck, all right. Jack of Heart's reneeh, that's it. Do it once more, very well, here.

Three of clubs.

You're a marvel captain. How did you do it? Well?

First you shuffle the deck, and then when you spread them out.

You Captain Jean and Lieutenant Renee reported the major.

Well, did you know it was our turn?

Captain pocketed flew this morning?

Oh yes, I remember. I remember.

The fact that we had been sent for meant only one thing. We were ordered out on assortie. We had reached the last days of May nineteen forty, a time of full retreat, of full disaster. Crewe after crew was being offered up as a sacrifice. It was as if you dashed glassfuls of water into a forest fire in the hope of putting it out. Fifty reconnaissance crews were all we had for the whole French Army, fifty crews of three men each, and out of that fifty, twenty

Fought afternoon John, Hello, Renee, sit down, clerk, catch me the weather reports.

Hm.

I suppose you know why I sent for you, Sawtye.

I suppose, yes.

Well, it's very awkward, I know, but the staff people wanted done. They very much wanted done. I argued with them, Yes, but they wanted done.

And that's that.

Yes, of course, things being as they are, well, there's no use worrying about it. No, you'll probably not find it so difficult. Here here's your course. They want a photography sortie at thirty three hundred feet, and then here at Aris a bit of reconnaissance at two thousands tank parks. You know, Arris is really the important thing.

Yes, I see.

If this sorty bothers you, Jarn, If you don't feel up to it today, why, I don't know, Major, You've been having it quite steady these days, you know, all.

Of us have, Yes, I suppose. So I just thought that if you know Major, well then there's nothing more.

But then it, Renee, you lay out your course and well perhaps you'd better get along and dress.

Now.

I want you off the ground at five point thirty. Very good, Major, see you this evening then, yes, of course, good luck to you, Thank you sir.

This sortie has got on his nerves too. What do they take us for sending us off on these low altitude sorties?

What's the use of it.

By the time we get the information back there, troop couns will be somewhere else, the tank, everything, the whole face of the land will have changed.

What good is the information?

What?

What is the use of sending us out?

I don't know. I wish I did if.

It weren't so useless, so completely useless.

An awkward sortie, the major said, In one which is not awkward, one plane out of free manages to return naturally. The ratio is not the same when a sortie is nasty. I go to my room and prepare to dress item by item, I piece together my flags. Is my mind filled with spiritual thoughts of the war of the Nazis against civilization? Not at all. I think in terms of immediate details. I think of possible wounds, of going down

You there?

Have you seen my gloves?

No?

Not those?

Have a look in my bag, sorry, sir, can't find it?

Oh, you fool?

Why don't you keep check of those things?

Sorry?

Of course you're sorry, but that doesn't bring back my gloves?

And orderly?

Have you got that pencil?

Pencil?

Sir?

Yes, pencil. I asked you to get me a pencil. I have been asking you for ten minutes to get me a pencil. Haven't you got one? Here it is, sir hmm yeah, tie a string around it and then knotted around this button.

Yes? What do you want gun her today? Sir? Gun her already?

Well be out in a moment. Catch you tie that knot? Is it impossible for you to do a little thing like that?

There you are, sir?

H well?

Warming her up? Captain? All right?

Nothing keeping us that's gone, everything ship shaped renee worked out your course, yes, captain, and you gonna You seem to be looking rather cheerful I'm all ready, sir. I wish once, just once, the general staff would fly its own sortie sitting behind them. Oh they're sad, Hello, Jean, Sorry, you might know it looks bad, very bad, very bad. Indeed, how are you going out? By the time of Albert, I thought so, I knew it that had business. I'll stop talking like a fool.

What's up?

You'll never make it.

You'll have to give up this sortie give it up. Oh that's fine, we'll give it up just like that. You'll never get through, I tell you, And why shall I never get through?

I'll tell you why.

There's three groups of German fighter plane circling permanently over Albert, one at eighteen thousand feet, another at twenty five thousand and a third of thirty three thousand. They fly in relays and hang on until they're relieved. You fly straight into a German net. In short, Captain, what you're trying to tell me is that the Germans have an air force and that this sort he is not altogether advisably.

Isn't that it?

Well, we know it here. Why don't you go and tell it to general start. I'm just trying to warn you. That's all. You should know what you're getting into. We do well, good luck than anywhere. Yes, come on you two, let's push off. Funny about percent. It wouldn't have cost him anything to be a little more cheerful. Why couldn't you have merely said, oh, by the way, the Germans have a few fighters over all there. It would have amounted to the same thing. That's his way, I suppose, is she all said?

Ready to go?

So all right?

File in you tube here, hand me another helmet. I told you twenty times that my own won't do it's too tight. But this is another helmet, sir, I sent back your old Sorry, give me a boot.

Will you help me.

Check your intercom? Can you hear me, Renee?

I hear your captain?

You gunner hear me? I yes, sir, Renee? Can you hear the gunner clearly? Captain gunner? Can you hear Lieutenant Renee?

Yes? Sir?

What makes you snutter back there? What are you hesitating about?

Fie? Sir?

I was talking for my pampson, Gunner. Have a look at your oxygen bottles. Air pressure normal, yes, sir, norma in all three bottles? All all said Renee?

Off, said Captain gunner.

All fusser, let's go altitude twelve thousand, air speed two hundred ninety six, compass three hundred and thirteen degrees. Check check check. It is strange, this union between plane and man. I sit here among a clutter of accessories, oxygen tubes, heating connections, the speaking tubes that form the intercommunications between the crew. I have a hundred and three instruments to watch, and I sit here, depending upon them for my life. I am wedded to them for the present, as a

First drink?

Captain you gunner? How's your oxygen?

All right? Sir?

Oh? Gunner, no good sized town behind you in your cone of fire.

Notsr arclar.

Check your guns. Go ahead, let fly work all right, arch find sir, all of them? Yes, sir, good air speed three five, compass three thirteen. Check your dials, levers, guns, firing button, regulate your oxygen flow, check one in against another, right rudder, now try left.

Good.

The controls are not sluggish. I am beginning to feel a quiet glow of comfort. And it all comes to this. I am working at my trade now. At this moment, the war between the Nazis and civilization is reduced to the scale of my job. Checking these instruments. Manipulating them will bring victory or defeat. I think of nothing more than this now, and it is right to feel this way. For the Sexton's love of God becomes a love of

And so the war for me, Captain is too much. Rept aport a little king to the right.

Right, Oh, captain Renee, we're crossing our lines now, I've started my camera.

What you're up at you thirty three hundred? Hold it.

Off, my course. There he was right, I was drifting too much to Port. But I didn't want to. That's the strange thing. Consciously, I have wished to stay on my course, but my body registered its disapproval of the idea. With the eye of my body, I could see the town of Albert far ahead, and I remember there are three levels of fighter planes over it. My body begins to remember every sudden crash of the past, every laceration and fracture it has suffered. It remembers flames and the

To itself, it drifts to Port.

Strange thing, this body.

I am one who believes that the spirit of man alone is important. Yet here is a body that dominates the spirit and makes it afraid.

It is difficult to understand.

I am beginning to wonder why I am here. What do I accomplish by risking my body in a thing like this?

What use is there, captain?

Captain is six German fighters on the port bow Gunner, you hear the lieutenant six ahead port bow.

Yes?

Have they seen us?

Renee Yes, Maggie Torners fifteen hundred feet below?

Hear that, gunner?

Yes?

How near are they?

About six seconds Captain on.

Our tail and a few seconds gunner, Gunner. They're crossing broadside there.

Don't see them yet, sir, Yes, I do.

Now I've lost them myself. Are they after us? Yes, rising fast, polly fast, We're heading into the sun. They lose them that way, hang on still after us, Gunner.

They're still coming.

We gaining it all?

Well, no, perhaps.

Are we losing them, Gunner, I believe so. Yes, we are soome Rene, Captain. I nothing anything that mattered, nothing I thought, no, nothing happen. He's gunner.

I think we've lost them.

Sure, very sure. They're breaking down, thank god, thank god. Nothing just talking. Well, we're alive anyway, Captain.

Yes, for the time being, we are alive.

Even for the time being.

It is good.

There is only a profound sense of gratitude inside me, something that to be expressed. A scene is suddenly brought back to me from boyhood. The present falls away from me like dirt from a washed body. I am a boy once again, alive with the blind wonder of being alive. And this memory rises up before me, fresh as the afternoon had happened. I stood in my father's fields, watching two hawks circling over a pigeon. The pigeon, all unaware of them, was flying toward its coat in our barn.

And just made it.

The hawks swooped low and then climbed upward into the sky again. I can remember that now, and it takes significance in my brain. Death is all about one, and there is no escape, And then suddenly away is opened and life stretches out again like fields in the morning sun. It is something definitely to think about.

Captain, the camera work is nearly finished. Give me a few minutes more and we can make furs.

Say when ARUs the second half of our mission low altitude reconnaissance. The pigeon escapes the hawk only to meet the charge from the shotgun. Well, since there is no escape, we may as well do our job as workmanlike as possible. Still, why should it be this way?

You may drop down now, captain.

Very well, going down gunner. Flying to ARUs is like this. You have lost altitude over your own zone. Now you head north again, and the earth spills out below you. The highways are swarming with refugees. Yesterday they were people of France, gathering their grain from the fields, breaking their dead in homes of peace. To day they are refugees, people without a nation. Somewhere in the north of France, a boot has scattered an ant hill, and the ants

One seventy four, Captain, one seventy four. You need to get a metnasty captain.

Yes, and I start sick zagging right.

Upper head lies ars. It is burning, and at first it is merely a red plume against the background at night. Then if a constant flame. Then it grows slowly, little by little, into a great block of flame, licking at the sky, faded rene. How much more of this?

Stick it out? Free minute, Captain, Not bad though, I think we'll get through. No stick it out?

Uh, This is urus a thousand guns below cutting Busett. Hundreds of thousands of phosphorescent bullets threading the air to me like stalks of wheat, like rapidly flashing knitting needles, Like seeds of wheat blown from the mouth of a threshold. They rise towards you, billow out, surround you in a network of golden wire.

This is ARUs.

The fabric of your wings is shredding. Your gas tanks are pierced like sieves. The rubber coin alone saving the body of your plane staggers under each blow wrenches seems.

About to burst.

One more minute, Captain, got one more.

This is ours.

The clouds are long, Captain, you might drive for them.

It's all over now, Yes, Renee you all right? Yes, Gunner, you're not heard. Oh ca ser We're in the cloud now, Rene check our course, Yes, sir, too formiable.

We sha't be able to come down out of it for more than about twenty minutes. I'll they got some landmark along the scene.

Then good. How were things back there, Gunner?

Not too bad, sir.

Wasn't too hot for you, nor still two forty a name. Yes, we are alive, all of us. Somehow we have come through the shadow. When we had given up death had touched our bodies, and having escaped death, we knew that the body is merely a tool in man's service. Flames strip away flesh, bullets stripped away, but they strip away the worship of flesh too. Man, in that instance ceases to be concerned with himself. He recognizes of a sudden what he forms a part of. He does not lose himself.

This is true, and.

I have learned it only because I have come back from Ras.

Captain.

Yes, that'll make it two forty six, forty six, I think we can come down now, Renee, ten minutes more.

That'll wait the ten.

Minutes as you say, Renee. Yes, what will you do tonight.

When we land? I don't know, have a good five. I suppose Prophets will challenge lac Hordere to a game of chest tonight.

La Gordair is a good.

Player, yes, but I shall beat him the night I know.

How about you, Gunner, how will you celebrate?

I think I shall eat three extra slices of ham. I'm pipefully hungry. Yes, and play the phonograph too, how about you, Captain.

I shall have a pipe too, Yes, and I shall go for a walk. You have no idea how much I wanted to feel solid earth under my boots today.

Yes, I know.

I want to walk through the village to the outskirts and listen to the crickets chirp, cheerful things. Crickets.

Do you ever live? Captain?

Look down there, it's the same, do you see, Yes, yes, I see. We're all most home again. Imagine, I've never thought.

You never thought you would see it again, did you, Renee?

Oh, Captain, I did, nor did I.

But we must not think any more about it.

We're back. We're really back this time, this day.

I have led Renee and my gunner beyond the bourne at which reasonable men would stop. We have seen France in flames. We have seen the sun shining on the sea. We have grown old in the upper altitudes, and we have played with the dust of enemy fighter planes. And after that we dropped earthward again and flung ourselves into the holocaust. What we could offer up we have sacrificed, And in that sacrifice we have learned more about our cells and our country than we should have done if