Warmer Than He Thought by Brian Doswell (top inspirational books txt) 📕

of the lake where the wind had blown the snow away. The clean, newly swept ice out there in the middle looked good, beckoning him towards it. Ian hooked the toe of a skate and stumbled once, twice, then his old skills came back and he began to pick up speed. There was no one to play hockey with but he played anyway with an invisible crew. Short sprints, snap turns and quick toe-lock stops. Ian carved up the ice like an old pro, why had he not done this before?

Too old to fly, but not too old to skate up a storm. Ian began to feel good again. Confidence flooded back into his skates as he turned and raced across the ice. He began to feel the indefinable exhilaration that comes from maximum speed with minimum effort, the exercise pumping warmth back into his chilled blood. Maybe there was life after flying. Skates slicing their way through the ice turned a cold winter’s morning into a scene of pure delight. Ian turned again and headed straight down the length of the ice, his arms outstretched like a child, Ian was flying.

The sound of the ice breaking under his blades was like a rifle shot, echoing in the heavy cold air. The bank was several metres away and the nearest road even further away. The world around him had been eerily silent, until now.

Now, was an inferno of noises: ice snapping, water rushing, but most of all the terrifying sound of his own blood coursing through his veins and pounding on the inner membranes of his eardrums. In an instant he was beneath the ice and looking up through the murky water, with distorted vision, at a dirty grey sky above. Suddenly, crazily, he knew that this would be the last time that he would see the sky. Ian loved the sky, it’s where he lived.

It was warmer than he thought it would be. In the back of his mind, school-boy physics told him that the water must be less cold than ice, but that was no comfort now.

He knew that he should be panicking or crying out, but his body would not let him spare the last breath of air in his lungs. His arms flailed about trying to reach something, anything that would lever him back to the surface, but there was nothing but the cold, cold water. His greatcoat was waterlogged and heavy, dragging him downwards. Perhaps it didn’t matter any more? It was warmer than he thought. He began to feel comfortable, to realise that he would not have to face the crew room after all.

Ian looked up again at the grey sheet of ice above him and his mind filled in the blurred picture with long-forgotten detail. Suddenly, he was a young Flying Officer again, in the familiar cockpit of a Vulcan bomber, flying at three thousand feet over a snow-covered Lincolnshire countryside. In less than thirty seconds, these tons of heaving metal would cross the coast line out over the North Sea. He was waiting for the distant, tinny voice of the local controller in his headset: Golf Alpha Bravo Echo Lima, You are cleared to climb to 25,000 feet.

He would pull back hard on the stick with his left hand, while pushing forward with his right on the four black levers in a single, well-practiced movement that would transform the huge Rolls Royce engines into growling monsters, thrusting him skywards, away from this dull and frozen landscape. His eyes searched the ice, left and right, for any conflicting traffic in that final moment before the transition. He settled his body firmly into the familiar worn leather seat, waiting for the G-forces to press down on his rib cage when the power surge hit him. The action would have to be exactly right, there would only be one chance to pull and push in a single synchronised movement before the pain came. He could feel it starting in his chest now. From the corner of his eye he saw the coastline pass under his wingtip. The nose came up and, in a split second, the refuelling probe in front of the radar cone punctured the dirty grey cloud layer and he was in the sun again.

Wing Commander Ian Hamilton Mackey DFC was flying one last time. Imprint

Publication Date: 07-09-2010

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