Black out [antikvár]

BLACK OUTCHAPTER Ia foolish impulseFlying-Officer Barney Leighton of the Royal Air Force peered earthwards through the darkness in an endeavour to pick out some landmark that would give a clue to the flight's position. According to calculations based on compass and speedometer they ought to be within a few miles of their objective. But, except for a few scattered lights, shining with blurred radiance through the shifting mist, he could see nothing.He cursed anxiously under his breath; these night manouvres were the very devil. A Higher Command which could ordain an Air Raid Precautions black-out test on a night like this ought to be consigned to a lethal chamber. The whole show should have been called off when the fog developed. It was asking for a collision to expect aircraft to keep formation without navigation lights when visibility was practically nil.A couple of hundred feet below him, slightly ahead on his port quarter, Barney could discern vaguely the outline of his flight leader's machine. The big bomber rose and fell with monotonous irregularity as it forged steadily ahead through the murk. From time to time it disappeared completely, blotted from sight by wispy floating cloud, only to reappear a few seconds later like some monster porpoise of the air, plunging forward through its natural element.There was a relentless inevitability about its undeviating course that acted on Barney's taut-strung nerves like a rasping file. FUght-Lieutenant Ian MacCalmont, the pilot flying it, would never turn back until the job was completed, whatever the weather. He was a creature of steel, without a