The last draw

We have been sent to shepherd a spotter plane across the lines and back again. It flies slightly below us, crewed by two men, one a pilot, the other a gunner and cameraman. This is a revenge move for the other side's success in keeping their balloon aloft. Somewhere over their side of the lines, while the spotter circled around and got their photographs, we scattered left and right, up and down, and mingled with a flight of gaudy-coloured attackers. It was one-on-one with side-bets and under-the-table conspiratorial manoeuvres to keep the pot boiling.

I have always moaned that I was unlucky at all the things that counted; cards, horses, lotteries, love. I have never won anything significant that I can crow about. Thirds, fourths, a rare second, often last, but despite my putting heart and soul into anything and everything, I've never been a winner. I call myself a steady loser.

Sometimes I turn that view around and take stock of how fortunate I appear to have been. I think back to my days at sea. The worst that ever happened to me were cracked ribs from a fall down the bridge ladder, and a blow to the head from a fall down the engine-room stairs. Others came home from their trips with crushed or broken limbs. A sister ship never came home at all. I have scrambled out of a wrecked car with a bruised foot and a blood-blister on my cheek, to the disbelief of the rescue crew who turned up prepared to cut off the roof, while others have died at half the speed I was doing. I have only been robbed once in my life. I am still alive and kicking. Why?

So I started my obsession with fate. Why is it that some people seem to be so lucky, and others seem to be so unlucky; why can some people smoke till they're seventy, and others fade away before they're half that age? Is it really just as random as cards drawn from a pack, or are we predestined to our experiences as a result of our past? The more I learn to look at the inputs and outcomes of fortune, the less I seem to understand. There is no justice being served out over the centuries, no karmic disposition to fame and fortune or debt and disaster. But there is still a mysterious sense of a pattern there, if only my eyes could learn to see the magic side of life.

We come together again and count ourselves up. One missing, and far below us are two columns of black smoke, so neither side can claim a victory. Away to the west the spotter plane is making it's way back to safety. Three of us peel off to an early landing because of damage or wounds, while the rest scurry after the spotter plane and slip cockily into formation around it, rocking wings as we throttle back to the slower speed. Something is wrong, there is no answering waggle of wings, no hands raised. The gunner looks as if he is asleep, one arm casually resting on the leather padding of the cupola. The pilot is leaning back slightly in his seat gazing up into the peaceful blue of the heavens. Dirty brown streaks have spread along the fuselage from where his leather helmet and his collar meet.

We sit stunned around this macabre sight, none of us able to accept that the plane can be so undamaged and in control of itself while the crew lie dead or dying. The flight leader edges closer in and fires his guns, twice. There is no sign of stirring. The plane with it's dead cargo and oh-so-precious photographs is flying steadily on towards the coast, not losing height at all. We all know our fuel tanks are down to the last gallon, and we have now passed our landing field. For five more minutes we fly in silent tribute, then one by one peel off and start the long glide home. Behind us, the plane is unhurriedly making it's way out to sea, to the great unknown graveyard that will only give up it's secrets at the end of the world.

"Into the blue again,"
"Into the silent waters..."