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wytchcroftfive: Alice's adventures underground and in the air
Falling into an aeroplane should not take a long time, or so Alice supposed,
and yet here she was floating through the darkness at a rate that could only be described as slow.
After the initial dismay of falling had worn off it was replaced by a familiar niggling feeling.
Alice was irritated.
"Well I mean," She said to no/one in particular, "to be falling into nowhere is bad enough - but falling into somewhere is really much worse if you don't seem to actually get there!"
And so it went on, the darkness stayed dark although once or twice Alice thought she could make out the sight of objects where they caught some of the light from above - and curious they were too, a desk, a lamp, a door, a metal chain, some of these objects might have been very useful only they were out of reach.
She could hear noises too, furtive sounds, rustlings and burrowings - ants and beetles she supposed, and occasionally more metallic seeming noises, a door being slammed perhaps, the squeak of a wheel.
This last noise was enough to confuse Alice terribly for although she knew she was still falling, it appeared to her that she was now, and quite definitely, falling sideways, falling forwards, falling indeed in any direction but down.
My hand slips from the glass and I’m weightless now, even in chains, I’m lighter than air…
Where had THAT thought come from? It didn’t seem to be one of hers.
"Ridiculous!" Alice snapped.
"Oh really?" said a voice beside her and quite distinctly. "Ridiculous? Why so? How ridiculous and what ridiculous? Define ridiculous."
Alice turned her head and saw the outline of a figure, a man perhaps with white hair, or perhaps it was a white hare with something of a man about him, Alice wasn't sure, but either way she could tell that he too was irritated and impatient.
Something gleamed in the white gloved hand, a pocket watch perhaps.
Quite rudely, the creature brushed past her in the gloom, forcing Alice to conclude that was not in fact falling at all but was, rather, standing in a tunnel.
With not a little reluctance she skipped after the disappearing shape, "wait for me" she called.
"Wait -wait!"
The figure stopped so abruptly that Alice almost ran in to him. There was the flicker of a lamp being lit, but the light didn't really help much since it was being shone into here eyes.
Still, she thought, I must TRY and be polite.
"Thank you," she said, "Only I'm quite lost you see and I was wondering, please, where am I?"
The white haired figure thought for a moment and then said hurriedly, "This really is Memory Lane - how quaint of me. This youngster, and here I am spilling the contents, am I that eager to reveal - do I still need the attention and after all these years? Or was it after what happened before - that other girl, the other maid..."
Alice found this very hard to follow. The figure in front seemed to sigh and hiss at the same time and Alice thought she heard a foot drumming against the floor of the tunnel.
"You really are most impatient," she said. "Are you on your way to something important?"
Again the slight pause and then the rush of words;
"I loved running through the alleys, back of the block racing as only the young will do, in a mad sprint for no reason but the pleasure of a pounding heart. Always a little gaggle of friends behind - an audience, yes, even then; the faces - those faces, dear god I haven't thought of them in years."
As Alice tried, with limited success, to make sense of this the man/hare sped off once more.
This time the drumming foot was hers. “Well, honestly, if I could try to be polite I would have expected the same from…” Since Alice had no idea just who she had been speaking to, her voice trailed away.
She was just deciding what to do when all of a sudden the tunnel, the walls and flor beneath her began to tremble and tremor, building into a violent movement of the earth and sending dust and bricks down about her.
Thoroughly flustered Alice ran as best she could in the direction of the departed stranger.
The journey however was tough - dodging masonry loosened by the last shake, ducking under the sorts of wicked metal-edged entry hatches made to guillotine you instantly if they came down with a mind to. And there were noises of another kind now, wild and roaming, having to listen to them weep and wail out of the shadows as she made her way through the tunnels was really quite scary.
All so she could arrive at the old man's broken dwelling - sunk and secure behind heavy iron, steel grills, locks and bolts, a castle in the underground. How many times now? Each visit felt like a first - gazing around at the cob-webs, the piles of paper, the faded paintings, the cob-webs, rat shit and dust. And she was nervous, always, her knuckles whitening on the handles of her heavy duffel bag. The clinking of the equipment inside it was her only reassurance.
How many times?
"I don't remember," she said.
"Well, you're young - there's not much surprise in that." The old man responded.
“What?” Taken aback, she realised that she was standing inside a gloomy room and opposite the figure she’d been pursuing. The face of the man/hare was blurry still as if her eyes needed spectacles – and there was something she was supposed to be doing, hence the bag, cleaning she thought at random, perhaps I’m…
“I don’t remember,” she said again.
“Of course you don’t,” said the man/hare, “nobody does anymore.”
Alice was frightened now. “Then it must be a dream,” she said as bravely as she could muster, “because I have bad dreams.”
The Man/hare appeared to shake his white head. “No, no, all quite real,” he said, and he held up his hands to show her a metal box of some sort. “Here,” he said, “look, I’ll take your photograph to prove it.”
Before the girl could think how too react, there was a click! And a blinding flash of light, light that touched her like fire.
And quite suddenly she was falling again.
………………………….
There was fire everywhere, bathing her in a fierce crackling glow of white and red. Flames licked across the canopy window and sparks danced across the cockpit controls. The Spitfire bucked like a crazy horse and she had to fight to keep her hands on the stick and the wheel.
The sky outside the windshield was livid with yet more angry trails that flashed across the air, below them the sea was calm and dark and deep.
She could hear her companion laughing. “Now THIS is more like it!” The Baron seemed to be quite delighted by the nightmare around them, leaning across from the converted second seat. “Excitement,” he yelled from over the flopping oxygen mask he wore with his goggles, “adventure!”
The Spitfire’s young pilot was not of the same mind.
“This was supposed to be just a reconnaissance – we weren’t told to expect this – someone should have warned us!”
The Spitfire screamed in agreement, one of the engines coughing noisily as a counterpoint.
“Pah!” The Baron’s gleaming smile shone out. “Where would the fun be then?”
Despite the chaos, the flames and the coiling smoke, he reached out and thumped an excited hand on the young pilot’s shoulder.
The pilot groped down with a leather gloved hand and came up with the pistol stashed under the seat.
The Baron blinked, “Well if you insist,” he said, “I suppose I can agree with you in principle,” he was babbling.
The pilot wasn’t listening, smashing a gun laden fist out in rapid hammer blows, cracking the cockpit windows.
“What in the -!” the Baron was lost for words.
As the windshield broke, the air rushed out from the cabin, taking the smoke and most of the fire with it. The aircraft gave a mortal groan and began to plunge down toward the ocean.
“Don’t let her stall!” yelped the Baron, twisting in his seat and grasping at the dual controls.
The engines coughed again, rattling and sputtering but just – just – staying at power. The noise of the aircraft’s descent was horrendous.
“Is that a ship?” The pilot tried to point was being pressed into their seat. But yes, there was indeed a ship, causing the baron to grin at the idea of a nick-of-time save.
“Dutch I think,” He said, “Not a Gerry at least!”
The stricken Spitfire was coming down fast, much too fast, there wouldn’t be a prayer of landing her even in the water, the plane would simply explode.
“We have to get the nose up!” The pilot was frantically trying to do just that. Swerving the craft so as not to hit the ship they were approaching. With a lurch that threatened to tear the gear stick from its socket, the little plane righted itself as it dived past the top of the vessel and swung around.
“Look!” The Baron yelled. There on the deck was a lone male figure in a dark uniform, pointing to something, a sign scrawled on the metal of the deck wall behind him. As the spitfire came about for a second time, the young pilot could see the sign clearly, it was a winged figure, a girl maybe, or a very badly rendered aircraft. The figure on the deck waved a slow arm.
“There’s an island,” the pilot said grimly, both hands now pulling at the steering column, behind the boat, “We have to try for that. We’ve still got too much momentum to land on the sea or that ship.”
Baron Munchausen nodded.
Now the plane turned away from the ship and as it did so one of the engines gave up the ghost and died with a final venomous cough. “We’re done for!” the pilot shouted, but the din in the cockpit was too loud for them to be heard and with a snapping of trees and a scream of metal the spitfire slammed into the jungle of the miraculous island and threw itself head first into the tropical mud.
……………………….
Falling into an aeroplane should not take a long time, or so Alice supposed, and yet here she was floating through the darkness at a rate that could only be described as slow.
After the initial dismay of falling had worn off it was replaced by a familiar niggling feeling.
Alice was irritated.
"Well I mean," She said to no/one in particular, "to be falling into nowhere is bad enough - but falling into somewhere is really much worse if you don't seem to actually get there!"
And so it went on, the darkness stayed dark although once or twice Alice thought she could make out the sight of objects where they caught some of the light from above - and curious they were too, a desk, a lamp, a door, a metal chain, some of these objects might have been very useful only they were out of reach.
She could hear noises too, furtive sounds, rustlings and burrowings - ants and beetles she supposed, and occasionally more metallic seeming noises, a door being slammed perhaps, the squeak of a wheel.
This last noise was enough to confuse Alice terribly for although she knew she was still falling, it appeared to her that she was now, and quite definitely, falling sideways, falling forwards, falling indeed in any direction but down.
My hand slips from the glass and I’m weightless now, even in chains, I’m lighter than air…
Where had THAT thought come from? It didn’t seem to be one of hers.
"Ridiculous!" Alice snapped.
"Oh really?" said a voice beside her and quite distinctly. "Ridiculous? Why so? How ridiculous and what ridiculous? Define ridiculous."
Alice turned her head and saw the outline of a figure, a man perhaps with white hair, or perhaps it was a white hare with something of a man about him, Alice wasn't sure, but either way she could tell that he too was irritated and impatient.
Something gleamed in the white gloved hand, a pocket watch perhaps.
Quite rudely, the creature brushed past her in the gloom, forcing Alice to conclude that was not in fact falling at all but was, rather, standing in a tunnel.
With not a little reluctance she skipped after the disappearing shape, "wait for me" she called.
"Wait -wait!"
The figure stopped so abruptly that Alice almost ran in to him. There was the flicker of a lamp being lit, but the light didn't really help much since it was being shone into here eyes.
Still, she thought, I must TRY and be polite.
"Thank you," she said, "Only I'm quite lost you see and I was wondering, please, where am I?"
The white haired figure thought for a moment and then said hurriedly, "This really is Memory Lane - how quaint of me. This youngster, and here I am spilling the contents, am I that eager to reveal - do I still need the attention and after all these years? Or was it after what happened before - that other girl, the other maid..."
Alice found this very hard to follow. The figure in front seemed to sigh and hiss at the same time and Alice thought she heard a foot drumming against the floor of the tunnel.
"You really are most impatient," she said. "Are you on your way to something important?"
Again the slight pause and then the rush of words;
"I loved running through the alleys, back of the block racing as only the young will do, in a mad sprint for no reason but the pleasure of a pounding heart. Always a little gaggle of friends behind - an audience, yes, even then; the faces - those faces, dear god I haven't thought of them in years."
As Alice tried, with limited success, to make sense of this the man/hare sped off once more.
This time the drumming foot was hers. “Well, honestly, if I could try to be polite I would have expected the same from…” Since Alice had no idea just who she had been speaking to, her voice trailed away.
She was just deciding what to do when all of a sudden the tunnel, the walls and flor beneath her began to tremble and tremor, building into a violent movement of the earth and sending dust and bricks down about her.
Thoroughly flustered Alice ran as best she could in the direction of the departed stranger.
The journey however was tough - dodging masonry loosened by the last shake, ducking under the sorts of wicked metal-edged entry hatches made to guillotine you instantly if they came down with a mind to. And there were noises of another kind now, wild and roaming, having to listen to them weep and wail out of the shadows as she made her way through the tunnels was really quite scary.
All so she could arrive at the old man's broken dwelling - sunk and secure behind heavy iron, steel grills, locks and bolts, a castle in the underground. How many times now? Each visit felt like a first - gazing around at the cob-webs, the piles of paper, the faded paintings, the cob-webs, rat shit and dust. And she was nervous, always, her knuckles whitening on the handles of her heavy duffel bag. The clinking of the equipment inside it was her only reassurance.
How many times?
"I don't remember," she said.
"Well, you're young - there's not much surprise in that." The old man responded.
“What?” Taken aback, she realised that she was standing inside a gloomy room and opposite the figure she’d been pursuing. The face of the man/hare was blurry still as if her eyes needed spectacles – and there was something she was supposed to be doing, hence the bag, cleaning she thought at random, perhaps I’m…
“I don’t remember,” she said again.
“Of course you don’t,” said the man/hare, “nobody does anymore.”
Alice was frightened now. “Then it must be a dream,” she said as bravely as she could muster, “because I have bad dreams.”
The Man/hare appeared to shake his white head. “No, no, all quite real,” he said, and he held up his hands to show her a metal box of some sort. “Here,” he said, “look, I’ll take your photograph to prove it.”
Before the girl could think how too react, there was a click! And a blinding flash of light, light that touched her like fire.
And quite suddenly she was falling again.
………………………….
There was fire everywhere, bathing her in a fierce crackling glow of white and red. Flames licked across the canopy window and sparks danced across the cockpit controls. The Spitfire bucked like a crazy horse and she had to fight to keep her hands on the stick and the wheel.
The sky outside the windshield was livid with yet more angry trails that flashed across the air, below them the sea was calm and dark and deep.
She could hear her companion laughing. “Now THIS is more like it!” The Baron seemed to be quite delighted by the nightmare around them, leaning across from the converted second seat. “Excitement,” he yelled from over the flopping oxygen mask he wore with his goggles, “adventure!”
The Spitfire’s young pilot was not of the same mind.
“This was supposed to be just a reconnaissance – we weren’t told to expect this – someone should have warned us!”
The Spitfire screamed in agreement, one of the engines coughing noisily as a counterpoint.
“Pah!” The Baron’s gleaming smile shone out. “Where would the fun be then?”
Despite the chaos, the flames and the coiling smoke, he reached out and thumped an excited hand on the young pilot’s shoulder.
The pilot groped down with a leather gloved hand and came up with the pistol stashed under the seat.
The Baron blinked, “Well if you insist,” he said, “I suppose I can agree with you in principle,” he was babbling.
The pilot wasn’t listening, smashing a gun laden fist out in rapid hammer blows, cracking the cockpit windows.
“What in the -!” the Baron was lost for words.
As the windshield broke, the air rushed out from the cabin, taking the smoke and most of the fire with it. The aircraft gave a mortal groan and began to plunge down toward the ocean.
“Don’t let her stall!” yelped the Baron, twisting in his seat and grasping at the dual controls.
The engines coughed again, rattling and sputtering but just – just – staying at power. The noise of the aircraft’s descent was horrendous.
“Is that a ship?” The pilot tried to point was being pressed into their seat. But yes, there was indeed a ship, causing the baron to grin at the idea of a nick-of-time save.
“Dutch I think,” He said, “Not a Gerry at least!”
The stricken Spitfire was coming down fast, much too fast, there wouldn’t be a prayer of landing her even in the water, the plane would simply explode.
“We have to get the nose up!” The pilot was frantically trying to do just that. Swerving the craft so as not to hit the ship they were approaching. With a lurch that threatened to tear the gear stick from its socket, the little plane righted itself as it dived past the top of the vessel and swung around.
“Look!” The Baron yelled. There on the deck was a lone male figure in a dark uniform, pointing to something, a sign scrawled on the metal of the deck wall behind him. As the spitfire came about for a second time, the young pilot could see the sign clearly, it was a winged figure, a girl maybe, or a very badly rendered aircraft. The figure on the deck waved a slow arm.
“There’s an island,” the pilot said grimly, both hands now pulling at the steering column, behind the boat, “We have to try for that. We’ve still got too much momentum to land on the sea or that ship.”
Baron Munchausen nodded.
Now the plane turned away from the ship and as it did so one of the engines gave up the ghost and died with a final venomous cough. “We’re done for!” the pilot shouted, but the din in the cockpit was too loud for them to be heard and with a snapping of trees and a scream of metal the spitfire slammed into the jungle of the miraculous island and threw itself head first into the tropical mud.
……………………….
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 12:41 am (UTC)very exciting! loved the fast pace! you even managed to surprise me with the fact that the baron is . . .
. . . THE baron! (i'm so naive. ) only sad to see that there's only one more part. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 12:44 am (UTC)as for the Baron, i couldn't resist him:))
no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-15 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-15 05:45 am (UTC)Well, in the UK 'Gerries' is very much a period word of WW2, no longer used in speech but very familiar ww2 shorthand all the same.
i didn't want to use like a 'nasty' word, y'know?
and wow! thanks for reading this:))
no subject
Date: 2009-07-15 06:29 am (UTC)and I still have the most intriguing part to read :) thank you, my friend, your stories add much to the taste of my life :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-15 04:30 pm (UTC)well you know, i thought about it and we do actually use 'fritz' sometmes, and in new ways; "What's wrong with the radio?" "It's on the Fritz..." meaning "it's broken." or we say a thing is 'Fritzed' i guess instead of "it's fucked." !!
and thanks, as always, for your kind words:)))