Somebody Kill me Now...[Nathan/Open]

[Rhys Bevan]

"When am I gonna get to meet Churchill?" moaned Jim Bevan as he followed his eldest brother through the vast array of tanks, armoured cars and arse cleavage.

Rhys sighed. His parents had basically forced him to give the seven year-old a "guided tour" of the Desert Rats barracks. His father had had to pull a couple of strings to get Jim in in the first place but now he expected him to entertain the child? Rhys loved his brother but it was seriously damaging his reputation being followed around everywhere by a little kid, who had only an hour earlier accidentally shot a good-natured corporal in the foot with his own pistol.

"Jim, you're not going to meet Churchill" sighed Rhys in exhasperation. "For the...forty-second time, I don't live with him,"

"He's a very grumpy gentleman, isn't he?" continued Jim, ignoring his brother. "Is he grumpy to you, Rhys? Is he? Is he? I bet he is, cos sometimes, you're a really very irritating wanker,"

Rhys rounded on Jim angrily.

"Who taught you that word, Jim?"

"Elis," replied Jim haughtily. "He says it means someone who plays with his -"

"Yes, thank-you, Jim," interrupted Rhys. "Just, don't call people wankers, yeah? It's a very naughty word,".

Nine year-old Elis Reynholm - Jim's best friend, or alternatively, the only boy who dared to go within ten feet of the crazed child without protective gear and a gas mask - was seen by most adults of the village as a tad mischevious. Or, in Rhys' opinion, spawn of Satan. And not even in a cool way.

"I bet Churchill's a wanker," said Jim after a moment of silence. Rhys gritted his teeth and continued walking, gesturing for Jim to follow.

Hopefully someone would intervene with Jim's evil attempt to drive Rhys to suicide and give the Staff Sergeant an excuse to dump Jim on David when he saw him. He just hoped he didn't shoot him in the foot, he observed.

Well....unless it was McMillan.

[Nathan Whyte]

Nathan walked the halls of the 7AD vehicle sheds. His polished flying boots made heavy, deliberate thuds on the concrete floor as he walked with his long stride, occasionally squeaking as he turned. He whistled a wee ditty to himself as he walked, observing the various armoured vehicles. He didn't get to fight along them that much with the 3ID and it made a nice change to be able to stare at the iron beasts. Tanks, armoured cars, miles of metal. It felt like home for the pilot.

"I bet Churchill's a wanker" he heard coming from around a tank. He instantly felt a ball of anger rise inside him. He stopped himself pulling his knife from the top of his boot as he realised the voice was one of an infant. He realised he would have to scare some respect into him. Walking behind the boy, he recognised Rhys and put a finger over his mouth, indicating for him to be quiet. He crouched down next to the boy and spoke in the most imposing tone he could muster. "If I hear you speak of Mr. Churchill like that again, I will tie you to the propeller of my plane and use you to stop the bullets next time I go into combat. Is that clear?" He straightened up, looking the eight year old in the eye. His hand strayed to his pistol as if to make the point before carrying on. "I have met Mr. Churchill, and I'll have you know he is anything BUT a wanker. He is an amazing man, and if you had any brains in your head you would respect him. But then, you're related to this wanker here, so what am I expecting?"

He turned to Rhys and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "How are ya, mate? I haven't seen you for a while now, we've all been caught up, eh. And who's the short one, if you don't mind me asking?"

[Rhys Bevan]

Jim stared open-mouthed at the Flight Sergeant as began his little speech. Rhys was about to point out that the whole finger-on-the-mouth thing seemed a tad homo-erotic, but he kept his mouth shut. Jim actually seemed almost captivated.

"This is Jim," replied Rhys hesitantly. "My brother. Kind of...been dumped on me. Just don't look into his eyes or he might turn you to dust," Rhys ruffled his brother's mop of blond hair fondly. Jim was not amused and pulled away within seconds.

"Who's Churchill again?" asked Jim to no one in particular. Rhys rubbed his wary eyes with his hands and sighed.

"The Prime Minister, Jim," he said.

"Oh. What's a Prime Minister?"

Rhys groaned and decided to ignore the young child. He instead nodded casually at Nathan.

"Sorry 'bout him, he's not exactly...people-trained yet. On the other hand, if the war goes on for another ten or so years, he'll give Hitler for his money. So, how are ya?"

Before the New Zealander could answer however, Jim hobbled forwards and tugged at his tunic.

"Why do you talk to funnily?" he asked curiously.

"Nathan's from New Zealand, Jim," replied Rhys, wondering how much more he could take.

"Is that the country we're in charge of?"

"Umm...yeah...kind of...."

A huge grin spread across Jim's adolescent face and he let out a little squeal of delight before poking Nathan in the ribs. "OK, you," he said in delight. "Get me a jelly!"

Rhys pulled the boy away and pushed him in the direction of the tanks, in the hope of distracting his admittedly limited attention-span enough for him to have a conversation with Nathan.

"So..." he said, embarassedly as Jim let out a little shriek of awe as he took a look at what he believed to be a tank and what Rhys knew to be a half broken-down convoy truck. "How are you? You've got a little bro too, haven't you?"

[Nathan Whyte]

Nathan put a hand on the young boys shoulder and twisted him around so he was facing him. ”Ya see this?” he asked, pulling his knife from the top of his boot, his voice dripping with niceness, a wide smile on his face. ”This is a six-and-a-half-inch Fairburn Sykes knife. If you ask me for a jelly, or anything like that again, I will slit you from your neck down to what your brother only has one of. D’ya get my drift? Oh, and if you’re going to piss yourself, go outside.”

He pushed the boy lightly back towards the rusted-truck before sheathing the blade and turning a few degrees so he was facing Rhys. ”What, oh yeah, Harvey’s probably about Jim’s age. Much more polite though, and I bet anything he could beat your brother in a fight. You Welsh girls have nothing on a Kiwi farmer.” He smiled at Rhys at the remark. Nothing like a bit of friendly rivalry. Well, friendly-ish.

”And yeah,” he continued, lazily scratching the small of his back, ”I’m alright. I’ve been doing a bit of blade-practise recently if you can’t tell. Captured anymore Jerries, then? And have you managed to keep hold of this testicle. If you ask me, it was rather careless losing the last one, wouldn’t you agree? I’m complete, Jack’s complete, I think, and I’m sure McMillan is. Although, the way he shouts at everyone, I’d say he probably has to compensate for something, if you catch my drift.” He smiled again at Rhys. ”Do you want to step outside? It’s a bit stuffy in here.” As if to make his point, he undid the top button of his overalls, flashing some tanned flesh as he waved the fabric to try and get a breeze going.

”How old is Jim by the way, he seems to be a bit young for that kind of language. What have you and David been teaching him? You better not have shown him the practical side of that term.”

[Rhys Bevan]

Rhys was about to answer that he had no intention of discussing David's penis with him but he was interrupted by Jim who promptly told him to shut up. Apparently, he hadn't actually wanted to say anything; he just wanted him to shut up.

Jim seemed unimpressed at the kiwi's outburst and had a frown plastered across his grubby face. Rhys waited with bated breath at what his brother's next move would be; Jim was notoriously unpredictable and prone to violent outbursts of anger. He had once kicked the family dog in the face when he had ran off with one of his toy soldiers and the poor animal had almost been knocked unconscious.

The eight year-old grinned smugly and without hesitation, withdrew a small object from his pockets. The depths of the child's pockets never failed to amaze Rhys; it was amazing the stuff he found in there. In fact, Martha, Jim's long-suffering mother and essentially slave had once found the unseeing head of a sparrow lodged inside. She had fainted immediately.

Jim pointed the object at Nathan's stomach and at last Rhys could see what it was. A small, toy gun, it seemed. Bloody realistic, admitted Rhys. Wait a second...oh, for god's sake, no...

"Jim, where did you get that?" he asked, his throat dry.

"From that nice gentleman who looked a bit like he had a badger living on his head," replied Jim helpfully, keeping the pistol trained on Nathan as he spoke.

"You stole one of McMillan's pistols?" said Rhys incredulously. "You know...stealing's wrong, don't you?"

"So is your face," Jim giggled and before Rhys could yell at him to stop, he brought a slender figure down on the trigger.

He missed.

Jim seemes unaccusomed as of how to fire a gun and his finger had merely landed harmlessly on the chamber. His eyebrows furrowed in annoyance as he began to search for the elusive trigger. Rhys tpok the initiative and snatched the gun from his brother's hands while he was distracted.

"Jim!" he yelled. "That's the third New Zealander you've tried to kill today! How would you like it if you died?"

"I dunno,"

"You wouldn't like it, would you?"

"I would if I went to Heaven," pointed out Jim, before turning accusingly on Rhys. "Is there really a Heaven, Rhys?"

"Ah..umm...gah..." Rhys babbled inanely in answer as the tips of his ears turned pink. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Nathan here is a pilot," he said.

"Are they the gay ones?" asked Jim in barely a whisper, adding a flamboyant hand movement as he did so.

"No, that's the Navy,"

"Oh," said Jim, taking in all of the new information with relish and storing it forever inside his premature brain. He turned to Nathan and put on his cute face that managed to turn even the sternest of schoolmistresses' hearts to butter. "Can you give me a ride in your plane?" he asked sweetly.

Rhys grinned and clapped Nathan on the back.

"You said you wanted to go outside," he smiled. "Why not?"

[Nathan Whyte]

As Jim squeezed the trigger, Nathan was already halfway into a dive, grabbing the young boy’s ankle and yanking him down. He didn’t want to harm the boy, though, so he caught him before he hit the floor, but it allowed Rhys a chance to confiscate the pistol. As he stood up, Nathan checked his hadn’t been borrowed by the little Welsh lad and took a step backwards. It took all of his self-control to stop himself from garrotting the boy there and then as he asked whether pilots were the gay branch of the armed services. He took some deep breaths trying to remain calm.

”Can you give me a ride in your plane?"

Nathan very nearly screamed at him You try to shoot me, you call me gay and you want to go up in my fucking plane? But he stopped looking at the boys face. He tried to speak twice, but it got stuck in his through. Little bugger he thought as he opened his mouth finally getting words out. ”Fine, but on the condition that you promise not to shoot me, and to not swear in my plane. OK?” He looked at Rhys and rolled his eyes, jerking with his thumb, ”This way.”

They stepped outside into the brilliant sunlight and as they walked, Nathan began talking. ”As I’m not situated on this airbase, none of my planes are here, but there are bound to be a few lying around, and I’m sure you could palm us the keys, Jim. Wait here.”

The pilot stepped into a prefab building that served as the log room for all ingoing and outgoing planes. ”I need to use a plane, three-seater minimum.”
”May I ask what for, Flight Sergeant?” asked the polite Corporal behind the desk.
”Training mission” he replied, lying smoothly, ”I need to show a couple of raw recruits the lie of the land.”
The Corporal grabbed a set of keys, ”Bay F4. Have a good flight.”

Nathan jogged outside over to the plane, signalling for Rhys and Jim to come over. It was in reasonable condition, and a quick poke inside the cabin told Nathan it was ready for take off, bar a few quick checks. ”Do you two want to strap in and I’ll sort it out? Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes…”

[Rhys Bevan]

Rhys nodded and shrugged.

"Sure," he said with a grin. "But if this plane goes down, I'm gonna kill you,"

"We'd be dead already," put in Jim helpfully. Rhys turned to his younger brother and stared at him for a couple of seconds.

"Thanks for that, Jim....umm...come in, I guess,"

The brothers entered the slightly odd-smelling aircraft as Jim let out a little squeal of delight and almost dived into his seat in joy. Rhys grinned and took a seat next to his little brother. He was annoying - borderline evil - but he was still a little boy and he liked seeing him happy. Besides, the familiar adrenaline rush of breaking the rules of the barracks - no matter how slim - had put him in good spirits.

This would be only the second time Rhys had ever been in a plane and he was looking forwards to the flight. He loved the idea of mankind being able to combat something that evolution had not granted them - flight. To be able to construct a machine able to fly in the air alongside the birds and the clouds and the odd pilot hurtling to his doom. He knew a number of people who were scared - or at least a bit cautious - of planes but Rhys was glad of something with which he could put all his faith in science, engineering and simple logic, and not just God or even luck. He was in his element. Although he hoped his ears wouldn't pop on the way up and cause him to yell out in pain like the last time. That would probably not stand well for his reputation, particularly in front of his eight year-old brother.

"You know," began Jim ildly, swinging his short little legs against the chair. "I quite like this Nathan fellow really,"

"And why's that, Jim?" asked Rhys boredly, checking his watch absent-mindedly as he wondered when Nathan would be back. "Do you find his company riveting?"

Jim shook his head. "Well...he has got a plane,"

"Adolf Hitler has a plane, Jim, do you like him?"

"Can I have a go in it?" asked Jim excitedly.

Rhys sighed and leaned back in his chair. Sometimes, baby-sitting was hard work.

[Nathan Whyte]

Nathan hooked his fingers around the frame of the wing and pulled himself up on to the top of the plane. He flicked up a metal flap and checked the four machineguns built into the wings. Satisfied he checked for fluid and sediment in the fuel before climbing into the cockpit. ”Right, chaps, we’re flying in a Martin Maryland Light Recon. Bomber. We’ve got three seats, pilots, gunners and navigators. Naturally, I get the pilot’s seat, and there is no way in hell I’m letting Jim in the turret, so Rhys, you’re in their. Jim, if you crawl down the front of the plane, there’s a little glass nose where you can lie down. You sweet with that?” It wasn’t really a question, if Jim said no he was staying on the ground. Nathan carried on, ”We should be in the air within ten minutes. Strap yourselves in, we can stay in the air for a couple of hours, but I doubt we’ll be up there that long.”

Climbing the small ladder to the pilots seat, he lowered himself into the leather-covered seat, with the foam stuffing sticking out in several places. ”Now don’t worry guys, I haven’t fallen out of the sky yet, and I don’t plan on starting today!’’ Even as he said this, he felt himself shiver, as if somebody had stepped over his grave. For some reason he had a bad feeling about that flight. He ignored it though, as the twins engines burst into life and the plane began vibrating from the effort. He hooked the radio over his helmet and checked with air traffic control for a few seconds. Releasing the wheel brake, the plane slowly rolled forwards along the tarmaced runway. The sun had faded the painted white lines showing the ideal route, but the pilot managed to stay dead center.

After allowing a trio of Hawker Hurricane’s to land, the plane rolled onto the runway. Nathan stopped it and pushed on the throttle, putting both engines up to full power. They whined as thrust was built up and he looked down through the metal floor to Jim. ”We’re going up!”

The plane lumbered down the runway, and as it got to the stage where it seemed to late, the wheels left the ground. Slowly guiding the plane up, Nathan smiled as he returned to were he belonged – the air. He did a lazy lap of the air field before banking over the hills in the distance. ”Anywhere you two want to go in particular” he asked as his mind mapped out their general path.

[Rhys Bevan]

OOC: Sorry it's a bit short.

Rhys grinned as he felt the strange but not unpleasant feeling of the great metal beast taking off. He heard a little shriek within the plane but wasn't exactly sure whether it had come from Jim's mouth or Nathan's. Whatever the case, Rhys felt like he was in his element. The unimaginable scope of the open sky had always appealed to him - his father's younger brother had been a pilot in the Great War and his father often regailed him with tales of his escapades before Robert Bevan was shot down flying over Germany.

Being a pilot was a risky job, certainly. If you got shot down, you stayed down, that was how it worked. And Rhys doubted that pilots could sue the enemy for compensation. Actually, he very much doubted they'd be able to do anything with their heads blown off and their planes splattered with blood. The Staff Sergeant shuddered. What a pleasant train of thought to have whilst aboard a plane.

***

Jim was less cynical about the trip and had wide eyes at the thought of actually being in the sky and...and flying! He considered that the plane was a magic carpet and that Nathan was some form of wizard, or maybe more accurately, a witch, taking him to the moon or somewhere similar like the mystical land he had heard of many a time before...Bol-ton. But after substantial consideration, he doubted it seriously. Nathan didn't look anything like a witch or a wizard although, it did strike him, he did look a little bit like a donkey. He considered telling the pilot this very interesting fact but decided against it; he didn't want to be punished by someone who could or could not be a witch. Or, alternatively, a donkey.

"I want to go to Barnsley!" the small boy called out, giggling as the plane skidded through the sky.

[Nathan Whyte]

Nathan laughed as the little boy asked about Barnsley. By now they were just edging over the channel, too far to go to Barnsley, but he thought he’d humour the boy. ”Barnsley, eh? I reckon you might need to get out and push, I don’t think there’s enough kerosene to get us all the way.” He adjusted himself in the seat and pushed the radio headset slightly deeper into his ear. His voice trailed off from the obligatory insult of Rhys as he listened intently at the details of what was being said and what they entailed. He bit his lip as his mind raced through all the possibilities of what was happening and what he had to do.

”Rhys,” he called out trying to sound casual as he turned the plane around, ”I don’t mean to alarm you, but apparently there is a considerable German air raid headed our way. The long range radio was damaged this morning, so they’re pretty much on top of us. Could you, y’know keep an eye out for them and if you see some ‘Schmitts, let me know and open fire? OK?” It wasn’t so much a question as a direct order. Rule of flying #1 – The pilot is ALWAYS right.

He actively moved his head from side to side, trying to see the slightest scrap of black metal, the smallest hint of a swastika. He experimentally squeezed the trigger of the guns, sending a single bullet whizzing from each of the holes built into the wings. He flicked the radio onto speak and began to guide himself down. ”This is November zero niner eight. We are coming down towards airfield Juliet Mike One Two Five. Angels 15 and descending. Approximately half a mile inland from the channel, approaching Stithians Lake, over.”
”Roger that, November, we have you on SR. Shit. Novermber, approximately one-sixty degrees on your position, three fighters. Attack velocity by the looks of things.” It took Nathan a few fractions of a second to realise the seriousness of the situation. He the controller had sworn over the radio. He really was in a bad position. He flicked the boom of the radio away from his mouth and shouted out.
”Rhys! Bearing of 160 degrees. Three fighters, put fire upon them! I’m gonna try and get low so the triple-a can get shots in on them. Stand by!’

Nathan eased the plane into a dive and he heard a small delighted sound from Jim as the plane went down. Nathan had considered trying to reassure the boy, but he was a complete nutter so would have been fine anyway. From behind him, Nathan heard the stutter of machine gun fire, but he wasn’t sure whether it was Rhys or the Germans. It didn’t matter to Nathan. He nearly had a heart attack as three planes popped up in front of him, and he very nearly sprayed the three Hurricanes. The plane by then was not far above the waters of the Cornish lake, and Nathan took a minute for a bit of show. He dipped one wing so the tip entered the water, sending up a marvellous spray and he banked the plane around to face the Germans. His eyes opened in shock as he saw another plane coming straight at him. Nathan squeezed the trigger.

So did the German. A stream of bullets cut across the nose of the plane. Nathan heard a smashing, a screaming, a splashing.

[Rhys Bevan]

OK, Nathan, I'm really sorry but I'm not gonna be able to post in this. I made a huge post ages ago and then deleted it and I can't be arsed to write it again.

I'm in quite a few too many Neutral threads at the moment anyway and, despite how amazing this thread were gonna be, I've gotta make a coupla cuts.

Sorry again.

[Nathan Whyte]

Wanker. I'll put this up for closing, but don't think you're forgiven.

[Edward"Butcher"McMillan]

Moderation post:

Biting off more than you could chew...the bane of all the hungry.

The following CP has been issued:

Bevan - 7CP

Knight - 7CP

-JT