The composition of Aldridge D. The relationship between father and son in the short story by J

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In the lesson, students will get acquainted with the plot and composition of Aldridge's story "The Last Inch", during the analysis they will characterize the main characters and draw a conclusion about the main idea and problems of the story.

Topic: Foreign literature of the twentieth century

Lesson: James Aldridge's short story "The Last Inch"

In my books, the main theme is always

one and the same - choice, choice of path,

choice of action, choice of outlook.

Aldridge James

Rice. 1. Photo. J. Aldridge (1918) ()

Aldridge James(Fig. 1) - English writer and public figure. The work of a journalist and war correspondent, who visited many fronts of the Second World War 1939-45, became for Aldridge a school of life experience and skill. His feature reports, novels, short stories reflected the heroism of the people's Resistance and the changes that the world-historical victory over fascism entailed.

Aldridge responds vividly to the exciting problems of the time. The writer is attracted by the fate of a simple man who, in dramatic circumstances, triumphs over despair. A prime example of this was "The Last Inch" story.

Plot. The meaning of the name.

The main characters of the story- this is 43-year-old pilot Ben and his 10-year-old son Davy. The relationship between them is not easy. Ben worked all the time, so he devoted very little time to his child. His wife Joanna was dissatisfied with life in the deserts of Arabia and eventually left her husband and son and left for their homeland, New England. So Ben had to raise his son himself. In order to somehow get closer to him, Ben took Davy with him on a flight. They flew to Shark Bay on the Red Sea. Here, Ben had to shoot underwater for a TV company that paid good money for videos of the life of marine predators, sharks. During the shooting, the sharks attacked Ben, and he barely made it to the shore alive. A 10-year-old boy managed to provide first aid to his father, but the pilot could not fly the plane himself. This difficult task fell on Davy's shoulders. At first it seemed simply impossible. However, the boy not only managed to lift the plane into the air, but also fly to the airfield, and even land the plane. In this way, son saved father. At the end of the story, Odridge writes about how the relationship between father and son has changed.

In this way, The title of the story is symbolic: the main characters managed to overcome "the last inch, which ...", according to the author, "... separates everyone and everything."

Inch (from Dutch - thumb) - a unit of distance measurement in some European non-metric units. 1 English inch = 2.54 cm. Historically, the width of the thumb of an adult male. The word "inch" was introduced into Russian by Peter I at the very beginning of the 18th century.

Composition of the story "The Last Inch"

Exposition - the author's story about the events that preceded the flight to the bay;
Plot - Ben is forced to take his son with him;
Development of action - flight into the bay, preparation for shooting, descent under water;
The climax is the injury of Ben; the incredible efforts of father and son to survive;
Interchange - successful landing at the Cairo airfield; the beginning of a new, truly related relationship.

Characteristics of heroes. Father and son.

Ben is 43 years old. He is a high class pilot. In the past, he had everything: a favorite job, a wife, a child. When Ben lost his job, he suddenly felt acutely that both he and his loved ones were deeply unhappy. And the reason for this is that there is no family in which there would be mutual understanding, love, support. “And so he was left with nothing, except for an indifferent wife who did not need him, and a ten-year-old son who was born too late and, as Ben understood in the depths of his soul, a stranger to both of them - a lonely, restless child who, at ten years old, felt that his mother was not interested in him, and his father was an outsider, sharp and laconic, not knowing what to talk about with him in those rare moments when they were together.

Everything changed when the wife left, leaving her 10-year-old son behind. It was probably only then that Ben finally realized that he was a father who had to raise his child, take care of him. However, it turned out that it was difficult, Ben was irritable, impatient, and it turned out that he did not know how to talk to his son at all. Maybe, in order to somehow get closer, the pilot decided to take his son with him.

Reading the story, you understand how irresponsible Ben acted. Having gone to a remote, deserted area, he did not even tell anyone about the route, and in the event of an accident, the plane would have been searched for a long time and would hardly have been found. In addition, taking the boy with him, the father did not even stock up on drinking water, and took only beer from drinks. These details do not paint the father, we condemn him for indifference, heartlessness. We pity the boy. Watching him, we note his silence, isolation, gloom. What does he think about, gradually watching his father? What does it feel? Hatred? Love? Resentment? The writer does not reveal this riddle to us. Until tragic events happen.

“I’ll tell you, son, and you try to understand. Do you hear? Ben could barely hear himself, and for a second he even forgot about the pain. “You, poor fellow, will have to do everything yourself, it just so happened. Don't be upset if I yell at you. There's no offense here. You don't have to pay attention to it, you understand?

- Yes. Davy was bandaging his left hand and did not listen to him.

- Youth! Ben wanted to cheer up the kid, but he wasn't very good at it. He did not yet know how to find an approach to the boy, but he understood that it was necessary. A ten-year-old child had to perform a task of inhuman difficulty. If he wants to survive. But everything must go in order ... "

note- for the first time Ben turned to the boy SON, for the first time he is seriously concerned about his fate. Ben thinks not about his life, his task is to save his son.

“The only hope to save the boy was the plane, and Davy would have to fly it. There was no other hope, no other way out. But first you need to think about everything properly. The boy must not be scared. If you tell Davy that he will have to fly the plane, he will be horrified. It is necessary to think carefully about how to tell the boy about this, how to inspire him with this thought and convince him to do everything, even if unconsciously. We had to grope our way to the fear-ridden, immature mind of the child.”

It is at this moment that fracture in the relationship between father and son. At the moment of danger, they realized how dear to each other. Both make incredible efforts to save. The father is trying to overcome the terrible pain from injuries, the boy overcomes fear and lifts the plane into the air. The heroism of the boy strikes his father, the thought comes to him that he made an irreparable mistake in the past: “ Is it really possible to live with your son for years and not see his face?' Ben thinks.

Quotes, which show how Ben saw his son:

He seems to be an advanced guy, Ben thought, surprised at the strange way he thought. This boy with a serious face was somewhat similar to himself: behind the childish features, perhaps, a tough and even unbridled character was hidden.

"Good guy! He will fly. He'll do it! Ben saw Davy's sharply defined profile, his pale face with dark eyes that were so hard for him to read. The father looked at that face again. “No one even bothered to take him to the dentist,” Ben told himself, noticing Davy’s slightly protruding teeth, who grinned painfully, straining from tension. But he can do it, Ben thought tiredly and conciliatory.

Boy's feelings:

“He was afraid of his father. True, not now. Now he simply could not look at him: he was sleeping with his mouth open, half-naked, covered in blood. He didn't want his father to die; he didn't want his mother to die, but there's nothing to be done: it happens. People are always dying."

Reading the story, you think: is it really necessary for something terrible, tragic to happen in life for a person to understand how dear to him the closest, dearest people to him? This is exactly what happened to the characters in the story. It's good that they have an opportunity ahead of them to fix everything:

“He, Ben, will now need all his life, all the life that the boy gave him. But, looking into those dark eyes, those slightly protruding teeth, that face, so unusual for an American, Ben decided that the game was worth the candle. It's worth taking the time. He will get to the very heart of the boy! Sooner or later, but he will get to him. The last inch that separates everyone and everything is not easy to overcome if you are not a master of your craft. But being a master of your craft is the duty of a pilot, and Ben was once a very good pilot.

In these words lies main idea of Aldridge's story.

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Write a quotation plan for Aldridge's story "The Last Inch".
Write a reasoning essay on the topic: "The last inch is not easy to overcome."

Year of publication of the story: 1957

The story of James Aldridge "The Last Inch" should be read according to the school curriculum. He was included there back in the days of the USSR and since then has won considerable love in the hearts of our reader. Based on the story “The Last Inch”, a film of the same name was shot, and the writer himself became famous in our country precisely thanks to this story.

The story "The Last Inch" summary

In the short story "The Last Inch" you will learn about a native of Canada - Ben. Even at home, he became a good pilot and now flew over the coast of Egypt with geologists in search of oil. He was loved and respected for the fact that he could land a plane almost anywhere. But lately, the management of the oil company has given up trying to find oil, and Ben has been doing odd jobs. At the same time, the wife, unable to withstand the camp conditions of life, returned to her native Massachusetts. At the same time, she left their ten-year-old son with his father, which for Ben was comparable to punishment. After all, he never found a common language with his son, and, in fact, he did not particularly try.

Further in James Aldridge's story "The Last Inch" you can read about how, in a fit of feelings, Ben decided to take his son with him on a flight to the Red Sea. Here, Ben wanted to shoot sharks, because television companies paid well for every meter of film with such pictures. In flight, he tried to teach his son how to fly an airplane, until he brought him to tears with his next shout. But during the landing, he made his son watch the landing, insisting that it was all about the last inch.

If you continue to read the story "The Last Inch" briefly, then you will find out how Ben started filming in Shark Bay. The sharks were quite aggressive, and one cat shark showed too much interest in Ben. Because of this, he hurried to get ashore. Here he decided to have lunch, during which he discovered that he had taken only beer for himself, without taking care of his son Davy. And the son's questions about how else you can get to Shark Bay did not touch Ben. After all, he did not even understand that his son was afraid to stay here alone if something happened to him.

If you continue to read the short story by James Aldridge "The Last Inch", then you will find out that despite the fear, Ben decides on a new dive. After all, with the money received from filming, he hopes to send Davy to his mother. This time he dives with a horse leg. But the cat shark lunges at him, not at his leg. Ben barely made it to shore. His right arm was almost torn off, his left was badly damaged, and his legs were badly chewed. Only now Ben realized that he had to live for the sake of Davy, because without him he would be lost.

The protagonist of James Aldridge's story "The Last Inch" gets to the plane with the help of his son. Ben was only able to help his son drag himself a little. And in order for his father to climb into the passenger seat of the plane, Davy generally had to build a ramp out of stones. Now their fate, as in hung only on the boy's ability to fly an airplane, and Ben did not even know how to cheer him up. Nevertheless, the boy took off and, using the compass, flew to Cairo. Having miraculously prevented an accident with a large plane, the boy managed to land. Ben survived, though he lost his left arm. But now his main task in life was to overcome the last inch that separated him from his son.

The story "The Last Inch" at Top Books

Interest in the story "The Last Inch" to read is quite high. Thanks to this, the book is presented quite high among. In addition, the book is presented among. And given the fairly stable dynamics of interest in the book, we assume that in the future the story will periodically fall into our ratings of the best books by genre.

James Aldridge. "The Last Inch"

It’s good if, having flown more than one thousand miles in twenty years, you still experience the pleasure of flying by the age of forty; well, if you can still rejoice at how artistically accurately you landed the car; slightly squeeze the handle, raise a light cloud of dust and smoothly win back the last inch above the ground. Especially when landing on snow: the dense snow is very comfortable for landing, and it is good to sit on the snow as pleasant as walking barefoot on a fluffy carpet in a hotel.

But with flights on the "DS-3", when you lift an old car, it happened, in the air in any weather and fly over the forests anywhere, it was over. Working in Canada gave him a good temper, and it is not surprising that he ended his flying life over the deserts of the Red Sea, flying the Fairchild for the Texegypto oil export company, which had oil exploration rights all over the Egyptian coast. He flew the Fairchild over the desert until the plane was completely worn out. There were no landing sites. He landed the car wherever geologists and hydrologists wanted to get off - on the sand, on the bush, on the rocky bottom of dry streams and on the long white shallows of the Red Sea. The shallows were the worst: the smooth-looking surface of the sands was always littered with large pieces of white coral with razor-sharp edges, and if not for the low centering of the Fairchild, it would have turned over more than once due to a puncture of the camera.

But all that was in the past. The Texegypto Company abandoned costly attempts to find a large oil field that would give the same profits as Aramco in Saudi Arabia, and the Fairchild turned into a miserable ruin and stood in one of the Egyptian hangars, covered with a thick layer of multi-colored dust, all slashed from below narrow, long cuts, with frayed cables, with some kind of motor and devices that are suitable only for a landfill.

It was all over: he was forty-three, his wife left him at home on Linnen Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and healed as she liked: she rode the tram to Harvard Square, bought groceries in a store without a salesperson, visited her old man in a decent wooden house - in a word, she led a decent life worthy of a decent woman. He promised to come to her in the spring, but he knew that he would not do this, just as he knew that he would not get a flight job in his years, especially the one he was used to, he would not get it even in Canada. In those parts, supply exceeded demand, even when it came to experienced people; Saskatchewan farmers taught themselves how to fly their Pipercabs and Austers. Amateur aviation deprived many old pilots of a piece of bread. They ended up being hired to serve the mining departments or the government, but such work was too decent and respectable to suit him in his old age.

And so he was left with nothing, except for an indifferent wife who did not need him, and a ten-year-old son who was born too late and, as Ben knew in the depths of his soul, a stranger to both of them - a lonely, restless child who at the age of ten felt that his mother is not interested in him, and his father is an outsider, sharp and laconic, not knowing what to talk about with him in those rare moments when they were together.

And now it was no better than ever. Ben took the boy with him on the Auster, which bobbed wildly at two thousand feet above the Red Sea coast, and waited for the boy to get seasick.

If you feel sick," Ben said, "crouch lower to the floor so as not to stain the entire cabin.

Good. The boy looked very unhappy.

Are you afraid?

The little Auster was ruthlessly tossed from side to side in the hot air, but the frightened boy still did not get lost and, fiercely sucking on a candy, looked at the instruments, the compass, the jumping artificial horizon.

A little, - the boy answered in a quiet and shy voice, unlike the rough voices of American children. - And from these shocks the plane will not break?

Ben did not know how to comfort his son, he told the truth:

If the machine is not monitored and checked all the time, it will certainly break down.

And this ... - the boy began, but he was very sick, and he could not continue.

This one is all right, - said the father with irritation. - Pretty good plane.

The boy lowered his head and wept softly.

Ben regretted taking his son with him. In their family, generous impulses always ended in failure: both of them were like that - a dry, whining, provincial mother and a sharp, quick-tempered father. During one of his rare bouts of generosity, Ben once tried to teach the boy how to fly an airplane, and although the son turned out to be very intelligent and quickly learned the basic rules, every shout of his father brought him to tears ...

Do not Cry! Ben ordered him now. - You don't have to cry! Raise your head, do you hear, Davy! Get up now!

But Davy sat with his head bowed, and Ben more and more regretted that he had taken him with him, and looked dejectedly at the barren desert coast of the Red Sea spread under the wing of the plane - a continuous strip of a thousand miles separating the gently washed out colors of the land from the faded green of the water. Everything was motionless and dead. The sun burned out all life here, and in the spring, thousands of square miles of winds lifted masses of sand into the air and carried it to the other side of the Indian Ocean, where it remained forever at the bottom of the sea.

Sit up straight, he said to Davy, if you want to learn how to land.

Ben knew that his tone was harsh, and he always wondered why he couldn't talk to a boy. Davy raised his head. He grabbed the control board and leaned forward. Ben let off the throttle and, after waiting until the speed slowed down, he pulled hard on the trimmer handle, which was very awkwardly located on these small English planes - at the top left, almost overhead. A sudden shock shook the boy's head down, but he immediately raised it and began to look over the lowered nose of the car at a narrow strip of white sand near the bay, similar to a cake thrown onto this deserted shore. My father flew the plane right there.

How do you know which way the wind blows? the boy asked.

On the waves, on the clouds, by flair! Ben called to him.

But he himself did not know what he was guided by when he flew the plane. Without thinking, he knew to within one foot where he would land the car. He had to be precise: a bare strip of sand did not give a single extra span, and only a very small plane could land on it. It was a hundred miles from here to the nearest native village, and all around was a dead desert.

It's all about getting it right," Ben said. - When leveling the plane, it is necessary that the distance to the ground was six inches. Not a foot or three, but exactly six inches! If you take it higher, you will hit during landing and damage the plane. Too low - you will fall on a bump and roll over. It's all about the last inch.

Davy nodded. He already knew it. He saw how in El Bab, where they rented a car, one Auster turned over one day. The student who flew it was killed.

See! cried the father. - Six inches. When it starts to descend, I take the handle on myself. To myself. Here! he said, and the plane touched the ground as softly as a snowflake.

Last inch! Ben immediately turned off the engine and applied the foot brakes - the nose of the plane lifted up, and the car stopped at the very water - it was six or seven feet from it.

The two airline pilots who discovered this bay named it Shark, not because of its shape, but because of its population. It was constantly inhabited by many large sharks that swam from the Red Sea, chasing schools of herring and mullet that sought refuge here. Ben flew here because of the sharks, and now, when he got into the bay, he completely forgot about the boy and from time to time only gave him orders: help with unloading, bury a bag of food in wet sand, moisten the sand by watering it with sea water. water, supply tools and all sorts of little things necessary for scuba gear and cameras.

Does anyone ever come here? Davy asked him.

Ben was too busy to pay attention to what the boy was saying, but he shook his head when he heard the question.

Nobody! No one can get here except by light aircraft. Bring me the two green bags that are in the car and cover your head. Not enough for you to get sunstroke!

Davy didn't ask any more questions. When he asked his father about something, his voice immediately became sullen: he expected a sharp answer in advance. The boy did not even try to continue the conversation and silently did what he was ordered to do. He carefully watched as his father prepared scuba gear and a movie camera for underwater filming, intending to shoot sharks in clear water.

Watch out, don't go near the water! - ordered the father.

Davy didn't answer.

Sharks will certainly try to snatch a piece from you, especially if they rise to the surface - do not even dare to step into the water!

Davy nodded his head.

Ben wanted to do something to please the boy, but for many years he had never succeeded, and now, apparently, it was too late. When the child was born, began to walk, and then became a teenager, Ben was on flights almost constantly and did not see his son for a long time. So it was in Colorado, Florida, Canada, Iran, Bahrain and here in Egypt. It was his wife, Joanna, who should have tried to make the boy grow up alive and cheerful.

At first, he tried to tie the boy to him. But how can you achieve anything in a short week spent at home, and how can you call home a foreign village in Arabia, which Joanna hated and always remembered only in order to yearn for dewy summer evenings, clear frosty winters and quiet university streets of her native New England? Nothing attracted her, not the adobe houses of Bahrain, at one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit and one hundred percent humidity, not the galvanized settlements of the oil fields, not even the dusty, shameless streets of Cairo. But the apathy (which grew stronger and finally completely exhausted her) should now pass, since she returned home. He will take the boy to her, and since she finally lives where she wants, Joanna, perhaps, will be able to be at least a little interested in the child. So far, she has not shown this interest, and it has been three months since she left home.

Tighten this strap between my legs,” he said to Davy.

He had a heavy scuba gear on his back. Two twenty-kilogram compressed air tanks would allow him to stay for more than an hour at a depth of thirty feet. There is no need to go deeper. Sharks don't.

And don't throw stones into the water," said my father, lifting the cylindrical, waterproof case of the movie camera and wiping the sand from the handle. - Not that you will scare away all the fish nearby. Even sharks. Give me the mask.

Davy handed him a mask with protective glass.

I'll be underwater for twenty minutes. Then I'll get up and we'll have breakfast, because the sun is already high. For now, stone both wheels and sit under the wing, in the shade. Understood?

Yes, Davy said.

Ben suddenly felt that he was talking to the boy the way he was talking to his wife, whose indifference always called him to a sharp, commanding tone. No wonder the poor boy shuns both of them.

And don't worry about me! he ordered the boy as he entered the water. Taking a pipe in his mouth, he disappeared under the water, lowering the movie camera so that the weight pulled him to the bottom.

Davy looked at the sea that had swallowed his father as if he could see anything. But nothing was visible - only occasionally air bubbles appeared on the surface.

Nothing was visible either on the sea, which merged with the horizon in the distance, or on the endless expanses of the coast scorched by the sun. And when Davy climbed a hot sandy hill at the highest edge of the bay, he saw nothing behind him but a desert, now flat, now slightly undulating. She went, sparkling, into the distance, to the reddish hills melting in a sultry haze, as bare as everything around.

Below him was only the plane, a small silver Auster, the engine still crackling as it cooled. Davy felt free. There was not a soul around for a whole hundred miles, and he could sit in the plane and get a good look at everything. But the smell of gasoline again made him dizzy, he climbed out and poured water on the sand where the food lay, and then sat down by the shore and began to look for the sharks that his father was filming. Nothing could be seen under the water, and in the scorching silence, in loneliness, which he did not regret, although he suddenly felt it keenly, the boy wondered what would happen to him if his father never emerged from the depths of the sea.

Ben, back against the coral, struggled with the air control valve. It sank shallowly, no more than twenty feet, but the valve worked unevenly, and it had to force itself to suck in air. And it was exhausting and unsafe.

There were a lot of sharks, but they kept their distance. They never got close enough to capture them properly. We'll have to lure them closer after dinner. To do this, Ben took half a horse leg on the plane; he wrapped it in cellophane and buried it in the sand.

This time, he said to himself, noisily releasing air bubbles, I will rent them for no less than three thousand dollars.

The television company paid him a thousand dollars for every five hundred meters of a shark film and a thousand dollars separately for shooting hammerhead fish. But there is no hammerhead fish here. There were three harmless giant sharks and a rather large spotted cat shark, she wandered at the very silvery bottom, away from the coral coast. Ben knew he was too busy right now to attract sharks, but he was interested in the big bracken that lived under the ledge of the coral reef, which also paid five hundred dollars. They needed a frame with a bracken against a suitable background. Infested with thousands of fish, the underwater coral world was a good backdrop, and the bracken himself lay in his coral cave.

Yep, you're still here! Ben said softly.

The fish was four feet long, and God knows how much it weighed; she looked at him from her hiding place, as she had last time - a week ago. She lived here for at least a hundred years. Slapping his fins in front of her muzzle, Ben made her move back and made a good shot when the angry fish slowly went down to the bottom.

So far, that was all he had achieved. The sharks aren't going anywhere after dinner. He needs to conserve air, because here, on the shore, you can’t charge cylinders. Turning, Ben felt the shark's fins rustle past his feet. While he was filming the bracken, the sharks came to his rear.

Get the hell out! he yelled, releasing huge bubbles of air.

They swam away: a loud gurgle frightened them. Sand sharks went to the bottom, and the "cat" swam at the level of his eyes, carefully watching the man. You won't be intimidated by such a cry. Ben pressed his back against the reef and suddenly felt a sharp ridge of coral dig into his arm. But he did not take his eyes off the "cat" until he rose to the surface. Even now, he kept his head under water to keep an eye on the "cat" that was gradually approaching him. Ben backed clumsily up the narrow ledge of the reef rising out of the sea, rolled over, and walked the last inch to safety.

I don't like this crap at all! he said aloud, spitting out the water first.

It was only then that he noticed that a boy was standing over him. He completely forgot about its existence and did not bother to explain to whom these words refer.

Get breakfast out of the sand and cook it on the tarpaulin under the wing, where there is shade. Throw me a big towel.

Davy gave him a towel and Ben had to put up with life on dry, hot ground. He felt that he had done a great folly by undertaking such a job. He was a good off-road flier, not some adventurer who enjoys chasing sharks with an underwater movie camera. And yet he was lucky that he got at least such a job. Two aeronautical engineers of the American company Eastern Airlines, who served in Cairo, arranged for the supply of underwater footage filmed in the Red Sea to film companies. Both engineers were transferred to Paris, and they handed over their business to Ben. The pilot helped them when they came to consult about flying in the desert in small planes. As they left, they repaid a favor for a favor by reporting it to the Television Company in New York; he was given equipment for rent, and hired a small Auster from an Egyptian flying school.

He needed to make more money quickly, and the opportunity arose. When the Texegypto company shut down oil exploration, he lost his job. The money that he carefully saved up for two years, flying over the hot desert, made it possible for his wife to live decently in Cambridge. What little he had left was enough to support himself, his son, and a French woman from Syria who looked after the child. And he could rent a small apartment in Cairo, where the three of them lived. But this flight was the last. The television company said that the stock of film footage would last for a very long time. Therefore, his work was coming to an end, and he no longer had any reason to remain in Egypt. Now he will surely take the boy to his mother, and then he will look for work in Canada - suddenly something will turn up there, if, of course, he is lucky and he manages to hide his age!

As they ate in silence, Ben rewound the French movie camera and repaired the scuba valve. Uncorking a bottle of beer, he again thought of the boy.

Do you have anything to drink?

No, - reluctantly answered Davy. - No water...

Ben didn't even think about his son. As always, he took a dozen bottles of beer with him from Cairo: it was cleaner and safer for the stomach than water. But it was necessary to take something for the boy.

- You'll have to drink a beer. Open the bottle and try, but don't drink too much.

He hated the idea of a ten-year-old child drinking beer, but there was nothing to do. Davy uncorked the bottle, quickly drank some of the cool bitter liquid, but swallowed it with difficulty. Shaking his head, he returned the bottle to his father.

I don't feel like drinking, he said.

Open a can of peaches.

A can of peaches couldn't quench one's thirst in the midday heat, but there was no choice. After eating, Ben carefully covered the equipment with a damp towel and lay down. Glancing briefly at Davy and making sure that he was not sick and sitting in the shade, Ben quickly fell asleep.

Does anyone know we're here? - Davy asked his father, who was sweating during sleep, when he was about to go under the water again.

Why do you ask?

Don't know. Just.

Nobody knows we're here," Ben said. - We received permission from the Egyptians to fly to Hurghada; they don't know we've come this far. And they shouldn't know. You remember it.

Can they find us?

Ben thought that the boy was afraid that they would be convicted of something unlawful. Kids are always afraid of being caught red-handed.

No, the border guards won't find us. From the plane, they are unlikely to notice our car. And no one can get here by land, not even on a Jeep. - He pointed to the sea. - And no one will come from there, there are reefs ...

Does no one really know about us? the boy asked anxiously.

I say no! - with irritation answered the father. But he suddenly realized, although late, that Devi was not worried about the possibility of getting caught, he was simply afraid to be left alone.

Don't be afraid," Ben said rudely. - Nothing will happen to you.

The wind is picking up, - Davy said as always quietly and too seriously.

I know. I'll only be underwater for half an hour. Then I'll get up, load a new film and go down another ten minutes. Find something to do for you. In vain you did not take a fishing rod with you.

I should have reminded him of this, Ben thought, plunging into the water with the horsemeat bait. He placed the bait on a well-lit coral branch, and set the camera on a ledge. Then he tied the meat tightly to the coral with telephone wire to make it harder for the sharks to rip it off.

That done, Ben stepped back into a small hole, only ten feet away from the decoy, to secure himself from the rear. He knew that the sharks would not have to wait long.

In the silvery space, where the corals gave way to sand, there were already five of them. He was right. The sharks came immediately, smelling the blood. Ben froze, and when he exhaled air, he pressed the valve against the coral behind him so that the air bubbles burst and did not frighten away the sharks.

Come on! Closer! he quietly teased the fish.

But they didn't need an invitation.

They rushed straight at the piece of horsemeat. A familiar spotted "cat" walked in front, and behind it were two or three sharks of the same breed, but smaller. They didn't swim or even move their fins, they darted forward like gray, streaming rockets. Approaching the meat, the sharks turned slightly to the side, tearing off pieces as they went.

He filmed everything: sharks approaching their target; some kind of wooden manner of opening their mouths, as if their teeth ached; a greedy, nasty bite - the most disgusting sight he had ever seen in his life.

Oh you bastards! he said without pursing his lips.

Like any submariner, he hated them and was very afraid, but he could not help but admire them.

They came again, although the film was already almost all shot. This means that he will have to go to land, reload the camera and quickly return back. Ben glanced at the camera and made sure the film was gone. Looking up, he saw a hostile, alert cat shark swimming right at him.

Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Ben yelled into the phone.

The cat turned slightly on its side as it moved, and Ben realized that it was about to attack. Only at that moment did he notice that his arms and chest were smeared with blood from a piece of horsemeat. Ben cursed his stupidity. But there was no time, no point in reproaching himself, and he began to fight off the shark with a movie camera.

The "cat" had a gain in time, and the camera barely touched it. The lateral incisors grabbed Ben's right arm with a swing, almost grazed his chest, and went through his other arm like a razor. From fear and pain, he began to wave his arms; his blood immediately clouded the water, but he no longer saw anything and only felt that the shark was about to attack again. Kicking back and kicking back, Ben felt his legs cut: making convulsive movements, he got tangled in branched coral thickets. Ben held the breathing tube with his right hand, afraid to drop it. And at that moment, when he saw that one of the smaller sharks rushed at him, he kicked it with his feet and rolled back.

Ben hit his back on the surface of the reef, somehow rolled out of the water and, covered with blood, collapsed on the sand.

When Ben came to himself, he immediately remembered what had happened to him, although he did not understand how long he had been unconscious and what happened then - everything now seemed to be beyond his control.

Davy! he shouted.

From somewhere above, a muffled voice of his son was heard, but Ben's eyes were covered with darkness - he knew that the shock had not yet passed. But then he saw the child, his full of horror, his face bent over him and realized that he had been unconscious for only a few moments. He could hardly move.

What should I do? Davy shouted. - See what happened to you!

Ben closed his eyes to collect his thoughts. He knew he couldn't fly the plane anymore; his hands burned as if on fire, and were heavy as lead, his legs did not move, and everything floated as if in a fog.

Davy,” Ben said barely, without opening his eyes. - What's wrong with my legs?

I know, - Ben said angrily, not unclenching his teeth. - What about my legs?

All covered in blood, cut up too...

Yes, but not like hands. What should I do?

Then Ben looked at his hands and saw that the right one was almost completely torn off; he saw muscles, tendons, there was almost no blood. The left one looked like a piece of chewed meat and bled profusely; he bent it, pulled his hand up to his shoulder to stop the bleeding, and groaned in pain.

He knew that things were very bad for him.

But he immediately realized that something had to be done: if he dies, the boy will be left alone, and it’s scary to even think about it. This is even worse than his own condition. The boy would not be found in time in this scorched land, if he was found at all.

Davy,” he said insistently, struggling to concentrate, “listen… Take my shirt, tear it open and bandage my right hand. Do you hear?

Bandage my left arm tightly over the wounds to stop the bleeding. Then somehow tie the brush to the shoulder. As hard as you can. Understood? Bandage both my hands.

Tie tightly. Right hand first and close the wound. Understood? Do you understand…

Ben didn't hear the answer because he passed out again; this time the unconsciousness lasted longer, and he came to as the boy fiddled with his left arm; his son's tense, pale face was distorted with horror, but with the courage of desperation he tried to fulfill his task.

Is that you, Davy? Ben asked and heard himself slurring the words. "Listen, boy," he went on with an effort. - I have to tell you, all at once, in case I lose consciousness again. Bandage my hands so I don't lose too much blood. Fix your legs and get the scuba gear off me. He suffocates me.

I tried to pull him off,” Davy said in a low voice. - I can't, I don't know how.

Gotta get it, okay? - Ben shouted as usual, but immediately realized that the only hope to save both the boy and him was to make Davy think for himself, to confidently do what he had to do. You have to somehow inspire this boy.

I'll tell you, son, and you try to understand. Do you hear? Ben could barely hear himself and for a second he even forgot about the pain. “You, poor thing, will have to do everything yourself, it just so happened. Don't be upset if I yell at you. There's no offense here. You don't have to pay attention to it, you understand?

Yes. - Davy bandaged his left hand and did not listen to him.

Well done! - Ben wanted to cheer up the child, but he did not succeed very much. He did not yet know how to find an approach to the boy, but he understood that it was necessary. A ten-year-old child had to perform a task of inhuman difficulty. If he wants to survive. But everything must be in order...

Get the knife out of my belt,” Ben said, “and cut all the scuba straps. - He himself did not have time to use the knife. - Use a thin file, it will be faster. Do not cut yourself.

Good, - said Davy, getting up. He looked down at his blood-stained hands and turned green. - If you can raise your head even a little, I will pull off one of the belts, I unfastened it.

OK. Will try.

Ben lifted his head and wondered how hard it was for him to even move. The attempt to move his neck again drove him to faint; this time he fell into a black abyss of excruciating pain that seemed to never end. He slowly came to his senses and felt some relief.

Is that you, Davy? .. - he asked from somewhere far away.

I took off your scuba gear, - he heard the trembling voice of the boy. But you still have blood running down your legs.

Don't mind your legs," Ben said, opening his eyes. He raised himself to look at what form he was in, but was afraid to lose consciousness again. He knew he wouldn't be able to sit up, much less stand up, and now that the boy had bandaged his hands, his upper body was also shackled. The worst was yet to come, and he needed to think it over.

The only hope to save the boy was the plane, and Davy would have to fly it. There was no other hope, no other way out. But first you need to think about everything properly. The boy must not be scared. If Davy is told that he will have to fly the plane, he will be horrified. It is necessary to think carefully about how to tell the boy about this, how to inspire him with this idea and convince him to do everything, even if unconsciously. I had to grope my way to the fear-ridden, immature mind of the child. He looked fixedly at his son and remembered that he had not looked at him properly for a long time.

"He seems to be a developed guy," Ben thought, surprised at the strange way he thought. This boy with a serious face was somewhat similar to himself: behind childish features, perhaps, a tough and even unbridled character was hidden. But the pale, slightly high-cheeked face now looked unhappy, and when Davy noticed his father's gaze, he turned away and began to cry.

Nothing, baby, - Ben said with difficulty. - Nothing now!

You will die? Davy asked.

Am I that bad? Ben asked without thinking.

Yes, - answered Davy through tears.

Ben realized that he had made a mistake, he needed to talk to the boy, considering every word.

I'm kidding, he said. - It's nothing that bleeds out of me. Your old man has been in such alterations more than once. Don't you remember how I ended up in the hospital in Saskatoon then?

Davy nodded.

I remember, but then you were in the hospital ...

Of course of course. Right. - He stubbornly thought about his own, trying not to lose consciousness again. - Do you know what we'll do to you? Take a big towel and spread it around me, I'll roll over on it, and we'll somehow get to the plane. Is it coming?

I can't get you into the car," the boy said. There was sadness in his voice.

Eh! - said Ben, trying to speak as softly as possible, although it was torture for him. You never know what you're capable of until you try. You're probably thirsty, but there's no water, is there?

No, I don't want to drink...

Davy went for a towel, and Ben said to him in the same tone:

Next time we'll grab a dozen Coke. And ice.

Davy spread a towel beside him; Ben twitched on his side, it seemed to him that his arms and chest and legs were torn apart, but he managed to lie on his back on the towel, resting his heels on the sand, and he did not lose consciousness.

Now drag me to the plane,” Ben said in a barely audible voice. - You pull, and I will push off with my heels. Don't pay attention to the pushes, the main thing is to get there as soon as possible!

How will you fly the plane? Davy asked him from above.

Ben closed his eyes; he wanted to imagine what his son was going through right now. "The boy should not know that he will have to drive the car - he will be scared to death."

This little Auster flies by itself,” he said. - One has only to put it on course, and it is not difficult.

But you can't move your hand. And you don't even open your eyes.

And don't think about it. I can fly blind and control with my knees. Let's move. Well, carry on.

He looked up at the sky and noticed that it was getting late and the wind was picking up; this will help the plane take off, if, of course, they can taxi into the wind. But the wind will be oncoming all the way to Cairo, and the fuel will be short. He hoped, hoped with all his heart that the khamsin, the blinding sandy wind of the desert, would not blow. He should have been more prudent - stock up on a long-range weather forecast. That's what happens when you become an air cab driver. Either you're being too careful, or you're acting recklessly. This time - which happened to him not often - he was careless from the beginning to the end.

For a long time they climbed the slope; Davy pulled, and Ben pushed off with his heels, constantly losing consciousness and slowly coming to his senses. Twice he fell down, but at last they got to the plane; he even managed to sit down, leaning against the rear of the car, and look around. But sitting was a living hell, and fainting became more and more frequent. His whole body now seemed to be torn apart on the rack.

How are you? he asked the boy. He gasped, exhausted from the tension. “You seem to be completely exhausted.

Not! Davy shouted furiously. - I am not tired.

Ben was surprised by his tone: he had never heard protest in the boy's voice, let alone rage. It turns out that the face of the son could hide these feelings. Is it really possible to live with your son for years and not see his face? But now he couldn't afford to think about it. Now he was fully conscious, but the attacks of pain were breathtaking. The shock passed. In fact, he was quite weak. He felt blood oozing from his left arm, but he could not move his arm, leg, or even a finger (if he still had fingers). Davy himself will have to lift the plane into the air, guide it and land it on the ground.

Now,” he said, moving his parched tongue with difficulty, “we need to pile stones at the door of the plane. Taking a breath, he continued:

If you pile them higher, you will somehow be able to drag me into the cockpit. Take the stones from under the wheels.

Davy immediately set to work, he began to pile up the coral fragments at the left door - from the side of the pilot's seat.

Not by this door,” Ben said carefully. - The other one. If I climb from this side, the steering will interfere with me.

The boy gave him a suspicious look and went back to work with vehemence. When he tried to lift a rock that was too heavy, Ben told him not to overexert himself.

You can do anything in life, Davy,” he said in a weak voice, “as long as you don’t overstrain yourself. Don't get overwhelmed...

He did not remember giving his son such advice before.

But it will be dark soon,” said Davy, having finished stacking the stones.

Is it getting dark? Ben opened his eyes. It was not clear whether he dozed off or lost consciousness again. - It's not twilight. This is duet khamsin.

We can't fly, the boy said. - You can't fly the plane. Better not to try.

Oh! Ben said with that deliberate gentleness that made him even sadder. The wind will carry us home.

The wind could take them anywhere but home, and if it blows too hard, they won't see any signposts, airfields, or anything.

Come on, - he said again to the boy, and the boy began to drag him again, and Ben began to push off until he found himself on a makeshift step made of coral block near the door. Now the hardest part remained, but there was no time to rest.

Wrap a towel around my chest, get on the plane and drag me, and I will push off with my feet.

Oh, if only he could move his legs! That's right, something happened to the spine; he had almost no doubt that in the end he would die after all. It was important to reach out to Cairo and show the boy how to land the plane. This will be enough. On this he put his only bet, it was his farthest sight.

And this hope helped him get on the plane; he crawled into the car, doubled over, losing consciousness. Then he tried to tell the boy what to do, but he couldn't utter a word. The boy was terrified. Turning his head towards him, Ben felt it and made another effort.

- Didn't you see I pulled a movie camera out of the water? Or left it at sea?

He's down by the water.

Go get it. And a small bag of film. - Then he remembered that he hid the captured film in the plane to protect it from the sun. - Film is not needed. Just take the device.

The request sounded casual and was supposed to calm the frightened boy; Ben felt the plane tilt as Davy jumped to the ground and ran after the craft. He waited again, longer this time, for his full consciousness to return. It was necessary to delve into the psychology of this pale, silent, wary and too obedient boy. Oh, if only he knew him better!

Fasten your seat belts, he said. - Will you help me. Remember. Remember everything I say. Lock your door...

Fainting again, Ben thought. He fell into a pleasant, light sleep for a few minutes, but tried to hold on to the last thread of consciousness. He clung to her: after all, in her alone was the salvation of his son.

Ben did not remember when he cried, but now he suddenly felt causeless tears in his eyes. No, he is not going to give up. Never!..

Your old man's gone mad, huh? - Ben said and even felt a slight pleasure from such frankness. Things were going well. He groped his way to the boy's heart. - Now listen...

He went far, far away again, and then he returned.

You'll have to take care of it yourself, Davy. Nothing to do about. Listen. Are the wheels free?

- Yes, I removed all the stones.

Davy sat with clenched teeth.

What is it that shakes us?

He completely forgot about the wind.

That's what needs to be done, Davy, - he said slowly. - Move the throttle stick an inch, no more. Straightaway. Now. Put your whole foot on the pedal. Good. Well done! Now flip the black switch next to me. Excellent. Now press that button over there, and when the engine starts, move the throttle a little more. Stop! Put your foot on the left pedal. Once the engine is running, give it full throttle and turn into the wind. Do you hear?

I can do it,” the boy said, and Ben thought he heard a sharp note of impatience in his son's voice, somewhat reminiscent of his own voice.

When you taxi into the wind, give forward the handle. Get started! Start the motor.

He felt that Davy leaned over him and turned on the starter, and heard the engine sneezed. If only he did not move the handle too sharply until the motor started! "Did! By God, I did!” Ben thought as the motor started up. He nodded, and the tension immediately made him sick. Ben realized that the boy was stepping on the gas and trying to turn the plane around. And then he seemed to be swallowed up by some agonizing noise; he felt tremors, tried to raise his hands, but could not, and came to his senses from the too strong roar of the engine.

Turn off the gas! he shouted as loudly as he could.

Okay! But the wind won't let me turn around.

Are we up against the wind? Did you turn against the wind?

Yes, but the wind will blow us over.

He felt the plane rocking in all directions, tried to look out, but his field of vision was so small that he had to rely entirely on the boy.

Release the brake, Ben said. He forgot about it.

Ready! Davy replied. - I let him go.

Well, let go! Can't I see? Old fool… Ben scolded himself.

Then he remembered that because of the noise of the engine he could not be heard and he had to shout.

Listen further! It's quite simple. Pull the handle towards you and hold it in the middle. If the car jumps, nothing. Understood? Slow down. And keep it straight. Hold it against the wind, don't pick up the pen until I tell you to. Take action. Don't be afraid of the wind...

He heard the roar of the engine grow stronger as Davy stepped on the gas, felt the jolts and sway of the car as it made its way through the sand. Then she began to slide, picked up by the wind, but Ben waited until the shocks became weaker, and again lost consciousness.

Do not dare! he heard from afar.

He came to his senses - they had just lifted off the ground. The boy obediently held the pen and did not pull it towards him; they struggled over the dunes, and Ben realized that it took a lot of courage from the boy not to pull the handle out of fear. A sharp gust of wind confidently picked up the plane, but then it fell into a hole, and Ben became excruciatingly ill.

Climb three thousand feet, it'll be quieter there! he shouted.

He should have explained everything to his son before the start: now it would be difficult for Davy to hear him. Another stupidity! You can't lose your mind and keep doing stupid things!

Three thousand feet! he shouted. - Three.

Where to fly? Davy asked.

Get up high first. Above! Ben shouted, afraid that the chatter would frighten the boy again. From the sound of the engine one could guess that it was working with an overload and that the nose of the aircraft was slightly raised; but the wind will support them, and this will last for several minutes; looking at the speedometer and trying to focus on it, he again plunged into darkness, full of pain.

He was brought to himself by engine failures. It was quiet, there was no more wind, he remained somewhere below, but Ben heard how he was breathing heavily and was about to give up the engine.

Something happened! Davy shouted. - Listen, wake up! What happened?

Raise the mixture lever.

Davy did not understand what to do, and Ben failed to show it to him in time. He clumsily turned his head, hooked his cheek and chin under the handle and lifted it an inch. He heard the engine sneezed, exhausted, and started up again.

Where to fly? Davy asked again. - Why don't you tell me where to go?!

With such a fickle wind, there could not be a straight course, despite the fact that it was relatively calm up here. It remained to stay on the coast until the very Suez.

Walk along the coast. Stay to the right of him. Do you see him?

I see. And is this the right way?

According to the compass, the course should be about three hundred and twenty! he shouted; it seemed his voice was too weak for Davy to hear, but he did.

"Good guy! thought Ben. He hears everything.

According to the compass three hundred and forty! Davy screamed.

The compass was at the top, and its scale was visible only from the pilot's seat.

That's good! Good! Correctly! Now go along the shore and keep to it all the time. Only, for God's sake, don't do anything else, - said Ben; he heard that he no longer spoke, but only mumbled indistinctly. Let the machine do its own thing. Everything will be alright Davy...

So, Davy still remembered that you need to level the plane, keep the desired engine speed and speed! He remembered it. Good guy! He will fly. He'll do it! Ben saw Davy's sharply defined profile, his pale face with dark eyes in which it was so hard for him to read anything. The father looked at that face again. “No one even bothered to take him to the dentist,” Ben said to himself, noticing Davy's slightly protruding teeth, who grinned painfully, straining from tension. But he can handle it, Ben thought tiredly and conciliatory.

It seemed that this was the end, the end of his whole life. Ben fell into the abyss, over the edge of which he had clung for so long for the sake of the boy. And as he fell deeper and deeper, he had time to think that this time he would be lucky if he got out of there at all. He fell too deep. And the boy will be lucky if he comes back. But, losing the ground under his feet, losing himself, Ben still had time to think that the khamsin was getting stronger and darkness was approaching, and it was not him who would have to land the plane ... Losing consciousness, he turned his head towards the door.

Left alone at a height of three thousand feet, Davy decided that he would never be able to cry again. He was in tears for the rest of his life.

Only once in his ten years did he boast that his father was a pilot. But he remembered everything that his father told him about this plane, and guessed a lot that his father did not say.

Here, at the top, it was quiet and light. The sea seemed completely green, and the desert - dirty; the wind lifted a veil of dust over it. Ahead, the horizon was no longer so clear; the dust rose higher and higher, but he still did not lose sight of the sea. Davy understood the cards. It was easy. He knew where their map was, pulled it out of the bag on the door and thought about what he would do when he flew up to Suez. But, in general, he knew even that. From Suez the road led to Cairo, it went west through the desert. Flying west will be easier. The road is easy to see, but he recognizes Suez because the sea ends there and the canal begins. There you have to turn left.

He was afraid of his father. True, not now. Now he simply could not look at him: he was sleeping with his mouth open, half-naked, covered in blood. He didn't want his father to die; he didn't want his mother to die, but there's nothing to be done: it happens. People are always dying.

He didn't like the plane flying so high. This made my heart skip a beat, and the plane was going too slowly. But Davy was afraid to go down and get into the wind again when he got to the landing. He didn't know how to be. No, he did not want to descend in such a wind, he did not want the plane to dangle in all directions again! The plane will not then obey him. He will not be able to lead it in a straight line and level it to the ground.

Maybe the father is already dead? He glanced over and saw that he was breathing heavily and infrequently. Tears, which Davy thought had all dried up, filled his dark eyes again, and he felt them flow down his cheeks. Having licked them with his tongue, he began to follow the sea.

Ben felt as if his body was being pierced and torn apart by icy arrows from the jolts; his mouth was dry, he slowly came to his senses. Looking up, he saw dust, and above it a dull sky.

- Davy! What happened? What are you doing? he shouted angrily.

We have almost arrived, - said Davy. But the wind has picked up and it's already getting dark.

Ben closed his eyes to realize what had happened, but he did not understand anything: it seemed to him that he was already coming to his senses, indicating the course to the boy, and then losing consciousness again. The torture continued and the pain increased.

What do you see? he shouted.

Airfields and buildings of Cairo. There is a large airfield where passenger planes come.

Rocking and pushing cut off the boy's words; they seemed to be lifted up by a current of air a hundred feet, only to be thrown down in an agonizing fall of a good two hundred; The plane rocked violently from side to side.

Don't lose sight of the airfield! Ben shouted through a fit of pain. - Follow him! Don't take your eyes off him. - He had to shout it twice before the boy heard it; Ben said quietly to himself: "For God's sake, Davy, now you have to hear everything I say."

The plane does not want to go down, - said Davy; his eyes widened and seemed to occupy his whole face now.

Turn off the motor.

Turned off, but nothing happens. I can't put the handle down.

Pull the trimmer handle,” Ben said, raising his head up to where the handle was. He thought about the shields, but the boy would never be able to release them, he would have to do without them.

Davy had to get up to reach the handle on the wheel and move it forward. The nose of the plane dropped and the car went into a dive.

Turn off the motor! Ben shouted.

Davy took off the gas, and the wind began to throw the glider up and down with force.

Watch the airfield, make a circle over it, - Ben said and began to gather all his strength for the last effort that he had to do.

Now he needs to sit down, straighten up and watch through the windshield for the approach of the earth. The decisive moment arrived. It is not so difficult to lift the plane into the air and fly it, but to land it on the ground is the task!

There are big planes, - shouted Davy. - One seems to be starting ...

Watch out, turn around! Ben shouted.

It was pretty useless advice, but inch by inch Ben was getting up; it helped that the nose of the plane was lowered. Leaning against the trembling door and resting his shoulder and head against it, he stubbornly, with the last of his strength, climbed up. Finally, his head was so high that he could rest it against the board with the instruments. He lifted his head as far as he could and saw the ground approaching.

Well done! he shouted to his son.

Ben was trembling and sweating, he felt that only his head remained alive from his entire body. There were no more arms or legs.

Levi! he shouted. - Give me a pen! Push it to the left! Move more to the left! Rot more! Good! It's all right, Davy. You'll be fine. Left! Push the handle down...

I'll crash into a plane.

Ben saw a large plane. The plane was no more than five hundred feet away, and they were heading straight for it. It's almost dark. Dust hung over the ground like a yellow sea, but a large four-engine plane left a strip of clean air behind it, which means that the engines were running at full power. If he started, and did not check the motors, everything will be in order. You can’t land behind the flight path: the ground is too uneven there.

Ben closed his eyes.

Starting…

Ben forced his eyes open and glanced over the nose of the car as it rocked up and down; the big DK-4 was only two hundred feet away, blocking their path, but moving at such a speed that they had to miss each other. Yes, they will break. Ben felt Davy pull the handle back in horror.

It is forbidden! he shouted. - Push it down...

The plane's nose went up and they lost speed. If you lose speed at such an altitude, and even with this wind, they will be blown to pieces.

Wind! - shouted the boy; his face froze and turned into a tragic mask; Ben knew that the last inch was approaching and everything was in the hands of the boy ...

There was a minute left before landing.

Six inches! he shouted to Davy; his tongue seemed to be swollen with tension and pain, and hot tears flowed from his eyes.

Six inches, Davy! Stop! It is too early. It's still early... - he cried.

At the last inch that separated them from the ground, he still lost his composure; fear took hold of him, death took hold of him, and he could no longer speak, scream, or cry; he leaned against the board; there was fear for himself in his eyes, fear of this last dizzying fall to the ground, when the black runway approaches you in a cloud of dust. He tried to shout: “It's time! It's time! It's time!" - but the fear was too great; at the last, mortal moment, which again brought him back to oblivion, he felt the nose of the plane slightly rise, heard the loud roar of the engine that had not yet stalled, felt how, having hit the ground with its wheels, the plane gently jumped into the air, and the agonizing waiting began. But then the tail and wheels touched the ground - it was the last inch. The wind whirled the plane, it skidded and described a circle on the ground, and then stopped, and there was silence.

Ah, what silence and what peace! He heard them, felt them with his whole being; he suddenly realized that he would survive - he was so afraid of dying and did not want to give up at all.

In life, decisive minutes often come and decisive inches remain, and in the tormented body of the pilot there were bones and blood vessels that decide the whole matter, which people did not suspect. When it seems that everything is already over, they take their toll. Egyptian doctors were surprised to find that Ben had an inexhaustible supply of them, and the ability to restore torn tissues seemed to have been given to the pilot by nature itself.

It all took time, but what did time mean to a life that hung in the balance? Ben was still unaware of anything, except for the ebb and flow of pain and rare glimpses of consciousness.

It's all about adrenaline, - the curly-haired Egyptian doctor laughed out loud, - and you produce it like atomic energy!

Everything seemed to be going well, but Ben still lost his left arm. ("Strange," he thought, "I could have sworn my right hand had more.") I had to deal with the paralysis, which the curly-haired healer stubbornly called "a little nervous shock." The shock turned Ben into a motionless and very fragile fragment - the correction could not go quickly. But still, things were going well. Everything except Ben's left hand, which went to the incinerator, but that would have been nothing if his profession as a pilot had not gone there as well.

However, in addition to everything, there was also a boy.

He is alive and well, the doctor said. - Didn't even get a shock. - The curly-haired Egyptian made funny jokes in perfect English.

He is more mobile than you.

So the boy is all right. Even the plane survived. Everything was in the best possible way, but the meeting with the boy decided the matter: here everything would either begin or end again. And maybe forever.

When Davy was brought in, Ben saw that it was the same child, with the same face, that he had first seen so recently. But it was not at all what Ben saw: it was important to find out if the boy managed to see something in his father.

How are you, Davy? he said timidly to his son. - It was good, wasn't it?

Davy nodded. Ben knew that the boy didn't think it was great at all, but the time would come and he would understand. Someday the boy will understand how great it was. It was worth putting your hands on it.

Your old man has fallen apart, hasn't he? - he asked.

Davy nodded. His face was still serious.

Ben smiled. Yes, to be honest, the old man really fell apart. They both need time. He, Ben, would now need all his life, all the life that the boy had given him. But, looking into those dark eyes, those slightly protruding teeth, that face, so unusual for an American, Ben decided that the game was worth the candle. It's worth taking the time. He will get to the very heart of the boy! Sooner or later, he will get to him. The last inch that separates everyone and everything is not easy to overcome if you are not a master of your craft. But being a master of your craft is the duty of a pilot, and Ben was once a very good pilot.

Translation - E. Golysheva, B. Izakov.

James Aldridge. Favorites. Kharkov, "Vishcha school", 1985.

“What do I care about all of you? And you before me? .. "

James Aldridge was born on July 10, 1918 in the town of White Hills in the Australian province of Victoria. Studied at Melbourne Commercial College. In 1938 he moved to England. During World War II he worked as a journalist and war correspondent.

The writer maintained good relations with the Soviet regime, which may have been one of the reasons for his relatively modest reputation in the Western world. Aldridge's works were constantly translated into Russian and printed in the USSR. In 1973, in the Soviet Union, he was awarded the Lenin Prize "For the strengthening of peace between peoples" (from Wikipedia).

The design of the story uses frames from the film "The Last Inch" (based on the story by J. Aldridge), staged in 1958 by directors Teodor Vulfovich and Nikita Kurikhin. Starring Slava Muratov and Nikolai Kryukov.

At the 1960 All-Union Film Festival in Minsk, the film received the first prize for the work of the operator (Samuil Rubashkin) and four second - among children's films, for the work of the director, composer (Moses Weinberg) and the male role (Nikolai Kryukov).

Moses Weinberg graduated from the Belarusian Conservatory, participated in the creation of the films The Cranes Are Flying and The Tiger Tamer.

The role of Ben Ansley was intended for Georgy Zhzhenov, but went to Nikolai Kryukov, an actor of the Riga Drama Theater, who even matched his hero in age. Kryukov played in many films, but the audience remembered him precisely for The Last Inch.

Ben's famous song (verses by M. Sobol) was performed in the film by Mikhail Ryba, who was called the "Soviet Paul Robeson", who had a rare singing voice - basso-profundo. Listen to this recording:

The film based on the story of James Aldridge was loved, loved and, I think, will continue to be loved by millions of viewers.

Its enduring popularity is evidenced, for example, by the fact that Andrei Makarevich, the leader of the Time Machine group, became interested in scuba diving after watching it.

From an interview with the USSR pilot-cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Mikhailovich Grechko:

In your destiny, I heard, the film "The Last Inch" played a certain role?

I have never been a good boy. I have always been attracted by height, speed, impulse. As for the mentioned film, on the contrary, it could interrupt my path to the stars. I was attracted by aviation, I flew on an airplane and a glider, jumped with a parachute. Since there were books about scuba diving, I made myself a mask and began to swim underwater. The film "The Last Inch" had both aviation and the underwater world. That's why I watched it so many times. We recorded the soundtrack from this film on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. They knew the whole movie by heart, all the dialogues and lines. And the film was for children, and it was only in the morning. So I had to run away from work. To my misfortune, when I ran away from work, Korolev gathered those who had proven themselves well with him to organize the first group of future cosmonaut-flight engineers. They all wrote applications and submitted it to the Chief Designer. And then I wrote a statement and handed it over to the personnel department. By the way, last year on my seventy-fifth birthday I was presented with this statement of mine in a frame. Found somewhere in the personnel department. On it there is an inscription in pencil "Not in the lists." Because I skipped the meeting during the Last Inch session.

Re-reading the story again, I caught myself thinking - how much it resembles the mood of Hemingway! Take, for example, The Old Man and the Sea. By the way, for this story (1952), Ernest Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

And in the same 1958 as The Last Inch, the American film The Old Man and the Sea was shot in the USA by director John Sturges.

Alas ... Reminds me not of one. The more I read about the work of Aldridge, the more often it sounded in various reviews - “Hemingway mood”.

What united the generations of the 50s, 60s, perhaps even the 70s, if we talk about the West? A portrait of Hemingway on the wall, Remarque's "Three Comrades" memorized and love for the Soviet, but such a "Western" film - "The Last Inch". I don’t know if Remarque and Hemingway are being read in the post-Soviet space, but, oddly enough, the film is still loved, although the attitude towards Aldridge has undergone a noticeable transformation.

And yet - "Hemingway's mood" ... Two cult writers - Hemingway and Remarque - two different attitudes. Oddly enough, but the heroes of Remarque were mentally closer to the Soviet people, despite Western realities, and all the less interesting. They could be imitated, they could be loved, but ... it was impossible to bow before them. The motives of their behavior and way of life are too clear. The collectivism habitual to us reduced pathos. Remarque does not have lone heroes - two friends, three comrades, a front-line brotherhood ... Even the beloved heroes, amazing, unearthly women, became part of the team. Everything, how are we? Perhaps yes.

Whether business - novels and stories of Hemingway! Everything in them is imbued with individualism, all the actors are separated from each other by invisible partitions. And even when they do not find themselves in extreme conditions alone, everyone makes a decision on their own, relying only on themselves, on their strengths, skills, and intelligence. This opportunity to measure one's strength against fate, to challenge it and win was inaccessible and therefore especially attractive. Before the heroes of Hemingway, one could bow, to some extent imitate them. It is more difficult with love - they did not give a chance, having fenced themselves off from readers with their individualism, this very “partition”. After all, even their own women very rarely could destroy it, and the love unity of the hero and his beloved was the exception rather than the rule.

Aldridge's story is undoubtedly imbued with just this mood. Two individuals connected by blood relationship, but separated by the same invisible partition, and there is no guarantee that in the future something will change in their relationship.

Will the hero's son become stronger after a brutal adventure? Most likely. Kinder? And God knows! The thought of kindness was inspired, of course, by another boy, another character from Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea." The common mood of the two writers continues its magical effect on the imagination of readers.

Paloma, June 2007

James Aldridge

LAST INCH

But with flights on the "DS-3", when you lift an old car, it used to be in the air in any weather and fly over the forests anywhere, it was over. Working in Canada gave him a good temper, and it is not surprising that he ended his flying life over the deserts of the Red Sea, flying the Fairchild for the Texegypto oil export company, which had oil exploration rights all over the Egyptian coast. He flew the Fairchild over the desert until the plane was completely worn out. There were no landing sites. He landed the car wherever geologists and hydrologists wanted to get off - on the sand, on the bush, on the rocky bottom of dry streams and on the long white shallows of the Red Sea. The shallows were the worst: the smooth-looking surface of the sands was always littered with large pieces of white coral with razor-sharp edges, and if not for the low centering of the Fairchild, it would have turned over more than once due to a puncture of the camera.

But all this was in the past. The Texegypto Company abandoned costly attempts to find a large oil field that would give the same profits as Aramco in Saudi Arabia, and the Fairchild turned into a miserable ruin and sat in one of the Egyptian hangars, covered with a thick layer of multi-colored dust, all slashed from below narrow, long cuts, with frayed cables, with some semblance of a motor and devices that are suitable only for a landfill.

It was all over: he was forty-three, his wife left him at home on Lynnen Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and healed as she liked: she rode the tram to Harvard Square, bought groceries in a store without a salesperson, visited her old man in a decent wooden house - in a word, she led a decent life worthy of a decent woman. He promised to come to her in the spring, but he knew that he would not do this, just as he knew that he would not get a flight job in his years, especially the one he was used to, he would not even get it in Canada. In those parts, supply exceeded demand, even when it came to experienced people; Saskatchewan farmers taught themselves how to fly their Pipercabs and Austers. Amateur aviation deprived many old pilots of a piece of bread. They ended up being hired to serve the mining departments or the government, but such work was too decent and respectable to suit him in his old age.

And so he was left with nothing, except for an indifferent wife who did not need him, and a ten-year-old son who was born too late and, as Ben understood in the depths of his soul, a stranger to both of them - a lonely, restless child who, at ten years old, felt that his mother is not interested in him, and his father is an outsider, sharp and laconic, not knowing what to talk about with him in those rare moments when they were together.

And now it was no better than ever. Ben took the boy with him on the Auster, which bobbed wildly at two thousand feet above the Red Sea coast, and waited for the boy to get seasick.

If you feel sick," Ben said, "crouch lower to the floor so as not to stain the entire cabin.

Good. The boy looked very unhappy.

Are you afraid?

A little, - the boy answered in a quiet and shy voice, unlike the rough voices of American children. - And from these shocks the plane will not break?

Ben did not know how to comfort his son, he told the truth:

If the machine is not monitored and checked all the time, it is bound to break down.

And this ... - the boy began, but he was very sick, and he could not continue.

This one is all right, - said the father with irritation. - Pretty good plane.

The boy lowered his head and wept softly.

Ben regretted taking his son with him. In their family, generous impulses always ended in failure: both of them were like that - a dry, whining, provincial mother and a sharp, quick-tempered father. During one of his rare bouts of generosity, Ben once tried to teach the boy how to fly an airplane, and although the son turned out to be very quick-witted and quickly learned the basic rules, every shout of his father brought him to tears ...

Do not Cry! Ben ordered him now. - You don't have to cry! Raise your head, do you hear, Davy! Get up now!

Sit up straight, he said to Davy, if you want to learn how to land.

Ben knew that his tone was harsh, and he always wondered why he couldn't talk to a boy. Davy raised his head. He grabbed the control board and leaned forward. Ben let off the throttle and, after waiting until the speed slowed down, he pulled hard on the trimmer handle, which was very awkwardly located on these small English planes - at the top left, almost overhead. A sudden shock shook the boy's head down, but he immediately raised it and began to look over the lowered nose of the car at a narrow strip of white sand near the bay, like a cake thrown onto this deserted shore. My father flew the plane right there.

How do you know which way the wind blows? the boy asked.

On the waves, on the clouds, by flair! Ben called to him.

The Last Inch 1957 Story Summary Read in 4 minutes original - 45 minutes Working in Canada on an old DC-3 aircraft gave Ben a "good temper", which in recent years has led him to fly a Fairchild over the Egyptian deserts, looking for oil for the oil export companies. To land the geologists, Ben could land the plane anywhere: "on the sand, on the bush, on the rocky bottom of the dry streams and on the long white shallows of the Red Sea", each time "reclaiming the last inch above the ground." But now this work is over: the company's management has abandoned attempts to find a large oil field. Ben is 43 years old. The wife, unable to bear life in the "foreign village of Arabia", left for her native Massachusetts. Ben promised to come to her, but he understood that in his old age he would not be able to get hired as a pilot, and “decent and decent” work did not attract him. Now Ben has only ten-year-old son Davy, whom his wife did not consider it necessary to take with her. It was a closed child, lonely and restless. His mother was not interested in him, and the boy was afraid of his father, sharp and laconic. For Ben, the son was a strange and incomprehensible person, with whom he did not even try to find a common language. And now he regretted that he had taken his son with him: the rental plane was “sharp” and it was shaking a lot, and the boy was sick. Taking Davy to the Red Sea was another generous move by Ben that rarely ended well. During one of these impulses, he tried to teach the boy how to fly an airplane. Although Davy was a quick-witted child, his father's rude shouts eventually brought him to tears. On the secluded coast of the Red Sea, Ben was driven by a desire to earn money: he had to shoot sharks. The television company paid well for a meter of film with such a film. By landing the plane on a long sandbank, Ben forced his son to watch and learn, although the boy was very ill. “It's all about the last inch,” the pilot instructed. The shallows formed Shark Bay, so named because of the toothy inhabitants. After giving his son a few sharp orders, Ben disappeared into the water. Davy sat on the shore until dinner, looking at the deserted sea and thinking what would happen to him if his father did not return. Predators were not very active today. He had already shot several meters of film when a cat shark became interested in him. She swam too close, and Ben hurried to get ashore. During dinner, he discovered that he had taken only beer with him - he again did not think about his son, who does not drink beer. The boy asked if anyone knew about this trip. Ben said that this bay can only be reached by air, he did not understand that the boy was not afraid of uninvited guests, but to be left alone. Ben hated and was afraid of sharks, but after dinner he dived again, this time with the bait - a horse's foot. With the money he received from the film, he hoped to send Davy to live with his mother. Predators gathered around the meat, but the cat shark rushed at the man ... Covered with blood, Ben got out onto the sand. When Davy ran up to him, it turned out that the shark had almost torn off Ben's right arm and severely injured his left. The legs, too, were all cut and chewed. The pilot realized that his affairs were very bad, but Ben could not die: he had to fight for Davy. Only now the father tried to find an approach to the boy in order to calm him down and prepare him for an independent flight. Constantly losing consciousness, Ben lay down on a towel and kicked off the sand with his feet, while his son dragged him to the "Oster". So that his father could climb into the passenger seat, Davy piled stones and pieces of coral in front of the plane door and dragged his father along this ramp. Meanwhile, a strong wind picked up and it began to get dark. Ben sincerely regretted that he did not bother to get to know this gloomy boy and now he cannot find the right words to cheer him up. Following his father's instructions, Davy barely lifted the plane into the air. The boy remembered the map, knew how to use the compass, and knew that he had to fly along the seashore to the Suez Canal, and then turn towards Cairo. Ben was unconscious most of the way. He woke up when they flew up to the airfield. "Ben knew the last inch was coming and the boy was in control." Raising himself in his chair with incredible effort, the father helped his son into the car. At the same time, they miraculously missed each other with a huge four-engine aircraft. To the surprise of Egyptian doctors, Ben survived, although he lost his left arm along with the ability to fly planes. Now he had one concern - to find a way to the heart of his son, to overcome the last inch separating them.

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