Panic

~8~

As the sun rose higher the boats drew closer, their crew waving and calling us. A massive grin exploded on to my face as I hugged both Alex and Tommy.

Their coloured frames of crimson, emeralds, whites, ebony, navy, violet and every colour under the sun danced with the waves, the crystal blue waters reflecting little flickering spots of light against the sides of the vessels.

I felt this wave of hope and determination rise within me, that was nothing I had ever felt. It drove my mind and empowered me.

As Alex and I both began to rise to our feet, Tommy let out a sharp warning.
"Sit back down both of you!"
That's when I noticed the tilt of the bough, and just how high the water had risen since the night. We were still sinking.

I tried my best to distribute my weight on the small patch of metal we had remaining, but I could still see the green waters creeping across the dulled iron.

The boats were too far away still for any hope of swimming over there, but I could see something happening. One of the spitfires was no longer in view. The empty space in the formation had been replaced by a messchersmidt, chasing down the second spitfire. I shied at the noise of gunfire, but non of the bullets fell near our little crew.

Suddenly smoke exploded from the German plane, the yellow nose cone obscured by white clouds. It was loosing altitude drastically, but in a last ditch attempt, the pilot let out a round of shots.

The spitfire lit up in sparks, and soon enough smoke was billowing from the back end. A second later the sound of the gunfire reached our ears, the delay creating the affect that the battle was still going on, though from the vision flickering in front of my eyes I knew it had been won.

The hurricane was still flying, circling round as the pilot evidently marked where the first spitfire had crashed, no visible trace of it from where I gazed out across the endless sea.

The German plane had disappeared from my field of vision, crashed into the sea probably, but the spitfire was still gliding. It pitched up slightly, giving the pilot a chance to alter the angle and keep the plane flying flat. If he let the nose drop he would plummet into the sea just like the messchersmidt.

My heart was in my mouth as I spun my head round to follow the Spitfire's path through the sky. The feeling of safety my father had associated with these planes had been replaced by sheer fear. If these giants of war could be shot down so easily, who was to say they could provide us with any protection when the final battle came.

The plane was only a hundred metres off the ground now. The pilot cut the engine, and attempted to slow it down enough for the hope of a clean landing. Just as the water was rushing up to meet the plane, the nose was tilted up and the metal frame crashed into the sea, sending spurts of water into the air and shockwaves radiating around it. The glass roof of the cockpit shifted slightly, a hand waving out, and the breath I had been holding in was suddenly released.

One of the civilian yachts was pulling in towards the spitfire, and as a young man helped the pilot out the plane and hauled him up onto the boat I felt an odd sense of relief.

The pilot was stood on the deck now, blonde hair dampened and a towel round his shoulders. His facial features barely visible but I could tell one thing: his blue eyes were focused on our little group.