2-35（在线收听）

35.

The seating arrangement eventually became less of an issue. Day by day the Apache felt less alien,and some days it even felt good.

I learned to be alone in there, to think alone, function alone. I learned to communicate withthis big, fast, nasty, beautiful beast, to speak its language, to listen when it talked. I learned toperform one set of skills with my hands, while doing another with my feet. I learned to appreciatehow phenomenal this machine was: unthinkably heavy, yet capable of ballet-like suppleness. Themost technologically complex helicopter in the world, and also the most nimble. I could see whyonly a handful of people on earth knew how to fly Apaches, and why it cost millions of dollars totrain each of those people.

And then…it was time to do it all at night.

We started with an exercise called “the bag,” which was just what it sounded like. TheApache’s windows were covered and you felt as if you were inside a brown-paper bag. You had totake all data about conditions outside the aircraft through instruments and gauges. Eerie,unnerving—but effective. You were forced to develop a kind of second sight.

Then we took the Apache up into the actual night sky, made our way around the base, slowlyexpanded beyond. I was a bit trembly the first time we sailed across Salisbury Plain, over thosedesolate valleys and woods where I’d crawled and dragged my arse through those first exercises.

Then I was flying over more populated areas. Then: London. The Thames glistening in thedarkness. The Millennium Wheel winking at the stars. The Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben,and the palaces. I wondered if Granny was in, and if she was awake. Were the corgis settling downwhile I did these graceful whirls over their fuzzy heads?

Was the flag up?

In darkness I became fully proficient with the monocle, the most astonishing and iconic part ofthe Apache’s technology. A sensor in the Apache’s nose transmitted images through a cable, up tothe cockpit, where it fed into the monocle, which was clipped to my helmet, in front of my righteyeball. Through that monocle I got all my knowledge of the outside world. All my senses werereduced to that one small portal. It felt at first like writing with my toe or breathing through myear, and then it became second nature. And then it became mystical.

Circling London one night, I was suddenly blinded, and thought for half a second that I mightdrop into the Thames. I saw bright colors, mostly emerald green, and after a few seconds Irealized: someone on the ground had hit us with a laser pen. I was disoriented. And furious. But Itold myself to be grateful for the experience, for the practice. I was also perversely grateful for thestray memory it knocked loose. Mohamed Al Fayed, giving Willy and me laser pens fromHarrods, which he owned. He was the father of Mummy’s boyfriend, so maybe he was trying towin us over. If so, job done. We thought those lasers were genius.

We whipped them around like light sabers.