Following the Baron
written by: Ruth C. Morgan
I smell bacon, coffee, hear eggs frying. My stomach rumbles.
‘Greg, get up!’ Mum shouts.
I pull my clothes on and race to the table.
Saturday – flying lessons.
I eat quickly, anxious to be gone.
I taste the bacon, feel the egg yolk running down my chin.
I roll over. A stray wire digs into my back. It is silent in the pre-dawn.
Dad works at the airport. He comes home with the tang of avgas clinging to his overalls and sweeps me into his arms, bristles rubbing against my skin.
A faint glimmer of light outside. Shouting, tin whistles, rattles, and metallic clangs. In the courtyard, my stage is ready.
Cold beads of moisture on my skin. The rank smell of fear.
It is today.
The postman arrives, delivering a bulky box, handed ceremoniously to my father.
I sit up, slinging my feet over the edge, onto a cold concrete floor.
A tear runs down my cheek, then another.
My birthday present. A cold knot of disappointment settles in my gut. Something practical, a jumper, socks – not what my heart was set on.
‘Open it Greg…’ my father urges.
I tear open the packing, nestled within something red. My screams of joy fill the air.
Another tear escapes.
A plane with black crosses on the wings, a radial engine. A tin replica of the Red Baron’s Fokker biplane. In its cockpit, an envelope. My trembling fingers tear it open. A gift voucher – Whitworth Flying School. 10 prepaid lessons.
On my cell wall a photo, the Red Baron’s Fokker. Dog-eared, finished, like me.
I race around the house making aeroplane noises, my parents laugh. I am an exuberant adult of 12, a golden ticket to the future in my pocket.
I hang around airports, answering the siren call other pilots recognised. At 14, I fly solo. Lift, avionics, the complex calculations of a flight plan second nature.
My parents are proud of my marks at school. I excel at subjects that fuel my dreams. My reputation for ruthlessness grows. I walk over others without thought.
At 18, I leave home. The battered Fokker is abandoned on a shelf.
Flying is more potent than any drug, more exhilarating than love. My addiction leaves room for nothing else. I fly for whoever pays me. I follow my destiny as von Richthofen followed his.
My career ends on a dirt runway in Colombia. Dragged from the cockpit at gunpoint. Trucks overflowing with armed troops emerge from the jungle. I am beaten, convicted, and jailed. All drug runners met the same end.
I wish we’d never bought that toy, my mother mourns.
The door opens.
In the courtyard a concrete post.
I am chained and blindfolded. I am 26, the same age as the Baron.
A metallic grating of rifle bolts.
I wait for the last three words I will hear.
Ready.
Aim.
Fire.
- Following the Baron - July 17, 2026
- The Return - April 9, 2026
- Ready, Set, Go - April 23, 2024
