The Disappearance A Second Time Round

    Both the Colonel and Thorpe stood by and witnessed their ex-colleague go on his flight of discovery. Had they any notion of what would befall him as he laid eyes on The Village once again? Had they been “in on it” all the time, it’s difficult to say one way or the other and in that lies the ambiguity of the situation. And the same can be asked of the Group Captain, was he too “in on it” or was he simply overpowered by the milkman? Either way the milkman was awfully swift in changing out of his milkman’s attire and into this flying suit and helmet. How many minutes would that have taken him, especially if he had to remove the flying suit from the Group Captain’s unconscious body. Then again, you will recall how the Group Captain wasn’t quite ready, did he deliberately hang back in the kitting out room waiting for the milkman? Again more ambiguity.

    I wonder what the Colonel’s reaction was when the news eventually reached him of the disappearance of the Gloster Meteor jet aircraft? That his ex-colleague had died in an air accident at sea. Would that have sounded alarm bells I wonder, if he had been on the level all the time. And how extensive would the search have been once the wreckage of the Meteor jet was discovered, if it was discovered, a small aircraft in a very large sea. And how long would a search have been carried out, a few days I should have thought. The aircraft would have been crashed deliberately at sea, the pilot having been picked up by the crew of M.S. Polotska. This is of course speculation, as one cannot tell how the Colonel would have reacted to the news of the second disappearance of his ex-colleague. If he was in on it all the time he’d probably just shrug it off, on the other hand had he been on the level all the time he might have asked some questions. As it is the Colonel is guilty of assisting an old, old friend on his way back to The Village.

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