1974 School Magazine

PRIZE WTNNERS IN THE Q.A.T.I.S. LITERARY COMPBTITION SectionC-2ndPrize TREES Trees ere likc dancers to the music of the wind They are wind instruments They are a lealy greenness As cool and dizzy as a deep pool They are refreshing They sympathize with the seasons They are like a heautiful block ol llats full ol busy homes They are domineering to the younger plants Yet they have a reason lo be Ancient, olcl, swaying, swinging, ,singing,-to an Autumn breeze Mighty, majestic, tall and graceful. Helen Rose SECTIONA-lstPRIZE Pilots o,f the Balkan Seaboard Above, on the smooth stone wall, Poul lay naked to the sun. Waves smashed below him, and the morning air hummed with the sound of the planes. Nikolai climbed up beside his brother, and said gravely. "You'd better get dressed. Mum won't like you running round in nothing." "I'm not lunning round", returned Poul. He raised his head and saw Nikolai's form stretching up black against the bright sky, like the Colossus of Rhodes. "AIex is out there", he said. "Where?" "With Ilyavich. In his plane." "oh." Poul watched a beetle travel along the mortar, and halt at Nikolai's foot. Its feelers waved in perplexity, then it made a valiant effort to mount the wet toe. Poul nudged it gently to the edge of the wall, then flicked it with his finger. With an angry buzz it was airborne, and the light dazzled on its spreading wings as, like a miniature plane, it zoomed off into the seaspray. Suddenly Niko- lai's arms began to flail like a windmill, and Poul looked up and saw the sun eclipsed as a seaplane passed low over them. leading a tempest of wind and song of the air. "Oh look!" cried Nikolai. "Did you see? Alex is piloting! Now he's bringing her down." The plane settled and bobbed on its floats. Then there was a blonde head in the water beneath the broad wing, and brown arms were striking through the waves. "That's Alex! He's swimming back, Poull Oh, he's crazy - he'll never make it with the tide going out!" In agitation Nikolai leapt from the wall, and ran to the half-submerged steps down to the sea. Water tugged at his knees, and the salt-stiff hair curtained his eyes. The plane whirred and scythed along the wavetops, trailing white and slowly rising. Alex disappeared then bobbed to the world again, coughing and kicking out towards the distant line of sandstone.

Then there were three of them on the old sea wall: Poul, wriggling in discomfort on the burn- ing stones, Nikolai, staring out to where the sea- planes bobbed and pivoted, and Alexandrovich, his head between his knees, water running off his back in gleaming rivulets. He looked up, still panting and choking out seawater, and gasped, "That was good." "We didn't think you'd make it, did we, Niki?" "'Course I made itl What d'you take me for? Hey - didn't I handle llya's big white bird like a professional?" "You nearly knocked me into the water," said Nikolai. Alex stretched luxuriously in the sun. Only his red shorts, low and tight on his hips, were still wet. Nikolai looked covertly at the shoulders now broader than his own, and the curving muscles in the legs with their golden down covering. "I s'pose you're going off to be a pilot with that Ilyavich now?" he said. Alex smiled briefly; his mature smile. "That's right - oh, just look at that take-offl I'm flying again this afternoon, if Ilyavich can manage it. He's not actually allowed to let me, you know. but no-one cares here; it'd be differ- ent at the Training Base. But as soon as I'm eighteen I'm going there - then I'11 have my own plane." Nikolai stretched his long legs out before him, and shook the hair back from his face. "I'm never going to be a pilot," he said. Poul grinned his cherub grin; "I am." "You might have to," said Alex. "Ilyavich says war is almost certain to come within the next year. Whosever side we end up on, we'll still have to fight. It'll be fun, Niki! "Pilots of the Balkan Seaboard." Isn't that an honourable title?" "What's honourable about war?" asked Nikolai. "People killing each other, and ruining things for ever, and - and -" "Fighting for your country's honourable." Nikolai shook his head. "No. No. Only in defence, and Hitler says -" "And who believes what Hitler savs? Look at Austria, Niki." "Stalin seems to." "Stalin is a cunning old fox. He'll not let Hitler get one over him, you may be sure." "Anyway," accused Nikolai, "since when have you wanted to be a pilot? I thought you wanted to be the ambassador to France." "Oh, well ." said Alex carelessly, "at least I've got an open mind." He began-to whistle through his teeth, and lay back, haif-closing his eyes against the sun. "And," continued Poul, taking up the inter- rogation, "I also thought you didn't like Ilyavich Molohov. You didn't like him at school last year, you didn't like him when he beat you in that swimming race, and you didn't even like him a month ago. What's happened?"