Pearl- Draft Cover Mk 2

 

Testing cover ideas for Pearl. I've finally gor the tailcode right, but it took some effort. FX-P. Here's another bit from the Work in Progress...

First Sight

 

RAF Scampton, February 4, 1944

Dawn, ground visibility: 20 metres

Group Captain Wakefield stepped outside his office.

The fog was even worse that morning. It clung low, thick as wool, swallowing sound before it travelled. Someone joked in the mess: “Even the sun’s not reporting for duty.”

But on the runway, in the cold watch of morning, he stood with his coat buttoned high, collar turned up, gloves held in one hand.

He hadn’t intended to be there. But he couldn’t sleep. Too many letters unfinished. Too many names without forms yet.

He heard the engines first.

Not the rumble of Merlins—they had their own rhythm. Familiar. This was smoother. Lower. Almost beneath hearing. Like a breath inhaled and held.

At first, he saw nothing. Just the fog.

Then—

A silhouette began to form. Low. Wide. Lancaster profile—but wrong.

•           The wings: too smooth.

•           The belly: sleeker than standard.

•           The paint: no shine, no markings.

•           No serial. No name. Just the tailcode:

FX-P

She coasted down the runway in perfect silence. No screech. No rattle. No brake hiss. As if the air itself moved aside to let her pass. One ground crewman crossed himself. Another whispered: “She’s too quiet.”

Wakefield narrowed his eyes. The fog drifted, parting in swirls around her frame—not lifted by wind, but displaced.

He stepped closer. From the side, he could see the bomb bay—closed, but flush to the fuselage like a sealed scar.

No rivets.

No panel seams.

No visible controls.

Just the spiral. Barely visible. Etched like a watermark near the nose.

The ladder dropped. The hatch opened.

No one stepped out.

Not yet.

Behind him, his adjutant spoke, voice just above a whisper.

“She doesn’t look built.”

Wakefield shook his head.

“She doesn’t look… tired.”

That was the strangest thing. Every other aircraft on the base bore the wear of war—soot, scratches, history in their skin.

But this one— She looked like she’d just arrived from a place where time was still clean.

A breeze moved through the airfield then. And for just a second, the fog pulled back enough to see her whole—

FX-P.

Dark as mourning. Silent as breath. Waiting, not to take off…

…but to begin something different.