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Chapter 5
He found himself being shaken awake by the head hijacker. He slowly opened his eyes and looked round, and tried to stretch, forgetting that he couldn’t as he was bound to his seat.
The hijacker in a calm, friendly voice said, “Glad you’re awake, just in time for lunch, the stewardess will be around with food in a minute. I am somewhat curious though, how you alone, can manage to sleep, when it would appear that most of your fellow passengers seem to be in a state of great agitation?”
“What else am I supposed to do? I’m sat here by myself, tied to my seat, unable to move, with a threat of being gagged if I speak. I might as well go to sleep and slip off to a different reality. Speaking of reality, how am I supposed to eat any lunch when I’m trussed up like a turkey? Am I supposed to use magical thought patterns and levitate the food into my mouth?”
The hijacker let out a hearty laugh before replying, “I see that the time you’ve spent sleeping hasn’t diminished your sense of humour. I hadn’t got around to telling you, that if you promise to behave then I will untie one of your arms long enough for you to enjoy your meal. Of course it goes without saying that any funny business on your part shall result in even more rope to bind you, plus a gag, and a blindfold just for the sake of it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I understand, I just hope that there’s nothing that needs an effort to cut up, as that may pose problems with only one free hand.”
“Tell me something, are you awkward by nature, or do you have to practise?”
“I don’t believe that I’m awkward, it’s just that I tend to think things through a lot, and quite quickly, and don’t necessarily worry about what I say to people, or who I say it to.”
“Yes, I have noticed this little quirk in your personality, but I wonder whether there is something else with you, as it would be difficult to find anyone else as blasé about the situation that you are in. Anyway, I have many other things to do. Just remember, no funny business.”
With that the hijacker went back to the cockpit, and left him to his own thoughts again. He tried looking around, but found his movements restricted by his bindings, and was unable to twist enough to see anything behind him. He settled down and waited for lunch to be served.
A couple of minutes later the somewhat worried looking stewardess came round and placed his food in front of him. He looked down and instead of finding the expected first class gourmet meal, he found himself confronted with the standard class meal on a tray, with a yoghurt, small white bread roll, orange juice, and some as yet unidentified pre heated meal, with it’s foil still covering the small plastic container. He thought about complaining and asking where his first class meal was, but decided that under the current circumstances he’d be better off keeping his mouth shut.
The other hijacker in the first class compartment came over and untied his left arm, well untied, the forearm. With this he managed to take the foil lid of the meal, to find himself faced with some kind of pasta bake. He took his fork and started to eat, he had had better but it was edible. He finished it reasonably quickly, surprised at how hungry he found himself, and moved on to his bread roll. He tried spreading the butter onto it, but found that the combination of the butter being bullet-proof, the roll being very soft, and only one arm to use made this virtually impossible. He gave up and used the bread to mop up the slop left in the bottom of the plastic container that had housed his pasta. The yoghurt was a “winter fruits” selection, and tasted vaguely of blackberry, and was gone in what seemed to be just seconds. He washed the whole lot down with the miniscule carton of insipid orange juice.
He sat reasonably still as he waited for a stewardess to bring him a choice of coffee or tea. Despite being a regular visitor to England, he had never understood their passion for tea, as it always tasted and smelt as if it shouldn't be an everyday drink, that it would be better suited as some kind of medicine. As no one in their right mind would really choose to drink it. You'd have to have something wrong with you to be able to force it down.
As his mind was wandering, the stewardess came over to his seat and asked him if he wanted coffee. He said yes quickly before she took it away and whoever was carrying the teapot arrived and tried to pour that. He watched the stewardess pour the coffee into his little white plastic cup. As he watched her, he could see that she was struggling to keep her hand steady as she poured the liquid in to his cup. He looked up and caught her eye, and could immediately see the fear residing in her eyes, and felt as if he could almost read her mind, certain that she was wishing that she was anywhere apart from here, on this particular plane serving food and drink, while some madmen had control of the plane and everyone on it.
In fact this was true. Her name was Andrea Bittern, and she was only on this particular flight because she was doing a favour for a friend. She was supposed to have been on the British Airways flight to New York, but had agreed to a last minute swap with a colleague, who had desperately wanted a stop over in New York, so that she could meet up with her latest beau. Andrea hadn't minded as she hadn't been to Philadelphia before, and this particular flight included a 36-hour stopover, due to the airline scheduling, and the minimum 8-hour rest between flights. It would appear now though, that she wouldn't be going to Philadelphia after all, but instead to Greenland, where god only knows what was going to happen. If she survived whatever was going to happen, she was sure of one thing, if she remained a stewardess, something that was by no means certain, there wasn't a hope in hell that she'd be swapping flights with anyone again.
As the stewardess walked away he looked at his coffee and suddenly felt an urge to take the cup of hot liquid and throw it in the face of one of the hijackers, and try to overpower him. The urge faded as quickly as it had arrived as common sense kicked in. For a start he wouldn't get very far, while for the main part he was tied to his seat, and secondly he really wasn't the hero type. He had enough difficulties being responsible for himself, let alone trying to be responsible for everyone else. He really didn't need that on his conscience.
Instead he picked up his cup, and started to drink the coffee. It was hot, but not too hot to drink immediately. He took his coffee black, and savoured the bitter taste as he swallowed it greedily. He wasn't what most people would consider a regular coffee drinker, in fact it was fairly rare for him to drink coffee. However when he did have coffee, he enjoyed the strong bitter taste that black coffee had, and thought of it as sacrilege to spoil it by adding either milk or sugar.
Despite the fact that he had drank his coffee almost as soon as he had it in his hand, he had no sooner put his cup down, than a different stewardess appeared by his seat and collected his tray, that now consisted of empty wrappers, and very little else. The new stewardess, he noted, seemed even more nervous than the previous one, and was reluctant to even make eye contact with him. It suddenly dawned on him why this was, why should she risk being friendly with what was obviously the most troublesome passenger, who had managed to get himself bound to his seat, within only minutes of the plane being hijacked.
He realised that his position was a strange one, caused by his own strange sense of humour, and his somewhat bizarre ability to laugh at things that no one else would even consider to be even slightly amusing. In fact the only person who laughed at anything more inappropriate than he did was Dr. Hibbert from the Simpsons, and he was a fictional character. Despite himself he found himself laughing gently again, and only stopped when he turned to his right only to see the big boss man of the hijackers standing to his side, with a look of bemusement on his face.
"Yet again, I find you laughing at nothing in particular, you are indeed a most peculiar chap."
What was a gentle laugh now broke out into a full volume guffaw, as the imagery of the hijacker being the perfect English gentleman invaded his consciousness. Images of him being sat in a gentleman's club sipping Pimms, and saying "Splendid show old chap", rushed into his mind, and he found himself genuinely amused.
The hijacker however was not so amused, and made it clear. "Have I said something that you find amusing?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to share your amusement with me?"
"Not really."
"Why not?"
"Would you like to share the reason you have decided to hijack this plane with me?"
"Not yet, though you will find out in time, as will everyone on the plane, but only when I decide the time is right."
"Is it going to be soon, or have I got time to have another little sleep?"
"In case you hadn't noticed, I am the hijacker here, and I will be the one asking the questions, and you, strictly speaking are a hostage, and as such you will give answers to my questions."
"I have been giving you answers, but I can't be held responsible if the answers you get are not to your liking."
The hijacker eyed him warily for a few seconds, before breaking into a laugh of his own. "I think that in different circumstances that I would have liked to have known you as a friend, you have a sharp wit, and an ability to laugh that seems to be missing from most on the run of the mill types that one meets these days. However this still leads me to believe that under the current circumstances you may well be a dangerous man, and therefore I think that your free arm shall be re-bound."
He waited until the hijacker had turned round before offering his parting shot. "Excuse me, but could you tell me what the in flight movie is, and when it's due to start."
The Hijacker stopped, looked over his shoulder briefly, and then shook his head and went into the cockpit shaking his head. Almost immediately, his happy go lucky compadre arrived at his seat and started on the task of securing his free arm back to the arm of the seat. Whilst being secured he sat there smiling at the underling, which in return got a dirty look, and he was quite sure, a glimmer of hatred in the underling's eyes. Once he was fully secured the underling growled through gritted teeth at him, "Be thankful that he," indicating the big boss man, "is a patient person, if I was in charge, you would have been shot by now and dumped into the cargo holding area."
Unable to resist he responded, "You see that's why he's in charge, he has the ability to think, whereas, it would seem that you have only just about mastered the ability of learning how to speak."
The underling raised his gun, and for a split second it looked like he would get shot, however, as if realisation had suddenly dawned, the underling lowered the gun, turned quickly, and stomped off to another part of first class. He wondered just what had got into him. He hadn't recalled any death wish tendencies recently, and yet here he was antagonising hijackers, that as far as he could tell were carrying loaded weapons. With this thought, he closed his eyes and tried to relax. He was surprised to find that this was remarkably easy to do, and within a matter of moments he was asleep again.