The Shepherd

The Vampire suffers a complete electrical failure mid flight, leaving the instruments and radio dead. With limited control, the pilot relies on basic piloting skills to keep the aircraft stable. He decides to use a triangular navigation pattern to attract attention from air traffic control and be shepherded toward safety.

Low on fuel and shrouded in fog, the pilot begins flying small triangles. The pattern is intended to be detected on radar so air traffic control can guide other aircraft to locate him and shepherd him to Merriam St George. He hopes this will lead him to the nearest airstrip before he runs out of fuel.

During the triangle flight the Vampire encounters a World War II era Mosquito fighter-bomber. The Mosquito pilot uses hand signals to issue flight commands, and the Vampire notices the Mosquito nose bearing the letters JK.

Following the Mosquito's signals, the Vampire is guided toward a landing path. Through the fog, runway lights come on, enabling a landing with fuel nearly exhausted. The Mosquito's guidance brings him to a location that will serve as a landing strip at RAF Minton.

Expecting the usual emergency response, the Vampire finds no fire trucks or ambulances waiting. Instead only a flight lieutenant and a 70-year-old civilian mess steward are on duty at the storage depot. The runway lights had been left on and never disconnected.

A late-night call to RAF Merriam St George reveals that no local pilots were authorized to fly that foggy evening and therefore the air traffic control tower was unstaffed. The pilot is left to contend with the situation without official shepherding. The absence of help deepens the mystery of what guided him there.

The meteorological squadron confirms that the Mosquito aircraft used to forecast weather had been scrapped three months earlier. The old style Mosquito he followed cannot be from current service. This revelation deepens the mystery surrounding the guiding plane.

With no official explanation, the pilot speculates that someone bought one of the old Mosquitoes and happened to be flying on Christmas Eve. He imagines that the operator saw a plane in distress and used the Mosquito to direct it to the storage depot airstrip. He cannot verify this, but the theory fits the strange coincidence.

The flight lieutenant informs the pilot that Joe, the mess steward, is preparing a room for him. Joe lights a fire in the room and brings him food, staying to talk through the night. Through Joe's stories, the narrative gains a human anchor after the tense incident.

Joe reveals a framed photo of a young pilot beside a Mosquito with JK painted on the nose. He explains that John Kavanaugh would refuel his Mosquito and go out alone to search for crippled bombers to guide them home. Kavanaugh died on Christmas Eve 1943 when his plane went down in the North Sea.

With the connection to Kavanaugh established, the pilot contemplates that the ghostly Mosquito may have carried the same mission across generations. Yet the identity of the actual guider remains unresolved, a Christmas Eve myth that links past and present. The encounter leaves him with more questions than answers.

The tale closes on a note of legacy and loss, tracing a quiet link between a brave WWII pilot and a trapped Vampire pilot. The memory of Kavanaugh and the old Mosquito stands as a silent testament to courage across generations. The present pilot is left with a haunting sense that some stories never fully end.