Target Ambrose
It had not been Ambrose’s intent to take a walk so late on a Saturday night, but when he finally emerged from the pub he saw that a passing wind storm had done some damage. One of the rusted hangers from which the “George and Dragon” sign hung had been persuaded to let go. The sign was now lying in the hedge a little further down the road, after probably cartwheeling its way there. Across the road, Mrs. Ottersen’s clothesline had collapsed and her now-not-so-clean petticoats and bloomers lay strewn in a most compromising muddle on the muddy lawn. Ambrose was surprised she had even hung out washing that afternoon, as the weather had not looked promising. Perhaps she had counted on it getting a good blow before the rain started, and then had forgotten to bring it in. She was going to have to wash the whole load again.
Ambrose then had to consider the rickety section of fence along the perimeter of his top field. He had done several makeshift repairs, only to have the sheep breach the weak spot in their desire to seek new horizons. But he was lucky each time, in that he was close by and was able to retrieve the flock before it had gone too far. What if the sheep breached the fence in the middle of the night? They could be far away by morning. Ambrose knew he had better check the fence before going to bed, and cursed himself for not having repaired it properly back in the summer, when the weather was good and the hours of daylight long. Now he would have to go in the dark.
He stopped by the farmhouse first to change his shoes for Wellington boots, because he knew he would have to slug through a few mud patches. He also put on his heavier coat and stuffed the pockets with basic tools. He put on sturdy gloves and grabbed the spool of barbed wire. The storm had passed, but the sky was still heavy with thick clouds. Even if the sky had been clear, the moon was new and would have cast very little light, making it hard to find the way. Ambrose’s mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the fence and the sheep, and he was rather relaxed from the many pints of cider he had quaffed in the pub. Partly from habit formed over many years when times were different, and partly from careless oversight, Ambrose lit a lantern to take with him to light the way.
Ambrose was not in church the next morning, hardly a rare occurrence, but one that did arouse concern when his wife did not find him at any of his usual hangover recovery places — his favorite being the small stack of straw bales at the entrance to the dairy. His two brothers, Seymour and Curtis, went out to look for him. They did not find much, other than some gruesome leftovers in a small crater about a half mile from the house, along with much shrapnel and tangled barbed wire, and his ratty old tweed hat, which had somehow survived intact — no surprise of Ambrose’s wife who had unsuccessfully attempted to destroy it numerous times. Some remains of the lantern were found. And then it was not hard to surmise what had happened.
This rural part of England had been spared much of the bombing, and there had not been an air raid in weeks. No one even recalled hearing enemy aircraft of any kind that night. But it appeared that a German bomber pilot, possibly having become separated from his squadron after bombing the crap out of the industrial machinery of South Wales, found himself flying home alone over the blacked-out southwest of England…. and saw a single light burning…. and had a bomb or two left to drop!
