The Story of James Aldridge " The last inch"Is often compared with" The Old Man and the Sea "by Ernest Hemingway. There are many related moments in the work of writers. These are, first of all, the themes that occupied the writers, a similar system of values, problems and central characters of the works. However, it is impossible to equate the famous Australian and American.

Aldridge reimagines the theme of courage. Abolishing romance and mysticism, the author portrays heroism in an everyday manner. His prose is devoid of beauty and artistic delights... The author's writing style is capacious, precise, somewhat dryish somewhere, but by no means primitive. Thanks to deep psychologism and drama, Aldridge's "male" prose does not leave anyone indifferent. Her laconicism turns out to be very eloquent.

Having started his writing career as a war correspondent, James Aldridge has achieved success in journalism and literature. From 1944 to 1945, it is located on the territory of the USSR. An ardent anti-fascist, Aldridge admires the fortitude and courage of the Soviet people. In Russia, the talented European was loved and even awarded the Lenin Prize "For Strengthening Peace Among Nations." But in the West, the friend of the Land of the Soviets was not particularly favored. Aldridge has never been a media writer like, say, Hemingway.

Over the years, political ambitions have remained in the past, only art is immortal - brilliant novels written by Aldridge in the 50s and 40s ("A Matter of Honor", "Sea Eagle", "Diplomat", "Hunter", "Hero of Desert Horizons "), Journalism and masterpieces of short prose (stories and stories" Shark Cage "," Russian Finn "," The Last Inch "and others).

The Last Inch is a gem of little prose by James Aldridge. She is invariably included in the collected works of the writer. And world cinema has immortalized the plot of the work on the screen. The domestic audience is well aware of the cult film from directors Nikita Kurikhin and Theodor Vulfovich. He came out on Soviet screens in 1958. The main roles were played by Slava Muratov (Davey) and Nikolai Kryukov (Ben).

James Aldridge believed that fiction should be based on real life experience... The Last Inch was no exception. The main character the story is a professional pilot. The writer was well acquainted with the flying business - in his youth he attended the London pilot courses.

The events of the work are developing in Egypt. Aldridge did not know about this exotic country from books. Long time he lived in Cairo and even dedicated the book “Cairo. Biography of the city ". The idea for The Last Inch was born after visiting Shark Bay in Egypt. There subsequently Aldridge moved his literary heroes- pilot Ben and his ten-year-old son Davey.

Let us recall how the events of the story "The Last Inch" developed.

Flying is Ben's main passion. Even after twenty years at the helm of an airplane, he takes great pleasure in hovering above the clouds, and as a youth rejoices at another virtuoso landing. The sky is the only place where Ben is truly happy. He has a wife and a ten-year-old son, Davey. However, family members are strangers to each other. The wife, who was always weighed down by travel and the languid heat of Egypt, finally returned to her native Massachusetts. Davey, who was "born too late", was not needed by his parents. A lonely restless child grew up withdrawn and, for sure, suffered from the indifference of the mother and the indifference of the father.

But Ben didn't care. He was worried about only one thing - the prospect of an early retirement. The pilot's age is short. At forty-three, Ben was already considered an old man. Finding work became more and more difficult. He took on any tasks, the main thing is that they pay a lot. Having earned money, you can send Davey to his mother, and rush to Canada himself. There, perhaps, it will be possible to hide the age and continue to fly.

Ben now works for a television company. He flies to Shark Bay, which can only be reached by air, and makes underwater photography. The work is dangerous, but highly paid. Ben flew to Shark Bay for the last time that day.

In a fit of paternal feelings, which were rarely manifested, Ben took Davey on the flight. Already at the beginning of the journey, he mentally cursed himself for a rash act. He did not know his son at all, the presence of the boy weighed down on him. Ben was annoyed every now and then and could not understand what this silent, dark-eyed boy was thinking.

To somehow defuse the situation, the father teaches his son: “When you level the plane, you need the distance to be six inches. Not a foot or three, but exactly six inches! If you take it higher, you will knock on landing and damage the plane. Too low - you get on a bump and turn over. It's all about the last inch. "

Arriving at the bay, Ben notes with annoyance what a lousy father he is - he took only beer and not a drop of water, forgetting that a ten-year-old boy does not drink alcohol. The child has to pour some beer to quench his thirst in the desert heat.

The first dive is successful. Ben takes a lot of great shots. After taking a short nap on the shore, he puts on his scuba gear again - he needs to photograph a cat shark. To attract the predator, Ben takes a specially brought horse leg. Nestling in the ledge of the reef, he captures how sharks, one after another, fly up to the bait and bite into fresh meat with their powerful jaws. But the "cat" is not swimming to the leg, it rushed straight at Ben. Only now does he notice a fatal mistake - the blood from a horse leg has stained his arms and chest - he is doomed.

The next moment, Ben is seized by the thought of Davey. The bay can only be reached by the sky. Nobody knows that the boy and his father flew here. When Davey starts looking, he will already die of thirst and hunger. Ben is absolutely not allowed to die here under water. Making superhuman efforts, he fights off the predator and swims ashore.

Waking up after a short fainting spell, Ben realizes that he is still alive. However, the shark severely crippled him - his legs were completely cut, one hand was covered in blood, the other was practically torn off. Ben gives himself one single directive - to live the day, to bring his son to the city. In between fainting, he asks Davey to dress his wounds, drag him to the plane, get ready for takeoff. The main thing is that the boy does not get scared, does not panic. Poor fellow, he still does not suspect that he will have to drive the car alone! And he, Ben, does not know his son at all. It is necessary to unravel the psychology of this dear and such a stranger boy.

Davey endures trials stoically. He may be ten, but today his father's life depends on him. He understands maps and knows how to fly to Cairo. “Left alone at three thousand feet, Davey decided he could never cry again. His tears have dried up forever. " However, the most crucial moment is still ahead - landing and the last inch. Nearly crashing into a plane taking off, the ten-year-old pilot and his bleeding father land. There is silence. Ben closes his eyes. Now you can die.

However, fate played another joke - pilot Ben did not die. Egyptian doctors called him lucky - numerous wounds healed before our eyes. True, the victim lost one arm, as well as a pilot's career.

But Ben didn't care. He was worried about only one thing - how to get to the heart of his son. After the tragedy, this suddenly became of paramount importance. Airplanes, money, even a lost hand — it all seemed trifling now. Ben knows he has a long and hard job ahead of him. But he is ready to devote his whole life to her. The life that the boy gave him. The game, my father is convinced, is worth the candle.

Due to its versatility, the story "The Last Inch" is interesting to a wide range of people. An intriguing plot, a tension that does not abate until the very end, attracts a mass reader. The psychological line, which develops in parallel with the adventurous, represents a vast field for literary research.

The problem of survival and relationships

The story states two problems: human behavior in extreme conditions (the theme of courage in the face of death) and the relationship between father and son. Both problems are closely related.

The main characters (Ben and Davey) do not perform feats for the sake of the people or the whole of humanity, each of them just saves his own life. But the scale of the "battle" in no way diminishes the value of the feat. Ben has no right to die, because his cowardly death will destroy his son. Ten-year-old Davey does not allow himself to cry and be frightened like a child, he is forced to save himself, because this is the only way to help out dad.

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James Aldridge

"The last inch"

Working in Canada on an old DC-3 plane gave Ben a "good temper", thanks to which last years he flew a Fairchild over the Egyptian deserts, looking for oil for an oil exporting company. To land the geologists, Ben could land the plane anywhere: "on the sand, on the bushes, on the rocky bottom of dry streams and on the long white shoals of the Red Sea," each time "reclaiming the last inch above the ground."

But now this work is over: the company's management has given up trying to find a large oil field. Ben is 43 years old. His wife, unable to withstand life in the "foreign village of Arabia", left for her native Massachusetts. Ben promised to come to her, but he understood that in his old age he would not be able to hire a pilot, and "decent and decent" work did not attract him.

Now Ben has only a ten-year-old son, Davy, whom his wife did not consider it necessary to take with her. It was an introverted child, lonely and restless. His mother was not interested in him, and the boy was afraid of his abrupt and laconic father. The son was a stranger to Ben and an incomprehensible person with which he didn't even try to find mutual language.

And now he regretted that he had taken his son with him: the "sharp" rental plane was shaking strongly, and the boy was nauseous. Taking Davy to the Red Sea was another of Ben's generous impulses that rarely ended well. During one of these impulses, he tried to teach the boy to fly an airplane. Although Davy was a quick-witted child, his father's rude shouts eventually brought him to tears.

On the secluded coast of the Red Sea, Ben was led by a desire to make money: he had to shoot sharks. The television company paid well for the footage of such a film. Landing the plane on a long sandbank, Ben forced his son to watch and study, although the boy was very ill. “It's all about the last inch,” the pilot instructed.

The sandbank formed Shark Bay, so named because of the toothy inhabitants. After giving his son a few harsh orders, Ben disappeared into the water. Davy sat on the shore until dinner, looking at the deserted sea and thinking what would happen to him if his father did not return.

The predators weren't very active today. He had already shot several meters of film when a cat shark became interested in him. She swam too close, and Ben hurried to the beach.

During lunch, he discovered that he had taken only beer with him - he again did not think about his son who does not drink beer. The boy wondered if anyone knew about this trip. Ben said that you can only get to this bay by air, he did not understand that the boy was not afraid of intruders, but of being alone.

Ben hated and feared sharks, but after dinner he dived again, this time with a horse's leg bait. With the money he received for the film, he hoped to send Davy to his mother. The predators gathered around the meat, but the cat shark rushed at the person ...

Bleeding, Ben climbed onto the sand. When Davy ran up to him, it turned out that the shark almost tore Ben right hand and severely damaged the left. The legs were also all cut and chewed. The pilot realized that his affairs were very bad, but Ben could not die: he had to fight for Davy's sake.

Only now did the father try to find an approach to the boy in order to calm him down and prepare him for an independent flight. Loosing consciousness every minute, Ben lay down on a towel and kicked off the sand while his son dragged him to the "sharp". So that his father could climb into the passenger seat, Davy piled stones and pieces of coral in front of the plane door and dragged his father along this ramp. Meanwhile rose strong wind and it began to darken. Ben sincerely regretted that he had not bothered to recognize this gloomy boy and now cannot find the right words to cheer him up.

Following his father's instructions, Davy barely lifted the plane into the air. The boy remembered the map, knew how to use the compass and knew that he had to fly along the sea coast to the Suez Canal, and then turn to Cairo. Ben was unconscious most of the way. He woke up when they flew up to the airfield. "Ben knew that the last inch was approaching and everything was in the hands of the boy." With incredible efforts, he raised himself in his chair and helped his son to put the car. At the same time, they miraculously missed a huge four-engined aircraft.

To the surprise of the Egyptian doctors, Ben survived, although he lost left hand along with the ability to fly planes. Now he had only one concern - to find a way to the heart of his son, to overcome the last inch separating them.

Ben worked in Canada on a DC-3 plane, after which he switched to a Fairchild No. and flew over the Egyptian deserts. He was looking for oil to land geologists, because he managed to land a plane anywhere. But on this moment there was no work, the oil prospecting company decided to abandon the search for a large oil field. Ben is already 43 years old, and his wife, tired of such a life in a "foreign village", returned to Massachusetts. Ben told her he would be back soon, but he didn't want to.

Together with Ben, his ten-year-old son Davy stayed, his wife did not want to take him with her. The boy was very withdrawn and lonely. His mother did not deal with him, and he was afraid of his father, but Ben did not try to find a common language with him. Ben took Davy with him to the Red Sea, where he hoped to make money by shooting sharks. During the flight, Davy got seasick, and when Ben landed the plane, he made his son watch how it was done, despite the fact that he felt bad. “It's all about the last inch,” the pilot instructed.

Ben left Davy on the shore and went into the water to shoot sharks. The boy sat on the beach and wondered what to do if his father did not return.

On this day, the sharks were not very active, and only one swam so close that Ben had to return to the shore. Later, Ben realized that he took only beer, and did not think about the boy.

The boy asked his father if anyone knew that they were here, to which he received the answer that it was possible to get here only by air. Ben did not understand that the boy is not afraid of guests, but of being alone. And Ben dreamed that with the money he earned, he would send the boy to his mother.

When Ben went to shoot sharks again, the cat shark pounced on him. Bleeding, he climbed onto the sand. Davy, who ran up to him, saw that the shark tore off his father's right hand and hooked his left, and also bit his legs.

Davy pulled his father to the plane, put him in the passenger seat. Ben, in turn, regretted that he could not get to know his son better and find a common language with him. Davy listened to his father's instructions and took the plane into the air. The boy knew the way home well and knew how to use the compass. Ben was unconscious all the way. He came to his senses when they flew up to the airfield. "Ben knew that the last inch was approaching and everything was in the hands of the boy." Getting up with difficulty, the father helped his son to land the plane.

J. Aldridge. "Father and Son" (Based on the story "The Last Inch")

Figure English writer James Aldridge is interesting for his stormy activities in the struggle for peace. He witnessed the battles during World War II war in Berlin, he is the author of combat reports, and after the war - works of political content. Along with these two themes, his works are also devoted to the assertion of the moral staunchness of a person.

So, journalist, writer, anti-fascist, fighter for peace, author of front-line reports, works of political content, who asserted the moral fortitude of a person - this is the spectrum of Aldridge's activities.

It is the moral staunchness of man that the story "The Last Inch" is devoted to. To study it, students can use the prepared by the publishing house "Children's literature"By the book" Father and Son ". It is important that seventh graders understand why the author named his story "The Last Inch". What did he mean by this title? Why was the bay named Shark?

Students retell close to text Ben's meeting with sharks, showing the swiftness with which events unfolded that led the hero to the tragic end of the planned operation. They will track how sharks behave:

“The sharks came immediately, smelling the scent of blood ... They rushed straight at the piece of horse meat. Ahead was a spotted cat, followed by two or three sharks of the same breed, but smaller. They didn’t float or even move their fins — they rushed forward like gray streaming rockets. Having approached the meat, the sharks turned slightly to the side, tearing off pieces on the way ... "

How do father and son behave in extreme situations? Why are the following reflections of Ben and the author interesting?

“... The only hope for the boy and him to be saved is to make Davy think for himself, confidently do what he has to do. We must somehow inspire this to the boy. "

“A ten-year-old child had to accomplish a task of inhuman difficulty. If he wants to survive ... "

“... It was the same child, with the same face that he recently saw for the first time. But the point was not at all what Ben saw: it was important to find out if the boy was able to see something in his father ... "

“... They both need time. He, Ben, will now need the whole life that the boy gave him. "

Schoolchildren answer the questions of the textbook, make a plan for what they read, try read by roles, retell the text, while at the same time comprehending the important thoughts expressed by the author about the difficult problem of the relationship between adults and children. At the same time, they improve the skills of expressive reading, coherent retelling, the ability to conduct a dialogue (for example, the dialogue between father and son on the plane, the dialogue between Ben and Davy before the father dives into the sea).

Let's think about why the author describes in such detail every second on the plane. What is achieved by this description? Why are Davy and Ben's characters interesting? Was it only family relations that brought father and son closer together during and after the flight? Why did the heroes' situation help them understand each other? How can this be explained?

In the process of answering questions, retelling, students experience an extraordinary situation in which the heroes find themselves, understand what moral load Aldridge's work carries; the father saves his son, the son saves the father. Together they find each other, overcoming inhuman difficulties, emerging from an extreme situation as winners.

Since the problem that sounded in Aldridge's work is close to adolescents, it makes sense to link the discussion of the text with the understanding of life situations, problems raised in story, for example, about mutual understanding between adults and children. The guys will remember similar cases from their lives, when some unusual situation helped to evaluate an act, most clearly showed the best character traits (courage, courage, delicacy, honesty, etc.), contributed to the understanding of adults - relatives, acquaintances.

Telling about it orally or in writing is one of the creative assignments adolescents. In addition, you can propose to create a screenplay based on the text of Aldridge "Father and Son".

V. Ya. Korovina, Grade 7 Literature. Methodical advice - M .: Education, 2003. - 162 p .: ill.

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Lesson objectives: developing expressive reading and retelling skills; identification of the ideological content of the work.

Literary theory: story

Vocabulary work: mutual understanding, courage, self-control.

Equipment: various editions of works by J. Aldridge; reference board: ft - 30, 48 cm; inch - 2.54 cm.

During the classes

Mutual understanding between father and son is not an easy thing,

and it takes a lot of effort on both sides to achieve it.

In The Last Inch, this is not helped by a critical situation,

but that mutual respect that is in a man and in a child

give birth to the courage and ability shown in this situation

it's good to do what you do

J. Aldridge.

I. Story about the writer.

Reading an article by N.P. Mikhalskaya about Aldridge. Dictionary entry.

James Aldridge is interesting for his stormy activities in the struggle for peace. He witnessed the battles of the Second World War in Berlin, he is the author of combat reports, and after the war - of works of political content. Along with these two themes, his works are also devoted to the assertion of the moral staunchness of a person. This is what his story "The Last Inch" is about.

II. Conversation.

Have you read an excerpt from The Last Inch?

What do you think this story is about?

(About the relationship between father and son; about the resilience of people in times of danger.)

Guys, tell me, what is the relationship between the father and the boy at the beginning of the passage?

(Students can characterize this relationship as alienated, they can say that the father does not love the boy and here it is important to show that this is not so, it is important to help the children to discern behind the boy's outwardly dry and detached address to his father the care that the father cannot express. )

Give examples from the text.

Students read aloud from the beginning of the passage to the words: "It's all about the last inch." Then, with the help of the teacher, phrases are isolated that express the relationship between the father and the boy.

The first dialogue shows the father's concern for the boy and the child's steadfastness: "The frightened boy still did not get lost and, fiercely sucking on the lollipop, looked at the instruments and the compass, the jumping horizon."

("... the boy answeredin a quiet and shy voice not like the gruff voices of the American guys ... and the quote above.)

What conclusion can we draw about the character of the boy?

(External shyness and at the same time a manifestation of will.)

Since the aspect of mutual understanding between children and adults is very important for schoolchildren of this age, and at the same time they cannot always draw an abstract conclusion from a specific characterization of the character, here, for contrast, we can offer the children options for the behavior of a child that were possible in this situation for a less strong-willed child: did not cry, did not ask to go home, etc.

Why do you think Ben took his son with him on this unsafe trip?

(The father took the boy with him, because the boy was interested in it and because the father, being a pilot and loving his job, wanted to teach and interest his son in this.)

("Ben did not know how to console his son, but he told the truth ...", "... the father said with irritation.")

Do you think father and son understood each other? Confirm with further text.

(The father did not always guess what feelings the son was experiencing. - I say no! - the father answered with irritation. But suddenly he realized that Davy was not worried about the possibility of getting caught, - he was simply afraid to be left alone. Davy was afraid of his father’s harshness, not understanding, that his father really loves him, he simply does not know how to express it. "When he asked his father about something, his voice became sullen: he had expected a sharp answer in advance."

How does their relationship change during the terrible test? Confirm with text.

Students read aloud (by role) read the text on pages 333-336. From the words: “When Ben came to his senses ...” to the words: “Don't think about it. I can fly blindly and control my knees. Well, drag ... ”And after reading, confirming the text, answer this question.

(The real threat to his life makes Vienna be more open towards his son, makes him show a deep understanding of his son's character so that he can do something that is beyond the power of a ten-year-old child. The father reveals in his son previously unknown advantages: “He seems to be a guy developed - thought Ben. ”In the future, the stronger the threat to life, the more each of the heroes cared about the other, the more they became a single whole and understood each other even when it was impossible.)

How do you think the relationship between father and son will develop after this story? See what the author has to say about this at the end of the passage?

Pupils read aloud the ending of an excerpt from the words: "... Egyptian doctors were surprised to find ..."

What do you think will take them time?

(To comprehend what happened, to learn to live with the discoveries and changes that have happened to them.)

What is the major change for Davy?

(He became more mature.)

Tell me, is it necessary in order to learn to be an adult, to go through extreme situations?

Homework.

1. Prepare a retelling of an excerpt from the story.

2. Write an essay-reasoning on the ending of the passage. Topics: “What did Davy see in his father?”; "Someday the boy will understand what was great." What did the father mean? "

3. Dp... Collection "We read, think, argue ..." assignment on page 227.

James Aldridge

LAST INCH

It is good if, having flown more than one thousand miles in twenty years, you still feel the pleasure of flying by the age of forty; it's good if you can still enjoy how artistically accurately you landed the car; Squeeze the handle a little, raise a light cloud of dust and smoothly win back the last inch above the ground. Especially when landing on snow: dense snow is very convenient for landing, and a good landing on the snow is as pleasant as walking barefoot on the fluffy carpet in a hotel.

But with flights on "DS-3", when you lift an old car, it used to be in the air in any weather and fly over the woods anywhere, it was over. Working in Canada gave him a good temper, and it is not surprising that he ended his flying life over the deserts of the Red Sea, flying the Fairchild for the Texegipto oil export company, which had oil exploration rights all over the Egyptian coast. He flew the Fairchild over the desert until the plane was completely worn out. There were no landing sites. He put the car wherever geologists and hydrologists wanted to get off - on the sand, on the bushes, on the rocky bottom of dry streams and on the long white shoals of the Red Sea. The shallows were the worst: the smooth-looking surface of the sand was always dotted with large chunks of white coral with razor-sharp edges, and if it were not for the Fairchild's low centering, it would have turned over more than once due to a puncture of the camera.

But that was all in the past. Texegipto abandoned costly attempts to find a large oil field that would have yielded the same profits as Aramco in Saudi Arabia, and the Fairchild turned into a pitiful ruin and stood in one of the Egyptian hangars, covered with a thick layer of multi-colored dust, all excised from the bottom narrow, long cuts, with frayed cables, with some semblance of a motor and devices suitable only for a landfill.

It was all over: he turned forty-three, his wife left him home on Linnen Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and healed as she liked: she took the tram to Harvard Square, bought groceries in a store without a seller, stayed with her old man in decent wooden house- in a word, she led a decent life, worthy of a decent woman. He promised to come to her in the spring, but he knew that he would not do it, just as he knew that he would not receive a flight job in his years, especially the one to which he was accustomed, he would not receive it even in Canada. In those parts, supply exceeded demand when it came to experienced people; farmers in Saskatchewan learned to fly their own Pipercabs and Osters. Amateur aviation deprived many of the old pilots a piece of bread. They ended up hiring themselves to serve the mines or the government, but such a job was too decent and respectable to suit him in his old age.

So he was left with nothing, except for the indifferent wife, who did not need him, and the ten-year-old son, who was born too late and, as Ben understood in his heart, a stranger to both of them - a lonely, restless child who at ten years old felt that the mother is not interested in him, and the father is an outsider, harsh and laconic, not knowing what to talk to him about in those rare moments when they were together.

And now it was no better than always. Ben took the boy with him to the Oster, which was swinging wildly at an altitude of two thousand feet above the coast of the Red Sea, and waited for the boy to be seasick.

If you vomit, ”Ben said,“ bend down to the floor so as not to get the whole cabin dirty.

Good. - The boy looked very unhappy.

Are you afraid?

The little Oster was mercilessly thrown from side to side in the hot air, but the frightened boy still did not get lost and, fiercely sucking on the lollipop, looked at the instruments, the compass, the skipping artificial horizon.

A little, - the boy answered in a quiet and shy voice, unlike the rough voices of American guys. - Will the plane break down from these shocks?

Ben did not know how to console his son, he told the truth:

If the machine is not monitored and checked all the time, it will inevitably break down.

And this one ... - the boy began, but he was very sick, and he could not continue.

This one is fine, ”the father said irritably. - Quite a good plane.

The boy lowered his head and began to cry softly.

Ben regretted taking his son with him. In their family, generous impulses always ended in failure: both of them were like that - a dry, tearful, provincial mother and a sharp, irascible father. During one of the rare bouts of generosity, Ben once tried to teach the boy to fly a plane, and although the son turned out to be very understanding and quickly learned the basic rules, every shout from his father brought him to tears ...

Do not Cry! Ben ordered him now. “You don’t have to cry! Raise your head, do you hear, Davy! Pick up now!

But Davy sat with his head down, and Ben more and more regretted having taken him with him, and gazed dejectedly at the barren, deserted coast of the Red Sea spread under the wing of the plane - an unbroken strip of a thousand miles separating the soft washed-out colors of the land from the faded green water. Everything was motionless and dead. The sun burned out all life here, and in the spring, for thousands of square miles, winds lifted masses of sand into the air and carried it to the other side of the Indian Ocean, where it remained forever at the bottom of the sea.

Sit up straight, he told Davy, if you want to learn how to land.

Ben knew his tone was harsh and he always wondered why he couldn't talk to a boy. Davy looked up. He grabbed the control board and leaned forward. Ben removed the throttle and, after waiting until the speed slowed down, pulled hard on the trimmer handle, which was very inconveniently located on these small English planes - at the top left, almost overhead. A sudden jolt shook the boy's head down, but he immediately lifted it up and began to look over the drooping nose of the car at a narrow strip of white sand by the bay, like a cake thrown on this deserted shore. My father drove the plane straight there.

How do you know where the wind is blowing from? the boy asked.

Over the waves, over the cloud, by the flair! Ben shouted to him.

But he himself did not know what he was guided by when he was flying the plane. Without thinking, he knew to within one foot where he would land the car. He had to be precise: a bare strip of sand did not give a single extra span, and only a very small plane could land on it. It was a hundred miles from here to the nearest native village, and all around was a dead desert.

It's all about timing, ”Ben said. - When you level the plane, you need to keep the distance to the ground six inches. Not a foot or three, but exactly six inches! If you take it higher, you will knock on landing and damage the plane. Too low - you get on a bump and turn over. It's all about the last inch.

Davy nodded. He already knew that. He saw an Oster roll over in El-Bab, where they rented a car. The student who flew it was killed.

You see! - shouted the father. - Six inches. When it starts to descend, I take the handle on myself. To myself. Here! he said, and the plane touched the ground softly like a snowflake.

The last inch! Ben immediately turned off the engine and put on the foot brakes - the nose of the plane went up, and the car came to a stop at the water's edge - it was six or seven feet away.

Two pilots air line who discovered this bay named it Shark - not because of its shape, but because of its population. It was constantly home to many large sharks that swam from the Red Sea, chasing shoals of herring and mullet that sought refuge here. Ben flew here because of the sharks, and now, when he got to the bay, he completely forgot about the boy and from time to time only gave him orders: help with unloading, bury a bag of food in wet sand, moisten the sand, watering it sea ​​water, provide tools and all sorts of little things needed for scuba gear and cameras.

Does anyone ever come here? Davy asked him.