The Twin Booms

An open training ground on a chalk plain in southern England on a misty autumn morning, wet grass and a gravel apron, a slender light grey unmanned aircraft resting on an olive-green tubular steel cradle, straight wings five and a half metres across, a twin tail on two thin booms, at the nose a still two-bladed wooden propeller and a rounded engine cowling with ventilation slots, a white spherical pod beneath the fuselage, every surface plain and unmarked, beside it more empty olive-green frames and the long launch rail of an olive-green truck, a soldier in a camouflage jacket seen from directly behind at the cradle, face turned fully away.