The Falcon - High Flight - Brian Manton

1.
Sam Wilson with his friend Sammy St. Clair, both about 10 years old. They are at Sam's pigeon coop. Sam holds a pigeon in his hands.  Sammy looks fascinated.

CAP: Boy I knew in Harlem, Sam too - Sammy St. Clair, the only person I've met more obsessed with flying than me.

2.
Sammy's dad, in military uniform, kneeling in front of him saying goodbye. Sammy smiles, his eyes wide with pride.

CAP: His dad was a pilot in Nam. Died there in the end.

3.
Sammy, older, in a similar uniform to his dad. He is shaking hands with Sam Wilson before he ships out.

CAP: Didn't put Sammy off though. Signed up himself in time.

4.
Full page bleed. (Panels 1-3 inset)

Bright blue sky mottled with whispy white clouds.

Small in the panel, Falcon ascends in an upward arc.

CAP: He told me this poem. An aviators favourite, his dad had told him.

CAP:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Text Box:
High Flight
Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941