Trajectory

It seems strangely old now.  Not because of the fading, wrinkling paint but because it just looks all wrong.  The tyres are like something you would fit to a cart and the mechanism that tilts the barrel is too simple, too brassy yellow, too mechanical and outdated.  The whole thing is tired, feeble and irrelevant.  In its day it was considered a formidable weapon; new and interesting. Capable of launching a four-pound shell over a couple of miles, it could make itself known. Have this, it said, it`s something special. It was once proud, now it`s just there, and strangely old.

I haven`t seen the rest of the crew for years, not since just after the war ended when we got together for a few pints before being demobilized. I suspect they`re all dead now.  I`m in my late eighties and that`s unusual for our generation – the wartime smokers and drinkers, half starved but still managing to chase around, staying out all night if the chance arose.  We dispersed to different parts, the three of us, the other two going up North and me back to London.  Charlie had plans for his father`s building firm and Johnny was set on emigrating to Canada, to farm and raise a family in the Big Country, as he put it. We all talked a lot about what we would do after the war; it was what kept us going, our plans.

It`s partly the memory of those days that takes me on these outings.  But it`s also an opportunity to get out from behind those dreary old curtains, hemmed in by four walls with only my stale old photographs and the occasional visit by the Home Help for company.  The rest of them that goes along are alright and we have a bit of a natter, you know.  And the coaches these days are very comfortable, not like they used to be, and there`s every convenience – mind you, at our age you need them.  At one time I`d take off without a second thought, travel all over, as far and as fast as possible, slowing down only for my wife and kids, their wellbeing, their comfort the only things holding us back. But now, even though there`s only me, I stay put more.  It`s an effort to just get up in the mornings, sometimes.

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The gun, we were told back then, was a considerable feat of engineering.  We would learn how to load it, aim it and fire it.  I was in charge you see, I had the stripes, and it was my job to work out what angle to raise the barrel to.  Well, that`s not quite true, we were often given that information but I had to understand a little of the theory, that was part of my job.  The shell would reach its maximum velocity, or as we said, speed, as it left the barrel. Muzzle velocity they called it.  From then on it would slow and fall towards the earth.  The trick was to know at what angle you launch the shell for the distance you wanted it to travel.  It was called, by those blokes from HQ who taught us, a trajectory problem.

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The trip was out to an old airfield, now disused, where old tanks and guns from our time had been collected over the years and now formed part of a display.  A historic theme park, they said.  I sat next to a lady I hadn`t met before, although she was a regular, apparently, having lost her husband several years ago.  Marjorie, that was her name, born and raised in Derbyshire, had three children, five grandchildren and a long career in teaching behind her.  A bright young thing she must have been, and I bet she was once pretty, you could tell, and there was something in the way she spoke of her life that made you think she hadn`t stood still for long.  Her and the late `Mr Marjorie` had been keen travellers, they`d lived abroad teaching English and ran something like a small holding in one of the countries they`d lived; the only way, she said, to ensure a regular supply of food.  I watched the loose skin on her throat as she spoke and her wrinkled hands, as they made constant adjustments to her knitted cardigan, trying to imagine a young woman conquering the classrooms of Africa, or Asia, or wherever it was.  To be honest, it wasn`t easy.

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The path of a shell, I remember from the classroom sessions all those years ago, in terms of trajectory (we`d yet to consider actual direction) could be divided into two coordinates: the vertical and the horizontal.  Horizontally, it was being slowed by air resistance but we would ignore this because as it was airborne for such a short period of time there shouldn`t be a significant effect. So, as far as the horizontal was concerned the speed was constant.  Vertically, it was a different story: gravity was forever trying to bring it down to earth.  This meant that the distance the shell would travel was given by its horizontal speed and the time it took before it hit the ground.  But, of course, it didn`t fall straight away, unless the gun was fired with the gun barrel horizontal.  First it would climb.

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I told Marjorie a bit about my life, and although she was probably at least 15 years younger than me she recognized the heart of it, the fundamental nature of those earlier years: getting on with things, mending, making stuff work and not wasting time complaining. I left the army and trained as a mechanic before chucking that in and going on the road with my own lorry. I had a mate who managed a local factory and I got a lot of work from them.  Soon, through the network of their customers, ones I was already delivering to, I got more work.  I put in the hours but didn`t mind.  I was my own boss and when our children came along, we, my wife and I, borrowed money to build the business and secure their futures.  It was risky, if we failed it would have meant years of debt and poverty, but we didn`t and soon there was a small fleet of lorries, our own yard and our own house.  I worked all hours, driving, managing, fixing, I did whatever was needed.  Crisis came and went; good times and bad.  We even did some continental work, when it was rare and far more of an adventure than it is now. I once spent weeks stuck in Greece because of some dispute or other, virtually living under the trailer.  I was even arrested in Germany and spent a few days in a police cell before being released, a few quid lighter and all over some stupid traffic law of theirs.  But I took it in my stride, shrugged it off, moved on.  It didn`t seem five minutes before my own son came of age and came on board.  He became the driving force, carrying on when things seemed to be changing so fast and I could no longer keep up.  He still runs the business but it`s nothing like it was; I wouldn`t recognize it now, it`s not even in the same yard.  They have all the modern technology, all the computers and things.  He uses words I don`t understand.  Telematics, I thought, was a kids program on the telly but apparently it`s all to do with being able to see what the lorry`s doing without involving the driver. It beats me, I can tell you.

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The instructor drew a large arc in chalk across the board, representing the path of the shell, and then vertical and horizontal arrows that originated at the point the arc started. It looked something like this; although, as you can see, I`ve used a bit of colour.

He wasn`t, we were mightily relieved to find out, going to go into the maths but this was not, he said, a big issue as it was all essentially intuitive.  Launched at an angle to the horizontal the round would have part its velocity travelling in the horizontal, as already explained, and part in the vertical.  The proportion of which dictated by the angle itself: the steeper the launch angle the greater the vertical element of its velocity. Gravity is a constant force, so the acceleration pulling the round down will be constant. From the muzzle velocity we could establish the vertical speed and then calculate the time it would take for the round to reach its maximum height and fall to earth, all the while, we were told not to forget, it would be describing an arc.  Even as the round climbed, its vertical acceleration would be negative (as would its horizontal one if we were not ignoring air resistance) slowing it, dragging on it until it finally started coming down.  While it was doing all this the shell was being carried along by its horizontal speed until, of course, its time ran out and it hit the ground.

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We walked around the exhibits, for want of a better word, had a cup of tea and a sandwich in the cafeteria (too much noise: people can`t eat these days without constant chatter and background music) and then headed home.  In the coach a film was playing on the television screen at the front.  I could hardly see it let alone hear what was being said, but because it was on I couldn`t hear Marjorie properly either, so I closed my eyes. I was tired after travelling so far. Slowly, I sank further into the seat.