The Shepherd
4/5
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About this ebook
It is Christmas Eve, 1957, and there are cozier places to be than the cockpit of a de Havilland Vampire fighter plane. But for the Royal Air Force pilot who has just taken off from West Germany, this single-seat jet is the only way to make it back to England for Christmas morning. His flight plan is simple; the fuel tank is full. In sixty-six minutes, he will be back in Blighty. But then the plane begins to fail. First the compass goes haywire, then the radio dies. Lost and alone above the English coast, the pilot is searching for a landing strip when the fog closes in, signaling certain death. He has given up hope when a second shadow appears—a Mosquito fighter-bomber of World War II vintage. The plane is a “shepherd,” guiding the Vampire to a safe landing, and its appearance is a gift from fate, a miracle out of time—but for one lonely pilot, the mystery has just begun. A classic bestseller, beloved by aviation fans (including actor John Travolta, who calls it “one of my favorites because it personalizes the two planes”) and general readers alike, The Shepherd is a gripping, heartwarming tale for a cold winter’s night.
Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth (b. 1938) is an English author of thrillers. Born in Kent, he joined the Royal Air Force in 1956, becoming one of the youngest pilots to ever fly in Her Majesty’s service. After two years in the RAF, he began working as a journalist. He later turned his journalism skills to writing fiction, and his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1970), was a great success. Forsyth continued to use real figures and criminal organizations as inspiration, writing popular books like The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974). His most recent novel is The Cobra (2010).
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Reviews for The Shepherd
135 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Compact and gently powerful. Well done, Mr. Forsyth. Thank you.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not what one might expect from Frederick Forsyth, this is a slightly spooky Christmas story about a young pilot who gets lost flying home on Christmas Eve. I think pilots would like it, and although I'm not one, I enloyed it. This is the story read by Alan Maitland on CBC Radio every Christmas. (Available on YouTube.)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5-- This slim novel (123 pgs.) is a quick read. Lou Feck's illustrations inhabit whole pages. Forsyth is a pilot as well as a writer. Charlie Delta is a Royal Air Force pilot flying alone at night when he realizes his Vampire compass & radio aren't working. How Delta lands the plane makes Forsyth's novel fascinating. --
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed reading this short story but it was a little bit underwhelming in the end.
It's probably a half an hour read at the most, padded out a bit, in the version I read, with stylised black and white illustrations which, to be fair, were nicely done and added to the atmosphere of the story.
The problem is, the story itself is a bit slight. It was obvious to me what was happening (though the author does his best to offer rational explanations as he goes until the supernatural 'twist' is revealed) and I must admit I was expecting there to be a bit more to the story.
The supernatural 'twist' as presented is the obvious ending almost as soon as the situation is set up and so it was a bit disappointing - I thought there would be some kind of clever subversion or expansion of the idea in the last few pages.
To be honest, I wouldn't recommend paying full price (it's £6 on Amazon, which is definitely not value for money) for The Shepherd, but if you happen to find it in a friend's bookshelf, a library or a charity shop it's worth reading. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I much appreciated The Day of the Jackal which I read 6 Feb 2010 so I decided to read this slight fiction by Forsyth. It tells of an RAF pilot flying home in 1957 from Germany for Christmas. He loses his radio and other aspects of his plane. It is fearsome, but since the story is told in the first person we know he will survive--and he is guided to safety by a World War II plane piloted by a long dead flyer. So, I never having much use for fantasy, the story is not so noteworthy. Maybe if his being saved had been supernaturally aided the story might have been more acceptable to me. But it is a pleasant and at times exciting story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Forsyth wrote this story as a Christmas present for his wife, Carole. It tells of a 20-year-old RAF fighter pilot returning from Europe to England on Christmas Eve 1957. When the electrical system fails on his Vampire jet over the North Sea, his training is brought into use to find the way. Unfortunately a thick fog bank obscures everything below him and he is forced to fly in triangles in an attempt to attract attention. The 'Shepherd', a WWII Mosquito guides him to a safe landing, just in time. Forsyth has written a simple story with intelligence and expertise. This short book, filled with fabulous illustrations by Lou Feck, is a perfect Christmas story, one to read again and again. At nineteen, Forsyth was the youngest fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. His knowledge of flying is manifest in this excellent story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I stumbled across a Frederick Forsyth interview on TV one day (it was about gravel pits encroaching on his Bedfordshire village) and thought, if the man speaks like this he has to be worth reading. Then I discovered the average length of a Forsyth novel, and wavered a bit.
Then I discovered The Shepherd. It's a gem of a tale, beautifully told, nicely revealed, and short enough that there's not much more I can say about it without giving something away.
If you don't want to start on a Forsyth doorstop without a little reassurance that his voice is one you can live with for the duration, this is an excellent starting point - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A novella by Forsyth which is a quick read and much unlike his other works.
There are sketches included as well. Read this if you get your hands on it. It won't take much of your time and the story is simple enough. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A short, simple fable in the tradition of the Christmas ghost stories of Dickens, though transposed to the late 1950s, The Shepherd is a departure for Forsyth, normally a writer of international thrillers. Elements of Christianity imbue the story - is there a ghost? A higher power? Easy to read, it goes down lightly with a nice twist, just as the best tales of Dickens.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I get goose-bumps and a few tears every time I read this wonderful little story of a pilot, flying a Vampire aircraft across the North Sea to get home for Christmas in 1957, and the 'Shepherd' who appears, flying a WWII Mosquito, to guide him home through the fog when the electronics in his Vampire die and he has no compass or radio. It is also amazing to me how the truly excellent writers, of whom Forsyth is one, can tell such a story in so few words. He so exactly depicts the thoughts of the pilot when he realizes all is 'not right'.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flying back home one night for Christmas in his single-seater fighter-plane, a pilot suddenly finds himself struggling for his life: lost in impenetrable fog, without working instruments or radio, how can he find his way to safety? Another plane, of a strangely old-fashioned design, appears out of the mist on his wing to guide him. But is his rescuer really all he seems? This novella's approachable length and lavish, atmospheric illustrations make it more than suitable for almost any age-group. A haunting story with a proper twist in the tail. Brilliant.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A short (55 page) Novella, illustrated really well by Chris Foss. It is a very good Christmas ghost story which I read every year with great enjoyment. Highly recomended.
Book preview
The Shepherd - Frederick Forsyth
The Shepherd
Frederick Forsyth
FOR MY DARLING WIFE CAROLE
FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, while waiting for the control tower to clear me for takeoff, I glanced out through the Perspex cockpit canopy at the surrounding German countryside. It lay white and crisp beneath the crackling December moon.
Behind me lay the boundary fence of the Royal Air Force base, and beyond the fence, as I had seen while swinging my little fighter into line with the takeoff runway, the sheet of snow covering the flat farmland stretched away to the line of the pine trees, two miles distant in the night yet so clear I could almost see the shapes of the trees themselves.
Ahead of me, as I waited for the voice of the controller to come through the headphones, was the runway itself, a slick black ribbon of tarmac, flanked by twin rows of bright-burning lights, illuminating the solid path cut earlier by the snowplows. Behind the lights were the humped banks of the morning’s snow, frozen hard once again where the snowplow blades had pushed them. Far away to my right, the airfield tower stood up like a single glowing candle amid the brilliant hangars where the muffled aircraftmen were even now closing down the station for the night.
Inside the control tower, I knew, all was warmth and merriment, the staff waiting only for my departure to close down also, jump into the waiting cars, and head back to the parties in the mess. Within minutes of my going, the lights would die out, leaving only the huddled hangars, seeming hunched against the bitter night, the shrouded fighter planes, the sleeping fuel-bowser trucks, and, above them all, the single flickering station light, brilliant red above the black-and-white airfield, beating out in Morse code the name of the station—CELLE—to an unheeding sky. For tonight there would be no wandering aviators to look down and check their bearings; tonight was Christmas Eve, in the year of grace 1957, and I was a young pilot trying to get home to Blighty for his Christmas leave.
I was in a hurry and my watch read ten-fifteen by the dim blue glow of the control panel where the rows of dials quivered and danced. It was warm and snug inside the cockpit, the heating turned up full to prevent the Perspex’ icing up. It was like a cocoon, small and warm and safe, shielding me from the bitter cold outside, from the freezing night that can kill a man inside a minute if he is exposed to it at six hundred miles an hour.
Charlie Delta …
The controller’s voice woke me from my reverie, sounding in my headphones as if he were with me in the tiny cockpit, shouting in my ear. He’s had a jar or two already, I thought. Strictly against orders, but what the hell? It’s Christmas Eve.
Charlie Delta … Control,
I responded.
Charlie Delta, clear takeoff,
he said.
I saw no point in responding. I simply eased the throttle forward slowly with the left hand, holding the Vampire steady down the central