As it happened, we fledgling pilots were sent, not to a frontline base in West Germany, but to one of the remotest corners of the world, RCAF Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan. As part of the NATO agreement, the air crews of its European members received their flight training in Canada. We crossed the Atlantic in the Empress of Britain, a prewar liner of the Canadian Pacific fleet, sitting under the baroque ceilings of the vast staterooms. Miriam drove her motorcycle up to Liverpool to see me off and stared with awe at the magnificent gilt furniture and attentive stewards, as if I were going off to some strange and lavish war in which every private soldier travelled to the front in his own Rolls-Royce. When she embraced me on the gangway she had clearly taken for granted that she would never see me again. I waved from the rail long after the Liver building had dropped below the horizon.

Surviving the Atlantic, a subarctic realm of vertical seas, deranged ice, and voracious seabirds, we landed at Montreal and began a pleasant, month-long acclimatisation period at a Toronto air base, being prepared for the social and psychological hazards of a waffle-and-turkey lifestyle that David and I eagerly embraced. Even the endless hours of propaganda and VD films—which carried the message that the entire female half of the human race was dedicated to infecting us—failed to cool our pleasure at being in North America.

At last, after a four-day train journey from Toronto, we arrived at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. We stepped from the train with our suitcases and stared at the small prairie town, a mixed group of suspicious Turks, stoical Norwegians, hungover Britishers, and impatient Frenchmen.

“I wish Miriam could see this.” I gazed at the immensity of the Saskatchewan plain. “Where does it end? This is the wrong planet.”

“If visitors from outer space ever land on Earth they will choose this place,” David reflected gloomily. “Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, will remind them of home.”

But Moose Jaw was more interesting than we realised. Beyond the 49th parallel were the great cities of the American Midwest. The rearming United States of the Eisenhower years enjoyed a confidence and prosperity unknown in Europe. Fleets of baroque vehicles soared along its highways, as if a race of interplanetary visitors were landing on a recreational visit. On our second day David bought a used Oldsmobile, and we began to take long drives in any direction. The Canadians were a hospitable and tolerant desert people, living on the edge of a wilderness of snow and permafrost. Winnipeg, Regina, and Saskatoon were cities of the northern desert, Samarkands of ice. At the end of every street there were white horizons of emptiness. My mind leapt, expanding to fill the void …

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