The Enigma Game

by Elizabeth Wein

  Of course no one had. I struggled to remember the international air law I’d learned in ground school.

  We waggled our wings and flashed our lights back at the Jerries. Then we turned to slot into place around them, and nobody fired a shot.

  ‘Ah, Pimms is magnificent,’ Silver murmured. ‘If only the Old Roundhead could see us in action. He’d be proud.’

  ‘He’d give us a bollocking because nobody knows the rules for an interception,’ I said.

  Ignacy and Harry lined up on either side of the German plane, and I pulled ahead to lead it in.

  ‘Keep an eye on that Junkers, Tex, would you?’ I called to Chip, in the gun turret. ‘It’s making my skin crawl not being able to see what they’re up to behind me.’

  ‘I’ve got both my eyes on it,’ Chip said. ‘If those Krauts try anything they’re going to get a faceful.’

  At that point three Spitfires from Deeside found us, which made a grand total of six RAF aircraft escorting one solitary Junkers 88, so I felt a bit more secure.

  We flew home the way we’d come, lining up over the Kingsleap Light.

  I would have to land first. According to international protocol, the surrendering Luftwaffe bomber was supposed to follow me. The other Pimms planes would come in behind us, and the Spits probably wouldn’t land at Windyedge at all, but hare off home to Deeside.

  The Luftwaffe pilot followed me like a lamb to the end of the runway. I knew he was there, but I couldn’t see him. Suddenly Chip yelled from the rear turret, ‘He’s making a run for it! No, he’s diving—’

  ‘He will hit the cliffs!’ Ignacy yelled from behind the Luftwaffe plane, cutting off Chip’s voice.

  While these dramatics were unfolding, I clenched my jaw and focused on the runway. I was too close to the ground to do anything tricky.

  ‘He straightened up, he’s OK—’ Chip let me know. ‘He’s lining up behind you again.’

  Our undercarriage touched the earth and we bumped along the field. I braked, ready to get out of the way as quickly as possible so the planes behind me could land. Then Chip gave a wordless howl of terror, and all the sky in the clear canopy above my head was blotted out. I looked up and saw nothing but the hideous belly of the Junkers 88, inches away from my face.

  If it landed on top of us we were dead.

  Louisa:

  Jane was good at keeping busy, but goodness, she hated being cooped up. Sometimes she decided she needed air at ten o’clock at night, and then we would spend a few hair-raising minutes feeling our way in the dark along the steep cobbles to the limekilns and back. Or just after dawn we’d stagger down the hill together to the harbour to watch the sun climb over the sea cliffs. We both longed to walk on the tiny beach, but it was full of the ruins of the exploded breakwater, not to mention mines and barbed wire and ‘dragons’ teeth’ concrete blocks meant to keep out German landing craft.

  So Jane jumped at the chance of an outing to choose her own library books and treat me to tea and buns in a cafe on the Stonehaven seafront. On that day in the first full week of February, Ellen had to go to the railway station to pick up a courier who was delivering new maps which needed a proper guardian on their journey to RAF Windyedge. The Tilly would be empty going to the station and again going home after Ellen took the courier back in the afternoon, so she gave me and Jane a lift. We sat three across the front as usual with me in the middle, and as we drove we sang something we all knew the words to because we heard it on the radio just about every day – the Joe Loss Orchestra’s ‘Spitfire Song’.

  We were on the way home and turning off the main road by the rubble of the bus shelter when black dots began to dance on the horizon.

  ‘Is 648 Squadron in the air?’ asked Jane.

  She saw them too. Not bugs; not birds. Aeroplanes.

  ‘They were out last night,’ said Ellen. ‘They should be tucked up in bed.’

  Four aeroplanes, about the same size, and three smaller ones above them. Ah, three fighters flying in formation, beautiful – my heart gave a leap as I tried to work out what they were.

  ‘Whew, they’re low,’ Ellen added. ‘They must be on a drill.’

  ‘Blenheims?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Aye, those big ones,’ said Ellen. ‘But the others—’

  ‘Spitfires!’ I crowed. The thrill of recognising those neat tapered wings never wore off. I sang, ‘The Deeside planes are here …’ and Jane reprised ‘The Spitfire Song’ and we laughed.

  ‘Are they training with them?’ Ellen wondered aloud. ‘Or—’

  She slowed the Tilly to a stop, right in the middle of the road, so we could watch.

  The planes seemed to grow larger as they descended, and we watched as the first, one of the Blenheims, touched down at RAF Windyedge.

  But the big second one, the odd one in the middle, flew so low over the landing Blenheim that we all gasped in horror.

  For a moment we thought one plane would land on top of the other.

  ‘God pity us, they’ll be killed!’ Ellen cried.

  Then the one on top began to climb into the sky again.

  The first stayed on the ground. All the rest, two Blenheims and three Spitfire fighters, followed the odd plane back up into the sky.

  They roared towards us, black, throbbing machines growing swiftly larger, like genies coming out of bottles or balloons inflating. It was just like the day we arrived, only with more planes.

  And the one that had nearly collided with the first was German.

  I recognised its silhouette as it passed overhead. I’d seen a plane like it once before, black against a steel-grey sea instead of a dove-grey sky. It was a Junkers 88.

  ‘They’re chasing a Luftwaffe bomber,’ I gasped. ‘648 Squadron’s chasing a Luftwaffe bomber!’

  One of the anti-aircraft batteries on the perimeter wall let out a drumroll of machine-gun fire as the Junkers passed it. But the guns stopped almost instantly – the Blenheims and Spitfires were too close to the Junkers to risk firing at it. Six planes rushed past in a deafening roar of engines and black shadow. In perfect unison, like a music hall act, Jane and Ellen and I craned our necks and whipped our heads around to watch the planes soar onward and upward. I got a flashing glimpse of a sinister black swastika painted on the tail of the German bomber, and something like white smoke flying from the tail and the cabin. Then the closed back of the Tilly hid everything.

  Ellen reached behind her seat to grab a pair of field glasses, cranked down her window, and stuck half her body out, sitting on the window ledge and looking up.

  ‘Is it our musical pilot come back again?’ suggested Jane.

  Again my heart turned over. Perhaps Felix Baer was bringing us a new set of code charts. I leaned on the dashboard, trying to see what was going on.

  ‘How do I know?’ said Ellen, staring at the sky through the glasses. ‘Och, they’re coming round again.’

  She slid back abruptly into the driver’s seat, shoved the Tilly into gear, and started it up.

  She drove too quickly. A freezing wind howled through her open window, and I braced myself against the dashboard. Jane, beside me, clung to the window crank and the door handle. We rounded the bend in the lane, and instead of carrying on ahead into the village to drop off me and Jane at the Limehouse, Ellen swerved into the drive of RAF Windyedge.

  I held my breath. Ellen screeched to a stop in front of the barrier at the guards’ hut and waved.

  One of the soldiers began to lift the barrier. The other came over to the van and glanced at the pass that Ellen held out. Then he stooped to peer in at her passengers – me and Jane.

  ‘You have got to be joking,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, you know Louisa, Nobby,’ Ellen exclaimed in irritation. ‘And this is Mrs Campbell’s old auntie, haven’t you met her yet? She’s been living at the Limehouse since November!’

  Jane gazed out the window at the planes, which had finished a single loop out to sea and were now heading back to the airfield.
/>   ‘I haven’t the time now to drop these ladies off!’ Ellen exclaimed. ‘ID, Louisa?’

  I dug in my school bag. Jane beat me to it, and did the magic trick with her dead husband’s passport.

  ‘Highly irregular,’ grumbled Nobby. ‘You know that—’

  But the other guard had already raised the gate. Ellen cut off Nobby’s protest by rolling up her window. The Tilly sailed past the barrier, spraying through icy puddles.

  Ahead of us, the planes were roaring in for another go. One of the Blenheims had flown ahead of the Ju-88 to lead it. Another came behind the Luftwaffe plane, escorting it, and the Spitfires stayed above the others, guarding the Blenheims. Ellen guided the Tilly off the driveway and over the longer grass to the mowed runway’s edge, where she threw open her door and leaped out to watch. I leaned out the open door behind her; Jane leaned over my shoulder.

  The leading aircraft touched the ground and taxied out of the way.

  ‘That’s Ignacy,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s Pimms Section in the air – most of ’em. Jamie must have been the first to land …’

  The Luftwaffe bomber was coming in now, its wings rocking, its nose rising and dipping. It looked very unstable. Harry Morrow in the Blenheim behind it came down as calm and steady as anything. Something was wrong with the German plane, or with its pilot.

  Meanwhile poor Jane was struggling to open the door on her side of the van.

  ‘How does one release oneself from a utility vehicle?’ she demanded.

  I couldn’t reach across her. I slid out past the steering wheel and ran around to haul open the passenger door from the outside. Jane lowered herself to the ground without waiting for me to help, letting gravity undo all the work it took to get her in there in the first place. But she needed my shoulder and an arm around her waist to help her stand, because her sticks were in the back of the van.

  Now the third plane came down. The Spitfires circled above us, and the German plane taxied towards us from the far end of the runway, following Ignacy, growing closer. Airmen and ground crew were milling about everywhere, and Flight Lieutenant Jamie Beaufort-Stuart suddenly split away from the crowd and came over to where we were. He wore a life jacket and boots over what looked like a pyjama top and uniform trousers, but he didn’t have on any other flight gear, and his fair hair was standing straight on end as if he’d grabbed it all by the roots and pulled.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ellen called to him. ‘Was that you flying the lead plane?’

  ‘D’you think I’d be out here in my jim-jams for fun?’

  Ellen shrugged. ‘You just might.’

  He ran one hand up over his face and through his hair, and I could see exactly how he’d got it to stick up in spikes. Then he waved at the German plane, which had trundled a lot closer. What I’d thought was smoke turned out to be a white towel or pillow slip fluttering from the cockpit window up front. Another long white streamer trailed behind the plane.

  The Junkers was nearly twice as big as I’d thought it was in the air. It towered over the Blenheims. Its huge propellers clattered to a stop, and the white banners fell limp. The other planes switched off at the same time, and the stillness rang in my ears as if I’d gone deaf.

  Then Ellen exclaimed in concern: ‘Jamie!’

  She reached into the breast pocket of her uniform for her Woodbines and a matchbook and gave Jamie a cigarette. He took it, but when she offered him the matches he shook his head, put the cigarette in his mouth, and held up his narrow hands briefly, to show her.

  He was trembling so much he couldn’t light a match. It was awful. I sucked in my breath between my teeth.

  Ellen lit one for him. He leaned over her hand to dip the cigarette into the flame. She was taller than he was, but it didn’t make him look like a schoolboy. He looked like a bent old man.

  ‘Sorry.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘That landing gave me the screaming abdabs. Apparently these chaps—’

  He waved the cigarette at the Luftwaffe aircraft.

  ‘They came over from Norway this morning. I don’t think they have enough fuel to get back. They seem to be unarmed – they want to surrender. Or to negotiate. See the white flag?’

  Jamie took another long drag on the cigarette. ‘I don’t know what happened. Maybe they had a change of plan at the last second, or something – the pilot seemed to lose control completely. The plane just went berserk. I suppose the loose webbing might have tangled in the tail—’

  He pulled in a long breath of air that had nothing to do with smoking, and said, ‘I thought he was going to land on top of us.’

  ‘So did we,’ Ellen said soberly.

  Jamie looked down at his shaking hands. ‘And I guess this is what it feels like when you actually do lose your nerve! Thank God it didn’t happen in the air.’

  A section of the clear dome over the Junkers 88 cockpit slid open, and a hurricane of angry German shouts tore through the air. Jane, who always favoured her left ear over her right a little bit, stood listening with her head cocked on one side like a bird watching a worm.

  Suddenly a man catapulted out of the plane as if he’d been shot from a cannon. He tried to catch himself on the way down, missed, and sprawled beneath the wing on the tawny winter grass. He was wearing a flight suit and leather jacket and helmet, which I couldn’t have told apart from any of our British gear. A moment later another man climbed out after him.

  The first scrambled to his feet and leaped at the other, pulling him to the ground. They rolled over and over beneath the wing of their plane, wrestling and throwing lightning-fast punches at each other. Then a third airman climbed out and joined the pile-up.

  By now there was a big crowd watching. It was nothing like a secret operation – nothing like last November. Young men in hastily buttoned uniform jackets piled in to try to separate the fighting Luftwaffe airmen.

  The first man, the one who’d been thrown out of the plane when the hatch opened, got the worst of it. He fought like a cornered mongoose, but he didn’t stand a chance against so many, or even just against Chip Wingate. The American gunner, in pyjamas and a life jacket like Jamie, fought like a whole family of cornered mongooses, and he seemed to enjoy it, too. The others wrestled the flailing German airman to the ground, pinned him flat on his face, and wrenched his arms behind his back. Finally one of our ground crew pulled off his belt and used it to lash the German’s arms together.

  Even then he still kept struggling, like a red snapper reeled in from the green waves on a fishing line.

  Someone snatched off the German’s leather flight helmet and goggles.

  I recognised Felix Baer.

  Jamie:

  Louisa lurched forward. Jane was hanging on her arm, and Ellen grabbed Louisa’s other shoulder.

  ‘Whisht. Take care,’ Ellen said.

  They both recognised that captured German.

  I was looking at ‘Odysseus’.

  One of his fellow airmen bent to yell a single ferocious word at him, and Felix Baer spat in his face in reply.

  The other man wiped his cheek, and I saw he held a Luger pistol in his gloved hand, which in another second he pressed against Baer’s head.

  Almost everybody froze.

  Not Tex. Sergeant Chester Wingate took this opportunity to slam his fist into Baer’s face and break his nose.

  ‘Stop it!’ Louisa screamed. ‘What are you doing?’

  Ellen’s arm was around her shoulder, but to be honest I think the only reason the kid didn’t run forward to stop the fight herself was because of the old woman leaning on her.

  I tried to wade in and stumbled. I was still shaking like a leaf. Silver hauled Chip off the German bloke by the back of his life jacket.

  Felix Baer’s face was awash with blood, one eye already beginning to swell shut. He spat again, but he might have been trying to clear his mouth. He said to the other German airman – my German is not fluent but I know what he said – ‘You can’t kill me, you blockhead.’

 
‘No,’ answered the other, and according to Jane, he added, ‘But I’ll blow your ear off if you don’t stop fighting.’

  Baer’s teeth were chattering. I could see it – could see his jaw shaking as badly as my own hands. I had no doubt he was the pilot who’d been flying when his plane nearly collided with mine.

  No one else noticed. Everybody was too busy starting a fresh brawl with the Luftwaffe airman holding a gun in the middle of an RAF aerodrome. There was another tussle, less dramatic than the first, as our lads took possession of the pistol, searched the enemy, and grabbed hold of the third German while they were at it.

  Felix Baer sat sullenly on the frozen ground watching with his hands tied behind him and his nose dripping blood. He kept his mouth pressed tightly shut, trying to calm the shaking.

  I stepped forward and held my cigarette to his lips.

  ‘Hell of a landing,’ I congratulated him, even though I knew he wouldn’t understand it. ‘Glad you missed me.’

  Ellen:

  I thought my heart would burst. I’d never seen Jamie Stuart so broken down he couldn’t light his own smoke.

  It made everybody quiet. Not a soul there but didn’t see the trembling as his neat, slim fingers held out that cigarette to the enemy.

  When Felix Baer lifted his head to take it, I saw that he was shaking too.

  Then I knew why Jamie offered it. Death had missed them both by an inch, come close enough they saw what it looked like – now they were surprisingly alive after all and able to share a smoke.

  Baer nodded and took a drag on Jamie’s cigarette, sitting with his arms tied behind him, breathing hard and with a face like raw mince. Jamie stood there, helping him nurse the smoke as if the Jerry pilot were a burn victim on his back in hospital.

  ‘Hey, anyone here speak Kraut?’ Chip asked.

  There was not one volunteer. Jamie gave a start, as if he were going to speak up for Mrs Warner, but he thought better and kept quiet.