Attack Alarm

by Hammond Innes

  “The best,” she smiled. I liked her when she smiled. “But the City notes got smaller and smaller. I began to feel I wasn’t pulling my weight. Life seems a bit dead when you’re spending six hours at the office and there’s only about an hour’s work. And that’s how I came to join the Air Force.”

  “What’s your job?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve been rather lucky. I only joined up about six weeks ago and I’ve managed to get into Ops. It’s really very exciting plotting the movement of all these raids. I came here about a week ago straight from the training course.”

  “Funny! We’ve both been here about the same time.” I was just going to ask her how she took to life on an aerodrome when I realised that every one else had stopped talking and was listening to Trevors.

  “The trouble is,” he was saying, “they don’t know how they got into the agent’s hands. Either the agent himself got into the place or else somebody gave him the information.”

  “Well, it’s easy enough to get into it,” said Muir. “A bloody sight too easy. The police at the main gates seem to let any one in uniform through without question.”

  “And there are all these workmen coming and going,” put in Hood. “Any one of them might be a fifth columnist. If I know anything about British organisation, they haven’t been checked up on very carefully.”

  “It’s not only the workmen,” said John Langdon. “It might just as well be someone in the Services. Nobody bothered to find out whether I was a Fascist or if I was pro-Nazi when I joined up. Germany has had seven years in which to prepare for this. You can bet your life their fifth-column organisation won’t be confined to the civil population.”

  “In fact, the trouble is that it might be any one who has access to the ’drome,” said Trevors. “It might even be somebody in this troop.”

  “Westley, for instance,” said Hood. Nobody liked Westley, and he was known to have belonged to the B.U.F. at one time. “He was sitting shivering in the pit when we went into action this afternoon, as though he was scared out of his wits we’d bring something down.”

  “Anyway, Oggie is going to give us all a little lecture to-morrow on the British Empire and our duties as soldiers of the Crown,” Trevors went on. “They’re checking up on all the workmen. And we’re all going to be issued with special passes so that it won’t be so easy for any unauthorised person to get into the camp.”

  “What’s it all about?” I asked Kan. “I missed the first bit.”

  “Intelligence have found a complete ground plan of the aerodrome in the hands of a Nazi agent, so Tiny says.”

  “What would the Germans want with that?” I asked. “I mean, you’d think they would have got all routine information of that nature long ago.”

  “Oh, but it isn’t as simple as all that,” Kan pointed out. “I mean, things change from month to month. Take it that they intend to make fighter aerodromes their Number One objective. They well may. If the fighter aerodromes were immobilised for even twenty-four hours the invasion would succeed. Only two months ago this place was defended by six Lewis guns—two manned by the R.A.F. and four by another troop in this battery. Now there are our two three-inch guns, two mobile Bofors and one Hispano, quite apart from all the ground defences. Information about all those new defences would be vital to a successful attack on the station.”

  “I see.” It was obvious, of course. Whatever the views of the High Command two or three months ago, I knew that the Air Ministry had never been under any delusions as to what would happen if the main fighter ’dromes were immobilised for even the shortest period.

  The table seemed to have fallen strangely silent after the first outburst of speculation. Thinking about it in the light of what Kan had said, I felt an unpleasant sinking sensation inside me. It might be the routine collection of information by the German espionage system. But the news that Germany wanted detailed plans of the ground defences came too soon after the bombing of Mitchet for me to regard it as other than an indication that they were out for the fighter ’dromes, and that we were on the list.

  I think it was then that I first realised that Thorby was an enclosed space imprisoning us. There was no getting away from the place. Here we were and here we had got to stay whatever was in store for us.

  “It’s a horrid thought, isn’t it?” said Marion at last. “I mean, the idea that they want the position of every gun, every trench and every piece of barbed wire.”

  She gave a wry smile. “You know, when I came here,” she said, “I thought it was all so interesting. It excited me to see the ’planes taking off. There was the call to readiness on the Tannoy and the revving up at the dispersal points. Then the gathering for the take-off, engines roaring at the start of the runway. I loved to see the leader of each flight of three drop his hand as he signalled the take-off. It thrilled me. One minute they were on the ground and the next they were dwindling specks in the sky. A few minutes later they might be engaged in a desperate fight in defence of Britain’s shores. And it was fun to be at the pulse of the whole thing in Ops., plotting the raids as they came in.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Now I’ve lost my girlish thrill. The novelty has worn off, leaving a rather tawdry picture of dust and wire and noise. Partly one is tired, I suppose. But also I’m beginning to realise that air defence is not a big adventure, but war, just as brutal and wearing as it was in 1914—different, that’s all. I get no kick out of being at the pulse of the whole thing now. Just a primitive joy in helping to bring our own machines into contact with the enemy.”

  “Your reaction to the place seems much the same as mine,” I said. “At first I thought it exciting. Now I’m not sure it isn’t too exciting.”

  “I think you’ve got something there,” said Kan, looking past me towards the entrance of the tent.

  I turned. One of our fellows was coming in. He had his gas mask at the alert and his tin hat on, and he was in a hurry. He paused to peer through the smoke of the tent and then made straight for our table. “Take post!”

  “Oh, hell!” said Trevors.

  “Anything exciting?”

  “Just the usual visitors. There’s one overhead now.”

  “Come along now, lads—drink up.” Trevors imitation of the Naafi girl at the supper canteen caused a shout of laughter as every one scrambled to their feet, gulping hurriedly at their beer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NIGHT ACTION

  WE TUMBLED out of the tent into the square. It was dusk. The barrack blocks stood in black silhouette against the long stems of the searchlights, which weaved a pattern against the stars. Some of us had bicycles. Kan and I began to run. The intermittent throb of a Jerry could be heard overhead. Somewhere up there in the half-darkness of the night a ’plane was moving swiftly towards London. And to the north came the sound of the Thames barrage, and occasionally we could pick out the little star-like burst of a shell.

  At the far side of the square we were picked up by a Bofors tower, which dropped us at our gun pit. We ran into the hut and got our steel helmets and gas masks. The place looked bare and deserted in the light of two hurricane lamps. The table was littered with the remains of supper and amongst the dirty plates was a half-finished game of chess. The cards still lay on a bed just as they had been dealt for a hand of bridge. Everything was just as it had been left when the detachment on duty had gone out to take post.

  Outside the night seemed darker. The searchlights had moved to the north, clustering as they followed the passage of the plane. Against their light the pit was just visible as a black circle of sandbags with the thick barrel of the gun pointing skywards. And inside the circle tin-hatted figures moved restlessly to and fro. As we went across to the pit we met Micky Jones, panting. He had been less fortunate in the matter of a lift. “Some people ’ave all the luck,” he said. “Cor, I ain’t ’alf puffed. Run all the bloody way. And there’s Bombardier bloody Hood strolling along as cool as you please. Any one would think there wasn’t no war on.”

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nbsp; As we came into the pit, John Langdon, still sitting on his bike, was talking to Helson over the sandbagged parapet. Eric Helson was the lance-bombardier in charge of the detachment on duty. “Was that Micky who just went into the hut?” Langdon asked us.

  Kan told him it was, and Langdon said: “All right then, Eric. That completes my detachment. You people come on again at one o’clock and then we’ll take over at stand-to. That gives us three hours each between stand-down and stand-to. You might explain this new arrangement to Hood.”

  “I will,” said Helson. “And I think I’ll turn in now and get my three hours. Are you coming, Red?”

  “Like hell I am.” He was chiefly remarkable for his flaming red hair, and as he climbed off the layer’s seat, he pushed a big hand through it. “Can’t remember when I last went to bed at this time, knowing that I could count on three hours uninterrupted sleep.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said Langdon. “We may get a preliminary air-raid warning or I may decide it’s necessary to call the whole detachment out.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t do that, Sarge.”

  “I’ll try not to,” said Langdon with a grin.

  The detachment that had been on stand-to began to drift off. Langdon looked round the pit. “What about layers? Chetwood, you’d better be Number Two, and Kan, you can take the elevation side. Micky will take his usual place as Number Four. Is that you, Micky?” he asked, as a figure appeared from the direction of the hut. “You’re firing. Fuller and Hanson ammunition numbers. Fuller, you’ll hand the shells to Micky. And you’d better be responsible for the phone,” he added to me.

  So began one of the most exciting nights of my life. For the first few hours it was much the same as every other night since I had been at Thorby. It was warm and we took turns at dozing in the three deck-chairs. Every few minutes an enemy plane came up out of the south-east. The first indication would be a white criss-cross of searchlights far away over the dark silhouette of the hangars. These would usher the ’plane over their area and pass it on to the next group. By the movement of the searchlights you could follow it right in from the coast, across the ’drome and on over London. It was a definite lane they had found. There seemed to be no heavies anywhere along it. It was like a bus route.

  Mostly they came in high and the searchlights wavered helplessly, unable to pick them out. Sometimes Gun Ops. gave us plots for them, but more often not. Occasionally they dropped flares. They seemed to be no more than armed reconnaissance, for they seldom dropped any bombs. And by the way they dropped flares to light the way into London it seemed as though experienced pilots were showing youngsters the way in.

  It was actually just a coincidence that their route led them straight over Thorby. But it gave us all the feeling that we were the objective. Once I was quite convinced we were for it. There had been a period of comparative quiet when the sky was strangely blank. The only searchlights to be seen were away to the north-east, where a steady stream of raiders was coming into London by way of the Thames Estuary.

  Then suddenly Micky said: “Here ’e comes again—the bastard.”

  A little knot of searchlights showed far away to the south-east. And at the same moment the phone rang. I picked up the receiver. “Calling all guns. Calling all guns. One, two, three—three?—four.” “Four,” I said. “Five, six. Are you there now, Three?” “Three,” said a voice. “One hostile approaching from the south-east. Height ten thousand feet.”

  I repeated the message to Langdon. “That sounds more hopeful,” he said, getting out of his deck-chair. “All right. Layers on.” Kan and Chetwood got on to their seats. The gun swung round, its muzzle nosing in the direction of the ’plane as though it would smell it out. The searchlights came nearer. Others flickered into action as the ’plane approached until those across the valley were in action too, their dazzling white beams showing up every detail of the landing field.

  The muzzle of the gun slowly elevated. We strained our eyes upwards to the point where all the beams converged. “There it is,” said Kan suddenly in an excited voice. A speck of white showed in the beams. But it remained stationary and the searchlights moved away from it. “Sorry,” he said, “it’s only a star.”

  Then the Tannoy broke the expectant stillness. “Attention, please! Attention, please! See that all lights are out. All lights to be put out at once. Enemy aircraft are directly overhead. Take great care to show no lights. Off.”

  “What’s the betting they turn on the flare path now?” said Fuller.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” replied Kan. He turned to me. “You weren’t here when they did that, were you, Barry? It was last week. They actually turned it full on for a Hurricane coming in when there was a Jerry right overhead. And were we scared! The fellow couldn’t help seeing it was a ’drome.”

  “Look at that silly bastard!” said Micky. A car had turned out of the officers’ mess, which was on the far side of the ’drome near our other three-inch pit. Its headlights, though dimmed, showed white against the dark bulk of the hangars. “If I was over there I know what I’d do. I’d tell ’im to put them out. An’ I wouldn’t give ’im no more than one chance. If he didn’t put them out, I’d shoot ’em out. I would an’ all—officer or no bloody officer. The silly fool—endangering every one’s lives!”

  Micky had a phobia about lights. He was a queer mixture of bravery and cowardice in the same way that he was a queer mixture of generosity and selfishness. In the hut at night he was a perfect curse until the lights were put out. Every night he would go round the blackout. If there was the slightest chink showing he made a nuisance of himself until it was stopped up. He’d even been known to complain about the light showing through cracks in the floor boards at the side of the hut. And if he was on guard you couldn’t enter or leave the hut without the warning, “Mind that light!” spoken in that gruff rather aggressive voice of his.

  In this particular case, of course, he was more than justified in his outburst. He had barely stopped speaking when from across the aerodrome we heard, faintly, the shout of, “Put those lights out!” Immediately they vanished, and not a glimmer showed from any part of the ’drome. Yet it was lit by the surrounding searchlights as though by a full moon. I felt we must be visible at ten thousand feet. I waited, tensed, for the whistle of the first bomb.

  But nothing happened. The ’plane passed slightly to the west of us, maintaining a steady course for London. Not once had it been picked up by the searchlights.

  Chetwood climbed stiffly off the layer’s seat. “Any one want a cigarette?” he asked.

  “Don’t you go lighting a cigarette, mate,” said Micky. “Do you want to get killed? I tell you it’s bloody silly.”

  “Oh, shut up, Micky,” snapped Chetwood.

  “He’ll see you, mate, I tell you. An’ don’t you talk to me like that, see? I ain’t your servant even if you have got a lot of brass. What’s more, I’m senior to you. I bin in the Army since the beginning of the war.”

  Chetwood ignored him. “Cigarette, Langdon?”

  “No, thanks, old boy.” Kan didn’t smoke, but Fuller and I took one. “You be careful,” Micky muttered. “You bin lucky so far. But one day he’ll see you and he’ll drop one right on this ruddy pit.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” Chetwood spoke quite pleasantly, but I could tell by the restraint in his voice that he was on edge. “That one has gone over. And the next one is right down on the horizon. How can any Jerry see a cigarette when he’s miles away?”

  “Well, I’m warning you. You ain’t the only one that’s going to get killed if a bomb falls on this pit. You want to think of others sometimes. You’re in charge, John. You didn’t ought to allow it.”

  “Well, as long as they’re careful it’s safe enough, Micky.”

  “All right. But they’d better be careful. I ain’t in no hurry to go to Heaven.”

  Chetwood lit his cigarette under the folds of a gas cape. We lit ours from the butt of his. It seems incredible, but
we were really very careful about cigarettes, smoking them in cupped hands even when there was nothing overhead. The trouble in light ack-ack is that mostly you’re posted right on the vital point. We often envied the heavies who could fire at planes with a sense of impunity. On a V.P.—especially an aerodrome—there is always the knowledge that you may be the objective. The frayed nerves that were revealed by a craving for cigarettes and a tendency to be short with one another were, I am certain, due more to this than to lack of sleep.

  After that ’plane had passed over no one seemed inclined to doze again in a deck-chair. I felt very wide awake. We all stood around the gun, tensely watching each cluster of searchlights as they ushered ’plane after plane across the ’drome. They all seemed to be coming in from the south-east and going out of London by way of the Thames Estuary, where the barrage was incessant. Several times we saw one caught in the beams of the searchlights. But they were all a long way away, and even through the glasses showed as no more than a tiny speck of white in the centre of criss-crossed beams.

  The second of these was quite invisible to the naked eye. But I happened to be looking at the various clusters of searchlights through the glasses. “There’s one,” I said. I experienced the excitement of a fisherman who has at last got a bite. It was coming out of the Thames barrage and flying south-east. It was nose down for home and travelling so fast that I felt it must be a fighter.

  Micky was at my side as soon as I reported it. “Let’s have a look, mate.” I hardly heard him. I wanted to see whether it would turn in our direction. “Come on, give us the glasses. Other people want to ’ave a look besides you.”

  “In a minute, Micky,” I said. “I don’t want to lose it. It’s very faint.” But the ’plane held its course, and in the end I let him have the glasses.

  “Gawd, it’s a Jerry all right. You can see the double fin.”