“His uncle’s funeral!” Micky snorted. “Just because his father’s an orderman in the City he gets given leave. If me muvver ’ad died they wouldn’t give me leave. I tell you, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen in the real army.”
“Well, has he been granted leave?” asked Chetwood.
“Yes, he’s got twelve hours.”
“That should keep him out of danger on the fateful day. It does seem a bit clever, doesn’t it.”
“I bet it was him that gave that information to the enemy.”
“You shouldn’t make statements like that unless you know them to be true, Micky,” Langdon cut in. His voice was patient but quite final.
“Well, you must admit it’s a bit of a coincidence,” said Chetwood.
“Coincidences do happen,” said Langdon. “If you want to discuss the matter, do it in front of him so that he can answer your charges.”
“Oh, I wasn’t making no charge,” muttered Micky. And then added defiantly, “A bloke’s got a right to ’is suspicions, though, ain’t ’e?”
I wondered where Vayle would be on Friday. And whilst my mind was occupied with this the conversation drifted to the arrival of the new squadron. They had come in that afternoon. They replaced 62A squadron, who had gone for a rest. Every one had been sorry to see 62A go. They had put up a grand show. They had been a month at Thorby—and a month at a front-line fighter station at that time was a long while. In that month they had shot down more than seventy enemy ’planes. But they had had a bad time, and if any one deserved a rest, they did. The relieving squadron was 85B. Like its predecessor, it was equipped with Hurricanes. But we knew nothing about them. Langdon, however, who had been in the sergeant’s mess that evening, said that they had had a good deal of experience in France and had been taking a well-earned rest up in Scotland. “The squadron-leader is apparently one of our crack fighter pilots,” said Langdon. “D.S.O. and bar and nineteen ’planes to his credit. Crazy devil and always sings when he goes into a fight. Funny thing, his name is Nightingale.”
It was an unusual name and took me straight back to my schooldays. “Do you know his Christian name?” I asked.
“No. Why? Do you know him?”
“I don’t know. We had a John Nightingale at school. He was crazy enough. His most spectacular feat was to put two—pieces of crockery, I think they were called—on top of the Naafi marquee at Tidworth Pennings on his last camp. I just wondered whether it was the same fellow. It’s rather an uncommon name, and he took one of those short-term commissions in the R.A.F. when he left school.”
“What sort of a show did the squadron put up in France, do you know?” asked Kan.
“Pretty good, I gather,” replied Langdon. “Anyway, they have a high opinion of themselves.”
“Well, I hope they’re not over-estimating themselves—for their sakes as well as our own,” said Chetwood. “I heard of a relieving squadron over at Mitchet who thought they were pretty good. They had come down from Scotland too. But they hadn’t any experience of dog-fighting their way through big formations. They acted mighty big in the mess their first night. And the next morning they went up and flew straight into a hundred and fifty Messerschmitts over Folkestone. They lost nearly half the squadron without bringing down a single Jerry. I don’t think they did much crowing after that.”
Micky held a bottle of beer out to me. I don’t think he was consciously trying to be friendly. It was just that his mood of suspicion had passed. The rest of stand-to passed pleasantly. Few ’planes came over. We were relieved at ten and went straight to bed. It was already clouding over.
I was woken up to be told that the “All Clear” had gone about quarter of an hour ago. The hut was full of the soft stir of men breathing. It was five to one. I was the first guard of our detachment. I scrambled into my clothes and went out to the pit. It was still cloudy, but the moon had risen and the night was full of an opaque light.
“Anything interesting happened?” I asked Helson, who had been left on guard by the other detachment.
“Nothing while the alarm was on,” he replied. “They were coming over in an endless stream and several flares were dropped away to the north. Can’t think why they suddenly dried up. Harrison told me something rather exciting, though. He’s just come off Gun Ops. The squadron leader of 85B has taken a Hurricane up to intercept. Apparently he got annoyed at hearing them coming over without any attempt being made to stop them, so he asked the C.O. if he could take a ’plane up. But the C.O. wouldn’t allow the flare-path to be put on for him. So he said that wouldn’t stop him, all he wanted was one landing light at the far end of the runway. But even this wasn’t allowed, so he said lights or no lights, he was going up. He went out from the dispersal point here. We saw him take off and wondered what he was up to. It was a crazy thing to do. It was as black as pitch at the time. But he got up all right.”
“Did you see him at all?” I asked.
“No. I tell you, it was like pitch. There was a bit of a mist over the field. Well, that’s all the news. Enjoy your guard.”
He handed me the rifle and torch and left me to my thoughts. They were pretty chaotic, for I was dopey with sleep. My guard passed slowly, as it always does when you are sleepy, but daren’t go to sleep. It seemed unnaturally quiet. Occasionally I heard the movements of one of the guards patrolling the barbed-wire on the slope below our hut. Otherwise there was not a sound.
It was twenty to two—I had just looked at my watch—when I heard the sound of a ’plane. It grew rapidly louder. It was very low and travelling fast. The ’phone bell rang. I picked up the receiver. My heart was in my mouth. I expected a plot and I knew it would be on top of us before I could get the gun manned. Leisurely, Gun Ops. went the round of the sites. Then the voice at the other end said, “One Hurricane coming in to land.” At the same moment the flare-path went on, a blinding swathe of light along the runway facing into the wind.
Then the ’plane appeared through the cloud with its navigation lights on. It came diving down at high speed straight for the gun. At not more than two hundred feet it flattened out. It passed right over my head and banked slightly on to the flare-path. The sound of it passing through the air rose to a scream. I could see the flame of the exhausts each side of the nose. And then it was lit up by the light of the flare-path and it began to roll over. It seemed very leisurely and easy. The ’plane went right over in a superb victory roll, scarcely losing any height. It was a mad, lovely piece of flying. For an instant it shone silver as it rolled and then the night beyond the flare-path had swallowed it.
I could have shouted for sheer joy at that superbly executed symbol of victory. It lightened my spirits. I took it as an omen. It was one of the very first occasions: on which one of our ’planes had shot down a Jerry at night. I picked the ’plane up again circling leisurely to the south of the ’drome. It passed behind me and came in beyond the flare-path, two pinpoints of light, one red, one green. Then suddenly there it was gliding along the flare-path, its brakes squealing as it slowed up. At the end of the runway it turned and taxied back across the field to the dispersal point a hundred yards to the north of our site.
A few minutes later I saw the pilot walking slowly along the road. I got the glasses out and watched him. He still had his flying suit on and I could not see his face. But I would have recognised that lithe yet curiously shambling gait anywhere. It was John Nightingale—no doubt about it. He was walking on the same side of the road as our pit and would pass within a few yards of me. It was strange to see him alone after having accomplished something so big. I felt that the least the C.O. could have done would be to come out and meet him in his car.
As he came abreast of me I said, “Squadron-Leader Nightingale?”
“Yes.” He stopped.
I saluted. “It’s John Nightingale, isn’t it?” I asked.
“That’s right. Who’s that?”
“Barry Hanson.”
“Barry Hanson?” he repeated. Then,
“Good God! Barry Hanson—of course.” And he came over to the parapet and shook me by the hand. “What strange places one does meet people now:” He grinned.
I could see his face in the diffused light of the moon. I should never have recognised him by his face, it was so changed. When I had last seen him he had been a fresh-complexioned lad of eighteen. Now his face was tanned and leathery, there were little lines at the corners of his eyes and he wore a small moustache along the edge of his upper lip. There was a white scar across his chin and the left cheek was disfigured by a burn. But his smile was the same. He smiled with his eyes as well as with his lips, and there was the old flash of gaiety and recklessness in it.
He vaulted to a seat on the parapet. “So you’re a gunner now? What were you doing before the war?” I told him. “Well, well—so you didn’t like the insurance business. That was where you went from school, Wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I replied, “but it was too dead for me.” And I told him how I’d cut out on my own. Then I asked him about himself. He had done his five years and then been accepted for permanent service. He had been promoted to squadron-leader shortly after war broke out, and had led his squadron in France.
“What about your escapade to-night?” I asked. “That crazy roll you did when you came in meant, I suppose, that you’d shot one down?”
“Yes,” he said with a careless laugh. “I was lucky. There’s only a thin layer of cloud at about two thousand. Above that it’s bright moonlight. I went up to twenty thousand, which is the height at which they were coming over. I figured that, as they were using such a definite route, if I hung about right over the ’drome I’d be sure to see one of them sooner or later. I hadn’t been up more than fifteen minutes when a Heinkel blundered right into me. I very nearly crashed it. I twisted on to his tail. I simply couldn’t miss him. He was like a great big silver bird in the moonlight. Absolute sitter. After getting him, I hung about for a further half-hour in the hope of picking up another, but I had no luck, and in the end I had to come down. I gather they had stopped coming over.”
Then he went on to talk of old school friends that he had met. He was full of news of those who had joined the Services. And as we talked I was turning over in my mind whether to take him into my confidence and tell him of my suspicions about Vayle. It seemed such a heaven-sent opportunity. R.A.F. officers were given plenty of freedom. He probably had a car. He would have plenty of chances to ’phone a wire from some exchange at a reasonable distance. He might even be going up to Town the next day, in which case he could ’phone Bill Trent direct. And yet I was chary of getting myself into further trouble. Not that he was the sort of fellow to report anything I told him—but I did not know how discreet he would be.
At length he said, “Well, I must be getting along, I suppose, or they’ll be sending out a search party.”
I looked at my watch. It was just on two.
“You’ve passed my guard nice and quickly for me,” I said.
“Good.” He got down from the parapet. “Look, you must come and dine with me somewhere soon and we’ll have a really good talk over old times.”
I laughed. “I should like to,” I said regretfully. “But I’m afraid it’s not possible. We’re not allowed outside the camp, and at the moment I’m confined to my site.”
“Oh, have you been getting into trouble, then?”
I hesitated. And then I told him the whole thing—or rather, not quite all. I didn’t mention the plan for immobilising fighter stations. I didn’t want to run the risk of being thought too credulous again. But I told him about the pilot’s story of a raid on Friday and how the man had shut up like a clam as soon as he saw Vayle. I told him what I had learnt about the librarian and the attitude Winton had taken when it was discovered I had been wiring a colleague for information about Vayle. I explained, too, that a plan of the ground defences of the aerodrome had been found on a Nazi agent.
“Yes, I heard about that,” he said. “It’s rather extraordinary, because it was more than just a plan. It gave the approximate number of rounds on each gun site, and a complete plan of the wiring of Ops., Gun Ops. and the runway lights. The plan was made out by someone who had access to a great variety of information that is not usually available.”
“That points to someone in authority,” I said. “Vayle could get details like that. But I’ve got nothing on Vayle—nothing definite at all. It’s just that I’m suspicious, and I shan’t be satisfied till I know for certain whether my suspicions are justified or not.”
“Is this fellow Vayle short with a rather fine head and iron-grey hair?”
“Yes,” I said. “Long, almost sardonic features.”
“That’s right. I met him to-night at the Spinning Wheel. It’s a sort of farmhouse turned night club up on the other side of the valley. He was there with a Waaf.”
“Did he talk to any one?”
“Oh, he said cheerio to a number of pilots. The place practically lives on flying officers. Yes, he did have a chat with two fellows from Mitchet. But most of the evening he spent with this girl Elaine.”
“Elaine?” I was interested. I remembered what Kan had said. Promiscuity might be very useful to an agent.
“Look,” I said. “Can you get a message through to a fellow called Bill Trent on the Globe?”
“Well, you know the ’phones are very difficult and I believe there’s great delay on telegrams.” He hesitated, and then he said: “But I might run up to Town to-morrow evening. I could ’phone him then, if that’s any use to you. Mind you, I can’t promise. But I should be free. Anyway, I’ll do what I can. What do you want me to tell him?”
“Just ask him to get all the information he can about Vayle. Tell him it may be of vital importance. You needn’t worry about him being indiscreet.”
“O.K. I’ll do it if I can. What’s his home number?” I told him. “Right. Well, I’ll be seeing you.” He raised his hand in salute and strode off towards the officers’ mess. I went across to the hut and called Chetwood, who was my relief guard. It was two-fifteen. In a few minutes he came out and took over. I was so concerned about the steps I had taken to contact Bill Trent that I forgot to tell him anything about John Nightingale’s escapade. The atmosphere in the hut smelt stale behind the blackout curtains after the fresh night air. But I was too sleepy to worry about it as I tumbled into bed.
I woke to the clatter of workmen as they entered the hut just after seven-thirty. There were two of them. They had come to put in some panes of glass that had been broken when the hut was built. Strange and incredible are the ways of Government workmen. The hut had been erected about a month ago, and as soon as the roof was on the workmen had disappeared, though panes were missing from the windows, no interior boarding or decoration had been done, and the promised electric light had not been installed. And because the tents, though camouflaged, had been thought too conspicuous from the air, these had been struck and the whole gun team had had to move into the bare and half-completed hut.
Now, out of the blue, these two workmen came clumping in without any consideration for the fact that the occupants were trying to sleep. They were met by a liberal dose of invective. This had no effect on the elder of the two, a hatchet-faced man with a white, leathery skin. But his mate, who was little more than a boy, had the grace to say, “Sorry to disturb you lads.”
I was slow to arrive at full consciousness. But suddenly I realised it was Thursday. I shall always remember that Thursday. Until then I don’t think I had realised quite what I was up against. Subconsciously it had been something of a game, a diversion from the monotony of constant raids. But on that Thursday I discovered how far removed I was from a David in search of a Goliath, and by the evening I was almost sick in the face of a fear that came at me from every quarter.
It began rather better than most other days since I had been on the site. No alarm disturbed our breakfast. In fact, there was no alarm until just after eleven, and then it was only half a dozen hostile a
nd did not last long. For once we were able to get washed and shaved in comfort. But inevitably there was no ease in the lull. A lull had become unusual. And jaded nerves were suspicious of the unusual. Every one seemed strangely reluctant to enjoy the blessed comfort of not having to take post. It meant something worse to come—that’s the way they looked at it. There was no false optimism. We listened eagerly every night for the ever-mounting number of German ’planes shot down. But though the proportion of British to German losses exceeded all expectations, we knew only too well what it was costing us in worn-out pilots and unserviceable machines.
It was not long before somebody mentioned my talk with the Jerry pilot, and instantly every one saw in this lull the preparation for a raid on Thorby. That, of course, was ridiculous. They would not hold off for one day just to prepare for a raid on a single aerodrome. But the fact that they were holding off looked ominous. A big attack against a number of fighter stations might be followed almost immediately by an actual landing, since it seemed reasonable that they would strike while conditions in the aerodromes were chaotic. In a moment I was the centre of tense speculation. Questions were hurled at me right and left, and I was again conscious of that undercurrent of suspicion. I was the rooky who knew more than they did. That in itself inspired a subconscious hostility in most of them. At the same time, balked of any certainty about the morrow, they felt that I must be holding something back.
“Have you told Mr. Ogilvie?” asked Bombardier Hood.
“Yes, he knows about it.” I replied.
“What’s ’e goin’ to do about it, eh?” Micky’s face looked white and strained. Anticipation is so much harder to bear than reality.
“Don’t be a fool, Micky—what can he do about it?”
“Well, they could have an umbrella of fighters up.” This from Chetwood.
“Yeah, a squadron—that’s what they’d give us, mate. An’ wot the hell’s the good of a squadron. You saw them when they came over Mitchet. Bloody fousands of ’em there was, wasn’t there, Kan?—bloody fousands.”
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