Attack Alarm

by Hammond Innes

  But there was no hostility and no questioning. I had known what was going to happen, but I had stayed on the site. That and the business with the bomb put me right in their eyes. But Westley—poor little man—who had eventually obtained compassionate leave to attend his grandmother’s funeral and had left early in the morning, came in for a good deal of discussion.

  The ’planes came back in ones and twos to land as best they could on the pitted ’drome. The glare of the day wore slowly on. Time lagged in the heat. Exposed though we were, there wasn’t a breath of wind and the drought-baked earth was hot to the touch. Anxiety and impatience combined with fear to hag at my tired mind. Would this interminable alarm never end? I wanted to find out what had happened to Marion—to see that she was all right. And John Nightingale hadn’t come in. The All Clear had gone on the Tannoy quite soon after the alarm. But we had been kept at our posts. They were no doubt windy, as Langdon said.

  Ogilvie came round in his car with chocolate, cigarettes and beer scrounged from the ruins of the Naafi. For once quite human, he stayed and chatted, apologising for keeping us standing-to.

  Gradually the atmosphere in the pit changed, apprehension giving way to annoyance. Every one seemed to become morose. Kan scarcely raised a smile when, in reply to a question from Oggie, he described the raid as “Too, too utterly shattering, what, sir.” The only bright spot was that his inexhaustible flow of personal supplies from Fortnum and Mason’s saved us from experiencing any serious inconvenience at the loss of our lunch. For a time the sight of Micky slinking back from the shelter of the neighbouring dispersal point gave the pit a topic of conversation.

  During the afternoon I got permission from Langdon to go over to the dispersal point and find out what had happened to Nightingale. But they knew no more than I did. He was missing—that was all.

  Finally, at three-forty-nine we were allowed to stand-down. By that time I had forgotten my own fears in my anxiety to find out what had happened to Marion. And then, of course, Langdon had to pick on me to do the first air sentry. It was my turn, it was true. But I could have burst into tears with impatience.

  I wasn’t alone for long in the pit, for as soon as they had boiled some water on the primus, Langdon and Blah came out to clean the barrel and do a cursory examination of equipment. Half an hour of my hour’s guard passed very quickly. But after that it began to drag. I had been almost continuously on the pit for six hours. Reaction from the excitement of the action had left me tired and dispirited. Fortunately this had one advantage in that it dulled my sense of fear. I was too weary to think, and so imagination, the source of all fear, was numbed. The glaring heat of the sun seemed undiminished. A mug of tea and some cigarettes were brought out to me.

  I didn’t seem hungry, but the tea was very welcome. And when I had finished it, I stood there in the sultry heat and stared at the wreck of Thorby, not consciously recording what my eyes saw. The fires were under control now and only an occasional wisp of smoke drifted up from the ruins. From where I stood there was little to show the fearful nature of the attack. The bulk of the hangars still stood intact, screening the desolation I had seen from the square. People came and went between the camp and the dispersal points, the cars weaving their way in and out among the craters that dotted the edge of the field. Lorry loads of Royal Engineers were brought out to fill up craters on the runways and to deal with D.A. bombs.

  A car drew up just beyond the pit. It was an R.A.F. car and someone got out. I took no notice. I was watching a Hurricane, whose tail appeared to be badly damaged and whose undercarriage had failed to work, coming slowly in to a pancake landing.

  “Excuse me, could you tell me what hospital Gunner Hanson has been taken to?”

  It was a girl’s voice. I turned, still watching the ’plane out of the tail of my eye. “What did you say?”

  “Barry!”

  I forgot about the ’plane. It was her voice. But my eyes were full of colours through staring into the sun. I did not recognise her at first. Her face was in shadow. But I knew the cut of her hair. “You’re all right, then.” My voice sounded cold as I tried to hide my emotion. It was such a dull remark.

  But she didn’t seem to notice it. “It really is you, isn’t it?” There was a momentary break in her voice.

  “As far as I know,” I said, and we laughed and the spell of awkwardness was gone.

  “I didn’t recognise you in your tin hat,” she said. “You see I—I wasn’t expecting to find you here at all. I was told by a Waaf from the sick bay that a soldier with the name Hanson on his identity disk had been found in the square, badly wounded. I thought it must be you. But she didn’t know what hospital he had been taken to.”

  “Well, thank God, there is apparently another Hanson in the camp,” I said. “Where were you?”

  “In a shelter at our quarters outside the ’drome. It might have been worse, I suppose. A bomb fell on the wing of the house and it collapsed on the end of our shelter, but no one was injured. Things are pretty bad down in the camp. All the barrack blocks are gutted, the Naafi, Station Headquarters and three shelters were hit. Have you seen the hut where the Guards and R.E.s were billeted?” I shook my head. “Absolute shambles. They’re blown all over the place. Looks like one of those film shots of an American hurricane. And there’s no gas, water or electricity.” She hesitated. “I suppose you regard this as just a prelude?”

  It was no use telling her “No.” She wouldn’t have believed it. I said: “The attack was against personnel and not against the ’drome itself. The runways are fairly clear of bombs.” I left her to figure out the significance of that.

  “You mean, they want to use it themselves—to land troops?”

  We were silent for a moment, and I said: “It’s lovely now, isn’t it?”

  It was not a very bright remark. But she understood what I meant. The peace and stillness of a late August day. It was so beautiful after the havoc. And again I found myself thinking of the river. It was such a perfect day for lazing in a boat. Marion in yachting clothes—how well she would fit into the picture! How well she would fit into any picture that I could conceive!

  I lowered my gaze hurriedly as she looked up at me. Strange that this should be such a perfect moment of beauty when all about us were the weapons and havoc of war. In that moment I achieved a wonderful sense of peace. The realisation that whatever the horrors and disasters a man had to face he could still find beauty came to me suddenly, together with knowledge that only man-made things could be destroyed by war. Whatever happened there was always the sun and the stars and the beauty of nature to be shared. My mind, alert now, grasped at that —they had to be shared. That was the secret of the enjoyment of beauty. Alone, beauty had always seemed so painful in its transience. Time never stood still so that you could hold a moment and keep it. But shared, the beauty of a moment seemed complete. Instead of being purposeless, except for the delight of one’s gaze, it fulfilled itself by welding two personalities together. And in that brief moment that Marion stood there in silence I felt that we were very near. And I was content that it should be so.

  The spell was broken by footsteps approaching the pit. It was my relief. “Are you going to Ops. now?” I asked her.

  “No. I ought to go back to billets and help with the clearing up. They got the wing in which I sleep, so I’ve lost most of my things.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll walk down with you as far as the main gates.”

  I handed over to my relief and then clambered over the parapet and joined her. We didn’t say much at first and this time the silence was an embarrassed one. But suddenly she asked me if I’d seen anything of Vayle. “As far as I was able to discover, he remained in the camp,” she said.

  I told her of Elaine Stuart’s death and of how I had found Vayle standing over her in the deserted and half-ruined hangar. I went on, of course, to tell her of the workman who had spoken in German in his delirium and who had mentioned Cold Harbour Farm.
/>   Then my brain suddenly clicked.

  “What was it Elaine said in her sleep about her birthday?” I asked.

  “I don’t really think it had any bearing on what you’re after,” she said slowly. “She just said, ‘It’s my birthday.’ I think she said that twice. It was mixed up with a whole lot of babbling, which I couldn’t understand at all. It’s all so hazy now. I was half asleep myself. In fact, I’m not at all certain I didn’t dream it. I suppose she really did say something about Cold Harbour Farm. Funny that the workman should have mentioned it too.”

  “I must try and trace that fellow,” I said. “In the meantine, can you find out when her birthday would have been?”

  “I expect so. Somebody is bound to know it. But do you really think there’s anything in it? It’s a remarkable coincidence, I know, but——” She stopped with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “I mean, it doesn’t seem to me a very satisfactory clue.”

  I was only too conscious of this. “It’s the only one I’ve got,” I said rather ruefully.

  “What are you going to do next?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I was thinking of that dent on the back of my tin helmet. “Find out where Cold Harbour Farm is. And if Elaine’s birthday would have been on one of the next few days, I should think there was some connection.”

  “Yes, but what would you do about it?”

  “God knows!” I said. “Time will tell, I suppose.”

  She suddenly took my arm. “Don’t do anything foolish, Barry. I mean, it’s silly. It’s a matter for the authorities.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’ve nothing concrete to tell them. You can’t expect them to act on a mixture of conjecture and doubtful coincidence. However, don’t worry. I’m not exactly dying to get myself into trouble.”

  We were nearing the shell of the officers’ mess, and I suddenly saw a familiar figure coming towards us from the direction of the hangars. “Oh, good!” I said. “John Nightingale is all right. He was missing.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I don’t know him personally, but he’s got a wonderful reputation in his squadron.”

  He recognised me as I saluted him. “Glad to see you’re still alive in this shambles,” he said.

  “And you,” I said. “All I could find out from the lads at your dispersal point was that you were missing. What happened?”

  “Oh, nothing much, except that I was ignominiously brought back by car.”

  “Well, the last I saw of you was diving on top of one of those low-flying ’planes. That was you, wasn’t it? It was a very steep dive to within a few hundred feet.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I bagged a couple of ’em, but the second one put a burst right across me. Got the petrol tank and smashed up the landing gear. Made a bit of a mess of the cockpit too. I just managed to pancake the old girl at Mitchet.” He shook his head with a grin. “Lovely bit of flying,” he said. “They were hedge-hopping all the way from Tunbridge Wells. They were so low as they topped the hill into Thorby that they ploughed through the tops of the trees.”

  “Their losses are going to be pretty heavy to-day, aren’t they?” asked Marion.

  “Well over the hundred, I should think,” he said. “My squadron has bagged over thirty for the loss of four machines. You couldn’t miss. We met them just after they had crossed the coast. We came at them out of the sun and swooped straight down on to the bombers. They were massed so thick they seemed to fill the sky in front of us. I got two before the first tier of fighters came down on our tails. Everything was a mix-up after that.”

  Understatement. Understatement. Understatement. Yet the scene was vivid in my mind. The huge mass formation of bombers, flying steady and unbroken even when attacked, the ugly black crosses plain on their silver wings. And above, the tiers of fighters waiting to pounce on any attackers. And the attackers when they came no more than a squadron or two at the most.

  “What brought you down on the tail of our low-flying attack?” I asked.

  “We got a radio message through. I could only spare one. We were pretty badly outnumbered. By the way,” he said, “I was in Town last night and I got in touch with your friend. He said he had already received a message from you.”

  I told him how Marion had managed to get a message through. Then I said: “Have any other fighter stations been attacked to-day?”

  The reply was “Yes,” and he named two of the biggest, both near the coast.

  “What did they go for?” I asked. “The runways and hangars or the billets and ground defences?”

  “Well, from what I hear, they’ve done much the same as they’ve done here—concentrated on the billets. Much the best way of putting a station out of action. They did it at Mitchet just the same and they’re having an awful job to feed and house the men. If this were winter the stations would be practically untenable.”

  “Look,” I said, “can you do something for me? I want to get hold of Ordnance Survey maps for southeast England. And I want them in a hurry.” It was rather an abrupt opening, but I could not think of any way of leading up to it.

  “I’ve got R.A.F. maps. What do you want them for?”

  Marion touched my arm. “I must get back,” she said. “I’ll try and find out what you want and I’ll come down and see you in the morning.” She was gone before I could remonstrate, walking quickly and purposefully towards the square.

  “What do you want them for?” John repeated.

  And then I told him the whole story of Vayle and the plan to immobilise the fighter ’dromes. And this time I left out nothing. Someone might as well know everything that had happened.

  When I had finished I said: “I expect you think I’m a fool—imagining things and jumping to conclusions. It’s what any sane person would think. But I’m perfectly serious. I know all the weaknesses. And, God knows, the whole structure of my suspicions is flimsy enough. But I can’t convince myself that I’m wrong. And this attempt to shoot me, daft though it seems, is real enough to me. I had to risk your ridicule so that somebody would understand if something happened to me.”

  He was silent where I had expected some probing questions about my conjectures. But he made no direct comment. All he said when he broke the silence was: “R.A.F. maps won’t be any use to you, they’re mainly physical. I’ll have to try and get Ordnance Survey maps. There’s a Cold Harbour Farm down on Romney Marshes, and I’ve heard of another one somewhere. You may find several. How will you know which to choose, and what are you going to do when you’ve made up your mind which it is?”

  “It’ll be the most central one for the south-eastern fighter stations. But what I’m going to do about it, God only knows.”

  “If you could persuade the authorities to raid it, they might raid it when there was nothing incriminating there.”

  “I know the difficulties,” I said rather wearily. “At the moment I’m just taking the fences as I come to them.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll find you those maps by to-morrow evening, all being well. In the meantime, good luck!”

  When I got back to the site Ogilvie was just leaving. Men were wanted to erect huts and marquees. “Six men, then, Sergeant Langdon,” he said. “Parade outside what was Troop Headquarters at seven-thirty. That will give them a chance to get a rest first.”

  I stood aside for him to pass out. As the door closed behind him Micky, who had been pretending to sleep, said: “Cor, give me a ’arp an’ let me fly away.”

  “Why the hell can’t the R.A.F. do it?” demanded Chetwood. “Damn it, they’ve spent most of the day in the shelters doing nothing.”

  “Well, I’d rather be above ground in this heat,” said Langdon. “Anyway, it’s a case of everybody doing what they can.”

  The grumbling did not stop, however, until Hood came back. He had been over to the other site. “Well, how did they get on?” asked Langdon.

  “Oh, they claim our bombers, of course. Actually they had a pretty bad time. The
pit is simply surrounded by bomb craters. No casualties at all, though—except young Layton. He’s been taken off to hospital suffering from shell-shock. Simply went to pieces. Just couldn’t take it.”

  “Well, he’s not the only one,” said Chetwood.

  “Yes, but the others aren’t hospital cases,” said Hood. And there was no sympathy in his voice. “They just know where they’re best off.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” put in Kan. “‘Imagination doth make cowards of us all,’” he quoted, quite unconsciously giving us the benefit of his profile in the approved Gielgud style. “That’s the trouble with Micky. He’s ignorant, and he’s cursed with imagination.”

  “Who’s ignorant?” demanded Micky, sitting up in bed. “Why don’t you talk about a bloke to his face, instead of waiting till he’s asleep. You ain’t goin’ to talk about me like that,” he told Kan. “I’m as good as you, mate, any day. I bin a foreman wif men under me, see? Just because you got money you think you can say wot you like. I didn’t go to Heton.” There was a wealth of scorn in the way he said Eton. “I had to work for my living. You can grin, but I bloody well did, mate. And I ain’t so ignorant. Uncle of mine built Alexandra Palace.”

  “And Burne Jones was your stepfather—we know,” said Chetwood. Micky, for purposes of aggrandisement, regarded all eminent Joneses as close relatives.

  “Why you pick on me when I was trying to stick up for you, I don’t know,” said Kan in an aggrieved tone.

  Micky’s sudden outburst seemed to have exhausted him. He lay back again. “Can’t you let a bloke sleep,” he complained.

  “Well, you can always go back to your funk hole,” said Hood bluntly.

  “If we was in the bleedin’ infantry I’d show you how to fight. An’ it wouldn’t be you wot was wearin’ the stripes. It’d be me, mate. This ain’t fightin’.”

  Langdon changed the conversation by asking Hood whether the hut on the other site was damaged at all. Apparently it was much the same as ours, which had quite a lot of shrapnel through the roof and the north side. I found my blankets littered with glass when I came to make my bed. There were only one or two windows unbroken. And it wasn’t difficult to find souvenirs in the form of jagged pieces of shell casing. They were all over the hut. One fellow found a piece in his kit-bag, and another bit had broken a milk bottle on the table and lay in the bottom of it.