by Ray Ollis
Vivid flashes filled the cave with paroxysms of ghostly light, revealing Vincent’s sleeping form, his features muddy, his gloved hands twisted. He shivered and sometimes groaned as he lay in his filthy, rain-drenched uniform, drugged into the sleep of the exhausted—but on his face was a smile.
‘Say, bum, who you tink you are, eh? Rip van Winkle?’
Vincent stirred and blinked through the stupidness of half-awakening at the giant, steel-helmeted American who stood, legs apart, glaring down at him. ‘Hmmm?’
‘Who you tink you are, sleepin’ t’rough a battle? You ain’t Snow White, dat’s for sure.’
Vincent looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. Morning. His mind was foggy and his head ached but quickly he realised he was saved. Saved! He was free!
The morning was noisy with bass artillery played fortissimo, staccato machine-guns and a choir of syncopated shouting—Vincent’s overture to escape. He jumped up and ran towards his rescuer.
‘Steady, Mac,’ said the American; then Vincent noticed a .38 revolver pointing right at him. ‘Not so fast, Fritz! You don’t give Uncle Lem the skip dat easy.’
Vincent laughed and said, ‘But I’m British. RAF, you know.’
Nonetheless he stopped and looked unhappily at the dispassionate barrel.
‘British, huh?’, said the American. ‘Den what you doin’ wearin’ dat scarf?’
‘This scarf?’ Vincent was puzzled. ‘I always wear a scarf when I fly.’
‘But you ain’t flyin’ now, Superman.’
‘No. I was shot down. Raiding Groninberg four days ago.’
‘Yeah? I reckon you’re a paratrooper.’
‘Honestly, I’m British. Look, here’s my identity card.’
‘Paratroopers always got identity cards. Why you wearin’ dat scarf?’
‘I told you I always wear a scarf.’
‘Day before yesterday orders says ‘no scarves’. You know why? Because we got German paratroopers around here and dey all wear scarves as a sign. Why don’t you follow de order?’5
‘I was behind German lines. I didn’t know about it.’
‘I’ll say you was behind German lines; you’re a German, dat’s why and just t’prove it I’m gonna shoot you right in da belly.’
From the joy of a moment before, the situation had suddenly become as desperate as it could be.
‘Say your prayers, Fritz, ‘cos here’s where you get yours.’
‘Stop! Listen! Check before you shoot me. I’m willing to write a request that you, personally, be allowed to shoot me if I’m a German. But check first.’
‘You’ll write dat?’
‘Yes. Gladly.’
‘Dat’ll make a swell souvenir. Okay! Write it here in my notebook.’
Nervously, speaking each word as he put it down, Vincent wrote; ‘I, P/O Vincent Farlow, hereby request that—er, what’s your name?—that Sergeant Lem Rizonico be permitted, personally, to shoot me …’
‘In de belly.’
‘… by all means! To shoot me in the belly if I am shown to be a German paratrooper. How’s that?’
‘Sign it.’
‘Okay.’ Vincent signed it with a flourish since it was destined to remain a treasured souvenir.
‘But you’re just stallin’ for time. If you wasn’t German …’
Eventually Vincent persuaded his new and infinitely more dangerous captor to take him to Field HQ. There, to his surprise, he was treated with less suspicion than he had been by the burly sergeant. Suspicion he did not mind, however; at HQ there was less shoot-’im-in-de-belly feeling.
All that day Vincent waited for confirmation of his identity. He waited while Field HQ contacted Area HQ, who contacted Division HQ, and so on through Army Group, US Army HQ, Allied combined services liaison, British HQ, RAF HQ Europe, RAF HQ UK, Bomber Command, Group, Base and finally 101 Squadron who finally said, ‘Yes, he’s British’, and then the message returned by the same tortuous route.
The US Army then arranged for transport to Juvincourt. A bleak aerodrome, its many bomb craters shovelled full of earth, its bullet-riddled huts unlined and chill, its flying control patched and makeshift: Juvincourt represented the RAF in the US Sector.6
A few dozen men had been dropped on the wrecked ’drome soon after its capture, ordered to make it into an emergency landing field. They had few supplies, fewer arms. They had achieved wonders. They had even devised a kind of FIDO: if a stricken plane wanted to land at night or in poor visibility, the RAF erks would run along beside the runway exploding incendiaries salvaged from the German bomb dump. They received mail once a fortnight. They were forgotten men, they said, and they were not happy.
The German advance had come within a few miles of them and, two nights before, their entire guard had been found naked and stabbed to death at their posts, killed for their clothing by German paratroopers.
The next day Vincent begged a lift in an American Dakota flying back to England. They took him right to Ludford, landing without even calling control, and dumping Vincent in the middle of the 16 runway. Then, with a gay wave, they took off again while Vincent went in to see the puzzled control officer and tell him what was happening.
Vincent asked if any others of his crew were back.
They were not.
Was he again, as when he had first come to Ludford, an only flying survivor?
He turned into the met office. The sight of him stunned the girls for an instant. Then Wendy said, ‘Oh, hello, Vincent,’ almost casually.
But at the same instant, Paps shrieked, ‘Vincent!’ and rushed up to him and flung her arms around his neck. Vincent was surprised at how much he liked it and at the same time he realised how much he had suddenly come to want such attention.
‘I can do with a lot more of this,’ he said.
— 2 —
As soon as Vincent heard that Krink, Chiltern and Yarpi were safe he started organising a party. Any important event demanded a party and the escape of even half a crew from behind the German lines was certainly important. Bill was already reported a prisoner safe in a German camp and even Magnetic could still turn up—after all he had hurt his ankle and that would naturally make him slower. Perhaps the wretched Smiff would be their only casualty; such a successful escape from so dicey a do demanded a jolly party indeed.
Jackal was invited and came with Half-pint; he was still in plaster and so, he explained, Half-pint had circles under her thighs. For Krink he brought a black-eyed, long-haired, pale-skinned girl six inches taller than Krink himself. Her name was Petunia but Jackal had called her Sonja from the moment they met and now she was known as nothing else.
Vincent invited Paps. He had never taken her out before simply because he feared her reputation. He enjoyed her company in the Met office where she showed herself to be intelligent and even refined, but when by chance they met in a pub or at a dance her manner became suddenly sensuous and he knew he could not be more friendly with her and keep it platonic. She had accused him, once, of avoiding her and he had admitted it. ‘That,’ she said in just the seductive tone that Vincent feared, ‘only makes me all the keener.’
H-H and Barbara were invited, and they brought two magic twin dogs, visible only to themselves. The twins were introduced to everybody and everybody had to discover what they were up to from what H-H and Barbara said.
‘He doesn’t seem to like you, old man,’ H-H would say. ‘I’m not surprised; even ordinary moustaches frighten him and your P/O Prune effort could stampede wild horses.’
Barbara would order her twin to beg or shake hands with somebody and, quickly, she would say, ‘Uh-uh, darling, other paw! There’s Mummy’s angel; now you can go and sit by the fire.’
Suddenly H-H screamed at Jackal; ‘Careful, you clumsy clot! You trod on Tinker!’
‘What sort of a dog is it?’, asked Jackal.
‘A brown dog,’ H-H answered blandly. ‘Very rare.’
Whenever the dogs kissed, H-H and Barbara had to kiss
too. As the evening wore on and the alcohol wore in, Tinker and Tinkerbell kissed more and more frequently.
Johnnie, resplendent in his new pilot officer’s uniform, invited Wendy. To Vincent’s embarrassment and Paps’ annoyance, she came. Johnnie looked a little more dignified but acted even shyer than usual, so that with the reticent Wendy he made small impression in the generally rollicking company. But Barbara let Wendy nurse Tinkerbell and later invited Wendy and Johnnie to tea. Vincent overheard Johnnie accept and it made him furious.
Yarpi brought a sixteen-year-old called Laura. They were not a happy couple.
She stood in awe whenever the lovely Barbara or important-looking Wendy came near. Nor did Yarpi’s company ease her mind. His face was disfigured with a mass of small cuts brown with cordite stains and he jumped a foot when H-H announced that Tinker was about to bite him.
Chiltern declined to attend; whether because Wendy was with Johnnie or because there was Drink (which he always spoke of with a capital ‘D’) nobody knew.1
Joe was out of hospital at last so for him the party celebrated his release as well as the return of his friends. He had found an Australian girl—a WRAN attached to some Navy post in Grimsby—and they amused each other immensely by exchanging graphic Australianisms, displaying so full a vocabulary of risque phrases that H-H suggested blending basic English with base Australian and dispensing with drawing-room French altogether.2
For some reason known only to themselves Joe and his red-headed companion (whom he called ‘Blue’) would collapse in spasms of laughter when either of them said; ‘How’s your dirty rotten form?’3
Krink observed that nothing like this had hit the States since ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’. ‘And even that,’ he pointed out, ‘needed an answer.’
Paps was on duty in met at midnight and since the party was in the village, a mile and a half from control, she had to leave at about twenty past eleven. They feared that they would be a little unsteady on their bicycles, so Vincent said he would walk with her. He found it pleasant as they walked arm in arm through the cold night and he wondered to himself why, for more than a year, he had scrupulously avoided this girl’s company.
Paps was flushed when they went into the light of the met office. Her normal high colouring shone even more glowingly against her clear, fair skin.
‘I’m afraid night air and alcohol don’t mix,’ she said.
‘Would you like me to stay a little longer?,’ asked the girl Paps was relieving.
‘Oh, no, dear! Thanks all the same,’ said Paps quickly. She turned her face from Vincent to the Waaf and winked.
‘Oh! Then I’ll leave you two to, er, hold the fort.’
When they were alone Paps took off her jacket and loosened her collar, then stoked up the fire to a blaze. Vincent did not speak but watched her as she moved around the room. She walked over to the teleprinter and watched the weather messages ticking away to themselves. Then she drew her hand across her eyes and said, ‘Oh, dear, I am tipsy. I can’t even read these symbols.’
She walked unsteadily over to the rest-bed. ‘I think I’ll lie down for a moment.’
Vincent moved uneasily. He said, ‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’
‘Oh, you are most dreadfully English!’, said Paps crossly. Then, before Vincent could be offended, she added in her most provocative tone, smooth as a whisper; ‘No, dear, thanks. Come and sit here and talk to me.’
He paused, and Paps said, ‘Switch off the lights; we can see by the fire.’
‘I knew it would be like this,’ Vincent said to himself as he looked at her nestling into the pillow, her fair hair waving around her face, her deep grey eyes half-closing a little slatternly, her lips almost trembling as they dimpled into a smile. ‘I knew she would arrange this situation; why did I allow it?’
And, from his depths, he heard a voice say, ‘Because you wanted her too, you fool! She excites you, she obviously wants you, take her and revel in it.’
He turned and took Paps’ shoulders in his hands, bent over her and kissed her. She responded hungrily. She took his hands in hers and held them to her ample breasts, then ran them down her body and around her hips. Then with sudden tenderness she placed her hands behind his head and kissed him lingeringly, holding her body close to his, her eyes closed now, her breath fast and tremulous. Then she took his head in her hands and looked at him.
‘You’ve nearly driven me crazy,’ she said. ‘You’ve tried so hard to be good I just couldn’t resist you. Do you know what we’ve nicknamed you in the Waaf’s mess? ‘Tall, blond and righteous’, and we’re all agreed it’s a scandalous waste. Well, from now on you’re my tall, blond and passionate.’
She ran a hand through his hair. ‘Now go and make me that tea,’ she said. ‘I’m even less capable of working than I feared; I’m drunk as a skunk and I love it. When you bring me that tea I’ll be inside this bed like a grown-up girl and I like plenty of sugar.’
‘But you don’t take sugar.’
‘Tonight I want everything you have to give me; plenty of sugar …’
‘There I was,’ said Jackal, ‘forty thousand feet over the target, nothing on the clock but the maker’s name, on my back, the navigator taking astro-sights out of the bomb-baby, and still going up.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’, asked H-H.
‘I’m telling Krink how to shoot his shot-down-in-flames-behind-the-German-front-and-escaped line.’
‘Surely Krink can shoot that line himself.’
‘The only line he shoots to me,’ said Sonja languidly, ‘is about what he’s going to do now that he’s back. And I wouldn’t have him change that story for the world.’
‘That story never changes,’ said Jackal. ‘It’s just recast occasionally.’
‘Is he really an Honourable?’, whispered the Wran to Joe.
‘Yep. A fair-dinkum Honourable.’
‘Stone the crows!’
‘Aw, that’s nothing,’ said Joe, loath to be outdone. ‘I would’ve been a Lord if one of my crusading ancestors hadn’t castrated himself negotiating a double chastity belt.’
‘Gee, but you’re fabulous, darl! Trust your dirty rotten form.’
Their laughter was rudely cut short. An air-raid siren sounded—so loud that it seemed to be in the next room. Immediately the lights went out amid surprised whispers.
‘The Huns have got a bloody cheek,’ Jackal’s voice was heard to say. ‘Raiding us at this time of the war, and with a party on.’
‘And with the weather as foul as it is.’
‘I don’t believe it is a raid.’
As if to give this view the lie, there came a thud like a muffled explosion, and almost instantly the room was lit with a ghastly glare and filled with putrid smoke.
‘Incendiary!’, exclaimed a voice. ‘Put it out, quick!’
There was instant confusion; people running everywhere, a spate of bumping into and tumbling over …
Then the light switched on and standing in the doorway …
‘Magnetic!’ yelled Krink.
‘You old bastard!’ approved Joe, in his most affectionate tones.
‘That entrance,’ said Jackal, ‘leaves Mephistopheles gasping in the wings. Please accept this honorary rank of ASM,’ and whipping out his pen-knife, Jackal snipped six inches off Magnetic’s tie and dangled the trophy from his breast pocket.
‘You mean there isn’t an air raid?’ asked the Wran.
‘I am the air raid!’ said Magnetic, grandly.
‘And a very welcome one,’ said Jackal. ‘Despite the fact that you overplay the part.’
‘Oh, you are a lousy lot of cows,’ said the Wran, quite unaware that what passes for tea-table chatter at the Methodist Lady’s College in Wagga Wagga might be impolite for an English sergeant-major’s wife. ‘I’ve never been in an air raid and I thought I was going to see one at last.’
‘While it lasted, that was as good as any air raid,’ said Jo
e. ‘Magnetic, what did you toss in here? A Molotov cocktail?’
‘No. Just a Very pistol cartridge, green. Down the chimney.’
‘Wacko!’, said Joe. ‘The green light! Just what we’ve been waiting for.’
‘How’s your dirty, rotten form?’
Magnetic glanced around the room. ‘Is Vincent back?’
‘The green light,’ repeated Joe. ‘He’s doing fine.’4
— 3 —
Krink, Magnetic and Yarpi were in Squadron Leader Chiltern’s office, standing at attention in front of his desk. Chiltern sat straight-backed behind it, looking at some notes in his hand.
‘I had to write a report on our trip to Groninberg,’ he said. ‘One cannot lose a Lancaster without explaining it in some way. Naturally, I cannot know everything that happened. So I have you here to supply what little information I can’t be quite sure of myself.
I’ll read you what I’ve already written: I took off at thirteen-fifty-seven hours from Ludford Magna … that’s all routine stuff, until we come to—ah, yes, here. Approximately fifteen miles before reaching the target we received, without warning, three direct hits from anti-aircraft shells … yes, Farlow, what is it?’
‘First, sir, may we stand at ease?’
‘What? By the look of you all sprawling about I thought you were at ease. Yes; fall over if you haven’t got spines to hold yourselves up. And, Farlow, don’t interrupt if you have nothing important to say.’
‘I have, sir. Three corrections. We were twenty-five miles from the target, there were two direct hits and one near miss, and Graham distinctly gave you, not only warning, but an order for evasive action.’
‘Really, Farlow. I said approximately fifteen, which is near enough, and often a near miss is worse than a direct hit and this is to be a concise account—I cannot record every syllable that our hysterical Graham uttered or I’d fill ten volumes. And please do not interrupt, Mr Farlow. You are not here to correct what I have written but to fill in a few blanks with answers that I could not know. I shall continue: The port-outer instantly became unserviceable allowing the captain no opportunity to feather … yes, Farlow, what is it now?’