THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel

by Paul Wonnacott

  The bombers' job would be hazardous. For any real hope of striking their target, they would have to come in low, facing intense flak from antiaircraft batteries on the cliffs rising sharply out of the fjords. To aim the bombs accurately, they would have to fly straight and level for several minutes, making them even fatter targets. Ryk's job, in contrast, was simple; he could fly his Spitfire at 18,000 feet. The ack-ack would undoubtedly open up, but mainly for practice. At that height, there was little danger he would be hit.

  The flight from Scotland and back was relatively safe. German fighters were urgently needed back home, to protect cities of the Third Reich from devastating air raids. To ease the boredom, Ryk played word games. Today, he was working on one of his childhood poems, translating it into English verse—that is, it had to rhyme in English, and have a similar meter to the original Polish. This was every bit as hard as it sounds. But he enjoyed the challenge. When he got a line right, he would jot it down on the pad attached to his right leg.

  He got over the first fjord, and there it was, the Tirpitz. His plane was carving unpredictable curves to avoid antiaircraft fire. The batteries below were throwing up flack, but did not even come close. Ryk abruptly ended one of his curves, and flew straight and level for twenty seconds to get a good set of pictures. A piece of cake. Now on to the next fjord, where he repeated the process.

  There was an off-chance that, warned by radar, the Germans would send up fighters to intercept him, particularly by the time he got to the second or third objective. His erratic, curving path would make it hard for them to catch him, but he nevertheless followed the survivor's habit—keeping his head on a swivel, surveying the sky to avoid nasty surprises. He also wanted to keep in practice; he would be returning to his fighter squadron within a month or two.

  He therefore continued to scan the sky even as he flew back out over the North Sea, headed home to Scotland. When he got an inspiration with his poetry translation, he would look briefly down at his pad, but otherwise his eyes rotated from his instruments, to the right, behind, left, up, and down. About 100 miles out over the water, he spied a target of opportunity—a large four-engine German Condor patrol plane, prowling for Allied convoys. Ryk flipped a switch on his control panel; he would now be able to fire his guns. He banked to the right and down; within a minute, he was directly behind the Condor. It seemed almost unsporting, to attack a large aircraft with no tail gunner, but he had long since given up the idea that air combat was chivalrous.

  With no worries about return fire, he closed slowly on the Condor, not opening fire until he was at short range directly behind the German aircraft. One quick burst from his machine guns; then a longer one. With the second burst, the whole tail section of the Condor began to disintegrate, spewing parts in all directions. Ryk suddenly realized his danger; he pulled the stick sharply backward to rise above the disintegrating plane. But too late. He could feel the impact as a chunk of the German tailplane struck his right wing.

  The wing dropped sharply; Ryk panicked. The Spitfire—normally such a docile aircraft—had one deadly vice: it was difficult to pull out of a spin. He instinctively pushed the stick hard forward, applying full left rudder. Within a few seconds, he had regained control, and gradually pulled back until he was once again level. He gingerly banked leftward, turning his nose toward Scotland and home. He was vaguely aware of the Condor plunging toward the cold sea.

  Because of the damage to his wing, he had to keep the stick off center, to the left, to maintain his heading. He checked his instruments; his air speed was slower than normal with his throttle setting, but that was presumably the result of damage to the wing. Even with the extra fuel consumption, he should have no trouble reaching his base. He just hoped that he would be able to control the Spit as he was slowing, coming in for a landing. Perhaps he should gingerly try to lower his flaps a few degrees, to see how it affected his control of the plane, and see if the flaps were damaged, too. On second thought, that could wait. He would try his experiments when he got over Scotland. If anything went wrong, he could parachute to earth rather than into the frigid North Sea.

  Then he noticed that the engine was running roughly and beginning to overheat. Why? Perhaps some of the chaff from the Condor's tail was blocking the air intake. To compensate, he began to thin the fuel mixture. That helped; the engine was now running less roughly and the temperature rising less rapidly.

  But it was still going up. He thinned the mixture even further—as far as his control would allow. Now the temperature stabilized, but he was beginning to lose altitude. More power. Now he held his altitude, but the temperature started rising again.

  This was beginning to look serious. No matter how he tinkered with power and mixture settings, he couldn't maintain his height without the engine getting hotter. He even tried lowering his flaps slightly, in the hope that the added lift would help him maintain altitude. That didn't work, either.

  After another ten minutes, he realized he wasn't going to make it; the engine heat had already edged into the red zone. He radioed a brief report: the Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Prinz Eugen were in their fjords, as expected. He had intercepted a Condor and shot it down. But he was going down about 50 miles Northeast of Scotland. Mayday, mayday. He continued to send the distress signal, giving the homing stations a fix on his position.

  As he slipped below 3,000 feet, the time had come. The water was much too choppy to ditch his plane. Unfortunate, because March is not the time for a dip in the North Sea. He reached behind his seat for the inflatable raft. He was wearing a life vest, but the raft would give him a chance to survive; he would, he hoped, be able to climb out of the icy water. He slid the canopy back. If the right wing wanted to dip so much, he would let it—all the way over until the plane was on its back. He released his seat and shoulder belts with a quick jerk of the pin, and found himself falling through the air.

  When Anna got to the office on Tuesday, she found a note: she was to see the security officer, Maj. Phipps, at once. When she entered his office, he invited her to sit down, and expressed condolences at the loss of her husband. He wondered if she would like some time off. She said no; she found that work was good for her morale. Well, he replied, if you change your mind, please let me know.

  Then he got to the point. He slid a handwritten letter across the desk. It was her note to Ryk. She had written to say that she would look forward to hearing from him. Kaz was dead.

  “I understand your distress,” Phipps began. Anna doubted that he really did. “But you know the importance of secrecy.”

  Anna didn't see the point. Clearing his throat, Phipps continued:

  “You sent a letter without clearing it through the censor's office—a breach of security in itself. More important, the note contains information that might be of use to the Germans.”

  This is ridiculous, thought Anna. A typical, paranoid security officer. “I can't see how. They can scarcely know who Kaz was. Even if they did, I can't see how his death would mean anything to them.”

  “Ah, but the point is, how did you find out? Through an intercept. It's of course unlikely that they would tie his death to the Katyn intercept. But it's just possible; they may be trying to put together a list of those killed at Katyn, to use against the Russians.

  “We can't rule out the chance that Ryk might be shot down and fall into enemy hands. The Germans like to start their interrogations with chitchat, then move to personal stuff, to put the prisoner at ease. Ryk would have no idea that he shouldn't mention Kaz's death; he would have no idea that it was based on secret sources.”

  Phipps looked her straight in the eye. “At least, I trust he wouldn't.”

  “No, no. I never talk about my work outside Bletchley Park—I mean BP.” Anna was flustered.

  “Because of your contributions, we'll let it go this time. But in the not too distant future, we'll be invading France. You know how important it is to keep our work secret, how many thousands of lives are at stake. ”

&
nbsp; “Of course.”

  “That means it's important to guard against even a minuscule risk that the Jerries will find out about BP. Nobody here is indispensable, not even Turing. You're aware, how hard we had to finagle to get a Pole on our team, even if you do have an English mother. If you break security—unless you do so intentionally—you won't be shot; we just said that at the beginning to get your attention. But if we do let you go, we won't just let you wander out onto the street. Remember Nigel Winston?”

  Anna nodded. She had talked to him once or twice before he suddenly disappeared.

  “He got careless. Not treasonous, just careless. He's now working as a supervisor, building a road through Alberta and the Yukon to Alaska. If you violate security rules again, I'm sure we can find a job in the Yukon for you, too.”

  “Yes, sir.” Anna was surprised how meek her voice was.

  Phipps' tone softened. He again expressed his condolences; she should come to him if he could be helpful in any way. He had to step out to check on something; would she please wait a few moments?

  As he went through the outer office, he nodded to Yvonne, who had been waiting. She went into his inner office and closed the door.

  “Well, I see you survived. Hope he wasn't too tough on you.”

  “Let's just say I've had more pleasant conversations.... But how come you're here? You're not going to give me the third degree, too?”

  Yvonne looked uncomfortable. Anna thought: she really has come to reinforce Phipps' message. This is laying it on. Then Yvonne responded:

  “There's a quotation from Shakespeare, something like, 'when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.' I think it's from Macbeth.”

  “Julius Caesar was the only Shakespeare I read.”

  “That was just a cowardly way to introduce my message. I'm sorry, but there's more bad news. I'm afraid Ryk's missing. Went down over the North Sea. But there's hope. He got off a mayday and almost certainly had a chance to bail out or ditch.”

  Anna could see Ryk bobbing in the freezing waters. Her eyes again filled with tears. Yvonne squeezed her hand. They sat silently for a while, then hugged and parted.

  When Phipps got back to his office, Anna had left. There was a message for him to call Squadron Leader Lester Bernard at Fighter Command.

  “Hello, Bunkie. Hope you have news about Ryk.”

  “Yes, Phil, and it's good. It was too late to send out a plane to search last night. But a Catalina took off half an hour before first light—they wanted to get an early start. They flew straight down the heading of his last transmission and found him just as dawn was breaking. He sent up a lovely red flare. They landed on the water without any difficulty; it was calm this morning. Anyhow, he's now in hospital up in Scotland. The night was harrowing. He got dunked before he got up on his raft, and he's suffering from severe exposure.

  “But he'll be OK. In fact, he'll be ready to resume flying within a fortnight.”

  They rang off.

  Phipps sat thinking for some time, sporadically drumming his fingers on his desk. He then asked his secretary to get Bernard back.

  “When Ryk gets back to flying, you'll keep him up there in Scotland?”

  “Not very long. Pilots are rotated back to combat duty within a few months.”

  “You couldn't keep him up there indefinitely?”

  “We could. But it might be difficult. He was already getting itchy after a few weeks up here. If he's kept indefinitely, he'll want to know why. I don't suppose you could give me any hint—what the problem is?”

  “Not really. But it's important he's not captured. He may have very sensitive information. The problem is, he doesn't know it's sensitive; he won't be on his guard. And we can't tell him what it is.”

  “If it's that important, the Norway run may not be the job for him, either. It's not very likely, but some day, one of our Spits may be shot down. Particularly if the Jerries want to get the Tirpitz out to sea, they might commit fighters to attack one of our planes.”

  “Ummm....”

  “Perhaps there's a way out. We could send him to Winnipeg—a tour of duty as an instructor in the advanced fighter training program. His English is more than adequate. He'd be a natural... so much combat experience.”

  “Sounds great. How soon could he be off?”

  “As soon as he's healthy. We have a plane leaving Scotland once or twice a week. They fly pilots back to Gander, where they pick up more bombers to ferry back across the Atlantic.”

  “Let me know when he's gone.”

  Phipps picked up the phone to call Anna, but then decided he had better think about it. After a moment, he replaced the phone in its cradle.

  It was times like this he didn't much like his job.

  Yvonne wished she could do more for her friend, who was in obvious pain. She asked Anna to drop by her office to chat; they would have more privacy in her room than in Hut 6.

  When Anna arrived, Yvonne was out; apparently she had been called away on some urgent matter. A note, in Yvonne's distinctive scrawl, was stuck to the door: Anna was to go in and wait. As she stepped into her old office, memories came flooding back—particularly that musty smell from the ancient carpet. But Yvonne had made some changes. Papers were stacked even higher on the desk, and a second desk was snuggled into the corner; it too was piled high with neat stacks of papers. Anna began to wander around the room, looking at the pictures on the wall. Most showed Yvonne's family during the happy days before the war. Several men in uniform gazed calmly down from their frames. They all seemed so young!

  The door to Denniston's office was slightly ajar, and, as Anna walked by, she was about to close it. She stopped short when she heard a heated discussion in the next room.

  “... completely out of the question. They spent several years in Vichy France.”

  “But this is idiotic. Rejewski has a marvelously original mind. He figured out the internal wiring of Enigma rotors. And he developed the first code-cracking machine back in prewar Poland. Zygalski provided us with a wealth of information just before the war started.”

  “The answer is no. When they left Poland, they chose France, not Britain.”

  “Not true. Not true.” Denniston's voice was rising. “They went straight to the British embassy in Romania; they offered us their services. The boneheads in the embassy turned them away, asking them to come back later. The French treated them like royalty. What were they supposed to do? Let the police chase them all over Romania while the nincompoops at the Foreign Office shuffled papers?”

  “Sorry. MI5 won't give them clearance.”

  “Don't those idiots realize how much the Poles went out of their way to help us?” Denniston's visitor was apparently from MI5; Denniston was so angry that he apparently didn't care if he was insulting his guest. “Even after they went to France, they met with Turing to help with the design of his machine. Rejewski would be invaluable in developing new machines. They're urgently needed.”

  “Sorry, but there's a blanket rule: no top security clearances for anyone who voluntarily stayed in Vichy France. MI5 has already assigned them to work on codebreaking.”

  “What? What? They can work on codebreaking? You mean they can come here, even without clearances?” Denniston was confused.

  “No. No. That's not what I said. They'll be working on lower-level ciphers, not the Enigma. They're attached to the Polish Army, and won't be anywhere near Bletchley Park.”

  “Low-level ciphers? This is crazy. You're putting brain surgeons to work dissecting frogs.”

  “Sorry. The answer is no. The decision's final.” Alastair's visitor showed no signs of anger; he was cool but firm.

  “I can't accept that.”

  “Too bad. You'll have to. And don't don't think you can run around MI5 to the PM. We'll block you. Before you do anything, think about it.... Do you really want to go to war with us?” As the visitor ended the conversation, there was a threatening edge in his voice.

 
Anna jumped; she was startled by Yvonne entering the room. Anna pretended that she was still doing the rounds, looking at pictures. Yvonne pretended not to notice. But she filed one more thing away in her mental “to do” file. When the occasion arose, she would repeat the warning to Anna: she was not to contact Poles, even in Britain, without checking first with security.

  “We haven't had much chance to talk lately. You've had a tough time,” Yvonne said softly.

  “Sorry; I guess I've been moping. But two men in one month. It's just too much. Kaz was the real blow. We hardly had any marriage at all—only six weeks. I really don't know how I felt about Ryk. When we were together, Kaz was always between us. But now.... ”

  “I wouldn't give up on Ryk. Lots of pilots are picked up from the sea.”

  “But after ten days? The North Sea's not exactly a swimming pool. Even if he ditched and got into a raft without getting soaked, he wouldn't be able to survive this long.” Her tears began to well up, as she thought of Ryk's slow death in the frigid waters. Maybe he had been lucky enough to be killed outright when his plane crashed.

  “He may already have been picked up, and Phipps not informed. You know how sloppy things can get.”

  “Yeah, but not that sloppy…. Maybe I should run around Phipps to Fighter Command, to see if I can get any information directly.”

  “I wouldn't. Phipps would undoubtedly find out. You know how he is about contacts with the outside world. Particularly after your little love-note.”

  Yvonne wished she hadn't said that; it wasn't very kind. After a few moments of frosty silence, an odd half-smile crossed her face. She walked toward her desk, closing Alastair's door as casually as she could manage. Puzzled, Anna looked at her friend and waited. Yvonne took a deep breath, then spoke in hushed tones.

  “I'm not supposed to tell you, but Ryk was picked up the morning after he was shot down.”