But I know the truth.
We’re going first. D Company is the first group to take off, ahead of the pathfinders, the paratroopers, the most battle-hardened American Airborne Division. Hold until relieved. Our mad Captain Rafferty will see ours are the first feet on the ground. And then he’ll fly off to safety.
I decide to try again with another cigarette. This time Lightwood accepts, too. American soldiers file past the window, faces blackened, helmets pulled low. I watch their faces, marvelling at how calm they are. My own reflection mirrors back at me, like a terrified boy playing dress-up. Still, I stare through the window, ignoring my own face in the glass, focusing on those men on the other side, strong, confident. None of them look over; they simply march past, vanishing from sight.
All at once it hits me, like another sucker punch in the ribs, and the cigarette slips, burning, from my fingers. The man in the window. Across the street from 78 Catesby Street.
He’s been there the whole time, watching to see who comes.
Anna’s father.
*
Of course he didn’t give me his real address. He’s been hiding across the street, watching. Watching and laughing at me and Lightwood.
What if he comes after Anna? No one knows he’s there. If Rafferty’s landing kills me... I have to tell her the truth.
I turn from the window, wishing the last thing I saw wasn’t my own terrified expression. ‘I have to leave.’
Lightwood looks at me calmly. ‘No one can leave.’
‘It’s important. It’s about... Anna.’
‘She knows you love her, mate.’
I blink in shock, but don’t have time to try and understand Lightwood. How does he know?
‘Listen to me. This is important. There is someone I have to see – something I have to do – in order to keep her safe.’
‘Now?’
‘There is no later, Lightwood. Not for me.’
Lightwood squints his eyes at me. ‘You mean to try getting out of here?’
I let the immense weight of the pack slide to the ground, start unloading my pockets and pouches. A sapper’s got to use his head.
‘You just watch my kit – please, mate. I’ll scrub my face off, dash off, be back before nightfall.’
‘You’re going to dash off? Squire, the second this rain stops, we’re leaving.’
‘The rain won’t stop – I have time. I’ll be in Southampton in less than an hour. Just – please, mate. Watch my kit, and cover if anyone asks for me. Yeah?’
‘Southampton—?’
I am already walking away. My excuse, I can only hope as I wash my face clean in the sink, is mad enough to work. This is well beyond mad, even for me.
‘Where are you off to, Sapper?’
‘Chemist,’ I say, meeting the guard’s eyes. My heart is beating so loud I’m certain he can hear it, too. ‘Major’s orders, on account of all the rain: two hundred French letters for keeping the rifles dry. He says if we can’t keep the barrels dry, there’s no sense carrying the bloody things around. Didn’t want me going with the face paint, though – keeping everything secret and all. Do you think I can borrow that motorcycle? Yeah, I figure no one will be using it for a while. Thanks, mate. Back in two ticks.’
*
I stand in front of the abandoned house. Of course the bloody rain has dried up but I can’t think about that. It took me nearly three hours to get here; the motorcycle ride to Southampton took close to an hour. I barely even got to enjoy it. The train journey to London took an hour and a half and I didn’t enjoy that at all.
The moment I told Anna the truth, she was off like a shot to see him. I could do nothing but follow along. At least she promised to stay out of sight until I’ve confirmed the German has no weapons. Will she let me arrest him?
I have to confront the bastard. He lied to Anna, he’s likely helping organize an attack on Britain. Now, with all the training, the hundreds of miles, the combat drills, I am ready.
The abandoned house stares back at me.
They will leave without you. Lightwood can’t disarm the bridge himself – not in the five minutes he’s got; I’ll go to gaol for this. The lads are leaving now.
Not yet.
Let him see me. As soon as he does, he will come. Now that I am alone, not a threat. Just a boy walking into a trap.
The air is heavy, damp – I could squeeze water from it with my fists. Where is he? My heart is thumping like I’m about to leap out of a glider without a bloody pack. I almost wish I was. If I’m wrong about this...
‘Ah, the young friend.’
I turn slowly to watch him advance. No hat this time. Blood pounds in my ears. The German approaches from across the street, where he’s been hiding. Where he’s been the whole time. The truth of it burns like bleeding hell.
Likely he’s getting ready to gloat about it now, that quiet small smile on his face. ‘You’ve come alone this time.’
‘No, he hasn’t,’ comes a voice.
From behind the wall steps Anna.
*
He is looking at me. Father.
His hair, pale as moonlight, is cut short. He does not seem so thin, so wild, this time. He looks almost like the man from the photograph. He is the man from the photograph. Isn’t he?
I couldn’t believe it, when Timothy Squire arrived at Hamble on a motorcycle. I’d written the number for Hamble in a letter; he could have rung, even if the R/T operator thought it was a sweetheart calling. But he said it was urgent, that we had to get to Southampton Station this moment, and so we came together. He explained what he could on the shuddering train to Waterloo.
I am grateful to be in my uniform. Somehow I feel braver. Though not as brave as Timothy Squire, who is tall and strong in his green sapper’s uniform. He looks proud, dark from the sun. Older. He stole a motorcycle; he risked his job – his freedom – to bring me here. To finally tell me the truth.
He made me promise to wait, to make sure the German didn’t have a weapon, before I showed myself. But I’ve waited long enough.
The German looks shocked and immediately nervous. Are there others, he must be thinking – Yeoman Oakes, the police?
‘You came.’
I shiver, but do not look away. ‘You stayed.’
‘Anna. Anna, I am sorry about your mother.’
‘Are you?’ I manage to ask, tearing my eyes away from his face. Timothy Squire stands just a few feet to the side. Respectful, but wary.
‘I knew she was... distressed. I should have done more.’
‘Then why did you leave? Why then, and not now?’
His face tightens, the high cheekbones drawn in. Like mine. His ears, though, are nothing like mine, sticking out at the top. ‘I had to come back for you, no matter what the danger. I tried, but I couldn’t come sooner. But when I heard about your mother... If Gregory Oakes hadn’t lied to me, I would have found you earlier—’
‘What was the song?’
We stare at each other in the stunned silence that follows. I know nothing about this man. All I remember is some music from behind the study door.
‘What was the song?’ I ask again, this time breaking through. ‘The song you played in your study. I remember it, your violin.’
‘There were many.’ His voice is raw. With what – Sadness? Grief? Anger? ‘I believe the one you mean is called, “The Lark Ascending”.’
‘Mum tried to play it. I would hear her, behind the closed door, trying to play it. You left your violin behind.’
Oh, Mum. You just made up his memory, created him from nothing. A violinist who drowned when I was too young to memorize anything about him. Only an old photograph and some song about a lark.
‘I had to leave, Anna. I had an... opportunity. I had to return to Germany.’
I am surprised how steady my voice is. ‘You are a scientist?’
‘An engineer.’
Timothy Squire’s head swivels at this, but I don’t have time to worry about hi
m. This strange man – this engineer – is looking at me with pleading eyes.
‘There is something coming, and you cannot be here when it does. You must believe me. I... worked there. For a time. It is why I left England, though I did not know...’ He trails off, but finds his thoughts once more. ‘The Nazis have new weapons. They will be ready now, I am sure of it.’
Worked there? Oakes’s words come back to me: He left to take some scientific post. Why will no one tell me the truth? We all have secrets. We all try to do what is best.
Timothy Squire interrupts. ‘I wouldn’t worry about you – you Nazis – attacking.’
The German shakes his head dismissively. ‘Hitler knew Churchill would try to invade. He has the weapons ready. The FZG-76 – two tons, twenty-five feet long, a wingspan of sixteen feet. A warhead with two thousand pounds of explosives. Vergeltungswaffen, they are called. Vengeance Weapons.’
Timothy Squire moves between us, facing the German. ‘I don’t care what he calls them,’ Timothy Squire says. ‘A self-propelled missile is impossible.’
‘They are rockets. With a range of two hundred and fifty miles, they can be launched from Holland. If the technology has been perfected... there is nothing you can do.’
‘Bollocks. They could never be accurately targeted—’
‘Of course not. That is precisely their use.’
‘It’s time for Hitler to experience our blitzkrieg!’ Timothy Squire’s voice is hot with anger.
‘They must test them,’ I say, my mind snatching at any chance. ‘Where?’
The man turns to me. ‘Poland.’
‘You know where the building site is? We must alert Bomber Command.’
‘They’ve already been. The research site was destroyed last year. They have moved into the mountains now. Maybe even inside the mountains. We can’t get at them now.’
‘“We”?’ comes Timothy Squire’s outraged voice.
I feel confused, dizzy, and worry for a moment that I might sick up. The new weapon, targeting us even as we target them. The V1s.
And Mum’s words, from so long ago. Wars are always lost.
‘You must go,’ I say, and both sets of eyes sweep back to me. The German’s eyes are blue, and filled with concern. That always-serious face – never the hint of a smile. I push the image of the photograph from my mind. He is useful; he can help us, somehow. He said ‘we’. ‘You must trust me.’
‘I do,’ he says, simply.
Timothy Squire says nothing. I will explain to him later.
‘Go to Ireland.’ My throat constricts but again I say the words. ‘I will write to you there.’
I can feel Timothy Squire lurch. His voice comes as though from a great distance. ‘Anna, no—’
‘I will wait for you, Anna,’ the man, Will Esser, says. Hope washes the anger from his voice.
I can’t let Timothy Squire have him arrested. I think of Oakes’s story, of the sad man playing the violin in his cell the night before his execution. I can hear the music, that song I heard on the radio back in the crew room – ‘The Lark Ascending’ – and I know it is the same music I heard from Father’s study. The only thing I remembered about him.
I hear it now, and I see him – his blue eyes, his heavily lined face, his hair, pale as moonlight – playing the violin in his gaol cell.
I look at Timothy Squire, his face fixed in horror, clearly sorry to have brought me here, to have ever told me the truth, and then my gaze turns to the German. His hopeful blue eyes, the hint of a smile. Will Esser.
My father.
Monday, 5 June 1943
Helmets are netted and painted in green and brown camouflage. Boots are tight as possible, straps even tighter. Faces are smeared in coal. Lightwood pulls out two fags, lights them both, hands me mine.
‘Luckiest prick in Britain. Glad you’ll be with us.’
I nod in thanks, my heart still throbbing in my chest. It took even longer to get back, nearly four hours – I almost ran out of petrol on the forest road – and I’ve missed the entire day. A different guard, thank the Lord, was at the gate, and after I told him the chemist story he was smirking as he let me past.
No one is smirking now. We’re so heavy in armour and gear, like those bleeding knights from the Tower display trying to mount horses. The Line of Kings. There are no kings here, no great leader at the head of the charge. Just some good lads and that bollocks Rafferty.
And the Yanks. Instead of the stove soot we have used, the Americans have added some kind of polish – their faces have streaks of white, strange, fearful patterns. All of them have shaved their heads bald. The Yanks who have even more gear than us – guns strapped across chests in what looked like instrument cases, machine guns, bazookas, great commando knives and revolvers, patches of eagles and American flags on their shoulders. And parachutes. Shouldn’t we all have parachutes? The glider has a parachute, I remind myself.
Three gliders are headed to the Caen Canal; three to the Orne River. Luckily, both missions have a glider full of Yanks alongside the two British ones. Some of the lads grumble that we’ve already had too much of a war, and the Yanks haven’t had a bit of one. For myself, I’m more than grateful to have them take care of the Germans guarding the bridges. All I have to worry about is defusing the bombs. Which I can do in my sleep.
The days of rain have left the runway skimmed with puddles. I waddle ahead, the end of a shrinking queue. Nine more lads and I’m on board. We’ve got forty minutes to load the gliders – take-off time is 22:56 – and we’re set to use every second. We are glider number three, right in the middle of the pack – now crammed tight with a Jeep and two anti-tank guns.
I mucked everything up bringing Anna along with me. She can’t hate the man; he’s her father. What will she do now? I have to warn someone. Not the police, they’ll have him arrested on the spot, and Anna will go off on me. Should I post a letter to Oakes? No, he’d rally the Warders and the Scots Guard and God knows who else. What am I meant to do?
Now that he’s seen her, he’ll do anything to be with her. I can’t leave Anna at the mercy of a madman, even if he is her father.
I have to tell someone, and fast.
Six more lads and I’m on. Stuffed in the plywood box with vehicles and massive guns, men on both sides of me, men across from me, all as calm as they can trick themselves to be. All certain that this might well be the end. One hour in the air, then we’re across. I’ve done this thirty-seven times.
Then we land.
We’ve all seen the aerial photos, to get the lay of the countryside. We’ve also seen the great forests of anti-glider stakes – ‘Rommel’s asparagus’, the lads call them – waiting for our arrival. We are part of the airborne landing; the seaborne landing won’t be far behind. The largest force ever put to sea – a new, bigger Armada. The Great Crusade. And the Germans don’t know it’s coming.
At least we pray they don’t.
The invasion will work. It never has before, but it will now. It has to.
I’ve got my own trick, of course. The black wings are still in my mind, but they are not death, not any more. They are Yugo’s wings, the fighter. He will fight, he will survive this war – the rations, the bombings, and whatever Hitler can throw at us – and so will I.
I’ll see you again, mate. Until then keep an eye out for Stackhouse and his measly portions. Mum and Dad, I’ll be back – no horrid letter from the Minister of War for you, Mum. I promise.
And I did what I could for Anna. What else could I do? She’ll be fine, too. Somehow. I love you, Anna Cooper. I will come home. I have my own plans for us. Looks like I’ve missed my chance to warn someone about her father. I can only pray she’ll keep away from him.
The lads inch towards our glider. One more, an almost portly fellow called Morton, who’ll drive the Jeep once we land, and then it’ll be me climbing in the glider. I swallow, hard. The Germans don’t know we’re coming. Unless it’s a trap.
I glance for the firs
t time at the great bomber that will tow us across the Channel. I reckon Rafferty is still relaxing in the hangar with his bloody feet up. Better than having to look at him out here.
A Yank paratrooper has broken away from his queue to approach ours.
‘All right, you limeys. Don’t you dare take any prisoners.’ The Yank doesn’t raise his voice, and his words are all the more chilling for it. ‘Those Nazis have a plan for any paratrooper they find – your privates cut off and stuffed in your mouth. Your body is used for bayonet practice. You want that? You see a Nazi, you shoot a Nazi. No prisoners.’
There is little enough to say to that. The Yank walks away, his boots scraping the tarmac.
‘All right, lads!’ The major’s voice roars into the silence. ‘You’ve all had excellent training, and your orders are clear. Do not be daunted should chaos greet you on the other side. It undoubtedly will. Remember your training, remember your orders, and you will see this mission complete.’
A smattering of cheers and one aborted hip-hip-hurrah.
‘Sir,’ comes Lightwood’s voice just behind me. ‘I reckon I’d better go now instead of later.’
‘What’s that, Sapper?’
‘The toilet, sir. I have to go and spend a penny, sir.’
Before the major can reply, three other voices have piped up, including the almost portly lad. Major’s face swings to me.
‘What about you, Squire? You need to go back and have a wee?’
My mind says no, but I don’t bring the word to my lips. One last bit of luck. ‘Yes, sir. I do, sir.’
‘Christ’s sake,’ he grumbles. ‘Everyone who needs to go shake hands with the vicar, you have five minutes. And it takes fifteen to get out of that suit. So I’d hurry.’
I am already pushing away, scanning the troops, knowing he’s in here somewhere, knowing I will find him. One last bit of luck. Men stream past, Lightwood calls my name, but I don’t listen. There. I see him. Rafferty, thank Christ, is standing alone, staring at the window like the bugger that he is. Near enough to having his feet up. I am on him in an instant.
‘Lord Toff, me and you need to have a quick chat.’
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