The Hidden War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘She’ll kill you!’

  The grass at Lympne was wet, which slowed us down to a walk quite quickly. Randall kept that speed on her until he pulled on to the concrete, alongside the offices and Halton’s Roller. The grey chauffeur came out to the Oxford, helped Frieda down the narrow steps, and carried her suitcase. We followed. Spartacus whined. I hoped that he hadn’t been heard. At the open rear door of the car Frieda turned, gave me a sisterly peck on the cheek and said, ‘See you in Berlin, Charlie. Next week.’

  ‘See you in Berlin,’ I agreed.

  We watched them drive out onto the road, and then until they were in the village and out of sight. Randall sighed and said, ‘What a little cracker! What I’d give for a night with her – wouldn’t you?’

  I squirmed: only mentally I think.

  ‘No: I’ve heard she has a shocking temper. Life’s too short to spend on girls like that. Besides; there’s never a future in chasing the boss’s woman, is there?’ I had my fingers crossed behind my back.

  It had stopped raining, but there was still dampness in the air. Elaine was belting up a short mac as she came up to us. She was wearing a great smile.

  ‘What did you bring me, Charlie?’

  ‘Nylons, cigarettes, a nice old bracelet and a three-legged dog.’

  ‘Stop being daft!’

  ‘I bought you a silk scarf,’ Randall told her.

  She stretched up on her toes to give him a chaste kiss on the lips.

  ‘Let me see,’ she said.

  Spartacus whined from the aircraft behind us, and we all turned to look.

  Flying had finished for the day, so we sat around in Elaine’s office, which was bigger than mine anyway, and sipped whisky. Randall had brought a case of it back; he always seemed to have his sources. Spartacus made himself at home and curled up to sleep on a pair of old boots in the corner. He had this preference for sleeping on irregular surfaces.

  ‘This scotch was exported from Scotland to the US in 1945,’ he told us, holding up his glass to the light and squinting at the colour. ‘Where it was sold on into the PX, which sent it to Germany, and now it’s back where it started.’

  ‘Not quite.’ That was Elaine. ‘The Scots wouldn’t thank you for lumping them in with the English: I had a Scottish boyfriend once. In fact they’re very touchy about it.’

  ‘Like the Injuns,’ Randall sniffed. ‘Sign of insecurity, isn’t it?’

  I said, ‘The Indians have every reason to feel insecure. Didn’t you kill most of them off?’

  ‘Stop insulting my wonderful country,’ Randall grinned, ‘and take us both down the pub for a warm beer.’ He gave us a bottle each from his case before we left.

  The bar was crowded. Well, it was Saturday after all. I still wore my flying ovies and jacket, and felt decidedly underdressed . . . most of the younger men were in cavalry twills and tweeds; with a smattering of smart cravats. I don’t know where they all came from. An hour later a screech of tyres on tarmac announced the arrival of a fast or bad driver, and a film star battered through the saloon-bar door. That’s what she looked like to me, anyway – Veronica Lake – and she made straight for our table. Before I had time to glance at the ceiling, thank God and ask what I’d done to deserve her, she was past me and smearing her lipstick all over Randall. Everyone stopped to watch. She said, ‘Hello, baby. Been here long?’

  Randall made her comfortable on his lap, and nuzzled her ear. ‘Doesn’t matter, hon. It’s always worth the wait.’

  Then she looked at Elaine and me for the first time.

  ‘Introduce me to your little friends.’

  I don’t think that the Scots would have liked her either.

  I drove west about an hour later. That was a bit stupid because I had drunk too much, and I caught myself nodding off behind the wheel a couple of times. Someone had filled the Singer up, so I got to Bosham on one tank. The lights were on in the prefab, and Maggs was playing Farmyard Snap with the boys; she’d kept them up to wait for me. In the sitting room there was a large old leather chair that I hadn’t seen before. The boys dragged me to it, and then climbed all over me when I was seated. Dieter said, ‘This is your chair, Dad. We got it from the Emporium. I chose it.’

  ‘Where did you learn words like Emporium?’

  ‘School. I won a prize for English. I’m going to be a writer when I grow up.’

  I ruffled his hair. I’ve told you that people did that to me. It was odd to find I did it myself. I thought about a German refugee kid winning a prize for English at an English school. It made me smile.

  ‘I’m very proud of you: I chose a good ’un when I chose you, didn’t I?’

  ‘No, Dad; Carlo and I chose a good one when we chose you.’ There was a deadly serious side to him that could be unnerving. ‘Are you getting married yet?’ He also had a memory like an elephant.

  Maggs told them to leave me alone to get ready for bed. Carlo, as usual, didn’t say much to begin with. He sat on my lap and hugged me around the neck until the air supply was cut off. I had to carry him into their room to get changed. I’d brought them two of the white-metal aeroplane models the Americans were shipping into Berlin for the German kids. There was a large silver C-54 Skymaster, and the smaller C-47 Dakota. Mortensen had given that a careful coat of red paint. They were astonishingly accurate. Dieter immediately handed the larger toy to his brother. It wasn’t altogether an altruistic gesture. He asked me, ‘You still fly red Dakotas, don’t you, Dad?’

  ‘Yes. We still fly those.’

  Carlo asked, ‘Do you fly in mine as well?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes I fly in yours. Usually as a passenger – then I can go to sleep.’

  Carlo ran around the room in circles making aircraft noises until Maggs chased him to bed. She made me a cup of cocoa after I turned down a drink. I felt suddenly absolutely drained. I sometimes used to feel like that after I’d come back from Germany in 1944. She said, ‘You look buggered.’

  ‘Thanks!’ But there was a smile behind it.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes I do, Maggs. Thank you.’ I stood up and gave her a long hug.

  ‘How long are you back for?’

  ‘Until Wednesday. I’ll go out with the boys tomorrow if it’s fine.’

  ‘We’ll all come with you. Fancy a day up on the Downs? The Major’s become very fond of flying kites, silly old bugger, an’ Dieter’ll want to fly his glider . . .’

  Then she left me. When I looked into the boys’ room before I turned in I saw that they’d both gone to sleep with their new planes in their bunks. Carlo was still holding his. Definition of a lucky man? I thought. Me.

  I’m not going to tell you about a perfect day flying kites on the edge of winter. It’s one of the memories that I shall keep for myself. Go away and try it for yourself.

  We came back at dusk with rosy cheeks, and a new chill in our bones. Maggs had left a mutton stew in the slow oven and the boys fell on it like ravenous wolves. They were in bed before seven, and were asleep within minutes. When I was sure they were settled I walked over to the Happy Returns in time to help James open the bar. The Valentines were there, looking as if they were still together. I wondered what their new yacht looked like. Then I wondered how they’d paid for it . . . it was not as if the country was exactly drowning in money.

  The bar was often quiet on a Sunday night: the London yachties were all on their way home. I found myself talking to a young man named Monty who played clarinet with an amateur jazz band, and promised I’d approach James about giving them a monthly spot for a jazz club: I wasn’t sure that he would go for it because James’s sort of music seemed to be about a thousand musicians in big concert halls . . . but he liked military band concerts as well, so I suppose that there was always hope.

  When Eve came up to the bar for refills she said, ‘Haven’t seen you around for a while, Charlie.’ Was there regret, or maybe a little resentment behind that? No: not a hope. I was kidding myself.

 
‘No. I was working. This is my first time back since the boys did a bunk. Did I thank you for what you did then by the way?’

  ‘Several times; but you can always say it again.’

  Maybe we looked too matey. Whatever it was prompted her husband to walk over.

  ‘The hero returns,’ he said, and raised his brandy glass to me. Oddly there wasn’t exactly a note of mockery in his voice. I looked a question at Eve. She said, ‘You were in the papers.’

  ‘Oh Lord! That was ages ago . . . and they made most of it up. Load of tosh.’ I had a gulp of beer to drown my embarrassment.

  ‘No.’ She looked puzzled. ‘Last week, in the Chichester Observer.’

  ‘Three heroes of the airlift,’ Valentine explained. ‘That was the headline. You and two others; one’s a pilot from Arundel, and the other has something to do with the cargo . . .’

  ‘A loadmaster? . . .’

  ‘Probably . . . anyway, you all live nearby, so they did a local story – you know the sort of thing.’

  Yes, I thought, unfortunately I do. Why didn’t these bastards talk to you before they wrote? Why hadn’t Dieter or Maggs told me about it?

  ‘Thanks for the warning. If people start looking at me as if I have two heads I’ll know why. Excuse me a minute, there’s something I have to do. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  I found James in the kitchen looking very smug over a huge pot of livid green soup. It seethed as if it was full of crocodiles. I’ll tell you about crocodiles one day: I’ve never liked them much. I don’t like animals that look on people as snacks.

  ‘James. Why didn’t Dieter say anything to me about the newspaper article? – it’s just the sort of thing he spots.’

  James carefully stirred the pot and didn’t catch my eye.

  ‘We kept it away from him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It said you were recovering from injuries received when your aircraft was shot down by the Russians. We thought it best not to say anything until you were back.’

  ‘Damn! Why do they print such rubbish?’

  ‘Didn’t some Yank say that if you have to choose between the truth and the legend – print the legend?’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Were you shot down?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t be here now if I had been, would I? I’d be in some Russian prison.’

  ‘You were over the other side then?’

  ‘They chased us over, then the bastards shot at us. They’re worse than the Jerry.’

  ‘Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t ask any more, but I did. ‘Does everybody else know?’

  ‘Work it out for yourself, Charlie. It was on the front page.’

  ‘Balls. I’ve been back two days, why hasn’t anyone said anything?’

  ‘They probably like you too much. Who told you?’

  ‘Evelyn Valentine’s husband hinted at it: just now.’

  ‘I’ve always thought that man was an idiot.’

  That seemed to be about it.

  ‘Did you save the paper?’

  ‘Mrs Maggs kept it. We can give the article to Dieter now; for his scrapbook. Be prepared for a dozen questions.’

  I went back to the bar and chatted with the Valentines. He left after ten minutes to sit in a corner with a cabal who could have been from the local Lodge, but were, in fact, members of his yacht club’s committee who hadn’t left yet.

  ‘Impromptu board meeting,’ Eve confided in me. ‘They wait for the awkward squad to go home, and then make the real decisions.’

  We had one of those wonderful twenty minutes of chat which aren’t about anything important. She told me about their new boat, and at some point I might have moaned about none of my relationships ever really lasting. She mocked me.

  ‘Poor Charlie: always coming second.’

  ‘I’m getting used to it. It’s not so bad.’

  Before she could say anything else the party in the corner broke up, and Valentine led them over to the bar with an empty glass in his hand. He asked, ‘You chatting this lady up, Charlie?’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain. Her husband’s much bigger than me.’ Honour satisfied. He found it funny anyway. A couple of the others laughed as well.

  ‘Fact is,’ Valentine said, ‘the Committee’s asked me to put something to you . . .’

  I packed my kitbag on Tuesday night so that I could get away as soon as the boys left for school the next day. Maggs had laundered everything I’d brought down, but flying clothes always smell like flying clothes. That’s probably why I had the dream.

  I always sleep with the bedroom as darkened as possible. Light wakes me. Even so there’s enough light to see for anyone with half decent night vision. I always had A1 night sight. I dreamed that I awoke in the early hours and sat up in bed. Marty Weir was standing at the end of it in his flying gear. The dark stuff on his face was probably blood, but he was smiling away, so the afterlife can’t have been all that bad. He was talking to me. His mouth and lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear a word.

  ‘I can’t hear you, Marty.’

  He frowned, grinned and tried harder. I could see that he was shouting now, although that didn’t wipe the silly grin off his face.

  ‘Marty. I still can’t hear you. Try harder.’

  But he didn’t. He shrugged, grinned again, and turned away to walk back into the darkness. I lay down again, and went back to sleep as if nothing had happened. That was odd, but in dreams your behaviour often is odd. The first thing I thought of when I awoke in the morning – I could hear the boys skylarking in the bathroom – was that I’d have to speak to Fergal before the day was out. Maybe that was the message.

  Lympne’s little admin block consisted of a dozen courses of WD bricks, with creosoted weatherboarded offices slapped on the top. There were thousands of sheds like that all over Britain after the war. They were what we were building in the Forties when airfields needed a quick upgrade. I sat outside making the most of the last of the sun, balanced back against the woodwork on two chairlegs; Elaine sat alongside me doing some knitting, and Scroton beside her. Spartacus was inside somewhere. The office window above us was open so that we could hear her telephone. Across the field we could see Scarecrow. Her arse was inside one of the hangars, but her front half was out in the air. Two of her engines were in pieces on the portable benches beneath one of her wings. The Chiefy wandered over with a half mug of char in his hand. It would be cold. The ground crews I knew always let their tea get cold for some reason. ‘When will she be ready, Chief?’

  ‘I’ve said Saturday, OK, sir? She’s got a load of medical stores for the Yanks in Frankfurt. That means she’ll be back in the Lift proper for Monday.’

  I didn’t mind that. The Old Man made a lot of these one-shot deals with the American military: they paid much better than the much more dangerous runs into Berlin.

  ‘Good, Chiefy. You can tell their pilot that he’s got a radio op for the trip: me.’

  ‘You’ll go as a passenger, Charlie, and like it! They’ll need their own man once you’ve abandoned them over there.’ His master’s voice.

  ‘Yes, Elaine.’

  There was a very late hatch of small flies: the heat left in the sun had woken them up two seasons too early: the air teemed with them.

  ‘Pity the swallows have flown,’ Scroton observed. ‘They would have loved this lot.’

  ‘When are you flying?’ I asked him.

  ‘Tomorrow. Your Yank, Padstow, is dragging the Witch over from Leeds with sugar and hospital blankets. Then he gets a few days off while I take them on to Germany. His name’s not Padstow, by the way: he got very drunk last week and told me.’

  ‘I shouldn’t take too much notice if I was you. Some people I know change their names as often as their socks these days. You still like Whisky, even after Eddie and Trask . . . ?’

  ‘Wasn’t her fault was it? She’s just an aircraft . . . you know who I saw yesterday?’

 
‘Tell me, or do you want me to guess?’

  ‘One of those Hungarian Joes we fetched back. He was washing dishes at The Parachute.’ I know that it’s a phrase that I use too often . . . but that was interesting. I know that Elaine was bursting to ask us about the Joes, but her telephone began to ring and she ran inside.

  ‘Did he see you?’

  ‘Don’t think so. The kitchen door was only open for a mo, and I saw him side-on. It was him all right.’ Another thing about pilots is that when they say they’ve seen something they have. Sight’s one of the senses which keep them alive up there.

  ‘We still have the Spitfires the Customs seized?’

  ‘Yes, boss. They were all still there the last time I counted them.’

  For how much longer? I wondered. ‘When was that?’

  ‘Monday: I had a walk round in the evening.’

  ‘You stay in the sun and make the most of it,’ I told him, ‘and maybe we’ll grab a beer later on. I’ve a couple of calls to make.’

  I sat on my desk and thought about it. I could call Holland or I could call Dolly. The question I finally asked myself was who it would benefit most, and I called Dolly. I had an old number for her office in London: it had once almost been mine. The man who answered the call definitely wasn’t her. He barked, ‘Bowser.’

  ‘I’m looking for a Miss Wayne.’

  After a ten-beat he asked, ‘Exactly how did you get this number?’

  ‘From a year or so ago. We worked together.’

  ‘. . . and you are?’

  ‘Pilot Officer Bassett.’

  ‘Wait one . . .’ There was a pause, and I could hear a curious scliffing noise in the background. I closed my eyes and immediately recognized it: he was riffling through a card index. When his voice came back he said, ‘OK, squire, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing. I’d like to speak to Dolly.’

  ‘She doesn’t work in this office any longer: posted. You can tell me anything you’d tell her.’

  ‘No I can’t.’ Neither of us spoke for a moment, then I said, ‘Look, I’m sorry I bothered you. I’ll leave it at that.’

  But he said, ‘Oh, all right, I’ll transfer you.’