To David Seaton the following days and weeks were strangely unreal. The admiral had returned to his duties in Whitehall, ‘running the war’, as he had described it, and had left Seaton with the run of the house and estate.
Gingerly at first, he had started to take short walks around the grounds, putting names to shrubs and flowers he had almost forgotten. Then with a stick and a good stout pair of shoes he had set off on longer journeys, to a nearby village, to a couple of farms, and even spent a whole morning reading inscriptions on the graves at a little Norman church. It reminded him of a short story he had once read in a naval magazine. About a sailor coming home on leave, visiting familiar places, seeing old faces. Upon arrival at his own house he was astounded to find his mother in tears, a telegram lying on the table. The telegram told of her son’s death at sea. His death. No wonder nobody had heeded his greeting or watched him pass. It was much like that here. He walked anywhere he chose, was looked after by the admiral’s servants with barely a word spoken. Even old Griffin had hardly said anything since his first show of confidences.
In a way it suited Seaton. It gave him time to adjust, to think of the future, if there was one.
Reality touched him on his visits to the army Medical Officer at a nearby anti-aircraft battery. And when he passed a barrage balloon site on one of the farms. But, like the war itself, it was out of reach.
Daily he was getting stronger and consequently more restless. He scanned the newspapers and tried to work out what was happening. The army was doing well in Burma, and the Japs were falling back on the Imphal front. There were day and night raids by the R.A.F. and the Americans on targets in Germany and Occupied France.
One report he did find interesting. That of an R.A.F. raid across north-west France. One of the Mitchell bombers had carried a newspaper reporter. He had written about the air of desertion and stillness in that sector of France. No road convoys, few trains and, more to the point, no cattle in the fields. So the Germans knew. They really knew this time that an invasion attempt would be made, and soon.
They were getting ready. Moving supplies and livestock out of the area. The killing-ground. Digging in.
Seaton fretted about it. Feeling left out, forgotten. It was no use telling himself he was being stupid. It was the way he felt.
On one day he had visitors, Drake and Niven. They were on their way, not to Loch Striven, but to the West Country of all places, to the naval base at Portland.
It seemed that during their leave XE 16 and her consorts had been moved south, where new training was to be undertaken without delay.
‘Don’t know what to do with us any more,’ Niven had suggested.
Drake had merely said it might be for final transporting to the Far East.
Neither had made much sense. There had been a strained atmosphere, a curious feeling of apprehension.
When they left Drake had said, ‘Don’t be too long, Skipper. It’s no bloody team without you.’
Niven had said, ‘I wish I could have stayed here with you, sir. I can talk to you.’ It had sounded rather old-fashioned, and had shown a side of Niven which his father had probably never seen.
Then, when Seaton was contemplating a visit to the Admiralty out of sheer desperation, the admiral had driven down to Sussex from London. With his usual methodical attention to detail he had stopped off en route to visit the army M.O. who had been treating Seaton’s injuries.
He said cheerfully. ‘Right as rain, the brown job tells me. Capital. You’ll be ready to climb mountains now!’ He sounded genuinely pleased.
At dinner Seaton broached the matter of Portland.
Rear Admiral Niven regarded him calmly. ‘Big build-up there, and right along the coast from Falmouth to Pompey. Ships, landing craft, the whole potmess of invasion. The greatest armada ever. Not long now.’
‘Do we have a part in all this, sir?’
‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘Some X-craft have already been over the other side. Surveying beaches, measuring anti-tank obstructions, picking up agents. In their element.’
‘I’d like to go back, sir.’ Seaton tried to hide his desperation. ‘I’m all right now, the M.O. didn’t lie.’
‘So you shall.’ He wagged a silver fork. ‘But you were a mess, you know. Scars can go deeper than tissue. We have to be sure.’
It sounded like one of the doctor’s own quotes, Seaton thought.
He said, ‘That’s fair enough.’
‘Tomorrow I’ll take you over to see Air Marshal Ruthven. I have to go back to London later, partly to see Venables, but mostly to collect Harriet. She’s been shopping, or something.’ He grinned. ‘I took her with me to give you some peace. She’d have you believe you were at death’s door, if you’d allow her.’
He became serious. ‘I hear that Richard and your Number One called in to see you. How are things, in your estimation?’
‘A bit brittle. I think they’re probably glad to be back at work, for various reasons.’
‘Good. That girl Decia.’ He shook his head. ‘If I was a bit younger, I’d have a go at her myself. She’s hot stuff, if I’m any judge.’
Seaton suspected that the admiral had had plenty of experience. It would certainly explain his wife’s remoteness.
The admiral added, ‘Pity you’ve not got a girl. Good for you. You could have brought her here.’
I can imagine. He said, ‘I’ve enjoyed being here.’
‘Yes. I’ve seen you meandering round the place. Used to be your line of country, I believe? Well, after this lot’s over, you never know. I might be able to help. This place needs a proper hand at the wheel.’
‘Richard …’ He fell silent.
‘It’s all right. I expect you heard about my other boy. But Richard is not the sort to rusticate here and leave the work to others. He’s a dreamer. The sort who might make First Sea Lord one day, or end on the gallows.’
He did not continue the subject, and Seaton was glad. He preferred the autocrat. Family confidences seemed as out of place as rocking chairs in a battleship.
The next day, bright and early, they set off to meet Ruthven. It was a pleasant drive, hampered only when they had to wait in a side lane to allow an army convoy to pass. It was impressive, truck after truck, packed with helmeted troops and equipment. Then tanks on long, flat transports, more vehicles and finally Tail-End Charlie, an M.P. on a motor cycle.
In months, maybe weeks, they would be across the Channel. Or underneath it.
At first sight Ruthven’s hideaway was something of an anticlimax. Although surrounded by a massive perimeter fence of barbed wire, with sentries and checkpoints at every entrance, the place itself looked like a small and neglected farm.
But after they had been carefully scrutinized by the sentries, and a military policeman had phoned the house about their arrival, Seaton had seen past the general air of shabbiness. Barns were filled with jeeps and staff cars, and carefully shielded by camouflaged nets he saw several batteries of multi-barrelled A.A. guns.
The main farm building was now only a shell. Camp-beds, a field-kitchen and a guardroom filled the complete lower floors. Ruthven’s H.Q. was deep underneath all that. Another complex of soulless concrete and glaring lights, passageways and steel doors.
Combined Special Operations were certainly well blended, Seaton thought. Wrens in a communications section, Waafs and A.T.S. girls manning screens and wall charts in other planning departments. An air of quiet purpose seemed to pervade the place, and he felt that once the war was done it would all be covered over and ‘filled in’ to make way for the return of that unknown farmer above.
‘In here.’
The admiral nodded to a couple of tough-looking M.P.s. Each carried a Sten gun across his arm, and Seaton thought of the S.S. men in Bergen.
Ruthven was dressed in R.A.F. battledress. He even managed to make that look immaculate and tidy.
‘Welcome to the club.’ He waved to some chairs. ‘You look splendid, Lieutenant. I’m
glad for you.’
‘He’s going to Portland as soon as I pass the word, Noel.’ The admiral sounded cautious. Not so relaxed.
‘Fine. Better than I’d hoped.’ He studied Seaton. ‘I don’t want you to take on anything until you’re fit for it.’
A naval officer entered the room and said, ‘Ready, sir.’
Ruthven swivelled his chair so that he had his back to the others. As if to a magic sign the lights in the room dimmed and the high map boards which covered the rear wall started to slide apart like doors. Beyond them was one huge window, and further still was another world of people and constant movement.
‘Our ops room.’ Ruthven had his fingers pressed together.
He must think of his responsibility each time those panels open, Seaton thought. The great wall charts showed the Channel, the coasts of France and the Low Countries, and further to the north-east, Denmark and the Third Reich itself. It did not show the countless men and women who daily risked their lives in Hitler’s Europe, gnawing away at the German war machine from within.
On ladders and moving platforms a dozen girls or more were busy with cards and pointers, flags and coloured strips of paper. Wrens in white shirts and black stockings, Waafs in pale blue, the army girls in khaki.
Below, in a sort of square well, other people were working on glass-topped tables. Phones were in use, and a tape machine was spewing out paper intelligence. And it was all in total silence. It was like going deaf without any warning.
Ruthven selected one of his telephones, and down in the well a lieutenant commander picked up his receiver and turned to look at the window.
Ruthven said, ‘Switch on the Victor lights, Tommy.’
In response to more magic, little red lights appeared along the French coast.
Ruthven said quietly, ‘Rocket sites. We’ve known about them for a long time, and our bombers have flattened a lot of them. But some will still be in use, no matter what we do.’ He paused as some more lights appeared on the wall chart. ‘These are something new. Mostly in the Normandy area.’
Seaton stared at the chart. It must be one of the greatest secrets on earth. Why were they sharing it with him?
Ruthven spoke curtly into his telephone and the scene was again hidden by his sliding wall maps. As the lights returned to full brightness he said, ‘In war we accept casualties, no matter how hard it is to admit it. As Captain Venables has told you, morale is everything. Without it you have lost the stuff of battle, the tenacity which has carried us this far. At any time in the next few months, and maybe much less, the enemy is going to release some of these new weapons on England. My people have told me about two of them, the V.1 and the V.2, which we call Victor on the chart. The V stands for Vergeltungswaffe in Germany’s handbook, their reprisal weapon. Your passenger, Gjerde, was working on a project for something even worse, which but for you might already have been falling on London.’
Seaton felt his face and wrists getting clammy. He recalled the anchored Hansa, Trevor’s information about a launching ramp for testing the new rocket.
Ruthven was saying, ‘The British people have had to endure much. But belief in survival, if not actual victory, kept them going. Now, with even victory a possibility, they cannot be expected to stand another serious, if not fatal, setback. With the Allies through France, no matter how rough it gets, we will win. But if the enemy can destroy our ports and towns, smash any hope of building up supply convoys on land and sea, we might just as well surrender.’
The admiral, who had been watching Seaton all the time, said, ‘You know of the build-up. Can you imagine what a new, powerful rocket, against which there is no known defence,’ he let the words hang in the air and then added, ‘would do to our invasion?’
Seaton asked, ‘Where do I come in, sir?’
‘No doubts, Lieutenant? No demands?’ Ruthven smiled gravely.
Seaton found he could speak quite easily. Perhaps he had always known deep inside his soul it would be like this. Violent. Terrible.
‘Well, sir, I know we have a good Air Force, and for the most part better than anything the Germans have. It’s a long time since “The Few” bashed the many.’ He saw the admiral hide a grin. ‘So the target must be something that the R.A.F. and the United States Air Command can’t cope with.’
Ruthven watched him. ‘Right, so far.’
‘It must be on the coast, as my XE 16 has not yet been fitted with legs.’
What was he doing? Going crazy in this concrete tomb? He was making jokes about it. Like they always did in war films before they took a one-way ticket to Armageddon.
He said quickly, ‘And it won’t be a rocket-firing vessel of any kind, an X-craft would be the last thing to send!’
Ruthven pressed down a button and spoke into an intercom. ‘Send in Bill, will you please?’ To Seaton he said, ‘Naturally I can’t tell you the exact size and location of the target. You might not feel able to continue with the mission, you could just as easily step under a bus. And I think you, more than either of us, know the real value of secrecy.’
The door opened and an R.A.F. group captain came into the room.
‘Ah, Bill.’ Ruthven smiled. ‘This is Lieutenant David Seaton.’
They shook hands, and Seaton could feel the questions and the impressions in the other man’s glances.
The group captain said, ‘I’ve been following your exploits.’
Ruthven explained, ‘Bill’s my chief intelligence officer.’ He dropped his voice. ‘He organised the Bergen job with Captain Venables.’
The silence moved in again as each man saw the memory from his own separate viewpoint.
Then the group captain said, ‘This one is a lot tougher, I’m afraid. Earlier, we might have pulled it off without too much difficulty. But earlier we didn’t know enough. Now we do. The Germans have constructed a new site, unseen by our recce boys because in a sense it was already there. Our agents on the other side, even the Resistance, have been in the dark, because the Jerries have cleared the whole area of civilians.’
Seaton nodded, thinking of the newspaper article, the fact that the Germans’ attention to detail had not even overlooked the cows in the fields.
He asked, ‘How do you mean, sir? It was there already?’
‘A U-boat pen. You know they built them all the way from Norway to the Bay of Biscay. So deep and thick, not even a block-buster will penetrate.’
Seaton heard himself say, ‘I saw some in Bergen.’ Again the memory. Like a blow in the heart.
‘Yes.’ The group captain shot Ruthven a quick glance. ‘This one is converted to take the launcher. Everything else goes in by water, underneath.’
Seaton had seen the exchange of glances, but he no longer cared. They think I’m over the hill. He must be anyway to agree to such a scheme.
Ruthven said, ‘We think you could get in and drop your charges right under the bunker.’
Seaton held his breath, seeing all of it as if it had already happened. The rocket, which had become somehow human and fiendish. The bunker, and all the explosive and fuel pressured together by those masses of concrete, blasting apart in one great fireball.
The admiral cleared his throat. ‘This time you will be supported, but I want you in overall command, see?’
Seaton touched his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I see.’
Ruthven said calmly, ‘Captain Venables originally wanted Lieutenant Vanneck, but you proved yourself twice over in Bergen that you are the man for me.’
Seaton looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, sir, Rupert Vanneck is dead.’
There was an uncomfortable silence, then Ruthven said, ‘Nevertheless, I’d not have expected you to risk your life again so soon. We have little choice. Only you have that.’
Seaton smiled. ‘Do I, sir?’
The admiral touched his shoulder. ‘When you put it like that, David, not much.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll get my driver to take you to a nice pub. I’m off to London now. When I get ba
ck, you’ll have your orders.’ He grinned. ‘Also a half-stripe, Lieutenant Commander Seaton!’
They shook hands solemnly and the group captain said, ‘I’ll walk you to the checkpoint. To see what daylight looks like.’
As they walked through the grim concrete passageways Seaton said, ‘They don’t know, do they? About all this?’
‘Who?’
Seaton shrugged. ‘People. Everyone thinks the war is made up of ships and planes, tanks and men. Then there are rations and blackouts, and shortages. Occasionally people die, but that only happens to others. Nobody ever thinks there are places like this, that someone actually plans their war for them!’
The group captain called Bill chuckled. ‘Never thought of it like that.’
At the foot of the steps which led up to the farmhouse he said, ‘I’ve enjoyed meeting you. I had been a bit worried. You know, so soon after the last one, and all that stuff.’
‘You’re not worried any more?’
Their eyes met. ‘No. Only about having to send people to do things like this. That worries me.’
Somebody called his name and he said, ‘Must dash. Never stops. I’ll see you before the balloon goes up.’ He beckoned to a W.A.A.F. officer who was crossing from one room to the next. ‘Take him through the gate, will you, m’dear?’ Then he was off.
Seaton turned to the pale blue uniform, a flight officer. Everything else seemed to merge into a haze as he said huskily, ‘It’s you! Nina!’
In this place they knew everything. That group captain certainly knew about his agents in Norway. Perhaps he had done this for both of them.
She said, ‘Oh, David. Help. Take me out of here.’
Up in the sunlight he gripped her hands and turned her towards him. The sudden strangeness and the uniforms seemed to hold them apart. But it was the same girl. The same blue-green eyes, the pale hair which even now was rebelling around her service cap.
‘I’ve never stopped thinking about you. Wondering.’ He could not contain himself. ‘Nobody would tell me …’
She watched his despair and replied quickly, ‘It was my fault. I told them to keep my presence a secret from you. Because of me you nearly died, because of me you were used without thought or mercy.’
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