by Vic Robbie
Lashed by seawater, the fuselage was slippery and with the propellers whipping up a fierce wind every lurch and wave threatened to sweep them off. If they were immersed in these freezing waters, they would last only minutes.
‘Look,’ Alena shrieked, tugging his sleeve and pointing towards land. ‘Someone’s coming.’
At first, he thought she was mistaken. Then in the distance he saw a flashing blue light and a searchlight one second scanning the water and the next the clouds as it bounced over the channel.
The sound of rending metal reverberated along the length of the flying boat and heralded its demise and he doubted the rescuers would reach them in time. Its back broken, the plane began to slip beneath the waves. First, the front of the Catalina dipped into the sea followed by the back of the plane breaking away and sliding backwards.
The violence of the separation tore the fuselage from their grip, and they were catapulted face forward down into the cauldron. He heard Alena shrieking over and over again ‘Freddie, Freddie,’ as the child disappeared.
He lost all sense of being. His mind raced as all feeling left his limbs. The shock of the cold forced his mouth open and water flooded his lungs. A growing pain spread throughout his body. He managed to resurface, but his head slipped back beneath the waves. And each time he swallowed more water he knew he was drowning. He had no idea what to do. An instinct to survive forced him to thrash about in an uncoordinated effort, but the more he struggled, the faster he sank. The weight of the water he had swallowed dragged him downwards and his will was weakening as his strength ebbed away. He was sinking fast, and now he had a growing desire to give in.
He stopped, something had halted his descent. Thinking he’d hit the bottom, he forced his eyes open. To his surprise, he discovered it was Freddie’s body lodged under the fuselage beneath him. An overwhelming feeling of relief gave him a new strength. He just wanted to get the boy to Alena, and his lungs screamed with pain as he worked feverishly to free him. Disentangling Freddie, he kicked hard and realised they were rising.
Breaking the surface and coughing out seawater, he gulped in fresh air.
Help had arrived and men in a launch scoured the water for survivors.
‘Over here, over here,’ one of them shouted. ‘There’s something in the water.’
The boat pulled up alongside. A rescuer shouted: ‘Well done, mate, I’ve got the boy just give him a push.’
Suddenly, the front of the plane went under, its propellers spinning and adding to the swell. The rescuers were finding it challenging to keep the launch close to the aircraft. And they were in danger of being swamped. Such was the strength of the currents, their boat swung around out of control. He felt a bang on his head. A rush of pain coursed through his body and he was overcome by nausea. And Freddie slipped from his grasp.
The water was no longer cold. Almost warm, like a welcoming bath. He slipped backwards into its arms. All the stress of the past few days receded. He was relaxing. It felt good and he let it happen. The water lapped over his face, and he retched as the water invaded his lungs. Free at last. He didn’t fight it.
Everything was black and still. Above him, a light moved away from him. The comforting darkness filled in all around. Images flashed through his brain. Alena. Freddie. Bernay. Weber. His parents. The light was just a pinprick.
Then blackness. Such welcome nothingness.
74
HE lay in a room that felt bare apart from an iron bedstead and although he could see nothing, only darkness, he heard voices.
Two women.
They were doing something around him and he felt movement and his legs being lifted and his arms rearranged and soft hands taking hold of his head and raising it from the pillow and replacing it.
‘Who’s this?’ He heard one of them ask and she had a soft Scottish accent.
‘Don’t know, doesn’t have a name.’
He shouted his name. Ben Peters.
‘How did he get here?’
‘They said he was on a plane that crashed into the sea.’
‘I wonder where’s he’s from?’
‘No idea. Apparently no ID.’
‘Maybe he’s a German,’ said the Scottish voice.
‘Could be from the moon for all I know – just dropped out of the sky.’
‘He’s only got cuts and bruises on him.’
‘I don’t think he’s going to make it, though, been like this for weeks.’
‘So what if he never wakes up?’
‘Dunno. I suppose he just lies here until he dies.’
‘Maybe he’s already dead.’
‘Better check, we could do with the bed.’
He felt hands on him again.
‘No, he’s still with us.’
‘There’s a pulse?’
‘Yes, quite a strong one.’
‘He’s not bad looking, I suppose.’
‘I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What’s he like down there?’
They both giggled.
He felt a sheet unfolding down his body.
And again hands on him.
‘Oh, not bad, not bad at all.’
‘Bit of a waste him lying there, isn’t it?’
Their laughter was raucous now.
He felt the sheet pulled back up.
Footsteps.
A door closing.
He screamed and screamed.
Still no one heard.
75
LIGHT. a ray of sunshine and in it particles of dust floating like distant planets in a galaxy. He’d been staring at it for so long he believed he was in this world and it was all around him. Did he see it, or was it in his mind? He kept staring in case he lost it.
Unblinking.
If he averted his eyes, he might return to the dark and he couldn’t bear that. He forced himself to keep his eyes open and to focus until he believed he could see every speck of dust in detail.
Had he blinked? Had he lost consciousness? Was he conscious now? Or was his mind playing games? At night in a darkened room with your eyes closed, you could still see images flashing past. Was that what he saw now, an image imprinted on his retina?
The ray of sunshine was still there and the dust or was it different dust?
Look around, get your bearings.
He couldn’t risk it in case he might lose it all. He lay still for some time – it may have been hours or even days – still unblinking until his eyelids felt as heavy as granite.
Have I a voice?
When he spoke before to the two women, they didn’t respond yet he’d shouted. Perhaps he’d imagined it as well.
He whispered his name. And again. Louder this time.
Nothing happened.
Where am I? How did I get here? The questions came as fast and as painful as hailstones in a blizzard although there were no answers.
Changing his focus, he attempted to take in his surroundings – a high-ceilinged room, with walls painted white and an overpowering smell of antiseptic. Was it a hospital?
Why? Why was he here? They’d said something about a plane crash. He’d no memory of it.
He went back to his dream about the two women. One had said he was close to death. How bad were his injuries? He moved his fingers and lifted each hand in front of his eyes. He felt his face with his hands; everything seemed to be in place. Could he move his legs? Left and then right. Good, okay. Now he felt confident enough to move his head away from his fixation on the ray of light.
There was little of interest in the room apart from a window and he rolled over to get a better look. Outside, there were expansive lawns leading down to the water and in the distance an island. Nurses in their starched uniforms were ministering to men, some of whom were in wheelchairs and others were sitting on benches in dressing-gowns. Many were reading newspapers and some were smoking and there seemed to be an interchange of banter
.
A noise caught his attention and he saw what looked like a seaplane land on the water sending up a splash magnified by the sunlight.
Memories should return when prompted although not this time, apart from one. It was Paris and he was sitting in a café, writing in one of his yellow pads and sipping a cognac because the writing was going well. Something made him lift his head from his work and at a nearby table he saw a woman with a small boy. The woman’s blonde hair was cut across her cheek and no matter how much he stared he couldn’t make out her features, but he knew she was crying.
‘So the sleeping beauty is awake.’ It was said with a soft Scottish accent. He hadn’t seen the nurse with rosy cheeks and her dark hair in a bun enter the room.
* * *
BEN was probed and prodded, visited by doctors, fed pills, injected, and given bed baths for what seemed an eternity in a place where every day lasted a week. Eventually, he was allowed out of bed to be wheeled out to the lawns and parked for hours at a time.
He discovered this was a hospital for aircrew, who had been injured operating the planes based in the area. Although he enjoyed watching them landing and taking off, he’d no recollection of any involvement with them.
The memory of the blonde woman and the boy – he was determined it was a memory and not just a dream – stayed with him. And no amount of questioning of the medical staff elicited any information about how he happened to be in this hospital as if they had been ordered not to tell him. And he discovered no one had ever come to visit him.
One day when his frustration was boiling over, the Scottish nurse left his bedside and returned with a large brown envelope and handed it to him.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘I’ve no idea. It was with your possessions, or should I say your only possession, that’ll be returned to you when you’re discharged.’ She pointed to the envelope.
He turned it over in his hands feeling it soft and bulky and tore it open. After staring at the object for several seconds, he recognised what it was – a child’s worn, although obviously much-loved, teddy bear.
Without knowing where it came from, he uttered one word ‘Freddie’ not sure whether it was the name of the bear or the boy in his memory.
When he felt he couldn’t bear this incarceration any longer, a doctor with a huge silver beard and a red weather-beaten face gave him the all clear.
‘Nothing more we can do for you here, old chap,’ he said, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. ‘You can leave the hospital tomorrow.’ The doctor beamed at him ‘Well done’ as if he’d achieved something to be proud of.
‘Where will I go?’
‘Don’t worry. Someone’s coming to pick you up.’
76
BEN sat in a reception area wearing a dead man’s suit and holding a small brown case carrying a change of underwear, socks and a couple of shirts and toiletries, and the teddy bear. He felt like a puppy waiting to be chosen by new owners at a dog pound. He’d no idea who was coming to meet him although he’d fantasised it might be the blonde woman from his memory during a sleepless night.
He supposed it was like any other hospital waiting room. A bleak functional space with polished floors and an overpowering smell of antiseptic, and patients waiting to be collected. One with a bandage over his eyes. Another missing a leg in a wheelchair. And others who were going home to die. Government propaganda posters plastered the cream walls that otherwise would be bare and they were aimed at lifting spirits and reminding everyone they were all in this together. Two were particularly strident with white lettering on red backgrounds.
Your courage
Your cheerfulness
Your resolution
WILL BRING
US VICTORY
and
KEEP CALM
and
CARRY ON
He smelled him before he saw him. The aroma of pipe smoke preceded a tall, heavyset man wearing an English gentleman’s uniform of tweed suit and sturdy brown brogues.
‘Peters, Peters,’ the man, who carried his weight well, called from across the room as if he’d known him all his life. ‘Good to see you.’
The man extended his hand and pulled him close to him. ‘Name’s Pickering,’ he said as if it were a secret between the two of them.
‘Are you from the hospital?’ he asked him.
‘No, no, London.’
‘London?’
Pickering lowered his voice. ‘War Office,’ he said and glanced around to make sure no one else had heard. ‘Anyway, how are you, old man?’
‘Okay, I suppose.’ Unsure of whether he was or not.
‘Ready to go?’
‘Where?’
‘Time to talk.’ Pickering gave him a conspiratorial look
He shook his head, not understanding.
‘Debriefing.’
‘Why?’
Pickering stared at him for what seemed like minutes stroking and probing his beard. Pickering’s eyes, a watery pale blue, ran over Ben’s face and the blue veins in his red, bulbous nose seemed to pulsate. ‘It’s okay you’re amongst friends.’
He still looked puzzled.
Pursing his lips, Pickering ordered: ‘Wait here.’ He disappeared down a corridor and returned minutes later with a set of keys. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
Pickering let him into a small office with two chairs and a wooden desk and they sat either side of it. Pickering had ordered some tea and biscuits and he studied him as if trying to read his mind and drummed his fingers on the table top until the tea was delivered.
‘Must say you did rather a splendid job,’ said Pickering. ‘Let me, I’ll be mother.’ He poured it for him and added milk and sugar whether he wanted it or not. ‘Everyone’s very pleased.’ He pointed at the ceiling.
‘They are?’
‘Very commendable, old man. Relax, it’s okay to talk to me.’
‘I don’t remember anything,’ he said feeling a sense of impotence rising within him.
‘I see. Nothing at all?’ Pickering raised his arms ready to field anything about to materialise but realised it was hopeless and dropped them again.
‘Why am I here?’
He recounted his memory of the blonde woman and the boy in Paris.
‘You have no recollection?’
He shook his head like a schoolboy who’d misbehaved. ‘Of what?’
‘You have no memories of your mission?’ Pickering looked worried.
He laughed. ‘I’m a banker; you make me sound like a special agent. You must have the wrong man.’
‘Special, indeed.’
Pickering extricated his pipe from his pocket and started to light it. ‘I take it you’ve no objection?’
He shook his head, and Pickering leant back in his chair making it creak under his weight and, with the pipe clenched between his teeth, steepled his fingers across his stomach.
‘If I said Bentley, what would it mean to you?’
‘Easy.’ He smiled. ‘A rather unique motorcar. My boss at the bank in Paris has one.’
‘Ah, very good.’ Pickering smiled. ‘So at least you remember that.’
He nodded, wondering what else there was to remember.
Pickering studied the ceiling. ‘Don’t you have any idea how you got from Paris to England?’
He shook his head again.
‘What about the blonde woman in your memory?’
He let out a gasp of relief. Pickering had acknowledged it was a memory and not just a dream.
Wheezing and working his beard even harder, Pickering got to his feet. ‘Perhaps, we’re going too fast. Sometimes memory takes time to return, other times something happens. It’s like a trigger, opening the gates. Don’t worry about it. I’ve booked us rooms in an old country inn not far from here. I thought you might like a night of normality before the drive to London. A decent meal and a pint or two of real ale, none of the dreadful French plonk, eh?’
Over dinner, Pic
kering was good company and Ben sensed he was prompting him, trying to unravel his memories, although Pickering was too smart to put images into his mind. Whatever he remembered would have to be his own and not something planted by someone else. The ale went down well and he was pleased to find a good malt whisky that helped him to relax although it did nothing to lubricate his memory.
As the evening progressed, Pickering became more agitated and kept glancing at his watch as if he’d a deadline. He felt something was about to happen or Pickering was building up to impart some information he didn’t want to hear. Eventually, Pickering pushed away from the table and stood up.
‘Ben, I’d like you to come to my room,’ he said. ‘There’s something you have to hear. Take your Scotch with you.’
Upstairs, Pickering ushered him into an armchair, switched on a contraption in a corner of the room, fiddled with knobs, and silenced him with a raised hand when he tried to talk.
‘You know, old man, modern warfare is all about propaganda and dirty tricks. Counterespionage, double agents and all sorts of things. It’s as much about smoke and mirrors as anything else. A good piece of propaganda can be worth more than any number of air strikes; it’s a great way of demoralising the enemy. Jerry is at it and so are we.’
He had a vague feeling of being told something similar before but by whom and when he couldn’t remember.
‘Did you know the Nazis were trying to get a box of Churchill’s favourite cigars delivered to him? Only thing was they were exploding cigars. Almost frightened the life out of someone in the Post Office. Make no mistake; it will be propaganda will win this war for us. I could tell you things would make your hair curl.’ But he wasn’t going to and gave a nervous laugh as if the prospect frightened him.
‘You must listen very carefully to this,’ Pickering said pointing a finger at the machine in the corner.
77
‘THIS is the bbc in london’ a voice with perfect diction emanated from the contraption, announcing the broadcast could be heard all over Europe and would also be repeated in German.