Put Out the Light

by Terry Deary

‘Off you go,’ she said, reaching into a cupboard for her coat and hat. ‘I need to shut the shop.’

  ‘You’ve only just opened,’ Sally pointed out.

  ‘Yes. And now I’m just closing,’ she said, bustling us through the door. ‘I have to see a man about a job that needs doing.’ And she locked the door behind her.

  ‘I bet you do,’ I said, as she shuffled down the street. ‘She’s off to see her burglar. I think we may have solved the case before she steps into the trap. Mrs Haddock gets the gossip in her sweet shop and passes it onto her burglar.’

  ‘Her mate, your teacher, Mr Cutter?’

  ‘Dunno. She isn’t headed towards the school. Maybe she has someone else that does the breakingin. She doesn’t look the sort to go climbing through windows.’

  ‘No,’ Sally agreed. ‘The key in her knickers would rattle against the window frame.’

  I had to laugh. I left Sally to go in the girls’ entrance to school and walked along to the boys’ yard. Lads were playing marbles, skimming cigarette cards or smashing into one another playing British Bulldog, while others chased around playing Nazis and Brits.

  Mr Cutter was on yard duty, wrapping his hands round a warm mug of tea and waiting to blow the whistle. It looked as if he wanted to get in out of the cold, but even the cold was better than teaching us, so he supped slowly at the tea.

  ‘Can I have a quick word, Mr Cutter?’ I asked.

  ‘What is it, Thomas?’

  ‘I’m a bit worried about an old lady that lives in the next street to me and I need to tell someone – someone who can be trusted – so I thought of you.’

  His thin mouth turned down in the odd way he had of smiling. ‘Ask away, lad, I am a pillar of the community. It’s my job to help everyone, young or old.’

  So I told him the same story we’d told Mrs Haddock. I thought his breathing was getting faster as his breath steamed in the cold morning air.

  ‘I’ll … erm … I’ll inform the proper authorities,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’ll do it now. I’ll use the headmaster’s telephone while you’re in assembly.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I knew I was right to trust you.’

  ‘Of course, Thomas,’ he said. He checked his watch and placed the whistle to his mouth. ‘Oh, and Thomas, do not tell anyone else. Let’s keep this between ourselves, shall we?’

  ‘Careless talk costs money, eh, sir?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly, Thomas. I couldn’t have put it better myself.’ He took a deep breath and gave a blast on the whistle so loud it nearly deafened me.

  All day, Mr Cutter kept catching my eye as if we shared a secret. I’d never seen him smile so much. I’ll swear he smiled three times that Thursday when usually he smiled about three times a year.

  Chapter 31

  Firbeck air base, England 12 December 1940

  Paul Grimley had felt edgy all day. For weeks now the pilots had heard the reports on the air battles in the South. The Luftwaffe had only attacked the North once – a raid on Sunderland. The Germans had flown too far from home for the Messerschmitt fighters to come along and protect them – the planes didn’t carry enough fuel. So the RAF in the North shot the bombers down like ducks on a fairground rifle range. The pilots from Firbeck flew up to join in the battle, but they arrived too late.

  ‘The war will be over before we see a German,’ Lieutenant Bronisław Maniak moaned to Paul that morning. The Polish airman had flown fighters in the short and hopeless defence of Poland. He’d escaped just as the Germans reached his airfield and gone straight into the RAF.

  ‘No,’ his friend Paul said. ‘They’ll have to start attacking the factories up here soon. They can’t win the war in the air because as fast as they shoot down a Spitfire, we build a new one.’

  Bronisław waved his fingers like a magician. ‘You’re a real Alexander, aren’t you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That mind-reader – Alexander the Crystal Seer,’ he teased. ‘You can see into the minds of Hermann Göring and his Luftwaffe. So, Alexander, what town are they going to bomb up here?’

  Paul took the question seriously. ‘It has to be Sheffield, doesn’t it? The greatest steel city in the world. They have to stop us making the crankshafts for the Spitfires, and we have the only factory in Britain that makes them.’

  Bronisław nodded. ‘Thank you, Alexander, The Man Who Knows … now can you tell me when they’re going to attack? If you can tell me which day the Germans are coming, I can go off on holiday and come back here in time to welcome them.’

  Paul wandered over to the window of the hut and looked up at the cold, clear sky. ‘It’s a bomber’s moon. Why not tonight?’

  Bronisław threw his head back and laughed. ‘There goes my holiday. I’d better hang around to shoot Jerry down, I suppose.’

  Paul walked to the door. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘To practise,’ Paul said. ‘I’m going on the firing range, then I’m taking up the Hurricane to fly over Sheffield and get a feel for the place in daylight, in case we have to fight there tonight.’

  ‘I’m coming with you, Alexander the Crystal Seer!’ Bronisław Maniak cried. ‘I’ll fight you.’

  Paul nodded. ‘Good idea. We’ll shoot at one another with the movie cameras and see who comes out on top. It’ll sharpen us up for the real thing.’

  They jogged across the grass to the hangars where their Hurricanes sat.

  The young guard said, ‘Halt, who goes there?’

  Paul peered at him. ‘You’re new. Where’s Eric Thomas – Tommy – the usual guard?’

  ‘Home on leave in Sheffield, sir.’

  ‘You should have seen that, Alexander,’ Bronisław Maniak joked.

  ‘Ah, well, here are our identity papers,’ Paul said, passing them over. ‘We’re off on a training exercise.’

  ‘Best of luck, gentlemen,’ the guard said and saluted.

  The Hurricanes’ cameras were loaded with film and their tanks with fuel. They roared off into the sky and headed west. Below them, the barrage balloons hung like dead elephants and the factories belched smoke in shades from white to charcoal. The River Don was a dull, leaden colour; the roofs and the winter grass in the parks and commons were frosted silver. Sheffield was a black-and-white photograph below them.

  Bronisław waggled his wings as a sign for the dogfight to begin. Paul was ready for it. He hauled back on the joystick so his Hurricane climbed so steeply it seemed to be standing on its tail. Then it rolled over into a loop and fell like an arrow onto Bronisław Maniak’s tail … except he wasn’t there! Paul jerked his head around to see where the other Hurricane was and saw it, just too late, right behind him.

  Bronisław was pressing the firing button on his camera as Paul Grimley rolled away. The Pole followed and pulled alongside, laughing. He placed his mask over his mouth and spoke into the microphone: ‘You’ll have to do better than that, comrade. You’re flying a Hurricane now, not a Wellington bomber.’

  Paul pulled ahead and as Bronisław accelerated, he pulled the wing flaps to slow himself. Bronisław Maniak shot past and Paul found himself on his friend’s tail again. The sights on his windscreen were filled with the Pole’s Hurricane and he fired the camera gun.

  A mile below, boys on their way to school looked up open-mouthed.

  ‘It’s a Messerschmitt against a Spitfire – I bet the Spitfire wins!’ Eddie Duncan cried.

  His mates jeered. ‘Even my auntie Gladys knows a couple of Hurricanes when she sees them,’ one of the lads said, as the planes flew low over the tops of the barrage balloons and disappeared to the east.

  The film of Paul Grimley’s practice fight had been developed by the afternoon and the squadron sat and watched it in the blacked-out room that served as their cinema.

  ‘Fly straight level for more than twenty seconds and you’re dead,’ the squadron leader said. ‘That’s the rule.’

  ‘Why is that, sir?’

  ‘Why? Because you�
��ll have a German fighter on your tail.’

  ‘But they won’t send fighters this far north, will they, sir?’

  The officer sighed. ‘Good habits, Grimley. You have to learn good habits if you want to survive. And look at what happened when you shot at Maniak –’

  The film projector rolled and showed a Hurricane in the centre of the frame. ‘Dead centre,’ Paul boasted.

  ‘Dead pilot – you,’ his leader said. ‘That shot took ten seconds – ten! In ten seconds, two things could have happened. First, your enemy’s pals would have you in their sights and you’d be a goner. Second, your own guns would overheat and jam. The best pilots fire for four seconds and no more.’ The man shook his head. ‘Let’s hope we have another few weeks of training before we have to send you up against a real enemy raid.’

  ‘Grimley says they’re coming tonight,’ Bronisław Maniak interrupted. ‘It’s a bomber’s moon and Alexander the Crystal Seer says it’s Sheffield’s turn.’

  ‘In that case we’re all ready … except Grimley. Let’s hope he doesn’t shoot one of us down by mistake.’

  The men laughed and went back to card games, reading books, darts practice or writing letters home. But now there was a feeling of tension, as if they believed Paul Grimley’s mystic power.

  When they went to check that their planes were armed and ready – as they did every evening after training flights – the pilots were extra-careful to check that their ammunition drums were moving freely, that the mechanics had the engines running sweetly, and that the controls were greased and working.

  One or two even went back after supper to write letters that began, ‘If you are reading this, it means I have been killed…’

  Chapter 32

  Sheffield, England 12 December 1940

  I waited for Sally after school and we talked through the last details of our plan. We wouldn’t try to stop the Blackout Burglar, but we’d follow him or her and see where they put the loot. Then we’d go to the wardens’ post and telephone the police.

  ‘Should we go into Mrs Grimley’s house first? Mark the notes with invisible ink?’ Sally asked.

  ‘We haven’t got any invisible ink,’ I said.

  ‘Lemon juice. Miss Goodwin showed us how the spies do it in France.’

  I blew out my cheeks. ‘You have more interesting lessons than us. We just get told about the crusades, and I’ve got ten dates to learn for a test tomorrow. Bo-ring!’

  ‘So, shall we buy a lemon?’

  ‘No. The burglar will probably be watching Mrs Grimley’s door to see when she leaves. He’d see us go in and that would ruin it. No, we’ll stick to the plan.’

  We set off at a run so we could get home and have as much time as we could with Dad before he went back to Firbeck.

  Mum had cooked a special tea of mincemeat and dumplings.

  ‘This’ll put hairs on your chest,’ said Dad, tucking in. ‘I wish we got fed like this at Firbeck. I’ll swear the cow we had in the Sunday stew died before the war.’

  At half-past six, we said goodbye, then he went off to catch the tram.

  ‘Mum,’ Sally said. ‘Is it all right if me and Billy go to the church youth club? It starts in half an hour.’

  ‘Youth club? I thought you didn’t like that Vicar Treadwell!’

  ‘Yes, but some of my friends want to go to play table tennis.’

  ‘I’ll go along to keep an eye on her,’ I offered.

  Mum smiled. ‘That’s nice. A lad that looks after his little sister. You’ll keep her out of trouble, I’m sure.’

  As soon as Mum and Dad had left the house, Sally and I armed ourselves with torches and put on extra socks in case it was cold standing around waiting for the mousetrap to snap shut. We were so close to catching the Blackout Burglar now.

  Cambrai Luftwaffe aerodrome, France 12 December 1940

  Ernst Weiss returned to the hut as darkness was falling. Irena and Manfred had rolled up their blanket beds and tidied them away in the cupboard. They had made sandwiches from the mounds of bread and bacon left over after breakfast and lunch. Manfred wore his school coat and cap, but Irena was hidden under a greatcoat and felt hat. She carried an empty cardboard suitcase so she looked to the aircraft crew like a spy with a radio. A very small spy, but no one ever asked questions about the Gestapo and its plans.

  ‘Ready?’ Ernst asked.

  ‘So? Where will Irena be going?’ Manfred asked.

  The pilot turned to a map on the wall and jabbed a finger at the north of England. ‘A new target tonight – a place called Sheffield.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Manfred said.

  ‘The Steel City,’ Irena said quietly. ‘We learned about it in our geography lessons back in Poland.’

  ‘The Steel City,’ Ernst agreed. ‘We’ll aim for the east of the city where all the steelworks are. It’s a good place to drop you, Irena. Once we’ve bombed the factories, you’re pretty sure to land in the countryside – Attercliffe Common or the fields to the east. After that it’s up to you to make your way into the town and tell your story.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Irena said quietly.

  Ernst looked stern. ‘If anyone ever found out what I had done to help an enemy of the Nazis escape, they would kill me, probably very slowly. And they would be sure to find out how Manfred helped, so he would have to die, too. You see what that means?’

  ‘When I tell my story to the English, I’ll tell them I had no help. I hid myself on a bomber and stole a parachute from one of the crew,’ Irena said.

  ‘You have never met Manfred and Ernst Weiss.’

  Irena’s eyes opened in wonder. ‘I have never even heard of anyone called Manfred and Ernst Weiss!’ she cried.

  Ernst laughed. ‘You’ll do – you know, I almost hope you make it!’

  ‘Me, too,’ Irena said.

  Manfred checked his watch. ‘Time to go.’

  He led the way across the square of concrete to where the crew wagons stood. A hundred young men were crowding onto the waiting wagons. If anyone saw the tiny figure in a hat carrying a suitcase and the boy in a school cap, they said nothing. They rode in silence across the airfield to the planes, where winches were hauling up bomb loads into their bellies. Each crew member remembered friends who had made this short journey and never returned. Each crew member wondered if this would be his last time. Some men smoked a final cigarette and some supped at small flasks of brandy.

  The wagon stopped and the men climbed down. They walked over the frosty grass by the edge of the runway to their Heinkels, Junkers and Dorniers. The first wave of pathfinders were already roaring past them with chattering propellers blasting their faces with hot and oily engine smoke.

  As Manfred approached his brother’s Heinkel, he saw the last rack of five bombs being lifted steadily on a winch. In the dim light, he saw there were words chalked on the side of a bomb: ‘This one is for you, Tommy.’ And suddenly he felt the ache of missing Hansl and being hundreds of miles from home.

  Ernst led them up a ladder into the crew section at the front and quickly directed Irena back to the bomb bay. The bomb-aimer was closing the doors and looked up in surprise.

  ‘Remember Biggin Hill?’ the pilot said.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This is another gentleman from the Gestapo. We are taking him for a ride to Sheffield. Make sure he gets away safely after the last bomb has gone. Apart from that, forget you have seen him and don’t try to speak to him.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him, sir.’

  ‘Give him a parachute and a blanket to keep him warm.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Ernst said.

  Irena stayed silent.

  Manfred was waiting in the cockpit, wide-eyed and full of joy at being on a warplane. Ernst returned to explain the controls.

  ‘This is the magneto to start the motors,’ he said. ‘I’ll start them up so you get a feel of the noise we have to put up with for hours, and then you can climb back dow
n.’

  The engine on the right whirred and popped and exploded into life, followed by the one on the left, until the whole aeroplane was shaking. The engineer reported on all the checks he needed to do, the pressures and the performance. ‘All fine!’ he shouted at last, and Ernst eased back on the throttle till the warm engines were purring.

  ‘Time to go,’ the pilot said. ‘See you before Christmas, I hope.’

  ‘Thanks, Ernst – I’ll never forget this trip.’

  The brothers hugged and slapped one another on the back.

  But as Manfred headed for the door, he heard the loud blast of a car horn and the screech of tyres on the tarmac. He stepped back into the cabin and looked out. A large, grey Mercedes had pulled up in front of the nose of Ernst’s Heinkel, blocking its way.

  Ernst threw open a side window to call angrily, ‘What are you playing at, you buffoon?’

  A tall man in a black leather coat had stepped from the car and was looking up at the cabin. Manfred stayed in the shadows behind his brother and watched. He felt sickness rising in his throat. He knew the man and he knew he’d already received the only warning he would ever get.

  This time Manfred knew he would be shot.

  Chapter 33

  ‘I am Gauführer Linz – Gestapo chief in the Munich region,’ the Nazi officer shouted up to the Heinkel’s cabin.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re Hitler’s pet dog. Get out of my way.’

  ‘You cannot speak to a Gestapo officer like that.’

  ‘You are not in Munich now – you have no power in this airfield. Get out of my way.’

  The Gestapo chief stood firm. ‘I am following the trail of an escaped Polish prisoner – a girl called Irena Karski. A kapo in Dachau munitions factory thinks he saw her climbing into the cab of a bomb delivery truck.’

  ‘What has that got to do with me?’ Ernst cried.

  ‘The prisoner was in the company of a known traitor – Manfred Weiss, your brother. Have you seen him?’

  ‘Yes – he stayed here last night. I saw him onto an empty truck heading back home just ten minutes ago,’ the pilot lied.