As the caller spoke, Brown fingered one of the 8 by 10-inch prints before her. It showed a German armoured vehicle – rolling tank-track body, revolving turret atop it. What drew her focus, however, was the unique feature of this vehicle: Instead of a heavy tank gun, protruding from the turret were what she knew to be 20mm cannon barrels, a group of four in parallel box formation.
‘…Yes, sir, a German anti-aircraft tank, brand-new concept, we think. Der Wirbelwind, so called.’ She smiled briefly. ‘… Ihr Akzent ist sehr gut, mein Herr. … Danke. … In Cambridge? Nein, ich habe Mathematik studiert.’ Her attention now switched to a crayon-marked map beside the photos. ‘Yes, sir, quite a concentration of them it would seem, on the coast around Calais. Given 609 Squadron’s routine activity over that area, I’ll be informing the Squadron Leader without delay.’ Brown’s eyes lifted from the map. ‘…But, sir… But, sir, if I don’t, the squadron will be at risk, sir. Significant risk… But, Admiral, that means… Yes, I realise I am under orders, sir, but… …I’m fully aware of our mission, Admiral, but…’ Her focus rested back on the map. ‘…Yes. …Yes, I understand, sir.’
As Brown replaced the receiver, the room’s ceiling shook with the roar of a Typhoon flying low overhead – They were coming back in.
She placed the map in a drawer of the desk, closed and locked it, gathered the photographs together into the package, and bound it. She stood, donned her cap, clasped the package under her arm, and made for the door.
Halfway down the corridor, Brown realised she hadn’t returned the guard’s salute. Though she’d passed within inches of the Corporal, she’d barely noticed him at all.
*
Quinn studied the photographs Brown had laid out on his desk. It was the same type of vehicle from photo to photo, yet each taken from a different angle and height. In the margin of each print was a stamp in bold red ink.
TOP SECRET.
‘I haven’t seen this sort before,’ he said to Brown. ‘Look like bad news… “Whirlwinds”, you say?’
‘Yes. Wirbelwind. Or Flakpanzer IV. Actually just a Panzer IV tank with the anti-aircraft cannon arrangement instead of the usual gun. You know the Panzer IV, don’t you?’
‘I ought to; we’ve taken out a few…’
She passed him another photo. ‘This was taken by an old friend of yours.’
‘Yeah?’
‘One Flight Lieutenant Carroll…’
Quinn smiled as he examined it. ‘Good old Nick, eh? Certainly takes a good picture…’ It showed a camouflaged Whirlwind, about 20 foot long by 10 high, obviously taken from a side-on, low-level pass of Carroll’s Spitfire. Quinn could gauge the scale from the German soldier standing next to it, facing the camera quite blankly. He smiled again. ‘Good old Nick.’
He leant down to the desk to examine another. ‘So where are they located exactly?’
He never saw the look in Brown’s eyes as she answered.
‘Normandy. …Only Normandy as far as we know.’
*
‘We should get a dog. I miss mine…’
In full flying kit, Stone was stretched out in the Dispersals armchair next to Quinn’s.
‘Back home?’
‘Nah, back in North Africa.’
Quinn ashed his cigarette. ‘What was he?’
‘Not sure. Just a mongrel like me. Beautiful little thing ’e was. …Had t’leave ’im behind.’
‘Shame.’
‘Yeah, it was. …Used t’go everywhere with me, did little Spades…’
‘Spades?’
‘As in “black as the Ace of”…’
‘Gotcha,’ replied Quinn. ‘You have any brothers and sisters, Stoney?’
‘Nah…’ Stone lit a smoke. ‘Well… none that I know of.’
‘Eh?’
‘Grew up in a home, did old Stoney.’
‘A home?’
‘For orphans… A couple of ’em, actually.’
‘Christ. …Your parents passed away…’
‘Dunno… I think I can remember my mother a bit sometimes.’
Quinn turned to him and spoke more softly. ‘I’m sorry, Colin. I didn’t know anything about that. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’
‘Nah, that’s alright, Skip. Never known anything else, m’self. So it seemed normal, didn’t it.’
*
Though the recruiting centre at Woolloomooloo was a world behind the Australian officer, its memory haunted him.
He would always remember that little room. The room where he’d weeded out the sheep from the goats, and signed the forms that inducted only the best and brightest of them. For his work, Group Captain Archie Rosewall had been awarded promotion to Air Commodore and his choice of assignments. The Empire Air Training Scheme had done its job, and was being scaled down. Its human quota having been filled, it might take another year or two, but the war would now be won. How many more young Australians would have to die to win it, the man dared not even guess.
He walked down the steps of Kodak House, where the Royal Australian Air Force Chief of Staff in Britain sat impotent behind his desk. Crossing the London street, Air Commodore Rosewall made up his mind.
He’d look up a few of his Old Boys.
*
Dear Daniel
Merry Christmas, and have I got a Christmas Present for you.
You may not believe this, brother, but I’ve done it.
Elementary Flying Training is over and I’ve made Pilot. You could have knocked me down with a feather.
But you’ll have an accident over this one… What Pilot Ability Rating do they give me? EXCEPTIONAL. We all went out to the Great Southern and got rotten, it was marvelous.
Now, Dan, I know you wrote to me that if I made Exceptional I should stay home as an Instructor. But I’ve made up my mind. I nominated to go on to Service Flying Training School as a pilot. So it’s Overseas Duties for me. They got back to me and said I’d be going on to Bombers (European Theatre of Operations). I was a bit disappointed at first - I had hoped for Fighters as you know. But I’ll still be a pilot and that’s the main thing, isn’t it. Bomber Command and a Lancaster will do me fine. What’s more, I’m heading your way after all.
Anyway, Dan, must go now. I’ll write again first chance I get.
Yours truly
Matt.
P.S. Congratulations, Squadron Leader Quinn. (!) I’m still only Leading Aircraftman so next time we meet you can order me around, make me shine your shoes, clip me round the ear etc. Just the usual harsh treatment.
*
From the gramophone flowed the mellow guitar shuffle and vocal harmonies of Geraldo and His Orchestra. Their soothing chords backed a female singer Quinn hadn’t heard before – a voice that sailed from ethereal high notes to the deeply melancholic, and hypnotically in between.
The low lamps of his room put a warm light onto the faces within it, their talk subdued yet flowing as freely as the Irish whiskey Stone had purloined from ‘don’t ask’. Around some worn-out armchairs and a couch reclined also Maddox, Jillian Brown, and a young Waaf she’d invited by the name of Elsie, whose brother had recently been lost at sea. They knew she’d been crying before she’d arrived, though she’d lost her tears with Stone, her face coloured with a fragile cheer after a few of the shots he’d administered her.
‘Why do you think Australians sound like you do, Stoney?’ the girl asked from the carpet by his chair.
‘Rule of the Bush, pet.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We ’ave t’talk with our mouths shut so the flies don’t go in.’
She looked up at him seriously for a moment, then broke into a grin. ‘What do you think you’ll do after the war?’
‘Fucked if I know.’
Quinn shot a stern look across at him. ‘ Colin…’
Stone shifted slightly in his chair, a contrite expression on his face answering Quinn’s. ‘Sorry, Skip. Said I’d be on me best behaviour tonight, didn’t I. �
��Sorry.’
Jillian Brown’s eyes caught Stone’s and smiled. ‘I think the Flight Lieutenant has been the perfect gentleman this evening.’
Stone paused. Then replied to her softly. ‘Miss Brown… You’re al-right.’
‘So are you, Stoney.’ She felt a warm glow from the whiskey flow through her. ‘But isn’t there anything you’d like, Colin? I mean, when all this is over…’
He sat back and pondered the question.
She saw his lips about to reply, yet hesitate.
‘…Things I can’t have. …Just a little dog, I s’pose.’
‘That’s really all?’
‘Coupla beers an’ a packa smokes?’
Brown grinned across to Stephen Maddox, to see he was fast asleep in his chair.
At that moment a new song commenced on the gramophone, its melody catching Quinn’s attention. ‘I do believe this is our song, Miss Brown.’
‘…Yes, I thought you’d like it.’
‘Who’s the singer? She’s an angel.’
‘Sally Douglas. Wonderful, isn’t she… There’s such longing in her voice…’
Quinn looked toward her. The whiskey let him ask it. ‘What do you long for, Miss Brown?’
She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed very clearly.
‘…For a string of South Sea Pearls.’
Quinn smiled, closed his own eyes, and ceded to the music gently wafting.
The voice sang Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.
March 1944
2nd Lieutenant Richie Haimes tried to check his watch as he ran. Ten minutes to first light, the boughs of the French forest were lit up by the German parachute flares that fell between them, shafts of stark white and shadow shifting eerily. Amongst these the platoon of Commandos bolted for the coast, German machine-gun fire picking them off one by one as they did.
With the Lieutenant blown away, Haimes now screamed the orders. He’d never expected to need to – The German Armoured Battalion they’d run into had been the single thing not on the map.
Nor had he expected the grim responsibility that now fell to him alone…
If captured, he’d have to put his own revolver to the Boffin’s head. They’d blackly joked about it back at the mission briefing. He was a nice young fellow – geologist – even had a bit of a laugh about it himself, albeit a nervous one. From sprint to sprint, Haimes checked his charge was still beside him: He could not fall into enemy hands… Running, crouching, covering fire – running, crouching, covering fire – the men were fit and doing damn well with the Sten sub-machine-guns that hadn’t jammed, the Bren Gunner’s fire having taken out several of the Germans hot on their tail. Yet their ammunition was fast running out – Haimes knew it. May as well put the revolver to his own head after the Boffin’s. For every man in the platoon knew Hitler’s Order Number 42: All British Commandos captured alive to be executed.
It should have been routine: Move quickly and silently off the landing craft, knife any German guards in the dark, get the Boffin up the beach, get him on site just inland – a potential ‘lightly defended’ corridor for Allied amphibious tanks to smash through on the morning of the Invasion. Hold the position while the Boffin took his earth samples – to determine if the ground would support tanks or bog them – then get the hell out of there before the Germans knew what had happened.
But it had all gone haywire. A whole Wermacht battalion was camped nearby – they’d opened up with everything – ten out of the platoon’s thirty men dead already. In the tracer fire, Haimes had seen his commanding officer’s head blown off: Decapitated, the Lieutenant’s body had just sat there – it had actually sat down – then slumped away to one side.
RUN, boys – Covering Fire! – KEEP RUNNING! – Faster! Keep it together – Keep the radio Corporal alive. Reach the coast, transmit the code-word for the submarine. DAMN IT – should have been there an hour ago! Pray to God it still waited. Check watch: Nine minutes’ darkness left. Then the sub couldn’t surface. Even if they made it in time, they’d probably be cut down in the water…
The 2nd Lieutenant unclipped his revolver holster and threw his last grenade.
*
In the Manston radio bunker, Quinn contemplated the two young officers before him: They were leant low over a table, heads propped in hands, no words between them.
Quinn had been up with Stone since 3am and, passing Section Lieutenant Brown in a corridor, had been delighted to hear that, if he’d like to, he could find one David Finlay, now Lieutenant-Commander, Royal Australian Navy, down in the radio room: He was acting as Naval Liaison to an Army officer monitoring some Commando op in progress just across the Channel – Manston’s proximity to the French coast affording the clearest possible radio signal. Brown said she couldn’t normally divulge such information, except the operation was clearly ‘winding down’. Flight Lieutenant Stone could go too, if he liked…
On entering the bunker, there’d been a brief acknowledgement from Finlay, clipped introductions. Quinn gauged from the mood in the room, and from the manic bursts over the radio speaker, that he was listening to a Commando operation going very definitely down the drain. Through the static now and then he heard gunfire and English voices yelling. Quinn didn’t have to be told that if plain language was being used instead of Morse Code, the situation must be beyond much hope. As the minutes passed, the RAF Sergeant operating the radio minutely adjusted certain dials. Yet the transmissions were becoming less and less frequent, and when they came, were frenzied, broken sentences.
Quinn looked across to Finlay. Finlay, noticing his stare, only shook his head.
The young Commando Major sighed to the room. ‘We’ve received the code-word that means they’ve been over-run. Met the whole bloody German Army by the sound of it. All I know is, they shouldn’t have been there.’
The radio speaker issued again: a sound like a single gunshot, then something like a man being punched, Quinn thought. More static, then it went dead.
‘What now?’ Quinn posed very quietly.
The Major continued like a man condemned. ‘We wait for the highly unlikely event of a second code-word. If that happens,’ he indicated to Finlay, ‘my learned colleague here will signal his submarine to surface and extract them.’
Though it seemed past mattering, still, Quinn found himself asking it: ‘What’s the code-word?’
‘Oxford,’ replied the Major, and enquired sidelong to Finlay. ‘How many minutes to first light?’
‘Five,’ returned Finlay. ‘If we don’t get the password in four, my submarine departs.’
Stone stood aloof by the wall, smoking through the silences that grew. When he finally spoke up, his voice was laid-back.
‘Why doncha get them to wait till first light?’
Quinn watched on as both officers stirred, sat up, red eyes glaring at Stone as if insane. Each clearly at his caffeine wits’ end, their pent up frustration of the last awful hours then burst.
‘BECAUSE THAT’LL MEAN THE WHOLE GERMAN BATTALION BREATHING DOWN THEIR NECKS WILL SEE THE SUB AND WE’LL LOSE THAT AS WELL AS THE FUCKING COMMANDOS AND THE BOFFIN!’
‘DON’T YOU KNOW THE LUFTWAFFE AIR BASES CONVENIENTLY LOCAL TO THAT AREA OF THE MAP?!’
Stone was unfazed.
‘Well… yeah… The light’ll illuminate the sub… But also the Germans in the area, won’t it. Make ’em a nice little target for a certain Typhoon Squadron I can think of.’
No sound was uttered by either Finlay or the Major. Each face sank slowly to the table once again as Stone continued.
‘…Be there in half an hour. Attack the German armour and give the commandos a chance to get to the sub. Which they’ll see more clearly at first light anyway.’
The pair remained firmly silent. Though Finlay’s forehead came to rest on the wooden table with an audible bump.
If anything, Stone brightened: ‘…An’ if the sub is seen by German aircraft… who’ll be there to deal with ’em? .. Me.’
The Commando Major’s face was buried in his arms. Yet, after long moments, his words came quietly, distinctly.
‘It’s brilliant.’
Quinn gaped at Stone in disbelief as, his face rising from the table now, the Major continued.
‘Jesus, they’ll never expect it… What bloody fools would ever perform a Royal Navy Submarine extraction under heavy fire in broad daylight?’
Stone ashed his cigarette. ‘Us?’
‘Except that it’s MY fucking SUBMARINE,’ pleaded Finlay. ‘I’ll be shot for this…’
‘Well…’ managed the Major, ‘not if it works…’
Stone added to no one in particular. ‘Probably give you a medal instead.’
Quinn reflected aloud: ‘And the Germans on the coast won’t be looking down on the sub… They’ll be looking up at the sky – as we come down on them.’
Finlay rubbed his eyes. He rubbed them long, and painfully. Until finally he croaked it: ‘I suppose they can only shoot you once…’
The radio Sergeant looked on dumbfounded as the four hammered out the plan: The squadron would be scrambled immediately. The leader of the commando platoon would receive the following Morse message from the Major: Game Keeper to Poachers. Wait, repeat, wait until my order. Then transmit agreed code-word and your map position. Submarine will surface in daylight, repeat, daylight to extract. Stop.
The Sergeant was sending it as Quinn and Stone strode out the door. On their immediate way back up the stairs from the bunker, Stone caught the clear note of sarcasm in Quinn’s voice.
‘Nice plan, Colin.’
Stone eyed him sideways as they went: ‘Shit, I wasn’t serious…’
*
The sun was touching the horizon as Maddox called out landfall, Quinn lifting the squadron off the wave-tops to reach the coast at altitude. Leveling at 2000 and with the coast a few miles ahead yet, he double-checked his radio was tuned to the Major’s frequency. The plan was clear and set: Reaching the coast, he’d signal the Major, the Major would signal the commando leader, who’d then – and only then – give his code-word and position for extraction by the sub.
So Quinn was aghast when the voice came over the headphones: It was the commando leader…
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