Maidie jumped out of bed. “Then it must be good news; they wouldn’t know his name, if anything had happened to him.” She paused and faltered. “Would they?”
“Shouldn’t think so.” Arthur dashed away to wash and shave in a hurry.
Twenty-five minutes later a camouflaged Austin staff car stopped outside the Angel and a squadron leader slid out of the driving seat and took long strides towards the private door at the side of the house.
***
Squadron Leader Maidment got the good news at eight-o’clock, while dealing with a boiled egg at a bare table in the crew room.
The senior Intelligence officer interrupted him just as he had taken the top off his egg, with “May I see you alone for a moment, Ronnie?” And got a frown and an impatient “Can’t it wait? My egg will get cold”, for his pains.
Maidment reluctantly accompanied him outside and burst back into the crew room a moment later with a loud, “Roy’s safe and sound, chaps: the French are hiding him. We’re going to pick him up tomorrow morning.”
But that was all they could do or say about it for the time being, for the Longley Wing was fully involved in that epic day, Black Thursday: black for the Luftwaffe, a bright spot in the annals of the R.A.F
The Spitfires from Longley made five scrambles that day, and the most experienced pilots flew on all of them. By the time the squadron was released there were some pilots who had started the day as comparatively green and were now accepted as well proven. The radar stations picked up the last raid of the day at 6.15 p.m., approaching Dover, and it was eight-o’clock before, weary to the marrow, the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots were told they would not be needed again until the morrow.
The A Flight commander called out “A Flight stay behind for a minute, please.” Nobody groaned in protest: they all knew what to expect, and it was in a good cause. The flight commander read out a list of five names, each linked with an aircraft identity letter. “The rest of you can carry on. “ To the chosen five, he added, “The Boss is taking a Maggie over to fetch Roy. We’re escorting. I want you all in the C.O.’s office at 2100 hours, for briefing. That will give us all time for dinner and a pint or two. After briefing, bed.” He drove them, three other officers and two sergeants, to their messes. To the sergeants he said, “I’ll pick you up five minutes before time, and we’ll go over to the C.O.’s office together.”
***
When Hercule Pelegrand released Arthur Goldsmith’s pigeon at first light on the morning of the 15th, he tossed it into the air with a valedictory, “Allez, Henri... et bonne chance. “ But it would be foolhardy to liberate only one pigeon: that would arouse the military police sergeant’s curiosity if he came prowling again. So Hercule set four of his own free as well, to enjoy themselves.
Later on, after breakfast, he set out with two more, in a basket, to catch the bus that would take him the ten kilometres to the hamlet of St. Estephe, the nearest to his son’s farm. There, as usual, he took to the old bicycle he stored in a friend’s house for these occasional visits, and pedalled stertorously the remaining five kilometres.
When he and his son had embraced and he had refreshed himself with a glass of wine Hercule explained what had to be done. “Release one of these birds at noon and the other four hours later. I have asked the English to take the young fellow away without delay. Every hour he spends here adds to the danger. By this evening I shall have our instructions. Come this evening and eat with your mother and me, and I will tell you what is required of us. Meanwhile, I shall have him delivered here in an empty wine barrel; along with a full one, of course, to allay suspicion.”
As he was about to leave he admitted, “I am as anxious to get one of my own best pigeons back as I am to help this young pilot to escape. I felt badly about handing six of my pride and joy over to the English: I am not sure how they will feed them, for one thing.” He rolled his eyes. Once, soon after the Great War, Hercule had ventured to Dover for the day. He still had horrific memories of the pork pie he had eaten in a pub and the fish and cheaps, greasy and tepid, he had tried later. He suspected that his birds would fare no better than he had.
It was mid-afternoon when a pigeon he recognised as his own Miramont glided in to land at the loft. He stowed it in its cage hastily and took the message from its leg.
That evening he was able to tell his son: “They are not entirely stupid, those English. They are coming to fetch the boy at five-o’clock tomorrow morning, in a small aeroplane. You are to light a bonfire at ten to five. That will both act as a beacon to guide them to your big field and as a wind-indicator: the way the smoke drifts will show the pilot which way to land.”
“Good,” said his son. “And now tell me, those two Boche military policemen: what can we do about removing them? They gave me a foul look when I was in the cafe.”
“Forget it,” Hercule admonished him. “I can cope with them. They don’t worry me. If we did anything drastic, there would be terrible reprisals. You know that.”
“But they frighten maman.”
Hercule grinned. “Your maman frightens me; but that is no reason to eliminate her.” Berthe, tucking into her supper, looked pleased. Her husband went on: “One can always deal with a situation by out-thinking the other party.” He gave his wife an amused glance. Berthe, her mouth full, sat back and regarded him with suspicion. She had been wondering lately about that roving-eyed young wife of the horse-butcher, who had taken to accompanying her husband to the cafe for a drink of an evening: every Thursday and Sunday, and togged up to the nines. She only toyed with one glass of vermouth, but her regard seldom strayed from Hercule; fine, manly figure that he was, with that barrel chest and his moustache. And there was no doubt he was smart enough to deceive her: look at the way he had fitted up that big wine butt so that a man could hide in there, yet leave room for a small amount of wine in a separate compartment.
She had felt sorry for the young chap cooped up in there with only a small air hole. But they had let him out to stretch and to wash and use the w. c. It had all gone very well, and right under the noses of those pigs of Boches military police.
Roy Taylor had lain in the wine butt on his folded parachute trembling uncontrollably for the first hour of his confinement. Deliberately throwing himself out of his aeroplane had demanded a courage different from the kind he had to show every day in action. For a moment he was tempted to stay where he was, so strong was his fear that the parachute might not open. But the terrible flames in his cockpit soon drove him out: he had seen other pilots who had left it too late, and the irreparable damage that burns had done to their faces and bodies. Once out, he had the thought that oxygen starvation, now that he no longer had his helmet on and oxygen tube to supply his lungs, might make him forget, or unable, to pull his ripcord. So he did so within a few seconds of falling clear and seeing his Spitfire already disappearing into cloud.
From then on, his long descent gave him plenty of time for reflection. At first he was happy that his parachute had worked. But soon he found his mind fogging through lack of oxygen and there was a period of incoherent thought before, when he was five or six thousand feet up, he began returning to normal. By then he had passed through several belts of clear air between cloud layers, and now that he was in cloud again and must, he realised, be getting very near the ground, he began to worry about his landing.
By the time he came to earth he was trembling again and in a cold sweat. Dogfighting he did not mind. He could take any amount of enemy fire without losing his cool command of himself. But the feeling of being blind and enclosed brought on such a feeling of nausea that he had to put both hands to his mouth to keep it clamped shut against the turmoil in his stomach.
When Hercule Pelegrand found him, he was too nervously exhausted to stand up at once. The hurried walk to the cafe and the slide down the ladder to the cellar had passed in a grey mental fog. The odour of wine and beer had not helped his uneasy stomach. While Hercule had dragged a huge butt away from the wall, h
e had stood swaying with shock, the reaction to the testing of his worst fears: falling through space, and being shut in.
When Pelegrand had shown him how to enter the barrel, in a mixture of simple French and broken English, he had been too dull and dazed to protest. By the time he had climbed through a trapdoor in one end and found it being shoved back against the wall, he was trembling and cold once more. He stretched out and lay prone with his head reeling.
Four hours later, when Hercule brought him food and wine, he had regained control of himself. Being allowed out to use the lavatory and wash had given him such mental relief that he went back into hiding without qualms.
By the time he was, after a jolting ride, delivered to the farm owned by Hercule’s son, he felt reconciled to darkness, confinement, and even ready to bale out again.
At the farm, he was liberated from the small barrel in which he had been taken there and hidden in the loft of the farmhouse. Hercule’s son later showed him the message in French sent by the senior Intelligence Officer at Longley, and he managed to work out the gist of it. Now excitement kept him awake until past midnight.
***
There was an early breakfast for the seven pilots who were going to fetch Taylor.
Ann Oldfield’s watch was on duty from midnight until eight in the morning and there was a stir of excitement in the Operations Room.
Upton had not hesitated when he was called that morning. He felt no desire to stay in bed. This was to be an operation that no one would ever forget: the first trip to occupied France to bring home a shot-down fighter pilot. It had all the elements to stimulate the seven of them who were going to carry it out. Audacity, originality, the satisfaction of rescuing one of their comrades, the prospect of a fight, the technical difficulties in landing on a small and unfamiliar field and taking off again. As Upton remarked, there was something in this for everyone. Most of all Squadron Leader Maidment, who would be the most vulnerable throughout and have to cope with the greatest problems of technique. “And,” Upton added, “we get a decent hot breakfast before we go.”
It was a fine morning. After the cloudiness of the 14th, two days ago, no one had taken it for granted; despite the official weather forecast.
Talkativeness at breakfast was not encouraged in officers’ messes, and even on this momentous morning there was no chatter despite the absence of newspapers to occupy people’s attention. But the squadron commander came close to setting a precedent by announcing, as he joined the others, “I’ve just been on to Met. No change in the forecast, and the weather on the other side is favourable.”
“What does that mean, sir?” asked Upton, living dangerously. “Nil visibility, so Jerry won’t see you land?”
“No, you clot, it means we’ll have all the visibility we need, to make sure we find the damn place and get in and out fast. Now get on with your breakfast.”
“I only asked,” said Upton with an air of injured innocence. “I was only taking an interest in your problem.”
“My problem is going to be nothing compared with yours if you don’t keep quiet.”
Grinning faces around the table showed an unwonted early morning alertness and good spirits.
The two sergeant pilots were waiting outside their mess for the C.O. ‘s van to stop.
“Good breakfast?” Maidment called through his open window.
“Wouldn’t mind doing a job like this every morning, sir,” the sergeant pilots assured him. “The lot: bangers, bacon and two eggs.”
Upton made a comment about condemned men and hearty breakfasts, that did not go down too well.
First light was lifting above the horizon when they climbed into their cockpits. The noise of six Merlin engines and the Magister’s 130 h. p. Gipsy Major blatted and boomed across the aerodrome.
In the Operations Room the duty watch, aware that something special was afoot but not knowing exactly what it was, sat expectantly. The controller knew all about it. So did the other officers on his dais. Beside him were a W. A. A. F. assistant section officer and two Army captains, the artillery and searchlight liaison officers. They watched the plotting table with mute attention. Presently the first plot of the day went down: the so-called Channel patrol was on its way. The lookout on top of the control tower reported, his voice echoing round the concrete walls from a loudspeaker, “Six Spitfires and one Magister taken off, sir.”
The girls around the plotting table glanced curiously now and then at the controller’s dais and at the two N.C.O. assistant controllers on another raised platform below it: everyone up there looked pleased and expectant, but nobody gave a sign of what was happening. The controllers were all squadron leaders and the senior controller himself had come to sit beside the duty one.
Ann glanced at Lois, who was sitting next to her, and across at Helen on the other side of the general situation map. The three girls made little grimaces at one another. They had not seen Upton or Dellow the evening before; if they had, they would have learned nothing: but it seemed to deepen the mystery.
***
Hercule and Berthe had slept uneasily and now they lay awake listening for the sound of approaching aeroplane engines. Their thoughts were on the farm. In the still air and the silence of the early hours, they hoped to be able to hear something despite the twelve kilometres, as the bird flew, that separated them from their son. Their only remaining son and therefore a cause of acute anxiety in case things went wrong.
“I’ll go and make us some hot milk and cognac,” Berthe suggested.
“No. One never knows who is watching. We can’t risk a light, even with the blackout curtains and shutters. They’ll wonder why we are up and moving about if I get up and close the shutters.” (Open, like the windows, in summer.)
“Who will?
“The Boches, if they’re keeping an eye on us.”
Alarmed, she clutched at him. “Do you think they are?”
“Those two brutes have dogged us for the past few days. They were out on their motor bikes yesterday when I was on the bus. They stopped it and asked for everyone’s papers.”
“You never told me.”
“Naturally not. It was routine.”
“But they saw you... they must have asked where you had been.”
“What harm ?”
Hercule had the answer before his wife could reply. A loud knocking on the cafe door resounded through the whole house.
Berthe jerked upright with a little scream.
“Merde, alors,” exclaimed Hercule.
The knocking was repeated.
Hercule rolled from the bed and went to lean from a front window. “I’m coming,” he shouted down to the street, where, as he expected, the sergeant and corporal who so persistently persecuted him were at the door.
Grumbling, his trousers pulled hastily on and his shaggy torso bare but for his vest, he padded downstairs, across his café and unlocked and unbolted the door.
“What the devil do you want at this hour?” he demanded.
The two Germans pushed past him. “We haven’t found that English pilot yet,” the sergeant told him. “We thought perhaps he had secreted himself on your premises. Not, of course, that you would know anything about it.” He gave a jeering laugh.
“Look around... see for yourselves. “
“We intend to. Let’s begin with the cellar.”
The corporal stayed at the foot of the stairs that led up to the bedrooms, while Hercule and the sergeant went down to the cellar.
The German strutted round the barrels lining the wall, the racks of wine bottles, the crates of spirits, beer and soft drinks. He shifted this and that, peered, tapped, and finally said, “Well, he isn’t here. Now let’s see if he’s hidden himself upstairs.”
Fifteen minutes later, after looking in wardrobes and attics, and demanding glasses of brandy, the Germans left.
“Hercule,” wailed Berthe, “I’m frightened.”
“No need, now.”
“But suppose they go to
the farm?”
“Why should they ?” But he already knew the answer to that.
***
Taylor, roused from three hours’ sleep, came instantly wide awake. A cup of coffee comfortingly laced with brandy, a perfunctory splashing in a wash basin, and quietly downstairs so as not to disturb the two small children.
Young Pelegrand’s wife pressed a hunk of bread and some cheese on the guest, helped down with more coffee, wished him “bon voyage et bonne chance”, and he followed her husband out into the dark grey of first light.
He had inspected the proposed landing field the previous evening and was satisfied that it would serve. The farm buildings were an obstruction in one corner, but the approaches from each end, which afforded the longest runs, were good. There were some trees, but there was height enough to clear them and room between clumps for a small aircraft to slip through.
Now they went quickly to the spot half-way down one side and ten yards out from the hedge, where they had piled straw, wood and last autumn’s leaves from the bottom of a dry ditch.
Young Pelegrand looked at his watch, muttered “Bien, c’est l’heure pile,” and put a match to the heap.
Smoke curled at once, blowing at an angle of about forty-five degrees across what would be the runway. That would not bother the Magister pilot. The wind was gentle.
Soon the fire began to blaze and crackle and shoot out flames. The two men retreated, coughing from the acrid smoke. They turned to look up at the sky to the northward. Twice the farmer looked questioningly at the pilot and said, “Oui?” but each time Taylor shook his head.
Then they did hear them: the faint roar of Merlin engines.
***
Upton led Yellow Section with Tom Dellow on his right as Number Two and a recently blooded pilot officer on his left.
The three Spitfires, throttled back and with flaps down, yet found it difficult not to outstrip the Magister; which was straining at its maximum speed but with the wind against it.
Yellow Section carefully weaved ahead of the light aeroplane, all four of them at two hundred feet. At five hundred feet, and a little astern, Red Section led by the flight commander also flew in a succession of S-shaped zig-zags as slowly as possible.
Battle Climb Page 12