The Good Pilot, Peter Woodhouse

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mike hesitated. “One of them is carrying a gun,” he said.

  “But they’re not in uniform,” said the navigator.

  Mike made up his mind. “Let’s risk it,” he said. “Come on.”

  They began to walk over towards the hunters, who started to advance towards them. The one who had been carrying the gun had slung it over his shoulder.

  “Americans?” he shouted.

  “Yes,” Mike shouted back. “American.”

  They approached each other gingerly. On seeing the blood on the navigator’s face, one of the men reached into his pocket and passed him a handkerchief to press to his nose. Then the other one, who was fair-haired and taller than his companion, said, “You must come with us.” He spoke slowly, but his English seemed good enough.

  They looked at Peter Woodhouse in astonishment.

  “Where did you find this dog?” the fair-haired man asked.

  “He was with us,” answered Mike. “Crew.”

  The fair-haired man translated this into Dutch, and his companion shook his head in mock disbelief.

  “We were shot down,” said Mike.

  The man laughed. “I had worked that out,” he said. Then he added, “Probably by the Germans.” He laughed again. Then he turned serious, and indicated they should hurry.

  “They’ll be searching for you,” he said. “We have to get you as far away from here as we can. Can you run, or at least walk faster than this?”

  They set off. There was a path through the forest that they followed until they reached a narrow unpaved road. They did not follow this, but crossed it to reach another field in which again there was a track. Eventually they came to a farmyard; the man who spoke English said it was a friendly house.

  “They will hide you,” he said. “Then we’ll get you away this evening.” He looked at the navigator; he was clearly concerned. “We can find a doctor, if you like. Not today, but in a day or two. He could look at your nose.”

  ‘I think it’s broken,” said the navigator.

  “I broke mine when I was a boy,” said the man, pointing to the bridge of his nose. “See? It’s not straight. But I can tell you something – women like a man with a broken nose.”

  He gestured to Peter Woodhouse. “We won’t need to hide him. He can stay in the yard.” Then he added, “Dogs are innocent, aren’t they? This isn’t their war.”

  The fair-haired man was called Mees; the other man was Pauel. It was Mees who did the talking when the farmer appeared. There was a low, murmured conversation in Dutch, accompanied by anxious looks in the direction of the two airman. The farmer pointed to Peter Woodhouse and asked a question; Mees shrugged and made a gesture of helplessness. Peter Woodhouse, who seemed completely unharmed by the crash landing, looked about him with interest, sniffing the farmyard scents.

  The farmer came over to Mike, took his hand, and shook it.

  “He says that there is a place in his barn where you will be safe,” said Mees. “He says that we must try to get you out tonight, if possible. The Germans are everywhere in the area and they will be conducting searches once your plane is found.”

  Mike said that he understood. “We don’t want to put anyone at risk.”

  Mees replied that they were used to risk; they had lived with it for four years, but now they could see the prospect of liberation and they could take a few more risks. “We’re no longer on our own. The Canadians are not too far away. The Americans and the British too. It won’t be too long now.”

  The farmer started to become concerned. He tapped his watch and then pointed at the barn. Mees said that they should go with the farmer; he would show them what to do, even if he could not tell them. He and Pauel would try to be back that night –“with people who can help you” – but they could not guarantee it.

  They did come, though, just before midnight. Mees was there, but not Pauel, and there were two other men, who spoke no English and whose names weren’t given. They took the two airmen from the barn and led them to a river bank. Peter Woodhouse was secured to a lead that Mees had brought, and he trotted along uncomplainingly beside Mike. On the edge of the river a small rowing boat was tied up beneath a spreading willow, and they were told to climb into it. The two unnamed men rowed; Mees sat in the stern, occasionally whispering something to the rowers.

  An hour later they drew up where the river flowed into what seemed to be a small town. Bundled out of the boat, they were taken to a nearby house and led immediately upstairs and into a sparsely furnished attic. There were two rolls of bedding on the floor and a chair with a stub of candle. Peter Woodhouse was not taken upstairs, but was held in the kitchen by one of the men who had done the rowing. A few items of clothing had been left by the bedding, including a fresh shirt for the navigator, whose clothes had been stained with blood from his face; his nose had stopped bleeding by now.

  “Your dog will be looked after by one of these people,” explained Mees. “This is not the place for him.”

  They were left to go to bed. They used the candle for long enough to take off their flying boots and their jackets. They were both close to exhaustion, and Mike summoned just enough energy to blow out the candle before sleep claimed him.

  The occupants of the house were an elderly man, Henrik, his son and daughter-in-law, and a ten-year-old boy named Dirk. Dirk brought them their evening meal on most days, and sometimes stayed until they had finished so he could take the plates away. He spoke no English, but occasionally addressed them in Dutch, apparently asking questions to which no answer could be given. Their diet was spartan: potatoes dressed with a thin meat or fish gruel; onions and cabbage; helpings of an oaten porridge that barely covered the bottom of the plate. They realised, though, that every scrap of this fare was taken from somebody else’s table: the country was not far from starvation and the feeding of two extra mouths tested resources even further.

  At least once a day Peter Woodhouse was brought up to spend half an hour or so with them in the attic. He seemed pleased to be reunited with them, wagging his tail and whining with pleasure in spite of the gloom of their attic hideaway. Mike could tell that the dog was losing weight, and he would save a scrap here and there from his own meagre rations to give to him when he came up.

  Henrik, the owner of the house, took them downstairs to spend part of each morning in a small living room immediately below the attic. He spoke a few words of English and for the rest could make himself understood through an elaborate and idiosyncratic sign language. In this language, the Germans were signified by the puffing up of cheeks and the furrowing of the brow, to produce an impression of ire and menace.

  They should keep away from the window, he indicated, although they could look out if they stood well back. Not that there was much to see, as the street outside was a quiet one. On several occasions, though, they saw a small German patrol – never more than five or six men – making its way down the street. They watched these passing men with fascination. These were the enemy, the cause of all this – their being in Europe in the first place, the danger they had been subjected to, their crash landing, their virtual imprisonment in an attic. And far away, of course, they knew far more serious things were happening, all brought about by these ordinary men in grey marching down the street of a small Dutch town, flesh and blood like them, no doubt with lives from which they themselves had been taken; yet the enemy, nonetheless.

  Mees told them what was being done on their behalf. “It’s too dangerous at the moment, but we’ll try to get you back to your people. They aren’t too far away now, and it may be safer just to keep you here until they arrive. We’ll see.”

  Mike understood. “But every day we’re here means more danger for these people.” He gestured towards the floors below. “They would be shot if we were found.”

  Mees nodded. “Yes, but this is as safe as anywhere else – possibly safer. Those soldiers you may have seen out of the window stay just a few yards away, you know. They’ve taken over the school rou
nd the corner. They’re your neighbours and it wouldn’t occur to them that anybody’s hiding a stone’s throw away, under their own shadow.” He smiled. “And anyway, Henrik looks after their building for them. Why would they search his house?”

  Mike was incredulous. “He works for the Germans?”

  Mees laughed. “What better cover?”

  There was something else that was troubling both Mike and the navigator. It preyed on their minds that people might think them dead. They both knew what people at the base would have thought when their aircraft did not return: they themselves had thought exactly that of those who had not come back. Missing in action: presumed dead. The bleak conclusion was usually true, and that, surely, was what people would be thinking of them. Mike thought of Val and of what they would have said to her. He knew that they frowned on giving people false hope – that this only led to a postponement of grief. He concluded that there would have been little encouragement for her.

  If only a message could somehow get through; not much of a message – just one word would do: alive. He asked Mees whether he could contact someone. “Just to tell them we’re alive. A few words, that’s all.”

  “We’ve done what we can,” said Mees. “It’s been our practice all along. But we’re short of a wireless operator at the moment, and so we’ve used the Red Cross. We haven’t been able to talk to them directly, but we’ve tried to send a message. They may have received it or they may not.”

  “And you have nothing for us? Nothing back?”

  Mees shook his head sadly. “In these conditions, people often have to work in the dark. We work as cells – we’ve done that from the beginning. That means that information doesn’t travel easily.”

  Mike felt that he had fallen into a world of darkness. There was the gloomy attic, with its tiny skylight that let in a shaft of light no wider than a man’s hand; there was the room below, in which no lamp ever shone; there was the street onto which they were sometimes allowed to gaze, which was dark because of its narrowness; there was the whole continent that was plunged into such blackness at night because of curfews and blackouts and lack of streetlights. And alongside this all-embracing physical darkness there was a spiritual blanket that smothered all sense of joy and optimism. It was night, and although people talked of dawn, risked their lives to bring that moment forward, in so many places it was still the darkest of hours.

  ❖ 13 ❖

  When Val asked for time off to go to the doctor the following day, Archie told her she could take the whole morning.

  “Or, if you want, you can have the whole day,” he said. “You deserve it. Not much going on round here.”

  That was not true. Val knew there was a long list of tasks that had to be done before the end of August, and that Archie was just trying to be kind to her. He had been over-solicitous ever since that day, which was the way she referred to the day of Mike’s disappearance. She had eventually told him that she did not need special treatment, that there were plenty of people in the same position, and that she wanted to carry on doing her share irrespective of what had happened. She heard the expression young widow – there were plenty of those – and thought, That is what I am. But not quite: young widows had a status that she did not have; they were looked after with payments and pensions; they had their husband’s name to hold on to; there was a whole world of officialdom to show support for them. She had none of that: she was just somebody who had lost her fiancé. People felt sorry for women in that position, but that was all there was to it. They thought bad luck, but then they went on to think of all the other things that engaged their sympathy, and for most that was a lengthy list.

  “I don’t need the whole day,” she said. “I can see him in the morning. They said ten o’clock. Then I could get over here by twelve.”

  “If that’s what you want.” He paused, looking at her with undisguised curiosity. “You’re not sickening for something?

  This is hard work you’re doing – I wouldn’t want it to get to be too much.”

  She held his stare. “I can do the work,” she said quietly.

  She wished that he would leave it there, but he continued. “Because if you’re sickening – after what happened, of course – nobody would blame you, you know. Folks know about what happened.”

  “Archie,” she said patiently, “it’s all right. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  He started to ask, “Then why . . .” but stopped himself. Women’s problems, of course. How stupid of me, he thought. Women have these problems, and I go and ask this poor girl.

  Blushing, he turned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Whatever time you turn up.”

  The doctor’s surgery was in a small town seven miles away from the village. There was a bus that left just before eight, but on a summer’s morning it was no hardship to catch it after she had eaten breakfast with Annie and Willy.

  “Why are you going to the doctor?” asked Willy. “You not well, or something?’

  Annie looked at him. “Mind your own business, Willy,” she said.

  “A check-up,” said Val. “You should go too, Willy. The doctor listens to your heart, and—”

  “Nothing wrong with my heart,” said Willy.

  Val spread jam thickly on her toast. There would be no more butter for two days: they had used their ration and must do without, unless Willy could get hold of some from his new farm; he brought home milk and cream quite regularly. One of the other land girls worked on a dairy farm and was never short of butter; people said that she got it from the cowman in return for favours, but they always said things like that. She pointed a finger at Willy. “How do you know? There’s something called a heart murmur, although you can’t hear it yourself. The doctor listens . . .”

  “Oh, I know all about that,” said Willy. “He listens with one of them things . . .”

  “Stethoscopes,” said Annie. “And you’d better catch that bus, Val. Ten minutes.”

  They had told her to be there by eight-thirty, and the doctor would try to see her before nine. He was running late – a small boy had a bad cut on a finger that had to be stitched – but eventually she was taken in by the nurse, who sat in as chaperone. The nurse had a magazine with her, and read it discreetly in the corner until it was time for Val to be examined.

  The doctor asked how long it was.

  “Three weeks,” she said.

  The nurse looked up from her magazine, but dropped her eyes again.

  “And you’re usually regular?”

  She nodded. “But I feel a bit different. I don’t know how to put it, but I feel different. Sort of light.”

  The doctor was making a note. “Morning sickness usually starts about six weeks after you first miss,” he said.

  She could see the nurse looking at her. She wondered whether such people looked for a ring on the finger. Or did they take the view that it was none of their business – which it wasn’t, in her view.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “I’d like to examine you,” he said. “But remember, it’s too early to know with any certainty. It’ll become clear enough in time.” He put the cap back on his pen, screwing it on with elaborate care while he asked the next question. “And the father?”

  She felt the nurse’s eyes boring into the back of her head. “I’m engaged,” she said. “He’s my fiancé.”

  The doctor relaxed. He glanced across the room at the nurse. “Well, that’s not too bad, is it? The date of the wedding can be brought forward – if necessary.” He allowed himself a smile.

  Her heart was pounding. “But he’s dead,” she said. “The US Air Force. He flew a Mosquito.” She had begun to come to terms with his death. Her earlier hope – slender at the best of times – had grown weaker with each day. She was beginning to mourn.

  The doctor’s face fell. “My dear young lady, I’m so sorry.”

  She looked down at the floor. She did not want to cry in front of these people, but it was hard. She had cried and cr
ied so much that she thought she had used up what tears there were, yet it seemed there were still more to shed.

  The nurse stood up. She crossed the room and put an arm about her shoulder. She had a small handkerchief in her hand, and offered this to her.

  “All these brave young men,” said the doctor. “We’re losing all these brave young men. Our men. Americans. New Zealanders. Canadians. All of them.” He shook his head. “And there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.”

  The nurse spoke. “It’ll come.”

  “Yes, nurse,” said the doctor. “You may be right, but in the meantime, it still goes on.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll examine Miss Eliot now.”

  She had to wait more than an hour for a bus back to the village. There was a small bus shelter, stale and dank, and she sat there thinking of what she would do. The doctor had said that there was a place they had used, a place near Cheltenham, that took girls in her position. “Not exactly the same position as yours,” he said. “You’re an engaged woman – or you were – which is almost the same as being married. Some of those girls don’t have that advantage; some of them younger than you.”

  “Fifteen,” said the nurse.

  “Yes, fifteen. But they do what’s necessary. They take them in and let them have the baby. Then the babies are placed.”

  She drew in her breath. “Placed?”

  “For adoption,” said the doctor. “There are other places, of course – some of them run by nuns. They look after you well, although some of the nuns, I believe, can be a bit on the severe side.”

  “Don’t go to the nuns,” said the nurse. “Stay away from them. You’re not RC, are you? No, well, best to go somewhere else.”

  “The almoner at the hospital can help,” said the doctor. “We have a very good woman there, Mrs Knight. She’s probably the best person to advise you.”

  Now, sitting in the bus shelter, she imagined herself going off to one of those places. She would have to go early if people were not to notice. She could tell them she was going to another farm – somewhere further away – and that she would not be coming back for some time. Would she have to tell the Land Army people? They must know about these things, because she could not be the first land girl to be in this position. They may have their own place, for all she knew, where they sent girls who got themselves into trouble.