Air Bridge

CHAPTER SIX

There was no problem of navigation to distract my mind on the homeward run. The earth lay like a white map below me. I found the North Sea at Flushing, crossed the southern extremity of it, flying automatically, and just as automatically picked up the Thames estuary, following the curves of the river till it met the Kennet. And all the time I was remembering every detail of what had happened. It seemed such a waste that he should die like that. And all because he’d called me a crook. My face, ghostly in the windshield, seemed to reflect the bitterness of my thoughts.

I had three hours in which to sort the thing out and face it. But I didn’t face it. I know that now. I began that flight hating myself. I ended it by hating Saeton. It was he who had forced me into it. It was he, not I, who was responsible for Tubby’s death. By the time I was over the Kennet I had almost convinced myself of that.

I dropped to a thousand feet in a mood of cold fury, picked up Ramsbury and swung north-east. The trees of Baydon Hill were a dark line and there, suddenly, were the hangars of Membury and, as I swept low over the field, I caught a glimpse of the quarters nestled snugly in their clearing in the woods. All just as I had left it. Nothing changed. Only a man dead and the moon bathing everything in a white unreal light.

I had no need of any flares. I skidded in a tight, vicious turn, dropped flaps and undercarriage, and slammed the machine down on to the runway not caring whether I smashed it up in the violence of my anger.

Saeton was at the hangar and came running out to meet me as I cut the engines. He was waiting for me as I stepped out on to the concrete, his face alive with excitement. ‘Well done, Neil! Magnificent!’ He seized my hand and wrung it.

I flung him off. I couldn’t say anything. The words choked in my throat. He was gazing at the plane, caressing it with his eyes, like a father who has been presented with another son to replace one that has died. My hands clenched with the desire to hit out, to smash the eagerness of his face.

Then he turned and met my gaze. ‘What’s the trouble?’ His hand reached out and caught my arm in a hard, unyielding grip. His voice was urgent, his mood tuned to mine.

I faced him then, my guts screwed up in a right little knot in my belly and my teeth clenched.‘Tubby’s dead,’ I said.

‘Dead?’ His fingers dug into the muscles of my arm and he stared at me hard. Then his grip relaxed. ‘What happened?’ he asked, in a flat tone.

I told him what had happened — how Tubby’s body had slumped unconscious through the fuselage door, how I’d searched the area and found no sign of a parachute. When I had finished he turned and stared at the plane. Then he shook himself. ‘All right. Let’s get the plane into the hangar.’

The plane!’ I heard myself laugh. ‘I tell you, Tubby’s dead.’

‘All right,’ he said angrily. ‘So he’s dead. There’s nothing you or I can do about it.’

‘Diana was at Gatow,’ I told him. ‘She’s working at the Malcolm Club there. I saw her yesterday.’ I was remembering the sudden radiance of her face as she turned and found Tubby standing beside me.

‘What’s Diana got to do with it?’ he asked angrily. ‘She’ll get over it. Now give me a hand with the hangar doors. We’ve got to get this plane under cover right away.’

Anger burst like a torrent inside me. ‘My God! You callous bastard! You don’t care who’s killed so long as you get your bloody engines into the air. Nothing else matters to you. Can’t you understand what’s happened? He was unconscious when he fell through the door. And now he’s lying out there beside a disused airfield in the Russian Zone. He’s dead, and you killed him,’ I screamed. ‘And all you can think about is the plane. You haven’t the decency even to say you’re sorry. He was straight and honest and decent, and you wipe the memory off your mind as though he were no more than-’

He hit me then, across the face with the flat of his hand. ‘Shut your mouth!’ His voice trembled, but it was without anger or violence. ‘It doesn’t occur to you, I suppose, that I was fond of Tubby? He was the nearest I ever had to a friend in my life.’ He said that slowly as though he were explaining something to himself. Then he turned away, his shoulders hunched, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets as though he didn’t trust them in the open. ‘Now come and help me get the hangar doors opened.’

I followed him dully, tears stinging the back of my eyeballs, blurring the white naked brilliance of the scene. He opened the wicket door, undid the bolts of the main doors and between us we slid them back. Moonlight flooded into the hangar, showing it strangely empty. The crashed Tudor was gone. All that remained of it was a jumbled heap of broken metal piled along each side of the hangar walls. And at the far end the bench with its lathes and machine tools stood deserted and silent. The whole place reeked of Tubby. I could see him beside me at that bench, whistling his flat, unending tunes, a grin crinkling his cheerful, sweaty face.

The engines of the plane roared. The vague outline of Saeton’s head showed behind the glass of the windshield as he turned it and taxied into the hangar. Between us we got the doors closed again. ‘We’ll go back to the quarters now,’ he said. ‘You need a drink.’ His hand gripped my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Neil. I should have let you blow off steam. You’ve had a hell of anight.’

‘I can’t get the memory of Tubby out of my mind,’ I said, more to myself than to him.

We walked through the woods in silence and went into the mess room. Nothing had changed — the same trestle table, the four chairs and the cupboard in the corner. But there were just the two of us now. I stood there, feeling cold and numb. ‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get you a drink.’ He returned in a few minutes with two tumblers of whisky and a bundle of maps. ‘Knock that back,’ he said gently. ‘You’ll feel better then.’

As I drank he shuffled through the maps, picked out one and spread it flat on the table. ‘Now then, where exactly did it happen?’

‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ I said dully.

He nodded. ‘I understand how you feel. But I must get it pin-pointed whilst it’s still vivid in your mind. Now. Here’s Restorf at the entrance to the corridor. How soon did you cut out the engines?’

‘About three minutes after Field had reported that we’d passed the entrance beacon,’ I answered.

‘Field was your navigator?’

‘Yes.’

‘Speed?’

‘About one-sixty knots.’ I put down my tumbler. “What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Tubby’s dead,’ I said bitterly. ‘He was unconscious when he went through the door. I searched the whole area. There wasn’t any sign of a parachute. There’s nothing we can do.’ I looked at him, the beginnings of a decision forming in my mind. ‘I must give myself up.’

‘What good do you think that will do?’ he demanded harshly.

I shook my head. ‘None.’ My voice was bitter. ‘But I can’t go on like this. Do you know what he called me? He called me a dirty little crook. That’s what started it all.’ I stared down at my drink. ‘He was right, too. That’s what hurt. First the ‘Callahan’ business. Now, this. Saeton, I can’t go on with it. It’d drive me crazy. All the time I’d be thinking-’

‘Stop thinking about yourself,’ he snapped. The vein on the side of his forehead was beginning to throb.

‘We killed him,’ I said dully. ‘Between us, we killed him.’

‘We did nothing of the sort,’ he replied angrily. ‘It was an accident.’

‘He tried to stop me taking the plane. In the eyes of the law it would be-’

‘Damn the law! So you told him what you were doing?’

‘I had to. He came back after the others had jumped.’ I wiped my hand across my eyes. ‘I’ve made up my mind,’ I said. ‘I can’t go on-’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he cried. And then he leaned towards me, his eyes fixed on mine. ‘You think I’m callous about Tubby’s death, don’t you?’ His gaze dropped slowly to the map and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe it’s happened too often before — men going out and not coming back. I had nearly a year in command of a bomber station out in France. I lost fifty-five in that year — just boys I knew who passed through my life and were gone. Maybe I got hardened to it.’ His eyes lifted and fastened on me again. ‘But Tubby wasn’t just a boy I knew. Damn it, we worked together for two years, side-by-side on the same project with the same end in view. When you told me he was dead, I could have killed you. You’ve bungled it, and through your bungling you’ve killed the one man I was really fond of. And now you have the bloody nerve to say you won’t go through with the rest of the plan. Get this into your head, Neil. If you don’t go through with it, you make Tubby’s death utterly pointless. If it was necessary for him to die that a British company should get a world lead in air-freight transport, well and good. But if you’re now going to-’

‘I must tell the police the whole thing,’ I repeated obstinately.

‘Why? Telling the police won’t help. You say Tubby is dead. All right then. He’s dead. But for the love of God let’s see to it that his death was to some purpose.’ He slewed the map round towards me. ‘Now then. You dropped Field and the other fellow about there — correct? What happened then?’

‘I banked away out of the traffic stream,’ I answered, my voice trembling. ‘Then Tubby came back to the cockpit. He knew I was scared of jumps. He came back to make sure I got out. We were at about a thousand feet-’

‘And then?’

‘Christ!’ I said. ‘Don’t you see? It was because he was so bloody decent. That was why he died. Because he was so bloody decent. He was afraid I wouldn’t jump. He was going to take the controls…’ I was almost sobbing.

Saeton pushed the tumbler into my hand. ‘Drink up,’ he said. The drink produced a little oasis of warmth in the cold pit of my stomach. ‘You’re at a thousand feet. What happened then?’

I swallowed another mouthful. ‘I was on two motors then. I cut one. I nearly convinced him. He was just going aft again when he saw the clips. He took control then and turned the machine back into the corridor.’

‘I see. And you tried to persuade him to make for Membury. That’s when you told him our plan?’

That’s right. But he wouldn’t. His Methodist upbringing. You told me about that. You warned me …’ My mind was confused now. I felt damnably tired.

He shook my shoulder. ‘Then you had a fight. That’s what you told me.’

‘Yes. He called me a dirty little crook. That made me mad. I cut the engine out then. I told him either we crashed or he let me take over. That’s when he came at me with a spanner. The rest you know.’ My eyelids felt heavy. I couldn’t keep them open. ‘What are you going to do?’ I mumbled.

‘How long between his returning to the cockpit and the fight?’

‘Five minutes — ten minutes. I don’t know.’

‘What height were you when Tubby went out through the fuselage door?’

‘I don’t know. Yes. Wait a minute. About seven hundred. I climbed to over two thousand and then went down to five hundred again to search for him.’

‘You mentioned a disused airfield.’

‘Yes.’ My head nodded forward uncontrollably and I felt him shaking me. There was a small town. There was a river, too, and a road ran north, quite straight, past the edge of the airfield.’ I stared at him dully. He was peering at the map, marking off distances with a rule. ‘Can you find it?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Yes. Hollmind. No doubt of it.’

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked again.

‘Nothing much we can do,’ he said. ‘But an old friend of mine is at Lubeck, flying Daks. I’ll cable him and have him search the area as he flies over in daylight.’

I nodded vaguely. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

‘You’re dead beat, Neil. Better get some sleep.’ His voice sounded miles away. I felt his hands under my arm. ‘Come on, old chap.’

I think Saeton must have put something in my drink, for I don’t remember anything more until I woke to sunlight streaming into the familiar, comfortless little room. It had never done that before and when I glanced at my watch I found it was past two. I was still in my clothes and I had slept for nearly twelve hours. I fumbled for a cigarette, lit it and lay back.

The events of the night before came back to me then, like some nightmare half forgotten in waking. Tubby’s death was no longer vivid in my memory. The whole thing had an unreal quality, until I went across to the hangar and saw the plane with Saeton already at work on the inboard engines.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked. ‘I left some food out for you. Did you find it?’

‘No.’ I walked round to the front of the machine and saw that he had already got the starboard engine out. The single-purposed drive of the man was incredible.

‘I’m having difficulty with the securing nuts of this engine,’ he said. ‘Can you come up and give me a hand?’

I didn’t move. I stood there, staring at the shining sweep of the wings — hating the plane, hating Saeton, and hating myself worst of all. Slowly my eyes travelled from the plane to the litter of the hangar. God, how the man must have worked whilst I’d been at Wunstorf! He’d cut the old machine to pieces with an oxy-acetylene cutter; wings, tail, fuselage were a jumble of unrecognisable fragments piled along the walls. Only the engines were left intact.

He climbed down from the wheeled gantry. ‘Snap out of it, Neil!’ His voice was hard, almost violent. ‘Put your overalls on and get to work on that engine.’ His face, close to, looked grey and haggard, his eyes shadowed with sleeplessness. He looked old. ‘I’m going to get some sleep.’ He cleared a space for himself on the bench and lay down. He kept his eyes open until I’d climbed the gantry and started work. After that he didn’t stir until I switched the light plant on.

He brought some food over then and we worked on together until we had the port engine lowered on to the concrete floor. It was then eight forty-five. ‘Nearly news time,’ I said and lit a cigarette, my hands trembling.

We got the news on the plane’s radio. There was nothing in the summary. With the earphones clamped to my ears the announcer’s voice seemed to be there in my head, telling me of political wrangles, strikes, a depression over Iceland, anything but what I wanted to hear. Right at the end, however, he paused. There was a rustle of paper and then his voice was back in my ears and I gripped the edge of the seat.

News has fust come in that the Tudor aircraft, missing on the airlift since last night, has crashed in the Russian Zone of Germany. Two members of the crew, who baled out, crossed the frontier into the British Zone this morning. They are R. E. Field, navigator, and H. L. Westrop, radio operator. According to their report, the plane’s engines failed shortly after it had turned into the northern approach corridor to Berlin and the captain ordered the crew to bale out. Still missing are N. L. Fraser, pilot, and R. C. Carter, flight engineer. The pilot of one of the planes following the missing Tudor has reported seeing a single parachute open at about a thousand feet. It was clearly visible in brilliant moonlight. As Field and Westrop came down together, it is thought that this parachute may belong to one of the other two members of the crew. So far the Russians have denied that any plane crashed in their territory or that they hold any of our aircrews. The plane was a Tudor tanker belonging to the Harcourt Charter Company. Squadron Leader Neil Fraser

escaped from Germany during the war by Hying out a Messerschmitt after-

I switched it off and removed my headphones. A single parachute! ‘Do you think he’s alive?’ The sudden relief of hope made my voice unsteady. Saeton made no answer. He was staring down the fuselage at nothing in particular. ‘A single parachute! That must be Tubby. The others went out together. They came down together. The news said so.’

‘We’ll see what the papers say tomorrow.’ Saeton got to his feet.

I caught hold of his arm as he passed me. ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you glad?’

He looked down at me, his eyes grey like slate. ‘Of course, I’m glad.’ There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

His reaction left me with a sense of depression. The report was third or fourth hand. The pilot might have been seeing two parachutes as one. It might mean nothing — or everything. I got out on to the floor of the hangar and stood, staring at the plane. If only Saeton hadn’t taken the inboard engines out. If the machine had been left as I had brought it in, we could have gone over landed on that disused airfield and searched the area. It was a crazy idea, but it stuck in my mind.

And as though Saeton had also thought of that, he pressed straight on with the installation of the first of our own engines. We finished it at three in the morning. But even then I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept on seeing that single parachute, a white mushroom of silk in the moonlight, picturing Tubby forced to consciousness by the rush of cold air, tugging at the release. Pray God the papers carried more detail.

I was up at eight. The quarters were silent. There was no sign of Saeton. I thought he must be over at the hangar until I found a note on the mess table to say he’d gone into Baydon for the papers. By the time I’d cooked the bacon he was back. I saw at once he had some news. There was a gleam of excitement in his eyes and his face looked younger as though all the sleeplessness had been wiped away. ‘What is it?’ I asked breathlessly. ‘Have they found him?’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

Take a look at that.’ He handed me a teleprint.

Your plane urgently required Wunstorf to replace Tudor tanker missing stop Ministry Civil Aviation agree rush C of A stop Report Wunstorf soonest possible notifying your E. T.A. Signed Aylmer B.E.A. I handed it back to him. ‘I suppose you didn’t bother to see what the papers say about the crew of the plane?’

‘Can’t you get your mind off what’s happened?’ he demanded Irritably.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t. Have you got the papers?’

‘Here you are.’ He handed me a whole bundle of newspapers. ‘They tell us nothing that we didn’t know last night.’

I glanced quickly through them as he went past me to get his breakfast. All the reports were the same. It was obviously a hand-out. The only difference was that in two cases the position at which the pilot had seen that single parachute was given. The position was two miles north of Hollmind.

When I entered the mess room again Saeton was already there, the teleprint beside his plate. He was making notes whilst he ate. I thrust the paper in front of him. ‘Have you seen that?’ I asked.

He nodded, looking up at me, his mouth full.

‘It means Tubby is alive,’ I cried. ‘He must have come to and pulled the release.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ was all he said.

‘What else could it mean?’ I demanded.

‘You remember I said I’d cable a friend of mine at Lubeck? I phoned it through that morning. This morning I got his reply. I’ll read it to you.’ He pulled a second teleprint out of his pocket and read it out to me. ‘Regret no trace of Carter or Fraser stop All aircraft ordered from dawn third to keep sharp lookout Hollmind area stop Routes staggered to cover limits of Corridor stop Visibility perfect stop Two parachutes reported near frontier belonging Westrop Field stop No wreckage, parachute or signal reported target area stop Sorry signed Manning.’ He pushed it into my hand. ‘Read it yourself.’

It doesn’t prove anything,’ I said. ‘He may have been hurt.’

‘If he were he would have made some signal — smoke or something.’ He turned back to his breakfast.

‘He may not have been able to. He may have been unconscious.’

‘Then his parachute would have been seen.’

‘Not necessarily. Hollmind airfield is surrounded by a belt of pine woods. His parachute could easily have been invisible from the air if he’d come down in the woods.’

‘If he’d landed in the woods his parachute would have been caught in the trees. It would be clearly visible.’

‘Then maybe he was seen coming down and picked up by a Russian patrol or some Germans.’ I felt suddenly desperate. Tubby had to be alive. My mind clung desperately to the slender hope of this report of a parachute near Hollmind.

Saeton looked up at me again then. ‘What time did Tubby drop?’

‘I don’t know. It must have been just near eleven-thirty.’

‘On the evening of the second?’

I nodded.

“Within a few hours all pilots had been ordered to keep a sharp lookout. That means that from dawn onwards there was a constant stream of aircrews overhead searching the area. Do you seriously suggest that in the intervening seven hours of darkness Tubby would have been picked up?’

‘There was a moon,’ I said desperately.

‘All right — five hours of moonlight. If Tubby pulled his parachute release, then he would still have been there on the ground at dawn. If he were hurt, then he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about his parachute and it would have been clearly visible from above. And if he wasn’t injured, then he’d have been able to signal.’ He hesitated. ‘On the other hand, if he never regained consciousness-’

‘My God!’ I said. ‘I believe you want him dead.’

He didn’t say anything, ignoring me as I stood over him with my hands clenched. ‘I’ve got to know what happened,’ I cried. I caught hold of his shoulder. ‘Can’t you understand? I can’t go through life thinking myself a murderer. I’ve got to go out there and find him.’

‘Find him?’ He looked at me as though I were crazy.

‘Yes, find him,’ I cried. ‘I believe he’s alive. I’ve got to believe that. If I didn’t believe that-’ I moved my hand uncertainly. Couldn’t the man see how I felt about it? ‘If he’s dead, then I killed him. That’s murder, isn’t it? I’m a murderer then. He’s got to be alive.’ I added desperately, ‘He’s got to be.’

‘Better get on with your breakfast.’ The gentleness was back in his voice. Damn him! I didn’t want kindness, I wanted something to fight. I wanted action. ‘When will the plane be ready?’ I demanded thickly.

‘Sometime tomorrow,’ he answered. ‘Why?’

‘That’s too late,’ I said. ‘It’s got to be tonight.’

‘Impossible,’ he answered. ‘We’ll barely have got the second motor installed by this evening. Then there’s the tests, refuelling, loading the remains of the old Tudor, fixing the-’

‘The remains of the old Tudor?’ I stared at him. ‘You mean you’re going through with the plan? You’ll leave Tubby out there another whole day just because-’

‘Tubby’s dead,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘The sooner you realise that, the better. He’s dead and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

‘That’s what you want to believe, isn’t it?’ I sneered. ‘You want him dead because if he isn’t dead, he’d give the whole game away.’

‘I told you how I feel about Tubby.’ His face was white and his tone dangerously quiet. ‘Now shut up and get on with your breakfast.’

‘If Tubby’s dead,’ I said, ‘I’ll do exactly what he would have done if he’d been alive. I’ll go straight to the authorities-’

‘Just what is it you want me to do, Fraser?’

‘Fly over there,’ I said. ‘It’s no good a bunch of bored aircrews peering down at those woods from a height of three thousand or more. I want to fly over the area at nought feet. And if that doesn’t produce any result, then I want to land at Hollmind airfield and search those woods on foot.’

He stood looking at me for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said.

‘When?’ I asked.

‘When?’ He hesitated. ‘It’s Tuesday today. We’ll have the second engine installed this evening. Tomorrow I’ll fly down for the C of A. Could be Friday night.’

‘Friday night!’ I stared at him aghast. ‘But good God!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re not going to leave Tubby out there whilst you get a certificate of airworthiness? You can’t do that. We must go tonight, as soon as we’ve-’

‘We’ll go as soon as I’ve got the C of A.’ His tone was final.

‘But-’

‘Don’t be a fool, Neil.’ He leaned towards me across the table. ‘I’m not leaving without a C of A. When I leave it’s going to be for good. I’ll be flying direct to Wunstorf. We’ll call at Hollmind on the way. You must remember, I don’t share your optimism. And now get some breakfast inside you. We’ve got a lot to do.’

‘But I must get there tonight,’ I insisted. ‘You don’t understand. I feel-’

‘I know very well how you feel,’ he said sharply. ‘Anybody would feel the same if he’d caused the death of a good man like Tubby. But I’m not leaving without a C of A and that’s final.’

‘But the C of A might take a week,’ I said. ‘Often it takes longer — two weeks.’

‘We’ll have to chance that. Aylmer of B.E.A. has said the Civil Aviation inspectors will rush it through. All right. I’m banking on it taking two days. If it takes longer, that’s just too bad. Now get some breakfast inside you. The sooner we get to work, the sooner you’ll be at Hollmind.’

There was nothing I could do. I got up slowly and fetched my bacon.

‘Another thing,’ he said as I sat down again. ‘I’m not landing at Hollmind except in moonlight. If it’s a pitch black night, you’ll have to jump.’

I felt my stomach go cold at the thought of another jump. ‘Why not go over in daylight?’

‘Because it’s Russian territory.’

‘You mean because those engines are more important-’

‘For God’s sake stop it, Neil.’ His voice was suddenly violent. ‘I’ve made a bargain with you. To land there at night will be dangerous enough. But I’m willing to do it — for the sake of your peace of mind.’

‘But not for Tubby?’

He didn’t answer. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that if I’d described the scene accurately Tubby couldn’t be alive. But at least he had agreed to look for him now and I held on to that.

The urge to find him drove me to work as I’d never worked the whole time I’d been at Membury. I worked with a concentrated frenzy that narrowed my world down to bolts and petrol unions and the complicated details of electrical wiring. Yet I was conscious at the same time of Saeton’s divergent interest. The clack of his typewriter as he cleared up the company’s business, the phone calls instructing the men he’d picked as a crew to report to R.A.F. Transport Command for priority flights to Biickeburg for Wunstorf — all reminded me that, whatever had happened, his driving purpose was still to get his engines on to the Berlin airlift. And I hated him for his callousness.

It was past midnight when the second engine was in and everything connected up. Saeton left at dawn the next morning. The pipes were all frozen and we got water by breaking the ice on the rainwater butt. Membury was a frozen white world and the sun was hazed in mist so that it was a dull red ball as it came up over the downs. The mist swallowed the Tudor almost immediately. I turned back to the quarters, feeling shut in and wretched.

The next two days were the longest I ever remember. To keep me occupied Saeton had asked me to proceed with the cutting up of the old aircraft into smaller fragments. It occupied my hands. Nothing more. It was an automatic type of work that left my mind free to think. I couldn’t leave the airfield. I couldn’t go anywhere or see anybody. Saeton had been very insistent on that. If I showed my face anywhere and was recognised then he wouldn’t go near Hollmind. It meant I couldn’t even visit the Ellwoods. I was utterly alone and by Friday morning I was peering out of the hangar every few minutes searching the sky, listening for the drone of the returning Tudor, It was Saturday afternoon that Saeton got in. He had got his C of A. His crew were on their way to Wunstorf. ‘If it’s clear we’ll go over tonight,’ he said. And we got straight on with the work of preparing for our final departure. We tanked up and he insisted on filling the fuselage of the plane with pieces of the old Tudor. He was still intent on going through with his plan. He kept on talking about the airworthiness tests. The inspectors were pretty puzzled by the engines,’ he said. ‘But I managed to avoid any check on petrol consumption. They know they’re a new design. But they don’t know their value — not yet.’ The bastard could think of nothing else.

Dusk was falling as we finished loading. The interior of the hangar was still littered with debris, but

Saeton made no attempt to dispose of it. We went back to the quarters. Night had fallen and I had seen the last of Membury. When the moon rose I should be in Germany. I lay in my blankets, barely conscious of the gripping cold, my thoughts clinging almost desperately to my memory of the place.

Saeton called me at ten-thirty. He had made tea and cooked some bacon. As soon as he had finished his meal he went out to the hangar. I lingered over a cigarette, unwilling to leave the warmth of the oil stove, thinking of what lay ahead of me. At length Saeton returned. He was wearing his heavy, fleece-lined flying jacket. ‘Ready?’

‘Yes, I’m ready,’ I said and got slowly to my feet.

Outside it was freezing hard, the night crystal clear and filled with stars. Saeton carried the oil stove with him. At the edge of the woods he paused for a moment, staring at the dark bulk of the hangar with the ghostly shape of the plane waiting for us on the apron. ‘A pity,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve got fond of this place.’ When we reached the plane he ordered me to get the engines warmed up and went on to the hangar. He was gone about five minutes. When he climbed into the cockpit he was breathing heavily as though he had been running. His clothes smelt faintly of petrol. ‘Okay. Let’s get going.’ He slid into the pilot’s seat and his hand reached for the throttle levers. But instead of taxiing out to the runway, he slewed the plane round so that we faced the hangar. The wicket door was still open and a dull light glowed inside. We sat there, the screws turning, the air frame juddering. ‘What are we waiting for?’ I asked.

‘Just burning my boats behind me,’ he said.

The rectangular opening of the hangar door flared red and I knew then what he had wanted the oil stove for. There was a muffled explosion and flames shot out of the gap. The whole interior of the hangar was ablaze, a roaring inferno which almost drowned the sound of our engines.

‘Well, that’s that,’ Saeton said. He was grinning like a child who has set fire to something for fun, but his eyes as he looked at me reflected a more desperate mood. Another explosion shook the hangar and flames licked out of the shattered windows at the side. Saeton reached up to the throttle levers, the engines roared and we swung away to the runway end.

A moment later we turned our backs on the hangar and took off into the frosted night. At about a thousand feet Saeton banked slightly for one last glimpse of the field. It was a great dark circle splashed with an orange flare at the far end. As I peered forward across Saeton’s body the hangar seemed to disintegrate into a flaming skeleton of steel. At that distance it looked no bigger than a Guy Fawkes bonfire.

We turned east then, setting course for Germany. I stared at Saeton, seeing the hard inflexible set of the jaw in the light of the instrument panel. There was nothing behind him now. The past to him was forgotten, actively erased by fire. There would be nothing at Membury but molten scraps of metal and the congealed lumps of the engines. As though he knew what I was thinking he said, ‘Whilst you were sleeping this evening I went over this machine erasing old numbers and stamping in our own.’ There was a tight-lipped smile on his face as he said this. He was warning me that there would be no proof, that I would not be believed if I tried to accuse him of flying Harcourt’s plane.

The moon rose as we crossed the Dutch coast, a flattened orange in the east. The Scheldt glimmered below us and then the snaking line of water gave place to frosted earth. ‘We’re in Germany now,’ Saeton shouted, and there was a note of triumph in his voice. In Germany! This was the future for him — the bright, brilliant future to replace the dead past. But for me … I felt cold and alone. There was nothing here for me but the memory of Tubby’s unconscious body slumping through the floor of this very machine — and farther back, tucked away in the dark corners of my mind, the feel of branches tearing at my arm, the sight of the barbed wire and the sense of being hunted.

My brain seemed numb. I couldn’t think and I flew across the British Zone of Germany in a kind of mental vacuum. Then the lights of the airlift planes were below us and we were in the corridor, flying at five thousand feet. Saeton put the nose of the machine down, swinging east to clear the traffic stream and then south-west at less than a thousand with all the ground laid bare in brilliant moonlight, a white world of unending, hedgeless fields and black, impenetrable woods.

We found Hollmind, turned north and in an instant we were over the airfield. Saeton pressed the mouthpiece of his helmet to his lips. ‘Get aft and open the fuselage door.’ His voice crackled in my ears. ‘You can start shovelling the bits out just as soon as you like. I’ll stooge around to the north of the airfield.’ I hesitated and he looked across at me. ‘You want me to land down there, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Well, this machine’s heavily overloaded. And that runway hasn’t been used for four years. It’s probably badly broken up by frost and I’m not landing till the weight’s out of the fuselage. Now get aft and kick the load out of her.’

There was no point in arguing with him. I turned and went through the door to the fuselage. The dark bulk of the fuel tanks loomed in front of me. I climbed round them and then I was squeezing my way through the litter of the old Tudor that was piled to the roof. Jagged pieces of metal caught at my flying suit. The fuselage was like an old junk shop and it rattled tinnily. I found the fuselage door, flung it back and a rush of cold air filled the plane. We were flying at about two thousand now, the countryside, sliding below us, clearly mapped in the white moonlight. The wings dipped and quivered as Saeton began to bank the plane. Above me the lights of a plane showed driving south-east towards Berlin with its load of freight; below, the snaking line of a river gleamed for an instant, a road running straight to the north, the black welt of a wood, and then the white weave of ploughed earth.

The engines throttled back and I felt the plane check as Saeton applied the air brakes. I caught hold of the nearest piece of metal, dragged it to the wind-filled gap and pushed it out. It went sailing into the void, a gleam of tin twisting and falling through the slipstream. Soon a whole string of metal was falling away behind us like pieces of silver paper. It was like the phosphorescent gleam of the log line of a ship marking the curve of our flight as we banked.

By the time I’d pitched the last fragment out and the floor of the fuselage was clear, I was sweating hard. I leaned for a moment against the side of the fuselage, panting with the effort. The sweat on me went cold and clammy and I began to shiver. I pulled the door to and went for’ard. ‘It’s all out now,’ I told Saeton.

He nodded. ‘Good! I’m going down now. I’ll take the perimeter of Hollmind airfield as my mark and fly in widening circles from that. Okay?’ He thrust the nose down and the airfield rose to meet us through the windshield. The concrete runways gleamed white, a huge cross. Then we were skimming the field, the starboard wing-tip down as we banked in a right turn. He was taking it clockwise so that I had a clear, easy view of the ground through my side window. ‘Keep your eyes skinned,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll look after the navigation.’

Round and round we circled, the airfield sliding away till it was lost behind the trees. There was nothing but woods visible through my window, an unending stream of moon-white Christmas trees sliding away below me. My eyes grew dizzy with staring at them, watching their spiky tops and the dark shadows rushing by. The leading edge of the wing seemed to be cutting through them, we were so low. Here and there they thinned out, vanishing into patches of plough or the gleam of water. The pattern repeated itself like flaws in a wheel as we droned steadily on that widening circle.

At last the woods had all receded and there was nothing below us but plough. Saeton straightened the plane out then and climbed away to the north. ‘Well?’ he shouted.

But I’d seen nothing — not the glimmer of a light, no fire, no sign of the torn remains of parachute silk — nothing but the fir trees and the open plough. I felt numb and dead inside. Somewhere amongst those woods Tubby had fallen — somewhere deep in the dark shadows his body lay crumpled and broken. I put the mouthpiece of my helmet to my lips. ‘I’ll have to search those woods on foot,’ I said.

‘All right,’ Saeton’s voice crackled back. ‘I’ll take you down now. Hold tight. It’s going to be a bumpy touchdown.’

We banked again and the airfield reappeared, showing as a flat clearing in the woods straight ahead of us. Flaps and undercarriage came down as we dropped steeply over the firs. The concrete came to meet us, cracked and covered with the dead stalks of weeds. Then our wheels touched down and the machine was jolting crazily over the uneven surface. We came to rest within a stone’s throw of the woods, the nose of the machine facing west. Saeton followed me out on to the concrete. No light showed in all the huge, flat expanse of the field. Nobody came to chal lenge us. The place was as derelict and lonely as Membury. Saeton thrust a paper package into my hand. ‘Bread and cheese,’ he said. ‘And here’s a flask. You may need it.’

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘I’m due at Wunstorf at 04.00. Besides, what’s the use? We’ve stooged the area for nearly an hour. We’ve seen nothing. To search it thoroughly on foot would take days. It doesn’t look much from the air, but from the ground-’ He shook his head again. ‘Take a look at the size of this airfield. Just to walk straight across it would take you half an hour.’

I stood there, staring at the dark line of the woods, the panic of loneliness creeping up on me. ‘I won’t be long,’ I said. ‘Surely you can wait an hour for me — two hours perhaps?’ The plane was suddenly important to me, my link with people I knew, with people who spoke my own language. Without it, I’d be alone in Germany again — in the Russian Zone.

His hand touched my arm. ‘You don’t seem to understand, Neil,’ he said gently. ‘You’re not part of my crew — not yet. You’re the pilot of a plane that crashed just north of here. I couldn’t take you on to Wunstorf even if you wanted to come. When you’ve finished your search, make for Berlin. It’s about thirty-five miles to the south-east. You ought to be able to slip across into the British Sector there.’

I stared at him. ‘You mean you’re leaving me here?’ I swallowed quickly, fighting off the sudden panic of fear,

‘The arrangement was that I should fly you back to Germany and drop you there. As far as I’m concerned that plan still holds. All that’s different is that I’ve landed you and so saved you a jump.’

Anger burst through my fear, anger at the thought of him not caring a damn about Tubby, thinking only of his plans to fly his engines on the airlift. ‘You’re not leaving me here, Saeton,’ I cried. ‘But I must know whether he’s alive or dead.’

‘We know that already,’ he said quietly.

‘He’s not dead,’ I cried. ‘He’s only dead in your mind — because you want him dead. He’s not dead, really. He can’t be.’

‘Have it your own way.’ He shrugged his shoulders and turned away towards the plane.

I caught him by the shoulder and jerked him round. ‘All right, he’s dead,’ I shouted. ‘If that’s the way you want it. He’s dead, and you’ve killed him. The one friend you ever had! Well, you’ve killed your one friend — killed him, just as you’d kill anyone who stood between you and what you want.’

He looked me over, measuring my mood, and then his eyes were cold and hard. ‘I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the situation,’ he said slowly. ‘I didn’t kill Tubby. You killed him.’

‘Me?’ I laughed. ‘I suppose it wasn’t your idea that I should pinch Harcourt’s Tudor? I suppose that’s your own machine standing there? You blackmailed me into doing what you wanted. My God! I’ll see the world knows the truth. I don’t care about myself any more. What happened to Tubby has brought me to my senses.

You’re mad — that’s what you are. Mad. You’ve lost your reason, all sense of proportion. You don’t care what you do so long as your dreams come true. You’ll sacrifice everything, anyone. Well, I’ll see you don’t get away with it. I’ll tell them the truth when I get back. If you’d got a gun you’d shoot me now, wouldn’t you? Or are you only willing to murder by proxy? Well, you haven’t got a gun and I’ll get back to Berlin somehow. I’ll tell them the truth then. I’ll-’

I paused for breath and he said, ‘Telling the truth won’t help Tubby now — and it won’t help you either; Try to get the thing clear in your mind, Fraser. Tubby’s dead. And since you killed him it’s up to you to see that his death is to some purpose.’

‘I didn’t kill him,’ I shouted. ‘You killed him.’

He laughed. ‘Do you think anybody will believe you?’

‘They will when they know the facts. When the police have searched Membury, when they have examined that plane and they’ve interrogated-’

‘You’ve nothing to support your story,’ he said quietly. ‘The remains of Harcourt’s plane are strewn over the countryside just north of here. Field and Westrop will say that you ordered them to bale out, that the engines had packed up. You yourself will be reporting back from the area of the crash. As for Membury. there’s nothing left of the hangar now except a blackened ruin.’

I felt suddenly exhausted. ‘So you knew what I’d do. You knew what I was going to do back there at

Membury. You fooled me into pushing out that load of scrap. By God-’

‘Don’t start using your fists,’ he cut in sharply. ‘I may be older than you, but I’m heavier — and tougher.’ His feet were straddled and his head was thrust forward, his hands down at his sides ready for me.

I put my hands slowly to my head. ‘Oh, God!’ I felt so weak, so impotent.

‘Get some sense into your head before I see you again,’ he said. ‘You can still be in this thing with me — › as my partner. It all depends on your attitude when you reach Berlin.’

For answer I turned away and walked slowly towards the woods.

Once I glanced back. Saeton was still standing there, watching me. Then, as I entered the darkness of the trees, I heard the engines roar. Through needle-covered branches I watched the machine turn and taxi to the runway end. And then it went roaring across the airfield, climbing, a single white light, like a faded comet, dwindling into the moonlit night, merging into the stars. Then there was silence and the still shadows of the woods closed round me. I was alone — in the Russian Zone of Germany.