Attack Alarm

Chapter Eight

I was scared. More scared than I had ever been in my life. I could stand up to bombing. I knew that now. There was something impersonal about being bombed — about war altogether. It was not a direct attack. The bomber was not trying for me personally. My life was in the hands of fate — always such a comforting thought. One took one’s chance, and there was nothing one could do about it.

But this! This was totally different. There was nothing impersonal about an attempt to shoot one in the back. It wasn’t just a random shot into the pit by some fanatical fifth columnist, I knew that. I had been the specific target. This was murder, not war. I could face machine-gun bullets — again an impersonal attack. But a deliberate attempt on my life made my scalp crawl with fear. I did not take my chance with others. There was no comfortable feeling that my life rested in the hands of a kindly fate. I had to face this alone. I was under sentence of death at Vayle’s orders. And I knew now why surprise had for a moment ousted the grief from his face when, standing beside Elaine’s body, he had looked up to see me in the hangar.

I suppose I must have looked pretty scared, for John Langdon put his hand on my shoulder. ‘It was nice of you to tow that bomb for me,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have done it. I had expended what little nerve I had on tying the rope to the bloody thing.’

His remark had the desired effect and, momentarily detached, I watched my ego warm to that kindly praise. It amused me, too, to think that my own fear was a particular and personal one. Everyone else in the pit was scared of one thing — a further attack on the ‘drome. And I didn’t give a damn about that. I was scared because I was singled out for a murderous personal attack. And because their fear seemed trivial by comparison with mine, I experienced a sudden access of confidence. Their hostility seemed unimportant now, and I felt quite equal to any questioning.

But there was no hostility and no questioning. I had known what was going to happen, but I had stayed on the site. That and the business with the bomb put me right in their eyes. But Westley — poor little man, who had eventually obtained compassionate leave to attend his grandmother’s funeral and had left early in the morning, came in for a good deal of discussion.

The ‘planes came back in ones and twos to land as best they could on the pitted ‘drome. The glare of the day wore slowly on. Time lagged in the heat. Exposed though we were, there wasn’t a breath of wind and the drought-baked earth was hot to the touch. Anxiety and impatience combined with fear to nag at my tired mind. Would this interminable alarm never end? I wanted to find out what had happened to Marion — to see that she was all right. And John Nightingale hadn’t come in. The All Clear had gone on the Tannoy soon after the alarm. But we had been kept at our posts. They were no doubt windy, as Langdon said.

Ogilvie came round in his car with chocolate, cigarettes and beer scrounged from the ruins of the Naafi. For once quite human, he stayed and chatted, apologising for keeping us standing-to.

Gradually the atmosphere in the pit changed, apprehension giving way to annoyance. Everyone seemed to become morose. Kan scarcely raised a smile when, in reply to a question from Oggie, he described the mid as ‘Too, too utterly, shattering, what, sir.’ The only bright spot was that his inexhaustible flow of personal supplies from Fortnum and Mason’s saved us from experiencing any serious inconvenience at the loss of our lunch. For a time the sight of Micky slinking back from the shelter of the neighbouring dispersal point gave the pit a topic of conversation.

During the afternoon I got permission from Langdon to go over to the dispersal point and find out what had happened to Nightingale. But they knew no more than I did. He was missing — that was all.

Finally, at three-forty-nine we were allowed to stand-down. By that time I had forgotten my own fears in my anxiety to find out what had happened to Marion. And then, of course, Langdon had to pick on me to do the first air sentry. It was my turn, it was true. But I could have burst into tears with impatience.

I wasn’t alone for long in the pit, for as soon as they had boiled some water on the primus, Langdon and Blah came out to clean the barrel and do a cursory examination of equipment. Half an hour of my hour’s guard passed very quickly. But after that it began to drag. I had been almost continuously on the pit for six hours. Reaction from the excitement of the action had left me tired and dispirited. Fortunately this had one advantage in that it dulled my sense of fear. I was too weary to think, and so imagination, the source of all fear, was numbed. The glaring heat of the sun seemed undiminished. A mug of tea and some cigarettes were brought out to me.

I didn’t seem hungry, but the tea was very welcome. And when I had finished it, I stood there in the sultry heat and stared at the wreck of Thorby, not consciously recording what my eyes saw. The fires were under control now and only an occasional wisp of smoke drifted up from the ruins. From where I stood there was little to show the fearful nature of the attack. The bulk of the hangars still stood intact, screening the desolation I had seen from the square. People came and went between the camp and the dispersal points, the cars weaving their way in and out among the craters that dotted the edge of the field. Lorry loads of Royal Engineers were brought out to fill up craters on the runways and to deal with D.A. bombs.

A car drew up just beyond the pit. It was an R.A.F. car and someone got out. I took no notice. I was watching a Hurricane, whose tail appeared to be badly damaged and whose undercarriage had failed to work, coming slowly in to a pancake landing.

‘Excuse me, could you tell me what hospital Gunner Hanson has been taken to?’

It was a girl’s voice. I turned, still watching the ‘plane out of the tail of my eye. ‘What did you say?’

‘Barry!’

I forgot about the plane. It was her voice. But my eyes were full of colours through staring into the sun. I did not recognise her at first. Her face was in shadow. But I knew the cut of her hair. ‘You’re all right, then.’ My voice sounded cold as I tried to hide my emotion. It was such a dull remark.

But she didn’t seem to notice it. ‘It really is you, isn’t it?’ There was a momentary break in her voice.

‘As far as I know,’ I said, and we laughed and the spell of awkwardness was gone.

‘I didn’t recognise you in your tin hat,’ she said. ‘You see I–I wasn’t expecting to find you here at all. I was told by a Waaf from the sick bay that a soldier with the name Hanson on his identity disc had been found in the square, badly wounded. I thought it must be you. But she didn’t know what hospital he had been taken to.’

‘Well, thank God, there is apparently another Hanson in the camp,’ I said. ‘Where were you?’

‘In a shelter at our quarters outside the ‘drome. It might have been worse, I suppose. A bomb fell on the wing of the house and it collapsed on the end of our shelter, but no-one was injured. Things are pretty bad down in the camp. All the barrack blocks are gutted, the Naafi, Station Headquarters and three shelters were hit. Have you seen the hut where the Guards and R.E.s were billeted?’ I shook my head. ‘Absolute shambles. They’re blown all over the place. Looks like one of those film shots of an American hurricane. And there’s no gas, water or electricity.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose you regard this as

just a prelude?’

It was no use telling her ‘No.’ She wouldn’t have believed it. I said: The attack was against personnel and not against the ‘drome itself. The runways are fairly clear of bombs.’ I left her to figure out the significance of that.

‘You mean, they want to use it themselves — to land troops?’

We were silent for a moment, and I said: ‘It’s lovely now, isn’t it?’

It was not a very bright remark. But she understood what I meant. The peace and stillness of a late August day. It was so beautiful after the havoc. And again I found myself thinking of the river. It was such a perfect day for lazing in a boat. Marion in sailing rig — how well she would fit into the picture! How well she would fit into any picture that I could conceive!

I lowered my gaze hurriedly as she looked up at me. Strange that this should be such a perfect moment of beauty when all about us were the weapons and havoc of war. In.that moment I achieved a wonderful sense of peace. The realisation that whatever the horrors and disasters a man has to face he can still find beauty came to me suddenly, together with knowledge that only man-made things could be destroyed by war. Whatever happened there was always the sun and the stars and the beauty of nature to be shared. My mind, alert now, grasped at that — they had to be shared. That was the secret of the enjoyment of beauty. Alone, beauty had always seemed so painful in its transience. Time never stood still so that you could hold a moment and keep it. But shared, the beauty of a moment seemed complete. Instead of being purposeless, except for the delight of one’s gaze, it fulfilled itself by welding two personalities together. And in that brief moment that Marion stood there in silence I felt that we were very near. And I was content that it should be so.

The spell was broken by footsteps approaching the pit. It was my relief. ‘Are you going to Ops. now?’ I asked her.

‘No. I ought to go back to billets and help with the clearing up. They got the wing in which I sleep, so I’ve lost most of my things.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll walk down with you as far as the main gates.’

I handed over to my relief and then clambered over the parapet and joined her. We didn’t say much at first and this time the silence was an embarrassed one. But suddenly she asked me if I’d seen anything of Vayle. ‘As far as I was able to discover, he remained in the camp,’ she said.

I told her of Elaine Stuart’s death and of how I had found Vayle standing over her in the deserted and half-ruined hangar. I went on, of course, to tell her of the workman who had spoken in German in his delirium and who had mentioned Cold Harbour Farm.

Then my brain suddenly clicked.

‘What was it Elaine said in her sleep about her birthday?’ I asked.

‘I don’t really think it had any bearing on what you’re after,’ she said slowly. ‘She just said, “It’s my birthday,” I think she said that twice. It was mixed up with a whole lot of babbling, which I couldn’t understand at all. It’s all so hazy now. I was half asleep myself. In fact, I’m not at all certain I didn’t dream it. I suppose she really did say something about Cold Harbour Farm. Funny that the workman should have mentioned it too.’

‘I must try and trace that fellow,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, can you find out when her birthday would have been?’

‘I expect so. Somebody is bound to know it. But do you really think — ” She stopped with a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘I mean, as a deadline it doesn’t seem very satisfactory.’

I was only too conscious of this. ‘But I’ve nothing else to goon.’

‘What are you going to do then?’

‘I don’t know.’ I was thinking of that dent on the back of my tin helmet. ‘Find out where Cold Harbour Farm is.

And if Elaine’s birthday was, in fact, on one of the next few days, I should assume there was some connection.’

‘Yes, but what can you do about it?’

‘God knows!’ I said. ‘Time will tell, I suppose.’

She suddenly took my arm. ‘Don’t do anything foolish, Barry. It’s a matter for the authorities.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’ve nothing concrete to tell them. You can’t expect them to act on a mixture of conjecture and doubtful coincidence.’

We were nearing the shell of the officers’ mess, and I suddenly saw a familiar figure coming towards us from the direction of the hangars. ‘Oh, good!’ I said. ‘John Nightingale is all right. He was missing.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I don’t know him personally, but he’s got a wonderful reputation in his squadron.’

He recognised me as I saluted him. ‘Glad to see you’re still alive in this shambles,’ he said.

‘And you,’ I said. ‘All I could find out from the lads at your dispersal point was that you were missing. What happened?’

‘Oh, nothing much, except that I was ignominiously brought back by car.’

‘Well, the last I saw of you was diving on top of one of those low flying ‘planes. That was you, wasn’t it? It was a very steep dive to within a few hundred feet.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I bagged a couple of ‘em, but the second one put a burst right across me. Got the petrol tank and smashed up the landing gear. Made a bit of a mess of the cockpit too. I just managed to pancake the old girl at Mitchet.’ He shook his head with a grin. ‘Lovely bit of flying,’ he said. ‘They were hedge-hopping all the way from Tunbridge Wells. They were so low as they topped the hill into Thorby that they ploughed through the tops of the trees.’

‘Their losses are going to be pretty heavy today, aren’t they?’ asked Marion.

‘Well over the hundred, I should think,’ he said. ‘My squadron has bagged over thirty for the loss of four machines. You couldn’t miss. We met them just after they had crossed the coast. We came at them out of the sun and swooped straight down on to the bombers. They were massed so thick they seemed to fill the sky in front of us. I got two before the first tier of fighters came down on our tails. Everything was a mix-up after that.’

Understatement. Understatement. Understatement. Yet the scene was vivid in my mind. The huge mass formation of bombers, flying steadily and unbroken even when attacked, the ugly black crosses plain on their silver wings. And above, the tiers of fighters waiting to pounce on any attackers. And the attackers when they came no more than a squadron or two at the most.

‘What brought you down on the tail of our low-flying-attack?’ I asked.

‘We got a radio message through. I could only spare one. We were badly outnumbered. By the way,’ he said, ‘I was in Town last night and I got in touch with your friend. He said he had already received a message from you.’

I told him how Marion had managed to get a message through. Then I said: ‘Have any other fighter stations been attacked today?’

The reply was ‘Yes,’ and he named two of the biggest, both near the coast.

‘What did they go for?’ I asked. ‘The runways and hangars or the billets and ground defences?’

‘Well, from what I hear, they’ve done much the same as they’ve done here — concentrated on the billets. Much the best way of putting a station out of action. They did it at Mitchet just the same and they’re having an awful job to feed and house the men. If this were winter the stations would be practically untenable.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘can you do something for me? I want to get hold of Ordnance Survey maps for southeast England. And I want them in a hurry.’ It was rather an abrupt opening, but I could not think of any way of leading up to it.

‘I’ve got R.A.F. maps. What do you want them for?’

Marion touched my arm. ‘I must get back,’ she said. ‘I’ll try and find out what you want and I’ll come down and see you in the morning.’ She was gone before I could remonstrate, walking quickly and purposefully towards the square.

‘What do you want them for?’ John repeated.

And then I told him the whole story of Vayle and the plan to immobilise the fighter ‘dromes. And this time I left out nothing. Someone might as well know everything that had happened.

When I had finished I said: ‘I expect you think I’m a fool — imagining things and jumping to conclusions. It’s what any sane person would think. But I’m perfectly serious. I know all the weaknesses. And, God knows, the whole structure of my suspicions is flimsy enough. But I can’t convince myself that I’m wrong. And this attempt to shoot me, daft though it seems, is real enough to me. I had to risk your ridicule so that somebody would understand if something happened to me.’

He was silent where I had expected some probing questions about my conjectures. But he made no direct comment. All he said when he broke the silence was: ‘R.A.F. maps won’t be any use to you, they’re mainly physical. I’ll have to try and get Ordnance Survey maps. There’s a Cold Harbour Farm down on Romney Marshes, and I’ve heard of another one somewhere. You may find several. How will you know which to choose, and what are you going to do when you’ve made up your mind which it is?’

‘It’ll be the most central one for the south-eastern fighter stations. But what I’m going to do about it, God only knows.’

‘If you could persuade the authorities to raid it, they might raid it when there was nothing incriminating there.’

‘I know the difficulties,’ I said rather wearily. ‘At the moment I’m just taking the fences as I come to them.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll find you those maps by tomorrow evening, all being well. In the meantime, good luck!’

When I got back to the site Ogilvie was just leaving. Men were wanted to erect huts and marquees. ‘Six men, then, Sergeant Langdon,’ he said. ‘Parade outside what was Troop Headquarters at seven-thirty. That will give them a chance to get a rest first.’

I stood aside for him to pass out. As the door closed behind him Micky, who had been pretending to sleep, said: ‘Cor, give me an ‘arp an’ let me fly away.’

‘Why the hell can’t the R.A.F. do it?’ demanded Chetwood. ‘Damn it, they’ve spent most of the day in the shelters doing nothing.’

‘Well, I’d rather be above ground in this heat,’ said Langdon. ‘Anyway, it’s a case of everybody doing what they can.’

The grumbling did not stop, however, until Hood came back. He had been over to the other site. ‘Well, how did they get on?’ asked Langdon.

‘Oh, they claim our bombers, of course. Actually they had a pretty bad time. The pit is simply surrounded by bomb craters. No casualties at all, though — except young Layton. He’s been taken off to hospital suffering from shell-shock. Simply went to pieces. Just couldn’t take it.’

‘Well, he’s not the only one,’ said Chetwood.

‘Yes, but the others aren’t hospital cases,’ said Hood. And there was no sympathy in his voice. ‘They just know where they’re best off.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ put in Kan. ‘“Imagination doth make cowards of us all,’” he quoted, quite unconsciously giving us the benefit of his profile in the approved Gielgud style. That’s the trouble with Micky. He’s ignorant, and he’s cursed with imagination.’

‘Who’s igorant?’ demanded Micky, sitting up勇n bed. ‘Why don’t you talk about a bloke to his face, instead of waiting till he’s asleep. You ain’t goin’ to talk about me like that,’ he told Kan. ‘I’m as good as you, mate, any day. I bin a foreman wif men under me, see? Just because you got money you think you can say wot you like. I didn’t go to Heton.’ There was a wealth of scorn in the way he said Eton. ‘I had to work for my living. You can grin, but I bloody well did, mate. And I ain’t so igorant. Uncle of mine built Alexandra palace.’

‘And Burne Jones was your stepfather — we know,’ said Chetwood. Micky, for purposes of aggrandisement, regarded all eminent Joneses as close relatives.

‘Why you pick on me when I was trying to stick up for you, I don’t know,’ said Kan in an aggrieved tone.

Micky’s sudden outburst seemed to have exhausted him. He lay back again. ‘Can’t you let a bloke sleep,’ he complained.

‘Well, you can always go back to your funk hole,’ said Hood bluntly.

‘If we was in the bleedin’ infantry I’d show you how to fight. An’ it wouldn’t be you wot was wearin’ the stripes. It’d be me, mate. This ain’t fightin’.’

Langdon changed the conversation by asking Hood whether the hut on the other site was damaged at all. Apparently it was much the same as ours, which had quite a lot of shrapnel through the roof and the north side. I found my blankets littered with glass when I came to make my bed. There were only one or two windows unbroken. And it wasn’t difficult to find souvenirs in the form of jagged pieces of shell casing. They were all over the hut. One fellow found a piece in his kit-bag, and another bit had broken a milk bottle on the table and lay in the bottom of it.

I was one of the six detailed to help pitch tents. We were outside the orderly room by seven-thirty. The whole Station Headquarters was a complete wreck. The burnt-out remains of the troop lorry were strewn across the road. Behind us was the square, littered with broken glass and rubble. And all around it was a shambles of blasted and gutted buildings. But at the far side the flag-pole, its white paint now blackened, still stood, and from the top of it the R.A.F. flag drooped in the still evening air.

The tents were being pitched on the edge of the flying field nearest the camp. Hundreds of men — R.A.F. and Army — were on the job. The ground was hard as iron and the tents stiff with camouflage wash. We worked like niggers till ten o’clock. And in the fading evening light I wandered back to the camp with Kan. Once again, I looked behind me. And suddenly the fear I had felt when I realised that somebody must have deliberately fired at me returned. I don’t know why, except that there was somebody behind me when I looked round. He was a vague shadow in the half light flitting in and out among the bomb craters. It wasn’t that I thought I was being followed. It was just the fact that someone was behind me, I suppose.

We went straight to bed. But it seemed I had barely got to sleep before the sound of running feet woke me. It was a Take Post all right. Before the five of us had got into our clothes the sirens were going. It was just twelve. The alarm was short, however, and by twelve-thirty I was alone in the pit, it being my turn for guard.

I didn’t enjoy the half-hour before the next detachment took over. Strange how dependent one’s nerves are on one’s mood. Up till then night guards hadn’t worried me at all. The site was not an isolated one. It was in a well-guarded camp, and anyone I had seen moving about I had regarded automatically as friendly. Now, because of that dent in the back of my tin hat, I found myself listening, tensed, to every sound. And it was strange how many sounds there were I had never noticed before. And when anyone moved by the Guards’ pill-box or came down the road I found myself gripping my rifle hard.

But nothing happened. It was just that I was tired and my nerves were frayed. The sirens were giving the All Clear as my relief came out.

The next day, Saturday, dawned with a promise of more heat. The air was sultry with it. Shortly after eight-thirty a lorry from Battery brought us dry rations and a big tank of water. We managed to shave, but there was no water for washing. Water is a thing that in England one takes very much for granted. There is something very unpleasant about being so short of it that you can’t wash. I can think of few things so shattering to morale’

Two alarms took up most of the morning. Marion did not show up, and after lunch I wandered down to the square in the hope of seeing a Waaf I knew from whom I could find out what had happened to her. The raid had made my confinement to the site seem such a small matter that I knew Langdon would not object.

But I was out of luck. I saw no Waaf I knew. The camp seemed full of workmen, demolishing the wreckage and piling the rubble into lorries. I could not help thinking that if every station was bringing in civilian labour to clear up the mess after a raid, they must be full of fifth columnists. It was so simple. And I went back to my site feeling very uneasy.

And then occurred something that thoroughly scared me. It may have been just an accident. It had happened before on the ‘drome. But that it should happen so that it nearly caused my death seemed significant.

I was just passing the first dispersal point, about two hundred yards short of the site. There were Hurricanes in it. I remember noticing that because one had its tail badly shot up. I had just taken a cigarette out of my case and I stopped suddenly to light it.

And as I did so there was a rat-a-tat-tat of machine-gun fire and a stream of tracer bullets flashed past me. They were so close that I am certain that if I had put out my hand it would have been shot away.

The noise ceased abruptly as it had begun and I found myself staring at nothing in a dazed kind of way. I was brought to my senses by the match burning my fingers. I dropped it and looked quickly at the dispersal point. Everything was as it had been. There were the two Hurricanes, wing tip to wing tip, and the air shimmering in the heat from the tarmac. Nothing had moved.

Yet that stream of tracer bullets had come from the dispersal point. And suddenly a cold sweat broke over me as I realised that if I had not stopped abruptly to light that cigarette I should be lying in the roadway riddled with bullets.

I had an intense desire to run then. At any moment the chatter of the gun might start again and this time I was a static target. Unwillingly I forced myself to walk into the dispersal point. There was no-one there. There was no-one in either of the ‘planes. I was puzzled. Guns don’t usually go off by themselves, however hot it is.

An A.C.2 suddenly appeared in the exit at the back of the dispersal point. He was rubbing his eyes stupidly. ‘I thought I heard a noise,’ he said vaguely.

I told them what had happened. ‘You ought to report it,’ he remarked and examined the leading edge of the wings of the nearest machine warily. ‘Here we are,’ he said, and showed me the blackened porthole of one of the guns. ‘Can’t understand what made it go off, though. There’s nobody here at the moment but myself and these were all left at safe.’

I never did discover what made that gun go off. But there was no doubt in my own mind that it was deliberate and that it had been meant to kill me.

I was feeling very shaken by the time I got back to the site. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Chetwood. ‘Seen a ghost?’

‘No. Why?’ I asked.

‘Cor, tell ‘im, somebody,’ said Micky.

‘You’re as white as a sheet,’ said Kan.

I told them what had happened. ‘You ought to report it, mate,’ said Micky. ‘It’s only bloody carelessness. Same thing happened to a bloke called Tennyson in May. Only just missed him.’

‘Hallo,’ said Hood. ‘Jones is with us again.’ Micky had been back at his post on the gun that morning, but he had been silent and morose, which was definitely out of character.

‘I want no vulgartisms from you or anybody,’ said Micky. He hated being called by his surname.

‘Vulgartisms!’ echoed his faithful stooge, Fuller, with a hoarse cackle, and everyone laughed.

Take post!’

We scrambled out of the hut just as Tiger squadron, which had been revving up for the last five minutes, left their dispersal points for the runway!

We were on the gun for nearly two hours that time, and though we saw a dog-fight over towards Maidstone, nothing came our way. Swallowtail Squadron followed Tiger Squadron into the air, and I caught a glimpse of John Nightingale as he flashed by in his little green sports car. I wondered anxiously whether he had remembered to see about those maps. It was the third time he had been up today. It hardly seemed likely that he could have found either the time or the energy to go routing out maps for crazy-seeming gunners.

But this did not worry me for long, because fear returned to oust all other thoughts from my head. The preliminary air-raid warning had not then been given. Three workmen were engaged in repairing the telephone line between our pit and the dispersal point to the north of us. I became conscious after a time of the fact that one of them, a small, sharp-featured little man with steel-rimmed glasses, kept on pausing in his work to gaze at us. At first I just wondered why he found us so interesting. And then I found myself watching them, waiting for him to look up. Once it seemed that our eyes met, though it was quite impossible for me to tell at that distance. But after that he did not look in our direction again. He seemed consciously to avoid doing so, and it was then that I began to feel uneasy.

I tried to argue that my nerves were frayed with all that had happened during the last few days and that I was badly in need of sleep. But it was no good. I could not argue myself out of that sense of unease, which was so like the feeling I had experienced on guard the previous night when I had jumped at all the common sounds that I had never been conscious of before. I remembered only too clearly the sharp jerk of my neck as that bullet struck the back of my tin hat, and the stream of tracer bullets that had flashed past me only an hour ago.

When the preliminary warning went on the Tannoy, now in full working order again, the three men laid down their tools and hurried along the tarmac past our pit on their way to the station shelters. I watched the man closely as he passed us. He had pale eyes set too close together above a thin nose, and it seemed to me there was something furtive about him. Not once did he glance in our direction. He had a smooth loping walk and he did not talk to either of his mates.

I tried to forget about him. And for a while I succeeded as I watched the dog-fight high in the blue bowl of the heavens to the southeast of us.

And then suddenly I caught sight of him standing by the dispersal point between us and the camp — the one from which I had been nearly killed. I don’t know why, but my heart leaped into my mouth as I saw him standing there. He was gazing in our direction. It seems amazing that I should recognise him at that distance. But I did. I confirmed his identity by borrowing Langdon’s glasses, ostensibly to look at an imaginary ‘plane.

I never did discover whether he was a fifth columnist. I never saw him again. But whether or not he was watching me, he certainly had me scared. And when I looked up and found he was no longer standing by the dispersal point — was, in fact, nowhere in sight — my sense of uneasiness increased. I found myself watching furtively all the vantage points from which a shot could be fired into the pit. It is an unpleasant feeling to be waiting for the impact of a

bullet that may come from anywhere at any moment. I felt chilly despite the glare and the palms of my hands were wet with the sweat of my fear.

The alarm seemed interminable. We watched ‘plane after ‘plane come in, looking at them eagerly through the glasses to see if the canvas coverings of their gun ports had been shot away — sure sign that they had been in action.

A pilot officer whom Langdon knew came and chatted with us for a few minutes. He had been in the dog-fight over Maidstone and had shot down two Me. 109s. He was with Swallowtail Squadron and told us that he had seen Nightingale bale out after diving his machine, which was on fire, into a German fighter. But the news that upset me most was that Crayton Aerodrome had been the target, and that two more fighter stations had been attacked in the morning. It all seemed to fit so easily into the German plan as I had envisaged it.

It was then that I realised that I had to get out of Thorby.! tried to kid myself that I had come to this conclusion because more fighter stations had been attacked and I was the only person who realised the significance of these raids. But all the time I knew that it was because I was afraid. I wonder how many people have been really afraid in their lives. The sensation is a horrible one. I was cold vet the sweat poured off me. My knees felt weak and I dared not look anyone in the face for fear they should see what I knew was mirrored in my eyes. I had lost all confidence in myself. The sense of being caged in Thorby was more acute than ever. I could just see the barbed-wire boundary half-way down the slope between our hut and the trees at the bottom of the valley. It seemed such a slender line to mark the boundary between death and safety. Yet I knew that I should not be safe until I was on the other side of it. There had been two attempts on my life, and by the grace of God I was still alive. The next time — the third time — I might not be so fortunate. I had to get out of Thorby. I just had to get out of the place. The urgency of my fear drummed the phrase through my head to the beat of the blood in my ears.

‘Come on, wake up!’ I came suddenly out of my absorption to find Blah offering me a cigarette.

‘Sorry,’ I said and took one.

He produced his lighter which had been given to him on his birthday earlier in the week. It was a heavy silver one and he was still rather proud of possessing it. He snapped it open. There was a spark, but nothing happened. He tried again and again whilst the detachment watched with sly amusement. But it wouldn’t light. At last, exasperated, he exclaimed, ‘You Anti-Semitic swine,’ and put the thing in his pocket.

It was a little thing, but it changed my whole mood for the moment. I couldn’t help laughing at the way he said it. And after I had laughed, Thorby seemed somehow less hostile. And when I looked about me again it was at any aerodrome baking peacefully in the sunshine and not at a prison with barbed-wire bars.

It was nearly five before we were allowed to stand-down. As soon as we had finished tea I got Kan to play a game of chess with me. Anything to keep my mind occupied. But I couldn’t concentrate. We hadn’t been playing more than ten minutes before he had taken my Queen. In a fit of annoyance I swept the board and gave him the game. ‘It’s no use,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t concentrate.’

Chetwood took my place. I went over to my bed and began to make it. The loss of my Queen seemed so symbolic. Everything seemed to be going wrong. Marion hadn’t turned up. Nightingale had baled out — God knows when he would be able to produce the maps I wanted. And I had to get out of the place. I just had to, before I was murdered. I felt very near to tears as I unfolded my blankets. How was I to get out? The main gate was out of the question. And there were Guards all round the barbed-wire boundaries, patrolling night and day. The only way was to slip through the wire at night and take a chance that I shouldn’t be seen. But it was a big risk. Almost as big a risk as staying. And there were Guards in the woods at the bottom. Automatically I was considering the wire below the hut as the best place to get through. But I couldn’t leave until I knew where Cold Harbour Farm was and when the plan was due to break. ‘But I must get away. I must get away.’ I found suddenly that I was muttering this to myself over and over again, my eyes filling with tears because of my tiredness and my frustration. My mind was uncontrolled, incoherent — full of nameless terrors that would not exist if I could only think the matter out calmly.

‘Hanson! Waaf outside wants to see you.’

I looked up. Fuller, who was acting as air sentry, was standing in the door. ‘Eh?’ I said stupidly as my mind tried to grasp what I had heard quite clearly.

‘Waaf wants to speak to you. She’s over by the pit.’

A sudden flow of new energy coursed through my body. All right,’ I said, and dropped the blanket I had just picked up and went outside.

It was Marion all right. And when I came up to her I could think of nothing to say except, ‘Have you found out when her birthday was to have been?’

I was horribly conscious of the fact that I had spoken very abruptly to hide my nervousness.

‘Yes,’ she said. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that she gave me a rather puzzled look. ‘It would have been on Sunday.’

‘You mean tomorrow?’

She nodded.

The imminence of what I was expecting steadied me. I did not say anything. Tomorrow meant tomorrow morning, surely. To immobilise the fighter ‘dromes must mean a landing from the air and that would almost certainly be carried out at dawn. There was so little time — less than twelve hours.

‘What’s the matter?’ Marion asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just that there isn’t much time if I’m to do anything, and I don’t know what to do.’

‘No, I don’t mean that. I knew that would worry you. But you seemed so strange when you came out.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I felt suddenly scared of losing my one ally. Almost unnoticed an intimacy, deeper than just the words we spoke to each other, had grown up between us. It seemed so easy to break the thread that made that intimacy — it was so indefinable, so slight. ‘It’s just that I’m tired and worried.’

‘Hadn’t you better tell Winton or someone in authority all you know?’ she pleaded.

‘Yes, but what do I know? Nothing. I’ve told John Nightingale. He didn’t laugh at me, thank God! That’s the best I can do. The rest is up to me.’

‘But what can you possibly do?’

‘I don’t know. I shall have to get to this Cold Harbour Farm tonight.’

‘But how? You won’t be able to get leave, will you?’

‘No. I’ll just have to take a chance on breaking camp.’

‘But you can’t possibly do that.’ The anxiety in her voice gave me a perverted thrill. ‘You might get shot.’

I laughed a little wildly. “That wouldn’t be anything new,’ I declared. “They’ve already had two attempts at shooting me.’

‘Barry!’ Her hand gripped my arm. ‘You didn’t mean that. You’re not serious, surely.’

I told her about the bullet that had hit the back of my tin hat during the previous day’s raid and about the burst of tracers that had streamed past me from the dispersal point that morning.

‘But why don’t you tell your officer?’

‘Because I can’t prove anything,’ I said, exasperated.

‘Oh, if you want to be obstinate, be obstinate,’ she said, her eyes wide and two angry spots of colour showing in her cheeks.

‘But don’t you understand,’ I said, ‘in each case they might easily have been accidents? Ogilvie would just think the raid had upset me and I should be sent off to Battery for a rest. It’s no good. I’ve just got to get to Cold Harbour Farm tonight. That reminds me,’ I added suddenly. ‘John Nightingale promised to get me Ordnance Survey maps for southeast England. But he can’t. He baled out in a dog-fight this afternoon. God knows where he is. And I must have those maps, otherwise I can’t tell where the wretched place is. Have you got any in Ops.?’

‘Yes, but I can’t take them away.’

‘No, but you could search through them. It would take some time, I know, but — ‘

‘I certainly will not,’ she cut in. ‘I’ll do nothing to help you embark on this crazy expedition.’

My troubles seemed suddenly to roll away as I gazed down at her defiant, anxious little face. That’s kind of you, Marion. But please — you must help me. It’s just as dangerous if I stay here. And if I didn’t go and what I am afraid of happened, you’d never forgive yourself, I know.’

She hesitated.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘It’s the only chance.’

‘But you can’t be certain that what I heard Elaine say in her sleep had any deep significance.’

‘Yes, but what about the injured workman?’

‘I can understand your regarding the coincidence of their both speaking of Cold Harbour Farm as significant, but Elaine’s birthday probably has no bearing on the business.’

‘Three more fighter ‘dromes were attacked today,’ I said. ‘During the last three or four days practically every fighter station of any size in southeast England has had a bad pasting. It just happens that the date of her birthday is about the time I think they will strike if they’re going to. Your arguments are just the sort of arguments that I know would be raised by the authorities if I went to them. I’ve made up my mind that I’m on the right track. The only question now is, will you help me or not, Marion?’

She didn’t say anything, and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse.

‘Well?’ I asked her, and again I was speaking abruptly, for I was afraid that I had lost her as an ally.

‘Of course I will,’ she said simply. But she spoke slowly, as though considering something. Then suddenly she became businesslike, almost brusque. ‘I’ll go and look through those maps right away. I’ll come back and tell you the result of my labours as soon as possible.’

‘You’ll find it somewhere in the centre of a ring drawn round the fighter ‘dromes, I expect,’ I said as she turned to go.

‘I understand,’ she said.

I watched her walk briskly away, thinking how strange it was that people should have different sides to their personalities. I had just seen Marion for the first time as the efficient secretary. My God! I thought, and she would be efficient too. What a wife for a journalist! The thought was in my mind before I realised it. And suddenly I knew that she was the one girl for me. And then I kicked myself mentally as I realised that I had been thinking only of the things she could give me, and had not given a thought to what I could give her. And what could I give her? ‘Hell!’ I said aloud. And then went back into the hut as I saw Fuller looking at me curiously.

The next few hours dragged terribly. I was not afraid, thank Heavens! I had something concrete to do now and there was no room in my thoughts for fear. But as the evening wore slowly on I experienced the sinking sensation that one gets just before a big match. I passed part of the time reconnoitring my line of escape. The barbed wire, I knew, would not be difficult to negotiate. It was dannert, that coiled wire which is stretched so that it stands in hoops. By parting two of the hoops it was fairly easy to step through it. It was the sentries I was worried about. I went over and had a chat with the Guards’ corporal at the neighbouring pill-box. By fairly persistent, but not too obvious questioning, I discovered that there was roughly one sentry to each five hundred yards of wire. There were also some sentries in the wood along the valley. But they were very few — one at each end. They were supposed to meet in the middle once every hour. There was a path running through the middle of the wood. These shouldn’t worry me, but because they were the

unknown factor they worried me a good deal more than the sentries along the wire.

Marion did not turn up until nearly ten. I was on stand-to then. I went out of the pit to meet her. ‘I think I’ve got it,’ she said as I reached her. ‘I found two. One down in Romney Marshes. That isn’t any good, is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Nightingale told me of that one.’

‘The other isn’t quite in the centre of the south-eastern fighter area, but it’s not far off. It’s just off the Eastbourne road in Ashdown Forest.’

That sounds hopeful,’ I said. ‘There were no others?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I went very methodically through the maps for Kent and Sussex. I didn’t think I missed anything.’

I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It must have been a frightful job.’

‘No, it was rather fun in a way — all the peculiar place-names one had never heard of before, and some that one had. You know the Eastbourne road, don’t you? You go through East Grinstead and Forest Row and up to Wych Cross, where the Lewes road forks off. You keep left here on the Eastbourne road and about half a mile farther on there are one or two cottages on the left. Another half-mile and there is a lane turning off to the right. Take this, fork right along what appears to be a track, and you’ll come to Cold Harbour Farm.’

‘Marvellous,’ I said.

‘When do you start?’

‘As soon as it’s dark — about eleven. The moon doesn’t rise till late now. My detachment doesn’t go on until one, so I shall have two hours before they miss me.’

‘Do you think you can get out all right, though?’

‘Unless I have bad luck, it should be easy.’

‘Well, good luck, then,’ she said, and squeezed my hand. ‘I must get back. Your boys are already beginning to talk about us.’

She had half turned to go when she stopped. ‘By the way, Vayle went off in his car just before eight this evening. He won’t be back tonight.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked.

‘A boy I know in Ops. told me. He’s studying to become a navigator. He saw Vayle getting into his car and asked him whether he could come and have a word with him later in the evening about some problem he was stuck on. Vayle is apparently good about helping people. But he told him that he couldn’t as he wouldn’t be back tonight.’

That looks hopeful,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. And if you’re not back before dawn I shall see Winton myself.’

‘Bless you,’ I said.

For a second she hesitated and her eyes held mine. I often wonder whether she was trying to memorise my features for fear she should never see me again. We were very near to each other in that moment. And then she turned quickly on her heels and left me.

When I got back to the pit I came in for a good bit of chaff, but it passed me by. I was thinking of other things. ‘You and Micky are a pair,’ said Chetwood. ‘Both of you look worried and secretive.’

‘Don’t talk so bloody daft,’ said Micky violently.

The violence of his reply should have told me something. But it didn’t. I was engrossed in my own thoughts and barely noticed it. Zero hour was very close now.