Hammond Innes - Attack Alarm

At that moment the sirens began to wail. Micky paused on the point of lighting his cigarette and glanced up at the sky. ‘The bastards!’ he said.

‘You want to mind that light.’ It was John Langdon, who had just come up on his bike.

‘Well, be reasonable, John, it ain’t dark yet.’

‘All right, Micky, I was only kidding you.’ He propped his bike up against the parapet and vaulted into the pit. He produced two bottles of beer from beneath his battle blouse. He tossed one to Micky and the other to Chetwood.

‘I thought you went to the orderly room,’ said Kan.

‘I did,’ he replied. ‘But I stopped off at the Naafi on the way back.’

I was conscious that he glanced in my direction as he spoke. He went over to the gun and looked at the safety lever. The other four settled down on the bench, drinking from the bottles. The first ‘plane went over high, faintly throbbing. The searchlights wavered uncertainly.

Langdon came over to where I stood leaning against the sandbags. ‘You seem to have got yourself into a spot of trouble, Barry.’ He spoke quietly, so that the others should not hear. ‘You understand that you are confined to the site for the next four weeks, and that all letters and other communications must be handed in to me so that I can pass them on to Mr Ogilvie to be censored?’

I nodded.

‘I don’t want to pry into your affairs,’ he added, ‘but if you care to tell me about it, I’ll see what I can do to get the sentence mitigated. Ogilvie’s no fool. He knows the strain we’re living under.’

I hesitated. ‘It’s very nice of you,’ I said. ‘I may want to talk it over with you later, but at the moment — well — ‘ I stopped, uncertain how to explain.

‘All right.’ He patted my arm. ‘Any time you like. I know how you feel.’ I don’t know what he thought I’d done.

It was then I realised that the four on the bench were casting covert glances at me. They were leaning forward listening to Fuller, who was speaking softly. I heard the word ‘Friday’ and I guessed what they were talking about. I remembered that Fuller had been talking to Mason when I came out of the orderly room. Micky looked up and met my gaze. ‘Is that true, mate?’ he asked.

‘Is what true, Micky?’ I said.

‘Bill here says that that Jerry pilot told you this place was going to be wiped out on Friday.’

‘I didn’t say “wiped out”,’ put in Fuller.

‘You said a raid; didn’t you? What’s the difference?’ He turned to me again. ‘You can’t deny you was talking to the feller. I saw you wiv my own eyes. Chattin’ away in German you was like a couple of old cronies. Did ‘e really say we was for it on Friday?’

There was no point in pretending he hadn’t. I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he told me.’

‘Did ‘e say Friday?’

I nodded.

‘Cor blimey, mate, that’s practically tomorrow — an’ I was going to ‘ave a haircut on Saturday.’

‘Do you think he really knew anything? asked Kan.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It was probably just bravado. He wanted to frighten us.’

‘Well, he ain’t succeeded,’ put in Micky. ‘But, blimey — tomorrow! It makes ye think, don’t it? And we got to sit ‘ere and just wait for it. Wish I’d joined the ruddy infantry.’ His brows suddenly puckered. ‘Wot you confined to the site for?’ he asked.

The directness of the question rather disconcerted me. That was like Micky. One was always being faced with the problem of replying to remarks which other men would never think of making. I made no reply. There was an uncomfortable silence. Langdon broke it by asking about my conversation with the pilot. I told them what he had said. He made no comment. The others were silent too.

‘How come you speak German?’ Micky asked suddenly.

‘I worked in the Berlin office of my paper for some time,’ I explained.

He turned that information over in his mind for a moment. Then he muttered, ‘An’ you got yourself into trouble. Wasn’t anything to do with what you said to that Jerry, was it?’

I said, ‘No.’ Perhaps I denied it a little too quickly, for I sensed a sudden atmosphere of suspicion. I realised that I was not the only one who had been thinking over the fact that someone had attempted to get details of the ground defences of the aerodrome to the enemy. I sensed hostility. Jaded nerves did not make for clear thinking, and a newcomer is never easily absorbed into a community of men who have been working together for a long time. I felt the loneliness of my position acutely. If I was not careful I should be in difficulties with my own detachment as well as with the authorities,

‘Ever met the fellow before?’ It was Chetwood who asked the question.

Perhaps I read suspicion where none was intended. But as soon as I said, ‘Which fellow?’ I knew I had attempted to be too off-hand.

The Jerry pilot, of course.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Why did he talk so freely?’ asked Chetwood. And Fuller said, ‘Are you sure he told you nothing else?’ I hesitated. I felt at bay. Kan, with his easy manner, would have turned the questions with a wisecrack. But I was more accustomed to writing than to conversation — it tends to make you slow in repartee. Micky followed up the other questions by asking, ‘Sure you told him nothing else?’

I felt bewildered. And then quite suddenly the conversation was turned from me by Kan saying, ‘Funny that Westley should have asked for special leave on Friday.’

‘What for?’ asked Micky.

‘Oh, it’s his uncle’s funeral or something.’

‘His uncle’s funeral!’ Micky snorted. ‘Just because his father’s an orderman in the City he gets given leave. If me muvver ‘ad died they wouldn’t give me leave. I tell you, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen in the real army.’

‘Well, has he been granted leave?’ asked Chetwood.

‘Yes, he’s got twelve hours.’

‘That should keep him out of danger on the fateful day. It does seem a bit clever, doesn’t it?’

‘I bet it was him that gave that information to the enemy.’

‘You shouldn’t make statements like that unless you know them to be true, Micky,’ Langdon cut in. His voice was patient but quite final.

‘Well, you must admit it’s a bit of a coincidence.’ said Chetwood.

‘Coincidences do happen,’ said Langdon. ‘If you want to discuss the matter, do it in front of him so that he can answer your charges.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t making no charge,’ muttered Micky. And then added defiantly, ‘A bloke’s got a right to ‘is suspicions, though, ain’t ‘e?’

I wondered where Vayle would be on Friday. And whilst my mind was occupied with this the conversation drifted to the arrival of the new squadron. They had come in that afternoon. They replaced 62A squadron, who had gone for a rest. Everyone had been sorry to see 62A go. They had put up a grand show. They had been a month at Thorby — and a month at a front-line fighter station at that time was a long while. In that month they had shot down more than seventy enemy ‘planes. But they had had a bad time, and if anyone deserved a rest, they did. The relieving squadron was 85B. Like its predecessor, it was equipped with Hurricanes. But we knew nothing about them. Langdon, however, who had been in the sergeants’ mess that evening, said that they had had a good deal of experience in France and had been taking a well-earned rest up in Scotland. ‘The squadron-leader is apparently one of our crack fighter pilots,’ said Langdon. ‘D.S.O. and bar and nineteen ‘planes to his credit. Crazy devil and always sings when he goes into a fight. Funny thing, his name is Nightingale.’

It was an unusual name and took me straight back to my schooldays. ‘Do you know his Christian name?’ I asked.