Hammond Innes - Attack Alarm

The hut was seething with argument about food. John Langdon had come back from the orderly room with the news that as from lunch that day the three-inch teams would feed on their sites, the food being brought out in hay-boxes by the troop van. Most people seemed against the new arrangement. Partly it was the usual conservatism. Partly it was the prospect of being confined even more than before to the site. This was my own objection. But then my case was peculiar. It meant that I could only get away from the site to wash. Normally, however, I should have welcomed it, as I hated the queuing for food and the hurried, crowded eating that was inevitable in the over-full mess.

‘Soon we’ll be confined entirely to the site like Hanson here,’ said Chetwood.

‘With a well-meaning old dear coming round with a canteen twice a week to dispense tea.’

‘But do you mean to say, John, that we’ve just got to hang around here until the van comes along with the food?’ said Kan. ‘It’s absolutely fantastic. It’s bad enough in the mess. But getting the stuff half cold will make it quite impossible. I shall just go down to the mess as before. I mean, it’s frightful being stuck up here for meals as well.’

‘No, you can’t do that,’ said Langdon. ‘It’s a good idea really. It means we can all get food without leaving the site only half manned.’

So the argument went back and forth. It was so delightfully mundane, by comparison with my own thoughts, that I enjoyed it. And when the lunch actually did arrive, everyone found it much better than they expected. It came with a table and benches and masses of plates. What is more, it was hot.

Pleasantly full, I lay back on my bed to smoke a cigarette. For the moment I felt at peace with the world — tired and relaxed. God! how quickly that fleeting mood was shattered.

I had barely finished my cigarette when Mason came in. He fluttered some papers in his hands. ‘New aerodrome passes for old,’ he said.

They were the new passes issued to make it more difficult for unauthorised persons to gain entrance to the ‘drome. Our old ones had to be handed in in exchange. I took my Army pay-book out of my battle dress, which was lying on top of my suitcase beside my bed. From a pocket at the back I drew out my old pass. As I did so another folded slip of paper fell to the ground. I bent down from the bed and picked it up. Curious to know what it was, since I could not remember having put it there, I opened it.

When I saw what it was a cold shock of horror ran through me. Had it been my death warrant I could not have felt more frightened. I stared at it, stupefied. It was strange. That single sheet of paper with the two clear-cut creases where it had been folded was so completely damning.

‘Hallo, what have you found?’ A quick movement of my hand turned the paper face downwards. The action was automatic, secretive. I glanced up. I felt that my very movement betrayed me. It was furtive. Chetwood was standing over me. ‘Just a letter,’ I said hurriedly.

As I said it, I knew even my own voice betrayed me. It was too hurried.

‘Funny sort of letter,’ he said.

I opened my mouth to make some explanation about an old diagram. Then I shut it. Thank God I had that much sense. He could think what he liked. I gazed up at him, hot and tense. He seemed on the point of making some further remark. But Mason came up and asked for his old pass, and he forgot about it.

I handed in my old pass and was given my new one in exchange. I folded it and slipped it into the pocket of my Army pay-book. And all the time the crumpled paper in my hand seemed to burn my flesh. I felt every eye in the room must be watching me. Yet when I stole a quick glance round everyone seemed busy examining and putting away the new passes, and Chetwood was hanging up his battle dress.

I got up as nonchalantly as I could and went out to the lavatory at the back of the hut. I was conscious of each movement of my tensed limbs. I felt they must be watching me. In the seclusion of the lavatory I smoothed out that wretched piece of paper and examined it once again with the aid of a match.

There was the landing ground with the criss-cross of the runways — the hangars, mess, quarters, gun-sites, everything was marked. It was neatly drawn in common blue ink. Everything of interest to the enemy was indicated in fine hand print, even to the field telephone wiring and ammunition stores at gun sites and at the armoury. The information was precise and the drawing accurate. In view of the fact that such a document had recently been found in an agent’s hands, it would have meant that if I had been searched weeks of interrogation would have followed.

I felt sick at the thought of what I should have had to face if I had not discovered it in time. And it was with a sense of immense relief that I watched the flames consume it as I set a match to it.

But the sense of relief did not last long, and I sat there in a state of numbed fear at the thought of what it meant. For it meant, of course, that I was a marked man.

I had no longer any doubt about the reliability of the pilot’s information. I knew that I was right about Vayle. This was something big. There could be no other possible explanation of such elaborate steps being taken to dispose of a mere gunner. And I was horribly aware of the danger of my own position.

Press men, I know, are supposed to be tough. There is a firm belief that they are always adventurers capable of getting out of any situation. That is true of some, especially the freelance foreign correspondents. But nothing could be further from the truth in the case of most newspaper men. The majority of them have a job that involves mainly office work. That job is to collate facts and reproduce them in the form of readable matter. I was one of the majority. True, I had been in our Berlin office and had seen quite a bit of the world for my age. But I was no more than a spectator. Because a journalist writes about exciting things it does not mean he leads an exciting life. I suppose my life had been more interesting than it would have been in, say, my father’s insurance business. Nevertheless, though I had led the free and easy life of Central London with a flat of my own and no responsibilities, it had really been quiet and respectable. Certainly I had never been in any serious scrapes.

I was, therefore, no more equipped by my civilian life to get out of the fix I was in than the next man. And I certainly wasn’t any less scared. I sat there literally petrified. Behind the closed door of that lavatory I had the temporary illusion of security. Outside, I faced the uncertainties of a situation that was rapidly getting beyond me.

I tried to steady myself. Somehow I had got to go back into that hut as though nothing had happened. I settled down to consider how the document had got into my Army pay-book. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it must have been placed there after my interview with Ogilvie the previous night. Obviously no such definite action would have been taken until it was known first that Ogilvie was not willing to have me transferred, and secondly, that I was continuing to make a nuisance of myself. My Army pay-book had been in the breast pocket of my battle top all the time. The paper could have been placed in it whilst I was asleep. But that meant there was one of Vayle’s agents actually in the detachment, and at the same time it would have been risky, to say the least of it, in a crowded hut. No, the most obvious time was during the morning’s short alarm. I had taken post in my shirt sleeves owing to the heat. I had left my battle blouse on my bed, and the hut had been empty.

It was then that I realised I had discovered something. The hut had not been completely empty. The whole detachment had been on the gun, but there were still the two workmen. And I remembered seeing the younger one pedal off on his bicycle. The older man had been alone in the hut. As soon as I remembered this I had no doubt as to how the paper had been planted on me. For no apparent reason the workmen had chosen that particular morning to turn up to do a job that we had never expected to get done at all. Now I knew why they had come. But what amazed me more than anything was that they were taking all this trouble over me. I could not believe that I was really dangerous to them. It could only mean one thing — that they felt themselves vulnerable if the attention of the authorities was persistently drawn to this idea of a plan.