Hammond Innes - Attack Alarm

And since they were evidently leaving nothing to chance, it meant that the scheme, whatever it was, was vitally important. It also meant that at any moment I should be faced with further developments in the plan to put me out of the way. Somehow they had to arrange for the document they had planted on me to be found. It was a nasty thought.

But at least I had the consolation of knowing that I was really on to something. It strengthened my resolve to go through with it — to break into Vayle’s rooms, to badger the authorities, to do anything to expose the plan.

I opened the door and went back into the hut. Hardly anyone looked up as I came in. Most of them were lying on their beds, smoking, or already asleep. I was glad. It gave me a chance to recover my confidence.

Kan, who was sitting at the table, smoking, suggested a game of chess. Anything to take my mind off my position. We settled down amongst a litter of unwashed crockery.

I had just driven his king into a corner and checked him with a knight, when the door opened.

‘Party, party, “shun!”’

It was Ogilvie with Wing-Commander Winton. They were accompanied by a man who looked like a workman.

‘Where’s Sergeant Langdon?’ Ogilvie asked. His voice sounded gruff and tense. I had a sudden premonition of trouble.

‘He’s in his room, sir,’ said Bombardier Hood. ‘I’ll fetch him.’

The sergeant had a separate room at the end of the hut. A moment later John Langdon appeared, looking very boyish with his hair all tousled and his eyes still full of sleep.

‘Identification parade, Sergeant Langdon,’ snapped Ogilvie. ‘I want everyone lined up down the centre of the hut.’

‘Very good, sir.’ He turned about. ‘Bombardier Hood, right marker!’ Hood took up his place at the far end of the room. ‘On Bombardier Hood in one rank fall in!’

Automatically we jostled into a line and stood at ease. ‘Detachment, detachment,‘shun!’

‘Thank you, Sergeant. Now’ — Ogilvie turned to the workman — ‘see if you can spot your man.’ And as the fellow walked slowly down the rank, he said to Langdon, ‘A man in the uniform of a gunner has been reported asking rather obviously leading questions of the post-office men laying the operations lines.’

I stood very stiff, my eyes fixed on the wall opposite and my muscles tensed. I knew what was going to happen. I sensed rather than saw the man pause opposite me. Then his slow face said, ‘I think this is the man.’

‘Who is it? Hanson? Ah!’ Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Ogilvie glance significantly at the C.O. ‘Well, Hanson, what have you got to say?’

My knee joints felt weak. The blood hammered in my head. ‘I think there’s some mistake, sir,’ I heard myself saying. ‘I have never seen this man before, and I have never spoken to any of the men laying the lines.’

‘But you know they’re being laid?’

‘Certainly, sir. Everyone in the camp must know that by now.’

‘What were you doing between seven-thirty and eight last night?’

‘In the Naafi, drinking, sir. Sergeant Langdon will bear me out. He was there too.’

‘Is that right, sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you still think this is the man?’ Ogilvie asked the workman.

‘I think so.’ His voice sounded sullen. ‘I can’t be sure. His face was in the shadow. Also I’m not certain about the exact time. I didn’t think of that until afterwards.’

‘Did you go to the civilian bar at all last night, Hanson?’ Ogilvie asked.

‘The supper canteen? Yes, sir. I went there shortly after eight with Chetwood and Fuller.’

‘I see. But you did not speak to this man?’

‘No, sir. I was with the others the whole time.’

This man says a gunner engaged him in conversation in the canteen and that later he saw him jotting down notes. He has now identified that gunner as you. And you admit that you were in the canteen at about the time he states.’ Ogilvie turned to Chetwood. ‘Do you agree that Hanson was in your company the whole time, Chetwood?’

‘As far as I can remember, sir.’ I experienced again that sense of undeveloped hostility about me. Chetwood could easily have committed himself to a direct ‘yes’. But he had hedged.

Ogilvie looked at me uncertainly. I could see that he did not know what to do. ‘You realise that this is a very serious charge, Hanson?’

I said, ‘Yes, sir. But it is quite untrue.’ My voice trembled despite all efforts at control. ‘This is the first time I have ever seen this man.’

Ogilvie turned to the workman. ‘I don’t feel justified in pursuing the matter unless you can say definitely that this is the man.’

There was a pause whilst the fellow thought this over. He looked searchingly at me once or twice as though trying to make up his mind. At last he said, ‘I can’t be absolutely certain. But he looks very like him.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘Perhaps if he would submit to a search. As I told you, I saw him jotting something down on a piece of paper afterwards. If he is the right man he probably still has the paper on him.’

‘How do you know he was taking notes of his conversation with you?’ Ogilvie was annoyed and I think he was inclining to take my side.

‘I don’t. That’s why I suggest a search. That would satisfy me.’

Ogilvie glanced at the C.O. Winton gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘All right.’ Ogilvie turned to me. ‘Do you object to a search?’ ‘

‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘But I strongly object to being suspected on such flimsy grounds.’

‘I understand. The whole thing is most distasteful to me.’ He turned to Langdon. ‘Will you go through Hanson’s kit, Sergeant? All papers to be examined thoroughly and take care that you leave no hiding-place unsearched. Now Hanson, come with me into the sergeant’s room and we’ll go through everything you have on you.’

It was a most degrading business. Ogilvie left nothing to chance. I understood his thoroughness. He was determined to prove definitely to his own satisfaction that I was all right.

When it was all over and they had found nothing incriminating, he merely said, That’s all, Sergeant Langdon,’ and marched out of the hut. He was furious at the ignominious position in which he had been placed. I had some satisfaction out of the episode, for I surprised a look of something like frustration in the eyes of the little workman.

I felt excited now that the ordeal was over. It had achieved something. I now knew two of Vayle’s satellites. There was the workman who had planted the diagram in my Army pay-book that morning. And there was this little man with his fresh round face and watery blue eyes that had a quick darting alertness.

As soon as the door closed behind him I became conscious of the unnatural silence in the room. I knew that everyone was just dying to discuss what had happened and that my presence embarrassed them. Rather than face the barrage of speculation and comment at my expense, I went outside. As I closed the door I heard Micky say, ‘Bloody sauce, coming in like that and holding an identification parade!’

I lit a pipe and went over to the pit to talk to the air sentry, a little Welshman called Thomas who was old enough to have been through two years of the last war. He asked me what Ogilvie had wanted. I told him what had happened. He thought it over for a moment. Then he said, ‘These civilians, they get panicky. They get so as they think everyone but themselves is a spy. Indeed and I remember a case in ‘eighteen. The poor devil was shot for something that he never did at all. And all because of a civilian who laid a charge before he had paused to consider.’ And he launched into a long story about a soldier who had been shot at Arras just before the big offensive.