Hammond Innes - Attack Alarm

It was very hot out there in the glare of the sun. I took my battle-dress top off and lay down on the top of the parapet. Thomas chattered on. He was a great talker. I closed my eyes. The light on my eyeballs was red as it shone through my closed lids. I felt a sense of satisfaction. Things were moving, though as yet I had taken no positive action. It seemed to augur well. And yet at the back of my mind I felt uneasy. I had so narrowly escaped an extremely awkward situation. It was only chance that I was not now under arrest pending a court-martial. The next time I might not be so lucky. And that there would be a next time I was quite certain. They had shown their hand too openly to me not to make sure that during the next few critical days I should be out of the way.

But uneasy though I was, it did not prevent me from falling fast asleep on top of the sandbags. Mental strain, in addition to the nervous and physical strain from which everyone was suffering, had made me incredibly tired.

I slept for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Yet when I went back into the hut some of them were still talking about what had happened.

‘Just because a bloke’s picked out in an identification parade, it don’t mean he’s a Nazi,’ Micky was saying. ‘Anyway,’ he added pointedly, ‘he ain’t going to ‘is grandmuvver’s funeral tomorrow.’

There was an awkward silence as I came, in. Instinctively I knew that it was Chetwood who had caused Micky’s quixotic outburst. But strange to say, I did not feel afraid of their hostility for the moment. I felt confident and at ease. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I hope you boys have made up your minds whether I’m a Nazi agent or not.’

I had caught them on the raw. Chetwood, Helson, Fuller and Bombardier Hood all seemed trying to appear unconcerned. But at the same time they were watchful. And I knew that Chetwood and Hood, at any rate, were suspicious. I should have to be careful. From now on everything I said and everything I did would be marked. I lay down on my bed, pulled a blanket over me and pretended to sleep.

The afternoon seemed to pass slowly, unaccustomed as we were to such a long period free of alarms. Some slept, others played chess or cards. The hut was quiet save for stampings and hammerings on the roof. Micky, with the aid of Fuller, was endeavouring to camouflage the hut with branches of hazel cut from the woods at the foot of the slope. I understood his frame of mind, and only wished that I could have found something to do that would have kept me occupied. In a way, I was as scared as he was, though, strangely enough, it wasn’t the prospect of being bombed that scared me. That was something tangible. I am a great believer in fate. If a bomb is going to get you, then it’s going to get you, and there’s damn-all you can do about it. It might just as well be the wheels of a bus in peace-time. But I was deliberately walking into danger. There was a difference.

The second Take Post of the day came at about five, just as tea had arrived. It did not develop and all that came of it was that the baked beans on toast were cold. Micky had practically finished the hut by the evening, so that it looked like Malcolm’s army before Dunsinane.

I spent the evening trying to read, of all things, Liddell-Hart’s Foch. I was in a deck-chair out in the open patch of grass between the hut and one of the newly constructed pill-boxes. It was quiet and still — a beautiful summer evening that made one think of the river. The peace of it was incredible. The sun sank slowly in a golden glow. An Anson and an old Harrow, cumbersome yet very light off the ground, came in and took off after a short stay. That was the only activity. There might have been no war on. God! how I wished there weren’t! I was too conscious of how changed the scene might be in the short space of twenty-four hours. And all the time I was progressing slowly through Liddell-Hart’s account of the follies of the last war, epitomised in the slaughter of Passchendaele.

I was sitting facing the roadway and shortly after seven-thirty my eyes strayed more and more from my book. Despite an assumption of calm, there was an unpleasant fluttering in my stomach. I found myself hoping that Marion would not come.

But she did, and my heart sank. I saw her when she was down near the hangars. Even at that distance I could see the fair straight hair beneath her cap catching the slanting sunlight. I watched to see whether she would turn in at Ops. But no, she came straight on, strolling leisurely towards the pit. When she was about fifty yards away I rose to my feet and went into the hut, to show her that I had seen her. I got my pipe, and by the time I came out again she had turned and was walking back towards Ops.

Well, the die was cast. I couldn’t turn back. I felt much easier now that everything was settled. I sat and read on until the light began to fail, shortly after nine. When I went into the hut I found it empty. The detachment on Stand-to were already in the pit. The others had all drifted off to the Naafi. I had a momentary sense of lostness. But it did not last, for I had too much on hand.

I made my bed and collected my washing things. Langdon was on Stand-to that night, having changed with Bombardier Hood because there was a party at the sergeants’ mess the following night. He raised no objection to my request for a bath. It was the only excuse I had for leaving the gun site at that time. The showers were in the big permanent blocks to the west of the hangars.

I made straight for the educational block. There was no moon yet and it was beginning to get really dark with clouds coming up from the west. It looked like rain.

The trouble was that I had not studied my terrain. I had found out roughly how to reach Vayle’s rooms. But I naturally presumed that if he was out he would have locked the door. Some alternative method or entry had to be found. At the most I had about forty minutes in which to carry out the whole scheme. A bath couldn’t possibly take longer and I did not want to upset Langdon. I decided to risk everything on a roof climb.

But first I had to make certain that Vayle hadn’t changed his plans and stayed in. I went straight into the educational block and up the stairs. The ground floor was composed of two big lecture rooms, one with desks and the other full of a litter of band instruments and sports kit. Upstairs were two large recreation rooms with a billiard table and table tennis. These rooms, like the two downstairs, were separated by sliding partitions. At the far end was the library, which was very well supplied with technical books. It was above the library that Vayle’s rooms were situated.

I tossed my washing things on to a chair in the farther recreation room, and then, making certain that the players were all engrossed in their snooker game, I crossed the passage and climbed the short flight of stairs that led to Vayle’s green-painted front door.

I rang the bell. It sounded faintly in the rooms beyond. Then I turned the handle of the door. As I had expected, it was locked. Worse still, it was a Yale lock. I had two Yale keys amongst my collection. I tried them, but they would not even fit into the keyway. To break in was out of the question. The door looked solid and any noise would bring the snooker players out. The roof was the only chance.

I went back down the stairs and out into the fast-gathering dark. A quick glance at the front of the building, still dimly visible, told me that there was no way up there. Anyway, I should have been seen. I went round to the back, through a narrow alleyway between the Educational and the bulk of Station Headquarters. It was quieter here and there was a screen of faded laurel bushes.

I gazed up at the side of the building. There was a drainpipe. But I was in no doubt about my ability to climb drainpipes. The Educational was not a tall building, compared with the big blocks of the living-quarters and Station Headquarters which surrounded it. Moreover, it had a sloping roof and gables. It had, I think, at one time been a house. The aerodrome had grown up round it, and it had been added to as the needs of education and recreation increased. It was in the older, gabled part that Vayle’s rooms were.