Hammond Innes - Attack Alarm

‘There’s just one point,’ I said. ‘Did you know a girl called Elaine when you were in Berlin?’

He seemed a little surprised at my question. Then suddenly his brow cleared. ‘Ah, Elaine Stuart, you mean? She is a Waaf.’ I saw his eyes, in a quick glance, had taken in the wallet lying on the mantelpiece. ‘No doubt you saw a photograph of the two of us in that wallet. She was a student in Berlin in 1934. A lovely girl. I was very fond of her. Now she is here, and we were able to see something of each other again. It is one of those coincidences — ‘ He spread his hands in a gesture that was essentially foreign.

Then suddenly a look of concern showed on his face. ‘You haven’t taken that photograph, have you?’

I felt a guilty flush creep into my cheeks. I wanted to say ‘No.’ I wanted to keep that photograph, just in case. But instead I found myself saying, ‘I’m afraid I did. It looked as though it might be important at the time. I’m so sorry.’ And I handed it back to him.

‘Thank you very much.’ His politeness seemed so unnecessary when it was his own property. ‘Is there anything else you want to know?’ he asked.

At the moment my mind was a blank. I could think of nothing.

He rose to his feet. ‘Then perhaps you would think this matter over very carefully before doing anything further. And if you do think of any points after you’ve left here, do come and talk them over before you jump to conclusions — especially if it is likely to involve searching my rooms again in an attempt to find something that will help you.’ He smiled a little ruefully and for the moment he seemed very human. ‘I was hoping to get some work done before going to bed, but now I must clear up after you.’

I had risen to my feet also, and he led me out to the front door. ‘I think you will find this an easier way out,’ he said and, smiling, held out his hand.

I shook it, and the next second I found myself on the narrow stairs leading to the recreation rooms. And above me was the little green-painted front door, shut as I had seen it before. I went down and retrieved my washing things from the chair on which I had left them, and went out. It was very dark now, though searchlights illumined the sky to the southeast, and it was as though the whole fantastic escapade had never been. It seemed so unreal there in the reality of the dimly seen, familiar shapes of the aerodrome.

I looked at the luminous dial of my watch. I was surprised to find it was only just ten. So much seemed to have been crammed into that one hour. I broke into a run. Our detachment was due to take over at ten. I reached the gun-pit just in time. I expected to be questioned as to why I had been so long having a bath. But no-one seemed to realise I had been longer than usual. They were all busy discussing the news in orders that we were now officially allowed to fire up to 20,000 feet, a thing we had constantly been doing ever since the Blitz started.

We got no sleep that night. They seemed to come over in an endless stream. Sometimes we could see them in the searchlights. But we got no chance to fire. No ‘planes went up from Thorby. It was unpleasantly cold with a chilly mist rising from the valley. We were able to sleep from one to four, whilst the other detachment was on duty. But when we came on again at four an occasional machine was still drifting home and the All Clear did not go until just before Stand-to.

I had plenty to occupy my mind during those long cold hours. Vayle’s attitude, after all, had not been unreasonable, and I was only too conscious of the fact that my suspicions, which had at one time seemed so certain, were founded on little more than conjecture. What had impressed me, I think, more than anything was the frank and easy way in which he had explained the photograph. After all, one does suddenly meet old acquaintances in strange places. There were Marion Sheldon and John Nightingale to prove that coincidences of that kind are not uncommon. Yet I refused to believe that I wasn’t on the right track. Vayle was a clever man with a hypnotic personality. And after all, he had not had me arrested. My own explanation of this was, I felt, as good as his — though I had to admit that his was reasonable enough.

It was lucky that I did have something to think about, for during our later period of duty I found myself alone on one side of the gun pit whilst the rest were congregated round Bombardier Hood on the other, talking in low tones. I did not notice this at first. When I did I wandered over to the group, thinking they were discussing something of general interest. As I came up to them I heard Hood saying, ‘Well, anyway, that’s what Langdon told me.’

‘I’d like to know — ‘ Chetwood began, and then he saw me and stopped. There was an awkward silence. The group gradually broke up. I was uncomfortably aware that I was the cause.

I lit a cigarette and went out of the pit and got a deck-chair. I remembered once being sent to Coventry at my prep, school. The sensation was much the same. But lying in my deck-chair with my eyes half closed, it seemed so transient and unimportant.

Time and again I went over my encounter with Vayle and all the papers I had been through in his rooms. But I got no further forward. I felt stale. And I had a sort of feeling that things were developing. Every now and again I noticed the little group near the telephone, which had reformed. I was conscious, too, of the fact that I was at any rate partly the subject of conversation, for occasionally they glanced over in my direction.

I wished Langdon were in charge. He would have stopped it. Instead Bombardier Hood and Chetwood were leading the discussion. Gradually the sense of being an outcast intruded on my thoughts. I began to feel uneasy, though common sense told me that it wasn’t important. It was getting on my nerves. I found myself glancing more and more often in their direction. And every time one of them seemed to be watching me with a stealthy, almost furtive glance. I had a sudden sense of being trapped — caged like a prisoner. My superiors were against me. And now, it seemed, I was becoming cut off from my own companions. Even Kan, whom I had got on with so well, was there, glancing surreptitiously in my direction when he thought I wasn’t looking.

At last I could stand it no longer. I rose to my feet and went across to them. They watched me in silence as I approached. There were Hood and Chetwood and Kan standing a little apart from the rest, Micky and a small man called Blah whose nose and dark, wavy hair betrayed his nationality. He had replaced Fuller who was billet orderly. The undercurrent of hostility was almost defiant.

Their antagonism was that of uneasy consciences. I sensed with pleasure that they were almost afraid of the fact that I was going to take the initiative.

The knowledge of this gave me confidence. ‘Don’t you think that you’ve discussed me amongst yourselves long enough without making any comments you wish to make about me to my face?’ I tried to appear off-hand, but the tremor in my voice betrayed my emotion.

‘I don’t follow you.’ This from Bombardier Hood, and there was the inevitable truculence in his tone.

‘I can’t put it very much plainer.’ I turned to Kan. ‘Perhaps you’d tell me exactly what the trouble is.’

He glanced uneasily at Hood. ‘It’s nothing, really, dear boy. I mean it’s not important, what.’

‘That’s right. Not important at all,’ Chetwood put in.

Then out of the blue Micky put in: ‘Not important! Cor, stone me. You blokes make me sick. You take a man’s bloody character away, crowing over it like a lot of old women, yet you daren’t say a word to ‘is face.’