Hammond Innes: Attack Alarm

‘Well, it’s easy enough to get into it,’ said Muir. ‘A bloody sight too easy. The police at the main gates seem to let anyone in uniform through without question.’

‘And there are all these workmen coming and going,’ put in Hood. ‘Anyone of them might be a fifth columnist. If I know anything about British organisation, they haven’t been checked up on very carefully.’

‘It’s not only the workmen,’ said John Langdon. ‘It might just as well be someone in the Services. Nobody bothered to find out whether I was a Fascist or if I was pro-Nazi when I joined up. Germany has had seven years in which to prepare for this. You can bet your life their fifth-column organisation won’t be confined to the civil population.’

‘In fact, the trouble is that it might be anyone who has access to the ‘drome,’ said Trevors. ‘It might be somebody in this troop.’

‘Westley, for instance,’ said Hood. Nobody liked Westley, and he was known to have belonged to the B.U.F. at one time. ‘He was sitting shivering in the pit when we went into action this afternoon, as though he was scared out of his wits we’d bring something down.’

‘Anyway, Oggie is going to give us all a little lecture tomorrow on the British Empire and our duties as soldiers of the Crown,’ Trevors went on. They’re checking up on all the workmen. And we’re all going to be issued with special passes so that it won’t be so easy for any unauthorised person to get into the camp.’

‘What’s it all about?’ I asked Kan. ‘I missed the first bit.’

‘Intelligence have found a complete ground plan of the aerodrome in the hands of a Nazi agent, so Tiny says.’

‘What would the Germans want with that?’ I asked. ‘I mean, you’d think they would have got all routine information of that nature long ago.’

‘Oh, but it isn’t as simple as all that,’ Kan pointed out. I mean, things change from month to month. Take it that they intend to make fighter aerodromes their Number One objective. They well may. If the fighter aerodromes were immobilised for even twenty-four hours the invasion would succeed. Only two months ago this place was defended by six Lewis guns — two manned by the R.A.F. and four by another troop in this battery. Now there are our two three-inch guns, two mobile Bofors and one Hispano, quite apart from all the ground defences. Information about all those new defences would be vital to a successful attack on the station.’

‘I see.’ It was obvious, of course. Whatever the views of the High Command two or three months ago, I knew that the Air Ministry had never been under any delusions as to what would happen if the main fighter ‘dromes were immobilised for even the shortest period.

The table seemed to have fallen strangely silent after the first outburst of speculation. Thinking about it in the light of what Kan had said, I felt an unpleasant sinking sensation inside me. It might be the routine collection of information by the German espionage system. But the news that Germany wanted detailed plans of the ground defences came too soon after the bombing of Mitchet for me to regard it as other than an indication that they were out for the fighter ‘dromes, and that we were on the list.

I think it was then that I first realised that Thorby was an enclosed space imprisoning us. There was no getting away from the place. Here we were and here we had got to stay whatever was in store for us.

‘It’s a horrid thought, isn’t it?’ said Marion at last. ‘I mean, the idea that they want the position of every gun, every trench and every piece of barbed wire.’

She gave a wry smile. ‘You know, when I tame here,’ she said, ‘I thought it was all so interesting. It excited me to see the ‘planes taking off. There was the call to readiness on the Tannoy and the revving up at the dispersal points. Then the gathering for the take-off, engines roaring at the start of the runway. I loved to see the leader of each flight of three drop his hand as he signalled the take-off. It thrilled me. One minute they were on the ground and the next they were dwindling specks in the sky. A few minutes later they might be engaged in a desperate fight in defence of Britain’s shores. And it was fun to be at the pulse of the whole thing in Ops., plotting the raids as they came in.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Now I’ve lost my girlish thrill. The novelty has worn off, leaving a rather tawdry picture of dust and wire and noise. Partly one is tired, I suppose. But also I’m beginning to realise that air defence is not a big adventure, but war, just as brutal and wearing as it was in 1914 — different, that’s all. I get no kick out of being at the pulse of the whole thing now. Just a primitive joy in helping to bring our own machines into contact with the enemy.’

‘Your reaction to the place seems much the same as mine,’ I said. ‘At first I thought it exciting. Now I’m not sure it isn’t too exciting.’

‘I think you’ve got something there,’ said Kan, looking past me towards the entrance of the tent.

I turned. One of our fellows was coming in. He had his gas mask at the alert and his tin hat on, and he was in a hurry. He paused to peer through the smoke of the tent and then made straight for our table. ‘Take post!’

‘Oh, hell!’ said Trevors.

‘Anything exciting?’

‘Just the usual visitors. There’s one overhead now.’

‘Come along now, lads — drink up.’ Trevors’ imitation of the Naafi girl at the supper canteen caused a shout of laughter as everyone scrambled to their feet, gulping hurriedly at their beer.

We tumbled out of the tent into the square. It was dusk. The barrack blocks stood in black silhouette against the long stems of the searchlights, which weaved a pattern against the stars. Some of us had bicycles. Kan and I began to run. The intermittent throb of a Jerry could be heard overhead. Somewhere up there in the half-darkness of the night a ‘plane was moving swiftly towards London. And to the north came the sound of the Thames barrage, and occasionally we could pick out the little star-like burst of a shell.

At the far end of the square we were picked up by a Bofors tower, which dropped us at our gun pit. We ran into the hut and got our steel helmets and gas masks. The place looked bare and deserted in the light of two hurricane lamps. The table was littered with the remains of supper and amongst the dirty plates was a half-finished game of chess. The cards still lay on a bed just as they had been dealt for a hand of bridge. Everything was just as it had been left when the detachment on duty had gone out to take post.

Outside the night seemed darker. The searchlights had moved to the north, clustering as they followed the passage of the plane. Against their light the pit was just visible as a black circle of sandbags with the thick barrel of the gun pointing skywards. And inside the circle tin-hatted figures moved restlessly to and fro. As we went across to the pit we met Micky Jones, panting. He had been less fortunate in the matter of a lift. ‘Some people ‘ave all the luck,’ he said. ‘Cor, I ain’t ‘alf puffed. Run all the bloody way. And there’s Bombardier bloody Hood strolling along as cool as you please. Anyone would think there wasn’t no war on.’

As we came into the pit, John Langdon, still sitting on his bike, was talking to Helson over the sandbagged parapet. Eric Helson was the lance-bombardier in charge of the detachment on duty. ‘Was that Micky who just went into the hut?’ Langdon asked us.

Kan told him it was, and Langdon said: ‘All right then, Eric. That completes my detachment. You people come on again at one o’clock and then we’ll take over at stand-to. That gives us three hours each between stand-down and stand-to. You might explain this new arrangement to Hood.’