Hammond Innes: Attack Alarm

‘What are you going to do, then?’ I asked.

‘Try and bluff them into showing their hand.’

We had reached the others now. ‘Get back to the road as quickly as possible,’ Langdon ordered. ‘Go quietly and keep low.’

I picked up my rifle and followed him. As soon as we were out of sight of the wire he broke into a trot. We rounded the end of the dispersal point and reached the tarmac. On the roadway we increased the pace. After doing about three hundred yards at the double, Langdon stopped. When the whole detachment had come up with us, he said: ‘There is an R.A.F. lorry almost directly be low us down the slope of the hill. That is our objective. I want you to spread out about twenty yards apart in a long line. We will then move forward. As soon as you come within sight of the lorry, get down and try to creep for ward without being seen. I want you to finish up in a big semi-circle round the lorry. That means the two flanks will close in. Your final position must not be more than two hundred yards from the lorry. You’ll have five minutes from the time we move forward to get into position. I shall then go forward on my own. You will not open fire until either I give the order or they open fire. If I give that order or if they fire on me, I shall rely on you to take the lorry in the quickest possible time. It will mean that they are there for the purpose of assisting an invasion of the ‘drome, and there will be very little time to spare. Is that understood?’

No-one said a word. ‘All right, then. Spread out on either side of me at the double.’

As soon as the detachment had spread out in a line along the edge of the roadway, Langdon waved his hand and started forward. Langdon, Hood and myself were together in a little bunch. Micky was twenty yards to the left of us, and Helson, who had left his bike on the edge of the roadway, was on our right. The line was not very impressive, there being only four men on either side of us. But it advanced with some pretensions of a line, and as a result looked reasonably like an infantry section in extended order.

We soon topped the brow of the hill, and before we had gone thirty yards down the slope we sighted the lorry. Langdon had judged it nicely. We ourselves were directly above it. We crouched down, moving forward more cautiously. The moon was low enough now for the sharper slope of the hill near the brow to be in shadow. This shadow completely swallowed up the detachment, so that, looking on either side of us, I could scarcely believe that we were not alone.

The slope gradually eased off and the shadow ended abruptly. We were less than a hundred yards from the lorry and we halted here. I touched Langdon’s arm and pointed along the wire to the north. The slope spread out here in a shoulder and on it, close against the wire, was parked a second R.A.F. lorry. Here, too, men dressed in R.A.F. uniform were carrying cylinders along the wire.

Langdon looked at his watch. ‘The five minutes is up,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and see what they’re up to.’

‘It’s suicide,’ I said. ‘If you force them to show their hand you’ll get killed. This is too big a thing for them to have any scruples.’

‘Well, at least I shall have died to some purpose,’ he said with a boyish laugh which sounded brittle and false to my sensitive ears.

‘Let me go,’ I said. ‘It’s my show.’

‘No, this part of it’s mine,’ he said. ‘You’ve done enough.’ His tone was quiet and final. He was, after all, the detachment commander.

‘Well, whoever you talk to, see that you don’t get in my line of fire. I used to be something of a shot when I was at school. I’ll keep him covered the whole time.’

‘Thanks.’ He rose to his feet and went down the slope, his slim figure suddenly showing up in the slanting light of the moon. Beyond him the eastern sky was paling.

It all seemed so strangely ordinary. And yet there was a difference. The slope down which John Langdon was walking and the line of dannert wire — I knew it all so well. In the stillness of the evenings I had walked along this hillside. And my rifle! It had just been something to take on night guards. Now all these familiar things took on a new significance. The hillside might suddenly become a miniature battlefield. My rifle was suddenly a weapon. And yet there was no visible indication of a change. Everything looked much the same.

Langdon had reached the lorry now. A man in the uniform of an R.A.F. sergeant jumped out of the back of it. Langdon moved slightly so that he did not screen the man. Quickly I cocked my rifle and raised it to my shoulder. It seemed rather unnecessary. The man was unarmed. I could see no sign of hostility.

Hood probably sensed my feeling, for he suddenly said: ‘Mind that thing doesn’t go off. You don’t get away with murder just because you’re in uniform.’

I made no reply. I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

The Guards’ sentry had continued on his beat. Langdon was alone. Two men were watching him from the tailboard of the lorry. I wished I had brought a pair of glasses with me. Langdon nodded in our direction. The R.A.F. sergeant glanced at the slope above him.

Then suddenly the whole atmosphere of the scene changed. The man had produced a small automatic from his pocket. I saw it glint in the moonlight as he waved Langdon towards the back of the lorry.

Automatically my forefinger had taken the first pressure on the trigger. Langdon moved slowly towards the lorry. The man covering him pivoted but did not actually move.

The foresight came up into the U of the backlight. I squeezed the trigger. The recoil was pleasantly reminiscent of the range at Bisley. There was no sense of killing. The man was just a target. He jerked forward with the force of the bullet’s impact, stumbled and slowly crumpled. I reloaded automatically without removing the rifle from my shoulder.

Langdon hesitated for a second, watching the man fall. It was like a ‘still’ from a film. The two men on the tailboard of the lorry gazed at their leader, fascinated, momentarily incapable of action. The men carrying the cylinders along the wire halted.

Then suddenly, like puppets, they all came to life. Langdon dived for the slope. The men along the wire dropped their cylinders and ran for the lorry. The two men on the tailboard disappeared inside. They reappeared, a second later, with rifles. Two more came out from behind the lorry, they also had rifles.

Langdon had reached the steepest part of the slope. He was running hard and zigzagged at the same time. I fired at the men on the tailboard. As I reloaded I heard the crack of Hood’s rifle just to the left of me. I fired again. Sporadic fire had now developed along the whole of our short line. One of the men on the tailboard toppled to the ground. The other disappeared inside. I turned my fire on the four men who were coming up along the wire. They were spread out, and though little spurts of earth were shooting up all round them, they made the lorry without being hit.

‘They’ve got down behind the wheels of the lorry,’ Hood said. Little spurts of flame showed in the dark behind the bulk of the lorry. I could hear the thud of bullets as they lashed into the grass at Langdon’s feet. I concentrated my aim on the pin-points of flame, firing rapidly; Others were doing the same. I don’t know whether we hit anyone, but our fire seemed to put them off their aim, for Langdon reached the shadow and jumped down beside us, panting heavily.

I stopped firing. I had only six rounds left. ‘What do we do now?’ I asked.

‘Send a runner back,’ Langdon replied breathlessly.

‘Keelson!’ he called.

‘Yes, sergeant,’ came his voice from the right of us.

‘Get on that bicycle. Ride to the pit and ‘phone Gun Ops. Tell ‘em what’s happened. We want reserves to put these lorries out of action. Tell ‘em to issue an Attack Alarm, have all ground defences manned — to prepare for an air invasion of the ‘drome within the next half-hour. O.K.?’