‘We’ve got to get him out,’ I insisted.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know damn’ well I can’t accept your story. It would be fatal.’
I didn’t believe him at first. ‘You can’t leave Tubby out there in the Russian Zone.’
‘I’ll do nothing to betray the belief of the authorities in this Russian report,’ was his reply.
The full horror of what he was saying dawned on me slowly. ‘You mean-’ The words choked in my throat.
‘I mean I’ll do nothing,’ he said.
All right. If he was as cold-blooded as that… ‘Do you remember how you blackmailed me into stealing that plane?’ I asked.
He nodded slowly, that cold smile back on his lips.
‘Well, I’m going to blackmail you now,’ I said. ‘Either you fly me into Hollmind tonight to pick up Tubby or I tell the I.O. here everything — how I pinched the plane, how I nearly killed Tubby, how you altered the numbers and we strewed the wreckage of our old Tudor through the Hollmind woods and how you set fire to the hangar at Membury so that there would be no trace.’
‘You think he’d believe you?’ There was almost a sneer in his voice.
‘Get him out, Saeton,’ I whispered urgently. ‘If you don’t, I’ll bust the whole game wide open. Understand?’
His eyes narrowed slightly. That was the only sign he gave that he took my threat seriously. ‘Don’t think I haven’t taken care of the possibility of your reaching Berlin,’ he said quietly. He glanced round at Diana and the I.O. and then in a louder voice: ‘No wonder you get scared when it comes to jumping. You’re about the most imaginative flier I ever met.’ He turned and nodded to the I.O. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t get any sense out of him.’ He drew the officer to one side. ‘I’m afraid he’s pretty bad. Concussion or something. He keeps on talking about pinching a plane and having a fight with Carter. I think he’s all mixed up in his mind with that escape he did from Germany in 1944.’ They began whispering together and I heard the I.O. mention the word ‘psychiatrist’. Diana was staring at me dully, all hope gone from her eyes, her body slumped at the shoulders in an attitude of dejection. Saeton and the I.O. came back towards me and I heard Saeton saying, ‘.. if we knew what happened when the plane crashed.’
‘You know damn’ well it didn’t crash,’ I jerked out.
Sudden, overwhelming hatred of him swept me to my feet. ‘I know what it is. You want Tubby dead. You know damn’ well the credit for those engines is his.
You want him dead.’
They stared at me like humans looking through bars at a caged animal. ‘I’ll get him away,’ the I.O. whispered quickly to Saeton and Saeton nodded.
I turned to Diana then. She was the person I had to convince. She knew Saeton, knew the set-up — above all she was the only one of them that wanted to believe that Tubby was alive. ‘Diana, you must listen to me,’ I implored her. ‘You’ve got to believe me. Tubby isn’t dead. I saw him yesterday afternoon.’ My head was swimming and I pressed my hands to my temples. ‘No, it wasn’t yesterday. It was the day before. He was badly injured, but he could talk. I promised I’d come back for him. If you love him, Diana, you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to make the people here believe-’
A hand grasped my shoulder and spun me round. ‘Shut up!’ Saeton’s face was thrust close to mine. ‘Shut up, do you hear? Tubby’s dead. You’re just saying this to cover yourself. Can’t you realise how Diana feels? Until you turned up there was a good chance he was alive. Everybody thought the body the Russians found in the plane must be yours. You were the skipper. But you turn up. So it’s Tubby who is dead, and now you try to raise false hopes in an effort to-’
I flung his hand off. ‘You devil!’ I said. ‘You’re the cause of all this. It’s all your fault he’s out there in the Russian Zone.’ I turned to Diana. ‘The plane didn’t crash at all,’ I cried. ‘I flew it back to Membury. Saeton forced me to do it. Tubby tried to prevent me. There was a struggle and-’ I could see they didn’t believe me.
‘Get him out of here,’ I heard Saeton say. ‘Get him out before he drives Mrs Carter crazy.’ Hands closed on my arms and I was dragged across the room to the door. I screwed my head round and saw Saeton standing alone, his face grey and tired looking, and Diana was staring across at him, her lips trembling. Behind them the air crews stood in silence looking on. Then the door closed in my face and I was out in the grey dawn of Gatow Airfield with the roar of planes and the deliberate, operational movements of lorries and German labour teams.
I had a brief glimpse of the FASO apron, gleaming dully in its leaden mantle of slush. Close by a German labour team was hauling sacks of coal from the belly of a Dak and beyond it another Dak was swinging off the perimeter track and an R.A.F. corporal was signalling it into position. A lorry rolled past us to meet it. A sergeant of the R.A.F. Police had the ambulance doors open and I was bundled in: The Intelligence Officer climbed in beside me. The sergeant saluted stiffly and the doors closed, boxing us into a dark little world that shook with the roar of planes. A slight vibration of the stretcher bunk on which I had been sat told me the engine was running, and then we moved off, slithering on the wet surface as we swung round the fuel standing at Piccadilly Circus. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked the I.O.
‘Sick bay,’ he answered. ‘I rang up Squadron Leader Gentry from the Malcolm Club. He’s the M.O. He’s expecting you.’
I was conscious of that sense of helplessness that comes to the individual when he is in process of being absorbed into the machine of an organised unit. Once I was in the M.O.‘s clutches anything could happen — they’d regard any request as prejudicial to the patient’s recovery. They might even drug me. ‘I want to see the station commander,’ I said.
The intelligence officer didn’t answer. I repeated my request. Take my advice, Fraser,’ he said coldly. ‘See the M.O. first.’
I hesitated. Somehow his voice seemed to carry a note of warning. But I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was thinking about Tubby. ‘I’ve got to see the station commander,’ I said.
‘Well, you can’t. I’m taking you to the M.O. Put your request to him if you want to.’ In the half-light I could see his eyes watching me. ‘I’m saying that for your own good.’
‘For my own good?’ His eyes had turned away as though breaking off the conversation. All I could see was the pale outline of his face under the peaked cap. ‘I’m not worrying about myself,’ I said. ‘It’s Carter I’m worried about.’
‘I should have thought that was a waste of time now.’
The tone of his voice stung me. ‘Civil airlift pilots come under R.A.F. for administration and discipline, don’t they?’ I asked. The line of his head nodded slowly. ‘Very well, then. Take me to the station commander’s office. That’s a formal request.’
His eyes were back on my face again now. ‘Have it your own way,’ he said. ‘But if you’re fit enough to see the station commander, you’re fit enough to see Squadron Leader Pierce, R.A.F. Police.’ He turned and tapped on the partition separating us from the driver. A small hatch slid back. ‘Terminal building first,’ he ordered the driver.
‘What did you mean about R.A.F. Police?’ I asked.
‘Pierce is very anxious to see you. Some question of an identity check.’
Identity check! ‘What do you mean?’ For a moment the thought of Tubby was thrust out of my mind. Identity check! Had Saeton talked about me? Was that what he meant when he had said he had taken care of the possibility of my reaching Berlin? Was this his attempt to discredit me? ‘Whose instructions is he acting on?’ I asked.
‘I know nothing about it,’ the I.O. answered in that same cold, deliberate voice.
Before I could question him further the ambulance had stopped and we were getting out. The terminal building was a lifeless hulk of concrete in the cloud-skimmed dawn. The tall windows of the control tower looked with dead eyes upon the runway where a single Tudor was lining up for take-off. There was no outward sign that this was the hub and heart of the world’s busiest air traffic centre; beyond it the wings of a Dak widened against the dull cloud-scape over Berlin as it dropped towards the runway like a toy pulled by an unseen string. As we went through the swing doors the Tudor took off with a roar that split the dawn-cold stillness.