Seated on a bench outside the office building were Fuller and Mason. They fell silent as I emerged. I did not speak to them. I felt so remote from them, as they sat there enjoying the pleasant warmth of the gathering dusk, that I could think of nothing to say. I wandered slowly up the road and across the asphalt in front of the hangars. The peace of a late August evening had settled on the place. The revving of engines, symbol of war in a fighter station, was no longer to be heard. All was still. Faintly came the strains of a waltz from the officer’s mess.
It was quiet. Too quiet. To me it seemed like the lull before the storm. Tomorrow was Thursday. And Friday was the fateful day. If the proposed raid was to prepare the way for an air landing on the ‘drome, any time after Friday might be zero hour. I was in a wretched position. Technically I had done all I could. Yet how could I leave the matter where it stood? Vayle had been a lecturer at a Berlin university. Winton might know him to be sound and my suspicions might be entirely unfounded. Yet the fact that he had been in Berlin at the time the Nazis came into power only served to increase my suspicions. British he might be, but there were Britons who believed in National Socialism. And there was certainly nothing about him to suggest the Jew.
As I approached our site I knew that somehow I had to go through with it. I had to find out whether or not I was right. But how — how? Easy to make the decision, but what was there I could do, confined to my gun site with all my communications with the outside world censored? And anyhow, wasn’t it far more likely that Winton was right? The headquarters’ staff, as he had said, was far better able to judge the reliability of the pilot’s story than I was. And as regards Vayle, Winton had known him intimately for several years, whereas I knew no more of the man than I had been told. It seemed absurd to proceed, when there was so little cause.
When I went into the hut, I found most of the other members of our detachment had already returned and were making their beds. It was nearly nine. I felt nervous. I thought everyone must know what had happened and would be watching me to see how I took it. I went straight over to my bed and began to make it. Kan looked across at me. ‘Well, what did the Little Man want?’ he asked.
‘Oh, nothing,‘I said.
He didn’t pursue the matter. At nine we went out to the pit and relieved the others. Fuller hadn’t yet turned up. There was only Kan, Chetwood, Micky and myself. ‘Where’s Langdon?’ I asked. It was unlike him to be late for stand-to.
‘He had to go down to the orderly room,’ Kan told me.
I was silent, gazing out across the ‘drome. The sky was very beautiful in the west — and very clear. Soon the nightly procession would start.
‘Got any fags to sell?’ Micky demanded of the gun pit at large.
There was a shout of laughter. ‘Not again,’ said Chetwood despairingly. ‘Why don’t you buy some once in a while?’
‘Once in a while! I like that. I bought ten only this morning.’
‘Then you’re smoking too much.’
‘You’re right there, mate. Do you know how many I smoke a day? Twenty!’
‘Good God!’ said Kan. That means we’re supplying you with seventy a week. Why don’t you buy yourself twenty at a time instead of only ten!’
‘I smoke ‘em too quick, that’s why.’
‘You mean, you don’t smoke enough of ours.’
‘Well, as long as you’re mugs enough.’ He grinned in his sudden mood of frankness. ‘I tell you, I wouldn’t starve — not as long as there was a sap left in the world.’
‘All right, we’re saps, are we? We’ll remember that, Micky.’
‘Well, give us a fag anyway. I ain’t got one — straight I ain’t — an’ I’m just dying for a smoke.’
His request was met by silence. ‘That wasn’t very well received, was it, Micky?’ Chetwood laughed.
‘All right, mate.’ He produced an old fag end. ‘Give us alight, someone.’
‘Oh, my God, no matches either!’
‘Would you like me to smoke it for you?’ This was Fuller, who had just arrived in the pit. He tossed Micky a box of matches.
At that moment the sirens began to wail. Micky paused on the point of lighting his cigarette and glanced up at the sky. ‘The bastards!’ he said.
‘You want to mind that light.’ It was John Langdon, who had just come up on his bike.
‘Well, be reasonable, John, it ain’t dark yet.’
‘All right, Micky, I was only kidding you.’ He propped his bike up against the parapet and vaulted into the pit. He produced two bottles of beer from beneath his battle blouse. He tossed one to Micky and the other to Chetwood.
‘I thought you went to the orderly room,’ said Kan.
‘I did,’ he replied. ‘But I stopped off at the Naafi on the way back.’
I was conscious that he glanced in my direction as he spoke. He went over to the gun and looked at the safety lever. The other four settled down on the bench, drinking from the bottles. The first ‘plane went over high, faintly throbbing. The searchlights wavered uncertainly.
Langdon came over to where I stood leaning against the sandbags. ‘You seem to have got yourself into a spot of trouble, Barry.’ He spoke quietly, so that the others should not hear. ‘You understand that you are confined to the site for the next four weeks, and that all letters and other communications must be handed in to me so that I can pass them on to Mr Ogilvie to be censored?’
I nodded.
‘I don’t want to pry into your affairs,’ he added, ‘but if you care to tell me about it, I’ll see what I can do to get the sentence mitigated. Ogilvie’s no fool. He knows the strain we’re living under.’
I hesitated. ‘It’s very nice of you,’ I said. ‘I may want to talk it over with you later, but at the moment — well — ‘ I stopped, uncertain how to explain.
‘All right.’ He patted my arm. ‘Any time you like. I know how you feel.’ I don’t know what he thought I’d done.
It was then I realised that the four on the bench were casting covert glances at me. They were leaning forward listening to Fuller, who was speaking softly. I heard the word ‘Friday’ and I guessed what they were talking about. I remembered that Fuller had been talking to Mason when I came out of the orderly room. Micky looked up and met my gaze. ‘Is that true, mate?’ he asked.
‘Is what true, Micky?’ I said.
‘Bill here says that that Jerry pilot told you this place was going to be wiped out on Friday.’
‘I didn’t say “wiped out”,’ put in Fuller.
‘You said a raid; didn’t you? What’s the difference?’ He turned to me again. ‘You can’t deny you was talking to the feller. I saw you wiv my own eyes. Chattin’ away in German you was like a couple of old cronies. Did ‘e really say we was for it on Friday?’
There was no point in pretending he hadn’t. I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he told me.’
‘Did ‘e say Friday?’
I nodded.
‘Cor blimey, mate, that’s practically tomorrow — an’ I was going to ‘ave a haircut on Saturday.’
‘Do you think he really knew anything? asked Kan.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It was probably just bravado. He wanted to frighten us.’
‘Well, he ain’t succeeded,’ put in Micky. ‘But, blimey — tomorrow! It makes ye think, don’t it? And we got to sit ‘ere and just wait for it. Wish I’d joined the ruddy infantry.’ His brows suddenly puckered. ‘Wot you confined to the site for?’ he asked.
The directness of the question rather disconcerted me. That was like Micky. One was always being faced with the problem of replying to remarks which other men would never think of making. I made no reply. There was an uncomfortable silence. Langdon broke it by asking about my conversation with the pilot. I told them what he had said. He made no comment. The others were silent too.
‘How come you speak German?’ Micky asked suddenly.
‘I worked in the Berlin office of my paper for some time,’ I explained.