just a prelude?’
It was no use telling her ‘No.’ She wouldn’t have believed it. I said: The attack was against personnel and not against the ‘drome itself. The runways are fairly clear of bombs.’ I left her to figure out the significance of that.
‘You mean, they want to use it themselves — to land troops?’
We were silent for a moment, and I said: ‘It’s lovely now, isn’t it?’
It was not a very bright remark. But she understood what I meant. The peace and stillness of a late August day. It was so beautiful after the havoc. And again I found myself thinking of the river. It was such a perfect day for lazing in a boat. Marion in sailing rig — how well she would fit into the picture! How well she would fit into any picture that I could conceive!
I lowered my gaze hurriedly as she looked up at me. Strange that this should be such a perfect moment of beauty when all about us were the weapons and havoc of war. In.that moment I achieved a wonderful sense of peace. The realisation that whatever the horrors and disasters a man has to face he can still find beauty came to me suddenly, together with knowledge that only man-made things could be destroyed by war. Whatever happened there was always the sun and the stars and the beauty of nature to be shared. My mind, alert now, grasped at that — they had to be shared. That was the secret of the enjoyment of beauty. Alone, beauty had always seemed so painful in its transience. Time never stood still so that you could hold a moment and keep it. But shared, the beauty of a moment seemed complete. Instead of being purposeless, except for the delight of one’s gaze, it fulfilled itself by welding two personalities together. And in that brief moment that Marion stood there in silence I felt that we were very near. And I was content that it should be so.
The spell was broken by footsteps approaching the pit. It was my relief. ‘Are you going to Ops. now?’ I asked her.
‘No. I ought to go back to billets and help with the clearing up. They got the wing in which I sleep, so I’ve lost most of my things.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll walk down with you as far as the main gates.’
I handed over to my relief and then clambered over the parapet and joined her. We didn’t say much at first and this time the silence was an embarrassed one. But suddenly she asked me if I’d seen anything of Vayle. ‘As far as I was able to discover, he remained in the camp,’ she said.
I told her of Elaine Stuart’s death and of how I had found Vayle standing over her in the deserted and half-ruined hangar. I went on, of course, to tell her of the workman who had spoken in German in his delirium and who had mentioned Cold Harbour Farm.
Then my brain suddenly clicked.
‘What was it Elaine said in her sleep about her birthday?’ I asked.
‘I don’t really think it had any bearing on what you’re after,’ she said slowly. ‘She just said, “It’s my birthday,” I think she said that twice. It was mixed up with a whole lot of babbling, which I couldn’t understand at all. It’s all so hazy now. I was half asleep myself. In fact, I’m not at all certain I didn’t dream it. I suppose she really did say something about Cold Harbour Farm. Funny that the workman should have mentioned it too.’
‘I must try and trace that fellow,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, can you find out when her birthday would have been?’
‘I expect so. Somebody is bound to know it. But do you really think — ” She stopped with a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘I mean, as a deadline it doesn’t seem very satisfactory.’
I was only too conscious of this. ‘But I’ve nothing else to goon.’
‘What are you going to do then?’
‘I don’t know.’ I was thinking of that dent on the back of my tin helmet. ‘Find out where Cold Harbour Farm is.
And if Elaine’s birthday was, in fact, on one of the next few days, I should assume there was some connection.’
‘Yes, but what can you do about it?’
‘God knows!’ I said. ‘Time will tell, I suppose.’
She suddenly took my arm. ‘Don’t do anything foolish, Barry. It’s a matter for the authorities.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’ve nothing concrete to tell them. You can’t expect them to act on a mixture of conjecture and doubtful coincidence.’
We were nearing the shell of the officers’ mess, and I suddenly saw a familiar figure coming towards us from the direction of the hangars. ‘Oh, good!’ I said. ‘John Nightingale is all right. He was missing.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I don’t know him personally, but he’s got a wonderful reputation in his squadron.’
He recognised me as I saluted him. ‘Glad to see you’re still alive in this shambles,’ he said.
‘And you,’ I said. ‘All I could find out from the lads at your dispersal point was that you were missing. What happened?’
‘Oh, nothing much, except that I was ignominiously brought back by car.’
‘Well, the last I saw of you was diving on top of one of those low flying ‘planes. That was you, wasn’t it? It was a very steep dive to within a few hundred feet.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I bagged a couple of ‘em, but the second one put a burst right across me. Got the petrol tank and smashed up the landing gear. Made a bit of a mess of the cockpit too. I just managed to pancake the old girl at Mitchet.’ He shook his head with a grin. ‘Lovely bit of flying,’ he said. ‘They were hedge-hopping all the way from Tunbridge Wells. They were so low as they topped the hill into Thorby that they ploughed through the tops of the trees.’
‘Their losses are going to be pretty heavy today, aren’t they?’ asked Marion.
‘Well over the hundred, I should think,’ he said. ‘My squadron has bagged over thirty for the loss of four machines. You couldn’t miss. We met them just after they had crossed the coast. We came at them out of the sun and swooped straight down on to the bombers. They were massed so thick they seemed to fill the sky in front of us. I got two before the first tier of fighters came down on our tails. Everything was a mix-up after that.’
Understatement. Understatement. Understatement. Yet the scene was vivid in my mind. The huge mass formation of bombers, flying steadily and unbroken even when attacked, the ugly black crosses plain on their silver wings. And above, the tiers of fighters waiting to pounce on any attackers. And the attackers when they came no more than a squadron or two at the most.
‘What brought you down on the tail of our low-flying-attack?’ I asked.
‘We got a radio message through. I could only spare one. We were badly outnumbered. By the way,’ he said, ‘I was in Town last night and I got in touch with your friend. He said he had already received a message from you.’
I told him how Marion had managed to get a message through. Then I said: ‘Have any other fighter stations been attacked today?’
The reply was ‘Yes,’ and he named two of the biggest, both near the coast.
‘What did they go for?’ I asked. ‘The runways and hangars or the billets and ground defences?’
‘Well, from what I hear, they’ve done much the same as they’ve done here — concentrated on the billets. Much the best way of putting a station out of action. They did it at Mitchet just the same and they’re having an awful job to feed and house the men. If this were winter the stations would be practically untenable.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘can you do something for me? I want to get hold of Ordnance Survey maps for southeast England. And I want them in a hurry.’ It was rather an abrupt opening, but I could not think of any way of leading up to it.
‘I’ve got R.A.F. maps. What do you want them for?’
Marion touched my arm. ‘I must get back,’ she said. ‘I’ll try and find out what you want and I’ll come down and see you in the morning.’ She was gone before I could remonstrate, walking quickly and purposefully towards the square.
‘What do you want them for?’ John repeated.
And then I told him the whole story of Vayle and the plan to immobilise the fighter ‘dromes. And this time I left out nothing. Someone might as well know everything that had happened.