It was an exquisite moment, shared between us there in the pale light of the dawn with the trappings of war all around us. It was an oasis in that grim, exciting desert of useless action. All that she had to offer a man was in her eyes as the smile overwhelmed the anxiety in their depths like sunlight. And both.were for me. I felt pain in my heart, pain that was yet pleasure; pain that I had found beauty, but could not grasp it firmly for all time; pain because our moment was fleeting. Life is full of this ache for moments that cannot be held. War makes it greater, but because there is a futility and not an inevitability about the immediate cause of one’s inability to hold one’s moments.
I am sure I should have stood staring at her long oval face framed in her dishevelled page-boy’s hair and those sweet smiling eyes with no other thought till the troop-carriers came flocking to the ‘drome. But the spell was broken by the civilian in the back. ‘Well, you old dog, Barry — what have you been up to?’
I jerked my gaze from Marion. The fellow had removed his gas mask. It was Bill Trent. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I said. I fear my tone was bleak. He had broken the spell. And anyone who breaks the spell of that first discovery of love given and offered freely must surely expect a cold welcome.
‘I got back here from a forced landing near Redhill to find him waiting for me,’ John Nightingale explained.
‘He had tried to see Winton without any luck.’
‘He’s proved that Vayle’s a spy,’ Marion cut in, her voice sounding surprisingly matter-of-fact.
‘How you do know, Bill?’ I asked.
‘Because he’s not Vayle at all, old boy,’ Bill Trent replied. ‘Vayle was last seen in Dachau concentration camp in 1936. That was two years after the Vayle who is a librarian here returned to England.’
‘Yes, but how do you know?’ I asked.
‘After I’d got your message I did everything I could to find out Vayle’s background. I got details about the family, but all his relations seemed to be dead. I could unearth very little information about him prior to 1934. In desperation I combed through my refugee acquaintances. I knew a man who was one of the very few to escape from Dachau. He said he had been with Vayle for nearly two years in that camp. I knew he was telling the truth because he gave me Vayle’s life history, which tallied with what I had been able to discover. He said that when he escaped Vayle was still there, slowly dying of T.B.’
‘I got Winton to see Trent,’ John Nightingale put in. ‘It was a bit of a shock for him. Vayle is a very brilliant man and he has done a great deal for Fighter Command in working out tactics. A guard was sent to bring him in for questioning. But he had left the camp. That scared me. I told Winton everything that you had told me. He sent me out to your site to fetch you. It was then past midnight. You were missing. Miss Sheldon was on night duty at Ops. She told me which Cold Harbour Farm you had picked.’
‘And we went there and we found a dilapidated old farmhouse and a dear old gentleman in a night-cap and gown,’ Marion put in. ‘But you weren’t there. He spoke of two soldiers he’d given a meal to. We came back here. We were in Ops. when all this started, and then Winton spoke to your sergeant. What happened to you, Barry? You did find something, didn’t you?’
Briefly I told them of the gravel pit and the lorries — and Vayle. I explained the plan to them. And I was just beginning to tell them how we had destroyed the three lorries when out of the thinning smoke came the armoured car, followed by two R.A.F. cars. Langdon stepped forward and waved to them. They drew up just short of us.
Winton jumped out of his car, and Major Comyns and Ogilvie got out of the other. They had just taken their gas masks off and they were stuffing the face pieces into their haversacks as they came up to us.
Langdon stepped forward and saluted. In a few words he explained the situation. When he had finished, the C.O. turned to a young artillery lieutenant who was standing by the open door of the armoured car. ‘Ross,’ he called. ‘There is an R.A.F. lorry somewhere along this wire to the north. It must be put out of action at once. If possible, I want it captured intact. And I want prisoners. I’ll be at Ops.’
‘Very good, sir.’ His voice was muffled in his gas mask. The iron door of the armoured car clanged to, and the great lumbering vehicle roared off along the tarmac and disappeared into the smoke to the north of us, which was also beginning to thin out now.
Winton turned to me. ‘Good work, Hanson,’ he said. ‘I’ll not forget it. I’d like you to stay with me. Sergeant Langdon, get your detachment together and your gun manned as quickly as you can. Gun Ops. will keep you informed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As Langdon disappeared, Winton nodded to me, and I followed him to his car. He paused with one foot on the running-board. ‘Mr Ogilvie, will you go round the gun sites. See that everything is all right, and above all see that they all know what their fields of fire are for action against planes landing on the ‘drome. They must stick rigidly to those fields. I don’t want them duelling with each other across the landing field. Comyns will take you in his car. You’ll be going round the ground defences, Major, won’t you? Excellent! Good luck!’ He climbed into the driving seat. ‘Come on, Hanson, jump in.’
I got in beside him and the big car shot forward, dipping sharply as he swung it round. The smoke was no more than a few thin wisps now, and in-front of us the familiar shapes of the station showed dimly in the cold grey light of dawn. We made a half-circle of the landing ground and swung in at the barbed-wire gates of Operations. Winton had driven fast, and all the time he plied me with questions. But as we descended the ramp to Operations he was suddenly silent.
His was a big responsibility. And in the minutes that followed I came to admire him greatly. He was conscious of the weight of that responsibility. It was a weight that could not be carried lightly. But he carried it calmly and without fuss. I think he was one of those men who are at their best in action. He was cool and he used imagination.
The first thing he did on entering Operations was to order two Hurricanes to be loaded with smoke and to send a dispatch rider to the meteorological tower for two balloons. ‘Tannoy!’ he called. ‘Give the All Clear for gas.’
Faintly from somewhere outside that big subterranean room came the echo of a voice that spoke quietly into a microphone in one corner: ‘Attention, please! Gas all clear. You can show your faces again, boys. It’s all clear for gas.’
The room was confusing at a first glance. There were so many girls sitting at telephones and so many officers and Waafs standing about, apparently doing nothing. And everything centred on a large table, the top of which was a map of south-eastern England and the Channel.
I suddenly found Marion at my elbow. She squeezed my arm and I looked down to find her eyes bright with excitement. ‘It’s all yours,’ she said. ‘Your show. I hope it goes well.’
‘Where’s Nightingale?’ I asked.
‘Gone to dispersals. In a few minutes he’ll be leading his squadron up.’
‘And Trent?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I left him at the entrance. He’s trying to get permission to come in here.’ She squeezed my arm again and crossed the room to a vacant desk on which was a telephone and a pad.
I stood there, bewildered and alone. I felt conscious of my dirty oil-stained battle dress, so out of place here where there was nothing but Air Force blue. I wished I could have been going up with a squadron to fight invasion. Action! I wanted action; to be on the gun — anything rather than the suspense of waiting with nothing to do.
Winton called me and handed me a message. On it was scrawled: ‘Mitchet report four smoke lorries captured.’ After that, one by one, the fighter ‘dromes of the southeast reported lorries containing smoke either captured or put out of action.
All at once my sense of bewilderment vanished. I no longer felt out of place down here in this strange room. It was like being suddenly transported back to journalism. Here was action and I was watching it. My brain would record impressions of it, and some day I’d use this material. God! What wouldn’t some Fleet Street boys give to be on the inside of this story. I felt the thrill of pride that comes of achievement.