I fell into conversation with a tall and rather handsome middle-aged woman, who said she was from the Cabinet Office, ultimately working for the Prime Minister but only indirectly responsible to him. She had never in fact met him before this weekend and said what a thrill it was for her. She told me that the house was called Ditchley Park, in Oxfordshire. It was a privately owned house sometimes lent to Mr Churchill for his working weekends. One of her duties was making practical arrangements for visits like this one. She in turn asked about my role in the RAF, so I gave her a general account of flying with a Bomber Command squadron. I realized that even here, in this inner sanctum, I was on my guard.
As we were speaking a number of ATS girls were moving around the room, shifting the armchairs and settees into lines, while two young women army officers were setting up a film projector and screen. Although nearly a month had passed since I had left hospital and I was able to walk without a cane, I quickly grew tired if I stood still for too long. I therefore sank gratefully into one of the armchairs in readiness to watch whatever we were going to be shown. The Cabinet Office woman chose a seat in the same row as mine, but not next to me. I saw her starting a conversation with another woman. I stared at the pale screen, waiting for the film to begin. I was expecting some kind of newsreel or information film, which would inevitably be followed by a talk or lecture.
I could hardly have been more wrong. When everyone sat down - Mr Churchill took pride of place in a settee all to himself in the front row, with a large ashtray, whisky decanter, water and glass close by his hand - one of the ATS girls started the projector and the film began. It turned out to be a comedy called The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. I settled back to enjoy it, noting that the Prime Minister, who was only a few feet away from me, smiled and laughed all the way through. Clouds of cigar smoke billowed up into the projector beam. When the film ended, Mr Churchill led the applause.
As the lights came up, many of the guests began to disperse. I moved uncertainly, wondering why I had been invited. Was it for a specific meeting with the Prime Minister, or was I here for the same reason as everyone else, apparently part of a weekend house-party? I hesitated, allowing some of the others to leave first.
Churchill walked up to me. He was wearing spectacles with round lenses, which glinted with the reflections of the overhead lights.
‘Group Captain Sawyer!’ he said. ‘We’re planning to post you back to your squadron next week. I believe that’s still what you wish to do?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, it’s up to you, my boy. I hear it’s becoming more dangerous over Germany. I’ve just been given a note of our bombing losses for last month, which are most concerning to me. We could find you a permanent job on the Air Ministry staff if you’d like one. You’ve done your bit for the effort, so you need have no fears on that score.’
‘I think I’d rather be flying, Mr Churchill.’
‘Well, I must say I’m with you there, Group Captain. I respect your decision, but if you should change your mind, let my office know. We’ll arrange something.’ We had started speaking in the centre of the room, but now he led me across to one side, away from the others. ‘Before you return to your squadron, there’s one more job I’d like you to carry out for me. I don’t want to make it sound more dramatic than it is, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the less you know about it in advance, the better you will be able to come to a sensible conclusion about what you find.’
‘All right, sir.’
‘Speak English as much as you can while you’re there, but your German will be invaluable. A car will pick you up from here after breakfast. All I ask you to do is make up your own mind about what happens, then provide me with a full written report as soon as you can. Spare no details. Say what you think, no matter what. I am eager to soak up intelligence from you, no matter how trivial it might seem to you. Are you clear on that? Time is of the essence, so I should like to read your report by the end of the week, if possible.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, but in the second or two it took me to draw breath and utter those two syllables, Mr Churchill had turned away from me and was crossing the room towards an inner door on the far side.
The next morning, when I was still feeling stiff and half asleep, and weighted down by a stodgy breakfast of yellow powder concocted into something that only faintly resembled scrambled eggs, I was in the back of another Air Ministry car being driven along the leafy Oxfordshire roads. I opened the window and breathed in the air thankfully. It was a misty morning, one that would later turn into a hot day, but the early coolness was a foretaste of autumn, now not many weeks away. I was thinking about what Mr Churchill had said about returning to ops, wondering what the winter would bring, where I might be sent, whether I would live to see the end of it. Winter nights were the open season for bombers and their antagonists: extended flights across German territory were possible in the long hours of darkness, with night fighters to contend with most of the way. The thought of the risk was like sniffing a dangerous intoxicant. Death remained an ever-present prospect but one that usually felt acceptably distant. I wanted to live, wanted no more injuries, but I was also desperate to return to the work I had chosen: the planes, the rest of the crew, the tracer bullets, the horrifying sight of an enemy city in inferno a few thousand feet beneath me. While the war went on, everything else was secondary.
We drove for about an hour after leaving Ditchley Park. I was not paying close attention to the route, absorbed in the thoughts of my other concerns. Other than the codename of my destination - "Camp Z’, which was typed on my new identity card, valid for the next ninety-six hours -- I had no idea where I was being taken. I calculated from the position of the sun that we must be heading generally back in the direction of London, if by a southerly route.
We were passing through wooded countryside, with tall conifers shading the road, when I noticed that the driver was peering from side to side as she drove, as if trying to find a landmark she had been told to watch out for. The car slowed. We passed down a short village street, one with cottages and shops, a car-repair workshop, a pub, a church. The name of the proprietors was painted on the overhead sign of the general store, A. Norbury & Sons, while underneath the words Mytchett Post Office and Stores were written in smaller letters. If Mytchett was the name of the village, it meant nothing to me, but in a moment we arrived at an unfenced driveway where the words Mytchett Place were dimly visible in faded paint on a brick gatepost.
Beyond was the now familiar guard post, although in this case there were high metal gates, surmounted by coils of barbed wire. Sturdy fences, with dense tangles of more barbed wire, ran off in both directions into the surrounding trees and shrubbery.
I handed my papers to the sergeant, together with the sealed envelope I had been given by a member of Mr Churchill’s staff before I left Ditchley Park that morning. The sergeant took the envelope unopened to the guard post and I saw him speaking on a telephone.
The driver and I sat in the car, the engine idling smoothly.
After about five more minutes I saw a young Guards officer walking briskly down the driveway towards us. He glanced in the direction of my car, saluted quickly but courteously, then joined his sergeant inside the guard post. He emerged a moment or two later, holding a sheet of paper and the envelope it had been in.
He came to the car, saluted again, then leaned down towards me.
‘Group Captain Sawyer?’
‘Yes,’ I said.