The Enigma Game

by Elizabeth Wein

  ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot at him!’ Ellen screeched. ‘You cannae see! You’re too close, you’ll hit us!’

  She grabbed the rifle. She couldn’t push it away, but she stopped the guard from aiming it. Everything went still. Felix Baer had his arm across my shoulders, not choking me, but gripping me firm against him.

  ‘Shh, shh,’ he said softly in my ear. ‘Louisa. Stille.’

  I held still, cold against his stiff leather coat.

  ‘Lift the barrier, will you, Nobby?’ Ellen gasped. ‘So we can get him to his plane and get rid of him.’

  ‘We fly now,’ agreed Felix Baer with authority. He urged Ellen to start forward. ‘This girl. We fly.’

  The defeated guards raised the barrier.

  Ellen:

  My hands on the steering wheel and the gear stick quaked like birch leaves in a wind. I couldn’t drive in such a state.

  I whispered, ‘Crack on with your chat, will you, Louisa?’

  She looked up over her shoulder at the Jerry pilot. ‘I need to help her,’ she said. ‘Is that all right?’

  He let go of her throat, but not the pistol.

  Louisa pressed cold hands over mine and squeezed. ‘He won’t hurt us. He won’t. I think it would kill him. It’s all for show. We’ve only to get him to his plane, and he’ll go back to wherever he came from—’

  ‘He said I have to go along,’ I whispered. ‘This girl. We fly.’

  ‘He might have meant me,’ Louisa said. ‘But I think he meant only to the airfield, not – not to Germany.’

  She rabbited on hopefully, and I realised her accent wasn’t just London – it was actually quite posh, too. Not proper posh, not like Jamie Stuart when he was putting it on, but like someone who reads a lot – like someone whose mum was a schoolteacher. Her calm voice worked on me like a granny coaxing a sobbing bairn with promises. At last I took a deep breath and shook off her hands. Die here, or fly to Germany? We had to move, at any rate.

  I put the Hillman Minx in gear. It stalled as I moved forward. I took another breath and started the motor again carefully. I didn’t dare steal another keek at Nobby and his mate as we left them.

  My passengers were quiet as we sped along the narrow drive. I wondered what the Jerry pilot was thinking about. What would happen at the airfield when he tried to get me, or Louisa, into his plane? Would the RAF Windyedge lads let him take off? What would happen to me, or to Louisa, if they didn’t?

  God pity us.

  Louisa:

  It wasn’t as dark now. Felix Baer would have daylight to fly in.

  I was crammed between him and Ellen and couldn’t possibly try to escape until one of them got out. I squinted into the gloom over the gun on the dashboard, trying to ignore it, and stared out at the aerodrome.

  I am on a Royal Air Force aerodrome.

  I thought I’d suffocate with fear and excitement. It was like having my own private Blitz in my head and my stomach.

  I saw a cluster of sheds and barracks, concrete and boards and weathered brick. The drive was rutted gravel and the runway was grass. It all looked the same colour in the grey dawn. There was one plane parked on the grass.

  It was the German pilot’s Luftwaffe fighter, like some giant stinging insect with broad blades for wings. Its markings were covered, but it was as sleek and dangerous as a sword, a battle weapon and armour rolled into one.

  I thought of Ellen saying that driving made her feel powerful. What must it be like to fly?

  It may have been nerves or petrol fumes going to my head, but for a moment I envied Felix Baer even more than I envied Ellen McEwen.

  Ellen:

  I pulled up by operations. But the Jerry wouldn’t walk across the airfield with folk such as Nobby and Jack chasing him. ‘Go, go.’ He pointed angrily to his plane, on the grass outside the hangar, and rapped his pistol against the windscreen for emphasis.

  I didn’t ken how many shots he had in that pistol, and I didn’t want to find out. Never have I felt so sick with fright.

  I drove as slowly as I dared, bumping over clats of turf, trying to give our lads a chance to come after us without giving the Jerry another fright.

  I stopped alongside the plane and opened my door and climbed out. So did he. He wasn’t going to give us any chance to make a run for it.

  Louisa:

  I jumped out after both of them. In the gloom, I could see the shadows of men running, and it looked like every one of them held a rifle. It was like watching a cinema newsreel, all black and grey, soldiers rushing into battle.

  Weren’t we supposed to let the German pilot go? Didn’t he have a code name in some secret Intelligence plan? The guards at the gate nearly killed us trying to take command of him. But there wasn’t supposed to be a battle.

  I shouted, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’

  A few of the men skipped to a stop, as if the film reel wasn’t spooling properly.

  ‘Is that Volunteer McEwen? Who’s with you?’

  None of them knew who I was.

  ‘The lassie works for Mrs Campbell at the pub,’ Ellen cried. ‘God pity us, never mind just now – don’t fright the Jerry! Keep your guns down unless he tries to take us along!’

  If they threatened him, he might panic and use his pistol again. I didn’t believe he’d hurt me or Ellen, but we weren’t armed men. Maybe he wouldn’t aim to miss this time.

  Ellen:

  He herded us like a pair of ewe lambs, pointing our way with his gun. He stood us on the other side of his Messerschmitt, where no one could keek any part of us but our feet beneath the carcass of the plane. Our heads were right next to where the machine guns stuck out of the wing.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Louisa whispered. She only came up to my shoulder, and we both craned to spy on him.

  ‘Sorting his gear,’ I guessed. The nose of the plane pointed over my head and I couldn’t see anything, either.

  She hooked her elbow through mine again.

  ‘If we both fight him …’ that brave lass whispered. But she didn’t finish her idea. He was out of our sight just now, but he still had that gun.

  We heard the Jerry slam the doors of the Tilly. Then he got up on the wing we couldn’t see, and pulled back the cockpit canopy. He took out a parachute and life jacket and chucked them on the ground.

  ‘What’s he doing now?’ Louisa asked.

  ‘Making room for his precious box,’ I said.

  Louisa:

  I glimpsed the top of one narrow seat in the cockpit, with nothing behind it, and only the controls in front. He must have had to fly with the wooden case in his lap. Even his long coat must have been awkward in that cramped space. He couldn’t possibly have room to take a hostage, could he?

  If he did, I would be a better fit than tall, long-legged Ellen.

  Could he? Cram me in between his shoulder and the metal hull, and take off into the rising sun on those knife-blade wings?

  For one thousandth of a second, just before it plummeted in fear, my heart flew.

  Ellen:

  He stood on the wing opposite. His left arm was straight out with the gun once again aimed at my head.

  I spat to tell him how much I hated him.

  He heaved a sigh. He kept his arm out with that ugly pistol cocked, and turned to shout towards the lads lined up on the edge of the airfield, pointing at him with their rifles.

  ‘Starter!’

  Louisa, braver than me, ducked to keek underneath the Messerschmitt and see what was going on.

  Louisa:

  The pilot was ready to leave. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Being interested numbed my fear, like ice numbing a twisted ankle, the way reading numbed grief.

  He untied the fabric covering the plane’s Luftwaffe markings so he wouldn’t look suspicious when he landed back in Norway or wherever he was going. He checked the engine and wheels, he checked hinges on the wings and tail, and he checked the propeller. I longed to know what he was looking for, where the f
uel went, what the hinges on the wings did.

  At last he strapped on his life jacket and parachute and pulled on a leather flying helmet.

  He yelled again in English to the soldiers with the guns, repeating what he’d said before.

  ‘Starter!’

  He waved a crankshaft at them, just like you’d use to start an old car, and mimed winding it.

  Ellen:

  ‘He needs a mechanic to turn over the engine,’ I told Louisa in a whisper. ‘Perhaps when the other lad comes near we’ll be able to run …’

  ‘But he’ll need both hands to drive the plane,’ Louisa whispered back. ‘Like you do in the van, I’m sure of it. Wait till the engine starts. And then we’ll run.’

  The Jerry had to wait along with us for the starter. He climbed in and sat there with his left arm slung out of the cockpit and his filthy old pistol still pointing at my head.

  At least neither one of us was in the plane with him. A bonny green sprig of hope unfolded in my heart.

  Louisa:

  The mechanic stood on the other side of the plane to crank the engine, so we couldn’t see what he was doing. But we jolly well heard and felt when it started. The roar exploded around us like a tube train pulling into an Underground station. The German pilot pulled his arm back into the cockpit as the plane jumped forward an inch or two; the wing nearly knocked us over.

  Before he slid the canopy shut over his head, Felix Baer leaned out and waved at us.

  The gun was gone. I was right – he needed both hands for the plane. We were in his way now, and he was trying to shoo us off like chickens.

  I waved back, to let him know I understood.

  Ellen:

  ‘Go!’ Louisa cried.

  She grabbed my arm and harled me along beside her. We raced away across the mowed strip of runway with the noise of the Messerschmitt howling around us. Then we were stumbling over longer, slippery grass. The Luftwaffe engine screamed like a pack of devils and if anyone was shooting at anyone, I couldn’t hear it.

  All at once that strange lassie stopped running.

  She turned about to watch him go.

  Louisa:

  The sky was dark blue and grey with clouds, but it was light enough that the sun must have been up somewhere, somewhere not so gloomy as northern Scotland in November. The German plane lifted off the runway into the east wind.

  Felix Baer was black wings against the grey sky, and then he was a black dot over the North Sea, and then he was gone.

  Jamie:

  Overnight, Shetland came under a bombardment of howling wind and pouring rain, battering down from the north-east, and nobody could take off. A-Flight was in bed, exhausted after slogging through the storm, but B-Flight sat in the officers’ lounge consuming shortbread and watery tea when Cromwell came in and barked, ‘Pack up, you lot: 648 Squadron’s posted to the mainland. A-Flight’s joining the Spitfires at RAF Deeside, and B-Flight’s going to fly from RAF Windyedge for the rest of the winter. The Spits have their own commanding officer, so I’ll be at Windyedge with B-Flight, but as there’s only ten miles between bases I’ll keep tabs on all of 648 Squadron.’

  This was the best news I’d had in a long time. Cromwell was going to have to commute, and I’d be back at RAF Windyedge where my friend Ellen McEwen was the ATS driver. And it was less than an hour on the train to get home if I ever had a day’s leave.

  ‘What’ll we be doing there?’ asked Pilot Officer Adam Stedman hopefully. He was the new leader of Madeira Section, the other half of B-Flight – the fellow Cromwell had threatened to replace me with. ‘Hunting U-boats?’

  Up in Shetland, our assignment was to bomb German shipping. The anti-aircraft guns on their destroyers were our worst enemy. We longed to have a go at their submarines, which would be less able to fire back at us, but we never knew where to find them.

  ‘You’ll be on warship escort and reconnaissance. And protecting coastal fishing and supply fleets. RAF Windyedge needs a squadron stationed there until a spot of bother with Intelligence blows over. Get ready to leave.’

  Cromwell stormed out again, slamming the door behind him, to go wake up A-Flight and rattle them with his urgent news to start packing. But none of B-Flight jumped up to get moving.

  ‘Bloody North Sea mist,’ somebody muttered. ‘We’re not flying anywhere in weather like this, are we?’

  Silver nudged me with his elbow. He lit a cigarette and murmured, ‘Sounds like they’re sending us somewhere a bit less hot. I think the lads need rallying.’

  I wondered if the move was punishment for Dougie and his crew not keeping their mouths shut, or for Ignacy’s overconfidence, or for my struggle to get B-Flight’s new aircrews to work together.

  Then I remembered the radio operator with his urgent message from Windyedge.

  ‘Maybe it’s hotter than Cromwell’s letting on,’ I said. ‘Maybe the spot of bother with Intelligence and that Jerry we ran into were part of the same op. Maybe they’re sending us as a guard force.’

  ‘You sound very clued up.’

  I stubbed out my own cigarette. ‘Something’s going on,’ I said. ‘We’re supposed to play along without knowing what.’ I nodded towards Dougie Kerr, leaning his wiry ginger head forward to catch what I was muttering. ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps Dougie’s going a bit deaf from all that rear gunnery, and we should invest in an ear trumpet for him.’

  Silver laughed. ‘I think a megaphone for you would be a better investment.’ He drew on his cigarette. ‘Now’s your chance. Take the podium.’

  He was right, as usual. I stood up, grabbed a spoon, and clinked my teacup for attention.

  ‘All right, lads!’

  They looked at me like expectant puppies. They were like puppies – untrained, disobedient, but anxious for praise and action, and maybe, if I worked at it, I’d win their loyalty. I’d had it before, to the death. Starting over was hard on us all.

  ‘I’ll bet every one of you began the war thinking you’d be a fighter pilot in a Spitfire or a Hurricane,’ I said.

  Every one of them nodded, grumbling in agreement. ‘Too bloody right!’ said the new Australian pilot, Harry Morrow.

  ‘Well, we’re not flying the most glamorous kites, but we’re just as important and just as dead when our luck runs out. I’m not going to quote poetry, but if you like, Flying Officer Silvermont, my navigator here, can recite John Donne’s “No man is an island”—’

  Laughter and hoots of ‘No thank you very much!’

  ‘What about action?’ asked Dougie Kerr, the big-mouthed gingery Australian air gunner. ‘I want another go, and I won’t blow our own tail off this time.’

  His pilot, tall Harry Morrow, and their navigator, baby-faced Gavin Hamilton, shared a laugh.

  I glanced over at Ignacy, Pimms Section’s bloodthirsty Polish pilot.

  ‘We all want another go,’ I said. ‘Only next time we’ll coordinate the action, all right? No heroics with Messerschmitts. There’s only one Blenheim pilot who’s an official ace, Reginald Peacock over in 235 Squadron, and he’s dead now. You can’t dogfight in a Blenheim; it’s not built for single combat. If we want to count as aces, we have to do it as a team. German battleships and U-boats count for us as much as fighter planes. Let’s aim to get five while we’re at Windyedge, and we’ll all be aces.’

  ‘All right, I will drink to that,’ said Ignacy.

  ‘I’m in,’ said Adam Stedman from Madeira Section.

  The Welsh navigator, Derfel Cledwyn, held up his teacup to Ignacy. They both knocked back their tea as if they were sharing a toast with whisky or vodka. The only one who didn’t crack a smile was their new gunner, Bill Yorke. But he was always a bit quiet. Tough job being thrown in with Ignacy and Derfel, who jawed away at each other in the air in Polish and Welsh as if they were playing at League of Nations.

  ‘You’ll all like being at Windyedge,’ I added. ‘It’s close enough to Stonehaven and Aberdeen that you can go to the cinema
or a dance hall in bad weather, and there’s a jolly good village pub within walking distance—’

  ‘I remember that pub!’ Chip put in enthusiastically. ‘With the wishing coins and the piano. Nancy Campbell always had the fire burning for us. That’ll be fine.’

  ‘Something to look forward to,’ I agreed, deciding not to tell him off for interrupting since I wasn’t being formal anyway. ‘We’ll polish up formation flying on our way to Windyedge. And I’ll keep my ear to the ground so we don’t get in trouble with Old Cromwell again.’

  I looked around the room at these few friends and strangers. And Silver, my best friend, always watching my back. Pimms and Madeira, B-Flight’s lads. My lads.

  I raised my own teacup. ‘To Windyedge!’

  ‘To Windyedge!’

  The applause was polite rather than thundering, but at least they applauded.

  ‘Nice speech, Scotty,’ said Silver, grinning at me. ‘That’s got everybody ready for a fight. I look forward to us all being official aces.’

  Part Two

  Storm Front

  Ellen:

  That Intelligence toff, Robert Ethan, turned up at the Limehouse late that morning for about three hours. He was rail thin and dressed in dapper tweeds, with huge eyes behind specs thick as bottle glass. His magnified eyes made you feel like a midgie pinned against a piece of card when he looked at you.

  Nan fixed up her best double room for him – Number Four, the same one she’d let to the Jerry pilot – but Ethan didn’t stay. He was in a hurry and hopping mad that he’d missed the ado. He’d spent most of the day before stuck on a train waiting for a troops transport to pass. When he got off at last – with special permission to climb down on to the railway track and walk away before the train moved! – he legged it to an RAF aerodrome and tried to fly to Windyedge to make up the lost time. But the weather down south closed in on them, so then he ended up stuck somewhere else in England overnight. Now another storm was rolling in, and he didn’t want to waste his precious time being stuck here.