Blood on the tongue bcadf-3

by Stephen Booth

  ‘As you know, gentlemen, I asked for this meeting because I am attempting to clear the dishonour on the name of my grandfather, Daniel McTeague, who was an officer serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was reported missing while on attachment to the RAF in January 1945.’

  ‘All of fifty-seven years ago,’ said Chief Superintendent Jepson. He was smiling amicably, but he was putting down his marker from the start.

  ‘I happen to know that your neighbours the Greater Manchester Police re-opened a case last year that was exactly fifty-seven years old,’ said Morrissey, looking him straight in the eye. ‘The length of time that has passed seems to me to be irrelevant, if there’s been a miscarriage of justice.’ Cooper sneaked a look at her over the files he was pretending to study. He hadn’t expected her to be so young. If he had bothered to think about it, he would have been able to work out her possible age range, of course, since he knew it was her grandfather that she was here to talk about. It was mentioned in the files that Pilot Officer McTeague had been twenty-three when he went missing. His daughter, Alison Morrisscy’s mother, had been born only days before he disappeared, which would make her fifty-seven now. She must have been one of those women who waited until her thirties before having children, because Morrissey could barely have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Cooper liked the way she had answered the Chief

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  Superintendent. She had plenty of determination. And she knew her stuff, too.

  ‘There was never a court case,’ pointed out Jepson. ‘Justice was not involved.’

  ‘Natural justice,’ said Morrissey.

  The Chief Superintendent sighed a little. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My grandfather was the pilot of a Lancaster bomber based at RAF Leadenhall in Nottinghamshire, part of 223 Squadron of Bomber Command. He had been Hvinp with the RAF tor two

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  years, and he had an excellent service record. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross alter bringing home a damaged Wellington from a successful raid on German U-boat bases near Rotterdam. He ordered his crew to bail out once they were over England and landed the aircraft single-handedly. And that was despite the fact that he had himself been wounded by shrapnel from enemy anti-aircraft tire. As soon as he recovered from his injuries, he retrained on Lancasters and was posted to RAF Feadenhall.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Jepson. ‘But can we move forward to January 1945?’

  ‘You need to know what sort of a man my grandfather was,’ said Morrissev.

  Cooper watched her eyes harden with a momentary anger as she spoke. Her age might have taken him by surprise, but he certainly hadn’t expected her to be so attractive. She had that style and confidence that made a woman stand out from the crowd. He was enjoying her display of assurance and pride. He was surprised that Jepson hadn’t softened to her more In now he usually had a weakness for an attractive young woman himself. But the Chief must have hardened his heart, and once he did that, there was no way he would back down. This

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  meeting could have only one possible outcome. Cooper was already beginning to feel sympathy for the Canadian woman. Jepson would let her go through her paces, but in the end, she was going to be disappointed.

  ‘This is a photograph of my grandfather,’ said Morrissey. She slid a picture across the table to the Chief Superintendent, then one to Ben Cooper. She had hardly looked at him so far, except

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  for a quick glance of appraisal when they had been introduced. He had the impression that she was a woman who knew’ exactly what she aimed to achieve, and who was most likely to he able to help her. Now, she fixed her gaxc on Chief Superintendent Jepson again.

  ‘That photograph was taken when he was promoted to the rank of Pilot Officer on joining 223 Squadron,’ she said. ‘Because of his service, he was a year or two older than most of his crew. That’s why they called him “Granddad”.’

  The photo was something that the LIU hadn’t been able to produce for the files. Yet surely it must have been readily available, if it was an official RAF shot. Morrissey had been better organized, or had better help. Cooper glanced at Frank Baine. He had heard of Bainc vaguely. He recollected having seen a television programme the journalist had featured in, which had been commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain. The only thing Cooper remembered clearly from the programme was the fact that some of the Lancaster bombers used by the RAF during the Second World War had been built at a factory in Bamford, only a few miles from Cdcndale. Of course, the factory was long since gone, as were all the Lancasters it had produced. A woman who appeared on the programme had spoken of working on the aircraft as a girl, and of being told by an officious foreman in a bowler hat that if she made any mistakes she would be responsible for allowing the Germans to win the war.

  ‘I want you to look at the photograph/ said Morrissey, ‘because you will be able to see how proud my grandfather was of his uniform.’

  Pilot Officer McTcague was immaculate in his RAF uniform, with his peaked cap, brand new hoops on his sleeve, and a medal on a ribbon pinned to his breast pocket. He stood almost to attention, with his arms at his side. His tic was perfectly straight, and there were sharp creases in his trouser legs. The uniform would have been blue, of course, though the photo was black and white. Probably the original print had been sepia — this looked like a computer-enhanced copy. It had brought out the features of McTcague’s face a small, dark moustache, a proud smile,

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  and a direct ga/.c at the camera from a pair of clear eyes. He was a good-looking man, who must have turned the heads of a few girls in uniform. And, yes, there was a definite resemblance in his eyes to the granddaughter who sat across the table from Cooper now.

  ‘He’s wearing his Distinguished Flying Cross, as you can see,’ said Morrisscy.

  Jepson put his copy of the photograph down on his file. ‘January 1945,’ he said.

  Morrissey nodded. ‘On 7th January 194-S, my grandfather was at the controls of Lancaster bomber SU-V,’ she said. ‘The crew called their aircraft Sugar Uncle Victor.’

  It was Frank Raine who took up the story. This was his expertise, his specialist field of knowledge. Raine had shaved his head, a fashion that had ousted the comb-over as a means of hiding the beginnings of baldness. As soon as he began to talk.

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  Cooper saw w hy Alison Morrissey had brought Baine along. He hardly needed to refer to any notes to deliver the facts of what had happened on 7th January 194 S. The facts as far as they w ere known, anyway.

  ‘Lancaster SU-V had suffered damage to the outer starboard

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  engine from an attack by a German night-fighter during a bombing raid on Rcrlin,’ he said. ‘The engine had been replaced with a new one, and the crew were on a flight to test the new engine. It was routine they were due to flv from their

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  base at RAF Leadenhall in Nottinghamshire to RAF Renson in Lancashire. It was a distance of no more than a hundred miles. This crew had flown several operations over Germany and had returned safely. Rut something went wrong over Derbyshire.

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  SU-V crashed on Irontongue Hill, ten miles from here. There were seven people on board. Five of them died in the impact.’ Cooper found the crew list in front of him. Seven names. Only one of them w as familiar so far — that of the pilot, Daniel McTeague. ‘Hang on a moment,’ he said. ‘Which crew members

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  were killed?’

  ‘First of all, the wireless operator, Sergeant Harry Gregory,’ said Raine.

  ‘Yes.’ Cooper put a small cross next to his name on the list.

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  ‘The bomb aimer, Rill Mcc, the mid-upper gunner. Alec Hamilton, and the rear gunner, Dick Abbott, who were all British RAF sergeant^.’

  ‘And one more?’

  ‘One of the Poles,’ said Raine. ‘The navigator. Pilot Officer Klemens Wach.’

 
‘Apart From McTcague, that leaves just one who survived,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Correct.

  ‘The last one then is the Might engineer. I’m not quite sure how to pronounce it …’

  ‘It’s Lukasz,’ said Raine. ‘Like^ou/mVi. The other survivor was Pilot Officer Zygmunt Lukasz.’

  Grace Lukasy. noticed that Zygmunt showed no interest now in attending Dom Kombatanta, the Polish exservicemen’s club. She was glad about that. These days, the old soldiers and airmen seemed to talk of nothing else but war and death, as if the lives they had lived over nearly six decades since 194-5 had been telescoped into a fortnight’s leave from operational duties. She had heard one former paratrooper who had drunk too much vodka in the club one night saw that he had never

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  been so alive as when he was facing death. And that’s what they were doing now, too - the old servicemen were standing by to climb on board for their last journey, their final venture into the unknown. This time, their transport would be a hearse.

  At one time, Zygmunt and his friends had taken an interest in British politics. They had discussed endlessly what they thought was an amazing apathy on the part of the British themselves, who hardly seemed to want to bother voting, let alone listening to what the politicians had to say.

  ‘They haven’t been the same since Winston Churchill,’ Zygmunt had said one day.

  ‘Dad, that was nearly sixty years ago,’ said Peter.

  ‘That’s what I mean!’ said Zygmunt. ‘It’s been downhill ever since.’

  Rut that had been in the days when he would still speak English.

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  The old man had a knack of making Grace feel foreign. It was an uncomfortable feeling, which she had never quite got used to since marrying Peter. Before, her name had keen Woodward, and she had never even considered her national identity. She had been British, and that meant you didn’t have to think about it. But suddenly one day, her name was Lukasz, and people treated her differently, as it she had been re-horn as a foreigner. Even people she had known all her life and had been to school with seemed to imagine that she might have forgotten how to speak English.

  And then, after the accident six years ago, Grace had found herself heing glad to feel foreign. Now, when she went into a shop and people fell suddenly silent, she was able to believe that it was because they had heard only her name and mentallv

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  labelled her as some kind of East European asylum seeker. There were plenty of asylum seekers now, in the guest houses in Buxton Road.

  Grace had read stories in the newspapers recently about groups of East European women and children visiting shops in local villages supposedly asking (or directions and distracting the shopkeepers while their children stole from the shelves. She had no doubt it was true. Most of these people were gypsies anywav, and Cdendale had suffered its share of gypsy problems for many years. One year, a tribe of them had parked their lorries and caravans in a field next to Queen’s Park. From the corner of the Crescent, she had been able to see their washing lines and their children playing in the hedge bottoms; she had watched their dogs running wild and their rubbish piling up day by day in the corner of the held. It had been like watching the coming of winter and the dying of the landscape, like waiting and waiting lor the first day of spring, when the sun eventually came out and it seemed possible to make things look neat and respectable again. She had experienced the same sense of impotence, the same impatience, as she waited for an irritation to be gone from her life.

  But finally, one morning, the gypsies had departed before dawn, leaving a sea of mud in the field and litter of all kinds strewn down the banking towards the road. What did it matter to her where the gypsies went when they moved on? What did

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  it matter to her where the snow went.’ 1 he snow was absorbed back into the earth somehow, that was all that mattered. There was a cleansing rhythm to nature that she tound comforting.

  Grace turned back to the room. Her eye immediately tell on the Lukasx family photograph in the alcove near the door. Herself and Peter, Zvgmunt and Krystvna, with the grandchildren at

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  their knees. She had once, before they were married, tried to persuade Peter to change their surname. She thought it would be best for their future children. A good alternative would have been Lucas, she had said. It would only have been a change in spelling really; the pronunciation was almost the same. Peter had sail! no. I le had said it in a tone of voice she had not heard from him until then, a tone that made her hesitate, then decide not to argue. He had never given her a reason, and she had not asked, in the end.

  She looked at the face of the old man, Zvgmunt, at the proud tilt of his head and the direct stare. Peter was becoming more and more-like his father with age. Sometimes, if she watched him carefullv, she saw a different look in her husband’s eves when the old man called him ‘Piotr’. It was a look that she had never been able to bring to his eves, even in their most intimate moments. No matter how many times she whispered his name, she could never bring the same look of pride. The meaning wasn’t there for him in ‘Peter’ in the way it was when lie heard his Polish name. For a moment, she wished she could do it by calling him ‘Piotr’ herself. But she knew it was loo late to change a habit now.

  Grace went quickly to the window when she heard the sound of a car. A Ford had pulled up at her kerb beyond their hedge. She could see a man with fair hair in the driver’s seat. It wasn’t Andrew. A woman got out on the passenger side. She met

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  Grace’s eves tor a moment. Then she turned awav and walked to a house two doors down, while the driver waved and drove oil. Grace let go of the breath she had been holding. It wasn’t her either. Not yet.

  Frank Baine waited to be sure he still had their attention. Alison Morrissey had her gaze (ixed on Chief Superintendent Jepson.

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  She seemed to he trying to will the Chief to listen, though Ben Cooper knew Jepson well enough to see that his brain had switched off already. Probably he had decided in advance the amount of time he was prepared to give. Cooper wondered how fast the clock was ticking down.

  ‘Former Pilot Officer Zygmunt Lukasz is the sole surviving crew member of Sugar Uncle Victor/ said Bainc. ‘Lukasz was one of the youngest of the crew, but even he is seventy-eight now. As it happens, he lives here, in Edcndalc.’

  ‘No doubt you’ll be visiting him,’ said Jepson, as if suggesting there was no time like the present.

  ‘We have been in contact with the Lukasz family,’ said Bainc. ‘It would be (air to say that they’re not keen to cooperate.’

  ‘Pity/ said Jepson.

  ‘On the day of the crash, the skipper had filed a visual flight record with flight control, as was normal practice/ said Bainc. ‘He’d been briefed on broken clouds at two thousand feet and poor visibility. But somehow he went off course and found himself over the Peak District. He discovered the fact too late, when he nosed the aircraft down through the overcast to establish his position. Directly in front of him was Irontonguc Hill. He never stood a chance of avoiding it.’

  ‘Five men died in the crash. There were two who survived.

  ‘Yes, the seventh was the pilot, my grandfather/ said Alison Morrisscy. ‘After the crash, he was never found.’

  Cooper was ready for this. It was the whole point of the meeting, after all. The rest was just preamble. ‘He was listed as having deserted/ he said. ‘In the air accident enquiry, he was also blamed for the crash.’

  Morrisscy turned on him suddenly. ‘He was the pilot. He was in command of the aircraft. Since there was no evidence given of enemy action or mechanical fault, he was bound to take the blame. He was branded guilty by default. And there’s absolutely no evidence that my grandfather deserted. Absolutely none.’

  ‘But he was seen leaving the area/ said Cooper.

  ‘No — he was not/

  Chief Superintendent Jepson stirred slightly, his int
erest piqued by the suddenly raised voices. He studied the report

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  that had keen prepared for him by the Local Intelligence Officer. ‘According to my information, two young hoys were spoken to, who said they had seen an airman walking down the Rlackbrook Reservoir road, from Irontongue Hill towards Glossop. That seems (airly conclusive.’

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  ‘Their statement was crucial. I’d like to find them now to talk to them, hut the hoys aren’t named in the reports I have.’

  ‘That might he unfortunate from your point of view, Miss Morrissev, hut they were only children, after all. Twelve years old, and eight. Why should they lie ahout something like that?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Also, it appears that a man in uniform was reported to have been seen heading away from the area later that day. In fact, he was picked up by a lorry driver on the A6 near Chinley. That was a perfectly normal thing for a driver to do hack then.’

  ‘The man was never positively identified as Pilot Officer McTcague,’ said Morrissey.

  ‘We used to do it until quite recently, in fact. But not for a few wears.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Give lifts to servicemen. They would stand at the roadside with their kithags and a sign saying where they were going, and motorists would stop for them. You could see what they were hy their haircuts, hecause all the other young men of their age had long hair then. I can rcmemhcr picking a few soldiers up myself on the M6 roundabout near Preston, in the days when I was serving with the Lancashire force. These days, though, you can’t trust anybody. You never know who might have got hold of an army uniform or a hit of equipment. Let them into your car and you could be mugged in a minute, or worse. I would advise members of the public against it, for their own safety.’