by Nick Cook
Kruze saw the object of the owner’s displeasure. A poster, boasting the proud, manly figure of Errol Flynn in combat attire, had been defaced in a large scrawling hand with the word “pansy”. The film was Objective Burma and it had caused quite a stir when it had first been released in London, Kruze recalled. It implied that Errol Flynn had captured Burma from the Japanese single-handed. An old woman caught Kruze grinning and frowned her displeasure. Kruze transferred his smile to her, touched his cap lightly and moved on.
He skirted the edge of Trafalgar Square and looked up at the figure of Admiral Nelson. That the Germans had not flattened the centre of London had been a miracle. The great buildings of Whitehall, the nerve centre of the British war effort, bore few scars, unlike Waterloo. There, Kruze had seen workmen pulling down the shell of a huge warehouse, hit by a V2 attack some months before.
As he approached the Ministry, Kruze patted the document in the inside pocket of his greatcoat. Once he’d delivered it he’d have more than enough time to take in a show or a film in one of the myriad theatre halls that crowded the West End. Perhaps he would see the Errol Flynn if the cinema had not been burned down by the mob he had just left.
The lobby of the Air Ministry was cold and gloomy and a large puddle lay under the coat-stand beside the main reception desk. Kruze took off his cap, exposing blond hair that was slightly longer than the regulation length. The middle-aged woman behind the desk smiled warmly at the Rhodesian.
“What can I do for you sir?” The voice was from the East End of London.
“I’m carrying a dispatch for Air Vice Marshal Staverton. Special delivery.” Kruze saw the heavily made-up face crease for a second as she tried to place his accent.
“Right, sir, I’ll have a pass made up for you right away.”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Kruze said quickly. The woman left the drawer with the entry forms half-open and looked up at him in surprise.
Kruze lowered his voice. “Look, I’m on leave at the moment and I’ve got a nasty feeling that if I see the old boy, I’ll never get away. You know how it is.” He leant forward a little until he could smell the powder on her face. She blushed under the gaze of his bright blue eyes.
“Of course, sir. I’ll see that this gets to the Air Vice Marshal all right. You’ll have to sign for it, though.”
Kruze printed his name on the form.
“Thank you, Squadron Leader,” the woman said, “enjoy your leave.”
Kruze couldn’t wait to get out. The thought of working at a desk in the Ministry brought him out in a cold sweat.
He rushed headlong into the cold air outside and never even saw the person who collided hard with his shoulder. Before he knew it, she was sitting in a puddle on the Ministry steps, rainwater splashed across the uniform of a sergeant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
“Aren’t you even going to help me up, you ill-mannered oaf? No, on second thoughts, don’t bother.” There was something about that voice. The shapely legs swivelled round until her feet were positioned on a lower step. As she reached for her cap, fair hair cascaded down over her shoulders.
Kruze knew it was Penny Fleming even before she had turned round. She gasped when she recognized him, the mask of anger turning immediately to surprise.
“Oh, Piet, I’m so sorry. I’d no idea -”
He helped her up. “Don’t apologize, it was my fault.”
“No, really, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” she stammered. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to be so rude.”
He smiled. “I hate to think what would have happened if you had.”
She flushed and turned away from him. He bent down to pick up her cap, taking his time. When he handed it to her she seemed to have regained her composure.
“Look,” he started, “if you need me to get you through security, I could go with you as far as the Bunker. You’ll never reach Robert otherwise - you know what Staverton’s like about guarding that miserable place.”
“No, thank you.” Her voice was firm, but her eyes seemed to shift nervously away from him. “I’m only leaving a message ... a letter. They can take it down to him from the lobby.”
He sensed she wanted to leave.
“I hope to see you both soon,” he said. “I owe you a dinner ...”
“That would be nice,” she said, making her way up the steps towards the great door of the Ministry.
He thought about Staverton’s questioning the day before. Perhaps he should have told him about Fleming’s panic attack during the air-test, the look on his face when he had drawn up alongside the Spitfire’s cockpit. The irony was, he knew Staverton didn’t really expect him to say anything, despite all the talk about the conspiracy of silence between pilots. Staverton was direct enough to probe the truth from Fleming himself, a fact which made the old boy’s interrogation all the more puzzling. The strain of the last few months had been getting to all of them.
Kruze decided to put it out of his mind. At the Cenotaph he turned right towards Trafalagar Square and back down the Strand, searching out the cinema where Objective Burma was showing. Kruze wanted as much to get out of the rain as to see the picture. He spotted the Rialto a hundred yards down the street. The crowd had disappeared, leaving only a few ticket-seekers gathered by the foyer.
It exploded without warning. No one saw it and no one heard it coming. Kruze was lifted off his feet as the cinema and several buildings on either side disintegrated in a ball of flame. The rush of hot, choking air that swept over him a second later was accompanied by an eerie high-velocity whistle.
Kruze tried to suck in the air that had been compressed from his lungs, then picked himself up and ran through the fog until he could see orange flames flickering through the clouds of dust and acrid smoke that burnt the back of his throat. As he stood before the epicentre of the blast, a cold breeze blew up from the banks of the Thames, driving the smoke away towards Piccadilly and fanning the flames to an intensity that forced back the few who had rushed to the building in the hope of finding survivors.
When the choking mist lifted, Kruze knew that few, if any, people would have survived in those buildings. A large store had taken the worst of the explosion, but the cinema was not much better off. Pieces of plush red seating poked through the shattered masonry. Broken pipes sprayed water over the entire scene, creating tiny flame-free oases around them. A woman’s body lay horribly mutilated a few feet from him, her limbs twisted and limp, as if every bone within them had crumbled into powder. Elsewhere, people attended passers-by who had been caught by the blast in the street.
The crackle of the flames from the building mixed with the crescendo of pain from the survivors, until it was the human sound which dominated. A distant clatter of bells signalled the approach of the fire engines and seconds later three arrived, weaving their way through groups of people in whose midst lay the wounded or dying.
When the fire engines fell silent, Kruze heard a cry from the far reaches of the cinema. At first he thought he’d imagined it, but then he heard it again. There was no one around him. The firemen were some distance away, bringing hoses to bear on the flames. Just then, two young soldiers appeared through the smoke and began pulling at the rubble twenty yards from him. Kruze called over to them, but they took no notice. Each had his own casualty to help. Realizing he was on his own, he darted towards the alley that used to separate the store from the cinema.
A moment later, the sound was distinctly recognizable as a plea for help, but Kruze could not see through the smoke. Then he saw the bright red sweater through the grey pall. For a second, Kruze was transfixed as the arms seemed to beckon to him. Then he realized that they were thrashing and clawing to be free of the wreckage. Kruze leapt over the smouldering velvet stage curtain between him and the obscure figure and seconds later was tearing at the bricks which had half-buried the young boy.
He could not have been much more than ten. When he stopped struggling, Kruze thought that he was too late,
that the shock had killed him. He wiped the grime away from the small, bruised face and saw the tears squeezing out between tight-clenched eyelids.
“What’s your name, feller?” Kruze tried hard not to transmit the slightest trace of panic in his voice.
The eyelids flickered open, but the reply was feeble.
“Billy, sir.”
“I’ll have you out of here in no time, Billy. Can you move your legs at all?” The lad shook his head and began to cry, his chest heaving as the sobs convulsed his body. “I want my Dad,” he whispered.
Kruze tore at the bricks once more and uncovered the beam which had fallen across Billy’s legs, breaking both of them and pinning him to the floor. The Rhodesian bellowed at the top of his voice for assistance. On the other side of the ruins he could hear more bells; ambulances removing the dying and the wounded. There was little chance that any of the rescuers would hear him.
He tugged at the beam. At first it would not move, then it gave a little, but Kruze could only raise it a few inches off the ground. It was all he could do to prevent it from crashing down on the boy’s pale and broken legs.
Kruze wiped the furrowed forehead and swept the matted brown hair from Billy’s eyes.
“Listen to me,” he said gently, “I’m going for some help. When I get back we’ll have you out of here, that’s a promise.”
Kruze made a move, but the boy grasped him by the fingers and tugged with all his strength. “Please don’t leave me.
Kruze was about to soothe his fears, when a gust of wind blew through the ruins, fanning the embers of the stage curtain which had been slowly smouldering nearby. It burst into flames.
Kruze tore his hand free from Billy’s grip and wrenched off his greatcoat. He tried to get close to the source of the flames but the wind whipped them up into an inferno which drove him back. He threw the coat over the boy and tried with all his strength to lift the beam high enough to throw it clear of Billy’s feet. This time Kruze raised the thick wooden support almost a foot off the ground, but the weight of the masonry at one end made it impossible to do any more. Kruze screamed for more strength, but he felt the energy being sapped from his body. The beam started to slide from his fingers.
A pair of hands pulled Billy away from the smoke and the flames. Kruze dropped the beam and ran, jumping over his fallen coat which had now become prey to the creeping flames from the curtain. He followed the figure running awkwardly with the boy through the smog-filled ruins in front of him, before losing them in a crowd of people who rushed forward to take the injured child to the nearest ambulance. As the white truck tore away, its bell clanging, the crowd parted to expose the anonymous rescuer.
Penny Fleming turned to face Kruze.
“I was just behind you when the explosion happened,” she said. “I saw you dart into the building and knew you’d seen something.”
“You could have been killed.”
“So could you.” She smiled. “I’m sorry I took my time, but it’s hard to climb over rubble in high heels.” She held up a battered shoe.
Away to the west the bell of an ambulance sounded above the din of the rescue workers.
“That poor little boy,” she said looking down the street, “will he be all right?”
“His legs were badly broken, but he seemed like a brave kid. I think he’ll pull through. Where are they taking him?”
“I heard one of the drivers say Charing Cross hospital.” She turned to the burning ruins of the cinema. “Do you think he had family in there?”
“He asked for his father once, but I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we go with him? He’ll be terrified, the miserable little thing.”
“Penny, there’s nothing we can do. He’ll be unconscious by now and in next to no time they’ll be operating on his legs. He won’t even wake up till tomorrow.”
“Then I must go and see him. Tomorrow.” She paused. “What about you?”
He looked up at the scudding grey clouds, so different from the sky over the New Forest where yesterday he had almost flown her husband into the ground.
“Why not? I didn’t really want to see Errol Flynn anyway.”
She looked puzzled.
“He was playing here at the Rialto.”
“Oh, I see.” She laughed. She studied him for a moment, unsure what he intended. He held her gaze. “What happened?” she asked, suddenly feeling conspicuous amidst the rescuers picking their way through the rubble. “I heard someone say it was gas.”
Kruze beat the dust from his cap. “The V2 is faster than sound, so there’s no sign, no way of spotting it. Just an explosion, followed by that rushing sound. Once you’ve heard it you’ll never forget it.” He looked back into the smoke. “Gas explosions are convenient explanations, not so bad for morale. Ordinary people don’t like hearing about weapons that kill hundreds at a time with no warning.”
She shivered. “I’ve never been so . . . close before.”
The rain had soaked her hair, causing several strands to fall down over her face. The defiance that had been etched there when she had turned on him outside the Ministry had disappeared, revealing soft, fair features instead. There
was a look about her, he thought, which bordered on elation.
“It doesn’t do to think about it,” he said.
She shook her head and smiled. “Not death, my God, I hadn’t really thought about that. I meant the war. It’s happened, here, and I finally did something about it. I actually saved a life, instead of shuffling pieces of paper around for the RAF.”
The Rhodesian remembered his dinner at their cottage, so English with its little gravel path, the wild roses over the porch and inside, glimpses and snatches of an alien life. Photographs of Robert at his pukka public school, studio portraits of her parents staring from their frames in that way only the British aristocracy could. Talk of racing, parties, picnics, large country estates and the antics of eccentric friends. She was, and was not, a part of all that.
They stood watching each other, while a short distance away the firemen battled to keep the blaze under control. Kruze was suddenly struck by the absurdity of their surroundings.
“Look, we’re going to freeze if we don’t get moving.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We could get a drink. I reckon I owe you one.”
She looked at her watch. It was past closing time. “A drink? At this time of day? My dear Piet, this is London, not some Rhodesian country club.”
He smiled. “Come on, I know just the place.”
* * * * * * * *
At that moment Robert Fleming was a hundred miles away, heading for the burns ward in the military hospital attached to the United States 8th Army Air Force base at Horsham St Faith in Norfolk, and on some wild bloody goose chase. A B-17 gunner, pumped to the eyeballs with morphine, had ranted about being attacked by a rocket fighter. Not that there was anything unusual in that. The stubby little Me 163B Komets had been knocking B-17S and Liberators out of the sky every day of the week for the past four months. They were highly effective quick reaction fighters, but their flaw was they were short on range. Their modus operandi was simple: wait for the bomber waves to come over, light the rocket, pop up to forty thousand feet, knock down a Fortress, or two, or three, and glide back to base.
The remedy had been fairly simple, too. Plot the 163 bases and stay well clear of them.
Now this gunner had gone and said that a 163 had pounced on his straggling B-17 over the North Sea - almost two hundred miles from the German coast. So the Americans, in their wisdom, thought the EAEU should hear about it. Hallucinations from a dying man. But someone had to check it out.
Fleming flipped the report shut. Poor sod. Probably just as well he’d lost his marbles. All the way to Regensburg and back only to have his Fortress blow up over the field. Must have pulled his rip-cord somehow. But the nine others were all gone.
Horsham, one of the largest bases of the “occupying” US forces,
who had been present in Britain since 1942, took some of the worst casualties amongst the Fortress and Liberator crews during the course of the “Mighty 8th’s” daylight raids over Germany.
He had been apprehensive on the train journey from London to Norwich, and the feeling did not disappear during the early part of the ride in the staff car that took him the few miles from the railway station. He had made a supreme effort to quell the pain that was welling up inside him at the thought of the visit ahead. From what he had seen of Marello’s medical dossier, it read even worse than his own.
Fleming had relaxed the closer he got to the base. He had been raised in East Anglia and had spent a happy childhood in Wymondham, a market town close by. Many people hated the flatness of the countryside, but for Fleming it was an exhilarating place. Apart from a few remote cottages by the roadside, the scenery was devoid of habitation and the wild pine trees, separated by the rough, grassy heathland, had a strange, primeval quality which he had always liked.
It was all infinitely preferable to the Bunker, which he shared with Staverton when the Old Man wasn’t down at Farnborough. His office was situated twenty feet below ground and he hardly ever got to see the light of day. Trips like this were rare. Most of the data analysis that came with the job was carried out in the Bunker, as it was irreverently referred to by those who worked there, at the Ministry.
Fleming had no idea what Kruze had said to Staverton during his debrief after the Junkers fiasco at Farnborough, but the AVM had been strangely conciliatory when he had eventually reported in, suggesting he should go to Horsham St Faith to get out of London, enjoy the journey, get some fresh air. But Staverton couldn’t seriously have placed any credence in the gunner’s story. At the back of his mind he had the nagging feeling that this was another of Staverton’s tests of his mental and physical condition.
His thoughts were interrupted as he caught a glimpse of a B-17 lumbering over the perimeter about a hundred yards away, its flaps fully extended and four 1200 hp Wright Cyclone engines straining as it came into land.
