The Hidden War

by David Fiddimore

  Bozey drove up in my Merc, parked it on the back of the pan and locked it before he walked away. I asked him, ‘Come to see us off?’

  ‘No, boss. I decided to fly the first leg alongside Dave. His navigator and engineer.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like that. I thought I put you in charge here.’

  ‘You did. That’s why I make the flying decisions today – not you.’

  ‘I suppose you think you’re better at that than me anyway?’ I guess we were all a bit keyed up.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Borland spoke very carefully.

  ‘I will,’ Max said cheerfully. He and Ronson had wandered over from under the Pink Pig’s wing. ‘You can’t sack me the way you can the others. You’re crap at picking who flies with whom.’

  Dreyfuss was with them. He hadn’t met Scroton before, but now he introduced himself and shook his hand. He was flying this trip on Dave’s radio: everyone knew by now that I was in the Pig.

  ‘Who’s left in charge?’ I asked Bozey.

  ‘Hardisty. He’ll stay in the office until we’ve all touched down.’

  ‘Is he any good at telling lies?’

  ‘Top-hole, boss. I thought that was what this outfit was looking for when you took us on.’ He grinned, and held out his hand. I had to smile back as I took it. ‘See you in Lübeck . . . Hals und Beinbruch . . .’ he said as he turned away to climb up. Break a leg – the good-luck wish of one flyer to another from the old German Imperial Air Service. Before he went over to check and close the cargo door – he would lock it from the inside – he bent to his feet, picked up an animate mass, and pushed it in ahead of him. That was Spartacus. No matter what language they are speaking delight always sounds the same on children’s tongues, doesn’t it? Their squeaks and giggles were the last noise I heard from them as the door was closed.

  I should have sent Frieda and her niece with them of course, but she was having none of it, and we’d had that argument a few hours earlier . . . they were sticking to me and the dangerous bit. I had conjured up every persuasive power I had. Not a bloody chance.

  ‘I think you’re lucky for me, Charlie. I stay with you.’

  ‘I’m lucky for everyone except myself,’ I had told her. ‘I’m fed up with it.’

  ‘We have time to go to bed before Hanna brings Elli back.’ That was that. I lost myself in the morphia of her curves for half an hour. As we had driven out to the airfield one of the things that had occurred to me was that I hadn’t taken the cover of telling the Old Man that it was partly her idea, in case everything went tits-up.

  Max and Ronson had already preflighted the Pig. I fired up her radio rig – the old-fashioned one. Scroton fired up Whisky alongside us. All her cabin lights were on. Max copied him, but all our lights remained off. Dave waved. Ronson waved back from our darkened flight deck. All set.

  As we taxied away in the Witch’s wake I looked down through my small square port, and could see the women and Marthe’s man huddled together in the front of the Hotdog and Coffee Wagon. Tommo and his truck were already on their way back. I hadn’t even said Goodbye to him. I waved. I think they must have seen me because Magda flashed the lights. Then they were in the dark. I remembered Frieda and Elli were sitting back close to the tail. It would be cold and dark back there as well, but at least she had a seat to strap into: I would go back and check on them later.

  Scroton lined up on the right of the runway. He still had all of his lights on. Max lined up to his left: he still had none of his. There was just enough room for the two Goonybirds alongside each other, Max slightly behind Dave. If Gatow was running Control from the terminal we were out of sight of them in the gloom: and even if it had transferred to the portable cabin, that was at least seven hundred and fifty yards away.

  The idea was that Gatow would launch only one Halton Dakota, whilst we would launch two – I’m sure that you’ve worked that out yourself by now. As long as there was no flight nipping at our tails to get off after us, no one else would know. That’s why we were climbing into the sky at 0230. Over the radio I heard Dave’s clearance and chat with Flying Control. When he got the green he looked across at us. I saw the pale flash of his hand as he chopped it forward giving us the signal, and we began to motor together.

  I monitored the waves as we pulled away as one like a couple of fighter planes. Scroton kept us low until we were away from the city. A couple of times Control came back at him and urged more height, and then we started to put clean air between us and the ground about ten miles from Gatow. I heard Gatow preparing to clear a Hastings for take-off – we hadn’t seen it in the dark, so there was every chance its crew hadn’t seen us either – things were slightly, but only slightly, less frenetic in the early hours. Then I heard this exchange between two ground stations. The woman’s voice was whoever was awake in their emergencies service centre. She asked Control, ‘Was that one or two aircraft which just lifted off, Control?’

  ‘One of Halton’s old Dakotas. Why, honey?’

  ‘Don’t honey me. I thought I saw two.’

  ‘Can’t have done. You sound tired, honey. Like you need a warm bed . . .’

  ‘Bugger off, Arthur!’ Then there was a very obvious click. I’d met that Controller myself, and hadn’t fancied him much either.

  I checked our station-keeping on the Witch. Max had us in so close, and almost underneath her, that I had to crane my neck back to see her. Then I went back to check on Frieda. The kid was still asleep, despite the noise, and in my square masked torchlight I could see there were two cigarette butts on the floor beneath her seat.

  I shouted, ‘You OK?’ She didn’t reply, but nodded and reached out and squeezed my hand. I told her, ‘When you light a fag cup your hand over the light.’ I cupped my hands to demonstrate, the Dakota staggered for a moment in the cold air, and so did I. She reached out and steadied me, almost as fast as one of Alice’s strikes, and nodded she’d understood. ‘Thanks. I’ll come back later.’ She nodded again. It wouldn’t be too long before things got technical.

  I was actually back up in the cockpit, squeezed between and behind them, when the turn came up. Ronson had been holding up his nail on its bit of thread for about ten minutes when its point began to twitch inexorably to the north. I don’t know why his arm didn’t cramp. He glanced ostentatiously at his wristwatch, clicked and said, ‘Skip. Turn in four minutes and thirty seconds from . . .’ he paused, ‘. . . now.’

  Max nodded. He dropped us under the Witch’s tail, and put us into the descent which should have terminated at about a very twitchy five hundred feet above the Father Christmas trees below, before he commenced his turn. Hopefully Dave would stay not too far above us throughout the approach, and hide us in his radar profile until we split – it would only work if their buggers were half asleep down there. Ours would be, I knew, and I just hoped that the Russian squaddies manning their mobile radars were as tired, cold and homesick as ours were. I couldn’t hear any opposition radio traffic that sounded even vaguely urgent, or to do with us – but I’d got that wrong before, hadn’t I?

  Max put us into a flattish banked turn above the trees. At precisely the four minutes thirty Ronson had held his left hand up between them, four flat fingers and thumb pointing directly to the right. They must have done this before because they didn’t exchange words. As the bank to the right came on, and I got that slightly unnerving sense of one side of the aircraft beginning to feel just a tad lighter than the other, Ronson’s hand started to jerk gently back, almost degree by degree, until it was pointing directly ahead through the windscreens. Max had been counting the seconds. When he reached seventy-five he reached forward and switched on the instrument and navigation lights. The altimeter read four hundred and fifty feet, and it must have either snowed out here, or been subject to a hard frost, because we were flying above a white firebreak between the giant black pines. Max had told me that if we had to get down into it there was room for the Pig, with about a yard to spare at each wingtip. It was
an option I wasn’t keen to test. I put my hand on Red’s shoulder; he turned and lifted his earphone.

  ‘How long before we see it?’

  He glanced at his watch, then back at me. ‘Twenny or twenny-five minutes. That’s if I found the right firebreak.’

  That was something else I didn’t want to think about. I went back to the radio rig. I heard nothing to indicate that there was anything alive out there. I even had time to go back and check on Frieda before I felt Max throttle back. She pulled my head forward for a quick kiss. Her nose was as cold as ice: little Elli whimpered in her sleep.

  When I got back into the cabin the old slapdash Max had disappeared. The one in the pilot’s seat had tense, set shoulders and both hands on the wheel. The bottom of the screen had frosted over, and he was leaning forward to see over that. I could even sense the minute movements he was making with his feet. The landing lights were on, and gaunt treetops flashed past. Red muttered, ‘He hates flyin’ slow an’ low in cold weather . . . you can lose it too quick.’

  ‘He hates flying slow at any time; it’s not in his blood.’

  ‘Shut up, gents,’ Max spat. ‘Where’s your hand, Red?’

  ‘On the throttles, Skip, just like the “Wreck o’ the ol’ Ninety-Seven”.’

  That was a song the Americans were singing. I guess that none of us found it funny. Just when I thought that the firebreak went all the way to the Baltic because Red had picked out the wrong one, there was a field in front of us, and Max slapped us onto it. Poor old Pink Pig bounced twice, like a lobbed tennis ball, and the noise was tremendous. I only just stayed on my feet.

  ‘Ground frozen,’ Max grated through clenched teeth as he tried to get the speed off her, then, ‘Welcome to their bit of Germany, boss.’ When he audibly exhaled I guessed that we were all right.

  ‘I was there a fortnight ago. Didn’t like it.’

  Max rumbled the Pig around the grass; he obviously knew where he was going. He should have – it was the strip that the Soviets had shanghaied him onto weeks before. I went back to Frieda, found that Elli was crying, and Frieda was trembling. It wasn’t with the cold. When she asked me, her voice shaking, ‘Does that boy actually know how to fly this thing?’ I squatted down and hugged them.

  ‘He’s one of the best. No one else could have found this place in the dark and got us down on it.’

  She stopped shivering and said, ‘You can say I told you so if you like, Charlie.’

  ‘I told you so. What about?’

  ‘We should have been on the other aeroplane, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Too late for that. Don’t worry; not long now.’ Then I got up and left her. Elli had put her thumb in her mouth and had stopped whimpering. She regarded me with huge brown eyes. Pretty kid, I thought as I walked away.

  I opened the cargo door and hopped down. Then I closed it to keep in whatever heat was still in the Pig. Max was keeping the engines ticking over – probably scared to shut them down. Their exhausts made soft blue plumes in the black night, and I could see steam rising from the engine covers. The idling propellers seemed to make a lot of noise in the still air, but they probably didn’t. Apart from them, I could hear nothing. I could see nothing. Bloody Greg had let me down, hadn’t he?

  Ronson joined me. He lit a fag. I asked him, ‘This is where they burned your hands?’

  ‘Yeah; in an old brick machine-gun post alongside the hangar.’ I followed his glance. I could just make out a fractionally lighter hump at the edge of the black mass of the hangar which stood between us and the lower stars.

  ‘And you didn’t mind coming back?’

  ‘Yeah, I minded, boss. But I goes where the skipper goes.’

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘Life generally is. Wanna smoke?’

  ‘No. I’ll fill a pipe.’

  There was no wind, so his smoke hung around us in the air; a wonderful toasted tobacco smell. He asked me, ‘Am I in the clear over that Mantell thing yet?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I lied: I had completely forgotten it. ‘I think that Old Man Halton will be able to fix it.’

  ‘Good. I wanna go home. I wanna work on a farm, an’ never see another goddamned aircraft as long as I live.’

  ‘You really mean that?’

  He paused for a long time before he said, ‘No.’

  I lit my pipe then, and left him there. The hangar was locked, and Ronson’s machine-gun post smelled of piss. When I climbed back into the Pig, waving at Frieda and Elli before I turned my back on them, I moved up to sit alongside Max in Red’s chair.

  ‘Just as you remember it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yeah. Can’t see all that much though.’

  ‘That small pillbox stinks of piss.’

  ‘Sounds like the same place.’

  ‘That was some navigating.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, boss. Red’s some navigator.’

  ‘I’ll believe you from now on. How long can we afford to wait?’

  He must have been running the time in his head because he replied immediately, ‘About seven minutes.’

  ‘You always that precise, Max?’

  ‘No. I reckon it’s about as long as them lights will take to reach us.’

  I saw them as soon as he pointed them out to me: two sets of lights moving slowly through the trees to the east of us. They flickered behind the foliage, but kept station on each other, so I guessed they must be on vehicles moving along a track. It was time for me to get down again to greet our guests. Either it was going to be Russian Greg, and I would be a hero again, or it was some significant other, and we’d all end up in Siberia.

  All Russians are bastards. They kept me guessing until the last minute: the lights burst out onto the field and drove straight for the Pink Pig . . . even crossing the tracks she’d made across the frost-crisped grass. That would have prevented us changing our minds and taking off before they reached us. At the last moment they pulled over around her port wing and came to a halt near where I was standing. Their lights dazzled me, but in the minutes before they skidded to a halt I made out a small armoured car leading an army lorry with a tilt cover. In my mind I rehearsed the Russian words for We surrender I had idly learned from Greg months before. If they were Krauts I could always try Kameraden!

  The iron lid of the armoured car clanged open. It was a shockingly loud sound. I could just make out the shape of a head and shoulders levering itself out. The turret and its heavy machine gun traversed slowly towards me, and I lost my nerve and held my hands up.

  ‘Kameraden!’

  ‘No you’re not,’ Red Greg’s gravelly voice said. ‘You’re a fockin’ Englishman.’ Then he laughed. I didn’t see what was so bloody funny.

  We didn’t do the introductions because we ran out of time. The driver didn’t leave the small truck. Greg unbuckled the canvas tilt and helped out two children and a man and a woman. The children were so wrapped up you couldn’t tell their sexes. The man looked about sixty – he was probably about thirty – it was a common look then for people who came out of the Eastern Zone. I knew that the woman had been a fighter pilot in the Russian air force, so I had expected someone glamorous like Amy Johnson, Queen of the Air. This woman was small and sort of pinched-up looking, and in my torch light I could see that there was a scattering of grey in her cropped dark hair. She smiled uncertainly at me.

  ‘I’m Charlie,’ I told her as I helped her into the Pig. ‘Your bus conductor.’

  She paused momentarily, which was something I didn’t want.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Her voice was just as I remembered it. Low-pitched and weary.

  ‘Sorry, English joke. I’ll explain later,’ and I urged her on.

  Ronson had boarded in front of the passengers, and settled them onto a short bench the Pig had down one side of its aluminium inner skin. It had been designed for the Paras, and had useful lap belts. When I turned back to speak with the Gregs Ronson suddenly barked hoarsely at me, ‘Max says there’s
more lights in the forest, boss . . . a couple of miles off. We gotta go.’

  Red Greg said, ‘Yes. You gotta go. Border patrol.’

  ‘They’ll get you. Come with us.’

  ‘. . . an’ spoil a promisin’ career? No. Goodbye, English.’ He was still bloody laughing.

  No shake of the hand, no kiss on the cheeks – he ran back to the Dinky Toy armoured car. With legs that short he always looked funny running. Ronson dragged at my arm, pulling me back into the aircraft. Max was already winding up the engines. The Russian driver waved laconically from behind the wheel of the truck: did he know what his boss had got him into? Then we were moving in one direction and them in another. They drove straight for the track they’d arrived on, with all of their lights on. Max pointed the Pink Pig at the place he thought the firebreak was, and let her go: I was still checking the cargo-bay door was dogged shut when our wheels left the ground.

  I may have been wrong but I gained the impression that Max had us away from there with more height than we’d come in on: I suppose he was right. If it was a border patrol down there the time for subterfuge was over – our only chance was to barge our way into the neutral corridor before the Reds sent nasty things with red stars on their wings to find us. I spun the dials for twenty minutes but the only thing I heard was a lonely American C-54, which had wandered off track and off schedule, being chided by his Controller. It was only after I sat back and thought about it that I realized that it was all a bit odd.

  I stuck my shoulders through the bulkhead door space into the cabin. Ronson was doing the hand-signal game again. His left hand with its vertical palm was pointing right, across his body. He held his right hand up – fingers splayed – and was using them to count off the seconds: a finger came down with each second. I couldn’t see the nail. When he said, ‘Zero,’ at his clenched fist Max pulled us into a nice climbing turn. He had known I was there without looking. He said, ‘Spot for the other traffic, Charlie. I want to find us a gap to slot into.’