Mick felt about to be sick in the mask on his face. Yet knew that, if he was, at this altitude it would freeze solid, he would lose his oxygen supply, pass out, and that would be the end for both him and Fraser. He forced himself, forced himself to do nothing but look straight ahead.
‘Right, Jack,’ he managed. ‘How we going?’
‘Initial Point passed. We’re on the bomb-run. Dead-on. Hold your course and altitude. And I go into the nose.’
‘Roger,’ returned Mick as Fraser unclipped his safety harness and moved forward through the starboard access door into the Mosquito’s nose compartment, where he would now flick switches to arm the contents of the aircraft’s bomb-bay behind and beneath them, then, through the clear perspex nose, take aim with the bomb-sight at whatever landmark constitued his ‘Aiming Point’ – if any such ‘landmark’ still existed.
‘Bombs fused,’ came Fraser’s voice. ‘Open bomb doors.’
Mick operated the corresponding lever, ‘Bomb doors open,’ and hovered his gloved right thumb over the bomb-release button atop the right-hand grip of his control column.
Fraser’s voice continued. ‘You are directly on course. Aiming Point coming up. Left a bit. Left a bit. Steady. Stand by. Release bombs on my count. 3. 2. 1. NOW.’
Mick thumbed the button very firmly indeed. ‘Bombs away.’
As four 500-pound high-explosive bombs dropped from the Mosquito, it rose in the air like a lift.
Mick did not have to be asked. ‘Bomb doors closed, course for home, please, Jack…’
*
The late September evenings were still long, the Norfolk light hovering forever on the verge of dusk. With Jack Fraser attending a religious service at RAF Marham, and Dave Matthews ‘visiting’ a local war widow, in battle-dress and forage cap Mick took a walk up the long, straight road out west of the airfield, lush green fields extending far into the flat distance on either side. The land rising slightly as he went, topping the rise the road ahead became richly tree-lined, curving right then left as he walked down it, past cottages, though not a soul, only the sound of a weeping dog.
Reaching a T-junction, the land ahead became green open fields once again, on his left the imposing stone wall of what, having seen it from the air a few times, seemed a stately ‘manor house’ type of property, up the road to the right a parapet-topped church steeple of pale grey stone, over which two Mosquitos suddenly roared.
Following their flight out over the fields, by a line of trees a hundred or so yards ahead he saw a nun. In a white habit and veil, from the church he guessed, she moved along as if deep in thought, prayer perhaps, and seemingly unaware of his presence. He watched her a moment or two: she only kept on, becoming slowly but surely more distant. Turning away, Mick started down the road, the stone wall on his left, whatever lay just beyond it obscured by enormous trees.
The wall went on and on, beside it the road snaking gently side to side until after some time entering a forest, and a dark one. As he walked further and further into it the temperature dropped, and Mick remembered the last such forest he’d been in, and the beautiful young woman who had found him there. The young woman he now had at least some kind of chance to repay: for risking her life to save his, as a result losing her dear father and now most likely even the humble existence the war had forced upon her instead of the life she was born to lead. To repay her, he had to get back there with her. That meant driving the Germans out of her father’s orchard. And it was a strange feeling but Mick knew it: He wished not only to repay her. But to see her again.
At length the light returned to his way ahead, growing ever brighter, until the forest fell away, ahead now hedgerows on either side, a cottage or two, and then open fields as before, though now under a light deepening towards dusk.
Standing not twenty yards off on the edge of the vast field out to the left was a man in late middle-age, cap and jacket, and smoking a pipe. Noticing Mick almost immediately, ‘Hullo there!’ he hailed.
Mick approached and they shook hands.
Seeming strangely familiar to Mick, his name was Archie, his accent thickly refined, and though his tweeds were a bit tattered the fob-chain on his waistcoat looked like gold. When Mick remarked on the beauty of the countryside through which he’d just walked, ‘Thank you,’ was the man’s cheerful reply, scanning out over the field into the distance. At which point Mick realised he was addressing the owner of this field. And, presumably, of the walled ‘manor’ and the entire district.
‘Though where is everybody?’ put Mick, and chuckled. ‘My whole walk I’ve seen only you and heard a dog… Oh, and the nun back at the church…’
The older man became quite still, his eyes fixed fast on Mick’s. ‘Oh yes?’ he emitted. ‘…A woman in white, I presume.’
‘Yes,’ said Mick. ‘Like nuns wear.’
The man’s bushy eyebrows raised distinctly. ‘I think you’ve just seen our Barbara,’ he said.
‘I have?’ returned Mick.
‘Yes… Sister Barbara: She was the, uh, the Abbess of the abbey used to be opposite the church.’
‘What, did she retire?’ put Mick. ‘I didn’t know nuns retired,’ he smiled.
‘Oh, she didn’t,’ said the man.
Mick pivoted slightly. ‘So what’d she…’ – He paused mid-breath.
‘What, she’s a sort of… local character or something?’
The man smiled: ‘That she is, my young friend. That indeed she is. Yet alas I must bid you a good evening, and Godspeed.’ The man touched the peak of his cap, Mick managing a slight salute in return as he strode away.
How apt, thought the lord of the manor as on he walked, smile jettisoned, how strangely apt that the young gentleman had seen her… Archie had once seen her himself, or thought he had, but that was a very many years ago…
Nobody knew Marham, or wider Norfolk for that matter, better than Archibald Grove-Stokes. He knew the land, he knew its memories, also its stranger ‘inhabitants’… Approximately one per village in Norfolk, they were, indeed, his hobby and obsession: more often than not, souls who had gone violently, tragically, or when not ready to go; when still young. So the arresting thing for Archie regarding these young bomber boys like the one he had just met was how the nature of each one’s likely demise aligned precisely with those of the region’s current ‘inhabitants’…
Poor Sister Barbara. Bricked up alive behind the wall in the abbey. In 1530-something.
Archie might have chatted longer with the young chap. Yet it felt a little more than queer sometimes conversing with a likely ghost of the near future.
Friday, September 25, 1942
Mick entered the briefing hall of RAF Marham with Jack Fraser by his side, the armed guard Corporal of the RAF Military Police closing the door directly behind them. The first thing Mick noticed was that the vast majority of the hall’s chairs were empty, only a modest cluster of aircrew types seated before the dais, upon which sat the Wingco with two Flight Lieutenants Mick knew by now as 105 Squadron’s Intelligence and Meterological Officers, behind them on the dais the usual mission briefing screens and blackboards still security-curtained. Taking a seat beside Dave Matthews no less, who only shrugged, as far as Mick could make out there were four Mosquito pilot/navigator crews in attendance, plus a few other bods, an airman readying a slide projector. Over their low chatter Mick now heard the hall entrance door being soundly locked from the outside.
The Wingco looked at his watch. ‘Gentlemen,’ he pronounced, gaining the instant, silent attention of all present. ‘Today I have dispensed with the usual briefing hall formalties – dear to your hearts as they may be – as today is no ordinary briefing. Today, as you’ll gather, is a special op.’ Bedfords paused. ‘Gentlemen. Today we hit the Gestapo.’
Amidst the release of excitement from the Mossie crews around him, Mick shot a sideways look at Dave Matthews: The double-chinned Queensland footballer stared only straight ahead, his face, his eyes calmly primed for whatever might
come next.
‘This,’ Bedfords continued, ‘will be the first daylight low-level op ever done. And you will be doing it.’ He nodded to the Intelligence Officer, who stood, and drew back the curtain from the largest screen. This revealed the usual large-scale map of the United Kingdom and Occupied Europe joined by lines of red tape across the North Sea. Representing planned aircraft tracks, the unusual thing about this map, it struck Mick immediately, was how near its top margin the red lines sat: Indeed they seemed to join some place way up north in Scotland with…
‘Norway,’ declared the Intel Officer.
This was Hundleby. English, spectacled, mid-twenties going on forty, he was slim and awkward of frame, had tightly wavy hair, bad skin and everybody liked him. They called him ‘the Professor’.
He now drew the curtain off a smaller, lower-scale map: ‘Gestapo Headquarters, Oslo, Norway,’ he announced, as the curtain swished to the floor the heavy silence of the room slit by an awe-struck whistle. Hundleby then lifted a long pointer rod to the larger map, indicating as he spoke: ‘Take-off at 1400 Hours today from RAF Leuchars in Scotland, thence north-east across the North Sea to the Skagerrak Straits here between Norway and Sweden,’ – he tapped the map – ‘then a port turn north up the Oslo Fiord, here. Your target,’ – he indicated the smaller map – ‘is a prominently high-domed building right in the centre of Oslo called the Victoria Terrasse, precisely here,’ – a single, careful tap – ‘a building on top of which now flies the Nazi Swastika. Your navigators will of course sort out the fine details of your route at the close of this briefing.’
He now lowered the pointer, placing it aside, and faced the crews once more.
‘As to your mission objectives… The Gestapo: as you’re all no doubt aware, the German secret police. Omnipresent in Germany and all German-occupied countries. In each country they have a head office. Where they not only imprison, interrogate and torture members of local resistance to German occupation but also house their files on such resistance. Vast and immaculate banks of files, gentlemen, containing information on local resistance members known and suspected, whom it is the Gestapo’s mission to find and exterminate.
‘In a nutshell, gentlemen, without their files, the Gestapo are blind. Impotent. Today you will trash their files…’ A wistful look came over him. ‘The Germans seem quite bound up in their filing system… Like nobody else in Europe. A fact which may, just may prove a means by which we, not-to-put-too-fine-a-point-on-it, might soundly fuck with their German heads.’
His audience lapsed as one into genuine applause, even laughter, the Professor betraying a glimmer of a smile: ‘Just a theory, gentlemen, just a theory… Yet in all seriousness, my dear sirs, I did say “mission objectives”, plural, for indeed they are…
‘As you may also be aware, Norway, having been occupied by the Germans, is run at this time by a ‘puppet’ Norwegian government, its leader a Norwegian Nazi by the name of Quisling. …An odd name. An odd fellow… Yet these odd-balls have an even odder habit of attracting large numbers of devoted followers. Which indeed he has and they’re having a public flag-waving rally this afternoon in uncomfortably close proxmity to the Victoria Terrasse and its unscheduled demolition. So there’s your second objective, gentlemen: morale-sapping harm to the Quislings, morale boost to the Norwegian Resistance and population.’
‘Streuth,’ whispered Dave Matthews.
‘Your third objective,’ continued Hundleby, ‘and this may sound a little gone-in-the-head at first so bear with me but it’s “press”. Press, gentlemen, as in media coverage. News. The very thing with which we lured our American cousins into this war, and so the reason we’ll win it, in time… Today, it’s as simple as this: Today you will be making news. Front page news…’ His face deadly serious, he splayed his hands out in front of him as if tracing the headlines of a newspaper: ‘Daring daylight low-level raid on Nazi HQ by latest British bomber. Wooden Wonder fastest thing in the air… ’
His performance was clapped, and quite sincerely, Mick as one with the room, ‘This guy’s good,’ siding Dave Matthews.
‘Too kind, gentlemen, too kind,’ beamed Hundleby. ‘But if you pull this afternoon off, that could be the headline in tomorrow’s papers the Free World over. And yes, we even have a BBC Radio interview lined up for tomorrow night to broadcast how you did pull it off. Front page news, gentlemen. Go and make it. So we can keep on making it and there’s more ops like this one in the pipeline, believe me.’
He paused a moment, an almost unnerving certainty in his eyes: ‘Mass media, gentlemen. The Nazis came to power on it. Their Goebbels is genius at it. Now we’re going to be.’
*
Having flown north to Scotland, they’d landed at RAF Leuchars, where they were refuelled, but most importantly, where their Mosquitos were armed with two 1000-pound high-explosive bombs each, these fitted with 11-second delay fuses to save the Mosquitos dropping them from instant blast obliteration at roof-top height. After take-off at 1413 Hours they climbed out over the North Sea, levelled off as per the flight plan at 25 000 feet – just below the vapour trail layer – cruising speed 265 mph, destination: Norway.
Mick looked out forward left, there the ‘flight leader’, a DFC Brit Squadron Leader by the name of Perry, out left of him his Number 2, Dave Matthews, their Mosquitos olive and grey camouflaged upper, pale grey lower, paler still the 105 Squadron serial letters ‘GB’ beside RAF roundels vivid red-white-and-blue. Checking out right, there close off Mick’s wing a Brit Flight Sergeant called Cotter, Mick then offered a gloved thumbs-up back to Jack Fraser at his right shoulder, which was returned. Considering their primary target – the Gestapo’s files – in the moment Mick was struck by Jessop’s point about wars running on paperwork: He’d meant it literally.
Mick now focused ahead as they roared though a blue infinity above dazzling white; solid cloud cover over the North Sea far below – just as the Meteorological Officer said there would be.
*
At Stavanger on the west coast of Norway, the German radar operator saw blips on his cathode ray tube screen. He sat up from it. And spoke aloud: ‘Im hellen Tageslicht?’ He checked his wristwatch. Drew back the curtain, peered out the window: Broad daylight! And hours of it yet remaining and an incoming raid already?! He pressed the red button on his desk, instant alarm horns blaring out all across the Luftwaffe aerodrome, scooped up his telephone receiver, quick-wound its handle, through the window two Focke-Wulf fighter engines starting up across the tarmac, a pilot sprinting towards each.
Waiting for the obviously dozing fighter-defence duty officer to answer, the radar operator peered back to his screen, and tweaked one of its dials with expert subtlety: Plus whatever was coming in, they were coming in faster than anything he’d ever seen, day or night… Much faster…
*
Over the Skagerrak Straits, the cloud layer cleared, again, just as the Met Officer said it would, blue waters now far below, the green landmasses of Norway left, Sweden right. As Jack Fraser tapped Mick’s right shoulder, and pointed down ahead at these, the briefing hall slide-projector photos of their upcoming target landmarks were still sharp in Mick’s mind: The huge black and white images – some taken by a photo-reconnaissance Mosquito, some by the Norwegian Resistance – had laid it all out very clearly…
Reaching the mouth of the Oslo Fiord they would drop all the way down to 100 feet over the water, sweep to port up the fiord, Norway’s capital directly ahead. This they would approach from its south-east, rounding a broad, low hill, and the city would be in front, busy harbour on its left beside the old Akershus fortress of mighty stone. Beyond this, unmistakable amongst the city’s antique buildings would rise the modern twin towers of Oslo’s City Hall – distinct in red brick, said the Professor, one with a modern clock, directly beyond that the domes of the Victoria Terrasse, Nazi flags on top.
Ahead Mick now saw the flight leader’s wings waggle slightly, in his headphones Fraser’s voice…
‘Commencing descent to attack height.’
*
Standing alone before the mirror at one end of his vast office within Oslo’s Royal Palace, Vidkun Quisling, Minister-President of Norway, made a final check of his appearance: black wool suit, white linen shirt with black tie, Party lapel pin as ever, its design so pleasing to him still: golden eagle atop gold-crossed red shield – a round Viking shield, a Nordic shield – icon of Norway’s National Unity Party that Vidkun himself had founded and now led. In the mirror, Vidkun’s eyes stared darkly back at him, above them his blond swept-across hair – People called him the Nordic Hitler…
How Vidkun’s people hurt him; at 55 his political rise had been long and difficult, his current position hard-won and, unlike Hitler, Vidkun had had no ‘night of long knives’! He’d publically spoken out against Kristallnacht… Yes, he’d advocated Jewish deportation but not extermination… Norwegian Jews would be sent to the new camp at Berg then resettled, after the war, in some end-of-the-earth Semitic homeland. Could the Norwegian people not see all Vidkun wanted was the best for Norway?! And now they called him ‘Traitor’. Fie upon that! Yes, he had rescinded the order to resist the German invasion, in doing so closing Norway’s borders to international Bolshevism – Why weren’t the people grateful?!
Yes, Vidkun had regrets: Outlawing criticism and resistance against his government had been one; a hard decision yet true statesmen took hard decisions, stability in Norway his only goal. He was aware of ‘the Resistance movement’, acutely aware, but that rabble would be swept out in time, the Norwegian people would come around, of that Vidkun felt sure; he believed in them. Yes, even while they spoke so cruelly of him, the latest slur that his only friend in Norway was Hitler and not even him anymore. Vidkun had heard the talk: that the Führer had cut him off for failing to gain the loyalty of his own people, peace talks with Germany kaput. Well fie upon that! Vidkun would show them…
Ghosts of the Empire Page 24
