At length Saeton said, “All right. I’ll see if I can get some sense out of him. Mind if I talk to him alone?”
The I.O. agreed and led Diana away. Saeton came and stood over me. He was smiling. “For some reason the Russians have been very helpful,” he said. He was quite sure of himself again now. “You’ve heard about this report, have you? They say they found the remains of one of the crew.” I made no comment. His head was in silhouette against the light. It hung over me as it had done that first night at Membury. And he was smiling. “Well, how did you find him?” I told him about the search and when I had finished he said, “So he’s injured. Badly?”
“Broken arm and ribs and a pierced lung,” I said. “We’ve got to get him out. He needs hospital treatment.”
“And if he doesn’t get it?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “There’s a German doctor looking after him. But Tubby is pretty bad. I think he might die.”
“I see.” He ran his thumb along the blue line of his jaw. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I can’t do anything. That bloody little Intelligence Officer doesn’t believe me. I want you to tell them you believe what I’m saying—persuade them to give us a plane.”
“Us?” He gave a quick laugh.
“Tubby won’t talk,” I said quickly. “He promised me.”
“I’m on the very edge of success,” he said and I realised that he had room for nothing else in that queer, urgent mind of his.
“Yes, I heard about that,” I said. “Is it true officials are coming out from England?”
He nodded, his eyes lighting up. “Everything’s gone marvellously. First trip my flight engineer was staggered by the performance of the engines. Within twenty-four hours it was all over the mess at Wunstorf and R.A.F. engineers were flying the airlift with me, checking for themselves. Now the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Supply are sending their experts out, including a boffin from Farnborough. By this afternoon——”
“What about Tubby?” I said. “You can’t abandon him. You’ve got to get him out.”
“You should have thought about him before you told me you were going to the authorities as soon as you got back here.”
“I won’t talk,” I said hastily. “Nor will Tubby.”
“It’s too late to say that now.” And then he added slowly, “As far as I’m concerned Tubby is dead.”
He said it without any emotion and I stared up at him, seeing the hard line of his jaw, the cold slatiness of his eyes, unable to believe even then that he meant what he said.
“We’ve got to get him out,” I insisted.
He shrugged his shoulders. “You know damn’ well I can’t accept your story. It would be fatal.”
I didn’t believe him at first. “You can’t leave Tubby out there in the Russian Zone.”
“I’ll do nothing to betray the belief of the authorities in this Russian report,” was his reply.
The full horror of what he was saying dawned on me slowly. “You mean——” The words choked in my throat.
“I mean I’ll do nothing,” he said.
All right. If he was as cold-blooded as that … “Do you remember how you blackmailed me into stealing that plane?” I asked.
He nodded slowly, that cold smile back on his lips.
“Well, I’m going to blackmail you now,” I said. “Either you fly me into Hollmind to-night to pick up Tubby or I tell the I.O. here everything—how I pinched the plane, how I nearly killed Tubby, how you altered the numbers and we strewed the wreckage of our old Tudor through the Hollmind woods and how you set fire to the hangar at Membury so that there would be no trace.”
“You think he’d believe you?” There was almost a sneer in his voice.
“Get him out, Saeton,” I whispered urgently. “If you don’t, I’ll bust the whole game wide open. Understand?”
His eyes narrowed slightly. That was the only sign he gave that he took my threat seriously. “Don’t think I haven’t taken care of the possibility of your reaching Berlin,” he said quietly. He glanced round at Diana and the I.O. and then in a louder voice: “No wonder you get scared when it comes to jumping. You’re about the most imaginative flier I ever met.” He turned and nodded to the I.O. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t get any sense out of him.” He drew the officer to one side. “I’m afraid he’s pretty bad. Concussion or something. He keeps on talking about pinching a plane and having a fight with Carter. I think he’s all mixed up in his mind with that escape he did from Germany in 1944.” They began whispering together and I heard the I.O. mention the word “psychiatrist.” Diana was staring at me dully, all hope gone from her eyes, her body slumped at the shoulders in an attitude of dejection. Saeton and the I.O. came back towards me and I heard Saeton saying, “… if we knew what happened when the plane crashed.”
“You know damn’ well it didn’t crash,” I jerked out. Sudden, overwhelming hatred of him swept me to my feet. “I know what it is. You want Tubby dead. You know damn well the credit for those engines is his. You want him dead.”
They stared at me like humans looking through bars at a caged animal. “I’ll get him away,” the I.O. whispered quickly to Saeton and Saeton nodded.
I turned to Diana then. She was the person I had to convince. She knew Saeton, knew the set-up—above all she was the only one of them that wanted to believe that Tubby was alive. “Diana, you must listen to me,” I implored her. “You’ve got to believe me. Tubby isn’t dead. I saw him yesterday afternoon.” My head was swimming and I pressed my hands to my temples. “No, it wasn’t yesterday. It was the day before. He was badly injured, but he could talk. I promised I’d come back for him. If you love him, Diana, you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to make the people here believe——”
A hand grasped my shoulder and spun me round. “Shut up!” Saeton’s face was thrust close to mine. “Shut up, do you hear? Tubby’s dead. You’re just saying this to cover yourself. Can’t you realise how Diana feels? Until you turned up there was a good chance he was alive. Everybody thought the body the Russians found in the plane must be yours. You were the skipper. But you turn up. So it’s Tubby who is dead, and now you try to raise false hopes in an effort to——”
I flung his hand off. “You devil!” I said. “You’re the cause of all this. It’s your fault he’s out there in the Russian Zone.” I turned to Diana. “The plane didn’t crash at all,” I cried. “I flew it back to Membury. Saeton forced me to do it. Tubby tried to prevent me. There was a struggle and——” I could see they didn’t believe me.
“Get him out of here,” I heard Saeton say. “Get him out before he drives Mrs. Carter crazy.” Hands closed on my arms and I was dragged across the room to the door. I screwed my head round and saw Saeton standing alone, his face grey and tired looking, and Diana was staring across at him, her lips trembling. Behind them the air crews stood in silence looking on. Then the door closed in my face and I was out in the grey dawn of Gatow Airfield with the roar of planes and the deliberate, operational movements of lorries and German labour teams.
I had a brief glimpse of the FASO apron, gleaming dully in its leaden mantle of slush. Close by a German labour team were hauling sacks of coal from the belly of a Dak and beyond it another Dak was swinging off the perimeter track and an R.A.F. corporal was signalling it into position. A lorry rolled past us to meet it. A sergeant of the R.A.F. Police had the ambulance doors open and I was bundled in. The Intelligence Officer climbed in beside me. The sergeant saluted stiffly and the doors closed, boxing us into a dark little world that shook with the roar of planes. A slight vibration of the stretcher bunk on which I had been sat told me the engine was running, and then we moved off, slithering on the wet surface as we swung round the fuel standing of Piccadilly Circus. “Where are we going?” I asked the I.O.
“Sick bay,” he answered. “I rang up Squadron Leader Gentry from the Malcolm Club. He’s the M.O. He’s expecting you.”
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p; I was conscious of that sense of helplessness that comes to the individual when he is in process of being absorbed into the machine of an organised unit. Once I was in the M.O.’s clutches anything could happen—they’d regard any request as prejudicial to the patient’s recovery. They might even drug me. “I want to see the station commander,” I said.
The intelligence officer didn’t answer. I repeated my request. “Take my advice, Fraser,” he said coldly. “See the M.O. first.”
I hesitated. Somehow his voice seemed to carry a note of warning. But I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was thinking about Tubby. “I’ve got to see the station commander,” I said.
“Well, you can’t. I’m taking you to the M.O. Put your request to him if you want to.” In the half-light I could see his eyes watching me. “I’m saying that for your own good.”
“For my own good?” His eyes had turned away as though breaking off the conversation. All I could see was the pale outline of his face under the peaked cap. “I’m not worrying about myself,” I said. “It’s Carter I’m worried about.”
“I should have thought that was a waste of time now.”
The tone of his voice stung me. “Civil airlift pilots come under R.A.F. for administration and discipline, don’t they?” I asked. The outline of his head nodded slowly. “Very well, then. Take me to the station commander’s office. That’s a formal request.”
His eyes were back on my face again now. “Have it your own way,” he said. “But if you’re fit enough to see the station commander, you’re fit enough to see Squadron Leader Pierce, R.A.F. Police.” He turned and tapped on the partition separating us from the driver. A small hatch slid back. “Terminal building first,” he ordered the driver.
“What did you mean about R.A.F. Police?” I asked.
“Pierce is very anxious to see you. Some question of an identity check.”
Identity check! “What do you mean?” For a moment the thought of Tubby was thrust out of my mind. Identity check! Had Saeton talked about me? Was that what he meant when he had said he had taken care of the possibility of my reaching Berlin? Was this his attempt to discredit me? “Whose instructions is he acting on?” I asked.
“I know nothing about it,” the I.O. answered in that same cold, deliberate voice.
Before I could question him further the ambulance had stopped and we were getting out. The terminal building was a lifeless hulk of concrete in the cloud-skimmed dawn. The tall windows of the control tower looked with dead eyes upon the runway where a single Tudor was lining up for take-off. There was no outward sign that this was the hub and heart of the world’s busiest air traffic centre; beyond it the wings of a Dak widened against the dull cloud-scape over Berlin as it dropped towards the runway like a toy pulled by an unseen string. As we went through the swing doors the Tudor took off with a roar that split the dawn-cold stillness.
The I.O. took me up to the first floor. Little placards stood out from the doors of wood-partitioned offices; Flight Lieutenant Symes, Intelligence Officer—white on blue next to Public Relations. The I.O. pushed open the door. “Wait here, will you, Fraser. I’ll go down and see if the station commander has come in yet. He usually shows up about this time. Likes to have a look round before breakfast.” He turned to the medical orderly. “You wait here with Mr. Fraser, corporal.” He glanced at me quickly, but his eyes slid away from mine and I went into his office, wondering whether he thought I was going to try and escape. The corporal shut the door as I stood there listening to the I.O.’s footsteps fading down the wide corridor.
The office was a big one with two windows looking out across the standing and the hangars to the FASO apron still barely visible in the reluctant daylight of that bleak January morning. The arc lamps had been switched off, but runway and perimeter lights still burned, a complicated network of yellow and purple. The Dak was landing now and another Tudor was moving up the perimeter track towards the control tower. I could almost hear the pilot calling his number over the R/T, requesting permission from Traffic Control to taxi, and I wondered whether it was Saeton. Beyond the hangars lorries moved in a steady stream from the off-loading platform, moving slowly and positively towards Berlin with their loads of Ruhr coal.
“Fraser!”
I turned. The door behind me had opened and the I.O. was standing there, holding it open for a short, burly man in a wing commander’s uniform. “This is the station commander,” the I.O. said, closing the door and switching on the light.
“Sit down, Fraser.” The station commander nodded to a chair. “Glad you got back all right. But I’m sorry about Carter.” His voice was quiet, impersonal. He placed his cap on the top of a steel filing cabinet and seated himself at the desk. In the naked lights I saw that the beaverboard walls of the office were covered with maps and charts, a kaleidoscope of colour—Russian tanks, Russian planes, survey maps of Berlin, Germany with the air corridors marked in white tape, a huge map of the British Zone dotted with flags bearing squadron numbers and a smaller map of Eastern Germany covered with chinograph on which had been scribbled in different colours the numbers of Russian units. The whole room was a litter of secret and semi-secret information, most of it relating one way and another to the Russians. “Understand you wanted to see me?” The slight rise of inflection in the station commander’s voice at the end of the sentence was, I knew, my cue. But I hesitated, reluctant to commit myself to a line of approach. “Well?”
I gripped hold of the wooden arms of the chair. The walls of the room were beginning to move again. It seemed very hot in there and the lights were blinding. “I want a plane, sir. To-night. Carter’s alive and I’ve got to get him out. We can land at Hollmind. He’s at a farm about three miles from the airfield.” The words came out in a rush, tumbling incoherently over each other, not a bit as I had intended. “It would only take a couple of hours. The airfield’s quite deserted and the runway is sound.”
“How do you know?”
I stared at him. It sounded like a trap, the way he barked the question at me. His face kept blurring so that I couldn’t see his expression. “How do I know?” I moved my fingers back and forth along the dirt-caked lines of my forehead. “I just know,” I heard myself mumble. “I just know. That’s all.” I straightened my body up. “Will you let me have a plane, sir—to-night?”
The door behind me opened and a squadron leader came over to the desk, a thin file in his hand. “Here’s the report you wanted, sir.” The man’s eyes glanced curiously in my direction. “I’ve rung for the M.O. and Pierce is in my office now. Shall I let him come up?”
The station commander glanced quickly across at me and then nodded. “All right. Any further news about that threat of ack-ack practice in the exit corridor?”
“No more than we know already, sir. Air Safety Centre have lodged protests, but as far as we’re concerned at the moment the Russians will be firing to 20,000 feet in the exit corridor. I don’t think we’re going to give way.”
“I should damn well hope not. They’re just bluffing. They know what it means if they start shooting our boys down.” He gave a long sigh. “All right, Freddie. But let me know as soon as you get any news.” The door closed and the station commander stared for a moment out through the windows to where another freighter was thundering down the runway. He watched it rise, watched it until it disappeared into the low cloud, a small speck carrying an air crew of four headed for base through the exit corridor. His eyes switched slowly to me. “Where were we? Oh, yes. You claim Carter is alive.” He picked up the file his adjutant had brought in, opened it and handed me a slip of paper. “Read that, Fraser., It’s the Russian report on your aircraft.”
I took it and held it in my hands, the print blurring into solid, straight lines. I let my hand drop, not bothering to go through it. “I know about this,” I said. “It’s completely phoney. It didn’t dive into the ground. And they didn’t, find the charred remains of a body. They don’t know anything about the plane—they’re just gu
essing. The wreckage, is strewn for miles around.”
“How do you mean?” The station commander’s voice was sharp and practical.
I pressed my fingers to my temples. How was I going to make them understand what had really happened. It was quite clear to me—ordinary and straightforward. But as soon as I tried to put it into words I knew it would sound fantastic.
“I think we’d better do it by questions, sir.” The I.O.’s voice seemed oddly remote, yet it rattled in my ears like the sharp, dry sound of a porcupine’s quills. “He’s just about dead beat.”
“All right, Symes. Go ahead.”
I wanted to tell the station commander to let me tell it. in my own way, but before I could say anything the I.O.’s sharp, insistent voice was saying, “You claim Carter is alive, that he’s lying injured at a farmhouse near Hollmind. Hollmind is thirty miles from the point where Westrop and Field jumped. “That’s almost ten minutes’ flying time. What happened in those ten minutes? Didn’t Carter jump with the others?”
“No.”
“He stayed in the plane with you?”
“Yes. He knew I didn’t like jumping——” I was. determined now that they should have every detail of the thing. If I told them everything, kept nothing back, they must believe me. “We had to jump once before at Membury, when the undercarriage of Saeton’s Tudor jammed; that’s, how he knew I was scared. He came back to see me out. Then I got the engines going and started to fly to Membury. He got angry then and——”
“You mean Gatow, don’t you?”
“No, Membury.” I stared at him, trying to force him to understand that I meant Membury. “I was taking the Tudor back to Membury. That’s why I took the job with Harcourt. It was all planned. I was to steal a plane from the airlift and——” My voice trailed away as I saw the look of bewilderment on the station commander’s face. If only they’d let me tell it my own way.
Air Bridge Page 23
