The Keeping of Secrets

by Alice Graysharp

  Emboldened, Jon asked, ‘May I ask, sir, how the flying bomb we saw today came into our possession? Was it one that didn’t explode here or in France?’

  The major hesitated.

  Emboldened further, Jon joked, ‘If you tell me, sir, you’ll have to kill me?’

  The major snorted. ‘Those coming over here that we don’t take out in the air explode on impact as they drop from a height. We owe this one to the resistance. It was a failed launching that the resistance got to first and hid from the search party and got smuggled out. Can’t tell you any more than that. Except that there’ll be many over here who’ll owe their lives to these brave souls but will have no idea of the sacrifices made.’

  Jon nodded.

  ‘And,’ added the major, ‘I didn’t tell you any of that, and that’s an order. Or I will have to kill you.’

  The major had an envelope for him on Friday, and a freshly laundered vest. Exhausted from working through most of Wednesday and Thursday nights with little sleep he slept the whole journey, waking with a start to check surreptitiously that the envelope was intact and that no one was following him.

  Jon caught Stella at the Red Lion. ‘Please, a word,’ he said, ‘I can’t stay long.’

  Outside, she said, ‘Don’t worry, I know. Pat’s back in London for good. Margery told me. I told you, I wasn’t looking for a commitment.’

  ‘Stella, you’re a brick. I’ll never forget.’

  Stella’s face crumpled a little. ‘Trouble is, you’ve rather grown on me. Stupid, really, but I’ll miss you, soldier.’

  Jon floundering, started, ‘I’m sorry, Stella, I never meant…’ but Stella cut him short, reaching up and taking his head in her hands.

  ‘One last kiss, soldier,’ and he did, hugging her briefly too, letting her go and stepping back, walking away with one last wave before he did anything stupid, even more stupid than he’d done already, and threw away everything he’d built with Pat.

  ‘Bonham Road,’ said Pat’s grandmother on her doorstep the next morning. ‘Number twenty-two.’

  Jon hared down Lambert Road and left into Bonham Road. Knocking on the door and standing back, he saw Pat’s face at an upstairs window, the ‘O’ of her mouth, heard her distant squeal of delight and within seconds she was hurtling out of the front door and into his arms.

  Ten days later the new parts for the computer arrived. The staff sergeant opened the boxes in their presence, laying out metal cogs, shafts, racks and pins on the tables, tiny round cogs like serrated silver shillings, a miniature treasure hoard in his large hands. Members of the group picked them up wonderingly. ‘Now all you have to do it fit them together inside that,’ said the staff sergeant, nodding to the predictor at the far end of the instruction hut. The predictor stood brooding, bovine, its belly split open awaiting reinstatement with the new parts. Two feet high and three feet deep, it was no picnic basket, as, despite the lightweight aluminium parts, fully built it weighed in at five hundred pounds.

  Two days later, hauling the re-built predictor with great difficulty under cover of darkness onto the back of a lorry, as the predawn light edged blackness into grey mist, they set off across the Pennines, crowded in around it, the staff sergeant joining the major and the lieutenant in the front cab. Again, no official driver, and the major’s departure speech included an exhortation to guard the predictor with their lives.

  Reaching an AA battery on the windswept Yorkshire coast north east of Hull, its regular crew having been given unexpected leave, the unit hastened to erect the predictor and connect it to the anti-aircraft gun and radar equipment, plugging it in with the huge long electric leads needed to wire it to the nearest electricity supply and waiting for the appearance of the trailer aircraft. The work of the predictor began. Warned by the radar equipment and programmed to respond to the second object and not the first, a low humming out to sea, growing gradually louder, heralded the arrival of the aeroplane, a rope, invisible from this distance, trailing some way behind it a cylindrical metal object, a mock up of the one they had seen. It would have given Jon great pleasure to see a real one taken out by the AA defences.

  The tow rope was loosed, the bofors gyrated round in response to the predictor’s instruction, the metal cylinder turned into a nosedive and booms rang out. Christ, thought Jon, I wouldn’t like to be that pilot. That’s bloody brave. What if the radar or predictor got it wrong and instructed the gun to fire at the aircraft itself instead of the object following?

  The men cheered as the falling cylinder exploded before it reached the sea.

  ‘Good show chaps,’ exclaimed the major. ‘Now do it again.’

  The testing continued intermittently during the day, depending on the supply of trailer aircraft, and on into the long light evening. After a rota’d overnight sentry duty with short sleep snatched in the primitive mud-floored AA accommodation hut adjacent to the guns, Bertie grumbling, ‘Survival training in Scotland last year was more comfortable than this,’ final testing of the predictor the next day confirmed the successes of the previous day at different heights between two thousand feet and five hundred feet and at different speeds between two hundred and fifty and four hundred and fifty miles an hour.

  Piling into the lorry for the return journey, longing desperately for his bed in the hut at Lowercroft, Jon was surprised by their driving due south and bunking down overnight at a lightly occupied camp on the outskirts of Leicester. They parked in an isolated corner of the camp and were put on rotating guard duty in pairs over the truck to ensure that no inquisitive soul had a chance to look at the object inside. At least there was tepid water for a shower the next morning and a chance to shave. Before they left they were briefed by the major.

  ‘We’re heading for the Essex coast. Some big names from the War Office with some of their American counterparts are coming to view a demonstration of our improved predictor at oh six hundred hours tomorrow. They don’t have time to travel all the way up to Hull, so the mountain,’ indicating the predictor, ‘has to come to Mohammed. We’re using a part of the Essex coast that’s currently clear of enemy action, just a few flying bombs passing over the area last month but nothing so far this month. However, be aware that while you’ll be operating guns as a demonstration you might be called upon to render assistance to the regular guns there. We’ll be using the golf course guns just south of the town and our demonstration shouldn’t interfere with the town or the people there. I don’t need to tell you this demonstration’s top secret as usual.’

  ‘I know where we are,’ said Bertie triumphantly as, following their arrival, they viewed the coastline stretching in both directions from the gun post perched on the sea wall. ‘That,’ pointing south, ‘is Clacton and that,’ pointing to a distant sea of rooftops dominated to its west by a huge water tower, ‘is Frinton. We used to come down on holiday in Frinton.’

  ‘What a small world,’ said Jon. ‘We came to Clacton for a week in August 1938. I remember it well because I couldn’t walk anywhere far with my broken foot.’

  ‘Shame we can’t take advantage of a dip,’ said Peter, peering at the mass of concrete blocks and barbed wire below. ‘It’s so hot down south here I just want to strip off and run into the sea.’

  ‘Come on men, stop gossiping like fishwives and get on with the unloading,’ barked Staff Sergeant Cooper. ‘We’re on our own again like in Yorkshire and we need to get it set up before sundown.’

  The remainder of the day was spent setting up the new predictor. A guard duty rota covered the night and Jon was pleased to be given the first watch with Graham whose dry wit sparred with Jon’s sense of the absurd, making the time pass pleasantly. Relieved by Stephen and Bob at midnight, Jon crawled exhausted into one to the tents they had erected earlier.

  The visitors arrived promptly the next morning, having set out from London in two cars in the early hours. One Jon recognised from his photograph that had adorned the AA mess hall in Berwick, General Sir Frederick Pile, a kindly uncle type wi
th a firm jaw and laughter crinkled eyes, the General Officer Commanding in Chief AA Command.

  As in Yorkshire, the target towing aircraft approached from the sea, and, as in Yorkshire, the towed flying bomb mock-up was blown up mid-air as it curved towards the water. The general expressed his delight, and the major explained that a couple more test runs had been arranged to show that the accuracy provided by the predictor was not a fluke. ‘The height and speed will vary but it’s nothing we can’t cope with.’

  The next test run was as successful as the first. They readied themselves for the last.

  The plane came in very low, too low for the predictor to calculate initially and Peter hesitated for just a second to realign some of the instruments. The plane was supposed to jettison its smaller sibling over the sea but it failed to do so, and Jon watched with mounting horror as the plane passed over land to the north of the town. It curved southwestwards. The tow rope suddenly separated and the mock flying bomb was released. The radar and predictor combined to bring the gun round so that by the time it fired it was pointing across open country to the west of the town. The boom of the fired gun echoed as its projectile sped on its way. The plane flew on past the water tower and disappeared over the western horizon. As the dropping silver target passed behind the water tower a starburst of water shot into the air, cascading down and obscuring the ultimate collision of the ammunition with its intended prey.

  The official observers stood stunned, disbelieving, while the major ran to the communications hut to bark orders down the telephone, the lieutenant following in his wake. Bob leapt up onto the podium, slapping Peter and Graham on the back in turn, crying, ‘Greet shot! ’Ow’s that fer shootin’!’ and Bertie caught Jon’s eye and they snorted and gasped while Stephen shook helplessly. Staff Sergeant Cooper ran up to the gun emplacement ordering, ‘Down here, down here at the double.’

  Peter, Graham and Bob clambered down and the six of them stood to attention while they waited for the world to fall in on them. However, the general, justifying the esteem in which he was held by his AA and searchlight troops for his constant efforts over the years to protect and defend them from criticism, stepped forward and shook hands with each of the unit members in turn, saying, ‘An excellent demonstration. Your hard work could make all the difference in our fight against this latest menace,’ and, turning to Staff Sergeant Cooper, said, ‘We’ll be off now, please give my compliments to Major Spencer for a good morning’s work. I see he’s rather occupied at present. I’m confident he’ll deal with matters in his usual efficient way. Tell him I’ll do my best to ensure personally that mass manufacture of the components for this latest improvement will get top priority,’ and ushered his open-mouthed guests towards the waiting cars.

  ‘Right then, you lot,’ harrumphed the staff sergeant, ‘let’s get this contraption unplugged before it can do any more damage and onto the truck. Jump to it and lively.’

  They scurried to do his bidding, glancing all the while to the west of the town, where the waterfall was now just a trickle. The major returned, his lieutenant trailing, and told them, ‘Had to tell the local constabulary top secret target training, Official Secrets Act and all that, and to ensure the locals don’t talk. RE regiment is sending sappers from Colchester to repair the damage tout suite.’

  The staff sergeant meanwhile retrieved binoculars from the lorry and climbed up to the gun emplacement. ‘Don’t think the damage is too bad, sir,’ he called. ‘Looks as if we just took the top off and a chunk or two out high up. Main structure seems to be mostly holding.’

  Major Spencer looked around. ‘Where is everyone?’

  Jon leapt into the breach. ‘The general said to tell you, sir, his compliments for a good morning’s work and he expected you to deal with it in your usual efficient way. And that he’ll personally ensure the prioritisation of the manufacture. Sir.’

  As the French launching sites were overrun by the Allies’ advance in the succeeding months, the Germans switched their launchings of V1s to sites in Holland and from Heinkel 111 and Junkers 88 aircraft, targeting the east coast of England. Word came to the unit at Lowercroft of the success of the new system in defending against flying bombs coming in at various heights including those exceptionally low. On one day alone, of the ninety-six missiles launched by the Germans, sixty-eight were destroyed by anti-aircraft guns, and only four reached the Greater London area. But mingled with the thrill of success was the knowledge of the damage being wrought from early September by the new V2 rockets aimed at Britain in addition to V1s. The V2s were truly the stuff of science fiction, launched vertically and flying at over three thousand five hundred miles per hour and reaching heights of more than three hundred thousand feet. The only answer to V2s was to hope and pray that the Allies would overrun the rest of the continent and take out the launching sites as quickly as possible.

  Their work done, in November the unit was disbanded. Major Spencer called Jon to his office.

  ‘I can recommend you for a place in the army’s scientific division if you want it,’ he told Jon.

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I have a career waiting for me in civvy street when the war’s over,’ Jon said.

  ‘And a young lady or two,’ smiled the major. ‘Thank you for all your hard work here especially for the extra travelling you’ve done for me. And remember, the Official Secrets Act still applies after you’ve left here. Good luck.’

  15

  Truth

  It was still dark outside in the early morning of Tuesday 6th February 1945 when the insistent knocking on the front door beneath my room woke me. Hearing muffled voices below I sprang out of bed. Jon! The clock showed a few minutes past six. My heart thudding, grabbing my dressing gown and wrapping it around me, I sped to the top of the stairs. My mother emerged from her bedroom and I shooed her back in with a hissed, ‘It’s Jon, Mummy, I’ll see him. Go back to bed for half an hour before Daddy gets home.’

  I looked down as Jon, in full uniform, completing his apologies to our downstairs neighbour who had let him in, pocketed his torch and ascended two stairs at a time, a look of determination on his face.

  ‘Your posting?’ My voice trembled and I felt slightly sick.

  Jon nodded and indicated to move into the living room. We went in, turned on the light and Monty leapt up with excitement. Grasping Monty’s collar firmly and muttering, ‘Sorry old chap,’ Jon ejected him and shut the door firmly behind us, took me in his arms, and drew me close. Monty scrabbled at the door. I heard my mother call him softly and the scratching ceased. I was sure Jon could feel my racing heart. His right hand stroked up and down my back and his left cupped the back of my head, warm and comforting. I melted into him, and asked, my voice muffled by his shoulder,

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Italy.’

  I drew back a little. ‘Thank God. Now Italy’s virtually all ours at least you’ll be hundreds of miles from the Germans.’

  His grip tightened, and he leaned back a little too. ‘I won’t lie to you, Pat,’ he answered, looking down at me with concerned, apologetic eyes. ‘You know not all of Italy’s ours? That Jerry’s dug in with Mussolini in the far north? It’s no secret there’ll be a Spring offensive. Ever since I finished in Bury in November and returned to Cardiff we’ve been training for this.’

  ‘Oh, God, no! They can’t send you there.’ Abruptly I jerked my stiff upper lip back in place. He doesn’t need my hysterics to be the last he remembers of me. ‘Sorry. When?’

  ‘I’ve got ten days’ leave. I got home about midnight, bunked down, and came over to see you as soon as I decently could. Didn’t bother to unpack. Sorry I’m a bit travel-stained. I have to report back by oh six hundred hours on the sixteenth when they transport us south and we sail from Southampton on the seventeenth.’

  His cupped hand drew my head back and he kissed me, long and hard, with a strange new urgency, flicking his tongue between my lips, conjuring a fleeting echo of a cigarette-scented kiss in sun-warmed crisp aut
umnal air. I breathed in Jon’s familiar, if a little sweaty, scent and returned abruptly to the present.

  ‘Marry me, Pat,’ said Jon urgently, abruptly, pulling back a little from our embrace. ‘Please marry me before I embark. We could get a special licence this week and be married by Saturday and then we would have a little honeymoon together before I go. I love you and I want you. If I have to fight, I want to go and fight for my wife. Besides,’ he added, ever practical, ‘if anything happens to me you’d be entitled to a widow’s pension. It’s the least I can do for you.’

  I stared up at him, stunned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, a self-deprecating smile hovering. ‘I don’t have a ring to offer you yet. Too early for the shops on the way here. But we can rectify that as soon as they’re open. Get a message to your school that you’re off sick and we’ll get it all sorted out today.’

  I pushed away from him and sat down abruptly onto the settee. What is it about servicemen on leave wanting to get married? A vision flashed of James leaning forward on the chaise longue, jewellery box in hand.

  ‘I don’t know what to say…’ I began, and with a bound Jon was on one knee at my feet, taking my hands in his.

  ‘Say “Yes”. ’

  I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more, afraid of hurting the earnest boy looking at me with pleading eyes and hands held around mine in supplication. But he’s not a boy any more. He’s a man and he wants what men want the world over and he knows he won’t get that from me unless we’re married. But I don’t want to be married. Not right now. Having imagined that Jon would eventually be sent abroad and on his return we’d get engaged, maybe marrying at twenty five, I was totally unprepared. My first teaching job since only the previous September. I wasn’t even twenty one yet, and he wanted us to get married? And I banked on calculating a wedding date to coincide with a period. Pain I could easily pretend. But my last period finished only a week ago and the risk of discovery now was too great.