“Och,” said Helen, “I don’t think I like you, Tom Dellow, you’re gey hard-hearted. Poor wee Roy. To think he may have to spend the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp.
The others, even Lois who, preoccupied though she was with her new escort, had heard her, fell silent and looked at her with unfriendly eyes, their mouths no longer smiling. Helen began to blush and stammered, “Sorry... I shouldn’t have said that... sorry...”
Upton felt sympathy for her. She had said what they had all been thinking, and was too honest to dissimulate her concern. But in doing so she had offended one of the sternest of their taboos.
“Have a proper drink, Helen,” he said quickly. “Aye, I think I will... thanks, Clive.”
He went to fetch her a Scotch. Ann looked at him affectionately: gentleness and understanding were qualities to prize, especially in those times. She knew that even Lois, who was carrying her stoicism a trifle far, was grieved by Taylor’s disappearance. Her moment of emotion that morning had been genuine.
Presently she remarked to Upton: “Arthur keeps staring at us: I’m sure he’s burning to know what’s happened to Roy.”
“Arthur’s a good type, but he can keep on burning. Maidie is giving us a look now, as well. I know they’re really concerned about everyone... all their regulars... but I often think it’s not a good situation.”
Her eyes, looking up at him very directly, were worried. “What d’you mean?”
“Well... I wonder if Arthur has ever been checked by the Security types? I like him, but I don’t think he’s as simple as he makes out. And no one could be in a better position for knowing what goes on: he’s been around here for years and everyone trusts him.”
“Oh, Clive... it’s not like you to have... flights of imagination... Arthur’s sweet.”
“That’s precisely what I mean. Come on, drink up and Tom will get us another: won’t you Tom?”
“Yes. And then I’ll tell you all about the barney I had with the store-bashers today, trying to get my uniform changed: I mean, it’s stiff with brine…”
“Stop binding,” someone said, “and get on with the drinking.”
Sergeant Dellow sighed deeply. “Now I really know what total war means.”
***
The burly military policeman asked, “What were you doing outside, anyway, in this weather?”
“I went to make sure my pigeons were not disturbed,” replied Pelegrand. “This unseasonable weather upsets them, and so do loud noises. The combination of both is very bad for the poor creatures.”
“And were the poor creatures all right?” the policeman asked with a sneer.
“They were agitated. I had to talk to them to calm them.”
“Very touching. I think I’d like to take a look at these precious birds.” The German’s command of the French language was really not at all bad, Pelegrand was thinking; suspiciously good for a lumpen sergeant: was he Intelligence rather than mere field Police? The thought made him cold.
“You are interested in pigeons, Sergeant?”
“Little French pigeons with soft breasts... and no feathers.”
Both Germans laughed coarsely and Hercule and Berthe blushed: he with anger, she with shame for the silly girls who consorted with the Boches.
“I cannot oblige,” Hercule said stiffly.
“In that regard I can fend for myself.” Both policemen laughed again. “Come on, let’s take a look at these birds of yours. All homers, are they?”
“Naturally. Pigeon racing is a favourite sport in these parts.”
“Ever take part in an international race?” the larger policeman asked.
“Sergeant?” Hercule made a good show of not under-standing.
“Ever ship any pigeons over to England? Or from there?”
“I’m not in that league, Monsieur. I’m just a humble fancier who is content to race his birds across France. I would not like to risk a bird on a sea crossing.”
“Not even the thirty-odd kilometres across the Kanal?”
“Especially not that: I saw enough of the English in the last war, and too much of them when they were back again this time.”
“I hear this bar was a favourite meeting place for them.”
“Yes,” sighed Hercule. “No encouragement on my part. And one can’t turn customers away, not if one wishes to avoid trouble with the military authorities. I have to allow all sorts in here,” he ended meaningly.
The two policemen grinned. The sergeant turned to his corporal: “Anyone would think the likes of us are not welcome, wouldn’t you say?” The corporal nodded. “That bit of unfriendliness is going to cost you a coffee and cognac now, Pelegrand, and a good meal this evening. I think I’d enjoy roast pigeon…”
“Skunk,” said Berthe, red-faced in her shocked wrath.
Pelegrand, more shocked and scared by the way his wife tempted Providence than by the German’s brutal hint, turned pale. “Come with me,” he said hurriedly before she could get herself into more trouble.
The sergeant and corporal gave Berthe a venomous look and followed him.
The pigeon loft was a strongly built double-tiered range of cages holding some two dozen birds. Pelegrand walked along the row, speaking gently to his birds, crooning to them, rubbing his fingertips on the wire of their cages.
“How long have you kept pigeons?” asked the sergeant.
“All my life. My father and grandfather were pigeon-racing men. I was introduced to the sport as a boy.”
“You seem to have rather a lot of them, for a ‘humble fancier’.”
“I breed as well as race.”
“Got a pat answer for everything, haven’t you?”
“I answer your questions without hesitation, yes. And truthfully.”
“All right, that will do for now. Let’s go in and have that café-cognac.”
Berthe gave them a surly look when they came in, and stumped out of the room. Hercule went behind the bar to give them their drinks. The four pensioners who were grouped in a corner over a game of cards watched the Germans furtively and dropped their eyes when the two big men surveyed the room with their customary arrogant pugnacity.
“Your wife doesn’t like us,” the sergeant said. Hercule shrugged. “We all reciprocate the attitudes of others, Sergeant. Do you like her, in the first place?” “I don’t have to like or dislike. But I do have to have civility.”
“You shocked her. She is very sensitive about the pigeons.”
“Her soft heart does her credit.” The sergeant smiled unpleasantly.
“Her brother was killed in the last war, Sergeant. We lost a son in this one. It has left its mark on her.”
“Too bad. My brother was killed, too: in a British air raid on our positions. I myself was wounded: by a French sniper.”
“How do you know he was a Frenchman?”
“He was caught. And dealt with.”
“I too was wounded; in ‘sixteen. It is the common experience of my generation and yours.”
“We intend to make sure it is not repeated in our children’s time, Pelegrand. My two sons will never see another war; there will be no need of one, after we have won this one.” The German gulped his coffee. “By the way, your son, the one who was in the infantry; how is he?”
“We are lucky if we see him once in three weeks. As far as I know, he is well.”
“Farming suits him better than fighting, no doubt.”
“Anything suits all sensible men better than fighting.”
“At last you have said something sensible, Pelegrand. So let us get this war finished as soon as we can: sensible men will do nothing to prolong it. The ultimate result is inevitable: victory for the Reich.”
Pelegrand made no answer.
The sergeant turned away, the corporal at his heels. They were half-way towards the door when they stopped and turned to face Pelegrand.
“By the way,” said the sergeant, “I’d like to have a look at your cellar before I go.”
***
Festner had never experienced greater joy. For the past two days he had gloomed and brooded about Hauptmann Siegert’s hard words. Now he had taken on a whole squadron of Spitfires, shot one down with consummate skill, and got away unscathed; he had not even known a second of fear. The whole job had been neat, swift, surgical.
He waited between layers of cloud to try to spot his victim, if he had managed to bale out; but there was no sign of him.
Base, when he had called to report his victory, had been elated. Now he called again for a position check, for he could not see the ground.
“Base has closed in,” he was told. “We do not expect the weather to improve enough to permit a landing before you run out of fuel. We are diverting you.” The controller gave him a bearing for an airfield near Beauvais, a hundred and sixty kilometres to the south.
He was on the ground there for three hours, among a group of bomber crews who listened with cynicism to his account of his exploit. “It’s a pity you chaps can’t pick the Spitfires off so cleanly when we are on the other side of the Kanal,” they said.
“We could if we didn’t have to stick to you like leeches,” was his retort. “Our job is to protect you, not to chase after Spitfires and Hurricanes.”
When he returned to his base he was met by the whole of his Staffel, with von Brauneck, who had driven over to lunch.
“Did you find the Spitfire?” was Festner’s first question. “Burned out, in a copse,” Bull Siegert told him.
“And the pilot?”
“It took quite a bit of sifting... there was little left but ashes... but the answer is, no, we didn’t find anything to suggest he was still in the aircraft.”
“No one saw him come down by parachute?”
Von Brauneck chipped in. “That is the story, but we are searching far and wide and we have our eye on one or two people whom we think know more than they are saying.”
“He must have had time to bale out,” Festner insisted. “I got him in the engine and one wing, but there was no explosion and no tremendous outbreak of fire. He was burning nicely, mind you, and his engine was sick. I’m sure he had time to hop out.”
“It was a long fall: the wind could have carried him a long way,” said Hintsch.
“We’ll find him,” von Brauneck assured him. “The locals know what will happen to some of them if he disappears.”
***
Pelegrand led the way to the cellar with a show of indifference that was more than he felt. Inwardly he quivered with worry.
The cellar was as big as the whole floor area of the house. It was agreeably redolent of wine stored in huge butts and beer in casks. A dim light from three unshaded, low-power electric bulbs cast deep shadows on the brick walls and stone floor.
The two Germans stood in the centre of the room, staring around. The sergeant asked, “How do you bring supplies down here?”
Pelegrand pointed to the faintly outlined trapdoor. “Everything comes in that way.”
The sergeant went to stand under the trapdoor. He looked at the ladder, then up at the ceiling. “When did you last use this ladder?”
Pelegrand pretended to think. “Oh... last Thursday. The usual delivery day.”
The sergeant bent to examine the rungs, but there was no tell-tale soil on any of them. He straightened and strolled to the row of casks and barrels, and knocked on each in turn while the corporal watched Pelegrand.
Pointing at a barrel, the sergeant said: “Draw me some wine from that.”
Without hesitation Pelegrand took a jug to the wine butt, opened the spigot and began filling the jug.
The sergeant stopped him. “That’s enough.” He turned away. “All right, I’ve seen enough.” At the door at the top of the cellar stairs he paused to say, “We shall see you this evening.
When the Germans had gone, Berthe sighed with relief and asked her husband in a whisper: “Everything all right?”
“Perfectly. That swine went round knocking on the barrels and made me draw some wine from one of them.” He grinned suddenly.
Berthe put her hand to her chest. “My God! Not the one that…”
“Yes, the one in which I hid the British officer. How thankful I am I took the precaution of fitting it up as I did, instead of leaving it empty.”
“What a narrow squeak, though.”
“I confess I did feel a bit queasy for a moment.” “You are very brave, my dear. Now let us hope the
English pigeons have not forgotten their way home.” Hercule patted her plump shoulder. “It is only ten weeks since the R.A.F. Intelligence officer left them with us: less than an hour after I release one, its message will be in the hands of our allies.”
“How can you say how long it will take, when we do not know exactly where it came from?”
“It must be somewhere on, or close to, the coast. I’ll send one on its way as soon as the weather allows.”
“What a shame we can’t take advantage of the mist: some hungry Boche may shoot it down. And find the message.”
ELEVEN
Four a.m. on the fifteenth of August. The day which, by that evening, the Luftwaffe would christen Black Thursday.
“Four-’clock, sir,” the batmen went round the officers’ mess saying as they shook reluctant pilots awake. The same reminder was being repeated in the sergeants’ mess. Cups of tea were hastily drunk, tousled young men dragged themselves out of bed to face yet another day in the long, eroding procession of them that had been interrupted only for the span of yesterday: when they had spent most of it asleep in their crew rooms.
That Thursday morning the Luftwaffe resumed its assault, the battering down of the gates to Britain which was the prelude to Operation Sealion, the great invasion.
The weather had cleared in the night and enemy bombers had been over England. They dropped packets of explosives, maps, lists of names of Britons on a “wanted” list, a few crates of small arms. In the morning, William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw the English traitor, broadcast from Berlin: “During the night German paratroops, many of them in civilian clothes, landed in the Midlands.” The scattered explosives, maps, lists and small arms were intended to give credence to this lie. The enemy thought to strike fear in the British and cause panic. In fact, they created amusement and wry rumours of paratroops disguised as monks and nuns, who were betrayed by their heavy boots and bristly jowls. The Nazis had reckoned without the perverse British sense of humour.
The Luftwaffe strategy for the day was, to bring as many British fighters to combat as possible. Its strategy was, to achieve this by attacking on a broad front and destroying as many airfields and radio direction-finding stations as possible, to cripple the early warning system.
The morning began with German reconnaissance sorties. Soon after eleven o’clock the airfields at Hawkinge and Lympne in Kent were hit. At mid-day the air fleets operating from France were joined in action by Air Fleet No. 5 stationed in Denmark and Norway. This launched raids against Scotland and north-east England. These were met before they crossed the British coast. The airfield at Driffield in Yorkshire was slightly damaged. Sixteen German bombers and seven fighters were shot down.
At the same time, R.A.F. Manston was attacked by twelve Me 109s in a cannon and machine-gun strafe which destroyed two Spitfires on the ground.
In the early afternoon Ju 87s and Me 110s raided R.A.F. Martlesham Heath in Suffolk and did some damage to buildings.
And so it went on all day, with raid after raid in strengths of one hundred aircraft upwards. Aerodromes right across southern England, from Kent to Hampshire, were struck. Radar stations everywhere along the south coast and in the Isle of Wight were bombed and strafed.
Fighter Command flew 974 sorties and destroyed 75 enemy aircraft. The Luftwaffe flew 1,786 sorties during which they shot down 34 aircraft, killed 17 pilots and wounded 16.
Arthur Goldsmith’s day began with the sharp ring of a bell and the flashing of a light simultaneously in his bedroom,
kitchen and bar. It was the signal in the kitchen that he heard and saw, when he was boiling the kettle for early morning tea.
Snatching the kettle off the gas and turning off the stove, he ran out of the back door in his dressing gown and slippers, across the dewy grass, to his pigeon loft: a small barn behind the pub, a relic of the days when the old inn had had a modest dairy farm attached to it. He had not felt so excited since R.A.F. Intelligence had taken half a dozen of his best birds to France in the last days of the evacuation.
Arthur hurried up the wooden stairs to the upper level where the cages were, and as he climbed he could see a pigeon strutting up and down on the landing platform; which was wired to produce the signals indoors which would alert him at any time of day and wherever he was in the house.
He went eagerly towards the bird and, with a broad smile, said, “Welcome home, Henry.” He held out a forearm and the bird hopped onto it. He stroked its shiny back and wings and carried it to its own cage, where food and fresh water had awaited it daily for ten weeks.
He slipped off the small cartridge attached to its right leg, opened it, and withdrew the piece of thin paper it contained. He neither spoke nor read French, and the spidery writing in purple ink told him nothing: except that he recognised the name “Pilote Officier Taylor”, which had been laboriously printed.
Whistling happily, Arthur Goldsmith went as fast as he could to the telephone to call the senior Intelligence officer at R.A.F. Longley. When at last he took Maidie up her tea, she was already awake. “I thought you’d deserted me,” she said. “It’s a quarter past seven already.”
“I’ve got to hurry. No time to read the paper now, I’ve got a visitor coming.” He was beaming. “You can lie in…”
“Oh, Henry! It’s not…? Is it one of the birds?”
“That’s right. the S.I.O.’s on his way.”
“Oh, lovely! Good news?”
“I can’t read it... but I did make out Roy’s name. Roy Taylor.”
Battle Climb Page 11
