by Thomas Wood
He motioned to the café owner for some coffee and growled into the small air that we shared between us.
“Put these on. Identity cards are in your pockets. Do what I do and don’t engage with the Germans. Keep your heads down. We’ll be going in with my lads, so hopefully your faces will get lost in amongst them.”
The girl plonked the badger’s coffee down, which he threw down his neck quicker than anything I had seen before.
“Come on, we haven’t got all day.”
He chucked some notes onto the table and rose from it, making for the door and the waiting cloud of cigarette smoke that lingered outside.
Jules and I, on the other hand, milled around for a second or two, before heading out to the restroom one at a time, to change from the two, unexceptional civilians, into two greasy, invisible factory workers.
“You all ready?” Jules asked me, as he waved a goodbye to the café owner and apologized to a group of German NCOs, as he was forced to step over their outstretched legs.
“Yeah,” I muttered under my breath, so quietly that I did not think he could hear, as we tumbled from the café and, in a group of about seven boisterous factory workers, made our way to the target.
17
The second that I made eye contact with the jumpy German soldier on guard duty, I knew that I had made a mistake. I wanted to check him out, to see where he was looking and whether the sentries here were switched on enough to notice two completely clean and never before seen men, in amongst their comrades of dirtied faces and filthy palms.
It was a risky game, but one that I was hoping would give me the upper hand. But, as the soldier pointed to me, in the centre of the gaggle of men who waddled through the checkpoint, I realised quite quickly that it was a foolish game to be playing.
I couldn’t quite make out his voice, as he pushed the others out the way and in through the factory gates. He wasn’t concerned with any of them, he was totally focused on the man who had been locked in a staring contest with him, and he didn’t like to lose.
His voice was immature and weak, but it was not something that I would make fun of him for, as the rifle barrel that twitched over his shoulder told me that he was taking this far more seriously than I was.
Obliging, I handed over my papers, which he snatched from my hand with long, curling fingernails, without taking his gaze from my face. He studied them for a fleeting second, before choosing to stare at me for a few seconds longer, to see if I would crack.
Underneath the surface I wanted to burst into tears, to shatter into a thousand pieces in amongst the shame of my foolishness. But, on the outside, as I had been taught to do over many months, I maintained a cool façade of indignance but equally of confidence.
I turned away from him briefly, to look over his shoulder at the concerned faces that were glaring back at me, from Jules and Peintre’s contact, whose name I had not been able to get, and might never now know.
They carried on regardless, as I would have expected them to, if I was banned from the grounds of the factory, or arrested, then at least Jules would hopefully get a good look around and with any luck report back with his findings.
As the German continued to test my patience, I could not help but look up at the long, sweeping windows that looked down on the front courtyard that the others were now disappearing through.
Somewhere, behind a dirtied glass pane, made even more opaque by the glinting sunlight, I imagined the grey figure of Captain Murky, his lips snarling as he applied the pressure more and more to our circuit. Which was why it was all the more stupid of me to try and toy with the guard who now stood in my way.
“Are you a new worker?” he asked, in heavily accented French.
“No, I have been here a good many months,” I said, risking a smirk and a carefree attitude that only an agreeable employee could adopt.
His lips tightened, as his gut told him that there was something wrong with the man that he had stopped, but his inexperience was stopping him from working out what it was. Nervously, he looked behind him, Jules just managing to turn around in time for the young sentry to catch the back of his head as he disappeared into a large, warehouse door.
I imagined that he was looking for one of his fellow countrymen, to check the card he had in front of him and eye up the suspicious chap. But my imagination told me, it could also have been out of a wariness that an SS officer had recently turned up, and he didn’t want to look a fool in front of him if he waved through a dubious character.
“I have not seen you here before.”
I snorted through my nose gently, forcing a wide smile across my face, before letting it retreat rapidly as if only just realising that he was being totally serious.
“Well, I have seen you here before,” I stated as confidently as I could muster. “Every day in fact. Don’t they give you lot a day off?”
Something twitched in his face and I wondered if I had amused him, or simply spat on his face. I let my chuckle linger for a moment, my heart rate thumping harder than before as I realised that the next two seconds would be decisive.
The sweat that began to roll from under my hairline started to gather pace and, if he was not going to let me through in the next second or so, he would spot it as it ran towards my eyes. And I was convinced that would mean the game was up.
His hand twitched, as he caressed the butt of his rifle. He was thinking about it.
But then, as if suddenly having a change of heart, he threw my identity card from one hand to the other and passed it back to me ceremoniously.
“I see so many faces I don’t know who I have seen before and who I have not.”
“It must be nice to see one that is smiling, no?” I said as I took my card and paced past him and into the factory. I grimaced, waiting for the call that would halt my progression across the courtyard, but nothing came. He had either misunderstood what it was that I had said or had genuinely found some sort of amusement from it.
I didn’t turn around to work out which it was.
I struggled to hide my true emotions as I thundered across the courtyard, aiming for the door that I had seen the others disappear into. A few other workers milled around nearby, some smoking, others just taking in the warm sunbeams, but not one of them paid a great deal of attention to me. One of them even waved a greeting to me from across the way. Either they all knew who I was and had no qualms about me forcing them into unemployment, or they were just blind as a bat.
My legs burned awfully by the time that I found the others, who had tucked themselves away just on the inside of the door, and had watched the whole encounter from the safety of the long shadows created by the glowing sun, that kissed our contact’s face as he welcomed me in.
“I’m Cluzet,” he said, slapping me on the back. “That there is Diehl. He doesn’t have a clue what is going on half the time. I am convinced he is a drunk.”
“He doesn’t know who works here and who doesn’t,” one of our group muttered. “Diehl stopped Cluzet here last week because apparently he’d never seen him before.”
“I’ve been working here for the last fifteen years. I’ve been in through those gates every day since the occupation started,” Cluzet said, shrugging, wiping his spectacles unsuccessfully on his oily rags and placing them on his face.
It was only as Cluzet began to give us a tour of the place that I realised what a close call I had just encountered. A wave of nausea almost overpowered me, and the strength in my legs diminished in a matter of seconds.
My face suddenly felt cold and I felt the blood drain from it from top to bottom. Within about thirty seconds, most of my blood was in the soles of my feet, as I realised that if Diehl had been switched on, I could have been shot on the spot.
I couldn’t afford another close call like that one.
Jules sidled up next to me and leant into my ear.
“I suppose that rules you out on the night then?”
I snapped out of the slippery pit that I was fa
lling deeper into, the blood shooting up from my feet with verve. Within half a second, it was boiling again, lighting up my face like the side of a London bus.
“Why not? If anything, that means that I am the perfect person to lead on this.”
Jules scoffed, inciting a feeling of dislike towards him for the first time since I had met him.
I felt like I had to justify myself, but also keep my voice under very strict controls.
“He’s seen me. He’s waved me through. With any luck he will remember my face. If we plan it to take place on a night that he is on guard duty, then he’ll wave us all through. What just happened there makes our job ten times easier on the night.”
Jules shrugged, as if to say that he would defer judgement until the others could debate what would happen, but I knew that my voice would tower over Jules’. It wasn’t arrogance, but a deep-rooted confidence, that had been instilled in me in the Highlands. I had been trained, Jules had not.
Besides, I knew that Diehl had a weakness; he liked a drink. That could help us out no end further along the line.
“There are three main workshop floors,” Cluzet started as he turned and walked backwards, his arms outstretched. “This is the boring workshop, where we use the jig borers to put holes in various parts for later in the production process.”
I watched as men manipulated howling machinery into flat sheets of steel, sparks flying up everywhere and dancing across the backs of the men’s arms. It was clear now why so many of the men had scorch marks on the blue boiler suits, or small burn marks on their hands and arms.
“The assembly plant is directly overhead. Decidedly less boisterous,” he said, raising his voice to a shout to be heard over the din. “We also have a small gas producing plant, which may or may not be of interest to you.”
I zoned out from what he was saying, partly as it was becoming increasingly difficult to hear what he was saying the closer we got to the noisiest machinery, but also because I already knew all of this.
I had studied the plans that Peintre had given us for hours, until I knew that I could have walked around the factory in my sleep and known where everything was. I had needed to, in case we had not been able to gain entry until the night of the attack, if that had been the case then there would still have been a chance of making a success out of it all.
But, as a bonus, Peintre had directed us towards Cluzet, who was now proudly giving us a tour of all the main features of the factory, helping me to work out where slight changes had been made, or finding darkened corners that would not show on the building plans that we had been given.
I focused on one man in particular, as I watched him at a large lathe, allowing it to spin and form a large piece of metal into what must have been some kind of mechanical shaft.
I had seen one working before, back when I was still training, but this one was different, as it was almost twice the size.
The one that I had seen previously had been built specifically for people like me; those who were learning to blow stuff up.
It was one of the only things that I had taken to in training with any real enthusiasm, purely because I realised, I was pretty good at rendering things unserviceable with nothing more than a little bit of plastic explosive.
This lathe would take a little bit more plastic than the one that I had learned to blow up, but I was confident that the machine would be nothing more than an impractical twisted mess of steel by the time that I had finished with it.
As we continued to look around the factory, taking in all the other machines and what they were being used for, I realised that I wasn’t able to look at anything to marvel at the innovation or technological advancement any longer.
All I could think of now when I saw something like a lathe, jig-borer or the sand dryers, was how best to blow the thing up and, preferably, using the least amount of explosive as possible. I had learnt quickly that it wasn’t just a case of making the biggest bang, or making it appear all twisted, but it was about destroying the vital parts, the parts that would take an age to source replacements for, or too fiddly to even attempt.
It was those smaller things that I was studying closely now.
“Where are the Germans?” Jules asked, as we were shown into a far quieter room, where the clanking metal and shouts of men were dampened considerably. I continued to try and piece together the plans that we had been given with what I was now seeing and managed to work out where we were, based on the overhead pipes that carried cleaner air into the factory.
“We don’t see them in here. They aren’t allowed to smoke. Besides, it’s far too noisy for them to spend a long time in here. It’s why we can talk freely.”
The noise grew dimmer as Cluzet continued to show us around in silence, noticing a long time ago that we were not interested in his salesman-like patter about how many engines the factory could churn out in a day, but seemingly found impossible now under the management of the Germans.
“I have something that might be of particular interest to you. Out here.”
He opened a door, heavy and resistant, that led into an alleyway of sorts.
“This,” he said, extending his arms down the narrow path that had a high wall on one side and the factory on the other, “is your escape route.”
He paced down it a little more. “And a rather nice surprise for you as well.”
We turned a corner, where we were faced with a great hunk of metal, an impressive amount of tubes and carburettors clearly sticking out from it wherever possible. It was at least eight feet tall and towered over the three of us as we stood staring at it.
“This is the main emergency generator. The bombing hasn’t done much to the factory, but it has had some effect on the power that we receive. The Germans have put this in to kick in when that drops out. It has the ability to power the entire factory for up to twelve hours at a time. It gives the Germans time to get the main power reconnected.
“If you can destroy this,” he whispered, “this whole place could be in darkness for weeks.”
I tried to smile back at the Frenchman, whose grin was so menacing that I was beginning to fear for my life.
“That down there will be your bid for freedom. There’s a dip in the wall. Only about three metres high. As long as you’re travelling lighter than when you came in, you should be able to get over it.”
He winked, with a sinister glint in his eye. Something told me that I would do well to have Cluzet by my side on the night that we would go in.
18
I was able to simply eat up the clouds as they raced towards my face, the sun just dipping below them and casting a wide net of weakened orange across the entire skyscape. I basked in the peacefulness of it all, despite the roaring Merlin that was strapped in front of me. This was surely the closest to heaven that a mere mortal could ever get.
There was no one around me, I was the only living thing for miles around and the freedom that I felt I had whilst in possession of those controls was unfathomable. There was something so special about it, being higher than the birds, with no manmade stain anywhere in sight.
I pushed the throttle marginally further forward, my head jumping backwards slightly at the increased acceleration. My shortness of breath was down to nothing more than pure exhilaration as I endeavoured to discover any and every cloud that lingered over this small patch of England.
Every now and then, I would pass through a cloud, flying level from one side to the next, something I had been explicitly forbidden from doing, but the splash of light that glanced off the glass of the cockpit upon exiting was truly wonderful.
I remembered that first, truly solo, flight in the Hurricane as if I was still experiencing it now. It was the first time that I had ever been entrusted to fly without anyone by my side, no one over comms to tell me that I should do this and shouldn’t do that. It was only me.
Slowly, the dials and switches gradually disappeared, until all I could focus on was the fantastically burnt orange sky,
and the wistful clouds that I danced through at over two hundred miles an hour.
It was the fastest that I had ever travelled and yet, in the Hurrie, everything felt as comfortable and smooth as if I was doing less than a hundred. I longed to be able to look behind me and watch as the wisping clouds were obliterated as I charged through them, but realised that staring dead ahead was just as rewarding.
The hairs on the backs of my arms stood to attention, the tears gushing to my eyes as I pulled hard on the paddle in between my legs and climbed as high as I dared.
I shot through yet another cloud on my way to the moon, as the exhalation of exhilaration turned quickly into a chuckle, and just as quickly, a full-body laugh. My body shook as I grinned so wide that my oxygen mask began to unbuckle itself.
“Woohoo!” I screeched at the top of my lungs as I lurched round into an inverted flight, my head skimming the tops of the clouds and my feet the highest things for miles around.
“Woo!” I continued, until almost completely out of breath, before righting myself to its natural order and allowing the blood to rush away from my burgeoning skull.
I navigated into a steep bank, increasing the revs as I did so and feeling the power of the mighty Merlin begin to thunder across the wooden airframe of the Hurricane. Confidently, I held my turn, even when the nausea at the sheer speed I was travelling at began to press into my chest.
My laughter and cheering had died down into nothing more than short, sharp breaths, as the pure elation at flying in such a wonderful machine began to take its toll on my physical wellbeing.
My emotions were so full of a pure love and happiness, that I wished that someone was there alongside me to experience it. At first, I thought I would want Grace, my wife alongside me, but I quickly realised that there was someone else who would have taken a greater joy out of my own happiness; my father.
He would have loved it up there, away from the hustle and bustle of life and the sheer insanity of man. He had seen plenty of it before, but up there, where the pale clouds simply dissipated at the first hint of resistance, I knew he would have been able to find a peace.
