He waited for a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness after the lights inside the hangar, then set off towards some of the other buildings he had noticed earlier. Although they were obviously blacked out so that no bright lights showed, there were in fact many doors, windows and other apertures where glints of light shone through.
After a short walk he came to one of the two-storey brick buildings he had noticed when he first arrived. He could hear the sound of many voices. Inside, there was a short corridor, which then turned to right and left. Before that he saw a double door, with a sign attached to it: Crewroom. He went through, closing it quietly behind him.
It was a long room, packed with airmen, the air thick with cigarette smoke. Tarent’s first breath made him reel back, gasping. He turned away and re-opened the door, seized by a bout of helpless coughing. Never before in his life had he been in a place so full of smokers. His eyes were watering. He returned outside, breathed the evening air until he felt better. Then, more cautiously, he returned to the room.
The airmen were all wearing flying suits, lounging around in dozens of armchairs or standing in small groups. Cups and saucers, and large ashtrays filled with cigarette ends, littered every tabletop. A radio was playing dance music, but no one appeared to be listening. The mood in the room was not jovial, but noisy and friendly, most of the hubbub coming from conversation rather than anything else. Many of the men were standing, carrying extra items: flying helmets, maps, life jackets, Thermos flasks, pairs of leather gloves. At the far end of the room was a huge map of northern Europe: part of Great Britain was visible at top left, but most of the map showed mainland Europe, from France in the west as far as Czechoslovakia in the east, and Italy in the south. Two long ribbons, one red and the other blue, had been thumb-tacked over the map, showing two routes from Lincolnshire across the North Sea into Germany. The red route ran a track slightly to the south of the other, but they ended in the same place: a town in the north-west of Germany.
Tarent began taking photographs and once again no one took any notice of him at all. He was becoming bolder, so he took several close-ups of the men’s faces. He was shocked to realize how young they were – most of them were barely out of their teens. He worked quickly, catching the men’s expressions, the way they used their hands when speaking, their bulky uniforms, the mannerisms with cigarettes and angles of caps which looked as if they had been copied from movies.
He was moving towards the end of the room where the map hung against the wall, when two officers walked out of a side door and took up a position on a low platform in front of the map. Silence fell, and all the airmen stood up. Someone switched off the radio. At a signal from one of the officers, they resumed their seats.
The leading officer spoke, addressing the room.
‘You’ve been fully briefed,’ he began, ‘so I won’t repeat what you already know. Your navigators have the route in detail and tonight’s recognition codes are inside the aircraft. The target for tonight is a tactical one, a plant that manufactures synthetic oils, which the Luftwaffe and the German Army are increasingly dependent upon. Any questions?’ No response. Tarent walked forward, went up to the officer, began to take photographs of him and the other man. They both wore medal ribbons on their breasts. ‘All right. You know what’s expected of you. We need precision bombing tonight, so the Pathfinders will be there a few minutes before you. Weather conditions over the target are expected to be cloudy, but not so much that you won’t be able to bomb accurately. You don’t need me to tell you what to do when you get there, but let me wish you all the luck you deserve, and a safe return.’
He saluted, then turned away quickly. He left the room and the airmen all stood up again. The other officer indicated the clock, and told the airmen to synchronize their watches with it. When this was done he too then walked briskly away. The airmen began to shuffle around, picking up their equipment and heading for the door.
Tarent looked closely at the map. The indicated target was the town of Sterkrade, in the northern part of the Ruhr. He had never heard of the place before. Since no one seemed aware he was there, Tarent took several photographs of the map, and the view of the room from the platform.
There were many newspapers left lying around on the chairs, on the tables, so Tarent walked over and picked one of them up. It was a copy of the Daily Express. The date on it was Friday, 16 June 1944. He took photographs of the front and rear pages. He did not stop to read the pages then, but he noticed that the main headline concerned a new kind of weapon the Germans were launching against London: unmanned aircraft filled with high explosives, designed to crash randomly on the city with devastating effect.
As the last of the men left the room Tarent followed them outside. A number of trucks were waiting to transport the men away. One by one these drove out across the airfield, with the men standing or squatting in the back. Some of them sat by the tailgate, their legs dangling.
The moon had appeared while Tarent was inside the building, and it was easier to make out the shape of the buildings and the extent of the airfield. The trucks carrying the airmen were speeding away in several directions, and in the moonlight he could just make out the distant shapes of one or two of the Lancasters, parked close to the perimeter of the field.
Unexpectedly, there was a loud bang fairly close at hand. Tarent snapped around to see what it was. He saw what appeared to be a fiery rocket shooting up into the sky. At the peak of its flight a bright red flare of light appeared, throwing a distinct reddish glow on the ground.
It was directly above his head, a coincidence that immediately triggered a feeling of alarm. Flo had said that adjacency attacks invariably involved a bright overhead light.
But this one, fizzing and spluttering, continued on, moving down and away from him on the wind, probably destined to burn out before hitting the ground somewhere in the middle of the airfield.
Two airmen had emerged from another building, and were walking close to Tarent. He heard one of them say, ‘What was that Very for?’
‘Not sure. But someone came on the phone from Scampton just now. The radar there picked up a couple of what they thought might be intruders.’
They walked directly past Tarent, so close to him that he could see the features of their faces in the dimming red glow from the Very light. They were both young men, as youthful-looking as the aircrew he had seen. Once again they revealed no awareness that he was there. He decided to walk along with them and listen in to what they were saying.
‘They don’t usually fire a flare just because Scampton sees something.’
‘Maybe one of the intruders is headed this way?’
‘A Junkers came in one night before you were posted here. He got one of our Lancs.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘No, but I had to help clear up the mess the next day.’
‘I heard a single-engined plane come in about an hour ago.’
‘That was a Spit. I heard it too, and went out to watch it land. Whoever it was must be lost, coming in here.’
‘So it wasn’t a German?’
‘Not that one.’
In the distance, at the various extremities of the airfield, the Lancasters’ engines were starting up. The two young airmen paused. Tarent stood beside them in the dark.
‘I’m going down to the NAAFI for some grub. You coming too?’
‘I thought I’d walk out to the end of the runway and watch the lads take off again.’
‘OK. See you in the morning, then.’
‘Probably not,’ said the other. ‘I’m leaving first thing in the morning. The posting came through a couple of days ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Floody. You going to another squadron?’
‘I’m being retrained, then I’ll be sent to Italy. Yank planes, apparently.’
‘I bet they’re crappily built.’
‘Just because they’re American?’
‘Of course. Not half as good as ours.’<
br />
‘OK, see you after the war, then!’
‘Yeah, OK. Good luck, Floody.’
‘You too, Bill.’
3
The man called Floody watched his friend walk off in the direction of the main group of buildings, then he turned away, walking quickly back towards the hangar. Tarent stayed where he was. In a moment, Floody re-appeared, throwing his leg across a bicycle as he mounted it. Tarent saw him dimly in the half-light of the moon, pedalling erratically along the footpath. It looked like a hazardous thing to do in this low light, but presumably he knew the way.
The Lancasters’ engines were now making a great deal of noise and several of the huge planes were taxiing slowly along the perimeter of the airfield. Tarent had never before seen anything like it, this ungainly procession of heavily loaded bombers in the dark, proceeding around to a distant take-off point. Floody was bicycling in that direction, so Tarent followed. More of the bombers moved away from where they had been parked, and set off down the airfield. The noise increased.
Another Very light went up, fired from somewhere out in the centre of the huge field. Once again, to Tarent it seemed that the flare was sent in his direction, bursting into its full glare when it was directly above him. This second Very, which had been fired against the direction of the wind, did not describe an arc, but remained above Tarent, falling slowly towards the ground, guttering and spitting out a trail of bright red sparks.
Tarent felt no fear of it – everything that was happening on this air base had for him, increasingly, a dreamlike feeling of unreality. In a moment the flare sputtered out, and whatever was left of it fell to the ground invisibly and harmlessly. Tarent felt immune from it, as he felt immune from everything else. No one was able to see him, no matter where he went or what he did. Yet he was not imagining any of this: he could enjoy the warmth of the summer evening, feel the light pressure of the breeze, savour the smells and scents in the air. He could touch, hear, see. He was capable of opening and closing a door, he could choke on the cigarette smoke filling a room, he could hear the sound of the Lancasters’ powerful engines, he could bend down and pluck a few blades of the coarse grass on which he was walking. He could take photographs and the images were recorded on the microchip. In every sense except one, what he was experiencing was real.
The one exception was that none of it could possibly be happening.
Tarent held his camera in one hand, almost as if it defended him somehow from the unreality of the situation. He was not afraid of what was happening around him, nor did he have any understanding of it. He sensed that his presence, his half-presence, had no influence on the events he was seeing, nor had been arranged for his benefit. He was here, he witnessed, he saw events unfolding. If he were not here the same events would still be taking place.
Floody had wobbled away on his bicycle out of sight, lost in the darkness of the evening. Across the field, Tarent could see the squadron buildings, but at this distance, in this imprecise light, they could be seen only as dark shapes, or as an overall presence. He walked on, heading in the same general direction that Floody had taken.
A few minutes later lights came on suddenly. They were on the ground, a couple of hundred metres to the side of where he was walking, placed in two parallel rows. They were not bright and were widely spaced. They ran for most of the length of the airfield. As Tarent wondered what they might be for, their function was almost immediately made clear: in the far distance a Lancaster suddenly opened up its engines and with a great roar began to accelerate along the runway, which was marked out by the flare-path of lights. Tarent watched while the enormous bomber thundered towards him. As it passed by it was still in contact with the ground, but its tail was raised. Moments later the heavily loaded aircraft lifted away from the ground, its engines straining with the weight. The sound of the engines now battered against him, a thrilling, awe-inspiring sound of immense mechanical power.
The Lancaster was barely flying when the engines of a second plane at the distant end of the runway emitted their full-throated roar, and that bomber too began its take-off run. Entranced by the experience, unlike anything he had ever known, Tarent remained where he was, daunted by the sheer physical presence of these cumbersome and deadly warplanes, but which were also somehow elegant.
This second Lancaster had already struggled into the air as it passed where he was but was still low above the runway. Gradually gaining height, it flew away in the direction taken by the first plane. It was soon almost invisible to Tarent.
The flare-path lights were quickly extinguished.
Around the perimeter of the airfield, other Lancasters were taxiing down towards the end of the take-off runway. The sound of their engines reached him intermittently, on the vagaries of the wind. Tarent walked on, hoping that he would be able to reach that point in the airfield before the last aircraft left. He wanted to experience the start of the take-off run from close quarters.
After another minute or so, the flare-path lights were switched on again, and in quick succession two more Lancasters thundered down the runway and took off. Tarent again stood still to watch them.
The flare-path turned off, and more of the Lancasters taxied towards the distant take-off point.
The lights came on again, ready for the next take-offs, but almost immediately another Very light was shot high into the sky. The flare-path lights were instantly extinguished.
Again it seemed to Tarent that the exploding flare of red light was exactly above him. Once or twice might be a coincidence, but three . . .? He watched nervously as the spluttering flare drifted down towards the ground. This time he could smell the remains of its smoke – a childhood memory of fireworks swept through him.
The waiting Lancasters remained in two lines, converging from both sectors of the perimeter road towards the end of the runway.
There was another engine sound. This had a different pitch from that of the Lancasters, a sharper, higher sound. It came from an aircraft that was low in the air, fast-moving.
Without warning, a ground-based machine-gun, mounted at the far side of the airfield, opened up. Its tracer bullets arced across the sky. The intruding aircraft’s engine noise increased, and for a moment Tarent glimpsed a twin-engined aircraft with a bulky body, banking low above the ground, swinging away from the airfield. As it swiftly flew across the perimeter towards the east, a second anti-aircraft gun started firing from the ground. Its tracer bullets crossed with the others, too high, too far away to have any effect.
The flare-path lights remained off – in the far distance the Lancasters waited, engines running.
Another Very went up – again, it burst in the sky directly above Tarent’s position. He stepped briskly to one side, beginning to feel that these things were somehow being aimed at him, and not wishing to have the hot remains of the flare container fall on him. However, this flare had a serious purpose – as the latest Very tumbled slowly earthwards, the twin-engined intruder reappeared. It roared over the airfield again, this time flying fast and low above the take-off runway the Lancasters were using. It was heading directly towards the point where the bombers were queuing for take-off. Tarent could see a deadly flicker as cannons mounted in the stocky wings fired towards the waiting aircraft.
The anti-aircraft machine-guns at the sides of the airfield started firing, and tracer arced low above Tarent’s head, directly towards the intruding German plane. As the intruder rushed past him, no more than a hundred metres away from where he crouched in the grass, Tarent saw the tracer from the AA gun behind him make violent contact with the side of the plane.
The reaction was instant. The engine on that side made a screeching noise, the German plane banked sharply to one side, and lifted dramatically away from its attack run. With the damaged engine still shrieking intermittently, the intruder levelled out and flew away towards the east. Tracer from the airfield machine guns followed it, but it was already too far away to be hit again. It was obvious in any case that it
no longer presented a threat to the Lancasters on the ground.
When he felt certain there was to be no more shooting Tarent stood up. He continued to walk towards the far end of the main runway. In a while the flare-path lights came on again, and two more heavily loaded Lancasters made their lumbering but successful take-offs into the summer night.
4
Ahead of him, Tarent saw the dark outlines of two small buildings. They were to the side of the airfield, close to the perimeter track. He planned to walk across the long grass as far as the buildings, then continue the rest of the way by following the perimeter road itself. Although the moonlight still shone, slightly brighter now that the moon had risen further, Tarent stumbled two or three times on small but unseen obstacles on the ground. He was holding the Canon in his hands, and was all too aware of the risk of tripping over and damaging it. It would have been safer to slip the camera into its protective pouch, but for him the Canon still felt like a token of reality – so long as he held it ready he was in control of at least that part of his life.
He came closer to the buildings and two more Lancasters went roaring past on their way to the raid on distant Sterkrade. Tarent briefly wondered if any of the airmen aboard had, before this raid, known the name of their target town. The flare-path flipped into darkness again, and at the end of the runway two more bombers moved slowly into position. He was now close enough to the takeoff point to hear clearly the sound of the engines of the waiting aircraft.
He walked on to a concrete apron in front of the two buildings. Parked there, partly blocking the way he was intending to take, was a small aircraft. It was a single-engined plane, streamlined, low-winged. After the sheer bulk of the heavy bombers it looked almost like a miniature. Tarent paused, raised his camera, and used the night-sight to take a clearer look at it.
The Adjacent Page 44
