Friday, December 14th: finally, departure for Boubers day. Two days late, thanks to a howling gale. So much for counting chickens. Two days confined to barracks, at that – for security reasons, by edict of McLachlan. And having told Amanda that he’d be leaving on Tuesday, when the weather had been all right, he hadn’t even called her.
Weather wasn’t exactly perfect even this morning; wind was down, but it had been snowing since the early hours and the field had a couple of inches on it. Still snowing now as a crowd of ground handlers – thirty men under PO Harmsworth – walked the ship out into it. Next to be brought out after SSP-7 was airborne would be Charlie’s old U-boat killer SS-45; Higham, her new pilot, had been in the shed preparing to set out on yet another oversea patrol – as had his observer, the celebrated PP O’Connor, now allegedly in for the award of a DSM, which would mean that Charlie almost certainly would be getting a DSC for that U-boat – or as he’d put it to McLachlan, for being in the right place at the right time. ‘Wee-wee’ and Higham had both wished Charlie and SSP-7 good luck: despite all efforts it had become common knowledge that the black pusher’s was a very unusual mission. All right – there was the black dope, as had been applied to SS-40 a year ago for an experiment in over-the-lines reconnaissance – but on top of that the rope ladders, head-rope, a load of scrulex anchors and no Lewis gun. Charlie had even had the Lewis mountings, each side of the for’ard cockpit, taken out. Was carrying no radio either; he’d have taken one as far as Boubers, except that it would have had to be fitted into his own cockpit, since neither of the others could have operated it even amateurishly. There were more than enough peculiarities in fact to catch a curious airman’s eye – to cap it all, of course, a major of the Royal Marines in the observer’s cockpit, and old Peeling, the station CO, coming out into the driving snow to see them off.
And the bicycle. That had attracted interest, too.
Seven forty-five now, and still darkish, the ship’s black bulk blacker still against the snow as the handlers turned her in the partial shelter of the wind-breaks, which on their windward sides looked as if they’d been whitewashed. Wind was north-by-west, so on her track of ESE from Beachy Head to Berck-Plage and thence to Doullens (site of an RFC ‘lighthouse’, i.e. navigational beacon, near Frévent) she’d have it on her port quarter. Wind allegedly force 4, at this stage.
Trim was as good as one would get it. A bit light, and a touch bow-up. He’d be taking off into the wind, as always – the way Harmsworth’s team had her pointing now – then doing a one-eighty to put it astern and settle her on course while climbing to about 1,000. Circle over Mandy’s first, he thought. As good a way of getting round as any. Especially as Mandy would be up by now, enjoying her tea and toast.
Ready to go, almost. Stavely had started her with the crank handle, and the Green was ticking over while he fussed with his dials and gauges. They’d taken him to a pub on Tuesday night – Charlie’s idea, to which McLachlan had agreed somewhat doubtfully – and it had been reasonably successful: the Yorkshireman looking from one of them to the other over his pint of ‘Old’ in a comparatively unfrequented corner of the bar, murmuring, ‘Guessed you’d be tellin’ us what we’re at on this caper, sir.’
‘Better do that when we’re over there.’ Charlie lifting his pint. ‘It is a bit of a caper, I’ll tell you that much. But with the ears that are flapping here, what you don’t know they can’t get out of you – right?’
‘Wouldn’t be writin’ home about it, like.’
‘Sure you wouldn’t. Home’s in the West Riding, I think you said?’
From there on, conversation had been about home; largely about Stavely’s two brothers who were even further from it than he was, one at sea in a cruiser and the other in the Army in France. Poor bastard. Then McLachlan, faced with a direct question from Stavely, told them that he came from a place called Gullane, on the coast of East Lothian not far from Edinburgh. It was the first time, Charlie had noted, that the Marine had come up with any information about himself, and sure enough he’d switched it then to geese, migratory, the hundreds of thousands that flighted down over this Gullane place, the staggering sight and sound of their arrival at dusk each evening throughout the autumn. Pink-footed geese, McLachlan had told them: came all the way from Spitsbergen, which was a hell of a long flight.
SSP-7 was ready to flight off now though, by the looks of it. On both sides, handlers’ faces turned up this way, waiting for it. For him. He glanced round at Stavely enquiringly, and the AM nodded, raised both thumbs. And McLachlan looked as if he was well enough settled in – bicycle and all. So – all right. Charlie lifted both hands, bawled, ‘Hands off, let go!’ Everyone jumping clear and Harmsworth executing a breezy salute as Charlie eased his throttle open – then wider open, as her bow showed signs of falling off the wind, which had to be countered quickly. Twenty feet. Thirty. More rise on the elevators. It wasn’t all that much of a wind, but with the snow in it and one’s own goggled face into it, it felt like more than it was. The ship’s rounded black snout bang on north-by-west, snow streaming, surrounding, plastering, and the ship powering up smack into it. One of the things you had to look out for was any build-up of snow on the tailfins, which could not only upset the trim but even encroach on one’s control of the elevators. Give them plenty of exercise, was a partial answer: you could only go by the feel of her, couldn’t actually see them. Couldn’t see more than the top of McLachlan’s head in the front cockpit, either. Leatherneck making himself as small as possible, crouching with his head retracted somewhat tortoise-fashion. Two hundred feet, at about two-thirds throttle. Time – just short of eight. Two-fifty feet: might stay at this height while making a courtesy call on Amanda. Why not, the cottage was on one’s route to the Head – almost.
Port rudder, therefore, bring her round.
Visibility began improving from the moment her bow came off the wind. Using only five degrees of helm (a) so as not to risk letting the wind get the upper hand, and (b) to make it a fairly wide turn, to finish up on a track halfway between Folkington and Wannock. By that time she’d have her tail into it; would also be well clear of the airfield, out of the way of SSZs taking off. Three miles, roughly, from this point of completing the one-eighty to Jevington, although he’d be edging her on to south-by-east before that. Wind and snow all astern now, making things more comfortable, although in watching the familiar land features sliding under, 250 feet below, one’s goggles still needed frequent clearing. Light and visibility were improving anyway: the Polegate field in clear sight suddenly on the beam to port with an SS just lifting from it, and beyond that a train pulling out from Polegate railway station: that familiar bird’s-eye view as clear as anything one moment and wiped out in the next as it receded into the snow-filled slipstream. Other side – Folkington abeam, but also slipping away fast. The rev-counter showed engine-speed of about thirty knots, but with the wind astern at this point maybe thirty-five. Airspeed indicator reading thirty-three. Wannock, that was: and the lines of comparatively recent building in a curve southeastward from there to Willingdon on the London-Eastbourne road. So Willingdon Hill, which topped 200 feet, had to be about – there. Mile and a half, no more. Still couldn’t make it out. The snow varied – one minute a curtain, then a thinning swirl through which one could suddenly see up to maybe five miles. He was steering to pass between Willingdon Hill and Jevington, then, after taking a close, farewell look at the cottage, take her up to 300 feet. Would have made it 500 and stuck to that all the way across to France, but with the vis so unreliable – at moments even slightly confusing – one was inclined to play it a bit safe.
Snow might not last for ever, anyway. Weather forecasts on that had been vague. The happy thought was that no gales had been predicted. Heavy gauntlets with silk gloves inside them precluded the crossing of fingers. But there, now – he’d brought her five degrees to starboard and had Willingdon Hill fine on the bow to port. And Jevington – the village of, on the road leading down to Friston – close to starboard. So that was Harewick Bottom. Dozens of bottoms, around here – Harewick’s, Crunden’s, Chapman’s, Duttle’s. Duttle’s was more or less Amanda’s territory – though she was actually closer to Duttle’s Brow, as Don Bishop had pointed out to him, in what seemed now an earlier age, almost a previous incarnation.
Would Don object to one’s liaison with her, he wondered? Be aware of it, even? One’s own nightmarish vision in that thought was of eye-sockets empty in a shattered skull, empty or mud-filled, scarecrow remnants festooning wire in a silence where so recently guns had thundered. Once or twice, looking at Amanda in quieter moments, he’d found that kind of imagery in his mind and wondered whether she had such visions, too. Whether anyone could not have, even without recent and intimate association.
Binoculars, now – pushing the goggles up with their eyepieces. And yes – there. Less easy even from this height to pick out from under the covering of snow, but that was it. Narrow lane curving up past it, defined mainly by still surprisingly dark hedging. Tyre-tracks greyish. It was past eight now – eight being the time at which a colleague came to pick her up. Not always the same one, she’d said, they worked on a roster basis. Anyway, she’d have gone, would not be either seeing or hearing this black beauty powering over. The picker-up would have turned at the cottage, though, to go back down into the periphery of Eastbourne, and oddly enough there was only one set of tracks. SSP-7 passing at this moment not quite over the cottage’s smoke-leaking chimney, but as near to it as he’d meant to be, Charlie now seeing that those tracks led out of the yard behind – had originated there. Originated in fact at a still darkish – almost bare – motorcar-sized rectangle where it must have been parked all night.
Or since the snow had started, anyway. That had been not long after midnight. Charlie attending to his business now, edging the elevator control-wheel round – trailing edges of the elevators upward – stern down, up-angle on the ship as a whole. Willingdon Hill coming up abeam to port: course from here to Beachy Head therefore SSE, distance say three and a half miles. Thinking of his job, the ship: in the forefront of his mind, damn-all else. Give her a bit more throttle. Having wasted – anyway expended – maybe ten or twelve minutes on making a wider detour than he need have, deciding to make up for that, cross the coast with revs on her for 40 mph rather than pass out over the sea and then crack that much on her. Forty was the speed he’d reckoned on averaging, allowing two and a half hours for the 100-mile flight; Polegate would have given Boubers-sur-Canche – or Doullens – ten-thirty as his ETA.
Over the coast, near the Head, altering from SSE to ESE. That was all clear as crystal in his thinking. What he was trying to keep out of it was an obscenity. And – inconceivable. Telling himself he’d had no business to have gone prying, anyway. All right, had not been prying – but wouldn’t that be how anyone else would see it? Amanda herself, for instance? After he’d been less than truthful about his own movements – so she’d have thought she was in the clear? She’d told him, ‘If Caterham asks me out to dinner, why the heck shouldn’t I?’
Some dinner…
Leaving Beachy Head to starboard, to cross the coast between there and Eastbourne. The snow seemed to be thinning. Over the coastline, with Eastbourne’s promenade starting a mile away to port – a couple of miles of it then, fronting white-edged, dark-grey sea. Settling her on ESE and checking the time – eight-eleven. On this course now, with the wind broader on the quarter, making her 40 mph all right, but no more than that at these revs – which were adequate in any case. One was inclined to nurse her, give her an easy time of it so as to have her in top condition for the flights that really mattered – which she’d actually been built for. Airspeed indicator actually showing 42 mph. Sixty miles now to the French coast at Berck-Plage, at this rate a ninety-minute transit – you’d be over Frogland by about nine-thirty. Adjusting revs again – just slightly – and thinking again – inconceivable! Turning to look back at Stavely, and the ox-like head in its helmet nodding ‘OK’ to him; one gauntleted hand raised, circular movement indicating their surroundings, satisfaction in the fact the snow had stopped or damn near had. A few flakes whisking by, feathers travelling like bullets. Speed-through-the-air plus pusher-prop sucking the stuff in, of course. Not a tenth of what it had been, anyway. Shifting back again, thinking that Stavely was – in naval parlance – a very good hand, and glad they’d had that off-duty session in the pub. McLachlan had agreed it had been a good idea and beneficial, giving him and the Yorkshireman at least some recognition of each other as human beings, as distinct from tin soldiers marching behind a guard and band – the fact being that small teams working at very close quarters with each other couldn’t operate like regiments or even platoons, not even if they’d had any inclination to, which if they had they wouldn’t have gone in for this kind of life in the first place. Checking the readings on all his instruments now while an image of that almost snowless rectangle slid back into memory like a magic-lantern slide. If the colleague fetching her had come early and gone in for a mug of tea, taken some time over it – having caught her on the hop, jumped the gun by a quarter-hour or twenty minutes, say – which might have made sense, with the snow coming down as thickly as it had been at that stage?
Would have had to have been parked there several hours to have made that much difference. Snow didn’t all melt as soon as a car parked on it. That space had been covered by a car all damn night. Smallish rectangle, at that, matching what she’d said Caterham had – ‘little sporty job’.
Too ‘sporty’ to be bloody true?
Scowling. Very funny…
McLachlan was craning around to look back at him: now pointing downward into his cockpit and touching his ear before ducking down to the 3-ply ‘voicepipe’. Charlie obligingly though unenthusiastically did the same, put his right ear to this end of it and heard faintly, ‘Doing well, aren’t we, Holt? On schedule navigationally?’ Pointless question. The voice-conduit wasn’t much use anyway, and took up space, a corner of it tending to catch one on the right knee when putting on starboard rudder – right foot drawn back, that knee having to rise. His own doing, of course – idea originating when he’d thought McLachlan would be in the AM’s position and communication with him would be essential. Would have been, too.
He yelled into the thing now, ‘Fine! No problems!’ Not at all happy in giving such reassurance, knowing all too well how suddenly serious trouble could arise – engine run a bearing, shitehawk fly into the prop, magneto failure, blocked carburettor jets, choking on dirty fuel, or—
Tyre-tracks in the snow. Knocked the stuffing out of you. Really had you sweating inside the heavy suit. Fish suddenly out of water, gills pumping, was how you felt – and saw yourself.
So forget it. Stick to this. Rock-steady, at 300 feet. Hadn’t seen a single ship, as yet, although with the snowfall having apparently played itself out, visibility wasn’t at all bad. Odd thought then, as by habit and instinct he more or less systematically explored the sea from right ahead to well abaft each beam, that even if he found himself overflying an entire flotilla of surfaced U-boats now there’d be damn-all he could do about it. Except climb, get out of range of their machine-guns. Having no bombs, no Lewis, not even a wireless over which to pass an enemy report. If there were ships in sight – destroyers or armed trawlers especially, of course – you’d use the Aldis, give them a range and bearing, or in other cases have them pass the message on. Nothing down there now, anyway. Empty grey surface ridged and whorled with white. Overhead, uniformly grey sky with no holes in it. He wished he had not decided to pass close to Mandy’s place on a whim. Even though he honestly could not believe in the ‘obvious’ interpretation of what he’d seen. Although that was how it had been – he’d seen it – no question of illusion or imagination. And in plain fact, with Caterham around and telephoning her – he’d called and asked her if she’d come out with him only – what, five days ago – and when Charlie had asked her would she go out with him, she’d said, ‘I don’t know. I may.’ So she couldn’t exactly have shut him off; the sod would have tried again, and obviously had. Dinner at Sattery’s or Weber’s Cabin or the Queen’s Hotel, then back to the cottage. Everyone getting taken back to the bloody cottage…
Nine o’clock. Closer to France than to England now. Would have expected to have seen some seaborne traffic by this stage. Minesweepers, for instance, or troop-carrying steamers to and from Dieppe. How must it feel, God’s sake, for those poor wretches (like Stavely’s brother) out of the Flanders mud on all-too-brief leave periods at home, to be shipped back like cattle to the purgatory they already knew all about, knew they’d been lucky to have lived through this far, and that it had to be at least ten to one they wouldn’t be coming out of for another leave. Wouldn’t you think some of them might jump overboard? Swim to that group of four – no, five – steam trawlers a couple of cable lengths off to starboard? Most likely French. He put his binoculars on them: they were showing no flags, but the numbering on their bows looked French, somehow. Searching for a figure 7 – French-type, crossed – but there wasn’t one that he could see. A figure on the stern of the nearest was waving, and McLachlan rose slightly in his cockpit to wave back. They had women serving as deck-hands in their trawlers now, so one had heard. Brand-new thought then, as he let the glasses down on their lanyard: quite a few of the drivers in Amanda’s RAMC-linked organisation were women, mostly driving their own cars. Suppose one of them had taken her home last night and saved herself an even earlier start in the morning – this morning – by staying the night? Snow had, after all, been forecast. Could have slept on the sofa, or even shared the bed. Could have. Might not seem exactly probable, but there could be other quite unguessable circumstances which would make it more so; and wasn’t it a lot less improbable than – than how it seemed?
Smudges of grey coastline ahead and on the bow to port. Le Touquet and Etaples up that way. Dead ahead – count on it – Berck-Plage. For the past half-hour he’d been steering a few degrees to port of the course of ESE, which had to be his track-made-good, to allow for the now slightly freshened wind which would otherwise have been edging her further south than he wanted. Coping with a very slight increase in wind force, that was all – not thinking by how much it might have risen by this evening or tonight, tomorrow, say. No point in such speculation: however it turned out, you’d handle it. Even if that meant staying on the ground, waiting for conditions to improve. Or worsen. The Handley-Page bombers didn’t embark on their long-range bombing operations in rough weather, McLachlan had been told in London, so it mightn’t be just one’s own decision anyway.
On the other hand, there’d be a fragment of old moon still hanging up there tomorrow – if cloud was thin enough or broken enough for it to show through. So if one didn’t go tomorrow – which was desirable anyway, London wanted those women brought out as soon as possible – you’d be doing it in pitch darkness. Maybe tomorrow, even. With cloud-cover anything like total, forget about starlight too. Would have the advantage of total invisibility for this ship. Maybe – all that was still a toss-up. Charlie put his glasses up again. Berck-Plage now well defined – grey roofs and a strip of roadway curving around that blunt promontory, and to the south of it the conspicuous declivity of Bale d’Authie – the Authie being a river which he’d be crossing where it entered the estuary, and then again about twenty kilometres inland. Berck-Plage was on the beam, and the estuary’s narrowing length dead ahead. He pulled his chart-board up on to his lap and pushed the goggles off his eyes to check over the navigational points he’d earlier noted – pencil notes of distances and place-names on the map’s edge, all supposedly committed to memory, although memorising French village names when you weren’t much of a linguist wasn’t all that easy.
Second crossing of the Authie, anyway, would be at Argoules. That was the ‘20-kilometre inland’ point; from there you’d have another forty, passing directly over Dournez – crossing the Authie yet again – then at fairly regular intervals Regnauville, Chériennes, Fontaine and Quoeux – however the hell you’d pronounce that, the answer being that he personally would not. And then Boubers-sur-Canche, which he’d come to think of now as ‘Boobers’ and which one would search for, in passing over, knowing that four kilometres further on, on the same track, one would be over the small town of Frévent, close to which was the Doullens ‘lighthouse’. Recognising Frévent by its size in comparison with those other villages – whose names didn’t in fact matter except as reference points by which to check progress and ensure that one was still on track, making the right allowance for wind – not that there was all that much of it. If (or when) he found or suspected that he was over Frévent, he’d turn back, look more closely and carefully for Boobers. It was said to be difficult to spot, being small, with only a single camouflage-painted canvas shed. He’d have the river Canche down there for guidance, though: it passed to the north of Boobers but more or less right through Frévent. And finally, if the chaps at the Doullens lighthouse saw this black beauty hovering around, although they were only supposed to start up after sunset, they’d give him a ‘Q’ on their beacon – ‘Q’ being the Doullens identification letter. He could even ask for it – if he thought he was lost – by firing a cartridge of the correct colour of the day from the Very pistol which he had on the floor beside him.
(Making two pistols in all, down there. The other was a Webley-Scott .45 which he’d borrowed from Bob Bayley. Bayley had expressed surprise at Charlie’s having refused to have a Lewis fitted, had then remarked, ‘Sort of jaunt this looks like to me, you surely should have some kind of weapon with you,’ and had offered him this six-shooter. Asked by Charlie how he’d come by it, he’d said he’d won it in a game of poker-dice.)
Over land, now, with the Authie’s estuary and bay diminishing astern. No sign of any snow down there. McLachlan had his head over the side to port, either being airsick or taking special interest in a village called – Charlie checked the map – Conchil-le-Temple. Anyway, leave him to it. Except for that weight of anxiety – and astonishment – in the background, you might say it was a case of so far so good – on track, on course, only forty kilometres to go.
He’d lost count of which village was which, having passed over about twice as many as he’d listed, but he found the Boobers place easily enough, having followed the road that passed through it on the way to Frévent, with the Canche at this point close to the north of it, then the triangular field – and its cleverly camouflaged ‘shed’, which actually stood out like a sore thumb, with other huts around it as well as several lines of tents – just to the south. He took the ship over it on a southerly course, descending gradually and throttling back, then did a slow one-eighty, coming down into the wind at a hundred feet – and less – towards a group of about a dozen or fifteen dark-clad RNAS men who’d been moving out into the centre of the field. They’d be airmen, riggers and AMs, although in fact he’d been given no details of the ground team he’d have here. They’d have been assembled in dribs and drabs from air stations all over the country, he supposed. Focusing his glasses on them – all the faces staring back up at him – at SSP-7, anyway – and McLachlan then pointing at a double column of khaki-clad soldiers moving out at the double to join that lot.
Halting. Turning into line, facing the officer or NCO who’d been doubling out alongside them. A petty officer with the RNAS team was open-mouthed, bawling and gesticulating in that direction – where the pongoes under their officer or NCO, whatever he was, were now forming fours, for God’s sake.
But all right, he’d dismissed them, and the PO was taking charge of them as well as his own lot, had them fairly scampering this way and that – no doubt having seen that Charlie wasn’t hanging around, was in the course of putting her down, into a wind that was still about force 4. By the time she was down to fifteen feet he had a crew of assorted naval and military handlers on each side, keeping pace with her and closing in, and the ringmaster/PO standing clear, directing them.
Ten feet. Five. Naval airmen had got the handling lines. So – throttling back. Hadn’t valved: with this team on the ground to receive him, hadn’t needed to, and until one actually set eyes on it one couldn’t know for sure that there’d be supplies of gas here. There should be, if McLachlan’s overlords in London had been quick enough off the mark, but…
She was in good trim, anyway. Settling down like a big black duck. The PO holding up his arms then, forearms crossed, a signal to make fast or shut down, in this case presumably the latter. Maybe where he came from, ground handlers told pilots what to do? In any case – Charlie glanced back at Stavely, who was ready for it: he shut the throttle and switched off, allowed the Green to cough itself into a well-earned rest and the handlers to drag her down.