Friday, December 7th. This flight was to be a rerun of yesterday’s. Simply to fly, manoeuvre around – climb, descend, turn left and right, steer a straight course over a few miles, turn and fly back again. And make sure she could turn under full rudder without falling apart. He was sure she would be all right, having revisited her last night with McLachlan and Hallet after dinner in the mess, checked out the new rigging plan and seen the work in progress. Now he and McLachlan had met for breakfast in the wardroom at eight, both of them in flying gear and the major as keen as mustard, only asking whether one ever got airsick. Charlie had told him yes, in rough weather, high winds, with the ship being banged around, it had been known; but there was no wind this morning, only clear sky and a hard frost that would affect the ship’s lift. He’d explained, ‘When the gas is much warmer than the air around it, you get what’s called “false lift”. Can be a help, if you want to whizz up fast. Need to watch it, though.’ Jerking a thumb: ‘Sun’s getting up now anyway, warm the place up a bit.’
He’d clammed up after that; breakfast was never a conversational meal on airship stations, no more than it was in wardrooms afloat, for that matter. In any case, what was in both their minds couldn’t be discussed in public. In Charlie’s, for instance, recollection of the major’s breaking off a long discourse last evening to point again the village of Bellignies, telling him, ‘Should’ve mentioned – the château here is where Ludendorff held that planning conference. Belongs to a noble French family by name du Croy – the Princess Marie du Croy being a friend and associate of Edith Cavell, hand-in-glove with her, as in fact she confessed at her trial, in aiding the escape of British and French soldiers via Brussels and over the border into Holland. Which is where our courier came from, incidentally, although you don’t need to know all that – he came to London to alert us to the existence of this girl and the intelligence she’d swap for being brought out, you see.’
‘Sorry – you’ve rather lost me, sir. Girl, you say…’
The hawk’s eye, and a twist of the lips. ‘Not scared of girls, are you, Holt?’
‘Not as a rule.’
‘Glad to hear it. Anyway – listen. After the battles of Mons and Charleroi – 1914, remember? – the Forêt de Mormal was thick with British and French survivors, wounded and otherwise, in hiding and being hunted by the Germans. The Princess du Croy had turned her château into a Red Cross hospital, these chaps were filtering in or being brought along by local country people, she was taking them in, nursing and sheltering them, and as they became fit transferring them to Brussels – to Edith Cavell, who sent them on their way to the Dutch border. That’s where she came into it, and where the chaps she helped came from. The girl I’m now telling you about was a trainee nurse – probationer – under Edith C, and after the bust-up – arrests, trial, and Edith’s murder by firing-squad – she returned to Taisnières, which is where she and her mother had lived, I think pretty well all the girl’s life. The Princess du Croy had been instrumental in getting her taken on for training by her friend Edith, you see. The girl’s name is Hilde. Hilde Martens. It seems she has a German friend – a leutnant – who’s based at the château and was present in some capacity at that conference, and he spilt the beans to her. No doubt in some unguarded moment, eh?’
Charlie had nodded. ‘And it’s this girl we’re hoping to bring out. But you said two people?’
‘Yes. She and her mother – who’s in some way crippled. The girl won’t say a word unless we bring them both out, that’s her price. Mum’s English-born, apparently, might be in danger if it became known to the Huns – especially in view of Hilde’s Cavell connection, I suppose. Huns don’t like us much, you know. Prime example is the 1915 death sentence for Edith Cavell, but only fifteen years’ hard labour for Princess du Croy. Well – I say only, but it can’t be any picnic, can it, especially for a woman with that sort of background. Whose younger brother, incidentally – Prince Reginald – is running the intelligence-gleaning service which passed us the tip about Hilde Martens. He’d sent a courier in to the Bellignies district, very much his own – that’s to say Reginald’s – home ground, to nose around for any whispers of what might have transpired at Ludendorff’s conference. Oh, yes, there’s a manor house a couple of miles from the château, and he – the courier, also Prince Reginald, I think – knows the woman who owns it and lives there. The Prince would know her, of course – he and she must have been close neighbours, until he skipped and his sister was arrested. But the manor’s used by the Huns as overflow accommodation when the château’s chock-a-block with generals and suchlike. Woman’s name begins with “S” – I’ve a note of it elsewhere. I’ll be mugging all this up, of course, before we set off. And the girl, Hilde – oh, this is it, she works for Madame S, and – wait a minute – correction. I’ve got it straight now – Hilde told Madame S that her young leutnant had shot his mouth off – trying to impress her, no doubt – and Madame S got a message out to Prince Reggie. That’s how it all started. You’re pretty well in the picture now. Rather more than you need to be, actually – I’ll be coping with what you might call the social scene.’
‘On your bike.’
‘As you say. For getting to the girl and her mum at Taisnières, anyway. Getting her and a crippled old woman back to wherever you’ll have parked the ship is something else, obviously. Farm-cart, perhaps. Or whatever I can find or the girl can offer. Thing is, it’s been decided that we should simply blow in and get them. No word in advance to her or to Madame S, or even to Prince Reginald in Holland, as there’s reason to doubt the strength of their security. And certainly, by not giving them any reason to think we’re doing a damn thing – well, security’s one hundred percent, one side of it we don’t have to worry about, eh?’
‘No advance contact at all?’
‘None. It was quite hotly debated, but that’s the decision. The alternative would have been to inform Prince Reginald, who might then have sent his courier back in, but—’
‘No question of getting help from locals, then. That’s my interest – as a possible solution to the problems of putting her down unaided. But, all right…’
‘You’re thinking of a reception party. Handlers, or…’
‘Something of that sort. Doubtful value, I admit, but—’
‘With security vitally important, you see – you’d need to give them the exact place, date and time – and as you say, doubtful value – some bunch of rustics with little or no idea of what’s wanted.’
‘I suppose.’ He’d shrugged. ‘Anyway, we’ll manage somehow.’
‘Of course we will.’ The nod of certainty again. As if he knew even the first thing about landing an airship in the dark without any handling party. What it came down to was that he was determined it should be achievable – Charlie could blooming well make it so.
They were chatting again now, after that properly silent breakfast, on their way across the frozen field to the airship sheds. McLachlan grousing that the leather helmet he’d been supplied with was too tight, Charlie assuring him that it would stretch, that new ones always felt tight to start with.
‘Why are these called Sidcot suits?’
‘Because they were invented by a man called Sidney Cotton. Australian, RNAS.’
‘Well. We live and learn.’ McLachlan pointed: ‘Your ship’s handlers, I suppose?’
A couple of dozen of them, in coats or oilskins and rubber boots, converging towards SSP-7’s shed. Combatting the cold by swinging their arms about, beating gloved hands together, collective breath rising like steam above them. But the sun was poking up, there behind the sheds and windbreaks and the Silicol gas plant that was identical to the one at Polegate. ‘You think less than an hour, this flight?’
‘Yes. Then they’ll check her over before we go up again – way up – this afternoon. As we would have yesterday.’
‘Back on the ground about ten, then. But I’ll have to leave you to it this afternoon. Various points to be gone into in London – arrangements for Boubers-sur-Canche, and what we want from the RFC. Best set in motion right away, and discussed face-to-face rather than on the telephone. Take a real mechanic up with you this afternoon, eh?’
‘I’ll arrange it now with Hallet.’
‘And I’ll be with you again tomorrow, having set all that in motion.’
‘But detail of the Handley-Page diversionary attack to be left for us to discuss with them when we get there?’
‘Has to be – we won’t have a date or timing until then, will we. In outline, though – as I’ve noted it – we’re suggesting they pass within a few miles of Bavay en route to and from Namur. And either pass over us at Boubers before we take off, or make a dog-leg around the north side of Valenciennes – that’s if they want to take off later than we do. So we can fly at whatever height suits us.’
‘And the Boubers arrangements, as discussed last night.’
‘Mechanics and riggers, tools, engine spares, tentage, fuel, gas – what else, specifically?’
‘Check it over before you push off, shall we?’ Charlie had been having a few ideas, during the night and early morning, and some of them he’d already discussed with Hallet. There was a tremendous amount of planning and preparation, he’d begun to realise. At first sight – well, just hop aboard, buzz over to France, pick a dark night (or a moonlit one) for a quick flip across the lines; but it wasn’t like that at all. Most of the planning came into McLachlan’s brief, but Charlie as pilot needed at least to be consulted in a lot of that. That was Hallet now, he saw, emerging from the shed through the crowd of airmen who’d just reached it; spotting them, he raised a hand in greeting and turned back in. Time – eight-fifty. When they joined him inside, under the loom of what he’d said some of his team were calling ‘the black beauty’, he asked McLachlan, ‘Fit for the plumber’s role, Major?’
McLachlan shaking his head, growling, ‘Plumber of extremely limited ability, you’ll have realised.’
‘I’m sure you’ll have no problems, anyway.’ Meaning that he was confident the ship was sound now, and telling Charlie then, ‘I’ve put out a query about yellow dope. For the voice-pipe, Berriman’s proposing plywood – if you don’t mind the “pipe” being rectangular?’
‘Preferably of small cross-section – couple of inches, say?’
‘A voicepipe’s an excellent notion.’ McLachlan hadn’t heard of it until now; it was one of the things Charlie had talked to Hallet about last night, when he’d revisited the shed before turning in, studied the rigging plan and seen the work already half-completed. He’d hesitated over the voicepipe idea, torn between the likely benefits of being able to communicate with his passenger and the possibility of said passenger not being able to resist the temptation to pass orders through it. By and large though it would be best to have it: the passenger could call for help or advice if he needed any. Which he certainly might. Cocking an eyebrow now: ‘But yellow dope?’
‘Beech trees. As mentioned in that soldier’s notes. Cheyney?’ He glanced around, saw that only Hallet was in earshot, and was talking to a PO rigger now. Cheyney was the name of a former lieutenant of the 2nd Dragoon Guards who’d been cut off from his unit during the retreat from Mons and had gone into hiding in the forest, gathering around him a group of about forty soldiers and preparing for guerrilla action of some kind – to fight their way out, whatever. But when the Germans had begun hunting them with dogs he’d turned his party in to the mayor of Bavay, who’d placed them in Red Cross care and then formally notified the local kommandantur, and they’d had the luck to end up as POWs instead of being shot out of hand, which apparently had been closer to the norm. Cheyney himself had later escaped and made it back to England, and his file had been turned up by McLachlan’s people, who’d then had him brought back from Flanders – a lieutenant-colonel now – and questioned him about the forest and that area generally, and any local personalities he’d met or known of who might be of assistance. He’d met the now absent – imprisoned – Princess du Croy, for instance, and Madame ‘S’ – a name which McLachlan found in his notes at that point and which turned out to be de Semeillions; and one detail of Cheyney’s account of it all had been that 90 per cent of the Forêt de Mormal was beech, the rest of it oak.
Charlie continuing to McLachlan, ‘See, if we were delayed, still on the ground in daylight – please God we won’t be – but anyway, beeches are about the only trees still with some leaves on this time of year, aren’t they? Yellow or russet. I thought streaks or splashes of that on her topsides – if any’s obtainable. As camouflage to fox any overflying Huns, of course. Remote possibility, maybe—’
‘I’d certainly hope so.’ McLachlan still looking startled. ‘Sitting out a whole day – if we were stuck there in daylight at all we’d have to stay put until dark, wouldn’t we?’ Shake of the head. ‘Your province, rather, but—’
Hallet, rejoining them, nodded towards the car. ‘Ready when you are.’
The same observer/wireless operator, Charlie saw. He called to him, ‘Taking your life in your hands again, Crookshank?’
McLachlan managed the start-up procedure well enough, and the flight went well – over the same course as yesterday’s, and making the same one-eighty-degree turn without any snapping of wires. A new defect did show up – the control lines to the rudder had had to be rerigged and weren’t in balance, so that steering a straight course meant seemingly carrying a few degrees of helm. It could be rectified easily enough before the afternoon flight, in any case. Back on the ground Charlie asked Hallet, ‘Make a start on the voice-pipe, too?’
‘This evening, more like. They’ll be knocking it up in the chippy’s shop meanwhile.’ McLachlan hadn’t shut off the petrol cock above the engine. He’d climbed out, leaving it open – Charlie could see it from where he was standing, the T-top of it in line with the pipe instead of at right angles to it. The chief artificer – Berriman – was up there now, shutting it and for good measure the two higher ones as well, where fuel lines ran from each tank to their junction above the lower one. Nobody said anything, and McLachlan didn’t see it or realise there was anything he should have done and hadn’t. Charlie told Hallet, ‘I need to see your chippy, too. But listen – Major McLachlan can’t be with us this afternoon. Borrow one of your AMs, can I?’
‘Of course.’ Looking across the shed, and pointing: ‘Just the man for you.’ He called, ‘Stavely – here a minute.’ Boiler-suited, coming from a stripped-down engine on a test-bed. Shortish, squarish, heavy-jawed; small, suspicious eyes moving from the engineer lieutenant to Charlie and McLachlan and then back again. Like a young bull’s, those eyes: a young bull wondering which one of these three to charge. Nodding to the engineer then: ‘Sir?’
‘Chief Artificer mentioned that you were chocker, not having got off the ground much lately.’
‘Fact, I’ve not, sir.’
‘Your lucky day, then. SSP-7 this afternoon with Flight Lieutenant Holt, height trial, take-off at two.’
‘Aye – thank ye, sir.’ Less a smile than a look of cautious satisfaction. Speculative glance at McLachlan, as if wondering what might be wrong with him.
Charlie said, ‘Glad to have you along, Stavely,’ and surprised him with a handshake. ‘We’ll see if we can find her ceiling. OK?’
See McLachlan on his way, he thought, then visit the shipwrights, then put a call through to Amanda. He and the major having changed out of their flying gear met in the office they’d used yesterday and settled down to review the arrangements to be made – requested, or proposed – at the Admiralty this afternoon. Admiralty or wherever: McLachlan had said next to nothing about that end of it. Charlie querying for a start though, ‘Ground crew at Boubers – don’t think we put that on the list, but will it be laid on anyway?’
‘Will be, yes. Army’ll provide it. When we sent SS-40 over, they gave us a subaltern and forty men. That was an entirely military venture, of course – so, yes, I’ll make sure it is laid on. But give me your view on this proposed diversionary bombing raid, Holt. I told them we liked the idea, and it found favour at that meeting – a few days ago, this was – but since you and I talked about it I’ve been wondering, rather. You said Hun fighters have blimps pretty well on toast, right? Lewis guns not much use as a defence – etcetera. Well – if we send Handley-Pages over, buggers’ll put night fighters up in droves, won’t they?’
‘Might, I suppose. But the RFC have been raiding quite deeply into Hun territory of late, one’s heard – and getting away with it, supposedly. You might raise that, perhaps – how the RFC see it, pros and cons?’
‘Yes. I will. The concept when we discussed it in London was that after they’d passed over our target area – the Bavay district – the sound of one more aero engine might not excite as much interest as it would if the night had been quiet up to then. And when the sound faded – which would be because we’d landed – they might assume we’d passed over as the others had.’
Charlie agreed. ‘That’s the aspect I like. If there’s low cloud so we have to come down low to see what’s where, “silenced” engine or not, they’ll hear us.’ He shrugged. ‘In fact they’ll be deafened… Tell you what, sir. Suggest the bombers take a different route home after they’ve hit Namur. For instance—’ checking on the map – ‘south here to Dinant, say, before they turn east?’
‘Might not be too keen on that. Especially if there are fighters up. As well as ack-ack and searchlights all alerted by that time.’
‘But if the whole purpose is to divert attention—’
‘If you were a Handley-Page pilot, would you want to hang on behind the lines any longer than you had to, after dropping your bombs?’
‘Dare say not, but—’
‘I’ll raise it anyway. You have a ruthless streak in you, Holt.’
‘But with so much hanging on this operation, sir…’
‘Yes – I know. Unlikely they’ll see it that way, though. Only at the very highest level will anyone have any notion of what’s behind this. A recce operation is all that squadron will be told, for instance.’ He shrugged. ‘But I will raise it.’
Charlie was saying – while stuffing his pipe with naval-issue tobacco – ‘We could do without the Handleys, obviously. Might even be better off on our own, crossing the lines high and unheard, no searchlights or ack-ack.’
‘Expect to achieve that anyway, don’t we? High, inaudible and invisible – isn’t that the whole idea?’
‘Yes.’ He touched the wood of the table. ‘Except that the Huns will be standing-to, Handleys having stirred ’em up. Chance worth taking anyway – I’d say – for the benefits at the other end.’
‘And it’s still your preference not to take a Lewis with us – right?’
He nodded, holding a Vesta to the pipe. ‘Because we need to save all the weight we can. No gun, no wireless. Take the wireless to Boubers with us maybe, but not on the operation itself. Won’t have anyone in the for’ard cockpit to use it or a Lewis anyway. On the way there, one bicycle, on the way back, two females.’
He wondered whether the women might be fat. Possibly not, on wartime rations and Hun occupation. McLachlan was still adding to his notes: in a small, very neat hand, Charlie noticed, total contrast to his own untidy scrawl. Glancing up now, laying down his pencil: ‘Anything else?’
The chief shipwright perused the sketch Charlie had made for him.
‘Matter what sort of timber we use, sir?’
‘No. As long as it’s strong and smooth – sandpapered smooth, I suppose – and tapered, so it’ll pull out of the trail-rope when I want it to.’
‘Oak might be your answer. I got some nice pieces as’d lend ’emselves well enough… Two o’ these, you say?’
‘One as spare, I thought.’
‘Two foot long, two-and-a-half-inch diameter the thick end, two-inch the other, thick end flattened with an ’alf-inch ’ole in it. Care to show me how you see it working, sir?’
‘Got a bit of line?’
‘Well – spunyarn—’
‘That’ll do.’ Looking round for another prop, he saw the ring-shaped handle of a hot glue-pot. Glue was what the workshop smelt of, mostly – that and wood-shavings. ‘Are you familiar with scrulex anchors, Chief?’
‘I know what they are, like.’
‘Take this as being the ring on the top of one. Trail-rope’s to have an eye – or a bowline, say – in the end of it. The bight of that loop’s pushed through into the ring as far as it’ll go in – like this – and held there by having one of these small spars through it. My finger’s the spar now. Follow? Long as the pull’s on it and it doesn’t break, it’s holding fast – eh?’
‘But with the weight you might have on it…’
‘That’s why it has to be smooth and tapered, Chief. Incidentally, the hole in the thick end’s for securing a long line to it. White Line, I’m thinking of – Italian hemp, three-pound line, say.’
‘Twenty-fathom lengths…’
‘One in number.’ Charlie nodded. ‘And nothing bigger, because of the weight. Strong enough to wrench the toggle out, and away we go!’
The CPO smiled knowingly. ‘Who’d be doing the wrenching, though?’
‘The ship would – if I found I couldn’t. Turn the line up on some fitting – a round turn on the Lewis mounting, say.’
‘Like pulling a tooth…’
‘Very much like that, Chief!’
‘Well.’ A nod. ‘See what we can do, sir.’
‘Very much obliged.’
He’d ring Polegate, he thought, for the cordage he was going to need – White Line, a twenty-fathom length of it. Three-pound line meaning that would be the weight of a twenty-fathom hank of it. Might have to get it from the dockyard at Portsmouth, so Polegate would be the best bet. Talk to Bob Bayley. Ask him to get a couple of scrulex anchors, too – in case Stores were out of them. And an axe, because if the toggle wouldn’t come out, there’d be nothing for it but to chop away the trail-rope.
Call Amanda, too – before lunch, in case she was out later, as she had been yesterday.
He made a list anyway – axe, scrulexes, grapnel, White Line, blankets, first aid kit. The first three items were (a) heavy, and (b) metallic, so would have to be stowed carefully prior to swinging the compass – which might be done on the ground at Polegate – and their weight taken into account when roughly calculating the lift. Scrulexes did have to be heavy; they were made of steel, three inches in diameter, were screwed into the ground two feet deep by means of a crowbar through the mooring-ring on top, the ring being screwed down to ground level to provide an extremely solid mooring. A worrying factor meanwhile in regard to weight and lift was that the Belgian girl’s mother might be enormous – even on short rations – if she was so disabled that she couldn’t move around without assistance. It had been McLachlan’s reference to commandeering a farm-cart for that purpose that had put this fear in Charlie’s mind; he was trying to convince himself that the old girl might just as likely have some wasting disease, be absolutely skeletal.
Or be like his own mother, who’d been tiny. As well as pretty. And cowed. She’d been dead five years now. How she’d ever brought herself to marry that loud-mouthed bastard…
The telephone was in the lobby-entrance to the wardroom bar, and the operator who got the number for him was a female. They had quite a lot of them on some of the naval air stations nowadays, mainly clerical workers, but they seemed usually to be hidden away and were invariably billeted well away; when accommodation as distinct from civilian billets was provided for them, it was always as far away across the airfield as it could be.
This one got RNAS Polegate for him first, and the exchange there put him through to Bob Bayley’s office, where he left a message with some minion, and after that he had the same girl get Amanda’s number for him, mentioning that it was an RAMC depot of some kind – no question of it being a personal call – and after a few minutes she told him, ‘You’re connected, sir.’
‘Thank you very much.’ There was a Scotsman on the line, and Charlie asked for Mrs Bishop.
‘May I enquire who’s calling?’
‘Is Mrs Bishop not there?’
‘She is, but who shall I say is calling?’
‘Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovell, tell her.’
He’d always liked that name. He could hear the Scot mumbling in what might have been disbelieving tones, presumably to Amanda, then her sharp squawk of ‘Who?’, before she caught on and must have snatched the ’phone from him – confident enough to open with, ‘Charlie?’
He told her, ‘Poor chap drowned somewhere off the Scillies two hundred years ago. That’s how you knew it couldn’t be him, uh? You all right, Mandy?’
‘Hundred per cent better than I was a minute ago, despite your crazy—’
‘Crazy about your voice – and the picture of you in my mind. But listen – Monday. All things being equal, barring accidents or other setbacks, ingrowing toenails or—’
‘Talk sense now, Charlie. D’you mean it – Monday, truly?’
‘As ever is. Can’t guess what sort of time, but with any luck I’ll be with you that evening.’
‘I can’t wait. Oh, but this is wonderful… I suppose you can’t go the whole hog, make it Sunday?’
‘I’d make it tonight, if I could. Make it now. Wanted to let you know, anyway – and hear your voice. Be at work tomorrow, will you?’ Glancing round, seeing Brice, the first lieutenant, obviously waiting to use this ’phone, sucking at an empty pipe and looking testy. Mandy answered that question with ‘Saturday mornings I come to work, yes.’
‘I’ll call then, if I can. Can’t be sure of it though, might be flying, and I can’t reach you on Sunday, obviously, so maybe—’
‘Monday. Six-thirty – or earlier, if—’
‘Might find me waiting at your door. Howling.’
A whisper, ‘Love you, Charlie.’
‘Bye…’
He hung up, nodded to the little man as he moved away. Wondering whether Amanda would be content with a continuing affair without commitment or talk of love. Or for how long she might. And whether what he felt for her might not be love – as well as lust? Although even if it was – what difference? Explain to her that he simply couldn’t afford to marry? She mightn’t believe him, knowing as she must do that his father was fairly rolling in it, thanks to the old swine’s questionable auctioneering tactics and having cheated neighbouring farmers right, left and centre in his stealthy acquisitions of surrounding land (this actually she might not know, although her solicitor father most likely did). He’d crowed once, Charlie remembered, ‘Get to know on the quiet a bloke’s up to his neck in it, and he’s got something you want bad – see, you got it!’ What further philosophical advice might he dispense, Charlie wondered, if his son and heir had been close enough to him in spirit to discuss anything so personal and private as this relationship? Ten to one, something like, ‘Don’t have to marry ’em all, boy, just because they spread their legs to you! Fact, bloody good reason not to!’ Something on those lines. Couldn’t be sure of the son and heir assumption, either: if he could fix it legally so his beloved Mabel could take over the land, wouldn’t he?