The sound of the anti-aircraft guns ripped through my dreams, splitting the silence of the dawn – an impossibly loud CRACK CRACK CRACK.
I heard Mags fling herself out of bed and run straight to the window.
I stayed exactly where I was. I clamped the pillow around my head and lay perfectly still under the blankets, curled up like a hedgehog, my breathing quick and shallow.
‘There’s a plane!’ Mags shouted. ‘A German plane! It’s—’
And then came the explosion. It was much more than just a sudden, deafening boom – it was a sensation too. It was as if the explosion happened inside my chest, inside my head. Everything buzzed with the force of the blast, everything was shaken to its core. There was a high-pitched ringing in my ears now, and Mutti was shouting, ‘GIRLS! HERE! GAS MASKS!’
But there was no need for the gas masks as it turned out – there was no gas, and there had been no bomb.
‘It’s CRASHED!’ Mags bellowed. ‘The plane just crashed into Mr White’s cabbage field! Our guns must have hit it!’
It wasn’t long before a crowd from the village came up the cliff path to have a good look at the German aircraft that now lay crumpled and smouldering amongst the cabbages. Mags and I went too, pulling on wellies and coats over our pyjamas. Pa was already there, helping Mr White, the farmer, to cordon off the wreckage to discourage children from looking for ‘souvenirs’.
‘As if we’d be that silly,’ I said.
Then I saw Michael Baron pick up a fragment of metal half-buried in the ground beside his boot. He wrapped it in a handkerchief and stashed it in his pocket.
Kipper Briggs and his father were there too. Kipper and Michael eyed each other from a distance like tomcats. Kipper said something to his father, and Mr Briggs’s response was to cuff his son casually around the head. Kipper slunk away but Mr Briggs stood there in the mud for a minute or two longer, staring at the huge, blackened skeleton of the plane. He shook his head, looking even angrier than usual.
Mrs Baron was wearing her spotless ARP warden’s uniform.
‘She got that on pretty quickly,’ Mags hissed irreverently. ‘Perhaps she wears it to bed, just in case.’
I snorted and gave my sister an appreciative shove. For a moment, she was the old Mags again.
‘Clear the area, please!’ Mrs Baron was shouting, using what I recognized instantly as her Headmistress Voice. A few people shuffled about between the cabbages, in order to look as if they were being cooperative.
‘Well done, gentlemen,’ she said to Pa and Mr White, gesturing towards the posts they had just hammered into the earth. She smiled at them and Mr White nodded and touched his cap. Then she lowered her voice: ‘I take it there were no . . . survivors?’
Mr White shook his head gravely. ‘Not a chance, ma’am,’ he said. Then he picked up his tools and set off towards the farmhouse while Mrs Baron attempted to shepherd the crowd.
Mags and I managed to duck behind her, so she didn’t see us inching towards the cordon. The plane lay face down in a mess of chalky soil, shards of metal and blackened cabbages. Flames still played about the charred fuselage and dark spectres of smoke rose into the air. The smell of burning was acrid, brutal. A gaggle of children from the village were jumping about, cheering. I turned my back to them.
How many men were inside? I wondered. How many lives plummeting towards the ground, knowing that these were their final seconds?
‘I need everyone to leave the area,’ Mrs Baron shouted. ‘Clear the area, please! It is not safe!’
As we followed Pa back towards the lighthouse, I felt a flush of pride that it was my Pa who had got there first and had known what to do. He wasn’t just one of the gawping crowd; he had done something useful. In that moment, I felt very important and very special.
Mutti had not wanted to come and see the crashed plane. She stood at the gate, her arms wrapped around her middle, waiting for us to come home.
I waved at her, then looked up at the sky, and took a long lungful of the morning. It had rained heavily overnight, and the air was filled with the scent of fresh rain, damp earth and the churning sea. The blustery wind was already carrying away the bitter smell of the smoke and the burnt cabbages, and the sun was trying to break through the clouds. Two or three narrow shafts of sunlight streamed down, spotlighting patches of the swollen ocean and our Castle – a brave silhouette against the silvery sky.
Then Mags interrupted my thoughts. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. She was looking beyond the lighthouse, towards the south cliff. A man was standing on the ridge, staring down at us. The wind was whipping my hair around, so I held it out of my eyes, squinting up at the figure. I couldn’t make out his face, only the squarish set of his shoulders and some rather wild, white hair.
‘I can’t see his face properly, but it might be that man who was so rude to Mutti in the bakery. Could he be one of the fishermen?’
Mags shrugged, frowning. ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ she said.
Mutti must have noticed the direction of our gaze, as she turned to look behind her. Pa looked up too then, and stopped walking. There was a very odd moment when all four of us were looking up at this mysterious man, and he was looking steadily back at us. Time seemed to hold its breath. The wind dropped. Pa raised his hand in a sort of wave, but the old man turned his back and walked away.
I couldn’t have explained it at the time, but I was somehow aware of the significance of this moment. A shiver scuttled down my spine.