Attack Alarm Read online

  “The navigator must have been trapped in the ’plane,” I heard Trevors say as an R.A.F. car took the boy away. “Only two were seen to come down.”

  “Perhaps his parachute failed to open,” said a sergeant of the Guards.

  “Perhaps,” Trevors agreed. “In which case his body will be found in the morning. Poor devil!”

  “What do you mean—poor devil? If you’d seen what I’d seen in France you wouldn’t be saying poor devil!”

  I lost the rest of the conversation. I was trying to figure out whether the pilot with whom I had spoken had really known something or whether he was just bluffing when he had talked of a plan. It was so difficult to be sure with a man in his condition. I tried to place myself in his position and consider what I should have felt like, and what I should have done if I had had his training and background.

  Obviously he had been bitter at the loss of his ’plane. A pilot, I felt, must acquire for his machine at least some of the affection that a captain does for his ship. He would want to hit back at the men who had transformed it from a winged thing, full of life and beauty, to a blazing wreck. I remembered the circle of hostile faces showing in the light of the flames. He could only hit back in one way and that was by frightening them. I could speak German and so it was through me that he had had to hit back.

  And yet what had made him tell me that they had a plan for getting control of British fighter ’dromes? What had made him give me such specific information about an attack on Thorby? Was that just bravado?

  It seemed hardly credible that a mere pilot would know about a plan to seize our fighter stations. Such a plan would for obvious reasons be kept a closely guarded secret and be known only to the higher officers of the Luftwaffe. But it was of course possible that the rumour that such a plan existed had permeated the messes. Or it might be just a case of wishful thinking. Obviously it was highly desirable that the fighter defences of this country should be immobilized if invasion were to succeed. For this reason, German airmen may have come to the conclusion that their High Command had a plan to achieve this end. Alternatively, he may just have thought that they ought to have such a plan, and in his moment of bitterness had produced it as a fact in the hope that it would assist the state of fear into which he would almost certainly imagine the British had been thrown by the collapse of France.

  And yet he had seemed so sure of himself, so definite. And was he really in a condition to think up the idea of a plan if he was not aware that one existed? It was all very complicated.

  His statement that Thorby was to be dive-bombed on Friday was understandable. A pilot might quite easily know the date on which a certain target was to be attacked. And I could well understand his use of that information to add conviction to a statement that was untrue. If I reported the conversation—and I knew that I should have to—the authorities might well regard the idea of a secret plan with scepticism. But if his prediction of the raid on Thorby turned out to be accurate, it would add considerable weight to his first statement.

  But there were two things that puzzled me. First, that he should have wasted his bravado on a mere gunner. He must have known that in a very short while he would be interviewed by an Intelligence officer. Surely that would have been the time to release his information if it was to have its maximum effect? The second was, why had he closed up on me the moment he saw Vayle? I could have understood it if it had been the C.O. who had caused him to stop in the middle of a sentence. But Vayle—a man in civilian clothes! It seemed rather extraordinary—almost as though he knew the librarian.

  In the end I gave it up. My brain had reached a state when it was impossible for me to argue my way to a solution one way or the other. There seemed so much to suggest that the idea of planting the information about a plan in my mind was dictated by the instinct for revenge, and yet so much to suggest that it had slipped out in the bitterness of the moment when he was too dazed to control his tongue.

  I edged my way to where Tiny Trevors was talking to Ogilvie, who had just arrived on the scene. I waited. At length Ogilvie went across to speak to a Guards officer. Trevors turned and saw me. “Hallo, Hanson,” he said. “You haven’t waited long to get your first ’plane. There was something I wanted to speak to you about. Oh, yes. You were talking in German to that pilot. What did he have to say?”

  “Well, I was just coming to speak to you about it,” I said. And I gave him the gist of the conversation.

  “I think you had better see Mr. Ogilvie,” he said. “There may be nothing in it, but, as you say, the man was pretty shaken. Though I can’t believe a pilot would have information of that kind.” He looked across at the group of officers that Ogilvie had joined. “Hang around for a bit and when the Little Man is free I’ll take you Better catch him now.” I followed him along the edge of the roadway and we intercepted Ogilvie just as he was entering the Guards officer’s car.

  “Just a minute, sir,” said Treyors. “Hanson has some information which seems interesting.”

  Ogilvie paused, one foot on the running-board. “Well, what is it?” he demanded in his sharp staccato voice.

  He was a man of small stature, inclined to stoutness, with a round, uninteresting face and horn-rimmed glasses. He lacked a natural command of men. And in place of it he had built an air of aloofness about himself. This did not make him popular. I think he had been in the insurance business before the war. At any rate he was not an O.C.T.U. product, but had obtained his commission in the Territorials. It was perhaps unfortunate that he was in command of a unit in which most of the senior N.C.O.’s were socially his superiors. Inevitably, it resulted in his standing on his dignity to an extent that was unnatural. His staccato manner, which was not, I am sure, natural to him, was the noticeable result.

  I gave him an account of my conversation with the German. But when I came to my views on the reliability of the information, he cut me short. “Quite. I understand. I’ll pass on your information to the proper authorities. Good-night, Sergeant-major.” And with that he climbed into the car and left us.

  I watched the car disappear with a feeling that the responsibility of bringing the conversation to the notice of men who would know how to assess its value was still mine. The proper authorities to whom Ogilvie referred were obviously the C.O. Thorby or the Intelligence officer attached to the station. In due course a report on the matter would reach the Air Ministry. But, in all probability, it would be a part of the routine reports and would be filed away without ever being brought to the notice of those higher officials who were best able to judge its importance. On the other hand, I knew the assistant director of Air Ministry Press Section, and I felt that I ought to write to him giving him the details of the conversation.

  I mentioned this to Trevors. But he said, “For God’s sake don’t do that. You’ll only get yourself into trouble. You’re in the Army now, and in the Army there are formalities to be considered. Any report has to pass through your Officer and thence via Battery and Regiment to Brigade. You can’t go direct to the fountain head.”

  I suppose you’re right,” I said. “But if there is anything in this idea of a plan it is vitally important.”

  “If there is anything in it, then no doubt Intelligence know all about it,” he replied. “In any case, the responsibility is no longer yours.”

  But I didn’t feel that way. As a journalist I had seen too much of the delays of red tape not to feel some misgivings as to what would happen to my information in its passage through the official channels. My main concern, as I lay awake in bed that morning, was to decide whether or not the German pilot had really known something and let it slip in the heat of the moment. But the more I thought about it, the more uncertain I was. And if I was uncertain, I knew that whoever was responsible for reporting the matter to the Air Ministry would be disinclined to make much of it. Everything depended on the result of the examination of the prisoner.

  In this knowledge I fell asleep, dead tired. We were on again at four, a ver
y tired detachment. The events of the night seemed like a dream. But at the north end of the ’drome the burnt-out wreck of the ’plane stood as a monument to our achievement. We were relieved at seven, but instead of going to the mess for breakfast most of us went straight back to bed. The next thing I remember is being wakened by the sound of engines revving in the dispersal point near our hut. The din was terrific and the vibration made my bed shake.

  I heard somebody say, “Sounds as though there’s a flap coming.” I did not open my eyes. But I had scarcely turned over when the Tannoy broke in on my sleep. “Attention, please! Attention, please! Tiger Squadron scramble! Tiger Squadron scramble! Scramble! Scramble! Off.”

  “All right, we’ll come quietly,” I heard Chetwood say. “No peace for the wicked.” His bed creaked as he got up.

  I waited, unwilling to wake up, yet my nerves fully awake. The engines roared as the ’planes left the dispersal point for the runway. I waited, dreading the inevitable patter of feet that would mean leaving the comfort of my bed. It came almost immediately—the sound of running feet, the bursting open of the door and the cry of “Take post!”

  My limbs reacted automatically. But my eyes were still tight shut as I reached blindly for my battle blouse. “What’s the plot?” I heard someone ask. “Twenty hostile south-east, flying north-west at twenty-five thousand feet,” was the reply.

  I opened my eyes as I felt under my bed for my canvas shoes. Sunlight was streaming into the darkened hut through cracks in the blackout curtains. Outside I found a clear blue sky and a haze over the ground. It was already beginning to get warm, for the air was very still. As I reached the pit the last flight was just taking off. The leading flight of three was already disappearing into the mist, flying south-east and climbing steeply.

  “Attention, please! Attention, please! Preliminary air-raid warning! Preliminary air-raid warning!”

  “A bit much, don’t you think,” said Kan. “I mean, it’s so frightfully early in the morning for this sort of thing.”

  “Funny how he always comes at meal-times,” said Helson. “He missed breakfast yesterday, but he was over for lunch and tea.”

  “All part of the war of nerves,” said Langdon.

  “What’s that up there?” Micky’s outstretched arm was pointing high up to the east. A ’plane glinted in the sun for a second. Langdon raised his glasses.

  But it was only our own Hurricane squadron circling. We saw no sign of the enemy and eventually Gun Ops. reported that the raid had been dispersed. The Tannoy gave the “All Clear,” but it was some little time before we were allowed to stand down. When we were, it was past nine and our detachment was on duty.

  I should explain that throughout the day we were at that time working in two-hour shifts—an exception being the first period, which was of three hours. The idea of this constant manning was, of course, to guard against surprise attack. With twelve men on the site and no leave, it was possible to have six in each detachment, which was ample for manning. During the day, however, those off duty had to man as soon as a “Take Post” was given. But at night we only manned on an alarm. Since I had been on the site, night alarms had been fairly constant. Hence the new arrangement whereby the duty detachment only manned on a night alarm unless there was a preliminary air-raid warning, or the detachment commander thought it necessary.

  The other detachment went off to breakfast. Having had none ourselves, several of us produced chocolate. For myself, I was not hungry. The sleep I had had, which, though it was only three and a-half hours, was the longest since I had been on the site, seemed only to have made me more tired. Moreover, my mind was once again occupied with the memory of my conversation with the German pilot in the early hours of the morning.

  In the pleasant warmth of the sun his words seemed much less important. Yet I suddenly remembered what Trevors had told us in the Naafi. Was there some link between the attempt to secure a plan of the ground defences of the station and the idea that the Germans had a plan for immobilising all our fighter ’dromes? It all seemed very melodramatic. But I remembered stories of the last war. War was melodramatic. And the German was fond of melodrama. The whole history of the Nazi rise to power was the crudest melodrama. We were not used to it in England. But on the Continent melodrama had become commonplace.

  The ’phone rang. Langdon answered it. As soon as he had replaced the receiver, he turned to me. “You’re to report to the orderly room immediately. Mr. Ogilvie wants to see you.” It took me back to my schooldays—“The headmaster wants to see you in his study.”

  The orderly room—or troop headquarters, as Mr. Ogilvie liked it to be called—was at the south side of the landing field, a part of the station headquarters block. When I got there, I asked Andrew Mason, the office clerk, what Ogilvie wanted to see me about. He said he did not know, but added that an R.A.F. officer had been in just before he had been told to ’phone for me.

  Mason opened the farther door and announced me. I went in, walked up to the desk at which Ogilvie was seated, saluted and stood to attention. The office was a mixture of tidiness and disorder. The corner by the window was taken up with stores—boxes of gas equipment, a heap of battle dresses, steel helmets, gum boots. The sergeant-major’s desk, which was against the wall opposite the door, was a litter of papers, note-books and passes. There was an old-fashioned safe in the corner next to it. The falling plaster of the walls, which were distempered a rather sickly shade of green, was adorned with copies of standing orders, aircraft recognition charts, and posters of big-chested men in peculiar postures illustrating the more elementary physical training exercises.

  But the corner of the room occupied by Mr. Ogilvie’s desk was homely by comparison. Orderly batches of papers lay beside the yellow blotter and the desk itself rested on a strip of red carpet. The walls behind were practically intact. And beside the desk was a bookcase with a clock and the polished case of a three-inch shell.

  Mr. Ogilvie looked up as I saluted. “Ah, yes, Hanson,” he said, leaning back and taking his pipe from his mouth. “About this conversation you had with the German pilot. I have just had a visit from the Intelligence officer who interrogated him this morning. I had told him what the pilot had said to you. The man didn’t deny it. In fact, he repeated it in the most truculent and boastful manner. But when questions were put to him about the nature of the plan, he could give no details at all. He spoke at length of the might of the Luftwaffe and how Britain’s fighter bases would be annihilated and our resistance crushed. He spoke darkly of a plan. But he said nothing that convinced the officer that there was in fact any specific scheme for destroying the bases other than a general plan that they should be destroyed.”

  He produced a box of matches and relit his pipe. “On the subject of the raid on Thorby,” he continued, “it does seem probable that he knows something. He was very evasive about it, said it was no more than a rumour and he couldn’t remember what day it was. The Intelligence officer had the impression that he was covering up. It is possible, of course, that it is a false scent. The German Air Force have apparently done that sort of thing before. They give the pilots false information, so that if they get shot down and are inclined to be talkative they won’t be giving anything away. However, I have been assured that all necessary steps will be taken to protect the station on Friday. I thought you would like to know as you were instrumental in bringing the matter to the notice of the authorities.”

  I thought it was nice of him to give me such a full account of the position. But I was troubled. It seemed to me that the German pilot had been inconsistent. I said so. “There is only one motive he could have had in telling me the plan,” I said. “Bitter at the loss of his plane, he wanted to frighten us. Now, either this plan was a pure fabrication or else there really is a plan and, knowing of it, he used his knowledge in the heat of the moment to achieve his aim.”

  “Come to the point.” Ogilvie’s voice was staccato again.

  “Well, sir, if it was a pure
fabrication he wouldn’t have hesitated to invent details.” At that moment the whole thing seemed suddenly crystal clear to me. “My own view is that in the heat of the moment he let slip something he should not have done. He was in a very dazed condition. When the Intelligence officer questioned him about the plan, he knew it would only increase his suspicions to deny having said anything about it to me. Instead he repeated his statement, and when pressed for details made vague and grandiose claims that he knew would throw doubt on the whole thing. But about the proposed raid on Thorby he covered up in an obvious manner. Apparently he achieved his object in drawing the officer’s interest away from the plan to the raid.”

  Ogilvie clicked his pipe stem up and down against his teeth. “Well, I’m afraid the Intelligence officer doesn’t take that view at all. He is experienced in these matters. I think you may take it that he is right.”

  But the Intelligence officer had not seen the German pilot close up like a clam in the middle of a sentence as his eyes met Vayle’s. That seemed to be the key to the whole problem. “Could you tell me, sir, whether the Intelligence officer is making a report to Air Intelligence on the matter?” I asked.

  “He didn’t say anything about it. I imagine it will be included in the daily report of the C.O.”

  It was just as I had feared. “I think a report on the matter should go to A.I. without delay,” I said.

  “I’m afraid what you think or do not think, Hanson, is of little importance,” Ogilvie said curtly. “The matter rests with the R.A.F., and their Intelligence officer has formed his own views.” He hesitated. “If you like, you can make out a report and I’ll send it in to Battery.”

  I saw I was up against a brick wall here. Though I knew it was pretty useless, I said I would make out a report. He gave me paper and I settled down at the sergeant-major’s desk. It took me some time to write it out. It had to be brief, yet comprehensive. There was always the chance that it might get to somebody who would take the same view of its importance that I did.