A Future Arrived (40 page)

“Elegant.”

“It's the food that counts. I hope everything is all right.”

Colin cut into a chop. “Soft as butter.” He looked at her across the table, the candlelight imparting an ivory warmth to her face. “Lovely dinner and a beautiful hostess. My cup runneth over.”

“So does mine,” she murmured.

C
OLIN CLOSED HIS
eyes to fix the moment forever in his mind. The utter tranquillity and rightness of it all, with the fire glowing in the grate and Kate snuggled against him on the couch. She had suggested a game of cards after dinner, but he had preferred just to sit beside her, content with her closeness.

He stroked her hair, and she murmured something against his chest, a tiny sound of happiness and contentment.

“I'd better be off soon,” he said. “Have to get up with the hens.”

She raised her head and kissed him on the throat. “I'll get up, too, and meet you at the station.”

“No. Please. That's an image I could do without. You alone on a platform, waving goodbye. This is all I care to remember.”

A
FLAT AND
watery country. Canals and lazy rivers and broad inlets of the sea. A cold and windswept landscape with the North Sea beyond. The little Austin, painted RAF blue, turned off a narrow road and along a wheel-rutted track leading to RAF Thurne Mere—a new base, still under construction, an untidy scattering of huts, tents, and workshops. A long wooden jetty ran out into the wide, brackish reach of a lake, kept from the sea by a distant line of dunes. It was the most depressing place Colin had ever seen, or hoped to see again.

A tall radio aerial jutting up from the curved roof of a Nissen hut marked the squadron operations center, and the car pulled up in front of it. The commanding officer's office was a desk at the far end of the cluttered hut. The commander stood up as he approached and Colin realized that he had seen the slim, sandy-haired man with the icy blue eyes before.

“Flight Lieutenant Allison?”

“Squadron leader now. Promotions come rather quickly these days. Nice to have you with us, Ross.”

“Quite a coincidence, sir.”

“Is it? I spotted your name on the men-in-training list and put in a request for you. I've seen you fly, remember?”

“You'll find me a bit less free with the controls now.”

“I hope so. Duty isn't easy here, Ross. Long, tedious patrols. Jerry's shipping iron ore from Sweden down the coast of Norway, keeping within neutral waters. Our job is to shadow their ore convoys. If any ships stray past the three-mile limit we alert our destroyer patrols. So far, the Jerry ships have not strayed an inch. We are also prepared to depth bomb any U-boats we come across, but we haven't seen one yet. Our biggest enemy is boredom and fatigue. So, you can see, I hardly did you a favor by picking you out of the crowd.”

“I think you did. When do I begin flying?”

“Tomorrow morning. The only consolation here, by the way, is that the food in the mess is top hole. Our sergeant-cook once worked at the Savoy Grill.”

He had been right about the food and right about everything else. It was the only consolation. He lay on a hard cot under rough blankets and his greatcoat feeling the deathly cold seep through the plywood walls of the barracks. He shut his eyes tightly, recalling the warmth of that room … the exquisite warmth of her against his chest. He could smile. He could sleep.

A
LBERT
T
HAXTON HEARD
the rumor on the morning of April 9. He had been spending a few days in the small town of Quesnoy near the Belgian frontier as guest of the second Battalion, Durham Light Infantry. The battalion HQ was located in the basement of the town hall and when he entered it the duty officer, a thin, pink-cheeked lieutenant, said: “Old Adolf just invaded Denmark and Norway.”

“Are you sure?” Albert asked.

“It just came over the blower from division. Think the real balloon's going up now, Mr. Thaxton?”

“Maybe. If that's true.”

There had been many exaggerated reports of German actions during the past weeks. A six-man patrol probing French defenses in Moselle would cause wild tales of “massive” assaults and “heavy” cannonading. If a reporter took all of his news from what came over the field telephones he would find himself writing a story one day and retracting it the next.

The elderly lieutenant colonel commanding the battalion said the same at breakfast. “Everyone has the wind up. Bound to be some sort of move in the works. The Boche like the spring. Make sense if they went into Denmark and Norway, come to think of it. They'll need coastline bases. Still, I'd not take it as gospel on the basis of one call from some rabbity chap at HQ.”

By noon it was official. The Nazis had marched into Denmark with hardly a shot being fired at them, and they had landed troops in half a dozen Norwegian cities and ports, from Oslo to Narvik in the far north. The news was stupefying.

“My guess as to how they pulled it off is as good as yours,” the colonel remarked. “Rather clever, these chaps. I wonder if Mr. Chamberlain is wondering who missed the bus now? Hitler or him?”

Albert wondered the same thing as he walked beside the colonel on an inspection of his lines in the fields and woods west of the town. The men, loosely strung out beside the rusting tracks of a narrow-gauge railway, were in high spirits.

“This news is a tonic to the lads, Thaxton. The possibility of action for a change. Been a ruddy long winter with not a bloody thing to do. Kept them in shape by digging holes. Dig them in the morning and then fill them up in the afternoon. Dig and fill since November. Bloody boring for them, but it kept them fit. Not like the French army. Half drunk most of the time.”

Albert left the battalion after lunch, seated in the back of a staff car compiling his notes …

With the BEF on Belgian frontier … Spirit of troops “superb,” says A. E. Thaxton
.

There was British transport on the road moving north from Lille, infantry on the march or crowded into the back of trucks. Bren gun carriers and a few light tanks clattered along the
pave
. The men cheered and gave the thumbs-up sign as the staff car passed them. On the move at last. It had been a long winter for everybody.

Major General Wood-Lacy's HQ was in a roadside inn five miles from Armentières.

“A lovers' inn, Albert,” he said as he ushered him into the small bar that served as his office. “Designs of hearts and cupids on the bedroom walls. Would have been a nice place to bring Jenny for a holiday. Not a time for lovers now, is it?”

“I'm afraid not. Are you moving your division to the frontier?”

“Not at present. It's a wait-and-see situation for us. They're shifting half the corps up, though. If Fritz moves west we're to scurry into Belgium … take positions along the Dyle from Louvain to Wavre. Don't try to print that. All very hush-hush. Only about half the Paris taxi drivers know of it yet. Bloody silly strategy if you ask me. The high command have their heads in the sand.”

He had always liked and admired the general even before he became his father-in-law. Outspoken, caustic, and cynical, The Hawk made good copy—not that much of it could pass the censors.

Fenton waved a hand at a bin filled with dusty bottles. “We have wine galore, but are flat out of whisky.”

“Wine will do nicely.”

“Not bad stuff, actually. Clos Vougeot.” He uncorked a bottle and poured some into two glasses. “You know, it's so terribly odd.
Déjà vu
… is that what they call it? I wake up some mornings and think it's nineteen fifteen. I was camped just a few miles from here before the battle of Aubers Ridge. I hate to think of how many men I knew who are buried within walking distance of this spot.”

Albert took a reflective sip of his wine. “My sister Ivy's grave isn't far away.”

“At Poperinghe, I believe Martin told me once. No, not far.” He drank his wine and poured another. “? ‘A richer dust concealed,' as the poet said.”

Through an open window they could see a tank crew working on one of the Matildas parked under a tree, a soldier in black coveralls whistling as he pulled a cleaning rod through the barrel of the gun.

“Happy soul,” Albert said.

“That lad's only nineteen and eager to put all his training to the test. He may enjoy combat. Oddly enough, a few men do, but I wonder if he'll be whistling a month from now.”

“You believe we're in for something, don't you, Hawk?”

“Oh, we're in for something all right. Beyond anyone's imagining. Only a fool would think otherwise. The German method of warfare is hardly a secret—it's essentially my own. The only difference is that they have everything it takes to make it work in the field and not just on paper. If Hitler attacks he won't hurl his army against the Maginot line. The man fought on the Somme and at Ypres and doesn't want any more gains measured in yards and costing a hundred lives per foot. He'll slash into Belgium and Luxembourg long before we get official permission from those countries to step in and defend them. When we do move it will be too late. Jerry will cut through the Ardennes, by-pass Maginot, and nip us off from any possibility of escape to the coast. A sorry kettle of fish, I must say.”

“You paint a bleak picture. A shame you're out of whisky.”

“One of the true horrors of war, Thax old lad. Supply failing demand.”

“Any bright spot I can tell my eager readers?”

“There's a bright spot you could ruddy well tell me. I'd like a grandchild or two.”

“I'll get to work on it—when I have the time. Anything at all?”

Fenton tipped his oil-stained beret to the back of his head and stared through the window with tired eyes. His pathetically undermanned, undertanked armored division lay scattered in the woods beyond. The young gunner was still whistling “The Lambeth Walk” in the pallid shadows of the gray afternoon. “You can tell them that all of us in command positions, great or small … Lord Gort … Thorne … Alexander … Holmes … Montgomery … me … have the highest faith in the poor bastards we lead. That they will
all,
when their day comes, do Britain proud—win or lose.”

Albert was silent for a moment, oddly moved by Fenton's quiet, bone-weary sincerity. “I'll write that. Although ‘poor bastards' will have to go and ‘lose' will get snipped by the censors.”

Fenton sighed and drew a flat tin box of cigarettes from a pocket in his coveralls. “I don't care about ‘lose,' but ‘poor bastards' is a pity. It's what they are, you know. Ours and theirs. Poor bastards all.”

G
REEN SECTION OF
624 Squadron was at readiness, three Hurricanes warmed up on the tarmac in front of the dispersal hut. There was no tension among the three pilots playing cards inside. They had never been scrambled yet except in practice and didn't expect to be now. The long afternoon at readiness on this cold, overcast day had been fatiguing and they played their cards listlessly.

“I wonder if the sergeant-fitter made any tea,” Barratt said.

“Probably,” Derek yawned. “It always tastes of machine oil.”

“Does, now that you mention it.” He discarded a trey.

“Ah ha!” The section leader picked it up. He was a heavyset flight lieutenant who had been with the squadron for nearly ten years. His name was Rodgers and his nickname “Jolly.”

“You can go out, I suppose,” Barratt said, glassy-eyed with boredom.

“Yes, old son. Chalk up another for me.”

The loudspeaker on the wall suddenly hummed and the voice of the operations officer blared into the room. “Squadron six-two-four Green Section … scramble!”

Barratt whooped and knocked over his chair getting to his feet while Derek scattered his cards across the floor to the obvious annoyance of Jolly Rodgers. Within minutes they were airborne, the three fighter planes thundering down the runway and zooming up into the low clouds.

Derek concentrated to keep in formation. Jolly was a stickler for tight vics. He stayed close to the leader, flying wingtip to wingtip with Barratt. The radio hummed in his ear and he could hear Jolly calling Sector Control and reporting that they were off the ground.

“Righto, Green Leader. Vector nine-zero. Intruder off Sheerness. Are you receiving me?”

Rodgers replied that he was and asked for intruder identity, if possible. A Heinkel, he was told. Zero feet in the mouth of the Thames. Mine laying, Derek was thinking as he set his reflector sight to the bomber's wingspan of seventy-four feet. They burst through the cloud layer at twelve thousand feet into brilliant sunshine and set a course for the estuary.

“Don't lag, Green Three.” Jolly's voice over the R.T.

Derek glanced to the side. Barratt was easing back, a thin plume of white vapor streaming from his engine.

“Green Three to Green Leader … I'm losing glycol, skipper.”

“Return to base, Green Three. Hop it.”

Barratt rolled out of the formation and was gone. Derek prayed he'd make it before his engine stalled from loss of coolant.