Attack Alarm (26 page)

“He knows the situation,” I said. “He got in touch with a fellow on my paper for me. He may have got some fresh information.”

Bombardier Hood came in. “Well, they’re all dressed, Sergeant. And I’ve kept them in the hut.”
His tone conveyed his complete disagreement with the arrangement.

“All right. Come on, then, Hanson. And I hope to God this doesn’t prove to be a fool’s errand.” Langdon led the way out of the room and into the hut, where one hurricane lamp was all that lit the gloom of the blackout.

Every one was crowded round Micky. They fell silent as we entered. Every face was turned towards us. “Get your rifles,” ordered Langdon. “Issue twenty rounds per man, Bombardier Hood. Fuller, you will remain as sentry.” Whilst the rounds were being issued, Langdon said: “Hanson has returned to camp with a story of an air invasion at dawn. Four lorries have arrived on the landing ground which he says are manned by fifth columnists whose job it is to put a smoke screen across the ’drome at the appropriate moment. I intend to investigate these lorries. We will surround one of them and I shall go forward and examine it myself. It will be your job to cover me. And if there’s any truth in Hanson’s story I shall rely on you to cover me properly. Micky, Chetwood, Helson and Hood, you will carry hand grenades. You’ll find them under my bed. Right, let’s get going.”

Outside the moon, though low in the west, was bright by comparison with the gloom of the hut. A faint pallor showed in the eastern sky. I glanced at my watch. It was past four. “Dawn will soon be breaking” I said.

“Will they attack before it’s light or after?” Langdon asked me.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I should think about half light. They would want to get the troop-carriers in before it was light enough to make them an easy target for our fighters.”

As we passed the pit, the stocky barrel of the three-inch lifting darkly against the moon, Langdon said:
“Helson, my bike is over there. Will you bring it along? I may want you to act as runner if anything happens.”

“O.K., John. Shall I bring the gun as well?”

The laughter that greeted his remark was derisive. Kan’s rather high-pitched laugh and Chetwood’s deep bellow rang out clear above the others. I glanced back. The detachment was following us in a ragged bunch, and I noticed that Kan and Chetwood were walking on either side of Hood. He was talking and they were listening intently. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but for a second his eyes met mine, and I knew that if by any chance the lorries turned out to be harmless it would go ill with me.

Half unconsciously I quickened my pace as we reached the tarmac edge of the landing field. Langdon and I walked in silence. For myself, I began to feel uneasy, almost frightened. The events of the night seemed more like a dream than the reality I knew them to be, and now that I had persuaded Langdon to action I had an unpleasant feeling that I might be wrong. All my self-confidence seemed to have been expended in my effort to obtain this positive action. Langdon, too, was anxious. If I were wrong, he would look a fool in the eyes of his detachment and would have some awkward questions to answer when I came up on charge in the morning.

We passed the dispersal point to the north of our site. We were half-way to the next dispersal point when Hood joined us. “Where are your lorries?” he asked.

The question was pertinent, but the way he put it was almost exultant. In that moment I came as near to hating any one as I have ever done. Dimly I could now make out the trees and scrub at the north end of the ’drome. The tarmac roadway, a ribbon of white in the moonlight, curved away to the left as it followed
the perimeter of the landing field. Nowhere could I see any sign of the lorries. I felt a sudden sinking sensation inside me. The gravel pit by Cold Harbour Farm seemed so far away and unreal. I felt scared. “We’ll cut down behind the next dispersal point,” I said. “They’ve probably spread out along the slope in order to cover as much ground as possible with the smoke.”

Hood grunted. His disbelief was quite unmasked. I sensed that Langdon was feeling uncomfortable and ill at ease.

We struck off the tarmac on to the dry, coarse grass. We passed the crumbling sandbags of what had once been a Lewis gun pit. In places the grass gave way to bare, baked earth. The grass became thicker and more plentiful, however, as we reached the slope and passed behind the great bank of the dispersal point. We threaded our way between two bomb craters, relics of Friday’s raid, stumbling over heaps of loose clay that were hard like bricks.

At last we came in sight of the wire that stretched like a dark snake across the grass half-way down the slope. Two men moved along it, carrying a heavy cylindrical object between them. They were in R.A.F. uniform. I touched Langdon’s arm. I had a sudden feeling of triumph. My relief was so great that I could hardly speak. “That looks like one of the smoke cylinders,” I said.

We had stopped, and for a moment we watched the two men moving along the wire with their burden. The others crowded up behind us. They had stopped talking, sensing some development. “All right,” Langdon said. “Leave your rifle, Hanson, and come on with me. The rest of you get down in the grass and don’t make a sound.”

Langdon and I went forward alone. We did not attempt to conceal ourselves. We walked diagonally
along the slope and at every step more and more of the wire came into view. Two more men in R.A.F. uniform appeared, carrying another cylinder between them. And then at last we sighted an R.A.F. lorry parked close against the wire at a crazy angle. Four men were busy unloading the cylinders from it. One of the Guards’ sentries was leaning on his rifle watching them.

“Good enough,” said Langdon. “So far as it goes you’re right.”

We turned and retraced our steps. “What do you mean—so far as it goes?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve got to satisfy myself that they shouldn’t be doing what they are doing.”

“But surely you believe what I have told you now?”

“Yes. But it’s just possible you may have been mistaken. God knows, I hope not for your sake. But it is possible that they may be R.A.F. and that they may have orders to put those cylinders out along the wire. You see my point?”

“What are you going to do, then?” I asked.

“Try and bluff them into showing their hand.”

We had reached the others now. “Get back to the road as quickly as possible,” Langdon ordered. “Go quietly and keep low.”

I picked up my rifle and followed him. As soon as we were out of sight of the wire he broke into a trot. We rounded the end of the dispersal point and reached the tarmac. On the roadway we increased the pace. After doing about three hundred yards at the double, Langdon stopped. When the whole detachment had come up with us, he said: “There is an R.A.F. lorry almost directly below us down the slope of the hill. That is our objective. I want you to spread out about twenty yards apart in a long line. We will then move forward. As soon as you come within sight of
the lorry, get down and try to creep forward without being seen. I want you to finish up in a big semicircle round the lorry. That means the two flanks will close in. Your final position must not be more than two hundred yards from the lorry. You’ll have five minutes from the time we move forward to get into position. I shall then go forward on my own. You will not open fire until either I give the order or they open fire. If I give that order or if they fire on me, I shall rely on you to take the lorry in the quickest possible time. It will mean that they are there for the purpose of assisting an invasion of the ’drome, and there will be very little time to spare. Is that understood?” No one said a word. “All right, then. Spread out on either side of me at the double.”

As soon as the detachment had spread out in a line along the edge of the roadway, Langdon waved his hand and started forward. Langdon, Hood and myself were together in a little bunch. Micky was twenty yards to the left of us, and Helson, who had left his bike on the edge of the roadway, was on our right. The line was not very impressive, their being only four men on either side of us. But it advanced with some pretensions of a line, and as a result looked reasonably like an infantry section in extended order.

We soon topped the brow of the hill, and before we had gone thirty yards down the slope we sighted the lorry. Langdon had judged it nicely. We ourselves were directly above it. We crouched down, moving forward more cautiously. The moon was low enough now for the sharper slope of the hill near the brow to be in shadow. This shadow completely swallowed up the detachment, so that, looking to either side of us, I could scarcely believe that we were not alone.

The slope gradually eased off and the shadow ended abruptly. We were less than a hundred yards from the lorry and we halted’ here. I touched Langdon’s arm
and pointed along the wire to the north. The slope spread out here in a shoulder and on it, close against the wire, was parked a second R.A.F. lorry. Here, too, men dressed in R.A.F. uniform were carrying cylinders along the wire.

Langdon looked at his watch. “The five minutes is up,” he said. “I’ll go and see what they’re up to.”

“It’s suicide,” I said. “If you force them to show their hand you’ll get killed. This is too big a thing for them to have any scruples.”

“Well, at least I shall have died to some purpose,” he said with a boyish laugh which sounded brittle and false to my sensitive ears.

“Let me go,” I said. “It’s my show.”

“No, this part of it’s mine,” he said. “You’ve done enough.” His tone was quiet but final. He was, after all, the detachment commander.

“Well, whoever you talk to, see that you don’t get in my line of fire. I used to be something of a shot when I was at school. I’ll keep him covered the whole time.”

“Thanks.” He rose to his feet and went down the slope, his slim figure suddenly showing up in the slanting light of the moon. Beyond him the eastern sky was paling.

It all seemed so strangely ordinary. And yet there was a difference. The slope down which John Langdon was walking and the line of dannet wire—I knew it all so well. In the stillness of the evenings I had walked along this hillside. And my rifle! It had just been something to take on night guards. Now all these familiar things took on a new significance. This hillside might suddenly become a miniature battlefield. My rifle was suddenly a weapon. And yet there was no visible indication of a change. Everything looked much the same.

Langdon had reached the lorry now. A man in the
uniform of an R.A.F. sergeant jumped out of the back of it. Langdon moved slightly so that he did not screen the man. Quickly I cocked my rifle and raised it to my shoulder. It seemed rather unnecessary. The man was unarmed. I could see no sign of hostility.

Hood probably sensed my feeling, for he suddenly said: “Mind that thing doesn’t go off. You don’t get away with murder just because you’re in uniform.”

I made no reply. I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

The Guards’ sentry had continued on his beat. Langdon was alone. Two men were watching him from the tail-board of the lorry. I wished I had brought a pair of glasses with me. Langdon nodded in our direction. The R.A.F. sergeant glanced at the slope above him.

Then suddenly the whole atmosphere of the scene changed. The man had produced a small automatic from his pocket. I saw it glint in the moonlight as he waved Langdon towards the back of the lorry.

Automatically my forefinger had taken the first pressure on the trigger. Langdon moved slowly towards the lorry. The man covering him pivoted but did not actually move. The foresight came up into the U of the backsight. I squeezed the trigger. The recoil was pleasantly reminiscent of the ranges at Bisley. There was no sense of killing. The man was just a target. He jerked forward with the force of the bullet’s impact, stumbled and slowly crumpled. I reloaded automatically without removing the rifle from my shoulder.

Langdon hesitated for a second, watching the man fall. It was like a “still” from a film. The two men on the tail-board of the lorry gazed at their leader, fascinated, momentarily incapable of action. The men carrying the cylinders along the wire halted.

Then suddenly, like puppets, they all came to life. Langdon dived for the slope. The men along the wire
dropped their cylinders and ran for the lorry. The two men on the tail-board disappeared inside. They reappeared, a second later, with rifles. Two more came out from behind the lorry, they also had rifles.

Langdon had reached the steepest part of the slope. He was running hard and zigzagging at the same time. I fired at the men on the tail-board. As I reloaded I heard the crack of Hood’s rifle just to the left of me. I fired again. Sporadic fire had now developed along the whole of our short line. One of the men on the tail-board toppled to the ground. The other disappeared inside. I turned my fire on the four men who were coming up along the wire. They were spread out, and though little spurts of earth were shooting up all round them, they made the lorry without being hit.

“They’ve got down behind the wheels of the lorry,” Hood said. Little spurts of flame showed in the dark behind the bulk of the lorry. I could hear the thud of bullets as they lashed into the grass at Langdon’s feet. I concentrated my aim on the pin-points of flame, firing rapidly. Others were doing the same. I don’t know whether we hit any one, but our fire seemed to put them off their aim, for Langdon reached the shadow and slumped down beside us, panting heavily.

I stopped firing. I had only six rounds left. “What do we do now?” I asked.

“Send a runner back,” Langdon replied breathlessly. “Helson!” he called.

“Yes, Sergeant,” came his voice from the right of us.

“Get back to the bicycle. Ride to the pit and ’phone Gun Ops. Tell ’em what’s happened. We want reserves to put these lorries out of action. Tell ’em to issue an Attack Alarm, have all ground defences manned—to prepare for an air invasion of the ’drome within the next half-hour. O.K.?”

“Right.” Vaguely his form loomed up out of the grass as he scrambled to his feet and started back up the slope.

“What about the armoured car over by Station H.Q.?” said Hood. “It’s just the thing for this job.”