Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) (7 page)

Masters took out his binoculars.

‘All quiet?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The eyes moved slowly across his uniform, the rank. ‘We knew someone was coming, sir, but . . .’ He lifted his head and peered again through the bushes.

Masters recognized the anxiety, the strain. Waiting was always the worst part. Almost.

He said, ‘What’s your name, by the way? I’m Masters – I know your lieutenant pretty well.’

He saw the young sailor’s breathing steady as he nodded and answered, ‘I know, sir. He told me about you.’ He looked down and Masters saw the drawing pad he was holding against his knee. He noticed the hands too, well shaped, almost delicate. ‘My name’s Downie, sir.’

One hand flew to his switch as a voice came out of the intercom. ‘He’s there with you, is he?’ Sewell, sounding clear and untroubled. ‘Tell him I can’t hang about any more. The kraut has just died, poor chap. I’m going to have a go.’ The smallest pause. ‘So be ready, all right?’

Downie said quietly, ‘There were three in the crew, sir. Two died in the crash. The other one was too smashed up to move. And Mr. Sewell said it was too risky.’

Masters took the pad. ‘May I?’ Downie was already worried. His own arrival would not have helped.

The sketch was clear and professional. ‘This it?’

Downie nodded, his head still half-turned, watching or listening it was hard to tell.

Masters studied the drawing and the calculated measurements, and pictured the two of them discussing it on
the intercom, Sewell with a dying German beside him. About two feet long, not unlike the ordinary incendiary bombs which were released in thousands across towns, docklands and factories, anywhere within the bombers’ range. But thicker, and heavier.

He heard Downie say, ‘He said he’d never seen anything like it before, sir.’

‘Neither have I.’ He knew Downie was staring at him, perhaps surprised by the confidence. But he was seeing the aircraft in his mind. A Junkers, a stretched version of the original JU 88, which had made its mark as a bomber and reconnaissance plane in several theatres of war. But usually with a crew of four. A new role, then?

He raised his head again and trained the binoculars towards the wreckage, and the stone wall beyond. One small bomb. To be dropped on its own? No others had been reported. Something would have been found by now. He thought of Captain Chavasse, with Bumper Fawcett breathing down his neck. They could all wait.

He said, ‘You’re a bit young for this kind of work, aren’t you?’

Casual and easy. For both their sakes.

‘I’ll be twenty in November, sir.’ The defiance made him seem even younger. ‘I did quite a few jobs for my father before I joined up. Wiring, that sort of thing.’

The speaker crackled again. ‘Ready, Gordon? I’m going to take another measurement.’

Masters lifted the binoculars once more. ‘I’ll bet your parents got a shock when you joined this section.’

Downie’s pencil moved quickly on the pad, but he said without raising his voice, ‘It was because of them
I transferred, sir. They were both killed in the big raid on Coventry.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

The youth looked at him. ‘It’s all right, sir. This is important to me, that’s all.’ He touched his switch. ‘Shall I tell him it’s
you
here, sir?’

Masters shook his head. ‘It’s hard enough without someone looking at your efforts.’ He saw another face, that of the man who had been his own rating assistant, in those early days of ‘the job’. He had gone back to general service, to a battleship.
For a quieter life
, he said when they had shaken hands for the last time. He had been a torpedo gunner’s mate when last he had heard. A regular, he might end up with warrant rank like the formidable Mr. Bird back there on the road. He felt his mouth quiver.
Dicky.

The silence seemed to press down on him. Waiting. Doing nothing to help.

‘Have you always wanted to do this kind of work?’

The same quick, almost shy glance. ‘I hoped to be a vet, sir. I’m good with animals.’

Masters watched his hands, supple, but stronger than they looked. He could well imagine him with animals.

The voice again, calm and unemotional.

‘I’m having a go now. The first screw, and the little crescent-shaped catch I described. Have you got it down?’

Downie looked at his pad. ‘Got it, sir.’ Then he said, almost in a whisper, ‘Take care, will you?’

But Masters saw that he had switched off the speaker before he had spoken. He tried to imagine what it must
be like working in a half-wrecked plane with three dead men for company.

He studied Downie’s drawings again. He had noted that the bomb, or whatever it was, had no markings on it, unlike the usual unclassified information stamped or painted on such weapons. Experimental? Untested?

He shifted his hip and briefly felt the old pain in his back. What fate had drawn so many strangers together? A boy who had wanted to be a vet, a schoolmaster, a lieutenant he had once known who had been a comic on the stage at Blackpool. And Critchley, the adventurer, Fawcett had called him.
And me.

The speaker said, ‘Coming out now. Hold your breath, Gordon, my lad.’

Masters felt his jaw clench, remembering it exactly. That first, purposeful contact.

He saw Downie close his eyes tightly, then open them as if someone had spoken to him, reminded him.

He said, ‘Past the gate, sir. A sort of stone bridge.’

Masters nodded. The last resort, and the first lesson if you wanted to survive. You always marked your line of escape. Just in case. For Critchley there had been nowhere to run, and he had known it. Must have done.

The speaker murmured, ‘It’s
out
, by God!’ They could hear his harsh intake of breath. ‘Now write this down.’

Masters watched the pencil. It was quite steady. Poised.

The next voice was that of a total stranger. Disbelief, anger, and a stark acceptance which was even beyond fear.

‘Get out! It’s blown!’

Masters’ mind clicked like the switch. The drawing was a good one, Sewell’s instructions precise. The fuse had become active; there was no time to reach the other ditch.

He swung round, horrified, as he saw the youth standing fully upright and staring at the wrecked Junkers.

He seized him and pulled him down, sprawling across him, fighting him as he tried to free himself, their faces inches apart.

The detonation was like a thunderclap, and the sky filled with flying debris and great clods of sodden soil which seemed to kick the breath from his lungs. Smoke too, and the sound of flames; the aircraft had finally exploded.

But through it all he heard Downie’s voice. So close to his face that he could feel his anguish, the wetness on his skin.

And his words.
‘He was my friend!’
Torn out of him, like an epitaph. It was something he would never forget.

Captain Hubert Chavasse stood with his feet apart, hands in his jacket pockets, the protruding thumbs jutting forward like horns. The room was very bright, and slightly hazy with smoke although Masters could not recall seeing anyone pausing to light a cigarette. Outside the shuttered windows it was dark, and had been for some time; he could hardly believe that it was still the same day.

He glanced at the others, Brayshaw, the captain’s
secretary, making notes, clarifying an occasional problem if Chavasse threw him a question. Two lieutenants from Operations, a Wren second officer representing the signals department, another Wren, a petty officer, legs crossed, taking shorthand.

Chavasse stared around the room. ‘Nothing left out, I think? Countermeasures Section informed from the outset. The boffins from
Vernon
will have been and gone by now. Not much left to sift through, I’d have thought.’ He hurried on. ‘Rear-Admiral Fawcett is fully in the picture, and we can expect him down here tomorrow. I sometimes wonder if he ever sleeps! So we must be up and about early. I’ll not have anybody finding fault with
my
establishment.’ He looked at the clock. ‘So, if there’s nothing further . . .’

One of the lieutenants asked something about the army being included in his report; Masters barely heard him.

He was remembering the blazing fuel, the fragments of the fuselage flung about like so much rubbish. Chavasse had been right.
Not much to sift through.
A sickening job at the best of times, when there was nothing at all after an explosion, an ‘incident’. Rags and torn flesh, but the boffins from
Vernon
were hardened to it. They needed to be.

When he had given his own account he had been conscious of the utter silence. Only the Wren’s pencil had moved as he related what he had seen and found at the field where a man he had known had been killed.

Perhaps, like so many, Lieutenant Clive Sewell, ex-schoolmaster, would have died for nothing. But the
drawings and notes on his assistant’s pad, coupled with any scrap of material evidence the boffins might find in that blackened, grisly confusion might in the end save lives.

He had been aware of Chavasse’s irritation when he had added, ‘In my opinion, it was a new type of weapon, unknown to us until today. Strong enough to be dropped from an aircraft without exploding on impact, but small enough to be used against moving targets, ships or personnel.’

Chavasse had snapped, ‘We can’t jump to conclusions. We don’t know anything for certain.’ It had been an open rebuke.

Masters had said, ‘But for Lieutenant Sewell’s persistence, and the information he relayed to his assistant, that might be true, sir. But I believe we have discovered something important, perhaps vital.’

He had sat down, and had seen Brayshaw give him an almost imperceptible nod. Sympathy or support, he could not decide which.

Brayshaw had stayed with him all day. They had continued on their way to Portland, where the flag lieutenant had told them the proposed exercise had been postponed, if not cancelled, due to the incident, and that the admiral was either too angry or too busy to hold the meeting. He stared at the shuttered window nearest to him. He would have to go back to that house again. He could not recall if he had told the driver, or even if he had eaten anything. Every bone and muscle was aching, but he knew he would not rest or sleep.
We obey orders, we do as we’re told, we live, we die.
Was it that simple?

Across the table, Lieutenant-Commander Philip Brayshaw carefully folded yet another batch of signals and tapped them into shape.

He had seen the strain on Masters’ face as he had described the burned-out aircraft, and the explosion before that, and shared the emotion of Sewell’s last words. But even that had been forced into the background by what he had seen for himself following the thunderclap of the explosion. Soldiers running with spades and extinguishers, the big warrant officer calling his own men but striding off without waiting for them. And the ambulance, suddenly coming to life and moving down the road very slowly, as if it had a will of its own. Brayshaw had still been sitting in the front passenger seat, the door wide open; he had long legs, and there was a better view of the field from the front of the Wolseley.

The Wren driver had not spoken, other than to answer a question he had asked. He did not know her very well, but had seen her often when she was driving some V.I.P. A very attractive girl, he thought, but withdrawn, even hostile if somebody tried to get too chummy. A good driver, too. He had heard somewhere that her father was a doctor, and he had been the one to insist that she learn to drive just before the war.

The explosion had come without warning. He could vaguely recall twigs being ripped from some of the bare trees as if caught in a strong gale and earth and mud spattering the car’s roof, although he knew they were a mile or more from the fallen aircraft. And then the
smoke, drifting over them and staining the sky, like something obscene.

He had felt the sudden grip on his wrist, her gloved hand bruising the skin. He had been torn between trying to comfort her and finding out what had happened. All he could remember were her eyes, wide, but not afraid. Pleading, unable to get the words out of her mouth.

He had said something, he did not know what; there were never the right words anyway. Like those carefree faces in the mess you never got to know, but wished you had after they had bought it in some incident, or even during a practice run with an explosive device.

And then they had appeared by the sagging gate, although he knew that some time must have elapsed. Masters, the binoculars swinging around his neck, his uniform covered with mud . . . Brayshaw could see him now, as if it was still happening. Pausing, offering his hand to a young sailor as he lurched against the gatepost.

Masters had called to him, ‘Stay put, Philip! It’s all over, I’m afraid.’ Then he had opened the rear door and said, ‘Get in. You’ve had about enough for one day.’

The rating had stared at him, had opened his mouth to protest or refuse, but instead had climbed mutely across to the seat behind the driver. Some memory or instinct had made him stare at the leather and try to wipe away the mud with his sleeve.

The Wren had spoken for the first time. ‘Don’t worry about that. It’s due for a clean, anyway.’ She had tugged off her glove and reached round to touch his face. No words this time.

Brayshaw thought it was the bravest and the saddest thing he had seen for a very long time.

The warrant officer had arrived and more orders had been shouted.

He had heard Masters say, ‘No, Mr. Bird, this one is riding with us to Portland. Tell the transport P.O., will you?’

It was hard to accept in this stale office which had once been a classroom. So calmly said; he could have been arranging a taxi for a run ashore.

By the time they reached the base at Portland everyone seemed to know what had happened. Some of the sailors had gathered as if to greet them, but there had been no sound except for the car’s tyres on the cobbles.

The flag lieutenant had been waiting, harassed and concerned, a master-at-arms close by, his eyes on the young torpedoman called Downie.