Air Bridge Part 16

He nodded, his eyes lighting up. 'Everything's gone marvellously. First trip my flight engineer was staggered by the performance of the engines. Within twenty-four hours it was all over the mess at Wunstorf and R.A.F. engineers were flying the airlift with me, checking for themselves. Now the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Supply are sending their experts out, including a boffin from Farnborough. By this afternoon'

'What about Tubby?' I said. 'You can't abandon him. You've got to get him out.'

'You should have thought about him before you told me you were going to the authorities as soon as you got back here.'

'I won't talk,' I said hastily. 'Nor will Tubby.'

'It's too late to say that now.' And then he added slowly, 'As far as I'm concerned Tubby is dead.'

He said it without any emotion and I stared up at him, seeing the hard line of his jaw, the cold slatiness of his eyes, unable to believe even then that he meant what he said.

'We've got to get him out,' I insisted.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'You know d.a.m.n' well I can't accept your story. It would be fatal.'

I didn't believe him at first. 'You can't leave Tubby out there in the Russian Zone.'

'I'll do nothing to betray the belief of the authorities in this Russian report,' was his reply.

The full horror of what he was saying dawned on me slowly. 'You mean' The words choked in my throat.

'I mean I'll do nothing,' he said.

All right. If he was as cold-blooded as that... 'Do you remember how you blackmailed me into stealing that plane?' I asked.

He nodded slowly, that cold smile back on his lips.

'Well, I'm going to blackmail you now,' I said. 'Either you fly me into Hollmind tonight to pick up Tubby or I tell the I.O. here everything - how I pinched the plane, how I nearly killed Tubby, how you altered the numbers and we strewed the wreckage of our old Tudor through the Hollmind woods and how you set fire to the hangar at Membury so that there would be no trace.'

'You think he'd believe you?' There was almost a sneer in his voice.

'Get him out, Saeton,' I whispered urgently. 'If you don't, I'll bust the whole game wide open. Understand?'

His eyes narrowed slightly. That was the only sign he gave that he took my threat seriously. 'Don't think I haven't taken care of the possibility of your reaching Berlin,' he said quietly. He glanced round at Diana and the I.O. and then in a louder voice: 'No wonder you get scared when it comes to jumping. You're about the most imaginative flier I ever met.' He turned and nodded to the I.O. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I can't get any sense out of him.' He drew the officer to one side. 'I'm afraid he's pretty bad. Concussion or something. He keeps on talking about pinching a plane and having a fight with Carter. I think he's all mixed up in his mind with that escape he did from Germany in 1944.' They began whispering together and I heard the I.O. mention the word 'psychiatrist'. Diana was staring at me dully, all hope gone from her eyes, her body slumped at the shoulders in an att.i.tude of dejection. Saeton and the I.O. came back towards me and I heard Saeton saying, '.. . if we knew what happened when the plane crashed.'

'You know d.a.m.n' well it didn't crash,' I jerked out.

Sudden, overwhelming hatred of him swept me to my feet. 'I know what it is. You want Tubby dead. You know d.a.m.n' well the credit for those engines is his.

You want him dead.'

They stared at me like humans looking through bars at a caged animal. 'I'll get him away,' the I.O. whispered quickly to Saeton and Saeton nodded.

I turned to Diana then. She was the person I had to convince. She knew Saeton, knew the set-up above all she was the only one of them that wanted to believe that Tubby was alive. 'Diana, you must listen to me,' I implored her. 'You've got to believe me. Tubby isn't dead. I saw him yesterday afternoon.' My head was swimming and I pressed my hands to my temples. 'No, it wasn't yesterday. It was the day before. He was badly injured, but he could talk. I promised I'd come back for him. If you love him, Diana, you've got to help me. You've got to make the people here believe'

A hand grasped my shoulder and spun me round. 'Shut up!' Saeton's face was thrust close to mine. 'Shut up, do you hear? Tubby's dead. You're just saying this to cover yourself. Can't you realise how Diana feels? Until you turned up there was a good chance he was alive. Everybody thought the body the Russians found in the plane must be yours. You were the skipper. But you turn up. So it's Tubby who is dead, and now you try to raise false hopes in an effort to'

I flung his hand off. 'You devil!' I said. 'You're the cause of all this. It's all your fault he's out there in the Russian Zone.' I turned to Diana. 'The plane didn't crash at all,' I cried. 'I flew it back to Membury. Saeton forced me to do it. Tubby tried to prevent me. There was a struggle and' I could see they didn't believe me.

'Get him out of here,' I heard Saeton say. 'Get him out before he drives Mrs Carter crazy.' Hands closed on my arms and I was dragged across the room to the door. I screwed my head round and saw Saeton standing alone, his face grey and tired looking, and Diana was staring across at him, her lips trembling. Behind them the air crews stood in silence looking on. Then the door closed in my face and I was out in the grey dawn of Gatow Airfield with the roar of planes and the deliberate, operational movements of lorries and German labour teams.

I had a brief glimpse of the FASO ap.r.o.n, gleaming dully in its leaden mantle of slush. Close by a German labour team was hauling sacks of coal from the belly of a Dak and beyond it another Dak was swinging off the perimeter track and an R.A.F. corporal was signalling it into position. A lorry rolled past us to meet it. A sergeant of the R.A.F. Police had the ambulance doors open and I was bundled in: The Intelligence Officer climbed in beside me. The sergeant saluted stiffly and the doors closed, boxing us into a dark little world that shook with the roar of planes. A slight vibration of the stretcher bunk on which I had been sat told me the engine was running, and then we moved off, slithering on the wet surface as we swung round the fuel standing at Piccadilly Circus. 'Where are we going?' I asked the I.O.

'Sick bay,' he answered. 'I rang up Squadron Leader Gentry from the Malcolm Club. He's the M.O. He's expecting you.'

I was conscious of that sense of helplessness that comes to the individual when he is in process of being absorbed into the machine of an organised unit. Once I was in the M.O.'s clutches anything could happen -they'd regard any request as prejudicial to the patient's recovery. They might even drug me. 'I want to see the station commander,' I said.

The intelligence officer didn't answer. I repeated my request. Take my advice, Fraser,' he said coldly. 'See the M.O. first.'

I hesitated. Somehow his voice seemed to carry a note of warning. But I wasn't thinking about myself. I was thinking about Tubby. 'I've got to see the station commander,' I said.

'Well, you can't. I'm taking you to the M.O. Put your request to him if you want to.' In the half-light I could see his eyes watching me. 'I'm saying that for your own good.'

'For my own good?' His eyes had turned away as though breaking off the conversation. All I could see was the pale outline of his face under the peaked cap. 'I'm not worrying about myself,' I said. 'It's Carter I'm worried about.'

'I should have thought that was a waste of time now.'

The tone of his voice stung me. 'Civil airlift pilots come under R.A.F. for administration and discipline, don't they?' I asked. The line of his head nodded slowly. 'Very well, then. Take me to the station commander's office. That's a formal request.'

His eyes were back on my face again now. 'Have it your own way,' he said. 'But if you're fit enough to see the station commander, you're fit enough to see Squadron Leader Pierce, R.A.F. Police.' He turned and tapped on the part.i.tion separating us from the driver. A small hatch slid back. 'Terminal building first,' he ordered the driver.

'What did you mean about R.A.F. Police?' I asked.

'Pierce is very anxious to see you. Some question of an ident.i.ty check.'

Ident.i.ty check! 'What do you mean?' For a moment the thought of Tubby was thrust out of my mind. Ident.i.ty check! Had Saeton talked about me? Was that what he meant when he had said he had taken care of the possibility of my reaching Berlin? Was this his attempt to discredit me? 'Whose instructions is he acting on?' I asked.

'I know nothing about it,' the I.O. answered in that same cold, deliberate voice.

Before I could question him further the ambulance had stopped and we were getting out. The terminal building was a lifeless hulk of concrete in the cloud-skimmed dawn. The tall windows of the control tower looked with dead eyes upon the runway where a single Tudor was lining up for take-off. There was no outward sign that this was the hub and heart of the world's busiest air traffic centre; beyond it the wings of a Dak widened against the dull cloud-scape over Berlin as it dropped towards the runway like a toy pulled by an unseen string. As we went through the swing doors the Tudor took off with a roar that split the dawn-cold stillness.

The I.O. took me up to the first floor. Little placards stood out from the doors of wood-part.i.tioned offices; Flight Lieutenant Symes, Intelligence Officer -white on blue next to Public Relations. The I.O. pushed open the door. 'Wait here, will you, Fraser. I'll go down and see if the station commander has come in yet. He usually shows up about this time. Likes to have a look around before breakfast.' He turned to the medical orderly. 'You wait here with Mr Fraser, corporal.' He glanced at me quickly, but his eyes slid away from mine and I went into his office, wondering whether he thought I was going to try and escape. The corporal shut the door as I stood there listening to the I.O.'s footsteps fading down the wide corridor.

The office was a big one with two windows looking out across the standing and the hangars to the FASO ap.r.o.n still barely visible in the reluctant daylight of that bleak January morning. The arc lamps had been switched off, but runway and perimeter lights still burned, a complicated network of yellow and purple. The Dak was landing now and another Tudor was moving up the perimeter tracks towards the control tower. I could almost hear the pilot calling his number over the R/T, requesting permission from Traffic Control to taxi, and I wondered whether it was Saeton. Beyond the hangars lorries moved in a steady stream from the off-loading platform, moving slowly and positively towards Berlin with their loads of Ruhr coal.

'Fraser!'

I turned. The door behind me had opened and the I.O. was standing there, holding it open for a short, burly man in a wing commander's uniform. 'This is the station commander,' the I.O. said, closing the door and switching on the light.

'Sit down, Fraser.' The station commander nodded to a chair. 'Glad you got back all right. But I'm sorry about Carter.' His voice was quiet, impersonal. He placed his cap on the top of a steel filing cabinet and seated himself at the desk. In the naked lights I saw that the beaverboard walls of the office were covered with maps and charts, a kaleidoscope of colour -Russian tanks, Russian planes, survey maps of Berlin, Germany with the air corridors marked in white tape, a huge map of the British Zone dotted with flags bearing squadron numbers and a smaller map of Eastern Germany covered with chinograph on which had been scribbled in different colours the numbers of Russian units. The whole room was a litter of secret and semi-secret information, most of it relating one way and another to the Russians. 'Understand you wanted to see me?' The slight rise of inflection in the station commander's voice at the end of the sentence was, I knew, my cue. But I hesitated, reluctant to commit myself to a line of approach. 'Well?'

I gripped hold of the wooden arms of the chair. The walls of the room were beginning to move again. It seemed very hot in there and the lights were blinding. 'I want a plane, sir. Tonight. Carter's alive and I've got to get him out. We can land at Hollmind. He's at a farm about three miles from the airfield.' The words came out in a rush, tumbling incoherently over each other, not a bit as I had intended. 'It would only take a couple of hours. The airfield's quite deserted and the runway is sound.'

'How do you know?'

I stared at him. It sounded like a trap, the way he barked the question at me. His face kept blurring so that I couldn't see his expression. 'How do I know?' I moved my fingers back and forth along the dirt-caked lines of my forehead. 'I just know,' I heard myself mumble. 'I just know. That's all.' I straightened my body up. 'Will you let me have a plane, sir - tonight?'

The door behind me opened and a squadron leader came over to the desk, a thin file in his hand. 'Here's the report you wanted, sir.' The man's eyes glanced curiously in my direction. 'I've rung for the M.O. and Pierce is in my office now. Shall I let him come up?'

The station commander glanced quickly across at me and then nodded. 'All right. Any further news about that threat of ack-ack practice in the exit corridor?'

'No more than we know already, sir. Air Safety Centre have lodged protests, but as far as we're concerned at the moment the Russians will be firing to 20,000 feet in the exit corridor. I don't think we're going to give way.'

'I should d.a.m.n well hope not. They're just bluffing. They know what it means if they start shooting our boys down.' He gave a long sigh. 'All right, Freddie. But let me know as soon as you get any news.' The door closed and the station commander stared for a moment out through the windows to where another freighter was thundering down the runway. He watched it rise, watched it until it disappeared into the low cloud, a small speck carrying an air crew of four headed for base through the exit corridor. His eyes switched slowly to me. 'Where were we? Oh, yes. You claim Carter is alive.' He picked up the file his adjutant had brought in, opened it and handed me a slip of paper. 'Read that, Fraser. It's the Russian report on your aircraft.'

I took it and held it in my hands, the print blurring into solid, straight lines. I let my hand drop, not bothering to go through it. 'I know about this,' I said. 'It's completely phoney. It didn't dive into the ground. And they didn't find the charred remains of a body. They don't know anything about the plane - they're just guessing. The wreckage is strewn for miles around.

'How do you mean?' The station commander's voice was sharp and practical.

I pressed my fingers to my temples. How was I going to make them understand what had really happened? It was quite clear to me - ordinary and straightforward. But as soon as I tried to put it into words I knew it would sound fantastic.

'I think we'd better do it by questions, sir.' The I.O.'s voice seemed oddly remote, yet it rattled in my ears like the sharp, dry sound of a porcupine's quills. 'He's just about dead beat.'

'All right, Symes. Go ahead.'

I wanted to tell the station commander to let me tell it in my own way, but before I could say anything . the I.O.'s sharp, insistent voice was saying, 'You claim Carter is alive, that he's lying injured at a farmhouse near Hollmind. Hollmind is thirty miles from the point where Westrop and Field jumped. That's almost ten minutes' flying time. What happened in those ten minutes? Didn't Carter jump with the others?'

'No.'

'He stayed in the plane with you?'

'Yes. He knew I didn't like jumping' I was determined now that they should have every detail of the thing. If I told them everything, kept nothing back, they must believe me. 'We had to jump once before at Membury, when the undercarriage of Saeton's Tudor jammed; that's how he knew I was scared. He came back to see me out. Then I got the engines going and started to fly to Membury. He got angry then and'

'You mean Gatow, don't you?'

'No, Membury.' I stared at him, trying to force him to understand that I meant Membury. 'I was taking the Tudor back to Membury. That's why I took the job with Harcourt. It was all planned. I was to steal a plane from the airlift and' My voice trailed away as I saw the look of bewilderment on the station commander's face. If only they'd let me tell it my own way.

'I don't understand this sequence of events at all, Fraser.' His voice was kindly, but there was an underlying impatience. 'Go back to where you and Carter are alone in the plane. Westrop and Field had jumped. Who went out next?'

'Please' I implored, 'let me tell it my own way. When I reached Membury'

'Just answer my questions, will you, Fraser?' The voice was authoritative, commanding - it reminded me of Saeton's voice. 'Who jumped next?'

All my muscles seemed rigid with the violence of my need to tell it to them as a straight story. But I couldn't fight him. I hadn't the energy. It was so much easier just to answer the questions. 'Carter,' I said in a dull voice.

'But I thought you said he came back to see you out?'

'I pushed him out.'

'I see. You pushed him out.' I could tell by the tone in which he repeated the phrase that he didn't believe me. 'And then what happened?'

'I flew the plane back to Membury. It was moonlight all the way. I found the airfield quite easily and when I landed'

'Please, Fraser ... I want to get at what happened in that plane. Now try to help me. What happened after Carter went out? We know the plane dived into the ground. I want to know how'

'It didn't dive into the ground,' I said. 'I told you what happened. I flew it back to Membury.'

He got up and came over to me. 'Now pull yourself together, please.' His hand pressed gently on my shoulder. 'We naturally want to know what happened. There's no question of the accuracy of the Russian report. They've even sent us a piece of the tailplane. The plane is yours all right. It has your flight number on it and it's unquestionably a Tudor. Now what caused it to crash?'

'It didn't crash,' I said wearily. 'I tell you, I flew it 'Then if it didn't crash, how the devil are the Russians able to send us a sample of the wreckage that clearly shows it to be your plane?'

'I tell you, we put it there,' I replied desperately. 'We loaded it into the plane and flew it there. Saeton stooged around whilst I pushed the bits out. Then he landed me at Hollmind. That was when he flew out to Wunstorf to join the airlift. I searched all that night and all the next day for some trace of Carter. Then I found his helmet. It was just after the snow had started. It was lying on the snow and'

'I just can't follow what you're saying,' the station commander interrupted. 'Will you please stick to what happened in the plane.'

But before I could answer, the door of the room opened. 'Come in, Pierce. You, too, Gentry.' The station commander crossed over to the taller of the two men, drawing him aside and speaking to him in a low voice. I could see the two of them glancing covertly in my direction. Symes was beating an impatient tattoo on the edge of the desk with his long fingers, his dark eyes fixed curiously on my face.

I felt as though an invisible curtain was being lowered, separating me from contact with.them, and I pulled myself to my feet. 'You don't understand,' 1 said angrily. 'I joined Harcourt's outfit in order to get hold of one of his planes. We'd crashed ours. It had to be replaced. We had to get hold of another plane in order to test the engines. Saeton was due on the airlift on the 25th. We had to have another plane. The only place we could get one was in Germany - off the airlift. It had to be a Tudor. That was why' My voice trailed away as I saw them all staring at me as though I were crazy.

The man who was talking to the station commander said quietly, 'It's obvious he's had a nasty shock. He's suffering from some sort of mental disturbance - he's all mixed up with that escape he did. I'll get him down to the sick bay.'

The station commander stared at me and then nodded. 'All right. But I wish to G.o.d I could find out what happened to that plane of yours.'

'Nothing happened to it,' I cried angrily. There was nothing wrong with it at all. I flew it back to Membury. All the Russians have found'

'Yes, yes,' the station commander cut in impatiently. 'We've heard all about that. All right, Gentry. Take him down to the sick bay. Only for G.o.d's sake get some reasonable statement out of him as soon as possible.'

The M.O. nodded and started towards me. It was then that the other man stepped forward. 'Mind if I have a word with him first, sir?'

The station commander shrugged his shoulders. 'Just as you like, Pierce. I suppose you think in his present muddled state he's more likely to tell you the truth.' He gave a quick laugh. 'I hope you make better progress than we have.' He crossed to the door and paused with his hand on the handle. 'I'd like a word with you, Symes, after breakfast.'

The I.O. rose to his feet. 'Very good, sir.'

The door closed behind the station commander and as I slid wearily back into my seat the policeman came and leaned on the edge of the desk, his hard, slightly pitted features seeming to hang over me, a dark blur against the lights. 'My name's Pierce,' he said. 'R.A.F. Policy. You're Fraser?'

I nodded hopelessly. All chance of a plane had vanished with the departure of the station commander and I felt drained and utterly exhausted. If only they'd let me tell my story the way I'd wanted to. But I knew that even then they wouldn't have believed me. Put into words it immediately became fantastic.

'Christian name's Neil Leyden?'

Again I nodded. It was stupid of him asking me my name when everybody in the room knew d.a.m.n' well who I was.

'I've been instructed to ask you a few questions.' His voice was quiet, almost gentle; very different from his features. 'Do you remember the night of November 18th last year?' last year?'

I thought back. What an age it seemed. That was the night I'd arrived at Membury. 'Yes,' I said. 'I began working with Saeton that night.'

'At Membury?'

'Yes.'

'How did you get there - by car?'

'Yes, by car. There's no train service to Membury.'

'A car was found that night at the foot of Baydon Hill. That was your car, wasn't it?'

I stared at him, struggling to understand the drift of his questions. My hand reached up almost automatically to the crust of blood where my forehead was cut. 'I had a crash,' I said.

He nodded. 'You've another name, haven't you? Callahan.'