The Sea Shall Not Have Them Read online

  “Group have been on the blower again,” he went on. “They’re getting anxious. Waltby had some important material for them, I gather.”

  The Controller remained silent, chiefly because he could think of nothing helpful to say.

  “You know who Waltby is, of course?” Taudevin stared at him with enquiring eyebrows.

  “Yes, sir, of course.” Jones tried to answer briskly and Taudevin gave him a tired smile.

  “No, I mean that he’s my wife’s brother-in-law. He married her sister. Good friend of mine. His wife is coming down here to meet him when he returns. My wife is supposed to be meeting the train. She’s been away for the day and I can’t contact her until she gets to the station. I shall have to tell them when I go to pick them up. They’re bound to know immediately that something’s happened. He should have been with me.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Instinctively Jones glanced quickly at the plotting table and the lonely marker that represented Harding.

  Back in his own room, Taudevin stood by the window watching the ensign which flew from the mast outside his office, rippling in the wind so that the roundel-marked Royal Air Force blue whipped stiffly across the sky. A couple of WAAFs came past, their heads down, each one holding her precarious hat down on thick hair which hung low over her neck, in direct defiance of orders which stated it should be off the collar. Beyond them, the bare trees slowly waved. their topmasts against the sky.

  Across the open space in front of headquarters Taudevin could see the guard changing by the main gate. He watched silently during the manoeuvring which removed the old guard and replaced him with the new one, and saw the corporal and his party move off again towards the guardroom, taut and solid-looking in their webbing belts. Taudevin approved with a nod, though he knew very well that the elaborate procedure practised on the main gate was chiefly for show, part of the spit and polish of the Air Force, a paragraph out of the drill manuals, and that at all the other points which warranted a guard the change-over was casual and friendly – and just as efficient. He also knew that his interest in the smartness of the guard was unnecessary – that had there been any slackness on the main gate the Administrative Officer, Squadron Leader Scott, who occupied the next office to his own, would already have been flinging himself across the wide concrete roadway in a flash of the ponderous, frustrated energy which was the motivating power in almost everything he did.

  Even as Taudevin watched he saw Sergeant Starr, Scotty’s general duty man, march smartly across to the wooden hut that served as a guardroom and disappear inside. The Group Captain sighed and turned away from the window. It was a pity, he decided, that Scotty didn’t apply to all the other duties which should have occupied his time the same zeal and energy he expended on guard-mounting, saluting and what he chose to call “airmanship”, that outmoded term from official documents which he loved to roll round his tongue.

  Airmanship and loyalty were the little tin gods before which Scotty rattled his worshipping beads. For Taudevin it was sufficient to ask efficiency, and he received in return all the things that Scotty never quite managed to inspire in spite of the fact that he chased them all round the camp with floods of orders invoking King’s Regulations and Air Council Instructions, and countless little messages insisting that the various departmental officers should do likewise. Taudevin received all the carbon copies of them on his desk in daily batches.

  He really would have to do something about Scotty before long, he decided, as he stood before his desk. The old boy seemed to be getting worse, taking it out of everyone else to cover up his own inefficiency, utilising the rank he held – which was still, paradoxically, insufficient to enable him to make a personal decision about anything important – to worry other hard-working men about trivialities.

  Taudevin thought for a moment over ways and means with which he might curb Scotty’s over-enthusiastic interference, then he decided they might for a while continue picking up the bricks where Scotty dropped them, covering him when he forgot things. He might, however, have a discreet word with the Station Warrant Officer who, after all, really ran the station and always had done. Some of Scotty’s work might even be pushed over to that gentleman if he had no objection. And Taudevin thought he wouldn’t have.

  Even as he considered it, Taudevin realised he was really only shelving his responsibility. It was hardly fair to pass the baby on to the SWO. Actually, the responsibility for curbing Scotty was his own and no one else’s.

  Then he shrugged and decided again the whole matter could safely wait a while. Scotty had done nothing really violently serious yet – though it was only a matter of time, he reflected soberly. But, for the present at least, he felt he didn’t want worrying with trivialities while there was this anxiety about Harding being overdue.

  His mind came sharply back to the problem at a knock on his door as Squadron Leader Scott himself entered. Taudevin glanced up at him, on the point of saying he was busy, then he composed his face to register attention and polite interest.

  Scotty approached his desk with that peculiar long energetic stride of his which, like his hearty manner and the popular Air Force moustachios he wore, hid the unhappy uncertainty that lay beneath. His face was red and flushed and over his breast pocket below his faded wings he wore two or three medal ribbons from the 1914-18 war and a Distinguished Flying Cross, all of which made him loath to wear a greatcoat, however bad the weather. “I’m not a bloody desk wallah,” he liked to point out, “and I don’t want people to mistake me for one.” As a result of his efforts to avoid the error it was said maliciously in the Mess that he was always in greater danger of death from pneumonia than from enemy action.

  Scotty had been for a time noisily in charge of a satellite station but trouble there had brought him to an operations room and, for the same reason, finally in charge of administration under Taudevin and plaguing the life out of his commanding officer with just the fretting trivialities from which he was supposed to protect him.

  “Good morning, Sir,” he began heartily as he burst through the door.

  “Good morning, Scotty!” Taudevin sat down at his desk and made himself sound cheerful and eager to listen, but his slight impatience was betrayed by the movement of his fingers tapping the blotter. “What’s worrying you this morning?”

  Scotty unrolled a couple of posters he had been caring under his arm. “How about these, sir? Prepare yourself for Civvy Street. Rather wizard, I think. I suggest we bung one of ’em up in the Mess somewhere. Shall we?”

  He had started off his conversation with a boisterous and confident efficiency but that last treacherous “Shall we?”, that flinging of the onus on to Taudevin, betrayed him utterly. Scotty always offered his suggestions in the form of a question.

  “I think I can leave that to you,” Taudevin said, faintly irritated.

  “Roger, sir.” Scotty smiled in his hearty fashion, relieved to have his suggestion endorsed. “I’m just going over to the canteen to give the boys a lecture on post-war planning. Thought I might bung one up there, too. By the way, sir, I do feel these lectures aren’t attended half well enough. There are too many people finding excuses to dodge ’em.” Taudevin stared at his desk. Scotty and his lectures were famous. Whatever their subject, their matter was chiefly loyalty and ideals and duty.

  “I do feel that since we’re all going to get a basinful of post-war planning when we’re demobbed it’s as well to gen up on it. None of the boys have a clue. Don’t you think we might make the lectures compulsory?”

  “I don’t think so, Scotty,” Taudevin answered softly. “Some of these fellows have been running their lives very efficiently for a long time now. Perhaps they don’t want to be planned. I’m afraid I can’t agree to forcing them – not yet, anyway.”

  “Well – hm – perhaps not, sir.” Scotty spoke a little huffily and Taudevin found himself wishing he’d go away. He put the posters down on the edge of the Group Captain’s desk and laid his notebook carefully on top of
them.

  “Sir,” he went on. “Flight Sergeant Mackay–”

  Taudevin was reading the notes jotted down on Scotty’s pad: “Investigate rate of promotion, Signals Section.” “AOC’s inspection.” “Accommodation in hutted camp.” “Bus service to town.” “Ensa.” “Padre’s Church Parade” – and he knew he was going to have to make a decision on every one of them, whatever they were. Then Scotty’s words sank into his brain and his head jerked up. He sat motionless, his eyes suddenly hard and still and unblinking – like a cat’s.

  “Mackay? What about Mackay?”

  “Well, sir…” Scotty drew a deep breath. “The Station Police have discovered a jerry-can of petrol in his car, sir.”

  Taudevin’s frown deepened a little but he didn’t move, and Scotty continued.

  “Police corporal saw him pick it out of a ditch by the dispersal area. Seems it fell off a motor transport. At least, the MT Section have reported one missing. Mackay apparently saw it happen and was picking it up after dark. This morning, when the corporal investigated further, he found the jerry-can in Mackay’s car – you know the one, that old Morris he runs about in.”

  “Why didn’t the corporal stop Mackay at the time?”

  “Gather, sir, he was a little apprehensive about the result. Mackay’s rather a big type and rather given to blowing his top off. Corporal felt it might be a sticky do. By the time he’d investigated, Mackay was flying.”

  “The corporal’s a damn fool. He obviously made sure Mackay was flying first.”

  Scotty’s eyebrows shot up. “Hm – yes, sir. I agree. But pinching petrol’s a poor show whoever does it. Court martial offence. What ought we to do? Felt since he was aircrew, and the aircrew types are your particular interest, you might like to hear about it. What do you think?”

  Taudevin spoke slowly as he replied. “Whatever we might decide to do, we’ll have to wait a little while,” he said. “Flight Sergeant Mackay’s been reported overdue in Flying Officer Harding’s aircraft. We suspect he’s somewhere in the Channel in a dinghy.”

  Scotty was taken aback. “Oh!” His jaw dropped. “Oh! Shaky do, sir! Sorry to hear that. What do you feel should be the drill, then?”

  “What do you think it should be, Scotty?” Taudevin said, weary and a little malicious.

  “Well – er – after all, it’s serious.” Scotty, thus appealed to, floundered for a minute. “Can’t let him get away with it. Poor show and all that. But under the circumstances – well, sir,” he concluded, tossing the decision back into Taudevin’s lap, “it’s for you to decide.”

  Taudevin drummed with both hands on his blotter for a while. When he spoke it was to the desk top and not to Scotty. “Mackay’s a good wireless operator,” he said. “He got the DFM while he was a sergeant. I recommended him myself. I believe he’s put in for a commission, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh, has he, sir?” Scotty’s heavy face looked relieved as he saw the Group Captain taking the responsibility. Taudevin frowned for a moment. Scotty had obviously failed to remember Mackay’s application for a commission, which must have passed through his hands and it was Scotty’s job to remember, if only because he was in charge of administration.

  “What else do you know about the affair?” he asked sharply.

  “The corporal put in a report…”

  “That means it will be all round the station by now.”

  “Afraid so, sir.”

  “I’d have preferred it kept quiet.” Taudevin still sat with his arms across his desk, those horny nails of his tapping the blotter. He appeared at ease and undisturbed but his voice had an edge to it. “If nothing’s done about it they’ll be saying there’s one law for flying crews and another for the ground staff.”

  “Exactly, sir. Damned disloyal thought, I might add, considering how the flying boys are clobbering the Hun just now.”

  Taudevin gave Scotty a sidelong glance, annoyed by the way he seemed to associate himself with the aircrews and by the satisfied manner in which he spoke – as though the decisions being made were his and his alone.

  “There was a sergeant at Felwell who took a jerry-can of petrol, I remember,” Taudevin said slowly. “Similar circumstances. Stealing by finding, I suppose you’d call it.”

  “That’s right, sir. Court martialled and reduced to the ranks.” Scotty had a smug look of self-righteousness on his face. He’d remembered the case and looked up the verdict, and he brought it out triumphantly.

  “And then, if I remember,” Taudevin went on disconcertingly, “shortly afterwards he was given his rank back and was eventually killed over Essen.”

  “Er – oh, is that so, sir?” Scotty looked abashed and Taudevin gave him a sharp glance. Just like Scotty, he thought, not to have bothered to enquire that far.

  He stood up. “I’ll think this over for a day or so,” he said. “We don’t know that Mackay didn’t really find that jerry-can. He might have done, though I don’t honestly think so. There was no petrol in the tank of the car, was there?”

  “No, sir – er – I think not.” Scotty rubbed his nose doubtfully and Taudevin could see he didn’t know.

  “Hm. It’s a pity the Special Investigation Police should happen to be on the station at the moment, looking into that petrol-stealing at the Maintenance Unit.”

  “Yes, sir. Poor show that. Glad to know, though, sir, it was a civilian they arrested and not one of our people. Damned unpatriotic business with a war on.”

  “Special Investigation wouldn’t let this charge be squashed if it were made out.” Taudevin seemed to be speaking to himself, as though he failed to hear the other’s comments. “So just sit on it for a while.”

  “Station Police say charges ought to be made out by now,” Scotty persisted, “if we’re going ahead with it.”

  “Tell the Station Police to wait,” Taudevin snapped, suddenly angry.

  “Oh – er – yes, sir. Very good, sir.” Scotty picked up his notebook hurriedly. “Now, sir, about the accommodation in the hutted camp–”

  “You attend to it, Scotty,” Taudevin said quickly, pushing his chair back. “I’m rather occupied at the moment.”

  “Roger, sir.” Taudevin winced. Scotty never seemed to have grown up and liked to use slang with the generosity of the youngest sergeant-pilot, curbing it at all only in front of the Group Captain. “And, sir…” Scotty made a desperate attempt to claim Taudevin’s attention as he saw him move away from the desk. “This Ensa company who’re supposed to be doing a show here on Sunday–”

  “You fix it, Scotty. I must see the Wing Commander.” Taudevin escaped towards the corridor, aware of the vast difference between the Controller, with his quiet confidence, and Scotty, with his high-powered lack of it.

  “Sir.” Scotty’s voice rose to a broken squeak as Taudevin reached for the door-handle. “This new bus service–”

  Taudevin slammed the door quickly and, behind him, Scotty broke off abruptly and slowly began to collect his papers, brooding on the lack of co-operation which seemed, as far as he was concerned, to extend from the lowest aircraftman in the Station Warrant Officer’s office to the Group Captain himself.

  As Taudevin stepped outside into the wind he knew very well that the queries on the pad, having been rejected by himself, would eventually be pushed into the lap of the Station Warrant Officer, who would give them to his sergeant to deal with – who was the person who should have dealt with them in the first place, instead of them being brought to him by Scotty.

  He suddenly felt angry with the older man for plaguing him with such trivialities while somewhere beyond the blue fields and the white cliffs that lay even beyond them four men were probably struggling for their lives in the water, and the fact that he knew so little about it suddenly began to grow in its importance until it nagged like a raw blister on his heel.

  Two

  The Hudson had hit the water not with the splash that Air Commodore Waltby had expected but with a harsh shattering crash that seem
ed to tear great rents in the metal, and he realised in the first instant that slammed him with breath-taking force against the bulkhead that the sea was as solid as a cliff when it was hit at speed.

  As the machine struck, in a sheeting wall of green water that gushed in a wave over the Perspex windows and dropped with a noise like violent rain on to the fuselage, it seemed for a second to stand on its nose, then it flopped heavily back again on its tail with the awkward movement of a falling skittle. The cabin immediately seemed full of icy dark green water that came from nowhere, snatching Waltby’s breath away, slapping and splashing round him, up to his waist and his arm-pits in an instant, sweeping away into the tail the scraps of signal pad paper that had littered the navigator’s table. Frantically envisaging himself trapped in that rapidly rising flood, locked in a heavy aircraft that was bubbling down, down, down into the dark fathoms of the sea, Waltby fought blindly to undo the parachute harness he had put on in the first moment of emergency and struggled against the weight of water towards the escape hatch.

  Then, immediately, he realised he’d lost his grip on his briefcase, that precious load of documents he’d collected at the rocket sites up and down the Pas de Calais, and all his own important notes on what he’d seen and how it might be used. It was as important – even more important – than his own life. He had crouched against the bulkhead, awaiting the impact of the aircraft hitting the sea, with the case clutched to him, wondering in a foolish, rabbit-like fashion how much he could remember of it if he were to lose it. With every foot of height they had lost, his brain had churned over with an old woman’s fretting nag of anxiety as he had tried to photograph the contents of the papers on his mind.

  In a daze of excitement as he recovered from the shock of the crash he began to paw about for the case under the dark water that filled the whole interior of the Hudson, then, as his jostled memory cleared and he felt the case bumping against his knees, he recalled that he had taken the precaution to strap it to his waist with his overcoat belt through the handle.