Already a second bomber was lumbering down the side runway, with another following. On the far side of the airfield I could see others moving along too. The noise of the engines was swelling. The plane closest to me suddenly roared more loudly, the blast of air against me stiffening. The plane rolled to the end of the runway, turned smoothly, headed down the long concrete strip. At first it was travelling so slowly I was convinced a running man could easily overhaul it, but gradually the heavily loaded machine began to pick up speed. Green signal lights glared ahead of it.
A second Wellington was already moving from the far side to the end of the runway. The signal briefly turned red, then green again. The plane rumbled forward slowly, in a great commotion of power.
Behind it, the next plane was already taking up position.
I counted twenty-two aircraft in all. From the first plane to the last the whole procedure of launching them into the air lasted less than fifteen minutes. Silence fell on the airfield as the last plane climbed away into the gathering night.
Stumbling through the trees, I set off on the long walk back to the inn.
xx
For the next three days I took the walk along the country roads to the airfield, trying to see what was going on, making myself feel that in some way I was participating. I never failed to thrill to the spectacle of the heavy planes clawing their way into the air.
Early in the morning of the fourth day I was woken by the landlord of the White Hart, telling me in an aggrieved voice that I was wanted on the telephone. Dull with sleep, I followed him downstairs to the small phone cubicle at the back of the public bar. It was Jack.
He said he was surprised that I was there in Barnham, in the neighbourhood of the airfield, but he did not ask any questions over the telephone and suggested that we should meet straight away. He told me he was about to go on leave for forty-eight hours and was anxious to be on his way.
Once more I trudged along the road through flat Lincolnshire fields, arriving at the gate a little before ten in the morning. Jack was waiting for me. He was in the road outside the main entrance, smoking a cigarette and with a newspaper folded under his arm. He looked the picture of the romanticized RAF pilot that you sometimes saw in the newspapers and on the newsreels: young, dashing, carefree, taking on the Hun with bravery, good humour and an unwavering sense of British fair play. I couldn’t remember how long it was since we had last been together, but as soon as I saw him I felt a familiar surge of many of the old feelings about him: love, envy, resentment, admiration, irritation. He was still my brother.
Jack was in no good humour as I walked towards him.
‘What in blazes are you doing around here?’ he said at once, with no greetings, no expression of warmth, no hint that it must have been more than a year since our last meeting. ‘This is no place for civilians. Several of the patrols have seen you out there, hanging about on the perimeter fence. That makes people nervous. It was only because I was able to intervene that you haven’t been arrested.’
JL,’ I said. ‘It’s me. Can’t you even say hello?’
‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’
‘I’m not doing any harm,’ I said. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’
‘Lurking around in the woods at the end of the runway isn’t the way. Why didn’t you drop me a line first?’
‘It was something I did on an impulse. I have to talk to you face to face.’
‘Couldn’t you have put it in a letter?’
‘No, it’s too . . . sensitive. If it was opened by someone else -’
I saw something change in Jack’s expression: a fleeting evasiveness, a guilty look. He fiddled with the cigarette he was holding.
‘Would this be something to do with Birgit, by any chance?’ he said.
His question surprised me. ‘Birgit?’
‘The baby must be due soon. There isn’t anything going wrong, is there?’
‘No, it’s not about Birgit. Why should you think that?’
‘Are there any problems?’
‘Everything’s fine. We aren’t expecting the baby for at least another five weeks. At the end of next month.’
‘You’ve come away and left Birgit alone at home? In the last weeks of her pregnancy? How could you do that?’
I suppose that I too might have allowed a look of guilt to cross my face.
‘Look, JL, Birgit’s doing fine,’ I said. I could not rid my voice of a defensive note. ‘She’s a healthy girl and a neighbour’s keeping an eye on her while I’m away. I wouldn’t have left her if there was any risk. Anyway, I’m going home tomorrow’
‘So if it isn’t Birgit, what’s the important news that can’t wait?’
‘Can we find somewhere a bit less public to talk?’ We were a few yards away from the guardhouse at the airfield entrance, with several airmen in view. At least two or three of them were within hearing distance. With an inclination of my head I tried to make a wordless signal to Jack that I wanted to move away a little, but stubbornly he would not shift.
I moved closer to him, sensing his resistance to me. Speaking softly, I said, ‘I’m sticking my neck out to tell you this, JL. It’s as secret as anything can be. But I have information that the war is about to come to an end. Maybe in a week, two weeks. There’s going to be a cease-fire.’
Jack laughed sardonically, drew on the last of his cigarette, inhaled, and tossed the glowing end into a puddle.
‘You’ve come all the way here to tell me that?’
‘It’s absolutely true.’
‘So are the other rumours that go around a place like this every week.’
JL, this one isn’t a rumour. I know what I’m talking about.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true!’
‘A cease-fire is never going to happen,’ he said. ‘Even if it’s not a rumour. Even if there are some people who want one. Wars don’t suddenly end because somebody decides it’s time to stop. They go on being fought until one side or the other comes out on top.’
‘The last war ended with an armistice.’
‘That was different. In effect the Germans surrendered. No one’s going to start negotiating for peace now, on our side or theirs. The war has at last begun to go our way and we’re in too deep. We’ve gone beyond the point of no return and we have to see it through to the end.’
‘You sound like Churchill.’
‘Maybe I do. Is he suing for peace?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, realizing how much I was blurting out from the store of confidential information with which I had been entrusted. ‘But it’s the real thing, I swear it. I’ve already said too much, but for various reasons Hitler wants to negotiate a cease-fire with Britain. Obviously something inside Germany is about to change, although I don’t know what. Whatever the reason, Hitler wants to make a separate peace with Britain.’
‘Since you mention Churchill, he would never stand for it.’
‘Churchill’s already talking.’
‘Talking? Churchill is talking to Hitler?’
‘Not directly. There are secret peace negotiations going on through intermediaries. This is why it’s dangerous for me to tell you. I’ve already let out more than I should.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me, Joe. Even if Churchill went mad and said he wanted to negotiate, the country wouldn’t let him. Not now, not after Dunkirk, not after the Blitz, not after the other sacrifices.’
‘It’s about to happen, whatever you say.’
‘How do you happen to know this, anyway?’