CHAPTER II
THE ENGLISHMAN
MY first impression was that the aerodrome was deserted but on looking more carefully I could see a few figures moving away from the hangers, and on the far boundary of the aerodrome were several Hurricanes and a couple of Blenheims with some men standing round them. These appeared to offer the best chance of escape because I was suddenly aware of heavy gun fire not far away. The Hun must be getting pretty close now and there wouldn't be much time to spare. The thought of being taken prisoner after struggling so far in the Spit was too awful for words.
I started to walk across towards the Blenheims and suddenly remembered the blood on my trousers. I had quite forgotten about it in all the excitement of the last quarter of an hour, but now my leg started to hurt again, and I rolled up my trousers to examine the damage. It didn't seem very bad. A number of small splinters had penetrated the flesh and there was a nasty gash in the back of my leg which caused most of the bleeding but it had dried up now. The damage could keep for a bit, anyway. There were far more important things to worry about now and I started off again towards the Blenheims.
There were seven or eight men engaged in refuelling one of the Blenheims from tins. They worked with the mechanical haste of men who are absolutely tired out. A man still wearing his parachute harness lay on the ground by the tail of a Blenheim. His chest and arm were badly injured and I think he was dead. One of the aircraft had a lot of holes in it and he was probably the gunner.
A squadron leader called out to me as I approached.
“Do you want a lift back?”
“Yes please,” I replied. “My Spit has packed up. What about these Hurricanes?”
“They're all hopeless. This Blenheim is the only thing that will possibly fly. Now give us a hand with these bloody tins. If we don't get away soon we'll be caught.”
I picked up a tin, ran over to the aircraft and the work went on.
I was still rather shaken after that fight, my leg was throbbing painfully and my mouth seemed as dry as a piece of felt, but I was in far fresher condition than any of this lot. They looked as though they hadn't been to bed for a week and were only keeping going at all by a great effort. I wondered where they'd come from as I could see by the squadron letters on the aircraft that they were not the ones we had just escorted over from England. However there was no time for idle questions; all that mattered was to get away as soon as possible. Those guns seemed to be getting nearer.
Suddenly I became aware of a deep though still distant throb. The others had heard it too and we all looked up. “Christ,” said somebody, “this is the end.” About five miles away to the north-east a large formation was making straight for the aerodrome. It was far too large to be anything of ours and as they got nearer I saw they were Ju. 87s escorted by perhaps twenty or thirty Me. 110s.
“Come on!” said one of the pilots quickly. “We can just make it,” and he started to climb into the Blenheim.
“Don’t be a damned fool,” shouted the squadron leader. “They’ll be here before we get the engines going. Get into cover.”
We ran hard for the aerodrome boundary. About 100 yards away there was a narrow slit trench and we tumbled into it and lay there watching the approaching bombers. They were flying in perfect formation, so obviously sure of themselves, so confident of their overwhelming strength, and there was no opposition at all—not even a gun fired at them. It might have been the final fly past at Hendon in the old days.
They were almost over our heads now at about five thousand and suddenly the Stukas started to peel off and dive. One, two, three, four, down they came like the clappers of hell. I could see very clearly the black crosses on the pale blue under surface of their wings.
“Down, everybody!” shouted the squadron leader. We cowered in the bottom of the trench.
The dive bombers came down with a long screaming roar, increasing rapidly in volume till it seemed absolutely on top of us. I lay with my face pressed into the earth and wondered if it were possible to be more frightened than this.
There was a shattering explosion followed by another and another till they all merged into one long roar which made the earth heave and shake underneath us. There was one tremendous one that seemed to fall just outside the trench and a shower of earth and stones rattled on top of us. This was followed by a burst of cannon and machine-gun fire and an aeroplane roared across just above our heads. Several more followed, each firing hard and then the bombing and ground strafing died away, the noise of engines receded in the distance and everything grew quiet again.
We crawled out of our trench and looked despairingly at the scene of devastation. A heavy bomb had landed practically on top of one Blenheim and it lay there, a crumpled mass of metal blazing furiously. The other Blenheim was also on fire and so were the Hurricanes. It was an absolute clean sweep. A number of bombs had also fallen on the hangars and buildings and they were on fire with great clouds of smoke drifting across the aerodrome.
We regarded the scene in silence.
The little group seemed stunned by this last and crowning misfortune. The Hun was within a few miles of us and now our last means of escape was destroyed.
“Well,” said the squadron leader, “that’s that.” He spoke very quietly now and there was a dull note of hopelessness in his voice. I don't think I've ever seen a man so near the end of his tether.
An idea struck me. “Look here,” I said, “I’ll go over to the hangars and see if there are any lorries or bicycles lying about. There might be something.”
“No,” he said, “I don't think it's any good, and there's no time anyway. We'd better get on to the road and try to get a lift.”
“Well, I'll just nip across,” I said. “If we can find a car or something we'll have a far better chance.”
I left them and walked rapidly across to the aerodrome buildings. Everything seemed quite deserted, but above the fierce crackle of the flames I could hear quite clearly the sound of machine-gun fire in the distance. There was very little time to spare and I made up my mind that if I didn't find any method of transport within a couple of minutes I'd follow the others and try to beg a lift on the road.
I walked round the corner of a hangar and saw an open car standing a few yards away. A man was sitting at the wheel with a tommy-gun across his knees and I was just about to call out to him when something curious about his helmet and uniform struck me and I jumped back round the corner. He was a German soldier! God, I thought, they're here already.
I ran down past a long hut in front of the hangars. My heart was thumping like a piston and I was scared stiff of being taken prisoner in such a silly way. Why the hell didn't I get away with the others when the going was good.
I was perhaps half-way down the length of the building when I heard a shot in front of me, followed by a cry and the sound of voices. I whipped into a doorway and found myself in a small bare room with concrete floor and a wooden table. It looked like somebody's office.
I ran to the window and peered out cautiously. A few yards further along two German officers appeared from another door followed by a tall man in civilian clothes. They stood talking on the path for a moment; I could hear the murmur of their voices without being able to distinguish any words, but the civilian was talking rapidly and kept spreading out his hands in a sort of negative gesture. He seemed to be making excuses for something.
The two officers then turned and walked quickly down the path past my window. As they turned I noticed the black collar patches and shoulder straps on their field grey tunics, and then I bent down hastily below the window ledge. I looked up again as their footsteps moved away and saw them vanish round the corner of a hangar. Probably going back to their car, I thought.
The tall man stood there for a moment and then turned back into the door again. There's obviously some dirty work going on, I thought, but I'm damned if I know what. I wasn't really surprised. We had heard so many stories in the last few days of unpleasant incidents that our people h
ad experienced; how telephone lines had been cut at very awkward moments, how fake instructions had been issued in the most convincing manner by people who obviously knew a great deal about secret matters, and numerous other incidents which all showed that the enemy had many agents and supporters in France who were just waiting for the right moment to emerge from their obscurity.
I pulled my revolver out of my pocket, slipped the lanyard round my neck, and thanked my lucky stars that I'd decided to bring it along.
There was nobody to be seen and I walked quickly out of the office and turned in the opposite direction to that which the Germans had taken. I had gone only a few steps when the tall man emerged again from the doorway and turned towards me.
Even now I can see his face as clearly as though it were photographed upon my mind. He was a big man, aged about thirty-five, I should think, and powerfully built but rather tending to run to fat. His face was definitely unpleasant at first sight, not so much by reason of the features as because of the general impression of dissolute character and cruelty that his expression produced. Despite this there was a certain hard air of purposefulness and determination about the man, and his glance was bold and intelligent.
The moment he saw me he put his hand towards his pocket and then, seeing the revolver in my hand, apparently thought better of it and walked rapidly past me and disappeared round the corner.
I stood watching him till he was out of sight—I had no intention of being shot in the back—and then I hurried on.
I was running past the door where they had been standing when I heard a cry from inside. I looked round—the coast was still clear and I went in and found myself in a passage with some doors on the right. They were probably flight offices and some doors still bore a card with the owner's name.
The first door was open and I went in. There were two or three chairs in the room and a bare wooden table with a lot of papers and files scattered on it. The owner had evidently quitted in considerable haste.
Lying on the floor near the table was a small middle-aged man, perhaps fifty years old, with a small military moustache and iron-grey hair. He was wearing an old brown tweed suit. He had been shot in the chest and his shirt was covered in blood which was forming in a little pool under his shoulder. His face looked as though something heavy had run over it; there is no other description for its condition. His nose was smashed, his cheeks and forehead so cut and swollen that you could scarcely see his eyes, and his mouth was a mass of blood. Even to my inexperienced eyes it was obvious that he was dying.
He turned his head slightly as I came in and tried to look at me.
“Who are you?” he said faintly. He was English apparently. “My name's Claydon,” I said. “I’m an officer in the Royal Air Force.”
“Thank God you're English,” he murmured. Every word was an effort for him and he kept stopping and gasping for breath in a way that was most distressing to see.
“Listen,” he said. “You must—do something for me—it's terribly important—” he repeated the last words with all the emphasis he could muster—“terribly important.”
“Of course I will,” I said gently. “What is it you want?”
“Get back to England—quickly,” he said, “and tell Air Ministry Intelligence that you've—seen me. Tell them that Passy came into my office—with some Germans—and they beat me up to get some information about Python—and when I still refused he—he shot me.”
“Yes,” I said, “I understand perfectly. But tell me your name.”
“Stephenson,” he whispered, and then added so feebly I could scarcely hear it, “Python too” or some word like that. His eyes were closed and he seemed to have lost consciousness or perhaps he was already dead. There was nothing more that I could do though it seemed hateful to leave him. I grabbed a pile of papers, pillowed his head on them and walked out of the building.
It came very near to being the last damn fool action of my life. I'd taken perhaps a couple of steps when there was a crack like a whip from somewhere on my right and a bullet strummed viciously past my face, sounding for all the world like an angry bee. Hell, it was close! I gave an excellent imitation of a thoroughly startled person jumping about six feet in sheer terror, and then bolted down the path away from the direction of the shots, head well down, and jinking like a wing three-quarter. Two more shots banged out but they both missed and then I was round the corner of the hangar, reflecting rather breathlessly that you never realise how agile you are until you hear a few bullets flying about.
Somebody was very anxious to kill me and I reckoned I knew who it was. He must have hidden near the door and then fired, probably through a window, when I blundered out.
I was both frightened and angry, and felt very tempted to sneak back and have a pot at him but I could see that this was no time to indulge in a little private war of my own, and anyway my marksmanship with a revolver is hardly up to the Al Capone standard. As if to clinch the matter there came the sound of very heavy machine-gun and rifle fire from the direction of Abbeville where probably the French were holding the enemy in the streets of the town. I ran on through the aerodrome buildings picking my way past numerous fires and bomb craters. The air was thick with smoke and dust and I kept coughing.
I turned a corner and almost stumbled on a little group of bodies. They were French soldiers who had evidently been running for shelter when the raid started but they had been too late and about twenty yards away a very heavy bomb had fallen. They had been knocked in all directions and lay scattered limply, their bodies covered in white dust from the explosion. One of them had been riding a bicycle and it lay on the ground beside its late owner. The handlebars were badly twisted but oddly enough I found the tyres were still intact when I pressed them, and so I picked it up and pedalled away down a narrow path between two buildings. A moment later I found myself back on the aerodrome again and set off across the landing area in what I knew was roughly the direction of the main road. On reaching the aerodrome boundary I forced my way through a hedge, threw the bicycle over some barbed wire and clambered over myself, tearing my clothes badly in the process.
I found myself in a small lane and rode down it for perhaps a couple of miles, past a column of French infantry on the march, and then emerged in a main road.
This was packed with a slow moving crowd of horses and carts piled high with families and household goods, cars with mattresses on the roof presumably as a shield against machine gunning from the air, and pedestrians, military lorries and bicycles all struggling along painfully to the coast.
Coming up in the opposite direction were hundreds of French infantry with a few light Renault tanks and seventy-fives. They were trying to force their way through the mass of traffic and here and there where a car had broken down or run out of petrol the traffic piled up behind it, completely blocking the road in both directions. There followed much shouting, swearing, and gesticulating, the block would be dragged away and the painful procession moved slowly forward again. It was complete chaos.
My bicycle seemed worse than useless in this so I left it in the ditch and walked along as quickly as I could. By this time I began to feel distinctly weary and looked at my watch expecting to see that it was nearly evening; I was astonished to find that it was barely three o'clock in the afternoon. We had left Hawkinge at ten o'clock—only five hours ago but a great deal seemed to have happened in that time. However, no food was available so I plodded on, becoming more depressed and angry as I saw the suffering and weariness of all these unfortunate people. Old men and women and children all struggling on despite their exhaustion, women grey with dust and fatigue carrying a baby in one arm and leading a weary child with the other, horses lame and tired, some people apparently wounded by bombs or bullets being jolted along on a farm cart, all fleeing from the dreaded invader towards some elusive refuge ahead of them.
This was a side of war I had never seen before and I began to understand something of the suffering and misery which invasion
brings in its trail. These simple peasants had never wanted to fight; all they asked from life was to dwell on their farms and continue to make their frugal living in peace. They had never marched up and down in ridiculous goose-step or screamed their silly heads off in endless “Heil Hitlers”, or beaten and tortured anybody whose political views differed from their own. Perhaps their only fault was to have lived rather in the other way, to be too easy going and peace loving when all round them the world was crumbling. They were paying for it now.
After walking on for some distance I saw a lorry coming past packed with R.A.F. personnel. I hailed them and as the lorry slowed down I swung myself on to the back and was hauled in by several pairs of hands. They seemed to be mostly the airmen from a Battle squadron which had been based near Reims. The few surviving Battles had flown back to England the previous day and the ground crews were making for Boulogne. They seemed in very good spirits and were quite confident that there would be no difficulty in reaching England once they got to Boulogne. I wasn't half so confident about this myself, but said nothing.
Best of all, they had scrounged some loaves en route and I sat on top of the tightly packed lorry munching bread and cheese and feeling much better. It was grand to see the familiar blue uniform around me again.
I began to think hard about the curious scenes I had witnessed at Abbeville. What had happened to the squadron leader and the rest of that tired band of men? They were probably further ahead on the same road as they had nearly an hour's start on me.
And that small Englishman who lay battered and dying on the floor—who was he, and what was the significance behind that message he tried so hard to make me understand? He spoke as an intelligent and educated man and I was sure that he wasn't wandering in his mind when he spoke to me.
Presumably the tall man had helped to beat him up and then shot him. I tried to recall the actual words. Yes, that was it. “Passy came into my office with some Germans and they beat me up to get some information about Python and when I refused he shot me.” That must have happened just before I got there because I heard the shot.
Well, I knew who Passy was, anyway. He'd shot at me too, the swine, and I began to wish that I'd spent a few minutes playing hide and seek with him round the burning hangars. I had a gun too, and instead of using it I'd bolted like a scared rabbit. But on the other hand I might have run into those Germans…. Those Germans. I hadn't thought about them before. There was something very odd about them. I suppose I must have assumed they were part of the enemy advance guard but on second thoughts that didn't seem at all likely. It looked as though they had gone to the aerodrome to carry out some specific job or keep a rendezvous that had already been arranged. They had certainly taken some risk in advancing as far ahead as that, though perhaps it hadn't been too difficult really in view of the confusion and apathy that seemed to prevail everywhere. Boldness will often get away with it under such circumstances, but still I thought a fairly important matter must have been at stake to bring them there.
And “Python too.” He'd mentioned Python twice and they were his last coherent words. I couldn't see any meaning or significance in them at all.
A corporal touched me on the arm and pointed away in the direction of Abbeville. “Gawd, sir, look at that!” I looked carefully and saw in the distance a bombardment the like of which I had never seen before. High above the town circled layer upon layer of aircraft, fighters at the top and below them a mass of Stukas. I could just distinguish the latter as they plunged down towards the smoking town. They went down so steeply in such a determined dive that it seemed they must crash, but they pulled out near the ground and went rocketing up again, leaving behind another erupting column of smoke and dust.
Poor bloody French, I thought. They're probably holding the tanks in the streets, so the Hun has called in the Luftwaffe to flatten the whole place. And by God, they're doing it. I began to wonder how much longer we could stand up to such a battering.