Paul got in the passenger seat as Takada walked around the front and cranked a starter handle. It took three attempts before the engine clattered to life, and Takada yelled at Paul to pull the choke lever before it cut out.
‘So how’s the training going?’ Paul asked, as Takada got in.
‘Good, I think,’ Takada answered, as he let out the handbrake.
‘Marc’s not had any more trouble?’
Takada shook his head. ‘All good,’ he said. ‘He made two jumps from the Wellington yesterday, no trouble. Norwegian lady broke leg.’
Paul nodded. ‘I thought I recognised her when they brought her in.’
The elderly car turned out of the hospital gate and misfired. Frightened birds shot into the sky as it pulled on to a road covered with black ice.
‘This morning is ground training,’ Takada explained. ‘They let me out to fetch you. This afternoon, we make two drops. If they perfect we get our parachute wings.’
‘It’s a pity I missed out,’ Paul said. ‘Is there any news on Walker’s final exercise?’
The answer was delayed because Takada had taken a bend fast and the back wheels skidded out into the opposite lane. He was a skilful driver and he threw the steering wheel into the direction of the skid and applied extra power to pull the car back into a straight line.
‘It’s horrible driving in this,’ Takada said. ‘I believe all four units will go into the final exercise if we pass training. Walker is due to arrive later.’
‘Will you take part?’ Paul asked.
‘No,’ Takada said. ‘Trainee agents, not instructors.’
‘And has anyone heard about Henderson?’
‘I spoke to McAfferty on telephone last night. He’s been moved to a hospital nearer London. He needs a minor operation to stop bleeding.’
‘And Joan?’ Paul asked.
‘Gone,’ Takada said. ‘No police charges, but she’s been committed to an institution.’
‘Oh,’ Paul said, shocked. ‘I hope Troy’s coping OK with the spiders.’
Takada shook his head. ‘They incinerate,’ he said, before he remembered that McAfferty had asked him not to tell Paul this. She’d wanted to sit down and talk it through properly.
‘What?’ Paul gasped, his blocked nose making his voice nasal as it grew loud.
‘I’m sorry,’ Takada said. ‘But there’s a war on, you know? More important than spiders, I think.’
Paul was upset and furious at the same time. ‘They never hurt anyone,’ he cried angrily.
*
The atmosphere in the parachute school had changed over the three days that Paul had been away. He arrived to find the trainees taking their morning tea in the classroom. The rules on fraternisation had gone out of the window and all four groups were on friendly terms.
PT was the centre of attention. He sat at the lecturer’s desk, with three upside-down teacups in front of him. He was entertaining the Frenchmen and Poles by sliding them around the tabletop and making them guess which one had a table-tennis ball inside. But he’d fleeced most of them at poker over the past two nights and none could be persuaded to bet money on the outcome.
‘I’ll play,’ Paul said, shaking the snow off his gloves as he came into the classroom.
Rosie clapped as she saw him and a little cheer went up from the trainees in the other groups. Luc was the only person in the room who didn’t raise a smile.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t visit,’ Rosie said, as she gave Paul a kiss on the cheek. ‘But we were training all day long and it’s not safe on the roads after dark in this weather.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Paul smiled. ‘I didn’t feel much like talking anyway. So, PT, you fancy taking me on with the cups?’
PT pocketed the table-tennis ball and shook his head. ‘I’m not playing you,’ he grinned. ‘You know how the con works.’
The Frenchmen all jeered and one of the Poles threw a piece of chalk at PT’s head.
‘Cheating dog,’ a Frenchmen shouted. ‘If I see you with that pack of cards again I’ll shove them where the sun doesn’t shine.’
‘Poker’s a game of skill,’ PT grinned. ‘You’re just a sore loser.’
One of the Norwegian women had poured two cups of tea from a big pot and brought them over for Paul and Takada.
‘Sugar?’ she asked.
Paul raised two fingers, and groaned with pain as he lowered himself into a chair. Marc came and sat next to him.
‘I feel really guilty,’ Marc admitted. ‘You wouldn’t have been up there if it wasn’t for me and now I’m the one two jumps from getting my wings.’
‘Someone would have used that parachute eventually,’ Paul said. ‘I blame the stupid cow who packed it, not you.’
Marc nodded. ‘They pulled all the chutes packed by that person and found two more that weren’t right.’
Paul shrugged. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate though.’
Everyone except Paul jumped to their feet as Sergeant Parris came in from the back of the classroom.
‘Be seated,’ Parris said, before smiling as he eyed Paul and approached his table. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not bad,’ Paul said. ‘My knees are killing me and the cold makes it ache.’
‘Can I expect you back when you’re all fixed up?’ Parris asked.
Paul smiled. ‘Definitely, sir, if they let me.’
‘That’s the kind of attitude I like to see,’ Parris said, addressing the whole room as he walked to the blackboard up front. ‘As you all know, you’re going to make two jumps today. The first will be a standard jump with an equipment pack strapped to your legs. The second jump will be a simulated night jump. You’ll wear a dark visor and must land within a target area roughly the size of a football pitch using the steering techniques you learned in ground training yesterday.
‘Each jump will be closely watched from the back of the Wellington. Steering and landing skills will be graded by instructors watching through binoculars on the ground. Each jump will be graded pass or fail on fifteen separate points, ranging from your hook-up and exit speed through to a controlled landing and gathering your chute. To earn your wings, you’ll need twenty-four points over the two jumps. Any final questions?’
Rosie raised her hand. ‘Sir, is there a second run if we fail?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Parris said. ‘You score twenty-four marks or come back here and repeat the entire week. Now grab your chutes and get out there. The plane leaves in seven minutes, whether you’re onboard or not. Dismissed.’
Paul levered himself up using a table as the trainees grabbed their chutes from a wooden rack by the door and charged outside into the snow. Of the twenty-four who’d started the course four hadn’t made it: Paul with his hard landing, the Norwegian who’d broken her leg and two of the Frenchmen who’d been kicked out for repeatedly failing written exams.
‘Fancy coming up for a ride, son?’ Parris asked Paul, as he headed towards the door.
Paul shook his head. ‘Thanks for the offer, sir, but it’d take me more than seven minutes just to make it up the ladder into the plane.’
‘Fair enough,’ Parris smiled, before passing out through the door and yelling at the trainees. ‘Move, you sorry buggers, before you feel my size-tens up your jacksies.’
*
Paul watched the Wellington bomber shrink to a black dot before taking a treacherous walk along the icy footpath to the accommodation hut.
Paul wanted to draw, but he’d expected to be busy all week and had used his small supply of paper at the hospital. He lingered at the foot of Luc’s bed, considering ways of sabotaging Luc’s stuff to relieve his boredom. But it would be more trouble than it was worth so he picked up one of Luc’s scruffy cowboy novels. It was a small hardback, Desert Musk by Raider Grant.
But Paul had no interest in cowboys and after a few pages he found himself staring out the window as a Rover saloon with a small trailer attached pulled up in front of the administration h
ut. The RAF-uniformed driver opened the back door and base commander hurried out to salute the man who stepped out. Paul realised it was Air Vice Marshal Walker.
Walker’s threat to close down Espionage Research Unit B had turned him into a bogeyman. Having only heard Walker’s name spoken with contempt, his imagination had created an ogre. The reality of average height, a well-fitted RAF uniform and a bushy ginger moustache was a let-down.
Paul was too far off to hear the conversation, but he watched a handshake and some laughter. Clearly Walker had been here before, conducting his mysterious final exercise for trainee spies, and was on good terms with the base commander.
As Walker’s driver and a junior officer carried cases towards the officers’ quarters, Paul thought about his training. Henderson had taught his recruits that you can never have too much information. Walker had no idea that Paul was on the base and Paul realised he might be able to learn something that would be useful to his able-bodied comrades.
Paul borrowed one of PT’s pullovers and pulled it over his own before leaving the hut. He didn’t want to be spotted so he cut around the back of his hut and down a slight hill that led up to the base’s wire perimeter.
The snow was knee deep. Pushing through hurt his ankles and after a dozen slow steps the bottoms of his combat trousers were soaked. Paul snuck up to the officer’s mess and peeked through the window. There was luggage inside the door but the hut was empty.
He eventually located Walker and his assistants by following two tyre tracks through the snow: their trailer had been pulled by hand to the side of the classroom in hut P.
A tarpaulin had been peeled back from the trailer. It made an enticing target, but Paul could barely walk, let alone run away if he was spotted. He had to know where the officers were before attempting any subterfuge.
As Paul crept towards the hut’s side window, he heard lumps of coal being thrown into the fireplace inside.
‘Get a move on with that, Jamieson. It’s bastard freezing in here.’
Paul smiled: hut P was constructed from a single layer of planks so he could hear everything being said inside.
‘Sorry, Marshal Walker, sir,’ came the reply. The cockney accent didn’t sound like an officer, so now Paul could identify Walker’s voice and the voice of the man who’d driven him to Scotland.
‘Black, get the briefing maps ready,’ Walker ordered. ‘But don’t hang anything up in case some sneaky Herbert sticks his beak through the window. Jamieson, get yourself over to the Brahms hangar. Check the weather data and make sure that the mechanics and pilots know what’s what. I want all the pilots and equipment ready for take-off at zero three hundred hours.’
Out in the snow, Paul took a sneaky glance through a side window.
‘Any special instructions, sir?’ Jamieson asked. ‘Cut a few cords on Henderson’s boys’ parachutes, maybe?’
Walker laughed noisily. ‘Sadly we’ll have to be more subtle than that. People might talk if they all dropped dead on us.’
‘I suppose you’re right, sir,’ Jamieson said dryly. ‘Can’t see a bunch of bloody kids doing much, anyway.’
‘Not much chance,’ Walker said. ‘But they might get a stroke of luck. You never know with these things. Always better safe than sorry.’
‘Absolutely, sir,’ Jamieson said.
Paul ducked down into the snowdrift against the side of the hut as Jamieson strode purposefully towards the hangar.
Henderson had never been comfortable with the idea that Walker was in charge of the final test. He’d warned the trainees that Walker might try to make the final exercise difficult for them. Now it seemed certain, but was there anything Paul could do about it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Paul watched as the truck arrived, bringing the trainees back from their second jump. Snow fell hard and the sun was dropping behind the hills creating long shadows across the snow-covered airfield. The two instructors in the cab rushed off to the briefing room, while three WAAFs collected the unfurled parachutes as the trainees flung them out the back of the truck.
Finally came the trainees themselves, tired and cold. Rosie was limping a bit, but that wasn’t uncommon after a parachute landing and everyone else seemed fine. The five kids all rushed to their hut and gathered around the electric heater warming their hands.
‘Lovely,’ Rosie smiled, as she jiggled her fingers by the orange glow of an electric bar.
Marc sat on his bed, unlacing his boots. His feet and the bottom of his trousers were sodden after wading two kilometres from the landing zone to the truck in deep snow. Paul was standing by the dining table and the temptation to lob a sodden balled-up sock at him was irresistible.
‘Missed,’ Paul said glibly, as it spattered against the hut’s planked wall.
Takada had diverted via the canteen, and came in holding a tray stacked with mugs and a pot of tea.
‘So how did it go, anyway?’ Paul asked.
‘Fingers crossed,’ Joel said, ‘but I think it went OK. How long ago did the Wellington land?’
‘Twenty-five minutes, maybe half an hour,’ Paul said. ‘Why?’
‘We’re waiting on the examiners, dummy,’ Luc said, as he barged through to the table and grabbed the first mug of tea.
‘Twenty-four marks or bust,’ Marc reminded them. ‘I lost at least two when I forgot to hook up on the first jump.’
‘At least you noticed before you jumped out without your chute opening,’ Joel said cheekily.
‘I hope we’ll know within an hour,’ Takada said, looking uncharacteristically anxious.
As an Asian man there was no way Takada could be dropped into areas occupied by Nazis. He’d done the parachute course so that he could help future recruits prepare for it, but he wanted to pass and earn his parachute wings as much as anyone else.
Paul had considered telling Takada about Air Vice Marshal Walker’s plan to fix the final exercise, but Takada was a stickler for rules and would probably tell them that there was nothing they could do.
Paul didn’t want to tell everyone because they’d probably just argue and end up doing nothing. But he needed help and PT was perfect: a natural-born con merchant, whose father had brought him up to lie and steal. Paul gave PT a few minutes to drink his tea and put on dry clothes before approaching his bed.
‘I need a quiet word,’ Paul said.
PT smiled. ‘Don’t tell me: you got one of the hot nurses into trouble at the hospital?’
Paul laughed, but quickly turned serious. ‘I’ve been watching Walker and his two assistants. You’re going to be pulled out of bed at about half past one and given a briefing. Then you’ll be taken up in a Wellington and dropped over some unknown location.’
‘To do what?’
‘That’s the million-dollar question,’ Paul said, with a shrug. ‘The thing is, it looks like Walker plans to make life difficult for you lot.’
‘Like we didn’t know that already,’ PT said. ‘The real question is how difficult.’
‘I think they’re dropping you further from the targets than the other three teams,’ Paul explained. ‘I don’t think there’s much we can do about that. But Walker’s driver was pulling all these equipment bags out of a trailer – one for each trainee – and Walker told him to make sure that we get the right ones.’
‘The ones he’s messed with, I suppose,’ PT said, before tutting.
‘I know where they are though,’ Paul said. ‘They’re in classroom P, with the chutes and everything. It’s all laid out and ready for the briefing. I even saw which ones are meant for our team. There’s a fairly basic lock on the door of the hut, but I haven’t got a file or anything to pick it with.’
PT nodded. ‘And if we force the door, they’ll get suspicious. Walker will fail us because we cheated.’
‘We could say we’re using our initiative,’ Paul said. ‘I mean, isn’t this exactly the sort of sneaky operation we’ve been training for?’
‘It is,’ PT agreed. ?
??But there’s a fine line between cheating and showing initiative and Walker hates us, so I know which side he’ll land on.’
‘We’ve got to find a way to get the key then.’
‘Who had it last?’ PT asked. ‘Did you see where he put it?’
Paul shook his head. ‘I was looking through the window at the side of the hut. I only saw the inside of the door as they locked up.’
Rosie was coming over to PT’s bed, bare-legged and wearing a man’s shirt down to her knees. ‘What are you two plotting?’ she asked.
PT and Paul were anxious that Luc didn’t stick his nose in, so they moved across to the dining table at the far end before they explained.
‘Cleaners,’ Rosie said, when she understood. ‘There’s a couple of the young WAAFs who do all the cleaning. We’ve chatted a couple of times in the bathroom.’
‘They’ve got keys?’ Paul asked.
Rosie shrugged. ‘They must get into the rooms somehow, mustn’t they? If they haven’t got their own keys, they’ll know where to get them.’
‘Will they lend ’em to you though?’ PT asked.
‘Probably,’ Rosie said. ‘If I play it right. I’ll need Paul, come on.’
‘What about me?’ PT asked.
‘Go check out the classroom,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
Rosie had always been bossy, so Paul wasn’t surprised that she’d taken control. She quickly put on trousers and a jumper and dragged Paul out into the snow.
‘Move it,’ she said stiffly.
‘I can’t,’ Paul protested. His joints had loosened up as the day wore on, but his knees and ankles still hurt and he couldn’t manage anything above a slow walking pace.
To avoid suspicion from the others, PT left it a couple of minutes before heading out towards the classroom. By this time Rosie had knocked on the door of the WAAFs’ accommodation hut.
‘Keep quiet unless you’re spoken to,’ Rosie told Paul firmly. Her tone changed completely as she stepped into the hut. ‘Hi, everyone,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Ooooooh, it’s lovely and warm in here.’
The hut was identical to the one the kids were staying in, except that the base’s permanent residents got a proper fireplace and sprung mattresses. The girls had also put up movie posters and found some old rugs to cover bare floorboards.