The Good Pilot, Peter Woodhouse Read online

  The colonel laughed again. “All right. It’s going to have to stop, though. You won’t have heard, but I’m being sent down to London for two months. My job here is going to be done by Colonel Harold Mortensen. He’s not the easiest man in the air force and . . . well, I’m just making sure that everything is regular before I leave. I don’t want him telling anybody that I let people get away with things.”

  Mike said that he understood.

  “So, after next Monday, this . . . what’s his name again?”

  “Peter Woodhouse.”

  “This Peter Woodhouse is grounded.”

  Mike inclined his head in acceptance. “But we can keep him here on the base?”

  The colonel made an expansive gesture. “Sure, you can do that. And he can carry on flying until Monday – if he wants.”

  Mike grinned. “I think he probably will want to,” he said.

  The colonel looked at his watch. “That’s it, Rogers. Leave the door open on your way out. This heat – we’re not used to it over here.”

  Mike passed on the news to his crew and to Sergeant Lisowski, who had taken on responsibility for feeding Peter Woodhouse. They were to fly a mission the next morning, leaving shortly after five, and Mike had the dog’s rug brought over to his room so that he could sleep there that night rather than in his kennel behind the cookhouse. It was raining in the morning, but the cloud had lifted by the time they took off, and the sun was already bright on the rooftops of the village when Mike looked down on it. He saw the post office and he thought of Val, wondering whether he should have asked her to be outside, looking up as he flew over her. He had never done that before, and thought that he probably never would. It would be bad luck to do that; doing anything out of the ordinary could tempt providence when the odds were stacked so dangerously against you.

  England was a carpet of green beneath them. He saw Cambridge, a smudge of grey lanced by a silver strip: the morning sun was on the river, sending up a shard of light. Then came the blue expanse of the North Sea and, beyond that, the coast of the Netherlands, with its covering of thin mist. Once they were above that, it was mostly water down below, dykes and polders confusing the transition between the sea and the land behind the sea.

  His navigator was usually accurate. He knew by dead reckoning where they were and how long it would take them to get to where they wanted to be. But he could also find railway lines and church spires and roads just by looking, reading the landscape below as easily as if it were a map. He now said, “Half an hour, and we’ll be there.”

  They were to photograph Arnhem, which was heavily defended by the occupying Germans. Their pictures would show the position of fortifications and their strength. They had to go over their target quickly, hoping that the anti-aircraft guns would not spot a single plane coming from an unexpected quarter. Conditions were right: a cloudless sky stretched off to the east while the land below was bathed in light. Mike looked up, as he often did before the final approach. He said a prayer, the words a vague jumble of propitiation. There was God and sorry and return; there was Val and mother and home.

  On the deck, Peter Woodhouse was half asleep, half awake. The navigator leaned down and stroked his head, and Peter Woodhouse looked up, licked his hand. Mike half-turned to see this, and smiled.

  The navigator slipped his fingers under the collar that they had put on the dog, to check that it was not too tight. He believed that dogs swelled up at altitude and that could make the collar uncomfortable. It needed no adjustment. He looked at the inscription that he had painstakingly burned into the leather with a heated nail, the dots making up the words Peter Woodhouse, US Air Force, Dog First Class and giving the name of their base. He was proud of that; it was Peter’s identity disc, the token of his membership and service.

  Mike pointed to something off their wing: small puffs of smoke appearing in the sky before dissipating quickly, like the birth and rapid death of tiny clouds.

  ❖ 11 ❖

  Archie explained to Val that there were always more potatoes than one imagined, and that you had to dig deep enough to find them. “You probably know that,” he said. “Everyone knows about potatoes.”

  She did. Annie grew potatoes in the post office garden at the back of the house; where once there had been flowers, vegetables now grew. She had taken out the roses she loved so much and turned some of the ground over to leeks and potatoes, and the Jerusalem artichokes that were now colonising most of the rest. The grocer bought the surplus of those, or exchanged them for beans, of which there sometimes seemed to be too many.

  It was hot work. Val had found a hat – a battered straw hat that belonged to Annie but had not been worn for years. It provided some protection, but she felt the rays of the August sun beating down on her back and shoulders. Mike liked her complexion; he said it was paler and softer than that of most girls back home, and he would not want her to burn. She looked about her: a small clump of alders along the edge of the field would give some shade, and she could take her break there.

  She was thinking of him. It was only ten days ago that they had become physically intimate. She had thought of that moment again and again and was in awe of its significance. It had changed everything for her. She had given herself to him; she was his. Nothing would ever be the same again; nothing. Annie had sensed it. She had said, “Be careful – that’s all I’m going to say to you: be careful.” Val had looked away, avoiding her aunt’s gaze, but then had turned to her and Annie had put her arms around her and said, “He’s made his promise to you – it’s all right. It’s different for engaged couples, which is what you are. It’s allowed, especially in wartime.”

  Especially in wartime: she knew what that meant, and it made her heart a cold stone within her. The rules were different in wartime because people knew that they could lose each other so easily; everyone was in harm’s way, not just those who flew or fought on the ground or at sea. Civilians died in their thousands, bombed in their homes at night, crushed to death by falling masonry, burned in the firestorms of shattered cities.

  She tried not to think of that; you couldn’t, because if you did you would cry or scream and just make it hard for everybody else. So you worked. You did what you were asked to do, which in her case was to dig potatoes out of the earth and pile them on hessian sacks for Archie to come and collect with a handcart that looked as if it belonged in an agricultural museum.

  She took lunch early, when Archie called her into the house. He had made apple juice from his own apples, using his precious sugar to sweeten it, as he knew she had a sweet tooth. Then they listened to the news together: much was said about Montgomery’s 21st Army Group. “He won’t hang about,” said Archie. “He’ll tell the men what he wants them to do, and they’ll do it. I read that in the papers. They said that Monty always speaks to his men, all the time. That’s why they’d do anything for him.”

  He told her to wait until half past two before going out again. “It won’t be so hot then,” he said. “And those potatoes are going nowhere.” He said she could take some home. “Just one bag, but your aunt will appreciate them, I think, unless she has too many of her own.”

  “She has some,” Val said. “But she won’t turn down more. We’ll give you some artichokes.”

  “Blow you up, them artichokes,” said Archie, rubbing his stomach.

  She worked until half past four, and then took another break, lying on the grass under the alders, looking up at the sky. Mike had told her that they were on a training course for three days, so he would not be up there, up in that dizzy, echoing blue. She blew a kiss up at the sky, that he might collect it when he was next up there; she would tell him it would be waiting for him.

  And then she heard Archie calling her. She stood up, dusting her overalls. She looked towards the other side of the field, where the path came up from the farmyard, and she saw Archie, half concealed by the hedge, but now coming into full sight. There was a man with him, a man in uniform, and she thought for a moment
that it was Mike. But then, as they approached, she saw that it was Sergeant Lisowski.

  She knew immediately from Archie’s expression. She closed her eyes. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands. She made herself think of something else; oddly, of her bicycle, that had had a flat tyre on the way home the day before. She saw herself fixing it, dipping the tube into a bowl of water until the tell-tale line of bubbles revealed where the hole was. She asked herself: Why am I thinking about this when Sergeant Lisowski is coming to speak to me and I know what he’s going to say?

  The sergeant supported her on the way back to the farmhouse. Archie walked behind them, awkwardly, unsure what to say. She asked Sergeant Lisowski to repeat what he had said – three times. He told her patiently. He said the plane had not returned. He said that even before it was due to return there had been a message from the RAF. One of their planes had been in the area and had seen a Mosquito go down, an engine on fire. They had not spotted any parachutes and they had seen fire on the ground. They had to assume that the plane had been lost, with both its crew.

  She insisted on riding home. They tried to dissuade her, but she brushed them aside and set off, her eyes full of stinging tears. Sergeant Lisowski followed her in his jeep, keeping a discreet distance, but close enough to rescue her when she rode into a ditch and fell off, grazing her right forearm. He loaded the bicycle into the jeep, securing it with a rope. Then he drove her home and delivered her to Annie, who put her hands to her eyes and said, “Oh, my God, I knew it, I knew it.”

  The colonel came to the post office the next day. His manner was grave, and he spoke to Annie for twenty minutes after he had said what he had to say to Val. He told Annie, “He was a fine young man. He was popular at the base and he was a good flier. It’s going to be hard on his family – and on this young lady too, of course.”

  He then spoke about how wretched war was and how even he had hoped that he would end his air force career without ever seeing the men under his command losing their lives. “But it was not to be. And so I’ve found out what it is like to send young men off to their deaths. I now know.”

  Annie said, “We have to do this. We have to see it through, even if we didn’t start it.”

  “You’re right,” said the colonel. “But does that make it any easier? I’m not sure that it does.”

  Before he left, the colonel remembered there was something else he had to say. He spoke to Annie about this, because Val had gone to her room, sobbing, and he did not think it would be wise to impart more bad news to her.

  “I’m told that the dog we’ve had as a mascot came from your niece. I’m told it had been her dog.”

  “Not quite,” said Annie. “But we’ll find somewhere for him now that Mike . . .”

  The colonel interrupted her. “That won’t be necessary, m’am. I’m sorry, but the dog was with them on the plane. If you could break that news to your niece, I’d be obliged. I’m very sorry. The men liked that dog.”

  Willy said to her, “Have you got a photograph of him?”

  She stared at him. He had been avoiding her, and at first this had hurt her. But then she came to realise that this was how many people reacted: they did not know what to say and so they kept out of your way. Willy was like that, she thought. Of course he’s sorry, of course he knows what I’m feeling, but he has never been in a position like this before and nobody has taught him how to behave. She wanted to say to him, “Willy, all you have to do is show me that you know I’m unhappy, that’s all. Hold me when I cry. And cry yourself, if you want to, because you liked him too, and you must feel sad as well.”

  “Yes, of course I’ve got a photograph. I took it on his birthday. Remember? He came round here and Auntie made a cake.”

  He nodded. “I remember that. But I was wondering if you had two photographs. A spare one, see. One you could let me have.”

  She caught her breath, and nodded. Silently, she fetched it from the drawer and brought it to him. He examined it, holding it reverentially. “I’ll have to cut a bit off – round the edges here.” He drew an imaginary line. “So that it’ll fit in my frame, you see.”

  She wanted to kiss him, but he always blushed when Annie tried that, and so she simply reached out and patted his arm. “He liked you a lot, Willy. He said once that it was a pity you couldn’t go to Indianapolis. You know that place he talked about? He said you’d do well there.”

  He was surprised. “Me? Do well?”

  “Yes. Of course. He knew you were a hard worker. He said hard workers did well in America.”

  Willy beamed with pleasure. He looked down at the photograph. “I’ll put it in my frame when it’s the right size. I’ll have his photo in my room. When I wake up in the morning, I’ll see that he’s all right up there. Like Jesus.”

  She bit her lip. “That’s right, Willy.”

  Later that day she went to the base to deliver eggs. Archie had said that he would do it, or he could get the neighbour’s boy to go, because he was keen to earn a bit of money, but she insisted. “Brave girl,” he muttered as he watched her ride down the lane. When she arrived at the base, the young man with angry skin was on sentry duty. He seemed embarrassed and muttered something she did not hear as he let her in. Another man went past on a motorbike, slowed down, and waved to her before moving off again.

  Sergeant Lisowski met her at the cookhouse door. He said, “I could come and collect these, you know.”

  She shook her head. “I want to bring them.” She paused. “There’s been no news, has there?”

  He hesitated. “No, not really. But . . .”

  She searched his face for a sign.

  He was trying not to give false hope. “When there isn’t a definite report, then we assume the worst. But there have been cases – plenty of cases – of people surviving and being taken prisoner. We usually hear one way or another. The Red Cross do their best. We haven’t heard on this occasion.”

  She weighed his words. Usually . . . this occasion . . . plenty of cases.

  “They could have survived?”

  He was being very careful. “It’s possible, because . . .”

  She waited.

  “Because the RAF guys who saw the fire might have been looking at something else. A bonfire, perhaps. There are plenty of reasons for a fire.”

  There were, she thought. There were plenty of reasons for a fire.

  “So I shouldn’t give up hope?” Her voice was small.

  Again she watched. She would be able to tell if he really meant there was a possibility, or whether he was trying to be kind.

  It took him some time to answer. Then he said, “I’d say you could have a tiny bit of hope. A glimmer. But not much more than that.”

  She mounted her bicycle. She felt that her life was beginning again. She saw a bird, a thrush, watching her from a hedgerow, its tiny head moving jerkily, as birds’ heads will do. She shouted at it in sheer exuberant joy.

  ❖ 12 ❖

  They descended rapidly when the first engine was hit, and the other one quickly overheated. He was surprised at his own calm as he went through all the procedures they had been taught. He did everything in the correct sequence, his only miscalculation being that he might be able to save the plane. By taking it down, he lost the altitude that they needed to bail out, and then it was too late. He still had control of the aircraft, but insufficient power to do anything but attempt a crash landing. He thought, This is where I’m going to die. Right here, in Holland, and on this day, in five minutes or so. My last five minutes.

  The navigator pointed beyond the starboard wing. It was wooded terrain, but there were some fields, and one had opened up in that direction. He struggled with the controls; the plane was sluggish, but eventually responded to his coaxing and turned in the direction he wanted.

  There were saplings, an incipient forest of them, and they hit the plane like tiny whips. Then there was the earth, and the thump and bucking of the undercarriage on rough ground. The plane reare
d up, shuddered; settled again. Then the wheels hit a ditch traversing the field and they slewed off first to the left and then to the right. Something hit his shoulder a glancing blow, and then, miraculously, they stopped moving. His only thought was that both of them were alive and must leave the plane as soon as they could. He smelled fuel.

  There was a whimpering at his knee. They had both forgotten about Peter Woodhouse and he was there, unsteady on his feet, looking up first at Mike and then at the navigator.

  They wriggled free of their restraining belts.

  “There’s blood on your face,” said Mike. “All over.”

  The navigator reached up tentatively. “Something hit my nose,” he said. “I think it’s broken.”

  “Get out. We must get out. You first – I’ll pass you the dog.”

  They scrambled out, together with Peter Woodhouse. He tried to lick the blood off the navigator’s face, but was pushed roughly away. Now they stood and surveyed the plane from a safe distance. One of the wings had cracked and was at an odd angle to the fuselage. Both propellers were bent, one blade dug into the ground by the engine’s dying efforts.

  Mike looked at the navigator. He wanted to hug him, just because he was another human being and they were both alive. That was the miracle. But not wanting blood on his flying jacket, he confined himself to saying, “I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “I wasn’t planning to die,” said the navigator, his voice pinched and nasal from his injury.

  “We need to get away from the wreckage,” said Mike. “People will have seen it going down.”

  People had, but only two men hunting in the nearby forest. They heard it first, and then, when they got closer, they saw the wreckage. They were hunting discreetly, because they could not be caught with a firearm, but they had to take the risk because food was scarce. It was not as bad in the eastern provinces as it was in the west, because food was still getting through. But there was not much.

  The two men came to the edge of the forest and then stood still. They waited for the two airmen to see them, which they did after a couple of minutes. Then they beckoned to them.