LITMIR.BIZ

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followed a gibberish of abbreviations and code words that defined the nature of the attack. Flare colours, air and ground marking, cascade heights and times, turning-points, assembly areas, bombing heights and times, bomb-loads and Met forecasts giving the predicted winds at the bombing heights and conditions at base airfields at the time of return.

      Hurriedly the technical officers began to build the plan into lectures and diagrams that would constitute the afternoon briefing. Flight Lieutenant Giles, the Bombing Leader; Flight Lieutenant Ludlow, the Navigation Leader; and John Munro, the Squadron commander, conferred. The Meteorological expert expressed the doubts that forecasters always have about other men’s predictions.

      The executive orders were as yet communicated only to those who had to know. As an added security precaution, the guardroom had been told to close the main gate and forbid personnel to leave the airfield except with the written permission of the Station Adjutant. In spite of the gaping holes in the perimeter fence the embargo was observed by everyone – partly because there was so much work to do that no one could find an opportunity to get away for a lunchtime beer in the Bell.

      Deprived of the noise and movement of the airmen, the village became as quiet as the airfield was busy. When an attack was being prepared even the public bar of the Bell maintained a decorous sobriety.

      Cynthia Radlett, the barmaid, had wiped the tables, rinsed and polished the glasses, fetched more bottled stout from the cellar and swept the floor. She looked enviously at the four farmers who had been drinking and gossiping ever since lunchtime. Now it was almost opening time again. Those who complained of women chattering could never have listened to farmers’ talk. It was a good thing that the village policeman was busy out on the green facing Mr Wate’s spin bowling, or he’d be complaining about them drinking after closing time. At last one of the men came to the bottom of his glass. He put it down with a sigh and wiped his lips.

      ‘Beans I told him, put in beans. Anything else and the wire-worm will eat them.’ The three men nodded and stole a glance at Ben Thorpe.

      Old Ben’s voice was rasping and slow. ‘Ten Acre was always full of wireworm.’

      ‘Are you sure you don’t want to walk up to Parson’s Meadow, Ben?’

      ‘Nah,’ said the old man and blew his nose loudly. They could not tell how upset he was, for an old man’s eyes are always wet.

      ‘After the war you’ll never know the difference.’

      ‘Nah,’ snorted Ben. ‘It’s the finest piece of grazing for a hundred mile. My dad weeded it and dunged it himself for nigh on fifty years and his dad afore.’ The old man was crying now, there could be no doubt of it. ‘I shan’t watch them plough her up and sow their damned ’taters there. I’ll not live to see her back to grazing again.’

      ‘Weorf’ is the old English word for draught animal. Warley meant a place where such animals could graze. Now the War Agricultural Committees had given grazing to the plough and one of the few patches of grassland left was the lower end of Trimmer’s Meadow that the village used as its cricket field. Today it was only a knockabout match, but towards opening time a small crowd of airmen and villagers gathered outside the Bell. They applauded the batsmen, advised the bowlers and dozed in the afternoon sun.

      No previous cricket season could equal this one: Royal Engineers Norwich Depot versus RAF Warley, A Flight versus the village; teams from all over East Anglia came to play cricket on the green, shove-ha’penny and darts in the public bar and drink the Bell’s warm bitter. The cricket pitch was smooth and flat, although since it was slightly below sea level it was muddy in wet weather. The RAF had sent carpenters to rebuild the old scoreboard and the Station artist – LAC Gilbert – had supervised its repainting. Sammy Thatcher’s shed had been moved and rebuilt. Although it could only hold one team at a time, there were no smiles when it was referred to as the pavilion.

      Today Bill Beacham, village policeman and domino champion, was the last man batting for the scratch team the village had put up. He hadn’t scored for nearly a quarter of an hour but none of Mr Wate’s spinners daunted him and he stonewalled with grim determination. The war had brought Police Constable Beacham promotion to sergeant and when the RAF moved in he had been officially told to ‘cooperate with the RAF police in matters affecting Service discipline and national security’. There was even talk of him having a police constable to help him. ‘Help him home from here on a Saturday night,’ said Cynthia, and everyone laughed because like most good jokes it wasn’t a joke at all.

      The Group Captain proudly boasted of an unbroken record of friendship between his airmen and the people of the village. Like most official thinking, the Group Captain’s was purely negative. He meant that there were no instances on paper of physical, social or legal hostilities. On the other hand there was no great affection either. When a villager announced the arrival of a lorryful of airmen outside the Bell with the remark, ‘Here come the Wehrmacht,’ this too was a joke that wasn’t a joke.

      There was still another half-hour before the Bell was officially open, but Cynthia took a pint of bitter outside to where Sam Thatcher was working at the base of the ancient oak tree that marked the boundary line.

      ‘How is it going?’ asked Cynthia.

      Sam took the head off his pint before answering. ‘Same as that tree behind Percy’s house. It’s rotten inside.’

      ‘What a shame.’ She wiped her wet hands on her apron.

      ‘It’s getting old, Cynthia. It’s probably stood here for a hundred and fifty years or more.’ Sam had been drilling deep into the tree and pushing bonemeal mixtures into it to feed the wood. He put down his glass and finished plugging up a hole.

      ‘Will that save it?’

      ‘It will give her another fifty years, Cynthia.’

      ‘You’d better do my guv’nor after you’ve finished this tree.’

      ‘Now, now,’ said Sam Thatcher, ‘don’t start.’ He had no wish to be drawn into the feud between Cynthia and her employer. He looked across the pitch to where Police Sergeant Beacham was still blocking the frantic bowling, and beyond him to the airfield. ‘They’re off again tonight.’

      ‘Looks like.’

      ‘And that old wind’s going to change,’ said Sam.

      ‘Rain?’

      ‘No, not yet awhile, or my feet would tell me. But during the night that wind will swing round and they’ll be coming in right over our heads just about the time I’m turning over.’

      ‘Don’t say that, Mr Thatcher. I can’t get back to sleep when they wake me.’

      There was a flutter of applause as Bill Beacham was clean bowled.

      ‘What I don’t understand’, said Cynthia Radlett, ‘is what they do all day. I mean, they don’t go raiding until after we close at night. I know they have to test their aeroplanes in the morning but what do they do there all day?’

      ‘They have to work out their navigation and decide where to drop their bombs. They do a lot of talking up there at the aerodrome.’

      ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Cynthia Radlett, ‘but it’s terrible for our business when they go off raiding.’ It was five-thirty. She walked back to the Bell and started serving drinks.

      The most literary and sophisticated officer at Warley Fen was, by common consent, Flying Officer Longfellow. He was, appropriately enough, the Intelligence Officer. A tall blue-eyed man of thirty-eight, in his youth he had been an amateur boxer of some repute at Cambridge where he studied classics. After Cambridge he had worked on a small newspaper in the Midlands and graduated from that to a national daily. He had never excelled at news-gathering but had always been able to provide, at short notice, a couple of thousand words on the College of Cardinals (at the death of a Pope), helium (airship disaster), or surrealism (record price at Sotheby’s). Nor was Longfellow too proud to cover a wedding or review a film. In 1936 he left the newspaper’s full-time

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