The road took me past Palehouse Lane, up onto the Forest, the roadside transitioning from trees to heath, and suddenly I was out in the open, touching the sky. At the top, I pulled in at a dog-walkers’ layby.
I climbed out of the van and stood, looking out across the expanse, letting my eyes adjust to the dark.
I checked the map. If my rough calculations were correct, the parachute had been dropped to the left of the road, down a long and gradual slope of grass, heather and gorse that stretched away in front of me.
I kept the road squarely behind me, and headed downhill, towards the likely drop site.
My boots crunched on dry heather and scuffed up white sand. It had been a hot, dry spring and the Forest was an arid place at the best of times. The War Ag wanted to put it into useful production, but I didn’t see it working in the short term. Sheep would improve the soil eventually with the nutrients from their manure, but it would take years. Perhaps the War Ag were thinking long-term. Perhaps they knew something the rest of us didn’t.
The slope started out gently, but got steeper the further I got from the road. When I looked back towards the car, it was out of sight, a big expanse of dark sky, filled with stars.
I should have brought a gun. I’d run from the house without thinking. Still caught in the trap of confusing the comforts of home for the security of being far from the fighting.
I saw the man before I saw the parachute. He was scrabbling around, searching the heather. Above him, the parachute hung lifeless on one of the few tall trees, a skinnybirch that had somehow got a foothold in the sandy soil. He was panicking, looking about without much of a method, going over the same spots again and again.
I froze, looking for cover, but there was none. I was exposed, surrounded by heather, glowing white in the moonlight.
He turned towards me. I put my hand in my pocket, where I would have had a gun if I’d had any foresight.
I hoped he’d assume I was better prepared than I was.
He would run or he would attack. If he was hoping to maintain secrecy he would be unlikely to shoot me. If I were him I’d use a knife. Rush your opponent and put the blade across his throat. Let him fall and bleed out, get back to the task at hand. I readied myself for the attack. Assuming this was his first combat mission, he’d be inexperienced. His heart would be pounding. He’d overdo it, come at me too fast, overblown gestures. I’ve fought a lot of men who were in their first fight to the death. And their last.
He didn’t run, and he didn’t attack. He peered at me, and took a hesitant step closer.
‘Who’s there?’ he called out.
‘Who are you?’ I shouted.
The moment of truth.
9
The man strode towards me with his hand outstretched, as if we were old chums meeting at his club. He was dressed for dinner: tailored suit, pressed white shirt with starched collar, regimental tie. Only his rubber boots, scuffed white with sand, incongruous against his black trousers, gave any sign that he wasn’t strolling into the dining room.
This was not a man who’d just jumped out of an aeroplane.
‘Vaughn Matheson,’ he said, as we shook hands. I didn’t give my own name, and in the excitement he didn’t notice.
He gestured behind him, to the parachute hanging in the tree.
‘Did you see it?’ he asked. He was excited.
‘Where’s the parachutist?’ I asked, stepping past him to the base of the tree. I looked up, on the off-chance there was a Nazi stormtrooper caught up in the tree. Better safe than sorry.
‘I had him in my sight,’ Vaughn said, ‘but I fell. I was looking up at the sky and tripped. Scuffed up my jacket.’ He held up his sleeve as evidence, it was smeared with mud, ghostly white in the moonlight.
He returned to his kicking around in the heather.
‘Hello, what’s this?’
I joined him. Half hidden by the foot-high heather, a smashed wooden crate lay open. I leant down and pulled it apart.
‘Some kind of machine,’ I said, pulling out handfuls of packing straw, presumably meant to cushion the impact. The machine itself was the size of a suitcase, encased in shining black Bakelite. Like a large portable typewriter. An embossed manufacturer’s name – Lorenz.
I pictured the crate being closed up in a Luftwaffe base somewhere across the Channel. It looked like an important delivery. There was no way it would have been sent without a clear plan for its recovery. That meant an agent, operating in my territory, free to move about. It was a big crate, so he presumably had a car or a van. Was the machine light enough to be carried by one person, or would he need help?
There was a carry-handle on the machine. I gripped it and pulled. It was heavy, but not too heavy. Designed to be man-portable. There was a tinkle of broken glass as I lifted, and I put it down as gently as I could. The boys from Military Intelligence would be glad to get their hands on it, and they’d want it to be as operational as possible.
