Cook had been right to help Reynolds defuse the bomb, but he’d got the calculus wrong, he now realised. He’d weighed his life too cheaply, thinking only of his own feelings about death – feelings he’d been living with for longer than he could remember. But somehow, without him noticing, he’d taken on responsibilities. People counted on him, people who hadn’t asked to be put in that position.
The old refrain was going through his head. Going to London had been a mistake. A mistake he’d do his best to avoid making again.
30
Margaret looked out through the plexiglass cover as the engine revved and a great cloud of smoke engulfed them, then dissipated. Her first time in an aeroplane. The pilot had been waiting at the pre-planned location, smoking a cigarette, talking with a French farmer as if making a secret flight across the Channel to pick up an agent was just another day’s work. The farmer was holding a bottle of Scotch, she’d noticed when she’d arrived, and the pilot wedged a bottle of wine into his cockpit as they’d climbed in.
She wondered how they’d take off in the bumpy meadow, no more than a couple of hundred yards of grass until the looming trees, but the pilot seemed confident enough. He revved the engine again, until she could feel the small machine straining, held by the brakes presumably. Then they were off, stumbling across the pasture, impossible to imagine breaking free of gravity. Then, as if they were picked up by some invisible hand, the bumpy ground became less of an issue, and suddenly they were aloft, the line of trees still a threat, but the ground no longer slowing them down. The pilot was awfully quiet as he pulled the stick back, and despite the roaring engine all she could hear was his breathing, and the almost inaudible coaxing –come on girl, come on ...And then Margaret opened her eyes, not realising she’d closed them, and outside all was blackness, the hum of the engine reassuring her that she was not, in fact, dead, anda disconcerting feeling in her stomach providing something else to worry about.
‘Try not to throw up!’ the pilot shouted back to her. ‘Gets me in a pickle with the ground crew.’
The flight over occupied France took forty minutes that felt to Margaret like two lifetimes. She was accustomed to dealing with tense situations, but being strapped into the back of a tin can like this was almost more than she could bear. It was the feeling of powerlessness. Not a feeling she liked. Not one bit. Then they were over the Channel, the thin sliver of sea all that was holding back Hitler from the successful completion of his grand tour, and Margaret started to think they’d make it. Now they were over Sussex, and she finally felt she could breathe again.
For a moment, the clouds parted and moonlight illuminated the countryside below. Margaret squinted to see if she recognised anything. But it was impossible. Every tree, every field, every farmhouse, all looked alike from up here. Nevertheless, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Cook would be out there. Making plans. Getting the job done.
Margaret wasn’t one for dwelling on the past, but her time with Cook had been ... Whathadit been? Love, perhaps. Yes, she allowed. But love had only been a part of it. Being part of a team. Pulling together for a common cause, each making the other better. Margaret was used to being the smartest one in the room. She saw things others didn’t see. She laughed before anyone else did when watching a revue – her mind joining the dots and predicting the punchline a fraction of a second before the rest of the audience. She’d become reconciled to being alone, in that respect. The men she’d known had been companions, amiable for the most part, but tiresome, needing work. Cook was different. Assmart as her, in his own way. Niceties not required. No work needed. Like coming home to a quiet room.
The pilot shouted to Margaret but she couldn’t hear the words. She realised her ears were ringing from the continual assault of the engine noise. Having got her attention, the pilot pointed out of the right-hand side of the cockpit.
What she saw shocked her.
London was burning. The River Thames snaked away to their right, silver in the moonlight. On both sides of the river, flames rose from fires that looked like they were consuming the whole city. Huge columns of smoke rose, blocking out the stars.
‘Why aren’t the guns firing?’ Margaret shouted to the pilot. Anti-aircraft guns had become part of the background, firing on bombers throughout the summer, their distinctive four-beat rhythm – pom pom pom pom – a reassuring sound against the drone of the enemy attack.
‘Our fighters are up there, trying to get behind the bombers,’ the pilot shouted. Margaret squinted to see if she could see planes in the darkness. Was that tracer fire she could see, like fireflies in the distance?
‘I can’t see them,’ Margaret shouted.
‘That’s the problem,’ the pilot shouted. ‘It’s too dark for the fighters, but the guns can’t fire because they’re up there.’
The Westland Lysander touched down lightly on the tarmac, propellor buzzing. The pilot manoeuvred the plane off the runway and steered towards a quiet part of the airfield. A car waited, barely visible in the dark, raindrops glistening on the windscreen.
The pilot cut the engine and climbed out. He turned to help Margaret but she was already behind him, clambering out of the cockpit, down onto the struts and the curved wheel-covers.
‘Welcome to Croydon,’ the pilot said, with a grin. ‘I’ll be in the pub with some of the boys if you fancy a drink.’
The car door opened.
‘That’s very kind,’ Margaret said. ‘But I rather think I’ve got plans.’
Margaret sat in the back of the car, her ears still ringing, as they cruised through an endless succession of suburban towns. Purley. Streatham. Brixton. All dark in the blackout, buses looming out of the drizzle at the last minute, pedestrians taking their lives into their own hands with every dash across the road. In the plane, there’d been the frisson of excitement that they might get shot down by an over-enthusiastic home defence unit, or encounter a lost German fighter, but those odds were, in reality, incredibly low. Here on the streets, in the blackout, it felt like every mile without deadly incident was a lucky escape.
‘What’s the mood over there?’ Bunny asked. Just like him, Margaret thought. No pleasantries. No hint of concern for her welfare, no recognition of what she’d been through on his behalf.
‘They’re angry,’ Margaret said. ‘When they heard you’d bombed Berlin it was like you’d thrown a rock at a wasp’s nest.’
‘Goering sent everything he had against us,’ Bunny said. ‘Every bomber, every fighter, every pilot on the roster,’ he said, looking out of the window. ‘Killed almost two thousand people.’
‘Is it true we’ve already done worse to Berlin?’
Bunny looked at her, as if trying to decide how much to trust her.
‘Their strategy of bombing our airfields was working,’ he said. ‘Another day or two and they’d have broken the RAF. Then they’d have had free rein.’
‘Was it you?’ Margaret asked. ‘Throwing the rock at the wasp’s nest?’
