Beneath Us the Stars (15 page)

It was an American convoy, led by several jeeps with MPs and brass – a colonel or something – in the second one.

He stood and waved with his arms until they ground to a halt.

‘Am I glad to see you guys.’

Nobody moved for a second, then the colonel got out and, accompanied by two MPs, advanced towards him.

Bill, swaying, awaited their greeting – then realized he had on a German great coat.

‘Hell.’ He tore it off. ‘I’m no
Kraut
.’ He drew himself up. ‘First Lieutenant William Anderson, sir, United States Army Air Force.’

The colonel did not react to his salute. Bill frowned, began to get an odd feeling. Then the colonel spoke, in excellent English.

‘But unfortunately for you, I
am
a
Kraut
.’

It took a few seconds for it to sink in.

Shocked Bill suddenly realized it was one of the units
that had penetrated behind American lines, causing havoc and outrage. The officer’s face hardened. ‘So, you are a pilot?’

Bill nodded.

It was weird, hearing an American officer say: ‘You have been strafing our troops?’

Through his delirium Bill suddenly realized that he was on a knife edge.

He lied.

‘No, bombing a railway bridge.’

The colonel’s white face, tired and drawn, was stony.

‘So, you are a Terror-
flieger
. You are a murderer of
innocent
civilians, of women and children.’

At that moment Bill knew he faced imminent death. The officer snapped an order in German. The two MPs on either side of him roughly ripped open his shirt top. One produced a knife, and for a split second he thought they were going to cut his throat. All he could think of was that he had let Mary down.

Having survived the crash he was still going to die, murdered on the whim of a passing Nazi. Then he felt his dog tags pulled violently forward and the cords severed.

They were passed to the officer who glanced down at them, then tossed them away into the bushes. He flicked his head at the two MPs who stepped aside, and drew out his issue American Officers sidearm.

The ‘Colonel’ raised it, pointed it straight at his head. At less than five feet he couldn’t miss. Irrationally Bill heard the whine of attacking aircraft.

He tensed up, but could only feel a great sadness: that he
would not see Mary again or ever see his child; be there for school, for university perhaps, and his or her wedding.

Would there be grandchildren who would never know him?

There was a deafening explosion, and Bill Anderson’s world ceased to exist.

It was a month since Winston Churchill had announced to the nation that Germany had surrendered, unconditionally; since the cheering crowds had blocked Whitehall, the Mall and all the main roads in central London; since his
appearance
on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with the King and Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose.

Mary paused, checked the address of the large Whitehall building and went in through the imposing Portland stone entrance.

At the reception desk she was directed to the third floor. The corridor was wide, high-ceilinged, with a marble floor and a long Persian carpet. Busts of frowning men in
classical
robes lined its sides.

It had obviously been built at the height of Britain’s Empire days, when Queen Victoria, Empress of India, was on the throne.

She found the door she wanted and went into a small ante-room. Apair of velvet-covered sofas stood against two walls. A man behind a small but exquisite desk stood up
and came around to meet her, hand held out.

‘Mrs Anderson?’

She took his hand as he continued:

‘Sir Anthony is expecting you – this way.’

He went to large double doors, tapped and waited, ear near the wood. She heard a garbled: ‘Come in.’

The man shot her a smile, said: ‘Excuse me,’ and led the way in, announcing ‘Mrs Anderson, sir.’

As Sir Anthony rose with outstretched hand from behind a huge ornate desk, his secretary scurried to place a chair behind the woman who was so obviously with child.

Mary sat down.

‘Thank you for seemg me, Sir Anthony.’

The man she addressed wore a dark pin-stripe suit, with old-fashioned lapels. A silk handkerchief was draped from his top pocket.

Although his face was lined with age and good living, his hair was still brushed back in a thick wavy mane.

‘Not at all – not at all.’

He opened a leather-bound, frayed file and shuffled through some papers.

‘As you know, Sir George personally asked me to look into your request. He speaks very highly of your service to His Majesty’s Government – your work at Bletchley, I gather?’

She gave a quick, humourless smile, but said nothing.

Sir Anthony cleared his throat.

‘Now, about this matter of your husband, First Lieutenant Anderson of the American Army Air Force posted missing in action – presumed killed.’

It was as though someone had kicked her in her swollen belly. ‘He’s
not
dead. They have found what’s left of his plane – but no trace of him. He must be injured – lost his memory – but not
dead
. I know it.’

The Whitehall mandarin recoiled under the unfamiliar display of emotion and, embarrassed, picked up one of the papers.

He coughed. ‘Quite so. Well, we’ve reviewed the
documents
supplied by our American allies, and all the other services, Army, Navy, Air-Sea Rescue, and the Commission for Displaced and Missing Persons.’

He looked up at her.

‘Of the thousands and thousands, we’ve narrowed it down to maybe a couple of hundred people, given that he had—’ quickly he changed to ‘
has
an American accent and concentrating on the area where he was reported missing. Oh, and of course, he doesn’t know who he is and has no means of identification.’

He felt like saying that it was all rather ridiculous, but refrained. The woman was obviously emotionally unstable. He pushed across the list.

‘Pardon me for saying so, but I thought he would have been wearing military identity discs, so I do not see how he could go unidentified?’ Mary dismissed him as she
continued
to read the list of locations and the men held there who could not be identified.

‘There must be some explanation.’

Sir Anthony looked at his hunter. It was time for lunch at his club.

‘As you can see, many are in hospitals, both military and
civilian, and in holding areas in France, Holland, and of course Germany. I’ve anticipated your need to travel in these areas and have prepared the necessary documents. The Americans and the RAF have kindly found room for you on some of their transports – you can fly like that, can you?’

He nodded in the general direction of her body.

Mary frowned. ‘Yes, apparently.’

‘It’s going to be pretty strenuous you know. Are you sure it’s wise?’

‘Wise?’ Mary folded the paper and picked up the file that he had pushed nearer. ‘Wise doesn’t come into it, Sir Anthony. It’s something I’ve got to do.’

She stood up and held out her hand, which he took as she continued: ‘I appreciate all you have done for me as I’m sure you are very busy. There is so much to do, isn’t there?’

Sir Anthony buzzed the intercom.

‘Think nothing of it. Sir George says that you were most helpful to the code-breaker people – some nuance of the language, I believe. Do you know, I had no idea you people existed – most still don’t.’

Mary gave a weak smile, eager to be on her way. The secretary came in, and stood holding the door open.

Mary said: ‘Thank you once again,’ and left.

When she’d gone Sir Anthony mused to his secretary: ‘A sad case that I fear will have no happy ending. The Americans have privately admitted that they believe he is dead. I know these are exceptional times, but really, I don’t see the point of letting women take degrees – they remain as emotionally immature as ever.’

Mary flew from RAF Northolt to a cold, wrecked Berlin. The sight from her small window both amazed and deeply depressed her. Mile after mile of ruins. It was as if some enormous earthquake had devastated the place. What
so-called
civilized men did to each other was far worse than any savage could devise.

She stayed overnight in a transit hotel. Next day she began her search.

The first wooden camp was on the outskirts. After having her papers inspected at the gate, she was shown to the medical block. Mary spoke in fluent German to the doctors, who then took her to see a whole ward of decrepit, broken men, some clearly mentally disturbed, who just lay or stood around smoking.

The doctor explained: ‘These are the ones who fit your profile. Some have a few words of English, but they do not speak it like a person from America, in my judgement. Others don’t speak at all – are mute.’

Mary realized that an accent would be useless as a guide under these conditions. She walked among them, conscious of their staring eyes, some lustful, even in her condition, some hopeful – most just blank. There was an all pervading smell of disinfectant, urine, and necrosis.

Outside she began to cry, not knowing whether it was the daunting scale of the task she had set herself, or the sight of so much broken humanity.

For the next month the story was the same – visit after visit; pitiful souls with no past, no future.

With a sinking heart Mary, for the first time, faltered. Her condition was not helping – her ankles had begun to swell
and an army doctor had said she had high blood pressure and needed bed-rest.

She gave herself seven more days and cheered herself up with the resolve to come back after she had given birth.

At the end of the week she was packing her brown case when the bedside telephone rang. When she answered, a man speaking in German, explained that he was a doctor at a local civilian hospital, and had heard from a colleague at a Red Cross camp which she had just visited.

Mary, phone cradled between shoulder and ear, carried on with her folding and packing.

‘You know why, I assume?’

The voice in her ear said: ‘Yes, of course Frau Doktor. We have two men here, with absolutely no identity. Both mute, with serious head injuries. One was found with the corpses of dead German soldiers who had been killed by aircraft cannon-fire. They were disguised as American soldiers. I don’t know if that is significant.’

Mary looked at her watch. She had an hour before the jeep was due to take her to the American airbase twenty kilometres away.

‘Very well. I’ll come immediately. Thank you.’

She took the address, finished packing and delivered her case to the hotel clerk. ‘Tell the driver to wait – I shall be very quick,’ she instructed.

‘Of course, Frau Doktor.’

She’d found long ago that the use of her academic title worked wonderfully in the strictly organized German
society
.

In the event the hospital was in walking distance.
Despite her condition she made her way through the cobbled streets lined with linden trees. The town had missed the worse ravages of war. At the top of a small hill she rested for a moment on a low wall before the municipal hospital.

The doctor, who turned out to be a round little man with pebble-like glasses, met her and led the way down the corridor.

‘This was the one found dressed as an American.’

He pushed his way through double doors.

A man was sitting in a chair by the window, dressed in striped pyjamas. As they walked towards him he turned and looked at her.

Mary’s spirits slumped. Despite all the disappointments of the last few weeks, she always felt the same crushing despair. The man was not Bill.

She thanked the doctor and started to leave.

‘Mary?’

The voice was a croak, so low that she thought she had imagined it.

Still walking, she turned her head. By a locker in the corner was another man in similar striped pyjamas. Emaciated, gaunt, eyes sunken beneath a bandaged
forehead
, he was a bag of bones.

Mary faced Bill.

A very tiny tear formed in the corner of one of her eyes as the doctor stood beside her.

‘Oh, this is the other one. He was found in a bombed-out children’s hospital.’

Mary swayed, almost collapsed, but the baby gave her a
terrific kick.

She swallowed. ‘Your admission records are at fault here, Doctor.’

The light flashed off the pebble-glasses as the flustered man consulted his notes.

‘How do you know? It was hell at the end, we were overwhelmed. He does not speak, either.’

Mary advanced to Bill, held her hand out, frightened to hug the bag of bones in case she hurt him.

‘He just did.’

Their fingers met.

Mary stirred first.

‘Bill, it’s time. Tell me now.’

So he did, ending with: ‘So that’s it. A year, the doc says – maybe more, probably less.’

Mary held out her arms. He leant over and they held on to each other. She stroked his hair, kissing the top of his head as she had when she had comforted the children: Clark, Vivien and Mary.

Softly she whispered: ‘Remember that first week, after we found each other again?’

His voice was muffled.

‘I know darling but—’

She shushed him. ‘No buts. We swore then that we would never be parted again –
ever
.’

Mary released him and eased him up so that his face was opposite hers. She searched him with an intense, almost fevered eye.

‘It’s time.’

Frightened at the enormity of what she was proposing he tried to argue.

‘Mary you could….’

She was adamant.

‘I meant it then and I mean it now.’

Bill swallowed. He knew that voice of old, the young and determined ‘bluestocking’.

‘When?’

Mary smiled. ‘Tomorrow.’

Back in Cambridge he went along to the American Cemetery at Madingley, stood looking down at a couple of the simple white crosses among the rows and rows. He took longer finding names among the hundreds on the Wall of Remembrance – those who had no known resting-place. That evening they treated themselves to a superb dinner at a favourite watering-hole. Champagne flowed.

They clinked their glasses in a toast.

Mary proposed: ‘To us.’

‘To us,’ he responded. ‘And the last mission.’

They didn’t sleep at all that night – but sat up talking, writing letters to the children, and just sitting before the fire looking through photograph albums – many of the photographs were in black and white. They consigned hundreds to the flames.

In the morning the fire was cold, dead. As he looked around for the last time, Bill’s gaze fell on the grey ashes. It was over.

They used the MG to go to the flying club, Bill roaring in and skidding to a halt on the gravel. Mary berated him.

‘Stop showing off, you old fool.’

He got the wheelchair from the back and set it up. Mary,
hanging on to the windscreen and the door, settled into it. She called to him as he went back round to the driver’s side.

‘Don’t forget the CD player.’

Bill grumbled. ‘What did your last slave die of?’

He wheeled her into a hangar. Light aircraft were parked inside, some, their engines exposed, were being worked on by mechanics. They made their way to a door in the side wall marked ‘Office’. When they entered a man was at a chart marked ‘Aircraft Availability’, writing with a
felt-tipped
pen in the squares alongside the registration numbers.

He turned, saw the elderly couple, the woman in a wheelchair.

‘Ah – is it Mr Anderson?’

Bill held out his hand. ‘Sure is.’

They shook. Bill indicated Mary.

‘And this is my wife.’

‘How do you do. Now, I gather you want an hour’s
pleasure
trip – is that right?’

Mary nodded. ‘Yes – see some old haunts – where we met – seems like centuries ago.’

‘Right. Well if you’re ready…?’

Bill grinned. ‘All set and raring to go.’

The man selected some keys from an open
wall-cupboard
.

‘Right.’

Outside they reached a sleek low-wing aircraft with a single piston engine.

Bill gave a whistle.

‘Jeez, she looks fast.’

The man nodded proudly. ‘Can do two hundred-plus knots.’

Bill ran a hand appreciatively on the wing. ‘I used to fly with Pan Am, and before that in the war.’

Surprised, the pilot, opening the door, said: ‘Did you, now? What were you on?’

Bill brought the wheelchair to the rear door. ‘Ended up on 747s.’

The pilot’s enthusiasm was obvious. ‘And during the war?’

‘Mustangs.’

‘Really? That’s terrific.’ He slapped the fuselage. ‘Not so exciting as a Mustang, I’m afraid, but she’s lively enough.’

Bill nodded. ‘Expensive to run, I bet. Fully insured, of course?’

‘Oh yes. Costs an arm and a leg.’

Light-heartedly Bill chuckled.

‘Worth more to you wrecked, I guess.’

The man laughed. ‘Yes – but the trick is making sure you walk away in one piece.’

Mary glanced at Bill as he said: ‘You bet.’

They helped her into the rear, Bill saying: ‘I’d like to be in the co-seat, if that’s OK with you?’

‘Sure. Can you get in yourself while I put Mrs Anderson’s wheelchair in the office?’

‘No problem.’

As he trotted off with the chair, Bill made his way around
to the other door. He looked in at her, and nodded just the once.

‘OK?’

She finished buckling her seat belt.

‘OK.’

Bill ran his eye over the instrument panel as the pilot went through the take-off procedures and check list, then taxied to the strip.

When eventually he released the brakes the little aircraft positively shot down the runway and was in the air and climbing in no time.

Bill watched intently as the pilot raised the
undercarriage
and trimmed up the aircraft. When he was done he checked the route with Bill. ‘Cambridge area, the coast and back via your old airfield?’

When Bill agreed, the pilot informed the tower. Within minutes they were over Cambridge. Bill and Mary looked down at the colleges, with Kings College chapel clearly standing out by the Cam as the river slowly passed by. Eventually the city receded from view.

Bill nodded to the right. ‘Over there. Can you pass by that church, please?’

‘No problem.’

They banked gently away. They both saw the winding lane that ran from it and its scattering of old houses, until she pointed. ‘There.’

Sixty years had passed, and although some trees and green spaces still remained, the village had largely been engulfed by a huge housing development.

But they still recognized the cottage –
their
cottage, now
on the edge of a park.

They watched it intently until it was nearly lost from view.

Mary waved a final goodbye with just her fingers and turned back. Their eyes met. She lowered her lids, and mimed a soft kiss at him in memory of their first time together.

The pilot banked again. ‘We’re on our way to the coast now – right?’

Bill agreed. They would have liked to have kept silent, lost in their memories, but the pilot was chatty.

‘You been back before?’

Bill had to rouse himself from his thoughts. ‘Actually I stayed over here after the war – based at Heathrow.’

He said nothing of the long years of devoted nursing by Mary, until he was fully back to normal. The doctors said it was a miracle. The bullet, instead of penetrating his skull, had travelled in an arc under his scalp, and exited at the back without ever damaging the brain directly. The force of the bullet, and the air pressure wave before it had, however, bruised the brain severely, leaving him with complete loss of memory. To that very day, nine months might never have existed as far as he was concerned. The pilot adjusted the throttle.

‘Really? I would have thought there was more for you at home?’

Bill glanced back at Mary, grinned.

‘Oh no, I had a lot going for me over here, what with being over-paid and over-sexed as well.’

He heard her cough.

The pilot chuckled. ‘So, being here it’s been easy for you to attend all the reunions, I suppose. Do you still go?’

Wistfully Bill shook his head.

‘They finished a couple of years back. Not too many of us left – we’re a dying breed.’

They lapsed at last into silence as Bill gazed down at the towns and villages of Suffolk and Essex that he knew so well from the skies of 1944: Sudbury, Braintree, Ipswich, Orfordness.

Just after they crossed the coast the pilot turned back, left the North Sea behind. ‘Seen that many a time, eh?’ he said to Bill.

Bill said sadly: ‘Lost a few buddies down there.’

Using a wartime map he’d kept, Bill gave a course to the area of his old base. Suddenly the pilot pointed out of his side window and brought the plane around as he said: ‘Over there. Doesn’t look as if much of it is left. I’ll go down.’

Bill took a deep breath.

‘Say, no chance I could take her over it – just one last time?’

The pilot hesitated. The delightful old boy was certainly someone to be admired but, hell he must be eighty-odd years old.

He flicked a quick look at him. The man’s eyes were big and pleading.

‘Well, given your experience – why not. You have control.’

Bill’s face split into a huge grin as he placed his gnarled hands on the yoke.

‘God bless you – I have control.’

‘You have,’ responded the pilot.

Bill flew her straight and level, getting the feel, then….

‘I’m going a little lower for a look-see – OK?’

The pilot grinned nervously.

‘Sure.’

As they reapproached, Bill suddenly said: ‘Here we go,’ and pushed the stick forward, diving down and passing so low over the weed-covered airstrip and rusty control tower, that he had to pull up steeply to avoid a water-tower.

‘Wowee.’

Shaken, the pilot reached forward.

‘I’m taking control.’

Bill sang out. ‘You have control.’

He grinned across the cabin.

‘Sorry, don’t know what came over me – just had to give the old base one last beat-up for old times’ sake.’

The pilot looked pale, said nothing.

They landed back at the airfield, taxiing in and coming to a halt after the pilot had brought her round on the pan to face the field again. He cut the engine and silence descended. Almost immediately Mary groaned.

‘I’m afraid my back is giving me terrible pain – could I get out quickly, please? I really feel awful.’

On cue, Bill unbuckled his seat belt, began to move – and winced.

‘Hell, I’ve gone stiff – my new hip. Would you mind getting the wheelchair for my wife? She needs her
medication
urgently.’

The pilot cracked his door open, glad to get out.

‘No problem.’

He jumped down, and walked away, deeming it
necessary
to break the training of a lifetime to get the old people off quickly – he’d complete post-flight checks in a moment. He left the keys in the ignition.

Bill found Mary’s eyes. ‘Well that’s made it a damn sight easier.’

The pilot had just got the chair and was easing it out of the office door when he heard an aero engine start up. He didn’t connect it with the aircraft he’d just piloted, but when he heard it taxiing almost immediately, he knew it had to be his, there had been no time for pre-flight
procedures
with a cold engine.

Leaving the chair he ran for the hangar door, in time to see his plane wallowing away across the grass making straight for the runway. He ran after it, actually reached the tailplane and held it for a moment, shouting into the
roaring
slipstream: ‘Stop, stop, you old bastard.’

His foot caught in a rabbit-hole, and he went face down into the mud. He could only watch as the plane reached the runway, turned into the wind and took off in textbook
fashion
.

From the back seat Mary said: ‘I want to come forward, sit with you.’

He half-turned. ‘Of course. I’m putting down in my old place. There’s just enough runway left – I think.’

She rolled her eyes in disbelief.

When at last it finally came up on the horizon Bill said: ‘Hang on gal – here we go.’

He bled off the speed, and lowered the undercarriage. Selecting the correct flaps as he had observed, Bill coaxed the machine down to just over the boundary fence, then killed the flying speed, dropping with a final thump right on the end of the old runway.

Mary yelled out in pain as he rammed hard on the brakes, the plane banging and juddering rhythmically over the uneven concrete sections. The smell of burnt rubber invaded the cabin.

They came to a halt with barely twenty feet of
weed-covered
runway to spare.

Bill sagged in the seat.

‘Jeez, I’m getting too old for this.’

He brought the plane back to the other end, and turned again into the wind before turning off the engine. Mary had unbuckled by the time he opened her door and lowered the step. She clung to him as he eased her down.

Mary said: ‘Hang on, I need to rest for a second.’

He set her down in the long grass and they lay side by side listening to the skylarks in the soft breeze.

Mary stared up into the heavens, her hair splayed out on the grass. Bill looked across at her, at this woman who had become part of him, and he part of her all those years ago: a lifetime.

He loved her even more now.

She suddenly sighed. ‘It’s just like the Inkspots said.’

Puzzled, Bill asked: ‘What are you talking about?’

She smiled at him, put her hand over his, loved him lying there with a long stalk of grass sticking out of the corner of his mouth, looking so boyish – just as he had
when she had first set eyes on him and knew he was the one for her.

‘The long grass – it’s whispering to us.’

Bill lay in silence, chewing his stalk.

‘What’s it saying?’

Her face quickened with concentration. ‘Let’s see – How does that old poem go?

She rolled over on to him, put her hand gently on his cheek.

‘It’s not like the England of old is it, the decent innocent gentle place we all struggled for? Now it’s so different:
ill-mannered
, drugs, violence – all of it. We don’t belong any more in this age where sex is more important than love.’

He took the stalk from his mouth.

‘Every generation says that, darling – it’s just we’ve been lucky enough to grow very old and are able to look back through rose-coloured spectacles to our youth.’