JET LAG! (20 page)

              ‘Hey, you boy. Stop where you are!’

              Phillip didn’t look back but cycled as fast as his little legs could carry him. He reached the treeline first and had a lead of about eighty yards on the soldier. He didn’t know this wood, so he set off through the trees over the rough ground, dodging and ducking branches. The soldier was still shouting but obviously getting tired, having just run several hundred yards on a hot day and in full army rig. Phillip looked back and could just see the soldier through the leaves. He had stopped chasing, so Phillip breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to concentrate on the ride ahead.

              As Phillip turned his head, something or someone stood up out of the undergrowth directly in front of him. He couldn’t make out what or who the figure was, and could only slam on his brakes in order to stop from hurtling headlong into this new enemy. Phillip’s front wheel locked, but the rear wheel came on a fraction later and started a skid towards the figure. The bike slid from underneath him and crashed to the floor with Phillip beneath it, sliding wheels first on a collision course towards the mysterious figure ahead.

Too late!

Phillip’s wheels crashed violently into the shape, knocking him to the ground. The figure cried out in pain and fell forwards as his feet were taken out from under him. One side of Phillips body was getting seriously grazed by the scraping of the undergrowth, and as he saw the man fall towards him he let go of his handle bars and put his hands to his head in an effort to protect himself. Nevertheless the man came crashing down onto the boy, rifle flailing and both slithered to a stop near the base of a tree.

              The first soldier, Alpha three-four, appeared on the scene almost immediately. The second soldier, who had been lying camouflaged in the wood, stood up and looked at the boy, motionless on the ground. He backed away as Alpha three-four knelt down at the boys side. Phillip was motionless as Alpha three-four felt for vital signs.

              The Military Policeman stood up and reported back to Alpha HQ.

              ‘Alpha HQ, this is Alpha three-four. Boy apprehended. Request immediate medical assistance – I think he might be dead!’

***

              Constance Morrissey had been waiting for this precise moment for nearly half a century.

              She knew approximately where her brother had died in 1940, and had taken her own picnic and a bicycle into the fields near the airfield. She had been on the look-out for Phillip for about an hour when she spotted him cycling towards the perimeter fence.

              Her heart jumped.

However, she also saw the armed soldier give chase and saw Phillip enter the woods in an attempt to escape.

              She knew that she must move quickly now, or the chance would be lost.  She jumped up and hurriedly followed the soldier to the edge of the wood, where he had stopped momentarily to recover his breath. It was a bright, hot and sunny day and the poor chap was dressed in full kit – and in those days the uniforms were made of barathea – a nasty, rough material totally unsuited for warm conditions.

              She skipped into the wood and followed the soldier swiftly for a sixty-year old. After running another fifty paces she heard the crash of the bicycle, a loud scream, followed by the second soldier sending his radio report.

              ‘Oh dear God, I'm too late – after all these years – I'm too late.’

She rushed up to the crash site, pushed the camouflaged idiot out of the way and lifted the bicycle off of her brother. He was unconscious, so she turned him over and checked his pulse. Constance had trained and worked as a nurse for twenty-five years for this exact moment!

The boy was indeed still alive, but was turning blue.

He'd swallowed his tongue in the crash.

Of course, he hadn’t actually swallowed it, but it had collapsed back into his throat and was causing an obstruction. Untreated, the boy would suffocate in minutes.

Constance used her nursing skills to free the obstruction, turn the boy on his side and wait for him to start breathing normally – which he did almost immediately. Colour returned to his face and after a few minutes Phillip sat up. He was dazed and disoriented – but alive!

The two soldiers had just stood, mouths agape, staring at the scene unfolding before them. Constance smiled at the boy, hugged him gently and kissed his forehead. She then stood up and addressed the two men.

‘In future, I suggest you exercise a little restraint when dealing with young children. Now, get this boy back to Methwold. He is Sir Peter Andrew’s son, Phillip. Not a bloody German agent, for God’s sake.’

She kissed the boy again, who was now standing up, confused but fit and well, barring a few cuts and grazes.

Constance smiled and walked away. Over fifty years of grief, anxiety and self-doubt lifted from her shoulders, but the strain and stress of it all had drained her soul.

30

8 July 1940

             
The news of the boy’s close shave never reached the ears of the personnel at Middle Fleckney. They continued to work on the plan to beef up the British defence force without revealing their hand to the Germans. The groundcrew were still adapting to life in the 1940’s and demonstrated some incredible ingenuity when adapting 1992 equipment to marry up with 1940’s standards. The C-130 and VC10 were parked at the rear of the hangar and the plan was to reduce their fuel load to about sixty minutes flying endurance. This would allow them to get airborne on the eighth of September and loiter in the Wash area waiting to be zapped back to 1992.

The groundcrew had ingeniously developed a remarkable system of pipes enabling the Tornados to be refuelled directly from the VC10. Up until now the three Canberras had exhausted their own limited supply of fuel by transferring gas from jet to jet until it was all used up. The PR9s had enough engine starter cartridges to last at least a month, as the C-130 carried plenty. Although the fuel in the different aircraft was of differing specific gravities, they were basically interchangeable – however, crews would have to monitor performance closely and be aware of capacity indicator changes.

              It was in this period of consolidation that Todd and his father needed to plan the proposed attack on the airfield in Denmark. It was decided that carpet bombing by Lincolns would soften them up, followed by a bombing run across the airfield by two GR1A Tornados, and then a single reconnaissance Tornado to obtain imagery of the damage caused by the attack for interpretation and debriefing purposes.  The attack was scheduled for the eleventh of July with a take-off time of 2100 hours. It would take the Lincolns two hours to reach the target and two hours to return. Of course the Tornados could do the trip in about thirty minutes and be back before the Lincolns got half way home. The time on target (TOT) was 2300 for the old bombers and 2310 for the 1992 jets. The Recce jet would overfly at 2312 precisely.

              The big problem was the weather. A huge area of drizzle, fog, low cloud and electrical storms covered the channel. Although the Germans had attacked in several waves that day, both sides had suffered losses in the ensuing confusion. The Spitfires were at last beginning to earn their famous reputation and were having more luck against their adversaries. However, it was very difficult for both sides and it had been reported that the RAF had shot down one of their Naval colleagues by mistake. However, the met men promised good weather for the eleventh of July and it was on this advice that Todd planned the sortie.

              Todd’s father, the AVM, was also very busy. He had been spirited away by the Prime Minister – in the utmost secrecy – and taken to meet the main players in the coming battle. Of course, Churchill guessed that AVM Morrissey had more than a passing interest in the war going on in 1940, and it was now that he planned to wheedle out as much information as he could. He re-introduced Morrissey to Dowding, Park and Leigh-Mallory who were running the fighter forces in the south and east of England. However, Morrissey had to be careful. His degree was in engineering and he had a good knowledge of events during what was to become the Battle of Britain. If he gave too much away – or indeed anything - how might his intervention affect the future? He had resolved to interfere only when he reckoned that the 1940 men were about to adopt the wrong tactics. Churchill of course was not too happy about this but eventually agreed with Morrissey’s proposal. After all – he had little choice in the matter.

              So AVM Morrissey was confined to the custody of a still sceptical and distinctly unfriendly Air Chief Marshal Dowding for the duration, and would watch the progress of the fighting from Dowding’s HQ. The team at Middle Fleckney would see very little of him over the coming weeks.

              The issue of Mrs Morrissey, Todd’s mother, also came to the fore at this time. She knew damned well that her ‘other’ self was alive and living within twenty miles of Middle Fleckney. She also knew that little Constance was in a coma, and was becoming more and more agitated as the days passed.

She had never revealed her secret plan to save her brother to her husband, and had not related the events of the previous week. Nobody ever discovered who had saved the boy in the woods that summers day. No trace of the mysterious woman was ever found.

Eventually, Mrs Morrissey took to her bed at Middle Fleckney and as the days passed became frailer and frailer. Naturally, Todd and his father were terribly concerned but there was little they could do. Mrs Morrissey seemed to know her ultimate destiny, and appeared determined to resign herself to it despite whatever anyone else tried to do. Everything that was possible was done for Mrs Morrissey, and a full time nurse was drafted in to take care of her on a twenty-four hour basis. Todd visited her as often as possible and was saddened to see her lifeblood slip away. Eventually on the fifth of August 1940, Constance Morrissey slipped into a coma from which she was never to recover. Forty minutes later young Constance Andrews opened her eyes. Her nanny, Catherine, rushed to the bedroom door and shouted to Constance’s mother.

              ‘Ma’am, MA’AM, she’s awake. Constance has woken up!’

              The loop was closed.

31

German Luftwaffe HQ

10 July 1940

             
The plan to get Kesselring and his Luftwaffe to harry the British merchant shipping in the channel was working. The Bf109s were flying low to tempt the British fighters out to meet them. Soon both sides would run low on fuel and be forced to withdraw from combat. This allowed the Stukas to attack shipping almost unopposed.  However, the British defenders were getting wise to the ploy. They also realised that if they tried to launch fighters on a one-to-one basis, they would soon run out of aircraft. Therefore they dispatched only small numbers of Spitfires in an attempt to break up the attacks, rather than be totally concerned with shooting German aircraft down. This worked well and even though the attacks by German raiders continued almost unabated, German losses were starting to mount. Also, the British Admiralty decided that shipping would only pass through the Straits of Dover under cover of darkness. However, RAF losses over the past three weeks had been high, and sortie rates for pilots were getting to breaking point. Furthermore, Churchill was desperately marshalling his forces to keep Hitler at bay. The Germans had publicly declared that they would be in London by mid-August. However, they had not reckoned for the secret weapon in Britain’s much depleted arsenal – Force 1992.

              Hermann Goering was managing the German jet project himself. Thirty Me 262s had been manufactured at great expense. Many of the best German technicians were allocated to this task and Goering had promised Hitler that the RAF would be destroyed within a matter of weeks. However, the mysterious loss of one of the ‘Blaue-Tod’ was worrying. Also, the incident leading up to the crash was curious. The German jet fighter had been tracking a fast moving object when radio contact had been lost with the pilot. Was it possible that the British had a jet fighter themselves? Certainly, German agents in Britain had reported nothing – but Goering was worried enough to take prompt pro-active action. He picked up the phone and called the  German jet base in Denmark.

              ‘Galland, this is Goering – I have new instructions for you.’

              ‘Jawohl, Herr Reichsmarschall, please go ahead.’

              ‘You are to move the squadron immediately to a new base. Prepare the aircraft, aircrew, groundcrew and technicians. This has top priority. I will provide resources and the destination will be passed in code by courier. You must move before midnight tonight. No excuses Galland – get the job done.’