HONOR MISPLACED

Arthur Browne

Chapter Five

   The sun was breaking through scattered clouds as they made their way out of the city. It was actually quite beautiful, Charlie considered, if one did not go on to consider that German bombers could very well be lurking in those dark, towering clouds like schools of hungry sharks waiting to pounce on a fish. He found himself hoping that one small car was too small of a meal for the aerial predators to bother with. The city fell away behind them and he found himself getting drowsy as he watched fields and villages roll by. Welwyn, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, Sandy, each with it’s old church and history stretching back through the ages.

Eventually they stopped at a gate with a gatehouse manned by two soldiers. Two more soldiers manned an older model machinegun snug in its sandbag nest. Charlie could see wooden towers in each direction, all manned by other soldiers. It struck him that these soldiers would be of no use in stopping an air raid, but they would be very effective at keeping out any unwanted visitors. Since he was sitting in the passenger seat he was on the wrong side of the car to talk to the Sergeant at the gatehouse and he had to lean close to Billy to show his credentials. He told the Sergeant who they were and that they were expected.

The Sergeant consulted a clipboard and granted them access to the base, but not before he gave them a stern warning to go directly to commanding officer’s offices and not do any sightseeing on the way. He gave them very thorough directions for how to get there.

“Not playing around are they?” Billy observed as they moved on.

“It would seem not,” was all Charlie could think of to say.

They drove down the dirt road through dense pine trees and underbrush. The sun was getting ready to set. A slight rise in the road and a thinning of the trees allowed them a brief view of a nearby meadow where the tress were smaller and more widely spread. RAF personnel came rushing out of the trees that surrounded the meadow. Charlie leaned forward to get a better view. The men split into groups of two or three and these groups then each surrounded one of the trees growing in the meadow. Charlie couldn’t tell if they were real trees or not at that distance, but either way they must have been attached to flat bases with wheels of some sort. The men began rolling them to the sides of the meadow.

As Billy slowed the car and they watched in amazement they saw more ground crew rolling a Halifax bomber out of a camouflaged hanger built under the taller trees that clustered around the newly emerged clearing. Strangely, the plane was not painted in regulation RAF colors, but flat black, and there were no roundels, squadron markings or tail numbers to be seen.

Charlie now saw that the former meadow was actually a cement airstrip that had been painted in a brown and green camouflage pattern. He and Billy exchanged awed glances.

“You couldn’t really tell it’s a bloody airfield even from this distance,” Billy marveled. “From a few thousand feet up it would be impossible to spot it.”

“Makes me sorry we can’t ask any questions about what they do around here, because it must be something very interesting indeed,” Charlie mused aloud.

They found the correct building with no trouble. The base operations building was built next to a small control tower and there were some other buildings nearby that Charlie assumed to be billets and perhaps a mess. The unusual thing about this collection of buildings was that instead of being constructed out in the middle of the clearing they occupied, they were all shoved up to the edge of the clearing right under the trees. They were overhung with branches. They were also painted a mottled green and brown. Some smaller trees had been left growing in the clearing. All in all this place was designed not to be seen.

A young RAF sergeant was waiting for them in front of the building. He led them inside without saying so much as a word and took them to a small office with the door standing open. The officer seated behind the desk didn’t bother to stand up when they entered. He glared at them coldly for a moment and then began to speak.

“You’re not to ask the men any questions about what we do here. I’m sure that if you are interested in finding out about us, you can read all about it just as soon as the official secrets act runs it’s course. In about 50 years or so. I will be attending the interview and if you step out of bounds just once, I shall terminate the proceedings immediately.”

Having delivered his speech, the man rose from behind the desk and strode purposeful past the others and headed off back down the hallway leaving Charlie and Billy no choice but to follow. They exchanged glances as they fell in behind the man. Billy lifted an eyebrow in wry salute to the man’s bubbling personality and Charlie pursed his lips in admission that they had indeed been put in their place with admirable efficiency.

Charlie watched the officer’s back as he marched down the hall and led them outdoor once more and towards a low building against the tree line not far away. The man had the determined presence of a train barreling down a set of tracks and the upright posture of the long-serving military professional. He certainly looks smart in his Wing Commander’s uniform admitted Charlie to himself, like something from a recruiting poster. And he hadn’t failed to notice that the man hadn’t given them his name.

The Wing Commander led them to and through the door to the small wooden building. It was indeed a mess hall as Charlie had suspected. Lounging around at the tables spread around the room were six men in flight suits. They all leaped to attention and Charlie was certain that if the Wing Commander hadn’t been with them they wouldn’t have bothered standing at all.

“Let’s get this over with, Inspector,” the Wing Commander snapped. “These men have a job to do.” He then put the men at ease, turned and sat at the nearest table.

The six men exchanged looks with one another and then gathered around Charlie and Billy. Charlie immediately sensed that there was something amiss. They all gave off a slight air of nervousness that Charlie knew well from his experience with criminal investigation. These men were planning on hiding something. Something more than their top secret war work.

Charlie, like most people living in London during the blitz, was well acquainted with the RAF. One couldn’t read the morning paper without learning the exploits of the brave lads who were keeping the Hun at bay against such tremendously long odds. He scanned the rank insignia on the uniforms in front of him. Two Senior Aircraftmen who were bound to be the gunners. A Flight Sergeant who most likely was the bomb aimer/radio operator. That left two Warrant Officers as navigator and flight engineer, and the co-pilot, a Flying Officer. Charlie addressed himself to the Flying Officer first, but kept his eyes moving over the other men as he spoke to watch for any unusual reactions.

“Good afternoon, Sir. I presume it is allowed that I ask your name?” He cast a quick look at the Wing Commander to see if he would object, but the man just glowered back at him in silence. He turned back to the man before him, a rather large, good looking fellow with dark hair and sharp blue eyes.

“Flying Officer Joe Hoover,” said the man tersely. He did not seem at all inclined to offer any more information.

“Is there anything you can tell my about Flight Lieutenant Crowley that might help shed some light on what happened to him?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Flying Officer Hoover stated with some certainty.

“He hadn’t mentioned accruing some large gambling debt?” Charlie prodded, “no tales of a romance with a married woman? Perhaps he changed his habits of late? Began behaving mysteriously, slipping of to who knows where?”

“They barely let us off the base as it is,” began the other man. Behind Charlie the Wing Commander cleared his throat and the Flying Officer began again. “No, Sir, nothing like that. We were almost always together. That is, all of us were.” He gestured around at the rest of the crew.

“Almost, Flying Officer Hoover?” Charlie repeated pleasantly. “Would you care to hazard a guess as to what the Flight Lieutenant did when you weren’t all together?”

“No, Sir,” was the definitive reply. “But he was a good man. He wasn’t the sort to make people angry. Everybody liked him.”

“I’m sure he was.” Charlie decided to give the man one more chance to come clean. “So there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary with him? Nothing of note in his personal life?”

“No, it’s like I said.” The man seemed quite pleased to be done with this whole awkward conversation.

Charlie had set the trap, and now he sprung it. “So you wouldn’t say that a relationship with a foreign national constitutes anything worth mentioning?” Charlie carefully watched the man’s eyes. The answers were always in the eyes. He saw them flick to one of the other crewmen. “I must say that I find that to be a somewhat surprising oversight on your part, Flying Officer Hoover.” He heard the Wing Commander shuffle his chair. He was getting their attention now.

Charlie turned quickly from the Flying Officer to the man that had drawn the unintentional glance. “And what do you have to say about this, Warrant Officer? Would you care to share anything about this woman that no one seems to want to speak about?”

The Warrant Officer, whom Charlie had taken to be either the flight engineer or navigator, stiffened almost to attention and looked much less than comfortable. “Well, sir, there was this girl, and she…”

Flying Officer Hoover cut in at this point. “Never mind, Trenton, I’ll tell the story.”

Charlie didn’t even turn his head to look back at the man. He just raised his left hand with the palm square before his face to cut him off. Charlie moved even closer to the Warrant Officer and looked him up and down. He was a thin fellow and rather tall, light colored hair cropped close. He had dark eyes and he wore spectacles. Charlie took a moment to feel sorry for himself and wonder why this chap could serve in the armed forces and he couldn’t. “You were saying, Warrant Officer?”

“My brother works on the docks. He was there when the troops were unloading from Dunkirk. Somehow this slip of a French girl talked her way onto one our destroyers that was loading troops during the evacuation. My brother took her home.” The Warrant Officer saw the look that crossed Charlie’s face. “No, no, it wasn’t like that. He’s married, my brother. He saw that she was in trouble. No papers. She’s only 20. No place to go. A refugee is what she was. My brother’s wife has been helping her with the government forms. She still stays with them in London.”

“What did you say your name was?” Charlie asked, mostly just to slow the man down.

“Babbage, Trenton Babbage, Sir.” The man seemed relieved to have a chance to stop talking.

“And this girl, her name is Marie Korlette?” Charlie enjoyed the stir that went around the room as the men realized they had been one step behind all along.

“Yes, Sir,” the Warrant Officer supplied.

“And why would you want to keep this to yourselves, I wonder,” wondered Charlie aloud, turning back towards Flying Officer Hoover.

“It isn’t that at all exactly,” the Flying Officer began. “We all sort of adopted the girl. The whole crew that is. Back before we got… quite so busy… we used to go into London and take her around with us. She was like out mascot, you could say. Our good luck charm. But then things got a little complicated. She sort of took a liking to Warrant Lewin, which was all well and good to start.”

Charlie broke in for clarification by asking who, precisely, was Warrant Lewin. He was rewarded by the other Warrant Officer, the one he had assumed to be either the navigator or the flight engineer, stepping forward with raised hand.

“Warrant Officer Kent Lewin, Sir,” the man said by way of supplying that precise clarification.

“And what do you have to add to this very interesting story, Warrant Officer Lewin?”

“She was just such a friendly girl, Sir, you know how it is. Always wanting to dance, liked to hang on my arm, but she did that to all of us. Then she started paying me more attention. And we would sneak away for the odd walk, that sort of thing. We kissed a few times, that’s all. But I thought we had an understanding.” The Warrant Officer was a short but muscular individual. And his hard hazel eyes and a nose that looked to have been broken once or twice made him appear rather formidable.

Charlie still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to get out of them. “I will have to do a little checking into her background, make sure she is who she says she is, but it doesn’t seem likely that the girl is a Nazi spy, does it?” he asked reasonably.

The Warrant Officer who looked like he might once have been a prize fighter suddenly deflated before his eyes like a soccer ball that had been shot with a high-powered rifle.

“It’s what they’re trying so hard not to tell you, Sir.” The man’s voice quavered. He couldn’t meet Charlie’s eyes. “She started to pay quite a lot of attention to the Flight Lieutenant. This was back a month or so, when we still got to London now and again. She was just ignoring me. And I liked the girl, more than I knew I should. We were at a bar one night, the whole lot of us, and it was just too much to take. I had been drinking.” He stopped cold, unable to go on.

Charlie noticed that the Wing Commander was now standing beside him. “Out with it, Lewin, say what you have to say.” The Wing Commander’s voice was commanding indeed.

“I threatened him, I threatened Tommy. The Flight Lieutenant I mean. Challenged him to a fight there and then. When he refused I told him he would be sorry one day.” The Warrant Officer was almost in tears. “But I never meant it. I loved the man. We all did. I would have died for him. It was just the drink talking.”

The room fell as silent as a deserted church.