Flight of Eagles

THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

1997

1

When we lost the starboard engine I knew we were in trouble, but then the whole trip was bad news from the start.

My wife had been staying with me for a few days at our house in Jersey in the Channel Islands when a phone message indicated a strong interest from a major Hollywood producer in filming one of my books. It meant getting over to England fast to our house at Chichester, a staging post to London. I phoned the air-taxi firm I usually used, but they had no plane available. However, they’d see what they could do. What they came up with was a Cessna 310 from Granville on the coast of Brittany and a rather ageing pilot called Dupont. Beggars not being choosers, I booked the flight without hesitation because the weather forecast wasn’t good and we wanted to get on with it. I sat in the rear, but the 310 having dual controls, my wife, being a highly experienced pilot, chose to occupy the right-hand seat to the pilot. Thank God she did.

The Channel Islands and the English Channel are subject to fogs that appear in an incredibly short time and close down everything fast, and that’s exactly what happened that morning. Taking off from Jersey was fine, but within ten minutes, the island was fogged out, and not only the French coast but Guernsey also.

We started for the South Coast of England, Southampton our destination. Dupont was close to sixty from the look of him, grey-haired, a little overweight. Sitting behind my wife and looking to one side as he worked the plane, I noticed a film of sweat on his face.

Denise was wearing headphones and passed me a spare pair, which I plugged in. At one stage she was piloting the plane as he engaged in conversation with air traffic control. He took over and she turned to me.

‘We’re at five thousand. Bad fog down there. Southampton’s out, including everything to the east. We’re trying for Bournemouth, but it doesn’t look good.’

Having avoided death as a child from IRA bombs in the Shankill in Belfast, and various minor spectaculars in the Army years later, I’ve learned to take life as it comes. I smiled above the roar of the engine, confident in my wife’s abilities, found the half-bottle of Moët et Chandon champagne they’d thoughtfully provided in the bar box, and poured some into a plastic glass. Everything, I’ve always thought, worked out for the best. In this case, it was for the worst.

It was exactly at that moment that the starboard engine died on us. For a heart-stopping moment, there was a plume of black smoke, and then it faded away.

Dupont seemed to get into a state, wrestling with the controls, frantically making adjustments, but to no avail. We started to go down. In a panic, he started to shout in French to the air traffic control at Bournemouth, but my wife waved a hand at him and took over, calmly, sweetly reasonable.

‘We have fuel for perhaps an hour,’ she reported. ‘Have you a suggestion?’

The air traffic controller happened to be a woman and her voice was just as calm.

‘I can’t guarantee it, but Cornwall is your best bet. It’s not closed in as fully there. Cold Harbour, a small fishing port on the coast near Lizard Point. There’s an old RAF landing strip there from the Second World War. Abandoned for years but usable. I’ll put out your details to all rescue services. Good luck.’

We were at 3000 for the next twenty minutes and the traffic on the radio was confusing, often blanked out by some kind of static. The fog swirled around us and then it started to rain very hard. Dupont seemed more agitated than ever, the sweat on his face very obvious now. Occasionally he spoke, but again in French and, once more, Denise took over. There were various voices, lots of static and the plane started to rock as a thunderstorm exploded around us.

Denise spoke, very controlled, giving our details. ‘Possible Mayday. Attempting a landing at airstrip at Cold Harbour.’

And then the static cleared and a voice echoed strong and true. ‘This is Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Cold Harbour, Zec Acland speaking. No way you’re going to land here, girl. Can’t see my hand in front of my face.’

For Dupont, this was the final straw. He gave a sudden moan, seemed to convulse and his head lolled to one side. The plane lurched down, but Denise took control and gradually levelled it out. I leaned over and felt for a pulse in his neck.

‘It’s there, but it’s weak. Looks like a heart attack.’

I pushed him away from her. She said calmly, ‘Take the life-jacket from under his seat and put it on him, then do the same for yourself.’

She put the 310 on automatic and pulled on her own life-jacket. I took care of Dupont and struggled into mine.

‘Are we going into the drink?’

‘I don’t think we’ve got much choice.’ She took manual control again.

I tried to be flippant, a personal weakness. ‘But it’s March. I mean, far too cold in the water.’

‘Just shut up! This is business,’ she said and spoke again as we went down. ‘RNLI, Cold Harbour. I’ll have to ditch. Pilot seems to have had a heart attack.’

That strong voice sounded again. ‘Do you know what you’re doing, girl?’

‘Oh, yes. One other passenger.’

‘I’ve already notified Royal Navy air sea rescue, but not much they can do in this pea-souper. The Cold Harbour lifeboat is already at sea and I’m on board. Give me a position as accurately as you can.’

Fortunately the plane was fitted with a Global Positional System, satellite linked, and she read it off. ‘I’ll go straight down,’ she said.

‘By God, you’ve got guts, girl. We’ll be there, never fear.’

My wife often discusses her flying with me, so I was aware of the problems in landing a fixed wing light twin aircraft in the sea. You had to approach with landing gear retracted and full flaps and reasonable power, a problem with one engine dead.

Light winds and small waves, land into the wind, heavy wind and big waves, land parallel to the crests. But we didn’t know what waited down there. We couldn’t see.

Denise throttled back and we descended and I watched the altimeter. One thousand, then five hundred. Nothing – not a damn thing – and then at a couple of hundred feet, broken fog, the sea below, small waves and she dropped us into the wind.

For those few moments, I think she became a truly great pilot. We bounced, skidded along the waves and came to a halt. The shock was considerable, but she had the cabin door open in an instant.

‘Bring him with you,’ she called and went out fast on to the wing.

I leaned over, unfastened Dupont’s seat-belt, then shoved him head first through the door. She reached for him, slid off the wing into the water and pulled him after her. I went then and slipped off the wing. I remembered some statistics she’d shown me on landings at sea. Ninety seconds seemed to be about par for the course before the plane sank.

Denise was hanging on to Dupont as they floated away in their yellow life-jackets. As I followed, the plane sinking, she shouted, ‘Oh God, Tarquin’s in there.’

This requires a word of explanation. Tarquin was a bear, but a unique bear. When we found him sitting on a shelf in a Brighton antique shop, he was wearing the leather flying helmet, flying boots and blue flying overalls of the Second World War’s Royal Air Force. He also wore Royal Flying Corps Wings from the First World War. He had had an enigmatic look on his face, which was not surprising, the dealer informed us, because he had flown repeatedly in the Battle of Britain with his former owner, a fighter pilot. It was a romantic story, but I tended to believe it, and I know my wife did, because he had the appearance of a bear who’d done things and been places. In any case, he’d become her mascot and flew with her frequently. There was no question of leaving him behind.

We’d placed him in the rear of the cabin, in a supermarket shopping bag, and I didn’t hesitate. I turned, reached for the handle of the rear cabin door, got it open and dragged out Tarquin in his bag.

‘Come on, old lad, we’re going for a swim,’ I said.

God, but it was cold, like acid eating into the bones and that, I knew, was the killer. You didn’t have long in the English Channel, as many RAF and Luftwaffe pilots had found to their cost.

I held on to Dupont and Tarquin, and she held on to me. ‘Great landing,’ I said. ‘Very impressive.’

‘Are we going to die?’ she demanded, in between gagging on sea water.

‘I don’t think so,’ I told her. ‘Not if you look over your shoulder.’

Which she did, and found an RNLI Tyne Class lifeboat emerging from the fog like some strange ghost. The crew were at the rail in yellow oilskins and orange life-jackets, as the boat coasted to a halt beside us and three men jumped into the water.

One old man stood out, as he leaned over the rail. He was in his eighties obviously, white-haired and bearded, and when he spoke, it was that same strong voice that we’d heard on the radio. Zec Acland. ‘By God, you brought it off, girl.’

‘So it would appear,’ Denise called.

They hauled us into the boat – and then the strangest thing happened. Acland looked at the soaked bear in my arms, a look of bewilderment on his face. ‘Dear God, Tarquin. Where did you get him?’

Denise and I sat on a bench in the main cabin, blankets around us, and drank tea from a thermos flask while two crew members worked on Dupont, who lay on the floor. Zec Acland sat on the bench opposite, watching. He took out an old silver flask, reached over and poured it into our mugs.

‘Rum,’ he said. ‘Do you good.’ At that moment, another man entered, black-haired, energetic, a younger version of Acland. ‘This is my boy, Simeon, cox of this boat, the Lady Carter.’

Simeon said, ‘It’s good to see you people in one piece. Makes it worthwhile.’

RNLI crews being unpaid volunteers, I could imagine how he felt. One of the two crew members kneeling beside Dupont fastened an oxygen mask over the Frenchman’s face and looked up. ‘He’s still with us, but it’s not good.’

‘There’s a Navy Sea King helicopter landing at Cold Harbour right about now,’ Simeon Acland said. ‘Take you people to civilization in no time.’

I glanced at Denise, who made a face, so I said, ‘Frankly, it’s been one hell of a day. Our friend Dupont needs a hospital, that’s obvious, but do you think there’s a chance my wife and I could stay overnight?’

Simeon laughed. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. My Dad, here, is publican at the Hanged Man in the village. Usually has a room or two available.’ He turned and saw the very wet bear on the bench beside his father. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s Tarquin,’ Zec Acland said.

A strange expression settled on Simeon’s face. ‘You mean –? Dear God, you weren’t lying, you old bugger. He really existed. All these years, I thought you just made it up.’ He picked Tarquin up and water poured out. ‘He’s soaked.’

‘Not to worry,’ Zec Acland said. ‘He’ll dry out. He’s been wet before.’

It was all very intriguing, and I was just about to take it further when my wife had a severe bout of seasickness, due to swallowing so much water. I followed her example only minutes later, but we were both back to normal by the time we rounded a promontory and saw an inlet on the bay beyond, a wooded valley above.

There was a grey stone manor house in the trees, no more than two or three dozen cottages, a quay, a few fishing boats moored. The Lady Carter eased into the quay, two or three fishermen came forward and caught the thrown lines, the engines stopped and then there was only the quiet, the fog and pouring rain.

In the near distance, we heard a sudden roaring, and Simeon said, ‘That’ll be the helicopter. Better get him up there.’ He nodded at Dupont.

His father said, ‘Good lad. I’ll see to these two. Hot baths in order. Decent dinner.’ He picked up Tarquin.

I said, ‘And an explanation. We’d love that.’

‘You’ll have it,’ he said, ‘I promise you.’

They had Dupont on a stretcher by then, carried him out and we followed.

The whole place had been put together in the mid-eighteenth century by a Sir William Chevely, we were told later, the cottages, harbour, quay, everything. By repute, Chevely had been a smuggler, and the port had been a front for other things. The pub, the Hanged Man, had mullioned windows and timber inserts. It certainly didn’t look Georgian.

Zec took us in and found a motherly sort of woman behind the bar who answered to the name of Betsy and who fussed around Denise immediately, taking her off upstairs. I stayed in the old, beamed bar with Zec and sat in front of the roaring log fire and enjoyed a very large Bushmills Whiskey.

He sat Tarquin on a ledge near the fire. ‘Let him dry natural.’

He took out a tin of cigarettes and selected one. I said, ‘The bear is important to you?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He nodded. ‘And to another. More than you’ll ever know.’

‘Tell me.’

He shook his head. ‘Later, when that wife of yours is with us. Quite a girl, that one. Got a few years on you.’

‘Twenty-five,’ I said. ‘But after fifteen years together, we must have got something right.’

‘Take it day by day,’ he said. ‘I learned that in the war. A lot of dying in those days.’

‘Were you in the Navy?’

‘Only for the first year, then they pulled me back to be coxswain of the lifeboat. It was like a full-time occupation in those days. Ships torpedoed, pilots down in the Channel. No, I missed out on the real naval war.’

As I discovered later, this was a totally false impression of a man who had earned the Distinguished Service Medal during his year with the Navy, then the George Cross, the MBE and four gold medals from the RNLI during his extraordinary service to that fine institution.

I said, ‘The sign outside the inn shows a young man hanging upside down suspended by his ankle. That’s a tarot image, isn’t it? I think it means regeneration.’

‘Ah, well, it was Julie Legrande painted that back in the big war. Housekeeper of the manor and ran the pub. We’ve had to have it freshened over the years, but it’s still what Julie painted.’

‘French?’ I asked.

‘Refugee from the Nazis.’ He stood. ‘Time you had a bath too. What business would you be in?’

‘I’m a novelist,’ I said.

‘Would I know you?’ I told him and he laughed. ‘Well, I guess I do. You’ve helped me get through a bad night or two. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’ He stood and walked out.

I sat there thinking about it. Mystery piled on mystery here. The solution should be interesting.

We had dinner in the corner of the bar – sea bass, new potatoes, and a salad – and shared an ice-cold bottle of Chablis with Zec and Simeon. Denise and I both wore jeans and sweaters provided by the management. There were perhaps eight or more fishermen at the bar, three of them crew members of the lifeboat. The log fire burned brightly, rain rattled against the windows, and Tarquin steamed gently.

‘My dad used to tell me about Tarquin, the flying bear, when I was a kid,’ Simeon said. ‘I always thought it was a fairy story.’

‘So now you’ve finally learned the truth,’ Zec said. ‘You listen to me in future, boy.’ He turned to Denise. ‘Tell me where you got him.’

‘Antique shop in Brighton the other years,’ she said. ‘They told us he’d flown in the Battle of Britain with his owner, but they didn’t have any proof. I was always intrigued by the fact that besides RAF wings, he also wears Royal Flying Corps wings, and that was the First World War.’

‘Yes, well he would,’ Zec said. ‘That’s when he first went to war with the boys’ father.’

There was silence. Denise said carefully, ‘The boys’ father?’

‘A long time ago, 1917 in France, but never mind that right now.’ He nodded to Simeon. ‘Another bottle.’ Simeon went obediently to the bar and Zec said, ‘I last saw Tarquin in 1944. On his way to occupied France. Then all these years later, he turns up on a shelf in an antique shop in Brighton.’

He opened his tin, took out a cigarette and my wife said, ‘Could I join you?’ He gave her one and a light, and she leaned back. ‘Tarquin is an old friend, I think?’

‘You could say that. I took him out of the Channel once before. Nineteen forty-three. Went down in a Hurricane. Great fighters, those. Shot down more of the Luftwaffe than Spitfires did.’ He seemed to brood and as Simeon returned with the new bottle of Chablis, the old man said, ‘Harry, that was, or was it Max? We could never be sure.’

Simeon put the tray down. ‘You all right, Dad?’ There was concern in his voice.

‘Who, me?’ Zec Acland smiled. ‘Wasn’t there a book about some Frenchman who smelled or tasted something and the past all came flooding back?’

‘Marcel Proust,’ Denise said.

‘Well, that’s what that damned bear’s done for me. Brought it all back.’ There were tears in his eyes.

Simeon poured the wine. ‘Come on, Dad, drink up. Don’t upset yourself.’

‘My bedroom. The red box in the third drawer. Get it for me, boy.’

Simeon went obediently.

Zec put another log on the fire, and when Simeon returned with the box, Zec placed it on the table and opened it, revealing papers and photos.

‘Some of these you’ve seen, boy,’ he told Simeon. ‘And some you haven’t.’

He passed one of the pictures to Denise: the quay at Cold Harbour, a lifeboat moored, a much older model, Simeon on deck, a naval cap on the back of his head. Simeon and yet not Simeon.

‘I looked good then,’ Zec said.

Denise leaned across and kissed his cheek. ‘You still do.’

‘Now don’t you start what you can’t finish, girl.’ He fell about laughing, then passed photos across, one after another, all black and white.

The pub looked the same. There was a shot of an Army officer, engagingly ugly, about sixty-five from the look of him, steel-rimmed spectacles, white hair.

‘Brigadier Munro,’ Zec said. ‘Dougal Munro, Oxford professor before the war, then he joined the intelligence service. What was called Special Operations Executive. SOE. Churchill cooked that up. Set Europe ablaze, he said, and they did. Put secret agents into France, that sort of thing. They moved the local population out of Cold Harbour. Turned it into a secret base.’

He poured more wine and Simeon said, ‘You never told me that, Dad.’

‘Because we and everyone else here had to sign the Official Secrets Act.’ He shook out some more photos. A woman with Brigadier Munro. ‘That was Julie Legrande. As I said, housekeeper at the manor and ran the pub.’ There was another picture with Munro and an officer, a captain with a ribbon for the MC, a stick in one hand. ‘That was Jack Carter, Munro’s aide. Left his leg at Dunkirk.’

There were others, and then he came to a large brown envelope. He hesitated, then opened it. ‘Official Secrets Act. What the hell. I’m eighty-eight years old.’

If the photos before had been interesting, these were astonishing. One of them showed an airstrip with a Junkers 88S night fighter, the German cross plain on the fuselage, a swastika on the tailplane. The mechanic wore black Luftwaffe overalls. To one side was a Fieseler Storch spotter plane. There were two hangars behind.

‘What on earth is this?’ I asked.

‘The airstrip up the road. Yes, Cold Harbour. Night flights to France, that sort of thing. You foxed the enemy by being the enemy.’

‘Not too healthy if they caught you, I should have thought,’ Denise observed.

‘Firing-squad time if they did. Of course, they also operated RAF stuff like this.’ He passed her another photo. ‘Lysander. Ugly beast, but they could land and take off in a ploughed field.’

Another photo showed the Lysander, an officer and a young woman. He wore an American uniform, the bars of a lieutenant-colonel, and a string of medal ribbons. I could make out the DSO and the DFC, but the really fascinating fact was that on the right breast of his battledress blouse were RAF wings.

‘Who was he?’ I asked.

His reply was strange as he examined the photo. ‘Harry, I think, or maybe Max, I could never be sure.’

There it was again, that same comment. Simeon looked as bewildered as I did. I was about to ask what he meant, when Denise said, ‘And the young woman?’

‘Oh, that’s Molly – Molly Sobel, Munro’s niece. Her mother was English, her father an American general. Clever girl. A doctor. Trained in England before the war and worked in London during the Blitz. Used to fly down from London with Munro when a doctor was needed. It was all secret, you see.’

He seemed to have gone away to some private place of his own. We said nothing. The fire crackled, rain battered the window, the men at the bar talked in a low murmur.

Simeon said, ‘You all right, Dad?’

‘Never better, but better I’ll be with a large rum in me. I’m cutting loose a burden tonight, a secret nurtured over the years.’ He shook a fist at Tarquin. ‘All your fault, you damn bear.’

Simeon got up and went to the bar. Tarquin, still slightly steaming, sat there, enigmatic to the end.

Simeon, obviously concerned said, ‘Look, Dad, I don’t know what this is about, but maybe it’s a bit much for you.’

Again, it was Denise who cut in, leaning forward and putting her hand on Zec’s. ‘No, leave him, Simeon, he needs to talk, I think.’

He clasped her hand strongly and smiled. ‘By God, I said you were a woman of parts.’ He seemed to straighten.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘The pilot, the American, Harry or Max, you said?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Which doesn’t make sense.’

‘Dear God, girl, all the sense in the world.’ He leaned back, laughing, then opened another envelope from the box. ‘Special these. Very, very special.’

They were large prints and once again in black and white. The first was of an RAF flight lieutenant standing against a Hurricane fighter. It was the same man we’d seen earlier in American uniform.

‘Yank in the RAF,’ Zec said. ‘There were a few hundred before America joined the war at the end of ’41, after Pearl Harbor.’

‘He looks tired,’ Denise said and handed the photo back.

‘Well, he would. That was taken in September 1940 during the Battle of Britain just after he got his second DFC. He flew for the Finns in their war with the Russians. Got some fancy medal from them and when that caved in, he got to England and joined the RAF. They were funny about Yanks at that time, America being neutral, but some clerk put Harry down as a Finn, so they took him.’

‘Harry?’ Denise said gently.

‘Harry Kelso. He was from Boston.’ He took another large print out, Kelso in American uniform again. ‘Nineteen forty-four, that.’

The medals were astonishing. A DSO and bar, a DFC and two bars, the French Croix de Guerre, the Legion of Honour, the Finnish Gold Cross of Valour.

I said, ‘This is incredible. I mean, I’ve a special interest in the Second World War and I’ve never even heard of him.’

‘You wouldn’t. Thanks to that clerk, he was in the records as a Finn for quite some time and, as I said, there were reasons. The Official Secrets Act.’

‘But why?’ Denise demanded.

Zec Acland took another photo from the envelope and put it on the table, the show-stopper of all time.

‘Because of this,’ he said.

The photo was in colour and showed Kelso once again in uniform, only this time, that of the Luftwaffe. He wore flying boots and baggy, comfortable trousers in blue-grey with large map pockets. The short flying blouse with yellow collar patches gave him a dashing look. He wore his silver pilot’s badge on the left side, an Iron Cross First Class above it, a Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves at his throat.

‘But I don’t understand,’ Denise said.

‘It’s quite simple,’ Zec Acland told her. ‘Munro gave me that. The other photos, the Yank in the RAF? That was Harry. This is the Yank in the Luftwaffe, his twin brother, Max. American father and German mother, a baroness. So Max, being the eldest by ten minutes, was Baron Max von Halder. The Black Baron, the Luftwaffe called him.’ He put the photos away. ‘I’ll tell you what I can, if you like.’ He smiled. ‘Make a good story for you.’ He smiled again. ‘Not that anyone would believe it.’

By the time he’d finished, the bar was empty, Betsy locking the door after the last customers and bringing us tea on a tray without a word. Simeon, I think, was as astonished as Denise and I were.

Again, it was Denise who said, ‘Is that it?’

‘Of course not, girl.’ He smiled. ‘Lots of pieces in the jigsaw missing. I mean, the German end of things. Top secret there too. Can’t help you there.’ He turned to me. ‘Still, a smart chap like you might know where to pull a few strings.’

‘A possibility,’ I said.

‘Well, then.’ He stood up. ‘I’m for bed and Simeon’s wife will wonder what he’s about.’ He kissed Denise on the cheek. ‘Sleep well, girl, you deserve it.’

He went out. Simeon nodded and followed. We sat there by the fire, not speaking, and then Denise said, ‘I’ve just thought. You served in Germany for a while in the Army. You mentioned those German relatives from years ago. Didn’t you say one of them was in the police or something?’

‘In a manner of speaking. He was Gestapo.’

She