The Human Front, page 5
I waded out and moved on. My ankle would have hurt if it hadn't been so cold. The light brightened and quite suddenly I was below the cloud layer, looking down at the road and the railway line at the bottom of the glen, and off to my right and to the west, a patch of meadow on the edge of a small loch with a crannog in the middle. Three houses, all widely separated, were visible up and down the glen. We knew who lived there, and they knew we knew. There would be no trouble from them. Just ahead of us was a ruined barn, a rectangle of collapsed drystone walling within which rowans grew and rusty sheets of fallen corrugated iron roofing sheltered nettles and brambles.
We'd come down at the right place. A couple of hundred metres to the left, a railway bridge crossed the road at an awkward zigzag bend. The bridge had been mined the previous night; the detonation cable should be snaking back to the ruined barn. A train was due in an hour and ten minutes. Our job was to bring down the bridge, giving the train just enough time to stop--civilian casualties weren't necessary for this operation. We intended to levy a revolutionary tax on the passengers and any valuable goods in transit before turning them out on the road and sending the empty train over where the bridge had been, thus blocking the road and railway and creating an ambush chokepoint for any soldiers or cops who sent to the scene. Booby-trapping the wreckage would be gravy, if we had the time.
I waved forward next man behind me, and he did likewise, and one by one we all emerged from the fog and hunkered down behind the lip of a shallow gully. Andy and Gordon were there, they'd been with me since the street-fighting days in Greenock. Of the others, three--Sandy and Mike and Neil--were also from Clydeside and four were local (from our point of view--in their own eyes Ian from Strome and Murdo from Torridon and Donald from Ullapool and Norman from Inverness were almost as distinct from each other in their backgrounds as they were from ours.)
"Tormod," I said to Norman, "you go and check out the bothy there, give us a wave if the electrician has done his job right. Two if he hasn't. Lie low and wait for the signal."
"There's no signal."
"The fucking whistle. My whistle."
"Oh, right you are."
Crouching, he ran to the ruin, and waved once after a minute. I sent Andy half a mile up the line to the nearest cutting, with a walkie-talkie, ready to confirm that the train had passed, and deployed the others on both sides of the bridge and both sides of the road. Apart from watching for any premature trouble, and being ready to raid the train when it had stopped, they were to stop any civilian vehicles that might chance to go under the bridge at the wrong moment. A light drizzle began to fall, and a front of heavier rain was marching up the glen from the west. Still about five miles distant, but with a good blow behind it, the opening breezes of which were already chilling my wet legs.
I had just settled myself and the Bren and the walkie-talkie behind a boulder on the hillside overlooking the bridge, with half an hour to spare before the train was due to pass at 12:11, when I heard the sound of a train far up the glen to the east. I couldn't see it, none of us could, except maybe Andy. I called him up.
"Passenger train," he said. "Wait a minute, it's got a couple of goods wagons at the back--shit, no! It's low-loaders! They've carrying two tanks!"
"Troop train," I guessed. "Maybe. Confirm when it passes."
"I can check it frae here wi the glasses."
He did, but still couldn't be certain.
Two minutes crawled by. The sound of the train filled the glen, or seemed to, until a sheep bleated nearby, startlingly loud. The radio crackled.
"Confirmed brown job," said Andy, just as the train emerged from the cutting and into view. It wasn't travelling very fast, maybe just over twenty miles per hour.
I had a choice. I could let this one pass, and continue with the operation, or I could seize this immensely dangerous chance to wreak far more havoc than we'd planned.
I watched the train pass below me, waited until the engine had crossed the bridge, and blew the whistle. Norman didn't hesitate. The blast came when the third carriage of the train was on the bridge. It utterly failed to bring the bridge down, but it threw that carriage upwards and sideways, off the rails. It ploughed through the bridge parapet and its front end crashed on to the road. The remaining four carriages concertina'd into its rear end. One of them rolled on to the embankment, the one behind that was derailed, and the two tank-transporting flatbeds remained on the track.
The engine, and the two front carriages, had by this time travelled a quarter of a mile further down the track, and were accelerating rapidly away. There was nothing that could be done about that. I opened fire at once on the wreck, raking the bursts along the carriage windows. The rest of the squad followed up, then, like myself, they must have ducked down to await return fire.
In the silence that followed the crash and the firing, other noises gradually became audible. Among the screams and yells from the wreckage were the shouts of command. Within seconds a spatter of rifle and pistol fire started up. I raised my head cautiously, watched for the flashes, and directed single shots from the Bren in their direction.
Silence again. Neil and Murdo reported in on the walkie-talkie from the other side of the track, and up ahead a bit. They'd each hit one or two attempts at rescue work or flight. We seemed to have the soldiers on the train pinned down. At the same time it was difficult for us to break cover ourselves. In any sustained exchange of fire we were likely to be the first to run out of ammunition, and then to be picked off as we ran.
This impasse was brought to an end after half an hour by a torrential downpour and a further descent of the clouds. The scheduled train, either cancelled or forewarned, hadn't arrived. Any cars arriving at the scene had backed off and turned away, unmolested by us. We regrouped by the roadside, west of the bridge, well within earshot of the carriage that had crashed on the road.
"This is murder," said Norman.
I was well aware of the many lives my decision had just ended or wrecked. I had no compunction about that, being even more aware of how many lives we had saved at the troops' destination.
"Seen any white flags, have you?" I snarled. "Until you do, we're still fighting."
"Only question is," said Andy, "do we pull back now while we're ahead?"
"There'll be rescue and reinforcement coming for sure," said Murdo. "The engine could come steaming back any minute, for one thing."
"They're probably overestimating us," I said, thinking aloud in the approved democratic manner. "I mean, who'd be mad enough to attack a troop train with ten men?"
We laughed, huddled in the pouring rain. The windspeed was increasing by the minute.
"There'll be no air support in this muck," said Sandy.
"All the same," I said, "our best bet is to pull out now, we have the chance and there's nothing more to--wait a minute. What about the tanks?"
"Can't do much damage to them," said Mike.
"Aye," I said, "but think of the damage we can do with them."
It was easy. It was ridiculously, pathetically, trivially easy. Four of us had National Service experience with tanks, so we split into two groups and after firing a few shots to keep the enemy's heads down we knocked the shackles off the chains and commandeered both tanks. They were fuelled and armed, ready for action. We crashed them off the sides of the flatbeds and drove them perilously down the steep slope to the road, shelled the train, drove under the bridge, shelled the train again, then shelled the bridge. Then we drove over the tracks and around the back of the now-collapsed bridge and a couple of miles up the road, and off to one side, and when the relief column arrived--a dozen troop trucks and four armoured cars--we started shelling that.
By midafternoon we'd inflicted hundreds of casualties and had the remaining troops and vehicles completely pinned down. Reinforcements from our side began to arrive, pouring fire from the ridges into the glen, raiding more weapons and ammunition from the train and the relief column; and then attacking its relief column. The battle of Glen Carron was turning into the biggest engagement of the war in the British Isles. The increasingly appalling weather was entirely to our advantage, although my squad, at least, were on the point of pneumonia from the soaking we'd got earlier.
The first we knew of the bomber's arrival was when we lost contact with the men on the ridge. A minute later, I saw through the periscope the other tank--a few hundred metres away at the time--take a direct hit. That erupting flash of earth and metal told me without a doubt that Gordon was dead, along with Ian, Mike, Sandy and Norman.
"Reverse reverse reverse!" I shouted.
Murdo slammed us into reverse gear and hit the accelerator, throwing me painfully forward as we shot up a slope and into a birch-screened gully. The tank lurched upward as the bomb missed us by about twenty metres, then crashed back down on its tracks.
Blood poured from my brow and lip.
"Everybody all right?" I yelled.
No reply. Silence. I looked down and saw Andy tugging my leg, mouthing and nodding. He pointed to his ears. I grimaced acknowledgement and looked again through the periscope and saw the bomber descend towards the road just across the glen from us, by one of the trapped columns. Five hundred metres away, and exactly level with us.
There was a shell in the chamber. I swivelled the turret and racked the gun as hearing returned through a raging ringing in my ears, just in time to be deafened again as I fired. My aim was by intuition, with no use of the sights, pure Zen like a perfect throw of a stone. I knew it was going to hit, and it did.
The bomber shot upwards, skimmed towards us, then fluttered down to settle athwart the river at the bottom of the glen, just fifty metres away and ten metres below us, lying there like a fucking enormous landmine in our path.
I poked Murdo's shoulder with my foot and he engaged the forward gear. Andy set up a bit of suppressing fire with the machine-gun. We slewed to a halt beside the bomber. I grabbed a Bren, threw open the hatch and clambered through and jumped down. My ears were still ringing. The wind was fierce, the rain an instant skin-soaking, the wind-chill terrible. Water poured off the bomber like sea off a surfacing submarine. There was a smell of peatbog and metal and crushed myrtle. Smoke drifted from a ragged notch in its edge, similar to the one on the crippled bomber I'd seen all those years ago.
I walked around the bomber, warily leaping past the snouts of machine-guns in its rim. With the Bren's butt I banged the hatch. The thing rang like a bell, even louder than my tinnitus.
The hatch opened. I stood back and levelled the Bren. A big visored helmet emerged, then long arms levered up a torso, and then the hips and legs swung up and out. The pilot slid down the side of the bomber and stood in front of me, arms raised high. Very slowly, the hands went to the helmet and lifted it off.
A cascade of blonde hair shook loose. The pilot was incredibly beautiful and she was about seven feet tall.
We left the tank sabotaged and blocking the road about five miles to the west, and took off into the hills. Through the storm and the gathering dusk we struggled to a lonely safe-house, miles from anywhere. Our prisoner was tireless and silent. Her flying-suit was dark green and black, to all appearances standard for an American pilot, right down to the badges. She carried her helmet and knotted her hair deftly at her nape. Her Colt .45 and Bowie knife she surrendered without protest.
The safe house was a gamekeeper's lodge, with a kitchen and a couple of rooms, the larger of which had a fireplace. Dry wood was stacked on the hearth. We started the fire and stripped off our wet clothes--all of our clothes--and hung them about the place, then one by one we retrieved dry clothes from the stash in the back room. The prisoner observed us without a blink, and removed her own flying-suit. Under it she was wearing a closer-fitting garment of what looked like woven aluminium, with tubes running under its surface. It covered a well-proportioned female body. Too well-proportioned, indeed, for the giant she was. She sprawled on the worn armchair by the fire and looked at us, still silent, and carefully untied her wet hair and let it fall down her back.
Murdo, Andy, Neil and Donald huddled in front of the fire. I stood behind them, holding the prisoner's pistol.
"Donald," I said, "you take the first look-out. You'll find oilskins in the back. Neil, make some tea, and give it to Donald first."
"Three sugars, if we have it," said Donald, getting up and padding through to the other room. Neil disappeared into the kitchen. Sounds of him fiddling with and cursing the little gas stove followed. The prisoner smiled, for the first time. Her pale features were indeed beautiful, but somewhat angular, almost masculine; her eyes were a distinct violet, and very large.
"Talk," I told her.
"Jodelle Smith," she said. "Flight-Lieutenant. Serial number ..." She rattled it off.
The voice was deep, for a woman, but soft, the American accent perfect. Donald gave her a baleful glare as he headed for the door and the storm outside it.
"All right," I said. "We are not signatories to the Geneva Convention. We do not regard you as a prisoner of war, but as a war criminal, an air pirate. You have one chance of being treated as a prisoner of war, with all the rights that go with that, and that is to answer all our questions. Otherwise, we will turn you over to the nearest revolutionary court. They're pretty biblical around here. They'll probably stone you to death."
I don't know how the lads kept a straight face through all that. Perhaps it was the anger and grief over the loss of our friends and comrades, the same feeling that came out in my own voice. I could indeed have wished her dead, but otherwise I was bluffing--there were no revolutionary courts in the region, and anyway our policy with prisoners was to disarm them, attempt to interrogate them, and turn them loose as soon as it was safe to do so.
The pilot sat silent for a moment, head cocked slightly to one side, then shrugged and smiled.
"Other bomber pilots have been captured," she said. "They've all been recovered unharmed." She straightened up in the chair, and leaned forward. "If you're not satisfied with the standard name, rank, and serial number, I'm happy to talk to you about anything other than military secrets. What would you like to know?"
I glanced at the others. I had never shared my father's story, or my own, with any of them, and I was glad of that now because the appearance of this pilot would have discredited it. Compared with what my father had described, she looked human. Compared with most people, she looked very strange.
"Where do you really come from?" I asked.
"Venus," she said.
The others all laughed. I didn't.
"What happened to the other kind of pilots?" I asked. I held out one hand about a metre above the ground, as though patting a child's head.
"Oh, we took over from the Martians a long time ago," she told us earnestly. "They're still involved in the war, of course, but they're not on the front line anymore. The Americans found their appearance disconcerting, and concealing them became too much of a hassle."
I glared down the imminent interruptions from my men.
"You're saying there are two alien species fighting on the American side?"
"Yes," she said. She laughed suddenly. "Greys are from Mars, blondes are from Venus."
"Total fucking cac," said Neil. "She's a Yank. They're always tall. Better food."
"Maybe she is," I said, "but she is not the kind of pilot I was expecting. And I've seen one of the other kind. My father saw it up close."
The woman's eyebrows went up.
"The Aird incident? 1964?"
I nodded.
"Ah," she said. "Your father must be ... Dr. Malcolm Donald Matheson, and you are his son, John."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"I've read the reports."
"This is insane," said Andy. "It's some kind of trick, it's a trap. We shouldnae say another word, or listen tae any."
"There's eggs and bacon and tatties in the kitchen," I said. "See if you can make yourself useful."
He glowered at me and stalked out.
"But he's right, you know," I said, loud enough for Andy to overhear. "We are going to have to send you up a level or two, for interrogation, as soon as the storm passes. Will you still talk then?"
She spread her hands. "On the same basis as I've spoken to you, yes. No military secrets."
"Aye, just disinformation," said Murdo. "You're not telling us that it wouldn't be a military secret if the Yanks really were getting help from outer space? But making people believe it, now, that would be worth something. Christ, it's enough of a job fighting the Americans. Who would fight the fucking Martians?"
He leaned back and laughed harshly.
The woman who called herself Jodelle gazed at him with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
"There is that argument," she said. "There is the other argument, that if the Communists could claim the real enemy was not human they would unite even more people against the Allied side, and that the same knowledge would create all kinds of problems--political, religious, philosophical--for Allied morale. So far, the latter argument has prevailed."
My grip tightened on the pistol.
"You are talking about psychological warfare," I said. "And you are doing it, right here, now. Shut the fuck up."
She gave us a pert smile and shrug.
"No more talking to her," I said.
My own curiosity was burning me inside, but I knew that to pursue the conversation--with the mood here as it was--really would be demoralising and confusing. I got everybody busy guarding the prisoner, cleaning weapons, laying the table. Andy brought through plate laden with steaming, fragrant thick bacon and fried eggs and boiled potatoes. I relieved Donald on the outside watch before taking a bite myself, and prowled around in the howling wet dark with my M-16 under the oilskin cape and my belly grumbling. The window blinds were keeping the light in all right, and only the wind-whipped smoke from the chimney could betray our presence. I kept my closest attention to downwind, where someone might smell it. There was no chance of anyone seeing it.
