Operation Afterlight, page 26
He steadied himself with one hand and forced his dizziness from his face. “Nurse Anita?”
She started at the sight of him, so close. “You alright, Johnny? Doctor said you should—”
“Have you seen Kittens since last night, Ma’am? Or spoken to him?”
“No,” she stammered. “I tried calling the squadron, but the exchange said all the lines were down.”
Grant turned around, the movement almost enough to topple him. Placing one hand on the wall, he leaned carefully down to look beside his bed. “Where are my clothes?”
“Gone,” Anita said. “We had to cut them off you when they brought you in.”
“I’ll need a new uniform, then.” He plucked at the front of his cheap hospital pyjamas. “I can’t leave wearing these,” he added under his breath. He took a deep breath, warding off another wave of nausea, this one born not just of physical exertion and pain, but from new and certain knowledge. The abrupt end to Anita’s date and the closure of the phone lines to Charney Breach could only mean one thing. They had recalled 465 Squadron. The next stage of the operation was on.
“Johnny,” Anita said hesitantly, “you’re not cleared to leave yet.”
Durban had replaced him, no doubt, but that didn’t matter. He was still part of 465 Squadron.
“Get back into bed, love,” Claire said. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea. If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll tuck you in.” She gave him a lascivious grin.
He could do that, he knew. Go back to bed. Watch the lazy passage of the clouds through his window, and not through the Perspex of the cockpit, wondering what else lurked up there. No one would think any less of him.
Well, almost no one.
“Get Doctor Carpenter,” he said. Both nurses blanched slightly at the command. They weren’t used to it. Not from him. They figured him all shy smiles and polite requests and had probably forgotten he was an officer.
He didn’t hold it against them. He’d forgotten too. But that changed now.
Giving Claire his best smile, he added, “please.” She blushed and glanced at Anita, waiting for her colleague’s nod before hurrying away.
Anita shook her head. “Johnny, it won’t matter. Look at the state of you. You can hardly stand. The doctor won’t clear you to leave.”
He believed her.
“You know,” she said, “Mark thinks the world of you. He asked me to keep a close eye on you. Said you’d probably ask to get out of here early. I guess he was right.”
“He’s a good man,” Grant said. Meaning it, even while he was simply stalling her while his mind fumbled through his nausea, trying to come up with a plan.
“He really is.” She beamed.
“Hopefully, he likes me enough to invite me to the wedding.”
“Of course,” she said, then her cheeks coloured. “Well, he has to get around to asking first.”
“He will,” Grant said. “I reckon he’s crazy about you. How could he not be?”
More colour, turning her cheeks an appealing shade of pink. Kittens was a lucky man, Grant thought. They would be happy together when the war was over.
But the war wasn’t over. Not yet.
Grant sighed and let his body sag. “Sorry, Anita,” he said. “I know you’re right. I just got a little excited, that’s all.” He glanced at the bed. “Maybe I’ll take a nap. Can you find Doctor Carpenter and tell him not to bother? I’d hate to waste his time.”
“That’s ok,” she said brightly. “He understands. You’re not his first patient to ask to leave before they are ready. He won’t mind coming and chatting with you.”
Grant stifled a curse as he glanced down the corridor. No sign of Claire and the doctor. Hopefully, she was struggling to find him or had got distracted on the way there. Either way, now he had a time limit.
He let Anita help him into the bed, exaggerating his exhaustion, hiding the fact that adrenaline had already won the battle with exhaustion, at least for a few moments. “I feel like I’ve just gone fifteen rounds for the championship,” he said, truthfully. “Please, would you get me some more water?” He motioned to the half-empty jug by his bedside.
She looked at him. Eyes inscrutable. He blinked, letting his eyes half close. Pretending that sleep was close. She didn’t look away.
She knew.
But she nodded anyway. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be back in one minute.”
He watched her walk away, telling himself that he must have imagined the emphasis she had placed on the last word, but sure he hadn’t. Gaze glued to every slow step, he waited until she had turned the corner, jug in hand. Then he moved.
Sixty seconds, she had promised him.
He was up in less than two, ignoring the dizziness. He slid his feet into the hospital slippers, knowing they would give him almost no grip if he needed to run, not that he could run if he wanted to. Walking as fast as he dared, he headed the opposite way from the nurses, half-expecting to hear Claire or Doctor Carpenter’s shouted challenge from behind him. It didn’t come.
Fifty seconds. He kept his eyes firmly forward, refusing to meet those of the other patients. He sensed a couple of them watching him with quizzical expressions. Most ignored him, sleeping or lost in their own pain.
Forty seconds. He was in the hallway now. This was about as far as they’d let him come since he arrived at the hospital, short walks with a nurse by his side, just enough to prevent muscle atrophy and bed sores. His legs felt unsteady beneath him. Like they weren’t his, but merely borrowed for the occasion. It wasn’t too late to go back. This was a stupid idea.
He kept moving, letting his momentum drive him forward.
Ahead, two doctors he didn’t recognise hurried towards him, shoulder to shoulder, talking to each other, their eyes on him. Grant’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out anything they might be saying. He glanced left and right. No fire escapes.
No exits at all.
The doctors split now, forming a wider barrier ahead of him. An odd prickling sensation spread up his back and neck. Like they were closing the net on him from behind, too. He fought the urge to turn around. He didn’t want to see the disappointment on Doctor Carpenter’s face, or Claire’s knowing look.
His hand curled into a fist. He looked at it, surprised at himself. Right now, he was in for a stern talking to, an admonishment for trying to leave the hospital without permission. He doubted it would be any more formal than that. Punch a doctor and that became a court martial, never mind the nobility of his reasons. That wasn’t the major reason he forced the hand to relax and open, though. The doctors had their reasons, too, and Grant would not hit a good man for doing his job.
The two doctors were barely three yards from him now, still closing, and Grant smiled at the thought of punching anyone. If he was only half as weak as he felt, they wouldn’t even notice the blow.
Splitting further, the doctors passed on either side of him. One ignored him completely, still talking about another patient, some other condition. The other doctor returned the smile that still hung on Grant’s face. Then they were gone.
Grant turned and saw them hurrying on. There were no suspicious looks back. No Carpenter. No nurses.
Twenty seconds left.
He leaned against the wall, checking the lay of the land, allowing himself three deep breaths, just another recovering patient out for a recuperative stroll. This junction was the last bit of the hospital he recognised. The signs above told him everything he needed with cold, medical precision. Surgery. Wards 1-4. Wards 5-8. Burns. Cafeteria. The last two were side by side, like they belonged together. He forced away the foolish grin he felt at that. Delirious, he told himself. Ten seconds left.
Exit.
He ignored that one. Whether Nurse Anita was being helpful or merely gullible, it wouldn’t be long before they would look for him, and the first thing they would seal off would be the front entrance. Instead, he turned left, letting the white-washed wall support his weight a little, careful that it wasn’t too obvious. Sunlight poured through the windows on the other side of the corridor, revealing trees and fields rich with that distinctly vivid shade of green that only England seemed to possess. He glimpsed the roof of an ambulance, one floor down, static but poised in expectancy of the next call out. That made him think of the squadron again, the looming mission, and he felt a different kind of nausea at the thought of how many ambulances would be needed when the survivors made it home.
He reached the fire escape at the end of the corridor. He was out of time.
No shouts of alarm. Not yet. No wailing sirens. He wondered what they would sound like. He’d heard air raid warnings before. Something similar, he supposed. Maybe less strident, so as not to upset the patients who behaved and did as their doctors told them. Halfway down the cold and dimly lit staircase, his nostrils caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. He froze, then flinched as an orderly threw open the fire door below him with a crash of metal on brick. Their eyes met.
The orderly tossed a smouldering cigarette butt back out of the open door, muttered an apology, and ran past him up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Last chance to turn around.
Catching the door before it closed, Grant stumbled out into the morning air. Nothing fresh about it. The whiff of cigarettes became almost a miasma.
Five men and a woman stood or sat around the entranceway, smoke rising from them, the pavement below their feet littered with dozens of abandoned cigarettes, all drawn down to the last gasp and beyond. Four were patients. The other two worked here – he vaguely recognised the nurse – but neither showed any more interest in him than the patients.
Forcing a smile of greeting that was politely ignored, Grant walked past, fumbling in the pocket of his pyjama shirt as if reaching for his own cigarettes. He leaned against the wall, tilting his body so that they wouldn’t notice that his hands were empty, enjoying the support that the stones offered his exhausted frame. He took a deep breath. Slowly, feigning interest in something seen or heard, he walked around the corner of the building, out of their sight. No one called or followed. They probably hadn’t even noticed he’d gone.
Now he blinked, looking straight towards the morning sun. He was on some sort of service access road by the back side of the hospital. Staff parking, rubbish bins placed neatly for pickup, two more ambulances waiting with their back doors flung open to reveal empty interiors. The scent of cooking drifted across the tarmac. His stomach grumbled in approval, not caring that the food smelt better than it had ever tasted. Ahead, a car passed by on the main road, and Grant saw a bus stop. Not an option, he knew, not in his hospital slippers and pyjamas. Besides, who knew how long the bus would take to arrive? He certainly couldn’t risk tarrying in the open long enough to find out.
No sirens yet, he thought. Doctor Carpenter and his staff were obviously closing the net in silence, choosing not to warn him they were coming. Clever, he thought. They were probably already watching the bus stop.
Suddenly cold, he crossed the service road and tottered away from the bus stop, heading further towards the back of the hospital, where the fields pressed close. There had to be some sort of footpath, he thought, trying to remember his maps, how far it was from the little hospital symbol back to Charney Breach.
Nine miles. Maybe ten.
He could do that, he told himself. He used to walk that far to school every morning as a child, carrying his schoolbooks over one thin shoulder. Easy.
His legs buckled.
A car pulled up next to him. He hadn’t heard it coming over his own gasping breaths. A Hillman Minx. Official looking. The passenger door opened, flung wide from within. A shadowy figure stared at him.
Well, Grant thought, at least they would let him sleep while he waited for the court martial.
“Are you getting in?” That voice. Familiar. “Or are you going to waste more of my time?”
Grant shook his head. It made no sense. “Sir?”
“Don’t stand there gawping,” Squadron Leader Barton snapped.
Numbly, Grant gripped the door frame for support and fell into the passenger seat. He pulled the door closed, marvelling at how sweaty his fingers felt. How the hands shook. “Sir, they called you?”
“Who?”
“The hospital staff.” Grant saw the confusion on the Australian’s face. “They are looking for me,” he confided. “That’s why I went out of the back. They sealed off the main entrance.”
“Mate, I just came from the main entrance,” Barton said. “No one has sealed off anything. I spoke to that nurse Kittens is seeing, the lucky bastard. She told me you’d wandered away from your bed, and I got bored waiting for you to come back. I thought I’d do one last lap of the hospital before I headed back. What the bloody hell were you planning to do? Walk back to the airfield? In those bloody slippers?”
“Of course not,” Grant said, letting his head slump back against the window.
Barton gave him a long look. “You know what’s going on?”
Grant nodded. It was all he could muster.
“I won’t ask if they have cleared you to fly. Any fool can see they haven’t. Question is, are you going to do it anyway?”
Not too late, Grant thought. Despite the cloud cover, the sky looked pretty from here. Safe. He should be in bed. He could be in bed. Resting. Healing. By the time the doctors cleared him to fly, the war would most likely be over. No more throwing up his guts as the fear tore through him. No more fighters or flak, no more of the countless other ways to die.
He thought of Durban. Finny. Kittens. The man next to him.
He knew what his mother would say. Listen to the doctors. Listen to your orders. He could already see the relief in her eyes.
But he wouldn’t see it. Because if he said no now, he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eyes ever again.
He took a deep breath. Saw Barton’s approving nod even before he answered the question.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Pillau, 16 April
Someone moaned in the darkness.
Stahl barely noticed. The dull background hum of human suffering never really faded in this place. Pain. Thirst. The agonized passing of a loved one in the embrace of helpless arms. Sometimes the noise disappeared beneath the crump of Russian artillery, falling in lethal sheets beyond the thick concrete walls of the overcrowded bomb shelter, but it never truly went away.
With great care, he tilted his wrist.
He didn’t make the effort out of concern for disturbing the refugee who had lay slumped against his shoulder. He was pretty sure the man had died a few hours earlier, his soft snoring giving way to a single ragged gasp, then silence. Stahl figured there were probably five hundred people crammed into the shelter, huddled together for warmth or the simple companionship of shared suffering, and likely fifty or more of those were dead. The mourning period in this place was short. Pillau had become the worst place in the world. Heaven, Hell, or oblivion, at least the dead had gone somewhere else.
No, Stahl gave little thought to the surrounding others, but even slight movements could send paroxysms of pain shooting through his body.
In the dim light, his watch said half past ten. Morning. At night, the darkness pressed even closer. As for the date, that was beyond him to guess. Time had become a blur.
He had found a medic to attend the gunshot wound - young enough to be overawed by the SS uniform, too young to have the skills to do much more than stop the bleeding. If the wound didn’t become infected, and that was a big if, Stahl was reasonably confident he would survive it. Not now. The shoulder was probably beyond saving, muscle and nerves destroyed by the bullet’s impact. He would be a semi-cripple for life. The SS had made him a precision killing machine, and the SS had broken him. The symmetry of it did not displease him.
Crucially, the overworked young medic had no time to ask questions. If he had noticed that a German bullet and not the Russian shrapnel that Stahl had claimed had caused the wound, he had given no sign. Simply moved on to the next patient in a line that stretched halfway down the bomb-ravaged street. Stahl had thanked him and moved on, sticking to the shadows, avoiding soldiers and civilians alike until he had found his way into the Stygian embrace of this overstuffed bunker.
Twice, early on, SS patrols had come in, boots ringing on the steps, flashlights playing over the pale faces and lumpen shapes. Once, the light had passed right over him, and he had placed his hand on the pistol hidden beneath his clothes. Except they weren’t really his clothes. The SS soldiers were looking for a disgraced Obersturmbannführer, not a civilian in filthy overalls dragged from the rotting corpse of their former owner.
There had been no patrols for two days or more. They probably thought him dead. Or there were simply no soldiers left to patrol, not when they had pushed every man able to hold a weapon to the collapsing front line, hoping to hold back the Russians long enough for a few more shiploads of civilians to escape.
The bunker shook, the sound of the shell’s impact like a clap of distant thunder. Stahl felt the caress of concrete dust descending in flurries and thought again of the ships.
He had known from the start that his message to the UK had likely not got through. Even if someone had received it, what did it matter? The city was a ruin, a ravaged corpse crawled over by writhing maggots desperate to escape. Even if he hadn’t ditched his uniform, he could not have used his rank and credentials to locate the warehouse where they kept the Götterdämmerung. They would shoot him on sight.
Loading Area D3, he remembered dimly from Schnellinger’s records. Or maybe it was D4. It seemed like weeks ago now. It didn’t matter. They didn’t exactly signpost such things.
It didn’t matter because his message hadn’t got through.
It didn’t matter because it had been days now, and Götterdämmerung was probably already loose.
It was funny, Stahl thought. When Schnellinger’s bullet had struck him, he had been sure he would die, but that medic with the childlike face had done a better job than Stahl could ever have hoped. Right now, ships were still leaving Pillau. After Hildesheim, after Canaris, he had wanted to die, but staring death in the face had a certain ability to focus the mind.
