Flashman and the Third Reich (Flashback Book 3) by Paul Moore

Author:Paul Moore [Moore, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-29T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 41

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Except at about three in the morning the phone rang. It was Hamilton to tell me he wasn’t coming. Some technical problem apparently according to the Swedes[186]. Saved from the gallows for another day at least I went out into the clear night and stared at the stars. It was the 1st May. After half an hour of concentrated staring I went back to bed to stare some more. Sleep was a rare commodity at this time.

Looking back now from the safety of old age it should have been a pleasant interlude. I was away from the war, which was still going badly as I recall, particularly in North Africa which was pretty much the only theatre where the Army was fighting. They did manage to take over some places in Ethiopia although the significance of that escaped me then and still does now. Churchill didn’t see it that way of course. He kept wittering on in the Commons about the Americans supplying us and the Germans hadn’t invaded so that meant we had to win in the end although it would be pretty grim for a long time or something like that. Personally, I thought he sounded a little desperate.

And then it came. Saturday the tenth of May. The phone rang. I can’t remember the time, but it must have been late afternoon or even early evening.

“He’s coming. Definitely.”

That was it. I leapt into action. I went outside with a glass of whisky, medicinal I assure you, had a smoke, then came back inside and picked up the phone to Turnhouse. Having made the now familiar arrangement for a fuel bowser to come over, I went and checked the lights again, looked at the drop tanks nestling in their boxes then returned to the house to wait for act two in the drama.

Somewhere over the North Sea was a lone Me110 following a radio beam towards Scotland. Things were about to hot up. I was waiting by the phone at Dungavel. Hamilton was waiting by the phone at Turnhouse. Kent was waiting by the phone in a shack up the estate road. Northumberland was waiting by the phone at Alnwick.

What I didn’t know was that there were quite a few others also waiting by their phones for something to happen. Not all of them wanted the same things to happen though.

The phone rang at Turnhouse. Obviously I wasn’t aware of this immediately, but I note it here because it triggered a number of events, the first of which was to make me jump out of my skin when Hamilton called me.

“Fifteen minutes.” He put the phone down. I shivered, took a few deep breaths to steady myself, grabbed my coat and went outside.

Back at Turnhouse, Hamilton had contacted the local anti-aircraft units and warned them about an aircraft passing overhead telling them they were not to fire on it. Radar units had also contacted him with reports of an incoming lone raider or small raid which he had acknowledged and ignored.

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