The Man who Missed the War (52 page)

Philip found himself looking for a moment straight into a broad, tanned face with a short brown moustache, It was a face that radiated humour, kindliness and great personality. When the General spoke, his voice was slow, deep and full of quiet confidence. Then, at something that the little pointed-nosed Commander-in-Chief said he gave a grand, infectious laugh.

‘That man is dangerous,’ said Zadok in his reedy voice from behind Philip’s head. ‘He is not only very brave and very clever, but he knows how to win the confidence of his men. I have kept my eye on him for a long time. He was one of the original members of the Joint Planning Staff that now work in the Offices of the War Cabinet. Very early in the war, when Britain had no airborne forces, he was among the first to realise the enormous possibilities of this new arm. He managed to get away from the War Office and has played a leading part in the training and development of the parachutists and glider-borne troops. It was his division, the Sixth Airborne, that went into Sicily. He has now been chosen to play a key rôle in the invasion. Whenever you pick him up listen carefully to all he says and see that it is included in your report.’

When Philip told Gloria the Atzlantean plans to counter the invasion, in the privacy of their room that night, he also told her of the other, greater battle which was preparing between the powers of Darkness and the powers of Light.

‘ ’Tis no surprise to me at all,’ she said, when he had done. ‘If
the Good God has thought fit to rob us of our babies and send us to this hellish place for some purpose of his own, ‘twould be giving ourselves airs to think that we’re the only ones receiving the great guidance.’

‘Yes, that must be so,’ Philip agreed with a smile. ‘Although I must confess the idea had never occurred to me before. D’you really think, though, that at this time lots of people are seeing visions and dreaming of dead friends who set them on a certain course as the Canon did with us?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Her blue eyes were very serious. ‘But if any proof that some such thing were going on were needed just look at the Mulberries.’

They had literally been looking at the Mulberries at the same time as Admiral Tennant, who was responsible for them, had been doing two days before. This code-word covered the greatest secret of the war. It had first been laid down that a prime essential to a successful invasion was the speedy seizure of a port in order that heavy equipment could still be got ashore, even if the weather suddenly deteriorated. Then various people had expressed the opinion that the Germans, knowing this, would concentrate all their toughest units round the ports, and thus the Allies might find it impossible to capture one during those all-important early days of the operation. The only alternative seemed to be to face the risk of going in over the beaches. But suddenly the idea had been advanced that the Allies should build two great ports in Britain, tow them over to France in pieces, and plant them on chosen strips of coast. The scores of huge floating piers—many of which were over two hundred feet in length and forty feet broad and deep—now lying along the south coast of England, were the result. If the Mulberries proved successful the unloading of the ships supplying the invading forces would be able to continue, whatever the weather.

‘Of course,’ said Philip, ‘I see what you mean. Bad weather in the English Channel in June is almost unheard of, so some outside entity, such as the Canon was to us, must have put it into some living person’s head that the chance that the weather might be rough was much greater than most people thought, and therefore every possible precaution
must
be taken.’

‘Yes, and more than that, Boy. The Blessed Saints must have
had a high old time persuading the old diehards that these newfangled things, with the mountain of work they entailed, were both necessary and practical. Just think now what Zadok told us of the labour that went into the making of those Mulberries.’

Philip did think. He remembered Zadok saying weeks before that every engineering firm of any size in the whole of Britain had been called in to help. Millions of tons of steel and concrete had been required, thousands of labourers; and so many tugs would be needed to tow these huge piers across the Channel that there were not enough in all the ports of the United Kingdom, so that further fleets of sea-going tugs were now being brought from North Africa and the United States. To do the job at all production had had to be stopped on scores of other items of urgently needed war equipment, many of them of the highest priority. And all this for what? To attempt the seemingly impossible. To try out something that never even had been contemplated in the history of the world before. No less than the prefabrication of two huge harbours in which many thousands of tons of supplies could be unloaded in a single day; and their towage over nearly a hundred miles of open sea to a hostile shore where they were to be fitted together and made serviceable in a matter of days in the very face of the enemy. And this mad scheme with all the gargantuan labour it entailed had been undertaken solely because the English Channel
might
become rough in midsummer.

As Philip drew Gloria’s head of flaming curls down on to his shoulder, he murmured: ‘Yes, darling. Such a scheme could never have got past all the conscientious but unimaginative people who would normally have opposed it, if there weren’t hundreds more like ourselves who are being inspired by those Great Powers who do not mean to see the Light perish from the world.’

The thought was a great comfort to them, yet, as they fell asleep, but for each other they still felt very much alone.

The weeks had slipped by, and May was now well advanced. Each day brought new evidence that the preparations for the Allies’ return to the Continent were nearing completion. Every harbour and every rivermouth from Harwich right round the South Coast to Avonmouth were packed with shipping in endless
variety, great and small according to the anchorages. Huge areas of England had been closed to visitors. In Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset, great tracts of country had been cordoned off for the reception of the invasion forces who were to be sealed into them and no longer allowed to communicate with the outside world once they had been briefed in the parts they were to play.

Thousands upon thousands of British and American soldiers were moving to their battle stations. Night after night endless columns of tanks, guns, lorries and jeeps moved steadily southwards; hundreds of trains with millions of tons of munitions steamed slowly but methodically from every part of the United Kingdom towards the southern ports. Every airfield in the southern counties was packed to capacity with aircraft. Day by day the fighter screens that were put up became more numerous and more vigilant in their task of protecting all vital ground preparations from being observed by the enemy. Night and day Bomber Command and the United States Eighth Air Force sent out ever greater numbers of their heavies to destroy such important targets as the bridges over the Seine and innumerable communications centres, often far in the interior of France, while the Tactical Air Forces made great offensive sweeps and the aircraft of the Coastal Command hurled their explosives at the enemy lairs, from which submarines and E-boats might be sent to play havoc among the great armada, once it sailed.

To Philip and Gloria these days were a time of ever-increasing anxiety. Having reached this sinister underworld in such a strange succession of circumstances, they had not the least shadow of doubt that they had been sent there for a definite purpose; yet they could form no idea of what that purpose was. Each night they prayed with all their strength that the Canon would again appear to one of them in a dream and give them some new direction. But he did not do so, and at length they came to the conclusion that, the gods having given them free will, they were not to be ordered to do anything. This was to be the test of their courage and integrity; it was to be left to them what action, if any, they should take.

Yet what action
could
they take which would have any material effect against the natural forces controlled by this powerful and
well-organised body that lived for the sole purpose of abetting Evil?

For weeks past they had endeavoured to learn something of the secrets of the magno-electric forces which the Atzlanteans could wield with such terrible effect; but there they had come up against a blank wall. The only thing they had found out was that the operative power was generated in great caverns in another part of the mountain, and by an entirely separate group of Atzlanteans with whom those they knew never came into contact. The only actual manifestation they had ever seen was the red vapour that filled a large retort on the far wall of the medium chamber whenever an operation was actually in progress. They did not even know how to start to get to the caverns where the power was generated, so there was not the faintest possibility of their being able to sabotage the main source.

Philip still had his automatic with four bullets in it. He thought of endeavouring to assassinate as many as possible of the Seven, but he had never seen more than two of them together since the day of his arrival. He could shoot Zadok or Rakil, or perhaps both, but their colleagues would carry on for them, and there seemed no reason at all to suppose that the killing of these two evil old men would have the least effect on events in distant Europe.

Again and again Philip and Gloria discussed the matter, but they could see no way in which by giving their own lives they could strike a blow that would aid their countries or harm one single German. When they woke on the morning of June the Third, which was D-minus-Two, they had still made no plan and were near despair from their fruitless efforts to think of one.

That afternoon Zadok assembled all his assistants, and with the aid of a map gave them details of the final invasion plan. The operation was to be launched against selected beaches along approximately fifty miles of the Normandy coast between the base of the Cotentin Peninsula and the mouth of the River Orne. The Americans were to go in on the right and the British on the left. The two flanks were to be covered by the Airborne forces of the respective armies, which would be put down just after midnight on D-minus-One. The landings on the beaches were to take place some six hours later, early in the morning of D-Day.

The first main objectives after establishing a firm bridgehead were—for the Americans, to cut the Cotentin Peninsula, then capture Cherbourg at its tip—for the British, to secure the line of the River Orne and seize the town of Caen as a pivot in order to be able to resist the counter-attack of the major German forces which were known to be in the area of the Seine and, it was appreciated, would endeavour to roll up the whole Allied invasion force by attacking its left flank in great strength.

Zadok went on to say that from now onwards all the teams available would be kept in practically perpetual session by using a certain number of trainees as reliefs in addition to all trained operators and observers. Those who could not understand either English or German were to be used for subsidiary tasks connected with the invasion, in which overlooking was more important than overhearing. His Number One and Number Two teams were to concentrate on the Prime Minister and Invasion Headquarters in order to get early news of the weather if the Allied military leaders advised a postponement and of any communications about it which might pass between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States. His Number Three team was to keep the Headquarters of the Sixth British Airborne Division under observation, as these troops would be the first to be irrevocably committed if the operation were on.

Philip and Gloria slept for the rest of the afternoon as their first tour of duty was not until the evening. At the evening meal they found that a tense excitement had now gripped all the Atzlanteans, and a whisper was running round that the largest number of victims for more than a hundred years had been turned over to the priests for sacrifice that night.

When they reached the screening room everything was proceeding smoothly. They were told that all the troops were now assembled in their marshalling areas and in process of being briefed; and that the great flotillas of shipping were beginning to close in on Southampton.

Zadok came in himself to start off the session with a new operator. The picture that came on to the screen was a permanent R.A.F. Station in Southern England with well-designed brick buildings and comfortable quarters. They had seen this aerodrome on numerous occasions recently and knew it to be the
Headquarters of the Sixth British Airborne Division. It was still light and a pleasant summer evening.

Parked round the great airfield were the scores of aircraft which were to take the paratroops to France or tow in the gliders. Both aircraft and gliders looked strange because they had all just had broad bands of colour painted round their wings. The picture carried the gazers across the grass to the Officers’ Mess. On the large stone-pillared porch, where there were a number of basket chairs, a group of officers stood chatting. The dominant figure of the group was General Gale. He was standing in what the observers had come to know as a characteristic attitude; his feet were set wide apart and his hands were stuffed into the pockets of the beautifully cut light grey jodhpurs that he always wore instead of the conventional battledress.

Philip began to say a few sentences from time to time, either giving a brief summary of a conversation or any special item of information for Gloria to take down. They learned that the camp had been sealed the day before. No one in it or entering it from that moment could leave it or telephone or send a letter until the invasion had begun. They learned, too, that the new bands of colour on the aircraft were special recognition signs which, for reasons of secrecy, could not be put on until the camp had been sealed.

From recent observations Philip already knew the names of most of the senior officers present, and he said: ‘Wing-Commander Macnamara has just introduced another Wing-Commander to the General, but I didn’t catch his name. He’s not a real airman, as he has no pilot’s wings on his chest, but he says he’s come down from London this afternoon.’