Don't Look Back: SOE Circuit Fortunae Book 1 Read online

  Nothing could be worse than my life, I had frequently told myself, but it had seemed that my subconscious mind had wanted to go one better, night after night.

  I had to make do with the smaller things in life now, forcing myself to enjoy the life that I now led. It was why, as I lay on the bank, that I began to smile as I listened to the mid-afternoon birdsong. The chirrups and chirps were enough to bring anyone back from the brink of death, all you had to do was simply listen to them.

  Every once in a while, I would catch sight of one, up in the treetops somewhere, bouncing around on an unstable branch, as he called out to the rest of his friends about what fantastic luck he had in finding his latest meal.

  Each tweet seemed to fight with the last for my attention, to the point where it felt as though I was sat in amongst the violas of a symphonic orchestra, as each member began to warm up in the most boisterous of fashions. It was all quite marvellous.

  So marvellous that I decided to join in.

  For a few moments, I was back up in the sky again, albeit at a considerably lower altitude, and not a single round of machinegun ammunition in sight. I ducked and weaved between the branches of the trees, darting around in an excitable fashion with the rest of my kind. I longed to be up there with them, with not a care in the world, other than where I might find my next worm.

  But, within an instant, my eyes parted ways once more, and I was back by the stream.

  It was still only four-forty. Plenty of time till dinner was served. It was such a nice day, after all, unusually warm weather for an October in Britain.

  At first, it was just my toes that broke the surface of the water, yet another obstruction for the water to dance around but, before I could really think about what I was doing, I was lying flat on my back, the biggest obstacle the stream had seen for hundreds of years.

  The water was cold, icy cold, so much so that I felt the little nerve endings at the tips of my fingers and toes begin to scream at me with all their might. The pain, eventually, began to subside, until it was nothing more than a gentle poke as the stream negotiated its way around me.

  Maybe I would be able to get rid of my jagged edges and imperfections if I was to lay there long enough. It really would be an awfully long time.

  As I lay there, beckoning the water to wash me, cleanse me of the thoughts that had plagued me for the last few months, I slowly began to take notice of the smell that infested this small part of the world.

  It had the inevitable scent of dampness to it, the kind of smell that you recognise as you pull a sodden sock from the basin in front of you, instantly recognisable that it has recently been deluged.

  There was a sweetness around the aroma though, one that forced the image of dirtied socks being washed in a basin away from my mind. It was clean air, the kind that I had so often craved as I sat irritably outside the dispersal hut, or down in the unwelcome embrace of a public shelter.

  My lungs filled themselves once more with untainted air of the Cornish countryside, as I felt myself sinking further and further into the depths of the shallow stream with every desperate exhalation of air.

  The canopy of trees above me seemed to enshroud my entire existence, allowing just enough of the mid-afternoon sun through its leafy blanket to remind me where I was. Every now and then, with a slight breeze that rustled calmly through the treetops, a brilliant flash of light would bounce towards me, smashing into my eyeballs and forcing them tightly shut.

  The brilliance of light that cannoned its way towards me only ever reminded me of an empty gun, the pathway of light that moved its way to my eyes conjuring up images of the final few rounds of Hurricane ammunition, before I would have to find an alternative way to send my adversary to the ground.

  There was a fleeting moment, as I lay in the stream, crunching my eyes shut on account of the sunbeam, that I resembled something that felt like being happy. Although, thinking back now, it was difficult to determine, it had been so short-lived, and it was now a feeling that was completely unknown to me.

  As quickly as the feeling had come and gone, so too had the light, which was quickly engulfed by some sort of devouring darkness.

  I opened my eyes. Surely I had not been lying there so long that the sun had given up for the day?

  Five twenty-three. Precisely.

  There was still plenty of time until I would have to make my way back to the farmhouse. Dinner would not be until six.

  It was the only focal point that I had of my day anymore; eating. Even sleeping was not much to keep time by anymore, for I rarely did it. Eating, on the other hand, was something that I had learnt to continue doing, the first few days after the incident characterised by insomnia and hunger. But soon, I learned that even a grief-stricken man must line his stomach. Otherwise, what would he have to throw up again later in the day?

  It took me a while to notice the source of the darkness that had suddenly befallen me, robbing my body of the relative warmth of the sunlight and making the coolness of the water that much more cruel.

  Mrs Philips stood on the side of the small bank, as she did her best to offer up a maternal look upon one of her deranged children. She had tried to understand my plight, truly she had, but there was still something about a woman who had had no children of her own, that meant that she was not able to fully comprehend my situation.

  She still continued to try, though, with a sort of pseudo-motherly love that only a fifty-something-year-old widow could offer.

  I stared straight into her hazel-coloured eyes, the sort that saw everything that went on in a village, but accompanied with the good grace and reserve to keep her lips firmly shut. I knew that this little episode of me lying prone in her stream would go no further than the two of us. It made me feel more like myself again.

  As I continued to loiter on the thought of what a nice woman Mrs Philips had been, her kind and patient character, especially with a man like me, I suddenly wondered whether she would have been as understanding if I had not been paying her weekly.

  She was the owner of the old Victorian farmhouse, that was just about visible behind her greying head, the place where I had been staying for the last three weeks or so now. Telwyn farm was a place that would be forever in my heart, and I would be eternally grateful to the old gentleman who had surrendered his newspaper so that I could get a glimpse at the advertisement.

  “I liked the sound of the water. It’s gentle. Calm.”

  I thought I saw a slight smile try to flicker at the side of her mouth, before it returned to its steely glare, like a parent that wanted to tell her child off despite how funny the situation was.

  “This is Mr Calhoun,” she said, trying to ignore the fact that I was lying in a stream, fully clothed. “He would like a word with you…when you’re finished.”

  It was only at that moment that I realised that the hungry darkness that had so quickly enveloped my existence had not been down to Mrs Philips alone. Of course, it couldn’t have been, she was such a small lady after all.

  Mr Calhoun too was a small man, only an inch or two taller than Mrs Philips, but his face was decidedly more unwelcome, as it seemed to slope to one side. If I had only just met the two of them, I would have said that they were the perfect couple.

  “Andrew Calhoun,” he announced, with an odd impediment that I couldn’t quite place. “Detective Sergeant Calhoun, with the Cornwall County Constabulary.”

  “Oh?”

  “I wondered if I might have a word, Mr Parker, Sir.”

  3

  Before I could disembark fully and find my way off the platform, the area surrounding me was immediately awash with young children, screaming and hollering louder than a German bomber ever could.

  I was thankful that I had finally arrived at Paddington station, in the heart of the empire, as it meant that I could say goodbye to the endless huffing, chuffing and squealing of the locomotive as it struggled its way from the west country. But now, as I waded my way through the sea of brightly col
oured school caps and immature bodily noises, I wanted nothing more than to endure another four hours in the silent carriage.

  I felt sorry for the children around me, even though they seemed mightily glad that they were on their way to the countryside. Many of them would never return home, I assumed and, even if they did, a lot of them would return to find one less parent than when they had departed. But even so, I could still feel the childlike excitement of being evacuated – a brand new adventure to be embarking on.

  I thought for a moment of Mrs Philips, my mind wandering just ever so slightly to the old grey farmhouse and the pleasant surroundings. I tried to picture just two or three of the ruddy-faced children around me, out in the fields surrounding her home, before stumbling back in time for tea. Something told me that they wouldn’t quite fit in there, nor would they be all that welcome. Mrs Philips didn’t seem to enjoy the talk of children all that much, not to mention the possibility of living with them.

  I made my way to the bus station, where I was due to hop on one of the old, ageing buses, only to be patronised by one of the conductors about how to get off the thing.

  Just as I was about to leap onto the back of one of the swiftly-departing red vehicles, ducking my head down so as not to be soaked by the torrential downpour that was deluging this part of the country, I heard a voice, calling my name.

  “I say, Parker! Over here, Johnny!”

  Turning, I saw the familiar handsome and confident face of Michael Hope, the name suiting the man’s personality to the letter. As he came closer, his features began to return to my memory; the glistening eyes, the smile so warm that you could dry your laundry by it. All in all, he was an attractive young man, irritably so.

  “Mike,” I breathed, almost completely out of any oxygen, or so it seemed. Within a flash, he had caught up with me, motioning us to both get under the nearest bit of cover, so as to escape the onslaught of the autumnal rain.

  “Oh, look,” he said, brushing some of the droplets from shoulders, with little consequence other than forcing it into the fabric. “This is fresh on today.”

  “Could have fooled me,” I muttered, chuckling ever so slightly at his misfortune. “Congratulations, by the way.”

  “What? Oh yeah, thanks.”

  He twisted his wrists round once or twice, just to show off the thicker bands that now encircled them.

  “Flying Officer,” he said. “All I did was survive.”

  He looked down at them for a second too long, as if he was reliving every single man that had gone before him, their names ingrained on his mind forever.

  “How are the other chaps?” I asked, innocently enough, trying to grab his attention on those who were still living.

  “Oh, you know how it is,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “Can’t wait to get away from Weald. You know, they seem to think that Boscombe was better. For some reason, they cannot remember how awful the beer was there. The pubs around Weald are far more accommodating anyway.”

  “You mean they don’t charge as much?”

  “Exactly. Barmaid’s prettier to look at, too.”

  We continued to chat for another twenty minutes or so, as we negotiated the intricacies of the transport network, trying to find our way to the address printed on the card we had each been given.

  As we talked, I watched Mike’s fingers as they gently caressed the golden eagle that adorned the front of his chip bag cap. I had always preferred the chip bag, as if it added an element of boyish sedition to an otherwise immaculate uniform.

  Mike had been wearing his, until we boarded the underground, at which point it found itself lying on his lap, where it continued to be petted and stroked by Mike’s nimble fingers. There was something that the never-ceasing fingers were hiding, a tale or revelation that no amount of polite chit-chat would be able to keep hidden forever.

  I had known it the very second that I had set eyes on Mike’s face. There was something that was troubling him, behind his kind and attractive face, something that was even forcing him to ignore the odd glance of an admirer, that he customarily would acknowledge.

  I was not able to hold it against him, however. I had gradually become accustomed to people hiding things from me my whole life, in fact, it had made me just as good at it myself. There were things that I was so good at keeping from others that I almost forgot about it myself.

  Another few minutes slowly passed by and it did not take me too long to notice the small beads of sweat that began to form upon the palms of Mike’s hands, in some sort of holding pattern and waiting for the signal to begin dripping to the floor.

  It made me wonder how much longer he was going to hold it in. He was certainly gearing himself up so much I thought he would burst.

  “Look, Parky…”

  Here we go, I thought. Finally.

  I was not naïve enough to think that what was about to head my way would be in any way considered as good news. Our country was at war, and I didn’t think many people had had any good news for a considerable amount of time now. Perhaps apart from the owners of production companies that manufactured weapons and everything else that would see its demand fly through the roof over the coming months.

  “Johnny, there’s really something I need to get off my chest. I was rather hoping that I would see to it after this meeting, you know. I didn’t want you to go all funny on me.”

  “Spit it out, Mike.”

  I felt no indignation or frustration with Mike as he continued to struggle with his words, but there was something that got to me about those few brief seconds. Mike had never had any bother before about getting the words from his head to his mouth, in fact sometimes he could have done with holding his speech up for a moment or two. It had landed him in hot water more than once.

  “Sorry…it’s just, I’ve been building this whole episode up in my head so much that, well…I had rather hoped that it hadn’t been me who had been the one to tell you this.”

  “Come on, Mike. I promise I won’t go funny on you. I’ll buy you a beer if I do.”

  He looked up from his lap as if he had been so surprised to hear of my offer of a drink that he was half-hoping that I would have a funny turn.

  “It’s Teddy,” he said, morosely. “Teddy Higgins.”

  He did not need to add the additional name on the end. I knew full well who Teddy was, and I knew immediately that he was dead. There was no other possible outcome to a conversation such as this one, especially not while we were at war, anyway.

  Edward Higgins had flown with me during our time in the Volunteer Reserve, about six months before the outbreak of the war. We had become steadfast friends during that time, flying older planes like the Gloster Gladiator and some other antiquities that the air force managed to dig up from somewhere.

  I knew what was coming next, but it still did not stop me from thinking back to the long summer evenings of cricket and drinking that we had so often enjoyed together, along with a few others who were now nothing more than mere memories, even in the minds of their own mothers.

  Mike didn’t seem capable of saying the actual words, “He is dead,” or the like, but instead commenced the retelling of the tale that would only end up in one outcome for poor old Teddy Higgins.

  “We were sent to carry out a patrol over Maidstone. Fifteen thousand feet,” he added, as if it was of any real consequence to the story. Still, it set the scene. I could almost taste the moisture forming up on the inside of Teddy’s oxygen mask, the perspiration already just lubricating his eyebrows in anticipation of what would happen next.

  “We saw some 110s, heading north. Twenty of them. A real fish in a barrel scenario,” Mike said, his face lighting up for a brief second before remembering the sobering conclusion to his tale.

  “We had the height advantage and so swung round so that we could come at them side-on. It was pretty spectacular all told. We downed three of them just in our first pass, we had that long to hit them. Plus, their gunners couldn’t get round to us, so w
e were almost perfectly protected.”

  As he told the story, I watched the eyes that were seeing all of the day’s actions pass before him once more. I did not flinch as he recounted the events, but there was a sizeable portion of my being that was downright envious that I was not there. The rest of me was simply awash with pure guilt.

  While the rest of the chaps had been continuously engaging the enemy, I had been hiding away in a funk hole, like all the rest of the occupants of Mrs Philips’ establishment. I saw myself as no better than a conscription dodger.

  “We turned back for a second run. But, looking around, I could see Teddy nowhere.”

  Mike turned his head away for a moment, to stare out of the windows of the underground into the inky blackness that glared back at him. I followed his gaze, watching his reflection intently, as he fought valiantly to hold back the tears that were now welling. He had cared for Teddy just as much as I had done, just as much as any of the other boys. He was a very likeable character.

  “They must have been damn lucky,” he crackled, as he eventually turned back to face me. The tears had refused to fall, but instead had sat patiently in his eyes, turning them a vibrant red colour. I wondered how he was able to see anything at all.

  “He had lost height. Probably about four or five hundred feet below us. Lagging behind immediately. They must have hit the cooling tank as he was already streaming white smoke. I broke away to circle back towards him, just in case one of the 110s went after him.

  “By the time I got alongside him, he was losing height and speed quicker than a boulder. The cockpit was full of fumes. I shouted at him, I told him to get out. But there was nothing, no reply.”

  He wiped away at his face as he was jostled around by the carriage, in much the same way that his whole body would have been convulsed and thrown around by the Hurricane.

  “Then, he managed to get the canopy open. I watched him carry out his procedures. He even managed to invert to get himself out. His little body flopped out and fell.”