Page 28 of The Dark of the Moon
It was so early that there was no one else there, not even people taking their dogs for a walk. The moon was still quite bright and the waves were shushing on to the sand, leaving behind a few wisps of black seaweed and some little white shells (I counted 54 but then I stopped because I didn’t want it to turn out to be an odd number which would make me feel even worse). It felt nice and calm tobe walking along peacefully beside Mum in the darkness, with the breeze cooling my face, not saying anything.
When we got to the broken-down fence beside the rocks at the end of the beach, we turned around and started walking back. The moon was fading now and the sky was getting lighter, and we were walking back towards the house and our breakfasts and after that I would have to go with Dad to the harbour, so I didn’t feel quite so calm. My stomach was empty, but it still gurgled and felt like there were waves churning around inside it.
‘You’re going to be fine this week, you know, Finn,’ Mum said. The tone of her voice didn’t sound quite as certain about that as her words did though. ‘Dad will take good care of you. And you’re such a good dinghy sailor. I think you’ll enjoy learning how to sail the bigger boat. Being part of a crew.’
‘I don’t think you should go on your writing course,’ I replied.
‘Oh Finn,’ she said, with a sort of sigh. ‘It will be good for me to have a few days away. It’s not for long. And you know I’ve really been looking forward to it for a long time. Besides, it’s time for Philly to go home to England and it’ll be good for her, as well, to have the company on the journey. I’ll be back before you know it and then you can show me everything you’ve learned.’
I started concentrating on counting the shells along the tideline again, in twos to be on the safe side, but Mum interrupted me when I got to 22. ‘It’s good for us all to face challenges in life, you know. I feel nervous about my writing course, because everyone might think I’m not good enough or they might criticise my book. But I know I need to do it, because I’ll learn a lot and it’ll make me a better writer. I think you’ll learn a lot from the sailing course too. And you know how much work Dad’s put into organising it. I know you don’t like new things, but we both have to brave this week and give it a go. Who knows, we might even make some new friends.’
I don’t have Friends. But it reminded me of the Old Lady saying, ‘My friends call me Philly’, and I thought maybe she had become a Friend in a way after all, even though she’s about 80 years older than me.
I bent down to pick up a double clamshell and handed it to Mum because she likes collecting them and putting them in a big glass jar which she keeps on the side of the bath in our house back in Scotland.
‘Why, thank you, Finn,’ she said and her whole face became a smile, so I knew she was pleased. She held up her right hand and did our starfish sign too. ‘I’ll keep this in my pocket when I’m away and it will remind me to be as brave as Philly was. Her life story is pretty amazing, isn’t it? I think we can both learn a lot about courage from her. Imagine setting off in an aeroplane in the dead of night to go and deliver secret messages to that château! It must have been terrifying, but she did it not just once but twice. If she could do that, then you and I can do our courses this week, can’t we?’
I decided not to point out that it had obviously not ended very well for Philly. I think I’m more likely to lose a leg or an arm or something on the sailing course than Mum is on her writing course, but I don’t really want it to happen to either one of us. So I just said, ‘Yes, she was very brave.’
Then we had come to the end of our walk and so we went back through the dunes to the house and put the breakfast things on the table. I made a promise to myself to try to be as brave as a secret agent being dropped into enemy territory. Actually, Enemy Territory is not a bad description for having to be on a boat with that other big kid. He is not a Friend.
Philly
The flight back to the south of France was a tense one. As we set off, I watched the moonlight shimmer on the dark waters of the English Channel, a path of gold unfurling beneath us. But soon we were approaching the dark huddle of the French coastline, and over the intercom I heard Commander Elliot swear under his breath as flak lit up the night ahead of us like some sinister firework display. He took evasive action to try to avoid it, veering further west. We were flying at such a low altitude I knew that the big 88-millimetre shells – targeted to defend against higher-flying bombers – would explode above us. But at our slow speed we could more easily be picked out by anti-aircraft batteries and hit by other lighter weapons. He managed to find a quieter patch and skirted round whichever port it was that the flak batteries were defending, trying to pick up a landmark or two again to get us back on track. After a tense few minutes, we began following the thread of a river and he gave me a thumbs up from the front cabin. We flew on through the night for several hours, but there was no way I could get any sleep. I knew the pilot would be balancing the need to get to the drop zone as quickly as possible with the risks of flying too close to any of the known danger areas. It would be a longer trip for him this time and he’d need to get in and out of there again as quickly as he could.
Further south, away from the northern cities, the darkness seemed a little more profound, and I began to relax just a tiny bit knowing we must be making good progress now towards Uzès. I glanced at my watch, tilting my wrist to read the time in the ray of moonlight filtering through the cabin roof. It was nearly 4 a.m. At last, Commander Elliot’s voice came through the intercom once more. ‘Almost there. Prepare for landing,’ he said.
I tightened my safety harness, checking the satchel was still tucked beneath my seat, as the pitch of the engine slowed a little and we began to circle. I squinted out of the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the pale smudge of the lavender field.
And then suddenly, out of nowhere, came a noise like the sound of hailstones rattling against the side of the plane. The Lizzie bucked and lurched as a German fighter plane roared by, close enough for me to see the gleam of its silver paintwork and the stark black swastika on its tail fin in the moonlight. It must have been on its way somewhere else, though, because to my relief it didn’t turn back to finish us off but disappeared upwards to resume its pursuit of perhaps a bigger, more important prey.
Up front, Commander Elliot sat upright, apparently unperturbed. The Lizzie’s engine continued to slow as we descended towards the field, which I could make out ahead of us now.
‘That was close! Where were we hit?’ I shouted over the intercom.
There was no reply. But then I realised the sound of the engine had changed, overlain by a hollow whistling of the wind, and I saw the canopy had been pierced by a line of bullet holes. There was still no reply from Jim Elliot and, at first, I thought he was just concentrating on finding the marker lights beneath us. But then, to my horror, he slowly slipped sideways in his seat, and I saw the blood blossoming from his neck like a red rose opening its petals to the sun.
I think I screamed his name.
Time seemed to slow as the realisation that we were going to crash began to dawn. And then I heard Teddy’s voice, as if in one of my troubled dreams, and he was telling me to move. ‘Fly the plane, Philly,’ he was saying. ‘You have to try to fly the plane.’
I don’t remember undoing the straps that held me, but I flung myself across the compartment and desperately attempted to squeeze myself through the gap between the reinforcing struts separating me from the cockpit. My jacket caught on the metal but I wrenched it free, buttons pinging on to the floor, and tried again to push myself through the gap alongside the fuel tank. The space was too tight though. I was trapped. And the unyielding steel of the tank was a horrible reminder that the bomber pilots at the base used to joke that Lysanders were basically flying incendiary devices – above all, these specially adapted ones with the additional tank welded on below.
The plane continued its ponderous descent. Surely the engine must stall? But somehow the prop kept on turning and I watched helplessly as the grey smudge of the lavender field grew closer. The plane slowed even more until it felt as if we hung in the sky like some helpless stringed puppet and with a grinding crunch the automatic wing flaps closed for landing. I could see the ground, tantalisingly close ahead of us. There were no torches marking the landing strip. If themaquisardshad been there, they must have scattered at the sight of the German plane.
I knew if I stayed where I was, wedged between the reinforcing struts, I would surely be killed on impact – that is, if the exploding fuel tank didn’t incinerate me first – so I wriggled backwards, manoeuvring on to the rear-facing passenger seat. I groped desperately for the straps, but in my panic I couldn’t find them. Instead, I hunched over, hooking one leg around the metal leg of the chair to try to brace myself for the impact.
With another lurch, the fixed landing gear and heavy extra fuel tank on the underside of the plane collided with the trees. The dull roar of the labouring engine ceased suddenly as it stalled at last and instead my ears were filled with the screech of tearing metal. And then the world spun upside down as the Lysander’s starboard wing dropped and the plane corkscrewed. My leg twisted with a sickening wrench as everything seemed to implode around me. And then my head collided with the canopy, and everything went black.
I think it was the pain that brought me round as the men pulled me from the wreckage. I screamed as they freed my leg from the jagged metal on which it was impaled. They were speaking French, their voices low and urgent, saying something about blood, too much blood. I remember looking up from the ground on which they’d laid me, among a crush of lavender beside the wreckage of the plane, and seeing the dying moon caught in the torn branches of the trees overhead. And then the pain surged through me once more, too much to bear, and I must have lost consciousness again.
I dreamed I was searching for something, although I couldn’t quite remember what. I was stumbling through the woods, and I could hear sounds of muffled voices, coming and going through the trees, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Up ahead I could see a faint light, so I pushed on towards it, the effort almost more than I could manage, until I reached a clearing. The figure of a woman stood there in a dark-blue uniform, her blonde hair the colour of moonshine. She turned towards me and smiled.
‘Amy!’ I tried to say her name, but it caught in my chest. I staggered forward, wanting to reach her, but she shook her head, and her expression grew sorrowful.
She opened her mouth to speak and I strained to hear her words, which were little more than a whisper. They were from Ben’s poem. ‘The dark of the moon, in the night that we face, holds the promise that helps us get through.’I felt myself falling as she turned and walked away. I longed to go with her, but it was the thought of Ben’s words that was holding me back, keeping me pinned to the earth among the tumbled leaves on the forest floor. The mutter of voices came to me again from the trees, but I was too exhausted to move. The pain and the sadness were too much to bear. Then the voices faded, and oblivion drew me into its welcome embrace once more.
I woke in a sort of twilight and looked up, expecting to see the trees overhead again. But instead of the darkening sky, there was a white plaster ceiling above a shuttered window. And instead of the leaves beneath me, there were smooth cotton sheets. A cool hand pressed against my brow. It felt hard to turn my head to look, it was too hot and heavy, my neck too stiff, too sore. Then the hand moved away, and Janina’s face appeared above me, a worried smile crinkling the skin at the edges of her eyes.
