Too Many Heroes Read online

  Too Many Heroes

  Jan Turk Petrie

  Copyright © Jan Turk Petrie 2019

  The right of Jan Turk Petrie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All names, characters, places and events in this book are fictitious and, except in the face of historical fact, any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United Kingdom

  First Printing, 2019

  Pintail Press

  Pintailpress.com

  Author’s website: JanTurkPetrie.com

  ALSO BY JAN TURK PETRIE

  Until the Ice Cracks:

  Volume One of the Eldísvík novels

  No God for a Warrior:

  Volume Two of the Eldísvík novels

  Within Each Other’s Shadow:

  Volume Three of the Eldísvík novels

  Contents

  28th June 1942

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  28th June 1942

  Over the Dutch coast they pick up more flak. At the rear, squeezed into his turret, Frank scans the sky for any night fighters that might be on their tail. The plane reels with every new shockwave. Through the worst of it, he hums that stupid song they sing in the mess hall to the tune of Waltzing Matilda.

  Ops in a Wimpey

  Ops in a Wimpey

  ‘Shit,’ Ferguson says. ‘Shit that was too effing close.’

  Who’ll come on ops in a Wimpey with me? And I sang as the ack-ack –

  ‘We’ve been hit.’ Doc tells them on the intercom, like they hadn’t all heard the explosion, felt the splinters running the length of her. At his back, a hard clang on the door seals him in.

  They’re trailing flames – lit up like a ruddy beacon for a second or two. Doc’s trying to sound calm, ‘Fire’s out but we’ve lost the starboard engine.’ Then, ‘Dammit – prop won’t feather.’

  She slews to the starboard. ‘We need to lighten her. You know the drill, ditch all non-essentials.’ Frank posts his thermos flask through the gap between the guns. There’s nothing else.

  She’s straightening up. Good old Doc.

  ‘Door’s jammed,’ Ferguson shouts out from behind. It’s no surprise. ‘No good, can’t get the damn thing open. ’Fraid you’ll have to stay put till we’re down, Frankie-boy.’

  ‘Okay, I hear you,’ he shouts over his shoulder. He’s long since made his peace with the hazards of being tail-end-Charlie.

  Shells like starbursts all along the length of the coastline they’ve left behind, like there’s a celebration going on. ‘It’s getting harder to turn the turret,’ he tells them.

  ‘Got a bit of a leak in the hydraulics.’ Doc again. ‘Just a few pinholes – nothing too serious.’

  More reports of damage all over the shop.

  Dark expanse of the North Sea directly below.

  Even if he could get out, he wouldn’t want to ditch now. Last quarter moon must be picking them out nicely.

  ‘Two thousand feet.’

  So much quieter with just the port engine.

  ‘Everybody’s gone silent back there. Look chaps, there’s no need to panic,’ Doc’s telling them if they’ll listen. ‘Luck of the devil, no one was hit.’

  Matthews isn’t having it: ‘What about my ruddy thigh?’

  Ferguson’s laugh. ‘Leave it out will ya – I’ve had worse cuts shavin’.’

  ‘We’ve still got one engine. Fuel situation’s okay for a bit,’ Doc tells them. ‘Electrics seem to be holding up.’

  Frank thinks of Clara, how she’ll still be asleep; her long hair spread out over the empty pillow on his side. ‘Of course I’m missing you less now it’s warmer,’ she said in her last letter. ‘In fact, I’m enjoying all the extra space in the bed.’ He can picture the smile that might have been playing on her lips as she wrote the words, her way of telling him not to worry about her.

  ‘Fifteen hundred feet. I can see the coast. We’re back in Blighty, lads. Not far to go now.’

  He’s the last to see the line of white waves breaking against the shore. ‘Bale out, for Christ’s sake,’ Frank shouts at them. ‘Go on, piss off out of here you lot while you’ve still got the chance.’

  Doc comes back at him. ‘You know the drill, Whitby. Like the musketeers: all for one and one for all.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake will you all just get out of here.’

  ‘Hold it together back there, Whitby. We’ve made it home when it’s been worse than this.’

  ‘A thousand feet.’

  ‘Will you look at that. There’s a flare path up ahead. They’ve laid out the red carpet for us. Oh yes, that’ll do very bloody nicely.’

  ‘This is goin’ to be hairy.’ (Smithy now.) ‘Brown trousers time, lads.’

  She’s trying to lurch to the starboard, but Doc keeps bringing her back again. ‘Five hundred feet.’

  Frank can smell escaped oil.

  ‘Here we go, chaps.’

  Chapter One

  Thursday May 15th 1952.

  Frank opens his eyes. The space above his head is weighed down in deep, grey silence. Heart racing, he’s caught between imaginings and reality, trying to navigate. He can see nothing except for the soft band of light around the edges of the sack he’d fixed across the open window. The night’s heat has made his body run with sweat. Eyes adjusting, he begins to make out the bulk of the overhead crossbeam that braces the roof timbers. Perhaps some nightmare woke him but, if so, already he’s forgotten. Why this sense – no, this growing conviction – he’s facing some kind of threat?

  He sits up by increments, alert for any movement within the space around him. The air inside the barn is stifling and tainted with an odd, musty sort of smell. The soft glow from the window tells him it’s a clear night, the moon almost full.

  Must be really early, the birds aren’t even singing. Ah yes, the small hours – how they have a habit of looming la
rge.

  Several minutes pass before he shakes his head and tries to dismiss the fear, putting it down to old instincts that, even after ten years, are dying hard. Though he lies down and closes his eyes, his senses remain alert – those old habits again. He needs more rest, or he’ll regret it later – they’ve still got the best part of the flock to finish.

  He’s adjusting his pillow when there’s a sound like someone breathing. There it is again – barely audible and yet there alright.

  Frank sits bolt upright, his body readying, a new vigour pumping into his muscles. It’s a short reach to grasp the metal-shafted torch on the floor beside the bed.

  He’s ready to strike but no figure comes lurching at him. He hears only the deep stillness.

  Ha – he’s just being bloody soft. How could anyone have traced him here? Probably only a mouse, possibly a rat weaving through the remains of the straw on the other side of the wall; he’d noticed the other day those smoothed-out hollows marking a new network of runs. Frank exhales. Yes, that’ll be it for sure – nothing unknown, nothing untoward.

  A scream rips the still air.

  The shock of it jolts his whole body before he has time to register that the sound was not the anguished cry of a person but the shriek of a barn owl – and coming from directly above his head.

  He swings the torch beam across the rafters until it picks out the bird’s clamped-on talons. The two black eyes in that ghost-like face are trained directly on him.

  Outside an eerie call answers.

  Blinking against the intrusion of the light, the owl bends to issue a long, accusing hiss. He wonders if the bird is about to swoop down upon him but in the next instant the owl’s wings open to launch it into the air; a twist midflight and it glides out through the gap between the sacking and the window frame.

  He stumbles across the room to pull aside the curtain and follow the bird’s flight. Under the starry lid of the sky, he can see nothing except the outline of the far ridge and a few shards of moonlight on the surface of the dewpond.

  Frank’s about to turn away when he sees a flicker of light up in Hathaway’s wood. Another, stronger beam winks out through trees some distance away from the first. At this hour, it can only mean one thing.

  Sunlight is streaming in through every crack in the barn when he wakes for the second time. Out of bed, his bare foot steps on something soft and damp. He picks it up. It’s not a dead mouse, as he’d first thought, but an owl’s pellet. He spreads the contents out in his palm and examines the mass of regurgitated hair, feathers and tiny bleached bones – a detailed record of his visitor’s recent kills. Feels like some sort of omen.

  Dew wets his boots as he goes to draw a kettle of water from the standpipe. The sun hasn’t yet burnt off the thin mist clinging to the valley bottom. He may be used to it, but it’s still not easy shaving with a tin mug full of water and a tiny mirror nailed to the outside wall. The blade he’s using was too cheap and, after only three shaves, it’s leaving tramlines across his face. Finishing off, he nicks the skin under his chin and has to hold a finger to the spot to stem the flow of blood.

  While Frank waits for the bleeding to stop, he examines his reflection. The hot weather has tanned his skin and bleached the ends of his hair to straw on top. Fine white lines fan out from the creases around his eyes – not exactly laughter lines, more the result of too much squinting into the sun.

  He turns his head to check his profile and then back again reassuring himself (though of course he’d deny it if someone was watching) that he’s not a bad looking man and, despite being thirty-three years old, still in his prime.

  The rays of the sun are already warming his back. He boils up the kettle for his last twist of tea then stirs more hot water into a bowl of oats to make porridge. Once it’s thickened, he adds the creamy top from the small jug of milk Ma Jenkins had given him on the QT. It’s already a tad sour.

  A single shot rings out; birds take to the air in every direction. Another three shots – each one amplified against the hills. The blunt crack of shotgun fire – definitely not a rifle – is coming from the direction of the Hathaway Estate though the gaming season is some four months away.

  It all goes quiet again, but Frank is up on his feet jittery and alert as he finishes his breakfast. The mist has retreated to give him a wider field of vision. Above him, the sky has cleared to unbroken china blue.

  The early morning quiet is invaded by the cries of harried sheep. A wet spring delayed the shearing; with this hot, dry spell the fleeces have started to lift at long last. They need to get them shorn while this fine weather holds. Last night’s forecast warned of breaking storms.

  He walks over towards the farmhouse with its huddle of outbuildings and straight into the din of fretting sheep. This lot have been rounded up by Jenkins and his dogs and brought down into the home field where they’re milling and bleating inside a large pen. Some of them look ragged, already beginning to shed the burden of their winter-stained fleeces.

  It’s hot work; he’s soon stripped to the waist to be plagued by swarms of midges. Thanks to his night visitor, Frank’s mind remains fogged though he does his best to concentrate on the job in hand.

  Sam calls across, ‘Aye, Frank,’ droplets of sweat already running from his jaw, ‘How many you’ve done so far?’

  ‘Not sure.’ He takes a quick breather. ‘Ten – eleven tops.’

  ‘Fancy a bit of a bet – see who can manage the most? Course it’s hardly fair with you being a southpaw, you can’t help being a bit cack-handed.’

  More than ten years his junior, Sam’s a cocky bugger right enough. The lad runs a hand through his short, fiery hair, his pale eyes full of challenge. ‘Go on, Frankie – just for a bit of fun.’

  ‘Aye, okay you’re on; as long as you don’t leave the poor animals with too many cuts.’

  ‘As if I would.’ The lad gives him a toothy grin. ‘Anyroad, winner buys the first pint tonight. That alright wi’ you?’

  From the outset Frank knows he’s not going to win this wager. Whenever Sam aims a wry look his way, he tries to stick a smile on his face so he doesn’t look like a sore loser.

  Around midday they stop for a break, dowsing their heads in cold water before they flop down in the shade of the old elm and wait for their bait.

  Ma Jenkins soon waddles out with a basket of bread and some decent looking cheese along with a jar of her notorious pickle. In the old days there would have been a flagon of cider to wash that lot down but all they get now is a flask of stewed, not-very-sweet tea. A musty, cabbage smell hits Frank’s nose as he opens the pickle and, after another confirming sniff, he gives it a miss.

  The peace of their meal is fractured by another volley of shots. The lad touches his arm. ‘No need to jump like that, Frankie,’ he says. ‘That’ll only be old Kirkwood taking pot-shots.’

  ‘I saw lights up in the wood last night,’ Frank tells him, trying to still the tremors in his hands. ‘Them lampers need to watch their step,’ he says, ‘someone could get hurt with that trigger-happy old bugger out and about.’

  ‘I wonder why they bother. He’s already caged up the hens.’ Sam takes a last swig of tea then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘What’s the name of that magistrate – bloke who’s great mates with Lord Hathaway?’

  ‘Ah – you mean Sir William Frith-Hatton.’

  ‘That’s the one. I hear he’s got a bee in his bonnet about poachers. Can’t be worth the risk of getting had up by him – not for a brace or two of old cocks.’

  Smirking, Frank gets to his feet. ‘They say an old cock can be a powerful attraction to some.’

  The lad’s laugh is unbridled. ‘Dare say you’d know more about that than I would.’

  By mid-afternoon, they’ve moved on to the Oxford Downs – strong, barrel-shaped animals that are easily the heaviest sheep on the farm. Sid Jenkins is gradually replacing these larger breeds with the hardier Swalesdales that are smaller and easier to manhandle. I
t’s a shame to see only these couple of dozen Oxfords left and a disappointing lot of lambs beside them.

  Frank wrestles the first of the big ewes down until its backside is on the board. The wool is tight and hard to grab onto with his hands already slick from the grease that waterproofs their fleeces. Trapped outside the hurdles, her distraught twins cry out their shared anxiety, making a racket not dissimilar to tearful human babies.

  Once his shearing clippers begin to work a pathway down the centre of her chest, the ewe stops struggling and goes limp against his legs. His right hand makes sure her skin is taut as he works his way round, taking care to keep the whole fleece intact.

  All done he releases the dazed animal and she scrambles back to her feet. He picks up the heavy fleece, tucks the ragged edges under and rolls the whole thing up into a neat bundle, which he places on the ground alongside all the others. Without looking, he knows Sam’s line will be longer.

  It’s much easier to catch the next ewe and Frank’s thankful this one’s more docile. As he works, just like a tongue keeps going back to that mouth ulcer, his mind keeps running over the fear that overcame him in the night. Perhaps all his fretting over a damn bird boils down to the superstition sown in his mind by that Yank Staff Sergeant – chap by the name of Todd Walters.

  A deep rumble had drawn everyone’s attention up into the clouds to watch what he soon identified as an AAF Flying Fortress coming straight towards the base and trailing black smoke. She almost overshot the runway, coming to a grinding stop only yards short of where the ground fell away into a deep gulley – known by everyone on the base as Shitter’s Ditch.

  He was amongst the crowd running across the airfield. Her ten-man crew emerged pretty damn fast. Lucky bastards were shaken to bits but otherwise okay. Even after they’d been given fags and tea with a drop of something stronger, they kept trembling and checking – literally pinching themselves – to be sure they weren’t already dead and dreaming this part. They’d been on their way from Prestwick to East Anglia when the one of the engines caught fire. Seemed like none of them could get over the fact they were back on solid ground in the middle of the Lincolnshire countryside.