“Bloody hell,” the farmer said softly, and the bull looked like it wanted to say the same thing. It stared, stunned, at the collapsed tank.
“Bloody hell,” the farmer said again, as if to himself. “No wonder the Panzers were able to go straight through our boys in France.”
The bull raised its head and looked straight at Ernest, then gave a low bleat and turned and bolted for the safety of the fence. “What in God’s name are ye two playin’ at?” the farmer demanded. “Is this some sort of bloody trick?”
“Yes,” Ernest said. “We’re—” and looked up at a faint droning sound.
“It’s a plane!” Cess said unnecessarily and came galloping over to grab hold of the tank’s deflated turret. “Grab the rear end! Hurry!” They began dragging the tank over the wet grass to the trees.
“I don’t know what ye two are up to—” the farmer began belligerently.
“Don’t just stand there. Help us!” Ernest shouted over the drone, which was growing steadily louder. “It’s a German reconnaissance plane. We can’t let them see this!”
The farmer glanced up at the clearing sky and then back at the tank and seemed, finally, to grasp the situation. He ran clumsily over and took hold of the tank’s right tread and began helping them drag it over to the copse.
It was like trying to shift jelly. There was nothing solid to grab hold of, and it weighed a ton. The muddy, wet grass should have made the unwieldy mass easier to move, but the only thing it made slipperier was their footing, and when Ernest tried to yank the tank over a hillock, he slipped and fell flat in one of the tracks he’d just made. “Hurry!” Cess shouted at him as he struggled to his feet. “It’s nearly overhead!”
It was, and all it would take was one photo of the deflated mass of rubber to blow Fortitude South wide open. Ernest planted his mud-caked boots, gave another mighty heave, and the three of them pushed, pulled, manhandled it in under the trees.
Cess looked up. “It’s one of ours,” he said. “A Tempest.”
It was. Ernest could make out the distinct outline. “This time,” he said. “But next time it won’t be.”
Cess nodded. “We’d best get this on the lorry before another one shows up. Go bring the lorry over here.”
“Not across this pasture,” the farmer said. “Ye’ve already torn it up bad enough already. To say nothin’ of putting my bull off his feed.” He gestured toward the bull, which was over by the fence, placidly chewing two or three mouthfuls of grass. “And who knows what other damage ye done to him? I’m supposed to take him down to Sedlescombe next week to breed him, and now look at him.”
Since the bull had stopped chewing and was eyeing one of the cows beyond the fence, Ernest doubted that would be a problem, but the farmer was determined. “I won’t have him more upset than he already is,” the farmer said. “You’ll have to take that tank back over to your lorry the same way you brought it over here.”
“We can’t,” Cess said. “If a German reconnaissance plane sees us—”
“It won’t see anythin’,” the farmer said. “Fog’s coming back in.”
It was, drifting thickly across the pasture to hide the grazing bull, the lorry, the tank tracks.
“And when you’re done doin’ that, you can take those tanks with you, as well,” the farmer said, pointing to the ghostly outlines of the tanks sticking out from under the trees, and they spent the next quarter of an hour trying to explain the necessity of the tanks staying there till a German reconnaissance plane had photographed them.
“You’ll be helping to defeat Hitler,” Cess told him.
“With a lot of bloody balloons?”
“Yes,” Ernest said firmly. And a bunch of wooden planes and old sewer pipes and fake wireless messages.
“His Majesty’s Army will be glad to reimburse you for the damage to your field,” Cess said, and the farmer immediately perked up. “And to your bull’s psyche.”
Don’t bring up the bull, Ernest thought, but the farmer smiled. “I never seen anythin’ like the look on his face when he gored that tank,” he said, shaking his head. He began to laugh, slapping his thigh. “I can’t wait to tell ’em down t’ the pub—”
“No!” they cried in unison.
“You can’t tell anyone,” Ernest said.
“It’s top secret,” Cess said.
“Top secret, is it?” the farmer said, looking even more pleased than he had at the prospect