opened the second drawer down, filed the folder, then fished a ring of keys out of his pocket and locked the cabinet. “‘All written materials of Fortitude South and the Special Means unit shall be considered “top top secret” and handled accordingly.’ And speaking of regulations, if I’m going to be in some bloody cow pasture all night, I need a decent pair of boots. All officers are to be issued appropriate gear for missions.’”
Cess handed him an umbrella. “Here.”
“I thought you said fog, not rain.”
“Light fog. Clearing toward morning. And wear an Army uniform, in case someone shows up in the middle of the operation. You have two minutes. I want to be there before dark.” He went out.
Ernest waited, listening, till he heard the outside door slam, then swiftly unlocked the file drawer, pulled out the folder, removed several of the pages, replaced the file, and relocked the drawer. He slid the pages he’d removed into a manila envelope, sealed it, and stuck it under a stack of forms in the bottom drawer of the desk. Then he took a key from around his neck, locked the drawer, hung the key around his neck again under his shirt, picked up the umbrella, put on his uniform and his boots, and went outside.
Into an all-enveloping grayness. If this was what Cess considered a light fog, he shuddered to think what a heavy one was. He couldn’t see the tanks or the lorry. He couldn’t even see the gravel driveway at his feet.
But he could hear an engine. He felt his way toward it, his hands out in front of him till they connected with the side of the Austin. “What took you so long?” Cess asked, leaning out of the fog to open its door. “Get in.”
Ernest climbed in. “I thought you said the tanks were here.”
“They are,” Cess said, roaring off into blackness. “We’ve got to go pick them up in Tenterden and then take them down to Icklesham.”
Tenterden was not “here.” It was fifteen miles in the opposite direction from Icklesham and, in this fog, it would be well after dark before they even got there. This’ll take all night, he thought. I’ll never make that deadline. But halfway to Brede, the fog lifted, and when they reached Tenterden, everything was, amazingly, loaded and ready to go. Ernest, following Cess and the lorry in the Austin, began to feel some hope that it wouldn’t take too long to get unloaded and set up, and they might actually be done blowing up the tanks by midnight. Whereupon the fog closed in again, causing Cess to miss the turn for Icklesham twice and for the lane once. It was nearly midnight before they located the right pasture.
Ernest parked the Austin among some bushes and got out to open the gate. He promptly stepped in mud up to his ankles and then, after he’d extricated himself, in a large cowpat. He squelched over to the lorry, looking around for cows, even though in this foggy darkness he wouldn’t see one till he’d collided with it. “I thought there weren’t supposed to be any cows in this pasture,” he said to Cess.
“There were before, but the farmer moved them into the next one over,” Cess said, leaning out the window. “That’s why we picked this pasture. That, and the large copse of trees over there.” He pointed vaguely out into the murk. “The tanks will be hidden out of sight under the trees.”
“I thought the whole idea was to let the Germans see them.”
“To let them see some of them,” Cess corrected. “There are a dozen in this battalion.”
“We’ve got to blow up a dozen tanks?”
“No, only two. The Army didn’t park them far enough under the trees. Their rear ends can still be seen poking out from under the branches. I think it’ll be easiest if I back across the field. Help me turn around.”
“Are you certain that’s a good idea?” Ernest said. “It’s awfully muddy.”
“That’ll make the tracks more visible. You needn’t worry. This lorry’s got good tires. I won’t get her stuck.”
He didn’t. Ernest did, driving the lorry back to the gate after they’d unloaded the two tanks. It took them the next two hours to get out of the mudhole, in the process of which Ernest lost his footing and fell flat, and they made a hideous rutted mess out of the center of the field.
“Göring’s boys will never believe tank treads did that,” Ernest said, shining