Hardcastle's Soldiers by Graham Ison Read Free Book Online Page A

mindful of what the PC had said about the warning maroons.
    There was smoke funnelling from the aircraft’s port engine, which probably accounted for it flying so low, and it was surrounded by puffs of white smoke from the anti-aircraft gun battery in Hyde Park. As Hardcastle watched, spellbound almost, he saw a long, black cylindrical object fall from the aircraft to splash, harmlessly, into the river.
    Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a tiny Sopwith Pup fighter plane appeared above the lumbering bomber. There were coloured streamers fixed to its wing struts indicating, did Hardcastle but know it, that the pilot was a flight commander. Executing a daring manoeuvre, the aircraft dived underneath the German machine, coming down so low that Hardcastle thought it might finish up in the water of the Thames. But suddenly the British pilot, so close that Hardcastle was able to see his helmeted head, lifted the nose of his aircraft so that he was in a position to attack the Gotha from beneath. Almost immediately, he saw flames spurting from the Sopwith’s Lewis gun a split second before he heard its rat-a-tat-tat.
    Moments later, as the British aircraft wheeled away, smoke began to issue from the Gotha’s starboard engine and it started a slow, involuntary descent. Both the aircraft’s engines had now stopped, and the huge machine glided lower and lower in a silence so sudden that it was almost eerie. It proved to be one of the few successes achieved by the defence forces.
    Astounded at having witnessed this aerial combat, Hardcastle still had time to hope that the crippled German bomber would crash on the south side of the river and, thus, become the responsibility of the Lambeth Division of the Metropolitan Police. Divisional CID officers were responsible for the initial interrogation of prisoners of war before handing them over to the military.
    Half an hour later, as Hardcastle waited at the tram stop, a policeman cycled along Victoria Embankment bearing a placard on his chest that read ALL CLEAR. At the same time, the DDI spotted a Boy Scout on Westminster Bridge sounding a call on his bugle. He remembered reading a police order that stated it was one of several efforts by the authorities to indicate that the raiders had passed.
    Eventually, the tram driver, his conductor, and a few passengers returned to their tram.
    â€˜Think it’ll be safe enough to get under way now?’ asked Hardcastle acidly.
    â€˜Can’t afford to take a chance, guv’nor,’ said the conductor, tugging at his moustache. ‘One of our single-deckers got a direct hit the other day, not a few yards from here. The crew and all the passengers were killed,’ he added mournfully.
    Hardcastle’s tram crossed Westminster Bridge and moved into Westminster Bridge Road. As it passed the Bethlehem Royal Hospital on the corner of Lambeth Road and Kennington Road, it was evident that the DDI’s hope had come true. In the hospital grounds was the smoking wreckage of the Gotha bomber, now surrounded by firemen and policemen. The DDI later learned from George Lambert, his opposite number on L Division, that all three members of the crew – pilot, observer and rear-gunner – had perished.
    As a result of the delay caused to his tram by the air raid, it was past four o’clock by the time that Hardcastle let himself into his house in Kennington Road. It was the house into which the Hardcastles had moved immediately following their marriage twenty-four years ago, and was not a great distance from number 287, where the famous Charlie Chaplin had once lived.
    Alice Hardcastle was sitting in an armchair in the parlour, knitting cap comforters for the soldiers in the trenches. Resting her knitting on her lap, she looked up as her husband entered the room.
    â€˜You’re early, Ernie. Run out of things to do at your police station?’ It was usually about seven o’clock, at the earliest, before Hardcastle made