Plane and truck came to a halt at the same moment. Jensen, displaying a surprising agility for one of his very considerable bulk, hopped nimbly to the ground and strode briskly across the tarmac and arrived at the Wellington just as its door opened and the first of the passengers, the moustached major, swung to the ground.
Jensen nodded to the papers clutched in the major’s hand and said without preamble: ‘Those for me?’
The major blinked uncertainly, then nodded stiffly return, clearly irked by this abrupt welcome for a in just returned from durance vile. Jensen took the papers without a further word, went back to his seat the jeep, brought out a flashlight and studied the papers briefly. He twisted in his seat and said to the radio operator seated beside the General: ‘Flight plan as stated. Target as indicated. Now.’ The radio operator began to crank the handle.
Some fifty miles to the south-east, in the Foggia area, the buildings and runways of the RAF heavy bomber base echoed and reverberated to the thunder scores of aircraft engines: at the dispersal area at the west end of the main runway several squadrons Lancaster heavy bombers were lined up ready for take-off, obviously awaiting the signal to go. The signal was not long in coming.
Halfway down the airfield, but well to one side the main runway, was parked a jeep identical to one in which Jensen was sitting in Termoli. In the back seat a radio operator was crouched over a radio, earphones to his head. He listened intently, and then looked up and said matter-of-factly: ‘Instructions as stated. Now. Now. Now.’
‘Instructions as stated,’ a captain in the front seat repeated. ‘Now. Now. Now.’ He reached for a wooden box, produced three Very pistols, aimed directly across the runway and fired each in turn. The brilliantly arcing flares burst into incandescent life, green, red and green again, before curving slowly back to earth.
The thunder at the far end of the airfield mounted to rumbling crescendo and the first of the Lancasters began to move. Within a few minutes the last of them had taken off and was lifting into the darkly hostile night skies of the Adriatic.
‘I did say, I believe,’ Jensen remarked conversationally and comfortably to the General in the back seat, ‘that they are the best in the business. Our friends from Foggia are on their way.’
‘The best in the business. Maybe. I don’t know What I do know is that those damned German and Austrian divisions are still in position in the Gustav Line. Zero hour for the assault on the Gustav Line is he glanced at his watch – ‘in exactly thirty hours.’
‘Time enough,’ Jensen said confidently.
‘I wish I shared this blissful confidence.’
Jensen smiled cheerfully at him as the jeep moved off, then faced forward in his seat again. As he did the smile vanished completely from his face and hi fingers beat a drum tattoo on the seat beside him.
The moon had broken through again as Neufeld, Droshny and their men came galloping into camp and reined in ponies so covered with steam from their heaving flanks and distressed breathing as t have a weirdly insubstantial appearance in the pal