The Golden Age

Chapter 9: Flight Into France

The racing seaplane was speeding across the English Channel in the dark of the spring night. Inside the tiny cockpit every control was in easy reach, the instrument panel was barely inches from his nose. Clegg was able to manoeuvre the plane easily with just the slightest pressure on the control column and rudder bar. The finely tuned engine droned constantly as it powered the plane southwards.

Clegg let the plane down from a cruising altitude of 1500 feet as he approached the French coast. By the time that the beaches of Northern France were sliding by beneath his floats he was only 150 feet above the ground and travelling at over 250 miles per hour. Barely protected by his goggles and the tiny windscreen of the streamlined craft, his view of the ground obscured by the bulk of the engine in front and the great slab shapes of the wings on either side, he had to concentrate to make out each way point in turn as he sped over the French countryside.

The ground climbed as he headed inland until the Somme came into view. He threaded his way through a maze of valleys, across to the Meuse , working his way towards the Chateau that was his destination. He slipped the seaplane over a low col and banked to bring the craft down into the line of the valley. As he levelled the aircraft's wings he saw what he was looking for. Ahead of him was the glittering length of the Lac D'Ysel, perfectly illuminated in the light of the night's full moon. At its far end, the Chateau from which the lake took its name was the one sign of habitation in the surrounding wooded countryside.

With practiced ease he throttled back and began his approach. The seaplane's speed fell away slowly; the slippery shape of the craft taking it further and further along the length of the lake. It edged lower and eventually touched down on the lake's surface, sending up a sparkling, phosphorescent, wake. Clegg waited until the plane's speed dropped to a walking pace and then turned the craft towards the bank, pointing it towards a slipway that ran up alongside the Chateau. Steering wasn't easy. The seaplane's engine immediately in front of his windscreen made it impossible to see straight ahead but he used his usual technique of weaving left and right to allow him to steer towards the ramp.

When he was almost at the shore he could see a figure waving him in. The figure drew his hand across his throat and Clegg slid the aircraft's mixture control to fully fine, before setting the magnetos to “off”. The engine coughed and stopped, the propeller slowing to a standstill. The few instrument lights and the light that Clegg used to map read dimmed as the power of the seaplane's generators gave way to that of her batteries alone. He flicked another switch and they went out entirely, leaving the aircraft in total darkness.

There was a quiet grinding noise as a trolley was slipped under the floats. The whirring of a winch could be heard as the trolley and the sea plane with it were pulled from the lake. Clegg unfastened his harness, pulled off his helmet and goggles and eased himself out of the cockpit as the plane came to a standstill inside the small lake side building that doubled as the Chateau's boat house and a small hangar.

He stepped down the short ladder that had been placed beside the ‘plane. “Left float, Monsieur,” he called to the man at the winch pointing down to a plate in the top of the float just in front one of the struts that held it to the plane. “La Gauche. J'en ai une autre pour la collection.”

The winchman took a screwdriver and unfastened the plate. Through the hole Clegg saw the helpless bundle that had been forced into the float back at the Stourside airfield.

Alice had almost been overcome by the horror of her flight. Back at the airfield she had feared that her captors were about to kill her. Then she had been freed of the ropes but ordered to strip naked at gun point. Elspeth had produced a flying suit and told her to get into it. Then they had fastened straps around her, locking her legs one against the other, fixing her arms to her sides. They'd strapped a flying helmet and goggles onto her head but the glass in the goggles had been painted out so she could no longer see. After that she could only guess what had happened. Something hard had been pushed into her mouth and strapped in place. It filled her mouth and almost choked her. Something that smelled of rubber had followed across her face, an oxygen mask she assumed, “Breath slowly, don't panic,” someone – the woman - had hissed in her ear.

Then she'd felt herself being lifted and laid horizontal. There were metallic banging and scraping sounds. She could tell she was hanging from straps that encircled her body. It got colder. She heard an aircraft engine starting; very close, roaring, seemingly only inches from her head. It got colder, she was moving, somehow. The engine noise got louder and then a roaring and banging sound all around her, getting louder all the time and with more and more vibration as whatever she was in was bounced up and down with crashing, concussions every time she was bounced down. The sound and vibration reached a crescendo and then the slamming and banging stopped. She had felt as though she was suddenly not moving at all but the sound of the engine was still there and it had got colder and colder still.

It had continued for what seemed like hours, the sound of the engine droning away above her head, the freezing cold. Then the noise had lessened and she had felt like she was falling slowly. Suddenly the banging and bouncing returned before it died down and she recognised the sound of water slapping against her prison. A grinding sound was followed by scratching and scraping sounds and then she felt herself being pulled backwards.

The two men dragged the helpless, half frozen and numbed, Alice Mottram out, sliding her out from the strops that had held her hanging from a rail that ran the length of one of the seaplane's two floats. They laid her, barely moving, on the floor of the boat house. She was still blinded by the goggles and her mouth was still plugged but she felt her feet and legs being freed. She was pulled to her feet, hardly able to stand. “Va t'en,” she heard a heavily accented voice say in French, as she was gripped by the arms and pushed forward, “Va t'en.”