Chapter 4
“Hi Tom, Patrick”
Tom looks up. “Hi Dad,” and he turns back to the game of football they are playing in Patrick’s garden.
“Come on Tom, we need to go.”
“Why, what’s the time?”
“Time to go. Mum is getting tea ready, and it’s going to rain if we aren’t quick. Get your things together.”
“Five minutes?”
“No.”
“Five minutes please?”
“We need to go now; come on.”
Tom kicks the ball away, and runs up to the gate.
“Say thank you to Patrick’s mum.”
Tom disappears into the house, and a moment later reappears wriggling into his sweatshirt, Patrick’s mother behind him.
“Hello Julie. I hope he has been behaving.”
“They’ve been fine. I’ve been hearing about the ghost you saw,” she says to Martin, who grins and shakes his head.
“It was just someone walking his dog. Dorothy’s been making up stories to frighten the boys. Come on Tom.”
“Bye Patrick, see you tomorrow.” And he walks over to where his father is waiting by the gate.
They cross the road and follow the footpath across the airfield. The sky is heavy and dark and it starts to rain, big drops, and quickly it is raining hard.
“Put this on,” and Martin holds out Tom’s fold-up raincoat. “I didn’t bring boots, your feet will have to get wet.”
Tom looks down at the puddle starting to collect on the path. “They are already.” He looks up at Martin, and as it rains steadily harder they run along the track a few yards, splashing, and then laughing, give up any hope of staying dry. All around they hear just the rain crashing into the tall stands of corn, washing mud onto the path.
“Come on.”
They make their way along the path through the green wet tunnel created by the corn, higher than Tom, leaning down on him. He is stopped by a lightning flash, followed almost immediately by a drum roll of thunder. The storm is right overhead, and more water is coming down than he thinks is possible. But it is warm, clammy on his skin. The air is thick, there’s no sound but the rain and the thunder. There are slight dips in the path and these are quickly filled, several centimetres deep. More lightning flashes past, and suddenly there’s an explosion of light around them, a shockwave of hot air, and Tom hears a tremendous bang above the sound of rain. And with it a strong strange smell of burning, like burning fuel. Tom looks up, but can see nothing but the corn and the dark wet sky. Martin is holding his hand, and they stop, listening for something. The smell fades and there’s just the wet scent of rain and fresh mud. Together they carry on, and they reach the pill box. Although there are trees over the path here they give no protection from the downpour. The corn is behind them and in the field at the side there is now standing water, wet sheep bundled together. Water is flowing down the path into the bunker as they pass, and already debris on the path is being pushed to one side as the water creates a channel. Tom makes to look down the steps, but Martin holds onto his hand.
“No, it’s too dangerous. We’d better get home.”
Tom can’t really hear the words, but can feel the pull on his hand and they carry on, arriving home a few minutes later, water running off them.
The storm rumbles on into the evening, Tom can see occasional flashes of lightning from his bedroom window. But in the morning it has calmed. It is still thundery and overcast, and the air is heavy and wet, but the rain has gone.
After breakfast he heads out through the back door, and walks up to the bunker. it is Sunday morning and the church bell is ringing. The bunker looks different; some branches have come down from the apple tree and there is debris all around; but the water has washed the path and the entrance clear. He picks his way carefully down inside. There is a centimetre or so of water at the bottom, and he stands on the lowest step. It is muddy and smells wet, but clean, not the same as before. The drain in the corner is clear of mud. More water than this has clearly come down and much of the mud that was filling the steps has been washed away.
After standing for a minute or so he steps into the room at the bottom; his trainers are wet anyway. He crosses to one of the machine gun holes and looks out. You can’t see very much, just the wet grass looking down the hill and some brambles around the concrete. The beginnings of tiny pink blackberries are showing. Tom pokes about in the water with a stick, stirring it, creating small waves, scraping the end of the stick across the floor. The floor is uneven, and at one end the mud is thicker, standing above the water. He draws lines in the mud with the stick, creating a series of ridges. The stick catches against something hard settled into the floor. He prods it, and it feels like a stone wedged into a crack in the concrete. He pushes it harder, and then it moves, and a smooth side appears above the water. Tom reaches down and picks up a hard object, about the size of a matchbox, but flattened and with rounded edges. He can’t really see it in the gloom and he carries it up the steps and out onto the path.
In the daylight Tom rinses it in a puddle and wipes it carefully on his tee shirt. It is grey, metallic, an old cigarette lighter like the one Granddad used to have. It feels heavy in his hand. There is a crack where it once opened, but now jammed shut. He puts it in his pocket and runs home.
“Dad, dad, look what I found.”
Martin is in the kitchen reading the weekend paper. He takes the lighter and turns it over in his hands. He rubs on one side with his fingernail; there are some scratches in the metal.
“Where did you find this? It’s filthy. Who does it belong to?”
Tom shuffles from one foot to the other and looks at the floor. “I was just playing in the garden. I found it.”
Martin says, “You weren’t in the garden, where were you? Mum has been looking for you.”
Tom looks up, guilt on his cheeks.
“Were you playing in the bunker? You know you are not allowed to.”
Tom says nothing, and after a minute Martin looks back at the object in his hand.
“We’ll worry about that later, let’s have a look at this.”
They sit down at the kitchen table and Martin cleans it, first with a damp cloth to remove as much of the grime as he can get off, and then he drips some oil onto it from a small can and cleans it more carefully. There is no rust on the lighter and it shines as he cleans it. There are tiny hinges on one side and clearly the top once lifted off, but it is dented and has been stuck shut for too long.
“This is old, I don’t know how old but the style could go back to the 1930s or 1940s. The time of the War. It is the sort that people used then.”
“Do you mean it belonged to a pilot? When the airfield was being used? I bet it was.”
“It could be. But it could have been dropped there by anyone.”
There are marks on one side of the lighter and now these can be clearly seen as two sets of initials engraved into the metal: ‘JRP’ and below it ‘WDP’.
Tom picks it up and stares at them. “Wow.” He rubs his finger over it. “Whose do you think it was? Why two sets of initials?”
“Perhaps one of them gave it to the other,” says his dad.
“Do you mean his girlfriend?”
“Who knows.”
Tom looks at the initials again.
“I think it belonged to a pilot. He dropped it in the bunker. His girlfriend gave it to him. She had both their initials put on. Perhaps they were going to get married. Can we find out who?”
Martin grins. “You could be right, but I don’t know whether you can trace someone just by a set of initials. We don’t have those sort of records that we can look at. I don’t think we can just look up who was based here in the War.”
He frowns and takes the lighter back. “But it might be fun to try. If you really want to find out we can see what old War records we can find on the internet. I know Mum found some information about the airfield.”
“Yes, lets have a look. If we find anything I can take it in to school to show my teacher as well. And I’ll ask Dorothy when we see her. She’s always lived here, she knows everything about the airstrip. She told me all about the ghost.”
“She was only a girl at the time, no older than you are. She wouldn’t know anyone working there. but we could ask her.”