大象传媒

In the summer holidays of 1943, the frequency of air raids had subsided but not by any means ceased. As a result, parental restraints on small boys had to some extent been relaxed. In fairness, I think that mothers in general and my mother in particular had lost the battle to keep their children in earshot, if not in sight. The consequence was a great deal more freedom to wander away from the parental home and explore those parts of our surroundings previously out of bounds.

A few hundred yards from the house, surrounded by fields, was a railway embankment which carried the Fareham to Gosport railway line. Within sight of the house was the rail bridge under which passed Redlands Lane. On the other side of this bridge lay the "army" field, so called because until a few months before, an Anti Aircraft battery had been resident there. This battery had moved out, leaving behind the quarters that they had occupied.

There were a number of buildings - a Nissen hut for a dormitory and general living and another which was divided between the cookhouse and the dining area. Adjacent to these was an ablution block with showers, wash basins and toilets. All the sanitary equipment had been removed, leaving various pipes with open ends. The site had no mains water supply and water to the cookhouse and ablution block was gravity fed from a huge tank perched on top of a wooden trestle. This tank was supplied by a Bedford Water Bowser on a fairly regular basis. At the time of this story all had been abandoned and the tank perched up about 30 ft had long since dried out. I recall that the feed pipe to the facilities below stuck up through the bottom of the tank by about 6 inches to avoid sediment passing into the water supply. A supply pipe from the ground passed up the trestle and entered the tank in the form of a U over the edge. This latter feature was very important to us, as it provided the necessary handholds to climb into the tank after climbing the trestle. There must have been a lid to this tank but it wasn't there when we frequented the place.

My friend David (of similar age - i.e. 11) and myself made this tank our secret place, telling no one. Had my mother or David's mother seen the hazardous climb to gain access to this tank, we would have been forbidden to leave the garden.

This tank became our fort, our battleship, or anything else a boy's imagination can conjure up and we guarded its secret very seriously indeed. We never made the climb up the tower if there was the slightest chance of being spotted by other children. It sometimes happened that other children did visit the buildings and during this time, David and I remained silent until they had gone away. That is, except on one occasion when, safely esconced in our tank and deep into a couple of issues of Sexton Blake, we heard voices below - girls' voices!! This was the first time that this had ever happened. Sitting in our secret lair, we listened with increasing disgust as these interlopers played girls' games involving dolls and silly baby noises.

This was too much and David and I hatched a plan. We waited until the party below had entered the ablution block where they had an imaginary shop and putting our mouths to the feed pipe protruding from the bottom of the tank, we made hideous moaning noises. The effect was immediate. With terrified squeals, the hated girls gathered up their dolls and ran for their lives. This not only left us in peace but must have been the origin of the story that the site was haunted and should be avoided.

In wet weather, the bottom of the tank would have an inch or two of water in it, which would take time to dry out, forcing us to find somewhere else to play. The day of the ME 109 was very hot and so had been the previous few days. Out tank was dry and stifling inside but with the whole afternoon before us and the latest comics to read, we were happy.

It was then that the air raid siren sounded. Having our freedom to wander away did have its rules. The principal rule involved running for the nearest shelter should the siren go. A quick discussion and we decided that inside our tank we were as safe as being in a dark and smelly shelter and so we stayed put.

Like so many alerts, nothing seemed to be happening. There was no noise of distant gunfire or anything to disturb the peace of that afternoon.

Then, suddenly, came a tremendous roar insterspersed with cannon fire. Foolishly but instinctively we both looked over the top of our hiding place. With an ear-splitting roar, a Messerschmitt 109 roared past, on the same level as ourselves and only just above the railway embankment along which it flew. What seemed only a few yards behind, came a Spitfire firing its wing cannons and machine guns at the same time. As the German aircraft screamed past our hiding place, pieces began to fly off and flutter down.

In a couple of seconds, both aircraft were gone but the firing could still be heard, then silence. Since both planes could easily achieve 375 mph, the whole thing had happened and was gone literally in the blink of an eye. Neither of us spoke for some minutes and in the distance we heard the All Clear sounding.

We stayed in the tank for the rest of the afternoon and before going home for tea agreed a story between us. Yes, we had heard the siren and yes, we did go to the shelter in the school playing field.

David and I discussed the matter often but mentioned it to no one and it is only in latter years that I have tried to reason our reluctance. Clearly we kept our silence to protect our future freedom to wander but it was more than that. The Messerschmitt was doomed and must have crashed a few seconds later. In that the third year of the War, bombs, guns and roaring aircraft were commonplace and we both had seen planes falling in flames out of the sky. This was somehow different. Two 11-year-old boys had seen at very close quarters one young man killing another. To 11-year-olds an adult is a different species but these pilots were almost certainly just twice our age. The effect was sobering.

David and I continued to climb into our secret world and still kept our special place to ourselves. The holidays finished and the wet weather meant that our tank would not be habitable. I cannot speak for my friend, as small boys do not voice such thoughts to one another, but I was secretly glad when the season for climbing into our special world was over.

The magic had gone and we never returned.

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