Chapter 10: Mortlake Mystery

OUR trip down to visit Gold’s gunner Petersen in Mortlake, using the iconic red London double-decker bus system, was uneventful. We had to climb upstairs of course, and Mary was fascinated to see many London landmarks she knew from history and watching films, including those shot in London.

Before we departed her rooms we enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast brought up to the suite and served sizzling hot. Who knew that there was even a dining room and small kitchen in that fantastic hotel suite of hers?

I had never wondered before how the other half lived, but now I pondered how would someone who had known this life of wealth and privilege for most of his life be able to adapt to joining the RAF at the start of a world war, fighting for a country as ill-prepared for armed conflict as we were? My estimation of Bradford Gold the patriotic aviator went up several notches.

Petersen was staying in a convalescent home next to the river Thames. It was an idyllic place, converted from a Victorian mansion within extensive grounds, mostly laid to lawns running down to the picturesque river. It was a bitterly cold morning with a ground frost that persisted in the shade despite the bright sun that kept low in a cloudless deep blue sky. When we arrived we were informed by the reception that our quarry was resting in the sunroom and we were asked if would we like tea brought to us there?

“We would appreciate that very much,” Mary confirmed, with her English accent that she seemed to have perfected as if it was her natural mode of speech. I must admit, she did look the part in her smart blue sailor suit that she wore. I was back in my old brown suit but, along with my underwear and shirt which had been laundered, repaired, smelled clean and freshly pressed so well that I hardly recognised it as mine at all.

The sun room ran along the complete eastern end of the side of the large house, catching the morning sun, with views down to the river across extensive lawns, weeping willow trees and what was possibly once a shrubbery. Now the shrubbery appeared to be dotted with leeks, the last of the winter’s Brussels sprouts and several rows of winter cabbages, with threaded sticks marking off areas fresh dug for planting up as soon as the weather turned warmer, or at least frost-free, probably in a month or so.

Everywhere, all over Britain, parks and gardens were being dug up to grow a little of the tons of food that once daily used to come from all over the world in huge cargo ships that the German U-boats were presently sinking at alarming rates.

However hazardous flying across the Atlantic Ocean appeared to be to me, a man who had travelled no further in his whole life than the Front Line in Northern France and Western Flanders, it was appreciably safer than steaming across the Atlantic Ocean in a lumbering liner or cargo ship. I was grateful that, when Mary returned to being Miss Marcia la Mare, she would be flying well above the submarines, and well out of the range of German fighter planes from mainland Europe.

Gunter Petersen was a Danish national, a young fisherman, still in his early twenties, who had got himself caught up in the war by circumstances beyond his control and decided to put his effort behind the opposition to the Nazis by joining the British armed services. His fishing boat crew landed in Scotland just after Denmark was invaded in April 1940 and capitulated to the mighty German Army in just six hours. Petersen’s crew voted to a man to fight the Germans by joining the British Army or Royal Navy. Petersen actually plumbed for the RAF, as he had always been interested in flying and desperately wanted an opportunity to hit the Germans in their own homeland.

It was warm in the sun room, and I removed my jacket as we walked through it, but Petersen just laid there listlessly, propped up on some form of wheeled stretcher and covered in warm blankets. It was obvious from the contour shape of the blankets over his lower body that his right leg had been removed just above the knee. It looked like Petersen’s short war was over, just like mine was back in 1916.

After the initial confusion over our introductions, as a recently returned from retirement police detective inspector and his young female assistant, and why the police were calling on him, Mary took a different tack to the one we took at the airfield.

“Mr Petersen, your former pilot, Flight Lieutenant Bradford Gold, is missing and we have no idea where he is, even whether he is safe or in danger. We are exploring every single avenue to find him. We know you have been out of action for some months now, but we are hoping you can tell us anything at all about him. It is possible that you might know of some small detail that will help us find him.”

“Missing, you say? Mr Golt? How?”

“We really aren’t sure,” I answered, “we are being told different stories by different sections of the military, which is why we are confused. The RAF and Military Intelligence really aren’t helping us. What we understand is that, after your incident over Germany and the subsequent crash, Gold was given a week’s leave, during which his transfer to Fighter Command came through, so he never returned to East Anglia. He then spent three or four months in London until he disappeared a month ago. His landlady says he wore an RAF uniform initially, and we’ve heard from his other crewmates at the airfield in East Anglia that he was joining a fighter squadron. Trouble is, we cannot find anyone who can tell us where he was posted —”

“Biggin Hill,” Petersen said.

“How do you know?” Mary asked.

“Mr Golt come to see me, just after my first operation. I tolt him I’d be his gunner again in six months after I got my new leg, and he said he’d already received his posting to fighters. He told me he was joining a squadron of Hurricanes although he had been hoping for Spitfires. He joked that he was an old man for a flyer and needed a smart new plane for his image, not an old workhouse like the Hurries.” Petersen laughed. “He vas a very good man, Mr Golt, but he vas vain like that.”

Mary laughed with him. “I suppose all actors have to be vain, Mr Petersen.”

“No, I don’t thing so. You are pretty enough to be in the movies, Miss Jones, I thing.”

“Really?” she exclaimed.

“Oh yes, if not Hollywood, then certainly you’d be a hit in Danmark.”

“My grandfather is a Dane.”

“Really?”

“Yes, he is retired, in his eighties now, but he speaks English in the same accent as you.”

“So, you would be as big in Danmark as Seena Owen, or as much as Ingrid Bergman is in Sweden, only please stay as you are and try not to end up being vain.”

“Oh dear,” she said, “I should never have worn my best suit, today, should I”?

“No, Miss, that is quite all right, you loog very nice. You have really brightened my day.”

“Thank you, Mr Petersen, you’ve quite made my day too. Now, you say that Flight Lieutenant Gold visited you? Was it here?”

“No, it vos vile I vos in the London Hospital. I vos put in the local hospital near the airfielt base but they said I neeted a specialist in London. They tried to save my leg, a couple of new method the surgeon said, but in the end...”

“I am so sorry,” Mary patted him gently on the arm, bringing to s mile broadly.

“The var is over for me now, I thing. But I dit what I coult for as long as I coult. When we ported our fishing boat in Scotlant, ve vere worried that you would not be able to tell German from Dane, and would lock us up or shoot us as spies. But you English have always been goot to us and I am gladt I did my part as goot and as long as I coult.”

“Did Mr Gold talk about anything else?”

“He came with Flight Sergeant Stenton, they must’ve come during the week after the crash. You lose all trag of time in these places, I don’t even know what day off the week it is. I thing it is Friday?”

“Yes, it is,” I said, smiling, “So you have not lost too much use of your senses.”

“Only know it is Friday because it is the only morning we have smokt haddock for breakfast instead of bacon, aggs and kidneys,” he smiled. “Back then when Mr Golt and Stenton were visiting, I was having a lot of treatment recovering from operations. I was uh wandering in and out of sleep during their visit, I was so tiret. But I remember them talking about someone callet ‘Curly’.”

“Who’s Curly?” Mary asked.

“That’s exactly vat I said when I voke up, ‘Who’s Curly?’ I said to them, adding ‘What’s Curly mean?’, as I vas alvays asking the crew the meaninks of new English words. It vos Mr Golt vot got me this noteboog —” He rummaged around in a bag that he had by the side of his chair and pulled out a folded-over notebook with an elastic band wrapped around it and a pencil held in place by the band.