Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [605]
There were other reasons to go to Sarum. The high ground of Salisbury Plain, for some forty years, had been a military training ground. There were several army stations there – no doubt there would have been something to see. A sharp-eyed scout might have realised that many of the country roads round the old cathedral city had been slightly widened and their ditches filled in; that around Old Sarum hill the roads were marked out in white – both suggesting the movement of tanks.
Having inspected Sarum, the plane might have turned north-east and followed the valley of the river Bourne in which direction it would have noticed other airfields.
But only if it had been able to come down, almost to touch the ground, would the plane have been able to see anything of the real secret of the area.
For as the great day approached, there was hardly a larger concentration of troops and armaments anywhere in Britain than there was at Sarum.
All over the plains, from Old Sarum north, trucks, tanks, weapons carriers, personnel carriers, jeeps, more tanks, and yet more tanks lay camouflaged, parked row upon row along the hillsides, by the edges of the trees, along the huge uncut hedgerows. English, Australian, Canadian, American troops, swarmed around the sleepy old city. In Lord Pembroke’s great house at Wilton resided the headquarters of Southern Command.
Sarum, for the first time in its history, had become one of the greatest encampments in Europe.
“The place is so loaded with armaments,” it was generally agreed, “it’s a wonder it doesn’t sink.”
Lieutenant Adam Shockley, pilot, Squadron 492, of the 48th Fighter Group, had taken the bus from Ibsley to Salisbury in the middle of the morning.
It was good to have a day’s rest. The squadron, with the two others at Ibsley, had been making almost daily sweeps over Northern France in their P-47s, attacking radar stations, airfields and bridges after having received intensive bomber training on their arrival at the end of March. The raids were continuing intensely. He knew the invasion could not be very far away.
Of the city of Salisbury with its grey-spired cathedral, its market place and curious round earthwork he knew nothing at all, except what he had seen from the air.
The bus moved slowly. He wished he had managed to hitch a ride in a car. It was hard to believe that this road, with just room for two cars to pass, classified as a major highway. The little town of Fordingbridge, a village really, was picturesque beside the river. They passed through Downton, and a few miles further, came to a dip. On the right he saw the wall of what he supposed must be a great estate. He grinned. He was used to seeing stone walls round some of the old estates near his home in Philadelphia. “But these English walls are really built to keep you out,” he thought. On the right, a signpost to the village of Britford.
Then he saw the spire. Almost dead ahead, and a minute later he was gazing across the broad valley floor to the ancient city.
It was a peaceful-looking place. He wondered what he would find there. Nothing much, probably.
Brigadier Archibald Forest-Wilson leant back in the rear seat of the little Morris that was serving as his staff car that morning and, half closing his eyes, contemplated the back of the neck of the pretty young woman who was driving him. There was so much activity on the plain that day and such pressure on vehicles that the smartly dressed young A.T. S. volunteer had reverted to a practice from the start of the war – the car was her own.
The pool of A.T.S. drivers was fairly large, but she had often driven him before, between the various camps around Salisbury Plain, and he had noticed her fair hair and striking blue