Every now and then, I will share a short story or piece of writing that has not been published.
You can read it here:
A short story that has been brewing in my head for about twenty years. I even wrote and offered the plot idea to my favourite war writer, Ken Follett
- Who I thought would do a much fuller and better story than I managed here. I got the reply, 'Write it yourself!'
Churchill's Winning Gamble
by Barry Cooper
24th August 1940 – London – The East End – 00:12.
The Junkers88, light bomber, flew over south east London, heading towards the docklands of the East End. The pilot understood the importance of their actions, as the bomb aimer prepared to take careful aim. He was determined to hit their target, a particularly deserted dock. The flight was spot on time, the pilot's navigational skills, using maps, dead reckoning, personal knowledge and the stars, was second to none, and the raid was going exactly to plan. They had flown in high over the coast and come down to a low bombing height as they overflew Croyden airfield. Strangely, the pilot hoped that he would be seen by the spotters that manned the base night and day.
The alert would have gone up by now, he thought.
There would be a night-fighter on their tail, though probably still a thousand feet lower and four or five miles to their rear. Nevertheless, he was determined to bomb London before they were caught up. He had to bomb the docks to fulfil his mission, it had to be tonight, there was no time to lose. He strained to see behind in the dark.
Useless! There's no way I could see a fighter from the front in the dark!
'Dock sighted. Three miles to drop. One minute, Captain. Come a little to the right, two degrees,' reported the bomb-aimer over the aircraft's internal intercom.
The pilot eased the aeroplane slightly more to the north as they flew almost north west on a heading of forty-one degrees magnetic, resisting the temptation to have another useless look behind for the stalker that he knew would be there somewhere in the darkness. He scanned his instruments and checked the tightness of his parachute, not for the first time that flight.
'Right-Oh, one mile to go. Twenty seconds. Keep this heading,' continued the bomb-aimer's commentary.
The drone of the engines dropped slightly as the pilot eased back on the power a little to give the perfect airspeed for the bomb-sight to be accurate. More than on many previous bombing runs they had been on together, they had to be super accurate tonight. Many lives depended on it.
'Bombs gone!' announced the bombardier just as there was a rattle of bullet strikes on the port wing.
The pilot's reactions were swift as he had been expecting something, waiting for something, since they started their bombing run. Bombers are most vulnerable when they have to fly straight and level on the run – The night fighters knew this and it was a gamble to try to get the bomber before it dropped it's bombs. This fighter was almost perfect in his timing, but the bombs were gone. The pilot pulled a steep turn to the east over the docks and headed up the Thames and out towards the less populated countryside. The ground below and behind them flashed, and the dull detonation of the bombs shook the aircraft as it levelled out at full power. There was another rattle of bullet strikes, this time on the fuselage somewhere between the cockpit and the tail. The pilot gently tested his controls. No damage, luckily. The pilot pulled the control column back hard and entered a steep climb. He knew this would slow the aircraft down, but they needed three thousand feet altitude to bail out safely.
'Ready for our exit, Sergeant?' he asked.
There was a rudimentary autopilot fitted to this particular Junkers88 and the pilot prepared to activate it when they reached a heading of ninety degrees, magnetic, due east.
'I'm ready, Captain,' the sergeant replied as he released the canopy's latch on his side of the cockpit.
The pilot levelled the bomber out, heading 'oh-nine-oh', east, and flicked the auto-pilot to 'Standby'. That would keep the bomber flying out to sea along the Thames estuary until it was shot down by the fighter. If everything went according to plan, the Junkers would fall into the water and not on any populated area. The captain released the catch on his side of the canopy just as three more bullets hit the port wing. The fighter was close! The canopy flew off into the inky black night. The airmen were quick to follow into the hollow night and hoped that the following fighter didn't see their chutes opening. As the noise of the aircraft moved into the distance the two airmen swung silently in the night, under their silken canopies, as they descended in the quiet of the darkness over the northern bank of the Thames near Linford.
24th August 1940 – London – 10 Downing Street – 07:11.
'The problem, Prime Minister,' said the Minister for War, as they sat around a long table in the meeting room awaiting an intelligence officer's arrival, 'is that the good people of Britain won't sanction a first strike against a civilian population. Not even against the Nazis. It's simply not cricket, old chap.'
'So, I understand,' said Mr. Churchill.
'The trick would be to get them baying for blood. Their sense of fair play is so fickle. Tap into their eye for an eye mentality!'
The Prime Minister set down his brandy glass and took up his cigar. No-one thought anything of the Prime Minister drinking spirits so shortly after breakfast. In these strange times people did what they had to do to get through the day. Blue smoke drifted toward the ceiling light.
The door opened and the intelligence officer entered. He looked around and noted that he was the last to arrive. He made his apologies and sat down at the table quickly, opening a briefcase as he did so.
'Do you have anything of great import this morning, Major Richards?' asked the Minister for War, with a knowing gleam in his eye.
'Bombs fell on London last night,' said the intelligence officer, placing a folder on the desk and flipping it open.
'Not much damage,' he continued, 'Four two hundred pound bombs fell in an empty dock. Luftwaffe Junkers88. Three of them fell in the water and one struck a small shed full of scaffolding poles. A bit of a mess, but it won't harm the war effort. Bricks from a wall and several metal poles were blown across the street and did damage to a car and two shops. No casualties. A Boulton-Paul Defiant, based at Croydon, caught up with the raider over the docklands and shot it down somewhere over the Thames, just south of Canvey Island. The bomber crashed into the river... The plan went perfectly.'
Churchill looked up from his hands, clasped on the table in front of him, 'That's good. I will issue a statement by radio broadcast later today. Hopefully, the people will expect me to retaliate.'
The Prime Minister stood to pace the room as he thought aloud, 'Too long, Hitler has been concentrating on our air-force bases. They're on their knees! The public will now understand if we bomb Berlin, indeed they'll applaud our efforts to redress the balance. We will go ahead as planned with that raid – Tonight.'
Churchill stopped pacing and stood looking out of the window, 'It's a calculated risk, but we expect that Hitler will not stand for the bombing of his capital and will switch his attention to London. Without last night's crucial secret raid, using the captured Junkers88, we would be beaten in just a few more days. His forces are poised for imminent invasion across the channel. If we use Hitler's ego as a weapon against him, he will now ease off attacks on the air-fields to concentrate on the city, and our boys can rebuild and prepare to repel the bombers. It is our only hope!'
Churchill turned to the assembled heads of the armed forces.
'It's a gamble. But it's also our only chance to win the Battle of Britain!'
The press officer addressed the Prime Minister, 'Sir, we have a name for the expected reprisals against London. We will be calling it, 'The Blitz'.'
'The people of London, and probably other cities also, will suffer in the next few weeks. But now, Britain has a chance to win this battle and maybe even the war.'
17th September 1940 – London – 10 Downing Street – 09:16.
'It seems, Prime Minister, that our plan has worked spectacularly well. Hitler's pride has possibly cost him the war!'
'Yes. For the war it's a great victory, but for the people of our cities it's a burden to bear.'
'Hitler sent the bombers to London immediately we bombed Berlin. Switching his target from the airfields to the city gave us the space to regroup and repel them more effectively. Our sources in Berlin tell us that Operation Sea-lion has been shelved. Hitler is moving his forces from the coast and there will be only token strikes tomorrow. You've won this battle, Mr. Churchill. Congratulations.'
The Prime Minister took up his trademark cigar, 'It was not an easy decision, to authorise the bombing my own capital city. But, it was my decision to make alone, and it was vital! The people will never know it was our own raid – That will be a secret forever.'
Epilogue:
Luckily, when the bombs fell on London, no-one was injured, but later in the war Churchill had to sacrifice his own servicemen in another action, when the enigma code was broken. One of the first
messages clearly told of imminent U-boat activity near the fleet. It was apparent that some of our ships were in danger of being sunk, but to warn the ships of the attack would give away the fact
that the code had been broken. If this was known then the Kriegsmarine would have added more encryption to their coding and the allied powers would be back to square one. The information was not
shared with the Royal Navy, and the ships were lost – These men and weapons were sacrificed to protect the secret. Vital in the eventual winning of the war.
A short story that I thought of while I was driving. I was listening to the radio and just one sentence made this story pop into my head.
Health Cheque
by Barry Cooper
Mark rode in the taxi, looking out of the window at the dismal buildings as he approached the hospital. He was in his usual world of hate, which always took him over when he thought about his mother's health. Since he was born he hadn't spent a single day off school, off work or in hospital with his own illness. He, and his sister Penny had never had a sick day in their lives. Their mother, on the other hand, spent several months a year in some hospital bed or another. Those days that she did spend at home were mostly spent in bed, or wrapped up on the sofa with a hot water bottle.
The taxi drew up at the hospital drop off point and Mark handed the driver a tenner, leaning in through the open window. He straightened and heaved a sigh of resignation. Yet another day in hospital. Maybe it would be the last. Mother was close to the end. Somewhere, deep inside, he knew that she was dying young. It bothered him that he would have the funeral to pay for and his sister would make even more demands on his time once mother was out of the way. Why couldn't he just have an easy life?
Penny stood as Mark entered the side-ward room on Fisher Ward. She looked drawn and grey, even as the sun broke through the thinning clouds and lit the room brightly. She looked from Mark to their mother, a waisted grey figure covered to the neck by a sheet and a blanket with numerous tubes and machines beeping and shushing as they delivered the medications through the tubes.
'Not long, the doctor said,' said Penny, sitting back down and taking her mother's hand.
'How long?' asked Mark.
'Not long.'
'You know I hate these places. We've not had a day sick in our lives. How come mother spends so much time in hospital? If Darwin was to be believed we should be as sick as her!'
'We owe it to mother,' said Penny.
'What do we owe? I've spent months in hospitals throughout my life and none of it because I was ill! I've wasted months, years probably, visiting,' he answered.
'We owe it to mother,' said Penny, again.
Mark looked at his mother's unconscious frail body beneath the sheet as another machine injected a quantity of some drug or other. He thought how it would be a relief when she finally did go. Possibly relief for her, but certainly for him. Bloody sick people! He thought.
Penny looked over at Mark, 'Perhaps that gypsy was for real!'
'Gypsy?'
'You know, the gypsy story mum used to tell when we were kids.'
Mark thought, then, 'I don't know what you're on about.'
'She stopped telling the story when I was about six, I suppose, don't you remember it?'
'Well, I would have been four. How would I remember? What's this wonderful story, then?'
Penny settled herself in the chair next her mother's sick bed. She straightened the sheet absent-mindedly and said, 'Before I was born, while she was eight months gone, mum went to Skegness for a holiday. There was a fortune telling tent by the fair. As was the fashion in the sixties, mum went in and spoke to the gypsy. The gypsy, Petrulengro, said that her children would be sickly.'
'Well, she was good, wasn't she? We should ask for her money back! We've not had a day sick in our lives!'
'There's more, Mark. Mum was distressed by that news and, as mother's do, she said that she would do anything to give her child a healthy life. The gypsy asked for half of dad's pension and half of her health. She said that we would be healthy as long as she lived. She said that we would never have a day's sickness while she was suffering for us. Mother had to suffer all the ills that we would have succumbed to. I think the deal was binding, Mark.'
'Don't be stupid. We never knew our dad.'
'He died the day I was born, he was on the way home from the hospital.'
Mark said, 'I know that! Mother never let us forget, did she? Kept going on about how lucky we were that he had his pension and insurance. Paid for our life, and our health, she said.'
'Don't you think it's scary though? Mum made this deal with the gypsy and dad dies the month after?'
'Mumbo jumbo. We are perfectly healthy and that's that!'
The nurse came in to the room and checked for a pulse. She shook her head and said, 'I'm sorry, Penny. She's gone.'
Mark and Penny looked at their departed mother in the bed. She seemed at peace and looked somehow healthier than she ever had alive.
Later that evening, after all the forms had been signed and the arrangements for the body's storage had been made, Mark prepared to leave.
'Do you need a lift? We can share a taxi, Pen.'
Penny answered, 'No, I'll stay a little longer, I feel really tired.'
'OK. I'm going. No more hospitals for me, sis.'
Mark stood outside the lift waiting for its arrival on floor three, thinking how he would have a life free of hospitals from then on.
As the lift doors opened he gave a slight cough, and thought he felt a little chilly.
As part of my ongoing development, I wrote a short passage prompted by a direction to 'Write without planning: a narative using a play on words'.
A Drop in the Ocean.
By Barry Cooper
Dear reader, allow me to tell you about a strange fellow in a dilemma. Maerd is standing with his back to the cliff, daring to let himself go. Staring into my eyes
as I see him with the backdrop of the sea. He wishes he could perform a back drop of his own. All he has to do to end the constant pain that racks his miserable mortal body is to simply let
himself fall backwards. “How hard can it be?” he's thinking as I write, and watch with interest. He is standing dangerously close to the crumbling edge, but that's OK for what he has in
mind, if not in body. As he tests my patience, continuing to stand in this dream-like state, the sea below wreaks its unholy vengeance on the rocks that line the base of the precipitous drop,
oblivious of, and uncaring about, the present it may receive at the hands of determined, perfect, gravity.
Atop the cliff his eyes hurt and, dry as they are, he sheds a tear at his cowardice. His teeth feel the way ears do in a bitter cold. His fingers strayed from
the path as only fish do in the topmost branches of the Kao trees. His breath came in short pants, but he was warmly dressed against the chill wind, that worried at his balance. Knees knocked,
but no-one answered. His pulse raced, but there was no chequered flag.
Dear reader, he was lost in thought and daring to put an end to his existence. There was a pain that constantly nagged at his soul and his nerves and
undermined his personality. He was a good man - he thought - others had told him - and he believed. Yet, would a good man do this? He wavered slightly and caught his balance just in time.
Damn.
Dear reader, our hero may be a good man, but he is not a happy man. He lost his self respect, that was easy after his ever painful legs brought him to the
edge of reason, and ultimately, this cliff. The things he had done to assuage the pains that gnawed at his being. But, to lose his balance, perched as he was in this precarious position with the
wind whistling around him and the pain surging through him, seemed impossible. How could he carry on? How was this world of dichotomy gripping his soul to carry on and keep carrying
on, and in carrying on, end it? To what end? Certainly not his. The pain that coursed through every joint and sinew. That crawled on his skin and churned his bowels, drove him to
distraction and, wearing as it was, he could still not find courage to end it.
Then, a miracle, dear reader. It seemed to me, about time too. A random and unusually strong gust caught him unawares and he finally passed the point of no
return. 'This is it!' he thought, as the cliff edge passed before his eyes and he tumbled. He was falling, falling, falling, falling... As he plummeted he felt the world go light and his
pain melted away. He felt the need to grip on to something and his painful fingers clenched into balls of fire, but there was nothing.
Reader, I expect you are thinking I am going to end this tale with the immortal (and predictable) line “And then he woke up...”
I am not. As he fell in that endless drop, his eyes closed. As he fell, he did not wake up. Far from it, in fact. He fell asleep.
When I was doing course A174 'Start Writing Fiction' at the OU, in 2011, we were asked to write a story 'featuring a letter', of about 1,500 words.
This is my first effort at a 'proper story':
The Letter of the Law.
by Barry Cooper
Laura was searching through her notes on the untidy, paper strewn kitchen table mid-afternoon on a quiet Sunday. She rummaged theough her briefcase to the
third time. She called to her husband, head toward the tudor beamed ceiling.
'Have you see my college assignment?'
'I don't think so. What’s it look like?’
‘It looks like a letter. The assignment was a letter of resignation.’
Occasionally things got misplaced when working in a kitchen and although most things showed up after a while, this particular assignment needed to be reviewed and
sent off the following morning.
‘I put it on the table yesterday, before I went to work.’
Bill entered the room, he looked rather sheepish as his face paled. His eyes darted to and fro, then settled on Laura’s face.
‘What?’ said Laura, detecting Bill’s blanching cheeks.
‘I’m so sorry, Laura, really I am.’
‘What?’ her eyebrows raised, ‘Have you thrown my work away?’
‘It’s worse than that, love,’ Bill swallowed, hard, ‘I’ve delivered it to your boss!’
The next morning Laura still couldn’t believe what had happened to her as she trudged the last few metres to work on another rainy Monday.
‘The prat!’ she exclaimed.
Laura wasn’t happy. She trotted up the steps to the glass door of the red brick Sandwell police station and backed herself in, shaking rain from her collapsed
umbrella. She approached the modern reception desk to acknowledge the duty constable.
‘Hi, Ursula.’
‘Morning Laura. I’ve got a note here from “Thirsty” Thurston for you to see him right away.’
Laura’s heart sank. This is it, she thought, he’s going to let me go!
She walked quickly to her well-used desk and deposited her bag and coat in the cubicle before straightening her uniform. She took a deep breath and headed for
the Inspector’s office. Knock, knock.
‘Come!’
Laura opened the door and stepped inside, expecting a frosty welcome at best, a tirade at worst. To her surprise her boss had a grin on his face and her
letter in his hand.
‘I can explain everything.’ said Laura quickly.
‘I’m looking forward to hearing it.’
‘It’s an assignment for a college course I’m doing – A letter of resignation. My stupid husband found it and delivered it to you. The course is supposed to
help me get on at work, not lose me my job.’
‘I knew it would be something like that. Something I am intrigued about though, is this.’
The Inspector underlined a line of the letter, pushed it across the desk to where Laura was taking a seat, and sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled.
She took the letter and read the line aloud.
‘I have found alternative employment at S.Potter Private Investigations.’
She looked at the Inspector.
‘Is that the sort of thing you would really like to do, detective work?’
‘Well, yes. But I’ve only just started here really. I thought it would be too soon to try to move up.’
‘Normally, I would say that you’re right. In this case, I think I have just the thing for you. Your anonymity is your strength. If you can do a
good job of this, I’ll think about bumping you up to the detective track.’
Later that afternoon Laura was sitting at her desk when one of her colleagues dropped an envelope in front of her.
‘It’s from Thirsty.’
Laura opened the envelope to find a photocopy of a news article regarding a suspected murder at a local EMI nursing home. Laura read the article and got a
chilly feeling on the skin of her arms. This looked like a dangerous job. Her mind reeled. Should she take it and reap the rewards? Should she refuse it and risk never getting off the bottom rung
in her chosen career? The best thing would be to talk it over with her boss and air her concerns. Laura approached the Inspector’s office with trepidation. How could she start this conversation?
Would he think she wasn’t up to the challenge because she had questioned his judgement? Would he… At that moment the door of the office opened and Henry Thurston came out. He stood looking at
Laura for a few seconds.
‘Think about it overnight.’ he said, winked, and went into the superintendent’s office.
Laura reread the article, wondering still if she should get herself out of the dangerous assignment. Fake some illness? Take some leave? Plead insanity? She
shrugged and got her coat, ready for the rush-hour journey back home to Lucky Bill. Suddenly it struck her. Insanity? That wasn’t such a bad idea at all. Would it be possible for her to get
admitted as a patient? Surely it would only take a couple of documents to get her through the doors, and she could find out first-hand how the patients are treated. Yes, she thought, that’s a
great way in to this investigation.
A fortnight later, holding her fake letter of commitment in one hand and her diagnosis in the other, Laura strode toward her desk. She felt confident now, fresh
from a very successful final meeting with Henry Thurston that morning. Everything was now in place for her first undercover assignment. In the first meeting, when she explained her
thoughts to her boss, he had been very enthusiastic. He had called in his documents team and they had done the necessary research to produce, in just two weeks, what Laura now held in her
hands. Believable, official-looking transfer documents for a mild, first stage Korsakov’s dementia sufferer.
‘The beauty of Korsakov’s,’ Thurston had said during the meeting, ‘is that it can start to appear in young people. It’s brought on by excessive drinking and
is getting more common. We couldn’t have you suffering from Alzheimer’s, you’re thirty years too young! Korsakov’s is perfect. The symptoms are, he read, 'unprovoked,
spontaneous aggression, unreasonable behaviour and hallucinations'. You can have fun with that. Luckily for you, generally, you can function normally and well enough to wash, feed and
toilet yourself!’
‘I’m glad about that.’
‘The important thing is not to take any medication. The particular nurse that’s under suspicion of killing the residents is called Marian Muerte. We
have checked that she won’t be on duty when you arrive.’
‘When do I go?’
Thurston gave her the documents, ‘Those papers are your transfer note and your diagnosis. The transfer is tomorrow!’
“Happy Days Residential Home (EMI)” looked clean and modern enough. Though, Laura thought, you never can tell. As she was helped out of the taxi by a
colleague dressed as a nurse, a matronly figure approached.
‘You must be Laura?’ said the enormous woman, ‘My name is Sonia. Welcome. Please follow me.’
That was a bit rehearsed, thought Laura, and a bit cold.
‘Bye Laura. Have a good time!’ called Laura’s undercover colleague.
‘Get back in your box and piss off you stupid cow-bag’ called Laura, getting into character for the ordeal ahead.
A short time later Laura sat in the nurses’ office. The matron went through the papers. A male nurse, badged ‘Tim’, stood outside the door,
watching. The booking in process didn’t take much time. The tour took even less. Within half an hour Laura was sitting in the lounge surrounded by what looked, to her at least,
like the living dead. There were some asleep in high backed chairs, mouths agape and snoring softly. There were three residents walking in slow-motion, with minds elsewhere. There was
one gentleman who was being laid on the floor because he kept getting out of his chair. She thought, Well, that’s illegal for a start.
‘Hello. Laura is it?’ said a different nurse crouching down at her side, ‘I’m going to be looking after you. Korsakov’s, hmm? You shouldn’t suffer like
this.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s you. Can I have some of that cheese?’ said Laura, pointing to a yellow triangle of sunlight on the wall
nearby.
‘Maybe later. Here’s some medication to help you relax. It’s your first day with us and I know you’ll be worried. It’s all strange to
you.’
Laura knew she couldn’t ask specifics about the medication. She would just have to hope that it wasn’t too debilitating. Try not to swallow the tablet, spit
it out later, she advised herself.
Here’s a drink, Laura.’
After Laura had taken a few gulps the nurse stood.
‘Now you’ll be nice and quiet for me.’
'Oh, no', thought Laura, the medication was in the drink. There’s no tablet to spit out!
Slowly, the room seemed to get suddenly quieter and dimmer.
‘My name is nurse Muerte, Marian Muerte,’ said the lady, taking the empty beaker out of Laura’s limp hand, ‘I always make sure I’m here when new residents
arrive. Korsakov’s is such a funny ailment – One minute you can be fine, the next, stone dead!’
Laura fought her ebbing consciousness to look at the clock: 15:49. Curiously, if she was dying, she wanted to know her own time of death. Laura could
see the shambling residents in the lounge appeared to be moving about very quickly now.
'Meds-slowing- down-brain-thinking,' was her last coherent thought. She could feel her heartbeat inside her head. It was slowing, getting weaker. Her mind
sank ever deeper into a fuzzy numb, blackne...s...s...
Thanks, for reading.