‘By the stink of the cockpit, he must have been pissed as a snake. Other folks might have taken what he did for shock, like you say. But I’ve never doubted that he was drunk when he Hew that plane into Irontongue Hill.’
‘If he was, his crew would have known.’
‘No doubt. But only Zygmunt Lukasz survived, didn’t he? And he never said anything.’
‘Not officially, anyway.’
‘No.’
‘Do you ever meet any of the Polish community in Edcndale?’
‘Community?’ said Rowland, confused by the use of the word.
‘They have their own church up the road,’ said Cooper. ‘And an exservicemen’s club, where Zygmunt Lukasz is a member. They even have a school.’
‘So they do,’ said Rowland, faintly surprised. ‘But I’ve never thought much about it really. They keep up their own way of life, do they, then? I’m not surprised — like I said, they have their own beliefs, and they stick to them.’
Rowland watched Cooper quizzically, until he began to fidget uneasily.
‘I can’t blame them for that,’ said the old man. ‘If I had to live in Poland for some reason, it wouldn’t make me Polish, would it? No, I reckon I’d still be a Derbyshire lad until the end of my days.’
Rowland closed his eyes momentarily. A voice continued to mumble from the TV. It was a different voice now - a woman with a Scottish accent. Soothing and reassuring.
‘Maybe I was wrong about McTeaguc,’ said Rowland. ‘But I can only remember what I saw and heard.’
‘But you didn’t see Pilot Officer McTeaguc, did you? You didn’t hear him or smell him, either.’
‘He’d already legged it by the time we got there.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I always thought they would find him sleeping it off,’ said Rowland. ‘I had half a mind to try to find him myself and knock the living daylights out of him. But I don’t think anybody else
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even noticed. The fire got to the cockpit, and that was that. Nobody said a word.’
‘Mr Rowland, why didn’t you say anything ahout this at the time?’
‘What makes you think I didn’t?’
‘Because it isn’t mentioned in the inquest report. It isn’t mentioned in the accident report, either.’
‘Always believe everything you read in official reports, do you?’
‘Well …’
‘I can’t imagine you do. You probably write enough of them yourself to know the drill. Some things you put in, some you leave out. Now, don’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
“I told the officers about it, but they left it out of the reports. 1 was only a young RAF squaddie. I did what I was told. We didn’t question things in those days.’
‘There’s one more thing 1 want to ask you about,’ said Cooper. ‘The money.’
‘Ah,’ said Rowland. ‘The money.’
‘There isn’t any money mentioned in the accident reports.’
‘No, there wouldn’t be.’
‘As far as I understand it, Lancaster SU-V was on a routine flight from its base at Leadenhall to RAF Benson in Lancashire. The aircraft had recently been through major repairs, including the replacement of an engine. Its crew were taking it on a test flight before it returned to normal operations.’
‘Yes,’ said Rowland. ‘But when they set off on that routine flight, they were also asked to take the weekly wages to RAF Benson and three other RAF stations in Lancashire. It was safer than sending airmen armed with pickaxe handles to collect it from local banks and some of those bases were in places where the nearest bank was a long way off.’
‘I sec. But the money never arrived. Because on the way there, the Lancaster crashed on Irontongue Hill.’
‘And some bugger disappeared with the loot,’ said Rowland. For a few seconds, there was a faint spark in his eyes. ‘It was funny really. The RAF were going daft about it, but they daren’t
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say anything publicly. Well, they didn’t want crowds of Folk wandering about on the mountain looking lor the money. It
c? o .
was second nature with them anyway, to keep information to themselves. It was second nature to us all at that time. We never said anything, though some of us looked tor the money ourselves when their hacks were turned, I expect. There’d be one or two hoping to come across a few pound notes blowing about the moor/
‘It was never found?’
‘Never. A couple of officers came out to the site. They got angry with us, but of course the rescue teams were more
O O V
bothered about the human casualties. Some of us had been up there for hours and hours in the freezing cold,
