The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall Page A

the bombed house—enamel jugs and bowls and mirrors.
    Nothing from the bomb damage was wasted. Another foot of rubble was piled over the Fortress. The gun emplacement was roofed in with old doors and soil. Only the three loopholes for the gun showed from the outside, and that was the way you got in.
    They worked on the garden, too, directing the waters of the tiny stream with dams, so that the whole area became an ankle-deep swamp through which no one could pass.
    At the other side, they fixed a whole section of fence so it would fall outward when someone pulled a rope from inside the Fortress. That gave what Lieutenant Andrew Morgan had called a good field of fire.
    Audrey uprooted plants and privet bushes and planted them on top for camouflage.
    All was ready, just in time.
    But not all the Fortress's defences were made by hands; some were made with mouths.
    It was queer how rumours got around about the Nichol house. It became even more notorious in death than in life. Some people said there was another bomb there, tin-exploded, never found. Others reckoned there were ghosts; ghostly scrawlings of sailor obscenities on walls; laughter in a lighted bedroom which no longer had a floor.
    Perhaps it was the fact that it looked so undamaged, though so many had died there. People pointed out its gables above the trees to visiting strangers. But no one went there, except the children.

8
    Frost lay on the branches, and froze Clogger's breath on the eyepiece of the telescope. He wiped it angrily with his glove. But it was impossible to be really unhappy on such an evening. The sky was a dimming blue from horizon to horizon. The January evenings were beginning to draw out. Clogger consulted the gold watch-and-chain that the lookouts always carried in their top pockets. Five o'clock. Fifteen minutes more in the Crow's Nest. He scanned the horizon with the telescope again. He was shivering so much that the horizon jumped around like a kangaroo.
    Then he sucked in his breath. There was a dot, low over the waves. He lost it, and couldn't find it again. A stream of frightful Glaswegian words escaped his lips. When he finally spotted it again, it was nearer. He could see it had two engines.
    "Captain, sir?" Chas's head emerged from a loophole.
    "Plane, sir. Twin-engined, flying low."
    "Scarper!" shouted Chas. "Gun out!" They whipped the silver fabric off the gun, and pushed the muzzle past Clogger as he scrambled in.
    "Ey, watch it. I don't want a hole where ma dinner is!"
    Chas gripped the gun and peered down the gun sight.
    "Lower the fence!" Cem undid a knotted rope and the section of fence fell away, revealing the view over the bay. There was nothing in sight.
    "Oh, no! Another false alarm! Clogger, you been at your uncle's whisky again?"
    "There was something. Ah tell ye. It's too far off to see wi'out the telescope yet. Wait."
    And soon, there it was: a British plane, a Blenheim? Chas's eyes watered with the strain of looking. It was very low for a British plane. But perhaps it was damaged?
    No. The propellers had that same queer windmill look. It was gliding in, with its engines shut off. It was black. It was him. And, as before, it would pass right overhead.
    He lined up the sights on it. It grew bigger and bigger. Wait, wait. Finger on the curving trigger.
    "Go on!" said Cem, and nudged him.
    There was a flash and a roar. Something hit Chas in the chest, much harder than Boddser Brown's fist. He fell over backward, pulling the gun with him. He lay on the ground with the thing still punching away at his chest. Wood splinters and soil rained down. He stared aghast at a gaping hole in the roof; through which he saw the German plane, crosses and all, pass as in a dream. It looked completely unharmed.
    The tremendous banging of the gun ceased. Cem stared at the enormous hole in the roof.
    "Cor blimey."
    The stream of bullets from the machine gun missed the German fighter by miles. But it startled the pilot so much he put the plane