The Bomber Balloon (4 page)

Captain Bocker gave a short laugh. ‘She can stay up a little longer. We will take her as our hostage. When we are safely on the lorries and on our way to Colchester I will release her.'

‘And if he doesn't?' Millie asked, twisting in his grasp.

The Captain sighed and drew the pistol from his belt. ‘I will have to shoot you.'

Even in the darkness Millie's face seemed to glow with anger. She turned to the airship crew whose pale faces loomed in the gloom. ‘Do you speak English?'

Most of the men muttered, ‘
Ja
.'

‘Is this man your leader?'

‘
Ja
,' Signalman Kunischt said.

‘Then I feel sorry for you all. Your leader is a coward and a bully. He would shoot a little girl just to save his own skin.'

The men's faces seemed to be pointing down at the cropped grass on the village green.

‘I bet some of you have kids,' Millie said.

‘
Ja
, we have
kinder
,' Steersman Korber said.

‘Would you want one of your children shot by a British soldier?' Millie demanded. Silence.

Finally Engineer Wegener spoke.

‘You cannot harm her, Captain. We will surrender. We will be prisoners for a while. When we win the war our friends will set us free. But we do not want the blood of a child on our hands. We could never wash it off.'

Captain Bocker shook his head and gave up. ‘As you say, we will win this war soon and be free again. Very well, Englishman. Lead me to your prison camp.'

Millie sprinted off to the village pub, the Plough. Moments later the special constables spilled out onto the village green. They formed a line behind the Germans to stop them escaping into the warm darkness. After their freezing trip and miserable crash the German crew did not want to escape anywhere.

Captain Bocker ordered the Zeppelin crew to get into a line ready to march. Constable Smith came out of the phone box and said, ‘I'll take your gun, sir, if you don't mind.'

Bocker stood straight and raised his chin. ‘I am an officer of the German Army. I will only surrender to a British Army officer.'

Constable Smith shrugged. ‘I'm sure we can manage that, sir. Now if you would just march your men this way.' He pointed to the Mersea Island road. The Germans moved into the darkness followed by the constables on foot or on cycles. Millie handed her cycle to Constable Horace Meade and sighed.

Millie's father had come out of the pub to watch the action. ‘Time you were home, young lady,' he said.

‘But Dad, I want to see how it all ends.'

‘You'll see your pillow and nothing else,' he grumbled and pushed her towards their home.

She had to wait till next morning to hear the full story. Elijah Taylor knocked on the kitchen door and Mrs Watson invited him in for a cup of tea. ‘We met the British troops about a mile down the road and handed the prisoners over. It was all very quiet. No fuss at all. You didn't miss much, Millie.'

‘Our Millie was never there, was she? I only sent her out for a bag of eggs. Her father said she was on the green.'

Elijah Taylor grinned a gap-toothed grin. ‘Your Millie only went and – '

‘Watched!' Millie put in. ‘I only watched on my way back from the shop.' If her mum ever heard of the girl having a pistol pointed to her head she would never be allowed out of the house at night again.

The constable nodded. ‘That's right,' he said. ‘No danger at all.'

‘Constable Smith was very brave,' Millie said.

‘He's not Constable Smith any more,' Elijah said. ‘They told him he will be a sergeant now. And they're going to give him a merit badge. He's as happy as a dog with three tails.'

Millie's mum turned to her. ‘All that excitement in Peldon and we missed it all.'

‘Yes, Mum,' Millie said and hid her smile.

* * *

When the autumn winds started to sweep the streets of the village with crackling leaves. Millie's eyes scoured the skies for bomber balloons but none ever came that way again. Sometimes she would see the
searchlights chasing clouds over London, fifty miles away.

Then she would turn and race along the coal-dark, cold, dark streets. Mac spent his evenings in front of the fire these days. But one night he surprised her. As she turned to run past his house he was there on the step. His barks split the quiet air.

‘Shush, Mac, the Zeppelins will hear you,' she squeaked. She turned the corner, and walked into the man who was solid as a bear.

‘Sorry, Constable Smith – I mean Sergeant Smith,' she said. ‘Please don't lock me up! I didn't know Mac would be there tonight.'

The round-faced, ruddy-cheeked policeman smiled. ‘Lock up a brave young girl like you? Why no. The girl that stood up to a Zeppelin captain? I should think not.'

‘I haven't told Mum or Dad what happened that night,' she said.

‘I know.' The policeman nodded. ‘I knew those Germans wouldn't shoot a girl – that's why I let you come along. I shouldn't have done it, I know. So it will stay our secret, eh?'

‘And you won't arrest me?'

The man threw back his head and gave a deep chuckle. ‘No, no. I've done my arresting for tonight.'

‘You arrested a German?'

‘No an Englishman. He broke the DORA rules. I saw him come out of the Plough pub on the green,' the policeman explained.

‘Did he shout out, or slam a door, or whistle in the street, or fly a kite?'

‘No, he struck a match to light his pipe.'

‘He didn't!' Millie gasped.

‘A Zeppelin overhead could have seen that. I arrested him on the spot and he'll appear in Colchester court tomorrow morning. We can't have people striking matches in the street.'

‘No, sergeant. That's shocking,' Millie agreed, then she ran off home.

‘I'm back, Mum,' she cried as she burst through the door. ‘And I got three eggs.'

‘Shush,' Mrs Watson said. ‘Keep your voice down. We don't want to upset your dad.'

Mr Watson sat in the chair, staring into the fire with a face like a midnight cloud. Millie whispered, ‘What's wrong with him, Mum?'

Mrs Watson took her into the kitchen and said quietly, ‘He's upset. He's been very silly and got himself in a lot of trouble.'

‘What did he do?'

‘He struck a match to light his pipe in the street,' Mrs Watson said.

Count Ferdinand Zeppelin, a German army officer, started building airships in 1897. The German army started using them in 1909. At the start of the First World War the German Army had seven Zeppelins.

The first Zeppelin raid on London was on 31 May 1915. The attack killed 28 people and injured 60 more.

On 24 Sept 1916 Zeppelin L-33 under the command of Captain Alois Bocker was shot down and landed near New Hall Cottages, Little Wigborough. Bocker knocked on the doors of the cottages to warn the people he was going to set fire to the machine. But the fire didn't destroy the Zeppelin and the British balloon builders learned a lot from the wreck.

Bocker marched his men towards Colchester but he was met by Constable Charles Smith. The constable stopped the German crew and called the army. With the help of the special constables in the village the Germans were led towards Mersea Island where the army took them prisoner. From that day the policeman was known as ‘Zepp' Smith. He died in 1977 at the age of 94.

In Britain the DORA law ordered that no lights could be shown after dark. In 1916, in York, the first person fined was Jim Richardson, who was fined five shillings for lighting a cigarette in the street at night.

115 Zeppelins were used during the war but 77 were shot down and many more lost in accidents. There were 51 raids in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358.

The Zeppelins were called ‘Baby-killers' by the British people, but were too easy to hit with guns and aeroplanes, and the last raid took place in June 1917.

The war ended in November 1918.

This electronic edition published in September 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing

Text copyright © 2013 Terry Deary
Illustrations copyright © 2013 James de la Rue
Cover illustration © 2013 Chris Mould

First published 2013 by A & C Black
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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eISBN: 978-1-4081-9166-8

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

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