border, as if it was a single aircraft, turned through 180° and headed back east whence it had come. Once I was sure this wasn't a feint, I told Group and they allowed me to give the fighters Pigeons to Base and stand them down. Relieved, we watched the 'raid' break up and its individual elements fade from our PPIs. It was as the last paints disappeared that the CO and a motley group of watchkeepers arrived down the hole. I closed down the Chief Controller's cabin and asked one of the newly arrived Officers to take over C & R duties from me for a few minutes while I went into discussions with my rather short tempered CO.
Still in a sort of shock from what had just happened, I did my best to explain the situation to the Station Commander. Clearly, I couldn't describe everything and politely suggested that he, in the morning, examine the plotters' log books. He still didn't seem to grasp the gravity of the last 45 minutes or so and summed everything up by saying "Pod, for your sake, I hope you're bloody right. I'll see you when you come off watch." He stalked out and took his scratch team with him back to the domestic site, presumably to go back to bed. On returning to the C & R room, my plotters were still plotting the falling 'window' and it was drifting slowly in the wind over to our side of the frontier. I told them to make a careful and separate note of where they estimated it would hit the ground. I went for another cup of coffee, which I was able to drink this time. Then I got on to Group and told them my CO's reaction towards me. The rest of the watch was quiet.
On coming off watch next morning I returned to the Mess for a quick breakfast and, instead of going to bed as usual, I reported to the CO's office as ordered. He was still not in the best of moods. He had on his desk a Telex from Group giving him a rocket for not having any contingency plans for a watch call-out in a situation as had arisen during the night. He questioned me again about what had happened and how I had handled it, and was grudgingly satisfied that I had done the only things possible in the circumstances. I told him about the 'window', and where it was estimated to have landed. With that, I left his office and made my way to bed to try and sleep in readiness for the evening watch. The following day when, apart from extraneous duties, I was supposed to have 24 hours off, I was told that search parties had been out and were able to bring back samples of the Russian window. I was shown some and kept a strip in my office as a souvenir.
Very soon afterwards, on my next week of nights, I had a similar event to that just described. This time, though, it was a single aircraft that headed our way and, within a short distance of the border, commenced radar jamming. With our sophisticated ECM I was able to tune out most of its effects and to track the transmitting aircraft as it patrolled up and down parallel to the frontier. To us, it was no threat, and little more than a nuisance. We would clearly have seen if the jamming had been masking any other activity. Group took a relaxed attitude towards it and said that if the Ruskis want to play, let them get on with it. No fighters were scrambled, which must have been a disappointment to the other side.
It was when I was on nights in the first week of December that we had a severe snow storm when, as already described in Chapter 42, we were snowed up and ran short of anything to eat.
I had done four weeks of night watches in three months, all of them involving more or less serious events either due to Russian activity or, more recently, the weather. This was an above average number of night watches for anyone to do. With running short of food when snowed up, and with the only food available away from normal meal times being the standard RAF greasy fry-ups, coupled with a degree of stress as described in Chapter 43, I began to get stomach pains and to feel generally unwell. As previously stated, I had seen the MO and he could do nothing for me. He fully understood my situation and condition, but said no more.
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