Part 21 (2/2)

There was a danger in savouring the showing of the thing like this, I knew that. I was cautious of ecstasy, but the highest branch of the tree-G.o.d's mercy! what a stroke was there. It was not just the one forecast I saw emanating from that twig-tip but something larger, something more glorious. The jubilant intimation of a new era in meteorology, affecting not just D-Day but the whole empire of the atmosphere.

I looked at my watch. It was 9.05 AM AM and I was starving. and I was starving.

With a whoop of triumph I grabbed the papers on which I had done the sums and burst out of the hut, startling the new sentry, who was already dozing. I laughed into the brightening air, took a gust of it into my lungs, then ran down the hill to the main house. On the gravel outside, Don Yates was consoling Stagg about the non-arrival of the bad weather which had caused the postponement of the next day's plans. They were quite oblivious to my revelation, still worrying about the bad weather in which I believed I had spotted a future c.h.i.n.k.

”We're in a wood, chum. We're sheltered from the wind and a cold front has definitely been measured in Ireland,” Yates was saying, rubbing the dark hair on the top of his head. The Irish cold front confirmed that the decision to postpone had indeed been correct.

”Anyway, look!” Yates's hand extended into the air. Stagg and I followed the American's pointing ringer. I was breathing hard from running down the hill.

Sure enough, in the west the tree tops were swaying. Wind was bearing cloud along in threatening armadas. The clouds were of the heaped, turreted, galleonish type that often spells thunderstorms. Altoc.u.mulus castellatus. ”But it sure feels weird to be celebrating a non-invasion, however successful the forecast,” Yates continued.

”Better safe than sorry,” Stagg said.

”It's going to be all right,” I said, breathlessly. ”I've found it!”

”Found what?” said Stagg crossly.

”There will will be an intermezzo. I finally worked out the Ryman numbers down from WANTAC to the Channel. It be an intermezzo. I finally worked out the Ryman numbers down from WANTAC to the Channel. It is is going to be a very stormy night, and the bad weather will continue through to Monday morning. Nothing can stop that cold front coming through now, but it will be followed by a short s.p.a.ce of more settled weather. And that means, once the cold front has pa.s.sed through the Channel, that we will be clear for an invasion on Tuesday.” going to be a very stormy night, and the bad weather will continue through to Monday morning. Nothing can stop that cold front coming through now, but it will be followed by a short s.p.a.ce of more settled weather. And that means, once the cold front has pa.s.sed through the Channel, that we will be clear for an invasion on Tuesday.”

I wanted to tell them how I had come to my conclusion by deliberately subduing the complete mathematics in the way Gill had suggested, and allowing in a simulation of randomness. I wanted to tell them that it was all to do with thin layers between adjacent weather systems, just as Ryman had said. But neither of them was interested in the theory.

So I explained in more detail that WANTAC, which Stagg and the others had lost faith in, was in fact the key. Its apparently discontinuous data (discontinuous with the context) was in fact a sign of a small-scale, good-weather pattern within the large-scale and extraordinary bad-weather pattern. It didn't mean Krick's generalised optimism was right-the worst summer storm series in twenty years was about to whip the Channel and would continue to do so for a day-but it meant we had a chance.

”There will be a gap,” I said. ”I'm certain there will be an opening. WANTAC isn't wrong, it is just reporting a movement on a different scale to those we were focusing on. If the Germans see only the main depression and not the high ridge on its flank, then we will actually have a tactical advantage. Our counterparts will see only the general panorama of bad weather, not the interval in it.”

At the end of my speech I didn't get quite the heroic reception I was hoping for. Stagg looked uncertain after listening to what I had to say, but Yates's face broke into a grin. ”I hope you're right. C'mon, let's go eat.”

Over breakfast we heard that Allied troops had begun to enter Rome. It would be the first European capital to be prised back from the n.a.z.is, but it did not stay long in our minds. We were all thinking about the D-Day a.s.sault. I confirmed to Yates and Stagg that I wanted to go in with the American weathermen as had been suggested. I told them I was sick of sitting with the telephone at my ear and that, meteorologically as well as personally speaking, it indeed would be interesting to see how local weather related to the synoptic forecasts for large areas that we had been doing.

”Maybe not interesting enough to get killed for,” drawled Yates, who was the closest thing to a man of action among us.

”You're absolutely sure?” said Stagg. ”You should feel no compulsion.”

”I am sure,” I said confidently. ”I want to see for myself whether my theory is right. The ratio I worked out, the Ryman number, it's what Sir Peter sent me to find in Scotland. And I think I have, by applying a strange avoidance of elaboration. I want to see the results for real.”

Yates said he would arrange for a car to take me up to join the American Weather Squadron, which was waiting for the off in Berks.h.i.+re.

As soon as we had eaten we went to the hut and pored over the latest charts for a few hours. During this time, to everyone's relief, the sky became overcast. In a few hours it would start to rain heavily. Then we had the Sunday morning telephone conference during which Dunstable and Widewing argued as normal.

Holzman and Krick thought a surge of high pressure, a.s.sociated with but separate from my minor WANTAC high, would protect the Channel. Petterssen was concerned about the rapid evolution of the second storm-Storm E-in the Atlantic; but he now thought it might not come to us as quickly as he had previously antic.i.p.ated. The Admiralty concurred.

I told people about my work with the WANTAC gauges and my positive att.i.tude fed into the discussion, with hearty support from the American contingent. I think this, apart from getting the telephone conferences together physically, was where I made my contribution to it all. It was partly just a question of language, of conviction conviction, of getting people to believe the story you were telling. Even the words you choose to represent such things can make a difference. What is the difference between 'a reasonable possibility', 'the nearest we can get to a certainty in these conditions', and 'unsafe but feasible'?

This is the marginal area we were in, reflecting the extreme complexity and rarity of the weather as set against that of a more typical June. The essential general point, which people never seem to grasp, is that volatility has a direct effect on predictability itself, as well as on whatever it is you are predicting; or (another way of putting it), don't expect the same level of predictability all the time.

This is a mistake often made by those who speculate in stocks and shares, but in fact its relevance is to the whole range of human activity: why, having been thrown into life in the first place and when everything else is so variable, should we expect predictability, of all things, to dance at an even tempo? It is just a smooth dream of comfort that life's roughnesses should yield themselves up with eyes of meek surrender like that. All the same, it is hard to live without such illusions.

I personally supported Krick and Holzman in being more forthright. There was was a slot coming, of a day or two, which presented conditions that were tolerable for the operation. The Admiralty's sea forecasts matched this a.n.a.lysis. Petterssen and Douglas, on the other hand, still harboured doubts, though it would be a distortion to say they advised 'don't go on Tuesday'. It was a matter of emphasis. They fell into line with the others, predicting clear weather for bombing and 'just about' tolerable conditions on the beaches. Technically their reservations related mainly to the further outlook after 6 June, and in this they would prove to be justified. a slot coming, of a day or two, which presented conditions that were tolerable for the operation. The Admiralty's sea forecasts matched this a.n.a.lysis. Petterssen and Douglas, on the other hand, still harboured doubts, though it would be a distortion to say they advised 'don't go on Tuesday'. It was a matter of emphasis. They fell into line with the others, predicting clear weather for bombing and 'just about' tolerable conditions on the beaches. Technically their reservations related mainly to the further outlook after 6 June, and in this they would prove to be justified.

So, anyway, Stagg and Yates went off to Eisenhower and told him they thought a fair interval would become possible from early on Tuesday morning.

The compatibility between the forecasters hardened later on Sunday, at least for a while. I myself missed the moment when peace broke out among them, leaving in the car Yates had ordered for me.

There was just enough time for me to gather some belongings and to make some further brief points to Stagg about WANTAC, which I thought he should communicate to the supreme commander. Next minute I was b.u.mping along in a khaki Packard towards Newbury, which was one of the marshalling stations for airborne troops.

The sky was darkening, it was raining heavily, and a gale was beginning to blow-but I was smiling as I was driven along. Thousands of men whose lives depended on our forecasts had been saved from catastrophe by the postponement. Soon there would be force 5 or 6 winds on the Normandy beaches and complete low cloud cover, preventing aerial bombardment or the landing of gliders and paratroops. It would have been a complete disaster; and in making the right forecast, notwithstanding the hedged-about manner in which it came, we had turned away a calamity.

My confidence about the WANTAC signals did lessen slightly in the car, I must concede. Whether the fair interval we hoped for would actually now develop on Tuesday remained to be seen. Even if it did, the conditions would be far from the minima set out on the BIGOT sheet. Moreover, other large, unpredictable depressions were wheeling across the Atlantic. At least that meant that the Germans, observing the rough seas and strong winds now ripping across the Channel, would decrease their invasion reconnaissance...

I sped along against a southward flow of heavy military traffic. The storm battered the windows of the Packard, which were filled with successive, half-glimpsed images of military transports, all dipped headlights, angles of metal, camouflage nets. Embouched for a moment among vehicles, I glimpsed a tank commander looking for a reason for the hold-up. Rain-lashed, he stood upright in his turret, moving from one side to the other to get a better view. Poking out of soaked camouflaged sleeves, his white hands gripped the edge of the hatch.

Yates said he had arranged for me to go in a glider. I didn't like the sound of that very much, but I supposed it was better than taking my chance on a landing craft. I hated the idea of drowning. Some of the poor b.u.g.g.e.rs would have to drive jeeps off the landing craft into five feet of water. I'd seen them down in Portsmouth, dipping their hands into vast drums filled with a compound of grease, lime and asbestos fibres and coating the points and distributor with it under the bonnet, then driving down the harbour slipways into the water to practise. These jeeps had upright exhausts, like snorkels. All you could see as they moved along was the vertical protrusion of the exhaust, with its little flapper-cap going like billy-o, and the head and shoulders of the driver.

I had felt like that until very recently-as if I was just keeping my head above water. Now I was stronger, I thought, as the traffic whistled on the wet road. What I had learned, apart from the proof itself, and it was simultaneous and coterminous with it, was that all things are ephemeral, although connected by a web of marvellous affinity...one that stretches from the bounds of universe to those of individual being. How wonderful it would be to be some kind of scientific superhero, able to fly without let from one misty region to the next!

We pa.s.sed a sign for Chobham, I think it was (the las.h.i.+ng rain made it hard to see), and I remember it was at more or less that moment that my conviction of total connectedness suffered a blow, as I saw the continuity between me and all the thugs and monsters of whom Hitler was simply then the most prominent. But looking back now, with sharpened eyes, I see the link to the maniacs is simply one of the facts that any system must legitimately ignore. At least, it must if it is to preserve its ident.i.ty.

How rarely we see it, the full picture. Through our fogged perceptions and illusions of control, how rare is that man or woman who can stay still in the strange land of dissolving elements, constant change and unpredictable fortune that is called life; can stay still long enough to perceive an ideal of the whole. And, in becoming still, become aware of his or her own flow: the buried stream of a genuine self, murmuring quietly as it winds its course. Only another's eyes can show the way to this place, and those have now been closed to me. What's left is not the ghostly aspect of her, but that of myself-of my own former inwardness that now follows me round like a strange dog.

If, tracking me down, that figment of my past were to ask me how to tell the future, I would advise it to look for patterns within systems and perturbations at their edges. Spy out what is new and-often more important-what is disappearing. Variations of input count for a lot, as does the speed at which a system operates and at which information propagates through it. When there's a big difference between those two speeds, a shock-wave can result. Ideally, information should pa.s.s through a system at a rate which allows that system to adjust to it.

That is what we have learned. That is the news from the future, conveyed through a fountain pen to a former self, as if the pen itself were a torpedo shot into the past from the bows of the ice s.h.i.+p. That is what I'd tell that persistent old dog of my young self, as he moseyed his way through wartime traffic to an uncertain fate, unknowing of the love and the loss which lay before him, unaware that he was hovering between Africa then and Africa now, where he might seek the plain where his old life rose.

By 9:30 PM PM I was at Newbury among the men of the 82 I was at Newbury among the men of the 82nd US Airborne Division, being taken through line after line of bulky young paratroopers. Some were dozing with their packs on their backs, their faces smeared with camouflage cream; others were sitting up alert, their expressions filled with anxiety by the great undertaking. US Airborne Division, being taken through line after line of bulky young paratroopers. Some were dozing with their packs on their backs, their faces smeared with camouflage cream; others were sitting up alert, their expressions filled with anxiety by the great undertaking.

I was introduced to Colonel Tommy Moorman, head of the 21st Weather Squadron, who were going in with the 82 Weather Squadron, who were going in with the 82nd. He a.s.signed me to Corporal Eugene Jourdaine, a thickset, round-shouldered man with bushy black hairs protruding from his nostrils.

I was to act as Met liaison between the British and Americans, but since I did not have any RAF battledress, they let me wear Weather Squadron uniform. It had a motto on the shoulder, Coela Bellatores Coela Bellatores -'weather warriors'-which pleased me greatly. -'weather warriors'-which pleased me greatly.

I was amazed at the scale of the US Army's weather operation. There were more than a thousand men in the list and another squadron, the 18th, of about the same number. But it was the US Army-issue camp-bed, one of that country's greatest inventions, which impressed me most. I got some sleep that night, more than I had had for ages, conscience for once forgetting to worm its way into my head.

Five.

On the morning of Monday, 5 June, after a hot shower-this aspect of American technical excellence also delighted me-and a breakfast of eggs, bacon and waffles, washed down with black coffee, I telephoned Stagg at Southwick. Through that by now very familiar conveyance (so familiar I had developed a skin complaint in the cup of my ear), I learned of the extremely tense atmosphere of the previous night's forecast presentation, during which Eisenhower and his battlefield commanders in the library at Southwick House had quizzed Stagg on the interval signalled by WANTAC.

As heavy rain poured down outside and wind battered the shutters, Stagg had told them that by the early hours on Tuesday, he believed wind, sea, cloud and visibility conditions would all be tolerable enough to mount an invasion. The cold front which had brought the rain was now moving south-eastwards and would clear the invasion site within two or three hours, Stagg said, and there would now be a weather window of one to two days.

Tedder asked Stagg how much confidence he had in this forecast.

”A lot,” said Stagg simply. I knew what a relief it must have been for him to say those words, and after all that had happened in the past six months it gave me pleasure to hear them, too.

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