Too Late the Morrow

by Richard Townshend, Bickers

  Christopher saw gunfire coming at him. He skidded to starboard, widening the distance between Gorman and himself. Tracer swept past between them. Christopher gave a touch of left rudder, the Beau’s nose shifted to the left and he sent a burst of cannon into the 110, which momentarily was not head-on. He saw sparks fly from its port engine, followed by a coil of black smoke. Then it was head-on again, but with the port wing low. He fired at the cockpit, knowing that his shells would not penetrate the bullet-proof windscreen but hoping that they would pierce the upper surface of the canopy. The 110 went into a steep dive with its port wing dropping. It dived directly beneath Christopher and by then it was in a perpendicular bank and still rolling.

  For the first time, Malahide sounded excited. ‘Beauty, Christopher… bloody beaut… she’s a goner.’

  Christopher snatched a moment to look for the Sunderland. The propeller of its starboard outer engine had stopped and grey smoke was curling thinly out of the cowling. It had gone down to seven or eight hundred feet.

  He looked for Gorman and saw him in a tight turn with two 110s turning outside him, waiting for a chance to put in a shot if he blacked out and could not hold so tight a turn.

  Christopher fired at the leading one and saw his machine-gun bullets spatter its wings with blue flashes, then he turned back to help the Sunderland.

  ‘Two more of the bastards,’ Malahide said calmly. ‘Three-o’clock, above… about a thousand feet… and a thousand yards.’

  Looking over his right shoulder, Christopher saw them slanting down at the Sunderland. At eight hundred yards he gave the leader of the pair a burst and saw his tracer go over the port wing. The waist gunner on the port side of the Sunderland was shooting up at the fresh attackers. The two earlier arrivals which were attacking it from the starboard were receiving no return fire from the waist gunner on their side. Both nose and tail gunners were shooting whenever their pilot’s incessant twisting and turning gave them a chance.

  Malahide, breathless from heaving the heavy ammunition drums about, said ‘Gorman’s got one.’

  They were still two against five, however. The Sunderland was down to 500 ft and its starboard waist gun was still silent.

  The Sunderland pilot turned towards the pair of reinforcing 110s and raised the flying boat’s bow. Four lines of tracer from the front turret ripped into the nose and both engines of the leader. It dived over the Sunderland, straight past and into the sea. Christopher saw it disappear in a welter of foam and smoke. Water cascaded high from the swirling, oil-stained ripples it had made. Droplets scintillated in the low-angled rays of the sun.

  The carrier wave of the R/T surged in Christopher’s headphones a moment before he heard Gorman say ‘Two from One… I’m on fire… baling out.’

  Christopher jerked his head round and saw flames darting from Gorman’s port engine and along the port wing. He began a steep orbit around the other Beau and watched its crew scramble out and drop clear. Their parachutes opened and he involuntarily shivered at the thought of immersion in that cold sea.

  ‘Maybe the Sunderbus’ll pick’em up.’

  ‘They’d better, Harry. It’s bloody cold. Watch for their dinghies.’ Both pilot and navigator had one-man rubber inflatable boats, on which they sat, harnessed to them with their parachutes.

  The Sunderland turned again, towards the two descending parachutes. Christopher saw the rear gunner firing at a 110 and himself fired at it from abeam. Caught in the heavy cross-fire of four machine-guns from one direction and four cannons and six machine-guns from another, it disintegrated. One wing snapped off at the root, and, a moment later, it exploded. A mass of smoke dropped towards the sea, with chunks of metal whirling out of it.

  ‘They’re down… they’ve got both dinghies inflated… about a hundred yards apart.’

  The Sunderland was down to two hundred feet. The three remaining 110s were circling it at a respectful distance. One waist gunner and the front gunner were keeping up a sporadic fire. There was none from the rear turret. Christopher circled near the Sunderland, watching the Messerchmitts. Presently the rear guns started shooting again, keeping the 110s at bay.

  The Sunderland made a wide sweep away from the dinghies. It had dropped a smoke float near them and the smoke from it drifted gently towards the east. The wind was moderate and the sea lumpy but not too rough. The Sunderland sank towards the waves and alighted with a huge bow wave and long, bubbling wake. Gorman and his navigator were paddling hard towards it.

  The three Me 110s came slanting towards the stationary, wallowing flying boat, attacking from both beams and astern. The beam and rear gunners flung tracer back at them and Christopher turned in to go for the one which was diving from the port side, towards which the dinghies were making. The hatch in the Sunderland’s side was open and two men were leaning from it to grab the dinghies. Bullets pocked the sea, making a rippling row of puddles from which water spouted. The occupant of one of the dinghies flung up his arms and pitched over the side.

  ‘That’s the poor bloody navigator… the bastards. Wish to Christ I had a gun back here.’

  Christopher’s cannons tore the canopy off the 110 and lacerated the starboard engine. He fired again and flames licked out of the starboard wing. The 110 was zig-zagging towards the sea and he followed it. The gunner was firing at him, fully exposed now that the whole canopy had gone. Christopher killed him from less than a hundred yards and then killed the pilot a second or two before the 100 slammed into the sea and broke up. Wreckage floated on a widening circle of ripples and oil.

  He orbited the Sunderland while it made a long take-off run, keeping out of the way of its gunners, who were still shooting at the two surviving enemy fighters.

  The 110s broke away and, ten minutes later, a Beaufighter appeared from the east to join Christopher and help him to escort the Sunderland, which now had its port inner engine feathered as well as the starboard outer, to Land’s End, where a pair of Spitfires and an air sea rescue Walrus amphibian accompanied it to the nearest seaplane base, Mount Batten, off Plymouth.

  Everyone at Trevanney who was not on essential duty had gathered to watch the Beaufighter land. The group captain and Wing Commander Selleck followed it in the group captain’s car from the end of the runway to the squadron’s dispersal. The pert gingerhaired M.T. driver who had wished them good luck less than two hours ago was standing beside her utility van, her freckled face a mask of anxiety.

  Group Captain Todd, spry, lean as a greyhound, sharp-featured and ruddy, was looking at the bullet and cannon shell holes in the wings and fuselage of the Beau when its crew emerged from their hatches under its belly.

  He turned and waited for them to approach, Selleck at his side.

  ‘Are you both all right? Well done. Glad you got the Sunderland back safely. There was a V.I.P. on board. It wouldn’t have looked too good for the Service if anything had happened to him. He’s a commodore from the Admiralty who had insisted on seeing for himself what the R.A.F. are doing to protect the convoys.’

  ‘He bloody knows now.’

  The group captain gave Malahide a startled look, then broke into a smile. ‘Yes, he does, doesn’t he.’

  Malahide looked at the pretty W.A.A.F. and winked. She grinned back and then returned her admiring gaze to Christopher.

  *

  When Gorman had been brought back to camp he told Christopher and Malahide that his navigator had been killed by the pilot of the third 110 which Christopher had shot down. In the Sunderland, one waist gunner was killed and his gun smashed. The rear gunner had also been killed and it had taken some time to drag him out of the turret and for someone else to take over.

  ‘What about the commodore?’ Christopher asked.

  ‘Charming old buffer. He was frightfully chuffed about the whole business. He’s completely pro-R.A.F. now. Beetled straight off back to the Admiralty to tell them all about it.’

  A week later, two or three days after Christmas, Group Captain Todd sent for Chr
istopher.

  ‘You’re for it, sport,’ Malahide prophesied. ‘Better think of a good excuse for whatever’s on your conscience by the time you get to S.H.Q.’

  But in Station H.Q. he found his squadron and flight commanders awaiting him in the station commander’s office and all of them looking pleased.

  ‘I’ve had a signal about you, Fenton.’ The group captain held a piece of teleprinter paper in his hand. ‘From Air Ministry.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I’ll read it to you.’

  Listening, Christopher felt his face grow hot and his collar apparently shrink. It was a citation which, he thought, would not have displeased James to hear about himself.

  Group Captain Todd looked up and smiled. ‘You realise, I hope, the significance of an immediate award of the Distinguished Flying Cross?’

  ‘Y-yes, sir.’

  The station commander evidently intended to make quite sure that he did. ‘It’s a rare honour. Decorations are usually given for consistent merit over a period of time. When they are awarded for a particular action, they usually take several weeks to go through the usual channels before they’re gazetted. An immediate award is a very considerable distinction. And I am delighted with yours. Congratulations.’

  *

  There was an all-ranks dance in the N.A.A.F.I. on New Year’s Eve. ‘I’m going to put the acid on that little bluey sheila,’ Malahide declared. Christopher wished him luck. He had already deduced, from his navigator’s earlier use of the phrase, that to put the acid on a woman implied making an indecent proposal. He did not think that Malahide would meet with a serious rebuff and hoped that a conquest would help to make him less abrasive.

  By the time they set off from the mess, Malahide was noticeably unsteady on his feet, reeked of rum - to which he had recently taken a fancy because it was more easily obtainable than whisky and had a piratical, virile connotation - and was singing ‘Rowl me owver in the clowver, rowl me owver lie me down and do ut agine.’

  ‘You’ll find the clover a bit frosty tonight, Harry.’

  ‘It’ll be warm enough in an air raid shelter, sport.’

  The redhead from the M.T. section was being whirled expertly around by a flight sergeant navigator, but she was looking over his shoulder and beamed at Christopher when she saw him. He glimpsed her, soon after, standing demurely in a group of other girls and shaking her head when asked to dance. Malahide put down an empty pint tumbler - spirits were prohibited in the N.A.A.F.I. - and strode towards her. Christopher did not see him again for the next two hours.

  There was a ladies’ excuse-me in which the redhead barged through four girls who were nearer to Christopher and claimed him. Later, he asked her to dance. When the band leader announced the approach of 1942, she appeared at his side again. ‘Don’t you want to see the new year in with a girl… sir?’

  At midnight, when the band blared a chord and the drummer played a roll, the lights dimmed and Christopher felt the redhead’s arms around his neck, her lips against his. Her mouth moved to whisper into his ear.

  ‘Do you really want to stay any longer?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘I’ve put a blanket in the back of my van.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea. My room’s at the end of the hut and the hut’s empty now.’

  Towards one-o’clock in the morning when they returned to the dance, Malahide was leaning against the wall near the door. He scowled at Christopher and lurched over.

  ‘Bloody fine mate you are, yer bloody Pom. You won’t come the raw prawn with me again, sport, I promise yer. Who’d have thought I’d be flying with a bloody dag?’

  The redhead led Christopher onto the dance floor. ‘What was all that about raw prawns?’

  ‘I think he finds what he knows has just happened a bit indigestible.’

  She giggled. ‘He’s indigestible.’

  She was a cuddly and responsive little thing, but Christopher was doubting that the escapade had been worthwhile if it meant starting the new year with the animosity of his navigator. He knew that hurt feelings took a long time to assuage; especially when the injured party was pathologically proud, prickly and insecure. And he knew he had risked another court martial in taking her to his quarters. It wasn’t drink that made him take these risks; he had had little: he didn’t seem able to resist any act that offered a dare and a thrill. He supposed he should make a new year’s resolution, but he couldn’t think of one which he was likely to keep.

  Chapter Eight

  To Roger, from September 1939 to January 1942 seemed much longer than two years and a third. It was because the war had entered its fourth calendar year, with 1939, 40 and 41 gone and 42 already beginning, that he had this false feeling about the elapsed time.

  He had gone down with influenza towards the end of January, which had sent him to bed. The senior Medical officer had insisted on keeping him in Sick Quarters. The food was not good and he resented being ill when a pallid slug like Unwin was unaffected by the germ. On Devonshire’s first visit to him Roger had given instructions that no other member of the crew was to come near him.

  ‘Tell them they mustn’t risk picking up the bug.’

  Devonshire grinned. He knew that Roger was only too pleased not to have to see Unwin, Bailey or MacTavish for a while.

  There was nothing in the news to dispel the gloom that came with influenza. The beginning of the year had found the British in North Africa back on the line, along the western border of Cyrenaica, from which they had advanced westward in March. Three weeks later Rommel had driven them back 250 miles, two-thirds of the way to the Egyptian frontier. Now they were stagnating on the Gazala Line.

  On Christmas day, Hong Kong had surrendered to the Japanese: who had also invaded Borneo and the Celebes; and were surging down the Malay Peninsula towards Singapore.

  The Germans were within twenty miles of Moscow.

  There was a more personal cause of Roger’s depression. Each passing day brought nearer the end of the crew’s training. In his low spirits and isolation he had admitted frankly to himself that he was frightened of going back on operations. The pain and stiffness in his leg had returned several times: always when the reminder of what had he been through and what still lay in store had been brought to him with particular strength by some exercise which reminded him of an especially horrid real event. His bad dreams had returned; and there was no Kate to take his mind off them.

  On the fifth day of his illness, when he no longer had a temperature but was feeling weak from lack of appetite and general misery, there was a knock on the door of the room where he was lying in bed alone, and Devonshire’s broadly beaming face appeared.

  '‘What the hell are you looking so damn pleased about, Creamy?’

  Devonshire came in and stood just inside the doorway. ‘Brought an old pal to see you, haven’t I.’

  Roger had no old pals at the O.T.U. and he doubted that he could have stirred himself to much enthusiasm for a visit even from James or Christopher.

  ‘I don’t want to see anybody.’

  From the passage outside, a voice said ‘You grumpy sod. Not even me?’

  Roger sat up as though a hot poker had been put to his spine.

  ‘Ginger?’ He was so incredulous that he could not raise his voice. He found that he was trembling as badly as when he had had a high temperature.

  Devonshire moved aside and Ginger Pike appeared in the doorway. Brawny, cheerful and ruddy-faced, he came forward to shake Roger’s eagerly extended hand and to laugh at his astonishment. On the epaulettes of his greatcoat he wore a squadron leader’s braid.

  ‘I always said Jerry would never be able to hang onto you. You’re the best sight I could have. This dump was getting me down.’

  Devonshire had shut the door and he and Pike sat on each side of the bed.

  ‘Jerry didn’t get his hands on me, actually.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The Dutch found me when I baled o
ut. Unfortunately, my crew weren’t so lucky: Jerry caught them. I was in hiding in Holland for two months, then they got me out. I can’t tell you how, or where. I landed back in England in July. Did a conversion course here, made up a crew and went to Squadron.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Callingham.’ That was a two-squadron bomber station in Norfolk.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m a bit choosey about whom I take on my flight. I’m looking for two crews, so I thought I’d come and look over the talent here. I can fix to have anyone I want: the C.O. and the C.F.I. are old chums of mine.’

  ‘Well, you’ve found one crew, Ginger.’

  ‘What are they like? I asked Creamy and he said cno comment.’’

  ‘He would. Actually, they’re efficient; but not much fun otherwise. Two of the air gunners are good types: a Kiwi and a Canadian; but they’re both very young.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘As I say, efficient.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be so glad to have you two on the flight that I’ll overlook any defects in the others.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of anyone going to an O.T.U. to pick his crews.’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t. But I intend to have the best flight on any squadron in the Service.’

  Roger grinned for the first time in many days. ‘I never suspected you were so ambitious.’

  ‘What’s ambition got to do with it? The better crews I can get, the less of a bind it’ll be for me.’

  Roger was not deceived. Behind his heartiness and athletic bonhomie Ginger Pike had always been a perfectionist and a proud man.

  ‘We’re not due to leave here until the middle of February.’