They took deep gulps of the keen air outside. It was a good morning for their sort of flying. There was scattered cloud from five to ten thousand feet. It would encourage the enemy to come out. It would give good cover while they sought the enemy, and it would allow them to spot friendly aircraft at a long distance.
‘I’m going to keep just in the lower edge of cloud. Jerry won’t spot us in this light.’ There would not be a bright enough sun to be reflected from the Beaufighter or to show it in dark silhouette against the clouds. Christopher had become skilful at playing nip and tuck among the wraiths of clouds that protruded from and drifted among the large banks.
‘We could go all the way to Brest, doing that, on a morning like this.’
‘We will, one of these days; but we’ll need a good excuse.’
They had been briefed not to venture too close to the French coast, but it would shake the enemy on their airfields there if a Beaufighter suddenly appeared amongst them. Christopher had always thought it would be fun to do what the intruder squadrons did: lurk in the vicinity of enemy aerodromes and shoot Jerry down while he was taking off or landing. But that was a nocturnal activity and his squadron did not operate by night. He tucked away at the back of his mind the intention to try an unauthorised intrusion in the Brest area some day soon. Returning from patrol at dusk would provide the best opportunity. A convincing excuse for being there was the difficulty.
The wind was blowing from the south-west, so he flew directly out to sea with the sun behind him and had the always exhilerating experience of seeing the quality of the light change rapidly as he climbed, from dark to pearl grey and from red to pink with streaks of orange and blue that appeared and went and blended and spread in a way that reminded him of a Turner canvas and had more subtleties and shifts of shade than any painter could depict. These take-offs heightened his anticipation more than any other: the first minutes of a new day harboured adventure and excitement. No amount of seasoning in battle could quench his enjoyment of this romantic and mysterious aspect of flying. It was something he did not feel that he could discuss with Malahide, but he noticed that Malahide also on these mornings had an air of special expectancy and gladness.
Fifteen minutes after they became airborne they were sixty miles from the Cornish coast and about as far from Brest, skimming the bottom of each big cloud and slicing through the smaller ones, when Christopher’s concentration on his instruments and the sky to the south and west was interrupted.
‘Urgent signal, Christopher. Better turn onto one-eight-zero while I get a fix and work out a course. An M.T.B. in trouble. We’ve got to give her cover.’
‘I wonder if Jerry’s spotted her.’
‘We’ll soon know. Stand by for a course.’ Twenty seconds later: ‘One-three-three, she’s twenty miles away, on course for Falmouth: that’ll be about zero-three-zero.’
The sun was in their eyes, its angle cast long shadows from the waves. The sea was a dappled confusion of black and steel grey flecked with white on the breaking wave crests. The sun glinting on the water dazzled them as they peered down. Presently they could faintly discern the rakish hull of a motor torpedo boat travelling at half speed on a north-north-easterly heading. They picked up her long wake first, and then the low, narrow craft with the cleft water at her bow creaming in two high arcs.
‘She must have engine trouble.’
‘She’ll be as nervous as a sheila with a mouse up her skirt.’
‘The navy’s always trigger-happy. See if you can raise them with the Aldis. I don’t want to fire the colours of the day in case there’s a Jerry around.’
Any aircraft that approached a naval vessel without identifying itself was a legitimate target. Sailors were not expected to rely on their aircraft recognition. The accepted rule was to shoot first and wait until an aircraft proved it was not hostile. It could do this by flashing the letters of the day on its downward recognition light, or, if it was more than a single-seater, by Aldis lamp, and the colours by Verey pistol. But a flare bursting in the sky would warn an approaching enemy of the Beaufighter’s presence.
The crew of the M.T.B. proved their alertness: tracer came licking up at the Beaufighter. It was at extreme range and the tracer curved below it. The M.T.B. was on the aircraft’s starboard bow. Christopher banked steeply to starboard to give Malahide the best chance to point the sights of his aldis lamp down at the small craft’s bridge. He saw a lamp winking back.
‘He says to fire the colours of the day… windy bastard.’
‘Tell him it’s red over green. And ask him if he wants Jerry to see it as well.’
Christopher continued to describe a leisurely circle and presently the signalling lamp on the M.T.B. blinked again.
‘Silly gig says ‘unable identify unless you fire colours’.’
To emphasise the point, there was a thicker flurry of tracer from her guns.
‘He can go to hell.’ Christopher sheered away and hid in the fringes of the clouds again.
‘We’ve got company, Christopher. Two Eighty-eights at five-o’clock, down at about two thousand feet, a couple of miles away.’
Christopher turned hard to starboard and saw the Ju 88s closing fast on their quarry. He immediately put the Beaufighter into a dive that would bring it in on the port beam of the rearward one. Either a head-on or a stern attack would be uncomfortable. The Ju 88 A4 bomber variant had two machine-guns firing forward, one and sometimes two firing rearward from the rear of the compartment which contained the whole four-man crew, and either one or two more guns to protect it below and astern in a cupola under its belly. It carried a 1100 lb bomb load.
As the Beaufighter emerged from the tendrils of cloud, the M.T.B. opened fire at it.
‘‘The bloody drongoes haven’t seen the bloody hostiles!’
‘I’m too busy to fire a flare now… let’s hope their shooting’s lousy.’
It was not too bad, considering the range. Tracer danced around the Beaufighter while Christopher kicked on left and right rudder to dodge it. He was less angry at being shot at by his own side - it was too common an occurrence - than at losing the advantage of surprise over the enemy. He fired a burst with his cannons at seven hundred yards, aiming at the long canopy over the cockpit and hoping to hit his target somewhere in the fore end or the port wing and engine. At the speed he had built up in his dive, by the time he had fired a two-second burst he was within four hundred yards of it. His shells were making little splashes along the port side of the cockpit. He fired again, a one-second burst, and saw the canopy disintegrate. The Ju 88 slanted into a forty-five degree dive and hit the sea: by then he had torn past and was already turning to attack the other one.
Bomb bursts were flinging pillars of water high into the air, close to the zig-zagging M.T.B. Someone on board was still firing at the Beaufighter, while the rest of the boat’s armament fired at the enemy.
The last bomb exploded close to the M.T.B’s bows. She reared high out of the water, slammed down with a great splash and lost speed. Her wake diminished to a thin streak of foam. And there was no more tracer coming towards the Beaufighter.
The Ju 88 was turning for home but Christopher had the heels of it and he was also a few hundred feet above it. Its single 13 mm upper rear gun was shooting at him and he felt strikes while he completed his turn towards it. He touched off a quick burst and saw hits on its tail. He fired a longer burst with his machine-guns and watched his bullets stitch their way towards the upper rear gunner. Another burst and shards of shattered perspex showered up as the gunner slumped back. Christopher was close enough to see blood pouring down his head and chest. The Ju 88 was yawing hard to both sides. Christopher gave it a burst of cannon in the port engine and smoke at once began to trickle out of the cowling. He fired at the starboard engine from no more than fifty yards, then pulled up and away in a steep starboard climbing turn.
‘She’s going down, sport! Both engines on fire. Extra grouse, mate.’
Christ
opher watched the enemy aircraft, trailing two long plumes of smoke, descend gradually until it was skimming the surface of the sea with a violently turbulent furrow of froth astern. It slowed and settled and began to sink.
He turned towards the M.T.B. and, hoping her captain would appreciate the irony, fired the colours of the day at last. Then he flew over her at fifty feet and rocked his wings. Her crew waved up at him.
‘Ask him if he can make port.’
The signalling lamps flashed back and forth.
‘He says he’s O.K. and two M.T.Bs are coming out to escort him. He says ‘Thanks, pretty shooting’.’ ‘Tell him ‘Better than yours, anyway… you hit us more than you hit Jerry’.’
‘He says he’ll buy us a drink.’
‘Ask him what makes him think he’ll get back to shore. Jerry will have another go any minute.’
This final pleasantry was expressed and after a short silence Malahide said ‘Signal from base: another Beau on its way.’
‘Just as well. Don’t look now, but do you see what I see at three-o’clock, range three, about five hundred feet?’
They were circling the slowly-moving M.T.B. Coming towards them from the south were two Me 110s and two Ju 88s.
‘I suppose we’ll have to do the decent thing, sport, and stick around.’
‘Warn the sailors before you signal base.’ Christopher began to gain height while he began an orbit that would allow him a beam attack on the leading bomber. Both the escorting fighters had turned straight at him. They were two hundred yards apart and separating, with the obvious intention of trapping him between them. He hoped the other Beau would arrive soon.
He was five hundred yards from the two bombers when he fired his first shots at them. There was no time for finesse or precision. He wanted only to drive them away from their target. He gave the leading one a quick burst, then, before he could register the result, he made a hard, flat turn and fired at the other. Both the fighters had opened up at him and their tracer was unpleasantly close on both sides and above. From the corner of an eye he could see every gun on the M.T.B. in action. There was a searing, boiling explosion and the leading bomber disappeared in a storm of fire from the boat’s cannons. The blast of the bombs detonating knocked the Beaufighter violently to one side and out of the way of a torrent of shells and bullets from one of the Me 110s.
The other Messerschmitt turned away from the Beaufighter towards the M.T.B. and dived. The surviving Ju 88, still a thousand yards away from the Beaufighter, broke off its bombing run and veered away from the boat. It also began to reduce height.
Clearly, the Me 110 intended to strafe the M.T.B. at low level and distract her gunners while the bomber attacked.
The Messerschmitt which had narrowly missed the Beaufighter flashed past on the port side. Christopher ignored it and dived after the bomber. The naval gunners were also shooting at the Ju 88. Tracer clipped past the Beaufighter, then suddenly stopped.
‘They’re shooting at the One-one-o,’ Malahide said.
‘Thank God.’ Not so much because there was no more tracer coming their way as because the boat’s guns could concentrate on the fighter while Christopher tried to shoot the bomber down before it made its bombing run. The pilot of the Ju 88 was not giving in easily. He turned head-on at the Beaufighter so that his front guns could bear on it. Christopher managed a two-second burst of cannon as the distance between them shrunk and the bomber banked steeply away. He turned after it. He had forgotten that there were two Me 110s. He glimpsed one of them close to within a hundred yards of the M.T.B. and break away.
‘One-one-o dead astern, same height, five hundred yards,’ Malahide warned.
A Beaufighter crew did not have to worry about a Me 110 that was so far astern. The distance between them increased. Some tracer came past, but it was only from machine-guns, not cannon. Christopher prepared for another attack on the Ju 88. He took a quick look around. The second Messerschmitt was fiying towards the M.T.B. from its port quarter at a height of about fifteen feet, firing all its cannons and forward machine-guns. The boat turned so that more of her guns were able to fire back. Flames spurted from the Me 110’s nose, it dropped a few feet; just enough to brush the water. Scattering pieces of broken propeller blades, in a billow of smoke, a turbulence of water, it nosed into the sea and dived out of sight. Eddies on the surface, an oil patch and bits of wreckage were all that remained of it.
The Ju 88 turned away from the boat once more as the Beaufighter’s cannon shells struck its fuselage and tail fin. The Me 110 fired a long burst that streaked past above the Beaufighter.
‘The One-one-o’s turned away… looks like he’s quitting… There’s the other Beau, Christopher… coming in from north.’ Malahide did not give a clock code reference, because Christopher was turning.
The Ju 88 was scooting away, low over the water, also heading south.
*
That afternoon Wing Commander Selleck came into the crew room where Christopher was talking to the crew of the Beaufighter whose arrival had sent the surviving enemy pilots scuttling away. Selleck wore the pleased expression and had the jaunty air which were caused only by some compliment or tribute paid to his squadron.
‘I’ve just had the captain of that M.T.B. on the blower. Type called Littleton. He wants to bring his Number One over tomorrow morning to thank you all personally. I’ve asked them to lunch.’
Later, Malahide remarked that he would be interested to see what kind of a dag would go lemony about the colours of the day when he must have been able to see the roundels on the Beau and he'd given the colours on the bloody Aldis.
Lieutenant Middleton turned out to be breezy and forthrightly apologetic. His first lieutenant, a shylooking R.N.V.R. sub-lieutenant, was plainly disconcerted by the less than friendly greeting of the four airmen.
‘Sorry about the recognition drill, old boy.’ If Littleton could grin so broadly when he was sorry, Christopher wondered what he looked like in a glad mood. ‘But there was a good reason for it. We were bounced one day by a Blenheim that Jerry had captured intact and was flying under R.A.F. colours.’ ‘That’s a fairly acceptable explanation.’ Christopher returned the good-humoured manner. ‘We gathered you were in some sort of trouble?’ ‘That’s right. Hence the request for air cover. We fouled our starboard propeller going close inshore on the other side during the night, and that did some damage to the prop shaft. We thought we might be able to get back this side before daylight. I didn’t risk making a signal at that stage, because Jerry would have intercepted it and sent out an air strike even sooner than he did. When it became obvious that we’d have at least three hours to run in daylight, I asked for air cover.’
‘Your gunners did pretty well.’
‘It was you chaps who discouraged the enemy most effectively.’
‘Anyone hurt aboard?’ Christopher did not want to ask but felt he ought to.
Littleton, evidently, did not much relish answering. ‘Two killed, two wounded.’
‘Sorry we let two of ’em get away.’
‘I’m glad you stayed with us. I was expecting half a dozen of them to pay us another visit before long.’ ‘We wouldn’t have been able to surprise the first two if we’d fired the colours of the day.’
‘Don’t rub it in, old boy.’
*
Christopher had arranged to take Susan out that evening. She greeted him with a smile whose warmth was more encouraging than her previous composure, that had held an unequivocal ‘No Trespassing’ warning, which, Christopher thought, would sink a battleship at five miles.
He balanced this cordiality against the decision he had taken to make no move this time which would give her the opportunity to repulse him; to repel boarders, as he put it mentally. She would surely be expecting him to try his luck before they parted. He had thought to surprise her by refraining. It would do her good to have to search for hidden intentions in a man’s behaviour. Now he was having doubts. Her friendly, interested look hel
d admiration as well and perhaps the time was propitious to fire a short burst, a ranging shot, without her - in the nicest possible way - responding with a metaphorical kick in the teeth. After all, it was their third meeting and the second time he was taking her out: a goodnight embrace would surely not be unreasonable?
She was less reserved in another way also: she was chatty, a propensity he had not expected her to possess. Hitherto her conversational technique had been to look at him - or any other man in the group, at the mess dance - with a dispassionate air of taking note of what he said while not necessarily according it any respect let alone interest; and certainly without any obligation to respond.
‘Johnnie Littleton’s an old friend. He was at Dartmouth with my brother Jeremy. His father was a snotty in ‘Hood’ with Daddy.’
‘Oh, so you’ve heard about our spot of fun and games.’
‘I was on watch at the time, so I was reading the signals as they were made… or copied to us from your people.’
‘You probably know more about it than I do.’
‘Something I didn’t know until today was that it was you who got that Sunderland back safely, just before Christmas.’
‘Ah, yes, there was some naval V.I.P. aboard: decent old buffer.’
‘I’ve always thought he’s rather sweet, Uncle Crispin.’
‘Uncle Crispin! You don’t happen to be related to Nelson as well, do you?’
‘Well… let’s put it this way: Nelson was related - distantly - to the Hendrys.’
‘I might have guessed it.’
What he could not have guessed was that she would take the initiative when the time came to say good night. He stopped the car and before he could switch off the engine and turn to put an arm around her shoulders she had turned to lean into him and raise her face to his.
Too Late the Morrow Page 16
