Too Late the Morrow

by Richard Townshend, Bickers

‘I don’t usually let a man kiss me the second time he takes me out. But you’re rather sweet.’

  She allowed him to kiss her twice before she slipped out of his encircling arm as he was about to do so again.

  ‘Don’t be greedy, Christopher.’

  He drove off chuckling. Third Officer Susan Hendry was an entirely new experience for him and he was not prepared to invest any more effort without a substantial dividend; which he knew very well would not be forthcoming. He might take her out again, some time, because he enjoyed her company; but he was not going to stand in the queue to spoil her or to be fended off with a few rationed and passionless embraces. She was two years older than he, anyway: and if she hadn’t learned to loosen up at twenty-two, she wasn’t his kind of woman.

  Chapter Ten

  Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Mannheim, Berlin. Four more operations, widely spaced because the right weather conditions and moon phase so seldom coincided at this time of year. Every one was clearly defined in Roger’s mind. Before each one and during it, until he turned for home, the pain and stiffness in his leg had returned. When flak was at its worst or a night fighter was attacking, the agony became so acute that he felt sick with it and however cold it was at high altitude he sweated, his breathing, despite the help of oxygen, became laboured.

  Two of these sorties had been almost like training flights with pyrotechnic effects instead of real shell bursts and searchlights. He had seen no night fighters, no searchlight beams had shone on him, no flak had burst close enough to worry him. The effort of forcing himself into the aircraft, off the ground, along the route, to bomb the target, had, just the same, brought on the hated physical and mental reaction. It was the mere idea of flying an operation which gave him the horrors, from the moment he saw his name on the Battle Order.

  He was becoming suspicious of his old friends, telling himself that Pike and Devonshire were watching him covertly while pretending to notice no sign of what was going on constantly in his mind. He had learned to climb into the Halifax without betraying any stiffness in his leg. He had learned to fly without being able to flex his knee fully. He forced himself to be gregarious and jocund like everyone else.

  Once a week he, Creamy Devonshire and Ginger Pike went off together to spend a couple of hours away from everyone else on the squadron. Either in Pike’s old car or his, they drove to one of three small, quiet pubs which were too far away from camp to attract much R.A.F. trade. If one did happen to be invaded by a party from Callingham they went to another. These were the times that Roger enjoyed most.

  On the night after his first trip to Berlin, the three of them were in one of these retreats, with Pike’s bulldog pup, Bentley, lying at Pike’s feet, when Roger had the feeling that he was slipping out of the present into the past. He had a dazed sensation of being back at their old squadron’s base, Baxton, on a winter’s night two years ago, with Bentley’s predecessor, Jorkins, lying on the floor as close as he could to Pike’s chair, and listening to the others talking about last night’s trip in their Blenheim. Faces from the past appeared in his mind’s eye and he felt tired and drowsy.

  ‘Roger!’

  He jerked into alertness. He had closed his eyes unconsciously and had been deaf to what the others were saying.

  Pike was looking at him anxiously. ‘Are you all right? Did you fall asleep?’

  Roger glanced at Devonshire and was shocked by the look that he met. Devonshire’s eyes were full of worry. He turned away and looked at Pike, who gave him a forced grin and said ‘You must be shagged out, you old ram.’ But Pike’s eyes did not support his jocular tone.

  ‘It’s all right. I was just closing my eyes because all this smoke in the room was irritating them.’

  Devonshire had not lit a cigarette for half an hour and Pike did not smoke. There was no more than the usual amount of smoke in the room, which was not fully occupied.

  ‘Been having trouble with your eyes?’ Pike asked.

  ‘No, not at all. I probably didn’t sleep long enough today.’

  They let it pass but it was another warning to him, another cause for doubt, for brooding that they were always watching him, that they suspected he was cracking up.

  *

  He was with Dolly, two nights later, talking over dinner in a Norwich hotel. She had given him the impression all evening that she was restless. Her eyes darted constantly from him back to her plate, around the other diners, to the door each time anyone came into the room. She was telling him about herself, about life in India; matters about which she had never been specific. He was piecing together the fragments he had gathered from her at different times. Tonight she was almost nervously reminiscent. It matched her behaviour in the cinema, before they came on to dinner. She had clutched his hand as hard as though he were trying to loosen it from her grasp.

  ‘So, you see, I came home’ (She called it ‘home’ but she had not set foot in England until she was 21 and neither of her parents had been there at all.) ‘straight after university… well, actually it was a ladies’ college, Woodstock, in Mussoorie, which is affiliated to Lucknow University. I was teaching at Belton Abbey… you’ve heard of Belton Abbey, I’m sure, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Very well known.’

  ‘One of the best girls’ schools. Then, vhen the war started, I thot I’d join up. I should have gone back to India sooner, I suppose: there’s no rationing there, and the social life is marvellous… Mummee and Daddee keep a houseful of servants, and I never had to lift a finger. Daddee’s a very big pot on the railways.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go back to India?’

  ‘I thot my dutee lay here.’ And the best chance of landing the kind of husband she was hunting, if only Roger had known. Daddee was an engine driver.

  ‘How long were you at Belton Abbey?’

  ‘Just a couple of terms.’

  That was odd. She had once mentioned something about being in England at Munich time, which was a whole year before the war. And there had been a bit of bragging once about Cowes Week in the year of Edward VIII’s abdication.

  She doesn’t want to give her age away, Roger concluded. She must be a couple of years older than I am, getting on for twenty-six. She needn’t waste time thinking of me as a potential husband.

  He had another think about that when she snuggled against him in the car after he had pulled off the road into a field entrance on the way back to camp.

  He felt her shudder, and she whispered ‘Roger… I’m scared.’

  ‘Why? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m… I’m late, my dear.’

  ‘But… you told me you were using… well, something… you wouldn’t let me take any precautions because you said you didn’t like… them… and you had your own… whatever it was.’

  ‘I know… I know… but nothing’s foolproof… Roger, what should I do… is it true that hot gin is the best thing… lots of hot gin?’

  He thought about little Taffy Pugh and his anger at the predicament in which other men’s selfishness had put her, and felt ashamed and humiliated. And completely drained of desire for Dolly.

  ‘I’ll drive you straight back and we’ll get some gin in the mess.’

  They did not speak again until they arrived there.

  He was thinking about something else than his young Welsh batwoman, also. Dolly went out with three other officers, about whom he knew; and he was sure she had a sexual relationship with them all and many others of whom he did not know. He had no feeling at all for her except sheer lust and was certain she had none deeper than that for him.

  Divine vengeance for the bargain he had made and broken?

  *

  Twin-and four-engined aircraft in Coastal Command were retaining their second pilots, but in Bomber Command, so high was the demand for crews, second pilots were being dispensed with and a bomb aimer was being added to relieve the navigator of his increasingly complicated and mounting duties: newly invented electronic navigational aids were keeping navigator
s fully occupied from take-off to landing.

  The prospect of being spared Unwin’s suety, ingratiating and creepy presence cheered Roger more than any event since he had left Blythewold.

  In the single-decker coach that was taking them out to their aircraft, he took the rare step of initiating a conversation with his second pilot.

  ‘Tomorrow you’ll be a captain, Spook.’

  Unwin flashed his celluloid-looking gums and his teeth that looked as though they had been made by some firm which manufactured lavatory pans. His moist pale-blue eyes turned towards Roger.

  ‘I owe you a lot, Roger. I just hope I can live up to what you’ve taught me. And I hope I get as good a crew.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. I just hope your last trip as second dicky will be one to remember for its uneventfulness.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  From behind them, Devonshire said ‘Make it seven.’

  MacTavish, at his side, rumbled ‘Too festering bucking true.’

  Roger had more reason than the removal of his unwelcome second pilot to lighten his depression. Their target that night was Turin. Although the enemy night fighter defences, known as the Kammhuber Line after General Kammhuber who commanded the organisation, now extended across France as far as the Swiss frontier, and was supported by flak and searchlights, the whole defence system in south-eastern France was thinner than elsewhere. Losses on operations against Italy were much lighter than against Germany. The Italian anti-aircraft gunners defending Turin, Milan and Genoa were less efficient than the German.

  Instead of having to cross the North Sea, with the hazard of being forced to ditch on the way back if the aircraft were badly damaged, there was only a short Channel crossing each way. If a crew had to abandon their aircraft they had every hope of baling out over land and surviving instead of being adrift in a dinghy and perhaps drowning or freezing to death. This was a considerable comfort: especially to Roger and Devonshire who had nearly died in a dinghy on the North Sea not many months earlier.

  They flew southward past the Cherbourg peninsula at 20000 ft and the coastal flak batteries briefly threw up a barrage over which they passed without even a near miss. They altered course and passed over the Massif Central. Now and again three or four searchlights shone far below them, but did not penetrate the clouds and were, anyway, trivial compared with the dozens which surrounded the German cities. They skirted the western frontier of Switzerland and turned eastward to fly along its southern frontier. The Alpine peaks thrusting above the clouds in the moonlight were a beautiful sight but none of them was aesthete enough to feel that this scenic grandeur compensated for the bone-chilling cold which had seeped into them during the three hours since they left base.

  Cumulus clouds piled high in front of them as they approached Italy. The Halifax was incapable of climbing above them. They extended too far to north and south to allow a change of course around them: the Halifax’s range and fuel were being stretched almost to the maximum by the route they had taken all the way.

  Dazzling flashes of lightning sizzled around the Halifax. Thunder crashed and rolled above the noise of the engines. Ice on the wings made the aircraft wallow and begin to lose altitude.

  Mentally, Roger cursed Unwin, convinced that it was he who was bringing them this trouble because it was his swansong. He forgot that despite Unwin’s presence he had returned from half a dozen trips when he had not expected to.

  He tried to regain some of the height he had lost, thinking of the flak - however inaccurate - that awaited them. The Halifax complained and laboured. With scant warning it stalled and began to spin. Roger shoved the throttles open and thrust the column forward. He kicked at the rudder pedal with his left foot. Slowly the heavy aircraft came out of its downward-twisting slump. Roger trembled. He had lost three thousand feet and had barely managed to bring the Halifax under control. He knew he had been lucky not to stall on the night when he had come home on three engines. Very few Halifaxes made it back to base with one engine out: if they stalled they were a goner. There was a defect in the design of the tailplane. He knew he had done remarkably well.

  Turin became an object of hatred instead of complacency.

  Bailey said ‘Ten minutes to target.’

  Five minutes later flak started to burst on both sides of them but well distanced. They were past the highest peaks. Roger began to go down to a height at which they would break cloud over the target and could bomb with some visual accuracy and, he hoped, still be high enough for a fair degree of immunity from being hit.

  ‘Can you identify the target, Bill?’

  ‘I can see fires on the northern side of the town, Skipper.’

  That was where the flak was worst.

  ‘Hang on a minute, I’ve got an idea.’

  Roger had no intention of plunging into that mass of exploding shells. He could see two Halifaxes ahead of him. They showed up well in the moonlight that came through a big gap in the clouds. He would use a tactic he had tried before. He began to orbit the city while searchlights fanned about, their radar and sound locators seeking an objective on which to settle. The other two Halifaxes were much closer to the target than he was. He waited. Several searchlights settled on one of them and another group on the other. The flak gunners concentrated on them. Taking his chance while the gunners and searchlight crews were distracted, Roger turned towards the burning factories he could see clearly now. A sudden eruption of flames in the sky. One of the Halifaxes exploded under the battering the flak was giving it, and cast more light on the scene as it fell towards the ground.

  ‘Steady, Skipper… left-left… left-left… right… left-left… steady… steady… bombs gone.’

  It had worked. The searchlights and flak were after him now but he had shed two 2000 pounders, six thousand-pounders and six 500 lb bombs and was light enough, with half his fuel gone as well, to climb fast into cloud and turn for home.

  A final burst from the flak batteries hit his starboard wing and starboard outer engine. Fragments of the shattered propeller rattled against the fuselage. Holes appeared in the side of the cockpit. Roger cut the screaming engine before it tore itself loose.

  ‘Rear gunner, O.K?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Go back and see if he’s all right, Spook. The rest of you check in.’

  One by one the others answered. Unwin came back to report that MacTavish was unhurt but the wires connecting him to the intercom must have been broken. A fine look out if they were attacked from astern by a night fighter, Roger told himself.

  For the next hour the Halifax flew just above the clouds, closer to some of the peaks than was comfortable. It was numbingly cold. Draughts from the holes made by flak and the propeller blades eddied icily along the fuselage accompanied by the usual weird moaning, keening cries of the wind. Ice formed on the wings. Over France they ran into another thunder storm.

  Lightning struck the Halifax and a judder ran through it as though it had been hit by a giant hammer. The flash temporarily blinded Roger. Unwin dived forward to the nose and came back with saliva dribbling from his flaccid lips.

  ‘It’s Kiwi… he was knocked backwards, almost out of the nose turret.’

  When Roger could see well enough to read the instruments and ensure that he was flying in the correct attitude he tried the intercom. There was an answer only from Devonshire. While Unwin tried to revive Clooney, Roger told Devonshire to go round the aircraft. Presently Clooney was sitting up, looking dazed, with burns on the backs of his hands. Then Devonshire’s voice came through Roger’s headphones.

  ‘Everyone O.K., Skip, but the rest of the intercom’s U/S.’

  The port outer began to fire irregularly. Roger tried to synchronise it with the others. It faltered, raced ahead. A long flame shot out from one of the exhaust ports, then several more, at all the ports, followed by smoke and the engine stopped.

  Roger felt as though his skull was about to implode, that an exterior force was crushing i
t under irresistible pressure so that at any second the bone would collapse and compress his brain into oblivion.

  For a few seconds he welcomed the idea of oblivion.

  He felt his right leg seize solid again. He thought of all the trips that yet awaited him: one of them was bound before long to be his last. He was going to die in the cockpit of a Halifax. He thought of Dolly and the problems and trouble that awaited him at her hands.

  He beckoned to Unwin. ‘Get everyone together and bale out.’

  Unwin’s jaw sagged. ‘Bale out, Roger?’

  ‘Yes,’ Roger shouted. ‘Bale out you f ing undertaker. Get’em out… now… unless you want to end up as a corpse yourself.’

  He found that Devonshire was standing beside him. ‘Make sure Kiwi’s all right, Creamy… that bloody coffin-maker’s useless.’

  ‘Sure, Rodge. Don’t worry.’ Devonshire’s face showed astonishment, pity and shock.

  MacTavish loomed up beside the pilot’s seat with a blast of foetid breath. ‘All the best, Skipper-r-r.’

  Then the others came one by one to say goodbye and Roger impatiently told them to get on with it.

  Devonshire came back to stand at his side.

  ‘Get on with it, damn you, Creamy. I want to switch on George and get out of here.’

  ‘There’s no need for the auto pilot, Roger. You can get her home. I’m staying with you.’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Go on, Roger, stick it out. We can make it back to base.’

  ‘Christ, man, we can’t. We’ll lose another engine in a minute. Can’t you hear it? Look at the oil pressure… and the rev counter… the port inner’s going to pack in any second.’

  Devonshire could see nothing wrong with any of the instruments for the two inner engines.

  ‘They’re O.K. Rodge.’

  Roger began to stand up. ‘Right… if you’re going to argue, I’ll bloody well chuck you out.’

  Devonshire looked stunned and sick. ‘O.K., Rodge. Let’s go, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘It’s not what I want, it’s what we’ve got to do, before we crash. Have you signalled base?’