633 Squadron

by Frederick E Smith

  Putting his weight on his stick, Gillibrand reversed his turn, his Mosquito skidding round like a car on ice. The pale-blue underbelly of a 110 appeared from nowhere in his sights. He was close enough to see the blue oxide flames from its exhausts and the patched scar from some earlier encounter under one wing. Everything seemed to slow down for a second, the 110’s propellers waving like arms as it struggled to escape. The luminous graticule of Gillibrand’s sight moved deliberately to a spot between its wings. He steadied his controls—then pressed his gun button exultantly.

  The clear picture blurred and disintegrated before his eyes. Only a violent jerk on his stick saved him from collision. As he plunged through the cloud of oily smoke interspersed with flaming wreckage, the acrid smell of it came to his nostrils. He glanced sidewards, saw the attack had led him some distance from the airfield and that one or two of the 110’s were steadying themselves to make a bombing run. With a growl he rolled the Mosquito over and went plunging back.

  Down below all was confusion. Men were crouched behind shelters, lying under beds, gaping from windows. Others were bawling orders no one could hear for the tremendous racket of engines and cannon fire. Over in the inn all its inhabitants in various stages of undress, had invaded Hilde’s bedroom; and, blind to their own danger, were standing alongside her; craning their necks to follow Gillibrand’s fantastic manoeuvres.

  There was even more confusion among the Messer-schmidt’s. The R/T channel was swamped by cursing voices. The Squadron Commander was growing frantic with anxiety. The attack had been timed to seconds; already his planes should have dropped their bombs and been heading back for home. Spitfires would have been alerted minutes ago. . . . But no one could make a bombing run for this madman: he broke up every attack before it could be made. The Commander shouted his call sign above the din and gave his orders. ...

  Messerschmidts closed in on either side of Gilli-brand, trying to box him in. The Canadian’s answer was simply to turn into the plane outside his starboard wing. Its terrified pilot broke away, almost crashing into a telegraph pole. His nerves were further shattered by the burst of shells Gillibrand sent after him which missed his port engine by inches.

  The battle raged on for another thirty seconds with 110 after 110 trying to make a run-in on its target, and Gillibrand foiling each attempt with complete disregard for his life. Some bombs did fall, but they were released without aim and did little damage. The very madness of Gillibrand’s manoeuvres made them successful, bewildering the enemy pilots. Yet the odds were so great there could have been only one outcome had a different noise not made itself heard through the colossal din. A small, shark-like body leapt over the distant poplars and fastened itself with incredible venom to the tail of one of the Messerschmidts. Another followed it, and yet another. Spitfires! Hundreds of watching eyes below glowed their relief.

  The German Squadron Commander gave orders to break off the action. But he was a brave man, and goaded with the knowledge that only one plane had stood between him and success. He at least could make some atonement. Snatching his opportunity in the confusion, he dived over the poplars and headed straight for the distant hangars.

  Gillibrand, watching for nothing else, turned on a wing-tip and dived after him. The slim body of the 110 grew in his gunsight—500 yards...400...350... He pressed his gun button and heard only the clank of breechblocks and the whine of compressed air. He pressed again. No use! His ammunition was finished.

  The 110 had levelled out and was making her run-in. Gillibrand was not fifty feet above her. He could see the pilot clearly, looking like a huge insect in his goggles as he stared backwards. In the nose his observer would be lying over his bombsight, waiting with his thumb on the button....

  Everything slowed down once more for Gillibrand, and in the early morning light everything became very clear. The plane, with its huge black crosses and turning propellers, the hangars beyond it, and the Nissen huts of the airmen. . . . And beyond them the familiar road leading to the inn with its flowers, its white apple trees, with Maisie...Spring below...bittersweet at that moment beyond all understanding.

  One last look, and then Gillibrand pushed his stick forward. He hit the 110 between the tailplane and cockpit, cutting its fuselage almost in two. Locked together, both planes spun into the ground not seventy yards from the Control Tower. There was a sheet of flame, followed by an explosion that showered bricks and mud as far as the men’s billets by the road. No court martial was needed for Gillibrand now.

  24

  Davies could not wait a minute longer to ask his question. “Before you go on, sir—doesn’t this attack mean they’ve found out everything?”

  The Brigadier’s grey eyes rose from his table. “No. Not by any means.”

  “But surely it must. There hasn’t been an attack of that strength on one of our British airfields for over a year. And this was no hit-or-miss affair. It had been carefully rehearsed beforehand.”

  It was at moments like these that the different temperaments of the two men, so often complementary, fell out of step. Davies was wishing the Brigadier wouldn’t be so damned tight-lipped and stoical, and the Brigadier was regretting Davies’s dramatic instinct that could never resist discussing all the possibilities of a rich situation aloud—a habit doubly irritating on occasions such as this when he might possibly be right.

  “I agree the attack was planned and that it was no coincidence 633 received it,” the Brigadier conceded. “But that doesn’t mean the enemy knows very much. Look at it this way—they saw you try to raid Bergen and would recognize your squadron markings. If they didn’t know then what your target was, they would know the next morning when Grenville went in alone. After that they would guess you had some connection with Bergman. But if Bergman and Ericson didn’t talk —and we’ve no reason to believe they did—how would they learn any details? Their suspicions are aroused, that is all, and the stakes are so high that they’ve played safe by trying to wipe you out.”

  Davies shifted uneasily in his chair. “I’m not sure they don’t know more. I can’t see them risking a whole squadron of 110’s just on a vague suspicion.”

  The Brigadier was silent for a moment. “There is a possibility they may know more, of course,” he said quietly. “But what are we to do—you know the impor- tance of the target as well as I. So far none of the patriots has been arrested, and they’ve got a leader to take Bergman’s place. So what alternative have we got but to carry on as before?”

  Davies snapped his fingers, impatient with himself. “I’d forgotten about the patriots. Of course, that’s proof enough Jerry doesn’t know very much.” His tone became brisk as he tried to destroy any impression of pessimism he might have created. “As long as they are there to silence those flak posts, we’ll prang the thing all right. Sorry—I see your point now.”

  “What is the latest news from the squadron?” the Brigadier asked.

  “Barrett’s hoping to have the kites serviceable by the weekend. Crew replacements are his biggest headache because altogether he lost more in killed and wounded than he had in reserve. Obviously we can’t give any new men the training the others have had, but we’ll do our best with them. I’ve organized it with Barrett that where a replacement comes into a plane he has a trained man alongside him. And as fast as the kites become serviceable the new men will be taken up to Scotland and put through the drill. By Monday at the latest we hope to start the full squadron flights again.”

  “Have replacements arrived yet for the planes you have lost?”

  “A.T.A. tell me they’ll be along at any time. That top priority order did the trick, of course.”

  The Brigadier leaned forward. “And what about Grenville? How is he getting along?”

  “He’ll be there all right,” Davies told him. “He’s back with the squadron now.”

  The Brigadier showed his surprise. “Already? But I thought you’d given orders for him to remain a week in hospital.”

  “I did,” Da
vies muttered, shifting uneasily again. “But it seemed Miss Bergman went to the hospital to visit him.” He saw a shocked look appear in the Brigadier’s eyes. “She didn’t know about her brother at the time—as you know, the wire only arrived yesterday— but apparently she told Grenville she was going to pay him another visit shortly. He couldn’t stand it, I suppose, and returned to camp. In the circumstances I thought it better for the Station M.O. to attend to him. He’s got the bandages off now, in any case.”

  The Brigadier nodded slowly. “How is he taking it?”

  Davies shrugged. “It’s difficult to tell—you know Grenville. But Adams thinks it has hit him hard.”

  “Hard enough to affect his morale?”

  The sharpness of Davies’s reply betrayed his resentment of a war in which courage had to be evaluated as coldly as this. “I shouldn’t worry about his morale. He’ll attack the bloody thing because it is his duty to attack it. After what he has done already, I don’t think anyone should have any doubts about that.”

  The strain was telling on all of them, the Brigadier thought. It was as well there was not much longer to wait....

  “No one could admire Grenville and his boys more than I,” he said quietly. “His raid on Bergen, that magnificent sacrifice of Gillibrand’s yesterday: everything is quite beyond any praise of mine. But you know the importance of this raid—at the risk of appearing soulless we can’t afford to overlook anything, particularly the morale of the man who is going to lead it.”

  Davies was quite disarmed by this reply. “I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about on that score. He’ll probably try all the harder to prang it for all the misery it has caused. I know I would.”

  Satisfied, the Brigadier drew Davies towards a large contour model of the Svartfjord and district that lay on the end of his table.

  “This model has been built up from photographs received from your men and from patriots on the other side. Here is exactly what I want your lads to do____”

  Less than an hour later the Brigadier shoved aside a pile of papers and looked up at Davies. “Well, that’s everything. The contour model and the photographs will be sent to Adams under armed escort this afternoon. Let Barrett and Grenville see them, and tell them and Adams all I have just told you. But not a word to another soul until the briefing. Tell Adams to keep this model out of sight and to have a security guard round his office day and night. I think, to make quite certain no one gets a look at it, the four of you should take turns in sleeping there.”

  Davies nodded. “What about these special bombs? When do we get them?”

  “We can’t give them to you yet, because the moment they go into your bomb-store your armourers will become curious and start talking. They’ll arrive the night before the raid and go straight on to your aircraft. It won’t matter then who talks, because, in addition to your own security safeguards, we shall send a crowd of our men down for the night.”

  “And you want us to commence our full squadron training flights again as soon as all the kites are serviceable, and to keep them up every dawn until the day of the raid?”

  “That’s right. Then no one outside the airfield can guess which morning is zero hour.”

  Davies felt his heart thumping excitedly in his wrists and ankles. He took a deep breath. “And when is zero hour? That’s the one thing you haven’t told me?” “They’ll go in on the 14th,” the Brigadier said quietly. “At 0645 hours to be precise. That will give the patriots just enough daylight to do their job first. If all goes well, the gunposts will be in their hands by 0645. The rest of it will be up to your boys. For all our sakes, let’s hope they do a good job.”

  Davies stared around for a calendar. He eventually found one on the wall directly opposite him. The high-pitched sound of his own voice startled him. “The 14th! But that’s only nine days off!”

  “We can’t afford to leave it a day longer.” The Brigadier paused, not for effect but to compose his own anxious voice. “Well, can you give your new men enough training in that time? Are you going to be ready?”

  Anticipation of the battle drove away Davies’s doubts. He was quivering now like an aggressive bantam cock. “Don’t worry, sir. One way or another, we’ll make it!”

  “Hey; you up there! McTyre!”

  McTyre, the old sweat, wedged on the wing alongside the stripped-down engine of a Mosquito, poked his long, sharp nose cautiously over the leading edge. He saw the bow-legged, unwelcome figure of Corporal Martin, one of the S.W.O.’s underlings, leaning on his bicycle below, and instantly his mind, allergic to M.P.’s, began searching for a reason. Unable to find one, he replied truculently.

  “Whatcha want?”

  “You! You’ve got to report to the S.W.O.’s office at 1400 hours sharp. That’s in fifteen minutes.”

  “What for? Can’t yer see I’m busy?”

  The Corporal grinned sardonically. “Not ’alf as busy as you’ll be after Bert’s seen you. You’re in trouble, mate.”

  “What’ve I done this time?”

  “Bert made an inspection of the billets this momin’. He found your bed not made up, fag-ends all over the floor, and half a bottle of beer in your locker.”

  McTyre gaped down incredulously. “Yer mean he’s been snoopin’ round the billets at a time like this...

  “Gotta keep discipline,” the corporal pointed out.

  “Discipline!” McTyre nearly choked. He waved a scandalized arm round the perimeters of the airfield where other Mosquitoes were being repaired. “Look at ’em all! Shot to ’ell! How many of ’em would ever fly again if it wasn’t for us? Here we are, workin’ day and night, workin’ ourselves to skin and bone, and he goes worryin’ about a fag-end and an empty beer bottle....”

  “Half empty,” the corporal insisted.

  “Here we are, riskin’ our lives out ’ere, never knowing when them 110’s are coming again, and he goes muckin’ about in our billets. . . . It’s terrible. Ain’t it terrible?” McTyre demanded of the young, chubby face that suddenly popped up at the other side of the fuselage.

  The young erk swallowed, nodded, saw the corporal frown, and popped down out of sight again. McTyre shook his head in bitter disgust.

  “It’s terrible! Makes yer wonder what yer’re fight-197 in’ for. Snoopin’ about while men are riskin’ their lives, crawlin’ around looking for fag-ends. . . . What’s the matter with you all? Can’t yer find anythin’ better to do?”

  The corporal saw the dignity of his own office was now coming under fire and took swift retaliatory action.

  “That’s enough of that. It ain’t my fault you’ve got dirty habits. You mind what you’re sayin’, see.”

  “Dirty habits,” McTyre growled, wiping his oily hands down the legs of his overalls. “You wouldn’t ’ave the guts to say that if you didn’t have two tapes on your arm.”

  But the corporal was not staying any longer to argue. He threw his bow legs over his bicycle and started away. “1400 hours,” he shouted back. “And don’t be late.”

  McTyre slid down the wing and rolled off. He was joined a few seconds later by the young A.C.2. “Well; what d’you think of that?” McTyre demanded. “See what I mean now about Bert?”

  The erk nodded. McTyre pulled a blackened fag-end from the top pocket of his overalls, looked round furtively, then lit it. “A bastard through and through,” he grunted. “I ain’t ever told you about him and the duck, ’ave I?”

  “Duck?” the A.C.2 asked curiously. “What duck?”

  McTyre gave a bitter laugh and motioned the erk nearer. “Listen to this, kid, and you’ll see what you’re up against. Fair frightens yer, it does, to think a man can be so low. ... It happened at our last station— before your time. About a quarter of a mile down the road there was a small wood; and as me and my mate was courtin’ a couple of local girls, we used to nip into it on the summer nights for a cuddle or two. Behind the wood was a field that didn’t seem to belong to nobody, and right in the middle of the field
was a pond.

  “Well, the four of us were in there one evenin’ in August when Jim suddenly nudges my arm. I look around and of all the people in the world I see Bert walkin’ across the field towards the pond. He was alone and whistlin’ to some one or other. We couldn’t catch on, an’ were beginning to think maybe his conscience had driven him that way when a little duck came waddlin’ out of a clump of grass straight towards him. An’ Bert leans down and gives it some food from his pocket.”

  McTyre shook his head at the memory. “You could’ve knocked me down with a feather if I hadn’t been lyin’ down already. We don’t say nothin’; we just watch him. He puts some more food on the grass, pats the duck for a while, then after about ten minutes goes back the way he came....

  “Jim, who was a bit of a Bible-puncher, said it proved what he’d always believed—that every man had some good in him somewhere. He said Bert must be lonely in the camp, an’ this was an outlet for his feelings. Jim said it made him feel better towards Bert now, more sympathetic, like. Me, I didn’t know what to think.

  “Anyway, this duck business went on for months. It must’ve been a nightly routine because every time we took the girls in the wood we saw Bert about the same time, round about eight o’clock. He’d feed the blooming thing, pat it, even play with it the way you’d play with a dog. Jim was real sorry for him by this time, and I was startin’ to get that way myself. The girls thought he was a nice man and must have a very kind heart to come all this way at night to feed a lonely little duck. Can y’ imagine it. .. ?

  “Well, the months went by and it got a bit too cold for us in the woods at night, so we didn’t see so much of Bert. But every now and then I’d have a squint, and sure enough, rain or snow, he kept goin’ to that pond every night. I began to think Jim must be right—any man who went to all that trouble for a little duck must have a heart tucked away somewhere. Not that it was a little ’en now, mind you. It was gettin’ as fat as a pig with all the food he’d been stuffin’ into it.