“Nothing to say, Sergeant. All four engines ran smoothly. Oil pressure within the range at all times. Temperature good. No magneto problems.”
“Very good, sir. The engineer has been posted in, sir.”
The crew establishment included an in-flight engineer to monitor the engines. Trained men were in short supply and only half of the squadron had one.
“Who’s to get him?”
“One each, sir. Five of them came from the last class and one transferred from Bomber Command.”
“Good. I’ll speak to them before they are allocated to crews.”
Tommy stepped down into the boat and was ferried the few yards into the shore.
“Morry, sick bay for you, before you do anything else.”
The squadron leader had spoken and Morry raised no objection though he thought the burn to be trivial.
Tommy reported to the Intelligence Officer before sitting at his desk and glancing through the limited amount of paperwork the Adjutant sent his way. The sole thing that interested him was the list of six men posted in that day – one of them was a Denham.
“Uncle! What’s the name of the new engineer, Denham?”
“Jack, Tommy.”
“From Hordle?”
There was a delay while the Adjutant sorted through the papers.
“Yes.”
“Good. He’s mine. He’s Poacher Denham’s nephew.”
“Got you, Tommy. Poacher was one of yours, wasn’t he?”
“My gunner first before he was commissioned. Best shot I’ve ever seen. He’s big with Consolidated in the States now. Working on four-engine bombers.”
“Makes sense to have his nephew with us then.”
“Send the six in before I go off-base, Uncle.”
The six were all young, none over twenty. They had joined up in the previous three years as career airmen and had taken the engineer course to achieve a first promotion and the chance to build a technical career in the RAF. They were valuable men.
“I see that one of you has flown as a gunner/wireless op.”
“Me, sir. Qualified as an engineer, sir, but wanted flying pay, sir.”
Most engineers were ground staff – the Sunderland was the sole aircraft to take an engineer in its crew, though Bomber Command were considering the possibility.
“Right. Denham, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re in my crew, Denham. The name’s familiar and I can hear Hampshire in your voice – any relation to Poacher Denham?”
“My uncle, sir.”
“Even more reason for you to be one of mine, Denham. Good man, Poacher!”
Denham had the sense to say nothing more – he had transferred to Coastal Command at the strong recommendation of his own squadron leader who had told him he would be ‘looked after’ there. He had expected to find an old friend of his uncle’s in the new squadron, had not realised it would be Tommy Stark himself. It seemed possible to him that he would now have the opportunity to follow in his uncle’s footsteps, to work his way into a commission and who knew what else when the war ended. He smiled and nodded and listened to the announcement that he, like the other engineers, was now a sergeant, the rank going with the job in the squadron.
Tommy cleared his desk, signing the bulk of the paperwork unread, relying on the adjutant’s judgement.
He glanced through the few sheets in a pile to the right of his desk, in the tray marked ‘to be read’. One request for a transfer out – an aircraftman who had found ‘he did not like flying’. The covering note from his pilot said that he was habitually airsick, but he could see no reason why he should not persevere and get over it. The Medical Officer said the man’s health was being damaged by repeated and violent vomiting. There was no alternative that Tommy could see; he approved the request.
“Uncle! Take this poor bugger off flying duties immediately. Can we exchange him with one of the ground staff or do we need to send him away and bring another body in?”
“He can go to gate duty, Tommy. He’s just a pair of hands with the bombs, no great amount of training for the new man and there are always aircraftmen who fancy flying pay. They’ll all approve of the shift – he wouldn’t put in for a transfer because he thought he’d look yellow and his mates had to really push him to it. Not his fault – he just can’t tolerate flying. Weird!”
Tommy could not comprehend the problem, but he knew it existed – there were a few unfortunates whose bodies could not accept flying. He was sorry for them and would not punish them further.
“Why has it come to me? It could have been dealt with by his pilot – a simple matter of suitability of a crewman.”
“He’s one of Johnny Dawkins’ crew.”
“Oh… That man is a first-rate menace, Uncle. He’s not an especially good pilot and has no idea of working for the squadron. Born stupid and practised hard ever since! Typical of the sort who should not be in the RAF.”
“He boxed for his school, Tommy. That was qualification enough for entry to Cranwell. He wanted to be a fighter pilot, still cannot understand why he was sent to Coastal Command.”
“I give up! Which roster is he on?”
“Flying the easterly patrol, as far as Dover and the Thames Estuary. The milk run.”
“I want to try patrolling in pairs from next week, Uncle. To the west, that is. Practical then to cover a greater area. With the engineers aboard we can fly the planes for longer hours.”
“It makes sense, Tommy. Having got the engineers we’ve been asking for, we should show that we are using them.”
“I agree. Pair Johnny with me. Anything else of importance today? I’m off home if not.”
“An apology from the skipper of the armed trawler, White Seal, for firing at you this morning. He says his new Gunnery Officer is not up on aircraft recognition yet.”
“Can’t tell a Sunderland from a seagull? God help us all!”
The new house was rapidly becoming a home, courtesy of the elderly staff who had taken over as they had come to realise that the missus was not a born housewife.
“Mess Night tomorrow, Cissie. Formal dinner, all officers and spouses. Thank Christ they only come quarterly. Full dress and miniature medals. I had hoped they would be cancelled in wartime but the word from on high is that ‘they are good for morale’. Luckily, all of the officers – except for the ground staff – have private incomes and can pay whacking great mess fees. Six course meal and wines don’t come cheap! The ground officers are almost all of them technical men – got to universities on merit and gained commissions for having knowledge rather than family.”
She was interested to know how the ground staff survived.
“Easy – they don’t pay. The books are fiddled and the men who’ve got it shell out more to cover them. They don’t know it, of course, and the Engineering Officer and his people ain’t going to talk about it. The whole system is wrong - and it will end just as soon as I can find an excuse. For the while, my love, we attend, Mr and Mrs Squadron Leader in pride of place. We have guests, naturally. Uncle has arranged them and will tell me who they are tomorrow. A General, I believe, and a couple of his staff and the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire and some sort of local peer. All the normal nobs – in every sense of the word.”
Later, he mentioned that they would be flying longer hours in the immediate future, that they could increase their patrols having finally had their crews made up properly.
“Means I shall have to spend some evenings in the Mess, ‘relaxing’ with the lads. I won’t be home every night. Can’t be.”
She had wed a serving officer with her eyes open, knowing that wartime demanded his frequent absence.
“Inevitable, Tommy. At least you’re not in France.”
“No mail from Thomas, I presume?”
“Nothing.”
“Not to worry – it took six weeks to establish a postal service last time and then as long again to get it working efficiently with letters sent to t
he right place. How goes it at home?”
“The gardener is unhappy but is digging up the lawns and the newer flower beds. They will all be put to vegetables in the spring. A pity – they were old lawns. He is going to prune the apple trees, he tells me, and get them to cropping properly. We have a chicken run now and he expects fresh eggs within a few weeks.”
Tommy was much in favour of the initiative – there could well be food shortages before too many months had passed.
“Less desirably, indeed, somewhat reprehensibly, I have established our account with the smaller butcher’s shop in town, who deals much in game and venison – both being readily available from the New Forest, of course. He assures me that even if rationing comes in as it did last time, he will not be much affected, though prices may well rise.”
“Inevitable. The rich will be far less hungry than the poor – that’s how it worked in the Great War. We are rich…”
The thought of black marketeering did not appeal to her; the prospect of being hungry was even less attractive, particularly as she hoped for children.
“The staff will share, of course, Tommy.”
“They must – they are ours.”
She reflected that she should not have queried that possibility.
“Chappel, the gardener, has mentioned the chance of buying in a few acres of smallholding to the back of the town, about a mile away. It seems the holding was too small to make a decent living and the last son was a bad poacher and ended up in prison and then taking off to town, abandoning the land. His old mother was unable to run it at all and was forced to sell up to have the money to feed herself. The purchaser could not make a go of it and put it up for sale last year, with no takers. Chappell says that his son could bring the land into production – potatoes and beans, he says – as well as work his own job with the council. The young man – well, he’s forty in fact - is a roadman, hedging and ditching along the road from Beaulieu to Lyndhurst for his eight hours a day. His family could live in the cottage attached to the land.”
“Tell him we can do it, as long as he sets up a pigsty.”
“We would have to pay… It makes good sense, Tommy. I shall go into Lyndhurst tomorrow and see the estate agent. That reminds me – petrol rationing is due to come in very soon. I shall have to use my car less.”
It was inevitable, he suspected.
Mess Night was terribly jolly. Tommy smiled his best all through the evening. Cissie tried not to laugh.
The Lord Lieutenant was ancient, displaying medals from the Boer War and earlier colonial campaigns. The General was impenetrably boring and instantly forgettable; Tommy was unable to recall his name but that did not matter as one could always call a general ‘General’. Both gentlemen recognised the Cross on Tommy’s breast and were excessively respectful of it, tediously so.
“Last time round, was it, Squadron Leader? I was in Burma for the duration, I’m afraid. We had the odd skirmish or two but nothing to write home about. You must have been in Flanders’ fields… I applied for postings, but someone had to stay to keep the Empire, you know.”
Tommy did know and managed to say so while the Lord Lieutenant, who had been monopolising the conversation, chewed and sucked anciently at his salmon.
“Yes, General. I spent most of the War on the Western Front. I was lucky to be an airman, not a soldier.”
The Wing Commander, younger than Tommy, had not served and was resentful of that fact.
“Some of you had all the luck, eh, Stark?”
“Just that, I think. There was a lot of luck in whether one lived or died. Even more luck in the way the gongs were handed out.”
They glanced at the collection on his chest and smiled politely.
The local peer, a dug-out baron from somewhere on the Wiltshire edge of the Forest, mentioned that he had seen the Western Front.
“Six months in ’15. Stopped a bullet in the leg and was sent Home for the duration. Wasn’t happy about it at the time – damned glad now!”
“No such luck myself, my lord. I was no more than cut and bruised on occasion. Must have spent the better part of three years out there in total. My son’s in France now. I hope he has better luck than me.”
“All of that sacrifice completely wasted – the same to do again in the next generation!”
The General could not agree – war brought out all that was noble in mankind, so he said. He was glad that the younger generation had not been denied their chance.
Cissie caught Tommy’s frown and said nothing.
Dinner ended and they moved into the anteroom for the necessary mass socialising, the opportunity to speak to those distant from them at the table. Those junior officers who felt the need spoke to Cissie but she spent most of the evening keeping the guests happy, as was incumbent upon Mrs Squadron Leader. She noticed that the gathering was almost entirely male, wondered why.
Tommy explained as he drove home.
“Almost none of the squadron are married. Officers below the rank of squadron leader are not exactly encouraged to entangle themselves with women, you know. Wing commander and upwards find it obligatory to take a wife – they need to entertain and have quarters which are large enough to permit the presence of a family. It’s a pity, in some ways, that the pilots don’t have a home life – better for the womenfolk, perhaps, that they should not. Life expectancy ain’t that great for the average flying officer.”
“What about squadron leaders, Tommy?”
“I fly, so it’s the same as for the juniors. Sunderlands will have far fewer losses than the fighters, but the chance is there. Next promotion sees me grounded in any case. No place for a wing commander in the air, except in the most exceptional of cases. I can expect to go back up in rank inside a year – I had to drop a level to come back in, but I shall be reinstated before too long. Mostly, of course, because I am too old to be flying in a war – it’s a young man’s game.”
Two days later he was up again, on the western patrol, in company with Johnny Dawkins and increasingly exasperated.
“Blue Leader to Blue Two. Maintain separation of two thousand yards and height of two thousand feet. Over.”
“Blue Two. Wilco. Must be a wind here. Over.”
Tommy wondered whether to point out that the wind would be no different a mile away, decided it was not worth the effort. He debated whether to bring the patrol to an early end – the weather was worsening, rain showers in the distance, cloudbase dropping. He would give it a few more minutes. The next leg of the box would point them easterly, towards the Channel and it would make sense simply to continue back to Calshot.
“Radio op, message to Calshot as follows. ‘Blue Leader to Base. Visibility falling. No contacts. Intend to return to Base.’”
Calshot replied, contact intermittent but able to confirm the message.
It was a nuisance to have to use two separate radio systems to talk to other planes and to base. Communications were not good enough and there seemed to be little push to improve them. Another set of reports to be written and forwarded up the ranks to the top of Coastal Command, there to take their place with the hundreds of other improvements necessary.
The nose gunner bellowed into his intercom.
“Submarine! Surfaced at three miles, Green ten.”
Tommy heaved the Sunderland onto the bearing, pushing the throttles to full power and calling to Blue Two to conform.
“Bomb room ready. Rack out.”
He felt the shift of weight as the bombs were winched out underneath the wing, compensated easily.
He spotted the submarine, still surfaced. The pre-flight briefing had insisted there were no British boats in the area; if the Navy had sent the wrong information – tough luck!
“Blue Leader, attacking. Blue Two to cross my tail.”
Hopefully, Johnny would remember what to do – they had practised the manoeuvre.
“Submarine diving!”
The nose gunner opened fire as he came in range, followi
ng instructions for the eventuality. There was a chance the conning tower crew were still getting below, even a possibility of spraying a few rounds through an open hatch.
Tommy dropped his bombs at about eight hundred feet, watched as they exploded on hitting the sea, close to but probably fifty feet above the submarine. Johnny dropped his seconds later, farther distant and still at the surface, neither plane having depth charges.
“Radio op to Calshot, contact report, bombs dropped, no hits, sub dived. Will circle for short time. Weather worsening. Take exact position from Navigator.”
George peered back, could see nothing other than white water where they had dropped.
“Close, Tommy.”
“Should make them cautious about surfacing in daylight in the Approaches, George. Useful in itself. Keep them to three or four knots underwater rather than seventeen on the surface. Limits their sphere of action.”
It was all they could hope to achieve. The Navy might be able to send a destroyer out from Plymouth – if they had one there – but it would be several hours in reaching their position and would have a massive area of sea to search. The probability of making contact with the U-boat was infinitesimally slight. They had given a boat a wake-up call and hopefully sent it away from its chosen course; they could do no more.
“Cloud cover increasing, Tommy.”
“Home, George. Take over. Tell Johnny to conform. Watch to ensure he does so. I need a pee and a cup of coffee – old age creeping up on me!”
George was twenty years Tommy’s junior, took his words at face value. He took the controls and confirmed that he was flying the aircraft, glancing down and noting the time for his personal log. Tommy took care to give George at least half of the hours on every patrol, building his experience; he had instructed all of his captains to bring along their co-pilots so that they would be ready for command. He knew that most of them hogged the flying time, allowing their seconds a couple of hours if they were lucky. It was natural – pilots existed to fly – but it was irritating.
The Gathering Clouds (Innocent No More Series, Book 1) Page 25
