Letters to Mrs Hernandez

by C S Gibbs

  Unable to see, the driver was in a state of helpless panic and the car veered blindly across the road, crashing in to a wall that was all that remained of a hardware store.

  Passers by ran to the wrecked car and began to remove the passengers, whom they laid at the side of the road. None of them were moving.

  Making one more pass to inspect its handiwork, the Seafire roared past at low level. Looking down, Sub-lieutenant Cully allowed himself some degree of satisfaction. There had been scant pickings on this ramrod, today, and the car seemed fair game. After all, any Japs with a car had to be important, didn't they? Better to get them now than let them get us, tomorrow, he told himself as he gained height and set a course for the Indefatigable.

   

  ***

   

  The last forty minutes had been the most trying of Ben's life, as he had used every piece of training, every sinew and ounce of concentration to keep his tattered Seafire in the air and on course for the Indefatigable. Somehow, he had dodged the rest of the flak, coaxed the ailing Seafire back from its last gasps and made a turn for home. As if he were some sort of fraught music hall plate spinner, his mind and hands had darted from dial to dial on his instrument panel: fuel temperature, altimeter, air-speed indicator, rev counter, fuel gauge, oxygen regulator, artificial horizon and radio homing device. His left hand like a frantic pendulum, switching between the control column and the throttle, constantly doing whatever he could to keep the nose of the aircraft from dipping, then glancing from side to side to make sure that his wing tips were level with the horizon, his eyes lingering for painful instances on the gaping wound in the leading edge of his starboard wing, which was haemorrhaging fuel – never mind having to keep an eye out for enemy aircraft which could pick off a stricken kite like his.

  He had never felt so alone. No one was going to get him out of this. As an apprentice at the railway works, when a deadline had been missed and work was still to be done, Mr Carruthers would often send him and the other boys home, rather than make them stay for costly over time, but now, he had to stay and finish the job.

  Beneath him, the Pacific Ocean that on the outward journey had looked so tranquil, now offered only dread. Whether he was to ditch the 'plane or bail out, his chances of being recovered by a lone Walrus flying boat were slim at best. No, he did not fancy being shark food. The only two options available were to keep the machine in the air or to die.

  There was no time to dwell on any of this. Even when, from the corner of his eye, he caught fleeting images of two Fairey Firefly fighters from Indefatigable, watching his back and willing him to make it home. This should have brought him comfort and reassurance, but no one from those fighters was going to reach out and grab him. He still had to land.

  “You're nearly there, get yourself ready. Pussycat is awaiting your homecoming,” came the very calm voice from one of the Fireflies, referring to the Indefatigable's radio code name.

  Almost without realising it, Ben went through the routine approach for landing: arrester hook down, undercarriage lowered – he had to do this manually owing to hydraulic failure – flaps down, reduce speed to 65 knots, keep the nose high, open the canopy for a quick escape, just in case . . . it was all done by the book and by instinct.

  Indefatigable was now in sight, sailing in to the wind for him. There were oil smears on his windshield, but through them he could see the deck marked with a large 'F' (for the other code name of 'Flounder'), the arrester wires and the crew waiting for him. There was no way out of this moment.

  It ended in seconds: the held breath, the instant of no return, the sudden thump of wheels on to the armour plated landing deck and the clean catch of the arrester hook, slowing the ailing fighter plane from the speed of a racing express train to a dead stop in a matter of a few yards.

  Had that just happened? Was it over? He was too exhausted, too mentally numb to move or think. He barely noticed Archie leaning in to the cockpit and directly over him to shut down the engine. Nor did he register Stilton's clawing hands unbuckling his straps so that the two men could drag his limp body out of the aircraft.

  “Can you hear me, Sir? Are you alright?” came Stilton's drawl – which had taken on an unexpected maternal tone.

  “'Course you're alright, aren't you, Sir?” rallied Archie, as he helped to grapple with Ben's limp weight.

  “Isn't it typical, eh? Last week, he comes back from a CAP in a pristine Seafire and wraps it 'round the deck. Today, he come's back in a pepper pot and lands her on a sixpence! Bloody marvellous! Come on, let's get him inside.”

  With his crew's support, Ben was somehow walking, being guided to the sick bay. The first real sensation of which he was truly aware since landing was the bed on which he was laid. Some words were said by the doctor and examinations were made.

  “He'll be alright,” came the prognosis, “He's just exhausted. Let him sleep it off.” That was all the encouragement Ben needed as his eyes rolled back and he drifted off to a listless sleep.

   

   

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - No End In Sight

  HMS Indefatigable,

  Somewhere out at sea

  Tuesday, 6th of August, 1945

   

  Dear Vero,

  I know that I have written the date, above, but today could be any day. I am losing track of time and am hoping that this will end, soon.

  We have a small respite in our efforts today. Until yesterday, we were flying, eating and sleeping around the clock and it has been the hardest of slogs. If the food was a little better then that would make things easier to take, but we are out here at sea and all we ever get to eat are herrings and saveloys – I do miss having some good Pampas steak! Perhaps now that Argentina is also at war with Japan, you might be able to make that your contribution to the war effort?

  Everything we are doing here seems to be in readiness for the biggest of final pushes, but I wonder just how long that will take in coming, as well as how long it will take to bring things to a close.

  All I can do is carry on, as we are all doing. Maybe, then, something will come along which means that we can all go home. Mind you, after all of my travelling, I wonder where home is now. I think I would like to come back to Argentina – but not alone. Let us all hope that, somehow, that might still come true.

  Please excuse this letter for being somewhat dour. I should really have written something more upbeat, but writing a letter is the only way one can let off steam in this environment.

  Please send my love and best wishes to Hector and everyone at the estancia. As always, I hope to hear from you soon.

   

  Yours,

  Ben

   

  He put the letter in to its envelope, but did not seal it, knowing that it would be read and quite possibly censored by some officer or other whose job it was to check every letter sent to and from the ship. The Indefatigable was away from the action, replenishing its stores, which was a major undertaking, but also a good opportunity to post a few letters at the NAAFI.

  Clutching matching envelopes addressed to his mother and Charles Carruthers, he made his way through the labyrinth of corridors which were rank with the heated stench of men who had been grafting and labouring for days on end without respite, made all the worse by the tropical humidity.

  As soon as the ship was ready, she would be sailing on to a new position and the whole cycle would begin again. Where would the targets be this time?

   

   

  Chapter Forty - Business As Usual

  No one had heard of the atomic bomb. Hiroshima was an unknown. Certainly, it was never a target for the fleet, but now, it lay in radioactive ruin. The news of the previous day's horrendous attack had swept through the fleet like wild fire and was greeted with astonishment and optimism that the war was almost at an end. Stilton, in particular, had difficulty envisaging a whole city being destroyed by a single bomb.

  “Well, it must've been a
great, huge whale of a bomb, don't yer think? Wouldn't they need a bomber about the size of this ship, sir?” he pondered.

  It took Archie, Jacky and Ben's collective efforts to create the image in Stilton's mind of exactly what had taken place, even though they, themselves, were not entirely sure how such weapons could actually work.

  One thing on which they all agreed was that the end was near. Surely the Japanese would surrender any time soon?

  Two days had passed and still there was no word from the Imperial High Command, so again the fleet attacked and again Ben found himself massing in the skies with an airborne armada.

  It seemed futile, now, to be kicking a nation when it was clearly down on its knees, but with no sign of a capitulation there was to be no change in play.

  The coastline came in to view and targets were selected. There were no enemy aircraft to try and stop them as the Avengers and Fireflies set about the ships in the harbour below. Anti-aircraft fire was scant and no-one in the sky felt any threat to themselves.

  Ben's flight turned its attention to one of the few gun installations on the edge of the bay and put in to practise what they had been rehearsing, circling their target and diving on it from different angles. The gunners on the ground could only shoot at one target at a time, but were being attacked from all angles at once.

  It was hardly a fair fight. The gun crew's shooting was wildly inaccurate – they must have been young and inexperienced – and posed almost no threat to the vulture-like posse of Seafires.

  By the time Ben took his first dive and let rip with his two cannons, there was little remaining of the target. The gun was now silent and those men firing it who had not run away were already dead on the ground.

  Heading back, Ben wondered if it were at all possible to get himself in to Japan. If the surrender came, soon, what kind of opportunity would present itself and allow him to find Setsu?

  Was she alive? That question burned inside him. Still no word came from Vero – every envelope from Buenos Aires offered promise, but for months, now, they had only contained letters from Vero, herself.

  Certainly, he had 'done his bit' in this war, but had he done too much? Had he contributed to Setsu's death? Even if he did not fire the shot himself, he had protected the fleet and therefore the men and aircraft that may have dropped the bomb which could have killed her. Guilty by association. That's what they called it, didn't they?

  He tried to change his guilty train of thought. What if the bullet or bomb with Setsu's name on it had not yet been fired or dropped? The sooner this war ends, the less people will die, he told himself.

  That would have to do, for now.

  After landing-on, Jacky joined him in the de-briefing room.

  “Have you heard? The yanks have dropped another one, mate!” he gasped.

  “Another what?”

  “Another one of those atomic bombs. Some place called Nagasaki. I've never heard of it but it it's up in smoke, now. They've got to throw in the towel, after this one, don't you reckon?”

  Nagasaki. Well, it was not Tokyo, thought Ben, assuming (and praying) that Setsu had not, somehow, found herself in either of those two destroyed cities. He hoped that as in England, she might have been sent out to the countryside with the children who had been evacuated from the major cities. All of those children needed teachers, didn't they?

  He clung to the idea that she was alive and thinking of him as much as he was of her. Yet, now, he let the idea grow that he could truly find her. Somehow and soon.

   

   

  Chapter Forty-one - Sight-seeing

  Just before he set off in his Seafire, a message from the fleet's American commander, Admiral Halsey, was read over the speaker system:

  “It is likely that kamikazes will attack the fleet as a final fling. Any ex-enemy aircraft attacking the fleet is to be shot down in a friendly manner.”

  It was now possible to laugh at such things. The mood was lighter since the cease-fire had been announced on the 15th of August. Yes, there were still the occasional attacks from some rogue pilots who could not accept the concept of defeat, but on the Indefatigable, with the official surrender just days away, there was now a feeling that matters were very much approaching the home stretch.

  Much of the British Pacific Fleet had been disbanded and sent home immediately after the cease-fire was called. There was no point in their being there and the sheer cost in manpower and resources was so vast that the majority Britain's largest ever naval assembly of over seven hundred ships was sent packing at the first opportunity. The Forgotten Fleet, scarcely mentioned back home, sailed off in to obscurity with its achievements destined to become little more than footnotes in the history books.

  What remained was a skeleton crew of ships, led by the battleship King George V and the Indefatigable, which was the only remaining fleet carrier.

  Ben, himself, should also have been sent packing, but found that he was required for reconnaissance flights over Japan, in search of prisoner of war camps.

  Each time a camp was found, Avengers were loaded up with humanitarian payloads of supplies, lovingly wrapped in special bundles that were made up by the ship's sailmaker and then dropped over their target to the grateful POWs, who waved excitedly and plundered the contents. On board, many laughed at the notion that, finally, someone would be pleased at the sight of saveloys and 'herrings-in'.

  This whole exercise could not have been more opportune for Ben and he set about this task with a zeal that astonished friends and superiors alike. Both Jacky and Rydall remarked at the quality of his map reading skills and his ability to pinpoint the camps.

  If those men, or anyone else, had gathered a notion of Ben's motives, then there would have been serious trouble, but his desire to somehow find Setsu drove him to pore over the maps of the city. Every spare moment saw him checking again and again the location of her home. The address that she had given to him over two years ago, that he kept hidden and could never use to send those precious letters, was just a spec on the map, but it was one that he had to find.

  Each flight over Japan was a chance to find that spec, but this was a large country and there were so many other places to search. Flying over Tokyo had been someone else's job.

  However, he took it as a sign that fate was, indeed, lending that helping hand again, when he found himself detailed to search the far outskirts of Tokyo. Knowing that he would want as much time as possible over the city, he asked Stilton to only arm the cannons in his Seafire and leave the four machine guns empty. Perhaps that lessening of weight might allow him extra, precious minutes to carry out his search?

  Airborne and heading for Tokyo, Ben looked down upon HMS Speaker, an aircraft carrier that had flown off all of her aircraft to make room for the POWs who were being repatriated. Climbing high above the city, he had to force himself to carry out his duty to the navy and find a POW camp, first. Business before pleasure.

  To the north west of the sprawling city, the landscape became hillier and less densely populated. Ben looked at his watch. He had been flying for an hour and would have to turn back, soon, if he was to have any time to search for Setsu's home.

  If he could just find it, then he could focus on how to get ashore. The lucky members of the 'contact teams' had been formed from British and Australian volunteers and were rounding up as many men as they could. Rydall had shown Ben the order that these teams were to use 'any means that they could command' to get in to Japan and find the camps. That sounded like the perfect modus operandi for what Ben had in mind.

  Although he had momentarily allowed his thoughts to wander, yet again, it took away that sense of desperation that he was feeling as he scanned the landscape for that elusive camp. Yet, as is often the case, when one searches with single-minded focus, one seldom succeeds, but often our desires manifest when one is not looking!

  Beyond the hills and away from any conurbation, a large, fenced settlement came in to view. The buildings were large an
d it resembled a military base, but there was white lettering daubed on the roof, which read: 'POW BRITISH HURRY!'

  “Seek and you shall find!” he called aloud and sped his Seafire onward for a closer look.

  He swooped down to just a few hundred feet above. It was, indeed, a British POW camp and in the parade ground, below, he could see figures clad in shorts waving and jumping at him, their skinny, bare torsos were evidence of their years in spartan captivity.

  Ben waved back and pulled up to get a good view and make his map reference. The sooner he could do this, the more time he would allow himself in search of his true prize.

  After circling for five minutes, he was satisfied with his work and from the thigh-pocket on his trousers, he pulled another map – the one with Setsu's home on it.

  Speeding onward, he looked for landmarks (the Imperial Palace was a giveaway) and followed the route of the Sumida until he was sure that he was above the Koto district. He closed in on what he thought must be the right spot, checking the map over and over. This had to be it, he thought. If all else failed, he was sure of the square mile that he needed to search.

  With fuel running low, he turned for home, praying that this was the break through that he needed.

   

   

  Chapter Forty-two - Bon Voyage

  “You're sure that it's one of ours and you can find it?” quizzed Rydall.

  “Positive! Here is the location,” Ben pointed everything out on the map and wrote out the co-ordinates, again.

  “Well, I've been on to the boys on KGV and they are up to their eyes in it – really got their hands full. I've told them that I'm going to send you over to the harbour and you can lead a couple of trucks to go and fetch those chaps. It'll give them an extra pair of hands and it should keep you out of mischief, eh?”

  Ben was almost lost for words that he was actually going ashore.

  “The Walrus is going to fly you in to the harbour and you can find your way from there. I'm told that there will be a Corporal Latimer to meet you. You're leaving in one hour. Well, don't just sit there – go and get ready!”

  It was all the encouragement he needed.

  In his cabin, he made an extra special effort to smarten himself up, searching for clean socks and that one pair of underpants that he knew was not in a state of complete disrepair. His shirt seemed passable, but he did have to scrub, frenziedly, at a beer stain on his shorts. The fact that he was supposed to be engaged in the repatriation of long-suffering prisoners of war was a mere side show to him, now, as he was consumed by the prospect of perhaps seeing Setsu again. It seemed so improbable, but if, by chance, he could find her, he wanted to look at his best.