Richter saw the group of younger men enter the dining-room and wondered how they could look so spry after their orgy. He had heard their noisy return and the sound of girls' voices.
He glowered round the table and said, tight-lipped: 'Your formation flying is going to pieces. It is the responsibility of Schwarm leaders to ensure that their sections hold correct position. If there is not a great improvement today I shall send some of you back to flying school for further training.'
There was a resentful silence. What had suddenly made the Old Man so liverish? If it was a woman he needed, why hadn't he said so last night? It would have been easy enough to fix him up.
The first scramble came at eight-thirty. 172 were at readiness, some of them muzzy again with sleep after waking from a late night and breakfasting: they had settled down to doze in the thin sunlight when the telephone brought them to their feet with hearts thudding. They took off in full squadron strength, twelve Hurricanes bellowing, charging like bulls dashing into the arena, across the aerodrome and out of sight over the hangar roofs.
This was no false alarm: neither a feint by the enemy nor some vagary of the radar. The sky was thick with enemy aircraft. Maxwell led his squadron in well-rehearsed attacks by sections, each wing man covering his leader instead of breaking for individual attacks. They shot down four bombers in their first pass, then the fighters were among them and they had to break and it was every man for himself.
They came back singly and in occasional pairs; eleven of them. One of the pilots who had been absent the day before, on compassionate leave, was back with the squadron this morning. Knight and others saw him half-roll and dive after an attack on a Heinkel and fly headlong into an Me. 109 as it pulled up and away from a Spitfire it had set on fire. This was the first time that one of their own squadron had been lost in a collision and it upset them all by its sheer ill luck.
Not even bad flying could be blamed for it: it was an accident and a senseless way to die. Gunfire was an occupational hazard to which they were long inured, but this was downright bad luck and damned unfair. It made them bad tempered and sour and when they landed they were quiet, morose, their hands unsteady. Dunal smoked furiously, his fingers trembling. Blakeney-Smith walked away to hide the wavering flame of his lighter, which he had to hold with both hands to his cheroot. Flight Sergeant Viccar spilled a mug of tea and Knight dropped the apple which Massey lobbed at him in an easy catch.
They were spread about the grass in low-murmuring or silent clusters when a strange Hurricane landed and surprised them by taxiing over to their dispersal.
When the pilot stepped out of it, Cunningham and Webb, recognising him, leaped up from their deck chairs. But he walked directly to the C.O. and two flight commanders, who were talking to Herrick, and came to attention awkwardly in his flying boots. 'Good morning, sir. My name's Gifford.' He was diffident and fresh faced, a tall, broad shouldered boy who should have been in school, not butchering his fellow men or being butchered. Like thousands of others of his generation; and his father's before him.
Maxwell and the two flight lieutenants looked him up and down Casually. The C.O. said 'Glad to have you. Welcome to the squadron. Glad to see you brought your own aircraft with you: that'll make the plumber happy.' He introduced Poynter and Lee. 'We got word of your posting rather late last evening, but you'll find a room ready for you in the mess.'
'Thank you, sir. I'll go over later. I'd rather stick around here if...if it's all right, sir. I was made operational yesterday.' He went brick red, as though guilty of a breach of convention. Over-eagerness was not the most admired trait in a newcomer's character.
The two flight commanders exchanged glances: here was a trained man they could both use.
Maxwell spoke kindly. 'Settle down and we'll see what we can do for you. Introduce him to the boys, Jumper.'
'I know those two,' Gifford pointed. 'Did all my training with them.' Webb and Cunningham were eyeing him like a couple of gun dogs, their noses almost twitching.
When he had made a quick round of the rest of the pilots with Lee, he joined his friends. 'What are you doing here, Patrick?' Webb asked.
'The squadron I was posted to is converting from Hurricanes to cannon-armed Spitfires: they moved to Scotland today to do their familiarisation. As I'd barely had four hours' flying on the squadron, on Hurricanes, they posted me here, where they thought I'd be more use.'
'We're still waiting to go operational,' Cunningham said glumly. 'I suppose you've been on ops already?'
'No, but I am operational.'
'Lucky devil. D'you hear that, Roddy?'
'Luck of the draw. We're busy here: no time to spare for sprogs like us. You were lucky to go to a squadron in a quiet sector, Patrick. Anyway, what the hell's the use of being operational if you didn't actually get the chance to go on ops?'
'Yes, by God: once we are made operational here we won't have to hang around.'
But they hung around for the rest of the morning; all three of them. The second scramble sent 'B' Flight's six aircraft southward while 'A' Flight kicked their heels. Forty minutes later, four came back.
Then another squadron scramble, and one pilot missing.
The newly arrived Gifford was detailed for the next sortie, as weaver at the rear of the formation, with orders to keep his eyes peeled for surprise attacks out of the sun.
'Lucky sod,' envied Webb. And the lucky sod pinkened with pleasure at the compliment of being taken on trust because he came from a good squadron under a sound commander known to Maxwell He sat leaning forward in his chair, ready to sprint, glancing every now and then towards the hut from which the telephone message would come.
When it did, he almost beat Blakeney-Smith in the dash to their cockpits.
After the Hurricanes had gone it was quiet and deserted at dispersals, with only a wireless set in the workshop breaking the silence, and the clatter of a farmer's tractor in the distance. The station cricket pitch was across the road and the homely smell of newly mown grass was carried on the warm breeze.
'Bet he gets a Jerry first time out, too,’ Cunningham said.
But it was the other way round, and when the eleven who came back had landed, the story was told.
Maxwell was the last down and his first question was: 'Anyone see what happened to Gifford?'
Cunningham felt the sweat break out on his body and his heart seem to swell until it would burst out of his chest. Webb had the urge to go quickly to the latrine, but pressed his legs together and waited.
'I saw him get well and truly bounced, sir.' Flight Sergeant Viccar, his face drawn and streaked with oil and smoke from a shell explosion in his cockpit, dragged on a cigarette. 'He'd been weaving bloody well and hanging on.' He turned to Sergeant Wilkins. 'Right, Wilkie?'
'Too true. He had his finger right out. We made two attacks and then be seemed to get confused in the break. I looked round and he'd got left behind. Then two 109s bounced him and he just blew up.'
Maxwell nodded dourly and glanced about. He caught the eyes of Gifford's two friends and turned abruptly away.
'He hadn't even been to the mess to book in,' Webb muttered. 'It's just as though he was never here at all.'
Subdued and frightened, they went back to their patch of grass in the sun. But Knight was coining for them: 'Come on, you two. I'm not on the next detail I'm taking you up and if you're O.K. you'll be operational'
With less swiftness than they would have shewn an hour earlier, they went with him,
Tuttle went about his work whistling. He had got over his disappointment of the night before and decided to look on the bright side and regard the money he had spent on buying the girl a couple of drinks as an investment. It would accumulate. He'd try again tonight and if he had no luck he would try again tomorrow. Eventually he'd get it in.
He looked in the pockets of Knight's best blue but there was nothing interesting or incriminating in them.
Tuttle opened the top drawer of the dressing
table and found a letter from Knight's father which he instantly opened.
'Dear Peter, I know you always find life a trifle pressing towards the end of the month, and as I happened to have quite a decent win at my bookmaker's expense yesterday, I'm enclosing a fiver which you may find useful for taking some nice girl out to dinner. Mother and I are looking forward so much to your next leave. It does seem a long time since you were home. Even a weekend would be something. You must be feeling the strain of things... ' And so it went on; family news and messages of affection. Tuttle was too insensitive to perceive the love, pride and anxiety behind Dr Knight's words.
He was disappointed. Some of the officers had much more interesting correspondents. Like most batmen, he was a shameless reader of private mail, bank statements and bills. He knew which officers always carried contraceptives and when they used them. He knew the financial situation of nearly every officer on the station: although he only looked after four of them he gossiped with the other servants. Some incautious Operations Room controller had left a pregnant Land Army girl behind when he was posted from his last station, and she wrote in panic to him almost every day; the batmen were making bets on whether she would complain to the Station Commander, or even find a way to tell the controller's wife. As the latter wrote to him affectionately almost every day as well, the mess servants following this drama with particular interest.
Tuttle had no qualms about prying in to other people's private affairs. He regarded the opportunity to do so as one of the perquisites of his lowly job. After all, if he had to clean their shoes and make out their laundry lists and do all sorts of demeaning jobs, they must expect to provide him with a little amusement in return. Besides, no booger sent him five quid because it was a long time to pay day.
Nine
The day was no shorter or less hard for II JG 97 than for their enemies on the other side of the English Channel But their mood was not the same.
On their first mission, well rested and invigorated by a stinging shower and a good breakfast, most of them sang as they climbed to form a screen around the bombers which forged towards England.
It gave them great pride to be part of this display of German might. It could not be long now before the British gave in. They knew that after this raid there would be another, and another after that, then a fourth and a fifth; and a tenth, if need be. The attacks would go on all night if they must, for the factories of the Reich could undoubtedly replace threefold every bomber or fighter shot down.
To be part of this huge array of destructive force gave the German airmen a sense of inviolability and invincibility. They were as effectively hypnotised as African savages who are told by witch doctors that the charms they carry make them impervious to the weapons of an enemy.
But Richter's pilots remembered his earlier strictures and the Schwarm leaders barked at their formations to fly with care and precision. He must not have cause to criticise them again.
This time, surely, they would destroy their targets. Today the airfields they attacked would be put out of action: their buildings razed and the occupants killed, the Hurricanes and Spitfires caught in hangars and on the dispersal lines set on fire, riddled with bullets, blown up; or shot down as they tried vainly to fly out of danger. No matter how heavy an air raid, the crazy R.A.F. ran to their fighters and tried to get them into the air and away from the falling bombs.
Hafner hummed contentedly. Let the Tommies come! They were good fighters but there were not enough of them. In every encounter they were outnumbered at least three to one.
The long, slow burn of perpetual but sometimes subconscious resentment reached the explosive charge of his personal hatred: with luck, he would see the Hurricane for which he always kept his eyes peeled now. YZ-E, with the insulting, swastika-chewing mongrel on its nose, was his pet 'hate. He felt no chivalry towards its pilot; to shoot him down, he would join a dozen other Me. 109s, even if the Hurricane were already falling in flames, for the satisfaction of putting in one burst himself.
He wondered what sort of man it was who flew it: some puny fellow with thin white limbs and a stupid pride in his deliberate amateurism; a typically frivolous Englishman who treated war as a sport and was delighted when he nicked an Me. 109 with a few lucky shots; and even more gratified to return home with a whole skin. But making war was not a sport, however the foolish British may try to turn it into one; it was a profession and only professional warriors could survive.
The bombers were splitting up and No. 1 Staffel swung west-ward at a curt command from Richter.
In a moment the air was full of warning cries.
'Achtung! Red Indians high right...'
'Break left, break left!'
'Behind you, Franz...'
'I'm hit...I'm hit...'
'Holy God! I'm on fire...My hood's jammed...'
Screams of terror and agony from men dying, wounded, burning, trapped.
Suddenly the air fleet of many hundreds did not seem so irresistible or the crews so bullet-proof.
Hafner twisted his body in its tight straps, trying to scan the whole sky, nerves jangling. Why didn't Richter order a break?
Then the shouted command and howling engines, the flash of sunlight on the pale undersides of wings and fuselages as the Staffel whipped over and down in a last second attempt to get behind the Hurricanes which had taken them unawares out of the sun.
And that was only the start of that day's work. They landed, refuelled and re-armed; and with only twenty minutes respite were airborne again. They returned a second time to base, badly mauled by the R.A.F. They waited in sullen little groups for the return of comrades who would never come back. The morning cost them five aircraft, two lives, two prisoners and one severely wounded.
What had gone wrong with the incantations of their witch doctors?
Connie Gates was on her rounds. It was lunch time and the back of the van was loaded with the best that the Officers' Mess could provide. She knew what good food did for people and was glad that she could help in this way. She would have been better pleased if she could have tipped a bottle of rum into each urn of coffee. She was sure that Drake hadn't fought the Armada on so weak a brew.
There were new faces almost every day, and different tensions: sometimes everyone was jumpy, although they tried not to shew it, because casualties were bad; sometimes they were as nappy as highly-strung racehorses, and made no attempt to conceal it, because they were eager to get back into the air without wasting time on the ground: that was when things were going well for them. She knew it only meant that some other wing was losing pilots that day and their own turn would come again too soon; but it was enough to change the whole atmosphere of each dispersal area.
This morning there was a sense of strain, but no sombre, weary silence. If they were quiet it was a satisfied, resting quietness; a gathering of strength for the next battle not a licking of wounds from the last.
She saw the two shy ones who were beginning to concern her. They looked like boys who had been robbing an orchard: grime on their hands and faces, clothes rumpled, tired in the way that anyone is tired after a long period of enforced alertness; but as though the apples had been worth stealing, even though the angry farmer with his heavy stick had caught them a clout or two. She felt pity for them because she knew, in some ways better than they did, what they were up against. Her reasoning was completely uncomplicated and feminine, if logical: what chance had these boys, with so little experience, got against grown German men who had been preparing to fight this war for years?
But they were officers and she was a mess servant and her job was to feed them, not be their mother or mistress; willingly though she played the latter part whenever she was able and the fortunate lover deserving enough.
She showed off her legs and her bosom in her usual brisk, cheerful way and drew the familiar glances and precious secret smiles of the favoured few who knew the softness and warmth and mystery hidden beneath her freshly ironed appearance and respectfu
l, efficient manner.
The ground defence machine gun crews in their sandbagged emplacements watched her with envy. They were only paid three or four shillings a day, whereas sergeant pilots got twelveand-six, and when the enemy attacked the airfield they would be more vulnerable than the pilots, who could at least run for their fighters and try to take them up, or dive for shelter underground. But the freshly made and thickly filled sandwiches and good coffee were not for the humble ground gunners. They would have to wait their turn in the cookhouse and be grateful for whatever meagre ration of meat and abundance of potatoes and carrots were dished out to them. The stoical ones resigned themselves to feasting their eyes on Corporal Gates, since their stomachs would have to go hungry.
Maxwell was talking to his flight commanders. 'I'm leaving both Webb and Cunningham with you, Jumper. I think it's a good idea to keep them together.'
Lee looked towards the two newly blooded pilots, who were supine in deck chairs with their eyes shut; they had given up the study of aircraft silhouettes. He remembered what his tarty, sharp-tongued girlfriend had said. There was nothing like that about either of these; the C.O. had got it right: they had spent months together surviving the strangeness of the first days of Service life, the anxieties about being failed before they got their wings, and they counted on each other's reassurance. It was natural and healthy. They had seen their friend Gifford come and go within a space of two or three hours that morning. It must have scared the pants off both the poor little devils. Anything that helped them to keep their nerve was good.
He walked over to talk to them. 'Nigel, you fly Number Two with me on the next detail…Stick like glue, right? Roddy, you're with Peter…Don't rely on Number Three to watch your tail - he's got his own problems…Never forget it takes four seconds to shoot down an aircraft…so look behind you every three...'
Summer of No Surrender Page 10
