Knight, climbing fast towards the slanting dive-bombers, saw first one hangar and then another hit by high explosives and incendiaries. A roof caved in. Massive girders and pillars bent like twigs. Sparks and flames cascaded high into the shimmering air. Whorls and scarves of smoke eddied and swelled. A petrol bowser caught fire with dazzling intensity. Burning oil sent dense, rank, plumes of black smoke aloft. There were shell holes all over the green surface of the aerodrome. A crater on the parade ground. A shuddering tongue of flame leaping out of a partly demolished barrack block.
Maxwell and his men flew like maniacs, everyone on his own, no thought of joining up in pairs: every man for himself, now, and driven by a bitter resentment; killing was their daily task, the risk of death was their daily lot; but why involve the others, who, taken by surprise, could not even get as far as an underground shelter or a trench? The ground defence gunners were pumping Bofors shells and Browning bullets into the air. Someone hit a Me. 109 as it flew low across the middle of the airfield, strafing the dispersal huts. It lurched on to a wingtip and cartwheeled to destruction. But others followed it, blasting men from their lightly protected gun posts.
Knight, as he climbed away hunting a Stuka, saw a well-known adversary flash past on his way down to attack a row of petrol bowsers: he glimpsed the snarling, slavering wolf's head with its blood-dripping fangs. He saw the pilot twist his head up and round, in recognition, and for an instant he was tempted to wing over and follow him down, pumping bullets into his cockpit; but he knew that by the time he turned and dived the other would be gone. Besides, it was the bombers which mattered most.
He wondered if any stray bombs had fallen near Anne's home.
When she took the lunches round that day, Connie Gates remembered what she had learned in school about the greatest catastrophes of history. None of them could have been more horrible than this: either in the event or the aftermath.
A stench of charred flesh, burned oil and cold ashes hung over the whole station. Two lop-sided hangars, a crumbled barrack building and several smashed steel and wooden huts were charred and scarred, amid the Fire Section's pools of water. Hoses still coiled around roads and buildings. The skeletons of lorries and burned-out petrol bowsers littered the tarmac bordering the airfield. Men hurried about with stretchers. N.C.O.s bawled at salvage squads moving at the double with picks, spades and barrows. Everyone was in haste, clearing up the mess, seeking the injured, removing the dead.
The surface of the aerodrome was torn up and pitted, but there was room for the Hurricanes to land if they took great care.
At 172's dispersal the ground crews toiled in silence to make their charges ready for the next mission. The pilots sat mute in deck chairs, while the Intelligence Officer went round to each in turn asking quiet questions, noting the subdued answers.
Connie almost cried out when she saw the two who were her particular concern. They scarcely looked like the boys she had known for the last few weeks. Their shoulders sagged, their faces were haggard and dirty. Their usually neat hair was tousled, their clothes were awry. Both looked glum and grief stricken; and scared.
She paused for her usual few seconds to gather everyone's attention, but few eyes turned in her direction.
She noticed that Bernie Harmon was lying back with his eyes shut while his fingers beat an incessant tattoo on his knees. Spike Poynter shifted his shoulders compulsively from side to side, wriggling as though his chair were infested by ants. Lottie was staring into space, dead ahead, holding a long, silent conversation with himself, his lips moving distortedly, one fist thumping his thigh. She knew that men under strain developed these uncontrollable tics. She had seen survivors of torpedoed merchant ships brought ashore in her home town, still twitching after their ordeal. It wrung her heart to see these young men, who had so bravely undergone so much, so stubbornly resisted any weakening of spirit, lose control of their nerves.
When she had been right round the perimeter road and the van was empty she saw a muscular figure, stripped to the waist but wearing a steel helmet at a jaunty angle, wielding a spade vigorously. There was something familiar about this apparition, this embodiment of earnest toil. She said to the driver: 'Stop a minute, will you. I want to see if this is who I think it is. '
'Aw, c'mon, Corp., I want me dinner…'
'Stop, I said: I won't be a minute.'
The van came to a halt alongside the brawny man with the spade. A sweat-streaked face turned and scowled at her, then broke into a grin.
'Hello, Connie. Come to give me a 'and?'
She chuckled. 'You're doing all right on your own, Norm. Here...' She delved into the rear of the vehicle. 'I've got a drop of coffee left over.' She poured him a cup and Tuttle paused to take it with a broad wink and a nod of thanks.
Driving on, she thought: First time I've seen our Norm Tuttle doing an honest job of work. Had to encourage him.
Fourteen
Hafner jumped down from his cockpit, a happy man. What a feast of destruction that was! He had enjoyed every minute of the sortie: the joining up with the other escorting fighters, the circling while they waited for the bombers to arrive at the rendezvous. It had given him a sensation of safety and tremendous strength, to be part of, and to see, such a swarm of German aircraft.
He had fought one short engagement with a Spitfire, obviously flown by a novice: he had caught him unawares and shot him down with two quick bursts. Then had come the heady indulgence in an orgy of destruction which left him as elated as though he were drunk on champagne. It had been unimaginable excitement to see his bullets and shells ripping through a Hurricane which was standing outside a hangar, with a group of men around it; they had been tumbled like wooden soldiers swept aside with a sweep of the arm. He had shouted with joy as his fire tore into wooden buildings and poured through the windows of a barrack block.
He had only one regret: for an instant he saw his specially hated enemy, the Hurricane with an 'E' next to the roundel, and the dog tearing up a swastika stencilled on its nose. They had passed in a split second and there was no time to turn and go after it.
It was the start of a busy day that brought him as much pain and anger as that initial delight.
In a fight over the Channel he saw a Me. 109 shot down by another: in that crowded air space, with bullets and shells as thick as hail, one of their own fighters flew straight into the fire of another.
Coming back, he got into a fight with a pair of Spitfires which were attacking a Dornier whose starboard engine was smoking and letting off a stream of sparks.
The Spitfires alternately attacked the bomber and tried to drive Hafner off. Eventually the Dornier flopped into the sea a few yards from the Sussex beach and the Spitfires, obviously out of ammunition, disappeared. Hafner, making one last orbit to ensure that there was no lurking danger, saw one of the German bomber's crew climb on to the wing and turn to help one of his comrades out. But before he could do so he flung up his arms and pitched into the sea. On the beach knelt two British soldiers with rifles at their shoulders. A second crewman appeared and they shot him too. Two Spitfires came rocketing out of nowhere and Hafner had to climb frantically away.
He was like a hungry hunting animal that has been thwarted of its prey, as he walked stiffly away from his aeroplane. If only he could have fired one short burst at those two kneeling figures on the sand. His shock at what he had seen the day before was replaced by an even greater revulsion for the coldly calculated murders he had witnessed on that English beach. That was not war. Not only was it a violation of the Geneva convention, it was a crime against decency.
He did not remind himself that perhaps those soldiers had seen their own parachuting airmen murdered by Messerschmitt pilots.
Keiling was standing alone in a strange attitude, like a dummy taken from a shop window and placed here amid all this activity. Where everyone else was animated, the boy stood rigidly, isolated as much mentally as physically.
Hafner paused in passing, but o
ne look at that distorted face was enough to change his mind. Whatever was torturing the boy, breaking into his privacy would not make it any easier to bear.
Keiling felt like a criminal. He had been tempted to delay his landing until he was down to his last drop of petrol, so as to put off as long as possible the moment when he must meet his comrades' scorn. But then he had thought it better to face the situation and get done with it. And now they were all ignoring him.
It was the sun shining directly into his eyes which had dazzled him and led to his mistake. But that excuse did not ease his torment.
He had been badly frightened during that battle when the British fighters were coming at him from every angle. He had been convinced that everyone of them had singled him out as its target. To begin with, it was demoralising to find the Spitfires and Hurricanes always waiting for them, despite the bomber attacks on the English radiolocation towers. It was uncanny and made his flesh creep. Never once did they catch the R.A.F. napping.
On top of that, a dozen R.A.F. fighters proved capable, time and time again, of doing as much damage as one would expect from sixty. True, the odds were up to five to one against them, and they had to fly and fight to even the score by sheer skill and bravery. But that did not account for their terrifying ubiquity, their unhesitating attacks on big German formations which, whether they stolidly maintained position or broke up and scattered, came off second best.
With the sun flashing on so many perspex canopies, with so many gun and cannon muzzles alight with flame and smoke, with so much turbulent air created by the swift rush of aircraft and the explosion of petrol tanks and bombs in their bays, Keiling felt confused and trapped .
So many bright surfaces reflecting the brilliant sunshine of the high, clear atmosphere. So many darting, weaving, shooting aircraft to dodge.
He had glimpsed one in his mirror and whipped round so tightly that he blacked out. Vision returned and he saw a fighter diving, it seemed directly at him. His eyes were still unsure from the effects of a tight turn, and the sun dazzled him. He opened fire and the diving fighter soared straight up as though a giant boot had kicked it in the belly. It stalled, fell on to its back and spun past him, the pilot dead. He saw then that he had destroyed one of his own side.
Could his mistake have gone unseen? In that milling crowd of aircraft, surely someone must have witnessed his mistake?
When he landed he had expected to be surrounded at once by angry comrades; to be marched in front of the CO. who could be very different from the kindly music lover with whom he shared his evenings.
But nobody had taken any notice of him. This was worse even than being ridiculed and vilified: ostracism was the most hurtful punishment of all. He could not force himself to mingle with the others. He saw Hafner approach, hesitate and go on.' Brendel came by, glanced at him and passed in silence.
It was the middle-aged, fatherly Intelligence Officer who broke into his shell. 'What's the matter, Manfred? Not feeling well?'
In a choking voice, Keiling said 'I didn't mean to... it was a mistake...'
The older man laid a hand on his arm. 'I don't know what you're talking about, son. Come and sit down in the shade and tell me all about it.'
Together, talking quietly, the two of them moved away. When Keiling's confession was over, the I.O. held him with a direct gaze from behind his thick glasses. 'Forget about it, my boy. It's not going in the combat report. You can't be certain. No one else saw a thing. That machine was probably hit by a Red Indian you didn't even see.'
How childish it was to call enemy fighters Red Indians, Keiling thought petulantly. But what did it matter? What counted was the fact that no one had witnessed his disgrace; and the I.O. would respect his honesty and reveal nothing.
In two weeks the attitudes of 172 Sqdn and II JG 97 changed from dispassionate enmity to angry hatred. Weariness, especially when it robs men of appetite, creates a mood of sullen misery which maintains a smouldering resentment, erupting into spasms of willing brutality.
Both Germans and British were tired of the incessant strain of flying and fighting. Pilots, whether they wore R.A.F. blue or Luftwaffe grey, spent the hours of waiting with their stomachs quivering and their thoughts full of horrific images. But the periods of waiting were too short: hardly would they land from one sortie than they were despatched on another. They stumbled from their cockpits and flung themselves down on the grass, in the shadow of wing or fuselage, and slept. If they slept they had nightmares. If they stayed awake they had day dreams.
Whether missions followed in quick succession or at long intervals, the burden was equally heavy. To land, refuel, rearm and climb back into the cockpit left little time for dark thoughts. To lie on the grass or loll in a chair, wooing sleep which wouldn't come, was hard on the nerves; and nervous exhaustion soon created intense physical fatigue.
And who could face food when his nerves and muscles were both worn to their limits, when his friends were dying or being wounded every day and most of his thoughts were about the moment when his own turn would come?
There even came a surfeit when drink was spurned. When last night's wine or beer, brandy or whisky, had left one's stomach and mouth so sour that the very thought of anymore was revolting.
The bombers, with their escorting Me. 109s, came back to East Malford in the afternoon, only four or five hours after their first raid; and this time the spirit of some of those who had taken a severe bombardment that morning, and had no weapons with which to fight back, broke.
The R.A.F.'s ground defence gunners stood fast in their pits and their emplacements; those, at least, which had been repaired. Many of them died over their Brownings and Bofors and Hispano cannon. But some of the officers and men who could do nothing more than run for shelter and hide until the thunderous, flaming onslaught was over, could not face again the darkness of narrow underground shelters too like the grave, or the scanty protection of shallow trenches, while the earth quaked under the concussion of bombs and fire streaked across the ground in the wake of streams of petrol. When debris blocked the exit from a shelter, the roof caved in, or a river of flaming aircraft fuel and oil poured down the steps, any other place seemed preferable.
When the enemy attacked that afternoon, there was a stampede. British airmen and their officers pelted for the camp gates, dignity and example forgotten, all sense of self-respect gone in the helter-skelter rush to get away from the target area, from the tomb-like shelters, and find safety above ground in the surrounding fields and woods.
Those who stood firm tried to bar the paths of the fugitives, but were knocked down and trampled on. Service policemen at the gate drew their revolvers, but hesitated, not knowing what to do. A few of them fired warning shots into the air, which were ignored. Overtaken by an event for which they were unprepared, they had no precedent or training, no realistic instructions, to guide their actions. It is one thing to ordain this and that drastic measure in the face of panic, mutiny or mob violence; quite another to put it into practice, especially against one's comrades.
Tuttle, still labouring with his spade to repair the damage of the morning, was over-run by twenty or thirty men with two officers among them, scurrying towards the station main gate. Knocked down as bodies cannoned into him from behind, he picked himself up, swearing, and lashed out with the flat of his spade. Laying about him, he cracked three or four heads, and as his victims rolled on the ground he stood over them, his legs spread, his big muscles standing out under the sweaty sheen of his grime-streaked skin. With the edge of his spade ready, he yelled abuse at them, threatening to cut off their heads, their limbs, to emasculate them, if they did not at once turn back. For a moment, as the bombs and bullets rained down, he was tempted to run after the fleeing mob, but some shred of pride sustained him and he shook his fist at the Heinkels high overhead before herding the men he had tumbled towards an air raid shelter.
Several thousand feet above the fighting, Simon BlakeneySmith circled in his Hurricane, ke
eping well away from that devil's cauldron of massed air power, the dense curtains of shell and bullet, the wily Messerschmitt pilots who hunted in couples and fours and outnumbered the British fighters so many times over. His body was sticky with the sweat of fear, his hands heavy on stick and throttle, his mind fogged by loss of will power and fear of the unknown. He could not make himself go down and join in.
Bernie Harmon was in the thick of it. Lotnikski had tagged on to him and together they made a death-dealing, almost unescapable combination. Both men had learned to attack with such speed and accuracy that they could sight, fire and break away in half of the time that was necessary for the common run of fighter pilots. Of the two, Harmon had the advantage: he was the better shot and the more masterly pilot; but there was very little between them. What shade the Pole lacked in marksmanship and flying technique he made up for in self-sacrifice: he was like a human projectile, using himself as unsparingly as he used his machine and his ammunition to destroy the enemy. It was all the same to him whether he brought down a 109 or a Heinkel with bullets, his propeller, or by ramming it as a last resort and killing himself at the same time. Teamed with Harmon, he knew that he had a partner as savage and brave as himself. But Bernie wanted to live and he didn't. Or at least, he didn't care one way or the other.
Harmon cared very much. He thrust thoughts of Sarah out of his mind, for fear of weakening; and then he decided that he had better not banish her from his thoughts, because she was the reason for his determination to stay alive. Lotnikski, if he had let his mind wander, could have filled it with recollection of the endless stream of willing girls, in and out of uniform, who came to his bed; and went from it to someone else's. But they were mere pastimes, not replacements for the one he had lost.
Summer of No Surrender Page 16
