Summer of No Surrender

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Blakeney-Smith was lolling contentedly in an armchair, reading The Times. As far as he was concerned, they could scrub flying for the rest of the day. Every extra few hours of unthreatened living were worth anything; let the Jerries come over, let them bomb wherever they wanted to: just leave him in peace. He had had more than enough of this bloody war. On the surface he was still the hearty extrovert. He deplored the bad weather as convincingly as Lottie; except that the Pole said very little and it was his eyes which betrayed his frustration, the frequent tugging at his collar which announced his anxiety. With his com-coloured hair, pale grey eyes and pasty complexion, Lotnikski looked permanently worn out. Blakeney­Smith prided himself that his own florid cheeks and luxuriant black moustache gave him an air of constant good health. If he believed in that sort of thing any longer, he would willingly say ten Hail Marys for continuing bad weather. Instead, he lit a Turkish cigarette and hid behind the newspaper.

  Knight went to the telephone after breakfast, to call Anne.

  'I missed you last evening,' he told her.

  'I missed you too, darling. Did you have a good night's rest?'

  'Wizard. Didn't have to get up early, either.’

  'The weather? I hope it stays like this all day, for you.'

  'We'll never win the war if we can't fly.'

  'Perhaps they'll just give up. After all, they can't fly either.' There was a catch in her voice underneath the flippancy.

  'I expect we'll be released early, anyway.'

  'When shall I see you?'

  'Early as possible. And, Anne...' 'Yes, Peter?'

  'I love you.'

  'I love you, too.'

  It was not an exchange of passionate avowals which would go down in history, but it left them both glowing with happiness.

  It was as though the sky wept for Manfred Keiling.

  So thought Hafner when he woke that morning and stared out of his window. He was grateful for the bonus of sleep the foul weather had granted him. The sight, the shock, of a comrade's suicide, had brought nightmares in its train. He had woken twice, sweating and shaking, before at last he slept undisturbed.

  And now his first waking thought was of that. Violent death he was well used to by now, but self-destruction was something else: and when the manner of it was so repellent it filled the onlooker with distaste rather than sympathy. Why the hell should Keiling add to the strain of their daily lives by this crudity, this confession of weakness? By what right did he take his own life in this cowardly and messy way, when he could have left it to the British to do the job for him; with honour?

  Richter went about his duties that day like an automaton. He had to go to Gruppe Headquarters and report Keiling's suicide. It was a humiliation to the Staffel. Everyone would suppose that the boy had done it because he could not face battle again. Only he knew the truth, and he knew that he lacked the courage to tell it. Keiling's name would bear the stigma of cowardice in the face of the enemy for all time, for his suicide would be regarded as the equivalent. His comrades would believe that he had shot himself because he hadn't the courage to fight again.

  Richter had sat up all night with the brandy bottle, but found no solace; nor the courage to confess.

  But Keiling's parents would never know that their son had killed himself. For them, he would compose a letter of condolence which would conceal the truth. As for the truth behind the truth, that was something to torture him for the rest of his days.

  The greyness of the dripping sky matched the gloom pervading the Staffel. The general air of anger and resentment intensified Hafner's preoccupation with vengeance personified He approached the Intelligence Officer. 'Let me have another look at the RA.F. Order of Battle. I want to verify something.’

  The I.0., flattered by this interest: in detail which the pilots usually treated with frivolity, handed him the file giving the disposition of the R.A.F. fighter squadrons, which had been identified by their marking letters and radio transmissions.

  'So 172 Squadron is still at East Malford,' Hafner said. 'I hope the swines aren't moved after our visit yesterday.'

  'Small chance of that,' the I.O. replied. 'The British have no replacements. Why are you so interested?'

  'Every man needs to fix his mind on one particular objective; it provides a reason for survival: to let oneself be killed without achieving it would be intolerable.'

  The older man tried to soothe him. 'You don't need any special objective to keep you alive, Erich. Just look after yourself, don't burden yourself with any other worries.'

  'The 172 Squadron pilot who flies with the letter "E" on his Hurricane. I'm going to kill him.'

  'That's foolishness. While you're looking for him you'll let all the others slip by. Or get jumped yourself.'

  'No, I won't. All the time I'm on the lookout for him.'

  'If it'll make you feel any better, here's a note on 172 Squadron which has just come in: H.Q. have sent out new lists of the names of all pilots in the RA.F.'s front line squadrons. And some photographs also.'

  'I'm glad you ferrets are some use. Let's see what you've got.' Hafner took the dossier which the I.0. handed him and ran his finger down a page.

  'I wonder what my man's name is...Maxwell...Lee…Poynter...Harmon…Blakeney-Smith…Massey...Knight...Knight!' He looked up excitedly. 'Have you got photographs of any of these?'

  'There's one at the back of the folder.'

  Hafner turned the papers over until he came to an enlargement of a group of 172's pilots standing in front of a Hurricane, taken a few days before the outbreak of war. He scanned the faces, his heart beating fast, then exclaimed 'There he is!' He verified his recognition by quick reference to the names printed under the picture. 'My God, this makes him so much more...more...destructible. Thank you, Ferret: you've given me exactly what I wanted.'

  That afternoon took Hafner a step nearer to the end of his road.

  At three-o'clock the clouds broke and the sun shone through. Within thirty minutes a raid was mounted against Southern England, with Richter's Staffel among the escort.

  They were in action even before they crossed the coast, and with an exultant shout Hafner saw that their interceptors came from 172.

  As always happened, the formations were split up and scattered widely. Hafner found himself and his Schwarm in battle with two Hurricanes. He saw an Me. 109 go down in flames and another turn away with a Hurricane in pursuit. Then he and the other surviving 109s gave themselves completely to the task of shooting down the second Hurricane.

  It was an untidy dogfight, but all the time the two Germans were forcing their enemy southward. They had almost reached the French coast when coolant began to pour from Hafner's machine and, simultaneously, smoke billowed from the Hurricane's engine.

  The two fighters side by side, slammed down to a crash landing barely inside the Staffel's own aerodrome. Both pilots were out of their cockpits in a trice and running from their aircraft before the fuel tanks exploded.

  Ten minutes later Hafner was chatting to the prisoner, a very young and inexperienced sergeant whose reaction to this narrow escape from death was typical talkativeness. With adrenalin supercharging his system, and additionally stimulated by a liberal tot of cognac, he was as excited as though he were at a party instead of being a captive of the enemy.

  'And how,' asked Hafner casually, 'is Flight Lieutenant Lee?' He glanced at the I.O.

  'Jumper Lee?' The incautious sergeant repeated. 'He's fine.'

  'I always recognise him by his aircraft.' Hafner gave a friendly laugh. 'I regard him as an old friend.'

  'You do? How d'you mean you recognise him by his aircraft?'

  'With the little dog chewing the bone, and the letter "E"...'

  'Oh! That's not Lee, it's Peter Knight. He's got a small dog, you know: sort of terrier. Called Moonshine...'

  The Intelligence Officer was gratefully making notes. Nothing shook newly captured prisoners more than the revelation that the enemy was familiar with these i
ntimate details of squadron life. Unwittingly, the raw sergeant had given away a lot. Lee's nickname…the name and breed of Knight's dog...the identity letter of his Hurricane. Hafner had been a great help in getting him to chatter.

  And Hafner, at last, had created an image of his personal enemy. So it was Peter Knight! He might have known their paths were fated to cross again: their back grounds had so much in common; and so little.

  Later that day he spent a long time gazing at his chosen antagonist's cherry face among his companions. Old memories came, bringing alive the forgotten humiliation and resentment of defeat. So, in the end, this had proved to be a very real personal affair indeed.

  Richter sat bowed over his writing table, his head supported on one hand, a pen idle in the other. What more could he say? He was half drunk, and uncertain whether this made his task easier or harder.

  'It is with the deepest regret and sense of personal bereavement that I find it my sad duty to write and inform you of the loss in action today of your son Manfred. No one could have wished a more glorious or gallant end to a short, but brave and already distinguished, career...'

  He stared at the lies he had written, his pen quivering in his tight grip. He compressed it harder and it snapped; ink spurted out, defacing the writing, splashing his cuff.

  He looked miserably at his ink-stained hand and the ruined letter.

  It was no use cursing. He simply had to get this damned letter written tonight. He reached for the cognac bottle and shouted to his orderly to fetch him another pen from somewhere.

  Seventeen

  The unpredictable late August weather allowed them another twenty-four hours of comparative idleness.

  While ground crews laboured to take advantage of this lull and bring Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons up to strength, the pilots sat in their crew rooms, prey to a new kind of nervous tension. On the one hand they welcomed the respite, which gave them the chance to make up for lost sleep by dozing all day in an easy chair. On the other they hated the postponement of the inevitable; they knew that they must go into action again sooner or later, and it was perhaps less wearing on the nerves to plunge into it than merely contemplate it.

  Their enemies greeted the clouds and rain with the same mixed feelings. Confident though they still were, as September came, that they would conquer England before many more days passed, they were as weary and fear-ridden as its defenders.

  II JG 97's No.1 Staffel had buried Keiling with military honours in a steady drizzle. Not one of the officers attended the ceremony with any feeling of sympathy. Even Richter felt outraged by the sham; he had reconciled himself to the boy's suicide and exonerated himself from blame for it. Weak material of that kind was bound to destroy itself, and he even persuaded himself that he had done well to precipitate the deed. A gutless fighter pilot was a danger to his comrades. If Keiling had survived he would surely have deserted his leader at some crucial moment in battle. His death certainly meant life to one, or more, of his fellows. Half-baked philosophy and undiluted cognac were powerful agents of self-delusion.

  Only Hafner, of them all, tried to dredge up some emotion from the darkness of his benumbed soul. Somewhere in him there still lurked a few frayed fragments of some kind of faith in God. The rest were all unbelievers, worshipping only the Führer and the swastika. if they worshipped anything. Hainer stood at the graveside fingering the holy medal his mother had given him all those years ago in Rome, when he was a child. Looking into the black pit into which Keiling had disappeared for ever, he felt queasy. A spasm of fear forced him to close his eyes, shutting out the sight of that hideous gash in the cemetery turf. He pressed the little medallion hard between his thumb and finger and tried to pray; for himself rather than for Keiling.

  The rest of the day limped as leadenly as the colour of the lowering sky. In their recreation tent at the airfield the pilots played the gramophone, gambled, smoked and fretted for something to do.

  Hafner left a card game to sit by himself and brood. Chewing on his knuckles, he set himself to recall everything he could about Peter Knight. They had quickly become friends. But were they ever really friends? Could they share a true friendship, when they were fundamentally so opposed? It must have been a false emotion. He had gone to England surfeited with physical adventures with complaisant Nazi-bred girls; a sensuality which had first been satisfied at the age of fifteen, and countless times since. He had sensed that the English boy was completely inexperienced, living the almost monastic life which an expensive British education enforced. He had admired him and his dedication to everything that seemed to Hafner to be worthily masculine. Here was true virility: the capacity for self-denial, the hardships of severe athletic training, the spartan life away from home comforts and parental sympathy or protection, the discipline.

  Looking back now he acknowledged that, in those distant days, Knight had been a hero to him. What he had mistaken for friendship was only admiration. Well, he no longer admired him. He was going to kill him. And in doing so he was conferring an honour on him; seeking him out for single-handed mortal combat. He wished he could let him know what lay in store; he would like him to be conscious of the event, when the time came. As it was, Knight would die never knowing that his former friend had shewn him such chivalry.

  The gramophone in the pilots' crew room played 'These Foolish Things' and two or three voices parodied the words obscenely to the amusement of the listeners. In the airmen's rest hut, a wireless set blared 'We'll Meet Again', accompanied by the troops' chorus of more or less harmonious, and stickily sentimental, crooning.

  Knight felt relaxed and well rested. His mind was so full of Anne that little room was left for introspection. It was his nature to be cheerful rather than morose. This sudden respite had at once restored him to his habitual blithe, mildly ironical detachment. And now that he was in love, his mind was happily occupied. If he kept looking at his watch it was not from anxiety lest the weather improved before it was time to stand down, but because he was eager to go to Anne.

  An aviation magazine lay open on his knees. He took a photograph from his pocket, laid it on the page, and admired it. She was the prettiest girl friend he had ever had. He'd love to see her in a bathing costume. He wanted so much to go to bed with her; but he knew he wouldn't. He could be sure of her passion: there was no doubt about that from the way she petted with him. He was too much a product of his environment even to consider whether Anne would rather wait until they were married. With the faulty understanding of women which was so typical of young men of his class and time, he perpetuated a false notion of 'nice' girls and 'easy' ones. He would have been perturbed to know that Anne, though thoroughly 'nice', would be as 'easy' with him as any of the mess's camp followers, because she was in love with him. His self-confidence, though modest enough, gave him a superior view of lesser sportsmen and flyers which led to a certain cynicism.

  But he had not yet learned to be cynical about girls.

  Their short lived reprieve ended at dawn the next morning. The East Malford squadrons had hardly arrived at their dispersal areas when the Operations Room telephone rang in 172's crew room.

  A few sneak raiders were about, probably on weather reconnaissance rather than bombing. A pair of Hurricanes was ordered off: Sqdn. Ldr. Maxwell sent Blakeney-Smith and Webb.

  Half an hour later Webb returned alone. 'I don't know what happened. We didn't see anything, then Simon said he'd spotted a bogey ten thousand feet above and told me to stay on the patrol line while he went up to have a look at it. A couple of minutes later he gave "Tallyho", but I couldn't see him. Then the controller told me to pancake...'

  Blakeney-Smith came back twenty minutes later, with a story about an interception...a Me. 110, which had bolted for France...a fight over the Channel…the Messerschmitt shot down into the sea…

  Harmon, disgustedly, commented: 'If seagulls could climb to twenty-five thousand, I'd put that down as one seagull destroyed, Spy.'

  The first squadron scram
ble came at what, in a civilised existence, would have been breakfast time. The enemy, as though venting their pent up wrath at two days of frustration, came in strength and fought with outstanding ferocity. In a crazed whirligig of Spitfires, Hurricanes, Heinkels and Messerschmitts, Webb was heard to call out that he was baling out. Soon after the rest of them got back to base they learned that he had been picked up by the Army, with an arm severed and both legs riddled by bullets.

  Cunningham, shaking and angry, murmured 'There goes a future Davis Cup player.' Lost international tennis glory belonged to an almost forgotten era, but nobody thought it bathetic.

  After forty-eight hours' taking it easy, people were restless. They didn't have to restrain themselves for long. They were sent off again in mid-morning; and this time it was one of the best of them who didn't come back. Someone who had been an inspiration and a sheet anchor to many. Losses among the least experienced members of the squadron were expected and did small damage to morale, but when a veteran of Jumper Lee's standing was shot down and lost it struck severely at the confidence of the rest.

  It was hard to believe that his ebullient laughter and off­hand authoritativeness would no longer be heard. Nobody had seen him go down. He had made no final call on the radio. If he had crashed on land, word would come soon. If he had fallen into the sea, either their own or the enemy rescue boats would probably pick him up. If the latter, they might have to wait weeks for the news.

  Maxwell and his pilots watched the sky and listened, but the last Hurricane had landed and they had to resign themselves to Jumper's fate. The Squadron Commander beckoned Knight to his side. 'I want you to take over 'A' Flight, Pete.'