The Thirty Days War

by John Harris

  The Audax was giving trouble. To start the engine, the ground crew had to wind a large handle pushed into the side and they were cursing as the effort made them break into a sweat. The sergeant removed the side panel from the engine, put his arm in and made an adjustment, then he replaced the panel and turned to the men on the handle.

  ‘Give it another go,’ he said.

  This time the engine crackled into life, spluttered and settled down to a steady roar. Fogarty shuffled himself to comfort in his seat and Waldo in the rear cockpit arranged his maps. They were already marked with the gun positions and lorry parks on the plateau.

  ‘All right!’ Fogarty lifted his gloved hand. As he held up his thumb the mechanics hauled away the chocks.

  The engine’s roar increased, and the aeroplane began to move slowly forward, throwing up an enormous cloud of gritty dust which made the ground crew and the few watchers close their eyes and turn their backs until the machine was far enough away for it to start settling.

  They watched the aircraft thunder down the airfield towards the ditch at the end, then they saw it, a moving shadow against the horizon, start to lift until it was a sharply etched shape against the glow in the sky. It climbed steadily to a height of five hundred feet then turned and headed back towards the plateau. As it roared over them, their heads turned with it as if they were all attached to a string.

  The flight sergeant in charge of the ground crew turned to his men. ‘Right, lads,’ he said. ‘You know what to do. Got your torches?’

  The flight mechanics nodded and the flight sergeant indicated the nearby gate that led from the airfield to the space beyond the hangars. ‘When he lands he’s going to come straight across here and straight through that gate there. Got it?’

  More nods.

  ‘Just in case them guns on the hill there wade in, see? We want him behind the hangars in double-quick time where they can’t hit him. Got it? I want one man either side of the gate with his torch making circles so he can see where it is and the other thirty feet inside, dead centre for him to aim at. If the ups-a-daisy starts, we might be doing it all the time.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ one of the mechanics observed. ‘Especially with the pupil pilots.’

  The machine was up for no more than an hour, and they watched it making provocative runs only a hundred feet above the line of the escarpment. Every moment they expected firing to start, but nothing happened. They could see lights up there and a few fires and an occasional lifting column of dark smoke, but there was absolute silence.

  The Audax came in quickly, making a perfect three-point landing and heading straight for the gate where the flight mechanics with the torches were waiting. As it went through the gate, it swung left and disappeared behind the hangars.

  Osanna was waiting as the crew climbed out. Alongside him was Boumphrey. He was getting the feel of an aircraft again and that morning’s flight had set him thinking. Despite his fondness for his dark-skinned legionnaires, there was something about flying that got hold of you. It made you feel as if you were one of God’s chosen few, able to feel the sun before it touched lesser mortals chained to the ground. It gave you a vision of God, able to see whole countrysides when the normal eye could carry only as far as an earthbound horizon. He suddenly found himself itching to have another go.

  Leaving the tarmac outside the hangars, Boumphrey headed for the hospital. With the fun about to start, it was time he saw Colonel Wood-Withnell to make sure his daughter had got away safely to the coast. He had been occupied during most of the day but he knew her name had been on the list for one of the earlier flights.

  In the growing darkness there was movement everywhere near the hangars. The Audax which had just landed was being pushed slowly towards the trees that grew round what had once been the golf course and the polo ground. There were other Audaxes there, parked with the Harts in the shadows, and he could see lights where men tinkered with engines and airframes. Outside the hangars, the Oxfords were parked haphazardly, fitters putting the finishing touches to them, all talking a little more loudly than normal with the excitement. What was going to happen to them the following day none of them knew, but they’d all guessed it wasn’t going to be pleasant. The solitary serviceable Blenheim was still inside the open doors of the main hangar because it had been decided to keep it as a reserve to be used only after finding out what happened with the older aircraft. The seven Gladiators were parked in a line, compact and workmanlike but since 1939 well out of date. The last biplane fighters produced for the RAF, they were only a step in what had been a ridiculously long-delayed change to monoplanes. Nevertheless they had been well conceived and, despite their drawbacks against more modern machines, were remarkably manoeuvrable.

  The Fairey Gordons, with their two-bay biplane wings and their huge Panther radials, looked lonely, parked away from the other machines by the end of the hangars nearest to the escarpment. They were slow, and had been placed there where they were likely to become the first casualties because they were considered to be the most expendable.

  There was activity everywhere as Boumphrey moved from the airfield to the main complex of buildings where the hospital was situated. A large Red Cross flag had already been erected above it and ambulances stood ready outside. A petrol bowser growled past to refuel one of the Oxfords. It was followed by an armoury truck. Inside, beyond the open tailgate he could see belts of shining ammunition. Boards had been erected with arrows indicating the route to the shelters and the trenches.

  He wondered if it would work. Fogarty had given him a group of Oxfords, all flown by pupil pilots whom he suspected he’d have to lead by the hand.

  ‘Show ’em how to do it, Boumphrey,’ Fogarty had said.

  It had crossed Boumphrey’s mind that Fogarty was being kind and, because he had done so little flying at Kubaiyah and was a bit of an unknown quantity, had deliberately given him an easy job. He felt no qualms, however, and was quite certain he was capable of doing anything that was asked of him. Boastfulness was not one of Boumphrey’s vices but, despite his retiring manner, he also didn’t suffer a great deal from false modesty.

  There was a lot of surreptitious movement round the hangars. With the ground personnel ordered to remain in trenches and the only people left to refuel, arm and move the aircraft the crews themselves, they had already started clandestinely tackling odd airmen and getting their promise to ignore the order. The pupils were more than willing and had no intention, if a battle started, to spend it all with their heads down.

  ‘We’re supposed to be the cream of the younger generation,’ one of them said, not entirely jokingly.

  ‘Jesus,’ someone replied, ‘if we’re the cream the future’s far from certain.’

  The hospital showed the same signs of activity as the rest of the station. Sandbags had been erected at all the doors and windows of the low, single-storey building and every patient who could be moved out had been discharged, to leave the beds empty for casualties when the fun started.

  The entrance hall was covered with the RAF’s favourite brown linoleum and smelled of floor polish, ether and Dettol. Colonel Wood-Withnell was sitting at the station medical officer’s desk, going through a pile of papers. There was still a sticking plaster on his head, his hands were bandaged, and there was a livid bruise on his face, but he seemed alert enough and to be relishing the thought of action.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, his view of Boumphrey considerably changed since his rescue. ‘You involved in the bunfight tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But they’ve taken the legion away from me temporarily.’

  As Wood-Withnell’s eyebrows lifted, Boumphrey explained. ‘Thought I’d be more use as a pilot,’ he said. ‘We’re a bit short and we need to give those clots on the escarpment what for. All at once. One big bang sort of thing, to make ’em think. I’m to go back to the legion when things settle down. That’s if I want to.’

  Suddenly he wondered if he did. Another step up in rank, he de
cided, and he could start thinking of applying for staff college.

  ‘Prue get away all right?’ he asked.

  Wood-Withnell stared at him for a moment, frowning. ‘She wouldn’t go,’ he said.

  Boumphrey’s dismal expression lifted. ‘She wouldn’t?’

  ‘No. Dammit, it made nonsense of all that effort you put into getting us out of Mandadad!’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she go?’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t go. They’re going to need every experienced pair of hands they can get here in the next few days. I said they could use another doctor and the station medical officer agreed. So when I said I wasn’t going, Prue said she wasn’t going either. I couldn’t make her change her mind. Several of the nurses volunteered to stay and she said if they could, she could. God knows what she’ll do. She knows nothing about it.’

  ‘I expect she’ll learn, sir.’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not very bright, Prue. Never did very well at school. Nervous type. Unreliable.’

  Considering how calmly Prudence had behaved during Boumphrey’s rescue of her and her father from Mandadad and during the long slow trip from the city to Kubaiyah, Boumphrey was inclined to doubt it.

  ‘You can never tell, sir.’ Prudence had once told Boumphrey that she had hated the boarding school to which she had had to go while her father was serving abroad in the army. Since Boumphrey had also hated boarding school, it gave them a lot in common. ‘Where is she now, sir?’

  His head down again, the colonel waved his hand vaguely without bothering to look up. ‘Somewhere about. The station medical officer found her a job.’

  Boumphrey found Prudence in a room off one of the wards. With her were two other white women and several Asians, the wives of the Indian staff. She jumped as Boumphrey spoke her name and he apologised sheepishly.

  ‘Sorry, old thing,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t have come on you suddenly out of the sun like that.’

  ‘No, no, Ratter,’ she said, bending to acknowledge the wriggling dog at his feet. ‘I’m delighted. How super! Though you ought not to be here. They’ll kick you out if they see you.’

  She gestured to the other women to carry on with what they were doing and led him into the corridor.

  ‘They tried to shove me on the aeroplanes,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t having that.’

  ‘It’s going to be sticky here,’ Boumphrey pointed out. ‘Aren’t there medical orderlies?’

  ‘They’re going to be busy if it turns out the way everybody says it will. They’ve given me the job of looking after linen, towels, utensils and so on. They’ve even given me a staff because they’ve also added the job of making sure that as soon as any of the water containers is emptied it’s refilled immediately. Everything’s to be kept filled in case the water tower’s hit and the supply runs out.’

  Boumphrey said nothing because they all knew the water tower was their most vulnerable point. It rose above the surrounding buildings in clear view from the escarpment and if it were destroyed – or even if the pumps which kept it filled were smashed – the water supply on which they all depended would dry up. They’d been filling baths, sinks, jugs, basins, and every empty bottle in the officers’, sergeants’, airmen’s and workers’ messes with water, and instructions had gone round to the effect that they were to be kept full as long as the water tank could supply water.

  ‘They can’t fire at that,’ he said as cheerfully as he could. ‘They might hit the radio mast at AHQ and that’s got storks nesting there with a couple of young.’

  She wasn’t deluded. She knew he was being cheerful for her sake.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Is your legion ready?’

  ‘My legion,’ Boumphrey said, ‘is being taken into action, if that’s what it comes to, by Sergeant Major Ghadbhbhan.’

  ‘Is he the good-looking one who was there when you fished us out of Mandadad?’

  ‘Yes. He was once an actor. Clever chap. Remarkable mimic.’

  ‘But, Ratter, why have they taken them away from you?’

  ‘They’ve given me an aeroplane instead.’

  For a brief moment concern showed in her face. Ground duties would probably mean sitting with your head down in a trench, while flying was a considerably more dangerous sport. She’d had two cousins killed already in the Royal Air Force, one of them flying a Blenheim, who’d been shot down trying to stop the Germans in France, and one flying a Hurricane who hadn’t survived more than the first few passes during the Battle of Britain. And both of them had been flying better machines than Boumphrey was likely to fly in Kubaiyah. But she had long since learned that one didn’t show fear or apprehension to a man about to go into action and she tried to look cheerful. To her surprise, Boumphrey also looked cheerful.

  ‘Never thought they’d suggest it,’ he admitted. ‘But they’ve decided to take a chance. Have to make sure I live up to their view of me.’

  ‘Oh, Ratter, you will take care?’

  Boumphrey smiled reassuringly. The one thing that was wanted, it seemed, was that he should not take care. The first briefing they’d had, had indicated that every possible risk within reason was to be taken, the object being to do as much damage as quickly as possible in the hope of discouraging the Irazhis.

  ‘Piece of cake really,’ he said lightly. ‘Not much for us to do. I’ve been given an Oxford and they’re not bombers really so we’ll just be stooging about beyond gun range dropping our eggs where we can.’

  She tried to push her fears to the back of her mind and managed a bright smile. ‘And you came to see me, Ratter, before it all started! How splendid!’

  ‘Thought you’d be gone, as a matter of fact,’ he admitted. ‘Then I heard you hadn’t. Thought I’d better look you up.’

  She gave him a fond look. She was well aware that he wasn’t the handsomest of men, with his pale hair and his long thin body. But she was aware of her own failings in that department, too, and the lack of interest most men showed in her, so she was happy to ignore Boumphrey’s looks for the fact that he was loyal and pleased to be in her company.

  And at the moment, in fact, he seemed vaguely like a knight in armour about to gallop off to war. He’d already rescued her once and here he was about to rescue her again; she felt he should be carrying her favour on his helmet – a scarf or a handkerchief or something of that sort. But people these days didn’t wear their lady’s favours on their helmets, especially not on flying helmets, and she knew he’d be embarrassed if she suggested anything so silly.

  Instead she took his hand and squeezed it. ‘Best of luck, Ratter,’ she said. ‘I’ll pray for you.’

  He was probably going to need more than prayer, Boumphrey thought as he headed away from the hospital. As the beseeching words went up, he could only hope the Almighty would be handy and that the prayers would be loud enough to attract His attention.

  The camp cinema had been set aside for the briefing and when Boumphrey arrived the aircrews were gathering. Among them were what by RAF standards were elderly officers who hadn’t flown for some time, and office wallahs who were more at home flying a desk. There were also the younger men, of course, the flying instructors, the sergeants, the people who towed drogues, a flying officer observer whose normal job was running classes for navigators, and Flight Sergeant Waldo, whose job was to dispense information on the bomb sight and teach the pupil air gunners how to fire their Vickers K guns, Lewis guns and Brownings. He had been an observer in Blenheims in France the year before and had emerged from the slaughter there wounded and badly shaken, because you rarely got out of a stricken Blenheim and, when you did, it was said, you were often decapitated by the aerial that ran from above the pilot’s cockpit to the tail. Flight Sergeant Waldo had managed it but it had left him unfit for flying for some time, but here he was, in Kubaiyah for a rest, offering himself as aircrew once more.

  The final move before the briefing was to make up the aircrews. Normally new crews fle
w together for a while to get used to each other before facing the enemy. In Kubaiyah there was going to be no chance of that and they were going to have to do their best without, so that whom you chose could be very important indeed. But when they got down to it, remarkably little effort was needed and it took place in the usual casual RAF manner. It had always been casual. On operational training units in England, pilots, observers, wireless operators and gunners were all thrown into the crew room together and told to sort themselves out. It invariably ended up with ‘We’ve got a couple of pilots and a gunner. Fancy joining us as observer?’ and it was the same here.

  The more senior officers had naturally acquired the more experienced crew members but, since there weren’t many of these, most were having to accept pupils. Boumphrey had no idea where to start. He could see a lot of faces, none of which he knew and none of which he appeared to have come across before because of his absorption with the legion. In the end he picked on one of the pupils for the simple reason that he looked a little like himself. He was tall and thin and fair-haired, though in no department as pronounced as Boumphrey.

  ‘Who’re you?’ Boumphrey asked.

  ‘Aircraftman Second Class Darling, sir. Observer under training. AC2/Obs/UT.’

  Boumphrey smiled. ‘Sounds like a chemical formula, doesn’t it?’

  Darling seemed to be struggling with a confession. ‘Most people call me “Sweetheart”, sir,’ he admitted with a grin.

  Boumphrey smiled back. ‘My name’s Boumphrey. Pronounced Bum-free.’

  ‘Delighted to meet you, sir.’

  ‘What’s your bomb-aiming like?’

  ‘Not bad, sir.’

  ‘They’ve given me a bunch of Oxfords to look after. Mostly pupil pilots. So you’ll probably be called on to show them how to do it.’