The Chalky Sea

by Clare Flynn

  Gwen watched the little plane climb high into the sky, flying directly upwards, nose pointed to the clouds in a vertical ascent, only to turn and dive downwards, straight towards the white-capped waves. It was British – a Spitfire. For a moment she thought it was in trouble, then, as it pulled up short and began to ascend again, she realised the pilot was showing off – perhaps celebrating that he was still alive after his dogfight. She tried to imagine what it must feel like, the sea rushing up to meet the plane, the skill of the young pilot in knowing precisely when to turn, when to pull out of the dive. Did risking one’s life in battle every day, watching one’s friends plummeting earthward to their fiery deaths, make these young pilots casual? Did it make them tempt fate – constantly testing the boundaries between life and death, between winning and losing?

  Carrying a suitcase filled with a couple of Roger’s suits and some of her own unwanted clothing, Gwen made her way to Meads Street, grateful that she wasn’t going to have to drag the full suitcase back up again. The road was steep and going downhill it was hard not to break into a run. Coming back up was always a breathless challenge.

  She went into the church hall and spent the afternoon unpacking clothing from her suitcase and others that had been deposited there. People had been generous but once this lot was sorted she wondered where their next supplies would come from as so many residents had already abandoned the town. If there was more bombing there would be more clothing needed. They would have to go door to door.

  Some of the things she was sorting looked as though they hadn’t been worn in years. There was an overpowering smell of mothballs. She took each item, shook it out, ran a clothes brush over it, checked for stains and damage and, if it passed muster, measured the size and folded it up. There were separate sections for men and women, each grouped by estimated sizes, and piles of neatly-folded children’s clothes. They tried to make it as easy as possible to match people to the right size, as there was no time or space for people to try things on. All this lot would be loaded into a van and moved to the main clothing centre in town tomorrow.

  As she crossed the street and began to walk up the road to home, a high pitched scream split the air above her. A piercing whistle froze the blood in her veins. Deafening. She looked up. An aeroplane was in a steep dive, corkscrewing down towards the ground and so low in the sky that she thought it was coming at her. A plume of smoke poured from its damaged fuselage. It was going to crash. Instinctively, she ducked, crouching against the wall bordering St Andrews School, her hands over her head and her heart thumping. The pavement under her shook as the plane smashed into the ground and acrid smoke and the smell of burning fuel filled the air. Stumbling towards it, half-blinded by smoke, she was conscious only that there might be a pilot trapped inside.

  The crash site was on the other side of the road in the grounds of the Aldro School. The siren of the fire engine was already sounding, as it made its way from the fire station round the corner in Meads village. The truck sped past her, the crew jumping out with hoses at the ready. Gwen ran towards the wreckage then stopped. She tried to get closer but the heat of the burning wreck beat her back. It was a fiery furnace, flames obliterating the outline of the fuselage. Her skin tightened and her breath caught in her throat. Choking, burning, the chemical stench of petrol in her nose, the taste of it in her mouth. She gagged.

  Several Home Guards and air raid wardens had arrived on the scene and gathered beside the fire truck, staring in disbelief at the blazing aeroplane. No one could possibly have survived. As the flames died back Gwen saw the pulverised mess, the once shiny carcass now a pile of tangled metal and broken wings, the wing struts laid bare and shorn of their covering. There was no sign of the crew.

  Gwen turned to one of the Home Guards. His face was ashen. ‘Was it one of ours?’ she asked. He stared at her unable to answer. Then coming back to awareness, he broke into a grin. ‘No. It was Fritz. Our boys got him. The first kill over the town.’ His voice brimmed with pride as if he were the gunner responsible for shooting the plane down.

  ‘The crew? Are they in there?’ She pointed at the smouldering heap.

  ‘Baled out – or blown out.’

  ‘Killed?’

  He shrugged. ‘Put it this way, I didn’t see their parachutes.’

  Having established that there was nothing she could do to help, Gwen started to walk back up the hill. As she was about to turn into her own road she met another Home Guard on a bicycle. As well as his volunteer duties, he was Gwen’s postman.

  He pulled up beside her, braking his bike hard. ‘You see that plane come down, Mrs Collingwood?’

  ‘Right in front of me. Down there.’ She pointed. ‘Crashed into Aldro School – the grounds, not the building.’

  ‘I’ve come from Gaudick Road. Hill Brow School. Must like our schools these Nazis. Pilot landed on the roof. Parachute didn’t open. Not that it would have helped him if it had. Left it too late, poor bugger. Pardon my German, Mrs Collingwood. One less of ’em to fight for Hitler. Have a good afternoon.’ He tipped his cap to her and went on his way.

  Training Camp

  To Aldershot

  Their ship arrived on the Liverpool docks early in the morning but it took the best part of the day to get the thousands of soldiers off the boat.

  Jim and Greg stood on deck, leaning over the railings watching as a never-ending procession of men trooped down the gangplank. The dockside was crowded with stevedores unloading cargo.

  One of the dockers, seeing the Canadians smoking, called up to the ship. ‘Any ciggies to spare, kiddas?’

  In response the soldiers began showering cigarettes down upon the dockers, who downed tools and scrambled to retrieve as many as possible, stuffing them in their pockets.

  ‘Boy, they must be desperate, eh,’ said Greg. ‘I’d no idea things were so bad in Merrie England. I hope they’ll be able to feed us while we’re here.’

  ‘Not so merry,’ said Jim, indicating the charred remains of several bomb-damaged buildings near the docks. ‘Looks like these poor bastards have had it bad.’

  When, in the afternoon, they eventually made it onto their waiting train, Jim was grateful that, although crowded, everyone had somewhere to sit. He settled back and fell asleep, exhausted after the discomfort of sleeping on the ice-cold floor of the ship’s swimming pool.

  They were heading for Aldershot, England’s permanent garrison town, now housing most of the Canadian army. Their journey took them via London, and they experienced their first sight of the capital through the gloom of the blackout. Everywhere they looked were ruined buildings and great piles of rubble. Lampposts were unlit, those buildings that were undamaged were shrouded in darkness and they could see no one about on the streets.

  ‘Everyone must go to bed as soon as it’s dark,’ said Jim. ‘The place looks like a ghost town.’

  ‘More like Armageddon. Poor bastards. Imagine living through this. Must have been terrifying. Going to bed and not knowing if you’re going to wake up in the morning.’

  Aldershot was pitch black when they arrived. Clutching each other like a platoon of blind men, the soldiers staggered out of the station onto the dark streets. They were route-marched through the deserted town as groups of men were allocated to different barracks. The whole town was a military camp, divided into North and South Camps, the Marlborough Lines to the north of the Basingstoke Canal and the Stanhope and Wellington Lines to the south. Jim and Greg were assigned to the Salamanca barracks in the Wellington lines. Their building was a Victorian red brick construction, three storeys high and girded by iron balustrades enclosing wide balconies across the front of the upper floors. The building housed six hundred men, fifty in each dorm room, on the two upper floors, while the ground floor contained the canteen, kitchens and administrative offices.

  After dumping their kit in the dormitories, they were summoned to the mess hall and served with tea and sardines on toast – the first food they had eaten since leaving Liverpool.r />
  Later, back in the dormitory, Jim was slow off the mark in establishing his territory. Greg was one of many who quickly worked out that if you were to sleep in a three-foot-high bunk bed it made sense to go for the top bunk. Jim and the other slowcoaches soon discovered that squeezing into the lower bunks that were raised a mere six inches above the floor was a challenge worthy of Houdini. The “mattresses” didn’t deserve that name – indeed they were known throughout the British forces as “biscuits” and consisted of three separate shallow cushions that had to be arranged together into a vague semblance of a mattress. Once he had negotiated his passage into the bed and arranged his biscuits under him, Jim had no trouble dropping off to a deep and undisturbed sleep until woken by the bugler playing reveille next morning.

  When Jim joined his fellow recruits on the parade ground, the first person he saw was Tip Howardson, his brother Walt’s old school friend. Howardson watched the new arrivals as they formed themselves into a line-up in front of him, but gave no sign of recognising Jim. He wore the stripes of a corporal on his sleeve and was clearly relishing the opportunity to lord it over these raw recruits straight off the boat from the mother country.

  Jim swallowed his surprise. There would be time for catching up with Tip later. Better now to toe the line and not be seen to curry favour with a senior rank. He stood to attention and stared straight ahead.

  Tip Howardson walked up and down in front of them. After a few moments he barked, ‘What a horrible lot you are. Bunch of softies. Crawled out from under a haystack, have you? Well as of now you’d better sharpen up before you get in front of an officer. And we’ll start with you learning how to salute properly. Up, one-two-three, down. Longest way up. Shortest way down,’ he shouted. ‘Fingers together, palm to the front. Keep those bloody elbows back!’

  He pointed to one man’s feet. ‘More dubbin on those boots. Spit on them too if you have to. Tomorrow I want to see my face in them.’ He paused in front of Jim and knocked Jim’s cap off his head. Jim bent to recover it. Howardson kicked the hat further away, a smile creasing his face as the cap was picked up by a gust of wind and blown across the tarmac, landing in a puddle.

  ‘Hats on straight. You’re in the army, not a fashion parade. Name?’

  Jim wanted to tell Tip to come off it and lighten up. They’d grown up together. Same school. Tip had been glued to Walt’s side when they were kids. Here he was, Jim’s junior by a couple of years and now his senior. Instead, he said, ‘Armstrong.’

  ‘Armstrong, what?’

  ‘Armstrong, Corporal.’

  Tip ignored him and addressed the whole troop. ‘My name is Corporal Howardson and my job is to knock you lot into shape. You all took your time joining up, didn’t you?’ He walked up and down, his hands behind his back, then shouted, ‘War was declared more than a year ago!’ He moved close to Greg and spoke into his face so Jim could feel his breath on his face. ‘Had the wind up you, did you? You a mother’s boy?’ He stepped away then waved his hand at them all. ‘Are you all a lot of fairies?’

  He turned to Greg. ‘Name?’

  ‘Hooper.’

  Tip jerked his head at Jim and spoke again to Greg. ‘Hooper, you know this man? He a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes, Corporal.’

  Howardson stepped back and addressed Jim again. ‘Go and get that hat, Armstrong, before it ends up back in Canada. When I inspect you tomorrow I expect it to be as clean as it was when you were issued with it. I will be watching you, Armstrong. If you put a foot wrong I’ll be there.’

  Jim retrieved his wet and muddy cap. He had no idea how he was to get it back to pristine condition overnight. As he returned to the ranks he saw an officer striding over the tarmac towards them. The man turned to Howardson, acknowledged his salute and said, ‘Thank you, Corporal. At ease, men.’

  The officer wore the insignia of a captain on his battledress, was well-built and over six foot tall, making Corporal Howardson look puny beside him. He said, ‘Welcome to Aldershot Camp, men. I’m your commanding officer while you are in Aldershot. I want to thank you all for volunteering to serve. Your commitment to King and country is laudable. You should be proud to serve as Canadian soldiers.’

  He walked slowly along the length of the line-up, looking each man in the eye. When he reached the end he turned and walked back to the middle of the line-up and stood facing them, his hands behind his back. ‘I want you all to remember that you are representing your country while you are guests here in Great Britain. You must also be mindful that some of your colleagues in the British forces are not volunteers and may have been conscripted unwillingly. The important thing is for us all to get along and act as one team. One army. One enemy. Watching each other’s back. Where we come from and what we have done before matters not on the battlefield. It’s all for one and one for all as the British say and let’s show Hitler that Canadians mean business.’

  He glanced at Howardson and cleared his throat. ‘Now, Corporal Howardson, tell these men what is the most important thing they need to remember about being in a winning army.’

  Howardson barked back, ‘Everything starts with the salute, sir!’

  ‘That’s right, Corporal. As the United States General Pershing used to say in the last war, “Give me soldiers who can shoot well and salute well and I’ll lick the enemy.” And I intend my men to lick the enemy.

  ‘I hope it won’t be too long before you all get a chance to show what you’re made of and make your families and friends back home proud of you. I know you’re keen to take a pop at the enemy as soon as possible but in the meantime you must be patient, stay focused, and take advantage of our time in Aldershot, however long or short it might be, to work hard, and turn yourselves into a tiptop Canadian fighting machine. Corporal Howardson here will be training you hard to get you ready to take on the toughest challenges when the time comes for us to see action.’

  He nodded and gave a small smile, as though weighing up the words of his speech and finding them pleasing, then with a final salute, he walked away.

  Howardson turned back to face the men. ‘That was Captain Bywater. You won’t be seeing much of him. But I can assure you, you will be seeing a lot of me. Now, twenty times round the training ground and whoever’s last to finish will do a hundred press-ups.’

  Jim had been in Aldershot for three weeks and all it had done was rain.

  He lay on his back on his bunk in the dorm after the evening meal. Most of his colleagues had gone to the recreation room to play table tennis or listen to the radio.

  He was wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake. Over rations in the canteen, a guy had told him he’d signed up the day war was declared, was one of the first to arrive in England and had been stuck in Aldershot ever since. Now, a full year into the war, there was no sign at all of any of the Canadians getting to see action.

  Behind him the rain lashed at the windows. Life here had been monotonous since that first day when Howardson had them doing circuits of the training ground and then forced them to stand and watch, water dripping down the necks of their uniforms, while the poor lad who had stumbled around last struggled to do his hundred push-ups. Since then, every day had been the same, boot and button polishing, boring classroom lessons on warcraft and a non-stop diet of physical jerks under the critical eye of Howardson, who looked for any opportunity to humiliate anyone showing the slightest sign of weakness.

  Jim’s impressions of Britain so far were less than favourable. Aldershot was a dreary place: a huge camp, with old brick-built barracks from the last century, hastily assembled huts and concrete parade grounds. The fellow Jim had spoken to in the canteen had said British army troops came and went but the Canadians were a permanent fixture. The men in the RAF who were sent to Canada for training were hurried through then sent back again and straight into action. Many of them didn’t last long up in the air – the average lifespan of an RAF pilot was measured in days – hours even, but Jim didn’t care about that. He wanted war
to distract him, give him a purpose, kill him even, but not leave him here in this godforsaken hole doing gymnastics and square-bashing for Tip Howardson.

  ‘Rain still bucketing down, eh?’ Greg Hooper climbed onto his bunk opposite Jim’s, and sat with his legs dangling over the edge, almost scraping the ground. Greg’s legs were the source of much amusement in the barracks. They were impossibly long, extremely thin and he was a shoo-in for a knobbly knees contest. When he sat in a chair, his bent legs projected far in front of him, earning him the name Grasshopper, which was then modified to GrassHooper because of his surname, but mostly now he was just Grass.

  Greg rolled a cigarette. ‘Want one?’

  Jim shook his head. ‘Thought you were listening to the radio?’

  ‘It’s depressing. Stuff about the brave British airmen, while we sit here doing nothing. I didn’t join up to sit in a rainy town hearing about other people’s war.’

  ‘I know. What’s the point of us being holed up here when the damned Nazis are goose-stepping their way across Europe? Why can’t they let us at them?’

  ‘Think you’re ready to fight, Armstrong?’ The sneering tones of Howardson cut into the conversation. ‘You’d be dead in minutes. You know nothing. None of you do. Cannon fodder. By the time I’ve finished with you lot, you might make it onto a boat to the Continent, but right now I doubt you’d find your way to the latrines without me to show you.’

  Jim said nothing; glancing at Greg he rolled his eyes and stifled his anger. He could remember picking a ten-year-old Tip up off the barn floor when he’d taken a tumble from the hayloft and grazed his knees and twisted an ankle. Tip had bawled his eyes out then and now Jim had to swallow the man lording it over him.