by Thomas Wood
He paused, right at the moment where I wanted anything but silence.
“And?”
He looked up at me, “He kept falling. I don’t know what it was. Whether he was overcome by the fumes. Or if his parachute failed.”
My eyes bulged at the thought of one of my best chums dying in such a way. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for him, nor Mike.
“Twelve thousand feet. No chute. Poor old Teddy.”
I would have excused Mike for bursting into tears right there and then, but I got the distinct impression that he had engaged in many hours of tearful recollection since the fateful episode.
“They found his body just outside Tonbridge. At least they think it was him. He was a bit of a mess.”
He stared at me, trying his utmost to determine the thoughts that were whizzing through my mind, but I was a wall, devoid of any human emotion. I had liked Teddy, loved him even, but the loss of him was of no real consequence to me. There was nothing that I could do about it now. No point in lingering.
“I was rather hoping to leave it for another hour or two, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
“I just thought that you ought to know. No one really wanted to be the one to tell you. You know, after what happened to—”
“I said it’s alright,” I said shortly, a few of the other occupants of the carriage picking up on my anger. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just try and get this meeting over and done with, shall we?”
He nodded, grateful that I wasn’t about to have some sort of a meltdown in such a public place. The truth was, however, that I had forgotten how to feel anything at all. Apart from worry.
I was worried about how Teddy’s death might catch up with me one day.
4
“Want to catch a flick after we’ve been in?”
Mike had cheered up considerably since his teary moment on the underground. It didn’t surprise me, not in the slightest, as it seemed like everyone’s duty to simply button up and keep going at the receipt of bad news.
“No, I don’t think so, Mike. Not after what happened last time.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Sorry…Don’t really know what comes over me when I’m in London. I love the hustle and bustle of it all.”
“You get bored of it eventually,” I muttered, as I longed for the peace and tranquillity of the Cornish countryside once again. I found myself dreaming of the sweetened raspberries that Mrs Philips had grown on her land, not entirely giving me the permission to pick them that I so craved. Nonetheless, more than a couple ended up perched on my tongue whenever I felt as though I was alone.
“I suppose we should get out of here as soon as we can,” Mike carried on, shouting now to be heard over the toots of buses and a policeman’s whistle. “Especially the way the Luftwaffe has been carrying on.”
“I’d like that, Mike.”
I tried to flood my mind with happier images than the ones that were slowly trying to creep back into my mind, the seeds of solemnity that I had been fighting so hard these past few weeks. But, as I had learned in time, once they had started, there was nothing that I could do to stop them.
Within a flash, I felt like I was stood back in the exact spot that I had been stood in, just over four weeks before. Everything looked the same to me, the wagons and trucks that trundled around as if there was no law keeping them restrained, the single police constable, white gloves and all, trying his best to hold back the onslaught of the revving engines. Mike was stood next to me.
“What do you say to a quick trip to the pictures?” he asked me, a mischievous grin just sliding into the corner of his mouth. He always did that. He always made a proposition that he knew I would hate, but knew that he would eventually drag me along. It was that little smile of his, it was captivating.
He never seemed to want to do anything without me, if I refused, he would simply not go to whatever it was he had suggested. A dance, a film, even a trip to the local bookshop, he would always require me as his chaperone to attend with him.
“It’s getting a bit late, isn’t it?” I asked, looking at my watch and immediately realising that it was a lot earlier than I had previously thought. Maybe I could have spent another hour or two with my family.
“It’s only four, old boy. Plenty of time for a film. We’d be back at Weald in no time.”
RAF North Weald had been the home of 249 Squadron for the past month or so, having previously been down in Wiltshire. Most of the lads seemed to hate it, being so close to London, yet being so far away. There seemed to be an invisible pull of the capital to those young men. Probably something to do with the alcohol, nightlife and the apparently plentiful supply of women.
But, for me, London symbolised something more than the short-lived thrills that the others pined for. For me, it was home. It was where I had grown up, and where I had intended to settle until Herr Hitler had stuck his jackboot in.
“Okay,” I had conceded to Mike, “But only a film. We are not going to one of your little pubs.”
“Understood, Red One,” he said, with another wry smile accompanied by a wink.
I did not care too much for whatever it was we were about to watch, but Mike seemed sufficiently excited for the two of us. Instead, I became enthralled by the organ that was playing down at the front of the theatre, watching the little man’s legs dance around just as much as his fingers, producing one mesmerising performance.
The little man with the short legs disappeared far too soon, and the curtains were drawn back, rather spectacularly, as the newsreel began to play.
As soon as we saw the subjects of the first segment, both Mike and I slumped further into our seats. We knew exactly what this would mean.
“Scramble! They’re in the cockpits of their Spitfires and Hurricanes before you can say ‘Bob’s your Uncle!’
There’s a job of work for these pilots and boy, do they love their work!”
“He’s joking, right? Do you love your work, Johnny? No? Me neither. Who do they ask for these things?”
“Way up in the sky there are Messershmitts, Junkers, Heinkels or Dorniers, that are going to get the thrashing of their lives. Here they come Jerry, you rotten Swas-stinkers, you!”
The accompanying footage of Spitfires and Hurricanes scrambling to meet their enemies was indeed stirring stuff, which was exactly what two boys in uniform did not want right now. Especially as they wanted to make as quick a getaway as was possible. From previous experience, there was a chance that we would be mobbed by a group of young boys before we could leave, each one wanting a piece of German bomber, or maybe even an Iron Cross that we had somehow inexplicably found in our possession.
“I hate these things,” I muttered under my breath, which was met with a grunt of recognition by Mike. Neither of us wanted to be seen at that point in the day.
I did not pay much attention to the film, but I suddenly pulled myself to as gunshots began to ricochet all around me. It was only when I realised that I had dropped off, that the gunshots were merely a part of the film that I had been dragged to see.
Mike seemed to be thrilled with how everything was going.
Suddenly, and for a moment I found myself quite pleased with the Germans’ sense of timing, the screen before us suddenly went to black, only to be replaced with a declaration that only required one to read the first line.
AN AIR RAID WARNING HAS JUST BEEN RECEIVED.
I looked across at Mike, he seemed incensed.
“Isn’t that just typical of Jerry? They’ve been interrupting everything I’ve done for the last three months, and they can’t even let me have a night off!”
I ignored him, instead opting to read the rest of the notice before us, which struggled to be seen over the groans and complaints offered up by everyone in the theatre.
The management suggest that you remain in the building but anyone desiring to leave is free to do so now.
No one seemed to be panicked or sca
red, just a general air of annoyance began to overcome everyone, as most of our congregation slowly made their way to the exits. No one was going to listen to the suggestion of the management, they had become too experienced in these raids to stay inside.
“Come on then, old boy,” I grunted, slapping Mike on the back. “Another time maybe.”
“Yes, yes. Alright. Another time.”
Almost as soon as we had arisen from our seats, the unmistakeable sound of an air raid siren began to scream out into the night. I was quite shocked at how loud it seemed inside that cinema, but soon found myself pushing it to the back of my mind.
As a second siren started up, trying its hardest to catch up with the wails and falls of the first, I gripped Mike’s wrist, spinning him round to face me.
“Cor!” he exclaimed, rubbing his shoulder as he turned. “You could have had my whole arm off there!”
“Reckon we could make it to the underground? We could still get back to Weald in time if we can.”
“Worth a shot, I suppose,” he grumbled back, still put out that I had nearly dislocated his shoulder.
By the time we had made it to the exit of the cinema, the ever-faithful anti-aircraft guns had already opened up, and it was not difficult to imagine the shouting and swearing that would be going on for the next few hours, as the men tried with earnest to keep up the constant barrage of shells.
The low, imposing boom would be followed, about twenty seconds later by a softer crump, in which time another two shells could already be on their way up to their targets. To the average Londoner, the thought of shooting down one of the bombers was an exciting and achievable prospect, but to us flyboys, we knew that the chances of them hitting anything was rather slim. The best that they could hope for would be to knock one or two planes off their course.
It was a surprise to me that the last thing I should hear would be the bombers themselves. The complete onrush of noise seemed to confuse me no end, as I tried to make sense of the wails of the sirens, the sombre thuds of anti-aircraft guns and the harrowing howl of oncoming bombers.
There was a part of me that wanted a Hurricane to suddenly appear before me in the street, so that I could get up there and give them a welcoming blast of my eight Browning machine guns. As we stood there, gazing dozily towards the night sky, I knew that Mike was having exactly the same kind of thoughts.
“If only we could get up there. What do you say, Mike?”
“I reckon we could do more than those artillery boys ever could, Johnny.”
There was a mesmerising element to it all, intoxicating almost. It was like having a beer or two and realising that you should stop, but you just couldn’t. I was only worried about the fact that, by the time you had had another pint, it was always too late. I didn’t want that to be the case with us two.
“Come on, Mike. We better get going!” I was now screaming at the top of my lungs, as the bombers began to drone directly overhead, no doubt releasing their payload that had both ‘Johnny Parker’ and ‘Michael Hope’ scratched into its casings.
We began to sprint the four hundred or so yards towards the nearest underground stop, where we intended to hop on the next service running east. From there we would hopefully be able to get onto an overground train back up to RAF North Weald. That was assuming the trains above the ground would still be running. Either way, we would be nearer to our destination.
It was only as we skidded around onto Great Windmill Street that we started to notice that the pitter-patter of our footsteps, splashing in a few puddles that had been left by the firefighters from a previous raid, was not the only noise that had joined us on the street.
Within seconds, the whole road seemed to be lit up in an eerie green light, so bright that I had to shield my eyes for a moment to adjust to it. They seemed to be littered all over the street, with one or two green monsters sliding their way down the tiles and slates of the rooftops all around us.
We both stopped in our tracks, once again mesmerised by it all.
“Cor!” exclaimed Mike for the second time in three minutes. “What are they?”
I walked towards one of the hissing tubes, that seemed no longer than fifteen inches long. It poured out an almost perfect white smoke, to accompany the brilliant green that it was producing, that I was sure the groundsman at Lords would have been proud of.
An air raid warden suddenly screamed around the corner, throwing small sheets of fabric on every single source of the green hiss that he could see, and putting an end to my own fun as he extinguished the one that lay just a few feet from me.
“What are they?” I called after him as he continued down the road.
“Incendiaries!” he screamed back. “Now get to a shelter!”
I looked back towards Mike, just as the sky behind his head seemed to light up in a fantastic streak of white light, as if someone had just switched all the lights back on again. A beam of light rose high into the sky, swaying and swishing, trying to catch anything in its gaze.
“So much for a blackout,” I muttered to Mike as he reached me. “Come on, let’s get down there sharpish.”
It was as we picked up our pace again that the volume of AA shells that were tossed into the air increased dramatically. Things were about to get even louder around here.
Fortunately, we would be on the next tube out of West London.
5
“Johnny? Johnny? You okay?”
“Hmm? Oh, sorry. Yes, I am fine. I was just thinking about that night.”
“Probably best that you don’t do that mate.”
“Yeah…”
It was a bit late to tell me that now, I thought, with an air of animosity towards him. It was a trait that I had long tried to get a hold of, but I could never stop myself fully silently berating the ones I loved for doing nothing more than trying to help me.
“Well then,” he announced. “This is it.”
I looked at the building before us. It was tired, small and altogether most underwhelming.
“Are you sure?” I asked him, having expected something much grander.
“Yep. Sixty-four Baker Street,” he said, looking down at the small card in his hand. “This is most definitely it.”
“It’s hardly worth getting out of bed for.”
“At least you had a bed to get out of,” he muttered, with another cheeky grin to match. I knew what he had meant. The chaps in the squadron would have been sat in dispersal huts for most of the time that I had been away, with little chance to get some sleep apart from that which you could steal in an uncomfortable chair. Even that was fraught with unimaginable risk. Especially if one of the jokers in the squadron couldn’t get any sleep themselves.
More than once, men of the squadron had been scrambled to meet bandits with a painted-on moustache that matched Herr Hitler’s own. There was a hilarious irony attached to it somewhere. But for the life of me, I could not see it.
“Come on then, let’s find out what was worth dragging you all the way from Cornwall for.”
Although I did not want to admit to it just yet, the urgent message that was passed to me from the detective sergeant who came to see me at Mrs Philips’ farmhouse had been a welcome one.
I had been there for three weeks, to rest and recuperate. But it was true that the last few days that I had spent there, I could feel myself going quite mad. I had nothing to do while I was there, no focus.
It is exceptionally testing for a young man to go from such a high-adrenaline day-to-day life like that on 249 squadron, to the polarised world of the Cornish countryside.
There were no signs of war there, which was what I had wanted, but it was so far removed from what had become my reality that I despised it. I wanted a reason to head back east. I needed to be back with the other boys, I missed them. All of them. I especially missed Teddy Higgins.
I tried to push the image of a small man tumbling helplessly from his cockpit, as he began his descent to earth. I sought to rid myself of the fi
gure, as he began to flap around, not too dissimilar to a bird, as he attempted to pull the D-Ring of his parachute.
“It’s not working!” he would have screamed to himself, as he began yanking at it, again and again, the ground rising to meet him at an alarming rate.
Tears began to rush to my eyes as I thought of Teddy, and wondered at what point the realisation would have set in, at what point had he given up?
If I knew him at all, then I could well imagine that his arm was still twitching around the D-Ring long after he had hit the ground. He was just that sort of chap.
“Flying Officers John Parker and Mike Hope. We were given these and told to come here as soon as possible.”
“Ah right,” muttered the young girl sat behind the desk. Mike looked over to me, a grin already on his face. I knew what that meant; he was in love.
She was pleasant enough looking, if a little serious, but I could not say that I found her particularly attractive. But, then again, I had hardly found anything attractive at all in the last few weeks. I was still finding it difficult to get back to normality. Whatever that was.
“Can I see your papers please?”
The girl began to inspect them, incredibly carefully and, for a moment or two, I became increasingly concerned that she was about to out me as an enemy spy.
“Major Hubbard is on the second floor. He will be with you shortly.”
“Thanks awfully,” said Mike, his strong, well-rounded tones on display far more than they normally were. They only ever seemed to become so overt when there was a lady present, a young, pretty one, in particular.
“I don’t suppose,” Mike started, as the girl handed us back our papers, “that you know of any good watering holes around here, do you?”
The girl looked up, not at all surprised at his question, perhaps ever so slightly irritated by the amount of times that she was asked.
“The Hertford Arms, Mayfair. They pull a good pint.”
“Oh, jolly good. Far from here, is it?”
