by Nevil Shute
“I know. If Daddy’s home I think he might quite like to have him, though. It’s worth trying, if you get in a real jam.”
“I thought your father was in Oxford all the time,” he remarked.
She turned to him, fresh and animated. “Oh, I forgot—I haven’t told you. There was a letter waiting when I got back on board last night. Daddy’s probably going on the party.”
He stared at her. “Not this party?”
“This party,” she told him, laughing. “He’s gatecrashed it. When the balloon goes up, Daddy goes too.”
“Over to the other side?” he asked incredulously.
“Over to the other side,” she said. “At least, he’s put in to go. He doesn’t know yet if they’ll have him.”
“But what’s he going as?”
“Aircraft identifier in a merchant ship,” she told him. “They’re putting one or two people from the Observer Corps in every merchant ship to stop the D.E.M.S. gunners firing on our own aircraft. They’ve asked for volunteers and Daddy’s put in for it.”
“But how old is he?”
“About sixty-three, I think,” she said. “He seems to think that doesn’t matter. I think it’s the funniest thing ever.”
Bill turned to me. “Have you heard anything about this, Alan?”
As a matter of fact, I knew quite a lot about it, for some of the papers concerning it had passed across my desk. So many cases of our fighters being fired upon by friendly ships had occurred that we had stuck our heels in, and demanded better aircraft identification before we laid on close support over the beaches by our fighters flying low over a thousand ships. I rather think that the suggestion to put members of the Royal Observer Corps into the merchant ships had come from us. “I did hear something vaguely,” I admitted.
“It’s a good show,” said Bill. “A good show for a man of sixty-three.”
“I think it’s the limit,” the girl laughed. “Here I’ve been in the Wrens three years but no one ever asked me if I’d like to go to the party. Daddy comes along at the last minute and walks right in.”
“Are any Wrens going?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I haven’t heard of any. They won’t let us do anything operational, or anything that means living in a ship. We’re all shore-based.”
I asked her what she did in the Navy and she told me, answering my questions with the candour born of competence in her job. “It’s quite good fun, and closer to operations than most of the jobs we get,” she said. “Not so good as being a boat’s crew Wren, but better than being a steward or a cook. It’s a bit of a mike at times, but when you get a dud gun changed in a ship you feel you’ve done a bit to help.”
Bill asked, “Do you get a lot of trouble with the Oerlikons?”
She shook her head. “Not much, and then it’s mostly through bad maintenance. Last week an L.C.T. came in and the Captain said his port gun jammed its breech block solid after twenty rounds and they had to wait half an hour till it cooled down before they could free it. It did, too. I cleaned it down and went out to the Needles in the ship and fired it myself, and it was just like they said. The tolerances were wrong or something. It was one of the first ones they made in England. They’d put in several reports about it and nobody believed it wasn’t just that they’d let it get rusty. They’ve got a new one now.”
We went on chatting about Service matters most of the afternoon, sitting there upon the grass at Keyhaven. I had arranged with the W.A.A.F. driver of the car to pick me up at the hotel in Lymington at six o’clock for I was dining at the aerodrome that night with a couple of Group Captains and a colonel in the U.S.A.A.F. and going through the papers in my brief-case with them after dinner. By four o’clock we had to make a move. We rounded up Dev from some rabbit holes among the gorse bushes, mud all over his nose, and got him into the boat, and cast off from the little jetty, and made our way down to open water and along the mudflats to the Lymington River and so back to the quay.
I said goodbye to Janet Prentice then, because she had to take the boat back up the river before meeting Bill again to spend the evening with him. I shook hands with her in the boat before getting out. “It’s been a grand day,” I said. “The best I’ve had for years. Thanks so much for the boat, and everything.”
“Boats are meant to be used,” she laughed. “Especially on Sundays. Goodbye, sir. Don’t go and prang yourself on the way back to London.”
“I take that as an insult,” I said laughing. The ‘sir’ to my uniform hurt a little, but after all she was Bill’s girl, not mine. “Goodbye, Janet.”
She sheered off from the quay and went away up river through the bridge, with Dev still with her in the boat, standing up in the bow and looking forward. Bill and I watched till she was out of sight, and then turned up the long hill of the main street to the hotel. “Well,” he asked presently. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re bloody lucky,” I told him.
“So do I,” he said. “It’s not in the bag yet, though.”
“You’ve not said anything to her?”
“She knows, all right,” he said. “We’ve fixed to go on leave together after the balloon goes up, and sort things out then. We’ve both got too much on our plates just now to think about the future.” He grinned. “Maybe there won’t be a future. If there is, we’re going off on leave together somewhere. That’s the way it stands.”
“Sounds all right to me,” I said.
He glanced at me. “Think there’ll be an uproar at home?”
I shook my head. “There’ll be no uproar,” I told him. “She’ll go down all right.”
He nodded. “I think so, too,” He hesitated. “You won’t say anything about this in your letters? I haven’t said a word about it yet, and I shan’t, not till it’s all buttoned up.”
“I won’t say anything,” I told him. “Let me know when you put out a communiqué, and then I’ll write to Mum and say she’s okay.”
“That’s good of you,” he said gratefully. “That ’ld help a lot. I want her to start off on the right foot with Mum.”
My R.A.F. car was waiting outside the hotel when we got there, with the W.A.A.F. driver sitting in it. I said goodbye to Bill on the pavement. “I don’t know when we’ll meet again,” I said. “I shan’t be able to take another day off till the balloon’s gone up. Sometime after that, I should say.”
He grinned. “Sometime after that I’m going on leave.”
“All right,” I laughed. “I won’t come and peep through the keyhole.”
On that note we ended, and he went off down the hill to meet his Janet at the boatyard and to spend the evening with her. I stood watching him till he was out of sight, while my W.A.A.F. driver waited for me.
I can see him now.
I think it was only a few days after that that the Ju.188 came over Beaulieu. Viola Dawson told me a good bit about that when we met in 1950, and May Cunningham, then May Spikins, told me about it, too, when I had tea with her at Harlow. After that I got in touch with Tom Ballantyne, who had been with me in Fighter Command, and who in 1951 was a Group Captain doing a term at the Air Ministry. He was very helpful and put someone on to dig into the records, and found the accident report, and showed it to me in his office.
What happened was this. On a Saturday morning at the very end of April the Ordnance Officer at Mastodon sent Janet down the river with four Sten guns and four boxes of ammunition for the L.C.T.s. It had been suggested that after the first landing in Normandy the Germans might counterattack and re-take a beach while the tank landing craft were stranded, and it was thought that the ships ought to have some more adequate weapons on board for close-range fighting than revolvers. Sten guns were in good supply, and these were being issued for the first time to the officers of the ships.
Each ship was to get one gun and one case of ammunition. The L.C.T.s were lying in pairs all down the river, moored bow and stern to buoys, and half their crews had gone off on week-end leave.
Viola Dawson took Janet down the river in the L.C.P. to where the ships were lying near Needs Oar Point surrounded by the open marshes of the estuary and went alongside L.C.T. 968. The captain came to the rail; he was an R.N.V.R. lieutenant called Craigie. From the boat Janet said, “Good morning, sir. I’ve got a Sten gun here for you, and one for each of 538, 946, and 702.”
“Morning, Janet,” he said. “702 is lying alongside us here. Pass up a couple of them. Wait, I’ll get a chap to help you.” A rating came down into the boat and they passed the guns and the heavy ammunition boxes up into the tank landing craft. Janet swung herself on board after them. They passed one gun and one box of ammunition across on to the next ship, whose captain was on leave. A sub-lieutenant met Janet at the rail. She knew how to deal with hesitant and incompetent-looking young officers. “I’ve got to get a signature for these,” she said. She pulled a pink form from a trouser pocket. “Just sign it there. It only means that you’ve received them in good condition. Put the number of your ship there, and the date there, sir, and sign it at the bottom, there.” The sub took the form from her and went off to the wardroom to find his pen.
Janet turned to Lieutenant Craigie beside her. “I’m sorry we could only let you have one, sir.”
“Every little helps,” he said. “You might let me know if there’s a chance of getting another.”
“I will indeed,” she said. The sense of impending battle was very heavy on her; it would be intolerable if any serviceable weapons should remain in her store when the balloon went up. “We should be getting a lot more in a few days.”
There was a sound of firing from the Isle of Wight, between Newtown and Yarmouth. Craigie turned to look, and Janet turned with him. There was an aircraft there, quite low down, flying more or less towards them, at eleven o’clock in the morning of a bright spring day. And there were little puffs of smoke in the blue sky all round it.
For a moment they stood staring, unable to believe the evidence of their eyes. It was many months since the Germans had done anything like that. Then Craigie shouted, “Enemy aircraft over! Anti-aircraft stations!” and men came tumbling out on deck.
On the L.C.T. beside them the sub and several ratings came out and looked with interest at the coming aeroplane; it was not more than a thousand feet up. Janet, furious at their slowness, said, “That’s a German. Better man those Oerlikons.”
The sub looked at her helplessly. “Can’t. Both gunners are on leave.”
The girl said, “My bloody Christ!” and slipped over the rail on to the other ship. Behind her Craigie roared, “Okay Janet—you take the port gun and I’ll take the starboard!” The inner guns of both ships were practically useless, their field of fire blanked off by the other ship. “You—Jamieson! Get the R.U. lockers open and pass out the drums! What the hell are you standing there for—don’t you know the drill? And where are your tin hats?”
At the gun Janet pulled the cocking lever and slipped the heavy drum in place with quick, experienced hands; she released the securing catch and put her shoulders in the hoops. Behind her someone strained the strap across her back. She swung the gun at the approaching aircraft but it was turning away. It was two thousand yards from her and broadside on now, a hopeless shot. She stood watching it in disappointment, and called across to Craigie, “Everything all right on your side, sir?”
He called back to her, “All okay here, but I’m afraid we’ve lost him.” The aircraft was flying westwards over the middle of the Solent now, a heavy, black, twin engined thing; they could see the white cross upon the fuselage. One or two ships were firing at it at long range, and a Bofors from a cliff top to the east of Yarmouth, but it was momentarily out of range of most guns in the district.
She called across, “What sort is it?”
Craigie replied, “A Junkers 188.”
“What’s he up to?”
“Making a survey, I suppose. Photographing everything he can. He’s got a bloody nerve.”
The aircraft began turning towards the north. It went on turning, and now it was flying more or less towards them from the south-west. From behind her Craigie called, “I shall be blanked out by monkey’s island in a minute. It’s all yours, Janet.”
The Junkers was not more than a thousand feet up now and coming straight towards them, a beautiful, copybook example of a sitting shot. She had it fixed below the centre of her sight exactly as she wanted it; she swung her body slowly, waiting for it, savouring the moment. It was impossible that she could miss; she felt too confident. She pressed the grip and opened fire, and the gun started beating rhythmically, and the smoke of cordite and burnt grease was all around her. She swung her body down slowly till she was crouching almost on her knees, holding it exactly as it should be in the sight.
As she fired the wheels came down; she knew that something had happened but it meant nothing to her. She went on firing and the glass and perspex nose of the cabin shattered, and three bright stars appeared inside the cabin quickly in succession. It reared up suddenly and passed right over the L.C.T.s in a steep climb towards Mastodon; she scrambled round with the gun to get it on a reverse bearing, but now her own ship blanked her fire. She swung her body to the side to look round the obstruction and saw it again. A Bofors from the shore opened up on it as it passed from the river marshes over land. It stalled with full power on and fell into a dive, and as it fell the Bofors blew its fin off. It plunged steeply into a field near the marshes and crashed with a great thud, and a whoof, and a towering pillar of flame, and a huge cloud of black smoke. Janet stood trembling in the harness of the Oerlikon, appalled at the sight.
Around her men were clamouring and shouting; she stood bewildered while they unfastened the back strap for her. It was incredible that this had happened because of what she did. By her side Craigie cried. “Good show, Janet! I bet you’re the only Wren who’s ever done that!” A rating said, “That’s bloody right, sir.”
She said stupidly, “Did I do it? Wasn’t it anybody else firing?”
“Of course you did. My gun was blanked off by the bridge. You got three direct hits in the pilot’s cockpit. It was marvellous shooting.”
“Four hits, sir,” said the rating. “She hit it four times. I saw ’urn. Eh, ba goom, I never seen shooting to touch it.”
She became concerned about the cleaning of the gun that she had fired, both gunners being on leave; she told Craigie that she must get down to work at once and clean the gun. I think psychologists would call that a defence mechanism or something; her mind turned to the routine job rather than face the implications of what she had done. The officer called a gunner from his own ship and set him to work upon the Oerlikon; she left it reluctantly and went back on board his ship with him. Viola Dawson and Doris Smith were on deck to congratulate her; for a few minutes she moved about the deck amongst the men in a welter of praise. Craigie stood looking over to the fields in front of Mastodon where a little black smoke was still eddying up. “I’m going on shore to have a look at it,” he said. “Like to come, Janet?”
An awful fascination seized her; she would have to go. She said, “Yes, please.”
He hesitated for a moment. “You know what it’s going to look like? Think you’d better come?”
“I’m all right, sir. I was in the Fleet Air Arm before I got drafted here. I know what a crash looks like.”
He was relieved. “Oh well then—come along.”
They got down into the L.C.P. The tide was flowing, and Viola nosed the boat gingerly through a small channel in the marshes to a little disused jetty; from there they walked across the fields to the crash.
The Junkers had been pulling out of the dive when she hit the ground; she had not plunged straight in. She had hit first on a little mound covered in low bushes, and here one of her engines was lying. She had then cut a swathe through a hedge, across a lane, and through the other hedge. The wings had been torn from the fuselage here and had taken fire from the fuel in the tanks; what was left of the aircraft
had spread itself all over the field in scraps of torn duralumin sheet. It bore no resemblance to an aeroplane at all.
A number of soldiers were already there; under the directions of an officer they were gathering up the bodies and laying them in a row under the hedge. All were dead, all very badly mutilated, and there seemed to be a great many of them. The subaltern had found two parachute packs relatively undamaged in the wreckage and he was fumbling with the unfamiliar fastenings to open them to get the silk out to lay over the bodies; evidently he had done this job before.
Craigie went up to him. “Do you mind if we have a look? This Wren shot it down.”
“I wish to God she’d done it somewhere else,” the young man said testily. “Look all you like, so far as I’m concerned. It’s nothing whatever to do with me, but one can’t just leave them lying in the field.”
Craigie asked, “How many of them were there in it?”
“Seven.”
“Seven? I thought the Ju.188 had a crew of four.”
“So did I. Go and count them, if you like. They must have been jammed in, sitting on each other’s knees. We’ve telephoned the R.A.F., but I don’t suppose they’ll be here for a bit yet.”
Craigie hesitated, and then, impelled by morbid curiosity, he walked over to the hedge to look at the bodies. Janet followed him. The bodies were poor, battered hulks of things that had once been men; all were either corporals or sergeants, dressed in the blue uniform of the Luftwaffe.
Janet had seen a good bit of this sort of thing before, and she was not particularly upset at the sight though a couple of glances were enough for her; she turned away. It was difficult for her to associate these grotesque, battered things with living men. It was sobering to think that she had killed them, but she had seen her own friends and acquaintances killed at Ford by Germans in air raids and reduced to bodies that looked just like that. She would rather that she had not had to fire the Oerlikon, rather that somebody else had had the job of doing this and not her, but she felt no particular sense of guilt.
