In the ladies room, Helen looked in the mirror and checked her hair was in place. Georgette refreshed her make up, tutting at the state of herself. Twelve minutes hadn’t been nearly enough time to get ready.
“You’ve struck lucky with, Alex,” Helen told her.
“So have you,” Georgette replied.
“Is, Freddie a good boss?” Helen asked, her voice hesitant, wondering if it was indiscreet to ask.
“He’s not directly in my section but I’ve heard he is.”
Helen nodded, relieved to hear it.
“It’s good to see, Alex happy,” she observed as she peered in the mirror. “I was concerned when, Freddie told me, Mary had thrown him over.”
“We’ve not known each other long,” Georgette replied. “He hasn’t made it easy for me to get to know him,” she said, thinking about their two previous encounters as she walked with Helen down a wide corridor back to the dining room. Helen snorted.
“I didn't think so. He needs a good prod sometimes. He doesn’t see what’s in front of him sometimes.”
Georgette frowned while she considered that.
“Has he always been so serious?” she asked, keen to hear from someone who knew him before. Helen thought for a moment before answering. She stopped at a bay window half way down the corridor to have a rest. The bay had a low padded bench seat built into it and she gratefully sat down and rubbed her back. In days past it had afforded a splendid view of the ornamental gardens. Now the window looked out over rows of broad beans and onions.
“Sometimes he’s serious.” She nibbled on her lower lip while she thought about how to phrase an answer. “He’s deep that one, thinks a bit too much maybe; dwells on the past. But no matter what, I’d do anything for that man.” Georgette nodded slowly but Helen wasn’t finished. She laid a friendly hand on the older womans wrist. “Forgive him his flaws. He looked after me when, Freddie went missing. He came to see me to break the news. He wouldn’t let anyone else do it. He’ll never let you down.”
She remembered that night as if it was yesterday. She’d been frantic with worry after the squadron got back and Freddie was amongst the missing. When Carter had walked up the path, his face set she had almost fainted dead away. Married two weeks and already possibly a widow, Carter’s stoic calm had steadied her ship all through that day.
“It was all a false alarm of course. Freddie had landed somewhere else and couldn’t send word immediately.” She tugged a hanky from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes.
They walked back to the dining room to find Carter and Wilkinson slumped in their chairs, finishing off their cigars.
“Like I was telling you,” Helen said in an overly loud voice to announce their presence. “Thicker than thieves these two when they get together.” The men sat up and straightened their ties. They half rose out of their seats as the ladies sat themselves back down.
Georgette glanced across the table at Carter with new eyes. She knew her promise to herself had gone out of the window.
They left the hotel close to ten. Helen was tired and Wilkinson took her up to their room to relax. Georgette promised to give Helen a ring and confirm their shopping trip when she next had a free day.
The drive back to Grantham was quiet, both of them lost in their thoughts when Georgette suddenly asked him to pull over. In the dim circles of the blacked out headlamps a layby suddenly appeared out of the gloom and Carter dabbed the brakes and turned off smartly, the car bouncing over the rough surface. He switched off the engine and was surprised at the sudden silence.
“Anything wrong?” he asked in the quiet.
“No, I’m fine, it’s all fine.”
The seconds ticked by, then she put her hand on his knee and hitched over in her seat until she was leaning against him. Her right arm went around his shoulders. It was dark in the car. He couldn’t see very much but he could feel her, her body pressed up against his. She rested her chin on his shoulder, her breath huffing on his cheeks. Perfume filled his nostrils.
“Georgette-,” he began. She put her finger over his lips.
“-Shh, they call me that at work. I told you, it’s George. Goodgie to my friends. The only time someone says Georgette, I’m usually in trouble.” He grinned behind her finger.
She kissed him then and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as they lingered in the moment, making it last. They came up for air and sat like that for a while, his arms around her, his chin resting on her head. His brain shorted out like a faulty radio and he was lost for something to say. She could hear his heart beating, its rapid beat slowing to a relaxed rhythm as Carter came down off his cloud.
“Goodgie,” he murmured softly, testing the sound of it, the sound of his voice rumbling through his chest.
“Mmmm, “ she purred. “Yes, Alex?”
“I could stay like this forever, but we’ve got to move some time.”
He hated saying it, but Wilkinson had dropped enough hints during the evening that Ops could be back on again tomorrow. The clock was ticking.
Reluctantly, she hauled herself to an upright sitting position and fussed her hair back into place. She straightened his tie, her hand lingering on his chest. Everything was back in its proper place.
He placed his hand over hers before she could withdraw it and she looked at him, his face all harsh shadows and angles for a moment as a car drove past in the opposite direction. The inside of the car plunged into darkness again.
She leaned in, tilting her head towards him, her lips parted. They kissed once more and then Carter dragged himself back to reality and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared into life.
When they got to her digs, she had him park around the corner and they stood for a few minutes in the dark.
“Don’t walk me to the door,” she told him, “tongues will wag.”
“Let them,” he told her with a sudden flare of defiance. She was good enough to smile.
“I’ve had enough adventure for one evening. You’ve got my number?” she asked. He patted the pocket of his coat to reassure her.
“I’ll get over when I can,” he told her with conviction. “I’ll miss you.”
“Take care, Alex.”
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and hurried down the street. Her mind was whirring at the speed of the evenings events. She looked back once up the hill to see him standing on the corner, a silhouette back lit by the scant moonlight. The key turned in the lock and she went inside.
23 - Again, Again and Again
Carter rang Georgette’s lodgings the following evening. A Scottish woman with a sharp tone answered the telephone and scolded him that she wasn’t a messenger service and hung up. Carter flirted with calling Group but talked himself out of it. He called again at eight and this time a girl answered. He waited while they got Georgette.
He looked left and right in the lobby of the Mess, conscious that he was in full view of everyone walking past. He brightened immeasurably as soon as he heard her voice. He could picture her smiling at the other end of the line.
“Darling,” she breathed. “You’re lucky, I’ve just drawn a bath before the hot water goes off. I got back late.”
Carter could hear giggling in the background and he could imagine there were a few of her housemates earwigging.
“I got the landlady earlier.”
“Oh dear,” she said. That explained the frosty look Mrs Lloyd had given her when she came in. “We’ll figure something out for next time,” she told him.
“When do you get some time off?”
“It’s a bit up in the air at the moment,” she demurred, both of them well aware this wasn’t a secure line. She wracked her brain, thinking about how they were going to organise this. Amber Hill was not a five minute walk away and both of them had borrowed someone else’s car previously, which was not something they could always rely upon.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said, inspiration suddenly striking. “I’ll let, Helen Wilki
nson know. Then you can let her know at the hotel. You’ve got more chance of catching her in and she can pass the message.”
It wasn’t exactly ideal but Carter couldn’t come up with a viable alternative. It reminded him of passing notes in school but it was better than nothing. They talked for a few more minutes and then he reluctantly let her go, conscious that her bath water was cooling.
The next day, Carter took L-London up. The ground crew had replaced the broken starter motor and fiddled with the starboard engine and she was good to go again. She started first time and Carter did a few circuits of the station before coming in for a touch and go. As the wheels kissed the tarmac, he put the throttles through the gate and hauled her back into the sky and stayed up for another hour, giving the engines a good workout at different altitudes. After the laboured flight of Q-Queen, it was good to be back in their own aircraft again.
Their new second dicky, Flight Sergeant Jensen went with them. From Newcastle, he was confident, his voice assured and his handling of the Manchester was on the money. Despite his confident air, they found it hard to take him too seriously as he looked about twelve. His flying kit swamped him and they quickly called him ‘Kid’ Jensen over the R/T.
They saw little of White. He spent the next few days gathering a crew together and getting used to his new Manchester K-Kilo. Another hand me down, she was a little different to the other Manchester’s on the squadron. The elevators were bigger, there was no third fin and the vertical stabilisers were much bigger in surface area as well.
White thought she handled much better. Throwing her around the sky in a corkscrew she was more responsive and he had much more positive control in a sudden dive or climb, particularly when trying to recover back to level flight.
On the morning of the 14th, the gate was locked and all outside communication was stopped. No one was allowed out. Ops were back on. Brest was no longer the only thing on the menu and there was a ripple of interest when they were told the target was Hamburg. Located almost directly east of Wilhelmshaven at the mouth of the Elbe, it was a large city with a variety of juicy targets.
The briefing was crisp and efficient. Black Jack went into some detail on their track to and from the target. With the estuary on the coast leading right to it, there would be few excuses for missing the target this time. They were briefed to bomb the shipyard. The centre of Hamburg was a mass of docks, slipways and warehouses, a blind man should be able to hit this.
They would come in over the North Sea, pick up a fix from Heligoland and Cuxhaven and then go in. Coming out was more interesting. They would turn south and then do a wide circle around Bremen, avoiding Emden before heading out over the Ijsselmeer.
Kent took them through the potential defences, pointing out the areas of flak around Bremen, Bremerhaven and Lübeck that were ready and waiting to catch the unwary. The good news was that it was a no moon period giving them plenty of dark to hide in. There was every chance they could be in and out before the nightfighters found them.
Linkletter told the usual tale. Mild weather, watch out for icing conditions and the predicted winds were thirty knots easterly over central Europe. The last to step forward was Church. He was leading this one and he addressed them from the stage.
“This is it, chaps. We’ve had an easy time of things lately but now it’s back to business. All the kites have been serviced, all the little niggles have been ironed out, the weather is with us and there’s even no moon. Everything is in our favour; so let’s get out there and show what we can do. I’ll see you all when we get back.”
They came back in dribs and drabs six hours later. The mood at interrogation was mixed. The weather had been lousy. Halfway across the North Sea they’d run into a bank of heavy cloud that turned a simple navigational problem into a nightmare. The predicted winds had also been way off, pushing them all over the place.
Some of them claimed to have bombed on the target. Some had just let them go on dead reckoning with no real idea where their load went. Three diverted to the secondary and failed to even find that.
Most of them were jolted around by flak both to and from the target. Following the set route proved to be almost impossible and they blundered over other cities all over the shop. Two went down over Bremerhaven. Another popped out of the clouds over Bremen and got turned into a Roman candle for their trouble.
Carter had battled on through the clouds. There was no way he was letting down to see the ground. They had no idea how low the cloud base was and he wasn’t about to sacrifice the advantage of height and serve them up on a plate for some flak gunners.
When they hit their dead reckoning ETA they circled. They couldn’t even divert to the secondary target until they knew where they were. After ten minutes, they spotted the glow of some fires to the north and the flash of flak. The beams of some searchlights waved around.
With nothing better to go on they drifted north towards it. Woods lined up on the brightest glow and let the bombs go. It was distinctly unsatisfying all round.
They fought the headwind all the way back. The only consolation was that the strong winds blew the clouds away as they got close to the English coast. Shore batteries opened up on them and carried on even after they fired off the colours of the day. It rounded off a perfectly dreadful demonstration of strategic bombing.
They moaned about the waste of it all over their bacon and eggs. Carter slid into bed, ears still ringing from the howl of the engines and looked forwards to a lie in. He was rudely dragged from his slumber a few hours later. A Corporal knocked on the door to his room. When he got no answer he shoved his head round the door and flicked the light switch on. He gave Walsh’s bedframe a kick. That got a grunt in response.
“Wakey, wakey, sir. Ops again tonight. Briefings at four.”
“Time is it?” Carter muttered from under his pillow.
“Eleven, sir,” came the response. The Corporal moved on to the next room and left them to it.
Carter flailed around. He pressed his face into the mattress and tried to will himself back to sleep. Walsh threw his pillow at him.
“Up, bed slug,” he told him. Carter grunted. Walsh opened the blackout curtains and light streamed into the room.
They shambled to the ablutions and peered bleary eyed into the mirrors as they shaved. Carter was still half dead while he had his porridge. He glanced at the newspaper, not absorbing the words on the page at all.
“Where do you think we’re going tonight?” he asked around the table.
“After yesterday, I’ll take Brest again,” commented Walsh. “What’s not to like?” He lit a cigarette from the end of his last one. Walsh never had breakfast. He seemed to exist purely on a diet of tea and cigarettes. “Short route, cushy target.”
They got in a quick air test. Carter let Jensen fly. He watched him take L-London through her paces. When they shut down, Vos stayed behind to tinker with the radio. He wasn’t entirely happy with the reception and they left him deep in conference with the erks, arguing over what might be wrong.
At briefing, White sat next to them with his new crew. This was to be their first operation and White’s navigator glued himself to Woods side throughout, taking copious notes as he tried to absorb the details of the briefing.
It was Hamburg again. As the night before had been such a mess, Command was sending them back to do the job properly this time. There was little change from the previous days briefing. The route was the same and there was little variation in the details.
Linkletter amended his weather report. The heavy cloud remained over much of mainland Europe but was moving east which meant a lot of the coast should now be clear. Extrapolating from the previous nights information, he predicted a tail wind of forty knots or more to push them along. That was fine outbound, but it would make the return journey a bugger, flying into a stiff headwind.
The first surprise of the night for Carter and his crew came as they crossed the coast north of Mabelthorpe. Todd and Murphy tested the
ir guns and the next moment the sky lit up with flashes of light. L-London jolted as they were bracketed by flak.
“What the blazes!” Without being told, Jensen shoved the throttles through the gate and the Vultures howled as they accelerated. Carter hauled back on the yoke to get some more height. Todd and Murphy started frantically scanning the sky, wondering what the hell was going on. In the tail, Murphy saw some flashes far below on the water.
“It’s a bloody convoy!” he reported. “The dozy bastards.” He was half tempted to send a squirt in their direction.
Todd went barreling down the fuselage, bumping into everything going while their Manchester jolted up and down amongst the barrage. He was thinking evil thoughts when he fired off the days colours down the flare chute. The coloured dots of light fell behind them and the flak came to an abrupt halt. Todd rubbed his shins as he made his way back to his turret.
“Bloody Navy,” said Woods. He checked his map. The convoy was in the wrong place. They were supposed to be well south of here.
The rest of the outbound trip was uneventful, but the clouds blotted out the sea when they were still forty miles short of their landfall. Woods managed to get a fix on the small Heligoland Archipelago in the German Bight before he lost sight of the ground. That fix confirmed the predicted winds were wrong again, but he was able to make the correction. From there it was a simple compass course south east, allowing for drift to put them over Hamburg.
The clouds were thinner over the city, with gaps giving glimpses of the ground below. Hamburg was three sides of a square, north, east and south around the Elbe. On the north bank, there were fires blazing merrily away. Flames flickered on the surface of the water. Their target, the harbour area in the centre was hidden from view.
There was a hurried conference over the R/T. They could go lower until they saw the target or they could circle for a while and wait for a break in the clouds. Neither option was particularly palatable.
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