Winwright took them in a lazy loop towards what would be their new home and approached from the east, flying over the nearest town that would be a place of rest. A bustling place, Béthenville had been virtually flattened during the German offensive in 1918 but had been an important hub for British forces in the area. Stubbornly rebuilt it was now hard to tell it had ever happened.
Passing over the town he pointed out the tall belfry on the church and the large paved square in the centre as landmarks. On the outskirts to the south, there was a large railway station and the railway line running west pointed the way to the airfield.
It was like getting directions when you drove a car. Go straight west, over the town and then follow the railway line before turning right at the small wood. Keep on going until you come to the large field next to a small hamlet, you can’t miss it.
Bois Fontaine was a large wood on some rising ground about six miles to the west of town. A low hedge and rough wooden fencing surrounded the area on all sides to keep the cows out. The runway was the grassy, meadow like strip that ran roughly north to south between the two large clumps of trees. A meandering stream came up to the edge of the eastern wood, followed the line of undulating wall and then fell away downhill towards rich farm land.
A collection of farm buildings was on the south west corner. Barns and a rustic looking house surrounded three sides of a cobbled courtyard. Two more stone barns stood on the other side of the wall by the trees surrounded by some newly built long wooden huts. A ramshackle wooden barn was in the next field. Next to the huts there were brown scars in the earth where some slit trenches had been dug. A cluster of tents could be seen sheltering under the trees.
A Tiger Moth biplane stood on the grass by the huts. An orange windsock hung limp on a large white pole next to it. It was hardly the comfort of a permanent station but it was going to be their home for the foreseeable future and they would have to make the best of it.
Not far away, Winwright saw a large manor house of some kind. It had an impressive facade, a long drive leading up to it and two wings of servant’s quarters out back. Near by was a stable block of some description. Winwright wondered if they would be able to get that as accommodation for the men.
Coming in low over the airfield, he stayed at one hundred feet and flew the length of the field, noting the contours. The ground crested towards the middle and approaching from one end, you could not see the other side of the field. That could make things interesting for them if they were not careful.
Satisfied with the layout and approach; he went around again and set up for a landing. He brought the Blenheim down smoothly, letting the speed drop naturally and used bursts of throttle to taxy up close to the huts he had seen from the air. As the propellers windmilled to a stop, the groundcrew rushed in and shoved chocks under the wheels. Falcon Squadron had arrived.
1.3 – Roughing It
Jaws hit the floor when the crews saw their lodgings that evening. The assembled officers felt hard done by as they entered the limp and drab tents that awaited them. Dinner had been woeful, and it was with grumbling stomach that Chandler settled down for the night. Feeling the cold, he dug through his luggage for spare jumpers, put one on and then shoved the remainder down one side of his sleeping bag.
He had just about nodded off when Morgan came into their tent and laughed at the pitiful sight in front of him. Chandler’s teeth were chattering and he had the sleeping bag gathered up tight around his chin trying to keep warm. Breath fogged in front of him. Morgan put on his sidcot flying suit, wrapped a scarf around his neck and then snuggled into the bag across from his pilot.
“You’re not cold,” Chandler said as a matter of fact.
“Correct,” said Morgan, smug, settling into his sleeping bag.
“How come?”
Morgan didn’t answer straight away and Chandler looked across the tent. In the gloom he could just make out Morgan’s face and thought he had already fallen asleep when he spoke.
“How come I’m not cold?” He rolled over and the cot creaked with his movement. “I’m naturally warm. Women appreciate it.”
Chandler blew a raspberry in reply. “I’m cold,” he muttered, feeling sorry for himself. He rummaged around in his sleeping bag and tried rearranging some of his clothes to fight the draught he could feel down the front.
“I’m not getting into bed with you,” murmured Morgan.
“Funny.” He rubbed his arms. “That’s funny.”
Morgan lay back, enjoying the warm while he heard Chandler moving around in the dark. He smiled as he heard his pilot muttering as he tried to get comfortable.
“If you must know, I’m wearing long johns.”
“Long johns!” exclaimed Chandler.
“I plan ahead. I checked the weather forecast.”
Chandler stopped moving when he finally tugged out a scarf.
“You rotter,” he said as he wound it round his neck. “You could have told me.”
Morgan blew a raspberry back.
“All’s fair, as they say.”
A guttural voice from another tent cut in across their conversation.
“If you two lovebirds don’t shut up over there then I really will start a war. Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Griffiths settled down under scratchy blankets. He looked out of the window in the barn while he listened to the animal noises below. The ground crew were packed into the rickety huts and a few had been billeted in the local village. He was not surprised when the officers were directed to the tents and the radio operator/air gunners were steered towards the barns. Rank hath its privileges.
Each was fifty feet long and about twenty across. The walls were stone construction with a wooden slat roof. Down below, the barn was filled with the farmer’s livestock and up above was the hay loft. Growing up on a farm with his twin brother, they had mucked about in the barns many times. It felt like he had come full circle. He rolled over slowly, trying not to make much noise as he ignored the bits of straw sticking into his back. His brain was still buzzing from the events of the day.
He peered in the dim light provided by the single lantern hanging from the rafters, his eyes roaming over the bundled bodies lying around him until his eyes rested on Burke. The older man was half sat, half lying back on the hay, his arm propping his head up. He was reading a book by the light of a lamp but Griffiths could not make out the title.
As far as the enlisted men were concerned, Burke was the nearest thing to god. Older, wiser, there was little he had not seen in his long career. You went to Burke with your problems and he listened and gave you a straight answer and a way ahead. Griffiths had rarely heard him rant. Burke had that quiet manner where you wanted to give him your best and if you messed up, you felt that you had let him down.
“Sir?”
“Yes, lad?”
“You’ve done this before?”
There was a pause for a moment while Burke checked his page number before closing the cover.
“I’ve done this before a lot of times. The last show. Russia on the side of the White Russians against the Communists after that. Jordan fighting against the mad Mullah. On the frontier in India. Afghanistan and lots of other places. Don’t worry about it. I was your age when this all happened the last time. In fact, my squadron operated for a time from this very field.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I was just an engine fitter on SE5’s then. A long time ago.” He smiled wistfully with the memory. “I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of things since then.”
His voice took on a faraway tone as he dipped back into his memory. He could picture the airfield as it used to be. There had been canvas hangars by the barns. The fighters would be lined up in a neat row in front of them, the small windsock fluttering on its pole. He closed his eyes as he remembered the smell of leather and castor oil, the tang of the petrol.
He had come a long way from being a butcher’s boy in Halifax. He remembered well the fear in hi
s mothers face when he came in that wet Saturday afternoon, face flushed with excitement, a direct contrast to her look of horror. Not for him the life of his father, six days a week and the early starts down the market.
Life in the RAF suited his restless nature. He had travelled the world this last twenty years, never in one place too long, always moving and that was how he liked it. He sometimes thought about the people he grew up with, what they were doing now. He had seen ruins in Mesopotamia, seen action in the cliffs of Waziristan and the snow bound plains of Russia. There were not many people who could say they had done the same.
He came out of his introspection to see Griffiths had fallen asleep. He returned to his book.
1.4 – In The Cold Light of Dawn
Chandler was awake long before the sun crept over the horizon. In the end the cold won and he rolled out of bed. He pulled on another jumper over the one he was already wearing and then scrabbled around on the floor of the tent for his boots. The cold bit into his cheeks and nibbled on the end of his nose as he ventured outside.
Chandler walked slowly, kicking his feet through the tufts of grass that were coated in the morning dew. The air was still and aside from the odd cow making the first noises of the day, it was quiet. A few people were starting to stir so he headed off across the field towards the aircraft. Eighteen Blenheims were parked up in a row, their tails to the woods. He walked past one of the miserable shivering sentries over to his own aircraft Q-Queenie.
Condensation coated the long glazed nose and beaded down the curves of the fuselage. He walked round the port side and ran his hand along the cold metal. As he got to the tail he stopped and leaned back against the metal skin, feeling the cold through his shoulder blades. During the night when he had lain there shivering, the possibilities that the day would bring began to scare him. For the last eighteen months his one focus had been his flying training; getting to a conversion unit and then on to a squadron. Now it was the real thing.
He strolled around the field, hands jammed in his pockets until he found himself over by the barns. He rounded the corner and found Griffiths sat on a stool, shaving from a bucket in front of a fire. Chandler stood quietly watching while the younger man dragged a safety razor up his neck. Griffiths hissed as he nicked the skin. He pushed a rag of material to the cut while he rinsed the razor in the bucket. He dabbed at his neck and then carried on shaving.
Chandler sat down on a log across from him by the fire. He warmed his hands and rubbed them to get some feeling back in his fingers.
“Good morning, Griffiths.”
“Morning, sir.” The younger man put the razor down and dabbed at his neck again.
“You’re up early.”
“Not really, sir. You get used to waking up early on a farm.” He gestured to the barn. “Besides, the cows make pretty good alarm clocks.”
The fire in the brazier crackled, sparks swirling up to the sky. Griffiths put another bit of wood into the fire and shoved it with a stick to keep it going.
“Good sleep?” he asked his pilot.
“Not a chance,” said Chandler. “Far too cold in those tents. And you?”
“Pretty good. It’s warm among the hay.”
Chandler made a show of leaning forwards and sniffing. He wrinkled his nose.
“I’ll pass thanks. I think I’d rather be cold.”
Griffiths pulled at his sleeve and sniffed and shrugged.
“You get used to it.”
Winwright was gently shaken awake by Osbourne, who was officer of the day.
“I’m sorry for waking you, sir,” he said, his Scottish accent thick. “A dispatch rider has brought some orders for us.”
Winwright rolled over and picked up his watch. He peered bleary eyed at the hands.
“Good god, it’s not even six a.m.”
“I know, I’m very sorry, sir, but they were quite insistent. It has to be signed for by you.”
Winwright swung out of bed and shrugged on his battledress, the material scratching his neck. Blear eyed, he crossed the short distance to the main flight hut. Osbourne handed him a cup of tea and sat back down at the desk. Winwright sipped gratefully on the hot drink as he identified himself to the waiting dispatch rider.
“Good morning, sir,” he said as he reached into his leather pouch and handed over bundle of papers in a manila folder. “Welcome to France.”
Winwright took hold of them and signed the proffered pad. His weariness disappeared as he started reading the top sheet. He made notes on a scrap of paper and looked out of the window deep in thought.
He saw Chandler walking across the field. He looked a shambles, hands jammed into his pockets, chin tucked into his chest. Winwright lit his first cigarette of the day. He let the smoke fill his lungs, the heat warming him.
“Osbourne, get the Adjutant, Mr Dane and Mr Ashton for me and then after that, find, Chandler will you?”
“Yessir.”
Chandler handed Griffiths and Burke another mug of cocoa.
“Thank you, sir.”
Burke blew on the steaming mug and sipped it tentatively before looking up at the sky.
“It’s going to be another fine day. Give it an hour or so and those clouds will clear up I think.”
“And what have you got planned for today, Mister Burke?”
“Me, sir?” Burke balanced the mug on his lap and started counting off on his fingers. “Plenty. I’ll rouse this lot out of their pits shortly. There are more tents to put up. I’ve also got to lay out where the new huts are going to go. Then we need to finish the bomb dump and at some point the rest of the ground crew are due to arrive. There’ll be loads of stores to get in. They’ll have to be sorted out and that’s just for starters.”
“I would think the CO will have us up air testing soon,” said Chandler.
“And after that, sir?” Griffiths asked.
“Familiarisation trips I imagine.”
They sat in silence as they watched Osbourne striding with purpose across the grass towards them. A short and stocky, dark haired Scotsman, his battledress seemed to strain at the seams from his muscular arms. Years ago, a university rugby game had rearranged the nose that was smeared across his face. A dusting of freckles across his cheeks completed the look. When he was not flying he could often be found running around the perimeter track in his shorts and singlet. Burke offered him a drink but Osbourne declined and looked at Chandler.
“Morning, Chaps. Sleep all right?”
“No. I was freezing,” Chandler replied. “You?”
“Well at least you got some sleep,” said Osbourne yawning, his rough brogue plaintive. “I’ve been up since midnight as OOD.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The CO would like to see you, there’s a job in. Mister Burke, I imagine you’ll have to get an aircraft ready shortly.”
Chandler finished off his cocoa and handed the mug to Griffiths.
“You better start getting your things together.”
Burke stood up and flicked the dregs from his mug onto the grass.
“And I better get the boys up. It looks like it’s going to be a long day.”
Things began to move fast once Chandler came out of the hut Winwright was using as his office. Burke had roused the groundcrews and the airfield began to wake up.
He stopped by his tent to pick up his flying gear. He put his sidcot on over his trousers and shirt. The Sidcot was a one piece overall made from waterproofed green cotton and lined with linen. He brushed some loose threads from the breast pocket where the squadron crest had been. Some killjoy in the Air Ministry had forbidden them being worn when war was declared. He double checked his whistle was attached to the left collar and gave it an experimental blow.
Over the Sidcot he shrugged on his lifejacket. More commonly known as the Mae West, some of the pilots had started painting the front of their jackets yellow to make them more visible but Chandler preferred not to. The paint was prone to cracking and making a mess. Grabbing his leather
flying helmet and goggles he made his way over to his aircraft.
Morgan was waiting for him and chatting to the groundcrew when Griffiths joined them lugging a box of flare cartridges.
“Are those the colours of the day?” asked Chandler and Griffiths nodded. Every day, the daily identification colours changed. If an aircraft was fired on by friendly forces, they could fire off a series of flares. Griffiths had been to the squadron armourer for that day’s colours. Morgan spread a map out on the grass and Chandler started to brief his men.
“There have been reports that some warships are heading for the French coast. The Admiralty doesn’t think they’re ours. We’re one of the patrols being sent out to take a look. We’ll be heading north.” He described with his fingers a line parallel to the French coast. “We have a fifty mile stretch to patrol off the coast. Other flights are covering other areas so there is some overlap. Just make sure we don’t stray across the border into Belgium.”
He emphasised the last point and flashed a look at Morgan. Just like the last war, Belgium had decided it was a neutral country and any aircraft violating their airspace was liable to challenge or attack. If Morgan got his navigation wrong this time and they came down in neutral territory, they would be interred and their aircraft confiscated.
“Griffiths, if we see anything you’ll need to send a sighting report sharpish.” Chandler handed Morgan a pair of binoculars and a book. “You’ll need these to keep an eye out. The book has current warships in so if we do spot something, we can say what it is.” He stood up and rubbed his hands together, looking more confident than he felt. “Well, let’s get cracking.”
Griffiths went back to the trailing edge of the wing. Using the hand holds in the left side of the fuselage he pulled himself up onto the wing. At the back of the fuselage the gunner radio operator was on his own. Between him and the cockpit were the main spars. There was not a lot of space for someone to squeeze through and get to him if he needed help.
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