After a couple of thousand feet he was scrabbling at the inside of his windscreen, scraping off the ice-crystals that had formed. When the screen was clear again his Hurricane was still half a mile behind the fight, although the airspeed was frighteningly high and the controls were so stiff that it took both hands to budge the stick. His ears were buzzing like doorbells and his skull felt too tight for his brain. The ground looked strangely fuzzy, like a map left out in the rain, but Flash and the 110 were still clear enough and Fitz guessed there was haze or fog down there. The German saw barrage balloons coming up and he sheered away, back toward the estuary. Again Fitz’s windscreen iced-up and he pressed against his straps as he cleaned it. His sinuses throbbed and a flicker of blood fell from his nostrils and splashed on the panel. He braced himself and hauled back, and leveled out in the yellow haze. The others had disappeared.
He licked blood from his upper lip and snuffled it up his nose. The smoky sky fled past him. What to do? Flash wouldn’t give up, not yet anyway. What about the Hun? The Hun would go on down and try to sneak home at wavetop height. Fitz went down in search of them. In fact he overshot the 110, which was limping along on one engine. The haze turned into a dense sea-mist. He throttled back and gave it another ten seconds; then he was going home. The 110 limped up behind him. It was sheer luck. The pilot fired an enormous five-second burst that lit up the murk with brilliant tracer. All the cannonshells and almost all the bullets missed but a dozen rounds ripped into the Hurricane’s instrument panel. Fitz broke left: the wrong way, he remembered too late, but it didn’t matter, the 110 wasn’t looking for a fight. It limped on home and claimed a definite kill.
Fitz circled while he checked the damage. His engine sounded healthy but the Hurricane would not climb. Whenever he tried to get above the fog a vigorous vibration began and the plane threatened to stall. He increased his speed but that only made the vibration worse, so bad that he was afraid something would snap, and he gave up. There was no visible sun. He set course to the southwest, reckoning to put down somewhere on the Kent coast, on sands or mudflats or something.
After three minutes he got a twinge of worry, checked his course, and was shocked to see that he was heading northwest. Even so, he knew he should be over land by now. It was time to get help. He changed channels and called Mayday. No answer. He looked to be sure he had pressed the Mayday button and his radio lead swung free. It had been severed. Sweat suddenly surfaced all over his arms and chest. He checked his course again: southeast, turning to south. The compass was bust.
He had no idea which way he was going. The fog was as gray on the left as on the right. The one thing he did know was that his present course was wrong. The longer he held it, the more fuel he wasted. He circled while he searched for a glimmer of guidance and found none. Land was near; he knew it was only minutes away. He had to decide. The longer he circled, the worse his chance of survival became.
One patch of fog looked fractionally brighter, so he headed for that. In the tracking station on the North Foreland, the operators studying their cathode-ray tubes saw the plot begin to edge away. They tracked it for fifteen minutes, until the echoes faded, far out in the North Sea.
By nightfall it was obvious that someone would have to go and see Mary. The adjutant went.
She took the news remarkably well. Sitting in the golden glow of an oil lamp, with her feet on a cushion and her fingers linked under her belly, she conveyed a sense of serenity. After a while she conveyed so much of it that Kellaway became worried. “This couldn’t have come at a worst time, could it?” he said. “You must let us know what help you need.”
“Oh, well … there’s still hope, isn’t there? I expect he’ll turn up. He always has.”
“I’m afraid it’s pretty serious this time, Mary.” He made his voice sound grave. “Miracles sometimes happen, I realize that, but …” He shook his head.
“You said he hasn’t been found yet.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“So he’s only missing.”
“I’m afraid all the indications are that he’s gone for good.”
“How can you say that? If you haven’t found him.”
“It’s all a bit technical. I can’t really explain, I’m afraid.”
“Well, until he’s found he’s only missing, isn’t he? And as long as he’s missing he’s liable to turn up at any moment. I bet you he does.” Kellaway didn’t take the bet. He left as soon as he decently could.
On the afternoon when Sergeant Todd was to be buried, the plotting tables in the ops room showed large German raids assembling over Calais and Boulogne. No pilots could be released. The adjutant represented the squadron.
Todd’s family lived in Yorkshire. His mother was dead and his father, an ex-miner, was bedridden with lung disease; but he had a brother, who came down with his wife. Kellaway took them to the cemetery, and afterward invited them to his office for a drink. They were both about thirty, neatly dressed, sad but calm. Everyone took whiskey and water. “I’d like to drink to the memory of a gallant pilot,” Kellaway said. They drank. “I realize that nothing can make good his loss,” Kellaway said, “but we’d all like you to know what a splendid contribution he made to the work of this squadron.”
“Did he?” the brother asked, rather sharply.
“Yes, indeed. Everyone commented on the determined way he pressed home his attacks. He certainly made his mark on the enemy.”
“That was fast, then,” the brother’s wife said. Kellaway cocked an eyebrow. “Well, he only got sent here yesterday,” she said. “Didn’t he?”
“Arthur wasn’t a hero,” the brother said. “According to what he told me, he didn’t know a lot about being a fighter pilot either. He just did his best. I don’t suppose it made much difference one way or the other, did it?”
“Probably not,” Kellaway said.
The brother’s wife took a piece of paper from her handbag. “There’ll be a headstone, won’t there? We’d like this inscription, if it’s allowed.”
Kellaway took the paper. “As for our God, He is in heaven” he read out. “He hath done whatsoever pleased Him. Psalm 115, verse three.”
“We’re not bloody hypocrites,” the brother said. “We’ll not praise God for what’s happened to Arthur. If there’s any sense to it, we can’t see it.”
They finished their drinks. Kellaway drove them to the station. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Believe me, Sergeant Todd gave his life in a good cause.”
“Aye,” the brother grunted. “So you said.” He didn’t offer to shake hands, and Kellaway didn’t risk a refusal.
The rest of August went by in a sort of frantic blur. Those who survived kept a memory of constant fatigue. That was the overriding impression: not fear, although almost every fighter pilot felt a lurch of terror when he saw a big raid approach; not excitement, although there was plenty of that as the bands of Hurricanes and Spitfires took on odds of five to one, even ten to one; but endless, nervesapping weariness. They got up tired. Often they fell asleep as soon as they landed after the second or third sortie, and they woke up to fly two or three more sorties, so tired that when dusk came they couldn’t remember anything definite about the day’s fighting, not even the kills they had made.
Every night there was a cheer in the mess when the BBC announced the latest score. With survival came a miraculous recovery: everyone dashed off to the pub. Tomorrow was another day: another day of increasing fatigue and increasing tension; another day nearer invasion.
Sunlight leaked through the cracks between the blankets that had been hastily tacked over the windows of the crewroom. The air smelled of stale food and dried sweat. There was a brisk buzz of conversation. The squadron had recently landed after a highly successful interception. CH3 had got a Junkers 88 in flames and Haducek had blown up a 109 at close range. One of the new boys, an Australian called Phillips, had made a wheels-up landing and walked away from it. All very satisfactory. They cheered when a square o
f white shone on the wall. “I hope there’s a Tom and Jerry,” Cox said. Hands made jokey silhouettes. The countdown numbers flashed and they chanted them. Flash Gordon was one number behind the rest and finished alone. “I won,” he claimed. Grainy black-and-white film showed a formation of Heinkels. They swung from one diagonal to another as the camera angle changed. Guns blazed silently and the image flickered with the recoil. The Heinkels fell out of frame and the sky swirled. The film ended. They cheered again.
Skull turned on the lights. The airman at the projector re-wound the film. “I’m not going to identify each pilot,” Skull said. “No doubt you will recognize your own combat report. That particular pilot reported that he closed to a range of two hundred yards and fired a two-second burst which hit a Heinkel in the starboard wing, setting an engine on fire. Bear that in mind as you see it again.”
This time the film was run in slow motion. “He opens fire … now” Skull said, and the airman froze the film. “Knowing the Heinkel’s wingspan we can calculate the exact range,” Skull said. “The exact range was four hundred and eighty yards.”
The room was quiet now. No jokes, no cheers; only an occasional cough or the creak of a chair.
The film ran on. The bombers blurred as they came nearer. “He stops firing … now” Skull said, and the frame froze. “That was a four-second burst. The final range was just over two hundred yards. None of the shots hit the bomber.”
“But it’s on fire,” Mother Cox objected. “Look at that engine. You can see the smoke.”
“All the shots fired by this Hurricane fell below the target. Blowups of the film establish that beyond doubt. The damage you see was caused by another Hurricane that made a simultaneous attack from the port beam. That aircraft is just visible.” The film moved briefly and stopped. “There, at the edge.” A wingtip showed itself.
“The next film was taken by that second Hurricane,” Skull said. “The pilot’s combat report reads: ‘My second attack was from high on the port beam. I put in a two-second burst at about 150 yards and saw smoke pour out of the starboard engine.’ Run it, please.”
They watched intently. There was a grunt of satisfaction as the smoke streamed out.
“The report was correct,” Skull said. “The next film shows a rather confused piece of action that took place in the middle of a large dogfight. The pilot reported that he fired at three Me-109’s in quick succession, missed the first two and destroyed the third.”
The film rolled. “Oh, shit,” someone muttered in the middle of it. There was silence while it was re-wound, and then shown again in slow motion. “Stop,” Skull said. “Here you see the first alleged 109, in fact a Hurricane. No hits are made.” The film lurched on and stopped. “The second alleged 109 is also a Hurricane. Hits are made on the tail-unit.” Again the dogfight jerked across the sky. “The third target is in fact a 109,” Skull said. “Hits are made but no vital damage is done. The next pilot’s report claimed …”
There were in all five minutes of film, assembled from several interceptions. At the end the pilots went out, looking thoughtful. Barton, the flight commanders and Skull stayed behind. Nobody spoke until the airman had taken down the blankets and packed up his projector and left.
“What it comes down to,” Barton said, “is we’ve got a couple of good pilots, two or three not bad, and the rest couldn’t guarantee to hit the floor when they fell out of bed.”
“Slightly worse,” CH3 said. “Zab was the best shot in the squadron. The film confirms it. That leaves Haddy in a class on his own.”
“You mean you recognized which bits of film were theirs?” Skull asked.
“Nobody else gets that close to Jerry,” CH3 said.
“Except Flash, sometimes,” Cox muttered.
“And Flash can’t shoot straight,” CH3 said.
“Bloody hell.” Barton stood with his shoulders slumped, as if he hadn’t the strength to straighten up. His eyelids were heavy, his mouth was slack. “So I’m the proud owner of a bunch of blokes who can’t judge distance, who shoot too soon, who shoot too much, who miss by a mile and then claim a kill. Is that right?”
“If it’s any consolation,” Skull said, “my colleagues in other squadrons report very similar findings.”
Barton looked at him for such a long time that Skull grew uncomfortable and turned away.
“What the hell!” CH3 said jovially. “This doesn’t change anything, Fanny. Nobody expects them to be crack shots. Let’s face it, gunnery’s always been a joke in Fighter Command.”
“It’s beyond a joke,” Barton said. “You know that lad Phillips? Came straight here from his operational conversion course? Some course. He’s never fired a Hurricane’s guns. Not one little squirt.”
He went out. CH3 looked at Cox and shrugged.
“Cine-guns,” Cox said heavily. “Bright bloody idea that turned out to be.”
“Oh sure,” CH3 said, “go ahead, blame it all on me. What’s the good of kidding ourselves? We’re never going to get anywhere by dodging the truth.”
Cox tramped to the door. “All I can say is, if you’ve got any more truth like that, kindly keep it to yourself, because I personally think we’ve had about as much of it as we can stand.” He slammed the door.
That was the first day Mary Fitzgerald appeared at the end of the airfield.
Farmland surrounded the field on three sides. On the fourth, a narrow lane passed just outside the perimeter wire. There was no hedge. The duty NCO in the control tower noticed a small black car parked beside the lane. It was still there an hour later, so he pointed it out to CH3, who got some binoculars.
The CO was on patrol with Red Section. CH3 went and found the adjutant. They were in the control tower, studying the little car, when Red Section returned. They saw the driver get out of the car and watch the Hurricanes land. “You were right,” Kellaway said. “It’s her.”
“I’d better go and talk to her.”
“Waste of time, old boy. She doesn’t want you, and the chap she does want isn’t likely to turn up. Leave her be.”
“A word about angels,” Barton announced. “Luftwaffe intelligence has started monitoring our controllers’ transmissions. They hear the controller sending us up to angels ten so they pass the word to the raid, the raid nips up to angels twelve and we arrive far too low.”
“Beats me how they make sense of our R/T,” Quirk said. “Half the time it’s unreadable.”
“You have to shout,” Gordon said. “They’re foreigners, remember.”
“Well, from now on we’re going to baffle the buggers,” said Barton. “From now on, stated angels will be minus two. If the controller says angels ten, he really means angels twelve. Angels fifteen means we go up to angels seventeen.”
“I get it,” Gordon said brightly. “That’s very clever, isn’t it? All you have to do is keep adding six.”
“Don’t piss about, Flash,” CH3 said wearily.
“Well, five, then.”
CH3 grabbed him by the arm and neck, forced him to the door of the crewroom and threw him out. In doing so he banged his knuckles on the frame and skinned them. “Dumb lunk,” he grumbled as he sucked his hand.
“Stated angels are minus two, then,” Barton said. “You’ll also have a set of codenames for places. ‘Fishpaste’ means ‘Dover.’ That sort of thing. Jerry’s getting far too smart. He’s sending over spoof raids to get us scrambled and when he knows where we’re going they turn back, and while we’re refueling the real raid appears and catches us knickerless. He’s also coming over at zero feet to bamboozle the tracking stations. Come to that, he’s knocked out a couple of tracking stations so sometimes there are blind spots. I’m telling you all this so you’ll know what the controllers have to put up with. Half the time they’re just guessing, and the other half they’re digging the ops room out of the rubble and tying the telephone lines together in reef-knots.”
“The poor dears,” Cattermole said. “We must take up a collection.”
“Bloody controllers,” Gordon said from the door. “They’re all Huns.” CH3 turned on him with a raised fist. Gordon dodged back.
“Half the scrambles don’t lead to interceptions,” Barton said. “And making an interception doesn’t always mean you get a crack at Jerry. That’s the luck of the draw. Nothing we can do about that. What we can do a hell of a lot about is gunnery.”
He sat and CH3 stood. “This is not a magic death-ray,” he said. He was holding up a Browning salvaged from a wreck. “And these aren’t magic bullets.” He raised a belt of ammunition. “You can hold the enemy in your sights and still miss, for at least five reasons. One is bullet-drop. As soon as it leaves your gun, that bullet starts to fall. The further it goes, the more it falls. Two is bullet-topple. Every bullet wobbles a tiny bit, and the further it goes, the more it wobbles. Three is recoil. Recoil shakes the gun-platform a fraction, and that fraction’s worth ten, twenty, thirty feet when the bullet carries a quarter of a mile. Four is deflection which of course you all know about but how many of you think about the combined effects of deflection and bullet-drop? If the bastard is not only crossing you but also climbing, it’s no damn good aiming ahead of him, you’ve got to figure out how far ahead and above his line-of-flight to put your bullets, on account of they fall faster when you fire upward than when you fire level, right? That was four. Five is harmonization. Harmonize at two hundred yards and the bullet-streams converge at two hundred, and after that they diverge and they keep on diverging as if they can’t stand the sight of each other, which is good news for the enemy if he happens to be four or five hundred yards away.”
“And that” Barton said, “is the range too many of you open fire.”
“Which is why you miss,” CH3 said.
“You saw the film,” Barton said. “Eight hundred yards, in a couple of cases. Eight hundred!”
Piece of Cake Page 70
