Storm at Sunset

by Hall, Ian

  Bernie Moore was asleep in the co-pilot’s seat, the previous evening’s Tiger beer having caught up with him.

  Dusty had given Ken his final position report, together with an updated ETA of 15 minutes hence. Tired of gazing out of the window at the endless jungle and sea, the nav sank into a reverie. His eyes closed, and he was immediately transported to the daydream he’d promised himself during that horrible episode in Solo. The sleepy surroundings at the school he’d taught at before the war. Of red brick, mock-Gothic towers, and of the comfortably formal atmosphere of his classroom with its ancient, stained desks for the boys and its single high desk for him. His pupils’ heads were down as they puzzled over their quadratic equations, while he could almost smell the chalk and musty old books. All was calm and orderly.

  For some reason though, the scene became disturbed. At first, it was the unwanted question of whether his old job at the school would, indeed, still be available that spoiled the picture. And then the classroom smell seemed no longer to be of sweaty plimsolls, old wood and dust, but more a slight odour of burning rubber. Almost immediately, he became aware that this smell was not in his dream – it was real.

  Instantly, Dusty snapped awake. Fire and aeroplanes were not a healthy mixture, and he was at once on alert. An intermittent crackling and sparking was coming from the wireless compartment. He turned quickly to see a thin film of blue-grey smoke drifting aft, together with an agitated Freddie stuffing something down into the small overnight bag he’d had under his seat for the whole trip.

  “What the—?”

  The WOp yelped, and swiftly snatched back his hand, pressing his fingers to his lips and sucking a thin dribble of blood. He put his foot on the bag, which seemed to have a life of its own, and examined his damaged finger before turning to smile sweetly at Dusty.

  “You were saying?”

  “What the hell’s that, Freddie?”

  “Not what the hell – you mean who the hell’s that? Let’s have a bit of respect! It’s Adolf.”

  “I can see it’s Adolf. But why?”

  Freddie reached into the bag and brought out the tiny struggling figure of Adolf, his pet monkey. “Look, can’t you see his little moustache?”

  “I didn’t ask why he’s called Adolf, you idiot. I meant why the hell have you brought him with you? He’ll be petrified.”

  “Well he’s not. He’s often been flying. He loves it.”

  “But he’ll hate the cold in England. You can’t bring him with you. Hang on – why are we gassing away here about your monkey’s welfare? What the hell’s he done to cause all that smoke?”

  Freddie fanned the thinning cloud with his hat. “There, it’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? Okay, I can see the smoke’s dispersing.” Dusty craned forward and poked around the tattered strands of wire trailing from under the WOp’s position. “But more to the point, from the look of it he’s disabled the power supply to your radios, and we’re supposedly just about to cross half the world. Even at this minute we’re approaching Butterworth and needing to speak to them. I’ll have to tell the skipper.”

  “No … no … not yet.” Freddie didn’t think Ken was ready for all the details just now. “Give me a minute.” He worked frantically at the various knobs and switches at his station, pausing and listening intently to his earphones every now and then.

  “Hmm … you’re right. We do seem do have temporary problem. I’ll tell him.”

  “Okay … well get on with it. We’re getting close.”

  Freddie leaned over Ken’s shoulder and bellowed in his ear: “Skip, we’ve got a bit of an electrical problem here which has temporarily put out the radios. Can you manage a speechless approach, and we’ll get it looked at on the ground?”

  “No problem, mate. I can see the field already. I’ll fly by the control tower to wake them up and then land on a green light. Think you can fix it on the ground?”

  “Yep, I know exactly what the problem is. It’ll be done in a jiffy.”

  With that he retired to his position and surveyed the damage. Remnants of cable were hanging down, some showing bare wires where Adolf had got his teeth into them.

  “Poor little chap. He was only playing. He could have electrocuted himself.”

  “It might have been better if he had electrocuted himself.” Dusty continued to be doubtful. “That way the damage might have been limited. What are you going to do about it when we land?”

  “Well the first thing is to find an electrician. I’ve no doubt that, for a few beers, I could get someone to fix this mess with no questions asked. In fact I’m almost sure that one of our passengers could do the job. Sparky’s an electrician isn’t he?”

  “From his name he certainly sounds like one. So what’s the second thing you’re going to do then?”

  Freddie scratched his head. “Dunno. Have a beer myself, I s’pose?”

  “No, it’s not.” Dusty was adamant. “You’re going to find the nearest patch of jungle, introduce dear Adolf to his little cousins, and wave him goodbye. That’s what you’re going to do.”

  “No,” Freddie wailed. “No, I can’t leave him. He might not like that piece of jungle, and his cousins might not like him. He’d never survive. Besides, Nelli would never forgive me if I left him. She loves animals.”

  “She might love them in their natural environment, but I doubt whether she would in wet, grey, old Blighty. Does she know you’re bringing it home?”

  “Him, please … not it. He’s sensitive. Well no, she doesn’t exactly know yet. But I know she’ll love the idea.”

  “Now look, Freddie …” Dusty put a conciliatory arm around his friend’s shoulders. “… just think of all the problems there would be in keeping him. He probably won’t like English food. He almost certainly won’t like the English climate. How would you exercise him at home? For all I know, there are probably laws against keeping wild animals as domestic pets. And even before you get him home, just think of the problems on this trip. We’re bound to meet immigration officials or foreign police at one or other of our stops who could kick up a fuss. To say nothing of the difficulty of smuggling him into billet after billet without upsetting the other occupants. And you’ve already seen what damage he can cause to the aircraft. I don’t really know what Ken would say if he knew he had a monkey amongst the crew, but I can guess he’d hang you up by your wotsits if he found out. To my mind the only possible way is to get rid of Adolf as kindly as you can before someone else takes the decision out of your hands. Then you can deal with the problem of your girl later. If you feel you really have to tell her about the monkey you could always say he passed away en route.”

  The chastened WOp was silent, eventually nodding. He took the little hairy being, which was relaxed again by now, out of the bag and cuddled his pet for landing. Dusty knew that dear old Freddie would do what needed to be done.

  ****

  Some half an hour later, the crew and passengers were bumping along in the gharry taking them to their billets. Minus Sparky, that is, who was otherwise engaged. But the electrician was delighted, nevertheless. He’d driven a hard bargain and was cheerfully working away on what should be a relatively simple cable replacement task, content in the knowledge that everything he could drink that evening would be paid for.

  As the track led through a small plantation of trees, the WOp piped up. “Skip, I’m busting for a pee. Do you mind if we stop for a sec?”

  “Good grief, Freddie, what’s wrong with your bladder? Can’t you hold on for a minute? Oh, all right then. But be quick.” Ken waved at the driver to stop.

  Out jumped the WOp, and Dusty noted that he had the small bag surreptitiously secreted on his blind side. He scurried into the undergrowth. Barely a minute later, a forlorn-looking Freddie reappeared and clambered aboard. He nodded slightly to Dusty, who inclined his head approvingly.

  “All better now, skip. Thanks!”

  As the truck lurched off, the two who knew glanced backwards toward
s the trees. But if anything was there looking after them, they didn’t see it. The deed was done.

  ****

  Onwards, north-westwards. On the next legs the crew overflew a couple of their old bases. The jungle had wasted no time in swallowing the airfields, reclaiming its own with voracious appetite, and they’d found it difficult to pick out landmarks which had once been so familiar. There was no appreciable air traffic around, and no air control system, so they were largely free to wander where they would. It was eerily quiet everywhere. Impossible to imagine that 18 months ago, the last time they’d been in these skies, the air and landscape had been thick with fighting forces.

  Rangoon for one night, looked no better than when they had last seen it. The unfortunate city had been bombed by the Japanese while under British occupation and then bombed by the British when in Japanese hands. The docks still appeared to be in ruins. Then on to Dum-Dum, the squadron’s old base near Calcutta. It was great to visit that city again with its many sights, shops and nightclubs, and they were sorry to have to press on.

  Now the long slog across the subcontinent beckoned. Nobby Clark was with them, and he helped Dusty to pass the hours by recounting tales of the air bombers’ adventures when they had been posted off the squadron. What with travel difficulties and official indecision it had taken them months – and a good deal of their own ingenuity – to reach their ultimate destinations.

  “… And you’ll never believe it, Dusty. At one point a couple of us were en route from Calcutta to Rangoon. Somehow we’d acquired our own personal Jeep. Now, we needed to continue by boat along the Brahmaputra river but hadn’t any money for the fare. So we traded the Jeep for two single tickets!”

  “I don’t think His Majesty would have condoned that.”

  “Well, we can safely say that he’ll probably never know!”

  The two friends chuckled together at the thought, and the air bomber rummaged in his pack. He brought out a Japanese flag, signed in one corner in the native language. “Where do you think I got this, then?” quizzed Nobby.

  “I dunno.”

  “It was a Christmas present last year from my own personal Japanese liaison officer at Semerang!”

  “Get off”

  “True. Lieutenant Hattori. Worth his weight in gold, he was. He was an excellent interpreter and knew everyone in the local area – on both sides. He could get hold of literally anything I needed.”

  “Sounds as though life away from the squadron wasn’t as bad as you’d feared it would be.”

  “It had its compensations, certainly.” Nobby reached again into the bag and the next item out was a lethal-looking sword.

  “Hey, watch out who you show that to,” laughed Dusty. “You could get arrested in England for carrying an offensive weapon like that.”

  “I know, I’ll be careful. It’s a Samurai sword, Hattori told me. And by all accounts it has actually been used in anger …”

  The stories rambled on, pleasantly helping the hours pass.

  And when they reached the next stop they found it fully up to expectations. None of them had ever visited New Delhi before, and they judged it fascinating enough to occupy them for three nights. Early one evening Ken and a couple of the others, rambling out of the immediate city, stumbled across an evocative and emotional scene. Within a dustbowl on the plain was situated an Indian army camp – neat, tidy and very Kipling-esque. Against a backcloth of surrounding hills engulfing a huge red setting sun, they sat and watched the lowering of the Union Flag together with the Hindu and Moslem regimental standards of the resident units – all to the haunting sounds of a solitary bugle. They couldn’t help but think of the twenty Indian soldiers who had died at Bekasi, and of the men of that great army with whom the squadron had served for so many years – Muslims and Hindus in apparent harmony. For how long, they wondered, could this continue?

  The answer of course would be ‘not long at all.’ Their next stop was Karachi, and it was to be the last time any of them would see it as an Indian city. Nearby lay the new 31 Squadron’s base at Mauripur, and those replacements would discover only too soon that they would be involved in the very same type of work as their predecessors. Independence and partition, with their attendant unrest, would come within the year, and they would soon be fully occupied ferrying refugees and casualties. The Second World War might have been over by then for some time, but the world was still full of instability as old colonial allegiances and boundaries began to disintegrate under the strain of demands for autonomy. They had seen the beginnings of it in the new Indonesia, and now it was happening again in India – and in what would become Pakistan.

  CHAPTER 31

  Westwards – they continued relentlessly westwards. But the further they progressed the less attractive seemed their night-stops. Or perhaps it was simply that the pull of home was strengthening. Early in their odyssey it had been as though they were hesitant to release themselves from what had become, for many of them, a secure and family-like existence. They had been keen to see the strange and exotic sights that lay on their route; happy to remain in the comforting embrace of their friends. They had been content for their aircraft to crawl across the eastern face of the globe at what seemed a snail’s pace. Now it was as though a powerful magnet set in the English countryside was drawing them ever more powerfully with each passing mile.

  In Sharjah, at the eastern end of the Persian Gulf, they watched an old movie at the open-air cinema under the desert moon – with dozens of other servicemen for company and lots of beer to drink.

  At Shaibah, in Iraq, they queued for allocation of beds – having to wait for others to vacate – before watching an old movie at the open-air cinema under the desert moon. Again with dozens of other servicemen for company and lots of beer to drink. There they also sang the RAF’s desert anthem with the locally-based airmen: ‘When Lord Trenchard saw it, it looked so bloody bare. That’s it, that’s it, he cried; we’ll put the Air Force there!’

  Then at El Adem in Libya they found once again that there was nothing but an old movie at an open-air cinema – and they were by now thoroughly sick of the company of dozens of other servicemen drinking lots of beer – regardless of the desert moon.

  The novelty of the trip was very definitely wearing off. Perhaps they’d just seen enough desert and watched enough old films. More likely they needed the company of someone other than their fellow airmen.

  Their thoughts were increasingly of home and of their next steps. Of long-awaited reunions with loved ones – with wives, families and sweethearts. Hopeful thoughts in the main, although laced with nervousness and with inescapable doubts that all might not be as idyllic as they would wish it to be. Thoughts of the unknown future. Of hoped-for jobs. Of possible new relationships.

  Aircraftman Patterson, perhaps alone amongst them, was content in the knowledge that his future was assured. The Outer Hebrides it might be, but at least he would remain within the enveloping comfort of the military family, and having made his decision to continue his service he felt more contentment now than he’d done for many a long year.

  Ken, at the controls, had further than most to travel. He was resigned to not being home for some weeks yet, and he had no immediate partner to worry about. He could feel relatively relaxed about the immediate future.

  Dusty had another matter on his mind. He’d go back to his school, right enough, but before he did that there was something else he needed to settle. Since first he’d written to John Brimstone’s father following the adjutant’s request for help, he’d remained in intermittent contact with the parents of his dead friend. His initial letter of condolence had been received with overwhelming gratitude, and the immediate reply had overflowed with pent-up emotion. The parents had recounted their shock at receiving the telegram telling of their boy’s death, and of how touched they were by the words in the squadron commander’s following letter.

  They’d told of the call they’d received from an RAF officer who’d been deputed by
the local headquarters to make a visit of condolence. They’d recounted with sadness how he’d been unable – or perhaps unwilling – to tell them any details of how their son had died. They’d stopped short of saying that the man had spoken only platitudes, but Dusty had sensed between the lines of the letter their feelings. The nav could picture that uncomfortable visit and, Lord knows, could feel something akin to sympathy for the unfortunate officer who’d been given the task. Thousands of miles from the event, with no personal knowledge of either the deceased or his family. Probably short of facts, too, although possibly with enough knowledge to lead him to protect the family from the full awfulness of the truth. And almost certainly having a list of similarly awkward visits to make that day. Dusty could feel the difficulty on both sides.

  He knew that the Brimstones were still distraught over the loss of their only child, and had learned that their misery had been doubled when John’s trunk, containing his personal possessions, had arrived. They’d found it had been broken into en-route and rifled of almost all the contents, and when Dusty had received the letter describing that distressing scene the tears had welled up in his eyes.

  Such had been the depth of the friendship developing through their letters that Dusty had had no difficulty in agreeing to their pleas that he should visit following his repatriation. And now his thoughts lingered on the likely nature of their meeting. Emotional? Certainly. Awkward? He couldn’t tell. Heart-warming? Probably. Difficult, he had little doubt. But he knew it was something he wanted to do at the earliest possible date after setting foot on English soil. Not least because he knew it would take much conversation to get through to them the background to their son’s death – to help them find some answer to the question they’d posed many times to him in their letters. Why? Why had their son been killed on what they had believed was a humanitarian mission? The war was surely supposed to be over. So why? How?