by Conor Bender
“Bugger.”
He set the Spitfire on a glide path and looked down at the Channel, he could glide for roughly four miles, but would have to ditch soon after to deploy the parachute. He scanned the horizon, searching in vain for any sign of a boat.
Faraday queued his mic and desperately tried to hail any search and recovery boats in the area, but was only met with silence. After what felt like an all too quick four miles of gliding, there was still no sign of a rescuer.
“Christ, this is it,” Faraday groaned. He leveled out the aircraft, opened the canopy, and clambered out on the wing. The wind buffeted him, nearly knocking him off his feet, but he kept his balance.
Faraday looked out over the wing and eyed the white crests of the waves. The sea was rough, and, without question, cold. He stared out at the frigid water, the knowledge that he most likely would freeze to death terrifying him.
He looked back at the cockpit and wondered if he could land the Spitfire in the ocean, and decided to give it a try. As he turned around to move back to the cockpit, a jolt of turbulence jarred the aircraft, breaking Faraday’s grip on the airframe and pushing him off the wing. Faraday hung in the air for a moment, completely confused, but he quickly recovered and pulled the rip cord to his parachute.
The chute caught the wind and he started to slowly glide down into the chilling blue Channel. He looked around and watched as his plane crashed into the water, breaking apart on impact.
His descent was slow, making his splash in the water all the more nerve-racking. He prayed a fishing trawler or even a German U-boat would appear. As Faraday hung in the air another thought entered his mind that made him nearly soil himself: sharks. What if instead of freezing to death he was eaten alive by some invisible monster? His mind was transfixed on the thought of some unseen mouth coming up from the black depths of the Channel and tearing through his legs with no warning. The thought terrified him so much that he didn’t realize he was about to enter the water until his head submerged.
The water was as cold as Faraday expected. He shuddered as his body hit the water and couldn’t breathe from the shock of the frosty sea. As fast as he could, he moved to get out from under his chute, its shroud threatening to drown him.
He quickly inflated his Mae West and looked around. Waves bounced him up and down, bobbing him around as he curled his legs up tight to his chest to conserve body heat. His teeth chattered and his body shook uncontrollably. As the cold seeped into his bones, Faraday replayed over and over in his head the dogfight. Why did I have us hit them head-on? he wondered. Had we just waited and let the ME109s catch up we could have gone into a high roll. We could have gotten behind them without giving them a shot! Faraday shook his head and grunted. He couldn’t help but question his decision. After all, it was the reason he was floating in the Channel freezing to death.
Two hours ticked by before Faraday was finally picked up. When he was pulled out of the water his face was a deep tinge of blue. Wrapped in blankets and guzzling hot tea, it took Faraday nearly four hours to stop shaking.
“You’re one of the lucky ones,” an old toothless sailor said, as he handed Faraday a fresh cup of tea.
“How’s that?”
“Normally we just recover bodies. We don’t always conduct rescues.”
“Thanks for that cheery bit of information.”
The sailor scurried away under Faraday’s glare, and resumed his duties on the deck. Faraday rode the rest of the way home in silence, save for the occasional groan of pain as feeling returned to his arms and legs.
“Your arms hurt?” the sailor asked.
“Like they’re on fire.”
“That’s good, means warm blood is circulating through your limbs and thawing them out. It’ll hurt like hell for a couple hours, but it’s supposed to.”
“Fantastic,” Faraday mumbled, and resumed his silence. When he arrived at his airfield at RAF Martlesham Heath, Stokes and Tombs were eagerly waiting for him.
“Catch anything while you were in the Channel?” Tombs asked cheekily.
“Just pneumonia.”
“The old man wants to see you.”
Faraday looked over at the ready room and back at his two protégés. “Any trouble on your way across the Channel?”
“None, thanks to you.”
Faraday nodded silently while Tombs and Stokes exchanged an uneasy look. “Boss we . . .” Tombs hesitated, his voice thick with emotion.
“We thought we lost you,” Stokes finished.
Faraday nodded to them, not trusting his voice. What he had done was incredibly thickheaded. Who the bloody hell sacrifices themselves for others in real life? That stuff was for the silver screen. Unsure of what to say, he gave a thin smile and shrugged. “You nearly did.”
Stokes bit down on his lip and stayed silent while Tombs grunted and averted his eyes.
“Thanks for getting us home.”
Faraday gave an understanding nod. “Best not dwell on it.” He was as eager as they were to let it go, more even. He could venture a guess that until five minutes ago, they had thought they had lost their flight leader in an act of selfless heroism. He could tell by Tombs’s bleary eyes and Stokes’s hoarse voice that his presumed death had extracted a heavy toll. He patted them on the shoulder and started toward the ready room. “Oh, and lads, if either of you are stupid enough to question my order to scatter again, I’ll ground you in a heartbeat. Daft heroic acts are reserved for your flight leader and flight leader only, understood?”
Stokes and Tombs chuckled and bobbed their heads. “Understood, sir.”
Faraday nodded and kept walking. As he strode across the grass a handful of pilots gave him soft praise.
“You got bigger balls than Leigh-Mallory.”
“Well done, old boy.”
“You’re a mad geezer.”
Faraday gave a polite smile and tried not to make a big deal out of it. As he got closer to the ready room, stuffed couches and flimsy chairs littered the grass around the shack where pilots lounged in a standby status. The chairs were beginning to show mold as rain started to pick up with the end of autumn.
“Hello, Ian, nice to have you back with us!” Clyde Baker, Victor Flight’s Australian Flight leader, called to him from the comfort of one of the armchairs.
Victor Flight lounged in the grass and chairs around their leader and jeered Faraday with mock congratulations for his amphibious landing.
“How’s the water this time of year?”
“Bloody cold.”
“That was daring, to say the least.”
“Didn’t have any better ideas,” Faraday called over his shoulder.
“Yeah, well next time, try and make landfall,” Clyde shouted as Faraday walked into the shack.
“Is he in?” Faraday asked the clerk in the outer room.
The outer office of the shack was no bigger than a shed someone kept gardening tools in. It consisted of a window to the outside, and sitting next to it a flying officer whose head was permanently attached to a telephone listening for the order to scramble the pilots for takeoff, as well as a clerk who assisted the squadron leader with the mundane paperwork necessary to run the squadron.
“Go on in, sir, he’s waiting for you,” the clerk said.
Faraday nodded and knocked on the door.
“Enter,” a muffled voice behind the door called.
Faraday opened the door and started to march toward the desk.
“Oh, please, just sit down in the damn chair.” Squadron Leader Michael King impatiently motioned toward a chair that looked like it wouldn’t support Faraday’s 180-pound frame. “You look like shit.”
Faraday sat down hard in the chair and chuckled, “You ever go in the drink?”
“Twice, at Dunkirk and during the Battle of Britain.”
“Well, maybe if I do it one more time they’ll promote me.”
King’s face tightened. “I do
hope that’s not a dig at me being the youngest squadron leader in the wing.”
Faraday grinned. “Never, it was more a dig at you being a prize pupil of Air Vice-Marshal Park.”
“You tosspot,” King said icily.
“Oh, relax, Mike. You know I’m kidding, and no one thinks that, especially here in 71,” Faraday said with a wave of his hand. He reached into his pocket and fished out a carton of cigarettes and plucked one out. He placed it between his lips, but hesitated.
King looked at him in bemusement.
Faraday pulled the cigarette from his lips and threw it and the carton in the waste bin next to King’s desk. “Still waterlogged,” Faraday explained.
King chuckled softly. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out another carton and tossed it to him.
“Thanks.” Faraday caught it, pulled a fag out, quickly lit it and inhaled deeply.
“Good to see you in one piece.”
“Nice to be seen at all after that, sir.”
“The operations officer will debrief you, but I wanted to see how you were first.”
Faraday took a heavy draw on his cigarette before responding, “I’m fine, sir.”
King leaned back in his chair and eyed Faraday coolly. “Jolly good, stiff upper lip and all that, but I’d honestly be worried if you were okay.” King knew the look on Faraday’s face all too well. Faraday was mentally exhausted but refused to tell anyone.
“When was the last time you had a day off?”
“About a month ago when I went to a meeting in London with you.”
King nodded; he figured as much. He had watched Faraday cross the flight line and had observed his interactions with the other pilots. He was levelheaded and in control but King could see he was close to cracking.
“How many missions have you been flying a day?”
Faraday squirmed in his seat at the line of questioning. “Oh, not nearly as much as the rest of the lads, I’d reckon.”
King wordlessly pulled a file from one of his desk drawers and thumbed through it to Faraday’s flight file. He silently scrolled through the flight logs and found what he was looking for. “Ian, you’ve been flying at least a mission a day for the past three months and have lost three of your flight in the last two weeks. You have over three hundred hours more flight time than the next flight leader and over six hundred hours more than the next one.”
“What are you saying? You think I’ve lost my nerve?” Faraday couldn’t believe what he was hearing, it was one thing for him to question himself, but another to be questioned by King. “I just sacrificed my aircraft to save my flight, and ditched into the Channel and froze my ass off for two hours; I don’t think I’ve lost my edge.”
King held his hands up in surrender and changed tactics. “Calm down, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you’ve been going out daily running rhubarb and rodeo sweeps of France, and you’re one of the few that has beaten the life expectancy curve for pilots running missions in France. That makes you valuable. I’ve submitted your name and it has been approved for you to become an instructor up with 13 Group at RAF Turnhouse near Edinburgh.”
“What?”
“Stokes and Tombs are as ready as they are going to get. We’re getting a new crop of pilots and I’m sick of watching half of them die before the other half becomes competent enough to make a difference.” King leaned forward in his chair and locked eyes with Faraday, the timbre in his voice changing, “I’m sending you north so the new pilots we get won’t be as inexperienced as we both were when we went into our first dogfight all those months ago.”
Faraday absently toyed with a worn button on his navy blue tunic and eyed King for a long moment. “The Squadron is losing all her Americans.”
King placed his fingertips together and nodded slowly. “Command is reshuffling the Squadrons. We don’t have as many Americans as we once did, and I doubt we will be getting more. You all will stay in the Eagle Squadrons, but more and more of British pilots will be entering the ranks. Especially Aussies and Kiwis.”
“Great. More characters like Clyde.”
“Yeah, I tried to send him away but he’s like that damn boomerang he plays with. Always comes back.”
Faraday finished his cigarette and tossed it in the waist bin. “When do I leave?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Anything else?”
“You may want to get your uniform serviced; that button you play with isn’t the only one that looks like it’s about to fall off. Come by in the morning and we’ll have a copy of orders for you.”
“Will do, sir.” Faraday stood up and brought himself to the position of attention, stamped his foot and saluted and departed the office. He walked out of the ready shack and found Stokes and Tombs loitering outside.
“Well?” Tombs asked.
“I’ve got orders for RAF Turnhouse to begin instructing students. I depart tomorrow.”
“What? What about Ulster Flight?” Stokes asked.
“We didn’t discuss it, but Tombs will be taking over. You’ll be getting a new batch of pilots soon so you’ll have to teach them everything I taught you.”
Tombs and Stokes exchanged an uneasy look.
“Hey,” Faraday said sharply, “you both are ready. I’ve taught you everything I know and you don’t need me to babysit you. It’s time for you to do the same for the new pilots.”
Both Tombs and Stokes shook their heads slowly. “Damn,” Tombs said softly. He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair. “What now?”
“I’ve got to go debrief, but I’ll meet you at the pub.” Faraday nodded to the pair of them and started to make his way toward the operations building.
Tombs and Stokes watched him walk away in disbelief, the news hitting them like a ton of bricks.
“Christ, we’re in trouble now,” Stokes said, punching Tombs’s arm.
Tombs nodded uncertainly, the thought of taking over the flight making him queasy.
“Come on, we better go pass the word,” Stokes said, gesturing to the crowd of pilots watching intently from their lawn chairs.
Faraday turned and watched them from the doorway of the debrief room as Clyde Baker started to interrogate them. Although Tombs thought he wasn’t ready, Faraday was confident he would make a good flight leader. Both he and Stokes were some of the better rookies in the squadron. Rookies. Faraday snorted. I guess they aren’t that anymore. Today’s engagement had been their fourth dogfight, and fifth rodeo sweep of Normandy. Between that, and the six rhubarb missions they had done to interdict German targets of opportunity, they were more than ready.
Faraday smirked as Clyde started to argue with Tombs. The Aussie’s arms flailed angrily about as he shouted at Tombs. But Tombs stood his ground. Faraday guessed that Tombs had just told him that he was going to be taking over Ulster Flight. Clyde continued to shout and work his arms vigorously, but Tombs seemed unperturbed.
Faraday watched a few seconds longer and smiled. Tombs’s first challenge as a flight leader would be earning the other flight leaders’ respect, and by his body language and how angry Clyde was getting, Faraday could tell he had made the right decision in picking Tombs.
He turned from the doorway and continued into the debrief room. He still couldn’t believe his luck. The thought of being sent north and leaving the squadron was a bitter one, but it was quickly overwhelmed by the relief that he wasn’t going to be in aerial combat for a while. He was secretly happy he was being sent north. He would never admit it publicly, but he was burned out. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a respite from the war.
“Faraday, take a seat.” The Operations Officer pointed to the lone chair in front of his shoddy, weathered desk and started to scribble down a quick set of notes. “Alright, let’s get this over with, quick and as painless as you like.”
The debrief went smoothly and lasted only an
hour. The Operations Officer asked the usual questions: “How high were you flying? At what speed? At what time did you engage the enemy? What did you see on your patrol?” It was tedious, but it helped the Operations Officer construct an image from all the pilots’ debriefs. Each debrief was like a puzzle piece the Operations Officer could use to build a picture.
Fortunately for Faraday, Tombs and Stokes had provided a very clear sight picture of their mission earlier so there were only a few questions Faraday had to answer. When the debrief finished, Faraday made his way back to his room at the local inn. He changed into a set of warm clothes and turned the sink on. He dunked his head under the hot water and groaned in pleasure. He stood there for a few minutes musing about his future as the water’s warmth seeped into his skull.
He could hardly believe that he was transferring. The shock of it still hadn’t worn off. He pulled his head from the sink and studied himself in the mirror. The youthful Princeton student who had traveled to England in search of adventure was gone. He was only 23, but he looked closer to 30. His face hadn’t particularly aged, but it was thinner and sharper from the lack of sleep and a proper diet. He had been fighting for nearly a year and already he felt like a changed man. He had killed and seen friends killed. He had watched helplessly as friends burned alive, listening to the radio like a helpless bystander as they screamed and moaned as fire burned through their cockpits and they spiraled down to the earth in a fiery pillar of smoke and metal. Faraday had seen all of this, and the thought of taking a respite from the war was such an enticingly sweet dream that Faraday rarely permitted himself to think of it. Now hearing that this dream may become a temporary reality brought a thin smile to his face. He finished with the sink, toweled off and reached for his bomber jacket and made his way to the pub.
As he walked through the door he was greeted with the raucous sound of what could only be the entire squadron packed into the tiny, dark establishment. A beer was thrust into his hands before he was fully through the door.
