by Murray Pura
“You’ve lost a lot of buildings, that’s pretty clear. And I spotted the Spitfire and Hurricane skeletons from the air.”
“Jerry’s made a hash of the place since July. We’ll keep bearing up. We have to, don’t we? But I agree. It does get wearisome.” He sipped his tea. “Finished your toast? Come on. I want to show you something. A short walk. It’ll do us both good to stretch our legs. The Spit’s a fine plane but the cockpit isn’t designed for comfort, is it?”
“No, sir.”
They made their way off the airfield and into the village. Ben took them to the church Sean had seen from the air. It was white and tidy. Only one wall was torn up by machine-gun fire. Next to the church was a graveyard. Set apart from the older headstones were short rows of white crosses with names painted on them in black. Two crosses were set apart from these rows.
“Those two crosses off by themselves are Luftwaffe pilots. The rest are lads from the four squadrons we have here at King’s Cross.” Ben stopped in front of one. “This is your cousin.”
Sean came and stood with Ben. “Flying Officer Peter Sweet. ‘How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle. Second Samuel one twenty-five.’ ”
“It was the vicar here chose the verse.”
“A good choice, Uncle.”
“And we still have the battle to finish that he couldn’t finish for us.”
“Yes, sir.”
They lingered another half minute.
Ben clapped a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Let’s get you back to mother hen.”
As Sean lifted off from King’s Cross, the smoke from the bombing raid on Portsmouth covered the western sky behind him. The sun sank into it and turned the color of crimson. Sean headed east for Kent and Pickering Green. Small stars began to light his path like torches on a runway.
Sunday, September 1, 1940
St. Andrew’s Cross, London
“Please rise for the singing of the hymn.”
Lord Preston stood with Lady Preston at his side. To his right were Albrecht and Catherine and ten-year-old Angelika. Their son, Sean, was at RAF Pickering Green. Next in the pew were Victoria and fifteen-year-old Timothy. Her husband, Ben, was at RAF King’s Cross, and her older son, Ramsay, was in flight training with the RAF. Then it was Caroline and ten-year-old Cecilia Printemp. Caroline’s younger son, Matthew, was also in flight training, and her husband, Kipp, was at Pickering Green with Sean. Beside Lady Preston sat her daughter Libby all by herself, her husband, Terry, at sea on the Hood and her daughter, Jane, in the plotting room at the bunker in Uxbridge. On Libby’s right was another navy family, her brother Edward’s wife, Charlotte, and her children. Edward was serving on HMS Rodney. Sitting with Charlotte was her younger son, Colm Alexander, eleven, and her older son, Owen, who was in the dark blue uniform of an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy. At his side, grasping his hand as everyone in the pew stood, was Eva von Isenburg, the daughter of Baron von Isenburg in Germany.
Next to her, looking miserable, was Caroline’s oldest son, Charles, who stood with a reluctance that was obvious to those sitting beside or behind him. Emma, whose husband entered the pulpit as the singing began, was at Charles’s shoulder. With Peter dead and James flying with Kipp and Sean at Pickering Green, only Emma’s youngest son, Billy, was at her side, dressed in a morning suit and tie, every inch the noble Cambridge student. The row ended with Robbie, widower and youngest son of Lord and Lady Preston, in the full-dress uniform of a colonel in the British Army, and his daughter, Patricia Claire, twelve and tall for her age, holding the hymn-book for both of them.
In the pew behind were Skitt and his wife, Montgomery, and servants from Kensington Gate, including Tavy, the butler, and Mrs. Longstaff the cook. Montgomery held her two-year-old son, Paul, in her arms. Harrison and his wife Holly remained at Ashton Park along with Lady Grace, Lord Preston’s mother.
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
I need Thy presence every passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
Jeremy opened the large Bible that lay before him on the pulpit. “My text is from the book of Judges. It is the story of Gideon’s fight against the Midianites. I am certain you are all familiar with the tale. Gideon’s army is too large, so God reduces it several times, and it is with this small band that the enemy is defeated. The Lord first tells Gideon he must have fewer soldiers in chapter seven, verse two: ‘And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.’ Twenty-two thousand are cut from the ranks. But there are still ten thousand ready to do battle with the Midianites. So God tells Gideon in verse four, ‘The people are yet too many.’ And the ranks are thinned again. Now there are only three hundred. It is with this three hundred that the Lord defeats the mighty army of the Midianites and Amalekites and all the children of the East who, we are told in verse twelve, ‘lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude.’ ”
Jeremy removed his round glasses. He looked out from his pulpit high above a congregation that filled every pew. For several moments he didn’t speak.
“The Lord works His miracles. But not without us. Not without His church, not without His people. We are the hands and feet, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the head. We need a miracle as big as Gideon’s, don’t we? Our nation is besieged from the air. The numbers we have to resist the enemy are scarcely more than Gideon had. Our pilots cannot do it alone. Yet they must do what they can. As they do what they can, so God shall intervene and do what only He is able to do.”
Jeremy tapped the Bible.
“We must have a Judges chapter seven story going on in these islands. We must pray for it; we must cry out for it. Our pilots and sailors and soldiers are only flesh and blood. Dunkerque was a miracle we sorely needed for our army. Now we must have another in the air. And I tell you this, and I believe it with all my heart—before all is said and done we shall require yet a third miracle from the Almighty on the high seas. But today it is the miracle in the skies we must have in order for Britain to survive, and not only Britain, but Europe, the cradle of Christian civilization.” He extended his arm and pointed at the ceiling. “Right now, our pilots are fighting. Right now, our pilots are dying. We sing hymns and their burning aircraft sing their death songs. The airfields are bombed, the convoys are bombed, the ports, the factories, even the streets of Bethnal Green in East London. Where will it end?”
Jeremy lifted the heavy Bible up in both his hands.
“What the Germans do will not decide the fate of nations. It is what the Lord does and it is what we do in accordance with His will. So join me in prayer now for our country, join me in prayer for Gideon and his small band in their winged chariots, join me in crying out for our deliverance from the locusts. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen” rippled through the church and along the pew of Lord and Lady Preston and their family. Only Charles sealed his lips. Only Charles refused to bow his head or close his eyes.
Sunday, September 1, 1940, 12:00 noon
RAF Pickering Green, Kent
The phone in the hut at the side of the runway began to ring. It was picked up immediately by a corporal.
James was in the middle of describing a fight with two Me 109s to Prescott, the intelligence officer.
; Kipp was biting into a roast beef sandwich.
Sean was coming from the Mess, carrying a tray with a pot of tea and seven or eight cups.
The corporal thrust his head out of the hut window. “Scramble!”
“You must be joking!” Kipp protested. “That’s the third one and it’s just noon!”
“They’re coming for us, sir. Hundred plus Ju 88s and Messerschmitts going like the devil for Pickering Green and Hornchurch and Biggin Hill.”
“A second bombing run against us?”
“They never tell me much, sir, but they did this time. Jerry’s on his way.”
“Get a kite up!” shouted Kipp, eating his sandwich and running at the same time. “They’re hitting our airfield again!”
Swansbury and Evans snatched cups and filled them with tea as Sean stood holding the tray. James scooped up a handful of crumpets and stuffed them in the pockets of his Irvin flying jacket. Patrick took the pot and two cups.
“Fancy having a cuppa with your girl up there, Pat?” shouted Sean as they both sprinted for their planes.
“The other cup’s for my angel. I’d never have lived so long but for my angel.”
Sean was no sooner in his cockpit and tucking a blue polka-dot scarf inside his uniform collar when dirt and stone flew upward in a huge explosion at the end of the runway. Then another. And another. He saw Swansbury take off. Dirt showered the Spitfires taxiing behind and beside him. A stone cracked the front of his windscreen.
“Chocks away, sir.”
Sean waved a hand. “Thanks, Higgins.”
He opened the throttle for a short liftoff. Bombs were exploding all around his plane. He saw James make his way through the blasts and into the air, and Kipp and Patrick too. Patrick’s Spitfire had four swastikas painted under the picture of the devil and his pitchfork. Sean’s ground crew had painted three on his. He got off the ground at the same time as Evans, and they glanced at each other, canopies still open. Evans gave him a thumbs-up.
Tuesday, September 3, 1940, 10:00 a.m.
Kensington Gate, London
“Lord Preston. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Albrecht came through the French doors into the backyard.
“Not at all. No time is wasted if you employ it in a manner suited to the occasion. How often do I sit on this bench here? Only when you and I meet. So I look forward to gazing at the trees and hedges and watching the robins and larks.” He smiled at Albrecht. “Have you heard from Sean?”
“Pickering Green has been bombed every day. On Sunday they went after it three times altogether. The phone lines have been cut time and time again. We did manage to hear from him last night. He was allowed a sixty-second call from the green grocer’s shop in the village. That’s where the air base has their communications now.”
“He’s well then?”
“Yes. Kipp and James too.”
“Praise the Lord for that.” Lord Preston rubbed his eyes. “We always have much to pray about, you and I, Albrecht. But I would like to begin with a request for a spot of theological insight from you.”
“If I can help in any way at all, of course.”
“I want to pray for some sort of miracle for the RAF. But just as we prayed for a miracle at Dunkerque and were able to rescue most of the troops, it didn’t mean there would be no hardship or difficulties. Indeed, ships were sunk and men killed, and we left behind tanks and trucks and ammunition enough to outfit whole divisions. There were two sides to the coin. Yet I should rather have had Dunkerque, warts and all, than to not have had it and seen the whole British Army captured or destroyed.”
“Yes, Lord Preston, I agree.”
“Nor did the miracle at Dunkerque end the affair. For now we have the air raids and are praying for a second miracle, despite the rescue God granted us when we retrieved our soldiers from the beaches.”
Albrecht nodded. “Ja.”
“So my question is this. If I pray fervently for the RAF and their ability to withstand the onslaught of Nazi bombers and fighters, and a sort of Dunkerque is brought about by divine grace where the British pilots and aircraft are saved, where will the burden of the war go next? From the beaches at Dunkerque it went into the air over southern England, principally against our shipping, airfields, and aircraft factories. If the burden of war moves away from the RAF airfields and factories, where will it go? For it has to go somewhere—unless Germany surrenders, which the Third Reich is unlikely to do. Or unless we surrender, which is unthinkable.”
Albrecht looked down at the grass between his feet, thinking.
“It is, you see, a matter of some urgency.” Lord Preston brought a slip of paper from his coat pocket. “We have been losing too many pilots. It takes two months to train the lads, and we are not replacing them quickly enough. Now there is a move to trim the training even further. If we do that, I fear the youngsters we will be putting into mortal combat will be able to do little more than land and take off.”
“I understand.”
“There is also the matter of replacing aircraft, both Hurricanes and Spitfires. For a good while we have been able to keep up with the losses. But now the Germans are attacking the factories that build the fighters.” Lord Preston squinted at the figures on the piece of paper. “We lost three hundred aircraft in August. We’ve replaced only a little more than two hundred and fifty of them. So we are falling behind, you see. This week is looking as bad or worse than last week in terms of pilots and airplanes lost. Heaven knows what the figures will be, but we are losing ground, Albrecht. If it keeps up we shall come to the point where we can no longer defend ourselves in the air. Then the invasion will be launched. Then Britain will be conquered.”
Albrecht got to his feet and began to pace. “If the Lord sees fit He can certainly rescue the RAF just as He did the British Expeditionary Force. You are quite right that this will be bring blessings but also challenges. Where will the burden of war shift? The sea, I think. Unless…”
“Unless what? Speak up, man.”
Albrecht shook his head. “I have never forgotten Spain and Guernica, what the German bombers did to civilian populations. I have not forgotten how they used incendiaries on Warsaw. Or how they flattened Rotterdam in Holland.” He sat back down on the bench. “God is no monster. The devil is the monster. If Satan is thwarted at one thing he will try another. If his plans are spoiled at Dunkerque he will go after the British soldiers and the RAF in Britain itself. If he is thwarted there then he will go after something else he can defeat. Our navy, perhaps. Or our cities.”
“He has already gone after both.”
“He will assault the Royal Navy with a greater viciousness. He will go after the cities with a fury we have not seen in this country. No, we have not seen Rotterdam in this land or Guernica or Warsaw. Not yet.”
“That would be a tragedy.”
“God will give us the means to resist.”
Lord Preston closed his eyes. “This nightmare could be stopped with a surrender. Our surrender.”
“That would not end the nightmare.”
“No. I expect not. If there were no evil in men’s hearts, if there were no immoral inclinations at all, then we should have a better world without having to fight for it.”
Albrecht laced his fingers together. “Our world is a strange mix of heaven’s will, the will of men and women—which can incline to either the good or the bad—the apparently random acts of volcanoes and earthquakes and hurricanes and asteroids, and the wicked designs of great evil. Ultimately you and I believe in the triumph of the cross and the resurrection. We believe that the righteous will of God shall prevail. But not without a battle.”
His eyes grew darker and darker as he spoke. Suddenly he stood up and began to pace again, a short distance back and forth, as if he were behind a lectern at a university.
“At Dunkerque it was the German decision to wait several days,” he continued. “During that respite we acted. The weather favored the rescue of British and French and Canadian soldie
rs. Can you imagine what would have happened if there had been a storm in the Channel? We decided to fight on, so we did what we could to bring our troops home to England and we felt that God was with us. Everything came together to bless us. But every answer to prayer, as I have said, brings fresh challenges as well as fresh blessings. The Germans’ will was to pursue us to England. Our will was not to surrender to them. As a result of that clash of wills, the war came to British soil and British skies, and it is still here. Hell would have us defeated. Heaven, we believe, would have us delivered. Fine weather favors the German bombers but it also favors the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the RAF. This mix of wills and weather produces the battle that is being waged above us right now.”
“If I pray for the German will to be thwarted, if I pray for the plans of Hitler and Goering and the Luftwaffe to come to nothing against the RAF, am I then shifting the war to another part of our country or our armed forces, neither of which may be able to weather it better than our pilots and air crews?”
“You haven’t the power to shift it anywhere, Lord Preston. You only have the power to call upon God’s will. If the Germans are thwarted in Kent and West Suffolk, we shall thank God, shall we not? But then the Germans will move in another direction, they shall will something else against us, and we shall pray that this new scheme also be stopped, and call upon heaven to defend us. Hell and Hitler shall do their utmost to defeat our will and the will of the Lord. God and England and her allies shall do their utmost to defeat the will of the Nazis and their dark legions. When all is said and done, and we see everything from the perspective of eternity, it shall be obvious how God’s will and God’s hand were over all things. But for now we fight back against wickedness and cry out for the Lord’s help. Sometimes we see things clearly, and other times, when we taste defeat or death, we do not.” Albrecht shook his head and laughed. “The lecture makes much better sense in German.”
Lord Preston smiled. “It makes sense to me. Many wills are in conflict. We must discern God’s will and side with that, no matter what the consequences. I believe He wants the Luftwaffe defeated in the south of England, so I shall continue to pray vigorously to that end. Once the Luftwaffe is stopped there it will turn somewhere else and start a new attack. When that happens I shall pray with every fiber of my being the new attack be defeated as well. I will never stop praying and resisting until the entire Third Reich and its evil schemes are brought to an end. No matter how long the clash of wills takes place, I will be part of it, and I shall cry out to the living God that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
