Trial By Fire

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  He looked up and saw Roger’s Blenheim under attack again. It was losing height and the upper gunner was no longer firing. Two figures tumbled out of it. James’s Hurricane shuddered under the impact of bullets. Oil spurted from the engine and obscured the windscreen. He wrenched his canopy open. The two men who had jumped from the Blenheim were dangling under opened parachutes. The Hurricane bucked as more shells hit it. James felt the heat from his burning engine and saw flames through the oil-blackened perspex in front of him. He undid his straps, half-rolled, knew once again the fear of being sliced in half by his own tail unit, then found himself turning over and over while he counted before pulling the ripcord.

  He and the two men from the Blenheim were falling safely to thee west of the Germans, near La Panne and the 7th Guards Brigade. A few minutes later he was stepping free of his harness and walking towards his cousin.

  “Hello, Roger. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  “I thought it was you, James. I’m afraid they got my second dicky; but let me introduce my Wop/A.G., Sergeant Devonshire.”

  * * *

  On 12th June, with almost the last of the retreating British forces, James flew his Hurricane back to Stanswick. He had a score of nine confirmed victories in France to add to his first Heinkel, three probables and six damaged.

  He was allowed seven days’ leave.

  SEVEN

  Christopher Fenton had been commissioned pilot officer and sent to an Operational Training Unit in Yorkshire. For several weeks he had been more interested in events in France than in his own work. He was impatient to see his brother.

  A few days after rejoining the squadron from leave James flew up North to visit him. He had talked with him on the telephone and although Christopher had been scathing about the Airspeed Oxford trainer on which he had done his conversion course to twin-engined aircraft, in — unfair — comparison with the Hurricanes from which authority had torn him away, there was guarded, not entirely grudging, praise in what he said about the comparatively new Beaufort, which had entered squadron service two months after the war began.

  James had never seen a Beaufort except in photographs in The Aeroplane or Flight. He spotted his first one when he was within a few miles of the O.T.U.; and thought that it had clean lines and an aggressive look. From a blunt nose of which the upper part was perspex, the fuselage faired up to a cockpit which also had a generous amount of visibility. An enclosed area behind the pilot ended in a twin-gun turret which was level with the trailing edges of the wing roots. From there it faired down to a sturdy rear fuselage ending in a graceful but workmanlike tail unit.

  Orbiting the aerodrome before joining the circuit, James saw more of them and waited until the air space was clear. A visiting Hurricane from a front-line squadron would be expected to put up a show. He made an inverted run across the airfield, rolled upright, made a steeply banked turn, and, when over the centre of the field, shot up in three climbing rolls — upward Charlies — from which he stall turned into a dive. Then up again into a perfectly symmetrical loop; followed by another: this time to half-roll at the top and pull through in a vertical dive aimed at the middle of the field. He pulled out, made a final low pass, swept round the circuit and landed. Christopher, shaking hands, grinned and said “You needn’t have rubbed it in. I’m envious enough as it is.”

  “Don’t you like the Beaufort at all?”

  “It’ll only do two sixty-five at its best and I miss the aerobatics. But it has its points, I admit.”

  “What kind of ops have the Beaufort squadrons been doing?”

  “Not much my cup of tea. Mostly mine-dropping along the Jerry coast and river estuaries. But they’ve been doing a spot of bombing as well. The maximum load is normally fifteen hundred pounds, but one of them dropped the first two thousand-pounder a few weeks ago. That doesn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm, but we can carry an eighteen-inch torpedo and that might be rather fun. Unfortunately it’s slung outside the bomb bay, so it cuts our speed down to two twenty-five. But if I’ve got to reconcile myself to Coastal Command instead of Fighter, I’d rather fire torps than drop bombs.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the pilot’s job. Bombs are aimed by the observer. Also, you can see straight away whether you’ve made a good shot. Sometimes you can’t tell where your bombs have fallen: I’m not talking about the bombing range, but apparently on ops its damn difficult to tell.”

  “I can believe that. I’ve seen quite a lot of bombs dropped lately. Usually, there are too many released at the same time and the bombers are in too much of a hurry to get away, to be sure whose bombs are which when they explode.”

  “Lucky chap.” For an instant James recognised in his brother’s eyes a look he had known well when Christopher was a small boy and had to face disappointment about something on which he had set his heart. “I’d have given anything to be finished training in time to go to France on a fighter squadron. I’d give anything to get to a fighter O.T.U. now, instead of this place.”

  “I know.” James said it with heart-felt sympathy. He wished he could do something to help. “But putting you on Beauforts is obviously intended as a compliment. I wouldn’t know how to get one of the damn things off the ground.”

  “Next best thing: I’ve got leave to take you up. I’ve been shooting a hell of a line about you to the C.F.I. I’ve been searching every copy of the Gazette and the newspapers: can’t understand why you haven’t got your D.F.C. yet. What more do they want than ten confirmed?”

  “It’s not automatic, you know! No gongs have been gazetted yet for the squadron: I suppose they’re in the pipeline.” It was not a subject James felt comfortable pursuing, so he changed it. “Are you crewed up yet?”

  “Yes. I’ve got a proper observer, a jeep and an air gunner. Either the wireless op or the observer mans the two front guns. They’re all good types. You’ll meet Ronnie Brinsden, my observer, in the mess at lunch. He’s got his commission too.”

  “Are those two Browning or Vickers you’ve got in the upper turret? Or d’you call it the rear turret?”

  “Dorsal, actually. It’s supposed to cover us from a quarter attack from above. All our guns are Brownings, the two in the nose as well.”

  At lunch James found three acquaintances from his early days in the Service, among the instructors. Only one of them had made any operational trips. They all plied him with questions about the fighting in France. Afterwards he contrived to get the operationally experienced instructor, a flight lieutenant called Arthur Gorman, on his own for a few minutes.

  “You probably know that Christopher was dead keen to get on fighters.”

  Gorman laughed. “Yes! It must have been a big disappointment, but he’s taken it very well.”

  “Good. He’s a bit puzzled about why he was picked out for twins.”

  “It wasn’t so much that. He was earmarked as a suitable type for low-level anti-shipping strikes. And the squadrons that do them happen to fly twins.” Gorman hesitated as though he had been about to add something but had thought better of it.

  “I’ve never actually heard of low-level anti-shipping strikes. Something new?”

  “Attacking ships with torpedoes isn’t new, as you know. But doing it the way we are now that we’ve got the Beaufort is a new...technique...or should I say a new syle of operating.”

  “What makes my kid brother so suitable for it?”

  Gorman studied him for a moment ; then sounded, James thought, a trifle reluctant. “I stayed on the squadron for only a fairly short time after we got our Beauforts, and I didn’t have the chance to do many ops.” He paused again. “But they’re quite hairy, you know. The flying training schools are looking for people who, first and foremost, have the qualities which would normally guarantee them going to a fighter squadron. You know what I mean: types who are a bit split-arsed...who show dash, as the Service likes to say...press-on-types. Dammit, James, what the hell am I trying to find words for? You’re a
fighter boy, you know what a bunch of mad sods...you know what I mean...a reckless pilot is a bloody menace, but to make a success of flying fighters a chap has to be different from someone who’s going to make the best kind of bomber boy. Anyway, your brother is considered to show the right spirit, shall we say. On top of that, anyone selected for this kind of training has to show above-average flying aptitude, so that he can adapt quickly to flying twin-engined aeroplanes. Q.E.D.” Gorman smiled suddenly, as though he had shed a burden.

  He had, in fact, shifted something of a load onto James’s shoulders. James had some idea now of what his young brother was in for. And the less their parents knew about it, the better.

  “Thanks, Arthur. I’ll chew him up if I hear him moaning, and tell him he’s damn lucky.”

  “Yes, James, you do that.” Gorman did not smile this time, and there was a wary look in his eyes as James’s held them.

  Christopher and his observer were waiting to take James out to what Christopher said was the best Beaufort on the station, for a ride. It was endearingly obvious to James that Christopher was bursting with delight at being able to sit in the pilot’s seat and have his elder brother as a passenger.

  James had taken an immediate liking to Brinsden, who was short, slight, apple-cheeked and looked to be about Christopher’s age. He wore the observer’s badge, a white silk “O” with a single wing. Between the wars the number of non-pilot observers had dwindled but were now being much augmented. Brinsden had a merry eye but a quiet, rather reserved manner. James felt he would be a steadying influence on the impetuous Christopher. He knew also that if Ronnie Brinsden was a quiet sort, his young brother was filled with enough mischief for two normal young men. He did not think the crew’s overall reputation would be one of reserve. He was even more convinced when he met the two sergeants. One was a black-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy-faced Irishman, Tom Doyle, who was as bow-legged as L.A.C. Swallow, looked incomplete without a horse under him and had the general cut of a sporting farmer; which he had been before the war. Sergeant Doyle looked as though there were no obstacle over which he would not attempt to jump his hunter; drunk or sober, and probably as often the one as the other. The second sergeant was a regular whose basic trade was armourer. His name was Fred Curran and he came from Somerset, which was evident to anyone who heard him speak a dozen words: his Rs had a rare richness, he called an airfield an “Urr-f’ yuld”, and he faced life’s tribulations with a look of quizzical impertinence in his sharp grey eyes. In build he somewhat resembled a cube, for he had square shoulders, a pouting chest and stood no more than five feet three inches to which his boots added a necessary something. He and Doyle were both wireless operator-air gunners but it was his primary duty to man the dorsal turret while Doyle’s was at the wireless set and Morse key.

  When Christopher’s crew stood in line at his side, it struck James that not one of them was taller than Christopher’s shoulder. It gave him an urge to chuckle, which he suppressed. If anything could be calculated to impress his responsibilities on Christopher it was this fact that he stood a head taller than any of his command. As he was the youngest of them, there was an added incongruity about it. With a touch of officiousness that James had never seen him display before, Christopher ordered his men aboard, sent Brinsden into the nose of the aircraft and told James where he could position himself: which was beside the captain’s seat, as Christopher made a point of calling it.

  During the next thirty minutes Christopher gave an ample demonstration of his skills as a Beaufort pilot, from a series of corkscrew dives to port and starboard in simulation of evasive action under fighter attack, to a mad, spray-spattered five minutes over the sea with the wavetops never more than five feet beneath the tips of their propeller blades: during which James, to Christopher’s evident gratification, complained that his feet were getting wet!

  Christopher watched his brother depart later that afternoon, after another brief but highly polished display of aerobatics, with a mixture of sadness — home was a long way from Yorkshire and James had brought a taste of it — envy and curiosity: what was it that James and Flight Lieutenant Gorman had talked about so privately? Above all, what had Gorman said? No matter, he would find out for himself soon enough. In another few weeks they would be joining a squadron. In the meanwhile he was determined to become the best torpedo aimer on the course; and to pursue a promising acquaintanceship with a sloe-eyed W.A.A.F. corporal in the Parachute section, whose soft Highland brogue was as powerful an attraction to him as the sexual promise she conveyed by her shyly flirtatious glances.

  * * *

  When Roger Hallowes saw the announcement of James’s D.F.C. in The Times it was his turn to telephone congratulations to him and felicitations to James’s parents, his Aunt Sheila and Uncle Stephen.

  “What news of Christopher?”

  “I saw him the day before yesterday. He’s at O.T.U.: on Beauforts. He took me up and gave me a hair-raising half-hour.”

  “Is he still sick about not getting fighters?”

  “‘Fraid so: but I think it’ll wear off.”

  “I expect it will.” Roger would not have cared to say more on the subject even if he were in the security of a face-to-face conversation with James. He had seen something, and heard more, of what the Beaufort crews were doing on the other side of the North Sea; and was glad that he was not among them.

  “He’ll get some leave when he finishes his course. We ought all to meet in London for a night out.”

  “I second that. Try to give me a couple of weeks’ warning: it’s a bit tricky getting a forty-eight these days.”

  James understood what Roger was implying. He had a new second pilot to break in, a replacement for the one who had been killed over Furnes four weeks ago.

  “I’ll ask Christopher if he knows his end of course date yet, and pass it on to you. So, see you in The Smoke in a few weeks.”

  Walking away from the mess telephone box, Roger reflected on the last time he had been looking forward to spending 48 hours in London. Daphne’s suggestion that they should get away from Baxton for a short break had set his thoughts reeling. He could not believe his good fortune. There had been nothing, even in her most extreme moments of arousal when she had returned his kisses with much ardour, to suggest that she would be amenable to an escapade of the kind after which he was lusting. In the few minutes he had had to think about it between parting from her that night and taking off the following morning, he had been planning on a date a fortnight ahead.

  The wounding of Ginger Pike had changed all that. He had immediately been made an aircraft captain and given, as second pilot, a newly arrived pilot officer. They had spent two weeks on training exercises to shake down as a crew, and then his new man had caught pneumonia and disappeared to hospital and a long convalescence. This time, a sergeant had joined the crew as second pilot and once more he and Devonshire had set about the business of breaking him in.

  During that month he and Daphne had talked often of their intended visit to London, but he still was not sure what her intentions were about their relationship when they got there. Then she had been offered seven days’ leave and gone home to Reigate.

  Shortly after she came back, his commission came through and he had to go to London for a day to order his uniforms, then home to his parents for the week’s leave which accompanied his promotion.

  Now the crew had to spend a final few days on exercises, and then they began operations. It was too soon for him or Daphne to seek a forty-eight. Next came the campaign in Norway and the whole squadron was constantly engaged over there in support of the land and sea operations. Still not time to take that longed-for break about which he had such great expectations.

  In the first week of May, after three months of disappointment and increasingly colourful anticipation on Roger’s part, they were at last able to go away together.

  Roger had relived those two days often in the past eight weeks. The departure at noon on a Tuesday, Daphne look
ing pinkly self-conscious as she hurried down the path from the W.A.A.F. guard room carrying a small suitcase. The moment of shyness between them when they greeted each other. He did not know what was in her mind, but in his was an image of her stepping out of that severe uniform skirt and revealing a pair of lace-edged black silk panties. The tremor in both their voices during the first few desultory snatches of conversation. The car, washed and polished for the occasion, its interior swept, tooling along merrily at sixty miles an hour. The stop at a pleasant pub for cold beef and pickles, a pint of bitter, and for her a glass of dry sherry.

  Then on to London. He thought it was probably the sherry that had prompted her to broach the topic which was in the forefront of his mind. “Where are you going to stay, Roger?”

  You? Not We?

  “I thought I’d try the Regent Palace...or the Strand Palace...is that all right by you?” He added, with something of a croak as he tried to be hearty and nonchalant, “They should have a couple of rooms...big places like that.”

  He had hoped she would say that two rooms were unnecessary.

  “I don’t mind where you stay, but I’d have thought it would be more economical at a Services’ club.”

  She might as well have dug an elbow into his belly-button; the effect of her words was the same jolt of nausea.

  “I’d like to get away from the Services for a couple of days. What about you?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” What didn’t she mind? “I’m staying at one, in Bayswater. It’s only somewhere to sleep, and bath and have breakfast, after all.”