Trial By Fire

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “A word with you, Walter. Wake James too, will you. Outside.”

  James woke with a start, began to run to the door, then stopped. He wasn’t wearing his mae west...then he remembered and followed Addison out soberly.

  Tug Wilson stood scanning the sky from force of habit. He turned to them, and though he said “This weather will keep the bastards on the deck today”, he did not look happy.

  “I’m afraid we’re parting company. But it’s good news for you two. You’re getting the squadron, Walter. I’m afraid I hung onto you rather selfishly. With the casualties we had, you could have got a squadron weeks ago; but I felt I couldn’t let you go.”

  Addison smiled. “Thank you, sir, that’s the best compliment I’ve ever had.”

  “James, you’re taking over A Flight from Walter. Congratulations to you both.” He paused and pretended to ream out his pipe but they saw the feelings he was trying to hide and they heard the momentary catch in his throat. “Well, come on Walter, let’s get over to the office and I’ll start handing over.”

  “Where are you going sir?”

  Wilson mentioned the name of a fighter station in Norfolk.

  “To command?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Congratulations to you sir.”

  There was time to arrange a dance in the mess for two nights later.

  Roger made four telephone calls: to his mother, to report his promotion; to Christopher to do the same and invite him to the party; to Roger, not mentioning his promotion, but asking him to come “and bring that girl of yours.” Finally to Nicole, not telling her either that he had been promoted but making sure she could attend the big event. He asked the W.A.A.F. C.O., the “Queen Bee”, if Nicole could have a room in one of the officers’ married quarters which had been requisitioned for the W.A.A.F. officers; and booked one for Daphne in a local pub; at Roger’s request.

  * * *

  Christopher had not been plunged into the heat of battle immediately he finished his O.T.U. course, as he had hoped. First, there was a week’s leave. Then, when he and his crew reported to their new squadron they found that they were not going to be taken on trust, A week of further training followed under the eye of their flight commander: navigation exercises over the sea, air gunnery, torpedo runs and bombing.

  When James telephoned to invite him to the mess dance at Stanswick and asked “How are things?” he could only reply “I’ll tell you when I see you.” He was flying his first operation that very afternoon, and wished he could have said so.

  He had been fidgety since the moment he woke. He kept assuring himself that there was nothing to worry about. He had an efficient crew. Ronnie Brinsden would get them to the target and back without straying all over the North Sea. Tom Doyle could be relied on to get accurate bearings however far they had to go, and not to miss any signals sent from base. Fred Curran was a sure shot, so woe betide any Jerry fighters.

  It was not until mid-morning that he knew that he was flying as one of four, and not until an hour before take-off that he learned, at briefing, what their target was.

  The sixteen air crew detailed for the operation sat on benches facing a map that covered one wall of the Operations Room. The station commander and their squadron and flight commanders sat on chairs at the back. An Intelligence officer, a Signals officer, a civilian Meteorological officer, the Ops. Room navigator and the controller took it in turns to stand in front of the map and feed them information. There was considerably less of it than Christopher would have liked; and most of that was, as he muttered to Brinsden, “enough to make one think they’ve never heard of good news.”

  The best that they heard was that their target was a small convoy off the Dutch coast, consisting of tugs towing strings of barges being taken away from the region of Ostend, where they had been assembled for the intended invasion; and that, among these, was an oil tanker which the enemy presumably hoped would pass unnoticed; and it was unlikely that barges would merit air cover or that the Germans would draw attention to the tanker by sending fighters to guard the convoy.

  Apart from that there were warnings of standing fighter patrols, poor visibility, worsening weather, the presence of flak ships and E boats in the coastal waters where they were going.

  Christopher flew at the back of a diamond-shaped formation, a box. They stayed fifty feet above the water and from time to time the leader climbed to two hundred feet to widen his horizon and scan the way ahead for enemy shipping.

  He was too excited and too pleased to be doing what James and Roger had been doing for the past year, to feel scared. The briefing had been so prosaic, the attitude of the other crews so phlegmatic, the conversation in the lorry on the way out to their aircraft so much more concerned with that evening’s social activities than with their mission, that he felt it indecent to be as worked up about it as he was. But it also made him feel that there was really nothing to be worked up about in such a routine affair.

  The further east they went the lumpier and more foam-flecked became the sea, the lower the cloud base until it was completely overcast. Beneath it, patches of mist swirled and a steady rain began. Visibility deteriorated. A mile ahead, the sea merged with the mist and cloud to form an opaque amorphous obscurity. The waves became taller and steeper, the troughs between lay black in their shadow, the wave crests boiled into thick spume which the wind tore off the grey water and hurled up at the Beauforts in streaks that lashed the windscreens and left a salty deposit.

  Christopher heard Brinsden say quietly “Should be there in another three minutes.”

  He narrowed his eyes, peering ahead. The leading aircraft became a shadow for a quarter of a minute while it took the formation through a thick bank of mist. The aircraft on either side became ghosts flitting through the clinging damp subfuscous vapour.

  Beyond the foggy patch, distant shapes on the water hardened into recognisable outlines. Coruscating patterns of light formed separate and distinct lines which curved, in lazy parabolas, converged, intersected and separated.

  Christopher’s attention was riveted on it. He broke the spell to warn his crew.

  “Flak dead ahead. Better man the front guns, Ronnie.”

  What had been a dragging two-hundred-miles-an-hour crawl seemed a headlong rush now that E boats had opened fire on them. Christopher could see their 37 mm cannons shooting from four different places. Their outlines were discernible and with every few passing seconds their bow waves became clearer. There was no sign of tugs, barges or tanker.

  The Beauforts were down to twenty feet now, skimming the breaking crests of the ten-foot waves. The heavy sea and the E boats’ plunging and rearing as they met wave and trough in swiftly repeated succession spoiled the gunners’ aim, but the sheer weight of their curtain of shells compensated for inaccuracy.

  The leading Beaufort began to skid from side to side in long, irregular flat turns. The others followed suit. Beyond the E boats, which had altered course and were racing across the aircraft’s track so that their guns amidships and astern could bear on them, a tanker took shape. Then, between it and the E boats, the chunky, squat forms of tugs; the barges they towed were too low on the water to see yet.

  A cluster of tracer trails from three different directions converged around the leading Beaufort. Bright splashes of orange light glittered about its wings and fuselage. A red glow shone around one engine. Sparks rippled away in the slipstream, twinkling through a long whorl of darkening smoke.

  The Beaufort hit the sea. The result was a liquid reproduction of what Christopher had seen on dry land when a bomb exploded on the range. A huge crater opened on the sea. Water, in solid spouts, glittering droplets and froth was hurled high, like earth, stones and dust. The difference was that the waters closed again in an instant. The Beaufort had gone from sight. Three seconds later there was a second explosion as its torpedo detonated and with it the petrol vapour in its tanks. Another gigantic column of water erupted.

  Christopher flew
through it. His aircraft bucked and yawed, water poured through the side windows and drenched him. He felt its icy sting on his face and trickling down his neck, he tasted it salty on his lips.

  Cannons on the tugs were shooting at the Beauforts now. The E boats were behind them. Christopher could hear Curran’s guns as his bullets swept the deck of the nearest one. He took the Beaufort fractionally lower. Two holes appeared in the cockpit roof and a cold draught whistled in. The tanker was the primary target. The aircraft on his right was flying directly towards it with flak weaving a criss-cross pattern in its path. He saw the torpedo leap forward from beneath it and cut a white furrow through the sea. The Beaufort turned to its right and flames burst from its left hand engine. Its left wing slumped and the aircraft pivoted on it, swung from its turn, back onto a direct heading towards the tanker.

  Two explosions with gigantic billows of fire and smoke followed in quick succession as first the torpedo and then the Beaufort plunged into the tanker’s side.

  Christopher sucked in his breath and pulled into a climbing turn that would carry him clear of the holocaust and the turbulent air surrounding it. By the time he had completed 360 degrees there was a dense bank of smoke a hundred yards long and fifty wide on the water, shot through with leaping flames and obscuring the wreckage of the tanker and the Beaufort.

  He dived again to a few feet above the sea and made for the nearest tug. She was a deep-sea giant, towing two files of forty-foot barges; too many to count. There were 37 mm cannons mounted on her bows and stern and a heavy machine-gun on each wing of the bridge. All four were in action. Tracer from their shells and bullets glittered past the Beaufort. Christopher saw tracer from the Beaufort’s front guns striking the tug, making little jumping spurts of yellow around the cannon on her bows. The cannon stopped firing, he saw men falling around it, one toppled into the sea. He felt the breeze of bullets rushing across the cockpit and the draught through the holes they made. He fired his torpedo and held the Beaufort down in a hard, flat turn.

  Curran’s excited voice said, struggling to be calm, “We got her, Skipper...we got her. Lovely grub.”

  Christopher brought the Beaufort round until he could see the burning tug. She was settling fast, her bows immersed and the sea already lapping over the bridge, her stern high out of the water and her twin screws spinning. Clouds of steam and smoke engulfed her while the flames soared higher. She slid out of sight, dragging her two long tows of barges with her.

  * * *

  Roger noticed the two rings of braid on James’s cuffs the moment he brought the little Miles Magister trainer, which his squadron used as a communications runabout, to a stop on the tarmac.

  He grinned down from the cockpit. “Congratulations.”

  James grimaced slightly, but his tone was jocular. “I didn’t have to do anything to get it...dead men’s shoes.” He turned to the rear cockpit and smiled at the pretty girl in it who had taken off her flying helmet and was shaking her head to get her hair in place. He reached up to help her down.

  “You’re Daphne.”

  “Yes, sir. How d’you do?” She popped her uniform cap on and saluted, accompanying the respectful compliment with a cheeky grin.

  James held out his hand. “Go away and change into civvies and come back calling me James. This is my brother, Christopher.”

  Christopher came forward smiling to shake hands and take her small suitcase. Then Roger was pumping their hands and they were all smiling at each other in the best of spirits.

  Roger asked “When did you get down, James? And what in?”

  “A few minutes ago, old boy. That’s my aeroplane, over there.” He pointed to another yellow-painted two-seater trainer, an advanced type, the Miles Master.

  “You do yourselves well on your squadron, don’t you? We’ve had a deadly graunch down.”

  The Magister had a top speed of 132 m.p.h., the Master’s was 226 m.p.h.

  Christopher’s grin broadened. “Oh, it’s not my squadron’s. The Flight Lieutenant sent a sergeant pilot up to fetch me.”

  “That’s enough of that,” James said. “I had to send it: he’s such a sprog that he couldn’t get his hands on one for himself. Quite right too! I don’t believe in spoiling junior pilots.”

  “My C.O’s a hard man,” Christopher said. “Like my bro.”

  Roger assumed a mock gravity and pursed his lips. “I should think he needs to be, if he’s got many wild types like you.”

  James had arranged for him to borrow Tiny Ross’s Alvis to drive Daphne to the pub and fetch her for the dance. Roger was staying in mess.

  He and Christopher set off for the station to meet Nicole’s train. As soon as they were alone, James said “How are things?”

  “Did our first op day before yesterday.”

  “Broken your duck. Good. How was it? Pretty filthy weather down here.”

  “Pretty filthy on the other side of the North Sea, too.” Then, very casually, “We sunk a bloody great ocean-going tug and a string of invasion barges.”

  James took his hand from the wheel and thumped his brother on the thigh, smiling with delight.

  “Wizard. Damn good for a first trip.”

  “There were enough of them to choose from. And a tanker...which someone else pranged...and how! Not to mention the odd E boat or four.”

  “Bit dicey, was it?”

  “We lost two out of four. The chap who pranged the tanker flew into it after his torp had hit it: flak got him on his break.”

  James made no comment. He thought about their parents and their added daily anxiety now that Christopher had joined a squadron. He and Christopher would have to devise some way of disguising the truth. He had not been pleased when he heard that Christopher was on a torpedo squadron. All that their mother and father knew was that he was in Coastal Command: which had not had as much publicity as Bomber and Fighter. The public impression was that Coastal roamed the seas looking for U boats, which promptly dived while they dropped bombs and depth charges on them: a dull, even boring, yet fairly safe job. It wasn’t fair to rob Christopher of his deserved share of their parents’ admiration, but he knew his brother would prefer to try to ensure their comparative peace of mind. He changed the subject.

  “Nicole looks wizard.”

  Christopher gave him an ironical look. “So you’ve told me: more than once.”

  “Don’t be an ass: she’s like a sister to us.”

  “Or a cousin.”

  “All right.”

  With provocation: “A kissing cousin.”

  Drily: “Try it and see.”

  But Christopher did not have the chance. When Nicole, enchanting in her chic sous-lieutenant’s uniform, took him by the hand and he leaned forward, she presented her cheek while James looked on with amusement. They drove her to the W.A.A.F. officers’ quarters perched on Christopher’s lap in the small M.G. They had driven thus before, two years ago when Christopher was still a schoolboy and Nicole was about to go to the Sorbonne, which she had quit after a year to play her part in the war. Christopher remembered it well. And he also remembered that there had been a considerable difference in the sensation of having her on his lap then and now. Last time, it had been pleasant; this, it was disturbing.

  * * *

  Tiny Ross had also been promoted to flight lieutenant and was in command of B Flight. James, Christopher and Roger, listening to him briefing Pilot Officers Uwodzicielski and Brzk, Big and Tad, with a straight face, felt that perhaps he was not much impressed with the dignity of his aggrandisement.

  “Now look here, chaps, since this is your first experience of the British at play, here are a few words of advice. “

  The Poles looked puzzled. They wrinkled their brows. They swapped glances and a few muttered words.

  “Play?”

  “Please what is meaning you have?”

  “Ah. Put it this way. This is your first function, as it were...”

  More muttering and shrugging.

&nb
sp; “Please...function?”

  “Well, party, if you like....”

  They beamed. “Yes, yes, party.” They cocked their heads attentively.

  Ross addressed them slowly. “When you are introduced to any senior officers, you should say ‘Up you, Big Prick.’ Got it?”

  Big and Tad repeated the phrase, then Tad asked “What is meanink?”

  “You know what ‘up’ means. And you know what ‘you’ means. Put together, it is a good wish: I hope your health and fortune go...up...you know, increase.”

  His listeners nodded sagely.

  Big asked “What is Big Prick?”

  “Well, you know what ‘big’ is, too, don’t you? Important...a high person.”

  “Yes, yes. Important person. But what Prick is?”

  “That is a term much used by Shakespeare. You’ve heard of Shakespeare.”

  Much nodding. “Yes, Shakespeare, very good...very good man.”

  “Right, then, you’ve got it. Now, say after me, ‘Up you, Big Prick’.” And they duly did.

  For a Fighter mess, James thought, they’d been let off pretty lightly. A couple of hours later, soon after the first guests began to arrive, he was aware of a sudden silence in a group which comprised the station commander, Tug Wilson, Walter Addison, the two Poles; and an Air Vice Marshal from Fighter Command H.Q. Looking that way, he saw that Addison, Wilson and the station commander were scarlet-faced and open-mouthed.

  Then he heard the A.V.M.’s cool voice. “And up yours too, old cock,” followed by his roar of laughter. Then, in another moment of silence, “I suppose some young fiend on the squadron put you up to this.” He turned to the three other officers “Let it pass. But make sure it doesn’t happen again: some pompous ass might kick up a fearful fuss about it.”

  Thankfully, James saw Addison lead the two Poles away to a quiet corner, explaining as they went.