The Arrow's Arc

by John Wilcox

  there was no alternative. If he sat on the chute his head would hit the Perspex dome of the turret, and if he clipped it to his chest it would impede his reach to the gun controls.

  The turret was claustrophobically tiny. Between his legs was the control column for the turret and the guns and immediately in front of his face was the gunsight. Switching on the illumination he could see the red circle in the middle, signifying the target centre. As he did so, he heard the rumble of the engines turning over and then the throttles opening to bring each of the four Rolls Royce engines up to their warm-up level of 1,000 rpm. This immediately set the tail unit vibrating, so that Gladwin shook as he sat in his goldfish bowl.

  Instinctively, he turned his head to look at the port outer engine, the one that provided the power for his Frazer Nash rear turret. If that went out, so did he, for he could not winch round the turret by hand fast enough to cope with fighter attacks. But it was coughing start-up fumes healthily and he dropped his hand and pulled the lever that unlocked the turret on its rotating ring and then pushed the control column to left and then right, thereby moving the turret smoothly in those directions. He could spin the turret slow or fast and he never lost the boyish delight that this manoeuvre gave him. Then he twisted the grips on the handle bar to raise and lower his four Browning machine guns. These provided his raison d’etre, the tools with which he protected his comrades up front and his only defence against the cannon and bullets of the fighters. He had no armour plating to give him shelter on top and at front and side. If his guns failed him then he was terribly exposed – nothing more than a cockshy at a fairground, for the fighters always tried to take out the rear gunner first so that they could then attack the bomber at leisure from astern and below. This was why, earlier that day, he had spent forty minutes with the armourer, harmonising the guns and watching carefully as the ammunition belts were loaded. Now, the start-up check concluded, he bent down again and plugged in his oxygen tube and the intercom jack. He left dangling for the moment the lead that would operate his electrically-heated flying suit. The damned thing became too hot too quickly and he would leave this until the cold forced him to plug it in.

  Slowly now, the bomber began to move over the tarmac in a stately line-astern procession with the other Lancasters. Gladwin cursed silently as he noted that there were plenty of aircraft behind them. This meant that their plane, along with the rest of the leaders, would have to stooge around once aloft, waiting for the tail-enders to climb up and fall into the gaggle. This meant, in turn, that they would be wasting petrol – fuel that could mean the difference between getting back or landing in the sea if they had to limp home with holes in their tanks. The crafty pilots waited to be the last. But the Prick wasn’t crafty. Gladwin had considered several times whether he should impart this piece of elementary know-how to Proctor, but he knew it would not be well received. What the hell! This was his last mission with the twit up front. After this one he needn’t worry.

  Although he had been turned down for pilot, Gladwin knew enough about the job now to realise that it took special care and not a little skill to taxi a Lancaster and he had to admit that Proctor could do this well. He sensed that the skipper was starting out slowly and was watching his brake pressure. He was steering with his outers and using his brakes to control speed while keeping the revs steady. Idling the engines below 800 revs could foul the plugs. Then, when the aircraft had rocked and rumbled along the ground, increasing her speed to about 95 mph, Proctor gently lifted her off the runway, holding down the nose a little to increase speed. Now he was lifting the flaps up slowly, about five inches at a time, and then opening up the throttles to reach best climbing speed of about 165 mph. The roar was reassuring and the big bomber climbed up into her element as though thirsting for the job ahead. It was a perfect take-off and Gladwin nodded his head in satisfaction. If only the Prick could do as well all the time!

  As the ground fell away before him, Gladwin switched off the tail light to let the following aircraft know that they were clear, and reported “rear light off” to Proctor. They were up and away and his stomach, as always, had settled down.

  As the last Lancasters took off, the leaders had already begun to head for France and the loose gaggle set into a gentle climb so that, by the time they had left the English coast behind, most aircraft were flying at about 15,000 feet. Now, safely over the sea, Gladwin swung his turret to starboard, away from the other aircraft, elevated his guns and blasted a few rounds. His weapons, the aircraft’s main line of defence from rear attack – the danger quarter – were working perfectly and he settled into his pattern of vigilance as they crossed the enemy coast above Boulogne. One of the few advantages of being a rear gunner was that the view was magnificent. Tonight was cloudy and dark but Gladwin could still see stretching before him the shadowy outlines of the other members of the squadron and the bright glow from their exhausts. He felt again that distinctive sense of community that ‘flying with friends’ always gave him. There was no real security in this, for the gaggle would soon break up and there would be no defensive arc of fire from the other gunners, such as that produced by the heavily armed Flying Fortresses flying in their tight formations – and, by God, didn’t they need it, flying by day! Nevertheless, he felt reassured by this early company.

  As he mused, his body swayed slightly as Proctor put the aircraft into a gentle weave. This tactic was usually adopted by a pilot once he crossed the enemy coast. The weave did little to reduce forward speed or increase fuel usage but it might do just enough to cause an unseen fighter to miss on his first pass, so giving the gunners a shot at him. Gladwin resumed the customary twisting of his upper body, searching the sky for anything, anything, untoward. Sometimes he turned the turret but usually only his body. He had discovered long ago that swivelling just the neck caused an ache that only a long bath and a couple of whiskies cured. Now he turned carefully, systematically scanning the sky to left, straight ahead, right, up and down. If you were lucky enough to see a fighter before he saw you, it would be the movement that would catch your eye – something moving fast, much faster than the friendly, lumbering bombers.

  These days, Gladwin felt that he could almost sense when an enemy fighter was in the vicinity. It was probably experience: the result of so many hours of concentration when his nerves almost screamed at the intensity of it all. His senses must be sharper than those of the average fighting man. There had to be a rational explanation for the fact that, on this second tour, he always knew that an attack was coming before his eyes picked up the evidence. Chuck was younger and fitter yet, so far, it was always Gladwin who shouted first, before the cannon shells came in. Sitting cramped, shifting his buttocks slightly to ease the ache, the rear gunner gave a small shrug of the shoulders. It didn’t matter a damn either way as long as he saw them before they saw him.

  He allowed himself a brief break from his search pattern to stare for a moment or two at the ground as it appeared between the clouds below. It seemed completely featureless: no lights, no distinguishing features, just a dark mass. But it was France! As always, his heart lightened momentarily at the thought. There was something alluring about the country that had intrigued him from boyhood. It was not the wines, the rich food, the city architecture, not even the frighteningly sophisticated girls sitting at the pavement tables. Not the unfamiliar gothic script of the old books on the stalls in the flea market, nor those smells in the bars – garlic, perhaps, Gitanes certainly. It was certainly not the strangeness, the abroadness of it all. He had also travelled to Germany and Holland before the war, without receiving that lift of the spirits that came to him at Calais. Trying to analyse it now, as his eyes resumed their scan of the dark blue above him, the best he could decide was that he felt everything in France, somehow, was oddly familiar. Yet he had only visited the country three times and he knew he would never master the language. It was all very strange. Perhaps it came from teaching the Hundred Years’ War?

  His reverie was b
roken by the crackle of the intercom. “We’re approaching the target, Taffy. Anything about?”

  They had made quick time – probably a tail wind – and he had subconsciously been aware that they were gradually losing height. Nevertheless, the call took him by surprise. But how typical of Proctor! If there was ‘anything about’ he would bloody well shout pretty damned quickly, wouldn’t he? But he bit back the sarcasm. “No, skip. All clear, so far.”

  “Roger. Keep your eyes peeled.” The pilot sounded edgy. Also typical of him. Gladwin leaned forward as far as he could and strained to see ahead under the starboard wing. He only allowed himself a glance but caught the flash of light from the ground. The markers had been dropped and the flak would be up soon now.

  When it came, the flak surprised and shocked him as it always did. He heard nothing above the engines’ roar, of course, but the shell bursts seemed to appear by magic all around and he did what he always did at first – he flinched. The greasy puffballs, with their centres of fire, seemed so arbitrary and, on this occasion, so damned accurate. As he watched, the Lancaster just behind and slightly below took a direct hit on the port wing. The fuel in the tanks exploded, sending out a shock wave that caused his own aircraft to stagger in flight. Then, as he watched in horror, the stricken bomber slowly turned on its back and, with a terrible grace, arced over and began to drop, gathering speed and leaving a trail of flame behind it as it went. No parachutes came from it before it disappeared into the low cloud cover. Gladwin forced himself to look away from the glow and continue his sky search. He wouldn’t think about the poor bastards inside. Concentrate and think positively! The only good thing about flak was that it meant that there were no defending fighters in the area. Even so, he preferred the fighters to the flak. He could do something about them. With anti-aircraft fire, you just flew on and hoped, unless you were nice and safe up at twenty-five or thirty thousand feet, like the Fortresses.

  Now the sky had become bright with searchlights and far to the right Gladwin saw a Lancaster caught in the cone of several beams. The pilot skilfully slipped and slid about the sky but the cone followed him until, just before the ground gunners could concentrate, cloud intercepted and he was saved. Being ‘coned’ was a frightening experience and one which Gladwin did not want to repeat. The experience was like being caught naked in the bath by a burglar with a knife. Horrible –particularly so for the rear gunner in his Perspex bubble. He whisked his turret around and depressed his guns as low as they would go but the gesture was futile. He couldn’t distinguish the base of the lights and, anyway, they were well out of range at this altitude. He swung the turret back again in annoyance – as much at his stupidity as in frustration.

  Despite the flak bursting around it, the Lancaster was now being held on a more or less steady course at their bombing level of 12,000 feet and Gladwin knew that Mac would now be inching into position in the nose of the aircraft as they began the bombing run. The bomb-aimer had to lie prone on a padded chest support but with only the skin of the fuselage beneath the rest of his body, so he always tucked an old cricket box into his underpants before the flight. How this thin piece of aluminium might protect his private parts from shrapnel and cannon shells, no one could understand but, as he said, “she’s better than nothing, mate, that’s for sure.” The approach was the most dangerous part of the flight: no more weaving, no evasive action even if a fighter appeared – just an unsteady plod through the flak until the target came into the bomb sights.

  Mac was now talking into the intercom. “Bomb doors open. Master switch on. Bombs fused and selected.”

  These instructions were repeated by the pilot and from the pitch of his voice Gladwin could tell that Proctor, teeth clenched, face sweating under his helmet, was hunched over the control column, willing the big bomber to keep steady while all his instincts told him to haul on the stick and bank away. “Left, left. No, left, left, for Godsake. That’s it. Hold her. Steady, steady. Good. Bombs gone. Bomb doors closed. Let’s get outta here.”

  The Lancaster bucked as the potent mixture of showers of incendiaries followed by 1,000 and 500 pound bombs dropped away. Proctor banked the aircraft away to the north, and the sighs of relief from the seven men aboard were almost palpable. Gladwin looked down at the target, which he could see clearly now that the thin cloud base had disappeared. The factory was a mass of flames and, as he watched, further eruptions came from this hell’s mouth as their bombs and others exploded on impact. A half-forgotten phrase from Milton came into his head, “…headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, with hideous ruin and combustion down…” Had the French workers been able to get away? He hoped so. He turned back to his surveillance of the sky. This was when he and Chuck had to be at their most alert, for the fighters would soon be in, to take them as they left the target zone and headed for home. The Focke Wulf and Junker night interceptors would have had time to scramble and would fan out, probing to discover their route back to England. Once the bombers left the anti-aircraft guns behind, the fighters would swoop in.

  But the flak had not quite finished with them. As Proctor banked, a shell exploded just below their port wing, sending a shower of steel into the middle and aft portion of the aircraft. Gladwin had just turned his turret to starboard and he felt a series of thuds hit the steel doors behind him. But for the turn he would have been riddled by the shell fragments. He also heard a strangled cry on the intercom and saw a trail of flame stretch past him from the port inner engine. Immediately that wing dropped and the bomber began losing height.

  “Prepare to bale out, everyone. I can’t hold her.” Proctor’s voice was high pitched, almost hysterical.

  Gladwin quickly glanced at the three remaining engines. They seemed to be functioning perfectly. He depressed his intercom switch. “No, Peter. No. No. Not yet,” he shouted. “The other three motors are okay. I’ve got home on only two before now. Feather the damaged engine. The extinguisher should be working on the flames.”

  The voice of Harry Hampton, the wireless operator, cut in. “We can’t bale out anyway, skip. Yank’s been hit.”

  Proctor came back, less shrill this time and obviously trying to exercise authority. “It can’t be helped. That flaming engine will attract all the fucking fighters in France. Prepare to bale out, I say.”

  Gladwin spoke quickly. “You can’t leave a wounded man in the aircraft, Proctor. Harry, see how badly Chuck’s been hit. Smithie” – in theory the engineer could fly the plane in extremis – “go up and help the skipper hold her steady. Call me if you need me.”

  “No. No.” The panic was back in Proctor’s voice. “You must not leave your guns, Gladwin. We’re a sitting duck if you do.”

  “Okay. But we must not bale out while we’ve got three good engines left. Chuck, Chuck. How badly are you hit?”

  After a pause, the American’s voice came faintly. “Holy shit, Bill. The bastards have taken my legs off. I’m done for. You might as well all bugger off…” his voice tailed away.

  Gladwin strained his eyes. They had long since dropped out of the gaggle, of course, and they seemed completely alone in this blackness. But probably not for long. Proctor was right. The flaming engine would attract the fighters and now Chuck couldn’t be counted on. He flashed another quick glance at the other engines. They seemed to be functioning smoothly and now the aircraft had pulled out of its shallow dive and seemed to be flying evenly. Perhaps Smithie’s extra hand was having a beneficial effect at the controls.

  Harry’s quiet voice came on the intercom. “Chuck’s had it, skipper. He’s just gone.”

  “Well, get him out of the seat and take over the guns.” Proctor’s voice was still pitched too high. “We could be attacked any minute and those bloody extinguishers are not working. I can’t fly this thing home on three motors. I don’t know how much longer I can hold her.”

  Smithie came back: “Can’t get him out. The turret’s been shattered. It’s like a pepper box up here.”

  “Than we will
have to bale out.”

  “No Peter.” Gladwin tried to sound reassuring – it was like persuading a petulant, small boy. “You have three engines. Keep going. You can do it and if we are attacked I can hold them off. At least, get us to the coast. What about putting her into a dive to try and blow the fire out?”

  “Who the hell’s the pilot here?” The shrillness had returned. “We’ve lost enough height as it is and, anyway, if she goes into a dive I doubt if I could pull her out.” The crew could hear Proctor breathing heavily. Then, grudgingly: “I’ll give her another three minutes, then if we continue to lose height we’ll have to jump.”

  Now Gladwin spoke assertively – Chuck was gone, to hell with Proctor. “Mac, Smithie, jettison everything you can. Take out anything that’s moveable and pitch it overboard. Take the axes to anything that’s not moveable. We’ve got to lighten her.”

  Both voices came back. “Roger, Taff.”

  Gladwin continued to search the sky, his thumbs nervously caressing the firing studs. He sensed a lightening of the load as the jettisoning began – or was he imagining it? He wondered how far they had managed to fly north. Should he ask David for a fix? No, better to leave him at his maps and, anyway, it was the pilot’s job to request their position. He’d given enough orders already – the Prick would probably explode if he gave more. He wished that he had been able to sit in on the navigation briefing back in Mepal. How far away did the Station Commander say their target lay: four hundred, five hundred miles? Let’s see. They had been hit about four minutes after leaving the target, when they were flying at what must have been about 200 mph – no, probably more, given that Proctor would have been so shit scared to get away that he would have gunned the motors. At the most, then, they would only have made fifteen or so miles northwards when the flak got them. Since then, they had been hanging on for, say, another ten minutes at reduced speed, so they could hardly have put forty miles behind them so far. They had about 280 miles to go to reach the English coast. Could they do it – with only three engines, an hysterical pilot and a flaming motor beaconing their presence to every fighter within fifty miles? No, not a chance. And yet…