Once More the Hawks

by Max Hennessy

  As snow began to fall, deadening the footsteps, the town became a tomb peopled by desperate grey-faced ghosts. In the evening, the hordes of starving people round the open kitchens of the food shops, their eyes watching every morsel as it was cooked and eaten, suddenly and unexpectedly made a rush. Pots were upset and hands snatched what they could reach in a desperate silence, as if their owners had no energy for speaking. As they hurried away, children followed them.

  ‘K’o lien! K’o lien! Mercy! Mercy!’

  The members of the mission had filled their pockets with food from the American forces canteen and as they tried to give it away, the children snatched at it, their tear-stained faces smudgy and lost, small shrunken scarecrows with pus-filled slits for eyes. Starvation had made their hair dry and brittle, hunger had given them bloated bellies, their skins were chapped and raw, and their voices had shrunk to an unhappy muling.

  The neighbouring villages were even worse. There the silence was terrifying. The countryside was bare and the streets deserted, doors and windows flapping open, and echoing with emptiness. Fields had been stripped and peasants living on peanut husks were searching the heaps of refuse for rejected scraps of edible material. Some even crammed earth into their mouths to fill their empty bellies, and people like spectres were skimming the green scum from pools for food.

  A dog digging at the turned earth had exposed a body and they found the corpse of a woman clutching the cold ground. She had once been pretty but now her body was grey-blue, a thin rain moulding her clothes to the lines of her frame. Here and there, however, hardier characters were still trying, with clubs in their hands, to guard their spring wheat, knowing that if it was stolen, they would be joining the hungry mob. And even now the Chinese instinct for trading was at work, and people had chipped bark from trees and pounded it for food, which they were selling with leaves and a scrap of sauce.

  By the time they returned the hospital tents had become like scenes from Doré’s pictures of Hell. Marie-Gabrielle, her face haunted, was feeding two children who had been brought in. Desperate with hunger, their parents had tied them to a tree so they couldn’t follow as they searched for food. Another family, she said, had been sent by their mother to search for food and when they had returned had found her dead, the baby still at her breast.

  ‘We’ve even heard of parents killing their children rather than see them starve,’ she said in shocked tones. ‘And of whole families committing suicide. And cannibalism! Cannibalism! The whole thing’s too big!’

  Tears streamed down her face as she spoke. ‘I think I’m tired of despair,’ she said.

  ‘It could be,’ Dicken said bluntly, ‘that you’re just tired.’

  The following day the enormous throng of misery heaved and began to move. Small groups began to set off across the plain, like the broken remnants of a string of beads, bunched together, their heads down against the wind. Two people who couldn’t keep up lay in the snow sobbing their desolation.

  ‘Jesus,’ Foote said bitterly. ‘I always thought of the Chinese as a lively lot. Misery’s made these poor bastards mute.’

  The silent horde passed the airfield slowly, shuffling past in a soundless hush that was broken only by the scrape of feet and the squeak of carts. They walked mechanically, concentrating on getting one foot in front of the other. A man pushed a barrow, the figure lying on it covered with a blanket, the naked feet covered with goose-flesh, the limp head wobbling. Fathers dragged carts, mothers pulled at ropes, their eyes unseeing, their backs to the cold wind and the destroyed land.

  The old Russian bombers ferried American supplies and medicaments but it was like trying to hold back the flood. Even the old Hart was brought into service, with Dicken and Babington flying from one bare, empty patch of land to another to inform the Americans where the refugees were gathering.

  Then, with Foote heading south to raise more supplies, Babington, who had been north, travelling on a pony with a Chinese interpreter, risking his life among peasants more than willing to kill anyone with transport, brought back a new story.

  ‘That column of Lee’s, sir,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t contain weapons or supplies. No soldiers. No officers. Not even a snot-nosed little boy bugler. It’s the loot he’s gathered round him over the last four years. I was in Chingku when it stopped and I saw the lorries. They’re stuffed with furniture, carpets, chests and God knows what. He’s using his troops to push the refugees between him and the Japanese.’

  There was still snow on the summits of the mountains as the Hart lifted off and the land between looked bare and bleak and empty. The refugees were all moving in the direction of Chungking along a wide road that wound round the hills, a long stream of human beings, with here and there an ox, a donkey, a mule or an odd cart, thousands of blue-clad figures trying to struggle to safety. As they flew low over them, a few waved but for the most part they continued to plod on indifferently, their eyes on the road.

  Just ahead of them the road divided so that the junction looked like an upside-down Y. The Japanese were coming down the main leg from the north, a mass of lorries in a briskly-moving column. Among them Dicken could see guns and carts carrying machine guns. Then, swinging south, one eye on the swarm of refugees coming down the western arm of the Y, he saw that on the other arm troops were stationed across the road, behind them a string of lorries that he recognised as General Lee’s. They were facing north, their weapons directed towards the junction of the arms of the Y. Behind them was a bridge over a steep gorge. It was Lee’s intention to fire on the refugees to force them north into the path of the advancing Japanese.

  When they returned to the airstrip Foote was holding a signal flimsy.

  ‘You’re for home, Buster,’ he said bluntly to Dicken. ‘The General couldn’t hold off Chiang any longer. You and Stilwell both. You go as soon as your relief can fly in. He’s on his way now with Willie Hatto who’s coming to protest. The General fought as long as he could but old Dogleg had all the aces.’

  Dicken frowned and explained what they’d seen.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Foote argued.

  ‘We can blow that bloody bridge out,’ Dicken said. ‘One good bomb on it and Lee’s lorries will be stranded and so will the Japanese, because they’re using wheels as well.’

  ‘What about the refugees?’

  ‘Nothing will stop them. They’ll go into the gorge or over the hills. They’ll manhandle their barrows and carts and lead their animals.’

  ‘Okay. But who’s going to drop the goddam bomb?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What from, for Christ’s sake?’

  Dicken slapped the canvas side of the Hart. It sounded like a drum. ‘This,’ he said.

  Eight

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Dicken said fiercely. ‘You must remember Udet, Walt!’

  Foote frowned. ‘Sure I remember Udet. He used to pick up handkerchieves with his wingtip. He was always doing the American air shows. He made films. He shot himself in 1941.’

  ‘There was more to Udet than that,’ Dicken said. ‘He was the best seat-of-the-pants pilot I ever met. He was the man who persuaded the Luftwaffe to go in for dive bombing.’

  ‘Well, go on. What the hell’s Udet to do with this?’

  ‘You know where he got his dive bomber idea? From United States Marines dropping flourbag bombs into small whitewashed circles. I was with him when he saw it done. He bought a couple of Curtisses and took them back to Berlin and Goering went overboard for them. And, because they could build two or three Stukas as cheaply as one four-engined job, they put everything they’d got into them. It probably lost the war for them.’

  Foote was staring at him, bewildered.

  ‘It’s not new,’ Dicken urged. ‘Some bloke called Bonney did it as long ago as 1915 with a little Moissant against the rebels in Mexico. He carried home-made bomb
s fired by rifle cartridges.’

  Foote came to life. ‘This isn’t 1915.’ He indicated the Hart. ‘And that isn’t a dive bomber.’

  ‘It’s been used as one.’

  ‘Adapted. Stressed for the job. That isn’t.’

  ‘It’ll have to do. The Swedes dived them vertically and were getting sixty-seven per cent success. One of your countrymen claimed a hundred per cent.’

  ‘The bastard was probably boasting. And it was in a Curtiss F8C. And without opposition.’

  ‘There won’t be opposition.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, Dicko,’ Foote rapped. ‘There’ll be opposition. A hell of an opposition. Lee won’t let someone rob him of his loot without putting up a fight. Besides, with a big bomb underneath, that old contraption’ll be like a humming bird trying to carry a walnut around. He wouldn’t get off the ground and neither will you.’

  ‘We’ve got to take a chance,’ Dicken insisted. ‘Can you fly me a couple of big ones up here, together with a bomb rack and a couple of riggers to fit it underneath this old has-been?’

  ‘You’ll never get away with it.’

  Dicken shrugged, thinking of Marie-Gabrielle. ‘I’m an old has-been too, Walt. It won’t matter much.’

  The bombs, the bomb rack and the fitters arrived within eight hours. Johnson, who flew them in with one of the Tupolevs, was puzzled.

  ‘Who the hell are we going to bomb?’ he asked.

  When Foote told him, he gave Dicken a quick look. ‘Sooner you than me,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll need a bit of back-up,’ Dicken said. ‘If I’m hit I’ll head south and follow the road. God knows how far I’ll get – canvas aeroplanes don’t stand up to cannon fire much – but it’d be nice to know somebody’s coming to meet me.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ Johnson said. ‘And I’ll be over the top of you. I’ve brought more than one bomb.’

  As they all disappeared to check the Hart and its bomb fittings, Marie-Gabrielle arrived. She looked tired but her eyes were glowing with anger. Dicken was in the tent studying the map when she appeared, and she went into the attack at once.

  ‘They tell me you’re going to try to kill yourself,’ she said. ‘Why? Why?’

  ‘You could say it’s because I don’t like Lee. But I also don’t like the thought of those refugees being pushed into the path of the Japanese.’

  ‘You’d do this for them?’

  ‘You’re not the only one with a touch of compassion.’

  She gave him a strange look, her eyes shining. ‘You can’t do it.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It always mattered.’

  He stared at her, feeling a stir of panic. He was suddenly in desperate need of some bedrock truths from her as armour in his confusion.

  ‘I tried hard to prove it did,’ he said. ‘But you never showed much damned interest.’

  ‘I was wrong.’

  He stared at her, a sudden knot of hope in his stomach. ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘Many things. This particularly.’

  ‘Foote says I’ve got to go home. I’ve had orders.’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  ‘Do you mean that?’

  ‘I’d expect any children to be brought up as Catholics.’

  He grinned. It was as good as a surrender. ‘Making conditions isn’t the way to enter a compact of this sort,’ he said gently.

  ‘I’d want children.’

  ‘Well, I’m a bit long in the tooth these days but–’ Dicken smiled again ‘–I expect I could manage one or two.’

  She held out her hands and, as he took them, she flung her arms round him. The wind against the tent was like the claws of a tiny furred animal scratching vainly at a wall for freedom. Then he heard her whisper close to his ear.

  ‘Don’t go, Dicken.’

  He held her at arm’s length and looked at her. ‘What’s happened to all that compassion? All that eagerness to do something for your flock?’

  She shook her head and he saw tears on her cheek. ‘Damn my flock!’

  He put his arms round her again. ‘I’m afraid you’ve transferred your compassion to me,’ he said. ‘I can’t damn your flock.’

  ‘What happens if you don’t come back?’

  ‘In that case,’ he said soberly, ‘you’ll have to learn to live with it. A lot of people have had to do that in this war.’

  She was watching as he climbed into the Hart. The big bomb was hanging beneath, a menacing shape, painted a dull grey that was the same colour as the sky. A Tomahawk had just landed. The pilot, who had flown north from one of the overrun airfields in the south, appeared alongside the Hart. He wore a grin that seemed to spread from ear to ear.

  ‘This here’s Ratowicz,’ Johnson said. ‘He says he’ll help, too.’

  Ratowicz’s grin grew wider. ‘Sure, I’ll help,’ he said. ‘I’ll come down from the opposite side. I know what to do. We used to practise with four planes attacking at once in cloverleaf pattern to confuse the defences.’

  As the chocks were dragged away and he opened the throttle, Dicken saw that Marie-Gabrielle had now taken up a position just ahead, a forlorn figure that suddenly started waving frantically.

  He climbed to 10,000 feet, the old Hart responding like the thoroughbred it was. Glancing upwards, he saw Johnson leading the old Tupolevs, their silhouettes black against the sky, behind them, higher still, the Tomahawk.

  The mountains were like a tumbled green and grey tablecloth cut into peaks and valleys and the air was the misty blue that only an airman knew. As it always did, it tugged at his heart and made him feel privileged that he should catch the touch of the sun before it reached down to humbler fellow mortals, and he suddenly wondered if this were to be the last time he’d ever look on it.

  Seeing the road, he dropped down to get a better view. The refugees had almost reached the junction and he could see Lee’s troops waiting with machine guns and knew he had to succeed. Even if the Hart hadn’t been designed as a dive bomber, it had been used as one and could go down like a lift, and it was up to him to do the rest. He offered up a silent prayer that it wouldn’t fly out of its wings. Father O’Buhilly would have approved. He never minded letting God know what was expected of Him.

  Let me do this properly, he begged, and suddenly he found it wasn’t merely to stop the Japanese or save a horde of helpless people, but to exact some measure of vengeance against the man who had humiliated him as a prisoner years before. If only for Father O’Buhilly who had shared it with him. Memory was a strange thing and old miseries flooded back unexpectedly. In the same way that stupid words came from the past to embarrass, old humiliations brought the scalding desire for revenge.

  He dropped down further and realised suddenly that because of a kink in the road that Lee’s men held, the bridge ran almost north and south and, with the wind blowing from the south, he would have to make his approach over the Japanese column to drop his bomb along the main span.

  As he flew north to turn into the upright of the upturned Y, he thought of Marie-Gabrielle and what she’d said. Suddenly he felt that what he was attempting was the job of a young man, and he found he was afraid, especially now that at last she had shown he meant something to her. For a moment, he held the bank, circling, unable to bring himself to make the decision, but he’d always been a man who’d faced unpleasant facts squarely and, levelling off, he turned into his dive path.

  The Japanese had seen him now and he saw their guns begin to fire. Shells exploded close by, then as he dropped lower, tracer came floating gently towards him, growing faster and faster until it whizzed past. Other weapons opened up and he saw the men below him firing their rifles in groups under the orders of their officers. The Hart shuddered and dipped and he could hear the wind screaming.
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br />   More tracer came up at him, like coloured golf balls, and he could feel whacks against the fuselage and see rents appearing in the wings. The Hart was already a mass of holes when he felt a burning sensation in his leg. Glancing down, he saw his flying boot bore a neat pattern of what looked like buttonholes, but it was only as the blood started flowing that he realised he’d been hit.

  The Hart was shaking badly now, her fabric tattered like an old blanket. She was rotating gently round her own axis but the movement could be controlled and he used one of the projections above the engine in front of him as a sight. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ratowicz going down from the opposite direction, lower than he was, and the fire faltering as the men below couldn’t make up their minds whom to fire at. Then he was over the Japanese column, still almost vertical, his eyes all the time on the wooden bridge. The refugees were starting to scatter across the slopes on either side of the road and he saw Lee’s officers running as it dawned on them what he was intending.

  As they slapped at their men, a fresh fusillade came up at him. Something hit him in the side that seemed to paralyse his leg but, by concentrating, thinking of nothing else, he found he could make it work. The thin line of the bridge grew larger and larger until it seemed to fill the whole of his vision and he could see the faces of Lee’s men staring up at him. As he pulled the release, he felt the bomb drop away and the old plane lifted as it was freed of its weight. Heaving back on the stick, he almost blacked out as the nose rose, and the blood sank to his heels as the machine shuddered in protest. There was a bang beneath him somewhere and for a moment he thought the wings had collapsed, but the machine continued to fly. He felt it hit again and again. The Germans had discovered in 1940 that their Stukas were vulnerable as they pulled out of their dives and the old Hart was no Stuka.

  Then out of the corner of his eye he saw an aeroplane approaching from his left. Ratowicz, he thought. Coming in to help. Then he realised it wasn’t Ratowicz. It was a machine he’d never seen before and it had red meatballs painted on its wings and fuselage.