War Wounds

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  He and Watson were known on the squadron as The Bookends, for they were of the same height and build and had the same lean good-looking faces; but Watson, as perhaps a good bookend should, completed the pair by being a contrast as well as a complement: he was swarthy and black-haired.

  “What odds are you giving about the first squadron in the Command to be sent on an op?” Watson sounded amused; he usually did.

  In this instance it was attributable to more than habitual good humour. His pilot was a distinguished amateur steeplechase rider and showjumper, keen frequenter of flat race meetings, and had an account with a Mayfair bookmaker. He had been known to bet on which of two birds would take off first from a perch, and the number of pups in an expected litter.

  “Too many imponderables: logically, it should be a P.R., but there’s equal logic in waiting until dark and sending some of the Whitleys over to make Jerry sit up.”

  Photographic reconnaissance was flown by daylight. The Whitley was the staple heavy bomber and capable of carrying a 7000 lb load.

  “Not the Wellingtons, you think?”

  There was mischief in Watson’s prod. He knew the affection and pride in which Harry held his father.

  “Why let the Wimpey show its speed so early in the race? Let the lumbering carthorse have a canter. Jerry will hardly be expecting an immediate attack; his fighters are as ineffectual at night as ours; I doubt that he’ll want to put up much ack-ack or many search-lights, and give away their positions, just for a small raid.”

  “You don’t think we’ll hit them really hard, so soon?”

  “The damn politicians will be scared stiff of provoking Hitler into heavy reprisals: they’ll insist on us pussy-footing; gutless, time-serving bastards, all with an eye on their own voters and careers, and to hell with the country.”

  Watson gave him another gentle dig. “I defer to your superior professional knowledge.”

  Harry grinned. “Silly prick.”

  Unlike him, Watson had not graduated at The Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, but had joined on a short service commission in 1937, a year after Harry had passed out from the College. With two years at Cranwell, three more on a squadron, one grade higher in rank and three years seniority in age, Harry’s training and experience were unarguably much the superior. He was set for a career that could take him to the post of Chief of Air Staff. Watson could only hope that he would be selected for a permanent commission when his five years were over; and even then, he could hardly aspire to rise higher than group captain, without a Cranwell background.

  “I’m going to make a prediction that will shock you,” Watson said.

  “What’s that, John?”

  “I’ll lay you odds that Their Airships,” (The Naval Staff were known as Their Lordships of the Admiralty, so why not Their Airships of Air Ministry?) “being addicted to illogical quirks, will lay on the most unsuitable and diciest op they can think of, to kick off with: just to show Jerry we don’t give a damn for his defences.”

  “There’s a certain perverse logic about that; but I’ll take you. What are you offering and what exactly about?”

  “The perversity of the top brass is too well proven to risk long odds. I’ll lay you evens that the first offensive op will be in at least squadron strength, and daylight.”

  “Offensive op? You discount P.R.?”

  “That’ll be a singleton, anyway.”

  “Right, I’ll take you. Half a bar?”

  “Make it five bob; ten’s a bit steep for a P.O.”

  “Done. And squadron strength?”

  “At least twelve aircraft.”

  “You wouldn’t care to wager another five bob that, if you’re right, we’ll be on it?”

  “Hedging your bet, you wise guy.”

  “Wise guy” was a term much in vogue on the station, on account of its frequent occurrence in gangster films, which were a great source of amusement; and because, to the delight of both squadrons, two officers of the United States Army Air Corps who had spent a week at Massingham three months previously, had been much addicted to its use.

  There was a standard retort, of the same provenance, and Harry duly made it: “You ain’t kiddin’, Bub.”

  They joined the rest of the crews in the squadron crew room at their hangar. The squadron leaders commanding the two flights, and the squadron commander, were in their offices.

  “Waiting for the off,” Harry remarked. “At least, I suppose we’re under starter’s orders.”

  All bomber squadrons were at readiness to take off within an hour, which produced an air of contained excitement; but there was also an atmosphere of disappointment that an Operations Order had not been issued in advance. It had been obvious for a week that war was imminent. Why hadn’t the first raids been pre-planned and orders sent out from the various Group Headquarters? That would have avoided this waiting in uncertainty.

  Watson said as much, and added: “I reckon the reason why no Ops Order was sent in advance is that none of them can make up their minds about whom to send, or where.” “Them”, as his hearers knew, referred to the faceless brass hats in authority. “There’s a suggestion of improvisation about it that bothers me.”

  Harry habitually defended the Service hierarchy, but agreed about the implication of indecision; but wasn’t going to say so.

  “Bloody politicians, I bet. I’m sure the C.A.S. made his mind up about how, where, when and whom, weeks ago. It’s the cabinet that’s dithering, you can be sure.”

  The Chief of Air Staff was so remote a figure that it had not occurred to many of the waiting crews that he was the one ultimately responsible for the empty hours of readiness: few thought beyond their own Group, fewer still even thought in terms of Bomber Command H.Q. as the arbiter of their activities.

  I wonder if Father’s squadrons are hanging around, too, Harry thought. He’ll be jolly bucked that the balloon’s gone up and he can drop bombs on Jerry again. I’ll bet he’s making the telephone lines to Group, Command and Air Ministry hum, asking to be given a target for his Wimpeys. He had thought first of his father, but it now occurred to him that his own station commander was probably doing exactly the same.

  The declaration of a war which will probably embroil the whole of Europe turns out to be a prosaic event, he thought. The main difference from our normal routine is that instead of being free yesterday from mid-day and all of today, we were, and are, at readiness. There would be no free Saturday afternoons and Sundays now; and gone was the Wednesday half-holiday, ostensibly for sport but actually at everyone’s disposal as he pleased. I wonder how much flat or jump racing there’ll be? He thought amusedly of his bookie, Douglas Stuart, whose advertisement slogan “Douggie never owes” was as well known as the Keith Prowse ticket agency’s “You want the best seats, we have them”; or Montague Burton’s “The tailor of taste”. The war would hit bookies hard, for racing was bound to be much reduced.

  He looked up and found Watson eyeing him as though enjoying a private joke.

  “What’s so funny, John?”

  “I was reading your thoughts.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Another popular Hollywoodism, much imitated among the squadrons.

  “You were wondering whether you’ll be able to fly up to Doncaster for the St. Leger.”

  Harry laughed. “Wise guy.”

  “You ain’t kiddin’, Bub.”

  This is a hell of a way to start a war: sitting in the crew room, with no clue to what’s expected of us in the next few hours, cracking the current popular jokes; which will soon become damned stale.

  Harry looked across the room to where half a dozen wireless operator-air gunners sat. The Wop/A.Gs tended to find it difficult to integrate with other air crew. About a quarter of the pilots and observers were sergeants and flight sergeants. The relationship between them and the officer air crew was informal; and a very experienced N.C.O. pilot might lead a section of three aircraft of which the other two were flown by novice officers. The Wop/A.Gs
, usually referred to by their basic trade of wireless operator, or as “jeep”, were all aircraftmen or corporals; very rarely the latter. They drew small pay, with an extra sixpence a day for flying. They had few privileges and often had to work in the Signals section when not on the flying roster. Crews were fluid, but pilots and observers tried to team up when possible. Jeeps drifted from one pilot to another. This offended Harry’s innate sense of order. For the last few weeks he had been able to ensure that, as well as Watson, he flew permanently with the same wireless operator-air gunner: a 19-year-old Yorkshire lad from Hull.

  He caught Leading Aircraftman Broadley’s eye and beckoned to him.

  Broadley walked across, looking shy.

  “Sir?”

  Harry indicated the empty chair on his right — Watson occupied one on his other side — and Broadley sat down.

  “How’s your key hand… and your trigger finger?”

  Broadley looked happy at being taken into the family. He was a big, strong youth with a round red face and blue eyes of an innocence that had caught more than one girl in the local village unawares.

  “Steady, sir.” He smiled widely.

  “I’ve asked Squadron Leader Snaith to crew you with P.O. Watson and me.”

  “Bai! Thanks very much, sir.” There was genuine pleasure in Broadley’s tone. He kept his direct gaze on Harry, hesitated briefly: “Any gen, sir?”

  “It’s you chaps who start all the rumours.”

  Broadley accepted the accusation against himself and his fellow erks as though it were a compliment.

  “Plenty of them, sir. I meant real griff.”

  “Not a dickey bird.” Common usage and Cockney rhyming slang for “word”.

  “Will you be flying M, sir?”

  “If we’re on the first sortie, yes.”

  Broadley nodded, satisfied. M for Mother was a reliable aeroplane, a good kite, a gen kite.

  “All right if I go and check the radio, sir?”

  “Better hang on here, until we hear more from the flight commander. Things could happen in a rush, and you might be wanted for briefing.”

  “I never thought it’d be like this. I’d have thought we’d be airborne by now and on our way to Berlin.”

  “You’re just bloodthirsty, Broadley.”

  Broadley took that as a compliment, too.

  “I’ve used enough ammo on drogues, sir: it’ll be a right pleasure to shoot at a Jerry.”

  Watson said “Now you’re shooting a line. Not allowed on this crew.”

  Broadley reddened and looked uncertain, but Watson had smiled as he spoke, so Broadley took encouragement.

  “And I’d like to see how many D/F stations I can raise from over Germany, sir.”

  “Now you’re talking my language. Make that your priority, will you: direction-finding aids to navigation, and forget all the… glory stuff… the violent stuff.”

  Watson had nearly said “death and glory”, but death was a forbidden subject; it had been obtruding on his mind and he had been deliberately rejecting it. The slip of his tongue had been Freudian, he decided; and felt self-conscious about letting the word “glory” slip out, too.

  He repeated the permissible word: “I’m not a violent type by nature; but I do like to know where I am.”

  “The rest of us are thankful when you do,” said Harry.

  “There’s a mighty lot of sky over them thar hills, Pardner.” Cowboy films were another current fetish; and, to the squadrons’ joy, one of the visiting Yanks had been a Texan.

  “You can say that again, Bo.”

  Broadley knew what was afoot. The officers and senior N.C.Os had been playing this Hollywood game for weeks now. But he felt too shy to join in.

  He said, picking on a word in Watson’s last phrase, “I know a bit about hills: one’s enough for me.”

  “Good point,” said Harry. “Mark that, will you, Observer.”

  A few months before, L.A.C. Broadley, flying with a raw officer pilot on a navigation exercise, had been confronted with a Scottish mountain as the Blenheim emerged from cloud. He had already warned the pilot, and the observer had warned him that he should not go below a certain height. The aircraft had scraped the mountainside. The observer was killed, the pilot injured; and, later, court martialed, severely reprimanded; and posted from the squadron for further training, destined for a target-towing or communications flight. Broadley had broken an arm and spent a cold night in the hills.

  “I think our jeep’s line-shooting again.”

  “That wasn’t a line-shoot, it was a justifiable reminder that you’re flying with types who have an eye on their pensions.”

  Watson had no pension in view until — if — he was given a permanent commission. That was one thought: the other was that mention of pensions, any oblique reference to survival, was unfortunate.

  He dismissed it. “I’m trusting in the football pools for my nest egg.” He had been educated at Charterhouse and reckoned to know a thing or two about soccer.

  This cheered Broadley. “I do the pools, an’ all, sir.”

  “It can’t be much joy to you, coming from Hull, then. Pity you’re not a Leeds man.”

  Broadley showed signs of amusement. “It’s something to be able to count on a draw at home and losing away, sithee.”

  And still there was no bellicose activity at R.A.F. Massingham.

  *

  The next morning, the B.B.C. announced that aircraft had operated over Germany on the previous day and during the night. Amplification came to the squadron.

  Wing Commander Arnott, their C.O., ambled into the crew room, looking as usual like a bear: “Like a guardsman’s headdress with arms and legs”, as Watson had described him: large, ponderous, splay-footed, with a huge skull; so square that Watson had also once said “I can’t help suspecting the Boss is a Jerry who infiltrated his way into our side.” He was jovial as well as ursine. He had entered Cranwell in 1922.

  He seated himself, lit his pipe and enjoyed the expectant silence that had fallen.

  “Yesterday’s sortie was made by a Blenheim from One-Three-Nine, on a recce.” This provoked a groan. No. 139 Squadron was at Wyton, and there seemed no reason why Massingham could not have been given the chance; being nearer to Germany. “It was only as far as Wilhelmshaven and Kiel to photograph the German Fleet. Last night’s op was by Whitleys from Fifty-One and Fifty-Eight, at Leconfield.” There was a quickening of interest. A slow, mocking smile spread across the wing commander’s face. “They dropped thirteen tons of leaflets.” There was another groan; a louder one. “Arguing the enemy into submission, instead of hitting the brute hard.”

  The A Flight commander, Squadron Leader Snaith, four years later at Cranwell than his squadron commander, a foxy-looking, gingery little man, asked “Any chance of a job for us, sir?”

  “Any minute now, I expect. And when it does come, at least we won’t be expected to waste our time dumping bumph.”

  But there was no Operations Order for Massingham that day. Instead, the station commander himself visited both squadron crew rooms to make an announcement.

  “You’ll be encouraged to hear that ten Blenheims from One-O-Seven and One-One-O, with fourteen Wellingtons from Nine and One-Four-Nine, are attacking the enemy Fleet this afternoon.”

  Everyone looked out of the window. It was four-o’clock and the weather looked fine. The two Blenheim squadrons the group captain had mentioned were stationed at Wattisham. Again, the common thought was: Why not us?

  Harry hoped that it was Scantlebury’s Wellingtons which were on their way to Germany; or already there. His father would prize the honour highly; and had probably found an excuse to go with them.

  He learned later that the Wellingtons were based elsewhere. And, in the evening, Wing Commander Arnott had more to tell them.

  “There wasn’t much joy on today’s op. The weather over target was bad: rain, and rain en route. Two of the Blenheims lost their way in fog. Four out of five in
the second formation are missing. Only one Wimpey seems to have found the target, the weather was so foul. We’ve lost five Blenheims and two Wellingtons: one Blenheim was blown up by its own bombs; it was too low when they exploded. Flak apparently got the others. There was some fighter reaction. At the end of it all, not much damage appears to have been done to the Jerry warships.”

  It was a blunt statement. Wing Commander Arnott did not believe in sweetening bitter pills or concealing the reality of what they all must soon confront. The squadron was grateful; if silently ruminative.

  “What about our bet?”

  Watson looked at Harry blankly for a moment. He had been visualising the bombers groping their way through fog, low cloud and rain; attacking so low that one of them was caught by its own bomb blast; the flak and fighters…

  “Null and void, I should say: nothing that we wagered about happened; we were both wrong.”

  It was not the moment for a Hollywoodism. Harry merely nodded.

  He looked at his watch. “Bar’s open. Let’s have one as soon as we’re released.”

  “One or six.”

  *

  At nine-o’clock the next morning, trains of bomb trolleys towed by tractors began to make their way from the bomb dump towards the Blenheims dispersed along the perimeter track.

  The Dawn Battle Order, the squadrons’ lists of captains and crews who would fly that day if operations were ordered, carried the names of Flying Officer Templer, Pilot Officer Watson and Leading Aircraftman Broadley. The aircraft allocated to them was M for Mother.

  The sight of the bomb trains unsettled the men waiting in the crew rooms. Some stood at the windows, watching the activity around the aircraft. Some drew more heavily than usual on cigarettes and pipes. Some talked with false animation, and there were splutters of shrill, humourless laughter.

  Squadron Leader Snaith and his fellow flight commander came through the door. Each read out a list of three names and said “Briefing at o-nine-fifteen.”

  Ten minutes were left before the detailed crews learned what was in store for them. They rose and began to make their way to the Operations Room.