War Wounds

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Loerzer sat up.

  Mrs Meyer screamed and fainted.

  “Damn silly thing to do.” Templer bent and peered down at her. “Mrs Meyer! Mrs Meyer!”

  She had slumped against the car and slid onto the running board. She shook her head, dazed; obviously recollected the cause of her swoon, and shrieked “Gott in Himmel!”

  Shakily, she stood up and stared at the prisoner. Loertzer said coldly “Sie sprechen Deutsch?”

  “Ja, natürlich: ich bin Österreicherin.”

  “Meyer! Eine Jüdin.” The sneer in his voice was cutting.

  “Yes. I am Jewish.” She said tartly: “Remember what Goering said: ‘If a single British bomber ever reaches Berlin, you can call me Meyer.’ Well, it will not be long now before you can do just that. Then, will you sneer at your Luftwaffe Commander?”

  “No time for all that, Mrs Meyer. What did you say to him? Never mind now. He’s broken his ankle. Tell him to get out.”

  She did so, but Loerzer refused to move. He shouted at her at some length.

  She looked at Templer. “He says he broke his ankle when he fell from the parachute harness. His comrade was wounded in both arms. Loerzer had to help him out of the aeroplane. And when they came down in the trees, the other man called out that he was being strangled by his parachute and could not free himself. He is dead.”

  “He is indeed. Now tell this bad-tempered lout not to shout, and to climb out of there at once.”

  “He keeps shouting about the Geneva Convention. I turned round and said to him, ‘I'll give you Geneva Convention’, I said.”

  Templer had never understood why the lower orders found it necessary to claim that they had turned round before uttering some telling phrase, but he took Mrs Meyer’s meaning. She had learned her English from a series of servants.

  “Tell him to get out or I’ll stun him again and have him dragged out.”

  “Again, sir?” Mrs Meyer was aghast.

  “Had to knock him out ... biff on the head ... to get him to come along in the car. Now tell him, Mrs Meyer. Kindly hurry; I haven’t got all night.”

  9.

  When Harry telephoned, the following night, he detected a deranged note in his father’s voice. Templer spoke with a measured deliberation that was in itself unnatural, and with a hesitancy that Harry had never known in him: it was as though he were reluctant to converse and had to search his vocabulary for words before he uttered a phrase.

  “Are you all right, Father?”

  “Perfectly, thank you. Very busy.”

  “All right, I won’t keep you. You sound disturbed ... upset ... I wondered if you’d had some bad news from Air Ministry or Wroughton.”

  “Not at all. I have to report to Wroughton, in uniform, on Monday. They say they’ll want me for three days. Damn lot of nonsense. Anyone can tell in three minutes that I’m as fit as a fiddle.”

  You don’t sound like any Stradivarius to me, Father, thought Templer. A pretty cracked fiddle, I’d say.

  “It must be a strain, waiting. I hope all the things that are keeping you so busy will take your mind off it.”

  Templer made no comment.

  “You’re all right, Harry?”

  “Yes, thanks. Squadron Leader Monks ... Chimp ... told me two Dornier One-elevens had been shot down near home last night.”

  “Yes. I saw it. One blew up.”

  “You must have enjoyed that.”

  “Could hardly have felt better if I’d shot them down myself.”

  Harry was relieved to hear normality in his Father’s voice.

  “Chimp also says that the observer was found dead, on the ground, there were two air gunners in the wreckage who had been killed by flak and a night flying Hurricane. He says the pilot is adrift.”

  “So I hear. Well, Harry, I must hang up, terribly busy.”

  Harry went back to the bar. Presently Williams asked him if anything was wrong. “You’re very thoughtful. Got a girl on your mind, have you?”

  You’d be surprised if you knew her identity. Not that she is strictly a girl. He often thought of the Steinhoffs; and the missing German pilot’s plight had put him in mind of his own, a few months ago; and thus, strongly, of Ursula.

  “Something like that: my sister, actually. I owe her a call. Think I’ll do it now.”

  He got through to Elizabeth in the doctors’ common room.

  “I’ve just had a word with Father. There’s something I can’t tell you on an open line, that makes me slightly worried about him. I don’t think it’s directly connected with the way he sounded on the telephone, but it certainly can’t be helping his mental condition.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Harry? That’s the most involved and uninformative sentence I’ve ever heard you speak.”

  “Sorry I can’t be precise. I’ll try to put it better: he sounded odd at first, then quite normal, and then he obviously wanted to get rid of me. On the whole, I felt that the dottiness predominated.”

  “Oh, God! Poor old darling: and we all thought he was on the mend. When is he going to hospital?”

  “Monday.”

  “Only three days for him to get through. I’ve a lot of faith in old Ma Meyer. She’s so devoted to him, and was so devoted to Mother, that she’s probably annoying him by being too solicitous. But I know she can be relied on to put him first and her own welfare a poor second. I’m sure he’s all right, Harry. Don’t worry unnecessarily. You’ve got enough on your plate, as it is.”

  “Haven’t we all! You must be rushed off your feet: I know your hospital is always busy, and now you’re short staffed ...”

  “It’s different for me: I’m still learning. Work is the only way I will learn. Qualifying isn’t the end of the learning process, you know.”

  “I realise that. Tell you what: now Hector’s gone off, I’ll come up to London and give you a night out.”

  “I’d like nothing better.”

  “I’ll nip down to the Manor to be there when Father gets home from Wroughton.”

  “That’s an excellent idea. Are you sure you can?”

  “It’s one of the perqs of being deputy flight commander. I’ll ask the Boss not to put me down for Ops that afternoon or the next morning. I’ll nip down in the Maggie.”

  “It all sounds very grand to me, brother dear.”

  They shared a laugh and made their farewells, having agreed not to worry Margaret with Harry’s anxiety about their father.

  As Elizabeth had said, Harry had enough on his plate and he was grateful for it because it kept his mind occupied. His father had always been a remarkably close and understanding parent, despite his exterior aloofness. Lionel Templer reserved all his love and all his rare demonstrativeness for his family. It was not only Alice whom he loved with fanatical devotion and admiration: he harboured the same strong feelings towards his children. Harry’s horsemanship and his embracing the R.A.F. as a career had merely crowned Templer’s delight: for he would have loved his son equally if he had turned out to be totally different from what he had hoped; even had he been a failure at whatever he did.

  In return, Harry was even more concerned about seeing his father restored to sound emotional health and reinstated in the Service than he was about his own survival.

  That did not mean, however, that he ever flew without some trepidation. In a way, he felt more fear when approaching a target than he used to: nearly a year of experience of operational flying, his decoration, his escape from Germany, and his status on the squadron meant that much was expected of him that would not be expected of any of the others except Arnott, the flight commanders and the other deputy flight commander. He was conscious every time he made a bombing run that many eyes were on him and he must take whatever risks were necessary to ensure an accurate attack. Others could pull out and be regarded as prudent. If he did so, the bravery imputed to him on account of his D.F.C. and his escape would be questioned. His comrades would be disappointed. Their morale would suffe
r. He very much hoped that no other award was going through the usual channels, for his bold escape. He carried all the hero-worship and duty to set an example that he felt he could bear.

  Two days before Templer was to report to the R.A.F. Hospital at Wroughton, in Wiltshire, Harry led a raid on a Luftwaffe fighter airfield in Holland.

  At briefing, Group Captain Hobdey told the four crews who were on the operation: “Destroying bombers on the ground is not the only useful way of reducing the weight of air raids on this country. Our fighter pilots are under orders to ignore escorting enemy fighters and concentrate on shooting down the bombers. Well, if we can destroy enemy fighters on the ground, that will mean that our own fighters can get on with the job of knocking down bombers without having to worry so much about being jumped by Messerschmitts on whom they have not been keeping an eye. Now, you may think that you could do a more useful job by attacking fighter airfields in France; forward airfields, from which the escorts for attacks on Britain are drawn ...”

  Harry felt he knew the station commander well enough to interrupt with a joke.

  “No, sir: Holland suits us well.”

  Even Group Captain Hobdey had to join in the laughter. Low level daylights on the Pas de Calais were anathema to his squadrons.

  “I’m sure Command would be gratified to hear it, Harry. This particular target has been chosen because Intelligence reports that two units in the Pas de Calais are about to be sent there on rest, and they’ll be replaced by two units now there, who have been working up for a spell of ops. That means that if we knock out their aeroplanes before they leave Holland, tired pilots in France will have to carry on; or be rested, thus cutting down the escort strength. Either way, it’s ...” he looked at Harry, “what you would call a good each way bet, Templer.”

  There was more amusement.

  Harry, leading a small force for the eighth time, made a concise contribution to the briefing: he defined the tactics for the attack.

  They were streaking over the sea, close to the wavetops, a few miles beyond the English shore, when shells began to burst around them. There was an early morning mist and they had been warned to expect a convoy coming down the east coast to the Thames estuary. Judging by the direction from which tracer was coming, the convoy had not been warned to expect them. They were flying in a diamond-shaped box and Harry saw smoke rise from the port engine of the Blenheim on his port side. It lost height. For a few seconds it was touch and go whether it would plough into the sea. It climbed slowly back to its original height.

  R/T silence was being observed, so that the enemy listening service would not be warned of their movement. Harry watched the stricken aeroplane. The pilot made a circular motion with his hand and began to turn for home.

  “Signal with the Aldis ‘You bloody idiots, you’ve damaged a friendly aircraft’,” Harry ordered Mellings.

  He led the remaining two in a slow wheel that would keep the convoy in sight. Firing had ceased. Presumably only one or two armed merchant ships had mistaken the Blenheims for the enemy.

  When the lamp signal had been made, Williams gave Harry the course for target.

  Off the Dutch coast, a pair of patrolling E-boats saw them and began shooting at once. Being low in the water, they were able to train their cannons and machine-guns on low-flying aircraft without difficulty.

  Mellings reported: “They’re concentrating on Number Four, sir.”

  “How close to him are they getting?”

  “They’re hitting him, sir ... Skipper, he’s going in ... oh, shit!”

  “What’s happened?”

  “He was hit all over, Skipper. Went straight in. Went down like a submarine. I can just see some oil and stuff on the surface now.”

  “We’ll have to bomb bloody well ... two doing the job of four aircraft.”

  The two surviving Blenheims swept over the Dutch coast and blew sand off the dunes with their slipstreams. Harry expected to be shot at. There was no tracer, there were no bursting shells.

  “See any fighters, Gunner?”

  “No, Skipper.”

  “Target in two minutes,” Williams warned.

  They were over the aerodrome before the defences reacted. In a maelstrom of tracer and shellbursts, Harry led his No. 2 along the perimeter road, where Me 109s stood at wide intervals in sandbagged pens. Williams deposited his four 250 lb bombs and the canisters of incendiaries, one under each wing. A petrol bowzer went up in the air and as it crashed back to earth it split and petrol poured out. The incendiaries ignited it. Streaks of fire ran all over the area, setting aeroplanes alight.

  The No. 2 let his bombs go with equal precision. Smoke rolled along the edge of the airfield.

  Harry went down until he was almost scraping the grass. Men were scattering. Mellings was firing his guns. There was a thud on the starboard side and Harry looked quickly to his right. A fleeing German had not ducked quickly enough. Half a body, severed above the waist, was sliding off the wingtip.

  Harry was blasting away with his single gun, his tracer darting into wooden huts and through open hangar doors.

  At the last second he lifted the Blenheim over the embankment on the western boundary and made for the sea.

  *

  The day before his father’s return from hospital, Harry was summoned to the station commander’s office.

  He felt a tremor of anxiety when he saw that Wing Commander Arnott and Air Vice Marshal Bentinck were there.

  The group captain told him to sit down. Harry took off his cap and prepared himself for a blast for losing half his force on the Dutch raid.

  Hobdey said, “Air Vice Marshall Bentinck has something to say to you.”

  “All right, Harry,” Bentinck smiled, “it’s not a rocket. Quite the contrary. We’re forming a special flight to train for specific low level daylight tasks. It will be based here, equipped with Blenheims, and you’re being given command of it: with the acting rank of squadron leader.”

  That puts the kybosh on my visit to Father, Harry thought. I can hardly give myself time off for an afternoon, a night and a morning away, as soon as I take command.

  He almost failed to hear Bentinck say, “The station commander agrees that you can have twenty-four hours’ leave to attend to your personal affairs.”

  *

  Harry circled the house before setting the Magister down. He saw Mrs Meyer come out, accompanied by the young maid; and the elderly char, who must have stayed late to see the “airyplane” land.

  Mrs Meyer bustled across the grass to meet him as he walked to the house.

  “Willkommen ... sehr ehrfreulich ... ” She gave a nervous smile and a sharp nervous little cry. “Ach! Promotion!” She rubbed a finger along the narrow strip of new braid between two wider ones that were well faded. “Was führ die Reihe ... what rank have you now?”

  Harry gave her a look full of curiosity. “Squadron Leader. You’re unusually free with German today.”

  She flapped her hands and giggled. “Squadron leader? Is that the equal of Major?” She pronounced the last in the German way.

  “That’s right. What time is my father expected?”

  “Not for another two hours.”

  “I hope you’ve made me one of your fruit cakes.”

  “Oh, ja, ja, natürlich, Herr Major. And cucumber sandwiches.”

  “You’re excited about Father’s return?”

  She gave him a sharp glance and reddened.

  Harry thought with amusement: The old bird’s got a crush on Father.

  The current incumbent of the maid’s job was a remarkably pretty one, rising seventeen, with lustrous blonde hair, a ripe pair of lips, and slim legs that were as fetching in cheap silk stockings as Betty Grable’s in the most expensive nylons. With these assets went an exuberant bosom.

  This nymph was lurking in the hall when Harry walked in with Mrs Meyer. She smiled shyly but her eyes shone with interest; in him, he realised.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”
r />   “Hello Eileen. How are you?”

  They had hardly exchanged more than this greeting on his last visit since returning from Germany.

  “Very well, thank you, sir. That’s a Magister, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. So, how much longer are you going to be with us Eileen, before you go off to earn a lot of money making munitions or aircrafts parts?”

  “I’m going in the Waaf, sir, as soon as I’m old enough.”

  “Good show, Eileen. You’re interested in aeroplanes?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. I can tell them all.”

  “Ah. Got a boy friend in the R.A.F.?”

  Eileen giggled. “Two or three, sir.”

  “Two or three? Don’t you know how many admirers you’ve got? There must be a crowd of them.”

  His tone was light. Mrs Meyer was looking cross.

  “No, sir. Just two or three.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re going to join us. What do you want to do?”

  “I’d like to work with aeroplanes. I don’t want to be a clerk or a storekeeper. I’d like to be a wireless operator, best. I learned the Morse code in the Guides. That would mean I’d be sending signals to aeroplanes and taking messages from them, wouldn’t it, sir?”

  “Certainly. I’m glad you’re so definite about what you want to do; it shows you’re keen.”

  He smiled and went on his way; aware that her eyes were following him.

  Mrs Meyer said, “Mr Harry, shall I bring tea in five minutes?”

  He was about to mount the stairs and turned to answer, “Yes, please.” Irresistibly, his gaze wandered to the pretty maid.

  He was astonished by the ruminative look with which she was regarding Mrs Meyer. She’s watching, he thought, not just looking. She seems an intelligent girl. There’s a questioning, suspicious tinge to the way she’s focused on the old bird. Odd.

  At the top of the stairs he looked down from the gallery that ran round three sides of the hall. The girl was, while ostensibly dusting, still watching Mrs Meyer; and Mrs Meyer, with a careworn air, had not yet gone to prepare tea: she was watching him intently and with apparent preoccupation; as though her mind were more concerned with some other subject than with tea or with him.