Somewhere Over England

by Margaret Graham

  The flare had gone up and they were taxi-ing now. He adjusted his helmet, the throat speaker and earphones, taking off half a minute after Juliet; tucking in behind and climbing as she did, following in position to the assembly point, then on to rendezvous with the squadrons from other fields until turning back on themselves in tight formation, safe in their own airspace for now, then out and over the Channel.

  ‘Let’s keep looking, guys.’ Ed spoke over the intercom. ‘The Mustangs are with us so that’s a help but we need your eyes, always, every minute. I want to get you home to your hearths, remember, and I’m kinda old myself and need my pipe and slippers at the end of the day, not a dose of cold hard snow.’

  He listened to the laughter, then checked the tail turret, and young Eriksson who looked as though he should still be in high school. The waist gunners checked out well, they were running through their guns. Ted in the top turret was fine and the nose too.

  ‘You OK, Marco?’ He smiled to hear the familiar voice reply, ‘Great, skip. Fancy a little outing today but get us back, this is my twenty-fifth.’

  Ed heard groans from the others and laughed, always looking to left and right but he’d picked up the escorts now, Mustangs who could fly at 440 mph and make Berlin and back. He did not think of the men who would still be here if they’d only had those little beauties earlier.

  ‘OK, you guys, you’ll get there one day,’ he laughed into the intercom but knew that the life expectancy of a bomber was only twenty-one missions, so where did that put its crew? Maybe the war would be over by then. Maybe. His hands were steady on the controls and he could feel the vibration, smell the leather, the gasoline. The formation hadn’t lifted to a higher altitude over the coast because there was no flak any more now that it was in Allied hands.

  Ed relaxed his shoulders and glanced at Barney who said, ‘Kinda quiet, eh, skip?’

  Ed smiled. ‘Sure is.’ He wouldn’t tell the kids the position they were flying in. What was the point?

  He said again into the throat speaker, ‘Just keep your eyes busy. Remember that.’

  The formation was rising now, up to 25,000 feet, out of range of enemy guns because they were getting pretty close to the drop zone, Ed reckoned. It would be cold for the guys in the rest of the ship.

  ‘Get your oxygen masks on,’ he ordered. ‘We’re going up. Give me a post, Marco.’

  ‘I reckon on another thirty minutes to target, skip.’

  They flew on and he knew the crew would be huddled into their jackets and flexing their hands in gloves which made their fingers clumsy but stopped frost-bite. Did they know that if they were hit their blood would freeze as it hit the air? But Ed jerked his head, concentrating on the sky, the instruments, anything rather than staying inside his head because he was being crazy. They had been told losses would be light, hadn’t they?

  ‘So how many more missions have you got to do?’ Barney asked, his eyes to the left and right, up and down. His voice was high with tension.

  Ed shrugged. ‘A few.’

  ‘Yeah, but how many?’

  ‘This guy’s done thirty-two.’ Marco’s voice came in over the earphones.

  Barney turned and stared. ‘Thirty-two, but you could be home.’ There was disbelief in his voice.

  ‘Couldn’t bear to leave us could you, skip?’ Marco called.

  ‘Something like that. Now keep on looking.’

  It had been Helen he hadn’t been able to leave, but she would never know he had volunteered for a second tour.

  ‘Give us a post then, Marco.’

  ‘Five minutes to target, skip.’ Marco’s voice was sharper now.

  ‘Bombardier, you with us?’ Ed’s voice was crisp. He followed the squadron in tight formation.

  ‘Right there, skip. Hold her steady.’ But there was gunfire now from the ground and the ship lurched as a shell exploded nearby.

  ‘Jesus,’ Eriksson shouted. ‘Jesus.’ He was frightened, Ed could hear it in his voice.

  He held on to the controls, feeling the sweat break out as it always did.

  ‘OK, Eriksson. It’s OK. Just keep looking.’

  He was over the target, dropping the bombs, and there had been no air attack and the ground fire had been light. So far, no Focke-Wulfs swarming, no ME109s.

  He pulled out and away, keeping in tight. ‘OK, guys, we’re on our way home. I guess maybe this is going to turn into a milk-run.’ He was still looking and listening, up, down, left, right because they could still come, and they did, ten minutes later, roaring down on them, breaking away so close Ed could see the German in the cockpit.

  The Mustangs were fighting too, but the Germans were getting through, again and again stabbing at his corner.

  ‘Jesus, skip. I got one.’ Eriksson was screaming. ‘I got one.’

  Ed cut in sharply. ‘Keep looking, Eriksson. There’ll be others.’

  The Focke-Wulfs kept coming in on a pursuit curve, but this time Ted in the top turret sent one spinning down in flames but still they kept coming from three thousand feet ahead and one thousand above, coming in fast before rolling and firing.

  One passed, streaming thick dark smoke. Was he hit or was it just the synthetic fuel made out of coal and God knows what that the Germans were using? Ed didn’t know, didn’t have time to think because the guns were started up from below and he was falling back from formation.

  ‘Come on, you bitch,’ he ground out, pushing at the throttles, the controls, pulling up again and so far she wasn’t hit but Eriksson was screaming, always screaming, and it wasn’t because he had scored a hit, it was because he had just screamed that his arm had been torn off, for Christ’s sake.

  Ed shook his head. For God’s sake, how could you think? He had a plane to get back but there Was the screaming and the black smoke to fly through, the fighters to avoid and the fear to push away.

  He hauled on the controls as another 109 flashed across in front, firing, and he felt the Emma Lou judder. She was hit but would she burn?

  Barney called out. ‘Number one engine’s been hit, Ed.’

  Christ! ‘It’s OK. I got her,’ Ed said, still hearing Eriksson’s screams, but there was no fire.

  ‘Where are the Mustangs for Pete’s sake?’ Marco called out.

  But they were there, fighting, turning, firing, but there were so many Germans. Didn’t they know they’d lost the goddamn war? Now Eriksson was no longer screaming but voices were babbling and shouting and Ed called, ‘Get off the intercom.’ He must hear the orders coming through from the group. An ME109 was coming straight in, his nose cone pointing straight at him, his guns firing and the Emma Lou juddered again and now number two engine was windmilling and burning.

  ‘Feather it,’ Ed snapped to Barney and he did.

  The Emma Lou was heavy now and he was fighting to hold her even, fighting to close the gap between him and the Shark in front but he was losing speed and altitude.

  Frank, the radio operator called through. ‘I got Ted here, upper turret empty now, he’s hurt but not bad, the blood’s frozen.’

  ‘OK. Throw a spare jacket over him.’ Ed’s voice was firm, though his hands were trembling, and all he could see and hear were ravens coming, again and again, but they weren’t ravens, they were planes, so for Christ’s sake, snap out of it.

  He did. Barney was swearing, long streams of words which he repeated again and again. There was an explosion amidships and the Emma Lou hesitated, shuddered, hit by cannon fire, but then carried on. The waist gunners were still firing, he could feel their vibration, see the tracers spitting into fighters but it was not enough, and now bits of his wing had been shot away and the ship was careening from side to side as another fighter streaked past.

  ‘Give me a post, Marco. Give me a post,’ Ed shouted.

  There was no answer.

  ‘For Christ’s sake give me a post.’

  Marco spoke then, his voice was weak. ‘Four minutes to the sea, skip.’ He gave him the course.

 
‘You OK?’

  Marco laughed but it was faint. ‘That shell got a bit familiar, the bitch.’

  Ed gripped the throttle. ‘Hang on, kid. I’m getting you back. It’s your last one. Trust me.’

  Number three engine was spluttering and the Emma Lou was fighting him, swaying, but he held her firm, talking to her as though she were a mare, and now they were over the sea at last and the Focke-Wulfs and the ME 109s were gone but the Mustangs stayed with them, waggling their wings to indicate that they would stay with Emma Lou until she made it, or didn’t. She was losing height and her speed was still decreasing.

  But land was in sight and Barney did a count of dead and injured and Ed listened on the intercom. Maybe Eriksson was dead, there was no answer. Marco, Frank injured.

  The Emma Lou was lower now and he didn’t know if he could get her back. Some of them must be saved at least.

  ‘You guys that can, bale out.’ He nodded at Barney. ‘You too. Get out. Now.’

  He didn’t look as Barney left, but fought to keep the ship up because he still had Marco and Frank. Maybe he could do it but the fighters were still with them and they were indicating that he had no undercarriage and he waved as they flew past, not showing what he felt. He was cool and calm because he had to be. For Christ’s sake, he had to be. Number three engine was struggling but the prop was still turning. The ship was yawing and he corrected her, just. Swearing, he kept her on course, checking the compass, seeing the fields too close, too goddamn low. He eased her up, feeling the drag pulling the wing round, but he fought back, careful not to stall. The airfield was ahead now.

  The bombers were all down, all on their hard standing but the crews would not be debriefing, they would be there, waiting, watching, but he didn’t think he was going to make it and he hoped to God there was no fuel left because he didn’t want to burn.

  The Mustangs were above him now.

  ‘You OK, Marco, Frank?’

  ‘Just fine and dandy, boss,’ Marco said but his voice was very faint.

  ‘We’ve no undercarriage. Just hang on, and I’ll bring you in safe.’ But would he? He was so tired and his arms were shaking. His mouth was dry, so dry.

  The ship was yawing again and he had to bring her straight. She was low and slow, the engine still spluttering, and now he could see the ambulances hurtling from behind the tower, out to the end of the runway but he couldn’t hear the siren because of the wind in the plane, the cracking of the fuselage, the spluttering of number three engine. She was lurching in over the tree tops, and he reached to put down the landing gear, but then stopped, because there was none there.

  He brought her down on the runway then and he felt the drag on that goddamn wing, saw it tip then right itself, and then tip again, catching, tearing. He heard such noise, such noise as he had never thought existed, and then the plane flipped over and he saw the ground come up to crush the cockpit and for a moment he felt the pain, but only for a moment.

  Helen was home, standing by the sink unable to work because she was so cold, suddenly so cold. She put the potatoes back into the water, then turned and stood quite still. She stood like that, just looking at the Advent candles, the tree which stood surrounded by presents, watching as Laura and Chris laid the table and looked at her, their eyes masked, uncertain. Then the jeep came.

  They all heard the knocking at the door but Helen insisted on answering because she knew who it would be and in a quiet voice the Colonel told her that the Emma Lou had crash-landed, that Marco and Frank were injured but that Ed had been hurt too, so badly hurt that the medics did not know how long he would survive.

  Helen reached for her coat and looked at Laura, telling her to stay with Chris, and then she left, out into the starlit night. She felt the air harsh in her lungs and breathed it in and out, in and out, but then it changed into the thick leather warmth of the car. She sat back and breathed and counted and looked up at the stars and the moon and knew that she and Ed should not have thought of the future.

  She didn’t cry, she couldn’t cry because he wasn’t going to die. He was her husband and he couldn’t die. But he might if she cried.

  She sat, holding one hand with the other, squeezing, hurting, but not allowing the tears to come, or the hoarse voice to be heard. It must stay inside to tear jagged into her mind but it must not escape because the raven of the gods might hear, and lead them to him. No she must not cry or call because then he might be found.

  They drove up to the largest Nissen hut at the field hospital at Little Odbury air base. The roadways were filled with jeeps, command cars, ambulances, MPs and a plane flew in low overhead to land. Men were rushing but not running and Helen wondered if she was going mad.

  The Colonel pushed his way through the men and soldiers who stood in lines or wandered about, looking shocked, tired. He spoke to a corpsman who pointed to the far door, giving directions. They hurried from one hut to another but could not find him. In and out, from darkness to light, from cold to warmth and he could be dead while they walked like this.

  ‘He could be dead,’ she shouted at another corpsman who had shaken his head when McDonald was mentioned, pointing to yet another hut.

  The Colonel took her arm. ‘It’s going to be OK. He’s in the next one, I’ll bet you.’ But he wasn’t and neither could they find Marco or Frank.

  They pushed back to the clerk behind the main desk who told them that all three had been transferred to the Winton Hospital near Norwich.

  They drove for what seemed like hours, picking out the white line along the side of the road when it existed and now the darkness inside her head was lifting and just despair remained. They passed through a village and saw the lighted church, the stained glass windows illuminated for the first time since war began but it meant nothing to her, not now.

  It was two a.m. before they arrived and then they followed the nurse down a long ward, hearing her shoes squeaking on the waxed floor and the groans and breathing of the shapes behind the white screens which surrounded each bed. A nurse came out from one and a doctor from another and others were busy too. Ed was in the end bed, near the double doors and the sister’s desk so that he was never beyond her hearing.

  Helen stopped and looked as the nurse eased back the screens and she was counting again, breathing in and out; one, two, three, four. His head and body were bandaged but his hands were the same, lying still, so still on the sheets. She sat on the chair, holding his fingers.

  ‘Falling from more trees, my darling,’ she said and though her voice was steady tears were coursing down her face. His fingers squeezed hers but his eyes did not open.

  She stayed all night and the next day and the next, refusing to be moved until the X-rays showed no broken spine but two cracked vertebrae and a broken leg. And head injuries.

  She didn’t know for another week whether he was going to be brain damaged, blind or crippled and so she could only sit by his bed, holding his hand, talking of Greater Mannenham, of the snow which was deep and cold, of the hoar frosts, and all the time she did not know if he heard her. She didn’t think of the gods they had challenged, or the man in the wheelchair by the Cambridge river. She thought of Ed tossing hay, playing baseball, and gripped the sheet but not his hands. These she stroked calmly and never cried when she sat with him.

  The doctor came to her as she left the room at the end of the first week in January, taking her into the office, sitting down behind the desk, steepling his hands as he smiled and told her that there would be no lasting physical damage but perhaps there would be trauma, though war had a habit of producing that anyway.

  Helen went to the room she had taken in the local inn, climbed the stairs and sat by the window, not drawing the curtains across because she wanted to see the snow, so clean and white like his bandages were. She wanted to feel the cold air and opened the window. Her breath puffed out in the crisp night. He was not going to die. She wanted to shout it out for the world to hear because this time the man she loved was not going to
die.

  On 9 January the Battle of the Bulge was over and the Germans were being squeezed out of their Ardennes salient and Helen had to sit by his bed, holding his hand tightly, and tell him that Marco had died of his injuries.

  He cried and she stayed until he slept but then had to return home because she had to be up as usual at five-thirty to begin work at the farm.

  Ed lay in the dark when she had gone, still unable to feel his feet or move them, but it was of Marco he thought, killed on his twenty-fifth mission and that night he had a dream of blood on his face, dried blood which would not scrape off even though he rubbed it against his shoulder. The nurse came and soothed him, asking who Joe was. He had almost forgotten but he dreamt the same dream the next night and this time the blood was all over him and it wasn’t Joe’s blood, it was all those people who had been beneath his bombs and the nurse came again, but he only wanted Helen and she came when the hospital called her.

  In February he was transferred to a recuperation hospital in Scotland and was able to write to his father that at last he had seen the country where their ancestors came from and it was very like the valley in Montana where they lived.

  From 13 to 15 February Dresden was bombed by the Allies when it was full of refugees. Hundreds of thousands died and Ed lay listening to the news of the raid, glad that he was lying here with pain coursing through his body because at least that particular guilt was not added to the load he already bore and which was heavier than anything else had ever been.

  Helen wrote every day to Ed before cycling to work through a winter which was harder than any she remembered. Her hands were numb before she had left the village, her breath was frozen in the scarf which she wound round her nose and mouth. In March the Allies crossed the Rhine and now, when Chris asked if the war was nearly over she said, ‘Yes, my darling.’