He started to speak, to reassure her, to tell her that he would always be there for her, that he loved her and wanted her and that his heart was bursting with happiness and a kind of pain, all at the same time. He cupped her face in his hands and she placed a finger against his lips.
‘Not now darling,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t say anything now. Just make love to me.’
*
The bombers returned that night, unloading their cargoes of death into the glowing inferno of the East End. All night long the thunder went on, splitting the sky asunder.
In the whole of tortured London, two people at least took no notice of it.
Chapter Seven
Yeoman, surrounded by a cloud of tobacco smoke, was allowing himself the luxury of half an hour in the latrine. He was pleased with himself. The latrine was a makeshift affair, a row of canvas cubicles equipped with ashcans, hastily erected near the readiness hut to replace a more permanent structure which had been destroyed in an air raid.
For once, Yeoman had managed to secure the cubicle at the eastern end of the line. It was much in demand early in the morning, for the sun shone through a series of tears in the canvas side, making it quite pleasant to sit there in complete privacy. The noises of the airfield were muted, forming a vague background to Yeoman’s reverie. Idly, he contemplated a fly that was sitting in a patch of sunlight, flexing its wings. It moved suddenly, crawling to the edge of the pool of light, then stopped again, as though reluctant to venture on to the darker area of canvas.
Yeoman drew on his pipe and expelled a cloud of smoke towards the insect. It twitched, then took off suddenly and dived, buzzing low over the floor and escaping through the gap under the door.
It was 11 September, and Yeoman had been back with the squadron for two days. He smiled, remembering the reception he had got from his friends; their jibes had pulled him down with a crash from cloud nine, which was just as well. He would soon be in action again, and would need all his mental resources to cope with the demands of combat. Thoughts of Julia, for the time being, would have to be pushed to the back of his mind.
His injured foot still pained him from time to time, but at least he knew now that he could handle a Spitfire without undue discomfort. The M.O. had reluctantly authorised his return to flying duties on the afternoon of the tenth and he had lost no time in finding himself a spare fighter, taking her up to ten thousand feet and pushing her through the full range of aerobatics. The effort had made him sweat, but he had landed with the comforting knowledge that he had lost none of his skill.
A sudden bellow from outside startled him. ‘George! Are you in there?’
Yeoman sighed. ‘No,’ he said.
The canvas structure swayed alarmingly as someone buffeted it from outside. Yeoman recognised Honeywell’s voice. ‘Oh, come on,’ the New Zealander yelled, ‘give your backside a chance! The boss wants to see you.’
Yeoman emerged half a minute later, blinking in the sunlight and fastening his tunic. ‘Now what have I done?’ he asked. The other shrugged. ‘God knows,’ he answered, ‘but the adj. said it was pretty urgent. I’d get a move on, if I were you. You know Hillier doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
Yeoman walked quickly past the parked Spitfires towards the squadron offices, nodding to the ground crews who called out cheerfully to him. He knew that he was popular, and it made him feel good inside. He was a man who liked to be liked, and was conscious that it was one of his failings.
The squadron offices ran alongside one of the hangars. The main structure had been half-demolished, but the offices themselves had escaped undamaged, apart from shattered windows. Yeoman went inside and collided with the adjutant, Flight Lieutenant King, who was making a beeline for the door with a large sheaf of papers under his arm. King, who wore two rows of First World War ribbons under a Royal Flying Corps brevet, grinned at the younger man in friendly fashion.
‘Ah, Yeoman,’ he said, ‘the CO. is expecting you. Go right in.’ He winked. ‘And don’t look so apprehensive. He’s in a good mood.’ King nodded benignly and limped off, his artificial leg creaking faintly.
Yeoman took a deep breath and crossed the room, adjusting his forage cap as he went. He knocked on the door of Hillier’s office and a crisp voice ordered him to enter.
Wing Commander Richard Fitzhugh Hillier, D.F.C., A.F.C., was standing by the window, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out over the airfield. Yeoman stood at attention for long seconds, waiting for his commanding officer to turn round. At last Hillier swivelled to face him, and he saluted. Hillier nodded and crossed to his desk, sitting down heavily. The aristocratic features split in a brief smile, and Yeoman was startled. He had never seen Hillier smile before.
‘All right, Yeoman,’ he said, ‘relax.’ The young pilot’s feet moved to the ‘at ease’ position and he winced a little as he felt a sudden twinge of pain. The shadow that crossed his face did not go unnoticed.
‘Sit down, Yeoman,’ Hillier ordered, indicating a wicker chair. ‘Is your foot still troubling you?’
‘Just a little, sir, now and again. But I can handle a Spit O.K., and the M.O. seems quite happy,’ he added hurriedly.
Hillier grunted. ‘All right, I don’t need to be convinced.’ He looked down at a file that lay open on his desk. ‘You’ve got seven confirmed,’ he stated abruptly, ‘which puts you in the squadron’s top four when it comes to shooting Huns down.’ He leaned back and stared hard at the pilot, who fidgeted.
Hillier hashed another of his watery smiles, and continued: ‘Remember that bollocking I gave you in France for going off and chasing Huns without proper authorisation? Your first day on the squadron, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir. It wasn’t a very good start.’
‘Well, no doubt you’re experienced enough now to realise the sense behind the reprimand. You’ve come a long way since then.’
Just what the hell is all this leading up to? Yeoman wondered. Hillier didn’t keep him in the dark for long.
‘Yeoman,’ he said, ‘I think it’s time you took on more responsibility. How do you feel about it?’
In for a penny, thought Yeoman. ‘I think I’d like that, sir,’ he replied. Hillier put the palms of his hands together and rested his chin on his fingertips, his elbows on the desk.
‘Good. Now, you speak some French, don’t you?’
‘Well, sir, just a bit … it’s not very good, but I can get by. I managed to make myself understood in France.’
Hillier nodded. ‘Good. Well, let me get straight to the point. There’s a Polish fighter squadron working up on Hurricanes at Northolt, and they’ll be moving here in three days’ time. They’re mad keen to have a bash at the Jerries, but they’ve got this bloody awful language problem. However, quite a few of them speak French — it was apparently taught as a secondary language in their schools before the war — and Group thought it would be a good idea if we could find someone who also spoke French to nip across and give them a proper briefing on the organisation here. In other words, you’ve got three days to fly with them and get to know them, so that when they arrive you can help them to fit into the general picture. Do you think you can handle it?’
Yeoman nodded. ‘I’ll have a good try, sir. I can see Group’s point. No matter how good the Poles may be, they probably won’t have time to adjust once they get here, so at least some of the adjusting needs to be done beforehand, or the works might get fouled up. It makes sense.’
‘Quite. Well, that’s about all. The sooner you get over there the better. Take Callender or somebody along with you in the Magister, and he can fly it back.’
Yeoman rose, replacing his cap. Hillier got up too, fishing in one of his tunic pockets. There’s just one other thing,’ he said. ‘You’d better put this up. I’m told the Poles are very class-conscious.’
He tossed something across the desk. It was a couple of lengths of thin blue braid, the insignia of a pilot officer. He grinned as Yeoman stared in astonishment.
‘Very perceptive,’ said Hillier. He stuck out his hand. ‘Congratulations, but remember one thing. A bit of rank braid doesn’t make an officer. I think you are already aware of many of the required qualities, but others you have yet to discover, and some of them may come as a surprise to you.’ He reached down and picked a thick volume from the desk, handing it to Yeoman. The pilot looked at it. It was T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
‘That book,’ Hillier continued, ‘was written by a man who, in my opinion, was one of the finest leaders of all time. Oh, he had his critics, who called him all sorts of names after he was dead and denigrated his achievements. But out there across the Jordan, where it all happened, men still talk of ‘El Orens’ as though he were some fend of god, and it takes a very special leader to leave that kind of legend behind.’
He took the book back from Yeoman and put it down carefully. ‘What I want to say to you is simply this. Lawrence’s philosophy was simple, and part of it was this; that an officer should never ask his men to do anything he’s not prepared to do himself. Remember that, and you won’t go far wrong. Now you’d better get cracking.’
Yeoman thanked Hillier for his advice and saluted, leaving the office in a daze. He went back to the readiness hut and found Jim Callender sitting outside, reading the Daily Mirror. He told the American what Hillier had said, and Callender agreed affably to fly his friend to Northolt.
Yeoman had saved the best bit till last, or so he thought. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out the pieces of rank braid, waving them under Callender’s nose.
The American got up slowly and Yeoman retreated, expecting to be brought low by a flying tackle. Instead, Callender burst out laughing and produced two identical pieces of braid. ‘I was saving this up until later in the hope of being supplied with gallons of beer before I quit the sergeants’ mess for ever,’ he said, ‘but since you’re off to Northolt and you’re the only guy who’s stupid enough to stand me a few rounds I guess the party will have to be delayed a few days.’
He slapped Yeoman on the shoulder. ‘Hey,’ he roared, ‘the erks around here won’t know what’s hit them! I’m going to dash off and make a list of all the people I want to salute me and call me sir!’
Yeoman laughed. ‘Silly sod! Come on, we’d better get ourselves sorted out. If you’ll get the Maggie fuelled, I’ll go and pack my toothbrush and borrow an officer’s hat from somebody. Got to make a good impression on our gallant Allies.’ The flight sergeant looked Yeoman up and down, taking in the hastily sewn-on rank braid and the lighter patches on the sleeves of the pilot’s tunic where his N.C.O.’s stripes had been a bare two hours earlier.
‘Good morning, sir,’ the flight sergeant said, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the last word. ‘You will find Squadron Leader Kendal in operations.’
Yeoman smiled sweetly at him. The man was immaculate, his buttons blinding. ‘Why, thank you, Flight Sergeant,’ he said. The flight sergeant stared stolidly over his head.
Yeoman took a couple of steps towards the airfield buildings, then paused and turned.
‘By the way, Flight Sergeant,’ he said, ‘your fly is undone.’
The flight sergeant looked down at himself, startled, then turned the colour of a beetroot. Yeoman grinned maliciously and went on his way. He glanced up briefly as a shadow passed over him; the Magister, with Jim Callender at the controls, waggled its wings and blared off towards the south coast.
Squadron Leader Kendal turned out to be a bony man in his thirties, with a nose like a hawk and eyes to match. He was talking into two telephones at the same time when Yeoman entered his office, and swearing fluently. After a while he threw both telephones down and lit a cigarette, disgust on his face.
‘Bloody store-bashers,’ he snorted. ‘Trying to build their empire on clothing returns. Who the hell cares about clothing returns? It’s spares we want. Sodding Hurricanes that came out of the ark, guns that jam, bloody radios that don’t work. Jesus Christ!’
He bounded to his feet like a jack-in-the-box and ground his cigarette into the threadbare carpet. ‘Yeoman! Welcome aboard. Good bunch, these Poles. Undisciplined, though. Chase their own shadows, given half a chance. The only English they know is swear words. Probably get that from me. Don’t take any notice of me. Used to be in the Merchant Navy. Bronsky!’
The last word nearly split Yeoman’s eardrums. A door burst open and an enormous figure fell into the room, recovered itself and clicked its heels. ‘This,’ said Kendal, waving a hand, ‘is Bronsky. He’s the only one of the shower who speaks English.’
Bronsky’s face split in an enormous grin and he descended on Yeoman, seizing the pilot’s hand and pumping it vigorously. Yeoman backed off, half-expecting to be kissed on both cheeks, and took stock of the newcomer.
Bronsky stood well over six feet tall. He had dark, crinkly hair and a face like an amiable gorilla, with bushy eyebrows that met in the middle. Enormous shoulders bulged through his tunic, which sported the R.A.F. pilot’s brevet on the left breast and the silver eagle of the Polish Air Force on the right. He wore a flight lieutenant’s badges of rank. Yeoman liked him immediately.
‘Don’t worry if he smells funny,’ Kendal grinned. ‘They all douse themselves with perfume. Maybe I ought to try it sometime. It seems to pull the women like nobody’s business.’
His comments failed to embarrass Bronksy, who rumbled like a volcano. ‘Bloody funny,’ he said. ‘Boss makes same joke every day. One day we nail his pants to bloody flagpole, with him inside.’
‘All right, you great ape,’ said Kendal. ‘Take Yeoman over to the mess and get him some lunch. You can introduce him to the rest of your private army later.’ He picked up one of the telephones on his desk and resignedly asked the operator for stores. As they left the office, Yeoman and his companion heard him start swearing again.
There were three fighter squadrons at Northolt, which, lying as it did to the north-west of London, had escaped the pounding that the more southerly R.A.F. airfields had taken. The officers’ mess was crowded, and Yeoman, who had not been in one before, felt suddenly strange and uncomfortable until he realised that a great many of the young officers around him must, like himself, be newly commissioned.
They went straight along the corridor to the dining-room. It was full, but Bronsky spotted a couple of vacant chairs at one of the tables and steered Yeoman towards it, As they sat down, a tall flying officer with blond, almost white hair looked up from his meal and grinned at them.
‘Hi, Bron,’ he said. ‘Who’s this?’
Bronsky introduced them. Yeoman said, ‘Good morning, sir,’ and felt immediately embarrassed; the ‘sir’ had slipped out through force of habit. The flying officer, whose name was Bohanson, took in the ribbon of the D.F.M. under Yeoman’s brevet and the patches on his tunic sleeves and smiled.
‘New boy, eh?’
Yeoman admitted that he was very new indeed, and they swapped stories across the table between mouthfuls. Yeoman learned that Bohanson was attached to a Canadian fighter squadron, and that he had also fought in France, flying Hurricanes during the final evacuation from the Cherbourg Peninsula. Inevitably, they found that they had some mutual friends. One of them was Simon Wynne-Williams, and Bohanson was distressed to hear about the pilot’s severe injuries.
‘Still,’ he said, thoughtfully chewing a mouthful of apple pie, ‘they can work wonders these days. Maybe they’ll patch him up all right.’ He put down his spoon. ‘Well, that’s me refuelled. Got to push off now. So long, George. Nice to meet you. See you both in the bar tonight, no doubt.’
He ambled out. Yeoman and Bronsky finished their meal and went into the anteroom, helping themselves to a cup of tea on the way. The leather armchairs were all occupied, so they sat on a broad window-ledge and relaxed in the sunshine.
Yeoman’s habitual curiosity got the better of him and he
wanted to know something of Bronsky’s background. The Pole was forthcoming and told his story simply, with no frills. Later, Yeoman jotted down the salient facts in the notebook he always carried with him. One day, he was determined to write the story of his experiences, and those of his fellow pilots.
Tadeusz Bronsky had been a lieutenant-colonel in the Polish Air Force in September 1939, when Germany attacked his country. He had commanded a squadron of obsolete PZL P.11 fighters, which the Poles called Jedenastkas. The squadron had gone to its war station on 31 August.
‘It was the afternoon of 1 September before we made serious contact with the enemy,’ Bronsky said, telling his story in a mixture of English and French. ‘We were patrolling Warsaw when we sighted a hundred Heinkels approaching our capital, escorted by Messerschmitt 110s. We only had twenty fighters, but we went for them just the same.’
A shadow crossed the Pole’s broad features. ‘It was hopeless right from the start,’ he continued. ‘We shot down three bombers, but the Messerschmitts got eight of our Jedenastkas. We lost four more later that day, and the rest of our fighter squadrons fared no better. By the day’s end, we had lost fifty per cent of our fighting strength.
‘We fought on for two weeks, until we had nothing left to fight with. It was a story of one withdrawal after another, as the Panzers raced across Poland. Our bombers tried to attack them, and were shot down like flies.’
Bronsky paused. Yeoman looked at his face, and was momentarily shocked by the anger and bitterness stamped on it.
‘Then came 17 September, the Pole continued, his voice suddenly low and savage. ‘We were patrolling near the airfield of Buczacz with our three surviving fighters when we were attacked without warning by Russian aircraft. The bastards shot down my two wingmen and I had to make a forced landing. A couple of hours later, Russian troops and armour came pouring into Poland from the east.’
Squadron Scramble (1978) Page 8
