Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  They were vectored towards a formation of twenty plus, reportedly heading for Folkestone. By the time they were at angels sixteen, there was no sign of any enemy bombers but suddenly they were being bounced by twenty 109s.

  The Messerschmitts were upon them in a flash.

  ‘Bandits, eleven o’clock,’ Archie heard Charlie shout, and then turned to see them passing on their right, no more than a hundred yards away. So close were they, he could see the pilots quite clearly in their cockpits, leaning forward, and then they were turning towards them and opening fire, luminous tracer spitting across the sky.

  In a moment, all cohesion was lost. Archie flung his Spitfire into a roll and passed under a 109 that rushed over him, then saw two on Ginger’s tail, so pulled up and, banking, followed them. Ginger was rolling and banking and weaving but could not shake them. Archie cursed to himself – he had to do something to get those 109s off Ginger’s tail, so although he was out of range, he pressed his thumb down on the gun button and let off a couple of two-second bursts. It did the trick: both Messerschmitts hastily broke away. Suddenly he spotted an opportunity. Climbing steeply, he half rolled so that before the 109s could complete the half-circle of their turn, he was able to dive down and latch on to the tail of the second. In his reflector sight, the Messerschmitt was just flickering to the right. A bit of rudder, and – Yes! – a clear target, just a slight deflection.

  A quick look in the mirror and around him – thank God for his silk scarf – and then a gentle squeeze on the gun button. Bullets spewed from his guns and Archie saw the tracer rounds flashing along the German’s fuselage. Flames licked from ruptured fuel tanks, then the cockpit was engulfed in thick dark smoke, the flames flickering through the swirling clouds. The pilot threw his machine into a turn, then flipped it on to its back and a moment later a figure tumbled free, the trail of the parachute following behind. Archie circled and watched it billow open and the pilot waft down towards the sea.

  Moments later, tracer was fizzing over Archie once more. A half-roll, then a tight turn, the centrifugal force pinning him to his seat and making the muscles in his arms burn. Fading vision, then someone was screaming in his ear, ‘I’ve been hit! I’ve been goddam hit!’ Frantically, Archie levelled and quarter rolled. Mick!

  ‘Christ! Oh, Christ!’ screamed Mick, and now Charlie was shouting, ‘Just get out of there, Mick, get out of there!’

  Archie saw it now – a Spitfire burning away to his left.

  ‘Oh, God! Help me!’ Mick screamed again. Archie winced, the cry of pain and terror violently loud in his ear. He flipped his Spitfire on to its back and dived. There was another 109 and he opened fire, but he was past him before his bullets could strike home and all he could hear in his ears were Mick’s screams and then a broken note of high-pitched static. Spiralling down towards the sea, still burning and trailing thick smoke, was Mick’s Spitfire. Moments later, there was a splash of white spray and then the Spitfire, with Mick still inside, disappeared.

  Later that evening after they finally landed back down at Biggin, he wrote in his journal:

  Mick’s gone. I know I’m going to hear his screams for the rest of my life.

  Monday 12 August, around 4.30 p.m. Another long day, but although both flights had been scrambled that morning, they had seen nothing. At dispersal at Hawkinge, the pilots had been playing cricket with a tennis ball since their sandwich lunch. It was certainly perfect cricketing weather, even though a few cumulus and high cirrus clouds had lazily appeared in the clear blue sky. The game had now broken up, and pilots had drifted back towards the collection of deckchairs and armchairs outside the dispersal hut. A fair few were now asleep, snatching the chance to snooze while they could. Ted and Archie were both busily writing at a table brought out from the hut. Absolute quiet had descended over the airfield, and, as Archie paused to think, he could hear the scratch of Ted’s nib on paper.

  ‘What do you find to write about?’ asked Ivo, breaking the silence, standing behind them in the doorway of the hut. ‘You only wrote to her yesterday.’

  ‘When you’re in love, Ivo,’ said Ted, ‘there are always things to say. You need to get yourself a girl, then you’d understand.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want the responsibility of having to write every day,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I like writing every day. It makes me think of a lovely, sweet, beautiful girl rather than you lot, and gives me something to do while we hang about here, waiting for Jerry to show himself. It’s better than loitering in doorways.’

  Ivo smirked. ‘And what on earth do you put in that journal of yours, Archie?’

  Archie shrugged. ‘What we’ve been doing, mainly.’

  Jock, who had been reading a magazine in an armchair next to them, now put it down. ‘Got up at dawn, took tumbrel to Spits, flew to Hawkinge, stooged about a bit, occasionally saw the odd Hun, flew back to Biggin, dinner in Mess, then pub, then bed.’

  They all laughed.

  ‘It has been a bit like that,’ said Archie, glancing back through his entries. ‘Here: 8 August. Plenty of cloud, scrambled and saw Dornier disappear into cloud. Lost it.’

  ‘My sister thought he’d write something interesting in it,’ said Ted. ‘She thinks we’re living in historic times and that he should be writing things down for posterity. When Archie here is old and grey, he can look back at it and think, Oh, yes, the summer of 1940. Sat on my backside at dispersal waiting for Jerry.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Jock. ‘Long may it continue, but you could hardly write a book about it, could you?’

  Ivo said, ‘You don’t think maybe we’re tempting fate with this kind of chat?’

  The telephone suddenly rang. Archie felt himself tense. Those asleep were instantly awake, looking towards the hut expectantly.

  ‘I told you,’ said Ivo.

  ‘You spoke too soon, Skipper,’ said Ted.

  ‘Yes,’ said the orderly from inside the hut. ‘Yes, right. Right, sir.’ A pause as he replaced the receiver, then he yelled, ‘Squadron scramble!’ He began furiously ringing the handbell.

  Archie glanced at Ted as they put down their pens and pushed back their chairs. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  Ted patted him on the shoulder, winked – calm as you like – then they were running along with the others towards their waiting Spitfires.

  4.50 p.m. Climbing into the sky, twelve Spitfires. They passed through cloud, then back out into the clear, the sun still high and bright above them. Archie, at Blue Two behind Charlie Bannerman, looked across at the squadron, spread out in four vics, Yellow Section just ahead to their left, Green Section on their right and slightly behind. His curving, elliptical wings looked sharp and vivid, but seemed suspended in the air, the sense of speed lost to him the higher they climbed. Five minutes passed, the drone of the Merlin becoming a kind of neutral background, like a rather heavy silence. The enclosed space in the cockpit: the smell of rubber and metal and oil. Archie smacked his leg, stinging himself out of his reverie.

  ‘Hello, Bison, this is Clover,’ he heard in his headset. ‘Patrol Dungeness at angels ten.’

  ‘Hello, Clover, Bison answering.’ Jock. ‘Repeat: angels ten?’

  ‘Hello, Bison, yes, angels ten. No Hurris to take on big jobs. Bandits, eighty plus. Go for big jobs. Steer 012 degrees, zero, one, two. Over.’

  ‘Roger, Clover. Out.’ A crackle and then Jock said, ‘All right, chaps, you heard what he said. Eyes peeled.’

  Eighty, thought Archie. Christ. There’s just twelve of us.

  He was certainly wide awake now, his body tensing, heart hammering and his throat heavy and dry. Then he saw them, just as Billy Barrow at Green Three called out, ‘Bandits, four o’clock!’

  There were, he guessed, thirty or forty twin-engine bombers – Junkers 88s or Dorniers? He craned his neck, squinted into the sun and then saw a swarm of around twenty 109s a couple of thousand feet above them. He could taste the gall in his throat.

  ‘Hello, Red One,
this is Blue Two,’ he said. ‘Twenty little jobs at two o’clock, angels twelve.’

  ‘All right, Blue Two, I see them. Get ready to attack, but for God’s sake keep a watch on your backs. Tally ho.’

  He peeled off but Archie could see the 109s were already beginning their dives too, little dark crosses glinting in the sun, white contrails following. Archie took a deep breath – Here goes – then turned on to his back to prevent the engine from cutting out and looped down in a curving dive. The enemy bombers had yet to see them, droning on towards, he guessed, Dover. Archie felt the airframe shake and clatter as the bombers rapidly loomed towards him. Four hundred on the clock, and now he could see they were Dorniers. Spitfires were converging on them – the first clatter of machine guns and tracer spitting across the sky – and now the bombers had seen them and were scattering. Return fire – stabs of luminous red tracer criss-crossing the sky – was that a Dornier falling already? All cohesion had gone as Archie picked out one, opened fire – the chatter of guns, the smell of cordite, the shake of the aircraft – bits falling off the Dornier – and then he was past it, a blurred impression of the black and white cross on the wing a matter of yards away. Pull back on the stick – arms aching, the centrifugal force pinning him to his seat – and banking in a wide arc and there was another one, out on a limb, desperately trying to get away. A slight deflection shot, but he could see it filling his gun reflector sight – another squeeze of the gun button and he saw his tracer sparking along the starboard side of the fuselage. The Dornier hung there for a moment, then suddenly dropped forward as one of the fuel tanks caught; flames flickered, then rippled along the wing. A glance behind – Christ, 109s! – bank the Spit, open the throttle wide – Thank God, got him off my tail – a weave back and forth, and a glance around – a mass of incoherent images: a parachute opening, bits of an aircraft fluttering through the air like leaves – swirling fighter planes – criss-crosses of tracer – chatter, German and English – ‘I’ve got one!’ – Charlie? – and then, ‘Can’t get these damn 109s off my tail!’ Ginger.

  ‘Ginger,’ said Archie out loud, and now saw, a little below him, two 109s chasing a lone Spitfire. Ginger was weaving back and forth, tracer following him, but as Archie pushed the stick forward and dived towards them, he saw Ginger put his Spit into a tight left-hand turn and one of the 109s detach itself, climb and roll inverted, before swooping down for another attack. Archie latched on to Ginger’s other pursuer, but it was too late.

  ‘Break, Ginger, break!’ he shouted, but already the Spitfire had been hit. A puff of smoke and Ginger’s voice shouting, ‘I’m bailing out, I’m bailing out!’ A moment later, a dark figure fell, followed by the blossoming of a white parachute. Thank God, thought Archie, but then saw one of the 109s circling and preparing to dive down towards the falling ’chute. Archie frantically looked around – were there other targets? – then saw the Messerschmitt thunder over Ginger as he gently drifted down towards the sea. As it did so, the parachute folded in on itself and suddenly Ginger wasn’t floating downwards, but plummeting.

  ‘No!’ shouted Archie. Banking his Spitfire, he dived after the 109, who was now circling lazily five hundred feet below.

  Anger welled inside him as he swooped down, but as he neared, the German pulled out of his turn and headed straight towards him. ‘Come on, come on!’ muttered Archie. Stabs of tracer were arcing towards him, lazily at first, then whizzing past, and the 109 was rapidly filling his sights, its yellow spinner bright against the dark airframe. Archie rolled, firing, felt bullets clattering and saw a blur as the Messerschmitt shot past. Archie pulled the stick towards him, the horizon tilted and then on the top he half-rolled, levelled out and prepared to dive again. Where was his 109? There! Below him, diving gently out of the fray, smoke trailing.

  Never follow a plane down, he remembered Mac saying. To hell with that, thought Archie. Mac hadn’t just seen his friend plunge to his death because of what that Jerry pilot had done. Another surge of anger as he made a curving dive after the ailing Messerschmitt. He was soon gaining on him. The German saw him and began to weave furiously from side to side, but the smoke from his engine was getting worse and his speed faltering. Four hundred yards, the 109 flickering across his gun sight. Archie eased the stick forward, saw the Messerschmitt rise and then, adding a bit of rudder to yaw the plane, he pulled back on the control column and at two hundred yards opened fire. Bullets streamed from his guns then stopped – Damn, out of ammo! – but he had done enough. The 109 had dropped into a spiralling vertical dive. Had he killed the pilot? There was no sign of any parachute. Archie looked around him, craning his neck – nothing – empty skies, then banked gently and watched as the 109 plunged into the sea, just as Ginger had done just a few minutes earlier.

  Archie sighed, his anger spent. There was little satisfaction, he realized, in taking his revenge. Poor Ginger, he thought.

  A clatter of bullets and a loud bang and Archie was jolted in his seat. Jesus! Jesus! A thunderous roar and a dark shape swooped directly overhead. Archie craned his neck back to see a 109 waggle its wings and fly on back towards France.

  ‘Damn it! Damn it!’ Frantically, he looked at his dials – oil pressure rising, manifold pressure diving. He could see the coast – it was only a few miles away – but his engine was dying. Smoke was gushing from the cowling and the Merlin was groaning. Archie cursed again. He’d committed two cardinal sins: not only following the 109 down, but also failing to spot his attacker.

  At least he had height – six thousand feet on the clock, and, although it was steadily falling, he still had plenty of height in which to bail out. But bailing out hardly appealed. He swallowed hard, his mind suddenly addled. One hand loosely on the stick, the engine spluttering and coughing and belching thick smoke. A deep breath, nausea in his stomach, but the Spitfire was still flying. Getting closer to the coast.

  Four thousand feet. Two miles to go? The coast looming – he could see Folkestone and the white cliffs and then the long, curving beach at Dymchurch and the low spit of Dungeness reaching out to sea. And what was that? Smoke rising – billowing – from beyond Folkestone. Hawkinge? Had they bombed Hawkinge?

  Another bang, Archie started, a renewed belch of smoke, and the Merlin died. He was drifting, falling in a gentle dive. Please, he prayed, let me reach the coast. Steadily, his altimeter fell. Three thousand, two thousand. Nearly there. Sixteen hundred. Fifteen hundred feet.

  Archie closed his eyes a moment. He had to get out – leave it too late, and he’d die. Just up ahead, he could see Dymchurch – could almost touch it.

  ‘Come on, Archie,’ he told himself. ‘Do it.’

  He could feel the sweat running down his face and back and yet he was shivering, his heart banging like a hammer in his chest. With his shaking hands, he unplugged his leads, unclipped the Sutton harness and pulled back the canopy. A waft of oily smoke made him cough and splutter, then he banked the Spitfire so that it pointed east, out to sea, pushed the stick hard to the left and felt the horizon swivel, and then he was falling, falling, tumbling towards the sea, the air gushing past him and wondering whether these were his last moments alive.

  22

  Massing of the Eagles

  Tumbling ever closer towards the sea – or was it land, after all? – he tried to pull the cord, but it was difficult, plunging through the air, to think clearly. Then he yanked it, felt a jolt of panic, but a moment later, with a shoulder-wrenching jerk, the parachute ballooned and he was no longer plunging to his death but drifting to his survival. And he was over land! Hooray! he thought, but then realized with the breeze he was drifting back out to sea. Despair engulfed him, only to be replaced with relief once more as he dropped gently into the sea not thirty yards from the shore.

  Bitingly cold water closed around him and then the parachute seemed to be tugging him, pulling him under. He flailed desperately, his boots and uniform weighing him down as he fumbled with the release. Panic nearly got the better of him, but
then he was free and rising to the surface. He inflated his Mae West and began swimming towards the beach, his arms and legs splashing like a child’s.

  It wasn’t far, but it seemed to take for ever: fully clothed, heavy, fur-lined boots on his feet, helmet still on his head – it wasn’t the best swimming kit. At last he felt his feet touch the ground and staggered clear of the water.

  A shout, followed by another, and Archie looked around to see several soldiers on the tufty headland above the beach waving their arms at him. Did they think he was German? He couldn’t understand and so pulled off his flying helmet and took another couple of paces, his hand cupped to his ear.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled one of the men. ‘Don’t move!’

  Archie stood still, looking around at the coils of wire that now ran along the beach.

  ‘Mines!’ shouted the man. ‘The beach is mined!’

  Archie froze. Mines! It hadn’t even occurred to him, but it should have been obvious – he was on a beach the Germans would land on if they ever attempted an invasion.

  Seawater ran down his face, his clothes clung to him, cold and sodden, and his teeth began to chatter. He could see one of the soldiers inching carefully on to the beach, passing through a gap in the wire.

  ‘Hold on!’ he yelled. ‘Won’t be long!’

  Archie watched as he stepped left and right, then hopped and gradually drew closer.

  ‘Jolly lucky we were there when you came down,’ he said as he finally reached Archie. He held out his hand. ‘How d’you do? Lieutenant James Masterton.’

  ‘Archie Jackson. Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Just got to get you off again.’ He eyed Archie carefully. ‘Just do exactly as I do, all right? And I mean exactly.’

  Archie nodded, then took his first step.

  They were soon clear, even though Archie nearly lost his balance at one point. Managing to recover, his heart in his mouth, he had never felt more relieved to be walking on grass again.