This was a name Mick knew well; the name of the island which, going by the newspapers, had had the crap bombed out of it by the Germans and Italians for the past two years solid. Yet it remained the base from which the RAF and Royal Navy were right now sending Rommel’s supplies from Italy to the bottom of the Mediterranean. Because the people of Malta hung on.
On a run-down and rather lonely looking street Bess halted them by an open door over which a single yellowed bulb shone, planted a kiss on Mick’s cheek, and led them down a steep flight of stairs from the pavement. Reaching a floor below street level, a black velvet curtain was suddenly drawn back before them, Mick’s first impression being of a large arched-ceiling cellar, dimly lit, its walls lined with white-clothed tables with a red shaded lamp glowing upon each, and people sitting at almost every one, a bar at the far end of it all. Settling their admission and checking in their caps Mick became aware of the musical trio playing – a laid-back piano, brush drums and double-bass, also that the place seemed full of naval officers, one of whom Bess was already talking to, though just out of Mick’s earshot.
‘Such magnificent eyelids,’ the man hummed towards Mick. ‘Hooded.’
‘I saw him first, Bertie,’ she smiled daggers at her friend.
‘Bitch,’ he grinned. ‘…If he’s any good, he deserves you.’
‘You’re a darling, Bertie.’
‘I know… But soft; he approaches…’
On each cuff of the officer’s black tunic Mick saw the thick gold braid bands either side of a thin one that meant Lieutenant-Commander – one above Mick in rank. Seeming in his early 30s, he had a cheerful face, though tired eyes. ‘Sir,’ Mick nodded to him.
‘N-no, dear boy,’ the man smiled, ‘Bertie’ll do; we’re all friends here… Bertrand if you insist on going formal. Or just Bert.’
‘Bert,’ Mick smiled as they shook hands.
*
There seemed one drink in the whole place though in endless supply.
GIN.
Which was served chilled though without ice, as well as something in it called ‘bitters’ which sent it vaguely pink in the lamplight. As far as Mick could make out, with the exception of himself and Bess, the entire clientelle of the place were Royal Navy officers, some with female escorts, some without. The Lieutenant-Commander explained while Bess ‘powdered her nose’…
‘Yes, y’see we’ve been in Malta since Nelson.’ He looked up and around for a moment. ‘This little place is a means by which some of us say a meagre thank you. Especially given all its people’ve been through due to us these past few years. Most bombed place on Earth they’re calling it…’
Mick gestured to the blue-white-blue medal ribbon strip on the man’s left chest. ‘What’s the, ah…?’
‘Oh yes,’ he peered down towards it. ‘That’s my gong, dear boy… I was in a bit of a scrap last year.’ He looked up again, and took a sip of his gin. ‘In the Med. Flotilla of His Majesty’s destroyers, one of which I ended up commanding.’ He smiled. ‘Under my lovely friend, Louis.’
‘Louis?’
‘Mountbatten… I expect you’ve seen a scrap or two yourself, dear boy.’
Mick looked into his gin. ‘A few…’ When suddenly it hit him that he would see no more – not here.
‘…Yes.’ Yet now the naval officer saw Bess on approach. ‘By God, she’s beautiful, isn’t she.’
Mick looked up. Suddenly aware of the brand-new emptiness inside him. ‘That she is.’
‘She’s my best friend.’
*
The black-tied maître d had tightly curly black hair, olive skin and smiling eyes.
‘Sinjuri,’ he bowed slightly to them, ‘I bid you welcome once again, and, I observe, to a new member of our faithful.’ He nodded to Mick, noting the wings badge on his chest. ‘It is our privilege, sir, to have you with us.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Mick replied.
‘Ah, you are not English…’ He spied the AUSTRALIA lettering on Mick’s tunic shoulders. ‘Ah yes, from a so very hot and beautiful country by the sea, like my own.’
‘That it is,’ returned Mick, a slight smile.
‘And what, if I may enquire, has the Flight Lieutenant been flying?’
‘Spitfires, till recently.’
‘Ah,’ beamed the man. ‘It was Spitfires that saved my home. And only recently…’
‘They’re a beautiful aircraft, sir.’
‘Mmm,’ nodded the man. ‘We Maltese certainly think so… Now,’ his tone shifted, ‘our menu this evening, it is vast…’ – Bess and Bertie chuckled – ‘You may have anything your heart desires as long as that is penne bil salamun. The salmon, it is smoked cod, but it is very good.’
Mick peered to his hosts, then back to the man, ‘That’ll be fine.’
The man bowed, ‘Sinjuri, grazzi ħafna,’ and whisked away.
Mick squinted. ‘Um, what did I just say yes to?’
‘Penne’ turned out to be pasta – the first Mick had ever had: bullet-sized tubes of it mixed through with a sauce which, though he’d had smoked cod before, was unlike anything he’d ever tasted – a delicious mixture of smokey, salty and sweet that sat perfectly with his gin. He’d order it again if he ever got the chance; a dish luxurious yet light.
‘So,’ the Lieutenant-Commander touched his serviette to his mouth, ‘what’s next stop for you then, young Michael?’
‘Yes…’ followed Bess Underwood, lighting a cigarette.
It was with careful precision that Mick plated his fork, reflecting as he took a small sip of his drink. ‘Well…’ He placed his glass delicately yet firmly back on the soft, white fabric of the table. ‘I’m finished with ops in Europe. In North Africa too, I think…’
‘Then it’s out to the Pacific,’ said the naval officer, ‘if you want any more. Otherwise, what, Training Command here, yes? …Surely not flying a desk…’
‘He wants to stay right here with me, don’t you, Mick.’ Bess extended her whole arm directly across the table towards him. ‘And yes, I accept this dance.’
‘Oh, get a room,’ chortled the naval officer as the two sprang as one for the dance floor.
*
Mick had never slow-danced before…
In the dancehalls of Bournemouth the music had been marvellous but was always belted out way up-tempo. Not so in the nightclubs of Soho, it seemed… By now he knew he loved the up-tempo dancing – such exhilarating unison – also that he’d turned out pretty good at it: ‘A natural’ had said more than one girl before asking him back to her room.
Yet this was a different sort of bliss; it was dancing slow and so close and Bess’s body felt so very, very good molded to his. Like a glove, the sensation had him, to say the very least, aroused. He wondered if she was to the same intensity. One thing was certain: She could be in no doubt that he was.
‘I’m flying tomorrow,’ she whispered in his ear.
‘You’ll need an early night then, won’t you.’
‘Thought you’d never ask…’ She pressed herself even tighter to him, and whispered again. ‘You know how you outrank me now?’
‘Yes…’
‘I’ll follow any order.’
‘Any order?’
‘… Any.’
*
The first thing of which Mick was aware on waking in his hotel room bed was a young woman’s single, drawn-out sigh of contentment. Then, against his stomach muscles, he felt the sudden tension in her lower back.
‘What time is it?’ she breathed.
He reached across her to the bedside table for his wristwatch. ‘10 to 8.’
‘Christ; I’ll be late,’ she said wide awake, already up and out of bed and across the carpet. ‘ Order us both some coffee, will you? ’ The shower streamed.
Mick sat up, lifted the phone to Reception, ordered, the shower cutting off just as soon as he’d replaced the receiver, in the bathroom doorway her dripping arm reaching across for a towel. ‘How far y’gotta go?’ he ca
lled out.
‘A way but not too far,’ she answered, her naked magnificence stepping into the open doorway as she dried her hair. ‘My base. A few stops on the Underground from Kings Cross, then a change, get off a place called Hatfield. Home of the ATA girls,’ she managed a smile. ‘Also De Havilland’s. …Fancy coming?’
‘On the train?’
‘On the plane, silly.’
Mick sat bolt upright on the bed. ‘You’re shitting me…’
‘I am not, unless they’ve given me a fighter first thing in which case I leave you – Christ, my hair’s a disaster…’ Crossing the carpet towards him in only her knickers and hair turbaned in the towel, she scooped up the telephone receiver, dialled, still dripping slightly.
Mick looked up at her, standing as close to him as she was.
‘…Hello, Geoffrey?’ she said. ‘Geoff, it’s Bess Underwood…’ She smiled richly. ‘How are you, you darling man?’
Mick watched a bead of water silver its way down between her breasts to her flat tummy, then looked up at her face again. Her friend, Bertie, was right; she was beautiful. Very.
‘…Yes, I’ll be seeing you chaps today, and, look, I’m bringing a friend – an Australian, pilot, smashing type. You’ll make it right with the gatehouse, won’t you? …Oh, you’re a darling. …Yes, yes, I will.
…Cheerio, then.’
Mick stared in amazement as she replaced the receiver. ‘What’ll you be flying?’ he managed.
‘Well that’s the thing: Don’t know; we never do.’
*
By the time they stepped onto the station platform at Hatfield the day had cleared to a thin mist glared by the late morning sun, blue sky hinting above.
From the window of the civilian Humber sedan in which they were driven through their destination’s main gates, Mick took in the De Havilland Aircraft Factory as a sprawl of modern office blocks, factory buildings, workshops, hangars and sheds, beyond it all a vast grass airfield into the distance. They’d passed many parked aircraft, some well familiar to Mick, some not, but plenty of yellow Tiger Moths, his first aircraft and one he had loved. Seeing the brilliant little biplane once again reminded him that it had indeed been a De Havilland job. But now the car drew up in front of a large hangar, as they stepped out, the buzz of aircraft some way off.
Following Bess into the hangar, to Mick’s surprise it was empty, of aircraft anyway, Bess asking him to wait outside a small office annex inside which she would be handed her first flying assignment for the day – Through its windows Mick could make out a male clerk, various maps pinned up on its walls, another ATA girl or two, one pealing with laughter that sent echoes round the hangar.
After a minute Bess stepped out again with her concentration fixed on a slip of a paper in one hand – the ‘ferry chit’, a couple of booklets and a folded map in the other.
‘Destination?’ put Mick.
Remaining fixed on the chit a moment longer, she then looked up at him, her face quite neutral. ‘ Ireland,’ she announced, then smiled.
‘Flying what?’ put Mick.
‘It’s out there,’ she said, indicating towards the light of a small open door on the far side of the hangar.
*
Standing in borrowed coveralls, Mae West and leather flying helmet – a parachute for Bess only, the twin-engined aircraft Mick now surveyed, though twice the size of a Spitfire, was just as sleekly elegant. From the smooth-tipped cones of its twin propeller spinners either side of its clear perspex nose to the graceful tapering lines of its engine nacelles, the aeroplane was a powerful harmony of elliptical shapes, its fuselage slimming back to its tall tail fin. Yet whether a light bomber or heavy fighter – though twin-engined it looked like a fighter – he couldn’t rightly tell which. Of one thing, however, he was certain: Poor Orval’s firing squad had packed up and run from a type of aircraft Mick had not seen before. The type of aircraft he stood in front of right now.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he said.
‘That’s what everybody says,’ Bess chuckled beside him. ‘…Love at first sight.’
With a row of six mean-looking black exhaust pipe stubs either side, each engine nacelle extended way fore and aft of the wings, the propeller spinners extending so far forward as if to form the prongs of a broad trident up front with the nose. The warlike attitude resulting was crowned by the streamlined wedge of the perspex cockpit canopy, the whole craft sitting slightly nose-up on a wide, sturdy undercarriage, bomber-size black tyres.
‘What is it?’ put Mick.
‘It’s everything,’ said Bess.
‘Eh?’
‘Well, with internal variations between mark types of course, it’s a photo-reconnaissance bird, a fighter-bomber and a night-fighter too. This one’s the straight bomber version.’
‘But what’s it called?’
‘Oh, the Mosquito.’
‘Ah…’ loosed Mick. He surveyed how its subtly forward-swept wings joined the fuselage at its mid-point between upper and lower – upper half in olive and grey camouflage, lower half sky blue in a straight line all the way down to the tail, serial letters blood-red either side of the RAF roundel. ‘How many times have you flown it?’ he angled slightly to Bess.
She pulled on her leather helmet. ‘Just the once…’ Secured its chin strap. ‘Ready?’
Mick had to admit, for an aeroplane, it had an undeniably ‘confident’ look about it, its proportions just so pleasing to the eye. When he remembered… ‘This is the all-wooden thing?!’
‘This is it… The “Wooden Wonder”, they’re calling it, I shit you not. Or just the “Mossie”. And don’t worry, darling; she’s a dream to fly. Come on…’
As they approached its nose, a civilian groundcrewman pulled down a narrow extending ladder from the Mosquito’s underside ‘chin’ hatch already open. ‘Morning, ma’am,’ he bid Bess. ‘Right on the top line for you, she is,’ he said handing Bess a clipboard to sign, a discreet nod to Mick. Bess signed it, thanked the man, climbed the ladder up into the hatch, the man passing up her parachute pack behind her. No sooner had Mick climbed the ladder up through the hatch than the groundcrewman retracted the ladder back up into the Mosquito, stowed it, hatch shut.
Inside the cockpit, Mick saw Bess already installed in the left-hand seat of two and clipping up the straps for her parachute on which she sat on top of an inflatable dinghy pack, then clipping her seat harness straps. Managing with some difficulty to rotate back frontwards in the confined space of the cockpit, Mick lowered into his own seat just back-right of the pilot’s and strapped himself in. As Bess first set the aircraft’s compass located on her forward-left then began her pre-flight checks and procedures – all the time referring to one of the booklets with which she’d been issued – Mick took in the dual cockpit all around them: Ahead of Bess was a twin-handgrip control column, on her left twin throttle levers plus others and several more right of the column, switches and buttons abounding. As for instrument panel dials and indicators, to Mick they seemed not unlike on the Spitfire except here, with two engines, there was two of everything, atop the instrument panel the craft’s twin bullet-proof glass windscreens before them in a pronounced forward ‘V’. Ahead of his own position he could see through into the Mosquito’s small nose compartment, through whose perspex dome front he could see the airfield directly ahead. He interrupted Bess’s checks…
‘Where are the guns on this thing?’
Bess laboured through a few points on a small clip-board before answering. ‘…There aren’t any.’
Mick froze.
Bess continued after long seconds, her concentration clearly on other matters.
‘Makes us lighter… We rely on speed… Speed alone… Less weight; more speed.’
‘High power-to-weight ratio,’ tendered Mick.
‘Precisely. Now then…’ she paused a moment, ‘firing up port engine…’
Mick watched on as she now began to alternate between the booklet and various points around
the controls and instrument panel one after the next in quick and methodical succession, carrying out each control instruction from the booklet as she spoke it aloud…
‘Throttle set to half an inch open… Constant-speed propeller control fully forward. Supercharger to M-O-D, fuel pressure venting cock ON. Radiator flap switches OPEN…’ She seemed to peer left out her side of the cockpit towards the port engine.
‘Ground crew pumps priming pump, primes engine with fuel…’ – back to her instrument panel – ‘Ignition switches ON, starter and booster-coil buttons, PRESS…’
Mick now saw the enormous black blades of the port engine turn, turn, turn with an urgent whine, the engine now catching, then roaring, clouds of half-burnt fuel smoke sweeping back aft. Bess then went through a few more steps Mick could not hear for the noise now, made a signal out to the left – to the groundcrewman, Mick presumed – then repeated the whole process for the starboard engine which roared to life in turn.
With the propellers front left and right now invisible fans, Mick recognised the sound of the V-12 Merlin alright, yet, unlike on the Spitfire, he now had one in each ear. And unlike the sweet, controlled roar of the Spit, this was one massive groan, wheel-chocks and brakes still hard on, Bess easing the throttles open, raising and lowering flaps, more instrument checks, then throttling back. She then made a very definite hand-signal to the groundcrewman – ground-trolley battery cable and wheel chocks away, released the brake lever on her control column, and they edged forward.
Taxiing over the grass, they passed a wind-sock, Bess angling them slightly into a gentle breeze, throttling right back, coming to a halt, brakes on, a dozen more control tweaks, a dozen more checks. She then ran up the engines to 3000 rpm on their dials Mick observed – an awesome noise – then back to idle. With the flick of another switch, her voice was in Mick’s helmet earphones as she requested take-off clearance, received it, switched to intercom on her face mask, and loosed the brakes.
‘Ready, love?’
‘Ready,’ Mick replied.
Ghosts of the Empire Page 20
