Fighters Up

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “They might oblige a type with a glamorous foreign accent ... and a pocket full of dollars ... but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll play for us common or garden ...”

  The Royal Canadian Air Force was much better paid than the R.A.F.; as who wasn’t? The New Zealanders, South Africans and Australians all paid their fighting men more highly than the British.

  “Who’s got a foreign accent?” Megson pretended to be outraged.

  “You bloody well have,” Lambert told him. “You Canadian types all sound to English girls like Hollywood film stars. In the dark, they kid themselves you look like ‘em too ...”

  “Gee, we deserve some perks for leaving home and coming over here to drink this ... this ... sparrows’ piss, don’t we?”

  But they drank water with their dinner and only a couple of pints with their sergeant pilots in the sergeants’ mess. Then “On with the motley,” Lambert said. “And I do mean that literally: the Waaf here are as motley a collection as ever I saw. It’s the conscription of women that’s done it. The average was pretty fair when the girls were all volunteers.”

  The N.A.A.F.I. adjoined the airmen’s dining hall and cookhouse, separated only by a concertina partition that had been folded back. The air was tainted by lingering culinary odours and not improved by the verbena-scented talcum powder that had been spread over the red-tiled floor to facilitate dancing. (There was a lack of French chalk). The band deserved a better setting. It was composed of professional musicians who were following other Service trades: or none, if they were humble aircraft hands who cleaned lavatories, ran errands and did all the chores that were not expected of tradesmen.

  There was the usual press of W.A.A.F. at one end of the room, mostly fighter plotters who worked in the Ops Room: waiting for the arrival of officers, preferably pilots. There were smiles of recognition from some and of invitation from others. Pilots were supposed to visit the Ops Room at frequent intervals to learn what went on there. Most of them went only to eye the girls and to try to make assignations; or at least to pick out one or two to approach at the next all-ranks dance. A W.A.A.F. clerk who worked in the station Orderly Room was on the dais, dressed in a low-cut green evening frock which emphasised her auburn hair. She had been a professional vocalist with a dance orchestra in Manchester. She was singing Chatanooga Choo-Choo and as soon as she paused between songs her steady boyfriend, a flight-sergeant pilot, swung her onto the floor in great style, equally adept at tango, waltz or quickstep.

  Lambert was scanning the throng with a keen expression. “Damn lounge-lizard,” he commented about the terpsichorean flight sergeant.

  “You’re jealous,” Megson accused.

  “You think so?” Lambert weaved through the hopeful ladies in waiting to where a tall, dark and pretty girl with a high complexion and a sensual mouth was casting him an angled glance.

  “That is daughter of baronet.” It was Odchodski who announced it, glumly.

  “Crafty S.O.B.” said Megson. “We won’t see him in the mess until after the Waafs’ booking-in time.”

  The N.A.A.F.I. was not allowed to sell wine or spirits. Its bottled beer was of an unusual colour and flavour. Howard declined an invitation to a drink. He looked around the room without much interest, not caring greatly whether or not he danced; but telling himself that, as he was here, he might as well. The girls expected it, they worked long hours at their jobs, they were paid - unfairly - less than their male counterparts. If they had come here to find dancing partners they deserved them.

  He edged towards a trim neat blonde with the propeller badge of a leading aircraftwoman on her sleeves. She appeared to be unaware of his intention. He leaned over her with a smile. “Good evening. Do you come here often?”

  She looked up, laughing, taking the point of his joke.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Then will you dance with me before someone cuts me out?”

  “Thank you.”

  He followed her to the dance floor, watched by many interested female eyes. He told her his name. She said hers was Pamela Barclay. He wondered how many other Pamelas there were in the room. Pamela ... Winifred ... Marjorie ... Margaret ... Joan ... Joyce ... Barbara. He knew at least five of each; everyone did.

  “Where d’you live, Pamela?”

  “Surbiton. It’s dull. I joined the Waaf straight from school.”

  “A couple of years ago?”

  She laughed again. “Yes.” That put her age at twenty and she knew why he had asked.

  It was pleasant to hold a pliant girl in his arms. The last time had been at least two months ago: there was a party in the mess at O.T.U. and he had danced with one of the W.A.A.F. officers. It must be a year since he had taken a civilian girl out to dine or go to the theatre, and dance. He didn’t much enjoy the actual dancing and he doubted that his partners derived much pleasure from dancing with him. He did the same few steps to a foxtrot and quickstep, a conscientious one, two, three to a waltz, and didn’t attempt a tango at all. Dancing was a means to an end: the end being a spot of snogging; and the kissing and cuddling might lead, in time, to a night together in a hotel room. It rarely did, but there was the excitement of knowing that, with luck, it might.

  He danced with Pamela most of the evening. During the last dance, when the band played “Goodnight Sweetheart”, he asked “Would you like to come out one evening: the flicks, or dinner, or both?”

  “I’d love to. Thank you.”

  “When are you on stand-down?”

  “I’m on watch tonight, at midnight, till eight tomorrow. Then again from five to midnight. Day after tomorrow I’m on from eight to one, and then off for twenty-four hours.”

  “What about day after tomorrow, then?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He walked with her to the airmen’s married quarters where she slept. They paused at the end of the short concrete path to her door. “Goodnight, Simon.”

  He leaned a little towards her, hopefully. But she did not offer him a kiss.

  “Goodnight, Pamela. See you day after tomorrow.”

  Couples, mostly W.A.A.F. and airmen and sergeant pilots, but an occasional officer with an airwoman, stood in close embrace at intervals along the road that led past married quarters to the mess. Howard envied the lucky chaps. He had not really expected Pamela to let him kiss her on first encounter, but he had hoped. Never mind, another 48 hours and he wouldn’t be disappointed, he felt sure.

  The mess was roaring. Those who had been at the dance were drifting back. He drank two pints of beer before Lambert appeared. It was even later when Odchodski showed up; and later still when Jannier joined them, pale and inhaling cigarette smoke deeply with a glazed look in his eyes.

  Howard had another four pints inside him when the last hicockalorum scrum collapsed and the tank battle began, an hour after midnight, fought with sofas, armchairs, soda syphons, stirrup pumps and buckets of water and, finally, a fire extinguisher. In the intervals of horseplay there was singing while one of the Intelligence officers thumped the piano. Ho-Ho Kafoozalum, The Harlot Of Jerusalem ... If I Were A Marrying Girl ... The Ball of Kirriemuir ... Little Angeline ... She Was Poor But She Was Honest ... all obscene.

  Howard fell asleep within seconds of laying his head on the pillow.

  Dreams: of girls past and present ... of Pamela ... of old friends with whom he was now reunited. They faded and merged and then came the nightmare. Agony Payne came into his dazed and muddled mind ... Group Captain Northam ... Jaape Krieger ... a score of others, much closer to him in their friendship ... his New Zealander C.O. ... and Nobby and Chalky and Lofty and Shorty, who had all died, shot down in flames or blown to very small pieces by flak ... and then the flak forced its way in and the scenes rushing before his mind’s eye were bright with the crossing trails of tracer and the red explosions of 37 and 88 shells ... and smoke ... and his nostrils filled with the stench of cordite and the acrid reek of smoke from the bursting shells ... and he was falling through space ..
. and his parachute was jerking open and he was swaying there unprotected, waiting for a 109 pilot to take a pot at him ... he was in the drink and it was cold ... the snow ... the dive-bombing ... the slit trenches in the frozen ground ... the ship sinking ... he, floundering in the sea with a broken arm ...

  He woke sweating and twitching at dawn and lay awake waiting for his batwoman to appear with a cup of tea, thinking of that evening’s Rhubarb. It was midmorning before he remembered his date with Pamela for the next day.

  Twelve

  “What’s the matter, Juergen? What is wrong? What has upset you?” Lucienne spoke tenderly in the dim glow of her bedside light. She was lying athwart his chest, supported on one elbow, her free hand gentling his hair. It was damp and his skin was slippery with sweat. He was a very energetic lover and in the summer warmth he always sweated with the vigour of his passion; but she knew that this time there was another reason as well. He had been alternately noisy with forced gaiety that evening and silently morose.

  He pushed her hand away from his head and turned his face so that he no longer had to look up at her close gaze. “Nothing ... leave me alone ...”

  She put a hand under his cheek and turned his face towards her. “You have not been your usual self all the evening. Let me help you. I do my best, Juergen ... surely you realise that? My very best to try to take your mind off this terrible ...”

  He grabbed her wrist and twisted it so that she cried out. “This terrible war? Is that what you were going to say? This terrible war that the terrible Boches have let loose on you?” His anger was savage and she drew back from the hatred she saw in his eyes and the ugly shape of his lips. “You hate us, don’t you? You hate me?”

  “Have I behaved as though I hated you? Have my parents behaved as though they had a grudge against your country? Don’t you believe us when we tell you what our political beliefs are, and what we want for France? Do you think my brothers are spying in Vichy and Italy for the English and Americans?”

  “You can say what you like, but it is well known that all French people hate all foreigners: deep down, even your family, who profess to be National Socialists and to want a Nazi government in France ... deep down, even you, your parents and no doubt your brothers resent our presence in France and you despise us because we are not French. You are all born Chauvinists ... xenophobes ...”

  “What has brought this on suddenly?” Her voice was crisp but her breasts still lay against his chest and one soft leg rubbed gently between his.

  “I have lost two of my pilots in the last three days and two others have been mutilated by English bullets ... probably fired by their mercenaries ... Poles ... Belgians ... renegade Frenchmen, traitors to the Vichy Government ... Canadians ... Australians ...” He sounded bitter and full of disgust.

  She kissed his brow and then his lips. For a moment he responded automatically, then thrust her aside. “You think lust is the answer to everything ...”

  She smiled with wicked complicity. “Isn’t it?”

  “Not even love would heal what hurts me.” He said it cruelly, with contempt.

  “You have never looked for love from me, Juergen; or anyone: not even one of your wonderful German girls, if I know you.” She was coldly matter-of-fact.

  “What the devil do you really know about me?” He was angry again. “And do not speak in that sarcastic way of our girls: they are wonderful.”

  She ignored him. “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Yes.” He was sulky now.

  “I am sure you have. But have you ever loved a girl? Loving and being in love are not synonymous, you know.”

  “Probably not.” It was a sullen admission.

  “I have been in love many times, myself: like all young women.” Her hand returned to his hair, ruffling it with apparent affection. She put her lips close to his ear and said quietly “I fell in love with you, chéri, the first time I met you. You are handsome, brave, charming; it was easy. I found you a wonderful lover, and ... I am still enchanted by you ... but love? That is something else. Love means wanting to share your life with a man as well as enjoying his body. I am sure that living with you for the rest of our lives would be a disaster for both of us.”

  He laughed, apparently rid of his preoccupations and misery. “Then enjoy my body some more and turn over so that I can enjoy yours.”

  A long time later, lying in his arms, the sweat on his chest even more profuse, she said gently “You see, perhaps you were right: lust is the cure for all ills.”

  “Do not ever talk of love again, Lucienne. When I marry, it will be to a German girl ... a Bavarian girl ... of a heredity as pure as mine.” He added “If I survive this war.”

  “Who started it?” Her voice was icy.

  She uttered a shriek as he hit her; twice: a slap on her right cheek and then a reflex blow with the back of his hand on the other.

  She lay quivering with humiliation and rage while he dressed, and did not rise to let him out of the house.

  ***

  The Gotha Go145 biplane landed and taxied to where Thorwald waited with Schellman and Rumpf.

  “Do we really need that thing to tow a target drogue for us?” Schellman sounded as scornful as he looked. “Even for our least experienced pilots? A damned contraption that will fly at about one-third the speed of a Spitfire, when it’s towing that great sausage!”

  “I suppose I can’t do the towing?” Rumpf looked appealingly at his squadron commander. “After all, I’ve done four hours on the Storch this week.”

  “I’ve got a surprise for you, Heinie.” Thorwald’s genial manner was a change from his demeanour the previous evening; and a damn good thing too: so thought his companions.

  “You mean I can?”

  “Better than that. Don’t forget it’s the trainer we all learned on ...”

  “What’s that got to do with it, Juergen?”

  “You’re going to fly right over the Kommodore’s head, with me as a totally inactive passenger, and put on a display of aerobatics that will convince him he should recommend your immediate return to combat flying.”

  Rumpf’s grin showed his delight. “Either that or a court martial. Anyway, thanks very much ... sir.”

  The target-tug’s pilot clambered out of its cockpit and hurried over.

  “You can go and relax for an hour, Sergeant,” Thorwald told him. “I’ve arranged to borrow your machine so that the Leutnant here, and I, can nip over to see our Kommodore.”

  The sergeant looked dubious. “Very well, sir ... if you say so.”

  “I’ve arranged it with your C.O. Don’t worry. Off you go.”

  “Come on,” said Rumpf, “I can’t wait.”

  He and Thorwald, carrying their parachutes, made towards the Go145 and climbed aboard. “All yours,” said Thorwald on the intercom. Rumpf took off with a daringly short run and a dashing climbing turn. He spent a few minutes practising loops, rolls and Immelmanns before heading for the Geschwader Headquarters’ airfield.

  A few minutes after their return, Thorwald telephoned the Kommodore; then winked at Rumpf as he put the receiver down. “He says you can have a go at the One-Ninety. I’m afraid you’ll have to take the oldest one, but ...”

  Rumpf did a little dance. “All right if I try some circuits and bumps straight away?”

  “Carry on.”

  Rumpf strutted away like a little fighting cock. For the first time in months he managed to walk without limping.

  He would make a useful addition to the pilot strength of the Staffel; and nothing but good could come of it for Thorwald personally. Hienie Rumpf’s highly placed relatives would hear of his C.O’s kindness that very evening, no doubt.

  Thorwald sat in a deckchair outside the pilots’ hut, basking in the sun, tanning his face, waiting for his Adjutant to take off in a fighter for the first time since being shot down. The sound of a FW190’s engine blatted across the airfield. Every pilot who was not in the air, every ground crewman, watched t
he fast little fighter accelerate down the runway.

  The Go145, streaming its drogue, was patrolling along the coastline while other 190s took turns to fire at the target. From the ground, they were just visible in the distance.

  The circuit was clear. Rumpf took off halfway across the field and brought his wheels up at once. He held the 190 down a few feet above the grass, gathering speed. Over the boundary hedge he soared up gracefully and turned tightly to circle the airfield. Then he turned into the wind and, when in the centre once again, began a four-point roll a hundred feet up.

  “Well done, Heinie!” Thorwald exclaimed as Rumpf made his first ninety-degree bank and held it for a couple of seconds. Another ninety degrees and the aircraft was hurtling over the aerodrome on its back.

  A third right-angle roll brought the wings vertical again.

  The fighter’s nose dropped. It pitched into the ground. Its port wingtip hit first. The whole wing collapsed. The engine ripped into the turf with a resounding thud. In a mêlée of earth, dust, smoke and flames, the 190 turned end over end.

  The heat from the flames that erupted from the wreck smote Thorwald in the face as he stood up and began to run towards the pyre. The roar of the fuel tanks exploding followed a moment later. Then came the acrid stink of burning oil, petrol and human flesh.

  Thorwald stopped in his tracks and began to vomit.

  ***

  Early in the afternoon, when the officer detailed to conduct the enquiry into the fatal accident had arrived, and the target-tug had departed, Thorwald led seven other 190s into the air to intercept a large enemy raid. He had eaten no lunch. To settle his stomach he had forced down two dry biscuits, moistened with a glass of cognac. He was feeling light-headed, scared of the consequences for him of Rumpf’s death, in a fury with Lucienne for having commented on the worry and weariness that his behaviour had betrayed, and eager for action. Fighting was now the only solace he had and the only effective remedy for his ills.

  His face felt hot as though flushed by the vehemence of his emotions. The sunlight was harsh, garish it seemed to him, as though the flood lamps at a Nazi night-time rally had been turned towards his eyes. He felt as sticky as he had last night in bed with Lucienne. She was an unwelcome intruder into his mind. He concentrated on what he was doing. “Get in closer Number Two ... don’t straggle ...” Why? What is the matter with me? He’s perfectly positioned to watch my tail and to look after himself at the same time; and for me to keep an eye on him.