by Andrew Greig
‘Thanks a bunch,’ I said.
He’d laughed and promised me a beer later, then told me I was flying dawn patrol next morning. Nice man. Polite.
I worked slowly and carefully on the carving, made sure I cut right through all the layers of bark so it would last. I wanted to be able to come back when this was all over and find it. Come back with my children and show them even as they yawned and pulled to be away. Wood pigeons were calling above my head, rabbits scuttered in the undergrowth. For half an hour I was happily lost – or perhaps found – in what I was doing.
LEN WESTBOURNE
AUG 1940
Then I sat down at the edge of the wood, lit a cigarette, felt at ease. Then what the CO had said when we were being stood down came back to me and suddenly meant something. They’re onto our RDF.
Christ! I thought. Damn to hell.
I got to my feet and hurried back through the trees and over the burnt-out grass towards the huts, for once desperate to get back into the air.
*
We were called. I almost sprinted towards my Hurri, in so far as one can sprint with a parachute pack banging against your thighs. I couldn’t stop thinking about attacks on the RDF stations. I knew just ten miles away Stella was working in a wooden hut at the base of the masts, there hadn’t been time to build proper shelters. I wanted to find enemy bombers, any enemy bombers, blow them out of the sky.
Then as we climbed, the red light on my oil gauge came on. I banged it a few times but it stayed that way, and the engine temperature was going off the clock. I cursed and radioed I was heading back for base, made it in a long glide and pulled off a decent landing.
As I touched down, a new Hurri was being delivered. It had been promised to me. A small figure jumped down as I approached it. She grinned at me and I tried not to look dumbfounded.
‘Do you know what the guns are set for?’ I asked.
‘Six fifty, I think,’ she said. ‘No oxygen bottle, but she’s a beauty. I, ah, put her through her paces on the way over.’
I waved over an armourer and asked him to synchronize the guns at 300 and get someone to fit oxygen. Then I walked back across the grass with this unexpected pilot. She was delivering planes, mostly repaired by the CRO. I remembered that’s who Stella’s former boyfriend worked with.
‘Do you fly Spits too?’ I asked.
‘You bet,’ she said. ‘They’re the best!’
I was impressed. Of all the planes in the Air Force, they were the hardest to fly, to land, especially to take off.
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ I said. ‘Too highly strung, if you ask me.’
She glanced at me.
‘Have you ever flown one?’ she asked. ‘Really put it through its paces?’
‘I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that,’ I replied.
She laughed and I joined in. It was pilots’ talk, same the world over. Presumably the enemy argued over the comparative merits of the Me109 and the 110, though I knew which I’d rather fly and fight in.
We were quickly mobbed when we got to the dispersal hut. Or rather she was. I stood outside till Tad returned with Blue section. I was relieved to see him. He did a slow roll at ground level across the airfield, which was difficult and dangerous and forbidden, but as he only did it when he’d made a kill, he seemed to get off with it. Then one of the new chaps, wobbling uncertainly over the boundary fence. He bounced hard, went into the air then back down again.
‘Still,’ a quiet voice said by my side, ‘the Hurri is tough and stable, I’ll grant you. A Spit might have flipped, being landed like that.’
Then she held out her hand.
‘Use it well,’ she said, and was gone with her lift from our eager adjutant. If I hadn’t been in love already, I’d have been in love.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mid-August
After an hour or so, someone got the power back on and the screen came alive again. Mostly I was seeing mush from a build-up beyond my range. They were learning, starting to put together big raids well across the Channel, and making feints to keep us guessing. A few more attacks like the last one and we’d be out of action. Not so much because of the masts, they seemed hard to damage and I suppose the blast went right through them, but because the huts, as I’d just learned, were almost entirely unprotected.
There were nineteen dead and ten injured from the raid, most of them while sheltering in a slit trench that a bomb happened to find. It was the slit trench I was supposed to be in. I thought on the whole I’d stick with my table. Some of the men were still in a deep shelter and refusing to come out. I couldn’t blame them.
But I was angry, mad, call it what you will. At last I’d tasted what bombers could do, what was starting to happen to people in the towns, what had happened to soldiers and civilians across the continent. I couldn’t forget the mess that had been Jean Finlay, her stockinged legs lying neatly across the other side of the road.
I stared through my thumping headache at the screen, began turning the dial as the bouncing green lines came into focus. The assistant controller was reading off figures passed to him by the first-day trainee at my side. We were working again for the same reason Len had to run awkwardly to his plane and take off.
For the first time I didn’t think of Len’s flying as a nuisance that got in the way of us seeing each other. He was doing what needed to be done, and I hoped he did it well. I think I prayed he survived, yes I must have, but that day I prayed he and his friends downed bombers and the people in them, even at the cost of my Fräulein’s tears.
I took a couple more aspirin and carried on.
Outside the dispersal hut Tim Baker, Tad and I were talking to the new man Mackay, trying to impress on him the basic rules of combat: watch the sun, never fly level for more than two seconds, keep your head moving, get close before you shoot. Make your second attack on bombers from below, to keep well under the rear-gunner.
He looked at us, nodding earnestly. I don’t know what he saw or thought; he kept his opinions to himself did Sergeant Mackay. I liked him for his earnestness. He didn’t pretend this was some game fought on a playing field. He wanted to win and he knew he was badly under-trained. So he asked questions and listened hard.
We were just going for lunch (since the last raid, we were all sharing the same Mess and about time too) when the scramble came for everyone. I hesitated, cursed, then pictured Stella at her console and bombers closing in. So I put down my knife and fork and started running, hollow in my stomach. At the other end of the airfield the new Spitfire squadron were going up too, and we had Blue section in behind us, Tad leading it and Sniff Burton as wingman. They were singing ‘Banks of the Ohio’. I reckoned they were made for each other. We rose into the air, tucked in our wheels and started climbing. I felt confident in behind Tim. He was a very competent pilot, not in a hurry for death or glory. And there’d been a bond between us since the day I followed him down and took an Me109 off his tail. I knew he’d do the same for me.
They sent us to Dover. We could hear from the squawking on the R/T there was a big show going on up there. We arrived pretty much at the height of it, the Spits way above going for the fighters. They were welcome to them, for I didn’t reckon myself a match for a good flier in an Me109.
There were stacks of bombers already hitting the port, the town, the boats. Tim gave the old Tally-ho! for form’s sake and we went in line astern. Ripped right through the bomber formation like scissors through silk. Fired a bit, hit nothing, wondered if the synchronization had been done properly. Then we turned and came back through them from below, Sniff somewhere up behind me still warbling in my ears Then only say that you’ll be mi-ine. He’d said he sang when he was frightened. He was singing very loud so I assumed he was very frightened.
Me I was thinking of these planes bombing RDF stations and I closed right in on a Me110, waited till it filled my sights and then some, pressed the red button and … Nothing. A very brief rattle then not a sausage, not a solit
ary tracer. I cursed and sheered off, furious with the armourers. I turned away and saw Sergeant Mackay’s Hurri closing head-on with a bomber. I watched them, shouted on him to turn aside, and the shout caught in my throat as both planes sheered away at the last minute but turned in the same direction and flew straight into each other. For a moment they hung there, then there was a terrific yellow-red whoosh and they dropped earthwards as one.
I turned for base, head still frantically swivelling as I cursed and cursed. I’d liked the man. I’d thought we might be friends.
Then I spotted a lone Me110 below me. Heading for home with smoke trailing from the port engine. I thought: get this one. Checked my guns again but still nothing. Damn. Still I peeled down and closed in for a closer look.
The rear turret looked badly shot up, the gun didn’t swivel towards me so I reckoned the gunner must be dead. So I flew across its bows, keeping well away from the forward-facing guns. Let the pilot have a good look at me. Maybe I could intimidate him into going down.
I made another pass, this time so close I could see him looking up. I gestured for him to go down, turned and came back at him. The plane was really in bad shape, wonder it was still flying at all. Parts of the wing gone, rudder badly shot up. As a pilot I admired the man’s courage and determination to get home. He held his course. They were a brave bunch, no mistake.
I flipped my kite on its back and over again. Pressed the red button and this time it worked. I came in again, determined to stop this one getting home. Let him have it the length of the fuselage, saw bits fly off. The plane staggered, then turned and lost height. One of the crew jumped, then another, I saw their chutes open and was pleased.
But this bloody pilot was still heading out for the Channel. Now I was furious. Right, I thought, I’ll have you.
I closed, gave him another burst. The other engine began to suffer, saw oil pouring from it. The plane lost more height and finally turned inland. Good. I followed him down, waiting for the pilot to bale out while he still could but he didn’t. Maybe he had an injured crewman on board. In any case, they were now too low to jump.
Wooded countryside, a couple of fields, a hill beyond them. He was really low now, staggering about the sky. And I was urging him on, willing him to keep it steady. I sighed with relief as he just cleared the trees, this same man I’d been determined to kill a minute before. He prepared to crash land, I tensed as he began to overshoot the field.
The plane hit the ground, I saw earth fly up and it skidded sideways then stopped. I turned, flew back over. Saw the pilot opening his cockpit hatch as three men began to run across the field, and felt relieved.
Then I turned away and flew for home, wondering what the hell I was about.
*
I landed and told Fred Tate’s replacement my guns had been jamming and would he have it fixed pronto. I hung around and five minutes later Tad came dropping down over the boundary fence. His tailplane looked a bit shot up but still he flipped his kite over on its back and did a slow roll over the airfield. I thought his plane staggered a bit but somehow he flipped out of the roll, very low, then circled and landed.
He walked over to me, his dark eyes jubilant. He’d added another definite Me110 to his total, plus a probable Heinkel.
‘I saw Mr Baker go down,’ he added, ‘but he baled out. I saw his chute open, so no problem, you know.’
I felt bad because I’d lost Tim in the fight. I was supposed to stay with him, but it wasn’t always possible.
Then he asked about Mackay. I told him. He put his hand up to his face and nodded earnestly as Mackay had.
‘Head-on attack is only for very good pilots or crazy people,’ he said. ‘It is far too blooming dangerous. Crazy is not so good.’
Someone waved us from the dispersal hut. We went inside and found everyone clustered round the wireless.
‘Listen to this!’ the adjutant shouted. ‘You lads have been on live!’
And so we were. I stood there, suddenly very tired, and heard the reporter standing somewhere in Dover describing the fighting, all the different levels, the dive bombers coming in low, the Me110s higher, and all the fighters still mixing it. He sounded very excited, like it was an amazing show. He was calling it Hellfire Corner. No doubt it was. I wondered if he’d seen and reported young Mackay’s end.
I glanced at Tad but he seemed distant. It was the strangest thing, our war was now being observed and reported even as it happened. If I’d had a wireless with me in the plane, I could have been doing it and listening to the commentary. It made me feel odd and divided from myself.
I shook my head and went off to get some lunch. Tad came running after me, put an arm round my shoulder. I was astonished to see he had tears in his eyes.
‘Sorry about Mr Mackay,’ he said. ‘He seemed a good chap, you know.’
I stuck at it most of the afternoon till my replacement for the evening shift came in. I pressed my knuckles to my eyes, swivelled away from the console, stood up then promptly fell down. I was lying on the floor, which struck me as needing a good sweeping. Someone was tugging at my sleeve, I tried to co-operate so they wouldn’t tear my shirt, and got to my knees.
Then I was standing with some help. Arms round my shoulders, and it seemed I was getting a lift back to my billet. I protested about my bike and it was placed in the boot of the staff car. I sat in the front and was driven by our adjutant on some mission he had to do first. We went through endless crescents and avenues, and I sat saucer-eyed in the back looking on all the Daily Mail streets I’d always seen as so banal. But now that clattering lawn mower seemed defiant, those garden gnomes oddly touching, that family mutt worth preserving. I thought the few people in the street, the ration-card queue out into the road, the Auxiliary Fire Service swarming round a burning house, all equally brave and necessary.
Then again, looking back on it, I was a bit concussed.
The adj finally dropped me at my place, even rang the bell. Mrs Mackenzie came to the door. Even she seemed kind in her way. The adj told her about the bombing.
‘Oh, I know,’ she said. ‘It’s terrible the damage they do. A bomb dropped in the street round the corner. The mess! There ought to be a law against it, I say.’
She took me into her kitchen and put the kettle on, then produced a dark, dusty bottle from the cupboard. She put out two glasses on the table.
‘Sloe gin,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘I’m told it’s very good for shocks. I think we’d better have one apiece, don’t you? Oh, your mother phoned.’
I tore my gaze away from her white and yellow roses out in the garden.
‘My mother?’ I said stupidly. ‘What for?’
‘I don’t know, but she left this number to ring. It’s a neighbour’s, apparently.’
I drained the glass, puzzled. My mother had never phoned me here. Mr Jenkinson across the road had a phone but she’d never bring herself to ask to use it because she didn’t like being beholden.
I dialled and got Mr Jenkinson. He told me to wait while he got my mother. He sounded flustered and concerned, almost embarrassed. Eventually I heard a door close in the background then my mother came to the phone.
‘It’s about your father, dear,’ she said.
‘Sergeant Polarczyk!’
The CO stood in the door of the dispersal hut, silhouetted against the glare. Tad sleepily put down his newspaper, that week’s ‘News of the World’.
‘Yes?’
‘Yes, sir, sergeant.’
Tad said nothing, just looked up at him. The CO came into the hut and stood there waving his curved pipe, which was a bad sign. He was pale with anger.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what do you do it for? To show off? To be clever?’
Tad slowly stood up. He blinked a few times. For once he didn’t salute or click his heels.
‘Sir, not knowing what you meaning. Not show? Off?’
The CO jabbed his pipe at him.
‘Don’t give me that no-speak-English stuf
f, Polarczyk! I’m talking about the victory roll over my airfield. You know I’ve forbidden it. Now today is the second time! It won’t do.’
Tad looked at him innocently.
‘Three times, three victories, sir. You prefer I not shoot anything?’
Our new CO was a mild man but now he began to froth slightly.
‘I prefer you obey my orders! They’re for a damn good reason. If you have anything – anything – wrong with your aircraft, like a wonky rudder, holes in the wings, dodgy flaps, and you try that at ground level, you’ve a bloody good chance of killing yourself. I’ll not have it!’
He jabbed his pipe another couple of times at Tad then stuck it in his mouth and swung away to look out the window.
‘A friend of mine was killed that way at the end of France,’ he said more quietly. ‘Good man, great fighter pilot. Bull Durham – you’ll have heard of him? He tried a slow roll and ploughed in. I had to help bury him. I’ll not have it again – understood?’
He turned his head and looked full at Tad, who nodded, seemed contrite.
‘Understanding, sir, I think. No slow roll low.’
The CO looked at him suspiciously. Took his pipe from his mouth then stuffed it back in again.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Oh, and Command in its infinite wisdom has finally agreed guns can be synchronized at closer range, so you can all stop pretending you haven’t done so already.’
With that he stomped out the door. Someone whistled the opening of ‘Stardust’, Sniff giggled in the armchair. Tad slowly sat down and picked up his newspaper again.
‘Durham was a very good pilot,’ he said quietly. ‘But maybe he tried the roll too low.’
*
It was late that afternoon, as we were flying back from a non-encounter over Gravesend. The enemy had feinted and the real attack knocked the hell out of RAF Manston, so we weren’t feeling very clever. I was flying tucked in close to Sniff, then I became aware of another plane sliding into position on the other side. I looked then looked again.
