Hendry guessed: ‘You want me to go up again today, this afternoon.’
‘In a way. Not quite the usual. You’ll find it easier, I imagine. It’s escort duty.’
The young man looked up. ‘Escorting what, sir?’
‘Bombers. A squadron. They’re going to bomb the Jerry invasion barges.’
The young man said: ‘They’ve got barges ready?’
‘All along the French coast, Calais, Boulogne, according to the photographs.’ He half-turned and picked up a large brown photographic envelope from the desk behind him, opened it and produced an aerial reconnaissance picture, then another. He handed them one at a time to Hendry: ‘It’s like Henley Regatta.’
The pilot took the photographs one at a time. ‘I wondered how they were going to get across the Channel,’ he said. He handed the pictures back. ‘And we’re going to bomb them.’
‘We’re going to have a go. You’re the escort.’
‘Me? Just me?’
‘Only you. We can’t spare another plane. Or pilot. You’ll have to fly up and down. Try and look like a squadron.’
‘When’s the briefing?’
‘Half an hour. The show is timed for seventeen hundred hours. You’ll be home before the pubs open.’
Hendry rose wearily. ‘Right, sir. Half an hour.’
As Hendry turned towards the door the wing commander said: ‘Your mother’s been phoning the Air Minister. She wants you taken off flying.’
Hendry stopped as he was stooping under the door and turned back into the room. ‘She’s what, sir? She’s done what?’
Greville shrugged. ‘She knows people apparently. She knows the Air Minister. Which is more than I do.’
Bitterly Hendry said: ‘The old bat.’
‘In any event, once you’ve done this jaunt they’re transferring you. Somewhere a bit more peaceful.’
Hendry turned for the door again. Then he stopped. ‘Where would that be, sir?’
‘God knows. But it’s bound to be better than this, son.’
He rendezvoused with the Whitley bombers over Newhaven. The battles seemed over for the day, the sky was clear, everyone had gone home. He could see the beach and the two piers at Brighton.
The Whitleys did not keep him waiting; there were three flights of three. He radioed them and the formation leader, who was called Humphrey, replied languidly. It should be a picnic. ‘Bit of flak, old boy,’ he told Hendry. ‘Only enough to warm your arse. Not much more.’
Hendry had little idea of escort duties, especially how one small fighter could protect nine bombers. He had asked this question at the briefing and the officer had appeared just as unsure and said: ‘Well, just be around them. In the vicinity, as it were. Let them know you’re there. Jerry shouldn’t be much bother. He’s had a hard day again today.’
He began to feel a touch elated. If it was a piece of cake, he was ready for it. He set the course and flying at ten thousand feet began to think of his mother. He laughed out loud. The daft old bat might get him a transfer. Perhaps it would not be too remote and he would still be able to see Giselle. In only minutes the shaky line of the French coast came into view. The evening had settled fair and visibility was for miles. Just a few angelic clouds. The bombers moved below him, travelling at half his speed. He had time to circle several times and count them.
The leading formation banked to starboard on cue and he drew off like a sheepdog eyeing the turn of a flock. He could see the geometry of the harbours and then, following the Whitleys across the target area, he could see the barges like piano keys against the jetties. He wondered where the Germans had got them, how they had assembled them and, more to the point, how they were going to get them across the Channel. It would not be easy.
The first flight of bombers moved in. Below him he saw anti-aircraft fire, like sudden sprays of bright flowers. He had plenty of experience of enemy fighters but enemy anti-aircraft fire was something new. He decided to keep well above it.
Below him the Whitleys were spread across his view like a pattern of dark crosses. Fighter planes rarely kept such formal formations. He saw explosions on the harbours below, some straddling the barges. One of the barges was quickly on fire. It seemed so remote he began to feel much happier. Soon, perhaps, he would be out of all this. It was only so long before it became your turn to die, before your number was up. Good old Mum. Crazy old bat.
Then he saw a Heinkel below him, a solitary, chugging Heinkel bomber, which had not spotted him. He banked away to get a better look. The German pilot was busy eyeing the bombers. Toby went after him. It was almost too easy. He came in on the tail and he guessed that his opening burst from the machine guns in the wings was the first time the German pilot had been aware of him. It was not a fair contest but there were no rules. His tracer bullets on the German plane homed in. It shuddered as though kicked, a snort of black smoke came from the fuselage and then a small red circle, no bigger than a snooker ball, expanded and exploded. The aircraft wobbled and turned sharply towards the earth. Toby shouted into his mouthpiece: ‘Got one, got one! Heinkel 105, he’s tipping over. He’s going down. Nailed him first time!’
He saw one of the German crew baling out, his parachute opening in the smoke, and being overtaken by the plunging plane. ‘Good luck, Fritz,’ he said. ‘Happy landings.’
Then his Spitfire bucked like a car heavily going over a bump in the road. Anti-aircraft shells were bursting just under the belly. He had been careless. ‘You chump!’ he muttered. ‘You utter chump.’ He pulled the plane into a steep climb. To his astonishment the propeller flew clean off and zoomed, spinning like a boomerang, over his cockpit. The engine let out a howl of pain.
The aircraft seemed to thread itself through the spread bombers and the random flak before it flattened out and began to glide almost sedately. Below were flat French fields, evening green, with patches of houses and a straggle of roads. Now he was frightened. He tightened himself and knew it was his turn to bale out.
He reached for the catch of the cowling above his head. It refused to open. He swore and jabbed at it again. Sweat streamed down his face and into his eyes. It was dripping off his chin. ‘Oh God!’ he cursed. The cockpit cowling opened. ‘Thank you, God,’ he breathed.
The wind screamed about his ears. He pulled away the harness holding him to the cockpit and somehow managed to stand. He checked his parachute and with a grunt heaved himself through the aperture and jumped.
The plane spun away from him. It was the last he saw of it. He seemed to tumble in the sky, then pulled the rip-cord and, to his huge relief, felt the chute open above him and arrest his fall. He looked up at it; it seemed beautiful, like a silver flower. He had never made a real parachute jump before.
Now he even had time to look below. The fields were spread out like a quilt, a finger of peaceful smoke was rising from a chimney. Abruptly he remembered to look directly below and saw with alarm that he was descending on to a big red tiled roof. There was no way he could avoid it and he hit the roof, knocking the breath from his body, and slid down, dislodging tiles until a rain gutter stopped him falling over the edge. He stretched backwards, trying to regain his breath. He could already feel the bruises. ‘Now I’m fucked,’ he said aloud. The parachute was draped over the roof. He disengaged the harness.
Then he saw a man pedalling a bicycle across the meadow, a man who stopped and stared up at him with a red face.
‘Alors,’ said the man. ‘Ça vas, monsieur?’
‘Je suis fucked,’ said Toby. ‘Will you get a ladder?’
The man nodded his head understandingly. Another man on a bicycle, a policeman, was coming across the field. He stopped alongside the first man who pointed to Toby on the roof and said: ‘Il est fucked.’
They studied more than stared. Then they turned at the splutter of a motorcycle, bumping across the grass, contorted their faces and said together: ‘Les Boches.’ There were two German soldiers, one in the sidecar. They carried rifles and ambled a
nxiously towards the scene after leaving their machine alongside the bicycles. They wore steel helmets and, as Hendry could see, uncertain expressions. The French policeman reported to them: ‘Le pilote Anglais. Il est fucked.’
‘Fucked,’ said the Germans to each other. Then again: ‘Fucked.’
‘Absolutement,’ said one of the Frenchmen.
Between them they got a ladder, running with it like comic firemen. The Germans refused to mount it but the French policeman reluctantly did so and tentatively helped Hendry on to the top rungs. He went painfully to the ground. All four men shook hands with him and congratulated him on his escape, the Frenchmen first, the Germans following. Then one of the Germans produced a camera and handed it to the policeman. They ranged themselves around Toby and the policeman took two photographs before handing the camera back to the German and replacing him in the group. They took six photographs in all. They asked Toby to smile and he tried.
Chapter Nine
AS A SYMBOL of Dover the Hippodrome Theatre was only just short of the fame of the sturdy grey castle and the wide white cliffs. In that early wartime year of 1940 it represented a cheery and unusual defiance: despite bombs, shells and the everyday threat of invasion it only closed its doors for one week, and that was because its windows were blown in and the touring company which was billed to star there failed to reach the town due to the disruption of the railways.
It was part of the last generation of music halls and variety theatres throughout Britain, stretching back to the Victorian age and before. Home-grown stage stars such as Arthur Askey, Old Mother Riley and Her Daughter Kitty, Two-Ton Tessie O’Shea, and G. H. Elliott the Chocolate-Coloured Coon, familiar to millions through their wireless sets, drew crowds six nights a week and for matinees. There was standing room only for Max Miller the Cheeky Chappie.
They were wandering stars and at some time they all appeared on a weekly variety bill at the Hippodrome, as did some more exotic acts including a donkey which had to use the main entrance since it was too wide for the stage door, and a fully grown lion which nibbled a piece of meat from the trembling stomach of a chorus girl.
There were less than syncopated dancing girls, wearing massively darned stockings, and decorous striptease artistes, even the illustrious Phyllis Dixie, much in demand as the armed services crammed into the town. During the Dunkirk evacuation, when half the surviving British army had trudged from the harbour, the evening shows at the Hipp, as it was known, were a haven for soldiers who only hours before had escaped from the deathly beaches of France.
The theatre orchestra had once consisted of five musicians but the percussionist left, and the others played on without him through the most dangerous days and nights of German attacks. The drummer was never replaced, one of the other players leaning over to crash or rattle the instruments as required.
A recurring and popular act was a lady contortionist called Carmen from Havana, who lived in Folkestone. She could tie her body in knots, sing and whistle as she did so, and athletically play the piano. Servicemen would tussle for front-row stalls, and urge her to perform her most convoluted tricks, in her brief and sparkling costume, at the edge of the footlights.
‘Just look at that gusset,’ breathed Tugwell.
Jenkins the Welshman asked: ‘What’s a gusset?’
Tugwell sighed. ‘Don’t you know anything? It’s the bit there, look, there between her legs.’ He pointed. ‘Right in front of your face.’
‘Very nice indeed,’ agreed Jenkins leaning forward. ‘Have all women got them?’
‘Most of them,’ said Tugwell. ‘But they’re hard to see.’
The grand circle at the Hippodrome, where the seats were deeper velvet, was reserved for officers who were severely discouraged from mixing with lower ranks. A government pamphlet suggested that no officer should ever treat a non-commissioned rank to a drink, even if the man were his brother or his father. ‘It will save embarrassment for both.’
Instow sat in the grand circle with empty seats around him. In the lower stalls the audience was tight; soldiers sometimes had rifles and always carried gas masks, and the upholstery was tattered. At the end of the performance the servicemen often clambered over the seats to reach the public houses before they closed.
He was not sure why he was there. There was a bar but the view of the stage was more remote. The aching tones of the orchestra drifted up through the cigarette smoke.
Instow left early. He felt he was plodding through a cheerless and useless life. Now that he had been posted ashore to a movements office, his pedantic work seemed remote from the war.
He was in the foyer when he heard the scratchy sounds of the national anthem. As he came to the salute his eyes went across the lobby and met those of a girl selling ice creams. Molly. The tray was still around her neck as she stood to attention. Recognition lit her eyes and she winked.
He smiled and as soon as the anthem was finished she came across to him. ‘Too late for a Walls, I suppose,’ she said.
‘A bit,’ he said. He touched her hand holding the tray. She had neat dark hair.
‘Will you wait for me outside?’ she said. ‘I won’t be long. About a quarter of an hour.’
Instow felt a small warmth. ‘I’ll wait,’ he said.
‘Sure you won’t have a Walls? You can have it free.’ Her young face clouded. ‘But I don’t suppose they’ll let you eat it here. Being an officer.’
Outside the theatre it was so dark that he had to watch carefully for her. The audience had cleared in ten minutes.
‘The blackout’s good sometimes,’ she said taking his arm. ‘Nobody can see you with me. Or me with you.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Instow.
‘My place,’ she said giving a giggle. She turned on a bicycle lamp. He could just see the profile of her face. ‘I don’t actually live there. I live in one of the caves. It’s cheap and it’s safe.’ As far as they could tell there was nobody else on the street. A wandering cat began a lament. ‘That’s how I feel sometimes,’ she said. ‘Do you remember my name? I bet you don’t.’
‘I remember it,’ he said. ‘Molly.’
‘That’s good.’ Their footsteps were loud on the empty pavement. ‘Not many men would. It’s been weeks. What have you been doing? Out there in the Channel. Fighting and that?’
Instow sighed. ‘Unfortunately not. I’ve not even got a ship now. I’m stuck in an office on the quay.’
‘But it’s got to be safer,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to make sure you’re safe, as much as you can in this war.’
‘It’s not what I came back to the navy for,’ he said.
‘Last time . . . the first time . . . I saw you, you were in a terrible state,’ said Molly.
‘Lost my ship and half my men,’ he said. ‘Good men.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s much difference, good men or bad men in war. They die just the same,’ she said. They turned down a stony hill, the bicycle lamp a ring of light on their feet. At the foot was a terrace of houses all but demolished by the bombing. ‘This is it,’ she said uncertainly. ‘It will be a surprise.’
The end house remained standing and she went up a brief flight of steps and put a key into the lock. ‘I’ve got my own nook,’ she whispered. ‘It’s very nearly romantic.’
He smiled at her in the dark. They went into a black, warm passage. He felt along the wall and when they went into a room he collided with the arm of a chair. His hand reached another chair. ‘I don’t use the downstairs,’ she said. ‘Not the time I’m here.’ She shone the light briefly around the walls. There were some paintings and photographs. The windows were boarded. ‘This way,’ she said. ‘Up the wooden hill.’
She went first and waited for him on the landing. It was the first time that night they had been close together. He felt her full breasts against him and her arms came out and looped about his waist. He kissed her cheek. ‘Hello, officer,’ she said. ‘Again.’
By the unsteady beam of the
bicycle lamp they went into a bedroom. ‘It’s very handy and quite safe. I mean, the place isn’t going to fall down on our heads or anything.’
‘Who does it belong to?’ he asked keeping his voice low.
‘There’s no need to whisper. There’s nobody for miles, well, a good distance anyway. Come to me.’
In the darkness, he moved against her. ‘I should be ashamed of myself,’ he said.
‘And me,’ she giggled. ‘But I’m not.’
‘You’re twenty-two,’ he said. ‘You told me.’
Molly said: ‘Twenty-one. In a couple of days. I lie about my age. Put your hands back on me, will you.’ Slowly he raised the palms of both hands; she caught them and placed them on her almost motherly breasts. ‘Bit on the big side,’ she said. ‘But maybe you like that.’
Instow said: ‘I just feel guilty.’
‘About me? About your wife? Don’t worry about either of us. The only thing is I’m here and she isn’t.’
She was still wearing the uniform of the theatre usherette which had brass buttons down the front and metallic epaulettes on the shoulders. ‘I’m like a ruddy soldier,’ she said, beginning to unbutton her tunic. ‘But they make you.’ She studied his silhouette. ‘Don’t you think you ought to take your cap off?’
Instow laughed. ‘I hardly know what to do with you. I’ve never met anybody like you. And I’m twice your age.’
She said: ‘In that case you ought to know how to go about things. You could start by undoing my blouse.’
He fumbled with the small buttons and the front of the blouse fell open. ‘I’ll do the next bit,’ she said. ‘Otherwise we’ll be here all night.’ She had continued to hold him lightly around the waist but now she took both hands away and her fingers undid her brassiere. It fell away and he could see the faintly luminous breasts. He bent to kiss them and she misunderstood. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You’ll see them better with my bicycle lamp.’ She turned the switch and the faded beam illuminated first one breast, then the other.
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