Torpedo Attack

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Beyond the Messerschmitt there was a confusion of tracer, smoke and a brightly burning fire in the sky. There was also another 109 shooting at one of the other Beauforts. The burning Beaufort was so close to the water that its slip-stream was leaving long deep furrows on the surface. As Alden watched, it ploughed into the sea. For a hundred yards it rocketed along on the foam-crested popple, hurling up sheets of solid water and spray and trailing thick coils of smoke. Then it disappeared.

  Who was it?

  The three E-boats had spread widely, each firing at a different aircraft. One of these and both Me109s had shared in the destruction of... of whose Beaufort?

  The E-boat that had been trying to shoot down Alden's was out of range by now. The third E-boat had never been close enough to any of the aircraft for effective shooting.

  In the far distance, out to sea and heading for England, Alden could just see a Beaufort.

  'Lala, can you read his ident letter?'

  'No, not even with binoculars.'

  'Who d'you think it was?'

  'No idea.'

  'Gunner, did you get a good enough look?'

  'No, sir.'

  They flew back to East Crondal in a mixed mood of elation at their own success and grief at the waste of two torpedoes and the lives of a whole crew, for lack of what should have been an obvious elementary precaution: ascertaining where the sea was deep enough, in the shallow coastal area, for the torpedoes to run without hitting bottom, a rock or sandbank. They were tormented all the way by their ignorance of the identity of the aircraft that the enemy had brought down.

  Noyes picked up no signals on the wireless-telegraphy that would answer their agonising question. Neither did Alden, when within radio-telephone range, hear any message from the other survivor.

  They began to worry that it had not managed to reach the English coast.

  It was only when they were in the circuit that they - all except Noyes, in his cubicle - saw the identification letter which told them that Jenkins had come home and it was Wing Commander Tregear's crew who had died.

  The station commander and Squadron Leader Hanbury were at dispersals to receive them. Hanbury was plainly in a fury. His moustache gave the impression that it was bristling like the hairs on the nape of an enraged animal's neck. His voice sounded harsh, his eyes held hatred in them.

  'Any casualties?' he shouted up to Alden as soon as the engines were silent.

  'No, sir.'

  Nothing more was said until the crew had climbed out.

  'Did you see Wing Commander Tregear go in?' Hanbury asked.

  'Yes, sir.'

  The group captain said, in a subdued voice, 'Congratulations to you, anyway.' Noyes had reported their sinking by W/T.

  Alden said, 'Thank you, sir. What about Flight Sergeant Jenkins's crew?'

  'Jenkins was wounded and his gunner was killed.'

  There was the sound of coughing and retching.

  The group captain's expression turned from deliberate inscrutability to surprise.

  Hanbury's look of fury and hatred - Alden remembered what he had said about the enemy at their first meeting, on the day he joined the squadron - gave way to what seemed to Alden to express both outrage and pity.

  The smell of vomit tainted the air.

  Turning to look for his crew, Alden saw that two of them had also turned and were staring at the third.

  Doubled over and heaving his guts out, panting, with saliva and spew hanging in strings from his mouth, Dymond-Forbes was grunting, 'Sorry… sorry... about... a-about this…'

  His whole body was trembling and he had turned chalk pallid.

  'Get him into my car, quickly,' the group captain said crisply. 'I'll take him to Sick Quarters. You'd better come, Alden... he's your first responsibility.'

  'I don't need…' Alden cut himself off sharply, in anger. He did not need anyone to remind him of his responsibilities or their priorities.

  He wondered how close to the turret the 109's shells and bullets had passed. None had hit the aircraft, of that he was sure. He had handed over to Lalabalava as soon as prudent, and checked for damage personally.

  It was several minutes later, as they arrived at Sick Quarters, that he had room in his thoughts for anything else but his own sortie and his crew. Poor old Wingco... he had been a good type. What would his successor be like? And would the squadron have time to get to know him before he, too, was killed; one way or another... of the many ways there were?

  Eight

  'Dear Derek, You are the first - after my family, naturally - to know that Roy and I are engaged and planning to marry on our next leave.'

  Compared with sinking a 3,000 ton merchantman carrying war materiel between enemy ports, the news seemed so trivial that for a moment Alden could hardly even summon Elizabeth's face to mind. Was there or was there not a small dimple in her right cheek when she smiled… or was it the left? The colour of her eyes… how exactly should one describe it? Was her nose really as shiny as that? Surely she dabbed powder on it when she went out with him... or anyone else?

  He tore up the letter and did not reply for a week; and then briefly and with no felicitations, merely a wish for her happiness.

  Flight Sergeant Jenkins, with his arm in plaster and a sling, his forearm broken by a bullet, entertained his comrades with Rabelasian speculations about how best to arrange matters for the minimum of discomfort with the pusher who awaited him in Llanelli, whence he was bound on sick leave.

  Advice was freely offered. 'Lie on your back and let her do it all, Taff...You want to do it sitting on a chair, chum, with her straddling your lap and facing you... No, no, her facing the same way and jumping up and down on it's much better: I know! ... Knee-tremblers, Taffy, that's the answer....'

  He was equal to all ribald suggestions. 'Very limited imaginations you've all got. I can think of a lot of better ways. I'll let you know how I get on, boyos.'

  'It's her that'll have to get on,' a friend ungrammatically and lewdly suggested.

  Dymond-Forbes was looking shame-faced and his manner verged on the frenetic. He laughed immoderately on the flimsiest provocation. He kept lighting his pipe and letting it go out, then relighting it. He chewed incessantly on its stem and wasted tobacco, which was not in abundant supply (he smoked John Cotton Number One), by knocking out the bowl and reaming it furiously with a fearsome-looking metal gadget.

  Alden observed him uneasily. He decided to have a word with the squadron doctor: not that he expected much to come of it: the M.O. was young, in his first professional appointment; good with wounds and V.D., bronchitis and tinea - a common infliction among the troops - but no psychologist or psychiatrist.

  Alden fretted over his gunner's manifestations of shock and, he suspected, fear, while he gave no more thought to Elizabeth's 'Dear John' letter.

  Second in his thoughts was speculation about who would succeed Tregear in command of the squadron. Hanbury, as senior flight commander, immediately became acting C.O.; but it was usual to appoint a new permanent one from outside a squadron. The theory was that it would be difficult for a serving member to exercise authority over those who had been his equals. This was more valid on fighter squadrons, which were commanded by a squadron leader with flight lieutenant flight commanders, than on a bomber or coastal squadron. Pilot officers, flying officers and flight lieutenants were all junior officers. The two lower ranks did not address the third, their senior, as 'sir': except, if he were flight commander, the first time they met him each day; which was also the only time when they saluted him. In peacetime, these compliments were also paid at close of work for the day, but even then the etiquette could not always be observed. Hanbury's only peer on the squadron was the other flight commander, so discipline stood little chance of being endangered by excessive familiarity.

  There was general pleasure when, on the afternoon following Tregear's death, a signal arrived appointing Hanbury to command with the rank of acting wing commander. The squadron Adjutant s
pread the word. Hanbury was respected rather than popular, but it was a relief to know that one would be led by a thoroughly competent and brave professional. Inevitably the aphorism, 'Better the devil you know...' was much repeated.

  Alden, in a benign mood for the world at large – the enemy excluded - since his hugely gratifying and exciting achievement of the day before, and the praise and admiration of the whole squadron, included Hanbury's promotion in his general benevolence. He had a reservation, however. He had never changed his first estimation of Hanbury as a man of unbounded ambition and ruthless determination. Hanbury was no great modifier of any orders or plans to allow for other men's deficiencies. If you flew behind Hanbury you were expected to be as good as he was; for that particular operation, at least.

  This was an unpractical attitude even in peacetime. With the reasonably expected inadequacies of rapidly trained wartime pilots, it became impracticable. Alden foresaw unnecessarily heavy casualties.

  His had been the only sinking on the previous day and Wing Commander Tregear's aircraft the only one shot down. A sudden change of weather in the operational area, summer thunderstorms of unusual severity, had prevented other sorties from sighting any targets and had forced the cancellation of operations altogether by lunchtime. Hanbury had complained that this was the very kind of weather in which to fly: the enemy would not be expecting anyone to venture forth in it. The rest of the squadron, including Alden, thought that he was deranged. The decision, of course, lay with Group H.Q.; but no-one would have put it past Hanbury to take off on some excuse the weather at base was flyable - and then make for the other side of the North Sea.

  Being the first in the squadron to sink a ship with a torpedo dropped from a Beaufort was distinction enough. To sink such a big ship would have been outstanding in most attacks. To be the only pilot to score a success at all on the squadron's first torpedo sorties with Beauforts made Alden conspicuous. He found himself the most notorious figure on the station and did not like it.

  He was more pleased by Courtney's elevation to acting squadron leader and B Flight commander, which was notified in the same signal that brought Hanbury's new appointment. Not only did he like Courtney very much, but also, with his own length of service and, now, position as deputy flight commander, plus his newly won distinction, his prospects of a squadron leader post were much enhanced. He was sure that he had made up for the five-year gap in his service on the Active List. In the fast-expanding R.A.F., flight lieu­ tenants of his Cranwell term were rare. He was as well placed as though his last promotion had been back­ dated to be of the same seniority as all his immediate Cranwell contemporaries.

  I'm no less ambitious than Jack Hanbury, of course, he privately confessed.

  The next thought was: can I afford to carry Dymond-Forbes? If he's cracking up, it's my duty, and simple human decency, to speak to Bruce Courtney about resting him for a while. We could send him on leave. If we did, I'd have to take on another gunner, and that would spoil our crew drill. On the other hand, if he breaks under attack on an op, we'll be defenceless... and most likely dead.

  It had been a boring day. Engine unserviceability had kept several A and B Flight aircraft grounded. Poor visibility along the Dutch coast had frustrated the few sorties flown. No attacks had been made. At stand­ down, Alden asked Lalabalava to walk back to the mess with him.

  As soon as they left the crew room, he began, 'I want to talk to you about young Dymond-Forbes.'

  'I've been expecting you to.'

  'I'm wondering whether I ought to suggest to Bruce that we send him on a week's leave.'

  'You think he's as shaky as that?'

  'It seems to me.'

  'That might shake his self-confidence even more.'

  'That had occurred to me. But if the alternative is that he could put the whole crew at risk, then it's just his hard luck. Better his self-confidence should suffer than that we should all line up to shake hands with St Peter.'

  Lalabalava laughed. 'If you can make such a frivolous euphemism, you can't be too bothered.'

  'But I am. I'm as bothered about him personally as I am about the crew as a whole.'

  'But that wouldn't stop you scrapping him, and perhaps contributing to a breakdown in morale that would turn him blatantly L.M.F.?'

  'No, it wouldn't.'

  'You're right, of course. I only hope I'd have the strength of character to do the same.'

  'I think what he needs most is to do some good shooting. If he bagged another Messerschmitt, or even shared one, it would be the best way of restoring his nerve.'

  'At the expense of ours meanwhile! I'm not wild about flying with a gunner who's chicken.'

  'However scared he might be, he has no option in a fight but to do his job: it's his only chance, too.'

  'Unless he freezes with panic.'

  'Aren't we being a bit hasty, though?' Alden suggested. 'We're judging him on one episode. Perhaps he was airsick, and that's what made him puke and look so damned shaken.'

  Lalabalava sounded dubious: 'Every time an air gunner has been killed in action, it's been a messy business. If anyone else in a crew gets the chop it's most often because the kite has been shot up and prangs. The way Jerry practically always goes for the gunner first, if he's making a stern attack, can't be very encouraging! And one second's worth from a twenty-mil or a machinegun…'

  There was no need to say any more. The resultant butchery in a gun turret pulverised flesh and bone to the consistency of raspberry jam. A one-second burst from a Vickers K gun delivered five and a half ounces of lead to its target. A one-second burst from a Me109's cannon and machineguns hurled six pounds at its victim.

  'I'll mention it to Bruce and tell him what I think is the best way to handle it... the best cure.' Alden added quickly: 'I'm not trying to spread the responsibility: I'll carry that. But I think it's only fair to him as flight commander. Either Forbes goes on leave or we just pray that he shoots down another One-a-nine. I think he's been living on the pride of his first kill and so many other gunners have been chopped in the meanwhile, it's preyed on his nerves.'

  They walked in silence for a while until presently Lalabalava said, 'Tonight will be the first time we've had a thrash in the mess for a good reason.' He looked cautiously at Alden to see his reaction, knowing his comment to be a slight trespass on ground that was tacitly ignored by custom.

  'Yes,' Alden agreed, quietly. He had been thinking the same thing. Two promotions to celebrate were a much better reason for a party than implicit homage to one's dead.

  While Lalabalava flew an air test next morning and Noyes went to Stores to try to have a patched shirt exchanged for a new one, Dymond-Forbes approached Alden. His manner was diffident.

  'Could I ask you something, sir?'

  'Of course.' Why was the boy being so confidential?'

  'I'd like to apply for a pilot's course, sir.' 'The boy' began to colour as he spoke.

  'Rather sudden isn't it?'

  'Not really, sir.'

  'Why didn't you apply when you joined?'

  'Because I didn't want to wait so long before I became operational, sir.'

  This was reasonable. Pilot training took eleven months and an observer's thirteen. In addition, there was a long wait at the beginning of the war before a volunteer could be found a place at a training school. To become a wireless operator-air gunner or a straight air gunner needed on1y about half these times. Also, with the actual and expected casualty rate among air gunners, the waiting for a course was not as long.

  'What makes you want to remuster now?'

  'There are so many more flying training schools, sir: Canada... America... South Africa...'

  'You think you'd get on a course pretty quickly?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'And perhaps go to California to do your training.'

  This evoked a wide smile. 'Wouldn't mind.'

  There was a further attraction, it could be. Alden told himself that he was being unfair but he could not
suppress the notion. Anyone who passed very high on the pilot's course could expect to be retained in America, Canada, South Africa, or even his training school in Britain, to be taught how to instruct. Instructing was cushy. An inept pupil could kill you, but flak and fighters wouldn't.

  'Put an application in at the Orderly Room.'

  'It's not that I want to leave the crew, sir; but I like the Service and I'd like to stay on after the war.' He's an optimist, Alden thought. What makes him think any of us is going to survive as long as that? This show is going to take years yet. 'My chances would be much better as a pilot. So would my chance of a commission.'

  'No doubt about that.'

  'I'll get an application form when we're released. Sooner the better.'

  'Good luck.'

  'Do you think Squadron Leader Courtney and the C.O. will recommend it, sir?'

  'I'm sure they will. Don't forget the Group Captain will want to see you.'

  Dymond-Forbes smiled again. 'Piece of cake, sir. He's a fellow Scot, isn't he. And he's nowhere near as intimidating as my old Headmaster: he doesn't beat people, for one thing!'

  Alden laughed. 'He doesn't need to. The station commander can wither anyone with a few well-chosen words.

  'I know, sir. I've heard him tear strips off.'

  'Since you've brought up the subject of a change of scene...' Dymond-Forbes gave him a startled and guilty look. '... I might as well ask you something that's been on my mind.'

  'But that wasn't the reason for wanting to remuster to pilot, sir… it's not a change of scene that I want, it's...'

  'Are you quite sure?' Alden stared closely at him.

  'What makes you think that, sir?'

  'You were shaken to the roots when you heard Flight Jenkins's gunner had got the chop.' Alden was blunt and he felt, brutal; but honest.

  Dymond-Forbes turned deep red. 'I catted because I'd been feeling a bit sick, sir.'

  'If you're prone to airsickness you won't make it as a pilot. You won't even remain an air gunner.'

  'It's not airsickness, sir.' The denial was hasty. 'I felt queasy the day before: I ate some hangers in the cafe in the village and I think they must have gone off.'