Torpedo Attack

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  That's obviously where she went with the late What's-his-name for a dummy run to find out if they were sexually compatible before leaping into matrimony. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not taking on any second-hand flesh.

  'I was delighted to see the immediate award of D.F.C.s and a D.F.M. to your crew. Congratulations.' The letter ended 'With love from Elizabeth.'

  Well, I wasn't delighted, Alden said to himself. Noyes deserved a D.F.M. as much as the rest of us deserved our gongs. He may not have fired any shots, but his calmness under fire, the first class quality of the bearings he got - and always does get for us - were worth just as much as anything we did. We're a crew dammit...

  He had already spoken to Hanbury and Courtney about it. 'I put Sergeant Noyes up as well,' Hanbury had said. 'Never mind, I'll make sure he goes up again on the next list. Even if Air Ministry won't agree to an immediate award, he deserves a cumulative one for all his good work since he joined the squadron.'

  All was definitely not fair in love or war.

  Nine

  The crew went on seven days' leave, three of them wearing ribbons with the diagonal white and violet stripes of the Distinguished Flying Cross or the thinner stripes of the Medal. Alden had no thoughts of Elizabeth Waring. He regretted that a pleasant friendship had waned to extinction, but not his decision to let that happen. Pride precluded playing substitute for her first choice. He had never defined his intentions towards her precisely, but they had been long-term and eventually would have included marriage. Long-term plans in wartime were mostly destined to end in disappointment, he believed. He had not intended theirs, if it progressed, to be a mere sexual relationship. Intercourse before marriage did not offend his principles, but he thought it wrong to go to bed with a virgin only to gratify himself, with no thought of marrying her. It would never occur to him to justify it on the grounds that it might be the girl who was actually the seducer.

  As for following another man in the most intimate of all acts, in marriage, the notion repelled him and disgusted his fastidious nature. With a casual affair, it didn't matter how many had preceded one, but between man and wife it was repugnant.

  He was content to stay with his parents, lie late in bed every morning, go to London for a play, a concert or an art exhibition, to restaurants and the two or three drinking clubs most favoured by his Service. His brother arrived for seven days on his third day at home and they went out together, sometimes with a pair of girls. They were not the sort of girls with whom young men of his kind went casually to bed; they were the kind to whom one proposed marriage. In a Mayfair drinking club one afternoon he met an A.T.S. officer with some friends of his. She was overtly interested in him and frankly inviting. She had a small flat in Chelsea and took him there for an agreeable two hours before he had to meet his family at the Ritz before going to a show and dinner. His mother looked at him anxiously. 'Are you all right, darling? You look pale... and tired.' His father gave him a quizzical look and tactfully diverted her thoughts.

  Britain was beleaguered and the Battle of Britain was beginning. On the day that Alden's crew went on leave Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons were in action throughout the daylight hours against successive waves of enemy bombers escorted by fighters.

  On the next day, an Anson on coastal reconnaissance shot down a Heinkel 111. This German bomber had seven machineguns. Alden happened to meet the pilot, whom he knew, three days later. 'I was over a convoy,' his friend recounted, 'when three Heinkels showed up, so we climbed to six thousand to have a crack at them.' With one fixed gun in the wing, for the pilot, and one K gun in its dorsal turret! 'Then suddenly the three became nine... but some Spits came haring along and the Jerries ran for it. One Jerry was close below us, so I dived at him and he promptly turned head-on at me. I managed to aim my gun at him and he took quite a lot of hits. As he pulled out to avoid a collision, my gunner fired at him beam-on... and down he went into the drink. One Jerry baled out, but so low that his chute hardly opened... I'm glad to say.'

  The public hardly knew what an Anson was, or a Beaufort. They had only the sketchiest idea of what Coastal Command did. Many did not know even that it existed. The newspapers and B.B.C. reported that bombers of Bomber Command were attacking barge concentrations in Channel ports. Fighter Command was fighting battles with Heinkels, Dorniers and Junkers over south-east England, where the population could stop work and watch. If any average citizen had heard what Alden's crew had done, he would have assumed that it was a Bomber Command success (what's a Beaufort?), and if he or she had heard of this Anson crew's kill, would have assumed that the Anson (what is that?) was another fighter.

  It irritated Alden to think that of the people who noticed and admired his decoration, ninety per cent surely assumed he flew a fighter and the remainder would suppose that he had won it over France or Germany in a Hampden, Wellington or Whitley.

  He was slightly mollified when, on the last day of his leave, a belated D.F.M. for Sergeant Noyes was gazetted.

  And so back to the treadmill of Rover patrols, he thought at breakfast on his final morning at home.

  Returning from leave always held Alden in suspense. Who had been killed, wounded, or shot down close enough to a hostile shore to be taken from the sea and made prisoner?

  He drove up to the mess in time for a drink before dinner and found Courtney in the ante-room. It took only as long as ordering and drinking half a pint of beer to adjust himself to the news. It was not unbearably distressing. Their squadron had lost two crews, the other squadron the same. A few men had been wounded and were off ops for the next few weeks. But there had been some good sinkings and Jack Hanbury had been given a D.S.O. that very day.

  While the party to celebrate the decoration was in full swing, Alden telephoned the sergeants' mess and asked for Noyes. A slurred voice presently reached him.

  'That you, Skipper, sir?'

  'Yes. Congratulations on your gong.'

  'Thank you, sir. I know you 'ad a lot to do wiv it.'

  'Only one person had anything significant to do with it, Sergeant: yourself. Had a good leave?'

  'Wizard, sir. You?'

  'Yes, thanks. How's our air gunner.'

  'Ain't seen 'im yet, sir. Got a long way to come, 'asn't 'e? 'Spect 'e'll be booking in any minute now.' Noyes cackled. 'The party'll still be on. We're waiting to buy the Wingco a drink 'ere.'

  'I might come over with him.'

  'Won't forgive 'you if you don't, sir.'

  Alden and some others duly accompanied Wing Commander Hanbury to the sergeants' mess for half an hour, but there was still no sign of his air gunner.

  The morning brought a letter from Dymond-Forbes's family doctor to say that he had had a heavy fall from a horse, broken a collar bone and an arm, and been badly concussed.

  The news reached Alden via the squadron M .O. and the Adjutant.

  'Strange,' he remarked to Lalabalava, 'I gathered he was a very experienced horseman. It seems he was out bare-headed, and fell jumping a hedge with a wide ditch on the other side, into which his horse fell. Very odd. Especially as it was on his father's land, which he must know like the back of his hand.'

  'Something tells me we won't see that young man again; except to pick up his kit and go off on a ground posting.'

  'Deliberate injury is one way to deal with windiness, if you can't find the guts to cope, I suppose. But his bones will knit and he'll have to come back on ops.'

  'Not with us, I hope,' Lalabalava said quickly.

  'You can be sure of that, if your suspicion is confirmed. But what makes you so certain? As I say, his broken bones won't be a good enough reason when they've set again.'

  'He'll find something else wrong. You mark my words.'

  'It's not easy to fool the docs.'

  'Easy enough if a man picks the right affliction.'

  'Such as?'

  'It appears he's badly concussed. Concussion does things to the eyes, as you know. An air gunner who sees double or can't pass the aircrew
eyesight test any more is a cert to be grounded.'

  'You shock me, Lala.'

  'The thought shocks me, too. Of course he may spin it out only as long as his posting to a pilot's course comes through, and then make a quick recovery.'

  'I'm not interested. All I want is to find a good replacement and get on with the job.'

  'Noyes could probably point you in the right direction, Derek.'

  'Yes, I intend to ask him if he knows a good hand we could take on the strength. Let's go and find him.'

  Noyes was impassive when told what had happened. It was not a matter that the two officers could discuss with him, but he could have indicated his private opinion by one of the meaningful looks of which he was a master. Instead, he merely looked blank and said, "Ard cheese on Brackets.'

  'Have you got an oppo you think would fit in, Knocker?'

  Noyes looked surprised at this informality. 'Yeah, I think so, sir. Sar'nt Potter, 'is name is. Just been posted in. Been on sick leave. Was on --- Squadron. Done quite a lot of ops. The crew 'ad to ditch about twenty miles off Lowestoft and the others all got the chop; two drowned, one died of wounds. 'E's been in 'ospital, an all, with exposure. I knew him at apprentice school. He was a Wem, so he isn't a jeep, see.' A W.E.M. was a wireless and electrical mechanic. 'But 'e did well on the gunnery course, 'e told me.'

  'Potter?'

  'That's right, sir. 'Ippo, we call 'im. On account of 'Ippo-Potter-mus, like... and he's only a little bloke, so of course he'd be Lofty or Tich, or Jumbo, being as he's only a flyweight as well as being so short.'

  'Is he around?'

  'That's him, in the comer, sir. reading Tee Emm.' Tee Emm was the training manual which appeared every week or so and was humorous as well as instructive.

  'Go and fetch him, would you.'

  Sergeant Hippo Potter, on close inspection, was seen to be freckled and his almost crewcut hair was distinctly red. His ears protruded like jug handles. His uniform was work-worn but scrupulously pressed, buttons and boots dazzling.

  'I hear you're a Regular, too, Sergeant?' said Alden.

  'Yessir.'

  'I need an air gunner.'

  'Yessir. Thank you, sir.'

  'All right with you, then?'

  'If you'll have me, sir.'

  'Well, let's give each other a try, shall we?'

  'Very good, sir.' Potter waited to be dismissed. He spoke with the accent of a Suffolk man and suddenly Alden felt a tug at a string of memory.

  'I knew a Warrant Officer Potter on my first squadron. He came from Suffolk, too.'

  'My father, sir.'

  'In that case, you're more than welcome on the crew.'

  Potter's face split in a beam of delight. 'I won't let you down, sir.'

  'I know that, Sergeant. Sit down and tell me about your father: retired?'

  'No, sir: he's at one of those new bomber stations they're building in Yorkshire. He's station Adjutant, sir: got his commission six months ago.'

  'He must have gone straight from W.O. to flying officer?' (Missing out the rank of pilot officer; the practice when warrant officers were commissioned.)

  'Yes, sir. He's a flight lieutenant now.' Potter looked uncertain, as though apprehensive of how this Cranwell graduate would react.

  Alden laughed. 'He'll get his scraper ring before I do.' (Promotion to squadron leader.)

  Potter dropped his eyes and looked uncomfortable. Alden understood why. Courtney might be killed today… tomorrow... any day, and he would become flight commander with another, narrow, ring on his cuffs.

  It was time to change the subject. Alden said, 'I had a letter from Fussell this morning. He expects to be back in a month or so.'

  Noyes sucked his teeth and exchanged glances with Potter, and again Alden realised that he had not really changed the subject. Who could say if any of them would still be alive in a month's time? And would he take Fussell back and return Noyes to the pool of uncrewed wireless operators, to find a new pilot? It was a topic he did not wish to follow in his own thoughts. Fussell and Noyes were equally competent and loyal. Choosing between them would be invidious and whatever decision he took would hurt the feelings of the man whom he dropped.

  The crew was on the Battle Order. Alden went to the flight commander's office to chat to Courtney over their N.A.A.F.I. break. 'Any idea what's on, Bruce?'

  'It's still panic stations over the invasion ports, old boy. Half our trips have been to the French coast, this last week. Jerry's assembling barges as far west as Brest.'

  Night bombing, to back up Bomber Command's effort, could be marginally less dicey than torpedo shipping strikes by day. It depended on the target's flak defences. On a daylight strike one could be sure, if attacking a convoy, of having to face at least two flak ships and, if the convoy were big, four of them; ahead, astern and on each flank. That could mean as many as 128 twenty-millimetre and 24 thirty-seven millimetre guns, all quick-firers, and able to aim without depending on predictors or searchlights.

  Ports were defended by these and by the devastating 88 mm as well. But by going in low, one kept well beneath the eighty-eights and might even be able to duck under the thirty-sevens.

  'Have you been to Brest, Bruce?'

  'Yes. And Le Havre. Very hairy, old boy. Swarms of night fighters too. And it only needs a slight navigation error to find oneself tangled up with the Bomber boys.' Which meant a high risk of collisions.

  'What are the chances for tonight?'

  'Certainty, I'd say.'

  And so it proved. Alden took his aircraft off an hour before midnight on the 250-mile trip to Le Havre, with three 500 lb. bombs in the bomb bay and no great rejoicing in his heart. The flak defences at Le Havre had already gained a formidable reputation and there were fighter bases within a short distance.

  Each squadron was putting up eight aircraft, at two minute intervals. Bomber Command were sending twenty-five Whitleys to the same target. By the time Alden arrived there, the defences would have been well stirred up. There would, in slight compensation, already be fires burning from the preceding aircraft's high explosives and incendiaries, which would help to identify the precise target area in the docks.

  With a heavy load, the Beaufort was a sluggish climber. Its service ceiling of 16,500 ft. was well within the lethal range of the detested 88s. At that height, anyway, the bomb sight then in use was inaccurate. There was no point in climbing even to 10,000 ft. At that altitude, it was bitterly cold in the draughty and poorly heated fuselage and turret. The bomb sight was not really good enough even so far below the aircraft's ceiling. The squadrons were briefed to fly at 5,000 ft., which would avoid barrage balloons and allow fair accuracy of bombing.

  It was difficult for Alden to believe that there had been a seven-day intermission in his routine of the past several months. Had he really been enjoying a late supper at a London restaurant, with his parents and brother, after the theatre, at this time of the evening only forty-eight hours ago? He recalled how strange it had seemed to him on his first day at home, with no hangars in sight, no areo engines being run up, no Tannoy messages being broadcast, no sword of Damocles suspended over him in the form of flak or fighters or a plunge beneath the sea with a suddenly dead engine. And now it seemed even stranger to realise that for seven blessed days he had been free from responsibility and fear.

  Somewhere over Sussex three chinks of light showed between someone's blackout curtains. 'Air raid warden down there got his finger in,' he remarked, breaking the monotony.

  'Haywards Heath,' Lalabalava said promptly.

  'You hope.'

  'E.T.A. coast in four minutes.'

  'Brighton in sight dead ahead.'

  'What did I tell you?'

  Alden enforced strict crew discipline about unnecessary chatter. A bantering exchange of this sort would have been unthinkable over enemy territory or close to a target area over the sea. But he knew also the value of breaking tension and monotony when it was safe to do so.

  But w
as it entirely safe? This part of southern England was well within the range of enemy intruders, Me110s or Ju88s, on the prowl for unsuspecting or inattentive victims.

  'Eyes peeled, everyone: there may be intruders about.' Staring from the window on his side of the cockpit and ahead through the windscreen, he himself could see exhaust flames flickering faintly in no less than three different directions. Friend or foe? Most likely they belonged to other Coastal and Bomber Command aircraft on their way to France. But he would keep an eye on them, just the same.

  'Gunner from pilot. Can you see any exhaust flames?'

  'Yes, sir, but nothing close.'

  'Don't forget to keep a lookout below, too.'

  'I'm covering it, sir.'

  They were crossing the tops of broken cloud whose base was a trifle less than 3,000 ft. above ground and tops some 4,000 ft. A night fighter above the Beaufort would see it outlined against the cloud tops in the light of the half-moon and stars. Equally, a fighter below the Beaufort would give itself away.

  Alden felt restless. It seemed unnatural, in his trade, to be spending so much time flying over his own country. His proper place was over the sea when on his way to a target.

  He looked down at the rolling clumps of cloud. The coast lay only two miles or so ahead. The dark mass of Brighton was unmistakable.

  A dark shape slipped out of the grey wraiths beneath and a flurry of tracer carne zipping, it seemed, directly at the cockpit. Like a shark darting up from the bottom of the sea, a Me110 was climbing with its for'ard guns blazing.

  Alden thrust the control column forward and dived straight at it, firing his own gun and seeing his tracer leap through the darkness in a curving, shining slash at the fighter's canopy, which shone brightly as it reflected the moonlight.

  A few seconds later he banked into a spiral climb in the opposite direction.

  At the moment that he had seen the Messerschmitt break cover and its shells and bullets hurtle towards him, he had felt his aircraft judder under the impact and explosion of twenty millimetre shells and seen bright flashes of flame in its nose.