Nor the Years Condemn

by Justin Sheedy

  On Quinn’s arrival in December, Huxley hadn’t said hello. He’d told him to get his kit on. Quinn had slipped very easily back into the Mark IX. It felt good to be back in the air; the IX was brilliant. Though Quinn hadn’t expected his ‘check flight’ would be across to France in broad daylight. Just the two of them, it was called a ‘Rhubarb’: Looking for and shooting up ‘targets of opportunity’.

  Skimming over open countryside at about 200 feet, the German staff car and escorting motorcycle had stood out very clearly against the snow – speeding away, about a mile off out to the left.

  Huxley asked Quinn whether he’d seen the target already, and, receiving an affirmative, invited him to attack it.

  ‘Roger…’ Quinn knew Huxley would follow him in and provide cover close behind.

  Peeling away left, Quinn angled down behind the fleeing vehicles: car, motorcycle and sidecar growing in his gun-sight. He thumbed the gun button firmly, kept it depressed, tracers ripping up parallel flurries of white towards the staff car, then into it. Careering off to the right, the black Mercedes rolled into the ditch by the road, at least one body tumbling out that Quinn could see. He lifted his thumb. Shit – tracers coming back at him now from further ahead – motorcycle gunner firing – there, skidded to a stop, a machine-gun mounted on the sidecar…

  Instantly firing again, Quinn could see the German soldiers now, two helmeted faces, mounted machine-gun flashing.

  With a slight left-right-left action on the Spit’s rudder pedals, Quinn raked his cannon streams from side to side across the BMW before it whipped beneath. Pulling back a touch on the stick, Quinn lifted the Spitfire over the snowy meadow, Huxley drawing beside him in the shallow climb, and narrowly in front. Quinn followed suit his bank to the left, back out to the coast again, as he did, hearing Huxley’s words in the headphones.

  ‘You’ll do.’

  Though Quinn’s promotion to Flight Lieutenant had come shortly afterwards, it came with no ceremony. He received no summons to Huxley’s office.

  He was merely informed.

  *

  In the Hornchurch dispersal hut, table tennis was the game. The gen said pilots back in the Battle had played between scrambles – not only good for the reflexes but an escape from the dreadful tension of waiting. Quinn fingered the graffiti scratched into the table, surely enough, J.J. 1940.

  ‘F-fancy a game then?’

  It was here, soon after his return to Hornchurch, that Quinn met Stephen Maddox.

  ‘Not against the reigning champion, no bloody thank you,’ Quinn smiled, and put out his hand. ‘Daniel Quinn.’

  ‘S-Steve Maddox.’

  For Quinn, it was a delight to talk with another Australian again. Maddox was twenty, a Flying Officer from Dulwich Hill in Sydney. As tall as he was thin, his eyes lifted only fleetingly to meet anyone else’s, the forward lean in which his frame seemed set causing him to brush a cowlick of black hair from his eyes almost constantly.

  ‘So where’s Nick Carroll?’ Quinn put to him. ‘You’re his wingman, aren’t you?’

  ‘I w-was.’

  Quinn did his best to suppress a shudder, which wasn’t lost on Maddox.

  ‘N-no, it’s alright, he applied for a t-transfer, that’s all.’

  ‘Transfer? Where to?’

  ‘Ph-photo reconnaissance actually. H-high altitude Spitfires. Very hush hush.’

  Quinn had already perused Maddox’s personal file: He’d attended Newington College on an academic scholarship, where, with no previous experience, he’d captained the Rifle Team. After graduating Dux, he’d been in First Year at Sydney Uni when his parents gave him permission to join up.

  ‘How would you like to fly wingman for me, Stephen?’

  ‘Be a privilege.’

  Quinn sensed commotion down the end of the room, a few pilots on standby huddling around the hut’s radio-phonograph: ‘Shut up, shut up,’ insisted one.

  ‘What’s up?’ Quinn angled towards them.

  ‘Shut UP,’ pleaded the young pilot, the only sound now the vacuum valve hum of the speakers increasing in volume…

  This is the BBC Home Service… Here is the news… In the House of Commons today, the Foreign Secretary, Mister Anthony Eden, has told the House about mass executions of Jews by Germans in occupied Europe…

  As the voice continued, Quinn’s mind flashed to Mister Reiser. His friend. The graceful old man with his thoughtful religion.

  Then another face came to him. Eyes so coldly empty of humanity. Yet so maniacally certain. And with a life-long ambition.

  ‘Jesus… It’s happening…’

  According to the newsreader, the Nazis were carrying out Hitler’s plan all across Europe. Exterminating old men. Young men. Women. Children. At this very moment…

  ‘Bar-barians,’ exclaimed one of the huddle.

  As the BBC voice moved on to the next item of news, Quinn peered back at Stephen Maddox. Maddox held his stare, finally speaking.

  ‘F-funny where History p-places you, isn’t it…’

  ‘Nick Carroll said you’ve got good eyes.’

  ‘Just b-born lucky, I s’pose.’

  ‘Looks like we’ve been handed a singular use for them, Stephen.’

  *

  Dear Daniel

  This is the second letter I’ve sent you since we got the telegram in September about your being injured: The postman says mail is going missing all the time with the convoys being torpedoed, so I’m assuming you didn’t get my last one. The telegram didn’t give any details except that it described your injuries as ‘moderate’. We didn’t know what to think. Thought you might even be home for Christmas! Then we got your letter from the hospital which you wrote in October, but that only came after New Year. So, as you can imagine, Christmas didn’t go so well. Angie was waiting for you to turn up on the doorstep. Pretty sure Mum was too.

  Even though you wrote that you weren’t sure what would happen to you, at least you’re alright, that’s the main thing. That letter written from the hospital is still quite difficult to read – so much cut out by the censor, even more than usual (?)

  I haven’t told Mum I’ll be applying for Aircrew this July. Actually, I haven’t told Dad either, but I’m going to after my birthday - you have to be 18 of course. All I’ll need is Dad’s signature. Or wait till I’m 21 and you can forget that!

  I got into Law and it starts in March, but I just sort of feel between two worlds, if you know what I mean. Anyway, there could be a delay between my initial interview and when they induct me, just as you had. And yes, I know you’re dead against me going in, Dan, as you wrote, but any other path feels unthinkable, simple as that. (I can only assume you felt the same way.)

  So, Dan, we’re not sure where you are right now or how you’re recuperating as no further mail has arrived. Please write as soon as you can, you probably have already - bloody convoys. Love from me and all the family, and Happy New Year. Reckon I’ll be seeing you some time in ’44. And not over there anymore but out here! Seems Kokoda’s behind us now, but the Japs still have to be driven out of New Guinea for good and, to be perfectly honest, brother, who’s going to do that but us? (Going by the Herald, I get a funny feeling the Yanks have forgotten who we are already.)

  Yours truly

  Matt.

  P.S. When they send you back this way again, that means you’ll get some Home Leave, won’t you. That means we could see you any time! Please, let it be so.

  *

  In April, 122 Squadron had traded in its beloved Spit IXs for a new variant, more accurately, for a new variant of an old one.

  The Spifire LF-Vb.

  At first, Quinn assumed it must be some sort of joke, and a very, very bad one at that: ‘LF’ standing for ‘Low Altitude Fighter’, that they were going back to Mark Vs was the cause of no small amount of consternation within the squadron. This evaporated, however, when the pilots discovered what a beauty they’d been handed. For the LF variant of the old Mark V had a whopping
1585 horse-power, the tips of its elliptical wings clipped straight for a faster roll-rate, and a customised version of the V’s old single-stage supercharger – in a nut-shell, ‘clipped and cropped’. Reverting to the Mark V’s mere three-bladed propeller had worried the pilots initially, until the LF showed what it could do: At low altitude, it was a demon, nothing but a purpose-built machine.

  And 122’s new purpose would be Ground Attack.

  *

  Virginie Piquot had just turned fourteen.

  Since the day she’d seen the German fighter crash in their neighbour’s field, it had become apparent to Virginie that Monsieur Bonnemain wasn’t quite the crusty old thing she’d always thought. He was, as it turned out, a bit of a wise and watchful old soul. He had told her the fighter’s name, a Focke-Wulf, also the names of other aircraft that flew in and out of the German airfield: Messerschmitt 109s mainly, and 110s too, but they were larger – twin-engined, he said – and usually flew at night.

  When Virginie had told Maman, Maman told her never to talk to Monsieur Bonnemain again. She must never, ever say the names of the German aircraft! Someone would hear Virginie, tell the Germans, and that would be the end: If Virginie had said their names, she knew their names. And if she knew their names, she could tell the Resistance. Then the Resistance could tell the British, because the British wanted to know what aircraft the Germans had at the airfield, and how many!

  ‘Do you wish to see your fifteenth birthday, child?! Then let them think you know nothing! Even better, let them think you are just a stupid girl! Let them think you are lazy, better still, dim-witted!! For goodness’ sake stop putting up your hand in class all the time – If they think you are dull, they will ignore you!’

  Monsieur B. had told Virginie the name of the British fighters too, but Virginie hadn’t let on to Maman about that one. She’d kept that one firmly to herself.

  Through the winter, Virginie had heard many things. Some were just the things Madame Langlois told everyone, her usual stories: townspeople taken up to the old chateau, dragged up there by the Gestapo, tortured, then buried in the woods behind it, she vowed. Some scoffed she was just an old gossip, even a witch, but the men and women in her stories had disappeared from Nacqueville and Querqueville – names Virginie had known – the brave people of the Resistance, so said Madame Langlois.

  Maman didn’t call them ‘brave’ people. She called them dead people.

  ‘Do you know how you can identify members of the Resistance, child? It is easy. THEY are the people you do not SEE anymore. Yes, Monsieur Bonnemain could be a member of the Resistance… He could also be a traitor at the same time – There are traitors, informers everywhere! Why do you think people are disappearing, child? How can you fight if you don’t know who your friends are? Easy. You CAN’T.’

  This morning Virginie had been woken by the noise. From her bedroom window she’d heard booming, crashing sounds coming from over beyond Querqueville, and the noise of aircraft, from the direction of the German airfield was all she could tell… Racing outside in her night-dress she saw the pillars of black smoke rising, then glimpses of aircraft going this way and that on the horizon, until some came curving fast and low overhead, four of them – They flew right over her!

  Virginie knew the names of these aircraft – Monsieur B. had told her…

  These were her friends! Not ones who could betray her but friends she could see: The ones that had shot down the German. These were her Spitfires.

  Watching them speed away out to the coast, now Virginie cried again.

  ‘Mes amis. Vous êtes retournés.’

  She knew they’d come back with the Spring.

  Quinn had seen the child quite clearly in the field before him; they’d been low enough. An upturned face, a smile? He’d waggled his wings – good for French morale, Command said – then led Green Section back out to sea, over a rock formation named ‘The Furnace’. The second time he’d been over the area, its features were starting to stick for Quinn, ‘Normandy’ as per the map.

  The strategy behind 122’s mission, as usual, he could only guess. Maybe Bomber Command wanted the German night-fighters hit – before Bomber Command bombed the U-boat pens at Cherbourg later that evening. Maybe it was a diversion and Bomber Command were bombing somewhere else tonight… No way of telling.

  Only one thing was perfectly clear.

  The mission objective.

  Riddle the hangars, smash up the aircraft on the ground at the Luftwaffe base at Maupertus-sur-Mer.

  Quinn checked left, Maddox, right, Green 3 and 4, and transmitted. ‘Green Section, Green Leader. Stick to me, I’ll join us back up with the squadron. Stephen, you’re watching our tail.’

  ‘Green Leader, Green 2. Roger, Skipper.’

  May 1943

  Hornchurch was ‘socked in’.

  Low Stratus cloud, cover, ten tenths. Visibility, 20 yards. Heavy rain showers expected rest of day. 122 Squadron stand down.

  Thus had read the Met Report, all flying off.

  Quinn watched on as, by electric lamplight, the ever hard-working ground crews completed all scheduled maintenance on the Spits in the hangars: the never-ending cycle of checks, repairs, replacements and tweaks on all twelve squadron aircraft plus reserves. On his own craft, first came Flight Sergeant Kemp’s work on the engine as Mechanical Fitter. Then came the Rigger’s checks on all aspects of the airframe. The Electrician and the Instrument Repairer then did their rounds, after them, the Wireless Operator, then the Armourer and his offsider. In each area of maintenance, Quinn knew, Kemp required nothing less from each man than perfection. Quinn had been glad of the chance just to sit back and observe things for a change, in particular, Potter’s work on the undercarriage…

  To begin with, the young Cockney had been apprehensive about Quinn’s presence close by in the hangar: The pilots rarely hung about the Other Ranks, Erks as they called them, officer pilots even less, the British officers never, bloody toffs. The Australians were known to be more relaxed though – Even their officers seemed alright. Though Flight Lieutenant Quinn was a bit of an odd bod: He’d been a right terror when he first arrived, then seemed to settle a bit – started shooting down Jerries instead of ground crew. Then, just as he was beginning to get a bit of respect from the lads, he was shot down. The gen said he’d been burnt, not as badly as he might have been, but it remained to be seen how it had affected him. Potter had seen some come back from hospital changed men, some quite strange. As far as this one went, all bets were off.

  Still, as he fielded each of the Flight Lieutenant’s questions on the Spit – good ones, mind – also noting a silent nod from the Flight Sergeant, Potter settled into a thorough explanation of the mechanical systems that kept the young pilot alive, and they finished work on the Spitfire together. As they wrapped it all up, the Flight Lieutenant handed Potter back a grease-gun and an oily rag they’d been using.

  ‘Cheers, sir,’ returned Potter – for a moment he thought he’d caught a smile on the Aussie’s face.

  ‘It’s Daniel, Airman. And thank you.’

  Potter was quite struck for a moment.

  ‘…My name’s Pete.’

  ‘Good-o, Pete. And don’t get me wrong, it’s clear you do excellent work, but you’ll probably do even better work on my aircraft if you know my name, yes?’

  Potter grinned: This officer who used first names and didn’t mind getting his hands dirty was also a straight-talker. ‘Fair enough, guv. Anyhow, best pilots I seen, ones that know their nuts an’ bolts, see. It’s the li’l things tha’ll see ya right.’

  Quinn got to his feet now, patted the wing of the Spit. ‘Thanks again, Pete.’

  ‘You come back an’ see us any time, Daniel. Any time y’like.’

  Only after Kemp had ensured the last rivet had been triple-checked and handed the Form 700 to Quinn for his signature were the airmen dismissed, all squadron aircraft fine-tuned and ready for action. Kemp told them they could put their feet up; they’d
earned it.

  After cleaning the grease off his hands, Quinn ran in the rain back to his quarters, put on a clean shirt and tie, donned his service tunic, cap and great-coat, and headed for the Officers’ Mess.

  *

  The Mess bar was crowded for 3 in the afternoon, warm and filled with conversation. Even Huxley was there, though in a corner armchair, by himself and pondering quietly into his glass. In five months, Quinn had barely exchanged a single word with the Old Man, except in the air.

  In the entranceway, Quinn handed his cap and great-coat to the Mess orderly, the middle-aged Brit brimming about something…

  ‘Haven’t you heard, sir? Last night! Two enormous dams, deep in Germany, sir!’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Destroyed, sir! 617 Squadron bombed the crap out of ’em. Lancasters, sir, no one knows how they did it but the whole bleedin’ Ruhr Valley’s been flooded, so they say! Best piece of news the whole bleedin’ war, I reckon. An’ sorta… biblical, if y’don’t mind my sayin’ so…’ The man’s face dropped to an apologetic grimace. ‘Sorry, sir, you’re not religious, are ya?’

  ‘Not overly,’ responded Quinn. ‘Good news for Bomber Command…’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s more than that, sir. This is like… well, these great bloody big things right in the middle of Germany, an’ we go in an’ smash ’em up, sir! I mean, this is more like it: This is really shovin’ it to Hitler, innit, a right smack in the face… And what’s more,’ the orderly leaned in slightly to Quinn, ‘the gen’s out some of you Aussies were right in on this one…’

  Drawing level with Huxley as he crossed the room, Quinn could have sworn he heard him utter something. Yes, he was certain of it…