But, despite feeling ashamed, Rose still found some comfort in the fact that the attacking Me110s had not continued their attack against Foxton, which was dangerously close by to Barhamwood. ‘His’ beautiful WAAF was still safe.
Granny, face terrifyingly cold and stiff, as if carved from marble, had echoed his thoughts, whilst the Hurricanes were quickly refuelled. “If they’d continued on track for a few minutes, Flash, old son, they’d have caught us with our pants down. They can’t have realised how close we were, the fuckers.”
He had been quieter since Carpenter had been wounded, his ebullience replaced by some of the hardness he had displayed when Rose had first arrived. Rose was worried, and a little scared by the change in his friend.
Smith had been fighting continuously longer than most, and the strain must surely be affecting even him. Then he remembered that one of the girls that Granny had been fond of (Sally?) was an operator at Barhamwood.
Not a girlfriend (or was she? There were so many!), but a dear friend certainly. He looked back again at his section leader and friend.
Granny had pulled out a Churchman cigarette, looked at it reflectively, looked up at the bowser refuelling his aircraft, and put it carefully in his pocket.
Poor Granny. No chance of leaving Foxton, or of even a telephone call.
How does one ask such a thing?
Again, it was as if Granny’s thoughts followed his own. “Too many people have died to mourn for one person, Flash.” His eyes glittered, “But we have to make sure the bastard’s pay. I’ll not forget.” His voice had become a cracked whisper. “We have to make ‘em pay in full, right?”
Rose patted his shoulder awkwardly. “We will, Granny. We will.” And then, “I’m truly, truly sorry.”
Oh, how hollow were the words, how little they helped.
He was surprised by how much Granny had come to mean to him.
He closed his eyes in tiredness, and didn’t notice Granny looking back at him, and could not have known his thoughts.
Granny could not dispel the sight of the devastated CH station from his mind.
Oh God. Why must so many good people die? When will it end?
He knew of course that Sally must be dead, for it had been her shift in the Receiving Hut. Like so many other good friends past, but he could not show his sorrow. The lads needed his strength. His eyes glared at the sky above, but his thoughts were with the petite brown-haired girl who would meet him at the old Ship’s Bell.
Sweet Sally, heart of gold, confident smile, eager body and small, delicate hands that could work miracles, both in and out of bed. RIP, sweetheart. I’ll not forget you. Ever.
Merciful God, at least take care of this boy, and Molly. Even if you take me, let him see this through. He deserves a good and long life. He’s a good lad, not an old devil like me. I’ve lived to the full; he has yet to do so.
Give my boy and his girl happiness.
They deserve it.
A big raid at lunchtime hit civilian and military targets in Portsmouth and severely damaged the CH station at Ventnor.
The enemy suffered heavily in return, losing many aircraft and crews, as well as the experienced Oberst commanding the bomber Geschwader.
Then, later, that very afternoon, British fighter airfields came under attack. Manston, Lympne and Hawkinge were attacked in turn.
Once more A-Flight was scrambled, Donald was leading, Dingo his number two, this time to intercept the raiders attacking Manston. It was the second raid of the day on the airfield, and Donald managed to catch one of the fleeing groups of Dorniers just as they crossed the coast, heading east-north-east.
The hard-pressed covering Messerschmitts were embroiled elsewhere with other Hurricanes and Spitfires, and the four twin-engined bombers were on their own. When they caught sight of the fighters, they closed the formation, tightening it to try and maximise the efficiency of defensive cover provided by their formation and rear facing machine guns.
Seeing this, Donald raced ahead of the bombers with Red section, whilst Yellow kept station behind, throttled back so they stayed out of range.
Both Donald and Granny, the latter leading Yellow section, each had a replacement pilot flying in the number three position.
Rose craned his head this way and that, watching for enemy fighters carefully, his fingertips tingling with nervous tension.
The nearness of the sea, two thousand feet below them, didn’t help. He hated flying over water, remembering the fear he had for it and the sight of the Me110 pilot floating all alone in his little dinghy. Besides, as poor Renfrew had once put it, ‘I’d hate to swallow seawater, ‘cause fishes pee, fart and screw in it.’
I bet Molly’s a bloody good swimmer as well, he mused, she seems so adept and confident about everything. She’s just such an amazing girl.
Then he thought back to the car-rides. Involuntarily he shuddered. Perhaps not that good at driving, though.
Then he rebuked himself mentally. She hasn’t pranged the car once yet, so she must be good, particularly at the speeds she does. Memories of the drive back from the Horse and Groom made him shudder. He could have sworn that she had been going at about the same speed as his Hurricane.
Then the sweet memory of her hair streaming elegantly back in the airstream, and the sound of her voice as she had sung ‘The Nearness of You’ to him, made him smile despite the grimness of his mood.
And even though the hateful yet graceful shapes of the Dorniers were so close.
My God, Molly, how much I love you, he thought. It still amazed him that she had chosen him over all others.
And then the three Hurricanes of Red section appeared out of the haze before them, and bore down on the four bombers, spitting lead in a continuous, long stream.
The head-on attack had the desired effect. A long streamer of eye-searing white flame appeared from the leading machine, and the formation split apart.
The damaged bomber fell away, leaving the one on the left of the formation to rear up and turn away to port, whilst the two on the right hand side lurched downwards and to starboard, holding formation with one another.
“OK, Yellow Leader, take the two together. We’ll finish off the loner.”
Granny keyed his microphone. “Received and understood, Red Leader.”
Granny led them in a graceful curve, suddenly broken as smoke streamed thickly from Yellow Three, the new Polish NCO, Sergeant Cynk, as he pushed past Granny and Rose in emergency boost.
“Bloody Hell!” bellowed an astonished Granny. “Yellow Three from Yellow Leader, where the hell do you think you’re off too? Get back into position, you silly bastard!”
“So sorry, my Sir. But there are two German samolot. You give me one, you take other. Yes?” the Polish sergeant’s voice was apologetic, as he twisted after one of the Dorniers, making no move at all to re-join.
“Well blow me down with a feather! Yellow Leader to Yellow two; take care of that other one, Flash. I better keep an eye on that silly Polish bugger. God help us!”
Granny rolled after the fast diminishing pair of aircraft, leaving Rose and the other Dornier alone. The one damaged in the head-on attack had disappeared.
Rose glanced all around again, and then pushed forward the stick, dipping the nose of his Hurricane, and he dropped in behind the Dornier in a shallow dive.
On the R/T he could hear Red section as they fought with the remaining Dornier, as well as Granny alternately swearing, pleading then ordering Cynk to get back into formation.
Each time Cynk would acknowledge, his voice loud and high-pitched with excitement, but regretfully ignoring Granny’s orders, instead continuing with his attacks.
And then the rear gunner was shooting at him. Flecks of bright yellow sprayed towards him, tearing through the air towards him, but nowhere near enough to cause him any worry yet.
He pressed the rudder bar, one way then the other, so that he slipped from side to side, and the range had finally closed to two hundred yard
s, and he placed the dot of the reflector sight in front of the cockpit of the enemy machine, and pressed the gun-button.
The Hurricane shuddered with the vibration, but he played with the rudder again so that his long burst clattered from one wingtip of the enemy machine to the other and back again. A flash lit up the port engine, there was a ribbon of fire, and then it went out.
He was shouting now, defying the bullets that seemed to reach out. The sight of the tiny figures clambering over the rubble at Barhamwood was still fresh in his mind.
He hunched his shoulders tautly, waiting for the impact.
The blurred image of the Dornier grew larger and larger, until it came to completely fill the gun-sight, spilling over on either side, and he jerked back, felt his stomach drop away as he leapt over the struggling bomber, holed and battered.
His mouth gaped wide as he pulled back with all his strength, and the guns fell silent as he released the button.
Then he felt the hammer blows as bullets smacked into the underside of his Hurricane.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
God! Still lucky! His hands ached but he tightened his grip even more on the control column.
He raced on, kept going for a mile or so. The Merlin was still roaring, reassuring and sweet, and the control surfaces were unaffected. There were a pattern of bullet holes where the enemy gunner had hit him, but he had not managed to cause any serious damage.
Rose rolled into a turn to port, climbed up two hundred feet.
The Dornier was coming towards him, still flying, damned thing!
No fighters around, push back into a shallow dive, ease back the stick a little, rudder to port, squeeze down and allow for the Hun to fly into his swathe of bullets, release for a moment, and press the trigger again. Keep adjusting stick and rudder, allow for deflection, keep firing, keep firing, and spray him with lead.
Ooh, too close!
Pull back! Stick hard back, hard back into his stomach. Vomit bitter at the back of his throat.
More thumps, thud-thud-thud! And he flinched, as bullets buried themselves somewhere behind him, into the body of the aircraft, one banging into the armour plate directly behind him.
One caught his canopy, starring it, and another smacked into the mirror. One moment the rear-view mirror was there, the next it had gone, as if it were never there.
He twisted his aching neck, strained to look behind.
The blasted thing was still flying!
“What more do I have to do?” he whispered.
Battered and struggling, peppered into a colander, yet the bloody thing just wouldn’t go down!
Full throttle, wheel around into a hard, tight turn to starboard. Grimace at the forces; resist the greyness at the edges.
And level out.
Right, you bastard. I’m going to shove this right up your bloody arse! Keep an eye out for the escorts, wherever the hell they were.
Back down again, continue down, past the Dornier’s level, down five hundred feet. And then pull again on the control column, not too far, watch the airspeed, come up from underneath and behind. Watch out for the lower gunner…
Except there is no lower gunner, just a torn, ripped hole in the underside of the fuselage. He hadn’t even noticed the damage in either of his previous attacks.
Either he had done that, or, more likely, the gunners at Manston were responsible. Whichever, it was his lucky day.
The enemy bomber was jinking, port, starboard, then port again, but Rose easily corrected.
Sight carefully, closer, bit more, and then press the button!
Hits sparkling on the enemy bomber, thin line of smoke from the starboard engine, but no flame.
The sun was bright on his neck, but he did not look for enemy fighters that might be hiding in its light. Instead, all his attention was focussed on trying to shoot down this accursed intruder. Had there been enemy fighters nearby, he’d never have noticed them.
But once more, Lady Luck smiled down on him, and there was no trap, and no enemy fighters appeared.
“Burn, you bloody bastard! Burn!” He’d hit both engines, but they continued to run and it didn’t burn! Aim for the cockpit, kill the sods! How much more did he have to do? Any decent bloody Hun would have fallen out of the sky by now.
“Why don’t you burn?”
And then a new-born flame reared back to lick hungrily against the engine housing. The flame became bigger as it began to burn in earnest, and the Luftwaffe pilot hurriedly feathered the engine, the glittering arc of the propeller breaking up as it slowed then stopped.
The enemy pilot must have realised the danger to him, for he lowered his wheels, in the universally accepted sign of surrender, and began to turn his aircraft ponderously around, gesturing hopefully at Rose through a shattered panel.
There was no chance that he might make friendly territory now, but still he could make landfall on the nearest land, which was, for him, unfortunately still England.
Or he could ditch and hope that the German Air-Sea rescue services would reach them before the British, or the elements, could get to them.
Obviously he had decided that his best interests lay in making for land. His aircraft was so damaged that it would probably not be able to survive a ditching in the sea; trying to land it would be easier on land particularly as the undercarriage was still functional.
They flew back, victor and vanquished. Rose taking care to keep far back, well out of range of the machine guns. The fires of hatred that he had felt earlier had now been extinguished, leaving behind it only a cold anger.
Twice the pilot almost loss control of the aircraft, but each time he expertly managed to slip it back into level flight. The engine was still smoking, but the fire had gone out, and Rose could imagine the desperation of the pilot, then the relief came, sharp, like cold water to a thirsty man, as the east coast once more slipped into sight through the haze.
The masts of a nearby CH station were in sight as the Dornier pilot prepared for landing.
There was a long, flat stretch, strangely enough, quite close to the station. Even more strangely, there were none of the obstacles placed as a precaution against invasion.
Probably thanking his lucky stars, mused Rose grimly. Bloody aircraft’s like a colander, got two battered engines, one stopped and on useless, yet he still manages to survive. I’m not the only lucky one, after all.
The Dornier began to turn, and a few of the station personnel, rather than taking cover, bravely gathered to watch the unexpected sight of their enemy land. Perhaps the sight of Rose’s Hurricane emboldened them.
But the Dornier did not have enough power, and as his speed bled off in the turn, what power remained bled off too. With the loss of power, so too was there a loss of control, and without warning, the big German bomber began to slide down.
As the bomber slid, then spun downwards, its weakened port wing broke off outboard of the engine, and sliced into the ground a few hundred yards from the CH station perimeter fence.
Like the huddled watchers on the ground, Rose was stunned by the sudden switch from deliverance to destruction as the 52 foot long Dornier smashed into the ground a quarter of a mile from the station, with an impact Crump! that he felt, even circling above at an altitude of a thousand feet.
The wreckage flared wickedly bright in an expanding, shocking fireball, and a dense cloud of smoke billowed upwards from it.
But there was no pity in his heart for the immolated enemy aircrew.
Instead Rose felt a strange mixture of cold satisfaction and regret.
Satisfaction that he had made someone pay part of the debt created that morning at Barhamwood, and regret that he would not be able to show off his ‘captured’ bomber.
The German may have been an outstanding pilot, but in Rose’s eyes, he had also been a Nazi, and he felt no sadness at the death of the Luftwaffe aircrew.
Not so lucky after all.
The memory of Farrell, machine-gunned beneath h
is parachute, was still in his mind.
How fickle luck is, he decided. I thought that bugger was the luckiest German flying today. He survived all my attacks, and then he comes to grief not a million miles from the aerodrome he bombed, and within walking distance of a CH station.
To Rose it smacked of poetic justice, and a curious, inappropriate gladness swept over him.
Feeling cheerful, he roared over the CH station, executing a crisp victory roll as he did so. He felt slightly guilty at disobeying Donald’s order against such reckless aerobatics, and realised the danger that his Hurricane’s airframe may have been seriously damaged by the enemy gunfire, but he had to do it.
It felt right.
It also felt very, very good.
And luckily for him, the damage done by the enemy guns was not enough to prevent him from successfully completing the manoeuvre. Nothing fell off, and he didn’t join the Dornier below on the ground, burning.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he rolled level again, for it had been an incredibly stupid thing to do.
Goodness only knows what the station onlookers thought as they saw him celebrate the sudden and shocking demise of the Dornier. They were lucky the Dornier hadn’t landed on their heads, in one last blow before dying.
Without ammo, Rose would have been about as helpful as a chocolate teapot to them.
Nevertheless, Rose handled the controls gingerly after that, and he breathed more easily as he made his way back to Foxton, leaving the seven towers dwarfed by the rising pillar of dark, dirty smoke behind them. He patted Genevieve again, safely tucked into his pocket, smiled happily at the photograph of Molly.
Still alive, my sweetheart.
In the absence of its squadrons, Foxton, too, had been hit by a raid.
Whilst A-Flight had engaging the four Dorniers, a small staffel of six Junkers 88 bombers had raced in and unloaded their bombs in a single pass from east to west over the field.
The staffel of Bf109s that were acting as escort also made a single cannon-firing pass, and then the whole formation raced away at top speed for France.
To So Few Page 34
