To So Few

by Russell Sullman

  Too late. Too late now, you fucking, bloody swine.

  Instantly, a 40mm shell had ripped into one wing, igniting the fuel there, and turning the fighter into a plummeting, smoking torch.

  Indirectly, he had made his contribution to the Messerschmitt crew’s deaths, and his heart sang joyously at the knowledge. The crew of that one were surely dead!

  Thanks be! Die, you murdering bastards!

  Another of the 110’s was turning distantly, almost end-on to him. Perhaps the fate of its compatriot had dissuaded it from attacking Foxton. The wounded lion still had teeth.

  Of the third Me110, there was no sign, just a straight, thick line of black smoke that led straight down into the pall of dust and smoke shrouding the airfield.

  Had he got that one?

  At least he had disrupted the low-level attack. Rose grinned fiercely, so hard that the muscles of his face ached.

  He looked back upwards to where the enemy bombers had been, but they were now just a distant glinting group of dots almost invisible in the glaring blue.

  They were too high, too far away, and he would never catch them now. But they had not escaped, for there was one which tilted, then fell away, twisting down into a splash of flame on to the countryside below.

  “Got him.” Donald’s voice, faraway, subdued. A distant curving plume of smoke where another of the enemy had died.

  But the massed bomber formation lumbered on its way, like an elephant ignoring insectile pin-pricks.

  The anger bit deeply at his guts again, taking off some of the acidic dread that surrounded him. He had wanted so to smash into the bombers, rip them apart with his guns, ram them if need be, for they had destroyed his home, and killed those he thought of as family. He could feel the screams building in his throat.

  He would make them pay for those murdered, stolen lives dearly.

  Where are you, Granny? Where the hell is everybody?

  Damn you all!

  Stick back and push right rudder, bank around. The remaining 110 was still there, turning towards him, closing the range with him. Surely he too, must feel the anger now. One of his friends shot down by the airfield defences, another badly damaged at least by this lone defiant Hurricane.

  They would flash towards each other like Knights at a joust.

  Rose smiled coldly.

  Perfect.

  We can die together.

  Tracer sailed towards him, flecks of glowing fire that streaked by him like a stream of angry wasps, each with a fatal sting.

  Crush the gun-button with finger, a long burst that scythed at the heavy fighter. A burst that sprayed anger, defiance and hate.

  The two fighters approached each other at a closing speed of almost six hundred miles an hour, each firing streams of death.

  The first one to break away from the head-long rush would receive fully the punishment being meted out by the other.

  Except it no longer mattered to Rose that he might be dead in the next few seconds. His mind seethed for vengeance, and survival was no longer a factor. All that mattered was that he spilled enemy blood today. That he killed as many as possible.

  And if he died doing it, so be it. He had been given this chance, to repay the Luftwaffe for what horror they had sown, and he was grateful.

  Thank you, God, for my life and your other mercies, and for the love of my Molly, and for the friendship of my friends. And, of course, for this last chance to hurt the foe. I could have died down there, and it would have been a terrible thing, but I’ll gladly die up here.

  The thoughts raced through his mind, hazy and half-formed, his eyes fixed on the onrushing fighter, time slowing, the fear and the anger replaced by a calm peace. An acceptance of his fate, and more than a tinge of sadness for the lost happiness he had hoped, and longed for, with the beautiful dark-haired girl that he adored.

  Behind the mask he smiled as the Messerschmitt swelled in his sights, how would it feel to die?

  Would there be any pain? Or just a flash and then instant darkness?

  He did not care, and looked from the windscreen to the photograph on the panel.

  I’m sorry, Molly. I love you…

  He did not see the Me110 twist to one side, the pale belly exposed to him, nor see the bullets that ripped from his guns into one of the two Daimler-Benz engines, flaying it into ruin in an instant, before it had passed him, scant inches from him. He was aware of the shadow that he thought was the onset of the darkness, but was in reality the fuselage of the Me110 just missing him.

  He cursed, having fully committed himself to ramming the enemy.

  The Hurricane shot through the smoke streaming from the 110’s engine, and the odour of smoke, oil and burning metal roused him out of the strange suicidal reverie that he had fallen into, whilst the aircraft wallowed and faltered in the slipstream of the Luftwaffe fighter.

  Automatically he took control, glanced quickly around for other enemy fighters as his trained reflexes took over again.

  It was then that he realised that he was still alive, and that the 110 had disappeared. Just the vague smeared splash of a droplet of oil on his windscreen, and streamers of fabric flailing in the slipstream. He hadn’t even felt the impacts. The oil left a smear that quickly vanished.

  Mine? Or his?

  All this in the blink of an eye.

  Dear Heaven! What had come over him? He shuddered, his skin cold by the thoughts in his mind. He had been ready to die, to fall from this world a few seconds ago.

  Dear God! I must be going crazy! It won’t do to die. You’re on borrowed time, he rebuked himself, so use it well. One Jerry isn’t enough. You need to kill more of them. As many as possible.

  For the ones who no longer could.

  Press the rudder bar again, roll to the left.

  Where has that Me110 gone?

  Look all around you, check behind and beneath. Nothing near him.

  A tiny dot receding, low-down on the horizon, leaving a faint smear behind. It hadn’t even turned to continue the fight, but was high-tailing it out of Dodge.

  He shook his head, unable to believe that they had both survived that insane, head-long dash, when seconds before death had seemed the only possible ending.

  It was a miracle.

  He rolled after the 110. The game was not yet over, for either of them. There was just a heavy feeling in his heart, as if his insides had been turned to cold tar, the white fire cooled. The hatred in his heart had hardened to a solid, hard little evil ball that dripped venom and pain inside him.

  But he could not let the 110 go. The debt had to be paid, by those who shared in that collective guilt, and that debt was a terribly large one.

  This Me110 would be one, small part of that repayment. There could be no mercy. Not now.

  He concentrated on the German aircraft.

  You have to die.

  Push into emergency boost, catch him. He had the edge on speed, and normally, he would have out-distanced Rose, but he was obviously damaged, otherwise he would have climbed and disappeared into the suddenly hazy sky.

  Faraway, he could see a single aircraft spiralling down, catching the light dully as it fell.

  The smoke from his home was a great wide pillar of blackness, the base of which contained a faint reddish haze and innumerable, scattered pinpoints of flame.

  He could hear the sounds of the distant dogfight over the R/T, the faint voices of other squadrons calling out as they joined in the fight against the hated raiders.

  The fight had entered the high broken cumulus, and Rose knew that any more victories would be so much harder to achieve.

  And then Donald was calling, his ammunition gone, returning to his battered home, and Ffellowes shouting out as a Heinkel blew up beneath his guns. Rose had not even seen Ffellowes escape the destruction, but that coldness hard inside him gloated at the thought of yet another Hun kite torn from the sky and the survival of another of his friends. But they were more than that, they were his brothers.


  There was no sign of any other Me110s or Bf109s. Not even one of the elusive He113s. Can’t be many of those about, he’d yet to see one.

  And where the fuck was Granny?

  Those three Zerstorers must have decided to strafe the airfield on their own, following up the terrible attack just as the men and women thought it safe to emerge from the shelters to fight the fires, to rescue the wounded.

  Except they hadn’t gambled on the possibility that one of the fighters that rose out of the destruction might catch sight of them as they sped in at extreme low-level.

  He had split them up, and ruined their attack.

  And of the three, perhaps only this one remained.

  The airfield defences had nailed one, he or they might have been responsible for the second, and now he must catch this last one. Finish them all.

  The enemy was damaged, for the distance had lessened, the details of the Me110 clearer. It had not managed to use its advantage in speed and climb rate to escape into the sparse cloud.

  Rose wondered how much ammunition was still in his ammo pans. He had already fired two longish bursts. Would there be enough to finish the 110? He would have to fire carefully, conserve, and use it well.

  They must not escape.

  Close the throttle, he was close now, could see the pale oval that was the gunner’s face staring back at him, eyes wide, except he did not fire back at Rose, the MG15 7.9mm was pointing upwards, barrel moving, and then it spat tracer up at the empty sky.

  Your aim’s rotten, you Nazi shit, thought Rose.

  And then a huge dark shape dropped down in front of him, grey trails already streaming back from its wings, filling his windscreen, so close that he thought he would crash into it. He flinched and exclaimed in fear. What the -?

  Rose dropped the nose slightly and wrenched the aircraft in a long skid to port, his aim put off by the near collision, heart hammering, instantly losing height.

  “Fucking hell!” Torn from his very soul by the suddenness of its appearance so close before him. His heart had almost stopped in terror. He hadn’t been watching his tail as he slavered for blood, and it could have been his undoing.

  But, thankfully, the shape before him was another Hurricane, and it had almost collided with him. A second later and it would have flown through Rose’s fusillade, and he would have likely shot it down.

  He couldn’t decide whether to be grateful that he hadn’t been bounced by an enemy fighter, or be annoyed by the blatant theft of his ‘kill.’

  He decided it was better to be infuriated.

  “You mad bastard!” He raved vehemently. And then he caught sight of the code-letter on the other RAF plane.

  Cynk!

  Bloody Cynk! That greedy Polish so-and-so…

  He keyed his microphone. “Cynk, you bloody bastard! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He choked in anger. He felt a mad urge to open fire on the Hurricane, quashed it hurriedly.

  “So sorry, my sir. Please to watch above. His friends come, maybe?”

  Well! Of all the bald faced cheek! Amazed, Rose allowed his Hurricane to drift back in a covering position, to allow the Polish pilot to continue the attack, automatically checking for enemy fighters.

  Obviously the mad bugger had not taken Granny’s ‘bottle’ to heart!

  “You cheeky big fucker…”

  He watched from a quarter of a mile behind as the Polish pilot poured one, then a second long burst into the Messerschmitt, ignoring the return fire. He didn’t aim for the wings or engines, just for the fuselage. For the men sheltering inside.

  The Me110 started to slip drunkenly to one side in a wide, flat turn, Cynk close behind. He had silenced the gunner, and there was no more exchange of fire.

  “You try now.” Cynk’s voice was timid, not quite apologetic. “I think nothing in gun.”

  The silly sod had run dry.

  What a way to fight a war!

  Rose shook his head again. “Alright. Get out of the bloody way, will you?”

  “Please. I get out of bloody way, my sir. You come now.”

  They were down to four hundred feet, and the Me110 continued in its wide turn. Rose looked at it doubtfully.

  “It’s going to crash; he’s got very little control. Be a waste of ammunition.”

  “No, no! He boom on it the base. Please, you try.”

  The Messerschmitt was heading back in the general direction of Foxton.

  Maybe Cynk was right. Perhaps he would try and make a last attempt at shooting up something, or crashing into something at Foxton….

  Well, he wasn’t trying to land, thought Rose doubtfully, and he’s probably has got stacks of ammo. That’s good enough for me.

  Might as well use up the last of the ammo, no point taking it home.

  His heart flinched.

  Home. What there was left of it.

  Rose curved in from starboard, setting himself up neatly. It was so easy. The enemy pilot wasn’t even trying to evade, just staring ahead. He was a sitting duck. The MG15 machine gun wobbled, but it was only from the dead (wounded?) gunner sliding down in his seat as the machine tilted back into level flight.

  It was heading for the airfield.

  Rose sighted carefully for a no deflection shot from directly astern of the enemy machine, placed the dot over the port engine, jammed his thumb down on the gun-button.

  His Hurricane juddered as the guns clattered, but only enough for a two second burst of bullets and tracer before the roar ceased, and there was just the pneumatic hissing for company, which announced that he too had used his last rounds.

  But it was enough.

  A tiny flame licked at the starboard engine cowling, and then there was a small explosion, the flame spread, and the wing began to blaze all along its length in earnest. Thick blackness billowed back at him and he pulled up hurriedly. No need for smooth, showy climbs.

  There was no doubt now, for it was finished, and he was glad. His bullets had been the final nails in the coffin of the German crew.

  The Me110 wobbled, then spun viciously to starboard, losing height, and smashed nose-first into the ground, scattering fragments and disappearing in a glowing, sun-bright orange fireball.

  But already it was behind him, the sight he dreaded more than anything before him instead.

  Cynk was whooping happily on the HF, but Rose felt no joy, the nightmare ahead transfixing him.

  That thick horrid pillar of smoke from Foxton, fed from dozens of fires, stained the sky before them, the sight fetching hopeless despair dully into his mind.

  It had been hit hard. Dreadfully hard. There would be many, many casualties from damage like that. It was a great pall of black and dark grey smoke, and a strange diffuse red-brown-white flattish cloud that hung over the field. A hideous canopy over what had been his home.

  Please God, let Molly have survived. You brought me safely from perdition on the ground to victory and life in the air. Please, please, let it be so with my beloved.

  He found he was muttering his prayer out aloud. Anguish had settled over him like a heavy mantle. One part of him wanted to ram the throttle through the gate; the other wanted him to stay away, to hold back the bad news.

  “You not worry, my friend. She not killed, too pretty.”

  Rose could not smile across at the Pole, his features so stiff, that cold ball hardening once more inside of him, awful despair, as the revolutions of his propeller drew them ever nearer.

  The airfield was closer now, and the rolling smoke could not hide the dreadful hurt inflicted on the station.

  It lay before them like some terrible child’s playroom, stuff thrown haphazardly and without care this way and that, like unwanted playthings.

  There seemed to be fires burning fiercely everywhere he looked, and so many of the buildings had been reduced to rubble that he found it difficult for a moment to orientate himself, for the hangers appeared to have disappeared altogether, and the region of the water tower was pitted so
that that part of the field resembled the moon. It was a scarred, barren plain.

  Rose’s heart sank. Dear, sweet God. The bombs had ripped the station to shreds.

  RAF Foxton wasn’t damaged, it was destroyed.

  Obliterated.

  How could this happen? He could feel the heated stinging behind his eyes, and his mouth was dust, so dry that his tongue felt like a dry potato that threatened to choke him, and he couldn’t speak.

  A single smudge of smoke erupted fifty yards in front, before the trigger-happy gunner realised the two fighters overhead were ‘friendlies.’

  Cynk pulled back his hood and shook his fist at the gunners.

  Rose noticed none of this, his spirit immersed in sorrow; instead he was looking for a clear landing place, for the field was strewn with burning, burned out or damaged aircraft and vehicles.

  The pall of dust, soot and smoke that pricked at his nostrils covering the airfield like a hazy, choking shroud.

  There were two Hurricanes parked up beside the covered fuel dump, men working feverishly around them, and he side-slipped down, then whipped round dangerously, almost on one wingtip.

  He could smell the stink of devastation and death from inside of the cockpit and he thought his heart would surely break apart.

  CHAPTER 33

  Rose unstrapped himself from the Sutton harness, all fingers and thumbs, and hastily pulled off his flying helmet with shaking hands, letting it slip to the floor of the cockpit, even as his Hurricane was still rolling to a stop.

  With a single effortless motion, he pushed back his stained hood, tumbled down from the cockpit and stepped out into a dark world of confusion and sound, his mouth sour with dread.

  The odour of smoke, cordite, burning metal and wood was mixed horribly with that of freshly turned earth and masonry dust, filling his nostrils until he coughed and gagged, wiped his rapidly-tearing eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by the foul atmosphere.

  At the eastern end of the field, the skeletal remnants of one of the hangers collapsed, like a tired house of cards, the fall of wood and steel dull and final, crashing to earth amidst a storm of whirling dancing cinders and sparks, flying high and wide.