Joyce came running up to him from a bank of smoke, “Oh, Thank God! Thank God you’re alright, Mr Rose!” he was wild-eyed, smoke stained and had lost his cap.
Rose thought for a moment that the man would hug him, and tried to force a smile to his face. He couldn’t. “Can’t get rid of me that easily, my old son. Where’s Baker?”
The reply came out as a dried croak.
“I thought you was done for, sir. Baker is helping with the bowsers. He sent me to look after you. He was shoutin’ like a fuckin’ nutter! When you took off through the smoke…we thought…we thought…” He gulped convulsively, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and there were tears in his eyes.
He held Rose’s sleeve gingerly, “We all thought you was a goner…oh Thank God you’re alright!” he coughed and spat, wiped his mouth with a dirty hand, “Thank God!”
Rose placed his gloved hand over Joyce’s, and looked around him. Where would she be? Please God she had managed to get down into one of the shelters. What the hell was the shelter number for signals section?
Oh God. His mind had gone completely blank.
Joyce’s hand was trembling convulsively (or was it his own?).
Rose pointed back at his Hurricane. “Look, will you take care of her for me? Get an armourer too. Top her up and reload. I got a few licks back. There may be more of the bastards along shortly.” He looked up as he passed his gauntlets and silk gloves to Joyce, but the sky, what he could see of it, was empty of enemy aircraft.
Instead the airfield was in a false twilight imposed by the smoke and dust canopy overhead and the thickly swirling fluffs of soot. He was in a nightmare world of abject chaos and disorder and horror.
Thank goodness most of 97 squadron had already scrambled. At least they escaped this bloody awful shambles.
“Yessir. Any luck?”
But Rose was already running towards the shattered heart of operations, collapsed and broken, half-hidden beneath the brooding pall of brick-dust and smoke. His chest felt as if there was a great weight resting upon it, as if it were in a vice, and he fought to suck air into himself, and it seemed to his shocked mind as if he were wading through thick syrup as he raced as fast as he could to the ruins.
God help us if Jerry comes back.
But we’re finished, even if he doesn’t.
There’s nothing left to bomb.
He had been, still was, so concerned for Molly that he had not even noticed the holes and torn fabric, signs of the bullets and the fragments of exploding bombs in the smoke-stained dirty skin of his aircraft.
Joyce had noticed, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully as he trotted to the Hurricane. We’ll need more patches there.
He caressed the aircraft. Poor old girl, what have them bastards done to you? Tears coursed down his stained face.
Behind him, Cynk’s Hurricane bumped down, rolling over the grass and coming to a stop.
A party of men ran past Rose, but his legs felt stiff with fear, and it still felt as if he were stumbling through treacle. All around there was clamour, but the roaring in his ears dimmed the shouts and sounds of activity.
The operations block seemed miles away, and it seemed as if the journey to it took an interminable eternity, and he wondered if he might really be in some kind of terrible nightmare, always running, getting no nearer, and he would suddenly awaken from this horror to an unscathed Foxton.
Outside the fire section building, he was surprised to see Skinner sitting on the grass minus his jacket and shoes, a bloody cloth wrapped around his head, a trickle of blood disappearing beneath his rumpled collar.
Incongruously, there was a wrecked fire tender lying on its side five feet from him, on the edge of a bomb crater. The two cylindrical red tanks had been ruptured by shrapnel, and water dribbled like blood from its side. There was no sign of the crew, just a suspicious trail of red leading away from it.
Rose bent down beside Skinner. “Uncle? Are you alright? Have you seen Molly?”
Skinner looked at him blankly, muscles slack and eyes glassy. “Pardon, old chap?”
Rose swallowed painfully. “Are you OK, Uncle?” He was looking very pale and very strange.
“Is that you, Carruthers, old man? Is the old Brisfit ready?”
What? Who the hell was Carruthers?
Oh no. Rose shook his head. “I’m not Carruthers, Uncle. It’s me. Pilot Officer Harry Rose. Flash.”
“Rose? Rose? Don’t know you, old man. Never heard of you. Don’t want you. Where the devil’s Carruthers?”
He tried to stand, tottered unsteadily, and fell back down onto his backside. He grimaced and lay back on the grass and closed his eyes.
“Oh dear. Think I’m a bit tipsy. Perhaps I shouldn’t fly today. Never mind. I’ll just lay down here for a while. Would you mind telling Carruthers for me?”
“Uncle, have you seen Molly, or Granny?”
Skinner opened his eyes and looked at him doubtfully. “Granny? Why are you asking about Granny, old chap?” he stared at the fire tender, but not really seeing it. “No good asking about Granny. She isn’t here. She’s tucked up safe and sound in Blighty. This isn’t Cheltenham, you know.”
He closed his eyes again, cupped his hands in front of his mouth, and shouted, “Carruthers, come here! You can’t go up there without me! Come here, now, you rotten scallywag! You need me to protect you from that silver nosed bastard.” He groaned and closed his eyes.
An airman ran up to him, “Leave him be, Mr Rose, sir. Someone will be along in a tick to take care of him. Could you come and give us a hand, please?” The man looked exhausted, “A bomb hit shelter number four. We’re trying to get the people out. Please help.”
Everything seemed to press in on him. Bomb shelter number four?
Oh dear God, no.
Dear God. Please, no.
Oh God.
No, no, no.
Shelter number four was the one to which the WAAF signal section were normally assigned, he remembered now.
Rose grabbed the other’s arm forcefully, “Did you say shelter four?”
Skinner opened his eyes, looked from Rose to the airman, “I say, old bean, have you seen Lieutenant Carruthers?”
The airman ignored him, his eyes pleading. “Please, sir, we need help digging out the bodies.” He began to cry quietly.
Without another word, Rose was running, looking only to where shelter four had once been, but where there was now just a smoking mound of hateful fresh earth, filled with men digging, and passing back debris along a daisy chain made of men in dirty uniforms.
A flying leap and Rose landed on the earth, a stone sending a jarring shock lanced painfully up his right leg. Immediately he started scrabbling crazily at the earth, and a splinter of wood dug into his little finger, but he did not even notice, his chest heaving, and droplets of blood from his fingers spotting the fresh earth.
The sergeant in charge glared at him. “Stop that! There may be an air pocket down there. You might make it collapse. Leave it to us.” His face, large and red like the others around him glistened with sweat, his voice ragged with anger and despair.
Rose stopped and sat back on his knees, eyes staring. “Quick! Help me, please! There are people down there!”
The big NCO looked at him for a moment, and the anger in his eyes dulled slightly.
“Slow and sure, sir. Just you step back over there, alright?” the sergeant spoke patiently, as if speaking to a stupid child. “Leave it to us.” He pointed again with a thick finger. “Please. Just. Step, Back.” His voice held the ring of authority. “Now.”
Rose began to obey, when suddenly he caught sight of a tarpaulin spread out to one side, laid out roughly over a number of somethings.
Oh dear God.
He stared, not wanting to believe. The shapes covered by the tarpaulin were bodies. A pilot was standing there, his head bowed.
As if in prayer.
He could feel the wrenching hopelessness rising up within him
, like a wild bird that threatened to escape through his throat.
He felt he would go mad.
No. Please don’t. No.
His feet were solid lumps of lead that required all his concentration to move and he staggered to the row of shapes.
There were about twenty of them there, their feet and ankles uncovered. A few of them wore RAF shoes, one Army-issue boots.
But the rest of those feet were in stockings.
The majority of the shapes were girls.
They were WAAFs.
The Signals section.
A void gaped hugely within him, dark and empty and bottomless.
He was not even aware of it, but he was keening.
A low, barely audible, soft moan of pain that stretched up from the deepest parts of him, without solace or hope, just an upwelling of pain from his very soul.
The other pilot had noticed Rose’s approach, and he looked up. It was Denis. He had a nasty gash on one cheek, a black eye, and his right trouser leg was torn.
His face was wet and stained and forlorn.
“Flash?” He sounded so terribly tired and wretched. “She’s not there, mate.”
Rose ignored him. He could not keep his eyes from those feet, small, delicate, some with painted nails, none with shoes. Where had their shoes gone? The inconsequential thought flashed through his mind.
“She’s not there, mate. Honest. I’ve already checked. Neither is Dolly. They’ve taken her to the hospital. She’ll be safe there.” He looked up emptily at the canopy of cloud and smoke and dust. “Those bastards will be back.”
But there was one pair of ankles in ripped stockings that seemed somehow familiar.
Right at the end of the line.
“I don’t believe you.” The darkness was gathering around his soul, pressing against him. He thought his chest might cave in, the emptiness within him cold and harsh, like a vacuum.
He walked to the shape on the end, bent to pull back the sheet, and Denis laid a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I’ve checked already, for Christ’s sake, Flash, leave it alone, can’t you?”
His arms felt like weak twigs, but Rose twitched back the sheet, terrified, but desperate to know, and his mouth was filled with the greyness of ash. Around him the smoke and flames were nothing, as if they were no longer there.
He was in a silent, empty world.
His eyes moved over the girl’s face.
A lovely girl to be sure, but, it wasn’t Molly.
Her hair was fair, and the loose wavy tresses moved gently, not from some cool breeze, but with the draught from the burning buildings nearby that tugged at them. There was a smear of dried blood at her blue lips, and her skin was deathly white beneath the smear of dirt, otherwise she might have been asleep.
It was Janet, once bright and young and sweet, and now she was very dead.
Her eyes were almost, but not quite, closed, the blue irises faintly visible behind the slits, and he half-expected those long lashes to part and for her to sit up, laughing at them. Those once daring and bright eyes now dulled in death.
How could this be?
She would never laugh again. There could be no more happiness for her.
And there would be no more laughter in this grim field of smoke and blood and death. Only tears, endless, deluging rivers of them.
“Oh, Janet, no.” The harsh grief cut into him with shocking pain.
It was as if his heart was punctured, and the energy drained from him.
He fell to his knees, and the tears came, sheets of tears. His body wracked by sobs, and he bent forward with the rending pain of it. The tears ran down his cheeks, cutting runnels through the stain and grime, and soaking his collar and tunic.
Nearby, some ammunition popped ridiculously, like party crackers, but it meant nothing to him in his world of private torment.
There was a strange, quizzical expression on her face, as if she could not quite understand what she was doing there, as if she were confused and a little scared. The expressions twisting her pretty face into a confused almost-frown now frozen in death, and twisting his insides in sympathy and painful self-loathing.
“Dingo? You’re sure?” His tears fell unchecked onto her stiff dead face, and he felt like reaching out to her, comforting her. The last seconds of her life before she had gone into that dark valley were ones of confusion and pain and fear.
Oh, Janet. I failed you.
I failed all of you.
“She’s not here, mate. Honestly. I’d not lie to you. Not about something like that.”
A faint glimmer of hope flared in the darkness of his aching heart, but it was extinguished almost immediately, could not survive with the evidence of this cold, dead girl before him.
She’d not have left her girls alone, if she could help it.
Once so full of laughter and life, now totally devoid and empty, like the discarded doll of some petulant child. It was impossible to think of this corpse as the Janet who laughed and smiled so engagingly, smiled at him once, too, her eyes dancing with interest and mischief and promise.
Why? Why these girls?
There was a large red wound in the middle of her chest, covered with a piece of torn tunic through which the blood soaked, like some dirty stain.
It was as if something had pierced her to stab out the life from her body. It must have been instantaneous, or almost so, otherwise there would only have been the pain on her face, not that questioning look. But it did not comfort him.
Tenderly he brushed the hair from her bloodied mouth.
“Oh Janet, I’m so sorry.”
How can this be war? What kind of monsters were they?
“What a bloody shambles. We let them down, mate.” Denis’ voice was a whisper. He looked like he may drop with exhaustion and grief at any moment. “We failed.”
Rose’s voice broke. “I know, Dingo. God help me, I know.”
Gently, he covered her up again. I’m sorry. I never really knew you, Janet, and now I never shall, although Molly always spoke kindly of you. She liked you, was so fond of you.
It’s so unfair. So very unfair.
Rest in peace. God bless you and give you peace.
“Where is she, then? Tell me.” he could not keep his eyes from the covered girl.
“I don’t know, mate. I haven’t seen her at all.” Denis’ eyes were far away, another time, another place, a road in Belgium, choked with civilian dead. He had seen the effect of German bombs and strafing before. The nightmare he had dreaded for so long had finally become reality. The same sights, yet the dead this time were British. This time they were his family.
Rose glanced back towards the work-party. “Oh, God, Dingo. She might still be down there.” His chin began to tremble.
“Leave them be, Flash. They’ll tell us if they find anyone. Keep it together, mate.”
“Flash! Where the fuck have you been?”
Granny appeared from out of the smoke, grabbed Rose, and pulled him up by his collar. “Flash, for Christ’s sake! I’ve been looking all over this mess for you! Thought you’d copped it up there!”
“Oh, Granny! I’ve lost her! I think Molly’s dead!” Rose started weeping again, his body shaking again, not caring that they were watching him. A blob of mucus stretched and fell slowly from his nose onto the ground.
Granny shook him roughly, “No, you haven’t, you silly bastard! She’s alive!”
Had he misheard? “Alive? What…?”
“She’s hurt.” He saw the pain on Rose’s face and continued hastily, “No, not too badly. She won’t die, Thank God.” Granny looked grimly at the line of bodies. “But she’s been wounded, and they’ve taken her to the station sick quarters. What’s left of it, at least. But you needn’t worry. Arrangements have been made for Molly and some of the others to go to the hospital in the town.”
He grabbed both Rose’s shoulders, and shook him again, roughly, “But she’s alive, d’you hear me? She’s alive and she’ll be alright
!”
Rose wiped his nose with a sleeve. “Granny? Take me to her?”
“Bloody hell, Flash! Why d’you think I’m here? For a kiss and a cuddle and a fag? I’ve been looking for you for fucking ages! She wants you! Gawd only knows why! My company isn’t good enough for her! I daren’t go back without you! She’ll have had my balls for a pendant if I don’t go back with you, so move your worthless arse.”
Granny nodded to Denis. “Dingo, it’s good to see you’re still with us, chum.” He squinted at Denis. “Eye looks nasty, impressive shiner. Best get it looked at.” He rubbed his chin, dread in his eyes, “Dolly…?”
Denis wiped his reddened eyes. “She’ll be OK, mate. She’s been taken to the hospital. Cuts from splinters. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be OK. Now get this young sod to his girl!”
They stumbled from the debris of Shelter Four, picking their way past the barracks and parade ground, and between the photo and radio section buildings, the narrow alley half blocked with rubble.
Behind them, Denis squatted down and shook his head. “What a bloody shambles.” He whispered again. He reached out to rest his hand on a girl’s covered form.
“I’ll pay them back, sweetheart, I promise. On my life, I swear it.”
Rose was amazed at how much damage had been inflicted in so short a time. Here and there, scattered amidst the wreckage and smoke sat or lay the wounded, awaiting medical attention.
Occasionally, they would also pass a covered corpse, although the shape beneath the covers sometimes seemed to be too small for a human being. The bombs had obviously had a devastating effect on the bodies of some of the dead.
Shoes and caps were scattered around as if forgotten by their owners. A pair of spectacles without lenses, a pair of gloves, cigarettes strewn about.
Shattered glass and broken bricks and other fragments crunched beneath their feet like crystalline sugar.
And everywhere, that awful metallic, coppery stench.
As they hurried to Molly, Granny explained what had happened whilst Rose had been breaking up the attack by the Me110s.
As the bombing began, Molly had taken her girls down to the shelter after the first warning that a raid might be imminent, and then she had been called away to the headquarters building for some necessary duty or other.
To So Few Page 39
