Screak, screak, the sound ear-piercing in the quiet meal tent. Skinner, in his adopted capacity as mess waiter, flinched at the sound. No-one had the inclination or the strength to talk.
Denis was asleep before his plate, snoring gently, head bent as if in prayer, the plateful of bully beef untouched. His tie hung down in the gravy.
Granny caught Uncle’s strained and baleful eye, and grinned infuriatingly at him. Rose shook his head wearily, as Granny resumed his assault on the meal. "I'm away to bed, Granny. I’m bushed."
"Okay chum. Do you want that?" he eyed Rose's hunk of corned beef.
“Have it if you want it, but don't come crying to me if you break a tooth.”
"Ah!" Granny tipped the contents of Rose's plate into his. Just for a moment, there was a flash of his old enthusiasm.
"Good heavens, Granny," murmured Ffellowes disbelievingly. "You must have a tummy like a tin trunk!" His own plate was untouched.
Granny burped loudly. "It may be old. But it's still good for you, old boy. So eat up." He finally managed to separate a chunk from the mass, popped it into his mouth, and began to chew it gingerly.
Ffellowes spoke mildly, "When I was very small, my dear old Pa took me to the zoo, and I saw a great big dirty hairy cow-thing from the Highlands of Nepal having its lunch." He stared pointedly at Granny, "Wonder what made me think of that?"
Granny ignored the jibe, and smacked his lips. "You mustn't scoff. You don't know how lucky you are. When I was stationed on the Northwest Frontier back in '37, we used to have this bully beef roast thingy with spices and stuff. Bloody tasty but it’d sear the lining from your mouth and guaranteed to give you the screaming squits for days afterwards.”
"Good grief,” Rose laboriously got to his feet, arms and legs creaking. "If there's anything worse than listening to Stan sing, it’s having to listen to Granny gibber on about the way it used to be in the good old days. I'm off. See you later, chaps. Night, night."
Granny watched his back retreating. "Poor wee lad. My stories are an education. He's the one who's missing out. Anyway, there we were every night, with boiled rice and that flippin' roast…”
CHAPTER 38
The early-morning haze had melted away under the harsh glare of the new sun, and the birds were singing in the far distance.
The mingled sounds of men, machinery and engines could mute their song, but could not dispel the simple joy they expressed.
Rose was slumped tiredly in one of the sagging deck chairs lined up inside the sad khaki affair that was the readiness tent. Beside him, the RNVR Yorkshireman, Sub-Lieutenant Haynes lay sleeping, his mouth ajar, a trickle of saliva gliding down his cheek. Were it not for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, he might well have been a corpse. His slack face was suddenly creased by a bad dream.
Poor bastard.
Straight off Swordfish and onto Hurris.
Hell of a transition. Poor bastard. We must be scraping the barrel.
Strangely, and fortunately, Rose’s sleep was unmarred by nightmares.
When he slept, there was nothing. That is, of course when he could manage to sleep. How he wished he could sleep now, but it proved elusive. Despite his tiredness, he found it increasingly difficult to sleep.
It had been a week since the move from Foxton, but had felt like a month. Seven days of continuous flying, but always too late or too early to be part of the main action. There had been only one contact involving the squadron (such as it was). A short, confused and inconclusive tussle with a bunch of Bf109s east of Walton-on-Naze.
There had been no word from Molly, and he had been unable to trace her whereabouts. She had been sent to a specialist hospital for her surgery.
He still yearned for her, and her absence was like a festering tooth, lingering and aching and always there, in the background, whatever he was doing, wherever he was.
Rose’s gaze was fixed on the tied back tent flap, still faintly wet with the moisture of a new day. Scant seconds earlier, he had watched with no little trepidation the shadow of some crawling beastie against the outside surface of the tent. It had obviously marked the passage of some creepy little thing out on a foraging expedition for its breakfast.
His level of apprehension had increased when the shadow had disappeared behind the folded back tent-flap. The thought that the spider or whatever it was may come into the tent was daunting to him. He supposed that it was childish that he should be scared of such a little creature, but he could not help himself.
He was as scared today of creepy-crawlies as he had been as a child.
And it had been a bloody large shadow on the tent-flap.
Normally, he would have got up and joined Granny and Cynk outside, but the flying of the last few days had left him feeling washed-out, and weak as a kitten.
Yet still sleep would not come.
So he sat there in the semi-darkness, idly watching the tent-flap, half-listening to Granny talking to the newly-commissioned Polish pilot, and wondering whether he should have taken out his pistol and taken a pot-shot at the beastie whilst it had still been visible, albeit as a shadow. But then again, with a bit of luck, perhaps it would be attracted by the moisture trail of Haynes’ drool. Perhaps the sleeping pilot would do him a favour and swallow the little devil.
Somebody dropped a tool outside, and the clatter made his muscles tense and his stomach to spasm painfully. Haynes sat bolt-upright, eyes wide, like a marionette suddenly jerked into life.
Rose shook his head. “It’s alright, Des. Just some silly sod outside.”
Haynes licked his dried lips. “Blimey!” He reached for the cup of water by his feet, took a swallow of the tepid water. His hand shook and Rose looked away.
Six dented tin-cups had been tied together, and suspended with telephone wire outside the control-room. The sound of them being been bashed with a metal ladle to signal a scramble was a lot like the clatter he had just heard.
Rose sighed and looked at his watch (oh Moll, how I need you).
It was seven-thirty. Another half-hour, then they could go to half-hour readiness, and the tea would arrive. And breakfast.
His stomach contracted at the thought, and he swallowed away the burning acid that always seemed his constant daily companion, particularly at readiness. I must get something for my tummy, he thought for the umpteenth time.
A shadow blocked out the light and for an instant he thought the spider had come grabbing hideously for him. He almost called out.
But it was only Granny, his tin hat perched jauntily. He grinned amiably at Rose.
“You lazy hound!” There was forced jocularity in his voice. He had been trying to lessen the dark mood that had settled over Rose, although with little luck. “What are you doing in there? Get your bum out here, into the sunlight. Stan’s threatening to sing a song to the boys. A mutiny is the last thing I need right now. Give us a hand? You talk to him and I’ll knock the bugger out.”
Rose waved a hand languidly. “Later, Granny. I’m just going to rest awhile. I’ll be out in a few moments. OK?”
“Fair enough, chum.” Granny stared at Haynes. “If you can bear to leave sleeping beauty, here.”
Shaking his head sadly, Granny turned and left, but not before Rose saw a large black beetle-like thing perched on his shoulder.
Thanks, Granny. Hopefully, that’s the creepy-crawly situation sorted out. Now all I need is another half-hour of peace and quiet.
But of course, it wasn’t to be.
Exactly half an hour later, the four Hurricanes that formed the very much depleted A-Flight were climbing steeply above the glittering waters of the Thames estuary.
Granny had evolved a stepped up formation of two pairs, with Rose as the second element leader. Haynes was faithfully tucked close to his Hurricane.
Cynk saw them first, a solid mass of Heinkel 111 bombers at twelve thousand feet. There were about thirty of them, but to Rose they looked a hundred plus.
Their own small form
ation seemed to shrink further in size.
What the hell are we supposed to do against that?
But there were a few brown and green shapes already darting in amongst the large dark formation. Hurricanes from Rochford.
“OK, boys. The escort’s busy elsewhere. Don’t muck about, just get stuck in. Free-for-all. Yellow Two, stick with Yellow Leader, don’t go swanning off.”
Haynes. “Understood, Red Leader.”
“Tally-Ho!”
That old familiar feeling again as he switched on the reflector sight and set the guns to ‘fire.’ That dryness of the mouth, innards contracting into a hard little ball, icy cold like the sweat that sprung from his pores.
They were still climbing, and Rose set the red aiming dot carefully in front of one of the bombers, one of the formation sub-leaders.
He fired, and the Colt-Brownings rattled their deadly tune for a two second burst.
That two second burst sent over two hundred and fifty rounds into a two feet diameter area two hundred feet in front of his nose.
The rounds raced ahead of his machine, a deadly cocktail of armour-piercing, ball and incendiary rounds, to strike fiercely against the port wing of the bomber, outboard of the engine.
Rose pressed rudder slightly, so that he could line up for a shot against another of the trailing aircraft. All the fear and sickness was forgotten, as he concentrated on fighting his aircraft, and staying alive.
Tracer zipped towards him from the machine guns in the glazed noses, but it was well off, no danger to him at all.
He fired again, his bullets (and Haynes’s?) turning the cockpit of the second bomber into a shattered charnel house of blood and horror.
He did not even feel the hammering as bullets punched into the fuselage behind him.
The Heinkel reared upwards, exposing more of the pale blue underbelly, like a fish struggling at the end of a line, before stalling and falling off to one side. Its companions trying to keep away whilst maintaining position.
But Rose was already curving away, diving and turning for a beam attack on the rear of the formation.
“Yellow Leader to Yellow Two. Good shooting! We’ll go back in again. Stick close.”
No reply.
Rose craned around to stare at where Haynes had been just been seconds before.
His wingman was no longer there. He was all alone.
Shit! Where had Haynes got to? He must have been hit. Damn, damn, damn!
Cynk had already got one too, and was roaring gleefully over the R/T.
“Yellow Leader to Yellow Two, acknowledge.” He grinned humourlessly behind the mask. Yellow Leader, if you please! That was a bloody laugh! He was the leader of a section that consisted of only one aircraft! Eyes swept across the sky, searching for Haynes, searching for enemy fighters.
He tried again. “Yellow Two, come in. Can you hear me? Acknowledge, please.”
Still no reply.
No time to worry about Haynes. There were still no enemy fighters around; he should be able to get in at least one more good attack.
A bomber, slipping out of the formation, both engines on fire. Forget him. He won’t get far; go for those who can still hit their target, whatever it is. No sign of the second bomber he had hit with Haynes. Had it gone down? Must have, they’d hit it hard. There was just so much confusion, it was impossible to tell.
Bugger it.
There were still enough undamaged bombers to chase. More than enough to go around.
You’ve done your bit, muttered that treacherous little voice. You’ve damaged two, probably downed one of them. It’s enough. Live to fight another day. Go home, nobody could blame you.
And then there was no more time for thinking as he came up against the rear of the enemy formation.
A pair of Hurricanes were already harrying one of the bombers, which was in a very sorry state, and the enemy gunners did not seem aware of him as he curved in on a quarter-astern attack, coming in from slightly underneath.
You’ve done enough. But more of them need to die for Foxton.
The dive had given him extra speed, and he attacked the rearmost bomber of an echelon of three that formed the last vic on the port side of the formation.
The bomber ballooned in his sight as he raced towards it, and then he had jammed down his thumb again, smoke trails leaping from his machine-guns, flinging bullets ahead of the bomber in a converging course. He touched rudder again, and this time the bullets splattered against the bloated shape of the Heinkel’s fuselage.
He was sweating, and he wiped his goggles irritably, licked dry lips.
He placed a long five-second burst into the enemy machine, closing the range from two hundred and fifty down to one hundred yards. He waited for return fire, but the gunner had disappeared, and there was none.
He looped upwards above the damaged Heinkel, tracer whipping around him from the enemy formation, twisted into a half-roll before diving down again for a second shorter burst.
Still, there was no return fire from ‘his’ bomber.
Instead, streams of tracer from three other enemy bombers converged on his machine.
There was a crash as a bullet smashed against one of the panels of his canopy, before careening off back into the blue. Then more rounds smashed into his machine.
It sounded and felt as if he had flown into a sleet storm, and he quickly banged down on the rudder, skidding her again, as more rounds punched through his starboard wing, dragging her out of the line of fire, almost careening into another lagging bomber. He fought with the controls, and he had an impression of a great dark shape looming suddenly, and the staring eyes in the tiny white pinched face of its terrified gunner, before it had disappeared beneath.
His heart was pounding madly, his temples throbbing from the effects of the sudden manoeuvre, but he felt like laughing madly at the horrified expression he had seen.
That poor gunner had thought his time had come when the Hurricane had swooped over him, like some harbinger of doom. The two aircraft must have missed each other by scant inches. He had not even thought to fire his machine gun at Rose.
Check the mirror; pull back on the stick, two Hurricanes diving down from above. Sweep around in a great parabola to approach the ragged formation of bombers.
Reinforcements.
That was more than enough. Time to go home. He had to survive so that he could kill again.
He looked again at the Hurricanes.
Big black crosses, edged in white, on the Hurricanes, because they weren’t bloody Hurricanes after all, but Messerschmitts!
“Fuck!” He mumbled, and keyed the microphone, pulling around, “Excalibur Yellow Leader calling all aircraft. Bandits! Descending, high from the east. “
His kite was still flying smoothly, nothing untoward, so hopefully any damage done by the gunners wasn’t critical.
Lucky, very lucky. Again.
But for how long?
He tightened his turn, eyes flicking from the enemy fighters to all around and back again, so that he could cut across and beneath their path of flight. They had not yet noticed him, and were continuing their downwards, to come up behind the RAF fighters worrying the bombers.
He closed quickly, held his breath, sighted on the second of the two Bf109s. Quick glance, lightning quick, in the mirror, one last sighting adjustment, check deflection, and press the button.
Brrrrrr! Brrrrrr! The eight machine-guns spat out the .303 rounds and punched viciously into the Messerschmitt. It was as if the enemy fighter had slammed into a brick wall. There were flashes along the length of the machine, a great gout of yellow-white flame vomited out, and the engine cowling and canopy disintegrated under the onslaught. It rolled over and entered a shallow inverted dive.
It continued along for a few seconds, before dropping steeply away below, a guttering firebrand leaving a thick black trail of hot oily smoke behind it. One wing folded back, broke off and spiralled slowly away from the fuselage.
Ro
se grinned, a terrible and strained grin of victory and blood lust and revenge, a drawn grin of sharp teeth and hunger.
That was one more.
Another of the bastards who would not sing the bloody ‘Horst Wessel’ ever again! Lots more left to kill, though.
The other Bf109 had immediately tipped over and dived away, white smoke streaming from its exhausts. Of the bombers, there was no sign. They had disappeared in that strange way that was so common in combat.
One moment the sky was filled with whirling aircraft, the next just an empty, pale blue bowl.
There was a sudden crash, a staccato bang, shocking explosions, all rolled into one, the sour stink of burning metal filled the cockpit, and the Hurricane lurched viciously, the stick wrenched momentarily from his shocked hands.
Apply coarse rudder and grab for the stick desperately. Try to get her back under control.
Damn it! He’d been bloody bounced!
No time to hang around, bang the stick hard into the right leg, and then yank it backward, hard back into his stomach. He was mildly surprised when it didn’t break or come away in his hands.
The Hurricane rolled over and nosed down vertically (good girl!), screaming downwards, out of the stream of enemy cannon and machine-gun fire.
He cursed. Whilst he’d been watching the first pair, a second pair of fighters must have dived down on him. He had allowed himself to be duped like someone straight out of training.
Down, down, he plunged, slipstream whistling hollowly through the bullet holes in his machine. Streamers of fabric fluttered wildly, and one ripped away to disappear. He had been hit umpteen times by fire, the fuselage and wings riddled, but the Merlin was still singing sweetly, and apart from a slight vibration, she wasn’t complaining at the rough treatment she had received.
Thank God, dear old Sydney Camm had designed such a solid, durable kite. The enemy could keep hitting her and she just kept on flying.
Bless you, Sydney, old chap. The Hurricane was a real marvel.
Then, suddenly he was in cloud, safe in the soft white embrace, and he pulled gently out of the near-vertical dive, The sudden roll, dive and pull-out had left him feeling light-headed and faint, and he blinked rapidly to clear his clouding vision.
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