by Nevil Shute
Gervase said doubtfully: ‘I suppose it is.’
They said no more; she ate nothing, but drank two cups of coffee and smoked three cigarettes; presently she left the room and went over to her office at Headquarters. There was no news at all of C for Charlie; she felt that bad news would have been easier than suspense. She moved through her routine work all day, anxious and troubled. It was true that Drummond had not quarrelled with his crew, but she was not so sure of Marshall. When she had talked to Gunnar Franck he had been very sore indeed, very much hurt and upset at his captain’s attitude. She wondered unhappily if she ought to do something about R for Robert; if so, what could she do?
Her reason told her that she had much better do nothing. A team that had done so many sorties together was not likely to disintegrate because one member of it had become irritable; that was absurd. Irritation with each other was not quarrelling; in R for Robert nobody wanted to murder anybody else. There was minor friction in that crew, but that was not a matter that could go before the Wing Commander.
Gervase pulled herself together, remembering that she had slept very little during the night, and that she had suffered a nightmare in the short time that she was asleep. In the late afternoon she got upon her bicycle and rode out of the camp, and rode steadily through the country lanes till dusk, covering about fifteen miles and returning to the camp tired out with exercise and lack of sleep and nervous strain. There was no news of C for Charlie; nobody knew what had become of that machine at all. With a sad heart Gervase ate an early supper and went to bed immediately; she slept heavily the whole night through.
The weather remained good. In spite of the loss of two machines in the Bremen operation the wing was at good strength after its fortnight’s rest. Next day the station was closed again and the crews made their final preparations for another operation: when the briefing came it turned out that it was to be Mannheim.
Marshall had been to Mannheim twice before; he knew the appearance of the city from the air, and the landmarks in the immediate neighbourhood. He listened to the briefing idly, with only half his mind upon the job, staring at the familiar air photographs in absent meditation, making a desultory note or two about objectives. He was feeling stale and tired and fed-up with the whole business. For many nights now he had slept badly; with the close of the fishing season all the savour had gone out of life at Hartley Magna. He had reached the settled opinion that he had failed with Gervase because he was himself an unattractive fool, and this mood of self-depreciation, like an infection, was spreading into his work. He knew that his crew had become annoyed with him; it was only natural, he felt, for an air crew to become annoyed with an inefficient captain. In recent weeks, he felt, all the zest had gone out of the work; flying and operations now were just another duty to be got through somehow or other before he could return and see Gervase eating buttered toast in the ante-room, and suffer again.
Gunnar Franck sat beside him. He also had seen Mannheim, several times before, but he was not in love. He sat with his attention concentrated on the briefing; it was in the back of his mind that, since Marshall was obviously not himself, much more might devolve upon the navigator than usual. In plain words, if the pilot were in a day-dream all the time, the navigator would have to push him through his work in the interests of their common safety. Gunnar Franck was quite prepared to do this and was concentrating hard upon the briefing with that in his mind, but he was resentful that it should be necessary.
The crews dispersed after the briefing, to take off in a couple of hours’ time. Marshall went back to the mess for a light meal; he felt tired and depressed. He sat next to Pat Johnson, who said: ‘Take you on at golf tomorrow if it’s fine. Give you half a stroke a hole.’
Marshall said morosely: ‘I can’t play that bloody game.’
The conversation lapsed, and they ate on in silence. Half an hour later Marshall went down to the crew-room; his party were already there, getting into their flying clothing. Listlessly he began to dress: boots, scarf, Sidcot, harness. With helmet, ‘chute, and gloves upon his knee he sat down on the bench and waited, silent and irritable. Gunnar Franck and Phillips in turn tried him with a casual remark; he snapped back at them shortly, and they let him alone.
The truck came presently and they piled into it, and drove off round the ring runway in the darkness, stopping from time to time at the dispersed machines to drop the crews. They came to Robert, and Marshall got out with his crew; the sergeant rigger came forward from the darkness to meet them. ‘All ready, sir,’ he said.
The pilot said sharply: ‘Have you got the windscreen clean this time?’
The sergeant said resentfully: ‘I had a man doing nothing else but polish up the perspex and the windscreen for an hour, sir.’
Marshall turned away. ‘I’ll see if he’s made a job of it.’
He climbed up into the nose of the aircraft behind his crew; everything was clammy and oily to the touch; it stank of lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid. Standing beside his seat he put his ‘chute into the stowage and laid gloves and helmet on the seat; then he went aft down the fuselage to the navigation and W/T positions and down the tail to Phillips near the turret. ‘Keep your eyes open tonight,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a moon; we’re liable to meet a good few fighters.’ Phillips knew that quite as well as he did; the remark was unnecessary and in a tiny way insulting, in the light of all their operations as a crew.
Marshall looked over the more secret parts of the equipment, and made his way back through the fuselage to the cockpit. He got into his seat and pulled his helmet on, and strapped it tight and settled it upon his head, and plugged in the intercom. Then through the window at his side he shouted down into the darkness: ‘Sergeant Miles. Send up someone with a rag to do this windscreen. The bloody thing’s still filthy.’
While that was being cleaned off to his satisfaction he spoke one by one to all the members of his crew. ‘Hullo wireless operator. Wireless OK?’
‘Wireless OK, Cap.’
‘Oxygen OK?’
‘Oxygen OK, sir.’
Satisfied with the crew, he glanced at his watch, then shouted through his window:
‘OK for starting up?’
‘OK for starting up, sir.’
‘Stand clear. Contact starboard engine.’ His hand moved upon the switch.’
‘Contact, sir.’
The starter groaned and the propeller revolved slowly; then it kicked forward as the engine coughed, choked for a moment, and began to run. Marshall started the port engine and sat while they warmed, setting his trim and making himself comfortable in his seat.
Presently he began upon his routine of running up, testing the pitch controls, the magnetos, the petrol cocks, the boost. He tried the flaps and set the compass and the gyro. Everything was in order. He signed the engine log and handed it to Gunnar, who passed it down to the sergeant fitter standing on the steps below the entrance hatch. The steps were taken away and Gunnar closed the hatch. Marshall waved the chocks away, and the Wimpey moved off slowly round the ring road towards the marshalling point at the end of the long runway, marked by small, dim lights.
The machine before them opened out and trundled down the runway, its tail light a diminishing white speck that wavered up into the night. Marshall taxied up and swung round into wind, and said down the intercom: ‘Stand by now to take off.’
He sat staring over to the control office, thinking of Gervase with an aching heart. He knew she was not there; he had informed himself that she was on duty at Group W/T that night, three miles away at Pilsey. A green light flashed at him; he turned his head and pressed the throttles forward, and they moved. The dim lights flicked past them on each side in quickening tempo; he eased her off the ground as soon as she would take it and climbed slowly up into the night, laden with three tons of incendiaries for Mannheim.
He took her up to about nine thousand feet, passing a thin layer of cloud between three and four thousand, and put her over to the auto
matic pilot. The cloud below them prevented Gunnar from pin-pointing their route; he became very busy with his sextant at the astro hatch, and in computing the position at the navigating table. Marshall left his seat after a time and came and checked the course and observations with him in the light of the little shaded lamp.
‘Still making these bloody sevens,’ he said.
In the dim, roaring confinement of the fuselage Gunnar flushed; everything that they said could be heard by the rest of the crew over the intercom. ‘It is only for my own work, this. When I pass the course to you I make an English seven, always.’
The pilot grunted and went back to his seat in the cockpit; though they were over England still he did not care to be away too long from the controls. Behind him Gunnar Franck worked steadily at the navigation; beyond him Leech sat at the wireless reading a paper-covered Western, Jeannie of the Golden Gulch. Sergeant Cobbett, the flight engineer sent with them for the operation, moved between cockpit instruments and the fuel gauges, watching the engines through the little windows in the fuselage. In the rear turret Sergeant Phillips sat brooding over his guns.
Phillips did not think very quickly, nor easily adjust his mind; rather, he was patient and thorough. Through long meditation he had satisfied himself just what a Ju. 88 night fighter would look like as it came into range; he had it all set in his imagination, visualized in scale against the bars that framed the perspex of his dome. It had, in fact, looked just like that when it had come at them from behind over Rostock, and he had held his fire until it looked as he had thought it would against the framework of the perspex, and then given it the squirt. His tracer had crossed theirs as they fired simultaneously, but he had been luckier than the German pilot. The Ju. 88 had reared up suddenly behind him, so that its tracer went streaming above them. For an instant he had had the belly and wing undersurface exposed, and had held himself braced at the sight, while the whole rear end of the Wimpey shook and quivered with the violence of his guns. Then it was out of range and a small point of light appeared upon it, and he ceased firing and watched tensely, and the flame grew quickly as the 88 dropped back behind until it was a flaming beacon forty-five degrees below.
He knew what it would look like, or had known until the change in his gun setting. He did not think that it would really need to look different, but he was not quite sure. He was not quite sure now whether he ought to open fire sooner or later with the new setting; if sooner, the enemy would be smaller against the framework of his dome, if later it would be larger. He did not really know what range he had fired at over Rostock, but he did know very well just how the Ju. 88 had looked the instant that he opened fire, and he had shot it down. He had been quite happy previously that if he got a Ju. 88 to look like that again he would shoot it down again, but now his sights were changed and it would be a bit different. He sat there brooding and a little uncertain.
They were still above the cloud when they had run out their estimated time of arrival at Dover, but before them it was growing thinner and some gaps were visible, as had been foretold at the briefing. They went on steadily; when they judged that they were over sea Marshall ordered guns to be tested. Behind him he heard the clamour from the rear turret, transmitted mostly through the framework, dulled by the unnoticed roaring of the engines. Ahead of him he saw the barrels move as Sergeant Cobbett swung them down towards the sea, and saw the quick lines of the tracer going out ahead and to the left. They seldom used the front guns in the Wellington.
They flew on steadily, the cloud getting thinner. Marshall sat motionless at the controls, flying upon the automatic pilot, but ready to take over at the instant in emergency. He turned his gaze mechanically from side to side and up and down, within the solid angle of view that his seat permitted. He was in the region now when he might meet a night fighter to intercept them on the way, but all he saw was other aircraft now and then, Lancasters and Halifaxes and Wellingtons, all winging forward on the same course as they.
They crossed the Belgian coast; it was clear now and they could pin-point their position. A glow on the horizon showed the rising moon; presently it would turn into a bright night until the cloud behind them rolled up from the west. The glow ahead made things more difficult for Marshall; it strained his eyes, contracting the pupils as they passed across it, making it difficult to look into the secrets of the dark below.
He yawned once or twice, unusual for him; already he was growing tired. The bright light of the moon had a hypnotic influence. The steady rhythm of the engines, the fact that he had been sleeping badly, the boredom of a flight that he had done so many times before and did not want to do again, the long humiliation and unhappiness that was always in the background of his mind, all fought against his watchfulness. He found himself longing to be back in bed with a hot-water bottle, instead of flying on in this black emptiness, facing the dazzle of the moon. He was fed-up with flying bombers, fed to the teeth with Hartley, fed with everything.
He put his hand into the parachute stowage and found his bag of sweets, and began to suck an acid drop.
They had left the ground at Hartley at eight-seventeen; at ten-twelve, in the darkness far ahead of them, Marshall saw a point of yellow light, and then another close by it. He nodded absently when he saw it; Gunnar had guided them aright, and the Pathfinders had done their job; the fires that they had lit would bring the rest of the machines on to the target without effort. As he watched, a great number of searchlights sprang up in a cone above the target, thin little pencils of silvery light at that distance, pretty and innocuous.
He said down the intercom: ‘Captain to navigator. Target right ahead, I think. Just have a look.’
Gunnar Franck came forward and stood beside him, looking out of the windscreen and the starboard window. He nodded, and went down to the bomb-aimer’s position and, kneeling on the floor, uncovered the sight and began adjusting it. Presently he came back and stood by the pilot, watching the target as it grew slowly closer.
The fires grew brighter, larger, as they approached; there were more searchlights and they could see flak bursting in the cone. They were still flying at nine thousand feet. There were half a dozen flares suspended in the sky over the doomed city; no need for them to drop another for their run.
Marshall said: ‘Captain to crew. I’m going straight in a bit below the apex of the cone, and get this damn job over. Height will be seven thousand eight hundred. Wireless operator, drop one flare as soon as you hear “Bombs away”; we’ll leave it for the next chap. Phillips, you know the target. See if you can spot our bursts. Everybody OK? All right, then let’s go, and then we can get back to bed.’
It was not usual for them to fly straight in without a few minutes reconnaissance of the situation at the target; Marshall was conscious of resentment in the silence of his crew, in the motionless attitude of Gunnar Franck beside him. He put out the automatic pilot and took over the control, throttled a little to lose height. Gunnar got down to the bomb-aimer’s position and lay down on his stomach; his legs alone were visible to the pilot. Marshall, his eyes fixed on the target, began weaving the machine slowly from side to side. At seven thousand eight hundred he levelled off and flew in, weaving steadily.
Over the intercom Gunnar said: ‘Bomb-aimer to Captain. I see where the target should be, I can see the canal and the little dock. But the target itself is all smoke. There are three fires and perhaps four started there already.’
Marshall said: ‘It doesn’t matter. Put ours in the middle, as nearly as you can.’
‘OK, Captain. Keep on weaving now, but turn right. More right. More. OK, go in on that, but keep on weaving. There is a minute to go still, perhaps a little more.’
The searchlights were about them now; the whole machine was lit inside with silvery light. Another Wellington passed close above them, turning for another run in. Flak was bursting close by a machine about three hundred feet above them; it was dangerously hot, but they would soon be through with it. Marshall sat making his sl
ow, rhythmic movements with hands and feet, weaving the big machine as nearly equally on each side as he could.
Gunnar said: ‘Steady now, Cap, steady. Left. More left. Steady at that. Left a little. Steady. Right a little. Steady. . . .’
Beneath their feet there was a jolt and the whole structure of the aircraft sprung. ‘Bombs away,’ said Gunnar.
There was a bright yellow burst just at the port wing-tip, and a twanging noise from somewhere in the wing; Marshall bore hard upon the wheel and thrust his right foot forward, and flung the aircraft round. There was another burst above them, and a third on the port bow; over the intercom they all heard Sergeant Phillips say disgustedly: ‘My muckin’ Christ!’ And then they heard Corporal Leech say: ‘Wireless operator to Captain. All bombs gone, sir.’
Marshall said: ‘Get the bomb doors closed up, Sergeant Franck.’ The control was by his side, but he was too busy at the wheel to spare a hand for himself. Gunnar stood up by him and pulled the lever over. Another burst came very close to them, but that was the last. The white light of the searchlights wavered and grew dim, the evolutions of the aircraft grew less violent, and they went forward on a south-east course into the friendly darkness.
Marshall said tersely: ‘Captain to wireless operator. Send “Mission completed”.’ And then to Gunnar: ‘I’m going to make a wide sweep round towards the north in a few minutes. Take a point fifteen miles north-east of the target, and give me a course back from there.’
He sat at the controls staring mechanically around into the darkness and the moon, feeling exhausted and drained of all energy. He knew that he had been rash in going straight in to the target in that way; however, they had got away with it. Now that the strain was over a reaction had set in; each movement, almost each thought, seemed an effort. So many sleepless nights were making themselves felt.
