“Ah, well… Not entirely, old chap… That is, don’t you know, one must have standards, you know, if you understand me…”
Thomas misunderstood, deliberately.
“Oh, he meets all of our standards. Very clever man. Knows his navigation and has a good familiarity with an engine. Excellent aerobatic pilot, I don’t doubt. Very good in a fight. Started to make a score already. He’ll be an ace within days when the balloon goes up and the war really starts. Just the sort for my squadron. I have the advantage, of course, with some of my men experienced in war already and able to teach the others all the wrinkles the average man knows nothing about.”
Wilbraham was reduced to plain speaking, something he ordinarily deprecated. He hated to commit himself in unambiguous words that could not be later denied.
“Thing is, Stark, touch of the tarbrush, you know. Looks as if he might have a bit of black in him – not what we want in our company. Never know who we might have to introduce him to! We are a gentleman’s squadron and do care who we rub shoulders with. Not impossible we could have Royalty on the field… On top of that, our wives or mothers and sisters could easily be coming to visit.”
“No. Suntan, that’s all, Wilbraham. Besides, there’s thousands of aircrew, some of them in pilot training, in Bomber Command, recruited from the West Indies. If they are good enough for Salmond, they’ll do me.”
It was a direct challenge. Wilbraham folded. He was not willing to make a fuss that might go up through the ranks to the highest levels. It was not correct behaviour to make a public fuss – one talked very quietly in dark corners to resolve these problems.
“If you say so, Stark. Suntan it is. Anyway, as soon as the boys hear that he has two kills already, they’ll know he must be a white man.”
“Of course, Wilbraham. Glad everything’s sorted, old boy.”
“Jan, Hank, Tex – Red, Blue, Green Flight Commanders. Group has confirmed the promotions for the pair of you; Jan you are senior and number two in the squadron. David to Hank and Chas to Tex and pick the rest as they come in?”
They nodded, it seemed entirely reasonable to them.
“When do the pilots get here, Thomas?”
“Rod borrowed the Defiants’ three tonner and sent it in to the railway station to pick some up half an hour ago. Be back any time. Who and what, I don’t know. Engineering Officer Wag says he’ll have us flying for tomorrow. We’re lucky, it didn’t rain on the new planes while they were outside.”
“When do we get metal wings, Thomas?”
“Mark IIs? Sometime. They are in production, or so I gather. Hopefully, by the summer. They have a more powerful engine, I’m told, be good for a few more miles an hour.”
“Be useful to be able to dive harder, Thomas.”
That went without saying.
“Lorry’s coming in.”
They stood in the office window, watching as seven pilots jumped down from the tailgate.
“All seven together. That’s handy, so long as they haven’t all just come out of Cranwell.”
“Surely not… They wouldn’t do that to us.”
“They would if Branksome has his way.”
An undeniably true comment.
“Don’t think so, Thomas. Three of them look a bit older than the Cranwell boys would be… And I know that short-assed bastard from China!”
Hank sounded delighted.
“Wingman of yours, Hank?”
“And a drinking buddy. That is one bad man, Thomas!”
“Sounds like the right sort, Hank. Rod’s bringing them in now. Better meet them in the ready room. More space there.”
The seven stood to attention, formal for their initial greeting of their new squadron leader. They presented their papers.
Four Poles; one short American; two English who had been in China and had only recently returned to Britain on hearing of the war. They were ideal in Thomas’ eyes.
“Welcome to 186, gentlemen. These are your Flight Commanders who will settle you in. Rod is the Adjutant who will deal with pay and the important things. I am Thomas Stark and will be the poor sucker who stands between you and higher authority. We shall be flying from tomorrow, when our planes are released to us. Today, get settled in. I shall speak to you all individually later. For the moment, sit down and have a cup of tea. It’s too early for alcohol and the coffee is bloody awful.”
“Gee, sir, is that right? Can’t stand tea!”
“It’s good for you – and it’s the hardest stuff you’re drinking in flying time! I don’t know your name? I am Thomas, except when there’s brass about.”
“Shorty Hyman, that’s me, Thomas. From New York City in the good old US of A!”
“Can’t imagine how you got the nickname. Hank tells me you flew with him in China?”
“Never did! He flew behind me – he couldn’t keep up.”
“You can prove that tomorrow. He’s your Flight Commander, Shorty.”
Shorty broke into a smile, said it would be just like the old days.
“Almost! We do a few things by the book here. Not many but more than in China from all I hear.”
Thomas turned to the others, sat back and grinning now.
“Two of you also have experience in China, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thomas – no brass about and you don’t need to worry about the waiters. You are both a bit older than most of the pilots you’ll meet in Fighter Command. How long were you in China?”
“Five years, the pair of us, Thomas. I’m Dick, by the way. He’s Terence. We flew a Douglas up from Australia – we had come from England to a contract to fly with an airline in Western Australia. It went bust the week after we arrived. We ended up with the plane in lieu of wages and the cost of our passage out, and we heard that there was money running freight out of Hong Kong. Got to Hong Kong and found there was nothing doing there but we could earn a hundred a week flying for the Kuomintang, plus bonuses. Earned our first extras a fortnight later. Those little biplanes the Japs were flying then were easy meat! Things changed later on, but it was a good life on the ground.”
Hank and Tex grinned and agreed; Shorty gave a wolf howl.
“Where did you learn to fly?”
“Cranwell, old chap! We were invited to resign our commissions a couple of months after we joined our squadron – some silly business of low-flying under a bridge, or somesuch, scaring the ladies in their punts.”
“I’m surprised they gave you your commissions back. From all I hear they’re a bit stuffy about that.”
Dick grinned.
“They didn’t. I never mentioned anything before Perth and they seemed to gain the impression that we had gone out with our parents after the Great War – hence our English passports – and had learned to fly out there. No need to worry them with tedious detail, after all.”
“You the same, Terence?”
Terence nodded. It seemed he was not in the habit of talking. Thomas made no attempt to change his habit, turned back to Dick.
“You are both welcome. I am thinking of putting a board on the wall with scores on it, just to make a point to the other squadron here. Be kind to them – they are gentlemen, all. We ain’t.”
They smiled along with him.
The four Poles were silently drinking their tea, unimpressed by the brew but already accepting it as part of England, if not the best part.
“Gentleman, welcome to the squadron. Your Flight commanders will settle you in. We are a mixed squadron – I am the only other official Englishman in it and I am more Australian than British. We had some bad luck last week, which is why you are here. We were sent into Germany on a raid that was somehow known in advance to the Luftwaffe. They hit us with two squadrons of Me 110s, followed by a third of Me 109s which was late on the scene. We downed five and lost seven, which was a pretty poor show. When we get up to scratch, all of us operational, I hope to go back to France.”
The tallest of the Poles stood and bo
wed.
“I am Walenty, Thomas, and spent three years at Oxford, studying English Literature. Then I became a pilot in our air force. I scored two in a PZL and was shot down four times in two weeks. They cannot kill me, it seems, so I am here to allow them another try. Feliks, Marcin and Jerzy came out with me. They speak less English than me but are learning. They have enough to fly with. Feliks has three Stukas; Marcin one Heinkel; Jerzy has a Stuka and a Me 109. We all want more. May I make so bold as to ask your score, Thomas?”
“Twelve in Spain, mostly Italians. Two Arado trainers, one Me 110 and one Me 109 in France. Hank has more than me.”
“Then we must work hard to match you, Thomas. I am glad to fly with you. You say that the others in the squadron are also not English?”
“You will meet them in a few minutes. I will say first that we are all members of 186. They are your comrades. If you cannot work with them, for any reason, you will be sent to another squadron.”
Thomas had remembered that the Polish Air Force had been getting rid of its Jews. He wanted no problem with David.
“So be it, Thomas.”
“Good. Rod, the Adjutant, will take over for a few minutes now. You will want to be put on the payroll and you must be allocated rooms and servants. We have extra accommodation here and there is a room apiece, but servants are one between two as we are short of spare men. For uniforms, mess dress for dinner; working dress otherwise. I am waiting for the lorry to come back from France with my spare uniforms – all I have at the moment is what I stand in. We are sharing a mess with 64 Squadron, who have Defiants. They are flying now but should be back in a few minutes, poor chaps.”
Walenty was curious, could not understand why they were ‘poor chaps’.
“What is the Defiant, Thomas?”
“A single-engined, two-seater turret monoplane with four rear facing guns.”
“It is a fighter?”
“So they tell me.”
“Poor souls!”
The lorries arrived in convoy, the ten tonner leading, still with them despite its illegal provenance. Thomas grabbed his cases thankfully and started off to his room. He was intercepted part way.
“Beg pardon, sir. Adjutant has just made me your batman, sir. Rogers, sir.”
Rogers took the cases and slowly headed towards Thomas’ room.
“Thirty minutes, sir, and I shall have working dress ready for you.”
Thomas accepted that as a dismissal. He would be in the way for the next half hour.
Rod waved him across to his office.
“Rogers is young to be a batman, Rod?”
“Weak chest. Had consumption as a boy and recovered. He was called up this year – single man aged under thirty, serving in a shop – and was found to be too unfit for front line service, just fit enough to stay in. Sent to us and he’ll do as a servant. I’ll train him and the other servants on any anti-aircraft guns we get – Vickers and Lewises and other light stuff, if there is any. Make the most of them.”
“If you can pick up any more of his sort, do, Rod. I think the Poles would like a servant each. Make them feel at home, you might say.”
“Be popular with the personnel side, Thomas. Unfit airmen are a pain to place. The squadrons mostly have no use for them and they end up congregating in barracks around the country, doing nothing useful and wasting the time of the NCOs who have to keep them busy on make-work. Problem with conscription – it makes no provision for the useless men and doesn’t allow them to be sent home again.”
Thomas was not deeply concerned with that particular problem – someone else could deal with it.
“Have we got a squadron runabout, Rod?”
“Nothing allocated yet. I don’t think there will be. The Ansons are being pulled back into operational units and the ancient biplanes are being written off strength. Worried about fuel, I think. Don’t want to see petrol wasted. Where’s your car?”
“I left it in Holt, safe there. Problem is, I want to get back to Holt when I can.”
“Where’s your young lady stationed, Thomas?”
Thomas shrugged. He did not know. He suspected there were letters following him from France, assuming they had ever reached that far.
“What are the telephones like, Rod?”
“Buggered. You’re lucky to get through at all and when you do are likely to be cut off part way through your conversation. Civilian lines are worse.”
“Pity. I would like to talk to the Old Man, if possible, as well as to Grace.”
“Unlikely, I fear, Thomas.”
The two squadrons dined together at full strength for the first time that evening, nearly forty officers all told. The tables were laid out with extreme formality with white starched table napkins at each place. The batmen had been co-opted as additional waiters, apparently standard practice in the Defiant squadron.
The officers stood for their squadron leaders who entered the room last and paced solemnly to the head of their table, sitting simultaneously so as not to suggest any seniority, one to the other.
“I say, Thomas, what have you in mind to do about wine? We have our cellar, of course, brought it down with us. A few very good bottles there and the bulk quite reasonable. You don’t seem to have a cellar at all.”
Thomas agreed, allowing the amusement to show.
“We are a foreign squadron, Adrian. As I said earlier, none of my lads have any money in this country. We live on our pay alone. No choice. Mess fees amount to half of our pay. No more is possible – the lads haven’t got it. So – no wine cellar. My lads will be happy with a pint of bitter to wash the grub down.”
“But that’s impossible. A gentleman must drink wine with his dinner! Can’t be otherwise.”
Thomas shook his head, gravely, tried to be serious.
“It must be, Adrian. Perhaps we should have two sittings for dinner, your people and mine separately, wine and beer classes kept apart.”
“No. Can’t do that. All officers together and all that… The Other Ranks would get to know and that would never do. Must show a united front to the oiks and erks and that lot.”
Adrian frowned and devoted himself to thought, eventually and reluctantly speaking again.
“Water – that’s the only thing for it. Neither wine nor beer and not impossible for a gentleman. For tonight, we’ll provide from our cellar. Future nights, water jugs on the tables. They won’t like it, but I can see no other way around the problem.”
“Sad indeed, Adrian. As long as my lads get three solid courses inside them, they won’t care too much.”
“Three courses? We do endeavour to maintain standards you know, Thomas. Soup; fish; entree; sweet; cheese. Nothing less, surely.”
“Rationing will come in soon. What do you do then?”
“Oh, come along now, Thomas! Rationing is not for the likes of us. We do not have to worry our heads about things like that. My father told me that rationing had no effect at all upon the major hotels and restaurants of the West End in the last war and that he never noticed any shortages at home. It was different for the villagers, but they could feed themselves from their gardens in any case. No, you have no need to worry about rationing. It is not impossible that it may have some impact on the Other Ranks messes, but not on ours.”
“I think things may be different this time, Adrian. Certainly, there was a lot of bad feeling in the Great War, or so my father told me, that the senior officers back behind the Lines lived in luxury while the men saw an ounce or two of bully beef for each meal.”
“Heard of it, Thomas. Don’t believe it myself. They weren’t used to anything better so why should they complain? A lot of tosh talked about the Great War, if you ask me. Was your father in Flanders during the War? He must have seen the reality.”
“He was RFC, went out in August ’14 and saw it through to the end. He was, still is, quite bitter about the way the staff behaved.”
Adrian’s Adjutant, an old hand with Great War ribbons, was sat at h
is other shoulder, joined in the conversation.
“You must be Tommy Stark’s son then, Thomas.”
“I am.”
“I heard he was back as a squadron leader in Coastal Command.”
“On Southampton Water, in fact. Keeping himself busy – couldn’t stay away.”
“I would have thought he had done his share already. Still, bound to be a useful man to have around.”
Adrian smiled over his soup.
“I must be missing something, Thomas. I don’t know that I recognise the name. My father told me that he worked with a Stark for a year or two in the Great War, I remember, but I have a feeling that was in the provisions industry.”
“That would have been my father’s half-brother, Adrian. By my grandfather’s first wife. He was a war-profiteer and a traitor in his spare time. He was shot for his pains, I understand. Left my father all his money, however, so not entirely a loss to the family. He had made millions by the time the Secret Service got onto him. My father flew rather than made money.”
Adrian’s adjutant, who he had not introduced, was entertained.
“Not heard that tale, Thomas. I saw your father at a distance. I flew with Noah Arkwright’s squadron in ’17. I was very much a green hand when Noah went down and picked up a Blighty one myself a few weeks later. Stayed on the ground since, unlike Noah. Michael, my name.”
“I’m engaged to Noah’s daughter, Michael. I will mention you next time I see him.”
Adrian remained silent, thinking and debating what he could say. He was aware that Thomas was not especially impressed with him and had thought he could ignore him as insignificant – but he had just said he was the son of a millionaire and the son-in-law of a much-respected figure in the RAF. Thomas, he now realised, had a degree of power, and probably more than him. He had ground to make up.
“I noticed that none of your squadron had their cars here, Thomas. Not that it would be easy for them to do so, coming back from France as you did… I am sure we can make one of ours available to you at any time you wanted to go and fetch yours from storage.”
The Breaking Storm (Innocent No More Series, Book 2) Page 2
