“Local farmers selling direct to us. Small producers so they’re not affected by the regulations. Probably won’t be the case when we get south. Egg powder is more likely – dried and put into big cans in the States. The Navy gets it for shipboard rations already and we’ve been threatened with it.”
“A fate worse than death, by the sound of it. We’ll probably survive it. What will you do for these green pilot officers?”
“If they are all officers, they’ll have to share rooms, in pairs. Sergeants should be no great problem, except that we’re not allowed to provide batmen for them. You say we’re getting new bodies for the kitchens and general duties? That saves a lot of buggering about. The new men will give us a guarantee of always getting twelve planes in the air. We’re still short on the medical side, Thomas. No Quack.”
“Go through official channels, will you, Tony. If that doesn’t work, I’ll talk to Tucker tomorrow.”
“That leaves no time to get a response from Group if I make the reminder formally.”
“Good. Easier that way. Do the paperwork, Tony – keep it legal seeming. I’ll go down to the hangars for the rest of the morning, Tony. No chance of flying by the looks of this rain. Time I was seen there for more than a couple of minutes at a time.”
“Phil will be pleased to welcome you into his domain.”
“Better talk to the armourer while I’m there. Cedric has done his best to avoid me since I trod on him on the first day.”
“Never makes a good start to a working relationship, threatening to exile a bloke to Outer Mongolia, or whatever.”
“Only way to get him to do what was needed. He’s a by the book merchant – a good worker and dedicated to the service. That’s all very well except when the book’s wrong.”
“Phil, we are getting another eight pilots in, all very green and needing to build up their hours and learn the trade. There will be some more planes, but I don’t know how many. Also some more mechanics – but no numbers specified, or ranks. They might be as green as the pilots.”
“I suppose there is a reason, Thomas?”
“Break them in slowly, hopefully lose fewer boys in their first days.”
Phil had been told of the figures for new pilot losses in the Great War.
“It makes sense. Some. The problem might be keeping the planes under cover, though that is less of a worry with the Mark II and the metal wing. I can probably organise canvas awnings, if needed. When do the planes arrive?”
“Yes.”
“Right. As clear an answer as you know. I’ll get on with it, Thomas.”
Phil was prematurely bald, his pink scalp showing the small scars inevitable among mechanics who spent their lives bending in confined spaces to work on aero engines. Thomas could always imagine him as a South Seas warrior, tattooed and fearsome.
“Better brave Cedric’s den next.”
“Knock three times before you enter, Thomas. Safety first – he might have a gun up on his bench.”
“Does he say that every time, Phil?”
“Unfailing!”
Thomas made his way across to the Armoury. A corner of one hangar had been closed away behind thick wire mesh, open to view apart from the door, solid wood and placed centrally. He knocked dutifully, although he must have been seen walking over.
“Who is it?”
Thomas was not amused.
“Squadron leader!”
The door opened slowly and a sergeant peered out to make sure that the caller had identified himself correctly.
“Come in, sir.”
The sergeant stepped back and saluted. Thomas scowled and returned the compliment.
“Morning, Mr Paynton.”
“Good morning, sir. Just one moment while I reassemble this breech mechanism, sir. Stripping all of the Brownings, sir, as the planes are pulled offline for their long services. Discovering very little wear, of course, but there is always the possibility of grit and dust building up. Every landing throws up dust, in the nature of things.”
“Unavoidable, Mr Paynton. All guns are correctly synchronised, I trust?”
“Not correctly, sir, but according to the instructions you gave me. The left four guns will hit the right side of a box six foot by three at eighty yards. The right guns will hit the left side, thus to give a point in the exact centre.”
“Excellent. I could ask for nothing better. How are your stocks of ammunition?”
“Special tracer, sir, one half of a million rounds. Ball, fifty thousand rounds. Common tracer, fifty thousand rounds. Belts are made up, sir. All with special tracer. For the field, sir, we have four Great War Vickers on cartwheel mountings. I have made up their belts with ball and common tracer, sir.”
“Good enough. We may be getting some Vickers K Guns in the near future. Load their pans with special, I think. There will be more pilots and aircraft arriving in the next few days. Possibly some mechanics and trained armourers – I have not been told. See Tony if you need more men. I am still aiming to shift south on Monday week.”
“By lorry, I presume, sir?”
“Probably. No great sense in loading your shop onto planes. How many extra vehicles will you require?”
“Probably one three tonner, sir. I will work that out closer to time.”
“Good. Gate guard – what have you for them?”
“Lee Enfields and Brens, sir. All as normal. It might be desirable to set up some of the new K Guns on dual purpose mountings at the gatehouse. There is a belief in some quarters that parachute troops will land in advance of any invasion, sir. They will attempt to knock out the airfields, it is suggested.”
“Can you do it, Mr Paynton?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do so. I will sign off any extra expenditure for mountings.”
It was all stiff and formal – Thomas had not been granted forgiveness for his brutal threats. It mattered little while the Armourer worked at his vital job.
“While I think of it, Mr Paynton – pilot’s sidearms. Have they been brought to you for checking over?”
“No, sir. I am sorry, sir, it did not occur to me, busy as I have been with the Brownings.”
“Your priorities were right, Mr Paynton. Aircraft guns first. I would like you to talk with Tony and arrange for the pilots to bring their revolvers to you, Flight by Flight, perhaps. I know that I have not drawn my pistol from its holster since it was issued to me.”
“Good God!”
Mr Paynton shook his head at such wanton negligence.
“I will ask your batman to bring it to me, sir. As a matter of urgency.”
Thomas realised that he had lost ground, had granted the Armourer superiority in their conflicting relationship.
“There is talk of a Mark III Hurricane, Mr Paynton, to carry four twenty millimetre cannon. Will that require a restructure of your workshop when they come in?”
“To a limited extent, sir. The first priority would be training on the new weapons, for myself and my flight sergeant initially. We would then be able to bring our own people up to scratch. No doubt such provision will be made, sir.”
“Inform me as a matter of urgency if it is not, Mr Paynton. There are to be extra pilots sent here for final training, probably eight of them. There will be more planes – but how many, who knows? You will require more by way of men, spares and facilities. Inform the Adjutant. He will be expecting your requests.”
Paynton managed to smile in response.
The first of the new men reached the railway station and found no waiting RAF vehicle. There was no telephone either. He thought it was rather quaint but heaved his three suitcases and his kitbag into the trap that served as a taxi.
“To the airfield, please, miss.”
“Of course, sir. I presumed that was where you would be going. Are you the only pilot aboard the train this morning?”
He thought he was – there had been no other RAF uniform in the First Class carriage.
“I can see no oth
er ranks, either, sir. Gee up, Daisy!”
The old horse looked a little surprised at being asked to work but plodded off obediently.
“Half an hour to the field, sir. We don’t offer a speedy service.”
They were silent for ten minutes.
“Is that an airstrip over in the distance to the left?”
“Air Commodore Arkwright lives in the big house there, sir. He has his own little field. His daughter married your CO last weekend.”
“That is Squadron Leader Stark, is it not?”
“Yes, sir. Tommy Stark’s son.”
“I wondered if he was. I read all about what he did in the Great War when I was a schoolboy. And Noah Arkwright, of course.”
She glanced at the young man, thought his school days had been very recent.
“You are lucky to be posted here, sir. A good squadron from all I have been told.”
“They said so at OTU – at the final training unit. That’s the field ahead look, there are Hurricanes taking off. A strange formation though, and the wrong number – that’s four in a Flight.”
The driver knew nothing of that.
A few minutes and she pulled up at the gatehouse.
“New pilot, Sergeant Mayhew.”
“Yes, miss. Go up to the admin block, please. Good morning, sir.”
The young officer returned the salute, still rather pleased with the opportunity to do so.
“Thank you, Sergeant Mayhew.”
He was sure it was proper to use a sergeant’s name if he knew.
“Sir. May I have your name for the Gate Log, sir?”
“Oh. Sorry. Pakenham, Sergeant.”
The driver walked her horse up to the offices and pulled up, knotted her reins and dropped to the ground.
“Oh, yes. How much is that, miss?”
“Eighteen pence, sir.”
He found a florin and refused the sixpence change. He was appalled when she began to lift his cases down, flapped and flustered as he tried to take them himself.
Tony stepped out to welcome the youth, grinned appreciatively at the pantomime, knowing that the driver had instigated it deliberately.
“Good morning, Miss Overstone. How is your grandfather today?”
“Not as young as he was, sir. Still capable of carrying out his duties. We have the funeral of Widow Harris today, sir. Dry, by the looks of it – not good for him standing at a wet graveside. Have you heard anything more of Dunkirk, sir?”
“The evacuation is over – the better part of a third of a million brought off. The soldiers are scattered all over the Kent coast, I gather. It will be some time before we hear from all of them.”
Her brother was one of the many unaccounted for, possibly still to turn up unharmed.
“We can only hope, sir.”
“We can.”
She turned away and slowly drove off, back to the job that occupied her for a few hours of each day and made her feel useful. She could not leave her grandfather – widowed and his son and daughter-in-law some years dead in a motor accident.
Tony watched her go, wondering again whether he might not speak to her one day - but she was a handsome girl and he was a one-eyed wreck with no career when the war ended. Better not, he thought, again.
“Now then, you are who, sir?”
“Pilot Officer Pakenham, posted in, sir.”
“The first of the new men. Good to see you early in the morning. What’s your name? We are informal here, when possible. I’m Tony.”
“Ivor, Tony.”
“Old name – don’t get many of them these days. Long in the family?”
“Very, sir. Always have an Ivor, every generation. I had to get here early, sir. I was given a week’s leave and went home to the Isle of Man. Boat yesterday, sir and train down from Liverpool to London and then the first one out, sir. Twenty-four hours unbroken.”
“Tiring.”
“I got some sleep on both trains, sir. Food was awful.”
“Lunch in half an hour. Working dress. Mess dress only at dinner. You will be sharing a room and a batman. I’ll take you across to your hut. I’ll give you a hand with your bags. There should be another seven of you. Thomas is flying at the moment. He’ll talk to you after lunch.”
It all seemed very informal and welcoming – as he had hoped a working squadron would be.
“Do you know which Flight I will be in, Tony?”
“None until you are operational, Ivor. This is the final stage of your training. You are attached to Two Eighty rather than a part of it as yet. When you show competent, you will be put onto operations.”
“I had thought I had passed out of Training, Tony.”
“You have – now you have to learn all the bits that Training leaves out. I expect they taught you to fly in vics and make Fighting Area Attacks, did they?”
“Well, yes, of course.”
“Forget ‘em. They don’t work. You want to make a score, I expect?”
“Well… I am a fighter pilot.”
“So you are. To make a score you must see the Hun. Add to that, you must stay alive. You will do neither of those things in a vic. For the next few weeks, keep your mouth closed and your eyes open and you will learn enough to be good. Don’t learn and you’ll be dead. Here’s your batman. I’ll see you in the mess in twenty minutes. Don’t give your batman more than half a crown today.”
Mr Pakenham had not intended to give him anything but dipped his hand in his pocket obediently. He began to suspect he still had much to learn.
“Three suitcases, sir? Most young gentlemen get by with less these days. Don’t have much of that dining stuff, sir.”
The batman was short and flatfooted, many years in the RAF and knowing all of the tricks. A useful man, if his young officer was awake to his own responsibilities. Half a crown in hand was a good start.
“Best thing, sir, is to keep the unnecessary stuff packed. Don’t need them cricket flannels out, sir. Won’t be playing this summer. Squadron’s going south soon, sir. When it does, best thing will be to send two of they cases back ‘ome, like. Get them out from underfoot, like. Working uniforms – by twice, sir. Mess dress. Four or five shirts and all the underpants and socks what you got. I keep all they laundered, sir. I will brush down the boots and shoes, sir. Best fly in boots, sir.”
“I have found that shoes make it easier when flying. You can feel the bar better.”
“So they say, sir. But if you get flames coming into the cockpit from under, sir, then boots give you a few seconds before the feet fry. Not much point baling out if you can’t ever walk again, sir.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Just you keep the shoes for the mess, sir. Better for you. Don’t take long to learn to fly in boots, so they say.”
The food was plain but adequate and Ivor was hungry. He joined Thomas in his office after shovelling the meal down.
“Good to see you, Ivor. In the Great War, the average life span of new pilot officers -lieutenants they were then - was eight flying hours in the worst months. They found that once the new man had made thirty hours he was likely to survive a year or more of operational flying. We intend to improve on those figures. To that end, you are attached to us to learn the basics of the game. It might take you a fortnight, it might be six months before I let you out on a sortie. It might be never – I shall bust you if I think you cannot go up and fly like a useful pilot. I need you, be sure of that – we have far too few pilots, but you must reach the minimum standard before I will let you fly with the squadron. For a beginning, get dressed and go down to the hangars. I shall be there and I shall take you up myself.”
“Thank you, sir. The batman, sir, said I should wear boots, not shoes.”
“He’s right. Have you got a silk scarf?”
“Yes, sir. They said every fighter pilot needed one.”
“They are right – your neck will get red raw from rubbing on the scarf if you don’t wear one. Your head must never
be still, remember that – look every which way every second. Go and get dressed. Tony will have your silk scarf, which you must sign for. Bloody expensive, they are.”
Chapter Twelve
The Breaking Storm
Two more pilot officers arrived during the afternoon coming from the station and a three ton lorry drove in with five sergeants aboard, delivered directly from their OTU.
“Got a problem here, Thomas.”
“Do tell me, Tony.”
Thomas was not pleased that he had the sergeants dumped upon him. Particularly since a glance at their files had shown that they had not been on leave since September, when the war started.
“The sergeants, Thomas, have been through the standard course, accelerated for war service. The navigation section was reduced to two days and they have not been through the long wireless course. Other than that, they have flown their hours in biplanes and three hundred in Maggies and eighty on Hurricanes and ten on Spitfires. All passed out high on the list, obviously, which is why they became fighter pilots.”
“Why is that a problem, Tony?”
“Because the pilot officers have received far less training. Barely two hundred hours in total, forty of that in Hurricanes. You are very likely to put all of the sergeants onto ops before any of the officers are good enough. Won’t go down too well as a policy.”
“Tough shit, Tony. I will not put officers forward merely because they went to the ‘right’ schools and speak with a funny accent. Balls to that! They will go on ops when they are good enough, and if the sergeants are better, then so be it. They will all have the same opportunity to make the grade.”
Tony had expected no other answer. He had thought he ought to try to avert the inevitable complaints from on high.
“I’ve given the sergeant pilots their own mess, close to the ready room. What will happen when we get to our field in Kent or Sussex, I don’t know, obviously. I can get a bar set up for them or they may be invited to use the existing ground crew sergeants’ facilities. They can work that out for themselves. I can’t set up separate toilets to the ready room, though they should not share such facilities with officers.”
The Breaking Storm (Innocent No More Series, Book 2) Page 22
