“If the planes ever keep you awake at nights, Miss, and you feel like a cup of tea or anything, don’t be afraid of gettin’ up and makin’ one. You won’t disturb any of us.”
“You’re very kind,” she said softly.
“Not a bit, Miss. But I’ve got a son in the Army an’ know how things can be. Good night, Miss.”
“Good night, Mr. Kearns, and thank you.”
Hilde realized he had the same thought as Valerie, that her brother might be flying with the squadron. She drank her tea, then went up to her room. The blackout curtain was not in position, so she undressed in the dark. The sheets felt icy as she slipped between them. Outside the restless wind kept tapping a tree branch against her window. She tossed about for a long time, but at last fell into a fitful sleep.
She awoke with a start, unable at once to identify the noise that had awakened her. It came again, a queer honk-honk like the sound of wild geese, only louder. Jumping from her bed she ran to the window. It was still dark outside and she had to strain her eyes to see the dim silhouettes of the Nissen huts. She realized now that the sound was that of a siren.
The morning was bitterly cold and the draughts from the window stung her bare arms. She tore a blanket from the bed, wrapped it round her shoulders, and ran back to the window. A few lights were appearing on the airfield now and she could hear the sounds of intense activity; the slam of doors, men yelling orders, trucks starting up....
Storm lanterns appeared out at the dispersal points and the Bostons came into view, their wet wings and bodies glistening like huge insects. Men were all around them, pulling covers away and opening hatches. One by one their engines fired and they began moving clumsily forward, trundling away into the darkness at the right of the field.
Two minutes more and the flarepath lights clicked on, blinding Hilde for a moment. They were followed by the distant crackling snarl of two revved engines. TTie noise grew louder as the first Boston came into sight, picking up speed as it came down the runway.
It appeared sluggish at first, and three times its wheels lifted only to fall back on the glistening runway. It was moving at speed now, a black blue between the lights. Again its wheels broke free and this time with success. With a triumphant roar it cleared the distant fence and vanished into the darkness.
The others followed it. Hilde watched them all go, too fascinated to notice the cold. In the rectangle of lights they looked like darting fish with their shining, streamlined bodies. One by one they roared away until the last of them had vanished into the night. The flare-path went out like a candle being snuffed by a finger. All that was left was a deep drone of engines, and a minute later that too had gone, leaving nothing but silence and darkness behind.
7
633 Squadron refuelled and bombed-up at Sumburgh in the Shetlands. Sumburgh had been alerted and carried out the operation in record time. The aircraft lined up for take-off the moment the last trolley train pulled away. The weather had deteriorated and icy rain was falling.
Grenville swung A Apple into position, nose in line with the flarepath and waited for Control to release him. In the armoured nose compartment ahead was Hoppy, sitting with his navigational instruments and bombsight, and in the turret behind was Bergman with his Browning guns.
Bergman’s excitement was growing. This was a new adventure for him and he was finding it hard to control his nerves. He peered out through his rain-splashed turret. The rest of the squadron were forming up behind them, their recognition lights glowing like watchful eyes.
A deep tremor ran through A Apple as her throttles were opened. The noise of her engines deafened Bergman and his stomach tightened as he felt the plane begin to move forward. This was it—the last take-off before the attack. Locked in his transparent cupola, watching the driving rain and the moving lights, he felt part of some fantastic nightmare.
In the pilot’s compartment ahead, Grenville was holding A Apple in the centre of the runway. The Cyclones were gaining power now and the Boston was moving at speed, the lights on either side running into a blur. Sheets of water thrown up from the tarmac splattered against the perspex windscreen and hissed into spray against the driving propellers. The Boston was sluggish under her heavy load and Grenville felt her olco legs grunting with the strain. He held her down, waiting for her controls to lighten.
The runway shortened like a ribbon snipped by giant shears. The Cyclones were screaming their hearts out now. Grenville’s eyes were fixed ahead. There was a hill up in front there—he hoped the others would remember it. His lips moved as the Boston still held the runway. “Come on, come on! Get up, you bitch....” The wheels smacked into a pool and sent a sheet of water over the windscreen, blinding him for a moment. He eased the stick back again, the Boston bounced, but more lightly this time. He held her down another five endless seconds, then tried again. She came up, dropped a couple of feet, then held steady. Another moment and the flarepath had fallen away and they were plunged in darkness.
Grenville grouped his squadron at 4,000 feet and led them out. No chance for low-level stuff—skimming the wave tops to avoid enemy detectors. Weather conditions were right against it, and would deteriorate the farther east they went. God knows what it would be like 200 miles farther out....
Grenville had a word with Hoppy over the intercom, to check his course. Hoppy’s voice came back, as cheery and efficient as usual. Satisfied, Grenville then spoke to Bergman.
“Everything all right back there, Finn?”
Bergman tried to keep his voice steady. “Everything fine, Roy, thank you.”
They flew on in silence. The squadron was in battle formation, two flights of six planes, each flight in ranks of three, line abreast. All the planes had their recognition lights on, the chances of fighter interception in this weather were virtually nil, the chance of collision a far greater one. Twenty long minutes passed and then a white wall swept at them from out of the darkness. Aircraft huddled closer together, their red-eyed crews peering anxiously through the white hell of driving sleet and snow.
Another fifteen minutes and Parsons of B Flight was in trouble. Ice cut out his starboard engine. By a miracle he avoided collision in the tightly packed formation and slithered down towards the invisible sea below. Above him the squadron vanished into the snow. There was no way he could contact them—R/T silence was strictly enforced on the way out to avoid giving warning to the enemy’s monitoring system. He jettisoned his bombs but was still dragged down by ice and his load of petrol. It looked like curtains when, at less than 300 feet over the sea, his faulty engine picked up again. Reluctantly he turned back to Sumburgh.
Grenville was forced down lower. Down to 3,000, down to 2,000. . . . Still no sign of a break. A Apple was feeling the effects of the blizzard now. Her controls were growing sluggish and Grenville had to keep moving them to prevent their icing-up. Ice was flying off the airscrew tips and smashing like bullets against the metal-skinned fuselage. The cold was growing more intense, soaking like icy water through flying clothes, numbing hands and feet....
Grenville’s face was grim. Another quarter-of-an-hour of this might mean the loss of half his aircraft. Apart from the danger of engine failure, there was the growing threat of collision. A Apple was slithering about now like a man losing his reflexes. All the kites would be in a similar state, some probably worse. . . . Grenville dropped lower, damning the white filth that was blinding him. Davies was relying on them to get this convoy. So was Bergman. A hell of a thing it would be if their first job for the Norwegian was a failure. It might reflect on him. Certainly Bomber Command would have something caustic to say....
Grenville cursed his helplessness as his reddened eyes stared out into the opaque, driving blizzard. Again A Apple skidded, forcing Grenville to make a violent and exaggerated movement of his controls to bring her straight again. It was no good, he realized bitterly. Another few minutes of this might mean disaster. He switched over to R/T and lifted his face mask....
At
that moment they broke out of the storm. From a suffocating white nightmare they were suddenly projected over a seemingly bottomless blank void. With the ice breaking and shedding off their wings they swept on, once more a deadly threat to the unsuspecting convoy.
Each man expressed his relief according to his nature. Grenville had already accepted the good fortune and was now considering his battle plan afresh. Hoppy, completely confident in his pilot, began checking his instruments again. Bergman, who had forgotten his nervousness in his fear of losing the convoy, was now conscious of relief, and, paradoxically, nervousness again. Behind, in B Flight, Gillibrand’s teeth clamped down on another wad of gum, his eyes glinting their pleasure at the fight to come. In front of him, Jimmie Willcox, alone in his hatch, was staring white-faced into the night, a nervous tremor racking his body.
Ten minutes more and according to Grenville’s E.T.A. the Norwegian coast was approaching fast. Hitting snow again he led them up to 3,000. It proved only a squall and surprisingly they emerged into moonlight. Grenville quickly switched off his recognition lights, his pilots following his example. Then, taking advantage of the moon, he dropped down to ultra low-level, skimming low over the shimmering, icy waves. At this height the enemy could not pick them up with his detectors and Grenville was hoping for a surprise. Surprise was the essence of shipping strikes—the first attack to be made while the gunners were dozing or having a forbidden cigarette.
Another squall, sleet this time, then moonlight again. Bergman had a sense of unreality as he stared out at the dancing pathway of light along which they skimmed. This was a million miles from war: this was beautiful, ethereal, dreamlike. Moonlight touched the graceful aircraft behind him, frosting their wings and edging their propellers’ arcs with silver.
The pilots, however, had no time to admire the beauty of the scene. Grenville had the aircraft tightly bunched like a school of fish. It was dangerous work, calling for intense concentration and quick reflexes. To fly into the slipstream of the aircraft ahead, even for a second, meant almost certain death. The sea below was hungry, for all its frosted moonlight.
Grenville peered ahead. According to Hoppy the Norwegian coast must be close now. And it was a murderous place for aircraft at night. High mountains falling sheer into the sea, often too steep to hold snow, black and deadly. They had already taken a high toll of planes in this war. With face mask in position, ready to shout a warning, Grenville stared into the darkness with aching eyes.
Hoppy came through on the intercom. “Three minutes past E.T.A., skipper.” Three minutes, and still nothing! The moon was a curse now, dazzling the eyes and making the sky ahead appear darker by contrast Would the mountain-tops reflect it and give warning? Grenville did not know. He had the impression that A Apple was travelling at twice her rated speed. The moonlit water below her was streaking by as if the plane were hurling itself to destruction.
Grenville cursed his imagination and stared again into the darkness. He thought he saw a faint light flash, far over past his starboard wingtip. He blinked quickly and looked again. Then Hoppy’s excited voice came through.
“There’s a light, skipper. Over at two o’clock.”
Grenville led his pilots into a ninety-degree turn, a manoeuvre that only superbly trained pilots could have executed at that height. They headed south now; parallel to the still invisible coast. Grenville spoke to Bergman.
“Is that one of your men? Over there, at eleven o’clock?”
Owing to the position of his turret, Bergman had difficulty in seeing. Grenville swung farther over to starboard. Bergman saw the light now. It was flickering on and off, obviously signalling.
Bergman had an Aldis lamp in his turret and he sent a message back. The light went out, waited, then flickered again, falling astern as the Bostons droned on.
“Keep going,” Bergman told Grenville. “The convoy passed here an hour ago. We’ll get another message farther south.”
Less than four minutes later another light flashed at them. This one was high above them, clearly from a mountain-top. It was bright and dangerously close. Bergman took its message and gave it to Grenville.
“Dead ahead, Roy. Minutes away.”
Grenville took a quick look around. The moon was on his port quarter. Ideally he should attack into it— it was always difficult for ship gunners to sight aircraft coming in against the moon. But that meant heading straight for the mountains. Too risky. He would attack on this course—if he remained lucky they would at least have the element of surprise with them.
They hit another snow squall. Grenville made a quick decision. He stayed low and switched on his landing lights so that they skipped over the heaving waters. His pilots followed his example, huddled together again for safety.
The snow thinned and fell away. They swept out into another moonlit gap and then they saw the convoy, dead ahead.
There were fifteen ships, perhaps more, lying like black beetles on the frosty water. Not a light shone among them. Unaware as yet of their peril they steamed on in the protection of the darkness, the mountains, and the mine-fields.
Behind them 633 Squadron prepared to attack. The small shapes ahead began to grow out of the moonlit waves, to become larger, darker, and more solid. There was still no sign of alarm among them. Another three seconds and Grenville snapped on his R/T.
“Crossbow leader calling. Line Apple take a ship apiece in rear rank. Line Betty take the next rank. B Flight attack survivors. B Flight will follow in sixty seconds. Repeat....”
Every aircraft was now under full boost. Every man was ready, his fatigue forgotten. They all knew what was expected of them; Grenville had put them through the drill often enough. Come in below deck level and from the nose or stem to avoid as much light flak as possible. Wait until she’s towering above you, then back on your stick and over. .. . Let your eggs go, down her funnels if you can, and then get down on the water again and stay down. Jink low among the ships so if they fire at you they may hit one another. Then pick yourself another target and do it again....
A searchlight suddenly blazed out from a small ship on the starboard flank. It was followed by another, then by three more. Lights began signalling, frantically from the dark hulks. The first tracer came, red stuff, starting slowly as tracer always appears to do, but getting faster until it was snapping by like a vicious steel whip. Other gunners took alarm and also opened fire. A curtain of tracer came up now—red, yellow, all colours, glowing like beads on a dozen strings. Searchlights frantically swept the sky.
Both guns and searchlights were as yet angled too high. Now the rear ships were within range and Line Apple opened up with its combined twelve guns. The ships loomed nearer, nearer, enormous now against the luminous sky.... A jerk of the stick, a blurred impression of masts, winking guns, a bridge, a derrick, a jerk as if the Boston had been kicked in the belly, and then down again, still alive, screaming over the sea, ruffling the waves with the slipstream, dodging between the hulks of frantic ships....
Grenville had picked himself the freighter dead ahead. He dropped the bombs himself, letting two go as the dark funnels yawned beneath him. As he went over an alert gunner raked him with a 7 mm., drilling a line of neat holes in his port wing. As he jinked away he heard an excited yell through his intercom, from Bergman. *
“Se der. You’ve got her! There she goes!”
The short time-delays had exploded and the red flash appeared to split the ship in two. The whole area was now a mad chaos of soaring tracer, exploding shells, and blazing ships. In the red light the Bostons looked like black-winged devils as they added to the havoc.
Grenville attacked a second ship with his remaining bombs. This attack was not successful; his bombs bounced and rolled off its heavily-timbered decks. He jinked away, passing near the small ship on the starboard flank of the convoy that had first sighted them. Flak and tracer was radiating from it like the quills of a porcupine. It turned its full fury on him, lashing the air with explosive and steel. Ugly
red flashes burst all around, making A Apple shudder with the concussion.
Grenville swung violently out of range and the flak ship turned its attention on nearer aircraft. B Flight were coming in now and getting hell. Grenville, pa- trolling the perimeter of the action, saw that two other flak ships had closed in on the convoy. His earphones rang with a medley of shouts and curses. He made himself heard over the din.
“Crossbow leader here. No attacks to be made on enemy flak ships now joining convoy. Withdraw as soon as all bombs dropped and orbit tiiree miles west Repeat. No attacks to be made on enemy flak ships....”
B Flight were having trouble. The tremendous barrage from the flak ships, helped by the now fully alerted gunners on the freighters, was driving them from their targets. A Boston was hit as it attacked a large freighter. From a streak of black lightning it turned into a cartwheel of fire as it received a direct hit in a fuel tank from a 37 mm. shell. It spun into the sea and vanished in a fountain of steam and spray.
Gillibrand’s T Tommy was hit by the small flak ship as he made his run-in. A hole big enough to drop a football through suddenly appeared in his starboard wing. His big jaw clamped on his wad of gum, and he banked steeply over. To hell with orders—those bastards were asking for it. He came in low and at the stern of the floating gun platform. Everything on it opened up—quadruple automatic 20 mms., 37 nuns., and its 7 mms. To Jimmie Willcox, staring down helplessly from his forward hatch, it was like flying into an exploding ammunition dump.
Gillibrand brought his stick back and howled over the erupting ship. He let his bombs go, then swung his controls hard over and skidded crazily to port, deceiving the gunners who were waiting for him to dip down astern. The port beam gunners were lining him up when both the bombs exploded. When the shattering glare had died down there was nothing on the sea but small pieces of wreckage and a pool of blazing oil. Gillibrand shifted his gum from one cheek to the other and grinned.
633 Squadron Page 6