633 Squadron

by Frederick E Smith

  Anxiety and hopelessness hung over her like a blanket, dulling her eyes and ears. She did not hear the stumbling footsteps on the drive outside: it was the sound of the latch being tried that awakened her. She looked up in unbelief, her heart pounding madly. Switching off the lights, she ran forward and unlatched the door.

  Gillibrand staggered inside, swaying drunkenly in the darkness. Massie closed the door, switched on one of the lights, and led him to a chair. Tearing a scarf away from his throat he dropped into it, breathing heavily.

  She knelt down beside him. His cap had fallen back, letting his tangled yellow hair fall over his forehead. Under the scarf his collar was undone, and there was a shadow of beard on his cheeks. He looked very drunk.

  She threw her arms around him, pressing her wet face against his shoulder. “Thanks ever so much for cornin’. ... I didn’t think you would. I’m sorry, darling. Miss Bergman told me. . . . The poor little kid....”

  His huge body suddenly writhed, pulling away from her. She misunderstood and became frantic. “Don’t Gillie! It wasn’t the way you thought. I did it for you as well as him—honest I did. I was scared for you both. Don’t hate me for it, Gillie. Please don’t hate me.”

  He lifted his face, and the agony in it made her catch her breath. She saw now that only his body was drunk, not his mind. He made a sound that could have come from a trapped animal.

  “Yeah, the kid’s dead. Passed out just after we landed. Can’t get used to it, somehow. Seems all wrong....”

  She clutched hold of him again, talking as a woman talks to a distressed child, using words of comfort without meaning. Again he pulled away.

  “They sent th’ kid and me out on a recce job. We got the photos. O.K., but I was sore with him and went lookin’ for trouble. Found a minelayer off Bergen and attacked it. An’ the kid got hit....”

  She did not understand and went on trying to comfort him. He shook his head, ignoring her.

  “I got him back, but he passed out a couple of minutes after we landed. He got a few words out— said I had to tell you something.”

  “Me?” she breathed, suddenly hushed.

  “Yeah. He said I had to tell you he wasn’t afraid any more.... That’s why I came over.”

  Maisie’s black eyes were huge with wonder. “He said that?”

  “Yeah. I guess he was sayin’ thanks. He was, too.”

  Tears rolled unchecked down her face at the miracle of it.

  “Yeah. . . . And then I found out that the rest of the boys had gone out to prang some place in Bergen. Bergen, mind you. I saw ’em come back an’ that finished me.”

  The spasm that ran through his body made Maisie apprehensive in spite of what she had just heard. “Why?” she asked.

  Gillibrand’s blue eyes filled with agony again. “Why? Don’t you see—it was the minelayer I attacked that alerted those fighters and put ’em up. If I hadn’t gone lookin’ for trouble, the boys would have got though O.K.”

  Her voice sharpened with alarm. “You mustn’t tell them, do you hear? You mustn’t tell them or they’ll court martial you.”

  He stared dully down at the table. “I ain’t goin' to tell them, kid. I’ve thought about it and decided it wouldn’t help them or me. No; that ain’t the way out____”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said, relieved. “It was just bad luck.”

  He gave a slow, drunken shake of his head. “You ain’t got it yet. I went for that layer because I wanted to punish th’ kid. I wanted to hear him squeal; I wanted to frighten and break him up again. Now do you get it?”

  Suddenly she drew back as if struck with a whip. “You’re drunk,” she breathed. “That’s why you’re saying this.” Her voice rose hysterically. “It is the drink, isn’t it?”

  He lifted his bleary face upwards. “No, honey. I ain’t that drunk, although I’ve been tryin’ hard enough. I killed that boy—killed him as sure as if I’d stuck a knife in him.”

  She shrank back as if from a leper. Her hushed 171 voice was incredulous. “You mean you killed that decent little kid because of that....”

  He saw her expression and lurched to his feet. “I know how you feel. And you’re right, too. You helped him to live, an’ I helped him to die, and nothin’ can change that now. Nothin’ at all, because he’s dead. I’m gettin’ along now, kid. S’long....”

  And he stumbled out into the darkness.

  * * *

  Five horns later a party of four men, huddled together for comfort, watched a lone Mosquito heading down the flare-path. With screaming engines, it hurled its bomb-packed fuselage over the airfield fence with an abandonment that made all four men wince. None of them met the other’s eyes as they turned away, nor did they speak. Their ears were filled with the sound of those engines, now fading into the silence of the night sky.

  21

  The dawn broke grey and cold, and the wave-tops below the Mosquito snapped like the fangs of hungry animals. Grenville peered anxiously at the ligntening horizon. He was ten minutes late to his E.T.A.— either he was off course or the meteorological forecast had underestimated the strength of the head winds. He hoped fervently it was the latter, although any delay, whatever the cause, would be serious enough if the Focke-Wulfs came up at dawn.

  He was flying at just under 1,000 feet and as the light improved he dropped down to one hundred. He dared not go lower in his present condition. Strain and lack of sleep had slowed his reflexes: during the last hour he had kept turning his oxygen on every few minutes to keep himself awake.

  It was another five minutes before he sighted land. At first it was a fog bank that appeared, clinging to the sea like a dusty cobweb. As he lifted the Mosquito over it, conical peaks rose from its flat surface like tiny islands. Instantly his eyes lifted to search the sky above. It appeared empty and he gazed down again. The fog patch passed below him, as did the islands it was shrouding, but he knew now that he was not far from the coast. The tiny peaks were part of the Oy-garden group, the long fence of islands that lay outside Bergen and the Nordhordland district.

  Another line of islands appeared, an unbroken chain this time with banks of fog swirling in their hollows. Grenville leapfrogged over them, banked steeply, and dropped down another fifty feet. He was flying south-south-east now, with the islands guarding his right flank.

  Now that his target was drawing near his fatigue left him. Since leaving Sutton Craddock he had lived a nightmare, either fighting off sleep or fighting off thoughts that clawed his mind like torturer’s hooks.

  Now, with no observer to assist him, he was too busy to think, and was thankful for it. Increasing his boost, he dropped right down on the water, the black and grey islets of rock flashing by in a blur of speed. He caught sight of a fisherman’s wooden house,, half-a-dozen goats feeding on a patch of bright grass, a clump of shrub, a cluster of windswept trees....

  A larger island appeared ... a small jetty .. . two fishing-boats at anchor... a hamlet... a woman waving an apron from the front door of a house....

  Two minutes more and land soared up on either side of him. Petrol tanks swept by ... a group of large, camouflaged buildings . . . three tall, smoking chimneys. Not 200 yards from his port wing-tip a freighter was making her way up channel, her bow wash white against the shadowy sea. Grenville caught a glimpse of a brace of multiple pom-poms on her boat deck before his speed swept him by. No shots were fired and thirty seconds later a shoulder of land hid the ship from sight.

  The channel broadened as a tributary flowed into it from the east, then narrowed again. The land on either side rose higher, became mountainous with denser vegetation of scrub and pines. Houses became more frequent, typical Norwegian country houses with wooden frames and higlì-sloping roofs. Grenville was in a fjord now and the water below him was calmer. His slipstream shivered a wake behind him as he streaked not 30 feet above it.

  He drew back his stick and a town flashed below him. That would be Games. Games, and not a shot fired at him yet! He
made a little altitude and scanned the sky above. Still no sign of fighters! He went down again, his eyes probing the green, birch-covered mountainside on his right.

  He found the valley and banked steeply into it. Trees flashed under him, mountains towered on either side. The Isdalen Pass! Rocks... bright grass... trees ... then a long sheet of water, Svartediket! The green-wooded mountain on his left was Ulrikken. A .cold, sadistic voice inside his mind suddenly began to mock him. “Are you wondering what it feels like to be an executioner? Well, you’ll soon know. You’re nearly there now. Nearly there . . .” He tried to blank his mind to it. The woods and water of the pass flashed by.... “Nearly there,” the voice mocked again. “Nearly there.”

  Quite abruptly he was there. The pass fell away and Bergen, beautiful in its cradle of seven mountains, lay below him. Opposite was Lovstakken, a long massive ridge that ran to the U-boat pens south of the city. Below was a broad lake—what had Adams called it? The Store Lungegardsvann. It was dotted with small boats of all types. On its far side was a bridge—that would be the Strombro. Watch that—there were flak posts on it! On this side of the lake were railway lines and the station. Flak there too, although none of it had started up yet....

  He had banked steeply to starboard on leaving the pass and was over the centre of the city before he got all his landmarks. Behind him he caught sight of the small octagonal lake Adams had mentioned. It was near the railway station, and behind it was a piece of waste ground....

  Gritting his teeth, he threw the Mosquito into a sharp 180-degree turn to port. Bergen, clean-looking in the early morning light, swam in a dizzy arc under his vertical wingtip. When he straightened out he was flying inland again along the Lovstakken range, with Bergen on his port side. From the comer of his eye he caught sight of other landmarks: the Nautical School in the Nordnes Parken, the green roof of the National Theatre, the wide tree-lined avenue of the Ole Bulls Plasse.... But he needed no markers now. His target was in sight, standing alone like a diseased thing on the waste land between the two lakes.

  The first flak appeared, coming up from the docks, a red, yellow and green chain that seemed about to hit him between the eyes before curving away. As if it were a signal, flak opened up from all directions—not for nothing was Bergen considered to be one of the best defended ports in occupied Europe! Within seconds his Mosquito was bracketed by a cloud of bursting shells, making him take violent evasive action.

  As he approached the Strombro Bridge, a fanshaped cluster of white bursts opened out dead ahead. How could he make a run-in across the lake with all this stuff lined up. . . ? With these flak posts on the bridge and the others on the railway opposite, they’d be able to catch him in a cross-fire. He wouldn’t have a chance....

  He made a split-second decision. Switching on his gun-sight, he dived straight at the bridge, opening fire with both cannon and machine-guns. Tracer came upwards in blinding sheets—he felt he was flying right into the barrels of the murderous guns. Just as he believed himself finished, panic-stricken grey shapes rose from the gun-pits and fled before the fury of his attack. His shells burst among them, mowing them down. Three men, seeing the flame-spitting thunderbolt howling down on them, leaped straight from the bridge into the water below.

  Drenched in sweat, Grenville pulled the Mosquito out of her dive and sent her rocketing up the slopes of Ulrikken. The ferocity of the fire from the bridge had now greatly diminished: he had to press home his attack before the crews were rallied.

  The Mosquito rolled over on the top of her climb and came plunging down again, the tight skin on her wings and fuselage drumming with speed. Behind Grenville the green slopes of Ulrikken streamed dizzily away. He was travelling at well over 400 m.p.h. when he pulled out over the lake, lowering the Mosquito down until her belly nearly touched the water. He opened his bomb doors, clicked down his selector switches, and fixed the building at the far end of the lake dead in the center of his gunsight. Then he had nothing to do but wait. In the few endless seconds that his Mosquito took to flash over the shivering water, the voice in his mind began torturing him again.

  “It won’t be long now. Just a few more seconds—if you get through, of course. ... I wonder if he’ll guess it’s you that is killing him....”

  The accuracy of the guns alongside the railway was terrifying. Three posts got Grenville’s range at once.

  The water below him seethed as shells tore it into spray, blurring his windshield and hissing into steam on his red-hot engines. White puffs enveloped him, interspersed by black ones as the murderous 37 mms. joined in. A shell went clean through his bomb hatch without exploding, ricochetting off a 500-lb. bomb. Another one burst near the starboard engine, making the Mosquito wince as shrapnel tore through its wing. A blinding flash came from the instrument panel, followed by an explosion that almost shattered Grenville’s eardrums. There was the smell of cordite and burning rubber . . . sparks spluttering from a damaged contact box. Outside, tracer soared through the smoke like coloured streamers, graceful to watch and death to touch.

  Grenville was hunched down in his seat to gain what protection he could from his armour plating. His legs were affected by an intense nervous convulsion and his toes clenched up inside his flying boots. He had to get through ... he had to get through. ... He gritted the words over and over as the flak thunder increased around him. “Of course you must,” the devil voice jeered back. “An executioner shouldn’t be late for his appointment....”

  The building was huge in Grenville’s gunsight when a party of black-uniformed figures began pouring out from it. Instantly loathing drove all other emotions from Grenville’s mind. Here were the bullies he had always hated: here were Bergman’s torturers, running for their lives! He kicked the rudder bar, brought them into his sights, and fired a long vicious burst, his thumb tight down on the button. The Mosquito shuddered under the tremendous kicking recoil. Grenville sawed on the rudder bar, hosing the stream of shells and bullets among the screaming men. The effect was murderous. The earth itself was churned into furrows and men were thrown into shapeless heaps of bloody flesh and charred rags.

  The building swung back into Grenville’s sights again. His 20mm. shells smashed through its wooden walls, doing enormous damage. Two hundred yards ... one-fifty yards ... the lake fell away, he was over the waste land now. One hundred yards . . . fifty. . . . Now! He pressed the bomb release and jerked back on the stick. The Mosquito screamed upwards, missing the roof of the building by less than ten feet.

  The four bombs, tail-fused and falling horizontally, hit the ground and bounded forward like flat stones on wafer. They smashed through the wall of the wooden building as if it had been cardboard and disappeared within.

  The wide avenue of the Ole Bulls Plasse streamed under Grenville like a green ribbon, ignoring the vengeful flak that was still following him, he banked steeply to look back. He was counting to himself ... seven ... eight... nine ... ten... <

  At eleven there were four simultaneous explosions that disintegrated the building, hurled it upwards in a mushroom of red-cored smoke and splintered wood.

  Although the flak by the bridge would be reorganized now, Grenville was prepared to make a second attack for Bergman’s sake if anything was left standing. But there was nothing on the waste ground but four blackened craters and a blazing pile of debris. No one could have survived that holocaust.

  Reaction hit him as he stared down. His stomach retched, jerking his body against his harness. His eyes felt as if nails were being driven through them into his brain. The physical pain he welcomed; it was an ally against the worse pain within.

  It was the instinct of self-preservation plus his innate flying habits that saved him at that moment. Before making his attack he had noticed patches of fog hanging round the southern slopes of Lovstakken and among the fjords and islands beyond. Now, without conscious thought, he flew over Lovstakken, dived down among these patches, and worked his way round their fringes towards the coast.

  H
e was only just in time. The hundreds of flak bursts that pock-marked the sky had barely lost their separate identity before the first flight of Focke-Wulfs came howling in. With snarling engines they darted over the city like dogs sniffing for a scent. Then, at a given signal, they hurled themselves over Lovstakken and into the chase. The vengeful roar of their engines followed the Mosquito out to sea and faded with it.

  22

  It came again, and in some odd way Grenville knew it was a nightmare. Yet the knowledge only heightened his feeling of trapped terror. He was coming in to land after his raid on Bergen. His undercarriage would not lock down, the hydraulic mechanism had been damaged by shrapnel. Nor would it fully retract, which meant the crooked wheels were a menace to a belly landing.

  He thought for a moment of doing some steep dives in an effort to force the undercart down, but his tired mind rejected the idea at once. The shattered Mosquito might disintegrate and in any case he was weary .. . weary. ... He had to get down before the black cloud floating at the comers of his eyes closed over and blinded him. There wasn’t much time left.

  He heard his tired voice speaking to Control, “I’m coming in for a belly landing. Please stand by. Switching off....”

  The field swam dizzily before his eyes as he banked up-wind. The Mosquito answered sluggishly; shrapnel had sprang a hinge in the starboard aileron, making lateral control difficult. To make certain he would not be trapped in a flaming coffin, he reached out to jettison the escape hatch but it would not budge. He tugged again but it was tightly jammed and he was tired. . . .

  A vision flashed in front of him as he dropped lower. Priestman piling up yesterday morning—the blackened scars in the grass lay dead ahead. From the comer of his eye he saw the crash wagon and ambulance following his shadow along the runway.