God, the field seemed to be coming up fast! His reactions were slow, deceiving him. He switched off both engines and pulled the stick back. Easy, easy, don’t let her stall. Hold it.... Hold it.... Now!
The Mosquito bounced a full fifteen feet, nearly snapping Grenville’s neck with shock. The wooden fuselage buckled and splintered like a bamboo cane, the wings crumpled like papier mâché. Another tremendous jerk and this time Grenville was flung forward, his harness snapping with the strain. He managed to half-cover his face with his hands before it was smashed into the gun-sight. There was a sickening pain in his lower jaw .. . the taste of blood... the feel of a broken tooth on his tongue....
Then only pain and silence. No, not silence. The hiss of petrol vapourizing on the white-hot engines. Get me out! For God’s sake, get me out!
Frantic hands suddenly pulled at him, bringing a shock of pain through his head. Blackness for a moment, then a vague, confused picture of the shattered Mosquito twenty yards away with firemen playing pumps and extinguishers on her. His last impression before unconsciousness was that of a thin black column of smoke rising from the disembowelled port engine....
He knew what the nightmare was going to do to him, and tried desperately to awake. But the thing held him tightly, forcing him to watch. The column of smoke belched and burst into a red-cored explosion. Now he was over Bergen, looking down on the thing he had done, seeing the four smoking craters and the heap of flaming wreckage. The fire seemed to reach up and bum every comer of his cringing mind.
He awoke then, and soaked in cold sweat lay trying to identify his surroundings. But his mind was still too dazed: the figures in the grey mist that swirled around him were out of focus and unreal. He tried to call to them, but his lips were still and would not move. A few minutes later darkness and the nightmare swooped down on him again.
* * *
Just after 1600 hours that same Thursday Davies entered the Intelligence Room. There was a peaked look about his sharp face, and the usual briskness was absent from his movements. He motioned to Adams to remain seated, and tossing his cap on the table, sat down opposite him.
“Fve just come from seeing Grenville,” he said, catching the anxious question in Adams’ eyes. “They’ve put him in Stanhope Hospital in Highgate. He’ll be all right in a few days. He got a nasty crack on the head and face when his harness snapped, and a wrenched shoulder in the bargain. The head injury is the worst— there was slight concussion and he’s been a bit delirious —but they say none of it is serious. Anyway, I told them to keep him there a few days. The rest won’t do him any harm.”
Adams nodded his relief. “He was lucky. I never thought he’d come out of it alive.”
“His type are hard to kill,” Davies said with some pride.
“Particularly when they don’t much care about living.” Adams had not meant to say it—the words slipped out—and his plump face turned crimson when Davies’s eyes fixed themselves resentfully on him.
“I didn’t know the rest of the story when I ordered him out. And it might have been better if you hadn’t told it to us last night. I felt enough of a murderer as things were.”
“I should have kept it to myself, I know,” Adams muttered.
The aggressiveness left Davies’s voice at once. “I don’t blame you. Some things are better shared. I don’t suppose I’d have been able to keep it quiet myself.” His tone changed, became awed. “My God: the guts of the man. He’ll get a bar to his D.S.O. If I’ve got any say in it.”
Adams winced at the suggestion. “It might be better to leave that for a while, sir. I’m pretty certain he wouldn’t want it—not for this.”
Davies nodded reluctantly. “I suppose you’re right. But it seems damnable there isn’t some reward one can give him.”
“Have you seen the camera films yet?” Adams asked.
Davies showed some of his old spirit. “They were the first thing I went to see when I got back. God, man, aren’t they terrific? The way he slaughtered those devils as they came running out....”
Adams nodded. He had seen the films as soon as they were developed. Grenville’s hate had come out through them, holding him in horrified fascination.
“It’s a pity he had no way of photographing the destruction of the target,” he said.
Davies lowered his voice. “The Brigadier got confirmation two hours ago. That’s what I came to tell you.”
Adams knew his face had paled. He tried to keep his voice steady. “Was it completely successful?”
Davies held his eyes grimly. “Yes. Completely.”
“Does everything go on as before, then? Or don’t you know yet?”
Davies hesitated a moment before replying. “The Brigadier seems optimistic again. None of the patriots has been arrested yet, so it doesn’t look as if anybody talked, God bless ’em. Yes; if nothing else happens we shall go on as planned. We must; we’ve no option.”
“Isn’t all this damage to our planes going to delay us?”
Davies picked up his cap and rose to his feet. “It’s been a blow, but we’ve got to get over it somehow. Barrett must keep everyone working until they’re airworthy again. I don’t know the exact date we’re supposed to go, but for some reason or other it has to be before the end of May.” His voice was grave. “After that the Brigadier reckons our chances of success are greatly reduced, perhaps gone altogether. So we’ve no choice but to be ready.”
* * *
Grenville awoke from his doze and stared round the room. The walls were cream-washed, sterile and blank. A small cabinet stood alongside his bed, its glass surface littered with bottles. A polished electric stove stood near the half-open door. The air held the faint smell of antiseptics.
He lifted a hand to his head. They had removed some of the bandages, but his jaw and mouth were still bound up, making it impossible to have a smoke. He shifted restlessly. Three days of this was more than enough. He’d have another go at that confounded doctor when he came tonight....
Something tapped on the window, and his eyes moved sharply towards it. At first nothing was visible but a rectangular patch of sunlit blue sky. Then, as he watched, the bough of a flowering almond moved across the glass, tapping gently as it passed by. It had no leaves, just a thin branch and a cluster of pink blossoms that waved like a magic wand in front of the blue sky.
Grenville watched it in fascination. The ward sister’s voice outside the door made him start. “Yes; you can go in; he is awake. But only ten minutes, please. And don’t expect him to talk to you—his face is still bandaged up.”
“Thank you.”
Grenville’s breath stopped at the sound of the second voice. His head jerked sidewards, then he lay motionless, only his eyes moving as she approached his bedside. She was wearing a grey, slim-fitting coat with a blue scarf at her throat, and was carrying a large leather bag. A sunbeam made her uncovered hair shine with golden light. A faint perfume came from her, driving back the smell of the antiseptics.
His panic-stricken mind searched desperately for comfort. Her appearance, her smile ... she could not know yet. Thank God for that....
“I had to come to see you,” she said, as the door closed, leaving them alone. “Frank told me where you were.”
Damn Adams. He wanted to close his eyes to save himself looking at her, but could not. She took three packets of twenty cigarettes from the bag she was carrying and laid them on the cabinet alongside him.
“It is very little,” she said apologetically, “but they were all I could buy.” ~
To get them she would have had to queue up at half the tobacconists in Highgate. Don’t make it worse, please! Don’t do things for me. . . ! Grenville wanted to beg her to leave, but could force nothing from his_ bandaged mouth. His eyes, the only part of his face visible, stared up at her mutely. She misunderstood their expression and looked anxious.
“Frank said you were not seriously injured—I had not expected to see you so bandaged. Are you in much pain?”<
br />
He shook his head. Her grave, blue-grey eyes did not lighten. “For a while I almost hoped you were more seriously hurt, because then you would not have had to fly for a long, long time. . . .” She smiled at him sadly. “Why could you not have broken an arm or a leg, Roy? It would have made me very happy.”
As if ashamed of her seriousness, she flushed and took a large bunch of daffodils from the bag at her feet She went over to a water bowl on the window-ledge and began arranging them.
“They brighten a room,” she said defensively. “I picked them this morning from Mr. Kearns’ garden. You should see his fruit trees—the sun has brought out all the blossom.”
He caught sight of the pink almond blossom again, nodding above her shining head, and emotion struck him like a blow. He lay half-dazed as she told him more about the innkeeper’s garden.
She finished arranging the flowers and turned back to his bedside, smiling. “You know, Roy, it is rather nice for me to do all the talking and to know that you cannot argue with me. It makes the words come easier, somehow.”
The ward sister tapped on the door at that moment. Hilde’s face saddened at the reminder. She hesitated, then laid a hand on his forehead. Grenville lay motionless, hardly breathing, not daring to think.
Tm coming to see you again as soon as I can,” she said. “They say I may come on Tuesday.”
Grenville moved his head sidewards, like a dazed boxer trying to avoid a blow. Three more days—she would know by then! Her voice came from far away, yet with the purity of a bronze bell.
“Somehow it is easier to ask you now. Roy, when you are better, please do not be long in coming to see me. It is so very lonely without you. Good-bye. Gud velsigne deg.”
She kissed his forehead, then ran quickly from the room. Grenville closed his eyes. Something like acid was running into them, blinding him.
23
Two mornings later the Dispersal Hut alongside the Southern perimeter of the airfield was unusually quiet —only one Mosquito standing ready for take-ofl with filled tanks and loaded guns. She was the outcome of an order from Group for 633 to provide a plane for meteorological duties.
With the rest of the squadron still feverishly licking its wounds, Barrett had had no option but to cancel the dawn training flights. Six of his aircraft were undergoing major repairs in the hangars (where ground crews had been working day and night since the battle over Bergen), and the rest were dispersed around the field with cowled engines, waiting for daylight to bring another swarm of mechanics to attend to their repairs. Nevertheless, Barrett was hoping to resume training in four days* time. Townsend, die Maintenance Officer, thought hi? mind had gone.
Shortly before dawn a five-hundredweight truck from the Transport Section pulled up outside the hut with a grunt of brakes. Two men, Gillibrand and his new observer, leapt from the tailboard, sparks showering from their cigarettes as they landed on the tarmac. Both were wearing flying suits and harness They pulled down their parachutes, then Gillibrand thumped a huge hand against the tin side of the truck. “O.K., Mac. Take it away.”
The yawning driver threw in his gear and the five-hundredweight lumbered away. Gillibrand made for the hut without a word. The observer shivered and followed him. A cold, gusty wind was blowing, rocking the Mosquito’s wings. It was growing lighter and objects began appearing out of the darkness: the sandbagged shelter near the hut, the nearby gun-post, the shadowy outline of the Control Tower.
À chink of yellow light shone under the door of the hut. Gillibrand pushed his way inside. It was wanner in there: someone had lit the stove which was giving off clouds of sulphurous smoke. Above it hung a naked electric bulb, which was shining down on a group of mechanics who were warming their hands round mugs of tea. They looked around at the newcomers and muttered their greetings, their sleep-encrusted eyes a little wary of Gillibrand. Once Gillie had been one of the boys but since he had lost his observer he wanted watching____
The Canadian tossed his parachute on a chair, then turned to the mechanics. “Well; what about some char?”
The diminutive corporal in charge of the fitters jumped up, took two mugs down from a shelf, and filled them with black tea. He slopped in condensed milk from a half-opened tin and handed the mugs to the two men.
“Chilly out ’ere this momin’, sir,” he offered Gillibrand.
Gillibrand nodded without speaking, lifted the mug to his lips and drained it. The naked light, with its uncompromising shadows, made him look a grim and formidable figure. His heavy brows shadowed his eyes, sinking them into his skull. Lines showed round his nose and mouth, and a bristle of beard on his massive jaw added to the grim-visaged effect. His young sergeant observer, just posted to the squadron, looked subdued and unhappy alongside him.
Gillibrand handed the mug back to the corporal, then jerked a thumb towards the door. “You’d better be gettin’ her started up, hadn’t you?”
The corporal looked surprised and glanced down at his watch. “She’s been warmed up, sir. I thought you wasn’t due off for another quarter of an hour.”
“Never mind. Get her runnin’ now. I want an early start.”
The corporal nodded and gave an order to two of his men. They put their mugs down and went out sullenly. The corporal handed the D.I. to Gillibrand.
“She’s O.K., sir. We’ve given her a good check.”
Gillibrand barely glanced at the form before shoving 187 it back. He dropped on a bench, his eyes brooding on the smoking stove. The observer, looking embarrassed, began fishing inside his flying suit for cigarettes. The corporal offered him one in sympathy before going out to his men. As he left the hut the first of the Mosquito’s Merlins coughed and fired.
The sergeant hesitated, then followed him outside. It was almost daylight now. The eastern horizon was a blaze of red fire, shot with the black smoke of clouds. At the distant end of the field a row of poplars stood out against it in dark relief. The second engine fired, throwing mud and pebbles against the side of the hut. The cold blast made the sergeant shiver again.
Gillibrand came out of the hut, carrying both parachutes. He tossed one at the sergeant and jerked his thumb at the Mosquito. The sergeant stamped on his cigarette and followed him. He was half-way to the plane when the Canadian halted, lifting his head like a Great Dane sniffling danger.
The next moment the sergeant saw them himself— Messerschmidt 110’s, two lines of them, one line coming straight down the airfield perimeter towards the dispersal hut. ... As his eyes froze on them, the nose of the leading plane lit up with stabbing flashes.
A huge hand grabbed his arm, he was almost lifted off his feet, and a moment later found himself slumped inside the sand-bagged shelter with Gillibrand alongside him. Another second and the startled mechanics tumbled over the parapet and dropped beside them.
The noise of the engines and cannon fire came in brutal waves, hammering the men down among the sandbags. Tracer whiplashed over them and smashed into the nearby gun-post. A thin scream sounded over the din. Gillibrand’s face was murderous as he glared over the parapet.
The strategy of the 110’s was already clear. Their first target was not the planes or the airfield, but the gun-posts on its perimeter. They were making their attack in two lines astern, one line strafing the south boundary posts, the other line attacking the north ones. The unfortunate gun crews, with a year’s immunity from attack behind them, were caught completely napping.
Only one Hispano opened up, and its gunner died not five seconds later with a bullet in his throat.
With the skill of rehearsal behind the manoeuvre, the two lines of 110’s completed their attack on the two boundaries, swung in a tight arc, and made for the remaining east and west posts. Here, with a few seconds of warning to prepare them, the gunners put up more resistance, and one 110 sheered off, trailing black smoke. But lack of battle practice was all too evident, and the tough 110’s were allowed to press their attacks right into the muzzles of the guns. Post after post was
blasted and destroyed.
Gillibrand saw the outcome. With all flak cover gone, the airfield would be wide open. And the Messer-schmidts were carrying more than long-range tanks under their slim bellies. ... It would be good-bye Mr. Chipps—planes, crews, erks, the lot...
He leapt over the sandbagged parapet, bent double, and ran for the Mosquito. Running under its wings he snatched away the chocks, then heaved himself up into the fuselage and into his seat. No time to turn upwind, no time to use the runway. . . . With over 3,000 revs, full boost, and flaps right down, he released the brakes and gave the Mosquito her head. She bucked and reared like a maddened horse, but somehow he kept her nose straight. Through his windshield he saw the 110’s were making another attack on two gun-posts that were holding out stubbornly. His tight lips moved. Just a few seconds more, boys. . . . That’s all I want. A chance to pay back. Give it to me, boys....
The Mosquito’s tail was up now and her controls lightening. But a Messerschmidt saw him, banked steeply, and came in like a winged devil. There was nothing Gillibrand could do but hold on and pray. The 110’s height saved him: its pilot had no air space to jockey into position. He could only take a split-second, full-radius deflection in the hope his cone of fire would take care of any error.
It nearly did. The Mosquito’s tailplanes were riddled like a sieve, only a miracle saving the control wires. Baffled, the 110’s pilot gave the alarm over his R/T and went into a climbing turn for another attack. The rest of the bandits, their job on the flak posts completed, turned to blast the lone Mosquito from their path.
But Gillibrand was airborne now, back in his element. With one wing-tip clipping the grass he turned into the astonished 110’s, scattering them right and left to avoid collision. In the confusion he settled on the tail of one of them and opened fire with both cannon and machine guns. At point-blank range his fire did terrible damage, shattering the tail planes and ripping open the fuselage like a tin-can. The 110 rolled over and plunged into a clump of trees. Blazing petrol swept over them, setting them aflame like giant torches.
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