by Max Hennessy
Outside the cinema, Boumphrey paused for a moment, deep in thought, then he sought out Ghadbhbhan.
‘You’ve heard that we’re going into action tomorrow night?’ he asked.
‘I heard something about it, sir.’
‘Told the boys?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Got your map?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘If it came to the pinch, could you do it on your own?’
Ghadbhbhan’s eyebrows rose. ‘Of course, sir.’
‘Good.’ Boumphrey gave a faint smile. ‘Because there’sjust a faint chance I might not be with you. They say I’m not to fly tomorrow but I think I might.’
* * *
Crossing to the hospital, Boumphrey made his way to the room at the back where he found Prudence Wood-Withnell at work. There were patches of damp on the back of her shirt, a strand of hair hung over her face and she looked tired. Like most white women in Irazh, she had always had plenty of servants and had never had to work herself, but she seemed cheerful and even pleased with herself that she had not bolted for the coast.
She didn’t tell Boumphrey her part in the bombing, though she secretly longed to – if only to hear his admiration put into words. Chiefly it was because she felt too worn out. Never in her whole life had she worked so hard, so long, and at such speed. The water filling had become only a secondary task, her helpers supervised between all the other jobs which the station medical officer, desperate for extra pairs of hands and recognizing her as an intelligent responsible person, had dumped on her.
‘Hello, Ratter,’ she said quietly. ‘You all right?’
‘Bit tired,’ he admitted. ‘Like you, I expect.’
‘Bit,’ she agreed. ‘But we’re managing. There are over thirty casualties in here, some of them pretty bad. There are sixteen dead, they tell me.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘Ratter, you are all right, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I’m all right.’
‘Do you want anything?’
‘Only to know you’re safe and sound.’
She was silent then she looked up. ‘I heard you were hurt when an aeroplane blew up.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m all right. In effect, I had two blow up. One an Oxford, t’other a Wellington. Fortunately, I’d just got clear of both.’
‘One of the sergeants they brought in was talking about you.’
Boumphrey smiled. Boumphrey’s smile was rather special. It was gentle and attractive. It didn’t often appear because he was rather a solemn individual, but when it did it had a tremendous effect. It did so now.
‘It’s because everybody thinks I’m a bit dim, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I’m not really. It’s the fault of having a face that looks as if it’s been struck by lightning.’
‘Oh, Ratter, that’s not true! You don’t look a bit as if you’ve been struck by lightning. In fact, when you smile—’ Prudence stopped, confused by her thoughts and startled at her temerity. She changed the subject hurriedly. ‘Is it going to be the same tomorrow?’
‘And the day after. And the day after that, too. Until we’ve driven the Irazhis away. There’ll be Dakotas coming in to take away more women and children tomorrow. You ought to go.’
‘Not likely,’ she said fiercely. She simply couldn’t imagine bolting for the coast and leaving Boumphrey behind. There was no telling what might happen. He might be brought in hurt and need nursing. He might even – she brushed aside the thought that he might be dead because she’d seen one of the bodies as it had been carried to the mortuary to await burial and she couldn’t visualize anything as horrible as that happening to him. It had been the body of a sergeant-instructor who had been dragged from a burning Oxford and she tried hard not to think of it.
She once more excused herself with the story that her father had refused to leave – especially after the fighting – and, because of that, neither could she. ‘He’ll have no one to look after him,’ she said.
They talked desultorily, tiredly, until one of the Asian women came with a message for her. Prudence looked apologetically at Boumphrey. ‘I’ve got to go now, Ratter,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming to see if I was all right.’ She put her hands on his upper arms and kissed him gently. ‘It was kind of you. But then, you’re a kind man.’
She smiled and, turning, hurried off to where she was needed. Boumphrey stood still for a moment, then quietly he turned and headed from the hospital for his quarters.
4
There was no rest. The key personnel worked throughout the night to have the aircraft ready for daylight. A second Wellington from Shaibah had been stranded on the airfield just before dark but it had been dragged safely behind the hangars past the one that had caught fire, now only a pile of wreckage in which were embedded such identifiable objects as a Hercules engine with twisted propeller blades, the blackened framework of a tailplane and a mass of charred geodetic structure that had been the fuselage. Men were patching the second machine up in readiness for the morning, working practically without lights and cursing only because there weren’t enough of them to finish every job that needed doing. Meanwhile, in darkness, trucks were being filled with earth and stones from the edge of the airfield which was being dumped into the shell holes in the take-off area and rolled flat.
The first shells fell on the camp as soon as the sky began to pale in the east. The diminishing band of aircrew were taking their breakfast in the mess when it started.
‘Fifty fils they get the water tower today,’ someone said.
‘Done. And fifty fils that they get the telephone exchange.’
They were watching the shells bursting in the distance when a shower of bullets coming through the iron roof of the mess made them dive for cover under the table. Almost immediately there was the shriek of a shell. Heads lifted and hands holding cups remained still as the shriek increased in volume, then there was a concerted dive for shelter, so fast it seemed that the cups hovered unspilled in midair for a second before crashing down.
‘Dammit!’ The complaint came from under one of the tables. ‘That’s buggered up my coffee!’
The explosion made them flinch and they heard the crash of falling masonry and a wail. As the station medical officer scrambled to his feet and headed for the hospital, they looked up at the holes in the roof.
‘There’ll be vigorous complaints in the suggestions book about that,’ someone said.
‘How’re the storks, by the way?’
‘Still there. Both youngsters doing well.’
The new station admin. officer finished his breakfast hurriedly, picked up his briefcase and headed for the hangars. With the catering officer back, he was due to fly to the coast to deposit currency there and return with a planeload of groceries. The adjutant appeared with a small pile of roneo-ed sheets which he placed just inside the door.
‘Stop press,’ he said. ‘All the news on what’s happening.’
‘As if we didn’t know.’
‘The group captain’s idea. To let everybody know how the war’s progressing. Written up by Signals with the assistance of Osanna. The Germans are in Athens and are expected to go for Crete at any moment.’
‘They might even come here.’
There was a little laughter but it died quickly because German intervention at Kubaiyah was a real danger now.
‘What about the relief column? Have those clots set off yet?’
‘On their way, I think. Suspect it’s more bluff than anything, though. Because there’s been a bit more trouble down at Basra.’
‘Shooting?’
‘Striking mostly. The spirit’s willing but the flesh’s weak. A mob gathered but somebody fired a couple of shots from a 25-pounder over their heads and that was that. The Irazhi police have been disarmed without trouble but the local authorities are being what you might call uncooperative and there’s been some looting of shops. Irazhi troops are being bombed along the Euphrates. Quite a lot of party spirit.’
It was all delivered in a lig
ht-hearted manner but they all knew the situation was tense. A new campaign had been started and, with things as they were in the Middle East, the Balkans, Crete, even at home where they were still hanging on by their teeth and eyebrows, Britain couldn’t afford a new campaign. She still hadn’t the trained men, the weapons, the aircraft or the ships to maintain the old campaigns. As the adjutant had suggested, anything they did had to be largely bluff.
The only bright spot on the horizon was the fact that Ghaffer al Jesairi was not popular. The Irazhis set a lot of store by their royal family and Ghaffer had lost a lot of support by forcing the regent to flee. Besides, Ibn Saud, a monarch of some power in the Middle East, had completely rebuffed him, while the King of Transjordan, who was related to the Irazhi royal house, was also unlikely to look favourably on anybody who had kicked out one of his relations, because one kicking-out could lead to another like the fall of a line of dominoes.
* * *
The shelling had increased since first light and the shells were dropping in and around the camp now with some regularity.
‘Aim’s not very good,’ Jenno commented.
‘Osanna says it’s because the Irazhi officers don’t like Ghaffer. Ever seen him?’
‘Once. Looks like the second murderer in Macbeth.’
‘Doesn’t seem to be a very good judge of timing either. I think he expected the Germans to fly in.’
‘They still might. Osanna says they’re trying to make the Vichy French release matériel from Syria. He says he’s heard they’ve actually laid on air transport and it only needs the word to start it.’
They stood in the growing daylight, listening to shells bursting near the hangars, their nostrils catching the smell of smoke, dust and high octane petrol.
‘Same again, today,’ Jenno said. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Tired,’ Boumphrey said.
‘I suppose in view of what’s to happen tonight, like me, they’ve taken you off flying.’
‘Yes,’ Boumphrey agreed. ‘But, as we’re short of trained aircrew and we can’t let the other chaps do it all, I shall be flying.’
Jenno grinned. ‘Me, too, Ratter,’ he said.
As they spoke, another flurry of shells landed among the buildings and a fire started near the stores complex.
‘They’ll quieten down once we’re in the air,’ Jenno said.
As he spoke the first of the aeroplanes started up. They heard the crackles, then the roar of one of the Rolls-Royce Kestrels.
‘Audax,’ Boumphrey said, and started to run.
* * *
Darling was waiting. Like everybody else, he looked tired. Flying put a lot of strain on a man and continuous flying was wearing.
‘Ready, old son?’ Boumphrey said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good show. Let’s just have your reports properly. But don’t let it get you down if you boob. First time I did anything serious, I made every mistake in the book.’
Darling glanced at Boumphrey’s kind gentle face and was rewarded with one of the flashing smiles. It made his day because he knew that Boumphrey, trained slowly in the piping days of peace, couldn’t have made many mistakes.
‘During my initial training I got lost on a cross-country and had to force-land in a Moth before I ran out of petrol. I telephoned the chief flying instructor who told me to stay where I was and after a while he arrived in another Moth and floated above me. I was in rather a small field but he obviously decided if I could get down, so could he. He had three goes then hit a tree stump and turned over. When he’d recovered a little, he said “What I don’t understand, Boumphrey, is how you managed to land a Moth in a field this size without damage.” “Oh, I didn’t,” I said. “I landed in the big one next door and bounced over the hedge.”’
Darling gave a hoot of laughter. He didn’t believe the story for a minute because it didn’t sound like Boumphrey’s meticulous flying and he guessed it was merely Boumphrey’s way of taking his mind off what lay ahead.
They were just about to climb into their aircraft when the station engineering officer appeared, red in the face and in a hurry.
‘Cancel all take-offs!’ he was yelling. ‘There’s a flight of Blenheims coming in! AHQ have just telephoned. Estimated time of arrival in five minutes!’
For a moment there was silence, then a yell of delight went up. In France the previous year the obsolescent Blenheims had been found to be very vulnerable but against the Irazhi Northrops they would be a welcome reinforcement.
The chief flying instructor’s car roared up, and slithered to a stop outside the hangar.
‘Some bloody chairborne pill in Cairo’s made a balls-up of it,’ Fogarty snapped. ‘Those Blenheim chaps are going to know nothing of the conditions here, and they won’t know the field’s under fire. We’ve got to get ’em down and behind the hangars as fast as possible.’
He called the technical warrant officer to him and gestured at the Oxfords standing higgledy-piggledy ready to taxi out of the gate and on to the airstrip.
‘Get these things out of the way, Mr Farrar,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get the place clear for the Blenheims.’
As he spoke, Flight Sergeant Madoc led two of the armoured cars over the hard standing between the parked aeroplanes, followed closely by two more, and headed for the gate to wait just behind the shelter of the buildings there. As they halted, the Oxfords began to move. Those with crews in them taxied away from the entrance, and those which hadn’t yet been started up were seized by ground personnel and any available aircrew or pupils and pushed out of the way.
As they did so, the Gladiators began to take off to keep down the heads of the Irazhi gunners, then the Kestrel engines on the polo field started to roar and one after another the Audaxes and Harts began to take off across the camp. As they passed overhead, the patches over the scars of the previous day’s fighting made them look diseased.
They were climbing for height when the first of the Blenheims appeared and, their sirens screaming, the biplanes immediately swung round over the Irazhi positions to plaster them with bombs and bullets to enable the unwary pilots of the Blenheims to put their machines down. But the escarpment sprang to life as the bombs started to fall and all the guns started firing. A haze of dust hung over the slopes and blew gently across the field.
The Blenheims came out of the west low down, wicked-looking monoplanes wearing the sand-coloured paint of the Middle East, their big Mercury radials snarling as they went into the usual formal circuit of the airfield before making their final approach and landing. The bombs dropped by the Audaxes were throwing up great columns of dust and stones and they saw one of the Blenheims actually fly through one of them, waver a little as the blast caught it, then recover.
The first machine’s wheels touched in a puff of dust and it began to slow to a stop, waiting to be guided to a dispersal area according to the usual practice. But at Kubaiyah, with the whole airfield overlooked, there was no dispersal area, and no bomb-proof pens of sandbags such as they’d been used to, only the sheltered stretch behind the hangars. As the aeroplane stopped, one of the armoured cars roared up to it. The Blenheim’s propellers had slowed and they half-expected to see them stop, but there was a shouted instruction from the armoured car and the propellers began to increase revolutions. The armoured car swung at speed in front of it, heading for the gate, a man standing in the back waving his arms to encourage the pilot to do the job as fast as he could. An airman at the gate waved a green flag and the wildly-zigzagging Blenheim made it through to the shelter of the hangars.
The second machine was down now and, as if the pilot hadn’t noticed what had happened to the leader, it was turning idly at the edge of the airfield. An armoured car roared up to it and they could all see its commander shouting to the pilot from the open hatch. Because of the din of the turning engines, the pilot seemed not to hear and appeared uncertain what to do. Then a salvo of Irazhi shells from the escarpment made him realize what was happen
ing and, as the armoured car drove ahead of him, the machine began to scuttle for the safety of the hangars.
One after the other they chased each other for the gap in the fence, the crews trying to understand the frantic signals that were being made to them by ground staff to get them behind the hangars as quickly as possible. The Irazhi guns were making the most of their opportunity and every one of the Blenheims had been slightly damaged. Their crews climbed out wearing dazed expressions. The din from aeroplane engines, guns and sirens was deafening.
‘What in Christ’s name’s going on here?’ The first man to appear glared at Boumphrey indignantly as if the uproar were his fault.
Boumphrey gave him his gentle smile. ‘You might well ask,’ he said.
5
‘Get these machines checked, refuelled and rearmed!’
Warrant Officer Farrar’s shouts came as the ground crews swarmed over the Blenheims, and the armourers’ lorries and fuel bowsers roared up. Men climbed on wings and began to unscrew panels, hoses snaked up and pumps were started.
The Harts and the Audaxes were landing now, whooshing overhead to touch down on the polo ground. Information had arrived that Dakotas were to fly in soon to remove more of the women and children, and there was to be a concerted attack on the Irazhi positions as they appeared and another as they left.
As they waited, the Harts and Audaxes began to take off again, howling overhead to gain altitude as the Dakotas were reported on their way in. As they clawed for height, they were followed by the slower Gordons, then the first of the Oxfords began to move towards the gate, ready for their rush through it on to the airfield. As they did so, there was another flurry of shelling from the escarpment, as if the Irazhis were trying to get in as many shells as they could before the bombing swamped them.
The Oxfords, still bright yellow in their training colours – and with the cupola and the bubble windscreen attracting attention as they caught the sun – stood out stark against the dusty brown landscape. A few shells fell on the airfield, but it didn’t deter them and they began to roar down the runway one after the other and lift into the sky. As they climbed, Darling began his running commentary.