The Gathering Clouds (Innocent No More Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

  “You come from a flying family, Grace. Don’t let that make you think you must follow in the family tradition.”

  “It doesn’t, ma’am. I wanted to fly from the first moment I went up, when I was seven. There is nothing finer than flying, ma’am. Nothing at all.”

  “And I presume Mr Stark junior is a handsome young man as well, Grace?”

  There was half a reluctant smile on the mistress’ face.

  “Well, ma’am, he’s not handsome like the film stars – you would not mistake him for Errol Flynn! But I think he is just right, ma’am. I am only sixteen and he is twenty-one, I know. And he is a double-ace already – he flew in Spain. Now he is going to fly for us, ma’am. I think he likes me. I hope so!”

  “I suspect I did not hear that, Grace. He certainly sounds like a very fine young gentleman. What, by the way, is a double-ace?”

  “An ace has five kills, ma’am. Thomas has twelve, but mostly Italians who don’t fly good planes. My father has more than forty, of course, but he had longer to make his score. Thomas’ father had more than thirty even though he spent a lot of time on bombers. I could do as well as them, if they would let women fly!”

  Miss Hastings was a little shocked, but no more than a little – she had no love for the Germans.

  “Best you should go to class, Grace. You will be late for registration. Don’t spend the hours daydreaming about your pilot!”

  The teacher strode off to the staffroom where she announced that they had lost a good girl to the war.

  “They are talking about a Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, if the war does come. Grace Arkwright will join up on the first day.”

  There was a general shaking of heads – she could do so much better for herself.

  “Can’t understand it – her sister is such a sensible girl! What’s this I hear about Grace going off in a car with a man?”

  “One of the family’s oldest friends, the son of the VC, Tommy Stark, who is visiting in his plane and will give her lessons in a ‘twin-engine’. The young man is a double-ace, from Spain, she tells me.”

  “As long as flying is all he teaches her, well and good!”

  There was a general indrawn breath – so vulgar a comment!

  Miss Hastings kept her suspicions strictly private.

  Grace much enjoyed her day, saying very little to any of her friends and nothing to inquisitive teachers but implying very clearly that she had acquired a Fighter Pilot all of her own. She had very few friends left by the end of the day.

  “You will see the Anson flying tomorrow and Sunday. I shall be at the controls, learning it, some of the time. See you on Monday! I must run. Thomas is waiting in the car!”

  Little Foxton was not a welcome sight as Thomas flew in, early on Monday morning, having stretched his leave just a fraction. He had much rather be back in Holt, he thought. It was funny, he was by no means an innocent when it came to women and had very much enjoyed his time with Consuela which had resulted in him flying in Spain, but he realised that he had never fallen in love before. He had much desire for Grace, but no wish at all to seduce her. They would, he hoped, marry and he would very much look forward to taking her to bed then, but there was a lot more than lust in his mind when he thought of her; there had been nothing else for Connie and the others. Perhaps he was finally growing up.

  ‘Not a good thing for a fighter pilot, Thomas. We have to be the epitome of the carefree youth. Can’t fly fighters and think for tomorrow!’

  He radioed in for permission to land and lined up for the hard strip, already showing signs of breaking up under the repeated hammering of landing gear. That would not be good next winter with rain followed by frosts, or so he understood. He tucked the Anson away by the hangars and wandered across to the offices.

  “G’day, Henry. All well?”

  “Very, Thomas. Expected you last night?”

  “Lower on petrol than I liked, Henry. Dropped into Martlesham Heath at first light, they not being in the business of fuelling on a Sunday afternoon.”

  “Makes sense. Better than stretching the petrol you’ve got. One piece of news will entertain you, Thomas. Your very good friend, Mr Burke, has been promoted flight lieutenant to a Gladiator squadron. Based in the north, at a field near Newcastle. Apparently, Germany is building an aircraft carrier and will use it for attacks out of the North Sea. Gladiators will be a match for carrier planes, so they think.”

  “Not with Hilda flying them, they won’t, Henry. How true is the rumour about the carrier?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah! One of those rumours.”

  “Exactly. Good enough reason to take the Gladiators a long way from trouble. They have to be treated as front line fighters, because this government commissioned them. They are utterly useless against anything that will come from Germany, so they must not be put in the front line. A rumour is very handy for sending them off out of harm’s way.”

  “Will it be possible to rotate their pilots in and out of the Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons? They could be a useful reserve then.”

  Henry smiled kindly.

  “That has already been suggested and refused. The Gladiators will be extremely useful in case of invasion – ground attack on the beaches.”

  “Of course. I should have realised.”

  “Are you happy with Chris as Red Four?”

  “No, Henry. He will be hard work. Rewarding, I suspect. If he survives the first week of fighting, he will be good. I can teach him what to do, and he will do it. I can’t teach him to kill – that must be in him. Can be hard, that bit, you know, Henry. I saw it once in Spain. A youngster from France, a natural in the air, far better than I shall ever be as a pilot. Put himself into perfect position, sat fifty yards behind a Fiat biplane, pilot dead in his sights – or would have been if he could have squeezed the trigger. He couldn’t bring himself to kill and just sat there, frozen, for the better part of a minute.”

  Henry was amazed, could not imagine such a thing happening.

  “What did he do?”

  “Died. I went into a Savoia-Marchetti that the Fiats were escorting, shot the cockpit to pieces. Turned round thirty seconds later to see a pair of Fiats blowing old Armand to hell. Pity. No great loss. He was supposed to be my wingman – no bloody use if he wouldn’t fight.”

  “You think Christopher might go the same way?”

  “No. Not him specifically. Anyone can. It never worried me – the occasional nightmare, but we all get those in this trade – but nothing else. I can shoot down a flamer and go home to a steak. Some very good men can’t. Possibly because they are very good men. Every pilot has to discover what it means to kill. Some I knew enjoyed it and sought out parachutes to shred. Some hated it and landed with their guts full of acid. Most just did what was necessary. A few can’t do it at all. You don’t know until the time comes to put forty rounds into a cockpit. Can’t be predicted. Shouldn’t be punished – it ain’t cowardice.”

  Henry seemed unconvinced.

  “Why Christopher particularly?”

  “Most of the rest of us, except you, Henry, have got scores. We know what we’re doing.”

  Henry did not seem best pleased to have it pointed out that he was almost the least experienced and valuable of the squadron.

  “Breakfast time, Henry! See you in a while.”

  Henry spent the morning engrossed in thought, and not about his own career in the RAF. He called his Flight Commanders to conference after lunch, making use of a wet afternoon.

  “I have been thinking, gentlemen.”

  They stared at him and shook their heads reprovingly – not a good habit, they implied.

  “That’s one of the functions of the squadron leader!”

  “Ah! Wondered what you actually did for a living, Henry.”

  “Thank you, Thomas.”

  “My pleasure, old chap!”

  “As I was trying to say, I have been considering how to take the squadron to battle. The three of you
will lead your Flights, which is all very well, but the opinion from Group is that we will need to be more flexible. If reconnaissance planes come over, then we might want to send just a section, two planes, up for each. When the big raids come in, we will wish to go up with a whole squadron. We need to be able to respond to Group’s demands.”

  The three agreed that to make sense.

  “How will Group know what to tell us, Henry?”

  It was supposed to be secret, but if the Flight Lieutenants did not trust the orders they were given, they would not carry them out whole-heartedly.

  “Chain Home, Joe. You’ve seen the stations along the coast, we all have. The things like a set of over-sized bed-springs pointing out to sea.”

  They had seen them and had wondered.

  “I don’t know just how they work, but they can pick up planes at a distance – something to do with radio. They can get a pretty good measure of their height and distance and their numbers. It ain’t exact, but it’s a lot better than men with telescopes. The Controllers will use the information to give us our orders and tell us how many to put up each time. For a very big raid, they will send up several squadrons.”

  Mack leaned back in his chair, shaking his head.

  “Sure, the wonders of science, Henry. Who is it we’re supposed to be fighting, Henry me dear?”

  “Hitler’s Germany, Mack.”

  “I did think that was so. Tell me now, Henry, just how does Adolf propose to get these big raids to our shores? If he is not to cross Holland or Belgium or France itself, then he must send them from his little bit of North Sea coast next door to the Friesian Islands, and that’s a tedious long way to travel and go home again if he is to reach us on the South Coast. In fact, if my memory serves me, it is a distance farther than his Heinkels and Dorniers and Junkers can fly, not to speak of his Messerschmitts for which it would be a one way trip for sure. If we were to be fighting France – which is never so very bad an idea, when you consider it – then we would be well-placed for the business. But for fighting Germany? How?”

  “The expectation is that it will start like 1914 – an invasion which takes control of some part of Northern France and probably all of Belgium. That will bring the Luftwaffe closer to our shores. The best theory then is that Germany will avoid its mistakes of the Great War and attempt to launch an invasion of England from the Belgian coast, under heavy air cover.”

  The three flight lieutenants shook their heads as one.

  “Can’t run barges full of men from Belgium to England in less than a full day and a night, Henry. Can’t fly planes against ships in the night. The Navy would be into them in the darkness. Get thirty-knot cruisers and destroyers and their wash would overturn the barges – they wouldn’t even need to shoot at them. Add a couple of hundred of small craft to the mix – gunboats and armed-trawlers and suchlike – and it would be a massacre.”

  “It’s only twenty and a bit miles from Calais to Dover!”

  “Sure it is, and they’re to land and climb up the White Cliffs of Dover, are they? The harbour would be blocked for a certainty. To find landing beaches they must travel a damned sight more than a score of miles, Henry. We fly those waters often enough, Henry. We see the shallows from the air and they must sail round them. It’s no straight-line crossing. Forget about an invasion, Henry, unless there’s an uprising of the Mosley people in this country to invite them in.”

  Henry was inclined to be indignant – he had helped formulate the plans to counter an invasion and did not like to be told he had been wasting his time.

  “How do you know so much about the Royal Navy, Mack?”

  “I come from Cork, more or less, that is. Me old father still takes his boat out, with me two brothers crewing for him. I ran for hating the smell of fish and the gutting of the catch. Time I was twelve, I was working on the airfield outside Dublin, getting dirty on the petrolling of planes there. Two years and I was learning to fly, instead of being paid. Three years after and I had put together a fare to get to Australia where there were jobs, so they said, for flying men. Got to talking to a man in Singapore who knew of work in China… More fun, so it was, than being a bush pilot in Australia.”

  “Mad! So, no invasion but the Germans are in Northern France and are set up there… That means we’ll be sent across to France, gentlemen.”

  Thomas shook his head.

  “Bad idea, Henry. According to me father, the place was full of Frogs last time.”

  “I can’t imagine it will have improved, Thomas. Mind you, most of the Frogs support Fascism, so I hear, so we might fight them instead of the Hun.”

  “Far better idea, Henry! Ask any of the old soldiers from last time. Most of them hated the French far more than the Germans.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Gathering Clouds

  “The spring is sprung, Thomas, and the builders are back!”

  Thomas had been woken at six o’clock by shouting, the grinding of a large and overladen motor lorry and the whinnying of at least six dray horses. He was not wholly impressed by the performance. He stared at the bricklayers tearing the tarpaulins off the partially completed mess building, yelling at each other as they found frost damage in the upper courses of brickwork and took out their lump hammers to knock them down.

  “Do they have to make so much bloody noise at this time of day, Henry?”

  “It would seem so. It will only get worse, Thomas. Do you see the surveyors?”

  One superior gentleman in a bowler hat; two far younger apprentices in trilbies carrying tall measuring sticks; four labourers distinguished by flat caps loaded down with chains and tripods and less obvious pieces of equipment. They were clustering around the acres of turf behind and to the far side of the hangars.

  “Four new hangars and workshops; extensions to the sergeants and other ranks messes; barrack huts by the dozen, it would seem. The officers mess to be doubled in size, and at top speed. The apocryphal control tower actually to take shape, to be brought into existence. A control room to be created, and probably dug in, if the water table will permit. Bomb shelters to be scattered around the whole area of habitation – I quote. Blast pens for the planes to be dispersed during the day. Gun pits for light and three-inch anti-aircraft guns. The pits will remain empty in all probability, due to the shortage of guns to put in them – but the theory is well-meant. There are tens of thousands of Lewis Guns dating from the Great War and we shall probably be given an issue of them for ‘airfield defence’ – and you can make what you want of all that!”

  Thomas was not at his brightest and most alert so early in the day but the implications were obvious.

  “A second squadron, Henry?”

  “Within the month, is the plan, Thomas. Blenheims, configured as fighters or light bombers as the need arises.”

  “What? How?”

  “They are adding a pack of four Brownings forward firing under the fuselage in place of the under-nose blister and retaining the dorsal turret and the single gun in the port wing. Still a crew of three. Too slow, of course, but might be useful against massed formations of bombers. At least they can carry a damned sight more rounds than us. The aim is they will be up to scratch by harvest time, when the war is due to start. They can use existing bomber pilots which is a major reason for their conversion.”

  It made a certain sense, from some points of view, Thomas accepted.

  “Heavy machines, Henry. Our runway is breaking up already…”

  “Thought of, dear boy! A concrete runway to be built, parallel to the existing. Try not to kill the workmen, Thomas – they will be within fifty yards of you when landing and taking off.”

  “They seem to have found a lot of money suddenly, Henry?”

  Henry beamed, beatifically.

  “To use a technical term, they are ‘kicking arse’ in the Treasury. Money is being found, though where from, we do not know. The politicians and the mandarins of the civil service are panicking, having suddenly discovered
that jolly old London may be bombed!”

  From all Thomas had been told, it had taken Gotha raids on London in the last war to wake up the privileged in London. Their response then had been indignation that the war should have any effect upon them - getting killed was something the peasants did. Now, it seemed, once again defence was suddenly to be important.

  “Why, Henry? What’s changed?”

  “You, Thomas, and those of your ilk who have come back from Spain and have talked to the right people. A number of younger sons – never the heir, dear boy – went out and some came back again and have explained the nature of aerial bombs. You see, they are wholly indiscriminate, killing prince and pauper alike. The rich and the pampered – not always the same – have suddenly discovered that this war might be different, and they don’t like it. Many are running, of course – try to get a first-class ticket on a liner to America these days – every one of them sold for months in advance! The Union Castle boats out of Southampton are crammed with ‘holidaymakers’ on their way to South Africa. Even the Elder Fyffes boats out to the Caribbean are sold out and I am told there have been a hell of a lot of one-way tickets taken to Australia just of late.”

  Thomas was not surprised – he had been told repeatedly of the start of the Great War which had seen any number of the privileged sending some of their younger sons out to fight while they retired with the heir to greener and safer climes. Later in the war the demands of patriotism had become harder to resist, but the early months had seen a significant exodus of the fattest cats.

  “But, I presume, most of our elders and betters have chosen not to run, Henry?”

  “The great majority are staying, it would seem, Thomas, but they are suddenly demanding an end to Austerity and Retrenchment and an increase in expenditure on defence. Funny thing is, quite a number of prominent supporters of Mosley have found necessary business in the States – great patriots until there’s a chance of bullets being fired near them!”