Slipstream

by Alan Judd

  Frank recounted his early love for all things mechanical, the special glamour of mechanical things that flew, the growing number of airstrips in Canada – they had one on their farm – and the friend of his stepfather’s who would take them lake-hopping in his seaplane. Then university to study aeronautical engineering, getting his flying licence, the hours he accumulated landing more often on water than on land, finally running into some of the RAF pilots sent to train in the safety of Canada. Hearing from them about the air war in Europe and the shortage of pilots in Britain made him determined to get there. He met the senior RAF officer but nothing happened for what seemed an age until, quite suddenly, he was told that it was all fixed, with a berth booked on a convoy ship taking some of the pilots back across the Atlantic. Then he had to break the news to his parents.

  He knew now that he would never forget his mother’s face when he told her across the table. It drained of colour, her eyes and mouth open as if watching the ball of smoke and flame that was the Focke-Wulf he had downed that morning. He had broken the news the easy way, the cowardly way, during a family dinner when remonstrance and emotional reactions would be restrained.

  ‘Can I come?’ asked his brother, Nicky.

  ‘Why?’ asked Ruth, one of his sisters. ‘You can fly here.’

  ‘Dropping out of your studies?’ said his stepfather. ‘That wise?’

  ‘When?’ asked his mother eventually.

  ‘I don’t know when the ship sails but they want me to report tomorrow week.’

  ‘How long for?’ asked Ruth.

  ‘Not sure. Probably till the war ends. It can’t go on much longer, they reckon.’

  ‘Will you get seasick?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘Probably. I guess the crossing will be the most dangerous bit.’

  He had meant it to reassure his mother but it was clear that nothing would do that. Later that evening she came to his room, as he knew she would. She stood in the doorway, quiet and composed.

  ‘Why, Frank?’

  He wasn’t sure himself. It sounded dangerous and exciting and he wanted to be part of it. It seemed important that the good side won. It was something to do with proving himself, but he didn’t want to go into that.

  ‘I guess I feel I can make a contribution. They need pilots and I’m a pilot. It’s a good cause, the right cause. We’ve sent a lot of troops over there.’

  ‘But you could apply to join the Royal Canadian Air Force and go with them.’

  That would take longer and he might end up flying hour after monotonous hour searching for U-Boats in the North Atlantic. This way he could be sure of getting into action quickly in one of the new fighters and the RAF had already said they would accept him. ‘Same thing,’ he said, ‘but these are the guys I know and they fixed it. Sooner than I thought, I admit.’

  ‘It would be better to finish your degree, then go if you still want to. You’ll be well qualified and maybe more use to them.’

  ‘But the war might be over before I get there.’

  ‘That’s what your father said.’

  When they had finished their cheddar the colonel suggested they went and sat down, as he put it. He led the way back across the hall into a panelled sitting room, smaller and darker. The blackout curtains were already drawn and the fire laid but unlit. On either side of the fireplace the walls were lined floor to ceiling with books. The light from the table lamp wasn’t good enough for Frank to see what they were; they looked old. There was a framed photograph on the mantelpiece of two women sitting on a garden seat like the woman in the painting, but he couldn’t see them clearly. The colonel went to sit in one of the worn leather armchairs either side of a matching sofa, but then turned to the desk before the window and selected a pipe from a rack.

  ‘You’re not a pipe man?’ he asked, as he lowered himself into a chair.

  Frank pulled a crumbled pack of Woodbines from his trouser pocket. ‘Can’t handle them. Maybe I don’t have the patience to keep them going. They seem to need a lot of work. Mind you, these things hardly count as cigarettes. More like sawdust. But they’re cheap.’

  The colonel filled his pipe. ‘I took up cigarettes in the trenches. Up at the front, anyway. In support or reserve I went back to the pipe. More time and space there. You need both for a pipe.’

  Sounds of music came from somewhere in the house, modern music, big band stuff. Frank was surprised by an inward lurch of homesickness. They had records like that at home.

  ‘Gramophone,’ said the colonel, pointing his pipe stem at the ceiling. ‘Wonderful invention. Some people don’t like them but they give more pleasure than pain, I think. On the whole.’

  ‘I thought she was going out,’ said Frank. Then, feeling that he was referring too familiarly to the colonel’s daughter, added, ‘Vanessa, the – who was here earlier.’

  ‘No, no, not going out. Not tonight.’ The colonel began heaving himself out of his chair. ‘Sorry, remiss of me. Port, brandy, whisky?’

  Frank hesitated. The wine must have gone to his head and he was on early call in the morning. But he felt all right.

  ‘I’m going to,’ continued the colonel. ‘Just a nightcap.’

  ‘A whisky and water would go down well, thank you.’

  The music stopped. She would be turning the record over now. But where was she doing it and why, dressed like that, on her own? Presumably.

  The music started again as the colonel handed Frank his whisky. ‘You like this modern stuff?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid I do, sir, very much.’

  ‘Not my taste but I don’t mind if it’s not too loud. Becoming very popular over here. Like everything American. Same in Canada, I suppose?’

  ‘Very much.’

  For the next twenty or so minutes the colonel described the main rivers of Kent. There was really no decent trout fishing to be had in the whole county. There were a few in the Medway at Yalding and a few more in their own Beult – two fewer now – but otherwise you had to go farther east to the Stour and Little Stour. The Rother was better but that was some way west, over the Sussex border. The best stretch was between Robertsbridge and Bodiam. Best of all, in that area was the new reservoir at Sedlescombe, the Powdermill Lake, packed with brown trout, but you had to get day tickets and it was too far on a bike, unless he could stay the night.

  Frank felt he was falling helplessly and deliciously into a deep pit of tiredness. He would have loved to give in to it, to sink beneath those swelling, welcoming waves, but he had to go. He was feeling the effects of alcohol now, too. It would slow him in the morning, if he had to fly. He stood, feeling a little unsteady.

  ‘I guess I’d better be getting back.’ The colonel was smiling at him. He realised the guy had been saying something and he’d been agreeing without knowing to what. ‘Thank you for the fish, sir, for the dinner, for everything. It’s real kind of you.’

  ‘Fish whenever you like. Come and eat whenever you like. There’s more to talk about, I’m sure.’

  They shook hands at the door. The colonel put his other hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘Keep your eyes peeled. The Hun in the sun, remember.’

  The phrase was so familiar that it took Frank a few seconds to wonder how the colonel knew it. ‘Vimy,’ he said, turning almost too abruptly as he reached the bottom step. ‘Near a place called Vimy. That was where my father was killed. He was a gunner, in the artillery. Have you heard of it?’

  He couldn’t see the colonel’s features because they had turned off the hall light before opening the door, but he sensed they changed. ‘Vimy, yes, I knew Vimy. Near there, you say. Not a place called Lens, by any chance?’

  ‘Don’t know could’ve been. I just remember my mother said near Vimy.’

  ‘Lens was a rough one. Very near the end but still a rough one. I thought perhaps – perhaps it might be – we’ll talk again.’

  Frank groped for his bike in the dark, banging his shin on the pedal. If he’d done it harder, much harder, a damaged shin wo
uld have got him off flying tomorrow because he couldn’t operate the aircraft pedals properly. But then he remembered he didn’t want to be off flying, he wanted to be doing it, with the others.

  He pushed the bike along the drive towards the gap in the trees that showed the slightly lighter western sky, not trusting himself to ride in the dark until on the road. When he reached the trees he paused and looked back at the house. The music had stopped but one of the upstairs sash windows was open and, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he made out the head and shoulders of a woman, leaning out. He couldn’t see her features but the shape of her hair was Vanessa’s. Her forearms were bare, faintly white. He raised his hand, although doubting she could see him. For a few seconds there was no response, then she slowly raised one hand, palm out, and withdrew.

  Chapter Four

  They were held in readiness the next morning. Another squadron did a wide sweep early on but found nothing apart from two more flak-ships off the French coast, which they honoured with a wide berth. There was a card game in the Dispersal hut. Frank sat it out, having no interest in cards. Heedless whether he won or lost, he could never feel it had anything to do with him. The Dodger also sat it out, in a corner with Tony, the baby-faced, prematurely balding newcomer, serious and quiet. They were trying to reassemble the gramophone they had dismantled, Tony on his knees and hunched over the detached head that held the needle, silent and intent, while the Dodger swore and expostulated. It was easy to imagine them as boys playing with Meccano; it could not be long since they had.

  Frank sat apart, smoking and flicking through a three-day-old Daily Mirror, prized by all ranks for the adventures of Jane, its near-naked cartoon pin-up. He felt tired but had no hangover, confident he could perform as usual but relieved he wasn’t asked to. The gramophone reinforced his preoccupation with Vanessa and her solitary music. He couldn’t write and thank them for dinner – he had no address, not even the name of the village. He could establish both with a little effort, of course, but he preferred to use it as a reason to call again soon. Ideally with another fish later that day, after they were stood down.

  He went outside to stretch his legs in a walk round the hut. It was a day of high broken cloud, significantly cooler than the day before and with an unseasonably chilling breeze. The mechanics lay wrapped in blankets beneath the wings of the waiting Spitfires. The whole aerodrome, not just the smoke-filled Dispersal hut, seemed oppressed by ennui. Nothing was happening, nothing was due to happen, nobody wanted anything to happen but unless it did everything was pointless. Frank lit another cigarette and stood staring at the elms beyond the end of the runway. The only moving thing was the station commander’s Hillman, leaving the control tower. Somewhere beyond those trees were the colonel and Vanessa, doing he knew not what, living lives he could not imagine. At least in her case.

  Back in the hut the card game had broken up and there was desultory talk about the war in Italy and the rights and wrongs of bombing Rome or shelling Monte Cassino. Patrick, who was as usual sitting apart and reading a book, called out to Tony.

  ‘Didn’t you live in Rome, when your father was at the embassy?’

  The boy looked up, pleased to be addressed, carefully removing the gramophone needle from between his lips. ‘Yes but I was away at school most of the time. Never got to know it well.’

  ‘That’s where I met them, your parents. I remember it now. Your father helped out when I lost my passport.’

  The telephone rang in the corner booth. Everyone looked up, ennui instantly dissipated. The orderly’s indistinct responses were the only sounds in the tense silence. He put the phone down and opened the door and leant out, without bothering to get up from his seat. ‘Early lunch!’ he shouted. ‘Show this afternoon. Report to briefing room 1230 hours.’

  Back in the mess they ate their sausages and mash and drank their tea rapidly, almost in silence. The lack of detail was ominous, suggesting something big. Only the Dodger kept talking, telling Tony about a nightclub in London. Frank remembered he had intended to reply to his mother’s letter that morning. He would do it later, definitely, provided he got back. He looked round for Patrick, hoping he was still his wingman, but couldn’t see him.

  At 1226 they all heard him. ‘All right, swallow and leave. Briefing now.’ He was standing in the doorway, holding a folder. They filed into the briefing room with a scraping of chairs and clumping of boots on the wooden floor. The wing commander and one of the intelligence officers were already there, standing before the familiar huge map covering one wall and showing London, the south-east of England, the Low Countries and France as far west as Cherbourg. At least it wasn’t a map that stretched into Germany, so it wasn’t to be a deep penetration show. Instead, a red ribbon marked a route direct to Amiens and back via Boulogne and Dungeness. Once seated, everyone lit up except the wing commander who took to the platform with his notes and pointing stick. Their smoke formed a cloud around models of German and Allied aircraft suspended from the ceiling. But it did nothing to diminish the glamour of the action photographs on the other three walls of Focke-Wulf 190s and Messerschmitt 109s, with diagrams showing aiming deflections.

  ‘Same as with pheasant or grouse,’ Patrick had said when Frank joined the squadron. ‘Ever shot driven game?’

  ‘I’ve shot moose,’ said Frank.

  Patrick laughed. ‘You’re the only man here who can say that.’ From that day Frank was known as Moose.

  The wing commander looked up. Tiredness lined his face but his expression was concentrated and determined. A much-decorated man who spoke quietly and wasted few words, he never needed to call anyone to order. They fell silent.

  ‘This afternoon we are taking part in Circus Number 87, H hour 1355. A raid by over one hundred Flying Fortresses on the Amiens Glissy airfield. The operation has been planned for some time and we are a last-minute addition.’ He paused, surveying the young men before him. Like Patrick, he had been through the Battle of Britain and, though probably only a few years older than most of them, he seemed a generation apart. ‘We have been honoured,’ he added, with the hint of a smile.

  Close escort on the approach at 16,000 feet would be provided by fourteen Spitfire squadrons, with another two squadrons providing advance support at 20,000 feet over the target from H hour minus five minutes. Further Spitfire squadrons would provide medium and top cover, the latter at 29,000 feet. The role of their own two squadrons was to provide return cover from Amiens at H hour plus five minutes. Their groans would have been audible had it not been for their respect for the wing commander.

  The hurly-burly of a dog-fight was one thing, intense, concentrated and short, but escorting bombers home, often damaged and straggling over many miles of air-space, was more gruelling. German fighters would be thoroughly aroused and probably reinforced. The bombers themselves were another danger, especially the Americans with their poor recognition training and trigger-happy gunners too willing to open up on anything that came near them.

  The wing commander enumerated the likely strength of fighter defences in that part of France: getting on for two hundred FW190s and about another hundred ME109s from farther away at Saint-Omer and Fort Rouge. Diversionary attacks by Typhoons and Bostons on Poix airfield and on the docks at Dunkirk would absorb some of the defenders and, it was hoped, distract German radar from the forming up of the Flying Fortresses. It was to be a big show.

  The wing commander rearranged his notes, then rapidly read out detailed instructions for timings, call-signs, compass-bearings, heights and homing course. Most pilots scribbled the figures relevant to them on the backs of their hands; a few, including Frank, used notebooks. He usually memorised what he wrote but as a precaution would strap the book to his thigh.

  Finally, the wing commander said, ‘Right, synchronise watches.’ He raised his wrist and waited. ‘I have twelve hours fifty-one minutes, fifty-five seconds . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . twelve hours fifty-two minutes exactly.’ He looked up, this t
ime without the hint of a smile. ‘Stay alert, gentlemen, eyes peeled. Good luck.’

  There was more scraping of chairs and shuffling of boots, then they clambered into the back of the Bedford three-tonner to return to the Dispersal huts. There they emptied their pockets of names, addresses, money, tickets, anything that would indicate location, and put it all in their lockers. Some took out lucky mascots – a lighter, an old coin, a teddy bear – before donning their thick white pullovers, sheepskin waistcoats, thigh-length woollen socks and fleece-lined boots. Frank slipped into his right boot the hunting knife he had brought from home and carried throughout his training and on every mission. He had never crashed, been wounded or shot down and he feared not to take it now. Of course it had no effect – how could it? – but why risk leaving it when everything had been all right so far? Yet he didn’t think of himself as superstitious, unlike Tony who had the next locker and always flew with a small, moth-eaten teddy bear. Frank counted that as superstitious. The knife might actually come in handy if he was shot down and on the run.

  He tucked his maps into his boot, then loaded his heavy Smith&Wesson revolver and stuffed the pockets of his life-jacket with emergency rations and his escape kit. Fitters appeared with their parachutes and inflatable dinghies, fixing them in the seats of the aircraft along with helmets, earphones and oxygen masks. Clambering into the cockpit, he felt as he imagined medieval knights must have when mounting their steeds, burdened and ungainly. But perhaps once on their horses they would feel at one with their mounts, nimble, swift and deadly, as he knew he would feel once his wheels left the runway and his Spitfire became an extension of his hands and feet and will.

  Tightly wedged, he tested radio, sight and camera-gun, armed cannon and machine-guns, adjusted rear vision mirror and oxygen mask, checked pressure in oxygen bottles, and waited. The squadron call-sign that day was Shield, with Patrick as Shield One. They would start engines at 1322 hours, take off at 1325, orbit until formed up, set course at 1332, fly at zero feet over the Channel, climb on full power to 10,000 feet when crossing the French coast, then rendezvous over Amiens at 25,000 feet. There they would turn 90 degrees to port and steer 047 degrees for five minutes. On the way they would ditch their auxiliary fuel tanks after twenty-five minutes at the signal to ‘drop your babies’, then take up battle formation.