Brand seated himself in a chair by Roger’s bed and looked around to include Devonshire: whom he had greeted first on entering the room, and with whom he had exchanged a few words before delivering his oblique comment on Sister’s charms.
“It was the worst show we’ve ever had, I’m afraid. We’ve been unable to put up more than eight aircraft ever since: most of the crews are raw replacements.”
“As bad as that, sir?”
“Both squadrons, I’m afraid. We lost Wing Commander Dean and his crew.” He went on to recite the names of the dead and of the new squadron commander.
“Devonshire and I had better get back smartly, then, sir.”
The worms wriggled clammily in Roger’s intestines again. I hope I sound convincing, he thought.
“We could certainly do with you both, Hallowes. But Air Ministry have other ideas.”
The cold worms were stilled. Again the tingling feeling of relief and liberation swept through Roger. He waited.
“I’m afraid you’re both posted off ops. High time, too. You’re both going to an O.T.U. to instruct.”
Roger looked across the room at the broadly beaming Devonshire. He looked again at Brand.
“Surely we’d be more use on the squadron, sir, if they’re so short of experienced crews?”
Not, he remembered with a pang, that he had a crew; only two-thirds of one.
“All the old hands are being posted. Quite rightly. You’ve all done enough. You two are lucky to get flying jobs: a lot of very good types are being posted to Staff appointments and other ground jobs.”
Devonshire asked “Where is it, sir?”
“Blythewold.”
“Strewth! Bloody Yorkshire.”
Brand looked amused. “I’m a Yorkshireman, Devonshire; and my home is not far from Blythewold.”
Devonshire looked confused. “Sorry, sir... didn’t mean it like that. Only, Yorkshire’s a long way from The Smoke.”
“Never mind.” Brand was still smiling. “And make sure you’re properly dressed when you report there.”
Devonshire looked blank. “Properly dressed, sir?”
“There is some compensation for being posted so far from your home, Devonshire. Congratulations.” Brand rose, and, with a dramatic gesture which Roger would never have expected from him, produced a small silver rosette from his pocket, which he handed to Devonshire; and six brass crowns which he tossed on his bed.
“A bar to your D.F.M. and promotion to flight sergeant: Stores sent you those,” he pointed at the crowns, which would adorn Devonshire’s sleeves, above his stripes, “so that you can put them up before you leave here.”
Devonshire’s face had turned bright red and his hands trembled as he looked at the rosette which would be stitched to his medal ribbon to denote the bar.
“Cor! Thank you very much, sir.”
The group captain held out his hand. Devonshire hesitantly shook it.
Bond returned to Roger’s bed.
“Congratters to you, too, Hallowes. Your D.F.C. has just been gazetted.”
He took a strip of medal ribbon with broad violet and white diagonal stripes on it from an envelope and put it on the locker. Then he shook Roger’s hand.
“Thank you, sir... but what about the rest of the chaps?”
Brand looked grave. “Air Ministry have been quite good to both squadrons. There would have been more decorations if more of you had survived to receive them.”
*
The Church of England chaplain from Bircham Newton called later that day. He had been frequently to see Roger. On his first visit he had explained, looking pleased and more than a little astonished, “Bob Mellor” (the station padre at Baxton) “telephoned and asked me to look you up. I would have anyway, of course. But he made a particular point of it: said you set an excellent example... one of the few officers who attend church regularly.”
Roger had felt embarrassed and somewhat hypocritical: it was on account of Daphne that he had started going to Sunday Matins. He was so weak and ill at the time that sheer apathy prevented him from making a disclaimer of piety.
He was still feeling weak and not thinking lucidly.
The chaplain was bright and breezy today. “I hear from Bob Mellor that you both deserve congratulations. He sent his. May I add mine?”
To change the subject, Roger said “We’re both posted from the squadron, I’m afraid. We’ll only be going back to Baxton to pick up our kit and get our clearance chits signed.”
“Oh. And where are you going?”
“The O.T.U. at Blythedale.”
“Splendid! There’s another old theological college chum of Bob’s and mine there: Matthew Prior. I’ll drop him a line and tell him to expect you.”
Behind the padre’s back, Devonshire made a grimace at Roger.
“That’s very kind of you, Padre,” Roger said. He had a feeling that his privacy was being jeopardised, but did not quite know how; or why he felt so ungrateful to this well-meaning man.
*
“It’s an ideal day for a Rhubarb.” Tug Wilson said it as though he were bestowing a privilege which they were all clamouring to be granted. There was a creak of chairs, rustling of newspapers being put aside, the shuffling of feet.
From the wireless set came the voice of Judy Campbell singing “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square.” Someone switched it off.
Wilson had instinctively turned to his old squadron. James was pleased. They should get plenty of work, although Tug would have to be fair and give the other two squadrons a decent share. He had not forgotten how he and the others had felt in the stressful days of last summer and autumn, when the bell of the Ops telephone had begun to sound like a knell and people were known to vomit or have to rush to the latrine when they heard it ring: but anything was welcome as a change from the recent months of night patrols.
“I think this is one for the old stagers.” Wilson looked around. He jabbed the stem of his pipe at James. “I’ll take you, James. Walter, you take Tiny. We might as well make it a finger four while we’re about it.” Wing Commander Wilson had never believed in doing things by halves: both his car, a 1932 open Bentley, and his wife, a Junoesque auburn-head, were the largest of their species on the station: as they had been at Nesborough and, before that, at Stanswick.
“An ideal day for a Rhubarb” was a liberal interpretation of the weather conditions. Cloud base over Dallingfield was at 600 ft. Over the French coast it was thought to be about the same, with possibly some mist and fog. Seen from that point on the Sussex coast, there was rain on the horizon: which meant about half-way across the Channel.
No wonder Tug Wilson had so bluffly declared that it was one for the old stagers. James had done only two Rhubarbs, a Circus and two wing sweeps as yet. He was far from reluctant to go out now; his only reservation was about just where the impetuous Wilson would decide to take them. He seemed to regard the denser flak concentrations as a personal insult: they had no right to exist and it was up to him to see what they were defending and to wipe out as many guns and gun crews as they could. And, in the process, those who flew with him.
James’s fitter, the former Leading Aircraftman Swallow, was now a sergeant and he had, as fitter, A/C1 Millington. The contrast between them was, in its way, unnerving. Millington was a rebel, although he could scarcely have looked less like it; and something of a misfit. At the age of sixteen he had decamped from a reputable small public school in Yorkshire to try to join the French Foreign Legion. Frustrated in this by a pursuing father, he had left home one night in the small hours and enlisted in the R.A.F. These bizarre actions, all the more so because of the startling conventionality of his parents, brother and sister, and indeed his whole family, had been inspired by his reading of P.C. Wren and T.E. Lawrence.
A/C1 Millington made no concessions to his comrades and expected none nor any mockery. He had an unblinking stare, his cultured accent remained unmodified. His school was a notoriously tough one: Although h
is physique, in uniform, looked unimpressive, he was a respected lightweight boxer with a whiplash left - he was a southpaw - and dazzling footwork. Nor was he hesitant about using his skills in self-defence outside the ring. His workmates called him “Milly”, which he tolerated. Originally there had been an implication of effeminacy about it, prompted by his accent “toffee-nosed” in the disgusting imagery of the lower orders, with its suggestion of blocked nostrils - his pale complexion and slender build. He had accepted the name and set the other matters to rights with three or four swift barrack-room knockouts.
Millington had his own views on the morning’s operation, as on most matters.
“Rather inclement, sir.”
Sergeant Swallow, who was ubiquitous among the dispersed Spitfires but always seemed to turn up most often beside James’s, sucked his teeth.
“I reckon it’s pissing down over there, sir.” Since the squadron’s five weeks in France, Sergeant Swallow considered himself an authority on French weather.
James said “I hope it is. They won’t expect us.”
Millington’s basilisk eye fixed him as though he were a cross-section of something unspeakable on a microscope slide.
“Wouldn’t there be a greater element of surprise in a low-level attack on a fine day, sir?”
“Don’t be daft, Milly.”
“No, he’s got a point, Sergeant. But you’ve overlooked one rather large one as well, Millington. This weather clutters up their radiolocation equipment. On a fine day, they can see us coming.”
This was not true if they stayed down at nought feet, but James was not going to give Millington any leverage by saying so. Although he instinctively had a great deal of empathy for him, he equally, by training, automatically supported the N.C.O.
“I see, sir.” Millington, standing on the port wing, helped James with his straps. “I hope there are no balloons up, sir.”
“So do I.”
Watching the Spitfires taxi away, Swallow said, without looking at Millington, “You’re a daft pudden sometimes, Milly. Did you see the look on Flight Looie Fenton’s face when you said that about balloons?”
“Not particularly.”
“You should particularly bloody think before you speak. He flew into a balloon cable over the Thames estuary last July when Jerry was over in dicey weather, and bloody near killed himself. Of course,” Swallow’s tone became withering, “you weren’t on the squadron then. But you want to watch it, chum, when it comes to talking about bloody balloons to Mr. Fenton. Right shook up he were.”
“I’m sorry. It was remiss of me.”
“It bloody were. Now get that trolley acc out of the way. Then grab a bike and get over to Number Three Hangar or you’ll be late for pay parade. And I want half a dollar from you when you get back, for the kitty.”
“What kitty, Sergeant?”
“We’re having a flight piss-up before Flight Lieutenant Fenton goes on leave.”
“Ah, a worthy cause. I esteem our flight commander above rubies. He’s a good egg.”
“Above Ruby’s what?” Swallow said vulgarly. He grinned. “Get cracking, or I’ll worthy cause you with some fatigues.”
Millington made off, singing a garbled version of the recent music hall hit, “Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major.”
“Kiss me good night, Sergeant Swallow... Sergeant Swallow, be a mo-o-other to me-e-e...”
“A/C Millington.” Swallow’s bawl could be heard in the workshop above the strains of Vera Lynn and “The White Cliffs of Dover.”
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“At the double. Report back to me here in twenty minutes. I’ve got some jobs for you.”
“They won’t reach the Ms for another twenty minutes, Sergeant.”
“Then I’ll have a lot of jobs for you when you do get back, A/C Millington.”
Millington, having moved the trolley accumulator, pedalled off. He was singing again and the sergeant shook his head hopelessly as he heard “There’s a man by the name of Swallow in Mobile... Oh, there’s a man by the name of Swallow in Mobile...”
But he was wiser than to hail Millington back, which would have been an admission that the thrust had gone home. But he wondered what scabrous attribute of his namesake in Mobile Millington had invented. He would challenge him to sing the verse at the flight party in The Fox And Hounds tomorrow night.
*
The four Spitfires skimmed over the lumpy Channel with their slipstream whipping the creaming tops from the waves and making swirling whorls of froth, like elder flowers, in the troughs.
They had crossed half-way just beneath the clouds. Wilson had led them down when they ran into rain. Now they were making for the mouth of the Somme. Wilson had an attitude to the fighters based at Abbeville which he described as “taking a prejudiced view.” He was not noticeably more tolerant of those based at nearby Crecy-en-Ponthieu and Montreuil.
It was still raining when they crossed the French coast. They met no flak there. They raced on towards Abbeville at 100 ft. Millington’s words had stayed in James’s mind and brought noticeable contractions in the pit of his stomach as they sped through the damp and dingy morning. His collision with the balloon cable had been only one grisly episode in a period crowded with narrow escapes and had not, therefore, been prominent in his memories. That morning’s unintentional reminder had brought it starkly to the foreground and he kept thinking that he saw balloons in the distance as they went deeper into enemy territory.
Light flak began to fizzle around them but at such a low altitude they crossed the cone of fire at each site so quickly that the gunners could not sight accurately. They could only maintain the heaviest barrage possible for as long as the aircraft were in view. It was bad enough.
Wilson took them lower. James expected to end his days violently against the side of a church tower or a pylon at any second. The rain stopped. Tracer from quadruple twenty-millimetre and single thirty-millimetre guns passed beneath, above and on both sides of them.
The airfield came in sight. Guns all round its perimeter were shooting at them. There were no aircraft to be seen. They whirled around outside the field. Still no aeroplanes visible.
Wilson turned towards Crécy-En-Ponthieu. It was the obvious next place and the enemy anticipated them. Again they ran the gauntlet.
At Crécy they saw a line of Me 109s under camouflage nets. At their low height they were not deceived.
Wilson said “Going in.”
The barrels of the guns surrounding the airfield swung with them. The 109s were widely spaced. James saw his shells exploding on the one he had selected. He fired a burst of incendiaries. Fire gushed from it. He banked steeply and sought another. He was watching Wilson, but there was no need to protect his tail, for the four of them were the only aircraft airborne in the area.
Four Messerschmitts were burning. James lined up on another. There were two more on fire. He fired shells and incendiary bullets together. Flames and smoke erupted from his second victim.
He banked away and counted the fires: seven. And one well away from the perimeter where the 109s were parked; it was about a third of the way across the field. He saw its pilot scramble out of the fiery mass and run in a staggering circle, beating at the flames which flared from his clothing. Then he fell and lay still with machine-gun fire still thudding into the ground around him.
The tail of a Spitfire protruded from the fire which was raging a few yards from the dead pilot. The Spitfire’s tanks exploded and the billows of smoke from this rolled over him and hid him from view.
James heard Wilson say “Let’s go”, with a heavy heart. He looked for the third surviving Spitfire. It was banking close on his left and he saw Tiny Ross’s identity letter.
Walter Addison had been his flight commander before he took over the squadron. He was already married when James joined the squadron and now he had two young children as well as a wife to grieve for him.
They headed north.
“Form vic
.”
James slid into position to the right of Wilson and looked across as Ross settled in on the other side. “Ammo, James?”
“About half.”
“Tiny?”
“The same.”
“Right. Those bastards will think we’re going home.”
Oh, God! Did they have to go and look at that pyre again which had consumed what was left of Walter after his burning clothes and the machine-gunners had done their work?
He followed Wilson and once more they tore out of the grey gloom to strafe Crécy-En-Ponthieu.
This time, Wilson, while James and Ross broke to attack the camouflaged 109s, bore down on the men who were clearing the wreckage of the Spitfire away and those who were grouped around, watching. When James finished his attack he saw the ground littered with dead Germans and Wilson slamming the last of his ammunition into a wooden hut from which men had evidently tried to run, for there were bodies piled in the doorway. The chimney of a stove was smoking and before James pulled away he saw the whole hut burst into flames.
He and Ross had each ignited another Me 109. Now, seized by the same fury that had impelled Wilson to slaughter as many as possible of the men who had killed Walter Addison, he dived at one of the four-barrelled flak guns and sent its crew tumbling with a short burst. He raced low over the ground at another, and, with his remaining rounds, killed that crew also.
Ross, meanwhile, destroyed one more enemy fighter.
They turned away from the aerodrome and re-formed in a V, heading for the Channel.
FIVE
James had already postponed his leave once to give himself time to help settle the squadron in at Dallingfield. Christopher had therefore also postponed his. Now they both did it again. The relationship between the officers on a squadron, before the war, was close to that which bound members of a family. It was much stronger and more intimate than any friendship between civilian colleagues. To begin with, they were united not in the pursuit of wealth but in serving their country and therefore shared certain ideals. In their conduct and dress, both off duty and on, they conformed to a particular code. The married ones either lived in married quarters on camp or in rented houses very close by. The wives all knew each other and all their husbands’ brother officers. They shared the same social life, much of which was centred on the mess.
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 31