It was all very jolly and under-stated, but it looked shoddy now in the light of failure: even though the Air Force had not failed and nor had the ordinary fighting men in the Line.
“The whole bloody show was crook, sport. Waste of our bloody time.”
“What the hell went wrong, Harry?”
“Our bloody generals. Rommel makes them look like a bunch of old spinsters trying to make up their minds to cross Collins Street in the rush hour.”
FOUR
The squadron commander’s office was in No. 2 hangar. On the grey door his name was painted in white letters: Squadron Leader J.R.C. Fenton, D.S.O., D.F.C. (Bars are never stated.) The squadron was still settling in after arriving back near the Channel coast.
August 1942 was not an auspicious time for the Allies. The tide of Japanese invasion had swept over Honk Kong, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, the Philip-pines, French Indo-China, the East Indies and several Pacific islands. In North Africa, the Eighth Army stood stale-mated on the Alamein Line. In Russia, the Germans were about to launch their final assault on Stalingrad.
It was not an auspicious time for James Fenton personally. His brother was resentfully stagnating in the Western Desert, his letters home making it clear —guardedly, because censored — how cynically he regarded the immediate future. His cousin was still somewhere in France; striving, he supposed, to make his way back to England. His sweetheart was again risking her life and the Gespato and S.S. torture cells in enemy-held France.
The ground crews at work on two Spitfires near the foot of the stairs leading up to their C.O’s office heard rapid footsteps. Squadron Leader Fenton seemed always to be in a hurry. The ubiquitous wireless set sent the strains of Donald Peers crooning “When They Sound The Last All Clear” echoing about the huge building. Some of the men hummed, sang or whistled more or less in tune. They stopped when James paused for a quick word with them. He never passed without asking how they were getting on: both with the job in hand and personally.
James hurried on to his Hillman staff car parked on the tarmac apron. He was wondering how old that crooner was and why he wasn’t in uniform. Perhaps he was. Why wasn’t he fighting, instead of making gramophone records? Two years ago he would not have given the matter any thought. Now, he automatically suspected every man’s contribution to the war effort. He despised anyone who did not do his utmost: which, to him, meant going into the battle line, whether in the air or on the ground or at sea.
Outside, there was the smell of freshly cut grass which brought back warm days like this before the war. It was a Wednesday and in peacetime would have been the weekly “sports afternoon”, free time to play cricket for the squadron against some other Service unit or to drive down to the coast to swim or to sail a dinghy. Now there were no half-days and there was no respite on Sundays.
He drove along the perimeter track to his squadron’s dispersal area. The Spitfires stood in brick blast pens, covered with camouflage netting. Wooden huts housed the crew room and workshop. In the one, a gramophone was playing; Kate Smith singing “Rose O’Day”. In the other, the wireless was now broadcasting Flanagan and Allen and “Down Forget-me-not Lane”. James did not ask himself why Miss Smith was not in the W.A.A.F., A.T.S. or W.R.N.S. and he took it for granted that the two members of the Crazy Gang were over military age.
He stood by the car and watched two of his Spitfires coming in to land from a convoy patrol. The squadron had received its brand new Mark IXs on the day before it moved south and everyone was itching to have a go at the Focke-Wulf 190 on level terms. The Spit IX could attain 408 m.p.h. at 25000 ft., climb to 20000 ft. in under seven minutes and make a height of 44000 ft. It was armed with two 20 mm cannon and four .303 machine-guns. It had a range of 434 miles, which allowed generous combat time over France.
The pilots were all outside the hut, some lying on the grass, others in deck chairs. There was a relaxed air about them, manifested in their attitudes and their cheerful exchange of jibes, their derisive comments on the landings they were watching, which was at the opposite pole from the sullen uneasiness which had characterised them when he took command.
The gramophone stopped. Henderson, stretched out in a deck chair with his face tilted to the sun, called to the telephone orderly in the crew room.
“Put on Carmen Miranada.” He began, in anticipation and a tuneless tenor, to sing “I Yi,Yi,Yi,Yi Like You Very Much...”
“Cancel that.” Moore, the other flight commander, turned round to enforce his instructions to the grinning A/C1. “Let’s have ‘Room Five-hundred-and-four’. A Flight chose the last one.”
A moment later Billy Mayer’s syncopated piano playing issued from the open door of the crew room.
James sank into an empty chair. “What’s happened to ‘Chatanooga Choo-Choo’? I like Glenn Miller. Haven’t heard it for days.”
Henderson stretched lazily. “Some clumsy clot on B Flight sat on it, sir.”
“Slander,” Moore said. “Lies into the bargain. Someone on A Flight, whom I won’t name, gave it to a Waaf. That tall blonde job in the Ops. Room who waggles her bum and wears tinted specs.”
“From what I hear, there’s no need to bribe her,” said James. “She gives it away quite cheerfully.”
“Must have been some other popsie, then,” Moore said quickly.
“Barry thinks you always have to give a popsie something to get her to put out,” Henderson yawned. “It’s the only way he can ever get laid.”
Further interesting developments were halted by the approach of the Salvation Army canteen van. The two junior pilots on each flight collected pennies from the others and joined the group of airmen buying tea, coffee and buns. Everyone watched some Spitfires of the two other squadrons on the station taking off and criticised them all for being slow in raising their wheels. They would have made the same derogatory comments even if the pilots had raised their undercarriages in the very split second of becoming airborne. Some others came in to land. They landed smoothly but to hear James’s pilots one would have thought it the crudest possible performance by raw novices.
A pick-up van came down the road. It stopped and a fresh-faced young pilot officer wearing pilot’s wings on his pristine tunic stepped out of it. He approached James, looking pleased with himself. James was looking incredulous. The new arrival came smartly to a halt and saluted with the polish of a Guardsman.
James rose slowly to his feet.
“Hello, Millington.”
“Good morning, sir. I’m posted to the squadron, sir.”
James began to smile with a mixture of pleasure, astonishment and apparent pride which none of the others had ever seen.
“Congratulations. I’m delighted you made it.” He turned to the others, who were watching in silence. “This is Millington...Andrew, isn’t it?” Millington nodded, self-possessed. “He was my fitter on...Squadron. I put him up for a pilot’s course. And here he is, like a homing pigeon.” James pointed out the other pilots in turn and named them. “A Flight are one man short: you can have him, Don.”
Henderson put down his empty cup and stood up. “Right. I’ll take you on a sector recce. Never flown a Nine before, I suppose?”
“Hang on a moment, Don. Give me ten minutes to have a chat with him. Come and have a stroll, Andrew. Bring your logbook.”
James led him out of earshot, flicking over the pages of the record of Millington’s flying career to date. “Above average. You’re going to have a lot to do to live up to that on this squadron.”
“I asked for the posting, sir.”
“Oh, did you!”
“I wanted to tell you how grateful I am that you pushed...er...encouraged me into remustering to pilot, sir.”
“‘Pushed’ will do. Didn’t need much of a shove, though, did it? Same goes for most people. As a matter of fact I suggested an air gunner’s course to my batman at Dallingfield. He’s on a Lancaster squadron now, I hear.”
“I knew him, sir. Higgs. Alf Higgs. Wanted to be
a jockey. I used to talk to him in the Naafi. He used to give me tips. I gave him a couple of bob every time he put me onto a winner.”
“Thai’s the chap. Didn’t know you were a betting type.”
“My father always has a few racehorses in training, sir.”
“I never could understand why you came into the Mob as an erk in peacetime.”
“I’m afraid it was rather to annoy my too-protective parents. I feel rather sorry now.”
“They must be pleased now.”
“Pleased as Punch, sir.” This was said with a rueful grin.
“Well, I’m glad to have you and I’m sure you’ll do well. You’d better get off on that sector recce, or your flight commander will be getting acid. You’ll find everyone’s very outspoken on this squadron. Nobody pulls his punches, even with me. I encourage plain speaking.”
Millington grinned again: with some secret amusement this time. “I can imagine, sir.”
He saluted and went off to join Henderson while James ruminated about the precise significance of that last remark and the look which accompanied it. Nonetheless he felt a glow of satisfaction. He had felt that young Millington was wasted as an engine fitter, with his expensive education and intelligence. He felt sure that he had given him a great deal more self-respect than he could ever have acquired by repairing aeroplanes when he could be flying them.
He watched Henderson and Millington take off and was amused to see that both aircraft’s wheel snapped up and folded into the wings simultaneously, while they were barely off the grass.
When James went into the mess for lunch he found a letter awaiting him in the rack. The name and address on the cheap envelope had been printed with a scratchy nib of the sort he had been made to use at prep. school. The writing was uneven. The letter had originally been sent care of Air Ministry, whence it was forwarded.
It was an unprepossessing looking missive but he had received many sent through Air Ministry, as a result of the publicity attendant on his decorations and his place high on the list of fighter pilots with the most kills. Those had been full of praise and thanks for all that he was doing for the country. Some had been ardent invitations from sexually stimulated women and young girls. He had a feeling that this one would not belong to the same category.
It was written on lined paper in a clumsy hand.
“Dear Sir, Our only son Sergeant Alfred Higgs was killed in a air raid on Germany yesterday it was you made him do it if not he would still be alive his mother and I are proud of him along with his sisters and I hope you will be ashamed of what you done to our poor boy. I know what war is like I was in the East Surreys in the last lot and wounded three time I hoped my dear boy would be spared the same but you done for him even if you are supposed to be a great hero he was a hero too but that won’t bring him back to us and you should of let him alone. Yours truly J. Higgs.”
He tore it up and went into the bar with trembling hands and a queasy stomach; and no appetite.
Higgs’s death kept thrusting into his thoughts all that afternoon. The squadron went on a pub crawl in the evening and he drank much more than usual but he seemed to have built up a tolerance of alcohol and while everyone else was noisy and genuinely cheerful he had to simulate high spirits. Alone in his room he kept telling himself that he was not to blame for Higgs being killed. Higgs was only one among thousands; whom he himself — not to mention his brother — might join on any day. He would not acknowledge the letter. There was nothing which, with a dignity the writer would understand, he could say. But he still found it difficult to go to sleep.
As usual, he compared Higgs’s lot with Nicole’s. However Higgs had died, whether swiftly from a burst of fire from a night fighter or blown to pieces by flak, or slowly in a burning aircraft, he had suffered no more, and probably much less, than Nicole when the Gestapo had spent days and nights torturing her. As it always did, this thought banished all pity for everyone but her, whom he loved.
James thought of the power of love and the power of death, and the respectful way in which people always spoke of the dead, whatever kind of character they had displayed in life. It was only decent to speak no ill of those who were beyond defending themselves, but he could not see that there was any call to be reverential about everyone indiscriminately. On the contrary the British, especially, treated love with the suspicion with which they treated large sums of money. Any mention of either aroused envy, jealousy and the ridicule with which people tried to disguise such unworthy emotions. It was indecent to discuss great amounts of money and it was equally embarrassing to utter or hear a strong avowal of love. It was the convention of polite society that if such an indiscretion were spoken, it would go no further. There was a time when this had inhibited even his private thoughts. He had outgrown such constraints and not a day passed without his examining his love for Nicole and taking pleasure in acknowledging that it was the most significant fact in his life and for the future. When he adjusted his perspective in this way, he saw the fate that had befallen Higgs and whatever might befall him as insignificant compared with his concern for the safety of Nicole.
He had, in a way, built an intellectual and emotional fortress from behind whose defences he could fight his daily war against the Germans with detachment. Everything that was real concerned Nicole and himself.
*
On 18th August two Hurricane squadrons arrived to join the three Spitfire squadrons based permanently at R.A.F. Morfield.
For days an atmosphere of some cataclysmic event had been building up. The group captain commanding the station and the wing commander flying had been twice summoned to conferences at Group Headquarters. On the 17th they had informed the squadron commanders of what was secretly afoot.
The new arrivals necessitated a crowding of existing quarters and the improvisation of extra temporary accommodation. The pilots of the Spitfire squadrons asked questions which were unanswered. “You’ll be told at briefing this evening” was all they could extract from their squadron C.Os. Nobody was allowed off camp and all outgoing telephone calls were stopped. There had been nothing to compare with this sense of impending convulsive action since the summer of 1940 when the whole country expected Hitler to invade at any moment.
Late on the afternoon of the 18th all pilots were paraded in the big conference room on the upper floor of Station H.Q., where the station commander told them that they would be taking part the following morning in Operation Jubilee: a large-scale Commando raid on Dieppe involving a fleet of 237 naval vessels, 6,100 troops and 75 squadrons of aircraft. One Beaufighter, two Blenheim, three Typhoon, four Mustang, five Boston, eight Hurricane and 48 Spitfire squadrons were taking part. Also four of B 17 Flying Fortresses.
There was a general stirring and a murmur of pleased surprise that lasted a good half-minute.
“The object,” the group captain told them “is to destroy local defences, power stations and other installations useful to the enemy. To destroy aerodrome facilities, take prisoners, and to sink, capture or remove craft in Dieppe harbour. The landing force will consist of two Canadian brigades and a Canadian tank regiment, totalling five thousand men, fifty American Rangers and a thousand and fifty of our own Commandos.
“The Luftwaffe strength is estimated as approximately one hundred and ten bombers, Dornier two-one-sevens, J.U. Eighty-eights and Heinkel Treble-ones; and about two hundred and ten fighters, of which nearly two hundred are F.W. One-nineties.
“You will be under control of the Headquarters ship, the Hunt Class destroyer Calpe, which will have Air Commodore Cole on board to co-ordinate the air side of the operation.”
The briefing continued for an hour, with a long contribution from the Intelligence officers. After it, the Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons were separately briefed on their individual functions. The former would be strafing ground targets, the latter covering the ships, the land force and the bombers.
“We’re being called at three-o’clock,” James told his pilots at the e
nd of it all. “Breakfast half past. On readiness at four-fifteen. If anybody isn’t in bed by nine tonight, he’s a clot. If anyone drinks more than two pints this evening, he’s a suicidal clot. Drink in half-pints; it’ll make your ration seem bigger.” He spoke cheerfully but they had no illusions: they were under orders.
He was looking forward to it. Operation Jubilee would be just the test he wanted, to prove the efficacy of the training he had given the squadron during the last three months. Only Millington lacked experience. He had done a few convoy patrols, one sweep and a Rhubarb; which had given him only two chances to fire his guns in action. He may not even be needed tomorrow.
James’s last waking thought was of the destroyers, mine sweepers and landing craft which were about to sail from Portsmouth, Southampton, Shoreham and Newhaven.
When he was called at three-o’clock the next morning he thought of the Bostons and Blenheims which would be taking off soon to bomb enemy artillery batteries and radar stations and to drop smoke bombs to blind the German gunners and give the small ships some cover as they approached the shore.
He wondered how many of them the Royal Navy would shoot down in mistake for Ju 88s.
The usual lack of chatter at breakfast, but a manifest excitement held in check. Even the sleepiest-looking pilots managed to give the impression of being eager rather than resentful at being deprived of at least another four hours abed.
Even when they reached the crew room, with darkness still spread over the sky, nobody settled down to doze until the first scramble was ordered.
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 63