One of the songs, home-made as it were, composed by Desert Air Force as it advanced and retreated alternately, with the Eighth Army, was set to the tune of Clementine. One of its verses was calculated to enrage the members of the navigators’ union, and the squadron had just ended with it. Malahide, inflamed with a mixture of beer, Chianti and Italian brandy, took umbrage.
“Have you lost us, Navigator?
“Come up here and have a look.
“Someone’s shot our starboard wing off.
“We’re all right then, that’s Tobruk!”
Tobruk was only a memory by 1st January 1943: back in British hands and 600 miles behind them.
Malahide, swaying when he moved away from the piano, which had been supporting him, butted Christopher in the chest with his bullet head.
“Never did bloody well lose yer, did I, Chris?”
“Not for want of trying, Harry old boy.”
“But we did have our starboard wing shot off, eh?”
“If we had a quid for every time, we’d be able to retire.”
“Don’t come the raw prawn, sport. Stick to the facts. We only had a wing shot off once.”
“I was going to say, if we had a quid for every shell and bullet hole...”
“Now you’re talking dinkum.”
“Navigating will be even easier from now on.”
“Even easier? It’s never been easy, yer Pommie bastard.”
“One way only: due west, and back on the reciprocal.”
“Oh, I see what yer mean. How long d’you reckon before we’re in Tripoli, Chris?”
“We’ll be there before that other mob, coming the other way.”
“Yeah, but how soon?”
“Depends on the weather. If we have as much rain in the next two months as we’ve had in the last two, it’ll slow things down. And we’re just coming into the season for gales. The sand’s going to blind us every time it blows.”
But as he flew next morning beyond the enemy front which ran south from Buerat el Hsun, 200 miles on the east of Tripoli, Christopher saw that the country over which they would be fighting changed from flat desert to neat square fields surrounded by date palms, and then to low sandstone hills that shone red among the green and the yellow-grey. The battle zone was leaving the desert behind. The armies had fought, and he had flown, over land where the ancient Greeks and Romans had established their empires. Now they were heading towards what had once been Carthage, and the ground at which he was at that moment looking down had once been under Carthaginian rule.
He recalled the old names of some of the towns the Romans and Greeks had built: Dernis which was now Derna, Cyrene, Apollonia, Lepcis Magna. They brought a fine tang of Europe, and Europe brought England closer. Soon, the enemy would be driven out of North Africa and the Allied armies and air forces would leap across the narrow Mediterranean in pursuit of final victory. It could not be long before he was fighting his way northward, towards home.
But they weren’t there yet. He was leading a flight of six, in two tight Vs, at 4000 ft. Somewhere among the sandhills was a battery of 88s, sited there to impede the next thrust for Tripoli. Malahide had the co-ordinates and would navigate them to the place. Time was when Christopher would have found that boring and gone in skimming the ground, following the contours, to take the enemy by surprise. Risking the light flak and the heavy machine-guns would have added to the fun. But no longer, now that he bore the responsibilities of deputy flight commander. He led his formation well above the height at which machine-gun fire could endanger them and where the 20 mm and 37 mm flak lost some of its accuracy. The enemy would not betray the position of the battery by elevating the barrels of the 88s to shoot at aircraft. At least, he hoped not.
But there were other, old familiar, dangers in the sky to reckon with still. He could see them ahead; down-sun, luckily.
“All Bender aircraft from Red One. Bandits eleven-o’clock, high, range five. Looks like a dozen or so.” He itched to have a go at the Messerschmitts, but wisdom and duty prevailed. There was still a note of regret as he gave the order “Going down.” They had to strafe that battery, not mix it with 109s.
A minute later they were at 500 ft. looking for the target, and tracer was shining more brightly around them than the morning sun.
Never mind. Strafing the battery of 88s would take them another step along the road to home. At this rate, he might be able to claim his place up at Oxford in another couple of years.
Briefings had changed since he first knew them, Roger reflected. So had the men with whom he flew. Time was when war was new to all of them. Next he had found himself, with Creamy Devonshire, the only two experienced ones in a crew of novices. Now, everyone on his crew was on a second tour — at least — and half the squadron had been picked for Lancasters because they were veterans.
As for the briefings: the old informal gatherings around a table in the Ops. Room had developed into a rigidly formal and rather awesome assembly in a specially built hall. The attitude of most of the audience was cynical and suspicious. Some of this was swank, an affectation, an attempt to show how seasoned they were and how contemptuous of anything that was told them by men who were not themselves going to fly on the raid.
He knew that his crew looked on him with an awe that amounted to reverence. With his many decorations, the confession they had wrung from him — and Devonshire — with the imbibing of much alcohol, about his sojurn in, and escape from, France, he was perhaps the most esteemed figure on the whole squadron. And he detested being such.
He glanced at Devonshire, seated next to him. He wore an M.M. now with his D.F.M., awarded belatedly for the part he had played in their battles as members of a Resistance group. He, too, was an object of great admiration and liked it no more than Roger did. He had taken advantage of his peculiar distinction and promotion to warrant officer, to pull strings. Some of his pre-war superiors were now in very high places and Warrant Officer Devonshire, M.M., D.F.M. and escaper, had their ear. With five operations still to go to complete his tour with their old squadron, he had arranged a posting to fly again with Roger.
He had not looked at all hurt when Roger had shown no gratitude.
“You’re out of your mind, Creamy. What’s up with you: flak-happy?”
“Got fed up with Halibags, that’s all. Didn’t reckon much to me skipper, either. Nearly got us killed twice, he did. And then he started aborting for any bloody stupid reason. I told ‘im I’d get him L.M.F’d if he did it again. Yellow as custard, that one was.”
God help me, Roger thought. Creamy still thinks I refused to clear out from France when he did because I was so damned brave that I was determined to stay for that big arms drop. He expects too much of me. I don’t think I can live up to his standard. I don’t even know if I can face taking off for Berlin tonight. I won’t know until I’m in the cockpit.
He sat woodenly watching the procession of specialists — he hoped, experts — who kept replacing each other on the dais. Station commander, squadron commander, Intelligence officer, Meteorological officer, squadron navigation leader, Armament officer, some nark down from Group H.Q. with some special gen about the target itself.
At least they carried a worthwhile bomb load these days. Six and a quarter tons. Fourteen thousand pounds. Quite a change from Blenheims, with their paltry thousand pounds.
Later, tucking into his bacon and eggs while a February wind whistled outside, he made automatic responses to the comments of his crew; while his mind went over the details of the approach to the target and he began to hope that bad weather over Berlin would force a last-minute cancellation.
But did he really want ops. to be scrubbed? There was only one way to force himself through these next thirty trips, and that was to grit his teeth and be done with them as soon as possible. Every scrub meant the shadow of another trip hanging over him. Tonight, thirty. This time tomorrow, only twenty-nine. And this time tomorrow he wouldn’t be eating bacon and eggs in a crowde
d, steamy room packed with men. He’d be finishing dinner at the Red Lion, the best pub for miles around. He’d have that cute little strawberry-blonde Code and Cypher officer for company. And he’d steer the conversation around to the question of a sticky forty-eight in London in a few weeks’ time.
In a few weeks, he should have notched up several more trips, too. The half-way stage of the tour would be in sight.
He was thinking of every possible encouraging prospect, to keep his mind off that immediate future. “What’s that, Creamy?”
“I was saying, Lofty’s got a crew mascot.”
Lofty was a scrawny, tall New Zealander with bright red hair and a permanent grin, their bomb aimer. Roger looked his way and Lofty raised a child’s cuddly toy: a cloth and sawdust Tiger Tim.
“Got it in Cambridge, boss: what d’you think?”
Roger wasn’t sure what he thought. He had no superstitions. Was it a weakness to put one’s trust in such totems? Shouldn’t a man derive his confidence from his own inner strength? Wouldn’t it dismay the crew if the mascot were accidentally left behind on some trip, or if it were destroyed by enemy action? On the other hand, if it were a symbol of the crew’s unity and an object of amusement, what harm could it do?
He temporised. “Have you always had a mascot, Lofty?”
“Sure. On my first tour we had a Shirley Temple doll.”
“What happened to it?”
“We gave it to the skipper when we finished the tour. What happened to us was, we had the shite scared out of us about ninety-nine times, lost an engine four times, came home on only two once, but the original crew made it without a scratch.”
“If you can guarantee the same performance from Tiger Tim, he’s welcome aboard.”
Somebody asked “How are you on two engines, Skip?”
“I’ll take you up sometime and show you how to fly a Lanc. on one.”
“I’ll take it on trust, Skipper.”
Roger knew that the hilarity and banter were signs of taut nerves, pre-operational tension. That hadn’t changed. Nor had the sense of apartness, of a barrier between the crews who were about to take off and the crews who serviced their aircraft. At other times no separation was discernible. But, as it always had, a mood of withdrawal had settled over the ground crew. When the flying crews left the operations canteen after their meal, the others seemed to keep deliberately away from them. From time to time they would catch the eye of some pilot, navigator or air gunner and quickly look away. It was as if they were awed by the thought that some of these would, almost certainly, not he coming back. It was an uncomfortable thought and one which they did not wish to communicate to those who were about to fly into mortal danger. Morituri to salutant. The notion made Roger shudder.
At the foot of the ladder under the hatch, lie felt a hand grip his arm. Devonshire was grinning at him. Quietly, so that the others could not hear, he said “Tiger Tim’s for the others, Rodge. We’re each other’s mascot, I reckon, don’t you?”
Roger smiled, although he felt little in the mood. “After these next thirty, I think we’ll both need a re-tread.”
He had a bad moment when all four engines were running, the instruments were all reading correctly and he was irrevocably committed. The control tower flashed a green light and he hesitated momentarily. Then his right hand took a firm grip on the throttle levers and he pushed them forward resolutely. The big aircraft rushed along the runway, gathering speed, and Roger settled back to endure whatever the night would bring; and another 29 nights like this one.
He had resolved not to look too far ahead in future. He would take each operation as it came, one at a time, and take no heed of how many still lay ahead to complete his tour. He would occupy his thoughts, instead, with the hours between each sortie; with the intervals which he would fill with whatever pleased him. There was little doubt about what that would be.
Meanwhile he had too much to occupy his attention on this trip to have time for fear. Bombing had become a more precise and technical craft year by year. Now there was the new Pathfinder Force to go ahead of the main stream and drop marker flares. The Lancaster was equipped with electronic marvels which, to the crew of a Blenheim in 1939 or 1940, would have seemed like figments of science fiction. There was Gee, which enabled navigators to find their way to the target with greater certainty than they could ever achieve by mere dead reckoning and star sights with a sextant. There was H2S, a radar device which showed the target and enabled the bomb aimer to do his job with precision. All this equipment demanded greater concentration than ever before.
There was more flak and there were more searchlights than ever before and more night fighters, to offset the added advantages. On the way across France the searchlight beams kept sweeping the sky, the heavy flak burst in the bomber stream with the familiar old bok-bok and the big crimson splashes. From time to time there would be an eruption of flames as a bomber went down, or a searing flash as one exploded.
Roger felt partly numbed. He had been conditioning himself for weeks past not to take any notice of what happened to other aircraft around him. He focused his attention solely on what he had to do.
There were 600 aircraft attacking Berlin tonight. Not the least danger was of being struck by the bombs dropped by someone above. It was not a rare event. Roger wished they were in the top layer instead of the middle of the stack.
Attacks were worked out in seconds now. Tonight the Pathfinders had begun dropping markers 311 minutes before the last aircraft was due to bomb. Roger had to make his bombing run at exactly 20000 ft. He had to be on target at a certain time.
With ten minutes to go he could see red and green flares over Berlin. Flak rocked his wings. He ignored it. He had to fly precisely at a ground speed of 245 m.p.h. There would be more flares outside the target area to help the bombers on their way home.
Presently Roger was making his bombing run in the glare of searchlights and through acres of exploding shells. Twenty-nine more night like this? He hoped he would survive them. He hoped even more that his nerve would hold out long enough to let him carry on until they were done.
Lofty, lying prone in the nose, was calmly guiding him to the aiming point.
“Left-left...bit more...steady...right...right...left-left...steady...”
Two hundred yards ahead of him a Lancaster blew up.
Away to the left, outside the flak zone, he could see tracer fire where one of the myriad lurking night fighters was attacking a bomber.
Think of Viviane, he told himself. Remember that every bomb you drop on those bastards down there, who killed her, is in revenge.
He held the Lancaster as steady as a rock. He felt cool and pleased about what he was doing. Vengeance was a healthy and natural human instinct. He had found the way to overcome all his fears: just picture all those bloody Krauts being blown to bits.
Roger began to sing quietly to himself and when Lofty announced “Bombs gone” he started laughing.
The Morfield Wing, 36 strong, was airborne over northern France at 30000 ft., on its way to keep a rendezvous with 200 B17 Flying Fortresses of the U.S.A.A.F. returning from a daylight raid on Germany, on a fine afternoon in March. From 8000 ft. to 22000 ft. there was scattered cloud.
From his position at the head of the formation, James could see the 36 Spitfires of another wing, led by his old squadron friend Tiny Ross, 5000 ft. below. Beneath them, again, were two more wings, each of only two squadrons, 24 aircraft, flying at 20000 ft.; the height at which the bombers were coming back from their mission.
It was a frequent task these days to escort the American heavy bombers on their way to the target as far as the Spitfires’ endurance allowed and to pick them up again on their way back. James enjoyed the duty. It usually meant a fight with FW 190s and the new Me 109G, which had a top speed of almost 430 m.p.h. The Spitfire IX was better than either of them. The Americans were punctual timekeepers, too, which meant that there was no waiting, burning up fuel, before they appeared
at the right place and time.
He could see the huge aeroplanes many miles away, in their orderly boxes, and he wondered how often they had been attacked since they left their target. Even without fighter protection they were a formidable proposition for the German fighter pilots to tackle. The Forts bristled with .5 inch guns and their combined fire, skilfully co-ordinated, flung a thick screen of heavy bullets around them. Recalling 1940 and 1941, the era of massive formations of Junkers, Dorniers and Heinkels over Britain, James was thankful that they had not been equipped with machine-guns of such large calibre or in such quantities. Greatly outnumbered as Fighter Command had been in those days, he would have been unlikely to survive to be here now.
Despite the B17’s weaponry and the size of their formations, the Luftwaffe fighters managed to break through their defensive fire and shoot many of them down. It was sheer weight of numbers that did it, for the Luftwaffe had never been at the numerical disadvantage under which the R.A.F. had had to fight in the first three years of the war.
When the Fortresses were within two or three miles, James saw first one and then another leave the formation with smoke trailing behind them, and a third one explode in a smother of flames. It was then that he was first able to discern the small darting shapes of enemy fighters when the sun caught them and they made bright silver specks against the dark blue of the upper sky. Presently the colours of tracer bullets became visible.
He searched for more 190s and 109s high above the bombers. Somebody else saw them first.
“Jampot from Cocoa Leader. Bandits twelve-o’clock, high.”
Where, dammit? James screwed up his eyes and peered ahead. Cocoa Leader must be imagining things. No...he had been looking too high. There they were, about 2000 ft. above. Another few seconds and they would begin their dive onto the unsuspecting Bl7s. A copybook set-up. The enemy fighters would hurtle down, pour their cannon shells into the Fortresses’ engines, and break away while still out of range of the defenders’ machine-guns.
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 71