‘Keep a watch on the screen’ – Bryan’s voice was stretched but controlled – ‘if he’s kept to the same course, we should be right behind him.’
Tommy bent to the task. ‘No contact.’
The minutes passed. ‘No contact.’
Bryan fishtailed the aircraft in a desperate and futile attempt to sweep more of the sky.
‘No contact.’
The engine note dropped back as Bryan slowed down and broke off the phantom chase.
‘He must’ve seen us and changed course,’ Bryan said. ‘Hardly surprising, he was close enough to count my fillings.’
The Beaufighter rolled gently into a shallow bank, heading back to the British coast.
‘Blackbird C-Charlie to Night-warden Control. Contact lost, returning to patrol line.’
***
Bryan dropped into a perfect three-point landing and taxied out to the dispersal bay. Tommy unhooked his straps and knelt over the gun breeches in the fuselage floor, re-engaging the safety catches on the unfired cannons.
The aircraft jolted to a halt, the engines cut and the propellers windmilled to rest. Tommy checked the AI apparatus was off and exited through the rear hatch. The night air chilled his face, but the shivering that pulsed through his body had its genesis in his core. He stood, miserable and alone in the dark, waiting for his pilot to finish the shutdown.
A few minutes passed before the hatch under the cockpit fell open and Bryan dropped to the ground. He banged the hatch shut and walked towards the operations hut for debriefing. Tommy fell into step beside him.
‘I’m really sorry, Flight.’
‘What for?’ Bryan pulled off his gloves and flying helmet and fumbled inside his jacket for his cigarettes. ‘You did your job perfectly.’
‘I nearly got us killed.’
‘Control didn’t think to tell us the bandit was outgoing, and I didn’t think to ask.’ Bryan lit a cigarette and sucked greedily at the smoke. ‘We’ll tell the intelligence officer and he’ll send a memo to the control room. We’re all still learning after all.’
Tommy noticed the orange end of Bryan’s cigarette wobbling in the darkness, tracing out the violent trembling of his hand.
Thursday, 21 November 1940
Bryan sat alone in the mess, mopping the dregs of his eggs from a metal plate with an anaemic corner of toast. The door scuffed open. Carson and Moss strode over, scraped out two chairs and shuffled their knees under the table. Bryan picked up his mug, glancing from one face to the other as he sipped his tea and waited.
‘I hear your monkey tried to kill you last night.’ Carson broke the silence as a steward delivered plates to the newcomers.
Bryan set his mug on the table.
‘His name is Scott. He has a rather pretty wife called Lizzy, a bright pink baby called Robert and he lives in Peckham, an area not noted for its primate population.’ Bryan lit a cigarette. ‘And it was Night-warden that sent us barrelling inland after an outgoing bomber. Scott’s performance was spot on. Unfortunately, we found a nose where he was led to expect a tail.’
‘Christ,’ Moss muttered around a mouthful of toast. ‘I hope someone gets put on a charge for that.’
Bryan shrugged: ‘Shiny-arsed bastards are as shiny-arsed bastards do. I imagine the memo has been drafted. Incidentally, I’m told you had some luck the other night.’
Moss nodded emphatically: ‘Ju 88. I put a good long burst four-square into the ventral gunner. She rolled over and went straight in.’
‘Did they switch off their navigation lights before they hit the ground?’ Bryan crushed his cigarette out on his plate.
Moss looked up, a shadow of chagrin passing through his features. ‘They all count,’ he murmured, scooping a lump of congealing egg onto his fork.
‘It’s not good enough.’ Bryan lit a fresh cigarette. ‘We need to do better. We have to be terrifying the bastards every night they come over.’
‘I don’t follow you.’ Carson picked up Bryan’s cigarette packet and stole a smoke. ‘Why is shooting down an enemy bomber not good enough.’
Bryan hunched forward, setting his elbows on the table. ‘Aeroplanes will never be an effective defence against aeroplanes. Determined pilots in large numbers will always get through. If nothing else, we learnt that during the summer. Certainly, shoot down the ones we find, but we also need to get into the heads of the crews in the planes that we never see. We have to make sure every Luftwaffe crewman flies with fear in his guts.
‘Your Junkers pilot with his navigation lights’ – he nodded towards Moss – ‘obviously thought he was on a milk run. He was more scared of mid-air collision with one of his own than any threat from us.’ He took a long pull on his cigarette. ‘Over two hundred bombers in the air and we bag one of them. Hitler will take those odds, every night, all winter.’
‘I noticed the boffins are back,’ Carson offered. ‘They’re working out at dispersal with the ground crews. Something about upgrading the AI sets.’
‘Good,’ Bryan said under his breath. ‘We’re all still learning, after all.’
***
Jenny peeped out between the blackouts to the impassive darkness beyond. ‘Seems quiet again.’
Alice looked up from her book. ‘I heard a rumour they’d bombed Birmingham last night. Perhaps they’ve gone there again.’
Jenny let the drapes fall back into place and returned to the sofa. She sat with a straight back and hands clasped in her lap, heedless of her friend’s concerned gaze.
Alice put down her book.
‘Why don’t you put the radio on, Jen? Find some nice relaxing music and I’ll make a pot of tea.’
From the kitchen, Alice listened as Jenny dialled through the channels, pausing for a few moments whenever music swelled out of the static, only to move on in search of something different. Snatches of dance melodies and stentorian newsreaders came and went while the kettle worked up to a whistle. At length Jenny settled on a light classical channel and Alice took in the tea tray to the gentile backdrop of chamber music. Jenny greeted her with a thin smile.
‘Bryan isn’t the nub of the problem, is he?’ Alice poured the tea and handed a cup to Jenny. ‘I’m guessing it has a lot to do with that old flame you mentioned.’ She poured her own cup and levelled a look at Jenny. ‘Would it help to talk?’
Jenny pushed an errant strand of hair off her cheek and took a sip from her cup.
‘Richard,’ she said at length. ‘His name was Richard.’
Alice settled back in her chair, remaining silent.
Jenny looked up to meet her gaze. ‘I was an office junior in a small import business based in Highgate. He was… a fair bit older than me. He worked as a salesman and regularly visited the shipping department. Our office adjoined the warehouse. I often worked there alone, especially when shipments were coming in or going out. Richard brought in the orders he’d written up for me to type and he’d generally stay to chat for a while.
‘He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he looked safe and solid, like nothing could defeat him. And he had a wonderful smell. He didn’t smoke, so he smelled of coal tar soap and skin. He always smelled clean.’
Alice shifted her weight in the chair as Jenny took another sip of tea.
‘One day, as he was about to leave the office, I caught his sleeve and kissed him.’ Jenny’s eyes unfocussed to the middle distance.
Alice leaned forward: ‘And then?’
‘He very gently pushed me away and told me to think about things, to sleep on it and decide whether this was what I really wanted. Then he stroked my cheek with his fingertips and left.
‘A week later he visited the warehouse again. He came in and simply raised his eyebrows. I kissed him again, and this time he kissed back.
‘That evening after work I waited for him outside and we went for a drink. He insisted on driving across to Hampstead, to The Holly Bush. It was off the beaten track but close to where I lived with my parents. Lovely little place with o
pen fires, and I didn’t have to stand at the bus stop to get home.
‘After a few weeks of doing this, mostly on Wednesdays as I remember, he told me he had a little flat in the city. He suggested we should spend the weekend there, maybe go to a show or something.’
‘And did you?’
Jenny nodded: ‘Several times over the course of the next year.’ She finished her tea and placed the cup back on the tray. ‘I loved him. It felt so right. It was the natural thing to do.’
‘Did he love you?’
‘Yes, he did. Or at least he started saying he did, soon after I began sleeping with him.’ She chewed her lower lip. ‘I suppose I’ll never know for sure.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘My mother worried about the age difference, even though she could see how happy he made me. In the end, she asked about a bit, for her own piece of mind really. No-one seemed to know very much about Richard, but eventually she discovered where he lived and paid him a call.’
A frown furrowed Jenny’s forehead and she looked into Alice’s eyes, swallowing against her rising emotions.
‘His wife answered the door.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘The next morning, my mother telephoned my boss and told him I wasn’t going back, and she made sure he understood why. I never saw Richard again.’ Jenny’s face crumpled into fresh tears. ‘It broke my heart, Alice. It broke my heart to pieces.’
***
Cigarette smoke embroidered the air in the sergeants’ mess, swirling around the shoulders of the men striding to the desk, responding in turn to their shouted name at mail call.
‘Thomas Scott!’ The orderly held up a small manila envelope.
Tommy jumped from his chair and grabbed the letter like a trophy. He walked back to his table, prised open the flap and began to read.
‘From your girlfriend?’ Two operators sat down, each clutching their own mail.
Tommy glanced up from his letter: ‘It’s from my wife, Lizzy.’
‘Nice’ – the second man piped up – ‘you’re Hale’s operator, is that right?’
Tommy folded the letter and let his hands sink to the tabletop. He looked from one face to the other: ‘Mr Hale is my pilot, yes.’
‘You seem to be terribly friendly with him, what with him being an officer and everything.’
Tommy held out his right hand: ‘My name’s Tommy.’
The speaker was taken aback for a moment, then shook Tommy’s hand. ‘My name’s Donald, and this here is Desmond.’
‘I prefer Des.’ The other man nodded.
Tommy smiled at them both. ‘I did a fair number of missions on bombers. I suppose it’s natural for me to be friendly with my crew. Mr Hale flew Spitfires from Kenley all summer, so I suppose he’s used to getting along with groundcrew.’
‘I doubt he chauffeured them around, though.’ Donald’s words hung in the air, only a slim tone from becoming a threat.
‘He has a girlfriend in Balham. My family lives in Peckham. A lift with Mr Hale saves me the train fare, which gives my wife a few more shillings to spend on our baby.’
Tommy again looked from face to face, this time without a smile.
Des pushed back his chair and stood, nudging Donald’s shoulder as he turned to leave.
‘Well… alright…’ Donald stood and followed his companion to the door.
Tommy watched them go, unfolded his letter and finished reading. With a broad smile breaking across his face, he tipped the envelope on end and a small object fell onto the table.
Chapter 13
Sunday, 24 November 1940
Bryan sauntered across the field, hands in pockets, squinting through the misty air at an unfamiliar aircraft standing on the perimeter.
‘Morning, Flight.’ The condensation hanging in the air softened the edge of the call.
Bryan turned to see Tommy striding towards him.
‘Hello, Scott. What the hell is that thing over there?’
‘It’s called a Defiant.’ Both men started towards the plane together. ‘At least that’s what I heard in the mess.’
They arrived at the hardstanding and walked around the machine. It had the squat demeanour of a Hurricane but behind the pilot’s canopy sat the substantial dome of a traversable turret, bristling with four guns.
‘Whoever dreamt this up?’ Bryan shook his head in slow dismay.
Tommy shrugged: ‘A gunner who wanted to be a fighter pilot, perhaps?’ He scratched his head. ‘It’s difficult enough to hit anything from a bomber flying straight and level. What it’s like in this I can only imagine.’
Bryan walked around the front of the wing, running his hand down the gun-less leading edge, whistling his disapproval. ‘What’s it doing here?’
‘They were up last night and the turret jammed. You can’t bail out if the turret jams.’ Tommy joined Bryan at the nose of the craft. ‘I heard the gunner went into a blind panic, so his pilot put down at the nearest airfield.’
‘What the hell were they doing, going up at night in this thing?’
‘I’m told they’re using these as night-fighters,’ Tommy said. ‘Stationed down near Portsmouth, I think.’
‘I don’t see any antennae,’ Bryan said, scanning the nose and wings.
‘I believe it’s all visual, Flight.’
‘Good Lord,’ Bryan breathed. ‘Heaven help the poor bastards. It makes you wonder if we deserve to win this bloody war.’
Both men walked back towards the station buildings.
‘I got a letter from Lizzy the other day’ – Tommy rummaged in his tunic pocket and pulled out the envelope – ‘she asked after you.’
‘She’s very kind. You’re a lucky man to have a woman like that.’
‘She says she feels a lot happier knowing I’m flying with you. She used to be a bundle of nerves when I was on bombers. I think meeting you has set her mind at rest.’
Bryan cast a sideways glance but said nothing.
‘She sent me a memento as well.’ Tommy brandished a lock of hair tied up in bright red ribbon. ‘It’s a mixture of Lizzy’s hair and Robert’s. Maybe it will bring us some luck, maybe we’ll bag something tonight.’
Bryan nodded: ‘Maybe. We’ll see.’
***
Bryan and Tommy sat staring disconsolately out of the open operations hut door. Carson and Moss sat together on another bench with their operators standing behind them, rocking on their heels, absorbed by tension.
The morning mist had stayed all day to become desultory cushions of fog that rolled across the field, blotting out the horizon and silencing the chill air with its damp, ethereal grip.
‘I don’t understand why we’re not allowed up.’ Carson broke the miserable silence. ‘It can’t be much different to flying in the dark.’
Moss tilted his head back and closed his eyes, fatigued by staring at the billowing greyness. ‘Probably not,’ he said, ‘until you’re coming in on the circuit. Have you ever had to land in fog? It’s a bit scary when cloud base suddenly turns into a concrete runway.’
‘The fog here is immaterial.’ Bryan dragged off his flying helmet and scratched his scalp. ‘It’s the fog over there that makes the difference.’ He waved his hand in the general direction of Europe. ‘If they can’t take-off, we’ll have nothing to shoot at.’
‘And’ – Tommy interjected – ‘the moisture interferes with the AI’
Carson frowned at the sergeant’s contribution and opened his mouth to speak, but his rebuke was stalled by an orderly clumping into the room.
‘The Met boys say this pea-souper probably goes all the way to Moscow. There are no plots on the table at control, not even the usual mine-layers in the Channel. So, we’re to stand down for the night.’
‘Well’ – Bryan smiled at Tommy – ‘it seems everyone got lucky tonight.’
Thursday, 28 November 1940
The tepid afternoon sunlight filtered through the lecture hall’s grimy windows as Squadron L
eader Lawson tapped his pen on the desk to quell the soft hubbub of conversation amongst the crews.
When silence fell, he cleared his throat and began.
‘It’s always been a relatively easy job for a German navigator to get his bomber over the capital. A quick jaunt over the Strait of Dover, a sharp left turn and then follow the Thames Estuary straight to London.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Sometimes I wonder why they bother with a blackout at all.’
A murmur ran through his audience.
‘But now that the Luftwaffe has opened up attacks on Coventry, Birmingham and the rest of the Midlands, their crews are faced with a seventy-mile crossing over the sea and an even longer flight over blacked-out countryside. Even when the moon is out, this is a very different proposition.’ He paused and looked around the faces upturned before him.
‘But it seems the Germans have their own team of backroom boys. A few weeks ago, a Heinkel fell to anti-aircraft fire and the pilot managed a forced landing on the Dorset coast. Luckily, the bomber came down in shallow water so the crew couldn’t fire their aircraft. From what we’ve salvaged from the wreck, it’s obvious they’ve developed a magic box of their own.
‘Although we’re not entirely sure how it works, we think we know how it’s used: We believe that only the best crews are equipped with this gadget and that it guides them to the selected target by some means of RDF. They fly ahead of the main force, loaded exclusively with incendiaries and flares. Once their ordnance has marked the target, the accuracy of the main force is practically guaranteed.’ He paused again to allow his words to sink in.
‘If we can intercept these fire-starting aircraft, we can achieve two things: the elimination of an expert crew, and considerable disruption to the accuracy of the raiding force. In short, we’ll be getting the best possible return on investment.
‘Your patrol lines remain the same, mid-channel at the furthest, stay between Weymouth and the Isle of Wight. You’ll take-off at dusk, an hour earlier than usual, so be at readiness by 3 o’clock. Good luck, gentleman.’
The crews stood with a scraping of chairs. Bryan and Tommy walked out into the waning afternoon. Bryan lit two cigarettes and handed one to Tommy.
The Bluebirds Trilogy Box Set Page 41