Fish Salmon was leading the squadron tonight. Kent and Linkletter hung off the rail at the far end. The senior WAAF and a few others lurked at the back. Carter had never thought about this much. When he was taking up position on the runway, he always saw people in the tower and he saw them waving, but he was too busy to think much beyond that.
Jensen was second last to go. Carter watched with a keen eye as L-London swung on to the centre line. He could see movement in the cockpit and he could picture Jensen as he went through his final checks. It was his first time flying in the left seat and he could imagine how the lad must be feeling. There was no more training, this was it. No matter how much time went by, Carter would always remember his first op in a Hampden. You were going off into the night and the lives of everyone in that aircraft were in your hands.
L-London started rolling. Everyone on the balcony started waving. The tail came up and Jensen held her there, letting the speed build up. Walsh was the last to go and Carter sent his friend on his way with a prayer.
Kent and Linkletter went indoors to get warm as soon as the last bomber was away. Etheridge and Church stayed for a smoke and Carter moved over to join them, hovering a few feet away in case they were discussing something particularly sensitive
“How did that feel, Carter?” asked Church.
“I know where I’d rather be, sir.”
Etheridge nodded in understanding.
“I know what you mean. It never gets any easier,” he said.
Church produced a cigarette and his face was all harsh angles from the flame of the match. He was wreathed in foul smelling smoke.
“Christ, Church,what is that?” asked the Group Captain.
“Turkish. Strong stuff.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Etheridge replied deadpan, his teeth showing as he grinned. Church offered him one, but Carter shook his head, he liked his cigarettes mild. He got one of his own out and offered the pack to Etheridge. They lit up and hung on the rail, listening to the rumble of engines as they receded in the distance.
When it had finally gone quiet, they went downstairs and sauntered over to Etheridge’s staff car. The WAAF driver got out and held the back door open for him. Etheridge got in but wound the window down as the car was about to pull away.
“I’m off to Group but I should be back before the boys come home. I’ll see you chaps later.”
The car moved off and they watched it go, the blacked out tail lights little dots in the distance. Now it was just Church and Carter. Church lit another cigarette and Carters nose wrinkled at the smell. Whoever made those things should have been shot but Carter supposed it was commanders privilege. They started walking.
At a loose end, Carter debated what to do next. Church was heading to Ops, so he followed the CO. Ops was an anonymous two storey brick building, next to the admin blocks, there being nothing to distinguish it from any of the others in the row.
An SP checked Carter’s ID before allowing him into the hallowed room, a big windowless square. The Ops Room was somewhere Carter had never been, not even on his first tour. To his right the wall was covered in a large blackboard. Every crew was listed, their names chalked next to the letter and serial number of an aircraft. The long wall to his left had doors that opened to a number of small offices. Each office had a big window that gave their occupants a view of the main room when the blinds weren’t down.
A large map board table occupied the middle of the room. On the wall opposite the blackboard was a stage with three tables covered in a number of telephones and ledgers. Two WAAF officers and a Flight Lieutenant sat there, filling out paperwork. Behind them was a large scale map showing England from the south coast as far north as Newcastle. Various coloured pins were stabbed into it, presumably to mark the locations of airfields and other things of interest.
With the squadron up, Ops was understandably busy. Kent hovered around the large map table deep in conference with the intel WAAF who had caught Woods eye. There was lots of noise with people talking over one another and telephones ringing. Church scrutinised the blackboard then disappeared into the nearest small office. He kicked the door shut as he picked up the telephone on the desk.
Carter found a quiet corner feeling like a spare part. He tugged out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. Coming into the warm from the cold outside, it was starting to run. His throat tickled and he tried to snort without drawing too much attention to himself. He fancied a fag, but daren’t aggravate his throat any more. A WAAF handed him a cup of tea and he stood there, holding the saucer in one hand while he moodily sipped from the cup.
Church emerged from the office and beckoned him over. The WAAF handed Church a cup of tea as well. “Thank you m’dear,” he said warmly. He gestured round the room with the cup.
“What do you think, Carter?”
“Impressive, sir,” Carter replied neutrally. Church smiled behind his cup.
“I’m off to Group,” the CO said conversationally. Carter’s ears pricked up at that. His mind raced as he tried to think of a way to hitch a ride, he might be able to see Georgette for a few moments, she was bound to be working tonight. Church dipped his voice and leaned in. “Something’s brewing that I need to find out about.”
Church parked his cup on the corner of the map table. A WAAF Corporal appeared and deftly spirited it away before it marked the surface. Carter made to follow but Church stopped him.
“Best stay here, old man. It’s cold out there, don’t want your sniffle getting any worse do we?” He looked past Carters shoulder around the room. “Make yourself useful here. See the lay of the land.” He clapped Carter on the shoulder. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
Before Carter could say anything, Church was gone. Carter froze, it felt like every eye was looking at him. He drifted over to the map table and looked at the European coastline. He mentally judged distances, say two hours to get to the coast and head inland. He glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall above him.
This was the first op he had ever had to sit out due to illness. Getting wounded on his last tour didn’t count, there was not much you could do to stop flak tearing whacking great lumps out of you.
Kent was stood near by muttering about German nightfighter airfields in Holland. He kept glancing at a sheaf of papers in his hand and then jabbed his finger into the map.
“There,” he said. His finger moved and jabbed another point on the map. “There too. Well, that’s something to bear in mind next time.” He straightened as he realised Carter was close to him. “Not for your ears, Mister Carter.” He handed the papers to the WAAF who put them back into a buff coloured folder. “At least, not yet anyway.”
Kent withdrew to his office and left Carter staring at the map. A Scottish brogue brought him out of his reverie.
“Over here,” they said. Carter blinked and turned round to see the Flight Lieutenant on the stage looking at him. He had a telephone handset glued to one ear and he sat all contorted as he used his shoulder to keep it there. He scribbled on a bit of paper as some voice bawled down the telephone.
He had wings on his chest and DFC and AFC ribbons. His face was a shiny angry pink down one side and that extended down his neck, out of sight below his shirt collar. A patchwork square of raw skin covered his forehead. The left eye was almost milky, unfocused. He gestured to the empty chair next to him on the stage.
“Pull up a pew.”
Carter walked round to the end of the stage and parked himself in the chair. The officer ended the call and shoved the handset into its cradle. He handed the piece of paper over to the WAAF to his right.
“Marjorie, be a dear and ask the Observer Corps to keep an eye out for one of ours on the northern coast of Norfolk, sounds like there’s a problem.” She nodded and picked up a telephone, asking the switchboard to get the Observer Corps. He turned back to Carter and held out his hand. “Welcome to the heart of the machine. I’m, John Wheeler.”
“Alex Carter.” He noticed
Wheelers left hand was scarred like his face, the flesh puckered and taut in a lurid ridge, the knuckles shiny. Carters gaze lingered a moment too long and Wheeler snatched his hand back.
Carter had seen him in the Mess once or twice, but the man never hung around long and was never around on the Mess party nights. Carter had heard on the grapevine that he had flown Battle’s in France before being wounded. The wings, the medals, his appearance told their own story.
“I hope you’re not tired,” he joked. “It’s going to be a long night.” He pointed to the blackboard. “Every aircraft sent out has the relevant information recorded, time off etc.”
Carter glanced at the board. A Corporal was clambering up a short ladder to add information to the various columns. He saw the entry for L-London. It showed Jensen as the pilot, the serial number and the time of departure.
Wheeler explained his job, trying to make it sound more interesting than it really was. The Squadron books were open in front of him and he was in the middle of writing out the entry for tonights op, specifying the target and other salient details. It was all so routine, reducing hours of flying down to a few lines on a page, a mere glimmer of what was involved to make it all happen.
As reports were received they would update the board, the books and Group as necessary. Group would contact them if there was information regarding enemy movements. Depending on jamming and other vagaries of wireless transmission, occasionally they would hear reports as their aircraft tapped out their morse messages as they bombed the target and turned for home.
Wheeler mentioned that Saunderson always appeared later on to find out what was happening and of course the CO and Groupie would turn up before the boys got back.
Carter had never thought about this. All of this was an extension to the one thing he was bothered about; flying. He’d never seen what went on in the background. He jumped as a telephone rang, breaking the quiet. The WAAF to Wheelers right answered it on the second ring.
“Ops,” she answered crisply. There was a moments silence while she listened to a crackly line. “Understood, thank you.” She put the handset down. “Confirmed, sir. K-King down near the coast. Home Guard report some survivors. Apparently it just avoided a village.”
Wheelers lips pulled into a grim line and he gave a mere hint of a nod.
“Dodds!” he called sharply. The Corporal up the ladder turned, wobbling as he did so.
“Sir?”
“Mark off K-King. Crashed in Norfolk.” He glanced at the wall clock, “make it twenty two hundred.”
“Yessir.”
The Corporal turned back to the board, went down three rungs on the ladder and leaned across, marking up the time next to K-King’s row. Carter winced as the chalk squeaked across the surface of the board setting his teeth on edge. K-King was Whites replacement. He sighed, another rookie crew gone for a burton.
Time dragged. Carter had two cups of tea. Wheeler offered him some biscuits. Carter had one and chewed rhythmically while he went through the squadrons operations book. He randomly turned pages. He noticed the dates. 8th January, their run at Brest, then the raid on Wilhelmshaven on the 10th. That one had been White’s last trip as second dicky. Then there was that raid on Munster on the 22nd, unlucky number thirteen. His mouth twitched at the mental anguish he had gone through on that one. He closed the book.
There was one other early casualty. I-India lost an engine over The North Sea and turned back after dumping their bomb load. They ditched short of the coast. Carter made himself useful and spent half an hour passing information to Group so the rescue launches knew roughly where to look. He didn’t give much for their chances. The black water would be like ice. Even bobbing in a life raft, lashed by cold wind, it would only be a matter of time.
Everything was slow time in Ops. Now the squadron was on its way, there was a lull. Linkletter put in an appearance, his face creased in concern as fog started drifting across the field. He disappeared into one of the offices and communed with his brethren around Group to see how they were fixed.
It wasn’t much better north of Lincoln. Patches of fog were clinging to the ground moving slowly and 1 Group had it even worse with visibility down to a few hundred yards. If it was still around in a few hours time they would have to start diverting them to other stations down south.
It was a side of Linkletter Carter had never seen before, the care, the seriousness, the worry that the weather coming home would be bad. At briefing his predictions for the winds were often wrong. That was about par for the course. Forecasting the weather over central Europe was problematic at the best of times. As much as the crews made a joke of it, often applauding when he told them the target would be clear, his forecast for the weather over the drome on their return was almost always right. Now it looked like Linkletter’s perfect record was spoiled. He left ops a worried man, his face creased in concern.
A report from Group had the lead elements of the raid approaching the target. Halfway there. Carters mouth went dry and he felt himself sweating as he thought about the flak. He could almost feel the jolting and the bouncing as you were thrown around. His nostrils burned and he had a sneezing fit. His eyes watered when he was finished and his throat stung.
“Sorry,” he muttered, shoving his hanky back up his sleeve. He wiped his nose across the back of his hand. Wheeler grunted. He had been watching Carter, the struggle within him as his mind ranged over the map, on the raid in spirit. He’d been like that himself for quite a while after France. It took a while to lose the itch when everyone else went off to war and you were left behind.
Time dragged. It was agony for Carter being sat here. His world was a cockpit, ears being battered by the drone of the engines while he shivered in the dark, every sense of his body finely tuned while he ran on the adrenalin that raced through him. Here, on the ground nursing a pulsing headache, every minute dragged. He looked at the clock god knows how many times but the hands stubbornly refused to spin round at high speed. He gnawed through one set of nails and was doing a good job at working through a second set while he waited.
By one Carter was starting to fade. Ops was hot. The radiators were going full belt and the room was stuffy. He felt his eyelids drooping and he shook himself awake, angry that he could even contemplate sleep at a moment like this. He went for a walk outside and Wheeler joined him.
They found a stiff breeze had blown the fog away to leave a clear dark sky. Stars winked and the moon was bright in shadowed profile. A few stubborn patches of fog clung to the grass and swirled around his feet as he walked silently in a wide circuit. Loud banging came from one of the hangars where the nights duty crew worked.
“Linkletter’ll be pleased,” Carter murmured.
“Yes,” agreed Wheeler. “He takes his responsibilities quite seriously, poor man.” The Scot lit a cigarette and studied the glowing end. “His son was killed you know.” Carter’s eyes went wide. “A training accident. He joined up after that. Felt he had to do his bit.” Wheeler flicked the cigarette onto the grass. “Time to get back to it,” he muttered.
Church had come back from Group with Etheridge while they’d been outside. The Group Captain was in one of the side offices shouting down the phone. The CO was studying the board.
Wheeler sat down at his desk and scanned two messages that were waiting for him. The fog had moved east and was covering the coast. He started calling round the Grouops to find out if they were clear. The fog might have gone for now but it paid dividends to guard against every eventuality.
Etheridge emerged from the office looking peeved. The CO looked as annoyed as the Group Captain as they talked in hushed whispers. When he saw Carter watching him, Church nodded and forced a smile onto his face that stopped at his eyes.
The clock wound round to two and the room started to come alive again. Saunderson appeared, as did Kent. Everyone stood looking at the map. The squadron would be coming home soon, straggling in one by one. As they crossed the coast, individual aircraft transm
itted and the signals were relayed to the ops room. Dodds started updating the board, the chalk squealing as he wrote.
Soon enough, they had word that the first aircraft was in the circuit and they gravitated outside. Wheeler stayed inside at his desk, his fingers gripping a pencil so tight his knuckles went white. He never watched landings; it was too much of a reminder. The phone rang and he answered it briskly. He nodded grimly and thanked the caller.
To the right of the take off and return times was a long box for other comments to be put. So far there were two entries there, I-India and K-King. Dodds made his third entry of the night. P-Popsie, crashed on landing in Norfolk. Three out of sixteen aircraft dispatched tonight had failed to return so far. Wheeler wondered how many more there were to come.
On the top floor of the control tower, Carter squeezed through the gathering crowd to get himself a spot on the rail. The wind was brisk and blew into his face. He sneezed hard and his eyes watered. Blowing across the field the wind was at a straight right angle to the main runway. Carter glanced at the wind sock, watching it bobbing up and down as the gusts fluctuated.
“Won’t be long now,” Church muttered as he slid in next to him. The first fingers of light were streaking the dark but it would be two hours or more yet before the sun crept over the horizon. Higher up, the crews would be racing the light home.
After seven hours and more in the air, Carter knew this was also one of the most dangerous times. All it would take was one lax moment and an intruder could catch you napping, exactly what had happened to Lambert. Carter studied his palms and found his hands were shaking. He knew he wouldn’t be able to relax until L-London returned and shut down.
They heard them before they saw them, the drone of the engines building slowly. It rumbled from the east, growing louder. They waited patiently. There were quite a few airfields close by; Coningsby was east of them and Waddington was to the west. Just because they could hear engines, it might not be for them. Then the first call came over the radio, Y-York requesting permission to pancake.
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