It did. Work stopped as we walked to the hangar to collect our flying gear.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ shouted Leo as I scrambled into a pair of overalls.
‘I can’t walk around like this,’ I protested.
‘Nuts to that.’ He grabbed the overalls and, with a cheer from the mechanics, threw them back to the storekeeper.
With a profusion of willing hands I climbed into a Spitfire, started up and taxied past the grinning mechanics and worried-looking executives.
After take-off I climbed in wide circles to 25,000 feet. Levelling off and looking down I felt a curious wave of anger and reverence. Beneath me was the land of the Bible where once walked the Son of God. Now the Son of Mars was rampant. At this height I could see in the brilliantly clear atmosphere the Egyptian border at Gaza and the Israeli communal farms where every man, woman and child sleeps with a rifle by his side after a day spent in the fields under the sniper’s itching finger. To the east, sheltering in the Judean hills lay Golgotha, and Jerusalem; that sorrowful city of God split in two by a barbed-wire no-man’s-land populated only by bullets and white-painted United Nations jeeps. Beyond the hills the salt waters of the Dead Sea reflected from a thousand feet below sea-level. To the north the Sea of Galilee pin-pointed yet another no-man’s-land, the Syrian border.
I could see Israel; north, south, east and west. A cramped verdant sliver flanked on three sides by desert and with the Mediterranean completing the encirclement. Inside Israel’s borders were the scars of industry, the rich promise of cultivated land. Beyond was the flat emptiness of desert and neglect. The Jews ask for very little, I thought. It was such a tiny piece of land for so much protestation.
Hugo met me after I landed.
‘Be careful, Jackie,’ he warned, after we had reminisced. ‘Two of our Jets were sent up after you.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘You flew too close to the borders. ‘‘Radar’’ thought you were an Egyptian.’
We had lunch in the works canteen. It was a salutary experience for me. I wish every anti-semite could spend a day at ‘Bedek’. There, on the aerodrome, was Israel. Every virtue, every failing, was there in cameo miniature. I entered the canteen with concealed patronage. I make no apology for that though there is no excuse for disliking the Jew. My parents should apologize; my school; my Church; and literature that has made the Jew the butt of man. I do make an apology that I had to have an emotional experience, a personal lesson, before I could attack the thick slime of anti-semitism nestling in my subconscious mind. Not all can go to Israel, and leave humble and ashamed.
Sitting opposite Hugo and myself over lunch were Jews from Germany, England, Latin America and Yemen. At the next table were Russians and Slavs. Sprinkled amongst them were Nordic-looking youngsters, toughly built, blue-eyed and confident. ‘Sabras,’ explained Hugo. ‘The Israeli nickname for the new generation of Jews born in Israel.’ The Jew from England was an engineer. Ex-R.A.F. complete with moustache and a hearty manner. I looked around the sea of faces. Listened to the fascinating babble of seven, eight different languages. My eyes flitted from complexions Anglo-Saxon to African. From features classically Semitic to the refined decadence of the English aristocrat. From manner courteous to aggressive. But as every eye caught mine the twinkle and smile of welcome and friendship was unmistakable.
The dark-complexioned were from Morocco and Yemen explained Hugo. New immigrants pitchforked into the twentieth century from a way of life that had not changed since the greatest Jew of all had died. They spoke only Arabic. The language of their cousin-enemy. ‘One of them had a nasty accident this morning,’ said Hugo. ‘They won’t sit on toilet seats; they think it’s unhygienic. They insist on standing on them despite orders to the contrary. One of them slipped, broke the porcelain and gashed himself to the bone.’
I shuddered. Hugo nodded. ‘Just another of our problems.’
After lunch I rose to return my dirty plates to the counter when a passing mechanic, his hands calloused with work, took them from me with an exquisitely expressed: ‘Allow me.’ I sat down, bewildered.
I left the canteen, as I left Israel a few months later, knowing that to dislike the Jew is not only cruel. It is stupid. For what is a Jew?
On the beach a few days later Gordon and I lazed as Sonny swam. The next day we were taking off for our first flight to Burma.
‘It’s a funny thing,’ I said. ‘I’m beginning to forget that you and all these people are Jewish. I’ve never had such a warm welcome. They’re all the same, the ‘‘Bedek’’ crowd. The staff at the Hotel Yarkon. Do you think they are trying to impress me?’
‘Maybe. Unconsciously. I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Most of them earned the right to sympathy by what they went through in the concentration camps. But they want to forget that, want to be judged by what they have done here in Israel. They are glad that you are here, that you can see what they’ve done. That you can return to England realizing that a Jew isn’t an usurer or a wide boy in the East End but a chap who can build this,’ he waved his arm, ‘out of the desert. Sorry,’ he concluded, ‘I’ve got a bit of a fetish about Israel.’
‘By the way,’ he added, as Sonny joined us and we got up to leave, ‘not that it’s important, but I’m not Jewish.’
*In answer to a subsequent protest by the British Government at this treatment of British pilots engaged on a lawful delivery flight of Burmese-owned aircraft from Cyprus to Burma the Lebanese Government stated that their action was justified in that the aircraft flew over Lebanese territory in a westerly direction instead of easterly as specified in the original clearances obtained by the Burmese authorities in London. In view of the fact that the aircraft were turned back from Iraq at gun-point this explanation is, to say the least, frivolous. The truth is, of course, that when the Lebanese (and Iraqi) authorities gave the original diplomatic clearance for these flights they were not aware that the Spitfires had been sold by Israel to the Burmese. Once this became known to them, as a result of newspaper reports, they immediately plugged this leak in the Arab blockade of Israel.
Part 4
Desert interlude
Now think of all the good it does,
To cross so many lands;
Remember that the world is yours,
You hold it in your hands.
1955
Note
In the remainder of this book I have selected and described only one – the fourth – of the six ferry flights that I completed from Israel to Burma (in addition to the two flights from Cyprus undertaken with Air Services). I should point out that Banting and Levett have given me permission to use their proper names whereas Kastner, being a Jew, had no option but to request the use of a pseudonym.
40
Dragged from our beds at 3 a.m. we drove monosyllabically to the aerodrome. Our emotions dominant; our intellect still asleep and unable to resist the atmosphere of tension and irritation that presaged all the flights. Gordon, at his most acid before dawn, met Leo’s incorrigible cheerfulness with verbal violence. We usually had at least one blistering row before we arrived at the aerodrome and were silenced by the dramatic impact of the four Spitfires, floodlit by the fluorescent light bursting from the open hangar doors, waiting silently on the tarmac.
In those moments of pre-flight bustle: ‘Got your emergency kit?’ ‘Where are the spare plugs?’ ‘Who the hell’s got my Mae-West?’ ‘Did you check that oil leak?’ and the final: ‘All set?’ spoken by envious-eyed mechanics; we were supreme. I nodded and laughed with those who would be left behind. Tried to understand them. But felt only a profound sorrow that they could not share my exaltation. In a few minutes I would be alone; would triumph over pettiness; become one with the sky. I would become the Spitfire, joyous, fully dimensional, adrift from a world of logical values. The world at my feet; and death in my hands.
With night still lingering in the west, and flame visible from our exhausts, we took off from Lydda and climbed across
the coast of Israel for the turning point, 30 miles out to sea, that would keep us clear of Lebanon and Syria.
With Leo in the lead we straggled in lazy formation, each with his own thoughts; together, but separated by unbridgeable space should mishap occur. I looked down as we passed the sleeping coast. No natural border separated Israel from her bellicose neighbours. The land flowed in brotherhood giving, as a book does, freely to those in need.
As the coast disappeared and we were alone with the sea and sky I felt the first symptoms of unease that attack all pilots when flying single-engined aircraft over long sea crossings. I checked and re-checked the instruments, refusing to be comforted by their assurance of all’s well.
The engine lost its smooth, untroubled beat. The Spitfire became a host of individual parts. Cables that could fray, bearings that could parch and seize, filters that could clog, a million nuts and bolts that could work loose and bring catastrophe. Perhaps even the theory of flight would collapse, leaving me hurtling into the sea, 12,000 feet below.
Simultaneously with the appearance of the Turkish coast my engine cleared and throbbed sweetly. The Spitfire, in a remarkable metamorphosis, became a sleek entity speeding through the air with the grace and omniscience of a bird.
An hour later Diyarbekir aerodrome lay spread out on the plain as though awaiting our arrival. In a confused babble of Turkish and English tongues over the R/T we landed and scurried quickly off the runway as Turkish Air Force F-84 Jet fighters zoomed and buzzed waspishly in their urgent impatience to land. The scene, ten minutes from the Russian border and painted with lavish American aid within the aerodrome boundaries, contrasted ruthlessly with the poverty of peasants working primitively in the fields beyond.
We were met with that grave formal courtesy and efficiency characteristic of the Turkish Air Force, and Leo was advised, owing to a warm front moving in from the south-west, to stay overnight. With his delightful tact he discussed the matter with us before deciding to concur.
The following morning, after a firm promise of clear skies and favourable winds, we took off on the long leg for Kermanshah and spiralled steeply to 20,000 feet before heading due east over the gaunt mountain range where, traditionally, Noah’s Ark rests. As with the sea, so the peaks brought unease. Rising to 14,000 feet and spreading to Kermanshah and beyond, they waited. Waited.
In a spurious attempt to ignore what lay beneath, we chatted inanely over the R/T. Leo who was prone to burst into song at the slightest provocation, sang an aria. I sang another, enjoying the sound of my own voice in the earphones. Sonny muttered something that by its metre I took to be verse. Gordon, as usual, maintained a pointed silence.
Within an hour we were in trouble. The moving warm front of yesterday had not dispersed. High above us the ominous streaks of cirrus cloud had joined into a lowering blanket that slanted down to the peaks straddling the horizon. The fickle sun had deserted us to shine elsewhere.
‘Um,’ said Leo significantly over the R/T.
Silently I agreed with him as the first rain mixed with the film of oil on my windscreen. Tuck in. We’ll have to go through it,’ ordered Leo. Metaphorically we hitched up our sleeves and obeyed as the clouds curled around us in a blinding embrace. I put my useless maps away and clung to Leo’s ghostly silhouette. The mountains had vanished.
‘Where’s Sonny?’ called Leo anxiously.
‘It’s all right,’ answered Sonny, casually. ‘I’m in the box.’
I envied his nonchalance as the rain burst into furious uproar as though determined to purge us from the sky. We carried on, eyes fixed to Leo. One thought unspoken. What was the weather at Kermanshah? We had no radio equipment to guide us down if the clouds reached in a solid blanket to the ground.
‘Time’s up,’ said Leo, twenty minutes later, a contrived coolness in his voice. ‘We should be over Kermanshah.’
‘Kermanshah. Spitfire Uncle Baker 430 calling Kermanshah,’ he called, a moment later.
‘Kermanshah. Spitfire Uncle Baker 430 calling Kermanshah,’ he repeated. We waited for an answer from those hidden below, without whose guiding help we could not descend. Leo repeated the call as we circled in blind turbulent loneliness, in an orbit reduced to artificial horizons and airspeed indicators and the unechoed voice of Leo appealing for help. The sweat was dripping into my oxygen mask.
‘Jackie; you try,’ ordered Leo.
‘Spitfire formation calling Kermanshah. Do you read?’
Silence.
‘Spitfire formation calling Kermanshah. One-two-three-four-five-four-three-two-one. Spitfire formation calling Kermanshah. Come in please,’ I called, putting a siren-like appeal in my voice.
Silence. Damnable silence that brought the first twinge of panic.
‘It’s useless,’ called Leo. ‘They must be on a different frequency. What do we do now? We can’t turn back, we haven’t enough gas.’
‘Turn south towards the plains. We can let down there,’ suggested Sonny.
‘But that’s Iraq,’ protested Leo.
‘Who the hell cares!’ exploded Gordon.
We turned south and flew deeply into forbidden territory away from the mountains before descending through the clouds. Gradually the gloom lightened to an opaque light as the wayward sun returned and shone weakly. At 2,000 feet we broke out of the cloud and found ourselves over desert. I threw the hood open and wiped my hands on my thighs.
‘Anyone know where we are?’ asked Leo optimistically after four distinct sighs of relief had echoed over the R/T.
‘Ha!’
‘Ha!’
‘Ha!’
‘You’re a great help,’ answered Leo acidly. ‘Try and find out. And watch out for Iraqi fighters.’
We edged out into open formation and got out our maps. Our conflicting and irascible observations confirmed that we were completely lost.
‘O.K.’ said Leo decisively. ‘We’ll fly due east until we hit the railway... or run out of gas.’
I looked at my maps. The Iranian State Railway ran due north and south. It was a good tactical move (the railway would pin-point our position) if we were west of it.
We flew steadily eastwards beneath the lingering clouds. Twice mirages provoked a cry of ‘There it is’ followed by bitter disappointment. Impersonally the desert slipped by. The tired parched rivers that were its only relief were impossible to identify. There were too many with the similar features of those born from the same womb. I glanced at my watch; our season ticket for flight was fast expiring.
‘How much petrol have you?’ asked Leo.
‘Eighteen gallons,’ said Sonny.
‘Twenty,’ I said.
‘Fourteen,’ said Gordon.
‘I have less than ten,’ commented Leo dryly.
Ten minutes, before gravity asserted calamity.
‘We’ve had it,’ annonuced Leo coolly. ‘We’ll have to crash-land. After I’ve stopped, land as close to me as you can. Stick together. Land with your hood open and your straps tight. Keep those wheels UP. No heroics, Jackie! Keep those wheels UP. You’ll go over on your back if you land with them down.’
‘Roger,’ I answered.
‘Roger,’ echoed Sonny and Gordon. ‘I hope it’s Iran,’ added Leo.
We were absurdly cool as we circled and watched Leo descend in a wide arc towards his shadow on the desolate plain. It was like a typical British film scenario with everyone keeping a stiff upper lip. I wanted to laugh. And cry.
We all saw it at once. The R/T burst into a shrieking babble.
‘Leo... Leo. Runway. On your left.’
‘...runway... Leo... Don’t land.’
‘LEO... on the left!’
‘O.K. O.K. I’ve seen it.’ He turned sharply. I saw his undercarriage coming down. Oh God, let him make it, I prayed as he turned steeply towards the runway dancing like a mirage in the heat. The spurt of dust as his wheels touched down on this miraculous refuge answered my prayer.
‘Thank God,’ I shouted shamelessly o
ver the R/T.
‘With reservations,’ said Gordon dryly. ‘He was responsible for the weather as well, you know.’
‘Oh shut up,’ I shouted as he turned and landed with Sonny and I following him in.
We climbed out of our cockpits and gaggled together. The runway cut starkly and incongruously through the silent desert. Nothing else was witness to our fantastic escape. Nothing but this gaunt concrete, this exquisite tableau. Gordon knelt and kissed it. ‘You beautiful thing,’ he grinned, ‘I love you.’
‘How much petrol did you have left, Leo?’ I asked.
‘None. The gauge showed empty.’
‘I had twelve gallons left.’
‘Eight,’ said Sonny.
‘Five,’ added Gordon.
We were silent for a moment.
‘We are not out of the woods yet,’ reminded Sonny. ‘We may be in Iraq.’
I looked at the Spitfires, unmarked and silent as walls, parked in an impressive line along the runway; their perfection no credit to us.
A tarmac road bordered the runway and ran south through the desert towards a village perched on the horizon. To the north it straggled towards our recent foes, the weather and the mountains. We sat patiently by the roadside awaiting the messenger of incarceration or freedom. After twenty minutes of silence a lorry passed by, ignoring our signals.
‘Did you notice the number plate...?’ asked Leo.
‘Yes. I think it was Arabic...’
‘That’s Iraq.’
‘No. It was Persian.’
‘That’s Iran.’
A small truck approached from the village and sped furiously towards us.
‘This is it,’ I ejaculated. ‘Handshakes or rifles.’ It stopped opposite us. The driver, sans rifle, stepped out on to the sand with a smile and, with unconscious theatrical melodrama, said: ‘Welcome to Iran.’
Simultaneously we burst into hysterical laughter.
‘Sorry,’ I giggled. ‘We thought we were in Iraq.’
‘Where are we?’ asked Leo.
Spitfire Girl Page 17