Storm at Sunset

by Hall, Ian

  “Yep, I’ve checked them.”

  “Well he’s a lucky sod then. He can help us carry the bags. Get him aboard.”

  A few moments later the sound came of the fuselage door slamming to, and the newcomer made his way forward to introduce himself. Ken registered a battered cap sitting on top of a mop of curly hair, and a smiling young face.

  “Thanks for stopping, captain. I nearly missed the boat. No idea when the next one’s scheduled to leave. Stroke of luck.”

  “You’re dead right there. Anyway, whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  “Pilot Officer Smith, sir. Keith. As of very recently, a qualified Dakota co-pilot. And a veteran of three hours and 40 minutes on type. Proud possessor of an arm like a pin-cushion after yesterday’s jab session in sick quarters. I must now be vaccinated and inoculated against all known diseases. And probably a few unknown ones too.”

  Ken grinned. “Well you’re welcome to join us. Do you have any idea where we’re heading?”

  “I was hoping you’d know that! The Far East somewhere, if that’s any help.”

  “That’s about as much as we know too. Anyway, you’ll have plenty of time to tell us your story later. For now, make yourself as comfortable as you can down the back and we’ll get under way.”

  Keith went back, found himself one of the primitive cabin seats and settled into it, nodding to the airman who was hunched opposite. And, as he finally got his seatbelt fastened, the wheels left the ground. He let out a relieved whistle; it had been a close-run thing.

  So here he was, no longer a Hurricane pilot, and Keith looked around with interest at his new surroundings. The end of the war in Europe had, as promised, brought a reassessment of the front line requirements, and the whole of his course of young fighter pilots, who had celebrated their graduation so riotously barely a month previously, had been redeployed. Most were kicking their heels. But Keith, and a couple of others, had been hastily slotted in to fill gaps on a transport course.

  “Dakotas?” had moaned one of his friends. “It’s not quite the same, is it? Hardly my idea of a fighter.”

  “Shut up and count yourself lucky,” Keith had retorted. “Better than stacking blankets, which we could equally well have found ourselves doing. And look on the bright side. With you being so inept it’s probably saved you from killing yourself in a Hurricane.”

  The banter had continued as the newly selected transport pilots had settled down to their new assignment. There was, apparently, an urgent requirement for co-pilots out east, and Keith was now thoroughly determined to make a go of this new direction his life was taking him in. Naturally, there had been a pang of disappointment at the loss of the fighter posting, but his cheerful disposition had allowed him quickly to get over it. Before long he was at home flying with a crew, and he took full advantage of the long trip, consolidating his knowledge of this new method of operating. For much of the way he perched between the two pilots, picking up what he’d missed on his hasty conversion in the English Cotswolds.

  Given that he had to go east, Aircraftman Arthur Brownlow counted himself lucky to be travelling by air, and even luckier that his aircraft was actually destined for where he needed to go rather than being merely a scheduled run to one of the regular staging posts. Not least, he thought, it beat a troopship, whose transit would have been both uncomfortable and interminable. As a newly qualified Dakota engine fitter, he expected he’d prove useful in helping out with the aircraft’s daily servicing, but apart from that Brownlow found he had little to do en route except gaze out of the window and think.

  As he watched first Sicily slide by and then Egypt, he registered the change in the terrain from English green to Mediterranean brown – and thence to desert tan. Then brown once more for large parts of the interminable stretch across the subcontinent, before reverting to green as they approached the jungles of the Far East. But jungle green was quite different from the fresh fields of England, and the gradual changes of shade signalled to him his detachment from reality. As the machine eased him inexorably eastwards, he felt totally helpless in its clutches.

  Disturbing images of home haunted him for much of the journey. Indeed, even on the night before their departure when he’d joined the rest of the crew on their visit to the local cinema, he’d found it difficult to prevent his thoughts from wandering. In the picture house, as well as the main feature they’d seen a newsreel of the VE Day celebrations. He’d watched flickering images of the British girls dancing in the streets, clinging to the soldiers and sailors with whom they were cavorting. And playbacks of the scenes continually returned to torture him as the aircraft headed further and further eastwards. The girls had been laughing. They’d been kissing the soldiers. Dancing … kissing sailors … kissing American GIs … kissing airmen … kissing …

  Having been in London on that evening, he knew it was all true. Now the pictures were haunting him and, try as he might, he couldn’t put them from his mind. The kissing back in England was still going on, he felt sure. Joy had been her usual loving self until the moment when they’d parted, and he knew he’d no particular reason to doubt her. But now he was heading eastwards, the distance between them lengthening every minute, and he couldn’t seem to prevent those doubts preying on his mind.

  The navigator told him they were now not far short of Calcutta, and with some force of will he tried to wrench his mind back to reality. But now he found himself wondering about the accident which had occurred as they’d filed out of the cinema. That wireless operator – what was his name? He’d forgotten already, but it really didn’t matter. The man was, even now, lying in a hospital bed back in Blighty. Lucky bastard – wasn’t he? Arthur thought so. He’d be hurting, of course, but at least he was safe at home – and probably the war in the Far East would be over by the time he was fit again. Could he, Arthur Brownlow, have tried to engineer something similar?

  He sighed. He knew that wasn’t his way. And in any case it was far too late now. He was locked in the hands of the system. The endless drone of the engines was soporific. It was the swelling sound of the London crowds on VE night. The tropical sun streaming in through the aircraft windows mirrored the lights of Piccadilly Circus, sweeping over him again, illuminating the clouds of cigarette smoke rising above the tall buildings as the two of them had approached, her hand in his.

  The images passed in rapid succession – he couldn’t tell whether he was awake or asleep. His hand felt small, now, in his father’s big one as they entered the gates of their local park in the pitch black. He’d never been there after dark, and he felt an unease tinged with excitement. Now the distant roar was a travelling fair making its annual visit to his childhood suburb. He and his father were being borne along by the throng, and he could pick out the dark treetops ahead, silhouetted against coloured light streaming upwards in smoky clouds. Now he heard the coarse voices of the swarthy men who ran the rides; the whirl and crash of the dodgems; and the roar of the traction engines and their generators. Lights twinkled through the trees as they approached, and he could smell the electricity. They burst out into the glare of the arena, the noise of the organ music reached deafening levels. The grass was damp and his feet were cold, but his body could feel the heat of the lights; they were at the fair.

  He stirred uncomfortably. His feet were freezing in the draughty Dakota but the heat was still beating on the back of his neck as the sun streamed through the Perspex behind him. The fair was a childhood memory and those marvellous evenings with his father were gone, but the engines droned on, his present filled with their endless vibration. He was grown up now, with a man’s worries. He turned round to the window and gazed out at the sky. The sky was better than the images in his head; it was blue-grey … and blank.

  ****

  At RAF Station Dum Dum on the outskirts of Calcutta, a flight lieutenant in a crumpled bush jacket came aboard with an equally crumpled map.

  “31 Squadron. You probably don’t know it, but they were based
here at Dum Dum for part of the war,” he announced. “But now they’re here.” His dirty finger pointed at a spot apparently no different from any other point in the seemingly endless jungle. “Reckon you can find that, flight sergeant?”

  “Burma. Yes, I reckon we could manage that,” Ken smiled. And as soon as they’d been refuelled they were on their way again.

  Two and a half hours later, and after crossing the northern reaches of the Bay of Bengal, they made landfall in Burma and started to search for their destination. They flew over the area which ought to have been home to RAF Station Ramree Island and saw nothing. They circled again, all eyes glued to the Perspex. Surely this couldn’t be the place they were looking for? There was little to be seen by way of human habitation. But then, scraped out of the swampy jungle’s edge, seemed to emerge the indistinct outline of a landing strip. And as they orbited, a few hard outlines of wings, tents and huts began to reveal themselves. This had to be it. Ken could make out the runway now, and set himself up for an approach. A green light winked at them from a caravan, inviting them to land at this alien location. Throttling back and lowering the wheels and flaps, Ken plopped the Dak down and taxied in, being marshalled to the edge of the undergrowth. They shut down the engines and prepared to disembark. Through the windows came the distinctive new smells and sounds of the east. Just one month after VE Day they had arrived in their new operating area.

  CHAPTER 4

  Wearily, they gathered their bits and pieces around them as a gaggle of airmen, dressed in boots, ragged shorts and not much else, scurried out with chocks, steps and a power cart. They stepped warily down into the dripping heat and surveyed the scene.

  So this was what they’d flown all these thousands of miles for. Scattered around the periphery of the landing field, a few Dakotas were visible. The squadron had made its best efforts at concealment, mindful of the small but still significant threat from Japanese raiders. Some of the aircraft had been dragged, tail first, under the edges of the jungle canopy. Others were draped with tarpaulins and makeshift pieces of camouflage. Nobby registered them as being a sorry-looking lot. Streaked with grime, their faded olive drab paint schemes hadn’t seen a paint shop for many a day. Blimey, he thought, these kites have seen some service.

  But one odd feature struck Nobby, standing out like a sore thumb. The national markings. The roundels on the wings and fuselage of the resident aircraft; the fin flashes. They were blue and white. Or blue and pale blue, maybe. Perhaps blue and grey? It was difficult to be sure, the aircraft were so filthy dirty. What, thought Nobby, had happened to the good old red, white and blue? He knew that, earlier in the war, the white ring on the RAF marking had been reduced in size to tone them down a little. But this was quite different.

  A local airman caught his enquiring gaze. “It’s ’cos of the Yanks, mate. Shoot at anything that moves, they will.”

  Nobby looked blank.

  “Anything with red on it, that is. The ‘rising sun’ on the Jap machines – get it? Seems like the red in our roundels was getting confusing for our poor old transatlantic cousins. We had a couple of bloody near misses. So our great masters in the staff took one of the war’s most momentous decisions and decreed that our kites out here would wear only blue and white. How d’you like it?”

  “I’d have thought that we had our roundels long before the Yanks had an air force. But I suppose numbers talk …”

  “Seems to be the way of it.”

  Their attention was caught by a droning sound coming from over the trees as a Dakota appeared on final approach to land. Even to Ken’s unaccustomed eye it appeared to be travelling far too fast. The engine noise fell away rapidly as the aircraft’s pilot seemed to realise the same thing. The Dak touched down hard with a squelching thump audible even at a distance, and bounced high into the air. One wing dropped horribly, picked up again, and the engine note screamed briefly before dying away as the machine made a second, shuddering touch-down. Half way across the landing area the transport was still going like a train. The tyres shrieked as the big aircraft shuddered into an awkward ground loop through a full 360 degrees, before skidding sideways off the strip just before the trees that delineated the end.

  The station’s reactions unfolded before them, seemingly in slow motion. The occupants of the control tower, wary of the stricken aircraft’s ultimate direction, threw out escape ropes from the upper stories and began to shin down. Figures appeared from tents which might have been in the firing line, upsetting trestle tables and scattering papers. A small, drab green, tanker-like truck – Ken supposed it was an approximation of a fire engine – set off in laboured pursuit of the Dak.

  The onlookers watched, horrified, as the aircraft’s undercarriage collapsed leg by leg. As the spinning props gouged into the soft ground, first sending up arcs of debris and then eventually stopping the engines, it almost seemed as though the Dakota was giving up with a weary sigh. The airmen watched as it went down slowly and lopsidedly in a series of small stages. Incongruously, Dusty had a vision of a plump pigeon settling on its egg-filled nest. Even in the damp air, dust rose together with a shower of small bits and pieces – scrub and bushes.

  Eventually the tableau settled into silence, save for the whine of the pursuing fire tender. In the still, evening air, the watchers could pick up the clang of the Dak’s door as it swung open, and the distant shouts of the stricken aircraft’s crew as they jumped out.

  “Good. Looks as though they’re all safe then.” The voice behind them came from a squadron leader who introduced himself as one of Thirty-One’s flight commanders. “Could have been nasty.”

  “What brought that on then?” Ken asked after they’d shaken hands. “Hope it’s not always like that out here!”

  The man passed a weary hand across his forehead. “Dunno. ‘R for Roger’. It was a busted old heap, anyway. They say now that the war in Europe’s over we’ll get some of their cast-offs. At least they’ve got to be better than what we’ve been working with up until now. All the best stuff has always gone to the European theatre. Yesterday we’d have had to bodge that wreck up yet again. Make do and mend. Now, today, we might be able just to replace it with a newer one.”

  Ken was just about managing to follow the man’s drift.

  “Welcome, anyway. We’re pleased to see you. And we’re very pleased to see the aircraft you’ve brought. As you’ve just witnessed, we can never have too many. By the way, is this the one you left England in?”

  Ken nodded, puzzled.

  “I only ask because we’ve heard in the past of crews leaving home with brand new kites and having them taken off them in the Middle East or India by stations who claim that their need is more pressing than ours. They’ve been sent onwards in clapped-out old machines. Hence the motley selection of tired old Daks you’ll find here.”

  “Ah, I see,” came back Ken. “No, we managed to hang on to this one all the way. It’s not new, but it doesn’t seem to have any major snags. And I might say we’ve tidied it up a good deal en route. In fact we’d be quite happy if you’d allocate it as our crew aircraft, if that suits.”

  “Well I don’t see why not – I’ll let you know. Anyway, just to fill you in, about half the squadron’s here at Ramree Island. The rest are up-country at various jungle strips. We’re still busy resupplying the army and evacuating casualties and ex-POWs. But as you’ll probably know, the pace of operations in Burma is dropping off markedly now, and we’re planned to redeploy to eastern India in just a few days’ time. There, we’ll be preparing for the next big push – southwards into Malaya and Singapore.”

  Ken nodded.

  “Now, we need to sort out the odds and ends. First, I understand you’ve got a spare co-pilot with you.”

  “That’s me, sir.” Keith stepped forward. “Pilot Officer Smith.”

  The flight commander shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’ve got you pencilled in for Ted’s crew. He’ll look after you.”

  He turned to the nex
t man. “Now, who are you?”

  “Aircraftman Brownlow, sir. Engine fitter.”

  “Come with me, Brownlow.” He beckoned, and Arthur followed. The officer took him to a Dakota standing on a nearby dispersal. “This will be your aircraft, Brownlow. ‘D for Dog’. Where it goes, you will go. You will have to act as an air dispatcher, so get yourself a log book and you will be paid an extra one and fourpence a day flying pay. You will not get a parachute, chiefly because we have none on the squadron. Good luck, Brownlow.” He turned and strolled off.

  Bemused, Arthur threw a salute at the retreating back. Not quite what he’d expected. But an extra one and fourpence! Not bad, he thought, for an engine fitter.

  “By the way,” called back the squadron leader over his shoulder, “you should all report to the adjutant and he’ll make sure you get somewhere to sleep and show you where to collect your bedding. The cookhouse is still open, so get yourselves some tea. Don’t forget to shake out your boots tomorrow morning before you put them on. Snakes seem to find the smell of airmen’s feet irresistible. Hard to understand, but that’s the way it is. Cobras, kraits – the jungle’s full of them. Wear boots, not sandals. Long trousers rather than shorts if you can. I’ll see you at the briefing tomorrow. Seven o’clock sharp. Good luck!”

  They looked at each other, eyebrows raised at this eccentric welcome. Ray nudged Nobby.

  “Look at that sign over there.”

  ‘Happy Valley’, it read.

  “And there’s another odd one.” Ray followed Nobby’s pointing finger.

  ‘Burra Sahibs’ was the legend.

  “What the hell does that mean?” enquired Ray Fox of a passing airman.

  “ ‘British Officers’, of course.” The man looked at them as though it had been a silly question.

  “So who’s the notice for?” persisted the co-pilot. “Who here needs to know in a foreign language that this is the British officers’ area?”

  “Well we do have locals working on the camp,” came back the man. “But I suppose they already know. It’s just for fun really.”