Imperium: Revelation: Book Two in the Imperium Trilogy

by Paul M Calvert

  Although, as the crow flies, Alexander wasn’t more than a couple of miles away from where Ena was now living, he’d only been able to see her twice since they had moved here from London. The first time had been on the day of moving when a removal van, converted to run on coal gas, had turned up to transport all of her and Bill’s things to the new house in Dagenham. The day had been spent moving the meagre furniture around from room to room until she had been satisfied, then they went for a walk around the new neighbourhood, eventually settling for a drink in the pub at the end of her road, aptly called the Railway Hotel, being situated at the bottom of the hill on which sat Dagenham Underground station. It was an imposing building, out of keeping with the rest of the neighbourhood, probably built in the expectation of better things to come.

  The second time had been the previous weekend, to celebrate his first proper weekend leave. Alexander had walked from the airfield, through the housing estate, and across the open fields separating it from her house. Next to the sewage plant, a small stream had blocked his path, only a few feet deep and fifteen wide, leaving him no option but to leap across. Fortunately, the ground was dry so he had an easy landing and didn’t get his uniform muddy on the stream’s bank. From there, it was a short walk past allotments and the newly constructed pill-box and concrete tank traps that ran along the rear of her street. At the back of her new house there was a disused gravel quarry, now filled with water, that reached almost up to her small back garden. She’d been slightly taken aback on seeing him in his new uniform for the first time and had remarked how handsome he looked. He was surprised by both this and how good it made him feel hearing her say it. Inside the two storey house, Ena had already begun to make the place feel more homely, adding little feminine touches to every room. Outside the house, he observed the milkman’s horse gently munching on the low-lying privet hedge that adorned most of the front gardens. He had been fascinated when it defecated in the street and several people ran out with buckets and spades to pick up what Ena had laughingly told him were “horse apples.” She had laughed at his quizzical look and observation at how neat and tidy the new neighbours obviously were, then explained to him that people used the manure as fertiliser, mixing it with water and leaving it for a few days, then would spread the foul smelling liquid over their allotments and gardens to improve the soil.

  Later that day, chores finished, Alexander and Ena had sat in the back garden in brightly coloured deck chairs, drinking gin and tonic. With his first weeks pay as a Flying Officer, Alexander had managed to buy a bottle of Gin from the Officers Mess and presented it to Ena along with some tonic water, having previously discovered it was her favourite drink. Relations between the two of them had continued to improve since their picnic in the park, and she obviously felt much happier with his company for their conversations had become easier and more open. Her new job, nearby in the Stirling armaments factory in Oxlow Lane, provided her with a welcome income and with the money coming from Bill every month, by way of a Postal Order, she was managing very well. She spoke of taking in a lodger, another young woman from the factory, as it would allow her to buy some more pieces of furniture “on tick.” Alexander didn’t know what this meant so she had explained about the Tally Man and how poor people like them bought things when they didn’t have all the money up front. That had brought home again to Alexander, just how fortunate he had been with his upbringing and he again found himself respecting how these people managed to get by with so little…

  On reaching the hut, Alexander brought himself back from thinking of Ena, and dropped off his flight clothes, then went over to the shower block, knowing he had some time before another plane could be made ready for him. Due to his size, he only just fit into the narrow cockpit and as a result always felt sweaty and dirty after getting out of the plane, especially if he’d been in combat.

  By the time he’d finished, several others of his squadron had returned from being debriefed and were milling around the mess hut, mugs of tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other. One or two were regaling the others with stories of what had happened, their arms and hands weaving intricate patterns in the air as they demonstrated their flying manoeuvres.

  “Early bath today, Alex?” called out the nearest airmen when he spotted him, “I saw you get hit and thought you’d bought it for a minute, but Tubby here managed to get the blighter who got you, didn’t you, Tubby?” looking at the slimly built young man who simply nodded and smiled, lifting his mug of tea towards Alexander in salute.

  “Looks like I owe you a pint in the pub tonight then, Tubby” Alexander called out, moving over to the low table and pouring himself a cup of tea from the urn, along with several of the rapidly disappearing biscuits, just as the telephone rang again and everyone stood still, watching as the nearest pilot picked it up, everyone listening as the details were provided.

  “They’ve hit Manston again, chaps. Back we go again,” said the pilot, and with that everyone ran out and across towards the waiting Spitfires. Alexander followed, hoping one of the spares might have been made be ready for him. He caught sight of Jimmy waving frantically at him and ran over, gratefully taking the proffered parachute, stepping into it and making sure it was properly secured.

  “Don’t forget this, sir,” Jimmy said, his gap-toothed smile wide as he handed Alexander a flying helmet and mask.

  “Cheers, Jimmy, what would I do without you?” Alexander asked, climbing into the cockpit from the left and starting the preflight checks, but not before adjusting his seat height and pedal settings of the spare fighter to suit his large frame.

  “Here we go again,” he thought to himself, plugging in his oxygen supply. Within minutes, Alexander’s new Spitfire was bumping over the airfield, picking up speed as he headed into the wind, readying his right foot to compensate for the swing from the Merlin engine. The bumps speeded up, then lessened as the Spitfire reached ninety and eased itself into the air, Alexander sending one of the drones ahead with the other watching his rear.

  The next day, Tuesday the thirteenth, Alexander was woken at five-thirty by a batman bringing him a cup of tea with news the Germans had begun attacking in force and he’d better get ready for the telephone to begin ringing. A short while later, he was assembled with the other pilots inside the hut. At this early hour, Hornchurch was covered with low cloud and drizzling rain and it was just too cold for them to wait outside closer to their aeroplanes. Unbelievably, his regular fighter had been repaired overnight by Jimmy and his ground crew. On inspecting their handiwork, Alexander hadn’t been able to see the joins or feel them when he ran his hand over the wing and tail fin. Back in the hut, rumours were rife, with stories of massed German formations moving inland, away from the channel shipping and radar stations.

  “I’m surprised it’s taken them so long to work it out that to invade Britain they first have to take out the RAF,” Vimes spoke in his mind.

  “Will they then invade?” asked Alexander, “but what about the Royal Navy?”

  “Good point, but without air cover, even the battleships are just so much target practice, although I don’t think they’ve woken up to this fact yet. The British are going to get some nasty surprises as this war progresses, you mark my words. The world has changed and Capital ships without air cover are very vulnerable.”

  Finally, at quarter to seven, the call came through to scramble and patrol the Thames Estuary as a precautionary measure against attack, as not all of the radar stations were fully recovered from the previous day's attacks. Twenty minutes later they spotted a flight of Dorniers, somewhere between Whitstable and Margate. They used their height advantage to take them by surprise and attack them in a screaming dive from the rear. Several of the Dorniers tried to peel away and make for the safety of the clouds, but the remainder kept going towards RAF Eastchurch. Despite having his hands full as he searched for his next target, Alexander was able to see that the airfield was sustaining heavy damage. His neck was aching from the constant lookin
g backwards over his shoulder so he instructed a drone to stand overwatch behind him and warn of any fighters coming out of the sun or clouds to his rear. Alexander selected a Dornier and swooped down onto it from the rear, using the now bright sun to shield him for as long as possible, sending a stream of bullets into the starboard engine which died, yawning the plane violently to the left so his next burst missed where he was aiming but fortunately struck the port engine. The German pilot tried to break for the clouds but not before Alexander stitched a pattern of holes in the fuselage with his four machine-guns. Incredibly, none of his tracers ignited anything and the damaged plane, now flying on one spluttering engine, started to rapidly lose height. Not wishing to lose the kill and wary of the pilot trying to fool him, Alexander followed it down as the pilot desperately searched for somewhere flat and treeless to land his stricken bomber. Alexander had to swing around in a tight turn, using the Spitfires manoeuvrability to keep the crash site in view as he watched the bomber dig a deep furrow in the recently tilled soil before wrapping it’s starboard wing around a tree and coming to an abrupt halt.

  Satisfied he now had a confirmed kill, Alexander headed back up into the sky, seeking altitude and his next target, mentally working out how many seconds firing time he had left in his guns. Alexander reckoned six, two seconds bursts had been fired, so he was now down to four seconds of firing before his guns went silent and his fighter would be forced to return for rearmament and more fuel. He checked on his second drone which had been following the Dornier as it crashed and was relieved to see the German crew had made it down safely and had already been taken prisoner by a number of British soldiers who had been in the area watching the fighting going on the skies above them.

  “Anyone see my kill?” he asked into the radio and was relieved to have his Squadron Leader confirm it.

  “Good shooting, Alex, time to head back. The Hurricanes from North Weald will be here soon and we need to rearm for the next wave.”

  With that, his squadron turned north and headed back to Hornchurch, only learning later in the day that Sgt Norris, from 65 Squadron, Hornchurch, had crashed into the sea off Portland and was reported missing. A popular flyer, several glasses were raised in his honour that night. No-one was allowed off base because of the fear they might be attacked, so instead of heading for the Good Intent, all the pilots had to make do with the Officers Mess. Alexander had been the recipient of several beers himself that night, as one of only two confirmed kills from the squadron, the rest only probables for no-one had seen the other planes actually crash, although quite a few had last been seen scurrying back across the Channel, trailing black smoke and oil.

  During these first few weeks of combat, Vimes had mixed feelings over whether Alexander was following the right course of action but knew better than to try and persuade him out of his chosen path, and despite the risks, he admired his young charge’s determination to see it through, reasoning that the two drones and Alexander’s superb reflexes and reaction times would give him the extra edge he needed to keep relatively safe.

  As day follows night, the same daily routine ground itself into the waking hours, and for many, into their dreams as well. The stress and strain of being on constant alert took it’s toll on the mental well-being of the young men and Alexander was no exception, even with the natural advantages he enjoyed which the other pilots had no inkling of, nearly all of them believing he lived an almost charmed life. The constant threat of yet another empty seat around the mess table meant he found it difficult to get too close to the other pilots and whilst he joined in with the fun and games they so delighted in playing on each other as a way of relieving the stress, he was mindful their lives could be cut short at any time.

  On the eighteenth, RAF Hornchurch itself was finally bombed and temporarily put out of action for a short time until the work gangs filled in the bomb craters left by the attacking Germans. Fortunately, none of the bombs had hit any of the planes or important buildings and apart from a few shrapnel wounds, no-one was hurt.

  A few days later, on Saturday the twenty-fourth, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, Alexander had been enjoying a rest day, sitting outside his hut in a brightly coloured deckchair or simply walking around the perimeter fence, when the airfield was again attacked, this time heavily. He’d been near the new administration buildings when it took a direct hit from a stick of seven bombs and blew into a hailstorm of wooden splinters, showering everything nearby with wood, paper, and dirt. Luckily, he’d had enough warning and managed to jump into one of the many concrete blast shelters dug into the ground, along with several of the ground crew and all of the ladies from the administrative buildings typing pool. Apart from bruised pride and being covered in dirt thrown up by the explosions, everyone had thankfully escaped injury. All around, the Tett gun emplacements and 40mm Bofors were trying to bring down the attackers and Alexander decided his place wasn’t on the ground hiding in a dugout, but up in the air. Unfortunately, despite having sprinted all the way over to the parking bay where his fighter was situated, it hadn’t been fuelled or armed and Jimmy told him in no uncertain terms what he thought about the idea, leaving him and a number of the other pilots who’d had a similar idea about getting back in the air, frustrated and angry. By five o’clock the bombing was all over and it was time for everyone on the airfield to take stock.

  Despite extensive damage, the airfield remained operational, apart from a number of damaged or destroyed buildings, although the smell of sulfur and cordite lingered everywhere a bomb had fallen. Near the buildings, glass crunched underfoot and the extent of the blast damage was clearly marked by the spread of debris. Unable to do anything more, Alexander joined in with the cleaning up, chatting with the other helpers, everyone relieved to be in one piece and unhurt.

  When he awoke the next day, his batman gave him the news everyone had been fearing. The East End of London had been badly bombed, for the first time since 1918, confirming Bill’s prediction that sooner or later London would be targetted. Over breakfast, his fellow pilots were debating whether or not the raid on London had been intentional, with mixed views. One or two thought it accidental, the result of a simple navigational error on the German’s part. Both he and Vimes knew better as did the majority who thought it a deliberate attack and the precursor of more to come. His respect for the old soldier’s foresight grew and he wondered what Bill might have made for himself in the Imperial Navy or Bodyguard if his roll of galactic dice had seen him born into the Imperium instead of here on Earth. Such thoughts depressed him, however, and he knew better than to wonder too long about what might have been instead of living for the moment.

  When later that day he was finally back in his cockpit, the stressful routine continued, a succession of scrambles interspersed with precautionary patrols and moments of intense action that left him both elated and drained in equal measure. His reputation as a lucky pilot changed into one for being skillful and Alexander’s stock rose along with his tally of confirmed kills and probables. In the skies above, Alexander had come across his preferred method of attack by accident. The following day, focused on his prey, he peeled off to port, straight into the path of a twin-engined Heinkel-111 bomber only six hundred yards away and dead ahead of him. With a combined closing speed of three hundred yards a second, it was only his enhanced reflexes that allowed him to fire a one second burst straight into the enemies nose, then break off. Behind him, the 111 slowly spiralled out of the sky, with both its pilot and navigator killed outright from the head on attack, trailing black smoke from the now burning cockpit. Somewhat shaken from the near miss, in a moment of clarity he realised almost all of the German bombers lacked forward firing guns and if a pilot had the nerve and skill to attack head-on, the chances of flying into defensive fire from the belly or rear gunners was eliminated. The tactic also made the job of the defending fighters that much harder, for if they tried to attack him from the rear they risked hitting or ramming the bombers themselves. Unfortunately,
the downside of this tactic meant one error or misjudgement and you would almost certainly be killed.

  Soon, Alexander had another chance to put his new tactic to the test, and on the last day of August, his squadron had been scrambled to engage another large group of bombers who were obviously heading towards Hornchurch and North Weald airfields. Once the dogfighting began, he selected his target, another Heinkel, and flew straight towards it. Again at the optimum firing distance of three hundred yards, he opened fire and noted the German’s canopy shatter into dozens of shards that glittered and sparkled in the sunshine. The enemy plane dropped down beneath him and immediately Alexander was faced with another Heinkel following immediately behind the first. He gave this one a two-second burst and watched this drop out of formation too, before rolling over onto it’s back and begin it’s death spiral down to the ground. Pulling hard on his stick, Alexander climbed hard into the clear blue sky, all the while looking out for enemy fighters that by now might have marked him as a serious threat. Before diving back down to make another pass, he could see a number of Hurricane fighters diving in to attack the bombers, so decided to leave them to it and go after the defending fighters. Now at a good height to dive down, Alexander rolled the Spitfire to port and selected a 109 that was below and near enough that his momentum would give him the advantage.