by Ray Ollis
N-Nuts was at the lowest level of the attacking bombers, and what proved even more alarming than the flak was the hail of bombs through which they flew when the aircraft above released their loads. A single Lancaster can carry 3,500 incendiaries; flying beneath several hundred aircraft releasing such loads was obviously dangerous. Yet the danger had to be actually seen to be realised; the sky seemed full of twisting, flashing, four-pound incendiary bombs. Many of the officers above were alarmed at this sight, normally hidden by darkness. Indeed, such an outcry resulted that never again did Bomber Command put incendiaries in higher-level bombers.
Chiltern turned rather tight as they headed for home so they found themselves flying on the edge of the gaggle. Vincent quickly computed an alteration.
‘Nav to skipper. Six degrees starb’d to two-eight-four true.’
‘Why, navigator?’
‘Oh, God!’, thought Vincent, but said; ‘Because we are port of track and this course will converge on the next turning-point.’
‘How far are we port of track, navigator?’
‘Three miles. Far enough from the mob to be jumped by fighters.’
‘Thank-you, navigator. But I shall continue to fly as we are. It is too tiring flying in the slipstreams of a close gaggle.’3
Then he added; ‘Skipper to gunners. Be alert for fighters.’
Vincent had never had a pilot refuse to fly his courses before, and the experience left him dumb. He knew his rights in the case; he could actually put Chiltern on a charge for refusing a legal command but in fact such charges were only upheld where trouble resulted from a captain having deliberately failed to follow specialist advice. It was one time when a sergeant could give an order to an Air Marshal and enforce punishment were the order disobeyed. Vincent almost hoped they would be attacked, just to prove his point, but they were not.
At debriefing, however, Vincent did raise the subject with Chiltern. In his friendliest voice, and with a smile, he said; ‘I would like you to know, sir, that if I ever give an order which you disobey, and we encounter trouble as a result, I shall put you on a charge the minute we land.’
‘But, my dear fellow, of course!’, Chiltern replied. ‘It would be the only correct thing you could do.’
Vincent said to the others afterwards; ‘You know, in a way, I’m getting to like the bastard. He is brave, he can fly, and his disinterested passion for regulations amounts to true love.’
‘It’s just that he can’t help being a bastard,’ said Joe.
‘I’m more afraid with this man on an easy trip than I was with Hyde on our toughest night,’ said Bill.
‘With all humility,’ said Magnetic, ‘I must agree. I have already resigned myself to the fact that this maniac is going to kill us. We shall die immaculate, text-book deaths, but die we surely shall.’
Chiltern was winning unpopularity elsewhere, too. One young pilot, a sprog named Hardy, was taking off to fly his first op on Emmerich and removed the flap too early, so that his Lancaster lost lift and mushed into a field beyond the runway. Fortunately none of the bombs exploded and nothing caught fire so nobody was seriously hurt. It was an expensive mistake that most flight commanders would reprimand officially, then dismiss as ‘just one of those things’. But not Squadron Leader Chiltern.
‘Tell me what happened, Hardy,’ he insisted.
‘I had never taken off with a bomb load before, sir,’ said the unhappy Hardy. ‘I selected flaps-up same as usual and she just sank into the ground.’
‘She sank into the ground, Hardy?’
‘I mean the aircraft, sir.’
‘I fully realise you mean the aircraft, Hardy.’
All of Squadron Leader Chiltern’s unpleasant interview manner had returned. ‘But you imply that the aircraft is responsible and not your bad flying.’
‘I’ve always taken off like that, sir. It was the bomb load, sir,’ said Hardy, illogically. Chiltern’s manner had rattled this underconfident sprog as it so often had with his pupils.
‘Now we are blaming the bomb load. Everything is at fault, one would gather, Hardy, but the pilot. I believe the antithesis.’
‘The what, sir?’
‘The direct opposite, Hardy. What height were you when you selected flaps off?’
‘About fifty feet, sir.’
‘And what was your ASI reading?’
‘About one-thirty, sir.’
‘You are lying, Mr Hardy. Your speed was nearer one-six-five and your height was nearer zero. You were taking off to the mess. Boastful flying, Mr Hardy. Since you are so fond of showing the mess how well you can take off, Hardy, you will fly circuits and bumps, with your full crew, two hours each morning and afternoon for the next week. I hope this will improve your take-offs, Hardy, and show you that the mess can be a very unsympathetic audience. That is all, Mr Hardy.’
There was no greater indignity than to be obliged to practise take-offs and landings—the learner’s first task—at an operational squadron. Nor would this punishment enhance Hardy’s reputation in the eyes of his crew. It was an unwise, unkind and unnecessary punishment. The very unkindness of it was what Chiltern wanted.
‘I will not have mistakes in my flight,’ he told his pilots. ‘This flight will be the most efficient flight in Bomber Command—because I am going to make it so.’
He was therefore more annoyed than usual when their own next operation was frustrated. Chiltern was watching his crew very intently as they stood around the aircraft awaiting take-off time. Joe was unable, therefore, to hide the fact that he suddenly felt sick. He explained that it had happened before but Chiltern insisted that he see the MO again.
‘Not now. Nothing must prevent our flying. But be on sick parade tomorrow.’
They would land after three am and sick parade was at 0800 so Joe greeted that order very coldly.
When Chiltern did his pre-take-off checks, however, he discovered faulty hydraulics. The bomb-doors could not be closed. An oil leak was discovered and by the time it was repaired they were too late to take off.
There followed another extremely unpleasant verbal investigation in the flight office during which Schuydt was bombarded with questions and, white with rage, refused to answer with anything but monosyllables.
Matters were not improved when the MO decided to put Joe into hospital for some tests and a few days of special diet. Squadron Leader Chiltern, having at last reached a squadron, was now eager to fly ops all the time and he gave himself another gunner and they were back on the Battle Order that night. The new gunner was a timid, reserved eighteen-year-old from Blackpool. His name was Smiff4 and he had flown four ops.
‘It’s only a couple of days before Joe’s okay again,’ Bill complained. ‘You’d think Chiltern could wait that long.’
They saw Joe in hospital and told him that he’d be missing a trip or two. Joe would have to make up these trips after his crew was screened.
‘Not very considerate, I’m afraid,’ said Magnetic.
‘You’ve got as much chance of experiencing consideration at that bastard’s hands,’ said Joe vehemently, ‘as you have of ramming two pounds of melted butter up a wild-cat’s arse with a red hot gimlet.’
Joe glared around the ward.
‘That, by the way,’ he said, ‘is the treatment I’m getting in here. Rather, that’s what it feels like. And the tucker! All liquid goo that looks like jellyfish with cats’ eyes in it.’
He peeped furtively around. ‘And all a waste of time. This MO is wet. D’ya know what he’s been doing all day today? Slobbering soothing condolences all over P/O Hardy’s wife. He went missing last night. She was staying in the village and she tried to kill herself. Wendy and Barbara were sitting with her first but they aren’t good enough for old Doctor Jellyfish; he has to butt in every two minutes and now he’s brought Mrs Marshall, the signals leader’s wife along. He says the older influence is needed. If he does as much for Mrs Hardy as he’s doing for me she needn’t have slashed her wrist; she’ll
die anyway.’
Wendy and Barbara and Molly Marshal were being as kind as it is possible to be to a young girl who has lost her husband. But what can one do? The MO dared not give her stronger sedatives than he had done and yet she had hardly dozed, and now she lay staring wild-eyed at the ceiling. Occasionally she would turn suddenly and look at one of them and talk like a mad woman.
‘Do you know why I came up to see him?’, she asked Barbara.
Barbara shook her head.
Mrs Hardy laughed loudly and the sound was hideous. ‘I came to tell him we are going to have a baby.’
She laughed again; a piercing laugh that ended in a scream.
‘If only she would cry,’ thought Wendy.
‘… And all day he was flying around in circles practising landings.’ She stared at them again.
‘Yes! Practising to be killed!’ She thrashed her head from side to side and writhed as much as the restraining straps would let her.
‘The day before, he had crashed. I saw it. I saw it and I knew he was crashing with tons of bombs right next to him. I hid my face and waited for the explosion. Can you think how I felt as I waited for the explosion?’
Then her voice was strangely quiet and sane. ‘When I looked up I saw him getting out. Alive. Climbing from the wreckage as though he were a god. I rushed out and he came up to me and he was white.’
She was talking to the ceiling now, not looking at any of them.
‘He had almost been killed—and then they punished him.’
‘Gently, dear,’ said Molly Marshall. ‘You’re having his baby. He was glad about that, wasn’t he?’
‘I won’t have his baby!’, she shrieked. ‘I won’t have any babies. I won’t have babies to be sent to war and killed. I won’t, I won’t …’
They had to hold her head still. When she stopped struggling, Molly Marshall said, ‘He’s quite probably safe and sound. He’ll turn up, you’ll see.’
The girl looked at the older woman and though there was hatred in her eyes it was not hatred of the woman she saw.
‘You cannot comfort me,’ she said. ‘You cannot even feel as I feel. Is your husband dead? Are you a widow at twenty and having a baby? You’re Mrs Marshall, aren’t you? Your husband has finished his flying. He’s safe. Even had you ever loved as I love, you could not comfort me. You can’t understand. None of you can understand. None of you, none of you …’
‘I understand,’ said Barbara. ‘Believe me, I love as I am sure you love, and I understand.’
The girl turned and looked at her.
‘You do?’
‘Yes, I do. But if ever my husband were killed I would not rave and shout. I feel that would cheapen my love. And you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?’
‘What would you do?’
Barbara thought a long moment.
‘I would do nothing to destroy the sweetness of my love,’ she said at length. ‘It might kill me to stay silent; but I would let nothing hurt that memory.’
It was announced that the Squadron Commander was to come off ops. That finished his third tour. He had flown bravely and well, as could be expected of a permanent RAF officer. He had led his men with sensible devotion to both themselves and the job they all had to do.
Everybody was delighted when it was also announced that he had been awarded a DSO. He already had a DFC.
A place was always reserved on the mantelpiece, near his traditional spot by the fire, for the Squadron Commander’s beer tankard. If any other officer was warming himself there when the Squadron Commander came into the ante-room, then that officer simply had to move. Tonight the only person moving regularly into the Squadron Commander’s spot was the bar steward. Things had all the earmarks of developing into a party; the kind of party they all liked best—the party nobody had organised.
Vincent, a very new member of the mess, was keeping in one corner of the bar; a little room removed from the ante-room itself. He was waiting for Wendy, but did not know she was with Mrs Hardy. Vincent had seen a lot of Wendy during his few hours as an officer. To be in the same mess and on a level standing with Wendy was one of the things that pleased him most about being commissioned. In theory officers are not allowed to be friendly with other ranks, and to Waaf officers this rule was usually strictly applied by the Waaf Queen Bee, even on a squadron.
He had asked her to join him for a drink and she had said she would. It was not a serious date; simply a suggested meeting, but he had expected her to be here. For him it was important. And she had not come; not even bothered to phone. Wendy, had he known it, would gladly have had his company. She wanted to tell Vincent how helpless and out-of-her-depth she felt with poor Mrs Hardy. Vincent, Wendy thought, would understand how she felt.
Vincent was wondering whether to have another drink or go back to his room when Flight Lieutenant Marshall and H-H came into the bar.
‘It’s bloody amazing,’ Marshall was saying. ‘He knows all the old lags. Even barged up to the CO and banged him on the back and called him ‘Cluster’. We only named the CO that last year, so he can’t be an old, old crony.’
‘And nobody recognises him?’ asked H-H.
‘Nobody! Here, you have a look.’ Marshall drew back the curtain and looked around the room.
‘There he is. The tall Flight Lieutenant with the blond hair. Do you know him?’
H-H looked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You say he knew you and the Gaffer?’
Vincent stole a look, too. The newcomer meant nothing to him.
‘Recognised us yards away,’ said Marshall. ‘And he asked Anderson if they had had a boy as desired and that was only born last month. I tell you it gives me the creeps—he must be psychic. I swear I’ve never met the man.’
Vincent drew the curtains again to watch. The stranger was nearer now, talking to Buckley, who had returned to ops after his crash and was now almost tour-expired. The stranger was indicating Buckley’s second ring.
‘Flight Lieutenant Buckley,’ the strange voice said. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever …’
That was all Vincent heard. All the actual words. He was looking at the stranger. He was a stranger, but his voice …
Then Vincent looked at the eyes and the teeth, and quickly his glance fell to the left hand …
‘Hyde, you scoundrel!’ Vincent yelled from the bar, and rushed out and embraced his old skipper. ‘Hyde! I might have guessed you’d try a trick like this.’
The two men actually embraced and Vincent was afraid there were tears in his eyes. Suddenly they realised they were embracing and Hyde threw him away.
‘Quite a welcome,’ he roared. ‘But do it properly!’
He pointed to his cheek. ‘Here, kiss my arse!’
At that there were wild roars. Parke’s old tankard had been found and every one of the old gang were milling around shaking his hands.
The Squadron Commander had joined the group and now he led Hyde back to the sacred section of fireplace.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We still have Q-Queenie. And of course you can have her back.’
‘Good old Queenie,’ said Hyde, his eyes sparkling.
‘And I must see what we can do about this.’ He pointed at Hyde’s rank. Squadron Leader had been his acting rank, relinquished when he was wounded.
‘Can’t give you a flight right away. And I’m afraid you, shall we say locum, has taken over your crew. You must meet him.’
He glanced around the room. ‘Where is Squadron Leader Chiltern, Farlow?’
‘Not here, sir. He’s seldom in the mess. He doesn’t drink.’
‘Then he’s not my locum.’
‘But, by God, we’re looking for a new Squadron Commander. If I thought they’d listen to me I’d put your name up. I’ll see the Air Vice-Marshal tomorrow …’
Hyde’s appearance was completely changed. His face, once rugged and mobile, was now smooth, pale and impassive. He would never have to shave again. He wore a wig—he had chosen a blond o
ne to replace his normal dark hair simply out of devilment—and the doctors said his own hair would grow again in time. He was utterly different and yet, after the first moment of strangeness, he was exactly the same. His eyelids would not bear scrutiny and people knowing his story could see the fine, pale scars running here and there around his face. His lips moved less than normal even when he laughed, but all-in-all it was a fine job. He could face the world. More important, the world could face him and not shudder.5
His hands? There lay the question-mark. Both hands looked strange because neither of them grew any hair. His right hand would be all right, he said. It was still tender, but functionally perfect. His left hand, he explained, was wonderful, really, when one considered that it was thought originally that he would never use it again. There were two scars down the side of each finger. It made them appear square, like thin blueish boxes. The fingernails were shrivelled and triangular, curling forward to a claw-like point that tended to grow down over the tips of his fingers. His left hand was not pretty; it looked like the hand of a werewolf.
‘But I can use it!’, he had said brightly. Then, painfully, he had flexed the pantomime fingers: slowly, with difficulty, and obviously it cost great effort. Even then his fist had not closed. Vincent noticed, too, that these fingers never quite straightened but remained hooked and unrelaxed; this hand, one felt, would never rest again.
‘I have changed, though,’ Hyde admitted seriously to Vincent when they were alone the next morning. ‘My mind thinks differently now. And it thinks the same things over and over. You’ve heard me mention Aubrey? He was one of my navs before you; he was killed.’ Hyde was speaking quietly, eyes set on distance, as though he spoke his thoughts.
‘Aubrey’s head was blown off. You know the set-up in the Halifax—nav in front?6 Well, his head lay on the floor in front of me. And when I banked, it would roll across the floor, first one way and then another. And, do you know, it didn’t worry me. Not at the time. Do you know what I thought when I saw that head, my friend’s head, rolling around the floor at my feet? I checked my turn-and-bank indicator. I thought, ‘If I were flying a perfect turn, then gravity should be straight down and that head should not roll.’