101 Nights

by Ray Ollis

  I used that head to teach me how to fly. To me, then, it was not my navigator’s head but another instrument. Can you believe that?’

  Vincent said nothing. He looked sympathetically at his friend as Hyde continued.

  ‘But now I see it as a head.’ Hyde closed his eyes and hit his forehead with his clenched right hand. ‘All the time I see it as a head. Aubrey’s head with open eyes and mouth about to speak …’

  Vincent thought; ‘Yes, Hyde. You’re right; you have changed. You’ve had enough of war. And then—fatal combination—you’ve had enough time to think.’

  Vincent spoke what leapt to his mind. ‘Are they putting you back on ops?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said at first I would never fly again. I determined to beat that. They suggested that I should take my discharge: go home. I protested and they agreed to let me come here and if I could convince the squadron they should take me on again then the medical boys would okay it. So here I am. I want to fly. Yet, in a way, I fear to fly. I guess I’ve lost my nerve. I had hoped to get my old crew back; being with you chaps—links with my confident days—I felt I’d regain the old zest. I don’t suppose that’s possible.’

  Again Vincent did not reply. He wanted to fly with Hyde. Yet he feared to fly with Hyde; he feared that Hyde would never again be fit to fly.

  ‘But, tell me,’ Hyde said with sudden brightness. ‘What’s the news with you? Explain your commission! A bad type like you—an officer!’

  Vincent told Hyde that he was nav leader and awaiting Flight Lieutenant rank. He told the sad, grand story of 101 and D-Day. Of his wind idea. Of Chiltern and of Schydt.

  ‘… and finally, I’ve really lost my table-tennis title. Flight Lieutenant Marshall has played me a few games, mastered my tricks, challenged me, and won. And he never leaves the ground so there’ll be no German interference this time. I’m really the ex-champ …’

  They did not have time to talk again. Hyde was going on leave as soon as he saw the squadron authorities and, anyway, Vincent was called on the next battle order.

  It was another night trip. Target: Saarbrücken.7 Flying with Chiltern, they found, was becoming no less unnerving. Over the target they encountered predicted flak. Window was preventing radar flak-prediction, so the German defences were forced to fire at the area through which the bombers were flying and hope to hit something.

  Barrage flak had a special paragraph in the text-book. It was not aimed at any particular aircraft, the book explained, and therefore evasive action was pointless. If one weaved there was as much chance of weaving into a shell as weaving away from one. So, said the text-book, in barrage flak, drop your nose a little, jam on extra throttle, and fly fast and straight. The quickest way through was the safest way out.

  Squadron Leader Chiltern had read the text-book, hallowed it and determined to put it into action complete to the last full-stop and footnote.

  There was one aspect of barrage flak, however, which was quite familiar to experienced aircrew but not mentioned in the text-book, and therefore either unknown or unacceptable to Squadron Leader Chiltern. Even within barrage flak one might encounter an accurate, fixed gun, pumping sixteen shells a minute into one particular spot in the sky. About every three seconds it would throw a shell into exactly the same place. If one’s aircraft were heading exactly for that spot it was obviously sheerest folly to continue flying straight. Even the authors of the text-book must admit that. They had never said so, but surely they expected men to interpret their wisdom and apply it to practice.

  Squadron Leader Chiltern no more interpreted or allowed interpretation of text-books than he would of the Ten Commandments. A text-book drill was no less holy than an order.

  Bill saw the fixed flak exploding dead ahead and ordered: ‘Bomb aimer to skipper. Flak ahead. Alter course twenty degrees starb’d.’

  ‘Why, bomb aimer?’

  ‘There’s a fixed gun. We’re tracking straight into it.’

  ‘But this is barrage flak, not predicted.’

  Bill’s answer was rising in semitones of panic. ‘But look at it. Dead ahead! We’ll fly straight into it. Starb’d! Starb’d—quick!’

  Squadron Leader Chiltern ploughed straight on …

  It could have been worse.

  It might have got them right in the bomb bay.

  As it was, one burst went about fifty feet in front of them and the next one was too far behind to do more than rock them around the sky.

  Bill’s panic hit a top G-sharp. ‘I’ve been hit! My arm! I’ve been hit!’

  ‘Will you be able to bomb, bomb aimer?’, asked Chiltern.

  Bill’s answer was to shriek again; ‘My arm! Oh, Jesus! My arm!’

  ‘Attend to the bomb aimer, engineer,’ said Chiltern, exasperation edging his voice. ‘Navigator. Do you remember how to bomb?’

  ‘I think so, skipper.’

  ‘Come forward and take over, will you? I’ve over-shot now. We’ll have to go round again.’

  Bill’s wound looked bloody but superficial. Magnetic slipped the escape knife out of his flying boot and cut away the battledress sleeve, then applied a dressing from the first aid pack. Bill was already suffering from shock far more severe than the wound warranted, so Magnetic dragged him amidships and propped him against the main spar. All other Lancasters have a rest position amidships—‘dead man’s bunk’—but in 101 aircraft the space was filled with the Special and his equipment.

  Not on intercom now, Magnetic shouted in Bill’s ear, asking if it pained him.

  Bill did not answer; simply stared at his arm and the blood all over his clothes and gibbered hysterically.

  ‘Oh, well,’ thought Magnetic, ‘this won’t do you any harm’; and he took from the first aid pack a thing like a tiny tube of toothpaste with a long sheath over the stopper. He unscrewed this sheath; under it was a hypodermic needle. He broke the seal, then jabbed the needle into Bill’s forearm. From the tiny tube he squeezed half the contents: a quarter grain—twice a normal dose.

  ‘There,’ said Magnetic. ‘That should keep you happy.’

  He connected Bill’s oxygen pipe to a spare point. ‘And keep that thing on,’ he yelled to the already sleepy Bill. Wounded men had been known to die because, in their semi-consciousness, they had pulled off their oxygen masks.

  Magnetic was feeling the lack of oxygen himself when he returned to his position and plugged in. He took several deep breaths and said; ‘Engineer to skipper. He’ll be okay. I’ve given him morphia.’

  He looked around. They had already bombed and were heading home.

  Magnetic had been surprised by his own calmness. Not only in dealing with Bill, but as they had tracked up into the flak that this fool had refused to avoid and that Magnetic had known must hit them.

  He knew why he was calm. He had told the others about it, but he had not been sure that it was true. Now he knew it was true. He had quite resigned himself to being killed. They had encountered more trouble during a few trips with Squadron Leader Chiltern than one would normally expect on a whole tour with a pilot showing less courage but more sense. The paradox was that all Chiltern’s devotion to duty, all his correctness, was not achieving good bombing. All it would do, all it could do, was kill them.

  Perhaps Bill was lucky. Perhaps, through this wound, he would escape.

  When they returned to Ludford their own news of a wounded bomb aimer was a small item by comparison with the news of squadron events while they had been flying.

  Pilot Officer Hardy had arrived back, with three of his crew. They had crashed not far behind the German lines and had hidden until the Allied advance swept past them. Their other crewmates were either wounded or taken prisoner. As far as Hardy knew they were all safe.

  Flight Lieutenant Marshall, driving back from Louth with his wife, had misjudged a turning and run off the road into a tree. He had been killed. His wife was in hospital next to Mrs Hardy. Molly Marshall was not badly hurt. She was perfectly conscious and Mrs Hardy w
as trying to comfort her.

  The CO came up to Vincent and spoke to him. ‘You’ve heard about Mr Marshall?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘It’s just crazy coincidence, I know. But I’m going to stop these table-tennis title games. I have to, Farlow. It’ll be upsetting morale. In wartime people become superstitious too easily.’

  — 3 —

  Smiff was sitting outside the flight office in the pale autumn sunshine, writing to a girl called Thelma. Perhaps ‘named’ Thelma would be more accurate. By all her friends and relations, including Smiff, she was called ‘Felma’.

  Few boys of eighteen write good love letters. Especially boys as dull as Smiff and as shaken as Smiff was after the Saarbrücken trip.

  ‘Thelma, my sugar,’ he wrote. ‘Your very welcome letter with news of your seeing Mum and the girls to hand for which I say thank you. But not just thank you—thank you with all my heart oh my darling. It brings you so close to me. Your letter, I mean. But, dearest sugar, you are always close to me. Oh that you were closer to me now.

  ‘When I say dearest sugar I do not mean dear as in the money meaning of the word. I mean sweetest.

  Sweeter than sugar is Thelma to me

  Sweeter than honey from the bee.

  Collecting honey on his trips

  Around flowers, like her rosebud lips.

  Oh sweetest, that those lips could say

  Come to me forever and a day.

  Living forever side by side

  Me the bridegroom, you the bride.

  But war is upon us. Sugar’s on ration.

  Quiet, inside me, o’erwhelming passion!

  You will be mine when warring is up.

  I shall have sugar—three spoons to the cup.

  ‘I am glad your brother Harry could use my old suits. By the time the war is over I would have grown out of them anyway. That’s the pity of having all sisters: I have no little brothers for hand-me-downs.

  ‘Oh my darling after the war it will be wonderful. To be forever safe in your arms. I don’t mind telling you my sweet, because you will understand it, that war frightens me. Last night I flew to Saarbrücken and we were shot up and my bomb aimer was wounded and the crew blamed the pilot who they said was silly but is very good. He comes from Rotherham. I mean the bomb aimer. He is not hurt but it sounded dreadful.

  ‘I thought of you and that it might be me and then I was afraid for us both because the shells come up and me sitting like I do you know what they might hit. I fear to be crippled more than anything. More than being killed but not a nice subject so enough of that.

  ‘Today the sun is bright but it is getting cold. The nights grow longer and that means flying. Back on to flying again but I will not talk of that but happy things. I shall talk of …’

  And there Smiff was stuck, staring across the aerodrome, sucking his pencil.

  Bill had taken his courage in both hands and broached recategor­isation to the MO. His wound looked slight now it was dressed and stitched. It would only keep him in hospital for a week or so. But he felt that his nerves needed attention.

  ‘We’ll have you back in the air this month, Graham,’ the MO said.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about that, sir,’ said Bill.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know that I’m fit to return to ops, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ the MO said brightly. ‘This will heal perfectly.’

  ‘Not my arm, sir,’ said Bill, and added, with an effort, ‘I feel mentally shot about more than physically, sir.’

  ‘Only natural, dear boy. Most upsetting experience. Don’t let it worry you.’

  ‘But before this happened, sir.’ Bill was not going to be brushed aside now. ‘My nerves are so bad I can’t sleep and I can’t do my work properly and I feel that I’m going mad. I should not have agreed to fly another tour. I need a rest.’

  ‘You’ve just had a rest.’

  ‘More than a rest, then. I want to come off ops.’

  ‘Off ops—for good?’ The MO took a long look at Bill with cold, appraising eyes. Gone, now, was his breezy manner.

  ‘Graham,’ he said, ‘how old are you?’

  Bill paused.

  ‘Your real age.’

  ‘Thirty-six.’

  ‘I thought so. Top age-limit is thirty-two so you put your age back to get into aircrew. An old man striving to share young men’s glory. Hoping, I suppose, that you could simultaneously hide behind an old man’s immunity from action. Well, you can’t. Now now the RAF have had the trouble and expense of training you. Why do you think we set a thirty-two age limit? To keep valuable men out? No! We want fliers. Thirty-two isn’t too young, it’s too old. You and your type are a problem to yourselves, a nuisance to the air force and a menace to your crewmates. It’s too late now to plead age and the nerves age brings. I will not recategorise you. You can go LMF or go on flying. I knew your nerves were bad when I saw your morphia label for such a slight wound. Other men would have carried on working. Don’t look to me to save your neck. I am going to forget this matter was ever mentioned. I suggest you do the same. If you find you can’t stick it, see the Squadron Commander and tell him officially. At least have the guts to quit like a man.’1

  During the next hour Bill decided that he would quit, and then changed his mind. Then he changed his mind again and again a dozen times. The MO had hit the nail right on the head: which course called for greater courage, to go on flying or be branded ‘Lacking Moral Fibre’—officially? In his heart he didn’t feel ashamed. Normally he could have taken it. But there had been too much. Aubrey, Dudley, then blowing up that other kite … And now, Chiltern.

  Chiltern put the cap on it.

  Squadron Leader Chiltern refused to let the fact that two of his crew were in hospital hold him up for a day. He applied for a spare bomb aimer and the only one available was a lanky, lean Australian called ‘Snow’. His name was Fry and he had very fair hair.

  ‘This bloody Chiltern’s a bit of a bastard, ain’t he?’, Snow asked the others as they dressed.

  ‘Bit hot on regulations.’

  ‘Bugger regulations, I say.’

  ‘Well, not generally. Regulations are essential and usually wise. But they have to be followed sensibly, which is just what Chiltern doesn’t do.’

  ‘Follows bloody regulations for regu-bloody-lations’ sake, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ smiled Vincent. ‘Some of his regulation-following of late has been a bit bloody.’

  ‘What I’d call a typical bloody Pommy officer. I can’t stand these pongo bastards.’

  ‘Surely you meet rather a lot of them in the RAF?’

  ‘Oh, not just Englishmen!’ protested Snow. ‘When I call you a Pommy bastard, sir, that’s meant friendly. But a Pommy bloody officer is different; that’s a bloody pongo Chiltern bastard.’

  Reviewing this conversation later with Magnetic, Vincent said; ‘I had not expected ‘Chiltern’ to be made an English adjective quite so soon. Even the word ‘Byronic’ was little used before his death.’

  ‘I can just imagine Mr Chiltern’s reaction to Snow’s speech if he insists on leaving in the swear-words.’

  ‘Leaving them in? If he takes them out he will be mute. I don’t believe he honestly realises he is swearing. He just drops a ‘bloody’ into every pause as other people do an ‘er’.’

  ‘He must be a more highly developed Australian type than Joe.’

  ‘Poor old Joe,’ said Vincent. ‘He’s fretting about missing these trips. The old crew’s looking a bit sick, isn’t it? What with a new skipper and Special and rear gunner and now a bomb aimer. There’s only Krink and Yarpi and us left.’

  ‘I could almost feel fond of Yarpi for still being with us.’

  ‘He’s all right really. Just a bit young.’

  ‘A bit young? I hope he lives to be a lot older.’

  ‘Eh? Oh yes, I see what you mean.’

  When they arrived at the aircraft Chiltern was already th
ere. He called them together.

  ‘My radio telephone was switched on,’ he announced. ‘Has anybody here been in that aircraft this afternoon?’

  ‘I have, sir,’ said Schydt.

  Chiltern swooped on him. ‘Why?’

  ‘To check my radio, sir.’

  ‘You can’t check your radio with engines off. Don’t lie!’

  ‘I do not lie, sir,’ said Schydt, stressing each word. ‘A gain control was making poor contact last time we flew. I was checking that it was all right now.’

  ‘Why didn’t you report it and have the ground crew fix it?’

  ‘I did, sir. And they have. I only wanted to check it.’

  Chiltern stood, silent and glaring. There was nothing more he could say. But he found a threatening note to introduce. ‘For your sake, Schydt, I hope that everything is correct when I run her up.’

  Chiltern intended to keep Schydt in sight until it was time to take off. Schydt sensed this and charged Chiltern with it.

  ‘You suspect me, don’t you, sir?’, he asked.

  ‘A less honest man than I would deny it,’ said Chiltern. ‘But I will not deny it. Yes, Schydt, I suspect you.’

  ‘Because I am a German?’

  ‘Were I on a Luftwaffe aerodrome they could rightly suspect me.’

  ‘But I hate Hitler as much as you do, sir. Perhaps more.’

  ‘Hating Hitler has nothing to do with it, Schydt. You are a German and we are at war with your homeland. We are enemies now as we have been before. If there is cause for distrust—and you must agree that sabotage gives such cause—then you are naturally the person to be suspected and investigated first.’

  Schydt looked down at the wet, cold tarmac. ‘They warned me it would be so,’ he said.

  ‘Who warned me?’

  ‘My friends. My German friends. Before I joined the RAF. They said the British would never forget that I was a German; that I would be suspected and refused promotion and given a dirty deal. And it is all true.’