by Ray Ollis
‘Look!’, said Vincent. ‘Go t’hell. That’s m’friend’s beer.’
His voice started to rise in pitch and volume. ‘He told me t’watch it. Can’t pinch m’friend’s beer. Go t’hell! M’frien’s …’
‘Hey, Vincent, quiet,’ said H-H, who had suddenly appeared beside him.
‘He wants t’pinch m’friend’s beer.’
‘No, he doesn’t. He just wants the glass. We’re short of glases.’
‘He does want t’pinch m’friend’s beer!’ roared Vincent.
‘Quiet.’
‘I won’t be quiet. I’ll punch anyone’s nose who lays a hand on Magnetic’s beer.’
‘But Magnetic doesn’t want it. He’s gone. He’s taken a popsie home.’
‘He has not!’ snapped Vincent. ‘He hates popsies. The last thing he said was ‘women are the devil and grog’s the shot, now watch m’beer’. That’s what he said. Now you’re all trying to pinch m’frien’s beer …’
H-H looked around him. He caught Jackal’s eye and beckoned him over. Vincent was still waving his arms and making a lot of noise.
‘Quiet,’ hissed H-H. ‘The Air Vice-Marshal’s daughter is over there.’
‘To hell with the AVM’s daughter!’ bawled Vincent. ‘She can’t have m’frien’s beer …’
Between H-H and Jackal, Vincent was dragged from the mess, heels trailing in the carpet, bawling ‘M’friend’s beer!’ and ‘To hell with the AVM’s daughter!’ in a loud but befuddled voice. Not many people saw it. Those who did and who recognised him said that he could not be himself tonight; there was nobody less likely than Farlow to be drunk and disorderly, they said.
At the Squadron Commander’s conference next morning Vincent said he was not feeling up to faux pas.9 He was not sure what official attitude was adopted to young men who were dragged out of formal mess calling down curses on AVM’s daughters. He feared that he may not have heard the last of it.
The conference was short. Weather was still terrible and Bomber Command could not fly although the army were in strife again and crying out for support. But as they were leaving, Vincent’s heart leapt to his throat when the Squadron Commander said; ‘Don’t you go yet, Mr Farlow; I want to have a word with you.’
Vincent sat down again as the others left.
‘I’ve been hearing a lot of things about you lately,’ said the Squadron Commander. ‘Mostly from Mr Chiltern. He tells me that you have spread malicious slander against him. Is this true?’
‘That is not true, sir. Though it is not without basis. I disagreed with Mr Chiltern over our Groninberg report.’
‘Tell me exactly what you disagreed with in that report. Be frank. This will go no further. I have to judge the truth from the facts I have and after hearing both sides of the story.’
‘Well, first, that we were hit without warning. Graham did say, ‘Dive, port, go’, and Chiltern ignored it. Next, that we bombed a target. I let the cookie go because we were on fire and losing height. We were still over German territory but that’s all I can vouch for. The rest of the bombs we simply hadn’t time to drop; they were still on when we crash-landed.’
‘I know. We found them in the wreck.’
This was an indication that the Squadron Commander was not against him and Vincent drew heart from it.
‘As for spreading the story around, sir, that is an exaggeration. I was steamed up about it after hearing the report and I mentioned it in met office. Unfortunately it was overheard by Gaffer and I think that’s who took the story back to Chiltern.’
The Squadron Commander leaned back.
‘Yes. That is what I imagined had happened. Well, I must tell you that you have upset Mr Chiltern very much and that he has asked me to post you from the squadron, and to see that your promotion is stopped. Normally I might have done so. But you are lucky that, at the time Mr Chiltern was telling me what a fine chap he is and what a rotter you are, there were two reports on my desk. One was about him making a damned fool mistake forgetting his own call-sign, the other was a note that Group have accepted your wind idea and are putting it into practice officially. Then Mr Chiltern recommended his w/op for the DFC and I could see no justification for it. His real aim was to get himself recommended as well, because a crew member is seldom decorated and not his skipper.10 So I was not prepared to take his word and I checked. Now I’ve heard your story it fits in with the facts I have. And I’m going to reverse Squadron Leader Chiltern’s requests completely. Your Flight Lieutenant rank is through, and you can put it up straight away and consider the appointment as Navigation Leader as official. But Mr Chiltern is right when he says the two of you would clash if you remained here. So I am posting him from 101. He hasn’t a crew here now. I feel he’s a valuable man if we can put him in the right place. So I’m kicking him upstairs. I’ve found an all-officer, all permanent-RAF crew in PFF. I’ll send him there. He’s a good pilot and a brave man. He’ll consider a PFF posting a promotion and there he’ll have a good chance of winning his precious gong.’
All Vincent’s thoughts of the arrogance of office and the blindness of authority, which had festered in his mind during the last twenty-four hours, faded humbly away. A Squadron Leader has half a ring more than a Flight Lieutenant and can make life difficult for him, but a Wing Commander has half a ring more than the Squadron Leader and will often put things to rights.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Vincent.
‘You’ve earned it. By the way, I’ll let you pick your own skipper this time, within reason. Got any ideas?’
‘Haven’t thought about it. Somebody bright, sir. Not a sprog. And not too brave to dodge a shell.’
‘Then what about Cahill? He’ll be flying again soon.’
‘Jackal! Oh, fine! Yes, sir, I approve of Jackal.’
‘Right. That’s all then, Farlow.’
Vincent was about to salute and leave, but the Squadron Commander stopped him.
‘And by the way,’ he said, ‘the AVM’s daughter says junior officers never relax with her. She complains that they are awed by her father’s position. So she asked me to tell you that, though frank, your comments were refreshing.’
— 5 —
Dear Vincent,
Since the liberation of Crete I’ve been trying everywhere to find out if you were dead or if you survived the boat ride to Alex.
As this letter testifies, I managed to last it out. We revived your broadcasts from time to time. The last winter was tough, but generally I think we managed to remain a thorn in Jerry’s flesh.
I’m back in Australia now and finding it hard to live civilized; you will insist we aren’t civilized, so you’ll just have to come out here and let me show you. My family were pretty pleased when I turned up.
This letter is partly on behalf of the Cretan authorities. They asked me to find you; they want us both to go back to testify against war criminals and unveil a memorial to the underground and all that rot …
Vincent could not keep his Crete exploits a secret now; when the time came he would want special leave and transport to Crete and all manner of official assistance. But he felt he had no need to fear transfer off flying at this stage. Surely a squadron navigation leader was more important than a radio announcer …1
‘There I shall be,’ said Jackal, ‘forty thousand feet over the target, on my back …’
‘Well, you’ll be on your own. I’m not hanging around while you fly aerobatics over Germany.’
The new crew laughed. They laughed wholeheartedly, not like a new crew at all. Snow Fry, who had flown with Jackal before, was bomb aimer. Joe was back in the rear turret. All the others were the same except the new Special, Felix Newman,a tall Canadian Flying Officer inevitably known as ‘Pussy’.
Dark with huge grey eyes and eyelashes which women swore were wasted on a man, Pussy’s face was long and solemn, but when he smiled it came to broad life like lighting a Hallowe’en pumpkin with large, fine teeth. His spine, like everything else about him, see
med elastic. When he jived, which he did whenever he heard music (and whether or not he had a partner), he looked like a rubber cartoon character; one could picture him wearing a thin sailor-suit and doing a Disney hornpipe.2
For their first fortnight as a crew they were never sure whether they were at war or off duty. Every day they were briefed to fly and every day the weather stopped them. Sometimes they were briefed twice. It was their share of the Battle of the Bulge.
Protected from the Allied air forces by December fogs, the Germans counter-attacked and broke through the American sector. The American line cracked; a great slice of her army was cut off, then battered. Most of them were killed; Rundstedt took few prisoners. The army was learning again what it means to fight a war without aerial superiority.
Meanwhile the Germans had poured through the gap at Ardennes and advanced through Luxembourg and deep into Belgium, planning to reach the coast at Antwerp and cut the Allied armies in half. German propaganda promised to push the invasion back into the sea and, without an Allied air force to dispute it, the Wehrmacht advanced more than a hundred miles towards that goal and nothing seemed able to stop them.3
At dawn on Christmas Day, 1944, 101 Squadron were briefed, the take-off time was put back and back until noon. Then the trip was scrubbed—for the nineteenth time in fourteen days.
‘Half a tour of abortions,’ said Pussy.
‘Abortives,’ corrected Jackal.
‘My mistake.’
‘Not at all. Easy really. Same root.’
‘At least we didn’t get halfway there this time and have to turn back. I hate landing with a bombload.’
‘Really? You worry about your landings too, do you?’
It was no joke; nineteen briefings, seven take-offs and no ops. But they made it fun.
On the night of the twenty-fifth, however, the Allies got their Christmas present: good weather at home and over Europe.
On Boxing Day they bombed Rundstedt’s supply centres at St Vith. While the weather lasted, so did the attacks. The Allied armies countered: British and Canadians hit from the north, Americans from the south, to snip off Hitler’s bulge. This time, too, when they called for air support they got it. Soon the pincers met; the bulge was cut off and the front was back in Germany. The Allied armies had more respect for the air force after that.
On this first trip since Nürnberg, Jackal was troubled with altitude toothache.4 A faulty filling had caused acute pain in the reduced air-pressure at altitude. Jackal had had the same trouble during training, but it had responded to treatment.
‘But now they’re using real bullets,’ he told the dentist. ‘So take it out.’
‘That is the only sure cure,’ said the dentist, and took it out.
Jackal showed the tooth to Krink afterwards.
‘Tonight,’ he said, ‘if I put it under my pillow it might turn into a ballet dancer. And if it does, after a respectable interval I shall give her to you.’
‘And after that?’
‘After that just call me ‘Gummy’.’
Flying became fun again. After one daylight raid (the ratio of day to night flying was by now about fifty-fifty) five B Flight pilots moved into formation with Jackal leading. They were skimming level cloud-top at about 8,000 feet. Jackal was highest, with each following plane stepped down about fifty feet. Gradually he let down until the lowest plane touched the cloud. He forced them still lower and the bottom Lancaster was seen to cut a channel through the cloud. Still lower and the second bottom Lancaster was cutting the top layer off the cloud, with the bottom Lancaster still visible between two cloud-walls towering on either side. So they fell into line-astern and dropped down and down, their combined twenty-five thousand horse-power eventually cutting the hundred-foot-thick cloud layer right in half. Thereafter, whenever conditions permitted, cloud-cutting became a regular game.
Flying became beautiful, too. One early morning they took off through fog and burst into brilliant sunshine. Below them, fog lay thick and smooth over Lincolnshire. Just one hill rose to fog-top and on it, like a fairy castle supported by the clouds, stood Lincoln Minster, magnificent in stately solitude. It was a magic sight, mystic and unreal.5
‘Vincent,’ said Jackal, ‘you’re the photographer. Take the f2.8 and get a hand-held oblique of that.’
They unhitched the aerial camera and Jackal flew low circuits while Vincent captured the momentary magic.6
Another day over the channel they were flying behind a cold front when they flew out of a shower and saw, far below, the shadow of their own aircraft surrounded by a complete circle of rainbow. Jackal tipped up on one wing so they could all see their dazzling halo.7
Such experiences sent them on their way with a little wonder in their hearts. With Chiltern the sky had been a vast parade-ground, now they rediscovered it as an endless wonderland.
Jackal often made flying into a game. Returning from one night target Joe reported an unidentified aircraft.
‘It looks like a jet, skip,’ he said.
Magnetic, the Londoner, had a look. ‘It’s a buzz bomb,’ he announced.
‘Where is it?’ asked Jackal.
‘A few miles behind, fifteen starboard, low.’
‘Steer me in front of it.’
‘Okay, skipper. Five starboard.’
They watched the 300 mph buzz bomb close in behind them until it was slightly starboard and a hundred feet lower. At that moment Jackal dropped a wing, jabbed on right rudder and dived right across the buzz bomb’s nose.
The buzz bomb bounced in the slipstream, rolled over and crashed. Jackal had toppled the automatic pilot and they all cheered lustily at this bloodless victory.
Back at Ludford they were full of their story. They reported it to Intelligence and Jackal claimed an enemy aircraft destroyed. Next day he was sent for by the CO. The greeting surprised him.
‘Your function is to bomb Germany,’ he was told, ‘not to risk valuable bombers and lives fooling around with a ton of high explosive doing three hundred miles an hour. You’re a damned fool. Let Fighter Command or Ack Ack deal with those things.’
Jackal told the crew of his dressing-down.
‘But it was great fun, wasn’t it? Let me know if you see any more, gunners, and we’ll do it again. But this time we won’t tell old Blood-and-Thunder.’8
Something that amused the crew but not Jackal was the return of Jackal’s altitude toothache.
‘I knew it must’ve been the wrong tooth when it didn’t turn into a ballerina,’ said Krink.
‘It’s all right for you but I’ve only got twenty-nine left.’
‘Well, at one per trip they’ll finish this tour!’9
Once again flying was fun, flying was beautiful, war could be a game. But flying could still be tough.
The target was Leipzig; a twelve hundred mile round trip against Rundstedt’s revitalised Germans: fighting Germans; attacking, advancing Germans. This target demanded respect.
Against average opposition they bombed in a concentrated attack. They had almost left Leipzig’s defences behind and were breathing easier again when flak burst nearby.
At first it did not seem serious, but next moment the starboard outer was on fire. Jackal cut the engine and feathered, then set off the built-in fire extinguisher in the engine nacelle but the foam failed to smother the flames.
And then, while Jackal and Magnetic were discussing what to do next an urgent voice screamed; ‘Dive port! Go!’
M-Mother spun down port but Jackal was an instant too late. Tracer streaked around the bomber and the shudder of her own guns was syncopated with dull, off-beat thuds as German cannon shells hit home.
Suddenly there came a scream that no man in that aircraft ever forgot: a shriek of fear and terror.
It was followed by a voice almost as terrible; ‘Christ! Me bum!’ I’ll bleed to death!’
That was all Snow said.
His voice died in gurgles and gaspings for breath. They could not turn off the
sickening sounds: horrifying rattles and dwindling, struggling breaths followed them as they twisted madly through the sky.
The wounded M-Mother flew Joe’s hectic spirals sluggishly. She was not reluctant; her heart was in the fight. But she was weak.
Miraculously the tumult ended.
‘I think we’ve lost ’em,’ reported Joe.
Jackal brought M-Mother back to straight and level. He sent Magnetic into the nose to help Snow, then started checking the damage. Everybody else reported okay.
‘Sorry, skip,’ Joe added, after saying he was all right. ‘I saw the bloke on our port first, but another one came in from starb’d.’
‘So that’s why my evasive action seemed too slow,’ Jackal thought. But over the intercom, he said, ‘Okay, gunners. We did very well to lose them.’
The fire which had beckoned their attackers had been blown out in the dive, but the port inner had seized and the port outer was overheating. Jackal feared they might have to finish the trip on one engine.
‘Navigator, we’ve lost some height but we’re still at seventeen thousand. Work me out a gradual dive to bring us straight over Manston at one thousand feet.’
When Jackal finished speaking Magnetic reported; ‘I think Snow’s dead. He’s hit in the buttocks. The muscles are all turned inside-out like lumps of cauliflower.’
Jackal did not comment, replying; ‘Watch the port outer.’
They were in trouble this time. Five hundred miles was too far to fly happily on two; it would probably be impossible on one.
Vincent had bad news, too. ‘A straight line for Manston takes us over the Ruhr. I suggest we go south. That way we reach our front earlier and we have a shorter sea-leg, and we can put down at Juvincourt if things get worse.’
‘Right-ho, Nav. But work out what height we should maintain. In one long shallow dive we might make it, even on one.’
Vincent computed a course to take them home on the fastest safe route. He prepared a graph dropping to one thousand feet over England’s east coast.