Bomber Boys - a Ghost Story

by Simon Leighton-Porter

  If only I had listened. Instead, I thanked him, promised I would be there and edged past the unholy choir clustered round the piano to the door. As soon as it slammed shut behind me, the noise stopped. Perhaps one of them had noticed me after all. Curious, I turned the handle and opened it again. This time the door was stiff and I had to force the rusty hinges to move. Inside, all was quiet so I turned on my torch. As I swept the beam around the interior, all I saw was old farm machinery covered by fertiliser sacks. What had once been a solidly-built Nissen hut was now open to the elements along half its length, all its window glass had gone and the far retaining wall had been demolished. I switched it off. Moonlight streamed into the building through the holes in its structure. A perfect night for a party.

  Obsession, irrationality or simple curiosity? It doesn’t really matter now, but once these hallucinations, phantoms or whatever they were no longer held any fear for me, my mind was made up. At just before ten on a clear, moonless Tuesday night I parked next to the old station buildings at Leckonby Junction. Seven minutes past ten came and went so I got out of the car and paced around to keep myself from dozing off. Five minutes was enough to leave me shivering and I climbed back into the car and started the engine to get the heater going. By twenty past nothing had happened and I was on the verge of going home. Then I saw it.

  A pair of flickering lights in the lane and a dark shape approaching. I had seen it before, it was the single-decker bus that had nearly run me off the road during one of my earlier visits to the airfield. I got out of the car and walked round to what had been the station entrance, keeping in the shadows to avoid being seen, I waited and watched. The bus stopped, turned off its blacked-out headlights and the driver hooted the horn three times. Moments later I heard the sound of voices coming from the direction of the Hobbs Bank Drain which paralleled the railway line. Turning to look I saw a brief flash of light as a door opened and closed, then the dim glow-worm of an electric torch. This was odd – there was no building that I could recall on the other side of the dyke, just the overgrown foundations of what had once been a pub. Then came the sound of oars creaking in their rowlocks and the gentle splashing as the craft crossed the slowly flowing watercourse. Hearty goodbyes, and moments later, a cluster of glowing cigarette ends resolved itself into seven men in RAF battledress as they came into full view at the top of the dyke. They chatted amongst themselves, walked past without noticing me and climbed aboard the bus. I made to join them but hesitated. Harrison had told me to meet a train, so I waited.

  At just after ten thirty I heard the unmistakable sound of a train approaching. Among clouds of steam and acrid-smelling smoke it wheezed to a halt. Then, slamming of doors and the sound of laughter and catcalls as about thirty or more men in uniform trooped down the steps, some unsteady on their feet. Harrison hadn’t given me any further instructions and I wasn’t even sure whether any of these new arrivals would be able to see me. I looked down. Just like the lunchtime visit to the Snakepit, I was once more in battledress and so, heart pounding, I strolled as nonchalantly as I could towards the bus and joined the scrum by the door. As I put one foot on the step I looked back to where my car was parked – it had gone. If this was a hallucination, it was impressively real.

  ‘Come on, mate, get a move on,’ a voice from close behind and a shove in the back sent me on my way.

  ‘Ah, Tommy, there you are.’ Seated a few rows from the front was the weasel-faced bomb aimer I had met in the Saracen’s Head. He moved over and patted the seat next to him. ‘Thought we’d lost you. So what were you doing slumming it at the Ferry Boat? You missed a hell of a show at The Royal and there was even a punch-up outside the Snakepit.’

  ‘What was on at The Royal?’

  ‘You forgotten already? Jane in Hi Diddle-Diddle. It was great. You should’ve seen her chorus girls – lovely bits of stuff they were.’

  ‘Maybe next time,’ I replied, trying to stay non-committal.

  He paused and looked at me sideways. ‘Not going flak-happy, are we, Tommy?’

  ‘No, just feeling a bit funny, that’s all.’ If only you knew the half, I thought.

  ‘So you thought getting pissed in the Ferry Boat would make you feel better.’ He was clearly trying to needle me but I made no reply.

  The hubbub of voices grew louder as the last of the aircrew, some of them none too sober, filed on board. Some were forced to stand in the aisle, one of them falling over to a chorus of cat-calls as the bus set off.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned round. At once I recognised the boyish face of the Flying Officer pilot who was captain of the crew. ‘Have you spent all evening in the Ferry Boat, Tommy?’

  ‘No, skipper,’ I replied. ‘I needed some fresh air so I went out for a walk. Came out this way and decided to wait for the bus back.’

  I could see the scepticism written all over his face. ‘Hmmm. I’ll believe you, thousands wouldn’t. Next time we have a crew night out I’d like you to come along.’

  ‘Yeah, Herman Goering’s playing in How big is my chopper? at the Berlin Hippodrome,’ said the bomb-aimer. ‘Mustn’t miss that, Tommy.’ The laughter from the rest of the crew defused the tension and I felt grateful for the reprieve. My alter-ego clearly had a few problems.

  Singing broke out from the back seats. ‘Stop the bus we want a wee-wee…’ bellowed to the tune of John Brown’s Body. The WAAF driver turned round and grinned. In only a few minutes we were at our destination and she braked to a halt outside the guardroom. An RAF corporal policeman stepped out from his picket post, flashed his torch over the vehicle’s bonnet to read the serial number and then raised the red and white striped barrier to let us through.

  First stop was the officers’ mess. At first I didn’t recognise the building where the moon period party had happened – no trees, no brambles, just concrete, groups of Nissen huts and the smell of coal smoke from dozens of chimneys. As the officers trooped off the bus the singing started again. ‘Good night, ladies, good night, ladies…’

  I felt a hand on my shoulder – a touch that lingered uncomfortably long. I looked up into the pale features of Fg Off Harrison. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Tommy,’ he said, but before I could reply he had moved off towards the door.

  The last of the officers slid the door shut as he got off. ‘Hold tight inside. Next stop Portsmouth and Southsea,’ called the driver over her shoulder, treating her passengers to a grin and a theatrical wink.

  ‘Do we have to get off at Fratton?’ everyone shouted in return. The jollity continued all the way back to the NCOs’ accommodation which was the next stop. I followed the four other NCO members of my crew through the blackout curtains and into the Nissen hut. Along each wall were seven beds and in the centre, a black, coal-burning stove. Although its iron surface was almost red hot, the heat did not seem to permeate any further than a few feet, leaving the rest of the room clammy and cold. On one side of each bed was a simple bedside locker and chair, and on the other, a wardrobe with the owner’s name on the door, chalked onto a painted black rectangle. It dawned on me that given the life expectancy of Lancaster aircrew, any more permanent display of the current incumbent’s existence would prove too time-consuming to change.

  I suppose I should have been surprised to see ‘Sgt Handley W A, 923041’ in my handwriting on one of the wardrobes, but so real was the illusion that I took it for granted and sat down on what was evidently my bed. Someone, me again presumably, had folded the neat, hospital corners at the foot and folded down just the right amount of sheet so that the three parallel lines running down its centre aligned precisely with those on the rough, grey blanket.

  I opened the wardrobe. A length of string had been attached to the back of the door with drawing pins and from it hung a pair of braces, a frayed black tie and a pair of socks, damp to the touch, one with a badly darned heel. On the hanging rail I found a greatcoat, an Irvin flying jacket, two collarless blue shirts, a peaked RAF cap, and a ‘best blue’ parad
e uniform. A series of shelves was taken up with the rest of my kit; two jumpers, haversack, gas mask, steel helmet, webbing, more socks, baggy grey-white underwear and a pair of pyjamas. In the bedside locker I found a sponge bag containing my washing and shaving kit. On the back of the locker was a wooden rail on which I discovered a towel which might once have been white. It too felt damp to the touch.

  The door banged open. Slurred voices singing were accompanied by an icy draught as the door slammed shut once more and the blackout curtains were swept aside. Six unfamiliar faces, but they all seemed to know me, so I nodded, smiled and made what I hoped were the appropriate replies as they each went to their bed spaces. It seemed that our crew had one side of the room and the newcomers the other. The beds nearest the stove were all taken and those in the corners, furthest from its heat were temporarily vacant.

  Changing into my pyjamas, I did as the others, pulled on my greatcoat and boots and set off with my wash bag and dishrag towel across the duckboards to the NCOs’ ablutions. Apart from the lack of hot water they were no different to the ones I had used as a member of the cadet corps at school.

  After washing as best as I could in cold water I made my way back to the hut. An easterly wind was chasing high clouds across the stars of a moonless sky and I gave an involuntary shiver at the thought of what tomorrow might bring for my companions. I also felt a pang of anxiety at how long this hallucination, if that’s what it was, might last. When I opened the door I was assailed by a miasma of farts, cigarette smoke, coal fumes and the smell of unwashed bodies and feet. My first instinct was to return to the car, but then I remembered that the last time I looked it wasn’t there. More worryingly, I had no idea what I had done with the keys. Face the stink or spend all night outside in a pair of pyjamas and a great coat? It wasn’t much of a choice, but the heat from the pot-bellied stove won by a narrow margin.

  The sheets felt grimy and damp so I pulled the covers as tight around me as I could and muffled my face to keep out the fug. A few minutes later the lights went out and a chorus of snoring began almost instantly. Unused to communal living since the early days of my training, I lay awake, wondering when this was going to stop – after all, I had work tomorrow.

  ***

  When at last I awoke, everything seemed normal. I felt for my watch which I always left on the bedside table to my right, but instead my hand bumped into something solid. This wasn’t right. Light was filtering through a crack in the curtains, but it was coming from the wrong place. I sat up with a jolt but the familiar surroundings of my house in Lincoln had somehow been rearranged. A hallucination, that was it. I reached out once more, this time for my pill bottle, but again my hand hit the same unyielding surface. I ran my palm down it. Wood. Then it got worse. Voices. There was someone in the room with me. Burglars or another hallucination? I made to get out of bed but my legs swung into the same object that had taken the place of my bedside table. More voices and a rattling noise – my father topping up the Aga from the coal scuttle. No, that was madness, he’d been dead these last fifteen years. A door banged and then a few seconds later light flooded the room. I wasn’t at home, but where was I? Then it hit me. I was still in the hut at RAF Leckonby. This was getting beyond a joke.

  ‘Come on, Tommy, or you’ll miss breakfast.’ It was the bomb aimer. He wore a white roll-necked jumper under his battledress and in his hands he held two red fire buckets, each one full of coal. ‘Give me a hand before someone misses this, will you?’ He said.

  Mute and uncomprehending I stood up, pulled on the greatcoat which I had used as an additional blanket in the night and shuffled over to him, the Lino agonisingly cold on my bare feet. He handed me one of the buckets and I stood, rooted to the spot, not knowing what I was supposed to do. ‘Come on, you daft sod,’ he said. ‘I’ve pinched a key for the fuel store. Put it in your locker and for Christ’s sake don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. I mean no. Right,’ I replied, doing as he asked.

  After a tepid shower I got dressed, jammed my ‘chip-bag’ hat on and followed him to the sergeants’ mess. Some of the layout on the domestic site was familiar to me from my earlier visits, but the two type-T and one type-B hangars dominated the skyline in a way that was entirely new. What I formerly knew as cracked concrete was pristine, in places edged by flower beds, and buildings I had only known as crumbling foundations or piles of bricks, were bustling with activity.

  Just like the officers’ mess, the sergeants’ mess was formed by a group of Nissen huts in the form of a capital H. Even without the guidance of the bomb aimer, whom I’d managed to identify as Flt Sgt Claude Unwin, I would have found the dining room just by following the smell of stale fat and overcooked vegetables. We each picked up a formica tray, two plates and a tin mug. Greyish white bread, margarine, jam, porridge, fatty bacon and a strange yellow concoction that I assumed was dried egg, were the choices. None of it looked in any way appetising, but hunger got the better of me, and by washing it down with mouthfuls of hot, strong tea, I cleared my plate.

  Unwin seemed happy to do most of the talking which was a relief for me. I fetched another round of tea and refused his offer of a cigarette which seemed to surprise him. Slowly, as he chattered, I began to piece together a little more about our crew. The skipper, Flying Officer Charles Brownlow, sounded like a typically decent English public schoolboy – a bit wet behind the ears according to Unwin and far too keen on being liked by his crew than on imposing the discipline that just might keep them alive. Unwin was, it seemed, the only one to have completed an earlier tour of thirty operations – that explained the DFM. From his black mutterings and a nervous tic around his right eye, I could tell that his pessimism about surviving a second tour with a sprog pilot was deep-rooted. The navigator, presumably the mournful-looking, non-smoking teetotaller I had met in the Snakepit, had clearly impressed Unwin. ‘Heard the nav leader say yesterday he’s the best on the squadron,’ he said. ‘Blokes like you and me are ten a penny, mate, but it would be a bloody shame if old champagne Charlie Brownlow got someone like Prentice killed.’

  I took a risk. ‘You know, I’ve never really spoken to Prentice much. Any idea what he did in civvy street?’

  ‘Our Arthur? Training to be an accountant he told me. Somewhere up north. Stoke I think.’ So that put names to both officers in what was now my crew – pilot Charlie Brownlow and navigator Arthur Prentice. Unwin paused and looked at me through the cloud of smoke he’d just exhaled. ‘Thing is, that’s not what worries me.’

  ‘What worries you?’

  He ground out the cigarette butt into the left-over porridge in his bowl, never for one moment taking his eyes off me.

  ‘You do, Tommy. You’re going to get us all killed. Now don’t get me wrong, we’re bound to get the chop. I mean, how long is it since a crew last finished a tour?’

  ‘Six months?’ I ventured.

  ‘Bollocks it is,’ he replied, lighting another cigarette. I detected a tremor in the nicotine stained fingers as he brought it greedily up to his mouth. ‘Come off it, mate. Nearer nine. Nah, you’ve gone funny, changed. It’s like talking to a fucking stranger these days. What beats me is where you find the money.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Exactly. When you’re down the pub or in the mess with the lads you’re always skint, yet you still manage to end up legless. I mean, look at last night. You could’ve come to the show at the Royal with the rest of us, had a quiet pint in the Snakepit and caught the last train home. But no, you’d sooner go drinking at the Ferry Boat with Nobby Clark and his mob.’

  ‘I told you last night, I wasn’t with Clark’s crew. Ask them if you like.’

  He waved me away. ‘Nah, Tommy, not worth it, mate. I’ve seen it all before – one of the flight commanders on my first tour was on a bottle a day. Scotch, mind you, not brown ale. Can’t say I blame you – I mean, we all have to deal with it somehow, don’t we? But if you’re getting tight every night we’re not on ops, it’s b
ound to slow you down. Stands to reason, don’t it?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said, feigning contrition.

  He leant towards me and I caught the sour odour of cigarettes on this breath. ‘Listen, Tommy, mate, just stay off the pop for another few trips and we’re done. Not much to ask, is it? I mean, if you doze off back there, that’s six other blokes for the chop and seven poor mums for a telegram.’

  So I was the crew’s rear gunner. I made to reply but was cut short by the blaring of a tannoy announcement. ‘Stan’ by fer broadcast, stan’ by fer broadcast. The followin’ crews are to report to their flight offices. Ah say again, the followin’ crews…’ The metallic voice droned on. I counted seventeen captains’ names, among them Flying Officer Brownlow’s. We were on ops tonight. That settled it, the illusion had gone on long enough, I was already late for work and had no intention of waiting to see what the prospect of getting airborne in a Lancaster from this shadow world might bring.

  I walked alongside Unwin as we made our way to the B Flight office, watching him carefully in my attempts not to let him see that I had no idea where we were going. I needn’t have worried. We were part of a growing tide of blue uniforms all converging on the same destination which turned out to be a group of Maycrete huts, set between one of the type-T hangars and the taxiway. Inside the B Flight office a huddle of aircrew had already formed round the notice board. There it was in black and white, briefing times for captains and navigators 1600, all other personnel, 1730. That settled it. Making my excuses, I left Unwin chatting to another bomb aimer and made my way back towards our hut. On my way from the sergeants’ mess I had spotted a bike propped up at the back of the station barber’s shop, my one hope was that it would still be there. Luckily it was and, taking a furtive look round to make sure nobody was watching, I swung into the saddle and set off for the main gate and freedom. Unfortunately, the geography of the fully intact domestic site bore little resemblance to the scatter of ruins and brambles that represented the RAF Leckonby I knew, and I took several wrong turns before finding the guardroom. Not wanting to draw attention to myself I dismounted and made to push the bike around the side of the red and white striped pole which barred the roadway.