Trial by Fire
Richard Townsend Bickers
© Richard Townshend Bickers 1983
Richard Townshend has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1983 by Robert Hale Ltd as The Gifts of Jove.
This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
Extract from My Enemy Came Nigh by Richard Townsend Bickers
‘In Greek mythology, Daedalus was an Athenian craftsman of great ingenuity. He offended King Minos, who imprisoned him in an underground maze, with his small son Icarus. The only way to escape was to fly out. Daedalus therefore made wings of wax and feathers with which they both flew away. Icarus, however, flew so high that the sun melted the wax and he fell to the sea and drowned. Daedalus landed safely on the island of Icaria.’
ONE
Friday 25th August 1939 was just another fine day in a sun-blessed summer. It was hot, sunny and windless. In Air Ministry meteorological terms, there was three-tenths cloud in the area of R.A.F. Stanswick. The clouds were high, scattered clumps of cumulus.
The mutter of Merlin engines rose quickly to a roar and fifteen Hurricanes appeared through the heat haze, approaching low over a stand of beech trees on a low hill to the south-west. They tore into the circuit in sections line astern: five tight Vs, each of three aircraft. In quick succession they peeled off and landed, bright silver against the emerald sheen of the grass airfield, and taxied to the edge of the dull black tarmac apron in front of the three huge hangars. The hangars had been camouflaged in green and brown paint nearly a year ago, at the time of what had become known as the Munich Crisis.
It was a few minutes past three-o’clock in the afternoon when Pilot Officer James Fenton touched down, flying Number Two in the third V; on the starboard side of his flight commander. The Commanding Officer had rounded off a week’s hard work by leading his whole squadron on an hour’s strenuous exercises in constantly changing formation. When Fenton climbed out of his cockpit his shirt clung damply to his skin under his white flying overalls.
The warm air was redolent with aviation fuel, exhaust smoke, hot metal and warm tar; tyre rubber and freshly cut grass. Around the airfield perimeter larks soared, rooks cawed, starlings quarrelled. The fire tender’s crew basked in the sun beside their bright red vehicle, in their shirtsleeves. The duty pilot stood on the balcony of the control tower, shading his eyes as he searched the sky for some expected single aircraft.
Most summer afternoons gave the same impression of ordered activity; busy, brisk but unhurried. Everything was familiar, well-rehearsed, under control. It was a companionable and efficient scene: on a military establishment, paradoxically peaceful.
The fifteen Hurricanes ranged abreast along the edge of the tarmac apron, blunt-winged and sturdy with a hump behind the cockpit, looked like middleweight boxers with shoulders hunched and guard up, ready to release a punch with either fist: uncompromising and pugnacious.
Their pilots, wearing yellow life jackets — “Mae Wests” — and carrying a parachute in one hand and flying helmet in the other, strolled in small groups towards the squadron’s crew room. Squadron Leader Wilson led the way with his two flight commanders: a burly man well-fitting his nickname, Tug. Fenton walked with Tiny Ross, who had been Number Three in the same section. Ross was six feet two inches tall and thin as a rail, with a sharp-featured, pink, cheerful face and unruly fair hair. He overtopped Fenton by five inches, but it appeared less because he stooped slightly and Fenton carried himself very straight. Fenton’s rough dark brown hair lay neatly in place, his flying overalls seemed to fit better than anyone else’s. He had an attractive, friendly face: humorous, tolerant; his eyes were an honest grey; honesty was an important attribute in an officer, but even more valuable to him was the fact that he possessed extraordinary sharpness of vision.
The C.O’s de-briefing was genial, with only one or two minor criticisms; which was by no means to be taken for granted, even by a highly efficient squadron. On his way out of the crew room to his office and the last of the day’s paperwork, he turned to Fenton.
“Enjoy your leave, James.”
“Thank you, sir.”
At four o’clock they were off duty. Some made the short journey to the officers’ and sergeants’ messes on foot, a couple of sergeant pilots rode bicycles, two or three had motor cycles, the majority drove. Their cars tended to be of a sports variety, at least three years old.
Fenton’s flight commander, before departing to married quarters, said “Have a good time James. Think of us putting in the hours while you’re shooting a line to the bathing beauties.”
“No thanks, Walter, I don’t think I will. Anyway, some people need the hours more than others.”
“What a line! I’ll remember that on Monday week when I see you again.” Flight Lieutenant Addison, tall, swarthy, black-moustached, drove off in his new red Singer Le Mans with a flourish.
Fenton owned a 1935 two-seater M.G. whose green paintwork he assiduously polished. He and Tiny Ross took it in turns to drive each other to and from duty. Today he was at the wheel and Ross sat with his long legs folded so that his knees came up almost to the top button of his tunic. The M.G.’s silencer left something to be desired and the little car made a satisfactory rumble as it scuttled along the camp roads.
Ross, looking as though global politics were far from his mind, said casually “I wonder if that damn fool is going to have a crack at Poland?”
The damn fool, of course, was Hitler.
“Shouldn’t think so. His usual hot air...what my fitter calls ‘all piss and wind, like the navvy’s cat’. I can’t see Germany wanting to take on us and France again so soon after the last show. They know we’ve been getting ready since Munich.”
“Bit of fun if he does.”
“Yes, it will be fun. But isn’t this the wrong time of year? If he’s going to, won’t he do it in the spring?”
“He doesn’t usually do the expected.”
“It’ll soon be autumn, then winter, and he knows he’d get bogged down. He won’t get past the Maginot Line, anyway. Not easily, at least.”
“We should have our Spitfires by next spring.”
“I think we’d do pretty well with the Hurricane.”
The other squadron on the station had been equipped with Spitfires three months previously and all the Hurricane and Gladiator (the last fighter biplane) squadrons of Fighter Command were waiting their turn.
James was in no hurry to get away. He was looking forward to his nine days’ leave, he loved his family; but he was equally happy with the squadron. Peacetime life in the Royal Air Force satisfied all his emotional and physical needs. He enjoyed the companionship, the flying, the sport, the social occasions, the intense but friendly rivalry between the two squadrons.
He had been at Stanswick for seven months, having joined the R.A.F. on a short service commission just over two years ago when he left school at eighteen.
He took his time over tea in the mess ante-room, at ease in a leather armchair: two cups of tea, two rounds of buttered toast and strawberry jam, a thick slice of fruit cake; and lots of flying talk.
By five-o’clock he was under a shower and soon after, in a silver-buttoned R.A.F. blazer and squadron tie, was driving past the guardroom and out of the main gate. Traffic from London, twenty miles to the north, had not yet started to congest the weekend roads. He turned westward, slicing across Surrey until he would tur
n south and cross Sussex to the coast, before turning west again for Hampshire and his parents’ home on Hayling Island.
He felt in harmony with the beautiful weather. A metaphorical sun beamed on his personal life and there were even fewer clouds than there were in the real sky that fine summer evening of August 1939. His only major worry was about his career. He had been interested in aeroplanes since the earliest age that he could recall. His father had spent four years as a pilot in the Great War and come home with a Military Cross and a slight limp, to join a firm of yacht builders on Southampton water. James had seen the Schneider Trophy won for Britain in 1929, over the Solent, by an R.A.F. pilot flying R. J. Mitchell’s Supermarine seaplane, the forerunner of the same designer’s Spitfire. In 1932 he saw the race again, when Britain won the trophy outright. He was taken to two or three Hendon air displays.
He had never thought about making the R.A.F. his career. The nineteen-thirties were not a propitious time for starting a working lifetime in any of the Services. The depression in America adversely affected Britain and the rest of Europe throughout the decade. The armed forces were subject to political and economic vagaries which threw hundreds of officers and men out of their jobs almost without warning.
Security lay in having a profession. James was not attracted to medicine, the law or accountancy. In his last year at school, because he had come consistently top of his form at mathematics, he half-heartedly elected, however, to qualify as a chartered accountant. But half-way through the summer term the prospect of being immured in airless offices became too repugnant to tolerate. It was too late to sit for the entrance examination to the R.A.F. College, Cranwell. So he did the next best thing and applied for a short service commission and was accepted. Unless he could achieve a good enough record to be offered a permanent commission, he would have to quit the Service in less than three years from now. The threat was seldom far from his mind.
He had already had a fortnight’s leave early in the summer. This was the year’s last chance to enjoy some sailing, swimming and beach parties with the daughters, nieces and girl friends of other families in the neighbourhood. His eighteen-year-old younger brother, Christopher, had left school a few weeks before and he had not seen him during his last leave. He was fond of his kid brother and their only real point of contention was about who should helm and who crew their National Fourteen racing dinghy. They both took their turn at the helm of the family twenty-five-foot sloop: aboard which they habitually referred to their father as “the Cap’n” in nautical deference and reference to his erstwhile rank in the Royal Flying Corps. Their mother was “the First Mate”. James often thanked his good fortune for their close and contented family circle.
He was looking forward to seeing his cousin, Roger Hallowes, as well. Roger’s parents lived a few houses away from the Fentons and the boys had gone away to the same schools. Roger was a year older than James and had a sound, stodgy job in the same bank as his father. To compensate for the boredom he suffered, he had joined the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve soon after it was formed in 1936 and was now a sergeant pilot with a respectable total of nearly 300 flying hours. When a V. R. pilot attained 250 hours he was allowed to spend a fortnight with a regular squadron. Roger had elected to go to one which flew Blenheims and James anticipated with relish a lively argument about the merits of twin-engined aircraft against singles.
There were many pleasant thoughts in his head as he made the seventy-mile journey: enlivened now and then when he caught up with some other M.G. or a Riley, Singer, Talbot, Sunbeam or Bentley and invited it to race him by overtaking. He tried it with a Railton; which left him a hundred yards astern in a cloud of dust very smartly.
At seven o’clock he drew up outside the solid, grey-stuccoed Edwardian house which was his family home.
Christopher sauntered down the steps, grinning a welcome: as tall as his brother and a stone heavier, with similar looks.
“What kept you? Stop for a couple of pints?”
“I’ve done it in an hour and forty-two minutes.”
“Huh! Dawdling.” Christopher picked up his suitcase.
Their parents appeared in the doorway, both smiling their delight. His father held his own whisky and soda in one hand, and, in the other, a pint tankard frothing over the rim, which he held out to his elder son.
James was unreservedly happy to be home, with no twinge of regret about flying hours missed while the fine weather held. He embraced his mother, took the tankard from his father and shook his free hand, and drank deeply. His throat was dry with dust. His mother, arm-in-arm with her two sons, led them into the house.
* * *
In a family, concealment of one’s real motives for saying anything or asking any question, however casually, was impossible. It was all part of the relationship of intimate familiarity and affection: although even without affection, deception was instantly detectable. Where, as among these four people, love was a strong bond, pretence of detachment was a mere matter of form. Between males, particularly between brothers, it was more or less mandatory among the British.
James glanced across the dinner table at Christopher and no one was taken in by his apparent casualness.
“Decided what you’re going to do yet?”
Christopher had won a history scholarship to Oxford. He had been wavering between an academic career, attracted by the long holidays, the Colonial Civil Service and commerce. As for the last, not in any ordinary British manufacturing company, however grand, but in one of the prestigious trading houses in India, Malaya or Hong Kong, where a degree or athletic distinction at Oxford or Cambridge was the main criterion for a good career. The East promised travel, an abundance of leisure and servants, and retirement at fifty-five. The life seemed to hold out particular promise to Christopher, who, as well as being clever, was a good sportsman and should be capable of winning a Blue for racquets, squash or tennis.
What underlay James’s question, as everyone knew, was Christopher’s frequently expressed doubt, during the past months, whether he would be able to complete an uninterrupted three years at university. He had decided that war was inevitable, the Munich agreement no more than a placebo, the Nazis treacherous, British statesmen naifs. He gave his answer in a tone to match the query.
“If there’s no war before I go up in October, I’m going to join the University Air Squadron.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re not going to chuck Oxford altogether and rush into the Air Force.” This had been the most frequently stated of Christopher’s intentions. “What are you going to do when you come down?”
Christopher grinned to disclaim the airy carelessness which he affected with it.
“I’m going to wait and see what I get at the end of it all. Then go for the highest bidder.”
“Well, I suppose that’s an improvement on going for the easiest life.”
“Oh, I’ll take that into account too.”
“I shouldn’t have discouraged you from joining the Service: it would have done you good.”
Christopher’s pretended hedonism and distaste for hard work were an accepted part of his Sixth Form manner and James was conscious that he had been through the same phase himself. It was amusing enough at seventeen and eighteen, with the onset of a feeling of adulthood. But James hoped that his brother would not persist with it at Oxford: that could develop it into an irritant.
“Pull the other one, James: you lead the life of Reilly.”
“We work jolly hard. That’s why we’re the most efficient air force in the world.”
“You don’t do any marching and arms drill and all that stuff.”
“I should hope not. We did it on basic training, of course, and we have quite a lot of parades...”
“But the rest of the time you spend sitting down: even if you’re upside-down half the time.”
James began to laugh.
“I think you’re going to find the U.A.S. quite a shock.”
He laughed as much because he was
relieved as because Christopher amused him. He had been much concerned about his younger brother throwing away his scholarship from impetuous altruism. He also believed that war was unavoidable, but did not judge it imminent. It would come in April or May. It could be over in a few months. There was no point in abandoning Oxford yet.
Their father looked from one to the other with wry amusement. “I’ll tell you one thing, Christopher. If’ you let this scholarship slip through your fingers, I’ll cut you off with a shilling.”
“I’ll go up, Dad, but if there’s a war I’ll volunteer for the R.A.F. straight away.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to do anything else, but just don’t lose your place; that’s all I ask.”
* * *
In the morning, their cousin, whose turn it was for a free Saturday from the bank, arrived soon after breakfast.
“I’m on holiday next week.”
“Are you going to spend it flying, as usual?” James asked.
“For a change, I thought I’d give you two the pleasure of my company. Besides, I need some fresh air and exercise.”
Roger was stocky and fair-haired, with a blue-eyed look of probity which, according to James, “Will have all the old ladies entrusting their life savings to you when you’re a manager. Of course, it would also be damn useful if you decided to go in for being a confidence trickster.”
Roger had smiled when he said that. “It would undoubtedly be a lot more lucrative; and more fun.”
James did not doubt it. Bank salaries were not high: one could not expect both security and opulence. He knew that it was only because the R.A.F.V.R. paid an allowance based on time spent training that Roger had been able to buy, on hire purchase, a two-year-old Morris Eight tourer: in which he made his way soberly to and from Southampton to work; and to the local R.A.F.V.R. Headquarters and training airfield as many times a week as possible. As for the fun, it was obvious that Roger found all his in the V.R. as well.
Trial By Fire Page 1