Trial By Fire

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “I’m leading, with one aircraft from A Flight and one from B to form the first vic. The other three from A will form the second vic and B the third. We’ll form up over base at a thousand feet before setting course. When we are at the target, the aircraft on each side of their section leaders will open out to five hundred yards. We’ll attack from three different directions. Remember to concentrate on the biggest ships.”

  The station Intelligence officer cleared his throat.

  “I must emphasise what the Group Captain has already told you: on no account allow any bombs to fall on the German mainland. Or, for that matter, on any German island, if you happen not to see any ships and fancy the idea of bombing something on the way back. Now, as regards the ships’ defences: they all have heavy machine-guns, which are effective up to three thousand feet. They all have heavy flak which is effective only well above that height. So your best attack altitude is around three thousand feet: at the extreme range of the M.Gs and too low for the heavy guns.”

  The station commander had something more to say.

  “None of us has taken a Blenheim off with a full bomb load and full fuel load. The Station Engineering Officer is going to tell you how to do it.”

  There was a faint hum of amusement, quickly stifled.

  The S.E.O. spoke clearly and distinctly in a Scots burr, constantly turning his head from side to side and seeking people’s eyes to ensure close attention and drive his message home. John Knox must have preached in much the same way, Roger thought. But nothing that John Knox had to say about hell fire could have been more alarming than the prospect of failing to coax a highly explosive and combustible load of six and a half tons off the ground before it crashed into the boundary fence.

  “Hold your aircraft on the brakes while you increase to the maximum revs at which you can hold it. As soon as you feel the tail unstick, use the trimming tabs to help the aircraft off. If your main wheels haven’t left the runway by the time you are within a hundred yards of the fence, pull the stick back hard and pull the emergency boost control. That’ll get you off safely, all right. I’ll be on the tarmac to see you take off, and if any of you have questions I’ll be there to answer them.”

  Pike muttered to Roger “The bloody fools at Command or Air Ministry who’ve never made sure we practised full-load take-offs weeks ago ought to be here to answer some bloody questions.”

  Roger knew then that Pike was no less anxious about the whole business than he was; there had been an edge of strain in his quiet words and Roger welcomed them. Then he wondered: did he really want a captain who was as vulnerable to apprehension as he was? What, he wondered, were the wing commander and Squadron Leader Eastman feeling about yanking a fully-loaded Blenheim off the deck for the first time?

  Pike nudged him. “Charts.” And led the way to the table where the two W.A.A.F. were sorting them. The girls turned and smiled. One of them had hair of an unusual tawny colour and wide hazel eyes. She handed Roger a chart.

  “Have a good trip, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you. I can think of a better one.”

  She looked sympathetic. “I’m sure you can.”

  “Such as driving you into Lincoln one evening soon.”

  She coloured and looked startled. Then she gave him a small, reluctant smile, but said nothing.

  Walking away, Pike whistled softly. “That was pretty smooth.”

  “Well, with about thirty men to every girl on the place, one’s got to move fast. Just thought I’d let her know I’ve got a car.”

  They stopped at the door and looked back. Several pilots had gathered around the two girls and there seemed to be a brisk exchange of banter going on as well as the handing over of maps, to judge from the smiling faces.

  The tawny-haired girl turned and looked across the room. For a moment she looked directly at Roger and he thought he saw her nod. He turned to Pike.

  “Did you see what I thought I saw, sir?”

  “I don’t know what you thought you saw. But I see what you meant about getting in fast. So to speak.”

  * * *

  Two three-ton lorries waited outside Ops. to take them to their aircraft, which had been marshalled well away from the hangars before the bombs and fuel had been put aboard. Several people smoked, there was something forced and a trifle high-pitched about most of the chatter. Airmen and airwomen on foot and bicycles were making their way in the same direction to watch them take off. They looked at the men in the lorries with curiosity and a certain disbelief. Roger was finding it hard to believe, himself, that he was about to fly across the North Sea and fight the Germans. Four days ago, at about this hour, he was strolling with James and Christopher from the beach to change for tennis. It was hardly credible that such a violent alteration in his way of life had taken so little time to come about.

  Devonshire gave him a perky look. “All right, Sarge?”

  “Wizard, Creamy. Hanging around is the biggest bind there is.”

  “Yeah. Good film on camp tonight. Hope we get a tail wind coming back. Don’t want to miss it.”

  “We’ll be back in bags of time.”

  “I ‘ope so. I’m taking a girl, see.”

  “One of the N.A.A.F.I. girls?”

  “W.A.A.F. Nice kid. Works in the cookhouse.”

  “That’s crafty, Creamy. Double portions when she’s on duty?”

  Devonshire winked. “That ain’t the kind of portion I’m after, Sarge.”

  Pike had heard this and chuckled.

  “Our jeep is a randy little devil, Sergeant Hallowes.”

  I’m not exactly a monk myself, Roger thought. His mind turned for a moment to the redhead who had spent her fortnight’s holiday at Hayling last summer and enlivened his evenings for him. Roger by name and Roger by nature, she had told him: not without satisfaction, he prided himself. He’d follow up the tawny-haired Ops. Room W.A.A.F. Perhaps there would be time to do something about it when he got back from Schillig Roads.

  If they took off punctually at half past two, they’d be back at half past six at the latest.

  Aboard the aircraft, with engines started and an eye on the control tower, they waited to see the C.O. take off. Everyone was conscious of the Engineering officer’s warning and advice and felt uneasy.

  Everybody who was off duty and many who were not, all those at work in the hangars and workshops, had turned out to watch the take-off. The W.A.A.F. waved, the airmen gave the thumbs-up. Roger felt heroic. But it did not compensate for the trepidation of a first-ever fully-laden take-off. No one could vouch that the runway was long enough, since it had never been tried before. Theoretically, it was long enough. But practice varied from pilot to pilot. Roger thought that perhaps he ought to shut his eyes.

  An Aldis lamp flashed from the control tower. The C.O’s aeroplane, waiting at the down-wind end of the runway, visibly shook as he opened the throttles but restrained it with the brakes. It suddenly surged forward. Half-way down the runway its tail lifted. Three-quarters and it was still on the ground. Seven-eighths and its nose rose, its wheels left the runway. The undercarriage retracted. The Blenheim cleared the boundary fence with ample room.

  The rest followed in quick succession, some scraping off the ground in what looked like the last second. Roger counted the seconds while Queenie raced for the far end of the long strip of concrete; which, this afternoon, looked alarmingly short. At a point slightly earlier than where the C.O. had taken off, Pike took his aeroplane cleanly aloft and Roger released the breath which he had not realised he had been holding. The sweat that had broken out all over his body began to cool. The Blenheim climbed steadily to the ordained height, then swept around the circuit to take station on Squadron Leader Eastman’s starboard side.

  The nine machines looked competent, reassuring, aggressive in their neat formation and Roger was glad to be in one of them. As a formality he gave Pike the course to steer for Schillig Roads, but this trip was really going to be a matter of follow-my-leader. The C.O. w
ould show them the way; and if his section were separated from the rest by bad visibility, their flight commander would guide them. But he kept a careful plot and fuel consumption chart against emergencies.

  Cloud base was at about four thousand feet and they were flying just below it. The sea lapped, grey and surly, against the sands, with a fringe of white where waves were breaking as the tide came in. Far to the north they saw a small convoy hugging the coast. Devonshire left his wireless station to clear his guns. Pike fired a short burst with his. Roger crawled into the belly blister and tested the two Brownings there. The reek of cordite drifted through the Blenheim. The feel of the guns juddering briefly when he fired them gave Roger a sense of the melodramatic: shooting at nothing, like an actor in some war film. He could not convince himself that before he returned to land he might well have to shoot at something more substantial than thin air. He resumed his navigating.

  Thirty minutes before they were due to reach the target, cloud base was lower and the squadron commander led them down until they were flitting in and out of its skirts. The closer they went to land, the thicker grew the clouds and the lower their bases.

  Roger wondered how the twenty-nine other Blenheims and Wellingtons had fared. What damage had they done to the enemy ships? Had they merely alerted the enemy and would a hot reception be awaiting this second wave?

  The formation had reduced altitude to twelve hundred feet. Well within the lethal range of heavy machine-guns. Mere bullets did not seem worth worrying about: it was the flak shells which blew aircraft to bits. Pike, Devonshire and Roger searched without cease for a glimpse of shoreline or ships.

  Clouds enveloped them momentarily while they dived lower. At five hundred feet they were out of cloud once more and in heavy rain. It forced its way past the closed sliding windows on each side of the flight deck, spraying into the faces of Pike and Roger, irritating them, trickling up sleeves and down necks. In the turret, Devonshire looked out on a glum grey seascape and kept blinking his eyes to clear his vision of imaginary objects which took the shape of enemy ships and fighters.

  Out of the gloom a series of bright flashes appeared and the sky darkened to a deeper shade of grey where smoke began to hang in the air where the flashes had been.

  Pike spoke calmly into the intercommunication.

  “Heavy flak. The ships must be a long way off...they must be shooting with their guns depressed almost horizontal.”

  The Blenheim on the squadron commander’s right emitted a vivid flame that licked along its whole length from nose to tail. The flame expanded and became a red glow, with small tongues darting from it. A thunderclap of sound slammed into the cockpit. The brilliance of the explosion dazzled Roger. The Blenheim which he had seen hit and catch fire was no longer there. All that remained were burning fragments which tumbled around Queenie. One large piece, half a wing, whirled a few feet past, giving out sparks and smoke.

  Its pilot was Sergeant Brown of B Flight. Roger lay in the bomb aimer’s position, trying to concentrate on identifying Ritter or Von Scheer, but the dead pilot’s face formed in his mind’s eye as he had seen it a couple of hours ago when they stood side by side at briefing. He drove it out and fixed all his attention on finding one of the pocket battleships. He felt completely dispassionate about seeing three men blown to bits. There was neither pity nor fear in him. A part of his brain had been numbed by the sheer awfulness of what he had witnessed. It was as though he could not fully believe it.

  Pike dived and levelled out two hundred feet above the turbulent water. At last they could see the enemy ships making for port, with soaring bow waves streaming past their camouflaged hulls and long wakes frothing astern.

  The heavy flak was no longer firing. The air around them was full of smaller shellbursts. They could see clusters of flame on the warships where the multiple barrels of the light flak guns were hurling shells at them with such speed that they seemed to burst in solid clumps. Among these, red, green and yellow tracer from the heavy machine-guns wove a separate pattern. They fired so fast that it looked as though rods of light were streaking at the Blenheim.

  Roger saw, through the driving rain and wisps of low cloud, a shape that resolved itself into the outline of a pocket battleship.

  Pike had also spotted her. He began to turn.

  Roger started to give him calm directions, feeling cold and clammy.

  “Right a bit more...steady...left-left...steady...”

  The aeroplane was hurled sideways and one wingtip lurched as a blast of air struck it. From the corner of his eye Roger saw the sky lit by another vast incandescent globule.

  “Left-left a little...steady.”

  He heard the clatter of bullets punching holes in the Blenheim’s fuselage somewhere close at hand, but his whole being was concentrated on the big, grey, dazzle-painted shape ahead. It rolled and pitched in the agitated sea.

  “Right...a bit more...hold it...steady...”

  Roger had the feeling that the guns on the ship were aimed directly at him personally. He blinked involuntarily, then held his breath and stared through the bomb sight.

  “Bombs gone.”

  Pike peeled away to the left in a steep turn.

  From the turret, Devonshire said “Near miss.” Roger felt sick and angry, disappointed. All that effort, only to miss.

  Pike, unruffled, said “I haven’t seen anyone hit anything yet.”

  “Fighters dead astern.” The guns in Devonshire’s turret began to fire.

  Tracer shells from the fighter’s cannons and bullets from its machine-guns ripped past. A rush of air rocked the Blenheim and the howl of engines rose above the Blenheim’s. A Messerschmitt 110 hurtled past overhead and turned towards another Blenheim on their port side.

  Roger scrambled to the guns in the blister beneath the Blenheim’s long nose. Two more 110s were coming in from behind and below. He began shooting and saw his tracer flit past the leading one. It broke away and hared towards one of the other Blenheims. Roger saw tracer from Devonshire’s guns reaching out for the other Messerschmitt. He turned his own guns onto it. Smoke began to trickle from its starboard engine.

  Pike tightened his turn and started to climb. In a few seconds he had spiralled into the clouds.

  Roger hurried back to the navigation station and gave him a rough course to steer for base while he worked out a more precise one.

  * * *

  Three other Blenheims had touched down by the time they landed at Baxton. The crews of two of them had already been driven to the Ops. Room for de-briefing. The captain and second pilot of the third were leaning against the aircraft’s tail, sucking at cigarettes and watching an ambulance drive away. Pike and his crew saw that the perspex in the turret of that Blenheim had been totally shot away.

  There were fewer people to welcome them back than had seen them off. Those who had turned out stood in silent clusters. When they caught the eye of any of the men climbing out of the Blenheims they looked uncomfortably away. Roger noticed that two of the W.A.A.F. were crying and he thought “Silly bitches, if they can’t stand it they should stay away.”

  As soon as Devonshire was out of the aircraft he lit a Player’s Navy Cut. His face was paler than ever and his eyes brighter. Pike looked unconcerned and began strolling round the Blenheim with his fitter and rigger, looking at the bullet holes. Roger trailed along with them, Devonshire at his heels. The squadron Engineering and Armament officers accompanied them. Nobody said much and when anyone did speak he did so in a low voice.

  Roger’s legs had felt shaky when he first stood on the ground again. Now his stomach was wobbly as he looked at the damage done by the flak and the enemy fighters, and how close some of the bullets and shell splinters had passed to all three of the crew.

  Another Blenheim appeared in the circuit and they watched it make its approach. Only one undercarriage leg locked down. The other hung half-folded. The pilot brought his aeroplane down on the grass beside the runway. An ambulance and fire tender
were already on their way to the point at which they thought it would stop. A cloud of dust came from the parched grass when the one locked wheel touched the ground. The aircraft ran on an even keel for a few seconds, then subsided and ground-looped in a storm of dust and clods of grassy earth.

  There were still four more to come.

  With the two survivors from the Blenheim with the wrecked dorsal turret, Pike, Roger and Devonshire boarded a 15 cwt. truck and were driven to the Ops. Room.

  The S.P. sentry on guard did not ask them to show their identity cards. He averted his eyes from them as they filed through the steel door.

  Inside, Roger felt something of a shock that nothing had changed. It seemed a long time since briefing. The survivors of the other two crews were sitting around the big table, drinking tea: from one, the captain and wireless operator-air gunner: from the other, the two pilots.

  Roger gazed round the room. The pretty tawny-haired W.A.A.F. was at her table in a corner, looking his way. She gave him a faltering smile. His face felt too stiff to permit a smile. He gave her a nod and went to take a mug of tea from the urn on a trolley. The three of them took their places around the big table and the Intelligence officers began putting their questions.

  Pike had a question of his own.

  “How did the Wimpeys and the other Blenheims get on? They stirred up a bit of a hornets’ nest for us.” The group captain gave him the answer.

  “I’m afraid they lost seven out of twenty-nine.”

  “They had an easy time, then.” Pike’s tough face gave nothing away but his voice cut like a cold chisel.

  When the de-briefing was over, Roger walked across to the tawny-haired W.A.A.F.

  “My name’s Roger Hallowes.”

  “Yes, I know.” She glanced up at the board on which were chalked the names of all the crews on the operation.