by John Harris
He had been looking forward to that meeting, to the family party atmosphere that would inevitably result from the gathering. Now, with a pull at his stomach that was almost as strong as the physical nausea, he realised it would not happen – it might never happen; he might never see his wife again – and he felt in consequence smaller and more desolate on the heaving valleys of the sea.
That the others were also feeling the tremors of unease occurred to him when Harding spoke again.
“Sure no one saw us ditch, Canada?” he asked weakly. “Not unless they’ve got telescopic eyes,” Ponsettia answered.
Waltby saw Mackay scowl at the navigator. “I saw a couple of freighters east of here,” he growled, and in a flash of insight Waltby knew he was deliberately lying for the benefit of Harding.
“If you did, bud, they were Jerries,” Ponsettia pointed out, unaware of Mackay’s attempt to cheer the pilot. “East of here? You bet your sweet life they were Jerries.”
“Not damn likely,” Mackay grunted. “The only Jerries that come out these days are E-boats.”
“Anyway, is there a flare handy in case a kite spots us?” Harding interrupted.
“Yes, Skip. There’s one handy.” Mackay’s voice lost its hardness again as he spoke to Harding, and Waltby realised there was nothing artificial about the note.
“I expect it won’t go off,” Ponsettia said. “They never will when you want ’em to.”
“It’ll go off all right.” Mackay glowered at him. “Think there’s any hope of anybody picking up that signal from the squawk box, Canada?” Harding asked.
“If anybody happens to be flying past within a few yards of us, there might,” Ponsettia said. “But then, if they were that close we’d have to duck.”
Mackay exploded. “You know those bloody things are all right.”
“Sure, they are – if they’re working. This one got a hell of a clout from the wing as the dinghy was ejected. The wonder is the dinghy wasn’t punctured. Sure, they’re all right – if they’re all right.”
“People do pick up the signals.”
“But not often.”
“For Christ’s sake, can’t you cheer up?” said Mackay. “We don’t want to sit in this damn thing just listening to you weighing up what chances there are against us getting out of the jam.”
“Face the facts, I say, bud,” the Canadian said placidly. “Still, if you like it that way, OK. How’s this? Bags of cheer, boys. I’ll bet there’s a kite just setting off about now, knowing exactly where we are, with parachute containers containing channel-swimming outfits and midget submarines which he’s going to drop right alongside.”
“Aren’t you going to get sick of cranking that thing, Canada?” Harding asked hurriedly. “I should take it in spasms.”
“I’m the champion cranker in all the world,” the navigator said.
Waltby watched them, realising that they rarely addressed him, and then only so that he should not feel neglected.
A wave lifted them high above the broken sea and he saw the long miles of empty water. Low across the horizon the grey folds of cloud seemed to huddle more closely together, impenetrable, gloomy and silent.
“Are these things wind-borne or tide-borne?” Mackay asked.
“Stillborn, if you ask me,” Ponsettia observed.
“If we aren’t far off the coast of Belgium or Holland,” Harding pointed out, “we might even blow in.”
All four of them looked instinctively to the east, their eyes hard, their faces taut and unsmiling.
“It’s getting damn cold.” The shock which Harding had suffered was causing the chill to affect him before the others. “A nice warm blanket would be just the job now.” He spoke as though the thought of it were sickly-sweet.
“Have my Irving jacket, Skip,” Mackay begged. “I don’t feel cold. Honest.”
“Don’t talk cock, Mac. If you don’t feel cold you must be dead or something.”
“That reminds me…” It was the first time Waltby had spoken for some time, and their eyes all swung round to stare at him. In spite of his rank he felt curiously embarrassed before the frank gaze of these three young men. “That reminds me,” he said, “I’ve something in here I’d quite forgotten about.”
He unstrapped the briefcase and produced a silver flask, which he put carefully on the bottom of the dinghy while he strapped up the briefcase again with infuriating preciseness. Only then did he hold up the flask.
“Brandy,” he said with the faintest smile. “French brandy.”
“Stay me with apples, succour me with grapes.” Ponsettia’s grin spread. “Brandy!” He stared at the flask. “No wonder you didn’t want to let go that case.”
They all grinned except Mackay, whose next words seemed to throw a damper over their brief interlude of mirth.
“Why not hang on to that?” he said. “Until we need it?”
“Aw, tell that to the Band of Hope,” Ponsettia yelped. “By that time we’ll be too weak to taste it. Let’s have it now, while we’re still strong enough to enjoy it. Let’s die happy.”
“Mac’s right, Canada,” Harding said soberly. “Let’s save it. We don’t know how long we’re going to be here.” He turned to Waltby. “What do you say, sir?”
“You’re the captain of the aircraft.”
“Aw, Skip, you can’t refuse us now. Not now we’ve seen it,” Ponsettia wailed. “It’s like throwing mud in a guy’s eye and then borrowing his hanky to rub it in.”
“Just a wet, then,” Harding agreed. “No more.”
Ponsettia groaned aloud. “Just a wet! Talk about temptation!”
They passed the flask round solemnly, everybody watching carefully to see that no one did more than merely moisten his lips. But there was no greed. They were all so anxious not to be accused of grabbing that they barely tasted the precious stuff. But the tiny drop they swallowed sent a warm glow through their chilled bodies.
“OK, sea,” Ponsettia said as he handed the flask back to Waltby and ran his tongue over his lips. “I’m ready for you now.”
Waltby put the flask back in the brief case, fastening the straps in an old-mannish way that irritated Mackay.
“Jolly useful that, sir,” Harding said.
“Do me a favour,” Waltby begged. “Drop the ‘sir’.”
“OK,” Harding agreed awkwardly. “What shall we call you?”
“My name’s Waltby.”
“Hell, you can’t say ‘Pass the wine, Waltby’,” Ponsettia pointed out. “Or ‘Just shove over the caviar, Waltby’. Or ‘Waltby, how about a bit of breast of seagull?’ Not here. What do people call you? I’m Canada. I’m from River Falls. I was going to be a teacher before the war. His name” – he pointed to Harding – “is Rupert, believe it or not. Rupert Edward Lapenotiere Harding. Jees-us! He was still a kid at school. That is called Mac. I don’t think he ever had a first name. He was a miner or something in some cock-eyed joint in the Midlands. Boy, those Midland towns of yours!” He rolled his eyes.
While he was talking they all watched the air commodore, wondering how he would react to the navigator’s suggestion.
“My name’s Sydney,” he said awkwardly.
“Sydney. Good name,” Harding said gallantly. “Very appropriate after the brandy. Wasn’t it Sir Philip Sidney who said ‘Thy need is greater than mine, chum’, or ‘After you with the booze, mate’, or something?”
Ponsettia was staring at his feet. “First time I’ve ever called an air commodore ‘Syd’,” he said thoughtfully. “Syd.” He weighed the name on his tongue. “Syd. Say, that sure sounds matey!”
They all laughed and suddenly the ice, the reserve between Waltby and the others, was broken. They were just Syd and Mac and Canada and Skip; They were just four men in a dinghy.
Part Two
One
There were a thousand and one things which could go wrong with any airborne operation – whether it was a bombing raid, the dropping of supplies, the movement of tr
oops, or merely the search for a lost yellow dinghy on the acres of the ocean. It could be a neglected oil-feed pipe, a distracted look-out, a wireless set shattered by a bullet, or even – and more likely – simply the weather.
On the blue-and-green-tinted charts of Flying Officer Howard, the Meteorological Officer, the flowing lines of the isobars crowded tight together in the North Sea area just off the Yorkshire coast, and spread out – like ripples round a dropped stone in a pond that was marked with the word “Low” – so that they touched across Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and Kent, and bit into the Continent.
Howard adjusted his spectacles and stared hard at the lines. Outside on the balcony his sergeant was squinting through a theodolite at the hydrogen-filled balloon he had just set free. He was watching it rise at a shallow angle towards the underside of the solid grey bank that hung blank and heavy over the land, rise and grow smaller until, as a pinhead, it finally disappeared into the cloud. From its angle and its rate of climb he calculated the height of the cloud and the speed of the wind.
As it vanished he turned, writing on a slip of paper, and put his head into the long meteorological office where Howard sat at the far end behind his desk.
“Cloud’s down to fifteen hundred feet now, sir,” he pointed out.
Howard nodded. “What’s the wind speed?” he asked.
“It’s increased to twenty miles an hour, sir,” the sergeant said soberly. “That’s a pretty big jump in a short time.”
At the long bench running down the side of the room, the leading-aircraftman who was plotting the information coming from the central weather office at Dunstable turned round for a moment, watching for Howard’s reactions, then he slipped from his stool and disappeared into the next room to tear a new slip of weather information from the teleprinter.
“Got the barometer readings, Sergeant?” Howard asked. “Yes, sir.” The sergeant crossed the room and placed a sheet of paper in front of him. “Barograph’s falling steeply,” he pointed out. “It’s beginning to look a bit dicey now.”
Howard made no comment as he studied the charts in front of him, not liking at all what he saw. He was a serious young man with little humour in him – in his job he couldn’t afford to treat his information lightly. On him often rested the fate of twenty or more heavy bombers containing anything up to two hundred brave young men. His was the job of giving them weather forecasts that were neither timid nor inaccurate, at a time when their engines might be damaged by flak or their electrical circuits cut to ribbons. No one on the station had to make harder decisions than Howard made – save only the Group Captain and the squadron commanders and the crews themselves. He was immensely proud of this fact and, in consequence, tended to regard his job with a stolid unsmiling seriousness that made him seem older than he was.
At his side was the report from the weather flight aircraft which had just flown in from the North Sea from the direction of Scandinavia, and Howard was trying to fit it into the findings of his own observers and the more general reports which came in from Dunstable.
As he worked he heard the nervous laugh of Squadron Leader Scott, the Administration Officer, in the corridor outside and he winced slightly, remembering the Controller’s words as he’d once described it. “Sounds as if he’s laying something,” he’d said.
Howard sighed, knowing perfectly well he was on the point of receiving a visit. He disliked Scotty, not only for his monumental inefficiency but also because Scotty, with his wings and his last war medals, treated Howard, whose breast was bare of any decoration whatsoever, as little better than a clerk.
The door burst open and Scotty crossed over towards Howard’s desk and flopped heavily down in the armchair which stood alongside it – the Meteorological Officer’s stay during the long urgent hours of night watches when they waited with one eye on the fog and the low cloud for returning aircraft; his bed on the difficult nights of the big raids and bad weather, where he dozed when he could and tried not to think too much of the gigantic responsibility.
“Hello, Howard,” Scotty said as he stretched out. “My God, am I glad to sit down! I’m browned off. I really am. Truly cheesed. You get rushed off your feet in this place more than anywhere I’ve ever been.”
Howard looked up, saying nothing, knowing well that Scotty was always rushed off his feet and usually for little cause and for less result. He could see no reason to interrupt his work to show an interest in Scotty’s woes. He knew they would be woes. He was right.
“I’ve lost a file,” Scotty began in that eager, energetic voice of his which dissolved immediately into complaints after his first sentence. “Damned office-bashers. Can’t trust ’em to look after anything.”
Howard looked up again and Scotty went on hurriedly, obviously anxious to talk and grasping at Howard’s attention while he had it.
“Bloody files. Desk’s littered with ’em. Wish I were still flying. All I do now is sit about and sort out other people’s bumph.” He flung out a hand in energetic protest, then his little eyes began to peer enquiringly about him so that Howard was irresistibly reminded of a sea lion sniffing for fish.
“Didn’t leave it in here when I came this morning, did I?” Scotty asked. “Marked ‘Mackay’. I wouldn’t like it to be picked up by any of the orderly-room staff. Nosy swine,” he went on in his fortitude-under-adversity voice. “Swear they know more about us than we know about them.”
He sighed noisily. “Found a file on accommodation in the hutted camp on my desk at tea-time that ought to have been in the SWO’s hands. Thought I took it in myself but I expect that clot Starr was using it and it got missed.”
Howard watched him patiently. “You didn’t leave your file here,” he pointed out coldly.
“Hell!” Scotty frowned in honest bewilderment. “Can’t think where it’s gone, old boy. Poor show, whoever lost it. Going to get a strip torn off when I find out. Gen for the Group Captain. That’s what it was. Flight Sergeant Mackay’s been swiping petrol. And now he’s got the chop. In a dinghy in the Channel, I hear.”
“I know,” Howard said. “That’s why I’m producing forecasts every hour.”
“Eh? Oh, of course!” Scotty’s face wore a hurt look, as though some private information had been filched from him. “Of course. That’ll be why Groupy’s so edgy today. Practically threw me out of his office. Just when I was trying to get the OK on this damn bus service. And, hell, I have to get his decision on some things, don’t I? We’ve got to have the bus service. The AOC’s coming at the weekend, and he’s a holy terror for the comfort of the troops. That’s the worst of my job. If Groupy catches a rocket because they haven’t got a bus I’ll catch a rocket from him.”
He was appealing to Howard to listen, as he was always appealing for someone – anyone – to listen to his long-winded complaints. Scotty seemed never to have grown up, and his attitude to his troubles was that of a small boy, resentful and despairing at the same time.
“Mackay’s up for a commission,” he said. “Believe Groupy’s rather keen on Mackay. From what I remember of him, he was a surly devil. Looked at me as though I were sticking my nose in when I asked him for further enlightenment to some of the questions on his application.”
“Perhaps he thought he’d filled ’em in satisfactorily.”
“Well, he jolly well hadn’t. I felt one or two of ’em needed further explanation.”
Howard glanced over his spectacles at Scotty, and said nothing.
“Somebody has to bring order into the chaos,” the Administration Officer went on. “That damned Station Warrant Officer’s a wash-out. I’m always having to clobber him. Sly old bastard. Never binds. Just looks at me as though I were telling him how to do his job.”
“He’s been doing it for nearly ten years now.”
“I know. In a rut completely. You’d think he wouldn’t require prodding from the Station Admin. Officer. But then I suppose that’s what I’m for. That’s why everyone likes me so much.” Scotty laughed mi
rthlessly. “Popular Scott, I’m known as – I don’t think! Hell,” he ended, “I can’t help having to chase people.” He sagged unhappily in the chair, jaded and inefficient.
Howard rose, collecting papers. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “They’re wanting all this stuff in the Ops. Room. I’m sorry about your lost file.”
“Yes. Didn’t want to lose that one of all files.” Scotty glanced at the papers in Howard’s hands. “Well, and how’s the weather?”
“A bit grim, I’m afraid.”
“Jolly rotten show. Oh, well, you carry on. I ought to be going myself. I ought to go and tear a strip off Starr. I expect he’s mislaid the damned thing somewhere.”
Howard disappeared, leaving Scotty still sitting in the chair, listlessly looking at a sheet of weather information which must have been pure gibberish to him, and made for the Operations Room. The Group Captain was there, standing by the table with the Controller. The lonely-looking marker in the Channel which represented Harding and his crew was surrounded now by other markers.
Taudevin turned as Howard entered, his face devoid of expression, his curiously still eyes watchful.
“Hello, Howard,” he said. “Any relief?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I’m afraid it’s working out just as I feared it would.”
“Hm.” Taudevin stared at the markers on the plotting table. Howard knew he had fulfilled his function but he remained behind for a while, anxious to see how things were developing.
“You know we’ve had a message to the effect that they’ve spotted a body floating?” Taudevin turned to him casually, his face unemotional, his body relaxed, those twisted claws that were his hands thrust deep into his pockets. Outwardly there was no sign of strain but his very presence in the Operations Room belied his calm expression. Howard searched his face for signs of worry that the message might have put there.
“I didn’t know that, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry.”