War Wounds

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  The station commander and squadron commanders were already there; standing around the big central table, with the senior Intelligence officer, the Signals and Armament officers, the civilian Meteorological officer.

  A length of red tape was pinned to the large wall map, with one end on Massingham and the other on Schillig Roads.

  With two 500 lb bombs in its bomb bay, and full tanks, the Blenheim was potentially as lethal to its crew as to the enemy. During and since the Great War, the classification of bombs in the R.F.C. and R.A.F. had been erroneous. The alleged 20-pounders used to weigh 24 lb if they were Coopers and 181/2 lb if Hales. The 500 lb bomb actually weighed 700 lb. There was a lot of high explosive and petrol aboard. Nobody on either squadron had ever taken off with so heavy a burden. Nobody could forecast exactly how long a take-off run he would need. It depended on the temperature at ground level, wind strength and direction, the foibles of individual aeroplanes, the pilot: his ability, character and experience; even his physical strength.

  On peacetime defence exercises, no bombs were carried. On bombing practice, bombs weighing some 30 lb were normally used; and, as the bombing ranges were never far from base, only a small amount of fuel was carried.

  The Massingham Wing had been ordered to attack in two waves: Wing Commander Arnott’s squadron first and the sister squadron an hour later. The two commanding officers were each to lead his own formation. Both flight commanders were to stay behind; Harry was flying on the squadron commander’s port side, in the first V of three aircraft.

  Massingham was a grass airfield. The Blenheims were therefore not restricted to the width of a concrete runway and could take off in formation: three abreast, the two wingers some 25 yards astern, and 10 yards to either side, of the leader in each section.

  This was the first test of the pilots’ quality. Ideally, each should lift his Blenheim off the ground as it passed the point at which his section leader had become airborne. A cheeky winger might even beat his leader to it.

  Harry ran his engines up, holding the aircraft firm on its brakes while he watched Wing Commander Arnott for a signal. Arnott raised his right hand, dropped it to the throttles, and his Blenheim surged forward. His wing men moved in concert. Harry had lost all his earlier apprehensions about going into action for the first time. His mind was fully concentrated on flying. He kept the leading Blenheim in sight, watched his instruments, and kept an eye on the boundary fence, all at the same time.

  The wing commander’s aeroplane rose suddenly and stayed steady a few feet above the ground. A second or so later, Harry eased his control column back and expelled a long breath of relief as the wheels unstuck. The leader began climbing, the other two precisely following.

  A good start, a decent take-off. Round the circuit, tighten up the formation, then a swoop over the camp and a low pass across the airfield: followed by a steep climb on course for the coast.

  Harry wondered how many people on the station were at their places of work during those few minutes. Wherever he looked down, there were groups of men and women with their faces turned up to watch Massingham’s first operational sortie of the war depart.

  How long will the fervour and interest last? Anyway, absence from place of work won’t be tolerated every time a formation takes off on ops. Like everything else, it will become routine, and then boring. It’s hard to imagine ops ever becoming so much a routine, for those of us who have to fly them, that we’ll become nerveless birdmen like Clarke Gable and Spencer Tracey, doing their flying in mock-ups on a film set. Gigantic struggles are going to take place, whole countries and their populations are going to he shaken, nations will fall into the hands of invaders; and at the centre of each of those gigantic struggles are going to be a few men sitting in a cramped space and feeling not in the least heroic, but wondering what’s for lunch or dinner when they get back.

  Don’t let’s think about getting back.

  Broadley’s voice from the dorsal turret interrupted Harry’s ironical train of thought.

  “Permission to test guns, Skipper?”

  “Go ahead.”

  They were over the sea. The aircraft vibrated briefly as Broadley fired a short burst with his twin machine-guns.

  Harry fired the one in his port wing. Fat lot of use, he thought. The pilot could aim only by pointing the nose of his aircraft at the target. There was no proper sight.

  There were two more guns in a blister beneath the nose, fixed to fire astern and aimed by the observer, who had to do it by means of a mirror: another almost useless item of armament, more a scarer than a means of doing serious damage; and hits would be mostly luck. Watson tested them.

  The juddering of the guns ended and cordite fumes began to drift about M for Mother.

  Very pungent, thought Harry. Shades of the Civil War, Balaclava and Waterloo; of men and horses with nostrils distended with a ferocity and courage engendered by the whiff of burned powder. It makes me feel pretty desperate and bellicose, too. It also conjured pictures of dead, dying and limbless men and horses…

  The visibility was still good when they were within fifteen minutes of their target. With a maximum speed of neatly 250 miles an hour at their present low level, the Blenheim, even at cruising revolutions, was still a long way from the point at which that length of red tape on the Ops Room map ended. There were clouds on the horizon, but, as the formation approached them, Harry could see that cloud base was about 3,000 feet above the sea.

  Good… and bad. They should find their target, units of the German Navy; but the ships would spot them early and so would patrolling fighters. Early was a comparative term: at 500 ft, they were not conspicuous. They would be lower but for yesterday’s incident of a Blenheim caught in its own bomb blast.

  Broadley’s voice interrupted Harry’s reflections. “Aircraft, three-o’clock, sir. Must be fighters.”

  Harry leaned forward and looked to his right, past the C.O’s aircraft and the one beyond it.

  Two or three miles away, a clutch of small shapes seemed to hang motionless. He counted: eight of them. They aren’t motionless, they’re getting bigger. Messerschmitt One-O-Nines, no doubt.

  Where are the ships?

  The enemy fighters were within a mile, and several hundred feet higher than the Blenheims, when the ships came in sight.

  Harry said “They’re slow about closing with us. I don’t like it. Can you see any more of them, Gunner?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Something fishy. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Sir.”

  “They’ll have reported us to the ships, blast them,” said Watson.

  “Maybe that’s why they’re in no hurry.”

  Harry had hardly spoken when shells began to burst ahead of the Blenheims and at slightly above their height. The flashes at the muzzles of the naval guns showed bright red against the grey sea and the camouflaged dark hulls.

  The flak came closer. Disturbed air rocked M-Mother gently. The gunfire ceased abruptly.

  The 109s bored in, tracer reaching out for the bombers: small bright flecks arcing down from the machine-guns, larger gouts of red, white and green from the cannons.

  The gunners in the first section of Blenheims concerted their fire on the nearest Messerschmitt. It stopped shooting and veered steeply aside. Its No. 2 carried straight on, with the Blenheims’ tracer thick around it. It held on a trifle too boldly. A flame spurted from its engine, smoke trickled from its nose and was swept over the cockpit canopy, oil spurted over the windscreen. It turned away in a climb, towards land.

  A glare, crimson and flickering, leaped across the sky from behind M-Mother.

  “Flight Lieutenant Jones has been hit, sir,” Broadley’s voice wavered slightly and he spoke loudly, as though to control it the better. Jones was deputy flight commander of Snaith’s flight, leading the second section.

  A torrent of air rushed over M, making it swing to left and right, pushing its nose first down and then up. The roar of the explosion
followed.

  Suddenly the Messerschmitts were turning away.

  “Out of fuel, or our shooting was too hot,” Harry said.

  The ships opened up once more.

  Arnott began to take evasive action, weaving and switchbacking. The others followed, spreading out to give the enemy gunners a wider field to cover.

  They would have to fly straight and level again, to bomb. Harry became aware that he had a bladder and bowels; both were making urgent demands.

  Arnott had taken the formation down now to within 30 ft of the wavetops and was staying there: too low for the depression of the ships’ flak guns. He led them in a sweep around the ships, which kept changing course, trying to confuse the bombers. There were two cruisers and two destroyers.

  Why didn’t they make smoke? Because they were so confident that they needed to fear nothing from British bombers, after yesterday’s farce. And smoke would make it impossible for them to shoot at their attackers.

  Go on, damn you: put up a smoke screen. Harry kept repeating the plea to himself.

  Bomb blast or not, the C.O. was evidently not going to play safe. He began to climb, but levelled out at 200 ft.

  With a feeling in the pit of his stomach that was worse than when he had first seen Beecher’s Brook looming up, Harry followed suit.

  “Might as well pick a big one,” he said. “Better chance of a hit.”

  “Thanks.” Watson did not, however, sound genuinely appreciative.

  “Any more fighters, Gunner?”

  “No, Skipper.”

  “Right. Bombing.”

  Harry set about flying over one of the cruisers from stern to bows.

  The Blenheim’s starboard wing dropped. There was a metallic clang, a plume of smoke from the cowling of the starboard engine, and Harry’s heart thudded. The oil pressure dropped. Oil oozed through the metal panels of the cowling. Some of it smeared the starboard windows of the cockpit.

  “Bombing,” Harry said again, astonished at the indifference in his voice: I wish I felt as calm as I sound.

  Tracer from light flak danced around M’s nose.

  “Left-left… more… right… steady… right… left-left… steady…” Watson sounded serene.

  Again the starboard wing shifted without warning; this time, upward. A shell had burst directly beneath its tip.

  Harry saw the outline of a hull, bristling with gun turrets, it seemed, slide beneath him.

  M gave a bound, its bombs shed.

  Harry dived towards the sea.

  “Glancing blow on the port side, amidships, sir.” Then Broadley’s voice rose in excitement. “Bai! That was a gradely sight, Skipper… dirty great gush of water… one bomb burst just below t’surface… we must have done some damage below the waterline.”

  Harry turned, so that they could all look at the cruiser. She was plugging on at the same speed, and not listing.

  Fountains were erupting all around the ships as the 500 lb bombs burst.

  “Better clear off before more fighters turn up. I’m going to climb as soon as we’re well clear, and make as much height as I can.”

  So as to give them room to manoeuvre if fighters overtook them: and a long glide to the sea if the port engine failed; to allow them as much height, and radio range, as possible, to send a signal that would enable their position to be fixed; and they would have the maximum time to pick a good patch of sea in which to alight.

  The port engine sounded healthy and the dials showed no reason for worry.

  I’ve been caught like that before, though, Harry reminded himself. He recalled his second National… the second time around… the leader three lengths clear, he himself two lengths behind the second horse… only four fences to go. And his horse had pecked at the next jump, fallen; and he had broken a collarbone.

  3.

  As station commander, Templer rated a fine five-bedroomed house, No. 1, Officers’ Married Quarters. It was the nearest to the mess and about 100 yards from it. He lunched in mess on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for several reasons: to meet his officers informally, to keep an eye on the standard of the cooking; and because he loved every aspect of Service life, and mess life was an important feature of it.

  On the first Thursday of the war, he was, as usual, lunching at home. He had the fulltime services of a batman, who helped to wait at table when there were guests. He was able to afford a cook, who bicycled in from the village, and a maid who helped her and the batman, and lived in.

  Alice was a good cook, and supervised the kitchen closely. She gave a hand by preparing one of her favourite dishes when favoured guests were expected. She was sweet-faced, auburn-haired and small. Her green eyes were striking. She was a cheerful foil for her husband’s seriousness. Like so many apparently dour people, Templer was a man of strong passions, sexuality included. He had married a girl of eighteen, when he was 23, as much from sheer lust as from genuine affection. Marriage had quickly made him eagerly uxorious. Alice was equally voracious in bed, and their few quarrels had always been settled there.

  She was mainly concerned at present with concealing from him her acute anxiety about him and about their son. She had been long enough an R.A.F. wife to have had to learn to accept sudden death as a feature of a pilot’s profession. In peacetime, accidents had killed many of their friends. She was well prepared for the aggravated risks of war, but fortitude did not dispel fear.

  It was her habit to welcome her husband at the front door, and when she did so now it was with a quick anxious scrutiny of his face, which was a habit she had formed only in the past five days. She hoped that it did not betray her; but Templer was astute and she knew that, although he seldom made any personal comment, he missed nothing.

  “They are keeping you hanging around, aren’t they.” She knew that neither squadron had been ordered off on an operation, because of the lack of flying that morning.

  He kissed her and although he did not smile, his eyes showed his pleasure.

  “We’re operating tonight; at last.”

  “Leaflets, I suppose.”

  “I’m afraid so. But it’s a relief, just the same.”

  She knew that it was not only the relief from monotony and the lift to the station’s morale that pleased him. He would be thinking that German fighters might interfere; which would give his air gunners a chance to shoot them down. Everybody on the station was “his”: he had no crew of his own: at his rank he was supposed to direct operations, not take part in them; except occasionally: very occasionally.

  “Will you be late for dinner? Or will you want it early?”

  He slipped an arm around her. “I’ll dine in mess, with the crews.” He felt her tauten; and told himself that he was lucky to have a 42-year-old wife, who had borne three children, yet had a waist trim enough for the muscles to be palpable to a light hand.

  “I’ll be out all evening, from the first take-off until the last return. Don’t wait up.”

  She wondered with whose crew he was going to fly: his half-truth had in no whit deceived her.

  Her suspicion was confirmed when he refused a glass of sherry.

  “But you go ahead, darling. I’ll just have a tomato juice to keep you company.”

  “Surely a small glass of sherry will have worn off by tonight?”

  He smiled. “I’ve got to perform at briefing.”

  “I’ve known you drink all night and still be perfectly articulate at three-o’clock in the morning, after a mess party.”

  His smile held. He made no reply.

  “Doran, the chap who led the first attack, in a Blenheim, on Monday, in that foul weather, has been given an immediate D.F.C.”

  “I am glad.”

  “Yes, it’s particularly good because he’s only a flight lieutenant.”

  “You haven’t had any details of the attack Harry was in, I suppose?”

  “Yes.” He was not going to give her the details. The B.B.C. had reported that “Three of our aircraft are missing” aft
er that day’s work: but he did not intend to tell her that they had all been in Harry’s formation of six. “I don’t think we can expect a gong for Harry this time.”

  She looked relieved. He had made it sound as though nothing much had been accomplished and that there had been no losses.

  His own mind was in a ferment of worry. Three shot down out of six. It was Fourteen-Eighteen all over again; added to the Blenheim and Wellington casualties of the day before. Damned stubborn Air Staff and the bloody politicians who manipulated them: they won’t admit that we haven’t a bomber that’s both fast enough and well enough armed to be able to defend itself in daylight against fighters; and that a daylight attack at low level where there is intense Archie… ack-ack… dammit, flak, is slaughter.

  Intelligence had reported that Harry’s squadron had been chased by Me 109s after they had bombed; and suffered one Blenheim shot down, an air gunner killed in another and an observer wounded in a third. Five out of six had been hit, therefore. He wondered whether it was Harry’s jeep or observer who had been unlucky.

  *

  The Wellington crews, like the Whitleys’, included a second pilot in the first year or two of the war. There was also an observer, qualified in navigation, to do the navigating. On some squadrons, particularly those which flew Blenheims and Hampdens, the navigation was done by a second pilot who thus seldom had the chance to fly himself. All pilots learned navigation and some did a further course on it.

  This generous provision meant that Templer could either displace someone’s second pilot or take over a crew if its captain were absent from sickness, leave or temporary duty elsewhere. As a rule, a whole crew went on leave simultaneously; but there were many reasons why it might be temporarily deprived of its first pilot.

  Stepping in as second pilot gave offence: the regular incumbent resented being compelled to miss a trip; and the rest of the crew felt that such an intrusion upset the rhythm of their teamwork. Taking over as captain was as unpopular: the crew felt uncomfortable under a strange command; and any crew with whom so senior an officer as a group captain flew was especially uneasy.