Seize and Ravage
Page 19
He was flying Number Three in the second V of three aeroplanes, led by Courtney. Hanbury was leading the first V, the other flight commander the third one, his deputy the last. Alden watched others' tail and wingtip lights move ahead of him to the down-wind end of the flarepath. They would show the blue formation light on the trailing edge of each wingtip, to avoid collision and maintain contact, until the rising sun gave them enough visibility. This did not matter: they would be flying low and there was no expectation of enemy fighters on this side of the North Sea or even halfway across it.
There were no aborted take-offs. Nobody found a fault in any of his aircraft's mechanical or electrical equipment. They were on their way, all of them. Hanbury led them straight towards the coast.
Dimly, familiar landmarks scudded past close beneath their wings. The aircraft rose and fell gently with the vagaries of the air temperature, updraughts, downdraughts, eddies of wind. Fishing boats were working a few miles out to sea. It was a misleadingly peaceful prelude to violent action, bloodshed and devastation.
Alden felt the first pangs of hunger. A lot had been going on in his stomach since he woke, including a mild cramp. He was sure he would have felt better and braver on a plate of bacon and egg. Too late now. Perhaps everything was too late now…
He had joined the Air Force because he was besotted by the desire to fly and because he felt sure that his companions in the Service would have more in common with him than any other community and he would find them the best company in the world. Going to war had had nothing to do with it. He had been for two five shilling aerial joyrides in old Avro 504Ks that had been made obsolescent and sold off by the R.A.F. He was fourteen and fifteen at the time and had enjoyed the two short flights more than any other experience in his life. As for the comradeship: a friend of his elder brother's was a Cranwell cadet and later fighter pilot, who had spoken with affection and delight about the life he led. Both flying and good fellowship had come up to Alden's expectations. Having to fight one day was an eventuality that he had never entertained seriously although every day of his Service life entailed training for just that.
Now he was about to confront the highly dangerous reality that underlay all that had gone before; the happy times and high spirits, the friendships and the serious application to constantly improving his skills. The only way to think of it was as repayment to his Service and his country for all the delights that being in the R.A.F. had given him.
He was looking forward to finding the enemy ships, as a reward for accurate navigation, even though he was not having to rely on his own calculations; and as a chance to put his torpedo aiming to the test. But he was not looking forward to the gunfire. I'm afraid but not scared, he told himself. Any sensible man is bound to be afraid of the prospect of possible death or severe injury, but my chances of survival are as good as anyone else's and I'm no funk.
What was Fussell, stoically waiting in the rear cockpit, thinking? He did not envy Fussell. He would not like to put his life in the hands of anyone else, no matter how good a pilot. In the end, Fussell's chances of survival depended entirely on his pilot's competence and his actions when they went into the attack. That must be a highly discomfiting realisation. How much confidence could Fussell place in him, with whom he had flown only four times and then in conditions in which the only danger could come from pilot error?
'Everything all right, Gunner?'
'Yes, thank you, sir.' Fussell sounded as though he had something in his mouth.
'What are you eating?' 'Sucking barley sugar, sir.'
This evidence of his air gunner's phlegmatic acceptance of the job cheered Alden more than any explicit assurance could have.
When he saw the outlines of warships appear against the horizon at last, he felt no tremor, only a cold satisfaction that he had arrived in the battle area and could get on with what he had been sent to do.
They were black silhouettes at first, either head or stern on: it was not possible to judge at the present range. The nearest ships were obviously destroyers. The great bulk of the towering battle cruisers reared in the midst of the fleet. The light cruisers were ahead and astern of them.
Gradually it became possible to descry bow waves. The ships were surging towards the aircraft, not away from them. The wings of Hanbury's Vildebeest rocked and the formation swung away to starboard, widening the angle to facilitate the task of aiming. Head-on or stern-on, the ships presented small targets. Broadside, they offered the biggest. But the drill was to estimate a target's course and speed and aim ahead of its bows so that ship and torpedo arrived at the same point at the same time. From whichever angle one attacked, there was always the expectation of a violent change of the target's course to frustrate one's judgment.
Against the grey sky of dawn and the grey, white dappled water the dark shapes grew clearer, better defined. Instead of fear, excitement was Alden's dominant emotion. The ships looked too big to miss and appeared to be moving slowly. The latter illusion soon passed; so did the delusion that his torpedo must inevitably strike home. The bow waves and wash of the destroyers were churned into spume that rose as high as their decks and a furiously bubbling wake that left a foaming streak which lengthened with their increase in speed. The destroyers began to circle the bigger ships.
The air between the turning aircraft and the ships suddenly became a web of glittering tracer shells from the quadruple-mounted 20 mm light flak. Then the 37 mm opened up and on every vessel there was a series of big red flashes with each shell despatched. Huge flaming belches glowed crimson as the cruisers' 4.1 inch flak began to shoot.
Alden drifted into an incongruous mood of indifference to the growing thunder of the big guns and the riot of colours whose bright streaks smudged the gloom of the early morning, even the ugly violent eruptions at the mouths of the heavy guns. He was immersed in the fascinating calculations that would, if he made them correctly, ensure that he did not waste his torpedo.
He was snatched out of his momentary unconcern with the threat of sudden death by a vivid streak of light that flashed across the sky and he saw a Vildebeest in the leading vic disintegrate into thousands of small pieces.
A flood of equally brilliant light somewhere astern of him lit the sky and was reflected by the base of the low overcast ahead of him. Someone else had flown into a shell that had blown his aircraft to bits, with the added detonation of his fuel tanks and torpedo.
Now it was anger that became Alden's dominant mood. The ships were the embodiment of death to his comrades and the Nazis' evil doctrine and intentions. A crazy impulse to hurl his aircraft headlong at one of the battle cruisers in order to make sure of sinking it made him shake with tension. Even as the madness momentarily possessed him, he reasoned that crashing into the vast structure of thick steel would achieve little. Only a well-placed torpedo below the waterline had any chance of doing real damage.
He saw the furrow of somebody's torpedo streaking towards one of the battle cruisers… then a second from a different direction.
Ponderously the big ship turned, heeling. Both torpedoes sped past.
A Vildebeest was burning. Its torpedo no longer hung beneath it. It lurched onto its starboard wingtips and slid into the sea. A column of smoke and steam hissed up.
At a little over 1000 yards, aiming carefully ahead of the nearer of the two biggest vessels, judging where it would be, if it held its course, in 90 seconds' time, Alden released his torpedo. A few seconds later he swung away in a tight turn. Twenty-millimetre shells tore holes in his wings. Heavier shells burst close enough to hurl the Vildebeest up to make it pitch and skid. He tried to keep the track of his torpedo in sight. The last he saw of it, it was obviously going to miss its target by several yards.
One of the troopships was down by the bows, motionless. That was the only damage he could see. He searched the sky and could count only seven other Vildebeests.
Shortly after, the second wave passed him and the remnants of his squadron, on its way t
o take its turn in that maelstrom of gunfire; and with no more hope of success than the first waves.