Vachell came back. ‘They’ve both had it, Pete. You and I… alone…’
‘Bloody hell and shit.’ Wheldon was holding the Wimpey level with great effort. He even persuaded it to climb to 1,500 ft. ‘I’m going back on the reciprocal. Check around… I think the fuel tanks are O.K.’
It was going to be a hellish slog back. He could not hand over to Vachell. His arms were aching. Another abortive sortie. How he hated the Huns. He didn’t think much of Bomber Command or Air Ministry either, or the blasted politicians whose cowardice when they should have stood up to Hitler years ago had brought the country… the squadron… his crew to this shambolic mess.
Two hours later he cautiously broke cloud but there was no land in sight. He would have to stay down here at 400 ft. to make a landfall. He could only hope that the other engine would not fail.
Vachell poured more coffee. They had plenty of that to see them back to base: six men’s rations between three. Ufland had not been killed, but the cannon shell from a Me 110 that had burst near him had blinded him. He was lying, wrapped in blankets, on the rest bunk.
The wheels came down all right when Wheldon brought Orange groggily into the circuit. He managed a smooth landing despite the drag of the port wing with its dead engine. He taxied to dispersals and climbed out; to find the station commander, and Wing Commander Norton still in flying gear, standing beside the aircraft.
‘Good show,’ Norton said, ‘but where the hell did you get to on your first bombing run?’
Wearily, before Wheldon could answer, Vachell said ‘My fault, sir… I pulled the flap lever.’
Good God! Wheldon thought, He thought we’d funked it.
Five
Wheldon still had a hangover at lunch time. He had walked from the mess to the hangar after breakfast, hoping that exercise and fresh air would help to dispel it. Cloud base was too low and the overcast too thick for any kind of flying. The Intelligence officer had lectured the inattentive crews on escaping if shot down over enemy territory. It seemed superfluous. The only incursions permitted over Germany were by the night squadrons which dropped leaflets instead of high explosive and incendiaries.
Wheldon and Vachell each spent half an hour in the Link trainer. Vachell was morose, hungover and penitent about his mistake that had thrown their aircraft into chaos. He was sure that if they could have attacked on their first run, they would have hit the cruiser. There was the depressing prospect of a funeral parade two days hence. They would both have to find words for Knee’s and Legge’s parents and for the parents and wife of Foot.
Wheldon walked back to the mess with two other sergeants, although neither the mild exertion nor the open air had done much apparent good to his throbbing head. Audrey was in the hall. He nodded and looked away, but when he had hung up his Irvine jacket and forage cap she was still lingering. She drew an obvious deep breath and approached him.
‘Peter…’ He stopped. His lack of encouragement did nothing to help her. ‘I know one is not supposed to mention these things… but… I felt I had to say how sorry I am.’
‘Thank you.’ His voice was cold, impersonal and if she thought him boorish he did not care. He began to walk past her.
‘I didn’t go to the dance.’ She was still speaking in a low voice intended only for him.
He stopped. ‘Why? It’s just a job, you know.’
There was a quick spurt of anger in her face, which faded at once. ‘I’m sorry. It was foolish of me to say anything.’ She turned away.
He caught her by the arm. ‘Wait a minute, Audrey.’ She turned back and now he was sure that it was hostility that he saw confronting him. ‘Thanks… I appreciate your feelings. It must be hard for you… a girl… new to the Service…’
‘Being a woman has nothing to do with it…’
He gave her a small smile. ‘Come off your high horse. I only meant we’re used to it. Even in peacetime it happens, you know.’
Her mouth tightened. ‘Don’t I know it.’
‘Oh? Anyway, as you said, it’s never mentioned and that’s the only way to treat it, really.’ He smiled more widely this time. ‘I would have gone to the dance, but I got a bit sloshed.’
‘The best thing you could have done.’
‘Yes. But if I’d been sober I’d have gone to the dance… hoping to have a dance with you, actually.’
She blushed and shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly, Peter. You’ve carefully avoided me for…’
‘I haven’t avoided you.’
‘Ignored, then. Don’t make silly speeches, please, that you don’t mean.’
‘All right, then, how about this: will you come to the dance with me next week?’
She did not drop her eyes from his while she stood in silence. ‘Yes, I’d like to.’
‘Good. And would you like a drink now?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Very well. Would you like to come to the flicks in Scunthorpe this evening?’
Her surprise was obvious. ‘Is there anything worth seeing?’ Her stalling for time was equally obvious.
‘Katherine Hepburn…’ He smiled again. ‘And Spencer Tracey.’
This drew a small laugh from her. ‘You don’t really think I’m some sort of feminist do you… that I have a prejudice against the male sex?’
‘Let’s say I think you’re highly independent.’
‘I’m glad you realise that. Yes, thank you, I’d like to come to the cinema.’
‘Straight after tea, then?’
‘I’ll be ready.’
When he went into the bar, Vachell said quietly ‘Her two oppos… Jane… Fay… said they felt rotten about… y’know… I told them not to say anything to you.’
‘They mean well.’ He took a draught of his beer. ‘They’ll learn, Tony.’
It was not an enlivening thought.
*
Wheldon felt that the elements of his life were not coming together as they should have, these first weeks of the war. With his long training and the ability with which, without conceit, he knew he had been gifted, he had expected by now to have made several raids on Germany and seen his bombs destroy factories, docks and airfields. Instead, he had done no damage and five men who had flown with him had been killed. Moreover, there was no indication that he would be dropping bombs on Germany in the near future. Both the aircraft he had taken into battle were write-offs. This was a further grievance. To him, aeroplanes were not soul-less mechanical objects; each was imbued with a distinctive personality. An affection for them was an essential part of his love of flying. Their loss was not far short of hurting him as much as the loss of life.
He was not a rabid womaniser. He enjoyed women’s company and occasional sexual adventures. He found his pleasures away from camp. From time to time he would make friends with a girl at a dance hall or a mess party and take her out for two or three months. If eventually they went to bed, or achieved the same end on his car seat or a picnic rug, well and good. If not, he did not suffer any great disappointment. He had resented the intrusion of uniformed women into the life of the station. Yet, here he was, looking forward all this afternoon to taking a W.A.A.F. sergeant out.
He was not even sure what had prompted him to invite her. She had shown no particular interest in him and there were many prettier girls among her comrades. Any of the airwomen would have jumped at the chance of going out with a flight sergeant, especially a pilot. He wondered whether the handsome pilot officer had taken her out. He wondered if the bloke had tried to kiss her after having the last dance and walking her to her billet. Both queries irritated him and he hoped that the answer to both was ‘no’. But why should he mind?
Audrey was brisk when she met him in the mess entrance hall after tea. He wondered whether she had spent the afternoon regretting her acceptance of his obviously impromptu invitation. It was drizzling and they ran to his car with their greatcoat collars turned up. When he opened the passenger door for her she thanked him with a hint of surprise.
Heaters were a great rarity in cars before the war. He said ‘There’s a rug I can get out of the dicky, if you’re going to be cold.’
‘No thanks. I’m not fragile, you know.’ There was a detectable tartness there which raised his hackles.
He drove off. ‘I was forgetting: you’re a hardy country girl. I wonder you didn’t join the Land Army?’ He turned with a wry look, to let her see that he meant no harm: not that one could see much at half past six on an autumn evening with the roof and sidescreens up.
‘I didn’t fancy myself as a land girl: those coarse stockings; and farmers prejudiced against women working on their land and with their stock, as much as some R.A.F. types about having them all over an airfield.’
‘Yes, the coarse stockings, of course.’ She had admirable legs. He wondered at his enthusiasm as he had a mental picture of them. ‘Your father doesn’t farm, then?’
‘He’s a pharmacist. He owns a village chemist’s shop.’
‘Pleasant life. Did you help him in the shop?’
‘I worked at a riding school.’
‘Instructing?’
‘Yes, and doing my share of strapping and mucking out.’
‘Strapping sounds unkind.’
She giggled, a most unexpected sound to come from her. ‘It means grooming.’
‘Ah! A professional term. And what did you call your pupils: mugs?’
‘Certainly not.’
Silence fell and he felt that they had come to the end of that particular branch of exploration.
‘One of the wireless mechs fitted a set for me. Would you like it on?’
‘I’ve never been in a car with a wireless. Yes, please.’
‘The tone isn’t bad.’
‘I think it’s super, having a wireless at all.’
The valves warmed and presently dance music became audible.
‘Jack Payne,’ she said, ‘unmistakable.’
‘Livelier than Henry Hall.’
‘Oh, yes, but he’s good, too.’
‘I like a syncopated piano, with kettle drums played with a wire brush, in the background: Billy Mayer… Charlie Kunz… Carrol Gibbons.’
‘Rather; Carroll Gibbons specially… and his Savoy Hotel Orpheans.’
‘Roy Fox or Ambrose for me: wizard.’
She made a little assenting noise and he knew she was feeling at ease with him in the closeness of the two-seater with the wireless playing merry or romantic tunes and the rain hissing against the yellowing mica sidescreens, the masked headlights casting a faint glow on the shiny black road. He would have liked to squeeze her hand and tell her that he was more content than he had been for many a day. They did not talk any more until they reached the town.
*
He made a point of avoiding contact with her in the cinema. Not so much as an accidental touching of shoulders invaded her declared independence. Afterwards he took her to a pub on the outskirts, a long walk from the bus route and therefore frequented by few from Brinstead.
A greying flight lieutenant wearing a pilot’s brevet and Great War ribbons was at the bar counter. He gave Wheldon a genial look. ‘Evening, Flight. Don’t think I know you: are you from Kirton?’ This was a fighter station.
‘Brinstead, sir.’
‘Oh, jolly good show. I was on bombers in the last show. Have this on me. What’s your lady friend having? Sherry? Dry? Good show.’
A pert-looking W.A.A.F. with slightly buck teeth and a rather flashy appearance had her bright beady eyes on them. The flight lieutenant carried a gin and orange to her and invited Wheldon to bring Audrey to their corner.
‘You’re in Flying Control, eh, Sergeant? Good show. I’m a fighter controller. All the controllers in the Ops Room at Kirton are aircrew from the last show. We all wish we were still flying. I envy you, Flight.’
You wouldn’t if you knew what it was like to get modern Flak up your arse over the North Sea, Wheldon thought, or be chased by modern cannon-armed fighters.
Politely, he said ‘It can’t have been much fun in those flimsy contraptions, sir.’
‘Come on, old boy, I’m not Methuselah, you know. The early stringbags were pretty primitive, but I was on D.H.Fours: by the end of the war we had some very modern kites.’
‘I know the DH4 was a good aircraft, sir, but I shouldn’t think it could take much Flak.’
‘Archie? Well, one could chuck the machine around much more easily than you chaps can take evasive action today in a Wimpey… or any other of today’s bombers.’
‘Reggie flys the Tiger Moth on Ack-Ack calibration,’ the platinum blonde W.A.A.F. said. ‘He’s going to take me up this week.’
It looks to me as though jolly-good-show Reggie has taken you up already, Wheldon was thinking. Audrey said ‘Lucky you. I’d love to fly.’
The blonde squealed. Her glass was empty. She rolled her eyes. ‘I shall be terrified, but I must be the first girl on our watch to have a flip.’
‘Are you a fighter plotter?’
‘Yes, and I love it.’
I bet you do. Fighter pilots are supposed to visit the Ops Room from time to time, to see what goes on. And they do: to cast an eye on the talent around the plotting table. Audrey’s thoughts ran on: but Reggie probably has a bigger car and more money to spend than a young fighter pilot.
Wheldon stood up to have their glasses refilled.
The flight lieutenant said ‘Bunty and I’ll take you two on at darts. Fighter against Bomber, what?’
Bunty squealed again. ‘Oh, I’m hopeless at darts.’
‘Come on, show willing.’
I’ll bet she does. Wheldon picked up the glasses.
None of Bunty’s first six darts found the board and the game was aborted by the landlord’s call of ‘Time’.
Reggie whisked his Bunty away in a Jaguar. Audrey burst into laughter as soon as she and Wheldon were in the Morris. ‘Reggie! Bunty! Real old sugar daddy, isn’t he?’
‘She’s no fool. He’ll still be around at the end of the war. If she had a boyfriend her own age, the odds are he wouldn’t be.’
He regretted his words at once. They sounded too much like a line-shoot: the intrepid dicer with death being cynical about his own prospects of seeing the war through. He was grateful to Audrey for making no response. She began to talk about the two films they had seen. Neither of them was striving for any kind of effect and the conversation was pleasant rather than stimulating. They did not differ in their views about the programme. He thought that perhaps she was being polite because he had spent money and petrol on her. If she were, he liked her for it. But when he had taken surreptitious glances at her in the cinema she had manifestly been absorbed by the main feature at least.
He thought that he had won her confidence enough to venture a small display of curiosity. ‘When I said losing people is all part of the job, even in peacetime, you said “Don’t I know it”.’ It was a query and he turned his head for a moment to look at her.
‘Yes, I did; and I do.’
He waited for her to enlarge on this, but nothing more was forthcoming. ‘Is that all you’re going to tell me?’
‘For the time being.’ Her tone conveyed no snub, but it was, all the same, cool and uncompromising. Then, to his surprise, he felt her hand lightly on his arm and her voice softened. ‘Sorry, Peter. I’m not being snooty. It’s just that it was something very personal that made me say that at the time. When I know you better…’
She left that unfinished too.
After a while he said ‘I hope we will know each other better.’
She met this with another enigmatic silence but when he cast a quick look he saw that she wore a faint smile and this gave him a pleasure that came as yet another surprise in that day of mild astonishments at her hands.
He parked his car behind the sergeants’ mess and walked her to the airmen’s married quarter in which she slept. There were several closely embracing couples at the roadside, W.A.A.F. with airmen, two or three
sergeants, and, he noticed, even an indiscreet officer.
Neither Wheldon nor Audrey spoke but they turned at the same instant to look at each other and she gave a quiet chuckle. Despite this display of general amorous enthusiasm, he bade her goodnight with propriety and she thanked him again for the outing.
Walking back to the mess, he reflected with amusement that she could hardly have repulsed him vigorously if he had decided to kiss her, with all that necking going on so close. He had had no intention of doing so from the moment he invited her out. He hoped that when he looked back on these early months of war he would not regret his lack of boldness. He hoped that she would form an integral part of the pattern of the time and that he had not missed a pleasant opportunity just now.
When he looked back? He reminded himself that his prospects of surviving the war were very small, and, from what he had seen on only two operations, his chances of seeing Christmas, which was still two months away, were scarcely better.
*
Wheldon’s flight commander sent for him. Wheldon liked Squadron Leader Sumner, who was a product of the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell and knew how to balance formality and discipline with informality without losing respect or resorting to familiarity. He was also a resilient buffer between the ordinary run of sensible flying men and their ebullient squadron commander.
‘Have a pew, Flight.’ He studied Wheldon for a moment. ‘How are you coping with things?’
‘All right, sir, thanks.’
‘We’ll feel better when this afternoon’s over.’ The burial parade cast its pall over everyone. ‘How’s Vachell?’
‘He’s… he’s all right, sir.’
‘Is he?’
‘He’s a sensitive type, sir…’
‘Sensitive? D’you mean windy?’
‘No, sir. I’m not protecting him.’
‘He’s taking things a bit hard, I notice.’
‘He’s coping.’
‘All right, Flight. But don’t go soft out of loyalty.’
Bombing Run Page 7