‘I don’t want a windy second dicky, sir.’
‘Point taken. Now, we’ve got four new observers posted in, straight off the course: two to each flight. I’d like you to have a chap called Rhys, a sergeant.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘He’s a Halton type, like you. I think you and he and Vachell will be comfortable together.’
‘Right.’
‘We’re back to two air gunners per crew again. The wop will have to man both waist guns.’
‘Not very handy if we get any more simultaneous attacks from both beams, like last time.’
‘The wops will just have to learn to be agile.’ The squadron leader smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve got a couple posted in I’d like to crew up with you. There’s a corporal Edkins just come back to the Signals section from a gunnery course. He’s an S.H.Q. bod but he’s being detached to the squadron.’
‘I know him: good operator.’
‘He passed out top at gunnery.’
‘I’ll have him!’
‘The other chap’s a V.R. fitter; a motor mechanic in civvy street: A.C. One Fuller. He’s just done a gunnery course, too.’
‘Passed out bottom, sir?’
Squadron Leader Sumner laughed. ‘Don’t be bitter and twisted, Flight: I’m not giving you any lame ducks. Fuller is an averagely good air gunner and he’s taught himself Morse at twelve words a minute, so he might be useful.’
‘I hope not.’
‘I’m sure you do. I’ve told all three of them to make their number with you. About Vachell: we’re going to need more captains.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘His turn will come, you know, but I’d like him to get in some more ops; several more.’
‘I don’t think he’s in any hurry.’
Sumner subjected him to a long and pensive stare. ‘Are we back to square one: windy? Or is he scared of responsibility?’
‘I think he needs more confidence. But it’s difficult on ops: I can’t hand over to him in the target area, and that’s the only place he’s really going to find his full confidence.’
‘Every captain and second pilot is in the same boat.’
‘I know, but Vachell takes a bit of knowing… understanding.’
‘You used the word “sensitive”, not I, Flight.’
‘Yes, sir; but it’s more than that.’
‘And you’re sure you’re not just backing him up from loyalty?’
‘I don’t think I am, sir.’
‘Well, see what you can do with him… get the best out of him. I’m sure you have that in mind, without my telling you. But… let’s face it… with his background, he ought to have done better in the Service. It makes me wonder if there’s some essential bit missing in his character.’
‘I think Vachell’s all right, sir. He probably under-rates himself.’
The interview was over. ‘You’re probably right. You’d better go along to the crew room and meet your new bods.’
Wheldon walked back to the crew room with questions nagging at his conscience. Was Vachell really all right? Was it more than loyalty that had automatically made him an advocate of his second pilot’s essential courage and fortitude? Another responsibility was added to those he already bore. He owed it to Vachell and to everyone who flew with Vachell not to mislead his superior officers about him. By the time he reached the crew room he had convinced himself that there was nothing wrong with Vachell’s guts.
He found him talking to a burly observer with the kind of blunt features that were acquired by having one’s face frequently thrust hard into the turf of a rugger field and pounded between the bodies of other forwards in hundreds of scrums over many years.
This was indeed Rhys, who held out a big thick hand and said ‘Call me Taffy, Skipper.’
‘Right, Taffy, I’m Pete. We’ve got two new gunners, Tony: Corporal Edkins, Signals section, just back from armament camp; and a V. R., A/C1 Fuller.’
‘Is Fuller a wop, too?’
‘Self-taught, twelve words a minute.’
‘What about the third gunner?’
‘What third gunner?’
‘Oh, no! Don’t tell me I’ve got to man one of the waist guns? Aren’t we really getting three gunners?’
‘Short of bods. The waist gunner’s going to have to nip from one side to the other, coping with both beam guns.’
‘Is this permanent?’
‘Don’t know.’
Somebody at a window called ‘Naafi up’ and there was a rush to the door, where the N.A.A.F.I. van had drawn up. Supplied with tea and a rock cake apiece, Wheldon, Vachell and Rhys were about to go back indoors, when a corporal and an airman with Volunteer Reserves patches on his shoulders came round the corner. Wheldon waited. ‘Hello, Corp. And you must be Fuller?’
‘Yes, Flight.’
‘Squadron Leader Sumner told us to report to you, Chiefie,’ the corporal said.
‘Good. Had your Naafi break?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Come in and meet the rest of the crew, then. We’re on a nav ex first thing tomorrow, with a new kite, D-Don.’
Three dead gunners lying in the mortuary and two new ones to be made to forget that they were filling dead men’s places. Wheldon felt a flare of disgust at the waste of life, and hatred for the enemy who had provoked this damnable war in the first place and done the killing.
He grinned at his crew. ‘Bags of protection: Corporal Edkins was top in his gunnery course.’
Edkins said quickly ‘Jammy, Flight: most of the others couldn’t hit a barn at fifty yards. It was a duff course, I reckon. Fuller’s all right, though: he can hit a barn at fifty yards.’
‘Good. What do your mates call you, Corporal?’
‘Eddie, Chiefie.’
‘And what about you, Fuller?’
‘They call me “Earthy”, Flight: y’know, Fuller’s earth.’
‘Well, if you don’t mind. And I hope you can hit something smaller than a barn at fifty yards? Like a One-o-nine or a One-one-o?’
‘I can hit a drogue at two hundred, Flight, but that’s straight and level… and going at a snail’s pace compared with a Jerry fighter.’
‘Not to worry, Earthy. You don’t have to shoot ‘em down, just scare Jerry off.’
And now that job’s done, and I’ve still got to face three sets of sorrowing parents and a wife. Wheldon decided that he would not let Vachell out of his sight until the melancholy ritual was over. Troubles shared were troubles halved, and after the way he had stood up for him, Vachell bloody well owed him a helping hand with the three bereaved families.
*
He was surprised to see Audrey and the other two W.A.A.F. sergeants already at the back of the church when he entered. He avoided catching the eye of any of them. In the mess that evening he was unable to evade Audrey, but she merely gave him an expressionless look from the other side of the dining-room. There were now five women sergeants on camp and all of them left the mess immediately after tea. The drinking party that evening was the most riotous that Wheldon had ever known.
*
The early winter days dragged by in bad weather and boredom. The air crews attended lectures, flew on navigation, gunnery and bombing exercises and night flying whenever cloud base and visibility permitted. The pilots ‘flew’ the Link trainer to the point of staleness. Wheldon’s crew settled down. Rhys turned out for the station rugger team, Corporal Edkins made model aircraft when he was not on watch in Signals or standing by in the crew room. Fuller endlessly studied silhouettes of various portions of enemy aircraft, to perfect his recognition, when not required to work as a fitter on the starboard engine of D for Don.
Wheldon took Audrey to a camp dance and invited her to go to dinner and a cinema in Lincoln. Driving back after that outing, he tried again to penetrate what he thought of as the balloon barrage she kept up to protect her privacy. The long, straight Roman road had a hypnotic effect and her friendly responses to his conversational gambits were sou
nding drowsy, which gave her voice and manner an effect of intimacy. Now, he thought, was the moment.
‘Are you going to tell me what you meant that time?’
‘You mean when I said that I know about aircrew being… lost… even in peacetime?’
‘Yes.’
He heard a small sigh and waited. ‘All right. I was engaged to a pilot on a Gladiator squadron. He was killed in an accident a year ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He hesitated. ‘Was he an officer?’
‘An F.O. Short Service. We’d known each other since we were teenagers.’
‘How old are you, Audrey?’
‘Twenty-two. And you’re twenty-four, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘Never mind.’
When he said goodnight to her at the narrow concrete path to her door, she stepped close and stood on tiptoe. Then she kissed him briefly. ‘Good night, Peter, and thank you for a lovely evening.’ She kissed him again, less briefly, and was quickly gone.
Six
They were using the Operations Room for the briefing. Eight captains and eight observers, four pairs from each flight, stood round the big table in the middle of the room on which maps were spread. The second pilots formed an outer circle, peering over and between their comrades, looking self-effacing and pleased to be present.
Group Captain Kirkpatrick had a cold. His contribution was confined to snuffles and trumpeting angrily into his handkerchief. He stood next to Wing Commander Norton, who was wishing he’d go away. The last thing he wanted was to catch Groupie’s germs.
Wheldon was impressed by the intensity of everyone’s attention, which had a watchfulness about it that came, he knew, from the suddenness with which the squadron had burst back into action after three weeks’ respite. He had the feeling that they were all weighing up the Wingco’s words and their own chances in a way they never had before. He himself certainly was. He was listening to Norton as he would to a pavement hawker making his pitch to a gullible crowd: offering to sell them ten-pound gold watches for nineteen shillings.
Three weeks of continuation training in the intervals of unflyable weather; of weekly visits to the cinema with Audrey and one more dinner out; of regular attendance at the station dances; the monotony and frustration had ended with pale sunshine one early afternoon. The Met experts at Group and Command had forecast fine weather over England and the German coast on the next day. Their own rabbity Met man had bustled about like a boy scout in hot pursuit of the last badge he needed for his all round cords.
Wing Commander Norton was smouldering with impatience to be off the ground. He was not inconsequential and seemingly casual this morning. The pithy sentences paid no deference to his usual breezy manner.
‘Graf Minden, the cruiser that’s been lying in the roads off Wilhelmshaven, is making ready for sea with four escorting destroyers. They’ll be making for the Atlantic and we’re going to stop them. They’ll coast-crawl up to Sylt, then wait for nightfall, and head for the open sea: that is the appreciation. Three attacks by Wellingtons are going out: ours first, the others timed to be on target at thirty-minute intervals after us.
‘Instructions are that we must not bomb below ten thousand feet, which will keep us pretty well out of the way of heavy Flak.’ He ignored the sucked-in breaths, the exchanged grimaces. ‘We’ll climb to altitude as soon as we form up over base, and hold it all the way. We might have to search for the ships, so we’ll need a good margin of fuel. For that reason, we’ll carry only four five-hundred-pound A.Ps apiece. Instantaneous fuse settings.’ His finger traced a line on the map. ‘This is our route. These are the routes out for the other two waves. Note them carefully: we don’t want aeroplanes barging into each other.’ There was no amused response. ‘This isn’t a first op for any of you captains, so there’s no need for me to emphasise the importance of formation-keeping as a defence against fighters. And remember: no bombs are to be allowed to fall on the enemy mainland.’ He looked at the group captain.
The group captain croaked something that sounded like ‘If there’s eddy risg ob bobs fawding od the baidlad, doad bob.’ Then he sneezed.
The meteorologist made a flourish with his chart and forecast clear skies and strong winds. The Intelligence officer warned them of increased Flak defences all along the enemy coast, and the arrival of additional fighter squadrons in the area.
They climbed into the lorry that would take them to the Parachute section. Rhys looked at Wheldon and raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes,’ Wheldon said, ‘I know.’
Rhys leaned towards him. ‘Has anybody bombed from ten thousand?’
‘Not on this squadron since the last war, I should think.’
‘And the wind he gave us! On-shore, too.’
‘You’ve got a problem, Taffy.’
‘Thanks very much, Pete. Only four bombs: drop them in one stick, will we?’
‘Let’s wait and see.’
Vachell said quietly ‘We can’t go all that way and not bomb, Pete. It won’t matter if they do burst ashore: nobody’ll know whose they were. Let’s have a go, whatever the chances, eh?’
‘We’ll look bloody silly in a court martial if nobody else bombs.’
‘Say we jettisoned in the sea half way back.’
‘Yeah? That wouldn’t explain how they fell on Germany.’
‘What the hell. Command must be bloody windy about Flak all of a sudden, considering all the practices we’ve done at five thousand.’
‘They’re so convinced that we can defend ourselves against fighters, with combined fire, they reckon most of the damage has been done by Flak, when aircraft go missing.’
‘Excuse my hollow laughter.’ Vachell looked far from any sort of mirth.
Air Ministry, apparently, persisted in crediting the myth that enemy fighters could be beaten off as easily as flies with a swatter, if bombers held close formation and all concentrated their fire on one attacker at a time. It also, evidently, attributed the loss of bombers to Flak, despite surviving crews’ reports of fierce fighter attacks. Those who died in the shot-down bombers would have given evidence to the contrary. The instruction to fly above 10,000 ft was well-intentioned but based on a false premise; as the crews well knew.
*
The cold began to seep through their thick clothing soon after they crossed out over the East Anglian coast. Draughts coursed through the Wellington from nose to tail. Fuller shivered in his rear turret, traversed it from side to side to ensure that the mechanism had not frozen, and raised and lowered his guns, hoping that the cold had not affected them either. It was cold at the wireless station and the navigation table, cold in the cockpit. The days of no heating system at all were passing but the days of effective ones were still to come. Rear gunner, wireless operator and observer frequently clenched and flexed their fingers, rubbed their hands together, finding them stiff on triggers and instruments.
A bank of cloud lay across their path, its base at an estimated 7,000 ft, its tops at 12,000 or more. Norton climbed and the formation followed. The chill bit even more deeply into cowering flesh.
Descending to 10,000 ft again brought no relief, it was not noticeably warmer, but the sky ahead looked cloud-free. They might catch pneumonia before they were through, but they should at least spot the enemy warships.
Paradoxically the very fact of clear visibility held its own daunting implications. If they could see the enemy from afar, the enemy could see them. What was withheld from their view of the sea and the still distant shore was more menacing than the threat that they themselves offered to their intended targets.
Wheldon felt his lips dry in the cold air that swirled about the cockpit. He licked them and at once it felt as though a thin coating of ice had formed on his skin. Vaseline, he thought, don’t want to get chapped lips: Audrey won’t go for that, much. He thought of the soft warm pressure of her lips against his and his mind drifted for a few seconds to pleasanter matters than the job in h
and. She had not waved them off this morning: she had been on duty last night and was abed by the time they took off. Her presence on the control tower balcony, or her absence, was no sort of omen to him. He had no superstitions. He believed that a man’s fate was in his own hands, to the extent that his actions in a crisis decided whether he surmounted it or not. As to whether he did do the right things then, Wheldon thought that was probably preordained anyway. Essentially he was a fatalist.
He began to wonder whether Norton would respect the order not to venture below 10,000 ft that he himself had passed on. It would not surprise him to see Norton make a dive at the enemy and take a crack at the cruiser from masthead height. It might not be so dicey, at that: the bulk of her Flak would be aimed at the rest of the formation obediently a couple of miles overhead. He had no doubt at all about his own behaviour: if he bombed at all, it would be from 10,000 ft. He was not seeking medals. Statistically, death would find him soon enough. There was no point in hastening it. A minor wound, now: that wouldn’t be so bad. It would mean a few weeks or even months’ break from ops and an extension of his present expectancy of life.
They were in two diamond-shaped boxes of four. Wing Commander Norton led, with three A Flight aeroplanes. Squadron Leader Sumner was leading B Flight, close astern, and Wheldon was rearmost of all. The Wellingtons were stepped up from leader to arse-end Charlie, to avoid each other’s slipstream. This put Wheldon’s D-Dog five hundred feet higher than the squadron commander. But, at that height and at that time of year, they were all so miserably cold anyway that a few hundred feet made no appreciable difference to their discomfort. Later in the war, they would all have been on oxygen at that height, but 15,000 ft was the prescribed altitude at which to begin breathing it then. Wheldon was, without being aware of it, suffering from a mild deprivation of oxygen. He was aware of tiring more quickly than usual, but thought that must be caused by the intense cold.
He saw the Wing Commander rock his wings. Old Hawkeye Norton, he thought; in a faintly fuddled way. Ah, yes, there they were, five small shapes and five white wakes behind them. It was nearly four hours since take-off, of which they had spent the last hour flying northward in a series of zigzags, searching. The ships were closer to the shore than Wheldon had hoped.
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