Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  And then there had been further good fortune: instead of pressing forward, the Germans had miraculously pulled back. The lieutenant at the farm had been as perplexed as the rest of them, but it had allowed Archie to have his head bandaged and be escorted up the hill to the town, and to Battalion Headquarters. There, in an ancient building on the town square, he had been told by the colonel that the enemy troops to the south had most likely been reconnaissance, probing forward. They had pulled back while waiting for the rest of the division to catch up, at which point they would attack. The colonel had been certain about that. ‘It’s just a matter of time,’ he had told Archie, ‘so we’re going to get you out right away. Once the fighting starts, you won’t be able to go anywhere, I’m afraid.’ The quickest way was by catching a lift with a despatch rider. ‘Happy with that?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Archie had replied. He’d wanted to get back home as quickly as he possibly could. One of the men who had led him up to Battalion HQ in Cassel had made it clear that he would far rather be a soldier than an airman. What was it he’d said? ‘You wouldn’t get me up in one of those things. I prefer being on my own two feet.’ Archie smiled ruefully to himself. You wouldn’t get me being a soldier, he thought. Not after what he’d seen so far that day. They had been good sorts, those Yorkshiremen, and in any case they had saved his life; he’d given the men his orange scarf as a memento. It wasn’t much as he had wanted to get rid of it anyway, but they’d seemed pleased. He hoped they would survive the onslaught.

  Now, directly in front of him, Chalmers, the despatch rider, looked strangely robotic. The noise of the wind and the single-cylinder, air-cooled 496 cc engine was too great for there to be any conversation, and so instead Archie studied the silent back of the man’s head, in its hard helmet, rounded like a football sliced in half, and the leather strapping covering his neck.

  A memory suddenly came back to him: taking his younger sister, Maggie, on his first motorcycle, a 120 cc Norton. She had laughed at first, and he could remember, as though it were yesterday, her long hair blowing across his cheek. Down the track and out along the road to Strathtay, he had accelerated and her laughter had turned to screams. Her hands had tightened around his waist, so hard that her nails had dug into him. When he eventually stopped, he had turned to her, grinning, and only then saw the tears running down her face. Had he deliberately been trying to scare her? He couldn’t remember, but he did recall the roasting his father had given him.

  ‘She’s only thirteen!’ he had scolded him. ‘It’s always far more nerve-wracking being the passenger when you’re not in control. Do that again, and I swear it’ll be the last time you ride that motorcycle of yours!’

  That Norton had been his pride and joy, a machine bought in bits from McAllister’s garage in Pitlochry, saved and saved for, and painstakingly, during several school holidays, put back together, until finally the day had come, just a week or so after he had turned sixteen, when he fired up the engine and took his first ride. He still had that Norton; it had served him well over the years. He thought about all the hours he had spent on it, outside the garage, his mother repeatedly scolding him for bringing oil into the house. Home. Home seemed a million miles away.

  Up ahead, a mass of British troops, some on foot, walking along the road, but beyond them, a convoy of trucks. Chalmers swerved out into the road to overtake, nearly went straight into a French cart, pulled back in, then, once it was clear, gunned the throttle and sped past. Archie gasped, even more aware of what it must have been like for his little sister those three summers ago. His father was right: it was infinitely more nerve-wracking riding pillion.

  Ahead, a town, houses and a church spire were outlined against the blue, early summer sky, and immediately the traffic began to thicken. At the side of the road, Archie saw several trucks and cars, some spattered with bullet holes, others nothing more than burnt wrecks. An upturned cart, and, spread out across a young cornfield, the contents of what appeared to be several suitcases, the clothes strewn for thirty yards and more. Now there were not just army vehicles, but lines of trudging civilians, some tramping, heads bent, others with mules and carts piled high with belongings.

  The despatch rider slowed at last, until he was weaving at little more than walking pace. Archie glanced at a family of two small boys and a girl – perhaps ten years old – who eyed him with a mixture of stunned disbelief and fatigue. The mother held one of the boys, the father led the mule. Archie looked away.

  Chalmers stopped, unable to get through the dense mass of refugees and soldiers, trucks, cars and hand carts – there was even a pram piled high.

  ‘We’re coming into Wormhout,’ he said, turning to Archie.

  ‘This is terrible,’ said Archie.

  ‘I know, sir. If only the French would stay at home.’

  ‘Where are they trying to get to?’

  Chalmers shrugged. ‘Away. I’m not sure they’ve thought about where to. But wherever it is, they’re getting in our way.’

  ‘Frustrating.’

  ‘You can say that again, sir,’ muttered Chalmers. ‘It’s been like this the past few days. The French have gone mad, if you ask me.’ He leaned forward, his booted feet on the ground, and looked about him, then said, ‘Look, sir, do you mind if we do something a bit cheeky?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We could get snared up here for hours if we’re not careful – that is, if we’re not shot up by Jerry aircraft first. I’ve learned it’s sometimes a whole load quicker to go cross-country. Over the fields, like. It’s a bit bumpy, but the ground’s dry enough.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Archie. ‘She seems as though she’s up to it.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Chalmers, ‘she’s up to it all right. I was thinking more about your head.’

  ‘It’s fine. Honestly.’

  Chalmers grinned. ‘Hold tight, then, sir.’

  He throttled gently, dodged behind an army truck, the men in the back jeering at them enviously. ‘You should be in the bleedin’ air, mate!’ someone shouted.

  ‘I wish I was!’ Archie yelled back, as the BSA lurched up on to the bank and rolled bumpily into the field.

  They rode over one, then another, then sped along the edge of a small winding brook before finding an old wooden farm bridge, which they gingerly crossed, before reaching another road, which was busy but not gridlocked like the one from the south. Chalmers raised his thumb, wove his way forward past yet more refugees, then cut left up a track, on to another road leading towards the town. They took another track before finally rejoining the road north towards Bergues and Dunkirk.

  Archie breathed in deeply, but swallowed a mouthful of choking dust as Chalmers gunned the throttle and the BSA lurched forward. Christ, he thought, clutching on for dear life.

  Suddenly there was a roar overhead, so loud that it could be heard over the throb of the bike’s engine. Instinctively, Archie looked up, and saw half a dozen Stuka dive-bombers peeling over one after another and diving down towards the town. Chalmers glanced up, then, leaning forward, gunned the throttle again, the bike accelerating as he did so. Behind them, Stukas were now screaming down over the town, their awful sirens wailing as they dived. A moment later, Archie felt the pulse of the first bomb exploding and looked back to see a cloud of smoke billowing up from the western edge of the town, precisely where they had been just a minute or two earlier. More bombs were falling, one to the north of the town, exploding not three hundred yards behind them. Another quick glance behind from Chalmers, but the despatch rider clearly had no intention of stopping. Instead, he leaned even lower over the handlebars, straining to make the machine go faster.

  Behind, Wormhout disappeared behind a cloud of smoke and grit. My God, that was close, thought Archie. Yet another brush with death: someone was looking after him, it seemed.

  They sped on, the roads always busy with troops and refugees alike, but the traffic not so heavy as to completely hinder their progress. The flat Flanders landsc
ape stretched around them as they flashed past villages and farms, and down long poplar-lined roads. The journey from Cassel to Dunkirk was little more than twenty miles, Chalmers told him, and an hour after leaving Cassel, they were nearing the port. Archie now saw the huge cloud of oily smoke that shrouded Dunkirk up ahead and felt that same sense of menace he had experienced as he had flown over it. Through the town of Bergues, teeming with troops and vehicles, but passable, and then on to Dunkirk itself.

  The city had already been badly bombed. There were smashed and burnt-out vehicles at every turn. Tram wires lay twisted and curling on the roads. Craters pocked the streets. A number of houses were burning, and many more had suffered some degree of damage. Walls had tumbled into the streets. Half-destroyed roofs shorn of their tiles hung above exposed bedrooms or attics. Archie was astonished by the debris: masonry, rubbish, even the dead body of a Frenchwoman. The stench was cloying – of dust and smouldering rubber and oil.

  They reached the port. Much of it was already wrecked, particularly the inner harbour. Several ships lay half-sunk, blocking any further approach to the docks where they had been moored, but further out, towards the eastern mole that stretched beyond the port, they saw two Royal Navy destroyers tied up alongside a still-functioning part of the quayside. Chalmers carefully and slowly inched towards them, finally coming to a halt alongside the second. Men were boarding, shuffling up a gangway on to the main deck.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Archie. ‘Why are they leaving?’

  Chalmers shrugged. ‘Getting them away while they can, I s’pose,’ he said. Across the far side of the port, a mile or two to the west, Archie watched the oil depot still burning, thick, black smoke billowing upwards. He could smell it on the air, heavy and cloying. Away to the south and west, he could hear the faint boom of distant guns, could feel the trace of a shudder in the ground. The battle was getting closer. Swallowing, his mouth felt dry as sand. Chalmers wheeled the BSA and rolled the motorcycle over to a tin-helmeted naval officer standing beside the gangway watching the men boarding the ship.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, feeling inside his jacket for the note from the colonel of the Yorks Rangers. ‘This here is Pilot Officer Jackson, who needs a ride back to Blighty.’

  The officer snatched the note, read it, then said, ‘All right. Better get on board.’

  Chalmers turned to Archie, lifting his goggles as he did so. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, a rueful grin on his face. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

  Archie clambered off stiffly, rubbed his bruised backside, then shook Chalmers’ hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And good luck.’

  Chalmers nodded. ‘And you. Give those Stukas hell next time you’re in the air, sir.’

  Archie stood beside the officer; a naval lieutenant.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said the lieutenant. ‘We’ll get this lot on first, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Of course. Why are they leaving? Won’t they be needed?’

  ‘They’re what’s known as Useless Mouths,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Base troops, mostly RASC. Soldiers, but not front-line troops. If they’re not absolutely essential, they’re going home while there’s still a chance.’

  ‘Are things that bad? What about the rest of the army?’

  ‘Hear those guns?’

  Archie nodded.

  ‘They’re Jerry guns. Calais’s fallen, you know.’

  ‘Do you mean there’s no chance for us, then? What about the French? Won’t there be a counter-attack?’

  The lieutenant did not answer.

  Good God, thought Archie. Even after all he had seen that day, it had not occurred to him that all hope had gone. He looked at the men now boarding the ship, and noticed they were scowling at him. Why? he wondered.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ snarled one suddenly as he stepped up to the gangway.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Archie, startled.

  ‘We’ve been bombed to hell,’ said the next in the line, ‘and where have the RAF been while Jerry’s been bombing us to his heart’s content?’

  ‘We-we’ve been up there,’ stammered Archie. ‘I was up there earlier.’ He felt his cheeks flush.

  ‘Bloomin’ useless,’ muttered the second man.

  ‘I’ll have you know –’ began Archie, then stopped. It was not right to brag.

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped the naval officer at the men. ‘Stop grumbling and get on board.’

  ‘Honestly,’ said Archie to the lieutenant, ‘we’ve been flying. But we operate above the cloud base.’

  ‘Ignore it,’ said the lieutenant. ‘We can’t see you from here, that’s all. What we do see are Jerry bombers and Jerry bombs. And with things as they are – well, let’s just say the men are not in the best of moods. There are some other airmen on board already, as it happens.’

  ‘Really?’ said Archie, brightening.

  ‘All wounded, though,’ said the lieutenant. ‘We’ve been evacuating the hospitals.’

  Archie felt his spirits drop once more. The thought of being surrounded by hostile Tommies for the trip across the Channel was hardly something to relish.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said the lieutenant, reading his thoughts. ‘You’re an officer and most of them are not. And after all, it’s not as though you haven’t been doing your bit. What do you fly?’

  ‘Spitfires.’

  ‘A fighter pilot, then. Get any Huns?’

  Archie nodded and grinned. ‘Two, actually. One after the other this morning.’

  ‘Tell them that, then.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to shoot a line, though.’

  The lieutenant patted him on the back. ‘Look, just be thankful you’re going to be back in England in a few hours’ time. You’re getting another chance. There are plenty out there not so lucky.’

  A little after 4 p.m., that same Friday, 24 May. Could it really be the same day, Archie wondered? He’d been awake for twelve hours, had flown from Northolt to Essex, Essex to France, been shot down, walked to Cassel, then gone by motorcycle to Dunkirk, and was now on a British destroyer inching out of Dunkirk and heading back across the Channel.

  The deck was crowded with men, some standing, others sitting wherever they could. Archie had been told he could go below to the Ward Room, but for the moment he decided he would remain on deck and watch the ship leaving port. Standing near the stern of the ship, beneath the X gun, he leaned on the metal railing. The gun crews were at their stations, dressed in navy denim overalls and wearing white cotton balaclavas beneath their helmets. Behind them were the damage-control parties, waiting expectantly.

  The destroyer slid slowly out of port. Archie looked back along the vast stretch of beach that he had seen earlier from fifteen thousand feet. It had looked like a narrow golden line then, but now he could see what must have been, the previous summer, a lovely seaside resort, with a wide, open beach and dunes behind. In contrast, the town, shrouded as it was by the great pall of smoke, looked dark and menacing and broken.

  He noticed the men around him were all looking skywards and glancing at one another anxiously. Archie followed their gaze, but he could see nothing – only the smoke cloud.

  ‘I wish they’d get a bleedin’ move on,’ said one man nearby. ‘We’re sitting ducks going this speed.’

  They won’t attack through this, thought Archie. Bombers needed to see what they were bombing.

  They crept past the rickety-looking outer moles that extended like spider’s legs from the harbour and then, once clear, they suddenly accelerated and turned north, rather than directly across the Dover Strait. Archie was impressed by the sudden surge of speed.

  ‘Now where the bleedin’ hell are we going?’ muttered the same man. ‘Ain’t Dover straight across?’

  ‘There are minefields, you dolt,’ said another beside him. ‘Or do you want to become fish bait?’

  In what seemed like no time at all, they were out in the open sea, clear of the smoke cloud and once mor
e bathed in warm sunshine. Archie looked out at the deep blue water and the startlingly white wake that was being furrowed by the ship’s passage and felt his whole body lighten. He could not help smiling. This is more like it, he thought. Soon he would be back in England. Back with the squadron, and with Ted. Thank God.

  He closed his eyes and felt the sun on his face and a light spatter of seawater on the air, but then immediately opened them again. What was that? Engines. Aero engines. Faint, but distinct, and now suddenly getting louder.

  Around him, the men were murmuring and pointing, and then the klaxon rang out. Shouts now. Next to him, on the X gun, he heard the gun layer relay the orders he had received from the gunnery officer in the Director Control Tower: ‘Dive-bombers, bearing green 375.’ The twin 4.7-inch guns were quickly elevated, clicking as the barrels rose. Archie watched, open-mouthed, and then saw that the second stern gun, Y gun, was following suit. Desperately, he scanned the skies, shielding his eyes with his hand.

  ‘There!’ he said out loud, spotting them.

  ‘Where?’ said the man next to him. ‘I can’t see them.’

  ‘Nine of them,’ said Archie.

  ‘Jesus,’ said the man, ‘have you got field glasses for eyes or something?’

  Archie could not think what he meant. The noise of the aircraft grew rapidly louder.

  ‘Now I see them,’ said the man. ‘Holy Mother of God.’

  They were almost above them now, and Archie saw the already familiar outline of the wings, black against the sky. Stukas.

  A moment later, he lost them in the sun. Where are they? He couldn’t see them. But then he could hear them – that terrible wail of the siren as the first began its dive, and then the second and third, screaming down towards them.

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