Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  ‘It’s – it’s quite the most overwhelming …’ Archie had been unable to finish. He had felt quite giddy as he had stumbled back towards the wooden dispersal hut, his feet light, his legs shaky. But he knew that he had just experienced something he would never, ever forget.

  ‘I think our man is hooked!’ Fitz had grinned as they’d rejoined the others. ‘Isn’t that so, Archie?’

  Archie had nodded mutely. Yes, he was most definitely hooked. In fact, he and Ted had lived for flying and for the weekends at Spennymoor. During the week, they had attended lectures and tutorials, and Archie, at any rate, had dutifully completed all the written and practical work expected of him. He had made a few other friends, but, as Fitz had suggested, all the companionship he had ever needed he found at the squadron. Most were a bit older – in their early and mid-twenties, and with embryonic careers. There were a couple of solicitors, a sculptor, a number of farmers. One or two had family estates, another a motor-car business: men like Harry Dix, Mike Drummond, Will Merton-Moore and Pip Winters.

  Fitz’s house had been an unofficial Mess, and it was either to there or to a pub down the road that the pilots would retire as soon as the flying was over. It was all that Archie could have ever hoped for: flying, flying machines, camaraderie. Those had been wonderful days.

  Archie opened his eyes, his reverie interrupted by movement from the men around him. Most were now getting to their feet, pointing and talking with one another. Archie remained where he was a moment, his head throbbing painfully once more, then wearily stood up too and made his way to the rail on the port side of the ship. Ahead, quite clear now, were the white cliffs of Dover, and above them a string of six metal lattice masts, dark against the early evening sunshine. The men around him were animated now; the low spirits of earlier had evaporated at the sight of home.

  It was strange, Archie thought, how English the cliffs appeared; there were no doubt chalk cliffs in France too, and it was most likely that many of the men had never set foot in Dover before – he knew he certainly had not. And yet they now seemed as familiar to him as any part of Britain he had ever seen. He, too, felt his spirits rise. Soon he would be on home soil again. Soon he would be back with the squadron – no longer the best Auxiliary Air Squadron in the RAF, but, to his mind, the best squadron in all the Air Force. How lucky he had been, he thought to himself, to have met Ted, and to have been given the chance to join 629 City of Durham Squadron. To be flying the best, fastest, most modern aircraft in the world. He thought about those soldiers from Yorkshire who had rescued him earlier, and wondered what they were doing now. Were they fighting? Or were they still dug in at their farmhouse? Already, that place seemed like a thousand miles away – another world.

  Suddenly his spirits sagged again. If the Yorks Rangers’ colonel had been right, and if Chalmers and the naval lieutenant had been right, things looked very bleak indeed in France. He thought of all the refugees he had seen on the roads, the endless troops and vehicles, all heading one way: towards the coast. Was it really possible? Could Britain lose in France? Could France, one of the most powerful nations in the world, really have been knocked over with such apparent ease?

  A sense of shame swept over him. He supposed he was a bright enough fellow, and yet he knew so little. His life had been so sheltered. He had barely ever read a newspaper, hardly ever listened to the news, and although he had seen newsreels of the fall of Poland at the cinema, it had never really occurred to him that he would soon be taking on the Luftwaffe’s best himself. How callow he had been; he could strip and rebuild an engine, could hole a putt from fifteen yards, and could fly an aeroplane, but he knew little else. He had had little interest in anything else.

  Even last August, at his and Ted’s first summer camp, he had barely given the war a thought. Of course, they had heard the talk of imminent war, but when he had arrived at RAF Yeadon, he had not been thinking that soon he would be part of Britain’s first line of defence, tussling with Messerschmitts. He had been thinking about flying, about twirling around the sky, and, hopefully, seeing some modern fighters for the first time. War talk had been banished from the Mess. He thought about it now – what could he remember? Fitz’s opening speech, that song they had sung every night, a long discussion about golf with Mike Drummond, nearly choking on his first cigar and he and Ted having their trousers stolen one night after a particularly heavy session in the Mess. But war talk? Nothing.

  And even up till now it had never really occurred to him that Britain would ever be in grave peril – that they might lose, and that he would be in the vanguard of those who were supposed to stop the German juggernaut. Christ, he thought, this is getting serious. He was only nineteen – barely a man at all – but it was, he realized, time he grew up a bit.

  The ship inched into Dover harbour, seagulls swirling and calling around them. Archie breathed in deeply – a familiar smell to any port of seaweed and coal smoke. The port was heaving with ships. There were other naval vessels: destroyers, two much bigger cruisers and a number of others, including pre-war Channel cruisers, fishing boats and merchantmen. On the quayside, stevedores and sailors scurried about, then the destroyer gently berthed, ropes were lashed and, minutes later, the Useless Mouths were filing down the gangway.

  Archie hovered at the rear, waiting his turn, then he was on the gangway himself, and, a few steps later, his feet landed on the quayside.

  He was back on English soil once more.

  5

  First Flight

  Archie had intended to ring through to Northolt, but, having been directed to a naval office at the harbour, he had seen that the telephone at the front desk was busy and so had decided against it. The thought of arriving unannounced appealed to him, in any case. More dramatic. The previous summer he and Ted had seen the latest Errol Flynn film, The Dawn Patrol, all about a flying squadron in the last war. There had been a bit in it when Flynn’s character, Captain Courtney, thought he had lost his best friend, Scotty, played by David Niven. But later that night, Scotty had burst into the Mess, clutching several bottles of champagne, miraculously back from the dead and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  Archie had loved that film, and wondered whether he might turn up out of the blue, too, rather like Scotty.

  The harbour was busy, not least with the sudden influx of four hundred troops and servicemen from Dunkirk. No one was very interested in Archie. His head still hurt like mad, and he was conscious that the medic at the farm who had bandaged the wound had told him he needed stitches, but Archie was impatient to get back; he had put up with it all right so far that day, so he reckoned a few more hours would not make much difference.

  On the quayside he spotted a row of trestle tables where ladies were handing out sandwiches and hot tea to the arriving troops. Only then did Archie realize how hungry and thirsty he was. Having devoured a bully-beef sandwich and drunk a mug of the sweetest tea he had ever tasted, he felt remarkably revived. The troops were being directed towards special trains that were waiting at the station, but Archie did not want to go to Pirbright – he wanted to get to Northolt, or London, at any rate.

  He took another sandwich, then made his way to the railway station. The first of the troop trains was slowly huffing away, but another train had arrived and this one, he was told, was the usual South Eastern fast train to London. It was due to depart at 19.45, which was in ten minutes’ time.

  ‘I say, sir, are you all right?’ the porter asked him.

  ‘Oh – er, yes, thank you,’ said Archie, lightly touching the bandage on his head. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Looks like a nasty wound, that’s all,’ said the man, a small, round fellow with a bristling moustache.

  ‘I banged my head,’ said Archie, then realized what a foolish comment it was, so hastily added, ‘could have been worse.’ He smiled and hurried on towards the train, still clutching his flying helmet and with his bulky Irvin under his arm.

  Finding an empty compartment, he sat down next to
the window and stared out, then breathed on the glass just as he had done in the back seat of his father’s car when a boy. With his finger, he slowly drew the numbers ‘629’, then sighed. The door opened, and a middle-aged couple stepped inside, so he hastily wiped the glass clear.

  ‘Not disturbing you, are we?’ asked the man, who had a thin, kindly face and greying hair.

  ‘No, no, not at all.’

  The couple talked to each other in low tones, the man placing their bags and coats on the netted luggage rack above them, before settling down next to each other.

  The lady cleared her throat, then said in a very clear, precise voice, ‘You look like you’ve been through the mill, rather, young man.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Archie. ‘I must look a bit of a sight.’ He touched his head again and winced, which prompted a wince of sympathy in return. ‘It’s a bit of a cut. Nothing too awful.’

  ‘You were flying today?’ said the man, adjusting his tie.

  ‘Yes, yes, I was – this morning.’ He wanted to tell them about it, but did not want to admit to having been shot down – at least, not without having told them he had brought down two enemy planes first. But to tell them that would be to show off, and that, he reminded himself, was not really the done thing.

  ‘Over there?’ asked the man, nodding towards the Channel.

  Archie nodded.

  ‘Do you fly fighters or bombers?’

  ‘Fighters.’

  The man nodded thoughtfully, his brow creased. ‘And, er, did you get any? Huns, I mean?’

  Archie felt a wave of relief. ‘I did, actually, yes. A couple, but then unfortunately I got hit myself and had to bring her down in a field. That’s how I cut my head. I’m afraid I was knocked out cold for a bit, but some soldiers hauled me out, and I managed to get a ride back to Dunkirk, and then across the Channel, and so here I am.’

  ‘My goodness, what a day!’ said the woman.

  ‘Well, good for you, young fellow,’ said the man. They were all silent for a moment and then he said, ‘And just how bad is it over there?’

  ‘Um,’ said Archie, unsure how to answer. He did not want to seem defeatist, yet was there anything to be gained from misleading him? ‘It’s pretty bad. A lot of refugees on the roads.’

  ‘They’re starting to bring the troops back, Harold,’ said the lady, turning to the man.

  ‘Only the Useless Mouths,’ said Archie, ‘the Royal Army Service Corps types. The fighting men are still there. I was in Cassel and the men there certainly meant to keep fighting.’

  ‘So that’s from the horse’s mouth, my dear,’ the man said to his wife; at least, Archie assumed they were man and wife. The lady certainly wore a wedding ring.

  ‘It’s hard to know what to think.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘These are certainly worrying times we live in. To think we might have the swastika fluttering just across the Channel.’ She gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘It turns one quite cold.’

  They were silent for a moment, then heard a whistle blast from the platform, the hiss of steam, which rolled down the platform in great gusts, and then the carriage lurched and they were off, moving slowly at first, the chuffing of the engine gathering speed until it became one rhythmical beat.

  ‘So what is it you fly, if you don’t mind me asking?’ said the man at length.

  ‘A Spitfire,’ Archie answered, and felt a touch of pride as he said the word.

  ‘A Spitfire,’ repeated the man with relish. ‘And is it as marvellous as they say it is?’

  ‘More so.’ Archie grinned. ‘It’s quite the most incredible machine. A thoroughbred, all right.’ He smiled, leaned against the high-backed seat and looked out of the window, the Kent countryside already rushing by.

  A thoroughbred. That was what Will Merton-Moore had called it before Archie had made his first flight in that glorious machine. That had been a magical day, and one that had felt like a very long time coming – a time when his future as a pilot and his future with the squadron had been far from certain.

  Everything had changed for Archie the previous August, a couple of weeks before war had been declared. Before that first summer camp had ended, the news had reached them that the squadron was to be put on a war footing and fully mobilized. Initially, no one was quite sure what that meant – not even Fitz – but a few days later, orders were received. The squadron was to move to Drem, near Edinburgh, where it would become 629 Fighter Squadron, but Archie and Ted Tyler were among six of the squadron’s pilots who were to be sent for immediate pilot training. As ‘weekend fliers’, they had learned the basics of how to fly, but little more. Even Ted had much yet to learn. They were to report to No. 7 Initial Training Wing at Cambridge in four days’ time. Whether they would ever return, however, was another matter. ‘I very much hope we will get you back,’ Fitz had told them, ‘but I’m afraid I cannot guarantee it.’

  So had begun seven long months of uncertainty. Parade-ground drill at Cambridge for a month, then to No. 16 Elementary Flying Training School at Burnaston near Derby. Archie had already made his first solo in one of 629 Squadron’s Tutors, and he and Ted had arrived at Burnaston confident they were several steps ahead of the others. Archie’s confidence, however, had been misplaced. ‘Your aerobatics are terrible,’ his instructor had told him. ‘Your slow roll was disgraceful, and you’re heavy-handed too.’ It had been a shock, and with it had come the awful realization that he might be transferred to bombers rather than remain as a fighter pilot. Even worse, that he might get thrown off the course altogether.

  He had worked hard from then on; when the others went to the pub, he stayed behind, studying his textbooks in his room. He listened carefully to everything his instructor told him, made notes afterwards, and concentrated so hard his head hurt. It had all paid off, however, because suddenly he discovered he knew what he was doing; he no longer had to think about everything. The plane began to go where he wanted it to, and do what he wanted it to do; the heavy-handedness evaporated. He had mastered other potential stumbling blocks too – navigation, night flying, recovering from a vertical spin – so that in March, at Flying Training School, when he had taken his wings examination, he had passed with an ‘Above Average’ mark. Ted had passed too; he had been top of the entire course. Then had come a terrible wait for their postings, until at last they had been pinned up on the notice board at Burnaston. He remembered now the sense of panic he had felt as the twenty-six who had gained their wings had gathered round. He’d not been able to see the board at first. Some had groaned as they learned they would be joining Army Co-operation or bomber squadrons, and then, as the jostling crowd thinned, Ted and Archie had finally learned their fate: they were to go back to 629 Squadron.

  ‘Thank God,’ Archie had said, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall.

  ‘We’re sticking together,’ Ted had added. ‘We’ve done it, Archie. We’ve gone and damn well done it!’

  That had been at the very end of March. Spring had been well on its way by then, the longer days, the green tinge in the hedgerows, the sunshine a welcome change after a bitterly cold winter. That was one of the reasons why their training had taken so long: there had been many days when flying had simply not been possible. Too wet, too much snow. Too damned cold.

  It had been good, though, to rejoin 629. Most of the fellows were still there: Will, Pip, Mike, Dennis Cotton – the pre-war stalwarts, although Archie had been saddened to learn that Fitz had been forced to stand down. At thirty-eight, Fitz had been too old to fly and so he had been promoted to wing commander and made station commander of a bomber airfield somewhere in Lincolnshire; Henry Dix had become CO. They were now together all the time, rather than just at weekends, and at a different airfield too – Drem was especially convenient for Archie, whose home was less than three hours’ ride on his Norton – but the pre-war atmosphere seemed much the same: the jokes, the banter, the passion for flying. Seven months of war – long winter months in which they had not
once seen a single enemy aircraft – had done little to change the City of Durham boys.

  The only real change, as far as Archie could tell, was with the aircraft. Before the war, the squadron had made do with a handful of old biplanes. Now it was fully equipped with Spitfires: 1,000 British horsepower, an astonishing top speed of three hundred and fifty miles per hour, and eight .303-calibre Browning machine guns. As Will Merton-Moore had pointed out, it was like driving an old Morris capable of thirty miles per hour and then being told to take a Grand Prix-winning Bugatti for a spin.

  From the moment they had arrived at Drem, both Archie and Ted had thought about little else other than flying these wonderful machines for the first time. Walking down the flight line that first evening back, fifteen Spitfires all lined up, their noses pointing imperiously towards the sky, they had marvelled at the promise of power, at the curves, at the feline beauty. Like a beautiful, angry beast, Archie had thought. Just looking at them made his heart race. He was desperate to fly one, but apprehensive too, worried that he would struggle to control that power. During training, he had progressed from Tutors and Tiger Moths to the new American Harvard, a modern, single-engine, all-metal aircraft with a retractable undercarriage like the Spitfire, but although it had felt like a great leap forward after the biplanes, the new trainer had still been only 400 horsepower. The Spitfire had one and a half times more power – more, if the others were to be believed.

  Archie looked out of the window, the Kent countryside rushing past, but he barely noticed. He was thinking of that first flight. What a moment that had been! Thursday 11 April, three days after their arrival at Drem. A bright enough morning, but cold and crisp, with a touch of frost still twinkling and crunching underfoot at nine o’clock. As Archie reached his Spitfire, he had thought, My first flight is just minutes away. A light breeze drifted across the airfield, the air cool and sharp as he breathed in deeply. In the distance a mechanic working, a spanner tapping on metal, resounded across the quiet morning air.