Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  Switching off the engines, the rattling and shaking stopped and suddenly the great beast was still and silent, save for the furious ticking of the engine as it cooled.

  Archie sat there for a moment, pulling off his helmet. His hair was damp with sweat, his legs stiff from being in the same position for ninety minutes. So, he thought, I’ve made it again. Two combat sorties completed.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  Archie looked down to see two ground crew beside him.

  ‘Yes – thanks,’ said Archie, and heaved himself up out of the bucket seat, clicked open the half-door and clambered shakily down on to the wing.

  ‘Fired your guns, then, sir?’ said one of men. ‘Get anything?’

  ‘Yes, actually. A huge great Ju 88 at almost point-blank range. We were in cloud at the time. I say, is the CO back?’

  ‘No, sir, haven’t seen him.’

  Archie slid off the wing. ‘I’d better get to dispersal.’

  ‘Well done, sir, for your Jerry.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘thank you.’ His legs felt weak, his eyes suddenly stung with fatigue. He stumbled across the grass, overwhelmed with gratitude that he had made it back once more. The confidence he had felt earlier as they’d flown over the Channel had gone entirely.

  Most of the squadron had already landed – a row of Spitfires, most with the canvas patches that protected the guns shredded, and smoke and oil stains streaking the pale blue undersides of the wings. Archie watched another Spitfire landing and realized it was Ted. He’d not seen him on the short flight back across the sea. He counted the aircraft. Eleven. Just one missing.

  ‘Is the CO not back?’ he said as he neared the dispersal hut. The men were standing around, smoking, rubbing their eyes, running their hands through their hair.

  ‘Didn’t you hear him?’ said Pip. ‘Swearing his head off. I thought most of France would have heard.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He got clobbered by that beam attack. It was damned bad luck – they were firing blind into that cloud.’

  ‘They nearly got me,’ said Archie. ‘I swear that tracer was a whisker from my head. But will he be all right?’

  ‘Pip thinks so, don’t you, Pip?’ said Mike Drummond.

  ‘I followed him down – well, I thought I really ought to, since I was supposed to be his wingman. Put it this way, he waved at me as I circled around him and I’m pretty sure he fell inside the perimeter. He’ll be a bit like you, Archie, and suddenly reappear in the Mess later.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘And what about you, Baby? Did you and Ted get them?’ said Will, drawing deeply on his cigarette.

  ‘We got one. Suddenly came upon it,’ Archie said, waving his hands to illustrate the point. ‘It was literally right there in front of us, bursting out of the cloud, so Ted and I both let rip. Can’t have been more than thirty yards.’

  ‘Jesus, that was close!’ said Pip.

  ‘Dangerously so,’ added Will.

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Archie. ‘Saw bits falling off, then a burst of flame, and then I rolled hard and pulled out of the way.’

  Will was shaking his head. ‘Oh, dear. That’s a “possible”, then. You know Cally won’t like it.’

  Pip and Mike laughed. ‘Your face,’ said Pip. ‘Excitement dashed.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘And Ted was firing too, you say?’ added Will. ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’

  Archie smiled ruefully. ‘Half a possible. Oh, well. I know we nobbled him all right.’

  Ted now joined them. ‘Christ, did you see that Junkers, Archie?’ He turned to the others, his eyes wide. ‘You should have seen it! There we were, right on it! I mean, we couldn’t miss, could we, Arch? Point-blank range! Rat-a-tat-tat, and thank you very much! Had to duck to avoid bits of it, I can tell you. We were so close I could almost touch it. Beast of a thing it was, wasn’t it, Archie? You know, I could see that swastika on the tail just like that! There it was, right in front of me! We clobbered that one good and proper!’ He whistled. ‘Boy, that was quite something, I can tell you.’

  He stopped, there was a moment’s silence, and then everyone started sniggering.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s so funny? What?’

  The sniggers had become guffaws, which then became uncontrollable laughter.

  ‘Your half a possible,’ said Will, barely able to get the words out.

  Ted looked aghast, which made everyone laugh even more, and then his face broke into a grin, and he was laughing too. All of them were. Archie felt the tears running down his cheeks. The terror he had felt in the skies over Dunkirk, the exhaustion – both had gone in this sudden release of tension. It shouldn’t have been so funny, but somehow it was. Somehow it was the funniest thing in the world.

  10

  Melee

  But Henry Dix did not come back that night. The squadron had flown back to Northolt that evening, only to be told that they would be flying over Dunkirk again the following day. That meant being up at four in the morning, to be on standby at Manston at six. Temporary command of the squadron was given to Will Merton-Moore.

  Jenkins, their batman, had shaken Archie and Ted awake at dawn, the sound of their Merlins being run up greeting their first conscious moments. Uniforms on, flying boots and Irvin – it was cold at that time of day – a quick drink of hot, sweet tea brought by Jenkins, and then down to dispersal. The spontaneous hilarity of the previous evening had long gone as the realization hit them that Dix was now officially missing. No one said much. Will gave them their instructions – they were to fly down in flights and sections – his usual air of laconic amusement gone.

  Dawn was breaking as they took off, a thin strip of pale pink and yellow light ahead of them to the east, but plenty of cloud too, which became thicker as time wore on. At Manston there was another long wait – all morning, as it turned out. Archie dozed, but in between felt bored rigid. At Northolt they had their things: writing paper, pens, paperbacks and magazines. At Manston Archie had nothing; the cockpit of the Spitfire was so small there was hardly space for much and the last thing one wanted was something falling out of a pocket during a manoeuvre and getting in the way. Mike Drummond, Pip and their American volunteer, Hank McNair, had a pack of cards between them, but Archie had never been much good at card games.

  Not until 11.20 were they ordered into the air. It was still cloudy, visibility was poor and they were expected to form up with 213 Squadron and fly over together, twenty-four aircraft in all. But 213 Squadron were Hurricanes, operating from Biggin Hill, a short distance away to the south of London, and they struggled to find each other, despite help from their respective ground controllers. When they eventually joined forces, forty minutes had passed and much of their precious fuel had already been used up. Over Dunkirk, the cloud was even worse than the day before. They patrolled up and down for an hour but saw nothing. By the time they were ordered home, they were all very low on fuel and south-east England was shrouded in misty, low cloud.

  Flying in Red Section with Will leading and Ted at Red Two, Archie stuck to them like glue. Mike Drummond, leading Yellow Section, also ensured they stayed close behind – Archie saw them nestling behind and to his starboard all the way back.

  Will led them down through the cloud. Once again, Archie felt that strange sense of claustrophobia and weightlessness. It was disorientating; he had never enjoyed night flying either, and as he continually glanced at his dials, he hoped they were telling him the truth. According to his altimeter, they were now at only a thousand feet and still in cloud. His whole body had begun to tense. Don’t let me go into the sea, please don’t let me go into the sea. He kept glancing at his fuel gauge – the needle seemed to be flickering towards empty before his very eyes. And then it was on empty.

  ‘Please,’ he said out loud, ‘please get me back. Come on, come on, come on!’

  A voice in his headset. ‘This is Yellow One, are we
nearly there, Red One? I’m running on fumes.’

  ‘Yellow One, this is Red One, I hope so.’

  Another anxious minute, but still the Spitfires flew on. Archie listened to the thrum of his Merlin – it was not missing a beat. But any moment now … he thought. Please, God.

  And then suddenly they were through the cloud, and only fractionally off course. There, away to their left, was the north Kent coast and the sprawl of Ramsgate and, beyond the town, Manston.

  Archie breathed out heavily.

  ‘Hello, Mongoose, this is Nimbus Leader,’ he heard Will say, ‘permission to land. We’re all very low on fuel.’

  ‘Hello, Nimbus Leader, this is Mongoose, permission granted.’

  They circled around the airfield, and one after the other, swooped in to land. ‘Thank God,’ said Archie out loud as he felt the Spitfire jolt as the wheels hit the grass.

  Archie watched Yellow Flight come in, but it was a couple more minutes before the first Spitfires of B Flight appeared, and then only Pip Winters and Hank McNair.

  Archie clambered out and made for dispersal as the fuel bowser hurried around the perimeter, hastily refuelling their machines.

  Will was standing in front of the hut, hands on his hips, staring at the sky. Then he exploded, kicking the ground. ‘Where the hell are they?’ He turned to Mike. ‘Weren’t you watching B Flight? They were supposed to stick close behind Yellow Section.’

  ‘Don’t blame me, Will,’ said Mike. ‘We managed to stick to you. We were following your lead.’

  Pip was now walking back towards them. ‘I lost them in the descent,’ he called out. ‘They just disappeared. Terry was behind Hank, and then Green Section.’

  Will cursed under his breath and rubbed his forehead.

  ‘They’ll turn up,’ said Pip.

  ‘They’d better,’ muttered Will. ‘If they’ve ditched into the sea, I’ll murder them. I’ll damn well murder ’em.’

  A phone call came through half an hour later. Green Section were at Eastchurch, a little further along the north Kent coast. Ian Reeves and Colin Bishop were fine, but Gordon Bowyer had damaged his undercarriage in landing. Ian and Colin were going to refuel and come back to Manston. But there was neither sight nor sound of Terry Greaves. He had just vanished.

  In four combat sorties, the squadron had now lost four men, including their CO.

  Soon afterwards, the sky began to clear, and within an hour the thick blanket of cloud that had shrouded them had almost gone entirely. Just a few banks of cumulus remained. The sun shone down between the clouds, summer miraculously returned. At three they were warned that they would soon be airborne again. Green Section rejoined them, all their Spitfires had been refuelled, and, at a quarter to four, they were told to take off once again and patrol Dunkirk. Apparently, the cloud bank had now shifted from there too.

  Archie clambered up into his Spitfire, a sense of dread weighing on him. He could not understand how he’d felt so eager and so confident the day before. That cloud attack yesterday – it had unsettled him, and then flying back earlier encased in cloud, not knowing whether they would make it back or hit the sea or worse, had done nothing to ease his fears. His hands were shaking as he fumbled with the clip of the Sutton harness and plugged in his oxygen and radio leads. A signal to the fitter and rigger, and then he started up the Spitfire. There was the slow chug of the prop, then suddenly the engine caught, flame and smoke briefly belched from the exhaust stubs and the airframe was shaking and rattling and jolting him in his seat. A quick glance at the dials – oil pressure OK, manifold OK, fuel OK. Signal again to the ground crew to remove the chocks, and ease open the throttle. No turning back now, thought Archie, and the next time I’m back down again – well, he hoped for the best.

  At least this time there was no forming up with another squadron. There were only nine of them, three sections of three, Will leading once more. They headed north-east across the Channel, climbing to seventeen thousand feet, the world shrinking the higher they flew, so that the narrow stretch between Britain and France looked more like a wide river than an expanse of sea. France and the Low Countries stretched away, bathed in pockets of afternoon sunlight where the sun shone down through the clouds, a pattern of greens and browns and yellows, before being lost to the thick blanket of cloud that was edging away to the north-east, but which seemed to cover almost the rest of the world. And then there was Dunkirk, that cloud of thick black smoke still rolling upwards, a beacon some ten thousand feet high.

  Well north of Dunkirk, and still out over the Channel, they swung to the east in a wide arc, and then south-west, following the line of the coast. As they turned, the sun streaked across them, glinting over their canopies as it swivelled behind. Get the sun behind you – that was what gave an attacker the best chance of surprise. And surprise gave the attacker the best chance of shooting an enemy down.

  Soon after, as they approached the evacuation beaches, they saw a flight of Dorniers, slowing heading towards the port from the south-east, at around three thousand feet below them. Where were the fighters? Archie craned his head, swivelling from side to side, blinking as he glanced too close to the sun, but he could not see any sign of them. Were the bombers unescorted? Perhaps. Keep looking out for those fighters, he told himself.

  ‘OK, let’s go,’ said Will over the R/T, ignoring standard radio procedure.

  Gunning the throttle, Archie followed Will as they dived towards the Dorniers, his Spitfire roaring with the strain. The aircraft loomed towards them in no time. Archie felt his ears rage with the sudden change of pressure, while his whole body was pressed into the bucket seat. His helmet slipped, so he quickly nudged it back off his forehead, flicked the gun button to fire and then strained his head, forcing himself to look around once more.

  And where moments before there had been no enemy fighters, now, suddenly, there were – a dozen of them diving down from up-sun.

  ‘109s, eight o’clock!’ he shouted. Damn it, damn it! They must have been circling above them, watching them, hiding in the sun, just as they had been trying to do.

  ‘All right,’ Will answered, ‘I see them. We get the bombers then turn into towards them.’ Will pressed ahead, towards the Dorniers who had still apparently not seen them. Archie swivelled his head again. The 109s were gaining on them. God, he thought, this will be close. His heart hammered, sweat ran down his face, and he could hear his breathing in the confined rubber of his oxygen mask. He picked out a Dornier – one on the starboard edge of the formation, but once again, from too far away, Will opened fire.

  Immediately, the formation of German bombers split up, planes peeling off, desperately trying to take evasive action. The rear gunners began pumping machine-gun fire towards them, but the gunner was firing high. Archie pressed on, watched the Dornier fill his reflector sight, then saw it drift out again as it banked to port. He followed, and then, at a hundred and fifty yards and with the Dornier directly in front of him, he opened fire. Bits of metal flew off and the starboard engine began to smoke, but then he glanced around, saw a 109 bearing down upon him, and a split second later orange tracer was zipping over his head and starboard wing. No time to press home the attack. Ahead of him, Will had turned in towards the attacking fire and so Archie followed him. To his relief, he saw the enemy tracer hurtle past wide. Where were the Dorniers? Disappearing out of range fast. ‘Damn it, damn it!’ he cursed.

  And now there were more 109s among them. He followed Will as he tried to out-turn a 109 and felt his vision blur as negative-G drained the blood from his brain. Tracer continued to fizz past him and then suddenly Will rolled over and began turning in the opposite direction. Archie followed, but then saw Will fly straight into the line of fire of his second pursuer.

  ‘No!’ shouted Archie. He opened fire himself, saw the 109 peel away, but in his ears he heard Will shout, ‘I’m hit, I’m hit!’

  A quick look around – more tracer – a 109 attacking another Spitfire – Hank? Pip? – and then
he saw smoke billowing from Will’s Spitfire. Archie followed, fired off another burst as a 109 homed into view to try to finish off the stricken aircraft, saw his tracer hit the fuselage and the Messerschmitt bank away.

  ‘Get out of there, Will!’ Ted’s voice – where was Ted? – as Archie felt a row of bullets clatter behind him. Frantically turning his head, he saw a 109 hurtle over him, the mottled grey-green paintwork and squadron markings vividly clear. He knew he needed to protect Will but there seemed to be 109s everywhere. More tracer fizzed overhead, then the aircraft jolted as bullets tore into his fuselage.

  ‘Christ!’ he said out loud, and automatically turned once more into the line of fire. Two more 109s were heading straight for him, the sun high above them, making Archie squint. Tracer curled towards him and he flung his Spitfire one way then the other, radio static and chatter – English and German – crackling in his ears, the horizon sliding back and forth. He flipped the plane over then a 109 suddenly slid across directly in front of him, so close he could see the pilot ducking, looking back at him. The wash jolted Archie’s aircraft with sudden turbulence.

  Where did that come from? His stomach lurched as he dived after it, then saw below and ahead of him another Messerschmitt – or was it the same one? – slowly climbing back towards the fray. A moment later, Archie was right on top of it, thumb pressed down on the gun button and pumping machine-gun bullets from his eight Brownings in a three-second burst. He saw his tracer coning, smacking into the 109, raking along the top of the fuselage, then the cowling, and then he saw the prop splinter and disintegrate. The Messerschmitt seemed to wobble a moment, then, as Archie thundered past, it flipped over and began spinning downwards, smoke trailing behind it.

  Archie watched it plummet, spinning like a twirling leaf in autumn, then looked up to see another 109 hurtling towards him. The closing speed was nearly seven hundred miles an hour – a split second – and Archie broke left as the 109 did the same, the two aircraft avoiding a head-on collision by a whisker. Archie gasped, and quickly looked around. Where on earth was everyone? Where was Dunkirk? He was out to sea somewhere and felt completely disorientated. He craned his head, looking frantically around him, but the 109 that had missed him by inches was now heading back inland, a mile away already. Below him – well below – he saw a Spitfire turning for home, but otherwise the sky was quite empty.