Ghosts of the Empire

by Justin Sheedy

  But then it tilted upwards and away, bearing its darkly camouflaged upsides and elliptical wing shape, red-in-blue roundels left and right – up it went – slender nose, cockpit, fuselage and tail. …And UP, disappearing into the base of a low cumulus cloud.

  Gone from sight, its lengthening engine sounds told Mick it was manoeuvring: rolling – quieter now, fading – maybe pulling through a loop… But its sound was gathering again, building, yes, and strengthening; must be diving, THERE, out of the cloud again, and dropping like a stone! Yet its wings were scything back this way, touched by the sun as it pulled through a long, curving dive, engine tone rising, but no power-dive; no, a moderated sound now, throttle off…

  The Spitfire flattened out at tree-top height, just a few hundred feet away and coming on, this time in a line parallel to the road. About fifty feet off, it flew into a profile pass like a smooth-tipped dart through the air, yet unhurried; the bloke was coasting along… Very clearly now could Mick see its blue-grey and olive camouflage, the red-white-and-blue RAF roundel on the fuselage, passing now, even squadron identification letters HT – L… In the clear perspex of the cockpit canopy, goggles up on leather helmet, beneath them a face, a single movement from a grey glove; the bloke was waving… Mick made to wave back but too late, the Spit well past already, putting on throttle, and banking into a long, wide curve back round to the east.

  Watching it disappear, and about as quickly as it had come, Mick swore it to himself: If Bellingham-Pitt’s ‘jet’ aircraft made that seem old-hat, he’d sure as shit like to see one do its stuff.

  No. He’d like to fly one.

  *

  It hadn’t been a week since Mick had met Signals Sergeant Eadie Best. So the summons back to her had electrified him. Hustling at top speed down the cable-lined concrete stairwell to the Signals Bunker, he just hoped to Sweet Jesus it was some sort of reprieve…

  Reaching her desk in a sweat, he could see in her eyes that it wasn’t. She half-swivelled her chair towards him, took off her headphones, and motioned him to take a seat.

  ‘It’s Darwin,’ she said quietly. ‘The Japanese have just bombed it.’

  It took a few moments for the words to register with Mick. ‘ Christ. How badly?’

  ‘Well that’s the whole thing,’ she returned, lighting a cigarette. ‘Initial newspaper reports indicate a distressing episode. My headphones indicate, next to this, Pearl Harbour was the distressing episode… Just thought the least you deserve’s a clear picture of what’s going on at home, love. That and I don’t expect to be seeing you much longer…’

  ‘Thanks, darl.’

  ‘Give Sugarbags my best,’ she grinned. ‘…Lucky bitch.’

  March 1942

  A dull glow of mid-morning sun permeated the layer of stratus cloud at just over a thousand feet. From the back seat of the Miles Master, Bellingham-Pitt didn’t have to ask Mick to fly them just beneath this cloud layer: Their insurance against being spotted from above while technically ‘in range’ of German fighters, Mick had been ‘cloud cloaking’ since Bellingham-Pitt had instructed him to do so on their first ever flight together. It had, in fact, become unofficial standard procedure at 17 AFU and since that day in January Mick and his instructor had seen no enemy fighter over Norfolk, nor had anyone else – unconfirmed sightings maybe, but nothing more.

  A far cry from the leather helmet, canvas coveralls and maybe a Mae West for mild Australian skies, Mick now wore the helmet, dark blue serge ‘battledress’ – the work-a-day jacket and trousers version of RAAF uniform, over this the flying jacket and chunky RAF-issue flying boots – knee-high, fleece-lined – and Mae West at all times. A lot of gear but altogether it fitted snugly and kept him warm.

  He was by now also completely comfortable in the Miles Master. He found it nice fly, nicer than the Wirraway certainly, 270 more horsepower so more grunt though not markedly faster. After the Fairey Battle, of course, it felt like a bird. Then again, he reflected, what wouldn’t? The Master’s cockpit instrument panel being a close replica of the panels on the Hurricane and Spitfire, as a trainer the Master was acknowledged as the very last stop before those fighters. Yet the Master wore no ‘Training Yellow’ colour-scheme; it was war-camouflaged green and brown. Mick flexed his gloved right hand on the round ‘spade’ handle of the joystick: exactly as it would be on a Hurricane or Spitfire if he wasn’t about to head back to the Pacific… Also identical to the Hurricane and Spit: the machine-gun firing button top left of the handle. The button sat within a turnable ring you switched between SAFETY and FIRE settings. Currently set to SAFETY, Mick would be switching it for his first ever practice-firing of the Master’s single wing-mounted machine-gun in just a few minutes’ time – once safely out over the open waters of a vast inland bay to the west of Norfolk called The Wash.

  Heading west at 230 mph over the Norfolk countryside, at only a thousand feet below its rural patchwork of dark green to lime to grey planed beneath quite clearly in the filtered morning light, also hedgerows, villages, now and then a church spire. Far ahead bright beams of light pencilled down from the cloud layer, somewhere out over The Wash probably – as a child Mick had heard these called ‘Fingers of God’. No need for oxygen this low, the mask dangling to one side of his leather helmet, Mick held it over his mouth for a moment, flicking its intercom switch to transmit.

  ‘Permission for some mild aerobatics up ahead, please, sir.’

  Bellingham-Pitt feigned irritation. ‘Really, old chap, I’ve seen what you consider “mild aerobatics”… Last time you damn near pulled the bally wings off.”

  ‘Be a sport, Jules.’

  ‘You bally-well know I can’t say no to you, Michael. It’s duced unfair is what it is. …After our little gunnery exercise, perhaps. Do bear in mind, old chap, that the whole bally point of these curious “flying things” is to shoot guns from them… Worse luck…’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Well al-right then…’ There was a smile in the voice. ‘Just spare a thought, Michael…’

  ‘Yeah-yeah, I know, “for the countless millions”,’ Mick smiled back, quoting a pet saying Jules called his ‘mantra’, a new word for Mick and, courtesy of his instructor, one of many things he had never heard of before… The latest of which had been no red wine with fish. Which, even if you enjoyed the two together, Jules had explained the night before, was Verbotten.

  ‘…German for Bad Form, old chap.’

  To illustrate he had then provided Mick with his first ever glass of red wine. With no fish to be had in the Officers’ Mess, it was just so he could ‘get the hang of not’.

  Today was Mick’s last flight before going ‘solo’ on the Master. Within a week he’d be back in Bournemouth, pre embarkation back to the Pacific, so went the word, and his Operational Training Unit: In Australia. Mick flicked the switch on his mask again.

  ‘Jules… D’y’think with the Japs in the war now the RAF might send some Spits out to the Pacific?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, old chap… No, more than likely you’ll get an American kite out there now… Still, if you’re so bally keen on a Spitfire, if you elected to go to Scotland for your OTU, well then you’d get a go on one, now wouldn’t you. …Just a thought…’

  The Master’s cockpit was suddenly bathed in bright sunlight.

  Mick scanned port, then starboard: They’d reached and were flying through the ‘Fingers of God’.

  Bellingham-Pitt checked the cloud layer close above them, then ahead: it was broken to clear blue sky in places, but not for long; more unbroken cover just moments ahead. He peered down: over The Wash now.

  ‘So it’s up to you, old chap. …O’course, if they send you back to the Pacific, well there’s one aircraft type they’ve got oodles of back there, isn’t there… Fairey Battles, old chap.’

  Bellingham-Pitt shrugged to himself, peering up into the small rear-vision mirror atop his cockpit canopy. In it was a dark shape the size of a thumbnail, touched by sunlight for an instan
t, a bead of bright yellow, short laterals either side in a slight upwards ‘v’. Then a glint. ‘I say,’ he breathed. Firmer now, ‘Michael…’

  Mick heard, felt two loud bangs in the rear – the Master shunting forward with each. Amidst foul-smelling smoke, he craned fully back over his right shoulder, seeing a bright red goo on it as he did…

  In the rear cockpit, he saw Bellingham-Pitt’s face still loosely holding together inside his leather helmet, though one eye was hanging out, the other trying to roll down the front of his Mae West – just as his jaw fell off. Nothing below his upper teeth now, Mick saw clear down his throat until his head slumped forward. But now bulbs of light flashed past from behind and overhead the Master’s cockpit: Tracer fire! Mick wrenched away, facing his instrument panel, his controls, his cockpit windscreen once again.

  Instinct made him shove the joystick full forward: Drop BELOW those tracers … Squeezed hard upwards in his straps by the appalling forward lurch he’d just nosed the aircraft into, Mick’s vision went bright red as the negative g-forces shot his blood to head, the Master plummeting steeply towards the sea, its engine coughing, dying. In the new silence, Mick could hear the rushing of wind past the aircraft, its airframe creaking, rattling, and another engine sound now, though remote, somewhere above. Seeing the surface of The Wash maybe 500 feet in front, its ripples turning to waves, waves turning to swell, Mick knew two things: One of the best people he had ever met had just been blown to pieces feet behind him – spatters of blood, fragments of flesh down the sleeves of Mick’s flying jacket, Christ, even some on the instrument panel… The second thing was that he should be thinking about staving off his own sudden death right now but he wasn’t…

  He was too angry for that. Just too fucking angry.

  He pulled back steadily on the joystick, his body squeezed back down in his seat as he did, redness fading from his vision as his blood flowed back from his head to his body. The Master’s engine coughed to life again too as its fuel supply flowed back to it and now settled at a hesitant roar. Flattening out, regaining some speed, skimming over the surface of The Wash, Mick looked up: About a thousand feet directly above, the German fighter. A Messerschmitt 109. Mick seethed…

  ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I’m gunna have a go at you, son.’

  With his left hand he pulled his goggles down over his eyes and pushed his throttle full forward, with his right hand twisting the ring on his joystick handle from SAFETY to FIRE. Feeling the press of acceleration at his back, he checked the airspeed dial – 180, 200, 230, 260 – and, looking upwards again, drew gently back on the joystick. The enemy fighter, still flying straight and level, drew slightly ahead as Mick climbed up towards it – Can’t see us, CAN you, you bastard; think you’ve killed us, well have a go at THIS . Mick thumbed his firing button hard, first time he’d ever seen it, heard it, his tracer fire streaming out ahead, a quick-chattering curve of golden fireworks passing in front of, level with and beyond the Messerschmitt as Mick pulled up through the vertical, speed dropping, dropping as upside-down he wrenched over the top of the loop into a shallow dive back the way he’d come. He rolled upright once again, speed rising again in the dive, one thought in his brain.

  RUN.

  Down ahead right he saw a coastal inlet from The Wash which led to a river which led to a town, King’s Lynn, most likely. Mick headed straight for it: fly low over it, get lost to the German’s vision amongst the town’s structures; he might give chase, he might not; the shooting might have put him off… Compass, south-east, good; Watton just over 20 miles ahead. Mick craned back to check for the German…

  After the climb and loop, the rear cockpit was a rag-doll bloody mess, through the perspex above it, the Messerschmitt closing its own powerful curve onto Mick’s tail, straightening, and coming down fast. Clearly, Mick had neither scared, nor fazed, nor put off the German in the slightest… Only pissed him off: A seasoned professional by the look of it, who had just been fired upon by a training aircraft he hadn’t quite managed to kill. The town of King’s Lynn mere seconds away in front, Mick would hug the rooftops; since Evans Head, low flying, no problem. He checked behind again, there was the Messerschmitt, closer now, about 500 yards and gaining, maybe 100 higher. Flattening over buildings now, insects began to splatter on Mick’s windscreen. Rooftops, streets flashed beneath, upturned faces. Airspeed: 290 – plenty from the dive but losing it now he’d flattened: 285, 280… He checked back yet again, the German had halved his range, and lowered – Mick saw his yellow propeller spinner very clearly – hardly 200 yards now, and lining up his shot… Mick focused front.

  Leaving the town behind now, fields ahead, German fighter lowering in the rear-vision mirror – getting right on our tail. Village ahead, over it, gone behind, road veering out left – more villages. Speed 270, 265… Over fields now – farm labourers, waving , gone behind, check mirror, German just a hundred yards back, wait till he fires… Horse and cart dead ahead, horse rearing UP, check mirror, muzzle flashes from fighter’s nose and wings , NOW, left turn… He’s faster but that works against him; we can turn tighter, turn inside him… Curve it, curve it, bank it round… Don’t smash the wing-tip into a haystack – or a fucken VILLAGE!!!

  The Master shaved its rooftops.

  Back down now, get her back down, keep her curving, curving, back over open fields now, gone full circle, heading south-east again. Speed 210, 200, flatten, straighten. Check back left and right: Where is he?!

  Right on our tail.

  A few hundred yards back but right behind.

  In the slower aircraft – a training aircraft – with a Messerschmitt stuck on his tail and nowhere to run, Mick knew he’d done all he could… Stayed alive a few minutes more than he might’ve. Against an expert flyer… And to think his home airfield couldn’t be more than 3 minutes away… He’d so nearly made it.

  Green lights. Green lights floating in the air ahead… Fierce lights, dazzling, one after the other and growing. A stream of them…

  TRACER FIRE! Coming from front right! Coming this way! An RAF aerodrome straight ahead – its anti-aircraft gunners firing at him, Mick was NOT about to take a bullet in the face.

  From rooftop height he pulled into a shallow climb, slow-rolling the Miles Master in the ascent; maybe now the RAF anti-aircraft gunners would see the red-white-and-blue bloody RAF roundels on his wings and fuselage!! Still he was hit by something mid-way through the roll – a clattering along his port wing and engine canopy like a stick along a paling fence – from the air or the ground he knew not. By the time he was upright again, the propeller was blading to a stop, the engine quite dead, aircraft levelling in the glide, cockpit filling with smoke. Mick yanked back on the cockpit canopy, the smoke drawn out and away now as the Master nosed forward into a descent from 200 feet.

  Only two-hundred feet, just two-hundred feet, we can do it; only two-hundred lousy bloody feet… Speed, 90, good – Keep it there, not too steep and speed up, not too shallow and stall… Glide her, glide her down.

  Now Mick heard the engine roar behind, directly over and ahead of him as the Messerschmitt passed mere feet above, more anti-aircraft fire now too. Peering up an instant, he saw the German fighter’s twin streams of black exhaust smoke as it accelerated away, green tracer fire now tracking black crosses and swastikas instead of Mick’s roundels…

  Thank Christ… Right. 100 feet. Undercarriage…

  Mick threw the lever, checking for the landing gear red lights that should with luck now turn to green…

  There were no lights of any colour.

  Right. Belly landing. 70 feet. Flaps? No: Could be damaged – one side ONLY might come down, flip aircraft clean over, land upside-down, pilot’s head ground clean off. 50 feet. Guide her in now, 20 feet, grass coming up, flashing past now, keep wings level, 10 feet, nose her up so slightly, hold her off, off, 5 feet, let her drop herself the last few when she feels like it…

  The Master’s belly kissed the grass, bounced a few inches airborn
e again – long seconds – then tore along the turf, Mick fighting like mad to keep the wings level – not dig a wingtip into the speeding earth: rip the whole airframe sideways, break it, roll it, death in a thousand pieces…

  It was as the Master ground towards a stop in a shower of turf and dirt, white smoke thickening inside the cockpit once again, that Mick noticed the flames licking round the sides of the instrument panel close in front of him: directly behind which lay the Main Petrol Tank just this side of the engine which, though seized, must be red-hot. As the aircraft halted for good the flames blossomed – less than an arm’s length away from him.

  Stealing his arms, his legs in towards his body, leather helmet still on against the fire, Mick ripped off his seat straps, parachute straps, oxygen and radio cords, heaved upward in the open cockpit, fell out left, rolled to his feet, sprinted.

  He’d done 50 yards when the almighty whump sounded in his wake, the shockwave of the aircraft exploding throwing him even faster forward, then flat. Then came the awful wave of heat. He felt it about to burn him, when it passed over. Sprawled on the grass, he managed to crane back: Large pieces of the Master were raining down, smaller pieces still going up, every part of its structure still on the ground now wholly engulfed in flames which now rose in a pyre of boiling orange light and black smoke.

  Mick now sensed the bells of fire-wagons speeding in across the grass, though their brakes seemed to squeal at a respectable distance from the inferno, tin-helmeted men piling out, setting about whatever work they could possibly do now… Another ringing vehicle drew up and stopped nearby: on its sides, RAF roundels, and a red cross. As more tin-helmeted men piled out of this and surrounded Mick, a blue-grey RAF sedan drew up quite close, doors opening, figures stepping out.

  ‘Best bally flying I’ve ever seen, old chap,’ announced a voice.

  From the ground, Mick looked up with a start. ‘Eh?!’

  Kneeling closely by Mick, the station commander of RAF Marham only squinted supportively. ‘Didn’t say a word, old boy… Just amazed you’re in one piece.’