Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

  Sergeant Newman was waiting for them with two other aircraftsmen of his ground crew. “She’s in tip-top,” he told them. Both men could hear a sadness in his voice.

  “Not happy about the conversion?” Zack asked. The first of the squadron’s new Mosquito aircraft and their crews would arrive at Church Fenton the next day and the Beaufighters and their aircrews would depart. But the ground crews would remain. Zack and Ruffy had the dubious distinction of flying 25 Squadron’s last mission in Beaufighters before the conversion. The sergeant gave a shrug that could have meant anything and took Zack’s parachute to load it in the cockpit for him. He passed it up the open forward escape hatch in the belly of the Beau. Ruffy was already scrambling up the entry ladder in the hatch behind his position. Zack lit a cigarette, knowing they had some time before engine start Newman rejoined him and also lit up.

  “Think you’ll like the new kites?” Zack asked.

  “They say the Mosquito is bloody fast with those big Merlins,” Newman answered. The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that powered the new Mosquito fighter-bomber was already a legend among the ground crews.

  “I’d like a shot at flying one of them,” Zack allowed.

  “The Beau’s an honest lady,” Newman said, loyal to the very last.

  The American pilot had to agree with him. The Beaufighter was a sturdy, aggressive, and reliable aircraft and the blunt nose reminded him of a crouching bulldog as it sat on its conventional landing gear. But you had to be strong to fly it, since the mechanical flight controls were heavy and unassisted. The plane was like the British, Zack thought, as he studied it in the dark, his eyes moving down the fuselage and stopping at the shapely tail fin. Well, I always have liked pretty behinds, he thought.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and climbed in after Ruffy, working his way past Ruffy and up the catwalk of the dark, tunnellike fuselage. His flashlight reflected off the breeches of the four 20-millimeter cannons mounted below floor level. They were each loaded with a sixty-round drum of ammunition, which Ruffy could replace in flight. He climbed through the pair of armor-plated doors that led into the pilot’s compartment. He always left the doors open, hoping it would make Ruffy feel not so alone in the bowels of the fuselage. Then he settled into the center mounted seat and went through the cockpit check that would lead to engine start, taxi, and takeoff. He was very methodical in his approach to flying.

  Ten minutes later they were holding short of the runway and waiting for the green light that would clear them for takeoff. The light blinked at them from the tower and he eased the throttles forward. He was careful on the lineup for the Beau had a tendency to swing on takeoff. He rolled forward to straighten out the tail wheel and slowly eased in the power. By using coarse rudder, he kept the tail straight. Then it lifted and he eased in full power. The main gear came unstuck and they lifted skyward, reaching into the clear dark night.

  The two men settled into the normal and very predictable routine that had marked every flight since their first patrol when they had downed the Junkers. Zack and Ruffy had taken more than a fair amount of good-natured kidding about how gravity had done their job for them. But their sector had been quiet since then and they were itching for action to prove everyone wrong. But again, it was a quiet night. “Looks like another bust,” Zack said, wiggling his cold toes. The heating system on the Beau was not up to the job and his feet were always numb from the cold at altitude.

  “Woodbine Twenty-four”—the radio/telephone came alive as the GCI controller detected an intruder on his radar set—“this is Falcon, bandit for you. Turn to zero-eight-five and climb to Angels one-eight. Buster.”

  “About time,” Zack grunted over the intercom as he hauled the Beau around to its new heading and shoved the throttles forward.

  “That heading’s going to take us to the extreme eastern side of our area,” Ruffy said, warning him that they would be far out over the North Sea.

  “Pull out all the stops on that magic box of yours,” Zack answered.

  They were climbing through sixteen thousand feet when Ruffy called out, “I’ve got him on the nose, range six miles, a little above us. Level off.” The navigator had performed a small miracle on the Mark IV radar set by getting a contact at that range.

  “Contact,” Zack called over the radio, telling the GCI controller that they were painting the bandit on their radar. He switched the guns to “fire” and selected the machine guns.

  “He’s flying level,” Ruffy said, “but weaving back and forth through about sixty degrees. Off to your port side, should be coming back now. Range two miles.” They were in a tail chase and closing.

  “No joy,” Zack said, straining to get a visual sighting through the windscreen. He caught a flicker of an exhaust at his eleven o’clock. “Tallyho! Got him!” He eased the throttles back a notch and slowly closed from the right, working into a position directly astern the bandit. In the darkness, he could make out the distinctive profile of a Junkers 88: twin-engine, cigar-shaped fuselage, blunt nose, and big distinctive glasshouse canopy. Despite his previous engagement with a Junkers, Zack had a healthy respect for the aircraft and knew that in the hands of a skilled pilot, it was a worthy adversary. He closed, matching the Junkers’s turns, fully intending to gun the unsuspecting fighter-bomber out of the moonlit sky before the German knew he was there. There was nothing glamorous or chivalrous in what he was doing.

  Suddenly, the Junkers rolled up onto its right wing and turned hard to the right. Then the nose of the German aircraft started to swing around directly onto the Beau. There was no doubt that the crew had seen them. Zack hauled back on the yoke and zoomed as he slammed the throttles full forward. He gained a slight advantage in altitude and then turned hard into the Junkers as the German pilot reversed his turn and broke back to the left. “Gotcha!” Zack shouted. The German was turning his tail to them and had to be a green and inexperienced pilot to turn away like that, solving Zack’s problem.

  “Oh, shit!” Zack grunted as the Junkers rolled violently back to the right as Zack tried to follow him. It had been a deliberate feint and the German pilot was proving himself to be anything but inexperienced as he aerobatted the Junkers, rolling back to the left and crossing behind Zack’s tail. He had spit the Beau out in front of him.

  “Hard left!” Ruffy shouted over the intercom. Zack wrenched the Beau around to the left as hard as he could, laboring at the heavy controls, not able to hold his altitude. Sweat was running down his face in the cold cockpit. A stream of tracers reached by them on the left and slightly above. Only Ruffy’s command had saved them. Zack hardened up his turn as he descended and pulled back into the fight. The Beau could outturn the Junkers if he was strong enough. Now they were in a descending, turning engagement, each on the opposite side of the circle, canopy to canopy. “We need to get away from this bugger,” Ruffy shouted over the intercom, acknowledging what Zack was thinking. They might be in a faster and better-turning aircraft, but there was no doubt the German was the better pilot.

  Zack continued to descend and turn, coming more and more to the Junkers’s tail with each full circle. He planned to take the fight down to the deck, just above the choppy surface of the North Sea, and then take a snap shot at the German as he broke out of the turn. He would outclimb the Junkers and hide in the night.

  Again, the German pilot surprised Zack by rolling out and flying straight ahead, still in a shallow dive, pushing the Junkers for all it was worth. “You son of a bitch!” Zack roared with exaltation as he fell in behind the German. “He’s lost sight of us,” Zack told Ruffy.

  “Not bloody likely,” Ruffy shot back. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  But Zack ignored him and he triggered a long burst from the six .303 Browning machine guns in the wings. He watched in amazement as the line of tracers passed harmlessly to the left side of the Junkers. “What the…” The German was skidding his Junkers slightly to the right in the dive, destroying any tracking solution for his pursuer. Zack was
learning how to dogfight the hard way.

  “We’re a long way from home,” Ruffy said. He wanted Zack to turn away and let the Junkers escape. But again Zack ignored him and the sudden tingling sensation of approaching danger that shot through him. He wanted to nail the coffin shut on the German in front of him. He sent another burst of machine gun fire toward his adversary.

  A line of flaming golf balls reached up from the surface of the North Sea toward the Beaufighter. “Oh, Jesus!” Zack yelled as he hauled back on the control column and pumped the rudder pedals.

  “Flak trap!” Ruffy shouted. Both men could see the source of the tracers: a long low shadow in the water. An E-boat. The Beau rocked violently from two hits.

  “Ruffy! You okay?” There was only silence from the rear of the plane. Zack shouted it again. Silence. “God damn you to hell,” he gritted as he caught a glimpse of the Junkers off his left wing. He had lost sight of the E-boat in the dark, but he knew roughly where it was and he could avoid it. He was positive that the Junkers and the E-boat were working as a team and had led them into a trap. Zack tested his flight controls and the sturdy Beau responded. A killing rage he did not know he possessed took hold of him and he flew straight at the Junkers and selected cannons. His right thumb came down hard on the firing button and he felt the plane shudder as the twenty-millimeter cannons fired. The German pilot saw the tracers coming at him and broke into Zack, but it was too late. The Junkers came apart as Zack held the button and emptied the four cannons into the dying aircraft.

  “My God!” came from behind his right shoulder. Zack twisted around to see Ruffy standing in the well behind the pilot’s seat. Relief flooded through him. “Sorry, mate,” Ruffy said. “Took a bit of damage in the back. Should be okay but don’t get too enthusiastic on the controls.”

  “How come you didn’t answer my call?” Zack asked.

  “Intercom panel shot to hell and I was busy with a fire.”

  “You okay? Not hurt?”

  “Should be okay.” It was Ruffy’s way of saying he was slightly wounded.

  “I want to nail that fuckin’ E-boat,” Zack said.

  “Always love to return favors,” Ruffy agreed. “Give me a moment to reload and strap in. By the way, we are a bloody long way from home.”

  “Any idea where we are.”

  “Over the North Sea.”

  “I was hoping you could be a little more specific,” Zack said.

  “A vector of two-six-five for one hundred thirty-five miles should get us back to Church Fenton,” Ruffy told him and disappeared through the pair of open armor-plated doors behind the cockpit. Zack could feel him move around through the controls as he reloaded the sixty-pound ammo drums on each of the four cannons. Then Ruffy was back, standing behind him.

  “When you want me to reload, fly straight and level and wiggle the tail a bit for a signal.” He disappeared again and this time closed the armor-plated doors.

  Zack turned back in the direction of the E-boat, scanning his engine instruments and playing with the throttles and pitch control. All responded as normal. He carefully moved the flight controls and, again, all felt okay. They may have taken battle damage but the Beaufighter was living up to its reputation as a flying tank. He set up an expanding-square search pattern, still determined to find the E-boat before low fuel forced him to return to base.

  On the third leg, he found it. The boat was moving fast through the water, heading to the southeast. “Your turn,” he muttered to himself and dropped down onto the deck for a strafing run. He bore down onto the E-boat’s four o’clock position, jinking back and forth in short, sharp turns. Tracers erupted from the stern of the boat when a gunner momentarily caught sight of him. The rounds passed harmlessly to the left, wide of the mark. Then he stabilized and walked a burst of the twenties across the E-boat. Then he was off, jinking as hard as he dared, worried about the damage they had taken from the first engagement. A line of tracers passed harmlessly behind them.

  As he came around for a second run, he could see a fire spreading behind the wheelhouse. “You are going to buy the farm,” he promised the E-boat as he rolled in. This time, two batteries opened up at him and he broke off. “You are one tough son of a bitch,” he said to himself. He checked his fuel gauges and calculated he could make one more run. He climbed to five hundred feet and circled to the bow of the E-boat, hoping the fire amidships might mask him from the aft battery.

  He rolled in for the last time, determined to destroy the E-boat. He was pressing, thumb over the trigger, almost in range of the lethal twenties when a barrage of tracers from the E-boat reached out to him. There were now three batteries firing at him. Where had the extra guns come from? he thought. He mashed the button, emptying the four cannons into the E-boat. He was pulling off when the Beau rocked from a series of hits. Zack was vaguely aware that pieces of his right wing were shredding and the always heavy controls were suddenly lighter, but they were still flying.

  Now pain ripped through his right leg, more intense than anything he had ever felt. “Oh my God,” he said weakly, and for a moment he was certain he was going to die. Then a granite-hard determination chased any fear of death away. He wasn’t going to die until he had Ruffy safe on the ground.

  “Ruffy!” he shouted, knowing there was no way the young Englishman could hear him over the noise in the Beau. But he felt better for trying. No answer. Automatically, he transmitted, “Mayday! Mayday!” over the radio. But it was dead.

  “Fly the airplane,” he told himself, forcing his attention onto the controls and instruments. The control column felt sloppy and loose in his hand but the rudder pedals felt normal. The Beaufighter was flying but was not responsive. At the same time, he glanced at the instrument panel. The lamps used for illuminating the panel were out and he couldn’t read the instruments. “Hell of a time for power failure.” He fumbled for the flashlight he carried in the left leg pocket of his flying overalls. “Engines sound good, must have cut the wiring.” He was vaguely aware of the loud wind noises. He directed the beam of his flashlight onto the instrument panel. Only the engine gauges were still alive. All his flying instruments were dead.

  No, wait, he cautioned himself, you’ve still got an altimeter. “Jesus Christ!” he exploded. They were at sea level and he had almost inadvertently crashed into the sea. He eased back on the yoke. Nothing. A sudden dizziness swept over him. Was he going to pass out? The pain was still with him, drawing his attention away from his primary duty, flying the Beau. “Am I bleeding?” he asked himself aloud. He forced the beam onto his right leg and almost passed out. His lower leg was drenched in blood. How long have I been bleeding? he thought.

  With a massive force of will, he drove away the dizziness that threatened to engulf him and he fumbled for the first aid pouch that was under his seat. His fingers searched for it but couldn’t find it. He bent his head to look and almost passed out. Dumb, he thought. Now his fingers felt the kit and he grabbed it, shaking it out in his lap, fumbling with his left hand until he found a large compress bandage. He tore it open with his teeth and bent over, holding the control column against his shoulder and shoving the bandage into the open wound. Then he tied another bandage around it, slowing the bleeding to an ooze.

  “Now fly the damn airplane,” he told himself. “Ruffy!” he shouted. Still no answer. “Altitude, go for altitude.” Again, he tested the yoke but the Beau didn’t climb. He reached for the elevator trimming tab wheel on his right and rolled it back, feeding in nose-up trim. He eased the throttles forward and the plane climbed.

  “Where’s home?” He knew he was talking to himself but it seemed to help. Again, he used his flashlight to check the instrument panel. The turn and slip indicator was also good. Concentrate, he warned himself; you’re missing things. He checked the reliable AM Mark II compass on the right console that he used to set the gyro-stabilized direction indicator. They were headed to the southeast—toward the continent. “Wrong way,” he muttered. He pressed on th
e left rudder pedal, favoring his wounded right leg, and turned the wheel to the left. The Beau responded slowly and the turn and slip indicator told him it was an uncoordinated turn. “Must have lost the ailerons.”

  The Beau started to shudder and he eased off the turn, again flying straight and level. He checked the compass. They had turned less than six degrees and were still headed for the German-held coast. He reached for the rudder tab control forward of compass and fed in trim, calculating that if it had worked with the elevator to climb, he could turn the same way. Nothing happened. “Damn!”

  A blast of air and wind noise behind him caught his attention and for a split second, he was certain that the Beaufighter was coming apart, disintegrating from the battle damage it had taken. He turned his head slowly, not wanting to bring the dizziness back on. A feeling of relief swept over him when he saw Ruffy crawling through the opened armor-plated doors. A heavy bandage was wrapped around his head and he was moving slowly. “Not bloody much left back there,” he yelled at Zack. His voice was strained and labored. “The fin’s all but shot away, right wing looks like a sieve.”

  “Left wing?” Zack shouted over the noise.

  “Ailerons are in bits and pieces.”

  The control problems now made sense to Zack. They were lucky to still be flying. “We’re going to have to ditch.” He explained the situation to his radar nav. “I can climb and probably descend, but I’m afraid if I jockey with the power too much or try to turn, I’ll lose control.”

  “Plenty of open spaces in the back to crawl out through,” Ruffy told him. The nose-heavy Beau had a reputation for turning into a death trap on ditchings. “The Jerry worked us over good. New tactic, using E-boats as a flak trap like that.”

  “Think it was Young Ernst?” Zack asked.

  “Most likely,” Ruffy answered. “The Intel types need to know about it. Maybe you got the bastard.”

  “Worry about that later,” Zack said. He checked the compass again. “We’re on a heading of one-four-zero degrees. Not good.”