Fighters Up

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  That was all very well ... but the two Spits with not one round of ammo between them still had to cover many miles to the coast ... and Jerry fighters would have been scrambled to catch them ...

  “Aston ... One-Eight ... I’ll draw them off ...”

  “Watch it, One-Six.”

  Aston made no contribution except to say “Close up, One-Eight ... going down ...”

  They couldn’t go much lower ... unless Northam had it in mind to put his wheels down and drive back to the coast along the main road ... Howard smiled at the notion.

  He saw the other two dip into a valley and weave along an avenue that led up to a château ... he hoped they wouldn’t fly straight into it ...

  Now for this Jerry sod of mine ... He had a Spitfire V that had been delivered from the factory only three days ago. It was holding its own with the 190, at this level. He would have to do something desperate and dicey to shake the Jerry off ...

  His chance came while he weaved and switchbacked and Thorwald, in a temper that was spoiling his judgment and aim, wasted ammunition on short bursts at him. The ground fell away into a deep basin, a depression in the downland. Instead of following the slope, Howard held his present altitude. Thorwald, wrongly anticipating that he would dive, did so himself ... and passed below Howard as Howard, seeing what he was doing, in his mirror, throttled back.

  At less than fifty yards range, Howard put a withering short burst into Thorwald’s Focke-Wulf. He knew that his shells and bullets would be blocked by the steel plate behind the pilot if he aimed at the cockpit. He sighted on the port wing. His last remaining shells and several pounds of De Wild incendiary bullets blasted holes in the three-bag fuel tanks in the wing. Petrol gushed out. The self-sealing tanks were not proof against shells. The 190 caught fire and the whole wing was enveloped in flames and smoke. Smoke billowed all over the cockpit.

  He’ll need to fly on his instruments! Howard’s callous thought came as the 190 ploughed into the ground and burst asunder.

  He thought he caught a glimpse of a burning, limbless and headless torso tossed out of the inferno.

  “Aston from One-Six ... where are you?”

  “In cloud ... angels fifteen ... about five miles inland ... east of Trouville ... some One-O-Nines buzzing about waiting for us ... One-Eight with me ... over.”

  “I’ll try to join ... one bandit down ... flamer ... I’ve got a little ammo ... can you climb above cloud so I can see you?”

  “Call when you think you’ve found the cloud ... look out for bandits above. Out.”

  Climbing, Howard made straight for the small bank of cloud in which he thought the others must be hiding. He hoped they were keeping well separated and at different heights. One collision was enough for that day.

  From a couple of miles’ distance he called again.

  “Climbing out,” Northam told him. “See you on top, One-Eight.”

  Howard saw them emerge from different ends of the cloud, at an interval of some twenty seconds.

  “I can see you.”

  “Join up.”

  But the enemy had other ideas. A pair of 109Fs was slanting down and Howard opened fire at the leader, who promptly thought better of it and broke away. All Howard’s ammunition was spent.

  Northam ordered them to dive independently to sea level and make their own way home.

  They had no alternative except to try to form up again below cloud as they made for the sea, hoping to skim home close above its surface.

  They still had to steer well clear of Le Havre, the most heavily defended port on the Channel coast. And, if they dodged the flak, there would be hunting fighters to evade.

  What the devil had brought Northam in on the Rhubarb, anyway? Howard asked himself the question and, sourly, answered it without hesitation. The rotten so-and-so still doesn’t trust me. He still wants to catch me out.

  He began to laugh. If anyone had been caught out that morning, it was Group Captain A.S.T. Northam, D.S.O., D.F.C.

  But if I know him, he mused, and I certainly do, he won’t even thank me for saving his bacon. Saving his bacon? An apt phrase: the man was a pig and nothing, it seemed would ever change that. I wish I had let Jerry make cold ham of him, after all.

  Fourteen

  It was breakfast time when Howard landed, but Kennard, Bisto Lambert and every other pilot on the squadron had either gone to the dining-room early and bolted his food, or gone without. They were all out at dispersal, sergeants included. Wing Commander Reid, who lived in a rented house off camp with his wife, was there too.

  Howard had sometimes had fanciful ideas of the impression that upturned faces made en masse. Flying over a crowd which was looking up to watch an air display had seemed to him somewhat like looking down at a field of daisies. No wonder troops were told never to look up when enemy aircraft appeared overhead: however well camouflaged they might be, if their faces were not covered or darkened with burned cork, they were glaring white when seen from the air.

  There were many reasons why people looked up at the approach of aircraft. At times it was ghoulish interest in the prospect of seeing a crash on landing; or dead and wounded crews being dragged out. At others it was because they were riveted by a display of aerobatics. Occasionally it was anxiety for the safety of a friend or comrade. He hoped that the faces he saw, first as a pale blur and then as individual small blobs, were worried about him rather than anticipating a calamity.

  He knew that the others must have returned already, so he must be the sole focus of interest; and concern, perhaps.

  He could identify Megson, but not the Group Captain. Both of them had changed radio channels soon after he last spoke to them. On the two guard frequencies, Command and Group listened out all round the clock for emergency calls. Had there been one?

  Bloody No-Balls Northam is fireproof, he grumbled to himself. Typical of him to clear off and guzzle his brekker, regardless of my not being back yet. That’s undoubtedly why the blighter isn’t there.

  There were groups of spectators at each of the other squadron dispersals, on the mess steps and at other places around the camp. Vultures, he thought, with amusement. He had stood watching for a late return often enough, himself.

  He greased the Spit onto the grass, taxied to his blast pen, switched of the engine, and met the gaze of his fitter, who had leaped onto the port wing.

  “All right, sir?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “We heard you’d bagged one, sir. Well done.”

  “I don’t see the Group Captain around.”

  “No, sir.” There was no regret in the fitter’s tone. His eyes, in fact, brightened with a touch of malice.

  Howard, despite his cool feelings towards his station commander, felt the same jolt of pity and anger as he always felt when a friend was missing. He climbed out hurriedly.

  Kennard said “Fit, Boost?”

  “Yes, thanks, sir.” He looked across at Megson.

  “Hi.”

  “You landed in one piece, then, Meg.”

  “Sure did.”

  Wing Commander Reid said “Good show, Boost. I’m afraid the Group Captain had to ditch. He took a short cut, to arrive on target at the same time as you others: unfortunately he felt he could dispense with drop tanks.” It was hard to tell whether Reid’s bland inscrutable manner masked glee at Northam’s miscalculation, rashness even, or whether he was hiding tortured feelings of compassion. Howard opted for the former. He did not conceive of the wing leader as a type who would harbour tortured feelings for anyone of Group Captain Northam’s generally unprepossessing nature.

  “Ran out of fuel.” Uncontrollably, Howard started to laugh.

  “Yes. I gather from Bisto and Squadron Leader Kennard that this isn’t the first time. And not the first time, either, that you’ve ... er ... lent him a hand.”

  Howard thought it wise to ignore this reference to that other Northam ditching in the old days. “Did they get a decent fix on him, sir?”

&nbs
p; “Unfortunately not. He was too low.”

  “A Walrus has gone out, escorted by a pair of Spits,” said Kennard.

  “I was ‘way behind him,” Megson said. “Couldn’t stay with him. I guess he thought that, unarmed, we’d both better beat it as fast as we could. Reckon he burned up too much gas. If he’d stayed with me, I’d have been able to climb and transmit for fix over his position. As it was, I couldn’t even see his dinghy. I could have climbed easily, seeing I had plenty of gas, what with the drop tanks.”

  The Intelligence officer was hovering, clipboard in hand, to take Howard’s combat report.

  Kennard waved him away. “Hang on, Spy. I don’t think Boost will pay much attention on an empty stomach. Let’s all go to the mess and he can tell us about it over his bacon and eggs.”

  “I’ve got most of it from Meg, anyway, sir.” The “spy” was a reasonable man, a house tutor who had been much loved by his charges, and unfailingly sympathetic with the pilots.

  “For you, Spy,” Howard told him, “I shall bare my soul. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but. But first let me get outside a plate of brekker.”

  Driving to the mess in Wing Commander Reid’s car, with Kennard and Megson, Howard strove to dredge up some compassion for Northam’s plight. He found it impossible.

  He muttered to Megson “Groupie stuck his neck out, trying to be bloody awkward with me; as usual. Well, I’m nice and dry and warm now, and he’s ...”

  Megson grinned, picturing a soaking wet Northam, seasick and cold in a pitching dinghy on the Channel chop, his big moustache saturated and drooping.

  That was, if he had survived the ditching. But he had done it before and got away with it: Boost said he did a wizard job, that other time. No reason why he shouldn’t have brought it off again.

  “What are you two muttering about?” asked Reid.

  “Nothing, sir. Just saying that the Group Captain probably wished he’d carried long range tanks.”

  Evidently the wing leader did not feel that any tactful rejoinder was possible. He changed the subject. “Meg tells me you got one for sure and one damaged, Boost.”

  “Yes, sir. And I got another on the way back. Chap who chased me when we left the target.”

  Megson said “Good show.”

  “Meg says you drew two of them off him and the Group Captain,” said Kennard.

  “I was the only one who had any ammo, sir.”

  “Pity about Michel and Oddy.”

  “Bound to happen sometime, sir, the way they always went berserk on any do. But I’m not happy about what the Group Captain’s going to say about it. He’ll think I’m to blame ... error of leadership ... he warned me about collision risk before we took off.”

  “I don’t think you need worry about what the Group Captain will say, Boost.” Reid’s voice had become serious. “From the damage you appear to have done, the operation was justified.”

  In other words, Northam had thought it an unwise one and had gone along to see it fail and Howard make a fool of himself for being talked into it by two unstable foreigners.

  “I’m glad you think that, sir.”

  “From what we’ve heard already from Megson, and from the evidence we expect to get from your films and a P.R. that’s already gone out, Squadron Leader Kennard is going to put you up for a bar to your D.F.C. and put Meg up for a D.F.C. I shall be pleased to recommend both.

  “It takes into account the two you hacked down yesterday, Boost; and your half-dozen earlier ones, Meg.”

  “Thank you, “ said Howard.

  “Gee! Thanks, sir ... my folks’ll be chuffed.”

  “Don’t count on it, either of you,” Reid warned. “One can’t take it for granted that even the strongest recommendations will be granted. So I wanted you both to know that your squadron commander and I both agree you have deserved it.”

  ***

  The squadron was released at five-o’clock while the other two remained at 30 minutes until sunset. Howard went to the mess in the squadron commander’s car with Bisto and Megson. A random thought passed through his head about the days when he used to dread having to cycle all the way to dispersals and back with his hearty flight commander, Jaape Krieger. Their squadron’s dispersal had been the furthest from the mess and a little of Jaape’s earnest plodding conversation went a long way: it had always made the ride seem twice the distance. The last he had heard of Krieger, he was a squadron leader with a D.S.O., commanding Hurricanes in North Africa. He wondered if Kreiger was cycling to and fro through the sand.

  “See you in the bar,” Kennard said as they separated.

  “Not me.”

  Kennard looked incredulous. “Say again.”

  Howard looked bashful. “Going out tonight, Bobby.”

  “Poodle-faking! I’m surprised at you, Boost.” A knowing smile spread across Kennard’s pleasant features. “It’s that little blonde job you were shooting a line at, at the Naafi hop the other night, I’ll bet.”

  Howard grinned and kept the reply to himself. “See you later ... about eleven ... maybe.”

  “You damn well report to me in the bar at twenty-three hundred, or I’ll regard it as dereliction of duty.”

  “Yes, sir.” Still grinning, Howard made for his room.

  An hour later, bathed and in his best blue, he handed Pamela into his car. She smelt agreeably of bath salts and scented soap: both rarer than rubies, in wartime. He sniffed appreciatively. “You must know a friendly chemist.”

  “I don’t, but Mummy does.” She sounded happy about it. She hesitated, looking at him. “I haven’t heard any gen since I came off watch: any news of the Group Captain?”

  “No.”

  “Poor man.” Her voice faltered. She was evidently a tender-hearted girl. One thing was certain: she didn’t know Groupie as well as he did ... or a lot of other people.

  “H’m. Bad show ... must have mistimed his ditching ... or been scooped up by Jerry ... Meg thinks he must have ditched pretty close to the French coast.”

  “I do hope so.”

  And I don’t care one way or the other, Howard thought. He said, trying not to show his indifference, “They’ll keep searching until it’s dark, anyway.”

  She smiled, banishing the distressing topic. “And congratulations to you ... again.”

  “Just luck.”

  She fell silent, looking sad. He knew she was thinking about Oddy and Michel, and gave her full marks for her discretion in not alluding to them.

  “Which flick d’you want to see?” It was his turn to change the subject.

  They held hands in the cinema and lingered over dinner in the town’s best pub. The scanty rationed meal seemed like a feast to Howard in her company. He was glad he had made friends with her. In the few hours they had spent together he had found himself drawn to her more closely than usual in the earliest stages of acquaintanceship with a girl.

  Perhaps I’m becoming more susceptible, he wondered. It’s so long since I knew a girl long enough to take her out more than half a dozen times. He hadn’t met anyone in the six months he spent at O.T.U. who had interested him; except that W.A.A.F. officer, but she had preferred someone else: predictably, a squadron leader.

  Contentment, he thought. It’s a strange state of mind to expect to find while there’s a war on. But presumably there are degrees of contentment and I might as well strive for as much as I can manage to find. He was feeling cheered, if not strictly contented, and that would serve for the time being. Pamela seemed to be more than enjoying herself: her diffident concern for him, her unintrusive questions about his family life and his interests, were not, he felt sure, assumed.

  It would be foolish to elaborate on what he thought he already felt towards her and what he conjectured that she felt for him. But knowing her would make his life at Monkston even more agreeable than it already was, with his status on the squadron - the whole wing, indeed, with his four kills in two days - and a good type like Bobby Kennard as Boss; and Bunn
y Reid as a gifted and good-natured leader.

  And with Northam off his back. But he quashed that unworthy thought at once.

  He stopped the car near her quarters. He turned towards her and she moved to face him. He kissed her and she responded as warmly as he had dared hope. He asked her to go out with him again on her next stand-off and she said she would.

  There was a roar of ribald greeting when he went into the mess bar.

  The next day the air-sea search for Northam was abandoned and he was reported missing.

  Spitfires from each of the squadrons had searched continuously in the area where it was known he must have put down on the Channel, two Walrus amphibians had scoured it at low level. No trace had been found. It was concluded that his Spitfire must, as nearly always happened, have dived beneath the surface instead of floating on it for a few seconds. It had probably somersaulted onto its back when the air intake that protruded beneath its nose had snagged in the water. He must have been trapped and drowned; if he had survived the impact without breaking his neck from whiplash.

  The fine weather that had enabled the long search to be made without a break also favoured ceaseless offensive fighter operations against enemy-occupied France, Belgium and Holland by day. From its base in Sussex, the wing was not called on for the two more distant countries. On a sunny afternoon, less than 36 hours after he had taken off for the Rhubarb that had provided the fatal invitation to Northam’s vindictiveness, Howard was once again orbiting Beachy Head in a whirligig of Spitfires, in three layers, hurtling round alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise. Once again the Polish wing had hurled itself into the maelstrom with total disregard for its own safety and everyone else’s.

  Once again nine Blenheims appeared and with apparent nervousness inserted themselves into their allotted position. Once again the whole aerial armada of nearly 200 aircraft set course for France.

  Familiarity did not breed contempt, nor did the self-confidence that came from long experience bring boredom. Howard felt as alert as though he were a novice fearfully aware that his life would be forfeit if he allowed his concentration and his search for enemy fighters to lapse for as long as two seconds. That, after nearly three years of warfare, was the proven time it needed for one fighter pilot to surprise another and shoot him down.