by Phillip Rock
DAILY POST EXCLUSIVE
A. E. THAXTON WITH POLISH AIR FORCE
The young Polish fliers are dashing and superb pilots, but their planes are slow and obsolete. The Polish army is dashing as well, especially the cavalry, the huge squadrons of horse soldiers wheeling and thundering across the plains, pennons fluttering from the lance tips.
HITLER-STALIN PACT—WARSAW IN SHOCK
WAR FEARED IMMINENT
A. E. Thaxton, reporting by telephone Wednesday morning from Poland’s capital, described the reaction …
All roads reach an end somewhere. This road begins in the palace of Versailles in 1919 where frock-coated diplomats squabbled over the war spoils like so many shysters over an accident case. It ends in the harbor of the Free City of Danzig in the early morning hours of September 1, 1939. The old German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, which had last fired in anger during the battle of Jutland in 1916, trains its eleven-inch guns on a Polish army barracks and the firing switches are pulled. The thunder rolls across the dark water, past the sleeping city, and on and on over the fir forests and the Polish earth. The frontier with Germany throbs and shimmers with the flashes of a thousand guns and a new road begins, hammered out by the iron tread of the tanks.
IT IS QUIET in London. Sunday, the third of September. A balmy, sunny day. The cabinet has been meeting most of the night, and at nine o’clock in the morning instructs the British ambassador in Berlin to give the Germans two further hours in which to decide whether they will withdraw their troops from Poland or face war with Great Britain and France. The ultimatum is scorned. At eleven fifteen the prime minister broadcasts to the nation. There is no cheering in the streets as there was in 1914. Neither is there panic and despair—despite the inadvertent sounding of the air-raid sirens. A quiet, almost relieved acceptance of reality.
In the evening, the king speaks to his subjects over the radio in his painful way, struggling not to stammer. No one yet knows what iron grit and courage fills every pore of this shy, spare man. “… We can only do the right as we see the right and reverently commit the rest to God.”
And so be it.
A DAY IN OCTOBER 1939
THE NORWEGIAN FREIGHTER Hjelmeland, battered and salt rimed after a stormy crossing of the North Sea, docked in London with a cargo of dried herring, lumber, and canned sardines. Among the twenty-three passengers were nine Polish and Czech fighter pilots who had managed to make their way to Norway, and Albert Thaxton.
Albert pointed up the Thames. “The Tower of London.”
The Poles nodded solemnly. “Where they cut off the heads?” one of them asked.
“Once. A long time ago.”
A whip-thin Czech tried out his English. “The RAF is please …?”
“Anywhere,” he said in German. “Just tell the immigration officers who you are and what you are.”
He couldn’t leave it at that. They looked lost, bewildered. He showed his papers to an elderly man in uniform.
“Thaxton, eh?” the man said. “Welcome back. I read your stuff in the Post. Bloody good it was too.”
“Thanks.” He pointed off. “That group there. Poles and a couple of Czechs. Pilots. Shot down a dozen Jerry planes between them. They hate the Nazis more than you’ll ever know. Look after them will you? They want to join up.”
“Don’t worry about that, son. Two Polish destroyers came upriver last month. It’s like the ruddy Foreign Legion in old London now.”
He had lost all of his luggage when the Stukas had found the train twenty miles from Posen, howling down out of the dawn sky and dropping their bombs with such uncanny accuracy on the tracks ahead that the Polish officers had been shocked. A second wave of dive bombers had come for the train as soon as it stopped, plummeting steeply with their sirens shrieking. Gaunt birds of hell. He had spent the rest of his time in Poland in the clothes he had been wearing and with the money he had in his wallet—and a hundred-pound-note rolled tightly and sewn into a seam of his coat. The hundred pounds had paid for passage on a fishing boat from Gdynia to Sweden for him and six air force pilots. The British embassy in Stockholm had looked after him from there on and he now looked, riding in a taxi to Fleet Street, like a prosperous businessman.
“Take off a few days,” Jacob said. “Write your adventures. Stirring, Boy’s Weekly prose. Then get down to the War Office and see a Colonel Maitland. I’m having you accredited to the BEF. Maitland will brief you on all the dos and don’ts of the job. And by the way, I increased your salary while you were away.”
“I’m sure I’ll find a lot of ways to spend it in the trenches.”
Wartime London. Not much changed, he was thinking as he left the Post building and taxied on to Soho. A few buildings along the Strand with their fronts sandbagged. Windows crisscrossed with tape. The ubiquitous barrage balloons floating limply in the dull gray sky. A great many men and women in uniform. Otherwise no different from busy afternoons past. He thought of Warsaw burning under the bombs.
He sensed her presence the moment he reached the top of the stairs. Her perfumed bath powder. Her silk robe tossed across the foot of the bed. A teacup and saucer, a plate and glass in the draining rack in the kitchen sink. Food in the fridge. Her clothing in the closet.
“Well,” he murmured. “Curious are the ways.”
He got out of the heavy wool suit and into his work clothes of slacks and rumpled pullover. He had started typing the article Jacob wanted when he heard her close the front door and come up the stairs. He tilted back in his chair and waited for her. She came into the room, looking very lovely in a sweater and skirt, a Burberry over one shoulder like a cloak. There was a heavy briefcase in her hand which she tossed onto the couch with her coat.
“You’re wearing your hair longer,” he said.
“It gave me something to do—watching it grow.”
“Are you surprised to see me back?”
She shook her head, gazing at him. “Jacob’s been keeping me informed. He called me at work and I left early.”
“He didn’t say a word to me—about you.”
“I made him promise.”
“Are you back with Calthorpe?”
“No. I managed to snag a job with the Ministry of Information. The we-would-never-lie-to-you gang, we call it.” She walked up to him and cradled his face between her hands. “God, I’m glad you’re back.”
“My feelings about you, Jenny.”
Bending, she kissed him lightly on the lips. “Sun’s over the yardarm and we’re well stocked with gin.”
“We are?”
“Yes. Our home, Thax.”
It was getting dark in the room and she started toward the windows to draw the blackout curtains. He stood up before she could do so and took her into his arms. “I’ll be going away again. Covering the BEF in France.”
“I knew you would be.”
“I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.”
“Millions of men are saying that, darling. We’ll have to make the most of the time we have and not waste a second of it.”
“It seems so wrong to ask you to marry me now, Jenny.”
She draped her arms around his neck and pressed her body tightly against him. “Oh, Thax, it would be so terribly wrong if you didn’t.”
And the darkness fell over London, over the dim streets and the blacked-out houses. And far above the city a balloon rose trailing its snapped cable—higher and higher, its silver skin catching the last rays of the sun, glowing a dull orange until it faded from sight in the winter sky.
11
1940
The seven Colorado flying boats floated serenely at their moorings on the placid waters of San Diego Bay. They were painted a light blue-gray and bore the roundels of the Royal Air Force on fuselage and wings. The sight of airplanes with foreign markings had once caused people to stop and gawk, but the novelty was long past. England and France had been at war with Germany for nearly six months and San Diego had become one of the arsenals of the a
llies.
Colin Mackendric Ross drove his mother’s canary-yellow Packard convertible through the main gate of the Ross-Patterson Aircraft Company. The long corrugated-iron buildings of the old plant were silent and deserted—there was no Sunday shift—but a score of construction workers swarmed over the new buildings where the Colorado 2Bs, an amphibious version of the long-range patrol bomber, would soon be built.
“Wow,” he exclaimed to his mother, “they’re sure putting that baby up in a hurry.”
Alexandra said nothing in reply. Her eyes were on the line of planes in the Channel. It was a morning in early February, clear and dry with little wind. A few clouds drifting in from the sea. Perfect flying weather. Within an hour those planes would be thundering across the bay toward North Island, white spray feathering up behind them. Then they would rise like gulls, make a long, slow turn, and head southeast toward Pensacola. Then on to Londonderry in Northern Ireland via Bermuda and the Azores. Planes destined for the war. And her eldest son going with them.
“Did you pack the parcels?” she asked.
“That’s about the tenth time you’ve asked.”
“All right,” she snapped. “I’m asking again.”
“Yes, Mama,” he said quietly. “I packed them.” He drove slowly on to the administration building and parked the car alongside half a dozen others. Turning on the seat, he put an arm across his mother’s shoulders. “Please try to understand.”
She nodded grimly, not looking at him. “I do understand. That’s the awful part of it, Colin. I understand you perfectly.”
“It’s not blind patriotism … England, home and duty. None of that stuff. I just want to be part of this. I have a skill that they can use. If Derek can join up, I can.”
“It’s all a great adventure to you,” she said bitterly.
“That may be part of it. I won’t argue. Anyway, the way the war’s going at the moment they might call it off out of sheer boredom.”
“You don’t believe that and neither do I.”
“Okay, I don’t believe it. A Fred Allen joke. Look, Mama, I’m not a good pilot, I’m a goddamn good pilot. I’m going to be just fine.” He got out of the car and removed two large canvas duffel bags from the back seat. “Are you going to stick around and watch us take off?”
Alexandra slid over behind the wheel. “Maybe … maybe not.”
“Sure,” he grinned. He bent his great height and kissed her on the forehead. “If you drove off, I’d spot you on the road and buzz the car all the way to La Jolla.”
Her hand touched his cheek, lingered there. “I’ll go over to the tower and watch. Look after yourself. Please?”
“Like I was made of glass.”
The preflight briefing was held in the conference room next to James Ross’s office. It was conducted by a short, sandy-haired Englishman of forty-five named Fergus, a civilian sent to San Diego by the Air Ministry to test fly the planes and shepherd them home. Before the war, he had been the chief test pilot for an English manufacturer of large commercial flying boats. The other men in the room were American pilots hired for the ferry job. Colin was going along as a copilot and radio operator.
“Let’s keep together,” the Englishman said. “No straggling and no chummy chatter over the radios. The weather forecast for the next forty-eight hours looks quite good. Should be some heavy rains over Northern Ireland, but no storm fronts expected. All the ships are ticking away like hundred-guinea watches so I don’t anticipate any problems.”
“Where do we hit the Gulf?” someone asked.
“Corpus Christi. That should be marked on your maps.”
“Right. It is. Sorry.”
“Cheery-bye, then. See you in Pensacola for supper.”
As the men filed out of the room, he walked up to Colin. “Your father tells me you’re coming across to join up.”
“If they’ll take me.”
“They’ll do that all right.” He looked up at him, grinning. “You’ll be Pilot Officer Ross in no time, though God knows where you’ll find a uniform to fit.”
James walked slowly beside his stepson toward the dock where the motor launch was moored. He was nearing fifty, but was still as lean and wiry as he had been in his twenties, when he had been the Earl of Stanmore’s driver. His spectacular success in America had not changed him either. He still wore coveralls when at the plant, and he usually had grease on his hands.
“I’m sorry to see you going,” he said. “I’ll not pretend otherwise.”
“I know Mama’s upset.”
“She’d not be much of a mother if she weren’t. You know, lad, there’s more than one way to serve. They wouldn’t take me into the army in the last war. Said I was of more value to England building aero engines than mucking about in the trenches. I felt a proper slacker at first, but it was machines that whipped the Kaiser. It’ll be machines that cook Hitler’s goose in the end.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Jamie.”
“Some admirals I know feel it’s only a question of time before Japan jumps in. If that happens there’ll be a raft of planes being built on the West Coast and we’ll be needing good men to test them.”
“It’s not what I’m looking for.”
“I know. You have hot blood. I’m not trying to stop you, Colin, just make you aware that there are honorable and exciting alternatives to firing a gun.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned to Jamie before boarding the launch that would take the crews out to the planes. “You’re one heck of a father and a damn good man. Just in case I never told you before.”
He didn’t dare look back. He stood in the bow and stared fixedly ahead at the graceful twin-engine planes that in a matter of days from now would be carrying machine guns and depth bombs and flying operational patrols with RAF crews. The Ross-Patterson Colorados winging over the English Channel and the cold North Sea—a long way from sunny California.
RAIN SLASHED INTO the dark, sullen waters of Lough Foyle and slapped like buckshot on the curved metal roof of the Quonset hut. Through a small, steam-blurred window Colin could see a swampy wasteland dotted with similar huts and wood buildings. The bay could be seen in the distance, the seven Colorados and three deep-hulled RAF Sunderlands tied to buoys in the stream. It was the morning of his second day in Ireland and the rain had not let up for so much as a second. He was alone in what was facetiously called the “visiting dignitaries’ hotel.” The other pilots had left for Belfast where they would sail for New York on an American freighter.
He was scowling at the sodden landscape and wondering what the hell he was doing there when the door at the far end of the hut flew open, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. An RAF officer hurried inside, slamming the door behind him. The man plucked off his hat and shook the rain from it before clapping it back on his head at a raffish angle.
“You Ross?”
“That’s right.”
“Allison here.” He removed a rain-blackened coat to reveal the two bands of a flight lieutenant on the sleeves of his uniform. He gave the coat a shake and hung it on a peg beside the door. “Lord! It’s a bloody wonder kids in Ulster aren’t born with gills. Do you have anything worth drinking or must we swim over to the club?”
Colin waved a hand toward a row of cots. “The guys left half a bottle, but I don’t drink whisky.”
“Really? A week here would fix that, I can tell you.”
He was not much older than himself, Colin was thinking as he watched the man home in on the bottle and take a pull, but there was a weary, ageless quality about him. He looked like a man who had done a great deal of flying and little of it pleasant.
“Allison, you said?”
“Right. Kenneth Allison, Coastal Command. I’ll be flying one of those beauties of yours to England.”
“When?”
He took another long drink, then recorded the bottle and tossed it on a cot. “An hour or two. The weather chaps say we’re in for a break. Not much of one, but en
ough to tell the difference between sea and sky. Get out while the going’s good.” He straddled a chair and rested his chin on the top rung. “Fergus tells me your father made those boats.”
“That’s right. Stepfather, to be correct.”
“And that you’ve popped over to fly one for jolly old England.”
There was something mocking in the icy blue eyes. Colin tensed. “Fly Spits … if possible.”
“Of course. Spits. Everyone wants to fly those. Well, Ross, I don’t know what you’ll fly, or even if you will fly for the jolly old firm, but Uncle Fergus has persuaded me to give you a lift across.”
“He told me he’d try.”
“Tried and succeeded, chum. Quite against RAF regulations, you see, but as senior officer of the ferry detachment, I’m not above bending the old rules in a worthy cause. I’ll jot you down in the log as a civilian engineer employed by the manufacturer … making unexpected adjustments. Where are you heading for in Blighty?”
“London. Stay with my grandparents.”
“Oh? Bit of English blood in the Yank veins?”
“All of it.”
“Do tell? Welcome home, then.” He stood up abruptly, glancing at his wristwatch. “I’d better get my chaps briefed. You can fly with me if you’d like … number-two ship.”
“Fine. Ever fly a Colorado before?”
“No, chum … none of us have, but old Fergie explained the little oddities to us. If one can fly a Sunderland, one can fly anything.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Normally, yes … out of Loch Broom in Scotland. Long-range patrols. Western Approaches.” A shadow of bitterness crossed his face. “They may talk of the ‘Bore War’ over in France and the ‘phony’ war in the London press, but it’s bloody real on the North Atlantic.”
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ALLISON let him take over the controls as they crossed the English coast at Liverpool. A brace of Hurricanes burst through the overcast to have a look at them, waggled their wings, and then roared on ahead, barrel rolling before plunging back into the murk below.