The Crew

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘I’m just a bit worried about you, Mum, that’s all. Being here on your own, not knowing anybody. I won’t be able to get off the station to see you that much, and we only get leave every six weeks.’

  ‘I’m going to get a job. They told me in the village shop that they want extra help in the kitchens up at that big army camp over the way. Shift work for civilians.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of you going there.’

  ‘I can’t sit and twiddle my thumbs, can I? Not when everyone’s doing their bit.’

  He tried again. ‘But what about leaving it empty at home?’

  ‘The neighbours are keeping an eye on the house for me. And it’ll only be for six months, or so, won’t it? Just while you’re doing your tour.’

  ‘It depends,’ he said. ‘It could be longer or shorter. It’s according to how much we’re stood down, with bad weather and everything.’ He thought of something else, too. ‘The Germans might bomb the station. It’s not safe here for you, so near.’

  She looked at him across the table. ‘It’s not very safe for you either, is it, Charlie? If you can take risks, so can I.’

  He gave up then. There was going to be nothing he could say to persuade her to go back home to Bromley.

  It was dark when he left the cottage, and she came to the gate to see him off on his bike. There was a half moon and a whole lot of stars. He could hear the noise of a lone Lanc taxiing out on the airfield – some blokes doing a Night Flying Test.

  ‘Haven’t you got a front light, Charlie?’

  ‘Someone pinched it. Everything gets pinched if you don’t watch out. I can see enough by the moon. Just have to hope I don’t run into a copper.’ He gave her a hug and a kiss. ‘’Bye then, Mum. I’ll get over again as soon as I can.’

  ‘Are you – are you going off anywhere soon?’

  ‘I don’t know. They don’t tell us till the day.’ He swung his leg over the saddle. ‘Promise you won’t worry? I’ll be all right.’

  ‘I promise.’

  He started off slowly, trying to see his way ahead. Then she called out to him to wait and her footsteps hurried down the road after him.

  ‘You forgot Sam.’

  ‘Mum, I don’t think—’

  She was thrusting the bear at him. ‘He’ll look after you, Charlie. Bring you good luck.’

  He rode away in the darkness with the bear dangling by one arm from the handlebars.

  Three

  ‘THE FISH TASTED off at dinner, Miss Frost.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Mountjoy. I’ll speak to the chef about it.’

  ‘I insist on seeing Miss Hargreaves. She must be told.’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s not here at the moment, Mrs Mountjoy. She’s gone out.’

  She hadn’t, in fact. Miss Hargreaves seldom went out in the evenings at all. She spent them up in her private sitting-room, listening to the wireless, and with strict instructions that she was only to be disturbed if one of the guests died or the hotel caught fire.

  ‘Well, would you please inform me the minute that she returns.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Mrs Mountjoy.’

  ‘Fortunately, I only ate a small piece but when I told that useless head waiter about it, he didn’t seem to take the slightest notice. If you’re not careful you could have a food poisoning outbreak on your hands. It wouldn’t do the hotel any good at all.’

  ‘I’ll go and deal with it at once, Mrs Mountjoy.’

  ‘See that you do.’

  Honor watched the old woman waddle her way into the Residents’ Lounge, leaning heavily on her ebony stick. Mrs Mountjoy found something to complain about almost every day, in fact, complaining was probably the only thing that kept her alive. She appeared to be completely alone in the world or, if she had any relatives, they certainly never came to see her. If she hadn’t been such a difficult, cantankerous creature Honor might have felt sorry for her.

  She left the reception desk and walked across the hall towards the dining-room. So long as she didn’t have to hurry she could manage to walk so her limp hardly noticed.

  Cedric, the head waiter, who was probably even older than Mrs Mountjoy, was bumbling about while Peggy, the new waitress, was serving soup timidly to a table of RAF officers. One of them was teasing her, making her wobble the plate and spill some of the soup as she set it before him. In the kitchens, beyond the swing doors, the chef was furious at any suggestion that his plaice fillets were off. He waved one of them under Honor’s nose, swinging it by its slimy tail.

  ‘Fresh in this morning. The very idea!’

  She went back to the reception desk to find the phone ringing. ‘The Angel Hotel . . .’

  Somebody wanted to book a room and when she had dealt with that, Colonel Millis, the other elderly resident, announced that he had lost his room key, which meant a major search before it was discovered in his pocket.

  The grandfather clock in the hall struck eight. She was supposed to go off duty at six but it was sometimes as late as nine before she left. The advertisement had been for a receptionist/secretary, but the truth was that Miss Hargreaves had wanted a maid-of-all-work. She answered the telephone, took the bookings, typed the letters, made out the bills, ordered the provisions, did the laundry lists, saw to the black-out, wound the clocks, watered the potted plants, stoked the fires, served behind the bar, helped lay the tables, made up the staff wages, calmed down the chef, dealt with the complaints. Miss Hargreaves sat in her private sitting-room upstairs, issuing orders like the captain of a ship, while Honor ran about the decks. Well, limped about them.

  She was typing a letter when she heard the bombers. She stopped to listen to their distant drone, her fingers motionless on the keys, and thought of the men in them. It made her shudder to think of how they might have to die. She waited until the sound had died away before she went on typing.

  The target was Mannheim and they were carrying a four-thousand-pound cookie, three thousand-pounders and thirteen canisters of incendiaries. The route took them across the Thames and out over the Channel by Beachy Head. The chalk cliffs were unmistakable, so Piers must have done his sums right for a change. On the last trip, to Duisburg, he’d used the wrong Gee co-ordinates and they’d gone waltzing off in completely the wrong direction. It had taken them a long time to catch up with the bomber stream.

  He flicked down his mike switch. ‘Pilot to crew. Let’s have an intercom check, guys.’

  They all acknowledged, except Charlie.

  ‘Pilot to rear gunner. Can you hear me, Charlie?’

  ‘Sorry, skipper. Yes.’

  The kid always sounded self-conscious over the intercom – still wasn’t comfortable saying his bit. He’d better speak up a lot smarter than that in an emergency. Piers gave him a new course at Boulogne and they turned eastwards on the long leg to Mannheim. He scanned the luminous needles flickering on the dials in front of him and kept a sharp look-out for other aircraft, for the tell-tale blue glimmer from exhaust stubs that stopped you running into some other kite. Too bad it helped enemy night fighters as well. Whenever he caught sight of them on another bomber, glowing away like beckoning beacons, he thought, Christ, that’s what we look like. We’re over here, Jerry. Come and get us. You can’t miss.

  After three hours, the Rhine lay below instead of the Thames, equally identifiable in the clear, moonlit night. Jolly good show, Piers! Bang on! Simply spiffing! The expected searchlights were ahead, milk-white beams sweeping to and fro, and flak explosions sparkled in the sky. Kind of pretty, from a safe distance. No Jerry fighters to worry about: the gunners wouldn’t want to shoot down their own planes. But if the fighters don’t get you, the flak will, or the other way around.

  Still hard to believe this was for real: that down there a whole lot of folks were hell-bent on killing them. Nothing personal. It was all the same to them which British bomber they shot down, which crew they got. Nothing personal about the bombs they were going to drop on them, either.

  They’d b
een wallowing along bumpily in the wake turbulence of an aircraft when a sudden shoot of flame appeared ahead, streaming earthwards like a comet’s tail. He saw black twin-fins spiralling. A Lane. Jesus Christ, seven guys in there. It was for real, all right.

  He pressed his mike switch. Make it very cool and calm. Matter-of-fact. The tough skipper. ‘Lane going down on fire on the starboard bow. Log it, will you, navigator?’

  ‘Roger.’ Piers sounded shocked.

  Van strained his eyes but couldn’t see any parachutes. The comet was plunging fast, down and down and down, until it exploded far below in a big orange ball. Seven guys with no chance.

  They started their run-in, weaving through the flak bursts. Shell shrapnel rattled on the fuselage and the stink of explosive clogged his nostrils. K-King was rocking and shaking violently; he gripped the control wheel harder. Nothing, he thought, prepared you for this, for flying straight into hell. Nobody could give you a clue what it was like to have to serve yourself up on a platter to the Jerries. Piers’ mike clicked on, giving him a small course alteration, and he swung the wheel and touched the rudders, acknowledging. The Lane headed straight for the target.

  The flak was exploding all around them like some crazy Fourth of July party that had got way out of hand. Searchlight beams dazzled his eyes, wrecking his night vision. He flew the bomber as straight and level as he could and forced himself to concentrate on Stew’s instructions: to blot out everything else, including his own terror. Do exactly as Stew was telling him in his ears.

  ‘Left, left. Steady . . . Left, left . . . Holy shit! Dummy run. Sorry, skip. Have to go round again.’

  Christ almighty, Stew had screwed up, goddamn him! They’d gone over the target without dropping a single bomb, and now they had to go round and fly through all the fucking flak again. He made a wide circle, teeth gritted, eyes peeled for other Lanes, and began a second run. This time the flak was even worse; they were probably the main target of every Hun battery within range. He was almost beyond fear now. Almost calm. ‘Get rid of them this time, Stew.’

  ‘Left, left . . . steady, steady, steady . . . Bombs gone, skip! Bomb doors closed.’

  K-King, released from the heavy load of bombs, bobbed upwards, buoyant as a cork. Van closed the bomb doors and turned her hard to port, diving away from hell. They headed home to England.

  Piers was dog-tired but he couldn’t sleep. The noise of the engines was still ringing in his ears, but that wasn’t what was keeping him awake. It was the thought that he’d messed things up so badly on the way back. Everything had gone absolutely fine until after they had crossed the English coast. Then somehow it had gone all wrong, and the G-box lattice lines that should have guided them straight to Beningby had led them miles away. Actually, he had, of course. He must have misread the signals. Made a complete hash of it all yet again. In the end, the skipper had had to put down at another airfield and ask where they were. The chaps there had thought it was frightfully funny. The others had been really decent about it, considering they were all pretty wacked and should have been home ages before.

  Bert had clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Put it this way, mate, we’re just bloody glad to be back at all.’

  God, that was true enough. He hadn’t seen the flak or the searchlights, or any of it, closeted away behind his blackout curtain, but the Lane had been thrown about all over the place and it had been jolly uncomfortable and frightening until they’d got clear of things.

  He’d found out that the downed Lane he’d entered in the log had been B-Baker. He’d had a bit of a chin-wag in the locker room beforehand with their navigator who’d seemed a really decent type. When B-Baker’s crew had got off the crew bus at their kite, the nav had given him a wry sort of grin and a thumbs-up. He kept seeing his face and the grin . . . kept remembering exactly how he’d looked as he went. Blot it out. Don’t think about it, or about the shrapnel hits he’d noticed all over the fuselage of their own kite when they’d got back. It could have been them. Instead of lying safe and sound on his bed, back in England, he might just as easily have been a charred corpse lying somewhere in Germany. Or simply blown to bits with nothing left for anyone to find. God, stop thinking about it . . .

  Well, they’d all been scared – not just him. He’d heard the fear in their voices over the intercom. All of them, even Stew. The other crews hadn’t seemed to think it was a specially dicey trip, though. ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,’ one chap had said to him. ‘You wait.’

  After the de-briefing, he’d tackled Van as soon as they’d got back to the cubicle they shared in the officers’ hut. It was the only decent thing to do – to offer to get transferred. Give them the chance to get another navigator.

  Van, tugging off his tie, had brushed the suggestion aside. ‘Forget it, Piers, you were tired. We all were. None of us had been in the air that long before. We’re just rookies. Look at Stew’s dummy run. He screwed up like hell. But we’ll cut it better in time – I hope.’ With that, Van had fallen into his bed and gone straight to sleep, putting an end to any further discussion.

  He had been very tired, but it seemed a poor excuse. He’d be tired again on the next op, most likely, and he couldn’t keep letting them down. He’d simply got to do better.

  Piers closed his eyes. B-Baker’s navigator’s face was there again, grinning wryly.

  ‘You sneakin’ off, Charlie?’

  ‘Thought I’d just take a bike ride, Bert.’

  ‘Got a popsie tucked away somewhere, then?’

  ‘’Course not.’

  ‘No ’course not about it. You’re gettin’ a big boy now. Time you found out all about the birds an’ bees. Ain’t that right, Stew?’

  ‘Yeah . . . not your birds, though, sport. That sheila of yours has lost a sight too many feathers.’

  ‘Blimey, look who’s talkin’ . . .’

  No ops tonight and they were all in good moods. Stew had got a food parcel from home and was sharing it around: cans of condensed milk and meat and cheese, and bars of chocolate. ‘Long as it’s not kangaroo, mate,’ Bert had told him, inspecting a tin. They’d all been writing letters, or reading, or chatting, or arguing, and Charlie thought he’d be able to get away out of the hut without any of them really noticing. No such luck. They’d all stopped whatever they were doing now and were watching him as he went to get his cap out of his locker. He felt himself going red in the face.

  ‘I reckon it is a girl,’ said Bert, ‘’e’s blushin’. Red as a beetroot, ‘’e is. Who is she, Charlie? Hope it’s not Two-Ton-Tessie. She’ll flatten you like a bloomin’ pancake.’

  They all laughed loudly at that. The WAAF driver was three times his size and weighed about fifteen stone.

  ‘Come on, spill the beans, Charlie, boy,’ Stew flicked over the pages of one of his magazines full of naked women. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Bet it is Tessie an’ all.’ Bert was chortling away. ‘Cor, fancy our Charlie takin’ ’er on.’

  ‘Leave him alone, lads,’ Harry said. ‘Give him a bit of peace.’

  But he knew it was going to be hopeless to hide it from them. They were going to find out sooner or later and it might as well be sooner. He couldn’t help it if they pulled his leg and thought him a mummy’s boy. Better to tell them straight out. ‘It’s not a girl,’ he said. ‘It’s my mother. She’s rented a cottage just near. I’m going to see her.’

  There was silence in the hut and the four of them stared at him. Pins dropping could have been heard easy as anything. Let them laugh, he thought. I don’t care.

  ‘You taking the mickey?’ Stew looked incredulous.

  He shook his head.

  Jock said quietly, ‘She must care a lot about you. I reckon you’re a lucky lad.’

  ‘Can’t see my old woman doing that,’ Bert agreed.

  ‘Good on you, kid,’ Stew added, though more doubtfully. ‘Off you go.’

  He fumbled in the locker for his cap and as he did so Sam fell out of his hiding place onto
the floor. Harry, who was the nearest, picked up the teddy bear. There was another silence. ‘Yours, Charlie?’

  ‘Mum brought him with her,’ he said desperately. ‘She thought he’d bring good luck.’

  Harry held the bear aloft, showing him round the hut. ‘What do you say, lads? Let’s make him our mascot. Take him along with us.’

  There was unanimous agreement. Nobody seemed to care about the one ear and one eye.

  ‘That’s settled, then. Got a name, ’as he?’

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘Well, Sam’s one of us now,’ Harry announced. ‘And I reckon he’ll see us through.’

  The mustard had gone all lumpy. No matter how hard she stirred it, the lumps wouldn’t go away. Old Mr Cedric, the head waiter, wouldn’t notice because he was half-blind, not to mention him fancying a drop, but Miss Hargreaves would if she did one of her snap inspections, and the guests might complain, especially Mrs Mountjoy. She thought wildly of throwing the whole lot away, but you couldn’t do that with everything so scarce. Maybe if she went on stirring and stirring it would get better.

  Miss Frost came into the dining-room. ‘Is everything all right, Peggy? Do you want a hand with anything?’

  She liked Miss Frost. She was always helping out, and you could trust her not to sneak to Miss Hargreaves. It must be awful having a crooked foot like that, with people staring at you all the time.

  ‘It’s the mustard, miss. It’s gone lumpy.’

  ‘Let me see. Oh, dear . . . I think we’ll have to try getting rid of them with a whisk.’

  Miss Frost fetched a whisk and another bowl and, working with a little of the mustard mixture at a time, smoothed out the lumps like magic.