The Crew

by Margaret Mayhew

  Dorothy had found the place by chance. Biking along the road round the drome one day, she’d passed a bit of the station boundary where there was a thick patch of bushes as well as the barbed wire and hedge. She’d hidden the bike in the ditch and wriggled her way into the middle of the bushes so she could watch what was going on without being seen. It didn’t do to hang about the perimeter openly, or they might think she was a spy and arrest her.

  A bomber had been standing a few yards away from the boundary and men in overalls had been perched high up on scaffolding, working on one of its engines. She’d heard the clatter of tools, the high whine of an electric drill and their voices talking to each other. It was a Lancaster – she could tell that from the four engines and the shape of the tail.

  In spite of the cold she’d stayed there for a long time. The bomber had awed and fascinated her. It looked gigantic on the ground; the men like pygmies. Maybe it was Charlie’s bomber. Or one of the ones he flew in. Maybe it was D-Dog – the one his crew liked so much.

  The next day, after dark, when she heard them starting up at the drome, she got the bike out of the shed and rode round to the patch of bushes. The bomber was there again, standing in the moonlight. It looked even bigger: like some great black beast. Dorothy squeezed her way quietly into the bushes.

  She could see a faint glimmer of light in the cockpit and another in the turret at the front, and torch beams flashing about on the ground. She waited and after a while there was a whining sound followed by popping noises like small explosions, and then an angry snarl that turned into a great roar. One engine was going, the propeller blades blurring into a dark circle. Soon the next started up. When all four of them were roaring she had to stop her ears. The earth was vibrating, her body with it. The roaring settled to a steady beat and the bomber rolled forward and swung round, the tail end skewing towards her. She tried to see if it was Charlie in the rear turret but a hail of dust and dirt blew in her face. In any case, it would have been too dark to tell for sure.

  She watched the Lancaster turn onto the lighted pathway and rumble off into the distance.

  Other bombers were starting up all over the drome. Other great beasts stirring and setting forth from their lairs. She listened to them bellowing their way into battle.

  ‘Full power, Jock.’

  ‘Full power, skipper.’

  D-Dog, weighed down by her load of high explosives and incendiaries, guns and men and fuel, rose gallantly into the air.

  ‘Undercart up.’

  Jock’s hand was there at the ready. Van would have staked his life on it. Did stake his life on it. All their lives. They were a great double act now, he and Jock. Minimum talk, maximum efficiency. Clipped commands and responses. Perfectly attuned. It made him feel like a hell of a good pilot sometimes, until he reminded himself that Jock was a hell of a good flight engineer and that it took two to get a Lane safely off the ground. And safely down again.

  Van turned the bomber onto Piers’ course. The Merlins droned away sonorously in his ears and that was the way he liked it: to hear them all functioning loud and clear. Singing to him. Once, coming back from over Norway on a long, straight, ass-numbing course, he’d fallen asleep for a few seconds and woken up in a shit panic thinking the engines had all stopped – until he’d realized he’d only stopped hearing them.

  D-Dog went on climbing steadily. Jock, a bulky form in leather and sheepskin beside him, went on keeping a sharp eye for other aircraft. The only illumination in their confined, cockpit world came from the greenish flickering of the gauges before him and the eerie blue glimmer from the inner exhaust stubs outside.

  After thirty minutes Piers gave him a course alteration. The target was Hamburg and the attack was to be from the north-east. They would cross the Danish coast north of Heide towards Kiel and then head south-east for Lübeck and finally Hamburg.

  They always made it sound a cinch at briefing. A jolly old piece of cake. Pop over the North Sea to Denmark, chaps. Bear right and breeze on down to Lübeck and on to Hamburg . . . That sort of thing. We’re keeping you well away from the Jerries’ beastly old guns, taking the home team by surprise, so no problems until you get to the target, where it could get a bit noisy. Bitter comments from all over the briefing room. Once you’ve pulled the plug, push off smartly and nip back across the coast here between Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven. Casual tap, tap with the pointer. Home again in time for your eggs and bacon. Encouraging smile all round. Good show. Any questions?

  He’d caught Catherine’s eye but she hadn’t been smiling. She knew the score too well. As the crews had left the briefing room he’d detoured so he passed close to her. She’d been talking to one of the Intelligence guys but she’d mouthed the words good luck at him. That was about as far as he could get with her. Friendly words. Polite conversation. Distance kept. Very British. Come on, with her guy a POW, what the hell else did he expect from a girl like her?

  There’d been the usual send-off group by the runway – amorphous figures gathered in the darkness. Impossible to see more as D-Dog had roared past, but he’d had the feeling that she was there, watching and waving.

  He snapped on his mike switch. ‘Pilot to crew. Intercom check. Bomb aimer?’

  ‘OK, skip.’ Stew’s voice came back instantly. No flies on him.

  He called up the rest of the crew. All OK. Nobody’d blacked out with a faulty oxygen supply, or got shot up or fallen out without anyone noticing.

  The dark indented mass of the Danish peninsula showed up clearly ahead under the moon. As they crossed the coastline, Piers gave him the course for Kiel. So far, so good. No gun flashes from below. No night fighter trails across the sky, or none that could be seen.

  ‘Pilot to crew. Keep a sharp look-out for fighters.’

  No need to remind them but it was his job to nag.

  At Kiel they altered course again for Lübeck and then nosed south-west for Hamburg. As they approached the city a Brock’s benefit awaited them: searchlights and flak and flames and flares lighting up the sky.

  ‘Busy tonight,’ was Jock’s laconic comment.

  Pretty soon, D-Dog was getting tossed about and the fun began. They went straight into the hellfire and Stew started his bit. The effort of holding D-Dog steady made the sweat pour on Van. A searchlight beam swept over one wing, wavered and tracked back. Come on, Stew, for Chrissake. Those guys are onto us.

  ‘Bombs gone, skip. Bomb doors closed.’

  Van yanked at the bomb door lever and dived the Lancaster away from the target, away from that searing white beam of light. They headed east for the German coast. He swiped his gloved hand across his forehead. It sure didn’t get any easier.

  He’d just made a course correction from Piers when they were hit. D-Dog staggered and reared and lurched crazily. He wrenched at the control wheel. What the hell? A dark shape twisting away to port below gave him the answer. An enemy fighter had attacked them from beneath. A JU88 trick. Sneak under the belly where nobody can spot you and fire upwards with the roof-mounted gun. Go for the jugular. Sonofabitch!

  ‘Pilot to gunners. Enemy fighter rolling low to port. JU88. He got our wing. Watch for him coming back.’

  ‘I can see him, skip.’ Stew’s guns fired in murderous bursts from the front turret. ‘Out of range now, skip. He’s pissing off.’

  ‘OK, keep watching. He may be fooling. Pilot to crew, report any damage.’

  There was no damage aft. The port outer had taken the hit. He could see the broken prop blades, whirling uselessly. Jock shut the engine down. ‘He must have holed the port tanks badly, skipper. Got us right along the wing. We’re losing fuel fast.’

  ‘What about the auto seal?’

  ‘I reckon the holes are too big.’

  ‘How’s the port inner?’

  ‘Seems OK. And the starboard tanks are secure. We should be able to keep all three engines running if we cross-feed the starboards from the damaged tanks with the booster pumps and use up what’s left there firs
t. Then cross-feed the port.’

  ‘OK, Jock. Let’s try it. Pilot to gunners. Any sign of that guy?’

  ‘Bomb aimer here, skip. Can’t see the fucking bastard anywhere.’

  ‘Mid-upper to pilot. Can’t see him neither.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Dead sure.’ Bert sounded offended.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Nothing back here, skipper. Very sorry I didn’t spot him before.’

  ‘You’d no chance, Charlie. None of us did. He came up beneath us. I’m going to tip the wings; try and see what’s happening underneath. Take a good look.’

  D-Dog responded obediently but there was no sign of the JU88.

  ‘Must’ve gone home for breakfast,’ Bert said.

  Maybe that’s just what he’d done. Maybe he was out of ammo, or short of fuel. Otherwise the guy would have made another run to be sure of finishing them off. Unless he thought he’d done that already . . .

  He looked down at the moonlit landscape of northern Germany – no lights to be seen, just the silver ribbon of a river far below, winding towards the sea. Going their way. But the enemy coast was still seventy miles distant and England three hundred miles across an icy and very unfriendly North Sea.

  They flew on.

  ‘Port inner’s starting to over-heat, skipper.’ Jock rapped the gauge with his knuckles.

  Holy shit! Come on D-Dog. Give us a break. Maybe she didn’t hear him. Maybe she hurt too much to care. The gauge needle went on climbing through the roof.

  ‘We’ll have to shut it down, skipper. No choice.’

  D-Dog suddenly stopped being docile and acted like she was a tired and stubborn old lady with the ague who’d had a lot too much to drink. She staggered along lopsidedly, shaking all over, and it took all Van’s strength, using full rudder and aileron trim, to keep the port wing up. The two remaining starboard engines kept tugging her round, and if he wasn’t bloody careful they’d be flying in circles going up their own ass. He had to keep his right foot pressed hard on the rudder pedal to stop her turning. Pretty soon his legs and arms were aching and though he was managing to keep D-Dog more or less straight and level, they were losing height steadily. The land below was looking a whole lot closer now; he could make out the shape of fields and a line of pinpricks of light that probably belonged to an enemy army convoy on the move.

  ‘Pilot to navigator. How far to the coast, Piers?’

  ‘Eighteen miles, skipper.’

  And after that, the sea.

  ‘Do you reckon we can make it across, Jock?’

  ‘Fuel’s not going to last. Not at the rate we’re having to use it to keep her in the air. We lost too much from those damaged tanks. I’d say we might get three-quarters of the way – if we’re lucky.’

  OK, so it was a simple decision: hit the silk now or ditch later. He snapped on his mike.

  ‘Pilot to crew. Looks like we’re not going to make it back. Not all the way. You guys have two straight choices. Bale out now, while we’re still over land, or we can ditch as close to England as I can take her and hope we get picked up by Air Sea Rescue.’

  ‘Bomb aimer here. I’m not fucking spending the rest of the war behind the fucking wire, skip. Let’s head for home and take our chance at getting picked up by our own blokes, not the fucking Jerries.’ Spoken like a true-blue Aussie.

  ‘I’m coming too, skip.’ That was Bert.

  ‘I absolutely agree.’ Piers, of course.

  ‘Aye, me too.’ Harry.

  ‘Charlie? What do you want to do?’

  ‘Stay with the rest of you, skipper.’

  Good kid. All alone back there. Probably shit scared.

  ‘What do you say, Jock?’

  ‘Same as the others.’ Steady as a rock beside him. Eyes glued to the gauges.

  ‘OK. If that’s the way you all want it, we’ll go for it. Get as far across as we can and I’ll try and get her down in one piece. Harry, start sending a Mayday. Tell them we’ll be ditching and we’ll give them our exact position.’

  He was soaked in sweat now and his legs and arms hurt like hell. Jesus, in another hour, or whatever time they’d got left in the air, he’d have run out of the strength to get her down any way at all. They’d had crew ditching drills at the conversion course, climbing in and out of a rubber dinghy in the local swimming baths. Nothing like the real thing. And landing a bomber on the open sea in mid-winter wasn’t something you could rehearse. No circuits. No runways. Nobody helping from the ground. He could screw up so badly they none of them had a chance. And these guys were counting on him. If he’d’ve been them he’d have got out right now.

  As they approached the German coast, a bright arc of tracer curved upwards at them. Some Hun coastal battery had a bead on them and at this height and speed they were a sitting duck. Nothing to be done but keep a-going. He hauled the bomber back to level flight yet again and they flew on through the barrage. The Jerry gunners must have been lousy shots, though, because they missed every time and D-Dog escaped out over the North Sea.

  The vast expanse of water glinted in the moonlight. No way of telling how bad it was down there. Landing on a millpond in broad daylight would be a bastard, let alone on a rough sea in darkness.

  His right leg and foot ached so badly now, he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up enough rudder pressure to hold D-Dog on course. Hell, he had to. If he didn’t keep her straight they could come down anywhere. They’d got to be on course, at the closest possible point to the English coast to stand a cat’s chance of getting picked up. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

  ‘Pilot to crew. We need to lose some weight, guys. Chuck out every damn thing you can. Guns, ammo, flares . . . Stew, get rid of the bomb sight. The lighter we are, the further we’ll go.’

  The altimeter needle was creeping round anti-clockwise. At this rate they’d be down in the drink before they ran out of juice.

  ‘Looks like the starboard inner’s starting to overheat, skipper.’ Jock rapped the gauge with his knuckles.

  Holy shit, if they had to shut another down they might as well forget the whole idea. He wouldn’t have a prayer of getting her down OK on one engine. They’d be dead men.

  ‘Do what you can, Jock. Let’s get as far as we can.’

  Crazy how calm his own voice sounded! Same as Jock’s. Like they were out on some routine crosscountry. D-Dog’s nose was starting to swing round again; he forced his tortured muscles to get her back on course. Come on D-Dog. Give us a break, for God’s sake.

  She must have heard him this time and cared after all, because the starboard inner needle stayed where it was instead of climbing through the roof. They flew on some more vital miles.

  ‘About another twenty minutes, skip. Not more.’

  ‘OK, Jock. How far to the English coast, Piers?’

  ‘A hundred and twenty-three miles, skipper.’

  A whole lot of North Sea still between them and home. Too much. Much too much. Piers was giving their latest position to Harry but how in hell was any rescue launch going to get to them before they drowned or froze to death?

  He could see white wave caps clearly now. Jesus Christ, that meant a Force four wind at least. Some guy who’d actually ditched once had told him it was like flying into a stone wall when you hit the waves. He wasn’t going to be able to do it. Not a hope. D-Dog would break up on impact, or nose-dive and keep on going down.

  ‘Pilot to crew. Crash positions. Keep sending our position, Harry.’

  ‘Roger, skipper.’

  Jock would stay in the cockpit with him, while the rest of them braced themselves against the main spar.

  ‘Fifteen more minutes, skipper.’

  ‘OK, Jock.’

  ‘You’ll do it fine.’ Jock’s head was turned to him, nodding. He wondered if the others felt as confident; he sure didn’t. His heart was pounding, his mouth dry.

  ‘Got some gum, Jock?’

  He chewed on the stick of Wrigleys his
flight engineer had passed him. Tried to kid himself that Jock was right. He’d got power still – so long as he didn’t leave it until too late. He could choose his moment. He brought D-Dog down in a long, shallow, level approach, tail well down, slow as he could. The same guy who’d told him about the brick wall had said something about ditching along the swell, not across it. Or was it the other way round? Shit! Why the hell hadn’t he paid more attention?

  ‘Five more minutes, skipper. Mebbe less.’

  ‘Pilot to crew. Standby for ditching.’

  The port wing was dipping again and he summoned all his remaining strength to bring it up. The water was a black foam-flecked heaving mass coming at them fast. No hope of judging it properly. All he could do was his best.

  Bert was praying – or what passed for it. Christ all-bloody-mighty, get us down in one piece . . . He’d never been much for God and all that stuff, but they needed some help from somewhere now. And getting down all right was only the start. They had to be able to get out of the hatches and the dinghy had to inflate. And if he fell in the water he’d better hope his Mae West worked because he couldn’t bloody well swim a stroke. Never learned. He’d gone to the baths a few times when he was a kid, but he’d never fancied it after someone had pushed him in and then kept ducking him. If it hadn’t been for the bastard who’d done that he might have stuck at it. Too late, now.

  D-Dog was rocking like a rowing-boat, like the skipper couldn’t hold her any more. Bloody hell, he’d never do it. Might as well face it, they were for it this time. This was going to be the Big Chop. He wondered if Emerald would mind a lot, or if she’d just find herself another bloke. And what about poor old Victor? Who’d look after him? Not Emerald. Not bloody likely. Still, he’d be a lot worse off if he’d brought him on this op, like that other time. The Committee of Adjustment blokes’d probably let him go free. Pity he wouldn’t be around to see their faces when they opened the shoebox.

  D-Dog had stopped rocking and felt like she was just hanging in the air – like she did when they were about to touch down on land. This was IT. Please God, help us. Don’t let us die. Bloody well help us.