The Crew

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Mind if we walk along a bit?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Sure you’re up to it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was too cold to go far anyway and they turned towards the town and found a café open. Steamed-up windows, grubby glass-topped tables, some old slag behind the counter. But it was warmer inside.

  ‘My shout,’ he told Honor.

  The woman slopped the tea into the saucers as she poured.

  ‘Got any biscuits, or something?’

  She nodded towards a plate of curling sandwiches under a dome. ‘Only them there.’

  ‘That the best you can do?’

  She glared at him indignantly. ‘There’s a war on, you know.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ He carried the teas over to the table. ‘Thanks for showing me the beach.’

  ‘There are more of them along the coast. We could take a bus tomorrow . . . if you’d like.’

  ‘Too right, I’d like.’

  ‘It’s a pity you won’t see it in summer, but I expect you’ll have gone back to Australia by then.’

  ‘Doubt it.’ Probably another bloody tour, he thought, stirring his tea. Forget about going home. Don’t even think about it.

  ‘What will you do when the war’s over, Stew?’

  No harm in dreaming. ‘I know what I’d like to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Have a vineyard. Grow grapes. Make wine.’

  ‘In Australia. I thought that was only in Europe.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not any more. We’ve got the climate, see. I once worked for a man who’d planted a whole lot of vines – up north of Sydney. Beaut place. They were doing well. Making good wine. I reckon I’d like to have a shot at that some day. See if I can make a go of it. What do you think of the idea?’

  ‘I really don’t know anything about it, but it sounds exciting. Rather wonderful, to do something like that.’ She was drawing circles with her finger on the table top, round and round on the glass. Hardly ever looked at him direct now, he’d noticed. Wouldn’t meet his eyes. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

  He wondered what she’d say if he told her straight out how much he fancied her, about all those sinful things he’d been thinking? How much he was building his dreams round her? And he wondered what she really thought of him, beneath the Pommie smokescreen she put up. Sooner or later he was going to find out.

  It rained solidly for the next three days. Jesus, he thought, staring out of the sitting-room window, what a sodding awful climate it is.

  They went to the cinema in Newquay twice and walked some more in the rain and went to a couple of pubs where he knew he could have picked up any one of the girls hanging round the bar, easy as anything. With Honor, he bided his time, waiting for a chink to show in the armour. No luck. She was freezing him off. Keeping a safe distance. Making bloody sure he never got any chances. Doing a real Miss Iceberg.

  The rain stopped so they took the bus along the coast and walked down to one of the other beaches. The surf was even better there. My word, he thought, it’s almost as bloody good as Bondi.

  When it started to rain again they took refuge in a bus shelter. It was littered with empty packets of Smith’s crisps and fish and chip newspaper, and a used French letter that he kicked tactfully out of sight.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘The weather’s been awful for you.’

  ‘Well, it’s winter, isn’t it?’ He was trying to get his lighter to work and, as usual, the bloody thing was playing up.

  ‘I’ve got some matches.’ She took a box out of her handbag. ‘You really ought to get another lighter.’

  ‘It’s my lucky mascot. Can’t chuck it away yet. Not till the war’s over.’

  She struck the match and held it up close for him. Now that was a good sign, he thought, but don’t count on it. Instead of putting his cigarette to the flame he stepped forward and blew it out slowly, giving her a long look over the match.

  As soon as he kissed her he knew nobody’d been there before. Not even Postman’s Knock. She hadn’t a clue. Not the foggiest. She didn’t push him away, though – not at first. When she finally did, just as things were getting going nicely, he stopped at once.

  ‘Please, Stew . . .’

  ‘Sorry.’ He steadied his breathing. ‘Got carried away there.’

  ‘I don’t want you to think—’

  He retrieved the fag he’d dropped in the clinch. ‘I don’t think anything, Honor. Not a thing. Mind lighting me another match?’ But he knew he was in with a chance.

  After supper that evening – the last evening – she made some excuse and went off to bed early. She’d spent the whole time since the bus shelter not looking at him, but that didn’t worry him. He knew now that she fancied him too.

  The aunt got out a bottle of brandy, hidden away in a cupboard, and poured him a stiff tot. She was a great old girl, he thought. Must have been a real good-looker in her day. Still got nice legs and kept her figure. He might have gone for her himself when she was young. What was she now? Must be at least forty. Old enough to be his mother. Tough on her being a widow. He nodded towards a framed photo of a man in army uniform on her desk.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind my asking, but is that your husband?’

  ‘Yes, that’s David. He was killed in the First World War. In the trenches.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘I was, too. Distraught. We hardly had any time together after we were married – only a few months. One thing I learned was that in wartime people should make the very most of life while they can. Live every single day to the full.’

  ‘I’ll go along with that.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I thought you would, Stew. I wish Honor felt the same. She’s in love with you, you know.’

  ‘She tell you that?’

  ‘No, but I know my niece well enough. She’s had a dreary sort of life up to now. Very narrow. Very repressed. I expect you realize that.’

  ‘Yeah, I met her parents.’

  ‘It’s not just them. It’s her disability as well. She’s convinced it sets her apart. Puts men off. So she puts them off first, herself. You’re like a shining knight riding up on a white charger, hacking away the brambles to get to her.’

  ‘Strewth!’

  ‘A bit fanciful, I agree, but that’s how it strikes me. Have some more brandy?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She poured him another bloody great dollop. ‘I’m off to bed now. Will you turn the lights out?’

  ‘No fail.’

  At the door she turned. ‘Don’t bother about disturbing me when you come up, Stew. I sleep very deeply and never hear a sound.’

  He stared after her. Well, stone the bloody crows . . .

  When he tapped on Honor’s bedroom door it opened after a moment. She was standing there in a thin nightie and bare feet with her hair all loose. Nothing like Miss Iceberg at all. No point messing around. He remembered about being a flaming shining knight and scooped her up in his arms. He kicked the door shut behind him.

  ‘Stew, I haven’t ever—’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘No worries, sweetheart. I have.’

  Sixteen

  ‘THE TARGET FOR tonight, gentlemen, is Essen.’

  Bert’s stomach looped-the-loop. Not again. Back to the bloody Happy Valley. He stared disconsolately at the map. There were groans and mutters going on all around him in the briefing room. He looked at the nasty red patches of flak along the coast and the great big red splodge of the heavily defended Ruhr. The Jerries didn’t like you going anywhere near there, and they had vays of making you stop.

  ‘Heavy industry, arms manufacture, communications . . . We’ll be part of the first wave, supporting 8 Group’s Pathfinder Force . . . take-off eighteen-fifteen . . . the Met chaps tell me there’ll only be patchy cloud over the target and a full moon, so you’ll be able to spot it easily . . .’

  They’ll be able to spot us e
asily, too, Bert said to himself bitterly. He’d sooner a nice bit of thick cloud any time so’s the searchlights were buggered up.

  ‘. . . so, let’s put up a damned good show. Go out there tonight and rip the guts out of the Hun.’

  Enough to make anyone queasy and he always felt that on ops days anyway. The minute he saw their names on the board, his body got up to its tricks. Sometimes he almost convinced himself that he wasn’t well enough to fly. He’d feel hot and shivery like he was coming down with a bad dose of ’flu or something, and once he’d even come out in a rash. But in the end he always went. Well, he couldn’t let the others down, could he? Everyone knew it was bad luck to take a spare bod, and besides, the MO could spot a malingerer at twenty paces. When it came down to it, he was even more frightened of being thought windy than of going on the raid itself.

  The Nav Leader stood up, pointer in hand. ‘Assemble over Southwold at twelve thousand feet. Get up to eighteen thousand feet before you reach the yellow marker here on the Dutch coast . . . then turn towards the target. It’s a straight run down . . .’

  Bert’s mind wandered. He thought of Emerald. What the hell was he going to do about her? She was still going on at him about getting married. Still swore she was expecting. The thought of being tied to her for the rest of his life was horrible. Imagine being a husband and father by the time he was twenty! Staying in every night. Never being able to go out with the lads. No pints down the local. No swapping stories, no darts, no bloody fun at all. Stuck with a crying baby and Emerald nagging away. And no Victor.

  ‘. . . turn off the target and gain speed by losing height, but don’t go below ten thousand. The route is plotted to avoid flak concentration at Rotterdam on the way out and Amsterdam on the way back.’

  What about over the bloody target, Bert thought? Fat chance of avoiding that flak.

  The Intelligence Officer was up on his hind legs now. Bert didn’t like the bloke. He was too big for his boots and had a toff accent you could cut with a knife.

  ‘OK, cheps, we’re going to be bombing Essen tonight—’

  Bert joined heartily in the whistles and catcalls.

  ‘You’re going to be bombing Essen, I should say. Bomb aimers, some of you cheps are still dropping your bombs early, short of the target. Take a good look at these slides.’

  The lights went out and photos of a previous raid appeared on the screen.

  ‘See, bomb aimers, the bombs are landing further and further away from the centre as the raid goes on. Bad show. Some people call this creep-back. I call it wind-up. And I don’t want to see any of you cheps getting that tonight.’

  Bert took a peek at Stew. Blimey, Stew didn’t like that one bit. Face black as thunder. He was saying something to the skipper next to him, and it wouldn’t be anything you’d want your maiden aunt to hear.

  At the end of the briefing the Squadron CO gave them the usual pep talk. Bert could hardly see him for the fog of cigarette smoke.

  ‘Nothing to add, gentlemen, except let’s do our damnedest tonight. Stick to what you’ve been told, keep in the stream, and it’ll be a piece of cake. Set your watches. It’s sixteen-twenty-five . . . NOW. Good luck, all of you.’

  He didn’t fancy the flying supper much – not even the egg, and he always used to enjoy it, even the pre-op one. It wasn’t so much Essen, he thought, but Emerald that’d taken his appetite away. If she was on duty this evening he’d be bound to see her when he collected his brolly. No getting out of it. He wasn’t going without one.

  By a stroke of luck she was off, and the WAAF who handed over the parachute wouldn’t have tempted him if he’d been in the nick for forty years.

  He used a penknife to open his locker, having long since lost the key. Of course, someone had half-inched his gloves. Nothing for it but to beg, borrow or steal from somebody else. He emptied his pockets of anything handy for Jerry intelligence – bus tickets, cinema stubs and the like – and struggled into his flying suit and his heavy sheepskin boots. You could hardly turn round in the locker room for blokes zipping and buckling themselves in, getting all togged up like a lot of bloomin’ chorus girls backstage – except they were putting on a lot more clothes.

  ‘These yours, Bert?’ Charlie was holding out his gloves. ‘I found them mixed up with my things.’

  A likely story he would have said, if it hadn’t been Charlie, who’d never pinch anything from anyone. As he pulled his Mae West over his head, his sharp ears heard the familiar squeal of a crew bus brakes outside the hut.

  Your carriage awaits without, sire . . . prithee step yonder.

  Bert looped his harness straps over his shoulders and up between his legs and buckled them. He stuck his Fry’s Sandwich bar in a reachable pocket and picked up his ’chute pack. Essen, here we bloody come. May as well get it over with.

  They took off on time into a clear night sky. No delays or possible scrubs. No shilly-shallying. Straight out to the bomber, start up and go. Harry found that a lot easier on the nerves. No time for too many jitters, and after that you were too busy. He listened intently as they flew out over the North Sea. He always heard voices when he listened: the Pathfinders ahead sending out instructions, the Jerries gabbling away to each other, and sometimes the voices of men in bad trouble – lost or wounded or shot-up or low on fuel or plunging downwards out of control. Men asking for help when they were beyond it. Some of them screamed and yelled, but most of them sounded quite calm, as if they didn’t want to be a nuisance. He’d heard another wireless op who’d realized he and his crew were for it. Not to worry. There won’t be anything left to find . . .

  He’d be that glad when this tour was over. Maybe it was because he was older than the rest of them, but it was taking its toll. He felt sick to his soul. Sick of the whole horror of war. When it was over all he wanted to do was settle down somewhere and lead a nice, quiet, peaceful life. With Dorothy.

  Somehow he’d got to get up the courage to speak to her. Tell her how he felt. She seemed to quite like him or she’d never have knitted him the scarf, so maybe there was some hope. He’d got to find out. If the weather held they could have finished their tour in the next few days, which meant they’d all be going their separate ways. Charlie would be posted away and Dorothy would be going back home to Kent. He might never see her again.

  But first he ought to ask Charlie whether he minded. That was the right and proper thing to do. Only fair. He’d put it to him when they got back from Essen. Find a quiet moment to have a word.

  ‘Navigator to pilot. Twenty minutes to the Dutch coast.’

  ‘Roger, Piers. I’m trying to get some more height out of her.’

  This kite was sluggish as hell. Van had coaxed her up close to seventeen thousand – still way short of where they should have been. If she’d been R-Robert they’d have reached their height long ago, but R-Robert was being serviced so they’d been handed this bastard. She reminded him unpleasantly of S-Sugar and that trip to Duisburg.

  He’d wheedled another couple of hundred feet out of Z-Zebra by the time they crossed the coast and Piers had given him the final course for the target, but they were still beneath the stream. Bad news if they were there when the others started dropping their bombs. They’d soon know what it felt like to be flying in a Stirling if that happened: the low, slow Cinderella on mixed raids, drawing the worst of the flak and dodging the bombs raining down from above.

  ‘Flak ahead, skip.’ Stew, reporting from the front turret below.

  Van could see it, too. Firefly flickers in the distance, hundreds of them. This was going to be some party. They flew on towards the target.

  ‘Mid-upper to skipper, there’s a Lane dead above us.’ Bert’s voice was squeaky with horror.

  ‘OK, mid-upper. I can see her.’ He let the Lane above draw ahead and saw her bomb doors open and the five-hundred pounders dropping out, well clear. Then the heavy cookie followed, falling much slower and swinging straight towards them in a lazy arc. Jesus Christ! He flung Z-
Zebra to port as the four-thousand pounder sailed past on its way earthwards.

  Jock held up his hands with a couple of feet or so between the two.

  ‘That much, I reckon, skipper.’

  That much between seven men living and seven men dying. He gripped the control wheel and straightened out. Stew called him up. ‘Bomb aimer to pilot; ready skip?’

  ‘OK, Stew, let’s do it.’

  They dropped their bomb load on Essen and he dived Z-Zebra away from the target. They droned their way home without further trouble and crossed the coast in darkness. He was dead beat: forcing himself to keep awake and concentrating.

  They had to circle over Beningby with the other homecomers, waiting for another Lane that had been badly shot up to go first. He watched the faint blue glows from its exhausts as it went in to land. The guys in there would be saying their prayers. A bright stream of tracer streaked across the darkness, dazzling his eyes, and the blue glows exploded into fire. Control screeched in his ears.

  ‘Disperse! Disperse!’

  At the same moment Charlie yelled, ‘Enemy fighter, closing port.’

  Van wrenched Z-Zebra in a steep turn to starboard away from the drome, jinking and weaving violently. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another arc of tracer curve close by. Lanes were fleeing in all directions.

  ‘The bastards must’ve tailed us in,’ Jock said. ‘They got that crippled Lane.’

  ‘Rear gunner to pilot. Looks like they’re shooting up the drome, skipper. Several of them. Giving it a real pasting. I can see fires everywhere.’

  God, he thought, Catherine.

  Control diverted them to land at another station seventy miles away. He tried, but failed, to get through to Beningby and it wasn’t until the following day that they were able to return.

  The Jerry night fighters had left a real mess behind them. As well as the crippled Lane, they’d shot down three others and strafed the drome thoroughly, damaging the hangars and several buildings, including the Ops Block. Apart from the bomber crews killed or wounded, a couple of ground crew guys had copped it. No WAAFS had been hurt.