Nor the Years Condemn

by Justin Sheedy

  The crowd in Cogers seemed to have swelled, the place now packed utterly. Lucky to have got their spot when they had, Quinn observed, though how they’d ever get another beer, he couldn’t imagine. He noticed they were playing that new singer again: He was good, Quinn thought. American, distinctive voice, Frank something…

  ‘Anyhow, Daniel… When do you join your squadron then?’

  ‘In a few days. Hornchurch.’

  ‘122 Squadron…’ Lambert followed.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Quinn grinned at an almighty crash of glasses on the far side of the room and subsequent cheering.

  ‘And 122 fly Spitfire Mark Vs,’ said Lambert.

  ‘Luckily for me…’ Quinn could see from the look in Lambert’s eyes that he, for one, did not think so.

  ‘The latest German fighter, Daniel, is called a Focke-Wulf 190…’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘In the Mossie, we can out-run them. In a Spit V, you can’t.’

  *

  Back at the Strand Palace, Quinn made his way up the stairs, through the revolving door, towards the lifts.

  ‘I trust sir has had a pleasant day?’ offered the concierge as Quinn passed.

  ‘Fine, thanks…’ Quinn was struck with a thought, stopped, and turned back to the man. ‘Do you have any maps here?’

  ‘We have an abundance, sir. Travellers maps?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of the Continent, sir?’

  *

  Dinner time came and went. Quinn couldn’t think of food.

  He climbed into bed, turned out the bedside lamp, only to find he couldn’t sleep. Not even thoughts of Victoria could take his mind off Lambert’s words, which he turned over and over in his mind.

  Switching the lamp back on, he got up, and crossed the carpet to the desk. He unfolded the Michelin map of Northern France once again, and carefully spread it out on the floor. He’d be flying over it very soon, fighting for simple survival, by the sound of Lambert.

  He studied the coast of England, the Channel, the coast of France, poring over the towns, the villages, rivers… He lay down on the bed for several minutes, got up again, drew it all from memory on a sheet of paper, then checked what he’d drawn against the map. He repeated this process until the early hours.

  He was not about to get lost over France with a Focke-Wulf on his tail.

  *

  Though blustery, the next afternoon was very clear. Standing on the grass atop Dover’s ‘White Cliffs’, Quinn found it was true: You actually could see the coast of France. Only barely, yet there it

  was. Right there, Lambert had told him, lay the Luftwaffe airfield of Wissant, another 20 miles inland, the one at Saint-Omer, to the south, the coastal field of Le Touquet. Pressing his peaked cap on more firmly in the wind, Quinn prayed he hadn’t forgotten anything Lambert had said…

  If, while flying over France, you get ‘bounced’ – a Focke-Wulf on your tail – whatever you do, don’t power-dive. He can do it better, and will catch you. Don’t climb either. He can do that better too. And will catch you. Maximum speed now and at all times, curve smoothly back west, and shallow dive. He’ll still catch you alright, but only gradually. And by the time he does, you’ll both be halfway back across the Channel and far from his base. He knows that and may think twice about following. If he follows, pray you have friends mid-Channel. If you don’t, make your peace with God. Even if you do , best make peace with God anyway.

  According to Lambert, maintaining high speed over France was the key. To life or death. The Focke-Wulf was a good 30 mph faster than the Spitfire Mark V at any height, unlike Lambert’s Mosquito, which held dominance at low altitudes. Lambert had been very clear… The Spit V was an olympic sprinter. The Focke-Wulf was a race-horse.

  Your only other salvation was Tactics. Specifically, split-second teamwork. Lambert had explained a two-plane manoeuvre on a beer coaster, something called the ‘Thatch Weave’, so named for the pattern their flight-paths formed – Quinn would be hearing all about it at his new squadron, Lambert assured: Two Spitfires working together, get a Focke-Wulf on your tail, left Spit curves left, right curves right, the Focke-Wulf has to follow one of you. Check your mirror – your life depends on it – keep your neck on a swivel, see which of you he’s following. Both Spits then curve very precisely back inwards. The Spit that hasn’t been followed curves in a little tighter, and cuts off the Focke-Wulf sideways on the other Spit’s tail: Blast him as he passes in front. If he hasn’t already shot your wingman down, that is. And even if he hasn’t, your own shot has to be perfect – you only get one chance at it – and it’s the hardest in the book: a near 90-degree deflection shot, side on. Misjudge it, your wingman is dead.

  Quinn drew a folded map section from a battle-dress pocket, and held it very carefully in the wind. Hornchurch sat roughly halfway between London, to its west, and the Thames Estuary to the east, where The River flowed into the Channel. According to Lambert, a typical day on Quinn’s new squadron would mean flying the quick 50 miles to the advance aerodromes that straddled the coastal port of Dover, and taking off for occupied France from there. RAF Manston, Hawkinge, and Lympne were a mere 30 miles to the enemy coast at Calais. Flying time, five minutes. Quinn returned the map to its pocket, buttoned it.

  Drawing a pack of cigarettes and box of matches from another pocket, he peered out again at the horizon. Within days, he could be on that horizon with 122 Squadron. He’d head back to London now, early to bed, make up for the sleep he’d lost the night before.

  Striking a match, it blew out in a violent gust. Quicker than he could react, Quinn’s cap lifted from his head, in an instant, gone from sight.

  Over the cliff.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  August 1942

  RAF Hornchurch was a huge place and long established. In the thick of the Battle of Britain two years back, Lambert had said, its Spitfire Mark Is had been evenly matched up against the Messerschmitt of the time, the 109E. Until recently, the Spitfire Mark V had been doing quite well against the current Messerschmitt, the 109F – Lambert had been adamant on this point. Immediately upon his arrival at Hornchurch, however, Quinn caught ‘The Gen’: RAF slang for ‘The Current Wisdom and call a spade a spade; it’s your arse.’

  Flying alone had always been suicide. Now, in a Spitfire V up against the new Focke-Wulf, it was instant suicide. And even if you had the numbers, only the most disciplined tactics against the Focke-Wulf might grant your survival, let alone a victory.

  Within minutes of swapping the white ‘training’ flash on his old forage cap for an RAAF eagle, Quinn was summoned to the office of his new Commanding Officer.

  ‘Sir. Pilot Officer Quinn reporting.’

  When he saw who the Old Man was. Distinguished Flying Cross. And Squadron Leader.

  ‘Bob Eastwood.’

  There was a hard smile.

  *

  They had a drink later in the Officers’ Mess – the first one Quinn had ever seen made out of bricks. It was excellent to see Bob again. Though Quinn felt the change in his old teacher, nine months seeming to have aged him as many years. Quinn had always assumed a bloke of Bob’s exceptional ability would be promoted quickly through the ranks, yet as he confirmed the gen on the Focke-Wulf, it became apparent that his meteoric rise through Pilot Officer, Flying Officer, Flight Lieutenant, to Squadron Leader had been aided by something else.

  Positions Vacant.

  ‘They’re better than us in everything. Climb, dive, acceleration, top speed, roll-rate particularly, and at any height. Okay, you can still out-turn one, Spit can out-turn anything, but they won’t let you: “Zoom and Boom” it’s called… They get in there, kill us, and get out of there. Basically, Daniel, unless you play a very singular game with them, it’s a telegram to your mother. Cigarette?’

  ‘I could use one,’ said Quinn.

  Eastwood flipped open a pack and they lit up in silence from his match. He flicked it sideways into the dormant fireplace of t
he Mess, puffed a cloud of smoke and continued.

  ‘It’s like this. Supermarine are delivering a new Spitfire. The Mark IX. It’s brilliant. Equal to the Focke-Wulf in every respect. And I know that because I’ve flown one: We share this place with Number 64 Squadron. They’ve got them already and their C.O. let me take his up for a spin…’

  ‘Why them and not us?’ Quinn did his best to keep a low voice.

  ‘Simple supply and demand… Even the old Mark I took three thousand man-hours to churn out…’

  ‘But we’re in line for them?’

  ‘Very next in line, evidently. Luckily for you blokes I called in a few favours. Supposed to be here any day now… You’re Catholic, aren’t you. Do you still pray, Daniel?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Well that’s what we’re currently doing.’

  ‘Praying…’

  ‘For an even chance against the enemy. Which the Mark IX will give us. When it ever gets here…’

  Quinn did the only thing he could. He took a gulp of beer. They smoked in silence for a whole minute.

  ‘Hell, anyway, Bob, I’m glad to be back with you.’ Quinn broke into a grin. ‘…In your squadron. What were the odds?’

  Eastwood took a sip and lowered his voice a notch. ‘It’s no accident that you are.’

  Quinn’s brow lifted.

  ‘I tracked where you were, Daniel. …Favours.’

  ‘I’m grateful you did.’

  ‘Don’t be. I need to have the best people around me right now, that’s all. And you’re one of the best I’ve trained.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate your saying it anyway.’

  ‘You’ll need to be, simple as that. I’m putting you with Maclean. He’s a good man. You’ll be his wingman, and very strictly so: He shoots them down, you cover his tail – You know the drill.’

  ‘Yep. Maclean. What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s a Kiwi. A no-nonsense sort of bloke. Good mechanically… Used to ride motorcycles or something… Do precisely as he directs and you’ll get through this. You may even do well.’ Eastwood took another mouthful of his pint. ‘Look. I roped you in here because I know you. I know you’re damned hard worker, a natural flyer, and that you’ll do what you’re told.’

  Eastwood threw his cigarette stub into the fireplace, then turned back to Quinn.

  ‘Daniel, this squadron’s been dying. Even its best. The C.O. whose job I’ve just stepped into was a Belgian – an excellent fighter, a good leader and a good bloke too, so I hear. The thing is, a few weeks ago, the squadron saw him shot down.’

  Quinn now felt he understood. Though not entirely. He caught something in the familiar face he’d not seen before: It was in the eyes – something strained. Bob was withholding something.

  Yet the Squadron Leader wasn’t telling. And Quinn knew not to ask.

  *

  Quinn was shown to his new quarters by a young RAF airman who was to be his batman while at Hornchurch, the airman departing with Quinn’s laundry, shirts and uniform for ironing and pressing, shoes and boots to be shined. Quinn picked up the edition of The Times the Brit had delivered, and scanned it.

  In the Pacific, the Japanese had landed at Gona in New Guinea, Australians fighting them someplace called Kokoda… American landings at Guadal-something. After barely a minute’s reading, he flung the paper to one side, opting instead for an official RAF

  publication, and lay back on the bed with it.

  PILOT’S NOTES – THE SPITFIRE V AEROPLANE – MERLIN 45 ENGINE.

  60 pages long, he intended to have it memorised before he slept.

  *

  Flight Lieutenant Douglas Maclean was a welder from Auckland, New Zealand, so the airman informed. Indeed, from the batman’s ready comments, ‘good mechanically’ turned out to have been a bit of an understatement regarding Maclean: Only twenty and already a Flight Lieutenant, until war had broken out, he’d supplemented his income on New Zealand’s version of something called ‘Dirt Track’, a cut-throat crowd pleaser involving stripped-down motorcycles with no brakes on an oval speedway and one speed. Flat Out. Consequently, his feel for high-performance machinery had even Hornchurch’s finest mechanics coming to him for advice, and his hand-to-eye co-ordination was accepted as unparalleled. To Quinn, the twenty-year-old looked thirty, a nuggety little bloke who didn’t say much.

  The Spitfire Vs they now walked towards had 1470 horse-power, 295 more than the Mark II. Plus, instead of the usual eight machine-guns, they had two machine-guns and a 20mm cannon in each wing, thick black barrels protruding feet ahead – a slower rate of fire than the machine-guns, but the heavier shells they chugged out were explosive.

  ‘Right,’ issued Maclean. ‘Tomorrow, I shoot them, you cover my tail. Today, we see uff you can keep on it.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Cut the ‘sir’. No time for thet. Mac.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  As they reached Maclean’s Spit, Quinn saw seven small crosses in a row beneath the canopy lip, the work of Maclean’s ground crew: Painted in black with white outlines, these represented his ‘kills’. Quinn’s own craft a little further on, his ground crew saluted him as he hastily approached.

  ‘Mornin’, sir.’

  ‘Morning.’

  Another crucial test. Quinn wasted no time. He climbed in, strapped in, fired her up. The airman retracted the electrics cable, the Flight-Sergeant pulled the starter wagon back, the airman dragging wheel chocks away on Quinn’s signal.

  For Quinn, it was difficult enough keeping up with Maclean while merely taxiing out over the grass, but headed down the field, Maclean was clearly trying to lose him. Quinn wasn’t about to let him, driving the throttle full forward, correcting torque. Quickly airborne, wheels retracted, Quinn realised three things at once: He’d ripped through the take-off without blinking, he hadn’t lost Maclean, and – to his immense relief – Maclean was curving them inland.

  *

  Though its inferiority versus the Focke-Wulf had hung in Quinn’s mind on the climb to 20-thousand, the Spit V’s stunning energy pushed this and most other worldly thoughts way to the back of his consciousness. What a bird it was: Angels 20 had taken a mere seven minutes, where, hitting the V’s optimum level speed of 370 – faster than Quinn had even been – Maclean made his only transmission of the flight.

  ‘Right… Stay with me.’

  What then followed was a sharp three-quarter roll inverted into a dive beginning a solid hour of aerobatics which, if Quinn hadn’t been purely mirroring a leader, he’d never have dared, and certainly never have believed an aircraft capable of.

  His tension on the long climb about the task ahead had eased when, into that first dive, he realised an earlier lesson had been learnt: Throttle OFF in a close dive behind your Number 1 – a mistake he’d almost not come back from in Scotland, and one he’d never make again. Half a twisting-turning hour later, he became aware that, as if second nature now, he’d been following the golden rule from Mascot: React to what does happen. Quinn began to breathe normally again when it became clear that, despite his fears, he wasn’t losing his leader, he was up to it – hot on his tail as it bobbed in the gun-sight. A heavy challenge here and there – speed management, yet it all seemed delightfully possible… And made so by sheer adrenalin, of which the Spit V gave you all you needed – and then some.

  To numberless eyes below, the majority of their airtime over the suburbs of North-West London had been a snaking vapour trail – sometimes a single, sometimes a narrow twin. On the way back to Hornchurch, Maclean chopped their speed, also their height, until down to a mere 500 feet.

  Coming in at a cruise, Quinn’s body felt not depleted, but powerfully relaxed after the physical marathon he’d just been through. With the sprawl of the city out to the right, he saw the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the river, Tower Bridge.

  Through the right-hand quarter of his windscreen, he noticed Maclean waggling his wings briefly, the reason why a moment later – a scho
ol-yard passing below, children crowding. Quinn followed suit.

  Clearly the teacher wasn’t too unhappy.

  *

  Quinn had followed orders, stuck like glue through the flight, and by now knew the signs that said he’d done well: The Kiwi had seemed a hard nut, yet had given him just the hint of a grin as they began the walk back to the Mess. As Maclean shed his Mae West and leather flying jacket, Quinn registered the Distinguished Flying Cross ribbon on his battle-dress.

  ‘Sweet aircraft, sir,’ offered Quinn, realising if he’d taken off the leather helmet before attempting to remove his own Mae West he’d currently resemble less of a walking tangle.

  The New Zealander seemed not to notice.

  ‘Yep, she’s a nice-enough bird. Tets on a bull now though.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘Yep.’

  His explanation sounded all the more dour for the heavily clipped vowels of his accent.

  ‘So she’s nice to fly. And maybe okay against a Messerschmitt, but get a Focke-Wulf on your tail and you’re dead meat. Uf you find yourself in thet unfortunate position and still drawing breath somehow, my advice to you is use your superior turning circle, get him where he isn’t on your tail for a moment, and pus the hell off.’

  *

  ‘Sir. Pilot Officer Quinn reporting.’

  ‘At ease, Daniel, at ease.’ Eastwood was reading a memo. ‘You’re going to Bournemouth to see… one Squadron Leader Crispin Jessop.’ He passed it to his out-tray. ‘First thing tomorrow. You’ll be gone twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Jessop?’ Now Quinn remembered: the wingless wonder from the aircrew centre. ‘ Him? What for?’

  ‘Buggered if I know… You’re going.’

  *

  On the early train for the coast, Quinn stared hard at a spot on the carriage ceiling.

  The Pacific.

  That had to be it.