‘That’s - a-roger, Blue… We got trade… Busy… Focke-Wulfs…’ The sound of gunfire actually came through the transmission. The voice became fraught. ‘…They’re coverin’ your 109s, they’ll have their snaps by now so for Chrissakes NAIL ’EM.’
Maclean didn’t respond to the Canadian. Only to his Section.
‘Keep your wits, Blues. Out.’
Down ahead through the clouds, Quinn thought he could just make it out: Yes, he was certain, the aerodrome, that was Manston. He looked up through the Spit’s canopy. There! The vapour trails of the Canadians in full combat, or were they smoke trails? Their intermittent calls filled his headphones, some tense, some impossibly calm, gunfire punctuating.
‘I gaht him, skipper. Yessiree, he’s a flamer.’
‘That’s-a-roger, Zak. Good job, good job. That’s a confirmed kill…’
‘Falcon Leader… Fuck, I’M HIT…’
‘Affirmative, buddy, you - are - on - fire… Get out, jump, kid, jump now.’
Headphone static.
‘You see a ‘chute, Zak?’
‘That’s a neg, skipper. Falcon 3, break right, Falcon 3, you gaht a bandit on yer Six…’
The four Spitfires flew on, line abreast in a ‘Finger Four’, a formation the RAF had adopted from the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. As Maclean’s wingman, Quinn held the left outer position, Mac just about 20 feet in on the right, Blue 3 and 4 out past him.
The ground controller once more: ‘Blue Leader, this is Cathedral Control. A friendly squadron will be joining you shortly up from Hawkinge. Will approach from your 5 o’clock position. Your bandits now heading back east. Out.’
Quinn saw the glints of light ahead. The 109s! Half a mile in front between the clouds, specks fleeted left to right about a hundred feet below. Maclean hadn’t missed them.
‘Blue Section, Blue Leader. Tally-ho. Bandits at 1 o’clock. Two o’them. We’ll curve round behind ’em an’ come up under…’
Quinn saw the white cloud puffs speckling with black dead ahead: Flak! – air-bursting explosions from ground anti-aircraft guns, the first he’d ever seen. In the same instant he heard Mac’s voice, loud and urgent in the headphones.
‘MANSTON, CHECK Fire, CHECK Fi…’
Quinn heard the explosion to his right and spun his head to see the last of Mac’s aircraft shatter and fall away. Further right, Blue 3 was losing speed as Quinn howled into his mask. ‘MANSTON, CHECK FIRE, YOU’RE HITTING FRIENDLIES, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! This is 122 Squadron approaching from your south-west! Blue 3, this is Blue 2. Are you damaged?’
Brooke’s voice returned in steady shock. ‘Blue 2, Blue 3. Affirmative. My gauge says I’m losing fuel, over.’
Smythe confirmed it from the far right. ‘Blue 3, Blue 4. That’s definite, old chap. You’re streaming a long line of it. Must have caught fragments…’
Quinn snatched a final glimpse of the 109s fleeing down to the right. No time to think, he transmitted instead: ‘Blue 3, this is Blue 2. Piss the hell off. You’re a sitting duck for any bandit in the area. Take another hit from anything, you’ll go up like a Roman Candle… Return to base. Buster.’ … Christ, he’s losing fuel. Hornchurch too far. Manston? ‘Blue 3, Blue 2. Make that Hawkinge. Blue 4, cover his tail. OUT.’
Smythe queried: ‘Blue 2, Blue 4… You’ll be a sitting duck alone.’
‘Negative, 4,’ returned Quinn. ‘The Hawkinge squadron’ll be here any minute. You’ll probably pass them on your way down there. Call them for cover. Out.’
‘2… 4, roger and out.’
‘3, out.’
The two Spits peeled left behind Quinn, carefully inland, and down to the south.
Quinn knew it. The Golden Rule: ‘Alone, head home.’
Above, the Canadian squadron were right now fighting and dying to keep the Focke-Wulfs off his back.
The men in the Messerschmitts had to be killed.
Quinn shoved his throttle full forward to Emergency Boost, the Spitfire responding eagerly. Rolling his wings to the right, he banked her into a gentle curving dive south-east, out to sea. Guide her, son, don’t shove her. She’s a bird. Fly with her or she won’t take you far. Keep the energy up, keep the speed up. Keep the speed UP, Daniel. He knew he’d have to, for the slightest chance at all of catching up the 109s – they’d be running now. And flat out.
Quinn watched the sky, the controls, the dials – everything was happening as it should be: Wings level. Altitude slowly unwinding. Airspeed building. 330, 340, caress it out of her. 350 mph. Good.
Scan ahead. Scan ahead .
Empty sky.
Don’t lose your bearings – don’t become disoriented. Check down. Check down. English Coast now behind.
Flatten out. Check the dials again. Indicated Altitude, 14500. Compass, 135 degrees. Engine Temperature nearing the Red. Scan ahead.
Empty sky.
Speed dropping, 340, 335. But we’re 10 mph faster than the Messerschmitt at any height. But where are they?! Maybe lost them…
No.
No, Christ , there he is .
A hundred feet above us, three times that away, distance closing very gradually. Check Temp again: Engine about to melt off – only reason we’ve caught him – but we have. Cut you off, you bastard…
ONE?
There were TWO!
Where’s the other ? Look up. Behind left, behind right. In the mirror… Useless. You’d be dead already. Unless he’s coming up under you and just about to fire… The one that kills you is the one you never see. For God’s sake, turn away NOW – the Spit can out-turn anything – you’ll lose your attacker, forget the one ahead, he’s only bait for you, it’s a trap!
But you’re gaining on him…
Coming up and under as Mac said you should. You must destroy him; he’s just photographed Manston – Messerschmitts have a downward camera in the fuselage. He still hasn’t seen you – couldn’t have – still flying dead straight and level. Take it easy, take it easy , come up too fast, you’ll end up behind and in his mirror: He’ll see you, shove his stick forward, dive, he’s better than you in a dive… He’ll get away…
Quinn saw the slim belly of the Messerschmitt begin to enter his gun-sight, slightly forward and to either side twin black crosses in shadow beneath its wings. Closer, ever closer, he saw its propeller spinning, now even exhaust trails from its engine.
100 yards.
Quinn shot a lightning glance in his mirror, then above, above back, left and right.
Nothing.
Left hand throttling back slightly, he flexed his right thumb before the gun-button on the joystick handle. At 50 yards, the 109’s ventral camera port was now clearly visible. Within that fuselage and just behind the pilot – his fuel tank. Quinn thumbed the button firmly.
The Spitfire trembled as its twin cannon multi-pounded, all four machine-guns in chattering concert. Quinn struggled to hold all six tracer streams on target as they ripped into the 109’s underside, fragments falling, aluminium skin denting and chopping around the camera port. Though Quinn was astounded: Through the whole burst, a good three seconds, all that issued from the 109 was a single puff of white smoke.
Now risen level with its tail and directly behind it, no conscious thought occurred to Quinn, only instinct: Lift a little then drop the nose, rake the cockpit, kill the pilot. Quinn pulled back slightly on the stick…
Just as the Spitfire was buffeted upwards by some thermal more violent than he’d ever known.
Regaining control, flattening out and peering down again, Quinn saw the reason why: The 109 had become a giant blow-torch from its wing-roots back, petrol supply wholly ablaze. The enormous heat that radiated from the sheet of flame had put actual lift under the Spitfire’s wings – Quinn’s heart at near failure: If he hadn’t just pulled up it might have engulfed him.
He watched the 109 lead a long trail of black smoke arcing downwards to the sea. No parachute. He looked ahead to the instrument panel, saw the dials reading
as they should, engine okay, also that his gloves were trembling once again. He steadied them, flexed them on the stick grip, on the throttle.
Relief coursed through his veins like rebirth, a euphoria shot with guilt for the involuntary smile now plastering his face – He had survived. Into a cold sweat.
CHRIST, what am I DOING?
Quinn flick-rolled to the left and pulled hard on the stick.
THE SECOND 109! He could still be there behind you and lining up his shot even now! Turn hard, boy, turn hard , you can still out-turn him, don’t dive , keep it flat , he’s better than you in the dive…
Though Quinn squeezed his lower muscles against the g-forces with every ounce of strength he could muster, still his vision darkened. In almost total blackout, he rode the edge of the buffet, the Spit straining, and gritted his teeth for a German cannon shell through his body.
Reefing out of the bank and straightening to the north-west, he scanned all directions through what meagre vision returned.
He saw nothing but the English Coast ahead.
And empty sky.
Way below, the White Cliffs – First time he’d seen them from the air. Beyond them lay the patchwork of Kent, a spectrum of greens rendered all the more vivid by the stark midday sun.
Mac was dead. Blown away.
As he set a course for Hornchurch, Quinn began to formulate what he would say down the telephone line to RAF Manston.
*
Stepping painfully down off the wing-root and onto the grass of Hornchurch, Quinn ripped off his leather helmet and gloves, the neck-scarf as well. He saw its polka-dots in his hand – Maclean’s.
Quinn dug in the breast pocket of his battle-dress. He needed a cigarette badly.
‘Best you move a distance away a’fore lightin’ that, sir…’
He noticed the ground crew. And the petrol bowser they were already refuelling the Spitfire from.
Once far enough across the grass, he lit the smoke, inhaling it deeply.
Halfway through it, he squashed the cigarette under his boot, and marched towards the Signals Hut. Entering it, he brushed aside the Signals Sergeant, and scooped up the phone.
‘Get me RAF Manston. Yes, I’ll wait… Hello, Anti-Aircraft Battery, please… Is that the Officer in Charge? Good. This is Pilot Officer Daniel Quinn of the Royal Australian Air Force. Right. Do you know what a Spitfire looks like? Yes? Do you know what a Webley and Scott point 455 Revolver looks like? Well you’d better hope our paths never cross. And I mean never. Because, if they ever do, my Webley will be the last thing you ever see.’
*
First thing Monday morning, Quinn received the summons to Eastwood’s office.
‘Alright then,’ the Squadron Leader breathed amongst a mass of paperwork. He spoke softly, intently. ‘Just what the hell did you think you were doing?’
He looked up at Quinn now, his eyes fierce. For the first time ever, Eastwood was keeping him at attention.
Quinn knew by now to remain silent before the rhetorical question of a superior officer, let alone before that of a fuming superior officer, and so let him fume until, eyes down again, Eastwood’s next words issued.
‘Tell me. Since when has it become acceptable for a Flying Officer to ignore a question from his Squadron Leader?’
‘Excuse me, sir?’ Quinn assumed the paperwork must be getting to his old friend: He’d got Quinn’s rank wrong – probably in the middle of someone else’s personnel file. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but last time I checked I was a Pilot Officer.’
‘Last time you checked…’
‘Sorry, Bob?’
‘Seems somebody’s happy with you anyway… Group. They’ve promoted you. …Therefore I suppose congratulations are in order.’
Eastwood leaned forward over the desk, shook Quinn’s hand briefly, then sat back in his chair. Still he held Quinn at attention, as well as mystified.
‘Jesus, Danny. Going off by yourself like that?’ Eastwood’s face had become pained. ‘Jesus bloody Christ… What the hell happened to everything I ever taught you, eh?’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘ Eh? … And here’s Group praising the fact you took command in a rotten situation…’
Shaking his head, Eastwood was struggling to restrain a teacher’s smile of pride. Yet it broke.
‘…Command. You want it? You got it. Your first. On your way out, send in the young bloke sitting outside, will you? Your new wingman. Just bloody-well teach him a few of the things I taught you, right-o?’
Now he almost yelled it.
‘RIGHT- O?’ Another hint of a smile.
‘Sir.’
‘That is all.’
Quinn donned his cap, saluted. ‘Thank you, Bob,’ he said softly, and about-faced. Yet Eastwood spoke again as he reached the door.
‘Mark my words, Daniel. Break the rules and do well out of it, they promote you. Break them and mess up, Group will break you. Fine line between a promotion and a court-martial. Alas it would seem Group like young men who shoot down enemy aircraft.’
Quinn half turned back to Eastwood, once more at a loss: How had it been officially acknowledged? He’d been alone against the 109… You had to have a witness to have any victory ‘confirmed’…
Back to his files already, Eastwood answered Quinn’s mute query without looking up from the desk.
‘The scorch-marks on your Spit. Probably need to re-paint it.’
‘Sir?’
‘From the flamer as detailed in your report. Your first kill… See it’s not your last.’
CHAPTER TEN
At first sight of Sergeant Nicholas Carroll, Quinn assumed there’d been some mistake: The young Brit seemed unhealthily pale and delicate of frame. By their first chat an hour later, as to his new wingman Quinn was downright worried. For, though clearly the likeable type, he seemed devoid of a military or even remotely aggressive bone in his entire body. This boy who, as his Number 2, would hold Quinn’s life in his hands. He was nineteen.
He’d grown up in the London suburb of Wimbledon and had just commenced studies, Art History, when accepted by the RAF. Quinn’s first thought was God-only-knows-how. Gauging him as bright, however, Quinn asked why he’d no officer’s commission after two years in the Service.
Carroll reflected on this with a cheerful grin, by the look of it, the first time he’d ever given it a thought.
‘D’you know, I’m not entirely sure,’ he smiled. ‘I expect it’s as I never sought one.’
He was quietly spoken, and also quietly eccentric. Quinn discovered this on enquiring as to his interests.
‘Hats.’
He had a collection of rare hats. A large one.
‘We must be prepared at all times for a Hat Shortage…’
Quinn found them a table place in the breakfast hall of the Officers’ Mess, his first act as Flying Officer being to break the Mess’s ‘No Other Ranks Admitted’ rule – barring Sergeants from entry: Anyone upon whom my life depends can come in, thank you very much. And I don’t care what bloody rank he is, I said breakfast for TWO.
‘I mean, consider yours, old chap,’ said Carroll, buttering a piece of toast. ‘Your shortage, to be precise. A Flying Officer with no peaked cap? Only a forage? I must see what can be done about this…’
As Carroll’s superior in rank, Quinn had access to his personal file and scanned it as he geared himself up in flying kit. With relief he saw young Nicholas had finished his training with a Pilot Ability Rating of Above Average – Quinn’s own rating, with even greater relief that his eyesight had been rated Exceptional. For the one watching his back, Quinn reflected, that was something at least.
Though the morning and afternoon put any of Quinn’s doubts about Carroll firmly to rest: They flew formation and battle practice several times. Quinn put him through the wringer. Only to find the nineteen-year-old quietly fazed by nothing.
*
Dr Richard Hailey was the ‘M.O.’ at Hornchurch, the station’s Medical Officer.
Quinn o
bserved that, with the rank of Flight Lieutenant while somewhere in his mid-fifties, he was no career officer but a ‘short-service commission’ type – Flight Lieutenant the automatic minimum rank for doctors who’d volunteered for the Duration. As normal for such men, he’d no wings or medal ribbons on his RAF tunic, though it looked tailor-made, only the gold serpent badge of the Medical Corps on his lapels.
An ‘automatic’ Flight Lieutenant, still, his opinion was Law. He was, in fact, God.
This man decided whether you flew or were Grounded, his duties including an interview with every new pilot on the Squadron – after their first Op. The gen said some first-timers, who’d not only survived but excelled at two years of training, were scrubbed after their first operation. For the M.O. could gauge a gifted pilot who couldn’t handle combat. It was called the ‘fire-side chat’.
Quinn had been apprehensive seated outside his office door, heard ‘Enter’, marched in and saluted, yet was greeted by smiling eyes. Hailey stood, rounded a desk neat and clear of files, bidding Quinn take a seat in a comfortable leather chair across from his own. English, curly greying hair and spectacles, his voice was calming.
‘So, Daniel. I see you were at Aloysius.’
Quinn was taken aback. ‘Yes, sir, I was. …Do you know Sydney?’
Hailey grinned. ‘Love the place – I’ve a brother there. I’m a bit of a traveller, I must confess. And good old Alo’s, eh? What was the motto? Born for Greater Things?’
Quinn grimaced. ‘Yes… Ad Majora Natus. I always thought that a bit up itself.’
‘Oh no no,’ Hailey retorted, ‘surely the sense was Born for the Greater Good…’
‘Hopefully so, sir.’
‘And here you are. Under a new motto though… Victuri Volamus.’
Quinn had seen it in passing on the 122 Squadron crest, a painted wooden sign over the main gate guard-house: Something – we fly… The first word escaped him for the moment…
Hailey’s affable tone never shifted as he got down to business. ‘So. How was your first op then?’
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