Winged Escort

by Douglas Reeman

  He heard Chadwick speaking to Bray as he came on to the bridge.

  The admiral smelt of after-shave lotion and fresh coffee, and in the semi-darkness his shirt and shorts were like snow.

  ‘Two minutes, sir.’ Bray sounded hushed. Awed,

  Chadwick’s palms rasped together. ‘Good show. We’ll give those Nips something to squeak about!’

  ‘One minute, sir!’

  Buchan tried not to watch Hustler’s flight deck, and to concentrate on his own ship. On all the wires and pipes which connected him to every flat and compartment, each gun and piece of machinery throughout the fat hull.

  ‘There they go, sir! First one is taking off now.’

  Buchan said nothing, but watched the little spark of exhaust as the fighter climbed steeply away from the carrier, banking over and holding the dawn light like blood. Then the sound reached him, the high-pitched whine, rising to a throaty roar as the next and the next took off.

  It seemed no time before the report came, ‘Squadron airborne, sir.’

  He held out his hand for the telephone. One of the wires which joined him to his command.

  He heard Kitto’s voice. As if he had been holding the handset already.

  ‘Captain here. It’s all yours. Tell them, good luck.’

  Behind his back Chadwick smiled slightly in the gloom. At Buchan’s ponderous sentimentality. His lack of words.

  But at this particular moment, at their little pencilled cross on the chart, he was glad Buchan was here, in command. Men with flair and ideas were unreliable at such times. He smiled again. Buchan had neither, which made him an excellent subordinate. As he always had been, and would remain.

  ‘Ready, sir!’ Bray’s voice made him start.

  Buchan folded his arms. ‘Affirmative.’

  A few minutes later Jonah Too was in the air.

  Rowan settled himself firmly in the cockpit and went through his checks again until he was satisfied. He felt like a machine as he watched the rest of Growler’s squadron working into position, into pairs, as he had made them practice again and again until they had become sick of it and of him.

  He glanced at his compass and tried to prune all unnecessary details of the raid from his mind. In the briefing session with Kitto and James, with Broderick filling in gaps when they arose, the raid seemed an enormous operation. But then it was often like that. When it was all boiled down it was just you and what you recognised through the racing prop.

  He saw the crimson glow moving across his hands as he brought the Seafire round to the north-east. He imagined Jonah Too felt heavier with her big bomb under her belly. That and the fuel tanks topped up to the limit were best not thought about. Rowan had always dreaded fire since being shot down that first time. The freezing water across his smouldering flying suit had been like a precious balm, even though it would have killed just as mercilessly given the chance.

  Fifteen thousand feet already. He watched the sea spread away into darkness on one hand and a rising dawn on the other. Deep, deep blue with occasional flurries of white. The ships had vanished astern, and of the land there was no sign.

  He pictured the Seafires as an onlooker might see them, if it were possible. Himself, Bill and Frank Creswell, each with a young Number Two to guard his tail and keep a wary eye open for enemy scouts.

  He wondered if Bill was thinking about Nichols, his Number Two, the pilot whose hasty judgement had done for Nick Rolston.

  One Seafire remained aboard the carrier, having developed mechanical trouble within an hour of take-off. He could well imagine the frustration and anger in the hangar deck. Some relief too on the new pilot’s part, if he was honest enough to admit it.

  It was much brighter now, and the sea’s face looked fresh and inviting. He shifted against his parachute and harness, feeling the drag of his clothes, the touch of the silver medallion under his shirt. The thought of lying on his back in the water and just drifting made him itch all over.

  ‘Hello, Jonah, this is Katie.’

  Rowan craned his head round to the extreme right of the undulating line. That was Archer, another of the replacements.

  He was speaking very excitedly over the intercom. ‘Ship on the starboard bow!’

  Rowan saw it even as he spoke. A small coaster by the look of her dim outline, but too far out for comfort. Probably an air observation vessel of sorts. There was no time to find out.

  ‘Disregard. But keep a good lookout to starboard. They might come out of the sun.’

  He heard Bill laugh. ‘What sun?’

  Then they fell silent again, concentrating more after sighting the lonely ship. Like gulls, ships meant land.

  Rowan checked the time. Any second now.

  He felt a bead of sweat run down behind his goggles. There it was, a brown and green elbow of land. It was flashing towards them now, with the inshore currents as clearly etched as if they had been painted on the sea. Several boats, some anchored, others moving slowly and aimlessly. A faster, smaller one was cutting a sharp white line between them, a patrol probably, he thought.

  The wires would be humming now. Enemy planes. How many? What bearing?

  He tried to estimate if Hustler’s squadron had already finished their part. They had flown in further north, and would retrace their course without making contact at this stage. If they had survived.

  Their orders were to regroup and circle at a good height where they could supply extra cover when Growler’s aircraft got out.

  He blinked rapidly as the sea vanished beneath his wings. It was like steam heat below him, and it was difficult to see much more than a green blur.

  ‘Smoke, dead ahead!’ That was Bill, very calm and sure of himself.

  Rowan acknowledged and squinted through the perspex, hating the glare on the cockpit as the sunlight gained strength and power.

  He saw the smoke. It looked solid. Unmoving. A great brown mass standing out of the land. He licked his lips. Like a vast, inhuman brain.

  ‘Line astern!’

  He checked the bomb-release switch, wondering if it would fail at the last moment.

  This was it. He recognised a thin silver thread. The small river used by barges for the fuel dump. James was usually right about the details. Pity he didn’t have a better temper.

  He clenched and unclenched his hands. They were slippery with sweat, and his heart was going like a trip-hammer.

  It was like being entirely alone and flying headlong towards that great brown cloud. He could see that it was in fact much larger and rising all the time. As if it was unbreakable, that he would eventually shiver Jonah Too to fragments against it.

  Control yourself, you maniac!

  He glanced quickly in his mirror, seeing the others stretching out behind him in a ragged line. It was far worse for them.

  He flinched and took a firm grip on the stick. Here was the flak, though God alone knew where it was coming from. Patches of shellbursts, a dozen or so in each group, drifted across the greenery, and he thought he heard the sharp crack of more explosions astern.

  He recognised the hill. Slab-sided, as if the rest had been hacked away by a giant axe. The smoke was rising beyond it. That was where the dump had been built, almost mid-way between the big refinery in Palembang and Batavia in Java to the south-east.

  The aircraft rocked violently and lifted her nose as more shells exploded directly ahead. It was time to begin. To get it over.

  ‘Going down!’

  He felt his harness drag at him and watched with fixed fascination the land taking shape and substance through the prop’s glittering arc.

  There was local flak from the hill. He held his breath as lines of bright tracer cut past to port, hosing from side to side as the invisible gunners tried to fix the angle of his dive.

  Faster and faster, the wind rising to match the Merlin’s roar as they zoomed towards the lopsided crest. He saw scattered buildings, huts, and then a blackened scar between some trees and a few blazing pieces of a crashe
d aircraft. One of Hustler’s. He could even see where its bomb had burst, making a savage scar to the edge of the crest itself.

  He stiffened as the oil dump rose to meet him like a model on display. There were several big craters and a lot of fire. But most of the dome-shaped tanks were still intact. One even had a gun position right beside it, and he could see the tracer coming round, needle-sharp as it loomed above the cockpit in a clattering, jarring procession of searing lights.

  He watched the target, shutting out everything but the central tank.

  Rowan heard someone shout wildly. ‘Fighters! Twelve o’clock!’ But he shut even that outside himself. The enemy fighters were above somewhere. There was nothing but light flak between him and that tank. The heavier guns were on the hillside, or down by the little river, and could not be depressed on to the diving fighters. Even the impressive Japs could not think of everything.

  He pressed the release and felt the cockpit lift violently as if blown by a current of hot air.

  Bullets were hitting below the engine, but Rowan concentrated on pulling out of the dive. It was so hard he could feel the pressure on his eyes, as if they would be forced back into his skull.

  Round, turning steeply away from that hill, hearing the dull roar of the bomb exploding into the smoke, and another following close behind as the next pilot released his load.

  There was a pencil-shaped barge on the river, right against the bank, and all but hidden by trees and a tattered camouflage net.

  Jonah Too steadied and went into a shallower, less demanding dive. Rowan was almost relaxed as he pressed the firing button and watched the shells and bullets ripping down branches and fronds until they crossed the barge and turned it and the river into a torrent of fire.

  He heard Bill snap, ‘Pull up, pull up, John!’

  While Rowan climbed in a tight semi-circle towards the dump he saw a Seafire diving headlong towards the one open space. The Japs must have had it cleared for transport or future fuel tanks.

  He watched, sickened, as the aircraft made an awkward belly-landing and ploughed across the bare earth like a crazy thing. It was John Nichol. He must have taken some tracer as he released his bomb. Rowan could see him staggering and then falling from the cockpit, getting out before the Seafire brewed-up.

  Surprisingly, it did not burst into flames. Better if it had, Rowan thought, as he saw some tiny, khaki-clad figures running to encircle the dazed and no doubt terrified Nichols.

  The whole dump area was burning fiercely, and even the surrounding trees were well alight. Upended vehicles, blasted buildings, it seemed incredible that such a small attack could achieve so much. He tried not to think of what they would do to Nichols before they let him die.

  He shouted over the intercom, ‘Watch for those fighters! We’re getting out!’

  Creswell saw them first. He sounded strained beyond the limit.

  ‘Three o’clock high!’

  Rowan blinked in the glare. They were at about twenty thousand feet, flying round in a large, protective circle. It was a good tactic. If the A.A. guns could not catch them as they rose above the hillside, the fighters would be in the best position to cut them off. There were eight or nine of them.

  The cockpit shuddered as small shell splinters fanned out on either beam. One cracked into the fuselage, and he felt his muscles tightening as he anticipated fire.

  He opened the throttle, thinking of nothing but the glittering circle of midget fighters against the empty sky.

  Why couldn’t there be heavy rain and cloud now that they needed it?

  ‘Echelon starboard!’ He knew they were fanning out on his right without looking for them. ‘We’ll have to break up that bunch, Bill!’

  ‘Yeh.’ He pictured Bill, filling his cockpit. ‘Otherwise they’ll take us singly.’

  Crump . . . crump . . . crump. The flak was getting nearer, more concentrated.

  The Japanese fighter formation started to break up even before Growler’s aircraft were anywhere near enough.

  The human element again. What Chadwick would describe as the ‘game’.

  It was hard to watch their fuel dump being blown up and do nothing.

  Rowan picked out one machine and held it in his sights. He could see the pilot pulling round, his leather helmet very stark in the sunlight. He let the red sun on the fuselage drift across the sights and then poured a four-second burst into it.

  The fighter, a stubby-nosed Zero, fell away on to its back, turning round and round as it corkscrewed towards the burning fuel dump. Rowan did not linger to watch it crash, but pulled away sharply to starboard, marking down another fighter which was twisting and turning across Creswell’s quarter. Again, he felt totally nerveless. An automaton. Three hundred yards. Easy. Fire.

  Tracers darted above the other fighter’s cockpit, then dipped as Rowan pushed the stick forward and ripped the rear of it into a whirling mass of torn streamers. But the pilot was fighting to free himself from Rowan’s attack, going into a steep climb, then plunging sharply to port while Rowan chased him round.

  Another long burst, the tracers converging along the Zero’s spine and exploding into the cockpit and the engine beyond. He saw the pilot’s arm beating at the side, perhaps trying to free himself. Then the Zero exploded and threw smoking fragments, some human, into the path of two dog-fighting aircraft.

  Rowan blinked again to clear his vision. He was icy-cold and baking hot all at once, and he felt despair crowding in as another fighter, with Growler’s markings on it, dived steeply past him, already alight, and a Zero following it down, speeding its end with machine gun and cannon fire.

  Sub-Lieutenant Maple, nineteen years old, who had volunteered for submarines but had been rejected as unsuitable, managed to free himself from the shattered Seafire and was plucked from it by his parachute within seconds of it exploding in the air.

  Rowan had not got to know Maple very well, but he seemed pleasant enough.

  He watched him adjusting to the pull and drift of his parachute, and then kick frantically as the Zero flew past him, guns blazing, ripping the parachute into holes. Maple too was cut to ribbons before he dropped towards the trees like a stone.

  ‘Behind you, Tim!’

  Rowan gasped and glanced quickly at his mirror, seeing the Zero swimming through it. guns hammering. He pulled Jonah Too round savagely, hearing the engine falter before it recovered. He had felt some of the bullets hitting him, and when he looked in the mirror he saw the Zero rising above him once more. Something plucked at his right sleeve, like a hesitant hand, and he saw with horror that a bullet had opened up the leather with the precision of a scalpel.

  Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! That was a different sound, and he caught sight of Bill flashing across his front, his own Seafire punctured like a pepper-pot.

  Jonah Too quivered to a dull explosion, and Rowan knew Bill had put down his pursuer. It had been a close thing.

  ‘Tallyho!’

  Rowan tugged away his goggles and wiped his streaming eyes as three more Seafires dived into the fight. Beyond them he could see writhing surf and dark blue ocean. Hustler’s fighters, the three which had survived, were joining the battle.

  ‘Break off! Return to base!’

  There was no point in prolonging it. The Zeros had a longer range and would soon be reinforced. Better to get away now while they were still confused by Hustler’s support.

  Zigzagging through ground flak and isolated shellbursts, the oil-streaked and battered survivors headed out to sea. The fast patrol boat was still there, but not for long. Bill went into a dive and raked it from bow to stern, and before his shadow left the water the boat burst into flames, the small crew leaping overboard and swimming towards the fishermen they had been guarding.

  And then the land was hidden by the wings, with the ocean shining and empty before them.

  ‘Everyone okay?’

  Rowan had seen that Hustler’s leader was not amongst the survivors. It was up to him to rouse thei
r morale for the flight back. This was the worst part in some ways. You expected to be killed. Then later, when you were getting the hell out of it, everything came crowding in on you. Dead friends, memory of fear and real terror. Respect for the unknown enemy. Calm giving way to hatred as he tried to get you before you got him.

  He listened to their acknowledgements, their voices brittle and hoarse.

  Then Bill asked, ‘How is your fuel?’

  Rowan stared across at him and then at the gauge. He had been hit badly.

  Without being actually wounded, you often imagined all was well. It was surprising how calm he felt. He had not escaped after all. It was just as he had expected, only delayed to prolong the shock.

  Even his voice sounded unemotional. ‘I’ll not make it, Bill.’ He looked across at Bill’s blurred outline. ‘Unless you’ve got a drop to pass over?’ It was unbelievable that he could make such a stupid joke. He could guess what it was doing to Bill. How he would have felt.

  He imagined the other pilots listening in. Feeling for him. But already writing him off. He felt for the revolver he had worn since coming to these waters. Japs or sharks, he would see that neither took him alive.

  Bill said, ‘Are you sure?’ He was moving nearer. ‘There’s always a chance, Tim.’ He was almost pleading.

  ‘Keep your eyes open, Bill. The bastards have pulled away. It doesn’t mean they’ll not come popping out of the blue again.’ In an unspoken answer he added. I don’t want to die, Bill. I really don’t. Not now of all times.

  He remembered the nightmare, when he had cried out and she had come to him. He had been dreaming then of a plane on his tail. Had felt the slogging impact of steel. But for Bill it would actually have happened back there above the burning trees.

  If she had not come to him, would anything further have happened? The question was already answered. They had been lost to each other from the beginning without knowing it.

  Rowan felt the bitterness prick his eyes like wood-smoke. Now Chadwick would get everything. Congratulations and glory, and maybe her, too. And who could blame her? If Chadwick kept his threat, she would have lost even security.