He was swinging like a pendulum. He reached up and grasped the shroud lines firmly, then made sure that his feet were together. The swinging gradually stopped. He wrinkled his nose; he reeked of oily smoke. Apart from that, he found to his surprise that he quite enjoyed the sensation.
The roar of an engine disturbed his new-found peace. He looked up to see the Hurricane circling him, and his heart came into his mouth. He wondered if the Tommy pilot would machine-gun him. One had heard stories …
He tensed himself as the British fighter suddenly turned towards him, closing his eyes. The roar of its engine reached a crescendo. Then, in a blast of sound, the Hurricane was gone, and Richter felt as though he had just been born all over again.
The faint rattle of machine-guns came to him from time to time as he floated down, but he could see nothing of the air battle that must still be raging somewhere above his head. For the first time, he looked down. There was a wood below him, but the westerly wind was taking him clear of it.
He hit the ground heavily, and his billowing parachute dragged him for several yards before he managed to release himself. He lay prone for a couple of minutes, painfully getting his breath, then sat up and looked about him.
He was in a pasture. A few cows wandered about, unconcernedly. A few hundred yards away he could see a low farmhouse.
A road ran along the edge of the meadow. A German convoy was passing along it. He waved, and a halftrack stopped. Soldiers descended and ran towards him.
A sudden shadow fell over him. He turned his head. A little Dutch girl, a pretty thing with long blonde plaits, stood watching him impassively. He smiled at her.
She spat in his face.
*
Across the Meuse bridges, along the straight roads that led into the Belgian heartland, the Panzer divisions rumbled on, the sweating tank crews waving occasionally at the mobile anti-aircraft batteries that were springing up everywhere along the route. From time to time, smoke drifted across the fields from the wreckage of aircraft. Overhead, the flights of Messerschmitts roved incessantly, sweeping the sky.
Five Fairey Battles had attacked the bridges at Maastricht. All of them had been shot down. One, its pilot perhaps already wounded, had crashed into the western end of the bridge at Veldwezelt.
His sacrifice had delayed the German advance for exactly forty minutes.
*
A young pilot officer sat on the grass beside his Hurricane, his face buried in his hands. His shoulders trembled. He was one of ‘C’ Flight’s pilots. Yeoman looked at him.
‘Anything I can do, sir?’ he asked gently.
‘Just go away and leave me alone. No. I’m sorry.’ The other removed his hands and looked up, white-faced. ‘Sorry. Don’t take any notice of me.’ He looked vacantly at the horizon. ‘I never thought it would be like that,’ he went on softly, almost to himself. ‘It was terrible. There was just nothing we could do. It was the flak that got them — the Battles, I mean. They just went down one after the other.’
He stared at the ground. ‘I saw one gunner trying to get out,’ he said. ‘There were flames everywhere. He was just like a torch. I could see him beating his hands against the side of the fuselage. God, I never want to see anything like that again.’
Yeoman walked away. How did one reassure someone who, only a few months before, had been a prefect at school, and playing cricket for the first eleven? How did one tell him that each time would be a little less horrifying than the time before?
Christ, he thought, you’re getting callous, George. Three days in action, and you’re as hard as nails already. He felt suddenly depressed, remembering the sight of Shaw’s flaming Hurricane, and realized with a shock that he couldn’t even recall the man’s face. Was that how it was, he wondered? When you went down, did your friends forget even your face in a matter of hours?
Apart from Shaw, two other pilots had failed to return from the Maastricht show. Apart from one or two patrols over the airfield, there were no further operations that day. The rest of the squadron flew back to Châlons that evening.
Hillier was wise enough to see that the majority of his pilots needed some rest. Unless something big blew up, there would be no operational flying the next morning.
A truck picked up the NCO pilots and took them into Ecury just as it was getting dark. As the vehicle rumbled into the main street, Yeoman suddenly burst out laughing. Callender looked at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s so funny?’ he wanted to know.
‘I was just thinking,’ Yeoman said, ‘that it’s nice to be home. Up to now, I never thought of home as anywhere else but Yorkshire!’
As they climbed down from the truck, a plump bombshell burst from the front door of the Pelican, hugging and kissing each of them in turn. Mémère was in tears and pouring forth an hysterical torrent of French. They could make no sense of what she was saying.
They jostled their way into the bar and stopped dead, looking in astonishment at the remarkable figure that perched on a stool, surrounded by a group of laughing French soldiers. It wore a French infantryman’s helmet, baggy pantaloons that appeared to have once been the property of a Spahi, and enormous boots. Most amazingly of all, it sported a filthy RAF tunic, on which a pilot’s brevet showed up dimly. It grinned at the newcomers through a layer of grime and stubble, and the windows rattled with its welcoming yell: ‘Ohé, les gars! Le vin est pauvre, mais il est frais! Venez boire un verre avec nous!’
Simon Wynne-Williams was back.
CHAPTER SIX
The bar of the Pelican was crammed with uniforms, milling round in a sweaty press that forced the few unfortunate groups of French civilians into the shadows of the comers. Through the mêlée Mémère barged like a tank, trays of glasses and bottles balanced effortlessly on her upraised hand.
The party was in full swing, and so was Wynne-Williams. Washed, shaved and immaculate once more, he leaned with his back against the bar, recounting his adventures to a group of NCO pilots who were all in varying degrees of intoxication. Yeoman was no exception. He was half-way through his second bottle of wine and having some difficulty in focusing. He closed one eye and peered owlishly at Wynne-Williams through the haze of cigarette smoke.
‘I still don’t know how I got away with it,’ Wynne-Williams was saying. ‘In fact, I don’t really know what happened. I think I collided with a Hun. Anyway, the last thing I remember seeing was some trees coming up at me.
‘The kite must have broken up on impact, because when I came around I was lying quite a distance from the wreckage. No kidding, apart from this —’ he touched a large bump on his forehead — ‘I hadn’t a scratch. They say only the good die young!
‘I sorted myself out and started walking westwards. After a while I came out of the woods and spotted a farmer chap cutting a hedge. He told me the nearest village was full of Huns, so I thought I’d see for myself. When I got there, I found that the place was deserted. Everybody seemed to have packed up and gone.
‘I wandered up the main street — come to think of it, the only street — feeling about as inconspicuous as a pork pie in a synagogue, when I practically fell over a bike propped against a wall. What’s more, there was a long coat and a floppy felt hat draped over it. 1 took a quick look round; there was still nobody in sight, so I got all dressed up and pedalled off like fury down the road.
‘I went on for a couple of miles and didn’t see a soul. Then I turned a comer, and almost ran full tilt into the world’s biggest tank. It had a great big black cross on its turret, so quick as a flash the amazing Wynne-Williams brain deduced that it just might not be friendly. There was only one thing to do. I put my head down, swerved round it and kept on pedalling. I went slap through the middle of a heap of tanks, trucks, halftracks, motor bikes, and God knows what. All the Jerries were sitting by the roadside, stuffing themselves full of sausage. They all cheered and waved as I shot past, and roared with laughter. I can’t say I blame them. With my coat streaming out behind, and my big floppy ha
t down over my eyes, I must have given a passable imitation of a village idiot.’
His audience collapsed in helpless hysterics, the vision of Wynne-Williams in the role of village idiot proving too much for their alcoholic state. He lit a cigarette and surveyed them benignly.
‘So you think that’s funny?’ he continued. ‘Well, there’s more. I went on for another few miles, with the road all to myself when I came to a crossroads. It was a very nice little crossroads, in the middle of a wood, but its beauty was marred somewhat by the presence of a German armoured column which was churning along right across my bows, so to speak.
‘I couldn’t run for it, because they’d seen me and a nasty big turret swivelled round and pointed its gun right between my eyes. So I stopped and did my village idiot bit again, drooling and crossing my eyes and hoping to God the Jerries wouldn’t see my flying boots sticking out from under my coat. Fortunately I was covered in dust by this time, and that helped the disguise a bit.
‘Anyway, there I was, drooling and simpering all over the place, with this bloody great gun pointing at me and me having bladder trouble, when the tank’s skipper poked his head out and stared at me as though I’d come from Mars. And you know what the silly bugger did? He threw me a bar of chocolate and held up the whole bloody column while he waved me past!’
Wynne-Williams paused to allow his helpless listeners to regain some composure, and took a long swig of wine straight out of the bottle.
‘Well,’ he went on, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, ‘I pedalled off like old Nick was after me and didn’t stop until dark. I kipped down under a hedge, and at first light I was off again. I’d jettisoned the hat and coat by this time, because it was getting pretty warm and I seemed to be out of Hun territory.
‘I had no problems at all until I came to a village near the Luxembourg border. There were a few people about, but no one took the blindest bit of notice of me until this enormous gendarme shot out of a doorway and planted his flat feet in the middle of the road. I damn near ran him over. He started waving his arms and shouting, and I gathered that he was trying to place me under arrest. I didn’t fancy the idea, so I smiled sweetly at him and laid him out. Then I took off up the road again with half Luxembourg in hot pursuit, all yelling and screaming fit to bust.
‘A few minutes later I spotted a border post up ahead, so I ditched the bike and dived off through a wood. After about a mile I nearly fell into a river. I could see some Frogs moving about on the other side, so I waved and shouted. They didn’t take any notice, so I stripped off and swam across. Trouble was, I nearly bashed myself senseless on a log half-way over, and lost everything except my tunic and underpants.
‘As soon as die Frogs found out who I was, they bent over backwards to help me out. Their CO even provided a vehicle and an escort to see me home, as well as some togs. That’s the escort, over there.’ He indicated the soldiers who had been with him earlier. They were lying in a corner in various states of undress, sleeping it off.
The noise in the little bar was reaching shattering proportions. Clustered round a battered piano near the wall, a mixed group of RAF NCOs and French soldiers were on the eighth verse of ‘Poor Little Angeline’. What the French lacked in words, they made up for by much shouting and foot-stamping.
Somebody pushed Bert Duggan forward. He was seized and hoisted on to a table. ‘Come on, Bert,’ Callender yelled above the din, ‘give us your party piece!’ Duggan raised his hands, looked blearily about him, and the assembly fell more or less silent. Then, in a rich and surprisingly tuneful baritone, he began to sing:
It was in Anno Domini nineteen twenty-four
In the Kingdom of Basra there started a war.
HQ got excited and sent for Old Bert
To pull Operations right out of the dirt.
His audience cheered wildly. There was a loud crash as someone dropped a tray of glasses. Duggan glared, took a gulp of beer, and launched into verse two.
Now this bold bad rough pilot he sent out to bomb.
His bombs were OK but Ids tank was not full.
The AG behind the pilot did shout,
‘You’ll have no balls at all if your engine cuts out!’
‘No balls at all,’ they roared in chorus, ‘no balls at all, if your engine cuts out you’ll have no balls at all!’
They were just over Soom when the engine cut out,
And from the back seat came an agonized shout,
‘If you land at the east of the Basrian Pass,
You might as well stick the Lewis gun right up your arse!’
Duggan staggered and almost fell off his precarious perch. A couple of pilots grabbed him and pushed him upright again. He went on, undeterred.
They looked o’er the side and was plain to see,
Sheikh Abdul Mohammed and his men were at tea,
Lounging around midst the sand and the rocks,
Discussing spring fashions and pruning their cocks.
Yeoman, his face flushed, bawled out the choruses with the rest, doubling up with laughter as the verses got steadily worse. He felt strung up and light-headed; weary, but too tense to sleep. They were all like that. Drink was their opiate, and they would drink until they were past caring what the next day might bring.
Duggan finished his song and fell off the table at last. Someone cheerfully poured a glass of beer over him.
At the far end of the bar, a bearded French warrant officer was trying to get fresh with Mémère. When he refused to take no for an answer, she picked up a bottle and felled him with one expert blow. He subsided in a heap at the foot of the bar, and two RAF types threw him out.
A burly figure in an oil-stained overall shouldered its way through the door, blinking in the light and the smoke haze. Callender spotted the newcomer and called him over for a drink.
Flight Sergeant Len Thomas had been working non-stop for fourteen hours, buried deep in the bowels of his beloved Merlins. He crushed Yeoman’s hand in a great hairy paw as Callender introduced them, downing a litre of beer in one go at the same time. He set down the mug and his vast belly rumbled.
‘Needed that,’ he said. He looked around, peering through the smoke. ‘Hope you lot aren’t getting too tight,’ he said. ‘I heard on the grapevine that we might be moving tomorrow. Don’t ask me where to, but I’ve a feeling we’re in for a rough passage.’
Callender groaned. ‘I hope you’re wrong, Len, but unfortunately you seldom are.’ He waved a hand at the throng. ‘This lot’s going to take some breaking up. Come on, George, let’s go and have a breath of fresh air. No point in trying to get our heads down with this racket going on, anyway.’
They collected Wynne-Williams on the way and wandered out into the night. It was warm, and the air was filled with a mingled aroma of dust and flowers. Yeoman filled his lungs, gratefully shaking off the smell of stale tobacco, and looked up at the velvet sky, picking out the shapes of the constellations. From the east came a dull, continuous roll of thunder, but they all knew it for gunfire.
They strolled on up the street, saying little. Yeoman noticed that there was no real attempt at enforcing a blackout; chinks of light showed from many windows. There was small wonder that the German bombers found little difficulty in locating their targets.
They stopped at the end of the street. Ahead of them, the road stretched away into the darkness, the poplars that bordered it standing out like black sentinels against the sky. Wynne-Williams lit a cigarette, shielding the flame in his cupped hand.
A loud crack sounded in Yeoman’s left ear. He looked round, startled. Two more cracks came, in rapid succession. Callender grabbed Yeoman’s arm and pulled at him. ‘Get down,’ he hissed. ‘Somebody’s taking a pot-shot at us!’
They dived full-length on the dusty cobbles. Cautiously, Yeoman raised his head and looked around. They had been standing in front of the whitewashed wall of a house, silhouetted perfectly for the benefit of the unseen gunman. He must have had a shaky hand, Yeoman tho
ught, otherwise all three of them would have been dead.
Wynne-Williams tapped Callender on the shoulder. ‘Make for that alley,’ he whispered, indicating a dark opening on their left. They inched their way carefully towards it, then jumped up and sprinted over the last few yards. Another bullet hit the comer of a house, spraying them with plaster, and whined away into the darkness.
They flattened themselves against the wall, breathing hard. ‘What now?’ Yeoman asked.
Callender looked at him, his face pale in the gloom. ‘I don’t know, but I sure don’t feel like sticking my neck out. I vote we push off, sharpish.’
They made their way through a garden at the end of the alley and returned to the Pelican by way of a series of back streets. Apart from alerting their own service police and the local gendarmerie, there was nothing else they could do. Yeoman lay awake for a long time that night, his mind seriously perturbed. Risking one’s life in air combat was one thing; then, nine times out of ten, you could see the man who was trying to kill you. A bullet out of the dark, fired by an unknown, unseen killer, was a different matter altogether. Had the Germans parachuted snipers into Allied territory, he wondered, or were there Frenchmen who would actually welcome a German invasion and take an active part in helping to bring it about?
The next day, Yeoman learned that a military police detachment had picked up a suspect making his way northwards towards Suippes. The man’s story was that he had been visiting relatives in Troyes when the Germans attacked, and he was now hurrying home to Lille to take care of his family.
They interrogated him for four hours, and he stuck doggedly to his story. He was only a poor labourer, hurrying back to protect his wife and children. His documents were all in order; why did the police not let him go?
They were almost fooled. Almost, but not quite. The interrogators had been studying the man’s face; they ought to have paid more attention to his hands. They were soft and white and carefully manicured. No poor French labourer ever had hands like that.
Hurricane Squadron Page 7