by Nevil Shute
He began a slow turn to the north. Over the intercom Sergeant Phillips said. ‘Rear-gunner to Captain. There’s an aircraft down below us, five or six hundred feet below. A bit behind and to port.’ There was a pause. ‘Sort of keeping station with us — Halifax, I think.’
Marshall said: ‘All right — keep an eye on it.’ With so many machines in the vicinity, a collision in the darkness was a very real danger.
Presently Phillips said: ‘Another aircraft, Cap, a bit above us and behind.’ After a moment he said: ‘Fighter, Cap — I think!’ And then: ‘Start jinking, he’s right on top of us!’
Marshall cursed, and flung the machine round to the left; the enemy had got them silhouetted against the moon. At the same instant he felt the stammer of the rear guns transmitted through the structure, and saw bright tracer flying over his port wing from the rear forward. Star after star appeared upon the wing with sharp cracks; the port engine began to vibrate badly.
In that split-second of emergency, the rear-gunner was training to keep his tracer on the enemy behind, exchanging stream for stream. He had hesitated as it loomed up larger, a black, unfamiliar shadow through the framework of the perspex, uncertain at what range to open fire; that hesitation gave the German pilot the chance to get the first shots off. The Wellington was already turning to the left, spoiling the aim of the attacker; his cannon fire went into the port wing for a second. Phillips was pumping fire at him from the four Brownings of the turret by this time, but deliverance came to them from the Halifax below. The mid-upper and rear-gunners of the Halifax had been vigilant, watching the aircraft above them as they closed; immediately the cannon fire disclosed the Ju. 88 they opened up on him.
A stream of fire from their eight guns came up against the fighter from below and to starboard. It was too much for the German pilot; he did not seem to be seriously hit, but his fire ceased and he slipped away to port and was lost in the darkness.
All firing ceased. The whole engagement had lasted only for three or four seconds.
R for Robert was now in a bad way. They could not tell from within the aircraft how badly the port wing was damaged. Gunnar Franck climbed up by Marshall and flashed the torch through the side window along the length of the leading edge; there was damage and distortion about halfway to the tip, upon the upper surface. The DF aerial above the fuselage had gone and left a hole where it had been; the port engine cowling was badly torn, and Marshall had already throttled back to sixteen hundred revs because of the vibration. Gunnar left him, and scrambled back down the fuselage to the wireless position, where there was a cellon window from which he could see the top surface of the wing. He saw great holes in it, with tattered, flapping fabric, and a white plume of petrol streaming from the trailing edge.
He plugged in the lead from his helmet hurriedly, and said: ‘Cap, there is petrol coming from the tanks on the port wing, a great deal of it.’ He heard Marshall say: ‘Cobbett, you got that? Get back on to the fuel system.’
The flight engineer came scrambling back from the front turret to the fuel cocks in the fuselage; at all costs they must try to save the petrol from the port tanks if they were to get back home with anything to spare. Gunnar and Cobbett set to work upon the hand pump to back up the engine pumps, and Marshall put the aircraft in a side-slip right wing down to help the flow. In ominously short time they transferred what fuel was left into the right wing tanks, and Gunnar had time to look around.
In the dim light above the wireless desk he saw Leech crouching forward, his face chalk white, holding his left shoulder with his right hand; blood had come from somewhere within his Sidcot and was trickling over his right wrist. The Dane nudged the flight engineer and pointed, and went to the wireless operator. Cobbett said over the intercom: ‘Flight engineer to Captain. All petrol in the right tanks now, and fuel for about two and a half hours at twenty-two hundred revs. Corporal Leech has got it, sir — he’s bleeding. Sergeant Franck is looking after him.’
Marshall said: ‘If you can leave the fuel system, Cobbett, go and look after Leech and ask the navigator to give me the course.’
At the wireless desk the operator raised his head. ‘Cap wants a course, Gunnar,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right.’
The Dane left him to Cobbett. In the darkness the machine roared on, covering over three miles in each minute; whatever crisis might develop in the fuselage the navigation must go on uninterrupted. Without navigation they would soon be lost, and to be lost and short of fuel meant disaster, nothing else. Gunnar darted from side to side of the machine, peering out, seeking a landmark; in the distance on the port quarter he saw the glow of fires and searchlights at the target. He shot forward into the cockpit and read the directional gyro, and hoped it had been synchronized recently; then he went back to the chart table and pin-pointed his position on a guessed distance from the target. With pencil, map, and CSG he ran the course out, noted it upon the map, and said: ‘Navigator to Captain — course three one five, Cap.’ He wrote it on his pad, tore off the sheet, and went forward and gave it to Marshall; then he went aft again immediately to the wireless operator. Gunnar had done two and a half years in a Copenhagen medical school, and knew the rudiments of surgery better than any of them.
Marshall took the slip and stuffed it in the knee pocket of his Sidcot without looking at it, leaned forward, and set 351 upon the verge ring of the compass. He leaned back in his seat, forcing himself to an alertness that was continuous effort; he was tired to death. The machine was flying left wing down in spite of all the petrol in the right wing; she had lost a good deal of fabric on the damaged side. Another night fighter like the last, coming upon them in their crippled state, would just about finish them off. He said: ‘Captain to rear-gunner. Keep a good look-out. We don’t want any more of that.’
‘Okay, Cap.’
In the moonlight Marshall saw banks of cloud advancing on them from the left; this was the cloud that they had left behind them on the outwards trip rolling forward over Europe. With dulled mind Marshall wondered whether he should call Gunnar again to check the course before they entered cloud and navigation became difficult. Gunnar, he thought, was almost certainly in the middle of putting a dressing upon Leech; in any case he had taken a good pin-point from the fires at the target only a few minutes before.
Cobbett came forward and stood beside him, and they talked about the damaged engine, and the fuel. They came to the conclusion that the propeller had been hit; it made a different noise and in the white light of the torch the blur of its rotation appeared thicker at the tip. It ran smoothly at fifteen hundred revs and it was just possible at sixteen hundred, but at that it was only developing about a quarter power. ‘The thing’s a bloody passenger,’ said Marshall.
Presently they flew into the cloud at about seven thousand feet. It was a relief to do so; they had over two hundred miles to go before they reached the Channel, and at any point in that two hundred miles a fighter might come on them. It was safer for them to fly blind within the cloud.
In the rear fuselage Gunnar was making Leech comfortable upon the floor. He had found a torn, jagged wound in the right shoulder and neck, and another in the right thigh; neither was very grave, provided that the bleeding could be checked. Gunnar had bound on heavy wads of dressing upon both wounds and had given a small shot of morphia; presently he left Leech to the care of Cobbett and moved back to the navigation table. The aircraft was now flying in thick cloud, at seven thousand feet.
He said: ‘Navigator to Captain. Can you get her up above this for an astro fix?’
Marshall said irritably: ‘And get ourselves shot up again. What time is ETA the Belgian coast?’
The Dane turned to his calculations. Presently he said: ‘ETA the Belgian coast 11.54, Cap.’
The pilot glanced at his clock; about an hour to go. In their damaged state they could not risk another encounter with a fighter; even flak would be difficult for them, with the slow rate of climb that the machine now had. Over enemy terri
tory it was better to play safe and stay in cloud.
He said: ‘What airspeed did you take when you ran out the course?’
‘A hundred and ninety-five, true airspeed, Cap.’
Marshall glanced at his dials; the indicated speed was a hundred and sixty at seven thousand. ‘That’s just about right,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep on as we are till ETA the coast minus ten minutes — 11.44. Then I’ll bring her down out of this stuff and we’ll get a position as we pass the coast.’
They went on to discuss the fuel position. ETA Hartley was about 12.31; from the gauges it appeared that they would have about twenty minutes’ reserve fuel. It was going to be a near thing, but it was not too bad; there was no reason to suppose that they would have to bale out for lack of petrol.
‘Give you a spell, Cap?’ said the Dane.
‘I’m all right,’ said Marshall. ‘Get back and see how Leech is getting on.’ He would have liked a relief; he was desperately tired. It seemed to him that Gunnar Franck, with his slight medical knowledge, would be better occupied in looking after Leech than flying the machine.
He put the machine on to the automatic pilot, and they flew on in cloud in the black night.
At a quarter to twelve Gunnar came to the cockpit and stood by Marshall; the pilot throttled a little, and the machine began to lose height. They broke out of the cloud into clear air at about two thousand feet ten minutes later, opened up to fly level and stared down into the darkness. Faint, corrugated rows of white upon the black sheet below showed that they were over the sea.
Marshall said: ‘What’s your ETA Dover?’
Gunnar went back to the navigating position, made a quick calculation, and said: ‘ETA Dover 12.09, Cap.’
Marshall said: ‘Okay. We’ll carry on.’ And then he said: ‘Captain to crew. Everybody keep a good look-out for the coast. We ought to come out somewhere near Dover in the next ten minutes.’
They came down to twelve hundred feet and flew on over sea, tense and peering down into the blackness below. At 12.08 they had not seen any land at all; they were all very conscious that their fuel was running short. They now had barely forty minutes’ supply left.
Marshall said: ‘Captain to Navigator. Get on to the wireless and see if you can get a fix. Looks as though we’ve drifted a bit.’ The coast of Kent was like a spear thrust forward to their course; if they had been set one way by the wind they would fly over sea up the Thames estuary for a long way further, if they had been set the other way they would be flying up the English Channel.
Gunnar got back and sat down at the wireless. He knew what to do, but it took him some time to do it. First he had to fumble for the light switch, and then find the card on which the stations, wave-lengths, and call signs were noted; he plugged in and, peering at the dials, set the tuning condensers. He checked everything through carefully again and then switched on, and began transmitting on the morse key their call sign and the code request for a position.
Three minutes later he was at the navigator’s table with his information. It was incredible as he plotted it upon the map — in fact, he had to change maps and plot it on a new sheet altogether. He plugged in quickly and said: ‘Navigator to Captain. This fix say that we are out in the North Sea, one hundred and five miles east of Spurn Head at the mouth of the Humber.’
Marshall said quickly: ‘Oh balls. That can’t be right.’
There was a momentary pause; the machine flew on over the black sea. Gunnar worked quickly to check his fix, and then to check the previous course from Mannheim. ‘There is something not right,’ he said quietly over the intercom. ‘You have been flying on 315, Cap?’
He went forward to the cockpit as Marshall bent to the compass; both scrutinized the verge ring together in the shaded light. The pilot said: Three one five? This thing says about three fifty.’
Gunnar nodded. ‘That is where we have been wrong. The course was three one five.’
The pilot dived his hand into his knee pocket and pulled out the slip. He glanced at it, and then back at his navigator: ‘Sorry, Gunnar,’ he said quietly. ‘I must have set the bloody thing wrong.’
He knocked out the automatic pilot and swung the aircraft round; there was no time to waste. ‘Give me a course to the nearest land,’ he said. ‘I’ll fly on 270 meantime.’
In a minute Gunnar came back on the intercom, speaking from the navigation table. ‘Captain to navigator. Course is 282.’
‘What’s estimated time of arrival the coast?’
‘Twelve fifty-five, Cap.’
Marshall called Cobbett on the intercom for a report on the fuel, and Gunnar came forward to the cockpit and watched while the pilot set the course upon the compass verge ring to make sure he got it right this time. The fuel gauges in all tanks were nearing zero; Cobbett estimated that their fuel would be exhausted by 12.45.
Marshall said quietly: ‘Okay. Navigator, get back to the wireless and report our course, the landfall we expect to make, and our ETA the coast. Tell them we are short of fuel, and to stand by for our position. Ask for emergency routine.’
He paused a minute, and then said: ‘Captain to crew. Sorry, chaps, but I think we’re going in the drink. Rear-gunner, you can come out of the turret. You’ll be in charge of the dinghy; have a look now and see if it’s all there and in order. Sergeant Cobbett, get down in the bomb-aimer’s position and let me know if you see any land.’
Sergeant Phillips levered himself out of the steel doors of the turret backwards into the fuselage, and reached for his parachute; he would take that forward with him and keep it to hand. He was concerned at the news that they were going in the drink, but he had too slow an imagination to be very much distressed about it. He knew that there had been some kind of a mistake between the captain and the navigator that had landed them in that position; he did not clearly understand from the conversation he had overheard upon the intercom who was to blame. In the meantime he had been given a positive job to do, to look after the dinghy and the stores for it; that was a change from sitting in the turret staring into blackness, and that itself was pleasurable.
Sergeant Cobbett, lying in the bomb-aimer’s position, stared down at the sea. He had been on seven operations previously, and only one of those had been with Marshall. Before he joined up he had worked in a garage, washing motor cars; he was still very young, developing into an intelligent and an efficient man through the responsibilities that he now had to bear. He knew this himself, and thought a little regretfully that it was a pity that it should all end now, in the black water he could see below. He could see from the run of the waves that the wind was westerly; that meant that if they should get out into the dinghy safely they would drift away from land. It was a pity; if things had gone on he might one day have been sent for training as a pilot, have been given a commission even, and become a man like Marshall in a few years’ time. That was what he had set his heart upon, and every night he prayed that the war might go on long enough for him to get a commission and become the captain of his own aircraft. Now it was all to end in the black sea. He was not resentful of the captain’s mistake that had landed them there; he respected Marshall too much for that. It was just a pity. He knew that there was a thirty per cent. chance that they would be picked up before exposure and the bitter cold brought death to them; he knew that there was a seventy per cent, chance that they wouldn’t. He lay staring down at the black sea through the triplex panel, ready to shout out at the first indication of land.
Corporal Leech lay in drugged stupor on the floor of the rear fuselage, his head pillowed on somebody’s parachute. Gunnar had done his work efficiently; Leech knew nothing of what was going on. Even when Phillips had to drag the dinghy pack across him, it hardly stirred his mind. When they went down into the water he would almost certainly be drowned within the fuselage; in the few moments that the escape-hatch would be above water the remainder of the crew could hardly hope to get him out. He was unconscious now, wrapped in drugged slumber; in that slum
ber he would quietly meet his death.
Gunnar Franck sat at the wireless, painstaking, thorough, and methodical. He did not know the code groups; at each stage he had to consult the written information that he had found in the wireless operator’s satchel, and this made him very slow. He transmitted slowly, too; he could not manage to send accurately at more than about seven words a minute or to receive at more than four or five. He did literally what he had been told to do, asked for emergency routine, reported their situation, and asked the stations to stand by for their last signal before they went down in the sea, in order that the rescue planes could search for them at dawn. He received the code confirmation that the written card had told him to expect, and then, surprisingly, the message went on pinging in his head-phones. His pencil moved mechanically on the pad; the message ended and he read the groups that he had written. They read: ‘Good luck to captain and crew.’
He was very pleased at the message; almost certainly it came from Pilsey. He must tell the captain, and plugged in his intercom. He said: ‘Navigator to Captain. Wireless emergency routine is in force, and they are standing by for our signal. They have sent us a message, Cap, from Hartley, I think. They say: “Good luck to captain and crew.” I think that is ver’ nice to have.’
Marshall said quickly: ‘Are you sure that came from Hartley?’
‘It was Group, Cap. They gave the identification.’
‘Okay.’ He raised his voice. ‘You all heard that, you chaps? Hartley says “Good luck to captain and crew”.’
He sat on at the controls, peering forward into the darkness and studying the faint lines on the sea below. He had become awake and cheerful; in that last half-hour he felt more himself than he had done for weeks. By all calculation they would be down very soon; those of them who were not killed at the impact with the water might get out into the dinghy to drift outwards from the land in the wet, freezing blackness of the sea. Many of his friends had gone that way; some had been picked up and returned to Hartley Magna in Oxfordshire, more had not. If that now had to happen to him, that was just too bad, but it had happened to better men than he. In the meantime the engines still ran, steady and even on the starboard side, like the lavatory cistern on the port. The sea beneath still seemed unreal and far away, as unreal as Mannheim.