“Nasty lot they are in Westminster, sir.”
“Very. I’ll send you word if we hear more of plans from Berlin. No detail but an indication of whether you can send your boys away to Paris – if they have any money left.”
Thomas acknowledged that would be useful – the weekends off were good for men who were used to the freer life of China and Spain.
“From all I gather about China every pilot had two at least of concubines supplied with his contract. Spain was very loose towards the end – they all expected to die soon and were determined to live first.”
“Sounds good to me, Stark. Don’t forget to relax, yourself.”
“I doubt Grace would approve, sir. My fiancée. I can wait.”
“I never fail to be amazed by the youth of today, Stark!”
The weather worsened and flying was suspended until the snow and sleet showers came to an end. The pilots lounged around and fretted and drank – they were not the sort to sit down and enjoy the chance to read a good book.
Major Curtis appeared, driven in his big Humber staff car, rather than the anonymous Citroen he preferred.
“Official business today, Stark. I am allowed to be here. You can bring your people off high alert. Berlin is not moving before May. Our opinion is that they are going into Denmark and Norway then – some reason to suppose they are waiting on the weather. Unsure why, except that Denmark is a major agricultural producer and they want the safe supply of foodstuffs. No need to invade Sweden, of course. The logic of Norway escapes us unless the longer term aim is to attack Russia. They would want to deny us bases in Norway in that case.”
“No new Schlieffen Plan, sir?”
“Damned if I know, Stark. There’s a persistent whisper that they want Holland – and that makes no great strategic sense. Not unless you assume that Hitler intends to create a European Empire – which might be so. We can be fairly sure they won’t attack the Maginot Line head on. I still think they will go into Belgium and drive south and west down the Channel coast to Calais before turning east. The French think the same. General Gort don’t think at all, but that’s because of the hole between his ears.”
“So the boys can have a few more weekends in Paris. That should make them less restless. The weather forecast is so poor, I shall ask Peters’ permission to give them the week.”
“Good idea. Take the train yourself and have a few days in England – you need a break. The Group Captain will okay it – I have checked.”
Chapter Four
The Breaking Storm
The boat train from Paris to London was still running and the first-class carriages offered a peacetime level of comfort. If anything, the train was less crowded, civilians having been banned from travel across the Channel – no more holidaymakers to clutter up the seats with their mounds of baggage.
Thomas showed his leave papers and travel warrants four times on the run to Calais, to different civilian and military officials. He displayed them again to board the boat and once more on the short passage and then again to Customs and military police at Dover. Either there was a problem with deserters or they were bringing Great War experience to bear to ensure there would not be.
The Customs officer was amazed to discover that Thomas was carrying nothing at all of interest – no cigarettes, no brandy, no silk underclothes.
“Pass through, sir. To the right to board your train.”
It was mildly amusing to watch the efforts of those who had dutiable goods to get them through without paying. Just in front of him he saw an army lieutenant carrying a heavy kitbag which gave a tinkle of bottles rattling together as he placed it on the counter and announced nothing to declare. Thomas caught the eye of the weary official behind the desk; they shook their heads in unison.
The train pulled in at Victoria and he looked around for a taxi.
“No petrol, sir. Take the Underground or a bus.”
The porter, ancient and bent-backed, was wholly uncaring, regarded Thomas’ two suitcases with a blank eye, made it very clear that he was not in the business of carrying baggage for fit young men.
Thomas had never used the Tube, did not know how to go about it. He joined a queue at the bus stop and clambered aboard the red double-decker and endured the half hour to Liverpool Street.
He bought his ticket to Holt, his travel warrant taking him only to London where he had joined up. It would take two changes and four hours, he was told. The buffet at the station sold tea and the previous days’ buns. The restaurant car on the express was closed. Each of the three trains was late.
There was a pony and trap at Holt, driven by a young woman and serving as a taxi. She took him out to the Lodge, enquiring if he was Grace’s fiancée. It was a small town and it seemed that everybody’s business was known.
“I am. Squadron Leader Stark.”
“Oh! Do you fly a Spitfire, sir?”
“No. My squadron has Hurricanes.”
“Oh, bad luck, sir.”
He had been told that the public believed in the Spitfire and thought it the best, the only, fighter in the world. No gain to disillusioning her, even if that were possible.
“There are some hundreds of Hurricanes and they will all fly to the defence of this country, miss.”
“I see. I think you are very brave, sir. Good luck!”
Lucy came to the door, greeted him with surprise and pleasure.
“Grace isn’t here, Thomas. She won’t be back for two or three weeks after having last weekend off.”
“No notice. We were given leave yesterday, so I came on the off-chance. I’ll stay a couple of days if that is right with you then head down to Southampton.”
“Noah will be home tomorrow for two days – he’s busier than ever at the moment, inspecting squadrons in training. An unending fight to make them useful rather than good at flying displays. He will be flying himself… He might be able to take you down south. Come in, I’ll tell cook to put up extra for dinner. Have you got a ration book?”
He had not. She explained why he should have, even if it was only for use on leave.
“We can go down to the police station in Holt tomorrow and pick one up for you.”
Dinner was plain but plenteous – there was no shortage in the Arkwright household, it seemed.
“We grow our own vegetables and have poultry at the back of the house. Lack of fodder made us sell off all but one of the horses; we use her with the trap for shopping and local visiting. One of the grooms was young enough to go off to war and the other gives a hand in the gardens as well as looking after the stables. We had two maids and a manservant, of course. Johnson is fifty and has stayed with us but the maids have gone to war work. They are both at the new hospital. We have taken on an elderly couple, as so many have had to. They creak and potter a little, but they keep the house up – and they are pleased to add a wage to their few shillings of an old age pension. They are fed from our gardens, which makes it easier for them. The war has been a blessing in some ways to the local people, Thomas.”
That seemed a strange comment to Thomas.
“Betty, who used to work with Cook in the kitchens, is one of five girls and three boys, between sixteen and their mid-twenties. The boys were farm labourers and working for a pittance. Two joined up and are earning more as private soldiers when allowance is made for their food, which comes for free. The third stayed on the farm and is earning twice his previous wage because so many have gone to the Services. Of the girls, Betty was the only one to have a job; now, all five are earning a wage and three of them living at home still and putting money into the housekeeping. Two have gone to a munitions plant miles away and live in a dormitory there and pick up a good wage. They know the two boys might be killed, but it’s better than it was in peacetime.”
It was a sad reflection on the country.
Thomas shook his head, dismayed in part that he had never been aware of how poor many of the people of the country must have been. He wondered if it was the s
ame back home in Australia.
Noah flew in, pushing an Anson hard to get down before nightfall.
“Delayed a few miles up the coast. Trying to explain to a bloody fool of a squadron leader that flying upside down in formation was not a useful exercise for his pilots. He seemed to think it would teach them to be alert. Determined to fly to battle in tight formation, thirteen planes in an arrowhead, no man’s wings more than ten feet distant from the others. Crass stupidity!”
“Official policy, is it not, sir?”
“It was, Thomas. It is now ‘under discussion’.”
“Meaning?”
“It is obviously bloody stupid and so is no longer to be insisted upon, but it can’t be withdrawn because that would be to say that it had been wrong. That would mean that every air vice marshal had been wrong, and the air commodores who supported them.”
“Ah! Better dead pilots than brasshats with red faces.”
“Precisely – I see you know how the RAF works. I hear from Curtis that you did a good job for him recently. Well done. Good man, Curtis. Believes that the war should be fought. He told me that Branksome was an out and out traitor, by the way. Surprising – I just thought he was a complete cock!”
“That as well, sir.”
Noah was not amused – he still hoped for better of his contemporaries.
“I gather the ground war has been delayed again, sir?”
“The effects of Mechelen, in part. Did you hear of that business? A German plane got lost in fog and thick cloud carrying a staff officer and landed in neutral territory. The staff officer was carrying papers which he tried to burn, thus arousing the suspicions of the locals who put the fire out. The bulk of the papers were no more than charred and gave some details of a plan to attack through Belgium and to the Channel coast, due in February or March. The Germans postponed everything when they realised we knew. Now, they will probably change the details but not the overarching thrust of their strategy. The betting is for May. Intelligence says that Adolf will have full stocks of ammunition by then - all that was used in Poland will have been replaced.”
“So we can take leave in March with no qualms. Fair enough. No repeat of the Schlieffen Plan, sir?”
“No. Adolf thinks the Channel is a more important target than Paris. It’s just possible that there might be a simultaneous invasion through Switzerland, so they say, attacking to Paris from the east and avoiding the Maginot Line. There’s a strong probability that Italy will join in when the Germans attack. The fear that they might, real or not, means the French have to keep forces in their south.”
“A nuisance, but little more. The Italians are so poorly equipped they can be ignored, surely.”
“Not entirely. They could have the effect of closing down Marseille with their navy and preventing French African troops from entering the country. The French are bringing in tens of thousands from their colonial armies – experienced soldiers who are probably better than their old Reservists. We hear a lot about the size of the French army, you know, Thomas, but too many of them are old men who fought in the Great War or did military service back in the ‘20s. The whisper is that the old men won’t fight for a government they have contempt for – France has been badly split politically for this last twenty years. Add to that, their senior officers are even less trustworthy than ours – far too many Branksomes among the French!”
Noah flew Thomas down to Hurn in the New Forest where there was a theoretically operational squadron of Spitfires.
“Bloody look at it, Thomas!”
They circled the field as a Flight took off in a vic of three, wingmen tucked in tight to the flight commander and able to see nothing.
“Useless! If we were a 109 then the two tail enders would be dead before they knew we were there. Bounce, bang, bang and gone!”
The squadron leader was a proud man; Noah had arrived in time to see his best Flight take off.
“Five feet from wingtip to fuselage, sir! That’s the way it’s done!”
“Only at air shows, Squadron Leader. Useless in battle.”
“It might not have worked in the Great War, sir, but with modern aircraft…”
“Thomas Stark here has 186 Squadron. He has sixteen and a half to his name, flying a Hurricane lately. What’s your opinion, Thomas?”
“The Luftwaffe formation, sir. A loose finger four, the three weaving about the line the leader sets. That way their visibility is maximised. It works. Using tight vics, two pilots out of three can see nothing. As they can’t weave, they can’t check behind for ambush.”
“I don’t know, old chap. You might have had a bit of luck, but the official policy seems to make sense to me. I think we’ll stick to our way of doing things.”
They were quick to put a lorry at his disposal and drive him off to Beaulieu – none of the pilots at Hurn had flown to war and they did not want to be told of the experience of a big-headed youth who had had some good fortune in Spain or China or somewhere.
Thomas was surprised to find his father home at midday.
“G’day, Old Man. How’s it going?”
“Slowly, Thomas. What’s it like in France?”
“Cold, wet and miserable. Almost nothing happening. One Junkers 88 split between me and Jan and not a sniff of anything else. Noah says the balloon is due to go up in May. Have you had any trade?”
“None. Seen a lot of sea and not much else. The base here is due to be shifted to join the one in Plymouth. Too far from the Atlantic, it seems. I won’t be going with it. I’m between postings. They are going to give me a Wing eventually, probably in shipping strikes – though that will be delayed until the new planes come in. For the while - and you know what the RAF’s like, it could be a long while – I am to work with Bomber Command on the ground-attack side. Basically setting up targets for the Battles and Blenheims.”
“In France, then?”
“For some of the time.”
“Do me a favour, Old Man – keep out of the Battles. Deathtraps! No speed; lousy rate of climb; poor in the dive; little defensive armament; tiny bomb load; unmanoeuvrable. One of the worst designs ever to enter service. Three men and half a ton of bombs using the same engine as a Hurricane!”
Tommy grinned and nodded.
“Put that way, you have a point, Thomas. From what I have heard, the German army has a large number of mobile anti-aircraft cannon. The Battle will be a sitter for them.”
“Too right! I can’t see any use for it – underpowered and under-armed. Bloody stupid design.”
“Cheap and nasty – more effective than the biplanes that came before it but out of date almost before it flew. The Blenheims are a bit better, from all they say.”
“Don’t know them, except for using them in target training with camera guns. They’re within reason fast, at least.”
Tommy shrugged, said he did not expect to do much more flying.
“Too senior, Thomas. Too much age and rank to do more than tell the younger men where to go and how to die. I expect they will be good at it.”
“How’s Cissie?”
“She’ll be back in a minute or two. Just walked into town to the butcher. We received a message from Noah’s office that you would be here today. The exercise is good for her, the doctor says.”
Thomas cocked a knowing eye.
“In the family way?”
Tommy nodded, wondering just how his son might react.
“Good thing, too! Keep you young, Old Man, having children in the house. Have you heard from Elizabeth Jane?”
“A long letter a couple of weeks ago. Congratulations on the marriage – which took up the first couple of lines – and then details on the businesses and the mobilisation for war. She has built up two more factories, taken over empty premises that went bust in the Depression, and is now manufacturing twenty and forty mil cannon in one and their ammunition in the other. Mountings for naval, air, tank and ack-ack uses are all in the design stage and she has orders for all of the
m. Apparently Australian yards are producing any number of torpedo and gunboats and corvettes, which all need cannon. Add to that, she’s bought into metal mining and refining – but not iron and steel, which is too big – and has seats on several boards. She says we won’t make vast amounts of money during the war but should be well set up for the peace.”
Thomas was amused.
“Always one for the long run, my big sister. Anything in the way of a personal life yet?”
“Not that she’s prepared to tell me about, Thomas!”
“I’ve always said that it would take a lot of man to stand at her side. Good on her!”
Cissie came in, striding confidently and happy in her lot.
“Thomas, you look better than last time I saw you. All well in France?”
“Yes - haven’t been betrayed once since Christmas!”
“I heard the details. Pity they had to kill him on the sly. He should have had his neck stretched officially!”
Thomas agreed – there was much to be said for hanging traitors.
“Can’t be done, it would seem, Thomas. Too many politicians standing as candidates for the noose just now. If they don’t achieve the peace they want, they will get their comeuppance. A number of political families are going to be eclipsed if we actually fight this war on land.”
Thomas had not followed the political affairs of England, mostly through distaste.
“A lot of talking going on behind the scenes, Thomas. The Appeasers are still strong and many of them can see the chance of a dictatorship in Britain in which they would take a major part. Mosley and King Edward as figureheads, the current way of thinking, while the real power in the land was carved up between the same old few. Against them is what might be called an ad hoc coalition of Conservatives and Labour, brought together by a contempt for the fascists rather than by any liking for each other. Both sides are drawing up their lists of arrests and of generals to be posted as far away as possible. A week from Germany making its big attack will see the issue decided, either by surrender or by all out war. Interesting times to live in!”
The Breaking Storm (Innocent No More Series, Book 2) Page 7