But by the end of the day, Edward and Harry had talked each other into offering their services. At least it would be a change; at least they would see some action. At least it would be better than staying put in Portreath, a place from which it seemed they would never be posted. ‘And they need two volunteers,’ pointed out Harry. ‘When’s that chance going to come along again? If we both go, then we can stick together.’
Jimmy took their decision well. He’d long since forgiven Edward for his free flight over Brittany; in recent weeks, he’d even returned to something like his old self. He had been surprised, however. ‘You must know you should never volunteer for anything – it’s a golden rule,’ he told them.
‘Our minds are made up,’ said Harry.
Jimmy nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that. Well, you’ll be missed.’
They left the squadron the following day, after a drunken send-off at the Tregenna Castle, heading their separate ways for ten days’ embarkation leave. Edward had been at home only a few days when he received a telegram telling him his posting had been changed. With mounting anxiety, he had rung Harry, but to his great relief, discovered his friend had received the same notice. Instead, they would be going to the Middle East.
For the last couple of days of his leave, Edward had felt impatient and anxious to get going, but as he packed and looked round his bedroom for the last time in God only knew how many months – even years – he wondered whether he might be reprieved, that another telegram would arrive informing him he would be staying in England after all. On the walls hung framed team photographs from his schooldays. Above his bed there was still the woodland picture of fairies and elves that had been in his room all his life – it had been there since his earliest memories. Only now did he realise how childish it was, how unsuitable it was for a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. Other nick-nacks littered the room: a cricket bat, boxing gloves and a deflated rugger ball. The Meccano aeroplane he had made many years before. A boy’s room.
‘I know you’re grown up now,’ his mother had said at the station, ‘but you’re still my little boy.’
‘Come on, Angela, you’re embarrassing the lad,’ said his father. His mother had tried hard not to cry, but had been unable to stop herself, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. Edward had felt like crying himself. Why was it worse this time? Because I’m going to the Middle East, he thought. There would be no more empty days flying tedious convoy patrols. The Middle East, as everyone knew – as his mother and father knew – was the one place where British forces were still actively fighting Germany; and he would be in the thick of it. His mother was crying because she knew there was every chance she would never see him again.
Friday, 13th February, 1942. An inauspicious day on which to begin their journey. Edward had met Harry in London the night before, and then they had joined three others at Paddington – a wiry Australian, Laurie Bowles; a tall, athletic-looking American, Lucky Santini; and a Scottish sergeant pilot called Alex McLeish. Only Edward and Harry knew one another. They all shook hands, eyeing each other. Edward noticed both Laurie and Alex wore the purple and white ribbon of a DFC above their breast pocket. It was raining as they pulled out of the station. London looked tired, Edward thought. Blackened buildings, and occasionally a gaping hole where once a building – or several buildings – had stood. It was still raining by the time they reached Reading.
‘Bastard English weather,’ muttered Laurie.
‘You clearly haven’t been to Scotland,’ said Alex.
‘No, and I don’t think I want to.’
‘Believe me, you do,’ said Lucky. ‘Scotland is an amazing place.’
‘Anyway, might be the last rain we see in a long time,’ added Harry. ‘Doesn’t rain much in North Africa.’
‘North Africa?’ said Laurie. ‘We’re not going to North Africa. No, mate. Reckon we’re heading for Malta.’
‘Malta?’ Edward sat up.
‘Yup. That’s what I heard.’ Laurie had come from Biggin Hill, part of 11 Group. It was a large fighter station, and, as he put it, a lot of ‘top brass’ were always passing through. If you wanted to know what was going on, then Biggin was the place to find out. ‘My old CO got it from the Winco, and the Winco heard it from someone at Air Ministry. They’ve only got Hurricanes out there, but they’re going to send some Spits. And Spitfire pilots. You all flown Spits?’ They nodded. ‘Well, then. In my limited experience, these rumours usually tend to be right.’
‘Malta,’ said Harry, ‘Jesus.’
‘Malta? Where the hell’s that?’ said Lucky.
‘It’s an island in the Mediterranean. About halfway along,’ said Harry.
Lucky looked doubtful. ‘Never heard of it.’
Laurie grinned. ‘You have now. Fiery little place just at the minute – it’ll be a bit different from rhubarbs over France at any rate.’ Edward looked at him, noticing the way Laurie constantly jigged his leg and drummed his fingers.
The train trundled west, through damp, grey towns: Hungerford, Swindon, Taunton, Exeter; a long, faltering journey, but which gave them a chance to talk. Edward was glad not to sit in silence; it wasn’t good to think too hard about things. Why ‘Lucky’? Harry asked.
‘Like Lucky Luciano,’ he replied. ‘You know, the gangster? My name’s Luciano. I never use it, though. Never have. Always been Lucky.’
‘Have you?’ asked Harry.
‘I guess so. Survived so far, haven’t I?’ He was from California. Burbank. ‘It’s near Hollywood,’ he told them. His father had died when he was young, so his mother had been forced to go out and work. There wasn’t much time for him, and even less when she married again and had two more children. Lucky waved his hand at them. ‘Look, I didn’t care too much. Meant no-one was checking up on me. Leastways, that’s the way I looked at it.’ He’d always loved planes, right from when he was a boy, when he used to bunk off school and sneak down to the Metropolitan airdrome to watch the airplanes. They got to know him and started giving him odd jobs, cleaning the planes, sweeping out hangars.
‘Did you ever see any film stars?’ asked Edward.
‘Oh, sure. Movie stars have been flying ever since airplanes were invented. Yeah, I saw loads of them. Gable, Garbo; Errol Flynn. We had them all coming through. You should see my autograph book.’
Edward was impressed. He’d seen Dawn Patrol the summer he left school. At the time he’d thought it the best film he’d ever seen, and it had been a greater influence on his desire to fly than he was ever willing to confess.
Lucky was not to be drawn into anecdotes about film stars, however. ‘I couldn’t give a damn about Hollywood,’ he told them. ‘Airplanes was what got me going.’ Later on, when he was fifteen and had finished with school, he got a job working for Lockheed, the aircraft manufacturers. He saved and hoarded, continued hanging out with the fliers, and eventually had enough stashed away to learn to fly himself. ‘Boy, that was a great moment,’ he told them, closing his eyes and sighing as he remembered that first flight. ‘But I guess you guys would know all about that. Pure heaven.’ By the time he was eighteen he had a part share in a plane of his own. ‘A Laird Speedwing – a hundred horsepower, but a great little bird all the same.’ And then the war came along and America wasn’t in it. Lucky figured they would be before too long and so applied to join the air force. He didn’t like what he’d seen of Hitler or the Nazis, but really, he just wanted to fly. He’d become bored of flying hundred-horsepower aircraft. ‘I saw these thousand-horsepower birds, and wanted a piece of it myself. Christ, who wouldn’t?’
‘So what happened?’ asked Edward.
‘Failed my goddam medical. Apparently, I have some kind of stigma in my eye. So I tried to join the navy fliers, but the same thing happened. “Sorry son, you’re eyes aren’t up to it.” Don’t give me that crap, I told them, but they weren’t interested. Of course, the sons of bitches would welcome me with open arms now, but back in 1939 they were a bit more picky.’ But the RAF was despe
rate for experienced pilots, and wasn’t too bothered about stigmas. He found out about the Clayton Knight Committee, who were in Los Angeles and screening young pilots like himself, and helping them to join the RAF in Canada. An interview at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and he was in. ‘No damned questions about my eyes.’ Before he knew it, he was on a ship to Britain. He arrived at Greenock, on the Clyde, just over a year before. Coming off the boat, he was met by a Scottish lady handing out mugs of tea. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I’d come all this way and the first thing I do is drink tea.’ In the distance he’d seen the mountains and decided that one day he’d come back and visit. A few months later he was given a week’s leave, so suffering a long and arduous train journey, he and a friend went back to Scotland and spent a week walking around Oban. ‘There’s nothing like the Highlands in California, I can tell you.’ After completing his training, he had joined the Eagle Squadron, along with all the other American volunteers, and had slowly but surely got used to the English way of doing things. He liked the RAF. Liked their attitude and liked their easy-going approach. When rumours began that the American squadrons were going to be absorbed into the US Air Force, he made up his mind to volunteer for the first overseas posting he could. That way, he figured, he could stay with the RAF. ‘So here I am,’ he said, ‘for better or worse.’ He smoothed his dark, finely combed hair and movie-star moustache. Despite a long, cold winter in Britain, he still glowed with good health. ‘I mean,’ he added, ‘if Uncle Sam didn’t want me back in ’39, I don’t see why they should have me now I’ve earned my pips.’ Pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, he flicked one into his mouth, winked, then flipped open his lighter and lit it with one hand. A perfect trio of smoke rings drifted out into the compartment. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I want to hear about you guys.’
Edward and Harry spoke in tandem. Their sorry tale of squadron life in Cornwall was met with sympathy. ‘And I thought fighter sweeps were bad enough,’ said Laurie. Like Lucky, Laurie had also had a lifelong passion for aeroplanes. Brought up on a farm in northern New South Wales, his father and uncles had bought one together when he was still a boy. ‘They made a heck of a difference. Jesus, our farm was probably the same size as England. Well, maybe not that big, but bloody big all the same.’ He could fly by the time he was fifteen – so could all his brothers. ‘All five of us, so then we got another one – a Tiger Moth. She was an absolute beaut.’ But one of his brothers had crashed it. ‘Yeah, he was getting a bit carried away with himself, doing acrobatics and all that shit, and crashed straight into the ground.’
‘What happened to him?’ asked Edward.
‘Well, he killed himself, didn’t he? Bloody idiot.’ He sighed, looked out of the window, then said, ‘Mum wasn’t so happy about us all flying after that, but it didn’t stop me.’ There wasn’t enough work – or money – for all of them to stay on the farm, not with all his cousins as well. So he said his farewells, headed to Sydney and got the boat to England. He’d never been on a ship before. Had never even seen the sea. He was sick as a dog all the way to England, but after what seemed like forever, the ship eventually reached Liverpool. ‘I got here the same day Chamberlain came back from meeting Hitler and flapping his piece of paper. Joined the Air Force as soon as I could.’
‘And you haven’t been home since?’ said Edward.
‘Well, no. Of course not. There’s the small matter of a war on. But it’s OK. I get letters.’ Two of his brothers had since joined the army. They were now in the Middle East, and that was one of the reasons he’d been so keen to volunteer for the overseas posting. He’d hoped he might bump into them, and was disappointed when he discovered they were almost certainly headed for Malta. ‘But it was too late then. My CO said you should never volunteer for anything, and he was right.’
‘Our CO said the same,’ said Harry.
Edward warmed to these men. It was funny, he reflected, how some people you took to immediately and others you didn’t, often for no reason that could be defined. But already he felt a growing sense of solidarity, that they were headed on this venture together, creating a bond before they’d barely started. He looked across at Alex. Pale skin, fair hair and eyebrows so blond they were hardly visible. Of them all, Alex had said the least, had been the quietest. Leaning his hand against the window, he was gazing out at the bleak countryside, an expression of wistfulness etched across his face.
‘What about you, Alex?’ asked Lucky. ‘Did you volunteer for this caper?’
Alex shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, his voice soft, but with a distinct brogue. ‘I’ve heard that rule as well, you know, only I’ve always stuck to it.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘No, I’ve been instructing for the past nine months.’ He had joined the RAF before the war. His father had been a shepherd in Perthshire, and Alex had been expected to follow suit – a life of trudging up and down mountains, tending to the sheep. But then he’d seen a recruitment poster in Pitlochry – this was in 1938, after the Munich Crisis – and without telling his parents, he’d taken a train to Glasgow and joined up. Just like that. He’d never expected to be a pilot – he’d assumed he’d be crew – but had found himself picked out. Not that he was complaining. ‘Who would turn down a chance to fly?’ he said. Two weeks before the war broke out, he was posted. His squadron, took part in the battle over Dunkirk, then fought through much of the Battle of Britain. He said little about it; you didn’t brag. At the end of August that summer, the squadron was moved north, out of the front line of battle. They were at Drem in Scotland when Alex was posted to Wales as an instructor. It was there that he’d met Joan – she was a WAAF, working with the ground controller. ‘Then suddenly I was told my instructing days were over and that I’d been posted overseas,’ he said.
‘You didn’t want that?’ asked Harry.
‘No. You see, I’ve only been married three weeks. I’d never have done it if I’d known I was about to be posted. It’s not really fair on Joan. We’d only just found ourselves somewhere to live.’ He smiled again sadly.
‘You must have known it was on the cards,’ said Laurie.
‘No, not at all. I thought I’d be staying in Britain for some time to come. You see, I’d been told that I was likely to be posted to Hawkers as a test pilot. Now I don’t know when I’ll see her again. I’m worried my letters won’t get through from Malta.’
‘Of course they will,’ said Harry. They were all silent for a while after that. Alex didn’t look very old, but by being married, he had already placed himself on a different level from the others. Edward thought about Betty at the Tregenna Castle. He couldn’t ever imagine being married. Couldn’t imagine falling in love. His mother was the only member of the female sex he’d ever really known, and he was glad about that, grateful that he wasn’t in Alex’s shoes.
Plymouth – at last. An RAF truck was waiting for them and took them to the Grand Hotel, requisitioned entirely by the RAF, where they met the other six pilots – all of whom had been flown down earlier in the day. Squadron Leader Butch Hammond was in command: a pre-war regular, an ace twice over and with two DFCs to his name. And grey eyes underneath his dark hair, eyes that bored into the newcomers suspiciously. ‘Seen much action?’ he asked Edward and Harry.
‘Not very much, sir,’ Harry replied. ‘We’ve been in a quiet sector. But we’ve done plenty of flying. Built up our hours.’
Hammond raised an eyebrow. ‘Flying’s one thing,’ he said. ‘Being a fighter pilot’s quite another.’ He looked at Edward. ‘And you volunteered for this, did you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hammond nodded. ‘I see,’ he said, then after clearing his throat, turned to them all. ‘Well, we’ll be flying out to Gibraltar tomorrow morning. Can’t say much more now – but all will be revealed soon enough.’
Dinner in the plush hotel dining room – thin soup and a potato-rich pie – followed by drinks at the bar afterwards: watery beer and whisky. There was a Canadian amongst them, too – Ken Bartlett – and an Ir
ishman – Paddy Milligan. Men from across the free world, brought together in this once grand Devon hotel on a grey winter’s day, only to be sent to some tiny outpost in the middle of the Mediterranean. Since leaving India as a boy, Edward had rarely spoken with anyone who was not English. How that had changed since he’d joined the RAF. And what struck him was how similar they all were: whether French, Canadian, American or Irish, one young man was much the same as another.
The following morning the weather had worsened. At Mountbatten seaplane base, the Catalinas bobbed and rocked on a restless deep green sea. There was talk of postponing the flight – the sea looked too rough – but in the end they went, knocked and jolted as the flying boat crashed over the waves and eventually heaved itself into the air. None of them looked comfortable – they were bad passengers to a man, but that was hardly surprising: it wasn’t the fighter pilot way to be flown by someone else. Thunderstorms harangued them all the way across the Bay of Biscay, the Catalina pitching and falling as though it were still on the sea; they had to stay low to avoid the enemy radar, but at least the bad weather kept any stray marauders out of their way.
Over nine hours later, having skirted around the Iberian Peninsula, they turned in on Cape St Vincent on the final stretch to Gibraltar. Although the sun had long-since set, Gibraltar itself shone brightly from the twinkle of thousands of lights, as did Algeciras, across the straits in Spanish Morocco. After more than two years of blackouts back home in Britain, this dazzling illumination seemed almost fantastical. It was not just the lights: at the Bristol Hotel they dined on fat steaks and claret and ate sweet pastries, the kind of meal they had all but forgotten about.
A Pair of Silver Wings Page 13