A Pair of Silver Wings

by James Holland

  Later, they received a briefing in the bar, the sun-scorched Air Commodore constantly looking around him, and speaking in hushed tones. ‘Spies are everywhere,’ he explained. ‘One can never be too careful.’ They were to stay in Gibraltar another day and night, he told them. HMS Furious was due in the following morning, their Spitfires already aboard. At dawn the next day – 20th February – they would set sail, steaming back out into the Atlantic to fool the spies, then, in the dead of a moonless night, would creep back through the straits and into the Mediterranean. That way, he assured them, the fascist observers at Algeciras would be none the wiser.

  Two nights of crisp, clean sheets, and a day of ambling through the spice-scented bazaars. ‘I feel like I’m on holiday,’ said Harry as they sat at an outside café.

  ‘We are, in a way,’ said Edward. ‘For a day at any rate.’

  Harry looked up and closed his eyes, letting the sun beat down upon his face. ‘I can hardly believe this is winter. This posting’s looking even better.’

  Edward laughed. ‘Just think of them all still stuck in Portreath. They don’t know what they’re missing.’ They were silent for a moment, then Edward said, ‘It’s going to be quite rough in Malta, isn’t it? I mean, things are pretty desperate there.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘But we’ll be all right, won’t we?’ Edward continued. Harry lit a cigarette, and exhaled a cloud of swirling blue-grey smoke into the sky.

  ‘Of course we will. I don’t think you and I will die. I don’t know why, but I do feel it very strongly.’ He looked at Edward intently. ‘I am scared, though.’

  ‘So am I.’

  Harry’s face brightened. ‘Are you? So it’s not just me, then.’

  Later, they strolled past well-stocked shops and bought presents for their parents, which they later posted from the hotel. They looked at Furious lying in port. She looked huge, but Edward had hoped she’d be bigger. Taking off from her flight deck was beginning to worry him. He just prayed that Harry’s hunch about them was right.

  They left at dawn the following day, as planned, the wind cutting up once more the moment they headed back out into the desolate Atlantic. Everything was exactly as the Air Commodore had outlined, except in one important aspect. The promised Spitfires were not on board. ‘Seems they never made it to Greenock in the first place,’ Hammond told them. ‘Apparently, we’ll get them in a couple of weeks, although I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, we’re going to have fly in yet more Hurricanes.’ There was a collective groan at this news. ‘Hurricanes?’ said Laurie Bowles. ‘What use are they going to be?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can remember how to fly one, sir,’ said Lucky. He was joking, but Edward was worried. It had been over seven months since he’d been in a Hurricane, and now he was expected to fly off in one from a horribly short-looking runway in the middle of the sea. All that day at sea, he spent his time familiarising himself with his allocated aircraft, sitting in the cockpit, going through the normal pre-flight checks, adjusting the settings and repeatedly making sure the changeover on his fuel tanks was working. As the day had worn on, so his fears had increased. He began to think he was trapped and that he would never stand on dry land again. By the time they had finished dinner, he was so wound up, Harry had to take him to the wardroom for several large drinks. He’d hoped whisky would help him sleep, but the clangings and tapping resonating around the iron hull and the discomfort of the netted hammocks kept him awake for much of the night. He prayed he would never have to go through the experience again.

  But he’d made it. He’d successfully taken off, and was now flying high over the Mediterranean, the sun high above him, shining down through the Perspex canopy. Even a fighter plane appeared large on the ground, yet here they were, ten specks coasting at twenty thousand feet. So precarious, and yet Edward felt quite secure, the harness tight around him, the cockpit snug and crammed with things that were so familiar to him. He glanced down at the sea, shimmering in the sunlight, drifting and dancing as the winds from North Africa blew across it, rippling it into strange patterns.

  At long last, Edward spied Malta. The cloud had cleared east of Cap Bon, so that now the sky and sea merged along a hazy grey line some way in the distance. But there, ahead of him, like a dusty autumn leaf, lay Malta. It was an image of utter calm and peacefulness. He glanced at his watch. Just after half-past nine. Almost on time.

  Soon after he heard Hammond trying to make contact with Malta. A German voice crackled in his ear, Butch cursed then called again and this time reached the RAF ground controller on the island. ‘Pancake as soon as you can,’ the controller told them. ‘You’re a few minutes late and we usually get a raid at around ten.’ They were told to split into two formations. Half were to land at Luqa, half at Takali. Edward was directed to the latter. The Island was fast looming towards them now, the deep azure of the Mediterranean turning vivid turquoise as it lapped the edges of the Island. So inviting. Edward wanted to leap in and swim. They had already dropped to ten thousand, but now Hammond brought them even lower. Their marker was the tiny island of Filfla, an outcrop to the south. Edward spotted it. Two thousand feet, and cutting the throttle. He felt his heart quicken again. So this is Malta. He could see the distinct inlet of Grand Harbour, and the finger of Valletta – a plume of smoke wafted high into the sky above; he could see the whole island laid out before him. So small, he thought. Fifteen hundred feet. Villages and towns dotted a patchwork landscape of differing hues of dust-gold and brown. Spires and pinnacles of the Island’s many churches stood proudly against the skyline. The first five were coming into land over Luqa – Edward watched them turn in, flashing blue undersides, their wheels lowering into position. Moments later, he spotted Takali, with its blast shelters dotted around the perimeter. Away to the east was another town and a church with a huge dome, dominating the whole settlement; to the north a further town perched high on a hill, and yet another church towering high over the airfield below.

  ‘Blue section – break!’ said Lucky, the section leader. Throttle back – but not as much as a Spitfire; you couldn’t glide in with a Hurricane. Undercarriage down. Edward heard the gentle whirr as the wheels lowered and clicked into place. Ahead of him was Lucky; one had already touched down, another was about to. Five minutes to ten. The cockpit felt suddenly close and claustrophobic, so he pulled off his mask and yanked back the hood on its runners, a blast of air and dust greeting him.

  Lucky touched down ahead of him, dust whipping up around him, then Edward watched the runway accelerate towards him until it was lost behind the great nose of the plane. A jolt and he had made it, back on land once more.

  He taxied off the main strip – there was no runway as such. Through the clouds of dust, two ground crew appeared and after motioning him to stop, jumped onto the wing. ‘Head round to the left,’ one of them yelled. ‘We’re expecting a raid any minute.’

  Edward did as he was bidden, bumping over the rough ground. ‘Here,’ said one of the men eventually, pointing towards a U-shaped wall of old four-gallon fuel cans. Edward turned in, braked and cut the engine, and took off his helmet.

  ‘Quickly!’ said one of the ground crew. Edward was suddenly conscious that an air-raid siren was wailing hauntingly over the island. ‘Leave your stuff for the moment,’ said the man. Fumbling with his harness buckle, Edward frantically tried to free himself. The first explosions were dully detonating from the south. Free at last – thank God. He pushed himself up, his legs stiff, and lowered himself onto the wing, then jumped awkwardly onto the ground, turning his ankle as his did so.

  ‘Come on, sir!’ said the man, holding out a hand. Edward took it, and pulled himself up, and hobbled after him. Fifty yards away, there was a long narrow slit trench. There were several ground crew already there as Edward dropped in.

  ‘Eddie – you made it!’ said Lucky. ‘Jesus, what kind of welcome is this?’

  Seconds later, Harry also joined them. The explosions were get
ting closer.

  ‘That’s Luqa, sir,’ said the man who had jumped on Edward’s wing. ‘I’m Summersby by the way,’ he added. ‘Very glad to see you all.’

  ‘Bloody hell, I hope the first lot got down in time,’ said Harry. Another explosion, louder this time, followed by the screaming and whistling of more bombs and the roar of aero engines. The ground shuddered and shook, the noise deafening. The pilots, without helmets, covered their heads instinctively with their hands and crouched as low as they could into the ground. More screaming from the sky, and more explosions, and this time it seemed as though the eruptions were just yards from where they were crouching. Edward grimaced, as showers of mud, grit and fragments of stone clattered down around and over them. They heard the bombers drifting away, but now they could hear the whirr of more engines, lighter, more refined this time. Edward had just guessed they must be enemy fighters when they opened fire, machine-gun bullets spitting over the airfield. Another smaller explosion as an aircraft was hit and burst into flames.

  And then they were gone. Slowly, gingerly, they lifted their heads. The airfield, the whole Island it seemed, was covered in dust and smoke. They all coughed, choking on the acrid fumes. Two separate columns of thick black smoke were already billowing high into the sky.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Summersby. ‘Another plane and a bowser. That’s the last one gone.’

  As the dust and smoke began to settle, the men emerged from their slit trenches. With his handkerchief over his mouth, Edward walked unsteadily towards his Hurricane. His legs felt weak, his head whirred, and his ears were ringing shrilly. His aircraft was covered with dirt and grit, but otherwise it appeared to be in one piece. He looked around, and gasped. New bomb craters littered the airfield where, just a few minutes before, they had landed. Scattered elsewhere were the remains of numerous burnt-out aircraft – skeletal and charred Hurricanes, but bombers too, Wellingtons and Blenheims. Dotted in between were countless little red flags, sticking up through the wispy dried grass.

  Edward turned and saw that Summersby was standing next to him. ‘What are those flags?’ he asked.

  ‘Unexploded bombs. You wouldn’t believe the number of duds and delayed-action stuff they lob down on us.’ The other Hurricanes parked around the perimeter looked battered and tired. One had a completely different airscrew, most were roughly patched; all were chipped and streaked with oil.

  Harry and Lucky walked over. They looked ashen. Lucky turned to Summersby. ‘How many aircraft have we got here?’

  ‘Hard to say, sir. In total, around fifty-odd, but some of those are in pieces, and most aren’t actually serviceable as such. Numbers have been going down pretty fast in the last few days. Two days ago we had just eleven.’

  ‘Eleven?’ All three stared incredulously at the airman.

  ‘There were only nine fit to fly this morning, so assuming your ten are all right, that puts us up to nineteen.’

  ‘Jesus,’ mumbled Lucky. ‘And the Krauts? Just a little more than that, right?’

  Summersby nodded slowly. ‘Hundreds.’

  They looked at each other. Words were pointless.

  Malta – February, 1942

  10.30 a.m., 21st February, 1942. A Saturday, not that it made any difference. Edward had been on the island little more than an hour when six Hurricanes came into land, one with its engine spluttering. Edward watched. They all made it safely down, but the last, the one smoking slightly, cut its engine almost immediately and rolled to a standstill. While the others taxied off towards their blast shelters, this lone aircraft remained in the middle of the dusty field, the pilot making no effort to get out. A number of airmen rushed over. Some shouting followed, then the pilot was pulled from the cockpit and lowered carefully onto the ground. Slowly he was helped back onto his feet, and, with an airman taking each arm, led towards dispersal. Edward rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. It was a bright day, the sun bearing down from a deep, cloudless sky, and warm – but not stifling – with a cooling breeze.

  Edward stumbled back to his Hurricane, swept the worst of the debris from the port wing with his hand, then clambered up to gather his belongings, placing them together in a canvas knapsack he had brought especially for the purpose. Several ground crew were already swarming over his plane, gleefully pulling up the gun ports with bayonets, and ripping out cartons of Camel cigarettes, medical supplies and other goodies stashed there. Armourers hurried up to the Hurricane with machine guns and ammunition boxes, while other men – soldiers, not RAF – strained under the weight of carrying stacks of four-gallon tin cans of petrol. Cans, boxes, oil-stained men with toolboxes. Edward looked at them, bewildered. Already, the craters were being filled in – more soldiers, their legs and arms fried a deep brown under threadbare KD shorts and shirts.

  Lucky and Harry called to him. The two of them were standing with another of the ground crew; Summersby had vanished. As Edward joined them, a soldier walked past with wide, staring eyes and mouth spread in a grin. He turned his head and laughed at them, then ran towards another of the planes. ‘Don’t mind him,’ said the erk. ‘He’s gone a bit loopy. We all get a bit bomb-happy from time to time.’ The pilots nodded, oh, I see.

  ‘Where are we supposed to go?’ Edward asked, his parachute, knapsack and helmet bundled in his arms.

  ‘To dispersal, apparently,’ said Harry, pointing to one end of the airfield. Hundreds of men were scurrying busily, RAF and Army mixed together.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Lucky again. ‘What the hell is this place we’ve come to?’

  Dispersal was a battered-looking concrete shed, pockmarked with shrapnel blasts. Alex and the fifth pilot among them, another Englishman named Don Routledge, were already standing outside, talking to an exhausted-looking squadron leader. Several pilots lolled on a number of canvas stretchers placed in front of the building, while others squatted on lumps of rock. They, too, wore a variety of battered clothes, in various hues of cream and khaki.

  ‘Ah, welcome,’ said the Squadron Leader as the three of them reached dispersal. ‘Tony Pallister. I’m in charge of 636 Squadron here. Sorry about the welcome, but if there’s one thing I’ll say for Jerry, it’s that he’s regular as clockwork. There’s usually another visit early afternoon. Never many bombers during the day, although they always come protected by swarms of 109s. Then things start hotting up again once it gets dark. Hundreds of the bastards. They like to keep us awake.’ He grinned, showing black gaps between his teeth. He looked around, making a sweep with his hands before clapping them together again. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I imagine this must all be a bit of a surprise. A bit different from what you’ve been used to in England. I’m afraid it is all rather frugal. Everything’s a bit limited. We never seem to have enough of anything. The erks have to work like demons, and really it’s amazing what they manage. We’ve even had to strip down two aircraft with not much wrong with them for spares. Ridiculous really, but what can you do? Anyway, gorgeous day.’

  ‘Is it always like this?’ asked Harry.

  ‘God, no. We’ve had terrible weather this year. January was atrocious, although we weren’t complaining. Didn’t see Jerry for days at a time – it was bliss. No, it’s only in the past week or two that things seem to have picked up. This place dries pretty quickly. You’d never guess it was completely waterlogged a few weeks back. Like a bloody lake. We had a bit of riot as quite a lot of snipe suddenly came in. It was like something out of the Fens. Anyway, we all took potshots. Boosted the daily ration no end.’ Edward looked across at the dusty bowl in front of him. He could not imagine it ever looking like any part of England. ‘Fiendishly hot in the summer of course,’ added Pallister. ‘So hot you have to watch yourself getting into your aircraft. I got some quite nasty burns last summer.’ He scratched his chin thoughtfully, then said, ‘I have to say, we’re all feeling a bit blue that you’ve not come with Spitfires.’

  ‘So are we,’ said Lucky.

  ‘Any idea when they might be coming?’ T
ony asked. ‘We’re usually the last to know.’

  Lucky shrugged. ‘Well, sir, soon I’d guess – in the next week, or so we were told at Gib.’

  ‘Less of the sir, all right? Tony’s fine.’ He rubbed the back of his head, and tutted. ‘It’s always a couple of weeks.’ Another weather-beaten young man with thick, matted brown hair ambled over. ‘Ah,’ said Tony, ‘meet Chuck Cartwright. He’s ‘A’ Flight commander.’

  Chuck held out a hand to them all. ‘Hi,’ he said. They introduced themselves, then looking at Lucky, Chuck said, ‘American, right?’

  ‘Right. Burbank, California. You? You’re Canadian.’

  Chuck grinned. ‘You bet. Vancouver.’

  ‘We’ve got all sorts here,’ said Tony. ‘Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Rhodesians, a couple of Yanks in 126 Squadron. Even a few Englishmen.’ He introduced a few more of the pilots, and pointed out those who were asleep. Edward noticed that many of the pilots absent-mindedly scratched themselves – on their arms, or legs or head; even those asleep, rather like a dozing dog in a patch of sun. He peered into the dispersal hut. A few chairs, a couple of large rocks and the remains of another wooden chair scattered and splintered on the ground. Pictures of naked women glued roughly to the wall flapped gently in the breeze. Edward looked down and saw a lizard scamper across his foot, then stepped outside again to stand with the others. Creaking towards them was an old wooden cart full of fuel cans, pulled by a skinny mule nodding its head slowly and mournfully. A Maltese man, a wide hat on his head and a thick moustache covering his top lip, clutched a whip, his shoulders hunched. ‘Bit of a bore actually, but we’ve just lost our last bowser,’ said Tony. ‘Can’t see how we’re ever going to get another one, so that means doing it all by hand from now on – with, of course, a bit of help from the locals.’ They all followed his gaze towards the cart as it plodded slowly towards them.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Tony. ‘This is Takali, for better or worse. We spend a lot of time here at dispersal, although as you can see, we keep the aircraft pretty spread out around the airfield.’ He looked behind him. ‘No buildings as such. Most maintenance is done in the pit over there and in the caves.’ He gestured towards a rough cliff that bordered the edge of the field. Caves had been dug into the cliff, but in front was a large seventy yard-long trench. ‘It protects us from the worst of the blast, and so far, we’ve had no direct hits. As I say, the erks do amazing things here. Extraordinary in the circumstances.’