He thought of the death and violence he’d already witnessed. On his fourth day, one man from the Buffs had been killed and three others were seriously wounded. He’d not seen it, but the news had chilled him; there’d been just a single death during his training when a pupil pilot had stalled and crashed in Canada, and not one during his time with 324 Squadron. Then, just three days before, he and Zulu Purnell had been helping build another blast shelter at the far end of the airfield when three Junkers 88s had dived on Takali. They and the other men all ran for the nearest slit trench – all except one, a ginger-haired lad, who shouted, ‘I’m going to get you, you fucking Jerry bastards!’ and had run over to the mounted Lewis gun fifty yards away and had begun firing furiously. A single bomb fell near them. In the slit trench, Edward heard the whistle, then Zulu said, ‘Jesus Christ!’ and clutched his hands over his head, as the ground shuddered and debris rained down on them. One of the erks said, ‘Oh my God, Rusty!’ The Lewis gun was no longer firing; the bombers had gone and so they all clambered out of the slit trench, dazed and covered in grit, flapping hands in front of their faces to clear away the clouds of smoke and dust. ‘Rusty?’ one of the men shouted, then another said, ‘Oh my God! Oh, Christ, no!’ Edward and Zulu rushed over. The man was standing by a single leg, still socked and booted. Edward gasped, and as the dust cleared a stray dog trotted past, Rusty’s ginger scalp between his teeth.
He’d vomited. Death had always been something abstract – something that happened, but was never witnessed. But the end for this man, so very alive one minute, and so violently and with so little dignity killed a moment later, shocked him deeply.
Worse was to follow. There had still been some flying, and just yesterday Chuck and Harry had been sent up after some Stukas that were reported to be heading for the harbours. Normally, Zulu would have been flying as Chuck’s wingman, but he had a touch of Malta Dog – dysentery – and was sick in bed. They’d actually caught up with the dive-bombers and Chuck had even shot one down. But just as they were about to land again, the 109s had shown up. Harry had made it safely – somehow dodging the bullets – but Buck’s plane was riddled and before his wheels even touched the ground, the ruptured petrol tanks, still half full, had burst into flames. They’d all seen it. Buck’s Hurricane seemed to buckle, and plummeted onto the rough field, scraping uncontrollably until it came to rest just a short distance from Harry. From the dispersal hut, the other pilots watched as Buck, slowly enveloped by flames, struggled to get out before disappearing amidst the dense, dark smoke that shrouded him. The death of Rusty had been grotesque, but Edward had not known him; Chuck had been his Section Leader, a stalwart of the squadron. A friend to many.
Standing out there on the balcony, the Island so deceptively peaceful, Edward lit another cigarette – a rare extravagance – and noticed that as he cupped his hands, they were shaking again.
‘Here you are.’
Edward turned. ‘Harry. I just needed some air. I think I’m going to have to stop playing cards. I’m going to be skint in no time.’
Harry smiled. ‘It would be a little foolish to come back broke from an island where there is nothing to spend your money on.’ He lit a cigarette himself, then sighed. ‘What have we done, Eddie?’
‘What, coming here?’ Harry nodded. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about Chuck,’ said Harry. ‘I could see him. Could see him and hear him struggling for his life. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. And the worse thing is, I did nothing to help him. I was only thirty yards away. I should have run over to him straight away, tried to get him out.’
‘Harry, there was nothing you could have done.’
‘There was. I should have run to him, but I was paralysed where I was – I was scared, terrified that I would get burnt too.’ He turned away and wiped one eye with the back of his hand. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘What is this place we’ve come to?’
Edward put a hand on his shoulder. It’ll be OK. They stood for a moment, smoking, neither saying anything. Then Edward said, ‘Would you have volunteered if I hadn’t wanted to?’
‘Would you if I hadn’t?’
They were silent again for a moment until Edward said, ‘I wonder whether God is on our side.’
‘I don’t know. But I do know I’ve done more praying since I’ve been here than I’ve ever done in my life. I hope someone’s watching out for us. Perhaps it’s not the God we know from church, but it’s good to think that there’s more to it than this, don’t you think? That Buck’s up there somewhere, in a better place?’
Edward shivered. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Yes – let’s go in, Eddie.’
*
Tuesday, 10th March. It had taken three whole days to get the Spitfires ready. They had arrived with the wrong paint scheme, without their guns and cannons properly synchronised. New paint had to be found and mixed up – and this took time – and although most of the 634 Squadron pilots were given a brief test flight on the ninth, it wasn’t until shortly after ten the following morning that seven of the new Spitfires were scrambled along with a dozen Hurricanes from Takali and Hal Far.
Butch Hammond had briefed the pilots the night before. As in the Battle of Britain, attacking enemy bombers would be the task of the Hurricanes, he told them. The Spitfires would climb as high as they could, and then, with the sun behind them, would dive and shoot down any escorting enemy fighters. He made it all sound so simple. ‘Tomorrow,’ he reminded them, ‘will be the first time the Spitfire has been in action against the enemy operating from outside the British Isles.’ Holding up his hands he said, ‘I know – unbelievable isn’t it? Two-and-a-half years we’ve been fighting this war. It’s been a long time coming, but those of you lucky enough to be flying them tomorrow can feel rightly proud.’
Since tramping the two-and-a-half miles from Mdina to Takali at first light that morning, it had felt like a long wait. The day had begun grey, and as the morning grew, the thin layer of cloud that covered the Island seemed unwilling to disperse. Laurie Bowles had even begun taking bets that no enemy aircraft would turn up until after the changeover with ‘B’ Flight at one o’clock.
‘You’re a fool, Laurie,’ Bagshawe had told him.
‘It’s sod’s law, Baggy.’
‘But the Germans like to attack just before elevenses. You can set your watch by it. However good their planes might be, and however skilled their pilots, they simply cannot bring themselves to disrupt a well-worn routine.’
Butch Hammond had also been pacing impatiently. He had arrived at dispersal soon after the rest of the pilots, already wearing his mae west and clutching his flying helmet and goggles. ‘Well, I’m not going to miss this,’ he had told them. Tony had been told to lead Blue section, he would take Green. Four and three – only seven Spitfires were ready and serviceable.
But Bagshawe had been right. Just after ten in the morning, the field telephone rang: a small number of ‘big jobs’ were on their way. Off the pilots ran, as the engines were primed and started by the waiting ground crew, erupting with a guttural roar. As he neared his blast pen, Edward saw his rigger jump out. ‘Good luck, sir,’ the airman called out as Edward grabbed his parachute and dinghy pack, clambered onto the wing and lowered himself into the comfortingly familiar pale green cockpit. Moments later, he was taxiing out, watching Butch and his two wingmen thunder down the runway and lift into the sky, a cloud of dust in their wake. And then it was his turn, Tony and Zulu on his left, Harry on his right. Further away, four Hurricanes were also taking off in a line, as Edward gunned his throttle and hurtled down the brown dusty field. Sixty, seventy, eighty, and then ninety miles an hour, a monstrous surge of power that pinned him into his seat. Easing back on the stick, he felt himself rise into the sky, the fields, walls and villages of Malta disappearing beneath him.
Butch had said they could feel proud – well, Edward did. As they climbed to 19,000 feet, through the cloud layer and into the bright burning blue,
he glanced around him at the rest of Blue Section, Tony and Zulu ahead and slightly above him, Harry behind, some fifty yards off his starboard wing. Higher still was the section of three Spitfires, Butch out in front, the new deep blue of the underside of their aircraft blending with the richness of the sky. His heart pounded in his chest, that now familiar nausea sat hollowly in his stomach, yet he felt exhilarated too. He twisted and turned his head, squinting as the sun behind him bore down upon them. Yes, he thought, this is much better. They’d flown Mark IIs in Cornwall, but these new Mark Vs were wonderful; the difference in power over the Hurricanes was extraordinary. In this machine they would show the 109s what they could do. At that moment, he felt invincible once more.
Moments later, enemy fighters were spotted below them and Tony was leading them into attack. A deep breath – a glance at Harry – and then Edward pulled the stick over, watch the horizon swivel, and heard the engine begin to scream. They were upon the 109s in moments. Several thousand feet above and behind the bombers, the enemy never saw the Spitfires coming until Tony opened fire, sending the first spiralling out to sea. Edward heard the anguished radio chatter of the German pilots, watched them frantically break, but managed to latch onto the tail of one, so close he could see its mottled sand and grey fuselage clearly, with its squadron markings and black crosses on the wings vivid and sharp. He even saw the pilot turn his head towards him. Edward fired, watched the tracer from a brief few-second burst of cannon and machine-gun fire streak across the sky and knock off pieces of the 109’s tail, which then floated like leaves into the sky.
Another glance behind – where is everyone? – then he turned back to the Messerschmitt in front of him, twisting and turning out to sea. Edward fired again, but this time his shots were wide. Keep still, you bastard. Back and forth, turning so tight that at times Edward felt his vision blurring, the force of gravity pressing him into his seat. Down they flew, through the cloud, Malta now far behind, until they were just above the wave tops. Damn! thought Edward. Ahead, Sicily loomed, the eerie peak of Mount Etna pointing through the haze, dominating the entire island.
He thought for a moment; he was getting too close to enemy shores. Shit, he cursed to himself. Just a few inches to the left on that first burst, and he’d have had him. ‘Come on,’ he told himself out loud, ‘time to go home.’ Banking, he made one last glance at the Messerschmitt, and saw the German pilot waggle his wings. A sign of respect? Or, you can’t catch me – up yours, Tommy? Edward couldn’t say.
As he landed back down again just under ten minutes later, a number of other Spitfires were taxiing back to their blast pens. Ahead, at the far end of the airfield, lay the remains of another smashed-up Hurricane. He felt suddenly exhausted. Sweat ran from under his helmet and down his face. His shirt clung to his back.
The noise of battle, of aero-engines, of the drum of machine guns and cannon, still rang in his ears, even after he had reached his blast pen, cut the engine and seen the propeller click to a halt. The rapidly cooling engine ticked furiously as Edward undid his wires and harness and heaved himself out of the cockpit.
‘You fired your guns then, sir,’ said the rigger.
‘Yes.’
‘Any joy?’
‘Took off pieces of his tail but he didn’t go down. But we bounced them, you know. They never saw us coming. Tony definitely got one – I saw it. I don’t know about the others.’
‘Well, they’re all back. The Spits that is.’
Edward saw a column of smoke rising from the centre of the Island, a few miles to the west. ‘Is that another one?’
‘A Hurricane, I’m afraid. Not sure who yet. He came down about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Parachute?’
The erk shook his head.
Edward nodded – it was pointless to say anything – then began to walk back to dispersal.
Two more raids appeared over the Island before ‘A’ Flight were stood down, but on both occasions they were alerted too late. On the second, Edward took off again with the rest of Blue section, but they found nothing; the bombers had reached Hal Far by coming in low under the radar, hitting the officers’ mess and quarters, and disappearing again before the Spitfires had barely managed to take off. Then later that afternoon, Edward, Harry and a number of the other ‘A’ Flight pilots watched a raid of over forty enemy bombers from the balcony of the Xara Palace. Bombs exploded, the chatter of machine guns rang out, engines raced and choked, black puffs dotted the sky; and when the display was over, the airfields of Luqa and Hal Far, away to the south, lay shrouded in dust and smoke, and John McAfferty, a Scottish pilot from ‘B’ Flight, was being taken to the hospital at Imtarfa, his parachute having failed to properly open. They had watched his Spitfire hurtle into the ground near the Dingli cliffs, a long streak of dark smoke trailing behind. And they’d all flinched a bit as they saw the tiny fireball over five miles away, then, a few seconds later, heard the explosion. John had been due to be posted home a few days later. Instead, they buried him, beneath the orange soil of a rapidly growing cemetery on the hills south of Valletta.
Malta – June, 1995
Edward had asked for a window seat and had been given one, near the front of the plane. He’d brought a book with him, but read little; once they began flying over central France, the cloud cleared, leaving Europe spread out clearly below: the patchwork of clays and greens of France, then the magnificence of the Alps, the peaks – some still capped white with snow – rising up almost to meet them as they flew south. Edward found it fascinating, mesmerising even. Then down below was Italy and he looked away, back to his paperback for a few minutes. Later, he thought. Malta first. Next time he looked they were travelling over the sea until they reached Sicily, and yes, there was Etna, still dominating the entire island. And then it really was just a hop away. Fifteen minutes it had taken the German and Italian fighters to reach Malta; fifteen minutes it had taken the Allies to fly over Sicily during the invasion in ’43. As the plane flew back out to sea, leaving the Sicilian coast behind, Edward glanced at his watch. Sure enough, just under a quarter of an hour later they had reached Malta, and there it was, just as he remembered, the summer heat almost shimmering off the dusty villages and fields as they circled overhead and prepared to land.
The Boeing banked, and Edward felt himself almost looking down directly over Grand Harbour – the finger of Valletta and the Three Cities – their distinct outline so very familiar, so that the years, the long passage of time, seemed to slip away.
Luqa, of course, was very different – utterly unrecognisable from the wrecked, blasted airfield he remembered landing on occasionally, with its innumerable unexploded bombs and burnt-out remains of aircraft littered from one side to the other. He was also surprised by the vast numbers of cars, trucks and buses, and by the endless building work that seemed to be going on. ‘It’s all started in the last few years,’ his taxi driver told him. ‘Building, building, building. A lot of money coming in from outside, and of course, Malta’s a great holiday destination now. It’s big business.’
He was driven straight to the hotel in Sliema, bypassing the finger of Floriana and Valletta. Pleasure boats and yachts, their white hulls and masts dazzlingly bright in the afternoon sunlight, crammed into the creeks and inlets of Marsamxett Harbour. Then they briefly left the sea behind, hurtling down a long street that Edward was sure had been open country when he had last been there, the driver weaving in between and past exhaust-billowing lorries and knocked-about yellow buses. The sea suddenly reappeared and they were driving along an esplanade, the blue sea one side, and a line of hotels on the other. Moments later, the driver pulled the car over and Edward was clambering out, and a porter was hurrying down the steps and offering to take his case.
‘Welcome to Malta, sir,’ said the porter. ‘Is this your first time here?’
Several times during the last week he’d picked up the phone to ring Lucky, but it had been such a long time since he’d spoken to him that he could
never quite bring himself to dial the number; telephones could be so impersonal. One couldn’t see how the other person was reacting, and he didn’t want to throw Lucky off guard by springing himself on him like that, a bolt from the blue. Instead he wrote him a letter, explaining that he was coming out to Malta, would love to see him if at all possible, and not to reply because he would be leaving in a few days. He gave Lucky the name of his hotel and said he would call him on his arrival. But please don’t put yourself out, he had written. If you are busy or away, no matter, but it would be lovely to hear from you – it’s been too long.
He had heard nothing since – he’d not really expected to – although he had half hoped Lucky might have rung him. Now that he was here in Malta, he felt uneasy again about making the call to a man he had not seen in half a century. I’ll ring him in the morning, he thought as he walked into the main foyer of the hotel. Give myself a chance to settle in.
At the main desk, he handed over his passport and filled in the registration form. ‘There’s a message for you, sir,’ said the receptionist, and handed him an unsealed envelope.
‘Ah, thank you,’ said Edward, pulling out the note immediately. Eddie – will see you in foyer Preluna 7 p.m. tonight. Lucky. Edward put a hand on the counter, then shakily folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Tonight! That only gave him a few hours.
In his room he unpacked, hanging his shirts, trousers, and jackets – a light summer one and a dark blue blazer – in the cupboard. He wasn’t sure what he should wear. Normally he wore a tie, but it was hot, far hotter than in England, and he didn’t want to seem either too formal or feel uncomfortable. And yet, just to wear an open-necked shirt seemed too far the other way. What if Lucky wanted them to go out to dinner? He would need a jacket, then. ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he told himself out loud, and went out onto his small balcony. The Mediterranean twinkled in the late afternoon sunlight, cool and inviting. Children shouted and screamed from the pool on the rocks the far side of the road. He looked at his watch – ten past five. Just under two hours. He went inside, sat on the bed, stood up again, then decided he would go for a brief walk. A stroll along the seafront, then perhaps tea and a shower. Not for the first time, he wondered whether he was making a terrible mistake.
A Pair of Silver Wings Page 17