Slipstream Page 4

  Still they waited in silence on the runway. Fitters with screwdrivers went from aircraft to aircraft, slowly tightening the detachable panels. Others stood by with their fingers on the auxiliary starter batteries, yet others knelt by the fire extinguishers lying in the grass beside each aircraft. The fire crew sat on the running boards of their fire engine, the medics sat in their ambulance. There were no sounds, no radio chatter. It was as if a spell had been cast upon the entire airfield.

  Frank’s stomach felt light and empty, despite the recent lunch. He now thought he should have had another pee when they returned to the Dispersal hut. He had thought of it at the time but hadn’t wanted one. He didn’t really now but worried that knowing he couldn’t might persuade him he did. He tried thinking of other things – fishing, the problem with the gears on Roddy’s bike, what Vanessa and her father might be doing at that moment. Having lunch, presumably. Would they be sitting formally at that long polished table beneath the painting of the woman in the sun-dappled garden? Or would they eat more humbly and informally at a table in the kitchen he hadn’t seen? What would they be talking about; what would they do that afternoon? It was easy to imagine the colonel walking his land, but what would she do? Frank could no more imagine that than he could imagine her dressed differently. She was like a dream figure, existing only as she had briefly appeared, untouchable, unchangeable. Yet they had touched when they met. He recalled the feel of her hand, her warm hand – unless it was simply that his were cold after cycling. It was that hand that she had raised from the window when he left. Unless he had imagined it.

  He mentally rehearsed the cockpit drills he had already been through – brakes, trim, flats, contacts, pressure, petrol, undercarriage, radiator. They were all waiting for the signal from Patrick, sitting motionless in his aircraft a few yards away. At 1320 hours his head moved as he glanced at each of the twelve in his squadron. Then his voice came through the still-connected intercom: ‘All clear? Switches to On.’

  His starter coughed and his propeller began to turn. The fitters sprang to life as if electrocuted, pulling away chocks and batteries, hanging on to wingtips to help the aircraft pivot. Frank was first behind Patrick, who was already taxiing to the runway. The sound of his Rolls Royce Merlin engine, which he loved, filled his head now as it filled the cockpit. There was no room or time for anything else. The other squadron was already lined up at the end of the runway on either side of the wing commander’s Spitfire, their propellers sending up clouds of dust. Patrick’s squadron fell in behind them in combat formation, Frank now wingtip to wingtip with Patrick. Again they waited, twenty-six in all, engines roaring although only on tick-over, their propellers spinning slowly enough to be visible. The sun broke through the hazy cloud, glinting on the turning blades. In other circumstances it might have been the preliminary to a celebration.

  At 1325 a white rocket streaked skywards from the flat roof of the control tower. The wing commander raised his arm and the first squadron moved off as one. Patrick raised his gloved hand and started forward after them, Frank keeping level, his eyes on their almost-touching wingtips. Patrick’s tail went up as he opened his throttle. Frank did the same, his aircraft jibbing and bouncing on its narrow undercarriage until the wheels left the ground and everything was smooth. He raised and locked the undercarriage, throttled back, adjusted airscrew pitch, switched to auxiliary tanks. They crossed the road at tree-top height, the roar of their engines almost flattening everything beneath them. A green country bus had stopped and a woman disembarking dropped her shopping bag and clutched at her hat – too late – as wave after wave of aircraft created a thunderous whirlwind, shaking the trees. They skimmed the rooftops of a village, below the top of the church spire, causing people to duck in the street, hands to their ears, and scattering nearby sheep and cattle. They followed valley bottoms through the low wooded hills of the Sussex Weald, dived up and over the South Downs and quite suddenly were skimming the choppy grey sea, leaving Beachy Head above and behind them.

  The wing commander led them even lower, a few feet above the dirty fractious waves. It was uncomfortable and enervating flying, with ceaseless nervous adjustments to maintain height and formation during the buffeting of slipstreams. At 350 knots a moment’s loss of concentration would send an aircraft bulleting into the grey waves.

  The French coast was a growing smudge through the haze. Their radios, switched to receive only, picked up shouts and calls from the escort squadron already over Amiens. It sounded a hot scrap. At 1350 hours precisely the wing commander’s Spitfire rose abruptly and the rest followed as one, climbing steeply on full throttle as the Somme estuary widened beneath them. At 15,000 feet the wing commander broke radio silence with the order to drop babies. Frank pulled his handle and felt his plane jump as if someone had kicked it upwards. Twenty-six near-empty tanks tumbled and spiralled into the woods and fields of France.

  Then, as loudly and clearly as if with them in the cockpits, the crisp tones of fighter control in England instructed them to go over to Channel C Charlie. The wing commander acknowledged and they pressed button C on their VHF panels. After some warbling, a familiar controlling voice, the man with the radar, told them to steer zero nine six, adding almost casually, ‘Plenty of business over target. Fifty plus bandits fifteen miles ahead, angels three five, over.’

  The wing commander acknowledged again and the two squadrons drew apart into wider combat formation. Frank dropped back until he was behind and a little above Patrick. Without turning his head, he could just see the Dodger way off to his right. They were approaching 30,000 feet in a now cloudless sky of pitiless clarity. The ground was shrouded by haze but the limitless blue sky above was stunningly bright. It hurt to breathe and Frank’s fingers and toes felt like heavy blocks of ice. In the rarefied air the aircraft rocked slightly, as if on a gentle swell. Along with the cold and the rhythmic, enveloping sound of the engine, it engendered a dream-like unreality. Frank turned up the oxygen to rouse himself.

  Control came up again, with the same disturbing and intimate clarity. ‘Thirty plus bandits approaching you above. Out.’

  Almost simultaneously someone in the other squadron shouted, ‘Bandits three o’clock closing fast above!’ Patrick shouted, ‘Bandits above and behind break right!’ Frank recalled afterwards that he had begun to call out, too, having glimpsed the first group as the first pilot shouted, but he never got beyond the word ‘bandits’ because the roundels of Patrick’s Spitfire filled his screen as Patrick banked and climbed. Frank avoided him only by banking sharply left, then heaving on the controls to bank right and follow on full throttle. The centrifugal force pushed him so hard into his seat that for some seconds he could move neither hands nor feet, following Patrick’s turning and climbing Spitfire with his eyes only. His goggles pressed painfully on his nose and felt as if they were slipping down his face and skinning it. He couldn’t even see the enemy.

  He still hadn’t seen them when red streaks of tracer flashed between him and Patrick. Patrick abruptly dropped out of sight, leaving Frank climbing almost vertically into the vast and seemingly empty blue. But for the shouts and calls in his headphones, he could have been alone in the universe.

  The Hun is always in the sun, it’s the one you don’t see who gets you; if you don’t spot the one who is going to get your mate you’re a criminal. The posters on the briefing room wall echoed distractingly in his head. He kicked violently on the rudder bar and heaved with all his strength to get the plane round. As he skidded sideways, more tracer streaked over his dipping right wing and he almost collided with the big black crosses of a Focke-Wulf. He pressed the trigger but his cannon blazed into empty sky.

  The next few minutes – perhaps just one, it was impossible to tell – was a fast-moving maze of Spitfires and Focke-Wulfs, criss-crossing lines of tracer, puffs of black smoke, white condensation trails, dirty grey exhaust trails, flashes of cannon and, in the middle, a solitary parachute swaying gently earthwards above a dark, unmoving
figure. No one knew where anyone else was or where they themselves were; no one kept the same trajectory for more than a few seconds; no one had a target in his sights for more than one. Way out to Frank’s left, level with him, another Focke-Wulf turned towards him. Frank pulled up into a half-roll and briefly, upside-down, had the FW in his sights. He pressed the firing button to give it a prolonged burst, tightening his turn to get enough deflection, his cannon shaking the plane. The FW dived and disappeared, leaving him firing again into emptiness. He dived after him but the German was out of range and faster, anyway.

  Frank pulled sharply up and round again, his arm muscles quivering and sweat misting his goggles. He searched the sky for the next enemy but there were none, nor friends either. The scrap had ended as quickly as it had begun; he and the FW must have been the last two in it. He turned again, climbing, and now could see disappearing aircraft in all directions. It was tempting to set a course for home, but for the small matter of the bomber force they were supposed to escort. The scrap had used a lot of fuel but he had enough left not to worry just yet.

  There being no point in radio silence now, he called up Patrick. There was no response. It was barely conceivable that Patrick had bought it; he not only led but embodied the squadron with his laconic and paternal style. Brave beyond question, he was more experienced than any of them. But it was more than possible that he would buy it one day. He must know that better than they did. Frank, worried now, was about to call again when Patrick’s leisurely tones came reassuringly over the airwaves.

  ‘Delighted you’re still with us, Shield Two. Our sheep are scattered and most of the other dogs have gone home. Steer original course and hope we meet up. Over.’

  Frank steered 320 degrees, descending to 15,000 feet where the bombers would most likely be. The minute or two of hectic action had dispersed and damaged the escort force before it arrived; radio traffic suggested a much bigger scrap over the target itself and it was likely that the bombers were badly mauled and making their way home piecemeal and unescorted. He felt miserably dissatisfied with his own performance, not because of any particular lapse or error but because he had at no point felt in control of anything. He had been merely reactive, buffeted and knocked about by the actions of others, which he had had no time to anticipate. Perhaps it had been like that for everyone, a messy scrap with neither winners nor losers, but he was not convinced. Pilots like Patrick and the wing commander, perhaps even the Dodger, would come away with at least a rough idea of what had happened, what led to what, why they broke off when they did, what tactics the enemy had adopted. They could somehow be detached while engaged and assemble a picture of the whole. But to Frank it had been as confusing and bruising as the one game of rugby he had been cajoled into during training. Now, with the adrenalin draining from him, he was aware of the cold again, the pains in his feet and fingers, the throbbing in his head and a dangerous sense of detachment from cockpit realities. He was aware, too, of the stealthy and irresistible encroachment of his old enemy, one of his two great secrets, his fear. There was never time for it in action but before and after it could spread from within, a cold, creeping paralysis that tempted him not so much to run away – though he would have loved to do that, to flee somewhere where no one knew him, no one asked anything of him – as to do nothing at all, just to continue as he was, flying on and on until it all stopped.

  The only remedy was to make himself focus, make himself do something, anything, one thing at a time, one foot in front of the other, with no thought of how far there was to go. Clouds were coming in from the west and visibility was worsening. He went back up to 17,000 feet and stayed there, looking out for tell-tale smoke trails or dark specks against the white and blue. There was pleasure in manipulating the plane. That was something, enough to focus on and take his mind off the trembling that had returned to his arms. Eventually he saw some dark specks, a couple of miles ahead on a parallel course to his right and at least 2000 feet below. He ascended to 18,000 feet and moved across until directly behind them, increasing speed. Keeping a careful eye on the sky around him, he eased the safety catch off. The planes were moving in and out of broken cloud now, making it harder to count and identify them, but within another minute or so he was confident they were the returning Flying Fortresses. There were six, keeping close for protection though one lagged behind, leaving a haze in its wake. Above and behind them, to the right and left, were two Spitfires. With luck, one of them would be Patrick’s, from whom, as wingman, he should not have been separated. Far ahead, when the clouds permitted, was the hazy outline of the French coast. Not far to go now. He throttled back and began a shallow dive well to the right of the right-hand Spitfire, making himself easily visible, obviously unthreatening. He put the safety catch back on and looked about again.

  Way out to the left of the gaggle of bombers, at about his own height, he saw a glint of something. At first it was only that, something through the cloud, no more than a distant mountaineer’s glasses might glint for half a second in the sun as he turns to view. But it was enough for Frank in one unthinking movement to open his throttle, bring the nose back up and flick off the safety catch. Regaining height, he dipped his left wing to take him in a wide curve above and ahead of where he thought he saw the glint. After a few seconds, briefly between one cloud bank and the next, he saw them as they dived towards the Fortresses and their escorts, aiming to take them from their rear left quarter. There were two, not the usual stubby profiles of FW190s but the more svelte and pointed Messerschmitt 109s, more like Spitfires. As they vanished into the last cloud bank between them and the Fortresses, Frank opened his throttle farther and extended his curve to bring him above and behind where they would emerge, putting him in the same position relative to them as they were to their prey. He still wasn’t close enough to identify the Spitfires but called up Patrick’s call-sign anyway.

  ‘Hallo Shield One this is Shield Two bandits in cloud seven o’clock break left now over!’

  He was still saying it when the ME109s shot out like speeding arrows from the cloud beneath him. The right-hand Spitfire broke up and left, followed by the other. So it was Patrick. The leading ME109 opened fire as Patrick pulled sharply up, leaving the other to slip beneath it and line up directly behind the lagging Fortress. Experienced pilots, obviously. Frank had the leading ME109 in his sights but couldn’t get sufficient deflection as it wheeled left and right to follow Patrick’s desperate evasions. Patrick flew brilliantly, twisting and turning his aircraft to its limit. The Spitfire was more manoeuvrable and could out-turn the 109 but the German was faster and had the advantage of height and surprise. Twice he fired short bursts into Patrick, the second sending small bits flying off Patrick’s rear fuselage. Patrick went into a steep dive, curving right. The 109 closed on him, waiting for the perfect position, confident and oblivious.

  Frank had the speed and height he needed. A little more pressure on the rudder brought the 109 into his sights, a fraction more and he had the necessary deflection. He squeezed the firing button at less than 300 yards. There were flashes all along the 109’s fuselage and the pilot hurled his plane into a violent turn. Twin fingers of flame leapt upwards, then a great outpouring of black smoke through which spurts of flame showed red and yellow. The plane fell away and Frank was beginning a turn to follow when it exploded in a dazzling flash and ballooning black cloud. As he pulled up to escape the shower of debris the 109’s engine spun earthwards in a revolving ball of fire. A wing see-sawed slowly down, like a blown leaf.

  Frank looked around as he continued his climb, wary of the other 109. He felt no elation at his kill this time. It had been too clinical, almost too easy. But he felt pride and pleasure at having saved Patrick, making up for his lapse last time. It was mercifully quick, was his other thought. The pilot would have known his plane was hit and that he was trying to get away, but that was about all. In the next second he was translated into oblivion, eternal oblivion, just like before he was born. There would be n
othing left to bury, not a hair, not a fingernail of that mother’s son.

  Frank looked around. The Fortresses were way off now, strung out towards the coast. They had lost their loose box formation and their straggler; a column of smoke arose from a large tract of woodland behind them. Patrick’s Spitfire followed them, keeping right and at a distance, a couple of thousand feet below Frank but flying level and with no sign of smoke. Spasmodic bursts of tracer arced out from the two rearmost planes at nothing Frank could see until he spotted, way over to their left, another plane approaching slowly. It was clearly a Spit, even at this distance, but the Fortresses continued their intermittent bursts, hopelessly out of range.

  Frank slowly overhauled Patrick, visibly and obviously, as before. The Fortresses had ceased to fire off by the time he caught up, albeit perhaps only because the approaching Spitfire was partially obscured by cloud. It had presumably chased off the other ME109. As Frank manoeuvred alongside Patrick he could see holes towards the rear of his fuselage but no sign of serious damage. Patrick’s pale face turned towards him. He raised one hand and grinned as they crossed the French coast. Frank, relaxing, eased away and up a thousand feet, checking his fuel. There was just about enough to see him home.

  The other Spitfire emerged from the cloud base above and ahead of them. Frank saw now that it was Tony. His plane looked unscathed as it lost height and turned, showing its white underbelly like a fish as it went for a position on the far side of the Fortresses. It was still turning when the rear and upper gunners of the nearest Fortress opened up on the exposed belly. Frank saw their tracers ripping into its fuel tank, which immediately billowed black smoke. He shouted into his radio – uselessly because the Fortresses were on another frequency – and heaved his plane towards Tony’s. But that was just as useless. Tony was already spiralling and tumbling earthwards in a vortex of smoke and flame. His canopy flew up and away and for an instant his hands and arms reached out of the cockpit as he tried to heave himself up. But the fuselage turned again and he was engulfed by another sheet of red flame. The burning carcasses of him and his plane exploded near the beach south of Calais. The Fortresses were well out over the sea.