At twenty hundred the following day, the next Battle Order was pinned up.
F/Lt MacGregor did the pinning in the Officers’ Mess, ate his dinner alone while the rest gathered round the notice-board, then went for a walk. Went for a walk with, of all things, a cold sausage in his pocket.
Could anything be more mad? He consoled himself with the thought that lots of things could be more mad. No, he wasn’t losing his nerve, he wasn’t afraid of tomorrow’s op. He wasn’t giving credence to those who said the airfield was haunted by a dog, because the last thing he wanted was to be lumbered with the ability to see chumbachdach, ghosties or spirits or things that went bump in the night. He convinced himself he was going for a walk in case there was some hungry animal out there.
It was perfectly possible that the Yank’s Chesapeake had left progeny, and that progeny had had progeny. In wartime far too many people abandoned their animals because they couldn’t get the food for them, or they left the area, and this howling dog might be one of them.
He walked briskly. The airfield on this late autumnal night was dark and mysterious, full of soft marshland smells. A high, clear sky arched overhead. Not the airman’s favourite sort of sky with few trails of concealing cloud, but showing an awesome magnificence of stars.
No dog howled. He heard cats fighting behind the Airmen’s Mess, farther westwards beyond Flights an owl hooted. He could hear the squeak of voles or mice in the drainage gulleys. A vixen screamed near the southern curve of the perimeter track by the farm. At that point he stood and whistled, but no dog came. He had no sensation of a dog following him as he returned to the Mess.
And back in there, tomorrow’s pilots were looking reassuringly cheerful. As he passed the open door of the games room four of them were playing darts. Farther along, two were propping up the bar. The third, Maddox, was trying to horn in on their conversation and tell them again his special recipe for landing in the fog.
MacGregor crept past the bar and went to bed.
He had a sound and dreamless sleep.
Bronwen roused him with his cup of tea. As she was going out, mindful that he was going on ops she asked solicitously in her sing-song voice, ‘You didn’t hear the dog, did you, sir?’
‘No, Bronwen. He’s gone away. Found himself a home.’
‘I’m ever so glad, sir.’
‘So am I, Bronwen. For him, I mean.’
But, to his shame, it wasn’t just for the bloody animal, it was for himself. It wasn’t that he was afraid. But he felt a whole lot more confident of the success of the operation now the howling had stopped.
But it hadn’t.
At 11.50 hours, ten minutes before briefing was due to begin, as he pushed at the door of Intelligence, just faintly and faraway he heard the howling. He stopped so suddenly in his tracks that Ryan, following behind, cannoned into him.
‘Sorry, Skipper.’ Ryan looked at him questioningly.
‘My fault.’ MacGregor slapped his top pocket. ‘Thought I’d forgotten to post a letter, but I haven’t.’
‘Ah, some lucky girl.’ Ryan sighed.
‘Och, just one of many.’
They both laughed.
Pringle was already on the dais, talking to Cavendish. Even without exchanging more than a hand raised in distant greeting, MacGregor thought he sensed the Intelligence Officer’s mood of sternly suppressed excitement.
So what was going to be so special about this op? he asked himself, taking his seat in the front row and folding his arms across his chest.
Pringle’s face as usual was inscrutable. Nothing, he hoped showed the alarm, tinged almost with a feeling of deja vu, which he had felt since receiving the target information three horns ago. Every word of that signal had sounded in his mind like the tolling of a bell. His suspicions of the last few weeks as good as confirmed, what he had hoped were his overimaginative fantasies declared reality. The connection was made, though as usual Group weren’t admitting it. The nuclear deduction was inescapable. The Germans had been the first in the field. They must be working all out on a nuclear bomb and now, with the resources of all Europe in their power, they were probably well ahead.
Pringle looked round the youngsters trooping in. Half-trained, with only a few weeks’ operational experience under their belts, these were the unlikely heroes to have to damage and delay that awesome scenario.
Only seven serviceable aircraft, including two of the new long-nosed Blenheim 4s, could be mustered. MacGregor was leading Ashley, Simmonds, Lennox, Maddox and two new boys. At least some of them had been blooded with that one op, which was something, and they had tossed for the new aircraft Tommy and Queenie, a toss-up which Ashley and Simmonds had won.
At twelve hundred hours exactly, Pringle unveiled the first map on the beginning half of their trip.
It was the same map as the previous Scheldt op, same low-level tactics. Having done it before, all the crews reckoned they could do it again and swallowed the same intelligence briefing as before without comment.
It was when, with some trepidation, he unveiled the second map showing the last part of their journey, that the Ohs and the Ahs and the gasps went up. They were to fly at nought feet fifty miles across Holland to a small town practically on the German border called Steinheim.
‘It’s not as bad as all that.’ Pringle forced a smile on his face to conceal his conscience about what was in his mind but which he was not allowed to tell them. In his most encouraging tone he went on, ‘There’s very few gun positions. The airfields are mostly away on the coast or in the Ruhr. The terrain is as flat as a pancake. No balloons. And if you hug the deck, fighters will be too scared to attack you.’
More cigarettes were lit. The muttering died down.
‘The target is easy to recognise. Here’s a photograph smuggled out by the Dutch underground.’ He passed out copies for each crew to take with them. ‘As you see, it’s beside a lozenge-shaped lake that will reflect light and act as a beacon for you. Two tall, thin chimneys, a squat, round cylinder like a gas tank beside them. Three typical one-storey buildings with crenellated roofs. A rectangular eight-floor block ending in a paved courtyard. A new wide, straight road leading through a pine forest to the factory. No other buildings for miles.’
Nobody said anything. Nobody moved. None of them had expected to make such a deep penetration into enemy territory.
‘Now Group has been particularly careful to ensure you arrive at last light. You will just have time to recognise the target, drop your 250-pounders, turn round and scarper for home, leaving poor F/Lt MacGregor behind to pick up the pieces and take the photographs.’
They managed a slight titter at that.
‘Now for the good news. As you would expect, there is one battery of four-inch AA protecting the factory. But it will be almost impossible for them to get the muzzles down and keep you in their sights, you’ll be flying so low. Two multiple pom-pom cannons, yes. But the new Blenheim 4s will put them out of action with their forward-firing Brownings. And by the time they get their fighters airborne, you will be in pitch darkness on the way home.’
He paused for greater effect. ‘Finally, Group has asked me to tell you that this factory is manufacturing a powerful new fighter, the Focke-Wulf 90, which is a menace to you and all other of our bombers. So I’m sure you’ll want to put it out of action before they have a chance to take a pot at you.’
Even as Pringle said the words, he thought how tinnily untrue they sounded, so different from his own ideas about the target. Steinheim was on the main line from Flushing where new buildings were being built and where PRU photos had shown the strange-shaped ship berthed. Could it be that it carried a highly sensitive, half-processed explosive, difficult to handle, which should be delivered as close as possible to the factory where it was to be treated?
‘Oh, and by the way, before I leave you,’ he tried to say casually, ‘that particular building at Flushing quay is going up remarkably fast. Group would be obliged if, when you pass, you’d take a dekko at what’s going on, and if you get a glimpse of that strange half-tanker half-merchantman you’ve learnt about on your ship recognition classes, the one called the Derflinger, they would be even more obliged.’
He climbed down from the platform and Flanagan took his place.
A slow handclap greeted him, accompanied by the cry, ‘Here comes the duff merchant.’
The Met man’s ruddy Irish face puckered with embarrassment. ‘Honest, boys, it wasn’t my fault!’
‘Blarney!’ they shouted back at him.
‘’Twas Group. Honest. Their forecast. All I did was—’
Someone began singing, ‘When Irish eyes are smiling.’
At least the laughter broke the tension. By the time he had delivered a forecast of ‘Just the right weather, boys. No wind to take you off course. Clear across Holland. A layer of stratus just above the target to climb into if you’re chased. And half a moon to light your way home’, the atmosphere had changed.
The rest of the briefing – navigation, signals, emergency and escape procedures continued without comment. Pockets were emptied. Emergency rations, German money, a compass, a German phrase-book were issued.
Cavendish said his little piece about his sorrow that he wasn’t allowed to go with them, and Group Captain Hurst promised that the bar would be open on their return and the first round was his.
MacGregor took over for a few last words. ‘Keep close, but not too close! Keep your TR9 R/Ts on for order changes. I’ll tell you if we have to split up. Then go your separate ways. After bombing, we’ll return home singly. It’ll be getting dark, so don’t get too close to the ground, but fly at your lowest safety height.’
Out into the cold they went. One by one the lorries moved towards Dispersal.
Watching them, Pringle thought how brave they were. What dangers would be waiting for them? Off they went in the prime of their youth like lambs to the slaughter. Then he stayed watching them till they moved out of sight to the other end of the airfield.
Five minutes later, the seven Blenheims were taking off.
By the hedge at the far end, a bunch of Waafs were waving as the aircraft roared off, and there, towering above them like a flagpole, with them but somehow apart from them, he saw the thin figure of the padre, his head bowed.
The formation flattened out over the coast and turned onto a course of 06 degrees. The English Channel was like chopped green glass below them.
MacGregor had again positioned Maddox next to him on the port side. Outboard of him were Ashley and Simmonds in the new Blenheims. Everyone appeared to be flying quite expertly – not too close to one another, not too close to the water.
There was no sign of enemy activity. The coast of France was calm, still under the weak rays of the winter sun. No flak. No other aircraft. No ships.
Lyttle came up with a change of course of three degrees starboard. ‘Seems nice and peaceful, sir.’
MacGregor nodded. ‘Let’s hope it keeps that way.’
‘Just one snag, sir,’ the navigator said apologetically as though it was his fault. ‘We’re slipping behind.’
‘How much?’
‘Six minutes already, sir.’
‘Christ!’
MacGregor looked down at the sea and saw the tongues of white waves flopping over the sea from the north-east. The wind was dead against them.
‘North-easterly wind, sir,’ Lyttle continued. ‘Forty knots. Getting stronger all the time.’
‘What’s our ground speed?’
‘Down to 135.’
‘Wasn’t the met wind he gave us calm?’
‘It was, sir.’
‘Damn Met!’ Suddenly the whole danger of their situation presented itself. He took another look at those white caps. The grey-green had almost disappeared under what resembled a ruck of white horses.
‘Getting worse!’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘What’s our ETA if this wind persists?’
‘Fifteen twenty-five, sir.’
‘And sunset?’
‘Fifteen thirty-three.’
MacGregor felt a certain relief. ‘So we’ll have a few minutes of last light?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Always provided,’ MacGregor said slowly, ‘the wind doesn’t increase.’
‘Might decrease, sir,’ Lyttle suggested optimistically.
But it didn’t. By the time the formation reached Flushing, still flying in a tranquil sky with no sign of enemy activity, they were a further five minutes late. Down on the quay there was no sign of the ship, although there was some activity going on. But by now MacGregor was very concerned about what he should do.
A strong feeling that he should abort and go home was in conflict with an equally strong feeling that such a course, having come so far, would be sheer chicken. Particularly as there was no evidence that they had been spotted and there was no sign of any opposition.
You never knew. The wind might die down. It might even turn into a helpful tail-wind.
Lyttle came up silently with a course chit of 070 degrees, and MacGregor edged the formation to starboard.
Down below he could see the huddles of houses still in sunshine and, plain as a pikestaff, easy to follow, the mainline railway to Steinheim only fifty miles away.
MacGregor began humming ‘The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond’ and told Lyttle he was hungry and what about a sandwich.
The navigator came up and handed him a thick wad filled with hard yellow cheese, announcing at the same time that he had managed to get a couple of bearings and they were now a further three minutes behind.
A wave of panic swept over MacGregor, quickly suppressed under a light-hearted smile.
‘Going to be dark when we reach the target, sir.’
‘Better get a move on, then.’
He pushed the throttles forward to +2 boost. The engines roared unevenly. Bringing them into synchronisation, he saw the needle on the airspeed indicator move up.
But not enough. Not nearly enough. They would be gobbling petrol now and it was a long way back to base.
‘Could we go faster, sir?’
Ruefully he shook his head, pointing to the two long-nosed Blenheims to port. ‘Only for boys with overload tanks.’ He gave an exaggerated yawn. ‘Reckon 190 will be OK!’
But ahead now, up there over the horizon, had come an irregular wall of cloud grotesquely sculpted into an army of grey trolls brandishing jagged spears of lightning. The Blenheim began lurching and bumping, buffeted by the uneven wind, and with it, almost in unison, went the six other Blenheims in a chorus of ragged dance.
Under the overcast, it had become darker. Rain spotted the windscreen. Holding the photograph of the factory in front of him, MacGregor peered ahead.
Nothing he could recognise yet. No lake. No chimneys. He could see the railway below and that was a comfort.
MacGregor reached for the sandwich on the throttle pedestal, took a bite. But his mouth was too dry to swallow.
It couldn’t be long now. They’d be over the target in a few minutes, surely. And still no sign that their presence had been spotted.
Suddenly a crimson fountain erupted from the ground.
Cannon fire threaded through the formation. Bursts of four-inch flak began exploding all round. And then they were through.
MacGregor breathed a long sigh of relief. ‘Everyone still OK?’
And then, as he turned his head, on the port side, he caught a momentary glimpse of the two new long-nosed Blenheims and he froze in horror.
Their sprog pilots had jinxed too much in a desperate effort to evade the flak. Knocked off course, each had fatally turned towards the other. As though in agonised slow motion, MacGregor watched the long noses of T and Q, close, touch, crumple.
The next second, both Blenheims had spun onto their backs, blazed, broken up, fallen in shattered fragments. Only Maddox remained on his left.
On the ground, a blaze of yellow flames, a column of black smoke rapidly disappearing behind them as the formation sped desperately on.
‘Oh, my God… My God!’ MacGregor snatched up his microphone. In a voice cracked with emotion, he called over the R/T, ‘Break up! Break up! Formation to proceed to target independently!’
In S-Sugar, it was Horner from his navigation window who saw what had happened and shouted forward.
Scanning ahead from side to side, Maddox had simply noticed that he suddenly had no companions to port.
Alerted by his navigator that there had been a collision and hearing MacGregor’s order to break up, immediately he pushed the throttle hard against the stops, went into a steep climb and then a turn, calling out to Horner and Johnson, ‘Watch out for other aircraft!’
Far behind them, getting smaller, he could see the fiery inferno of the two new Blenheims. He made no comment.
‘Poor buggers,’ Horner said.
There was no sign of the other aircraft. And now from the ground, up came a stream of white cannon fire.
‘Jerry now knows we’ve arrived,’ Maddox called out. ‘Johnson, keep a sharp look-out for fighters.’
‘I always keep a sharp look-out for fighters,’ came the laconic reply.
Maddox seemed intent on going round in circles at six hundred feet, presenting a perfect target for even small-arms fire. Up came a longer white fountain of cannon fire from the ground.
‘D’you want to be shot down?’ Horner shouted at him.
‘I’m waiting for your course to target, navigator,’ Maddox shouted back.
‘Way you’ve been weaving, could be anything.’
‘Any sign of that railway?’
‘None. We’ve lost it.’
‘That village, then?’ Maddox pointed to ten houses clustered round a spired church.
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘You’ve got a map, haven’t you?’
Too shaken from the collision to argue, Horner moved the lubberline on the compass to 065.
‘Let’s try that for luck.’
Maddox turned the Blenheim to port. Down they went to the ground on that course.
It was getting darker by the second. Flashes of lightning lit up the horizon ahead.
‘Look out for the lake,’ Maddox called out. ‘Look out for those two chimneys!’
On and on they flew. Still no sign. Already they were thirty minutes behind ETA at the target.
Ahead, dark shapes on the ground and the lightning cracking open the grotesque troll figures in the sky.
Maddox put his face right against the windscreen. ‘What are you doing that for?’ Horner asked.
‘I don’t want to miss it. See anything, Johnson?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it’s down there somewhere.’
‘Reckon we’ve gone over it,’ Horner said.
‘We haven’t! We haven’t!’ Maddox became quite frantic. ‘I’d have seen it.’
Horner looked at his watch. ‘Have to turn back soon.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to make base, if you don’t!’ Horner tapped the instrument panel sharply, ‘FUEL!’
But Maddox was taking no notice. His head was pressed hard against the windscreen, his whole body suddenly tense.
He pointed ahead. ‘Look!’
Horner came forward. ‘What?’
‘There! There it is!’
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘I can! There! Dead ahead!’
The black boiling sky suddenly rolled sideways. Through a gap in the cumulus build-ups, Horner could now see the wisp of promised moon gleaming in the stormy sky and reflected on the water.
‘The lake!’ At the top of his voice Maddox shouted. ‘To port! The lake!’
His shout was answered by a loud bang. Momentarily the aircraft was enveloped in an eerie phosphorescent halo.
‘Lightning,’ Maddox called. ‘We’ve been struck by lightning.’
‘Lightning my foot!’ Horner yelled back at him. ‘It’s bloody flak!’
The night was filled with yellow bursts of shells. The fuselage echoed with the sounds of shrapnel. The beam of a searchlight came up and fingered the sky, searching.
‘The factory,’ Maddox pointed. ‘The factory!’
Caught in the sideways glow from the searchlight, Horner suddenly saw the two tall chimneys side by side.
Maddox called, ‘Bomb doors open!’
But already, down in the nose, Horner had opened them, checked the fuses, made the bombs live.
Still right down on the deck, the Blenheim was skating over crenellated factory roofs. Up loomed the big bulk of the cylinder. Maddox wrenched the aileron control full travel port.
Within inches of its curved metal side, S-Sugar slid round it, straightened up, zoomed into the gap between the two chimneys. Out of the bomb bay in a cluster fell the four 11 second-delay 2501b bombs.
Maddox banged both engines against the stops and pulled the aircraft into a steep climbing turn to port over the lake.
With a shattering white explosion, the night behind them dazzled into day.
Watching the smoke and the burning buildings, Ginger was too awed to speak.
Horner put a course chit for Marshfield on the throttle box. ‘280 degrees.’
Turning onto that course, Maddox asked, ‘See any sign of the others, Johnson?’
‘Not a sausage.’
Horner had gone back to his desk. ‘They’ll have got here before us.’
‘Late for the party, sure,’ Ginger retorted, ‘but weren’t we just the life and soul.’
‘Where are their fires?’ Horner asked.
‘They’ll have missed,’ Ginger said with evident satisfaction.
‘Jerry hasn’t missed, though.’
‘Whad’you mean, Jack?’
‘Our starboard engine.’
‘What’s the matter with it.’
‘Spitting blood.’ Red sparks were trailing out into the night.
Ginger could hear the protesting creaks of the old aircraft being bucketed around.
‘Just burning oil.’
‘Listen!’
‘I can’t hear anything.’
An eerie whine was piercing the darkness – up to a crescendo, then down to a whisper. Up again, down again, up again, down again.
‘My God!’ Ginger groaned. ‘Oh, my God!’
Both of them rushed up front and saw, in the greeny glow from the shaking instrument panel, Maddox struggling with the controls.
He pointed to the starboard rpm indicator. The needle was soaring to the top, then diving to the bottom, in time to the engine’s banshee tune.
‘Losing…’ Maddox stuttered through his clenched teeth. ‘Difficult… height… must have height!’
‘Airspeed!’ Horner howled back at him. ‘Look at your airspeed!’
The needle on the dial was falling… 130… 120… 115.
Horner grabbed the control column and pushed it forward. ‘We’ll be stalling in a minute.’
‘Stop it!’ Maddox snapped back at him. ‘We’re all right. We’re holding.’
He was unable to feather. The propeller was simply windmilling around, adding immensely to the drag.
… 105… 100… 95.
At ninety-five the needle on the airspeed indicator stopped falling. Somehow or other Maddox was holding that height at that speed. Somehow or other he was managing actually to climb. Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, the whole fuselage shaking and vibrating, in spite of the failed engine, S-Sugar reached two thousand feet, then sank into black feathery cloud, the nose swinging violently 30 degrees either side.
‘Your course!’ Horner yelled at him. ‘Hold 280!’ Standing beside him, the two crew watched the Blenheim’s gyrations. Left, right, up, down.
‘He can’t cope!’ Horner shouted at Ginger. ‘His bloody instrument-flying! Look at it!’
‘He’s doing his best, Jack!’
‘Best? He’ll have us halfway down France in a minute!’
‘At least we’re still airborne.’
‘But for how long?’ Horner pointed to the drunken needle swimming around the alcohol in the compass. ‘And look at his speed now! Eighty-five knots.’
He leaned forward again and grabbed the controls. ‘Here! I can do it better!’ The Blenheim lurched sideways, then the port wing lifted almost vertical in a steep turn. ‘We’ll be landing back in Germany next!’
A scuffle was developing before Ginger intervened. ‘Stop it, Jack! You’ll have us over!’
‘Navigator,’ Maddox’s squeaky voice asked plaintively, ‘where are we?’
Horner exploded. ‘“Where are we?”, he says! How the hell do I know where we are, sir?’
‘Course!’ Maddox shouted back at him. ‘What’s our new course?’
Milling round in dark cloud, still rocking from side to side, the propeller still sending out its terrifying high scream, S-Sugar waltzed wildly lower and lower.
‘Better brace yourself, Ginger!’ Horner called. ‘We’ll be hitting the Ardennes next!’
‘Course, navigator! Course for home!’
Maddox took his right hand off the control column and, like a child demanding food, began thumping the throttle box. ‘Johnson, get me a QDM!’
But Ginger was already at the back on the set, trying to get onto the emergency wavelength through a cacophony of sound.
Twenty minutes later, S-Sugar stumbled out of the overcast, still sinking lower and lower at 95 knots. Ginger triumphantly shouted, ‘Got ’em! Got ’em! Course 290! And they’re standing by to guide us in!’
The wind was still strong behind them. A sliver of moon danced on the Channel waters. Led by successive courses to steer, S-Sugar crossed the English coast.
Ahead was the flashing MS of the Marshfield beacon and, just beyond, the string of double-row small pearls of the flarepath.
Swinging from side to side, with Maddox playing tunes of up-and-down power on the good port engine, the Blenheim lined up on the approach.
Maddox put his landing-lights on. Standing beside him, Horner called out the height and speed.
‘Three hundred feet… 250… 90 knots… 85… Watch it! Hundred feet and ninety knots. You’re too high! You’re too high! Throttle back! Back! Back!…’
Sugar slid over the hedge.
‘You’re too fast! Cut the engine! Cut the power!… Christ!’
Sugar hit the ground on the port wheel, soared back into the sky, came down on the starboard wheel, bounced… bounced… swung starboard onto the grass… then with a screech of brakes and a reverberating sideways slide, S-Sugar came quivering to a stop.
Flanked by an ambulance, two fire engines and a tractor to tow the damaged aircraft to the hangar, Cavendish had been waiting in his car for nearly an hour, anxiously looking east for the first sight of S-Sugar. Now, as the Blenheim slowed to a stop, still in one piece, he accelerated over the grass and picked up the crew to take them to Intelligence.
The other crews had been debriefed, had reported all bombs on the target and were now in the Mess bars, celebrating. Certainly it was tough that Ashley and Simmonds had been lost, but that was considered a small price to pay for the utter destruction of such an important factory that was likely to be shown on MacGregor’s photographs.
Once in Intelligence, the question that both Cavendish and Pringle wanted to know was why S-Sugar was so late.
There appeared to be no answer to this, until Cavendish asked Horner, ‘What time did you bomb?’
‘15.50.’
‘But the others bombed at 15.30.’
There was a moment’s silence. Then Maddox said, ‘We guessed they’d arrived before us, sir.’
‘By the fires?’
‘There were no fires, sir.’
‘No fires! No fires? They’d just set the whole factory alight!’
‘We saw nothing, sir.’
‘How could you possibly not have seen them? Those fires would burn all night.’ Cavendish’s voice rose. He turned on the other two. ‘Surely you saw something, Johnson?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Horner?’
‘No fires, sir. Just darkness.’
Cavendish thumped one fisted hand into the palm of the other. Slowly, bitingly, emphasising every word, he said, ‘Flight Lieutenant MacGregor has given me a graphic account of the burning factory at 15.30. So have three other crews at exactly that time. Yet you say at 15.50 there was nothing! How the hell can that happen, Maddox?’
Maddox’s mouth trembled. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘I know, Maddox!’
‘Sir?’
‘You got separated. You were in a different place.’
‘We were at the right place, sir! The factory was there, the—’
‘But it wasn’t the right factory!’ Cavendish interrupted. ‘You bombed the wrong factory.’
‘No, sir,’ Maddox was close to tears. ‘It was the right factory in the right place!’
Cavendish covered his eyes with his hand as the horror of the situation dawned on him. Where the hell had the little clot bombed? Was it a Dutch factory? What in God’s name were going to be the repercussions? Group would be furious.
‘You couldn’t have carried out the orders you were given for your briefing, Maddox. This is sheer dereliction of duty. I’ve a good mind to have you court-martialled for this.’
The congratulatory atmosphere in Intelligence disappeared. Now it was all doubt and recrimination. Horner and his navigation were cross-examined in the Navigation Section. Everything was in order until the crews split up after the collision.
‘After that,’ Horner said, ‘Maddox flew all sorts of courses. I couldn’t keep up. We were corkscrewing about in the sky. How could any navigator cope?’
Supported as it was by Ginger, his story was accepted.
‘All the same,’ Ginger added, ‘the buildings were there. The lake was there – just as we were briefed by Intelligence.’
MacGregor’s photographs, taken at last light and in smoke, were disappointing. But though the buildings were difficult to identify, there was no doubt about the degree to which they were on fire.
‘Maddox has got to go. The sooner the better,’ Cavendish told MacGregor. ‘Back to OTU for further training.’
‘He did a good job bringing S back on one engine,’ MacGregor pointed out. ‘I’ve never known a Blenheim able to maintain height on one engine.’
Cavendish simply brushed that aside. His view of MacGregor had not changed.
And in his own mind it was not only Maddox who would have to go.