There were a number of fingers being crossed as, watched by Pringle, the ten crews filed into Intelligence.
There was a surprise in store for them. Not the target – the fact that the target was the dreaded Derflinger again. But another surprise which Cavendish waited to deliver until the thirty men had digested Pringle’s measured and sombre briefing.
‘I cannot overemphasise,’ Pringle said, ‘the importance Command attach to the sinking of this ship.’
He wondered what they would all say if just for one wild moment he told them not only what he knew, but also what he suspected: that they were being asked to nip in the bud Hitler’s nascent atomic bomb programme. That would chill their young bones to the marrow. For there could be nothing more terrifying than nuclear weapons in Hitler’s hands.
Einstein had fled to America warning that just such a programme was under way. Martin Klaproth had identified uranium and its powers two centuries ago. All over the world, in small secret laboratories, experiments were going on. And now Germany had the whole of European expertise and raw materials to draw on. Heavy water, deuterium oxide, was being made in that Norwegian plant, and God knew what other components assembled, and collected and transported by the Derflinger to the new factory at Steinheim, which was likely to be their research establishment too.
They’d got the factory. The factory was in ruins. They must get the ship. Delay was all they could hope for. But delay it must be.
None of this showed on Pringle’s face as he tapped the ribbon of their route with his pointer. ‘The Derflinger was last seen by HM submarine Upholder on a southerly heading. She is expected to hug the Dutch and German coasts, passing between the islands. At 15.05 hours her route should take her to 51.30N 03.20E. There you will intercept and sink her.’
No ifs or buts or try tos. Sink.
He glanced round. No one spoke. They stared at him with a strange, distant attention, their cigarettes glued to their lower lips. A pall of smoke hung over their heads. In the silence, he could hear the grinding of the bomb trolleys as they trundled along the perimeter track.
Then he pulled down the blown-up picture of the Derflinger and a little gasp riffled the silence, as if they were focusing their anger, summoning up the blood.
‘An ugly ship, gentlemen! A sinister ship. Take another very good look. You’ve studied her in your ship recognition classes. A formidable foe.’
The crews groaned. Someone blew a raspberry.
Pringle tapped her superstructure with his pointer. ‘Very little of that. Funnel mid-aft.’ He moved his pointer to the hull, outlining it. ‘In that bulging hull is a very important cargo.’ He paused. ‘Any questions so far?’
Lennox put up his hand. ‘What is this very important cargo? Is it aircraft spares? Or gold? Or art treasures, or what?’
‘Group don’t specify. Only that it is regarded as of the highest possible importance.’
Then he went on with what exactly was known of the Derflinger’s armament, or at least what Group were going to disclose of it. Then on to the call signs, codes and colours and IFF recognition.
Pringle was followed by Flanagan, always good for a laugh, who promised them just the right amount of cloud cover and got howled down for his pains.
Then, a pleased smile momentarily softening his face, Wing Commander Cavendish took over and announced his surprise.
‘After making myself a considerable nuisance to Group,’ he said, ‘I am being allowed to lead today’s attack.’
If he had been hoping for a standing ovation he was certainly disappointed.
A groan, quickly suppressed, after a fierce look from MacGregor, travelled round the room. The raspberry-blower performed again. Even Maddox, who usually tried to butter up the big boys, remained silent with his arms folded and his head sunk on his chest.
In fact, taking a second look, MacGregor reckoned the lad looked sick. Oh, God, he thought, not another last-minute scrub!
But he hadn’t the time to worry then about Maddox. Instead he politely began the clapping and, sluggishly at first, the rest of the boys loyally joined in. At least Cavendish was trying to break his duck.
‘Thank you all. And thank you, Mark, for putting us so clearly in the picture. I will be leading A-Flight. Angus,’ he tried to smile cordially at MacGregor, ‘will be leading B-Flight. In both flights, I want you tucked up tight under your leader. It has to be done with the utmost speed. And believe me, gentlemen, it has to be done.’ And then, bastard that he was, he took a sideways swipe at MacGregor. ‘We shall not abort this time, no matter the opposition,’ adding as a postscript which somehow accentuated rather than alleviated the hidden insult, ‘though you were absolutely right so to do before, Angus!’
For a few minutes MacGregor seethed. There could be no greater insult to a MacGregor than accusing him of turning away in the face of overwhelming odds. But he didn’t allow that remark to faze him. He knew he had been right not to attack, that these boys wouldn’t be here today if he had decided otherwise. But he hated Cavendish just that little bit more for making that remark. And it doubled his determination to get that ship somehow.
‘Before we conclude the briefing,’ Wing Commander Cavendish was now saying, ‘Group Captain Hurst would like a few words.’
This time Cavendish led the polite clapping to welcome the dapper little Station Commander as he jumped onto the dais.
He was frequently at the briefings, but rarely spoke above wishing the crews good luck. Pringle raised his brows questioningly to Cavendish. ‘He wanted to,’ Cavendish whispered. ‘His own suggestion. He has an interesting point to make.’
‘A relevant point?’ Pringle whispered back in disbelief. For the Group Captain, with only his World War One experience, tended to be regarded as a has-been, or indeed on occasion, a never-was-er.
‘In fact, yes. For once. Perfectly relevant.’
The Group Captain cleared his throat. He began by congratulating the squadron on being chosen for this special operation and emphasising its importance. He ended,
‘When I was flying, at the very end of the last war, there was a band of pilots who did more in a day than most of us did in a lifetime. They were the American 96th, who destroyed the fortifications on the Ramilly Heights, thus allowing our troops to pour through. They, gentlemen, were your predecessors here at Marshfield. You are the inheritors of their proud tradition. May their spirit of service go with you. I wish you all good hunting and Godspeed!’
Then, to MacGregor’s relief, it was all over. He could now occupy himself with the preparations before becoming airborne. The suspense before a trip was always the worst part. Once you were on your way and doing things, all your thoughts fell into their proper perspective.
Outside, it was still snowing – softly, slowly the flakes falling like white feathers from the dark sky. The airfield had been transformed into a Christmas card, the ugly wooden buildings turned into sugar cottages, the lorries into sleighs, the ground crew throwing snowballs at each other while they de-iced the wings of the Blenheims, all standing like big toys waiting for children to come out and play with them. Someone had built a snowman and put a red woollen cap on his head, a muffler round his neck and a clay pipe in his mouth.
No one spoke in the lorry that took them over to Dispersal, stopping at each Blenheim for a crew to jump off before scrunching over the snow to the next one. Maddox still looked ill. He’d got a long scratch on his face, which stood out red and bloody against the pallor of his skin. A few too many last night, most likely.
Nevertheless, MacGregor leaned across, tapped his knee and for some reason lapsing into Gaelic murmured, ‘De tha coarr?’ Then louder, ‘Are you OK, Peter?’
‘Me? Bang-on! Top line! Never better!’
Horner raised his eyes to heaven.
MacGregor’s crew were the last to be dropped off. Lyttle and Ryan had gone ahead and were already climbing into J-Jig when MacGregor suddenly realised they were being followed.
Turning his head, a few yards to the right, he saw him – his thick brown coat speckled with snow.
MacGregor stopped. The dog stopped too, looking directly at him, his long tongue hanging out of his red mouth.
MacGregor took two steps forward, leaving deep footprints. The brown dog took four steps forward. But no paw-marks appeared behind him, no breath steamed out into the cold air. He stayed still as stone, silently waiting, watching MacGregor.
MacGregor knew now – but the knowledge did not frighten him. Rather it elevated and excited him. He walked to the Blenheim conscious all the time that the dog was following him.
Before getting into the aircraft, he stopped and looked behind him. There the dog stood, his head raised, his brown eyes looking straight at MacGregor as though he had found his master.
Slowly, MacGregor began climbing the ladder onto the port wing with the dog jumping up the steps behind him. But when he settled down into the pilot’s seat and looked around he could see no sign of the dog. All he could see was Lyttle, and, in the turret, Ryan swivelling his guns. And all he could hear was Lyttle moving about in the nose. Yet he knew the dog was on board.
He leaned out of the window. He put up his thumb to the waiting ground crew. He pressed the starter on Number One engine, listened to its reassuring sound, watched its propeller slowly turning. Then he pressed Number Two starter button.
All ready to move now, on the intercom he called out, ‘Good to be on our way, eh?’ and Lyttle and Ryan dutifully called back, ‘Too right, sir!’
The green flare flashed on the platform of Flying Control. MacGregor opened the throttles and led his five to take them to join the queue behind Cavendish’s. All ten Blenheims were now slowly moving towards the black strips of cleared grass on which they would take off.
Cavendish turned into wind, opened up his throttles, hurtled over the grass and up into the air. Harris followed in N. One by one the queue shuffled forward, continually getting smaller until J-Jig took up a position opposite the band of snow-covered Waafs, waving and cheering.
Turning into position, he opened up to full power.
The ground fell away behind them as J climbed. Circling the field, he waited for the others to join him – Maddox in S next to him to port, with F beyond. To starboard G and C. MacGregor led the formation round one circuit of Marshfield before joining Cavendish on a north-easterly course.
Then down to the water went all ten Blenheims – engines at rated power, in rich mixture, +1.5 boost, twenty-four hundred revs, at maximum cruising speed towards Flushing.
Now they were on their way, MacGregor felt calmer than he had ever felt – his eyes sweeping over the well-behaved instruments, his ears pleased by the rhythmic thunder of the engines.
Below he could see the pattern of the sea formed by the slipstreams of the low-flying formation in front. Above was the blanket of stratus promised by Flanagan, shutting out the rest of the sky like a black lid. He glanced to port. To his surprise he saw S-Sugar was yards away from him. Far too far away. So unlike Maddox who had always before eagerly pressed in on him, almost touching his wing-tip. He saw Maddox’s profile – intent, serious. Finally, he caught his eye, waved him closer.
Sugar moved a short distance nearer, but Maddox neither smiled nor waved.
Now the coast of Belgium appeared on the right, chalky white in the snow. No sign of activity there. No guns, no searchlights. Long may it continue, he thought, edging the formation closer to Cavendish’s five ahead.
He glanced down at his watch. There was a nice westerly wind hurrying them along. Only another fifteen minutes to ETA.
Still no sign of enemy opposition. Not even a trawler was hugging the Belgian coast.
Behind him, Ryan was swinging the turret, moving his guns up and down, searching the sky.
Still no sign of fighters – and there ahead was the gaping mouth of the Scheldt. With luck, low as they were, the whole formation could sneak right up to Flushing without being observed.
Then the lid of stratus above them suddenly cracked. Five yellow spinners whirled down on Cavendish’s formation and the air was filled with the red beads of cannon fire.
From the rear, he could hear Ryan opening up, calling out, ‘Three fighters, Skipper! Six o’clock high!’ The whole aircraft shuddered as the Brownings fired. And then, ‘Got him, Skipper! Got him! The others are turning away!’
But ahead he saw a blaze of yellow on the water from a crashed Blenheim. There was no sign of the other four. Presumably they had dived into the stratus for cloud cover.
Both formations had now been broken up. No question now of the one big attack. MacGregor still kept J-Jig on course towards Flushing. Entering the Scheldt with no sign of the other Blenheims, he reached Flushing and an intense barrage of anti-aircraft.
Not a trace of the Derflinger.
Turning away to port, he went up the narrow creek between Walcheren Island and the mainland. Looking from side to side, he saw no sign of any ship, and was just deciding which way to turn when abruptly the whole sky darkened into pitch-black night.
He began coughing violently, halt-suffocated by smoke.
‘Smoke screen!’ he called out. ‘Mike… open the bomb doors! Arm the bombs! She’ll be hiding in there somewhere!’
Somehow he had to find her. He wasn’t going to return to Marshfield empty-handed. Cavendish’s words still rankled.
Then he felt a weird sensation. It was as if hands other than his own were on the controls, other eyes than his were guiding the Blenheim through the dense darkness. It was something like Maddox had described, coming into land at Marshfield through thick fog.
Suddenly, dead ahead, the wraiths of smoke solidified into a ghostly hull, topped by that thick funnel.
‘Derflinger!’ He called out triumphantly. ‘It’s the—’
His voice was drowned as a storm of yellow, white and red flak burst from the towering steel hull. Exploding shells began ripping the Blenheim apart.
Immediately Lyttle began firing the forward gun, followed by Ryan opening up from the turret.
J-Jig swerved violently to the left as the port engine exploded in a shower of red-hot fragments. The windscreen shattered. The cockpit was filled with the reek of cordite. A cannon shell ripped through the shoulder of his jacket.
Suddenly he realised that all the Brownings had stopped firing.
‘Mike!’ he yelled. ‘Ken!’
Struggling to keep the juddering aircraft straight, he turned his head and saw the navigator’s body, half-in, half-out of the nose, covered in blood, his head shattered, his dead hand still clenched on the Browning’s trigger.
‘Ken!’
No answer.
Quickly he glanced backwards.
A moment of utter horror. The whole turret blister had been blown clean away. Only the air-gunner’s legs dangling grotesquely.
MacGregor pressed one hand to his mouth as a wave of sickness almost overwhelmed him. His vision blurred. His body shook uncontrollably. He was filled with a terrible feeling of utter helplessness.
He was alone in this eruption of lethal fire.
Then he saw a shape beyond his wing-tip. He was conscious of other shapes moving with him.
On the starboard, seven DH 4s – with his new awareness he could even remember the names of the pilots from that photograph in the Stars and Stripes: Kingsland, Rex, Gallagher, Mitchell, Virgin, Bateman and Womack.
And to port, seven more DH 4s formatting – nearest was Captain Shea waving him on, with young Robinson tucked in beside him and, beyond, Hollingsworth, Grodecki, Hartman, Mackay and Martin.
And now, towering above them, were the iron sides of the Derflinger, dead ahead.
The whole formation never hesitated. Led by MacGregor in J, the fourteen American DH 4s of the 96th crashed into the ship as one.
There was an immediate white-hot flash. The whole sky became alight – killing the black smoke, illuminating everything in an uncanny shimmering light as the Derflinger and the fifteen aircraft sank below the sea.
Twenty-five miles south-west, all that remained of the battle that had raged ferociously between the Mes and the Blenheims were six fires burning on the sea. Bits of grey-green fuselage, a tailplane with a black cross on it, two floating tyres, a smouldering wing with a roundel just distinguishable, a bright yellow blob bobbing up and down on the water.
One Blenheim, S-Sugar, with half a tailplane and its fuselage riddled with cannon fire, emerged out of the low cloud, pursued by an Me 109, and dived down on the water towards that bright yellow blob.
Standing at the open window, Horner adjusted his binoculars to bring the blob into focus.
‘It’s one of ours. It’s—’
A burst of cannon fire interrupted him. Maddox pulled back the stick sharply and plunged into the safety of the overcast.
‘Who is it?’ Maddox called.
‘Cavendish, I think.’
‘Any sign of the crew?’
‘None.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘Can’t see.’
‘Better find out, then.’
The nose dipped sharply as Maddox descended. He began a steep turn round the Mae West, right on the water, then round again.
‘Cavendish all right,’ Horner reported.
‘Better keep him company, then,’ said Maddox.
He continued to circle till two Me 109s forced him back into the stratus layer.
But within minutes S-Sugar was back again, soon joined by pursuing fighters. And so the dangerous merry-go-round went on.
Cocooned in cloud, S-Sugar kept vanishing, emerging now and again before plunging back into the overcast.
Maddox was keeping an eye on the tiny yellow smudge, as Ginger pounded out SOS on the W/T emergency frequency while Maddox was sending Mayday on the TR9. ‘Circling survivor in Mae West 51.15 North, 02.40 East. Send ASR launch.’
No reply. Nothing but the crackle of static. On the intercom, Ginger called out, ‘They’re not receiving us! We’re too low.’
But back went S-Sugar down to the sea. At least the yellow blob was still there. So were the Me 109s. Again and again, led by one with a bright orange spinner, the fighters came in to attack, while Horner could hear the sound of flak ripping into the Blenheim’s metal skin.
Just ahead, a burst of crimson and yellow flared as an Me 109 burst into flames.
‘Got one!’ Ginger called. ‘Got the bastard! Hell! Another coming in nine o’clock!’
Maddox was throwing the Blenheim this way and that with gut-wrenching zigzag up-and-down evasive action.
For the three of them time stood still. Still no response had come from the ground.
And then on the SOS frequency just one letter came through the squealing and crackling of the static – R. Received.
Ginger left the W/T and got back into the turret. Now for Maddox and his crew there remained the agonised suspense.
When was the launch coming? Would it arrive in time? The man down there was in icy water. And what would the Mes do when the ASR launch did arrive?
And all the time Maddox, the schoolboy who boasted he had looped a Blenheim, was executing his famous wiggly stuff just above the water, yelling with terrifying exhilaration, while Horner and Ginger kept their eyes on the Mes and fired.
But he was no longer a schoolboy. Breath-taking, audacious, inspired, every manoeuvre brilliantly judged, diving like a thunderbolt, then climbing like a rocket, wings vertical one moment, then swinging the aircraft purposefully towards the attacking Mes the next.
Maddox had entered his element. He and the Blenheim had become fused into one fantastic bird. A lethal bird, spitting out continuous fire now from the forward gun.
Smoke began pouring from an Me on the left. Then the aircraft beside it exploded into a mass of falling debris.
No longer was Sugar a bomber, wary of opposition, fleeing from fighters. Dizzy with Maddox’s gyrations, his mouth dry with the stench of ammo, ears and hands aching with constantly firing broadsides into the fast-moving Huns, Horner had a sudden vivid memory of their affiliation exercise when Maddox had lunatically tried to snatch the fighter role from the Hurricane.
He was doing it now, only this time he was succeeding. He was making the Blenheim a better fighter than the Me.
And all the time, with the plates of her fuselage shivering, the growl of her engines drowned by the chatter of the Brownings, S-Sugar kept watch over the yellow blob bobbing up and down on the sea, turning ferociously head-on if any of the Mes threatened to approach.
‘You just try!’ he seemed to be saying. ‘You just try getting under my protective wing!’
None of them did. From a distance, they hosed streams of cannon fire.
Maddox hardly seemed to notice that every now and again they got a lucky shot into S-Sugar’s fuselage. But for the most part, the fighters were having difficulty with such a dodgy, unpredictable target so close to the water. Prudently, they held off lest they dive too close and slip into the waves.
And then suddenly, ahead on the horizon of the sea, Horner saw an arrow of white streaking towards them.
‘They’re coming. Skipper! Look! At twelve o’clock. Look!’
‘I can see them.’
Horner said, ‘The household cavalry at last!’
Ginger called out, ‘What’s been keeping you, boys?’
But now the Mes had also seen the launch. With a revived show of strength, the leading one with the orange spinner made a sudden darting dive towards the man in the water.
Maddox dived too. Made a lightning turn. For one mad moment Horner thought he was going to ram the bastard.
Almost he did. Then a quick pull out. A rapid burst from the forward firing gun, and down the fighter screamed.
A great plume of water. Beads of sea-spray on their windscreen.
Then nothing.
Horner pressed Maddox’s shoulder. ‘Great stuff, Skipper!’
And from the rear turret, Ginger called out, ‘Terrific, sir!’
Meanwhile, as though scalded, the Mes retreated to a safer distance from this mad, whirling dervish.
But not before the rearmost fired a parting salvo. A cannon shell whistled uncomfortably close to Horner’s left ear.
‘Bastards!’ he shouted, watching as though in slow motion the white streak of the ASR wash getting bigger and bigger as it closed on the yellow blob in the water, till finally it was directly underneath the circling Blenheim.
The white wash disappeared. Men reached down, hauled the Mae West-clad body on board.
And abruptly, the white wash started up again, this time heading westwards.
Then, and only then, did Maddox swing the nose of S-Sugar round to follow them, while the Mes left together on a southerly course, presumably for their Belgian bases.
But S-Sugar had been badly hit. There were jagged holes down the port fuselage close to the wing root.
But not just the fuselage had taken heavy punishment. Now the port engine began backfiring – stuttering, falling mournfully silent, then starting up again, roaring to a crescendo.
The speed began dropping, the needle on the airspeed indicator inched backwards on the dial – 140 – 120 – 105 – 90.
Shivering and shuddering, drunkenly swinging left and right, S-Sugar made for home.
Leaving the turret, Ginger prayed that Maddox’s luck would hold.
Then, with a noise like thunder, the port engine exploded in a guttering mass of orange flames.
Immediately Maddox pushed the fire extinguisher button, then started to climb to just below the cloud.
Standing behind him, Ginger peered anxiously ahead. He could see farther at this height, but still there was nothing except the sea steaming with wisps of mist.
And then a wave of relief shot through him.
Ahead now were white English cliffs, yellow English sand, green English grass. Then an English house and the tower of an English church, under a blue and white unmenacing sky.
And then he dropped his eyes and saw blood.
Blood all over Maddox’s uniform. Blood pouring down onto the floor.
He turned to the navigator. ‘Jack!’ He pulled at his arm. ‘Jack! Quick!’
Horner left the navigation table, grabbed the first aid box and rushed up front.
Maddox was bleeding from a chest wound, and arterial blood was spurting from his neck. But with his hands still clutching the control column, Maddox was trying to talk.
He moved the stick up and down and sideways. ‘See!’
‘Wires to the controls severed,’ Jack said.
‘We’ve had it!’ Ginger muttered.
Slowly, painfully, Maddox nodded. Then he turned his head and pointed to the navigator. ‘Jump!’
‘Like hell! I’m staying!’ Horner turned to the air gunner. ‘You go, Ginger!’
‘Not bloody likely! I’m staying too!’
‘Go on! Jump!’ Horner attempted a grin. ‘Give Pam and the parachute girls a thrill.’
‘Balls!’ said Ginger. ‘We’re not leaving our Skipper. We’re a crew. We stay together.’
So the three of them huddled round the stick as S-Sugar staggered nearer and nearer to the coast.
‘Mayday, Marigold Control!’ Jack reported, while Ginger fired off the red Very light, Injured Man Aboard. ‘We need an ambulance.’
‘S-Sugar, ambulance and fire engines waiting!’
But by the time they reached the field, the blood had ceased spurting and Maddox was dead. Hands still gripping the control column, but dead.
Try as they did they couldn’t shift him, so Ginger moved the seat back and Horner sat on top of Maddox, prising the pilot’s hands off the controls and gripping them with his own.
With one engine out, no ailerons, S-Sugar’s fuselage riddled with holes, somehow Horner managed to line up for the approach. There was only a light wind, and the clouds were broken.
Beside him, Ginger was about to pump the wheels down.
Horner began easing back the bit of engine they had.
Lower and lower S-Sugar sank, nicely positioned but wobbling badly.
Ginger was calling out height and speed as they approached the field.
‘Three hundred feet… 200… Speed 72.’
That was only two mph above stalling. The wings lurched to the left and downwards.
‘That’s better. Height 100 feet. Speed good.’
The nose dropped farther. ‘Steady… steady!’
Just in front of them, above the sand dunes and the marram-grass, loomed the airfield hedge.
‘You’re too low, Jack! Higher, man… higher!’
Horner pulled back on the stick. Immediately the Blenheim began shivering on the stall.
‘Speed… speed!’
Horner pushed the nose down again.
‘Seventy-one… seventy-two… seventy-three! Good! Good!’
Just below them, the ground was scudding past.
‘Height ninety… eighty… seventy… climb… climb! Airfield hedge ahead!’
Feebly the aircraft staggered up a few more feet.
‘Good! Good!’ Then an agonised pause. ‘Speed, man… speed!’
The wings practically brushed the hedge.
‘Great! Pull back! Pull back!’
‘Cut the engine.’
The port wheel touched the ground.
Then suddenly, the sound of rupturing, tortured metal. A huge slewing lurch to the left.
The port wing had broken off. Within seconds, the Blenheim had turned turtle.
Skidding over the grass upside down, it came to a shuddering stop.
Immediately smoke filled the cockpit.
Ginger saw a great billowing sheet of red and yellow fire shoot upwards.
Frantically, he pushed his way up against burning-hot metal, seeing Jack and a dead Maddox pitifully locked together.
He put out his arms and tried to get them out.
Jack looked up, put out a hand.
‘No good, Ginger! Go, man, go, before she blows up! We’re OK We’re OK!’
And then a cloud of white foam burst all round them and firemen were trying to climb up through the smoke. Ginger heard an explosion that shook the earth.
The sky went black – and the next thing he remembered he was in a hospital bed and a nurse was bending over him.
‘Then the tumult and the shouting died away,’ Simon Wetherby whispered to himself as he walked from the chapel to the Mess, and he felt the unnatural silence all around him.
Anywhere else, with thirteen aircrew killed, two badly injured, four aircraft lost, and a fifth a write-off, that silence would have been one of sorrow. But this was an RAF station, one of the most unnatural places on earth.
The silence was because it was the morning after the night before. The squadron was stood down. Basking in its success and the AOC’s congratulation, they had given their fallen comrades the wake they deserved, drinking and singing the night away.
The padre, still in a state of indecision, had been wakened through the night by snatches of ribald songs: ‘Roll me over in the clover/Roll me over, lay me down, and do it again!’ and another parodied dirge, beginning ‘An airman told me before he died/I do not think the bastard lied’.
Finally he had put his head under the white counterpane and managed to drift off to sleep.
Now the next item on the agenda, as Wing Commander Cavendish, back at his desk yesterday within twelve hours of his ditching, had announced, was ‘Christmas, boys!’
And tonight was Christmas Eve. A garishly decorated tree stood by the flagpole. All the sections had put up their decorations.
The Officers’ Mess, when Simon Wetherby reached it, was hung with holly and tinsel and interesting baubles that looked as if they had come from an aircraft’s inner workings.
As the padre was about to pass the bar, Mark Pringle hailed him. ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Simon,’ he said. ‘I’ve got your drink! It’s a Scotch. We’re going to down it for Angus.’
They were also, Simon Wetherby knew, downing it to mend the slight crack that had appeared in their friendship.
The padre slipped into the chair opposite the Intelligence Officer at a table in the far corner.
‘Deoch slainte, as Angus would say!’ Mark raised his glass. ‘Deoch slainte! Come on! Drink! It won’t bite you! Warm you up!’
Simon raised his glass and clinked it with Mark’s. ‘Deoch slainte!’ He took a sip. ‘And thanks. I’m glad I didn’t resign. At least not then. There might well come a time,’ he sighed, ‘when I resign the whole lot.’
‘You mean,’ Mark smiled, ‘earn an honest living?’
Simon gave him a small smile in return.
‘You realise that sinking the Derflinger was vital. To our survival. Maybe to the whole world’s survival?’
‘If you say so, Mark. I accept that.’
‘It was vital for the squadron, too.’
‘I find that harder to accept.’
‘It was the turning-point for them. You’ll see.’
He put his hand on the padre’s arm. ‘I’m sorry I was so snappy with you the other day.’
‘My fault. I bring out the snappy in people.’
He drained his glass. ‘Let’s have the other wing?’ he suggested and fought his way to the bar. He found himself standing next to the Wing Commander.
‘No! These are on me!’ Cavendish turned and saw the padre about to bring out his Mess chit. ‘Put that away! Damn it, man, you’re the only poor sod who has to work over Christmas.’
The Wing Commander had recovered from his ordeal with remarkable resilience. It had been a needed baptism of fire. He had done what he asked his men to do.
Standing beside him was Lesley. ‘I wondered,’ the padre asked her, ‘if you’d any news of the injured?’
‘Not a subject to discuss in the Mess,’ the Wing Commander interjected sharply, climbing back onto his usual high horse. ‘Close the hangar doors!’
The MO flushed, but she ignored him. ‘Very little, I’m afraid,’ she answered gently. ‘Both are badly injured. Flight Sergeant Horner is still unconscious.’
And perhaps to keep the Wing Commander in his place, she added as Simon Wetherby began to move away with his drinks, ‘I’ll let you know, Simon, if I hear any more.’
She rang him at the chapel shortly before the Christmas morning service. ‘I heard just half an hour ago, Simon. The chances of F/Sergeant Horner regaining consciousness are small. F/Sergeant Johnson is progressing. Have you spoken to his parents?’
‘Yes. They’ve telephoned me twice.’
‘And shortly,’ he told himself, peeping at the congregation through the slit in the curtain behind the altar, ‘I shall be talking again to his girlfriend.’
She had been to see him three times since that dreadful crash. Now he could spot her in the front row of chairs beside the airwoman called Pip whom she had dragged along with her on all three occasions. They were both regular members of his congregation and Pip had always struck him as a bright, competent little thing. But now all the spunk and stuffing seemed to have gone out of her. She looked a waif, her uniform still pressed, her buttons shining, her shoes polished, but a waif.
For once the chapel was healthily full. The congregation shuffled to its feet as he emerged singing, for he had a good tenor voice, the opening stanzas of ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’.
He had intended to include ‘Silent Night’, but Cavendish, dropping in to tell him the first news about the casualties, had vetoed it on account of its Germanic origin.
Hymns were followed by a short address and then the Confession and prayers for the taking of the Sacraments.
It was the first time that he had administered the Sacraments since he had done so to the German pilot, and his voice shook. But any disturbing memory was doused by a very present disturbance.
At his words, ‘Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort…’ the girl with the blonde hair and the pillar-box lips got to her feet and advanced a pace. Then she became aware her companion was not accompanying her. She turned and seized Pip’s hand, pulling her to her feet. Pip resisted.
‘I can’t.’
‘Course you can!’
A tug-of-war ensued, until the distressing argument seemed to be resolved by Pip giving in, coming forward and kneeling beside her friend at the altar rail. But when the padre proffered her first the wafer and then the wine, she waved them both away.
Neither of them referred to the incident when they stayed behind to enquire about their boyfriends. Simon gave the news about Johnson almost verbatim, the news about Horner he ameliorated.
He saw the two girls again when he and Mark joined the others in the Airmen’s Mess where, as part of RAF tradition, the officers served the other ranks with their Christmas dinner.
Huge helpings of turkey and sausages, puddings and mince pies and barrel-loads of beer were downed. The two girls sat at the end of a table. He didn’t see either of them put a forkful in their mouths.
He was thinking he might go over and offer them some more pudding, a mince pie, even to pull a cracker with them, and then give perhaps some words of comfort.
But what words did he know, let alone feel able to bring out?
Then the Group Captain appeared, and such was the power of Christmas or the strength of the beer that all the other ranks got to their feet and cheered this unpopular little Commanding Officer.
He jumped onto a table and stood amidst the ruins of turkey and pudding to deliver his Christmas message.
This was a special Christmas, he told them. Marshfield and 13 Squadron were on the up-and-up. All men here today, and those men who had not returned, had distinguished themselves in the spirit of the fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain and their Yankee predecessors of the 96th. A spirit that never dies.
‘As some of you know,’ he ended, ‘there is a poem about the 96th. I give you its last three lines:’
‘Spirits that must come back;
And I hail them then, who have died like men,
The Ghosts of the Eighth Attack!’
A slow clap showed the beer and the Christmas spirit were beginning to wear off. An old man’s sentimentality was not for them.
‘I sometimes wonder if they did come back,’ the padre allowed himself to whisper to Mark Pringle, receiving only a derisory raising of one eyebrow in return.
Then the SAdO cut the slow clap short by calling, ‘Three cheers for the Group Captain! Hip! Hip! Hooray!’
When the cheers had died away and glasses were recharged, the padre saw to his relief that the chairs where the two girls had been sitting were empty.
And it was only in the early hours, after the officers’ Christmas dinner, when too much rich food and too frequent passing of the port, and the bawdy songs from the aircrew in the bar below, kept him awake, that the revelation came to him.
Yes, they did. They did come back!