That smell. Oil and fuel and hydraulic fluid—same in all aircraft, but each type smells different. Where the stuff is, I suppose. But Spits smell better, somehow. Special.
I sit in the tiny cockpit and watch my hands at work. They know exactly what to do; I don’t have to tell them. The airman gives me the thumbs-up: battery disconnected, and I am free.
They guide me out and we taxi across the grass, snaking from side to side. All clear from control to take off. Slowly open up the throttle to maximum power, that beautiful, throaty roar, and she’s vibrating, excited, desperate to get into the air. She gains speed, I raise her tail…90 mph, a slight bump, and she takes off almost by herself…left hand on throttle and right hand on control stick, then change and right hand on lever to raise the undercarriage—indicator light on—bring pitch and mix back…140 mph. Start to climb through the late-afternoon haze. Change radio frequency. Nobody says much on the way up.
Bandits, twenty plus at Angels One Two. Outnumbered, as usual: we are eight, spaced out across the sky. Thank Christ we’ve given up all that close formation stuff—great for displays but fuck-all use in a scrap. Red Section is leading, with Prideaux at Red One. I’m flying Yellow One, with one of the new boys… Holden-Something…as my wingman. Much good he’ll do me. He’s supposed to protect my arse, but I’m not betting on it. Not much cloud. Sun behind us. We climb to 14,000 feet. Good job Prideaux’s got the sense to get us up higher than the angels they give us. Check the dashboard… Airspeed indicator, artificial horizon—normal; rate of climb indicator, engine speed indicator, fuel pressure gauge, boost gauge, all fine… Gun-sight on, gun-safety off… Nothing in sight—for the moment, the sky is ours.
Corky flying alongside me, singing, his voice distorted by the radio transmission: ‘I love you in your negligee—’
‘Corky, I didn’t know you cared.’ Mathy, on the other side.
‘I love you in your nightie—’
More instruction, with Corky warbling away in the background.
We quarter the sky, looking out for enemy planes. Extraordinary that one can feel as alert and excited as hell and totally calm at the same time, but it’s possible. That overrides the tiredness, somehow, because we’ve been up three times today already. How you can feel all these sensations at once, I don’t know. It might have been Corky’s singing, or perhaps the exhaustion, but my mind starts to wander, and I find myself thinking about Webster, how he once said that his first flight was like the first time he had a girl. He was in the RFC in the last war, so I suppose that was in France. Perhaps French girls are different, although I don’t see how they can be.
I’m not wearing gloves—never do if I can help it—and the metal is smooth and sensitive under my hands…it’s all about sensations, flying. I’d thought having a girl would be like that. I’d wanted it. Imagined it. But that first one, in the holidays before my last term at school…can’t remember her name. Girl from the village. She’d done it before; something of a reputation, in fact. Knew the drill. I’d thought it would be easy, and it should have been, but it wasn’t. She was pale, fleshy, big features—our noses bumped when I kissed her, she leant against me and tried to push her tongue into my mouth; it made a wet sound, slimy, it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t what I wanted…then, as I lay on top of her in the grass where she’d led me, she unbuttoned her blouse. Chilly, for July. Cloudy and dull. Slack, goose-pimpled breasts. She put my hands on them and they felt cold and lumpy and I could see blue veins between my fingers… I didn’t know what to do—what she wanted, and she lay there staring at me, waiting…
Up here, none of that matters. She’s perfect. You could fly her with your index finger and thumb.
I couldn’t do it. She propped herself on her elbows, fumbled at my trousers, and lay down again. ‘Go on…’ Waiting.
But it doesn’t matter. Not here. She’s happy. Exhilarated. Wants it as much as I do.
Two thick slabs of thighs. Clammy. Damp grass underneath. Useless object. And made me useless, too. I said, ‘What do you want?’ Not what I’d meant to say, because I knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t giving me anything, just lying there, waiting, knowing… I couldn’t do it. I felt sick. She started laughing and suddenly I was in a rage, pummelling her, her bulging, ugly body and her stupid, grinning face. Big red lips and white teeth. I hit her until it was all a mess of smeared lipstick and blotches—’Shut—up! Shut—up! Shut—up!’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘I hate you!’
‘I hate you, too.’ She scrambled to her feet and ran across the grass, lumbering from side to side as she tried to do up her buttons.
I adjust the trim; keep nice and level. I can still hear the girl laughing, but I know it’s insignificant. She’s insignificant. Let her think she got the better of me—she knows nothing, and never will. None of them do. Always wanting, pestering, teasing, with their stupid conversation, always at you, wanting that, all the same, lying there, holding out their arms, makes me furious… I don’t even like them and they can’t bloody see it. They don’t understand anything. They don’t know the joy of self-reliance, the elation of the chase and the kill, the extraordinary, exultant sense of triumph when the bullets hit home, the satisfaction of a job well done and the entire rightness of kill-or-be-killed—it could so easily be the other way about.
Corky cuts across my thoughts. ‘When the moonlight flits—’
‘Shut up, Corky, you’re making me feel sick.’ Prideaux.
‘Across your tits—’
Mathy’s voice: ‘Blue One to Leader, Bandits below, three o’clock.’
‘Buster, buster!’ Prideaux. Maximum speed, now. ‘Turning right, turning right, go!’
That’s good. Half the time we get scrambled too late, vectored too low. Easier with the buggers underneath us, but I still can’t see… Wait. A dot on the Perspex turns into a cross, a shape…shapes… And there they are: two dozen silver 109s, skating along at a leisurely pace. They haven’t seen us. Prideaux shouts, ‘Tally ho!’
The taste of fear floods my mouth, my stomach is sick and hollow, my heart is pounding, my ring twitching, and then suddenly, a jolt of adrenalin like electricity snaps my body into the job and I can feel myself taut against the straps of the harness. My teeth clench, my thumb is on the gun button, there is nothing but the chase, the urge to kill, and we dive towards them, Prideaux leading. ‘Pick your own!’
Spots in front of my eyes for a moment, then clear as we hurtle nearer—choose one, and… Christ! Too fast, too fast, break right and bank—yellow underbelly on the left—flames, smoke—and the air breaks up, shot through with tracer belting straight towards me—haul on the stick… Height, need height… Planes dodging and diving everywhere, not yet, not yet…three-second burst with full deflection—she shakes, and jolts from the recoil—thumb slips—get a grip, get a grip…meaningless racket of voices over the R/T—‘Other way, you stupid bastard!’
‘Ten o’clock, ten o’clock!’
A 109 shoots past me, followed by a Spit—Ginger, I think—and a mouthful of Polish is spat into my ear. Balchin bellows, ‘Speak fucking English, can’t you?’
I can’t see Holden-Whatsit anywhere. ‘Yellow Two, where are you?’
A Spit streaks straight in front of me with a 109 behind, knocking chunks off it—‘Help me, somebody help me!’ High, choir-boy voice…realise it’s my wingman, whatever his fucking name is, trying to get himself killed.
‘You stupid bastard!’ I charge after the 109—get right up his arse and let him have it, a four-second burst—Bloody Kraut, I’ll give you something to take home—and again—he breaks left but not fast enough—leaking coolant—I give it another squirt and then all hell breaks loose behind me: an almighty thud and she lurches and bumps—tracer flashing over the starboard wing—get out of here for Christ’s sake get out—feel my bladder emptying, sweat running into my eyes, and cut the throttle and shove everything into the corner for a sharp turn. For a second I think she’s not going to respond and I’ve had it, but then—clever girl—she goes, it’s working, and the giant hand pushes my guts to the base of my stomach and presses down on my head, forcing it into my chest, I can feel the blood rush from it, can’t see but can feel my way round the turn, not yet…further, further…she judders—don’t stall, don’t stall…rudder pedals heavy as lead, don’t black out, don’t bloody black out…and…now! 180 degrees, straighten out and I can see again and two 109s are coming straight at me—hear myself scream and she screams too as I yank her into a half-roll to get out of their way—can’t swallow so turn my head aside to get rid of the puke that’s coming up my throat, everything vibrating like hell, grey spots in front of my eyes and for a moment I am as weak as a baby, hands and legs helpless and quivering, then the plane seems to right itself and I see that one of the machines is crippled and wallowing, trailing smoke, port aileron shot up, the pilot a red smear against the Perspex, and the other—definitely a 109—is shooting at it, so it must be one of ours. Get off a long-range shot at the Messerschmitt—tracer seems to bounce off his wing, then the Spit is on fire and falling, falling, and there’s nothing I can do—out of ammo—I see the 109 start to turn and I pull the tit and shove the throttle through the gate to get away from it and she shrieks and shrieks and I’m trying to stay calm, think, be logical, and then I find myself, miraculously, in empty sky, clammy and shivering with cold sweat, and the smell of fuel and cordite and a wet left leg.
Strange how that happens. One minute all hell’s breaking loose, and the next minute, the sky’s empty and you’re on your own. Quick, look round: row of holes in the starboard wing. Doesn’t look too bad—there might be damage behind that I can’t see, but she’s flying all right. Now then, where’s Holden-Whatsit?
‘Yellow Two, where are you?’
No response.
‘Yellow Two…’
Nothing. Silly sod must have been jumped.
Oh, well. Time to go home. God, that feels good: to be up here, all alone, the sun just beginning to set. Wonderful sense of contentment. She’s happy, too, almost flying herself. I could stay up here for ever.
You couldn’t get that from any woman.