As soon as they drew the blind back from the map at briefing I glanced at Pete.
‘I don’t want to go to Krefeld again. They want to kill me in Krefeld, Charlie,’ he whispered.
‘They want to kill us everywhere, Pete. The Krefeld Kraut is just a bit pushy about it.’
Bushes couldn’t have heard our conversation from up front, but he must have heard the murmur, because he turned, glared and barked, ‘Pipe down there. Just bloody listen for once.’
There was a squadron tradition of booing the met officer as he left the podium: this was the first time I’d heard him slow handclapped. Not a scrap of thick all the way to the target and back. The fighters would see for miles. All the way to bloody Krefeld and back with a rear gunner with the twitch, and no chance of friendly covering cloud to dive into. Not that we were leading the squadron; Bushes was doing that. We were about third in line – which Grease pointed out was as far to the front as a sensible man wanted to get. Take-off at 2020 and breakfast about seven hours later. Don’t say With a bit of luck, Charlie; luck didn’t come into it. It was science, numbers, and something else; anything but luck.
Something had happened to the non-flying wallah who came round the locker room to get your locker keys, so the padre was there doing it. Pete turned him down outright. He said, ‘I will keep it. I’ll not give my keys to a focking thief.’
‘Come on Pete. I’m not a Catholic, but I’m still your padre. Your stuff’s safe with me.’ He smiled that chaplain’s smile, glanced at Grease for support, and got none: Grease shrugged.
Pete said, ‘You stole the grace of God: nothing’s safe with you.’ That seemed to be it.
As we filed out to the big crew bus we sometimes had to share with Quelch’s mob, we found ourselves alongside Bushes’ crew, and their bus.
Grease asked Bushes, ‘What about the fucking bomb doors?’
Bushes didn’t reply immediately. He blinked twice. Rapidly. The tic on his cheek danced. He said, ‘Heard your gunners got their second Jerry the other night. Why didn’t you tell me? Damned fine show.’
Grease looked at him hard and said, ‘Bally good for morale, what?’
Then they boarded their separate trucks. Bushes leaned out the back of his, and shouted across, ‘Sir. You’re supposed to bloody well say sir when you’re talking to me. You fucking animal.’ Then he bewildered us all by laughing, as if something was genuinely funny. It wasn’t genuinely funny; we were off to bomb Germany again and not many of us wanted to go.
Grease leaned across to me and gave me the chest prod. ‘Remind me to find out how many trips that mad sod has done.’
Tuesday looked big and black and reassuring lurking in the drizzle. Maybe I didn’t tell you that it was raining. Didn’t you bloody guess? Before signing for them, Marty lovingly touched each of the bombs in turn like a man touching a girl’s tits for the first time. Grease went for a pre-flight natter with Chief Bryan. He frowned when he found me behind him. His voice was tight; tense. He sounded as if he had a sore throat.
‘Did you get the work done?’
The Chief looked away. ‘She’ll do.’
‘Don’t fuck us around Chiefy. Yes or no?’
‘No. Not all of it. I’ll finish tomorrow.’
‘Do I have anything to worry about?’
‘She’ll get you there, and bring you back. What more do you want?’
‘More than that.’
‘I’ll fly with you if you like. Will that satisfy you?’ and I suddenly noticed a spare parachute at his feet. He was ready to do it.
Grease briefly squeezed his shoulder. ‘Naw, Chief. Just the offer will do.’
They shook hands. Livingstone and Stanley.
‘If we get chopped tonight I’m bloody well coming back for you. You remember that!’ Grease said.
We clambered into Tuesday after the others. Grease asked me, ‘How do you think he looked when I didn’t call his bluff?’
‘Relieved. Wouldn’t you be?’
Krefeld was hot, and Pete was terrified. He sang sad hymns in Polish all through the ten-mile approach to the bomb run, until Grease told him to shut the fuck up.
It was the first time I had heard the words used in that order. The stream had been spread out fairly widely, but about twenty minutes into Germany a Lancaster came galloping up behind us from way back in the pack, and then settled down at the same height and about thirty yards behind. Pete reported it.
‘Lanc, Skipper. Thirty yards dead astern. He’s not gaining.’
‘Thanks, Pete. Keep an eye open for the Krauts beneath him. Charlie, give him a twinkle.’
‘Aye, Skipper.’
‘Twinkle’ was Grease’s word for signalling between aircraft in Morse, by Aldis lamp. He throttled back enough to bring the visitor up alongside. We twinkled, then we pulled ahead back to our station.
‘It’s the Quelch gang again,’ I told them.
‘Bollocks,’ said Grease. ‘This is getting tedious. Remind me to do something about them.’
I guess that inside our masks we were all grinning. Once the bomb run commenced it turned into one of our most interesting. What we were used to by now – which doesn’t mean to say that we liked it – was a command sequence between Marty, who aimed and dropped the bombs, and Grease, who repeated Marty’s words aloud. It would go something like this:
‘Bomb doors open.’
‘Bomb doors open.’
‘Master switch on.’
‘Master switch on.’
‘Bombs fused and selected.’
‘Bombs fused and selected.’
Then there would be Marty’s flying instructions to Grease: Left, right or steady. Then his words of power, Bombs gone, which we knew about anyway, because Tuesday would leap as if she’d been kicked in the arse, then Marty would gibber something like ‘Bomb doors closed: photo OK, Skip – now get the hell out of here.’
That gave Grease all the excuse he needed to fly her the way he’d always wanted to, and I would start to feel airsick. That all happened within about two and a half minutes, although it seemed a lot longer.
Now this is why the bomb run of our second Krefeld trip was interesting:
Marty said, ‘Bomb doors open.’
Grease: ‘Bomb doors open.’
Grease again: ‘Bomb doors gone.’
Marty: ‘What?’
Grease: ‘You heard me: I think the fucking doors fell off. She shook herself and now she’s crabbing. Just get rid of the bloody things.’
Tuesday leapt. Grease pulled her gently round to port without losing height, and called out for a reciprocal to get us home. Quelch’s Quommandos followed us every yard of the flat turn, with flak bursting all around them. The Pink Pole cursed them from his turret, and waved them away, but they weren’t having any of it. I heard Grease muttering, ‘Get out of it, you mad sods, go home.’
Not a bloody chance. They were flying where they wanted to be, and it obviously rattled Grease a bit. We left Krefeld a bit redder than we found it, but God knows where our bombs went.
Over the North Sea Piotr reported, ‘He’s pulling out to your port, Skipper, and there’s an unknown pulling up to your starboard, prepare to corkscrew,’ then, ‘. . . wait one. It’s another Lanc. We’ve got a focking display formation up here!’
I said, ‘Don’t shoot at them, Pete. Too many witnesses.’
‘You think I’m stupid?’
‘Shut up.’ That was Grease. ‘Just do your jobs.’
Grease pulled me up to the astrodome a few minutes later because Quelch had come surging up alongside again. We exchanged twinkles. I told Grease, ‘Quelch says, Why did you drop your bomb doors on them as well? Can I do that next time?’
‘Ha bloody ha!’
Then the other aircraft surged up on the other side, so that we were flying three abreast about a hundred feet above the North Sea. The newcomer twinkled too; it said: Tell Sergeant McKenzie to go back to Germany and get the rest of his bloody aeroplane.
Grease said, ‘Bollocks. I think that’s the Old Man.’
The only problem we had to cope with after that was cold, although it wasn’t my problem because the heater was working well enough, and its port was alongside me. The others complained because as quick as the heat was pumped into the aircraft, it was sucked out again through the open bomb bay. I gave my spare pair of gloves to the Toff. Pete pulled out the spare parachute and wrapped it around himself. For some reason we had difficulty in raising Bawne at first, but then I got call sign Rutley, which was the Yanks at Duxford and suddenly we were receiving our own runway caravan, and getting lights. We twinkled at each other in the circuit – there was only one other down before us, and that had been an early return after a night-fighter attack. Bushes twinkled Follow me. Grease had me twinkle After you, son to Quelch, who came right back with Thank you, Tuesday, age before beauty. Without the bomb bay doors it was a very loud landing.
Bushes must have made a nifty exit, because he got around to our dispersal in his horrid little car before we unwrapped Piotr from the parachute which had kept him from freezing to death, and climbed wearily back to earth. The Toff solemnly gave me back my spare gloves, and then kissed me on each cheek. Bushes leapt out of his car and galloped up to Grease. ‘Get the Chief to get her into the T2 before dawn; and not a bloody word to bloody anyone!’
His moustache seemed to bristle with aggression. Then, suddenly, he and Grease began to laugh uproariously, and actually hugged each other. Bloody flying types.
The interrogation didn’t take too long because Bushes had forbidden us from saying that the plane began to fall to pieces on its own over Krefeld. Piotr fixed his first date with Harriet for the next day. Then there was a surprise waiting for us in the Nissen hut. On each of the small lockers alongside our beds Grace had placed a lighted candle in a jam jar, and on the small table near the stove was a bottle of whisky – which had probably come from her father’s pre-war stock, because it wasn’t one of Pete’s – and eight glasses. She had tried to stay awake for us, but was sleeping in one of the utility armchairs, snoring. Piotr gently tucked a blanket around her before we began to drink. It was an oddly calm and satisfying drinking session – maybe because it was unplanned. We didn’t actually say much; just chatted about this and that. I think I probably smiled a lot; I know that the others did. Later, as I lay in bed and drifted into sleep I watched the dancing lights of the candles against the curved roof. It was good to be reminded that fire was not always an enemy. Thirteen down.
We slept late; most of us in our silks, just as we were. When I awoke Grace was no longer asleep in her chair, and Fergal’s bed was empty: the dirty dog. I fired up the stove and Grease staggered out of his pit groaning – he always had trouble with whisky. Part of my admiration and affection for him came from the number of mornings I had seen him in that state, crawl into his running gear, and set off doggedly along the peri-track regardless of the weather. When he came back he was invariably Grease again. I shaved, pulled on my number ones, left the airfield by our private gate and cycled down to the church at Bawne – not for the religious comfort of the service, but for another comfort deriving from its ceremony and its history. It gave freely. It was one of those flint and rubble churches which speckle the south Midlands – long dark naves, and a bell tower which always drew your eye on finals. Then I cycled back.
Grace was up, and in country civvies of shirt, pullover and baggy tweed trousers with turn-ups, which would have looked ridiculous on any other woman. Her hair was damp. She was delicately nibbling toast, and I could smell freshly brewed coffee. Where the hell had that come from? She gave me a mugful; it was as delicious as it smelled, and she said, ‘Don’t ask.’ Then, ‘Where did you get to?’ When I told her she pouted, and said, ‘I would have gone with you. I want to see the church – I haven’t been there since before the war: one of Daddy’s pals was buried there.’
‘What do you want to see?’
‘Musty old graves in a musty old churchyard. Will you take me?’
‘How about me driving you down there at opening time? It’s not that far from the Wellington. I can sip a few pints and wait for you.’
‘You won’t be flying tonight, then?’ One of the things I liked about Grace was that she could say that without sounding relieved.
I said, ‘No. Not unless Bushes puts us into another kite. Tuesday needs some loving.’
‘Oh! Was it so bad a do last night?’
‘No. Some non-essential bits fell off.’
‘Bomb doors?’
‘Can’t say. Unlike the big black rectangular things that used to hang on the bottom of our aircraft, my lips are sealed. I shall think about Mrs Tocsin’s cider that I shall be drinking in the Wellington in about an hour.’
Grace smiled. She said, ‘Pints of cider are like tits you know.’
‘How d’ye make that out?’
‘One isn’t enough, and three are definitely too many.’
My turn to smile. ‘Where’d you learn that?’
Without intending it, I had suddenly said the wrong thing. Grace looked down at her shoes and turned away.
‘The Americans say that about their Martinis,’ was all she’d say.
We took the combo. Piotr was away with his intelligence officer in the Singer, and nobody apart from Grease was up yet. Even he’d wandered off whilst I was at the church. I suspected that he was up at the T2 consoling Tuesday for her lost virginity. There was a group of Yank flyers outside the Wellington trying to make sense of English licensing hours. It was with real pleasure that I recognized among them a few of the crew we had met in London. They whistled at Grace as she made a leg for them getting out of the sidecar. One of them shouted, ‘Hi, Grace.’
She made no move to join them, but just pushed me towards them with a ‘See you later,’ and made for the churchyard.
Her awareness of focused male attention put at least five degrees of yaw on her swinging bottom as she walked off. The child I remembered as the pilot from our London encounter pushed his way through; I remembered his battered soft cap, and stained flying jacket. He was a full captain.
‘Ya made it, huh?’ he said.
‘Yes, how about your team. They all OK?’ I said.
‘Yeah, what d’ya expect with me flying them? Safe as babies.’
At least two of the guys with him winced as he said that, but we’d confirmed that we’d all come through the last two weeks without making a dance about it. That was good.
‘I don’t remember your name, and I guess you don’t remember ours,’ he said.
‘I’m Charlie Bassett. Sparks. Radio op.’
‘I’m Peter Wynn.’
That’s how I became reacquainted with Pete Wynn, Sandy Lyon, Walt Graham-Smith and David Kovaks – who everyone called ‘the Jew’. Kovaks wasn’t in fact Jewish, but a Polish American Calvinist just making a point. He thought of war as an art form, and himself an existentialist. He was going to be a great artist after this shit was over.
Pete Wynn had the face of a twenty-year-old wearing sixty-year-old eyes – it was an Eighth Army Air Force look. He asked me, ‘This call for a pint or two of your dreadful English beer?’
‘I should say.’
‘I should say,’ he mimicked to his guys, who laughed. Then, ‘When’s this shop opening?’
‘Just about now, I should say.’
When our first pints were in our hands, and we were in the middle of telling each other what shit-bags of aircraft we were being forced to fly this war in, the Jew touched my arm to get my attention, and said, ‘That Grace with you: she was dating one of our guys a while back. Haven’t seen her for a couple of months.’
It wasn’t a warning: it was something else, but I couldn’t make out what.
I left them after three pints of cider, and a promise to set up a drinking and darts (Marty always used to call them ‘arrers’) match between the crews before it was too late. Grace hadn’t reappeared, which was a little strange because I had expected her to seek me out after seeing whatever she wanted to in the churchyard. Which is where she wasn’t – I had a fair scout around before I went into the church for the second time in a day. Grace was sitting in a pew right at the front, and before you get the idea of piety, she was smoking a cigarette.
‘OK?’ I said.
‘Fine. This is a good old church, isn’t it?’
‘Is it Norman?’
‘I doubt it. Medieval probably, but the Victorians really messed it up. Have you seen its little bit of pagan idolatry?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Come here, and look.’ She had stood up to greet me, and now walked down to the west end of the church, under its bell tower. She stopped by the font. So did I. She said, ‘Look down. There,’ and pulled a square rug to one side.
The tiles of the floor made a red and black pattern.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a maze. The only one inside a church in England. There’s another one in a cathedral in France. A pre-Christian ritual site inside a Christian place of worship: revamped by those same bloody Victorians of course; I’d love to know if there was one older still, underneath.’ She gave me the crooked Grace smile, and then said, ‘Come on: something else to show you. What I really came here for.’
Outside, in the churchyard, she walked me to a corner which was catching the sun, and four neat tombstones, similar in size and standing together. Part of my mind was saying that what war really meant was graveyards getting used too often, although these graves didn’t look new. She squatted by one at the end of the row, and ran her fingers over the engraved words as she read them aloud. ‘“William Hanley Hamilton, Royal Flying Corps. Born 1889, Killed in action 14 July 1916.” ’
‘Did you know of him Grace? Was this your father’s pal?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘What, then?’
‘He’s someone you met.’
I didn’t get this. I laughed, and then stopped because she wasn’t smiling.
‘Don’t be idiotic, Grace. I wasn’t born in 1916.’
‘Meet Bawne Billy,’ she said.
My advice is that when it happens, own up right away: to being made speechless. There was a new small bunch of flowers on the grave: late violets; I didn’t think that they were Grace’s – somehow that wouldn’t have been her style.
As I started to open up the bike on the way back Grace tugged my sleeve and shouted for me to pull up. We were at the end of an unmade, rutted road which led between Bawne, Caxton and Haldicot – the next villages west. The locals called it the Drift, or Haldicot Drift. We parked the combo off the road, and Grace linked her arm in mine as we walked the Drift’s ruts. She had said, ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Charlie; I just want to walk a bit.’
‘I’ve got to tell you that I’m not really one for the ghosties,’ I told her.
She stopped. I stopped with her. She said, ‘Neither am I.’
‘So I won’t be telling anyone about it.’
‘Neither will I.’
‘Good. That’s settled.’
We still hadn’t moved on. She said, ‘This place is magic, isn’t it?’
Grace kissed me.