We climbed up into Tuesday and went back to Krefeld that night. Maybe Pete knew a thing or two after all. We had a fat cookie and eight sharky 1,000-pound blast bombs, and a large pink pig painted alongside the spreadeagled man under the bomb mission markings on the nose. At the aircraft Marty had stood up with his head in the bomb bay, and tried to give one of the blast bombs a blowjob. Chief Bryan stood there shaking his head; his oppos sniggered, and no one saw Grace precede me up the ladder and into Tuesday. As we climbed in, over the lip, I was supposed to turn right and head for the lights, whilst she turned left for the turret; instead we turned to face each other, holding up the crocodile for a minute or so. We hadn’t spoken in the bus. Either of us. We leaned towards each other, didn’t kiss, but rubbed noses like Eskimos. Grace smiled and whispered, ‘Don’t worry. See you in a few hours.’
Heaven or hell? I asked myself, but didn’t say it. I smiled too, and turned away from her.
I know some old bomber types who walked away from the RAF at the end of the war, and walked away from Europe too. They never left the shores of Great Britain for the rest of their lives. I suppose that if you asked them what towns in Germany looked like they’d reply something like, usually black except where they were on fire. That was Krefeld on trip twenty, with Grace in the back.
Grease’s take-off was lumpy; you could feel Tuesday rising and falling like a gentle rollercoaster as she slowly gained height. That was probably because we took off too close to some slower old sod in front of us, and were squashing around in its wash. The old sod was the Boss’s kite – he had insisted on taking up with P-Peter, the oldest Lanc on the squadron, only now it was designated P-Papa. Quelch’s wagon, which his ground crew called El Disgustivo because of the state it was always left in, was M-Mother. Anyway, I distinctly heard Grace’s snigger, and Grease asking, ‘You said something, Pete?’ and Grace replying, ‘No, Skipper. Sorry.’
At about 200 feet I wound out the trailing aerial – a job I hated, because to do it I had to crouch in a ball on the floor, which was an awkward, hot job in full flying clobber. When I stood to climb up to the office, Fergal, sensing my movement, looked over his shoulder, and waved me back. Then he cupped a hand over each ear, which told me that Grease wanted a listening watch. That meant he feared a transmission giving us a recall or a route change.
That night the signal was particularly bad, drifting in and out: I flew the first hour with my hand on the tuner. Grease did his usual job on the rendezvous point, flying slightly wider circles than the briefing asked for: Fergal and Conners between them would later have to find a way to save the extra fuel this used. The reason for this happened about a mile away – there was a sudden fire in the sky, which fell like gobbets of molten lava, illuminating a small village below. I found out later that a late Lanc from Linton, playing catch-up, had climbed through a squadron of Halifaxes, and clipped one of them. Two wickets down, in Grease-speak, before we even got over the sea. I listened in through the static and the garbage, and whistled a silly Arthur Askey tune under my breath. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
When Conners called out the old faithful ‘Enemy coast ahead’, Fergal leant back, and waved me forward to the astrodome.
When I stuck my head up into the glass bowl I got one of those clear dark nights that I so disliked. There was nowhere to hide out there if the bogeyman came after us. I suppose that the advantage was that you had a chance of spotting the Kraut before he had a visual on you – unlike the cloud and the murk that could sometimes give you a fine illusion of safety, until you remembered that he was feeling for you through it with his radar set. They talked about giving us something similar, but it never came to anything whilst I was on the squadron.
Anyway, it was nice to be of use for once: I saw the Kraut like a shadow off the starboard bow, flying parallel to us and way out on the edge of my night vision. Sometimes he was lost in the stars.
Click. ‘It’s Charlie. There’s something off to starboard, maybe twenty degrees. He’s about 1,000 yards away. It’s not one of us.’
Click: that’s Grease. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Nothing. Just shadowing, but I don’t think he’s being friendly.’
‘Upper gunner. I got him.’ That’s the Toff.
‘Bomb aimer: me too. Do you think he’s homing the rest of them in on the stream?’
Click. That’s Grease again. ‘Could be. You stick with him Toff. Charlie, you watch port and above, Marty just look forward.’ We rogered, and then he asked, ‘You OK, Pete?’
‘Fine Skipper.’ Grace’s voice seemed deeper in the O mask. ‘Can’t see anything yet.’
‘Can you see Quelch?’
‘No, Skipper.’
‘I know he’s there somewhere: my ring is twitching. It always twitches when he’s out there.’
‘I can see a Lancaster now. It’s closing from dead astern, and slightly above.’
‘Thank you tail. That’ll be him.’
‘He’s half rolling . . . he’s turning to starboard. He’s going like hell, Skipper.’
Grease clicked. ‘Aw no,’ and groaned, ‘not again.’
Quelch had dived gently towards us from astern and above, and then turned fast and sharp to starboard, to draw an interception course with the Kraut. He was on top of him before the Kraut knew what was happening. Q’s bomb aimer must have let him have it with the two machine guns in the front turret from about 300 yards. The night fighter turned in towards us to cross the stream, but Quelch was having none of it. Wrenching Mother hard port, he flew across the triangle at it: once he had pounced I don’t think that any of his bullets missed their mark. Bomber against fighter shouldn’t have been an uneven contest like that, but it was – the Me 110 (I saw it for that as it closed) dived away under our nose streaming fluids, smoke and small pieces of aeroplane. He wasn’t going anywhere else tonight. Quelch zoomed, breaking off the pursuit rather than ram Tuesday; we wouldn’t hear the last of that at interrogation.
About half a minute later Grace sang out. ‘There was a flash down there: very red. I think it broke up.’
Grease told her, ‘Thanks, Pete: now watch your lower quadrant, that’s where they’ll come from.’
I don’t think that she needed telling, but a boss always has to have his say, doesn’t he.
Shrapnel has this characteristic sound as it collides with aircraft aluminium: it’s like hailstones striking a metal shed when you’re on the inside. The next one was too close. The bastards coned us with radar-controlled searchlights during the run-in, and Grease refused to run away. I actually saw the glowing red and blue microbes of steel, like humming birds on automatic pilot, zip in through Tuesday’s skin at one side, and out through the other. They left a scent of burnt air, which got in under my mask. I looked frantically round for the fire that wasn’t there.
Conners called out. ‘Yow! Something just burned my bum.’
‘Nav’s been hit, Skipper,’ I told Grease.
‘OK, Charlie, shut up.’
Marty intoned, ‘Left; left a bit. No, right a bit. No steady. That’s it . . . steady.’ He was a single-minded bugger once the bomb run started. I hated flying with the bomb doors open: I felt very vulnerable then. Like living one of those dreams when your pants are around your ankles, and everyone’s pointing at you. Marty never seemed to mind. He told me that dropping the bombs was like shooting your load, but better. Then he said those words of power I told you, and Tuesday leapt. After the photograph Grease took us away in a flat curve to starboard, gaining height and heading for the black. I had the chance for a quick glance down as we swung away. There were supposed to be two aiming points but four distinct enormous fires were burning. The old guys who told you that it was like looking into the maw of hell weren’t just falling back on some tired old cliché – they were giving you the literal.
‘Lancaster on fire and going down,’ Grace called. Her voice was higher this time.
The Toff clicked. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘Left. My left. His starboard inner is burning like a blowtorch.’
‘I’ve got it. Four parachutes. Five . . . gone. Five parachutes Nav; you got that?’
‘My arse hurts,’ Conners said.
Click: Grease. ‘Did you get the five parachutes, Nav?’
‘I wrote them down. Can we go home now, Skip?’
Grease said, ‘Charlie, once Conners has given us a heading, go back and slap a dressing on his arse if he needs it. No morphine until we no longer need him, though.’
Fergal stood up to the dome for me while I tended to Conners. A piece of flak had sliced cleanly through the cheek of his left buttock about an inch deep. It was very bloody, and by torchlight the open wound looked like a piece of steak: after I had poured sulphur powder into it, it did need a dressing. In fact I used three on top of each other before the blood flow slowed. I roped it tight, pulling the edges of the wound together, with three rolls of narrow bandage looped tight around his waist and leg, and gave him the morphine over Holland. Because Conners didn’t have his mind wholly on the job, we drifted too close to Meppen, on the border of Krautland, and got another peppering of radar-directed flak. The flak storm was lighter, with spent energy this time – that was because Grease had given up on low cover and had taken us high again. The metal shards clattered around Tuesday’s tail.
The surprise must have led Grace to click the RT because we all heard her say, ‘Ouch!’
My heart lurched.
‘You all right, Grace?’ the Toff asked.
‘Yes. Sorry. It startled me.’
My heart unlurched again. I think everyone else’s did too. This wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought.
I never got back into the dome on that trip. By the time I had given Conners his jab it was time to weave a little magic in the ether again. I knew the RT was OK, but put a call through anyway. Everyone answered promptly, except Conners, who leaned towards me from the navigation table and gave me a great beaming smile. Old Conners was always a big fan of morphine.
I don’t have to tell you that by the time we made it home it was raining, nor that Fiver was waiting for us at dispersal. Situation normal again. For once the signal to Bawne was as true as an arrow in flight, and they gave Grease the OK for a straight in, because he had wounded on board. Grease pulled off a beauty: only three heavy bounces, and a smart skid. The meat truck was parked alongside Fiver’s little Morris bus at our dispersal pan, and the doc was sitting on the step in the drizzle.
We carried Conroy out sitting, because I didn’t want to start his wound flowing again. He was too stoned to be embarrassed about it, calling out, ‘Gee up, gee up,’ and pounding Grease and the Toff’s shoulders as he rode. They put him face down on a stretcher in the ambulance, and later the MO told us he was asleep before they got him to the surgery. In all this to-do, no one noticed Grace, with Pete’s old off-yellow survival suit hanging around her, slip into the back of our transport. Just before we boarded Grease put his face very close to the Toff’s, and whispered forcibly.
‘As long as Grace is in Tuesday then her name is Pete; no mistakes – savvy?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’
In the back Grace gave Grease the eye, but it was the Toff she leaned over to kiss, all the time with her eyes on Grease, who grinned at her and said, ‘Yeah, OK . . .’, and it was him who broke the eye contact.
I walked around to the front, and got up alongside Fiver. She’d gone white when we told her that Conners was cut up, but relieved when we told her where. Even so, she was clumsy with the gear changes.
‘I’d like to hold your hand, like Conners does, but mine has got his blood all over it,’ I said.
‘He is going to be all right?’
‘Of course he is. We wouldn’t lie to you.’
‘Then ask me again another day, after you’ve washed.’
She was smiling. It was a wonderful smile.
I asked her to stop off at the Pit; I needed a leak, I said, and the flak had pranged Tuesday’s Elsan toilet. When I slipped off the wagon and into the Nissen hut, Grace, swaddled in Pete’s overalls and with her head turned away, came with me. I washed my hands in one of our two precious sinks, and came back alone.
Fiver gave me an old-fashioned look as I climbed up beside her, which I countered with, ‘Don’t even ask. And get used to it.’
‘Is Pete in trouble?’
‘He will be, if the cops catch him.’
It wasn’t exactly a lie, was it?
The next morning Grace went running with Grease. That wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. A lot of people must have known that she bunked with us between ATA delivery flights. I reacquainted myself with the fire bucket, refreshed by the night’s rainfall. Everyone surfaced eventually, and Conners said he couldn’t feel a thing, although he looked a mite tottery.
Chiefy came round at about 1030, and when we asked if there was anything on, shook his head, and said, ‘Naw.’ Then he asked Grease, ‘What the hell were you playing at over there? She’s got more holes than a pepper pot.’
‘Anything serious?’
‘Naw. She’ll be looking pretty again tomorrer.’
He had actually come round to sort out the pig. We settled for a gigantic leg – port, rear – dressed and ready for the oven, or the pot, and a front quarter that the Chief was going to have smoked for us. Even after that he looked unsure of himself; you could just tell that there was something else coming. He said it all in a rush:
‘Look. You know we had some real bad luck with Dobbo; the funeral’s at 1300 today. The lads would be really chuffed if you could come. We’ll stand you a beer afterwards of course: these things ought to be done properly.’
There was Grease, Grace, Marty and me around him when he said this, and he must have taken our immediate silence for a refusal, because his shoulders slumped down.
‘Lummy!’ Marty said. He sounded stunned, which is how I felt. Grace put her arm around Chiefy’s shoulder, and kissed his cheek. He didn’t pull away this time.
‘Christ! Yes. Of course. We’ll all be there. Best bib and tucker. I’m so sorry, Chief,’ Grease said.
Chiefy Bryan gave a little frown. ‘Thought you knew about it, anyway.’
I asked him where the burial was.
‘We thought the little graveyard where they put Black Francie. There’s been a visiting parson there for a few weeks now, and we’ve kept his car running for him, so he’s agreed to say a few words.’
He’d better do a bloody sight better than that, I thought, but I kept it buttoned.
It was Marty who chatted up the motor pool and won us Fiver and the Morris, and it was a sober mob that piled into it at 1200. Fiver drove us unhurriedly back to the friendly little graveyard at Everton. The sky was overcast, but at least it wasn’t raining. Before the war that single dead bell from the church tower would have rolled out across Bedfordshire, but for the moment it was silent. All we had was the sighing of a damp westerly wind, because the Ministry of Fools had requisitioned church bells, for invasions, the signalling of – of which we hadn’t had any proper ones yet.
We saw Chief Bryan and his martial huddle against a grey stone wall at the far side of the churchyard: some distance from where Francie had already begun to rot. Grease dressed us into line, and marched us slowly in to face our bereaved ground crew. The parson stood over the grave, between us. Fiver had joined us this time, and I sympathized with her when she giggled nervously: the parson scowled at her. I know why Fiver giggled. For a start, there was something wrong with the grave: it was less than a foot deep, and less than six inches square. My first thought was that there must be more of him left than that.
Then I looked up to find Dobbo watching me mournfully from the line of Erks and fitters. He looked about as serious as you can get at your own funeral. Panic, but by then the Parson cleared his throat and began.
‘Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are gathered here today to lay to eternal rest the left ring-finger of Aircraftsman Dobson . . .’
I had to steady Grace, who, out of control, momentarily slumped against me. Or maybe she just turned her ankle. I don’t know. The coffin and the grave marker had both been fashioned out of an old ammo box. Dobbo blew the ‘Last Post’ himself, on a kazoo he held in his good hand. A small dog had got in from somewhere: it wandered over to raise his leg to piss over the temporary marker on Francie’s grave. Someone had laid a bunch of late violets on it, I noticed.
They have a wonderful pub at Everton within a fast ground loop of the churchyard – the Thornton Arms: it’s still there; heavy with memories of Tempsford. You should try it. We did. We got totally out of our heads, and chased the parson out into the road after he tried to french both Grace and Fiver. I still don’t know if he was a real parson, or a deserter on the lam they’d found somewhere. That night Grace and I took the Austin over to the ARC Officers’ Club at Bedford and listened to a very smooth piano player named George Shearing. He was just a kid in dark glasses to me, obviously blind, but I didn’t spot his stick anywhere. I can’t remember many of the tunes he played, but Grace and I danced to all of the slower ones, including ‘Honeysuckle Rose’. Emily Rea wasn’t there – she’d pushed off to take in a Glenn Miller concert at Twinwood. Neither was Peter Wynn nor his crew. Without them the place seemed untenanted.