Darkest Hour (15 page)

The enemy dive-bombers spotted them too late, and
although arcs of tracer fire curled up to meet Lyell as he led the attack, the
aim had been wide and the bullets stuttered past harmlessly. The Stukas broke
formation hurriedly, but they still provided rich pickings. Lyell was surprised
by how slow and cumbersome they seemed. On his first pass he was certain he hit
one and then, glancing behind to see the squadron still attacking in turn,
spotted a lone Stuka banking hard to port so followed suit. His first burst of
fire overshot, but on his second, now right behind it and closing faster than
he had at first realized, the bullets struck home. Then, to his astonishment,
the enemy machine exploded, disintegrating beside him as he sped past. Bits of
aluminium clanged against his canopy, making him duck his head involuntarily.

And another surprise: in a trice the immaculate attack
formations they had practised over and over again had broken up into a swirling
melee of aircraft and individual battles. Gone, too, was radio discipline as
his pilots whooped and cursed, shouted and chattered, deafening screeches
reverberating through Lyell's headset. Aircraft tumbled from the sky, with
trails of smoke following them but, to his surprise, it appeared to clear of
aircraft as quickly as it had filled. As Lyell banked again and tried to bring
himself back into the fight, he found the sky almost deserted. He tried to call
his squadron back together but it was no use: several of his pilots were now
miles away. Deciding that the patrol would have to be forgotten, he ordered the
squadron to make their way back to Vitry instead.

He was one of the first to land. A sensation of
intense exhilaration settled over him. That he had been responsible for the
deaths of at least two people did not bother him, he was glad to discover, yet
as he tried to light a cigarette on the way to Dispersal, he discovered his
hands were shaking and his knees weak.

The others returned in dribs and drabs. Two had flown
halfway to the German border, it seemed. Derek Durnley, who had spotted the
formation in the first place, had not returned at all, last seen heading east;
Robson had got completely lost and had eventually rung through from
Lille-Seclin, some twenty miles away from Vitry. Most claimed to have shot down
at least one Stuka, and although 607's intelligence officer eventually accepted
claims of just six confirmed kills, this did little to dampen the pilots'
buoyant spirits.

They had been due to fly back to Manston at noon, but
with Durnley missing, Robson still grounded at Lille-Seclin and half of their
Hurricanes still to be refuelled, rearmed and patched up, Lyell waited a while
longer at the airfield. Robbo was finally back by half past two, but just as
they were about to get going, a request reached Dispersal for another flight to
provide top cover for a bombing mission on German positions east of Brussels.
When Lyell was asked if 632 Squadron could help, he agreed immediately.

Half an hour later, at nearly half past three that
afternoon, he was conscious that the exhilaration had gone, replaced by a wave
of fatigue and irritation. Rendezvous with the bombers - a flight of Blenheims
- over Brussels at 1520 hours. Well, he could see what he assumed must be
Brussels, but there was no sign of any Blenheims or, indeed, any bombers at
all.

'This is Nimbus Leader calling Bulldog Leader,' he
said, over his R/T for the third time that minute. 'We're over RV at angels
fourteen, over.' But still there was nothing. 'All right, boys,' he said to the
others. 'This is Nimbus Leader. Make sure you keep your eyes peeled. Let's go
round again. Over.'

He pushed the stick over to port, the horizon swivelling,
then pulled back, his stomach lurching as the Hurricane banked and began its
turn. Looking round, he was pleased to note both Walker and Nicholls tucked in
close behind him. Then he glanced downwards again, hoping to see a sign of the
bombers - the familiar outline of the Blenheims, or the sun glinting on a
canopy. He cursed. Where the hell were they?

Lyell straightened and began to fly westwards again,
the glare making him squint even through his tinted goggles. Looking back over
his port wing, he glanced at the vic of Flying Officer Newton's Blue Section,
some forty yards behind, and spotted the last man in the formation, Sergeant
Baird, peel off and dive out of the formation, smoke trailing. Stunned, he
hardly heard Newton's screech over the R/T as he shouted after his friend.

A deafening crack, and despite the tightness of his
Sutton harness, Lyell was pushed up out of his seat and smacked his head
against the canopy. The choking smell of cordite filled the cockpit, as more
cannon shells exploded.
Jesus!
He'd been hit, but
where? Thrusting the stick to one side, he yanked it back into his stomach as a
Messerschmitt 109 hurtled past.

'Jesus Christ!' shouted Lyell. His mind froze.
Christ, Christ, think!
Panic coursed through him, and
then his brain cleared. Turning the stick to starboard, he half rolled the
aircraft and tried to dive out of the fray, but then a second burst raked his
machine. A large chunk of his port wing was punched out and the control column
was nearly knocked from his hand. Lyell gasped. Clutching the stick firmly
again, he heard the engine splutter, felt the Hurricane lurch, then begin to
dive. The engine screamed, the airframe shook and more smoke poured into the
cockpit. The altimeter spun anticlockwise. Six thousand feet gone just like
that! Grimacing into the rubber of his oxygen mask, Lyell gripped the stick
with both hands, pressed hard on the rudder and dragged the stick back into his
stomach until
- thank God
- the Hurricane
levelled out.

He pulled back the canopy. As he did so, the smoke
rushed out, sucked into the clear air. Frantically, he looked around him.
Ahead, away to the west, he could see contrails and tiny dots as aircraft wove
and tumbled around the sky - but it seemed no Messerschmitt had chased him
down. With cold sweat trickling down his neck, he glanced at the dials in front
of him. Oil pressure falling, manifold pressure dropping: confirmation of what
he already knew - his aircraft was dying. A deep, grinding sound came from the
engine in front of him. It was losing power fast. 'Jesus Christ, oh, Jesus
bloody Christ,' he said, despair sweeping over him. He was not sure what to do
- try to glide towards home until the engine completely died, or bale out now?
But he didn't want to bale out. The idea of leaping from his stricken aircraft
terrified him. What to do?

Lyell glanced in his mirror and jolted. A 109, like a
giant hornet, flashed through his line of vision and, a second later, more
bullets ripped through his fuselage, through the floor, between his legs, into
the control panel and the underside of the engine cowling. With a loud crack,
the engine gusted a new burst of black smoke and seized, the propeller whirring
to a limp turn.

'Oh, my God!' he cried. For a moment his mind was
blank. He couldn't think what he was supposed to do. Ahead, the Messerschmitt
was banking, circling again. His heart was thudding, his whole body trembling.
He looked below to the never-ending patchwork of fields, woods and snaking
silver rivers, and thought how far away they looked.
I don't want to
jump out
, he thought,
to plunge head
first into an unknown sky.

The aircraft was dropping.
I haven't long
,
he thought, and glanced at his altimeter. Six thousand feet. He had to do it -
he had to do it
now.
Trembling fingers. Radio leads,
oxygen plugs, the clip on his Sutton harness. He closed his eyes, pushed the
stick over and felt himself lift out of the seat, but as he began to slide out
of the aircraft something caught and his head smashed against the gun- sight.
Now the Hurricane was diving, falling almost vertically. Frantically, Lyell
felt behind him, heard something tear and then he was tumbling free, the
ground hurtling towards him.
The ripcord, the ripcord.
He
grabbed it with his gloved hand and yanked.
Please
,
he prayed. The wind was knocked out of him and his arms almost pulled from
their sockets as the parachute opened.
Thank God
,
he thought.
Thank bloody God.
He could see his
Hurricane plunging towards the ground, impossibly small already.
Any moment now
, he thought, and there it was - a burst
of bright orange light and the dull crump of an explosion. His face was wet -
why?
- and the ground was rushing towards him now. There
was a river, and he wondered whether he would fall into the water. But, no, he
was drifting on the far side of it, to fields that rose towards a wood. Lyell
braced himself for the impact.

The men of D Company, the King's Own Yorkshire
Rangers, had watched the dogfight in the skies above them. Sergeant Tanner,
sitting beside Corporal Sykes's freshly dug two-man slit trench, had looked up
as soon as he had picked up the faint hum of aero-engines. Then, when he had
heard the distant chatter of machine-guns and cannons, he had delved into his
respirator bag and pulled out his binoculars, a pair of Zeiss brass Dienstglas
6x30, which he had taken from a German officer in Norway; it was about his only
souvenir of that campaign. Admittedly they were a bit scratched, but he didn't
mind too much about that; at least he no longer had to use his Aldis scope for
this purpose.

Although the platoon had dug in behind a line of thick
bushes between the canal, a narrow brook and the railway, the view above was
clear enough. Tanner had been watching the sky carefully for most of the day.
'That morning he had seen a number of enemy aircraft, mostly lone twin-engine
machines he had recognized as aerial reconnaissance. They were, he knew, the harbingers
of a forthcoming attack; it would not be long before German ground forces
appeared over the crest of the hill facing them. And the enemy would want the
skies cleared - no wonder they were trying to drive off the Allied planes now
flying overhead.

'Come on, get out . . . get out,' he muttered, as he
followed a Hurricane spiralling from the sky. Nearby some spent cartridge cases
tinkled as they fell into the trees behind them.

'I reckon he's a croaker, Sarge,' said Sykes.

'Well, he's certainly not going to get out now,' said
Tanner. They lost sight of the Hurricane but a few moments later they heard the
crash - a sharp crack followed by a dull boom. 'I tell you, I'm bloody glad I'm
not flying around in those,' he added.

He had then shifted his gaze back to the swirl of aircraft,
and spotted another Hurricane diving out of the fray with a Messerschmitt
swooping down on it from behind. 'Watch out, you dozy sod,' Tanner said. Then
he heard the Hurricane's engine splutter and die and saw the aircraft begin to
fall. 'Not another one - Jesus.' He trained his binoculars and fixed a bead as
the Hurricane curved out of the sky. When the stricken aircraft was at no more
than three or four thousand feet, he started. 'I remember those squadron
markings.'

'What are they?' Sykes asked.

'LO. LO-Z.' He handed his binoculars to Sykes. 'Here,
have a dekko.'

Lieutenant Peploe joined them, shielding his eyes as
he gazed up at the Hurricane. 'That's 632 Squadron.'

Sykes whistled. 'Well, what do you know? You're right,
sir. Can see them clear as day.'

'And that Hurricane up there is Lyell's,' Peploe
added. 'LO-Z was his plane.'

'Look!' shouted McAllister, from the neighbouring slit
trench. 'He's got out!'

They watched Lyell's deadweight figure plummet, then a
white parachute balloon open.

'Thank God for that,' said Sykes.

'He's drifting,' said Tanner. 'Stupid bastard's going
to end up the wrong side of the sodding canal.'

Wordlessly, they watched Lyell descend until he hit
the ground about five hundred yards up the hill on the far side, directly
opposite the French on the Rangers' right and a short distance from the line of
thick wood.

They watched breathlessly as the parachute silk
flopped to the ground.

'Is he moving, Sarge?' said Sykes.

'I'm trying to see,' Tanner answered, as he peered
through his binoculars. Lyell seemed to be lying lifelessly in the meadow. 'I
can't tell whether he's alive or dead.'

They could all see him now.

'It looked like he'd come down all right,' said
McAllister.

Tanner shrugged. 'Maybe he's concussed. Or broken his
leg or something.'

'Should we shout to him or what?' said Sykes.

'We should go and see Captain Barclay,' said Peploe.
'Tanner, you come with me.'

Company Headquarters had been established in the white
station house set back from the canal and beneath a high bank that overlooked
the single-track railway. A field telephone had been set up but, Tanner
noticed, as they went into the house, there was no sign of a radio transmitter.

'Where's Captain Barclay?' Peploe asked one of the men
squatting by the field telephone.

'Out the back, sir. Him and Captain Wrightson.'

They found the two officers sitting at the foot of the
bank. Both had mugs of tea, and Barclay had his Webley on his lap, an oily rag
beside it.