Flames over France (5 page)

Diving behind his leader, having managed to shake off the Me 109, Pilot Officer Davy saw Thomas’s bombs erupt on the far end of the bridge. He dropped his own bombs from 2,000 feet and, to his disappointment, saw them explode in the water and on the canal bank. He turned away and raced for safety, chased by the flak, and at that moment he was attacked by another Me 109. His rear-gunner damaged the fighter and drove it off, but not before cannon shells had set fire to the Battle’s port fuel tank. Davy ordered his crew to bail out, and was about to follow them over the side when the fire suddenly went out. He nursed the crippled aircraft towards base, and was only a few miles from home when he ran out of fuel and had to come down in a field. A few hours later Mansell, Davy’s observer, arrived back at Amifontaine, but Patterson, the gunner, had not been so lucky. He came down behind the German advance and was captured.

The bridge at Vroenhoven still stood. Five minutes after Thomas’s attack, Garland’s flight was approaching its metal twin at Veldwezelt. Garland favoured a low-level attack, and the three Battles swept across the Belgian landscape at fifty feet. In line astern they plunged into the writhing cloud of flak bursts. Flying Officer McIntosh’s aircraft was hit almost immediately and burst into flames; despite severe burns, the pilot managed to jettison his bombs and made a perfect belly landing on the far side of the canal. The crew got clear and were taken prisoner.

A Battle staggered out of the smoke, burning from wingtip to wingtip. It was Sergeant Marland’s aircraft. It went into a steep climb, then flicked over and dived vertically into the ground. There were no survivors. The third Battle — Garland’s — suddenly appeared over the bridge, turning steeply, shedding fragments as the flak hit it. Leaving a thin trail of smoke, it dived into the western end of the bridge and there was a terrific explosion as its bombs exploded.

The blast severely damaged the bridge, but within minutes German sappers were erecting pontoons alongside it and there was hardly more than thirty minutes’ delay in the flow of traffic across the canal.

A month later, Garland and his observer, Sergeant Tom Gray, were each posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. In one of those odd injustices of war, their gunner, Leading Aircraftman Reynolds, received nothing more than a posthumous promotion to the rank of corporal.

This was Belgium in May 1940. This was courage and self-sacrifice over and above the call of duty. And it was only the beginning.

Chapter Three

Armstrong had been terrified on numerous occasions since he had first tasted combat, but he had to admit to himself that the flight from Mezières to the French reconnaissance squadron’s new base at Martigny, in Lorraine, was probably the most frightening experience of his life.

While the French prepared to evacuate Mezières, Captain Le Roy had worked a minor miracle and had managed to establish telephone contact with Joint Air HQ at Chauny, so that the RAF pilot had been able to pass on the information that he was safe and well, if somewhat shaken. He had also given a progress report, based on his own recent observation, on the extent of the German advance into Belgium. Then he had explained his predicament, and asked for confirmation that he was to remain with the French for the time being, until he could join up with some RAF unit and make his way back to England. The authorisation was readily forthcoming, and Armstrong suddenly found himself in the semi-official role of RAF liaison officer with the French Air Force’s 33rd Reconnaissance Group.

While the aircrews flew out in their surviving aircraft, the ground crews travelled by road and an ancient Potez 54 bomber-reconnaissance aircraft arrived to evacuate the handful of pilots, gunners and observers whose aircraft had been destroyed on the ground by enemy air attack. Armstrong had counted himself lucky to be assigned a place on this machine, an opinion that had changed very quickly once it had got airborne.

The distance from Mezières to the new airfield, which lay a few miles to the south-west of Nancy, was just over a hundred miles. It was clear from the outset what was going through the mind of the French pilot, a sallow, grey-haired individual who was not given to smiling a great deal; if there was a danger of being attacked by enemy fighters, he wanted to be certain of getting down as quickly as possible — which meant flying the whole trip at a hundred feet or less.

The Potez, a high-wing aircraft with twin engines slung underneath on struts, chugged along at 120 miles per hour or thereabouts, leap-frogging woods and villages and wallowing dangerously in ground turbulence. It reeked of aviation fuel, a fact that was totally ignored by the half-dozen French airmen who shared the draughty cabin with Armstrong; they chain-smoked pungent
Caporal
cigarettes as though each one was to be the last, which they probably thought it would be.

Armstrong had stripped off his flying overall and had rolled it up to sit on, there being no seats in the Potez’s fuselage. His companions glanced at his RAF tunic and wings curiously and he had the impression that they would have liked to talk, but the interior of the aircraft was so noisy that speech was impossible. A few minutes into the flight one of them produced a bottle of cognac and passed it round, inviting Armstrong to take a swig. The fiery liquor produced a sense of well-being that vanished abruptly when the pilot stood the Potez on a wingtip to avoid some obstacle which he had spotted at the last moment. The aircraft returned to level flight, creaking and groaning alarmingly, and the bottle went round again speedily.

At last, after what seemed an age, the pilot slammed the Potez onto the ground at its destination and, without stopping the engines, appeared from the cockpit and brusquely told everyone to get out as quickly as they could. They did so thankfully, feeling more than a little shaky. A miniature storm of cut grass whirled around them as the Potez pilot gunned his engines and taxied away to turn into the breeze. They watched briefly as the ungainly machine lumbered off and flew away in the direction it had come, still dodging the treetops. What the RAF would term ‘hedge-hopping’, Armstrong discovered later, the French called ‘
rase-motte
’ which translated as ‘clod-shaving’.

The small group made its way towards the aerodrome buildings, some wooden huts on the perimeter of the field. Martigny airfield, Armstrong saw, was situated on a plateau and was completely surrounded by woods in which clearings had been cut as dispersal areas. The Potez 63s had already arrived and had been pushed into the shelter of the trees. The natural camouflage was excellent and the place would be very difficult to spot from the air, which probably accounted for the fact that it had not yet been bombed. The village of Martigny-les-Gerbonvaux was a mere half-mile away, and Armstrong discovered that the personnel were billeted there.

Captain Le Roy emerged from one of the huts to meet the new arrivals. Grinning, he shook Armstrong by the hand.

“So,” he said, “you survived the experience?”

Armstrong knew exactly what he meant. “Only just,” he admitted. “I wonder where that fellow learned to fly?”

Le Roy laughed. “In Africa, I understand. He is well known to us, and something of a character. Before the war he was a pilot with the postal service on the West African route. He has sand in his boots, like the
Legionnaires
. Knows more about the Sahara than anyone I have ever met. He is, as you have no doubt noticed,
très
sérieux
, but I expect that is a consequence of several years spent in the anticipation of having his balls removed by the Tuareg. Yet even our blue-veiled nomad friends have their price; several airmen who have made forced landings in the Sahara have been returned intact, after the appropriate ransom was paid. Others, unfortunately, were not.” He shrugged philosophically.

Armstrong noticed that, in addition to the Potez reconnaissance aircraft, several squat, radial-engined fighters were parked among the trees. He could not identify them, and asked Le Roy what they were. The other informed him that they were American-built Curtiss Hawks, with which several French fighter groups were equipped. A flight of them had been deployed to Martigny to provide escort for the Potez 63s and also for air defence.

“I was an Air Force test pilot when the first Hawks were delivered in the spring of 1939,” he explained, “and had the opportunity to fly them on several occasions. They are robust, but they suffer from a poor armament of only four machine-guns, which freeze up easily, and they do not have self-sealing fuel tanks, which makes them vulnerable in combat. But it is a nice aircraft to fly, and is very manoeuvrable, with a particularly fast rate of roll — faster, even, than that of your Spitfire, which I have also flown.” He grinned and tapped the side of his nose with his index finger.

Armstrong expressed his surprise, and the Frenchman explained that he had been one of two test pilots sent to England to fly the Spitfire in September 1938. “We wanted a hundred of them by September 1939,” he said, “but your government said that they could not fulfil such an order, because all the Spitfire production was allocated to the RAF. The American Curtiss Company, on the other hand, told us that they could deliver the Hawk — and, since our own new single-seat fighters would not be ready for some time, we had to be content with that. It is a pity.” He shook his head sadly.

The sun was setting in a sky that was almost cloudless. Armstrong asked Le Roy if there would be any flying that night, and the Frenchman told him that two aircraft were to make reconnaissance sorties of the Saarbrucken sector. “For myself, I shall not be flying again until tomorrow,” he said. “In the meantime, I intend to enjoy a glass of wine and some good food in the village
auberge
, where I trust you will join me. I have been allocated a room there, and I expect the innkeeper will be able to fit you in, too.” He looked Armstrong up and down and smiled. “No doubt you will wish to refresh yourself. I shall acquire some soap, a razor and a towel for you. Your socks, I regret, you will have to wash yourself.”

Armstrong laughed; he was already developing a deep liking for the French pilot, whose sense of humour seemed to be in much the same mould as his own. Collecting a couple of fellow pilots, whose names Armstrong immediately forgot, they set off down the slope towards the village, following a path that wound its way between the trees. On reaching the main street, Armstrong noticed that many houses had a steaming muckheap piled in front of them, and commented on this to his companions. They laughed as though he had made a huge joke.

“In Lorraine, it is a sign of prosperity,” Le Roy explained, still chuckling. “They are strange people; a little cold, you might think on first meeting them. No, that is not the right word; they are reserved, as you English would say. You will doubtless feel at home here.” The Frenchmen laughed again, good-naturedly, and Armstrong was suddenly struck by their apparent lack of concern that their world was in the process of falling apart round their ears. My God, he thought with some alarm, they really believe that they are going to beat the Germans, and that this war is going to be over in just a few weeks. Hasn’t anyone told them that their Maginot Line is worse than useless, and that the Germans are pouring round the end of it?

He made an effort to shrug off his sudden melancholy as they reached the inn. The door was open and they trooped inside, Le Roy leading the way. The entrance gave access to a surprisingly large room, lit by the last rays of the sun. A few French officers and some locals were already seated at well-scrubbed, white-topped tables, sipping wine.

At the far side of the room there as a long counter, with bottles of wine arranged on it like guardsmen on parade. Le Roy made straight for it and rapped on it with his knuckles. After a few moments an elderly man with an enormous white moustache emerged from a side room, clutching a grubby cloth. He surveyed the newcomers without smiling, contenting himself with raising an eyebrow. Le Roy nodded affably at him and informed him that he was given to understand that rooms had been allocated.

The innkeeper peered at him with watery eyes. “Two rooms, to be exact,
monsieur
. I regret that you will have to share.”

Le Roy spread his hands. “
Diable!
Well, I suppose that it is war, and we must make the best of it. My friend here, incidentally, will require a razor and some soap, if that is possible, for he lost his belongings when the
Boche
shot down his aircraft.”

“It is possible,
monsieur
.” He smiled unexpectedly and extended a hand towards Armstrong, his gaze taking in the pilot’s blue-grey uniform. “I take you for an Englishman,” he said. “You are welcome here. I fought alongside the English, on the Somme. I am Raymond Bessodes. We should have destroyed these pigs utterly, in nineteen-eighteen. Do you not agree?”

Armstrong thought it prudent to agree wholeheartedly, since he was famished and would have killed for a drink.

The innkeeper stuck his head round the jamb of a door that led to a room in the rear of the building and called out to someone. A minute later a tall woman emerged, dressed all in black and with her hair tied back in a severe bun. Madame Bessodes had a face like a hatchet, which doubtless accounted for her husband’s miserable expression. She carried a rough towel and a bar of soap which she handed to the pilot on Bessodes’ instructions, muttering something to the effect that he would have to find a razor for himself, and turned on her heel.

Bessodes shrugged and gave Armstrong a look that spoke volumes, then beckoned to the pilot to follow him up a winding staircase to the room which, he learned, he was to share with Le Roy. There were three beds, or rather cots, in it, all neatly made up. Armstrong dropped his rolled-up flying overall on one and thanked the innkeeper for his hospitality, telling him that he would be back downstairs directly; Bessodes nodded and made himself scarce after pointing out a washstand with a large bowl of water on it.

Armstrong took his forage cap from the pocket of his tunic, where he had stowed it before take-off from Berry-au-Bac that morning (was it only that morning? he asked himself, with a sudden shock) and hung it on a peg behind the door. Then he stripped off to the waist and sluiced himself down thoroughly. The water was cold, but he welcomed that, for it was refreshingly pleasant on his hot and sticky body.

Half an hour later he was back with the others, sitting at one of the scrubbed tables and tucking into a huge bowl of heavily-seasoned stew whose main ingredient, he discovered, was goat. Taken with chunks of white bread and washed down with red wine, he found it delicious. Between mouthfuls, he conversed with his companions as best he could, although they were several glasses of wine ahead of him and he found their boisterous
argot
— slang — difficult to understand. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world; it was though tomorrow didn’t exist.

Suddenly, to his surprise, he found that he was being shaken out of a doze by Le Roy. The Frenchman grinned at him. “Too much of Lorraine’s good wine, my friend?”

Armstrong shook his head and looked around. The lights were on in the room and someone had drawn the curtains. He felt dog-tired, and although the food and wine had certainly helped to induce his weariness, they were not the primary cause. He was aware that he was suffering from reaction, the delayed effects of his crash-landing. He was conscious that he ached all over.

It was a condition that a good sleep would cure. He excused himself and made his way upstairs to the bedroom. The curtains were open and there was just enough light to see that a candle had been placed on the bedside table, with a box of matches next to it. He closed the curtains and lit the candle, then stripped off his uniform, hanging it behind the door. His shirt and underwear he left in a small heap beside the bed. Absent-mindedly, he noticed that the water bowl had been refilled. Madame Bessodes, he told himself, was no oil painting, but she was certainly efficient.