I'll Be Seeing You (20 page)

Their fighter escort joined them near the Dutch coast, keeping a wary distance from trigger-happy formation gunners who didn't know their 47s from their 109s. Fuel time up, they peeled off and headed home. Jesus, he envied those guys. Pretty soon, the expected swarm of German fighters came snarling round, and the carnage began. He'd reckoned that he ought to be immune by now to the sight of a bomber getting jumped and slaughtered but it still got to him every time – the thought of the ten men going with it.

‘Pilot to Left Waist. Get those two bastards eleven o'clock high! Watch 'em. Here they come.'

He took what evasive action he could with the ship, which was almost none in close formation. The gunner missed the fighter, but the fighter missed them. He'd be round again, and so would his pals. For every one of them that was knocked down it seemed like two more turned up – meaner and rougher.

‘Ball to Waist. My oxygen tank's gettin' kinda low.' Milo's replacement in the ball turret was a nice kid, just out of high school. Still wet behind the ears and there was a hint of panic in the voice.

‘Waist to Ball. OK, Bernie. Ready to fill it whenever you are.' That was Ken – three years older and calm and reassuring as a father.

The plane ahead was throttle-jockeying – falling back, catching up, falling back. A nervous rookie pilot, or maybe some kind of engine trouble. Finally it fell right back and four or five 109s fell on it like jackals. He saw it being torn apart as he moved into the empty space. Blood and guts were spattered all over his windshield – German or American, he didn't know.

Alvin's voice came over. ‘Tail to crew. Two chutes outta that Fort – that's all.'

The cloud cover cleared over the target – enough for them to see it and enough to give the guys behind the guns on the ground a nice view of the approaching formation. They flew on steadily through the flak – a fancy pattern of shells exploding into black powder puffs and white-hot pieces of jagged metal. The ball turret was the worst place on the ship to be in flak – three-quarters of the glass and metal ball suspended in space under the aircraft with only a small patch of armour plating, the gunner all cramped up like a foetus in a not-so-cosy womb.

‘Pilot to Ball. How are you doing down there, Bernie?'

‘OK thanks, Ham.' Only a faint waver in the reply. The kid had guts.

‘Hang on. We'll soon be through this.'

‘Bombardier to Pilot.'

‘Go ahead.'

‘We're on the bomb run.'

‘OK, Bombardier. Handing her over. She's all yours.'

Three minutes later. ‘Bombs away! Giving her back to you, Ham. Let's go home.'

The formation made a left turn towards the North Sea. They left the flak behind but the fighters came back like vengeful furies.

‘Bombardier to crew. Bandits eleven o'clock high – get ready!'

They came screaming down, guns blazing. One of them flashed by so close he damn near took their wing off. Another lot came up below from a different direction.
Miss Laid
jumped indignantly as if she'd been goosed and he knew they'd taken a hit somewhere near the tail. Next minute, there was an almighty explosion that knocked him sideways and stunned him. When he'd got his senses back, he saw the side window by Gene had a damn great hole in it and that his co-pilot was slumped forward, blood all over the controls, over the inside of the windshield too, and, he realized, trickling down his own face though he didn't know if it was the co-pilot's blood or his. The hole was letting in an icy blast of air.

He couldn't shift Gene to see how bad it was. The 109s were still coming at them and he could feel another hit somewhere. Number two engine was trailing black smoke and then wicked orange flames; he shut it down and zapped the extinguisher before the flames could spread to the fuel and blow them apart, but when he tried to feather the prop nothing happened and it went on turning like a runaway windmill. He had another try at shifting Gene. He was unconscious, if not already dead: an inert weight in cumbersome flying gear, collapsed in a small space.

With Cliff's help they raised him enough to see that the blood was coming out of a big wound in his chest and to find out that he was still alive. They got some padding tight over the wound but there was no sense trying to move him out of the seat, it'd probably finish him off. He had to leave him where he was. The German fighters were still buzzing round the formation and all his attention and all his energy was needed to watch them, keep flying the plane, keep in formation and keep on at his crew. The blood was still trickling down his face and over his mask and must be his own, though he couldn't feel where it was coming from.

‘Pilot to crew. Watch those bastards . . . they haven't done with us yet.'

Miss Laid
wasn't feeling too good – that much was obvious and she was giving him a hard time. The pressure gauges were all to hell, she was haemorrhaging hydraulic fluid, and the windmilling prop was dragging her like a convict's ball and chain. They'd lost a hell of a lot too much fuel for his liking and there was no hope of keeping up with the formation, which meant they'd be easy pickings. He gave his crew the bad news.

Their guardian angels had to be somewhere out there, because, as they dropped back from the formation, the German fighters had miraculously disappeared. But that still left plenty to worry about – such as whether
Miss Laid
was going to consent to stay in the air for long enough to get across the North Sea and whether the fuel was going to last out, even if she graciously felt like doing that. He reckoned the odds were stacked high against either possibility.

‘Pilot to crew. Sorry, but it looks like we might not make it all the way back to England. If you want to bail out while we're still over land, go right ahead. Ditching's a bad option, the way things are with the controls, and the swimming's goddam cold this time of year.'

‘Navigator to Pilot. What about you, Ham? What're you figuring on doing?'

‘I'm staying with Gene. He's in bad shape – too bad to get him out with a chute. I'll try and take him home.'

‘OK. I'm staying with you two guys.'

They all chose to stay. Eight good men and true. A hell of a crew.

‘Pilot to Waist. Get Bernie up out of the ball, quick as you can. You're coming out of there, kid.'

When they finally reached it, the North Sea was dotted with white flecks which meant it was mighty rough down there. None of it added up to getting
Miss Laid
on the water in one nice neat piece, if he had to try it, or of her floating for long – if at all. The dead engine prop was still windmilling and dragging, the other three labouring away. He cut back on power and they droned on across the ocean, losing height steadily. Whenever he could, he checked on Gene. Still breathing. The fuel warning light came on for number three engine which meant less than fifty gallons left in that tank. Ten minutes later another warning light lit up for number one.

‘Pilot to crew. We've got to jettison the heavy stuff. Get the ammo out and anything else you can.'

They opened the bomb doors and hatches. Out went the boxes of fifty-calibre shells, oxygen bottles, the waist, nose and radio guns. Number four warning light winked at him merrily.

‘Pilot to Radio. Stay with Air Sea Rescue frequency, Carl.'

‘Roger.'

‘Tail to Pilot. Bogey coming up six o'clock low.'

Jesus, that was all they needed. ‘What's it look like, Bernie? One of ours, or one of theirs?'

‘Can't tell yet.'

‘Well, don't go shooting it down till you can. We may need it.' If it was an enemy fighter they'd pretty much had it, with only two guns left, almost no ammo and nowhere to hide.

‘Tail to Pilot. Hey, think it's a Spit, Ham.'

The kid had better be right.

‘Pilot to Navigator. We want the nearest strip you can find, Don.'

‘Sorry, Ham. Can't pinpoint exactly where the hell we are, but there's bound to be an airfield near, wherever we hit the coast.'

True enough. There were hundreds of them all over England.

‘Bombardier to Pilot. I can see the coast ahead now. Maybe five minutes.'

He'd better be right too – they must be flying on fumes. ‘Pilot to Bombardier. Keep your eyes peeled for a place to land.'

‘Tail to Pilot. It's a Spit all right. One of the RAF guys.'

The Spitfire with its red, white and blue roundel slid into his peripheral vision and stayed alongside, rising and falling gently. He could see the pilot's face turned towards him and a gloved thumb lifted in a jolly salute.

‘Pilot to crew. Nanny's here to hold our hand.'

The coast was coming up closer and closer – a dark streak of land wreathed in primeval mist. He went on letting down, using less and less power, expecting the engines to quit at any moment.

‘Pilot to Bombardier. See any landing strips, Lee?'

‘Not a thing yet, Ham. Bad viz.'

Goddam the Limey weather! If they didn't find a strip in a minute he'd be putting down in somebody's back yard. The nanny Spit was waggling its wings at him, altering course and descending. He followed it. Nothing to lose. Then another miracle happened: all of a sudden the mist cleared as though somebody had flung back the drapes.

‘Bombardier to Pilot. I can see an airfield – over to your left, Ham. Ten o'clock.'

‘Gotcha! Fire the emergency flare when we get closer, so they spot us.'

It was a fighter airfield – he could see the Spitfires standing out at dispersal – and the strip wasn't as long as he'd've liked, but it was no time to be fussy. As he'd expected, the hydraulic landing gear wouldn't budge, so it was going to be a wheels-up with screwed-up flaps, but he'd got the open stretch of flat land that he needed. So long as the engines kept going . . . just for another sixty seconds. Sixty seconds – that's all it would take. As he banked the Fort to go straight on in – no messing around with procedure – number three engine quit, giving him a whole new set of problems. He dropped
Miss Laid
on the grass, at the edge of the runway, almost halfway down. They skidded on, tore through a hedge and ploughed into a field of good old English mud. As they slithered to a stop number one engine finally quit too. It was that close.

An RAF officer with a handlebar moustache came squelching up through the rain. ‘I say, are you chaps all right?' He was followed closely by a very angry farmer with a purple face who wanted to know what the bloody hell they thought they were doing to his turnips.

The formation returned with gaps. Daisy counted the Forts as they went over and circled to come in to land. Three missing, but she didn't know which three. In the interrogation room she sat beside the flight lieutenant and watched the doorway, waiting for Ham to walk through it. She went on waiting. One of the missing Forts had been seen by another crew ditching near the English coast and Air Sea Rescue were already out looking for them, but it wasn't his.

‘Lieutenant Hamilton's crew's not come in yet, Sandy.'

He glanced at her. ‘I'll see what I can find out.'

He went off and she watched him speaking to one of the interrogators and tried to gauge by his face if there was any news – good or bad. But how could she tell? Standing there, pipe clenched in his teeth, he had no particular expression, nothing to read. It was too many RAF years of war and too many casualties. Not indifference: simple acceptance of the situation and press on regardless. At last he came back.

‘Apparently, Hamilton's plane was hit soon after they left the target and had to pull back out of the formation. They'd lost power in one engine and had some other damage. Nobody saw them go down though, so there's a good chance they'll be able to make it back on their own.'

She'd seen and heard too many combat reports to believe any such thing. A damaged bomber that was forced to pull out of formation on an American daylight raid had almost no chance at all.

‘Thanks, Sandy.'

He lifted the phone. ‘I'll have another word with Air Sea Rescue. See if they've picked up any more Maydays.'

They hadn't.

When the last crew had left the interrogation room she went back to her office and tried to concentrate on her work. Ground staff drifted in and out – bringing lists, returning files, asking for information, or simply to chat. As she dealt with it all, she listened for the sound of another Flying Fortress coming back alone.
Is it because you're afraid I'll get the chop? You can't face that happening?
She could face it because she must, but it was going to break her heart.

The phone on her desk rang.

‘I say, is Flight Lieutenant Dimmock there?'

‘Not at the moment, I'm afraid. This is Assistant Section Officer Woods speaking. Can I take a message for him?'

‘If you would. Squadron Leader Patterson here – RAF Lampton.'

‘Yes, sir?'

‘We've got one of your Yank B-17s here. Had to make an emergency landing coming back from an op and picked on us. The captain asked me to give Flight Lieutenant Dimmock a ring.'

‘Which captain, sir?'

‘Lieutenant Hamilton.'

Thank God! Thank God!

‘Are you there, Assistant Section Officer?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry, sir. Is Lieutenant Hamilton all right?'

‘A bit battered but otherwise OK. The copilot's not so hot – we got him to hospital – but the rest of the crew are fine. Their kite's rather shot up, though . . . God knows how they made it back. They're spending the night here as our honoured guests – we'll wine them and dine them and send them on in the morning. Pass the message on, will you?'

‘Certainly, sir. Thank you for letting us know.'

‘Jolly good.'

The navigator, Don, came into the Officers' Mess. There was a lot of back-slapping and drink-buying and cigarette-offering. Presently, he caught sight of her and came across.