Piece of Cake (71 page)

“Tighter, tighter, for Christ's sake. Tighter!”

Steele-Stebbing heaved harder, harder than he knew he could, and screwed another couple of degrees of tightness into his turn. He still couldn't see the other plane. Then suddenly it was slanting across his nose and diving hard. Gratefully he abandoned the turn and fell into a relaxed dive. After a thousand feet CH3 suddenly hoisted his Hurricane up into a climbing turn. Steele-Stebbing did his best to spring after him but his stomach rebelled and he vomited. After a while he tried to call CH3 and explain, but the microphone was so splattered and his mouth was so foul that it took rather a long time.

Five minutes was enough to tell Moran that Haducek was an excellent fighter pilot. He had good eyes and a restless, suspicious manner: always looking behind him. He could do all the usual things with a Hurricane and several very unusual things, plus a couple of things that Moran had no wish to copy in case the wings came off. He cut short their mock dog-fight. “Good enough,” he said. “Relax now. We'll just do a familiarization flight. Get to know the landmarks.”

They flew down the coast to Beachy Head and turned over the Sussex Downs. Moran was routinely checking the sky above when Haducek left him. Moran had to search hard until he found the
other Hurricane about three thousand feet below, climbing back up.

Haducek resumed station, a hundred yards to the right. “Been out to buy a paper?” Moran asked.

“I see bomber. Junkers 88, so I go down and bomber is Blenheim, only Blenheim, so come back. Damn shame, eh?”

“Next time, tell me.”

“I just told.”

“Tell me
first
, you fool.”

“Not me, no fool. I got two university degrees.”

“Save it for later.”

“How many university degrees you got, leader?”

God speed the plow
, Moran thought.
As if the English aren't bad enough, we have to have these overeducated anarchists from the Balkans too. Wherever the bloody Balkans are
.

It was so easy that Macfarlane paused and wondered what the catch was.

Barton had told him to imagine that he, Barton, was a Dornier and to intercept him. Barton had then sheered off.

Macfarlane had done as he had been taught and gained the advantage of height, rather a lot of height, about three thousand feet of height, and now Barton-the-supposed-Dornier was sitting there, stooging along, an absolute sitting duck. Or stooging duck. What could be easier?

Macfarlane stuffed the nose down and proceeded to turn his height advantage into speed advantage, as per all the best textbooks. He was closing on his target at a spanking pace, something like 350 mph probably, when it turned and climbed toward him and, quick as winking Macfarlane whistled clear past it.

He hauled his Hurricane out of the dive and climbed high again.

The dummy Dornier was still there, stooging along, so he had another go. This time it turned away, just as he was closing, and he shot right past the bloody thing again! Trouble was, before he could do anything, a voice spoke in his earphones. “Bang-bang,” it said. “I thought
you
were supposed to attack
me”
Macfarlane twisted his head. Barton was fifty yards behind. He tried everything but he couldn't shake him off. “Too bad,” Barton said. “You had your whole life ahead of you. It's not fair, is it?”

Zabarnowski and CH3 battle-climbed to fifteen thousand feet. CH3 leveled off, but Zabarnowski kept climbing. CH3 called him several times but the Pole ignored him. The last CH3 saw of him he was at twenty-five thousand feet: just a smudge on the sky. Thirty minutes later he was still up there, wandering about. CH3 gave up and went home. “We can't wait,” Barton said. It was twelve-thirty and they were all in the crewroom except Zabarnowski. The old pilots sat, the new pilots leaned against the wall. Barton perched on a table, away from the windows and the distraction of aircraft.

“Now, you're all nice chaps,” he said. “The squadron has always had its fair share of nice chaps. This fellow, for instance.” He tipped a big buff envelope onto the table and held up an eight-by-ten print. “Fellow called Lloyd. Heart of gold … There's another: Miller: everyone's pal. Now here you see the friendly face of Dicky Starr. What a nice man Dicky was! And if this was Dutton then that must have been Trevelyan, or maybe it was the other way around, but it doesn't much matter because they were both equally nice chaps, just like any of you. They all had something else in common, by the way. They made a mistake. Just one, but then one's enough, isn't it? Maybe they thought that, as they were such awfully nice chaps, they'd get a second chance. Strange idea, that, wasn't it? I'm sure
they
wouldn't have given any Jerry a second chance. Still …” Barton got off the table and began pinning the pictures to the wall, upside down. “If they were here now, I'm sure they'd want to wish you the very best of luck, but as it happens they're all lying at the bottoms of various deep holes in various bits of France and Belgium. Nice chaps. Blown up, shot down, battered, shattered and chopped into dogsmeat, but oh-so-awfully-nice. Flip?”

Moran said: “Mr. Haducek is a bloody idiot. He thought he saw a Junkers 88 so he went down all on his own to look. An idiot.”

“I kill Germans,” Haducek said. “Anywhere.”

“Not for long, you won't. Fly alone, Germans kill you.”

“Remember this,” Barton told them all. “If you see one Jerry, there's almost certainly another not far away. Probably above you. Did you look above?” he asked Haducek. “No, you didn't. Jerry never flies alone. So don't
you
fly alone. CH3?”

“Nobody has torn the wings off a Hurricane by turning it too
hard,” CH3 said. “The kites we've got are all fully modified and they are bloody tough. Tougher than you,” he said to Steele-Stebbing. “We both flew the same fighter. I had my sight on your tail. You never got your sight on my tail. Never. If you're not going to fly the machine to its limits, why bother to go up? I'll get you a nice safe bicycle instead.”

Steele-Stebbing stared, pale and miserable, at the upside-down picture of Moke Miller.

“A Hurricane is not a horse,” Moran said. “You can't hurt it.”

Outside, the scramble klaxon went off. Barton waited for the din to stop.

“Gunnery,” he said. “Bullets kill. Flying does not kill. You,” he said to Macfarlane, “went screaming about the sky as if you had a stick of ginger up your ass.” Macfarlane reddened. “By the time you reached the point of interception you were going so fast you had no time to fire. What's the good of that?”

“It's what I was taught, sir. Maximum speed in attack.”

“Un-teach yourself. And never make an absolute square-on beam attack,” Barton told Renouf. “Didn't anyone tell you about deflection shooting?”

“Yes, sir,” Renouf said, “but we didn't have much practice.”

“Bullets go slower than you think. Huns go faster. Make a beam-attack and hold the target in your sights and you might hit the plane behind it if you're lucky.”

“Give it plenty of lead,” CH3 said. “Allow one length, maybe two.”

“Better still, don't make a beam-attack,” Moran said. “Get behind him where you can't miss.”

A flight of Spitfires took off and the telephone rang. Barton closed one ear while he took the call. The crackling roar mounted to a booming thunder that climbed and faded. Barton hung up. “Grab some lunch,” he said. “We're on fifteen-minute standby at one o'clock, not two.”

As they surged to the door, Zabarnowski arrived. “What the hell happened to you?” CH3 asked.

Zabarnowski made a face. “Lousy plane. After twenty thousand no climb, no speed, nothing. I want Spitfire.”

“I told you we were going to fifteen thousand.”

“Why? German fighters fly high.”

“Next time, do what I say or you won't fly anything.”

“Is lousy, Hurricane,” Zabarnowski grumbled. “Is dump.”

They had just sat down to lunch when an airman arrived with a message for Barton. Fitzgerald, Cox and Cattermole groaned. “‘A' flight only,” Barton said. “Called to readiness. You're leading, CH3.” Fitzgerald cheered softly, and relaxed. “A” flight grabbed chunks of bread and hurried out. Their flap wagon was waiting downstairs. The scramble klaxon was already blaring when they piled out at the crewroom. Two minutes later the first Hurricane was airborne.

The controller spoke. “Hello, Mango Leader, this is Snowball. Steer one-three-zero, angels two. Ten plus bandits, five miles south of Folkestone.”

“Mango Leader to Snowball,” CH3 said. “Check angels two?”

“Mango Leader, confirm angels two.”

“Okay, Snowball.” CH3 began climbing to three thousand feet. It was always better to be too high. Angels two? Nothing down there but tired seagulls.

Crossing Romney Marsh, he saw the enemy far ahead. They looked like circling crows so they must be Ju-87's, Stukas, divebombing a ship presumably. He cheered up: Stukas were easy meat; then he cheered down: there was bound to be an escort. Oh, well. “Mango aircraft,” he said. “Fight in pairs. Watch your back. Don't do anything stupid.”

They were flying in a wide, loose vic of three pairs: Cox and Macfarlane in White Section, CH3 and Steele-Stebbing in Red Section, Cattermole and Haducek in Yellow Section. The cloudbase had risen to five thousand and begun to fragment: the sky was as blue as it was gray. CH3 soon recognized the ship, a coaster from the morning convoy, left burning and disabled. Now it was being washed up-Channel by the tide.

The Stukas made one last pass. It was remarkable how calm and unhurried they were. CH3 glanced down at his airspeed: 290 knots: a mile every thirteen seconds. Yet the Stukas continued to topple and plunge down their invisible roller-coasters like children at play. They were playing with the ship: it had taken so many hits that the decks were awash. They dropped their last bombs, stayed down low and headed for France.

The Hurricanes could dive and catch them. CH3 looked at the broken cloud and saw nothing but broken sky. For a full minute he led the flight high above the Stukas and searched for the escort. By now they were in mid-Channel.

“Mango Leader, this is Snowball. Any joy?”

“Roger, Snowball. Eight or nine Stukas at angels zero.” He made one last search. Well, even the Germans made mistakes … “Mango White and Yellow, attack. Mango Red will provide cover.”

The four Hurricanes fell away. CH3 felt a prickling at the back of his neck and he weaved the aircraft so that he could search behind. A high-pitched voice yapped: “Bandits, bandits! Three o'clock,” and he snapped his head around to see a flock of 109's barreling down from the cloud. “Mango aircraft, bandits above,” he called. “Turn and face, turn and face.”

Earlier he had throttled back to avoid overshooting the Stukas. Now, to get at the Messerschmitts, he thrust the lever forward and woke up the Merlin. It was like flicking a baton to bring in the bass trombones. A huge surge of power gave him a solid shove in the back, and the needles on the panel were jumping and quivering.

But not enough.

The 109's were already too fast and too far away. They would escape Red Section, and hope to catch White and Yellow Sections on the turn.

CH3 tugged at the tit for boost over-ride and got emergency power: a brutal abuse of the engine, a hammering racket that was worth an extra twenty miles an hour unless the Merlin blew herself apart. The cockpit vibrated savagely, shuddering so much he couldn't focus his eyes on the 109's but he guessed the range at a quarter of a mile, gave plenty of lead, fired a two-second burst, then another, and a third. All useless.

White and Yellow Sections managed to complete their turn but they were laboring upward when the 109's swept past in a storm of fire.

CH3 turned off his boost over-ride. The Merlin ceased its racket, the cockpit stopped shaking and amazingly he saw all four Hurricanes still climbing. “Mango, regroup, regroup,” he ordered.

They came together and he checked for damage. Macfarlane failed to answer. Cox eased alongside him. Macfarlane waved his radio lead, and grinned. “His VHFs gone duff,” Cox reported.
“What he doesn't know is he's losing coolant. Not much. Just a dribble.”

The Messerschmitts shadowed them back to the English coast and then turned away. By that time the trickle of coolant had become a stream and Macfarlane was no longer grinning. CH3 kept calling, telling him to do a belly-landing on the sands or to bale out before the engine caught fire. No response.

Over Romney Marsh, at fifteen hundred feet, the coolant stopped.

Macfarlane could see his temperature gauges knocking into the red. He could smell the heat. There was just enough elemental sense in him to switch off the magnetos and the fuel. A whispering silence washed over the plane. He gave up. It wasn't a case of panic. It was simply that he had no idea what to do. Without power, or height, or someone to shout at him, or an airfield to aim at, he was helpless, childlike.

His hands clung to the control column for comfort and the Hurricane made its own flightpath above the Kent countryside. It cleared the marsh, bypassed a little hill, sighed over an old stone barn, and settled on a small plantation of young fir trees. Macfarlane blinked at the hundreds of whippy treetops flickering past him, checking the fighter's rush, softening its impact. The wings sank and sheared a path through the thicker branches. Bit by bit the plantation soaked up the impetus, until the Hurricane hit the ground with a bang that made Macfarlane's teeth snap together. It careered out of the trees and slid into a meadow and stopped. Lucky man. There was even a pub in sight, and it was even open. Lucky, lucky man.

The weather worsened after lunch, with rain squalls blowing in from the west. “B” flight got scrambled and recalled immediately, then scrambled again to hunt a pair of intruders reported over Canterbury. For more than an hour they were vectored back and forth, in and out of towering clouds, sent climbing to fifteen thousand, to eighteen, down to ten. Finally they achieved a perfect interception on a section of Defiant fighters who were looking for the same intruders. Everyone went home.