Somewhere Over England (38 page)

‘So it really will be over soon,’ Chris said as he sorted the straight pieces of the puzzle which he had done three times before but Mary hadn’t.

‘I guess it might,’ Ed said, smiling at Helen who said
nothing, just looked into the fire as she reknitted a pulled out sweater. Ed picked out a chestnut, throwing it from hand to hand and blowing on it but in the end he flicked it back on to the shovel while the others laughed.

‘Don’t be so impatient,’ Laura said.

Ed nodded, rubbing his hands together and grimacing, watching as Helen knitted, the needles clicking softly.

‘It’s kind of nice to see you doing that. In the States they don’t, or in Little Fork they don’t anyway, not much. My mom has some pins somewhere.’

Chris looked at Mary. ‘Will you come with us?’ he asked her.

Helen looked up at Ed and they both listened as Mary said, ‘I don’t know. I think Laura will be lonely and I’ve got me sister too. I don’t know what to do.’

Helen said softly. ‘What’s happened with Irene’s GI then, Mary, do you know? Has she heard?’

Mary shook her head. ‘No, he’s never written, not after she told him she was having the baby.’

Ed took the shovel off the logs. It had burnt black from the smoke.

‘Maybe the guy just got busy. He’ll get in touch, Mary.’

Mary shrugged. ‘I like it here so much,’ she murmured and Chris looked up at Helen who smiled gently, and that night, as she said goodnight, she told him that he must let Mary make up her own mind because Laura had said she could live with her and come across to America in the holidays.

‘I like England too,’ Chris said, ‘but I want to go to America.’

‘I know, darling, but it’s different for us. We love Ed so much.’

She walked down the stairs, running her hands down the vertical beams, hearing the creak of the cottage which had been home for so long and which she loved as much as she loved the fields and the towns of England. But she loved Ed more, she knew that now.

She told him as he left that night, called back to the base early by the Colonel, and she watched as the jeep drove away. Its lights were still dimmed but they would not be for much longer if the rumour was correct, but Helen knew that this did not mean that the war was almost over.

She looked down the road, following the path of the jeep,
knowing that the recall meant he was flying and that night she lay and cursed the clearing skies.

The Sergeant woke Ed with a 04.00 call. He had slept and dreamt of Helen laughing up at him from the snow and he swallowed hot coffee quickly before walking through to the briefing room. He wouldn’t think of Chris lighting the Advent candle tonight, he wouldn’t think of the stockings on the bottom of his bed because there was a whole goddamn day to get through first and many miles to fly.

The Colonel told them that the weather had at last improved enough for air support in the Ardennes. That there was to be a combined attack on enemy airfields along the Rhine and other targets in support of the troops being pounded and pressed by von Rundstedt’s offensive. They were given their route and the weather report and Ed lounged back as the others were doing because losses were light now and they should act relaxed.

He drove with two other officers on to the airfield, the wheels spinning on the hard packed snow of the verge.

‘For Christ’s sake, driver, let’s get to the ships at least before we take a fall,’ Bob Tucker said, chewing gum, rubbing his fingers together as he always did before a mission.

Ed grinned. ‘Take it easy, Bob, you might end up with a sprained wrist and have the day on base.’

Bob laughed, throwing his head back and slapping his leg. He was over-reacting, too nervous, but then weren’t they all? It helped them stay alive.

Ed was dropped at the
Emma Lou
. He felt the sweat start on his hands as he walked beneath her wing. The
Emma B
had blown up over Hanover with a new crew. The pilot of the
Emma Lou
had completed his twenty-five missions and, except for Marco from the
Emma B
who had been grounded for months, this was a new crew fresh from the States he was taking up, poor buggers. Poor damn buggers, Ed thought as he smiled at
them, tipping his hand to his cap, thinking how alike they looked in their heavy cumbersome sheepskin jackets with gum rolling from one cheek to the other, helmets dangling from their hands. He wouldn’t tell them until they were airborne that they had been assigned the Purple Heart Corner.

He handed out their packets of money, maps, survival rations. Joking, chatting, not remarking on the shaking hands which took them from him, hoping that his own weren’t trembling. He took a look around the airfield, the ground crew in coveralls and fatigue caps were hanging around; the sky was pink where the sun was rising. Helen would be up by now, stirring meal and potato peelings for the hens.

He looked at the other bombers lined up, enormous, powerful, and then up at the sky again. Just get these kids back, he ground out to the Fortress, then grinned at his men.

‘OK. Let’s get in.’

Ed checked the instruments with Barney, his co-pilot, then used his hands palm up on the throttles. This old lady was heavy like the
Emma B
, but balanced. Yeah, she was pretty well balanced. The sound was deafening as the engines turned over then caught and held, and he saw the ground crew clutch their caps as winds swept across the deck. He tipped his fingers to them through the cockpit window knowing that as the
Emma Lou
took off these men would drift back to the Nissen huts whose walls were covered with pictures of half naked women. Here they would play cards and shoot crap with only half their minds because the other half would be up here with the
Emma Lou
until she came back – or didn’t.

The flare had gone up and they were taxi-ing now. He adjusted his helmet, the throat speaker and earphones, taking off half a minute after
Juliet
; tucking in behind and climbing as she did, following in position to the assembly point, then on to rendezvous with the squadrons from other fields until turning back on themselves in tight formation, safe in their own airspace for now, then out and over the Channel.

‘Let’s keep looking, guys.’ Ed spoke over the intercom. ‘The Mustangs are with us so that’s a help but we need your eyes, always, every minute. I want to get you home to your hearths, remember, and I’m kinda old myself and need my pipe and slippers at the end of the day, not a dose of cold hard snow.’

He listened to the laughter, then checked the tail turret, and
young Eriksson who looked as though he should still be in high school. The waist gunners checked out well, they were running through their guns. Ted in the top turret was fine and the nose too.

‘You OK, Marco?’ He smiled to hear the familiar voice reply, ‘Great, skip. Fancy a little outing today but get us back, this is my twenty-fifth.’

Ed heard groans from the others and laughed, always looking to left and right but he’d picked up the escorts now, Mustangs who could fly at 440 mph and make Berlin and back. He did not think of the men who would still be here if they’d only had those little beauties earlier.

‘OK, you guys, you’ll get there one day,’ he laughed into the intercom but knew that the life expectancy of a bomber was only twenty-one missions, so where did that put its crew? Maybe the war would be over by then. Maybe. His hands were steady on the controls and he could feel the vibration, smell the leather, the gasoline. The formation hadn’t lifted to a higher altitude over the coast because there was no flak any more now that it was in Allied hands.

Ed relaxed his shoulders and glanced at Barney who said, ‘Kinda quiet, eh, skip?’

Ed smiled. ‘Sure is.’ He wouldn’t tell the kids the position they were flying in. What was the point?

He said again into the throat speaker, ‘Just keep your eyes busy. Remember that.’

The formation was rising now, up to 25,000 feet, out of range of enemy guns because they were getting pretty close to the drop zone, Ed reckoned. It would be cold for the guys in the rest of the ship.

‘Get your oxygen masks on,’ he ordered. ‘We’re going up. Give me a post, Marco.’

‘I reckon on another thirty minutes to target, skip.’

They flew on and he knew the crew would be huddled into their jackets and flexing their hands in gloves which made their fingers clumsy but stopped frost-bite. Did they know that if they were hit their blood would freeze as it hit the air? But Ed jerked his head, concentrating on the sky, the instruments, anything rather than staying inside his head because he was being crazy. They had been told losses would be light, hadn’t they?

‘So how many more missions have you got to do?’ Barney asked, his eyes to the left and right, up and down. His voice was high with tension.

Ed shrugged. ‘A few.’

‘Yeah, but how many?’

‘This guy’s done thirty-two.’ Marco’s voice came in over the earphones.

Barney turned and stared. ‘Thirty-two, but you could be home.’ There was disbelief in his voice.

‘Couldn’t bear to leave us could you, skip?’ Marco called.

‘Something like that. Now keep on looking.’

It had been Helen he hadn’t been able to leave, but she would never know he had volunteered for a second tour.

‘Give us a post then, Marco.’

‘Five minutes to target, skip.’ Marco’s voice was sharper now.

‘Bombardier, you with us?’ Ed’s voice was crisp. He followed the squadron in tight formation.

‘Right there, skip. Hold her steady.’ But there was gunfire now from the ground and the ship lurched as a shell exploded nearby.

‘Jesus,’ Eriksson shouted. ‘Jesus.’ He was frightened, Ed could hear it in his voice.

He held on to the controls, feeling the sweat break out as it always did.

‘OK, Eriksson. It’s OK. Just keep looking.’

He was over the target, dropping the bombs, and there had been no air attack and the ground fire had been light. So far, no Focke-Wulfs swarming, no ME109s.

He pulled out and away, keeping in tight. ‘OK, guys, we’re on our way home. I guess maybe this is going to turn into a milk-run.’ He was still looking and listening, up, down, left, right because they could still come, and they did, ten minutes later, roaring down on them, breaking away so close Ed could see the German in the cockpit.

The Mustangs were fighting too, but the Germans were getting through, again and again stabbing at his corner.

‘Jesus, skip. I got one.’ Eriksson was screaming. ‘I got one.’

Ed cut in sharply. ‘Keep looking, Eriksson. There’ll be others.’

The Focke-Wulfs kept coming in on a pursuit curve, but this
time Ted in the top turret sent one spinning down in flames but still they kept coming from three thousand feet ahead and one thousand above, coming in fast before rolling and firing.

One passed, streaming thick dark smoke. Was he hit or was it just the synthetic fuel made out of coal and God knows what that the Germans were using? Ed didn’t know, didn’t have time to think because the guns were started up from below and he was falling back from formation.

‘Come on, you bitch,’ he ground out, pushing at the throttles, the controls, pulling up again and so far she wasn’t hit but Eriksson was screaming, always screaming, and it wasn’t because he had scored a hit, it was because he had just screamed that his arm had been torn off, for Christ’s sake.

Ed shook his head. For God’s sake, how could you think? He had a plane to get back but there Was the screaming and the black smoke to fly through, the fighters to avoid and the fear to push away.

He hauled on the controls as another 109 flashed across in front, firing, and he felt the
Emma Lou
judder. She was hit but would she burn?

Barney called out. ‘Number one engine’s been hit, Ed.’

Christ! ‘It’s OK. I got her,’ Ed said, still hearing Eriksson’s screams, but there was no fire.

‘Where are the Mustangs for Pete’s sake?’ Marco called out.

But they were there, fighting, turning, firing, but there were so many Germans. Didn’t they know they’d lost the goddamn war? Now Eriksson was no longer screaming but voices were babbling and shouting and Ed called, ‘Get off the intercom.’ He must hear the orders coming through from the group. An ME109 was coming straight in, his nose cone pointing straight at him, his guns firing and the
Emma Lou
juddered again and now number two engine was windmilling and burning.

‘Feather it,’ Ed snapped to Barney and he did.

The
Emma Lou
was heavy now and he was fighting to hold her even, fighting to close the gap between him and the Shark in front but he was losing speed and altitude.

Frank, the radio operator called through. ‘I got Ted here, upper turret empty now, he’s hurt but not bad, the blood’s frozen.’

‘OK. Throw a spare jacket over him.’ Ed’s voice was firm, though his hands were trembling, and all he could see and hear
were ravens coming, again and again, but they weren’t ravens, they were planes, so for Christ’s sake, snap out of it.

He did. Barney was swearing, long streams of words which he repeated again and again. There was an explosion amidships and the
Emma Lou
hesitated, shuddered, hit by cannon fire, but then carried on. The waist gunners were still firing, he could feel their vibration, see the tracers spitting into fighters but it was not enough, and now bits of his wing had been shot away and the ship was careening from side to side as another fighter streaked past.

‘Give me a post, Marco. Give me a post,’ Ed shouted.

There was no answer.

‘For Christ’s sake give me a post.’

Marco spoke then, his voice was weak. ‘Four minutes to the sea, skip.’ He gave him the course.

‘You OK?’

Marco laughed but it was faint. ‘That shell got a bit familiar, the bitch.’

Ed gripped the throttle. ‘Hang on, kid. I’m getting you back. It’s your last one. Trust me.’

Number three engine was spluttering and the
Emma Lou
was fighting him, swaying, but he held her firm, talking to her as though she were a mare, and now they were over the sea at last and the Focke-Wulfs and the ME 109s were gone but the Mustangs stayed with them, waggling their wings to indicate that they would stay with
Emma Lou
until she made it, or didn’t. She was losing height and her speed was still decreasing.