The Crew (13 page)

‘Don't mind him, Mother.'

But she was already scrubbing at her lips with a handkerchief and he knew there was nothing he could do. He picked up his kit-bag and made for the door. She called after him in a pleading voice. ‘You're no leaving, Jock?'

‘I'll be back later,' he muttered. ‘When I've found somewhere to stay.'

It was raining hard as he walked from his old home, kit-bag slung across his shoulder. He got a room in a boarding-house a few streets away; it was a grim place, but cheap. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the rain streaming down the dirty window panes.

‘God damn him,' he said aloud. ‘Damn him to everlasting hell.'

‘I always said she wasn't good enough for you, Harry. Why you ever went and married her I'll never know. Anyone could see she was just a fortune hunter. Spent all your money and then looked for someone else to bleed dry.'

He'd heard it many times before and, although he knew it was probably true enough, it didn't help to hear his mother say it all over again. He wished he'd gone somewhere else after he'd been down south to try and see Paulette. Anywhere.

And what a waste of time that had been. When he'd got to the house in the avenue, Rita had answered the door and told him that Paulette was in bed with a temperature and couldn't come out. There was something about the way she'd said it that had made him sure she was lying, but he couldn't argue. He hadn't even got past the doorstep, let alone seen the child. She was feverish, Rita had said, too poorly to be disturbed. And besides, she'd added cruelly, seeing him always got her all upset. He wouldn't want to do that, would he, when she wasn't well? So, he'd given up and gone away meekly, leaving his present – a jigsaw of farm animals that he'd bought in Lincoln. He doubted Rita would ever give it to Jennifer; most likely, it would be thrown straight into the dustbin.

His mother was still going on about Rita, knitting needles clicking away at top speed. Harry stood at the window, hands thrust in trouser pockets, watching the rain and hardly listening. His father had given up listening years ago and was asleep in his armchair – or pretending to be. He wondered what the rest of the
crew were up to. Jock was in Scotland, Stew in London on one of his jaunts, Van staying with Piers, Charlie with his mum, and Bert had pranced off, all smiles and winks, which most probably had something to do with that tarty parachute WAAF. He wasn't sure if he approved of it, but then he knew he was old-fashioned. He'd never go with a woman unless his intentions were honourable, and Bert's certainly weren't that.

‘. . . never brings our granddaughter to see us, and never a word of thanks for anything. Did you ask if she got that last birthday present we sent Paulette?'

‘I forgot.'

‘Well, you'd think she'd write at least. What's the point of bothering, I say? I don't know why
you
do, Harry.'

Because I have to, he thought. Paulette's my daughter and I'm not going to give up on her. I'll never do that.

‘Is that deep enough, Mum?'

She looked uncertainly at the long trench he'd dug at one end of the vegetable patch. ‘I'm not sure, Charlie. I should think it'd be about right for the potatoes. I don't think the peas and beans will need to be as deep.'

He smiled at her. ‘Digging for Victory, aren't we? Just like the poster.'

She laughed. ‘Well, I hope the vegetables grow like in the picture.'

They laid the seed potatoes along the bottom of the trench, the way Mr Stonor had told her, and Charlie covered them with the soil again, raking it up into a ridge which the old man had said to do as well. It had
been raining the night before and the earth was heavy and hard to work, but he managed to make a reasonable job of it. When that was done he started work on making shallow drills for the peas and broad beans. By the time he'd finished he was hot and thirsty and his mother went indoors to fetch some lemonade.

While he drank it and rested a bit she planted the peas and beans. He watched, leaning on the rake handle, and wondered if he'd live long enough to see them come up. They'd lost three more crews on the last op – not that he'd told her that, of course. Nor did she ever ask, but he knew that it was always in her mind.

He'd learned that poem by heart and it was one of his favourites. It didn't matter that it was all about a soldier. It wasn't any different for airmen, after all. The bombers' crews would lie in foreign fields – if there was anything left to bury. That's if the Germans would give a decent burial to people who'd been dropping bombs on them.

All he asked was that if it happened it would be quick. Over and done with before he knew what had happened. Like it must have been with Micky O'Rourke, Tail-End Charlie on Q-Queenie. His Lane had got back from Hamburg badly shot up and word had got round the station that Micky had taken a cannon shell full in the chest and been spattered all over the turret. Charlie couldn't stop himself going over to take a look at poor old Queenie, who'd had
more holes in her than a sieve. He'd walked round to the rear turret – couldn't stop himself doing that either – and some erks had been working away with scrubbing brushes and hoses, trying to clean it out. There'd been blood and stuff smeared everywhere, sticking to the Perspex . . .

First time he'd ever seen anything like that. The funny part about the RAF was that, although men were getting killed day after day, you never saw any dead or wounded. Either it happened on ops or, if they made it back, they were rushed out of sight in a flash, and all their belongings, too – as though they'd never existed.

There'd been three different crews sharing the sergeants' hut with them so far and all of them had bought it. First time, it'd been a bit of a nasty shock. He'd gone into the hut and found a couple of officers emptying lockers and piling stuff onto beds. They were the Committee of Adjustment, they'd told him, busily sorting through socks and shirts, letters and photographs. Taking care of the deceased's belongings. He'd stood there in silence watching them, unable to believe that the blokes he'd been having a joke with only a few hours before were dead. Would never be coming back. Len, Chalkey, Badger, Kiwi, Bill. All gone for ever.

The next time it happened after that, it wasn't quite such a shock. And when the third crew got the chop, he was almost getting used to it.

Mum finished the planting and he raked the soil back carefully over the drills. He was glad he'd had the chance to help her with things on his leave. They'd done a whole lot of weeding together, and now the vegetable planting, and he'd cleaned and oiled
the old bike she'd been lent and got most of the rust off the handlebars. He couldn't make the bell work, though, and the chain kept coming off. Maybe he'd ask Jock to take a look at it some time – he was good with things like that.

He cleaned the tools and put them away in the garden shed, then he stood for a moment in the open doorway looking towards the drome. They'd been doing air tests all that morning, so he knew they'd be going tonight. By now they'd have bombed up, armed and fuelled, and the ground crews would be fussing around the Lanes. Briefing would be about twenty-hundred, take-off around twenty-two or so – timed to cross the enemy coast in darkness. He wondered which target it would be. Essen? Emden? Stuttgart? Bremen? Strange to hear them take off and not be going with them. The night before last he'd lain in bed, listening to them roaring over the cottage, making the windows shake and rattle. When they'd gone, he'd stayed awake for a long time, flying with them in his mind.

His mother called out from the cottage, ‘Supper's ready, Charlie.' She sounded lighthearted and happy. Still three more days of his leave left.

‘Coming, Mum.' He shut up the shed, wedging the stick of wood through the hasp, and went indoors.

PART II

Seven

THEY WERE FIFTEEN
minutes late reaching the target and when they finally got there, the Duisburg reception committee had hotted up.

Things had gone wrong from the start. Van had had a hell of a job getting S-Sugar to climb to twenty thousand: she'd struggled up, groaning and moaning all the way. It could have been to do with the warm night and some obscure law of physics, or maybe she was just a bitch. Personally, he went for the latter. Unlike friendly, steadfast D-Dog who was home having an engine change, S-Sugar was determined to make life tough for you. She didn't want to stay on course, kept dropping one wing and he had his work cut out to maintain the hard-won height.

Approaching the enemy coast, they'd presented a nice target for a flak ship lying unexpectedly in wait off-shore. They'd flown into its web like a careless fly, and the first salvo of shells had bracketed them neatly. He'd dropped the nose in a steep dive and S-Sugar went down a lot faster than she went up. The next shells exploded harmlessly above them and they were out of range before the gunners could have another go.

He'd started the long haul of clawing back the height lost and then he and Piers had gone and got their wires crossed over a course change and he'd
ended up way off-track before he'd realized the mistake. Back on the right course, they'd flown into a violent electrical storm that had S-Sugar plunging around like a bucking bronco and he'd damn near lost control of her.

Latecomers over the target, and getting all the attention, they staggered on through the flak and flame and searchlights. Stew did his stuff up front. ‘Left, left. Right a bit. Steady . . . steady . . . steady . . . Bombs gone, skipper . . . Bomb doors closed.'

He grabbed the lever beside him. ‘Doors closed. Let's get the hell out of here.' He hurled the bomber away to port as a searchlight beam fingered the tip of the starboard wing.

Relieved of her massive load, S-Sugar skipped homewards and he made the mistake of imagining that their troubles were over. Far from it. First, Bert sighted a non-existent enemy fighter and had them corkscrewing all over the skies to avoid it, then Charlie spotted a real one and he had to do it all again. When they'd managed to shake off the lone Mel 10 and he'd levelled out, his arms ached and trembled from the strain of throwing a heavy bomber about and he was drenched in sweat. It was an effort to flip on the mike switch.

‘OK, intercom check. Bomb aimer? All right down there, Stew?'

‘OK, skip.'

Nothing wrong with tough digger Stew. The rest of them answered quick enough, though he thought Charlie sounded kind of shaky. Christ knows what it had all been like in the tail. Well, at least they were alive and kicking and on oxygen. Without it you died in around ten minutes – easy enough to happen if he
didn't keep checking on them. Oxygen tubes could freeze up, get shot up, or just go u/s and you could lose consciousness before you even realized what was happening.

S-Sugar trundled on docilely towards England, and Van allowed himself to relax a bit. His arms had stopped their involuntary trembling, if not their aching. When they got below ten thousand and off-oxygen, he'd have a cigarette. It was against regs and Jock didn't like it, but the hell with Jock. He'd earned it on this one, he reckoned.

When Jock suddenly tapped him sharply on the shoulder he thought the guy must have read his thoughts until he saw with a shock that the starboard outer was on fire, flames licking merrily round the nacelle. The next second Jock had closed the throttle, hit the feathering button and shut the fuel cock. The propeller windmilled to a stop and the flight engineer zapped the fire-extinguisher button. They both watched the flames flicker and die and Van's heart went back to normal. Jeez, for a while it'd looked like it was going to spread . . . as though the fuel tanks would catch, same as he'd seen happen with other guys. Woomph and up she'd go and they be dead ducks. He trimmed the Lane and called up Piers for a course. They'd be slower with the dead engine but who cared, so long as they got there in the end.

He might have known he'd counted his chickens too soon.

They were nearing the English coast at two thousand feet, dawn coming up, when a Royal Navy warship opened fire on them. His first reaction was one of blind fury – the assholes couldn't even tell a Lane from a Heinkel! The second, to do something about it as
fast as possible before they were hit. S-Sugar, shaken out of her trundle, was stampeding about again as shells burst unpleasantly close. The cockpit stank of cordite.

‘Pilot to wireless operator. Sure the IFF's on?'

Harry came back at once. ‘Dead sure, skipper. I'll fire the Very.'

Two stars blazed brilliantly above them in what Van fervently hoped were the right colours of the day.
Stop shooting you fucking maniacs, we're on your side.
The firing stopped, but his fury stayed. To be shot at by your own people, by some stupid, trigger-happy jerks . . .

Coming down to land at Beningby on three engines, he made the normal left-hand circuit turning away from the dud engine, like the drill said. His arms still ached and the wakey-wakey pill had worn off so that he was finding it hard to concentrate for tiredness. And S-Sugar was acting as though she was taking her latest scare out on him, fighting him all the way down. The old bucket shimmied in over the boundary hedge and floated stubbornly along, several feet above the runway. He heaved the wheel back, sweating. They were running out of concrete before she finally touched down as demurely as a debutante curtseying at the Philadelphia Assemblies Ball; light as the proverbial feather; innocent as a newborn babe; sweet as her name. What a bitch!

At de-briefing, the WAAF intelligence officer's ice-cool voice grated on his buzzing ears and refuelled his anger. His crew were dead on their feet: Charlie reeking of spew, Piers the colour of chalk, Bert with a lump on his forehead the size of an orange, all of them back from staring death in the face, and she sat there as calmly as if they'd been off on some sort of
joy ride. He cut brusquely across one of her interminable questions.