The Crew (28 page)

The vast expanse of water glinted in the moonlight. No way of telling how bad it was down there. Landing on a millpond in broad daylight would be a bastard, let alone on a rough sea in darkness.

His right leg and foot ached so badly now, he didn't know how much longer he could keep up enough rudder pressure to hold D-Dog on course. Hell, he
had
to. If he didn't keep her straight they could come down anywhere. They'd got to be on course, at the closest possible point to the English coast to stand a cat's chance of getting picked up. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

‘Pilot to crew. We need to lose some weight, guys. Chuck out every damn thing you can. Guns, ammo, flares . . . Stew, get rid of the bomb sight. The lighter we are, the further we'll go.'

The altimeter needle was creeping round
anti-clockwise. At this rate they'd be down in the drink before they ran out of juice.

‘Looks like the starboard inner's starting to overheat, skipper.' Jock rapped the gauge with his knuckles.

Holy shit, if they had to shut another down they might as well forget the whole idea. He wouldn't have a prayer of getting her down OK on one engine. They'd be dead men.

‘Do what you can, Jock. Let's get as far as we can.'

Crazy how calm his own voice sounded! Same as Jock's. Like they were out on some routine crosscountry. D-Dog's nose was starting to swing round again; he forced his tortured muscles to get her back on course.
Come on D-Dog. Give us a break, for God's sake.

She must have heard him this time and cared after all, because the starboard inner needle stayed where it was instead of climbing through the roof. They flew on some more vital miles.

‘About another twenty minutes, skip. Not more.'

‘OK, Jock. How far to the English coast, Piers?'

‘A hundred and twenty-three miles, skipper.'

A whole lot of North Sea still between them and home. Too much. Much too much. Piers was giving their latest position to Harry but how in hell was any rescue launch going to get to them before they drowned or froze to death?

He could see white wave caps clearly now. Jesus Christ, that meant a Force four wind at least. Some guy who'd actually ditched once had told him it was like flying into a stone wall when you hit the waves. He wasn't going to be able to do it. Not a hope. D-Dog would break up on impact, or nose-dive and keep on going down.

‘Pilot to crew. Crash positions. Keep sending our position, Harry.'

‘Roger, skipper.'

Jock would stay in the cockpit with him, while the rest of them braced themselves against the main spar.

‘Fifteen more minutes, skipper.'

‘OK, Jock.'

‘You'll do it fine.' Jock's head was turned to him, nodding. He wondered if the others felt as confident; he sure didn't. His heart was pounding, his mouth dry.

‘Got some gum, Jock?'

He chewed on the stick of Wrigleys his flight engineer had passed him. Tried to kid himself that Jock was right. He'd got power still – so long as he didn't leave it until too late. He could choose his moment. He brought D-Dog down in a long, shallow, level approach, tail well down, slow as he could. The same guy who'd told him about the brick wall had said something about ditching along the swell, not across it. Or was it the other way round?
Shit!
Why the hell hadn't he paid more attention?

‘Five more minutes, skipper. Mebbe less.'

‘Pilot to crew. Standby for ditching.'

The port wing was dipping again and he summoned all his remaining strength to bring it up. The water was a black foam-flecked heaving mass coming at them fast. No hope of judging it properly. All he could do was his best.

Bert was praying – or what passed for it.
Christ all-bloody-mighty, get us down in one piece
 . . . He'd never been much for God and all that stuff, but they needed some help from somewhere now. And getting down all right was only the start. They had to be able to get
out of the hatches and the dinghy had to inflate. And if he fell in the water he'd better hope his Mae West worked because he couldn't bloody well swim a stroke. Never learned. He'd gone to the baths a few times when he was a kid, but he'd never fancied it after someone had pushed him in and then kept ducking him. If it hadn't been for the bastard who'd done that he might have stuck at it. Too late, now.

D-Dog was rocking like a rowing-boat, like the skipper couldn't hold her any more. Bloody hell, he'd
never
do it. Might as well face it, they were for it this time. This was going to be the Big Chop. He wondered if Emerald would mind a lot, or if she'd just find herself another bloke. And what about poor old Victor? Who'd look after him? Not Emerald. Not bloody likely. Still, he'd be a lot worse off if he'd brought him on this op, like that other time. The Committee of Adjustment blokes'd probably let him go free. Pity he wouldn't be around to see their faces when they opened the shoebox.

D-Dog had stopped rocking and felt like she was just hanging in the air – like she did when they were about to touch down on land. This was IT. Please God, help us. Don't let us die. Bloody well
help
us.

Bert shut his eyes tight.

Harry had clamped down the Morse key and stuffed the Very pistol, cartridges and torch inside his battledress jacket under his Mae West. He climbed over the main spar and went aft to get Sam and back to take up his ditching position, alongside Stew, Piers, Bert and Charlie – Sam tucked well inside his battledress jacket. They squatted down, hands behind their heads, backs braced against the spar. He made sure he was next to Charlie. Whatever happened he was going to
see to it that the lad was all right. He waited. Any second now.

D-Dog hit the water nose first, and the impact flung him sideways so he hit his head hard. The Lane was skidding along on her belly with a terrible grinding and tearing noise. Icy water gushed over him and his first thought, when he recovered his senses, was that they were already sinking, going down fast.

Then D-Dog finally came to a stop and Charlie was tugging his arm. He staggered to his feet and scrambled after the others to the roof escape hatch. The bomber was tilting forward at the nose but she was still afloat.

He was half-way out of the hatchway, when he realized he'd forgotten the pigeon. Couldn't leave the poor little bugger to go down with the Lane, so back he went, sloshing his way through the fuselage. He squeezed his shoulders up through the escape opening again; wind and spray whipped at his face.

The moon lit the scene: the inky blackness of the ocean, the white-crested waves breaking over D-Dog. He played his torch over the bomber. She was rolling and pitching hard. Charlie and Bert were clinging to the starboard wing and Stew and Piers leaning over the trailing edge, hauling on the dinghy. The skipper and Jock were crawling towards him along the cockpit roof. All out safely, thank God. By the time he'd clambered out on the roof and slithered down onto the wing, the Lane's nose had sunk further and the wings had tilted up so that the dinghy was now several feet below, bobbing around like a cork.

They had to jump for it: Charlie, himself with the pigeon in its carrier, Piers, Jock, Stew, Van. One after the other. But Bert hung back, still clinging to the
wing for dear life with them all yelling at him, and when he finally got up the courage to jump, he missed the dinghy and fell into the sea.

He came up close by, choking and thrashing about wildly. The Mae West kept him afloat but the waves swept him away from the dinghy. Harry kept his torch beam trained on the yellow life jacket being carried off fast like a piece of flotsam, while Stew slashed loose the rope tethering them to the Lane's wing and they paddled frantically after Bert. When they got close enough, the skipper and Jock, who were the nearest, leaned over the side and grabbed hold of Bert's arms. Little as he was, he must have weighed a sight more in sodden flying clothes, because they had a real job getting him on board, and he was kicking and struggling and choking and thrashing about, making things even worse. Each time another wave broke over the dinghy, swamping them, Harry thought they were going to lose their grip on Bert and that he would be gone for ever. Then a lucky wave lifted him up and, at the same moment, Van and Jock heaved him into the dinghy.

Bert had been snatched from the sea, but D-Dog was going. Stew shouted out and pointed and they all turned to see her twin tail fins rise up in the moonlight. None of them spoke as they watched her slide down into the dark depths like a sounding whale, leaving them alone.

Dorothy woke up suddenly. She sat bolt upright in bed, listening. She always heard the bombers coming back and listened to them circling overhead before they landed. Sometimes they'd circle for a long time and she'd picture Charlie up there, very tired and yet
having to fly round and round and round. But there was no sound of any bombers. No distant rumbling drone, getting louder and louder. Nothing but the wind.

The luminous hands of her alarm clock showed it was only ten past eleven. They'd taken off at six in the evening – thirty of them – and they would probably come back around midnight, unless it was one of the very long trips.

She lay down again. No point in panicking. Getting herself into a state. Charlie might be safe in bed over at the station, sound asleep and dreaming. And yet, she knew he wasn't. She lay rigid in the darkness, eyes wide open, listening.

Aircraft: D. Captain: Pilot Officer VanOlden.
Missing.

The WAAF sergeant was standing on a chair to reach the top of the ops board. Catherine watched her chalking the word in the space. Two other aircraft had failed to return and were seen going down in flames over the target, but nobody had seen what had happened to D-Dog. No news from any other station. The only hope left was that they'd bailed out or crash-landed safely somewhere in Germany or France. The sergeant finished off with a heavy dot after the ‘g' and hopped down off the chair. She looked quite cheerful. Just another crew to her. One of the many. Nothing to cry about.

The Intelligence Officer wandered over. ‘We've just had something in on VanOlden's crew. Apparently, an SOS was picked up from them. They lost two engines on the homeward leg and had to ditch in the North Sea. The rescue chaps are out looking for them, but no luck so far.'

A chance after all, but so slim. Not many crews who came down in the North Sea in winter survived.

‘Do they know their position?' Catherine asked.

‘They knew it just before they ditched. They were still sending then. Since then, nothing. The dinghy transmitter might be u/s, of course.'

Or they might all be dead, she thought bleakly. The Lane might have sunk too fast for them to get out, or the dinghy failed to inflate, or the sea swamped them, or the cold got them.

‘The weather . . .'

‘Not too good, I'm afraid. A Force seven. It must be pretty rough and chilly out there. Doesn't make it any easier to find them either – if they're still alive. But we mustn't lose hope yet.' The squadron leader took a closer look at her and put a firm hand on her shoulder. ‘Come on now, young lady. Chin up. It's not like you to let it get to you. You know you can't afford to do that. We none of us can. We have to get on with the job.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘That's the spirit.'

Charlie didn't think he could last much longer. It wasn't so much the cold, which he couldn't seem to feel any more, it was the sea-sickness. Bit of a joke, that! Here he was floating around in a rubber boat in the middle of the North Sea in winter, soaked through, and the worst part of it was feeling sea-sick. He'd vomited over the side until he thought his insides would come up. Now all he wanted was to lie down at the bottom of the boat and die. Only they wouldn't let him. They kept shaking him and making him sit up and talking to him.

Poor old D-Dog! He'd hated to see her go like that – all by herself, down to the bottom. Nobody'd liked watching it. She'd been the best of the Lanes they'd flown in. Never failed them before and it hadn't been her fault this time. If only he'd spotted that Jerry, it might never have happened, but he'd never seen a blinking thing.

Bert was talking now, telling one of his stories, but nobody laughed, not even Stew. He'd thought Bert had had it when he fell in the drink like that. Nobody had known he couldn't swim a stroke. Still, Bert was the sort who always bobbed up somehow.

He wasn't sure how long they'd been drifting about, but it must have been several hours because it was getting light. That wasn't much comfort, though. There was nothing to be seen but miles and miles of empty sea. Cold, grey, heaving sea. No ships anywhere and no planes in the sky either.
Nothing.
Just the waves see-sawing them up and down, and round and round. Up and down and round and round. Up and down and round and round. He closed his eyes again.

‘Wake up, lad.' Harry was shaking his shoulder roughly. Harry's face looked cold and grey as the sea, ringed by his yellow Mae West, and it was going up and down and round and round, too. ‘Not long now before they find us.'

Some hope, Charlie thought. But he felt too ill to care. And if he was going to die, he didn't mind it so long as they were all together.

Stew thought, I'm buggered if I'm going to die. Not like this. Just waiting for it to happen. Giving up. Christ, he was cold, though. Couldn't feel his legs or feet at all. Could hardly move them. The spray stung his face and his eyes smarted from salt, lids stiff and
sore with the bloody stuff, and every few minutes another bloody wave drenched them all again. They kept bailing out but as soon as they did, the water slopped back in. He'd've killed for a cigarette, but the pack in his breast pocket was a sodden pulp. He chucked it overboard in disgust and watched it swirl away and vanish.

Where the hell were those Air Sea Rescue wankers? The bloody dinghy transmitter was u/s, of course, but they'd known their position OK when they'd ditched, and they couldn't have drifted that far away for Christ's sake, so what the fuck were they doing? Having another cup of char? Stopping for a chat? Playing cards? Forget the bloody pigeon. About as much use as the transmitter. All it had done was fly round in circles over the dinghy before it'd finally pissed off in the general direction of Germany.