Derek Robinson - Damned Good Show

A cold wind had arrived from the northernmost part of the North Sea, and Skull noticed that Kate was hunched and shivering. “Come inside and have some coffee,” he said. “You two should see the maestro at work.”

They sat in the caravan and watched Bellamy send each Wellington on its way. His head in the plastic dome slowly swiveled as the engines thundered and faded. “We’ll shoot him from the outside,” Rollo said softly. “Medium close-up, lit from below. Wonderfully theatrical.”

“Sure,” Kate said. “Why not stick a rose behind each ear?”

“I’m not changing anything. Just illuminating the truth.”

The last bomber took off. They thanked Bellamy and left.

Skull lingered until the two airmen had gone. “Perhaps I’m chasing moonbeams,” he said. “After all, this isn’t my subject. I just wonder if it’s altogether wise to control operational takeoffs as you do, by radio.”

“Standard procedure,” Bellamy said. “Simple and quick.”

“Yes… The thing is, I was in Fighter Command last year, and during the Battle of Britain the German air force used to assemble large formations over the north of France. Fighter Command got early warning of this, because we had experts listening to the enemy radio traffic”

“And you think the enemy is listening to ours.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Having made that short journey, please let it travel on. Bomber Command would not have allocated a channel unless it was secure.”

They went out and Skull nearly lost his cap to the wind. “Isn’t that a rather dangerous assumption? Presumably Jerry didn’t realize we were reading his radio traffic during the Battle.”

“Then Jerry’s an ass. That’s why he lost the Battle. Get in, I’m freezing.” Skull recognized that tone of voice. Discussion over. He got in and they drove away.

By now the first Wellington was crossing the coast at Aldeburgh, where the long blunt bulge of Orfordness, ringed by water, made an unmistakeable landmark. Normally they would fly deep into the North Sea, past the Friesian Islands, and turn south for a quick dash to Bremen, but the Germans had built such a thick belt of guns and searchlights along their coast that 409 was experimenting with a different approach to the target: an overland approach They would take a direct route, fly east across Holland, and hope to sneak into Bremen behind the flak barrier. It might be the safest way. And if it wasn’t the safest, it was the quickest.

Within an hour, T-Tommy was back.

The pilot was Beef Benton, famous on the squadron for being able to drink a yard of ale in thirteen seconds. “Tommy just didn’t want to go,” he told Bins. They were alone. “First I lost power in the port engine. Couldn’t maintain height. Ran into cu-nims and suddenly there’s ice everywhere, including the carburettors. Went lower to lose the ice and got stuck at eight hundred feet. Tommy refused to climb. Ice damaged the elevators, perhaps. I don’t know. That was when the navigator told me he’d forgotten half his charts. Then some ships began shelling us, ours or theirs, who knows? I decided to call it a day. Or a night. Whichever you prefer.”

Benton had a meal and went to bed and twenty minutes later was roused by the duty NCO. He dressed and reported to the Wingco. Duff said the Engineer Officer couldn’t find anything wrong with T-Tommy. He’d fired up the engines and tested the elevators. “Do you still want to bomb Bremen?” he asked. “Tonight?”

Benton looked around, in search of an answer, and saw Colonel Kemp sitting in a corner. What a shitty question , he thought. Say no and I’m chopped. Say yes and it’ll be daylight before we clear the enemy coast. “I always wanted to bomb Bremen, sir,” he said.

“Take S-Sugar, the reserve kite. Your crew’s waiting.” Benton saluted and went out. “See what I mean?” Duff said to Kemp. “Red-hot keen.”

“That’s not Bremen,” Silk said.

“Yes it is, skip,” Woodman said. “Right a bit.” He was the navigator of D-Dog, which made him the bomb-aimer too. He was lying in the nose, looking through the bomb-sight at a slice of Germany two miles below. “I can see the river. More right.”

“Lots of German towns have rivers,” Silk said.

“Flak behind us, skip,” the rear gunner said.

“Best place for it.”

“Right,” Woodman said.

“Flak’s closer.” The gunner’s name was Chubb. The intercom lightened and heightened men’s voices. Chubb was nineteen and sounded fifteen. “They’ve got our height, skip.”

“Left, left,” Woodman said. “Steady.”

“Going down.” Silk put Dog into a shallow dive and leveled out at nine thousand.

“Now I can’t see a damn thing,” Woodman said. Broken cloud had arrived to blot out much of the ground.

Everyone could see flak but it was scattered and distant, no bigger than the sparks of fireflies and lasting about as long. There were searchlights in the area but they had to find holes in the clouds.

“Not Bremen,” Silk said. “Too quiet.”

“I definitely saw the river,” Woodman said.

“Couple of fires, over on the right,” Campbell said. He was the wireless op but now he was in the astrodome, looking for fighters.

“Decoys. Wrong color,” Silk said. He saw a wide canyon in the clouds and turned and flew into it. “See anything, Woody?”

“Smoke. Yes, smoke. Something’s burning down there.”

A mile ahead, five searchlights were hunting. Flak flickered, red-white, vanished, returned elsewhere. Soon rags of smoke fled past the cockpit.

“I can see bomb-flashes, skip,” Chubb said. “Somebody’s bombing the place.”

“Can’t help that, my son. It’s still not Bremen.” Silk closed the bomb doors. The searchlights were bigger and busier. “Going round again.” He banked Dog and opened the throttles.

Nobody spoke. Circling the city would take about eight minutes, and at the end they would make another approach, straight and level to give Woodman a chance, and give the German gunners another chance, too. Going round again meant making a series of timed runs on various bearings. Silk had a second pilot, an Australian called Mallaby, who helped him with the circuit. After the last turn, Mallaby said: “If this isn’t Bremen, why are we bombing it?”

“I’m not taking the bombs back. And Woody goes all huffy if he doesn’t get his way.”

“It’s Bremen, all right,” Woodman said. “I can see the bridge. Smoke’s worse.”

“Bomb doors open.” The Wellington vibrated as the slipstream snatched at the bomb doors.

“Left, left, steady. Left. Good. Steady at that.” The cloud was thinner now. “Coming up… Coming up… Bombs gone.” The bomber reacted with a bounce. “Steer three four eight. Goodbye, Bremen.”

“Three four eight,” Silk said. “Next time we do this, the kite will have a camera, and the bomb run will go on and on…” He counted to fifteen. “See anything, Chubby?”

“Yes! Spot on target! Lovely grub.”

Woodman climbed out of the nose and went to his navigator’s table. He worked on his charts and gave Silk a new bearing. “Eleven minutes to the coast,” he said.

“That’s nice. They told me you died in your sleep, Badge.”

“Correct, skip.” Badger was the front gunner: the coldest, bleakest place in the aircraft, with nothing to look at but the onrushing night and maybe, one day, just the briefest glimpse of a night fighter. Hour after hour of searching until the eyes ached for rest, just a few seconds, ample time for a black Messerschmitt to sidle up and blow D-Dog apart. Badger’s eyes never rested. Silk never nagged. If he spoke, it was only to check that the intercom worked.