Once More the Hawks (9 page)

Experimenting with a camera gun because too many claims were being put in and the authorities were anxious to have proof, from time to time Dicken watched the Poles as they practised formations and attacked training Wellingtons. Their moves were always made from incredibly close in and he constantly expected to see a collision as their enthusiasm ran away with them.

Flying across London, he saw a formation of twenty-one Dorniers escorted by 109s approaching him unmolested. The sky was empty of anti-aircraft fire and he could see no sign of British fighter formations, and he was just about to turn away when he realised he was in an ideal position for a frontal attack and that he might even carry it out before the 109s, which would have to cross the bomber formation to reach him, could intercept.

The Dorniers were approaching him in three lines of seven machines in line astern and it even began to appear that the German fighters hadn’t seen him. As he lined up on the bombers they were so close to each other in such perfect formation he could see the whole of one line of seven aircraft one behind the other in his gunsight, almost as one target. As he opened fire and half-rolled to pass beneath the formation he saw bombs bursting below him and decided that, if nothing else, he had forced some of the bombers to jettison their cargoes. Then, looking up, he saw there were now only eighteen bombers and that the centre of the three lines contained not seven but four. Staring about him, he saw three fires burning on the ground and came to the conclusion that he must have hit three bombers at once. It didn’t seem possible and when he landed he was very cautious with his enquiries.

It eventually appeared that three crashed Dorniers had been found within a ten-mile radius of his attack, every one of the pilots killed by .303 bullets from the front. Nobody else claimed them and he could only assume he was responsible.

‘I saw none of them crash and neither did anyone else, so I made no claim. It would have looked too much like a line-shoot.’

Dicken looked across the table at Katie Foote. Her flat had belonged to a naval officer’s wife who had gone to Northern Ireland to be with her husband, and it had a look of studied comfort about it. Katie had cooked the meagre rations, plus a few she’d been able to wheedle out of a neighbouring grocer, and they were sitting back now sipping their coffee.

‘The Poles found out, of course,’ Dicken went on. ‘And promptly made it a good reason for demanding once again that they be allowed into action. “You, sir–”’ Dicken sat up stiffly to mimic the Polish commander ‘“–are destroying Jairmans – even at your age. Why can’t we?”’

She laughed then suddenly became serious. ‘Are you old, Dicken? I mean for this sort of thing.’

‘A bit, I suppose. But so far it doesn’t seem to have affected me much. Perhaps I’ve been lucky.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘What about?’

‘That you’ll get hurt. Aren’t you afraid?’

‘Being afraid’s one of the reasons I’m still around. I take no more chances than I have to.’

She was silent for a while then she lifted her head. ‘They’ve told me again I’ve got to go home, Dicken.’

His heart sank. He had tried to put off thinking about it but here it was again. She had begun to light up what had been for too long an empty life and he wanted to hold on to her.

‘No date?’

‘Not yet. I keep fighting them off.’ She shifted in her chair and put down her coffee cup. As she stretched towards the table, the line of her body was slim and curving.

She rose and he could see tears glinting in her eyes. ‘Now I’m just being sorry for myself,’ she said.

He rose to stand alongside her. ‘I’m not being sorry for you.’

She turned quickly and, picking up the dishes, turned to head for the kitchen. ‘You can stay the night if you wish, Dicken,’ she said quietly.

He nodded towards the settee. ‘On that?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It wouldn’t be what I
want
.’

She slapped the dishes down and turned to him. ‘Well, there’s only one bedroom and I think you’d be damned uncomfortable on it, anyway.’

He put his arms round her and she swayed a little and took a step towards him that brought her shaking legs against his.

‘It took you damned well long enough,’ she said.

‘I’ve just told you. Being afraid’s one of the reasons I’m still around. There’ve been plenty of women who’ve wanted to get into bed with me. I’ve not been interested because I knew they weren’t what I wanted.’

She put her arms around his neck. ‘Normally, it wouldn’t be what I wanted either. But life’s suddenly too short to play kneesy-kneesy, Dicken. You’ve got to grab things while you can. Tomorrow – tonight even – a goddam great bomb might come down the chimney and that would be the end of Katherine Ironmonger Foote and all her hopes, even her goddam itch to be in bed with Dicken Quinney.’

‘Is that what you want?’

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes. That’s what I want. There are a thousand and one reasons why it’s what I want.’ She leaned her head against his shoulder and gave a little sigh. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said.

‘Why bother?’

She lifted her lips to him. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Why bother? But perhaps you could turn out that light first.’

It was clear that the German strategy was to use the bombers to lure the British fighter squadrons up in large numbers and destroy them with the accompanying Messerschmitt fighters, but Dowding and Keith Park, in command of 11 Group which was doing all the fighting, aware that a battle of the sort the Germans wanted could destroy their defences in one stroke, fed in their squadrons cautiously and played on the 109s’ inability to remain long overhead. But, because of the urgency and the losses, by this time pilots were arriving on squadrons barely trained, some barely able to control a bicycle let alone a Spitfire.

With casualties reported in the evening, replacement aircraft always arrived the following day and all-night work by the ground crews had them ready, wearing squadron letters, their guns and sights harmonised and with ammunition in place, ready for action the following morning. One of them turned up piloted by an elderly pilot officer whom Dicken recognised at once as Joshua Rivers, one of his first COs in France. He had been wounded early in the previous war and had a metal plate in his skull which was supposed to be affected by the heat of the sun so that his temper rose accordingly. He had long since retired but was now back in uniform in a junior rank, ferrying aircraft.

‘I think, sir,’ Dicken said gravely, ‘that you could probably do with a sherry.’

‘I think, sir,’ Rivers agreed with a smile, ‘that I could.’

They were just downing their drink when the tannoy went. ‘Station Defence Flight, Scramble.’

Almost immediately, the commander of the air fighting development unit lifted off in an old Gladiator. It was hopelessly outclassed by the Messerschmitt fighters but it was sailing into the air bravely, followed shortly afterwards by a Blenheim, flown by the chief flying instructor, a man of forty-three, like Dicken wearing first war medal ribbons. In a fury, Dicken ran for the Hurricane Rivers had brought.

The ground crew helped him in and, setting the compass, he checked the pressures and waved away the chocks. Almost immediately, he was vectored on to a Junkers 88 approaching from the south at 17,000 feet. Followed by the two out-of-date machines, he reached 20,000 feet, but because of the clouds he could see nothing. Then directly below him, through a gap in the white, he saw German crosses.

The crew of the lone Junkers saw him at the same time, however, and immediately turned south and bolted for home. The Gladiator and the Blenheim disappeared, unable to keep up the chase, but the Hurricane, with its emergency boost pulled, was gaining ground. The Junkers sought cloud cover and Dicken fired three long bursts at it in the hope of turning it off course so that he might gain on it. As he dived towards it, it joined a group of five more and almost at once he spotted a flight of Hurricanes below him and to the right. Immediately, he recognised them as his Poles and started yelling at them to keep out of the way. As they ignored his instructions and manoeuvred into position for an attack, he sat back to watch. Two minutes later, the Germans were split up all over the sky, two limping home, one a burning wreck on the ground, and three others spiralling downwards trailing columns of smoke. The air was full of excited cries in a foreign language.

Rivers met him as he landed and took rather a poor view of the aeroplane he’d just delivered being oil-covered and dirty after its long chase.

‘That was clean when I brought it,’ he said. ‘I hope you caught him.’

‘
I
didn’t,’ Dicken said cheerfully. ‘But my Poles did.’

As he spoke, the Poles came in over the aerodrome, waggling their wings in triumph. As they landed they could see the pilots leaping up and down and doing jigs in the dispersal areas.

‘Gloat dances,’ Rivers observed dryly. ‘They seem to have picked up that habit of yours and Hatto’s and Foote’s.’

Despite his doubts, Dicken had continued to see Katie Foote. She was intelligent, attractive and efficient and he found himself growing more fond of her than he felt he ought. They no longer dined in restaurants, preferring to eat in her flat. They also no longer made any pretence of what they wanted from each other and, lying alongside her, listening to her quiet breathing, Dicken stared at the ceiling, his mind busy.

Outside in the street somewhere someone was singing. It was raucous and sounded like a sailor on leave heading home from a pub. It was surprising how many people still went to pubs despite the bombing. Particularly servicemen on leave. As if they were determined to enjoy themselves and, finding there was nobody around they knew because they had all joined the forces, they were driven to the bars.

As the singing died, Dicken’s thoughts took over again. Katie was warm alongside him, her head on his shoulder. Did he love her? Did she love him? Or was it just the heightened tempo of the war? A lot of people were rushing these days into marriages they would later regret. Yet there were others whose marriages, hasty as they were, would endure and flourish. The time was all out of joint, though. It was hard to identify what was real about the emotions and what was false. The war, the bombing, the dying, made falling in love seem like sitting on a bicycle and back-pedalling. You put in a lot of hard work and got nowhere. Love included having a future and there didn’t seem to be one just at that moment.

He felt her stir. ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re thinking you might be killed and I’d be left a widow.’

‘Well, something like that.’

‘Well, stop it. I wouldn’t mind. It’s been wonderful. Things are so haywire and you’re the only permanent fixture. One of the other girls got engaged to a man flying Wellingtons and he was killed last week.’

‘I’m flying, too.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I can’t refuse to fly when I’m sending young boys up every day. I have twice the experience and skill they have and–’

‘And you’re twice as old!’

His age seemed to have become an obsession lately and she constantly brought it up.

‘It makes little difference,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard that an old CO of mine, Cuthbert Orr, has gone to Bomber Command and that he’s flying on ops occasionally. He’s older than I am.’

She gave a little laugh. ‘One day you’ll have grown too fat to fly. Perhaps then I’ll feel secure. Only–’ she sighed ‘–you’re not the type to get fat. You’ll always have the figure of a jockey. I’ll be the one who gets fat. The Footes always get fat. Look at Uncle Walt.’

She seemed to be talking for the sake of talking, to stop herself thinking.

‘When are you coming again?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t back out on me.’

‘No. I won’t do that.’

‘Not even for your goddam Poles.’

When the heavy attacks on London began a note arrived at Thornside from her. ‘I’m scared stiff,’ she wrote. ‘I’m not keen on having bombs dropped on me. But there’s a lot to do and a lot of people are getting hurt. When can you come and see me again?’

He decided it was time he took a weekend off. He tried to make sure his pilots and staff took time off but it occurred to him that he hadn’t had a complete day off himself in over a month, so he telephoned her and arranged to see her the following day. Somehow, he had a feeling that between them they could make marriage work. Should they get on with it and settle the thing? It didn’t really need a proposal because he knew the answer already. Tomorrow, he thought. When I see her tomorrow I’ll fix a date.

The Poles had been an instant success. Their claims had sounded preposterous but proved quite genuine and, watching from above as they tackled a large formation of German bombers, Dicken saw that, while the rest of their squadron took up a position behind the Germans, two of them climbed ahead and above them then dived vertically into the formation with their guns blazing. Realising that even if they survived the bullets, they were in danger of a collision, the Germans broke and the waiting squadron pounced on the scattered machines individually. In moments the air was full of burning aircraft, fragments of wings and descending parachutes.

Finding himself behind one of the Heinkels, Dicken saw the rear gunner throw up his hands and disappear as he fired, but almost immediately he felt a thump in his back that knocked the wind out of him and, glancing round, saw two 109s on his tail. His instinctive reaction was to half-roll into a dive but he was trapped between the bomber and the attacking fighters. As no further firing came in his direction, however, he realised the Germans were unable to fire for fear of hitting the bomber too, so he moved in as close as he dared and waited there until the fighters turned away.

The thump in his back had knocked all the breath out off him and he could feel blood moving down his spine. There was a gaping hole behind him and he decided that a shell from one of the 109s had knocked his armour plate off its fastenings and crashed it against his seat. But the oil pressure was sound and the temperature correct, though the hydraulics had gone, the radio was dead, and oil was oozing over the wing close to the fuselage. As he entered the circuit at Thornside, to his relief the undercarriage came down safely, but his flaps refused to function and he had to land short to avoid overshooting the runway.