Pastoral (31 page)

“Robert calling Zebra, Captain speaking, Captain speaking.” The voice was clear, and young, and confident. “We’re in a bloody awful mess and minus half of our port wing. We have lost half our port wing. My rear-gunner is seriously wounded and unable to bale out, rear-gunner seriously wounded. Will you give me a green when the aerodrome is clear, give me a green when the aerodrome is clear. My flight engineer and navigator and wireless operator will then bale out, and I shall land the aircraft. Please give me a white if this is understood.”

He proceeded to repeat the message; Dobbie turned and went out to the balcony. Gervase heard the crack of the pistol, and then Marshall’s voice.

“Robert calling Zebra; your white has been seen and understood. I shall proceed on left-hand circuits at four thousand till I receive your green. I shall then come down to two thousand and fly across up wind, and three members of my
crew will bale out. Flood lights, please, for them to land. Wireless operator is wounded in the right hand. This thing’s a cow to handle, so you’d better make it snappy with that green.”

Gervase went out to Dobbie with this message; he came back into the control room, and they became furiously busy. There were eight aircraft still in the air and approaching to land; already T for Tommy was winking at them in the sky. They set to work to get through on the W/T to the seven others to divert them to Wittington and Charwick; in the meantime they brought in Tommy. For ten minutes the three telephones were going at full blast; then they were clear, and ready to put up the green for Robert.

“Okay Zebra, Robert calling Zebra. Your green seen and understood, your green seen and understood. I am now coming down to two thousand and will fly straight over while my crew bale out. Coming down to two thousand and will fly straight over while my crew bale out. Stand by with the flood lights, please, stand by with flood lights.”

There was a silence. Gervase stood at the door of the radio-room, white and sick. Waves of nausea were sweeping over her, but it was impossible for her to leave the control at this moment. Nevertheless, her body was letting her down; her mind could take it, but her stomach couldn’t. In a very few seconds she was going to be sick.

Desperately, she thought it would be horrible to be sick in the office; the lavatory was far away. It would have to be the balcony; at the far end it was quiet and dark and only grass below; she could creep out there for a moment and nobody would know. She slipped out through the light trap past Dobbie and the Squadron Leader, and went to the far end, finishing with a little run up to the railing.

Over the loud-speaker came the voice of her beloved. “Robert calling Zebra, lights please. Flood lights, please—Robert calling Zebra.”

The control officer spoke into his telephone; from three sides of the aerodrome the flood lights blazed out from their trailers, making the whole scene as light as day. Dobbie with one glance noted his signals officer being sick over the railing, then turned and scrutinised the sky. Presently, drifting down into the light, he saw three parachutes spaced about a quarter of a mile apart. Two fell within the aerodrome; he saw the men collapse and the fluted silk shrivel and sink down; the other fell outside the boundary.

He turned and went inside. The Section Officer was in the radio-room, a little pale and with beads of perspiration showing on her forehead, but at her job. He said to her: “Are you all right?”

Gervase said: “I’m better now, thank you, sir.” She was rather afraid of Dobbie. She did not mind that he had seen her being sick, because that was something that might happen to anybody, but she was terrified that he would find fault with her work.

Over their heads the loud-speaker said: “Robert calling Zebra. I haven’t had this thing below two hundred since we lost our bit of wing. I’m going to slow her down a bit and see what she’s like. I think she’ll be very difficult to hold level at anything like landing speed. Think I’ll get up to four thousand again and try it there.”

The background noise increased. In the office the Wing Commander looked at the control officer. “Bit of test flying now,” he said quietly.

The Squadron Leader said: “He’ll never land it, sir, not if it’s really got half one wing missing. It’ll fall over sideways, in a roll.”

Dobbie said: “There
is
a minimum speed …”

“Would you like me to make him a signal on the Aldis, sir, and tell him to bale out?”

“Let him handle it his own way.”

Over the loud-speaker the background noise died slowly. “Robert calling Zebra. Just slowing her down now.”

In the office they stood tense and motionless. Somewhere up above them in the darkness, not very far away, Marshall was sitting at the controls without light, alone but for his wounded gunner. In the dim starlight he was straining at the wheel as the speed gradually dropped, his eyes fixed upon the violet glow of the horizon bar, the hand and dots of the air speed indicator. They could do nothing to help him; they stood silent in suspense, waiting for a word.

In the soft hissing from the loud-speaker a note of music grew, incongruous and unbearable. It grew in volume till they could catch the words:

The volume was sufficient to drown anything the pilot said. Dobbie swung round to the W.A.A.F. sergeant at the set, vehement with the strain. “Get that damned broadcasting tuned out, can’t you?”

Gervase leaped across the room to her aid, but aid was not required. The horse-faced woman raised her head and gave the Wing Commander a glance of withering scorn.

“That ain’t broadcasting,” she said disdainfully. “That’s ’im.”

They turned and stared open-mouthed at the loud-speaker. It went on, with deep feeling:

The background noise swelled suddenly in volume as the pilot opened up his engines, and the song stopped. “Robert calling Zebra, Robert calling. I got down to about a hundred and forty, but that’s the limit of control. She’s bloody heavy, and my wrists are getting tired. I shall put down at about a hundred and fifty. Robert calling Zebra. I shall have to put her down at about a hundred and fifty.”

There was silence in the office, broken only by the hissing from the loud-speaker. The Squadron Leader broke it. “He’ll never get away with that, sir,” he said quietly. “I think we ought to tell him to bale out.”

“Let the gunner go?” said Dobbie.

The control officer nodded. “Would you mind stepping outside, sir?” It was intolerable to have to talk a matter like this over before the signallers.

They went out on to the balcony. The control officer said: “What I feel is this, sir. The gunner is badly wounded, too badly to bale out. He may very likely die in any case. If we let Marshall try and put her down at that speed, even on the runway, he’ll almost certainly be killed. If we tell him to bale out, we save a good pilot.”

“No we don’t,” the Wing Commander said. “He’d never be a good pilot again.”

There was a short pause. “Besides,” said Dobbie, “he’d never obey an order of that sort. I know that crew. If Marshall’s got to be killed, I’d just as soon he wasn’t killed while
disobeying orders. Anyway, he may get away with it. He’s got very good hands.”

They came back into the office, in time to hear the loudspeaker start up again. “Robert calling Zebra, Robert calling Zebra. I have fuel for forty minutes, I have fuel for forty minutes. I shall cruise around to burn up some of it. I shall land at oh three three five. Robert calling Zebra, I shall land at oh three three five. I shall require all lights, and crash wagons at the intersection of runways two and four. I shall require all lights, and crash wagons at the intersection of runways two and four. Please send up a green now if this message is received and understood. Please send up a green now if this message is received and understood.”

Dobbie said: “Give him his green.” The control officer went out of the light trap; from the balcony they heard the report of the pistol.

The loud-speaker said: “Okay, Zebra, your green seen and understood, your green seen and understood. I shall get away now over towards Kingslake to avoid other aircraft landing, I shall go towards Kingslake. I shall return to land at oh three three five, I shall return and land at oh three three five. Robert calling Zebra.”

Dobbie turned to the control officer as he came back into the office. “Where’s Kingslake?”

“Never heard of it.”

From the door of the radio-room Gervase spoke up, rather timidly. “I know where Kingslake is, sir. It’s over towards Chipping Hinton.”

Dobbie glanced at the map on the wall. “Chipping Hinton—I see. What is this Kingslake place—a village?”

“No. It’s a house—a house with a lake.”

Dobbie laid his finger on a little blue spot on the map. “Is this the place?”

Gervase approached and looked at it. “That’s it, sir.”

The Wing Commander grunted. “I suppose that’s where you get the trout.”

“Yes.” There was nothing else to say, except the urgent question. “Is Flight Lieutenant Marshall going to bale out, sir?”

“I haven’t told him to.” He looked down at her, noting a damp streak of hair sticking to her forehead, unbecoming. “You can go off if you want to,” he said kindly. “The sergeant can carry on.”

Gervase said: “I’m quite all right.”

Dobbie nodded. “Good.”

Over their heads the hissing of the loud-speaker merged to a half-tone of reminiscent melody:

“You’d think this was a bloody ENSA concert,” said Dobbie.

There was the sound of a truck outside the office, and the outer door opened. Sergeant Cobbett and Sergeant Pilot Franck thrust their way in, still clumsy in their flying-suits and boots. They checked when they saw the Wing Commander. “Crew of Robert, sir,” said Cobbett. “We sent the wireless operator along to hospital.”

Dobbie asked: “Is he bad?”

“Only his hand.” The flight engineer hesitated, and then said: “Is Robert still up, sir?”

The Wing Commander jerked his head at the loud-speaker, smiling a little. “That’s him.”

“Aye,” said the flight engineer. “He was singing that song most of the way home.”

“He’s going to land at three thirty-five,” said Dobbie. “What’s the matter with the gunner?”

Sergeant Franck said: “There was a shell, sir. I think it burst not in the turret but underneath. Both legs is broken, one above and one below his knee. I have made splints and bandages, with wads of gauze, and I have given dope in the same way that it says in the book.”

Gervase, listening, noticed for the first time that the Dane’s hands were dark and stained, and that there was blood in smears all over his flying-suit. You couldn’t help that, she reflected, when you were doing for a friend what Gunnar had done in the darkness and the wind blast of the shattered fuselage, tearing along in the black night.

“Where is he now?”

Cobbett said: “We got him all comfy on the floor, sir, right back in the rear fuselage, feet forward, with his head about two feet forward of the tail wheel jack. We got him lashed down there all ways, so he won’t shift whatever sort of landing the Cap makes. The Cap, he come along while Gunnar here was flying, and he see to that himself.”

“Did you help lash him down?”

“Yes, sir. Me and the Cap did it.”

“You’d better go with the Headquarters crash wagon and get him out, quick as you can. Look sharp about it, in case there’s a fire. You should be able to get him out of that in time.”

“It won’t take long to get him out of it,” the flight engineer said. “There’s a hole in the rear fuselage you could walk through.”

“All right—you go for the gunner. Sergeant Franck, you go with the south bay crash wagon, and get the pilot out.”

“Ver’ good, sir.”

“Take both crash wagons to the intersection of two and four,” said Dobbie. “Get out there as soon as you can. There are no other aircraft landing. He’ll be putting down at three thirty-five—that gives you fourteen minutes to get out there. Do your best for him.”

They turned to go. By the door they noticed Gervase, white and tired. Gunnar checked for a moment by her. “I think that this will be okay,” he said. “He is ver’ good pilot.”

She smiled weakly, but said nothing. Into the room there came the reminiscent melody, sung absently as an accompaniment to other occupations:

Sergeant Cobbett grinned at her. “Sounds happy, don’t he?” he remarked.