Darkest Hour

A little after half past ten in
the morning, Thursday, 9 May 1940. Already it was warm, with blue skies and
large white cumulus clouds; a perfect early summer's day, in fact. It was also
quite warm inside the tight confines of the Hurricane's cockpit, even fifteen
thousand feet above the English Channel, and Squadron Leader Charlie Lyell was
wishing he hadn't worn his thick sheepskin Irvin over his RAF tunic but the air
had seemed fresh and crisp when he'd walked across the dew-sodden grass to his
plane just over half an hour before. Now, as he led his flight of three in a
wide arc to begin the return leg of their patrol line, the sun gleamed through
the Perspex of his canopy, hot on his head. A line of sweat ran from his left
temple and under the elastic at the edge of his flying goggles.

Nevertheless, it was the perfect
day for flying, he thought. It was so clear that he could see for a hundred
miles and more. As they completed the turn to head southwards again, there,
stretching away from them, was
the
mouth of the Medway, shipping heading towards and out of London. Southern
England - Kent and Sussex - lay unfolded like a rug from his starboard side, a
soft, green, undulating patchwork, while away to his port was the Pas de Calais
and the immensity of France. Somewhere down there were the massed French armies
and the lads of the British Expeditionary Force. He smiled to himself.
Rather you than me.

Lyell glanced at his altimeter, fuel gauge and oil
pressure. All fine, and still well over half a tank of fuel left. The air-speed
indicator showed they were maintaining a steady 240 miles per hour cruising
speed. He turned his head to check the skies were clear behind him, then back
to see that Robson and Walker were still tight in either side of him, tucked in
behind his wings.
Good.

Suddenly something away to his right caught his eye -
a flash of sunlight on metal - and at the same moment he heard Robson, on his
starboard wing, exclaim through the VHF headset, 'Down there - look! Sorry,
sir, I mean, this is Red Two, Bandit at two o'clock.'

'Yes, all right, Red Two,' said Lyell. He hoped he
sounded calm, a hint of a reprimand in his voice, even though he was conscious
that his heart had begun to race and his body had tensed. He peered down and -
yes! - there it was, some five thousand feet below, he guessed, and perhaps a
mile or so ahead. It was typical of Robson to assume it was an enemy plane -
they all wanted the squadron's first kill - but the plain truth was that most
aircraft buzzing around the English coast were British, not German.
Even so.

'This is Red One,' he called, over the R/T. 'We'll
close in.' At least the sun, already high, was behind them, shielding them as
they investigated. Lyell pushed open the throttle and watched the altimeter
fall. His body was pressed back against the seat, and he tightened his hand
involuntarily around the grip of the control column. A few seconds later and he
could already see the aircraft ahead more clearly. It appeared to have twin
tail fins but, then, so did a Whitley or a Hampden. The brightness was too
great to distinguish the details of the paint scheme or symbols on the wings
and fuselage.

Ahead loomed a huge tower of white cloud and together
they shaved the edge of it, so that Lyell fleetingly lost sight of the plane
before it appeared again and then, in a moment when it hung in the shadow of
the cloud, he saw the unmistakable black crosses. His heart lurched.
Christ
, he thought,
this is bloody
well it.

Pushing open the throttle even wider, he closed in on
what he could now see was a Dornier. It appeared not to have spotted them yet,
but as he was only around seven hundred yards behind and a thousand feet above,
Lyell checked that Robson and Walker were still close to him before he said,
'Line astern - go!' Still the enemy plane continued on its way, oblivious to
the danger behind it. Lyell turned his head to see Robson and Walker now
directly behind him.

Taking a deep breath, he flicked the firing button to
'on' for the first time ever in a real combat situation, then said into his
mouthpiece, 'Number One Attack - go!' Opening the throttle wide he dived down
on the Dornier. As it grew bigger by the second, he pressed his thumb down hard
on the gun button and felt the Hurricane judder as his eight machine-guns
opened fire. Lines of tracer and wavy threads of smoke hurtled through the sky
but, to his frustration, fell short of the enemy plane. Cursing, he pulled back
on the stick, but already he knew he had misjudged his attack. Seconds, that
was all it had taken, but now the Dornier seemed to be filling his screen and
he knew that if he did not take avoiding action immediately, they would
collide. He pushed the stick to his left and the Hurricane flipped onto its
side to scythe past the port wing of the Dornier, just as a rip of fire cut
across him. He could hear machine-guns clattering, Robson and Walker shouting
through the airwaves - all radio discipline gone - and saw tracer fizzing
through the air, and then he was away, circling, climbing and scanning the
skies, trying to pinpoint the enemy again.

Lyell swore, then heard a rasp of static and Robson's
voice. 'Bastard's hit me!' he said.

'Are you all right, Red Two?' Lyell asked, peering
about desperately for the Dornier and conscious that several enemy bullets had
torn into his own fuselage.

'Yes, but my Hurri's not. I'm losing altitude.'

'I've got you, Robbo.' Walker this time.

Damn, damn, damn
, thought Lyell, then spotted the Dornier again, a
mile or so ahead, flying south-west once more. 'The bloody nerve,' he muttered.
'Red Two, turn straight back for Manston. Red Three, you guide him in.'

'What about you, sir?' asked Walker.

'I'm going after Jerry. Over.'
Damn him. Damn them all,
thought Lyell. He glanced at
his instruments. Everything looked all right; the plane was still flying well
enough - it was as though he had not been hit at all - but the fuel gauge
showed he was less than half full now. It was a shock to see how much he had
used in that brief burst of action.
Well, bollocks to
him
, thought Lyell. He was damned if some Boche bomber was going
to make a fool of him or his squadron. Applying an extra six pounds of boost he
climbed five hundred feet and turned towards the Dornier.

He was soon catching up and, making sure the sun was
behind him again, waited until the German plane began to fill his gunsight.
Then, at a little over four hundred yards, distance, he pressed down on the gun
button. Again, the Hurricane juddered with the recoil and Lyell was jolted in
his seat despite the tightness of his harness. Lines of tracer and smoke snaked
ahead, but the bullets were dropping away beneath the Dornier. Lyell pulled
back slightly on the stick and continued pressing hard on the gun button. His
machine-guns blazed, and his tracer lines looked to be hitting the German plane
perfectly, but still it flew on. It was as though his bullets were having no
effect.

'Bloody die, will you?' muttered Lyell. Then tracer
was curling towards him from the Dornier's rear-gunner, seeming slow at first,
then accelerating past, whizzing across his port wing.

'For God's sake,' said Lyell, ducking his head.

Suddenly the Dornier wobbled, belched smoke, turned
and dived out of Lyell's line of fire. 'Got you!' said Lyell, then pushed the
stick to his left and followed the enemy down. Not far below and away from them
there was a larger bank of cloud. So that was the enemy's plan - to hide. In
moments, the Dornier was flitting between puffs of outlying cloud, all signs of
black smoke gone, but Lyell was gaining rapidly, the Merlin engine screaming,
the airframe shaking, as he hurtled towards the enemy and opened fire again.

Just as the lines of tracer began to converge on the
German machine, Lyell's machine-guns stopped. For a moment, he couldn't
understand it-could all eight really have jammed? But then it dawned on him. He
had used up his ammunition. Fifteen seconds' worth. Gone. More than two and a
half thousand bullets pumped out and still that bloody Dornier was flying.
Lyell cursed and watched the German disappear into the cloud. Following him in,
he banked and turned reluctantly towards home, a strangely bright and creamy
whiteness surrounding him, the airframe buffeted by the turbulence. Suddenly,
it thinned, wisping either side of him and over his wings, and moments later he
was out in bright sunshine, the Kent coast ahead. Trickles of sweat ran down
his neck and from beneath his leather helmet, tickling his face.

He throttled back, lifted his goggles onto his forehead
and rubbed his eyes. He felt sick, not from being thrown about the sky but from
bitter disappointment. The squadron's first kill! It should have been his - a
sitting duck if ever there was one. And yet, somehow, it had got away.

From the corner of his eye he noticed feathery lines
of grey between the cockpit and the starboard wing. He glanced up at his
mirror. It was filled by the enemy plane bearing down on him, pumping bullets,
its ugly great Perspex nose horribly close.

Christ almighty
, thought Lyell, momentarily stunned. Then something
clicked in his brain. He remembered that a Hurricane could supposedly out-turn
almost any aircraft and certainly a lumbering twin-engine Dornier. Jamming the
Hurricane to its full throttle, he turned the stick, added a large amount of
rudder and opened the emergency override to increase boost. The Hurricane
seemed to jump forward with the dramatic increase in power. With the horizon
split between sky, land and sea, Lyell grimaced, his body pressed back into his
seat.