Once More the Hawks (10 page)

The control tower had seen the hole in his machine and the fire tender and the ambulance had followed him. His knees were already beginning to buckle as he climbed out and they caught him as he collapsed.

‘Christ,’ he said, ‘it’s fast these days!’

He was patched up hurriedly at sick quarters before being moved to Uxbridge for an X-ray, and then to Halton where some thirty-odd fragments of shell, radio, armour plate, aluminium seat, armour-piercing bullet and its copper sheath were removed from his back.

‘You’ve been lucky,’ the doctor said dryly. ‘An inch to the left and your spinal column would have been severed. An inch to the right and the bits would have been in your lungs and heart. I’m afraid you’re going to be here for a month or two.’

‘That,’ Dicken commented, ‘is a pity because I had a date in London tomorrow.’

‘And that,’ the doctor said shortly, ‘is a pity, too, because you’re not going to be able to keep it.’

By the time Dicken emerged from hospital the Battle of Britain was over. They had hung on throughout the summer, though nobody knew quite why, because they were utterly defeated, thrown out of Europe and in danger of starving as the U-boats sank too many ships, and the only thought was ‘Shall I survive today, or the week or next week?’ Every day you managed it was a bonus so that nobody worried about the more distant future, while what was to happen after the war was something nobody contemplated because certainly no pilot expected to see it.

The Luftwaffe had suffered such a mauling it had switched to night bombing but it had been a near-run thing, with RAF machines and pilots being lost faster than they could be replaced and, now that it was over, the schemers in the RAF were starting to busy themselves with stories that Dowding had lost the confidence of his pilots.

Unexpectedly promoted to air vice-marshal, Hatto made it clear what was happening. ‘There’s a move on to shove him out,’ he said bluntly, ‘Leigh-Mallory of 12 Group’s sore he didn’t get into the battle and win himself a little fame, and he’s being backed by – guess who – St Aubyn and our old friend, Parasol Percy.’

He had just come from a meeting at the Air Ministry in which the conduct of the recent battle had been investigated. ‘All the big shots were there,’ he said. ‘And it was the sort of inquest you get after a disaster not a victory. According to a paper Diplock wrote, Dowding’s conduct of the battle was overcautious.’

Dicken exploded. ‘Coming from Diplock, that’s the joke of the year! Why didn’t they sack the bastard for running away from France?’

Hatto screwed his monocle into his eye. ‘Nothing was in writing,’ he said. ‘And he’d obviously spent a long time working on his excuse. They put it down to a misunderstanding and St Aubyn was there to back him up.’

Soon afterwards they learned that Dowding was being retired and that Park had been removed to Training Command. Leigh-Mallory had taken over his job, while, with the shuffling that went on, St Aubyn had picked up a job in Coastal Command with Diplock, as usual, following as his chief of staff.

‘All set for an air marshal’s job,’ Hatto said grimly.

London was a strange place in the winter of 1940/41. Almost every night the sky was lit with the crimson of burning buildings, and again and again Dicken found himself sheltering in doorways as fragments of shrapnel showered down on nearby pavements.

He was surprised not to have heard from Katie Foote since he’d been wounded. At first he’d expected her at the hospital every day but gradually the eagerness to see her had died and he could only assume she’d finally been sent home. He found it didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected and accepted that they’d both been carried away by loneliness and the need people felt among the dying to belong to someone.

Then an indignant letter arrived from Boston claiming that she’d been told he was dead – she sounded almost as if he
ought
to be dead and was cheating by being alive – and because of it, numbed by the news, she’d allowed herself to be sent home. When she’d found out he wasn’t dead, she’d immediately made plans to return, but it wasn’t easy to return from the States in wartime so, since it obviously wasn’t going to be long before the United States were in the war, too, she was intending to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Corps so she could be one of the first to come back.

The letter was bursting with energy and determination but, despite the affection in it, it made no mention of marriage or of love and he decided that she had decided, as he had, that they’d been swept along by the feeling of living in a holocaust and had been snatching at a little gentleness while there was still time. Nevertheless, like the letter that came from Foote, it was warm and encouraging and made Dicken feel that, despite the absence of allies, there were good friends across the Atlantic.

He was attached for the time being to the Air Ministry but his duties were vague and he had the feeling they were vague because nobody knew what to do with him. Part of his job concerned the high-speed air/sea rescue launches engaged in picking up from the sea pilots who had been shot down into the Channel, and it seemed a good idea to see exactly what was happening. Journeying to Dover, he took passage in a launch heading out on a mayday call.

There was a strong wind and high waves and the launch seemed to spend more of its time below water than it did on the surface. They picked up the pilot, who was dragged aboard like a drowned rat after floating half-dead in the icy sea in his Mae West, only to find that he had shot down the Messerschmitt which had destroyed his Hurricane. Another hour’s search found the German pilot, ensconced happily in a rubber dinghy, far better equipment for survival than anything the RAF possessed, and Dicken found himself savagely aware that the same sort of thinking by types like Diplock had forbidden parachutes in the earlier war in case pilots decided to abandon their machines too soon.

The German pilot proved to be an arrogant specimen who spat at the man who tried to help him to the deck of the launch.

‘I don’t wish to associate with Britishers,’ he said in perfect English. ‘I insist that you tow me in my dinghy to the shore.’

Dicken solved the problem. ‘Tow him,’ he said. ‘Just as he says.’

The crew of the launch gave him sidelong glances but a line was passed to the German which he attached to his inflatable dinghy, and the launch swung about and slowly headed north for the coast.

‘I said “Tow him”,’ Dicken pointed out cheerfully. ‘But I didn’t indicate at what speed. Personally, I would suggest
full
speed.’

The launch skipper gave him a startled look then he grinned and pushed the throttle controls as far forward as they would go. The launch leapt at the sea, dragging the inflatable dinghy behind. At one moment it was ploughing into the crest of a wave, drenching its occupant, the next floating through the air, high above the waves, its occupant hanging on for dear life.

After only a few minutes, panic-stricken cries were heard and, on Dicken’s signal, the launch’s engines were throttled back.

‘I will come aboard,’ the German pilot announced as he arrived alongside.

Dicken gestured. ‘Get the poisonous little bastard below,’ he snapped. ‘And if he opens his mouth to complain, hit him with something heavy.’

Still without a proper job, Dicken was ordered to take over a bombing and gunnery school at Nortonby. He had sixty aircraft, ranging from out-of-date Whitley bombers to small noisy American Harvard trainers. The pilots’ duties were to fly in pairs, the air gunners firing at towed drogue targets, but none of the aircraft was armed and when the Observer Corps telephoned with a complaint that there was a German aircraft over Tenby and why didn’t he send something after it, he could only stare in fury through the window, knowing he could hardly use the public telephone system to inform them that he didn’t have a single machine suitable for air fighting.

Slamming the instrument down, he decided that perhaps he’d better have a go himself and, calling for his car, he drove out to the dispersed aircraft and climbed into a Henley. While the RAF had still been using Harts as dive bombers, they had searched for a properly-stressed machine to do the job properly and the Henley had been the result. It had been superior to all other types but the RAF had already lost interest in dive bombing and, though the fact that the Henley’s steeper dive gave accuracy was admitted, the air staff had come to believe that aircraft with clean lines would reach too high a velocity to be safe. ‘Our pilots have not yet developed the Oriental desire to meet Allah,’ one stiff-necked senior officer had stated, and as a result, though 200 Henleys had been built, fast, clean-looking and vaguely like the Hurricane in shape, they had been relegated to the humiliating job of target towing.

Climbing into the sun, he found a Junkers 88 taking photographs over the dock area. The sun was to the south so he flew out to sea before turning to approach and, climbing to 15,000, rolled into a dive with the throttle fully open. There was only a Very pistol and a clutch of coloured cartridges in the cockpit but, as the lights floated down in front of him, the German pilot obviously thought he was being attacked by something lethal and, seeing the Henley turning away, assumed it was part of a squadron of Hurricanes. Going into a sharp flick turn, he dived vertically into the clouds.

When Dicken landed he found Hatto waiting for him.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded.

‘Chasing a German.’

‘In a Henley?’

‘Not only in a Henley but with a Very pistol.’

‘Don’t tell me you shot the bastard down.’

‘Not this time.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past you. Well, you can pack your bags. I’ve got you a job. You’re going to run Hornton.’

‘What’s Hornton?’

‘Fighters. Brand new station. There are three squadrons of Spitfires there and they need shaking up. We’re starting Channel sweeps. It’s Churchill’s idea to make the Germans realise that not only have they not won the war, from now on they’re going to start losing it. We’re to harass them on
their
side of the Channel for a change.’

‘There’s a catch, I’ll bet.’

‘Yes, there is. All our fighter squadrons have had hell knocked out of them. There aren’t many of the original bods left and those who are, are either recovering in hospital, taking a well-earned rest or commanding squadrons of their own. What’s left are the latecomers who saw just enough of the battle to be frightened to death. They all came into the RAF wanting to be like Errol Flynn in
The Dawn Patrol
and they’ve suddenly discovered that when it’s for real people get killed and that when you’re dead, you’re dead for ever. They’re understandably nervous.’

‘So?’

‘There’s nothing basically wrong with them. They’re properly trained and they’re not lacking in guts. They’re just lacking in leadership and they’re sloppy because Dugdale, the chap you’re replacing, fell apart at the seams. He was always a bit odd. He used to keep half a dozen bull terriers in a car as a kennel and his wife in another, and he finished himself by doing a shoot-up for the Air Raid Precaution people – unfortunately without remembering to warn them first. The telephone was white-hot.’

Hatto smiled. ‘Those chaps of his are walking round showing off in scarves instead of ties and their flying’s just as sloppy. You’ll also find that you’ve been lumbered with deadheads from other squadrons, too, because when Hornton opened, other stations were told to supply drivers, fitters, riggers, service policemen, clerks, Waafs and so on. Most of them responded by taking the opportunity to get rid of their duds. It’ll be up to you to sort them out.’

Hatto paused. ‘As for flying, it’ll be your job to show ’em what to do. It requires somebody with experience and a touch of madness, and as you’re about the maddest bugger I know, you should fit the bill. You’ll have a full complement of aircraft by tomorrow and we start operations on the first fine day next week.’

Hornton had been carved out of the fields like so many other airfields that were springing up across the country. Hedges had been levelled and ditches filled and the result was an uninteresting open space fitted with single-storey buildings, a control tower and a water tank. It looked new, impermanent and faintly arrivée, as if someone was trying to impress the neighbours. Instead of the impressive buildings which had been wished on the RAF in the Thirties by men like Diplock and St Aubyn in an effort to make the RAF seem as important as the navy and the army when the money might better have been spent on aircraft, the mess was a long low-roofed structure no different from station headquarters, the sergeants’ mess, the Naafi and the airmen’s billets.

Dicken found his pilots in the ante-room. They looked a normal enough group of young men but they were dressed in what had come to be thought was the proper dress for a fighter pilot. The top buttons of their tunics were undone, some of them were wearing silk scarves, and one or two wore flying boots. He let them know at once what he thought of them.

‘Flying clothing will
not
be worn in the mess,’ he said. ‘Neither will scarves. When you’re flying, you can go up in a suit of combinations as far as I care, but away from the hangars you’ll be dressed like airmen. I’ve noticed that the sergeant pilots have picked up the same bad habits but I can hardly tick them off while you lot are setting a bad example. I shall be seeing them later when they’ll discover that leather gloves and suede shoes do not go with a sergeant’s uniform. From tomorrow we shall be flying. In formation. Next week it will be against the Germans. You have six days to pull yourselves into shape. See that it’s done.’

There was a little muttering but when Dicken entered the mess at lunchtime he noticed that the scarves and flying boots had vanished and tunics were properly buttoned. Almost at once among the wearers he saw a familiar face and, crossing to the young man, a pilot officer who looked as if he had barely started shaving, he asked his name.