Once More the Hawks (16 page)

As he clambered from the ditch, he heard firing and a soldier on a bicycle came tearing into the town to say the Germans had swept in and captured Beddington and the naval officer. Counter-attacks had cleared the lower part of the town but fighting was still going on in the northern outskirts and with no naval officer to issue orders, the evacuation was starting to go awry. The destroyer captains had refused to enter the harbour because they had heard the Italian fleet was out and were afraid of being caught at a disadvantage, so loading was being done by rowing boat and it was painfully slow. Remembering the caïques on which he had placed guards, Dicken persuaded an officer in command of a company of soldiers to follow him to Kandimili. The soldiers were none too keen. As at Dunkirk, they assumed they had been let down by the RAF and grumbled and sneered at what they called the Bluejobs, the Riff Raff and the Rafwaffe. A few even began to sing a ribald ditty Dicken had already heard too often -

‘Roll out the
Nelson
, the
Rodney
, the
Hood
,

The whole bloody Air Force is no bloody good.’

One man blew up a rubber lifebelt. ‘This is all the bloody air support I expect to get,’ he said.

But the caïques were still there, still guarded by Handiside, and when they saw them the soldiers’ attitude changed at once.

Bottles appeared and cigarettes were handed round, and as they began to line up on the quayside, a small wrinkled soldier held out his dixie to Dicken. It contained pieces of cooked chicken.

‘Food!’ Dicken said. ‘Where did you get it?’

The soldier grinned. ‘It attacked us, sir, and we had to kill it in self-defence.’

There was no compass and nobody in charge of the caïques, but a wounded Cretan said he knew the way and, with a padre as helmsman for one of the ships, offered to lead them south. There was only a small group of them left now and, back at the hospital, Cotter listened as Dicken explained what had happened.

‘I reckon,’ he said, stirring in his bed, ‘that the rest of us had better use the Sunderland.’

‘You can’t fly a Sunderland like that.’

Cotter managed a grin. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘But
you
can. It’ll have to be after dark because of Jerry fighters and we’ll have to make it a conversion course and first solo in one.’

They pushed the wincing Cotter into a car and drove him to the beach. Babington had organised a small motor boat and, standing up to their thighs in the water, they managed to lift the injured pilot aboard.

The engineer and gunner of the Sunderland had heard what had happened to the rest of the crew and were nervously watching the sky. Manoeuvring the boat alongside in the darkness, they made fast and began to edge Cotter aboard. It was difficult with his bandages and plasters and several times he yelled out in pain. But they managed it and finally got him established, panting and exhausted, in the co-pilot’s seat, and the machine was filled up with all who were left, all of them understandably anxious, because they were well aware of the situation. Dicken strapped himself into the pilot’s seat.

‘Right, Bab?’ he asked.

Babington looked up from the navigator’s table and held up his hand with his fingers crossed. ‘Right, sir.’

Cotter, who had recovered a little by this time, dragged himself upright. ‘It’s not too difficult,’ he said. ‘The procedure’s much the same as with a Wellington, except that you’ve got four engines and four throttles instead of two.’

‘I’ve got big hands,’ Dicken said grimly.

‘Right.’ Cotter studied his surroundings. ‘Well, first of all, you have to bear in mind that a flying boat’s like an ordinary boat. You haven’t got brakes. But it’s
unlike
an ordinary boat in that it can’t go astern, so you’ve got to think ahead and not get into a jam. You’ve got to be on the lookout for anything that might be in the way and–’ he paused significantly ‘–there seem to be a hell of a lot of craft in this bloody bay. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘When we start up,’ Cotter went on painfully, ‘we rev up on one engine so the chap in the bow can get the anchor in. Once she’s up you’ll be all right. You can almost but not quite loop these things and they’re super to handle, especially at the end of the trip, when they’re lightly loaded.’

He seemed to be talking for the sake of talking and Dicken suspected that, like himself, he was scared stiff. ‘Let’s concentrate on the beginning of the trip first,’ he said.

‘Right, sir.’ Cotter lifted his free hand and made circles above his head. ‘Start up. Inners first, sir, to get clear.’

As the huge engines roared to life, the machine began to edge forward and the gunner, standing in the bow, began to haul in the anchor. The wind was light and the machine swung easily. As he shouted that they were free, the outers were started and Cotter gestured.

‘Keep one at full revs,’ he said. ‘And the other throttled back to keep her straight. You’ll soon work it out. There aren’t any rules. It’s usually a case of suck it and see because water makes everything different.’

As the huge machine began to edge through the swell, Dicken found he was drifting sideways as the breeze caught the slab-like sides and Cotter’s head turned painfully as he watched what was happening. They had edged out into the bay now and were facing into wind, Dicken mentally praying that there were no small craft ahead of them in the darkness.

‘Sometimes it’s not easy, sir,’ Cotter warned. ‘If there isn’t a lop on the water the buggers won’t come unstuck and then you have to plough up and down for bloody hours and even ask somebody to create a wash with a launch so you can take off across it. You ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

Shoving the throttles wide open, Dicken felt the surge of power as the huge machine began to gather speed, and in the darkness it was like flying into a mine shaft. The great square fuselage began to cut the water, throwing out a flat spray on either side and trailing a deep white wash behind. The few dim lights they could see ashore became a blur, then, as the enormous wing began to take the weight and the machine moved on to the step, Cotter nodded. ‘Gently back on the stick and you’ve got her.’

The rumbling of the water beneath the hull grew less and finally stopped.

‘Airborne,’ Cotter said. ‘Just keep her going. We set the two inner engines by ear, synchronise the outers with the Aldis from the window and cruise at 120 knots. Coming in’s the same. You fly her all the way down and I’ll tell you when to let go of everything. Now, if you don’t mind, sir, I think I’m going to have a nap.’

Apart from total defeat, things couldn’t possibly become worse. Britain was beleagured everywhere, and in addition to the losses off Greece, they heard that
Hood
, the pride of the navy, had been blown up with her whole ship’s company in battle with the German
Bismarck
.

They had passed over Suda Bay in the first light of dawn. There had been one or two nightmarish moments as they saw flights of Junkers 87s and 88s in the distance, but none of them had taken any notice of the Sunderland, and in the growing daylight, they could see vessels of all kinds gathering in the outer islands, caïques, motor boats and small local craft from harbours and coastal villages on the mainland.

As they landed in Egypt, ships packed with soldiers were moving in and destroyers from Greece were disembarking troops as fast as they could. By this time the evacuation had become a matter of pure invention. Men with initiative and courage were still trying to get away and the destroyer crews were splicing slings for stretchers and lashing drums together to make rafts, because it soon became clear that the only men who would get away would be finding their way out from the beaches on anything that would float.

The RAF in the Middle East was at its wits’ end to find aircraft either for strikes against the enemy or merely to provide air support for the navy. Suspecting that Crete would be the next battleground, Diplock and his committee had not stayed long there and by the time Dicken arrived in Egypt, he was already on his way back to England. Cairo was in a turmoil and the naval and air force commanders-in-chief, each certain the other was demanding too much, were at each other’s throats as the struggle began to fortify Crete before the German attack, which everybody knew was about to start. By the time it ended, another 13,000 British prisoners had been added to the 11,000 captured in Greece.

It made gloomy reading. The enormous naval losses were almost more than could be borne while the army and the RAF were both looking over their shoulders, wondering where their reinforcements were coming from. The only satisfaction was that the Germans had found that, though they had once again convinced the world of their power, this time it had cost them dearly. Seventeen thousand of their finest soldiers and 170 troop-carrying aircraft had been lost in Crete and one of Hitler’s most effective weapons had been blunted, while the British were beginning to find the answer to the dive bombers and they had been lost in dozens.

But with the British in disarray, the whole of the Middle East was in a turmoil. The Iraqis had risen in revolt and, fully occupied with a new offensive towards Tobruk which was already in difficulties, the British had been obliged to go into French-held Syria, while Malta appeared to be on its last legs, bombed, battered and desperately hungry.

Just when things were at their blackest, however, they heard that Hitler had attacked Russia. Nobody knew much about Russia. It had been a blank space on the map since the Revolution in 1917 and the only thing in everybody’s mind was the memory of what had happened to Napoleon in 1812, the fact that they at last had an ally and that Hitler had committed himself to that bogey of all strategists, a fight on two fronts.

Despite the hopes that had lain behind Hitler’s attack on Russia, by October the Germans were at the gates of Moscow. The desert army, now known as the 8th Army, had been pushed back once more, the aircraft carrier,
Ark Royal
, had been lost, followed soon afterwards by
Sydney
and
Barham
, and finally the appearance of the Japanese.

The news that they had attacked the Americans brought shouts of joy because they knew that at last they had an ally of tremendous potential, but the shouts soon died when they learned that the American Pacific Fleet had been annihilated at Pearl Harbour. Three days later they learned that the Japanese had landed in Malaya and that the battleships,
Repulse
and
Prince of Wales
, had been sunk by bombing.

‘So much,’ Dicken said dryly to Babington, ‘for the navy’s claim that no ship properly handled need fear anything from bombs.’

It was a gloomy Christmas with the Japanese in the Philippines, and Hong Kong and Singapore in danger. What they all felt must surely be the last disaster was the escape of
Scharnhorst
,
Gneisenau
and
Prinz Eugen
up the Channel from Brest right under the noses of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.

Dicken’s duties took him all over the Middle East and there was hardly a day when there was not some air action to initiate or sustain because, even with the army temporarily lying low, the RAF still had to maintain a programme of bombing, fighter defence, ground attacks and intruder trips. Flying a Hurricane, he visited Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, Malta, and the desert.

The recent string of defeats in North Africa had started up angry demands for success, however, and twice in a year the general in command had been sacked, while at home the repercussions from the loss of
Repulse
and
Prince of Wales
and the escape of the German battleships up the Channel were shaking people out of comfortable jobs by the dozen. Even in the lethargic atmosphere of Cairo, senior officers were being shed by all three services and newer men with more energy and more initiative were taking over almost overnight.

The backbiting was clamorous and, ordered with Babington to England, Dicken found he wasn’t sorry to go. They arrived just in time for the inquest on the escape of the battleships up the Channel. There had been a whole series of misunderstandings, and a great lack of initiative and, calling at the Air Ministry to see Hatto, Dicken found that their old enemy, Air Marshal St Aubyn at Coastal Command, was finally about to get the sack.

‘He helped shove Dowding into limbo,’ Hatto said. ‘Now it’s his turn. Guess who fixed it?’

‘Surely not Diplock?’

‘His old chum.’ Hatto frowned. ‘It makes you think, doesn’t it. You’ll remember Sidney Carlin, a retread like us, who lost a leg in the trenches and managed, wooden leg and all, to fly SE5s. He succeeded in becoming an air gunner and was killed by a sneak raider, hobbling to his aircraft. When you see gadgets like Diplock flourishing it makes you wonder where all this God’s mercy we read about has got to.’

‘What happened?’

‘Having shown his usual aggression in Greece, he’d just settled into his job back here when
Salmon
and
Gluckstein
bolted up the Channel.’ Hatto’s face was grave. ‘It was a bloody poor show, y’know. A whole squadron of Swordfish was sacrificed for no end at all, and a lot of good young men were lost through somebody’s bloody sloppiness.’

‘However–’ Hatto gestured ‘–Bert Harris, who’s just taken over Bomber Command, wasn’t really sorry to see them go. He’d had his machines constantly tied up trying to hit them in Brest but now they’ve disappeared back to their own little rathole, both damaged by mines laid by us, and, in the end, apart from the poor young devils who didn’t live to see it and a bit of propaganda value to the Germans, we’re probably better off.’

Hatto even managed to sound optimistic. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘In addition to the Russians who seem at last to have brought the Germans to a full stop – we now have America in and the days of fighting a war with two men, a boy and a flying hearse are over. Things will tick from now on. And, if nothing else, all those defeats have finally shaken loose all the useless bods at the top who’ve been proved too old and too slow.’ Hatto shrugged. ‘As usual in the case of a national disaster, however, the final stage’s the apportioning of the blame, and Diplock, of course, was in there at once protecting his own arse-end. He put in a paper, full of protestations of loyalty to St Aubyn but also full of claims that nevertheless he felt he had to speak out. Parasol Percy at his best. St Aubyn’s still wondering what hit him.’