The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (46 page)

The pair to my right were called Vogel and Meyer II, a strange couple who seemed only to exist for each other.

“The best of the whole squadron,” whispered Ulrich, indicating them with his eyes.

The pilots’ attention was jerked to the loudspeaker. Ulrich listened tautly with his lips pressed together. Only a hum could be heard at first – the current as it was switched on – and then came the announcement.

“
Achtung! achtung! Enemy aircraft forming up in strength over London, probably four-engined bombers.
”

Ulrich swallowed a curse. “Off we go again.”

Drawing nervously at his cigarette he turned abruptly away, making for his machine. The other pilots were already clambering into their cockpits.

“
Immediate readiness!
” came through the loudspeaker, and the latecomers sprang into their aircraft. I stood on the wing beside Ulrich, who was crouched in the narrow cockpit, fastening his harness.

“Do your stuff!”

Laughing, he punched me in the chest.

“Can do,” he nodded, and then, softly and nervously, “can do-can do. . . .”

His fists were clenched and I could see he had become suddenly serious. His eyes, lost in an unearthly distance, reflected something strange and rare, not fear – but perhaps a certain figure with a scythe coming towards him across the wide field. Since I had got to know Ulrich it was this curious expression in the eyes which had led me to the fancy that he might be a visitor from another planet wishing to study affairs on earth, moving among human beings to experience their habits, joys and sorrows, so he, too, could love, fight and die like any of them.

“
Achtung! Achtung! Squadron take off at once! Enemy formation airborne over Thames Estuary. Course Flushing.
”

The two-thousand-h.p. engines sprang into deafening life, their slip-stream forcing me backwards, as if eighty thousand horses were thundering all around. Forty small, compact single-seaters roared across the airfield, rose laboriously from the ground and drove with gathering speed towards the enemy.

That very day one of the pilots in our squadron had won his twenty-fifth victory in the air. In the evening a crowd of fellows came into our mess to celebrate in the company of their successful comrade. The Kommandeur with his staff, the Kapitäns of the neighbouring units and the pilots of our own squadron were all there. The men of the morning had changed very much in appearance, for instead of oily flying-suits they were wearing smart white or dark-blue uniforms, white shirts and – in accordance with a special squadron custom – loosely fitting white socks. Even in the Palace of Versailles you would not have found greater correctness in social conduct than here; but in spite of this, the conversation was pretty easy.

The Welfare Officer of our squadron was there too, a reserve major who always wore uniforms of English cut. Known as “Papi”, he could easily have been the father of any one of us. He got now to telling a story about the evening a strange guest had been entertained in a small château not far from St Omer: a legendary Englishman who had already lost both his legs and who had now been shot down in combat. The brave Englishman had landed safely, but his artificial limbs had been smashed. So there was the captured enemy airman, the renowned Wing-Commander Bader from the other side, sitting in the middle of a group of German pilots – the Fighter General himself had invited him to an evening party.

The two of them, both experts at their craft, had sat in deep armchairs by the fireplace, their gaze fixed on the crackling embers. The atmosphere was rather oppressive, everyone appreciating the feelings of their guest, the airmen’s immobile expressions flung into relief by the light of the flaming logs. No one spoke a word. Every now and again they sipped their drinks quietly and with reserve, never forgetting the little formalities which went with it. Germans are incapable of behaving in any other way – they honoured their guest as the man who had forgotten both his legs were missing to go out and fight for his country.

The strangeness of the occasion and reflections about their shot-down opponent led every man’s thoughts the same way, suddenly to anathematise the war and that fate which throws a man into one particular society at his birth, and makes it his duty to conform to it. Why hadn’t each of them been born in England? That would have given England one more pilot. Why was the Englishman sitting by the fireplace not a German? He might perhaps have been a kommodore of our own. Hadn’t we often enough in peacetime sat down at table with those whom today it seemed our highest duty to kill? It was suddenly impossible to understand how men of the same sort, with the same feelings, desires, and needs could come to mangle one another to death.

The Englishman might well have been thinking somewhat similar thoughts, but he too had found himself unable to solve this problem and so perhaps had let it rest. At that, as he looked up, they raised their glasses to him. And subsequently there slowly developed between him and the German General an intimate discussion about fights experienced in common, told after the usual manner of fighter pilots – the sort of conversation only good friends can have.

That same evening the guest had asked if his reserve legs could be sent across from England, and a few hours afterwards a British radio operator was holding the message in his hands – the Germans had offered an escort at a pre-arranged time, at a specified point where the legs could be dropped by parachute. But over there they didn’t seem to trust “the Jerries” very much, for next day the Germans received a message to the effect that the legs had been dropped at a different time and in another area.

Our close attention had rewarded the Major for his narrative. I had quite recently heard more about the remarkable R.A.F. officer who continuously encouraged his companions in the prisoner-of-war camps to escape. He had finally got away himself, and it was even suggested our General had given him encouragement in doing so: at any rate the former had sworn heartily when he heard the British party had been recaptured.

As the last words of the narrator died away a disconcerted silence settled over the company. Few of my fellow pilots had known that memorable fireside circle at the Château of St Omer: the others were no longer living. It was not surprising we were silent.

The Kommandeur rose to his feet.

“
Kameraden!
The Abbeville boys come, do their duty and go. They follow the example of their fallen friends with all that they have in them. These friends have bequeathed to us their knightly spirit. May every one of us carry this spirit in him, and hand it on even when the enemy wins a victory. To the health of all true knights!”

Subdued strains of jazz could be heard from the next room, I thought to myself – in every age there’ll always be knights.

Late that evening, with glasses of brandy in our hands, Ulrich and I received orders to take off at first light from a small airfield north of Abbeville. This field lay at the edge of the Forest of Crécy, and was one of those which the English had used during the First World War. From it we were to intercept two Spitfires which used to fly over from Biggin Hill each morning at the same time and patrol along the coast. A reconnaisance at daylight from the English point of view was a small risk, comparable to that which defence against such early risers presented to us. But the Tommies didn’t believe we ever sat ready in our aircraft at this hour, and we counted on this. For this reason both we and the English used to let a learner go out on these operations, a “guinea-pig” so to speak, this being the quickest way of giving him his baptism of fire.

And now I was the guinea-pig. It was striking six when I put my right leg out of bed. In an hour’s time someone would be shooting at me and I would perhaps be training my guns for the first time on a human being.

I took things as they came, as millions had done before me, trying to banish all such thoughts from my mind. I looked at my “new” aircraft: perhaps I should soon be lying in the ground in company with it. But really it was so old one could almost attribute to it a consciousness and experience of its own; some people even maintained it could fly without a pilot and shoot down an enemy aircraft of its own accord. I put on my dressing-gown.

That moment there came the order: “
Tommies close off the mouth of the Somme. Take off at once!
”

The Englishmen would certainly not have spent last night drinking brandy! I ran to my machine. Ulrich, too, with puffy eyes and in pyjamas was hurrying to his aircraft. As the engine revved up someone threw a life-jacket round me and someone else fastened my parachute harness and belt.

Full throttle! As I left the ground and swept low over the tree tops of the Forest of Crécy beside Ulrich, I put on my helmet and goggles with my left hand, adjusted the R/T pads around my neck, retracted the under-carriage, raised the flaps, set the trimmer and made the innumerable small manual adjustments which were required.

We were already over the sea, with a visibility of barely a thousand metres. Then, through the grey, damp morning mist, the two Spitfires were all at once rushing towards us. To wrench the stick round, sight, turn, aim and fire was a matter of seconds in which body and brain acted with automatic precision – a mechanical reaction for which I had prepared myself for two years, against a target which I now hit quite without conscious volition or regard to the consequences. The enemy crumpled under my fire. Victory! A transport of happiness and pride possessed me, from which it took me a moment to recover. Finally I turned my aircraft and looked round with anxious eyes for Ulrich. Far astern, guns were sparkling in the clear sky over the mainland: the adversaries pursuing one another in a series of steep, tight turns. Before I could help, a small white mushroom unfolded, and slowly sank towards the earth. Ulrich’s aircraft spun into a wood, and the Tommy flew on his way.

I circled low over my friend, whose pyjamas were flapping in the breeze. Ulrich waved to me, seemingly unhurt. He had scarcely landed in a small meadow when from all directions gallant infantrymen with rifles at the ready came hurrying to take him prisoner. They had obviously mistaken him for the defeated enemy and me for the victorious German. For the first time since the fight I actually began to laugh – Ulrich, the “captured Tommy” was standing down there in his pyjamas with his hands above his head!

I had too much to attend to in my machine to watch this spectacle for long, but I saw them taking Ulrich away, and I had already flown a good part of the journey home when I looked round again. To my horror I saw another aircraft on my quarter, apparently almost within touching distance. Just as well it wasn’t a Tommy. The unknown pilot put his hand to his helmet, and I returned his salute. The other was smiling all over his face.

“Good morning, old man,” came through my earphones. I looked again, more closely.

“Werner, hallo Werner!”

I had to look ahead again, but now I understood. Werner had baled out yesterday near St Omer and was now flying a new machine back to Abbeville. I looked across at him again – he was staring before him and spoke without turning his head.

“Are you landing at Abbeville?”

“Can’t very well. Look at this!” I lifted the skirt of my dressing-gown to the window of the cockpit. It was a little while before Werner understood.

“Good show,” he laughed. I didn’t know whether he meant my dressing-gown, Ulrich’s pyjamas or this strange reunion. And when, a few minutes later, I dropped away over Crécy and we waved to each other again it was as though a few days only had passed, instead of five long years, since we had last seen one another.

That welcome night brought to an end what had been a difficult day. I lay awake and thought of the daylight hours just passed. They had been commonplace for many, decisive for some. Today, as for many years past, death and mourning, victory and ecstasy had been arbitrarily apportioned among us. Friend and foe alike had been under the same illusion as they said their prayers, of supplication or gratitude, hurriedly, humbly or proudly, each one wishing only to love the good and to hate evil. And we too belonged to that company.

From time to time we openly recognised the meaninglessness of this existence. More often we simply sensed it. But, at moments like these, what could our disgust alone do against the links of this fateful chain made up of our own bodies and souls, dragging us all along? Good motives there were – here as well as “over there” – our own country, our own wives and children at home must be protected as stoutly as those on the other side. We young men were incapable of comprehending the meaning of it all. Fate plunged onwards down its ordained path, and however we might try to protect ourselves it struck us exactly as it pleased. I couldn’t block its way; and you – you who had wanted to kill me early in the morning – you couldn’t do so either. Tommy, if you still live, are you perhaps drinking at this moment in some bar in the West End? Or perhaps you’re in some quiet corner, grieving over one of your own friends or squadron mates who died in the early morning; perhaps you’re writing at this moment to his parents or his fiancée, who, still cheerful, have as yet no idea what has happened? Tommy, I know you would do that, just as I should.

How joyfully I grasped my comrades’ hands! I jumped beaming from the cockpit, while a soul went up from the still warm body of a man I had killed. How proud I had still been in the time before the bell tolled for him whom I had shot.

The day passed in jollity, dancing and girls’ laughter. I wanted to forget the morning, to wipe the vision of blood and shining roundels from before my eyes. Now the silent night lay over all. I was very tired, but I couldn’t sleep. Agonising thoughts still passed through my head. Did every soldier experience this feeling when he had killed a man for the first time?

I listened to Ulrich’s quiet breathing. Perhaps he would laugh if I asked him about it.

“You could have saved yourself the last burst!” he had said smilingly, not ironically or frivolously, and certainly not sadly. I could see it still, the Tommy in his Spitfire hovering in the air close in front of me. I have no idea whether I have hit him. But I fire – for whole seconds in my excitement. Then we go into turns, the tightest possible turns. It seems any moment I must go into a spin. The rough sea spray is scarcely a hundred metres below me, and we are far out from the shore. I am still lying not quite right astern of the enemy, and the correct deflection for hitting him has not yet been reached. Nerves are stretched to the uttermost. My quarry hauls his machine all of a sudden right round in front of me, so that heavy vapour-trails appear in the sky. I react instantaneously and take a chance between crashing the aircraft and getting the final ounce out of it. Heaving the stick towards me with both hands, for the fraction of a second I achieved the correct firing-angle. My index-finger shifts by a millimetre on the triggers of my guns, and the burst flashes into the enemy’s fuselage.