The Rainbow and the Rose (13 page)

Phil Thomas dead. Diving on a two-seat L.V.G. over Sailly that was escorted by two Fokkers, and then jumped on by four or five more Fokkers that came down out of the clouds. Jerry got the L.V.G. and sent it down in flames; he said the observer jumped out and went down in a parachute. Dick saw that, too. I was busy with a Fokker that went down smoking and out of control, a probable. Then I saw another Fokker on Phil’s tail as he was flying straight and trying for a hopeless shot, miles away. Trying to get over to the Fokker to relieve Phil, and Hodson trying, too, watching the Fokker shoot him down. Hodson got the Fokker for a certain kill just after he got Phil. Passing pretty close to Phil as I pulled out and seeing half his face was shot away, certainly dead. Telling the Major when we landed that I’d said he wouldn’t last a fortnight, and he hadn’t.

Sam Cooper missing.

Writing to Judy, telling her what a pretty little town Gravelines is. Waiting for a letter from her, but she hasn’t written yet.

Writing to Phil’s mother at a place called Northwood somewhere near London.

Writing to Sam’s wife at a place called Kidderminster. She’s having a baby.

Writing to Judy telling her about the wildflowers here, and the grand party we had with 74 on Tuesday when it rained all day.

Bose missing, and Bose turning up again after being shot down in flames. The ground machine guns got him going home from a patrol across the lines at about five hundred
feet. The engine went on fire so he stopped it, and got out on to the wing. He found he could volplane it without engine by reaching in to grab the stick among the flames although his hand got burnt. He tried to land it but there was a hedge and he went into that and got thrown into it. He sure was lucky. He’ll be in hospital a week or two, and in the meantime Peters has his Flight.

Jim Peters killed, his first patrol as Flight commander. The rear gunner in a Rumpler got him. These high-flying two-seaters are just murder because you have to fight them up at fifteen thousand feet where we have no performance. It takes three Camels to tackle a Rumpler at that height. The rumour that we may be going to get Dolphins.

Andrews and Davies, both in Donk’s Flight, killed. Donk’s Camel like a cullender. He says he’s getting ulcers. Fokkers.

The arrival of four pilots straight from Ayr. All English, all under twenty, one of them, Peter Stanley, with only thirty-one hours’ solo. God help him, because we can’t do much about it.

A letter from Judy!

Judy.

Four pages, but she writes pretty big. She says everything’s very dull, and I never tell her anything about the war. She’s not sure, but she thinks she’s going to have a baby.

I sure wish I hadn’t done it. Writing to Judy to say that’s marvellous.

Peter Stanley killed upon his first patrol. A Pfalz. God didn’t help him and I couldn’t. But I got a Fokker, certain, which makes nine. Drinks in the mess.

Writing to Peter Stanley’s mother at a place called Clifton. His father was a ship’s captain, killed last year. Torpedoed.

Getting the woofits now, because I don’t sleep so good. Bose back and flying with his hand in bandages – they tried to send him home but he won’t go. The little black-haired
Irish girl that he got tangled up with at the hospital. That’s bad luck, because it takes your mind off flying and you can’t have that when you’re on Camels in this year of grace.

Pancaking my Camel coming in to land after a patrol and wiping off the undercarriage. Saying it was because I got shot up, and knowing it was really just bad flying. The third Camel that I’ve used up since we came out here. Hoping that we’ll come to the end of them, and get on Dolphins.

Jim Sanders killed.

I got another Fokker, which makes ten. I just got mad and went for him with three of them on my tail, all missing. Turns were a bit funny till I found that the port ailerons were shot up, not working, the controls shot through. Donk says that brandy is the best, last thing at night. But still not sleeping.

Writing to Jim Sanders’ wife, in Taunton.

Reading the English newspapers. ‘The Fokkers saw a Flight of Camels coming down on them, so they turned and raced for home.’ Cutting it out and pasting it up on the wall by the bar. Good for a belly-laugh.

Bose missing, believed killed. He had his Flight out on patrol and jumped a solitary Pfalz, but it was there as a decoy and about ten Fokkers came down out of the sun. Don Curtis was shot down and killed, and Bose last seen going down with smoke pouring out and two Fokkers following him down to finish him off. Nobody saw him crash, but he won’t get away with that one. They got one Fokker. They say one of the Fokker pilots got out with a parachute. He fell about a thousand feet before it opened.

Writing to Mrs Boswell. He was older than the rest of us, and had two kids. A schoolmaster. Every time I get to sleep I wake up with a jerk, and then I can’t sleep again until I’ve had a drink. Going to the hospital to tell the little Irish nurse. I think she’ll be consolable.

Going out alone before dawn and sneaking across the lines
hedgehopping in the first light. Found a Jerry aerodrome with a Rumpler taking off and took it head-on at about five hundred feet, put a burst in its belly and went underneath. Saw it crash in flames. Eleven. Ground fire very bad all round the aerodrome and lucky to get back for breakfast. Drinks in the mess. A General came in a blue uniform to give us a pep-talk about our fine offensive spirit, and to say we’d got to get us new blue uniforms like his because we’re Royal Air Force now. Called himself some kind of marshal.

Trying to write to Judy, but my hand was shaking so I gave it up and anyway I couldn’t think of anything to say. Sandy McPhail got shot up and crash-landed just behind our lines. In hospital, but they say that he’ll recover. Took off one leg.

Getting five Fokkers in one day, and losing the Major and Tom Foreman. Five must be pretty near a record. They’re sending us Cy Hampton from 74 to be our new C.O. Of all nineteen of us who flew to France two months ago there’s only Donkin and Jim Curtis left, and me. I hardly know the names of some of the mess, they come and go so quick. Cy thinks they’ll send us back to England to get re-equipped with Dolphins. If so I’d see Judy and get to know about the baby. I’ve only had one letter but I’ve written a lot of times, I think.

Lying awake from midnight until half past three and then going out in the moonlight with a bottle of gin to try and get another Rumpler. Waiting with the mechanics till the first streaks of light showed down on the horizon, watching the Handley Pages coming back from some night raid. Like great cathedrals, two Rolls Eagles, seven hundred and fifty horsepower and four men in them. The heavy dew upon my flying boots, the gin in my mouth. Contact, and the men swinging on the prop, the swish and crackle, the spitting back, the blipping till she warmed. The chocks away, the take-off down the field in the half-light. Testing
the guns hedgehopping across the lines, four or five rounds from each.

The ground fire, much worse than before. Machine guns everywhere, all spitting flame at me. God, this is bad. Must, must keep low. They hit then, several times, but not me. Over those trees and down low to the fields. Gunners ahead of me, so let them have a burst. They’re everywhere. Hit again then, and now smoke coming from the engine. That’ll be an oil pipe, heading west now from this shambles towards our lines. Full bore, but the motor dying – only seven hundred revs. Hit again in the tail, several times, can hardly keep her in the air. Wham – my leg. Motor stopped, prop stationary, this is it.

Switches off, petrol off, down into this field. The firing has stopped. Too short and all shell-holes. Pancake down, undercarriage collapses, skidding along, the cracking of the timbers. Tip on the nose and crack my head upon the guns, then she falls back right side up. Blood streaming down my face, blood in my flying boot and down my leg. The grey-clad, running soldiers in the grey dawn.

The man speaking broken English that I could not understand, the stretcher bearers helping me out, the first aid station in a farm stable, the bandaging. The three German pilots giving me cigarettes and asking questions that I mustn’t answer. Telling me that I was over G.H.Q. and asking what I hoped to gain by strafing it alone, asking if there were bombs in the machine. Not answering. If they can learn anything that’s any good to them by looking at a Clerget Camel they’re welcome.

The ambulance, the hospital at Ghent, the German nurses, the morphia, the deep, peaceful sleep. Waking only when they came to dress my leg and my face, and then sleeping again. Sleeping for three days and nights, they said.

The Red Cross visitor, the messages through Switzerland to Judy and to mother back in Hamilton, Ontario. The old
German soldier on guard at the end of the ward, the other prisoners, the naval seaplane pilot burned all over, dying on the night he was brought in. The Halberstadts that flew by overhead in the bright sun, and the desolating knowledge that I was a prisoner, that I should never fly again.

The long journey to the prison camp at Burgwedel near Hanover.

The prison camp.

The weary months.

The weary months.

The letter from Judy in October that had taken three months to reach me, telling me the baby would be born in February.

The cold, the weary days, the snow, the prison camp.

The Armistice, the cheering and rejoicing, the sullen German officers, the train to the Dutch frontier town, the English and American voices. The sea-crossing to Harwich, the room at the Piccadilly Hotel, the trunk that I had left with Cox and King’s with a new uniform in it, the tube journey to Golders Green, the bus to the small house where Judy was living with her mother.

Judy.

Judy, changed and pale and irritable and out of work. Her mother hard and hostile, pointing out that I was out of work, too. Judy refusing to come up to Town or to be seen anywhere until the baby arrived, because of her career.

Judy refusing to come back to Canada with me for my demobilisation because of her career in London.

Judy refusing to come away with me for a short holiday.

Judy crying and in a temper.

Judy.

The Piccadilly Hotel, and Donkin, Major Donkin now. Hearing from Donk about Jerry and Bose, and going down with him to Roehampton to see Sandy walking on his dummy
leg. The talk of ghosts, the whiskies and the gins. The second visit to see Judy, worse than the first.

Judy.

The crossing on the overcrowded ship to Halifax, four in one cabin, the poker and the drinks. The visit to the Air Force Headquarters in Ottawa, the demobilisation, the gratuity. Arriving home at Hamilton, the crowded platform at the depot, the reporters, the photographers. Mother, and Sis, and home, so little and so very much the same. The demands that I should tell them all about it, all the neighbours. The demands that I should tell them about Judy.

Judy.

The great weariness of home, with nothing there to do. The visits to the aerodrome, the desolating sense of being out of place.

The plain clothes instead of uniform, so commonplace, so strange.

The suggestions that I should go back to college, back to school again, a married man.

The snow, the thoughtless, untouched people. The boredom of it all.

The ship back to Liverpool, third class, husbanding my little store of money.

The journey down to London, the small hotel near Euston, dirty, cheap. Judy, irritable and waiting for the baby, with the nursing home fixed up. Judy evasive when I said I’d have a flat for her to come to from the nursing home, with the baby. Judy suggesting that I’d better try and find a job. Judy full of plans for a new show as soon as her figure was back to normal.

Judy.

The desperate search for a job, with all the other ex-officers. The high ideas to start with, seven hundred a year, the demands for qualifications, for experience of business, the drop to four hundred, to four pounds a week. The visits
to the aerodrome at Hounslow and at Croydon, the putting one’s name down – ‘We’ll let you know.’ The job in Great Portland Street selling second-hand cars on commission that did not pay expenses. The insurance agency. The windscreen-wiper job. The tyre re-capping job. The many visits to the aerodromes, Hendon, Cricklewood, Stag Lane.

Judy in the nursing home, better tempered, thankful it was over. Judy preparing to park the baby with her mother till she could afford a nurse for it, the baby red and wrinkled, unattractive. Judy full of plans for a new show. The sense of being out of things, completely.

Judy in the showroom at Great Portland Street, dressed to kill, looking younger and more attractive than ever. Judy wanting to lunch at the Savoy so that she could be seen, and offering to pay: Judy and Herbert Schiner, actor manager. The desolating sense of being out of things.

Judy with a leading part in
Lucky Lady
, musical, seventy pounds a week. Judy taking on a nurse and moving with her mother to a flat in Hampstead. Judy with her name in lights in Leicester Square.

Judy.

The air-minded Jew clothier at Streatham, prepared to buy an Avro to do seaside joy-riding if I would fly it for him. Three pounds a week and twenty per cent of the takings after expenses were paid. The joy of the chance to get flying again. The trouble with Judy.

Judy offering me seven pounds a week as her publicity manager.

The quarrel with Judy.

The success of
Lucky Lady
.

Judy.

The Avro with its blipping, Monosoupape engine, purchased for scrap price, seventy pounds. The one ground engineer and the one boy. The tent beside it, on the beaches, in the fields. The aged Commer truck, the Primus stove,
the frying-pan meals. The placards with my picture on them, the dare-devil ace, the eleven victories, the Military Cross. The warm-hearted little Jew from Streatham, delighted with the success of his first venture into show business. The one visit from Judy, half an hour, her lip curled a little.

Judy Lester, in
Lucky Lady
.

Judy.

The crowds, the blipping engine, the smell of castor oil, the ceaseless take-offs and landings over hedges in small fields, the seven-minute flights, the gaping crowds, the endless photographs in front of the machine.