The Separation (26 page)

‘I’m still not happy about it. Why do you have to be so secretive? Does the Wingco know what’s going on?’

‘No,’ JL said. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Then why not?’

‘I haven’t got around to mentioning it.’

Lofty spoke again. ‘JL, do you speak German?’

‘Yes, what’s wrong with that?’

‘Sam, tell him.’

‘The other day, Kris overheard you on the phone. He said you were speaking German.’

‘I was probably making one of my regular calls to Adolf Hitler, tipping him off about the next raid.’ JL

grinned at us, then took a deep swig of his beer. ‘All right, I’ll tell you the rest. My wife was born in Germany. I sometimes speak to her in her own language.’

‘Your wife is German?’ I said, amazed by the revelation.

‘No, she’s British, but she was born in Germany. She moved to Britain in 1936 and she was naturalized as soon as we were married. There’s a lot I could tell you about her, but since the war began I’ve felt that the less said about her background the better. We’re in a bit of a jam over it. You’ve heard the rumours about a fifth column. Because of the rumours the government is interning German nationals, or anyone with even a remote connection with the place. Well, my wife is on that list, I’m sorry to say. Only the fact that she’s pregnant and is married to a serving RAF officer is keeping her safe from internment. Or, at least, that’s what I suspect is the case.’

We sat in silence for a while. I for one was wishing we’d kept our fears to ourselves, but at least everything was out in the open now. Whenever I tipped up my glass to drink from it I used the movement to look at JL. Something about him appeared to have changed: he seemed smaller, more human and vulnerable. He’d exposed something of himself to Lofty and me and in the process he had lost some of the flair that had impressed me so much. I decided I wanted to hear no more about his private life. I was thinking ahead to the next time when we would need to pin our faith on his judgment and flying skills, be able to accept his orders without doubt or question. It would be risky to take this clumsy interrogation of him too far if it threatened to undermine the authority he enjoyed or the willing compliance we normally showed.

3

We went through that part of the war OK. There were a few nasty surprises: one night, over Gelsenkirchen, a flak shell took away part of our tailplane. Kris Galasckja in the rear turret swore for half an hour - after all, the part of the tail that was hit was only a few feet from his head but other than causing the plane to swoop with a stomach-heaving lurch whenever we made a turn, no real harm was done. On another night, returning from an otherwise incident-free trip to Kiel, our Wellington was attacked by a German intruder fighter as we tried to land at the airfield. JL managed to keep control, aborted the landing and by the time we had circled round before making our second attempt the intruder had been frightened away by our ground fire.

Gradually the nights were getting shorter and the weather, at least on the ground, was becoming warmer. Shorter nights were good news for us. They meant that we were sent to targets that required less time flying over Germany itself: we went instead to the North Sea ports, military bases in the occupied countries or the industrial towns in north-east Germany.

JL’s odd behaviour continued, but now it took a slightly different form. One afternoon, for example, I hitched a lift into Barnham, the nearest town to the airfield. I’d finally grown fed up with suffering cold feet during our long flights. The standard-issue socks were too thin. Even if you put on several pairs under your flying boots you still weren’t warm enough. I was looking around the shops, hoping to find some woollen socks. They’d been in short supply throughout the winter

- shortages of just about everything was something we had to put up with. I saw JL walking along the road on the other side, coming towards me. We were too far apart to speak to each other, but it was certainly him and because he was looking around our eyes briefly met. I raised my hand in greeting. He made no response and walked on.

This encounter struck me as odd for a couple of reasons. We were due to be on an op that night, which was incidentally why I’d picked that afternoon to try to buy some warm socks. JL was on the base with the rest of the crew. I’d eaten lunch with him in the canteen and in fact I’d been talking to him by the main gate before I hopped on the truck for a lift into town. He hadn’t travelled with me, so I was surprised to see him again so soon. Finally, and this was what made an impression: he was out of uniform, wearing civvy clothes.

I carried on, found a shop, used my clothing coupons to buy a couple of pairs of the socks I wanted and was back at the airfield in time for a cup of tea with the others. I saw JL soon after I arrived, but the incident hardly seemed worth remarking on and was soon forgotten. That night we went to Brest docks, trying to hit the German battlecruiser
Gneisenau.

The following day, during the afternoon, I ran into Lofty Skinner, who asked me if I’d seen JL anywhere about. I said not. Lofty told me there was a message for him from Group, but he was nowhere in the Officers’ Mess, nor in his room, the ground crew hadn’t seen him and according to the guardroom he’d not left the base. The next day we saw JL again, talking to one of the other pilots outside the NAAFI. One evening around the middle of April, Lofty and I came up on the rota for one of the regular perimeter patrols. Perimeter checks had to be carried out twice a day and were one of the more unpopular routine duties, especially in winter. All the crews had to take their turn. It involved a long walk around the airfield, taking the best part of two hours, checking not only that the fence was still intact and that there were no obvious signs of anyone trying to get in, but also testing the navigation and landing lights. In fact these lights were used only rarely or selectively, because of the risk from enemy intruders, but they had to be switched on for night landings and in emergencies, when they were of course invaluable. We were at the furthest, western end of the airfield, about as far away from the admin and ops buildings as it was possible to get. Here the runway ran out into the countryside, with a main road some distance away on one side, separated from us by a field and some hedgerows, and with several dense patches of woodland on the other. Lofty suddenly touched my arm.

‘Look, Sam,’ he said, pointing ahead. ‘That’s the skipper, isn’t it?’

We could see a male figure dimly distinguishable ahead, standing among the trees that grew up thickly against the fence. He was too far away for us to make out his features clearly, but his size and the way he stood were familiar and we both immediately recognized him as JL. He was not in his uniform but was wearing a large, dark brown overcoat. At the moment we first saw him he appeared not to have noticed us, but as we drew nearer he glanced quickly in our direction then stepped back into the trees. By the time we reached the part of the perimeter closest to him, there was no sign of him. Now, what might seem peculiar is that neither Lofty nor I said anything about what we had seen. At the time I found it difficult, particularly Lofty’s lack of a reaction: did he know something I didn’t?, had I been mistaken in identifying the man?, was Lofty waiting for me to say something about it?, and so on. Three-quarters of an hour later we were back at squadron headquarters. Soon after we had turned in our guard rifles, we were walking back to the mess and almost the first person we saw was JL. He was wearing his RAF uniform again. He said nothing about the incident in the wood.

Afterwards, I said to Lofty, ‘That was JL standing in the trees, wasn’t it?’

He obviously knew at once what I meant.

‘Yes. Have you any idea what he was up to?’

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’

‘I was talking to Ted this morning. He said he’d seen JL hanging around outside the guard post at the main gate.’

‘No reason why he shouldn’t,’ I said.

‘That’s right. But also, there’s no reason why he should.’

‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘He’s still a good pilot, though.’

‘Yes.’

In the last week of April I was given a weekend pass, so I went to stay with my parents in their house in north London. One of my sisters, Sara, had joined the Auxiliary Nursing Service and was being posted to a hospital in Liverpool. She was also passing through that weekend, before heading up north. We were concerned for her because at that time the Blitz was at its height and the seaports were being attacked regularly. Churchill was still in full control and everywhere you went you heard and saw the effect he was having. Germany could never beat Britain so long as that extraordinary mood of bravery and resilience survived. Sara and I felt stirred by it, but also humbled. You could only do a bit yourself. Dad took us down to a part of Green Lanes that had been flattened in a recent night raid. We walked around for a while, looking in horror at the damage to the area we knew so well, where we grew up. On the Saturday night the whole family went out to a pub, followed by a dance. My dad was a sports fan and over lunch on Sunday, shortly before I was due to set off on the slow journey back to the airfield, he mentioned that he’d seen our squadron mentioned in one of the newspapers. A former sporting hero had become a bomber pilot with the RAF and was based at Tealby Moor. He asked me if I knew who they meant. Of course, without more clues than that it could have been anyone. Dad said he’d kept the newspaper and he started hunting around for it, determined to show me and to find out the name of the man. He was still searching when I had to leave. The following evening, when I was back at the base, Dad phoned me from a callbox. His voice was faint and we were limited to three minutes, but his excitement was almost tangible.

‘That chap I told you about,’ he shouted down the line. ‘His name is Sawyer, J. L. Sawyer. Do you know him?’

‘JL’s our pilot, Dad,’ I said. ‘I told you that ages ago, when I first got here. He’ll be in that crew photograph I sent you.’

‘Name wouldn’t have meant anything to me then. But listen, I’ve been looking him up in a book in the library and he took a bronze for Great Britain.’

‘A bronze medal?’ I said stupidly. ‘Like in the Olympics?’

‘That’s right. He was out in Berlin in 1936. The Jerries came first, but it was a hard race and we came in a good third. Has he ever talked about it?’

‘No, never. Not to me, at any rate.’

‘Why don’t you ask him? That was something, going over to Germany like that and winning a few medals.’

‘What event was he in, Dad? Was he a runner, or what?’

‘He was a rower. Coxless pairs. It all comes back to me. I heard it on the wireless at the time. It was him and his brother, identical twins called Sawyer. They did well for England, they did.’

‘Does it say what his brother’s name is?’ I said.

‘They didn’t put first names in the book. All the competitors are there under their initials. That’s the funny thing about those two: they had the same initials. J. L. That’s what they were both called.’

‘Does it say one of them was called Jack?’

‘No . . . just ‘J. L. for them both,’ my father said, but our conversation ended peremptorily when the money ran out.

5

Then came the evening of May 10, 1941, the night our plane was shot down. It began as one of those long evenings of early summer when light seems to hang around for ever, even after sunset. During the long winter we had grown used to the idea that we would take off in the dark and never see daylight again until we woke up the next day, after the raid. But now we were in May and double summer time had been introduced the weekend before. We took off while the sun was still just above the horizon and as we circled for height and set out eastwards across the North Sea we were flying in a serene evening light. The air was soft, free of turbulence. Whenever I went to the navigator’s dome to take a positional fix I could see the long twilight lingering around us. We were about a hour into the flight, still climbing slowly towards our operating altitude, when Ted Burrage in the forward gun turret suddenly yelled into the intercom.

‘Fighters! German fighters down there!’

‘Where are they, Ted?’ JL’s voice came immediately. He sounded calm. ‘I can’t see them yet.’

‘About twelve o’clock, sir. Dead ahead, quite a long way off’

‘I still can’t see them.’

‘Sorry, there’s only one. Me-110,I think. Way below us, heading west, straight for us.’

‘Is he acting as if he’s seen us?’

‘I don’t think so!’

I was standing at the side nav window at the time and had a clear view around and below us. No other aircraft were in sight. As soon as Ted called his warning I moved forward, clambering up into the cockpit behind JL’s seat so that I could look through the main canopy. Moments later I too could see the plane: a small black shape, some way below us, fully visible against a silvery plateau of clouds. It was unusual to meet any German fighters so far out to sea, even more so to see one at low altitude. Luftwaffe pilots normally gained the advantage of height before diving to attack.

‘Permission to open fire on him, skip?’ Ted said. ‘He’s almost in range.’

‘No, keep an eye on him, Ted. No point letting him know we’re here if he hasn’t spotted us yet.’

I suddenly made out a movement beyond the Me-110.

‘There are more of them down there!’ I said. ‘Look! Behind him!’

Four single-engined fighters were rapidly catching up with the larger aircraft, swooping down on it from the east. Even as I watched they went into a steep turning dive and accelerated towards the twin-engined plane. I could see the firefly flicker of their wing-mounted cannons, the lines of tracer curving towards the Me-110. The pilot of the twin-engined plane responded at last, making a climbing turn, briefly presenting a plan shape of his aircraft against the grey clouds, but then twisting around, diving away from his attackers. I saw a spurt of flame from one of his engines.

Our own track was taking us on past the fight. We were almost on top of the German aircraft. I dodged back to one of the side windows, but could see nothing.